Sunday September 20th 2009

Mr. Scott Cooper – Director of Public Policy

Partnership To End Poverty

521 SW 6^th Street – Suite 101

P.O. Box 147

Redmond, Oregon 97756

Scott:

I would like to share with you the dismay I felt in terms of John Costa’s unfortunate editorial on page F-1 of the Bend Bulletin today (Sunday September 20^th 2009) entitled “Who’s Really Harming The Homeless?”

We typically don’t have any problem counting money. Yet, when the equation involves people, that’s when the math gets murky. Unfortunately, we have developed a tendency to forget/argue how to count people accurately when it comes to socio-political issues…particularly one’s like homelessness, where the persons being counted do not have an Editorial page platform to expound from.  It really boils down to counterfeit counting or, counting only the folks that somebody defines as worth counting, the ones that truly matter, or disparaging the number of those (particularly the needy) identified as counted. The figures we throw around depend upon the position we are attempting to support (Costa’s carefully crafted defense of his newspaper came off just that way — defending his count). This is what I refer to as arbitrary arithmetic or arbithmetic: the rules for counting change depending upon the reason underlying your count. Whether people count or not is dependent upon some pre-defined subjective definition that somebody makes up and translates into a quantifiable form.

We have arrived at a critical juncture in our region that demands that we revisit the madness of our arbithmetic, as characterized by the following author: “The first step is to measure whatever can be easily counted. This is OK as far as it goes. The second step is to disregard that which can’t be easily measured or to give it an arbitrary quantitative value. This is artificial and misleading. The third step is to presume that which can’t be measured easily really isn’t important. This is blindness. The fourth step is to say that which can’t be easily measured really doesn’t exist. This is suicide.”[i]

Counting can be considered, cold, cruel and calculated. When we immerse ourselves in this routine activity, we can become desensitized to the essential compassion and character required of one who embraces a citizen’s responsibility for ridding our region of the scourge of homelessness. As one author points out, “At the end of the twentieth century, many millions of refugees and displaced persons are victims of “compassion fatigue.”[ii] We human beings have a history replete with centuries of evidence documenting our tiring about the care of the less fortunate. Yes, we continue to suffer from this insidious malady today.

Total assets minus total liabilities equals net worth.  Is diminishing human beings to arguments over counting them vs. addressing the fundamental deficiencies that feed the burgeoning divide between the haves and the poor, the needy, the marginalized, the displaced and the homeless something that detracts from the net worth of this region? Is it possible that, “In the process of being against something worth being against, one often becomes for something not worth being for.”[iii] When the outsiders view of central Oregon appears to be at an all-time low, is it time to examine whether or not Mr. Costa’s editorial is evidence of the possibility that The Bulletin has succumbed  to becoming for something not worth being for? I hope not. I think that is taking things too far.

My wife came home exhausted and heartbroken after volunteering (with hundreds of others) serving the thousands of the less fortunate at the Deschutes County Fairgrounds on Saturday September 19^th. I wish Mr. Costa could have been here when my wife returned. He would have garnered a vastly deeper appreciation of what truly counts in central Oregon. He could have experienced a woman with a broken heart. Broken hearts are difficult to count.

Mr. Costa’s editorial broke my heart. He could have chosen a vastly more constructive expenditure of his energy and his platform. I forgive him. I’ve made the same mistake myself.

Then again, who’s counting?

NOTES

[ii] ^{Power, Samantha & Allison, Graham Realizing Human Rights – Moving From Inspiration to Impact, (c) 2000 by Samantha Power and Graham Allison, St. Martin’s Press, New York, NY. p. 30.}

[iii] Campolo, Tony and McLaren, Brian Adventures in Missing the Point – How the Culture Controlled Church Neutered the Gospel, Emergent YS Books – Zondervan Publishers, Inc. Grand Rapids, MI., Copyright © 2003 by Youth Specialties p. 242.

You’ve heard the phrase to many times: Everything’s changed since 9/11. Well, there seems to be a more pertinent phrase that has somehow overshadowed the former one. It is, “Everything’s changed since the fall of Lehman Brothers.” This was the first economic domino to fall that began the one-after-another collapse and bailout conundrum that America (and the world) continues to struggle with.

