Rounding out last week's commentary, Dr Kania takes a look at that passage from St Luke's Gospel where Jesus provides some advice on the sort of foundation we ought build our lives upon.

Movie clips from "Citizen Kane" movieimages.tripod.com/citizenkane

At the commencement of the cinema classic, Citizen Kane, Charles Foster Kane, a multibillionaire, lies dying within the dark and cold walls of his mansion home. A recluse, his final word, "Rosebud" becomes the catalyst for a powerful story. A reporter delves into Kane's life, searching for the mystery of "Rosebud"; he examines Kane's frustrated political ambitions, failed marriage, strained relationships, enormous wealth, his plethora of 'things', seeking to find the answer.

As the film closes, the reporter is none the wiser, but the viewer sees, amongst all of Kane's belongings piled high on to a burning pyre, a small wooden sled, handmade when Kane was a boy by his father; the word "Rosebud" is faintly seen painted on its base. As the flames begin to lick the sled's wooden frame, the film closes. The man who had everything, longed for those days before he had 'got lucky'.

In the Spring of 1845, a young Law Graduate from Harvard University, Henry David Thoreau, decided to "live life deliberately", and ventured off into the woods of Massachusetts for a 26 month period of contemplation and reflection. Renting and renovating a ramshackle hut, he lived with, and off nature for a period of ten Seasons. It was from this experience that Thoreau penned his now famous work, Walden; or, Life in the Woods. In the rustic simplicity of a small wooden hut, by a deep pond, Thoreau wrote some of the most beautiful thoughts ever to appear in the English language. In the hope of discovering the meaning to living, Thoreau came to the realization that 'things' are not as important as the gift the Creator has given each of us, of living, of loving, of growing, of learning. In a series of revelations, the young Boston lawyer, criticized what most of his colleagues believed to be the greatest that life can offer — material wealth.

Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau's Walden experience points directly toward the paradox of many modern lives — thirsting to acquire and become materially wealthy, but all the while forgetting to cherish life; focussed on the destination but mindless of the journey. Thoreau informed his readers: "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived".

Within the cacophony of the age of mass consumption, of fast food, and disposable durable goods, the ancients can still be faintly heard instructing us about the true purpose of living. The philosopher Socrates has been credited with teaching that "human beings eat to live, not live to eat". This simple phrase is replete with wisdom, for there is a great difference between existing (food, shelter, clothing, water), and living. Our lives should not be measured by our capacity to consume or own resources; for if this was the case the basest human who ever walked the planet must have been the Carpenter's son from Nazareth, who died in rags upon a Cross. Living life to its very fullest must relate in some way to the realization that all of us, the beggar and the prince have all one Parent, and have been made in His Image. Yet this message is so often lost in society, where acquisition and consumption equates with respect. We see expensive sports cars (valued at the price it costs to purchase a family dwelling), driven in streets which demand one fifth of the vehicle's engine capacity; we hear of people bathing in fresh milk, while only metres away a family struggles to feed their children; we see animals pampered, wearing waist-coasts and lace, while homeless lie in the streets. In short, we see opportunities for charity pass, because the 'fast-life' beckons.

St Basil the Great

In the fourth century, the Cappadocian Father, St. Basil the Great commented: "The bread which you use is the bread of the hungry; the garment hanging in your wardrobe is the garment of him who is naked; the shoes you do not wear are the shoes of the one who is barefoot; the acts of charity that you do not perform are so many injustices that you commit".

St John Chrysostom

St. Basil was not asking for a sacrifice which meant impoversishment for the wealthy, but only a form of expenditure which kept the materially wealthy conscious of their ties to their poorer brothers and sisters. Christian charity requires not that a man or woman gives beyond their measure, nor that they should live comfortably, but that they always consider stewardship residing within their wealth. For this reason, another of the Eastern Fathers, St. John Chrysostom, Second Sermon on Lazarus, repeats a common adage from Greek philosophy: "Rather, if we are to tell the truth, the rich man is not the one who has collected many possessions but the one who needs few possessions; and the poor man is not the one who has no possessions but the one who has many desires". We are truly impoverished when our lives are so stacked with goods and our walls built so high that we can no longer see our neighbour, or when our desires become so insatiable and shout so loud at us, that we cannot hear the cry of our children.

In the Gospel of St. Luke, Christ teaches us the parable: "There was once a rich man who, having had a good harvest from his land, thought to himself, 'What am I to do? I have not enough room to store my crops.' Then he said, 'This is what I will do: I will pull down my barns and build bigger ones, and store all my grain and my goods in them, and I will say to my soul: My soul, you have plenty of good things laid by for many years to come; take things easy, eat, drink, have a good time.' But God said to him, 'Fool! This very night the demand will be made for your soul; and this hoard of yours, whose will it be then?' So it is when someone stores up treasure for himself instead of becoming rich in the sight of God." (Luke 12: 16 - 21, The New Jerusalem Bible)

Ambition serves its purpose; aspiring for a more comfortable life is part of the natural drive for survival and self-preservation; however, the meaningless acquisition of wealth, and the wastage of precious resources on conspicuous consumption, serves no Divine purpose, but only strokes an all-too-mortal ego. Success within society is an honourable pursuit, yet as Thoreau concluded to Walden: "If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them". What better foundation for a life well-spent than to build upon the Rock of God; and what better way to prevent us mimicking Kane, with material wealth all around, and our hearts longing for just another chance to live a richer life, than to live as stewards rather than masters; to live in this world, as if there is a world to come.

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©2007 Dr Andrew Thomas Kania

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