Cumber
Craig Anderson
Matthew
6: 25-34 May 12, 2002
It’s Mother’s Day. Let’s talk about home economics! Only I don’t mean to talk about what that
term once implied. I’m dating myself
here, but let me be clear, I don’t have in mind those days back when the boys
took shop, which was car repair and wood-working, and the girls took home ec.,
cooking and sewing. Mother’s Day
originated in that era, but the church has long since spun Mother’s day into
the “Festival of the Christian Home.”
So what I have in mind is what Sharon Daloz Parks describes when she
talks about “household economics.”
Parks says that “our home places define basic ways of life.” “Home is where we figure out primary
patterns of nurture and productivity, habits of need and desire, forms of rage
and forgiveness, ways of ‘taking time’ and discovering the people who ‘count’
for us.” Economics originally, was
about more than bankers, brokers, accountants, energy traders, and the lawyers
who cover for them. Economics
originally, Parks writes, was “rooted in the Greek word oikos, meaning
household, and signifies the management of the household – arranging what is
necessary for well-being and livelihood...”
It’s Mother’s Day. Let’s talk
about the well-being of our homes, families, and relationships.
As some of us learned in either
shop or home ec, there are two basics to manage in life: time and
materials. And if I’m reading the
spirit of our age correctly, it is precisely in these two areas where we feel
that our lives are running out of control and off the tracks. Take for starters the issue of time. I won’t even ask what schedules you are
juggling this morning in order to carve time out to be here. I won’t ask what you’ve chosen not to
do. Suffice to say, that you have made
choices and arrangements to give yourself and your family a spiritual
break. So sink into your pew cushion,
take a breath, let the tension go, and get off the train for awhile. As you do, consider a movement which has
originated in Wayzata Minnesota, an affluent suburban community not unlike our
own. Parents there have begun to rebel
and are attempting to reclaim some measure of the management of their
children’s lives and well-being. The
rebellion began with the recognition that their children’s lives were amounting
to nothing less than “scheduled hyperactivity.” Not only are parents objecting to no longer sharing evening meals
together, but also that they have put their children on an endless treadmill of
sports activities, music lessons, clubs, and extra-curricular events; while
putting themselves endlessly in the role of taxi-driver. All of this frenetic activity somehow, is
supposed to add up to well-rounded individuals whose resumes will impress
prestigious college admissions committees when the time comes. And if you start when the kid is 3 or 4, so
much the better. Or maybe not.
William Doherty, who studies
family life at the University of Minnesota, has according to Newsweek, “written
a book called “Intentional Families.’
His thesis is that if parents and children don’t make time for each
other, emotional ties wither and die.”
Our children’s many outside commitments, while of value, may destroy
“something kids need even more – time to connect with their parents and
siblings.” Professor Doherty says, “We
now have a more competitive society, a more consumerist society, and these
forces influence families. Raising kids
becomes like product development. It’s
competitive parenting, all well intentioned, to develop the kid in every
possible way.”
Competitive parenting... Product
development... To counter such trends, parents in Wayzata are trying to become
more intentional. They are limiting
sports activities and trying to encourage “family-friendly” organizations. They are lobbying schools, sports leagues,
and drama groups not to penalize children “who take time off for family,
religious or academic activities.” Even
coaches are applauding these efforts, saying things like: “The kids are
easy. They just want to come out and
have fun and play. It’s the parents
that are the problem.” “What other
communities should take away from Wayzata’s story, says Professor Doherty, “is
parents taking control of their families.”
Home economics, sounds like to me.
“Behold the lilies of the
field...” The nine verses we have read
from Matthew this morning may be the longest strand of words from Jesus’ mouth
that the early church managed to record, outside of a few of the longer story
parables. And what topic does Jesus
entertain at length? Household
economics: maintaining well-being and balance, productivity and nurture, need
and desire.
To so over-program our
children’s lives, says something about our lack of trust in God’s good
creation. Behold the lilies of the
field and the birds of the air: sometimes things turn out fine without our
attempting to micro-manage the outcome.
Maybe a child already has built-in desires to use the good gifts they
have been given. Perhaps they don’t
need to be driven both figuratively and literally to develop their
potential. A child’s gifts might unfold
of themselves, set off by an inner spark which is inspired and holy.
