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?