If You Can Read This… You’ve Got 10 Talents

Today is my birthday! I’m completing 45 years of life. Although only God knows for sure, in all probability, based on how old my grands and great-grandparents lived to be, and taking into consideration lifestyle choices, I’m probably at my half-life. I thought the same thing last year, but it’s mathematically neater this year – 45:90. And now comes reflection. What have I done this first half? Well, I’ll spare you the details; suffice to say I’m satisfied with the first half and I think that if the second half is comparable to the first half, it ought to be a pretty awesome life.


You might think that my awesome life has to do with my world travels – God willing, when this trip ends, I’ll have lived abroad in three countries and visited 27 foreign countries. Or maybe you think I’m referring to my educational and career achievements, or my cute little family. Thank God for all of these things, but my life is awesome in much more basic ways.


Not that I take any credit for this. Almost daily, I pause to think about the grand opportunity that I’ve been given to have this awesome life. If any number of things that are totally out of my control were different, I venture to say my life would not be so awesome. For instance, imagine I were exactly who I am, but I had been born in England in the 1600s. I wouldn’t have been able to go to school and use my God-given intellect. Let’s change another single fact: what if I were exactly who I am but had lingered just a little too long in the womb and, denied of oxygen, been born with a limited capacity for learning. Yea, that would have changed a few things.


It’s not just me though. If you’re reading this, your life is probably just as awesome as mine. Take a quick assessment:


Were you born in the 20th or 21st century?
Were you born in a developed country?
Can you read?
Do you speak the world’s dominant language (hint: you’re reading it right now)?
Do you have the means and intelligence to access the Internet?
Do you live where you can attend a church service without fear of imprisonment or other persecution?
Are you reading this while enjoying decent health, with functional eye sight?
Will you turn off lights before you get into an actual bed tonight?
Will you wake tomorrow morning with a very good probability of having the means to eat three meals?
Added to all these favorable conditions, do you have at least one talent or skill, such as athletic, mechanical, musical or artistic ability, good organizational, interpersonal or communication skills?


If you answered yes to these questions, you have 10 talents by virtue of the time, place, circumstance and natural endowments God gave you at birth! A child turning one year old today could (in theory) say her life is as awesome as mine!


Often, when we take stock of our lives, either on our birthdays, or when some new benchmark comes to our attention (like a friend buys a new car, or a neighbor goes on a cruise to Antarctica), we fail to acknowledge the 10 talents we started out with at birth. Instead, we’re more inclined to identify certain talents we weren’t given, or to completely miss the mark and dwell on stuff and things that have nothing to do with talents at all, evidenced by the fact that money can buy them. Instead of correctly understanding that we, as 10-talent people, have more than about 90 percent of the world’s population, we tend to overlook entirely our 10 talents and compare ourselves to everyone else in the 10-talent group. Compared to this elite group, we don’t rank so high and it leaves us feeling deprived. It’s a very clever optical illusion that distracts us from the truth of our privileged position.

A birthday is a great time to step way back and look at the big picture and see that as 10-talent people, we are truly blessed. Recognizing, and then really letting it sink in are just the first steps. The bigger issue is this: What are we going to do with those talents? This might be a good time for a short story:


There was a man who was “about to go on a journey, who called his own slaves and entrusted his possessions to them.
"To one he gave five talents, to another, two, and to another, one, each according to his own ability; and he went on his journey.
"Immediately the one who had received the five talents went and traded with them, and gained five more talents.
"In the same manner the one who had received the two talents gained two more.
"But he who received the one talent went away, and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money.
"Now after a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them.
"The one who had received the five talents came up and brought five more talents, saying, 'Master, you entrusted five talents to me. See, I have gained five more talents.'
"His master said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful slave You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.'
"Also the one who had received the two talents came up and said, 'Master, you entrusted two talents to me. See, I have gained two more talents.'
"His master said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.'
"And the one also who had received the one talent came up and said, 'Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you scattered no seed.
'And I was afraid, and went away and hid your talent in the ground. See, you have what is yours.'
"But his master answered and said to him, 'You wicked, lazy slave, you knew that I reap where I did not sow and gather where I scattered no seed.
'Then you ought to have put my money in the bank, and on my arrival I would have received my money back with interest.
'Therefore take away the talent from him, and give it to the one who has the ten talents.'
"For to everyone who has, more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away.
“Throw out the worthless slave into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matt 25:14-30)


Gads! What a scary ending. Puts the fear of God into ya! Makes me want to be sure to use my talents correctly!


