In today's Boundless article, I write about something I've noticed among secular and Christian financial advisers.
Though there are many things that both perspectives would agree on (get rid of revolving debt, save and give), when it comes to financial specifics, the divide can widen ... significantly. One area where I noticed this gap was in advice to couples.
In the article, I give several examples of popular, secular financial speakers and authors who suggest that couples maintain separate financial lives or, at least, that couples should just do "whatever works." But, in the Christian financial realm, you'll be hard-pressed to find many who advocate separate accounts or "whatever works."
I wrote:
Why the disparity? Why are so many secular advisors pro-separate accounts or, at best, neutral, while so many Christian advisors advocate joint accounts?
One study by the Raddon Financial Group showed that 48 percent of married couples had two or more checking accounts in 2005 — up from 39 percent in 2001. So, are Christian financial advisors ignorant or just behind the times? Or, is there something more?
The more I read, the more I tend to think that there is something more.
Specifically, that it's not just about the accounts. It's about what each group believes about marriage — what marriage is and how to make it work well.
For those of us deciding which advice to take, those beliefs are important.
So I looked into what each group really believed about marriage, if their advice was even for married people at all, what assumptions they made about relationships and whether those assumptions matched the Word.
I was pretty intrigued by what I found.
Give the article a read. Have you thought at all about how you will handle your finances when you are married? Does understanding some of the secular financial advisers' assumptions about marriage and relationships give you pause when considering whether to take their advice or not?
Task Debt by Suzanne Hadley Gosselin on 11/13/2009 at 4:23 PM
With a weekend coming, it suddenly occurred to me today how much I have to do: Housecleaning projects to take care of, post-wedding thank-you notes to write, a garage to clean out, and, of course, that pesky book proposal to finish. I suddenly feel like I have task debt; the feeling is akin to realizing that you have debt on your credit card that you should have paid off months ago. Unfinished tasks upon unfinished tasks.
How did I accumulate this debt? Simple. I went to the movies when I should have been cleaning my house. I watched TV when I should have been writing thank-you notes. I slept in when I should have been getting the garage cleaned out. And I wasted time on Facebook when I should have been writing that book proposal.
And now I'm paying the price. Did I really need all those outings, TV episodes and morning sleep-ins. No. It was a discipline issue.
You've probably heard what the Bible says about those who sleep instead of work:
"A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest—and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man." (Proverbs 6:10-11)
Well, there's more. For months, I've been saying that I'm going to take care of the aforementioned tasks. The Proverbs have a zinger for that one, too:
"All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty." (Proverbs 14:23)
Uh oh. Interesting that both passages talk about poverty -- a financial condition. Debt, anyone? I don't know if I would be financially better off if I completed my work (maybe if I got that book deal), but I do know my soul would feel richer. As things stand, I'm constantly worried about when I'm going to get things done. I think this weekend, I'll get going on paying off that debt. Then some day, maybe I'll be able to pay "cash" for that Saturday sleep-in.
I have to force myself to help friends move, show up early to church to set up chairs and make meals for people who need them. But I do ... force myself. Because it seems clear from Scripture that we're all on the hook to be the hands and feet of Jesus to others through acts of service.
Though I try not to hide behind it, I've never considered myself to have the "gift of helps." But Friday's post on "Stuff Christians Like" challenges the notion of this "gift:"
A couple years ago I got in a heated argument with a fairly well-known Christian author when he was guest speaking in our Sunday school class. He was talking about how we each have spiritual gifts, which is totally valid, but by way of example he happened to mention that you would never find him sweeping up the church because he didn’t have the “Gift of Helps.”
I suggested that the idea of a gift of “Helps” was invented by people who were too lazy to pitch in and help out around the church. I asked him if he was seriously suggesting that he couldn’t put a chair away because he didn’t have that spiritual gift. “I see that those chairs need to be put away, and I’m just standing here. I wish I could help, I really do. If only God had blessed me with the Gift of Helps!”
I think this concept has been abused. After all, aren't all believers called to help one another? I wrote about this in "Useful Christian:"
Everyone has something to contribute to God's work (Romans 12). Part of the challenge is just showing up. While the Bible doesn't come out and say, "Make yourself useful!" the concept is implied. The imagery of a body, in which each limb, organ and muscle does its part, reinforces the idea that you should be doing simply what you are able.
In a day of sophisticated spiritual gifts tests and leadership training, some Christians may feel like they have little to offer. Others may feel that pulling weeds, making peanut butter sandwiches or holding babies doesn't properly utilize their "gifts."
When I'm tempted to think certain tasks are not worth my time, I remember my pastor. Most Sundays I see him pushing carts of chairs long after service has ended. It's a task any able bodied person could do, but Pastor is quick to pitch in wherever there is need.
Spiritual gifts should not be used as excuses to abandon the more practical, daily offerings of the Christian life. Sometimes washing a sink of dishes speaks louder than preaching a sermon.
The Value of Rest by Suzanne Hadley Gosselin on 10/28/2009 at 1:19 PM
My first three years of college I was an achiever. I worked hard to do well in all my classes, became student newspaper editor and earned several scholarships. For me, everything seemed within grasp if I just worked hard enough ... including spiritual goals.
When I suddenly fell ill to Lyme disease as a senior, I began to see how warped my thinking was. All of a sudden, I wasn't able to work hard and accomplish things. I had to rely on the mercy of others to even manage 12 credit hours. Many times my energy felt like that Old Testament widow's jar ... it refilled just enough to get me through each day. This setback drastically altered my view of my worth. I had put a lot of stock in my ability to do things and even viewed my value to God in my performance. As a sick person with little to give, I came to discover my value came from who I was, not what I could do.
In today's featured article "Craving Crisis," Kara Schwab describes a similar epiphany:
Somehow I was letting what I was doing for God give me purpose, instead of simply being His child. I must have believed that by doing more, I could prove my love to God, earn His love and feel good about myself. The problem is, the older you get and the more your faith matures, the more you realize you're not a super hero or a super Christian, but just a big, worthless windbag of sin. And what pierces you is not the shame of it all, but the truth that even with all that wind, there's nothing you can do to further fan the flame of Christ's incredible and passionate love for you.
I would say I discovered I was more than a "worthless windbag of sin" trying to make up the difference through superhuman effort. No, I was far from worthless. But my worth came from the price Jesus paid to reconcile me to Himself. There was nothing I could do to render myself more or less valuable to Him. During that time, a professor said to me, "Sometimes God humbles those with gifts, because they find too much value in them." That was true for me. Through my illness God tore me down to my foundation and began rebuilding.
As Kara points out, some people get a buzz off of averting crises and doing it all. But eventually you will not be able to do it all, and what then?
Now, I find that what I crave is balance. And while I still enjoy a heart-thumping mountain-top experience as much as anyone else, I'm finding more meaning in the hike that gets me there. Balance is something I'll always have to actively pursue. Only now I know this pursuit begins by resting at the feet of Jesus.
That kind of rest can be a slippery thing to grasp. But there's power in recognizing your limitations and realizing that what you can or can't do matters less than we think. God does His thing regardless of our abilities. And He invites us to peace and satisfaction. Something far better than the crisis.
When Josh Harris applies Proverbs 24:33-34 to new media it makes me want to stop blogging and ask God for wisdom. I'll finish this post so you can join me there.
This week I moved to a new cubicle. This is the fourth time I have moved during my nine years with Focus. Each time, I purge books and papers that I no longer need. Then I dutifully dump the contents of my desk drawer into a box for transfer to its next home.
This time I made an interesting discovery. My drawer contains a staple remover. Now this staple remover has been in my drawer for more than nine years and yet I cannot recall one time when I used it. However, each time I've moved, the little staple remover has come along. It must feel terribly useless in that drawer.
This got me to thinking: How many things in my home and office do I never use and yet accept their presence as necessary? I mean, what desk drawer doesn't have a staple remover? It's standard issue, right? (There has to be a Dilbert cartoon about this sort of thing.) Go ahead, look in your drawer and tell us the thing you don't use.
Or what about the useless items in your house? My husband found many of these little "treasures" when he moved into my town home. My junk drawer contained some extra wires from my gas fireplace, which has worked perfectly during the four years I've lived there. In fact, were the fireplace to actually malfunction, I would have absolutely no idea how to implement the wires.
"If the fireplace broke," Kevin pointed out, "I'd just call someone to come fix it." Good call. We trashed the mystery wires.
So spill: What is the oddest, useless thing you keep around your home or office?
Kids Are Rocks by Heather Koerner on 10/01/2009 at 4:00 PM
There's been a lot of talk lately about modern women being unhappy.
The most recent is Maureen Dowd's New York Times article, "Blue is the New Black." In it, Dowd writes:
According to the General Social Survey, which has tracked Americans’ mood since 1972, and five other major studies around the world, women are getting gloomier and men are getting happier.
Before the ’70s, there was a gender gap in America in which women felt greater well-being. Now there’s a gender gap in which men feel better about their lives.
What's the deal, Dowd wonders. Women have broken out of our "domestic cocoons" (her words). We've left our mothers' "circumscribed lives behind." Why aren't we happy?
"[T]he more women have achieved," she writes, "the more they seem aggrieved. Did the feminist revolution end up benefiting men more than women?"
Perhaps men are happier because women still have the "second shift" (more housework and child care to do after the work day is over)? Probably not, Dowd writes. Though women still do more of each, the "trend lines are moving toward more parity, which should make [women] less stressed."
Dowd offers a few possible solutions to the "paradox," then focuses on one in particular: kids.
One area of extreme distraction is kids. "Across the happiness data, the one thing in life that will make you less happy is having children," said Betsey Stevenson, an assistant professor at Wharton who co-wrote a paper called "The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness." "It’s true whether you’re wealthy or poor, if you have kids late or kids early. Yet I know very few people who would tell me they wish they hadn’t had kids or who would tell me they feel their kids were the destroyer of their happiness."
The more important things that are crowded into their lives, the less attention women are able to give to each thing.
Here's what that last line (read it again, would you?) got me thinking of: rocks. Stephen Covey, well-known author of the The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, has a "rock theory." Boiled down, the theory goes like this: Your life is bucket. Put the big rocks in first, then the little rocks, then the sand, then the water. It all fits. So, know what the big rocks in your life are and start there.
What I've found is that my kids are the rocks in my life. I think you will find that, by your desire and by God's design, your kids will become the rocks in your life as well. They are a joy and they are a reward. But they are also very hard work. The very nature of raising kids demands time.
Before I had kids, I was able to juggle some pretty big boulders. A full-time career. An hour-long commute. But when my daughter came along, I realized that a choice had to be made. Would I give up some of the other rocks in my life or would I try to now cram them all in the jar together? Though it involved some serious financial and lifestyle sacrifices, I gave up some of the other rocks in my life. And I've never been sorry.
I still work, obviously. But my work has the flexibility to be a small rock, the sand or even, at times, the water (you probably didn't notice, but there was a serious lack of Heather articles this summer over at Boundless), depending on what my family and I need.
Other moms know the stress of having too many rocks. In fact, 79 percent of all moms (working outside the home or not) say that working full-time when you have children is not ideal.
Modern women are unhappy. Feminism is not working. It is the call of the church of Jesus Christ to image the kind of happy (though by no means easy) life of the biblical home. We do so not merely as a means of witness, in these strange days, but as a means of rescue.
I know that there are a few working moms who read this blog. Who feel that, because of decisions or circumstances, their work has to be a major rock in their life. Please know that no one here at Boundless, including me, is judging you or condemning you.
But I don't want to equivocate either. For those of you looking down life's road to future children, there are things you can do now to give yourself flexibility in the future. I hope you'll consider it. 79 percent of women, including me, are trying to tell you something.
