Truth and Treasure

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

-Matthew 6: 21

Government does not do many things particularly well.  It is one aspect of conservative dogma that I find rather hard to get around, even as I find myself heartbroken by the way that unhindered free markets essentially chew up the poor and disadvantaged and escalate the divide between rich and poor.  It doesn't take much experience with bureaucracy to make you want to run screaming from the room whenever someone suggests that we "trust the government."

I get it, expecting the federal government to solve our problems for us is probably the worst kind of stupid.  However, I also know that we are a democracy, and as such our government reflects our values.  For better or worse, we get a leadership that somehow reflects our values as a nation.  I don't know about you, but that gives me a little nausea. 

My day job is this peculiar thing called being a Pastor, that means that I have occasion to deal with budgets of organizations.  As much as I dislike numbers and math and stuff, budgets are not my favorite thing, but I have learned to recognize that budgets do something that has nothing to do with the bottom line: they reflect values.  They do not reflect the values you wish you had, they reflect the values you actually have, just like Jesus said they would.  Churches are tricky this way, because they like to talk about mission, but most of the time the bulk of their cash flow goes to keeping the lights on. I'm not saying that is a bad thing either, without a building, electricity, heat, and probably maybe a person to get up and talk about stuff every once and a while, most churches wouldn't really have much of a life.  But it is important to frame the expenses of running the show with a purpose; why do we bother?

In the case of Good Samaritan Presbyterian Church, we are on the last leg of a mortgage that has shelled out over a million dollars over the past thirty years to build a rather nice, comfortable building.  Our mortgage is our biggest expense, but our building is also probably our biggest tool for mission.  We host a gaggle of 12 step programs that reach people in the community that would probably not consider entering a Presbyterian Church otherwise.  As of now, that has not led to a swell in our membership roles, but it is, most certainly, part of our mission.

We could very easily lose sight of that and get depressed about the fact that we just can't dish out cash to every good cause that comes along the pike.  We might, and occasionally people do, question whether or not we are really making the most of our dollars and cents.  Some churches have decided to ditch the big, expensive buildings and follow another model of ministry.  I'm not judging the merits or faithfulness of those decisions, this stuff is not a one size fits all sort of proposition.

I'm also involved a little with budgets for other sorts of groups, groups without as much infrastructure to support, where making vision and dollar signs get into line is a bit less complicated, even if it is not altogether without drama. I do know though that in all cases dollars line up with sense if you have the proper vision to see it.

Which is why the proposed Trump budget is giving me a gut hurt today.  I know, it's not the law of the land, and I know, it's going to go through a tedious process in congress and be changed and wrangled and even then it might not pass.  Understood, capitulated, accepted.  What bothers me is what it says about the state of our nation.  In the broadest sense, this budget proposal increases two things: military spending and homeland security, which are both related, but it takes a wrecking ball to a lot of other areas of the government. 

First, about that increase in military spending: we already spend as much on our military as the next six or seven nations combined.  Our armed forces are already the best in the world, not the "depleted" sorry lot I heard the tyrannical tangerine talk about on the campaign trail. Just in case you're unclear, I'm guessing that most of the increase in spending is not going to go to make sure that the actual soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines are going to get paid more (which I would support).  Most of it would go into the coffers of the corporations of the military industrial complex, which quite frankly is doing pretty well without more help.

But I digress, what is more alarming is what gets the ax in the Trump budget.  Biggest loser: the EPA, you know the agency that is responsible for helping to keep all those noble corporations from despoiling the earth in their quest for profit.  Maybe I have read the Lorax one too many times, but I do not think we are better off leaving clean air, water, and soil in the hands of oil companies.  Also on the chopping block: the department of agriculture, housing and urban development, and many other "superfluous, inefficient" programs that actually make a difference in the lives of poor and working class people.  Of course the National Endowment for the Arts is also under the gun, because who needs art when you already have a gold toilet and 15 foot self portrait.  But the NEA has been a favorite scapegoat for right wing budget hawks for years, of course it's tiny little slice of the pie has got to go.

The big picture says a lot about our values.  And those values do not make me proud of us right now.