Consuming me

And once again the unsettling feelings that accompany complacency have returned and my stomach is in knots as the silvery glare of my electronics reminds me I am on the road to hell. The hell I refer to is not the biblical one of fire and heat, but one of cell phones, white pickets fences and the odd feeling that sits in the pit of your stomach everytime you enter Walmart. Greed I believe is the term.

I look around me and I see a lot of stuff, some of it useful; much of it enjoyable; none of it necessary. Yet so easily I can justify why I am possession of so many unecessary items and so easy it is for me to condemn and judge those who possess that much more.

See I like to think that I am different from those who ride in black Escalades down tree-lined streets wearing Armani suits and diamond rings. But I am not. I am just as guilty. My clothes are made by children in Thailand and India, my shoes are sewn by women in China, the food I eat is mass produced at the sake of animals’ decency so I can save a buck and the car I drive is slowly choking our air and flooding our earth. And yet still I believe that I am not guilty of continuing child labour, drug deals, weapon trades and animal cruelty. No, no. I am aware, I am conscious, I know.

The fact is it doesn't matter that I am aware of, or in the contemplative stage of the change model. I am a consumer in the wealthiest group of people on the face of this planet and I, like millions of others, love Old Navy! In fact, I think I am worse than many, because of the fact that I am aware, I am socially, politcally and environmentally conscious, yet I do nothing to change the way I live.

Weddings, birthdays, Christmas, new home, new baby. It's easy to get side-tracked. All of this equals more stuff and we live in a world where we are bombarded my messages telling us the stuff=life long happiness and success. Not for me. Every new possession I obtain feels like a weight around my neck and a ball and chain around my foot. These feelings come and go; sometimes I believe that I could live that life and be happy. It's like a new sweater. I see it, I love it, I buy it and wear it for a month straight. And then suddenly it doesn't hold the same value and I see something else to buy and love and wear. And so the cycle continues until the other half of me gets reignited and I think I hear a voice in my head telling me to sell it all and go. Go wherever love is needed, whevever God seeks me to be. But I can never distinguish between what God is telling me and what I am telling myself. So I chalk it up to my innate need to always be in a state of crisis and tensley wait until it passes.

My fear is that one day it won’t. It will be too late and I will feel that I wasted my passion, my heart and my gifts looking for a good deal at Value Village.