I suppose it was one of those moments when I had had have a concept sitting around in my head for ages and ages but suddenly that concept hit the reality of my life at a specific moment in time and it was suddenly like Gomer Pile had yelled "Shazam!" and little light bulbs started going off in my head. And I pictured myself filling my shopping cart with things at Target and each purchase being just one more way in which I've gathered resources to myself that weren't meant for me.
The quote that I mentioned in my Mountains Beyond Mountains review is particularly what hit me.
How could a just God permit great misery? The Haitian peasants answered with a proverb:"Bondye konn bay, men li pa konn separe," in literal translation, "God gives but doesn't share." This meant, as Farmer would later explain it, "God gives us humans everything we need to flourish, but he's not the one who's supposed to divvy up the loot. That charge was laid upon us."
And I realized that it wasn't just someone else buying something they didn't really need that was a problem. ME buying something that I didn't really need was a problem. I've tried to reduce our expenses before and buy things used and so on. But it has been more because I wanted to "reduce" or "reuse" than because I held clearly in my mind the idea that I needed to share the resources that God had given to us (us plural, as in, "us, the whole wide world").
Don't get me wrong. We give. We give to our church, to Compassion International, to the Door of Faith Orphanage, and to several other organizations and people. I feel like I have a grasp on giving. What I didn't have in my head was the picture of the person in need who will be missing out on something because of my purchase.
I know, there's the whole, "But your purchase gave someone in that needy country a job (where they were able to make 6 cents an hour building that for you)." Yeah, yeah. My purchase isn't greed on my part, it's benevolence. Right. But really that's missing the point entirely. My hoarding of stuff doesn't benefit anyone (not even myself because then I have to find a way to cram that stuff into the house). I need to find a way to live not just with less, but more simply over all. (And with less doesn't mean that I have less. Just that I buy less. There's the whole "Live Simply" movement that involves buying lots of stuff and then getting rid of it quickly. I really don't think that benefits anyone, even if it looks nicely austere.)
It seems like I've tried spending less many, many times in the past and then the kids need clothes or I need a new bookshelf or.... Yeah. So, what's the trick to really making it happen?
I think you lost me: how did you go from stealing to buying something you don't need? Or was it just a stream of consciousness thing that lead you from the one concept to the other?
ReplyDeletei think the key to the transition is in the haitian saying. God gives us (the world) what we need. but it's up to us to share. if i'm buying up more than my fair share, especially if the production of those things is denuding someone else's land, but even if it's not, then that's theft of what doesn't belong to me (in a spiritual/moral sense, not a "i have the money and can legally buy it" sense.)
ReplyDeleteI think if you're buying more than your fair share at someone else's expense then that's wrong (though whether or not I'd regard it as stealing is a different question) but if it doesn't actually take anything away from someone else that's a different matter. then it might be just a question of whether you're being greedy.
ReplyDeleteI remember thinking about this when I was staying with friends who were extremely careful with their water consumption, because - they told me - of an awareness of the way in some countries people don't have enough water or don't have running water and have to walk to the well etc. and I thought, yes, that's really tough for those people in those countries and by all means let's help them e.g. by providing the money for digging wells/putting in running water, but I don't see how the amount of water I use here in England can make a difference to someone in, say, Kenya - it's not like we can send them our surplus water, is it?
I would agree with this more. If something's for sale and you buy it then, so long as the item being sold is not stolen, there's no way it can be considered stealing. Stealing is absolutely about interfering with a person's property rights to an item. And if I buy two loaves of bread here while someone in the next town over goes without, or even someone else here, then there's no way I can consider that stealing from that other person because they may have a need but they didn't have a right to the item.
ReplyDeleteNow if they were in the store, it were the last loaf on the shelf, and I grabbed it before them, it still couldn't be considered theft even though they were right there and a tacit part of my action. Until they had a right to determine how it was used then they had no more entitlement to that loaf than I did, and my getting to it first trumped their desire without any moral failure.
yes, I think we've got more than one issue here - one is the question of how you define stealing, another is the question of the possible rights and wrongs of buying more than you really need.
ReplyDeleteif I understand meg correctly, what she's saying is that because God has given everything to us (us=humankind in general) with the intention that we would share it fairly amongst ourselves, if I take more than my fair share of whatever-it-is then I am, in a sense, taking what (in God's eyes) belongs to someone else. that's why she's lumping that under the definition of stealing.
my point is that this isn't always the case - in many cases, the stuff I take is stuff that if I didn't take, it wouldn't go to those who need it more. (that's what I was trying to illustrate with the water example.)
but I think it may be easier to discuss all of this under the heading of "greed" rather than the heading of "stealing", because otherwise we'll get bogged down in whether or not it really is stealing, when the main issue to my mind is whether or not it's right.
