Tonight on FaceBook, my hero and modern day prophet Shane Claiborne* posted a photo of Ghandi and wrote:
“Gandhi was asked why he rode 3rd class when traveling by train.
His response: “Because there is no 4th class.”
Live in ways that don’t compute
Entitlement is bad for the soul.”
I love it.
Every now and then, I try to remember why Angela and I live the way we do. We live in a ghetto house, in a ghetto neighborhood, in a near-ghetto town, in what most Canadians consider THE ghetto Province.
I know our past lives as inner-city missionary-types is hard to shed. We broke bread daily with the least of these. So we became the least. I think.
In the Summer of 2010, after we settled in Fort Qu’Appelle, my sister-in-law asked me why we moved to the Fort, as opposed to Saskatoon, where the rest of my in-laws live. Like us, she had just immigrated to Canada as well, but from Europe. I fumbled some poorly thought out answer about wanting to live with the poor people**. She just glared at me with a confused look before changing the subject.
Yup. That’s pretty much what people do when they see where we live. Or learn we’re not running the rat race. Or not “upgrading” to a “forever” home. Or chasing after that bogus finish-line called “retirement”. We’re not in that race.
I don’t have all of the answers.
And I don’t know anything.
Maybe that doesn’t compute.
*I met him once…in 2014, Regina, Sask at a mini afternoon gathering of area church ministers. (they met at the Glen Elm Church of Christ where my wife’s cousin operates a world mission apparatus that helps people learn to read English called “Let’s Start Talking”). It was funny. My read on the room was: no one there really “got” Shane. He truly lives in ways that do not compute. I couldn’t find my selfie with Shane for this post…
** That, and we wanted distance from these in-laws. Ha.
*** The photo I took is of an abandon farm house near Fort Qu’Appelle. My friend Pete says his 83-year old father lived in this house up until he was 4.
One of my favourite Treaty 4, Saskatchewan academics, Margaret Kovach, talks about "transgressive pedagogy". I think you, Jesus and Ghandi get it!