Finding Faith: Blessings and Woes of the Poor - On Faith at washingtonpost.com

Jim Creamer:

Frank Collins, it must be a heavy burden to be superior.

December 21, 2007 9:29 AM | Report Offensive Comments

Posted on December 21, 2007 09:29

frank collins:

if there is a problem with crime blame the criminal. poor p[eople, rich people, middle class people, white, black, indian, everyone commits crimes and its their own fault. so dont tell us that the government is at fault for not stealing the money from someone else and making blacks rich because 300 years ago some islamic pig sold them into slavery to the british who brought them here.

December 18, 2007 11:19 AM | Report Offensive Comments

Posted on December 18, 2007 11:19

Nelson Robison:

I have worked among the poor and downtrodden, in an area of Rochester NY, that without doubt is similar to the Dorchester MA, area.
I am white, poor, and worked to alleviate the suffering of those who were like me. In the year that I did this work, it was a very eye-opening experience for me.
I found that the people who needed our services, cut across racial, ethnic and social barriers. The hardest thing for me in working in that area was to see the children, who by no fault of their own, were condemned to lives of appalling and squalid poverty.
Violence was a daily part of the lives of the people of this area, whether domestic or random: there were so many things going on that the police department of Rochester NY considered the area where I lived (squatted) actually, a war zone.
In my dealings with the people of this area, I learned many things, but one thing that I learned most profoundly was the fact that the churches were the most effective in reaching these people.
They gave the populous a sense of hope and empowerment, without doubt the churches were most effective in reaching the people to lift them out of the poverty cycle.
I, commend, Reverend Eugene Rivers III, he has dedicated his life to an exceedingly large task and still maintains his own sense of emotional and spiritual well-being. To meet people like this, is a truly once in a lifetime thing, those who are willing to give their lives for others in this day and age are exceedingly and profoundly rare.
But there must be some among us who are willing to give our lives for others, who make the decision to divest ourselves of the need for personal accomplishment and look to the "other," who share their lives and wealth with the poor, so that they too can be lifted out of the cycle of poverty and hopelessness.
Should Rev. Rivers ever depart that area of Dorchester MA, it will be a sad day, for one of the bright lights in an area of darkness will be lost.

December 17, 2007 11:33 AM | Report Offensive Comments

Posted on December 17, 2007 11:33

Paganplace:

"Peace, justice, eliminating poverty, “all of that is just empty rhetoric,” says Rivers, who notes that many on the well-meaning, liberal left stay far away from the area’s poorest neighborhoods, where poverty also coincides with extreme violence."

I think the writer neglects, even as she mentions, the fact that much of Dorchester isn't exactly the safest place in Metro Boston to look like a liberal white person. ...Precisely, in large measure *because* the place is full of socially-conservative poor people radicalized by some of those churches. Some of that hostility is *palpable,* actually.

Trying to do some work for one of the food-distribution centers there, (Quite 'liberal,' these folks, if you asked me, but they kept the freaky Pagan poor folks kind of insulated from many of the passers-through,) turned into quite an adventure on various occasions.

If most of the help in Dorchester is or has to appear socially-conservative, I'd say that's got something to do with a lot of the self-fulfilling prophecies of all those storefront churches and the like.

It's Boston: the politics don't break down the same way as they do nationally, particularly in those 'culture war' terms.

December 16, 2007 4:31 PM | Report Offensive Comments

Posted on December 16, 2007 16:31

Anonymous:

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