Hunger is not Greed

There's a particularly poignant warm-up I do with my Creative Writing students each year in which I simply write on the board "A child has been hurt" and let them write for 10-15 minutes. I suspect it could be a distressing thing for anyone to write about, but it is particularly emotional for my students. I teach at an alternative high school. This means I get all the students who have either been kicked out or otherwise dropped out of the regular high schools in my district. Many of these students are victims of abuse. I always invite the students to share their warm-ups when we are done. While the students are allowed to write in any creative writing genre, they almost always write autobiographically. They are surprisingly willing to open up and share some of the most heartbreaking stories from their lives. Inevitably, there are a few students who can’t finish because they become too choked up or start to cry. They never fail to inspire me with their courage.

These students are struggling to succeed because of the abuse they have been through or are going through. They fight everyday to overcome the countless difficult trials resulting from these experiences. When I witness their courage and determination, I often think, If this kid only had a loving and nurturing home, they could accomplish anything! 

I use this warm-up to lead into a lesson about our inner child. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I agree with Julia Cameron that our inner child and our inner source of creativity are one and the same. If your inner child has been hurt, then your creative capacity has been diminished. Sometimes the inner child has been severely abused, but as often as not, he or she has simply been neglected. One way in which we neglect our inner child is by “confusing hunger with greed”. The poet Ruth Stone brought this to my attention:

Advice

My hazard wouldn’t be yours, not ever;

But every doom, like a hazelnut, comes down

To its own worm. So I am rocking here

Like any granny with her apron over her head

Saying, lordy me. It’s my trouble.

There’s nothing to be learned this way.

If I heard a girl crying help

I would go to save her;

But you hardly ever hear those words.

Dear children, you must try to say

Something when you are in need.

Don’t confuse hunger with greed;

And don’t wait until you are dead.

                                                                                   -Ruth Stone

I realize that Ruth Stone was not referring to our inner child, but the idea still applies. How often is our inner child, our capacity to create, starving nearly to death, but we tell ourselves not to be greedy with our time? We quietly go about our busy days feeling the hollow ache inside of us and ignore it. We fail to find a way to nourish our inner child and we fail to call for help because of some ill-conceived idea that this is selfish. Neglect is a form of child abuse. We have to ask ourselves, are we abusing our inner child?

As Ruth Stone warns us, hunger is not greed! It’s okay, necessary in fact, to feed our creativity and/or to call for help from our friends and family. It’s even more important to call for help to our Heavenly Father. Friends and family may not always hear or understand, but our Heavenly Father always will. 

Jesus said, “Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?” (Matthew 7:9–11).

Like the girl in Ruth Stone's poem, we may not even ask for help. We think that Heavenly Father would not want to be bothered with trifling things like our latest art project or story idea. This is simply not true. Like any loving father, our Heavenly Father is interested in all of our righteous endeavors if for no other reason than because we are interested in them. In a talk he gave on the topic of prayer, J. Devn Cornish said, "...our Heavenly Father loves us so much that the things that are important to us become important to Him, just because He loves us. How much more would He want to help us with the big things that we ask, which are right."

I have seen several kids in my school over the years go from struggling students to successful adults. While they are almost all courageously fighting to improve, the ones who usually succeed had someone in their life who answered their (often unspoken) call for help and showed them a little love and encouragement. In each of us is an inner child courageously fighting to reach his/her creative potential. With a little love and encouragement, who knows what that creativity could accomplish? 

A sketch I made in my journal of Ruth Stone and her quote from "Advice". I added the warm-up later.

Another great poem by Ruth Stone. Just for fun, I scribbled in some Andy Warhol-style soup cans.