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Monday, January 25, 2010 |
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SOCIAL JUSTICE: Consumerism and Lent
By St Mary Administrator @ 8:07 AM :: 134 Views ::  :: Social Justice
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Lent is the time to clear away the obstructions that seem to seep into our lives as Christians and prevent us from developing a closer relationship with God. It is a time to consider why, as the poet William Wordsworth said:
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
If we “give our hearts away”, it must be to our Creator-God, not to things we acquire or purchase. We can exercise a Franciscan attachment without becoming Franciscans! Some suggestions:
• Survey all the junk in our living spaces, and give what we no longer need
to local charitable groups
• As we approach the cashier, check our shopping cart; a “sale” is never a sale if we don’t need the product
• Transform our buying habits by turning off TV ads and putting newspaper ads in the recycling bin
• Join a group like Heifer International and sponsor their efforts to end poverty in East Africa, or, in the wake of the tragedy in Haiti, contribute to the parish’s efforts to help the devastated people there (opportunities have been announced)
• Refuse to purchase the products of companies which do not pay a living wage
• If you are a stockholder, attend board meetings and questions about contract bidding or the outrageous salaries and benefits paid to CEO’s
• Begin a recycling program for your home and a compost pile in your yard –it is said that Americans waste 40% of their food!
• Purchase fair trade (not free trade) products in order to give our brothers
• and sisters in other countries much needed income
• Recognize the need to change a system that leaves 38 million people in
poverty around the world
• Go to Alternatives for Simple Living, www.simpleliving.org for additional suggestions.
Are we prepared to organize our lives and our families’ lives differently, even if it means being considered a little “peculiar”? To find different priorities from those of some of our friends and neighbors? The Gospel calls us to do so, even in times when many of us are trying to make bricks with very little straw!
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