My mom got me started reading a blog, which comes out of the UK, trying to make philosophical sense of the world for the modern, secular Briton. I don't see myself as secular, nor am I British, but there are some great reads and a lot to learn from the authors' musings.
Here's a post my mom shared today:
Good Materialism
I am thinking. Connecting the dots. The train has left the station, and I don't know if my writing can keep up.
I am thinking about my relationship with stuff. Objects. Things.
I've got too much of it, as anyone who has ever entered my living space can attest. I *aspire* in many ways to minimalism. I'd rather not spend my life being the curator of a collection of junk, or barring junk, too many good things. I clean out half-heartedly from time to time. But my desire to pare down and live simply is contested by two other competing interests.
Sentimentalism. A huge amount of what I have was given to me by various individuals, and when I see it or use it, I think of them. Or it reminds me of a past experience which I value. I've got a huge cabinet full of curios - little tidbits from around the world, crafts I made in Waldorf kindergarten, gifts from students. I've got drawers of baby things that I dread having to clean out after my kids aren't babies any more, (although I already have a short list of which baby clothes I'll want to keep forever.) I have old notebooks I've written and prayed my way through. I have old clothes which are still wearable but aren't currently in style and don't fit in with my current activities.
Conservatism. I have been, for most of my life, exceedingly frugal, a trait I seem to have gotten from my maternal grandfather. Maybe you could even go so far as to call me cheap. I HATE letting things go to waste. I feel compelled to go out of my way to recycle. I keep broken stuff around because I feel badly about consigning it to the dumpster. And when I need to acquire things, my first line of shopping tends to be dumpster-diving and curb cruising, then second-hand acquisitions, then purchasing as cheaply as possible. I always have had a thing about saving money, reasoning that if I don't spend money on "this", I'll have it for something else I'd rather do (a harpsichord? saving the wild pandas? skiing? Bible translations for unreached people? a new house? violin upgrade? adoption?). And that habit has worked out well in certain ways. We were able to pay off all of Jared's school loans shortly after we got married, and I've been able to spend money on plane tickets.
But having been out of my parents' home for eighteen years now, I am discovering that there are downsides to cheap. Cheap furniture doesn't held up so well through moves. Cheap clothes don't hold up well in an active lifestyle. Cheap, plastic toys are annoying and ugly to have underfoot. Lugging around a lifetime of cheap stuff is wearing.
When I was a child my parents often said I was born in the wrong century. I was fascinated with the "olden days", and I think that fueled my love of Classical music, German, and natural anything. I poured over books illustrating how people lived in earlier eras and imagined building my own country in the back yard. In this way, I have always appreciated the old things that have held up well. Stone buildings, handmade things, Bach partitas, museum pieces. I have always preferred, for obvious reasons, not to extend my cheap ways to violins, bows, and strings. I need something that works as well as possible and sounds good.
I liked how the post on good materialism extended spiritual meaning to the objects we surround ourselves with. Maybe that's why spending time in nature is so magnetic for me. I a uplifted and freed by seeing the diversity of beauty no mere human can create. When I am surrounded by rescued objects, taped back together at funny angles it certainly doesn't lift my spirits. But it does reflect my desire to see rejected and broken people rescued and valued. Beautiful and sturdy things bring pleasure in God's good gifts. But overabundance can be depressing.
I hold a slightly different understanding of the Lord's supper than the transubstantiation mentioned in the School of Life piece. But I was intrigued by the spiritual view of "stuff." I've mentioned more than once here that my favorite thing about the Adventist church is communion, with the physical and dirty foot washing, the simple and hearty bread made without yeast, and the unfermented juice of the grape - Jesus' body and blood without a trace of sin. I've been reading in John chapter six all of the very metaphorical things the Lord has to say about being the Bread of Life. It is hard for my rational mind to nail down exactly what all he means there.
At the risk of sounding pan-theistic (which I'm not) I like the idea of seeing the spiritual value of the material world. Unlike many Christians I don't see the human soul and the body as separate entities. When God created Adam in Genesis chapter two, He created him a living soul.
Nephesh. His body and his soul and his spirit / breath are all required to make him human. (For more of my biblical thoughts on that see
After the Short Side of Eternity ) If our physical bodies have spiritual value, our surroundings might as well. They reflect who we are; they influence how we grow (at best) or how we disintegrate (at worst.)
I am motivated (in the zero time I have for it) to clean out our little apartment before the Christmas gift season is upon us, and to give my Anne something small and sturdy or completely non-material for Christmas. Lazarus does't need anything this year, as he is not old enough to unwrap a package.
