gorejr

I was born into a system constructed for failure

It’s a sinking ship being manned by drunken sailors

An escape artist behind the bars of a jailor

An asthmatic and they withhold the inhaler

If the shoe doesn’t fit what good is a tailor

In the midst of this crisis please cancel the gala

Without a symphony there’s no need for a prelude

To foreshadow what’s to come

See the secret committees, commence with their meetings

To make red tape in response to simple questions

Questions threaten the perception of the beneficial systems

A pyramid scheme with it’s cogs and it’s pistons

Mechanization of men, making more and more

Live in a miserable existence

How can so few, claim so many victims

And this begs the question

My rest is a weapon against the oppression

Of man’s obsession to control things

Look at the long line of make believe kings

The lord of the flies want’s you to kiss his ring

Follow new rules with invisible strings

And become a puppet in the diabolical scheme

How do good men become part of the regime

They don’t believe in resistance

This is the first verse of Josh Garrels’ song, The Resistance. I have been thinking over the lyrics of this song for some time now.

(As an update from my last post, I took last week off from classes. It was a very encouraging and restful time to think, pray, write, reflect, and talk to many wise people in order to process what is going on. It was exactly what it was meant to be. I am now back to classes and able to focus, in general, pretty well.)

The Resistance has been a favorite song of mine since it came out not too long ago. The brilliance of the writing coupled with the epic flow of the anthem caught me in it’s gaze. It’s a beautiful and terrifying sight to behold.

Of late, I have been thinking about college, money, debt, work, and purpose. This morning, I had two classes and in both, debt was the major topic of discussion. 

In Food & Population, we talked about the debt cycle, both on a national level and on a personal level. As an exercise, we all wrote down our individual, accumulated college debts on paper and then they were graphed on the board for us to see. The class in made up mostly of freshman and sophomores. Most of the marks were around $15K - $20K. Some were $0 and some were as high as $80K. We then calculated how long it would take to pay off the debt. For most people graduating from this school, it will probably take about 20 years to pay off their college debts. And while they are paying off their college debts, they will most likely be accumulating more debt on houses, cars, and credits cards. They will most likely be paying off and accumulating debt for the majority of (if not the entirety of) their lives. We live beyond our means.

Then we looked at the debt cycle of nations. We talked about how nations go into debt, either because of crisis or a military industrial mindset (I’m sure there are other reasons still). Once in debt, the nation turns to cash crops (in terms of food) to make the most profit available to pay off the debt and feed the expectation of “quality of life” made possible by debt. This destroys local economies which destroys “quality of life” made possible by a tight knit community. There is a lot more that goes into this thinking but I don’t have the time to get into it now.

The US is currently over $15 trillion in debt, that’s about $50K per citizen and $130K per taxpayer. We live beyond our means. This is not a sustainable nation. It will deconstruct if it continues on its present course.

In Community Conflict & Analysis Techniques, we talked about the conflict of college tuition. Using a conflict analysis lens, we asked the question “What has to happen for the cost of college tuition to go down?” On one side of the board we jotted down all the things working against that goal and on the other side we wrote the things that are currently working towards that.

On the negative side, we had a lot of obvious things that made sense to me, the high demand for degrees, the low value of trades in our society, the percentage of government revenue that goes towards education vs. that which goes towards the military. Banks were also mentioned briefly, alluding to debt as a bad thing. 

It was harder to find positive things but “find them” some did. Some of the things were low interest loans from banks, some plan from Obama to make loans available or easier to pay off (I don’t remember the details, just that it was about loans), and some other loan perks. It was all about loans. 

The question stated, “What has to happen for the cost of college tuition to go down?”, was never actually answered. None of the positive ideas on the board actually help make the cost of college tuition actually go down. What they do is make college accessible to those who cannot actually afford it. The cost doesn’t go down. It is still being paid for, sometimes over the course of a lifetime. It is a quick fix. It is living beyond our means.

The willingness to go into debt will never convince any powerful body to lower the cost of education. If anything, it will encourage the price to go up because we, as a society, are willing to go into more and more debt in order to pay for a degree. And we need a degree because we are an industrial market economy that thrives on reducing productive community and creating constantly consuming robots. 

We live in houses we can’t afford, drive cars we can’t afford, buy clothes we can’t afford, go out to eat when we have no money, buy, buy, buy, consume everything, all the time. We do it because somehow it makes our quality of life better and everyone else is doing it so we have to keep up with them. If everyone else is living in houses they can’t afford then if I want to be relevant to those people, I’m gonna have to do the same thing. That is not true at all but it’s how we operate. 

We take what we want when we want it because it is so easy to do and then somewhere along the line, we become slaves to it. 

What bothered me so much about the discussions in class was that everyone seemed frustrated with the system but it seemed as though everyone accepted debt as necessary to achieve their goals. We see the national debt and think it is outrageous and think the government needs to take drastic measures to cut it down but on a personal level we borrow through the roof in order to live the life we want. The government is doing the same thing as people. They are borrowing through the roof in order to run the state they want to run. 

Our whole societal system of consumption has an enormous crack through it. Its an infrastructure built on non-existent resources. We want and consume more than we need to the point of disease. We take more than we are able to give. That action can only last so long. At some point, because we didn’t give enough back, there is nothing left to take. Then what?

I don’t know.

How can this be fixed? Can it be fixed?

I don’t know.

I think, for me, staying out of debt is a way in which I am called to trust God (a lesson learned from the example of my parents). If I don’t have the resources to get something, then I don’t get that thing, however big or small that thing is.

Recently, someone explained it to me this way. If one is to go into debt, it is like having a conversation with God and saying “God, there is this thing that I really want. I think it would be good for me (maybe others would even benefit from it). I don’t have the money for it now but can I still have it?”

Then God says “Be patient and trust me. I care for you so much so you know I’ll provide for you.”

To which you reply “Ok God. I can kind of see what You’re getting at but I really want this thing and think it would be best to have it now. So, even though I don’t have the money for it, I’m gonna go ahead and take it and then You can provide for it later. Thanks!”

If one is not going to go into debt, the conversation goes like this.

“Hey God, there is this thing that I really want. I think it would be good for me (maybe others would even benefit from it). I don’t have the money for it now. Will you please provide the resources for it?”

“Be patient and trust me. I care for you so much so you know I’ll provide for you.”

“Ok God. I really think this thing would be good to have right now but I trust You because You have proved time and again that you care for me and provide for me. I’ll work hard to get the resources I need and I’ll trust that if You want me to have this thing, You’ll provide that for me. And if you don’t, that’s ok. Your plans are better than mine.”

I have talked to other people about this and realize that that made up conversation does not portray the way a lot of other people see it. Some people see going into debt as a way of trusting God. They may not like the idea of being in debt but they believe what they are going into debt for is right and that, even though it’s scary, God will provide for them in the long run. 

I don’t agree with that but neither can I say it’s wrong. I also want to say that I have no judgement for people who go into debt. Honestly, I don’t. At this point, the trusting God by not going into debt is a personal conviction. I don't necessarily think it should be applied to everyone’s thinking. Though, I would be willing to consider that possibility. 

I think the idea of debt is innately bad and build on a foundation of distrust. We think we need more than we do and we are not willing to wait for things. I think it is innately good to be patient, work hard, and trust God. 

I think trusting God is the core of resistance. They are two sides of one coin. We trust that God’s way produces life and that we do not have to conform to the way the world operates. By not conforming, we resist.

How do good men become part of the regime
They don’t believe in resistance