I Need Everything But Whole
Global Perspective. My church stresses the importance of it during nearly every service now. I work for a company which does really good things for the communities that source America's dependence on caffeine. My friends, for the most part, value it and I rarely will even consider dating a guy that doesn't desire to live completely in service to it. Yet why in my life is money still an issue and a stress? I worry that I don't have enough to pay for my upcoming adventures overseas. I worry that I cant afford a health care bill should 
something happen that my insurance wont cover (thanks a lot Michael Moore) or a new car the next time mine breaks down in the middle of an intersection. I worry that I need some new winter clothes and don't have the money to follow through with this season's fashion trends, whatever they might be.
And then I talk to friends who live elsewhere and experience poverty first hand. The real kind of poverty. Not what we think of when we consider "poverty" in the U.S. where any income is at the very least, income. I visit websites like http://www.globalrichlist.com/ and reality begins to come back into focus again.
A few months ago I found some 1,000 dollar shoes in Cherry Creek once and I remember being really pissed off. First because there even exists such a thing as 1,000 dollar shoes and then because there was some deep dark hidden recess of my id that kinda wanted them. They were actually quite ugly so I'm not really sure what intrigued me about them. Though my parents are amazingly humble people in proportion to their income bracket, I guess I was still raised in suburban Denver so expensive taste and the desire to appear more affluent than is actually calculated in my bank account comes somewhat natural. Anyways, I also hate my car. But what I really hate is that I hate my car. It's a piece of shit really, but it still runs from point 'a' to point 'b' quite nicely and I don't really have to pay for anything on it, at least every month, so I should be grateful for the freedom from one more bill, right? After all, most people in this world don't even have a car. Or maybe more accurately....most people in this world have freedom from a car.
The assistant pastor at my church so aptly pointed out this week that many of us, especially those of us still living on wages, read all of the passages in which Jesus rants and scathed the rich for their love of money and stand back and say "get 'em Jesus!" We think he's talking to Sam Walton, the Olsen twins, Bill Gates, and Oprah. Really though, when we take on a truly Global Perspective isn't Jesus actually directing his words right at you and at me? Right at me because of my piece of shit car and because I can consider a new trendy shirt or two when so much of the world can't even claim two shirts for their entire wardrobe. So why is it so hard to maintain a Global Perspective when surrounded by 1000 dollar shoes? My answer would be because maintaining perspective would necessitate a Global Responsibility. One that is completely counter-cultural, frightening and shall be the subject of my next few blogs.
something happen that my insurance wont cover (thanks a lot Michael Moore) or a new car the next time mine breaks down in the middle of an intersection. I worry that I need some new winter clothes and don't have the money to follow through with this season's fashion trends, whatever they might be.And then I talk to friends who live elsewhere and experience poverty first hand. The real kind of poverty. Not what we think of when we consider "poverty" in the U.S. where any income is at the very least, income. I visit websites like http://www.globalrichlist.com/ and reality begins to come back into focus again.
A few months ago I found some 1,000 dollar shoes in Cherry Creek once and I remember being really pissed off. First because there even exists such a thing as 1,000 dollar shoes and then because there was some deep dark hidden recess of my id that kinda wanted them. They were actually quite ugly so I'm not really sure what intrigued me about them. Though my parents are amazingly humble people in proportion to their income bracket, I guess I was still raised in suburban Denver so expensive taste and the desire to appear more affluent than is actually calculated in my bank account comes somewhat natural. Anyways, I also hate my car. But what I really hate is that I hate my car. It's a piece of shit really, but it still runs from point 'a' to point 'b' quite nicely and I don't really have to pay for anything on it, at least every month, so I should be grateful for the freedom from one more bill, right? After all, most people in this world don't even have a car. Or maybe more accurately....most people in this world have freedom from a car.
The assistant pastor at my church so aptly pointed out this week that many of us, especially those of us still living on wages, read all of the passages in which Jesus rants and scathed the rich for their love of money and stand back and say "get 'em Jesus!" We think he's talking to Sam Walton, the Olsen twins, Bill Gates, and Oprah. Really though, when we take on a truly Global Perspective isn't Jesus actually directing his words right at you and at me? Right at me because of my piece of shit car and because I can consider a new trendy shirt or two when so much of the world can't even claim two shirts for their entire wardrobe. So why is it so hard to maintain a Global Perspective when surrounded by 1000 dollar shoes? My answer would be because maintaining perspective would necessitate a Global Responsibility. One that is completely counter-cultural, frightening and shall be the subject of my next few blogs.
posted by carlymarie | 3:57 PM
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