I Love Satire

Satire has a way of exposing significant issues.  This video offers the two extremes: the spoiled child and the impoverished child.  I love the comparison.

My wife and I were talking about this and realized that the problem lies on both ends.  Wealth that leads to affluenza, which is another way of saying selfishness, is not the solution.  But lack of wealth, or poverty is not the solution either.

This is why the Gospel makes sense to me.  It calls us to be stewards of what we’ve been given to address poverty, and in the process we get to be love to those around us.

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The One Question

Believe it or not, only two questions about global poverty have been asked in the history of modern presidential debates, going back to Kennedy-Nixon in 1960. That’s less than 1% of all questions asked.

You can help change that.  One is launching a new campaign to get “Just ONE Question” about the fight against global poverty asked at the 2008 presidential debates.  If you would like to help, and I would encourage you to help, please follow the link and sign the petition.

This is your opportunity to take a small step that would have huge repercussions.

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Spiritual Poverty

What would you say is your most valuable possession, the one thing you wouldn’t trade for the world?

When I was in college I didn’t have any money and I remember the feeling of wanting a car, any car.  At one point I remember thinking I’d trade anything for it.  But when I got that car, I no longer wanted it because honestly it was a piece of crap. So what changed?

My perception.

When I was five, twenty-five cents was a lot of money.  When I was fifteen, twenty-five dollars was a lot of money.  When I was twenty-five, twenty-five thousand dollars was a lot of money.  When I was thirty-five, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars was a lot of money. Again what changed was my perception.  And what surprised me was that the more money I had, the more money I wanted.  What I had was never really enough.  Consumption is what we’re taught to do, right?  But I noticed the older I got the more it began to fail me.  Money didn’t really satisfy me.  It simply allowed me to choose my problems.

Did I want a high mortgage?  Did I want a larger car payment?  Did I want to keep up with the Jones’?

When I made the choice to follow Jesus, I began to recognize how much He simply wasn’t as consumed with money as I was.  In fact he was likely to ask me to give more and more of it away.  Kind of backwards from what I have thought all a long.  Instead he placed a premium value on my soul.  This was interesting to me.  I began to ask why.  And then I read verses like this:

Then Jesus went to work on his disciples. “Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You’re not in the driver’s seat; I am. Don’t run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I’ll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self. What kind of deal is it to get everything you want but lose yourself? What could you ever trade your soul for? (Matthew 16:24-26)

And I began to ask if I had traded my own soul.  And to be honest, I had.  Money meant security, but that very security seemed to cut me off from those around me.  With money I could build bigger fences.  I could avoid the distinct truth of how I had cut myself off from relationships. My own stuff had blinded me to the reality of my own brokenness.  Wealth allowed me to refuse to see what had been imprisoning me.  If I needed a pick-me-up to feel good I just went and bought something.

Jesus began to teach me to give generously, which seems really stupid at first.  What could possibly be served by giving the money away and typically to people I didn’t know.  But what surprised me is that giving generously and even blindly had its way of putting me in touch with who I really am.  I am designed in His image.  I am designed to love.  And money has a distinct way of taking care of people’s needs in a very real way.  It’s very pragmatic that way.  And when I began to give, I began to connect to something deeper. In the giving I began to receive a very different gift, my own soul.

And if I have a soul…that means everyone has a soul.  And if mine is valuable…then everyone’s is valuable.

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This post is part of a Synchroblog on poverty.  A list of participants is below:

Phil Wyman at Phil Wyman’s Square No More
Adam Gonnerman: Echoes of Judas
Cobus van Wyngaard: Luke: The Gospel for the Rich
Lainie Petersen at Headspace
Steve Hayes: Holy Poverty
Jonathan Brink: Spiritual Poverty
Dan Stone at The Tense Before
Jeremiah: Blessed are the poor… churches…
Alan Knox: Boasting in Humiliation
Miss Eagle: Poverty and the Hospitable Heart
Jimmie: Feeding the Poor

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The Bottom Billion

I’m not naive enough to think I can change the lives of a billion people, but I can be a small part of a large group of people attempting to address the issue.

