A Ramble About Needs

Several years ago, I was a part of a short term missions program/college course in Papua New Guinea. I spent two months in New Guinea. Most of that time was spent on the bamboo hut campus situated up in the Bena Bena tribe in the highlands, but there were a few excursions out to other existing mission sites. One of these excursions was an overnight to the Yagaria tribe, also located in the highlands a few hours drive from the campus.

I and another student spent the night in the home of one of the Christian men from that tribe. His name was Michael. He and his family lived in what can loosely be described as a two bedroom, bamboo, wood, and “pit-pit” hut, raised off the ground. He kept his chickens and pigs underneath his house. Just out side his house, but within a fence, was his large garden where he grew most of their food. He and his family were barefoot, as most rural New Guineans were. They cooked their meals over a fire pit started in the traditional way which involved bamboo, wood, and a lot of friction. As my companion and I shared a meal with our host, we talked with him. His English wasn't great, but then neither was our Pidgin (one of the things we spent our time learning on campus). Between our bad Pidgin and his bad English we managed to eek out a conversation of sorts. It was a conversation that I still remember almost eighteen years later.

The part I remember about it was when he said something to the effect of “you Americans have all this money, bajillions and zillions of dollars, and you come here, and you aren't happy. Look at me, all I have is my family, my home, and my garden, and we're happy. We have everything we need.”

I spent those two months that summer possessing only what I brought with me and could keep in my cabin. I remember when I returned to the US, and to my bedroom full of stuff, I was in a kind of shock. Reverse culture shock is normal for this kind of thing, but I distinctly remember looking around my bedroom and realizing everything I had which I didn't actually need. I knew I didn't need it because I had just gone for two months without it and survived just fine.

It doesn't seem to make any difference anymore how much money you have or make, it never seems to be enough. When my wife and I were first married, we would have been thrilled to be making $35,000 a year. Somewhere in our minds, we thought “if only we were able to make this amount of money, then we'll be ok.” When we were living in California, we were making a little over $36k, and we were barely scraping by. It never seemed to be enough. I have a friend who was making something like $95k per year, and as he described it to me, he said something like “even with that kind of money, we were barely keeping our heads above water.”

It doesn't ever seem to be enough. When we have money or things, it always seems like it is never enough. We always need more, or find a reason why we need more. Near as I can tell, this is the reason for all the debt that we're in right now. Some of those things were because of things we really did need at the time; some of them seemed a lot like needs at the time. Thinking back, I wonder if they really were, but hindsight is always at least 20/20.

Evagrios the Solitary (at least I think it was Evagrios), one of the fathers of the Christian contemplative tradition, along with other writers, gave what I think is very sound advice for the Christian. He said, in a nutshell, don't own anything and what you have give away. Even if you desire to have more money to be able to give it to the poor, this is only a trap laid for you by the enemy for you to give in to thinly disguised avarice, the desire to have more. And once you give in to avarice, you open the doorway for other demons (literal or figurative) to rush in and attack. He and the others taught, and practiced, that it is completely possible to carry out the teachings of Christ if you own nothing, and that it can be a hindrance to those teachings if you do either own something or especially if you seek to own something, irregardless of the justification for it.

The more I keep this in mind, the more I realize how infested with this avarice I have become. I seek and desire things that, truthfully, I just don't need. I want them just to have them. I justify this in my mind by something like “well, what if I need it at some point in time and don't have it.” It doesn't matter if it's books, games, programs, paid or free.

I haven't thought about Michael from the Yagaria for a long time, but I never forgot him or his family. Somehow, somewhere they've always been in the back of my mind. Thinking back, I wish they had been in the forefront a little more.