Thought Nibblets

This school has many people who are rather affluent and many times the culture is surrounded by this affluence. There is a distinct "look" and there were times when I went shopping with friends and couldn't believe what they bought at retail. Dropping $500 for a "cheap" Hermes bag or $395 for a pair of Dolce and Gabbana jeans. The shock soon past and I learned how to stand on my own ground of what I should and should not buy. Yet still, in comparison, buying a jacket at $60 retail doesn't seem as bad as buying a J. Crew jacket for $300 so the plastic would be swiped--semi-guilt free.

The first year I was packing for college I thought I had a ridiculous amount of clothes but when my roommate moved in it took her 2 trips to get all her stuff. Her closets and drawers were bulging with clothes. Sometimes, so much that she couldn't even close them. And get this, since she lived close by those weren't all her clothes. She still had a stash back at home. Meanwhile, my side looked on the thin side but that space was aptly filled with food and the college staple of ramen noodles.

In many ways, my perception of purchasing goods changed. I started buying things that I didn't really need but could afford to buy and, hey, it gave me a good feeling. But I think I began to value the things I already had with less care. One hoodie wasn't good enough, I needed another because the colors changed. Clothes no longer were about not being naked and staying warm. It became about being accepted into a certain subset of culture. I wouldn't maintain my laptop as well because it was big, bulky and ugly and couldn't wait for this one to die so I could get a beautifully designed Macbook.

And then what? You study for a major that makes money and not for one where your heart is. You work in a life-sucking job because it's a status symbol, ego booster and you get money to buy things to show you're in that strata of status (the bag, the clothes, the house, the car, the yacht). It's a never ending parasite of desiring to belong in a culture that leads to a wasted life.

I'm not trying to say dressing well is not important or you should be guilty of some huge immoral sin if you make upwards of 100K but think about how you value your things. Instead of wanting more, more, more...Look at the things you have now in your possession.

The best way I could frame this state of mind is when I used to watch those commercials on Sunday morning like "Feed the Children" or a commercial for some other relief agency. The child would be sitting in a classroom literally made out of dirt or mudbricks. There he would sit with one precious pencil and a clean white sheet of paper. He would write as small as possible to maximize usage of that single sheet. His strokes would be slow but intentional because using the eraser meant depleting a resource that he might seriously need later on. When walking home he would take off his shoes so that they wouldn't be worn from walking. The one or two good shirts he had would be folded neatly and tucked away for school days. From his bookbag he would carefully unfold that single sheet of paper and show his parents. Then he would carefully fold it back and put it into his bookbag because tomorrow he was going to use that same exact sheet of paper for class. When washing his face for the next morning he would only use a few drops of water to wet his hands to rub vigorously over his face.

When I think like that everything single thing I have becomes precious. And you really don't see the need for more. Everything you own becomes more beautiful. More vibrant, more radiant, more brilliant. You notice things you've never noticed before about your old stuff. You treasure it for what functionality it really brings. The minutes, the hours, the days you spend every week perusing clothing store websites and car websites becomes sort of stupid and wasteful. Now you've got time to hear God. You've got time to love people you didn't have time for before.

One time I was standing in line waiting for food and chatting it up with one of our school's old Intervarsity staff. Somehow we got onto the topic of living simply and with an Intervarsity paycheck you really are living simply. I asked her if it was hard, did she ever long to buy things she couldn't afford? There was such a sense of genuineness in her voice when she said, "Not really."

Can we be a culture of missional Christians rather than people of a consumer-oriented culture?