I can’t pinpoint the exact time I decided I wanted to try and live a sustainable lifestyle and I am certainly not now but the pattern of my life has changed over the past few years and there is a clear theme emerging.
Of course I should be concerned about the world, it is after all God’s creation but in reality I am probably not that good at caring for it. And its funny the little things that make a difference to your perspective.
Maybe I should start with the concept of wholeness… we did a course a few years ago while Dion was at College. It was run by Tom and Christine Sine, a couple who live in the US and who have written a number of books and run courses on whole life discipleship. A lot of their work was ditching a consumerist lifestyle and focusing on living the gospel out in practical ways. They had ideas about living communally, about minimising the things that you use, the money you spent. Now some of it sounds wonderful in theory but not so cool in reality. Would I really want to live communally? How communal would it have to be? A lot of the communities were built together to share some resources but still having their own space, houses etc and all done co-operatively with loans etc given my weathy people to enable others to own their own property within a collective. I am not explaining it very well…
Of course as these things do, my enthusiasm for such a lifestyle waned as real life took over and I set about earning a living, driving my car and doing all the things that I usually did. But wholeness still resonates as it challenges me to think about the whole part of my life as a sum total of different parts. I can’t just have my Christian part that goes to church without it having an influence on all the choices I make. And I don’t mean choices like sex or drugs or alcohol, I mean what I spend my money on, what food I buy, what gifts I give, what I create versus what someone else has made.
I read a book Seeking an Earth Centred Spirituality by Neil Darragh. He is a Roman Catholic priest and theologian and his book, although a little heavy in places for me, opened my eyes and struck deeply into the core of my being. I have always felt a connectedness with the land. I have always appreciated and envied Maori links with Aotearoa, the land. In his book we are challenged to care for creation, the creation that was redeemed at the cross. We are challenged to live a lifestyle that rejects excess.
The basic fact is that I have all that I need. I have shelter, food, love. I have books and music and movies and a computer. I have friends and family. I have things that hold special memories or thoughts, I have freedom to be or do anything I want. I have so much. I feel like I am being called to reduce what I have. To firstly eliminate what I don’t need already… I have too much.
