The Peasant, the Blizzard, and the Rock Star

I was talking on the phone today and mentioned an ad I saw on TV: Dairy Queen is giving 100% of profits from sales of their Blizzard dessert on one day, August 7, to Children's Miracle Network. I said how great I thought this was, as usually such promotions run something like this: 'Come in and buy a Grande Meal/auto detail package/living room suite and we'll donate fifty cents/twenty-five cents/ten percent from your purchase to Children's Hospital/breast cancer research/flood victims.' It sounds good; they're giving something, but just as I don't notice ten or twenty percent off when I buy something on sale, a couple shekels in that context is a negligible contribution. Dairy Queen's drive is only one day, and it's only on one item, but the Blizzard is a best seller (and a delicious one!), which means that there are millions of people who would already be buying one that day. Moreover, there are millions more potential buyers such as myself, who don't tend to eat Dairy Queen except on road trips, who might be persuaded to drive out of our way on that day and enjoy one, knowing that it is going to benefit not only our tastebuds but children with birth defects.

The person on the other end of the line agreed that one-hundred percent was unusual and good. She then said that what got her disturbed sometimes, beyond the transparently less-than-altruistic twenty-five-cent contributions, was benefit rock concerts. She reasoned that rock stars, being rock stars, had millions and millions of dollars at their disposal, so why ask their less-wealthy fans to chip in for a donation which they could cover themselves quite easily? I said I was sure some do, but even with those who do not, the same principle applies as in the Blizzard case: rock fans, being rock fans, are already going to go and see their favorite star, so why not give the money away when they do? Moreover, there is the other demographic of those who would not have bothered to go were the money not going to the flood victims or the domestic violence program. Admittedly there is a dose of self-serving in either case: the band, restaurant, or furniture store looks good by donating anything, and that may have an effect of residual good-will amongst future customers - but that does not diminish the reality of the good done by the financial contribution made in the company's name. There is still an additional $100,000 or $1,000,000 in the coffers of the charity.

Additionally, none of us can do everything, not even rock stars. It may be a bit counter-intuitive and, well, creepy, that the members of the Black-Eyed Peas have more money than most people I will ever encounter, but not everyone is called to poverty, and not everyone has to give all their money away, or even the bulk of it, to do good. For those of us who are quite concerned about social issues, it can seem bleak and hopeless at times, since there are so many problems, and so many needs. We wish we could solve everything everywhere in the world, when in fact we cannot as individuals solve even one problem in one area. You can either sit and lament this fact and cry into your Chianti, driving the bartender insane with your self-indulgent whining, or you can resign yourself to there being great needs in many areas and then picking one to focus on. You can resolve to do what you can, finite, inadequate, and perhaps unsatisfying as your abilities and means may be.

If you think poverty is nasty and unnecessary, however deep your disgust at the global status quo you are statistically unlikely ever to hand over the keys to a new donkey to a Kyrgyz peasant. And you, not being a rock star, presumably lack the millions in startup money to found a new charity devoted to bringing donkeys to Central Asians. There are, however, millions of struggling people right here, and thousands of ways to do what you can in a way that makes sense with your life and fits in with your other obligations.

Let's take Poverty, since we're already there. There are both causes and effects; you can't solve them all, so you can pick one. Education, literacy, hunger, addiction, homelessness, violence, mental illness, loneliness, lack of health care, etc.: maybe one feels more urgent to you; maybe one seems more related to your existing skill set; maybe one would really push your skills in new directions and stretch you as a person. In any event, however small your contribution, you could make it today, rather than waiting for a donkey, a saddle, and a ticket to Kyrgyzstan to drop through your roof.

When I was at the animal shelter this was something we all struggled with all the time. We were there because we realized the enormity of the problem and we really cared about animals. We only worked four days a week because the work was so awful that management felt that three days of spiritual and emotional detox were necessary to keep us halfway sane. Still, we were there because we cared for all animals, wanted to do what we could - which was never enough even with the limited number of creatures under our direct care. What kept me going (for as long as it did, at any rate), despite the awful knowledge that we weren't making a dent at all in the larger picture of animal abuse and neglect, was the reality that with these particular individuals at this exact moment we were making a difference, and that their time with the other volunteers and staff and me was far, far better than what they had been subjected to previously.

And that's all we can do: pick a problem, then pick an aspect of the problem, and then roll up our sleeves and set to, in full realization that although we are not omnipotent, we are each truly invaluable. You can't beat yourself up for not curing cancer when you were busy bringing a housebound old lady her food-bank delivery and perhaps sole human contact for that day.

