So Who Stores Your Value?
Yesterday a pretty decent size bank was taken over by federal regulators. It was IndyMac, and right after I'd heard the news I thought about the branch on the corner of a quaint downtown area in a community near where we live, and the advertisement I'd seen on the side of the building just a couple weeks ago.
The ad said, "We want to be your one and only." Next to these words was a nicely drawn picture of a big heart covering someone holding that heart out. I actually thought at the time, "How nice, that they'd use such impassioned language to promise they'd do a good job."
Now that the truth about IndyMac's insolvency has come out, that approach sounds quite a bit like that homely person who vies desperately for your affections and must plead in such a way to try to get your commitment. "Please be mine." "Would you say 'Yes?'" "Tell me you love me."
What really makes me very sad is that you will hear nothing from anyone who says they trust in Christ about this whole thing because most simply don't have a clue what's going on, and they cannot offer any real take on it that has any potent meaning. The reason is simply because they are contracted with a World that thrives on fear and destitution.
One of those contractual obligations is that which the banks themselves make with the federal government, namely the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The FDIC took over IndyMac and is using this "bank holiday" to work things out. What are they working out, exactly? That is the crux of the whole issue. When they clean up the books at IndyMac,
They are working out how to set people's value straight.
And then they've got to sell IndyMac's customers on how well they've done, whether it is true or not. The key is that the customers believe their value is being well managed.
Such is the World.
When someone deposits their income in a bank, they are asking the bank, essentially, "Store my value." When someone borrows money from a bank, they are asking the bank, essentially, "Let me have the measure of someone else's value against the measure of my future value."
The problem comes when the people in the first interaction, both banker and depositor, desire to increase that value and not enough value from someone else's measure of value is there to acquire. This is compounded by the problem of those in the second interaction, when the borrower does not having enough measure of value to compensate for their promise, and the banker foolishly believes that he does.
This is just not rocket science. This is the essence of respect for one another's value. It has been this way for ages upon ages. And yet what you'll hear from the World's megaphone are things like, "Grummble mumble grrrmblle we need more regulation rules laws enforcement grrrmmble hrrmph..." Oh you'll get some nifty technical financialese about this thing banks do and that thing regulators do and this investment mortgage market thingamabob and that insider twistaroo that only the author knows about-- it all sounds splendidly erudite.
What you'll hear from the church is...
Nothing.
I have yet to see anyone anywhere who names the name of Christ say something along the lines of,
"Hey. Christians. Those of us who really want to do what Christ says, those who know how the World operates and would actually--and respectfully I might add--leave those Christians-in-name-only behind to have their pity parties and yet still ferociously defend-to-the-death their piddly contracts with the World, hey, how about if we actually truly really did what Christ asked us to do and
Have community.
Let's honor one another's value, value that Christ poured into each of us to love one another and sow His Kingdom, yes, right here, right now. It doesn't mean building anything in particular, but it does mean pooling our capital in phenomenal ways, with each of us eagerly mobilized and deftly utilizing all our gifts, a breeze with His strength coarsing through us."
No one can say that. They can't because they're so moored to the World with their 501c3 chains and their W-4 racket slips and their submissions to the FDIC to be sure the federal government watchdogs are hovering over them because dammit
We're just a bunch of sinners who are sure to dick with another's store of value if we don't have those guys there.
When I write that I weep, I literally sit here and weep, I weep for millions of Christians who'll watch a sermon or hear a radio message or read a devotional booklet that'll be about how we need to be more tolerant in a wicked age or how our marriages need to be more happy or how we need to be more authentic worshipping with candles and cafes and acoustic guitar music or how we need to dig in and fund more church goop or something we've already heard five thousand times.
But mention complete abandonment to Christ by chucking the World baggage and you get "Rrrrr-RAWWRRRR grrrowwlll grrrrrawwrrr" which is usually expressed as "That's crazy" or "We've been doing it this way for so long and we've all been fine" or "There's just nothing wrong with it" or the worst of all
Complete abject silence.
Funny, in the Los Angeles Times this morning, next to the banner headline about the IndyMac incident was a companion piece with the headline "When faith is frayed."
When faith is frayed.
Uh, excuse me,
Faith in what?
Better, faith in whom?
If you had faith in Christ, the real Christ, the One who holds the universe on the tip of his left pinky, not the pansy Catholic one hanging dead on a cross or the wussy "tolerant" one that hugs everyone (once they get to their place in the front of the line) or even the one that is Caesar who right now has a grip of power but has it only because people won't come to Christ to begin with (and is weaker than Christ's by a degree of at least seventy-seven bazillion anyway)...
If you had the teensiest of faith in that Christ,
You'd move mountains.
Oh, and you'd love people too. Which meeeans you'd know what their real value is... which meeeans you'd understand the real meaning of store of value... which meeeans you'd have real joy.
