Making Time….
Nov 11th
One of the biggest things my family has battled with is the busyness of American culture. Nearly everyone I talk to agrees that America has a broken mentality of being too busy too often, leaving no time for the things that matter most: family, friends, peace & quiet. Instead, we sign up for too many programs, work too many hours, shuttle our kids from one place to another, work too much at church or other volunteer organizations, or just plain watch too much TV. If everyone agrees, why is no one rejecting the lifestyle?
In my family we’ve made rejection of this a priority. We try and keep work to a minimum. We don’t over-commit (which means we often under commit) to ministry work. We don’t sign our child up to do, well, anything. We don’t go out very often and we are getting good at saying ‘no’ when too many options present themselves on the weekend. Doing all of this has been a great improvement in our lives. We feel less hurried and we end up spending a crazy amount of time together as a family. When an opportunity comes up to see friends, to help out with a project that is a good cause, or to just go play at a park we almost always have time. Friends could call on a moments notice to hang out or to ask for help and we’re here just waiting.
But this is where the problem begins to surface We’ve learned that making time in life for relationships, family, and friendships is the right path, it’s an awesome step in the right direction. However, if no one else takes that step with you…it’s lonely and, quite frankly, boring.
You see, now we’ve got all the time carved out and, well, we don’t know what to do. We sit around the house basically staring at each other because, while family time is awesome, eventually you want to connect with other families (be it friends or extended family of your own). And, if none of them have the same vision you’re left sitting on the sofa hoping that someone will call.
So, this entry was born in frustration that we’ve made the step to build relationships, we’ve cut things out of our lives to make time…and no one else seems to be willing to put their money where their mouths are. Why not?
I love my friends. I love my family. I understand that everyone isn’t on the same life journey as we are. But it would be awesome if more people started taking time out of their lives like they say they want to. Everyone says they’re too busy, but no one actually does anything about it.
Sure, it’s a selfish request, but here’s my encouragement. Stop complaining about being too busy and take some actual steps to simplifying your life. If enough people actually start living this way, we won’t be so bored. Now go out there and learn to say “no” more often!! ;)
Corn Syrup Welfare
Oct 19th
This past week, I read a really interesting book: Searching for Whitopia by Rich Benjamin. This book was funny and challenging and I recommend it for any white person living in the suburbs or exurbs (if you have an open mind to how others see the world). However, this blog entry isn’t about the book…it’s about something that was said as an offhanded comment towards the end of the book. I don’t have the quote in front of me, but it went something like this:
“Most white suburbanites complain about their taxes being increased because they work hard and don’t want to subsidize a welfare state. They feel they’re paying for those who are ‘lazy’ and don’t want to work or supporting those with drug or other habits that they don’t think their tax dollars should pay for.”
I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I’ve heard this same old argument about why people don’t want to pay higher taxes. I’ve heard countless people who are otherwise compassionate declare that they don’t want their money going ‘down the drain’ to social programs that don’t work. I even used to think this myself. Then three different things changed my view:
There is no qualifier
I’ll never forget the day that Dean made an offhanded comment that solidified something for me. He was talking about the ‘more taxes for lazy people’ complaint above and pointed out that Jesus gave no qualifier for helping the poor. He didn’t say “give to the poor…but only if they’re not on drugs” or “give to the poor….but only if they work hard”. He didn’t even say “give to the poor…but only if it’s done directly and not through a larger government program.” He asked us to give to the poor…period. There was no qualifier.
The Modern Tithe
The second perspective changer came from a book called Pagan Christianity, which points out that our modern tithe does not equate to the tithe of the Israelites in the Old Testament. Back then, the Temple was much more like the government than a ‘church’. The tithe was taken in by the temple for a couple of reasons, but the main reason was to support the poor and widows who can’t take care of themselves. (do you see where this is going?) If the temple is serving as the government and the tithes are taken to support the poor, you’ve got something that looks a WHOLE lot more like our tax/welfare system than a church offering plate. God mandated people to pay into the welfare system of the day…and here we are complaining about it (oh, and we conveniently forget about “giving to Ceaser what is Ceasers”)
Corn Syrup Welfare
Now we come to thought #3 that hit me yesterday and brings us full circle back to Rich Benjamin’s “Searching for Whitopia”. After him quoting this oft-used thinking, he points out a very intersting fact about where our tax dollars are actually going.
Those of us outside the big ‘urban’ states think that our tax dollars are all going to big cities (New York, LA, Chicago, etc) to support these ‘welfare leeches’, but the facts don’t support this. When you look at where tax money is going, these states that have big cities actually take in less taxes than they pay out. This means that our Red State money isn’t going to their cities, their city-earned taxes are going somewhere else…so where?
As it turns out, all of our big ‘farm’ states pay in WAAAY less taxes than they get in return from the government as corn and soy subsidies. Our tax dollars aren’t primarily paying for ‘welfare babies’…they’re paying for corn and, more specifically, processed corn products.
If you’ve read any modern writing on how our food system works, you know that the government is HEAVILY subsidizing our “Fast Food Nation” of processed and packaged foods. Didn’t you ever wonder why a bag of Doritos is ridiculously cheap compared to, say, an organic zucchini? It’s because your tax dollars are making up the difference.
So, this brought my mind full circle to an incredible irony. We suburbanites are chowing down our McDonalds, Cheetos, and Corn Flakes faster than anyone in the nation. WE are the ones who are benefiting from these higher taxes. These aren’t “welfare subsidies”…they’re “junk food taxes”. If you want to complain about higher taxes, you shouldn’t be complaining about social programs, you should be complaining about how our government is pushing cheap, unhealthy, processed foods with your tax dollars. Funny how it’s always easier to point the fingers at others, but much harder to accept that our fast paced, junk food driven lives are really a major cause of our complaints. I’m not sure if YOU see the irony in this…but I sure do.
Think, don’t rant
I intended this blog entry not as a political debate starter, but as a thought starter. That’s why I’m leaving comments off. In the past I’ve seen that posts like this just cause a knee jerk reaction but my hope is that, if you can’t comment, you’re forced to think about it to yourself. Whether you agree or not isn’t the point…hopefully it’ll make you stop and think about the little bits of truth all around us that are cut off by political hacks and media pundits.
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