Je Veux
Ministerial Meandering
Je veux…
If you sat down in a French restaurant and started to order with the words, ‘Je veux…’, you would probably get a roll of Gallic eyeballs and an unconcealed sigh of disgust, before the price for your cinnamon café latte with almond milk and chocolate sprinkles trebled in price.
Such a beginning would be similar to our eldest grandson (now off to college this fall) banging the table with his knife and fork when aged about three, and yelling, “Where’s my chicken!”
Whilst the Canadian attitude to such behaviour is likely to be one of amused tolerance, the words, ‘je veux…’ - ‘I WANT…’ do not go down well when looking for sustenance (or anything else) in France.
However, I now find myself in a bit of a quandary - which is somewhat like a whale’s stomach only with less mucus - but equally difficult to get out of. Most people have a degree of self-interest. To be devoid of any would be to regard yourself of no worth at all. Nevertheless, selfishness is also perceived as an unattractive quality. How do we find the balance between being generous enough, but not so generous that we give away everything?
When I was a medical student in London (UK), we had a mission that resulted in the coming to Christ of several of us in the Medical School. One of my fellow students went overboard with the altruism; he invited a tramp (street person) into his flat (apartment), and gave him his bed, food, money, and clothes. Soon he was out on the street himself, cold and hungry - and in trouble from his landlord for ‘sub-letting’. One can take generosity too far. ‘That’, Sheila would say, ‘is why the church advises ‘tithing’, or giving a tenth of your earnings to the church.
Since I have had little or nothing to do with our finances over the almost five decades of our marriage, I cannot say for certain exactly how much we, as a couple, have given to the church and other worthy causes, but I can say for certain that it has been at least a tenth of our income. The ‘other worthy causes’ have sometimes been charities of our choice - and sometimes it has included family - n’importe.
The dilemma arises around the issue of whether you think you are worth giving to, yourself. Where is the line in the sand that defines what is reasonable to give to yourself - because you also have worth - and when you should not, because to do so would be purely greedy and utterly selfish? I think the answer to this has partly to do with what you have done with your life, and where you are on the journey.
I don’t believe that youngsters setting out on life’s road with little or no experience have acquired sufficient entitlement to be utterly selfish; they still need to know what it is to need to save, and to give where nothing is returned. That might be to a charitable collection or a loan to a friend that is never repaid. Not for nothing did Polonius advise his son Laertes, ‘…neither a borrower nor a lender be…’
At some point, perhaps quite a way along the path, you may reach a spot where it feels right to spend some of what you have earned - be it time or money, or both - on yourself, because you have earned it, and you also have worth. This should not engender guilt, though there will be many who will encourage you to feel that way - not least yourself, particularly if you are a ‘people-pleaser’. There will always be the deserving poor, but making yourself into one of them does nothing for your self-esteem, nor does it honour your creator. I am not creeping surreptitiously into the ‘Prosperity’ gospel here, but just making the point that it is OK - when you have earned it - to occasionally give yourself nice things.
Philip+