I've been a Christian for a lot of years. More years, in fact, than I was a nonChristian. But one thing I've found, one constant that seems to follow me from church to church, is the sheer refusal to follow Christ's admonition in Matthew 6:24 that you "cannot serve both God and Mammon". It hasn't been a reluctance; it has been a brazen, open recalcitrance to follow a passage of Scripture that cannot be translated out, even as they demand nonChristians follow passages that CAN be translated in a different manner.
I remember some years ago talking with an individual who proposed an intentional living community; a self sustaining village that he had envisioned. I pressed him for more of course, and as it turned out, the buy in was $60,000. Basically, to shed yourself of the need for wealth, you still needed to possess a reasonable share of it.
One of the biggest mistakes I have made as a Christian was in following the crowd because I hoped that somehow I would fit in with the crowd. That has put us in our present position, one which we are digging furiously to escape, but which will take some time and strategizing. It has in no small way compromised my health and certainly my happiness, as it has powerfully limited my ability to minister, something that's far more important than anything I could grind out on a mill.
But what frustrates me is being in a culture where the church thinks the absolute opposite. Where serving Mammon is considered to be a kind of Godliness, and where setting ministry aside for money is valued as a virtue. I'm not talking about meeting financial obligations; the Bible is clear that we owe those (which is why I'm working to get out from under them), but I AM talking about all of the extras we consider a part of our every day life.
Once we get free from our debt, one of the first things I want to do is to work to teach families how to transition "off the grid" so that they can live as God intended; serving Him and not the almighty dollar. But I'm running out of hope that there is a critical mass of fellow Christians interested in the same.
Monday, March 11, 2013
Saturday, March 2, 2013
Learning to be a Friend
It sounds a little crazy, but of all of the things I have had to learn in life, learning to become a friend was really the hardest.
I have always been antisocial, sometimes decidedly so. Although I talk a good deal, it's really more a defense mechanism. Talking about trivial things insulates me from having questions asked about the things that matter, the things that mean something. And in growing up, the social side of things was often ignored.
I remember the day, the very moment, when I realized just how important a skill that was to learn. A friend in our small church fellowship passed away, and although I didn't know them, I had to call, I had to comfort. It was a pressing need. I looked through the phone book, and I called his widow, and in the background (words obviously not intended for my ears), I heard the response of one of her friends who was with her as they passed the phone: "How did HE get this number?"
I wanted the earth to open up and swallow me right there. I wanted so much to be a voice of comfort, yet I was not. I was a nuisance, an annoyance at the very worst possible time.
I could relay other incidents too, but the major point is, in my quest to be what the world considered a success, I abandoned what was truly important. A few years ago, at my 20th high school reunion, I saw an individual that had once been a friend; not a close one, but honestly about as close as any I really had in those days. When I left Enid High at the youthful age of 18, I burned every bridge behind me, and consigned those relationships to the past.
That friend, sadly, is now dead, having taken her life earlier this year. And I will probably long be haunted by the question that, if I had been a better friend, I possibly could have provided shelter from the storms that ultimately claimed her.
A conversation I remember from my younger (and more foolish) days, followed the question of regrets. I said then that I intended to live a life without regrets, and to this day, I still hold to that position. Because, while I can't bring back those stolen moments, while I can't return the life of that friend who was taken from this world to her family, I have nonetheless learned a great deal from those mistakes, a lesson that shapes my interactions in the present and will shape my interactions in the future.
But that won't shake that haunting voice in the wee small hours of the night that force me to ask what could have been.
I have always been antisocial, sometimes decidedly so. Although I talk a good deal, it's really more a defense mechanism. Talking about trivial things insulates me from having questions asked about the things that matter, the things that mean something. And in growing up, the social side of things was often ignored.
I remember the day, the very moment, when I realized just how important a skill that was to learn. A friend in our small church fellowship passed away, and although I didn't know them, I had to call, I had to comfort. It was a pressing need. I looked through the phone book, and I called his widow, and in the background (words obviously not intended for my ears), I heard the response of one of her friends who was with her as they passed the phone: "How did HE get this number?"
I wanted the earth to open up and swallow me right there. I wanted so much to be a voice of comfort, yet I was not. I was a nuisance, an annoyance at the very worst possible time.
