Common wisdom: Courage is assertion in the face of risk.
But sometimes, courage requires us to shut up when we disagree, let others express themselves without interruption, and still others to carry the burden of my debate. To trust that truth may lie outside my own consciousness, that it will only be revealed by others is to trust in the worthiness of opponents, friends and strangers.
The courage of humility is to wait, to hope, to listen.
The fruit of Courageous Humility is Uncommon Wisdom.
Experience has taught us that the “organic” approach to gardening can be really hard if you are determined to be a purist. There certainly are benefits to limiting the amount of pesticides and artificial fertilizers by using organic methods. But, as in just about everything, the old saying,
“moderation in all things” works here too. I like the way this guy says he integrates organic methods (chickens) with non-organic (bug lights and pesticides) when necessary and he doesn’t apologize for it. I also like his philosophy of letting the chickens have some of his produce in exchange for their help in keeping the bugs down. But, at the same time, says he manages them so they don’t take too much. It’s a comfortable alliance.
The older I get, the more I’m convinced that there are many different solutions to any given problem. When we become dogmatic, we shut out new learning and alternative solutions. When we’re open, that’s what I call humility. When something isn’t working or even if it is, keep trying and learning. If you persist with faith and humility, solutions open up and things get easier. Each year, our garden has become more productive and a little easier (that is until we expand to the next phase and take on new problems or new problems arise on their own).
My garden and my chickens keep teaching me things.
Isn’t life good?
I dislike the term “survivalist”. Too much attached baggage that doesn’t fit me or the Village. I have gravitated more to the term, “prepper”, but with all the History Channel and other mass media extremist hype around that word it seems that it is also taking on the same extremist connotations. Maybe it’s time to find another word that is less tainted. Difficult. People who think even a little differently from the masses are always branded as extreme.
Nevertheless, if you strip out the extremist connotations, survivalist will have to do for now. I doubt that many people would reject the notion that survival
is a primal instinct of not only the human species, but all life. I recently saw research that suggests strong memory recall is largely associated with experiences where the most primitive portion of the brain, the amygdala, is alerted to a sense of danger and there’s an extra shot of adrenalin. That causes a large number of synapses to fire and indelibly records the event in memory.
So, efficient memory is connected to danger and survival instinct? Cut to the chase. Everyone is a survivalist at multiple levels, even the mental/intellectual level.
OK, so maybe it’s a bit of a jump, but to read my stuff, you’ll have to get used to it. While I don’t have a great memory, I do connect seemingly unrelated things to come up with unusual conclusions.
I’m currently reading Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell. It’s a book about counter-intuitive success models. Sort of a cross between the massively popular Freakonomics and traditional Horatio Alger success stories. In it are several chapters that have caused me to think about the Village, self-sufficiency and survival in a different light. One chapter deals with the Culture of Honor found in Appalachia. This honor culture is at the root of inter-family feuds (Hatfield-McCoy) and intra-family violence. After discussing the historical roots of Appalachian culture, one particular paragraph stands out.
Survival isn't necessarily about guns.
“The triumph of a culture of honor helps to explain why the pattern of criminality in the American South has always been so distinctive. Murder rates are higher than in the rest of the country. But crimes of property and “stranger” crimes – like muggings are lower. As the sociologist John Shelton Reed has written, “The homicides in which the South seems to specialize are those in which someone is being killed by someone he (or often she) knows, for reasons both killer and victim understand.”
Murder rates higher than the rest of the country?! For someone with a strong survival instinct, that might put one on notice that this is a dangerous place to live. But, finishing the rest of the paragraph,
“The statistics show that the Southerner who can avoid arguments and adultery is as safe as any other American, and probably safer.”
Interesting conclusion. In a community like the Village on Sewanee Creek that embraces good family values (anti-adultery) and seeks harmony between neighbors, people should have the disposition and capacity to “avoid arguments”. If you don’t, you should probably re-think coming to live here, as your survival rate outside Village borders might be statistically impaired.
