What Does a Vow of Poverty Mean?
January 18, 2022 6:18 PM Subscribe
"I think the reason I’ve hesitated to write about this one is that I don’t feel like I live a very poverty-stricken life. I have everything I need. No bills to worry about, no bank account to keep track of, no car payments or maintenance, no debts to pay off. I don’t have to go grocery shopping or rush around the mall trying to buy the latest fashions in clothing. I always have enough food to eat. I live a comfortable life. So what is poverty, and if I say that poverty is the first of the three vows I have taken, what does it mean to me?"
Thanks for posting this. Poverty not just as renouncing ownership of physical objects, but as a form of humility (connected with the vow of obedience), is a lens I hadn't reflected on.
posted by brainwane at 6:49 PM on January 18, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by brainwane at 6:49 PM on January 18, 2022 [6 favorites]
If true poverty is having to keep your mouth shut when you have an opinion, I'd never survive there.
posted by clawsoon at 7:00 PM on January 18, 2022 [12 favorites]
posted by clawsoon at 7:00 PM on January 18, 2022 [12 favorites]
Yeah, that's interesting. Because to me, the flip-side of all that poverty and humility and obedience is a kind of powerlessness. And that's ok right now. She doesn't want to leave her religious community, and even if she did, she could probably leave and find a job and be ok. But what happens if, 35 years from now, her religious community gets taken over by people who are not peaceful and loving and good? What if they don't respect her and in fact are abusive? She'll be an 80-year-old woman who owns nothing and who is completely dependent on a community that can decide whether and how to provide for her. It just seems like the flip-side of humility is vulnerability. I'm not so fussed about the stuff, but the dependence seems non-ideal to me. But that may be the difference between me and a person who wants to take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:02 PM on January 18, 2022 [26 favorites]
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:02 PM on January 18, 2022 [26 favorites]
Yeah, this sort of essay makes me uncomfortable given the actual history of these vows in the church as a form of social control and consolidation of power. I get that they are well meaning, but they come across as an attempt to justify something that is in a way unjustifiable.
posted by NoxAeternum at 7:22 PM on January 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by NoxAeternum at 7:22 PM on January 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
I really love the blurb Clawsoon included. I think a lot of folks, myself included, have been experiencing big existential questions about time as a tangible asset and really thinking about how we prioritize it in our lives.
posted by forkisbetter at 7:50 PM on January 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by forkisbetter at 7:50 PM on January 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
But what happens if, 35 years from now, her religious community gets taken over by people who are not peaceful and loving and good?
I think Anabaptists do have this part figured out. The splitting into far flung communities means that when (not if) personality conflicts take hold, someone can get on a bus and go to a different pod. It would suck to have to do it at 80, but I doubt these people would allow her to be cast out entirely and bring the shame on themselves.
posted by ocschwar at 9:03 PM on January 18, 2022 [5 favorites]
I think Anabaptists do have this part figured out. The splitting into far flung communities means that when (not if) personality conflicts take hold, someone can get on a bus and go to a different pod. It would suck to have to do it at 80, but I doubt these people would allow her to be cast out entirely and bring the shame on themselves.
posted by ocschwar at 9:03 PM on January 18, 2022 [5 favorites]
Like every bookish, indoorsy, catholic girl with a propensity for introspection, I have been, at times, not entirely insensitive to romantic notions of the monastic lifestyle. Sure, poverty means lack of choice, but that can also be a bit freeing, in a way. (Nowadays, my favourite food is whatever someone else cooks for me). Having resources means choosing how to allocate these resources. Making choices takes energy. Delegating most of the trival stuff of day-to-day-maintenance to a fixed rules, routines, institutional constraints, frees up all this time for the life of the mind. You make one big choice to dedicate yourself to this idea, and than everything flows from that. And I could see that working really well, as long as that one big choice suits you.
But I imagine that the choice is hard to reverse if you change your mind. Because you can't save for hard times, you crucially, won't have any "fuck you"-money that allows for a quick exit. Because, most of all, poverty is a trap. Sure, money can't (always) prevent bad things from happening. But it can (very often) be used to minimize the fall-out. I'm heading towards forty, I've had some occasion to experience the magic of throwing money at a problem; it's nothing to sneeze at. And sure, the protection money provides is not unlimited either, you might run out of it rather fast if the shit truly hits the fan, it might just be postponing the moment you have to face the music. But that's not nothing. It's just playing for time, but isn't that all that is to it anyway?