During my lifetime, I have never seen so many HUGE numbers being bantered about to stabilize the U.S. and global economy (and a few domestic industries to boot — well, I take that back – the State of California bailout is peering over the horizon). Perhaps we are being instructed in a new way of counting. Consider the following from Professor Charles Handy of Harvard University:

“The first step is to measure whatever can be easily counted. This is OK as far as it goes. The second step is to disregard that which can’t be easily measured or to give it an arbitrary quantitative value. This is artificial and misleading. The third step is to presume that which can’t be measured easily really isn’t important. This is blindness. The fourth step is to say that which can’t be easily measured really doesn’t exist. This is suicide.”

The $700 Billion TARP program (somebody please tell me how they came up with that figure) seems to be the initial component of Professor Handy’s definition in terms of what can be easily counted (or so say Bernanke and Paulson). The auto industry bailout (or lack thereof) appears to be an example of the second dimension of Handy’s characterization: disregard that which can’t be easily measured or to give it an arbitrary quantitative value.

The third step is where it becomes terribly difficult: to presume that which can’t be measured easily really isn’t important.

Spurred on by the present state of triage required to address  the next form of economic contagion to reveal itself in the economic trauma center, we continue to crisis manage the next critical case that comes through the door on a gurney (sometimes delivered to the ER entrance in Congress via private corporate jet — although they drive hybrid vehicles to the post-op follow-up appointments).

Unfortunately, the TARP funds have yet to flow to main street central Oregon. The needs  of our region continue to be overlooked in state and congressional policy deliberations, by those duly empowered as part of the economic development policy apparatus. We remain suffering from the form of blindness that Professor Handy refers to. A vision for the future of economic development in our region is presently difficult to verbalize and/or tangibly quantify. That sure doesn’t mean it’s not important.

The final step, according to Handy is to assume the posture whereby ‘that which can’t be easily measured really doesn’t exist. This is suicide.” This is the nucleus of the matter, in my opinion. A quote from Machiavelli’s The Prince is pertinent here:

“It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in introducing a new order of things, because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents — who have the laws on their side — and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them.”

Yes, it’s time for innovation. Yet, a form of innovation that is unfamiliar to most of us. A process of innovating that includes the heretofore excluded from participating in the development of a new economic future for our communities, our country and our globe. Perhaps, we might just start with our respective communities.

Last week the new elected City Councilors in the City of Bend sponsored a forum and invited the public to begin a conversation about the current state and future of economic development.  Perhaps it’s time that Redmond, Prineville, Sisters and Madras might consider the same in their respective communities. However, economic development innovation is not accomplished via one meeting. The opportunity to create an economic development vision within each of these respective communities, and this region, is a process.

Perhaps it’s time to begin to learn a new way of counting in regard to economic development in central Oregon. Inviting area residents into a public process to participate in forming an economic vision for their respective communities and this region may be a wonderful place to start. Imagine what the results of this equation might produce. Then again, what if we don’t innovate in our approach to developing an economic development vision, deliberately informed by input from area residents.? There’s an amazing result when public officials earnestly invite the public’s participation and imagination — treating people as if they truly count. The clock is ticking. Time has a way of reminding us to wake up and act. Perhaps it’s time to consider embarking on a deliberate process to innovate our way to new possibilities in the formation of an economic development strategy and vision that right now seems unimaginable — together. We’re responsible for creating what presently does not exist. You can count on that.

I had the privilege to be invited to join Jim Henderson, Todd Hunter, Tyler, Tim, Craig, Jeff and Bryan for the annual Off-The-Map board meeting this week (an 800+ mile round trip for me and my 15 month old black Lab Reggie — it was Reggie’s first board meeting and first road trip over three hours. He had a great time).

Jim and the Off-The-Map community have been a huge blessing to me and mine over the last several years. I am quite confident this will continue. OTM is in the process of developing a new leadership team.

It was such a breath of fresh air to be amongst such a bright, energetic, visionary group of people. The future is bright for OTM and ….it will be different.

The concept of “Nice” came up in conversation and I told Tim I would share a few of my my favorite quotes about the term:

“Niceness – wholesome, integrated personality – is an excellent thing. We must try by every medical, educational, economic and political means in our power to produce a world where as many people as possible grow up ‘nice;’ just as we must try to produce a world where all have plenty to eat. But we must not suppose that even if we succeeded in making everyone nice we should have saved their souls. A world of nice people, content in their own niceness, looking no further, turned away from God, would be just as desperately in need of salvation as a miserable world – and might even be more difficult to save.“(1)

“Jesus offers no “cheap grace.”  He does not call you to be a nice believer.  He calls you to committed discipleship.” (2)

“The moment God is figured out with nice, neat lines and definitions, we are no longer dealing with God. We are dealing with somebody we made up. And if we made him up, then we are in control.” (3)

