Rethinking Enough

Sometimes I'm caught off guard by the simplicity around me. I think of Korea as this first-world, highly technological country with all the common amenities we take for granted in the U.S., but then I walk around my village, visit a neighbor's house, look around my own house, take a trip to the countryside... and find tiny, two-room houses, laundry in plastic tubs for washing, clothes hanging on metal rods with no wardrobe to hide them. I find stark simplicity--what some might call poverty back home--and it startles me. Not just because it's an anomaly in my glossy, white-washed paradigm, but because my eyes glanced over it so many times without noticing.

I remember last winter my college church sent me a care package chock-full of warm gloves, socks, and scarves. I didn't know what one person could do with all of that, so I assumed it was meant to be distributed to the needy. Not knowing who among our students was most in need, I took the box over to the pastor's house with instructions to give the gifts to the poor among us. Several days went by and I wondered what had become of all those warm winter accessories. Then the night came for our weekly community meeting and the pastor arrived with the care package in tow. He explained that my church back home had sent me the package and I was sharing it with them. At first I was a little disappointed or irritated. I'd said that the presents were to be given to the poor, but here they were being given to our very own community members. A thought ran through my head, "Perhaps I should have kept that stuff for myself afterall." I sat back at the edge of the circle looking on as moms and dads, twenty-some year-olds, and children pulled colorful gloves, soft fuzzy socks, warm hats, mittens, and scarves from the box and held up with "oohs" and "ahhs." And as I watched the gleeful commotion unfold, kids holding up their selections like trophies and everyone expressing their thanks, I realized for the first time that we were poor. It had never dawned on me until then that we who lived in community were perhaps the poorest in our church (a congregation that largely lives and works in Seoul). And so the pastor had carried out his duty afterall.

In the last month or so, I've visited a couple friends' homes in my neighborhood. Their families live simply, a husband, wife, and kids all in one room. In my own house here, each of the families lives all together in one room, with the kids in bunk beds and the parents on the floor. In the West, this is hard to imagine. For me too, it raises several questions (not the least of which is, "So, how does the second baby come along?"). ;-) But one thing I've learned from living alongside these families--and, in fact, sharing life in common with them--is that it's possible to be poor and still have everything you need to be happy, even comfortable. I don't mean extreme poverty--I'm not romanticizing or downplaying that at all--I mean the "poverty" of having simply enough. To the world, that looks like poverty; but when you're accustomed to it, it really is enough.

I don't want to confuse you with two main points, but there is another word that rang true the night the care package was divied up. As my regret turned to gladness, I remembered these words Jesus said: "This is my commandment that you love one another, that your joy may be full." That night it really made sense. In whatever situation you're in, in want or in plenty, if you love one another, you'll have full joy. Love is most essential.