So that's the dealbreaker for me. For the monastic life, you don't just need the simple tastes and the modest needs - you need the faith. In your community, that they won't hang you out to dry, even if you grow away from them/they grow away from you and you no longer fit in. Or failing that, in that big idea, that the suffering that might result from such a mismatch will be part of the plan, will be a test you can pass, will be in short, meaningful.
Anyone might go for the minimalist aesthetic and the simple life, but that faith....
posted by sohalt at 4:02 AM on January 19, 2022 [21 favorites]
But I imagine that the choice is hard to reverse if you change your mind. Because you can't save for hard times, you crucially, won't have any "fuck you"-money that allows for a quick exit. Because, most of all, poverty is a trap. Sure, money can't (always) prevent bad things from happening. But it can (very often) be used to minimize the fall-out. I'm heading towards forty, I've had some occasion to experience the magic of throwing money at a problem; it's nothing to sneeze at. And sure, the protection money provides is not unlimited either, you might run out of it rather fast if the shit truly hits the fan, it might just be postponing the moment you have to face the music. But that's not nothing. It's just playing for time, but isn't that all that is to it anyway?
So that's the dealbreaker for me. For the monastic life, you don't just need the simple tastes and the modest needs - you need the faith. In your community, that they won't hang you out to dry, even if you grow away from them/they grow away from you and you no longer fit in. Or failing that, in that big idea, that the suffering that might result from such a mismatch will be part of the plan, will be a test you can pass, will be in short, meaningful.
Anyone might go for the minimalist aesthetic and the simple life, but that faith....
posted by sohalt at 4:02 AM on January 19, 2022 [21 favorites]
I just checked the statistics, and 25% of Americans have nothing saved for retirement - that's not even counting people who have saved something, but not enough. An awful lot of people are depending on social security, which is inadequate and may or may not be there when they need it. I do have retirement savings, but I got a late start thanks to years in graduate school and, in my 60s now, I'm pretty worried about my financial future - especially since I have cancer and Medicare is really inadequate for people in my position (partly due to lack of parity for oral chemotherapy, which is what most people with my cancer are on for life). A community such as the author describes is probably more financially secure than what a lot of Americans have. I have a friend who is a nun who has just moved into the senior center for her community (though she is still quite active), and I think she is a lot more financially secure than I am.
But I agree with sohalt that you can't really separate this from faith. It requires a lifetime commitment to the community, to sticking it out even if it gets to the point where you don't see eye to eye with the people involved anymore. This also used to be the norm of how people thought of marriage - you made a commitment to a person and you didn't back out of it except for under the direst of circumstances, and that often meant staying married despite severe abuse. When divorce became more common and it became more acceptable for men to dump their wives for younger women, a lot of women suffered terribly because they had no financial security apart from their husbands. So historically, this kind of commitment is not that weird - it's just weird now.
(When I was thinking of becoming a nun in high school, I ended up deciding that I could handle poverty and chastity, but not obedience. I'm still drawn to my romanticized idea of a monastery life though.)
posted by FencingGal at 4:56 AM on January 19, 2022 [12 favorites]
But I agree with sohalt that you can't really separate this from faith. It requires a lifetime commitment to the community, to sticking it out even if it gets to the point where you don't see eye to eye with the people involved anymore. This also used to be the norm of how people thought of marriage - you made a commitment to a person and you didn't back out of it except for under the direst of circumstances, and that often meant staying married despite severe abuse. When divorce became more common and it became more acceptable for men to dump their wives for younger women, a lot of women suffered terribly because they had no financial security apart from their husbands. So historically, this kind of commitment is not that weird - it's just weird now.
(When I was thinking of becoming a nun in high school, I ended up deciding that I could handle poverty and chastity, but not obedience. I'm still drawn to my romanticized idea of a monastery life though.)
posted by FencingGal at 4:56 AM on January 19, 2022 [12 favorites]
Also, the article is focusing on what she calls "poverty of spirit" more than what we generally think of as poverty and financial security. I would think that practicing this sort of poverty of spirit is what enables her to live without the fuck you money. It also seems much more difficult to me than giving up personal material possessions.
posted by FencingGal at 5:08 AM on January 19, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by FencingGal at 5:08 AM on January 19, 2022 [5 favorites]
One of the tiny details I remember from Kathleen Norris's "The Cloister Walk", about her spending time with monastic communities, was the idea that one of the brothers she talked with had never - as an adult - faced the breakfast question "how do you want your eggs?"
posted by rmd1023 at 5:11 AM on January 19, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by rmd1023 at 5:11 AM on January 19, 2022 [4 favorites]
If you don't experience desperation and sadness, ever, because of money, I am not sure "poverty" is the word I'd use. But off to digest the article.