My birthday is also a great time to read the ticker tape and see how my talents are doing. What am I doing to multiple each of my 10 talents? This is an entirely different set of questions that the ones we used to identify our talents. If God has entrusted me with these 10 things, how am I using them to His glory? Another way to ask this might be, What have I stored up for myself in Heaven? How am I putting to work my God-given capital to build stock in His kingdom?


Recall from the story, that as 10-talent people, more is expected of us: we are given our talents according to our ability. If God picked us to be 10-talent people, we can’t worm our way out of being big producers with some measly excuse about our lack of ability. It was according to our ability that we received the talents. Neither, as 10-talent people, can we compare ourselves to five and one talent producers and feel pretty good about what we’re doing.


Just as we are inclined to focus on the wrong scale when estimating our talents, we are also inclined to an errant perspective when we analyze how our talents are yielding. We tend to focus on what we are doing with our talents. We could more accurately assess our yield by asking what we could be doing with our talents. We may feel good about using our organizational skills on the church planning board, but could we also be organizing a city-wide furniture drive for the poor at Christmastime? We may feel good that we’re singing in the choir, but what about that song that God gave us that remains in our head when it could be written, published and enhancing the worship experience of thousands of people?


I’m no Madonna fan, never have been, but there is something pretty amazing about Madonna that we should all take note of: she’s not that talented. I have personally known a hundred church choir singers with talent superior to Madonna’s, as I’m sure you have. No joke, I probably sing better than Madonna. So what does she have that the rest of us singers don’t? Gumption. And, Brothers and Sisters in Christ, am I grieved to say, in general, we lack gumption.


If on your birthday (or any day), you have a nagging feeling that you’ve not quite accomplished all you could or should have by this age, that could be the voice of the Holy Spirit saying gently, “Turn your television off and get to work for me!” Don’t watch TV? Then maybe you’ve allowed yourself to become too busy with things of temporal importance to the neglect of things of eternal importance, and the HS is saying gently, “Stop shopping and get to work for me!” Or “Quite that silly job and come to work for me.” Or “Downsize so you don’t have to spend all weekend keeping up the yard and the boat and then you’ll have more time for me.” Or “Move to the inner city, which will cut your commute by two hours a day, housing costs in half and then I’ll be able to better use you as My witness to hurting people.” That nagging feeling of dissatisfaction could be any number of things the Holy Spirit is trying to tell you. The important thing is to pay attention to it, slow down, figure it out, then act on it so you won’t be all “woe is me” on your next birthday. Careful though, sin is crouching at the door to redirect that God inspired dissatisfaction and shift your focus to your position within the 10-talent people and to rank against temporal benchmarks.


Want more out of your life? Here’s the secret: Be faithful with a few things, and God will put you in charge of many things.


What more could you be doing with your 10 talents?

A Righteous* Holiday Gift

In this blog, I have started to examine the question, “How can I help poor people?” and I mean really help poor people. Since "'tis the season," let me just cut to the chase and offer a suggestion that I believe might actually be directly helpful to poor people and, conveniently, can also be achieved with a few clicks of the mouse and make for an excellent Christmas gift!

For the same amount you might spend on buying your mother a new sweater or piece of jewelry, how about giving a gift in her honor that would make a positive impact in the lives of people struggling in poverty? Sounds easy enough, but the problem for me is how to ensure that my gift is actually going to make the impact I'm being led to believe it is. For instance, I sponsor a child, David, through World Help, but I am not at all convinced that my $26-a-month contribution is actually making an impact in the life of the young man whose picture I have taped in my prayer journal.

Supposedly, my gift is enabling David to go to school. But what do you think would happen if I decided not to sponsor him anymore? Would he be called to the office one day during math class and informed by the principal that, regrettably, his sponsor withdrew and he has 10 minutes to clean out his locker and leave the premises? I highly doubt it.

I believe, instead, my $26 is aggregated with other funds to sponsor free education for all the children in that area, one of whom is David. Further, I feel sure that not all of my $26 is reaching that school. Even though, according to their annual report, less than 10 percent of funds collected are used on administration and fundraising, that other 90 percent likely goes to pay for staff, facilities and operating costs in the countries where World Help has program offices. Yes, those are legitimate program expenses that boost local economies, but if I want my $26 to go directly to David? Not happening.

Call me jaded, but I like giving models that are a bit more transparent (though I continue to fund David out of fear that he'll be expelled from school if I stop). I've spent a considerable amount of time in the last couple of days researching organizations I thought had such models, only to find that they simply have more crafty ways of doing the same thing World Help does: taking my gift that I believe is doing one thing and doing something else with it. Even if that something else is all-together good, as a funder, I like to know, really know, what my money is going for. Which is why I am excited to tell you about microlending. There are several notable organizations that do this, and I encourage you to research it further, or just click through to Kiva.

