Misery in Abundance

Why having more than we need brings great unhappiness.

The once American dream that has caused covetousness around the world has always been a lie. Work your 9-5 job so you can have your big house, multiple cars, fenced in yard for your dog, and of course your garage, attic, basement, shed, and maybe a second shed to keep all your "stuff". An endless supply of things you almost never use or haven't looked at in so long you forgot you had it. Objects you were duped into thinking you needed only to find it stuffed in a corner years later. If you sat down and added up all the money you spent on things you've never had use for, but maybe once or twice, you'd keel over in shame and disgust.

How did we get this way? How is it that even the poorest in this country can be called up to appear on one of those hoarding shows? Should we blame it on China's steady stream of cheap products flooding our dollar stores? Is it the fault of big corporations beating out small local businesses? Was it the invention of plastics? A reaction from those who lived through the great depression? Has people as a whole become more greedy or needy? Or is it because we are more vulnerable due to the fact that very few people are left who know how to make the things they need for themselves?

Most likely it's a combination of all of them, a perfect storm if you will. The degenerating, hedonistic world climbed out of perceived poverty through technology and cheap goods made from plastics, no longer needing the skills of their surnames, Tailor, Smith, Cobbler, Thatcher, Miller, Brewer, Mason, Baker, Tanner, Weaver, et al. Bamboozled by the idea that the Jetsons was going to be the future reality, our predecessors determined that these skills would no longer be needed and gambled that their descendants would be comfortably taken care of by governments and ever advancing tech. Skills that had been passed on for generations, since Adam tanned his first hide for Eve to make Cain a baby blanket or Noah planting an orchard for his first brew on the cleansed Earth, have long been abandoned. Most people only have a vague idea of the process of growing food, making clothes and tools, and building homes, skills that were commonplace for every household not so long ago.

The best example, that should be familiar to most, would be the "Little House on the Prairie" books. The image of Pa using the resources around him to build his house and Ma tearing a dress too small for Mary apart, turning the material inside out, and sewing it back together for Laura good as new was as normal as washing dishes, but now you'd be looked at as if you were superhuman. Every household, (with the exception of city folk, though things were still done locally) would grow and prepare/preserve their own food, brew their own beer/wine, tan their own leather, build their own homes, and sewed their own clothes (often from material they themselves weaved). Sounds like an afternoon on games like Skyrim or Minecraft, as if deep down we know we are meant to have these skills instead of spending our days indoors on screens.

With these once universal abilities now all but gone, we are left dependent on factories and corporations to purchase all our basic needs (food, shelter, clothing), but then we are further convinced to spend beyond that. When Pa and Ma left the big woods for the Prairie, all their possessions that they needed to live fit in one covered wagon, because they knew they could build whatever they needed beyond that once they got there. Tables, Beds, Chairs, etc. could be made using the skills passed down to Pa by his father, who learned it from his father etc. They didn't need boxes and boxes of clothes, because Ma could use sewing skills passed on to her to repair, patch, and resize till the opportunity or need came to get more material to make new.

In the modern world a family of five would need a full-size U-Haul at least, and that would be after selling and donating a large portion of their possessions before filling it to the brim. Why is this? Because they were convinced that each kid needed their own full-size bed with a dresser to hold 40 different outfits for each season, size, and gender, as well as all the toys they got for birthdays, Christmas, Easter, Halloween, and just because grandma wanted to buy them something on an outing. Mom has every kitchen gadget that the commercials told her would make her life easier and Dad has a tool for every project he left unfinished and hasn't used since. Along with enough blankets to cover the road to Jerusalem, Hundreds of shoes, half of which are missing their mate, snowblowers, lawnmowers, decorations for every holiday and season, and trinkets or oddities that really don't have a place, make the thought of packing up and moving a many months long process, whereas when Pa declared the night before that they were leaving in the morning, bright and early they were packed and on their way with the greatest of ease. Flexibility even the best minimalist of today could only dream of.

So, what's the solution? The skills of our ancestors are all but lost and will require a lot of time and effort to self-learn things we should have been taught as children. The quality of materials, tools, and toys has dropped so drastically since we've become a throwaway culture instead of a repair and reuse one, so that even if we wanted to learn the skills of the past the materials just wouldn't make it as far. It's tempting to just go with the consumerist crowd and continue to buy the new and throw out the old into our ever-widening landfills, but as Christian stewards of the earth which God has entrusted us to care for, we need to come together and find another way.

