Luke Lackey

“In an economy that evaluates and compensates us in impersonal terms, the most consequential members, the ones who matter the most for all our flourishing, are the ones whom Mammon does not consider useful. It is the "useless" who matter the most. Because if they are persons - if they are seen, known, and welcomed, and given places of honor in our households - then all of us are set free from our usefulness.

If those who cannot earn money, and perhaps are not even able to spend it, are of the greatest value, then we, too, can be free from serving it. If those whom the world has forgotten and written off are the ones we know and remember, then we can trust that we ourselves will be remembered long after our usefulness is gone.

If we can recognize those who cannot even see us - if we can see them as persons - then we ourselves, so often unsure of whether someone truly sees and knows us, can know that from the beginning to the end of our days, we also will be seen.

If we can build households and societies that love the charmless, the uncharmed and uncharming, then we will be free of our addiction to things that make our world seem charmed, the all-too-easy superpowers that leave us anxious and empty.

There are persons for whom magic simply does not work - the uncharmable. For them, the only thing that matters is love. If we can stay with them in their limits, their profound anchoring in this place and time, we have some hope that we will not detach from the real world of heart, soul, mind, and strength, and that we will learn the love for which we were designed....

For the flourishing of persons, everything depends on the ones who are unuseful.”
― Andy Crouch, The Life We're Looking For: Reclaiming Relationship in a Technological World