Thoughts on Consumerism and Community

Last year I blogged about my reflections on consumerism from Black Friday and today I am revisiting how I am a victim of it yet again. I have been getting significantly better at saying “no” to things, but I still fall prey to buying movies and books that are on incredible sales. I even spent a lot of money on BD’s Christmas gift and as worth it as I feel she is, I cannot help but feel guilty when I spend money like that. There is a part of me that is yearning to help the poor and every ounce of money that goes towards consumerism is money that goes against the poor. That is at the very least a thought that I get. I hate it honestly. I hate this money system we have because you need so much of it and yet the more you need of it the more you want and the more you want the more you fall prey to consumerism. Ha, those were just my early afternoon thoughts. I did however get a rather captivating book that I have barely been able to put down and it is entitled “Cross Roads” and it is written by the author of one of my favorite books entitled “The Shack.” This story tells the tale of a man who has isolated himself to complete aloneness and is now dying; it talks in depth about how much God loves us and how God is community and why we are made for community. It has only reinstated my love for community and helped fill this theme of my break. It seems with the amounts of “Community” that I have been watching and my reflections on community I would say that is my theme of this break. What a wonderful theme that is, one of my favorites in fact. Even last year when I co-led a student bible study it was common knowledge that when it was my turn to lead I would usually resort to one of two topics: community or social justice.

            In my reflective state of community I noticed something tonight. It began when I wished my uncle a goodnight by saying that I loved him and all he responded with was “goodnight.” It made me think about how I have barely heard some married friends say “I love you” to their wives. I know that they desperately love their wives, but I have not heard them say it. It makes me wonder what we have done with the word love. The way I see it, and the way that BD sees it is that you should always love and you should say “I love you” to those that you love at the end of every conversation in case you never see them again by some strange happenstance. I know that people may argue that the word loses its meaning when it is overused, but I would argue that it loses its meaning when it is underused. We all have different understandings of love, and we are in different stages, but that should not stop us from loving like none other. We should love, the love we know, with all that we are. We are creatures made for community and made for love, so why is it so hard to show that? I know that it is easy for me to show love, but sometimes harder for me to see love. We need to get out of this dichotomy of what we feel and show and it should be both. We should be filled with love and share that love too. Love is what makes the world go around. Love is what awakens us. Love is what gives us meaning. Love is.

            So as I have come to the end of my contemplative night, I have read the next chapter of Daniel; chapter 3. This chapter tells us the narrative of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego that I have so often heard as a child. In some ways it frustrates me the way that these stories are presented to children because it creates this clean, easy, world of the Scriptures where in actuality this tale is a gruesome and violent tale. These men have enough trust in God that even if He does not spare them they are willing to die to be loyal to him. In a sense they could be saying “Even if we are wrong in this belief, we believe in this God so adamantly we will die for Him.” And so they do…they get thrown into a Furness something that I know many American Evangelicals would be last to jump on the bandwagon for. I do not understand how we, as Americans, have been able to get this prosperity gospel into our brains that we won’t go through hard times. I mean if you look anywhere in the Bible you see Christians being persecuted left and right. Yeah God was with them, but that did not stop the issue. I love how in this narrative when they are in the Furness, God appears with them. He does not take them out of the fires; he walks in the midst of their troubles with them. I know that they did not burn up, so that was God protecting them but they also didn’t walk out until the king ordered them out. This shows us that in the midst of our trials and troubles God is walking with us, protecting us, even if we aren’t liberated right away. It can be easy to think that God is going to liberate us immediately from our problems, but that’s not the case. The important thing to remember is that he is with us, always. There is one thing I would like to remark about the end of this chapter, when the king makes it a law to worship God. I think that it is good that he has found God, but hasn’t he just made God the same as the other God he had created? Was it really a wise decision to make serving God a decree? That makes it more legalistic if you ask me, and God desires a relationship, it’s why he is community.

            So, Lord help me to be a steward for raising communities. Help me to sow love in this broken and dying world. Help me to bring peace and reconciliation and to reunite people into community. Lord I am yours, please us me in all that you did. I love you above all else. I am yours.