Moonlight

Moonlight. In reality there is no such thing. The light we see from the moon is only a reflection of the sun's light. The moon acts like a giant mirror and bounces rays of sunlight back to us.

Even so on a dark night, that reflected light reveals landmarks that help us find our way. Moonlight also sheds light on dangerous obstacles: the curb to step over; the tree requiring a detour; the stranger lurking in the shadows.

Like moonlight, aid workers, social workers, clergy, intake workers, community organizers, and counselors are obvious light reflectors. By connecting needs with resources, by suggesting options and strategies, by listening to need and collaborating for solutions, they help those on the periphery find their way through the darkness.  

But they're not the only ones with moonlight. Think of the heroes in your life, the ones who empowered you to try one more time. Most often they just found some way to care, like the friend who years ago brought me a yellow gerbera (looks like a yellow daisy) on a bleak day.

"I thought you'd like some sunshine," she said.

And so it arrived via moonlight.

"More and more, the desire grows in me simply to walk around, greet people, enter their homes, sit on their doorsteps...to have the time to practice the ministry of presence...I wonder if the first thing (before meetings and social organizing) should be to know people by name, to eat and drink with them, to listen to their stories and tell your own, and to let them know with words, handshakes, and hugs that you do not simply like them, but truly love them." --Henri Nouwen, quoted in Connections, January 2013.

Being present. Something any one of us can do -- even those of us on the periphery. Go light your world!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtIIFJIxdUw

Living Above Grace's Expectation

“So do to others what you would have them do to you."

I have always missed the "so" when reading this passage from Matthew. But look at that “so”. It precedes the statement, "If you . . . know how to give good gifts...how much more will the Father give?”

This passage really has much to say about grace. The Father God lavishes good things on us, so we should at least be able to treat others as we wish to be treated. God would do far more than that, but He only asks from us that we treat others as we wish to be treated. We will never measure up to His goodness. He knows that. So all he asks is that we give others the same respect we give ourselves.

But there is more yet. I happened to read that passage the same day I read this one from Genesis.  The land "is worth 400 ... but what is that between you and me?” And Abraham then paid the full 400. I understand that this depicts the way financial transactions were negotiated in the Genesis period, that Abraham would have understood that the 400 was a suggested price for the land. Just as the Genesis people had their own negotiating terms, so do the people groups in the international community in which I live.

Perhaps “do unto others as you would have done to you" is best rephrased, “do to others as you would have done to you IF you were the Senegalese in front of you.” Or “do to others as you would have done to you IF you were the Muslim in front of you.” “Or “do to others as you would have done to you IF you were the Kurd in front of you.” Or the Russian? The Cuban? The Dominican? The Mexican? The . . .

I wonder, do I automatically fall back to my southern Iowa ways no matter who is in front of me? What if instead I did unto others in accordance with the manner and culture they understand? What if I went even farther and gave to others in a way they understood as being even better than how I want to be treated? What if I truly sought to understand them, to see their heart, to hear their need?

What if we all did?

The Droid...The Great Equalizer

When I noticed that several students who lived on government assistance with shelter, food, and education, but never appeared anywhere without their tech “toy”, I wondered at the choice. But over time they taught me a lesson. I learned hese “toys” were actually phone, dictionary, social network, encyclopedias, calendars, library, and news sources. When an unexpected question came up in class, these students quickly found answers on their Droids and iPhones.These “toys” enabled and empowered them to do what, just a few years before, only the wealthy had been able to do.

The fate of human dignity is partially in the Droid, to paraphrase an Abraham Lincoln quote in the movie, "Lincoln".

 

Applying the lessons of my students, last November, when unemployment checks came too late to make February’s rent payment, I chucked the apartment and kept my Droid. A roof over my head would not get me a job, would not bring me hope. Only technology and transportation could accomplish that.

Use the library computers, some said. But the library only allowed users to sign up for one-hour blocks. Then the user had to give up the seat to the next in line. Even though I type 85 words per minute, finding jobs to apply for took longer than that. Applying for them, completing the pages and pages of computer-based forms, took another one to two hours. With my Droid’s hot spot connection, the one-hour computer limit was no problem. Laptop and Droid in hand, I found an outlet and took as long as I needed.

