life on planet earth on Deprivation

There is an invisible pattern in the design of deprivation: deprivation draws out desire. Absence heightens it. And the more heightened the desire, the greater our satisfaction will ultimately be. It ...

Psychologists tell us that one of the most difficult conditions a person can be forced to bear is light deprivation. Darkness, in fact, is often used in military captivity or penal institutions to bre...

For most of us, it’s a personal experience of poverty that helps us transcend our often narrow experience of the world. In this excerpt from theologian Marva J. Dawn, the former Regent College profess...

Poverty is the absence of linkages, the absence of connections with others.

We have conducted the previous exercise in dozens of middle-to-upper-class, predominantly Caucasian, North American churches. In the vast majority of cases, these audiences describe poverty differentl...

Poverty is like punishment for a crime you didn't commit.

[The poor have] a feeling of powerlessness and an inability to make themselves heard.

For some people the brokenness in these foundational relationships results in material poverty, that is their not having sufficient money to provide for the basic physical needs of themselves and thei...

The marginalized and downtrodden receive special insights. They are the ones who can see the pain and the injustice that are killing the world. It is to these voices that we must turn

The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved.

Depression is a thief. A pickpocket. Swiping a memory here and there. An emotion, a plan for the afternoon, part of a conversation. It is a burglar. Leaving behind empty surfaces and containers that u...

Poverty wants some things, Luxury many things, Avarice all things

So we learn early on that lack is embarrassing. Our pain is uncomfortable not just for ourselves but for those around us. Our need is obscene and offensive to a world that prides itself on its self-re...

When we find worth by our affluence, it promises rest but brings stress, increasing demands, and a greater devotion to a god that will never love us and always forsake us.

Poverty is the result of relationships that do not work, that are not just, that are not for life, that are not harmonious or enjoyable. Poverty is the absence of shalom in all its meanings.

Dave Nessia was starving himself to death while hoarding food. It was on the hit reality show Alone. After 73 days alone in the wilderness, he had lost 40 lbs. and his blood pressure had fallen to 80/...

The lower classes of society are “not only disproportionately vulnerable to injustice, but usually disproportionately actual victims of injustice. Injustice is not equally distributed. One has to deci...

The deep and dark tragedy of affluence is how it takes away curiosity, how it accepts the world as it is, how it conforms to the talking points of empire and Pharaohs.

[Alienation is] “the state of mind that can find a social order remote, incomprehensible, or fraudulent.

Extreme poverty anywhere is a threat to human security everywhere.

One of the ways we punish ourselves for not being more or better or thinner or stronger is by trying to squeeze ourselves—force ourselves, even—into all kinds of ill-fitting relationships. With other ...

We are a society that despises lack. We despise weakness and need and insufficiency. We turn the other way and pretend to be watching oncoming traffic when the red light halts us and the beggar reache...

Poverty is no sin

Unable to value, unable to enjoy.

For me, and for many of us, our first waking thought of the day is “I didn’t get enough sleep.” The next one is “I don’t have enough time.” Whether true or not, that thought of not enough occurs to us...

A man is hindered and distracted in proportion as he draws outward things to himself.

We cannot know the inheritance of God without identifying with the poor in spirit, without the poverty that says, “I am naked and poor and wretched and I need a Savior or I’ll die. I’m desperate for y...

The world says: "You have needs — satisfy them. You have as much right as the rich and the mighty. Don't hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more." This ...

Researchers have found that when prisoners are placed in solitary confinement with little human contact and minimal sensory stimulation, severe psychological and physical issues often ensue: depressio...

When a poor person dies of hunger, it has not happened because God did not take care of him or her. It has happened because neither you nor I wanted to give that person what he or she needed.