Then I read this in the Miami Herald from a few days ago:
"Two years ago, turf farmers in Riddleville, Ga., spread 40 pounds of grass seed over five acres. The crop was nurtured and pampered, its growers plucking any weeds and keeping a sharp eye out for armyworms and mole crickets.Two days ago, the first sod was cut, rolled, placed in trucks and driven overnight from Georgia to Dolphin Stadium.
The grass for Super Bowl XLI is not your everyday lawn. The specially hybridized turf, with its $500,000 price tag, has been under turf farmer Phillip Jennings' care since 2005."
One half of one million dollars because "you have athletes who make $5 million and $10 million a year . . . and they want beautiful fields and fields that will hold up.''
One half of one million dollars would do a lot for the poor in Mozambique. I am not out to knock the kind things the NFL has done for inner-city youth and the like. I just find the contrast so sad - where our treasure is, there our heart is also.
When you're talking multi-million dollar athletes and $2.6 million for a 30-second commercial during the game, I guess it's easy to lose sight of how much that kind of money really is.
ReplyDeleteDon't you think, though, that this can become a real slippery slope? You have two cars. Just think what selling one of them could do for the people of Mozambique. I have an aquarium. Just think what selling it could do for the people of Mozambique. I understand what you're saying, but somehow it quickly becomes really complicated.
ReplyDeleteDerifter - Thanks for that link. It is a stunning amount of money.
ReplyDeleteChallies - First of all, please do not refer to my truck as a "car" again. :-) Second of all, I agree with you - it does get complicated. There are times at look at my stuff and think, "Man, I need some more and better stuff." Then there are times I look at my stuff and think, "I am a materialistic slob."
In pointing out that the NFL spent half of a million bucks on grass, I think I am trying to help myself and the rest of us feel the weight of the second statement. It would have been easy to eat chips, have a few pops and watch the game (did it not interfere with church!) and think nothing of the grass. But I think that whole spectacle is a balloon worth popping... or at least letting some air out on... by pointing out the massive disparity between it and most of the rest of the world.
And who knows? Maybe I should sell the old truck? The thought has crossed my mind more than thrice....
Tim,
ReplyDeleteDavid Suzuki points out that if all the world (all 6 bil.+ of us)were to live at a North American standard of living it would take five planet earths to supply the resources. The solution to some of the horrendous problems in parts of the world is indeed for us to live with less, live more simply. It cannot be to lift them up to our standard - the world can't handle it.
In relation to more spiritual concerns, wouldn't surrendering up an aquarium or a second car,(um, OK, truck), be a small thing to do to help educate a pastor who has no books at all? Doesn't giving up everything for the sake of Christ sometimes mean actually giving something up? Isn't the proof of not being more in love with things more than God at least sometimes measured by letting them go?
I second Ken... though I'm no pillar of virtue in this area either.
ReplyDelete