Declutter and Watch out for Overwork
Lynda sent this response in, thanks for the great ideas:
I wanted to thank you for putting this together [the Lent 2012 Consumer Detox] – and how very appropriate this is for the times we live in. It seems to be the focus of many people, including those outside the church, to de-clutter their lives. I receive emails from Daily Good and two have really stood out so far: one included a link to this blog http://zenhabits.net/ who is currently dealing with removal of clutter (very practical), and http://www.dailygood.org/view.php?sid=130 which gives some amazing statistics relating to the fact that working longer hours contributes to carbon emissions and unsustainable living.
This year I made 2 new year resolutions:
- to buy only food, and to make, bake or create everything else.
- to clear out the junk and unused clutter from my home, piece by piece, every day – and yes, we have lived here, with our 5 children (now grown up) for 20 years so this will take me a year!
So far, I have kept them both, and am feeling quite liberated by them. Clearing space frees the mind for other things. Not going shopping is wonderful – I have even discovered that Ocado deliver free to my area on a Wednesday lunch time, so I am saving petrol, time and greenhouse gas emissions! Wonderful!
Thank you so much for your inspiring writing. God bless you on your journey.
Jesus vs. religion?
Jefferson Bethke
The night Jefferson Bethke, 22, posted his “Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus” video on YouTube, he made a bet with his mates about how many views the video would get by morning.
The highest bet was 6,000.
By the time Bethke woke up the next day, the video had more than 100,000 views. Eight days after the video was posted, it had been watched more than 14 million times. The number continues to skyrocket.
The video, Bethke said, was an attempt “to write a poem against legalism, self righteousness, self-justification and hypocrisy”. It contains catchy lines like: “The problem with religion is it never gets to the core / It’s just behaviour modification, like a long list of chores” and “I’m just saying quit putting on a fake look / Cause there’s a problem if people only know you’re a Christian by your Facebook”.
The video has been discussed by both religious scholars and armchair theologians. Some point out that pitching Jesus against all religion is too sweeping: Jesus, after all, was a religious Jew. Bethke himself says “You have to get back to my definition of religion. Jesus was coming to abolish self righteousness, justification and hypocrisy.”
In fact, the New Testament’s definition of Jesus’ kind of religion is pretty punchy: “Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you” (James 1:27, NLT).
Defending and helping the defenceless, the marginalised? Refusing to swallow the lies of the surrounding culture? That’s the kind of religion Jesus taught and modelled.
Revolutionary religion like that means selling possessions, living simply, sharing with those in need. It means opening your heart and life to others. It means refusing the lie that says “Live for number one”. It means going beyond the pain barrier, learning to love, committing yourself to working for justice and sticking at it over the long haul.
For me, it meant giving up my own home and sharing it with others, and not having a penny to my name because I share my cash with others, too.
For Jesus, it meant dying for what was right. He calls us to follow Him.
I believe there may be a sequel waiting to be made: “I Love Jesus And I Love The Religion He Loves” – to lay down my life for the marginalized and see through the lies of the mainstream.
You too can be a Philanthropist
Philanthropy – love of mankind. Not to be confused with philandering, which is a different kind of love…
Anyway, there’s a great interview with some SERIOUS philanthropists here. There guys have earned millions and given away millions, and I for one am deeply grateful to see that kind of generosity. It’s a 5 minute radio interview and I think there’s lots of great insights in it. ‘I don’t want to be the richest guy in the graveyard’ is a particular gem. So is the moment when he was told ‘it’s not your money, really’. Good stuff.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9669000/9669043.stm
But listening to the clip also made me think that we can all be philanthropists. We can all love others; we can all give. In fact, Jesus was spectacularly unimpressed by the donations of the wealthy in his day. The real giving he was interested in happened quite unnoticed: two small coins into the temple treasury (Luke 21:1-4). But Jesus said it was more than all the other gifts he’d seen (and he’d seen some big ones). Note: he didn’t say ‘guys, do you know what, this widow gave too’. He doesn’t say ‘in a funny way she gave as much as they did. He said ‘she gave more’. So really, truly, think of yourself as a philanthropist. Especially if you give sacrificially.
The radio interview mentions setting a target. If that’s what millionaires can do, maybe that’s what we can do, too. The greatest teaching I ever heard on giving was a guy who simply decided to give the greatest percentage of his income away that he could. Sometimes it was 25%, sometimes 40%, sometimes 30%. The point is that he had an ambition, a target. He’d learned to love to give (does that make him a philophilanthropist?). May it be the same for us.
