Retirement

My wife and I have been pondering recently the feasibility of the American cultural value of retirement.  Specifically the idea that one is supposed to work hard and pay their dues so that when they reach 65 they can retire and not work for the rest of their lives.  We have been meeting with financial planners in the last month who have been trying to sell us this dream and give us their best advice on how to get there.  We have come to think, however, that there may be some flaws in their assumptions.  First of all the amount of money that would be required to cease working after 65 would be unrealistically large if one were planning to live off of the interest alone.  In order to keep up our standard of living with 1 car in a 2 bedroom (really 1) apartment with all the trappings of daily life we would need around $500,000-$750,000, assuming that we would earn a 6% return each year.(My parents suggest I would need 1-2 million)  And that would not be the kind of retirement that many Americans dream of which includes living in florida, eating out, traveling when they feel like it or buying big toys.  Many people I would assume have discovered that this is not realistic and have saved up equity in their home enough to sell it off and, with the interest on that plus supplements from social security, eek out a living.  Another method of retiring is by doing what my father is doing and working at the same job for 30 years and getting a pension for the rest of his life.  Neither of these last options sounds appealing for us since Social Security may not exist by the time we retire and neither of us is planning on working at the same job for 30 years.

Yet despite the lack of feasibility for us to save enough, this dream is based on recent cultural assumptions that have been lacking for the majority of human history and for the majority of current cultures around the world.  A major factor behind this manner of retirement is due to the cultural value of not burdening our children with caring for their elders and conversely valuing not having to care for your elders.  I can see the appeal of this sentiment since I would neither enjoy changing my parent's diapers or having my children change mine.  Yet, I wonder if something is culturally lost if we follow this idea.  Does this create more distance in our families? Does it teach us to not take responsibility for others?  The rest of the world seems to take caring for your elderly as a matter of course.  

It is also interesting that it is a recent idea that people would stop working before they were no longer able to.  I grant that the increase in the life span has complicated things where people live a lot longer after they are no longer able to work, which gets expensive.  Yet the model that most Americans seem to be shooting for is based off of rich CEOs who can afford to not work after 65.  This model would not be applicable to most Americans nor I would argue sustainable for our society.  

So here is our plan.  Firstly, if we have children, we need to teach them that it is our value as a family to care for our elderly and model this with our own parents. (They won't care for us if we ship our parents to the nursing home :) )  Secondly, We plan on working until we can no longer work.  Thirdly, we see the need for rest from work as important in order to maintain sanity and quality of life so we propose the idea of a "Sabbatical" every 7 years.  After saving enough money over seven years of hard work we would have a year long break to reflect, rejuvenate, and plan the next part of our lives. (And get excited about working again.)  If we start this plan when we are 30 we will have 7 sabbaticals before we are eighty.  Over this 50 yr span we would need to save roughly $280,000 (assuming $40,000 saved for each sabbatical yr,~$6,000 saved each yr), about the equivalent of a nice suburban home.  

One potential difficulty I forsee would be getting hired again after our sabbatical year.  We both have fairly marketable qualifications and are in careers where I think it would be possible, yet the older we would get the more difficult it may be to be hired by companies.  It would also be difficult to save $6000 per year especially if we had children and limited our income to one provider.  Also I have yet to do the math on what would get us more bang for our buck in terms of if we were to invest $6,000 in the stock market every year.   We will keep thinking about this one.  :)

Eating (Or Not Eating) For Others

Our house church recently went on a weekend retreat at our family's cabin where we spent 3 days relaxing, discussing, playing Farkle, and hearing one another's stories.  A very moving moment was when one of our community members shared about her struggle with a medical condition she has had her entire life and the constant battle and mental energy taken to counteract its effects through extreme diet and life changes.  After sharing her story some of the members of the group decided to stand in solidarity with her and experience her diet.  I went shopping with my wife the other day at the grocery store to prepare for the diet and was surprised at how rigorous the diet actually was.  She couldn't eat any meat, dairy, wheat, gluten, sugar, caffeine, or alcohol.   75% of what she eats is supposed to be Raw. (uncooked)  And she is supposed to eat a lot of fiber which translates for her into eating ground flax seeds and fiber meal.  (Yum!)  

