Materialism

A Place for My Stuff

Standard

That’s all I want, that’s all you need in life, is a little place for your stuff, ya know? I can see it on your table, everybody’s got a little place for their stuff. This is my stuff, that’s your stuff, that’ll be his stuff over there. That’s all you need in life, a little place for your stuff. That’s all your house is: a place to keep your stuff. If you didn’t have so much stuff, you wouldn’t need a house. You could just walk around all the time.A house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it. You can see that when you’re taking off in an airplane. You look down, you see everybody’s got a little pile of stuff. All the little piles of stuff. And when you leave your house, you gotta lock it up. Wouldn’t want somebody to come by and take some of your stuff. They always take the good stuff. They never bother with that crap you’re saving. All they want is the shiny stuff. That’s what your house is, a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get…more stuff!
—George Carlin

It’s been probably 25 years since I saw George Carlin on The Tonight Show do his “A Place for My Stuff” routine. And when your stuff goes bad, you find another place for it...Carson’s audience laughed hysterically, but I don’t think I laughed once. Anyone who knows me know that I spend a lot of time yucking it up, but I didn’t that night because I realized that not only was Carlin right, but he was devastatingly so. The whole routine (only a tiny portion reproduced here) cut me to the quick.

Last week, a reader surmised that I lived modestly. I don’t. I live in America. Every American reading this is in the top two or three percent of wealthiest people in the world. None of us can say we live modestly.

Okay, modestly in relation to other Americans, perhaps. But even that doesn’t mean all that much when you live in a nation geared to consumption.

The Bible has something to say about that:

And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”
—Luke 12:16-21

I don’t know about you, but a considerable amount of my daily routine centers around my stuff. Our washing machine broke down Thursday, and it took me the better part of four hours to deal with my hopeless attempts at fixing it, followed by the inevitable call to the service center to place a service call that will cost nearly half what I paid for the washer. Some people out there would throw the seven-year-old appliance away, but I don’t want to play into that consumer game. Call me a fool, but part of being a good steward of both the things God has given me and the earth that He told me to care for is to resist leaving a trail of refuse behind me.

I tend to use things until they fall to pieces. My newest pair of casual or dress shoes is seven years old. As I type, I’m wearing the clothes I wore to church Sunday morning: eight-year-old shirt, twelve-year-old pants, fifteen-year-old socks, and eleven-year-old shoes and sweater. Needless to say, I don’t keep up with the fashion trends.

My wife’s car pushes eight, while my truck verges on fifteen. My truck had to go in the shop because a sensor said the fuel mixture was off; the drop-off in mileage proves it. The mechanic hasn’t had much luck getting the part, so the handwriting may be on the wall. I don’t know. The rest of the truck is as solid as the day I bought it.

We don’t go on vacations. My wife and I bought four oak chairs for our dining room—that accounts for all the furniture we’ve purchased as a married couple. And while our sleeper sofa needs reupholstering, we don’t lack for furniture.

In fact, we don’t lack for anything when it comes down to it. We have more in one room of our house than most of the rest of the world has in the entirety of whatever dwelling it is they live in.

And for all that stuff, we spend countless hours and dollars maintaining, insuring, and protecting. Sometimes I think there has to be a better way to live.

I think God has us in a time of pruning. I don’t know why I need all the things we have. Yet I also know many people would look at us and turn up their noses at how little we have comparatively. I know I see the newspaper ads and hear people talking about this expensive bauble and that, but little of that stuff holds any fascination for me.

The Wall Street Journal ran an article last week comparing a $100 sweater to one costing ten times as much. Despite the fact that almost everyone thought the $1000 sweater more chic, the Journal still asked the realistic question, “But is it worth $900 more?”

Meanwhile, I’m asking the even crazier question: “Who buys sweaters that cost a hundred dollars? ”

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for buying quality. The appliances in my house are all Kenmore Elite (including the failed washer, sad to say) because at one time the extra money was worth it in terms of quality and longevity. My mother’s high-end Kenmore washer lasted thirty years. Something tells me I won’t get that from these appliances. (I’ll try to stay positive.)

Still, even when we spend more on quality, we still spend too much. We duplicate what our neighbors have instead of sharing with them. We don’t look out for our neighbor in need because it means we would have less money to buy more stuff for ourselves. We expect people to take care of their own because they have their own stuff and we have ours and never the twain shall meet, as they say.