Kiva's mission is to connect people, through lending, for the sake of alleviating poverty. With Kiva, you can actually give a gift that keeps on giving. Rhetoric aside – you can spend $50 on a "gift" through Kiva, and use that same $50 to give another gift next year. So this year, give a $50 microloan in honor of Mom to a 27-year-old woman in Tanzania who wants to open a café. When she pays you back, you can use that same $50 to give a microloan in honor of Granddad to a barber in Mali who wants to purchase 5 new clippers, 6 pairs of combs and brushes, 5 containers of bleach, 5 bottles of 90% alcohol, 10 bottles of hair ointment, etc. Truth! These are actual microloan requests from Kiva. Best of all, there's a field partner on the ground who is making sure the money is used correctly and reporting back on the impact the loan made. As for the administrative costs so many other non-profits try to act like don't exist? Kiva suggests a 15% processing fee on each loan, which covers their overhead, but each and every one of your $50 is going to that barber in Mali. If you don't want to pay the processing fee, edit the amount to $0! Right now the Omidyar Network is giving a matching grant to Kiva for each processing fee. So if you're feeling generous, go with the suggested 15% or even higher, and your contribution toward operations will be doubled.

I hope I've said enough to drive you to click through to Kiva and learn more about what they do. It's no secret - the organization issued more than $66 million in microloans last year. That's a lot of $25 and $50 donors! So why haven't I heard of this before? Probably because I haven't been looking for ways to help the world's poor. I've been too busy asking, "What will I eat?" or "What will I drink?" or "What will I wear?" this holiday season (Matthew 6:31).

Kiva offers "gift-giving" possibilities for any budget. There's also the option of giving $25 loan gift cards, so your friend or family member can get the thrill of choosing the borrower. So, stay in your jammies, take the laptop to the sofa with a cup of hot chocolate and finish your holiday "shopping" with gifts that will not only warm the heart of the receiver and the giver, but will also honor God (Prov. 14:31).

P.S. Stay tuned for more insights on how to actually help poor people. I don't really know how to go about covering or exploring the topic, but I have been "tripping" over more ways to actually help poor people, so I guess I'll just present them as I find them.

*Not in the sense of being “holier than thou,” but as a double entendre meaning "cool," "awesome" and "amazing," as well as "ethical," "scriptural" and "virtuous."

The Cure for PGD (Post Gifting Depression)

I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure… Yet when I surveyed all my hands had done... everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun. Ecclesiastes 2:10-11 (in part).

When I was in the Peace Corps in Ecuador, I took a liking to a six-year-old boy who had run away from home and was staying in an orphanage while officials tried to locate his parents. I wanted to do something special for this boy, so I asked permission to take him home with me for one night. I worked in the social service system, and the powers that were knew me, so they agreed. This happened to correspond to my house-sitting for an American diplomat, so I took the boy to the diplomat's house, which was a lot nicer than my humble Peace Corps abode, and was fully stocked with toys, as the diplomat's family included two children.

The little boy was from a poor family, undoubtedly. And although the orphanage had some playground equipment, I doubted this child had played with very many toys in his life. In contrast, the two American children had a lot of toys -- an entire room dedicated to toys. For one night, the little runaway would get to live like the privileged American children of that household did every day -- quite Prince-and-the-Pauperesque.

When that little boy saw all those toys, his face glowed like a sunrise. Upon my urging, he dug into the toys, fast and furious. He picked up each toy, looked at it, asked me what it was or how it worked, made it do what it was supposed to do, put it down and then moved to another toy. He spent about two hours going through every toy in the room. When he had played with the last toy, he sat down, looked up at me with a sort of spoiled look on his face and said, "Is this all there is? I want more." Amazing. I wish Guinness had been there; I'm sure that I must have set the world record for spoiling a child in the least amount of time.

He was still the sweet kid I picked up from the orphanage that day, but in short order, he had exhausted modern life. In a matter of hours, he completed a cycle that takes many of us half our lives, while many others never come full circle. He had gone from having nothing to having everything he could ever dream of, only to arrive at the absurdist conclusion: Is this all there is?