Ahhh religious poverty. Got it.
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:33 AM on January 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
Ahhh religious poverty. Got it.
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:33 AM on January 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
I feel it's important to point out that most of the objections being raised here are not the fault of monastic communities but of capitalism. In a society that cared for it citizens, they would be moot.
posted by emjaybee at 6:04 AM on January 19, 2022 [14 favorites]
posted by emjaybee at 6:04 AM on January 19, 2022 [14 favorites]
I'm at a place in my life right now where, it turns out, all the security I thought I had turned ou to be illusory. I remember when I first read up on saving for retirement, back in my early 30s (I'm in my mid-50s now), the detailed calculator I used, from a Jane Bryant Quinn book, included an estimate of what your inheritance might be. That seemed dicey to me—my parents had a lot of money, but I knew that their money might not still be there by the time they died. Also, I'd had friends who were retired but still caring for their parents who were living into their late 80s and 90s. I figured that, even if my parents still had all their assets decades in the future, I might well have to retire and live well into my retirement before inheriting.
So, I didn't plug in my most plausible guess about what my parents' estate might be worth, but it was always in the back of my mind that I was likely to inherit half a million dollars or more at some point.
Well, my mom died nine years ago, and my dad immediately disowned me. He's still chugging along at 87, but I haven't seen or spoken to him since a few weeks after my mom died, and I have no idea if I'm even still in the will.
That's OK, though. I was married to a wonderful person, and we had an amazingly good marriage.
Until we didn't. Until, more than 20 years in, we hit a really rough patch and my partner just couldn't cope. So now I'm 56, disabled, and in the process of leaving my marriage of almost 30 years with the help of a domestic abuse agency.
My own chronic ailment suddenly and irrevocably progressing to a pretty severe level of disability a few years ago means that another safety net I had, the ability to go back to work, is also off the table.
Just like FencingGal, monastic life has always held some allure for me, and although I am not even a Christian, I've enjoyed retreats I've taken at a monastery a few hours from where I live. And I totally get why the idea of committing to such a life, of community and little personal property, seems terribly precarious. Because it is. But I don't know if it is ultimately more precarious than the other options we live with. It just makes the precarity visible.
The writer's sense that this impoverished communal life does afford security is, as others have pointed out, an illusion. But so are most of the things we rely on. If we get to the end of our lives and those things have held, well, that's not because they really were as secure as we thought they were. It just means we're among the lucky ones.
posted by Well I never at 6:18 AM on January 19, 2022 [31 favorites]
So, I didn't plug in my most plausible guess about what my parents' estate might be worth, but it was always in the back of my mind that I was likely to inherit half a million dollars or more at some point.
Well, my mom died nine years ago, and my dad immediately disowned me. He's still chugging along at 87, but I haven't seen or spoken to him since a few weeks after my mom died, and I have no idea if I'm even still in the will.
That's OK, though. I was married to a wonderful person, and we had an amazingly good marriage.
Until we didn't. Until, more than 20 years in, we hit a really rough patch and my partner just couldn't cope. So now I'm 56, disabled, and in the process of leaving my marriage of almost 30 years with the help of a domestic abuse agency.
My own chronic ailment suddenly and irrevocably progressing to a pretty severe level of disability a few years ago means that another safety net I had, the ability to go back to work, is also off the table.
Just like FencingGal, monastic life has always held some allure for me, and although I am not even a Christian, I've enjoyed retreats I've taken at a monastery a few hours from where I live. And I totally get why the idea of committing to such a life, of community and little personal property, seems terribly precarious. Because it is. But I don't know if it is ultimately more precarious than the other options we live with. It just makes the precarity visible.
The writer's sense that this impoverished communal life does afford security is, as others have pointed out, an illusion. But so are most of the things we rely on. If we get to the end of our lives and those things have held, well, that's not because they really were as secure as we thought they were. It just means we're among the lucky ones.
posted by Well I never at 6:18 AM on January 19, 2022 [31 favorites]
In the 70s, feminists said that most women were one man away from welfare.
posted by FencingGal at 6:27 AM on January 19, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by FencingGal at 6:27 AM on January 19, 2022 [6 favorites]
This certainly seems like it's far more of a vow of material abstinence (material chastity?) than poverty as we've come to understand the term, and as many people have noted, another term for abundance is slack.
