Thursday, March 16, 2006
money and God
Lately i realize I get anxious when I procrastinate. alot of times I do good things but I know there are things I should be doing that would be more in line with what is best and inline with what God wants me to do. This anxiousness is self inflicted. It extends even further to larger things like work. I am constantly haunted by the nagging modern ghost of progress. The voice says something like this "if you just get this type of job you will make more money to free you up to do this or that". There is something wrong with that thinking. I know that if I go in a certain direction it will be harder to turn around or go in a different direction later so I try to be careful deciding which direction to go in. I am very reluctant to compromise in the work arena. Its a tricky business because it has left me very poor but i still believe its right. Life is short and dont want money to be the driving factor in any arena of life. "yes but you need to support your family" thats the devil! I dont support my family God does. He might choose to include me in that providing but He might not. Can my pride handle that. What I must do is follow Him and serve Him advancing His cause. He takes care of the rest. Yes sometimes that means a 9-5, sometimes it means living smarter and reducing living expenses by giving up things that people in our society take as an obvious need.
The Bible teaches we cannot serve both God and Money. What does that mean? it sounds very religeous i have to admit, but i was just thinking of a very practical way to apply this principle. When I consider what job to take or to refuse either long term or short term (like a web site) i consider many factors. Does the job stand for something i believe in or would like to support? Does it make enough money to justify the time i must spend to complete it. There have been times when I have looked at jobs as a means to an end or neutral. I have recently been asking this question concerning my acting jobs. I guess it comes from my frustration of being underpaid but mostly from the nonsense that the TV production companies produce. It is really a system to sell products most of which do not contribute anything to the world I would hope to live in. So I started to think -(uh oh)- by doing this sort of work am I just encouraging the world in the wrong direction? Shouldn't I be living in such a way as to encourage the world in the direction I beleive is best- especially in the direction i believe God wants it to go? Is the work meaningful? Does it have content? the right content. What would the world look like if we all only did work we believe in?
I am not talking about obvious spiritual matters but more subtle areas of life. For example: I believe there are some negative implications that stem from the industrial revolution and "modern thinking" (by modern I mean from 1860-present). One of which is a fragmented society that has a disconnect between work and the product. In other words we no longer are directly connected with our work like say a farmer who eats the products of his labor.
We value production and efficiency so we encourage division of labor. Why is this a value? We have been programmed to think this way. We define progress in a very specific way. One result of this thinking is the financial fear driven frenzy we see in the US. People never feel they have enough investments, or property and even when they have alot they feel no security that was promised. Its never ending.Another area this thinking affects is knowledge. There is an increasing trend to only give value top knowledge that can be used directly or productively instead just for the intrinsic value of knowing. So we only believe in spending money on certain types of research. Art can be twisted as well because beauty is not really "useful" in the "modern" sense. I do believe there is a revolution going on presently to infuse content and meaning back into our lives so there is hope.
When people choose a career it is financially driven according to the class they wish to belong to or the lifestyle. As a society we are not moving towards less consumption but further dependance. We cant live without electricity, gas, etc. We work more hours so we can buy more conveniences to give us more time. Wouldnt it be wiser to almost go backwards and bake our own bread, grow vegatables, learn how to sew, build our own houses, trade goods and services instead of paying a specialist? I guess I am turning into a socialist.
I often get caught in the trap of thinking "wow thats cheap" as if it were a good thing. Yah its good in the short term cause i can buy more stuff but in the long run i dont believe it is. Take a can of tomatoes for example. They are about a dollar here in Japan. Its easy and relatively cheap but if I think of the cost on the environment like the plant used to can these tomatoes, the truck that brought the can to my area in tokyo, the gas in that truck, the ship that brought the gas, the recycling plant that recycles the can, the energy the protestors spend protesting (now they need more food), the city official and police to answer the question oif the protestors and prevent a riot, etc etc etc. You get the point- But it makes my life easier. We could tear apart society bit by bit deconstructing but really Its about the direction we are going in.