“We must therefore not be surprised if we find among Christians some people who are still nasty. There is even, when you come to think it over, a reason why nasty people might be expected to turn to Christ in greater numbers than nice ones. That was what people objected to about Christ during His life on earth: He seemed to attract ‘such awful people.’ That is what people still object to and always will.” (4)

The concept of counting came up as well. It reminded me of this quote from Charles Handy:

“The first step is to measure whatever can be easily counted. This is OK as far as it goes. The second step is to disregard that which can’t be easily measured or to give it an arbitrary quantitative value. This is artificial and misleading. The third step is to presume that which can’t be measured easily really isn’t important. This is blindness. The fourth step is to say that which can’t be easily measured really doesn’t exist. This is suicide.” (5)

I am looking forward to receiving Todd’s new book, Christianity Beyond Belief – Following Jesus For The Sake of Others.

I am going to continue to count on the nice, kind, smart folks in the Off-The-Map community to continue to count in my life. Perhaps, you’ll consider exploring the same.

Thanks for including me in this forum.

Bill

NOTES

(1) C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, HarperSanFrancisco – A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers, (c) 1952,

(2) Campolo, Tony.  You can make a Difference-High voltage Living in a Burned out world, W Publishing Group Nashville, TN Copyright © 1984 by Anthony Campolo, P.6

(3) Bell, Rob Velvet Elvis-Repainting The Christian Faith, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI Copyright © 2005 by Rob Bell, p.25

(4) C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, HarperSanFrancisco – A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers, (c) 1942, p. 213

(5) Handy, Charles The Age of Paradox Harvard Business School Press © 1994 p. 221

What if you couldn’t count? You probably wouldn’t have any use for the words you take for granted like countless, counter, countdown, Count Dracula, or catchy little nursery rhymes your parents taught you as a child. Yet God created us to count. Each of us is created to count for something. He will also call us to account for this. As the Bible says, “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.”   You can count on it.

When it comes to the statistics that populate the U.S. immigration policy reform debate, I’m absolutely certain we’ve forgotten how to count. I am so convinced of this, I’ve created an experiment for you to complete to help you understand.

Have you ever attempted to count the number of pops you hear as a bag of popcorn bakes in your microwave? (Of course you haven’t! I’m one of the very few human beings silly enough to do this from the first pop to the last). Try it. Then, open the bag and count each of the fully formed morsels of popcorn that are ready to eat. How does that sum compare to the number you counted by listening to the popping? My guess is there are many more morsels of popcorn formed in the bag than your ears were capable of counting. What do you care? You’re going to devour the whole bag mindlessly watching the television anyway.

What if I told you to pop a second bag of popcorn? Same brand, same size bag. This time, the number of pops you count, actually add up to something meaningful. You are only allowed to eat the number of individual popcorn that you actually recognize and count aloud whilst popping. My ability to count more pops unquestionably goes up on this second try. Yours will to. Why? Because we had a vested interest in the outcome (satisfying our hunger).

I find it fascinating that the results of counting have very little to do with what’s actually being counted versus the importance of what the motives of the counter are. Well, I guess it’s all poppycock anyway. Or is it?

Dreaming About Reality?

I called Senator Orrin Hatch’s Washington D.C. office last week inquiring about when the Senator will introduce the Dream Act again. I got into a discussion with the Senator’s aide who answered the phone about the sixty-five thousand students figure that is consistently used when describing the number of resident, undocumented students who graduate from U.S. high schools each year. This is the number the Dream Act is supposed to positively impact every year. I researched this “65,000″ number and find that it goes back to the 2000 census. However, from 2000 to present, the enrollment of immigrant students in the U.S. public school system has been the primary source of student enrollment. This influx of enrollment has dramatically exceeded the enrollment projections for the period by the vast majority of urban school districts.

I asked him where this number came from. He said, “It’s a well-documented figure that is a statistical extrapolation from the 2000 census of U.S. residents.” We discussed the merits of having a reliable versus a popular figure. He agreed that the figure used must be one that is accurate. He added that “the present figure of 65,000 was likely popular because it has integrity.” I told him I begged to differ as I live in Los Angeles and had been taught otherwise by the ongoing Michael Jackson trial ( Popular/well-known does not necessarily possess the attribute of integrity ).

