Mark Zuckerburg and Giving

Recently, Mark Zuckerburg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, gave $25 million dollars to help with the healthcare crisis that is emerging with the continued spread of the Ebola virus. This is a terrific gift and will help many people as we all struggle to comprehend the horror and pace of this disease. With Zuckerberg's net worth pegged at 33.3 billion dollars, this means that he gave away approximately 0.075% of his net worth. If your net worth happened to be $500,000 and you gave away 0.075% of your net worth, you would give $375. That helps me put it in perspective. It makes me realize that every gift counts.

Jesus taught this principle to his disciples. He watched both the rich and the poor as they gave their gifts to the temple treasury in Jerusalem. Some gifts were large amounts of money but one gift was two small coins from a poor widow. Jesus praised the widow for her sacrificial gift and pointed out that she had given more than the rest. So, even when we know how much people have given, we may not know the value of their gift, and we may not know which person has given the most.

Currently, my wife and I own our home, two cars, a small amount of money set aside for retirement, an assortment of things, and only a few debts. I wonder what our net worth might be. Perhaps I could challenge you to consider your own net worth as I consider ours. What might it look like if we gave away 0.075% of that net worth?

Availability

Two views on availabilty:

"Why on God’s green Earth would you be on Twitter? Because first of all, the worst thing you can do is make yourself more available, right?"1 —George Clooney speaking to Esquire 

"Be of service. Whether you make yourself available to a friend or co-worker, or you make time every month to do volunteer work, there is nothing that harvests more of a feeling of empowerment than being of service to someone in need."2 Gillian Anderson

These opinions of George Clooney and Gillian Anderson are not necessarily in conflict with each other; but perhaps they show a difference in their personality types.

1 http://www.esquire.com/features/george-clooney-interview-1213-3
2 http://www.gilliananderson.ws/charities/

Cold Capitalism

It has once again become fashionable to quote Ayn Rand.1 United States presidential candidate Mitt Romney recently announced his running mate to be Paul Ryan. Paul Ryan is the United States Representative for Wisconsin's 1st congressional district who has his staff read this quote: "I swear—by my life and my love of it—that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."2 It would seem that, in his mind, it is okay to ask someone else to live by his philosophy but not "for the sake of him." Other notable Rand statements include the statement that "Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men;"3 and, in an aptly titled book of essays, collectively called, The Virtue of Selfishness, Rand says, "It only stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting the sacrificial offerings. Where there's service, there is someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters, and intends to be the master."4 All three of these quotes point in an individualistic and uncaring direction.

Rand, Ryan, and Romney believe in the "on your own" economy. They believe that we are best served if everyone takes care of themselves and looks to no one else for help. In as far as this reminds us that the world does not owe us a living, it may be a good corrective; but as a philosophy of life it is cold, callous, and lonely. Leon Wieseltier puts it this way,

"I swear—by my life and my love of it—that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine." That is how John Galt concludes his testament, which Paul Ryan demands that his staffers in Congress read. What a frail sense of self it is that feels so imperiled by the existence of others! This monadic ideal is not heroic, it is cowardly. It is also dangerous, because it honors only itself. In his Roadmap, the intellectual on the Republican ticket lectures that "the Founders saw [Adam] Smith not only as an economic thinker, but as a moral philosopher whose other great work was The Theory of Moral Sentiments." . . . Has Ryan ever opened The Theory of Moral Sentiments? Has he ever read its very first sentence on its very first page? "How selfish soever man may be supposed," Smith begins, "there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it." That is the least Galt-like, least Rand-like, least Ryan-like sentence ever written. And from there the conservatives' deity launches into a profound analysis of "mutual sympathy." So much for Ryan’s fiction of the isolato with a platinum card! If there is anything that Adam Smith stands for, it is the reconcilability of capitalism with fellow feeling, of market economics with social decency. But Ryan is a dismal student of Smith, because he likes his capitalism cruel.

I am no student of democracy and I would not claim to understand American politics, but I have spent a good deal of time studying and promoting community. It is quite the opposite of what is being promoted by Ayn Rand and those who would follow her.

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:5-11 New American Standard Bible

1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand
2 Atlas Shrugged, published 1957.
3 The Fountainhead, published 1943.
4 “The Ethics of Emergencies,” The Virtue of Selfishness, p. 44.

Self

Our world is a place of joy, beauty, love, grace, war, pain, suffering, and selfishness. I want to celebrate all of the good things of this world but I also want to recognize the pain in which we find ourselves. We all want a better world. We all want to contribute to a better world and yet, I am hindered by my own selfishness. I never seek to be selfish. I never feel that I am selfish. But one thing I know is that my heart wants what is good for me. I am not alone in this. Selfishness shows up in so many places in our culture. We see it in road rage and horn honking in traffic. I saw an instance of cycle rage on a leisurely Sunday afternoon in Vancouver where a cyclist was shouting at people to get off the cycle path and onto the walking path. The irony was that the cyclist was yelling at people who were carrying on a conversation in sign-language happily unaware of his rage. Others got angry and shouted insults at the cyclist for his attitude. We see selfishness in a lack of common courtesy and we see it in a general lack of patience with others. I will often disdain others for the very thing that lurks in my heart. Aleksander Solzhenitsyn spoke of this in his book, The Gulag Archipelago.

If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

Solzhenitsyn knew this well having spent several years in the Soviet work camps known as Gulags. And I too see it around me and in my own heart. My heart needs a renovation. My heart needs the kind of revolution found in these words.

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. Philippians 2:3,4, the Bible (New International Version).

This seems quite impossible of me and my fellow humans. This requires more than you and I are capable of giving. Perhaps that is why it requires help from God. With Him, all things are possible.

Teach Me to Be Generous

Prayer of St Ignatius

O Lord,
teach me to be generous,
teach me to serve you as you deserve,
to give and not to count the cost
to fight and not to heed the wounds
to toil and not to seek for rest
to labour and not to seek reward
save that of knowing
I do Your most holy will.

St. Ignatius of Loyola