On Having

I was standing at the urinal the other day one slot away from my friend Charles. (Pardon  the graphic details) Charles bemoaned the fact that his coffee habit was requiring frequent stops at the aforementioned cubicle.  He laughed when I repeated the old  line, "You can't really have a cup of coffee, you can only borrow if for a short time."

As Charles walked away I began to think about the universal truth of that little punch line.  I began to think about all the areas of life in which we live in the illusion of ownership.  Our language betrays us.  Let me illustrate...

"I think I'll have a cigarette."  Really?  Actually all or most of the cigarette goes up in smoke except for the butt which you throw away.  Even the nicotine which remains in your system to work it's magic for a while will go the way of the coffee.

"I wish I had a life."

"I have a wife."

" How many children do you have?"

We "have" a house, property, or stuff of all kinds.  Wealth is defined by what we own.

"Have a great day."

"Try to have a good time."

"Everyone should have community."

Silly illustrations.  Maybe, but does it say something about us that our language speaks repeatedly about possessing.  Is our engagement/experience of so many things to want  or try to possess or control it?

Does our language betray a view of life that involves taking from others or our environment?  How does that square with, "Losing your life to gain it"?  Or, being stewards of someone else's property, not owners.  Is "my" stuff really mine?  The writer of Ecclesiastes for example laments that he will gather all his stuff only to die  and have it enjoyed by those who follow him.  

The home that I live in, it is "mine" not the banks, and sits on "my" property.  Three hundred years ago some native Americans viewed it as their property and another two hundred years from now someone else who will have no knowledge of me will consider it theirs.  So what does "mine" mean in the context of time or to the property itself?  My legacy to this piece of real estate will depend less on my "ownership" and more on my interaction with it, how I steward what I have been given to use.  Will I leave something beautiful and useful or a toxic waste dump?

Do I have a wife?  When the Pharisees asked Jesus about the woman married to the seven brothers, "to which brother would she belong?"  Jesus responded that in heaven wives are not "given" in marriage.  Wives are not property, they are a relationship.

How about having children?  Are they an asset or am I given a responsibility to raise them in the "nurture and admonition" of the Lord?  Is this ownership or stewardship?  Would we parent differently if we viewed our children as Gods not ours?  Yikes!

Should I really "have" community, is it something I possess or should I be communal in the way I live?  Should I instead be community?  Would life look different if I were not possessive, grasping of those around me, and gave community instead?  Is this what 1 Corinthians 13 is talking about?

The Bible warns often about not being possessed by our possession.  Note the paradox here, when we have much we are in grave danger of being had by them.  Is there a connection to that warning and the first commandment, "You shall have no other God before me"?  Is possible that the only thing/One we are designed to "have" is God, Himself?  What does it mean to belong to Him?

Is the essence of life defined by what we have or by who has us?  What if this life we have been given is like a cup of coffee, we can't really have it we can just borrow it for a while?  I wonder...