The Autumn Clothing Season: Get Involved…
This Autumn we’re looking for contributions on the theme of clothing.
We’d love to hear your thoughts, suggestions and stories about the world of clothing and fashion. For instance:
- What is your favourite ethical clothing brand / purchase and why?
- Is charity shopping the way forward? Any tips for this?
- If we dress ‘simply’ do we end up enjoying our bodies and our clothes less? Could there be a way to enjoy them more?
- Is it ever acceptable to wear something that might have been made in a sweat shop?
- ‘Do not worry about what you wear’ – how do you do this?
- When was the last time you heard gold jewellery denounced in church (see 1 Tim 2:9-10)? Have we missed something, or have times changed?
You can comment on this piece, of course, but you can also submit a new blog post (email editor@breathenetwork.org) or something for the Breathe monthly email (to subscribe: in@breathenetwork.org). Watch out, too, for new Breathe contributors James, Micah, Annie and Matt, as well Phil, Jeremy and I.
Enjoy!
TV – Give me those years back!
We’ve done over a year now without a TV license (well, almost – see below), and so far so good. But even still I wasn’t prepared for the latest bizzarre statistics on TV watching. TV shortens your life. Apparently. By 22 minutes for every hour you watch! The Independent reports:
Television watching is a sedentary activity which is known to be harmful to health and is distinct from getting too little exercise. But a new study suggests its damaging effects may even rank alongside those from smoking and obesity. The study includes bad news for advertisers: it found that if you get up during the commerical breaks and run around, you may be able to ameliorate television’s worst effects.
Researchers who studied television viewing habits in Australia calculated that people who watch for an average of six hours a day shorten their life expectancy by almost five years.
Now, I’ve long since given up taking statistics at face value. But there clearly is a link between TV and bad health of various sorts. And we’re watching more of it, too (although I guess being sat at a computer as I am now is just as sedentary). The only thing missing in these particular reports, so far as I’ve read, is the full time cost of TV. To watch an hour of TV may indeed shorten your life – that is, it has a high association with shorter lifespans. But even if it’s as much as 22 minutes per hour, that’s nothing compared to the 60 minutes you’ve already lost in the first place!
In total, watching an hour of TV could make our lives 82 minutes shorter! Now there’s an incentive to turn off the box.
It’s hard, though, I know. Just the other day I was almost hooked by cult TV series The Killing. I watched the first episode on iPlayer, and was suitably thrilled and entranced. But then I thought about the other 19 hours I’d need to finish it off. That’s 1140 minutes of my life. If the research is right, maybe 1558 minutes!
So all in all I’m glad we cancelled our licesne. I say cancelled, actually we briefly reinstated it for the royal wedding and Wimbledon (!) but it’s gone again now. Not that it was easy – the only reasons the TV licensing people seem to accept for not wanting a license anymore are moving or dying! Can’t they imagine that we might simply have had to much of it? Come to think of it, can’t we?
Corrupted File
Generally talking about consumerism is a fairly serious business but here at Breathe we think it’s important to live a more light-hearted alternative. So with that in my mind let me introduce some music and some light-hearted humour to the blog.
This song by my friend Andy Lowe is a comedy song about the wonders of, and our growing dependence on, technology. Hope you enjoy it and if you do head over to his facebook page and let him know.
Money, materialism and simplicity – bumper links!
Over the past few weeks while blogging has been low, I’ve kept my eye on a number of blogs (mostly because Google Reader doesn’t have a holiday option). Here is a collection on simplicity, money and the Gospel, it should keep you well fed for a while!
- First up is an excellent three part (so far) series by Martin Charlesworth: Does it matter how rich we are?, The paradox of money, wealth and materialism and simplicity – the first step
- Simplicity by the way is not this (HT: Challies)
- Trevor Saxby also has some good posts responding to Martin Charlesworth, on how we develop a sliding scale of need, reminding us that the poor have faces and that love means distribution
- Zach Nielsen writes on how the gospel makes us generous and content with our money and it’s worth considering our definition of‘worldly’ so we would do well to follow this man’s example and choose not to gain the whole world
- Tim Challies ponders on the things I chose not to choose and how he battled with worry
- All these things are a symptom of current lifestyles like not knowing how to rest, having an affair with technology because we’re addicted to smartphones and technology is changing the face of community
- So some practical things to do to handle our stuff. Mint tells us how to quit the self storage habit or you could seek to multiply the benefits of your choices and Jeremy reminds us that some of the most valuable things we own we haven’t paid for.
- This infographic shows me how lucky I am to have been born in the west. Almost guaranteed to be able to read, live until I’m in my seventies, be free from infectious diseases and have clean water etc… Not everyone on our planet is so fortunate. (HT:Freakonomics)
- If you’re in business you could think how your business works and whether it can help capitalize with the poor
- If you’re wondering where to start consider reading one of these two books
Google Chrome and ‘Watching’ Your Kids
OK, I’m going to stick my neck out here and say that I find this commercial creepy and false. We (particularly guys) are already prone to live our lives through our technology. This video attempts to trade on that fact.
Granted, it’s touching. The delicate piano riff is just the latest version of sweet folkesy background muzak currently beloved of mega corporations seeking to rewire our emotional response to them. But I can’t be the only one to find the emotional denoument - ’I've been emailing you all your life’ - a little meagre in the cold light of day. ‘Daddy, do you really love me?’ ‘Why, just load up your browser, Princess, and you’ll see…!’
The web is what you make it. This from the company that began with the motto ‘don’t be evil’. The responsibility is shifting. Judgements are becoming more blurred. Now we must choose what to make of the internet and Google’s role is only to help us. But if recent experience has proved anything, it’s that the internet is never simply what you make it. While we’re busy trying to make the internet what we want it to be, we ourselves are subtley moulded. In general the internet tends to decrease shared family time rather than enriching it. In the words of the latest edition of Conspire, we end up ‘memorialising’ our children digitally instead of inhabiting each moment freely and for its own sake.