I cannot be responsible for the whole world but surely i can say no to jobs I dont beleive are good for the worlds future. I am not talking about jobs that are evil but on closer scrutiny are they jobs that involve principles we believe in ? I can do things like reduce my living expenses and therefore be freed up to use my time to do what I believe I should do instead of the things I have to do to survive financially. Yes there are repercusions to this decision but peace of mind and integrity will certainly be a reward. My concern is that we are all "going along to get along", Instead of living deliberately. We are paying the price for that type of lifestyle. It is a matter of priorities- what is most important?
The Bible teaches we cannot serve both God and Money. What does that mean? it sounds very religeous i have to admit, but i was just thinking of a very practical way to apply this principle. When I consider what job to take or to refuse either long term or short term (like a web site) i consider many factors. Does the job stand for something i believe in or would like to support? Does it make enough money to justify the time i must spend to complete it. There have been times when I have looked at jobs as a means to an end or neutral. I have recently been asking this question concerning my acting jobs. I guess it comes from my frustration of being underpaid but mostly from the nonsense that the TV production companies produce. It is really a system to sell products most of which do not contribute anything to the world I would hope to live in. So I started to think -(uh oh)- by doing this sort of work am I just encouraging the world in the wrong direction? Shouldn't I be living in such a way as to encourage the world in the direction I beleive is best- especially in the direction i believe God wants it to go? Is the work meaningful? Does it have content? the right content. What would the world look like if we all only did work we believe in?
I am not talking about obvious spiritual matters but more subtle areas of life. For example: I believe there are some negative implications that stem from the industrial revolution and "modern thinking" (by modern I mean from 1860-present). One of which is a fragmented society that has a disconnect between work and the product. In other words we no longer are directly connected with our work like say a farmer who eats the products of his labor.
We value production and efficiency so we encourage division of labor. Why is this a value? We have been programmed to think this way. We define progress in a very specific way. One result of this thinking is the financial fear driven frenzy we see in the US. People never feel they have enough investments, or property and even when they have alot they feel no security that was promised. Its never ending.Another area this thinking affects is knowledge. There is an increasing trend to only give value top knowledge that can be used directly or productively instead just for the intrinsic value of knowing. So we only believe in spending money on certain types of research. Art can be twisted as well because beauty is not really "useful" in the "modern" sense. I do believe there is a revolution going on presently to infuse content and meaning back into our lives so there is hope.
When people choose a career it is financially driven according to the class they wish to belong to or the lifestyle. As a society we are not moving towards less consumption but further dependance. We cant live without electricity, gas, etc. We work more hours so we can buy more conveniences to give us more time. Wouldnt it be wiser to almost go backwards and bake our own bread, grow vegatables, learn how to sew, build our own houses, trade goods and services instead of paying a specialist? I guess I am turning into a socialist.
I often get caught in the trap of thinking "wow thats cheap" as if it were a good thing. Yah its good in the short term cause i can buy more stuff but in the long run i dont believe it is. Take a can of tomatoes for example. They are about a dollar here in Japan. Its easy and relatively cheap but if I think of the cost on the environment like the plant used to can these tomatoes, the truck that brought the can to my area in tokyo, the gas in that truck, the ship that brought the gas, the recycling plant that recycles the can, the energy the protestors spend protesting (now they need more food), the city official and police to answer the question oif the protestors and prevent a riot, etc etc etc. You get the point- But it makes my life easier. We could tear apart society bit by bit deconstructing but really Its about the direction we are going in.
I cannot be responsible for the whole world but surely i can say no to jobs I dont beleive are good for the worlds future. I am not talking about jobs that are evil but on closer scrutiny are they jobs that involve principles we believe in ? I can do things like reduce my living expenses and therefore be freed up to use my time to do what I believe I should do instead of the things I have to do to survive financially. Yes there are repercusions to this decision but peace of mind and integrity will certainly be a reward. My concern is that we are all "going along to get along", Instead of living deliberately. We are paying the price for that type of lifestyle. It is a matter of priorities- what is most important?