Thinking Aesthetically

Yes, Yes…. I know it has been a while. And though I am not back by popular demand (ha,ha), I am bursting with thoughts and questions that I feel I should blog about as a means to clarify my own thinking and to ask some questions and see what answers pop up.

Currently I am thinking about the role that images, art, music, play in creating culture and the Christian (esp. Lutheran) necessity to both participate in and maintain a distance from wider culture. And I am not just thinking about a secular/religious split, but more about what it means to take being a Christian seriously in a manner that allows us to both enjoy beautiful things in the world while seeing them as what they are: not expressions of ultimate truth nor true models of how we are to live (as only Christ is such a model).

Basically, if you are thinking that I am hinting at the idea of “aesthetics” then you are on the right track. Thinking about aesthetics led me to do a Ph.D, and I am increasingly realizing that this dimension of our life together is what still is of interest to me.

Today, I just re-looked at “Art in Action,” a classic of aesthetics. Written by Nicholas Wolterstorff, it thoughtfully strives to think about a Christian aesthetic rooted in the Calvinist tradition. Aesthetic here functions as a noun, as it in rule or tool to think about the role, function and use of art.

                                                                                                           

His overarching aim is to critique the post-Kantian idea that art is about contemplation, rather than a wide variety of other uses (economic, moral, religious, etc). Art is universal and is used by people worldwide as an element of a variety of actions, actions that both say something (as in a claim) and effect something (as in informing a viewer). Any understanding of art must be placed within this performance of meaning in order to understand the phenomena of art.

From his Calvinist perspective, he places art as action within a broad theological frame. Specifically, God as creator and redeemer has given humans a vocation: to be responsible (to the degree that sinful humanity can be) to master, order and create a culture and world that befits humanity and God. With responsibility as the push, the pull is the end of human existence: shalom, peace, joy and delight. God as the active redeemer in history calls us to be active agents working for God’s redemption, and art is a part of this bending towards peace.

Art is a material act, meaning it takes creation and masters/orders/recreates it. An artist is thus responsible for aesthetically creating an expressive and fitting piece of art that serves its intended end. In particular, art projects a world, one that calls us attention to the reality of the actual world (at best). Art has an instrumental quality: its success is how well it uses aesthetic dimensions to reveal something. Though abstract, I think what he is saying can be understood as follows: if a painter wants to express sorrow, the aesthetic dimensions (color, tone, form, content, unity, completeness, coherence, etc.) must fit the sorrowful content. And though he thinks aesthetics includes subjective taste, he thinks that these underlying principles of expression/fittingness/mastery are universal. So good art then leads us to experience our world anew.

Theologically, aesthetic action is then a component of God’s redemptive action in the world. As our end is for peace/shalom, art that delights, for instance, is a reflection of this divine work. Further, art goes beyond “high” or “fine art” to include human action broadly understood. Examples he includes are the city and liturgy.

So where does this lead us? We are then free to see how art in action covers a whole range of human activities. And by being free as such, we can participate fully in artistic action and thus God’s redemptive work. The Christian aesthetic that he develops requires that each of us see art as part of our vocation of divinely inscribed responsibility, a recognition that art is part of a wider striving for human wholeness and integrity, and that it is always a limited

activity as only God in Christ is the ultimate truth.

This Christian aesthetic also includes a critique of aesthetics within the Lutheran tradition (which he calls “Protestantism” and really is a critique of Paul Tillich). Tillich views art as expressing a universal inner religious impulse: art asks about “ultimate reality” or an “ultimate concern”. Wolterstorrf is critical of this view as he thinks that the claim that humans have an inner religious impulse is not “irresistible” meaning not a stable enough ground to base an aesthetic. Rather, a theology of humanity’s divinely given vocation/end can best lead to a Christian aesthetic.

Though I basically agree with his aesthetic norms, it is this critique of the Protestant inner impulse that has me ruminating. Couldn’t I also claim that his theological/vocational basis for aesthetics is a matter of faith and thus relativizes his aesthetics more so than this inner impulse idea? Isn’t this view of God more resistible than the idea that humans do have an inner impulse to ask meaning and limit questions? Also, what about “scandalous art,” say of Serrano’s Piss Christ or Cox’s Yo Mama’s Last Supper? Are these elements of vocational responsibility?