2011 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 29,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 11 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
Is Big Business Bad? (A Dialogue)
A while back I entered into a dialogue with Edward about Breathe and the world of big business. We’d sent out a piece from Dave Bookless (A Rocha) which spoke strongly against the mass production of quickly obsolete products, and Edward sent a provocative reply.
Thanks to Edward for these thoughts, but also for agreeing to their being published (in slightly shortened form):
1. Vaccines – Is mass production bad? (Edward to Mark):
I’ve just come back from the vaccination plant that makes millions of vaccinations for children and prevention of some horrible crippling diseases. You will never know who made the mass produced, disposable, obsolete products but they may already have saved your life. Thank goodness for mass production Regards Edward
2. Accelerated obsolescence (Mark to Edward):
Hi Edward,
I think your basic point is a good one: mass production should not be vilified just because of its size; industrial development brings unquestionable benefits for humanity. It is important that any questioning of consumerism take this into account. The poorer nations of the world, I would agree, often need more mass production, not less.
However, just because a system has benefits doesn’t mean that it cannot be improved. Obsolescence is one example of this. I’m not sure that a vaccine qualifies as ‘built to be obsolete’, as I think what Dave had in mind was accelerated obsolescence (can vaccines be continuous-use?).
The Price of Materialism and the Need for a New Dream
This is a great new video from the guys at New American Dream. It features powerful research about the way media exposure and materialistic values affect our life satisfaction and shape us as hyper-consumers.
What about the suggestions the video makes? Can better coping strategies and different economic models save the world? On their own, no. We need a better ‘dream’ than just a renewed american dream. Jesus called it the kingdom of God. But though the kingdom is bigger than the ‘nice’ life of psychological balance and economic sustainability, it certainly includes much of what new american dreamers are striving for. To truly know God is a great antedote to the anxiety that drives our consumer habits, if only we could experience this more in our churches and homes. And the revisioned economics of the kingdom should certainly cause us to question our devotion to current ways of measuring growth.
The kingdom is God’s dream for the world he made and loves. One day it will become reality. Today though, God is still looking for dreamers to join him…
Eco-retailer says ‘buy less’!
Great Christmas email from Nigel’s eco store (Thanks Sarah and Ewan for the link…):
Hi there, Last Saturday was Buy Nothing day. As a retailer, we know the last Saturday in November is one of the peak shopping days of the year. I bumped into Buy Nothing day via an interesting interview with Buy Nothing founder, and the man who started the Wall Street protest, Kalle Lasn, in the Independent a week ago.The thinking behind Buy Nothing day is pretty deep, and very much of the moment.Kalle says: “We are going to try and take back our Christmas season from the commercial forces that have hijacked it,” and suggests other options instead, such as a Buy Local, a Buy Fairer, or a Buy Indie, Christmas, or giving a “gift exemption” card to friends and family (instead of a gift voucher).
I gave Buy Nothing day a go, and bought nothing on Saturday. (See twitter.com/nigelsecostore)
It wasn’t that difficult as I was at home, pulling up the living room floor. But then it hit me that we didn’t have enough nice food for both lunch and dinner, and had to dig through the lentils and barley at the back of the cupboard to find something to eat for lunch. It didn’t take long, and was more healthy anyway. There were a few other purchases that I didn’t make that ordinarily I would have.
Buying nothing made me think about what we buy. (And, by association, where it comes from, what it’s made of, and how much it will be used.) Often we don’t stop and think about it.As a retailer it’s easy to get seduced by the idea that our job is to sell more stuff. And Buy Nothing day is, at first look, an uncomfortable idea for us because of that.But as a resourceful eco retailer, we have to get our priorities right and make sure we’re not adding to the stuff and the tat, and the things we don’t really need. For our Christmas campaign and January sale we’ll make sure they’re focussed around usefulness and resourcefulness and buying less.
We’re not alone in this.Sustainable clothing brand Patagonia are telling consumers to buy less of their new range. They make apparel that costs more, but they want you to buy quality that lasts. And they’ve set up a second-hand shop on their site.
There’s also signs that we’re all buying less. The UK reached ‘peak stuff’ this year and that makes me optimistic. If it’s true, ‘peak stuff’ means “it’s highly likely that we are now using fewer materials than at any time on record”.So this Christmas, buy secondhand (Ebay), buy handmade (Etsy), buy something resourceful like Sugru that allows your friends and family to hack, customise, make better, fix, and improve the stuff they already have. If you haven’t already, have a Buy Nothing day before Christmas.A friend of mine has suggested that next year we close the site down for the day to make the point….Nigel
PS we wrote a guide to Christmas a couple of years ago. It’s been popular and if anyone wants a copy it’s available for free as a pdf: Click Here
Treasure in the field: spiritual capital and sustainable living
Treasure in the Fields is a conference run by our friends at Christian Ecology Link, and Breathe is contributing a worshop on ‘consumer detox’. Here are some details, with more on the CEL website here:
Treasure in the Field: Spiritual capital, sustainable living
CEL Conference, Saturday 10 March, with Jonathon Porritt and Tim Gorringe,
Stoke Gifford (near Bristol Parkway station).
