Living With Less in the Land of More

Many are reflecting on the stuff we own and how it owns us in this season of shopping and gift-giving. I read an excellent article recently about one family’s journey with their relationship to their stuff (Stuffed to the gills: How crap took over my life—and how I intend to take it back). So, I thought I would reflect on my family’s journey with our relationship to our stuff. Many of your stories are probably similar in many respects.

The Birth of the Monster
It all began… well, when I was born, but that would take to long. Accumulating stuff really hit an exponential growth curve when we got married. Neither of us had too much stuff after college, but we had both lived on our own long enough to accumulate more than enough. Not only does a wedding combine two people’s stuff, it piles on a whole host of new stuff on top of what you already have. We tried to keep it simple by encouraging people to donate in our name to a charity, but in our culture it doesn’t really count unless you buy something for somebody. So, we filled our registry at various places and people piled up the presents. Even with all the gifts we still had room to spare in our little two bedroom apartment.

Then we made two more decisions that many people make which set us on a trajectory to having more stuff, 1) we bought a house (bigger than our apartment) and 2) we decided to have kids. We bought the house first and people tend to fill the space that they live in. We tried to keep things minimal, but living in an empty house also seems kind of silly. Then we had kids. Between baby showers and grandparents these little 7 to 8 pound bundles of joy come with an incredible amount of stuff for being unable to eat solid foods, walk, sit up or burp without help. They continually acquire new stuff every year for birthdays and new clothes as they grow faster than sea monkeys.

Taming the Monster
While we considered ourselves to be people that tried to live simply and consume less, we found ourselves trying to figure out what to do with a 1600 square foot house full of stuff when we decided to move to the World Hunger Relief, Inc. farm where we had a small two bedroom apartment. There were a lot of craigslist ads and a big yard sale. We tried to think hard about what we needed and what was worth keeping. Still, when moving day came we had to put a lot of boxes into storage (at my mom’s) and managed to fill up the apartment nicely.

Then we accepted a position with Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) in Bolivia. We thought it was silly to put our stuff in storage for three years. So, we got rid of everything. This time we really did. We got rid of all our furniture, chairs, table, futon, beds, dressers…our car…everything. We still had some things stored at my mom’s but even that was picked over and cleaned out. We pared down our material possessions to an absolute minimum. It was a crazy, radical move that tested our faith and resolve to trust God and the Body of Christ.

Yet, when we got to Bolivia our eight suitcases seemed a little excessive in light of the people around us who had so much less. While living there and working with MCC, I wrote about what it means to live simply (What is Simple Living?). Once again our ideas about what was enough, what was simple and what we needed were challenged. Each time we moved and tried to simplify we learned more about what was important and what was not.

Now that we are back in the United States, we are looking to replace some of those items we so happily gave away. We hope to add these things back into our life slowly and be discerning about what we really need. We’ve asked our community to share their excess with us as we shared with them. What we have found is that we continue to have more than we need, because our friends both have more than they need and are willing to share it with us.

Lessons From the Monster
The obvious lesson here is that you should pursue downward mobility by moving every few years to poorer and poorer places in the world, right? As the aforementioned article also points out, moving does provide an opportunity to evaluate what’s worth piling in a moving van. Yet I’ve often talked about the importance of place and putting down roots. So, perhaps the solution is a discipline of seasonal cleaning. We already have this cultural concept of “spring cleaning“, but how many of us practice it? Choose a time of year to give your stuff a good cleaning and share with others out of your abundance.

There’s also trying to cut the monster’s head off from the beginning. We tried an alternative wedding registry for such a purpose, but with little success. I know others have held their ground and been more effective. I found The Scavenger’s Manifesto to be a great resource with more than just tips and tricks for finding free stuff, but a different way of thinking about our stuff.

Patience is the most important and most difficult virtue when considering our shopping. Consumerism is based on impulse buys and tickling our acquisition bone. The longer you can avoid the instant gratification temptation to buy stuff the moment you think of it, the more things will simply filter out over time. Then you’re left with things that were worth the wait to buy. You’ll probably find a good deal, find a cheaper alternative or at least thought more carefully through your purchase.

Finally, I mentioned in Wading Into the Pond last week some ideas about how to move from charity to justice in our lives.

1. Don’t do it alone- Find others to walk with you on the journey.
2. Learn to talk again- Within relationships of trust, we have to learn how to talk about our finances with others.
3. The Holy Excise Tax- Find creative ways to hold each other accountable and make your choices more transparent
4. Saints and Sinners- Show yourself and others grace. The goal is not being more righteous or holy than others, but attempting to follow Jesus into a new way of living.

