Resolved: A Year Without Shopping

In 2007 and 2006, members of a San Francisco group pledged not to buy anything new. I don't know if they succeeded, but I suspect we'll be hearing about them in coming days.

I think it’s a charming idea, because I dislike shopping. For those who enjoy recreational shopping, and certainly for those who are addicted, the idea is far-fetched at best.

One of the fascinating issues that comes up for me is how much better we are at spending money than investing it, even though the decisions in both cases are similar. I’ll talk about this some other time. Today, at the start of a new year, I want to talk about choices.

The depth and breadth of our choices how to spend money are mind-numbing, even if we know what we’re shopping for. A shirt. A computer. A CD. Even a cup of coffee.

We have a similar plethora of choices just about anywhere we turn. Movies, books, online videos, news sources, restaurants, places to walk, cable channels, radio stations, satellite radio channels, internet radio channels, and so on.

With so many choices, it’s easy to get neurotic and begin worrying that we’re missing something important. And while we’re worrying about that, we forget to enjoy what is right in front of us.

This is what is compelling about the San Francisco group. Their decision to not pursue new stuff forces them to appreciate again and again what is in front of them, and maybe to savor life.

Life is, after all, about savoring, not accumulation.

Knowing Your Place

Christmas is a time when many of us reflect on our aspirations and remember that we aren't permanently assigned a place in this life.

That's why I've never it liked the expression "know your place." When someone says something about the need to “know one’s place,” he is saying that there is some kind of absolute hierarchy, and that it is the highest priority that each of us know our place in it.

This is like dogs at the local dog park. When a new dog arrives, all the dogs are nervous until it is clear exactly where this dog fits in the hierarchy. Sometimes dogs get so nervous with the uncertainty that they growl, bark or even fight.

We seem to both crave openness and honesty and loathe it, even at the top of the hierarchy. We want people to “be themselves”, but then they do something we don’t like and we wish they were someone else.

The question I’m dying to ask is: “If I can’t be myself, who can I be?”

From this comes the conundrum of our lives: It takes much courage to be ourselves, yet we have no choice about it. If we want to live the life we were born into.

Tannenbaum

We brought our Christmas tree home last Thursday. It's gloriously unadorned in our living room. We are wondering if adding decorations will improve anything.

It leans a little. It's drinking water, dropping needles and smelling good.

My wife and I are very sympatico when we choose a tree. It takes about 45 seconds. We look at one tree and the trees on either side of it and say "we'll take that one."

We both have more or less accepted the absolute truth that no tree will look the same at home as it does on the lot. And we know that the trees are alike in that they all have idiosyncracies--holes, dead places, crooked branches. They're all like that. Sometimes the "defects" don't show, but they're there.

Some folks seek the perfect Christmas tree just as they seek the perfect “Christmas experience”--happy, well-adjusted family; warm feelings over eggnog around the fire; the joyful anticipation and fulfilled promise they may have known on previous Christmases.

As much as we hunt for the “perfect” tree or dream of the "perfect" Christmas, things will likely not work out as we want. This is tough for us.

We may come to accept that trees are not perfect, but it's much harder to accept that life doesn't look the way we want, at Christmas as much as any other time. Things are not as easy for us as we’d like. Our kids make bad decisions. Someone has an accident. Someone gets very sick. Someone lets us down or betrays us.

What is wonderful, though, is that Christmas holds such potential for surprise. We may just find ourselves experiencing something in a new way, or being moved unexpectedly. If we let down our guard a bit, and haul that defective tree into the house, even though it’s already shedding needles everywhere.

70 degrees at Christmas

I don’t think I’ll ever adjust to Southern California weather in December. Even though I've lived here for 29 years.

Every year I remember the crisp coldness and sometimes snow that Christmas brought to Maryland when I was growing up. Notice I said “remembering.” This is different from “longing for.”

Remembering is an important part of the season. More interesting than this, though, is that most of the world (including the Middle East) does not associate snow or cold weather with this time of year. This reminds us that our Christmas traditions originate in Europe and northeastern America.