When people climb with ropes that can support many times their weight, that is not done out of indulgent excess. It's because the precise moment you will need that safety margin is the precise moment it will be far, far too late to do anything about it.
posted by mhoye at 6:32 AM on January 19, 2022 [6 favorites]
When people climb with ropes that can support many times their weight, that is not done out of indulgent excess. It's because the precise moment you will need that safety margin is the precise moment it will be far, far too late to do anything about it.
posted by mhoye at 6:32 AM on January 19, 2022 [6 favorites]
poverty as we've come to understand the term
I'm not trying to be snarky, but I'm not sure what you mean by "we" here. Are you referring to the non-religious view of poverty held by secular people - what you'd see in headlines in the NYT? Because this seems to me to be very much about monastic poverty as it has existed for at least hundreds of years and as I would understand the term in the context in which she is writing. She does extend it to mean a kind of spiritual poverty as well, but that doesn't seem to be what you're referring to.
posted by FencingGal at 6:45 AM on January 19, 2022 [4 favorites]
I'm not trying to be snarky, but I'm not sure what you mean by "we" here. Are you referring to the non-religious view of poverty held by secular people - what you'd see in headlines in the NYT? Because this seems to me to be very much about monastic poverty as it has existed for at least hundreds of years and as I would understand the term in the context in which she is writing. She does extend it to mean a kind of spiritual poverty as well, but that doesn't seem to be what you're referring to.
posted by FencingGal at 6:45 AM on January 19, 2022 [4 favorites]
So, the 3 vows are chastity, obedience, and poverty. A few years ago a comment by Eyebrows McGee helped me understand how "chastity" is understood by some modern Catholic theologians: "the official teaching is that all people are called to be 'chaste' but what 'chastity' is depends on your 'state of life.' If you're a nun, chastity is celibacy. If you're married, chastity is a healthy sex life with your spouse." Having read that comment predisposed me to sort of be a little bit more open to other ways of understanding the other vows, including "poverty" as a Christian monastic commitment.
My spouse mentioned to me that once he heard or saw a speech by a Vatican astronomer who had previously been a secular academic. He said something like: "OK, the vow of poverty. No problem; I was already a grad student. I was used to it. Chastity? Again, grad student, used to it. Obedience? ..... THAT one was a challenge."
posted by brainwane at 6:50 AM on January 19, 2022 [4 favorites]
My spouse mentioned to me that once he heard or saw a speech by a Vatican astronomer who had previously been a secular academic. He said something like: "OK, the vow of poverty. No problem; I was already a grad student. I was used to it. Chastity? Again, grad student, used to it. Obedience? ..... THAT one was a challenge."
posted by brainwane at 6:50 AM on January 19, 2022 [4 favorites]
In the 70s, feminists said that most women were one man away from welfare.
In a society in which being on welfare puts you one man from imminent starvation.
posted by howfar at 7:03 AM on January 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
In a society in which being on welfare puts you one man from imminent starvation.
posted by howfar at 7:03 AM on January 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
I had always assumed that communities like this expected sick people to suffer silently and die inexpensively, so not the kind of place you'd want to go if you want to extend your life as long as possible with expensive medical treatments. I realize now that I'm basing that impression on nothing. Does anyone who is more familiar know how it actually is?
posted by clawsoon at 7:10 AM on January 19, 2022
posted by clawsoon at 7:10 AM on January 19, 2022
Yes, obedience is the tricky one, but it's almost superfluous to explicitly stipulate it as another requirement, if you've already got the vow of poverty in there. Because obedience (or at least the appearance of it, which is stressful enough) becomes pretty much a pragmatic necessity, if an authority has so much leverage to punish disobedience because you're totally financially dependent on them. If you can't allocate any resources yourself, your survival depends on staying in the good graces of the person/institution who can.
posted by sohalt at 7:11 AM on January 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by sohalt at 7:11 AM on January 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
When I met my husband he was in a Catholic Church-recognized lay order under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. In his particular case the members of the order (men's and women's houses and then there was a category for married couples as well) were working in the world, so he was finishing a Masters and people in his house included a doctor and someone who worked in a corporation.
He had also spent 3 years in Italy living in one of their 'cities' (and yes, he was in the rock band :)) that resembled more the kind of Anabaptist order - he worked on a farm, cooked in the kitchen, and everyone in the town was in the order and lived communally.
As realized in Toronto, everyone's income went to the order (for country/worldwide distribution) and the single members lived in houses in groups -- the idea of the order was to be a light in a community so live in a regular neighbourhood, work regular jobs with regular people, basically be with them in the normal world, but not accumulate individual wealth and spend personal time in living communally, in prayer, and in service.
