On the Ignorance and Poverty of my Wealth

By the grace of God I am very blessed to live in a wonderful 2 bedroom apartment with my pregnant wife in Springfield, MO. We're celebrating our 6 year anniversary this year with a "stay-cation." We're not going anywhere or doing anything, really. I took today off of work and we sat around watching season 6 of Lost on hulu using our free trial of hulu plus, which we absolutely have to cancel at the end of this week, and enjoyed each other's company. I went garage-saling this morning. It was nice. I'm a very blessed man.

But I just took the trash out. And while this week I might find it a little easier to count my many blessings, especially in light of the devastation of Joplin, MO that is getting national attention, at the garbage bin I was suddenly struck with the ruinous ignorance and poverty I'm subject to by being a normal, American citizen.

In the garbage bin I opened, I see that someone has emptied out their refrigerator, presumably because many leases are up this weekend. I always hate to see food go to waste, but something about it struck me as particularly tragic. There was a loaf of sliced wheat bread, only a few pieces missing, not moldy. A box of unopened, slightly thawed (can you tell I dug through this a little bit?) frozen taquitos. A reusable-disposable container of some kind of leftover casserole, a few half-full bottles of hard liquour, a jug of milk, now about half spoiled, I'd guess it's been there for about 2 hours, it was still cool to the touch. The most notable, and potentially salvageable thing--the item that made me dig around and look at all this--a 24-pack of Rock-star Energy Cola, one or two cans missing, still cool to the touch. I thought seriously about grabbing it, but I don't know that I like Rock-star Energy Cola because I've never tried it, and I know enough about nutrition and I'm an old man enough to know that I know that I don't want to like it. So I just let it sit there.

100 miles away, just an hour's drive down I-44, hundreds of people are suddenly homeless without food and shelter, and here is a refrigerator's worth of edible food, just spoiling in the trash can. And I'm not really scrambling to try to save it because it's been in the trash can.

We have our fair share of homeless people that wander our neighborhood here too. With our proximity to the 2 large Christian charities, Victory Mission and the Kitchen, we get a lot of homeless traffic, and even the occasional knock on the door asking for money.

Something within me is tempted to launch into a tirade about how wasteful this faceless, nameless enemy (& neighbor) is, but it's the plain truth that I am just as bad. I don't want to eat the perfectly good food or even try to salvage it for some other cause because it's "dirty." In many places around the world people would kill for these scraps, and there are even many without shelter and struggling to get their basic needs met less than an hour away.

I do not mean to complain about my station in life, on this week of all weeks, at this time when we recognize the sacrifices others have made so that we can enjoy the wealthy standard of living we all take for granted--indeed--that we even apparently discard before use for the sake of convenience. But I do think that it is appropriate to note simply the truth that in many ways our wealth, the opulent abundance that is "common" to millions, this ease and convenience of living disables us. We know very little about how to make it without the many conveniences we take for granted. And the smallest inconvenience of walking--or even driving 2 blocks to make a food donation to a local charity, or to get our hands a little dirty in order to save something wasted--this inconvenience is apparently too daunting or too expensive or too risky. We are, by and large, hopelessly dependent upon convenience and comfort.

Except for the survivors of Joplin, MO.

A particularly inspiring case is that of my friend Arin Gilbert's dad. He is a truck-driver from Joplin who (miraculously?) survived the tornado in the shelter of his sofa. His response to the case of the tragedy is particularly inspiring, and gives me hope for humanity and our nation.
If a tornado suddenly swept away my home and all my possessions, I would have no idea how to survive. I would have no idea how to hunt or gather food, or to build a shelter. In a very real way, my wealth makes me vulnerable, and weak, and stupid. I've never been forced to come up with a solution to these problems and so I am more or less helpless to solve them at 28 years old. If I were in the place of many people in Joplin, I would be utterly dependent on the mercy of others. I could not help myself. And praise God for that, because it means I have been very blessed with riches that would be unimaginable to most of the millions of people who have ever lived.

It is important to count our blessings and to share them, particularly at this time and place in southwestern Missouri. And I also believe that it is healthy to recon how fragile our apparently secure existence is on this earth, and to recon our very survival a blessing to be cherished. Take a note from Quincy Gilbert, who lives.

Disabling Comments, Enabling my Voice

I'm taking a note from Mark Sayers and Ty Melgren and disabling the comments on my blog.

