(Originally posted 05/14/15. Reblogged 09/12/24.))
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Poor children have smaller brains
Category Archives: Poverty
* Chaos overwhelms the poor
(Originally posted 08/06/14. Reblogged 08/15/24.)
Some weeks ago, I stood in line awaiting check-in at the shelter. This place charges $3 a night. I was holding my money in my hand, and someone playfully tugged at it. I snapped. I said, “You don’t value your life much, do you?”
Minutes later, I explained this to someone else. I said, “Don’t take a man’s last dollar.” “Why not?” he asked. I said, ” ‘Cause that’s the one he’ll die for. That’s the one he’ll kill for.”
Don’t take my last dollar. That’s the one I’ll kill for.
I’ve been on hard times since 2004. If I lose, or am robbed or cheated, of $20 or $50, that’s a pretty significant amount. But it doesn’t hurt all that much if I have more, and know more is coming. However, if I lose, or someone robs or cheats me of my last $1 — that’s the one that really hurts. That’s the one I’ll kill for.
These memories came to me as I reflected on Maggie Fox’s 08/29/2013 article, “Poor people aren’t stupid; bad decisions are from being overwhelmed, study finds.”
Continue reading * Chaos overwhelms the poor
* A MUST-READ CONCERNING JUSTICE AND POVERTY
(Originally posted 10/05/13. Reblogged 07/25/24.)
The Marshmallow Study Revisited
For the past four decades, the “marshmallow test” has served as a classic experimental measure of children’s self-control: will a preschooler eat one of the fluffy white confections now or hold out for two later?
Now a new study demonstrates that being able to delay gratification is influenced as much by the environment as by innate ability. Children who experienced reliable interactions immediately before the marshmallow task waited on average four times longer—12 versus three minutes—than youngsters in similar but unreliable situations.
The article explores the issues in some depth.
* Courage to walk unarmed
Jeffrey Snyder suggests that carrying a handgun is both a right and a duty of every law-abiding citizen.
This is hard for me to relate to; as, for all practical purposes, no such people exist in my world.
Gun lovers’ slogans include, “When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.” Forget laws; in my world, only outlaws have guns now.
I have no impulse to join them.
Continue reading * Courage to walk unarmed
* Paying my dues, singing the blues?
Courage and despair hang in the balance for a homeless radio talk jock wannabe.
“You’ve got to pay your dues
If you want to sing the blues,
And you know, it don’t come easy.”
— Ringo Starr, “It Don’t Come Easy”
Many years ago, when I first conceived the ambition to become a radio talk show host, I quickly selected that song as virtually a theme for my show. Life is difficult. My heart’s desire was to equip people to face life’s difficulties head-on.
My life circumstances were far more comfortable at that time than they have become since. Now I’m asking myself if I’m paying my dues; if I can sing the blues; and whether I myself will face life’s difficulties head-on.
Continue reading * Paying my dues, singing the blues?
* For us
A grassy lot inspires a vision of what can be when a community cares for itself.
When I take the bus to church in the morning, I normally get off at the closest stop, walk three blocks north and one block east. At the corner where I turn is a vacant lot. I don’t know who owns it. In months past, it has typically been heavily littered.
One morning not long ago, as I approached that lot, I saw that it had been cleaned. I saw this from fifty feet away. The way things are around here, that little bit of beauty nearly knocked me down. It took my breath away. It lifted my spirits.
A tiny bit of beauty can powerfully affect one’s mood. A mere glimpse of a pretty face can make one’s whole day.
I reflected: harmony is the essence of beauty, exemplified in the orderliness of the clean lot as contrasted with the chaos of its previous litter. I reflected on the relatednesses among light, love, harmony, order and prosperity, on the one hand; and darkness, strife, chaos and need, on the other. What does it take to begin to establish harmony? I concluded that perhaps love, or self-love, is the beginning of creation.
What if the whole community cared for itself as someone cared for that lot? Continue reading * For us
* America’s silent menace
* “Maybe Old Teachers Don’t Stink”
Maybe Old Teachers Don’t Stink
I have come across numerous references in recent months, to the effect that poor and nonwhite students are highly disadvantaged by the inexperience of most of the teachers in their schools.
Teachers who have short careers in the field are often those who aren’t cut out for this work in the first place. But, however it happens, such persons wind up being concentrated in schools poor and nonwhite students attend.
We need to find a way to fix this.
Reblogged 2023-11-16.
* The offering plate, part 2
ADVISORY: This post includes explicit content that some readers may find objectionable.
One lives in a world substantially of one’s own creation.
The previous post asked, “What can I give as an offering?”
As of now, I am essentially a panhandler.
* The offering plate, part 1
One lives in a world substantially of one’s own creation.
The offering plate came around, and I got a shock. I can remember when I dreamed of putting $60 in there each week, as the woman does who normally sits in front of me. No such dream is available to me now; I am unable to envision myself ever putting anything in there.
My circumstances have rendered me infantile; a complete “taker.” One of those who seeks to receive “blessings” rather than seeking to be a blessing, a “maker.”
What can I give as an offering?
The offertory hymn was, “We are an offering.”
We lift our voices, we lift our hands
We lift our lives up to You
We are an offering
Lord use our voices, Lord use our hands
Lord use our lives, they are Yours
We are an offering
All that we have, all the we are
All that we hope to be
We give to You, we give to You
We lift our voices, we lift our hands
We lift our lives up to You
We are an offering, we are an offering[*]
I myself can be my offering.
More about that next week.
[*]Author: Dwight Liles. ©1984, Word Music, Inc.
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Previous posts mentioning the offering plate:
I’m getting interviews!
What a homeless man dreams of
Previous posts mentioning the credibility of dreams:
Hope and vision
Reblogged 2023-10-05.
The Homeless Blogger 