Practical Tips: Making New Friendships

This is my second blog post on practical steps towards community with Jesus and the poor. While I feel like the first subject (simplicity) was a tool that helps us follow God into love for others, this subject (friendships with marginalized persons) gets to the very essence of God's heart. Once again, you don't have to follow these steps in this order.



Step zero: Inspiration - Read From Brokenness to Community by Jean Vanier. The book is only 43 pages long. You can finish it in one sitting. But take your time.  If you consider his words seriously, there is a decent chance that it could change your life.


Step one: Make a new friend – Most of us do not spend time in the same places that marginalized persons live. Our neighborhoods are too expensive and our jobs are too well-paying. So the first thing you have to do is find a place that is closer to the margins of society. There may be a street near your work where people beg, a neighborhood on the way home known for people living on the sidewalks, or an institution nearby for people who are elderly or who have mental disabilities. Make sure it is place you can go back to regularly, because friendship will only happen if you have a consistent presence in that place. Go there once and find someone with some free time. Start a conversation. Ask questions. Learn from them. If possible, you can find a spot to have lunch together. And make sure you come back. Get comfortable enough in the place that people feel okay initiating conversations with you.


Step two: Invite someone into your home – Open up your home for dinner to someone who wouldn't normally get the chance. This might be a single mother from church, a veteran you met at the food pantry, or the person you became friends with in Step One. The more simple you've made your life, the more comfortable you will be taking this step. Try not to make it a one-time event - invite people as often as you are able. If possible, make it a potluck so your guest can contribute some of the food too. Try to create an atmosphere where they feel safe inviting you to their home as well. As in the first step, take steps that allow the friendships you form to last.


Step three: Make use of your extra room – Many Westerners have more rooms in their home than they need. Many other Westerners don't have enough resources to independently maintain a safe home. If your family could free up a room in your home, you could make that room available to someone who needs it. That "someone" might be a foreign college student who is just starting to learn the culture. It might be a kid who needs a foster family. It might be a disabled adult who can almost provide for their own needs, but lacks a family support structure. It might be a single mother who has trouble working and taking care of her kids at the same time while living alone. It might be someone you met in steps one or two. It doesn't matter who it is, the question is - do they need a home, and can you be that home?  It's okay in many cases to charge affordable rent, so that the person you're inviting into your home can make a contribution.  Shared chores and other shared responsibilities are also important.


Step four: Relocate to a new community – Step one started with the assumption that most of us aren't in the same communities as the marginalized. Ideally, we should change that. Move into a place that most people who are "like you" want to move out of. That may be an inner-city neighborhood where everyone is a different ethnicity than you, or the district that all the newest immigrants move into. It might be the area that's known for heavy drug use, or prostitution, or homelessness. In some regions it might be a rural area that has been neglected so that it doesn't have the basic facilities. Whatever kind of place it is, make sure it is a place where it is easy to find people who are significantly different than you, and live with intentional love there.


Further Study - I have found Friendship at the Margins and Making Room to be fantastic books on what it really means to be community to the people around us. Both books are best suited for those people who already take service to their community and friendship with marginalized people seriously, but want to understand more about what it means theologically and practically to love the people around them better.

I didn't talk much about why community with marginalized persons is important. Hopefully, if you've been my friend for a while, you've been able to get some idea of that. But if you're not sure, I'm happy to dialogue, as well as recommend many more books on the subject.

Life in Vancouver

I've loved my time in Vancouver, but I haven't shared much about our lives here.  For those of you who don't know, my wife and I have been in Vancouver doing orientation, formation, and team-building work with the goal of eventually serving in a slum in Asia.

There's a lot of cool stuff to talk about, but I figured I'd just give a breakdown of our typical day:

7:00am: At least a couple times a week I join the morning drop-in at the local gospel mission.  It's a chance to just get a coffee and chat with the guys, meet people, invite them to dinner at our place, etc.

9:00am: Team prayer meeting built around Scripture reading and intercessory prayer with a focus on justice.

10:00am: Language study, cultural experiences, team meeting, or anti-trafficking project, depending on day.

Noon-5pm: Depending on the day there might be scheduled meetings with staff or associated personnel, a team meeting to work through the new teams preparation manual, babysitting, or work around the house.  Sometimes community members drop by the house or I'll go out hiking at one of Vancouver's parks.