Basically, I think the biggest issue that I am wondering about is the practical dimension to his aesthetic (and aesthetics/rules/axioms in general). My church has TV monitors in the sanctuary. They were put up without much congregational input, which led to some later conflicts. It isn’t clear to me how his aesthetic would help us determine whether or not to put up the TV monitors, as they certainly do impact the aesthetics of church and worship.

I guess I am thinking about such really practical aesthetic issues and the difficulty of determining general yet specific enough norms to guide us as we make decisions as communities of faith. Shouldn’t that be the point of aesthetics? How do you see it?

The photo is the Lambertseter Kierke Altar Piece by Tor Lindrupsen (1997).

Faith and Freedom

Yes, I know I haven't blogged in a spell. No real reason other than... life, parenthood, work stuff, bad TV. In any case, we just got back from Holden Village. While there, I taught a week-long series on Christianity and Citizenship. Basically, we asked, thought about, reflected on how our calling as Christians should frame how we think about being a citizen, that our duties to love others and God should prophetically critique our understanding of a constitution, political symbols and taxes. It was a good week, and has me thinking about
better integrating such concerns into my broader agenda.

Yes, I'm not being very specific. And rather than blogging something dense, I thought I'd share the Vesper's Talk I gave during the week. The readings included Galatians 5:13-15, Psalm 49 and "God Bless the USA" by Lee Greenwood.

We are called to freedom, brothers and sisters. Yet we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves.

This is our tensive identity as Christians. And in a country that values the rhetoric of individual freedom more highly than ending poverty and homelessness, injustice and inequality, our calling yet as Christians is to live out this Christian freedom.

And it starts with a simple phrase: I am in bondage to sin and I cannot free myself.

I am in bondage to ideas: that my neighbor’s lives are better and happier than mine; that a larger screen television and a faster computer will make my life more comfortable. I am in bondage to the idea that my needs and rights matter more than the least off in society. I am held hostage by the ideal that political freedom is true freedom, rather than a form of bondage to the tyranny of individualism, to placing individual rights over the common good.

I am in bondage to sin and I cannot free myself.

I am in bondage to my culture, a culture that has partially made me who I am. I am not free to create my own identity. It is a culture that expects God to Bless America, rather than asking America to bless God. It is a culture that is willing to spend over $4 Trillion dollars for regime change and tax cuts for the wealthy, rather than universal health care; that sees social value determined by the size of one’s budget and having the wealth to shape political discourse. It is a culture that values us most highly as consumers rather than lovers, wealth-creators rather than healers, cogs in a machine of economic efficiency rather than images of God. It is a culture that can ask us to die for it, that expects pride in country rather than humbleness before God.

I am in bondage to sin and I cannot free myself.

I am in bondage to my desires. I want things: new golf clubs, a Viking Range, an expensive college education for my daughter, cheap T-shirts. I want security, whether vocational, financial, physical or emotional.  I want things, I want happiness, physical fulfillment and sensual satiation. I want more….

I am in bondage to sin and I cannot free myself.

I am in bondage to my body. If I don’t get eight hours of sleep a night, I get cranky; I get a headache when I miss my morning coffee. My back is hunched and I get neck and back pain. My eyesight is going, and though I don’t want to admit it (especially to my wife), my hearing isn’t what it used to be. One day my body will perish; I will be no more.

What are you in bondage to? For you are called to freedom, brothers and sisters.

Our freedom comes through faith to participate in the free gift that is Jesus the Christ. His self-giving freedom is not a political freedom, nor the idea that I can do what I want because that is what I want. It is not freedom from hurt, from insecurity, from worry and anxiety; but freedom to relate most lovingly to those around you. It is the freedom for a promiscuity of love, not in the erotic sense, but rather as a form of love that sees my freedom to fulfill my calling interwoven with the freedom of all to fulfill their callings. It is the freedom to see and act that when my neighbor is hungry, I am hungry; when my neighbor is homeless, I am homeless; when my neighbor lacks a quality education, I lack an education. For you are called to freedom, brothers and sisters, freedom to serve, to act and to love.