Anyways, as a result, when we met he didn't own anything, didn't have a bank account or a credit history or a car or anything like that that was in his own name. However he did have an education that was funded partly via grants and partly via the order. When he announced he was leaving they did send him to Italy for 9 weeks of prayer and discussion (obedience) but when he stayed firm on his decision, they paid his rent for a year, gave him a stipend, and furnished his apartment inexpensively (a futon, a table and one chair, pots and pans and a broom sort of thing), and he took most of his clothes, and a pair of inline skates. Simplest move ever.
Emotionally it was tough like a lot of endings are but I thought they behaved super ethically. (I honestly hadn't expected that. Of course they had called me a temptress, so.)
I had always assumed that communities like this expected sick people to suffer silently and die inexpensively
In terms of medical care and everything else, that order definitely provided top-notch support. In fact sometimes they would help people get care in countries that had better specialists, via their ability to bring people in on religious work visas.
Lifelong I mean my husband grew up in a regular, if very Catholic, working-class home, and that influenced him just as much in his approach to wealth and things. But he is still the kind of guy who drives his cars into the ground, I have to cajole him to get a new pair of boots even when his are getting quite worn, and often his demands are few. And yet, he never had that experience of being at university down to your last two packs of ramen knowing your paycheque is coming Thursday and won't clear until Monday, so you go babysit for a few bucks and also eat their food.
At the same time he's pursued some suuuuuper expensive hobbies (motorcycle, training, etc.) and sometimes I feel like he did miss that stage where you have to budget. I think I would say it refocused him on experiences over things, but money helps with both. Also, he married me and I have a need for security.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:47 AM on January 19, 2022 [21 favorites]
He had also spent 3 years in Italy living in one of their 'cities' (and yes, he was in the rock band :)) that resembled more the kind of Anabaptist order - he worked on a farm, cooked in the kitchen, and everyone in the town was in the order and lived communally.
As realized in Toronto, everyone's income went to the order (for country/worldwide distribution) and the single members lived in houses in groups -- the idea of the order was to be a light in a community so live in a regular neighbourhood, work regular jobs with regular people, basically be with them in the normal world, but not accumulate individual wealth and spend personal time in living communally, in prayer, and in service.
Anyways, as a result, when we met he didn't own anything, didn't have a bank account or a credit history or a car or anything like that that was in his own name. However he did have an education that was funded partly via grants and partly via the order. When he announced he was leaving they did send him to Italy for 9 weeks of prayer and discussion (obedience) but when he stayed firm on his decision, they paid his rent for a year, gave him a stipend, and furnished his apartment inexpensively (a futon, a table and one chair, pots and pans and a broom sort of thing), and he took most of his clothes, and a pair of inline skates. Simplest move ever.
Emotionally it was tough like a lot of endings are but I thought they behaved super ethically. (I honestly hadn't expected that. Of course they had called me a temptress, so.)
I had always assumed that communities like this expected sick people to suffer silently and die inexpensively
In terms of medical care and everything else, that order definitely provided top-notch support. In fact sometimes they would help people get care in countries that had better specialists, via their ability to bring people in on religious work visas.
Lifelong I mean my husband grew up in a regular, if very Catholic, working-class home, and that influenced him just as much in his approach to wealth and things. But he is still the kind of guy who drives his cars into the ground, I have to cajole him to get a new pair of boots even when his are getting quite worn, and often his demands are few. And yet, he never had that experience of being at university down to your last two packs of ramen knowing your paycheque is coming Thursday and won't clear until Monday, so you go babysit for a few bucks and also eat their food.
At the same time he's pursued some suuuuuper expensive hobbies (motorcycle, training, etc.) and sometimes I feel like he did miss that stage where you have to budget. I think I would say it refocused him on experiences over things, but money helps with both. Also, he married me and I have a need for security.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:47 AM on January 19, 2022 [21 favorites]
When I was in the Peace Corps in Togo, West Africa I remember seeing the Catholic nuns and priests lived well above the standards of the larger community. Always well fed, clothed and a safe roof over their heads. I suppose there’s poverty in reliance on the church instead of family, but in terms of retirement, most people have a couple acres of teak wood that they plan to fell and seek in older age, no full bank accounts or 401Ks.
So what does a vow of poverty mean when surrounded by those living in a deeper poverty around you? Should one starve as a vow of poverty because others around you do?