Fast forward to here and now and you and me, this Christmas. Something similar to this happens to me each year on Christmas morning. I've been anticipating opening gifts for weeks, and then in a colorful frenzy of flying paper and bows, it's all open and laid bare at my feet. As I survey the loot, my internal smile fades as I ask myself, "Is this all I got?" OK, I’m being really honest here, so please don't think I'm a brat. Furthermore, I don't think it's just me. I'm willing to bet a lot of brutally self-aware people would admit to this letdown too. I think it's just part of the process -- all those gifts put us on an artificial high from which we have to come down. On the outside, we may be descending gracefully, as we store our new socks and sweaters, and show off our new jewelry to our Christmas dinner company. But on the inside, we may be pitching a little fit, thinking, I wanted more!

Just like I didn't dare say, "Shame on you!" to that sweet little runaway (OK, I admit, I can't remember his name!), I'm not going to shame you or me either -- well, not for that feeling of wanting more after the last gift is opened, anyway. What we should be ashamed of is that we've made the birth of our Lord and Savior the annual occasion that sets us up to experience the absurdity of materialism. That we are eager and willing participants of it on any date is to our discredit, but on the birthday of Jesus Christ? How very wrong.

As I see it, there are two possible ways out of this conundrum -- and neither is easy to pull off. 1. We could control our experience to ensure that letdown doesn't happen on Christmas morning, by insisting that someone (boyfriend, parents, rich uncle) gets for us the ultimate gift -- that very thing that could not disappoint. For me, this year, it would be a cruise to Antarctica. I can almost guarantee there would be no anticlimax to finding tickets for that under my tree. 2. We can control our experience to ensure that letdown doesn't happen on Christmas morning by making that day about something other than gift-giving. Sounds radical, but it's very doable. We actually have a holiday like that -- it's called Thanksgiving. No one expects gifts on Thanksgiving. It's a wonderfully sacred day for family and appreciating our heritage and our many blessings. No gifts, no letdown, and we generally keep the true purpose of the holiday in focus.

Why couldn't we do this for Christmas? I know exactly what you're thinking: Nobody else is doing it; the whole world would be against it; it would be complete and total nonconformity; and furthermore, I like Christmas the way it is! Ironically, those are also the strongest arguments for ditching our current tradition. As followers of Christ, "everybody’s doing it" cannot justify our actions. Jesus said, "Wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it" Matt. 7:13b-14. And we also know that we are not to conform to the pattern of this world (Roms. 12:2a). We're in this world, but not of it, which requires us to examine all we do under the tough scrutiny of this standard: Would Jesus approve?

Would Jesus approve of $500 of spending per person on Christmas gifts? If not, what amount do you think He might approve of? Maybe the amount doesn't matter if the gift is practical and will be put to good use, like a cappuccino machine or Hickory Farms sausage rolls? (Oops, I'm being sarcastic again.) I'm not going to answer this question, just pose it: How do you think Jesus would like for you to spend your money on His birthday?

My birthday is coming up, and as the keeper of the purse in my house, I care very much about how much is spent on that occasion. I want a homemade cake, a clean house (without any effort on my part) and a pedicure -- $10 at a local beauty college. I approve of this frivolous use of $10 on my birthday! On the other hand, though I would be endeared at the gesture, if my husband were to bring home an emerald ring (I've always wanted an emerald ring), I would wear it on Christmas and then insist he return it and get our money back on December 26. I could not in good conscience enjoy that ring, knowing the power to pay other obligations that it represented. If wearing an emerald ring were a higher priority than publishing my next Christian book or saving for my children's college education, I could keep it and enjoy it. And this, I'm afraid, is why we can enjoy so many of the expensive and not-so-expensive trinkets we give and get at Christmas... because having them is higher on the priority list than some other things.

Smile Train can fix a cleft palate for $250. For the same cost as my emerald ring, I could make a life-changing gift to two children. But who's thinking in these terms as we cruise the mall looking for gifts? Nonetheless, I am not exonerated in choosing an emerald ring simply because I didn't think of giving the money instead for two cleft palate surgeries. I feel certain that "It never even occurred to me," will not work as an excuse when Jesus is separating the sheep and the goats.

Please don't think me a Grinch. I love holy days as much as the next good Christian and I'm deeply sentimental, which is why I want my holidays to mean more. I'm not against gift-giving, but I am for gifts that mean more than fuzzy socks do (although I love me some fuzzy socks!). What rational argument can be made against gift-giving in a way that is consistent with our espoused values and beliefs? Gifts given and received in His spirit will not create a letdown, and are anything but meaningless.

End note: In preparing this article, I came across an interesting Web page entitled Liberal Reasons Not to Celebrate Christmas. If my reasons for nonconformity with current Christmas practices haven’t resonated with you, maybe some of those will.