Use a coffee shop, others said. There’s no time limit there. But $4 and $5 coffees quickly added up to more than the phone. Besides the Droid’s hot spot allows me to use a pass key and protect my identity, not an option on public WiFi.

With laptop and Droid, too, I could work anywhere anytime. I wasn’t limited by the availability of public WiFi and hotspots.

For contact information, I provided companies with Internet address and mobile phone number. In reality that is safer than giving a street address anyway, and no one needed to know that I didn’t have a home to call my own.

I did find a room to rent, with access to a kitchen and bath shared with two other people. But only a room. Again the Droid was my savior. With very little space for “stuff”, I loaded books on the Droid’s Kindle, installed a Bible app so I could keep up with daily devotions, and uploaded other work tools onto the little pack-of-cards-sized box. Using the scanner on my printer, I scanned and saved records and documents on to a cloud-based service. Wherever I am, my books, files, and address book come too—all on that palm-sized Droid.

I logged interview dates and times, and preparation and follow-up tasks onto an online calendar; and set alarms to remind me of deadlines and appointments. Then when working three and four jobs with day and evening hours on any seven days of the week, the Droid told me what day it was and when I had to be where.

When there wasn’t time enough to travel home between jobs or appointments, but too much time to just waste, apps allowed me to read e-mail, telephone job contacts, conduct research on the Internet, chat with friends, and catch up on the latest news as reported by nine papers, including the BBC and Reuters.

Notebooks created on an Evernote app let me catalogue research, photos, and notes for writing projects; maintaining book lists; and other miscellaneous information such as a snapshot of library and store hours – all easily accessible, available whenever I need it but taking very little messenger bag space. Unlike pieces of paper, the information is never lost.

When unexpected free or wait time comes up, a glance at my phone tells me what’s open, what still needs doing, and enables me to effectively manage the time.

When my daughter and her family took a sabbatical year and needed help with unfinished household tasks in preparation for their house sitting family’s arrival, I created an Evernote folder with photos of maintenance and lawn helpers business cards, a list of tasks to complete, and names and addresses of other contacts.  As repairs were needed, I snapped photos and e-mailed snapshots of the problem, and then followed-up by e-mailing progress photos to the kids. A broken part? No problem—take a photo, show it to a hardware store clerk, and get what was needed. I snapped copies of receipts and e-mailed those by “sharing” to the kids’ personal e-mail accounts, where they could download them to their income tax files. All this …done from my car.

Job hunting. A Droid specialty. I filled Evernote folders for each lead with job descriptions, company information, and lists of questions. At an interview, it was easy to flick to needed information, and pinch and zoom for easy readability. Interviewers watching me flip to my list of questions and to work samples were provided evidence of my mastery of technology.

Medical information for doctor’s appointments – on the Droid.

Language translator? On the Droid.

Weather information and alerts. On the Droid.

Directions from one place to another? On the Droid.

Camera, video camera and flashlight? On the Droid.

“Stuff” worth hundreds of dollars all on a gadget that costs about $90 per month.

Given the choice again between shelter or Droid? I will choose the Droid. Opportunity. Information. Virtual ssistant. Voice. Empowerment. A great equalizer.

Subsidies and the Fiscal Cliff

I did it! Less than one year after losing one job in an economy where the jobless usually need 1.5 years to find another job, I had a job with a regular paycheck and benefits, including health insurance. Unfortunately the salary was no higher than what I had earned more than 15 years ago, back in a time when a loaf of bread, a gallon of milk, and a tank of gas cost much less.

Then after ten months of renting a room, including kitchen privileges in a minimalist kitchen (so small the refrigerator is in the hall) and bathroom shared with two other housemates, I found an apartment within my budget of $400 per month for all housing costs (25% of my take home wage; one week’s income). The $300 deposit was manageable, but then I learned I would need electric for lights, cooking, and electronics. I went to Harrisonburg Electric; the deposit was $300 per month, a month and a half of grocery money.

“Don’t worry; you will get that back after a year. And if you sign up for automatic withdrawal, the deposit will be a bit smaller,” the clerk said.

Total move in costs: $1,000. About 63% of my monthly take home pay. More than three times what I spend in a month for my room.