It’s like our favorite carols. Almost all of them originate in the nineteenth century (and in Europe or America). People celebrated Christmas for 1800 years before any of them were written.

Yet the carols we hear over and over seem to be a fixed tradition. Notice that new carols (and there are many, many excellent ones) are never permanently added to our celebration. New popular music for Christmas may be with us for a few years, but our core favorites never change.

I think the specific traditions we associate with Christmas are more important to us culturally than spiritually.

The Expected Holiday Hassle?

Last year we did Christmas a bit differently. We skipped most of “pre-Christmas.”

We deliberately did no decorating, bought no presents, put up no tree, and sent no cards for most of December. Instead, we spent three weeks at a slow pace: reading, walking, talking and watching the ocean. We did no preparation, and we didn’t seem to have any anxiety about it.

At the end of those three weeks, just before Christmas, we went out, bought a tree and a few presents and came home to enjoy a few hours decorating and watching the cats climb the tree. We had a nice meal and opened presents on Christmas Day and sent out New Years greetings to our friends and family a couple days later.

This can be a meaningful time of year to visit with friends and family, and enjoy some good food and time off from work. But often our expectations get in the way.

We wind up expecting so much--from ourselves, mostly--that the season is defined by stress grinding us for weeks. Why do we do this to ourselves?

Advent: Waiting for Light

The Christmas season has been underway for a while. I’ve heard “Let It Snow” at least four times, and it’s not December yet. The decorations were out at our local Wal-Mart eight weeks ago.

This week the liturgical season of Advent begins. Advent is commonly seen as the “getting-ready-for-Christmas” season, but the reality is much more significant.

Advent is a good and appropriate and soul-nurturing season, because its focus is on quiet waiting. In the midst of ever-louder, ever-more-expensive, ever-more-hectic secular Christmas preparations, some intentional quiet and reflection can be mightily refreshing.

I hope some quiet can find all of us in this season.

Attachment to Accumulation

When I see the all the items in the weekly ad for an electronics store here, one word comes to mind: “landfill.”

Most of the items in the ad will wind up there in three or four years. Or, worse, they will wind up in the back of a closet not to be seen again.

My favorite of all the makeover shows of the last few years is "Clean Sweep," now sometimes seen in reruns on TLC. The premise of the show is incredibly simple--move everything from two rooms of someone’s home onto their front lawn and then sell or throw away half of it. Then move what’s left back into newly organized and decorated rooms.

The show is often a disturbingly vivid revelation of people’s emotional attachment to things--usually things at the bottom of boxes in the back of closets that haven’t been seen in years.

The show’s organizational expert was always very clear in acknowledging that all of us get attached to certain things, and that can be fun and life-enhancing. He would say that if a certain picture or gift is truly meaningful to us, we should recognize and honor it.

On the other hand, he would say that if something is important to us, it shouldn’t be buried in a closet--effectively lost. If something is buried in a closet, it is likely because it is not important to us. We just haven’t thought about it.

We all have lots of things in our lives that we don’t want, but we think are too good to throw away or give away, so we put them away. Often it’s stuff we have inherited or been given, and we think that we can’t get rid of it without offending the person who gave it to us--even if the person is dead.

Guilt is a powerful motivator for doing nothing.

The Season of Gratitude

Thanksgiving is the day many (most?) of us will reflect on what we are grateful for. Often people have told me that this is their favorite holiday of the year, because it is simple. We just gather for a meal, and give thanks.

Because most every other day of the year is focused on what we want that we don't have, it is a blessed relief to have one official day focused on the abundance and goodness in our lives. Even if some of us live very modestly in America, we are very, very wealthy by the standards of the world.

I’m not sure one day of gratitude is enough. In the last church I served, I took liberty with the liturgical calendar and declared the month of November the Season of Gratitude. We have plenty to be thankful for. Don’t get me started.

The Christian theologian Karl Barth called gratitude the best expression of God’s grace on earth. Whether you believe in God or not, this is a wonderful statement, because grace means that your life has meaning whether or not you think it does. And that itself is something to be grateful for.

