Beware the impact of shallow thinking greed.

When I grew up things were repaired. Our shoes were taken to the cobbler and new soles were stuck on to them, or sometimes the stitching was repaired. As teenagers we learned how to repair our cars. I reconditioned many engines over the years. I have renewed wires in electric motors, cleaned up  commutators and brushes on vacuums, starter motors and generators. But these days we accept the limited lifespan of appliances and the things we buy. Instead of repairing we just purchase new things. Well I still like to repair and recycle where I can. It may seem stupid, but it is my way or rebelling against consumerism, and saving at least some expenses. In the last twenty four hours I have repaired a coffee machine, a door latch and a wallet at no cost. 

The latch on my garden tool shed rusted out. I had this one I rescued from rubbish being discarded and using recycled screws repaired the door. 

When the plastic hinge broke on the coffee machine, three recycled screws and a bit of recycled dowel made it stronger than the original.

A new wallet does not cost much, but a bit of cotton and five minutes of spare time costs even less. This wallet has been repaired twice. 

Centre of town mayhem...
The centre of our city is an area called the Octagon. It is an octagon shaped grassed area surrounded by a road and buildings. There is a Cathedral, a film theatre, the Art gallery and the Town Hall. Many of the other buildings house pubs, clubs, places where people go to party or to have a quiet drink from time to time. Often it is a fine, picturesque place to walk through, and indeed I have enjoyed a quiet drink in the local bars. But in recent times it has gathered a bad reputation. On Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, late at night or in the early hours of the morning it has gained a reputation as an unsafe place where drunkenness, disorder and violence happens. I have talked to emergency service workers, a man who worked in the twenty-four hour store there and Maori wardens who patrol the area, and have heard of the messiness, the sadness and the violence. The city council have been trying to introduce some bylaws moderating the sale of alcohol, trying to bring a semblance of safety and pleasantness back to the area. The people running the businesses are crying "unfair"! It seems it doesn't matter to them who gets hurt, what happens to our city reputation nor the cost to emergency services and others, so long as they can sell their liquor! They plead that the suggested changes are interfering with economic success, that the naysayers are "anti-business". In feels like they are saying the economic "god" of business and money is being blasphemed against. "How dare you! - That is unforgivable."  In my view, when that economic god takes precedence over the well-being of humans and a community it must be challenged! Greed, hiding behind the desire for business success, can be a destructive force in our society.
Pigs and their owners squeal 
When a New Zealand celebrity, who once was used in advertising pork, was invited to inspect the way pig farmers raised the pork and bacon we enjoy, he exposed it on national TV. We were exposed to sad, disgusting and cruel practices in our pork industry. Such was the exposure that the Government was forced to look into it and signal changes. The pig farmers squealed.... well...  like stuck pigs! It does not seem to matter to them that most fair minded New Zealanders were offended by their practices, that pigs were living terrible lives before being butchered, the god of profitability at any cost was once more blasphemed against! "How dare they question the right to make big profits?"  It is the same when people question the plight of battery hens. The poultry industry clucks madly about offensive criticism. I have bought battery hens when the farmers discard them. They are poor, featherless, unhealthy, creatures who cannot stand or perch, who are scared of sunlight. It is cruel, and the economic god deserves to be challenged.
Depending on fossil fuels damages our planet!
Something like 98% of climate change scientists are convinced that the way humans rely on burning fossil fuel for energy is damaging our planet! There are more and more people who challenge the oil barons and encourage exploring other forms of energy. They try to discourage further spread of fossil fuel burning. The economic god once again is being challenged. The oil companies spend thousands trying to discredit and challenge the truth. They plead the economic benefits of fossil fuel exploration, discounting all the risks involved. If the money poured into exploration for fossil fuels was put into developing alternatives, the planet would be better off. But greed, and big business, does not care about the consequences for the planet and its people. Once again in the name of the god "economics" they put their heads in the sand and do anything to make their money by destroying the planet! It becomes even more scary when they seem to have politicians in their pocket, worshipping the same god!  Many people are exploring solar power, or wind generation. People are creating systems for their own households. They are generating energy in cost effective ways that do not hurt the planet. But they find there are forces lined up against them. In some countries the power company still charges them for the power they are generating. The companies are missing out on revenue. How dare they generate power outside of the "system"? So there are systems in place to discourage it, to still make them pay. In some places people who have generated their own power have gone to prison because they did not connect to the power company controlled "grid".   Beware of big business worshipping the economic god at any cost.  Beware of governments linking with such big businesses and endorsing the destructive greed in the name of economics. 

