A Song That Speaks to My Heart

Dear Jack,

Ever since high school when I pretended I was something, or possibly someone, that I wasn’t, I’ve always had an infatuation with hip hop music – from Kanye West, to Jay Z, from Cross Movement to Mars ILL.  The latter two aren’t near as well known, probably because they’re considered Christian artists, and Christian rap music leaves a lot to be desired most of the time.  However, both Cross Movement and Mars ILL have some truly profound lyrics, and have an almost prophetic tone missing in other contemporary Christian music.

One of these songs is “The Calm Before” by Mars ILL.  I’m going to just post the lyrics below, emphasizing some of the lines that stuck with me noteably, but leaving the rest for you to dwell on.  If we take the words seriously, it should seriously challenge us to what we believe as Christians – and how we act.

Mars ILL – “The Calm Before”

[Verse #1]
I left my footprints on the ocean’s waves before the storm came
But form changed to man overboard sinking self-aware
Thinking no one’s there to catch me when I fall to the sandy floor beneath the coral reef
I pray the Lord my soul to keep – he holds the deep in his palm
And simultaneously, he gives his hand to me
The salty sea that made my eyes to weep is now beneath my feet
With concrete stability, steps I take to moves made critically
Peripheral at a standstill as Divinity makes his presence felt physically
It’s miraculous but true. It’s all for you
But the fact is that modern man is scared to death and torn in two
Because the truth draws him higher, undercurrent holds him down
Afraid he’ll drown, he forgets those pieces of peace he might have found
Well at least he struggles – ’cause to stroll too easily through those puddles
Lulls you to sleepy dreamscapes where your sensibilities are muddled
And I know that if he seeks God, he’ll recognize him when he sees Him
And he’ll realize whose hands he needs to be in..

[Verse #2]
When disaster strikes the field, the likes of them head for the hills
To regroup their bearings on their enemy ’til they’re ready, dressed to kill
“It’s better to feel safe than live in fear.” I ask ‘em, “Why is that?”
They responded, “We need stability in this comfortable habitat.”
“So send the lower middle-class to the front lines, their death will protect us.”
“We’ll talk loud and hide behind our penthouses and brand new Lexus.”
“It affects us to a point. Didn’t you see the stock market crash?”
“We couldn’t sacrifice our buying power. Tell me, how smart is that?”
I said, I saw the blast, heard the crash of lives shattered to pieces
Saw a street preacher yelling loud and holding a sign about Jesus
I agreed and kept walking because I’m not quite sure what to do
I tried to front and talk a lot of patriotism, same as you
But the ideas ain’t really new, see genocide, it happens globally
We just get shook up when it happens locally
So, love one another and be wise. Don’t foster malice
In the name of revenge for Country until your soul turns callous, soul turns callous..

[Verse #3]
Before the world premiere of dawn light switched on and day broke through
Before the sky was blue, before any big-bang or primordial ooze
Before man stepped on the scene in his prowess unprepared for the challenge
Before the planets were set in place to hold the galaxies in the balance
Before time, before reason, rhyme, love, hate and emotion
Before the seasons, before the first word was spoken or heart was broken
Before defiance turned to evil revolt and all Hell broke loose
Before any creature would even dare to contradict his point of view
He was there, God, triune, omnipotent, controlling existence
Before people claimed to serve the Crucified was a slave religion
Before the fall of Adam imprisoned descendants with original scars
Before you were born of your mother to try to figure out just who you are
Before war and confusion, before reality, before illusion
Before the beginning, Elohim had mapped out all the conclusions
Before the restitution to come that Revelation promises all of us
Not Nostradamus’ blind predictions through delusional blurred vision
The calm came before the storm with power to kill
The calm is present now and it lives within me still
The calm is present now and it lives within me still
The Calm is present now and he lives within me still..

[Lyrics courtesy of Lyricstime.com]

My parting and intentionally non-conclusive thought is this: some things in life are overvalued.  Some things in life are undervalued.  It’s our duty to figure out which are which.  Till next time, Jack.

Sincerely,
J.

An Average Lancaster Family Needs $55,000 to Survive?

