Notes from 1st March: Issues & dilemmas:

Excessive value placed on money - Nothing else matters as much as the price tag. In "the age of cheap" [Interesting book about this - Cheap: The Real Cost of Living in a Low Price, Low Wage World, by David Bosshart] we have a new victory cry of "bargain!" when we feel a huge sense of glee and pride in having found something at a cheap price. We admire friends' achievements in the bargain hunting, and people question the extravagance of buying something expensive even when it's hand-made or ethically traded, etc. We felt that other elements have lost their value - eg, skill and craftwork, good working conditions, luxury materials. And this emphasis on cheap inevitably means that vulnerable workers are exploited...

 Compulsive behaviour - Eg, going to the sales, buying and selling on eBay, going shopping as a way of killing time, and "I'll just pop in to see what they've got..." (fear we might miss out!)

Unsustainability of items that we now buy - planned obsolescence is the manufacturers' strategy that sustains their business because the customer is forced to buy a replacement or upgrade on a regular basis. (But actually this is ok, because it helps us justify our compulsive habit to shop!).  Throwaway mentality. Things aren't repaired - it's either more expensive than buying a new one, or impossible to find someone able to repair it. Things aren't bought for their durability: cheapest is best; fashionable things by nature only need to last for a season.  'New' is the new black. Antiques are out, Ikea is in. One of the group reported that the library she works in has started to remove the stickers from book spines because people said they found it embarrassing to read a library book in public.

False economy - We persuade ourselves that it's good money-sense to go sales-shopping, as if we're actually saving money by going shopping! Retailers work this psychology with their 'buy one, get one half price' offers which make us buy two bottles of suncream when we really only needed one.

Accumulation and clutter - Various scriptures tell us not to accumulate for ourselves, and yet...  So why do we love to accumulate?! One of the group said she looked around her house recently and actually felt stressed by all the STUFF, wondering how she was ever going to store it all tidily. Holding on to things indicates that we don't trust God to provide for us. We all confessed an unhealthy love of having full bookshelves, and not being too comfortable lending a book out.

Identity based on image - Even for those of us not subject to the horrors of teenage peer pressure, we all admitted that we judge others by what they're wearing/driving/eating, etc. And that we get bored of the clothes we own. One of the group works in fashion, as a designer, and she felt that it's an essential part of expressing herself and her creativity in her clothing. If it's not clothes, then it can be gadgets, interior décor, accessories, even books: we all confessed that, if we are at a new friend's house, we'll peruse their bookshelves to glean information about them from the kind of books they have! And we know that although an old rucksack does perfectly well in many situations, we wouldn't feel able to take it into a job interview.

Ways forward

- Keeping perspective...  shopping isn't inherently bad: There has always been 'shopping', and it's ok! As shown by the wife of Proverbs 31 who is commended for her skill in making clothes and selling them. 

- God created beauty: Our God created the most incredible array of beauty in colours and textures, etc, and delights in the extravagance in the physical world, so it's unsurprising that we have the urge to be dressed beautifully.

- clothes are quite useful! And the reality is that most of us can't or don't make our own clothes, so we do need to go shopping.

 ...it's all about balance and maintaining focus on the righteousness of the kingdom...

Some specific things we can do

* appreciate the craftsmanship and skill and personal touch of production
* buy fewer things that are of better quality, longer-lasting and ethically made
* reduce the amount of new things bought by doing swaps with friends, and use Freecycle.com and Bookmooch.com
* accept some responsibility as a middle-class wage-earner to "lead the way" (ie, paying more for ethical products)
* get informed about and demand accountability from our favourite companies - engage in dialogue as more constructive way to improvement rather than boycotts.
* work our sphere of influence (friends, family etc, but also our professional circle - eg, one of the group is a writer so he could choose to write about this to spread the word).
* grace, grace, and a bit more grace! Small steps will get us there. Must avoid paralysis by a Superman-complex ('I want to save the whole world, but it's too huge, so I won't even do the one small thing that I could achieve')

(Holly Ellson)