We are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves. Thanks be to God.

 

Let Us Rejoice by Reflecting and Repenting

Hmmm. So much to think about when it comes to the death of Osama Bin Laden. Obviously, he is someone who set in motion a great deal of hatred, death and destruction. The events of 9/11 were horrific and tragic. Osama's role in creating and leading Al Qaeda to use violence and death to strive to get the West and the U.S. to stop interfering in the Middle East as well as supporting corrupt, authoritarian regimes (i.e. Saudi Arabia) in order to ensure our access to oil was horrific and ghastly. No one should question whether he should be held accountable for such acts, all as part of the attempt to find some justice for the events of the past ten years.

But there are important dimensions of his death that we as Christians must reflect upon more deeply. For one, the scenes of people dancing in front of the White House, the chanting of "USA, USA" at the Phillies/Mets game once the news got out, the use of "rejoice" repeatedly in discussing people's reaction to the death really seems to miss the reality that he too was a human being, loved by God, living, under law and promise, judgment and grace, (as we Lutherans understand it). Such rejoicing turns us into the crowds in Gaza and Palestine who cheered after 9/11. To rejoice over his death is to ignore that no one is completely evil, completely devoid of being a child of God; Osama was a cruel, angry, wicked man and murderer, but if we really believe that all people are created by God in God's image, then Osama never loses this status. Rather then "rejoicing" as in gleefully finding pleasure in his death, instead we really should reflect and repent about why Osama was such a murderer.

What do I mean here?  First, God doesn't rejoice in death. A Pastor friend of mine used Ezekiel 33:11 to make this point: "The Lord God says, 'I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from their ways and live.'" Osama's death is a death of life; what is tragic is Osama's turning away from the fulfillment and good that God offers. (Obviously, as a Muslim, Osama has a different understanding of such things; but my point is our response to his death as Christians.) And this turning away is its own tragedy, one that clearly had a great deal of horrific and violent consequences, but one that has been repeated in human history (Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin, etc).

To further this point, Augustine said that there was no evil, or at least evil is a thing or material reality. Instead, evil is the act of turning away from the good, which is God. It is like walking away from the light until you have no sense of up/down and right/wrong. Evil is darkness, emptiness, a turning away rather than any substance or make-up within one's nature. And I think this idea, that Osama is a child of God, but one who turned away from good/God should give us pause, both to reflect about why such turning happens and repent about our complicity in some aspects of this turning away.

We should reflect and repent on how the society we live in played a part in shaping the society and Islamic theology that helped Osama become Osama. Just like historians look at the Treaty of Versailles as part of shaping Hitler's worldview, how did the society we participate in (including oil dependence, creating the "Middle East" and supporting the corrupt, repressive Saud family) shape his worldview? The very term "Middle East" implies a standpoint, as it is middle and east of some place and historically that place is the West, including the US. We are the center; the Middle East is on the margins.

These questions demand a lot of us, and there are no clear, simple links. But such reflection should help us to realize that we too fall short of truly being children of God, truly striving to enact neighbor love and helping others flourish. We see the Middle East as a means to secure a reliable source of oil at any cost; if we truly cared about human rights and freedom, we would have embargoed Saudi Arabia (where Osama is from) years ago just because of how they treat women.

Again, I am not suggesting that Osama didn't deserve justice for the heinous acts of 9/11; but even so, we should take no pleasure in any death for neither does our God.

 

The Biible and Net Neutrality

Yes, the title might seem like a non sequitur. As far as I know, the Bible is rather ambiguous about the internet and lacks any prophetic utterances about whether Craigslist, Facebook or Amazon are "Christian sites." The deeper issue, broadly understood as the use, critique and affirmation of technology within Christian life, is a real issue though, especially considering how common internet "fellowship" (e.g. Facebook) is becoming. So I don't mean to trivialize it, but suggest instead that we need to mine the resources of the Bible and the Christian tradition in order to think about how to use such technology. But I can suggest one example of how not to use the Bible in relationship to the internet.