Yet, in many ways, I am a fortunate member of the hidden poor. I at least have a heated room in which to live, and access to a kitchen and a bathroom. I no longer juggle three and four part-time jobs to make ends meet, as I had done for the past three years, I now have retirement benefits. And for the first time in nine years, I have access to good health care. (In the middle of that nine- year period, there was a year when I had health insurance, but no transportation to a clinic or hospital.)

Unfortunately I can’t eat healthcare benefits and I can’t live in a retirement account. So I looked into Section VIII housing. Alas! Foiled again.

“In general, the family's income may not exceed 50% of the median income for the county or metropolitan area in which the family chooses to live.” http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/topics/housing_choice_voucher_program_section_8.

Where I live 50% of the median income is $12,500 and the average apartment, including Section VIII housing, is $600 per month, 35% of my take home pay. Usually utilities are not included in the rental fee. At $27,000 per year, however, my income is more than double the maximum income level for Section VIII. Even my take home pay of $20,800 per year, what I actually have to live on, is too high. And how does someone making $12,500 come up with nearly $1,000 just for deposit fees?

Yet according to the U.S. government, I am not poor. The poverty index is $11,702. Statistics indicate that 15% of Americans eek by at that income level, although they receive and are dependent on governmental services. Those with earnings above the poverty level yet unable to afford an apartment, transportation, food, or health care are not included in that 15%. http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21565956-americas-poor-were-little-mentioned-barack-obamas-re-election-campaign-they-deserve.

If poverty were redefined not by a number unchanged for decades, if a definition of poverty actually included those who are unable to afford basic housing, food, and medical care, how high would the percentages be? The only online article addressing that question stated that one out of four Americans earns less than $10 per hour and 59% live in a household where at least one person receives some sort of governmental assistance. Unfortunately, that article does not define the term “governmental assistance”.

And defining that term is not easy. Some definitions of “governmental assistance” include government backed student loans, which theoretically will be repaid. Some include Social Security benefits, a fund the recipient contributed to. Still others include only benefits such as SNAP, WIC, and assistance other than loans or funds paid into and available for tapping into at a later time. No definition includes benefits disguised under such terms as economic development grants, tax and oil subsidies, government bailouts, or other government assistance provided to large corporations.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/unemployment-and-poverty-in-america-75-economic-numbers-from-2012-that-are-almost-too-crazy-to-believe/5316546

Discussions on solutions to the fiscal cliff don’t give any serious attention to the hidden poor. According to the Wall Street Journal, anticipated tax increases in 2013 by tax category are:

Ave Inc	Inc Amt	% of Increase
50,000 - 75,000	2,399	4.8% to 3.20%
75,000 - 100,000	3,688	4.92% - 3.69%
100,000 to 200,000	6,662	6.66% - 3.33%
200,000 - 500,000	14,643	7.32% - 2.93%
500,000 to $1 mil	38,969	7.79% - 3.9%
More than $1 mil	254,637	25.46%

Incomes below $50,000 aren’t even listed in the table but the Wall Street Journal's financial calculator will tell you. See http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2012/12/19/tax-increases-coming-whether-fiscal-cliff-is-averted-or-not/?mod=e2tw

 For someone making an annual gross income of $27,000, the increase would be $540, here the equivalent of about one and a half weeks’ of the average take home salary. But remember: $540, as explained before, comes from someone who cannot afford an apartment unless they pay well above the typical financial expert’s recommended 25-33% for housing costs, one for whom the question of whether to give up food, rent, or transportation is a very real question. A savings account was most likely sacrificed long ago.

And that $540 additional tax won’t just provide food assistance for a homeless child. It also subsidizes the income of the billionaire with yachts, palatial homes, automobile collections, and jets.

Observed Fact or News & Social Media Fiction

“Good morning. It is a warm sunny day today,” I heard first thing this morning.

I looked out the window but saw only dense fog, and snow.

 

A row of bright red triangular weather alert symbols lit up the top row of my smart phone. If only it were always that easy to tell fact from news and social media fiction.

Forbes publishes a list of the 100 wealthiest Americans. The list and chart are at the end of this post.

Wal-Mart owners and family members are numbers 8, 9, 10, 11, 82, 83 & 100. Seven of the 100, nearly a tenth are Wal-Mart owners. Their combined net worth of $120 billion is 600,000 times greater than an annual salary of $20,000, which is still higher than the federal minimum annual wage $15,080 per year ($7.25 times 2080 hours).