I think the idea of poverty of spirit, particularly where future dreams and ambitions are repressed or ignored are particularly interesting and I did appreciate hearing about that in the article.
posted by raccoon409 at 8:31 AM on January 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
So what does a vow of poverty mean when surrounded by those living in a deeper poverty around you? Should one starve as a vow of poverty because others around you do?
I think the idea of poverty of spirit, particularly where future dreams and ambitions are repressed or ignored are particularly interesting and I did appreciate hearing about that in the article.
posted by raccoon409 at 8:31 AM on January 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
Nuns and poverty-- in the dire sense.
I had no idea that the Vatican has no obligation to nuns and monks.
I'd heard previously that the plan was for younger nuns to take care of older nuns, but fewer women were choosing to become nuns. That's part of the problem, but not all of it.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 8:32 AM on January 19, 2022
I had no idea that the Vatican has no obligation to nuns and monks.
I'd heard previously that the plan was for younger nuns to take care of older nuns, but fewer women were choosing to become nuns. That's part of the problem, but not all of it.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 8:32 AM on January 19, 2022
That article is the first thing that comes up when you Google, but it's twenty years old.
Here's something more recent on millennial nuns.
And here's a NYT piece on non-religious millennials who live with nuns as part of a project called Nuns and Nones.
posted by FencingGal at 8:47 AM on January 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
Here's something more recent on millennial nuns.
And here's a NYT piece on non-religious millennials who live with nuns as part of a project called Nuns and Nones.
posted by FencingGal at 8:47 AM on January 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
The article and this discussion are fascinating, but I would also like to add that I really enjoyed the artwork illustrating the piece.
posted by JanetLand at 9:33 AM on January 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by JanetLand at 9:33 AM on January 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
As an actual poor person, I will take the excess money
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 10:08 AM on January 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 10:08 AM on January 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
I thought it was kind of interesting in that the author describes poverty as including fresh grown food - very expensive in terms of labor costs, if you don't consider the members' labor free! - but not including comfortable sofas or TVs, which you can pick up for free on the street. I am curious as to whether poverty is really more about an aesthetic of what was expensive when these orders were founded, rather than what actual not-having-money in 2022 will get you.
posted by phoenixy at 10:21 AM on January 19, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by phoenixy at 10:21 AM on January 19, 2022 [5 favorites]
The Wikipedia article about the Bruderhof that ivan ivanych samovar linked to above is interesting. They were started in Germany and were basically kicked out by the Nazis and were then in England and Paraguay "at the time the only country that would accept a pacifist community of mixed nationalities" and then the US.
Reading the history, what comes across is that however 'Godly', they are run by humans and therefore are subject to human drama. There were cases of communities dissolved because of leadership conflicts. As ArbitraryAndCapricious mentioned, leaving all your wealth with the group makes you vulnerable when that group dissolves. Of course, as Well I never says, our country's community leaves us just as vulnerable, if not more, especially as the 'US community' gets meaner, with bigger and bigger gaps between the rich and the rest of us with the rich all too willing to give up any idea of a social contract and push the idea of 'I've got mine, so screw you. It's everyone for himself'.
I guess overall I like the concept of a 'vow of poverty' and wish people could understand the concept better and apply it on a more national and global scale.
posted by eye of newt at 11:43 AM on January 19, 2022
Reading the history, what comes across is that however 'Godly', they are run by humans and therefore are subject to human drama. There were cases of communities dissolved because of leadership conflicts. As ArbitraryAndCapricious mentioned, leaving all your wealth with the group makes you vulnerable when that group dissolves. Of course, as Well I never says, our country's community leaves us just as vulnerable, if not more, especially as the 'US community' gets meaner, with bigger and bigger gaps between the rich and the rest of us with the rich all too willing to give up any idea of a social contract and push the idea of 'I've got mine, so screw you. It's everyone for himself'.
I guess overall I like the concept of a 'vow of poverty' and wish people could understand the concept better and apply it on a more national and global scale.
posted by eye of newt at 11:43 AM on January 19, 2022
If a homeless person could take on the lifestyle of your vow of poverty and improve their material comfort, then "poverty" isn't the right word.
It reminds me of how minimalist living or van-life influencer culture (previously) requires more, not less, money to pull off.
The lifestyle is nice if it works for you, but "poverty" is a poor word choice.
posted by AlSweigart at 12:23 PM on January 19, 2022 [6 favorites]
It reminds me of how minimalist living or van-life influencer culture (previously) requires more, not less, money to pull off.
The lifestyle is nice if it works for you, but "poverty" is a poor word choice.
posted by AlSweigart at 12:23 PM on January 19, 2022 [6 favorites]
The author specifically lays out the various definitions of poverty and points to the definition she is speaking to so I don't think we need to split hairs on word usage here.