We'll have to also objective define "my fair share" as well. "Fair" to me is what all parties involved agree to accept in an exchange.
ReplyDeleteam, in a sense, taking what (in God's eyes) belongs to someone else
I think this is an internal contradiction in your statement since, earlier you said, "God has given everything to us (us=humankind in general) with the intention that we would share it fairly". If it's given to everybody then something can't "belong to someone else": the concepts are mutually exclusive, aren't they?
but I think it may be easier to discuss all of this under the heading of "greed" rather than the heading of "stealing", because otherwise we'll get bogged down in whether or not it really is stealing, when the main issue to my mind is whether or not it's right.
+1 I agree completely. And not just because we'll get bogged down, but because I think in the end it really isn't about stealing at all.
hmmm... maybe now we're getting into how to define "belong to" :)
ReplyDeleteI'll try and rephrase, to clarify what I meant:
God has given everything to humankind, with the intention that we would share it amongst ourselves in such a way that no one would go hungry/thirsty etc - that each person would have what he/she really needs.
So possibly [I'm going with what I believe is Meg's interpretation here] in God's eyes, each grain of rice (for example) is allocated to someone [I think maybe "allocated to" works better here than "belongs to"] and if I exceed my allocation and take more, then I'm taking some of somebody else's allocation.
is this helping or am I just thickening the fog?
p.s. I think this also answers the question of the definition of "fair share" in this context.
one of my FB friends got it. she wrote: Interesting. I also had a "shazam" moment - connecting Mel's sermon to the 8th commandment. How often do I steal from God by not giving Him the very best, but my left-overs or "partials"? Time? Guilty. Effort? Guilty. And so forth and so on. Tithing is easy - we have automated giving after all. We usually think of money, but there is so much more we "give to God" that is not connected to $. Day by day living for Him is another story altogether.
ReplyDeleteGlad you wrote this!my response:Yeah, Mel's sermon fit in well with my thoughts.
When you start getting used to the status quo, then you're not as concerned about the quality of the offering as long as you're going through the same motions as usual. Ditto for tithing. We don't think about whether we're giving what we should or in the ways we should when we're just content that we're giving at all. But God doesn't want us to just go through the motions. And when we put thought into our actions hopefully then we do want to be "sacrificing" with integrity -- giving the best of our flock as an offering.
I keep forgetting that we're in Lent (because I haven't given anything up this year). I think a lenten sacrifice (whether giving something up or doing something extra) helps us to keep our giving fresh and thoughtful.
the sermon was from malachi. here's a snippet from malachi (3:8-9):"Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me.
"But you ask, 'How do we rob you?'
"In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse—the whole nation of you—because you are robbing me.The people were bringing offerings. But they were bringing junk (chapter 1).
The Malachi example is between us and God. The stealing idea that I'm talking about is really similar, but it's between us and the rest of mankind.
If I'm a part of a people group who is denuding other lands in order to have a ____, then I am participating in a system in which resources are taken from a place at a fraction of their real value, and in a way that not only depletes the land but often poisons it with toxins as well, and though I'm paying money for that ____, I'm not paying for the externalities associated with my purchase. The people holding the bag on that are those that worked to create the product and those living around the factory and dealing with its toxic output. That's just one example.
Even Clinton's admission recently that he screwed up the Haitians in terms of rice fits with what I'm saying (though in a more round about way, perhaps.) In order to help Arkansas, the Hatians were sent underpriced rice that effectively wiped out their rice producing industry. As a nation we stole (or destroyed) an industry from them in order to line our own pockets.
I think it's thickening the fog, at least for me, since it's assuming some conclusions, and it's still kind of contradictory as I mentioned before. If each thing is allocated to individuals, then it isn't given to the whole to share: allocation means, in this case, god retains ownership but grants use to a particular person. And if that's the case then the producer of the rice, in your example, has no right to package and make a profit on selling that rice to anybody. It's really just a rat hole to try and say that products or nature are in any way intended/allocated/meant for any particular person or to make a claim that anybody is entitled to anything produced by another.
ReplyDeleteI think for me at least in my thought process... if I buy something I do not NEED, that money would have better gone towards a greater good than some material object I can't take with me when I die... it will mean more that I made a difference in the life of another human being than to selfishly think of some trinket I am probably going to give to GoodWill later (when I realize how little I needed it to start with)?