I pointed out that it might be time to “check the math” because I was aware of some deficiencies in the current statistics that might make that sixty-five thousand figure a heck of a lot higher and vastly more reliable. He asked me for specifics. I told him that PEW Hispanic Research suggested the number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. was now (March 2005) “approximately eleven million.” The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) has numbers all over the place (depending upon what policy position they are endorsing today) that range from nine to eleven million. FAIR ( Federation for American Immigration Reform ) agrees with CIS ( It’s fascinating how both these organizations espouse remarkably similar public policy positions too). The Urban Institute, Demography and the International Organization for Migration are all in the same guesstimate neighborhood (It’s nice to have company if you’re wrong).

Then, along comes an investment-banking firm, Bear-Stearns, that throws the whole country club into a tizzy… “this figure may be as high as 20 million people.”  “Wow!” exclaimed the Senator’s aide. “I’ll have to get back to you on that one.” We politely ended our call and went about our lives.

Why is immigration reform mired in the muck of this murky math? Perhaps the following quote from the Bear Stearns report can help clear things up: “Like corrupt accounting practices or poor national security information, the United States is struggling with its immigration policies because of false assumptions and unreliable data.” Yep, what counts is not being properly accounted for. Let me explain.

Oh, the aide from Senator Hatch’s office? He hasn’t called back yet. Maybe I’m just dreaming about the reality that I will get a return call from this guy.

Arbithmetic

We typically don’t have any problem counting money. Yet, when the equation involves people, that’s when the math gets murky. Unfortunately, we have developed a tendency to forget how to count people accurately when it comes to socio-political issues. It really boils down to counterfeit counting or, counting only the folks that somebody defines as worth counting, the ones that truly matter. The figures we throw around depend upon the position we are attempting to support. This is what I refer to as arbitrary arithmetic or arbithmetic: the rules for counting change depending upon the reason underlying your count. Whether people count or not is dependent upon some pre-defined subjective definition that somebody makes up.

We have arrived at a critical juncture in our world that demands that we revisit the madness of our arbithmetic, as characterized by the following author: “The first step is to measure whatever can be easily counted. This is OK as far as it goes. The second step is to disregard that which can’t be easily measured or to give it an arbitrary quantitative value. This is artificial and misleading. The third step is to presume that which can’t be measured easily really isn’t important. This is blindness. The fourth step is to say that which can’t be easily measured really doesn’t exist. This is suicide.”

Perhaps it’s time to heed the words of the psalmist when he wrote, “Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit.”  It’s time to re-examine the deceit we’ve come to accept within our math from a moral and spiritual standpoint.

Migraine Math

Our unwillingness to be accountable to God by counting, being counted upon, taking action when it counts and counting correctly has contributed to untold suffering worldwide during the twentieth century. The Ottomans exterminated more than a million Armenians during WW I. The Germans killed six million Jews and approximately five million other folks who crossed their path. The atrocities in Cambodia, Rwanda, the Kurdish territory of Iraq, and Bosnia all add to the 20th century total. Unfortunately, this list continues to grow today with day after day additions of casualties from Somalia, Iraq, the Congo, El Salvador etc. Yet, as one-author notes, “History has shown that the suffering of victims has rarely been sufficient to get the United States to intervene.”

Contemplating atrocities of this scale gives me a raging headache. I become nauseated and sick to my stomach. I am overwhelmed with the sense that I am experiencing a migraine of the soul. Tears stream down my face. My being cries aloud to God. It’s the onset of an episode of migraine math.

Wrestling with these moments, I have come to realize that my mind has limits. I am distinctly incapable of grasping the magnitude and meaning of certain events in life. I am also quite confident that God has a reaction very similar to my own. Although I’m convinced that He can comprehend what I cannot, I’m even more certain that the heart of God is broken over our unwillingness to count as He created us to. I continue to hear the voice of Christ among us today, looking around Himself, shouting at us, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

It’s time to repent from our counterproductive ways.

The Compassion Calculation

Counting can be considered, cold, cruel and calculated. When we immerse ourselves in this routine activity, we can become desensitized to the essential compassion required of the character of one who claims the name of Christ as Lord and Savior. As one author points out, “At the end of the twentieth century, many millions of refuges and displaced persons are victims of “compassion fatigue.”  Yes, we human beings have a history replete with centuries of evidence documenting our tiring about the care of the less fortunate. Yes, we continue to suffer from this insidious malady today.

