When it comes to those who are hungry, love is as necessary as food

I recently read yet another report that Hunterdon County, where I have lived for 53 years, is one of the wealthiest counties in New Jersey. The report attributed that standing to “a median household income of $123,373 and an average home value of $552,490.”

Besides those economic factors, the account noted Hunterdon’s strong job market, low crime rate, excellent schools, “charming villages, rolling farmlands, and a lively equestrian culture.” All of this is said to make the county “an ideal choice for those seeking a peaceful yet prosperous lifestyle.”

All of that is true, and yet my daily commute takes me past several old motels whose residents don’t share in the prosperity. The Broadway musical “Minnie’s Boys” included a song that began, “Rich is walking ’cause you want to, not because you have to,” and I see folks who have to walk on the shoulder of the highway, in all kinds of weather—often dashing across six lanes—because it’s the only way for them to get groceries or a take-out meal.

This condition often reminds me, by way of both comparison and contrast, of James Rutenbeck’s powerful documentary, “Scenes from a Parish,” which was filmed in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Early in the program, Rutenbeck records parishioners of St. Patrick’s Church saying, in effect, “They say Lawrence is the poorest city in the country, but I don’t see it.” Meanwhile, there were citizens living in a camp under a nearby bridge.

Jesus, we know, keeps his promises, but perhaps we’d rather he didn’t keep this one: “The poor you will always have with you.”

When its members had been sensitized to the poverty all around them, the parish in Lawrence responded in 2006 by establishing the Cor Unum Food Center which serves two meals a day, seven days a week—about a quarter of a million meals each year.

An important aspect of the Cor Unum program is that visitors are greeted at the door, ushered to a table, and served by volunteer wait staff. In other words, they are treated as guests, not as beggars.

I have never been unable to buy enough food for me and my family, but I am sure that folks in that position are in danger of losing their self-respect, their confidence, and the feeling that they are part of the society around them that is, as it were, functioning normally. That sense of isolation, of being outside of normal life, must be as debilitating as hunger itself. Many food programs address this in some way—sometimes by the simple device of sharing the meal with guests who spend enough time feeling invisible.

Recently, there have been a lot of negative references in the news to President Herbert Hoover who had the unenviable distinction of presiding over a nation that had fewer jobs at the end of his term than it had when he took office. Hoover’s name comes up these days only with reference to his role in the onset of the Great Depression. Long forgotten is the fact that Hoover, at other times in his career, supervised food programs that literally saved tens of millions of people from starvation.

None of us is going to feed people in those numbers, and all of us together are not going to eradicate hunger in this country or elsewhere. But whatever any of us contribute to both feeding and acknowledging those who live in poverty touches them with love as necessary as food itself.