Filed under: Capitalism, Consumerism, simplicity | Tags: Capitalism, Christianity, Consumerism, patagonia, simplicity
Just ran across this t-shirt from Patagonia and couldn’t help but feel a strong urge to buy it. For the low price of $29.00 I too can combat consumerism and promote a simpler way of life. Just think of all the people who will read my t-shirt and be inspired to sell all they have and move to the mountains. And everyone will know that I am against consumerism! All I have to do is buy it.
I’m all for living simply, but here’s what I think this t-shirt really says: look at me– I’m white, wealthy, privileged, well educated, “liberal”, and just like all my other friends from the class of ‘99 I like to play guitar.
So instead of buying this t-shirt, I decided to use a black magic marker ($.99), take off my shirt, and inscribe the words “live simply” upon my chest.
Sorry capitalism.
Filed under: Capitalism, Christianity, Consumerism, Poetry, Politic, Wendell Berry, liberation | Tags: Capitalism, Christianity, Consumerism, liberation, Poetry, spirituality, wealth, Wendell Berry
Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion- put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap for power,
please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.
Wendell Berry, Good Poems Selected and Introduced by Garrison Keillor (New York: Penguin Group, 2002) 274.
Filed under: Christianity, Consumerism, Peace and Justice, Shane Claiborne, quotes | Tags: Christianity, Consumerism, Hermas, Jesus for President, justice, Shane Claiborne, spirituality, wealth
This one’s extremely challening and I’m going to have to sit with it for a while:
You who are God’s servants are living in a foreign country, for your own city-state is far away from this city-state. Knowing which is yours, why do you acquire fields, costly furnishings, buildings, and frail dwellings here? Anyone who acquired things for himself in this city cannot expect to find the way home to his own City. Do you not realize that all these things here do not belong to you, that they are under a power alien to your nature? The ruler will say you do not obey my laws, either observe my laws or get out of my country, Take care lest it prove fatal to you to repudiate your own laws. Acquire no more here than what is absolutely necessary. Instead of fields, buy for yourselves people in distress in accordance with your means.
-Hermas, 140 AD
Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw, Jesus For President (Michigan: Zondervan 2008 ) 146.
Filed under: Capitalism, Christianity, Consumerism, Peace and Justice, Politic, Shane Claiborne | Tags: Capitalism, Christianity, Consumerism, Jesus, Jesus for President, Shane Claiborne
Jesus is ready to set us free from the heavy yoke of an oppressive way of life. Plenty of wealthy Christians are suffocating from the weight of the American Dream, heavily burdened by the lifeless toil and consumption we embrace. This is the yoke from which we are being set free. And as we are liberated from the yoke of global capitalism, our sisters and brothers in Guatamala, Liberia, and Sri Lanka will also be liberated. Our family overseas, who are making our clothes, growing our food, pumping our oil, and assembling our electronics–they too need to be liberated from the empire’s yoke of slavery. Their liberation is tangled up with our own. The new yoke isn’t easy. (It’s a cross, for heaven’s sake.) But we carry it together, and it is good and leads us to rest, especially for the weariest traveler.
Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw, Jesus For President (Michigan: Zondervan 2008 ) 113.
I’ve recently read Dallas Willard’s essay entitled “Living in the Vision of God.” In it he addresses the almost unavoidable problem that great leaders and movements often face: the true “fire” which began the movement is snuffed out. Instead of carrying on the fire, successors simply “warm themselves by the fire”. Dallas sites Assissi as an example. Upon arrival he says you will find many souveniers and monuments commemorating St. Francis, “But you will not find anyone who carries in himself the fire that Francis carried.”
To me, this problem is especially true in our present day American culture. Additionally, not only must a movement sustain the fire, but also successfully fight off consumerism and capitalism which threaten to turn any sort of movement into a product to be marketed and engage in competition with others. In some ways, the Emergent Church movement is a good example of this problem. What possibly started as a genuine movement of God has in part been co-opted. Millions of dollars are being made on t-shirts, book deals, and special events. Does this movement really have what it takes to stand the test of time, or will it fizzle out in a few years because it’s not cool anymore and can’t make money?
Dallas argues that when the mission (work) becomes more important than the vision, the movement fails. Only humility, grace, and a heart which only seeks to love God sustains a true movement of God.
“We don’t need to be the vision, and the goals we set are God’s business, not ours. We do the very best we know, we work hard, and even self-sacrificially. But we do not carry the load, and our ego is not involved in any way with the mission and the ministry. In our love of Jesus and his Father, we truly have abondoned our life to God. Our life is not an object of deep concern.”
Dallas Willard, LIving in the Vision of God (Tell the Word Publishing: Washington DC), 10.