There are many other examples where people, community, the environment, or animal life are sacrificed to the god of economics, and "respectable" destructive greed has its wicked way.  Human wholeness is bigger than riches. The writer of 1st Timothy expressed a truth when he wrote; "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil."

Consumerism II...

I am going to continue ranting about consumer driven society and our over emphasis on economic growth. I see and experience the reality of human misery on lots of fronts because of this and I ache for people I know and others in real poverty overseas exacerbated because it is true that "our greed causes others' need"..

During a winter Thursday night in our church building a year or so ago, we had a workshop happening in the chapel, a ladies group in the hall, another group in a smaller room and an Alcoholics Anonymous group in the upstairs hall. Umpteen heaters and lights were burning and throughout the night I was up and down to the fuse board at least three times. It was simply overloaded. What I (and others) would argue is that at several levels our western society goals, values and lifestyle is overloading the systems in our world. In this post I want to say that the focus on excess spending, status, and "keeping up with the Jones mentality" overloads, and blows family fuses. I quote a from a man who was a counsellor in the Campbell centre in Christchurch;

"In marriage counselling it has become clear to me that western society is a bad place in which to be married. Work takes the creative, energising hours of each day (and lifetime) and couples are expected to build meaningful, durable, romantic relationships at the fag-end of the day when both are exhausted. The question I put to couples early in counselling is "How much meaningful time do you have together?" The operative word is 'meaningful'. Not just both at home or both in the same room, but meaningful. I meet very few couples who come for counselling who can claim even half an hour per week!"

Unfortunately I would have to agree with that. I had a man come to me to ask for help with his marriage. His wife had left him for another guy she had met in her work. I began to ask questions. They had retired from the military on a reasonable income, but were still relatively young. They had a nice house but wanted more. He had two jobs going, one a night time cleaning money making venture. She had a busy day time job. I asked when they got to see one another... and the answer was really just at breakfast before they rushed out the door. Why? Because they wanted more! They were already better off than most! When I worked out the time they had to relate I simply said, "No wonder she went elsewhere!" Fortunately we were able to help them get back together, but I could report from my experience of couple after couple where a driveness for more money has slowly but surely driven a wedge into their relationship. I led a group once in a rural area about family life and a middle aged couple in the group told us their story. He had developed skills that were wanted by farmers around him. He formed a company that grew and kept growing. He was extremely successful, and she had a wee retail business. But a child's difficulties suddenly made them realise that they had essentially stopped relating. With tears in their eyes they told how they collapsed into bed each night for a few hours sleep, but they had essentially become strangers. They could no longer talk. They dropped everything and went away for a week, to re-evaluate their lifestyle, and came through with different goals. But they earnestly warned the other couples in the group about how easily you can unintentionally ruin family life by misplaced priorities. Busyness in the hunger for more, often means couples' relationship stagnates. Sometimes at some stage they have blown apart, at other times they have continued to exist in a sham of a marriage, both lonely and hurting deeply, but outwardly holding together and looking "successful".

I could report of many wider families who have been blown apart over greed for money. Some perceived unfairness in family dealings or some greed over family possessions. I once went to visit a family where elderly dad had just died and was still "warm" in the bedroom. I went into the lounge and was comforting or listening to his widow tell their story. It was a difficult job, however, because adult children were already arguing loudly about their inheritance in the kitchen!