5:00pm: Three times a week we have a community dinner, which we (including other from the community) take turns preparing.  Anyone from the community is invited, provided they are willing to help clean up afterwards.  One day a week that community dinner is followed by “Creative World Justice”, where different people from the community come together to discuss issues of Biblical justice and creative techniques for addressing justice in society, then take practical steps to fight against the human trafficking and cruise ship labor exploitation that they've seen as major issues in our local community.  One day a week we have a team-only dinner followed by a formation time focused on issues related to living in the slum in Asia.

9:00pm: Evening prayer meeting, consisting of a Taize song, psalm reading, and silent reflection.

That's a pretty good look at life here.  The schedule is occasionally disrupted by all-day workshops (on topics like nonviolent communication or overseas service), or when assisting in the crack cocaine detox program that our house runs for the local community.

If you want to learn more about the community, here are a couple videos.  Thanks for watching!

Kids on the Block from Veritas Media Productions on Vimeo.

Practical tips: Simplicity

A good friend of mine suggested I share practical ideas for those who want to take steps towards community with Jesus and the poor from their current position in life.  I think that’s a really good idea, so I’m going to post on different topics within that sphere.   I know that a lot of other people have good advice too, so please share more ideas in the comments!

My first post is on outer simplicity.   The numbered “steps” correspond to how difficult it is for me to do these things, but it definitely doesn't mean you do things in that order.


Step zero: Background – Read Freedom of Simplicity by Richard Foster.  Inner simplicity will be lost if outer simplicity is never brought in.   Outer simplicity without inner simplicity will lead to legalism and burnout.  This book ties together every dimension of simplicity in a practical way.   Foster guides us through the joys of simple hearts and simple lives, and I recommend this book to everyone.


Step one: Get rid of clutter – Again, I want to caution first that outer simplicity without an inner grounding can end poorly.  Ask yourself, "Am I doing this to prove something, or to punish myself, or to make myself feel superior?   Or is this part of a larger process of simplifying my inner and outer life so that I can grow closer to other people and to God?"  I do believe that simplicity is a positive goal in everyone’s life, but it needs to be pursued with the right heart.

Now, one starting step is to realize how many possessions we have accumulated that we just don't use.  Do you see things sitting or stored in your home that you wouldn't miss if they were gone?   Are there things that would be better off with someone else, or being sold and the money used for the poor, or even sitting in a thrift store instead of in your home?   Are there things you could borrow from a friend twice a year instead?   Then why have them cluttering up your life?   Extra clothes, books, tools, utensils, cds, decorative items, toys, and other recreational equipment often fit into this category.   In extreme cases, some of us have things that really belong in the garbage can.


Step two: Make meaningful decision about possessions – A further step regarding material possessions is learning to discern which things don’t improve your relationship with God and others.   On a team in Manila I was led through a helpful exercise that I still think about today.  It goes something like this:

First, make a list of everything you own that you need to sustain your life, your relationship to God, and your Godly relationships and service with others.   Include things that you think you need to have to sustain your emotional well-being.

Second, make another list with everyone else you own that didn't get put on the first list.

Third, if doing this in a group, explain your justification for each item on the first list to the others in the group. When we did this in Servant Partners, we had some interesting dialogue on what sort of possessions were necessary!  Of course, you're likely doing this alone, so imagine what you would say if you were justifying these things to others.   Do these possessions really help you in your walk with God and your service to others?

Fourth, consider getting rid of items that remain on the second list.  Would your life be better off without them? If you can part with something, that doesn’t mean you have to – but ask, is it adding more quality to your life than it takes?   Is its cost (whether that be resale value, upkeep costs, or just the time and energy costs of having it around) worth it?  Start with the easy stuff – there’s bound to be at least a car-load of things you can automatically bring to Goodwill, so get rid of that carload first and then work on the harder stuff as you are able.  I thought I had a simple life already, but after I got back from Manila I had to make three trips to the thrift store before I was done getting rid of things on the second list!


Step three: Eliminate time sucks – Get rid of the things that waste your time. This is more difficult than freeing yourself of material possessions.   I'm not saying to eliminate recreation – hobbies and entertainment can be good for the soul and relationships.  But you can discern whether a hobby is beneficial to your life or is taking life away from you.   For some people television, video games, internet browsing, phone and text use, or social media can be the greatest culprits.  For others it may be fruitless social hangouts, following sports, or shopping.   Some activities might need to be scaled back – determine an appropriate amount of time each week that the activity deserves.   Others may be better to quit cold turkey (I’ve had to do this with television and sports for periods of time in the past).  It’s amazing how free you can be to pursue life-giving activities when you get rid of all the waste.