This observation feels intuitively correct to me, as a transplant to Appalachia. Having struggled to understand and adapt to the local culture, I feel very safe here, safer than I have felt in many of the places I have lived. Part of that has to do with the fact that my indigenous neighbors are less affluent country folk who have lived off the land for generations and still have the old-time skills that are lost to most of modern society. But, on another level, it’s a place that actually makes sense from a personal security standpoint. Random violence, typical of urban environments is rare here. Be nice and people are nice right back to you.
For people who think a lot about survival, as in getting out of the big cities, storing food and ammo for if/when TSHTF, I suggest there is a much more important consideration. Cultural Survivalism, especially in an honor culture suggests you need to make yourself part of the community and avoid inappropriate behaviors that put you at risk. Stated more positively, follow Biblical advice such as the golden rule and “Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him” Matthew 5:25
All that comes back to building a strong sense of harmonious community whether within the Village or the larger indigenous community.
Socrates put it well, over 2000 years ago:
A community starts to be formed when individuals find that they aren’t self-sufficient.
Does that mean our goals at the Village are mutually exclusive? I don’t think so. Each person starts with a deep desire to become self-sufficient. We struggle to do all we can towards that end. At the point of realization (whether early or late) that self-sufficiency in isolation is extremely difficult, our desire for community is enhanced. If/when times become even more difficult, communities naturally coalesce. And that’s a good thing.
A wholesome balance between independence and inter-dependence must be built first on a foundation of strong independence. When individual strength is tempered by humility born out of adversity, the soil is prepared to grow a rich and fulfilling harvest.
The process can be long, requiring patience. We’re here for the long haul.
We have kept egg laying chickens for a few years now. When we started, I did a little research on preserving eggs. Turns out there are ways to oil your clean, unwashed, whole fresh eggs and store them in a cool spot that will make them last 6 or 8 months. That’s pretty good I guess.
But, with a little practical experience, we learned that there is really no need to go to the bother. Unless you eat a hearty 3-egg country breakfast every morning you can’t possibly eat all the fresh whole eggs even a couple of good hens produce. In effect, your long-term storage IS your chickens.
Now, if you do some baking or enjoy a variety of recipes that need eggs, that’s a whole different bag of huevos.
Many years ago, I trained IHOP Store managers. IHOP uses A LOT of eggs, but fewer fresh ones than you might think compared to bulk scrambled eggs that go into omelets, pancakes, crepes, etc, and IHOP doesn’t even bake anything. They buy frozen scrambled eggs by the 5-gallon bucket.
So, if you’re interested in long-term egg storage, it’s really pretty simple. Keep a few chickens. Whenever you get to the point where there’s no room in the fridge for anything but eggs, and maybe the neighbors are crying “uncle”, just crack ’em all into a big bowl, scramble, and freezer bag ’em in handy portion sizes.
Becky makes a to-die-for Quiche that takes only a few minutes to prepare from frozen scrambled packets. It’s her go-to recipe when we have guests and little time to prepare. That happens a lot with Village visitors.
The self-sufficient lifestyle doesn’t need to be about living out of covered wagons or the little house on the prairie. With a little experience and common sense, life is pretty sweet, simple and efficient. And that leaves more time for enjoying the other good things in life.
Hunting is alright as a sport and for large game, but for a year-round reliable source of food, the old mountain men were efficient trappers.
A few days ago, when we had lost 4 chickens in as many days to coons, I called Joe, my good friend and old-time mountain man, from down the street for a little help. He came by, identified the problem, set some traps and very soon, problem solved. Next step, re-populate our chicken coop.
Joe wanted the raccoon to train his dogs, so I called him to come get it. We ended up spending a couple of hours talking about old time skills and how he had trapped all his life. He shared many nuances I was unaware of. I suggested that you all might be interested in learning to trap and he could make some extra pocket change in the process. He said he would think about it. We might even consider a dinner of locally trapped small game, prepared mountain style. If you haven’t had the pleasure I can tell you, squirrel mulligan is mighty fine stew.
