A Life Afloat Builds Compassion

On our boat, we have found that by living simply and striving to simplify our lives, we become changed people. In seminaries, professors of worship mention that liturgy shapes people. How worship is done impacts those worshiping. So, too, do the ways we live our lives.

One of the ways that living afloat as changed us, is that it has brought us more in harmony with the natural world around us. At the same time, we are encouraged to continue striving to be more in harmony with the world around us. Not only the natural world, filled with creatures great and microscopic, but also the world of people and institutions. We find ourselves trying to be more justice oriented in our life style.

When I read the following quote on our summer cruise, I was struck by how we (and you?) are striving for a fuller holistic lifestyle, a life style of compassion.

Blessed Be,

Joel

From the Introduction:

     In acquiescing in compassion's exile, are are surrendering the fullness of nature and of human nature, for we, like all creatures in the cosmos, are compassionate creatures. All persons are compassionate at least potentially. What we all share today is that we are victims of compassion's exile. The difference between persons and groups of persons is not that some are victims and some are not: we are all victims and all dying from lack of compassion; we are all surrendering our humanity together. The difference is in how persons react to this fact of compassion's exile and our victimization. Some persons react by joining the forces that continue the exile of compassion and joining them with a single mindedness and tenacity that guarantees still more violence, still more of compassion's exile; other react by despair and cynicism - drink, eat and be happy for tomorrow we exterminate ourselves; still others react with what Ned O'Gorman calls the "abstract calm" of intellectuals and other too-busy people who want it both ways and advocate political change while living high on the hog. Others are reacting by fleeing to fundamentalist religions and spiritualisms. Spiritualist and fundamentalist spiritualities that forsake the tradition of imago dei and humanity's deification in favor of the preaching of sin and redemption will have virtually nothing to say about compassion, for compassion is a divine attribute (see chapter one) and a creative energy force and will not be learned by a cheap religious masochism.
     This book is an introduction to an analysis of compassion. It is meant to support those many persons who are moving to a fuller and fuller holistic life style - and there are many. It is also meant as an invitation to those still involved in the ladder-climbing dynamic of so much of our society to consider another way, a better way, called compassion. A more fun-filled and more justice-oriented way. A way of getting in tune with the universe at a time when, intellectually and at the level of scientific discovery, we are confirming the fact that mystics have preached for centuries - namely, that the universe is a very finely tuned organism indeed. And yet, at the level of life-styles and social structures, we are hardly in tune with the universe at all.
Matthew Fox. A Spirituality Named Compassion and the Healing of the Global Village, Humpty Dumpty and Us. Winston Press, 1979. ii-iii.

On Money - John Wesley's Take

Gain all you can,
Save all you can,
Give all you can
~ John Wesley

I've had some interesting conversations this past week about voluntary simplicity, money, finances, the economy, and giving of ourselves to the larger world. As sometimes happens, this week I also ran across an article I had bookmarked a long time ago about Wesley's view on money. Charles Edward White published an article for Leadership magazine for the Winter 1987 edition. An adaption of that article can be found here: http://www.missionfrontiers.org/oldsite/1994/0910/so949.htm

While the article talks about Wesley's understanding of money, and his teachings upon money, it doesn't mention much about Wesley's greater work in alleviating dangerous working conditions, and the systemic problems that were keeping people poor. In this, the article is lacking in some of its context. None-the-less, I find this article to be inspiring and challenging, especially considering these views came from Wesley, one of the richest English preachers of his day.

Here is a brief synopsis of Wesley's teachings:
Wesley grew up poor, he even watched his father hauled off to debtors prison. But as a professor/lecturer at Cambridge, he found himself making 30 pounds a year. Yet, he found himself unable to give any money to the poor. This started a life of earning money, and giving most of it away. During his lifetime, he kept his living expenses as close to 28 pounds as possible, giving the surplus away. Consequently, when the time came that he made 192 pounds, he used 28 upon himself, and gave 92 away. Or the year that he made close to 1400 pounds, he lived on 30 and gave the rest away. When he died, he left his books, and change in his pockets and drawers.

Here are his views:
Gain all the money you can - but not at the expense of yourself (health - both spiritual, physical and environmental) or at the expense of others (dangerous working conditions, etc.).
Save all you can by living simply, for this allows you to ...
Give all you can. Wesley's understanding is that all money is God's to start with, we are merely the trustees.

