Scarcity Vs. Abundance

April 24, 2012 — 7 Comments

Many days, there’s a boxing match going on in my head between the attitudes of scarcity and abundance.

Scarcity throws her punches at all sorts of moments, big and small. Scarcity has told me that my children’s friends can’t share our snacks because we don’t have enough to go around. She has eaten away at my confidence when I listen to amazing musicians or read profound writers, because (by scarcity’s logic) with so much good stuff out there, no one will be interested in what I’m doing. Before I had children, scarcity told me that the world is a dark and crowded place, so I shouldn’t bring more children into it.

These days, scarcity reminds me that my life may already be half-over. She sighs wistfully at my growing children, squinting gloomily into the future, which scarcity assures me is filled with (more) wrinkles, aches and pains, loneliness, failure, and finally, death.

In the other corner, weighing in at immeasurable hope, is abundance. Abundance tells me that there is always room for more, and not only is there always room, but there is always more.

At which scarcity simply scoffs, reminding abundance that we live in a material world, with fixed physical laws.

To which abundance answers, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”

And scarcity sneers and makes some joke about fairy tales and fraudulent miracle workers.

Then abundance offers to share her lunch with scarcity, and scarcity turns up her nose at the simple bread and wine she is offered.

I see the problem here. Scarcity and abundance have two different lifestyles in mind.

Scarcity needs the latest and greatest, and she needs it now. She needs fame and immortality, a perfect body, an adoring family, and absolute comfort at all times. She’s right to think that it’s not possible for everyone to have what she “needs.”

Abundance needs food, water, rest, love, shelter, fresh air, and fulfilling work to do. And she is right to think that there is enough of these things to go around.

In fact, the things on abundance’s list of needs almost make a perpetual-motion machine. For example, in the field of “fulfilling work to do,” I would include lifelong learning. An understanding of the same physical laws that scarcity holds as her trump card, held in the context of all the other items on abundance’s needs list, is exactly what we need to build a sustainable global economy.

And never, never let us forget love. Like the apostle Paul, I still think that “the greatest of these is love.” Call me a hippie, call me a commie, but I need love, and I think you do too.

A few years ago, I read Walter Brueggemann’s article “The Liturgy of Abundance, the Myth of Scarcity,” and I was reminded of it again when I watched two TED talks last week. The first, by Peter Diamandis, is entitled “Abundance is Our Future.” The second, by Paul Gilding, is called “The Earth is Full.”  All of these are provocative thinking about scarcity and abundance, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic.

Women’s History

March 29, 2012 — 3 Comments

It’s the end of women’s history month, and I’m thinking of three stories of women today, all part of women’s history.

The first is recent history. In May 2000, Pakistani woman Fakhra Younus claimed that she suffered an acid attack at the hands of her estranged husband, while she slept in her mother’s house. Twelve years and more than thirty-six surgeries later, in Rome, she jumped from a height of six stories to her death.

Fakhra Younus wasn’t the victim of someone’s psychopathically creative crime. “Acid throwing” has its own entry in Wikipedia. And it isn’t limited to the present day or the non-western world. Which brings me to the second story.

I remembered this morning, after reading Fakhra Younus’s story last night, that I had read about an acid attack in my own family history. When I was younger, my grandmother gave me a copy of an account that her father had written of his life. His mother died when he was six years old, and his father took the children to a “Catholic home” and never visited them.

My great-grandfather Gus Dominguez grew up and re-connected with his father. “He started off by telling me that he was married again and has two fine girls and that he changed his name and that from now on I will have to call him uncle. He said he had to change on account of something he had done in Brooklyn – that the law was after him. Then I asked him, did you kill, steal or what was it all about. Then I heard the story.

“He was running around with a young woman and that she wanted to marry him. They became engaged but he found out that she was a high flyer and try to give her up but she did not want it that way, so to get rid of her he throw acid in her face. From then on he left town with the full account in the paper and police after him. So he change his name to Mr. Frank Hidalgo.”

I read this story years ago with great interest. My great-great grandfather was such a colorful man. I told this story to other people and even laughed a bit as I mentioned casually, “he got in trouble with the law for throwing acid in a woman’s face.”

