Watch it, rich man!

After James 4:10-5:6 

A fundamental question:

what do you do with

your wealth? What do

you do with all the Lord

has blessed you with?

Riches for the sake

of riches is chasing

after the wind. You

blink your eyes, and

your riches have rotted,

your clothes become rags,

your stocks have crashed,

your banks have closed,

your comfortable life

of indulgence have ended.

You’ve condemned and

defrauded the righteous

person. It is time for you

to weep and howl for

the miseries coming

upon you.

 

Photograph by Jingming Pan via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

“Treasures of TANAKH Hebrew: Hineni,” poem by Brian Volck – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

 

A Lot of Christian Tech Criticism is Missing Three Important Things – Samuel D. James at Digital Liturgies.

 

Icthus – poem by Andrew Roycroft at New Grub Street.

 

“From Greenland’s Icy Mountains,” hymn by Reginald Heber – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

A pair of sonnets for St. John the Baptist – Malcolm Guite.

 

A Puddle of Pure Joy – Seth Lewis.

Love or justice?

After 2 Samuel 18 

Is the focus to be

love, or is the focus

to be justice? Is

this life about grace,

or is this life about

righteousness? It

seems a cop-out

to say, well, both 

matter. They do,

but we want one or 

the other to rule.

Instead, we discover

a tension, a tautness,

and exhaustion to hold

both together,

at the same time,

as if they were one

entity, not two. The mind

boggles, the heart

struggles more. We do

not expect to be called

to this divine tension.

 

Photograph by Jon Tyson via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

“An Address to Miss Phillis Wheatly,” poem by Jupiter Hammon – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

 

Life is a Vapour. Enjoy It – Seth Lewis.

Justice, Order, and Mob Rule: A Tale of Two Cities

This past week, Literary Life has been featuring chapter three of On Reading Well by Karen Swallow Prior. It’s the chapter entitled “Justice,” and the book featured by Prior to illustrate the idea is A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.

After A Christmas Carol, A Tale of Two Cities is likely Dickens’ most popular work. We like and remember it for is opening statement of contrasts, for the horrific mob scenes in the Paris of the revolutionary Terror, and for the sacrifice of the ne’er-do-well lawyer Sydney Carton, substituting his life for that Charles Darnay might be saved from the guillotine. And it was a sacrifice for love; Carton loved Darnay’s wife, Lucie, and he knew it would always be an unrequited love.

I first read the story in a Classic Illustrated comic book edition. Shortly afterward, our reading teacher in eighth grade included it on our reading list, a list that also included some decidedly non-eighth-grade works like Day of the Triffids and Alas, Bablyon, both about the world after great catastrophes. Prompted by some concerned parents, the principal reprimanded the teacher, but A Tale of Two Cities stayed on the list.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Literary Life.

A National Scarcity

The CEO of the corporation I was working for had agreed to be part of some prestigious national commission, and needed to have a staff person assigned who could do research, assemble reports, write speeches, and basically “staff” the CEO on the project. It would be a six-month assignment.

The search immediately focused on the speechwriting team – three of us who wrote for a dozen executives, did issue papers, prepared the quarterly financial reports, and generally any other kind of writing project the executives needed. (In addition to speeches, it fell to me to write the quarterly reports, a few issue papers, and the chairman’s annual United Way message to employees.)

One of my colleagues was chosen for the CEO’s assignment. He was even physically moved to an office in the executive building. The six months actually was closer to eight. His normal work – a full-time job – was given to the two of us who remained. Most of that extra work fell to me.

The special project came to an end, and our colleague returned. Two or three weeks later, the entire department was called into a meeting, where my colleague received a special recognition for the work he had done for the CEO, i.e., a special bonus check.

For the two of us who had carried the load of the department, who had picked up the extra work, there was – not even an acknowledgement.

This is not unusual in corporate America, then or now. Gratitude always seems to be in scarce supply. Had we not done what we did, our supervisors would have had a major mess on their hands. As it was, no one said a word. I was disappointed. My other colleague was furious, and went to the head of the department. Nothing came of that, however.

