Have 2, Give 1

I commute to school in Oakland three times a week. On the way I pass by the Walgreen’s on the corner of Fruitvale and Foothill. On a typical day in the Walgreen’s parking lot there are two or three dozen day laborers, mostly illegal immigrants, waiting for work. In America there are between 7 and 11 million illegal immigrants. They are estimated to earn $60 billion per year, and a full half of that gets sent home. That means that they make about $7500 per person annually, and live on only $3750 annually.

For better or worse God has put us all in the richest part of the world. People risk imprisonment and endure long separations from their families to come here and sacrifice for their families. I think that we the Church can learn something from the hard working day laborers of the Fruitvale Walgreen’s. They quite literally give 1 out of every 2 away.

The harsh reality is that the world is starving (15 million children will die of hunger this year). Half of the planet lives on less than $2 a day while we spend twice that amount on coffee daily. The Church continues to build multi-million dollar buildings that will be vacant in a generation while hundreds of millions around the world don’t have adequate shelter. What would it mean if we gave one out of every two of our dollars away?

I hope I don’t sound self-righteous. This is as much a self-criticism as anything else. Some of my hard working neighbors live on half of their already-inadequate income and I can somehow rationalize eating out several times weekly. I would like to say that I will pledge to give away 20% of my income, or even just 10%, but it still sounds too scary, too radical. I know it probably wouldn’t affect my lifestyle: I’m sure I’d still find a way to over-eat and buy more crap I don’t need. So I’ll continue to pray for enough courage/trust/faith to obey Jesus.

We (the East Bay Cohort) also had ourself a garage sale on Saturday. The dark and rainy weather threatened our chances, but as the morning went on it cleared up a bit and people started to come and purchase our stuff. It was a little odd to watch people go through the things we had laid out. You could see them sifting through the clothes, the books, the electronics. Some people picked things up and examined them, their brains trying to figure out how much the particular item was worth to them. I was struck by the fact that things that we bought for $12, $50, $200 are now worth $2, $10, $20 at a garage sale. What if we hadn’t purchased these things in the first place? What if we had taken the money and given it to someone who needs it in the first place? We would have had so much more money to give? What about all those items people purchased for us for our birthdays or for Christmas that we never really needed, or even really wanted or liked at all? What a complete waste of money, all in the name of people trying to make us happy, sincerely trying to let us know that they care.
I hope this exercise is helpful for all of us, but what I really wonder about is how do we move forward from here? What is it that makes us hoard material possessions? How do we begin to live in a way that we consume less? How can we be content with less? How can we find our joy and worth in Jesus instead of stuff?

I WOULD LOVE TO READ OTHER PEOPLE’S REFLECTIONS ON THESE QUESTIONS…

We had a garage sale in the city yeasterday at the corner of 18th and Valencia. I think it went really well. I was surprised at how much we were able to give away. We sold about $230 worth.

It was a fun experience. If you have stuff to sell for a garage sell, do it in the mission district. You will interact with some neat people and you might have a change to use some language skills that you thought you had forgotten. I got to practice some spanish with an older woman who was quite interested in decorative plates, seat covers, and hand carved picture frames. I think she spent every penny she had on her at our garage sale. Even when she had given me her last bit of change, and some gummy bears, she still kept browsing.

We sold some stuff for a lot less than it was worth. I think that is part of the process. It has really made me reflect more on the value of things. I write this as I’m sitting here waiting for someone to come and pick up a home built computer from me. I’m selling it for a lot less than it cost. Some of the individual components probably cost more than what I’m selling it for. But, I think this is part of the process. Many of the things we purchase loose their value quickly– computers and electronic equipment especially. Perhaps this experience will give us all a better appreciation for the true value of things. Especially when we are trading our time and energy to come up with the means to acquire them.

This is what I’ve sold so far…

on eBay and half.com
$3.10 used book, Memoirs of a Geisha
$1.95 new book, Found
$11.99 new book, The Great Gatsby
$4.40 used DVD, 50 First Dates
$5.50 new CD, Seven by Enrique
$20.50 used Banana Republic Blazer
$21.99 used Ann Taylor Car Coat
$8.99 used Puma Sneaker
$26.00 used BCBGirls Black Dress Shoe

I gathered a bag of color paper, journals, etc for Hailey’s Katrina bag pack effort. And I am ready for this Saturday’s garage sale! It feels freeing to own less, and satisfying that some of these excess can be released to people in need.

p.s. I need to put some Precious Moments figurines on eBay.

I am thankful to be brought into Mark & Lisa’s loving home and meet a group of folks who care for others in their communities and also those abroad. It is fulfilling to put The Way and His Teaching in practice.

Currently I am renting a room, and the project has caused me to take out everything in my room to figure out what I can give away, sell, and recycle. Each time when I clean up my room, I question why I bought a particular something. Instead of accumulating treasures in my room, the funds could have been released to pressing needs.

I grew up not having a lot, but I was always well fed. My family took side jobs like putting wheels on toy cars at night to make a few extra dollars and pay all the bills. Older Aunties had hand-me-down clothes and backpack for me. To save money from buying school uniforms, my mother would make my uniforms with just a third of what the school would charge. My family taught me to love my friends, but always to put family first because they will be with you for the rest of your life.