We overload important relationships, destroying them often because our society's values encourage us to put relationships in second place or as less important than wealth. Our measure of "success" in life is often related to "how much" we own, rather than the wholeness of our being or the health of our relationships.

We even overload our own health and well being. The extensive use of tranquilizers, anxiety related health problems, self-medication on drugs or alcohol and the common feeling that you are trapped in a rat race that you cannot opt out of are indicators that all is not right in the way we live and the goals we follow.

I have seen too much happiness, too much health and too many relationships sacrificed to the god of the dollar. There has to be a more balanced way of living.

Consummerism...

Delving into my notes and quotes about "Living light" (or living simply) I came across this quotation from Erich Fromm in a book called "The art of Loving". Fromm was an American psychoanalyst. I think he is so right in this description of how we often are in today's western society. He writes....

"Having fun lies in the satisfaction of consuming and 'taking in' commodities, sights, food, drinks, cigarettes, people, lectures, books, movies- are all consumed, swallowed. The world is one great object for our appetite, a big apple, a big bottle, a big breast; we are the sucklers, the eternally expectant ones, the hopeful ones - and the eternally disappointed ones. Our character is geared to exchange and to receive, to barter and consume; everything, spiritual as well as material objects, become an object of exchange and of consumption."

As a minister who gets trapped into trying to please various people's tastes in worship I have often been frustrated at how this consumerism in our attitudes impacts even our church going. It impacts on how we relate in families, in our work and in our friendships. They too become places where "barter, consumption and exchange" attitudes cause us to treat each other as "objects".

The other difficulty for someone like me who is trying to communicate the way of Jesus in this sort of society is that His "way" is virtually directly the opposite of these common cultural values and attitudes. I am (stupidly) trying to call people to follow one who said such things as;

"If you love only the people who love you, why should you receive a blessing? Even sinners love those who love them! And if you do good to those who do good to you, why should you receive a blessing? Even sinners do that! And if you lend only to those from whom you hope to get it back, why should you receive a blessing? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount! No! Love your enemies and do good to them; lend and expect nothing back. You will then be children of the most high God. For he is good to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful just as your Father is merciful."

We could quote many other texts that say similar things. Jesus is the one who told one rich man to sell what he had and give to the poor. Jesus himself lived a giving lifestyle, with generous attitudes, (too generous for his enemies liking) which led to conflict and death. He gave his all and called us to a self-giving lifestyle. These ideals and the life of Jesus challenge the very values at the heart of our society. It is so hard to swim against the tide. Historically the church has found this difficult. We have changed the religion to make it focus on the reward of heaven. We have altered its emphasis from lifestyle to belief, doctrines and such. Or we have turned our churches into a commodity that we market. By doing these things we have been shaped by the world around us rather than the Spirit of Jesus. It seems the pragmatic thing to do and we slide into the ways our culture. It is hard too for we who try to communicate this emphasis, because we too have been shaped by our culture and find it too easy to go with the flow, rather than challenge these deeply entrenched values. Jesus in his teaching makes it plain that the God he calls us to follow, the ultimate spirit or movement at the heart of the universe is ridiculously, lovingly generous! If we are in tune with that life force we'll catch the same "gene".

The positive point that Jesus himself struggled to communicate is that ultimately these consumerism values bring wasted living, emptiness and destruction to our life and relationships and do not bring fulfillment and wholeness. They are unhealthy. In Fromm's terms we will be "eternally disappointed". He was no kill joy, he just wanted us to experience a fullness and depth in our living. He invited us to a way of life that is free from the downward pull of such attitudes.

My final comment is that I have sat at the death bed of a number of people. The ones I find who are able to die peacefully are those who have invested themselves in love and in people. Those who have prized material goods and consumerism, have a deep emptiness because "they can't take it with them".