© Anglican Religious Communities 1999
Poverty is the experience of so many people living in the developing world. So what is the meaning of the Religious
vow of poverty in such a context? Father Richard Carter is a priest from Britain working in the Solomon
Islands, chaplain to the Melanesian Brotherhood, the largest Anglican Religious community in the world. He reflects
here on the vow of poverty as seen from a Melanesian perspective.
For many young people in Melanesia, to enter a Religious community is an enviable opportunity. The waiting
lists are full. The Melanesian Brotherhood has one hundred and twenty novices, and each year many are turned down
owing to lack of accommodation or insufficient resources. The Religious communities provide a way out of the village;
a training for those who may have been deprived of post-primary school education, a chance to travel and to broaden
experience. Above all, joining a Religious community provides a sense of purpose. A dedicated brother or sister
will be greatly respected, spoken of with pride by their families and villages as one they have given to serve
God. So, if the Religious communities are providing increased opportunity and status for their members where does
the vow of poverty fit into all of this?
Like Religious Life anywhere in the world, the motives for becoming a brother or sister are mixed. In Melanesia,
those who come simply for self-advancement, and do not grow beyond that stage, will not stay long. The opportunities
that arise do not negate the vow of poverty, but are part of the blessings and possibilities which God opens up
for those who are called - for there will certainly be many sacrifices and difficulties to overcome. For at its
heart, the vow of poverty is a calling as much in the developing world as it is in the West. The temptations to
become acquisitive and grasping - or plain disillusioned - are just as pervasive.
For, alongside all the joy which is the character of community life in Melanesia, the vow of poverty will be
something with which each brother will have to struggle sooner or later. Even before they come to the community,
they know this. The founder of the Melanesian Brotherhood believed that the standard of life of the community must
never rise above those they wish to serve. The brothers, he believed, must be prepared to share the lives, homes,
work and food of everyone. Again and again, I have seen that it is this ability to share without prejudice or judgement
that makes the brothers so welcome.
Within their own community, resources are limited. For example, more than forty novices share each humid dormitory,
sleeping on mats. They have no shoes and no watches. They own a few tattered clothes, usually passed from one to
another, or novice uniforms. Towels are usually shared and threadbare. Most have no ‘luxuries’, such as razor blades,
soap, washing powder or toothpaste. (These will sometimes be given as gifts.) Most can fit their possessions into
one bag. The community eats twice a day: root crops and some vegetables. Sometimes there will be a little fish.
In the bush areas, they can usually find fruit and always there are coconuts. At times, there will be feast days,
pigs will be killed and major fishing expeditions will go out: then there will be plenty. At other times, when
the floods and rains come, there may be only potatoes or even nothing. The days when there is no evening meal,
the brothers call ‘find your own way home’. It means everyone must fend for themselves or simply go to bed.
The brothers aim to take special care of any guest who arrives at the community, and so will therefore hold
back to make sure all others are properly fed before themselves. Portions are divided, and divided again, as guests
arrive. Often you will notice those who quietly go without and this is done with no resentment at all. The community
are not advocating deprivation: neither is it glorifying in a spirit of fasting. (When there is plenty, the community
will eat as if there is no tomorrow.) Yet the brothers will tell you there is freedom in this way of life, this
lack of grasping. A freedom to accept what the day provides and to embrace both the feast and the famine. The Head
Brother said to me,
“It is good that sometimes I learn to go without. We cannot always
have what we want and this way I learn to appreciate what I do have.”
It can also lead to a greater awareness of the needs of others.
The vow of poverty is not only about sharing but is also about with whom you share. A mark of a Christ-centred
community is that it will have a special love and concern for those who Christ embraced: especially the lost, the
sick and the rejected. And one’s own experience of need will become the source of one’s relationship and empathy
with others. This will require a brave reaching out beyond the confines of one’s culture to those who have been
rejected by that same culture.
An old man died near the village of Vila. He was a lonely man who had arrived from the weather coast, on
the other side of the island, with no family with him. The village was suspicious of him and the children frightened.
High grass was growing around his home and he never seemed to eat or wash. For some reason or problem, he had been
rejected by his own community and now the Melanesian Brothers were his only visitors. When he was found dead in
the grass by his house, no one would touch him. He had been sick - perhaps they would get sick too? They called
two novices, who carried him back to his home, washing and cleaning his body and prepared him for burial, wrapped
in a bed sheet. In the evening, more Melanesian brothers and novices arrived, and prayed and sang around his body
through the night. The villagers, no longer afraid, came and joined them. In the morning, the body of the old man
was buried. A lonely death - but one transformed: now embraced by the love of God.
Perhaps one of the great benefits of this vow of poverty is the way it can bring out all that is best and most
generous in others. Among a people who are often divided and suspicious of people from other tribes and islands,
this Brotherhood can cut across the barriers. The brothers can and do become part of the extended family of any
community, irrespective of tribe or language. I have seen this even among our brothers working as far away as the
Philippines or those who have visited the UK. Everyone knows they have nothing and it seems to release a wonderful
generosity of spirit; they can become the sons of everyone. The poorest of villagers themselves can become the
hosts and the greatest generosity and joy is often found at the homes of those who have least, for all need an
opportunity to give. One of the greatest deprivations is surely to feel ashamed to offer, for fear that it will
not be fit. Families will talk with joy about the way the brothers or sisters came and visited or stayed with them
and often there is a real sense that this visiting, this sharing has brought a touch of Christ.