ReplyDeleteI can agree that wasted money is a bad thing, but is it really stealing?
ReplyDeleteIn my mind, yes. But it's more than just wasting money. It's a misallocation of resources on a global scale.
ReplyDeleteBut I still can't accept that it's stealing. Misallocating something that you own is not the same as stealing, which necessarily involves deprive another party of their property. If you buy more than you need and don't use it, you are still the property owner. You didn't steal from someone else because nobody else had the right (which is separate from a need) to that property.
ReplyDeleteAnd that brings up another element that's being missed here: if we accept your definition that buying someone that you don't need but that someone else does need is "theft", then do we also accept the next logical step where you do need it but someone else who needs it more is also "theft"? If I haven't eaten in one day and I buy some food item, but you haven't eaten for two days, then am I stealing from you? I think the argument you propose about need, rather than rights, creating ownership must lead to that as a logical conclusion.
Even if there's some sense in which that property was allocated to them by God?
ReplyDeleteYes. You'll have to show first that some thing was actually "allocated to them" else before you can then claim that the person who legally purchased it is guilty of stealing from that other person.
ReplyDeletewell, given that this is how *I* feel about how i use resources, and *i'm* already convinced, i don't feel like i need to convince someone else. especially since i'd be trying to convince someone that doesn't believe in God that God has made specific allocations regarding people and the earth. i'd achieve just as much from banging my head repeatedly against the wall and i'd probably feel the same way in the end. :-P
ReplyDeleteYou're so sweet to me sometimes. ;)
ReplyDeleteIf a god has allocated a particular thing to a particular person, then I will agree that a third person is stealing only if the god has somehow earmarked that thing so that the person to whom it's allocated is identified. Otherwise, it's too vague for it to be considered theft in any way.
It's like me putting cookies into a cookie jar, then accusing Ben of stealing because he ate two cookies out of there and I had allocated the first of those cookies to Rachel. How could he have known?
he probably wouldn't have known. but you could have left something behind that might help him to consider rachel when he's pulling cookies out, like a conscience or perhaps some sort of general guidebook that would give directions for general cases of equity. that might not help him figure out precise amounts, but it would definitely help him realize he shouldn't hoard all the cookies for himself.You're so sweet to me sometimes. ;)oh good. so you felt my quick kick to your shins? hey, you're welcome, any time. ;-)
ReplyDeleteI didn't say he hoarded all of the cookies for himself. I said he took two and one of them I had secretly (since there's no way for him to know with any certainty) allocated the first one to his sister.
ReplyDeleteok, let me rephrase:
ReplyDeletehe took the cookie that you had intended for rachel.
that better?
Yes. But had no way of knowing that the cookie was intended for her because I dropped the ball only making that intention clear.
ReplyDeleteYOU dropped the ball. GOD left directions.
ReplyDeleteDang, my phone won't let me reply to the specific post.
ReplyDeleteI completely disagree the anything is an explicit map of ownership. I bought a loaf of bread just yesterday: where do I find something that tells me it was allocated to me explicitly?
nowhere.
ReplyDeletethere are directives in the bible about ownership of property and there examples of people being allocated a share of property allotments. there's also the idea of jubilee in which lost property is returned.
there is nothing that explicitly states that you, D, get such and such.
what i want to know is why do you require explicit directions? why is that the big hang up for you? what don't you like about the general idea that there should be a general sharing of resources among general people to serve a general purpose of equity? does something have to be contractual to be valid?
I have no problem with sharing. In fact I encourage it. What I have a problem with is the idea of IMPLICIT ownership of items by someone based on subjective ideas. It's how you wind up with people who think they're entitled to someone else's property.
ReplyDeletewhat's interesting (imo) about what the bible says regarding ownership of stuff is that there's never a point at which the bible says, "you are entitled to such and such." even when God gave the land to the israelites he was quite clear that it was his land, not theirs.
ReplyDeleteit was the people who felt that they were entitled to certain things that God was, in fact, upset about. i think Ezekiel 34 speaks to this. God says to the shepherds of Israel, "you've plundered my flock." kinda sounds like theft even.
i think Isaiah 58 hits on a lot of these same ideas (as does malachi that i mentioned earlier). it's not quite as explicit as Ezekiel about those that felt entitled to take what they wanted, though.
this picture seemed relevant to the conversation. it came in an email today from the center for fine art photography in fort collins. they're doing a series on consumption. It's entitled Ethan and His Blue Things and you can see the original here.
ReplyDelete