As a logical concept, grace is very hard to pin down, and so is gratitude. Both of them are really about the great gifts we have been given, which are way beyond any “deserving,” and therefore also beyond any understanding. Thus gratitude is the best reaction to grace, and its best expression.

Reconsidering the Seven Deadly Sins?

Please — let's replace Pride

with Modesty, especially when it's false.



And thank goodness for Lust, without it
I wouldn't be here. Would you?

Envy, Greed — why not? If they lead us
to better ourselves, to Ambition.



And Gluttony, like a healthy belch,
is a guest's best response to being served a good meal.

I'll take Sloth over those busybodies
who can't sit still, watch a sunset
without yammering, or snapping a picture.
Now that makes me Wrathful.

--Peter Pereira from “What's Written on the Body.” © Copper Canyon Press, 2007. Reprinted with permission. 


The Good Guys and the Bad Guys

Quote of the day:

“Cogito ergo sum.” (“I think, therefore I am.”)

--Rene Descartes



Untrue truism of the day:

“East is east and west is west and never the twain shall meet.”

--Rudyard Kipling

We often set up part of our lives as war. We identify an enemy and proceed to do battle.

Our main combat strategy is based on separation. We identify, categorize and separate ourselves from anything foreign--within or outside of ourselves.



Separation can take many forms. One of the easiest is to identify the foreign characteristic in another individual or institution and then either do battle with them or wall ourselves off from them.



We are constantly separating, as in:
the good guys from the bad guys,

stainless-steel appliances from white appliances,
time alone from time with people,
darkness from light,

BMW drivers from Ford pickup drivers,

evil from good,

work from fun, 

religion from science, 

sound from silence, 

heart from mind,

thought from feeling,

men from women,

serious from funny,

Americans from terrorists,

rich from poor,

gay from straight,

cool from uncool,

the country from the city,
the good old days from today.


We separate, categorize, and do battle. Are our thoughts distinct from our being, as most Descartes interpretations would conclude? Are there really two separate “beings” in each of us? Are they at war? Should they be?

This is very hard to talk about because conflict is around us everywhere. Sometimes it’s obvious, other times it’s not. Consider the kinds of battles we hear about in the news each day. Honest hard-working citizen versus indifferent big government. America versus terrorists. Gang versus gang. Celebrity husband versus celebrity wife.

Conflict is central to most great literature and art. And it’s what makes news interesting. Often the conflict is very simply drawn, as in the good guys versus the bad guys. Think 95% of classic western movies. Think Star Wars.

We seem to prefer hats to be clearly black or white. Yet our experience tells us that life is not a black-and-white enterprise. It happens in shades of living color.

Can we handle that, or do we have to continue separating, categorizing, and battling? Is it helpful to wall ourselves off from parts of ourselves? Is it helpful to see less-than-perfect parts of ourselves in others and fight with them?

Is America a Christian Nation?

“One of the most startling developments in the culture war is the apparent takeover of the Republican Party by conservative evangelicals who claim that the U.S. is a Christian nation, uniquely called and blessed by God.

“The 2004 Texas GOP platform affirmed ‘that the United States of America is a Christian nation,’ founded ‘on fundamental Judeo-Christian principles based on the Holy Bible.’ Texas Republicans...declared the doctrine of separation of church and state to be a ‘myth’ that must be rejected in order to restore the founders’ original intent.

“One of the architects of that platform was David Barton, vice chair of the Texas Republican Party and one of the chief advocates for a Christian America. Barton’s view of American history has energized millions of voters and forced lawmakers to take conservative Christian causes seriously.

“Barton is clearly more interested in current cultural squabbles than he is in history. Put simply, Barton is a bad historian--his B.A., from Oral Roberts University, is in math education. He retrieves only those aspects of history that, often taken out of context, match his emphasis on America’s Christian identity.

“The founders were, on the whole, less religiously orthodox than the average American. They pushed the new nation toward tolerance and less reliance upon historic Christianity.”
--Kurt Peterson, who teaches history at North Park University in Chicago. He was writing in the October 31, 2006 "Christian Century."

