Swimming in stuff: regifting and post-Christmas regret syndrome

The dust has settled. Advent is over. Christmastide is over. Gifts have found their place. Debts from spending splurges are (possibly) still being paid off.

The volume of stuff that is passed around at Christmas is staggering. While most (at least much) of it is an expression of love and relationship, nonetheless, large numbers of gifts are unwanted by the recipient and are regifted, donated to a charity shop, lie unused in a cupboard or end up as landfill. What do you do with your unwanted gifts? And do you need to tell the giver about the gift's destination? Have you ever refused a gift?

While retailers and manufacturers love it (the more landfill, the better, from their perspective) and have in many cases become dependent upon it, the Christmas splurge can leave people in debt and can unnecessarily increase the burden we are placing on the planet's resources and living systems. Does it have to be this way?

There are a host of culturally-specific social norms around gift-giving. For instance, is it rude or is it actually obligatory to open a gift in front of the person who gave it? Different cultures give opposing answers. And so I'm aware that even raising the question of how (and whether) to do gifts at Christmas may seem rude to some people. But it is important enough to risk being rude, since it is also inconsiderate to let the annual consumerist orgy continue without thought, protest or comment.

So what can we do to reduce the number of unwanted gifts while still expressing thoughtful care for one another? Perhaps it may help if we make explicit the ultimate goal of giving gifts, which isn't (I presume) to keep retailers in business, or multiply the stuff in the world, but to express our love for, relationship with and delight in another. But gifts aren't the only way of doing that. Gifts are only one love language, and in the consumerist frenzy that passes for Christmas in some places, the language of gifts may sometimes send confusing messages. Perhaps it is time for some creative translation?

Perhaps we could deliberately expand the Christmas tradition from gift-exchange to the giving of blessings. This wouldn't rule out gifts, but it would deliberately open up other forms of blessing as legitimate expressions of Christmas generosity. Many of these are already widely acceptable as gifts or gift alternatives, but it is worth listing a few suggestions (feel free to add more in the comments). Some examples:

• Sharing a poem (written or found)
  
• Sharing a significant piece of scripture and the reasons for its significance
  
• Writing a letter.
  
• Giving a piece of art fashioned by the giver.
  
• Sharing a hug or other physical expression of affection (perhaps a holy kiss!).
  
• Bestowing a word of encouragement.
  
• Promising an act of service (e.g. lawn-mowing, babysitting, repair work, etc.). Some may be able to be performed immediately.
  
• Promising an act of joint service (e.g. an invitation to help out at a soup kitchen together).
  
• Promising a shared experience: going out together, making something together.
  
• Pronouncing a verbal blessing ("The LORD bless you and keep you"). These can be powerful when both parties take them seriously and look each other in the eye.
  
• Singing a song for the recipient.
  
• Sending a postcard or letter together to absent members of the group or others who need encouragement.
  
• Giving a TEAR gift (or equivalent vicarious gift through some other charity).
  
• Loaning (or passing on) something precious (e.g. a favourite book or CD).
  
• Sharing a favourite recipe.
  
• And, of course, giving a physical gift, which could be secondhand, handmade, fair-trade or sustainably sourced.

I am sure there may be all kinds of practical issues around some of these suggestions, but surely Christmas doesn't have to lead to drowning in stuff.

The Age of Stupid

Today I went to a screening of The Age of Stupid, which was being shown as part of the Cineco Film Festival, a series of free ecological films showing around Edinburgh between September and November.


The Age of Stupid investigates the contradictions and myopia of our present age from the viewpoint of an archivist (Pete Postlethwaite) living in a remote Arctic refuge storing what could be salvaged of the world's cultural treasures, looking back from the year 2055 at decades of catastrophic climate change and using a glorified iPad to create a documentary warning for extraterrestrials. It doesn't sound like a format that will fly, and the film opens with apocalyptic images of London underwater, the Swiss Alps without snow, Las Vegas being covered by sand dunes and Sydney's CBD consumed in a towering inferno, further confirming my expectations that the film would consist largely of terrifying crystal ball gazing, showing an unfolding series of disasters that would lead to Postlethwaite's archivist on his lonely refuge. Instead, the 2055 viewpoint is a mere framing device to allow a pastiche of archival documentary and news footage from prior to 2009, along with original interviews following six or seven figures from around the world. The period between 2009 and 2055 is left largely blank and we are confronted directly with the stupidity of our own age.

The archivist narrator begins with this question:

"The amazing thing is we had a chance to avert this. The conditions we are experiencing now were actually caused by our behaviour in the period leading up to 2015. In other words, we could have saved ourselves. We could have saved ourselves, but we didn't. What state of mind were we in, to face extinction and simply shrug it off?"

