new year’s evolutions to consider part iv [spending time, money, energy]

continuing with this series of new year’s evolutions – with the idea of moving beyond a dream list of ‘i wish this for next year’ to some specific steps and actions to put into place to help you transform yourself into a better person in 2012. and my next evolution suggestion is this:

SPEND YOUR MONEY [AND TIME AND ENERGY] WELL:

this one follows on from yesterday’s live in the present (with the future in mind) and it’s about being intentional with your resources…

hebrews 12.1 speaks about throwing off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles and run with perseverance the race marked out for you. while it will be good to deal with any ongoing sin that is tripping you up, another area to look at in terms of having a more effective year, is those things in your life which hinder you from living well.

the three areas i’ve mentioned are the three foundations of resources you have available to you and it is worth taking some time to think about how you spend each one of these – your time, money and energy

# TIME – how much time do you waste in procrastionary activities, whether it be silly facebook games or vegging in front of the tv for hours or googling japanese game shows… things that are not necessarily bad in themselves can become bad if you take too much time on them [we've been on holiday for a week and so i've been playing a bunch of mindless facebook games to pass time and refresh, but last nite i did a big delete as we head back to work tomorrow and i need to cut out unnecessary distractions] and so it’s good to regularly take a look at how you spend time during the week and make sure you are using it well. how much of your time do you spend in acts of service to others? discipleship, ministry, reaching out to ‘the least of these’? is there a change you need to make in how you use your time in 2012?

# MONEY – saw this quote by Tim Keller [author of 'Generous Justice' which is a great read and also the marriage book that tbV and i are currently working through together] this morning – “Christians should be pressing to keep their costs as low as possible so they can give as much as possible.” – i find that if you are not aware of how you spend your money, then it can very quickly get away from you in terms of being wasted on unnecessary things [takeaway coffees, eating out too much, junk food] when you could be using it creatively on significant things. the concept of tithing is an important one where you take a percentage of your money and set it aside before you spend the rest on yourself and your needs and wants. how much of your money do you spend on others? if you got one less cup of coffee this week, ate out one time less, watched one less movie, bought one less game, how could you use that money to benefit someone else? is there a change you need to make in how you use your money in 2012?

# ENERGY – this is closely linked to time so i will just leave you with the same questions and invite you to take some time to look at this area of your life as well. how much of your energy is devoted to kingdom things? is there a change you need to make in how you use your energy in 2012?

another great quote i was reminded of again recently goes something like this – “he who dies with the most toys is still dead.” if you want to evolutionise in 2012 then make sure that you invest in people more than you invest in things [whether it's job, toys, holiday houses, clothes...]. the currency of the kingdom of God is people and so it makes a lot more sense that we spend our energy, time and money on things related to people and not just on things…

spend your money [and time and energy] well in 2012.

to continue to the next evolution looking at community, head over here.

how great my art?

let me start by being perfectly honest here, i am not an artist… not in the drawing, painting, nude sculpture making sense anyways…

when i was in high school i somehow managed to end up taking art as one of my choice subjects [i copied a monkey face pretty well back in standard 5/grade 7 and got accepted in art at westerford somehow that way] for grade 8 and 9 but very quickly found out that the teacher didn’t so much teach art as assumed art and so if you didn’t know how to do the type of art he held up you were pretty much screwed… which led to me and ray wright largely spending two years just mixing paint colours and unintentionally blocking up drains…

i was not allowed to choose art for grade 8 to 10 and so effectively i like to think that i was kicked out of art… academically at least.

til i heard about this thing called First Friday in Philadelphia where i currently live and move and have my being. our summer intern and friend Beth took a bunch of her really good art to the streets and came back with money – lots of it.

so i schemed with monkman aka A-Ron aka Aaron, another housemate, to make some art and take it to first friday and take irony for a joy ride cos surely if i could make some art and someone could buy it for real money then that would just throw art on it’s head…

last saturday i spend the whole day painting on a window within a frame that Jamie from across the road [one of the original members of the simple way] gave me and came up with something some people would call art, at least until they looked at it. Monkman came home after being out the whole day, took about thirty minutescreating his minimist art piece [also on a window frame] and it looked 1000 times better than mine.

there were bits of mine i liked. tbV liked at least two parts of it and i think i liked three of the four corners or at least ish. but as a whole it was going to take some irony walking by.

