Not to be fixed

I was reading a brief article on Zenhabits... something called Barefoot Philosophy, which was really a cutesy way of interpreting a pretty standard positive-outlook philosophy of happiness. It wasn't all that bad, as far as it goes. It used walking barefoot as a metaphor for moving through life. But one connection it mentioned sparked a line of thought in me that quickly formed into the beginnings of a revelation that had been brewing in other places.

The article mentioned that the author hates anything you buy as a solution to a life problem. Life doesn't need to be fixed, he was saying. He used the example of greenwashing vs. barefooting. Our consumer-driven culture has begun to bite on the Go Green movement because there are needless possibilities to sell products that are 'green'. Before that hit, considering the environmental impact of daily activities was largely ignored by corporate America, and consequently by the masses. After all if it isn't in a commercial or pop-TV show, it isn't reality for many people. The author didn't go into that detail, but he did contrast the greenwashing phenomenon with barefooting, which, if it were to catch on, would not only preclude a merchandising tie-in (though I have seen some weird barefoot jewelry and such), but would actually hit shoe company profits. Which is why it would take major cultural shifts before any such movement would ever catch on. Case in point: throughout this recession we've been told that to be good little citizens we must go out and spend money to drive up corporate profits, which will fix everything, but which really just makes us even more indebted to the paradigm that got us where we are.

Anyway, economics gripes aside, it hit me in reading those few lines that we do often approach the world's problems as things to be fixed...things that need a solution, when in fact the action may be the problem.

I work in the environmental world, and I had never been able to quite formulate this. Now I have it. I see the preformed echoes of it in many of the programs and initiatives I've developed. It's a getting out of the way. Nature works very well. We screw it up by our actions that disregard this integrity and then think we have to keep working on it to make it right. We got here just fine. Obviously we didn't plan ourselves into existence.

So I can verbalize it clearly now. It isn't a matter of doing anything to fix the environment and all the associated socio-economic woes degradation brings. It's a matter of stopping to screw it up. No type of shoe will fit this foot. Some may be less obtrusive than others, but ultimately only the bare foot will be able to avoid the problems...in other words, living with a sensitivity to the integrity (used in the literal sense) of nature and our own lives.

So don't think about what you can do to save the planet. Think about what you can stop doing that hurts you, your world, your neighbors. The deeper you delve into that, the more connections you'll find.

It may start with simple things like buying less, driving less, etc. But that goes on into how much you spend on various things, what styles you find attractive, what activities you enjoy. When you simplify your life and focus on what brings the most quality of life to you and others, you'll quickly find that this makes many social/political/environmental problems moot. It spirals up. By decluttering, you make more time for what you enjoy, which benefits your health, which makes you more available for those who need you. Which forestalls many relational ills. In addition, owning less means you need less money, which takes pressure off at work, which benefits your health, which means you need even less money. It also means you use less resources, which makes things spread further and drives costs down and quality up because you insist on it. This also means you have a smaller ecological footprint. It doesn't take lots of coal-fired power, synthetic chemicals, and lots and lots of hinter-land to support your "fat" lifestyle. And as you start to make these choices you find that you are happiest and healthiest in a peaceful, walkable, relational community. It just grows like a tree, tying in and branching and self-repeating on every level. It's fractal geometry...the structure of the world.

Our problems are of our own making. Stop making them!

Metanoia: Simple

Metanoia is the Greek term that is often translated as repentance. It means to change one's mind. In behavior science, metanoia is the crux of change. Especially in deep personal change, metanoia occurs at the bottom of a long decline, after which a personal reformation begins the climb back up based on the new psychological foundation.

I recently had a metanoia experience. I had felt it coming as I slid down, down, down in the confusion over suffering and faith. I think it has a more personal meaning for me than my posts may have reflected because, simply, I suffer. I don't pretend to be special at all in this. It's just that I am the person I know best and it is therefore keenest to me. I am no stranger to sufferings that cannot be released with any amount of prayer or behavior change or what have you. I don't go into the details here because it is very personal, but I'm sure many who read this can relate in your own way even without the details.

