The Blind Leading the Blind

Chapel this week has been incredibly powerful. Ironically, I can't even tell you the name of the speaker, or where he was from; but his message continues to resound in my mind's ear. One other irony you should know: I'm actually skipping chapel to write about chapel! There are several things I'd like to record from mon. and wed. chapels, so I'll take the next several posts to write about it.

First, Monday's chapel was the first day I began bringing my notebook to chapel with me. When I took "Personal Leadership," last year, Dr. Myers challenged each student to take notes at every talk they heard. "God can say something to you in every lecture, if you'll let Him," he said. I'd fulfilled the requirement, for the semester; but it didn't really follow me this year. Acknowledging I'd been lagging behind in my note taking (I recently losses a notebook full of sermons, devotions, and thoughts that meant a lot to me... I was devastated) I committed myself to bringing my Bible and notebook to chapel. So began monday's lecture.

The chapel speaker—Hold on, I'll look up his name.... David Johnson. So, Mr. Johnson talked about the difference in how the rich and well-off (I'm including myself in this category) view poverty and how the impoverished (those actually experiencing it!) see it. For us in America, the answer to all our poverty questions is rooted in money; and thus poverty simply means, "not enough." No wonder so many of us are discontent in our current situations: nothing on this earth will satisfy the level of desire we've epitomized, so we all feel impoverished (lacking something—for most of us this "lack" is rooted, again, in the monetary field). Contrast this view of poverty with what Johnson asserts the impoverished actually believe: poverty is the absence of hope, and the absence of power.

Why the difference? Johnson offered two reasons (which I condensed into my own words).

1). Prosperity is blinding

2). Proficiency is blinding

Taking a look at the first point, Johnson said, "How we see the world affects how we serve the world." It's easy to conclude, then, that seeing the world through "prosperous glasses" discolors our motivation to serve the world. For one, we're scared of losing every "thing" we've amassed (forgetting that it's fading anyway). If we share our resources, it means less for us (selfish, much?). If we leave our comfort zone, well, we leave our comfort zone. Despite sounding redundant here, leaving our comfort zone is uncomfortable, and a huge part of our view of prosperity (or at least mine) involves security. This, in turn, involves comfort, stability, predictability.

Expounding on the second point, I took Johnson's statement about seeing and serving the world. Proficiency blinds our view of poverty because how we see time impacts how we spend it. Especially in America, we turn productivity into an idol, exchanging relationships for "social contacts" and learning for accomplishing. Multi-tasking, in particular, is convicting for me (and thus gets on my nerves). For me, multitasking means I can only give a portion of my attention to any one thing at a time (of course, I see it as being able to give some attention to many things that need it!). Anyway, multi-tasking is a form of desensitization: if we don't tune in (or don't tune in fully) we do not empathize (or empathize fully). Though I may not admit, per se, that multi-tasking affects my compassion, I have no doubt that it does. Even now, I'm listening to music (and therefore singing out loud) as I write this (I also have my calendar open on the floor next to me). You may be asking, rightfully so, which of these things I'm most interested in right now. The answer is, none, but I'm doing them all anyway.

At the end of his monday lecture, Johnson made it practical (don't you appreciate that?). What can you (I?) do to combat a tainted view of poverty? How can we change how we see and serve the world?

1). Change the homepage on your computer

Choose something that reflects your goals (whether it's missions, world news, local community; you decide)

2). Educate yourself

If you want to help someone in need, make sure you actually understand what it is they need.

3). Take Local Action

Start close, start small. It makes it easier to start that way.

4). This is usually assumed, but is also usually taken for granted: Pray

"For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed usinto the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins."

-Colossians 1:9-14