Getting Real About Moral and Ethical Issues

Halloween is a very important holiday. Not because of anything specific that it celebrates. But it serves as a pressure-relief valve from the work grind that many of us have been caught up in since just after Labor Day. It’s a chance to dress up in costume, dress your kids up in costume, decorate your home or your office, have a party, and just have fun. Enjoy it!

“Living History” quote of the day:
“In the early sixties we suddenly cheered up when some historian noticed that the late, Massachusetts-born, white-mustachioed Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who had served on the bench into the nineteen-thirties, had in his long lifetime shaken hands with both John Quincy Adams and John F. Kennedy.”
--Roger Angell, in "The New Yorker," September 11, 2006

Quote of the day no. 2:
“Experts decry our moral slippage, and recommend more technology, laws and prisons. Or they condemn parents while calling for a revival of traditional religious values. Fine. But, as far as can be told, such talk hasn’t produced much except political polarization.”
--Richard Louv, in the "San Diego Union-Tribune"

Louv’s piece suggests we need to find a way to address ethical and moral issues that goes beyond simply passing increasingly restrictive laws and mandating increasingly harsh prison sentences. The reason: these strategies are not working.

Where do we begin? We usually begin by blaming someone--parents, media, big business or the justice system. While this helps us feel righteous and avoid personal responsibility, it accomplishes exactly zero.

Where do we begin? With leadership. Louv quotes Daniel Yankelovich, who recommends that business take the lead with a “stewardship ethic”: “If we rely primarily on regulatory and legal mechanisms to repair the damage, we will not get very far. We will force the gamesters of the system to be more ingenious and more careful. But we will not transform the ethical climate.”

Where do we begin? I have a simple suggestion. It is that each of us stop being a “gamester.” This means we'd stop making any decisions based on “can I get away with this?” or “will I get caught?” We'd just stop that.

Is it possible?

The Greatest News Story of 2006

Quote of the day:
“In the beginning there was nothing. God said, 'Let there be light!' And there was light. There was still nothing, but you could see it a whole lot better.”
--Ellen DeGeneres

Thought for the day:
“We live in a talking culture, not a thinking culture or a feeling culture. Maybe if we make noise we don’t have to think or feel.”
--Dr. Duh

News Item from October 2006:
“Dozens of Amish neighbors came out yesterday to mourn the quiet milkman who killed five of their young girls and wounded five more in a brief, unfathomable rampage.”
--Mark Scolforo of the AP

That was the most amazing news story of 2006. It brings to mind the poem by William Wordsworth:

“Thanks to the human heart by which we live,/
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,/ 

To me the meanest flower that blows can give/ 

Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.”

The Irrationality and Impossibility of Forgiveness

Quote of the day:
“I hope they stay around here, and they’ll have a lot of friends and a lot of support.”
--Daniel Esh, an Amish artist, woodworker and great-uncle to three of the children in the Pennsylvania school when Charles Roberts attacked. Esh was speaking of Roberts’ family.

This past week was the first anniversary of the shooting at the Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania.

We read about the forgiveness being extended to a Pennsylvania murderer and his family from the Old-Order Amish community, and we have a variety of responses. When we examine these responses, we likely wind up at one of two places.

Either we say “the Old-Order Amish people are quaint,” which means we can’t relate to their behavior, or we say “these people are deluded,” which means they are not part of the “real” world.

We may also assume that, for them, forgiveness is easier than it would be for any “normal person” (like us). That is not true.

Forgiveness is always extremely difficult. The Old-Order Amish families and community have to deal with exactly the same extraordinary pain and anger that any other families or communities would deal with facing this horrible crime.

But the Old-Order Amish have a way to deal with these powerful emotions. That is what we see in their response.

Great Awakening of What?