He then instructed the Methodists to follow these four scriptural principles, which Wesley interpreted as follows:

1. Provide things needful for yourself and your family (I Tim. 5:8). The believer should make sure the family has "a sufficiency of plain, wholesome food to eat, and clean raiment to put on" as well as a place to live and enough to live on if something were to happen to the breadwinner.
2. "Having food and raiment, let us be therewith content" (I Tim. 6:8) . "Whoever has sufficient food to eat, and raiment to put on, with a place to lay his head, and something over, is rich," he said.
3. "Provide things honest in the sight of all men" (Rom. 12:17) and "Owe no man anything" (Rom. 13:8). Wesley said the next claim on a Christian's money is the creditors'. He adds that those who are in business for themselves need to have adequate tools, stock, or capital for the carrying on of that business.
4. "As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith" (Gal. 6:10). After the Christian has provided for the family, the creditors, and the business, the next obligation is to use any money that is left to meet the needs of others.*

But what about those things that don't quite fit in the above "rules," what then? Wesley provided a series of questions:

1. In spending this money, am I acting like I own it, or am I acting like the Lord's trustee?
2. What Scripture requires me to spend this money this way?
3. Can I offer up this purchase as a sacrifice to the Lord?
4. Will God reward me for this expenditure at the resurrection of the just?*

_____
*from the adapted article at: http://www.missionfrontiers.org/oldsite/1994/0910/so949.htm

A Book Review: Harlan Hubbard's Shantyboat

In 1944, Harlan (an artist and viola/violin player), and his new wife Anne (a librarian and cello player),  build a shantyboat on the shore of the Ohio River (at Brent, just downstream from Cincinnati) and drift down to the Gulf of Mexico.

I had no theories to prove. I merely wanted to try living by my own hands, independent as far as possible from a system of division of labor in which the participant loses most of the pleasure of making and growing things for himself. I wanted to bring in my own fuel and smell its sweet smoke as it burned on the hearth I mad made. I wanted to grow my own food, catch in the river, or forage after it. In short, I wanted to do as much as I could for myself, because I had already realized from partial experience the inexpressible joy of so doing (Hubbard, 38).

They spend two years after the construction learning their "apprenticeship" to river life, and growing a garden along the shore to stock up their provisions. Down the Ohio they go, stopping at Payne Hallow after a winter of drifting. Here they set about growing a large garden, fishing and bartering for eggs and milk during the spring, summer and fall before setting off down the river again. Little do they know at the time, that they will return to Payne Hallow and homestead there. The next spring, they stop at Brizzle's Bluff on the Cumberland River. Again a season is spent growing garden crops before setting out for another winter drifting, this time moving quickly to the Mississippi. Their next layover is at Natchez. Then the following winter they are off again, getting to New Orleans in March, 1950. The total distance is 1385 miles.
One of the interesting things about this voyage, and the book, is that Harlan never mentions the United States is fighting World War II, nor that the war ends, while they are drifting down the river. This story is told with delight, humor and an overriding sense of passion about living life. Lest you think they are a young couple, Harlan is 44 and Anne 41 when they marry. And, as Wendell Berry points out, this experience shapes their relationship to one another and the world around them. In some ways, their homesteading is a continuation of this way of life.
Many people have an idea that cruising, or shantyboating, costs lots of money. But it needn't. I'm not saying the life that the Hubbards lived on their shantyboat is for everyone, but I will say that their life provides a different way to live, one that is full of time for leisure as well as work. (For those familiar with the Nearing's books on the Good Life, you may find some similarities here).
By traveling every winter, the Hubbards were able to use the strength of the rivers' currents to move their boat/home. Their only other power was of a human kind (sweeps on the shantyboat, oars on the john boat) plus a few times in which they are towed a short distance. This allows them to grow/catch their own food, and by canning, keep it until they are able to grow more. For eggs and milk (and the like) they barter what they have for what they don't (i.e. catfish for milk and eggs). For heat, and other supplies, they use drift wood.
Harlan lived, as Berry points out, a life of faith: "What we need is at hand" (Berry, 93). Is this not truly seeing the world as a place of abundance?

