Today's blog post is a reflection on the section entitled "The Gospel of Consumption" from the chapter on "Happiness" in Wayne Muller's book "Sabbath".
So...when I wrote the blog post called "Shopping Will Not Save Us" a few days ago, I had no idea that there would be a "Part 2". But, here is it all the same.
I was so taken be this statement from today's reading: Americans now consume twice as many goods and services, per person, than we did in 1945. "Oh, my God," I want to utter under my breath, both as a cry of disbelief and as a cry for help. What are we doing? Why is this statement true?
I am very bothered by our consumerism, as you may have already guessed by reading other blog posts. I am bothered on a personal, communal, spiritual and environmental level. Our Gospel of Consumption will not save us. It is not good news. In fact, it is very bad news. It is not sustainable. Every time I walk through a store, all I can think is, "Some day...this will all be in a land fill." And, then, when I turn a something over to see where it was made, usually, my response is, "What impoverished person had to work for pennies to make this piece of plastic crap for me to buy?" Really. Truth be told, that's how I feel when I go shopping.
So, I keep wondering how we can turn this tide of consumerism around in our culture. How can we turn away from shopping as gospel and turn towards actual good news, life changing good news? Ideas?
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The statement that resonated with me was a little further down that same page then Muller states that in America there is one automobile for every 1.7 people. “In China there is currently one automobile for every six hundred people. Imagine within five years of being baptized into the global Gospel of Consumption, the typical Chinese family rightfully desires an automobile or two, just like the Americans have. …There is not enough steel, petroleum or rubber—to say nothing of clean air available to suck through the additional engines—to sustain this relatively tiny increase in consumption.” WOW! We’ve been told for years that we are running out of oil, but to think we would run out of steel, rubber, even air if the Chinese people were to attain the level of gross consumption that we have in the US is mind boggling. So as Muller asks, who will be asked to give up their desires first? And who gets to decide?
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