It wasn’t until today, connecting these two stories, especially after seeing photographs of acid-attack victims, that I ever imagined the story from the perspective of the woman who “Uncle Frank” accosted.

Which reminded me of the third story, another one whose most sobering details I had simply missed the first few times I read it. It’s a story in the Bible, in Judges 19, subtitled in the NIV, “A Levite and His Concubine.” When I read this story as a child (oh yes I did; how do you think fundamentalist children get through long boring services with only a Bible to amuse themselves?!), I was most intrigued by the man cutting the woman’s body into twelve pieces and sending them to the twelve tribes of Israel.

Somehow I missed the much more disturbing piece of a husband sending his wife (concubine to be specific) and a father sending his daughter out on the street to be gang-raped by a crowd of men, in order to avoid the “vile” and “outrageous” act of the man himself being raped by the men on the street.

This story hit me with its full force when I came across it again in my young adulthood. I spent an entire day simply sitting with the story. I wrote a song for the nameless woman. She needed to be remembered.

Women’s history is filled with amazing accomplishments and beautiful stories. It is also laden with suffering. I end with a simple but powerful word from my friend Jodi, who arrived in Haiti just before the earthquake hit. In her remembrance of that day, she said, “Don’t forget the suffering. Add to the beauty.” These are words for all of us to live by, as women and men remembering and making history.

Random Thoughts Continued

March 22, 2012 — Leave a comment

Thanks to all who read the last post and commented on it, both here on the blog and on my Facebook page. Your respectful and thoughtful words really encouraged me. One of the most-discussed ideas, about the oversimplification of the labels “pro-choice” and “pro-life,” reminded me of this previous post about labels.

Feel free to add new comments or carry on the conversation already started with the aforementioned comments!

Random Thoughts on a Touchy Topic

March 13, 2012 — 15 Comments

When I was young, I knew with certainty that abortion was wrong. It was a black-and-white issue. A baby is a baby is a baby. Life begins at conception, and abortion stops a beating heart. Abortion is murder. I couldn’t understand how anyone could see things otherwise. I was sure that anyone with a different opinion was godless and heartless.

In my young adulthood, I met a young man who was also an evangelical-striped Christian. But he voted Democrat and identified himself as pro-choice. He explained that even if abortion was a moral wrong, he didn’t think it was right for a mostly-male Congress to be making laws governing women’s choices about what was going on inside their own bodies.

My thought-evolution on this issue has continued. Currently, I would say that I am undecided.

Here is a random list of thoughts and things I have learned related to this issue. These are not points or arguments. Please don’t read them as such. I am thinking out loud:

Planned Parenthood is mostly about providing low-cost or free health care to women. I was always taught that this organization was pretty much pure evil, so even today when I know better, just the name “Planned Parenthood” still elicits a visceral negative reaction for me.

Medical technology has advanced so that surgery can be performed on babies in the womb, and babies can survive birth at earlier stages of development than ever.

The phrase “every child a wanted child” rings a little hollow to me. It has been used as a pro-choice argument that no child should be born to a mother who doesn’t want him or her. I agree with this sentiment, but I think a better solution is to build a world where people welcome and support children (and by extension, pregnant women and mothers of young children), not where unwanted children are denied existence.

I find the ideas on Feminists for Life‘s website intriguing, especially their FAQ answer regarding criminalizing abortion (though it seems a bit evasive).

Adoption is often held up as an alternative to abortion. But carrying a pregnancy to term is a major life disruptor in and of itself, especially if a woman already has young children (and most women who get abortions are already mothers of previously-birthed children).

It is possible to hold a pro-choice position concerning legislation and a pro-life position concerning morality. I suppose this would be a libertarian position, similar to positions on other issues such as drug use, alcohol consumption, sex, and religious beliefs.

This is a controversial issue for good reasons. The entire journey that an egg and a sperm make to become a newborn baby happens inside a woman’s body. Is it really good policy to dictate to her what she does about that activity going on inside of her? If we can make laws about whether women may terminate their pregnancies or not, can we also make laws about how they will treat the growing child inside their body? Can we make it illegal for pregnant women to smoke or drink?

