Loren Parmley  said as a comment to a video we posted on Facebook of this week’s rental space: “I don’t get it. Rich American’s live well in foreign countries while the native people’s are displaced or live in squalor. Is this what I have to look forward to as I get older?” https://www.facebook.com/luke.lundemo/posts/10157363978090299?comment_id=10157366483475299

Loren raises a deeply important issue.

Charlotte and I have traveled all over the world – every continent – with the aim of understanding and appreciating this amazing planet and its people.

For the last 20 years our ‘home base’ was in Jackson, Mississippi. While in the USA we worked hard on several causes we believe in:

Local Sustainable Food Systems

Renewable, Sustainable Energy Systems

Economic and Environmental Justice

Protection of the Climate and Environment

And more…

Everywhere we go, in the US or elsewhere we actively and directly work on these issues. We believe that if you are American and you are rich, you are not using your wealth wisely. You should be giving all the financial resources you don’t need to causes and organizations you believe to be doing the most effective work in relieving suffering. We have never paid ourselves more than $10.50 an hour and lived at the lowest level of middle class income and supported our two kids through college graduation.

As for being Americans, we believe it is much more important to identify as human beings. Becoming aware of our inherent privileges that we nearly all have should be a big issue for us privileged folks. With those privileges comes a responsibility to work toward a world with less privilege where basic needs of all people are provided.

Worldwide poverty is a moral problem. We can end poverty by redirecting military budgets to meeting real human needs. But in Mississippi candidates that have that morality either never make it to the ballot or get less than 1% of the vote.

So here is the bottom line for us. We are glad to be away from the US economy where we are no longer being consumers (as conscientious as we were) feeding the corporate greed that is destroying the livability of the planet and the main force behind obscene levels of income inequality in the US and around the world.

We now only own what we are carrying with us. We are closer in terms of possessions to the world average than we have been in fifty years.

We feel really good about putting a bigger portion of our money directly in the hands of people who really need it and will use it to directly improve the quality of their and their families lives.

As we get older, we are constantly trying to refine our lifestyle to be ever more effective agents of positive change. There is no reason for that to let up or stop because of age.

Wherever we are we can try to learn and understand the languages that people around us are using. We can try to understand, respect and appreciate their cultural values. We can use our skills, our intelligence, our privileges, our wealth toward the goal of reducing suffering.

It was easier to see, understand and work with suffering in Mississippi than in Minnesota where I grew up. It was easier to see, understand and work with suffering in urban Bali than in Mississippi. And now it is easier to see, understand and work with suffering in rural Bali than the urban, more Westernized areas.

Although being new in a country, a good deal of attention has to go toward getting settled in, finding a place to live and a community, learning the language and all the styles of living – at the same time a person can continue some of the easiest ways of being a social and environmental activist.

The single use plastics of the global petro-chemical industry are washing up on every shore in the world. Here is certainly no exception. We’ve collected and filled large bags full of plastic from beaches here. We refuse plastic bags. We support restaurants that use non-plastic straws and recyclable containers. We talk with people to build support for a ban on single use plastics.

More and more farmers here are buying in to another aspect of the petro-chemical industry and spraying their rice fields with poison. We seek out organically grown rice here in stores and restaurants.

We express kindness and respect to absolutely every person we meet – regardless of their economic standing. We use the services of people we have found to be community activists.

We use the Indonesian language every change we get and study it every day to increase our vocabulary. We support, respect and participate (to the extent allowed) in local religious ceremonies.

Financially every day we are transferring wealth from the US to Indonesia with a significant amount going directly or almost directly to local people with very little.

We have a daily practice of meditation which helps us keep focused on what is important and helps us to remember to also be kind to each other and ourselves.

To bring all this home, I’m going to slightly rephrase Loren’s comment:

“I don’t get it. Rich American’s live well in America while the Native American people are displaced or live in squalor. Is this what I have to look forward to as I get older?”