4 out of 5 French Existentialists Agree:

'if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.' --Nietzsche

If you are sick of feeling like a self-absorbed abyss, and you live near Seattle, there may be a great opportunity to change that. The self-absorbed abyss part; I offer no suggestions nor assistance as to relocation. Tent City is going to be up at Prince of Peace Lutheran in Shoreline for the next three months. With collaboration through the Shoreline YMCA and a grant from ELCA, there is a meal program there Wednesday nights for about 150-190 people.

With Tent City there, there will be an additional 100 or so people. Most of the volunteers start somewhere between 3:30-5, and the meal will now run from 5-7-ish, to allow for a second seating. Volunteers are needed for set-up, service, bussing tables, doing dishes, and cleanup. If you want to volunteer, please call the Shoreline YMCA at 206-364-1700.

If you need more convincing that doing nice things is a nice thing to do, here are what some famous religious figures have to say on the matter:


'Feed the hungry and visit the sick, and free the captive, if he be unjustly confined. Assist any person oppressed, whether Muslim or non-Muslim.' -- Muhammad

'Compassion and love are not mere luxuries.
As the source both of inner and external peace,
they are fundamental to the continued survival of our species.' -- XIV Dalai Lama

'But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?' --John the Baptist

'Even offering three hundred bowls of food three times a day does not match the spiritual merit gained in one moment of love.' --Nagarjuna

'Love of all creatures is also love of God, for whoever loves the One loves all the works that He has made. When one loves God, it is impossible not to love His creatures. The opposite is also true. If one hates the creatures, it is impossible to love God who created them.' MaHaRal/ Yehudah ben Bezalel Levai

"Open my heart that compassion may
be my companion;
Where I meet pride, humble me;
Where I meet anger, calm my fears;
Where I meet injustice, cause me
to act in love's way.
May I be as gentle as the doe,
as fearless as the lion,
as faithful as the dog." --King David

'Live with compassion, Work with compassion, Die with compassion, Meditate with compassion, Enjoy with compassion. When problems come, Experience them with compassion.' --Lama Zopa Rinpoche

'I have been all things unholy. If God can work through me, he can work through anyone.' -- Francis of Asissi

Whether you call it tzedekah, chesed, rahmah, ihsan, metta, boddhicitta, mercy, compassion, or good works, everyone from Zoroaster to Abraham thinks you should be cultivating it. And if in their saffron robes and pilgrims' sandals all the foregoing are unconvincing, remember that the great existentialist unbelievers Sartre, Camus, and de Beauvoir all risked their lives to save those of others in the French Resistance. Surely not everyone needs recourse to a metaphysics or baleful eschatology just to wash a few darned dishes???

Featured Guest: Todd

Long time no post.

Sorry about that, dears. After that last rather apocalyptic bit about the death of good buys as we know them, I've been as busy as I have been verklempt. And I'm not saying I have anything to say, nor certainly that I have any answers as to how anyone not in the $450,000-house bracket is supposed to put food on his or her family's Ikea table while still managing to put gas in the Subaru and rent in the landlord's box on time. It's as bad as, and worse than, I intimated.

On the other hand, I've been sad that I haven't found anything to post about. I recently dug someone up from college, which is always great (at least it's always been so for me), but just today someone dug me up, which is even greater as, as you know, I so dislike having to embody the yang any more than I have to. For heaven's sake, I go to a full-service gas station! (Inside information: they don't charge me, either, because I buy all my Diet Cokes and Tums and '5' Flare-flavor gum there!)

So now I feel obliged. And if there is ever anything that motivates me, it is the ponderous weight of responsibility to others. There may be a great number of words in this blog, but there really aren't that many posts. Anyone finding it amusing will quickly realize he or she has come to the end (which is to say the beginning). So, with living proof that someone, somewhere (and better still, someone I know) (well, in a sense, and not the Biblical one) is reading this, I have renewed inspiration - and duty! - to offer to him and to you more jeremiads on the Death of Decorum, the Horror of Calvinism, the Psychic Pain of 'Comfort Clothes,' and, in the words of the current Pope, Benedict XVI, the 'Tyranny of Relativism.'

In the meantime, while you are walking around in your terrifying comfort clothes being relative and not opening doors for ladies, go over to 43Things and think about what you really want to do. I hope one of them turns out to be 'pay for a year of Comcast Internet-and-phone-service for the Greenwood Food Bank' -- because she has one line for her phone, fax, and DIAL-UP!!! Not to mention that her clientele, like that of most other food banks in the area, has risen 30% in just the past couple months.

