Enough

I was in this discount bookstore the other day, one of those huge warehouse kinds that has all genres in no particular order spread across 78 fold-out tables. I was in what I thought to be the self-help section when my eyes came across a book entitled You’re Poor Because You Wanna Be. And I paused. Huh…

Did you know that most of the world lives on less than two dollars a day? Yeah, no joke. Out of 6 billion people, 3.5 billion [that’s over half of the world for you non-math-ers] live on less than two American dollars a day. You know what else? The average American teenager spends $150 a week. Half of the world could live on that for two months. Are you shocked? I doubt it. So, these people, these 3.5 billion… are they poor because they wanna be?

Part of the reason I desired a job that paid me a whopping $2.13/hour plus tips was because I wanted to see what it’s like. I wanted to see what it’s like to walk into a grocery store and be forced to choose – cereal or milk? Toothpaste or deodorant? You have $11 to spend today. What’ll it be? See, I grew up in a house that always had enough – more than enough. [I say this very thankfully. Please hear my heart.] When we ran out of Sprite in the fridge we walked 60 feet to the garage and got more Sprite to put into the fridge. When we ran out of bread… oh wait, we never ran out of bread. I got new clothes every school year, new shoes every spring, a television in my room, and soft toilet paper [that’s right, the expensive kind]. My family was middle to upper-middle class. We would never come close to MTV Cribs; but I never knew what it was like to lack anything – other than a Gameboy. [I always wanted a Gameboy.] I am so thankful for my parents and the opportunities I have had since birth – to get a great education, to be well-fed, to wear Abercrombie & Fitch all four years of high school. [Again, mom, I’m so apologetic. We could have gone on ten more family vacations with that money.] Please hear me, I am grateful and blessed; however… it came to my attention several years ago that I consistently take for granted my daily bread. It was then that it hit me...

Most of the world isn’t like me – or like you, perhaps. Most of the world must choose. Bread or diapers? Food or clothes? Rent or gas? Pick one, and then pray without ceasing that the other one comes through.

I sat in my restaurant months ago and watched another employee - a hard-working, reliable, and good employee – as he ordered two cups of soup for his kids. His kids are young, and of course, equally adorable. They took their oyster crackers and mushed them into their clam chowder and chicken tortilla. They were a mess by the end of it all; and when their meal was through, I watched as this hard-working, good employee poured the remainder of those soups into two plastic to-go bowls. Dinner. Please do not tell me that this hardworking dad wants to feed his kids ‘soup mush’ for dinner. Don’t tell me he’s poor because he wants to be.

I know what numerous people with enough say about the poor, homeless, and unemployed. I used to say it, too, until I lived close to it. “I’m not greedy. I simply believe in a hard work ethic. I believe that everyone has opportunities in this country to succeed, to make something of themselves.” We all hear, or say, phrases like, “He could get a job if he really wanted one. Why do we, the taxpayers, have to help feed her six kids? A family can live on minimum wage.” And many of us cling to this motto: “God helps those who help themselves”. [That’s not in the bible, by the way. It’s some phrase coined by some dead guy, maybe the same guy who said, “cleanliness is next to godliness”. In case we have forgotten, there were some pretty dirty, skanky, leprosy-covered people standing next to Jesus. Sorry, dead guy.] Truth be told, sometimes God DOES help those who help themselves… and truth be told, sometimes God helps those who can’t IN ANY WAY help themselves.

There’s this story in the bible about a guy named Job [rhymes with robe, and lobe, and the first part of Kob-e Bryant]. Job had a job [rhymes with mob] that paid off real well. He had lots of stuff, Cribs-worthy for sure. Job is a perfect example of how horrid, hellish things happen in life. Job wrote the book on “When bad things happen to good people”. Job was mindin’ his own business, livin’ his life, and disaster struck him down. Did he deserve it? No. But, nonetheless, Job quickly became one of those nappy lookin’ guys you pretend to ignore at red lights. He was stripped of everything. Family life? Gone. House? Gone. Checking account? Gone. 401K? Gone. Health insurance? Gone. Luckily [maybe] he still had these three friends who came to him and said, “What did you do wrong? You must have done something to deserve this. This bad fortune doesn’t just happen to people. You obviously haven’t lived your life right, made the right decisions. If you would just work hard enough then you could earn your place… in society.” May we all be so lucky to have these friends... But is that what we think? Is that what goes through our heads when we see poverty and homelessness and single moms struggling from day to day?

What if we just don’t understand? What if we just don’t get it? What if these situations are just foreign to us, cuz we’ve never been there, and all the while God is thinking, “Don’t judge my child. You don’t have a clue.” He/she might work way harder than you. Honestly, if we were truly going off of merit here, rather than undeserved grace, then maybe he would live in the mansion and you would be on the street. But that’s not how things work, is it? People’s wealth and possessions and position are rarely about how hard they work compared to others or how good a person they are. I mean, there are people who ‘have’ and there are people who ‘don’t’; and more often than not, there is no rhyme or reason to it at all.

