Thank you all for the outpouring of advice following my Friday reach out about whether or not to pursue a grant for a meat stick room at our co-owned slaughterhouse.  I hope many of you read through the comments too in order to get a flavor of the back and forth.  

            As an old high school and college competitor on the debate team, I found this exchange exhilarating, like a glorified debate.  Many of you invoked, rightfully so, Biblical themes and many political.  Some were okay with either direction and some were adamant on one side or the other.  After reading through them, here is my current thinking and a couple of things to ponder.  

            1.  It’s not black and white.  In full transparency, and as a Christian, I never say “God told me.”  Usually when someone uses that on me, a short time later their decision turns out to be a big mistake.  I think it’s presumptuous and spiritually prideful to say “God told me.”  I do believe He nudges us through prayer, scripture, experience, and Holy Spirit wisdom, but I never use the “God told me” card; it stops my seeking and eliminates dialogue with anyone.  Where do you go from there?  Nowhere.

            2.  The main positive from the comments was realizing that the issue is not whether or not to do the upgrade; it’s whether or not to do it with a grant.  If it makes business sense, then we should do it; that’s an independent decision from the grant discussion.  In other words, with my business partners, it’s primarily a discussion of “should we do this?” rather than “should we get a grant?”  If a grant is the only reason we would consider it, it’s probably not good for business.

            3.  In my perfectly consistent philosophical world, we wouldn’t seek the government’s approval for our processing at all.  The fact that the government ties our hands with licensing and subjective compliance evaluations puts us in a compromised philosophical position from the get-go.  We’re already in a “not my druthers” situation which keeps us from doing things and inherently obfuscates lines of purity and consistency. Welcome to the world of government inspection.

            4.  I’m prejudiced against crowdfunding; it’s akin to panhandling.  Further, it only exists because nobody sees an offering plate at church anymore.  Go Fund Me and the like only exist in our modern culture because we’ve become so godless the philanthropic urge within the human spirit has no outlet except secular projects.  That’s a shame.  Using that platform, to me, incentivizes or at least justifies our secularized society.

            5.  Everything is not either sinful or not.  Hebrews 12:1 admonishes us to “lay aside every weight, and the sin . . .” indicating two types of things that hold us back from running the race:  weight and sin.  The point is that some things are clearly sin and others are just weights.  That’s the category in which I place this—it’s not clearly sin either way I go, but is it a weight over my life, over the sacred business, over my reputation?  That’s a little more nuanced than the Ten Commandments.

            6.  I don’t know yet whether or not my signature is required for this.  It may be that I can agree to disagree and the business pursues it without my signature.  Don’t know yet.  

            7.  My wrong doesn’t mean it’s your wrong, and vice versa.  Context often defines right and wrong.  To hit you out of the blue is wrong, but if you’re raping my wife, hitting you is not only not wrong, it’s the right thing to do.  I think God is pleased when we wrestle with these things; I may come down eventually on either side, but the wrestling is what makes us grow. That’s also called making decisions with intention, and we have too many decisions made today by rote.

            8.  I’m deeply grateful for all of you who said “whichever way you go, it’s okay with me.”  That’s the most charitable statement in the world, and I deeply appreciate the forgiveness indicated in such a statement, after telling me what you really think.  

            To my knowledge, the only time in my life I personally pursued government help was after Hurricane Fran dumped 12 inches of water on us overnight and took out our bridge over Middle River, the only access to our farm and house.  FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) offered grants to folks to rebuild their access if it was the only way to get to their house.  If taking a grant is ALWAYS wrong, then . . . 

            Was it wrong for us to take that money?