Austerity and Impoverishment

The other day I picked up the book “The Testament of Gideon Mack” by James Robertson. The book is about a presbyterian minister who, despite his position, is an atheist. One day he falls down a ravine into the river below. Instead of being killed, he miracously survives and is rescued from the river by a person he believes to be the Devil. He spends three days the Devil talking about numerous thins about life before returning to the city he serves in. When he shares his story with the town-folk, he is expelled from his postion, and he disappears in order to write his “testament” before escaping into the woods to die. It is really a fasciniting read.

I was sitting at Starbucks reading the other day, and there was a passage from the book that really stuck out to me… something that I thought was a very profound insight, especially considering it was written from the perspective of Gideon Mack coming from an atheistic point of view. He was talking about his father and two things he respected about him. Mack says:

“From my father I learned many things, but two in particular stand out. The first was the beauty of austerity. As a child I didn’t like the sterile, unadorned barrenness of the manse, but now I have greater respect for this dedicated rejection of possessions. Austerity is not highly regarded these days: not to have things is considered a mark of poverty. But there is more than one kind of poverty, and I have not seen more wretchedly impoverished people than the desperate crowds shopping for the sake of shopping in the post-Christmas sales.”

I have been in California for a couple of weeks now. About two days ago, I was given a tour, driving down Hollywood Blvd, Sunset Strip, and then up into Beverly Hills and Bel Air. Yesterday, I spent some time in the Santa Barbara area, looking at these multi-million dollar homes dotting the cost. On both of these occassions, I had to stop and ask myself “whats the point?”

Seriously, what is the point? To demonstrate that you have wealth? To show the world that you have the most toys? All though your financial statements and your bank accounts may show that you’re way above the poverty line, it doesn’t tell me that you’re not impoverished.

All of those things mean absolutely nothing if your soul is living below the poverty line. There is only one way to make your soul rich, and it has nothing to do with the things you own. Heck, it has nothing to do with how good of a person you are either. It has to do with your standing in Christs eyes. Are you a child of God? Do you commune with the Holy Spirit? Are you thankful for the gift Christ has given us in eternal life? If not, the you are truly poor.

This is America…

Around 12 o’clock this morning, I got really sick. Sick enough that it kept me up all night.

Anyway, I spent most of the night watching tv cause I just didn’t feel like I could do much else. Our apartment complex provides basic cable to all of its residents. through this, we have CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and one other 24 hour news network. Anyway, I spent some time switching back and forth between these networks last night, and I was sickened by what I saw.

Yesterday, there was a fairly large riot at a prison in New Castle, IN. While I was watching the news last night, Fox News was the only one that reported on this incident at all. The other news networks spent the rest of the night talking to psychologists and lawyers about the Alec Baldwin message that he left for his daughter. They kept talking about how much damage that message would do to a 11 year old, especially having to hear it over and over again on tv. They would then go and play the message over and over again. Apparently, they are concerned about the welfare of the child, but not enough to keep from playing the message repeatedly.

What kind of country are we living in that would neglect to report something like a prison riot (big news) and instead, spend an entire night gossiping about a celebrity, and in the process, hurting more than just him?