Anyway, I thought it might be a good idea to post this and see how many would be interested for, say $10 per person for a day’s session at the Village on Sewanee Creek, maybe a little extra for the meal. Let me know what you think. You can get back to me here.
I also posted this on the Nashville meetup group, Provident Living’s site. If there is enough interest, we’ll ask Joe to do it.
One of the things that I think distinguishes Sewanee Creek from people in intentional eco-village communities is that we look at things through the practical eyes of real-world street experience. As a seasoned businessman, I recognize the importance of understanding basic economics. That’s why I have waited to invest in solar PV even though I’m driven to be energy self-sufficient. The way I see it, if the investment cost is too high to justify a reasonable return on investment, it’s not a “sustainable technology” I monitor the Solar PV industry fairly closely by subscribing to industry periodicals on the web. Just this morning, I read an article complaining about reductions in government subsidies in Germany that will potentially devastate the world’s richest Solar PV market. What does that say? To me, it says “without subsidies (rob from other more efficient businesses to pay for something less economical but politically attractive), the technology is not currently sustainable”. That’s not to say Solar PV won’t ever be sustainable. It’s actually getting there through lots of incremental innovations and scaling to reach critical mass. Just not yet.
Until then, I look for other technologies or energy sources that are truly SUSTAINABLE not only from an environmental standpoint but also from an economic standpoint. That kind of thinking is especially important right now for people who care, as I do, about the environment. Why? Because without economic sustainability, environmental sustainability amounts to a bunch of hippies around a campfire singing Kumbayah as the environment implodes.
I try to monitor a lot of information, looking for clues and inspiration for sustainable ideas. Continuously testing sustainable solutions, I invested in a Lister (diesel) generator, a wood gasifier and a micro hydro-electric generator for the creek and waterfall near my house. That experience has taught me a lot that I can share with community members with similar goals. That’s one of the many reasons people are attracted to the Village. As I often say, we’re not selling just land. We’re offering the distilled expertise of a community of like-minded, hard-headed people with similar goals. It’s been hard work bringing all of that together, but for people who are serious about learning to live more independently, the value of this kind of community is beyond priceless.
But I digress. Let’s get back to energy solutions. As I said, I invested in a Lister Diesel generator and several of my vehicles run on diesel.
Diesel has some wonderful properties for self-sufficient, off-grid living.
But number four has changed big-time for a lot of market-driven reasons that I won’t go into here. The price of diesel is now a lot higher than gas and rapidly heading north. So, as markets change, so must strategies, including those for sustainable off-grid living. Lately I’ve been re-thinking my plans to use the Lister generator to make my own electricity. Diesel is no longer an economically attractive solution, at least for now.
This morning, right after I read the Solar industry newsletter, I read another newsletter from an investment consulting firm that recommends buying stock in a natural gas company. FYI, I’m no longer in the stock market. I simply believe it’s a playground for insider trading, rigged against the small guy. That’s me. So, while I won’t be using the investment advice, there is valuable information to be found in diverse sources if you are creative enough to connect the dots. Here are some excerpts that caught my eye.
A New Energy “Megatrend” Is Starting … Get in Now
Friday, February 24, 2012“We will see natural gas as a transportation fuel inside of five years.” The latest bust has brought natural gas prices down from about $4.80 per trillion cubic feet (tcf) to $2.65 per tcf in the past nine months… And …it isn’t over yet. … wouldn’t be surprised if natural gas prices hit $2 in the short term. That’s about a 25% decline from current prices.
If this forecast proves correct, that’s an even stronger argument behind the buildout of a new transportation network based on natural gas. At $2 per tcf, natural gas would be more than 65% cheaper as a transportation fuel than gasoline. Trucking companies are adapting right now. Waste Management, UPS, Coca-Cola, and Wal-Mart are buying trucks with engines that run on natural gas. Clean Energy Fuels is building natural gas fueling stations across every major highway in America. Soon, Ford and GM will be selling cars that run on the clean fuel.
