OK, so I've been thinking lately how a lot of my blogs (and a lot of the blogs I decide not to post) tend to be more of a complaining nature. I point out all the problems in the church, the world, me, etc. Now, it is good to be honest. It is good to keep looking with a fair and balanced view of reality. Too often we see the church as we would like it to be rather than how it is. One day it will be that, but we're not there yet. We, as Americans (and I'm sure as Europeans, Asians, etc) also tend to get on a narrow track in the view of our country and culture glossing over the fact that it is sick and twisted as a result of fallen humanity. Only by diagnosing those sicknesses can we hope to cure them. But I tend to do a lot more diagnosing and not enough offering of a cure. Well, this blog is an offer for a cure. It is a challenge. But first, a quote...
"Faced with impossible demands, we are likely to throw up our hands in horror. But the obligations we have are not monstrous or unreasonable. They do not require us to abandon our own lives. They entail, as Adam Smith saw, clearheadedness, not heroism. Jeffrey Sachs has argued that in twenty years, at the cost of 150 billion a year, we can eradicate extreme poverty - the poverty that kills people and empties lives of meaning. I don't know whether the number is correct or whether his detailed proposals are either. But even if he is half right, the richest nations can together salvage the wasted lives of the poorest human beings, by spending collectively less than a third of what the United States spends each year on defense all by itself. Put another way, we could raise the money at about 45 cents a day for each citizen of the European Union, the United States, Canada, and Japan. This is a little more than a third of what the average Norwegian is paying already. The average Norwegian is not three times richer than the average citizen of the industrialized world. If we accept the cosmopolitan challenge, we will tell our representatives that we expect them to remember those strangers. Not because we are moved by their suffering - we may or may not be - but because we ar eresponsive to what Adam Smith called, "reason, principle, conscience, the inhabitant of the breast." The people of the richest nations can do better. This is a demand of simple morality."
- Kwame Appiah (philosopher at Princeton University)
Forty-five cents a day. That is the part each of us is responsible to eliminate extreme poverty. Now, it is a given that not everybody will do their part. But does that mean I should not be doing mine? It is so little. Will I not do what I can with virtually no sacrifice just because I know so many others will ignore the need? But how will I remember to do it? In my back pocket right now is a buck seven. That is the change I've collected over the course of the day. Four quarters, a nickel, and two pennies. I put twenty-six cents in this morning when I bought myself a coffee. When I got lunch at work I added two quarters to my small collection. The last thirty-one cents were added when I got a coffee at Barnes and Nobles after work. A buck seven. Some days it's a bit less, other days even more. But at the end of each day I put it in a jar that at one time held 28 quarts worth of powdered iced tea. By Christmas time it will hold at least a few hundred dollars worth of spare change. Then that collected change will go to a few different projects from World Vision. Go to www.worldvision.org, and if you click on the tab "ways to give" you will see the wide range of opportunities ranging from giving medicine, teaching farming skills and giving seed, giving for educational needs, clean water, you name it.
Three quick objections:
1) But I don't really spend cash. I use my card for almost everything. No problem. Just keep your receipts. Every now and then, perhaps once a week, spend a little time figuring out what your change would have been had you spent cash and tallying that up. Or you could just figure an average and have it automatically deducted periodically. Most reputable organizations like World Vision, UNICEF, One.org, and the like can easily set that up for you online.
2) I don't trust myself with all that change. I'll end up using it long before Christmas. I've got a friend I was chatting with the other day who does basically the same thing but he gives it as the year goes by in other people's names for their birthday. He choses the projects based on what he feel that person would most appreciate. WV then sends a postcard to that person telling them what was given in their name along with a personalized birthday greeting. I told him I was going to steal this idea so Jalit, you know what you'll be getting for your birthday in a couple weeks.
3) But I don't like World Vision. I just chose them because they have sich a wide range of different ways to give and things to give towards. Most of my "top friends" list on myspace are excellent organizations that I would also recommend. Or perhaps something like UNICEF (the UN childrens fund) would work better for you.
The thing is, the few cents a day you give this way doesn't really make that much difference. But what it does is get you to begin to care. By spending a few seconds and a few cents each day towards you begin to care. If you care you begin praying more. And you begin sharing with others what you are doing. Then some of them will start doing it. And they will care more and begin praying and sharing. I can't change the world. But I can do my part and watch the world follow.
It bothers me when people say things like, "yeah, I *could* recycle, but so many people don't that it's not worth it". I want to slap those people across the face! You can't be responsible for everyone else, you can only be responsible for yourself, so do your part. I donate $50 a month to charity, so I guess that's about $1.66 a day. It's really not difficult, and at the end of the year you put it on your taxes and get it back in your return.
I'd like to add that if we tithed to our churches, the churches could make a huge difference, too. My small church, for example, where about 10% of the members tithe (we learned at the last business meeting), barely takes in enough to pay its modest bills, but still gives thousands of dollars each year to a missionary effort in South America that feeds children who are literally starving. We know the couple who runs it and we give the money directly to them. Churches have those types of direct connections with the poorest of the poor and it's a great way to help.
Further, we give our old clothes to our missions director (my mother-in-law), who recruits me to help her take the bags directly to a poor Mexican neighborhood to pass out to the people who most need the clothes. So when you wonder if your church is wasting your money, maybe you need to find a smaller, more intimate church where you could volunteer to drive the clothes donations to the poorer areas like I do, or you could sit through the business meeting and get the whole story once a year to keep them accountable. In short, find some church you can trust and give your tithes. Maybe you question the tithe's biblical validity, but you can't question the good that money can do in the right hands.