Step four: Prioritize – Finally, learn to get rid of the good things that drain your time and energy away from the best things.   As an American, my tendency can be to do too much and commit to too much, instead of worrying whether I’m doing the important things well.   Concerns like prayer, spiritual reading, time in silence and solitude, personal worship, and quality time with family can fall too low on the list of priorities.  Even spiritual or service-related commitments may need to be dropped – some people commit to too many church services or offer to do too many things far from home.   Ask yourself what central things God is calling you to, then ask yourself, "Am I giving myself the space to do the things I know God is calling me to do as well as God is calling me to do them?"  In 2008 I gave up my Sunday School teaching commitment upon discerning that I lived too far away and had too many other priorities to disciple the students the way they deserved.  I knew that Sunday School was a good service, but God was calling me at that time to work on my new marriage and my preparations for service overseas, and I realized that if I kept trying to do everything, I would do all of it poorly.  These decisions can be difficult, and should only be done after a process of prayer and discernment and wise counsel.   But they can be wonderful for your life if they allow you to focus on loving God and loving others that much deeper.


Extra Credit: Downsize - Sometimes the big things are harder to notice than the small things. Does your family have two cars?  Could it survive on just one?  If you only have one car, could you make due with public transportation and a bike?  Could you live in a smaller, cheaper apartment, and if you live in a house could you move into a cheaper one with fewer rooms and lower energy costs?  How many hours a week do you work at your job, and could you still support yourself just fine if you worked less?  Some people have found that they can maintain a joyful lifestyle with a 25 hour/week job, and they use the rest of their new-found time for volunteer ministry.  Some of these tips work together - if you move into a smaller home close to your work, then you might save money on your house and car, then you could work fewer hours and use the extra time from less work and less commute to serve God in other ways!


That’s a good start. If you have more advice, share it. And don’t forget – outer simplicity can be dangerous without the appropriate inner heart condition.

Who are we occupying?

A week ago I visited the "Occupy Vancouver" protests, our local offshoot of "Occupy Wall Street". There was a mishmash of every cause you can imagine, which is typical of Vancouver protests. But despite the signs calling for 9/11 truth, a ban on psychoactive drugs for children, and the legalization of raw milk, there was a strong trend of dissatisfaction with the financial system, especially the "1%" at the top who are benefiting most. Though I stayed for some time, I didn't participate with the protests, mostly because I didn't see a coherent enough message to affirm that I agreed. But much of what they say is valid. Here are my main thoughts:

• That "1%" that everyone talks about do live in different reality. For example, most of us are still experiencing the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. However, the number of millionaires increased to 10.9 million last year, the greatest number in history and almost 10% more than the 10.1 million millionaires we had before the recession hit. A third of those millionaires are in North America. The sales of luxury goods are projected to increase 13% this year, to their highest levels in history, with the USA the leading consumer. Meanwhile, unemployment is still over 8%, the number of uninsured Americans is at 50 million, and the average wage in America is the same as it was back in 1997.
• This situation is not sustainable. In fact, it is going to blow up in our faces if something significant doesn't change. There's a lot more I could say about that.
• Unfortunately, many of the protesters haven't realized that they are a part of the problem. How many of the 99% wanted to be as rich as the 1%? How many are greedy for more?  How many seek after material possessions? How many want to climb the corporate ladder? How many have used their credit cards for non-essentials they couldn't afford, bought homes with payments they couldn't make, or spent money on cars, accessories, entertainment, and other status symbols that they didn't need? As this Christianity Today article states, much of the blame lies in our own hearts and in our own decisions, and until those things change, it won't really matter what happens to the people at the top.
• Finally, who are the 1% anyway? American protesters have focused on the top "1%", which in America basically means the millionaires. But do those same protesters realize that globally, most of them are much closer to the top 1% than they are to most of the other 99%? The very rough figures on the Global Rich List show anyone earning over $48,000/year in the top 1% of income earners. Are you protesting as part of the masses, when you are really the top 1% or 5% or 10% that the rest of the world is looking at and judging? Americans use over 30% of the world's energy and mineral resources, despite being only 5% of the world's population. What do you think the rest of the world thinks about you?

