Archive for the 'Fomenting Change' Category

A Carbon Fast for Lent

admin February 20th, 2010

Lent ought to amount to more than a casual “What am I going to give up for Lent? Oh yeah, I’ll give up eating chocolate” annual exercise. These commitments sometimes have as much meaning and depth to them as New Year’s resolutions which we usually don’t keep anyway.

For people invested in Christian simple living, however, Lent is the best time of the church year to not only make the point about living simply, but to actually have a real impact on those around us who have not yet made the switch.

Why?

Historically Lent is a time of penitence, or in a more modern mindset, a spiritual spring house cleaning. It’s a self-examination in which we look at the mistakes we have made in our relationships with God and those around us (‘sins,’ in Bible-speak), and in making reparations for them.

But there are a lot of mistakes we make on a daily basis that most people would never consider to be sins, but in fact they are not only sins, but major sins. We’re just so used to doing them that we think they’re a normal part of life rather than sins.

Jesus asked us to give up the accumulation of money and possessions so that we can concentrate on the truly important things in life, but instead we have spent the last 2,000 years not giving up much of anything, leaving us in quite a mess. Our incessant and increasing demands for more dish washers, computers, iPhones, cars, clothes, and the power to make it all go, have impoverished or treated many in the Third World unjustly, used up huge amounts of non-renewable resources, and polluted the earth, not to mention having increased global warming.

I would say that every time we buy or use anything we don’t genuinely need, or when we waste water, fuel, or power, or buy anything made with ‘blood materials’ (any resource procured through unjust, inhumane, or immoral means like those practiced in obtaining ‘blood diamonds,’ oil in the Third World, or coltan mining) we are committing serious moral errors. Our daily and excessive consumer practices are sinful because they are destructive to God’s people and his world in very concrete, visible, and painful ways.

So we have a lot of mistakes to make reparations for during Lent. What a great time to show folks why we believe that living simply as Christians is so critical to our world and to our faith – and why we should all be living more simply.

Our small congregation has decided to have a congregational “carbon fast” for Lent this year. It’s an attempt, in a small way, to revive our historic Church of the Brethren tradition of simple living as a way of redressing our mistakes (our penance).

A bit of context: The Church of the Brethren is an Anabaptist denomination which historically practiced simple living much the same way the Mennonites and Amish have up through the beginning of the 20th Century. As the Century passed however, the denomination slowly gave up many of its simple practices such as not using motorized vehicles or electricity, and became increasingly acculturated so that now there is much less to distinguish them from other protestant denominations. In some ways we may have thrown the baby out with the bath water, for although there certainly were some very rigid and dysfunctional rules that were applied in less than loving ways from time to time, those earlier generations were quite faithful to Jesus’ teachings, had a very light footprint in the world, and  they were well respected by their “English” neighbors for their compassion.

But much more than attempting to retrieve a bit of history, the carbon fast is designed to make us aware of our failings, and to make what is sometimes a painful effort to redress them. In asking the entire congregation to participate in the fast, we are using the power of the passion of Christ to make everyone aware of the depth of our error – what we have done to God’s world and His people in the name of our own self-centeredness – and to offer all of us a way to begin to repent – to get our relationship with God and all his people on the right track again.

The fast requires us to first measure the amount of carbon we are using and pumping into the atmosphere and how that compares to the rest of the world (a very unfavorable comparison by a long stretch). Then we will each make a plan of action to reduce our purchases and use of those things that contribute to global warming, resource depletion, pollution, and social and economic injustice. To do this we will be using a number of online and hard copy tools that measure our footprints and suggest actions that will help reduce them. We found the Tread Lightly on Lent calendar produced by the Presbyterian Church USA to be very helpful along with the Federal EPA calculator.

We will then meet in small groups several times between now and Maundy Thursday to talk about our efforts, problems encountered, and successes over a meal.

It is our hope that this experience will make giving up or fasting for Lent a far more concrete, meaningful and helpful process compared to just giving up chocolate.

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“Just War Theory” And Simple Living

admin January 15th, 2010

Obama, Niebuhr, “Just War Theory,” and simple living are all of a piece.

