by Rev. Dr. Marilyn Sewell
A sermon given at the First Unitarian Church, Portland, OR

October 17, 1999

I saw a fascinating film recently, a Japanese film called After Life. It is about, well, the afterlife. A group of people who have recently died show up at a dingy government building. They stand in line for the paperwork. (Gee, I hope it’s really not like this, don’t you?) And then each is assigned to a counselor, who explains to each client that they are to think of one memory that they would like to keep forever. They have only three days in which to choose. They will then have all other memories permanently erased and live with the one they have chosen for all of eternity.

A man immediately jumps in and states that for all men it has to be the same—when they are having sex. But later he changes his mind. And a pre-teen girl says, "Disneyland!" Her counselor sighs and says, "We get a lot of those. You might want to think about it." And later the girl changes her mind. Just seeing the film of course invites the viewer to ask the same question, "What is the memory I value the most?" And those moments of pure joy are never, never, never connected with material possessions or with success in the world. They are always moments of deep union with others, or moments when you have given something meaningful to another, or moments when you and all that is seem to merge and become one.

Think about it. What was the happiest moment in your life? What would you like to keep forever? Well, don’t decide too quickly—you may change your mind. What is bedrock to us sometimes becomes clear only we know we are going to die. Of course, we are all dying every day--we know intellectually that we are going to die--but when some event like a close call or a serious illness puts death right in your face, there is an existential knowing, a gut understanding, that shakes us to the core. We see through social pretense, ostentation, roles and expectations. Death becomes our ally in living with immediacy and power.

You may have heard the Buddhist story about the man running from the tiger. He comes to the edge of a cliff and slips off it, but is able to grab a tree root and hold on. He looks up at the hungry tiger waiting for him. He looks down at the vast abyss below. At that moment he sees a wild strawberry, plump and red, on a nearby vine. He plucks it and eats it and says, "How sweet this is!" We’re all running from the tiger.

But as they say, when the going gets tough, the tough go shopping. In this country shopping is one of our favorite diversions from thinking about our mortality. Did you know that now you can buy a state of the art backyard grill for $5,000? Not counting shipping and handling, of course. Powered by either natural gas or propane, it comes with an infrared rotisserie that can slowly broil two 20-pound turkeys to perfection while you cook hamburgers for 40 guests on its 828-square-inch grilling surface. It has a built-in smoker system . . . "and a watertight wood chip drawer to season food with rich woodsy flavor." Think about it—you’re running late and your guests will be arriving soon. Now that you have the extra power, you can quickly cook those 40 ears of corn. Now does this grill make your mouth water, so to speak? Well, you are not the only one. Grills costing more than $2,000 are "the hottest growing sector in the $1.2 billion-a-year industry." Makes you feel almost frugal if you buy one of those $1,000 models. So our expectations of what is an acceptable grill have risen. And that’s the way it goes with all of the products that saturate our living. More, better, bigger, in a never-ending cycle. When were you the happiest in your life? When you bought your new grill?

Sometime during the ‘80’s there came to be more malls and shopping centers than high schools in this country. It might be useful to ask the question, "Why do we consume so much?" Needless consumption is, of course, built into the very fabric of our economic system. We have a joyless economy that feeds on the selling of useless goods. And it is fueled by the advertising industry, which is presently spending $500 per U.S. citizen every year. To give just one example of how powerful advertising is, think about the fact that Americans now drink more soda pop than water—47 gallons of soda each year to 37 gallons of water.

And "keeping up with the Joneses" is a reality. We are social creatures, and we want to stay with the standards of our peers. It’s interesting that the relationship between income and happiness is relative to what others around us have. In one landmark study in 1974, low-income Cubans and affluent Americans both reported themselves happier than the norm. Studies show that the upper classes tend to be more satisfied than the lower, but no more satisfied than the upper classes of much poorer countries. In the boom years of the mid-‘80’s many New York money traders who earned only $600,000 a year felt poor—they suffered anxiety and self-doubt. One man said to an interviewer, "I’m nothing. You understand that, nothing. I earn $250,000 a year, but it’s nothing, and I’m nobody." Human desire is relative.

We live so fully in a socially constructed reality that we accept the superficiality of our industrial society as the norm for human life. Americans by and large trivialize human experience with shallow pursuits and dream no bigger dreams than the images on our billboards and TV screens. But it doesn’t have to be that way. The kind of life we are leading now has a very short history—the industrial revolution really just started about 150 years ago. Think about it: human beings have made certain choices, and now we can make other choices.

