Musings: New Year's Resolutions

Here is a list of books I either have on hold at the library, have in my cart on Amazon, or in yet another cart at Alternatives for Simply Living:
~Meal by Meal: Balance thru Mindful Eating
~Living the Good Life on God's Good Earth
~Simpler Living, Compassionate Life
~Food and Faith: Justice, Joy and Daily Bread
~How Much is Enough? Hungering for God in an Affluent Culture
~Irresitable Revolution: Living as An Ordinary Radical
~Food for Life: Spirituality and Ethics of Eating
~31 Words to Create and Organized Life
~Living More with Less
~Radical Simplicity: Small Footprints on a Finite Earth
~Simplicity Lessons
~Voluntary Simplicity
~Simple Living Investments
~Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger: Moving from Affluence to Generosity
~Your Money or Your Life
~Simply in Season
~Tis a Gift to be Simple

Ok, so raise your hand if you see a common thread or two in the above titles?

I'm seriously wanting to curb my consumerism of things....but also with the food I consume. During the next month, hubby and I (and the kids) are going to once again take stock of all our habits. We do this every now and again, but this time the impetus behind it is our newly discovered passion for those in poverty. How can I shop responsibly? How do I eat responsibly? How do I only take my fair share without taking away from others?

Case in point: Yeterday, I dropped one of my girls and her cousin off at the local mall to spend Christmas and babysitting money....After 3 hours, I picked up two giddy (and exhausted) teenagers, completely intoxicated with their many purchases....purses, beads, undies, jeans, etc etc etc.....Totally normal, totally understandable, totally reminiscent of my own teenage years as well as throughout my adulthood. So why did I feel like crying?

Ingnorance is bliss. It really, truly is. Turning away from certain realities of our world is extremely easy in our frenetic culture, one in which our time is spent rushing from thing to thing, accumulating stuff, eating on the run, only to sit down in front of the tv to be bewitched by commercials and shows that repeat the mantra "get more, be more, you're not good enough, be like me, happiness is found here." Our family doesn't even watch tv, and we homeschool thru 8th grade. We drive older cars, live in the city, buy many things on sale or at Goodwill, accept hand-me-downs graciously and gratefully. We go against the culture in many ways. Yet my teenagers have bought the 'get what you can, can what you get, sit on the can' mentality of the world that immediately surrounds them. What is the ancedote for such behavior?

I realize that often the choices I made regarding, say, tv and schooling were done because it was easier to disengage and ignore than to work thru our nature towards greed, selfishness and the like. Now that my kids are mingling and integrating with their culture thru school, movies, and friendships......the pull to conform is all-consuming. I feel discouraged, disappointed, sometimes helpless (if not all-out guilty) trying to swim upstream and pulling the teenagers along for the difficult ride.

But avoiding that difficult journey is no longer an option for me. I know too much. I read and see and hear too many things that will not allow me to turn away in ignorance and apathy. I want to learn a new pattern of thankfulness, of generosity, of humility. To live, as my hubby says, an examined life. I want to take responsibility for the consumption and greed I've participated in, and to re-think creatively about how I can better share the blessings I've been given. I told hubby this morning, I can't even enjoy what I have because it's buried under all the stuff I thought I had to have. I don't want to live a guilt trip....I just want to live with the blessings I've been alloted with a heart of thankfulness and a willingness to share. How much is 'enough'? That is the question I am repeatedly asking myself. How can I model for my teenagers a life that understands and embraces 'enough'? How can I encourage them to live simply, sacrificially, and in contentment? Our culture's idea of 'enough' is non-existent.

I wonder if that means moving out to the country into a little farmhouse with no cell phones, computers, tvs, shopping malls around the corner....or does that mean staying put where we are and learning to stop acquiring 'stuff' at the expense of the poverty-stricken in the world. The first suggestion sounds easier. But, as with most things in life, moderation is where we are forced to grow up. Where we must wrestle with non-conformity, out in the open, without withdrawing from the culture to a point where we have no impact. Living in a comfortable home, enjoying a movie and fast food now and then, shopping consciously, being watchful for opportunities to bless my 'neighbor' wherever I may happen to run into them....that is a life of simplicity and a life of enough. It must be a pattern of life that always finds itself balancing precariously between excess and deprivation. It doesn't allow for much laziness, though, and calls for being 'present' most times, in most choices. But I'm convinced this is where true joy and contentment are found.