The Ultimate Showdown: Mother Earth vs Globalization

Bolivia is a fascinating place to live right now. It is a bundle of contradictions and paradoxes that are a microcosm of the economic and ecological crises that the rest of the globe faces. Like any other collection of people, organizations, communities and especially nation-states, Bolivia is a complicated mix of history, races, languages, religions, ideologies and these make up the political situation of parties, factions and groups vying for influence, pushing their agenda, marching and blockading streets. Amidst this complex environment two issues in particular arise that frame all others and create contradictions that will eventually have to be overcome. They are environmental protection/conservation and economic development. An article on the Poverty Matters Blog of the Guardian summed this contradiction up nicely,

Rated eighth in the world for its biodiversity, more than half of Bolivia is still covered by pristine forests. But what for some is picturesque remoteness, is for others the curse of underdevelopment…Despite its finger-pointing at the west for causing climate change through the irrational use of raw materials, Bolivia’s economy thrives on the sale of natural gas… So, on one hand, Morales is Bolivia’s first indigenous president and an environmental champion; on the other, he’s a tacit supporter of the industrialised model. 2

Seeds, Security and Sovereignty
I’ve written previously about this contradiction in terms of the Law of Pachamama (The Law of Mother Earth) that Bolivia passed which gives “rights to life and regeneration, biodiversity, water, clean air, balance, and restoration” and mandates “a fundamental ecological reorientation of Bolivia’s economy and society, requiring all existing and future laws to adapt to the Mother Earth law and accept the ecological limits set by nature.” 1

Bolivia has since proposed other legislation concerning genetically modified seeds and food sovereignty. Carlos Romero, the minister who proposed a draft law for Bolivia to produce its own seeds and fertilizer explains in another Guardian article that “[Seeds] are a major factor in food production. But in recent years we’ve seen an increase in their price across the world, because of a rise in oil prices and the monopoly exercised on seeds by a few corporations. That’s why we want to create state-owned companies that produce seeds.”

In the same article Ciro Kopp, an agricultural engineer at the National Council for Food and Nutrition, puts the concerns about seeds and fertilizer in the broader context of food sovereignty,

“About 20 to 25 years ago, 70 to 80% of what we ate was produced locally in Bolivia,” he said, “but then we embraced the agro-industrial model and now 70 to 80% of what we eat comes from the agro-industry, which makes us dependent on technologies and price controls from abroad. So, in the same way that industrialists received support from the government in the past, now it’s small farmers who need help…Bolivia is a centre of origin of several Andean crops such as potatoes, quinoa, chili and corn,” he said. “It is essential to strengthen the systems of production, natural selection and exchange of seeds that farmers have been doing for centuries. Our focus should be first of all to feed the country. If our priority is to export, what are people going to eat?” 2

There have been serious effects from this shift to agro-industrial production, including abandoning one of the healthiest foods in the world. Also from the Guardian, “Prices of locally-produced indigenous food, such as quinoa, are also at a record highs: some highland communities have taken to eating rice and pasta instead of their traditional – and more nutritious – crops.” 2 Quinoa contains the most complete protein found in any grain in the world. Yet, the very people producing this crop cannot afford it and are forced, instead, to consume the poor substitutes of rice and pasta. For people whose health depends on getting the most nutrition out of the small amounts of food they can afford this places their very lives on the edge of survival.

Biodiversity is nature’s way of both creating a safety net and maintaining equilibrium. If one species goes extinct as they do (though never before at the current rate), then another is available to fill the niche left and other species can evolve from the diversity of the remaining gene pool. The BBC says

“Bolivia is home to thousands of native varieties of crops, including potato and corn. The Morales government wants to improve genetic stock through natural selection. It rejects what it describes as an invasion of genetically-modified seeds, fearing they will contaminate indigenous species, and prove to be too expensive for small farmers to buy.” 3

The reason that these technologies are beyond the reach of small farmers across the world is that companies, such as Monsanto, create a vertically integrated line of products in which their genetically modified seeds (or “viralized transgenics” as the host of Agroinnovations prefers) are dependent on the chemical herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers that the same company produces. This suite of agro-chemical products is very expensive and only becomes more so as more applications are needed year after year, or as new products are introduced. This has led many farmers in India to go into inexorable debt and is the cause of the epidemic of farmer suicides in that country.

The Guardian article, “Will Bolivia make the breakthrough on food security and the environment?”, concludes on an upbeat note about the prospects for Bolivia’s future, “For now, however, the general consensus is that if the new law is applied well, Bolivia could succeed in guaranteeing food security with sovereignty for its people – as well as keep its biodiversity intact.” 2 Yet, we have already hinted at some of the obstacles facing the application of environmental and food sovereignty legislation.