two things happened tonite at first friday which made me happy. the first was two quite trendy girls walking past [and we had my painting next to monkman's and a bunch of t-shirts and patches he was selling so a decent amount of stuff] and the one turned to the other one having indicated my painting and said ‘that’s good’ or ‘i like that’ or something to that effect. job done.

the second thing was that i sold my painting for 20 dollarbucks. like money. real money. that you can buy things with. oh irony, your head has been bruised by this ‘art’ this nite… or something. this girl really dug it and i didn’t know what to charge her for it and she said twenty bucks? and i said sure [i'm a kick-ass haggler] and she gave the twenty bucks and walked off [and is theoretically going to claim it later - she had just arrived and wanted to check out other things - pretty trusting in these parts]

so all said and done i think that makes me officially an artist.

the andersons Live Below The Line day 5

and coffee…

met some friends for coffee at the BP to celebrate the end of the week which has been interesting – quite a stressful time in terms of packing up the house and finishing off transcription work and trying to organise visas and a bunch of other stuff but i think that’s cool in a way – we don’t get to always choose when life happens to us – and while this live below the line week may have been largely insignificant in the bigger scheme of things i think that good came out of it for us – hopefully we have learnt to appreciate the little things and be more compassionate to people who have this situation thrust upon them as opposed to choosing it for themselves for a time period.

i guess today’s big lesson was that perseverance is easy when the end is in sight – if you know that 00:05 holds a cup of BP coffee for you then skipping the cup or so you would normally have during the day is no big deal at all and so today pretty much rushed by – yes it was quite a busy one on all fronts but we ate pretty well and finished big.

breakfast for me was two eggs on bread crusts [which i happen to dig] cos had to save the two slices for lunch [val didn't have bread] and half an avo each so i stuck mine under the one fried egg – very yummy…

lunch was leftover noodle mix on snackwiches which was fairly decent…

supper was last two pork sausages well cooked as sausages [been chopped up rest of week] with rice and last of the beans/carrots and was really great – definitely ate enough food and the majority of it was not too bad [altho i think we killed lentils after just one meal - definitely pick rice or pap repeatedly over those]

so ja, with fasting or living below the line for a week it is made easier by the time frame – you choose when you want to do it and pick your structure/boundaries [just skip meals during day, just a daniel fast of fruit and veg only, absolutely nothing, how much money per day etc etc] and then do it for a time period and it’s over. for many people it’s not over.

i’m convinced that giving people a fish is not the answer – teaching them to fish or linking them up with the fisherman or taking down the company that is polluting the water that the fish should be freely available in are all bigger options… however, in the times and moments and busyness when those things are not immediately possible, sometimes giving a man [woman or child] a fish is better than not giving them a fish [especially when your waistline is probly over-fished]

i’m glad we did it, it wasn’t all fun, but it wasn’t all not fun and it certainly was not horrible and i hope we remember and learn and thing and treat and consider…

not quite as simple, it seems

so yesterday’s “this is what the andersons are going to be up to” bloggage received a lot more attention than i suspected it would, and pretty firmly divided into two groups of responses:

those who knew us, who said nice things about us and wished us good times and most importantly got excited with us for this adventure that we are about to embark on

those who don’t know us who by and large said or asked somewhat judgemental sounding stuff mostly relating to us going on a big holiday in the states while there are poor people in south africa to be taken care of [who we can fittingly see as we are driven off to the airport]

and i didn’t even allow half of the comments written to be posted [largely it was more of the same - for some bizarre reason there is a whole host of people out there who are telling us we should stop doing our transcription - which incidentally is part of a study focused on poor people in townships and will be used to help assist them to make better choices and be exposed to greater opportunities - and get waitering jobs if that isn't beneath us - i worked for 5 years at rondebosch spur back in the day and absolutely loved most of it - i'm pretty sure i'm the first person who both made and sold Hunter's and Blackcurrent Hooch milkshakes, i kid you not]

however, the point of this blog is not so much to defend against the stream of attacks – i tried to do some explaining yesterday altho i really didn’t need to and certainly do not need to defend my action to a bunch of anonymous people hiding behind their keyboards [Brits, however, am definitely looking forward to that beer/coffee] – one day i will stand in front of God and account for my actions, and my mistakes and i feel quite confident that this Simple Way trip is not something i am going to be embarrassed by…