I’ve become one of those people whose coffee order comes dangerously close to being a small novel. My newest order is the “Venti Iced Nonfat Half Chai Half Pumpkin Spice Latte.” Hey, one of the baristas recommended it recently and I have to say it’s actually really good.
It reminds me of a line from the movie You’ve Got Mail:
The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, etc. So people who don't know what the [heck] they're doing or who on earth they are can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee but an absolutely defining sense of self.
Now, there are two things that stick out to me about that quote. First of all, the days when Starbucks charged only 2.95 for anything other than a standard coffee are long gone. Second, sadly the older I get, the more truth this statement seems to take on.
As life goes on, it seems there’s more and more at stake with every decision. It used to be where a decision could easily come down to what I wanted to do. Then suddenly there were pros and cons. And now I find myself frequently paralyzed by the “what if’s” that come to mind.
When we’re younger, the decisions don’t seem so monumental. If things didn’t go the way we hoped, it always felt like there would be plenty of time to recover. Now I’m 28, and I realize that the major decisions I’m facing will drastically affect the rest of my life.
I was thinking about this other day when suddenly Matthew 6:34 came to mind. And for the first time, it really made sense to me.
Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
I used to wonder why Jesus told us that. Surely there’s nothing wrong with thinking about the future is there?
But at this stage of life I interpret those words in a different way. Sometimes the big picture is so intimidating that it becomes difficult to even focus on today. And I think that's what Jesus was warning us about.
It's a reminder I'm having to keep in mind each day as I move forward in life. All I can do is commit the process to Him and make the best decision possible based on the guidance He gives me. It's not always easy, but tomorrow is in no better set of hands than His.
How are you approaching the major decisions you're facing? Do you find the unknown of the future is causing you to struggle in the present?
It's fall. The air is crisp. University towns are booming again. Classes have commenced. Football teams are almost past their puff schedules to the real teams. And the tables are probably up.
You know, the "Sign Up For a Credit Card and Get a Free (Pizza/T-shirt/iTunes card/whatever)" tables.
As regular as clockwork, it seems, VISA, Mastercard and Discover show up on college campuses, intent on starting coeds into their life of debt with their own particular card. And every year, some (though not all) fall for it: "Wow, I'll just take the free pizza and only use the card for emergencies."
Then, two months later, groceries become an emergency. Three months, clothes. Five months, pizza for the suitemates. And on it goes. (My own alma mater has found a unique way to discourage the tables.)
But that all stops this year. ""We're calling it the last open season on credit for college students," Gail Hillebrand, an attorney at Consumers Union, told USA Today.
That's because, according to the article:
Legislation signed into law in May will prohibit credit card companies from offering gifts to college students who agree to fill out a credit card application. The legislation also prohibits lenders from issuing credit cards to individuals younger than 21 unless they can prove they can afford payments or get a parent or other older individual to co-sign.
Up to now, the marketing seems to be working. In 2008, 84 percent of college students had credit cards (up from 78 percent in 2000) and a whopping half had four or more cards (up from 32 percent in 2000). Yeesh, what do you need four cards for?
The law's provisions don't take effect until February of next year. So, some consumer advocates fear that this fall will be the most aggressive marketing yet.
I'm a little ambivalent. One side of me says that we should educate college students (and high school and middle school students, too) and then let them make choices and deal with the consequences. But the other side says that yes, someone should have to prove that they have a self-produced income stream before being allowed to enter into the adult financial world.
In a sane world, a bank and/or credit card company would want collateral or a proven income track record before loaning money. But then, we haven't exactly been living in sane times lately. And I'm not sure if credit card companies are that concerned about college students getting into over-their-heads-debt. From the company's perspective, either momma and poppa will pay it off or the student can carry the debt into their income-earning years (with a nice, hefty amount of interest).
My wife wrote a blog post. So I don't have to. Thanks, wife.
* * *
I think my husband Ted has watched School of Rock one too many times.
As our resident musician, he's recently determined that it's his responsibility to educate our kids in music. While he has yet to put a drum set in the living room or enter our kids in a Battle of the Bands Contest, he has instituted a Music Appreciation class of sorts. We've listened to Stevie Wonder, Chicago, Rush, and more classical music than I care to list.
Yesterday marked Beatles Appreciation Day here. OK, so maybe not officially. But we did spend a good portion of our Wednesday listening to the Beatles.
Ted firmly believes that the Beatles are an essential part of any musical education. So in his quest to introduce our three young daughters to what he considers foundational, we've been ingesting the Fab Four.
So far the responses have been mixed.
While my 5-year-old was convinced that "Love Me Do" is perfect campfire music, my 1-year-old eagerly danced to the rock n' roll crafted decades before her birth. My 3-year-old was oblivious, despite her love for music. Although I did manage to draw a giggle from her when I grabbed her hand and sang along to "I Want to Hold Your Hand."
What have I personally discovered about the Beatles? I've learned that a song like "Eleanor Rigby" is haunting -- especially after reading a two-part article like George Haltizka's "Everett Bradley." This fictional account reminded me that lonely people exist in all seasons of life, whether in the form of an 84-year-old man named Everett, a middle-aged man named Tom, or a teenager named Stacy.
Have you ever felt lonely? I have.
I've wondered, as the Beatles ask of lonely people, Where do I belong? I have felt useless like Everett Bradley.
While I'm not eager to return to a season of loneliness, I am thankful for what it has taught me.
First, I shouldn't discount how God can use lonely seasons in my life to draw me closer to Him. Loneliness has driven me to a place of complete dependency, where I can't run to a friend in place of running to Him. How easy it is, when a problem arises, to call a friend and ask, "Can you pray for me?" before I've even bothered to stop and pray myself.
It's through these lonely seasons that I've remembered, I'm never truly alone. I have a wondrous Savior at my side, who has promised that He will never leave me or forsake me.
And second, it's made me more aware of the lonely people I come in contact with in daily life. Those who have just moved into the area or have yet to find their place in a community. I admit most of the time I fail to reach out to others; often I'm too distracted with my kids. But I want to improve. I want to do better.
Today we're listening to a CD titled 100 Best Ballet. The response from my girls is more united. Two out of three jumped at the opportunity to prance around the house dressed as ballerinas. The third? Well, she decided to dress as a rock star. Perhaps she gleaned more from the Beatles yesterday than merely "campfire music."
I typically go go go seven days a week. Sure, I'm not in the office on Saturday or Sunday, but I do publish blog comments or check my e-mail or work on a freelance project. Too few days in my month would I call "restful."
A couple of days ago we published an article by Elisabeth Adams, "Heart at Leisure," in which she explores the Sabbath. Here's a part from the middle:
The Bible says, "Six days you shall labor and do all your work." I know what my work is. That's what I'm supposed to stop.
But it's not just stopping -- it's stopping in order to.
In order to debrief and defrag from the busy week. In order to remember who I am, and who my Master is. (Not money. Not man. And not myself, thank God.) I stop in order to focus on the Center of my world. Reset my clock by atomic time. Reorient my compass to true north. Renew my mind, lest the insistent world squeeze me into its mold.
And be refreshed. After my Creator completed His work and saw that it was very good, He stopped. And in that pause, the Hebrew tells us, He was refreshed as if by a breath of air.
Later, Elisabeth confesses her personal struggle with rest, Sabbath or otherwise.
Often when it comes right down to it, I don't want quiet; I want distraction. I don't want to be awakened; I want to be amused. I don't want to address my needs; I want to drown them out. God wants me to savor time; I want to spend it, fill it, and even kill it.
At other times, I'm longing for Sabbath, but I can't seem to get inside it when it comes. My mind won't quit racing, my heart won't cease aching, and I'm completely unable to stop.
Yeah, I too am longing for Sabbath. Not distraction or amusement, but quiet and invigorating rest. Maybe I can squeeze that in this weekend.
When I moved to Colorado five years ago, I was certain I had tied up all the loose ends ... until I got a collections notice in the mail about an unpaid power bill. It's an oversight that haunts me to this day when I try to get any kind of loan. Despite my exemplary record otherwise, my credit score was tainted just enough to warrant slightly higher rates and slightly lower credit limits.
It seems unfair that one infraction would cancel out 15 years of on-time payments and not carrying balances on credit cards. But according to Karen Blumenthal from the Wall Street Journal, it's just how the credit ratings game is played.
In "Credit Scores: What You Need to Know," Blumenthal tackles eight commons myths about how bureaus rate your credit worthiness. Here are a couple that explain my dilemma:
I pay my card off every month, so I must be a low credit risk.
True, your financial habits are excellent. But they won't affect your score. That's because the credit bureaus don't have a clue whether you pay your bill in full or carry a balance on your cards each month. All they know is the amount you owed on your most recent statement.
I was late on a payment, but the debt is now paid off. So I'm good, right?
Afraid not. The single most important factor in your score, accounting for 35% of the total, is whether you have paid your bills on time. One late payment will ding your score for up to a year, very late payments can hurt you for two or three years, and collections and bankruptcies can sting for up to seven years.
Simply put, credit ratings bug. But I do find some solace in the first myth Blumenthal busts:
My credit score is a good reflection of my financial smarts and good behavior.
Not really. Your score doesn't reflect your income, employment history or your assets, which should be a part of your overall financial picture. It also doesn't show whether you pay your rent or utilities on time. As a result, a credit score is less like a report card and more like an SAT score—your results on a particular date that seek to predict your future credit success or failure.
Or in my case, unintentional results that got lost in the busyness of a cross country move.
According to a recent Wall Street Journalarticle, American students are borrowing "dramatically more" to pay for college, and paying a very real price for their debt.
Recent numbers from the U.S. Department of Education show that federal student loan dispersements in the 2008-2009 school year were up 25 percent over the previous year, for a total of $75.1 billion. The Journal writes:
"The new numbers highlight how debt has become commonplace in paying for higher education. Today, two-thirds of college students borrow to pay for college, and their average debt load is $23,186 by the time they graduate, according to an analysis of the government's National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, conducted by financial-aid expert Mark Kantrowitz. Only a dozen years earlier, according to the study, 58% of students borrowed to pay for college, and the average amount borrowed was $13,172."
This large debt increase has also produced some large consequences:
"A growing body of research suggests that tough loan payments are affecting major life decisions by recent graduates, forcing them to put off traditional milestones—from buying a first home to even marriage and having children."
The article quotes results from a 2006 study of 1,508 college graduates under the age of 35 who describe how their student loan debt has affected their life choices:
39% say it will take them more than 10 years to pay off their debt
44% say they have delayed purchasing a house
28% say they have delayed having children
It also quotes one young woman who accumulated $181,000 in debt from undergraduate study and law school:
"I wish I had considered the long-term impacts of what I was getting into," Ms. Russell says. When she entered school, "the idea was I'd take out the loans, get a job, and pay it back," she says.
It seemed straightforward. But as the economy has soured, "I feel like it's shifted a lot of my life goals," says Ms. Russell, from buying a house to starting a family. "I'm really concerned about handling this obligation while taking on new ones."
This article really didn't surprise me. When I wrote about student loans and life choices, I quoted a study from Nellie Mae:
... graduate students report the highest [student debt] stress levels. "The levels are high enough to make even their relatively high starting salaries appear inadequate," the study states. In fact, 40 percent of students who did grad work in medicine, law or business have student loans exceeding their current salaries.
So, if you took out student debt, do you feel the same? Do you wish, like that young woman, that you had "considered the long-term impacts" of what you were getting into with student loans? Or do you feel you entered into debt soberly and advisedly?
So I blogged a couple of weeks ago about my "Epic eBay Fail," in which I ended up spending $6.91 more for shipping and fees than I earned through the auction.