To be honest, I told Marta that I don't think I could do this for a month.  I am kind of finicky when it comes to food and in general have a hard time sacrificing or changing my daily routines for others.  But I am both proud and envious of my wife's commitment to her friend.  I am positive that this is a perfect picture of the kingdom of God and beautifully illustrates the love and commitment we should strive to have for one another.  So I will let Marta know that even though I am taunting her from across the table with a piece of chocolate or some savory steak and good wine, I greatly respect her.  

The Kingdom is Among You

Sadly, the neighbors across the alley have moved away.  (See "Bad Neighbors" post from May)  But before they did, something quite incredible happened.  Marta was working in the garden one day when the boys from across the alley came out to help her.  As they were working the boys began talking about the other children who lived on the block and asking Marta why they never play with them.  Marta reminded them of the time that the paintings, which had been hung in the alley by our landlords, had been slashed with a knife suspiciously after a large fight with the landlords over trespassing.  She explained how the Landlords were very hurt and angry over this event and told their granddaughter that she could not play with them which in turn caused the parents of her friends to not allow their children to play with the boys either.   The boys were distraught, claiming that it was their cousin who had slashed the paintings, and asked Marta what they could do to change the situation.   Marta suggested that they could write apology letters to the landlords.  The boys instantly became excited and jumped on the opportunity, running up to our apartment to trace their hands and color pieces of paper that would transmit their repentance and hopefully forgiveness.  When they were done, Marta had the boys deliver the letters to our landlords and to their surprise they were able to talk to the landlord face to face and explain themselves.  After a short lecture and clarifying of the rules the two parties shook hands and parted, at least in part, reconciled.  

I have been amazed recently at how the kingdom of God shows up in the most unexpected places.  Jesus himself taught that it will not come with "careful observation" but that it is among us.  We often try to create the Kingdom of God through movements or programs but it is when we are simply loving people and being the people of God that some of the greatest stories come from.  Subsequently, I have never been more proud of my wife.  I see in her a true citizen of the kingdom.  

Good News

As of Tuesday of last week, I have a new job. Calvary Church is one of our favorite spots in all Minneapolis, so when they announced an opening for a newly designed administrative and communications role, I did not wait long to apply - the perspective of biking to work at a place with the kind of impact on our community that this church has seemed almost too good to be real! Calvary is not only one of the few truly multi-cultural and multi-ethnic churches in this state where Sunday morning is still the most segregated hour of the week - it is a community of mature, glad-hearted followers of Jesus who strive to be messengers of justice and good news right here in our neighborhood.

One of the perks of my new job, which some half-jokingly call a crucible, is that I get to work alongside of Calvary's pastor. Jeff has served this particular congregation for the last 24 years, ever since his graduation from seminary, and he might just be one of the most outgoing people you've ever met. He is loud, uproarious and passionate for his flock. He can soothe a crying toddler and fix a broken boiler as well as he can preach, and he knows the name of every single person who raises their hand during our weekly ritual of offering God our praise, pain and protest.

On my second or third day on the job, a woman from the neighborhood walked into our office asking for help. Her weary face reflected a lifetime of struggle and much pain, but she did not come in asking for money. A week since deciding to quit smoking, she had just found out that she has lung cancer. What she came for was for someone to soothe her and tell her that not all was lost. As we sat down, she was so choked up with anxiety that she could barely breathe. "I try my best to trust God" - she said between short, shallow breaths - "but I'm afraid this is His punishment."

Just by the time I managed to soothe her enough to breathe normally, Jeff returned to the office from a short errand and sat down with us. I knew he was having a busy day so I expected a quick prayer and a pat on the back - something like "God is in control of everything and you should just trust Him" - but his response to the woman was nothing like that. "This is not the end, sister" - he told her, "This is an invitation to a new beginning." He told her that she is God's beloved daughter - that God does not look at her as a punishing Judge, but as a compassionate Father. He told her that she needs God's people around her to help her through this time, and to help her see herself through God's eyes which are so different than the condemning eyes of this world. He told her that this time was an invitation from God to enter into a deeper relationship with Him where she would find lasting peace. His words carried no hint of shaming or judgment - they sounded like surprisingly Good News.

