The Gift Economy

Here's a picture of the bookkeeper at church weighing up the morning's offering.  People bring plastic bags full of rice from their own harvest, and put them in the basket.  Then the bookkeeper (not sure if that's really the right word for this job, though) measures out all the rice and then the church sells it to other members for cash that is used to run its operations.

This, it seems to me is the most basic of economic activities: the gift of one's own produce.  It's not exchange that makes an economy, it's giving.  That's the foundation of all other economic activity.

Have you ever given a loan that you were pretty sure would never be repaid?  How does it feel?  When I've done it, I've felt at first a reluctance to "loan" under those circumstances.  But when it's over and done with, it feels right.  Giving and loaning and sharing are supposed to be community-supportive activities, and ways to enhance the lives of other people.  That's what economic activity is for in the final analysis.  Enhancing life.

What can we do to restore the foundation of our economic life that has been so eroded by the demand for repayment and exchange that it is now having trouble holding us all together?

Opinions

Where did you get your political opinion?  For some of us, it just gradually grew out of the environment we grew up in.  For others, at some point (often in adolescence) there was a radical rejection of the beliefs of home and parents, and a strong need to be different.  For still others, some kind of epiphany or sudden realization came, as a result of a cross-cultural experience, a college course, a personal relationship, or some other new exposure.

But you notice, I don’t add that someone persuaded you by their careful, logical argument to change your opinion.  I think this rarely, if ever happens.  My opinion is a part of me, and it’s deeply rooted in the story I tell myself about the universe I inhabit.  Everyone’s opinion is like that – almost sacred - a part of their identity, not a superficial or readily changing whim.

Lately, however, there seems to be a widely felt sense that people arrive at their opinion by carefully considering the facts and reasonable foundations of things and develop a political position as a result.  Which leads immediately to the thought that all I have to do is reproduce the logical steps and carefully reasoned positions I followed and any reasonable person will agree with me.  And then it’s very surprising and disappointing when they don’t.  What’s wrong with these people, are they stupid?  Are they deluded?

No, they are not stupid, they just don’t agree with your reasoning.  And, if you are honest with yourself, you begin to see that before you held this opinion, you wouldn’t have agreed with your reasoning either.  The opinion comes first, roots itself in the story you have about reality, and then the rationale comes later.

I’d like to advocate for a recovery of the belief that other people’s opinions are sacred, not subject to argument.  I think we could avoid a lot of problems this way, from name-calling to “alternative facts” (which are just explanations for why I believe what I do).

If we held everyone’s opinion as sacred, we could discuss with them about facts and about proposed policy changes without requiring the fact to force the person to adopt a new opinion.  A part of any discussion of this nature would be to share the story that led you to the position you now hold (not the reasons, not the facts, but the inner conviction).

This would allow each of us to use the same facts to argue for different approaches to policy.  We can do that because we hold different values and different long-term goals for our society and community, but we can still agree on what the facts actually are and how they influence our thinking.

Here are two photos I took of the Benguet Lily, Lilium philippinenses.  These beautiful wildflowers fascinate me.  They look like they should live in a greenhouse, but they come up all by themselves each June or July on the hills all around here.  They grow by choice on the worst-looking stony soil: barren road cuts and sheer cliffs.  Grace and grit, all in one glorious package.  They make me wish that I were a more skillful photographer than I am, but I had to try, and it's hard to make them look bad, they are such amazing flowers.

If only we were all able to bring such beauty out of the stony wilderness of our lives!

Compost Pit

Stories.  That was and is the plan for my blog.  Stories about meeting the Other and finding a friend.  Stories about getting outside the comfort zone and finding out that it's OK outside.  Stories about the world being big enough for everybody and their hopes and dreams.

And today's story is about making stuff rotten.  That's right, today I started work on a new compost pit.  Here's the "before" picture:

And here's the "after" picture:

 

That's right, I didn't move much dirt today.  That's about two hours' work, which is about all I can do as I am getting up towards the seventh decade of life.  If I do this much each day, by the end of a month -- or maybe two months -- I'll have a deep, stone-lined compost pit and six months or so after that, I'll have compost to put on the garden and make my vegetables healthier and stronger.

That's the thing about all this simple living, back to nature, organic stuff:  it's hard work.  Labor intensive.  A long, slow slog.  Even when you are strong and in the prime of life you only accomplish a little bit of what needs to be done each day.  Even if you use machinery, farming is slow, slow work. Raised up in a modern, hurry-up environment, this is hard learning for me.  For a year now, I've been waiting on this project, trying to think of a faster way to do it.  If I had started right away, I'd already have it by now.

"By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread" says God in Genesis, and I guess we've been spending most of the time since then trying to get around that requirement.  So I'm taking the time now to learn the soil, learn the movement of the body with a shovel full of dirt, learn the time line of plants and weather. And also to dream about the vegetables I'll get someday as a reward.

I'd just like to give a shout out to the Asian Rural Institute, where I learned how to dig and how to be patient with the soil.  I was a staff member when I was there, but it's a learning community and we all learned from each other staff and students together. It was a good place to be.