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.

Happy April!

Well, I have discovered the main pitfall of blogging now...It's been more than three months since I got around to this project. Turns out it's very easy to procrastinate on blogging (as if I needed to tell anyone that!)

Last week I spent three days with my parents-in-law without my husband or his English-speaking sisters to speak for me and to me. Dan's mom and I discovered that we can communicate quite a bit if there is no one there to take over the conversation. Life there seems narrow, with a lot of hard work in the fields, and not much to do otherwise except gossip with the neighbors or go to church. But the inner lives of people can still be rich in reflection, experience and humor and the people of that area are known for their tenacious maintenance of traditional customs and ways in the face of the homogenizing trend of the modern world. Last week they celebrated the completion of rice planting in the traditional way, butchering a pig in almost every household, and performing thanksgiving rituals at each rice field. There was also a Thanksgiving Mass at the Episcopal Church, which used the prayers of 16th century England to celebrate the same events. Nobody seems to think this is a clash of culture or a peculiar mix at all, it's what they have been used to for their whole lives, and that's just what worship is like here.

For three days, I ate boiled pork and glutinous rice steamed in woven sugar cane leaves, and drank lots of coffee. They only eat meat on holidays, or at weddings and funerals, the rest of the time, the diet is mainly boiled beans and rice, with maybe some dried or canned fish for variety. Whenever we go there, we bring sugar and bread for treats, but these are mostly shared around with all the neighbors, you don't eat much of the bread you bring.

Have to admit, I was glad to get back to my own house and my own kitchen again later, and cook some vegetables, but it was a nice interlude and helped us develop a deeper relationship, which feels good. While I was there, Dan had to travel to Manila for a meeting, so he came back tired out and I came back refreshed. Since then, I've been trying to cook his favorite foods and let him get some rest. Now I have to get writing again!

What Clash of Civilizations?

News of the death of Samuel Huntington, political scientist at Harvard whose book "The Clash of Civilizations" caused so much debate around the time of 9/11, has come at the same time as Yahoo! News published a sad little story about a debt slave from Egypt who was brought to Los Angeles to work 20 hour days as a maid for a rich Egyptian family. Eventually the situation was reported by a neighbor, and the child was taken into foster care and the employers were tried and convicted of child abuse and slavery. After serving their two year jail sentences, they went back to Egypt and were seen by a reporter entering their high priced condo accompanied by a small child carrying their bags.

It is tempting to say, "well, it's too bad, but after all, they have their cultural customs..." but this is not a good way to commemorate the American workers who were shot in cold blood on American streets for daring to demand such uneconomical and unAmerican things as an 8-hour work day and a six day work week. That's not so long ago, it's within living memory. In the 1930's a rich Los Angeles family would not have had to go all the way to Africa for a debt slave. There were plenty of Anglo American girls available, and people then thought that would be giving them a chance, too. At least they could work in a big house with running water.

Human Rights are not natural to any one human culture, they have to be fought for. Again and again.

The question really is, what is the best way to help other people fight for their rights? The world is littered with ill-fated programs of well-meaning people who failed to help the miserable people they wished to serve. That's not to say "let's just leave them alone" that's to say, "let's be careful and understand what's going on before plunging in." There are useful things that can be done, but the first impulse is not necessarily the best.

So clarity of purpose is really very important in this area. Speaking out for human rights is not imposing "our culture" on others, but of course, we have to know how to separate our culture from universal human rights. Otherwise, we risk being like those old-fashioned missionaries who mistook clothing styles and musical instruments for civilization. Not an easy task!

On Being a Missionary

"Mission" comes from the Latin "missio" which means "sent". Although we now more commonly use it as a noun: "I have a mission", most Christians nowadays are quick to acknowledge that we don't have a mission, it is God's mission, upon which God sends people to various parts of creation for various tasks. The history of Christian mission is much more than the last 200 years or so, during which time Christianity got almost fatally tied in with the project of empire and "civilizing" the non-Christian world. We still have a long way to go to extricate ourselves from that era, but at least we are well started on becoming a global body in which no culture is privileged.

Personally, I started work as a professional missionary with a lot of misgivings. I believed that all people had access to God and everybody was on their own journey that must end in some kind of holy mountain. My years of work in Nepal taught me more deeply about the reality of evil in our world, its tenaciousness and its ubiquity in every human life. Just being good will not cut it for the people of the world who suffer the most - we are all ensnared in a system that has winners and losers, a system that cannot be conquered from inside, only from outside.

When I tell this story, I usually add the story of my friend Duane. He tells of going from the USA to Nepal as a young missionary with the belief that his mission was to save souls. "I'd just tell them about Jesus, and they would accept him, and they'd be all right," he says. But his years in Nepal taught him that life is a whole. People's needs for life are not divided into spiritual in one place and physical somewhere else. Now he works in integrated development, programs that include drinking water supply, education, health care, and sharing love in community.

Duane and I were both evangelized by Nepal. Far from converging, our theologies remain different in many ways, but we were both forced to deepen and mature in our knowledge of life.

I have struggled with the image of being a missionary for many years. I have spent sleepless nights telling myself that I am more part of the problem than part of the solution. But I still hold on to the faith that a stranger in a new place can speak usefully to people in a different context and provide help on many levels. And I also have learned that the only missionary of any use to the world is one who is himself or herself always being converted and challenged by new situations.