Before delving into the substance of my argument, a quick definition to make sure that we are all on the same page: Net Neutrality. Huh? Well, as far as I understand it (so correct me if I am wrong), this idea is about legally obligating internet providers to ensure that all content is equal in terms of the right to use the internet. Example: if you imagine the internet as a highway, and this blog is a moped and Amazon is a semi-truck, Qwest, my internet provider, has to ensure that there is equal regard for both my moped and the semi-truck. Well, Congress, specifically several Republicans, are debating with the FCC over who has the right to regulate the internet and this net neutrality regulation, which the FCC has approved as a regulative principle. The issue is that internet providers--like Verizon--want to make more money off the internet. In their view, if the highway is filled with semi-trucks that have to pay lots of money to use the net, rather than mopeds that don't, then Verizon can make more money. So they want to end net neutrality because they want more paying trucks on the highway. Make sense?

So what does this have to do with the Bible? Well, a leading conservative Christian, Dave Barton, makes the claim that the Bible is opposed to net neutrality because it isn't just as it promotes the radical redistribution of income, and is thus a form of the wickedness that is socialism. In his radio show on Tuesday, he said:  "But we talk about it today because it is a principle of free market. That’s a Biblical principle, that’s a historical principle, we have all these quotes from Ben Franklin, and Jefferson and Washington and others on free market and how important that is to maintain. That is part of the reason we have prosperity. This is what the Pilgrims brought in, the Puritans brought in, this is free market mentality. Net Neutrality sounds really good, but it is socialism on the Internet." (Ironically, this puts him in opposition to the National Religious Broadcasters and the Christian Coalition.)

In order to muddy his water a bit, I'll just use the Bible (Acts 4:31-36, NRSV): 31 When they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness. 32 Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. 33 With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. 34 There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. 35 They laid it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.

Hmmm, the Bible is a free market guide that exposes the wickedness of socialism? Maybe it doesn't affirm the non-theistic, Marxist form of Socialism based on value being derived from making a product, but these passages (i.e. no private ownership) certainly affirm a sense that all property is social property, rather than individual property (which is also counter John Locke's use of Genesis).

I'd be glad to hear more from Mr. Barton about a biblical affirmation of the free market in order to better have a debate about the Bible and economics. Do you think he'd be up for it? I would.... We need it to ensure that Christianity and capitalism are not synonymous, but that Jesus' call to feed the hungry and bring news to the poor centers our ethical lives and moves us all towards the full life that God calls us to each day.

For more on Mr. Barton: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/barton-bible-opposes-net-neutrality

Imagining our Neighbor

Much of the political wrangling this past week has been over competing budget proposals, one by the GOP (led by Paul Ryan) and one proposed by Obama. I'm not going to summarize them too much, as you can find details all over the internet, though the GOP cuts the budget deficit by $4.4 trillion over 10 years by cutting taxes and programs (inc. Medicare) while the Obama plan cuts it by $4 trillion over 12 years (by cutting some funding but also increasing taxes on the most affluent). Having competing visions over the role of government and the common good (hopefully) will make the political debate over which vision is better substantive and interesting.

I'd like to think about both in relationship to the idea of imagination. For some of my research as an ethicist, I've been looking at and thinking about the role that the imagination plays in ethical deliberation and action. Being a Protestant, my tradition is somewhat ambivalent about the imagination's fantastical ability to think about nearly anything (ex. Calvin thinks it creates idols, Luther was more concerned about the heart). Folks like Kant and Hegel described how the imagination was active in producing new, creative and free ideas and possibilities for human action. I am looking at the imagination as helping us think both about what each of us should be (i.e. to "imagine" oneself as striving to enact Christ-like love) but also as a means to become empathetic (i.e. to "imagine" what it is like to be in another's shoes). 

