In recent weeks some thoughts have floated through my mind. In the United States there is a federal minimum starting wage. Each of the fifty states that make up the union also have wage laws, some of which set the minimum starting wage higher. Some local governments do as well. However, these wages are often far from livable, especially for families. Often those who pay their employees these wages also do not provide them will full time hours and want open availability, thus making it harder for an individual to have enough to get by, even if full time at the minimum rate would be enough to live on. There have been various proposals out there for increasing wages to be more livable, but rarely do they address the whole problem. Typically they focus on the wage per hour but not the hour per week. They say $x per hour is a livable wage in a location, but forget to mention that is if they are getting 40 hours a week… when many work part time (less than 30-32 a week), or work full time but not 40 as many companies don’t want to risk over time so even full time might be 32, 34, 36 and even at that $x rate that may not be enough to provide the necessities.

We have some states with increases built into their minimum, but still not livable, wage systems. These are great in they at least help keep the minimum wage workers at the same level as they were and not lower. However, this also exposes a problem. It exposes how people being paid at higher hourly rates, often do not see their income increase at proportional rates. So the gap between their starting rate and the minimum starting rate shrinks… brining awareness (if we choose to open our eyes and see) that those living on enough or less than enough to get buy is increasing. It exposes the reality of the shrinking “middle” and the growing “poor.”

We hear cooperation’s, politicians and others speak against proposals to tax corporations and wealthy at rates they were once taxed. We hear people call to cut the safety nets that keep people from starving. We hear arguments from them saying that to restore their taxes would lead to a loss of jobs. The reality is jobs are being lost regardless if we tax them or not. The reality is many companies are paying their top executives more, while reducing their lower paid employees, either number wise or hour wise as much as they can to increase their profits. They seek to keep as many in the part time roles to limit benefit expenses… The reality is that if the safety net programs are cut, people will have less funds to pay for food and other necessities which will make a direct impact on retail sales, which in turn will lead to retail establishments reducing the hours per employee and/or the total number of employees as their income shrinks, which will lead to even loss of sales, as there will be even more people with less to spend. The reality is, a reduction in those corporations taxes will not create more hours, higher wages for the low paid common worker, or more job openings. Instead the money saved on taxes will go to the executives and the shareholders.

The reality is that while in some states with high minimum wages and more safety net programs, even when their unemployment rate is higher they often have fewer people that are food insecure than in states with lower unemployment and lower wage rates and fewer safety net programs. So looking to the states with low unemployment for ways to reduce unemployment is probably not the solution. For what good is low unemployment if people even with a job still can not put food on their plate, a roof over their head, go to the doctor, and put clothes on their backs?

Beefing up our safety nets is needed. But it in and of itself is not enough. Taxing the corporations and those with great wealth in ways to help justly distribute the burdens of a nation and a globe is not enough. they are part of the equation, but only part of it. Raising minimum wages to so-called livable wages is a start, but unless we move from an hourly model to a weekly/monthly/yearly model reflective of the gospel story of the workers who got paid the same regardless of how long they worked, we will have a problem. For people will get paid that living hourly rate, but not given the hours to make it livable.

In pondering ways to try and reign in the ever growing gap between the poor and wealthy, I wonder if however our attempts to set “minimum wages” is the wrong approach. Perhaps we need to set “maximum ratios” instead, or along side. That is set in place a system where we say: The highest paid person in a company’s total compensation can not be more than z times the total compensation of the lowest. For example using the numbers of one company that I work for. My total hourly compensation (wage+401k match+employer side of insurance premiums+ employer social security tax+ my savings by using my employee discount+vacation accrual…)  times 40 hours a week (more than I work a week) times 52 weeks equal several hundredths that of the President/CEO of the company. Even if we were to double that total so it was 80 hours a week the President/CEO would still be making several hundred times more than I per year. And there are many people working in this company for less than I do per hour and with fewer benefits than I.