I can't wait to actually hear that from someone else.
Much more that people would actually be doing it.
I'd written some webzine home page pieces recently on the meaning of value. The first of those is here.
The ad said, "We want to be your one and only." Next to these words was a nicely drawn picture of a big heart covering someone holding that heart out. I actually thought at the time, "How nice, that they'd use such impassioned language to promise they'd do a good job."
Now that the truth about IndyMac's insolvency has come out, that approach sounds quite a bit like that homely person who vies desperately for your affections and must plead in such a way to try to get your commitment. "Please be mine." "Would you say 'Yes?'" "Tell me you love me."
What really makes me very sad is that you will hear nothing from anyone who says they trust in Christ about this whole thing because most simply don't have a clue what's going on, and they cannot offer any real take on it that has any potent meaning. The reason is simply because they are contracted with a World that thrives on fear and destitution.
One of those contractual obligations is that which the banks themselves make with the federal government, namely the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The FDIC took over IndyMac and is using this "bank holiday" to work things out. What are they working out, exactly? That is the crux of the whole issue. When they clean up the books at IndyMac,
They are working out how to set people's value straight.
And then they've got to sell IndyMac's customers on how well they've done, whether it is true or not. The key is that the customers believe their value is being well managed.
Such is the World.
When someone deposits their income in a bank, they are asking the bank, essentially, "Store my value." When someone borrows money from a bank, they are asking the bank, essentially, "Let me have the measure of someone else's value against the measure of my future value."
The problem comes when the people in the first interaction, both banker and depositor, desire to increase that value and not enough value from someone else's measure of value is there to acquire. This is compounded by the problem of those in the second interaction, when the borrower does not having enough measure of value to compensate for their promise, and the banker foolishly believes that he does.
This is just not rocket science. This is the essence of respect for one another's value. It has been this way for ages upon ages. And yet what you'll hear from the World's megaphone are things like, "Grummble mumble grrrmblle we need more regulation rules laws enforcement grrrmmble hrrmph..." Oh you'll get some nifty technical financialese about this thing banks do and that thing regulators do and this investment mortgage market thingamabob and that insider twistaroo that only the author knows about-- it all sounds splendidly erudite.
What you'll hear from the church is...
Nothing.
I have yet to see anyone anywhere who names the name of Christ say something along the lines of,
"Hey. Christians. Those of us who really want to do what Christ says, those who know how the World operates and would actually--and respectfully I might add--leave those Christians-in-name-only behind to have their pity parties and yet still ferociously defend-to-the-death their piddly contracts with the World, hey, how about if we actually truly really did what Christ asked us to do and
Have community.
Let's honor one another's value, value that Christ poured into each of us to love one another and sow His Kingdom, yes, right here, right now. It doesn't mean building anything in particular, but it does mean pooling our capital in phenomenal ways, with each of us eagerly mobilized and deftly utilizing all our gifts, a breeze with His strength coarsing through us."
No one can say that. They can't because they're so moored to the World with their 501c3 chains and their W-4 racket slips and their submissions to the FDIC to be sure the federal government watchdogs are hovering over them because dammit
We're just a bunch of sinners who are sure to dick with another's store of value if we don't have those guys there.
When I write that I weep, I literally sit here and weep, I weep for millions of Christians who'll watch a sermon or hear a radio message or read a devotional booklet that'll be about how we need to be more tolerant in a wicked age or how our marriages need to be more happy or how we need to be more authentic worshipping with candles and cafes and acoustic guitar music or how we need to dig in and fund more church goop or something we've already heard five thousand times.
But mention complete abandonment to Christ by chucking the World baggage and you get "Rrrrr-RAWWRRRR grrrowwlll grrrrrawwrrr" which is usually expressed as "That's crazy" or "We've been doing it this way for so long and we've all been fine" or "There's just nothing wrong with it" or the worst of all
Complete abject silence.
Funny, in the Los Angeles Times this morning, next to the banner headline about the IndyMac incident was a companion piece with the headline "When faith is frayed."
When faith is frayed.
Uh, excuse me,
Faith in what?
Better, faith in whom?
If you had faith in Christ, the real Christ, the One who holds the universe on the tip of his left pinky, not the pansy Catholic one hanging dead on a cross or the wussy "tolerant" one that hugs everyone (once they get to their place in the front of the line) or even the one that is Caesar who right now has a grip of power but has it only because people won't come to Christ to begin with (and is weaker than Christ's by a degree of at least seventy-seven bazillion anyway)...
If you had the teensiest of faith in that Christ,
You'd move mountains.
Oh, and you'd love people too. Which meeeans you'd know what their real value is... which meeeans you'd understand the real meaning of store of value... which meeeans you'd have real joy.
I can't wait to actually hear that from someone else.
Much more that people would actually be doing it.
I'd written some webzine home page pieces recently on the meaning of value. The first of those is here.
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