Suppose, in our households we
were to resist the spirit of the age, declining to run them like corporations
which competitively develop products with fewer flaws and more frills than the
family next door. Let’s let kids be
kids, and reclaim time for our families to be together.
So much for time, now how about
materials? “Do not worry about your
life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you
will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” Can’t we imagine that Jesus’ audience
thought about food and clothing and stuff all the time just the way we do, but
for entirely different reasons? They
were destitute and didn’t have enough; while we are wealthy and somehow can’t
get enough. Our 21st century
situation is the polar opposite of the first, nevertheless might not Jesus
still counsel, “do not worry...”? Ours
must be one of the few times in history when such large numbers of people feel
both gorged and anxious at the same time.
Sharon Parks says “we feel bloated and yet fear that we do not have
enough.” We worry about both scarcity
and satiety.
On one side of this equation
what we experience is cumber, a word the early Quakers used. It describes those nagging feelings we have
that our stuff owns and controls us instead of the other way around. Parks notes, “once we went to market,
but now the market comes to us... We wear advertising on our clothing and
plaster it on every facade of our common life.
And it works. Americans now
spend more time shopping than citizens of any other nation, and we spend a
higher fraction of the money we earn.”
“Is not life more than food, and
the body more than clothing?” Well, yes
and no, we want to answer, confused by our own confusion, and no wonder! Some if not most of the best minds of our
age are bent on convincing us that despite our feelings of cumber, that what we
need, is only one thing more, and then one thing more. Nieman Marcus sends us catalogues, titled
“Essentials.” Citibank sends us plastic
to buy those essentials and to defer the payments, for a mere 1 and ½ percent a
month, compounded of course.
We do not like to admit it, even
though the economists looking for a recovery remind us every day, consumer
spending is the “engine of capitalism.”
So while week by week, the trucks arrive from Fed-Ex and UPS laden with boxes and more boxes, still we
feel we need more. In his essay,
“Consuming Desires,” Roger Rosenblatt notes that the very act of acquiring
itself, reminds you of the stuff you do not have... or do not have yet.” Our appetites are both “satisfied and
unsatisfied” at the same time. With the
“desired effect” being “to keep gratification just out of reach,” these
“perpetual and relentless rounds of having and yearning drive the system and
maintain us in a continual state of unhappiness, conscious or not.” Cumber.
Worry. Things in the saddle,
riding us. Sounds like our poor
management of time, is matched by shoddy control of materials. Are we flunking home ec?!
Our sense of cumber however, and
that long strand of words from Jesus, just may save us. Deep down we know that
the body is more than clothing and life is more than stuff. Even if dimly, says
Roger Rosenblatt, we do perceive our that "avid accumulation" is
"counterfeit," and that the best stuff, our "most valuable
property is not, and never was, for sale." What is best and
most valuable is found in our homes and families and closest relationships.
What a tragedy to let coaches and teachers spend more time with our children
than we do. How sad to spend so much time working and spending that we miss
savoring sunsets, the night skies, and a simple walk in the woods with a loved
one. Can it really be true that we in America are: “poorer in family
connections and human relationships than the Afghans or the Sudanese in
money?” Such is one claim I read this
week. That we even need to ponder that possibility for a second, suggests that
our deepest yearnings, to paraphrase Rosenblatt, "may be for less not
more" for simplifying and letting go, for embracing and cherishing what is
not for sale, and never was.
Take your partner by the hand this afternoon, grab the kid you have in product development by the scruff of the neck and go out into your yard. Look at the birds of the air: they are not wearing Nikes on their feet, or slinging a Coach bag over their shoulders. Consider the lilies the deer haven't eaten yet: they won't get up at dawn tomorrow to take the 7:19 to Penn Station. Neither the birds nor the lilies will take an SAT preparation course, or burnish their resume with endless rounds of extra-curriculars. Then look your partner, your child, in the eye, and see one you love deeply, for whom this afternoon will never come again. Since you can't add a single hour to your span of life or theirs, seize the moment and go for a walk in the rain, or mix up a batch of chocolate chip cookies together, and dip them one by one in a glass of milk. Use your imagination people! This is home ec, not rocket science!