I remember when my son Kash took his first anthropology course in college. He called me one night, and he was all excited about what he was learning. "Hey, Mom, listen to this! There used to be these hunting and gathering societies. They hunted and gathered for a few hours and then spent all the rest of their time singing and dancing and making love!" He doesn’t want to become one of the overworked Americans. Most Gen-Xer’s don’t, and I think they’re right. Our level of productivity in this country has more than doubled since 1948, and with each increase, we could have had more free time. Consider the 4-hour work day! Why are we working so hard? To buy a few extra gee-gaws for ourselves and—this is the major reason—to make more profit for the companies that buy our labor. We can’t change our habits of consumption, and certainly our social and economic structures overnight, but we can change them. We can move toward the kind of life we want to lead—a life grounded in co-operation, in simple beauty, in compassion. We can model different values for our children. We can make other choices.

To be sure, if we don’t make other choices, we will devour our own ecological support system, and we’ll be forced to change anyway. Have you heard that we’re running out of oil? Our oil, I mean. That will make us even more dependent on the Mid-east than ever. We can expect more wars in countries which are rich in these fossil fuels. Do you really think we would have fought the Gulf War if the main export of Kuwait was bananas?

Let me tell you about a family right here in Portland who live against the American grain—and happily so. These are Dick and Jeanne Roy, whom I had the pleasure of meeting last spring when I had a meal in their home. Breaking bread with them, I must say, had a kind of spiritual quality. I remember that the food was simple and fresh and the table was warm and welcoming. In 1993 Dick resigned his job in a prestigious Portland law firm, walking away from a high salary in order to found a non-profit called the Northwest Earth Institute. The Institute encourages people to examine their values and to make changes that will improve their quality of life and will protect the earth as well. They give workshops and lead discussion groups on what they call "voluntary simplicity." Dick says that people are drawn to these groups because "there’s too much junk in their lives, and they have a sense that, through simplicity, they might gain some peace of mind."

Dick and Jeanne did not change their lives overnight. The changes started slowly, back in the 60’s. Jeanne began at home. They had three young children at the time. She says, "I tried to save water, to reduce waste, to change my buying habits so I wasn’t buying many new products. Nothing got replaced until it was beyond repair—like my bicycle, for example. I bought it 15 years ago. I don’t feel like I need the latest bicycle . . . . And I don’t need bicycling clothes. I can use a T-shirt and a pair of shorts." Instead of buying books, they use the library. Instead of traveling the world, they explore Oregon. Their life doesn’t feel like self-sacrifice, like deprivation. "It came over time," says Dick. "It was a conscious shift. But it’s like going from whole milk to 2 %--once you make the change, you never want to go back."

It’s not a clear and easy thing that we’re talking about here, though. Desire is not only relative, desire is seductive. James Carse, a professor of history and literature, tells this wonderful—and this very revealing--story from his childhood. In his words: "I was nineteen and had just returned from my second year of college. My parents took my younger brother and sister and me out to dinner at a restaurant somewhat more fashionable than we were used to. Strolling casually out to the car, . . . my brother and I were simultaneously captured by what seemed at first to be a vision. There, parked all by itself in the radiant moonlight, was a red Ford convertible with white sidewalls, white leather seats, and a chrome spare tire case. The year was 1951. . . . my brother and I were swept into a frenzy of covetousness and envy. With a kind of rage I realized that someone actually owned this car, and would eventually come out to drive it away into a June night of endless excitement.

The <longing> lasted for days. The fact that I had to spend my summer working the night shift in an iron foundry to pay for my next year at college certainly helped to keep the pain alive. About two weeks later my brother and I, on our way home after a golf game in our own decrepit old car, turned the corner at our house and found this very Ford convertible parked in the driveway. Its low red body, the white leather seats, and the chrome spare wheel tire case gleamed like flame in the evening sun. Could it be . . . that the owner of this dream <was> actually visiting our father? But nobody was there, only my sister and my parents . . . .

"Oh." My brother sighed with disappointment. "We thought the guy that owns that car was here."

"He is," my father replied. He lifted the keys off a side table and tossed them in our direction. "The car is yours. Now you had better try it out before dinner, because if you don’t like it, there is still time to return it to the dealer. . . .

The summer was transformed. When we were not working we were in that car gliding about town, casting the shadow of envy in every direction. . . . . We waxed and polished every square inch of the car, even keeping the engine free of grease and dust. Near the end of the summer I was driving my father around on a couple of errands. As we stopped at a light he turned to me and asked, "Do you want to know why I gave you boys this car?"

His question was astonishing and disturbing. My father was by no means a rich man; I knew the car had meant a tremendous sacrifice. . . . . I thought he had given us the car on a gallant whim, for no other reason than the desire of his sons to possess it. So why the question?

"Yes," I answered tentatively. "Why?"

He hesitated a moment, then spoke slowly with quiet emphasis. "So you would never want it again."