It’s time for me to comment a bit on political and world affairs.

I hesitate to go there because this arena has become so filled with hate and vitriol. I also believe that we can live as Christians regardless of what any government or political party does or doesn’t do. However our congregation’s adult Sunday school has been discussing President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech and his use of Reinhold Niebuhr’s Just War Theory in it. This got me thinking about the theory, foreign policy, Christian morality, and its relationship to Christian simple living.

Niebuhr, of course, was one of America’s preeminent protestant theologians in the 20th Century who taught for many years at Union Theological Seminary. He is known for his mentoring relationship with German minister Dietrich Bonhoeffer of the anti-Nazi Confessing Church, his writings on Just War Theory, and a number of critical books on other theological topics.

Niebuhr and others, most recently Barak Obama in his Nobel speech, claim that Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi-style nonviolence never successfully stops wars or conflicts. They suggest that Gandhi or King could never have succeeded in stopping or preventing the Second World War by talking with Adolf Hitler, for instance.

The theory holds that war and conflict are permanent parts of human life because of original sin, i.e., we are ‘fallen’ imperfect people, and we will always be falling into conflict. Because we live in this sinful world, therefore, we will be forced to exercise power in order to prevent the world from collapsing into chaos, which would not be the Christian thing to do. Rather than merely trying to prevent war through ineffective nonviolent strategies, we should strive to make war as moral as possible by preventing more suffering than is necessary.

The fundamental principles for doing this are that:

  • War must always be a last resort;
  • Force must always be proportional to the threat (never more than an eye for an eye…);
  • Civilians must be spared whenever possible.

So what in the world does this have to do with Christian simple living?

Christian simple living as I’ve defined it, is based on Jesus’ teaching that we should above all else, love and care for others and not engage in war or other acts that are destructive to people. This is what I call “Kingdom thinking.” It is a kingdom where we put our egos in our back pockets and consider the welfare of our neighbors first, no matter how far away or how much we might disagree or argue with them.

Part of doing that is to live simply so that we don’t use up more than our share of things, or use our ‘wealth’ or its accumulation, to abuse, oppress, or injure others, or injure creation as a whole which would be destructive to everyone. Rather we are to use our resources and our energy to build-up others, i.e., the community and the nations, as a whole.

This is a holistic, far-sighted, and patient approach to life which I think is at considerable odds with Just War Theory.

I believe that the notion of the just war is based on the brain wiring we are all, unfortunately, born with. That is, we are biologically and emotionally pre-programmed to use fight-or-flight responses. If a threat of any kind arises, we automatically want to either fight back (go for the jugular) or flee from the threat. Neither of these, of course, leads to peace.

The fight-flight response pretty much prevents us from engaging in long-term, proactive prevention and peacemaking efforts – the kind of thing Jesus has been asking us to do. In fact, much of the peacemaking that does go on today is focused on stopping existing conflicts, and even though that is a step in the right direction, it is not based on long-range or holistic thinking. Reducing current conflicts means that we are still focused on the conflict rather than on preventing future conflicts in the first place.

Even phrasing this as prevention is off-target because the term ‘prevention’ by definition assumes there are anticipated conflicts that we want to avoid. This is still reactive rather than proactive. Being proactive, in this case, means creating the fundamental conditions that ensure peace, period. This would mean, among other things, creating healthy interpersonal, social, economic, and international conditions which optimize the quality of life for everyone. Prevention efforts usually focus on altering only those conditions which affect the current conflict. Although the ‘healthy conditions’ might be preventative, the thinking and psychology behind them and the strategies and tactics used to create them are just not the same thing as prevention.

Under such optimized living conditions, people would tend to feel more fairly treated, would have most basic needs met, and would have better tools and resources for dealing fairly with disagreements long before they became conflicts or wars. I say this having spent a great deal of my career in the health promotion and disease prevention business, particularly substance abuse prevention. So I’ve had some time to think about it.

