I grew up watching cartoons. One familiar storyline in cartoons is what I call the “stork mixup”. An animal baby gets delivered to the wrong parent. A chicken egg hatches in a nest full of crocodile whelps. A misappropriated lion grows up thinking he is a sheep.
At times, being back in my “home” culture after 3 years abroad, feels this way–as if I’ve become misplaced. I feel out of step with the prevalent culture around me.
I know that comparisons are dangerous. We all try not to do it. But it’s difficult, especially in a country like the U.S. that is obsessed with financial status. For my family the oddball issue we face is our aversion to the D-word (OK, for clarity’s sake, I’ll say it…debt.)
Christa and I currently have none. No mortgage, no school loans, no credit card balance, nothing. Our bank account is not large, we have a little money tucked into retirement and are investing towards our kid’s education, but there is not really any negative balance associated with our name.
No big investments nor big expenditures right now. That’s not a bad thing, but it feels weird at times. Like we’re the only ones living this way. I know we’re NOT, but I can’t shake the lingering feeling of it.
It wasn’t always this way. I’ve struggled through my fair share of debt and deficit spending. Things have been tight at times and for many years we did live under the weight of large college loans. But we’ve also received a lot. In many ways, we were financially secure for many years as missionaries, due to the kindness / generosity of MANY others. So I don’t feel as if I am morally superior to anyone in this respect. A lot of grace was extended to us that we are grateful for. But we also made a lot of hard decisions along the way to not go into debt. We’re still making those choices today. And I must say, it is almost unequivocally, a choice for most of us U.S. Americans.
Now that we are back in the U.S. and integrating back into the 9 to 5 work-a-day world, I am amazed at how commonplace it has become to live with debt–to excuse, espouse and often glorify it. Our government operates this way and has for many, many years. The economists seem to optimistically expect Americans to continue to live beyond their means in order to “pull” our country out of recession / depression. I am not speaking to any political party or policy. I think it is the POLICY across the board, whether it’s spoken aloud or not. We spend what we don’t have. We borrow until we’re buried in it. We don’t really know how to say No.
Case in point: every U.S. citizen expects to be a homeowner (seeing it almost as a human right) in their mid-20s (most definitely by your mid-30s) regardless of income or spending habits. The backlash of people losing or short-selling their homes in the last year is evidence enough that that system quickly collapses like a house of cards with rising unemployment or financial struggle. Not to mention how that house can suddenly “own” you very fast…the turnaround can be quick.
Don’t even get me started on entertainment spending or the Christmas shopping craze in this country..
This is just not how the rest of the world lives. Why should our expectations and sense of entitlement be so much higher than our global neighbors’? Is affluence its own justification? I think not. As Christians, how does living luxuriously beyond our means even come close to living and trusting God for our daily bread? How does it exemplify loving our neighbor as we love ourselves? These are tough questions I wrestle with.
Christa and I read Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover when we came back to the States. His ideas about not-living-with-debt resonated with something we’d been living out for a long time. His plan also helped us formulate a budget to help us live even more proficiently within our means. This is not an infomercial for his book, nor is it meant as an indictment on folks who choose another way, but I think it definitely made in impact on how we want to live. It just seems like good common sense.
I’ll close by saying that, sure, I’d like to be a home-owner some day. A flat-screen sounds nice, too. And a Hummer…(Haha.) I’m not against houses or buying comfortable things–within reason. But I hope I’ll also ask myself all the tough questions Jesus asks about security, idolatry, and riches. I hope I can stay close (in proximity / spirit) to folks who have much less than I so that I don’t start to fit my demographic. I don’t want to lose touch or blindly follow the cultural norms–especially if it involves diving like lemmings off a cliff.
I also don’t want to start dropping my Entitlement Visa on the counter every chance I get. Maybe that makes me unpopular, self-righteous, or eccentric. But I’ll happily take the ugly duckling role, among swans, if it means I can swim around the pond debt-free.
p.s. As with most systemic problems this post is not aimed at individuals but at our society as a whole. These opinions are my own and no offense was intended. A lot of my good friends are swans and I love them.
