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Rev. Chris Jimmerson
July 14, 2019
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org
We live in an economic system that perpetuates itself by creating a culture of scarcity. What if we stopped to appreciate and express gratitude for all that we already have? What if we worked toward a culture of abundance?
I recently bought this iPhone. It’s the latest and the greatest technology.
Within a few months, a newer model with even later and greater features will come out – a model that was already planned when I bought this one.
We live in an economy that is designed to keep us at first thrilled with our new purchases and then quickly disillusioned with them and craving their replacement.
We exist in a culture where we are told that what we have is never enough. We exist in a culture that by design creates a myth of scarcity.
How often have you gone to reserve a hotel room or a flight online and gotten the little flashing message that only two more are available at this price.
Or “there are 30 people currently looking at this hotel.”
How many ads do we see that contain a not so implicit message that we are never successful enough; we never have enough; we are never good enough; attractive enough; thin enough; sexy enough; smart enough, etc.
Some other car is always newer and nicer than ours; our dishwasher is too slow and too loud; our clothing is already passe; our hairstyle is no longer the style.
Scarcity. Scarcity. More scarcity.
This morning as we have gathered for worship, the Trump administration has threatened to round up, detain and then deport thousands of immigrant families – a move which will:
- worsen the conditions at already overcrowded and inhumane detention camps,
- separate families, including taking even more children away from their parents,
- and send folks who have been contributing to our society to countries where they will often face threats to their wellbeing and sometimes even their very lives.
And this too is also at least partially a fear-based tactic rooted in that mythology of scarcity.
Now there is a lot going on with this, including not so subtle racism and xenophobia, but these too arise at least partially out of the scarcity myth.
Trump himself has stated that we do not “have room for these people” – that somehow if we allow asylum seekers into our country it will mean taking jobs and resources away from the folks who are already here.
And yet study after study has found that this is simply not the case. We have plenty of wealth to go around. Immigrants are net contributors to our society. We have the food, housing, economic and other resources to more than support our population plus many more.
And when it comes to basic human rights, I like this meme that has been going around lately.
“EQUAL RIGHTS FOR OTHERS DOES NOT MEAN LESS RIGHTS FOR YOU. IT’S NOT PIE.”
The scarcity myth drives inequality and human rights abuses.
It drives radically capitalistic, consumerism.
The scarcity Myth is one of the major lies that has been used to excuse a vast transfer of power and wealth from the many to the very few that has been going on for decades now.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not against economic development and technology advancements that can enhance our lives and wellbeing. I love my iPhone.
I just think we can choose a different narrative that would eventually drive a different kind of economy and society.
I believe that rather than scarcity, we can choose abundance, not just for the few but for all.
We can adopt a narrative that we are, there is ENOUGH.
VIDEO CLIP
That’s Kevin Cavenaugh, an architect by training and now a commercial real estate developer in Portland, Oregon. The flowery pants he is wearing in the video were made for him one of his children out of fabric recycled from their old couch.
Cavenaugh goes onto explain that as they began to recover from the recession, and he rebuilt his business, he kept asking himself this question about enoughness – how much is enough?
Doing so has changed how he lives and how he does business.
He asked himself how much is enough wealth and discovered that while he was making a percentage of the profits from his building developments, the members of his small staff were not. So, he created a program in which they could become vested in a percentage of the profits also the longer they worked with him.
He also asked himself how much equality is enough because the inequity in pay between men and women in our country bothered him.
He then redesigned the pay pyramid for his company so that instead of him making more than everyone else, everyone gets paid exactly the same, including himself.
It turns out, he discovered, that companies that treat their employees better and equally have better long-term stock valuations. They attract the best talent. As he puts it, not paying equally was stepping over dollars to pick up dimes.
Finally, he was disturbed by the rising level of homelessness in Portland. Rent in the area has grown 20 times faster than wages, so that even folks with a college degree and who are working can find themselves living out of a tent in one of the city’s parks.