Gratitude is always in short supply.

I’m not sure why. Thanking someone is not a big deal. Even recognizing good work should not be a big deal. But it is.

In Slow Church: Cultivating Community in the Patient Way of Jesus, Christopher Smith, John Pattison and Jonathan Wilson-Hargrove say this scarcity of gratitude comes from forgetfulness, a kind of national or cultural affliction. I suspect it also comes from the disconnect between the blessings we enjoy in our lives and understanding who the source of those blessings is. We like to think of ourselves as doing it all on our own, but that’s rarely if ever true.  

But there’s something worse, the authors say. “Gratitude is perhaps the most important way we practice recognizing the enough all around us. If lack is the root of injustice, than gratitude is the root of justice.”

This seeming inability to express gratitude, this national, cultural and individual forgetfulness, plays havoc in our lives. We can do better.

For the past several Mondays, I’ve been discussing Slow Church. This week’s discussion is about the chapter entitled “Gratitude.” Next week, the discussion will be on “Hospitality.”

Photograph by Anna Langova via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Out pours the pain

It was just a normal, casual conversation between two friends. There’s a difference in our ages, like about 20 years, but our interests, temperaments and personalities more than bridge the age difference. He’s the younger of the two of us, but I have a profound respect for him as a professional and as a person. Not to mention the fact that we share the same faith.

And then he said something, about a situation he was dealing with at work. I went silent.

He took my silence as listening, and it was. Deep listening. Deep interest. He continued to talk, providing details. I listened harder. I could hear the pain in his voice.

Here was a guy who was unbelievably creative and innovative, a warhorse for work, could handle a dozen projects simultaneously and handle them well, worked hard, and the rewards and recognition went to someone who couldn’t hold a candle to him but did know how to work organizational politics.

It was tantamount to a betrayal.

I closed my eyes. The hurt came pouring out of him. Other people in his organization were just as upset. Everyone knew what had happened. Everyone knew a profound injustice had been done, that in its usual oblivious way the organization ha d communicated that hard work, results and innovation placed a very distant second to telling the boss what the boss wanted to hear.

I listened to his pain in his heart.

What I was hearing was the pain in my own heart.

I’ve been there, I thought. I’ve been there too many times. I know what you’re going through, know it better than you realize. I’ve lived this. You’re telling me my own story.
Then he got to the worst part, and I knew this was coming. I've lived this story.

“I feel like crap for thinking this way,” he said. “I have a good job. Our needs are met. I feel like I’m shaking my fist at God for how unfair it all is.” Nothing like a sense of unthankfulness to dredge up good old Christian guilt.

“It just hurts,” he said.

“I know,” I said. “I know it hurts.”

Then I told him why I knew. I told him about the first time it had happened to me. And the second. And the third. And the fourth. Different people, different organizations, different jobs – but the same thing. Four times. The same thing that you never get used to, the same thing that hurts each time.

Constructed within this image of God that we all bear as human beings is a sense of rightness, of justice, of good work and faithfulness being rewarded. We bristle when unfairness and decisions made on personal preferences prevail. Sometimes we’re outraged. It’s not that we don’t understand the big picture in the workplace, which is what we’re often told. We understand the big picture better than a lot of managers realize.

But we also understand what constitutes fairness. We know when something is right, and when something is wrong.

So what did I say, do I say to my friend who hurts?

“It happens. It may happen again, and it will hurt just as much, because you simply can’t get used to it. Doing the wrong thing four times doesn’t make it right. But you have to find ways to get through it.” I’m quiet for a moment. “When I look back, I realize that, for all my hurt and pain, I wasn’t alone. Those were the times that I grew, that my faith grew. I wish there had been an easier way, but it’s what happened. My faith grew. The injustice of man does not overwhelm the justice of God. And God is faithful, even when I shook my fist at him.”

We’re still talking.


Over at Faith Barista, Bonnie Gray has asked us to write about a time recently when we’ve felt close to God. The account I’ve written here started in the last week. To see more posts, please visit Faith Barista.

Photograph: Lonely Man by Anna Cervova via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.