A week later we were off to college, and since we were in different schools, my brother and I had to work out an elaborate plan for sharing the car. . . . I noticed each time I got the car, it required more attention than I had expected. My brother might have failed to change the oil. When I complained to him he pointed out that I usually left the inside of the car a mess. . . . . When he came home with it for the summer vacation it was scratched here and there and badly needed waxing. At the end of the summer my father sold it. No body protested. I can recall no reaction at all when I learned it had been sold.

It is not the loss of the car that I <experienced>. <I missed> the exquisite covetousness I felt in the restaurant parking lot. I want to stand in the moonlight again and believe that there is something that could satisfy every desire yet remain desirable."

Carse goes on to explain that we believe that one day we will find that very object that will satiate all our desire and yet allow us to keep the desire. When we become acutely dissatisfied with what we have, we cast about for something still more desirable—a new lover, a different job. Another strategy for coping with the loss of desire is to display what we have and try to make it desirable to others. Of course, it will be desirable to them only as long as we withhold it, whether it be our body, our property, our social status. For it to continue to be desirable, we have to have it against others. For our desire to stay alive, we have to deny the wishes of others.

Desire, then, is partly about power. Power over, power against. Power that will somehow neutralize our fear, will give us safety and confidence. Problem is, that possessions just won’t do that. As soon as we have them, we begin not wanting them. And when we are confronted with the real source of our wanting—the need for intimacy, for community, for love, for depth of spirit—our possessions seem empty indeed. Every religious tradition that exists will tell its adherents: you come to life by giving yourself away. Another way of saying this is that the less clutter you have in your soul, the freer you are. You are not afraid that somebody is going to take what you have. You don’t have to worry about the latest fashion in clothing or automobiles. You’ve dropped out of the competition, and now you can live, you can live into the person you really are.

I like what Richard Avedon, the famed photographer, did. It seems that he decided that he wanted to have only those things in his home which truly spoke to him, which had some meaning for him. So he had everything—every stick of furniture, every art object, every drinking glass—everything taken out of his home. When the space was absolutely bare, he brought back into it, piece by piece, only those objects which he really wanted there, those that had integrity for his character, his taste, his pursuits.

I have to say that I’m certainly feeling the need to simplify my life. Less really is more. I want beauty around me, and I want to feel safe in my home, but I don’t need a lot of stuff. I don’t need new clothes, I don’t need gadgets, I don’t need jewelry or fancy food and expensive wine. I do need a place to work, a good bed to sleep in, and a little piece of ground to plant tomatoes each year. This year, some of them even got ripe. I’m not at all a sterling example of simple living, but I am making gradual changes. I’m walking more and driving less. I’m recycling more stuff and reducing my garbage. And my relatives are all getting gifts from our alternative gift program here at the church. No more ugly socks for my brother-in-law! No more low-fat cookbooks for the relatives that are overweight! I imagine they’ll be relieved. I know I’m moving in the right direction, and that feels good.

I’ve made a promise to myself and to God and to the church treasurer that I will give 6 % of my before-tax income to the church, and at least another 4 % to other causes I believe in. I wasn’t always there; I had to work up to this, had to work through my fears. But what I have discovered is that it makes me happy to give, to support through my personal resources the values I believe in. I invite you to prayerfully consider what your gift will be when you come to church next Sunday to make your pledge and to celebrate our common life together.

Change comes almost imperceptibly. We begin to develop a different consciousness and all of a sudden we don’t want a big steak for dinner. We begin to eat fruit for dessert for a few months, and then we taste a piece of fudge cake and it’s too, too sweet. Little by little we shift, and then there’s a breakthrough and we’re in a different place. Don’t feel guilty because you’re not as far down the line of environmental integrity as Dick and Jeanne Roy. That would be a different version of the same old thing: keeping up with the Roys.

Just be aware. Pay attention to your real appetites and see what you’re truly hungry for and reach for that. You won’t need will power at all. Just lean towards your hunger and see what satisfies it, what lasts. The answers will come, not of your own making, but by grace.

So be it. Amen.

PRAYER

Spirit of Life, we confess that we get caught up in possessions and forget what animates our life and gives us meaning. We ask that we would begin to see with new eyes, to envision life stripped down to its essentials, that we not waste our days and weeks in getting and spending. Help us to be in right relationship with the earth, with all living creatures, and with the Source of Our Being, that when we reach the end of our days, we not regret how we have lived and what we have become. Amen.

BENEDICTION
Go now and desire the Good, be seduced by the Holy. Go in love and peace. Amen.

CALL TO WORSHIP

Come into the circle of love and justice. Come into the community of mercy, holiness, and health. Come and you shall know peace and joy.

Copyright 1999 by Rev. Dr. Marilyn Sewell. All rights reserved.