Yesterday, picking up my mail and seeing a large envelope from the United States Postal Service, I had the sense that the story wasn't over.
I opened the envelope, and inside was the top flap from the box of computer cards I had shipped out two weeks ago. Accompanying the piece of cardboard was a letter that stated, "An empty wrapper with your address was found in the mail and it is believed to have been separated from a parcel during handling (see attached address portion of the wrapper.)"
(Sic on the bad punctuation at the end of that quoted sentence, BTW.)
I imagine what happened was that the tape that the Post Office employee had stretched across the top of my box to keep it closed ... didn't. And the 92 wireless access cards inside scattered.
So I have to refund what the auction winner paid me, hoping that he believes my story and doesn't give me negative feedback. I have to go to the Post Office and see if they can track down any of the cards, or at least refund my postage.
Time, gas, expense. Hmf.
I started to complain to my wife, but then caught myself. It struck me that I'm only able to experience this frustration because I've been blessed with the ability to make an online transaction, something most others are unable to do. Yeah, it's a mess, but there's a lot more to be thankful about than to gripe about.
I think there is a difference between not being on Facebook and being anti-Facebook. I am the former, but not the latter.
Actually, that's not true. I am not the former either. I did join Facebook two years ago in response to a youth group reunion page. But my page has sat empty and lonely ever since. (Truth be told, I didn't realize Facebook had created a page -- just thought I had gained access to the youth group page.)
So, yes, I have let the phenomena that is Facebook pass me by. But I am not a foaming anti-Facebook-ite. I really can see the draw. There have even been times when I have had Facebook-envy. I am, without question, the last one in my circle of acquaintance to get the latest news.
Them: "Oh, didn't you know that she closed on her house/is going out-of-town this weekend/has taken up knitting?" Me: "Oh, no, I didn't know that." Them (questioningly and ... or am I paranoid? ... a little accusingly): "But it's on her Facebook page."
I have even, I think, risked some professional street cred. Boundless has friended me several times. Each time, I think I hear Ted's voice, "Heather, get on Facebook and into the 21st century!"
But it appears that by missing the tide of Facebook popularity, I may now be on the cusp of the latest trend: leaving Facebook. I love going from a dinosaur to hip without any effort.
According to a recent New York Times article, "Facebook Exodus", "while people are still joining Facebook and compulsively visiting the site, a small but noticeable group are fleeing — some of them ostentatiously." Like one user who got sick of the commercialization and corporate regulation and now sells t-shirts that encourage others to "Shut Your Facebook!" The young man told the Times:
"The more dependent we allow ourselves to become to something like Facebook — and Facebook does everything in its power to make you more dependent — the more Facebook can and does abuse us. It is not ‘your’ Facebook profile. It is Facebook’s profile about you.”
Others are leaving because "Facebook seemed to claim perpetual ownership of users’ contributions to the site." Still others, according to the article, got bored, felt that their "real" friendships were suffering, or got a little antsy about "guarding" their online persona.
For me, it was simply pre-addictive intentionality. I have enough of a struggle regulating my online time. I decided, for me, best never to go there.
But I just added another reason in the last few weeks. It's summed up well by a young lady in the Times article named Caroline Harting who explains why she left the online social site: "Facebook was stalking me."
"One day, on another Web site, she responded to an invitation to rate a movie she saw. The next time she logged on to Facebook, there was a message acknowledging that she had made the rating. “I didn’t appreciate being monitored so closely,” she wrote. She quit."
I feel like Facebook is stalking me too. Two weeks ago, I checked my e-mail to find 12 messages from "friends" who wanted to, well, be my friend. Huh? How did they know to find me? Surely a dozen friends were not just moved by the Spirit to seek me out. The next day: fifteen invites. Now besides getting a little too prideful about how many friends I must have, I was starting to get a little creeped out. A day of investigation later and I found out that "Facebook" (that ironicly faceless entity) was recommending me all over the place.
"Be Heather's friend," it told them. It forgot to mention that I didn't want any.
"Quit!" I cried at my computer screen the next day as I deleted five more requests. "I don't want to be a friend. Leave me alone!" Again, not enough to turn me anti-Facebook but enough to give me the willies and bring flashbacks of that Orwell book I had to read in American Lit.
So, what about you? Are you enjoying Facebook or feeling like some of the people in this article?
One writer told the Times, "I have noticed the exodus, and I kind of feel like it’s kids getting tired of a new toy. Facebook is good for finding people, but by now the novelty of that has worn off, and everyone’s been found.”
It seems some people are tired of being found. And some of us never wanted to be.
This morning, I was flipping around the radio dial and settled for a few minutes on a ministry program. It was a ministry I trusted. A ministry that, though I haven't been a regular listener, I have been encouraged by from time to time.
As the program wrapped up, the tone turned serious. The ministry was in need of money. They were seriously behind budget. They didn't want to pressure, but they wanted to be honest: the program was in jeopardy. Would I consider praying about supporting them?
The plea, quite honestly, started to go in one ear and out the other. I've heard lots of pleas like that lately and, certainly not to my credit, they are starting to blend together. Then, for some reason, Jane Austen popped in my head.
Now, some of you know I'm a full-on Austenfan. The manors, the kooky relatives, the inevitable marriages ... joyful fun. But it's her wit, how she can just slice through hypocrisy with a sweet-as-sugar sword, that keeps me coming back.
So, here's the section that popped into my head. It's from her book, Persuasion. The herione, Anne Elliot, is all good and noble and Austen-esque. Anne's father and sister, Elizabeth, are everything vain and selfish and doltish. At the beginning of the book, there's a problem: Dad and Sis have way overspent their means (how could they do less, after all, they have a position to uphold) and are looking for some way to get on the straight and narrow:
Elizabeth, to do her justice, had, in the first ardour of female alarm, set seriously to think what could be done, and had finally proposed these two branches of economy: to cut off some unnecessary charities, and to refrain from new furnishing the drawing-room; to which expedients she afterwards added the happy thought of their taking no present down to Anne, as had been the usual yearly custom.
Is that us, I wondered? As we struggle (or, perhaps, just worry) ourselves through a shaken economy, do we "cut off our unnecessary charities" and smile at ourselves, pleased with what good stewards we are?
I listen to radio programs. Do I support them? I read blogs everyday. Not just personal ones, but ones that the writers put serious work, research and biblical thinking into. Do I support them? If they don't have a direct route to support them, do I buy their books or give to their churches? You're reading this. Have you ever thought about contributing to the work of Boundless?
Or, closer to home, am I equipped by a sermon or small group at my church? Do I ever connect that with my wallet? Or do I just think it is the duty of others to provide for me? That God is using them in their ministries and that He will provide for them, without ever considering that He has instructed me to provide for them? To excel in the grace of giving?
Pear Analytics, based in San Antonio, Texas, said that it randomly sampled 2,000 messages from the public stream of Twitter and separated them into six categories.
The categories were: news, spam, self-promotion, pointless babble, conversational and pass-along value.
Pear said "pointless babble" accounted for 811 "tweets" or 40.55 percent of the total number of messages sampled.
Conversational messages -- defined by Pear as tweets that go back and forth between users or try to engage followers in conversation -- accounted for 751 messages or 37.55 percent.
Pear said tweets with "pass-along value" -- messages that are being "re-tweeted" or passed on by users to their followers -- accounted for 174 messages or 8.70 percent.
Self-promotion by companies was next with 117 tweets or 5.85 percent, followed by spam with 75 tweets or 3.75 percent.
It said tweets with news from mainstream media publications accounted for 72 tweets or 3.60 percent.
In an interview earlier this year on the Boundless podcast, Dr. Albert Mohler said that social media provides us with "quantum opportunity to leverage influence." It's why Boundless has a Twitter account. We try to leverage influence with "self-promotion" tweets that have potential "pass-along value."
Boundless tweets new blog posts, articles, and podcast releases, as well as giving updates about new resources like the Girl's Guide to Marrying Well.
So while most tweets may be lame, all of ours consist of meaningful information. Right?
So I figured I'd make some quick money by buying some computer stuff through a local government auction and selling it on eBay.
Last week I won a government auction for, among other things, 92 wireless access cards. Sweet, I thought. I've seen these things sell for over $10 each online. If I sell the lot of them, I should make at least $100 easy.
Well, my auction ended, and the winning bid: $1.95.
Nice.
Maybe, I thought, I might make a few dollars from the shipping fee, which I randomly set at $8.
Nope. I shipped them out today, and that came to $13.74.
Not to mention that eBay fees came to $3.12.
So, not only did I not make any money on this auction-flipping venture of mine, I actually had to pay $6.91 for the experience.
I've still got a few dozen computer cards at home, which I haven't yet put on eBay. Now I'm wondering if I should take a chance and see if I can make a few bucks off of them ... or if I should cut my losses and simply drop them in the trash recycling bin.
Yesterday, I listened to someone trying to decide between opportunities after finishing college. In describing one opportunity, she said something along the lines of "If I don't stay around to do that, I'm worried it won't get done."
In my mind, that took me back to a time shortly after I had finished college. It was the most frantic period of my life. I was working around 70 hours a week between a formal job and various commitments I had accumulated. I reached a point where I got an infection in my mouth that the doctor said was stress related. I ended up taking a retreat to evaluate all the different commitments I had made. My aunt suggested I listen to a message during my retreat. I don't remember now who the speaker was, but the message was about overcommitted people and what often drives their motivations.
As I listened to the message, I knew I was over-committed, but all along I thought I was just trying to be responsible. In fact, the book StrengthsFinder 2.0 indicates that one of my strengths is responsibility. Here's how that book describes this trait:
Your responsibility theme forces you to take psychological ownership for anything you commit to, and whether large or small, you feel emotionally bound to follow it to completion. Your good name depends on it. If for some reason you cannot deliver, you automatically start to look for ways to make it up to the other person. Apologies are not enough. Excuses and rationalizations are totally unacceptable. You will not quite be able to live with yourself until you have made restitution. This conscientiousness, this near obsession for doing things right, and your impeccable ethics, combine to create your reputation: utterly dependable.
Obviously, responsibility is a valuable trait to have, but it seemed to be pushing me into commitments that were hard to extricate myself from. I wish I had known at the time about how Tom Rath finishes the description of "Responsibility" in the StrengthsFinder 2.0 book:
When people come to you for help -- and they soon will -- you must be selective. Your willingness to volunteer may sometimes lead you to take on more than you should.
But there I was with all these commitments I had made and all I could think about was: if I don't do these things, they won't get done. The more I thought about it though, I realized that what I had perceived as noble responsibility was actually a bundle of pride, fear and a desire for approval that ended up compromising the quality of what I could contribute to those commitments.
A short time later, I resigned from my job and got out of nearly all my commitments (and then took off for graduate school). I still kind of wondered how things I was doing were going to get done without me around.I thought that again when my boss told me it would be almost impossible to replace me. But it wasn't long before someone else was sitting at my desk with their name where mine used to be. And other people stepped up in all the other commitments I had. They didn't do things the way I would have done then, but things got done without me.
And that was exactly the lesson I needed so that I could learn to make (and keep) commitments from a more healthy position.
I never struggle with watching too much TV in the summer. I'm fairly picky about what I watch and most, if not all, summer programming is just plain bad. However, Fall is right around the corner. And I'm already getting excited about the season premiers of "my shows." Which, I'll confess, is a reflection of an inverted priority ... love of television.
I ran across this blog post from Randy Alcorn which may help as I war against my desire to be entertained. It's a list of ways to "take charge of the television."