Our knee-jerk fight-flight response usually kicks-in so quickly that we don’t often give ourselves the time to learn or practice being proactive. We don’t have the time to practice peace! We only have time for fighting the next war or, at best, intervening once a war is about to start. Long term Kingdom Thinking requires patience and understanding so it’s usually at best an afterthought for us – after we’ve counted all the bodies.

Here, then, is my biggest objection to Just War Theory: it enables us, or traps us in the fight-flight vicious circle, because it always leaves open a large opportunity to give up on learning, understanding, patience, and peace, and instead to reach for a gun – fast, because it has been humanity’s accepted way of dealing with things. It’s a huge loophole, which we most often make use of, that actually prevents us from ever learning to do it right.

So day-by-day we get further and further from the Kingdom, and more and more entrenched in the darkening vicious circle of fight-flight and war as our preferred way of life.

So what are Christian Simple Livers to do? Do we have a role to play here?

One of the just war issues is that nations and their governments are constitutionally incapable of keeping the peace through peaceful means. That was Niebuhr’s whole point. Fallen people and their governments can’t seem to do without war. And Obama was in total agreement.

Truth be told, if I were president, I would adopt the same Just War stance even in spite of my Christian beliefs and rantings about Kingdom Thinking.

The secular world of nations and governments is mired deeply in its conflictual DNA as a way of governing and surviving. Obama and Niebuhr might be right that even a Gandhi couldn’t have succeeded against a Hitler.

But I think that is exactly the point that Jesus was trying to make about the Church and the Kingdom. It isn’t for everyone! Perhaps it can never be for everyone. But it can happen – in the Church, if we take it seriously – we just never have. A community of believers can function in this way through care and concern for each other, even those with whom we have very strong disagreements. With faith we can learn to do it. It has been done before.

I do believe that people who are intent on it, and have faith in it, and have faith in God, can create a better community and a better society at least within the bounds of the church community. And it may well spill beyond the church community as it often has in the past. We just need a lot more genuine Christian community based on living simply, and still more spillage into the secular world. Let’s think in terms of millennia here, not just a few years. But even in a few millennia I don’t believe it will be for everyone, as Jesus said.

This is my vision for the foundations of Christian simple living: We are called apart to behave differently – to take a radically different path. We don’t need to avoid the world as the Amish do so as not to be dirtied by it, but to work with Jesus in creating the Kingdom, while being “in the world” but not a part of it. This is a mark of The Church. If we can learn to live simply, spare the earth, and act in just and compassionate ways with each other, we will have taken a few more steps toward Kingdom Thinking and keeping the peace. And we can continue taking more and more steps toward creating equitable and just foundations for a more peaceful world as we mature in Christian simple living.

Within The Church – within this (potentially) blossoming Kingdom, we don’t need Just War Theory – it would destroy us.

This approach is very much in line with what has become known as “Christian Anarchy” which I am a great fan of. I keep threatening to write a few posts on this and have yet to do it, so maybe that will be my next project.

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Simple Living Issues on the Front Page

admin January 4th, 2010

Well here it is: three different articles related directly to simple living and the environment – all in the same edition of The Sunday Washington Post (1/3/10). The stars must be aligning just right!

When our simple living concerns serendipitously show up all at once in the headlines of one of the nation’s most prestigious newspapers, then maybe our time has come… or not. I always get overly excited when things like this happen, as though our world is really, finally about to change for the better. I can’t help but think that it has to be more than just a coincidence. Maybe our collective consumer desperation over our deteriorating financial and economic situation has finally culminated in a rush to sanity!

Then my memory kicks in and I recall that in the past such rushes to sanity have quickly pooped-out when the heat of the crisis abates and most of us revert to type.

But there is always a glimmer of hope that even if the sanity doesn’t last long, that at least a few people will have learned a little about a better way of living and a few more people may actually have tried living a little better – a baby step toward lasting sanity. And I really do think that happens often enough that it’s worth writing and talking about.

At any rate, I commend these articles to you along with a brief summary of each.

Sink Your Teeth into a Fast, Michelle Singletary

Michelle, who writes the Color of Money column in The Post, recommends a 21 day financial fast in which we buy only necessities by curbing our need to consume. Several families took her up on the fast and the article reports on their experiences.

