...I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit. Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope; today I declare that I will restore to you double. Zechariah 9:11b-12
This Friday was the 4th of July, undoubtedly a time to think about freedom and what it truly means to be free. As Kevin and I take a hiatus from buying things this year, I am thinking about what it means to be free of stuff.
As Americans we are raised from an early age to want to buy stuff. We watch commercials and infomercials and shopping networks that all assure us that we need to buy whatever it is they are selling. I can remember as a child, I spent quite a lot of time paging through the Brendle's catalog when it arrived in the summer. I carefully chose items really needed for my Christmas list. I marked pages of Barbie dolls and Lite Brite and Cabbage Patch Kids (it was the 80s, folks!). I have a few stuffed animals boxed up somewhere, but I have no idea where the majority of those toys I so desperately needed are now. Probably rotting in a landfill somewhere.
There is more to this notion that we buy things simply for the sake of having them. We're also made to believe that through our purchases we actually keep the economy afloat. Remember when the economy tanked in 2008? The government gave taxpayers bonus refunds solely for the purpose of getting us to go out and spend it. It was a short-lived fix to a complex problem. The economy still sucks and people are still unemployed. Why aren't we trained to be consumers who buy only what they need, who compare brands and products rather than buying something on impulse because it looks like a good deal, and who think about their purchases and their sustainability?
The furniture on our house is what one might call "early hand-me-down." It's an odd mix of pieces, much of it passed down from family members. One of the pieces is a couch that once belonged to my uncle's mother. It was well-worn, and the stuffing in the cushions had melded into something hard and lumpy that no one would actually want to sit on. It would have been easy enough to chuck it out on the street and buy some cookie cutter piece of furniture that anyone and everyone has. But, I chose to have it reupholstered. I had a local company, called Salmagundi, do the work. They specialize in fixing up older pieces and using short ends of fabric (these are the leftovers after the furniture companies upholster new pieces). Fabric is chosen carefully to be matched and mismatched at the same time. It is quirky and delightful....each piece unique. And, it saves all that fabric ending up in the landfill (not to mention my couch), and it provides work for local folks doing a skilled craft that few can do. The couch is more special to me now than it ever was before, and I like sitting on it!
There are a number of TV shows that profile hoarders. It's a terrible disease. People are cut off from the world because of their dependency on their belongings, which fill their homes to the brim. These possessions take the place of human interaction, and the comfort of having all this stuff hides emotional problems many face. Even though most of us don't have that much stuff, we still have a certain dependency on things. We are made to believe that being more means having more. As Kevin and I make a conscious effort to reduce our spending this year, it is freeing to know that I don't have to buy things just to have them or to do my duty to uphold the economy. I can put money in the economy and keep things out of the landfill if I am willing to breathe new life into something that seems old or outdated.
Food for thought as I close. A photographer in China, named Huang Qingjun, took a series of photographs all over the country of people with their possessions. These photos make us think about what we really need to live. Click here to see them.
This Friday was the 4th of July, undoubtedly a time to think about freedom and what it truly means to be free. As Kevin and I take a hiatus from buying things this year, I am thinking about what it means to be free of stuff.
As Americans we are raised from an early age to want to buy stuff. We watch commercials and infomercials and shopping networks that all assure us that we need to buy whatever it is they are selling. I can remember as a child, I spent quite a lot of time paging through the Brendle's catalog when it arrived in the summer. I carefully chose items really needed for my Christmas list. I marked pages of Barbie dolls and Lite Brite and Cabbage Patch Kids (it was the 80s, folks!). I have a few stuffed animals boxed up somewhere, but I have no idea where the majority of those toys I so desperately needed are now. Probably rotting in a landfill somewhere.
There is more to this notion that we buy things simply for the sake of having them. We're also made to believe that through our purchases we actually keep the economy afloat. Remember when the economy tanked in 2008? The government gave taxpayers bonus refunds solely for the purpose of getting us to go out and spend it. It was a short-lived fix to a complex problem. The economy still sucks and people are still unemployed. Why aren't we trained to be consumers who buy only what they need, who compare brands and products rather than buying something on impulse because it looks like a good deal, and who think about their purchases and their sustainability?
The furniture on our house is what one might call "early hand-me-down." It's an odd mix of pieces, much of it passed down from family members. One of the pieces is a couch that once belonged to my uncle's mother. It was well-worn, and the stuffing in the cushions had melded into something hard and lumpy that no one would actually want to sit on. It would have been easy enough to chuck it out on the street and buy some cookie cutter piece of furniture that anyone and everyone has. But, I chose to have it reupholstered. I had a local company, called Salmagundi, do the work. They specialize in fixing up older pieces and using short ends of fabric (these are the leftovers after the furniture companies upholster new pieces). Fabric is chosen carefully to be matched and mismatched at the same time. It is quirky and delightful....each piece unique. And, it saves all that fabric ending up in the landfill (not to mention my couch), and it provides work for local folks doing a skilled craft that few can do. The couch is more special to me now than it ever was before, and I like sitting on it!
There are a number of TV shows that profile hoarders. It's a terrible disease. People are cut off from the world because of their dependency on their belongings, which fill their homes to the brim. These possessions take the place of human interaction, and the comfort of having all this stuff hides emotional problems many face. Even though most of us don't have that much stuff, we still have a certain dependency on things. We are made to believe that being more means having more. As Kevin and I make a conscious effort to reduce our spending this year, it is freeing to know that I don't have to buy things just to have them or to do my duty to uphold the economy. I can put money in the economy and keep things out of the landfill if I am willing to breathe new life into something that seems old or outdated.
Food for thought as I close. A photographer in China, named Huang Qingjun, took a series of photographs all over the country of people with their possessions. These photos make us think about what we really need to live. Click here to see them.