Workshops led by Tim Gorringe, Chris Sunderland (EarthAbbey), Jeremy Williams (Breathe), Mark Letcher (Climate Works) and Jonathan Essex (Greenhouse think-tank).
£15 (£10 early-bird price before end January). £5 for young people under 25.
Details and booking form: www.christian-ecology.org.uk/treasure
The real meaning of Advent
Surprisingly spiritually helpful…
Don’t Text Gok
“Thanks. It used to be my sister’s”.
This is my regular retort, so overused and worn that I ought to have it printed on a t-shirt, or perhaps tattoo it on my forehead. Here’s the pattern: my sister gives me her reject clothes, I wear them, people compliment me, and I have no choice but to come clean. After all, I can hardly take the credit for clothes I neither chose or paid for. Other than these donations, I tend to wear clothes I’ve owned for far-too-many years, clothes from charity shops and more recently, castoffs from my daughter’s friends… and she’s only thirteen! So this is me. No sense of fashion. No one ever says: Annie, I saw this and just had to buy it for you… it’s so your style. Never. Because I have zero style.
But before you text Gok, pleading with him to ‘sort me’ by taking me clothes shopping and parading me semi-naked on a shopping centre cat-walk… please hear me out. What I’m after is a new look. I’ve recently started my teaching training. Forget potato-printing and nativity plays though, it’s only those aged sixteen and above that I’ll be attempting to enlighten. And herein lies part of the problem: I’m almost thirty-seven, but unfortunately look considerably younger. A month or two ago I got asked for ID in ASDA, when attempting to buy wine (Fair Trade, of course). Yes, I ought not to be complaining, but when I finally qualify I want to be able to ooze authority and ‘teachery-ness’. I don’t want it to be assumed that I’m only a couple of years older than those I’m teaching. Thus, I want a ‘teacher’ look. Not too frumpy, not too daring, not too ‘young’… not too much to ask for, is it?
So when I finally have the money, inclination, motivation and time to purchase this new wardrobe, in which direction shall I head? Charity shops? Maybe, but whereas tops usually work out quite well, I’ve often found that it’s bordering on the impossible to buy charity shop trousers/skirts that fit me properly.
My ‘living simply/ethically’ ethos directs me next to fairly-traded clothes. The main suppliers are generally via catalogues or online. This is a pain as I then can’t try on clothes before buying them (which is never wise). Also, they cost a fortune. I don’t have a fortune to spend – not even half a fortune. I’m not a teacher yet, remember.
Marks ‘n’ Sparks? Perhaps. They do stock some fairly-traded clothes, but not enough that I’d be able to select several complete outfits, especially so if you consider footwear. Also, I’m not sure I’m affluent enough to ‘Per Una’ myself (M&S’s trendier women’s range, in case you weren’t aware).
Primark? Much easier on the wallet, it has to be said. But such cheap clothes freak me out somewhat. Just glancing at them makes me see children in sweat-shops. No purchase is worth supporting unfair-trade, especially something as non-essential as new outfits. However, since Primark was ‘trashed’ via various TV documentaries a couple of years ago, it has pulled its socks up. It doesn’t claim that its socks, or any of its wares, carry the fair trade logo, but it does purport to be an ethical trader (http://www.primark-ethicaltrading.co.uk/).
High profile companies (such as Primark and McDonalds) boasting such cheap goods, have come under so much pressure to change, they could hardly fail to respond. I wonder if it’s the ‘middle-market’ stores that we ought to be avoiding – ones that lack strict ethical standards, but which aren’t so cheap that they’ve come under enough scrutiny as to be exposed, and forced to change. Or is this simply self-delusion? Attempting to convince myself that it’s acceptable to shop at Primark, just because I can get more for my money?
Who knows? Well, I expect God knows, to be fair. My best bet is probably to pray before I finally set out on my image-altering shopping expedition, and to take it from there. That, or just to hope that my sister buys herself several new ‘teachery’ outfits in the near future, and soon tires of them.
(Annie, who hangs out here: www.annieporthouse.com )
