Christmas and the Moral Use of Money

There's a great radio program I listen to podcasts of at work, Speaking of Faith. One of the archived episodes from 2007 was on Money and Moral Balance, and featured Nathan Dungan as the guest. Dungan advocates teaching moral use of money to kids early in life by dividing up their allowance into: a portion for spending, a portion for saving, and a portion for giving.

I discussed with my wife that that was something I wanted to do with Lilith, but she's too young for an allowance, so to jumpstart some good parental modeling we decided to match what we spent on each other for Christmas and give that amount to a charity of our choice. The money I spend on my wife I'll match and give to Louisville's Home of the Innocents (her choice), and the money she spends on me she'll match and will donate to the American Friends Service Committee (my choice).

In that spirit I wanted to write a post encouraging everyone to strive toward their own simple, morally balanced Christmas by sharing a few ideas:

• Make some of the gifts you purchase charitable donations in the receiver's name (a 1/3 of what my wife and I spend this Christmas will go to charitable causes).
• Set a spending limit and stick to it (we'll spend around $150 this year, total).
• Ignore the social stigma and regift (if the recipient didn't give it to you no one's the wiser).
• Alternately, give gifts around the house, or items you create (like baked goods).
• Be a redeemer this Christmas, and buy used items.
• Ask others to abstain from giving you gifts, or, request gifts that are can benefit others as well as yourself.
  

I'm sure you can think of more ways to make your holiday more equitable and Christ-like. Christmas, even if you look at it's pagan roots in the winter solstice, was traditionally about light re-entering the world after a prolonged period of darkness. It is a time of rejoicing and, yes, giving, but let us not mistake generosity with consumerism. Be creative in your celebration, but don't be materialistic. This is a day to remember a baby who was so threatening to the status quo that the local government ordered newborns killed in an attempt to snuff him out. Tell me what that has to do with the stress of shopping. The burden of extra credit card debt.

Why Simplicity and Stewardship are Not the Same as Frugality

My tennis shoes recently developed a hole in the side after 7-months of wear, forcing me to shop for a new pair. I shouldn't have been surprised. I bought them for $30, and $30 shoes aren't famous for durability. But cheap is cheap, so my knee-jerk reaction was to search out the cheapest pair of sneakers I could find.

I haven't talked about it here on the blog—I haven't talked about anything here in a couple months, come to think of it—but I've been regularly attending a local meeting of the Religious Society of Friends. Friends (aka Quakers) rather than focusing on theological creeds—right belief—place a higher premium on ethical practice—right relationship with the Other. Within Quakerism is the tradition of Testimonies, a commitment to testify not so much through one's words, but through one's actions in daily life.

Two common testimonies are simplicity and stewardship. And it was with my upcoming purchase in the back of my mind that I accidentally came across a quote about the the relationship between simplicity and stewardship:

To me, the concepts of "stewardship and "simplicity" have always seemed to closely related as to be identical: to practice one properly, it seems, one must always also practice the other. Nevertheless, there are differences. Simplicity deals with the ownership of property, stewardship with the use of it. Simplicity tells us to ask for no more than we need; stewardship reminds us that we need less if we take care of what we have... (William Ashworth)

Shortly after this quote the author of the anthology that contained it posed a query to the reader: "Do I look at my investments, clothing, furniture, and other possessions to see if they sow the seeds of war and oppression?" *

I was concerned with simplicity long before I became interested in Quakerism. That concern, however, has often been uneven, and expressed itself almost entirely through buying things on the cheap. Rahter than seeing simplicity and stewardship as natural bedmates I partnered simplicty with frugality. Though there's nothing wrong with saving money, making buying decisions based entirely on which choice will keep more money in my pocket seems now like a seductive form of mammonism. Take the tennis shoes for example. They were so cheap because,

• they were crappily made by


• people that were crappily paid

I realized after reading that quote and query that I had two choices. I could buy another cheap pair of shoes and in 7-months buy another, and 7-months after that another, and in in the process not only squander precious material resources, but prop up a company that pays it workers in pennies and in the past has abused the rights of its workers. Or I could spend more money up front to buy a better made product that, by virtue of its durability, would spare resources.

There are a lot of eco/human rights friendly products out there. The trouble is that most of them just aren't affordable for someone solidly in a working class income bracket. But I'm wondering now if the genuine response, rather than bargain hunting or throwing my hands up in defeat, shouldn't involve accepting the fact that paying for better constructed, more fairly begotten products neccessarily means having a lot less overall.

Refusing to face moral complexity

can be a form of running away,

or refusing to face the necessarily unpleasant

consequences of the values we adopt.

It can amount to an attempt to avoid

our personal Gethsemane. —John Pushnon

*All quotes come from Catherine Whitmire's Plain Living: A Quaker Path to Simplicity

Healthcare Letter (Secular)

The second of two connected posts. This is the secular letter I wrote for the healthcare reform group I'm collaborating with. If the religious letter isn't your cup of tea, but you agree with my message, feel free to use this letter.



