Excess Stuff

I mentioned in a previous post that I was reading 7 by Jen Hatmaker. This book detailed her desire to move away from excess. She labeled herself as a comfortable, consumer Christian. Jesus spent his time with the least and the lost. Where do I spend my time?

This rang true for me. Last Christmas we had over 100 gifts and had a drawing to see which gift would be opened. Is this what Jesus would want? Much of the rest of the world does not have our luxuries yet what should we do with them?  Hatmaker writes "Excess has impaired perspective in America; we are the richest people on earth, praying to get richer". I know I want to change my perspective and I'm working on it.

She spent 7 months and each month she cut back on an area of excess in her life. It was her way to "fight back against the modern-day diseases of greed, materialism, and overindulgence." This deeply reduced life led to the discovery of a greatly increased God. 

Here is the breakdown and how I'm trying to incorporate this in my life. 

• Month 1: food- eat only 7 foods (note: peanut butter would be one of my foods). We are working on buying local/organic foods.
• Month 2: clothes - wear only 7 articles of clothing (I could dig this)
• Month 3: possessions - give 7 things away every day for a month (210 items). Do socks count? I have lots of those. We donated a ton of clothes and we still have so much more! I'm a sweater girl. My armoire is filled with warm, comfy sweaters but I donated many of them. I don't need SO much! Now I'm down to 5 sweaters. Shoes too. I always said I didn't understand why so many people love shoes. I'm an engineer not a shoe lover. But when I went into my closet, I had 35 pairs of shoes!!!! Several of which I had only worn once for a wedding. I donated 13 pairs. 
• Month 4: media - no TV, gaming, facebook, apps, radio, texting or internet unless needed for work. Yikes!! I could give up TV - in fact, we turned the TV on only once this week to watch a movie. We don't watch much TV (why are we still paying for it? This is a question I ask Erik ALL the time. We are paying for football season basically). I could NOT give up the internet. I am an online teacher! 
• Month 5: waste - conserving, recycling, driving only one car, buying local. We are working on this - getting better but we have a long way to go (see below)
• Month 6: spending - only spending money in 7 places in the month. I could just spend money at Amazon and Kroger and would probably be fine for a month. However she is concerned about buying local. I need to work on that. Erik thinks this is hokey (actual word he used)



My first day of class sweater circa 1993-1998

• Month 7: stress - In her book, she pauses and prays seven times a day and observes the Sabbath. I think observing the Sabbath is excellent. Ever since my friend Lynn passed away we have stopped buying things on Sunday and taking it as a day of rest. It is glorious. The beauty of fasting or just taking a Sabbath is in that you are resting from your normal routine, making space for God to move in your life. For example, I LOVE food and cooking and baking and the food channel....you get it. I think about it a lot (what I'm going to make, what should I buy to make such and such dish). However when I fast - I don't think about food because I can't have it. It is removed from my thoughts. The same with Sundays. I can't think about shopping or picking this or that up because I can't. It is a self-imposed break and it is wonderful (note: we have broken this Sunday rule a few times like when we were in Paris, or had my friend Nicole's 40th birthday party).

How we are trying to become "green" and waste less (note - this has been in the works for several years)

• Using cloth napkins instead of paper napkins
• Using a wood stove to heat our house
• Using cloths instead of paper towels to clean
• Reusable grocery bags at the grocery store
• Dryer balls instead of dryer sheets
• Less air conditioning (we've turned on the air conditioner maybe 5 times this summer. It has been a cool summer and I like fresh air anyway!)
• Recycling
• Gardening
• Rain barrel
• LED lights in many of the light fixtures
• No plastic baggies in the kids lunch 
• Making our own soap, dishwasher detergent, and bread
• Avoiding disposable plates and silverware when the Bible study group comes (we bought a few sets of corelle plates we will use for the small group dinner instead of using paper plates)
• There is a lot more we could do - this is just our start! At some point we want to get solar panels too.

Yea for old books!

Working on donating our excess stuff has also been freeing. I finally gave away my "first day of school" sweater. I wore this sweater on the first day of class my entire college career (Bachelors and Masters degree). Every first day of every quarter I wore this sweater. Sheldon takes lessons from me on how to be OCD. I won't talk about how I ate tuna fish sandwiches every day for lunch either....

Our basement is also filled with tons of pointless stuff. I have an entire shelf filled with mechanical engineering books and notes. I'm sure to use this often! I donated everything on this shelf so some person at Goodwill can read about Tool Design and Differential Equations with Boundary conditions. Yipee!

In addition to reducing we are also increasing our giving. I've been working as a volunteer for a free store in Delaware called Common Ground on Wednesdays and am hoping to work more with those in need. 

This is just a start and we are all "works in progress." Of course I started reading this after we started our kitchen remodel! But we are moving forward. I would like to use this book in our Bible study starting in fall - we will see!