People argue that these salaries are needed to keep people, and recruit people. However the US tends to have one of the highest ratios in the industrialized world, and the ratio has increased dramatically over the past few decades. Perhaps if we were to cap these ratios,  it would lead to better income equality and fewer hungry people. If a company wanted to pay its top person more to incite him/her to stay or to attract a new head they would also have to increase the wages of their lowest paid employees… What would happen if the ratio went from highest to lowest went from 500:1 down to 50:1, or 10:1 or 5:1? Even in a company that has thousands of employees, it might not lead to drastic changes in the low end, in terms of new jobs or hours, or wage increases, but it may lead to just enough of an increase to make sure they can pay rent, and not have skip a meal every now and again. It may be just enough for them to not need to utilize the safety net programs. It may be just enough to help people have a restored sense of dignity, and perhaps help the people at the top have better awareness of the struggles, realities, and needs of those that labor hard underneath their “leadership” and management.

Is there also a way we could create an income pool that would help larger families out? That is a way so companies still could budget $x per job position but where a single person making way more than they need could give a portion of their income into that pool, and a family of say 4 with the wage worker(s) of the family not receiving an income sufficient for them all could draw from to meet needed expenses… (I’m thinking in part of organizations that have tried to pay people by their need rather than “rank” but struggled as they grew in trying to budget and mange such a system and so had to revaluate their pay system… thus recreating in  a way such a system, but in a more budget friendly manner, and their are companies/organizations out there that have systems like this for sick time & personal leave where people can give their unneeded paid sick leave to those who are experiencing a need that leads to them having to be away from work a long time which could work as a model of how such an income pool could work.)

Just some of the many random thoughts in my mind of ways to try and help transform our current system into something just a bit more just and equitable. (if we could get to the days of all things in common, and making sure all were fed and cared for, as the saints of old did, or at least tried to do, I’m up for that as well…)

What are some of your thoughts and ideas?

Peace,

In April of 2001 a new dog would join the Family, a beautiful little dachshund. My eldest niece, at the time my only one, at just age 4 help my parents pick her out, and chose her first name, Mocha. The pup was also named after my Grandmother who had passed a few years prior providing her with a wonderful string of three names. I first met Mocha when she just a pup. My parents, nieces and her traveled from Oregon to Iowa where I was attending University. The picked me up and took me to Illinois where I was to spend the summer for an internship. That tiny little pup and I bonded right away, and no matter how long we were apart, she would always react with great joy and excitement whenever I returned home.

Over the past 10 years she and I have had many adventures, gone on many walks, played, cuddled, gone camping together. She watched out for the family as well, she knew her cats, her dogs (over the last year or two my sisters family grew to include two dogs, the newest just in the last few months). She was a wonderful companion for us all… In the past couple of years she started having some weight issues, and in the past few days it became clear she was reach the end of her life, though we thought she still had a bit more… Wednesday was hard, but Thursday she seemed to be doing better, moving around more, able to get outside on her own… then yesterday she moved on her own a bit, but was slowing more.  When my mom came home after work and grocery shopping, she found Mocha laying there looking up at her, and she picked her up to carry her out to the back yard, and as she reached the end of the deck, Mocha lifted her head, perked her ears up, sniffed, and passed away within her arms… no longer the struggle with breathing, and he tiredness of the pass few days, she now left to rest eternally.

It’s hard on all of us when we loose a loved one. My thoughts and prayers are especially with my eldest niece, she seemed to take it very hard last night, (My sister and her kids were on their way up at the time of Mocha’s passing, had made sure to bring Mocha’s toy that had been left in their car a few weeks ago when My sister, mom, and eldest niece had gone to the coast together with Mocha for my niece’s birthday).

A year a half ago my cat of 21 and a half years passed away, and now my pup of ten and a half has… it’s a bit of a sad time right now, but also a joyous one, for I can ponder and reflect on many wonderful memories, can be happy in knowing Mocha passed in the arms of a loved one, and not alone. I hope appearances of not being in pain are true as well, and thus rejoice that she was not in pain, just tired and worn out.  But I am a bit lonely now without my snoring puppy to cuddle up to, play with, and go on walks with… nor the cat that took care of me since I was just a little boy watching her be born 23 years ago.