I couldn't get past how the medeival mystics talk SO much about suffering as a virtue that many of them inflicted things on themselves! I don't want these sufferings, but since I can't be rid of them, there must be some good in them...am I supposed to relish them like these writers did? I can't!

But then modern people, good, respected modern people, say that God doesn't work like that. He desires healing and peace. This is true too! So I'm missing something! This was driving me crazy and I was so bound in it that I became aware of it and started consciously trying to come up the slick wet slope...hence the joy post.

Then today, I crossed the watershed...or rather God opened the solution for me: Simple.

Oneness. The worlds build so much on top of what is real and important, even the Christian worlds, that sometimes I get lost in it. The simple truth is Jesus. I don't even remember how I came to it, but I found an anonymous article today that reminded me of it. Jesus is our model. More than that, the firstfruits. He is what we are becoming. He didn't strive. He didn't complicate. He simply loved. ALL other additions to this are artifice...artificial...built on top of the truth. I recognize that like most personal revelations, this falls far too flat in writing. The simplicity confounds.

My intellect is a gossamer sham. Our systems, medeival or modern are too. Jesus said that to be saved we must simply come. I have come. Grace abounds. I understand it more now. Pieces of the clockwork puzzle of my life have again fallen into place and the gears have rotated one more tic. In my mind, I can jostle this simple truth and see just how many silver strands of reality vibrate throughout the whole ecology of the universe. It is a nexxus moment. A metanoia.

Materialism

This has many meanings. In the philosophical sense it means the system of thought that says there is nothing but the material world. Even thoughts and emotions are nothing more than chemical interactions in response to environmental stimuli or survival mechanisms. There are many flaws in this system, but I don't want to go over them here. C.S. Lewis does a great job of discussing materialism in this sense, since it was popular in his day.

Most people think of materialism in the economic sense. It involves placing a value on material objects and is closely related to consumerism. This is the type of materialsim I am thinking about.

We live in a material-rich age. Things are the order of the day. We mass-produce, we consume. It drives our way of life. In fact, it started as an idea to relieve suffering. Through most of human history, people made necessary and long-lasting items. Because production was difficult, only the very rich could afford luxuries of possessions so you wanted items to last a lifetime. But in the Industrial Revolution machines and processes were making production more efficient. There was no longer a need for so many workers to produce things. The unhappy result was that people couldn't make a living. Whole trades disappeared and people talked of the surplus population. Then the Reformers like Charles Dickens came along and decried this view of humans as a commodity. Decision makers realized that it was better to employ these people rather than let them freeload on charity. They could be put to work making things in factories, but people would only buy so many things. So to increase demand they started advertising. Even this could only go so far, so they changed styles and the rotating fashions were begun. You couldn't possibly wear last year's items this year! Even that wasn't enough, so they consciously started making items break easier. Planned obsolescence. This worked very well. People enjoyed new propsperity from the market economy. That meant they could buy more and live more like the rich. Mass-production made it easy to give people things that only the rich could afford previously. The latest step in this scheme is the continual service contract. Not only do people create products and then create the demand for them, but they make them so they don't work unless you pay monthly. Electricity, TV, cell phones, satelite radio, etc. This way you can never finish paying for it, so you have to keep working to support the economy that makes the things that you didn't need until they sold it to you. The system is growth based and finite.

But apart from the economic aspects, materialism has an effect on the soul. All the great sages teach that we should live at peace, taking what we need and giving to those who don't have enough. A focus on possessions begins to weigh on us. It places cares on us that we were not meant to carry. The possessions own us as we spend more and more time taking care of things. The old backpacking maxim applies well: the more you carry, the more you have to carry! In hiking, this means that more weight slows you down, so you have to take more for the journey. The same is true in life when we are bogged down in possessions. The pursuit of possessions is also harmful. We fritter ourselves away chasing whims and wants simply to have. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with things in themselves. They are intrinsically devoid of moral quality. It is their use and attachment that make them good or bad.