Obviously, such imaginative activity is difficult, but if following Christ means to love the neighbor as oneself, it requires us to strive to "imagine" the life that our neighbor lives in order to properly love them. It is to imagine their needs in order to help them find fulfillment. Such an imaginative act requires, to the best that we can, properly seeing the needs of our neighbors: hunger, poverty, lack of opportunities, poor education, hopelessness. 

Yes, our neighbors include the affluent, but to imagine the needs of the affluent is to largely see the lack of an ethical imagination; in other words, it is about an ignorance towards the depths of human misery related to material and social conditions. For example, in October, Limbaugh spouted "There is no equality" because "some people are just born to be slaves" whole others are "self-starters'" meaning that the poor are poor because they choose to be poor. Rush, like many with wealth, has a need to truly see poverty, hunger, hopelessness, to see how many work hard (rather than choose to be lazy) yet struggle. So the imaginative act requires us to see everyone as a neighbor.

There is a danger here too--that we imagine such needs without truly knowing the neighbor. Maybe part of the difficulty of this imaginative act is that we live next to people like us (ex. the poor live in poor neighborhoods, the rich in rich communities), meaning we lack diverse communities that help us see the true depth and diversity of human need. But with this reality,  the Christian imaginative act requires us to find, engage, work with our neighbors throughout the world, in Haiti and in the Hamptons.

So if we think about both budget proposals, which one is more imaginative in this Christian ethical sense? Which one better adheres to this imagining of the needs of the neighbor? Granted, neither of the options are "perfect," but which one better sees the true material, social and imaginative needs of the neighbor, both poor and wealthy? 

On the one hand, the Ryan plan's imaginative vision states: "More important, it is based on a fundamentally different vision from the one now prevailing in Washington. It focuses government on its proper role; it restrains government spending, and thus limits the size of government itself; it rejuvenates the vibrant market economy that made America the envy of the world; and it restores an American character rooted in individual initiative, entrepreneurship, and opportunity – qualities that make each American’s pursuit of personal destiny a net contribution to the Nation’s common good as well." 

Might the GOP's imaginative vision be about the unique, individual responsibility of each person to create one's own destiny? In the process, by cutting programs (inc. Medicare) and taxes on the affluent to get government out of the way, it is less about imagining the diverse needs of the other and the sociological elements (education, health care, infrastructure) that affect one's destiny, and more about seeing one's own needs (esp. if you are the affluent) first and foremost. You are the true neighbor, and your imagination is to envision your 'personal destiny.'

On the other hand, Obama's plan states: “But there's always been another thread running through our history -– a belief that we're all connected, and that there are some things we can only do together, as a nation. We believe, in the words of our first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln, that through government, we should do together what we cannot do as well for ourselves. Part of this American belief that we're all connected also expresses itself in a conviction that each one of us deserves some basic measure of security and dignity. We recognize that no matter how responsibly we live our lives, hard times or bad luck, a crippling illness or a layoff may strike any one of us. "There but for the grace of God go I," we say to ourselves." 

Here the imaginative activity is directed at seeing the common needs of all humans, and every one is a neighbor, affected by the shape of our wider community.

Shouldn't we strive to use our imagination in a Christian sense? Aren't we all neighbors?

Limbaugh's comments are here: http://www.projectthevalues.net/mmtv/201010080031

To Clone or Not To Clone

There was an article in today's Minneapolis StarTribune entitled "Stakes are High in New Debate Over
Cloning." Basically, the GOP in Minnesota is proposing a bill that would ban "human cloning." I put the phrase in quotes because, like many of the terms and concepts that we use (dignity, freedom, right), there is no one clear, univocal idea behind it. The article describes how the law is unclear if human cloning means a complete human person or merely cloning a human cell. If it is the latter, certain types of research, such as stem-cell and therapeutic cloning, both of which can use cells from embryos in the attempt to figure our how to "fix" cells in a patient, might be restricted then as well.

