Living a globally meaningful life

So today I read an article from the urbana.org site (they send me weekly emails with cool christianity-based articles ... perhaps you've noticed a posting trend -- whereby I tend to post not too long after I read one of their articles. I have also quoted them at least twice). The article gave a lenthy discussion - complete with lots of probing rhetorical questions - about what it means to live a globally meaningful life. I won't steal their thunder by summarizing the article here, but suffice to say, I am thinking about some of the issues they raised. Specifically about three themes: stewardship, sacrifice, and solidarity. (And let's throw in submission for good measure).

Turns out that while I thought I lived my life in a rather frugal way, and that I try to understand things with a global perspective, I generally miss the point. Like when 1 John 3:17 calls for the rich to help "brothers in need", I think my weekly smiles to the local barbadians are sufficient. Or that my (meager) online donation to Katrina or tsunami victims is quite sufficient to justify dropping several grand this year on world travels. Or that my monthly donations to other christian "workers" - who I assume are helping the needy in some way or another - meets John's standard.

The article affirms that "deeds" such these are indeed good, but it asks me to think deeper, to ponder what radical stewardship/sacrifice/solidarity might look like in my life. I confess to owning more material possessions within a 10-foot radius than 1 billion people in the world will probably ever own, cumulatively, during their lifetime. I am reminded of a conversation I had back on 30 Nov with a Trinidadian about "global wealth balance". After 90 mins of healthy geopolitical economic discussion, we were no closer to identifying any problems than when we began. However, we did agree that wealth is not balanced globally.

I think Jesus understands wealth imbalance - and gives us some strategies to cope. Namely, by commanding us to forsake earthly material possession: "if anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me". For me, and I suspect almost all western Christians, denying myself is inherenly connected with material possession. I love Paul's exhortation in 1 Timothy 6: "Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, be rich in good deeds, & to be generous and willing to share."

So this week I am pondering what it means to live a "globally meaningful life". I find myself much more encouraged than discouraged -- heck, how cool is it to even ponder such a question?! If this question is answerable, something tells me it will come over a process, probably trial and error. Let me know if you have any insights!

the article is linked here.