But what if we Christians stopped with all the crazed consumption? Perhaps instead of twenty polo shirts, what if we had two? We could spend a little bit more for better quality and perhaps even buy American once in awhile. But most of all, we could learn to live on less, not because the economy stinks, but because Jesus gave everything, even His own life, so that we could get the focus off ourselves and onto others.

I guarantee you, right now, you know a family that had a medical emergency they cannot pay for and that emergency is crippling them, and not just in the pocketbook. I guarantee you, right now, there’s a family in your church with parents wondering where the next meal’s coming from. I guarantee you, right now, you know a bright kid who may never make it to college because they simply can’t afford to go. I guarantee you, right now, you know a family ready to lose their modest home because of job loss.

I can’t help but think that, for many of us, the enveloping spiritual malaise we feel may have a direct connection to being overwhelmed by all our stuff. Perhaps if we did a better job living with less, giving away our excess, and considering others better than ourselves, then maybe, just maybe, we’d feel that spiritual fire in the belly again.

We can’t take it with us. Better to give it away or forgo it altogether than have our souls crushed beneath a pile of stuff. I suspect that in saying no to accumulation, we can say yes more often to those real needs we encounter every day in the lives of the people we meet.

Maybe then we’ll find our coffers here pleasantly small and our treasure in heaven immense.

***

A sidenote: From time to time, I receive e-mails from people who wish to send me money as a token of gratitude for what gets posted here at Cerulean Sanctum. I appreciate those gestures and the kindness of the people involved. This blog doesn’t exist to generate money, nor do I wish to sell out to corporate interests that would alter the kind of posts you might read here. All that is by plan.

While I do appreciate that some folks would like to support me monetarily, I have two much better ways you can help:

Take whatever money you designated to send and instead spend it on a needy person you know. My wife and I know many people who have no health insurance, who are either burdened by outstanding medical debt or who cannot afford the basic medical care they need. We know people like that, so we’re sure you know someone, too. They need that money desperately. Find their address and send it to them anonymously, if possible.

On that note, just this weekend, the son of dear friends of ours was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes after a harrowing weekend in which he came close to dying. The family works with the Hispanic community in our area and operates a small ministry. An emergency room visit, intensive care, and a lengthy stay in the hospital will no doubt tap out the entirety of funds this uninsured family receives in ministry support. Obviously, this is a desperate need. If you would like to help this family defray the costs of medical care for their eleven-year-old son, e-mail me and I’ll send you their info. Donations to their ministry are tax deductible.

If a reader would like to bless me, the best way to do so would be to refer freelance writing and editing work to me. That simple act costs you nothing but allows me to help someone else with the skills God gave me and earn my keep as a workman. I can also offer a blessing in return for being blessed. Because I do quality of work, I generate repeat business and good word of mouth—a gift that keeps giving. In that, one freelancing project can grow into a great tree that produces abundant fruit.

Thank you. Have a blessed week.

Deep Economy, Part 2

Standard

A look at Bill McKibben’s book Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future…

I’ll start with two words that may end all your interest in Deep Economy:

Global warming.

McKibben’s an activist for fixing the issue. As for me, I’m not convinced that global warming is, indeed, a man-made phenomena. I’m not even convinced that we’re experiencing a warming at all. Many blogosphere pundits who jeer at the whole idea of global warming got a hoot this last week when NASA corrected some temperature readings from the last decade and it showed that we were slightly cooler than previously reported.

Stay with me, though.

Deep Economy begins with energy. McKibben argues, quite forcefully, that energy makes the modern world possible. And the main sources of energy that created our world as we know it are coal, oil, and natural gas: fossil fuels. The amount of power we glean from just a gallon of gasoline shames the power found in some Old World farmer’s entire menagerie of beasts of burden. Hydrocarbon-based fuels replaced muscle power by an order of magnitude. They, in turn, led to the burst of invention that gave us new forms of transportation, the miracle of electricity, long distance communication, and thousands of other modern conveniences we take for granted.

Before fossil fuels, the idea of fantastic economic growth escaped us. But with their dynamic ability to reduce labor, those fuels made consumerism and unbridled growth possible.

But, as McKibben rightly notes, growth may come with an enormous price tag in terms of ecological fallout. We in the United States were forced to deal with our growth’s deleterious effects back in the 1970s. Those of us born before that time can remember the waters around Cleveland catching on fire. You don’t need a chemistry degree to know that fire and water don’t mix unless something is very, very wrong.

I live by one of the small tributaries of the Little Miami River. Thirty years ago, that river was one of ten most polluted waterways in the United States. McKibben would argue that growth had much to do with the downfall of that river system, and I totally agree.