And while we're on the topic of problems around town, I can't find the figures for this, but: housing prices for King County (Seattle's county) rose last year, while those of counties to the north and south, Snohomish and Pierce, fell. Recalling that gas prices are as prohibitive as they currently are regarding long commutes, it's not an entirely rosy picture for individuals contemplating buying a home in the cheaper suburbs. And, again, if you have money to buy a house in Seattle proper, you'll cut down on your commute but pay a great deal more for your mortgage -- although houses in city should continue to rise in value. Maybe.

However, what of the poor schmucks who bought a house in those same sad suburbs (perhaps enticed by loose lending practices, 5-year ARMS, or 100% funding) two or three or five years ago? Even many of those who did put down cash, and did have enough income to make payments are back down to zero equity on their $300,000 house, which would be a $400,000 house in Seattle, and was a $325 or $350,000 house a few years back.

Grrrr.

Well, that wasn't entertaining in the slightest. I do enjoy making global crises out of shed cat hair and ill-considered lipstick shades, but sometimes the weight of reality is such that it defeats the point of deliberately manufacturing problems when there are so many genuine ones to get sick over.

Dollar Days at the Goodwill

I don't deny, as per my earlier comments, that the poor have appalling taste, regularly eat appalling food, and can be heard unrestrainedly and unrepentantly screaming at children in markets and alleyways from Bangor to Bangalore. They wear track suits and wife-beaters, raise and lower their vehicles in accord with the year's and their region's working-class trend, are known by diminutive versions of their names in adulthood, and track 'celebrity news' with the passion and vigor other groups reserve for changes in stock values or political causes. But as unconcerned as they may seem with the weighty matters of the day (with the exception of the latest celebrity diet), if an Armageddon of whatever sort comes tomorrow, I want to face it alongside the half-time hustlers, the tenement-dwelling single mothers and guys whose pants, if inflated, could confer safe trans-Pacific passage to an unpapered family of seven.

Why? Because what we have that the rich don't is Reality. Sometimes, when one is without money or pleasant options, there is, admittedly, an embarras de richesse, a too-lush assortment of Personal Growth Opportunities, in this arena for anyone's taste. It can be downright confusing at times, the Opportunity, yet again, to decide which bill(s) are most pleasingly left unpaid and which, in their pink or blue insistence visible beneath their undisturbed little white jackets (we don't open them until we have the money in our hand and need to figure out how many or few money orders we can get) are a better bargain to pay NOW, and thus avoid the recurring Fifty-Dollar Reconnection Fee. Or worse yet, the next step: the Fifty-Dollar Reconnection Fee coupled with the You're-Clearly-a-Bad-Risk-and-We-Don't-See-It-Getting-Any-Better four hundred-dollar deposit.

(As a sidenote, however, the Bad-Risk Deposit has its benefits that no rich person would consider. To the poor, however, once they manage to take it from the food and telephone budget and send it in, that deposit serves as a functioning savings account which, the next time the electricity bill is the one needing ignoring since the food and telephone now have to be paid, they can use against itself. At least until they have to pay it back up.)

Clearly, all this Reality results in outpourings of creativity. Not merely the shell game of 'Which bill shall we pay this month? - Ah, looks like the penny's under the T-Mobile this time, honey!' It's much broader, although the common denominator is, of course, money and its lack. Rich people have no idea how many times over how many months you can reinflate a punctured tire daily and still get to work and school. The wealthy would have no idea how to make a ten-dollar thrift-store child's bed into a brilliant settee. They don't know all the short cuts, long cuts, and beautiful side roads that I do, from having cars that wouldn't go over 45 MPH. Or that foam and fabric and a glue gun are all you need for a beautiful headboard.

Some definition is in order, though. I'm not talking about either the idle rich or the idle poor. The wealthy who do Put Their Pants on One Leg at a Time, Same's Us, yar, and the poor who go to their two or three jobs and try against exhaustion not to have everything completely suck when they are at home. Who don't want to use the food bank, and know which dollar store is better for plates and spatulas and which for socks and frozen food. The ones who make do with the smallish hole in the car roof and just adapt and at some point stop noticing it. Who have earned a deep and invaluable sense of perspective and an instinctive knack for prioritizing, in every area. The classic hymn declares that it's a gift to be simple. I think likewise it is a blessing to have been poor.