And that is the focus of the film: the inability of our present society to join the dots between fighting climate change and wanting cheap flights, or hating wind farms. It is a moving and at times darkly amusing film, but the apocalyptic framing which grabs your attention also proves somewhat distracting, since the full devastating effects of climate change are left largely unstated. There is a brief discussion with Mark Lynas (author of the widely-read Six Degrees) and a couple of other hints (passing references to food riots, for instance), but the shape of the threat that could conceivably lead to the archivist's world is largely unspoken. Perhaps this was for the sake of time, or perhaps to avoid the charge of fear-mongering, though I think that a rational discussion of the genuine threats identified in the scientific literature is far more responsible (even if initially more terrifying) than a few apocalyptic images and a heavy dose of post-apocalyptic regret.

Once again, the film was stronger on the diagnosis of the problem than on offering plausible paths to how we might indeed "save ourselves", or (what might now be more realistic) offering healthy ways of salvaging what we can from a disaster that is now unavoidable, but whose effects can still be significantly reduced.

That said, I would still recommend the film as worth seeing. One particular highlight was the brief and clear explanation of contraction and convergence, which is a serious suggestion for how it is possible to slash global emissions while allowing developing nations to get out of stupid poverty. Of course, this means developing nations cutting their emissions even faster in order to leave some room for the global poor to meet their basic needs. This option is not politically viable, especially in the places where per capita emissions would need to fall the fastest (US, Australia, Canada and parts of the Middle East), but it is the most equitable of all the options on the table and has received support from a number of nations, including the UK.

Also coming up as part of the Cineco film festival are two more films that look very interesting. The first is called Our Daily Bread and consists almost purely of footage of contemporary industrial agricultural processes with commentary or soundtrack beyond environmental noises recorded with the footage, allowing the viewer to form her own opinions. It is screening at 6pm on the 12th November.

The second is called Dirt! and traces one of the major ecological challenges that doesn't receive much attention: the soil beneath our feet (and all too often, beneath our concrete too). In the last one hundred years, in different ways we have squandered about a third of all fertile topsoil on the planet. It is screening at 6pm on 17th November (Martin Hall, New College) and will include a panel discussion with local religious leaders. Here is the trailer.

Jeremy Kidwell on the purpose of fear

[W]e may also grant [our fears] overriding control over our moral lives. Thus, if I fear the financial crisis, i.e. my own financial ruin, at the root of this fear is my own love of money and the economy which secures my wealth. Similarly, fears of environmental destruction may reflect an underlying worship of the patterns I am familiar with, such as a ready supply of tropical fruits or an abundance of consumer products without any indication of their source or true cost. In short, my fear may reflect an underlying reluctance to see change, whatever the source.

A Christian response to such fear, I think, is the act of repentance. In this, we identify the underlying idolatries (or distorted loves) that generate our fears and express regret for the destructiveness these misguided attachments have caused. Next, we detach our loyalties from them, and place our trust instead in the only thing which can correspond to our highest aspirations: the personal God who created us. This redirection offers an entirely new orientation by which we can respond to bad news and conceive of our life within changed circumstances.

- Jeremy Kidwell, "The purpose of fear".

This post by my friend and New College colleague Jeremy makes some very good points about the ways that our fears can reveal our distorted loves. By reflecting on what it is that we fear losing, what we love comes into focus.

Yet not all the loves that are thereby revealed are necessarily distorted. Sometimes, we may discover a new love through becoming aware of a threat. For instance, it is only fairly recently that I have learned how much I love phytoplankton. While some of our fears may uncover the shallowness of our loves, some of the things under threat are not so obviously trivial: the lives and livelihoods of millions of people, the existence of myriad species and scores of ecosystems, the social fabric of trust and co-operation, a functioning healthcare system (and more importantly a functioning sewerage and garbage system), the rule of law, and so on. Of course these too can be loved inordinately, but simply to ignore the fact that these more significant goods are also threatened is (or may be) to once again allow fear to set the parameters of my moral vision, since I may be refusing to see the full extent of the threat lest it disrupt not just my convenient idolatries, but things of real (though still secondary) worth.

Life choices and regret

“Long story short: we don’t get to make our lives up. We get to receive our lives as gifts. The story that says we should have no story except the story we chose [...] is a lie. To be human is to learn that we don’t get to make up our lives because we’re creatures [...]. Christian discipleship is about learning to receive our lives as gifts without regret.”

- Stanley Hauerwas.

Hauerwas is not saying that choices are irrelevant, simply that they are secondary to living well. More important than choosing is receiving with thanksgiving. This is a very countercultural claim in contemporary liberal democracies, where everything is geared towards the assumption that only things we have chosen are valid and that we ought to be shielded from anything we haven't selected.

Grumbling vs Lament: how to complain faithfully

Do all things without murmuring or arguing.