He asked himself and a group of investors for one of his buildings, how much would be enough rent? They did the calculations and discovered they could make enough return from their investment if they developed a building that would provide simple rooms with a bed and washbasin, shared showers and restrooms and a communal kitchen and living area. By doing so, they could rent the rooms out for $290 a month each.
So now, a number of formerly homeless folks have simple but adequate shelter. It is enough.
And this defining and redefining of “enough” it turns out is one of the strongest ways in which we can resist the cultural myth of scarcity. It is one of the ways we can find greater life satisfaction.
All over the country, people are engaging in this counter cultural idea and redefining for themselves what “enough” means.
People are embracing minimalism. You can learn more at theminimalists.com, but basically minimalists are discovering a new sense of freedom by living with far less stuff.
One common way that people get started is by jettisoning at least one material possession each day for at least a month by asking each day of one item, “does this have value to me? Does it have utility in some way or bring me joy?”
If the answer is no, it goes – sell it, donate it to charity where someone else might find value with it, just get rid of it.
Many folks have found they got rid of more than one item per day and continued the practice for several months.
I’m pretty sure it would take me at least a year to clear our whatever all that stuff in our garage is.
Other families with children have determined what the minimal salary they need is to feel life satisfaction and provide adequately for their children. They then live off of that and donate anything they earn above it to benefit others.
We have all witnessed the movement toward smaller or even tiny houses that has been growing.
What folks have discovered when they have done some of these things is that it freed them to pursue their desires and goals in life more easily. Many found they did not need to make us much money and could take a job that left them time to travel, go back to school for their Master’s degree or pursue a passion such music or an art, as examples.
Now, I am not suggesting that everyone here has to become a minimalist, give all their money to charity (but if you do please consider your church) or sell their house and all their stuff to move into a 600 square foot box.
I just offer some of these trends as an example of how it is possible to define and redefine “enough” for ourselves. I am suggesting that by periodically asking ourselves the question, “What is enough to me” we may begin to find ways to experience a greater sense of abundance.
In addition to thinking about what enough means to you, here are a few other ways that we may also develop a greater sense of abundance in our lives and that have thereby been shown to increase life satisfaction.
Invest more of your time and resources in your relationships with others.
Whether it is our spouses, partners, children, other family members, friends, our fellow church goers, the stranger we just met or some folks in need we may never meet, study after study have shown that belonging and connection, love and doing for others are vital to our satisfaction in life.
Also, invest more of your time and resources on experiences rather than things. Traveling, attending a play or concert, learning to play the guitar or speak a new language, taking the children to an amusement park or to go camping, whatever the experiences may be, a wealth of studies have shown that we place higher value on experiences rather than things. Experiences bring us greater happiness than possessing material items.
Next, practice gratitude every day.
Practicing gratitude has been shown to be one of the strongest ways to develop a sense of abundant life and is continually associated with greater life satisfaction.
The key is that it has to be a practice something you do. It is the active practice of gratitude that brings abundance. Here is a little more about the science of it and some potential gratitude practices.
VIDEO
Finally, whether it is through attending worship, cultivating a spiritual practice such as meditating, gardening, working for justice in our world, making art or music, whatever it is for you, finding ways to connect with something larger than ourselves, to experience the holy, to know truth meaning and beauty within our connection and experience of that something larger than ourselves lies abundant living.
These are just a few of the ways we can develop a sense of abundance in our lives.
I’d like to close today by inviting you to engage with me in a spoken and sung meditative ritual on abundance. Please repeat after me:
I am grateful for life.
I am grateful for loving and being loved.
I am grateful for the adventures and experiences of my life.
I am a part of something larger than myself.
I experience truth, meaning and beauty.
There is enough.
I am enough.
I am enough.
I am enough.
Please sing after me:
What we need is here.
What we need is here.
Now please sing with me:
What we need is here.
What we need is here.
My beloveds you are enough. Abundance is already ours.
Amen
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