GREED

Greed and the economy are hot topics right now in the news and around the water cooler, from Wall Street, to AIG bonuses, to the unemployment rate and more importantly whether you yourself will soon be a part of that statistic. But you can watch the news 24/7 or go on the internet to hear all the talking heads beat that subject into the ground.

I want to talk about greed in a personal way, because it's very easy to blame someone else and not look in the mirror at myself. My wife happens to work at a rather large financial institution and I remember her coming home one day several years ago saying that one of the economic gurus in the company was concerned that Americans had begun using their homes as ATM machines. Taking the rising equity out to finance remodels, vacations, swimming pools, new cars and college educations. I thought that was an interesting way of looking at things, but then proceeded to do the exact thing he was talking about myself. Let's see, new kitchen appliances, pool table, a couple of vacations, new furniture, new bed, new windows for the house. I could go on, but you get the picture and I am still getting the bills!

Now just before all this bad economic news hit last year I went on a mission project to a village in Kenya called Rionchogu. I had never been to a third world country before and even though I had read about the living conditions, I couldn't relate. But, after spending 4 days in this village with no toilets, no running water, no electricity, etc. I survived, quite well actually, and I came to realize how much I take for granted and how much I indulge myself living in the OC. It's not that I want to live without electricity or running water or toilets. It's that I don't want these children, in this village, to get diseases they don't have to get just because of dirty water, or live in lifelong poverty because they can't get an education, or die from malaria because they didn't have a mosquito net.

What do you see in his eyes?

Before I left on the trip my iPod stopped working. Well, I couldn't spend all that time on a plane traveling and not have an iPod, so I went out and spent $300 on a brand new 160 GB model. Hmmm, ya know, $300 bucks will allow a child to go to secondary school for a year in Kenya.

Greed? Selfish? Indulgent? I'll let you decide.

According to author Erwin McManus in his book "Uprising" the opposite of greed is generosity. He once thought that the opposite of greed was poverty since at the time he was defending his monastic lifestyle. But what he came to realize was that the true opposite of greed was not creating poorness in his life but living a life of generosity. That's a life I want to live. Now, I am not going ask my family to sell our house and go live in in a commune. But what I do want to ask of myself and of my family is to give more away. To invest our talents, not just for our own gain, but to help others. The unhappiest people I know are those who hoard their wealth.

Well, you know I love video, so here is a music video to a song from Matthew West called "The Motions" It expresses for me a deep "e"motion. I desire to live a life of meaning. I don't want to just go through the motions anymore! Yes, there will be a cost and I am not just talking financially. I hope you will join me in that quest. In fact, as this is now my 4th post, if I am making any sense to you, or you are feeling a little tug as you read, please comment for all to see or email me privately. Though one person can make a huge difference, there also is strength in numbers!

Eaar

Fruit

The fruit doesn't fall far from the tree. My Mom!

Well, I had 17 more potential "Seed" post's lined up, but I think I made that point already. Relieved? :) So now I am on to Fruit. Why fruit? In church circles, that is a common word, but I am not sure even there, we really dig deep as to its meaning in our daily lives.

A great definition I like to apply to the word fruit is from management guru Peter Drucker when asked about the "bottom line" for charitable organizations in his book "Managing the Non-Profit Organization". He said:

"the measurable product of any not for profit institution, is changed lives"!!

Gosh, I love clear, precise to the point statements that you can't wiggle out of.

Now, I have talked about some non profits like Go and Do Likewise and Kid Works and there are many, many thousands of them in this country and hundreds of thousands around the world doing great things and I applaud them. But this blog is not about organizations and institutions. It is about You!! And Me and our Talents and our Gifts. Gifts we have been given and gifts we are to give.

Now before you tune me out and and say you don't have any talents or gifts, nothing of value to anyone else, slow down. Because the greatest thing you can give away is simply yourself. Kinda ties into what Christ said when He said to "Love your neighbor as yourself". I've got two stories I want to use to make my point. One is personal to me and one was personal to a small group of people, but now has become quite public.

The first one is about my Mom, Ilabelle Oden. She is 84 years old and lives in a hospice care facility in Springfield, Oregon. In spring of 2008, I got a worried call from my brother Ron who was told by the nurses and Dr's where she was living at the time, that my Mom was dying. He said I better get up there soon if I wanted to say goodbye. Now he wasn't convinced that all was being done that could be, that they were giving up on her, but he said it doesn't look good. So I flew up that weekend to see her and perhaps say my goodbye. After I spent time with my Mom Saturday morning, my brother said she looked better than the day before I arrived, better than she had in months. Maybe it was the change in medication's, my brother insisted on (thanks Ron) or just maybe seeing her 2 sons together (she hadn't seen me in 2 years), somehow encouraged her to not give up. I can't say for sure.

