Enoughness

The title of this blogpost is taken from John Naish's book Enough. His argument is that not only do we have everything we could possibly need, but also that by always chasing after more, we are wrecking the planet for everyone else (not to mention future generations), AND not being any happier and fulfilled ourselves. He warns that if we don’t appreciate this fact, the cycle of manufacturing and consuming ever ‘more’ of everything  “will continue until the planet is only fit for cockroaches.” 

One of the worst things that the affluent West is doing is producing dangerous greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming and climate change. And the irony is, although we (the developed world) are the major “sinners” in this respect, it is in the developing world that the worst impacts are felt – through drought, flooding, and other natural disasters such as tsunamis.

So what can we, as concerned individuals, do? It isn’t enough just to put the papers and bottles into a recycling box once a week, or to buy organic vegetables. To really make a difference, enough of us need to make fundamental changes to our lifestyles.

I think the time is drawing near when we can no longer put our heads in the sand. Not if we want to live with ourselves. Not if we want a healthy planet for our children and grandchildren to live on. Not if we truly believe that exploitation and slavery are wrong. Perhaps it is time for us to take responsibility for the choices we make, and to buy only fair-traded food, and ethically produced clothing.  If enough of us “voted with our feet” by no longer buying goods that are the results of exploitation, maybe things would change. Maybe.

All these things are fine and practical. But I agree with John Naish when he says that the changes we need to make are more fundamental. We really do need to adopt his doctrine of enoughism and realise that we already have everything we need. We need to educate ourselves out of the consumerist treadmill that our primitive brains have hot-wired us into, and realise that we actually don’t need to buy the latest gadget, the newest fashion item, the fastest car, in order to be contented and fulfilled in our lives. We need to wean ourselves off the dependency on material goods to provide happiness, because he’s right – they don’t. We need to  examine our lives with enoughism in mind, and ask ourselves some important questions, like:

·         What optimum level of information do I need to thrive?

·         How many technological gadgets do I actually need, as opposed to desire?

·         Do I really savour the food I eat? Or do I gollop it down quickly without tasting it?

·         Do I truly need this new outfit / mobile phone / slow cooker, rather than just want it?

·         Has my desire for this thing been implanted by marketing techniques?

·         Is there anything I already own that I could substitute for it?

·         If I’m replacing something I’ve already got, what’s really wrong with the old one?

·         Have I got my work/life balance right?

·         Do I spend my leisure time doing the things I love?

·         What do I truly value?

Reading Naish’s book has really made me realise how badly we are messing up the planet, with our insatiable demands for more of everything. To pay for our Western affluence, 80% of the world’s population lives in sub-standard housing, and 50% suffer from malnutrition. Our selfish ways mean that global warming is spiralling out of control, with fateful consequences for our world. It is time to say STOP, re-evaluate our lives and try to un-do some of the harm we have done.

Sacred Living

Christians have sacraments, which Augustine defined as "the visible form of an invisible grace." Protestants have two: baptism and the Lord's Supper or communion; Roman Catholics have an additional five: confirmation, confession (or penance), marriage, ordination and extreme unction or last rites (although I understand that this last can now be done if the person is ill rather than dying). My Baptist lecturer at Regent's Park College, Myra Blyth, stated that "they point to and reveal the creating, redeeming grace of God through their association with the life, death and resurrection of Jesus ... They are an extension of Christ's ministry in and to the world."

But as I have stated elsewhere on this blog, I would rather believe with the Christian writer John Macquarrie that we live in a sacramental universe. Rather than the Divine presence being limited to either two or seven sacraments, Macquarrie believes that God has so arranged things that the material world can “become a door or channel of communication through which he comes to us and we may go to him." For this reason, “man’s spiritual wellbeing demands that he should recognise and cherish the visible things of the world as things that are made by God and that provide access to God.” 

In other words, God / the Spirit / the Divine other is present everywhere, all the time. The trick of sacred living is recognising this.

