conjectural navel gazing; jesus in lint form

sabbath 18: the gospel of consumption

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,
'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gain'd,
To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come round right.
- Simple Gifts, Elder Joseph Brackett

This week's reading from Wayne Muller is a good one. I will agree with Cristopher that it takes him till the end of his chapter to get to the sabbath piece of his thinking. The entirety of the chapter is spent in economic nostalgia. He remembers for us a bygone era before the "Gospel of Consumption" arose in the minds of economists and industrialists in the United States. I am tempted to pick nits with Wayne this week, but I am not sure that would be productive. Megan has some good thoughts about his preconceptions and the exercise. Cristopher challenges him, but, and I think Cristopher is missing the point of the chapter. The chapter is not an attempt to belittle wealth, or more accurately, the lack of poverty. No. Though Wayne does not say it explicitly, he is speaking of Simplicity. Through the Gospel of Consumption, we are tempted to abandon simplicity, tempted to so conflate want and need as to no longer be able to distinguish the difference.

I freely admit that I may be mistaken. I may simply be bringing my own thoughts into this chapter. Today is the first day of spring and I have Copland's Apalachian Spring running through my mind. It is one of my favorite pieces of music and I play it on this day every year. Copland employs the tune to the Shaker hymn liberally. It's lovely. So, I have the word "simplicity" running through my head. And so I imagine Wayne does as well. He's not saying that having access to things is mistaken. I think that he is trying to get us to understand that we are not to wrap up our identities with what we have, by our ability to have things.

I was speaking to a friend once about Sweden or Denmark or one of those nifty Scandinavian countries. I don't know how we got on the topic, perhaps there was an NPR interview or something. Anyway, we were talking about all the vacation time and the shorter work week. I was pining for the fjords. He was expressing his utter lack of respect for the practices. He suggested very strongly that they were a sign of laziness and explained why America was a much better country to live in. The GNP (GDP) is a moral measure as much as it is an economic one. I was utterly blown away. It was a great conversation, but I must confess that I had never heard the attitude expressed before. Now, after reading Wayne's rant, I wonder if it is not more common. If it exists so strongly outside the walls of the Fed Funds trading floor.

Cristopher is right. To mistake poverty for virtue is a mistake. Holy Poverty and economic poverty/hardship are entirely different things. One imprisons us. The other frees us. One brings abject suffering, starvation and death. The other brings life, opportunities for Sabbath, and may well be the fruit of charity. Wayne is speaking about simplicity and holy poverty. He is not saying "We all need to live in Cabrini Green."

And he is right. If we were to make some denial of consumption a part of our Sabbath practice, we will likely learn something about ourselves and see our market economy differently. Leisure, free time, and an intentional lack of productivity may or may not be economic anathema in our country. But they make good Sabbath.

Posted by tripp at March 20, 2007 05:30 AM