Hi everyone,
After a long absence (so what's new on this page?), I've been thinking about three things lately. (Well, more than three, actually. I think three thoughts per fortnight is perhaps a little on the low side, at least for humans. But three thoughts that I'm going to blog about.)
1) You can't always tell what God is up to. This can be quite comforting before anything happens, because it's nice to know that whatever happens in life, it's God's plan. This can also be very cool after something happens, because you can say, "Whoa! Look at what God just did! That's awesome!" However, when you're in the middle of a transition (and who finds change enjoyable? I don't), it can sometimes be a real test of patience wondering how things are going to turn out.
But this I do know: God is good. He will do what He wills, and it will be good. If we follow Him, the rest of the details will fall into place. More on this later.
2) Much less seriously, I have issues with the Fair Trade Coffee poster. It says, "Is Your Coffee Dumping on Someone Else?" And then it goes on to have a spiel about how bad low-wage coffee is and what it's doing to poor farmers in Africa. Now, this is fine. But . . . the poster shows
Colin Firth having coffee poured all over him.
Now what the heck does Colin Firth have to do with free-trade coffee? If you buy slave-labour coffee, you're dumping over some poor coffee farmer in a third world country, not Colin Firth. He's not going to be disadvantaged at all if you buy sweatshop coffee. If he's upset about the issue, why couldn't they just take a photo of him drinking coffee from a fair-trade coffee plantation (He could be the next Kamahl!) . . . I'm not sure I get contemporary advertising.
3) I've got issues with hairdressers who guilt-trip you. When I go for a haircut, I pay my money like everybody else. I should be able to get my hair cut in peace without feeling bad.
However, the first question I get is, "How long since your last hair cut?"
What kind of question is this? Does it matter? Figuring that she was trying to say in an under-handed way that my hair was too long, I mumbled something about, "Oh, I've been too busy to remember to get a hair cut."
"Too busy to remember a hair cut?" she said with a sceptical look.
I just kind of shrugged and said nothing. But it was too late. The damage had been done and it was another miserable hair cut.
Why oh why can't we get Bogart's Hairdressers down in Sydney? Maybe I should ring them up and ask them to move a chain down here.
I know, I know . . . I haven't posted (or replied to emails for that matter), but I was still on my newness block. And I'll be finishing it on on Saturday.
However, I notice that if you combine Rachel's post below with
Cafedave's post on his website, the topic of the day is Christians and possessions.
Which actually has a lot more to do with a Newness Block than you would think.
I'll start with the possessions first.
My relationship with stuff has always been rather strong. I like stuff. Maybe not the same stuff as other people. I was more of a music and movies man than a car and clothes guy, but we all feel the call of different things.
But my spending has kind of gone through stages. It started in the uni days when I had a casual income, and no money. I spent most paycheques down to the ground, and, sadly, didn't give much money to the Lord, which I think was rather misplaced priorities.
I moved to Sydney, started having to pay board, and figured I should settle down a bit. But I still had more money than ever before, and still managed to do a good job of amassing stuff (However, I was putting aside money for things like engagement rings, honeymoons and Ring Cycles, so I started saving properly for the first time in my life.) All of a sudden, the concept that I couldn't have it all started to dawn on me . . .
Then I got married. For the first time, I wasn't paying off my credit card properly, and I had less money left over to splurge on stuff. But Rachel and I still lived quite comfortably and enjoyed ourselves.
And then after a year of marriage, we said, "What on earth is going on with our credit cards??", sat down and did a budget.
Now, we spend even less, and buy movies and music a lot less often. It may be possible that in the future, God will put us in a position where we have to give up even more, but I'm not sure yet.
But, having tried the range of positions from relative affluence (I'm not sure what it's relative too, though) to . . . well, still pretty good compared with a third world country, but perhaps not completely up with the Joneses, I have these observations to make about shiny things (or "stuff", as I call it).
1) I believe that you should be giving regularly to those ministries and places that don't earn their own income. Missionaries, ministers, charities, the poor, etc. need our generosity. I feel hypocritical saying this, because for many years I completely ignored this and spent mostly on myself. But I believe firmly now, that if you've got money to spend on stuff for yourself, you can buy a bit less stuff now and give some money away.