It's understood—and often understated—that markets exist for communal not private benefit. In no area of business is this perhaps more true than health care. As it stands now decisions pertaining to medical access are made by private insurance companies who are more beholden to their shareholders than their policyholders.

We need a public option to not only give access to quality medical care to the poor, but as an alternative for the thousands of citizens who are often dropped by their insurers precisely when they need their policy the most. In a country where every criminal is promised a lawyer why should law-abiding citizens ever be denied access to a doctor?

This isn't just a question of morals. Preventive care lowers overall medical costs by allowing individuals to treat illnesses before they develop into something more costly and serious, but many people hold off on seeing a doctor until it's unbearable because of the cost. A reliable public insurance option could lower medical bills through preventive care, cut down on emergency room traffic, and promote a healthy national workforce, increasing productivity by keeping workers on the job and off sick leave.

With the mass retirement of the Boomer generation looming, the single biggest addition to the national debt will come from the influx of people dependent on Medicare and Medicaid. The impact of this wave can be lessened by lowering health care costs now, which a public option as a part of overall health care reform can achieve.

These are momentous times. We have a chance to protect our most valuable national asset, our workforce, and the only true inalienable right—life. I urge you to support a public insurance option and to press for health care reform now, so that our nation's greatness may carry forward into the future.

Healthcare Letter (Religious)

Lately, I've been doing some activist work with a group in Louisville who are pushing for public healthcare option. In the first of two related posts, this is a religious based letter I wrote for the group to distribute to supporters. I mailed this letter to Kentucky senators Jim Bunning and Mitch McConnell, as have several others. If you like it, and agree, copy, paste, and mail the thing in now.


Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. "If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.” Isaiah 58:9-10

We live in a world of fear, lies, oppression and inequity. If a person looks at this world and and sees anything other than a tragedy in dire need of change, then they are not seeing the world clearly. As a Christian, I know not only is creation groaning as a woman in childbirth (Romans 8:22), screaming for deliverance, but that every individual, great and small, is a reflection of the creator (Genesis 1:27). And what we do, or fail to do, to “the least of these,” we do to our Lord (Matthew 25:31-45). You can help “the least of these” now by supporting a public option in our current healthcare reform legislation.

Jesus dispersed his disciples not only to spread the good news, but to heal the sick (Luke 9:1-6). As modern disciples of the Christ, are we not called to the same vocation today? When Jesus described the spiritual practices befitting of His disciples He named three: giving to the needy, prayer, and fasting (Matthew 6:1-18), and faith without action is dead faith (James 2:20).

God has made abundantly clear His disinterest in pious showmanship and empty platitudes (Isaiah 1:11-15; Isaiah 58:5; Micah 6:6-7; Matthew 6:2,7,16). What does our God demand? Justice, care for the sick, concern for the downtrodden and the poor (Isaiah 1:16-17; Isaiah 58:6-10; Micah 6:8; Jeremiah 7:5-7; Deuteronomy 15:7-11; Ezekiel 16:49; Zechariah 7:8-10; Luke 10:29-37; Luke 12:33; Luke 14:13-14; Leviticus 23:22; Psalm 41:1-2; Proverbs 14:31; Proverbs 19:17; Proverbs 21:13; Proverbs 31:8-9; 1 Timothy 6:17-19; James 1:27; 1 John 3:17-18).

Our Lord calls for us to change our hearts—the core of our being—and to serve Him by loving both God and neighbor (Mark 12:29-31). Ours is a god of liberation; He calls on us to love the needy among us, lest we forget the price that was paid to free us from bondage (Deuteronomy 10:16-20; Galatians 5:1).

We have a chance to answer God's call by providing healthcare access to millions of uninsured and underinsured Americans. Please, do not squander this opportunity to do real good in the world. Trees are known by the fruit they produce (Mathew 7:16). How will we measure up when we spend as much as every other nation in the world on the means of war, and ignore acts of compassion easily within our grasp? It is impossible to serve two masters (Matthew 6:24). Shall we serve righteousness or worthlessness (Jeremiah 2:5)?

Ontologica 1.1

The first issue of Ontologica is now live at http://www.warriorpoetgroup.com/Ontologica. Just click on the cover graphic and you'll download the entire magazine in .pdf format. We have essays (including a philosophical piece by yours truly), poetry, fiction, and reviews, as well as some great photos and paintings including artwork by Lousivillian Dennis Waddell. Check it out and tell your friends. And if you know Drew (the fiction editor and web developer) or Dave (poetry editor) be sure and let them know what an amazing job they did on our inaugural issue.

I see an almond branch

I'm convinced more and more every day that we've squandered the opportunity for repentance this recession should have been. Does anyone else feel that something has slipped beyond our collective grasp? The unmistakable sense that we've pursued worthlessness and made ourselves worthless in the process?