So the question is, how do we tell when materialism has gone too far? Like many things, this is something that each person must answer. Our stations in life are a factor. Obviously, I can't live like a Hindu farmer here in America. The cost of living is just plain too high. And a construction worker has less demands for things such as clothes than a public figure, for whom image is a part of the job. So, I take Richard Foster's advice and leave this to the individual to determine. But I think there are certain principles that Christians should use in making the decision.

First, do we need it? What is it's use and lifespan? Are there unrealized costs such as long term contracts, or maintenance issues that make the true cost higher? Does it benefit us in some real way, be that physical, social, or spiritual? And lastly, does owning it harm anyone else?

This last one, I think, bears more consideration. Here in America I see good charitable people who unknowingly or through self-deception, harm others with their lifestyle. Most of the times, it is becasue the effects of our choices are so distant that we don't see them. when we overconsume public resources simply becasue we can afford them, we unknowingly take them from those who can least afford them by using them up ourselves, or by driving the prices out of reach. Take water for instance. We all share the same pool, quite literally. It is finite and renewed only by the grace of God to send the rain. When we fritter away hundreds of dollars per month to use potable water on luxuries like unnaturally lush grass we not only use up what others may need for cooking and sanitation, but also drive up the cost as public utilities are forced to raise rates to cover new and more expensive sources of water. To the gainfully employed, this may seem like buying a fancier cut of meat becasue they have been blessed with the means to do so, but would any of us knowingly shove a seven year old away from the water fountain on a hot day? When that child's parents are making the choice between water bill or grocery bill, that is exactly what we're doing.

I once felt guilty for being able to afford better than this. I wanted to live a vow of poverty to ensure that I suffered rather than others. But now, I realize that it truly is a blessing to afford some comfort. I don't have to be so ascetic. However, if the prepaid cell phone meets my needs and frees up money so I can buy a child from slavery through Samaritan's Purse, or even buy someone lunch at work, then I will make that choice, by God. In this light, to buy the iphone is at best vanity and at worst leaving the 'least of these' cold and hungry.

Beholding Galadriel

Sometimes the greatest revelations are so utterly simple most people don't get it. Not that they are that dense, just that the significance is lost on them because words fail to reveal the depth of the revelation.

I have been trying for the past few weeks to practice the Presence. It's nothing new. I've done it before, but somewhere along the way...I think it was a conscious choice, I am sad to say...I quit. And then it was slowly forgotten. Not that I really forgot all about it, but the importance and the value of this simple lifestyle faded.

I can't say that I've been doing very well at it. In fact, I've been doing quite miserably...but then that might be the first step. It certainly seems to often be a prerequisite for moving closer to God...that is becoming aware of just how miserable we are. As my good friend once said, we are blind, deaf, dumb, naked, and stupid. Yet somewhere apart from our own insatiable ability to mess things up, we are valued. We are loved. And frankly, I don't get it. But I do catch snatches of it on the air...glimpses in odd fleeting moments. Whispers from the mouth of God that I am truly loved. And though I don't understand why, I do understand how because I exhibit the same feelings toward others, family, friends, coworkers, and even the odd stranger that I just see so differently than they appear.

Just this Sunday I was sitting next to a very shy, unassuming, yet sincere and intelligent girl at church. I know her, but she isn't one to attract attention, intentionally or by her nature. When I asked God who I should pray for that service, as I try to do every service at Richard Foster's recommendation, I was instantly drawn to her and I suddenly saw her in a whole new light. She was so beautiful that my eyes teared up (again no surprise for me, I am easily overwhelmed). It wasn't a general awareness, but a totally different aspect, almost like a memory of who she really was...and she was stunning in the true sense of the word. So there I was next to this gloriously beautiful Elfen princess with her power radiating about and I was humbled.

I know that I was given the moment to see her as God sees her...as she really is...at least as much as my base mortal mind can contain. And there was joy. A crying heart-breaking joy. Joy that I was gifted with the moment. Joy that I know I must be so much more than I perceive as well. Joy from understanding that reality is more than we see and feel.