The article's main thrust is largely economic, as it basically looks at what might happen to bio-tech research and engineering in Minnesota if the law passes. Ultimately, the slant largely asks a reader to think about the employment and economic development issues at stake. I am always disappointed that the deeper questions, such as what makes a human human and what are the values behind research into cloning, don't really play a part in such a conversation. So much of our political rhetoric is economically framed. Sometimes I think the new priests are economists, with ideas such as efficiency, confidence and productivity being the true doctrines that frame our culture.

I may be biting off more than I can chew, but:

I want to step back a bit and try and think through the cloning issue within a different frame, one that thinks about value as being grounded in the Christian God. The issue of human cloning at one level is an easy issue. God creates life, meaning the idea or attempt at cloning a complete human is irresponsible, ignoring the created and dependent nature of humans as a whole, spiritual and physical, and unique creature.

The hard part comes when faced with the nitty-gritty about cells, rather than a whole organism. It is thinking about the good that such cloning after years of research, may do to a diabetic or a sufferer from Parkinson's disease. Is it "right" to use stem cells from aborted or discarded embryos for such a greater good? This question is a hard one, no matter what one's moral commitments. On the one hand, being Christian includes a command that one love the neighbor as oneself. But who is the neighbor? Is it the diabetic in front of you? The embryo? Clearly, at some level, both are. On the other hand, this command asks not about consequences. To love the neighbor does not ask you to rationally calculate whether some option will bring about the greatest good in the world (a main tenet of Utilitarianism). Instead, it demands action, it demands that you address the needs of the person that you see as best you can, not knowing or focusing on anticipated outcomes in the process.

One key element in my own thinking about this issue has to do with the potential for and the actuality of life. There is a long tradition in the West, prominent in Aristotle's thought, that makes this distinction. Consequently, to think about cloning also asks about who has the highest actuality of life? This question relates well to Jesus' statement in John's Gospel (10:10) that he has come to bring the fullness of life. In short, connecting actuality of life with fullness suggests that God has called us to gracefully work to help everyone attain a fullness of life. So a further dilemma becomes thinking about what fullness is and how it relates to the potential and actuality of life.

So how might we tie the love of neighbor with fullness of life with potential and actuality?  I suggest that such a line of reasoning is best centered on linking fullness with actuality for what is actual is concrete, it is who we see in our daily life, it is our neighbor. For example, if a loved one suffers from a debilitating disease, we see them lacking the actual fullness of life. We see them suffer. And if human creativity can help partially bring about God's gift of fullness through such research, then we play a part in linking fullness with the actuality of life. And as such, a discarded embryo, say one that was aborted because it had a major genetic defect, had a potential for life that was lacking. To use it as a means to bring about fullness and actuality is to transform this lack of potential into an expression of loving the neighbor.

And notice what I am not trying to defend abortion in this post, which is maybe a little disingenuous but abortion deserves its own post, but instead how we prioritize our love by thinking about potential and actuality of life and how we can use some of the building blocks that are largely potential life to help those with the actuality of life.

Obviously, one concern on the part of Pro-Lifers is that such research might encourage the destruction of embryos. It is to see such use as objectifying life, using it as a means to an end, whereas all life is in itself an end. This argument is compelling in many ways. But it also ignores the fact that unfortunately, tragically, all life does not have the same potential for fullness and actuality. I still remember the day when our doctor asked us whether we wanted to have our fetus genetically tested. Knowing what types of genetic cracks and rips is then supposed to help a parent think about the potential for life of the fetus. With this testing, which raises a whole other can of ethical worms, we were asked to think about the type of life that our child would be genetically pre-disposed to, knowing that there are many horrific, terrible diseases that can kill a baby. So as a result, there will be terminated pregnancies, there will be embryos that will be discarded, that lack much potential for life. And yes, this view raises many more issues (such as possibility of cures for the disorder or ignoring the giftedness of all life), but life is tragic, not all life is genetically created equal. And yes, we must be careful with this view, making sure throughout that we respect life, both its potential and its actuality, while admitting this tragic dimension.