I could relay other incidents too, but the major point is, in my quest to be what the world considered a success, I abandoned what was truly important. A few years ago, at my 20th high school reunion, I saw an individual that had once been a friend; not a close one, but honestly about as close as any I really had in those days. When I left Enid High at the youthful age of 18, I burned every bridge behind me, and consigned those relationships to the past.
That friend, sadly, is now dead, having taken her life earlier this year. And I will probably long be haunted by the question that, if I had been a better friend, I possibly could have provided shelter from the storms that ultimately claimed her.
A conversation I remember from my younger (and more foolish) days, followed the question of regrets. I said then that I intended to live a life without regrets, and to this day, I still hold to that position. Because, while I can't bring back those stolen moments, while I can't return the life of that friend who was taken from this world to her family, I have nonetheless learned a great deal from those mistakes, a lesson that shapes my interactions in the present and will shape my interactions in the future.
But that won't shake that haunting voice in the wee small hours of the night that force me to ask what could have been.
The Cost of Discipleship
For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”(Esther 4:14, ESV)
I don't believe that it is at all arrogance to believe that we were born for a purpose, born to serve something larger than ourselves. And I've long wondered when it would be premature to discuss openly the direction in which I firmly feel my footsteps are being led, where conviction and circumstance have conspired to give me traction. And I believe, after reading through Eric Metaxas' biography of Deitrich Bonoeffer, that the time is now.
Through the last few years, I have watched as the workers of the world are villainized, are called parasites, accused of not paying their fair share, and, in the case of my undocumented brothers and sisters in labor, of stealing from the American worker. The lies of the leaders of this fair land should not continue to go unchallenged, and those of us who know better MUST speak out. If not me, who? If not now, when?
It has long been said that "well behaved women rarely make history". Well, I'll take it a step further and say that "well behaved ANYONE rarely makes history". If you march in the rank and file, you only allow unjustice to continue unchecked. And unjustice is the birthright for far too many.
My years in labor have led me from the kitchens of many fine restaurants, through the factories, the dusty underground mines, and the hot summer sun of the Mojave Desert, and to my current position of relative comfort. In all of those places, I have certainly found people who could be described as "slackers"; in NONE of those places was "slacker" a standard employed by even the plurality of those workers.
Understanding, as you must, that I have a committed pledge to nonviolence, I commit everything I have to speaking for the workers, to aiding their cause in obtaining fair pay, fair housing, food and healthcare, and to actively opposing those who would deny them these dues, which are owed to them by those who steal their wealth for their own private comfort.
I may be a lone voice, and I may die a lone voice, but I speak from conviction, and that is a position I will not surrender. The cost of discipleship is one I am willing to pay from this day forward, even if it costs me comfort in this world.
I don't believe that it is at all arrogance to believe that we were born for a purpose, born to serve something larger than ourselves. And I've long wondered when it would be premature to discuss openly the direction in which I firmly feel my footsteps are being led, where conviction and circumstance have conspired to give me traction. And I believe, after reading through Eric Metaxas' biography of Deitrich Bonoeffer, that the time is now.
Through the last few years, I have watched as the workers of the world are villainized, are called parasites, accused of not paying their fair share, and, in the case of my undocumented brothers and sisters in labor, of stealing from the American worker. The lies of the leaders of this fair land should not continue to go unchallenged, and those of us who know better MUST speak out. If not me, who? If not now, when?
It has long been said that "well behaved women rarely make history". Well, I'll take it a step further and say that "well behaved ANYONE rarely makes history". If you march in the rank and file, you only allow unjustice to continue unchecked. And unjustice is the birthright for far too many.
My years in labor have led me from the kitchens of many fine restaurants, through the factories, the dusty underground mines, and the hot summer sun of the Mojave Desert, and to my current position of relative comfort. In all of those places, I have certainly found people who could be described as "slackers"; in NONE of those places was "slacker" a standard employed by even the plurality of those workers.
Understanding, as you must, that I have a committed pledge to nonviolence, I commit everything I have to speaking for the workers, to aiding their cause in obtaining fair pay, fair housing, food and healthcare, and to actively opposing those who would deny them these dues, which are owed to them by those who steal their wealth for their own private comfort.
I may be a lone voice, and I may die a lone voice, but I speak from conviction, and that is a position I will not surrender. The cost of discipleship is one I am willing to pay from this day forward, even if it costs me comfort in this world.
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