So, as usual, I've picked out my research and plan to dive in, assured that drowning myself into the abyss of words, words, words will 'fix' me. What's that you say? Why not just do it instead of read about it? Why spend money I don't have to purchase books about consumption, simple living, and enough?

Is there an echo in here? Did you hear something?

Merry Christmas 2006!

Misadventures: Christmas Season

Well, howdy-do. Not much going on in the homeschool front these days as Christmas is upon us and there's always a million things to do. Even though I told myself this year would NOT become the harried season full of over-activity and over-spending, it has indeed become that once again. All my good intentions to sit cozily on the couch each evening and read favorite Christmas stories with the kids sipping homemade cocoa and nibbling freshly baked cookies have been trampled under shopping lists, receipts, phone calls, school activities, etc.

There's so much to love about Christmas, yet this year I've been overly sensitive to the spending frenzy I see around me...and how easily I give into it. It really gets me down. I'm sad that the things left to do such as christmas cards and holiday baking are simply 'have to's' that I look forward to simply checking off my daily list of obligations. Buying gifts this year has been no fun as we are spending money we don't have due to overspending thru the past 11 months. I desparately wanted to help the needy this season, and we have where we could, but not in the ways I wish.

I did manage to make a homemade advent calendar this year (we're 5 days behind as I type), and I enjoyed decorating the house with homemade touches here and there....but even Johnny Mathis crooning 'Chestnuts roasting on an open fire...' can't seem to pull me out of my funk.

It's so hard to create the magic that descended without effort growing up. It's hard to see the suffering in the world, the idiocy of some people, the frantic pace of life....and hunker down to focus and meditate on the tiny Prince of Peace who came to dwell amoung us. What a beautiful story. And to appreciate the harmony of nature as it gets itself ready for it's winter solstace...the quiet nights, the falling temperatures, the promise of downy snow and crystal icycles.

I long for simplicity especially this time of year. I see all the 'junk', and the piles of things I don't need or want cluttering up my life. My heart sighs deeply as I think of Ma Ingall's little cabin or Tiny Tim's shabby bungalow or a small cave in the Middle East that sheltered a new life, a teenage girl and a bewildered man.

>It's the time of year to reevaluate what's important...and when your life doesn't match what you value, then mental stress, physical exhaustion and discouragement follow. I'd like for once to stop this pattern in my life. For once to hear the bell ringing again and watch for reindeer in the sky. To glory in red and green life savers and tins of cookies stashed in the pantry. To sit under the lighted tree with the room darkened and Mr. Mathis singing on the record player. To hope for a white Christmas.....and to believe for peace on earth.

Moments: Erasing the lines. We can hope.

Barak Obama gave a stunning speech at Rick Warren's Saddleback church on World Aids Day Dec. 1st. I encourage you to read the entire thing, but here's one of my favorite parts that I offer in hopes of whetting your appetite. :o) By the way, he received a standing ovation...

"Like no other illness, AIDS tests our ability to put ourselves in someone else's shoes - to empathize with the plight of our fellow man. While most would agree that the AIDS orphan or the transfusion victim or the wronged wife contracted the disease through no fault of their own, it has too often been easy for some to point to the unfaithful husband or the promiscuous youth or the gay man and say "This is your fault. You have sinned."

I don't think that's a satisfactory response. My faith reminds me that we all are sinners.

My faith also tells me that - as Pastor Rick has said - it is not a sin to be sick. My Bible tells me that when God sent his only Son to Earth, it was to heal the sick and comfort the weary; to feed the hungry and clothe the naked; to befriend the outcast and redeem those who strayed from righteousness.

Living His example is the hardest kind of faith - but it is surely the most rewarding. It is a way of life that can not only light our way as people of faith, but guide us to a new and better politics as Americans.

For in the end, we must realize that the AIDS orphan in Africa presents us with the same challenge as the gang member in South Central, or the Katrina victim in New Orleans, or the uninsured mother in North Dakota.

We can turn away from these Americans, and blame their problems on themselves, and embrace a politics that's punitive and petty, divisive and small.

Or we can embrace another tradition of politics - a tradition that has stretched from the days of our founding to the glory of the civil rights movement, a tradition based on the simple idea that we have a stake in one another - and that what binds us together is greater than what drives us apart, and that if enough people believe in the truth of that proposition and act on it, then we might not solve every problem, but we can get something meaningful done for the people with whom we share this Earth."

Moments: Go Redskins!

OK. Let me hear it. Awwwwwwwwwww! They're darling! (Why thank you *blush* I think so too.)