1. Keep track of how much time you spend watching. 2. Decide in advance how much TV to watch per week. (e.g. No more than six hours, only two nights or weekends). 3. Use a schedule to choose programs for the week (perhaps at family time)— then stick to your choices. 4. Keep your television unplugged, store it in a closet, and/or put it in a remote part of the house (prevents mindless flip-on). 5. Periodically "fast" from television for a week or a month. Notice the "cold turkey" effects. 6. Choose programs that uplift rather than undermine biblical values. 7. Use the "off" switch freely. If it's wrong and you keep watching, you're saying "I approve."
More,
12. Spend an hour reading Scripture, a Christian book or magazine, or doing a ministry for each hour you watch TV. (It's not enough to get rid of the bad—go out of your way to renew your mind by filling it with the good). 13. Consider dropping cable, Showtime, HBO, or any other service that you determine is importing ungodliness or temptation into your home. 14. If you find you can't control it—or you're tired of the battle—get rid of your television.
I'll add one more of my own,
15. Consider subscribing to a digital recording service (e.g. DVR or TiVo) so you can watch what you want, when you want. That way, you'll always be able to prioritize more worthwhile pursuits when they conflict with your favorite show.
All of Alcorn's suggestions are worth considering. I personally like the challenge of matching the time I spend watching television with time spent reading Scripture, books, or doing ministry. I would love to be able to say I spend as much time in the Word as I do the tube.
Ask a random group of people that question and you have a pretty good idea what answers you'll get. But what happens if you ask it to a group of religious people?
"I work primarily from home, and these telemarketing jackasses call at all hours of the day," fumes Hillary Fields, who's not actually all that mean to them, but who's awfully tempted to be. She knows that some people only do it because it's the only job they can find. Still, "when these callers have violated the sanctity of our homes in this insistent and unwelcome manner, do they deserve anything resembling courteous treatment in response?"
Seems to me the issue here isn't just what they deserve, but also what kind of people we want to be. Which means we want to be firm as we can, but also as nice as we can -- without encouraging them to keep on talking to us.
Here's what I do: As soon as I'm sure it's a telemarketer (which takes about three seconds), I interrupt and say: "I'm sorry, I'm not interested. Please remove this number from your call list." (Legally, they have to comply -- I think.) I add, "Have a nice day," pause just a second, and hang up.
The tone of voice is important here. I don't want to give them the slightest opening to keep talking, or they're under orders to keep trying. But I also want to sound as pleasant as possible. (I use my Public Radio announcer voice.) I don't want to convey anger or irritation, because calling me isn't their idea, and because they get enough of that every day as it is. I don't want them to get the idea that I'm blaming them for doing what they're told -- unless they're extra-aggressive, which I rarely give them a chance to be.
I figure this way I'm not only getting them off my back, I'm doing them a favor. I'm getting the call over with as quickly as possible so they can move on to their next call. I'm getting my name off their list so they don't waste time trying to make a sale that's not going to happen. And I'm avoiding making their day any more unpleasant than it already is.
That's me. What do you do? Or what do you think you should do?
It's not surprising that the recession has many cutting back. But what's interesting is what we're choosing to cut back on in this difficult economy.
According to this Pew study, products and services we considered necessities just a few years ago have been replaced by high-tech products and services. Take, for example, the microwave oven. I mean, who can live without a microwave? Apparently, a lot of us can if it means getting an iPod Touch.
Pew explains that "technology adoption" is changing judgments about wants vs. needs.
Take cell phones. A relative newcomer in the everyday lives of most Americans, the cell phone is among a handful of newer gadgets that have held their own on the necessity scale from 2006 to 2009. Moreover, it may have contributed to a drop in necessity ratings for the older-era appliance it has partially supplanted. The survey finds that people who consider a cell phone a necessity -- some 49% of the public, including a disproportionate share of young adults -- are less inclined than others to feel the same way about a landline phone.
Other products and services faring well in the recession include flat screen tvs and high-speed internet. And it's not just what we're buying, it's how we're buying. Which for some means saying so long to Whole Foods and hello to Super Wal-Mart.
Almost six-in-ten say they are shopping more in discount stores or are passing up name brands in favor of less expensive varieties. Nearly three-in-ten adults say they've cut back spending on alcohol or cigarettes. About one-in-four say they've reduced spending on their cable or satellite television service or canceled the service altogether. About one-in-five say they've gone with a less expensive cell phone plan, or canceled service. One-in-five say they've started mowing their own lawn or doing home repairs rather than pay others for the service. And about one-in-five adults say they are following the example of first lady Michelle Obama and are making plans to plant a vegetable garden to save money on food.
Last week on Boundless, Michael Lawrence wrote about the opportunities that exist when you're unemployed. And there are opportunities when finances are simply tighter as well. Like finding out what you value most and becoming better stewards of your money.
Say you're at the mall with some friends, just hanging out in the food court.
I don't care.
Or perhaps you just put the kids to bed and are about to sit down for the first quiet moment you've had all day.
That's nice. But I don't care.
Maybe you're in line at the Starbucks, and you're trying to make the critical decision between Tall, Grande and Venti.
Guess what? I absolutely don't care.
I don't care if you've just crafted the wittiest, funniest, craziest or most compelling 140-characters-or-less sentiment of your entire life. If it's a description of the dream you had last night, or the fact that you're currently working on your tan, or that your favorite team just ended a seven-game losing streak, then I just don't care.
Don't tweet me about it. Not now. Not ever.
On the other hand, if your wife just got pregnant after four-and-a-half years of trying, then I might like to know. Likewise if you just stumbled upon a $9.99 sale on high-quality cotton dress shirts. Or if you just finished the most inspiring article you've ever read in your life, then I wouldn't mind if you forwarded the link.
Are you getting the picture here? If you want to share meaningful information, such as where I can find discount replacement parts for my dishwasher, then Twitter away. But if the only thing you have to say is how many strips of bacon you ate for breakfast, then I hope you won't mind if I ignore your tweets, or simply stop following you altogether.
You see, I have a busy life -- just like you -- and I'm guessing that we both have more important things to do than read (or write) highly condensed complaints about how wet, dry, hot or cold it's been these last few days, weeks, millennia.
Did you want to know that I just looked up the correct spelling of "millennia" -- just to be sure? Would you like to read a tweet about it?
I didn't think so.
It certainly could be that Twitter is simply not for me. Perhaps I have somehow failed to appreciate the power of this social media phenomenon. I do see the potential, I really do. But for all the talk about "changing the rules of engagement" and "harnessing the power of real-time global communication," most of what I see is a bunch of grown ups acting like kids. For them, no thought, no action, no decision is too trivial to tweet to anyone and everyone who will pay attention.
As for me, I simply don't care.
But maybe that's just me.
(*disclaimer: The views of the author are not necessarily a reflection on the Twitter feed as generated by the Boundless team: https://twitter.com/BoundlessTeam)
According to USA Today, more and more couples are saying 'I don't' to expensive weddings.
According to the article, those brides and grooms feeling the economic pinch personally are deciding to scale back on many of the traditional wedding trimmings while those who can still afford lavish weddings are striking a "more sensitive, subdued tone."
A March survey by wedding website The Knot found 40% of brides have reduced their budgets, typically by 16%. Editor in chief Carley Roney predicts that as couples start planning their nuptials, those figures will rise....
Meanwhile, The Knot has seen a jump in activity on its Trash to Treasure message board, a forum for offloading gear such as tiaras, cake toppers and batches of bridesmaid dresses. The company also has launched a blog, My DIY (or Do It Yourself) Wedding Day, "because attention on that topic was so strong," Roney says.
Some wedding industry leaders believe that this switch to more frugal weddings may be permanent:
Once there's a correction in the marital marketplace, brides are going to remember the bargains their sisters and cousins bagged during the downturn and wonder, "Why can't I do it now?" says David Tutera, who plans weddings for A-list and Everywomen alike, the latter on his WE TV show, My Fair Wedding. "We're re-looking at things."
According to The Wedding Report, the average cost of a wedding fell by 24% from 2007 to 2008, though it still hovered around the MSRP of a Honda Accord.
So what's a long-time-frugal or newly frugal bride to do? Well, here's my top three:
Cash on the Barrel, or Altar.Please don't go into debt for a wedding. Please, please (See #6). Money always lands somewhere in the top 3 reasons that couples divorce. No need to start yourself off in a nice, deep financial hole.
Spend It Where It's Important. I had about 300 monogrammed, navy napkins left over after my wedding. Seriously, my hubbie and I were still using them at our second anniversary. I'm not sure one wedding guest remembers how they wiped their mouth at my reception. I do, however, still have my professional wedding photograph next to my bed. Decide what's really important to you and what you'll remember 10 years later and spend your money there.
Check out all the really good ideas the Boundless Line readers had the last time we blogged about frugal weddings.
Oh, and one more thing. I've been to six-figure weddings and I've been to three-figure weddings. Far beyond the flowers and ice sculptures and jazz bands, the most beautiful thing at any ceremony was the presence of the Holy Spirit around a couple who praised our Lord.
Yesterday on his blog, Randy Alcorn answers a question from a young couple who are $100,000 in debt and wondering about how much, if any, they should be giving to the church.
The couple acknowledges that they are "reaping consequences from bad choices." But now that they are attempting to pay down the hundred grand of studentloans, they are getting different advice on where giving should fit into their budget. They ask:
We have been counseled in a number of ways on this. One is that you continue giving SO THAT God will meet your need (which is much like the "prosperity gospel" and we believe the motive for giving is not right). Then we were taught that we need to be faithful, even if the budget is tight, to give at least 10%, and that that should be our FIRST check we make out each month (even if we know we won't make our other bills) as evidence of the priority of God and His church in our lives. We've also heard it taught that since we're in debt, our money is not our own so we need to work really hard to pay that back so that our money is freed to give back to God.
I understand what you are saying about the heart of giving, but I was wondering what is the biblical approach in these situations?
Alcorn addresses many points in his answer, but here are a few highlights:
"I disagree in the strongest possible way with those who argue that since we're in debt we shouldn't give to God until we get out of debt."
"I agree 100% with the position that we need to be faithful in our giving, maintaining it in difficult times and increasing it if we haven't been giving much in the past. Often our lack of giving has been a large part of our financial problem. Certainly, it is never a solution to it."
"Debt is especially dangerous when we’re tempted to rob our primary creditor (God) to pay our secondary creditors (people)."
"We owe the first fruits to God, not the last fruits. Those who put God first will pay off their human creditors, while those who put human creditors before the divine Creditor always get into trouble."
"If by giving to God we can no longer afford to make payments on a loan, then we need to liquidate our assets, take losses where we must, and cut spending to a minimum to eliminate the debt."
I really enjoyed Tim Challies' article today comparing reading books on the Kindle with reading books on, well, bound pages with a spine and everything. Here is Challies on why he prefers ink on paper:
Its book-like qualities were its best qualities; its non-book-like qualities were the ones that got to me. All of the things that annoyed me were the things that made the experience more like operating a computer and less like reading a book. Pages took too long to turn; I could not splash yellow highlighter on the pages; I could not skim through the book looking quickly for a word or phrase or note; I could not scrawl notes in the margins.
Not that there aren't benefits that come with a Kindle like being able to transfer notes to a computer through a USB port or free access to classics. But for all its benefits, Challies explains that, "Everything I wanted the Kindle to do, a book could do better."
Books are the perfect technology. I'm convinced of it. This is why the Kindle experience failed me -- it was an attempt to make the book better. And this is impossible to do. There is no technology more perfectly suited to its purpose than this one. In comparison to the book, any e-reader falters and fails.
I sort of feel the same way about reading my Wall Street Journal. I love the experience of it. I love the look, feel, smell and sound of it. (Yes, the WSJ has a sound.) I love sending my boy to fetch it in the morning. I love reading it in my favorite chair with cup of coffee on the side table.