Poverty has many definitions: “the state of being extremely poor”; “the state of being inferior in quality or insufficient in amount”; “the renunciation of the right to individual ownership of property as part of a religious vow.” In reality, only the last of these comes close to the way I live.
posted by greta simone at 12:37 PM on January 19, 2022 [12 favorites]
Poverty has many definitions: “the state of being extremely poor”; “the state of being inferior in quality or insufficient in amount”; “the renunciation of the right to individual ownership of property as part of a religious vow.” In reality, only the last of these comes close to the way I live.
posted by greta simone at 12:37 PM on January 19, 2022 [12 favorites]
Yes, it's that definition that I take issue with. It's like when the CEO points out that, technically, their annual salary is $1. Yes, that is a poverty wages according to a certain definition. But it's not the poverty of Jesus, born in a stable.
The last few years have ground my nerves down as I've seen tent cities pop up (and watched them torn down by city workers protected by heavily armed police). I was a "poor college student" in one sense, but in another I still had connections and options despite my rice-and-ramen lifestyle. But at this point, I don't dare use "poor" to describe myself back then. I didnt have the first clue what actual poverty was. And I have some, but little, patience for poverty as a metaphor. There's nothing metaphorical about real poverty.
If this article ask, "so what is poverty?" then my answer is "not this".
posted by AlSweigart at 1:06 PM on January 19, 2022 [6 favorites]
The last few years have ground my nerves down as I've seen tent cities pop up (and watched them torn down by city workers protected by heavily armed police). I was a "poor college student" in one sense, but in another I still had connections and options despite my rice-and-ramen lifestyle. But at this point, I don't dare use "poor" to describe myself back then. I didnt have the first clue what actual poverty was. And I have some, but little, patience for poverty as a metaphor. There's nothing metaphorical about real poverty.
If this article ask, "so what is poverty?" then my answer is "not this".
posted by AlSweigart at 1:06 PM on January 19, 2022 [6 favorites]
yeah the vow of poverty is inherently self-denial of available secular luxury – their community hall featuring a theater space with big-ass recliners would be seriously counter-productive for instance.
They aren't experiencing the grinding poverty of the truly poor, but engaging in reducing if not eliminating their consumption of goods and services that purportedly add "utility" to our lives, but in the religious/philosophical or even academic context such consumerism is a distraction from more important pursuits.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 1:11 PM on January 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
They aren't experiencing the grinding poverty of the truly poor, but engaging in reducing if not eliminating their consumption of goods and services that purportedly add "utility" to our lives, but in the religious/philosophical or even academic context such consumerism is a distraction from more important pursuits.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 1:11 PM on January 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
Well, conservatives say, "If they own an iPhone, then they aren't poor."
And I know there's a difference between poverty in America and poverty internationally, but I also know that's a bullshit thing that conservatives say to just win arguments and split people up.
posted by FJT at 1:43 PM on January 19, 2022
And I know there's a difference between poverty in America and poverty internationally, but I also know that's a bullshit thing that conservatives say to just win arguments and split people up.
posted by FJT at 1:43 PM on January 19, 2022
So I went with the old standby of checking a dictionary definition, and Merriam-Webster gives one of the definitions of poverty as "renunciation as a member of a religious order of the right as an individual to own property." In that sense, it is exactly the right word.
But if you still don't think it's the right word for what she is doing, please suggest an alternative. What other word in English fits what she is talking about?
I get it - she's not poor in the sense of people who are living at the margins, whose existence is threatened by a lack of material goods. She gets that too - and it's very clear that she understands this and is not pretending otherwise. I frankly don't see the point of the repeated "she's not actually poor" posts here. Neither she nor anyone else is claiming otherwise. And she is probably living with less than most of us reading this. I have to think that is what is truly making people uncomfortable.
posted by FencingGal at 4:24 PM on January 19, 2022 [8 favorites]
But if you still don't think it's the right word for what she is doing, please suggest an alternative. What other word in English fits what she is talking about?
