To Much Thinking About Too Much Stuff

October, 21, 2005

Have you ever examined the word “consumer”? That’s what we are now, all of us, especially North Americans. We are persons that consume.

According to the 1969 Random House Dictionary,
To consume: 1. to destroy or expend by use; use up. 2. to eat or drink up; devour. 3. to destroy, as by decomposition or burning: Fire consumed the forest. 4. to spend (money, time, etc.) wastefully. 5. to absorb; engross: She was consumed with curiosity. Synonyms: exhaust, expend, squander and dissipate.

That describes Matthew devouring his first birthday cake. The True Consumer!
But is that what I am? Someone who devours, who destroys by engulfing? Do I really squander and dissipate to such an extent that I am defined as such?

No question about it, according to the entire U.S. economy, including retailers, manufacturers, advertisers, corporations, media, and the government, I am

The Consumer.

Okay, so maybe that’s not such a bad thing. I enjoy shopping, usually, as long as it’s not for swimming suits or gifts for men who have everything. I buy brand names and designer labels. (Via eBay and thrift shops, but still . . . .) I like having lots of great clothes in the closet, and I can honestly justify all these electronic gadgets that make my work easier, my mailings more attractive or my schedule more manageable. Yeah, boy, I’m a consumer!

Still, that definition of destroying and squandering makes me uncomfortable.

Have you encountered those church growth materials that recommend marketing the gospel as we would any other consumer commodity? That’s right, to succeed in this culture, we need to change our thinking from ministering to people to marketing the church to consumers. No kidding. I know the Apostle Paul based his doctrine of atonement on economic theory, but should we really think of parishioners as consumers???

This whole consumer thing has been bothering me for several weeks – actually, since we collected all the clothing and stuff for the Hurricane Katrina evacuees. There was just so much stuff! Heaps of clothing, mountains of resources, inundated the Salvation Army and St. Vincent de Paul; so much that they had to beg people to hold back. And that outpouring didn’t even make a dent on our abundance, much less indicate any sacrifice.

Now our congregation in Phoenix is having its annual rummage sale, and again, there is just so much stuff! And nice stuff: silk jackets, Wedgwood cups, antique pressed glass bowls, brand new toys and – you get the idea. We’re not a particularly affluent congregation. Yet this is the sort of stuff we toss away, and there’s plenty more where that came from.

How should we think about this abundance? As people of faith, could we disassociate from the consumer identity just a little bit?

Careful, now. I’m not advocating poverty. Been there, done that. Poverty was promoted as a virtue for Christians for centuries, and, St. Francis aside, I suspect it had more to do with keeping lower classes from getting uppity ideas than it did with sanctification. No one needs the “blessings of poverty.” But simplicity might be something to consider.

Oh, well, it’s just too complicated, and I’m getting myself confused. So that’s enough for this blog. But while I’m working on line, I need to find a catalog site to order a Halloween costume for my dog.