I hope all the print-is-dead talk is wrong. There are so many ink-on-paper experiences that would be missed if we go the way of the e-reader.
I’m editing a pre-marriage module for the Focus on the Family marriage subsite. One of the articles I'm trying to cut down is First Year Off by Jonathan Dodson. He wrote it for Boundless a couple years ago. I've had to take off my reading glasses and have a come to Jesus moment here in my cubical over this article.
That's the thing about working at a Christian webzine, if your heart's sensitive to the Holy Spirit the stuff you have to edit, read, and write can really be convicting. (I guess that's not so much the thing about working at a Christian webzine as just being sensitive to the Spirit. Which unfortunately, I'm often not.)
The first part of the article made me feel pretty warm and fuzzy about my upcoming nuptials but as I neared the last section Jonathan's words began to rub against one of my idols: efficiency.
Here was the conversation I had with Jonathan (in my head) as I read. The brackets are the things that Jonathan didn't actually say. Ted said that in real life Jonathan is a nice guy, so I'm sure he won't mind too much that I'm putting words in his mouth.
***
Jonathan Dodson: Time isn't money and efficiency isn't the highest virtue—
Ashley Harris: WHAT?! Who told you that? Well whoever it was…they lied. Efficiency most certainly is the highest virtue.
Jonathan Dodson: [Wait a minute now, let me finish.] Time isn't money and efficiency isn't the highest virtue — love is — and love can be very inefficient.
Ashley Harris: Have you been talking to Brian?
Jonathan Dodson: [Brian who? And…uh…couldn’t you just read the article and stop interrupting me.]
Ashley Harris: Brian. My fiancé. All this talk about love not being efficient sounds a lot like something he would say. He’s asks me to do stuff that’s completely inefficient in time and energy saying that it’s important to him and it makes him feel loved. Like waiting on him to fix his car so we can do errands together. Me watching him change oil doesn’t make sense when I could be picking up dry cleaning and buying groceries. Did he tell you to write this?
Jonathan Dodson: [No. I’m pretty sure I wrote this article long before you got engaged. Unless you’ve been engaged since 2007.]
Ashley Harris: Okay, then. Go on…
Jonathan Dodson: [Like I was saying in my article,] a few weeks ago we got a babysitter and took an entire weekend to ourselves. This weekend occurred just before I left for an overseas trip on Sunday night. I returned on Friday to preach my first Easter sermon. Over the next two weeks I had to finalize a master's thesis, fly to Texas for an interview, defend my thesis and prepare another sermon. Oh, and there was my other part-time job. I could have really used that weekend away to work on my thesis or sermon. From a productive standpoint it was a pretty inefficient weekend.
Ashley Harris: No kidding. I wouldn’t have been able to do anything but think about all the stuff I had to get done. Like last night, I had a dress fitting that took wayyyyy longer than they said it would. There were invitations to work on, and I was packing to go out of town for my friend's wedding, and I was cooking dinner, and I had the worst attitude and barely managed to ask Brian about his day—
Jonathan Dodson: [Not to be rude, but this is my story.]
Ashley Harris: Oh, right. Sorry about that. Guess I’m still a little stressed about those invitations.
Jonathan Dodson: [Invites can be stressful. But like I was saying,] efficiency isn't my highest virtue. Well, at least I strive for it not to be. In choosing to take that time off, my wife and I had one of the most intimate, fun, and insightful times we've had in a while. By taking a step back from vocational and social responsibilities at work, church, and/or school, we were able to spend more time knowing and loving one another. In turn, that led to a greater relational intimacy and understanding, which fueled our marriage for the future.
Ashley Harris: Uh...I need to get back to editing your article.
***
As you can see I didn't have anything else to say to Jonathan. I was silenced by conviction. Deep down I believe that efficiency is the highest virtue even though I know it’s not. How can it be when scripture says that the greatest virtue is love?
I want to get to a place where I can choose to do seemingly inefficient things with the people I love instead of always doing what “makes sense.” I want their happiness to make more sense to me than getting things done my way.
I remember that summer well. When I was maybe 10 years old, I spent a month at Camp Hayo-Went-Ha. I still remember playing tetherball and roofball, eating peanut butter and honey sandwiches in the cafeteria, playing in the ball field, the three days we spent hiking and camping along Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, enduring the cold morning showers, getting letters from home, being invited to play morning reveille on my trumpet, wetting my bed....
And I remember my camp counselor. Affirming, strong, fun, engaging.
A dozen years later, during the summer after my freshman year of college, I became a camp counselor. Leading my campers in Bible studies, shooting rifles and bows with them, hiking around the grounds, cleaning up goose poop and outhouse toilets ... and helping one boy who had wet his sleeping bag avoid embarrassment by discretely having it washed.
It was great being on both sides: as a camper as as a counselor. Great memories, and growth in character.
In today's featured Boundless article, "Camp Staff Saints," John Thomas affirms the summer camp experience. When he was a kid, lonely and trying to deal with his parents' divorce, it was summer camp counselors who brought him out of his shell and started him on the long journey of healing. And as a young adult, John was able to be the one drawing kids out and helping them heal.
Of all that I've been privileged to do over the years, wearing that cotton, red staff shirt has been one of the highest honors. Putting it on was like putting on a medal. It symbolized perseverance under trial, integrity in life, grace under pressure, faithfulness to Christ, and, for so many kids like me, it symbolized hope in a hurting world.
I'm thankful for the weeks I lived among the trees and slept in the cabins, thankful for the relationships and long talks, thankful for what I received, and for what I was able to give.
I'm a big fan of Threads, a ministry of LifeWay for young adults. I receive their e-newsletter, follow them on Twitter, and keep up with them on Facebook. If you're looking to supplement your Boundless cravings, you might want to check them out.
They published a relevant article yesterday on the value of short-term missions, something I'm a big fan of. The article emphasizes the benefits you'll experience by serving others this way; of course, those you're going to serve are likely to benefit as well by your sacrifice.
The overseas missions work I've been involved with has been through Operation Blessing (Colombia), and through my local church with Wycliffe/Rotary (Mexico). The Threads article lists a few other agencies.
Summer is an ideal season to volunteer a week or more of your time to serve others, either within your own country or abroad. I'd be interested in hearing from those who have gone on short-term projects, as well as from those whose summer plans include this kind of work. Why are you doing it? Who are you going through? What do you hope to accomplish?
If you've read Boundless at all, you know that. I've heard many pro-debt arguments, but can't agree with any of them:
Student loans are "good" debt because they're an investment (Me: No, it's still unsecured debt)
You simply cannot go to college without them (Me: No, there are dozens of things you can do to eliminate the need for student loan debt — most of us just don't want to do those things)
Student loan debt is worth it to earn a professional degree (Me: According to one Nellie Mae study, professional students experience "the greatest levels of burden" and "debt levels are high enough to make even their relatively high starting salaries appear inadequate.")
Bottom line: Ask just about anybody who has taken out student loans two questions:
Should you have taken out less debt?
Are your life choices limited now because of the debt you have to pay back?
I'll bet you my Boundless t-shirt (not really), that the answers are Yes! and Yes!
Still ... as much bad as I've seen student loans do, the damage does not even compare to the damage done by credit cards. And you combine credit cards with education debt and you've got one serious mess.
That's why a new study by Sallie Mae does not bode well. The study looked at the credit card behavior of college students. Here's some highlights of the study:
The average credit card balance for a college student last year was $3,173 (higher than ever before).
Only 17 percent of college students pay off their balance monthly; 82 percent carry balances and incur finance charges each month.
40 percent of college students have charged items knowing they did not have the money to pay for them. (Ummm...)
The point of the Sallie Mae study was (as they put it) to "underscore the importance of educating college students about using credit effectively, weighing their spending decisions and considering their source of borrowing."
I think they're right to sound an alarm. There is just no way to justify putting college expenses on credit cards. The benefit will never overcome the cost. (Just click onto bankrate.com to see how many months it takes to pay off a single charge of $3,000 while only paying the minimum payment. Hint: That child you haven't even had yet might be graduating high school.)
But I can't agree with Sallie Mae that our emphasis should be on teaching people to "use credit effectively." I've seen and heard about enough broken homes, working-to-pay-off-the-student-loans mommies and got-no-choices-for-the-next-ten-years lives to say wholeheartedly — It isn't worth it. Just don't use unsecured credit.
If you can only afford college with credit cards, then you can't afford college right now. That doesn't mean forever. But it does mean for right now. And if you're already running on the hamster wheel of repayment (for loans or credit cards), take heart. Fight that debt for all you're worth and get that millstone off your neck.
Trust me. That diploma feels a whole lot better without Sallie Mae or VISA cracking the whip on your back.
Transcendence by Ted Slater on 04/24/2009 at 2:21 PM
I've been busy. Perhaps too busy. I've had to make decisions about what to let fall between the cracks. And sometimes things just fall through the cracks all by themselves. Innumerable things bob unfinished in my wake, victims of my crowded schedule.
Communicating with authors, writing contracts, consulting our legal and orthodoxy departments, editing articles, creating article imagery, writing blog posts, enduring meetings, updating our archive, trying to debug Citrix and FTP, prototyping forthcoming new media features, trying to send a digitized copy of Ted Hughes' "Snow" to George Halitzka, resolving invoice issues, approving Facebook friend requests, considering unsolicited articles and press releases, forwarding Boundless Answers questions to either Candice or John, responding to some incoming constituent e-mails, making flight and hotel arrangements for my trip to the NEXT conference ... among other things. And that's just this week.
And I have home stuff too, of course, just like you.
Some of it I do well. Some I do adequately. All of it I do amid a packed schedule.
And in the back of my mind I hear a still small voice, the transcendent voice of God that gives meaning to all these particulars. The Spirit whose character -- His love, His faithfulness, His rest -- is a comforting constant during all this flux.
I'm so preoccupied with all these trees: the birches, the oaks, the maples, the aspens; though I too often can't see the forest, I know it's there, and take comfort that He holds these vast wilds, together with its wild creatures, in His hands.
Rachel Starr Thomson knows this tension, between a physical world and its demands and the steady eternality of a spiritual world. In today's featured Boundless Webzine article, "A Walk Across the Water," she writes about "living on a higher plain than all this busywork, about doing the work as worship." She continues:
Transcendence. So often I grow comfortable here, distracted in my busyness, secure in my surroundings. I forget that life is a vapor in the wind -- that I am walking, not on solid ground, but on water.
Often, too, I am overwhelmed by the hardships that life can present. But comfortable or not, I need constantly to transcend circumstances. Why? Because I am in the world, but I am not of it. I come from a better world. I go to a better world. For a while, I'm living the reality of that better world -- by faith -- here.
May I become more aware of that better world, as I continue striving to fulfill my calling in this one. And may this heavenly destiny provide equilibrium and motivation as I engage this earthly journey.
I saw a picture of my childhood in Peggy Noonan's latest column for the Wall Street Journal:
A small sign of the times: USA Today this week ran an article about a Michigan family that, under financial pressure, decided to give up credit cards, satellite television, high-tech toys and restaurant dining, to live on a 40-acre farm and become more self-sufficient. The Wojtowicz family—36-year-old Patrick, his wife Melissa, 37, and their 15-year-old daughter Gabrielle—have become, in the words of reporter Judy Keen, "21st century homesteaders," raising pigs and chickens, planning a garden and installing a wood furnace.
I guess you could say my parents were 20th century homesteaders. Back in 1977 as the economy turned bad, my dad decided to move our family to the country. He bought just under an acre of land and set out to live a simpler, self-sufficient life. Like the Wojtowicz family, we had a garden, pigs, chickens, and a wood-burning heating solution. We also planted grapevines and lots of fruit trees. Many nights, the food on our table either came from the garden or dad's gun (we ate inordinate amounts of venison).