But lets push forward one year later, to just last weekend. I get a call from my brother that my Mom had just been visited by Mrs. Oregon International Debra Gilmour, who came to present her with a boquet of flowers and a tiara, and to tell her that she had been nominated to be the Marquis Rose Queen and ride in the Portland Rose Parade in May.

What? Say again! The woman who was days or weeks away from dying could be riding in a parade??

You see my mom not only didn't give up, but she recovered well enough to be a helper and encourager to many others in the Hospice Care facility she is in that were discouraged or just needed a hug. So they nominated her for for this award. With simple gestures, she bore Fruit, she "changed lives".

My next story I won't explain in writing because this video tells it all. It's only 5 minutes and if it doesn't touch your heart in someway, you'll want to wonder why. I picked up on it at Tangle.com.

A simple gift from one person to another, Mallory to Sara, almost strangers in fact, in front of a small crowd in a small town in Washington. And if the story never left that field, never got on Tangle or ESPN or wherever its been in this internet world. If no one but those hundred knew, it was still a Home Run, a gesture that bore fruit, that "changed lives".

So, who are you going to pick up today, whose life are you going to touch, who will you help touch a base, whose life will you change?

Or for you linear thinkers, another quote from Peter Drucker I like says this

"What are you going to do on Monday, that's different?"

Eaar

P.S. You don't really think that Sara missing that bag and turning back was just some weird accident, do ya? That there wasn't some greater purpose at work?

Mango Seeds

Is There Hope in These Eyes?

Ok, no comments yet on the first post. Come on people, don't be shy. I was sure some, smart somebody was going to ask why it was named "Seeds" and what does that have to do with Five Talents, Africa, etc. And now this post is named "Mango Seeds"! I'm sure all of you who know me well are wondering if Watermelon Seeds is next. Well, it would be but I really prefer eating seedless watermelon, and there is no future in that. So, here is the correct story.

As I was flying to Kenya last year I was reading a book called "The Forest In The Seed" (you can download a free copy here at disciplenations.org) and on one of the inside cover pages it reprints a traditional Kenyan proverb. "You can count the number of seeds in a mango, but you can't count the number of mango's in a seed." That really struck me as I played that over and over in my mind stuck on the plane for 20 hours and I almost made that the opening scene of my video. I visualized an animated Mango tree shaking back and forth like Elvis, dropping fruit and then all these cute little trees growing up around it.

Still a little lost? About five years ago I produced a pro-bono video for an organization called Setting Captives Free. At the time the video was made into DVD's for people to speak with and to put on their website www.settingcaptivesfree.com. The video had to do with pornography addiction, not a very popular subject to talk about publicy at the time, but something I had personally struggled with. After a year or so I kinda forgot about it. Then, right at the time I was struggling to make the decision whether to go to Kenya to make the video for Go and Do Likewise, I saw a testimony from someone who said they had found freedom from their addiction through this ministry of Setting Captives Free and that they had learned of it through a video on pornography addiction on YouTube.com. Curious me, I went to the internet to see who and what this was and lo and behold it was my video. It had been placed on YouTube for over a year before by someone I didn't even know (and still don't) and already over 25,000 people had watched it and I hadn't even known it.

Here is that video:




I planted a small seed, someone else did the watering and now many people are being blessed.

Now in my first post I said I wasn't pushing everyone in my world (just some of you, and you know who you are) to go to Africa. I say that because while I live in a relatively affluent part of Orange County, California called Fountain Valley. I live just a stones throw away (literally) from a city known for its pockets of deep poverty called Santa Ana. Just five minutes from where I live, in the middle of one of the poorest areas of Santa Ana, is an organization that is doing some of the best work to lift people up I have ever seen. The name of the organization is Kid Works and it reminds me in many ways of the work the organization I serve with, Go and Do Likewise, is doing in Rionchogu, Kenya. Focusing on children and families, education and health.

Kid Works mission statement is to:

  "Restore at-risk neighborhood's... one life at a time".

Wow, is that a great mission statement? It's clear they know what their are charged with and how they are going about it, just in that one simple but profound sentence.

Here is a video they did called "This Is My Neighborhood"

And here is a link to an article about them from the front page of the Orange County Register.

So, as I sit here and write this blog I am feeling moved to write a personal (and family) mission statement as clear and focused as the one Kid Works wrote. Perhaps one that includes my Five Talents or has a vision for the next 10 years of my life. When I read theirs I was moved and I am sure many people have been moved into action to help with their mission because of that simple yet powerful message. In fact, a good friend of mine Ric Seaver interned there for a month and was so impressed with the work being done there, he now works for them and is their Volunteer Coordinator.

