a sermon delivered to the Unitarian Church of Los Alamos
Sunday, December 2nd, 2007
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I want to throw a number out at you this morning, because I know there’s nothing better at getting the blood flowing and the spirit moving at 11am on a Sunday morning than cold, hard statistics.
Bear with me. This is a big number, so I want you to be prepared. You might want to hold on to your seat.
Ready?
Here it comes.
Four hundred fifty-five billion.
Everyone alright?
Four hundred fifty-five billion is the number of dollars spent in the United States at brick-and-mortar and online retailers during the months of November and December 2006.
Four hundred fifty-five billion dollars spent on the holiday season.
The current population of the United States is a little over 300 million at this point. That averages out to around $1500 spent per person.
When we take from that population only the number of adults who are likely to celebrate Christmas and live above the poverty line, we’re left with a number closer to 136 million, less than half of the population.
Given 136 million people, the amount of average spending during the holiday season more than doubles to $3300. And I’m not spending nearly that much, so you know someone is spending even more to pick up my slack.
It’s been said that when giving gifts its the thought that counts.
It’s also been said that the price of a thought is a penny.
That being the case, and given the average holiday spending figure, either inflation’s been a real bear lately, or we’ve begun to highly overestimate the value of our thoughts.
On a side note, the current total consumer credit debt is around $2.4 trillion, so we’re probably paying a pretty hefty interest rate on those thoughts, as well.
What is the purpose of giving a gift?
In spite of the obscene consumerism of the season, we still hear a lot about the spirit of giving, the Christmas spirit.
Like I said, it is, supposedly, the thought that counts.
And it’s better to give than receive.
And you don’t need to give to only those you receive from.
It would seem that the spirit of giving, at least in the manner in which it is described in the popular imagination, is geared towards our sense of altruism.
Seasonal giving is a sign of our, ideally, unconditional love for “our people” — whoever those people might be. To give a gift to a loved one is to signify that that person is in our thoughts, that they are loved, that we feel a connection to that person.
That being the case, it would seem that a mere token would be enough. A gift given from the heart, you would think, would be imbued with enough meaning to last through the holiday season and beyond.
And yet, somehow, our American culture has conflated “price tag” with “spirit.”
Why has holiday spending become so disproportionate to the rest of the year?
Why do we, as a nation, spend so much on Christmas?
Are we naturally that overtly generous?
Are we so generous that we find it acceptable to mortgage our future income on our gifts from the heart?
Ironically, no.
If the experiences of Lynne Twist are any indication, we spend outrageous amounts not out of generosity, but because we have bought into the myth of scarcity.
In her book, The Soul of Money, Twist identifies fear of scarcity as one of the dominant forces impacting our economic decision-making. “What I have found,” she writes, “is that no matter where we are in the political, economic, or financial resource spectrum, the myths and mind-set of scarcity create an underlying fear that we, and the people we love or care about, won’t have enough of what’s needed to have a satisfying, happy, productive, or even survivable life.”
The idea of scarcity, she has found, stays with us no matter the level of our resources. She has identified what she calls three “toxic myths” of scarcity.
The first is the myth that there is not enough. Of anything. Everything is limited, and someone has to be left out. And people thus become driven to behave in ways that ensure that we or those we care about are not that person left out. We create systems that favor ourselves and other like us, and exclude others from those resources we are convinced there are not enough of. And this myth is what drives us to buy more than what we need or even want of theses supposed limited commodities.
Because, the second myth is that more is better. It is, Twist says, a logical response to the idea that there is not enough. If there’s not enough, than you’re in a better position if you have more of it. The trouble is that “more is better” is a never ending cycle. It has no goal other than “more” which is an infinite progression. “More is better” is the driving force behind so much violence and harm in our world. “More is better” at the holidays is what drives the average person to assault store clerks when the “hot” gift of the season has sold out (does anyone remember the battle for Playstation 3 last year?).
The final myth is perhaps the most devastating. It is the belief that “that’s just the way it is.” “That’s just the way it is,” is a bowing to the forces of despair, and is what gives real power to the other two toxic myths of scarcity. “That’s just the way it is,” justifies the practices that grow out of the myths of scarcity, and take away our power to do anything about it. It is the myth that has protected disproportionate privilege in our society, protected racism, sexism, and any other number of “isms” in a bid to ensure the existence of someone who is guaranteed to go without a supposedly scarce commodity.
The myths of scarcity, when interjected into the spirit of giving at the holidays, translates into devastating effects.
We give a gift to signify our love, but even love is a scarce commodity (in the myth of scarcity, remember, everything is a commodity).
There’s not enough love, so I need to demonstrate more love than others, and make certain that it gets distributed to “my people.”