Sacred living is about weaving moments of attention into your everyday life, and recognising the sacred there. It is about living with a new level of awareness. It is about going through our day paying attention to what is happening in each passing moment. It is about noticing the presence of the divine, the numinous, everywhere, in the natural world, in other people, in ourselves, and in things that happen to us. Sacred living is about rediscovering our sense of wonder, and living our lives in response to that.

A prayer quoted by Rachel Naomi Remen, in her wonderful book My Grandfather’s Blessings, reads:

“Days pass, and the years vanish and we walk sightless among miracles.

Lord, fill our eyes with seeing, and our minds with knowing.

Let there be moments when your Presence, like lightning, illumines the darkness in which we walk.

Help us to see, wherever we gaze, that the bush burns, unconsumed.

And we, clay touched by God, will reach out for holiness, and exclaim in wonder: ‘How filled with awe is this place, and we did not know it.’” 

Christian or Post-Christian?

As a movement, Unitarianism has evolved over the last fifty years, from being a broadly Christian denomination (albeit one whose followers believed in the teachings rather than in the divinity of Jesus) to a more broadly-based post-Christian position (although there are still many Unitarian Christians, and indeed Free Christians, within our ranks). It is up to each individual Unitarian to forge their own distinctive faith, as we believe that “everyone has the right to seek truth and meaning for themselves; that the fundamental tools for doing this are your own life-experience, your reflection upon it, your intuitive understanding and the promptings of your own conscience."

Another typically post-modern aspect of Unitarianism is that we do not claim to know all the answers about religion and spirituality; rather, we offer a safe and sacred space in which all are free to explore their different paths of faith, according to their individual reasons and consciences, knowing that they will be held and accepted, just the way they are. The purpose of our Unitarian congregations is “to meet the spiritual needs of the individual in the context of a loving community; to share joy and to offer comfort in times of trial; to enjoy warmth of fellowship; to make itself welcoming, inclusive and a blessing to the wider world.” This again is a very post-modern perspective, with its emphasis on the importance of the individual community as a place where meaning may be explored.

However, this emphasis on loving community can also move Unitarians away from the individual search for truth and meaning, as we choose to work together for the greater good of the environment or our fellow human beings. But I believe that this identification of the sacred task with the duty of care for fellow human beings and the whole planet is a strength rather than a weakness, as our social witness is an important part of who we are. We believe that there is time and space for both aspects in our religious and spiritual lives.

This is the reason why our other-than-Sunday-worship groups are so important. Most Unitarian congregations do not just meet for Sunday worship. As well as this central religious activity (the significance of which I am not denying) small groups of people meet during the week, often in the evenings, for a variety of purposes. Book groups and discussion groups are common, as are knitting / craft groups, meditation groups and the more spiritually-based engagement groups or BYOT (Build Your Own Theology) groups. All give individual members the opportunity to explore their own spirituality or faith at another time apart from the Sunday service. Membership of such groups gives the individual the opportunity to do some deep spiritual sharing and exploration in a safe space, and also to “belong” at a deeper and more intimate level than is possible by just attending Sunday worship.

Many Unitarian congregations are also involved with social justice work and/or inter-faith work. For example, some congregations collect food and other items for local food banks or women's refuges. Others have close relationships with progressive Muslim organisations or with their nearest branch of the Council of Christians and Liberal Jews, which is thus both ecumenical and inter-faith. Some have good relationships with other churches in their area, although sadly, this is not always the case, as some mainstream Christian congregations still seem to shun us.

Unitarian congregations with church halls often play host to groups from the holistic milieu, for example yoga or tai-chi classes, and members of the congregation will sometimes join them. Unlike most other denominations, there is no bar to attending the services of another denomination or faith, so some Unitarians are also involved with Pagans or Buddhists or Quakers, to name three fairly common affiliations. So for us the spiritual revolution has been more of a gentle evolution – we were heading in that direction anyway, so no revolution was required.