Part of this vow of poverty is also a generosity of time. The western world has sadly lost the meaning of this,
where every moment, including leisure time, must be planned and made accountable. In the developing world, people
and relationships are nearly always more important than one’s own plans and programmes. Part of the life of poverty
will be being open and ready for others when they come, however inconvenient, and being willing to respond to the
needs of others. I sent a message to the Sisters of Melanesia asking to borrow a book from their library. The following
morning, two sisters arrived at my house for breakfast. They had walked fifteen miles to bring the book. This kind
of action is not rare. An old woman arrives at our community claiming that someone has harvested her garden and
stolen her produce. She asks that the brothers pray that the thief will be caught. Instead, a group of brothers
go with her to make a new garden. Wherever you walk or work or pray, there are people willing to walk, work or
pray with you. Is this not a need everywhere in the world? I remember as a child the greatest thing about going
to the Franciscans at Hilfield Friary in Dorset (UK) was that there the brothers had time for you: an availability,
to walk, to talk, to pray and to share without the sense that there were much more important things that they should
be doing.
When you walk up a mountain path on the weather coast of Guadalcanal and the way grows more treacherous and
the drop more sheer, so too, unobtrusively, grows the support of the brothers who walk with you: guiding, carrying
bags, and at exactly the right time supporting you to prevent a fall. It is a rare gift, an acute awareness of
the needs of the present moment, without any sense of judgement. It is our clinging to independence and our failure
to trust which becomes our death. A Religious community may seem poor, but they make many rich, for knowledge and
skill and time are not a private possession but there to be shared by all.
The community at Tabalia is preparing for the Brotherhood feast day of St Simon and St Jude. For two weeks,
people have been arriving from every part of the Solomons to join the celebration. The brothers and novices have
vacated their rooms and dormitories; these will be for the visitors and they themselves will sleep anywhere they
can find - verandahs, sheds, even down at the piggery. More than 5,000 people will arrive in time for the weekend
of the feast day. The taps dry up. No one complains; water is carried half a mile from the river. No one is bossing,
no one is shouting; there is an atmosphere of joy and celebration. The community is working together with a harmony
that remains a mystery to the overseas guests. No one pays, no one is quite sure where it has all come from or
who is feeding whom, but, like the feeding of the 5,000, again and again there is enough for everybody. It is a
miracle of reciprocity.
Poverty is also about living by faith. It has become a joke among the brothers:
“Have you eaten today?”
“Not yet, I am living by faith.”
The vow does bring deep awareness of God in all things. There is an awareness of dependence on God in the storms,
floods and cyclones, which can so easily destroy people’s livelihoods and homes. There is a deep awareness of God
as brothers set off by canoe for other islands or to fish in rough seas. There is a constant awareness of God in
creation. When the rainy season comes, the taps silt up and there is thick mud everywhere. The brown swollen river,
which can move bridges, is the only place to wash. There is a prayer on the lips of most brothers as two by two
they walk the hot roads with bare feet and hope that a truck will stop to give them a lift. And yet no brother
will look back or hold out his hand to stop anyone - all goodness must be freely given. There is a faith too as
a brother with little formal education gets up to preach in a church or teach in a school or kneel down at the
bed of the sick to pray for healing.
Poverty in the West is discussed in a very human context of contrasting one person with another, and assessed
in terms of profession, income and property. In the developing world, God cannot be taken out of the equation so
easily. A brother may be poor in material possessions but in Christ he is seen as rich. Life is seen as a gift
of God. Ultimately, in Melanesia, at the decisive moments of life, the one who can intercede with God is needed
more than the rich man with his worldly wealth. For all those who live in the developing world know the vulnerability
and fragility of human life. They have all witnessed death in their community and have seen and mourned for those
of all ages whom God has called to return to the creator. For those who know the poverty of death and do not try
to hide it from their young, it is far wiser to prepare for eternity than concentrate on material things which
will be taken away. Perhaps it is the western world which is really living in poverty, failing to see life as a
gift - instead seeing it as a private possession. Thus in death, they are cheated and lose, whereas in Melanesia
they are never parted.
The vow of poverty is not advocating a spiritual materialism: the storing up of treasure in heaven because one
wants to be rich there. Rather it is a realisation of what those true treasures are. It is the miracle of love
by which the more love is given for another, the more that love is also returned to bless the one who gives:
... by purity, knowledge, patience, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; in honour and dishonour, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as imposters, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well-known; as dying, and see - we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.
(2 Corinthians 5, 6-10).
At its best, the vow of poverty is transfigured into a vow of blessing in which there is great freedom. This is a message so at odds with the prescribed wisdom of our consumerist world that we have often abandoned or downplayed its radical demands. Is it possible to live this vow again, not only in the developing world but in the rest of the world? And why do I, who have witnessed this truth, still shrink from it? It is because, as with many of us, I fear the powerlessness of having no money and no escape. I fear being cut off from my family. I am concerned about hunger and sickness, and becoming a burden; being unable to get out if the going gets tough and missing the luxuries at the end of the hard journey. I wonder whether I would not feel vulnerable and trapped, oppressed by poor leadership, dispossessed, even exploited or forgotten: no longer in control but controlled. For this is also the experience of poverty in the developing world. And yet I deeply long for the freedom of that vow; the freedom of those I have seen coming so uncluttered to God, ready to serve him and their neighbour in all things; a poverty where service for others becomes pure grace; where everyone can become your brother, your sister, your mother. Can this vision of Christlike poverty be true? And quietly, humbly, the brothers and sisters who embrace this call seem to say: “Live the Gospel and you will see”.