Technology is not to be thoughlessly shunned. But this ad is an emotional smokescreen. It promises a homely family scrapbook for life, but the reality doesn’t ring true. Limiting our internet use could bless our families much more than expanding it. Google can be a handy information tool; but its systems provide a poor framework for a father’s love.
In order to reinforce my point, I hereby sign off from this blog to invest in family time over the holidays! In fact, using one genuine wonder of technology – it’s ability to help us limit its encroachment into life - I already left two days ago when I scheduled this post.
Lifestyle links
I just want to bring to your attention an excellent little series on lifestyle by Martin Charlesworth. Three parts (so far)…
- Does it matter how rich we are?
- The paradox of money, wealth and materialism
- Simplicity – the first step
“Simplicity is the willingness to ask the hard questions about what we own.
Simplicity is the willingness to be thankful for what we have, rather than restless for what we hope to acquire.
Simplicity is about choosing not to define ourselves by what we own.
Simplicity is about staring out materialism.”
There’s more where that came from…do read the whole thing
Five Freedoms of a Holiday at Home
Ever consider a change to the travel-intensive holiday routine? Mary White writes:
As busy people who invest a lot of time and energy into our jobs in the charity sector, we take having a good holiday seriously. Last year we went to Krakow in March – a city packed with interesting historical and cultural places, so we went busily visiting one after the other. In August we went to North Wales, and spent every day enjoying the scenery out and about. On each occasion we arrived back home in London on Saturday afternoon, were committed to church on Sunday and by Monday afternoon it was as though the holiday had never been.
So in November we decided to take a holiday at home, and we enjoyed five freedoms during the week:
1. Freedom from the “once in a lifetime” syndrome. In Krakow, we knew we were unlikely to visit there again so wanted to see everything, As we live in London, we knew that we could always visit the major attractions some other time. So there was no pressure to milk every moment.
2. Freedom to really enjoy all our area has to offer and to appreciate it. One day we took a walk up Primrose Hill and spontaneously stopped on the way home to visit a pub we had always liked the look of; another day we went to a South Ken department store and enjoyed the stunning view from their roof top café; another day we took advantage of the half price matinee performance at the local independent cinema.
3. Freedom from worrying about spending. Knowing that we were not spending anything on accommodation and travel was really releasing, We started the week by having breakfast out and shopping in Waitrose as though we were abroad, I didn’t mind that it cost more than my average weekly shop because overall the holiday was inexpensive.
4. Freedom to really enjoy our home and activities that can feel like a chore when we are busy. Rather than saying we were strictly not allowed to do anything we would normally do at home, we actually had time to talk about and order some items to improve our study, to email friends and to potter around without feeling there were 101 other things we ought to be doing. One afternoon we watched the afternoon film and it felt incredibly decadent in a good way.
5. Freedom from the end of week gear change. Because we were already at home, there was no travel, no extra washing, no fridge needing filling; we were able to move back into the week back at work in a relatively seamless way.
We felt more as though we had got away from it all than when we had travelled. So are we going to spend all our holidays at home from now on? No – but we would recommend it and have learnt some things from it.
The Multiplier Effect
The other day I went to see someone who had redeveloped their house. I imagine it was a reinvestment of many thousands – new fittings, extended rooms, new bathrooms and so on. In a previous life as a Christian Pharisee (a contradiction in terms? Maybe, but I don’t think I’m the only one!) I would have judged the owners without thinking.
But there’s something wonderful about this house. The owners, a family with young kids, have opened it up as a strategic centre for Christian retreat and meetings. These guys don’t just have a luxury lifestyle that drops breadcrumbs to others. The kitchen people use when they stay is their kitchen. The spare rooms and bathrooms are a dormitory they offer to regional leaders. The costs (and benefits) of hospitality are shared by the whole family at various points throughout the year.
The whole thing struck me as a great example of The Multiplier Effect. The Multiplier Effect goes beyond simply saving money (which is why it can be hard for Christian Pharisees to spot); it depends on an investment of money. These guys had invested in their house, but the reason was to bless others in multiple ways. The new (larger) house provides hospitality, gathers Christians, saves other organisations money, adds the value of real homely sharing, and promotes mission.
So now I’m on the look out for multipliers. Solar panels on a church roof (money invested, benefits to green economy (some can be reinvested in better solar technology), a symbolic act in the community, money multiplies through electricity generation, and so on). Lunch at a Fair Trade cafe. Buying from a charity shop.
The Multiplier Effect goes beyond simple calculations of plus and minus. It’s risky and involving (and sometimes hard to measure – another tough gnat for Pharisees to swallow). But it smells alot to me like the kingdom at work…
I enjoyed this video. Simple, but more pervasive than we might think…
I read today in the paper that Jeremy Clarkson has derided Salford, the BBC’s new home, as a “small suburb with little to offer beyond a Starbucks and a canal with ducks”, adding that he would “resign in a heartbeat” if asked to move there.
I related this to my Grandma just now, who was born in Salford in 1914, and she replied sagely: ‘It’s better than it was’! She went on, ’It should be commended, especially the new developments at the Quays. When I was growing up it was very different, my brothers worked for the ‘relief’ among the slums’.
Clarkson is just one victim of postcoditus, the obsession we have with living in the right neighbourhood. The news for him, and for the rest of us, is that the world does not exist to offer us things. The truth is the other way around. We exist to offer things to the world, to invest in neighbourhoods, to believe in the positives and attempt to mitigate the negatives. Wherever we are in the world, we can all do that.