2) Stuff can really be a blessing from God. If you've ever seen that gigantic tower of a CD cabinet we have at our place . . . I like each and every one of those CDs, and I've never regretted buying them. The beauty of music (and other arts over the years) has given me much pleasure, as I think the arts (in its best state) is meant to do. I don't think God's ideal world is a purely functional world where we all wear a sack and don't enjoy life.
3) That said, the focus of having stuff to enjoy (which I lose really easily, and which the world has completely lost in our modern age) is that by enjoying our stuff, we can give thanks to the God who gave it to us. Let's face it, no matter what we think about our working abilities, you get your paycheque every week because God provides for you that way. If he wants to take that away from you (either by losing your job, getting sick, etc.), it could be gone tomorrow.
4) So, recognising that the God who gives us stuff can also take it away, we should enjoy what we have WHILE we have it, because tomorrow you might have less. This is the opposite of the world, by the way. The world's view is that they don't enjoy what they've got now, and tomorrow they want more. But I say, tomorrow you might have less.
5) Following on from that, if God has placed something out of your reach at the moment, then be patient with what you have. Because you might never get it. I'm not saying, don't want anything more. It's great to be able to save up for that special stereo, that TV, that car. But you might never get it. And if you're not prepared for that, and happy where you already are, I can tell you now, even when you get that new thing, it won't be good enough. You'll still want more.
6) Don't be envious. If other people have been blessed with a nice car, and you don't have the money for one, be content that you've got a car. If other people have better (or more fashionable) clothes than you, then stop looking at their clothes. The Bible says it's wrong anyway, but I reckon half our problem arises when we think we'd be happier if only we had the same stuff that somebody else had. I'm not saying this is easy to do, but it's something we HAVE to do.
7) If you try to be content with what you have at any time, then you'll find that what you DO have is amazing and marvellous. For instance, just one example: I used to buy all my music previously. I didn't have much time for listening to the radio, so I'd just buy CDs of whatever I heard at concerts or movie soundtracks, etc. Once we started budgeting, however, CD purchases couldn't be as frequent. So, for the first time, I started seriously contemplating the North Sydney library. Now, amazingly for me, this library has the biggest classical and soundtrack collection of any library I have ever seen. And you can take out six CDs at any one time!! So this year, I have listened to more new music than ever before, for no cost at all.
And my opera CDs and musical CDs, have become like special events to me. Being able to sit down at night time, and listen to singing or orchestral music - stuff that would be fairly expensive otherwise - is really great!
And this is where the newness block comes into it, because if you want to be content with what you've got, you can't keep wanting new stuff. It's the exact opposite of new stuff. So by cutting down a little bit on trying to get new stuff and enjoy what I had, I feel like I was in a little bit preparing for a time when perhaps I'll have even less than I have now.
There's heaps more I could go on about, but, after all that rant, what am I trying to say?
Be content.
Don't be envious.
You could well end up having less tomorrow.
You can't take it with you.
Be content.
Life is a journey.
We all get to certain destinations at different times. And sometimes God doesn't mean for us to go to a destination that He takes someone else on.
As I've mentioned to a few people, lately, my time online has been limited, especially personal blogging, mainly, because I've been spending a lot of time reading and rediscovering my love of books and the written word.
This morning I started reading a book I won off E-bay.
Living More With Less by Doris Longacre. Just reading through the foreward and small quotes written after it has really made me think about the ways I presume my standard of living is a good way to live and my money is best spent on getting the BEST of things rather than being content with food and clothing as the Bible says should be our "expected" standard of living. I guess this is one destination I'll have to spend time rethinking and evalutaing the throw-awayness of my life-style and think through the ways I can use less processed resources and enjoy life in a different way to what I expect is "the best" way.
Anyway, I shan't ramble on anymore but I will write here the qoute that challenged me the most:
When someone steals a man's clothes we call him a thief.
Should we not give the same name to one who could clothe the naked and does not?
The bread in your cupboard belongs to the hungry man;
the coat hanging unused in your closet belongs to the man who needs it;
the shoes rotting in your closet belong to the man who has no shoes;
the money which you hoard up belongs to the poor.
--Basil the Great Bishop of Caesarea, c. 365