How are we living? Are we living in ways that give us growth: in spirit, in character, in creativity, in accomplishment, in pleasure, in joy?
Here's to a New Year filled with this kind of growth!
Blessed Be
Rev. Joel

***
See Harlan Hubbard's Shantyboat: A River Way of Life. (University of Kentucky Press, 1953) and Wendell Berry's Harlan Hubbard: Life and Work. (University of Kentucky Press, 1990).
Or visit the website devoted to the Hubbards: Harlan Hubbard.com

Voluntary Simplicity so We Can Serve Others

This week I've been reflecting upon voluntary simplicity and conscious living and how that relates to others. I've been reflection upon those people who have impacted my life, and the ways in which I can live that can impact others. In the process I've been thinking about these three quotes, below. The point of them, I think, is that we are to help serve others. We can help to serve others by keeping our own wants and needs and desires simple so we have more resources (time, money, etc.) to be about the things we think are important.

What kind of quote would you add?

Earn all you can, save all you can, give all you can.
     ~ John Wesley

Civilization, in the real sense, consists not in the multiplication of wants but in their deliberate reduction. This alone promotes happiness and contentment – and increases the capacity for service.

     ~ Mahatma Gandhi

The truth is that man needs work even more than he needs a wage. Those who seek the welfare of the workers, should be less anxious to obtain good pay, good holidays and good pensions for them than good work, which is the first of their goods. For the object of work is not so much to make objects as to make men. A man makes himself my making something useful.

     ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Blessed Be

 

Coperthwaite, Voluntary Simplicity and Paradise

This morning I was struck by the following question:

Is it possible to have too much material wealth?
And is it possible to have a life with too much leisure -
        as harmful as one with too much toil?

I have been re-reading William (Bill) S. Coperthwaite's book A Handmade Life: In Search of Simplicity (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2003). In his section on Wealth, Riches, Treasure he asks the above question. Coperthwaite has already stated his opinions on work, or is "labor" a better word?, when writing about "bread labor." "Bread Labor" is the work that needs to be done to survive and make the world better at the same time: washing dishes, cooking, child-care, cutting firewood, teaching and planting gardens are all examples. Coperthwaite mentions how Gandhi thought all of this could be done if everyone pitched in two hours a day. Scott and Helen Nearing thought 4 hours a better estimate. Coperthwaite himself writes that when he goes to cut firewood he takes a book with him and alternates cutting and reading. At the end of the day, he is not sure which was the more rewarding exercise and which the more work.

Living on a boat with our family has reminded us that we can't take it all with us. In fact, I look at the amount of books and resources I have collect for pastoral ministry over the years, and realize that while the books are sitting boxed up in a storage unit, they are not doing anyone any good. Yet, am I willing to part with them? Are they now owning me? Frankly, it is easier to put it on the back burner, 'til the next time I get something out of the storage unit and am confronted with seeing once again these material goods that are starting to own me, or do they? When living in a house, I was not confronted with thinking through the material possessions that surrounded us.

Voluntarily choosing to live simply doesn't mean that we have to only live with cheap goods, that were cheaply made of inferior materials, and traveled long distances. It can mean, that because we are choosing to use/have/deal with less things the material goods we do have can be top quality, excel at some design criteria of our own, and/or feel "right" to us. Because we are choosing to have less, the less we have can be quality products. (By the way, this often leads to individuals spending less money over the long run.)

Listen to Coperthwaite:

