Confessions of an Overshooter

 

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,

'tis the gift to come down where you ought to be, 

and when we find ourselves in the place just right,

'twill be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gained,

to bow and to bend we shan't be ashamed;

to turn, turn will be our delight

'til by turning, turning, we come round right.

Voices United 353

One of the central messages of Jesus and the gospels is that we are to live simply, with respect for the needs of other human beings and all living creatures. The bible tells us that the Earth is a planet of abundance, with enough and more for our needs, but not our wants. I know this in my head but too often I don't live it. I'm captive to the spirit of our time, which is consumerism, the desire for the next thing, the supposedly improved, better version of whatever it is I already have. This pernicious consumerism extends to experiences, such as travel, which can be extremely costly in terms of planetary health. I figure that as a Baby Boomer in North America I may be part of the wealthiest cohort to ever live on this planet, yet what we have never seems to be enough. 

Today is Earth Overshoot Day, and as the graphic above suggests it is day calculated as when humanity moves "into the red" in terms of renewing what we have taken out of the environment. This is an initiative of the Global Footprint Network, an environmental research organization which has been calculating the date since 2006. While some scientists contest some of the methodology few deny that we have moved beyond sustainability when it comes to our used of the world's resources. If the calculations are applied to the United States the date is much earlier in the year and I imagine Canada would be very similar.

I don't want to be an "overshooter", but I can't pretend I'm not one. I do want to be a faithful disciple of Jesus. Surely this is a day to be mindful and prayerful about our patterns of consumption and to renew our commitment to experience abundance in other ways. Should we modify the Lord's Prayer to say "deliver us from Amazon delivery"?