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Why I Still Wear The Bracelet

I wrote this post a year and a half ago when I first started blogging. I’m reposting it as a follow on to today’s earlier post. One is still the best campaign out there for fighting poverty.

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Yesterday I was in line to get a cup of coffee and I saw a man with a bunch of rubber bracelets. You know the kind Lance Armstrong started with his Livestrong campaign. I thought Livestrong was a brilliant idea. Then everyone had them. They were everywhere, which is simply a testimony to how great the idea was.

I even got one. It said “courage” on it. I actually got it from Taco Bell for 25 cents from a vending machine. My son, who is four always gets two quarters when we go to Taco Bell and he didn’t have a clue what it was. He just knew it wasn’t the Ninja guy he wanted. So he gave it to me. I wore it for a while because I like what it meant. I liked being reminded of the idea of courage. Unfortunately it was cheap (what do you expect for a quarter) and broke after about a month. I threw it away and didn’t think about it for a while.

And then a good friend of mine gave me a ONE bracelet. I believe in the One Campaign and what they are doing for social justice and fighting poverty. The ONE bracelets are made really well and they are white. I put it on and that was that.

So yesterday when I saw this guy in line I began to think of why I wear the bracelet. It has now been over 9 months that I’ve had it on and I have thought about the question before. Did I wear it because I wanted to make people aware of ONE.org? Yeah, a little. Did I wear it because it makes a cool statement about who I am? Not really. Did I wear it because it looks cool and everyone is doing it? No.

I wear it because it reminds me that we are part of the human race. We are God’s creation first, connected together. I am called to love and be loved in community. The bracelet reminds me of that. It reminds me to remember those less fortunate than myself. It reminds me to love my neighbor and to be part of the solution.

That’s why I wear the bracelet.

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I Dare You To Watch This

Stop asking God to bless what you are doing.  And start asking God what he is doing because its already blessed. (Some guy who influences Bono)

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Stuff I Hate

So I’m watching this commercial for a company that provides “cash” loans that you “call” to use their services. It’s a stupid commercial but it was live on my DVR so I had to sit through it. And then the fine print comes up. And it says,

“The APR for a typical loan of $2,600 is 99.25%.”

That’s right folks. 99.25%. That highway robbery. And you know who is going to call on stuff like this? The poor, the elderly, the widow. That’s right, the people who can’t afford to pay for it but who are so desperate they have no other option.

I get pissed when I see this crap.

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Black Friday – A Prelude To Christmas

Today is Black Friday. It’s kind of an ironically appropriate name to the god of consumerism. Black Friday is a reference to today, which is the day after Thanksgiving and one of the biggest shopping days of the year. The term was coined by the press after the stress it causes people and was named after the Black Tuesday stock market crass of 1929. Niiice.

My wife and are deeply wrestling with Christmas this year. To be honest we don’t really want to participate. It has almost completely lost any semblance of meaning for us and we’re looking for alternatives. A friend of mine talked about taking a van load of gifts to a Mexican orphanage this year and my heart leaped. The trip would have meant missing any Christmas with extended family but I really didn’t care. And when my sister told me that we weren’t doing Christmas with the them this year, I had nothing standing in my way. Unfortunately the trip didn’t materialize so I was bummed.

Rick McKinley’s Imago Dei Community church created Advent Conspiracy, as an alternative to the typical consumer oriented Christmas of buying a million gift. I really like the idea and we’re looking into it as an alternative. AC is about giving, not presents. It’s about capturing the spirit of what Christmas is really about by making Christmas gifts and then giving the rest of the “Xmas budget” to a clean water project.