THE EXAMPLE OF THE RICH
Imagine a society of a thousand people each having a yearly income of $1,000 and living in poverty. Then imagine that one person in that community has an income ten times the average. If this money were divided evenly, it would mean only $10 more per year for each person. This 1 percent increase would help somewhat, but not a great deal. Although a fairer sharing of the world's wealth is urgently necessary, merely redistributing monetary wealth is minuscule in importance compared with the need for intelligent, cooperative action aimed at improving the quality of life.
     The wealth of the rich would not mean much if it were spread out evenly, but the example of luxurious living spread about is a time bomb.
     The great evil of the rich is the example they set. Yet the power of the rich is very fragile, for their privilege cannot withstand the gaze of an enlightened populace. What good is their accumulated "wealth" if we refused to work for them? If we refused to accept their values and their way of life?
     The trap we are in is that we want to emulate the rich. Their factories produce for us, and we are their buyers, the consumers. If we refused to buy junk, they would have to produce quality. A factory is a liability if its products won't sell. They will produce whatever we demand. We have the control - though we don't know it yet - whenever we decide to take responsibility: that is, when we become mature in our economic thinking and in the use of our purchasing power. The monetary power of the wealthy is a social disease that can be cured, but the remedy needs our help.
     We now have a class of people living according to a consumption pattern that exceeds that of the monarchs of previous centuries and that is rapidly devouring the world's finite resources. It might not matter, physically, if a few thousand people acted in such adolescent fashion, but when millions do, the effect will ultimately be catastrophic, with the added danger that more millions, seeing the example of the rich, will strive for this luxury as well.
     That is our greatest danger now, and the crisis is approaching epidemic proportions. From this vantage point, the "voluntary simplicity" of Richard Gregg becomes more important than every before. Is it possible that we, the people of the industrial nations, the leaders in the race to destroy the earth, could set the pace for a move in a positive direction? Can we meet the challenge?
     Whatever we do is watched closely by the poor of the world. Will we use our economic advantage for the good of humankind or will we continue to rob and to exploit?
     We must search for ways to live that are within the grasp of all people. In this light, redefining wealth and riches becomes a primary challenge (78-9).

And he sets out some examples. But my point is to get us to think through our own myths about how the "world/realty" operates.

You, dear reader, my be wondering why this is here ... what it has to do with faith and with boating? To me it has everything to do with it. One cannot help but live a simpler life by living on a boat (some of us choose to live simpler than others, those who seek out a way of life distinctly different from that on shore verses those who may want more shore-life-type conveniences), but it is still simpler. And I strongly believe that the biological or carbon footprints are smaller.

But I also strongly believe that the reason we don't recognize (nor can find) the two rivers flowing out of the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:10-14) is because we are not meant too. Rather, these two rivers are to remind us that the Garden of Eden is just around the corner. Today, they can remind us that we belong in the Garden, and the ways we impact the earth around us, are directly impacting the Garden (which is here, now, around us now).*

The Kingdom/Kindom of God is near - in fact, right around us.
May we have eyes to see, ears to hear, let alone touch, smell, and taste it.

Blessed Be

*For a fuller discussion of this idea, see Brock and Parker's Saving Paradise

“1978” or “Intergenerational Equity”

I was amazed to read that within in my own lifetime, and yet before my younger sisters were born, we as a human species crossed the threshold of the Earth’s sustainable yield by our consumption. The year was 1978. Prior to this date, when humans over consumed, we took away from the other species trying to survive upon the planet. After 1978, we started consuming other humans’ share, at the expense of future human generations. This figure is in part linked to the growth of the human population. However, the World Bank is actually predicting a slowing down of the human doubling rate, the first time this has happened since we humans reached a billion in numbers. Women in less industrialized nations are giving birth to four rather than six children (a drop from thirty years previously). While unsure as to the reasons behind this trend, demographers are now predicting, if all factors remain the same, a peak in the human population between 10 and 11 billion people by 2100.*

The Earth produces a tremendous amount of life each year. When unstressed, and unconsumed this life adds to the bioproductivity that can be used currently, and into future generation. When more is consumed than is produced, we wear down the Earth’s systems, leaving less for future generations. If these growth predictions are true, then in 2050 the earth will contain 9 billion people, and the $980 a year share of the world’s GNP will have shrunk to $650 and humanity will be overshooting the world’s carrying capacity by 88 percent.**

Of course, we humans could decide to address these issues and make the significant changes necessary …

The key to Intergenerational equity is passing down to the next generation (especially the yet unborn generation) the Earth with no degradation, or even more bioproductivity, reversing in the degradation process. To do so, we have to scale back our annual take on an already overworked system.

As Jim Merkel sums up: “In the 150 or so years since the Industrial Revolution, we’ve doubled the population 4 times and doubled the size of the global economy 20 times … Currently, humanity takes 20 percent more than is produced, thus wearing down the Earth’s systems. Might it be wise to scale back our annual take to help the overworked systems rebound? We can either err on the side of caution or gamble with our children’s future.”***

__________
* Jim Merkel Radical Simplicity: Small Footprints on the Finite Earth. (New Society Publishers, 2003.) 64.
** Ibid. 63.
***Ibid. 64. 65.

