Sometimes it is hard to tap into our spiritual selves or find time to nurture our intellectual curiosity. Here is a section that reflects on some nourishing materials from around the web and related media channels in order to get us thinking, get us feeling, and get us reflecting on the lives we are living in this big, beautiful world. **Some Adult/Mature Themes May Appear in Links and Other Attached Material**

I saw this quote this week. It seems like a very loaded thing to share casually, meme-like, on the internet. It is such an indictment of most of us. And it is so foundationally true to most of our experience.

A longstanding concern of the Abrahamic religions is solidarity with and special concern for the poor. The Hebrew Bible singles out the orphan, the widow and the alien. Christian liberation theologians talk about God’s preferential consideration of the poor. Islam makes almsgiving and the face-to-face confrontation with those who are begging and in need a day to day requirement of the faith!

And in light of all of that, I think Steinbeck may have an additional insight here. Help comes from those who most understand need. And it comes from those who have no instinct to protect themselves or to carry anxiety with them about what they will lose.

I don’t aspire to be poor. After all, who would? But I think that living in the world as someone who is without wealth might offer some perspectives about life, the world, and the people in it that might be very worth hearing about.

Allan T. GeorgiaM.
Div., M.T.S., PhD
he/his/him
Director of Religious Education (Lifespan Faith Development)
Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Cleveland