It's said the recession has changed our values, but what happens when it ends? The wealthy of Jeremiah's time gave up their slaves only to take them back when the threat of siege temporarily lifted... What will befall US when it is our skirts stained with the blood of the guiltless poor? Our legs spread for Mammon?

The Christian martyr and playwright Kaj Munk wrote:
What is, therefore, the task of the preacher (or the church) today?
Shall I answer: "Faith, hope, and love?"
That sounds beautiful.
But I would say--Courage.
No, even that is not challenging enough to be the whole truth.
Our task today is recklessness.
For what we Christians lack is not psychology or literature,
we lack holy rage.
The recklessness that comes from the knowledge of God and humanity.
The ability to rage when justice lies prostrate on the street...
and when the lie rages across the face of the earth---
a holy anger about things that are wrong in the world.
To rage against the ravaging of God's earth,
and the destruction of God's world.
To rage when little children must die of hunger,
when the tables of the rich are sagging with food.
To rage at the senseless killing of so many,
and against the madness of militaries.
To rage at the lie that calls the threat of death and the strategy of
destruction--Peace.
To rage against complacency.
To restlessly seek the recklessness that will challenge and seek to change
human history until it conforms with the norms of the Kingdom of
God.
And remember the signs of the Christian Church have always been--
the Lion, the Lamb, the Dove, and the Fish...
but never the chameleon.

Ethics Without God

Several weeks ago I wrote an entry, "Notes on Egoism," as a kind of thought experiment. I had been reading some Ayn Rand and wanted to see if I agreed with her by fleshing out my thoughts. It's an appealing philosophy--the idea that the only moral command is to pursue your own happiness (with the caveat, of course, that we shouldn't impose ourselves on other people)--but look closely at that entry. I tried to write in her manner, but I couldn't even make it halfway through before the making an apology FOR caring about the needs of other people. I tried to write an accept that point-of-view and couldn't do it.

I've wrestled with that fact since then, and I wanted to talk about it here--to come clean, as it were.

The so-called New Atheists would have us believe that ethics are not only possible without God, but work best without God. Now I'll agree that people don't have believe in a divine power to do good, that's obviously clear. What I take issue with is the notion that, without some kind of absolute source, we have any basis to define what constitutes ethical behavior.

The New Atheists understand that if there is God there is no good or evil, but yet they go on to make the dubious claim that even without some kind of eternal source we have every reason to go on believing in our current ethical system. But if there is no right and there is no wrong than what reason do we have to chose our ethical system over say that of fundamentalist terrorists, or the Nazis, outside of aesthetic reasons? Nietzsche understood this. If you want to see a system of ethics without a God turn to Friedrich.

The New Atheists argue that we have equity as human beings, but that's shaky ground at best. If we're nothing more than complicated beasts, why should we give a wit about the concerns of others? Rand certainly doesn't think we should. If history shows us anything it's how easy it easy it is to reason out that people are not equal, and that some are meant to rule while others to serve. Nietzsche says the weak use morals and virtue to hold the strong back. There's no scientific basis to prove him wrong. In truth, few things seem more "natural" than the dominance of the violent over the meek. Atheists can object to that on aesthetic grounds, but that's just their culture talking.

And which culture is that? A large portion of the virtues we celebrate come from historical Greek philosophy, but equality, human rights--those are religious concepts. Christian concepts, to be exact. The Greeks reasoned out a lot of things, but I don't know of many that deduced that the lofty ideals they wrote so eloquently about extended to all. They granted them to the polis,
the male citizenry. They did not grant them to slaves, or to women, or to children for that matter. Their ability to reason out all these highfalutin concepts came about precisely because the slave base they held allowed them the leisure time to think them up in the first place (and it's no small coincidence that the beacon of freedom in the modern era was founded on the ideals of slaveholders as well, and originally offered its promise to male landholders).

Logic never gave birth to the radical notion that all people, regardless of tribe or ability were inherently worthy of love and respect. It was brought on by faith. Faith in a spiritual brotherhood that offered us the possibility of being more than slaves and masters. You deny the basis for that faith, a shared creator, and you're left with nothing but the will to power.

At the end of the "Notes on Egoism" post I presented the argument that caring about others is the right thing to do because it promotes a more stable society. I still think it does, but the basis for my goal in making that claim was unsound and shameful. I made a utilitarian appeal to freedom and goodwill's efficiency. Efficiency is not only irrelevant in this case, but a cold and deceptive measure of progress. Not only in politics--take the efficiency of Stalin or Mao or Pol Pot--to economics--the replacement of workers with automated robots--it's clear that the logically efficient thing to do is take most of humanity out of the picture all together.

Note: None of this contradicts my earlier arguments for moral relativism. As I hope I've made clear, my relativistic thought is that it is useless to speak of good and evil outside of context. Murder, for instance, is wrong because the term itself implies a context--an unjustified killing. The problem with my post "Notes on Moral Relativism" is my not making clear that, if we should judge a belief system by its effects, then I'm pre-supposing an ideal to judge them by.