Easing Into It

This sermon, "Money Matters: God Knows it Matters to You!" is an easy introduction to the truth about money, that when developed and followed to its logical conclusion would rid us of all notion of personal possession. The problem is that most of us are stopping far short of the logical end, and are instead self-satified with using our car to take youth to volunteer for a couple of hours. As long as we're doing as much or more than the next guy, we're doing OK, right?

God does not want us to compare ourselves to each other, but to hold ourselves accountable to His word and His standards. If Jesus were alive today, would He even own a car? Food for thought.

Modern Lamentations

Modern Lamentations

My eyes fail from weeping,
I am in torment within;
my heart is poured out on the ground
because my people are destroyed,
because children and infants faint
in the streets of the city.
They say to their mothers,
“Where is bread and wine?”
as they faint like the wounded
in the streets of the city,
as their lives ebb away
in their mothers’ arms.
Lamentations 2:11-12

“Sometimes I think, ‘If I die, I won’t have to see my children suffering as they are.’ Sometimes I even think of killing myself. So often I see them crying, hungry; and there I am, without a cent to buy them some bread. I think, ‘My God, I can’t face it! I’ll end my life. I don’t want to look any more’”
Iracema da Silva, slum resident, Brazil, from Christian Century, 12 Nov ’75, p.1030.

It’s been a long time – more than 35 years, since Iracema uttered those modern lamentations that, despite a difference in continents, cultures and more than 20 centuries, sound alarmingly like the Lamentations of the Prophet Jeremiah. I wonder how she’s fairing now? Finding Iracema today, if she’s still alive, would be like finding a needle in a haystack in the favelas of Saõ Pablo – which are as alive and unwell today as they were when Iracema made that statement. In fact, from 1980 to 1999 the number of people living in poverty in Latin America rose from 63 million to 130 million.*

“I like Saõ Pablo,” my local Brazilian pastor said, “but I don’t like the slums.” Today, in addition to housing the poorest of Brazil’s poor, they are also breeding grounds of violence and drug trade. Favelas, projects, shanty towns… yep, Jesus was right, the poor are still with us. But whereas some pie-in-the-sky think tanks and politicians continue to strategize about eradicating poverty, I just want to know, “What can I do that would really make a difference.”

This is the question that I am going to be blogging about for the next months. I’m in Brazil – it’s a great place to be contemplating this question for a number of reasons. First of all, the income gap between the average rich and the average poor is much greater than in the United States – with the country’s richest five percent of the population possessing 25 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), while 30 percent of the nation’s poorest scampers for 7.6 percent. This is actually not as bad as the gap between rich and poor in the US – the number three country in the world with the biggest gap between rich and poor. Nonetheless, the project poor still live in standard housing with indoor plumbing and electricity and many have cell phones (though they aren’t always working) and can afford to buy new clothes and eat out. Favelas poor live in substandard housing without modern amenities, and on their average earnings of $2 a day*, you can bet they’re not buying minutes for a cell phone.

Secondly, I am learning through personal experience what constitutes necessity and comparing it to my previous lifestyle in the United States. Before we left the country, we packed up our entire household and put everything in storage (because we are hoping our house will sell while we’re gone). We rented a 10’ x 30’ storage unit as well as borrowing a storage shed from a friend and storing our car at my sister’s house. We had a lot of stuff and it was never more evident than after we made what we thought was the last trip to storage. The house was so empty it echoed. The only furniture left was a desk, chair and mattress, yet on the last morning in the States, we had trouble fitting all of our remaining possessions in an SUV to take them to storage. Wow! I remember when I moved to Savannah, Ga., in 1995 with so few belongings that they fit in a Mazda Protégé plus a car-top U-haul carrier. Now I am part of a family of four, but still, that was a whole lot of stuff! I’ve been a busy little consumer, haven’t I?

In contrast, we moved to Brazil with a baggage limitation of 70 pounds each. Since we’re only going to be in our home here for seven months, we don’t want to go hog wild setting up house just to have to break it all down again. So our house is much more sparsely furnished than it was in the US and we have resisted buying things that we relied on in the US but have found we can do without here in Brazil. For example: I really want a garbage can under my desk, but I guess I’ll do without one. As my daughter told me while I was contemplating purchasing one: “You don’t need a garbage can under your desk. It’s good exercise to walk to the kitchen.” And so we don’t have an electric mixer or loaf pans or more than one towel per person or an ottoman to rest our feet on, but after three weeks of being in our house, I have to admit, we have everything we need, in fact more than we need, and it ain’t much!

