The Cost of Ownership

As I work on my draft manuscript for Deliver Us from Me-Ville I find myself turning a lot to Thomas Merton, an American Trappist monk from the mid-twentieth century. I'm reminded again how volatile the times were before I was born, and how comparatively we've not had to deal with much in our day. Sure, we've seen the evolution of the i-Phone and on-demand television programming, but Merton and his contemporaries sat through a great depression, a world war, a cold war, two American wars in Asia and the civil rights movement. Still, I suspect he wrote the following (in his Secular Journals)not so much for his generation as for ours:

I am scared to take a proprietary interest in anything, for fear that my love of what I own may be killing somebody somewhere.

Merton and Dietrich Bonhoeffer are proving to be my main teachers as I write this book. Merton is the spiritual director; Bonhoeffer the theologian. His Cost of Discipleship, written in the same era as Merton's Secular Journals, looks at what Christ calls us to lay down in our pursuit of a life with him. Meanwhile, Merton hints at this idea that what a consumerist, materialist culture calls us to take on makes us complicit in what that culture does to the world we inhabit. That's the hidden cost of ownership: we don't only own what we buy, we own the just and unjust business practices that secured the production of what we buy, we own the environmental degradation that such production causes, we own the hoarding of intellectual property that makes luxury items out of life-saving medication. We own all sorts of things alongside the things we invest in or buy.

Read my friend Chris Heuertz's article "Breaking Her Back to Clothe Mine" for a good up-close look at the cost of ownership and some ways of mitigating it.

Meme of the Day

Inspired by the effusive posting of Christianne and my own literary hubris, here's a meme for you to chew on and spit into the open mouths of the hungry little chickies in your midst. Name and make the case for five books you frequently foist on your friends. Here's mine:

1. Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton. If I could have, I would have, but I'm so glad he did. So playful, so insightful.

2. Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Worthy of an endless conversation, so all the more reason to recruit more conversation partners.

3. Forgetting Ourselves on Purpose by Brian Mahan. Nature's most nearly perfect book; Brian approaches Chesterton in his apt mixing of wit and self-effacement with profound insight. It hasn't had nearly the effect on the people I've loaned it to, however, that it's had on me. Fair warning.

4. The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. Jesuits in space. How can you lose?

5. Daredevil: Born Again by Frank Miller. Yeah, it's a comic book. Deal with it. Brilliant story telling, great revision of an aging character, remarkable secular appropriation of Christian imagery and language.

There are others, of course, but these five came to mind most quickly. How about you? Post a comment here or an entry on your blog--I tag everybody.

The Great Art of Blogging

This morning I ran across this little ditty from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of the great minds of the twentieth century, who spent the last years of his life in prison for his opposition to the Nazi German government during World War II:

We must keep on trying to find our way
through the petty thoughts that irritate us,
to the great thoughts that strengthen us."

This, my friends, is why I blog, whether I realize it or not. I think it's fair to say that I, jaded GenXer that I am, have mastered the art of petty thoughts. But the great art of blogging is, to paraphrase G. K. Chesterton, to air out my self-righteous self-satisfaction and see more clearly the great art of the world around me. I'm reminded of a passage from the biblical book of Lamentations, which is fancy talk for "a profound sense of irritation":

I remember my affliction and my wandering,

the bitterness and the gall.

I well remember them,

and my soul is downcast within me.

Yet this I call to mind

and therefore I have hope:

Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed,

for his compassions never fail.

They are new every morning.

So, what's irritating you today? What's keeping you going?

Urbanathon

I was the Dome Book of the Day manager at the Urbana 06 Student Missions Convention, where 22,000 students came to be challenged by the needs of the world. I came to sell them books. I got to cart around this walkie-talkie as a symbol of my authority. I like the photo, taken by my friend Elaina Whittenhall; it's kind of in your face. Urbana was exhausting; I found myself frequently descending into resentment for having to work so hard. I was put in my place by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was imprisoned by the Nazis for his convictions during World War II and wrestled with how much pity to allow himself and how much responsibility he still bore to his convictions:

The ultimate question for a responsible man to ask is not how he is to extricate himself heroically from the affair, but how the coming generation is to live.