And in the end, because we live in a politically liberal society (and thus not a theocracy) that values the freedom of religion, we can never compel someone to become religious. We can never force someone to accept a particular value system. Women have a right thus to decide what to do with their bodies, hopefully a choice that they will make in consultation with families, friends and conscience. And we as Christians must love and support them, drawing on God's grace no matter our opinion about whether such an act is right or wrong to show them God's love. Abortion is and has always been (e.g. St. John's Wort) a part of the world we live in and to believe that outlawing abortion will end abortion is a chimera, just as much as world peace. Instead, we need to best think about how God calls us to fullness of life, to think about how to love our actual neighbor.

Here's the link: http://www.startribune.com/politics/local/118887039.html

Super-Rich.... and Less Than Happy

Amidst all of the rancor between the various constituencies in this country, the chaotic, scary, sad mess in Japan, and the continuing confusion in the Middle East, today's post is about the ethical complications of an article I read in The Atlantic, one that raises questions about wealth, desire, love, hopes, goals and the good life. Entitled "Secret Fears of the Super Rich," it describes a sociological research center at Boston College that sent questionnaires to people with over $25 Million dollars asking them about their fears, hopes, worries and goals. As I have clear populist leanings, and can't imagine what $25 Million dollars looks like, nonetheless what to spend it on, I was somewhat reluctant in reading it. And I was rather shocked to find that it got me thinking about some underlying cultural assumptions about wealth and value.

Using the responses from around 165 households, the article describes how such wealthy folk are generally more dissatisfied than satisfied overall. Why?
--Idle Hands make Idle Minds: They worry about work, not because they need to, but because work is one of the major measures and instillers of value. And because they don't have to work, they struggle with a sense of societal purpose and meaning.
--Keep Up With the Joneses: They don't consider themselves financially secure. Because of the circles many of them run in, there is always someone with more wealth that sets a higher bar for financial security.
--The Grass is always Greener: They worry about social acceptance. Their fear is that if others knew that they were wealthy, they will be a social pariah. 
--Worry Warts: They worry about their children, especially about making sure that their kids use any wealth responsibly. Many aren't sure how to transfer wealth to later generations without turning them into wealthy brats or cause them to become resentful by setting goals they have to achieve (college, job, etc.) before the money is doled out.
--Give the Shirt Off Your Back: Many of them are happiest when they give their money away through a foundation.

Lots of cliches about money, eh? So what's my point in all of this blather about an experience that most of us can't even comprehend? Well, in a world that largely suggests success has to do with financial security, having "things" and social status, the info from such a study is a good reminder that being wealthy is not the route to happiness. Establishing wealth and material security as one's highest goal is rather misguided, and the inner workings and worries of the human soul seems to recognize that our true calling is not for wealth or the world, but for something else. One can never have enough money, or things, as there is always something "new and improved" or "updated." There is always more that we "need."

As a Christian, I try/struggle/desire to use the resources of this tradition, and in particular Christ and God, as the means to make sense of my true aim: to love God and the neighbor. So as much as I worry about money and financial security (and I do a lot), it is helpful to have reminders that one can never have enough wealth to truly find peace. Peace comes not from things we buy, but from our relationships, from our experiences, from those around us, from the intangibles. And the peace God reveals to us, albeit imperfectly, at least gives us a sense that one's heart gets involved in what one desires, meaning we should desire what can't be objectified, simplified, purchased or improved.

And as much as I don't like to admit it, Donald Trump and Rush Limbaugh are my neighbor, even if I think that they are misguidedly striving for a life that ultimately is less fulfilling, satisfying and holy than the life that is directed towards God. I certainly am not trying to excuse or justify such behavior or lifestyles, but to suggest that God is our ground and end, making us responsible for others, allowing us to see that things aren't our true end.

Augustine was right thousands of years ago when he made a distinction between using things in the world to enjoy God or merely enjoying things in the world. Even the awareness by the Super-Rich that they felt most connected and satisfied in giving money away suggests that money isn't something that can be enjoyed, but is best used for something greater, to help others, to shape a community, to form relationships. If only those who have could find the means to look behind their insecurity to see that it isn't through money that security is found.

Maybe it is really all about "Your Money or Your Life"....

From: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/04/secret-fears-of-the-super-rich/8419