Thirdly (and though there are other good reasons, I’ll end here with #3), I’m already trying to decide what to do with our stuff when we leave. The furniture we can sell back to the used furniture store we bought it from and many other things have been borrowed from the church, so they’ll go back there. That still leaves a bunch of stuff: toys, linens, kitchen appurtenances, a stroller. Like that last load to storage, it will be more than we thought.

I am reading Ronald J. Sider’s Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, and as I was reflecting on it yesterday, I started to look forward to the day I could give away all my remaining things when it’s time to go back to the States. I imagined myself pulling up to the local favelas in a truck, putting the tailgate down and then knocking on some doors to tell people I have some things to give away. As these random lucky recipients began to understand what was going on, they would rush the truck and start to indiscriminately grab things until just moments later, nothing remained. Now, before you go thinking that is some sort of unfair depiction of what might happen, I should tell you (briefly) about what happened when my roommate Karen and I decided to have a garage sale in San Golquí, Ecuador, as we were finishing our Peace Corps service. It was like nothing I’ve ever experienced. We did no advertising, just early one morning started setting up a couple of tables in front of our apartment and starting bringing our things out to sale. People looked but said nothing, and we wanted it that way until we got set up, since it was just the two of us to haul out a lot of stuff. Finally, when we had everything out, we began to announce in loud voice that things were for sale – cheap. It started out slowly, with a few people cautiously approaching the tables in curiosity and confirming what we were saying: “These things are for sale? And how much do you want for this?” When word got out that we were selling our stuff cheap (typical garage sale prices), people mobbed us. We’re pretty sure we lost a good bit to theft – we couldn’t keep up! It was commerce madness! And it was over in no time.** So, my favela fantasy is based on that experience.

In my imagination, I then followed a random lucky favela resident home with her new possession – let’s say it was some plastic food storage containers in a pleasant lime green color. Now she has someplace to store her sugar, flour, rice and beans. All this time, she’s had to suffer storing her dry goods in the plastic bags they came in, but now, she has color coordinated storage containers that will keep food fresher for longer! What joy! What enhanced quality of life! She’ll be the envy of her neighbors and she’ll wonder how she ever got by without them. When they finally wear out, she’ll have to cut corners for a month to save up money to replace them, because going back to life without plastic food storage containers is just not an option.

See my point through the heavy sarcasm? How can we (and I, specifically) help poor people? If giving my stuff to them doesn’t do it, what will? In a matter of a minute or two, I ran through the gamut of known avenues of assisting the poor and all of them came up with similarly absurd endings. The fact is that nothing seems to be working. Poverty is so wide-spread and systemic; what can I do about it? Let me cut to the chase and say, I DON’T KNOW! But that is the question I’m going to explore in these next months. Stay tuned.

*Pobreza e Desigualidade no Brasil, a UNESCO publication, 2003

**This is too funny so I have to share it, but I didn’t want to detract from my line of thought up there: Throughout the afternoon after the garage sale, people kept knocking on our door asking us if we had anything else to sell. I’m pretty sure we told them “no,” but people kept coming. Early the next morning, another knock on the door. I answered in my night clothes.
The woman said, “Do you have anything else to sell?”
“No, I’m sorry, we sold everything we had to sell yesterday.”
“You don’t have anything left?”
“No, nothing.”
“What about that nightshirt you’re wearing?”
The woman wanted to buy the clothes off my back! She nudged her way in the door and started looking through the house for anything else that might not be nailed down. She found a piece of fabric – very pretty – that I intended to take home with me.
“What about this?”
“That’s not for sale. I’m taking that home with me.”
She picked it up anyway and started to negotiate a price. I tried to gently take it from her, reiterating that I wasn’t going to sell it. And before I knew it, we were in a literal tug of war over this piece of material! I forget just how we finessed it – maybe I sold her my nightshirt as a consolation – but with some imploring and insistence, we finally got her out of the house – and locked the door behind her!

The Mennonite and the Diva

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?


And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, "What shall we eat?" or "What shall we drink?" or "What shall we wear?" For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Matthew 6:25, 26, 28-33.


I saw something in WalMart the other day that caused me to evaluate my value system. I saw a Mennonite family that had adopted a Chinese baby girl.

It is rather ironical that Mennonites dress plainly so as not to call attention to self (among other things), and yet their style of dress is quite attention-grabbing. The purpose is defeated whenever they leave their own circles. And so I notice them, but not just notice, I ogle them. I cannot explain my fascination with Mennonites - I just love to look at them (though try not to be caught doing so). But on this day in WalMart, I was staring at something more than their bonnets. I was so stunned by the site of a little Chinese girl dressed in calico that I just walked right up to the older sister who was holding her and asked the obvious, "Did your family adopt her?" (She could have been a foster child, I guess.)

