From Ownership to Stewardship

This morning is my last day at Conception Abbey, a monastery in Northwest Missouri. I arrived here two days ago for the purpose of devoting serious time to writing and reading about universal philanthropy. I am sitting on an uncomfortable chair at a built-in Formica-covered desk in a small room with ugly orange carpet, pecking away on a Compaq Armada laptop purchased by my employer in 1998. I don’t own any of this stuff. It is under my direction for the time being, until it is time for me to leave.

Instructions on the back of the door to my room politely ask me to strip the bed, take the used linens to the laundry room and remake the bed for the next guest with clean linens provided. What a great metaphor for life! Clean up after myself and leave the world at least as nice as I entered it.

The monks of Conception Abbey live a communal lifestyle. All property is shared and cared for by everyone. An attitude like that is difficult to cultivate in a free market society. But even in a free market, do I really have ownership? What happens to my house, my car and my guitars if I die on the way home this afternoon? Although they will be passed on to my wife and children, what control do I have? And what happens to the inheritance after my heirs are gone? If terrorists invade America, what do they care about my declaration of ownership?

Yes, I earned the money to buy my house and my car and my guitars. I earned the position of vice president for the nonprofit that employs me. I earned the MBA that helped me secure this position. I earned the job before this one, and the job before that, and so on and so forth, yada, yada, yada. My college education was a gift from my parents (subsidized by taxes paid to the state of Iowa), and my pre-college education was conferred upon me by the city of Cedar Falls in the state of Iowa. I could argue that everything I have received from the moment of my birth is rightfully mine to do with as I please, within the boundaries of the law.

But what about that moment of birth? Did I earn that, too? What cosmic set of circumstances placed me in the middle of the middle class in the most prosperous period of the most prosperous country the world has ever known? How did I luck into a family where the mom and dad stayed married to each other and felt compelled to provide a college education for my sisters and me?

Why was I not born to abusive parents, or a single mom on welfare, or an HIV-positive African mother who died within days of my birth? Why was I not born a slave on a southern plantation in 1858?

When it comes to time and place of birth, I didn’t earn my position. I won the freaking lottery. If you are reading this, chances are better than 50/50 that you did too. We are only here for a little while. In the blink of time that we occupy our little space on earth, we have a choice to make:

• To take as much as we can and get as much physical, mental and emotional gratification as possible before we die with no gratitude for who came before us and no regard for who comes afterward; or

• To use resources responsibly and try to leave the world a little better for the generations that follow.

If we as a nation hope to assist the poverty stricken at home and abroad, we need to shift our attitude from one of ownership to one of stewardship. This applies to natural resources, the environment, education systems, civic government and international relations. We have the resources to end extreme poverty, to insure that all people have access to pure water, food, decent shelter and adequate health care.

No matter how hard you and I have worked to earn the luxuries we enjoy, we flat out lucked into the time and place we were born. Whether you believe that came about through a higher power or cosmic chance, out of gratitude for our position you and I ought to be looking for ways we can leave the world at least as nice as we found it. As for me and my household, we want to leave it a better place for our grandchildren.

I am not advocating that we sell all we own and join the monks at Conception Abbey or some similar communal existence. I personally believe the universe came about as a result of Intelligent Design. If God placed me here in this culture at this time, doesn’t it make sense that God also intended for me to enjoy the blessings? But here is the point: there is a huge middle ground between extreme poverty and ridiculous wealth.

Life isn’t meant to be one or the other, all or nothing. I can enjoy the blessings and provide for the less fortunate at the same time. According to numerous studies and contrary to popular belief, giving out of my bounty actually boosts my feelings of happiness. Hoarding my wealth and playing the miser contribute to feelings of depression.

The United States Bill of Rights does not guarantee happiness for anyone. It states that we all have the right to pursue happiness. Happiness is not achieved by grabbing all I can with all the gusto I can muster. That fundamental right is best exercised by insuring that I leave the world a little better than I entered it.

The Irish playwrite and political activist, George Bernard Shaw, once declared that he wished to be completely used up by the end of his life. “My life,” he wrote, “belongs to the whole community.” The GI generation gave their lives in order to spread freedom and defeat tyranny, to liberate the oppressed. We too are called to devote our lives to a greater purpose. Our lives are not our own; they belong to the community.

King Solomon was said to be the richest and wisest man that ever lived. “I again saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift, and the battle is not to the warriors, and neither is bread to the wise, nor wealth to the discerning, nor favor to men of ability;” he wrote in Ecclesiastes 9:11, “for time and chance overtake them all.”

We all come by our possessions and positions in life by chance. What we do and how we live is a choice.

May we all choose wisely.

Copyright © 2007 Richard M. Potter. All Rights Reserved.