I think the protesters have an important point about the disparity of wealth and lack of justice in our society. I also think all of us, including myself and everyone reading this blog, have to realize how much we contribute to it. A couple months ago one of my best friends commented that she wanted to see more practical advice from me on what kinds of steps all of us can take towards more justice and Christ-like equality in society. I think I'm going to start doing that this week, because I think there's a lot that all of us could be doing, and I'd like to be doing it more intentionally. The world knows there's a problem with how things are going, and I want them to be able to look at Christians and see that there is a different way.

About the “let him die?” video

Questioning at a recent Republican debate in Texas:






Under current health care law (instituted under Reagan), emergency rooms have to treat anyone who comes through their doors, regardless of whether they have insurance or not. If they don’t pay, the cost is passed on to those who do pay. Under the new health care law passed in 2010, everyone has to buy insurance (subsidized for those who can’t afford it) or pay a fine, thereby ensuring that everyone is fiscally responsible for their own medical care to the degree they are able, while still making sure that everyone can be treated.

In recent debates, it has become apparent that many Republicans and Libertarians, especially some of those failing under the “Tea Party” umbrella, would prefer a third option: that no one has to get any insurance ahead of time, and that anyone who doesn’t have insurance or cash when they need medical care is out of luck. In the moderator’s example from the debate, if such a person faces unpayable costs, some such participants think we should just “let him die”.

The way I understood this issue developed dramatically for me when I realized that the man in the moderator’s example isn’t the person we would “let die”. This man in the example has a high-paying job, which makes it likely that he has wealthy coworkers and wealthy friends. He likely has a network of family support and the same access to resources that the majority of privileged Americans have. If a life-or-death situation occurs, no one is going to “let him die” – someone is going to step up to help him get the care that he needs. Chances are that a change in the law will not drastically affect him.

So who will it affect?

The alien, the orphan, and the widow. The immigrant, the foster child, the single mother, and all others like them. The ones who are not only most likely to be poor, but least likely to have the social network to support them when unpayable expenses rear their head. When we say that we want everyone to pull their own weight, when we say that the government system for health care costs should be eliminated in favor of social and church networks, it is the widow, the orphan, and the alien who are going to be the hardest hit.

We need to think really, really seriously about what God has to say to us about that.

Who are the aliens, orphans, and widows in our midst?

When I hear “aliens, orphans, and widows”, my mind goes back to the Biblical era, or to non-Western nations in which orphanages are still prevalent or widows still can’t get their own source of income. But in the past two weeks I’ve realized that that historical displacement is unjustified.

In the United States, where are the orphans today? They are foster kids, those who grow up outside of the care of legally committed parents. Many of them spend their time in group homes or with unsympathetic families and are cast off at the age of 18 without any support network or stability. Some of them have moved from home to home and community to community so often that they don’t have any long-term relationships at all. What would it be like to be a young adult without a mother and father, aunts and uncles, or any long-term friends in your life? And that doesn’t even address the emotional, psychological, and educational problems that may have built up during their childhood and adolescence.

Who are the widows? They are single mothers who find all available energy taken up in playing both parental roles and having to be the family’s breadwinner besides. They lack the positive relational role a spouse could provide, the social connections the husband’s family could provide, and the social connections they could have developed in the free time they don’t have. Because of their family commitments they often lack college or high school education and can’t afford the time to get the additional work training they would need to advance at their jobs. And in the worst case scenarios, they are ostracized by churches, community organizations, or neighbors due to their marginalized status, or they self-ostracize because of the status they perceive themselves to have.

Who are the aliens? They are…the aliens, the immigrants, the refugees. They are the families who come alone to a new place because of war, persecution, or economic distress. They are the men who come alone, needing to find a job to support their families back home or fleeing situations back in their home countries that make a new land more appealing. Some of them are able to maintain long-distance relationships with friends and families in their home country; many others are in situations where such relationships are impossible. And so they have to make due in a new place, potentially with a new language, trying to navigate all the life obstacles that many of the rest of us have difficulty navigating, only they don’t have the entire framework of social support and cultural understandings that we build our lives upon.