Yes, they had.

The baby, who had a beautiful name I can't recall, had been in the U.S. about three months. She looked to be about 18 months old. I said a few words to her and then put my foot in my mouth again, saying, "Oh, I guess she hasn't been in the country long enough to learn English." Then I recalled that many Mennonites speak German in the home. We had a nice little conversation between two families who have adopted. They also inquired of my son; we exchanged well wishes and went on through the checkout.

On the ride home, I told my daughter, "I feel sorry for that Chinese baby." We chuckled thinking of the day she finally realizes she had been brought to the land of opportunity by Mennonites. As the humorous thoughts were forming in my head, I simultaneously recognized there was a problem with my thinking. So I began to explore mentally why I thought the Chinese baby was less fortunate than if she had been adopted by a mainstream American family. What do we have that Mennonites don't? Certainly not money. The Mennonites in this area are well-off - simple, but not lacking for anything. They use electricity, drive cars and have cell phones, so they don't lack for modern conveniences. They shop at the same grocery store, and I've been to their bake sales - food is certainly in their favor. I finally concluded that what we have that they don't is a huge variety of fashion accoutrements and entertainment choices.

Wow. So I felt sorry for that little Chinese girl because some day she would realize she can't wear paisley, and that she would miss out on things like "Alvin and the Chipmunks," "Hannah Montana" and when she’s grown, "Desperate Housewives." How could a stable family*, and a strong, moral community make up for this little girl being denied pop culture?

Even as I was reflecting on how much I apparently value fashion and entertainment choices, I received in the mail a review copy of Divanomics: How to be Fabulous When You're Broke by Michelle McKinney Hammond. Normally, it would take me up to six months to review a book, but on that same day, I just happened to have a two-hour window with nothing else to do but read. I was intrigued to learn that the well-known diva had come on hard times - books not selling and all that - and now had major financial problems such as needing to dump an overpriced condo, staving off creditors before they repossessed her wig collection, and the like.

Having always lived modestly - and not by choice - I found it hard to muster sympathy for Hammond as she is forced to deconstruct her empire. I would not be so bold as to say that God brought her to this financial trial as a way of setting things straight, but it is quite obvious that in this trial, He is drawing her closer to Him. I was touched by her final reflections about the things that truly matter. The book is packed with decent advice about how to live frugally, but nothing ground-breaking. It might be useful if, like Hammond, one had never in her life given a thought to being frugal and now suddenly needed to become just that. However, for those of us who have been living it all our lives, this book reads like Dick and Jane. I did learn a new trick about house-sitting a McMansion in the chapter "How to Live in a House That's beyond Your Means."

Let's just take that trick, for example, and dissect it. The advice is that there are agencies (she lists a Web site), that represent people who are out of the country, have more than one home, are trying to sell their home, or for some other reason, have a huge, hunking house that is sitting vacant, and would be agreeable to someone living it in for free, in exchange for them maintaining the lawn and deterring thieves and vandals. Sounds pretty good until you consider that the utility bills would probably be more than rent on a two-bedroom apartment, and maintaining the home and grounds of a McMansion is like a part-time job. And for what? So you can impress your friends with 4,000 square feet more space than any single person needs? And forget about watching any scary movies while living in that big house all alone!

The fact that Hammond would guide women into unnecessarily getting into a huge house just for the look and feel of it gets to the heart of a basic assumption that we need to challenge - and it's the same assumption that led me to feel sorry for that adopted Mennonite child: Variety, luxury and brand names are hallmarks of a good life. Divanomics reflects the confusion in Christian thinking on the matter of prosperity and luxury. This is also a topic I am exploring in this blog.

On the one hand, we have the Proverbs 31 woman, dressed in fine linen and purple, bringing her food from afar, with kids clothed in scarlet. On the other hand, we have Jesus telling us that if we want to be perfect, we need to sell our possessions and give to the poor. These are seemingly contradictory, and since there are so many more scriptural references to prosperity (albeit, mostly in the Old Testament) than extreme generosity, a lot of Christians are claiming the prosperity promises with only the occasional nod to gospel generosity. I don't have all the answers, but I do know this: If both of these concepts are recurring in God's one Word, there must be a way to reconcile them.

Oh, what's that? Look what Jesus said at the beginning of this article (and in Matt 6:28-33). Don't worry about clothes, food and the wine list, instead occupy your mind and energies with seeking God's will for your life and He will add all these things to your life. So He wants His children to dress in fine linen, but not to put the appetite or pursuit of it above Him. That was simple enough.

