Ownership vs. Stewardship: the debate continues

July 21, 2009

Ownership vs. Stewardship?

Among the many recurring themes that keep bubbling up in my consciousness, the tension between the concepts of ownership and stewardship ranks very high.

Today’s paper included another tragic story of a suburban Denver family devastated by a car accident which claimed the lives of a mother and two daughters, leaving the father and a third daughter (who was driving) in deep grief.

In many ways I too cannot imagine the power of this level of loss.  If my grief is unspeakable, what words could possibly describe the intensity of pain being endured by these dear people?

Why do this story and my internal reaction to it lead me back to the ownership vs. stewardship debate?

I suppose the basic issue that continually confronts our humanity can be boiled down to these simple yet very profound questions: 

• Can we truly and completely own any thing or any one? 
• Or, are we simply allowed to act as stewards – of our children, our family, our spouse and marriage, and even our tangible, so-called property – all our earthly “possessions”?

I cannot conceive of losing more than one family member – or even one – if I believe that I am in the position of ownership.  As I have written in earlier entries, when I feel like I owned Daniel, I feel very ripped off by my loss of him – my possession has been stolen from me.

When I am able to live into a sense of simple stewardship, I am still very sad over this loss, but it seems that some of the edge is removed and I somehow feel a bit of peace that comes from knowing that Daniel was never mine to fully possess in the first place. 

Losing him makes me very sad, but it is not the same as him being stolen from me.

God:  help me to live with grace and endurance as a steward who owns nothing.