And so I show more love to my people by giving more and bigger gifts.
The amount of the price tag and the size of the box is equal to the amount of my love, right?
Of course, we know that’s not true. In our heads and our hearts we know that the spirit of giving has a much deeper meaning. It is hard, however, to break out of such a vicious cycle.
The good news is that “that’s just the way it is” — despite the strength of its grip — is perhaps the easiest myth to dispel, the easiest to break away from.
We’ve already acknowledged that the myth of “that’s just the way it is” is wrong. Now the door is open for us to seek a way to turn these toxic myths on their heads and regain something closer to the true spirit of giving.
Where do we begin?
First, we reclaim the idea that the love and thought that a gift is meant to signify truly has no price tag — that the appropriate price of a gift has more to do with the receiver’s true needs than the amount of “love” that we wish to be perceived as demonstrating.
Second, we re-examine the definition of who “our people” are. The myth of scarcity puts a tight boundary on the idea of “us.” If we listen to the voice of scarcity, “our people” look like us, talk like us, think like us, believe like us, live like us. And isn’t this attitude as antithetical to our Unitarian Universalists principles as you can get?
If we are upholding our principles, then the idea of “we” has no bounds. The fates of all humans are inextricably linked. We are all interconnected. “Our people” is everyone.
And if in this season we are called to demonstrate our love and our wishes of well being to “our people,” how can we effectively answer that call while maintaining the integrity or our principles?
The answer lies in charity.
Before I say more, I want to go back to numbers.
In the past year, the average annual amount of charitable giving per household, not per person, was $1600.
To put that in perspective, the average spent per person on the holidays over the span of less than two months was $3300. The average given per household to charity over the span of a year was $1600.
Can you begin to see the myth of scarcity in action? Someone’s making darn sure that “their people” are getting the bulk of their concern.
When I look at those figures, it almost makes me sink back into despair, to let the idea that “that’s just the way it is” regain control.
What difference does my charity make?
Given a number of almost unfathomable size as $455 billion, what good, really, does my toy for a tot make, or my non-perishables to the food pantry. Compared to $455 billion, my donation to the Salvation Army Santa really is just a drop in the bucket.
How can I fight that? I may as well let myself be swallowed whole by the false idol of consumerism.
And yet I will fight, because nothing more perfectly represents the spirit of our Unitarian Universalist principles than charity.
Charity, or caritas, or agape — for they are all the same word — is literally the unlimited loving-kindness towards others — one of the great virtues of humankind.
Charity is an investment of the soul in the dignity of all humanity, a gamble in favor of the ultimate worth of every person.
Charity makes a difference because it continually chips away at the facade of the myth of scarcity, for although it is most easily quantified in terms of money, it’s quality is measured in the spirit in which it was given, in the caritas sent coupled with the cash. And it is that limitless commodity, that love, that makes as much of a difference as the money that goes along with it.
Charity given equals hope received, a signal alongside the physical, monetary help that someone somewhere is thinking of them, loves them, believes in their worth. That signal can make as much or more difference as the physical gift received.
The more that caritas, that limitless commodity is given away freely and with joy, the more the myth of scarcity is broken down, and we are able to give rise to what Lynne Twist calls the truth of sufficiency — the truth that there is enough for everyone.
What better return dividend on our investment?
My own extended family came to that realization a few years ago. The question “what do you want for Christmas?” became harder and harder to answer. The realization was dawning that we had enough. And so we still exchange gifts, but they get smaller and more personal each year. But we also began making donations to charity in the names of our loved ones, each family receiving a card that informed them that a flock of chickens or a beehive had been given to a village in Asia or Africa on their behalf.
When, in the following year, we began receiving similar gifts from our family, we knew we had hit on a means of giving that demonstrated a broader love for all of “our people.”
Lynne Twist titles her book The Soul of Money. She makes the claim that money has a soul not because it contains some immortal spirit that lives on beyond its physical presence, but because money — more than anything else — has the power to make a reality of our highest ideals and our dearest dreams.
The soul of money is a reflection of our own souls. Its investment in the spirit of creation brings with it a return of our own spirits enlarged and lifted.
If we dig deep in the examination of our principles and reclaim the truest, purest meaning of charity — of unlimited loving kindness toward all people — then it may just be that charity is the closest thing we have to a sacrament in this faith.
The false idol of consumerism looms large this time of year.
Let us defy it. Let us with joy and intention celebrate charity. The soul of creation is better for it, the soul of money is better for it, and our own souls are made better for it, too.
May it be so.
Amen.
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John, this was incredible. That’s really all I can say, except that I wish I could be a part of your congregation.
love, laura