Quote of the day:
“How the world dearly loves a cage.”
--Collin Higgins, from the script of "Harold and Maude"

Noting an increasing number of people publicly calling attention to their religious faith, President Bush said a few months ago that we might be in the midst of what he called a third Great Awakening. I was thinking about that comment when I read this, referring to a similar cultural shift some 350 years ago:

“What grew more and more evident as time went on was that motion is everywhere and rest is the unusual state. The upshot was that in place of the age-old static world the new was what is called dynamic. Needless to say, the source of truth likewise shifted, from settled revelation to restless experiment; truth itself was no longer static. Science took pride in having the courage to discard its own views....

“At this point comes the paradox: the age of the new method and the new revelations (in the plural and without capital letter) saw a resurgence of superstition, most violently expressed in the persecution of witches. Yet it should be no surprise that when novel ideas set minds wondering and tongues wagging, strong minds with well thought out convictions should resist and defend the status quo.

“Not everybody has the mental elasticity to be a fideist, believe in Genesis and Galileo at the same time. There is always a conservative party, and by a kind of Newtonian law of the mind, action is matched by an equal reaction; one branch of the conservative party turns reactionary and clings more intensely to the old convictions.”

This is from Jacques Barzun’s 2000 book “From Dawn to Decadence.” As you may know from previous posts, I have been savoring this book for a while--and I will continue to.

If we are going to consider whether we are living amid a new “Great Awakening,” it behooves us to be very clear to what extent it is a reversion to superstition and an attempt to turn back the clock on scientific research.

Certainty and Comfort

A while back I read a column by Robert Weston who said that that a fully-equipped Apple Mac Pro computer is selling for $850 less than the comparable Windows-compatible machine from Dell.

But wait. Aren’t Macs more expensive than Windows-compatible computers?

This is a small example of the sort of “sacred” truth we have come to accept in our daily lives. And people will continue to believe it for a long time, no matter how much evidence presents itself to the contrary. (For example, the evidence that now Macs ARE Windows-compatible computers.)

How a sacred truth develops is a fascinating process. When a statement is repeated often enough, we will begin to simply agree with it. When enough of us agree without questioning, the statement becomes a certainty that simply is believed. When the belief takes on a life of its own, the “truth” becomes sacred--it becomes a mantra. It becomes not just a certainty, but a comfortable certainty.

These days we are so often seeking both certainty and comfort, their synergistic combination is a potent mixture which begins to outweigh any connection with observable truth. This means that when facts begin to contradict a sacred truth, it will give way very, very slowly--if at all.

Other sacred truths under siege:
Real estate prices always go up.
SUVs are safer than ordinary cars.
Digital surround sound sounds better than monaural television.
Pluto is the ninth planet from the sun.
No cool person reads the newspaper any more.
The religious right is taking over America.

Being Stereotyped

One Sunday last year I went to a church I had never been to. While waiting for the service to start, a friendly man came over to say hello and introduce himself. We exchanged small talk. I said I was an ordained United Methodist minister and was visiting. A strange look crossed his face and he asked me if I was able to not be judgmental.

The question surprised me, and I said, “well, I try to not be judgmental but I’m not sure I succeed very well.” It wasn’t until a moment later that I fully realized the direct connection between his question and my saying I was a minister. When I realized that he didn’t seem to be interested in my answer to his question, I found myself getting a little angry at being categorized and dismissed in such a way. I felt judged.

I understand that he likely has had a very judgmental minister in his past. But isn’t this just like racism or any other prejudice, in which automatic, knee-jerk assumptions are made about someone without any knowledge of the person?

Does his experience with a bad minister justify his attitude toward me?

Grace Happens

“Grace strikes us when our disgust for our own being, our indifference, our weakness, our hostility and our lack of direction and composure have become intolerable to us. Grace strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage.”
--Paul Tillich, theologian

The great contemporary cliche that applies here is “Life is what happens when you’re making other plans.”

We may daily work toward perfection--clean house (or perfectly unclean house, demonstrating the perfection of our lack of concern for such ordinariness), career advancement, kitchen remodel, blissful love life, perfect fame, perfect fortune or perfect family.

Our efforts may give us satisfaction. When we realize finally the satisfaction doesn’t last, and we drift into distraction, indifference, weakness and hostility, grace happens.