My brothers and I didn't always enjoy this life. There were many mornings we didn't want to get up and go out in the dark to feed the animals (especially with the rats that often slept in the corn barrel we had to scoop from). We didn't like running out on cold nights to get wood to heat the house. We didn't like mowing around all our fruit trees. While our peers played Atari and watched cable TV, we walked through chicken poop to collect eggs and sweated our way through endless work projects. We couldn't help but notice that once my brothers and I left home, our parents got a riding lawnmower, central heat and air and a dishwasher. Apparently, the self-sufficiency model works best when you have lots of helpful hands around.
I can't know how my life would have turned out if my dad hadn't moved us out to the country, but I sense that it was one of the most important decisions he ever made. We never had a lot of money, but we found a lot of wealth in all the life, hard work and agrarian character of our little place on earth. We didn't have to look up what the Bible meant when Jesus talked about vines, pruning, sowing, reaping, weaning, harvests, and all that other earthy stuff He used as examples.
My experience of life in the country is still in my bloodstream. Not long ago, it inspired my to write some thoughts in my journal about the tug I feel back to the countryside. Here's a portion of that entry:
...I need a fence that needs mending as it meanders from the road to a home tucked between bushes and trees in a row. I need a place with a cadence of work and of fun and a calling of purpose when the day has begun. I need a place that each season has new things to do so that years later it's still something new...and refreshing.
I used to think of my Christian walk like this: In some metaphorical sense I was creating a tapestry with my life, each day contributing a bit more to it. And at the end of my days, these threads of my life would become a gift to the Lord, the simple daily acts of kindness and obedience that I had weaved together made beautiful by Christ.
Today I was thinking about this again, after reading tomorrow's featured Boundless article, "The Glory of Little Things," by Jason Boyett. And another metaphor came to mind: My Christian walk is like a gradually growing financial investment, something to which I contribute a bit every day; it's not like winning the lottery or being given a windfall. In other words, the richness of life, its real value and significance, is found in engaging small everyday things, not in the flash-in-the-pan grandiosities.
Clearly my metaphors are lacking. So here's my proposal: Head over to the Webzine, read the article, and then share your own metaphor below. You could even share, like, a simile if you're so inspired.
Researchers have found that college students who use Facebook make a grade lower than their peers who shun the site. And you don't need to be a Rhodes Scholar to figure out why. It's because they're too distracted with friending, updating, chatting, poking, flairing, and sharing.
“Our study shows people who spend more time on Facebook spend less time studying,” said Aryn Karpinski, a researcher in the education department at Ohio State University. “Every generation has its distractions, but I think Facebook is a unique phenomenon.” ...
The Ohio report shows that students who used Facebook had a “significantly” lower grade point average -- the marking system used in US universities -- than those who did not use the site.
A student in the UK shares her story of how distracting -- and destructive -- it can be.
Daisy Jones, 21, an undergraduate in her final year at Loughborough University, realised the time she was spending on Facebook was threatening her grades -- prompting her to deactivate her account.
“I was in the library trying to write a 2,000-word essay when I realised my Facebook habit had got out of hand,” she said.
“I couldn’t resist going online. You do that, then someone’s photo catches your eye. Before you know it, a couple of minutes has turned into a couple of hours and you haven’t written a thing.” Jones is among the few to have recognised the risks. According to Karpinski’s research, 79% of Facebook-using students believed the time they spent on the site had no impact on their work.
That "a couple of minutes has turned into a couple of hours" thing affects more than just students. Pursuits ranging from work to Bible study to homemaking to family time can suffer from an unchecked Facebook habit.
The first time I heard about it was this weekend. I was doing a little research for summer vacation plans and saw it: "Sign your child up for summer camp now! If you lose your job, we'll provide a scholarship to cover the cost!"
Then, this morning I saw a quick clip about it on the news: "Go ahead and buy that new car! If you lose your job, they'll cover your payments!"
So, I've been introduced to the new way to boost sales in a slacking economy: Job Loss Protection.
Seems, it may have started with Hyundai, who first offered customers the right to return their cars to the dealership -- no questions, no repercussions -- if the customers lost their income. They then upped the ante, offering customers who lose their jobs "payment relief" for 3 months (nice for transportation while looking for another job) and then the "return with no strings" if things don't work out.
Seems consumers may be biting, because Hyundai was one of the only automakers to report a sales increase in January.
"We were looking at what would get people off the fence," said Jeff Cook, president and chief operating officer of a company offering this protection on condos. "It's thinking outside the box."
It certainly is outside the box and kudos to these marketing guys for reading the pulse of consumers so well. But I couldn't help but wonder if a little healthy fear and a little healthy pause (even, maybe, a large healthy pause) before making large purchases like autos and homes is still a good thing.
Maybe a little more fence sitting is exactly what more of us need.
Because, after all, the Bible makes two things perfectly clear about debt. First, the borrower is a slave. Second, you will pay back what you borrow. Lessons to us? First, I want to be extraordinarily careful before willingly placing myself into a situation the Bible describes as bondage. Second, I'm going to make mighty sure that even when the potholes of life come, I can still pay the debt back.
That might take a lot of forms. For my husband and I, we work intentionally to be debt free. We only take out debt on appreciating assets (sadly, Hyundais don't qualify) and, even then, only with a generous margin of safety for emergency situations, crazy real estate markets and acts of God. We keep an "emergency fund" of three to six months of income.
We routinely run "financial fire drills" asking ourselves: What happens if he loses his job or I get really sick or our real estate market tanks? Are we covered? How long can we make it? Do we have some wiggle room? Or, would we be in trouble the first month because our car payment was due and we didn't have the money to cover it?
These "Job Loss Protection" programs are inventive. And they may get some to jump off the fence. But my advice? Just keep sitting for a while. Do your own fire drill. If you are just a couple of months of unemployment away from financial ruin, maybe it's time to put the car ads down and kick the saving up.
I know Suzanne has already blogged abouttoday’s article, but I’m going to add my $.02. (I hope it's not overkill.)
I recently deactivated my Facebook account. It was freeing. Freeing because I didn’t have to respond to the 20 something wall posts that had accumulated on my page. Freeing because I’m no longer tempted to sneak a peek at my page during work time. But it also freed me to pursue real relationships. Maybe you have energy to maintain all your Facebook friendships and have an active social life, but I don’t.
Unlike Tim and Suzanne, my relationship with Facebook wasn’t so much a detriment to my relationship with God as it was to my relationships with other people. You know, real people not their profiles.
I moved to Colorado Springsin January and it’s been a bit of an adjustment. For someone who grew up in a small agricultural community the transition to a large mega-church metropolis is a little overwhelming. When I went to the grocery store at home, I seriously knew every person on every aisle. Our community was just that small. I think there are more grocery stores in the Springs than there are people in my hometown. And since I can’t buy a loaf of bread to meet my familiarity needs these days, I run to Facebook.
Over the past couple months I have slowly identified my Facebook motives: loneliness and laziness. When I’m checking out people’s pages and writing on their walls I have a false sense of connectedness. (I’m not trying to discredit all electronic communication. I think emails and sometimes Facebook messages are genuine ways of connecting.)
But for me, it had created a false feeling of community. I needed to shut my Macbook and call a friend for coffee.
Tim Sweetman admits, “As the day progressed, I found myself talking to people more through technology than face-to-face.” Like Tim, I had more essay length emails with long-distance friends than I had conversations with face-to-face friends. That’s changing. And it’s draining at times since most of my face-to-face friends are relatively new and new friendships require work. But the reward of real relationships is worth the work.
What about you? Does Facebook enhance your friendships or weaken them?
Boundless got an e-mail from Tim. Tim is a college student who decided to invest some money in the stock market and, within a few days, saw an over 10 percent return on his investment. Now, he's wondering about day trading:
"Do you think wagering money for short periods of time on the stock market is biblical? Would you even consider day trading a real job or is it a scheme people use to hopefully get rich without exerting effort? How would I not let greed get the best of me and put God first even in the stock market?"
Those are several good questions. Let me answer by asking and answering a few key points.
First, is investing biblical at all? Randy Alcorn, in Money, Possessions and Eternity, writes:
"Scripture doesn't directly teach that we should invest, but it does provide illustrations of investing, including real estate ventures (Proverbs 31:16). Jesus speaks illustratively of investing in such a way as to gain financial returns (Matthew 25:14-29; Luke 19:12-26). This suggests that He approves of wise investments, and it certainly indicates He doesn't forbid investing. His injunctions to invest in eternity, by laying up treasures in heaven rather than on earth, puts in perspective our earthly investments but does not preclude them."
Alcorn points out that "investing doesn't simply bring profits to the investor (sometimes it doesn't even do that). It also profits the business in which we have invested." In other words, our investment money actually performs a good in our economy -- it provides capital for businesses to start, improve or expand.
Second, if investing is allowed, is all investing allowed? The answer, pretty obviously, is no.
We should carefully consider what industries we may be funding with our investment dollars.
We should only invest money we can afford to lose (no borrowed money).
We should consider carefully the reasons for our investing. (Investing to multiply your assets to provide for your family or to give? Or because of greed, envy and impatience?)
Third, if some investing, but not all, is allowed -- where does day trading fit into that? For me, there are three questions that pop into my mind.
Is day trading gambling? I thought it was really interesting that Tim used the word "wagering" to describe day trading. Of course, all investments involve risk. And one could easily argue that there are whole industry segments based on "guessing" or "betting" the future (fuel hedges, gas trading, commodities, etc.). But, in our personal finances, isn't there a difference between investing because of sound business fundamentals and investing because you think the psychology of the market will jump your stock 5 points in 24 hours? Randy Alcorn writes about the difference between investing and gambling:
"There's a difference between reasonable risks and gambling. Gambling is a shortcut to God's created pattern of working to earn money. In gambling, wealth isn't distributed on the basis of work, service, or personal need, only by chance."
Is my work productive or parasitic? In many fields of work, there seems to be a sliding scale from productiveness to parasitic. For example, my local bank may loan money to build small businesses. Productive (possibly). There is also a strip mall store in my town that provides payday loans, mostly to the poor, at outrageous interest rates. That's parasitic. An honest landlord concerned about providing service for his leasors. Productive. A slumlord. Parasitic. A stay-at-home mom working hard for her family. Productive. A stay-at-home mom whose only interests are working out, shopping and using the nanny for twelve hours a day. Parasitic. You get the idea. Where does day trading fit into that? Does it provide a good, like investing has the potential to, or does it simply feed off the work of others?
Is day trading based around the quick buck? We're warned several times in Scripture that "he who works his land will have abundant food...but one eager to get rich will not go unpunished" and "he who gathers money little by little makes it grow." I do not day trade, so I have no experience in this area. But it does seem from observation that few activities are as centered around the quick buck as this one.
I'm reminded of the 1987 movie Wall Street. As his son faces jail for stock fraud, the character Carl Fox (played by Martin Sheen) tells him "Stop going for the easy buck and start producing something with your life. Create, instead of living off the buying and selling of others."
In the Boundless article, "Working out a Theology of Work", John Piper is quoted as saying, "the essence of our work as humans must be that it is done in conscious reliance on God's power, and in conscious quest of God's pattern of excellence, and in deliberate aim to reflect God's glory." So, can you do that, Tim? Can you day trade in quest of God's pattern of excellence and in deliberate aim to reflect His glory? I think there are enough biblical principles in question to at least give you pause. Serious pause.