Why are so many “pro-life” people also outspoken critics of welfare in any form? If you want to reduce abortions, wouldn’t you want to help build a world where children are cared for, no matter their household income – and where women have access to contraception to prevent pregnancy in the first place? But I understand that many people who are opposed to government-sponsored welfare think that churches and community groups should be the ones providing poverty relief. And that’s another non-black-and-white issue for another day . . .

According to recent demographic research, poverty – and the inadequate health care and lack of access to contraception that goes along with it – is a significant contributor to the choice to abort a pregnancy. This blog post and video discusses this information more.

Referring to his daughters, President Obama once said, “I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.” Unfortunate choice of words, I’d say. Whatever he meant by that, I think it reflects the reality of our patriarchal society which marginalizes women and even more so marginalizes children (and the elderly, mentally/physically challenged, etc.) and the people – often women – who care for them. Once again, this raises for me the reminder that abortion must be understood in its larger context of social and systemic issues that de-value people who don’t “keep up” with the expected pace of American life – 16+ years of formal education, 40+weekly hours working a “real job,” etc.

That’s a long enough list for now.

Abortion, like life, is not a black-and-white issue. I’m weary of both pro-lifers and pro-choicers ignoring the complexities involved  (though of course not everyone from either perspective does so).

These are just some opening thoughts to a conversation I hope we can have here. Let’s talk. What do you think? Or feel? Or wonder? Or what have you experienced? Or learned? Or considered? I’m looking for a thoughtful and respectful conversation about an often-heated topic. So it may be a good idea to read your comment over one extra time before you make that final click.

*Update: Recently I heard this OnBeing podcast  with David Gushee and Frances Kissling about abortion. I highly recommend it as a model of thoughtful conversation on this issue.

“How to Live On 24 Hours a Day”

January 26, 2012 — 6 Comments

A couple weeks ago now-retired Minnesota public radio host Gary Eichten interviewed another public radio figure, Garrison Keillor, about his life and his advice for young writers. The entire interview delighted me, but I especially appreciated one word of advice Keillor gave to a caller. The caller identified himself as a freelance writer, and asked Keillor, if you don’t have a 9-5 day job, so that you have the flexibility to work when you want, how do you structure your day?

Keillor’s surprising answer was that he works from 4:00 am to noon on weekdays. He reasoned that early in the morning is the most distraction-free time to work, and typically afternoon is not a productive time of day.

This advice really connected with me, a long-avowed “night person” who now contends with kids and their school nights and – more to the point – their schoolday morning routines. For a period of time a couple years ago, when I felt there was no quiet time to be found in my life, I started getting up at 4:45 some mornings to go for a quick run and then enjoy a leisurely breakfast and watch the sunrise. I felt like I’d come upon buried treasure – I had discovered a secret time period in the day that I could have all to myself!

I also know exactly what Keillor’s talking about when he says the afternoon is a lost cause. Even when I did work a 9-5 job, afternoon was the hardest time to apply mental or creative energy to a task. Yet, for my own writing time, I had recently been attempting to carve out afternoon hours for writing – and mostly, I had failed to keep them.

So, last week I began waking at 5:00 am on weekdays, writing for a good 90 minutes each morning before dealing with household and children. No one calls or stops by the house at that time of day, and since it’s a limited chunk of time, I can muster the discipline to stay out of my email and off of Facebook! I only require a good cup of coffee and a listen to the daily Writer’s Almanac to get me started. Ninety minutes five days a week is only 7 1/2 hours of solid writing time, but then again, it’s 7 1/2 hours of solid writing time that I can count on, and the more I exercise those writing muscles, the stronger they will be for further work hours when I’m ready.

For a short, entertaining, mildly inspirational, highly dated/sexist/classist work on the use of time, I recommend this free e-book I read in about an hour yesterday – How to Live On 24 Hours a Day. I see it’s available in several paperback editions as well.

What sorts of tips and ideas have you found helpful in your own use of time, as it relates to creative work, or any other interest or task you want to pursue beyond the “must-do” activities of your life?