- Philippians 2.14

Throughout the Scriptures, there are two streams of complaint. One is roundly condemned as grumbling or murmuring and the other is held out as a model of godliness and is usually called lament or groaning. The former is exemplified by the children of Israel in the wilderness wanderings and the latter is found throughout the Psalms as well as being at the centre of one of my favourite NT passages.

But what is the difference between them? Is it possible to lament without grumbling, to groan without murmuring? In both cases, the speaker is discontent with the present circumstances and expresses this verbally. In both cases, there can be strong emotions of anger and frustration, of pain and sorrow. But there are three key differences between healthy and unhealthy dissatisfaction.

First, a different basis. Grumbling can be based on a perceived lack that has confused a want for a need. I might wish I had more money, but I doubt that I actually need more money. Sometimes this very lack can be a gift of God to stretch our trust and mature our perspective. Our society has largely forgotten what contentment looks like, particularly material contentment. "Godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that." (1 Timonthy 6.6-8) "I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want." (Philippians 4.11-12) We don't need very much at all. That so many of us are massively wealthy is a blessing and a responsibility. But let's make sure that our complaints are not over something where contentment and thankfulness would be more appropriate. That said, when the Israelites complained for lack of food and water, this was a genuine need. So the basis of the complaint is not in itself sufficient to distinguish between murmuring and lament.

Second, a different primary audience. The children of Israel in the desert grumbled against Moses. The psalmist generally takes his complaint directly to God. When someone has a problem with me, if he just gripes about it behind my back, he does me a disservice and removes the possibility of a truthful and productive confrontation. He ought to either bear with my idiosyncrasy, or if it is a genuine fault, then he should speak to me with gentleness, humility and compassion, seeking to show me the problem, restore the relationship and help me grow. The last thing he needs to do is whinge about me to someone else. Similarly, if I have a beef with God, then that complaint ought to be brought into our relationship. God is big enough to handle it.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, there is a difference in temporal aspect. By this I mean that grumbling looks backwards at a real or perceived golden age and wishes that one were still back there while groaning looks forward to God's as yet unfulfilled promises. Compare these two examples:

“If only we had died by the LORD’s hand in Egypt! There we sat round pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.” (Exodus 16.3)

How long, O LORD? Will you forget me for ever?
    How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart?
    How long will my enemy triumph over me?
Look on me and answer, O LORD my God.
    Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death;
my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
    and my foes will rejoice when I fall.
But I trust in your unfailing love;
    my heart rejoices in your salvation.
I will sing to the LORD,
    for he has been good to me. (Psalm 13)

The first example looks backwards to good old days (!) in Egypt; the second looks forwards to the day when the psalmist will be rescued from his predicament.

Grumbling assumes that we know what is best and that this corresponds to where we have been. Better the devil you know. Better to be trapped in Egypt and live than to risk life in the desert for the sake of an unseen promise. That is grumbling. It looks backwards and does not trust. But faithful complaint looks forward to what has been promised. It yearns and aches and earnestly seeks the coming of God’s kingdom and is not content with the compromises and brokenness of today. In difficulty, it doesn’t ask “why is this happening to me?” or “what have I done to deserve this?” but simply “how long, O Lord, until you fulfil your promise?”

So don’t look back with regret, wistfully remembering or imagining what life would be like if only you didn’t have to take up your cross and follow Jesus. Instead, look forward with hope, to God’s coming kingdom, to the resurrection of the body, to God’s ultimate victory over all that enslaves and pollutes his good world. When you complain, complain faithfully.

Invisible Cities

This little book by Italo Calvino was easily my favourite novel of 2007. Consisting of a series of conversations between Italian explorer Marco Polo (1254-1324/5) and Mongol Emperor Kublai Khan (1215-1294), the majority of the book focuses on Polo's brief (one to three page) descriptions of 55 cities allegedly found in the Khan's empire. Hilarious, tragic, insightful, surreal and philosophical, each city is really a thought experiment, a prose poem about our relationship to memory, desire, death, dreams, signs, fate and the spaces we inhabit. Here is one example. I might post some more in time. As you'll notice, the cities are not limited to the 13th century, nor even to the realms of possibility, though some come too close to reality to be entirely comfortable.

Cities & Memory • 5
In Maurilia, the traveler is invited to visit the city and, at the same time, to examine some old post cards that show it as it used to be: the same identical square with a hen in the place of the bus station, a bandstand in the place of the overpass, two young ladies with white parasols in the place of the munitions factory. If the traveler does not wish to disappoint the inhabitants, he must praise the postcard city and prefer it to the present one, though he must be careful to contain his regret at the changes within definite limits: admitting that the magnificence and prosperity of the metropolis Maurilia, when compared with the old, provincial Maurilia, cannot compensate for a certain lost grace, which, however, can be appreciated only now in the old cards, whereas before, when that provincial Maurilia was before one’s eyes, one saw absolutely nothing graceful and would see it even less today, if Maurilia had remained unchanged; and in any case the metropolis has the added attraction that, through what is has become, one can look back with nostalgia at what it was.

