Montclair Presbyterian Church

Before we left on our whirlwind trip to France two weeks ago, Anne and I had to confront the fact that we hadn’t finished doing everything that needed to be done before we left. For example, I never got around to making a proper packing list, which was a little stressful. I tried to make it better by reminding myself that people have been living in France for thousands of years without any of my stuff, so if I forgot to pack something I’d probably be able to figure out a way to manage.  Anne never made it to the salon for a pre-trip haircut, so she told herself that she’d just have to get coiffed in France.

Anne’s hair solution came with a hitch, however. There were a lot of salons in Evian, the town where we were staying, and how does a person choose which salon is the right one when one is only passing through and doesn’t really speak that much French anyway? We spent a bit of time sizing up various salons, trying to guess which one would provide a good haircut, and trying to discern which was more like a Super Cuts operation. Personally, I would have given up and waited to get my hair cut at home. And that might have happened, except that on our last day in Evian we went to the train station to make reservations for our journey to Paris and the woman who helped us with our tickets was really nice and she had good hair.  She spoke English, so Anne asked her where to get her hair cut in Evian.

Before long, women working in various capacities in the train station got involved in the conversation. The gathered council of women arrived at a consensus opinion: Nadine over at N & C Salon on the far side of Evian, a part of town we had yet to explore.

So that’s where Anne went. She got a good haircut, but more than that she had a great time. Nadine was kind, and she brought in her English-speaking daughter to translate. Together the three women had a lovely time together, all of which was made possible because Anne was willing to connect with a train station employee as more than just a seller of tickets.

By reaching out to the ticket seller as a human being who got her hair cut, Anne created a community for herself in Evian, and it strikes me that we should be doing this everywhere we go. We should think of the random people we meet–wait staff, cashiers, people walking their dogs, fellow drivers on the road–as human beings with needs and wants similar to our own. And when we do, we will create community, and in that community will encounter Christ.

And, as a bonus, we might get a good haircut.

Peace,

Ben

Dear Friends,

I loved hearing from Rabbi Michael Lerner on Sunday. Rabbi Lerner is a person of great wisdom and insight. His words have had a profound impact on people from the streets of Berkeley to the White House, and it was a deep privilege to have him in our pulpit.

One of Rabbi Lerner’s ideas that I find particularly attractive is his suggestion that our society needs to develop and articulate what he calls a “new bottom line”. The idea for a new bottom line is this: under our culture’s current value structure the bottom line refers to financial success and/or influence and power, such that an enterprise is deemed valuable and successful when it makes money or has a broad impact. In contrast, a new bottom line would see an organization or enterprise as successful when it furthers the wellbeing of humanity and fosters the health of creation. This concept is similar to what is articulated eloquently in the late Lou Mudge’s book We Can Make the World Economy A Sustainable Global Home, which a number of us are in the process of studying.

It’s a beautiful idea, but for me there is a rub: I have an easy time dreaming of a world where the business ventures of the “one percent” are guided by compassion and environmental sensibility. It’s nice when the new bottom line applies to others and is someone else’s responsibility, but I suspect it applies to us as individuals as well. This means that if I am going to take the idea of a new bottom line seriously, then I have to start judging myself not by how much money I earn or by how much time I spend in the office, or by how much influence I have, but by the extent to which my life is making the world a better place for all God’s children and, indeed, for every living thing.

That’s a little bit harder, but I decided to give it a try this week when I had a meeting in Pleasanton on Monday afternoon. It would have been an easy enough drive–to Pleasanton before the commute hours, and then home with a reverse commute. Had I driven I would have had an extra hour or so in the office, where I would have been productive in one way or another. But living according to a new bottom line compelled me to get to my meeting using a combination of bike and BART, which was a little bit complicated. I had to pay close attention to a time-table. I had to make two transfers. I had to find a place for my bike on the train, and I had to trust that the church office would survive without me.

My journey was not entirely unproductive in the traditional sense–I wrote this Contact piece on the BART, for example, and I provided pastoral care to a Salvadorian immigrant who had been physically assaulted by her boss–but mostly, living by a new bottom line meant I had to readjust my expectations of what should be accomplished in a day of working, and that wasn’t easy. In fact, I found myself feeling kind of sorry for big corporations. If it’s hard for me to adjust my life to embrace a new bottom line, how much harder must it be for a corporation like Monsanto, or Halliburton, or DuPont? Yet they must change. The survival of the planet and the wellbeing of humanity depend upon it. And I must change as well.

The takeaway for me is this: living according to a new bottom line, valuing that which heals the earth and nurtures the human family is not just something for the big cats. Each of us must change our value systems. Each of us must reorganize our priorities. In the end humanity isn’t decided between the one percent and the lower 99. All of us are in this together and each of us must do our part to embrace the new bottom line.

Peace!

Ben