In American Bulk: Essays on Excess, author Emily Mester says: “The constant assessment of daily life is the problem.” Rate the doctor. Rate the trip. Evaluate the preacher. Five-star hotel. Three-star hotel.
She considers another human desire beyond the merch: “to drop everything, to jettison, without guilt, anything that weighs you down.” To live without second-guessing whether there’s a better-rated experience to acquire. To be indigenous with our environment. Indigina, from Latin, means native or sprung from the ground.
And [Jesus] said to them, “Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things [one] possesses.” – Luke 12:15 (NKJV)
We can still belong to our environment, even across generations of migration. I am not talking about people standing at the border today but all of us (and them) who move around. We would never be able to feed all of us without industrial agriculture. Or educate all of us without computers. Soon we will add to our capacity the AI ability to punch in all the variables and see much better answers for cancer, climate and much more.
We can still be closer to nature if we learn to eat our spinach with more gladness.
Imagine having an ungraded experience. Do the mountain pose and push your feet hard and firmly into the ground. It is still there. Do Tai Chi and raise your arms to the sky and acknowledge the wind. It blows. Drink a cup of water from a glass and never touch another plastic bottle. Don’t do it because it will fix the environment. The environment is not for fixing. Do it out of regard for the drops and the sprinkles and the taste and the glory of water.
Prayer ~ O God, help us to rival the bonds of assessment and get an A-plus in life instead of flunking or fixing it.
About the Author: Donna Schaper is a rewired transitional pastor in the UCC and the author most recently of Remove the Pews—first from your theology, then from your building.