Embodying Our Faith: Creating A Culture of Sharing
In a culture where a person’s success is determined more often by the the things that we have, and the amount of each of them that we have, establishing a culture of sharing turns that entire notion on its head…
Mom’s “New” Singer Sewing Machine
She inspected it from top to bottom, opening the drawers, admiring the ornate designs of this particular model…Mom’s “new” treadle sewing machine was made in September of 1917…This got me thinking: How many iPods are going to be in good working condition in the year 2105?
Missing Christ: Confessions of a Christmas Shopper
For a split second, time and space froze. What if that word – ‘Christ’ – what if the Word became flesh right there in the store – what if he showed up at cash register number #17?…
Year of Plenty (book review)
Year of Plenty is an insightful, profound yet humorous narrative that provides a refreshing perspective on the intersection between Christian faith and issues of economy, environment, community, consumption, justice and sustainability…
The Mad Farmer: Wendell Berry’s Agrarian Poetic (Part 3)
“A man who is in the traditional sense a good farmer is husbandman and husband, the begetter and conserver of the earth’s bounty, but he is also…a nurturer of life. His work is domestic: he is bound to the household…the household is the microcosm of all community.
To Redeem Christmas We Must Redeem Advent
If we want to redeem Christmas, we must redeem Advent. And it cannot be one or two of us, it must be a community that together decides that waiting, repenting, expecting, mourning, and longing for more is better than all the promises of Black Friday and Christmas morning…
Turning a Deaf Ear to the ‘American Way’
We tried to imitate [Jesus] in the 1960s…When I was a teenager I thought this meant going barefooted and having long hair. Today I’m finding that the call to discipleship is more expensive. It demands that I turn a deaf ear to the seductive force of materialism and the ‘American Way’…
Holy Cell Phones
Not long ago I had to decide—new cell phone, no cell phone; smart phone, plain phone…I found the most basic free phone I could—one that could make calls, text with difficulty, and maybe survive my abuse. In making this choice I was choosing much more than a cell phone—I was choosing a different form of life…
The Spiritual Crisis of Consumerism
In the realm of church and faith we absorb sermons, buy our Christian books and music (my favorite!), our evangelistic T-shirts and specialty Bibles…Maybe Consumerism is the real religion here.
In Pursuit of Difficult Pleasures
One result of the consumer economy has been a weakening of desire and a diluting of pleasure. This may seem counter-intuitive at first because desire is all around us after all…
Recent Comments