The Great Outdoor Wood Furnace Project

In my spare time (?) I've been getting the following word out to as many of my friends as possible:

SMALL LOANS FOR A GREAT OUTDOOR WOOD FURNACE

At the September 21, 2011, meeting of the Board of Gemeinschaft Home, a recovery and re-entry program for 25-30 ex-offenders, I volunteered to find up to 20 persons in our community willing to make an interest-free three-year loan of $1000 or more each in order to have a top-of-the line, virtually pollution-free $18-20,000 wood furnace installed at the house. This would enable the Home to have a system in place by this winter that would provide all the heat and hot water needed for both of its buildings and save the program literally thousands of dollars each year.

Currently, there is a plentiful supply of good oak wood available to at nearby EMU's Park Woods, where a number of mature dead trees are in need of harvesting. The plan is to solicit volunteers from churches and elsewhere this fall to help residents cut, split and haul enough of this (free) wood on a designated Saturday to provide for the first winter's needs.. Board member Sam Miller already has estimates from local dealers for this kind of furnace, and there is a great location for it and for wood storage on a level area on the upper (east) side of the property.

Monthly natural gas bills in the winter are typically $1400 or more, so the savings will be significant and ongoing from the beginning. This project will also provide additional work for residents over time, and fueling the furnace 2-3 times daily during the colder months could be assigned as a routine chore shared by the men.

I already have positive responses from four members of our board and four other individuals, and my goal is to get enough commitments from other friends and supporters in the community by the end of this week to raise the remaining amount. Investors money will be returned through savings in energy costs--and of course through equity in our property in case Gemeinschaft were to close its doors.

But we are not closing! With the help of some exciting recent staff changes, the program is going forward with a new sense of urgency, energy and mission. Levels of morale and motivation on the part of our residents are at a new high.

Please contact me either by e-mail <harvyoder@gmail.com> or in person, if you can help or if you have any questions.

Thanks!

Putting Christ Back Into Xian

In what must have been my first stage performance, I recited a four-line poem about putting Christ back into Xmas. This felt important to me as a first grader in my one-room school in rural Kansas, both because I got to take part in my first real Christmas program and because growing up the way I did I couldn’t imagine leaving Jesus out of anything.

Today I'm even more concerned about how little of Christ or of his teachings are typically associated with concepts like a “Christian world view,” “Christian values” or our “Judeo-Christian heritage.” We may cite leaders like Moses, Joshua, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther or Daniel to support a kind of Christian nationalism, for example, but fail to even mention Jesus in the process.

I recently had an email conversation with a friend of mine in which I contrasted Jesus’ teachings about wealth with the views held by the late philosopher and novelist Ayn Rand. My friend had read “Atlas Shrugged” and knew Rand was adamantly anti-religious and believed that altruism, not the love of money, was actually the root of all evil (she was fond of wearing a pin in the form a of a dollar sign). Nevertheless he defended many of her positions as consistent with a Christian world view, based on the following:

1. The Bible teaches that those who will not work should not eat.

2. Likewise, the Bible states that those who will not support their families are “worse than infidels.” 

3. Also, the tenth commandment clearly states that we are not to covet what belongs to others, a mindset that leads to “a sense of ‘entitlement’ to what others have earned.

 4. Above all, a Christian world view teaches that charity should be totally voluntary – and only for widows, orphans, and others who are “poor through no fault of their own.”

There is much here one can agree with, but none of these particular points happens to be based on the actual teachings of Christ. This in spite of the fact that Jesus had more to say about wealth and about giving generously to the poor than almost any other single topic.

I’m not one of those "red-letter-Christians" who pays little attention to anything but the actual sayings of Jesus in the Bible. But dare we opt for a "white-out-Christian" perspective, in which many of his teachings are seemingly blanked out or ignored?

For example:

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth.

You cannot serve both God and money.

If you want to be perfect, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you wil have treasure in heaven.

It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.

Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me...'

Of course many of us may find these teachings hard to accept and even harder to follow. But I don’t believe Jesus intended them to be "hard sayings." One of the gospel writers notes that when Jesus confronted the “rich young ruler” he loved him. He knew he would be liberated and blessed by  obeying his command to share his wealth with the poor, and then to enjoy vast holdings in the “treasury of heaven.”

This is the real “prosperity gospel” Jesus wants celebrated and shouted from the housetops.

Worth More Than Diamonds

Can money buy happiness? Maybe, if we invest it right.

I remember reading a Readers Digest story many years ago called “Wealth Beyond Diamonds.” It was about two people in love who were working their way through college during the Depression. The couple decided that instead of buying a diamond for their engagement they would use the money to help a friend with the tuition he needed to stay in school.

Turns out this friend went on to do well for himself, and was so grateful that he in turn became involved in helping others with similar needs, multiplying the effect of the original gift. All of which made the couple feel so rewarded for their original investment that they decided to make a lifelong practice of helping deserving students.

In their old age, they felt enormously rich in the satisfaction, the friendships, and all of the other rewards they experienced from the way they had invested their money. The best investments, they came to believe, were in assets that truly last, like people. Which may be what Jesus had in mind when he taught us (Luke 12:33) to store up treasure in the "bank of heaven" (through giving to the poor) rather than in things that moths can destroy, rust can tarnish or thieves can break in and steal.

In the end, what better legacy could we leave behind? The dividends are priceless, worth far more than diamonds.