0.27% Thankful!

For those who know us, we've tried the last several years to work towards a debt free existence. And, once the student loans are paid, we will accomplish that.

But even that has been a struggle. We've had to endure the critiques of those who feel our humble, yet paid for mobile home is "not good enough", or that the vehicles we drive (also paid for) do not "measure up". Today, in fact, my daughter got a well meaning but misguided text from a friend offering to sell her a car for a sum of money we don't currently have. The reason? She needs a "reliable" (read: prettier) vehicle. And while her current car isn't fancy, it's not the wreck that some seem to think it is.

And that really brings me to the crux of my frustration with the church. On the one hand, they're extolling the virtues of wealth building, while teaching workers to be content with wages falling against inflation and simultaneously failing to instill them with the principles that can help them find that contentment. They're not teaching families how to mend their own clothes, how to garden, how to gather and hunt, the kinds of things that working families knew how to do for thousands of years. They're encouraging the kind of runaway consumerism that's killing our culture...and then excoriating the faithful for not making enough to have everything that the culture expects them to have.

We are a culture that is 0.27% thankful. On one day a year, we consider ourselves thankful...and even that day is being eroded by consumerism as shoppers line up earlier and earlier to buy cheap goods that they don't even need! Driving the people who can least afford it dollar by dollar closer to bankruptcy.

True gratitude is not expressed when you're trying to get that latest gadget, the newer car, or the fancier house. True gratitude is expressed when you realize that you probably have enough, and should probably focus more on getting the most out of what you have.

Let's work to create a counterculture of 100% gratitude. One where, instead of focusing on building wealth, we focus on happiness, focus on community, and on our legacy. If you take care of the big things, the little things have a consistent way of falling into place.