The Nature of Greed

Rhonda Del Boccio writes, "I had something, just a thought a really, that I wanted to post." But she wasn't sure how. Well, a comment can be added by anyone by clicking "post a comment" for something longer, like Rhonda's thoughts on greed, send email it to the church and we'll post it. That's how this works. Below is Rhonda's thought to post:

The other day my family and I took a trip to Saint Simons Island, GA. I love it there. You couldn’t paint a better picture. The sky is always a brighter shade of blue and the air is easy to breathe. For years now, I have wanted to live there. For right now, finances keep me in Camden County, a nice place to live where you can still find a house with some land for under $500,000. That would be a steal on the island. One of my favorite things to do there is go to open houses. Sunday afternoons the island is filled with anxious realtors just waiting to show you their newly listed property.

This Sunday my husband, two children, and I stumbled upon an open house for a newly built condo-style development. These houses where built taller than wide with no more than twenty feet between the buildings. We entered the first floor, which consisted of a walk in area, a door to the garage, a set of stairs in front of you and then another door. Wondering what this door was, thinking maybe closet space, I opened it to find an elevator. Yes, your own private in home elevator. My mouth dropped. Already impressed I toured the rest of the home. The next three floors were all exquisitely designed. A total of four bedrooms and four and one half baths. Two living rooms, a huge kitchen, an office...ect. You name it this house had it, including private balconies on three floors and one on the roof, with a beautiful view of the ocean. I was in love. All this for the bargain price of $1.7 million. I thought, I am young enough to afford this one day. I am half way into my psychology degree. If I work hard one day I will be able to buy something like this. I thought about that house all afternoon.

This morning I woke up in my three bedrooms, one bathroom house and got my children off to school. Then my husband, who is off work this week decided that he would like to put his 14ft twenty-year-old johnboat that was given to him by our neighbor in the water for the first time to see if it would float. I went with him to make sure that if he ended up swimming back to shore, someone was there to help. I sat on a swing in the park and watched him drive his boat back and forth, happy as a duck that it ran and didn’t stall. While I was sitting there, I had a thought. What do I need 4400 sq. feet of living space for. I only have two kids. I hate to clean my 1100 sq. feet!

Then I remember something else. While driving back from the island, when we turned off the highway onto our exit there was a man standing by the stop light holding a sign that said, need work, I’m hungry. I can barely write that here without crying. I don’t know what saddens me more, this man that is hungry, or the knowledge of my own hypocrisy. I think we very often pass our greed off as ambition. We have worked hard for what we have, we deserve it, right? We may not need all four bedrooms in our home, but we have worked hard to afford them. We give what we can. We tithe our ten percent at church and donate to the feed the children foundation. Plus, we don’t make a ton of money; there are movie stars and sports stars that make so much more. They should be required to donate more money to the needy.

I will not lie; these are all thoughts that I have had. It is what we tell ourselves to make ourselves feel better, about who we are. In truth though, most of us live in house a little bigger than we really need. We drive the highest dollar car our credit will let us finance. Don’t miss understand, I am not saying that we should not live comfortably or live in squalor. I am simply saying this… I wonder what the world would be like if we could each trade one of our wants, to fulfill someone else’s need.

—Rhonda