“Interspecies Equity” or “4.7 Acres”

All Creatures of our God and King,
Lift up your voice and with us sing,
O praise ye! Alleluia!
O brother sun with golden beam,
O sister moon with silver gleam!
O praise ye! Allelulia! Alleluia! Allelulia!

(Francis of Assisi, ca. 1225; trans William H. Draper, 1925, 

adapt. 1987)

Francis of Assisi was known for his love of all creation. So was Albert Schweitzer, who apparently had his wooden organ covered with cooper while serving as a doctor in Africa so that he didn’t have to poison, kill or injure the wood bores who were in the process of attacking it. I wonder, how anthropocentric a world view did either Francis or Schweitzer have?

Jim Merkel provides some thought-provoking details, especially if we long to follow in the just as radical today as it was then footsteps of Francis or Schwitzer.

Ecological Overshoot of the Human Economy, states that there are 28.2 billion acres of bioproductive land on Earth – the total surface area minus the deep oceans, deserts, icecaps and built-up land. When divided between six billion people, each person gets a 4.7-acre share – we’ll call this area each person’s “personal planetoid.” But this assumes that humanity uses the entire planet’s annual production. The question then becomes “How much of my 4.7-acre share do I want to use for myself and how much do I want to leave for other life forms?” You might think, “I want to share it all.” A generous thought. But the reality is, you need to consume to survive. And what you use is not available for the deer, rabbits, or coyotes. For example, assume I am fenced into a one-acre garden with one deer and we eat the plants almost as fast as they grow, but don’t deplete them. After 60 years, the land is still just as productive as it was when w entered. Generous me then invites a friend inside the fence. Now the plants can’t keep pace with our appetites, and the land becomes depleted. Renewable “resources,” or the planet’s “bioproductivity,” takes time to regenerate. They are only renewable if they’re consumed at a rate slower than their annual growth or yield.
With a mere 1.5 million of the estimated 7 to 25 million species identified worldwide, caution is in order. And, with the current extinction rate estimated at 100 to 1,000 time faster than the natural rate, humanity’s current idea of sharing nature is deeply challenging.*

As I will mention in a later blog, this is in part due to humanities consuming beyond the tipping point. We are no longer just consuming nature, we are consuming ourselves (see 1978 or Intergenerational Equity to come).

Remember too that the 4.7-acres is to deal with our complete footprint (carbon, waste, housing, etc). 

If a visual would help, an acre (4,840 square yards) is slightly smaller than a USA football field (5,330 square yards).

Conservation biology looks at the question of interspecies equity through the needs of entire ecosystems. “Reed F. Noss, a specialist in the field, has outlined four objectives that will maintain native biodiversity in perpetuity:

• Represent, in a system of protected areas, all native ecosystem types and serial stages across their natural range of variation.
• Maintain viable populations of all native species in natural patterns of abundance and distribution.
• Maintain ecological and evolutionary processes, such as disturbance regimes, hydrological processes, nutrient cycles, and biotic interactions, including predation.
• Design and manage the system to be responsive to short-term and long-term environmental change and to maintain the evolutionary potential of lineages.**

Noss further figures that to create such an arena where biodiversity and viability of species is preserved would require between 25 to 75 percent of the total land area in most regions would need to be put into reserves with buffer zones surrounding them.

To put this into perspective:

To maintain a minimum population of 1,000 animals would require 242 million acres for grizzly bears, 200 million acres for wolverines, and 100 million acres for wolves. Even the six-million-acre Adirondack Park, which contains the combined areas of Yosemite, Yellowstone, Olympic, and Grand Canyon National Parks struggled to support a reintroduction of lynx. … If the area outlined … was extensively restored, a 200 million acre (312,000 square mile) core area could be formed in New England and Canada. With a drastic reduction of roads and traffic, and a citizenry ready to co-exist with wildlife, these animals might make their way back down from Canada. Sound impossible? Living in British Columbia for seven years among grizzlies, cougars, and wolverines, I leaned that co-existing is not rocket science, not costly, and not even difficult. But it would take a redesign of the human environment and a willingness to change habits.***

Merkel points out that the real issue is one of Anthropocentrisms, in which we hold that humans are the measure of things. A Biocentric or Deep Ecology viewpoint might be needed if we were to truly change course.