Now again the point of this blog is not to get you to move to Santa Ana and volunteer at Kid Works (but you could! just contact Ric@kidworksonline.org). The point of this blog is to ask what are your Five Talents, or Three Talents or One Talent and are you using them to serve others? Or are you using them only to serve yourself?

I remember a church I visited in Washington while attending the wedding of a friend of mine's daughter, that had posted right over their door as you left, a sign that said this:

"You will have your needs met,

on the way to meeting the needs of others".

You know, I couldn't say it any better!

Eaar (pronouced Ecar)

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Seeds

Why a blog from me?

Why Five Talents?

Don't I have enough to do as it is? Will anyone read it? In the universe of the internet does anyone care about what I have to say? Hmmmmm......

Good questions and I could get stuck right there and not do a thing. Go back to watching TV or reading some other guys blog or take a well deserved nap! But if sharing my failures, my hopes, my dreams, and what I hope to do with the rest of my life (since I didn't do a lot with the first part). Well, if that moves just one other person in this world to care more, to change for the better, to love more deeply, to leave behind something more than just stuff, than I think it will be worth it. Of course, I may be dead and gone before that is proved out, and I am certain I will have many other failures in the meantime, but that is where faith comes in and that, I have no shortage of.

So Why Five Talents? Jesus Christ tells a parable in Matthew 25 called "the Parable of the Talents" in which He describes the Kingdom of Heaven. Here is how it is translated in a version from "The Message"

Matthew 25:14 -18"It's also like a man going off on an extended trip. He called his servants together and delegated responsibilities. To one, he gave five thousand dollars, to another, two thousand, to a third, one thousand, depending on their abilities. Then he left. Right off, the first servant went to work and doubled his master's investment. The second did the same. But the man with the single thousand dug a hole and carefully buried his master's money.

19 -21"After a long absence, the master of those three servants came back and settled up with them. The one given five thousand dollars showed him how he had doubled his investment. His master commended him: 'Good work! You did your job well. From now on be my partner.'

22 -23"The servant with the two thousand showed how he also had doubled his master's investment. His master commended him: 'Good work! You did your job well. From now on be my partner.'

24 -25"The servant given one thousand said, 'Master, I know you have high standards and hate careless ways, that you demand the best and make no allowances for error. I was afraid I might disappoint you, so I found a good hiding place and secured your money. Here it is, safe and sound down to the last cent.'

26 -27"The master was furious. 'That's a terrible way to live! It's criminal to live cautiously like that! If you knew I was after the best, why did you do less than the least? The least you could have done would have been to invest the sum with the bankers, where at least I would have gotten a little interest.

28 -30"'Take the thousand and give it to the one who risked the most. And get rid of this "play-it-safe" who won't go out on a limb. Throw him out into utter darkness.'

Okay. Now, in the original language the 1 thousand dollars is referred to as a Talent, which was a form of money in those days and that is how I always looked at this parable, about money. But, just the other day, I was listening to a fellow named Erwin McManus and he related this story not about money, but .... you guessed it - as about talents. As in creativity or music or teaching or whatever gifts you have been blessed with. That hit me like a ton of bricks. I have always been an underachiever. My teachers in school saw that. I think my Mom saw it and when I have been honest with myself and looked deeply into the mirror, I saw it as well.

That last verse:

"Take the thousand and give it to the one who risked the most. And get rid of this "play-it-safe" who won't go out on a limb. Throw him out into utter darkness."

That was ME! I guess when I hit 50 years old and it occurred to me I might only have 10 to 20 good years left (my father died after years of poor health at age 70), I realized I was that "one talent" guy. God had given me many gifts and I have used them only for my pleasure, my comfort. I buried the rest in the ground!

Last year, after years of traveling the world when I was young, just for fun, I finally went for another purpose. Oh, I had many opportunities before to go to impoverished parts of the world, but I guess it didn't sound very comfortable to me. I mean sleeping and hanging with poor people didn't seem as interesting as talking to people I could relate to or seeing beautiful sights. London, 6,000 miles away, is way cooler than the slums of Tijuana, Mexico, which of course is only 90 miles from where I live. I was always able to ignore all that. I was busy in my church, serving on various committees and for a while now, even serving as the Lay Leader of the congregation. But, something was missing. Something kept tugging at me and finally when I was asked by someone I barely knew, Bud Potter, from an organization called Go and Do Likewise, asked if I would go to Africa, and make a video about an impoverished village, that was known as "A Village Despised," and somehow help them. Well, I just couldn't shut the voice up inside of me that said GO.

Here is the video I made (That's Bud in the beginning) Let me know what you think:

Now if you think I am saying we all need to go to Africa, you're wrong. That's not my point, though I am using it to make my point, but enough for now. Chew on that, I'll have more in my next post.

Eaar (pronounced Ecar)