“First, there is the compassion stage, where interaction with the poor is about feeding, clothing and helping them with resources of money, time and talents. This is done through missions trips, service projects and by developing charitable organizations that do this work.
The second stage represents those who address the causes of poverty and fixing what can be fixed. These people have moved beyond trying to alleviate poverty’s impact to go after what gives birth to poverty in the first place. They are concerned with the structural and systemic forces at work that keep people in poverty. They advocate for the poor and try to change their plight by studying justice issues, taking on a cause, fighting for legislative reform, and marching and organizing on behalf of the poor.
Those at the the third stage are less concerned about activity with or on behalf of the poor, and more concerned with the inward journey, realizing that all the charity and structural work have come from a distance and from the perspective of the poor’s deficits rather than their assets. They have come to a more humble assessment of the poor, not looking on them with condescending pity but with dignity.
The fourth stage represents those who see the poor as more like themselves than different. They realize that the poor have the resources of will and determination, and must be involved in discerning problems of poverty and providing possible solutions. They also see the poor with their faults and lose the romantic idealization of poverty.
When we are mentored by the poor, a profound humbling takes place. Befriending the poor–not as a project but as mutual learners–leads to being poor in spirit and cultivating relationships of mutuality. People who identify with the poor desire to become poor–not in a romantic sense of being poor just for the sake of being poor, but to simplify and live less for things and more for people.
This was the experience, for example, of Francis of Assisi and Mother Teresa, who are now seen as part of the poor themselves.”
Albert Nolan as recounted by Keith Meyer in Spiritual Rhythms in Community (Downers Grove: IVP, 2012) 148-149.