Rob Bell, this great writer/preacher guy, once said, “It is a dangerous thing when we begin to think that OUR world is THE world.” So, may we seek to understand those different, and perhaps less fortunate, than ourselves. Because the reality is that, maybe through no fault of their own, people are oppressed and poor [in many ways] in this world. May we realize that the simple act of understanding and putting ourselves in their shoes is a way of freeing them from their oppression. How marvelous it is when one human being takes the time to know what another human being is going through!

May we not look down on those who buy cheap toilet paper. Seriously, it isn’t that bad. May we give everyone the benefit of the doubt, attributing to them the same positive characteristics we see in ourselves… and may we truly taste our daily bread – because it really is enough.

Dream Catcher

I psyched myself out. I got caught up in the waiting. Don’t we all? If you will notice [and as I ashamedly bring everyone’s attention to], I started this blog in March… it is now July. Roughly five months. Roughly five blog entries. … I have been waiting for what some of us might also be waiting for – passion, inspiration, motivation, dedication, and many other -tions. “I just need to get passionate. If I could only get motivated. I just need… If I could only…” and here I am five months later having spoken these same empty words time and again while staring at five blog entries. I would feel more guilty about this except for the fact that I realize it is the story of us all, and knowing that you struggle brings me comfort in a twisted kinda way. So thanks.

As kids a lot of us have these huge endeavors, these dreams that we envision as totally reachable. A little girl watches the winter Olympics and suddenly she wants to be Tonya Harding [ha, rewind. erase that.]… and suddenly she wants to be Kristi Yamaguchi and so she begs to take ice skating lessons. Soon, however, she realizes that it takes a lot of WORK to be Kristi Yamaguchi so… she slowly burns out and eventually quits. She then trades in her skates for a piano because becoming the next Mozart in female form is totally reachable and just around the corner. A boy watches Kobe Bryant and thinks, “That’s gonna be me one day”, and then he realizes that, because of those darned things called genetics, the likelihood of him even reaching 5’8” is quite unlikely.

All of us, from childhood, have these huge, awesome, fantastical dreams! Most, if not all of us, were told by somebody that we were ‘special’; therefore, we would be the generation to cure cancer, to create flying automobiles and live Jetsons-style, and reverse global warming to save the planet. We tell our children, “That could be YOU!” And that’s great and wonderful and I don’t think we should ever stop telling our children that – I mean somebody has to be the next Kristi, Mozart, and Kobe. Shoot for the stars and if you miss then you’ll still land pretty high, right? Isn’t that what they say? But this is my question… what if, since childhood, you’ve heard people say, “You’re gonna make it big. You’re gonna do great, huge, marvelous things!” and then you don’t? What happens when people have always told you that “you’re special and extraordinary” and then you realize that you’re… just… ordinary. What then? What a downer?

May I propose a thought? What if the little things you do, the things that look miniscule and unimportant and lack-luster such as letting that person at wal-mart cut in front of you in line cuz they look hurried and grumpy or smiling at the girl behind the counter at Arbys or handing a few dollars to that homeless man while you’re sitting at the traffic light instead of uncomfortably trying to make it appear as if you don’t see him three feet away, avoiding all eye contact – what if those things were actually HUGE things?! What if you believed that those little things could actually change the course of peoples’ lives!? What if all those little acts of grace or mercy or compassion or forgiveness are actually EXTRAordinary things? What if it’s those things that are slowly knitting the world back together as it should be?

We need to stop waiting for the ‘big’ things and instead be proactive in the ‘little’ ones. I’m preachin’ to myself here by the way, because I always thought I would do great, huge, majestic things such as spread Christianity through the hills of Hollywood, baptize Paris Hilton in a river somewhere, win an Oscar or at least be nominated and able to give my “Aw she deserved it” face on camera [yes, I practiced], write books for the masses, and be ushered around the world to preach and teach all the while adopting children wherever I went. People would call me the Angelina Jolie of the Baptist world. These were [ok, are] my dreams. You have them, too. Probably not the same ones... probably. ;) But you have dreams of doing great, awesome, huge things. And, honestly, it’s sorta like a death when you realize they probably won’t happen – but how life-giving a thing it was when I realized that all the little things I was doing were affecting the people around me in positive [or negative] ways far more than fame and worldly esteem ever would. Helen Keller once said, “I long to accomplish great and noble tasks, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.”

So, may we believe that God has created us to do what we can with what we have… today. May we never give up on our dreams, but may we also never wait for them at the expense of now. And may we insert ourselves into God’s massive story by loving the people around us the best we can, because the smallest, most miniscule acts do indeed change lives - and rock the heavenlies.