“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist.”

-Dom Hélder Pessoa Câmara

Sometimes questions can be revolutionary. Asking “Why?” can make  people uneasy, as the answer may expose structural systemic issues that some powers do not want to acknowledge or deal with.

Sometimes questions can be revolutionary. Asking “Why?” can make  people uneasy, as the answer may expose structural systemic issues that some powers do not want to acknowledge or deal with. In the Bible, both the Original Testament and the New Testament, the words “Poor” and “poverty” appear 446 times, and “Wealth” can be found 1,453 times. the word “Justice,” appears 1,576 times in the Original and New Testaments. Justice is mentioned twice as many times as “love” or “heaven” – and seven times more often than “hell.” You can see where the emphasis is.

Dom Camara’s comment indicates that it is easier and more acceptable socially to apply band aids to problems, to alleviate the symptoms, but not to tackle the root causes. In systems approaches, in order to really tackle a painful persistent problem, we must look beyond individual events and even patterns, to discover the hidden structures that keep the system doing what it’s doing. Like a game of Whack-A-Mole, just responding to the events keeps us busy, but gets us nowhere.  We need to take off the back of the machine and see what gears, pulleys, and relationships keep the moles popping up.

If we don’t change direction, we’ll end up where we’re headed. Practical spiritual work demands we stop rearranging the deck chairs and get down below to see what’s causing the ship to list, realizing it’s the folks in steerage who are most at risk. Besides, systems out of balance will eventually self correct, and often with a whiplash we’d rather avoid. Just ask ask Tsar Nicholas, Muammar Gaddafi or Bashar al-Assad. Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk, by contrast, were able to address systemic injustice sufficiently to avoid a bloodbath and bring South Africa to a better, if imperfect, place. We need to look deep, find root causes, and keep asking “Why?”

What great moral issues concern you today and where can you direct your “Why?”

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Dom Hélder Pessoa Câmara ( February 7, 1909 – August 27, 1999) was a Brazilian Roman Catholic Archbishop. He was the Archbishop of Olinda and Recife, serving from 1964 to 1985, during the military regime of the country. An advocate of liberation theology, he is remembered for his social and political work for the poor and for Human Rights and democracy during the military regime.

Joe Laur is a father, husband, artist, builder, naturalist, consultant, and EcoKosher mashgiach. He lives with his wife Sara in western Massachusetts, where he serves as head groundskeeper and resident singer songwriter. Send him your favorite teaching quote for commentary. He can be reached at joe.laur@joelaur.com.