God desires for us to direct our hearts to all those who are relationally vulnerable. A single mother doesn’t have to be an actual widow to warrent special concern in God’s eyes. Besides the foster kids, single mothers, and immigrants, there are millions of veterans, homeless persons, disabled persons, mentally ill persons, aboriginal peoples, and ethnically marginalized peoples that fit this description. Jesus is an advocate for all of us. But, as I tried to show in the last post, He is especially an advocate for those on the margins of society. We need to take this seriously, because God is calling us to advocate for the ones that the rest of society is ignoring, and if we fail to show mercy on them than God may pull back his mercy from us (Matthew 18:23-35).

The alien, the orphan, and the widow

In the Bible, God shows a particular concern for those that society is less concerned about. While there are many individual examples of such concern, the marginalized are often represented by three terms, “the alien, the orphan, and the widow”. For example:

When you reap your harvest in your field and have forgotten a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it; it shall be for the alien, for the orphan, and for the widow, in order that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. When you beat your olive tree, you shall not go over the boughs again; it shall be for the alien, for the orphan, and for the widow. When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not go over it again; it shall be for the alien, for the orphan, and for the widow. - Deuteronomy 24:19-21

When you have finished paying all the tithe of your increase in the third year, the year of tithing, then you shall give it to the Levite, to the stranger, to the orphan and to the widow, that they may eat in your towns and be satisfied. - Deuteronomy 26:12

The LORD protects the strangers; He supports the fatherless and the widow, but He thwarts the way of the wicked. – Psalm 146:9

“Then I will draw near to you for judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers and against the adulterers and against those who swear falsely, and against those who oppress the wage earner in his wages, the widow and the orphan, and those who turn aside the alien and do not fear Me," says the LORD of hosts. – Malachi 3:5

The special attention that must be paid to this trifecta is also mentioned in Exodus 22, Leviticus 23, Deuteronomy 10, 14, 16, 24 (again), and 27; Psalm 94, Jeremiah 7 and 22, Ezekiel 22, and Zechariah 7; and at least one member of the group is also highlighted sympathetically in Leviticus 19, Isaiah 1 and 10, Job 22 and 24; Psalm 68, Matthew 23, Luke 12, Mark 20, Acts 6, 1 Timothy 5, and James 1. Of course, there are hundreds of other passages that would also apply to these persons in the context of the poor, the needy, the marginalized, or our neighbors, but do not mention them explicitly.

The explicit mentions of these three groups is interesting to me because of the nature of their need. It’s not like “the hungry”, or “the naked”, or “the homeless”, or “the imprisoned”, who are defined by what they lack physically (food, clothing, shelter, or freedom). Instead, these groups are named because of a relational vulnerability, which increases their likelihood to lack in other things as well. Because of this vulnerability, God is especially concerned with these groups, and He judges his people when they fail to show such concern as well.

Does this mean that God likes orphans, aliens, and widows more than the rest of us? I don’t believe so – I don’t think God is biased in that way, and I think He loves all of us intensely. But I heard a good analogy last week that put things into perspective for me.

Imagine that you have three children – ages 7, 8, and 9. One day, the 7-year-old comes home with a broken nose, and you find out that she was beaten up by bullies at school. What would you do if you found out that such bullying had been happening every week, and that no one at the school had been doing anything about it? Would you then go to the school to advocate on that child’s behalf? Would you go to much greater lengths than normal to make sure that child was safe? Would you tell your other two children that they needed to be on the lookout to stand up for their little sister and protect her from those who were hurting her?

All that extra effort and attention doesn’t mean that you love your 7-year-old more. You just recognize that she is getting hurt more than the others, and that she needs special concern due to her situation. Because the rest of the world has treated your 7-year-old with less concern, you treat her more concern, and you call on your other children to give her special concern as well. If they refuse to make the extra effort for her, you will have very choice words for them.

God is the same way.

Learning to suffer just a little bit

We had been in our home stay for a week before Rose let me know that most of the family members were only eating two small meals a day. It was hard to keep track of such things in a two-story home with 17 extended family members from three different nuclear families. They were giving us three good meals every day, and at least some family members were always eating with us. But Rose started talking to one of the daughters about her daily eating habits, and came to realize that part of the reason they always shuffled us between the two different eating areas and had us eating each meal with different people was because there wasn’t enough food for many of the family members to eat three meals. This thought affected me a lot, and I started eating less every meal so there would be more left over (though making sure to compliment the food a ton still so they wouldn’t think I didn’t like it!). A few times this left me quite hungry long before the next meal came around, but it honestly wasn’t much of a burden at all.