“Advent Conspiracy is an international movement restoring the scandal of Christmas by worshipping Jesus through compassion, not consumption”

There it is, that word: consumption. Christmas is a big deal in this country. Shoppers are expected to purchase 454 billion dollars in November and December. Consumption is critical to keeping our economy humming. But is all of that consumption producing what we expected? It consumption making us bloated at the expense of something else? It is completely fair to say that I don’t need a single thing I would ever get from UNDER the Christmas tree.

I wrestle with letting go of the Christmas “traditions” because I know some of my favorite memories are of my childhood Christmas experiences. I don’t want to take the value of the holiday away from my three kids. But even those memories, with closer inspection, I realize are more about family that the gifts. The only gifts I can really truly remember as special were a G.I Joe and a bike.

The memories that really stick out to me have nothing to do with the presents. The best ones were hanging out with family. I remember the long drives on Christmas Eve morning to Los Angeles to my grandparents house. I remember hanging out with all my cousins and playing endless hours with people. The presents were fun but it was the people that I remember the most. Even later in life, I remember the 27 person dinner table conversations filled with laughter. One thing my family knew how to do was laugh.

And two things really sticks out to me. The first was that my mom always invited someone to Christmas Eve, which was the big night in my family. And she was so good about making them feel so special and part of our family. When I was young this felt awkward, but as I grew older I began to see that she got what Christmas was really about, the deep need for connection. The second was that the “gift” really didn’t do much for me. Yes it was cool to get the latest shirt all my friends had or the Star Wars collectible set with 367 pieces, but to a great extent the newness wore off very quickly and that thing that I got ceased to become the center of my attention withing days. I see this same process happen in my children.

The more I look at Christmas, and Black Friday, the more I wonder if Christmas has taken on a new meaning. In the endless drive to fill the tree with presents, has it become a way to compensate for our lack of connection as human beings? Do we give the endless stream of gifts as a way of saying sorry for the lack of connection throughout the year? Has it become the only way we know how to connect, through the process of giving gifts. Has it become a forced ritual that leaves us wanting? And in the end, do all of the gifts leave us as sick as when we started?

If you have a really good alternative idea for Christmas, I’d really like to hear it. My family and my soul would really be interested.

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Consumerism and The Heart

This is somewhat of an update to the Synchroblog WWJD…WTC.

This weekend I went home to Silicon Valley (San Jose to be exact). In the Mercury News this morning the paper highlighted the fact that we still lead the U.S. in venture capital investment (about 20%). I grew up here and saw the valley transform from a medium sized peach orchard to a mini version of Los Angeles. San Jose, in particular used to be the epitome of traditional family and average income provided by IBM and HP. The venture world changed all of that. Now we have some of the most influential companies in the world right in our own backyard.

As I was grabbing my Peet’s coffee and bagels this morning in downtown Willow Glen (my old neighborhood), I noticed the tremendous amount of wealth that was present in so much of the world around me. People dress up to go to coffee here. It is entirely likely to see the perfect family (husband, wife, two kids and a chocolate lab) six times over. I say this as an observation not a judgment.

As I left Peet’s I began to wonder, what it is that drives us to consume? What is it that compels us to want “the good life,” which is so prevalent in Willow Glen, and other places in the valley? And in my wonder my mind immediately fell on the olds answers. Our brokenness produces something of a drive within us that is almost insatiable. And as I passed the boutiques I was left with a feeling that it wasn’t that simple. Was it deeper than that? What is it that wealth reminds us of?

For some reason my mind wandered to the year I lived on USC’s fraternity row with some of the world’s riches kids. The row was something of an anomaly in the area. In five minutes time, I could walk three blocks to what anyone would consider poverty. Police helicopters were the norm almost every night. Every once in a while some kids from those areas would walk down fraternity row and stare at the big frat houses. But they would likely be picked up half way down by school police and “escorted” to the Blvd. I could see the longing in their eyes. The comparison was always striking and I never forgot it.

It was during this time that I used way too many mind bending substances and one thing always stood out to me about being “high”. It was as much a reminder of what I wanted to be as much as it was an escape from what I didn’t want to be, It was a temporary transcendence from my broken state, from what I was not meant to live. Coming down from the high was like being escorted to the end of the row.