I have a lot of respect for Pastor David Wilkerson. I'm inspired by his moving to New York in the late 1950s to minister to gang members and drug addicts, a story recounted in The Cross and the Switchblade. I also admire his current activities, serving as a pastor of Times Square Church in NYC.
So when I came across his "urgent message" a couple of days ago, in which he warned that "an earth-shattering calamity is about to happen," I didn't immediately dismiss it as the incendiary words of a madman.
In part, he explained:
For ten years I have been warning about a thousand fires coming to New York City. It will engulf the whole megaplex, including areas of New Jersey and Connecticut. Major cities all across America will experience riots and blazing fires -- such as we saw in Watts, Los Angeles, years ago.
There will be riots and fires in cities worldwide. There will be looting -- including Times Square, New York City. What we are experiencing now is not a recession, not even a depression. We are under God’s wrath.
He doesn't ask for money, but provides practical counsel on how to prepare:
Gather a 30-day supply of non-perishable food, toiletries and other essentials.
Fix your eyes on the Lord, trusting in His loving care over His people.
Regardless whether we're about to face calamity or not, both these words of advice seem fairly reasonable. For example, the U.S. government recommends that we keep several days' worth of food and water on hand, in case of emergencies. And it's always the right time to place your faith in the Lord.
This isn't the first catastrophic vision Wilkerson has had. In 1973, for example, he published The Vision, in which he predicted worldwide economic confusion, an increase in floods and hurricanes, a fall in moral conduct, an acceptance of homosexuality, a new drug popular with teens that will break down resistance and will encourage sexual activity, the ordination of gay and lesbian ministers, a spiritual awakening behind the Iron Curtain and Bamboo Curtain ... and a nuclear bomb detonating in New York City.
I honestly don't know what to think of Wilkerson's vision. He doesn't claim to be a "prophet," but rather simply a Christian to whom the Lord has communicated certain things. This is not an unbiblical perspective; while God primarily speaks to us through Scripture, He has communicated to humans outside of Scripture as well.
And people have gone from prosperity to need in a very short period of time; Katrina showed us that. Or consider Zimbabwe: It used to be the "Breadbasket of Africa," churning out more food than they could eat; now they are starving and impoverished. America, long-blessed by God, is not immune from the suffering that most of the world is currently experiencing.
As for me, I'm not going to panic. That's pointless, and faith-less. I may keep my pantry full, and have a few bottles of water on hand. That seems prudent, regardless of whether the "crisis" is a power outage, a truckers' strike, or a regional disaster. And I will certainly aspire to become more sober in my efforts to place my trust in the Lord.
A Zogby survey released yesterday says the tough economy is leading people to trim their budgets. Zogby found young adults leading the trimming -- especially in entertainment and education plans:
Younger adults are most likely to say they have cut back - 76% of those age 18-29 are spending less on entertainment, compared to 55% of those age 65 and older who say the same.
Nearly one in 10 (9%) have chosen to not pursue their educational plans or have changed their plans due to the cost - 13% of those younger than age 30 said the economy has put the pinch on their education plans in the past year.
How are you doing in those two categories these days?
I confess these things knowing full well that I will be the receipient of scorn. After all, it wasn't high art. It didn't have an intricately crafted script or inventive cinematography or brilliant acting. It wasn't produced by a church. It was cotton-candy McFluff.
I have nothing to say in my defense except that every once in a while a girl just likes a cheeseburger. And, for this girl, if she can have it with a small side of financial wisdom ... all the better.
Of course, maybe, I was just thrilled, like Motte, to watch something where I didn't have to close my eyes during the course of the film. But I think, more than anything, was the fact that I could relate to Rebecca Bloomwood, the main character.
Now, I'm not a shopaholic. Much more likely I'm a debt-a-phobic. But as the opening scene unfolded, with young Rebecca's thrifty parents pleased as punch over her plain, ordinary, painfully useful brown shoes while Rebecca saw the other girls squealing with delight over their glittering pink ones, who couldn't relate? Just because I work to be debt-free, doesn't mean I don't understand the lure of pretty shoes.
As my daughter tells me when trying to explain why her favorite color is "rainbow sparkly," "it's because it's so beautiful, Mommy." We all want to be beautiful. Maybe shoes aren't our thing, but we understand the desire. It's not that we want to be runway perfect. We just want daddies who delight in us and husbands who are satisfied with us alone.
In the movie, Rebecca describes her shopping this way:
"When I shop, the world gets better, the world is better. And then it's not anymore, and I need to do it again."
And that's the problem with earthly beauty. Our shoes get scuffed. Our hair gets out of style. Our clothes wear out. Our manicures get chipped. And we have to do it all over again. Even if we do, magically, somehow get all the plates spinning together at the same time, there's still that knowledge that someday, at some time, beauty will fade.
Rebecca's solution was to buy herself into confidence. On the way to her dream job interview, she stops to buy herself a green scarf. That scarf is perfect. It makes her, she thinks, into the person she wants to be. Yes, the perfect dream job applicant would be wearig that perfect green scarf. Never mind that she has to spread the price among multiple credit cards (because they've reached their limit) and beg the final 20 bucks off the street.
But, through the story (and her out of control credit card debt), Rebecca realizes that stereotypical--but also very biblical--wisdom that money can't buy happiness, even if it is pink and glittery.
Would that I would remember that too. That I would remember that my beauty should not come from outward adornments. Instead, it be that of my inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight. Of great worth in God's sight.
How does that look in daily life? After three decades on this earth, I'm still working that out. Is it important to maintain health and attractiveness for myself and my spouse? I think so. Should it be my ruling passion? Absolutely not. How do I maintain a balance? How do I make sure that clothing myself doesn't become more important than clothing the needy? How do I maintain modesty and squelch pride and self-absorption? I think, perhaps, it starts in immersing myself in God's perspective of beauty.
At the end of the movie, Rebecca repents from her high-spending ways and has a giant, designer garage sale to pay back her debt. When the movie was over, I gave a little chuckle and then headed to the store to return some new black boots. Yeah, they were on clearance. But I just didn't need them. And, all of a sudden, they just weren't that pretty anymore.
Has the economic crisis given you pause about how you steward time and money? Has it given you a new appreciation for what you have that has (to your surprise) replaced the desire for more? Russell D. Moore hopes so. Because love of money is what he believes is "one of the roots of the familial crisis all around us."
In his Touchstone article "Love, Sex & Mammon," Dr. Moore hopes the economic crisis will cause the church to reconsider her priorities. He writes,
Too many of our churches, too many of us, have made peace with the sexual revolution and the familial chaos left in its wake precisely because we made peace, long before, with the love of money. We wish to live with the same standard of living as the culture around us (there is no sin in that), but we are willing to get there by any means necessary.
And one of the means he mentions is the undue delay marriage.
Why do Christian parents, contra St. Paul's clear admonition in 1 Corinthians 7, encourage their young adult children to delay marriage, sometimes for years past the time it would take to discern whether this union would be of the Lord? Why do we smilingly tell them to wait until they "afford" it? It is because, to our shame, we deem fornication a less awful reality than financial hardship.
Other "means" include Christians driving their teenage daughters to the nearest city to get an abortion so they can have a "normal" life, pastors preaching against the sin of homosexuality but ignoring divorce for fear of losing members and their tithes, and the way we blather on about marital communication but never consider whether day care is good for children. Regarding this last means, Dr. Moore concludes,
It's because pastors know that couples would reply that they could never afford to live on the provision of the husband alone. And they're almost always right -- if living means living in neighborhoods in which they now live with the technologies they now have. Why do we never ask whether it might be better to live in a one-bedroom apartment or a trailer park than to outsource the rearing of one's children? It's because the American way of life seems so normal to us that such things do not even seem to be options at all.
Nobody knows what's going to happen with the economy. And I don't know of anyone who hopes we'll go into a depression so the church will "turn away from momentary satisfaction." But economic adjustments can be healthy when combined with a dose of self-examination. It has certainly changed my perspective. Has it affected yours?
Dear (former) friends. I am writing to inform you that I have joined a network marketing company. I realize that this decision may cause you to terminate our friendship. I apologize for the inconvenience.
That was the e-mail I felt like writing when I decided to begin selling beauty products. My trepidation about confessing my new venture was not unwarranted. After all, one of my friends said, "It just seems like a small thing; and when I think of you, I don't think of small things."
Though I started the business as a sister-bonding endeavor, I felt awkward. As much as I loved the products I was representing, I had my own negative stereotypes of network marketing and was sure my friends did, too. And yet, I felt a peace and even a nudge to go ahead and try it.
Two-and-a-half months have passed since I started, and telling people has become easier. Mostly because everyone I've sold to has raved about the products and experienced great results. But also because through the business, God has revealed something to me about the way His Kingdom works. I wrote about it in "Lipgloss and Jesus:"
As I began to understand the tenets of the company I was serving, a surprising thing happened. I made this realization: Evangelism is essentially network marketing.
Consider the similarities:
You have a "product" you believe in.
You are seeking to share the results of your "product" in a way that entices others to try it.
You are seeking to duplicate yourself in other "believers" in order to get the word out more effectively.
As I considered the factors that made this particular company successful (with 100 percent growth per year for the past five years), I realized that they relied heavily on the principles of evangelism outlined in Scripture. In fact, I could not ignore the parallels.
I have been shocked by the depth of what the Lord has taught me through something as seemingly superficial as selling beauty products. Another friend of mine, upon hearing about my discoveries confirmed how it directly related to her plight of fundraising for the mission field.
Becoming a beauty product peddler actually revived my passion for evangelism. And so I think my friend was mistaken. What I am doing is not a "small thing." What about you? What ordinary ventures has God used to teach you His truth?
One of my favorite episodes of the King of Queens was when Doug discovered that Carrie maintains an inordinately expensive wardrobe of designer clothes. Laughter and hijinks ensued. But according to this study, women hiding clothing purchases from their husbands is a real problem in the US.
[M]ore couples in the US are hiding purchases from their partners: This year about 23% reported doing so, vs. 18% in 2008. For the second year in a row, clothing is by far the most likely purchase that women will hide from their partners, according to the survey.
Becoming financially "one" in marriage is challenging, particularly during economic downturns when budgets are tight. That's when disagreement over purchases, big and small, can spark regretful arguments. Starbucks causes the most spats in my marriage. It's amazing how much sin a cup of coffee can stir up (suspicion and envy come to mind).
One thing you can do is agree on a monthly allowance for each spouse to make guilt-free purchases. The trick, however, is agreeing on the amount of the allowance.
The trend watchers at Iconoculture made a great point earlier this week -- we can get the economy chugging again by going back to the hyper consumerism so many of us lived by only months ago, but that wouldn't be good for the long run.
Writing on the Iconoculture blog, Hans Eisenbeis talks about a conversation he heard between two men outside the Minneapolis public library about the "upside of unemployment":
"I'm spending more time with my family, and we're just hanging out — doing old-fashioned stuff like playing board games and cards." His unmarried friend was incredulous. "Well, you don't need a ruined economy to do that!"
But it seemed to me the bachelor was missing the point, and the family man was reading my mind: "Losing my job made me rewrite my whole budget, which made me realize that working hard in order to spend hard meant a lot of sacrifices. For what? Less time, more junk, deeper debt." The bachelor thought a moment, and then said, "Dude, it's people like you who are making the recession longer and harder for everyone."
That's true. The economies of countries throughout the world have been fueled by lots of spending and debt. The goal of various stimulus packages has been to get people spending again. Eisenbeis continues:
The bachelor might have been correct from a macroeconomic point of view — economists call it the paradox of thrift: The less consumers spend, the longer the recovery. But who could blame the family man for looking out for number one? Consumers of every income level are realizing that getting tougher on the budget has a lot of upside. They get their finances in order, build on a more solid economic foundation for the future and, yes, recommit to core beliefs without the distractions of debt-driven consumerism. Will that delay recovery? Yes. But when recovery comes, we'll not likely see another Great Recession in our lifetimes.