Peace be with you all

How have I and my ministry changed in that time? What lies in store for the future? What is holding me back? Why does the office I am ordained to, and the ministry I am called to provided not match, and when will they match again?

And many memories come to mind as well… Thoughts of an evolving me…

1996 or there about I started to have a sense I was called to ordained ministry. Most if not all the ministers I knew were late 30s to 90s+, so I of course put it off as a distant thing… In the summer of 1997 I believe is when I first remember hearing someone refer to me in a way related to an ordained ministerial office. It was the District President, or perhaps it was the year before he became the DP, at the NW Oregon District Reunion (Family Camp) at Lewis River Camp Ground. He had asked to me do various things that week, from being a liaison to my fellow youth, overseeing some things regarding to worship services for the week, and more and referred to me as being  a deacon… I didn’t think much of it at the time, I’m not sure I even knew what a deacon was at the time…

November 1999, I was sitting in the back row of Salem Community of Christ on the left hand side of the sanctuary. Right before the service started the Pastor walked up to me and said he needed to talk to me after the service. Shortly after the service started I had this sense, and heard words not my own, and knew I was called to the office of Deacon… I knew what the office was, or at least a bit about it now… After the service ended, I entered the pastor’s study and met the Pastor and his two counselors, my parents were invited in as well, and I was presented with the call to the office of deacon…

11 years and a day ago, after three testimonials were shared by people important in my life journey, and an ordination charge was given by the pastor, those two men mentioned previously, placed their hands upon my head and I was ordained to the office of Deacon. Just days after my cousin had taken his life, and two days after I learned of it at the conclusion of Junior Camp, which had led me to an outdoor chapel at the campgrounds and a spiritual experience that led the the early stages and understandings of my universalist salvation theology… Just days before I flew away to Youth Sports Arts and Leadership Spectacular, where I would participate in my first priesthood meeting, led by then Apostle Ken McLaughlin. A month later I would be at Graceland University starting undergrad, 3 months later becoming Chaplain for Agape House, and a year later head deacon at Graceland and a mentor to 12-18 fellow deacons…

While at GU I found myself at times struggling with my office, and feeling I was not providing the ministry I was suppose to, in part due to the distractions in my life… Yet I was reaffirmed at times by others who expressed the ministry they saw in me and that I provided in that office of Deacon. I found myself heading off to seminary after graduating GU in ‘03. I think a part of me knew then I was transitioning out of the office of deacon. I know that in late ‘04 early ‘05 when I gathered with leaders of a congregation in Seattle for a day retreat/meeting regarding the congregation and its future, that I was called to another office, and I was afraid. In fact early in ‘04 I had made a chart of the two congregations I had been attending and choose to have my membership in the one I felt least likely to process the call, and then switched to the other when I moved to Seattle, rather than moving it to Seattle in part to keep the call at bay. That is why in part I quickly rejected the thought of that office when it was mentioned at one point in that meeting… (that and thoughts of World Conference and how some had described the meeting of people of the office there that was mentioned at this time). In the months to follow I would have a clearer  understanding of my calling, and also a cloudier one as well. I would have conversations with several people, including my own father, in which seemingly out of the blue mentions of other callings were brought up.

I kept running and hiding, I kept having people bring up in conversation, and kept feeling a sense to other office. Finally, in the fall of ‘07 I placed my membership in the same congregation where I was attending, as I shared in conversations bi-weekly if not more often with the Mission Center President, several times reflecting on my sense of calling… but even then pushing back a bit, an then as things shifted a lot in leadership at the time, and as I encounter some health difficulties, allowed the conversations to falter and flutter away… I had clear realization of the calling, and also the impact on my ministry by my adherents to restrict  myself to the one I was ordained to and not the one I was called to as I ministered in various capacities in hospitals and at school. I found myself understanding the need to bend and if necessary break rules in order to provided needed ministry. I also found myself turning down one offer of ecumenical ministry, that I wish I had not due to the office restriction… If it was today, I would have said yes…I revived the conversations I was having just a month or so before I made the decision to return to the Pacific NW… but with people now no longer in the administrative line… and before the went far I was on the other side of the country.