She advocates the fast for people for whom the stress of money causes pain with a spouse, friends or family, or for people who are worried about their retirement or college savings, or if they just don’t have enough to get to the end of the month, i.e., it’s for most of us.

The fast instructs us not to ‘shop’ (or window shop, which she says, is merely shopping for entertainment – a definite no-no) not to use credit cards (cash only), and not to buy anything that is not an absolute necessity like food. No going out to restaurants or fast food emporiums, not even a coffee on the way to work, and no buying gifts or gift cards.

On the gift-giving issue, Michelle tells us that, like most simple livers already know, we can give ourselves or hand made things instead.

And on using plastic: it makes buying too thoughtless and easy. Even if we pay off the card every month, the ease of it causes all of us to buy more than we need.

Michelle also advises folks to make a budget and stick to it, explaining that budgeting is not about you, it is about good stewardship, using well what God has given you.

There are many more very thoughtful items in the financial fast guidelines, so click on the link above and take a look at the entire article.

Happy Talk, Carol Graham

Carol Graham is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a professor of public policy at the University of Maryland. Her book, Happiness around the World: the Paradox of Happy Peasants and Miserable Millionaires, will be on book shelves this month, and her article in The Post hits a few of her book’s key points, including:

There is a pattern for those who are happy:

    A stable marriage, good health, and enough (but not too much) income.
    Not surprisingly, events such as divorce, unemployment, or economic instability are terrible for it.

But strangely, we tend to adapt to both prosperity and adversity, i.e. we can have virtually everything and be miserable as well as being cheerful during tremendous adversity. Where our adaptive ability often fails us is around uncertainty. This is difficult for most of us to adapt to and it is under these conditions that many of us feel the least happy.

Carol’s team’s studies in Russia and Peru showed that those who made the greatest income gains were, ironically, the most critical of their economic situation while those with the least income gains were, on average, more satisfied. Of course, she explains, the frustrated achievers may have made gains precisely because they were discontent in the first place.

But the bottom line here is that, as a number of recent studies have shown, our western, First World assumptions about wealth and possessions making us happy are simply bogus.

Beyond recycling and light bulbs, Juliet Eilperin

Finally, a story that once again not only demonstrates how far behind the rest of the industrialized world the U.S. is with regard to the environment and climate change, but also shows how those who are way ahead of us are becoming missionaries to us, the former (how embarrassing) leaders of the technological world.

A Swedish experiment aimed at helping U.S. citizens understand that a lifestyle that curbs greenhouse-gas emissions is not necessarily oppressive, just different, has selected a number of American families to be “Climate Pilots”.

Under the coaching of Swedish volunteers, several Virginia families are installing high-tech greenhouse gas saving devices and changing their daily routines to greatly reduce their dependence on fossil fuels. In addition to installing such technologies as geothermal heat pumps, these families are also using a number of low-tech strategies such as eating much less meat to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by farm animals.

The author reports that Americans each emit 23.5 metric tons (that’s nearly 26 tons U.S.) of greenhouse gases per year, 4 times the world average! The average for the European Union countries is 10.3 tons per capita while Sweden is now at about 7.4 tons. Sweden has made climate change a central pillar of their domestic and foreign policy for over 10 years. The city of Kalmar for instance will be fossil fuel-free by 2030. Several Kalmar families visited VA to coach the climate pilots there how to do it themselves.

Sweden has accomplished this by making climate change a national priority such that every community has a climate and energy adviser, and the government has launched “study circles” on climate across the nation during the ‘90’s. The article also makes the point that Sweden, along with other European countries, has not succumbed to the American pathology of believing that individual’s rights and freedoms must always trump the common good, no matter how many people may be hurt by that kind of ego-centric living.

Post Script

Perhaps Christians who live simply may be able to reach other Americans with the message that it is our community, whether it is our local neighborhoods, or the nation as a whole, that is at stake here. It is no longer about ‘me’, but care for all of us and all of God’s creation that is paramount, not my right to have a Hummer!

