“Jesus quite definitely wanted us to build a society in which people come before things. Jesus taught us to love people and to use things. But in our society we use people and love things.” -Fr. Richard Rohr, Simplicity: The Freedom of Letting Go

We have it backwards. Capitalism and materialism have twisted our perspectives and changed value away from people, our family, our partner, our co-workers, our neighbors, and shifted the value to our stuff. The inanimate. Things that are meant to serve a purpose for our lives.

Now we see people as something to use and something to get something out of. We find “worth” in other people based on what they can do for us. This is so wrong. It is de-humanizing. People are not a commodity. People have a soul, a mind, a will, emotions and feelings.

We need to shift away our focus from the love of things and back to loving the people that God has put in our life. We need to love those who need to know that we see them as valuable to us, not what they can do for us, but that we value everything else about them. Primarily, we value the image of God they carry inside them. The unique creation they are that God values, the way He made them.

– Jason