And as I passed the many boutique stores that lined Lincoln Avenue I realized that we were designed for blessing. Wealth was a constant reminder of that blessing, the state we were designed to live in. Wealth provides a sense of security and safety to an extent. We don’t have to worry about food and shelter, our basic needs. In the beginning God took provided this for us.

But the allure of wealth is never ending. Behind every dollar is a reminder that we aren’t safe and secure. At any moments notice it can be taken away. And so we consume beyond what we need hoping that it will be enough, which it never is.

And as I engage God’s mission to restore the world around me, I am beginning to see that my Father is calling me into a life of trust with what He has given me. He is providing me with resources for the mission. If I horde them for my own sake, I am going to be missing out on the beauty of what my stuff was created for. I will miss the moment of transformation each item was meant to produce. If I hold on I will miss my own restoration in that process of letting go. I will miss becoming who I was designed to be, which is love. I will miss how my stuff was meant to restore my own heart by giving it away.  And I don’t want to miss that.

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Greed vs. Capitalism

Greg Boyd, who I enjoy reading, wrote in his blog,

“It’s hard to deny that capitalism is the best economic system around. It creates wealth far better than feudalism, communism, socialism or any other system one could name. But for all its advantages, capitalism has one major drawback that Kingdom people need to be concerned about: it needs people to stay perpetually hungry for more. If Americans as a whole ever followed Paul’s instruction to be content with basic food and clothing and not pursue wealth (1 Tim. 6:6-11), the system would come to a grinding halt. The undeniable truth is that capitalism runs on greed.”

When I first read this, I had to stop for a second. Something didn’t sit right and so I had to really ponder what it was.

I grew up in a entrepreneurial family. My father and my step father were very successful men in business and worked very hard for it. The system we grew up in, especially Silicon Valley supported opportunity. Capitalism, which is the ideology behind a free market was an integral part of it. Much like Greg said, we would not have enjoyed the prosperity under communism, feudalism, or socialism. Only capitalism would set the stage for growth.

The very idea behind capitalism is a free market of ideas to make something better. The pooling of capital supports the idea. You build an organization around the better idea and sell it to people. Better ideas in theory make a better life. The free market allows competition, to a certain extent, to regulate prices based upon what people are willing to pay. It even supports new ideas by protecting them for a short time through patent protection, if the idea is original, allowing inventors to recoup R&D costs. The system doesn’t require “more” in order to operate, as Greg states. It only requires a transaction, or the movement of goods. The system isn’t perfect, but as Greg said, it works. And it supports those who are willing to work. Communism, on the other hand, supports oppression because it creates a system of reliance on the a government for handouts. Feudalism never allows people to rise above poverty. Socialism takes away people incentive to work hard because everything they do will become part of the state.

I grew up in Silicon Valley and got to live through the Internet bubble. Although this period may be known for its excesses, which I experienced first hand, it also was pivotal in creating so many good things. It is very doubtful that I would be blogging right now had we not had this period. This medium has revolutionized communication and the critique of thought in ways that the world has never known before.

So after living through it, I would offer a different perspective than Greg. I would suggest the inverse, “greed feeds on capitalism”. Capitalism is a system. It has no thought, feeling, or a mind. It makes no decisions. It it simply a potential operating system. Much like a game people play, it is the people who define the rules and whether they follow them or not. Capitalism is used by people, broken people. Greed is on the other hand a living response to brokenness and disconnectedness from God. It is our desire to horde for the sake of creating protective systems around our heart, so we won’t be hurt.

I say this because I experienced a very different life than what Greg is saying. I saw the power of wealth to be of good service, to restore people’s life, to be of good steward to what God had given us. My father used his wealth in a strangely powerful way for other people. I would suggest that what Greg highlights in the rest of his post is created by greed, not capitalism.