Beware of saying to them that sometimes different cities follow one another on the same site and under the same name, born and dying without knowing one another, without communication among themselves. At times even the names of the inhabitants remain the same, and their voices’ accent, and also the features of the faces; but the gods who live beneath names and above places have gone off without a word and outsiders have settled in their place. It is pointless to ask whether the new ones are better or worse than the old, since there is no connection between them, just as the old post cards do not depict Maurilia as it was, but a different city which, by chance, was called Maurilia, like this one.

Saying Sorry

Yesterday it was announced first act of the new Australian parliament on 13th February will be to say "sorry" to the stolen generation.* Our previous government was willing to express regret, but refused to apologise for the sins of a previous generation, despite the recommendations of the 1997 Bringing Them Home report from the Human Rights & Equal Opportunities Commission.

This continues to be a divisive issue in Australia. I found this short paper of the Social Issues Briefing to be the most helpful short item I have read on the topic. It argues that the logic behind such an apology is deeply Christian. If you would like more information about the apology and what it will mean, Reconciliation Australia has published this FAQ document.

Rory suggests that the apology ought to be made by the Governor General as head of state, in order to lift it above party politics. Jason offers some more theological reflections upon forgiveness and saying sorry, as well as some relevant book reviews. GetUp has a campaign encouraging this action to be bipartisan and more than token.

Does anyone have other ideas on how to mark the significance of this step?
*(from Wikipedia): "The Stolen Generation (or Stolen Generations) is a term used to describe the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, usually of mixed descent who were removed from their families by Australian government agencies and church missions, under various state acts of parliament, denying the rights of parents and making all Aboriginal children wards of the state, between approximately 1869 and (officially) 1969."

Worse than death? II

Sin is worse than death

Our God is a God of salvation,
   and to GOD, the Lord, belongs escape from death.     - Psalm 68.20

Death will be the last enemy to be defeated at the general resurrection of the dead and the renewal of all things. Yet while it will be the last to go, it is not the Great Enemy, the Adversary. There are things worse than death.

There are things that diminish life, that corrode joy, that devour the heart, shrink the spirit, corrupt the good. Sin is worse than death. Death brings an end to the goodness that is life, but sin can take what is good in life and turn it sour. Death is a negation; sin is a negative. Death reduces to zero; sin puts it in the red. Now, of course, the picture is more complex than this, since what is good is not removed when it is corrupted, and evil is not simply the reverse scale of quality as good. Created things remain good, even while corrupted. Fallen humanity in particular is a complex thing, simultaneously both blessing and problem, both gift and cursed.

When our first parents disasterously declared their independence from God, claiming their own pre-emptive knowledge of good and evil, God's gracious response was to cut them off from the tree of life:

Then the LORD God said, “See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”-- therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life.

The denial of everlasting life to the wayward husband and wife was to place a boundary on the spread of evil, to prevent it becoming forever woven into the fabric of the world. Death, the return of the dust to dust, was on the one hand the inevitable result of life that denies its own basis as the generous gift of God. Human death is a self-made self-annihilation, a suicidal turn from the source of life. But, on the other hand, it was also from the start useful as a curb on evil: a self-limiting curse.

Again, we must be careful here. Simply having boundaries, being embodied, temporal or dependent are not themselves problematic. Such finitude is part of the good gift of God. The finitude of death contains a darkness not found in being six feet tall or living in a world where snowmen melt. The tragedy is not change, not limit, but the disordering infection of rebellion, a will turned upon itself, an entity oriented to its own goals without reference to the whole or the head. This is the sad shock of sin: irrational, destructive, malignant - and ultimately self-destructive. Death is the result, but sin is the cause.

Sin is worse than death. Untrusting anxiety, apathetic lethargy, bitter regret, faithless betrayal: these are the real enemies of God and his people. These will blunt and bleed the soul, poison the spirit and stop the heart more surely and grievously than the cessation of brainwaves and breath.
Series: I, II, III, IV, V, VI.
Fifteen points for naming the novel in which the ill-treated heroine is finally captured at this ancient location.

World Cup for Theologians II

If you've been slow off the mark to post your nominations, may you ever live in regret. No Australians made the final 32 and German speakers continue to dominate the line-up. However, the first round of matches has already begun. Vote here, here, and here. And here are the results from the first three games. Go Moltmann, Torrance, Gunton, Jüngel and Jenson!

UPDATE: More results here. Latest games/results always here.