Of princes and paupers...

I heard this really interesting sermon last Sunday on the story of Esther (ch 4), and how she was willing to use her position as queen of Persia in order to fight for justice for her people who were outside of the palace – even though that meant risking the loss of everything, including her life. And the pastor pointed out that if you are living and working in New York city, you are in the palace, whether you realize it or not – you are in one of the cultural and social and financial and political capitals of the world. And so many young people come to this city wanting to have fun, to use the cultural and intellectual and relational and financial capital they have in this city to further their own career, and then leave. But like Esther we need to realize the importance of our position in the palace, and how many there are outside the palace that need the connections and resources and leverage we have here. We need to not let that position define our identity but rather to be willing to risk it in order to fight for justice for those outside the palace.

I am only now starting to fully realize again the importance of my being in the palace. My first few months here I think I was so star-struck by all the wonders of the palace that I started to lose sight of those outside and just get comfortable enjoying the perks of living here. Then I went through this stage of realizing the unsatisfying nature of a life focused on my own enjoyment, and how easy it was to lose touch with myself in this city – and then part of me just wanted to run away, feeling the need to just go serve in some poor village somewhere so that I could resensitize my conscience and break out of my self-absorbed shell. But I am finally starting to learn the balance between on one hand just using the city for my own enjoyment and on the other wanting to run away so as to not get caught up in it. God has placed me here for a reason, and it is a great privilege to be here, but with that also comes great responsibility, as Spiderman would be quick to remind me. I need to make the most of my time here and use my position in the palace, with all the perks and privileges and connections and resources it brings, not for my own enjoyment and advancement, but for the good of those outside the palace. “Who knows that you have not been brought into this royal position for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14)

I was reminded not too subtly of the perks of living in the palace a few weeks ago, when I got to have dinner with the former President of Mexico. The whole experience was rather surreal. President Ernesto Zedillo (president of Mexico from 1994-2000) came to International House to give a talk on the WTO and globalization and free trade (on which I think I disagreed with most of his views…), and I got selected in a lottery to be one of about 20 residents that got to have dinner with him before the talk. So I ended up being seated one chair away from him, with this old guy sitting between us. I started chatting with the old guy, we had some interesting conversation on some work he’s doing on anti-corruption in developing governments, and at one point he even mentioned he was looking for an intern to help him and asked if I had any work experience, which alas I did not. Anyway, it turns out the old guy was Paul Volcker, former Chairman of the US Federal Reserve under Presidents Carter and Reagan (succeeded by Alan Greenspan) – at one time one of the most important decision-makers in American economic policy!! It was rather interesting to get to see the 'human' side of these men… like seeing Chairman Volcker break out into a nosebleed in the middle of dinner and have to stuff napkins up his nose, or watching President Zedillo waxing on about the merits of globalization totally oblivious to the persistent fly that kept landing on the top of his head and crawling around his face.

On the other end of the socio-economic spectrum, I got to spend yesterday evening tagging along with my friend Jeff to feed the homeless here in Manhattan – another rather eye-opening experience in terms of seeing people in new light and being confronted with their humanity. It’s easy sometimes to just walk by homeless people and try to push them out of our consciousness, dismissing them as lazy or crazy…yet a lot of them seemed perfectly nice people, some quite decently dressed…really makes you wonder the circumstances that brought them to having to accept food out of the back of a van. Yet some of the people I met had so much more joy and warmth and genuine smiles and ‘God bless you’s than most of the people I see around me everyday who have so much. How easy it is to start to ignore their humanity, to start seeing them as just another societal problem or nuisance that you best just ignore and keep walking past as fast as possible. I try to justify my reaction by rationalizing that by giving money I may just be encouraging their addictions or destructive lifestyles, etc. etc…but the truth is I just don’t care enough, and even when I do give it’s often more to assuage my guilty conscience than out of actually being moved by love for the human being in front of me.