the terror of sufficiency
"I do not understand my own action. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate." - from Romans 7:14-25
Many of us have had opportunity to travel, sometimes to areas of the world which do not enjoy the material prosperity we take for granted. About twenty years ago, I traveled with a small work team
to Honduras, to assist a rural community in rebuilding their village. During Hurricane Mitch, their entire village literally slid down the mountainside in a devastating chain of mudslides. Many in the village lost family members who were buried in the mud. Those who survived were relocated to another similarly scalped mountaintop to rebuild. Thankfully, some attention was given this time to the erosion effects of a poorly managed agricultural program which had exacerbated the natural disaster. The government had encouraged the poor to move atop forested mountains and clear them for coffee production. When the heavy rains came, lack of native vegetation to secure fragile soils led to incalculable loss.
During the week we spent in the village of Nuevo Porvenir (the village which had been destroyed was Porvenir, which means
future in Spanish) I found my emotions yanked in every direction. Immense sadness welled up in me as I heard the stories of mothers and fathers, children, sisters and brothers who had been buried alive in mud. I felt anger over the mismanagement of the government's land use project. Admiration for our Honduran partners working with the poorest of the poor. Gratitude for the completion a week earlier of a project bringing fresh water and sanitary toilets where there had been none. Humility in the face of my completely inadequate preparation to spend time in a country where I could not speak the language. Mirth at the absurdity of hens and a rooster walking over our sleeping bags and the times each member of our team had to shoo scorpions off of rocks we were carrying, or out of boots we were about to put on. Strangely, I also felt
envy.
Each morning the poultry brigade roused us before first light. As I headed out to the newly constructed wooden outhouses (many in the village had never known such luxury) I would watch the village coming to life below. At that hour, it was a woman's world. Sisters emerged from their tarp covered hammocks to gather in groups around small cook fires. Water was hauled by little girls from the stretch of PVC pipe which miraculously brought water to the middle of the village. Dented pots boiled as some began the day's laundry and others formed corn tortillas in loving hands, as all families awakened together. Gentle waves of laughter and conversation, rising up to our open-air sleeping quarters, made my soul ache. In the midst of unfathomable poverty and grief, these women were present to the dawn, knit closely to neighbor and family. And I was
jealous.
After a sunrise breakfast, we worked side by side with a Columbian construction team hired by the non-profit which had invited us into their work. During siesta, the children would gather up at the school ground where we slept (the only completed building in the entire village). They were openly curious and eager to play with us. A Honduran health worker whose sleeping bag was a few feet down from mine generously translated for me and answered my many questions. When I commented on the "sun kissed streaks" in the children's dark hair, she gently explained that it was a symptom of extreme malnutrition. She was working with the women of the village to harvest and incorporate into tortillas nutrient rich native plants growing wild in the area. When available, she was bringing multi-vitamins to the village to supplement the very poor subsistence diet. The village men came home exhausted in the late afternoon, after walking miles daily to their newly planted coffee plots. At night, we worshiped with, attended community meetings with, and shared conversation with (as best we could) our new friends.
Tears would surprise me as we sang together, and as I listened to testimony from our hosts about the choices required to build intentional community. They were literally building an entire village one row of cinder blocks at a time. None of the dozens of families would raise up another row of blocks on their own home until the whole village reached the same level of courses. So every family was still sleeping under Red-Cross provided tarps from over a year ago, which protected their pole-strung hammocks from the rain. I was invited under the shelter of one such tarp after worship, carrying a child who had fallen asleep in my arms. The only possessions the family of eight had were one plastic lawn chair and a reused jar containing oil and a wick which provided meager light. Nuevo Porvenir was still rebuilding in the second year after the disaster, and this was how far they had come.
On the flight back to Michigan I made vows to God about how my experience in Nuevo Porvenir would reshape my life. I am embarrassed to admit how little actually changed. Once back in the world I knew, I was quickly swept away by the expectations and standards of my own culture. To live more simply so that I had more to share with others struggling to simply live, shrunk in importance. After all, there were new soccer cleats to buy for the kids, new pillows for our beds, and so forth. The lines blurred once more between wants and needs.
In today's Trek card, I am reminded that "the ecological footprint of most North Americans needs to shrink by two-thirds to reach the global average." The sizes of our homes, the great drain we make on global energy resources, the global impact of our every day transportation costs, not to mention our insatiable appetites for more "things" (including an endless supply of coffee) consume not only our financial resources but our understanding of what life is all about.
Our interaction with material things can give them a "life of their own."
Understanding that relationship can be critical to finding our deepest joy and meaning in life.
I am glad to be making this trek into the world of enough again today. It has raised many questions about how I might still fulfill the vows I made then to reorder my life into better alignment with the values of the Reign of God.
Questions for Today
What do I own that is not necessary for the activities I find most meaningful?
What might I do with that stuff if I chose to reduce the number of my possessions?
How much of my income goes to sustain a lifestyle which is more costly than needed?
What would I do with my free time if I only had to spend half as much time working for money?
How might I prioritize the wealth of community and family relationships over the accumulation of possessions?