Today, though, we’ve restored the Little Miami, if not to its Edenic glory, at least to a level higher than “cesspool.”

Yet while we can claim that success, our unlimited desire for more is only shifting environmental disaster elsewhere. The fall of the Iron Curtain shocked many Westerners when they discovered the toll keeping up with the West’s growth had taken on the Communist nations. One hellhole after another sprouted up out of the countryside in places like Romania and Russia. Entire cities succumbed to chemical production plants, metal smelting plants, and more. Iridescent rivers filled with mercury, cadmium, and arsenic ran through towns. Hello, China, goodbye, sun.Diseased residents, like something out of a post-apocalyptic nightmare, stumbled around in sunless wastelands wreathed in smog.

And lest we think those days are a thing of the past, India and China stand ready to re-enact them.

We live in the richest nation on Earth, and the gospel of growth requires we export it elsewhere. Shareholders must be satisfied, cheap goods must be had, and growth must continue.

But what will be the impact of 2.5 billion people acquiring cars? With 300 million in population, the United States (according to 2004 DOT estimates) contains 243,023,485 registered vehicles. We live and die by our cars here. Worse, we export that same desire to the rest of the world. Car ownership in China increases exponentially and shows unlimited growth potential. What would happen if the 2.5 billion people in China and India buy into the “need” for a car? What does it mean for the health of our world if keeping up with the Joneses becomes keeping up with the Wus and Patels?

Consider the amount of energy needed to simply build a car. Estimates vary, but a healthy figure would be roughly 35 barrels of oil (or 1,470 gallons) per car. With an average lifespan of about 15 years, that car will consume an additional 19,500 gallons of gas.

Now ask where what will happen if India and China demand cars at the rate we Americans do.

Oil experts in the West can’t get the Saudis to fess up to the state of their oil fields. Some believe their Ghawar bed is fast declining. When even the pro-growth The Wall Street Journal writes about “peak oil” and the sucking dry of oil beds around the globe, people need to wise up.

And folks, this is before India and China demand cars.

Our lust for more growth requires energy. It also screams for raw materials. Many of the the carelessly purchased signs of the Good Life™ we buy without thinking come from plastics, and, therefore, oil. We trucked those trinkets from far away, burning energy in shipping them. As McKibben so wisely notes, what is the point of air freighting Danish-made sugar cookies to the United States while simultaneously shipping American-made sugar cookies to Denmark?

Due to complex chemical binding processes, one gallon of burned gasoline (at 6.25 pounds) puts nearly 20 pounds of carbon dioxide into the air. I read recently that we now have 200 more parts per million of carbon dioxide in the air today than we did in the 1950s. And the results? It’s hard to know them all, though thousands surely exist. One comes to mind right away. Beyond the disputed global warming process, no scientist disputes that poison ivy’s more potent today than in yesteryear. Scientists found out why, too: the more carbon dioxide the ivy absorbs from the air, the more potent the toxic oil in its leaves. At last count, 75 percent more toxic than when I was a kid.

What else will we be forced to learn too late? Will it be worse than super-poison ivy?

Now no matter what you think of my opening comments about global warming, even if you forget environmental issues, profligacy sits rotting at the core of growth at all costs. When it takes seven times the caloric value of a box of cereal to ship it than can be derived from eating it, aren’t we profligate with how we use energy? When our houses are twice the size they were thirty years ago, but with smaller families, aren’t we profligate? When it’s all about the individual and what we can consume, haven’t we lost our souls?

Eugene Peterson says this:

The cultivation of consumer spirituality is the antithesis of a sacrificial, “deny yourself” congregation. A consumer church is an antichrist church.

So apart from the environmental impact of growth, something truly awful happens to us on the inside as we participate in a consumeristic culture obsessed with more.

McKibben begins Deep Economy with a story of a young Chinese girl experiencing the reality of two economic truths: More and Better. He’s not against improving people’s lives by providing the poorest of the poor with some of the blessings of modern technology. Sometimes More and Better go hand in hand. (Obviously, technology gave us improved medical care and less drudgery.) McKibben tells of the Chinese girl’s backbreaking life in the rural countryside and notes the opportunities afforded her by small blessings brought by growth.

But More and Better fail when a society reaches Better and can’t add to it. At that point, More grows insidious. More becomes the be-all and end-all of life.

In the next installment of my look at Deep Economy, we’ll examine the toll on communities and individuals wrought by More.

A Letter to Rich, the Young Ruler

Standard

Dear Rich,

What a pleasant surprise to receive a letter from you! Your previous letter said you’d been working 60 hours a week to get the promotion you wanted, and now I read that you’ve received it. Looks like your hard work has paid off. You certainly are living the American Dream!

