Economics of shelter
Smith, Karen Sue
Things are for persons. This truth is behind every style-oflifequestion we might ask. Can things bring us closer together or force us apart? Do things provide an escape from myself and from God...
...Thus, cutting back television-viewing -- a style of life matter -- will influence my time available for prayer or reflection...
...It will invite me into discussion with friends or families over our so-called needs, desires, and wants as consumers...
...Do things provide an escape from myself and from God in solitude, or do they enhance the possibilities of encountering the Holy in all persons...
...It will affect my morning and even!ng hours...
...It will have an impact on my own self-understanding...
...When we live more simply, we have more time for solitude, more time to savor and appreciate the things that we actually have...
...When we live more simply, we are more able to respond to the problems of injustice in the world -- not onlyby sharing of what We do not need, but also by time for greater availability in service and social action...
...No longer will it dominate the meals I take in community, set the pattern of conversation with my family, fill up my life with the average thirty-hours-a-week of watching commercials, soap operas, sports, or shows with canned laughter...
...In a similar manner, greater simplification in my patterns of consuming, entertaining, or dressing will profoundly affect my sense of driveness to possess more and newer things...
...It may well enlarge my leftover income that might be put to the service of others...
...We have more time for each other, more time to "waste" in relationships, more time to appropriate our lives together in family or in community...
...Shampoo ad 2-16 November 1984:611...
...Our questions are not so much ones of "cutting back" as they are of integration and personalization...
...It will also modify Commonweal: 610my openness to relatedness...
...We are less cluttered by assaults from the media...
...Once we see the integrated way that our style-of-life decisions are related to other areas of our lives, it becomes easier to live more simply...
...The flight from vuinerabUity and the counter-economics of compassion "If Your Hair lsn' t Beautiful, the Rest Hardly Matters...
Vol. 111 • November 1984 • No. 19
