Army of Priests

This blog is usually a bit preachy; this post is more like a diary entry (extroverted thought vs introverted thought perhaps). Chances are that only people who know me will read this because they are sticky beaks – or perhaps some faithful, long term readers from across the inter-web.

I’ve been a lot more introspective over the last month or so (as evidenced in a few recent blog posts) and learned a bit about myself in the process. For the last couple of months I have felt run off my feet, and like I wasn’t in control of my life due, in large part, to events at work. I have been focusing on urgent, short term tasks rather than on long term development. In the last week or two this has eased slightly and I have a two week holiday starting at the end of this week (yippie) so I have some breathing room to look at the use of my time and effort and figure out if it is the way I want to use them (I have a work mate who would point out that this is typical ENFP behaviour).

One thing that has been made obvious to me is that time is not my most precious resource, as I had been conditioned to believe. I can think of time, money, energy, focus, and social capital. There are probably others too (I know there are whole tribes of professionals who study this but I haven’t read any of their stuff, so let’s just pretend that I know what I am talking about). Money, energy, and social capital are resources of which I have seemingly endless supplies. Time has been a little strained when various work and non-work commitments compound (suffice to say I have worked a couple of 50 hour weeks in the last couple of months, but that’s not too bad).

However, my focus has been running pretty low. “Focus” to me is defined as the ability to think, and work has been stealing a lot of that lately. I get home and I have no brain matter left to use on the other things I want to use it on. I just keep thinking about the problems I am trying to solve at work and can’t put them aside in my mind. This is a common curse for a programmer.

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I was thinking on the train on the way home that a fundamental economic principal that Christian must live by is that we will not benefit from injustice. Then, I began to think of how I had gained from the mistreatment of others just today:

• My clothing, my bed sheets, and all other textiles I came in contact with over the day were almost certainly made overseas by workers in appalling conditions. The cotton farmers were probably paid just enough to survive.
• All the electronic equipment I use – the laptop I write this on, my PC at work, and my MP3 player – contain coltan. Which has contributed to most of the funding of the conflict in the Congo.
• The pharmaceuticals I use are protected by IP property laws which prevent 3rd world countries from creating generic versions that would save millions of lives.
• The petrol and electricity I use contribute to global pollution. Pollution always hits the poor hardest, and if global warming is even slightly probable it reflects a significant social justice issue.
• The fashion I wear reinforces the ludicrous notion, created by cleaver marketers, that some people are ‘ugly’. This has a huge impact on self-esteem and wasted money.

This doesn’t include the implicit disregard for life created by spending money and time and effort on my own comfort whilst ignoring the basic needs of others. Nor does it take into account that even playing a part in the work-advertise-spend treadmill contributes to the overall decline of society, as we dedicate ourselves more to the accumulation of stuff than to sustaining relationships.

It makes me thing a lot about what it really means to live without doing so at another’s expense and the cost of living “ethically”.

I’ve been reading the Autobiography of Martin Luther King of late. It’s a very interesting read. King was quite intellectual, thus his biography is very educational. Its also challenging and inspirational.

I’m not yet a 1/3rd the way through. But so far King’s house has been bombed once (and a 2nd attempt was also made), stabbed once, thrown in jail countless times, and abused countless times. His friends have experienced mass jailing and persecutions. They all had to walk to work for over a year (or share cars). At one point over 11 houses or churches were destroyed by bombs in a single weekend. The entire group of justice seekers have been pushed to their limits.

It makes me wonder about how dedicated to justice I am. How much am I willing to give up so that people no longer die of hunger? How many times am I willing to go to jail to end my country’s trade barriers? How uncomfortable will I become to raise awareness of unfair labour laws?

So far, I’m barely able to battle against people’s simple expectations of me.

I want to be someone who will go the full nine yards if that’s what it takes for us to stop treating the 3rd world like slaves. But I’m not there yet.

I haven’t written here for a while the last few months. I’ve been figuring some things out.

You see, I don’t think I really deserve the right to post here.

I write a lot of stuff on my blog that I really believe in, but then don’t live them in real life. When I write here, I can feel free to express myself. I can post my crazy continuously-morphing ideas about what it really means to actually follow Jesus and not just be another pretender in the Christian sub-culture. But I don’t usually live those ideas out.

I am a poser.

Actually, I bet blogging lends itself to people doing this type of thing a lot. Living their life one way but then only expressing what they really think on a blog, often anonymously… safely. As though its an outlet. A place to say what you really think. It’s really quite cowardly.

I’ve been thinking a lot about consistency lately.

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