Avaritia

Sometimes building ivory towers
Sometimes knocking castles down
Sometimes building you a stairway --
Lock you underground
Its that old-time religion
Its the kingdom they would rule
Its the fool on television
Getting paid to play the fool
Big Money
-Rush

How do we define avarice, or the colloquial term, greed? What separates a healthy desire to improve ones lot in life and a mind bending, life distorting pursuit of wealth or possessions? Is it amounts or percentages? Portfolios and account balances? As is usually the case, the obvious answer is no, but what lies beyond the obvious?

The real cost of greed may well have nothing to do with money, power or wealth, but with loss; and not the loss experienced by the one consumed with greed. To some extent, its not even the loss experienced by those around someone consumed by greed. There is a huge collective loss
in the fulfillment of that greed.

We try to pass off sleight of hand to create a reality that is not ours to have. We charge, lease, finance, mortgage, gamble, pawn, and steal what we cannot rightly own. Upon these, our economy has been laid, slowly supplanting pride of ownership with pride of possession. Then when we can no longer make the payments, we consolidate, start all over again and another foundation stone of our economy is replaced with a playing card. This process is repeated nationwide until we are all living in a teetering house of cards, that inevitably must fall. But even so, the damage goes deeper.

Because we all seem to play make believe with reality, our judgement of value and values are clouded. When nearly anything can be within what appears to be our grasp, nothing means anything any more. While that sounds like simple wordplay at first glance, it is true. We simply objectify everyone and everything, tangible or not, and put it down on our mental balance sheets. We try to buy love with money (real or fake) or possessions which are not really ours in the first place, and thus the object of our desires is devalued.

When nothing we possess is owned, it has no value. Ask any teenager with their first car. "A car, bought and paid for, is polished. A car given is driven and wrecked." We sub-contract our lawn mowing, because we work too much to mow the yard, because the yard is so big, we don't have the time, because the mortgage is too large. It's not our yard anymore. If we don't care for it, its not ours.

All that show is for naught, because the yard in front of the house we don't own, is just like every other yard on the street, that is mowed by the same landscaper, because everyone is at work on Saturday evening.


And the children are home.

Alone, with a babysitter.

Bread

There once was a king of an small dominion who took great pride in his frugality. He often boasted that unlike the rulers of neighboring kingdoms, he bought his food in person at the local market instead of hiring a royal cook.

One day he was making his rounds when he noticed something that had escaped his attention before. For years, there had been one man who'd been his favorite breadmaker, who made the most enormous loafs of bread so soft they could be used as a pillow. What the king had failed to realize until today was that this man was blind.

A sly thought crept into the king's mind. He looked around at his attendants with a grin and a wink, and placed the customary three coins in the tin sitting on the counter. However, instead of taking just the one loaf he had purchased, he quietly took a second. Then, in a moment of inspiration, he turned to the breadmaker and said, "My good man, allow me to give you an extra token of gratitude for all the years you've put good dough on my table." With that, he put another coin into the tin, dropping in from an exaggerated height to ensure it made the loudest noise possible. Speechless, the breadmaker smiled broadly and nodded in appreciation.

This deed quickly became habit for the monarch, and this habit became a new boast. At the royal table, the king would gleam over his bargain bread, anticipating the adoration of his wife, the queen, and his only son, the prince. The queen would listen and smile graciously, but the prince could see the pain in her eyes. He knew that this was not as he had been taught. The closer to manhood the prince grew, the more ill it would make him to eat the king's bread.

As things go, time marched forward, and the day came when the king passed away, and his only son, the prince, ascended to his throne. The new king continued his father's legacy of thrift, but not in his greed. One day he called upon the blind breadmaker.

"Kind sir," the new king said, "I brought you here to confess and make recompense for my father's sin toward you . . ." He told the man how his father would steal an extra loaf from him after paying for only one, and how after this his father would feign charity by dropping the extra coin. The breadmaker's face sunk as he listened, and by the time the confession was finished, he had broken into deep sobs.

Just as the ruler was ready to make a move to comfort his subject, the blind man quietly answered, "If I had known my king was in such great need, I'd have given him both loaves for free." Upon hearing this the king approached the man, put his hands on his shoulders, and pressed his cheek to the poor breadmaker's. For several minutes, the two men wept together.

"Have no worries, my good man," the king whispered. "Today, you have shown my family more generosity than we could ever repay."