DIRT POOR, SPIRIT RICH

I am dirt poor, spirit rich. I wouldn’t
have it any other way. Wealth is
not worth. When Jesus spoke to those
who gathered round him, he did not
tell them how to get rich. He told
them to love one another. This was
spiritual teaching of the highest
order. Do not confuse spirit with
religion:  they are antonyms. My
father wanted me to become rich,
very rich. That’s why he sent me
to Andover and Columbia. Instead
of becoming a Wall-Street lawyer,
I became, and remained, a poet and
a human-rights advocate. My life
could not have been richer. Religion
is man-made. Spirituality is heart-
felt. That is not to say religion
doesn’t have bits and pieces of
spirit in it, but religion to me means
the untold wealth and worth of all
world religions, while billions of
world’s human beings remain dirt
poor. When Jesus spoke to the
poor, he did not  speak to them at
the Vatican, in a cathedral, in a church,
or in a mosque. He spoke to them be-
side the sea or on a hill. If you have
spiritual truths to share, you can do
it in a vacant lot. The few years I
spent in a cathedral were vacant,
vacuous. The years I have spent with
the homeless, the hungry, the hopeless
have been rich and full. Where does
the Supreme Spirit spend her/his
time? The answer is she/he is omni-
present, as we all should be.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks