Anderson South Carolina
Great joy in alcoholic childhood came from rare journeys to the vast LAX airport with its ultra modern satellite restaurant on Saturday afternoon; watching jets come and go. The airport seemed iconic of possibilities life held, if I could but get away from the prison of alcoholism and drug addiction I lived in. Alas, I never got on planes in childhood to visit wondrous places, but I could fantasize. There was no concept of security; I wandered freely in the terminals, occasionally being allowed onto flight decks of airplanes. In high school we boarded and flew in a wondrous variety of Air Force refuelers, bombers, troop carriers, and an old DC3. Life was not yet cloaked in security paranoia. I even wandered in NORAD facilities and atomic labs at Los Alamos.
Francis Schaefer, a beloved Christian writer wrote a small imperative years ago called The Mark of the Christian. In his concise and compelling work he said Christians have essentially no credentials to authenticate their faith besides their love one for another. Creeds, beliefs, and religious behavior are not compelling in proving the veracity of Christian hope and experience. For decades I’ve wondered why Schafer’s imperative doesn’t seem to translate into widespread practice.
Many hundreds of imperatives throughout scripture charge us to let go of fear and trust God, leaving the driving to Him. The entire foundation of two hundred species of recovery programs rests on the idea that life works when we admit our powerlessness over the affairs of life and turn our lives over to the care of God as we understand him. Perhaps the most compelling of scriptural imperatives is “Let not your hearts be troubled, for in my father’s house are many rooms, I go to prepare a place for you, if it were not so I would have told you.” For those believing in the truth of scripture, we are compelled in no uncertain terms to cease and desist from worry and let Him direct the course of our lives.
In recovery we embrace the idea there are no mistakes in God’s world and things are exactly as they are supposed to be. “I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, or thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing happens in God’s world by mistake.” This belief proves fertile ground for the wondrous gifts of peace and serenity. For those coming out of the tortures of alcoholism and addiction, these are the Holy Grail. We are inspired to live in the dynamics of God’s Kingdom rather than the fear-driven madness of mankind’s world. As our recovery literature states, “It works, it really does.”
For decades, countless self help books have been written on overcoming fear in its myriad forms. Finding freedom from fear, anxiety and panic became the stuff of short-lived bestsellers. In 1939 a bestseller was written describing fear as “an evil corroding thread; the fabric of our existence was shot through with it. It set in motion trains of circumstances which brought us misfortune we felt we didn’t deserve. But did not we, ourselves, set the ball rolling? Sometimes we think fear ought to be classed with stealing. It seems to cause more trouble.” To this day this post-depression classic remains a bestseller, every year millions of copies provide experience, strength, and hope to those who have plenty to feel insecure about. Alas, anxiolytic drugs, anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, and mood stabilizers continue as runaway bestsellers.
While attending a Christian medical school at Oral Robert’s City of Faith we medical students were required to live in a gated housing compound on campus, fenced with ribbon wire. Speculation was the gate attendants were armed. Tulsa was yet a benign user friendly city as the Oklahoma City bombings down the road hadn’t yet occurred. Cameras, locked doors, underground tunnels, two way glass, and security personnel were the stuff of local campus legend. For one living in the openness of great teaching hospitals of Chicago, the strictures of a fear-driven environment were stupefying.
Years ago I was in a dark night of the soul, not yet knowing medications given to me by a physician were driving me into some of the greatest torments known to man. Seeking assistance of my priest, I presented myself at the locked door of my church one sunny afternoon for a scheduled counseling appointment. Because of the church’s rampant fear of sexual predators, I was turned away. The priest cited insurance regulations about not allowing male church members to seek counsel with female priests without the requisite chaperones. “Wasn’t I the guy just serving at the altar with you Sunday for the umpteenth time?” I left utterly dismayed. My theological training, licenses; my paperwork and experience weren’t enough to gain admittance into my church at a time of crisis.
Several years ago I invited a woman in recovery to join me at the mega church I was then attending. Driving 250 miles from the coast we made it to the church with seconds to spare. As I was exhorting my friend to hurry across the lobby, the ushers pulled the still-open auditorium doors from my hand and closed them. We were never admitted. Policy states people are not allowed to enter after the preacher starts talking. We left, utterly bewildered, knowing entry into the vast half-filled auditorium would never be noticed by anyone. We never went back.
Yesterday afternoon I was called by a friend in extreme duress. Her recovery has been solid but all of us in recovery have our moments. I invited her to that same mega church, hoping leadership had matured; figuring out the nature of Christian hospitality. We arrived twenty minutes early so there would be no question about late entry. Policy had not changed over the years. At the door an usher gave me a quizzical look, not quite sure of himself. He proceeded to inform me it would be necessary to search my belongings before entering the church or leave them in the outer lobby. Was this a TSA officer? Was I really being asked to submit to a search to enter a church? I wasn’t even challenged when I entered the Mosque of Omar. Why would I, wearing a herringbone tweed jacket, a fine processional cross and tab-collared dress shirt, carrying my small computer case be subject to search while thousands of women with equally sized handbags were unnoticed? Profiling? In bewilderment I refused to submit to inspection of myself or my belongings. We left. I wonder what kind of message this sent to my struggling friend in recovery who is trying to find experience, strength, and hope in the Christian church. I know what kind of message it sends me.
Two tiny Episcopal churches in North Carolina gained international attention because of the creation and installation of Ben Long’s epic frescoes. Despite being in isolated places with no security whatever, these churches have been open 24/7 for thirty years. The priceless art work is quite intact and a generous spirit of hospitality is still found there.
Here in my southern town a cozy Presbyterian church leaves a fine chapel open 24/7. It contains a room with wheelchairs, walkers, crutches, bedside commodes freely available to whoever has need of them. I have often found exceptional hospitality in this church. A small nearby Lutheran in a marginal neighborhood never locks its sanctuary. To the best of my knowledge it’s never had a problem by doing so.
It’s difficult to not wonder what happens in the evolution of churches as they gain size and stature. Tiny churches with the most to lose have not yet embraced profiling, screening, searches, locks, cameras, ribbon wire, chaperones, and draconian policy to secure their borders. It seems they embrace the admonitions to love one another and not let their hearts be troubled.
For people in recovery, stories abound of those who already had the gun cocked, who had their lives spared because messages of hope came to them through the hand of Christian hospitality, at the last minute. They found hope in the veracity of Christian experience rather than a violent solution at their own hands. They live today. Fortunately, my two friends who went with me to that mega-church are not at such risk, but for three others among us, two weeks ago the message of Christian hope was somehow lost in clouds of fear. Fear had the last word. They were admitted to church after all, feet first, at their own hands.
Crime rates increase as population density increases. Bureaucracy proliferates as organizations increase in size. Increasing crime and fear provoke protective regulation. The recent bombing of Moscow’s airport may well make airports all but inaccessible. Increasing rules and procedures may make flying untenable to all but the hardest of us. Saturday afternoons at the airport are but distant wisps of fading memory. Perhaps those wondrous days when we could enter churches and mosques without screening and chaperones will soon recede into discolored memory as well.
We have seen up close what fear did to destroy the most prosperous manufacturing city on earth; where fear infected the masses and they fled to the illusion of suburban safety. Do we want to follow the example of Detroit or do we want to seek a different way? Do we want to put our airports, schools, churches, and lives on lock down? Do we want to extirpate open Christian hospitality out of fear? Can small hospitable churches sustain themselves in a rising tide of fear?
It’s no accident scriptures contain at least five hundred admonitions to let go of fear and let God? It’s no accident Franklin D. Roosevelt in his March, 1933 inaugural address admonished the nation in the depths of the depression, “that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”
We will leave the light on and the door’s always open.
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.
Friday, January 28, 2011
On Creating Wealth 1-22-2011
Anderson, South Carolina
Jesus commented more about money than heaven; it seems he knew where we put our treasure is the same place we put our hearts and affections. In the many years I have been writing essays and sometimes acerbic observations of human behavior, I’ve never had such copious response as was elicited by my recent out-loud musings on the ethics of making money – is it better to make a whole lot of money and then give it away or is perhaps better to give away valuable products and services and create good will, even if at the cost of making money? The sometimes extensive comments suggest out-loud thinking with another round of input has merit, this time looking at money and cash flow as not necessary the last word on wealth creation. It would seem there is merit in considering non-tangible forms of wealth that may well translate in to fiscal wealth at some point.
I received two groups of comments that bifurcated down philosophical lines. By far the larger group said it was a good thing for me to be willing to set aside generating income as a primary motive of doing my creative work. These people saw intangible but valuable merits of doing something with a primary motive of gifting into the community directly. I could perhaps earn $1000 doing a specific photo shoot for a restaurant and then turn around and give the $1000 to some other project or entity of my choice. These individuals see merit in my giving $1000 worth of quality work directly to an entity that could never afford to pay me for it. They suggest in doing this I am generating another kind of great wealth; good will; a sense of sharing and investing in the community. Even secular corporations that exist for no other reason than generating earnings per share understand the incalculable value of good will, even if not directly measureable. I and those who know me well think I do best generating good will rather than cash flow. A substantial number indicate I am getting a far greater pay back than cash provides.
A much smaller group suggests I ought to go ahead and offer my work for sale at whatever the market will bear and then use the generated cash flow for my own charitable or community-building purposes. Some suggest I’m actually able to do more good if I generate large amounts of cash flow and give it away rather than focusing on intangible forms of wealth creation. In a systems paradigm, there is much more to the equation than my own cash flow generation. My goodwill may have the capacity to generate substantial cash flow elsewhere in the community, even if I do not participate in it directly.
If I’m able to give $1000 worth of work to a struggling restaurant and it makes the difference in an effective marketing plan that yields its survival, then I might well have saved several jobs, kept a building from going empty, a downtown from losing a critical mass of business capital and heading down an economic slippery slope. One can extend the thinking endlessly in a systems vein. Keeping that restaurant alive will improve the quality of life for those that want to use downtown merchants and become less car-dependent. It massively improves the quality of life for those that own or work in the restaurant. It benefits the landlord who might lose his building to foreclosure if his primary tenant fails.
Having someone believe in you as an individual or business can be critical to your success. It can energize you sufficiently as to spell the difference between success or failure, especially in economic times that can be profoundly demoralizing and taxing. Gifting a struggling business can significantly boost morale.
Some in the smaller group promoting cash flow as more useful suggest total societal wealth expands and contracts based on entrepreneurial activity. This is certainly true, but perhaps how we measure societal wealth should be looked at more closely.
I can generate societal wealth by going out and murdering people because I was laid off from a failed business. I will create paid work for police, judges, attorneys, jailers, and contractors who build court houses and prisons. People selling concrete and brick and iron rods like it when more prisons are needed. You get the drift. All the societal costs for corrections and criminal activity are counted positively in the Gross Domestic Product. Would we be better off as a society if someone had taken an altruistic approach and done something to keep that business alive and me employed so I did not go on to commit destructive actions that generate GDP? Probably. The social accounting starts to get very murky. Some things are hard to quantify but we do know my homicidal activity would exact a huge financial cost from society. It might be cheaper to keep me happy and employed.
I see two kinds of wealth. The obvious one consists of bits and bytes stored on magnetic platters in brokerage houses and banks, chests full of gold doubloons, and paper currency, shopping malls, rental houses, proven oil reserves. I think the kind of wealth I am after is an intangible one that derives from acts of good will that are non-transactional. If I am stationed in life to generate large amounts of the ‘usual’ kinds of wealth, because I am actually gifted directly to do so, that is a good thing. To try and do some creative work for the purpose of generating large amount of wealth is a bit more problematic. There are plenty of things one can do to generate wealth without having to distort one’s ideals. I find it hard to attempt creative work with my primary motivation being the generation of income. A number of respondents suggest it’s very difficult for them to maintain creative purity or commitment if creativity is undertaken to make money.
There are those of us who create intangible wealth. There are those who create tangible wealth as an entrepreneurial mission. If both are done in a right spirit, then societal wealth can be maximized, all players feeling like they have something to create. The gardener who maintains the beauty of a botanical garden at $7 an hour is just as effective in creating true societal wealth as the CEO of a thriving industrial conglomerate. The retired volunteer who delivers for Meals on Wheels is creating extraordinary value for the community. When we truly come to recognize the merits of all genuine work, we will all be richer for it.
Jesus commented more about money than heaven; it seems he knew where we put our treasure is the same place we put our hearts and affections. In the many years I have been writing essays and sometimes acerbic observations of human behavior, I’ve never had such copious response as was elicited by my recent out-loud musings on the ethics of making money – is it better to make a whole lot of money and then give it away or is perhaps better to give away valuable products and services and create good will, even if at the cost of making money? The sometimes extensive comments suggest out-loud thinking with another round of input has merit, this time looking at money and cash flow as not necessary the last word on wealth creation. It would seem there is merit in considering non-tangible forms of wealth that may well translate in to fiscal wealth at some point.
I received two groups of comments that bifurcated down philosophical lines. By far the larger group said it was a good thing for me to be willing to set aside generating income as a primary motive of doing my creative work. These people saw intangible but valuable merits of doing something with a primary motive of gifting into the community directly. I could perhaps earn $1000 doing a specific photo shoot for a restaurant and then turn around and give the $1000 to some other project or entity of my choice. These individuals see merit in my giving $1000 worth of quality work directly to an entity that could never afford to pay me for it. They suggest in doing this I am generating another kind of great wealth; good will; a sense of sharing and investing in the community. Even secular corporations that exist for no other reason than generating earnings per share understand the incalculable value of good will, even if not directly measureable. I and those who know me well think I do best generating good will rather than cash flow. A substantial number indicate I am getting a far greater pay back than cash provides.
A much smaller group suggests I ought to go ahead and offer my work for sale at whatever the market will bear and then use the generated cash flow for my own charitable or community-building purposes. Some suggest I’m actually able to do more good if I generate large amounts of cash flow and give it away rather than focusing on intangible forms of wealth creation. In a systems paradigm, there is much more to the equation than my own cash flow generation. My goodwill may have the capacity to generate substantial cash flow elsewhere in the community, even if I do not participate in it directly.
If I’m able to give $1000 worth of work to a struggling restaurant and it makes the difference in an effective marketing plan that yields its survival, then I might well have saved several jobs, kept a building from going empty, a downtown from losing a critical mass of business capital and heading down an economic slippery slope. One can extend the thinking endlessly in a systems vein. Keeping that restaurant alive will improve the quality of life for those that want to use downtown merchants and become less car-dependent. It massively improves the quality of life for those that own or work in the restaurant. It benefits the landlord who might lose his building to foreclosure if his primary tenant fails.
Having someone believe in you as an individual or business can be critical to your success. It can energize you sufficiently as to spell the difference between success or failure, especially in economic times that can be profoundly demoralizing and taxing. Gifting a struggling business can significantly boost morale.
Some in the smaller group promoting cash flow as more useful suggest total societal wealth expands and contracts based on entrepreneurial activity. This is certainly true, but perhaps how we measure societal wealth should be looked at more closely.
I can generate societal wealth by going out and murdering people because I was laid off from a failed business. I will create paid work for police, judges, attorneys, jailers, and contractors who build court houses and prisons. People selling concrete and brick and iron rods like it when more prisons are needed. You get the drift. All the societal costs for corrections and criminal activity are counted positively in the Gross Domestic Product. Would we be better off as a society if someone had taken an altruistic approach and done something to keep that business alive and me employed so I did not go on to commit destructive actions that generate GDP? Probably. The social accounting starts to get very murky. Some things are hard to quantify but we do know my homicidal activity would exact a huge financial cost from society. It might be cheaper to keep me happy and employed.
I see two kinds of wealth. The obvious one consists of bits and bytes stored on magnetic platters in brokerage houses and banks, chests full of gold doubloons, and paper currency, shopping malls, rental houses, proven oil reserves. I think the kind of wealth I am after is an intangible one that derives from acts of good will that are non-transactional. If I am stationed in life to generate large amounts of the ‘usual’ kinds of wealth, because I am actually gifted directly to do so, that is a good thing. To try and do some creative work for the purpose of generating large amount of wealth is a bit more problematic. There are plenty of things one can do to generate wealth without having to distort one’s ideals. I find it hard to attempt creative work with my primary motivation being the generation of income. A number of respondents suggest it’s very difficult for them to maintain creative purity or commitment if creativity is undertaken to make money.
There are those of us who create intangible wealth. There are those who create tangible wealth as an entrepreneurial mission. If both are done in a right spirit, then societal wealth can be maximized, all players feeling like they have something to create. The gardener who maintains the beauty of a botanical garden at $7 an hour is just as effective in creating true societal wealth as the CEO of a thriving industrial conglomerate. The retired volunteer who delivers for Meals on Wheels is creating extraordinary value for the community. When we truly come to recognize the merits of all genuine work, we will all be richer for it.
On Making Money 1-15-2011
Anderson, South Carolina
I think all of us who paste words together or do other creative work secretly hope Oprah will invite us onto her set and make us famous in ninety seconds. Given most of us will never get past her screeners; we can then hope our creative work will go viral on the Internet. Failing that we can hope an agent or publicist will do the hard work of promoting our profit-generating potential.
I haven’t been contacted by O and there is not any excess bandwidth being consumed to view my writings or photographs on line. I may receive ten hits on a good day; not exactly a viral phenomenon causing my Internet Service Provider any angst. What did happen recently for me is coming to the attention of a highly successful and very expensive publicist who agreed to take me on as one of her pet projects. In her stable of projects is a well-known billionaire. Life became suddenly far larger. We agreed the terms of a contract and it seemed I was to be essentially branded as a product – specifically as an artisan photographer. A fifteen minute initial consultation turned into more than two hours and we set up other meetings. She was already pulling together printers, videographers, graphics designers, and even lawyers to make all of this work. It seemed I would soon be very busy doing extensive photo work and lecturing for amazing sums of money. I thought this could be the fulfillment of a dream I had twenty years ago. For certain, this publicist had me thinking far outside the box, or did she?
The prospect of suddenly hustling to make a lot of money is overwhelming. The idea that I might wrap my life and energies around making a lot of money is suddenly abhorrent to me. For decades I’ve embraced the idea of building community, using my abilities and resources to build cooperation, wanting to facilitate non-transactional models of interaction between people and organizations. The idea that I might suddenly withhold my abilities and resources unless well compensated for them goes against everything I am about. For a long time I’ve had the great luxury of not doing work for money, instead giving away my talents.
One of the most powerful models of financial behavior for me has been the concept of paying it forward, doing things of great material value for people who cannot possibly compensate me in any fashion. In fact the pay-it-forward model insists on the giver declining any kind of compensation in return for an act of generosity. In the past four years I have built about nine houses, not receiving a penny of compensation for the work. The non-transactional model of building was infinitely more satisfying than working as a paid general contractor ever was.
I am being told more and more that I am really good at photography, that I ought to charge big money for it, that I could make a princely living at it, even ought to be working for National Geographic. Other photographers get incredible sums of money as ‘tuition’ to take people around with them, showing them how to use their cameras. Perhaps the fact I am perhaps getting really good at it is an even more compelling reason to nearly give it away. There is little merit in giving away something that is of little or no value.
The reality is I’ve often found magical activities completely corrupted once I started doing them for money. Working as a volunteer in a Chicago emergency room during my pre-med days as an unpaid volunteer was a wondrous thing of which I could not get enough. The minute I started getting paid for doing the exact same work what had once been wondrous became unskilled grunt work at low pay. My dynamics with physicians and nurses changed for the worse in a nanosecond. When I started doing construction work for money instead of as a community-building effort, it became toxic work that stressed me greatly. Members of the theater board recently attempted to get me to accept money to build sets for pay. I found the idea of going into that black room and building for pay loathsome. Building for free allows me to give a great gift to the community instead of being just one more guy hustling some spending money. I once worked for money in institutional kitchens to survive financially in college. It was just plain old sweaty hot work. I now work in one every week for Meals on Wheels, for free, and it’s magical; something I look forward to each week.
When I photograph a small mom and pop restaurant for free I’m creating good will in the community. The better the work I give away, the better the goodwill I create. I do not need the money I could obtain from my photo work and there is something very satisfying about being able to give something of very high quality to those who cannot afford it. The better my work becomes, the better my gifts become.
Jesus gave us gifts of inconceivable value. He made the choice to stay out of any entrepreneurial dynamic. One cannot conceive of Jesus charging tuition to those who followed him around to learn everything he could teach them. Jesus did a number of things profoundly well. He charged for none of them, often relying on others for his basest needs, even borrowing a donkey for His final ride into town.
Certainly, making money is sanctioned by the sacred texts of many faiths. The parables of the talents found in the New Testament even chide those who would not invest them for good return. I would suggest there are ways of investing talents that will produce great returns on behalf of those around us in our own communities. For me the idea of paying it forward is imperative. If my work will empower others to do their work well and generate streams of income to stimulate our beleaguered local economy, then perhaps I have obtained the greatest return on investment possible. Knowing it is possible the owners of a struggling mom and pop restaurant might get a tiny added economic stimulus from my work needed to survive, keep their business, and their house is a huge payback in my thinking. To challenge these dear people to pay me well for my work would only push them further into despair and perhaps more quickly into closure and foreclosure. As I watch businesses and houses shuttered and foreclosed around me, I can’t but wonder if I am not already receiving a vast return for my work.
After a couple days of agitated thinking I went to meet with my new publicist/agent to tell her I cannot proceed with a plan that has me seeking maximum financial return for my gifts; explaining that paying it forward is the only plan that will work for me. I immediately had great relief and now feel like I can focus on spiritual matters and things much more important than the generation of finance, things like taking really good pictures of restaurants.
I just sold a restaurant image at a very fair price to a retired friend and left the proceeds in a tip jar, in a restaurant. For certain, I have not missed any meals today. I hope those around me don’t have to either.
Mom and pop might be really glad to see you today. They will give it to you your way.
I think all of us who paste words together or do other creative work secretly hope Oprah will invite us onto her set and make us famous in ninety seconds. Given most of us will never get past her screeners; we can then hope our creative work will go viral on the Internet. Failing that we can hope an agent or publicist will do the hard work of promoting our profit-generating potential.
I haven’t been contacted by O and there is not any excess bandwidth being consumed to view my writings or photographs on line. I may receive ten hits on a good day; not exactly a viral phenomenon causing my Internet Service Provider any angst. What did happen recently for me is coming to the attention of a highly successful and very expensive publicist who agreed to take me on as one of her pet projects. In her stable of projects is a well-known billionaire. Life became suddenly far larger. We agreed the terms of a contract and it seemed I was to be essentially branded as a product – specifically as an artisan photographer. A fifteen minute initial consultation turned into more than two hours and we set up other meetings. She was already pulling together printers, videographers, graphics designers, and even lawyers to make all of this work. It seemed I would soon be very busy doing extensive photo work and lecturing for amazing sums of money. I thought this could be the fulfillment of a dream I had twenty years ago. For certain, this publicist had me thinking far outside the box, or did she?
The prospect of suddenly hustling to make a lot of money is overwhelming. The idea that I might wrap my life and energies around making a lot of money is suddenly abhorrent to me. For decades I’ve embraced the idea of building community, using my abilities and resources to build cooperation, wanting to facilitate non-transactional models of interaction between people and organizations. The idea that I might suddenly withhold my abilities and resources unless well compensated for them goes against everything I am about. For a long time I’ve had the great luxury of not doing work for money, instead giving away my talents.
One of the most powerful models of financial behavior for me has been the concept of paying it forward, doing things of great material value for people who cannot possibly compensate me in any fashion. In fact the pay-it-forward model insists on the giver declining any kind of compensation in return for an act of generosity. In the past four years I have built about nine houses, not receiving a penny of compensation for the work. The non-transactional model of building was infinitely more satisfying than working as a paid general contractor ever was.
I am being told more and more that I am really good at photography, that I ought to charge big money for it, that I could make a princely living at it, even ought to be working for National Geographic. Other photographers get incredible sums of money as ‘tuition’ to take people around with them, showing them how to use their cameras. Perhaps the fact I am perhaps getting really good at it is an even more compelling reason to nearly give it away. There is little merit in giving away something that is of little or no value.
The reality is I’ve often found magical activities completely corrupted once I started doing them for money. Working as a volunteer in a Chicago emergency room during my pre-med days as an unpaid volunteer was a wondrous thing of which I could not get enough. The minute I started getting paid for doing the exact same work what had once been wondrous became unskilled grunt work at low pay. My dynamics with physicians and nurses changed for the worse in a nanosecond. When I started doing construction work for money instead of as a community-building effort, it became toxic work that stressed me greatly. Members of the theater board recently attempted to get me to accept money to build sets for pay. I found the idea of going into that black room and building for pay loathsome. Building for free allows me to give a great gift to the community instead of being just one more guy hustling some spending money. I once worked for money in institutional kitchens to survive financially in college. It was just plain old sweaty hot work. I now work in one every week for Meals on Wheels, for free, and it’s magical; something I look forward to each week.
When I photograph a small mom and pop restaurant for free I’m creating good will in the community. The better the work I give away, the better the goodwill I create. I do not need the money I could obtain from my photo work and there is something very satisfying about being able to give something of very high quality to those who cannot afford it. The better my work becomes, the better my gifts become.
Jesus gave us gifts of inconceivable value. He made the choice to stay out of any entrepreneurial dynamic. One cannot conceive of Jesus charging tuition to those who followed him around to learn everything he could teach them. Jesus did a number of things profoundly well. He charged for none of them, often relying on others for his basest needs, even borrowing a donkey for His final ride into town.
Certainly, making money is sanctioned by the sacred texts of many faiths. The parables of the talents found in the New Testament even chide those who would not invest them for good return. I would suggest there are ways of investing talents that will produce great returns on behalf of those around us in our own communities. For me the idea of paying it forward is imperative. If my work will empower others to do their work well and generate streams of income to stimulate our beleaguered local economy, then perhaps I have obtained the greatest return on investment possible. Knowing it is possible the owners of a struggling mom and pop restaurant might get a tiny added economic stimulus from my work needed to survive, keep their business, and their house is a huge payback in my thinking. To challenge these dear people to pay me well for my work would only push them further into despair and perhaps more quickly into closure and foreclosure. As I watch businesses and houses shuttered and foreclosed around me, I can’t but wonder if I am not already receiving a vast return for my work.
After a couple days of agitated thinking I went to meet with my new publicist/agent to tell her I cannot proceed with a plan that has me seeking maximum financial return for my gifts; explaining that paying it forward is the only plan that will work for me. I immediately had great relief and now feel like I can focus on spiritual matters and things much more important than the generation of finance, things like taking really good pictures of restaurants.
I just sold a restaurant image at a very fair price to a retired friend and left the proceeds in a tip jar, in a restaurant. For certain, I have not missed any meals today. I hope those around me don’t have to either.
Mom and pop might be really glad to see you today. They will give it to you your way.
Where’s The Beef? 1-3-2011
Anderson, South Carolina
In an age of uncertainty and unbounded fear it’s natural to seek refuge in certainty, in dogmatism. Throughout the world we see millions embracing fundamentalism in its diverse forms, with its promises of a predictable world and everlasting life in paradise, if we think and do right in the present moment. For thousands the right thing is killing Western Infidels. For many, militant evangelism, converting others to our way of thinking, is the way to the Emerald City. For some living a life of oppressive religiosity holds the key to getting back to Kansas.
All forms of fundamentalism share a common characteristic, belief that one way to enlightenment is superior. Even within Christianity, divergent ideas about sanctified living and belief have led to the death of millions. Uncounted wars have been waged between Catholics and Protestants, both claiming superior enlightenment. Countless thousands were put to death for embracing natural healing, branded as witches, sorcerers, or heretics.
Recently in Sunday school class an example of ‘papered’ religious thinking astounded me with its potential for creating animosity. The very thing that is supposed to be the strength of our denomination showed itself to be its greatest weakness. There was little room for possibilities. Prestigious doctoral level education does not protect one from the weakness of religious thinking, it might even promote added risk; risk of declaring something of great value to be nearly worthless. In so many words, someone used mightily to transform thousands of lives was declared to be spiritually unfit for his work, because he doesn’t have a theological power wall.
Four miles down the road is one of the fastest growing churches in North America. Starting with eight people in a dorm room, it’s grown into a mega church with as many as 25,000 in attendance. The largest auditorium in the county was outgrown in eleven months. At baptismal services, four to five hundred seekers are baptized at outdoor events attended by thousands. Its founder has an undergraduate college degree but no graduate level training in theology.
Those of us sitting in our little church, part of a denomination facing rapid demographic death, were told the preacher of this mega church could not be a true minister of God without graduate theological training. Mainline churches, mostly in demographic decline, we were told, would eventually thrive because those flowing into mega churches would one day wake up and ask “Where’s the beef?” It was suggested one could not lead seekers into the deeper things of faith without seminary education. Eventually intellectual refugees from mega churches would flow into our hallowed halls to sit under our erudite pontifications. We would be spared demographic death after all. No one is asking out loud why some of our most senior and well-educated members now go four miles further to church.
We can barely pay the utilities as it is. Some of our churches are already shuttered and overgrown, because of limited religious thinking – our way or the highway. Many have hit the road. Church attendance in America is in steep decline, even when adjusting for explosive growth in mega churches. Church attendance in Europe has become in many regions a rare aberration of behavior held by a few senior citizens. More than once I’ve found myself alone in vast churches, no longer of even architectural interest to many.
To the best of my knowledge Jesus and most of his inner circle were somewhat deficient in their paperwork. It’s not likely fishermen and tent makers with dirty fingernails and bad breath from ancient Palestine had power walls filled with diplomas, certificates, and framed newspaper articles of their grand exploits. Only the Apostle Paul had paperwork and his religious thinking had him running around killing off people who did things differently that he though de rigueur. It took a major episode of ‘seeing the light’ on the Damascus Road for his thinking to be reset from the zeroes and ones of the Sanhedrin. At one time most erudite theologians believed the world to be flat with the sun going round the earth. Ask Copernicus or Galileo how their right thinking played out for them professionally. Observational astronomy was a high-risk profession when the ‘papered’ bishops were in charge.
I was visiting a church of my denomination three weeks ago. The sermon proved to be a homily of about five minutes, given by a seminary-trained preacher. I wonder what it was that I did not get from this doctoral-level address that I should have gotten, what transcended the well-organized hour of expository preaching at the place four miles down the road. Even in a society awash in attention deficit disorder, the five-minute tepid homily was heard by a mere twenty seven congregants, down by half in two years. The demanding and challenging hour of expository teaching was probably heard by twenty-five thousand, from someone sans a power wall.
In these harrowing times with rapidly shifting values, declining loyalties, shrinking portfolios, rising debt and violence of all kinds, and disruption of our careers, marriages, and friendships, those experiencing life as precarious and uncertain are in need of something of substance to chew on, something to show them a way of living and faith enabling them to meet often inconceivable challenges; something besides vegetarian religious thinking.
Thus says the Lord, Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riche; but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises loving kindness’, justice, and righteousness on earth, for I delight in these things,” declares the Lord.
Where’s the beef? It might be down the road.
In an age of uncertainty and unbounded fear it’s natural to seek refuge in certainty, in dogmatism. Throughout the world we see millions embracing fundamentalism in its diverse forms, with its promises of a predictable world and everlasting life in paradise, if we think and do right in the present moment. For thousands the right thing is killing Western Infidels. For many, militant evangelism, converting others to our way of thinking, is the way to the Emerald City. For some living a life of oppressive religiosity holds the key to getting back to Kansas.
All forms of fundamentalism share a common characteristic, belief that one way to enlightenment is superior. Even within Christianity, divergent ideas about sanctified living and belief have led to the death of millions. Uncounted wars have been waged between Catholics and Protestants, both claiming superior enlightenment. Countless thousands were put to death for embracing natural healing, branded as witches, sorcerers, or heretics.
Recently in Sunday school class an example of ‘papered’ religious thinking astounded me with its potential for creating animosity. The very thing that is supposed to be the strength of our denomination showed itself to be its greatest weakness. There was little room for possibilities. Prestigious doctoral level education does not protect one from the weakness of religious thinking, it might even promote added risk; risk of declaring something of great value to be nearly worthless. In so many words, someone used mightily to transform thousands of lives was declared to be spiritually unfit for his work, because he doesn’t have a theological power wall.
Four miles down the road is one of the fastest growing churches in North America. Starting with eight people in a dorm room, it’s grown into a mega church with as many as 25,000 in attendance. The largest auditorium in the county was outgrown in eleven months. At baptismal services, four to five hundred seekers are baptized at outdoor events attended by thousands. Its founder has an undergraduate college degree but no graduate level training in theology.
Those of us sitting in our little church, part of a denomination facing rapid demographic death, were told the preacher of this mega church could not be a true minister of God without graduate theological training. Mainline churches, mostly in demographic decline, we were told, would eventually thrive because those flowing into mega churches would one day wake up and ask “Where’s the beef?” It was suggested one could not lead seekers into the deeper things of faith without seminary education. Eventually intellectual refugees from mega churches would flow into our hallowed halls to sit under our erudite pontifications. We would be spared demographic death after all. No one is asking out loud why some of our most senior and well-educated members now go four miles further to church.
We can barely pay the utilities as it is. Some of our churches are already shuttered and overgrown, because of limited religious thinking – our way or the highway. Many have hit the road. Church attendance in America is in steep decline, even when adjusting for explosive growth in mega churches. Church attendance in Europe has become in many regions a rare aberration of behavior held by a few senior citizens. More than once I’ve found myself alone in vast churches, no longer of even architectural interest to many.
To the best of my knowledge Jesus and most of his inner circle were somewhat deficient in their paperwork. It’s not likely fishermen and tent makers with dirty fingernails and bad breath from ancient Palestine had power walls filled with diplomas, certificates, and framed newspaper articles of their grand exploits. Only the Apostle Paul had paperwork and his religious thinking had him running around killing off people who did things differently that he though de rigueur. It took a major episode of ‘seeing the light’ on the Damascus Road for his thinking to be reset from the zeroes and ones of the Sanhedrin. At one time most erudite theologians believed the world to be flat with the sun going round the earth. Ask Copernicus or Galileo how their right thinking played out for them professionally. Observational astronomy was a high-risk profession when the ‘papered’ bishops were in charge.
I was visiting a church of my denomination three weeks ago. The sermon proved to be a homily of about five minutes, given by a seminary-trained preacher. I wonder what it was that I did not get from this doctoral-level address that I should have gotten, what transcended the well-organized hour of expository preaching at the place four miles down the road. Even in a society awash in attention deficit disorder, the five-minute tepid homily was heard by a mere twenty seven congregants, down by half in two years. The demanding and challenging hour of expository teaching was probably heard by twenty-five thousand, from someone sans a power wall.
In these harrowing times with rapidly shifting values, declining loyalties, shrinking portfolios, rising debt and violence of all kinds, and disruption of our careers, marriages, and friendships, those experiencing life as precarious and uncertain are in need of something of substance to chew on, something to show them a way of living and faith enabling them to meet often inconceivable challenges; something besides vegetarian religious thinking.
Thus says the Lord, Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riche; but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises loving kindness’, justice, and righteousness on earth, for I delight in these things,” declares the Lord.
Where’s the beef? It might be down the road.
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