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Snow and Simplicity

admin December 19th, 2009

I’m watching the snow fall out of my study window as I write. It’s snowing hard and blowing, and there is nearly a foot of snow on the ground and more to come. The weather people say this is the biggest December snow storm in our area since the early 1930’s, so our family Christmas events for today have been unfortunately cancelled or postponed. Good day to sit by the fire, or next to a nice warm computer!

I’ve heard many people say that they really appreciate these days when we can’t easily get out to shop or work and we are relegated to our warm homes. They say that it feels good not to be able to do those things so they can slow down and pay attention to the here and now – which is a real job for many people since this is the last weekend before Christmas when the shopping frenzy is at its most hysterical.

It’s too bad that these socked-in days pass so quickly and are so infrequent – we quickly forget the lessons they have to teach us and cut short the experiences that mean so much to our souls.

These days are important previews of what Christian simplicity can mean for us and the world, and perhaps we should point that out every time someone tells us how much they enjoyed being confined to the house. Everyday life can be much more like this than our usual “rat race” days.

Living more simply does in fact bring us many of the benefits we so enjoy on these snowy days, but they bring at least some of them every day, not just on these rare occasions.

It’s a great advertising and marketing opportunity for us:

    “Like your experience today? Well you can have many more days like this if you follow Jesus into a life of simplicity!”

These days are also great reminders for us in the simplicity choir too, that we are:

    Not participating in the Christmas shopping hysteria which can be very satisfying, and good for our families too.

    Again focusing on the really important things in our lives like our families and neighbors.

    Taking a little more time for prayer, meditation, and study.

    Thankful for a safe, warm home and perhaps a fire to sit by.

    More mindful of those who do not have safe, warm homes, and how cold and dangerous it is living on the streets – and what we can do to help!

    Appreciating the folks who have to work out there in the weather like Postal Service people, snow plow operators, utility workers, toll booth attendants.

Now I think I hear the snow shovel calling me…

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Little Things Matter

admin December 14th, 2009

A couple of weeks ago, Mike Tidwell, Executive Director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network wrote an opinion piece in the Washington Post (12/6/09, To Really Save the Planet, Stop Going Green) in which he advocated paying much less attention to the our light bulbs and more attention to changing national and worldwide policy on climate change and the environment in general – if we really want to make a difference. He suggests that much more activism on the scale of the civil rights movement would force wide scale change quicker than each of us buying CFL’s or buying local organics.

There is indeed well researched evidence that state and national policy change results in more, positive systemic outcomes than almost any other type of action we can take because it changes the behavior of entire populations very quickly (because if it’s a law, we don’t want to have to pay the fine or do the time!). This was true for civil rights as well as smoking cessation and it could well be true for the environment as well. So it would be worth our while to get more organized and push congress and the White House to do more faster, and include specific policy actions that should be taken.

There are also those bad days when I wonder if all my efforts are wasted as the rest of the world continues on in its destructive, self-serving way. Am I merely a tiny drop of fresh water in an ocean of salt water?

On the other hand… a couple of contrarian thoughts:

1. I believe we need to both push for large scale policy change and do the little personal things like buying CFL’s: one without the other isn’t likely to get us where we want to go quickly enough. It isn’t simply a matter of “think globally, act locally” although that is important. More to the point, each one of us needs to keep the issue of conservation, global warming, and non-participation in consumer culture in front of us 24/7 if we are to change our way of living, which I believe we must.

One way humans have done this throughout history is to think of each of these tiny personal, but world-saving actions as both functional and symbolic. They are symbols of our values, our commitment, and our faith – symbols that remind us each day of who we have become as Christians, and that we are sons of God who are here to care for each other and the creation we have been entrusted with.

These symbolic acts are extremely valuable for our children and grandchildren, as well as for our neighbors. Each action not only helps the physical world a little, but helps those around us think about what they are doing, or not doing, as well. We are educating our kids and shaping behavior that may last for a lifetime.

2. If we are going to up our ante on pushing policy change, we ought to start at home – by thinking of our churches as our first targets for systemic change. In our own congregations we can have direct policy change impacts more easily and more quickly than we can on Federal or State governments – while helping many people rediscover how to actually live their faith.

