Let's see, what's changed since August 2008?
Everything. Most people now have a 201-k, as half their retirement savings are gone. It's a good time to be a renter in NYC. Times are tough, and will likely get tougher all over the world.
Sorry for being a little heavy in my first post out of hibernation, but....
Big responsibility for those that God decided to give money to. Here's a combo that's not really so good. It's being rich and indifferent to injustice and extreme poverty. That's been on my mind a lot lately. Three weeks ago, our pastor spoke on mercy and justice--talking about what angers Jesus, or makes him indignant. It was the injustices: religious people not wanting him to heal hurting people on the sabbath, commercialism happening in the temple, and children being overlooked as insignificant.
Charity was sort of en vogue during the boom times of the mid-2000's. The world seems to be circling the drain at this point. I wonder how much worse it could get for the poorest of the poor, when the rich are no longer feeling so rich and generous?
There's a book coming out in March written by Richard Stearns, the president of World Vision called The Hole In Our Gospel. Read a summary of it here.
From Stearns: Twelve million orphans, and no one noticed? But what sickened me most was this question: Where was the church? Indeed, where were the followers of Jesus Christ in the midst of perhaps the greatest humanitarian crisis of our time? Surely the church should have been caring for these “orphans and widows in their distress” (see James 1:27). Shouldn’t the pulpits across America have flamed with exhortations to rush to the front lines of compassion? Shouldn’t they be flaming today? Shouldn’t churches be reaching out to care for children in such desperate need? How could the great tragedy of these orphans get drowned out by choruses of praise music in hundreds of thousands of churches across our country? Sitting in a hut in Rakai, I remember thinking, How have we missed it so tragically, when even rock stars and Hollywood actors seem to understand?
I was fortunate enough to be able to work at a food kitchen in the Bronx last week through my work (we're given the opportunity to volunteer a few times per year). It felt good to help, and it was a great reminder of the hunger and poverty in our own backyard. At the same time, a thought that crossed my mind is that even these poor would be considered relatively rich. You should have seen all the perfectly good food discarded from the homeless man's plate into the trash. 16,000 people around the world die every day from hunger related issues. They would have swarmed the discarded food, if given the opportunity.
Thick stuff, I know. Sorry man. I, like many normal 30 or 40 something white folks living in a life of ease, feel a little helpless. The problem is too big and I'm too insignifcant to make a dent. The equivilent of "my vote doesn't matter." I know Christine and I are really bothered by children, in particular, that are in pain, or are hungry. I don't think our anger is strong enough that we've moved on it too much. We should do more.
How much more? I love this quote by C.S. Lewis: "I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare…If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us,… they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charitable expenditures excludes them.”
I hate this picture, but it's powerful. It won the 1994 pulitzer prize.
