dreams

People of the altar in a ladder world

The art and iconography around the dream is remarkable and captivating. In case you are not up to date on all things in the book of Genesis, Jacob has a dream of angels going up and down on a ladder that connects the heavens and earth. This scene, sometimes discussed as “Jacob’s ladder” is one of those stories where we one detail catches our eye and we focus in on it. For instance, there is the question that if angels were climbing this ladder, then why wouldn’t they just use their wings and fly?

There is a Midrash story that uses the ladder to talk about what it means to be a “good Jew”. A student asks a teacher what it takes to be a good Jew and the teacher says to look at Jacob’s ladder. The teacher says the ladder has 613 rungs, one rung for each of the commandments in the Torah. Some would say that a good Jew is the one who is standing on rung #613 and a bad Jew is standing on rung #1. This is incorrect, says the teacher. It is not the location but the direction one is climbing that indicates if you are a good Jew or not.

Perhaps we are fascinated with the ladder because we live in a ladder world. We are focused on succeeding and climbing the ladder of success that we spend our time figuring out how to not get stepped on while we climb.

Notice, however, that in the dream once Jacob sees God, there is no longer any attention given to the ladder. In fact, while Jacob is looking at the ladder, God is standing right next to him. While Jacob is trying to unlock the secrets of the ladder, God is standing right next to him! Let those with ears hear…

When Jacob wakes up, notice what he does – he builds and altar and pours oil on it. The altar is the symbol that calls attention to the reality that God is here all along and we had not known. In this moment, Jacob gave up on the ladder and became an altar person.

When we are in ministry with the world, we might be wise to take stock in ways that we are ladder people: constantly moving, trying to save everyone we can, and figuring out how to move up or down the ladder. Rather than the ministry of the ladder, we might be called to be of the ministry of the altar: pointing out where God is, giving witness to what God is already doing and get in on what God is doing. 

Trivia Crack the American Dream and the Gospel

Trivia Crack is a game that is like words with friends but with trivia questions. You answer questions to get "crowns" and the first to get six crowns is the winner of the game. The game gives you a sense that the smartest ones among us will win and that, theoretically, if you study you will win the games you play. This game is, in many ways, the American Dream in game-form. Those who work harder than others will win and those who lose are less deserving of the top prizes. Underlying the game, and the Dream, is that there is mobility that can be achieved. 

What is less obvious is the inherent advantages some people have in both Trivia Crack and the American Dream that make it easier to "win". In the game, you can use coins to increase the odds you can answer the question correctly and thus gain crowns faster. The way to get coins is by winning games (or by using real money to purchase them!). You see the feedback look that is created. Those with coins tip the game in their favor to win and those who win get coins to tip future games in their favor to win more coins, ad nauseum.

This should sound similar to those who see the feedback loop that America has. Those who are successful get advantages, but in order to get those advantages you have to be successful. For instance, a college education can boost lifetime income by a lot. But to get a college education these days also costs a lot, outpacing all other sectors. Additionally, the average college graduate has about $30,000 of debt which, by the most estimates takes 15-20 years to pay off. That is 15-20 years of potential savings growth that is lost. Those born into money, who can graduate debt free, have a massive advantage in wealth accumulation over time to their peers. And the gap between rich and poor widens exponentially faster with each generation.

We are surrounded by images, stories, and even games that feed into the notion that we live in a meritocracy and that social mobility possible and that we are all playing by the same fair rules. The Gospel of Christ confronts this narrative in a way that say it is all an illusion. In fact, in the Kingdom of God the first will be last and the last will be first (Mark 10:28-31). Those who have little will be given more and those with enough will be given less (Luke 6:24–26) . Those who worked all day will get the same pay as those who worked an hour (Matthew 20:1-15).

 

Stuff you should know and why - pt. 4

And if you do not take the eighteen minutes to listen to Pallotta at least hear these three quotes:

We have a visceral reaction to the idea that anyone would make very much money helping other people.Interesting that we don't have a visceral reaction to the notion that people would make a lot of money not helping other people.You know, you want to make 50 million dollars selling violent video games to kids, go for it. We'll put you on the cover of Wired magazine. But you want to make half a million dollars trying to cure kids of malaria,and you're considered a parasite yourself.

Connected to this quote above, there is a great little bit Pallotta has about rich people getting the title "philanthropist" when they give $100,000. It might be worth noting that the title "philanthropist" is not given to the directors, leaders or paid staff of a non-profit. 

Now a little bit on the curse of "overhead":

So we've all been taught that charities should spend as little as possible on overhead things like fundraising under the theory that, well, the less money you spend on fundraising,the more money there is available for the cause.Well, that's true if it's a depressing world in which this pie cannot be made any bigger. But if it's a logical world in which investment in fundraising actually raises more funds and makes the pie bigger,then we have it precisely backwards, and we should be investing more money, not less,in fundraising, because fundraising is the one thing that has the potential to multiply the amount of money available for the cause that we care about so deeply.

And finally, 

So the next time you're looking at a charity, don't ask about the rate of their overhead. Ask about the scale of their dreams,their Apple-, Google-, Amazon-scale dreams, how they measure their progress toward those dreams,and what resources they need to make them come true regardless of what the overhead is. Who cares what the overhead is if these problems are actually getting solved? 

The final quote is a reason why I connect to the global church known as the United Methodist Church which has four "Amazon-scale" dreams.