Free Loaders

Yesterday, while I was at Aurora Commons, one of the staff there introduced me to Dianne, a mother who needed assistance. Dianne and her eldest daughter both work at Taco Bell. Two people, working at Taco Bell, cannot earn enough money to pay rent, buy food and clothes, and otherwise fund the American dream for a family of five. Could Green Lake Church help?

I said we could help with a couple of nights stay at a neighborhood motel, but we were unable to help with the real need which was permanent, affordable housing. So we did what we could. We paid for a couple of nights off the street.

Dianne is a typical free loader. Instead of working as a nurse or doctor and earning a decent income, she chooses to work at Taco Bell which pays peanuts. Instead of staying thoroughly single, she chose to encumber herself with four children. (Of course, she had these kids all by herself through the miracle of the virgin birth,)

I, on the other hand, am the perfect example of someone who has earned everything I enjoy, like the view from my office window, pictured above. I've worked hard for 35 years as a minister and my reward is a very nice job at a very nice church in a very nice neighborhood.

I began my hard work with the selection of my parents. I carefully picked a dad and mom who could give me maximum advantages of DNA and culture--intelligence and physical vigor and math and language aptitude, early and intense exposure to a huge vocabulary and books, easy access to graduate education, a model of disciplined pursuit of goals and high moral standards. If I had not so smart in picking my parents who knows where I would have ended up. But since I was that smart and careful, I figure I've earned all the benefits that come from having smart, moral, wealthy parents.

It is also speaks highly of my capacity to manage my life that I chose to be born into a denomination that reinforced my family of origin values of education, curiosity and suspicion of authority.

It was, of course, my perspicacity that brought into my life a woman who has been a superlative minister's wife, admirable mother, and perfect role model of compassion. I get full credit for all the benefits she brings into my life.

Then there is the neighborhood I constructed around the Green Lake Church. I dug that lake you see in the background in the picture. I built the houses and created the wealth that suffuses the surrounding neighborhood with the easy charm of old houses, mature landscaping and streets strewn with fallen petals. I planted the flowering trees you see in the picture above and have pruned them every year for the last 40 years. (Just in case someone misses the joke, I've been in Seattle for 2 years.) Then, to top it all off, I created the big light in the sky to properly light my creation.

So when I look out my office window or walk around the Green Lake neighborhood, I congratulate myself on the Great Babylon I have built. I thank God I am not like Dianne and those other freeloaders who need the help of the church or the government.



[Not everyone who reads my blog knows me personally. And for some, English is a second or third language. So, just in case it is not obvious: This entire post is satire. The actually meaning is the opposite of the apparent meaning. My entire life is a gift from God and from other people.]