Good News - that is the literal meaning of the biblical word "Gospel." In the experience of too many, including myself, "Gospel" has come to mean anything but that - it has in fact become news of sin, condemnation, inadequacy and shame. If you're not a Christian, the "Gospel" message is that you're an abomination in God's eyes. If you are, you should be ashamed of yourself for not preaching the "Gospel" to all the lost sinners you know.

Sin, condemnation and shame are all an inevitable part of our reality on this planet - but Jeff's words reminded me that this is precisely the reality that Jesus came to rescue us from. And if that is the Good News of the Gospel, I might actually want to tell someone about it... In fact, I might actually want to hear it myself over and over again!

Makarios

μακάριος (makarios): blessed, fortunate, happy

It is one of the ironies of my existence that just when I come to live in the Land of Streets Paved With Gold, as we imagined it in my childhood, America enters into its greatest recession since the 1930s. For the last couple of months, hardly a day has gone by without some bad news: foreclosures, bankruptcies, bailouts, record-high unemployment, plummeting GDP - judging by the tones of some experts on the radio, an economic Armageddon. We have not been affected as severely as others, being that we're both young and have no stake in the stock market; but it's sobering to watch how deeply this crisis bites into the hopes and financial futures of many people we know. 

As analysts continue to predict doom and gloom, we continue as a house church in our meditation on the Sermon on the Mount - a radical reversal of the idea of who is really well off in the first place. Recently, Billy led us in a discussion of the fourth Beatitude - "blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled." As with all the Beatitudes, this one in particular makes me wonder at times whether Jesus forgot to point out some mysterious connection. Blessed are those who see the endless destruction, corruption and exploitation? Who notice the abused kids, discriminated minorities, battered women, hypocritical preachers; the ravaged earth, cycles of poverty and trampled human dignity - who see these things clearly enough to cry out for justice? 

 

"Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise" - I thought to myself recently at Disneyworld, where all I could see at one point were the tons of disposable plastic disappearing at the magical touch of minimum-wage "cast members" after being thrown away by crowds who had just stepped off the "Living with the Earth" ride featuring eco-friendly fish farms and sustainable crops. Do you see yet why I haven't blogged in a while? When all you see in "the happiest place on earth" is plastic, you begin to wonder... 

I will admit that I do not come at the Beatitudes as a clean slate - they have always made me extremely uncomfortable. I think it started when I was a little girl and sometimes heard the Bible interpreted  in ways which implied that God is so entirely different from us that His  definitions of good or evil might actually be the opposite of ours - so in God's view, I might actually be "blessed" by being utterly miserable. When you are five years old and hear of a good God who orders the Canaanite men, women and children slain without mercy, textual criticism does not exactly emerge as a possible solution - either the good God or the definition of goodness has to go. Parting with the latter seemed like the choice of a lesser of two evils, and although I gave up this dichotomy a long time ago, it still surfaces as a haunting suspicion that may just lie beneath the surface of all conscious sin - "God, are you really good?" 

Imagine my amazement, then, when no one in house church ever brought any of this up. I sat there waiting for somebody else to voice my suspicion, but it never came - what came instead 

was a collective insight so simple and brilliant that my suspicion suddenly appeared like the whining of a disgruntled teenager. Of course those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are filled - their appetites are directed towards a healthy and nutritious kind of food, as opposed to empty fast-food calories. The gods of Greed, Consumerism and Security, rooted in the ancient lie of self-serving gain, are gods all right - but gods with no power to fill or save. This is one of my favorite aspects of doing theology as a community - thanks to the company of others on the journey, I'm able to discover my own slant and hidden prejudice, and be faced once again with the unimaginable reality of a God who really desires to give me hope and genuine abundance, even in the midst of crisis.