A really great counter example is Blake Mycoskie, who developed TOMS shoes. Blake took a simple inspiring idea and change a little part of the world. But he did so in a redeeming way. He used capitalism and made it work for good.

To call capitalism the problem is to miss the point completely. It would be to call the great work of so many business men who use their resources and wealth for good and for the Kingdom, wrong. Capitalism is not the problem. People’s brokenness is the problem and it looks like greed.

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Bono – Quote of the Day

“Where you live in the world should not determine whether you live in the world.”

Bono

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Why Are All The Mosh Kids Sitting Outside The Church

Yesterday was an awesome day.  I got to work with Oxfam on their Farm Bill Campaign.  We had a booth at the Vans Warped Tour.  The Warped tour is a collection of bands you’ve rarely heard of unless you are part of the subculture.  Half the bands were thrash-metal and sounded pretty good musically but I really had no idea what they were saying.  The average age was probably eighteen, a good mix of male/female.  The average person wore black, had a tattoo(s), a piercing(s), and looked like they were there to be seen.  None of which is a slam because I saw Jesus in the midst of these people.

Because I was working for Oxfam, it was my job to talk to these people about extreme poverty. In almost every instance, they were just like me.  Real people.  But there was also a deep sense of pain and longing for acceptance.  One girl I met had a brand on her arm with marks from where she had been cutting herself.  One guy I met had large amounts of piercings in his face.  One girl had a fishnet stocking shirt, and a see through bra that exposed her large breasts.  Most of the guys were there to stare at the girls, nod their head to the beat of the music, and think about what it would be like to talk to the girl over there.  And the overwhelming sense I got was that this was a collection of kids who had banded together because they had been rejected.  They didn’t fit in.  These were the kids that would likely scare the average church goer on Sunday.  And in the process, they are typically sitting outside the church.  I was reminded of a book I read in college, “Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together In The Cafeteria?” by Beverly Tatum.  They did so for protection.  They did so to find some sense of collective support because they were the “different” ones.

Walking around the park, I kept getting a sense that somewhere along the way they believed the message that they weren’t worth it.  They were the rejected.  And the images they were projecting were almost exlusively about death.  A lot of the posters for the bands had something to do with gothic imagery or rejection (All Time Low, Desperation Squad, Bad Religion, Total Chaos). And in the process they had banded together and celebrated that rejection. They were wearing their rejection on their sleeve. And I kept wondering how we as a church could find a way to transcend our expectations of what someone looked like  so that they could find a true sense of restoration that Jesus was offering.  How do we “be” love for these people.  Not in a way that says, “You’ve gotta lose that hair, son.”  But in a way that would just be love to these people.  Because the reality is that these kids are just as important to God as I am.

How can we as a church show these people love so that they may know they are worth it to God?  How do we transcend our own fears and bridge that gap that exists between us.  If we really believe in a mission of restoration, how do we show these group of kids they are loved.

Again, your thoughts are appreciated.

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One Campaign – Fight Extreme Poverty

One.org, which I am a compassionate advocate, commissioned the Vote ’08 campaign campaign to address global inequities in health and standard of living. The findings have been released and are interesting. Fighting extreme poverty matters to just about everyone.

Some of the data:

– There is bipartisan support for Presidential candidates who support measures to improve disease prevention, reduce hunger and improve education.

The majority of both Republicans (62%) and Democrats (77%) would be more likely to support a candidate who supports saving 15,000 lives a day by fighting the world’s most devastating diseases including HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Similarly, the majority of both Republicans (60%) and Democrats (76%) would also be more likely to support a candidate who supports reducing by half the number of people in the world who suffer from hunger and live in extreme poverty, which would mean 300 million less hungry people each year. Additionally, 54% of Republicans and 75% of Democrats would be more likely to support a candidate who supports providing greater access to primary education for 77 million children who are not in school with a special emphasis on girls.

