Living in the Material World, 8-7-2010

 I worried for years over material things. We Americans do love measuring ourselves against the toys we acquire in comparison to others. How long ago was the phrase, "The one with the most toys wins"?

I had a trunk filled with letter s and documents and photographs that were from and about my family. I used to say it had my life in it. There were letters from my grandfather Downes to my grandmother written from Europe during World War I. Letters from my great-aunt to me. Photos of dead family members. My school records kept by mother. It was stolen during my move in 2009. I felt its loss physically.

The passage from St. Augustine's Confessions reminded me of this:

If physical objects give you pleasure, praise God for them and return love to their Maker lest, in the things that please you, you displease him.

(IV, xii (18))

At one time, I concluded my concern for worldly things condemned me as a good Christian. With that condemnation came further condemnation. In time, my self-condemnation combined with my depression to become a totality of self=loathing that in turn motivated me to self-destruction. 

Does not every religion and about every philosophical school preach and argue some variant on the idea put forward by St. Augustine? A part of me says that every religion and philosophy needs materialism, Mammon, for its existence.

Why then do some American Christians preach a doctrine of finding good in material success? I could point that some variant on this idea goes back to Calvin, but that history can be found easily enough. I understand the difference between the ideas of the good person doing well and material success as being deserved by the Christian, but I suggest modern proponents obscure the difference. 

I want to ask a different question: what would happen to the world if we stopped buying the newest and biggest, if we turned to a more frugal life without concern for the GDP or the Dow Jones stock index?

Looking back on a life misspent, I see how little time we have for doing good in this lifetime. Spending time attaining the BMW or the latest Dior fashion or the over-sized house distracts from the time allotted us. I smoked crack to forget what I had and in hopes of killing myself. I thought the thrill of breaking taboos was the same as living. Work gave me the hope of helping people, but that was an illusion. Looking back, I see books unread and people to whom I ought to have given more attention. I can hope my prison sentence can expiate my wrongs to those people.

Meanwhile, I still have pangs over my books. Some seeming to have disappeared after my arrest roil my heart. Their value probably comes close to nil, except only so far as they were gifts to me from the dead. I remind myself I should have been dead, and what good are books for the dead? That keeps me my heart quiet for a while. I mention this to show how many ways and reasons exist for tying material goods to ourselves.

sch