The Koch brothers, with $62 billion, are in 6^th and 7^th place and worth about half of the Wal-Mart family. Even so their wealth would support 300,000 employees earning $20,000 per year for a year. Yet their diverse mixture of companies benefit from tax and oil subsidies, and government contracts, even while they campaign against “entitlements”. Staunch libertarians, they spent millions to support the Republican Party during the 2012 election. The Cato Institute, which the Koch brothers, cofounded was the first major libertarian think tank. The Washington based Institute’s 120 employees are devoted to promoting property rights, educational choice, and economic freedom. In 1978 the Koch brothers “helped found–and still fund–George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, the go-to academy for deregulation; they have funded the Federalist Society, which shapes conservative judicial thinking; the pro-market Heritage Foundation; a California-based center skeptical of human-driven climate change; and many other institutions.”

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/09/10/819541/charles-koch-wsj/?mobile=nc and Forbes Magazine’s online edition.

Nineteen of the wealthiest built their financial empire through hedge funds and investing. Hedge funds are high risk investment strategies using leverage (investors borrow the money to buy the funds), short-selling, and other speculative practices. They are not subject to some of the government regulations designed to protect investors, do not always have to register or file public reports with the SEC. http://www.sec.gov/answers/hedge.htm.

The total wealth of the top 100 wealthiest Americans is $1.3 trillion, or nearly equal to 1/16 of the national debt of $16 trillion. This, in my mind, puts a completely different perspective on the debt than the fear inducing warnings the media sends about the gargantuan size of American debt. Yes, the debt is larger than ever, but so is U.S. wealth.

A mere 100 people in the U.S. hold $1.3 trillion and control way too many of America’s paychecks.

Tell me, if you can, how it is that a person who gambles using hedge funds is worth more than the person who cleans that speculator’s floors, produces the goods sold, and handles the administrative tasks that come with running a business.

 Tell me, if you can, how it can be okay for a billionaire to hoard yachts, planes and automobiles while the person near the bottom of the giant corporation can barely afford housing.

When a typical American citizen begins stockpiling food; collects more items than can be used in a lifetime, we label that person “a hoarder,” someone with a mental illness (the view from my window). When a billionaire, however, stockpiles more automobiles, jets, property, houses, and yachts than can be used in a lifetime, that person is a tribute to capitalism at its finest and lauded as a success (the view of those who see only sunshine).

When a typical American depends on Social Security income (to which they contributed through years of deductions from their annual salary), assistance through the food stamp, now SNAP program, takes advantage of heating assistance or other governmental help, we say they are dependent on entitlements (the view from my window). When the Wal-Mart family members, Koch brothers and other billionaires, however, grab tax and oil subsidies, economic development grants, bailouts, and government contracts, we quickly drop the word “entitlement” and increase the tax rate on the middle class to support their greed (the view of those who see only sunshine).

Now I know that net worth is not the same as annual salary. Not all money is liquid, or easily accessed. But using such arguments to discredit the points in this article is mere quibbling. The point remains the same.

Those flying across the world in their jets, entertaining in spatial mansions homes, and manning their yachts have far more than one who works long workweeks to support that billionaire’s unsustainable lifestyle. And that lifestyle is unsustainable. Sure their excess may last through a lifetime, maybe even through their children’s lifetime. Eventually, however, history clearly shows that the well of resources needed to support their lifestyle will run dry, or the people will wake up and revolt.

 