I might also add, from a theological viewpoint, that anthropocentrism can be a hindrance in understanding the Divine.

_________
* Jim Merkel. Radical Simplicity: small footprints on a finite Earth. Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers, 2003. 55–6, 56–7 .
** Ibid. 57. Merkel quotes Reed F. Noss. “The Wildlands Project: Land Conservation Strategy”, Wild Earth Special Issue (1993): pp.10-21.
***Ibid. 57, 58.

Interhuman Equity

Imagine a potluck dinner in which all 6 billion plus people of our planet attend, Jim Merkel invites. You are in line first. How much food do you take? After the meal, you go to gather the supplies you need for the year, again, how much do you take?

Let’s consider two hypothetical scenarios. After you green grass and blue sky dinner, the ten people at your table get a basket of money equal to ten sustainable, equitable shares of the world Gross National Product (GNP). To determine how much is in the basket, we first divide the total world GNP - $29,340 billion – by six billion people for a $4,900 share. But because the total economic activity of humanity overshoots the globe’s carrying capacity by 20 percent we adjust the share to $3,900. At this level of GNP, we still have humanity consuming the entire global bioproductivity. Let’s say we scale back total human impact in terms of GNP by 75 percent to make room for the millions of other species. Each person would now have an annual equitable share of the world GNP equal to $980. You begin to try to imagine living on $980 a year, gulp… and you freeze. Impossible!

The basket has $9,800, or 10 times the $980 equal shares. This money is laid out in bundles of 100 one-dollar bills. Now each draws a number from a hat. You draw first, and can take what you want. Everyone watches in silence. How much to you take?*

Merkel switches scenarios slightly. Now you can approach an ATM machine behind a curtain, with no societal pressures, you could take as much as you want, you’re first after all, and no one will know but you how much you took. Again, how much to you take?*

Merkel again posits these hard questions of global living in a remarkable way. So far we have been touching on the GNP, economics, and later he speaks of how much land is equitable for us humans to use. Not in terms of living on, but in terms of use: CO2 absorption, food production so that we can eat, etc. At the same time, he is asking us hard questions; he also gives us hope from the past. The western understanding of the way of relating to one another and the world hasn’t and isn’t the only way. He also gives inspiration.

Charles Gray, from Eugene, Oregon, author of Toward a Nonviolent Economics, developed the concept of World Equity Wage (WEW) and capped his wage at $3.14 an hour, and worked no more than 20 hours a week. His voluntary “deprivileging” was motivated by a goal of sharing the available work and wealth with humanity and restoring the environment. When we meet in 1995, he had already been living for 17 years on what he calculated to be the World Equity Budget (WEB), and averaged $1,190 in total annual living expenses from 1978 to 1993. He is a delightful, open-minded person and his book is an inspiration.

After 14 years of living on $5,000 per year (placing me amongst the wealthiest 17 percent of humanity), I know it would take a quantum redesign of my life and significantly reduced expectations of services to approach equity. I know it is hard in the context of an unsustainable culture, but every bit of societal level change, be it bike lanes, mixed zoning, or local organic markets will make the whole process easier.**

______
* Jim Merkel Radical Simplicity: Small Footprints on the Finite Earth. (New Society Publishers, 2003. 58-60.
**Ibid. 61-2.

Questions of Equity

“You will never understand violence and nonviolence until you understand the violence to the spirit that happens from watching your children die of malnutrition.” ~ a Salvadoran peasant*

This is a rather sobering way to begin a discussion on equity, but an important reminder about the global nature of this topic. As children we are brought up striving for fairness, for equity. Most children understand this topic quite well, and are often the first to point out how unjust a situation is. In growing up, somewhere along the line, we start tampering with this inner guide. Perhaps it is as Matthew Fox has commented that there is no place for the Child or the Mystic or the Elderly in the machine of the modern industrial complex. Perhaps this is so, perhaps this is so.

