The number 13 is considered unlucky in some cultures. Some buildings don’t have a 13th floor. People seem to be particularly wary when the 13th falls on a Friday.  I cannot afford to think like that because my birthday happens to fall on the 13th of March. So I have to ignore many of the negative messages that surround this number in my culture and find different terms in which to think about it.

I am still pondering the number 13 because last year Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand brought out issue No.13 in its Social Justice Series. Its focus was “Poverty in an Affluent Society” and the document was given the title “Look and Look Again”. It came out as a reflection guide for people.

It could be said that this document dealt with the situation of the “unlucky” people in our society, the ones who seem to miss out on a fair share of the good that is going around and get a bigger slice of whatever is bad – low pay, limited educational opportunities, inadequate housing and poor health. Even what is available by way of benefits comes with a cost of endless scrutiny and all sorts of checks. The one check that should really matter, namely, ensuring that people get all the benefits they need to live a decent and dignified life is the one that is most often missed out.

It could be said that what is happening to these people is just bad luck. In Japan and China it is the number 4 rather than the number 13 which is concerned unlucky. This little fact is a reminder to us that a great many cultural factors surround notions of good and bad luck. They, in fact, surround everything that happens and it is their nature to operate normally below the level of conscious awareness. We become aware of them when something happens – like a crisis of some kind or an encounter with another culture where a different set of messages operate or something as simple as having your birthday fall on a date that one’s culture considers unlucky. Then you start to pay close attention to the cultural messages that dictate not only how we interpret what we see but even what things are seen and what things stay invisible.

So we are asked to “look and look again” because in an affluent society important social issues are often invisible to many people at first sight. There are many factors, conscious and unconscious, operating within a culture that obscure these issues and divert attention from them. One can simply refuse to look beyond one’s own back yard. One can resist looking below the surface level at the deep forces that lie behind human misery. One can look at people who are struggling and play the “blame game” putting all responsibility onto them. If bad things are happening, it is their own fault. Or one can put in all down to rotten luck.

This document does not allow us to write off issues of inequality in any of these ways but especially not as “bad” luck. Matters of luck are outside our influence and control and so interpreting reality in these terms does away with the need for any intervention. We can only hope that luck will change for the better. The issues addressed here are clearly shown to be the result of the principles, policies and procedures that our culture uses to see, interpret and act on social issues. These are all areas where we can exert an influence. Drawing on the social teaching of the Church this document offers us a different lens though which we can look at our world. When we look and look again with a focus on justice and loving kindness we find a way of seeing that makes social issues visible as well as communal and individual ways of responding possible.

One last thought - the sub title of the booklet “Look and Look Again” is taken from Chapter 13 of the gospel of Matthew.

Fr Pat O'Shea lives at St Columbans Lower Hutt, New Zealand.