the matrix and life

I was thinking about my life the other day whilst driving, and bouncing stuff off Rach. It's something I do quite a lot.

We were just coming back from checking out this house in an area we want to buy, Rach was all excited about the thought of moving there and I was kinda angry 'coz of the price that we were looking at.

House prices are crazy but great news they're going down! So now we can buy a 2 bedroom apartment, in an out of the way place like Squamish, for only $349,000 instead of $379,000. So in other words prices have come down, but they're so high they might as well not have anyway!

It makes me angry because the fact that I can't afford to live in my own house, even though I'm 30 and have a great job, is because of The Matrix that we live in. Rich investors buy these houses at high prices, increasing demand and driving prices up because they become an investment, and then they rent them out to shmucks like me who can't afford to buy them. And so it goes round and round, and I work my 9-6 in a cube everyday, have no time and still can't afford it.

So we work more time, both get jobs, send the kids to a carer and all of this just to keep up with the Matrix.

What is the Matrix?

It's the capitalistic world that has been created around us that favours money and rejects family and community.

And I'm a part of it.

Time is so valuable to me, coz I have so little of it. I know people (friends) who will only meet up with me once they've checked their diary and "penciled you in". I STRIIIIVE for the weekend, the two days when I get to do stuff that I actually want to do, my passions. And our lives are dictated by rotas and timetables. No-one just stops around anymore to say hi, that would be rude. We don't stop to talk to people on the street because we're busy, we've got somewhere to go and something to do and a list of important things that keep us busy.

Well I want out.

Shane Claiborne has got it right; if you haven't read The Irresistible Revolution, it's a brilliant picture of how God's disciples can live their lives.

Here's my solution, more time, less money. I guess it might mean I won't be able to buy a house, but that's OK, I trust God. It might even mean I don't get to eat the nice organic food I like, but that's OK, I'll grow my own greens. Money and comfort are our idols in the modern world. We go to places where people are poor to help them and evangelise them, but they end up helping us. Because we are the so called "privileged", but there is joy in their eyes and sorrow in ours.

To follow God, we need to be different. We need to think differently and we need to act differently, that doesn't mean we go to church on Sunday and pray sometimes. It means our lives are an example of who God is, His priorities and His love. To me personally, I think this means swimming against the current that man has created for himself. To me this means sitting on a beach, BBQing a fish with my friends and having time to talk to them genuinely about their lives, just like Jesus did with his disciples.

How about you?