Yet the prophets of the Judeo-Christian tradition constantly remind us to care for the poor, the widowed, the orphaned, and the sojourner. Jesus reminds us to seek first the Kingdom of God, where justice and compassion kiss (as the psalmist says). Where we live in right relationship with one another. The Wesleys, and others, remind us that it is not enough to seek out personal salvation, but that our very salvation depends upon the salvation of society. The Kingdom come on Earth as in Heaven. That works and faith go hand in hand. Liberation theologians remind us, God has a preferential treatment for the poor and the oppressed.

But what does equality look like? Cannot we just raise everyone’s standard of living to our own? How much a say do the “voiceless” of nature: the waterways, the sky, the land have a say? And what about those with voice, but not our own: the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, and the creatures of the land? Do we really take seriously that the Earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof?

These next few blogs of the next week or so will be looking at these very questions. At the same time, I want to point out that while my family and I are striving to move into a more sustainable lifestyle, we ourselves are nowhere near where we want to be. I do not submit the following and upcoming blogs from a perspective of expertise, but rather as a starter for conversation around these important issues.

To start, here are some ethical questions Jim Merkel and James Huskins posit, followed by a litany from the United Methodist Hymnal.

Jim Merkel presents some ethical questions for us to ponder:

• Could Earth support all the world’s population at my standard of living?
• Do other species or people suffer because of my lifestyle?
• Do good things come from each dollar I spend?
• Do other species have inherent value?
• Should my race, gender, strength, taxonomy, education, or birthplace allow me to consume more than others?
• Are wars being fought over resources that I use?
• Do I support corporations or industries that damage the environment or exploit workers in sweatshops?
• Is my lifestyle in alignment with my own values?**

James Huskins writes about the questions he ponders when picking out tools, whether they be a hammer or a computer:

For most of that time my guiding principle has been whether these tools are “appropriate.” Appropriateness means more than whether a tool is well made, well suited to the job at hand, not likely to break down in use, and has a long life expectancy, although all these factors are port of the equation.
Also involved are questions such as: Does the manufacture and/or use of this tool seriously degrade the environment? Does owning this tool make me more or less dependent on corporations whose scruples are as readily for sale as their products? Does the use of this tool enhance my ability to think well and my capacity to provide for basic needs? Is the tool obscenely expensive to purchase and/or use? Will the kingdom of God be any closer to existing on earth as it is in heaven if I have this tool?***

And from the United Methodist Hymnal’s collection of Affirmations of Faith (this can be read responsively, one group/person in the lighter text, the other in the italicized/bold faced text):

We believe in God, creator of the world and of all people;
and in Jesus Christ, incarnate among us,
   who died and rose again;
and in the Holy Spirit,
   present with us to guide, strengthen, and comfort.
We believe;
God, help our unbelief.
We rejoice in every sign of God’s kingdom:
   in the upholding of human dignity and community;
   in every expression of love, justice, and reconciliation;
   in each act of self-giving on behalf of others;
   in the abundance of God’s gifts entrusted to us that all may have enough;
   in all responsible use of the earth’s resources.
Glory be to God on high;
and on earth, peace.
We confess our sin, individual and collective,
   by silence or action:
      through the violation of human dignity
         based on race, class, sex, nation, or faith;
      through the exploitation of people
         because of greed and indifference;
      through the misuse of power
         in personal, communal, national and international life;
      through the search for security
         by those military and economic forces that threaten human existence;
      through the abuse of technology
         which endangers the earth and all life upon it.
Lord, have mercy;
Christ, have mercy;
Lord, have mercy.
We commit ourselves individually and as a community
   to the way of Christ:
   to take up the cross;
   to seek abundant life for all humanity;
   to struggle for peace with justice and freedom;
   to risk ourselves in faith, hope, and love,
      praying that God’s kingdom may come.
Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.****

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*World Bank. 2000 World Development Indicators CD-ROM. Washington DC: World Bank, 2000.
** Jim Merkel. Radical Simplicity: small footprints on a finite Earth. Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers, 2003. 53–4 .
*** James Huskins. “Mix and Match.” The Plain Reader: Essays on Making a Simple Life. Scott Savage, Ed. New York: Ballantine Publishing Group, 1998. 120–123. 120–1.
****The United Methodist Hymnal. Nashville: United Methodist Publishing House, 1989. 886.