  • We can push to change the purchasing, recycling, investing, giving, and energy use policies and activities of our congregations.
  • We can push our pastors and Christian education programs to speak more loudly and more often on the need for all members to change their ways of living in response to the Gospel, the Law, and the Prophets.
  • We can make it an article of faith that each member take concrete steps to reduce their participation in the consumer rat race, and then hold each other’s feet to that fire in walking the talk.

Then we can call our Congressmen about the environment!

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A Different Kind of Christmas

admin November 24th, 2009

When we begin to think about Christmas, some of our first thoughts are about joy, family, gifts, and all-around good times. But then come thoughts about the anxiety and stress it causes. The American Psychological Association published a study in 2008 that found that 80% of people in the study expected a stressful holiday season.

Such a shame for a celebration of someone who came to get rid of that kind of stress!

Of course, not surprisingly, the stress is caused primarily by the expectations of our consumer culture for excessive gift giving, partying, and our personal expectations for a ‘perfect Christmas’ as perhaps defined by Currier and Ives. Mental Health America, http://www.nmha.org/, suggests that finances are the primary cause of this anxiety followed closely by bad memories of Christmases past, too many holiday activities, overindulgence (I’m shocked), and loneliness.

It would be easy for us to rant about the commercialization of Christmas as I have many times in the past, but really, if we are serious practicing Christians, that should be of little consequence to us except to feel sorry for those caught up in the craziness.

As Christians we don’t have to do it that way because we know better. We can celebrate in a much more meaningful way that brings depth to our faith, joy to our families and friends, and a great deal less stress and debt.

Instead we can happily focus on making our own celebrations real “Jesus birthday” celebrations, getting rid of the stress and anxiety of the whole thing – and we don’t have to worry about consumers and their enablers.

But getting there takes some effort and doesn’t come instantly. My experience is that it takes a number of Christmas seasons to gradually work our way into a more reasonable, happier birthday celebration. I know of few people who managed a big change all in one year, so RELAX, take it a step at a time starting with a few small steps, and add a few more steps each year.

Another key principle is do not ADD simplicity practices to what you are already doing – that will only make things worse. Instead, get rid of one or two practices that make you crazy during the holidays and REPLACE them with one or two of the ideas below.

Some folks think we’re being Grinch’s to talk about giving up things at Christmas, but in fact changing just a few crazy-making practices can make for a much more joyful and meaningful Christmas that will be remembered for a long time – because it is more personal and loving.

And the “giving up” can be wonderful in and of itself.

Picture this: less, or no driving in heavy traffic, no careening through crowded stores or waiting in long lines when you’re short of time, no stressing-out over which thing will be the “perfect gift”, no longer traveling to too many places, and no horrendous credit card bills in January… aaaaaaah!

AND the best thing is that the result of all this “giving up” is getting to have more time with family and friends. Time to give them what they really want – you – and your love and caring. It gives you time to actually savor the meaning of Christ’s birthday and his life, and what a difference it has made in your life.

A wonderful way to begin this holiday change process, if you don’t do it already, is to start a daily meditation and prayer practice. Take the time no matter how busy you are. A serious, regular practice can help you focus on what’s really important in your life and in the lives of those you love. It can help screen out the craziness we are heir to during the holidays and let us slow down and deeply appreciate what the holiday (the word comes from ‘holy day’) has done for us. I’ll get another post out in a day or two on some ways to approach this.

Basic Jesus Birthday Principles

1. Shifting from gifting to giving

The “Whose Birthday is it Anyway?” project on the Alternatives for Simple Living web site, http://www.simpleliving.org/, makes the excellent point that if we are actually celebrating Jesus’ birthday, then we should be giving him what he asked for or what we think he would really want. Remembering “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” we should be giving the presents to those who need it most – families of people who are out of work, those who may be losing their homes, those in need of support during the war, people in institutions, and people around the world living in poverty or suffering injustice, instead of giving so much to people who don’t really need our gifts and sometimes don’t even want them.

We often buy pricey gifts for people we don’t see often or don’t know well out of duty, tradition, or guilt and end up giving them things they don’t want or need, when our good wishes, love, and our presence is what they want most. This wastes money and goods that folks in real need could use well.