I get it - she's not poor in the sense of people who are living at the margins, whose existence is threatened by a lack of material goods. She gets that too - and it's very clear that she understands this and is not pretending otherwise. I frankly don't see the point of the repeated "she's not actually poor" posts here. Neither she nor anyone else is claiming otherwise. And she is probably living with less than most of us reading this. I have to think that is what is truly making people uncomfortable.
posted by FencingGal at 4:24 PM on January 19, 2022 [8 favorites]
I've been poor: on American welfare, as a single mom of two kids, not necessarily able to keep the lights on at times. I have a vivid memory of standing outside my community college student union on a cold drizzly day and not having the money for a cup of coffee, and thinking that someday I could have enough money to get coffee whenever I wanted it, and wondering what that would be like. Well now I do get coffee whenever I want, and even a gaming PC or a new (econo) car or whatever, but I rent, and hope I can keep my job, and I hope social security still exists when I get there so I'm not out of the woods yet. I see crowds of people experiencing homelessness in my neighborhood, while Elon Musk exists, and people as poor as I was supporting Trump, and the constant message that buying more stuff is aspirational, while the plastic island in the ocean gets bigger, and repairing your stuff when it breaks is such a niche activity that we need a new law to let us do it.
I kinda want to join the Bruderhof.
posted by pH Indicating Socks at 5:38 PM on January 19, 2022 [4 favorites]
I kinda want to join the Bruderhof.
posted by pH Indicating Socks at 5:38 PM on January 19, 2022 [4 favorites]
Re Catholic nuns... Yeah, nuns are basically getting screwed over by the church, and it's a shame. I figure the Catholic church expected to have a steady stream of women taking vows, and they certainly didn't expect they would have to sell off buildings and land in individual dioceses to pay for abuse the church power structure had been covering up for decades. Oops. But they won't sell off a few near-priceless bits of art that are in storage in the corners of Vatican City to help keep the lights on.
posted by rmd1023 at 6:36 PM on January 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by rmd1023 at 6:36 PM on January 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
I have everything I need. No bills to worry about, no bank account to keep track of, no car payments or maintenance, no debts to pay off. I don’t have to go grocery shopping or rush around the mall trying to buy the latest fashions in clothing. I always have enough food to eat. I live a comfortable life.
This, if you had real certainty that the community would in turn support you through your old age, seems like an really attractive situation. I can feel the appeal.
I have some practical questions, like to people who join the community ever have ways to take vacations (paid for by some central fund?) or is that one of the things that is given up forever?
posted by Dip Flash at 6:44 AM on January 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
This, if you had real certainty that the community would in turn support you through your old age, seems like an really attractive situation. I can feel the appeal.
I have some practical questions, like to people who join the community ever have ways to take vacations (paid for by some central fund?) or is that one of the things that is given up forever?
posted by Dip Flash at 6:44 AM on January 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
I have some practical questions, like to people who join the community ever have ways to take vacations (paid for by some central fund?) or is that one of the things that is given up forever?
She talks about that in a post on the vow of obedience:
She talks about that in a post on the vow of obedience:
People often wonder what is hard about living in community. They ask about things like taking vacations (which we don’t really do) and wonder how anyone could give that up.posted by clawsoon at 8:29 AM on January 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
...
Fortunately for me, the very day that I heard the news I left for a birthday retreat. (See, we do sometimes take vacations! It’s just that we don’t arrange them for ourselves; rather they are “given” to us by the community.)
What would I call this religious vow of poverty, if not poverty? Providence. The order provides. People who choose this lifestyle are not doing without because they can't afford things but because they've made a choice not to have them. Is this not privilege? It is not the poverty I remember (and we were very lucky, never missed a meal, though it got close on occasion). It's not the poverty I now fear in my old age. As far as I'm concerned, it's not poverty but privilege and providence. It's nice to have a choice.
posted by evilDoug at 9:06 PM on January 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by evilDoug at 9:06 PM on January 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
"Austerity" seems like a useful modern word for the material aspect of the discussion (if you want to cut them some slack for this "poverty of spirit" crap which is Augustine's fault, or maybe his translators').
posted by McBearclaw at 9:50 PM on January 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by McBearclaw at 9:50 PM on January 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
MetaFilter: ...I suddenly saw my own opinions, stubbornness, and lack of charity exposed in [a] very blinding light.
posted by mule98J at 6:52 AM on January 22, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by mule98J at 6:52 AM on January 22, 2022 [4 favorites]
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Last night I was watching this video on an iconic LA hills property and thinking how nice it would be to live there. But the owner apparently/allegedly is/was a real estate corporato-scam operator surpassing Trump levels of mendacity so I would hope such ill-gotten gains could not give this guy the happiness it would me [but, alas, it probably does].
now . . . in my life I don't need a new QD-OLED home theatre set up w/ super duper sound, but I want one, so I feel po'. But I am not really poor, just a simple person with complex tastes, as Watterson so ably observed.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 6:48 PM on January 18, 2022 [10 favorites]