50 Wealthiest Americans
Name	Billion	Company/Business
Bill Gates	$       66.0	Microsoft
Warren Buffett	$       46.0	Bershire Hathawa
Larry Ellison	$       41.0	Oracle
Charles Koch	$       31.0	Diversified
David Koch	$       31.0	Diversified
Christy Walton & family	$       27.9	Wal-Mart
Jim Walton	$       26.8	Wal-Mart
Alice Walton	$       26.3	Wal-Mart
Robson Walton	$       26.1	Wal-Mart
Michael Bloomberg	$       25.8	Bloomberg LP
Jeff Bezos	$       23.2	Amazon.com
Sergey Brin	$       20.3	Google
Larry Page	$       20.3	Google
George Soros	$       19.0	hedge funds
Forrest Mars, Jr.	$       17.0	candy
Jacqueline Mars	$       17.0	candy
John Mars	$       17.0	candy
Steve Ballmer	$       15.9	Microsoft
Paul Allen	$       15.0	Microsoft
Carl Icahn	$       14.8	leveraged buyouts
Micchael Dell	$       14.6	Dell
Phil Knight	$       13.1	Nike
Donald Bren	$       13.0	real estate
Len Blavatnik	$       12.5	Diversified
Ronald Perelma	$       12.0	leveraged buyouts
Abigail Johnson	$       11.8	money management
John Paulson	$       11.0	hedge funds
Laurene Powell Jobs & family	$       11.0	Apple, Disney
james Simmons	$       11.0	hedge funds
Jack Taylor & family	$       11.0	Enterprise Rent-a-Car
Anne Cos Chambers	$       10.7	media
Ray Dalio	$       10.0	hedge funds
George Kaiser	$       10.0	oil, gas & banking
Harold Hamm	$         9.7	oil & gas
Richard Kinder	$         9.4	pipelines
Rupert Murdoch	$         9.4	News Corp
Mark Zuckerberg	$         9.4	Facebook
Charles Ergen	$         9.0	EchoStar
Steve Cohen	$         8.8	hedge funds
Andrew Beal	$         8.4	banks, real estate
Pierre Omidyar	$         8.2	Ebay
Leonard Lauder	$         7.7	Estee Lauder
Philip Anschutz	$         7.6	investments
Eric Schmidt	$         7.5	Google
Samuel Newhouse, Jr.	$         7.4	Conde Nast
James Goodnight	$         7.3	software
Patrick Soon-Shion	$         7.3	pharmaceuticals
Harold Simmons	$         7.1	investments
Charles Buffet	$         6.9	supermarkets
Donald Newhouse	$         6.6	Conde Nast
Edward Johnson, III	$         6.5	Fidelity
Ralph Lauren	$         6.5	Ralph Lauren
Ira Rennert	$         6.5	investments
Eli Broad	$         6.3	investments
John Menard Jr.	$         6.0	retail
David Geffen	$         5.6	movies, music
John Malone	$         5.6	cable television
Jeffrey Hildebrand	$         5.5	oil
David Tepper	$         5.5	hedge funds
Jim Kennedy	$         5.4	media
Blair Parry-Okeden	$         5.4	media
Ray Lee Hunt	$         5.2	oil, real estate
Richard LeFrak & family	$         5.2	real estate
Stephen Schwarzman	$         5.2	private equity
Dennis Washington	$         5.2	construction, mining
Richard DeVos	$         5.1	Amway
Micky Arison	$         5.0	Carnival Cruises
Hank & Doug Meijer	$         4.9	supermarkets
Robert Rowling	$         4.9	investments
Gordon Moore	$         4.8	Intel
Dannine Avara	$         4.7	pipelines
Scott Duncan	$         4.7	pipelines
Milane Frantz	$         4.7	pipelines
Charles Johnson	$         4.7	money management
Randa Williams	$         4.7	pipelines
Rupert Johnson, Jr.	$         4.6	money management
Thomas Peterfly	$         4.6	discount brokerage
Jim Sook & Do Won Chang	$         4.5	Forever 21
David Green	$         4.5	retail
Ann Walton Kroenke	$         4.5	Wal-Mart
Trevor Rees-Jones	$         4.5	Wal-Mart
Leslie Wexner	$         4.4	retail
Bruce Kovner	$         4.3	hedge funds
Daniel Ziff	$         4.3	investments
Dirk Ziff	$         4.3	investments
Robert Ziff	$         4.3	investments
S. Truett Cathy	$         4.2	Chick-fil-A
Leonard Stern	$         4.2	real estate
Sumner Redstone	$         4.1	Vicacom
John Paul DeJoria	$         4.0	hair products, tequila
Thomas Frist, Jr. & family	$         4.0	health care
Barbara Carlson Gage	$         4.0	hotels, restaurants
Bruce Halle	$         4.0	Discount tire
William Koch	$         4.0	oil, investments
Henry Kravis	$         4.0	leveraged buyouts
Stanley Kroenke	$         4.0	sports, real estate
Marilyn Carlson Nelson	$         4.0	hotels, restaurants
Nancy Walton Laurie	$         3.9	Wal-Mart
TOTAL			1.05 Trillion
Data retrieved 24Dec12 from http://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/list/