but the point of this blog – and i mentioned it in a response yesterday but not everyone may have seen it – is that we all create our own lines…

for a number of people, flying overseas to americaland and working with poor people in a community over there is unacceptable because of the number of poor people here and the money for the tickets etc could be better used given to the poor [which sparks a reminder of a guy named judas in the bible who said a similiar thing about money that should rather have been spent on the poor than lavishly wasted on Jesus, and things didn't turn out so well for him because his heart was rotten] but all of those people typed their responses on a computer [or possibly a cellphone] which means that [apart from those who were doing it at work i guess which would be using work time for personal pleasure which i guess is another line] their line includes having access to a phone/computer [which could surely be sold and given to the poor blah blah blah]

the one extreme picture is this – give everything you have to the poor and eventually when you have nothing more, you yourself end up on the street and are poor and are unable to give any more and thus unable to help any more [i'm sure we will all agree this is largely unhelpful]

at the other extreme we have the person who gives nothing – who lives completely for themselves and spends money only buying things for themself and their friends and follows a path of luxury and pleasure and wastefulness [i'm sure most of us will agree this is largely evil]

and then there is somewhere in the middle of these two poles – being generous with my resources while maintaining the ability to be so – spending on myself and my friends but also spending on those less fortunate than myself – being actively involved in the lives of those who seem unable to help themselves – answering Jesus’ call to be a sheep and not a goat and make sure that we are reaching out to those who are hungry and thirsty and sick and in prison and strangers…

within that space there are lines – and probly lines within lines – and mine will not always look like yours, maybe they never will – some of my lines look like this:

i personally can’t justify flying business class but perhaps you can

i personally can’t justify having a big fancy car when my epic rust collector gets me from a to b, but i quite possibly could justify having something a bit better than what i have now if the opportunity arose

i generally do not give to poor people at traffic intersections unless they are doing some kind of work like selling the Big Issue or the funny sheet because they are at least making some kind of work effort to lift themselves up. there are a lot of poor people i say no to even when i have the means to help them [i generally don't say "I can't" or "I don't have money" as those are generally not true] but there is a guy who hangs around across the road from our church who i buy food for on a regular basis

i don’t buy label clothes when there is a piece of clothing as sufficient for 2 or 3 hundred bucks cheaper

those are a couple of my lines and i won’t make them absolutes for people – this is how much you can or should be giving and this is where you stop – myself and val need to find a place where we are happy to stand before each other and before God and say “I think we used our resources well”

i imagine we get it wrong a lot and there are a lot of questions i wrestle with like is it ever okay to go and watch a movie when you walk past a hungry man on the street to get there, or go out for a meal at a restuarant when you can stay home and make a meal for R20 or R30 bucks (that will probly taste better if tbV is cooking like last nite flip!) but i don’t wrestle with having a laptop (because it allows me to do a huge part of what God has called me to do) or some of the others that you might

so look at yourself, take a long hard look at the way you live, the way you spend money, the way you hold tightly on to money, how generous you are to those you know and are in relationship with and also to the strenager on the street and make some decisions if necessary but whatever you do, live intentionally and be able to stand in front of God one day and say “i did what i thort was right” and let Him drop or throw His stone…

and uber big thankx to all those of you who are excited for and with us and who dropped in here to share some words of encouragement – this is a kingdom thing and we are so very super amped for what lies ahead…

you don’t know jack (which can be handey i guess)

Why do the caterpillar and the ant have to be enemies? One eats leaves, and the other eats caterpillars. Oh, I see now.

I hope they never find out that lightning has a lot of vitamins in it, because do you hide from it or not?

It’s easy to sit there and say you’d like to have more money. And I guess that’s what I like about it. It’s easy. Just sitting there, rocking back and forth, wanting that money.

Whenever someone asks me to define love, I usually think for a minute, then I spin around and pin the guy’s arm behind his back. NOW who’s asking the questions?

Worship the potato? The idea seemed silly to me. But then I thought, what else is more deserving of worship? It’s simple, it comes from the earth, and it can kill you if you disobey it.

You know one thing that will really make a woman mad? Just run up and kick her in the butt. (P.S. This also works with men.)

I think a good gift for the president would be a chocolate revolver. And since he’s so busy, you’d probably have to run up to him and hand it to him.