And that is part of the solution; Christians need to join together, share skills that they have learned, and share with one another the abundance which God has bestowed upon them. Those in isolation attempting to be like Ma and Pa are really struggling and that is because God never meant for us to endure it alone. As God Himself is many in one, so too should we be. Many believers, coming together to live as one body, the church, and as our labors are focused on the shared goal of growing closer to Christ, so too should our possessions be.

During poor times it was often the case that a village of people would put their resources together to get a milk cow to share with close neighbors, when otherwise each individual household couldn't afford one on their own. Another more modern example would be a shared lawnmower amongst a few households. Why should each family go into debt to buy a lawnmower when they could easily buy one together and share it? Why are our Christian neighbors spending money on things we have sitting in storage, in our way, cluttering the place up, making us miserable every time we look at it wondering when we will have the time to organize it all?

Why?

Because it's mine. Because I might need it someday. Because they might break it or lose it. Because they didn't earn it themselves. Because sharing is a communist idea and I'm a capitalist, which means everybody's got to work to get things in life they need. Nothing is free.

In other words, Sin.

 And He said to them, “Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.” Luke 12:15

Jesus said to him, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
Matthew 19:21,22

We spend so much time worrying about things we have (or wished we had) as well as money to keep it safe or insured, a lot of which we then complain about when our houses begin to feel too full. A woman will stare at her cluttered cupboards and grumble that she can't find what she needs, then turn around and spend money (on credit) for another kitchen gadget she just had to have, only to stress out again trying to find a space for it. This conundrum can be applied to any room in the house.

Clutter is stressful. Debt is stressful. Reorganizing is stressful. Yardsales are stressful. All are completely self-inflicted.

The solution? Come together fellow Christians and share your burden with one another. Create a shared space where everyone's excess can be stored and used by each other. A giant closet where you can store kids' clothes that would otherwise be sitting unused in your attic, but now can save your neighbor a costly trip to the store when her little one grows into that size. A continual cycling of clothes in and out, being used by Christian brethren instead of cluttering up space in your home. And this could work for anything. Excess dishes that you've been keeping (just in case you need to host a large dinner party) that have just been collecting dust. The 3 extra hammers, 2 extra tape measures, 100ft of electrical wire, and that second circular saw your husband found at a garage sale, all could be organized into a shared space to be used by a brother in need instead of being moved repeated from one side of the garage to the other in an unsuccessful attempt to clean up. And if you do need it again, it will be there for you to use as well.

But what if someone uses an item of mine and breaks it? Well, that depends on the situation. If they went into the center to borrow your blender in an attempt to mix up a batch of concrete, which would obviously end in the appliances demise, then they would be responsible to replace it. But, if the blender has been making funny sounds for a while and finally decides it can go no more while your sister in Christ is making a smoothie, I'd say the good Lord declared its time was up and that the community should come together to purchase another if there was a need for it. Getting angry with the body of Christ over unintended damage to an item would be a silly waste of energy and time.

So, what happens when the clothes begin to wear down? When the socks cease to perform their duty of covering the foot, having more holes than fabric? A scrap bin would be formed for the purpose of sewing practice for budding seamstresses to practice and better pieces could be patches or be transformed completely into needed clothing for other sizes by those with the skillset to teach others as Ma was taught to do.

The same could be done with other broken things, such as one laptop with a broken screen and another with a broken keyboard could be combined to make one working laptop for the community. What society would throw into a landfill we would repair (to the best of our abilities, with the parts we have available) in order to train our young technicians to be resourceful, just in case they find themselves in a "Road Warrior" scenario in the future.

The intention of all this is ultimately peace and freedom. A smaller and less cluttered home is easier to keep clean and organized, which is a huge source of stress in this day and age. Having only what you need on a day-to-day basis, makes finding things a breeze, gives more space for actual living, and therefore more time to the things that actually matter.

Bigger in not better and less is more.

Especially when simultaneously, you are helping each other. So, give up your burden of excess and obtain the freedom to follow Christ in peace.

-Mrs. Johnson