Thoughts on economic mercy

I've been enjoying the discourse on a young friend's FB post. Here are some thoughts they've inspired which are not intended to rebut anything anyone has said there, but are merely where I am as a result of their wonderful sharing. I have struggled of late with my inner longing to make radically different decisions than those which it seems my bride and I often choose.

God blesses us with many gifts in a variety of forms, and we take each one out of perspective and make it into something other than God intends. This certainly includes the gifts of personal responsibility and financial success.

• One way we misuse these is as an excuse to judge others' perceived shortcomings, to provide them with answers that "worked for us" that also just happen to be less demanding of us than living according to the grace and generosity of the Gospel. We tend to think that others are like ourselves, and that is largely true and very misleading, because there are many reasons why others may be unable to apply the answers that worked for us. 
• Another misuse of these gifts of God is to apply them to a different end than God intends, to a different goal than living our own lives in the grace and generosity of the Gospel. It is shortsighted, we say, to not build up our 401K to our target goal for our retirement, to not make our home down payment fund a high priority, to fail to invest in our future. We might even couch these decisions in terms of stewarding God's gifts - a valid approach when we're being accurate about that - when we're really making some of these goals into golden calves. Sometimes our approach to stewardship is too closely rooted in attempting to provide for our own security, as we gather more than our day's supply of manna. Of course, for Shabbat it's two days' supply, but we have lots of things which we rationalize are more important reasons than Shabbat for hoarding more than our daily bread. 
• One other abuse of God's gifts is to try to force them on others, especially those who have not accepted that they are God's beloved ones. Dare I try to legally force everyone to be generous to the poor in the name of economic justice? I must be generous, and must call others to be generous, but when I compel their generosity by force of law I rob them both financially and spiritually. This tendency has the same roots as every other overreach of power throughout history: even when primarily rooted in good-hearted desire for our brother, there is another root drawing malnourishment from our lack of humility and insistence that we will impose on others what we are convinced is best. So:
  • To what degree do we who believe in the scriptural mandate to care for the poor have a responsibility to compel our fellow citizens to do so through our legal institutions?
  • Is it right to ensconce in law those loving actions which God in his grace blesses us with the freedom to choose for ourselves in his Spirit or to reject?
  • When I make the government into the provider of people's needs, do I undermine the Gospel?
  (Those questions could inform another lengthy post.)

I know that I cannot share the Gospel with a starving person except first in the form of bread, and I have no bread to offer lest I appropriately steward it according to God's desires. But the purpose of my stewardship is not to fill up my storehouse so that I can be generous from it later.

Jesus never said, "Blessed are the rich, so strive to be like them." I don't care what 5 or 50 things rich people do that I don't, even rich Christians who are trying to help me be as successful as them. The rich have no corner on either generosity or (by any means) divine wisdom.

Now, the Holy Spirit? There is the One for me to heed, with regard to both my own decisions and my encouragement of others.

Thanksgiving 2013

A post started on Wednesday as indicated, but never finished due to time constraints:

I find myself needing to give thanks for things that aren't as I would have them, but are blessings even as they have turned out.

• Family members with whom I am now only united in the Holy Spirit, when what I long for is time in their physical presence.
• Friendships that have gone in a very different direction from what I intended, including some which have ended.
• A married life that is very different from what I might have chosen for myself, often very frustrating but, more importantly, overflowing with great love as we continue to grow together.

Busy, busy

Today is going to be crazy, but if I do it right tomorrow will be a semi-relaxing Thanksgiving day!

Oh, who am I kidding?

Today's word

borborygmus \'bor-buh-RIG-muss\ - intestinal rumbling caused by moving gas

Another word that I'm sure that I knew before, which always lies just beyond my reach when I'm groping for it.

Stress has strange effects

Our oldest daughter is experiencing her first bout in some time of a severely painful recurring health issue that she has been dealing with since she was a preteen. She is planning on being here for Thanksgiving dinner for the first time in a few years.

I can't help but wonder whether these two things are related, whether her body is rebelling against the stress of coming here and being with me. I don't especially have a reason to believe this is the case, but I'm thinking of how I feel - or maybe, since it has been so long since we've even talked, I should stick in the past tense: how I used to feel - when I was going to be spending time with my step-father. Of course, since the late 90's that has probably had more to do with him being an unrelenting judgmental redneck than any other unrepentance he had over the rest of our history, and neither of those conditions applies to my relationship with our daughter.

Today's word

There's no reason I'd post a link to yesterday's very common WOTD except for its unexpected relationship to a number of words with which I'd have never guessed it shared any etymological heritage.

2013 Day of Romance

It was a really nice day, even though we were both really tired by the end and therefore left a little early. My wife had woken up at 4 a.m. and not slept much thereafter, and I hadn't slept very well in general Friday night, awaking several times convinced it was later than it really was. We had to be up early to be down in Norwood in time for the start of the day's proceedings, and we wanted the dog to get bathed and trimmed this weekend, so he ended up taking a shower with me in the morning. I was still in pretty good shape time wise even after taking the extra time to clean him and get him mostly blown dry.

After getting the car defrosted - and a couple other false starts out the door for sunglasses and what all else - we were on the road just a few minutes later than I'd been hoping for. We're getting to know an increasing number of the couples in the larger community, particularly from down south. I think they especially appreciate when couples from Dayton find it worth their while to make the drive down for things like this. At any rate, I wanted to be early enough to say hi to a few of them before we got started, especially as we had seen several couples the previous week and were looking forward to seeing them again. In fact, all three of the presenting couples from the Weekend were there today.

We got there about halfway into the meet and greet period, but by the time we got checked into the event and placed our food on the snack table, we ended up with just a few minutes to grab a bite or two and a hug or three. The presentations seemed fresh even though we were somewhat familiar with the material. Still, I could tell that my bride was hitting the wall not long after lunch. Since we had plans to eat at a nearby Italian restaurant, we decided to stick it out through the remaining presentations explaining the basic concepts but to leave before the final two, a survey and a wrap-up that we can probably undertake on our own.