Congratulations, too, on your new five-bedroom home and your new Porsche Cayenne. I’m sure your wife and kids are deliriously happy with both. Thanks also for the pictures from your recent vacation to St. Kitts. My, the twins sure have grown.

I read the printout you enclosed of the blog article written by the CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers. You agree with his contention that there’s no compelling reason to buy an Apple iPhone. That’s probably a wise decision.

In reading that article, though, I find his reasons for not buying an iPhone intriguing. Most of the reasons he cited were technological. I, for one, think a far better reason to avoid it exists.

In our previous correspondence, we’ve gone back and forth on Jesus and what it means to be a Christian. I know you are quite a spiritual person, a “seeker” as you say, but I believe being spiritual and religious doesn’t go far enough.

So, Rich, I’d like to consider a word you don’t hear much today: profligate. That’s a word I would have liked to have seen mentioned in the article from the Thomas Nelson CEO, but even companies that deal with words shy away from some of the less popular ones. Profligate is one of those words.

Here’s how the dictionary defines the term:

Profligate

†“adjective
1. utterly and shamelessly immoral or dissipated; thoroughly dissolute.
2. recklessly prodigal or extravagant.

†“noun
3. a profligate person.

I can’t help but think, Rich, that since perfectly good cell phones can be had for $50, the desire for one that costs ten times that much seems…well, profligate. No doubt, the iPhone reeks of style and trendiness, and no doubt, many people who claim to follow Jesus will buy one. I’m not sure, though, that those buyers understand the word profligate.

Let me tell you about some people I know. I know a couple who bought a small home in one of the worst neighborhoods in our city. He has a good job and could afford a much larger home, but he and his wife elected to use their extra money to meet the desperate needs of their poorer neighbors. I know a man who forgos the expensive medication he needs to feel better so he can help a woman who has no health insurance pay for the even more expensive cancer medication she needs. I know a family who sent $1000 of their hard-earned money to help an unemployed couple they had never met in person make a house payment so they could keep their home. I know a man who gave every cent he owned in the world to fund a missionary couple who would have been recalled. Those missionaries were in the middle of their translation of the Bible into a new language. They would’ve had to come home unless they raised enough money to complete the translation.

Funny thing is, those people I just mentioned don’t know the common, negative understanding of the word profligate either—but for a far different reason. They live a different way: the way of Christ. If they have any profligacy in their lives, it’s profligacy in giving, not taking.

You mentioned in your last letter that I sounded out of step with the rest of the world. Indeed, I fear I am. You see, for me, it’s not so much about accumulating the hip trinkets of this life, things that break, become obsolete, and ultimately do not satisfy the longings of the heart. That’s because I believe in a world far more real than this one, a world where hip trinkets pale in the light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Yes, as you said, it’s a risky belief. It means not keeping up with the social standing of the rest of the world. I would probably never be voted into the wonderful country club you and Mrs. Ruler just got accepted to. But that’s okay, Rich. It really is.

Some Christians believe this world is not their home. They won’t be understood by the rest of the world, nor by some other people who say they believe in Jesus. They’ve said no to many of the things the world offers and that’s an exceedingly hard thing to do.

You see, Rich, it’s one thing to say you believe something. It’s another thing altogether to believe something so much that your life looks radically different from the rest of the crowd. The crowd says so many things and believes so many things, doesn’t it? But who is willing to die to the voice of majority and give what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose? In a way then, the true profligate may be the one who appears to have every thing deemed good by the world’s standard, but will one day wind up losing it all in tears and flames. He has gained the world, but lost his soul.

I know my letter may not make sense to you. I’ll keep praying, though, that for all your seeking, God in His grace will make Himself known to you.

But I must caution you, Rich. If He does, and you take that revelation seriously, it may mean an end to one dream and the beginning of another. That new dream won’t look much like the old one, though. It may mean not only forgoing an iPhone, but giving up cell phones altogether. You may end up thinking it better to share those extra bedrooms in your new home with orphans or widows even if it means you could no longer afford that home theater system you said you might be purchasing. Don’t expect to be popular for electing not to keep up with the Joneses so you can minister life to others. The folks you run with probably won’t approve of your new dream. You may lose your standing at the country club. You may even be kicked out because you’re no longer one of the right kind of people.

But then again, that new dream’s the only dream that counts, the only one that ends in the Eternal Golden City. I pray I see you there.

For the Kingdom,

B. A. Disciple