Dear Jack,

This article was written in the Lancaster Newspapers by Tom Murse this past week.  It is based on a study by the University of Washington’s School of Social Work, which measures how much money families need across Pennsylvania to meet their basic needs.  (Emphasis, obviously, added).  According to the report, a family in Lancaster County needs to earn $54,821 just to make ends meet.  While I’m not going to flat out dismiss their studies, this number needs some further explanation.  Or maybe more accurately, the idea of survival needs some further explanation.

First off, I believe that a slight conflict of interest should be disclaimed, namely, that a school of social work has a vested interest in a report that shows that poverty levels should be raised (whether or not they should raised is another issue, even if I am in agreement that they should be).

Regardless of any conflict of interest, however, these numbers still seem high.  Numerous times in the article, the clarifying terminology includes “to survive,” “to meet basic needs,” “to get by”, “can’t survive,” “meet costs of basic necessities,” and to “make ends meet.”  These are pretty bottom line expressions.  And it calls into question, what does it mean to “survive”?

For me, I think of my own financial situation.  A wife and one-year old at home, with me being the sole income earner in a profession that has an extremely sloped earning curve, with that curve not necessarily being lucrative in the beginning.  We earn significantly less than the $55,000 in question, and, at the risk of sacrificing more eternal rewards, we give a significant portion of our income away.  And we’re surviving.  I would even argue that we live a pretty good life.  Sure, we live in a house that we’ll eventually outgrow (maybe), and we don’t take those flashy vacations three times a year, we drive cars that are more than five years old, we don’t buy designer clothes, and we don’t dine out twice a week – but we’re sure making ends meet.

What do these “basic necessities” include?  Tom Murse listed some: housing, child care, food, transportation, and health care.  But lets unpack those a bit.

• Housing.  What do people “need” to live in?  Do families just starting out really need that $250,000 house in the suburbs, the type that their parents live in (and the kids just forget that it took 30 years to “earn” that type of house)?  I think a lot of families who have seen an increase in income over the years have suffered from lifestyle inflation, which is simply increasing our expenses as our income goes up, which never increases cash flow margin and leaves you never getting ahead in the game of life.  What is “needed” and what is just extra?

• Child care.  Personally, we opted out of this one – but this topic raises the issue of just how much value is there in a second spouse working?  At work, we encourage our clients to look past the second income’s gross amount.  How much will child care cost?  How much more do you pay in transportation?  Non-reimbursed work expenses?  Upgraded wardrobe?  These all assume a family with two parents, and so the single-parent families may be limited in options with this expense.

• Food.  This figure is given in the article.  It says that the cost of feeding a family of four in Lancaster is $695 a month.  If you break this cost down per family member ($695 / 4 = $173.75), it is three times the amount that we spend on groceries in a month per member… and our groceries budget line includes toiletries.  How much food, and what types of food, do you need to survive?

• Transportation.  This is a personal pain point with me.  College graduates do not need to reward themselves with a $25,000 car (and a crippling $350 monthly payment) after they land their new job.  I’m not against having nice cars – not in the least.  What I am against is buying cars that you can’t afford … which, according to some of my friends in the car business, just about everybody does.  Does it really make sense to pay interest on a depreciating asset?  And so again, I call into question how much car is necessary to survive?  Both of our cars are pushing the 200k mark – and we’re more than surviving with them that way.

• Health care.  This is a pretty non-negotiable item, unfortunately.  I work for a smaller employer, and so we don’t have the greatest benefits of larger employers that can pool from a larger employee base – but again, we still survive.  I think the biggest key is to understand exactly what options you have with insurance, and to maximize those options.  So in contrast to the other listed items, with the possible addition of child care, this cost is truly necessary to survive, and there is little we can do to control it.

This article was enlightening to me – but I just have to call into question the underlying premise of the argument.  What does it mean to survive?  It pushes my buttons of contentment, which should be regardless of income, and the biblical command to live beneath our means – two topics that I deal with daily with my profession.  $55,000 to survive?  I don’t think so.  I know of people who have never earned that much in a year and who are on track for a lifetime of financial independence, not just today, but for tomorrow’s retirement.

I’ll wrap up with an admonishment to you, Jack, to as I’ve said time and time again, seek contentment and live beneath your means.  Till next time, Jack.

Sincerely,
J.