The majority of Republicans (52%) and Democrats (80%) also supports new approaches to how the United States provides foreign assistance, such as increasing micro-credit to help people start small businesses, and doing more to eliminate corruption to make sure the economies of developing nations thrive and that help goes to the people most in need. In short, members affiliated with both parties (73% Democrats / 62% Republicans) would be more likely to support a candidate who supports increased investments in foreign assistance programs and working with other countries to strengthen national security.

(Source here)

It’s nice to see that a tide is turning. We really can be the first generation to end extreme poverty.

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How Much Is God Asking For

Nathan  wrote an interesting response to the question of giving to a beggar.

I want to take a different approach to this question and ask, who do we want to become?  Do we want to become people who are filled with love?  We all want love, but do we want to become people who give it away?  If we horde the love that we have received are we missing out on the purpose of the gift? If we hold onto it, are we essentially saying that we won’t be receiving any more and therefore we keep what we have.

Nathan essentially comes to the conclusion that we should give, which I agree with.  But I want to explore why?  Is it duty?  Is it simply the right thing to do?  Perhaps.  But is it possible that Jesus called us into love because it is the best possible path and who we are designed to be (people who love), which is a different motivation.  I can admit that I don’t always want to give, but isn’t motivation important and the state of my heart critical to creating effective action?

These are a lot of questions and I’m interested in your thought.

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A Great Man

Thanks to Makeesha for pointing this out to me. This is the story of Norman Borlaug, a man you never knew of but absolutely should.

Click here for story.

When Jesus said love your neighbor, this guy took it seriously and now he has a lot of neighbors.

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100 Equals Love

Every once in a while I run across an idea or a group of people who are doing something really great. My first response is to smile and my second response is to write about it, which I’m doing right now. I found this post through a random clicking process of blogs from people I know ending up on people I don’t but I wish I did. And when it is a woman I smile and realize that our female counterparts do things way better than us men.

Katherine Siebert started Edeva, which means, “beautiful gift.” She came up with this really great idea for a love project to get one hundred people together to buy the land for a trade arts “co-op” for a group of women in the Dominican Republic. Instead of asking a bunch of people to give her $100, she asked 100 women to give two dollars every week. Who can’t do that. The idea is brilliant. You can read the story here.

Thanks Katherine for the inspiration. I hope you don’t mind if I steal your idea. I promise to give you credit.

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Kiva – Microloans Process

I was visiting a friends blog today and I came a cross a site that was listed at her page. The organization is called Kiva.org. Kiva provides a simple way of getting involved in the world around us. Participants, meaning us, provide microloans to someone on the website.

Microloans have been recognized as one of the best ways to help the poor get out of poverty. Because the money is small the lender takes less risk and the opportunity becomes much more available to the average person to help. In third world country’s loans can be as small as $50 but they help build the dignity of the person behind the loans. Repayment in certain countries is extremely high because of the process.

Take a look.

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ONE Action

From Virginia at ONE.org

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A straight continuing resolution would have left funding at 2006 levels through all of 2007 – but a few weeks ago, ONE launched a major effort to raise awareness and save as much of the planned increase as possible. In January alone, ONE members sent over 200,000 emails, faxes and letters to their members of Congress urging them to fully fund poverty programs in 2007.

Last night, a bill was filed asking for a $1.3 billion increase in AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis funding – a full $300 million more than the one billion dollar increase ONE members urged their representative to save.

Sound Off

(Nothing is a done deal though until the bill passes both houses. A House vote is scheduled for tomorrow and a Senate vote is set for February 5. We’ll be posting updates on these votes times and outcomes on the ONE Blog.)

We have been told that this money, which easily could have vanished virtually unnoticed, was saved due to the pressure from the community. Without exaggeration, outreach on the 2007 CR may have just saved hundreds of thousands of lives in the world’s poorest countries.

Please send me an email or call me if have questions. Every convesation blog post on these issues counts.

Ginny

Virginia Simmons
Online Organizing Coordinator
The ONE Campaign

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