If I had a mine shaft, I don’t think I would just abandon it. There’s got to be a better way.

you don’t know Jack – part chew

more great Jack Handeyisms:

I don’t pretend to have all the answers. I don’t pretend to even know what the questions are. Hey, where am I?

I remember when I was in the army, we had the toughest drill sergeant in the world. He’d get right up next to your face and yell, and if you didn’t have the right answers, mister, you’d be peeling potatoes or changing the latrine. Hey, wait. I wasn’t in the army. Then who WAS that guy?!

When I was a child, there were times when we had to entertain ourselves. And usually the best way to do that was to turn on the TV.

I hope that after I die, people will say of me: “That guy sure owed me a lot of money.”

I hope life isn’t a big joke, because I don’t get it.

As the light changed from red to greeen to yellow and back to red again, I sat there thinking about life. Was it nothing more than a bunch of honking and yelling? Sometimes it seemed that way.

If I was being executed by injection, I’d clean up my cell real neat. Then, when they came to get me, I’d say, “Injection? I thought you said `inspection’.” They’d probably feel real bad, and maybe I could get out of it.

Perhaps, if I am very lucky, the feeble efforts of my lifetime will someday be noticed, and maybe, in some small way, they will be acknowledged as the greatest works of genius ever created by Man.

are you off your mind? [you should be]

why is it so hard to live a Jesus-following life? the things i want to do i don’t do and the things i don’t want to do i find that i can’t stop myself from doing. Woe is me this wretched man, chief of sinners, sucker of note, i might as well…

STOP! [not hammer time] Romans 12.2-3 ‘Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind… THEN you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – His good, pleasing and perfect will.’

try to do more stuff, live better, get my actions in line with what i am supposed to believe, and fail dismally.

have my mind transformed… and my actions will follow closely behind.

i am married to the beautiful Val. Meet her, get to know her, ‘fall in love’ (probably more accurately, choose to pursue a relationship with her encouraged by the feelings and emotions she invokes in me) and then one day stand in front of family and friends and make a bunch of promises of things i have chosen to do with regards to her – as love is a series of choices (and the actions that back up those choices)

so if i am trying to do a bunch of stuff for tbV because i have to (i am married to her after all and that’s what married men have to do) then it will work for a while or while i’m feeling it, but then one day i won’t be feeling it and does that mean it won’t happen?

however, if my mind has been changed and i know have a mindset of i love this woman, i have chosen to be with her, i choose her again today (and tomorrow, and the day after that) then the actions follow easily (or more naturally at least) – and so not just the easy things like buying flowers or spoiling her with chocolate (or in her case sour worms and body parts) but also the slightly harder-to-motivate things like washing up and vacuuming and taking out the trash – but because my mind has been transformed to ‘i love and i choose this girl’ the actions become second nature (or should – but a lot better than if i was just trying to change the actions)

i think this concept is a huge-mongous one that a lot of Christ-followers just don’t get (probably due to bad evangelism-theology – come to the front, say a prayer, done.) you are a new creation, you are part of a new kingdom, you have someone else in charge of your life – be transformed! (by the renewing of your mind – and renewing as i see it is a continuous process as opposed to a once off) and now live differently.

have you invited God to transform your mind lately? what being a Jesus follower means? what your attitude to money should be? your future plans? what involvement He wants for you in the local church? how your future looks? who you date and marry? how you speak, what you listen to/read/watch?

it might be time to start thinking about changing your mind, and He does it better.

Not on my lemur’s watch!

ah so he’s at it again, my good fiend Julius Malema

this time there’s rumours of him receiving a bunch of business tenders for his companies from the government. basically a case of you scratch my back, I fill your account

and the initial comment from Mr Julius is that he is receiving no money except his salary. and then the newspaper had quoted his salary as being R20 000 and his only comment on that was ‘I am getting more than R20 000’ which tbV thort sounded fair for a man in his position. until i pointed out to her that as much as R25 000 is more than R20 000, so is R200 000 000 000 more than R20 000. so it was left open to interpretation. Mr Julius did say that he has bank loans for the two 4.5 million rand houses he owns (something like that) because he can’t buy them with cash like the article said – he doesn’t have that capacity

the article i read last night was about the ANC defending his right to be living in wealth because that is what the ANC fought for. and then it listed some stuff. the two houses, the 800 000 car and then R250 000 for a…

i asked tbV to guess what Mr J had a R250 000 of and she guessed a bunch of stuff, but i told her she’d never get it, cos the article (it’s on the interweb it must be true!) said that he has a R250 000 watch. you know, like tick tick. the article didn’t mention whether or not this was an old James Bond discard and that if you hold down the light button for longer than seven seconds a laser shoots out that can cut through gold. just mentioned the R250 000, and the watch bit

i’m not so sure that’s what the ANC fought for!