Does Divanomics promote worrying about food, drink and clothes? Well, it is an entire book dedicated to seeking these things out. Beyond that statement, I am ordering my jury to remain silent and leave the final judgment to the reader. The case is somewhat complex, with Hammond mixing in personal testimony, instructions on tithing, and teaching some basic survive-on-the-cheap skills.

I did arrive at a verdict about the Chinese baby, however. I decided that my thinking has been distorted by materialism, and that child is, in fact, blessed.


*In 1982 (last reported stats I could find), when U.S. divorce rates were at a high of near 50%, only 3.5% of active Mennonites had ever divorced or even separated.

Quitting Time

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Matthew 6:25-26

In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat - for while they sleep he provides for those he loves. Psalm 127:2

Do not wear yourself out to get rich; have the wisdom to show restraint. Proverbs 23:4

For overachievers, hell on earth must be an hourly-wage job. A company policy against overtime keeps them from their obsession do more and better. There probably are some misplaced overachievers here and there in the hourly workforce, but I bet that most often, if an overachiever is in an hourly-wage job, it is stepping stone to something less restrictive. I think of overachievers as typically being in salaried or commissioned positions, or self-employed - a work arrangement from which they can reap some positive reinforcement for their obsession.

Maybe I'm being harsh on overachievers to say they are obsessed. I do believe there are seasons in a person's life that are prime for high productivity and if we have the God fortune to find ourselves in such a time and engaged in an activity for which we are well-suited, we should go for it! Produce, produce produce! However, many an overachiever cannot discern when they are in such a season - they think any season is prime for production. Consequently, there are those who neglect sleep, their health, finding a spouse, or if they found one, neglect the spouse and their children, God, family and even the dog just to get in one more sales call or finish one more chapter or check the balance sheet one more time. Being busy fulfills them. Perhaps they think they are living out Solomon's best case scenario: eat, drink and find satisfaction in work for the few days God has given us (Ecclesiastes 5:18). But look what else Solomon said: "In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat," and "Do not wear yourself out to get rich; have the wisdom to show restraint." When we juxtapose these scriptures to a 16-hour work day, overachieving does seem to be a mental ill - an obsession.

Solomon wasn't addressing everyone in these verses, because not everyone has this problem. Many have the opposite problem and to those, he said things like, "A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man" (Proverbs 6:10-11). And then there are those who have found the middle way - balance. I venture to say that working an hourly-wage job is conducive to having balance in your life. When the "whistle blows," it is quitting time and off you go to enjoy life outside of work, which usually bears no resemblance to work.

So this entry goes out to all my self-employed, salaried or commissioned homies who aren't calling it a day at the blow of a whistle: Show some restraint. Set yourself a work schedule and, against every fiber of your obsessed being, stop working when quitting time comes. Turn the phone off. Take the wife to dinner. Make every soccer and t-ball game - the season is short. Take a Sabbath (that's once a week, BTW). Take a vacation. Celebrate the holiday, all day.

Easy for me to say, right? Actually, no, it isn't. I struggle almost every night to make dinner while there are still people at the table. I work at night, making it particularly hard for me to call it quits and go to bed on time. I've made great strides in this regard, however. Some years ago, I would work until the wee hours of the morning, now I rarely work past 11 p.m. But my bedtime is 10 p.m. (to get eight hours of sleep), so I have a ways to go.

Jesus (kind of) said life is more important than being able to sport Rolex and Armani and eat at five-star establishments. Yes, but for many an overachiever, Rolex and Armani aren't even on the radar. We're just overachieving for the heck of it - not even really seeing any wealth or prosperity as a result. How much more vain is that! Then there's the overachieving minister. This is the hardest nut to crack because he feels his obsession is sanctioned by God Himself. He's doing the Lord's work, so it is OK to abandon all restraint. After all, the fields are ripe for harvest and the laborers are few. We've got to make hay while the sun still shines! If we go to bed now, a soul could remain lost as a result.

Newsflash: We are expendable; God can call a lost soul to Himself in some other way if we take the day off. And we are no exceptionl; the commandment to rest on the Sabbath was meant even for the men and women in God's service. Just because we're in the family business does not mean the policy manual does not apply to us. Even Jesus observed the Sabbath and holidays, and every once in a while, He just got away from it all to refresh and renew. He had only three years to minister to all of humanity. Surely our deadlines and sales goals pale in comparison.

Contemplate this: Have I allowed work to overstep its rightful role in my life?