The LORD hears the cries of the needy; He does not despise his imprisoned people. Psalm 69:33
“This linkage may lead mature materiality to wonder how it is that we not only live in an economy that is occupied by homeless persons; we live in an economy that is busy producing homeless persons. The capacity to produce homeless persons is deeply enmeshed in a privatized, greedy economy of low wages, predatory loan arrangements, and regressive tax policy. It is easy enough, moreover, to imagine that much of our current homelessness is a residue of slavery in which a population of laborers ended a lifetime of work with no resources.
So it is with us now with many workers who are not officially slaves but who end a lifetime of work without resources. That systemic production of homeless persons is a direct result of “technological homelessness” whereby the successful in the technological enterprise to some great extent have no interest in, capacity to notice, or willingness to support and pay for a viable social network for those in need of housing. The current inability to deal with student indebtedness is only a recent example of the indifference of the predatory economy to the requirements of the less privileged for a viable life support.
Walter Brueggemann in Materiality As Resistance: Five Elements for Moral Action in the Real World (Louisville: WJKP, 2020), 68.
I flew all night. I have arrived safely in Panama City, Panama, connecting this morning to Bogotá, Colombia. I have meetings today so pray with me that I can check in early, get a nap, and function well.
Brueggemann’s focus on mature materiality shifts to the fifth and final area. He calls it place. Here he helps us see that the systems in which we operate aim to displace and, as a result, actually produce homeless people.
Whether we like it our not, the economy of this world uses people and discards them. Our participation in this economy has adverse impact. We do well to recognize it. I see this with the people that serve me around the world.
I try to learn the servers names at the hotels where I stay. I give generous tips and befriend them in the week I stay at a hotel. And I connect them with national workers and a local church. This is how I try to address the materiality of place as a traveler.
I honor my brother today. It’s his birthday. Happy Birthday David. At 62, he serves as president of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. That’s the umbrella entity for the Christian colleges and universities across USA.
Part of the reason today’s post seems fitting on my brother’s birthday links to the comment about student indebtedness. Such systems enslave. I pray through his service he can address that problem, among other issues, with Christian schools.
But we all have work to do, not just David. We either create systems that produce homeless persons or the opposite. I think generosity takes shape and determining how we can do the opposite through the footprint we make and the service we offer.