After being a Follower of Jesus, it was a new thing for me to find out that God has a heart for every person. He loves them all. If I am to love Him- I need to love those that He deeply cares for. I can’t forget about His peoples.

So in this project, I am looking for items that I can get rid of. Not things like a pair of shorts that I would never wear again, but something that I like but do not need… something that I can sell so another person can benefit.

Furthermore, echoing to Damon’s last entry, the project pushes me to reflect on how to honor God with my profession. My workplace is a shopping mall. Our vision is to create special places and experiences for the community. Our bottom line is to increase NOI and encourage those who shop to choose us over other shopping venues. After 2.5 years of working at two malls, I still can’t believe I have to walk pass Cinnabon each morning to get to the office. I love my job and I know this is exactly where God is placing me right now. On the other hand, I know that He loves seeing my checkbook reflecting my loving Him and loving people. He wants me to journey and encourage others to live a life of abundance and generosity.

Check out what I got from selling a pair of old shoes:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7718355331&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMESO%3AIT&rd=1

I have this ongoing struggle with possessions, wealth, and vocation. This project has been a great opportunity for me to wrestle with these in intellectual, spiritual, and practical ways. I think when we begin a journey like this (with focus on our possession) there can be a temptation to see the way our world deals with possessions and wealth as “evil” or “bad”. I think that we have to be careful to distinguish between the way they are used and our relationship with them. Money and possessions are part of creation. When under the will of God, they are good and serve the Kingdom. Just think of what would happen if half of the wealth in the world was in the service of the Kingdom. Sure, we would still have poverty in the world but in my best but imperfect Kingdom vision, it probably wouldn’t be the oppressive kind of abject poverty that is suffered by more than a billion people today.

So that raises the question: How do I take what I have and put it under the reign of the Kingdom? More specifically, what disciplines (spiritual?) are required for me to maintain a proper relationship with my money and stuff? As Willard puts it, how do I own without treasuring; how do I possess without being possessed; how do I live simply, even frugally, though I control great wealth (well, relative to 98% of the rest of the world)?

One discipline I’ve been pondering along these lines is doing more detailed tracking of my finances. I currently track every penny I spend in an excel spreadsheet but I’ve been thinking that I should track everything. Everything I make and everything I spend. I think too that it would be good to add to this a time of reflection either monthly or quarterly to assess where my priorities are and how I’m leveraging what I’ve been given through my labor for the Kingdom (is it really for the kingdom? maybe i’ll save that for a different post).

My hunch is that this discipline will help me to be more honest about my income, what I give, and what I really need. Do I really *need* an engineering salary to live in the Bay Area? Perhaps October is a good month to start…

I have been lugging around about 70 books for the past 4 years. They were accumulated during college and I’ve kept them with me all this time. Come to think of it, I’m not really sure why. All of the books from college that I regularly reference are at work.
I probably only went back to about 4-5 of them during that time. The crazy part is that I’ve moved them 6 times in 4 years.

As part of my engagement with this process (see the About link), I decided to sell most of the books and give the proceeds to the poor. I put 64 of them up on http://www.half.ebay.com. So far, I’ve sold 11 of them for about $60. When posting them, Alice encouraged me to maximize salability over return. She’s the marketing brains so I took her advice. When you are filling in the pricing info for the book on half.com, you can look over on the left and click on the ISBN#. This will take you to a page that has all of the lists for that book. Alice suggested that I look there and find the cheapest price within the categorization for my book (e.g. Like New, Very Good, Good, etc) and beat it. So that is what I did.

Another trick I learned from her was to skip the “media mail” packaging that you can buy at the Post Office or an office supply store. Instead, you can use the paper bags from Trader Joes that you have lying around as wrapping paper for the books. This will save you about $1.50 for each book you ship.

I really enjoyed this process. I’ve reclaimed a couple of cubic feet in my closet. I’ve interacted with people all over the US by providing something they need. I’ve learned a lot about book selling and ebay.com/half.com. I’ve interacted with people I normally wouldn’t (buyers, post office clerks, people in the post office). I didn’t even know where my local post office was… And it has given me an opportunity to reflect on some of the other things I’ve been carrying around all this time.

The books that I can’t sell by Oct 29th, I’ll try and sell at a garage sale or a local used book store. For the lost causes, I’ll see if they can be donated somewhere or recycled.

little did i know that when i posted this back in August the fulfillment would manifest like this. the invitation to live open handed brought me back to the days of sitting in our basement, speaker on either side of the well used pugent red sofa chair. the bass-line vibrating our internals as we sat engulfed in the beat. that CD of yesterday brought 5 dollars to the table today, 5 dollars in to be given back out.

it’s fairly easy to say i’ll sell my things, but quite another to slow down life enough to allow the purging to occur, and yet another to take the money made and give it away. i could use that money, i could use it to pay off some debt or buy lunch but as i’ve noticed provision has always been there so i choose to give it away knowing i’m taken care of, if not merely because of where i live.

yesterday i said farewell to my car.
and will now be using my bicycle as my main means of transportation. not as noble as it may sound as i sold it to pay off my credit card and to free myself from the expense of gasoline. i can see already the dependence i will have on the charity of others but i welcome the change.

little did i know it would manifest like this, but i welcome this season with openness trusting that my horizons will be expanded on how to live open handed.

moments of clarity ushered in on the heals of farewell
running mind unceasingly moving quieted by simple acts
the mess of beauty.