Reflections on material and spiritual change
One of the metaphors through which I view my work is that of picking fruit. Here, fruit represents the changes that I would like to see in people and situations around me. The fruit that is ‘low-hanging’ consists of objectives that we can be reached relatively easily and predictably through simple actions, whereas ‘high-hanging’ fruit requires longer term, harder work, and there is much greater uncertainty over whether we will be able to pick it at all.
In our community, low-hanging fruit that I have been picking includes helping people get gas connections and aadhar cards, teaching kids Hindi literacy, and helping people go to the hospital when they need it. Low-hanging fruit generally involves helping people’s material circumstances improve. In contrast, high-hanging fruit involves societal, cultural and relational changes; which are much less measurable and less predictable. In our community, some of the high-hanging fruit I would love to pick includes changing gender norms within the family, changing models of what marriage and parenthood should look like, and reducing addictions. At the centre of all this is people’s relationship with God being transformed through Jesus.
Ultimately, it is these spiritual and societal changes that I really want to see. Sometimes, when I’m doing something as simple and boring as filling out an aadhar card form, I wonder: is it really worth it? Are the low-hanging fruit just a distraction, and the real goal is much higher? Despite my doubts, I think low-hanging fruit does matter, for at least five reasons:
1. Material circumstances matter in and of themselves.
God cares about people, as individuals and as societies, as bodies and as souls. Jesus demonstrates this wholism, which includes care for people’s material circumstances, with numerous healings and feeding people. He also consistently advocates serving the ‘least’, including the economically disadvantaged. So even if it doesn’t result in deeper change, helping people’s lives to improve a little materially is still worthwhile.
2. It’s getting more important and harder to get on the bottom rung of the ladder.
The world is becoming more tech-, document- and text- intensive, making it harder for those who cannot engage with these forms of communication. Remaining illiterate is gradually becoming a bigger liability, as fewer illiterate people remain. To take a small but indicative example, people who use thumb impressions need to get their PAN card forms notarised – for a fee – whereas those who can sign don’t require this extra step. Initially, the government was making aadhar cards very easily – but now that most citizens have them, the process has become more rigorous. Gradually, those who don’t have documents and are illiterate are becoming more marginalised. The time is right to assist these people to get their foot on the bottom rung of the ladder – if we wait another 10 years, it will be that much harder to empower them.
3. Improving people’s material circumstances does facilitate societal change.
It’s hard to reflect on life when you’re struggling to survive day-to-day. While the feeling of being hungry must be awful in and of itself, it also creates conditions that make for a lot of family and community strife. Needing to make impossible financial and practical decisions on a daily basis – do I prioritise paying for my child’s schoolbooks or my parent’s medicines? – is hardly conducive to a healthy social and spiritual life. Thus, while we should by no means fall into the trap of associating wealth with happiness, it is true that helping people meet their basic physical needs gives them a greater chance of looking further up Maslow’s hierarchy, and seeking greater fulfilment and purpose in life.
4. Picking low-hanging fruit is a great way to build relationships.
To have any hope of catalysing social and spiritual change, we must have relationships. Performing simple, practical acts of service is one way to break the ice initially and then deepen the friendship. For a relatively task-oriented person like me, it is difficult to just ‘hang out’ with people without a clear purpose; but one of the silver linings of the inefficiencies of Indian bureaucracy and medical systems is that invariably there is plenty of waiting time which can be used for relationship building! I’ve also found one-on-one teaching to be a boon for building friendships with kids and their parents.
5. Acts of service can be done prophetically.
Even simple, practical, lowly acts of service can occasionally have prophetic impact in unexpected ways. When I change someone’s dressing or diaper – a task considered by most to be yucky and ‘unclean’ – I have the chance to demonstrate my love, more deeply than words can express. When I sit down with a child in the dust, and ask them to read to me, I proclaim that this child – though by the world’s metrics, a nobody – is deeply valuable. So while these acts of service have direct, quantifiable results; they also can sometimes sow the seeds for deeper change. However, as Jesus warns in Matthew 6, we need to be intensely wary of our tendency to do acts of service and charity in order to show off and receive praise. Much like an act of civil disobedience done purely as a media stunt loses its authenticity, an act of service done purely on the hope that others will see and appreciate it loses its genuineness. So while we can hope that people notice and draw the right messages from picking that low-hanging fruit, we must continually introspect and ensure that we are acting consistently, whether or not we have an audience.
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All this said, there is a danger, particularly for one as mathematically minded as myself, to focus too much on the low-hanging fruit while ignoring the more profound changes in the elusive higher reaches. I can say with pride and confidence[1] that over the past few years I have taught 100 people how to read; helped 150 people make or correct their aadhar cards, assisted 80 families to get gas connections. Whenever I feel down about my efficacy, I can even console myself that there are five people who probably wouldn’t be alive at the moment had it not been for my interventions.[2]
Yet I struggle to point to a single person who has taken my advice on a relational or spiritual matter; I can count on one hand those who I may have impacted to become better people – and each of those, I have significant doubts about. I have only talked directly about Jesus with an equally small number, and, at least on a surface level, not much has come of that.
Given that people love me when I help them at a practical level, but sometimes dismiss as naive my suggestions on social and relational matters, it is sometimes tempting to just give up on the high-hanging fruit and go on a quantitative binge, racking up impressive numbers of medical, educational and documentation interventions.
As I have argued above, picking low-hanging fruit does have an important place. But I believe I should not give up on the deeper goals. Ultimately, God wants to save the world – both our souls and our seals; both our stomachs and our societies. In this wholistic vision, we can work as partners with Christ, towards both people’s material upliftment and empowerment, and their socio-spiritual transformation. Naturally, we are also uplifted and transformed in this process!
Perhaps it’s time to switch to another agricultural metaphor (Jesus used a lot of farming parables too). One approach to life is symbolised by industrial monoculture: let’s specialise in one thing and do it well, in a large quantity, with plenty of labour-saving equipment. For instance, given the great economic, health and environmental benefits of gas connections, sometimes I wonder: should I just drop everything else and focus exclusively on gas connections?
But in my wiser moments, I see that it is a garden, not a monoculture, that should be my guiding metaphor. As I plant a variety of seeds, I know that some will almost certainly germinate and bring forward a crop rapidly – like teaching kids how to read, or making people’s aadhar cards. These crops help sustain me mentally; as I feel that I am achieving something good. But I also need to plant seeds that I know may never germinate – and perhaps, if they grow, I will not be around to enjoy the harvest. And throughout it all, whichever varieties of seed I plant, I need to remember: it may be me who plants, waters and fertilises; but it is God who makes the plant grow.
[1] Of course, it depends a bit where you draw the line on the continuum between illiteracy and literacy.
[2] Ashiya: abdominal tuberculosis and perforated intestine
Putan: Chronic liver disease
Ateeq: bladder cancer
Kusuma: TB meningitis
Farzana: obstructed intestine
In each of these cases, I spent/ am spending substantial time, money and energy. Naturally, I don’t know what would have happened if I hadn’t intervened; and some of these five people still may well die soon.
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