Candice and I have been enjoying Andy Stanley's sermon series called "Balanced" (you can find it online in the cover flow menu at http://www.northpoint.org/messages). It's ideal for anyone looking for a Biblically wise approach for building on the "more solid economic foundation" Eisenbeis described.
As a follow up to my post yesterday about uninsured young adults, it seems that that last part about 20-somethings taking better care of themselves was merely anecdotal and not representative of the entire demographic. According to a report released yesterday by the CDC, the "young invincibles" partake in all kinds of risky behaviors.
The perception is that 20-somethings are youthful and robust, in the peak of their health.
But a report released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates that young adults have their fair share of health woes.
A third of 18- to 29-year-olds, a demographic the insurance industry calls "young invincibles," are cigarette smokers. A quarter are obese, as the rates among young adults have tripled in the past three decades. Nearly two-thirds of young adults reported not having regular leisure-time physical activity.
Though there's one type of "leisure-time physical activity" young adults seem to have regularly, unmarried sex. And here are the consequences,
According to the CDC's 2008 statistics on the nation's health, 45 percent of young women between the ages of 20 and 24 in the United States were infected with human papillomavirus, which can cause cervical cancer, in 2003-04.
This is problematic for people who don't regularly get medical care, said Shu, who is also a pediatrician with the Children's Medical Group in Atlanta, Georgia.
"The prevalence of HPV -- that's just one sexually transmitted infection," she said. "There's so many others that are very common in young women. A lot of women don't get tested, because many of them don't cause symptoms. There are hidden illnesses that they don't realize, because they don't feel sick."
Here are more risky behaviors reported by the CDC:
Almost 40 percent of adults 18 to 20 years of age, about one-third of 21- to 25-year-olds and a quarter of 26- to 29-year-olds reported using an illicit drug in the past year.
One-fifth of young adults reported having five or more drinks in a day on at least 12 days in the past year.
Young adults also have one of the highest rates of injury-related emergency department visits of all age groups.
For the sake of argument, I'm going to assume that the lascivious, illicit drug taking, alcoholic, overweight smoking crowd aren't Boundless readers ... per se. But it's interesting stuff none-the-less.
What do you think? Do 20-somethings have relatively healthy or relatively unhealthy lifestyles?
I've had an arthritic condition called Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS) since I was 22 years old. I didn't have health insurance until age 26. I simply lived with the pain for the four years in-between. It's what a lot of 20-somethings do without health insurance.
According to the latest figures from the Commonwealth Fund reported by the New York Times, young adults are the nation's largest group of uninsured. They're called "'young invincibles' — people in their 20s who shun insurance either because their age makes them feel invulnerable or because expensive policies are out of reach." What they do instead is,
... borrow leftover prescription drugs from friends, attempt to self-diagnose ailments online, stretch their diabetes and asthma medicines for as long as possible and set their own broken bones. When emergencies strike, they rarely can afford the bills that follow.
Here's one testimony from a New York "invincible":
In dozens of interviews around the city, these so-called young invincibles described the challenge of living in a high-priced city on low-paying jobs, where staying healthy is one part scavenger hunt and one part balancing act, with high stakes and no safety net.
"For a lot of people, it's a choice between being able to survive in New York and getting health insurance," said Hogan Gorman, an actress who was hit by a car five years ago and chronicled her misadventures in "Hot Cripple," a one-woman show that was a hit at last summer's Fringe Festival. "There was no way that I could pay my rent, buy insurance and eat."
Maybe the "Hot Cripple" wasn't familiar with the Federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, which requires hospitals to treat everyone who comes into the ER regardless of their insurance status or ability to pay.
Seriously, I'm not sure the situation is as dire as the article makes out. When I developed Iritis (a condition related to AS), I went to the local Federally-funded health center and was treated for about $40. If I didn't have a job, it probably would have been free. These "[h]ealth centers are in most cities and many rural areas" and do not require health insurance.
I guess if there's one silver lining it's that young adults with no insurance are taking better care of themselves.
[Levon] Aaron was one of several young adults who said living without insurance meant trying to take better care of themselves.
"I've stopped eating fast food," said Santiago Betancour, who is 19 and lives in Rosedale, Queens. "I’m eating rice, vegetables and fruits. And when I get sick, I exercise to sweat it off."
Jenny Schroedel's "Dream Home Revisited" is a "just-in-time" article. Just in time for my latest round of stress over having to clean (again) the piles of clutter our kids have constructed (again). I thought I had my hands full-to-overflowing with housework. Then I read about Jenny's present existence.
Whew.
I feel tired just thinking about the overgrown gardens (I can imagine them creeping in through the windows) and the bathtub sized sink. Suddenly my workload feels more manageable. If you're frustrated by your too-small, under-decorated living space, I think you'll welcome her perspective. She writes:
Last summer, some of our friends had to move back to the mainland suddenly. Their beautiful home had been on the market a year, and while they wanted to keep it on the market, they didn't want to leave it empty. In Hawaii, empty homes fill with mold and pests — nature just takes over. So they asked us if we might consider living there and paying a reduced rent in exchange for caretaking the home and yard, and also being available to show it.
The house has everything we could have hoped for and imagined, and it has been a great joy to host so many guests, to watch the sun rise over the mountains and set over the Pacific, and to jump with the kids on the in-ground trampoline. We love living on a quiet mountain road, amongst the coffee fields, taking carrots to the horses down the street every evening and waking to the sound of roosters crowing.
But I have to say that within a few days of moving in, I was shocked to discover one of the harsh realities of inhabiting a luxury home: It is a lot of work! If you lack staff (or in our case, if you are the staff) you might on average have about 15 minutes a day to actually enjoy the home. Should you add an adventurous toddler like Natalie and a puppy to the mix, you might have to cut that figure down to about 4.5 minutes.
Having downsized from a home we realized we had overbought, I can appreciate the feeling that you're in over your head. Still, I can never seem to be reminded too much that whatever we have, it's enough.
Lobdell now states that he "reluctantly, no longer believes in God." Today on his blog, Lobdell poses a question, "Do Christians and atheists act differently?" He points to stats about divorce and racism in the church, but camps more on what proclaiming Christians do with their money:
"[E]vangelical Christians give more to charity. But there’s a catch. Evangelicals believe that the Bible commands them to give 10% to the church/charity. In fact, only 8% of evangelicals tithe. And on average, they give about 3% to the church/charity (down from 6% in 1968). Yes, it’s more than atheists, but nothing to brag about."
In a World magazine article titled "Profound Witness," Lobdell is quoted as saying, "Evangelicals don't give anywhere near 10 percent of their income to charity. Only a very few, often on the fringes of mainstream or evangelical Christianity, behave with their money as if they believe the Gospel is actually true."
The article's authors point to research that shows that Lobdell is half-right. Evangelical Christians are far and away the most generous Americans, but we fall far short of the biblically commanded tithe that most churches teach.
Still, I'd have to agree with Lobdell that the church has nothing to brag about. In the World article, Randy Alcorn, the author of several books on Christians and their money, called these statistics "a shame" and said that Christians' giving is a "powerful witness of the gospel" and "the greatest form of evangelism." Alcorn believes that in tough financial times, our giving can be an even more powerful witness:
"For one thing, in tough times Christian charity is needed all the more. For another, the testimony of that giving is even more profound. Giving in tough times tells the world that it is God's providence, not a large checking account, that is the source of our sustenance and security."
There's a real temptation in financially skittish times to hold tighter to our money and give less. But, I have to ask myself, what will holding onto it accomplish? More than likely it will cultivate my love of it and send the world a very powerful testimony that I don't believe the Gospel is true. That I don't believe my God can fulfill His promise.
When I first moved to Colorado several years ago, I can remember something catching my eye. It was long stretches of, what appeared to me, random fencing alongside the highways. You'd be driving along and all of sudden there were several hundred feet of mesh wire fencing, held in place by large metal stakes running alongside the highway.
"What on earth are those for?" I asked a new Colorado friend.
"The snow," she answered.
My quizzical look made her smile. It was a bright autumn day without a cloud in the sky.
"The snow?" I asked. "There's no snow."
"But there will be," she said. She went on to explain that the fencing was placed in strategic positions so that when hard snows came, they would drift behind the fencing rather than landing on the highway and shutting it down.
I thought of that when reading a financial article the other day. It was one of those "Handling finances amid hard times" kind of things--giving advice on how to make it through tough economic times. But as I read one bullet point after another, I kept thinking, "It's a little late to be telling people to build the fences when the snow is already coming down."
Still. There was some good financial advice there--along with some questionable. So, here's the author's bullet point suggestions and the running dialogue in my head:
Eliminate debt. Always good advice, but much easier to do in the fat times than the lean ones. It makes me think of carrying around a 50 pound weight on my shoulders. It's easier to carry when I'm well fed and healthy. Not so easy when I'm malnourished and weak. Better to throw it off when I've got the strength. Either way, it needs to be gone.
Track your spending. Agree. Ever have the feeling, "I just don't know where all my money goes?" Then it's important to take control of your spending. My hubbie and I have all thirteen years of our married spending on computer. Some is encouraging. Some is not. When my "Dining Out" budget is staring me in the face, I suddenly know exactly where my money is going--to chicken chimichangas. But you can start smaller--like with a notebook and a commitment to record every dime you spend for 30 days.
Build an emergency fund. Do this yesterday. Without a cushion, any fall you take is going to be a hard one.
Consider refinancing. Not so sure about this one. In full disclosure, I have refinanced my mortgage (about two years ago). If you have little debt, are giving, have savings, plan to stay in your house 5 more years, and refinancing will save you money, go for it. If not, refinancing may not be your solution. Downsizing may be your solution.
Invest in yourself and your family. "Go back to school, get an advanced degree or continue your professional education," the article proclaimed. "You can never go wrong investing in yourself." Not necessarily. Take the guy on the radio yesterday who "invested" $90,000 in student loans to get a bachelor's degree in Spanish. Now he pays $750 a month for 20 years for a degree that is only earning him about $30K. Every investment has to be carefully weighed against its return. This did not sound like a good one. I'm all for continuing education, but I do a lot of mine through the public library. Learning new skills and staying marketable while working hard seems wise. Getting layed off and deciding to let Sallie Mae finance your furlough, maybe not so much.
The thing about those Colorado snow fences is that they stood useless until needed. But good financial stewardship reaps rewards in the good times and the challenging ones.
This morning I was reading the online version of our city's newspaper, and came across the following sentence about a local school district:
Falcon has an $80 million budget and 12,700 students.
I did the math. That's $6,300 per student per year.
My wife and I are going to be homeschooling our three-so-far kids. What could we do for over $18,000 per year, I wonder.
Then I did a bit of googling. The average national cost of educating kids is reported to be $9,295 per pupil per year.
And then I discovered that this $9,295 figure is inaccurately low; it doesn't take into account, for example, money spent on teachers' retirement programs, school building depreciation and repair, teacher preparation programs, and so on.
The Cato Institute crunched the numbers and found the cost of public education to be closer to $11,000 per student. In Washington, D.C., they found costs to be over $24,000 per student.
I don't know if this is relevant to you. You may not have children yet, or may not pay much in taxes. Some day, though, you probably will.
As for me, someone with three girls destined to be educated, someone who pays thousands of dollars per year in taxes of all kinds, I'm stunned. And left thinking More money for public education? I don't think so.
Again, I find myself wondering what I could do with that much money per year for each of my children.
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