Sometimes we ‘overbuy’ gifts in order to impress friends and family or assuage our guilt. This can set up a competitive game that goes on for years and even generations through which we all lose in the end. Especially with kids. I’ve often seen two and four year-olds completely overwhelmed by a pile of gifts resulting from an orgy of keeping up with, or better yet, ahead of the Jones’. Who can give a child the bigger, better gift so the giver can win the envy sweepstakes. This is destructive for the kids and for our own souls.

A thought: plan to give your kids just three gifts – the number that Jesus got – and hide them so the kids have fun finding them. Then explain the meaning of the three gifts.

Carefully review your giving list so you have a very good idea of each person really needs or deeply desires even if it turns out to be an unconventional gift.

We can give ourselves by providing services and our time instead of a sweater that a person might never wear: if you are an accountant, prepare someone’s taxes; give a summer’s worth of lawn mowing to grandparents or other elders; if you’re handy with hair and makeup, give a facial and hair-do; do some painting and wallpapering; a gift of weekly story reading to a child, etc.

With the money we save in buying fewer and less expensive gifts we have the ideal opportunity to give to those who have the greatest needs. Many families now give to charities in the name of their family members as gifts and give a card explaining the gift to the family member.

The best way to do this is to carefully research potential charities for their needs and make those donations first before you begin your conventional shopping.

2. Preventive Shopping
Nip your automatic over-shopping urge in the bud at the very beginning of the season so that you don’t over-buy, over-spend, and over-give while on “shopping auto-pilot.” We can all do this by practicing “Preventive Shopping.”

Over the Thanksgiving holiday make a preventive shopping plan with the whole family so that everyone knows and agrees to the new ground rules and why they are important. Decide how you want to change your gift-giving and celebrating this year, and be sure to include the kids so they can learn that Christmas isn’t about the getting, it’s about the giving. Your plan should include a gift giving budget that includes conventional gifts as well as donations, crafts, and your time BEFORE ever going out to the mall.

This holiday planning is also a great time to introduce your kids to the actual story of St. Nicholas, the Bishop of Myra as the origins of Santa Claus. They will gain a whole new, life-long perspective on giving rather than getting. Take a look at the St. Nicholas Center web site http://www.stnicholascenter.org which has a lot of games and activities to help kids learn about St. Nick and the real meaning of Christmas – the younger the better.

Practice “targeted shopping” instead of grazing at the mall. After making your holiday plan and preparing a gift list, determine which stores have those specific items, then go only to those stores and buy only those items: no impulse buying (“Oh, wouldn’t that be great for Terry? I never would have thought of that!”)

Avoid the globalized big box stores despite their heavy advertising for extremely low cost items.

Money isn’t the issue in our new approach to Christmas!

Instead buy from local stores, crafts people, and service personnel whenever possible. This limits your contact with dangerous shopping areas like Walmart, Target, Toys R Us, etc. which will limit unnecessary impulse buying (leaving more of your cash for donations to those who will really need and appreciate it) and helping to build-up your local community and neighbors.

Hint: in general, buying gift cards is not a good idea. A very large percentage of the money in these cards goes unused and wasted – money that could have been used in a much better way. AND bank-branded gift cards are notorious for their high fees and expiration dates which make many of them an even worse deal.

3. The Quality of our Gifts

When giving gifts we should be very conscious of the earth and social and economic justice issues world-wide:

What is your gift made of? Non-renewable resources or those through the manufacture of which much pollution was generated? Are they made from natural or renewable materials or do they help you live a greener life?

Try giving a do-it-yourself gift box of natural household and personal cleaners, perfumes, soaps, etc. to introduce someone to a new world of more responsible day-to-day living?

Is the gift a fair trade item? Does the manufacturer or retailer support unjust manufacturing, management, or other social and economic practices?

Give a different kind of gift to lift someone’s spirits or quality of life – a course or workshop on meditation, yoga, Tai Chi, or a weekend retreat.

Are the children’s gifts non-violent?

Have a joyful and stress-free Christmas.

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