An Inquiry into Values

I went to visit my cousin, who lives in D.C., just a little way up the road.  She is a lawyer, her husband is a political type who works for a Senator.  They're doing very well for themselves.  We showed up at the appointed hour at the upscale condo-complex where they live, right smack dab in the city, not far from Union Station.  Immediately we run into the conundrum of locked doors and gates.  I don't see my cousin that much and so I don't have a phone number or anything sensible like that, just an address and a time of arrival.  We go into a concierge sort of guy, and start asking questions.
Already, I'm beginning to feel decidedly like a country bumpkin, and I'm realizing that I'm really out of my societal comfort zone.  Nothing about the rest of the afternoon really changes that.  These condos where my cousin lives are really nice.  Even the hallways smell nice, which is impressive compared to the hallways of most of the apartment buildings I have ever lived or spent time in, where stale air and various other odors are fairly expected. They have a first floor unit with a nice little fenced in back yard, not my three acres by any stretch but enough space for a grill and a patio and a little fountain, which is really impressive in DC, where I can hear traffic on the street right on the other side of the fence.
Later, we go up to the roof of one of the tall towers in the complex. Above the 15th story of the tall buildings, it is not the tar paper and pigeon coop kind of city roof, it's club med.  There are nice little nooks with tables and chairs, a giant chess board and a pool, a freaking pool.  There are all these young, urban professionals, sunbathing by the pool, reading on ipads and phones, drinking beer, at the tables, carefully cultivating that "I'm in public, but I've got my own thing to do, but I hope some of my peeps show up soon to hang out" sort of attitude that you see so often in coffee houses and such.
I suddenly realize that I feel sort of uncomfortable.  Not because I'm on a roof, which was enough for a few of our group, but because I realized that I did not belong there as anything more than a visitor, there to see the sights.  It's a funny thing, even though I'm an introvert by nature, I spend so much time talking in front of people that I've become extremely un-selfconscious.  If I were to go on television or in front a large crowd, I would be able to act like I belong there and comport myself accordingly.  I have a Master's Degree, so I'm rarely intimidated by educated folk, I'm a spiritual/contemplative sort so mystics and empathic people don't throw me, I've spent a lot of time around medical stuff, so doctors don't shake me. But here on that roof, some rich kids threw me out of joint.
I started thinking about ways to get around that uncomfortable feeling.  I looked out at the city and I imagined that I could see all the invisible people that were living lives of quiet desperation somewhere down there.
Ah, there it was, the warm feeling of moral superiority.  I have chosen a job that will never, in any reasonable iteration, allow me to live in such luxury.  I have education, community respect and a leadership position, but I will most likely never make a six figure income, and I will never live someplace with a freaking pool on the freaking roof.  I am living sensibly and happily in my little house in the woods out in Maryland, and if I ever feel guilty about how much I have, all I really have to do is remember that roof and how there are many people who aren't any smarter or harder working, who get so much more.
And here's the weird part: I actually like that, because of the whole Jesus-following thing, the money really doesn't hook me too bad, at least not in the envy.  Maybe in the cultural conscience, but not in the "I want a pool on my roof" place.
What that sort of conspicuous consumption and the security measures it takes to maintain that little urban bubble remind me about is that fact that I have enough, and I likely have more than I need.  Which is a conviction that most of us need from time to time.
I know that if I give up some of my stuff, and if all those rich folks give up some of their stuff, it's not really going to solve the economic problems of our world.  We will still have a system where, despite having the raw affluence to make everyone a winner, we still insist that some people must be losers.  It's easy for me to look at the rooftop pool and feel bad for the homeless guy that lives in the alley over near the train station, or the kids who get their drinking and cooking water out of stagnant, polluted puddles, but eventually I need to turn the lens of my moral outrage onto my own house.
I have three acres of land that I don't use to grow food (at the moment).  I have more stuff than I really care to talk about and much of it just sits around in boxes or on shelves, waiting for a day when I "might" need it.  I have not gone hungry, other than in an attempt to lose weight, for a very long time.  I have as much water as I need, I have access to all sorts of recreation in order to spend my bountiful free time.
My wealth, compared to people in many parts of the world, is as ostentatious as the roof pool is to me.
I don't want to think about that, because it bums my trip right out.
I need to think about it, because the only way we're going to lift the people who really need it out of the mud, is if we focus on creating a world where your time and your effort earn you a living.
It occurs to me that most of our definitions of enough amount to: "just a little more than we have."
That in turn locks us into cycles of envy, stress and ultimately wastefulness.
And while we waste, others go hungry and thirsty.  While we are safe and secure others are homeless and vulnerable.  While we are free others are oppressed.  And none of that is okay.
The way to fix that is not to tear down the tall buildings with their roof pools, or split up my nice little backyard.  The solution is to work for more justice in the economic ans social systems of the world, to use our influence and prosperity to make "enough" a state of being for more than just us.