Who is Ty you may ask?

Ty is this fantastic guy whom I admire very much who is a faithful member of our church and who serves Jesus and almost anyone he meets with gusto and intensity. He does so quietly and will almost never toot his own horn. Actually, I don't think I've ever heard him brag or say a single self-aggrandizing thing. He must be one of the best people that I know, and a few months ago he did a radical thing. He quit Facebook. He just closed his account. I went to tag him in a photo and found I couldn't do it. And I couldn't leave a comment on his wall to ask him why I couldn't tag him. I just had to ask him in person.

Let that sink in a moment.

I did ask him about it in person, and his answer challenged me, and I have checked in with Facebook much less often since we talked. He told me that he was finding himself constantly concerned with his status and the status of other people "in" his life. That he was only relating to people online that he used to relate to in person, and that too much of his life was constantly obsessed with these shallow and fleeting sound-bytes of self-edited reality. He found himself worried and stressed out by whether or not people would comment on his status--particularly the fact that others seemed to be interested and leave 20 comments on the most banal of posts and would seem to completely ignore the ones that he had intended to spark deeper, meaningful discussion. Frustrated with this, and following the example of a few peers (looking at you Mr. Eaton) and rumors of those brave souls who live their lives without being "connected" to the 500 million accounts of Facebook. He just opted out of the narcissism and constant striving for the praise of other people that occurs through updates and "likes."

Ty's example has caused me to question my own motivation for blogging. I have wondered whether or not the kind of things I talk about here and the things I want to see happen can happen through this media form or not. I feel that I want to have my cake and eat it too. I want the benefits of "engaging" with the bells and whistles of my culture without the cost of getting soiled by its unseemly side-effects. As a person who tends to see even the most clear-cut issues in shades of grey, I have, perhaps out of fear, opted for a middle ground.

I don't care what you think about this post.

I don't say this out of spite, malice, or some sense of superiority. In fact, I am sure that if you and I were to sit down and talk about the things that you think really matter, you would teach me a great deal about myself, God, the nature of reality, and my own weakness and ineptitude, for the simple fact that you are fearfully and wonderfully made by a loving Creator who has hidden aspects of Himself inside of you, and that no matter how broken and twisted He has placed there on purpose and will redeem if you will but ask, even if you are someone that many people consider to be a loser or a jerk. For God's love for you and for His glory revealed by your existence, you are worth knowing and listening to.

But I say this for myself. Your praise is ultimately just that. Your praise. Your opinion. What you "like" or "unlike" or find worthy of comment, while I value you inasmuch as I know you and know how to, I just can't make myself vulnerable to your whims and judgments. You aren't a just judge. You don't have the information, the goodness, or the wisdom to be. There's a lot you don't know about me, and as much if not more that I don't know about you, and for us to really hash out our disagreements, to really value each other and have a relationship worth having, we'll just have to do that by other means. And I find myself, like Ty, and like I suppose... every other person, tempted to bend my will to get you to "like" me--to approve and to praise my ego. This is wrong. And this way must be abandoned if we are to proceed in a way that is good to each other.

This is a very long way to say that I have come to think that when it comes to a blog--in which prose is posited thoughtfully and carefully for consumption and meaningful consideration for the simple fact that it takes more than a second of your time--if something is worth blogging about, it is worth blogging about with comments disabled.

What I am saying, I am saying whether or not you like it, whether or not you think it is interesting or worth commenting on, because it is worth saying and broadcasting on the internet, because it is good and true and ought to be known. Take it or leave it. If you like it or don't like it, that doesn't change what I have written, and you can certainly e-mail me or talk to me in person, but I am using this space to say things that I believe ought to be said, and if I enable the comments, I might think too much about you and your subjective little preferences. This isn't to say that those who enable comments are posting their posts in order to attract many positive comments and "likes." But I find myself too weak to engage in this meaningfully and well. At the same time, I'm proud enough to think I have something to say, even if only to the dozen or so friends who might read this thing. We can talk about it over a pint or a cup of Joe anytime you like. We could write e-mails or talk over the phone about it, or better yet write real letters! But I just can't do the comments. They gum up my creative works with insecurity and sin. So I'm opting out.

And by the way, Happy Easter. The Lord is risen! He is risen indeed.