The Rising Tide of Globalization Is a Tsunami
An Associated Press article pointed out some of these difficulties concerning the current agro-industrial producers in Bolivia.

“In Bolivia’s eastern lowlands, soybeans that would ordinarily have been exported languished in their silos because they could not find local buyers. We were already being battered by the climate when the government came out with these decrees prohibiting exports,” said Demetrio Perez, a soy farmer who is president of the National Association of Oil Seed Producers. “With the restrictions, an incentive to plant more was lost.…”We can’t fight the ravages of nature, but what’s doing the most harm are inappropriate policies that discourage production,” said Gary Rodriguez of the National Institute of Foreign Commerce, a leading business group. “Farmers already have plenty to deal with coping with the climate.” 1

You see, there is currently only one possibility for development and that is the industrial, growth economy. On the one hand, I feel bad for any farmer affected by bad policies, but in this case it might be a case of good policies badly implemented, at least so far. Crops such as soy or corn are not produced in order to feed anybody until they have gone through a long chain of processing and turned into all kinds of products. These crops are damaging to the food security and sovereignty of nations like Bolivia, because they are primarily export commodities. The reason they don’t have much of a local market is because no one can eat them or turn them into edible products without massive infrastructure. This hurts the farmers producing such crops, because they have no incentives to plant something else and many don’t yet have the skills for alternative agricultural production.

How To Have It Both Ways…Or Not
The biggest battle currently raging in Bolivia is over the governments intention to build a road through the middle of the Isiboro Secure Indigenous Territory and National Park (TIPNIS) which is home to thousands of species of birds, mammals and plants, three indigenous groups and a lot of natural gas deposits. “With its 2.5m acres, the TIPNIS (from its initials in Spanish) is doubly protected, as a park and as the territory of the Moxeños, Yurakarés and Chimanes indigenous people.” 4 The conflict over the proposed road between indigenous groups and the government (with an indigenous leader as its president) has been going on for months. The government claims that the road will help to connect and unite the indigenous groups in the area, while the residents claim that the road will bring more trucks and extractive industry than unity or benefits to them. This particular issue has made the paradox of the Morales administration’s situation crystal clear in my mind. It has to deal with indigenous groups and its own agenda for environmental protection and rights, but at the same time has to do something about a country with the worst economy and highest poverty in South America.

This contradiction between economic development and ecological sustainability is the primary question facing our planet. The problem facing the Bolivian government is that you can only have it both ways for so long before the contradictions inherent in these two issues will come to a head. It’s not enough to pass good laws about the rights of the earth, food sovereignty and security. If there is not a strategy for transitioning to a new kind of development and economy, then Bolivia, and indeed the rest of the planet, will remain caught in this most costly of contradictions.

In the next post I will explore some ideas about this transition and what an economy based on the kinds of legislation Bolivia is working on might look like.

Articles cited:
1 AP “Climate, government controls hit Bolivia’s farmers”
2 Guardian “Will Bolivia make the breakthrough on food security and the environment?”
3 BBC “Bolivia moves to end dependence on foreign seed firms”
4 Guardian “Evo Morales plays a double game on Bolivia’s environment”
5 Yes! Law of Mother Earth

And Now For Some Lite Muzak…

So, I also enjoy playing, writing and performing music. I’ve been writing songs for almost 20 years now, but that only means I’ve written enough bad songs to get lucky a few times. I’ve written a couple of songs, since moving to Bolivia and thought it would be nice to share them with the thronging masses… mostly my mom and a couple friends, but I can dream. Considering they were all recorded on Garage Band on my Macbook, the quality is not too bad. I used a cheap guitar we bought here in Bolivia and did all the songs in one take. I monkeyed with levels, filters, compression etc. on Garage Band to get the best sound I could from a laptop microphone and our kitchen.

The Last Supper
I actually wrote this song when we lived at the World Hunger Relief farm. It’s kind of a summary of my theology of food and the Eucharist.

Thought of Something Else
This is the first song I wrote in Bolivia. It’s based on a poem by Wendell Berry.

I’ll Fly Away
This hymn is fun to play in a fast-paced bluegrass style, but it always made the words and theology sound very escapist. I made my own arrangement and slowed it down. I think it reflects a better theological outlook about the hope of heaven more in the vein of slave songs of the southern United States and black liberation. I really enjoy playing this song this way.

A Good Place to Start
I just wrote this song in the last couple of weeks after listening to a lot of Avett Brothers and thinking about how followers of Jesus live in two worlds, or kingdoms. Living out faith and trying to make the world a better place seem to be inherently messy endeavors. This song is an attempt to find a good place to start.