not convinced that’s what the voters who were all promised houses and of whom thousands (millions?) are still living in shacks in hideous conditions were aiming at

i actually can’t get my head around anyone owning a watch that costs that much. but someone claiming to be by the people, for the people (or was it buy the people, for-get the people?) it’s just some kind of evil.

hopefully a time is coming…

days of our (my) virgin lies

i just spoke to a woman called Sijabulile on the phone at the virgin Customer sCare desk concerning a money-being-owed-to-me-by-virgin issue and she was very friendly and professional. she checked my information, she understood the problem and assured me it was being taken care of. she even emailed the billing department to inquire as to why the payment had not gone through yet. she updated my email details and set me up for billing confirmation. all very exciting.

excepting that in january, Thatho had already done all that, and the following week so did Lebo, and then Dumelo, after whom it was Gabriel who was followed by Sisiwe. a couple of days ago Akhona assured me that within 24 hours the money would be returned.

which helped introduce me to Sijabulile. yet another call. yet another long wait. the same verification questions which i can answer before they arrive – confirm cellphone number, id number, present place of residence and email address.

mid jan is when virgin decided it would be fun to inexplicably disappear the free 1000 sms deal i have as part of my contract and start charging me sms’s and so suddenly my R250 airtime was R96 and then within a day i was sitting not being able to send sms’s because i had 0.02 on my phone. they – eventually – rectified the mistake (i know of at least two other people this happened to so it was not just Richard Branson getting back at me for emailing him asking for the R15000 he owes me for when i forgot his name on The Weakest Link ) but have yet to return the amount i lost (including the extra R120 i had to put on through my ATM)

by the end of the day, by monday, within twenty four hours, by tomorrow this time, at the start of the next month are all time scales i have received for when the money is going to be returned…

it probably will be eventually – and no doubt less than i spent – but who will repay me the hours lost listening to “hi there and welcome to virgin where your wish is our command” messages…

i suspect my current wish you would not be all that eager to fulfil.

your wealth is my poverty but his just getting by

do you see yourself as rich? i would imagine probably not

if i had to put myself on a wealth scale i would probably rate myself as below average

i would compare myself to the people i know who have so much more than me – own houses, better cars, holiday house, huge screen television, able to fly overseas on holiday (or even have lavish comfortable holidays here), more impressive toys and so on

would i see myself as poor? definitely not – having lived in a township for a year and a half i have witnessed a small aspect of what poverty can look like and so i know that i am completely not close to being poor (altho to be fair there were a lot of people in the K who had better phones, cars, toys, clothes than me so i wasn’t even the toppest rich there)

but the reality is that if i can read (which i can) then that puts me in the top 30% of people in the world – if i own a computer (which i do) that puts me in the top 1% of people in the world – when you look at things like acess to safe drinking water, three meals a day and so on then suddenly my wealthometer reading is skyrocketing

the truth is that wealth is relative – apparently 6% of the people in the world own 59% of the entire world’s wealth – India and China (two of the countries with some of the world’s poorest people in them) are top of the list of most new millionaires this last year

to some of my friends and people in my church i am poor… but to some of the guys i work with in the K and to the guys lining up in the road down the road from where we stay every morning looking for work i am most definitely very rich – my ‘poverty’ is another man’s ‘incredible wealth’ and my ‘abundance’ is another guy’s table scraps

in the Bible in the book of Timothy (1. chapter 6.10) it says ‘for the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil’ – the bible doesn’t speak of money as evil (it’s the love thereof) and doesn’t even say you can’t be rich (but does say a lot that to be rich is more difficult and that rich people better use their money wisely) but it does teach us to use what we have well. very well.

i imagine wherever you appear on the wealth scale, there is someone less wealthy than you that you can reach out to and encourage and assist and help up, and so my question is, what are you doing with your wealth to ease someone else’s poverty?

and above all, i guess my point here is that as much as i would love to see myself as ‘below average’ i am in fact overwhelmingly rich, as are you if you are reading this.