Fall ‘11 I was at the young adult vision retreat at Tuality Community of Christ. I felt a strong conviction about my calling, and a need to share with those in leadership… and so wrote a letter sharing my thoughts and experiences… it was shared with the pastorate, all of who have talked with me, in positive ways about my calling, about waiting etc… Sadly in Community of Christ, our system is such I know not where this goes… what I do know is while I was ordained a deacon 11 years and a day ago, and have yet to be ordained to another office, when I preside over the service in that congregation in an hour and 50 minutes from now, I do so with awareness and understanding of another office is who I am now, and so while I will preside officially as a deacon since that is what the cards in my wallet say, unofficially something else more reflected of my current gifts, talents, and calling….

Peace,

No, the above is not what happened right at the end of the last post, for between then and this I went into another building, met more people and sat through an orientation session, which covered things I already knew by having been involved with Bread, and a little bit of new about the national gathering. But the above sets the stage for several of the experiences of Saturday and Sunday, well except for the food, typically just water, tea, coffee… was there not the cheese and fruit…

In this room with tables draped with many colours, centerpieces with beans upon them, I found myself one of many. I found myself in a few ways transported to the wonderful experiences of my seminary past. For I sat in community at the table, with people of faith, engaging, growing, learning in it. The preacher for our opening worship was Rev.  Dr. Frank Thomas. When I heard his name my mind went “why do I know him” and then I realized, he was the author of one of my seminary texts for one of the homiletics courses I took. They Like to Never Quit Praisin’ God: The Role of Celebration in Preaching still resides within my collection of books. The scripture text for his sermon was Matthew 6:11 “Give us this day our daily bread.” As he proclaimed the good news, as he expounded upon this text, he and the Spirit with him brought forth passion and inspiration, new insight and awareness, along with old.  As he explored the manna, talked of Moses and the people, about today and the needs of this world.  As he talked about the sharing with all and the non hording of food. Talk of the need to ask of the holy, not expect, not demand… many were moved.  As he preached and proclaimed the good news, as he challenged us, as he spoke of being prophetic as speaking truth to those in power AND truth to those denied power. He spoke of how it is US not me, not you not some of us, but all of us… (I wish I wrote this early and thus express more clearly his words than now several weeks out I can). It was a wonderful and powerful experience, as as Rev. Thomas spoke and I quoted him in a tweet saying “Capitalism deserves to be critiqued… [it] will never end poverty” I learned my friend from seminary had arrived as was present in the arena for she tweeted at about the same time: "capitalism will never end poverty" and that the faith community must humanize capitalism.

That’s all for an in-depth reflection I shall give of the services and sessions of Saturday, we had another one where the David Beckman, president of Bread for the World spoke, and also we spent time in regional groups (the reason for the coloured tables). Good things were said, I learned things, but I was also starting to wear down a bit after being up so long with so little sleep… It was after the Opening Worship as I was leaving the area to head out to dinner in another building I encountered my friend in seminary, we shared in conversation, meal often in the next few days… It was good to have a companion at the event that saw with eyes opened from a view similar yet different than my own, to digest and process all that streamed into my head that weekend.

At the close of the final plenary we went to “The tavern” for social time, an odd name for a place on a dry campus, and then with a few young college students we took a risky drive on a golf cart and walked around a Methodist seminary next to the Methodist University we were at. A Lutheran and a Community of Christ person, who had gone to a different Methodist Seminary now here one another one (which I think was not as nice of a campus, and much smaller than the one we had gone to). Then finally after all the explorations, I would find my self back at the dorm, my room, and to my surprise my roommate still not present… he never did show… and sleep finally arrived over 34 hours since I had awaken the morning before…

Till next time…

(sorry for the delay in these, I had meant to reflect on the whole gathering the week I had returned, but life sometimes makes one busy…)

Peace,