A Conservationist Manifesto

On the Agroinnovations podcast there was an interview with the author of A Conservationist Manifesto, Scott Russell Sanders. He had some interesting ideas and thoughts. Here is a smattering of them with my own commentary, as usual.

Get On the Boat!
Sanders says that the ark in the biblical story is a profound ecological parable that “represents a vessel that carries through troubled times those things that absolutely must be preserved”. There is a profound value of biodiversity in the story, even if there was no obvious purpose or they were a nuisance. Sanders idea that the biblical narrative of Noah and the Ark is an apt metaphor for modern catastrophe certainly caught my ear. This idea has also been mentioned in the comments on this blog. The thought is that there should be lots of little communities that are living out the kinds of practices that can lead us through potential ecological catastrophe. He read this quote from his book,

Those who try to live more simply are harder to see… They go about learning the skills and mastering the tools necessary for meeting basic human needs. They grow food. They build shelters. They make clothes. They draw energy from sun and wind and wood. They get by with fewer possessions and learn to repair the ones they have. They create much of their own entertainment with homemade art, music and stories. They derive pleasure from good work, human company and the perennial show that nature puts on. So far as possible they rear their children away from television and advertising. They buy as little as they can from the global economy and instead they support local economies based on cooperation, barter and sharing. They protect and restore woods, prairies and swamps making room for wildness.

He calls these people “Ark builders”. They are the keepers of the kinds of knowledge that is “necessary for meeting basic human needs”. When asked the question, “Are we facing catastrophe?” Sanders points out that we are already in a catastrophe, a billion people going hungry every day, a billion people lacking access to clean water, the exponential rate of species extinction, the loss of topsoil, etc. The catastrophe is already here. We have just made it possible for some of our human family to ignore this reality. In other words, the wealthy have created their own arks to insulate themselves from catastrophe. The question that really faces us is not whether or not we face catastrophe, but which boat we will get on, the flashy big boat that is poorly constructed underneath that shiny veneer or the humble ark made of humble materials that requires us to row and work together.

First Church of the Consumer
Sanders quotes an advertising executive in a trade publication from the 1950s summing up the need to promote more consumption to get the economy going,

“Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption. The economy needs things consumed, burned, worn out, replaced and discarded at an ever-increasing rate.”

Wow! I have been arguing and pondering the notion of consumerism as a religion, but never heard it put so explicitly from the mouths of the high priests of advertising, the bishops of the consumer religion. Sanders then points out that in order to fulfill the evangelistic mission of this consumer religion we must trash the earth in order to serve the economy. As I’ve said before this is exactly backwards, the economy exists to serve the earth and human beings as part of it, not the other way around. I hope sometime to take on this idea of consumerism as a religion in more depth, not as a metaphor, but as a deadly serious reality.

Hope or Optimism?
Sanders’ son challenged him to not just point out how bad everything is, but recognize that we need hope to push us forward. I found Sanders’ definition of the difference between hope and optimism both profound and helpful. Optimism is the confidence that everything is going to turn out just fine, no matter how bad it looks. Hope, on the other hand, is the conviction that despite how bad things look there is good work to be done right now to build the kind of world that we want. While I might modify this definition of hope, the contrast between the simple-minded ignorance of optimism and the hard work of hope is insightful.

I often feel cornered as a pessimist because I am not particularly optimistic about the prospects for our modern civilizations and see catastrophe looming on the horizon. This duality of pessimism and optimism is once again an exercise in missing the point. It only tells us the particular mood of an individual given a particular question. Hope tells us infinitely more. Hope reveals both the dire situation we face and draws on deep wells of faith, tradition, intellect and wisdom to pursue a better future, not on a global scale, but in the smallness of our own lives. This makes change not only more possible, but more grounded in reality of both the problems we face and the practicality of what we can do now to bring about something other, something new, beautiful, hopeful and small.

Farm Update

We finally got some good rain this last week and it really freshened things up. Our CSA season ended until October so there will be more veggies available for our farm stand and for us to eat. Seven members of our community left us this week and new people will be arriving in the next couple weeks. That is one of the hardest things to get used to about the farm. People are constantly coming and going. There are a core group that are here longer term, but many of them will not be here for our entire year. Perhaps a post on farming and community is brewing.

Here’s some of the places I will be traveling in the months to come…

• New Baptist Covenant Regional Meeting in Norman, OK this Thursday and Friday
• Market Grower’s Symposium at Home Sweet Farm in Brenham TX September 17-18
• Panel discussion on environmental sustainability at Texas Lutheran University with the Center for Servant Leadership in September.
• ELCA’s Ethics of Eating event at WHRI October 22-25