#pov

For Ragamuffins, God's name is Mercy. We see our darkness as a prized possession because it drives us into the heart of God. Without mercy our darkness would plunge us into despair - for some, self-destruction. Time alone with God reveals the unfathomable depths of the poverty of the spirit. We are so poor that even our poverty is not our own: It belongs to the mysterium tremendum of a loving God. ↗

— Brennan Manning

#mercy #poverty #prayer #ragamuffin #spirit

From books, I winnowed the glue that held together my psyche as it struggled to stay whole. It was from stories and myths that I learned to dream, to imagine a different life, to realize potentials and probabilities other than those of the painful, poverty-mired existence I found myself in as a child. With a book I could hide in a corner, safe from the heavy hand and belt of my stepfather, and for a while not worry about where our next meal would come from, or where we would be sleeping that night, or when my mother would break and have to be sent yet again to the mental institution. Books, for me, we tiny life rafts that I clung to desperately. ↗

— J. Don Cook

#poverty #real-life #dreams

Childhood, after all, is the first precious coin that poverty steals from a child. ↗

— Anthony Horowitz

#loss-of-innocence #poverty #sherlock-holmes

One of the great failings of the American education system (in our view) is that young people can graduate from university without any understanding of poverty at home or abroad. ↗

— Nicholas D. Kristof

#poverty #service #education

You can find Calcutta anywhere in the world. You only need two eyes to see. Everywhere in the world there are people that are not loved, people that are not wanted nor desired, people that no one will help, people that are pushed away or forgotten. And this is the greatest poverty. ↗

— Mother Teresa

#service #love

Once poverty is gone, we'll need to build museums to display its horrors to future generations. They'll wonder why poverty continued so long in human society - how a few people could live in luxury while billions dwelt in misery, deprivation and despair. ↗

— Muhammad Yunus

#charity #micro-credit #poor #poverty #social-business

(So I heard the boom of my fathr's rifle when he shot my best friend.) A bullet only costs about two cents, and anybody can afford that.(14) ↗

— Sherman Alexie

#death #friendship #poor #poverty #death

This is the basis for the most important critique of microfinance. The poor are not entrepreneurs. The idea that more than a few will turn tiny loans into a viable business is simply unrealistic. ↗

— Ian Smillie

#economics #ian-smillie #microfinance #poor #poverty

cross-national studies show that the U.S. poverty rate, which stands persistently above 12 percent, is not only the highest poverty rate of any advanced industrial nation, but is more than twice the average for that group. Pursuing the American Dream, 9, 276 ↗

— Cal Jillson

#poverty #dreams

Mohammad never assigned himself a status more than a common man and a messenger of God. People had faith in him when he was surrounded by poverty and adversity and trusted him while he was the ruler of a great Empire. He was a man of spotless character who always had confidence in himself and in God's help. No aspect of his life remained hidden nor was his death a mysterious event. ↗

— M.H. Hyndman

#atheist #christian #confidence #death #empire