I have rarely suffered for others. It was only in Lent of this year that I began experimenting with going hungry occasionally for the sake of other people. I have fasted regularly in the past, but for my own spiritual growth or as a corporate Church discipline. What would it mean to go hungry sometimes not because I lacked the money, but because I desired to give it to someone who goes hungry far more often than myself? What would it mean to stop buying all the extra food I don’t need – desserts, bottled drinks, soft drinks, coffees, fast food, restaurant food, anything else expensive – and use the savings to help those who don’t get their basic nutrition? I think that giving up most of these things is not really suffering, since I’ll probably feel better without them, but might it be worth testing whether I can do it even to the point of just a tiny bit of suffering?

What does it feel like to not eat every time I am hungry? Like I said, I’ve only started doing this a few months ago, and only in little bits and pieces. But I think it’s really important, and my experience in the slums here makes me want to stretch it further. When families who only eat two small meals a day take you into their homes and keep generously feeding you three, it makes you think twice about all the stuff you eat that you don’t need.


p.s. – The communities I’ve been living in for the past several weeks are current celebrating Ramadan (“Ramzan” here). Their fasting this month inspired one of my friends here in the slum to fast for 24 hours each week himself – not in religious solidarity with his Muslim friends, but in practical solidarity with those he knows who do not have enough to eat. He is 14 years old. He also has been a vegetarian for several years now in part due to concerns over world poverty and the amount of land use/grain feed it takes to support animal consumption, and he once inspired his family to live an entire month on the same $110 budget as their poor neighbors. This is the different perspective on life that growing up among the half of the world in poverty gives you. How many kids his age could grow up among the constant American messages of “eat eat eat! drink drink drink! Consume consume consume!” and hold onto enough perspective to make the same sacrifices?

Prophet of Doom

We can’t keep going on with business as usual like everything will be okay.

I watched television Friday morning, getting a rare glimpse of the news. The news programs were awash in stories of stock market collapse – starting in the United States and spreading across Asia. The causes of the market worries were employment and recession concerns exacerbated by the American political fight over debt. And the talk was about how and when it was going to be fixed - when the economy was going to start booming again and how the stock markets were going to start trending up again.

What if those aren't the solutions we need?

Consider the following:


1) Our economic health is dependent on constant growth. When the economy fails to grow, we declare a “recession” and worry abounds. Even low-level growth is considered insufficient – one major Republican presidential candidate recently proclaimed that his goal was 5% annual economic growth – a rate that would lead to the economy doubling in size every 14 years.

2) As the economy grows, the rich capture an ever-larger slice of the total. In America, the take-home income of the richest 0.1-0.01% of the population has increased 3-5 times over what it was in 1980, while the take-home income of the poorest 60% of the population hasn’t grown at all. Worldwide, the wealthiest 1% now control over 40% of the world’s wealth, and their portion is increasing every year.

3) We are getting fewer jobs out of our economic growth. Corporations are increasing efficiency and reducing labor costs, thereby allowing more things to be provided with fewer employees, ensuring the greatest profits for upper-level management and shareholders. As a result, economic growth no longer results in a comparable increase in jobs, though economic recession is still used as a reason to significantly reduce jobs.

4) Per American, our country is consuming about six times as many resources as we did in the 1950s and 50-200 times the resources that the residents of our own era's poorest nations consume. Despite the greatly increased consumption, Americans aren’t any happier than they were in the ‘50s. Yet the vast majority of Americans continue to make it their goal to consume more. For every family willing to move into a smaller house, get rid of their cars, and eat simpler food, there are ten families at every economic level who are trying to climb the economic ladder and consume more and more.

5) The world does not have enough space or resources to support this. If the whole world were to reach American standards in the next few decades, we would be using forty times as many resources as we are today. And we’re going to run out of resources (many mined metals, fossil fuels, sustainable fisheries, forested land, clean water, agricultural space, etc.) at the current pace, let alone a pace 40 times greater! It would take the land space of three Earths to sustain an all-American world even if we didn’t leave anything for the natural world, and the nonrenewable resources would still run out. The issues of land, water, energy, pollution, fossil fuel availability, mining, fisheries, deforestation, global warming, etc. are coming from so many different directions that no number of technological breakthroughs will solve all of them without a significant change in lifestyle.