One need not look beyond the borders of the United States to count millions of refugees and displaced persons. The present debate about U.S. immigration policy reform is the domestic human rights opportunity of the 21st century in the United States. However, this debate is not about the components of some sort of high-minded, sterile public policy. It is about people. It is as much about the soul of the undocumented immigrant residing in the U.S. as it is about the soul of the Christian citizen in whose neighborhood the undocumented immigrant is your neighbor. It is about the soul of this nation. It is the opportunity to be startled from the numbness of compassion fatigue, rise and “As Christians, by the grace of God, let us act upon what we say we believe.”

Counting the Cost

Spurred on by the relentless pursuit of prosperity and the ruthless defense of what we already have in the name of economic progress, we have become comfortable with diminishing the sacred value of each child of God to an economic cost. Faces, names and souls have been replaced with dollar signs denoting their perceived contribution to, or detraction from the burgeoning global economy.

It’s at this juncture that we must face the fact that we have marginalized Christ in our world. We have erected idols commissioned with prayers for His blessing of abundance. The shadows from these idols obscure our view of the poor, the needy, the displaced, the undocumented immigrant and the refugee. In our nations economic calculations, these people, God’s children, have become costs, economic burdens without faces or voices. Their needs continue to be diminished, overlooked and devalued in state and congressional policy deliberations, as well as in the individual and collective hearts of those who claim to be Disciples of Christ.

When we define people as costs that require containment and/or elimination, we elevate the pedestals that proudly support the idols of efficiency, self-determination, self-righteousness and patriotic fervor. We add a backdrop adorned with subtly subdued, fear-laden images and a swatch of scarcity designed to remind us that we might risk losing what we have if we don’t go along with the proposed formula for our future. Yes, this is the calculation we have arrived at for becoming the greatest nation on the face of this planet.

I believe this nation has the opportunity to become greater than the sum of all this. We must embrace a new math, a moral math, a Christian math.

Net Worth

Total assets minus total liabilities equals net worth.  Is being against the fundamental capital outlays required to address the burgeoning divide between the haves and the poor, the needy, the marginalized, the displaced and the undocumented immigrant actually something that detracts from the net worth of this nation? Is it possible that, “In the process of being against something worth being against, one often becomes for something not worth being for.”  When world opinion is at an all-time low toward the United States, is it time to examine whether or not we have become for something not worth being for.

When a national obsession on GNP inevitably leads to hollow, belated political programs entitled “NCLB” (No Child Left Behind), perhaps it is time to examine the math we are feeding into the calculator. It’s time to stop the blame game. There’s nothing wrong with the calculator. It’s operator error that must be confronted. Where do we turn when our collective conscience is stirred with questions about the net worth of this nation’s soul? Jesus has a formula. The liabilities we have been attempting to reduce, marginalize or eliminate must be revalued as His greatest assets. For God, math is always counterintuitive to the mind of man.

Summary

“We will stand before God one day and give an account for our lives.  And this generation of Christians is responsible for this generation of non-Christians.  God will ask, ‘Did you do all that you could?  Did you match the intensity and fervor I brought to the cross?’  People must be brought to the point of understanding that it would be a tragedy if change didn’t happen.  They must not simply embrace change, but cry out for it”.  This is why the math matters.

Count me in. I am re-evaluating what really counts in life. The consequences will be eternal. Will you join me? Will you join Him? He is why the math matters. Can He count on you to draw near to Him and learn the only equation that has ever produced the results of righteousness this world, this nation, your community and you so desperately require.

Draw near to Christ. He’s counting on you.

Bibliography & Notes

1 Hebrews 4:13 – NIV

2  www.bearstearns.com/bscportal/pdfs/underground.pdf.

3  Handy, Charles The Age of Paradox Harvard Business School Press © 1994 p. 221

4  Psalm 32:2 – NIV

5  Power, Samantha A Problem From Hell – America In An Age of Genocide Perrenial – An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, Copyright © 2002 by Samantha Power, p. 512.

6  Mark 15:34 – NIV

7   Power, Samantha & Allison, Graham Realizing Human Rights – Moving From Inspiration to Impact, (c) 2000 by Samantha Power and Graham Allison, St. Matin’s Press, New York, NY.  p. 30.

8  Schaeffer, Francis True Spirituality, (c) 1971 by Francis Schaeffer. Tyndale House Publishers p. 125.

9  Campolo, Tony and McLaren, Brian Adventures in Missing the Point – How the Culture Controlled Church Neutered the Gospel, Emergent YS Books -  Zondervan Publishers, Inc. Grand Rapids, MI., Copyright © 2003 by Youth Specialties p. 242.

10  White, James Emery Rethinking The Church Copyright (c) 2001 Baker Books, Grand Rapids, MI p. 151