6) The mechanisms of capitalism ensure that without significant outside interference, every one of these trends will continue. Capitalist economies will demand more growth, the rich will be better positioned to gain from that growth than the poor, and economic efficiency will trend towards fewer and fewer jobs for the same amount of growth. These economies will keep consuming more and more resources with fewer and fewer people benefitting from the gains until the whole thing collapses.


Where are we going with this? As individuals, are we going to keep consuming more and more at the expense of others, not to mention future generations? As voters and opinion-makes, will we let every American election hinge on whether or not the economy continues to grow fast enough to satisfy the rich and middle-class? As Americans, will we keep consuming far more than everyone else and keep promoting our consumption model across the world as the goal for all others to follow? Are we ready for where this is all going to lead, and do we understand who is going to suffer the most when it all comes apart?

This is only a small summary of one aspect of the rationales that are coalescing for me right now. There is much more from the Bible, historical and modern Christian teachings, political concerns, economic concerns, environmental concerns, and what I’ve seen over the last few years in America’s media, Bangkok’s commercialism, and India’s slums that convince me that we are seriously on the wrong track. It would take many hours to summarize all the things that are bothering me about this, but a great number of the issues involved could be covered with a careful reading of Collapse by Jared Diamond, Mustard Seed vs. McWorld by Tom Sine, and Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger by Ronald Sider. I don’t agree with everything in all three of those books, but together they cover the practical message of the unsustainability of the path we are on and the Godly directive of the path we should be on instead. Some of the numbers I mention here came from those books, as well as Unequal Democracy by Larry M. Bartels. The first three books also begin to deal with some of the things we could start doing to get on the right path, and I would strongly recommend Freedom of Simplicity by Richard Foster, Making Room by Christine Sine, and The New Monasticism by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove to keep developing more ideas.

Questions near the end

I saw him as I reached the top of the overpass. My mind registered “kid” and I knew I wasn’t going to give him anything. As I walked by I noticed he was older, old enough maybe to be on his own, and looked like he needed real help. I said “sawadee khrap” and he wai’d me, bending over at the waist. As I walked by I thought, “Okay, so I don’t give to kids because they’re part of rackets, or being taken advantage of by adults…but I can’t let that kid just sit there.” I was going to 7-11, so I got him a juice. I have a little rule of always getting something that costs more than what I’m getting myself, but it’s really meaningless and self-deceiving when you realize that 49 times out of 50 I buy myself food without getting anyone else anything at all. On my way back over I asked him if he wanted it and he nodded. As I reached the end of the overpass I peeked back and he was sucking away at the straw already. I turned down the stairs and broke to pieces inside. Why does he have to be there? Why can I do so little? And why do I fall apart now when this is happening all over the city every day?


At first glance I wondered why he was begging. He looked to be in his 30s, seemed to be eating plenty, why doesn’t he have a job? Then I noticed the deep indentation in his head, as big as a fist. Where did that come from? How does that happen to someone? Why are there so many people with such severe disabilities here? How will he have any other option than begging? The Catholic Church is doing impressive work with a couple quality education/work skills centers, but it’s like a drop in the bucket among the millions in Southeast Asia with serious disabilities. I gave him 40 baht, little more than a dollar, yet something I rarely do. As I dropped it in I saw only a few coins in the cup.

I always thought of him as the out-of-place looking guy in the church. Everyone else was so young, hip, westernized, while he was older, dressed different, walked stiffly. I thought he came from a different culture than many of the other members and from a lower social class. Only once did I ever talk to him, and very briefly at that. Then last week he walked over to us and gave us an umbrella. Why did he gift us like that? How are we of all people the ones who deserve a new umbrella? And how could he have possibly have known that my umbrella had just fallen apart the Tuesday before?

We went up and down the streets for the second time in three weeks. We walked by the park, checked the overpasses, combed the aisles of the 7-11’s. We talked to the kids who washed windows and even went down the red-light district that he eventually showed up in the last time this happened. After a couple hours we gave up. He’s only 11, but this isn’t close to being the first night he’s spent alone on the streets. We prayed against the predators, for food, shelter, and safety, and just asked that he’d make it through another night. I don’t know when this will end. Sometimes when you ask the same thing too many times the questions start to dry up.