The U.S. is now “the Saudi Arabia of natural gas.” That’s remaking the country’s energy industry. The glut of gas supplies has led to a historic collapse in prices. Over the past six months, natural gas is down 40%. And it’s not likely to soar soon…
Looking at the numbers, the U.S. consumed roughly 24 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of natural gas in 2010. Based on estimates provided by the Potential Gas Committee, a nonprofit organization, the U.S. has roughly 2,170 tcf of natural gas reserves. Dividing 2,170 by 24 means the U.S. is sitting on a 90-year supply.
At current prices, natural gas as a transportation fuel is now 50% cheaper than regular gasoline. This fundamental shift in prices is causing some of the largest trucking fleets in the U.S. to switch from using diesel engines to ones that run on natural gas. These companies include Wal-Mart, Ryder, Coca-Cola, and Waste Management.
Hmmm. Maybe T. Boone Pickens was right.
Off-grid preppers know that living the independent, sustainable lifestyle requires you to build in resilience. Interpreted into every day life, that means
Looks like it may be time to take a hard look at natural gas as another energy system. I’ll be working with others at the Village and sharing what we find out.
BTW: This was posted on our internal board called “Friends of Sewanee Creek”. There was some spirited discussion that followed. I’ll post that as a comment to this post. If you are interested in joining our private site, contact me here.
Once again sharing portions of a dialog from the Village’s private board, “Friends of Sewanee Creek”. Commenter, John (name changed), is a friend of the Village, but not yet a Villager.
Grant Miller shared an article on 01/31/2012 10:57:49 am.
I don’t like labels, but I guess I’m a prepper. My parents were preppers before there was such a word. Back then, they just called it frugal, hard-working, forward thinking and innovative. I’ve been a prepper all of my life, but really got intense about it 6 years ago when I started this project. Being intense always risks burnout, so this blog hit home. You can read the original here.
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Avoiding Prepper Burnout
Ever look at your efforts in preparedness and think to yourself – “Self, is this all just a waste of time?” Ever think about the hours spent reading blogs, visiting preparedness forums, and making plans and consider that all of that time could have been spent doing something more “important?” I mean – that awesome AR-15 that you finally got off of layaway could have afforded the family a nice vacation to the beach.
Is it really worth it?
If you think this way, guess what? Your human and not alone. It’s OK. It’s called “prepper burnout” and it happens to the best of us.
Prepper Burnout can arrive for several reasons:
1st – Nothing happens. That’s right – all your planning and food storage and the world around you just seems to not collapse. Of course that is good. It is absolutely fortunate however it gives non-preppers a lot of ammunition to poke fun and insinuate that your preps are a waste of time.
2nd – Money. Maybe would better stated as “Not enough money”. So many of us are struggling to not just pay bills, put food on our plates and gas in our cars – but we are also trying to stock up on preparedness supplies at the same time. When times are especially tough it is easy to redirect priorities and the corresponding funds to other things and say, “screw preparedness”.
3rd – Lack of Time. In many peoples lives so many activities and distractions take up valuable time and challenge many to find more time to spend on “prepping”. For many of us – prepping is easy to push to the bottom of the priority list and sweep under the rug.
There are many more reasons why some people just get sick (and tired) of prepping.
So what can be done about it? Take a break!! Yes – just take a break from prepping for a week or two – the world won’t come to an end (at least we hope not). Spend time with the family. Do something fun like bowling or go to a couple movies. If you have a hobby that maybe you have not had done in a while – go for it. If possible, have a family meeting and ask everyone else what they would like to do. Money does not have to be spent to relax and have a good time. Visit a park and bring a picnic lunch. Make Saturday a “vegetable day” – meaning that you will become a couch potato and watch movies all day. Invite some friends over and have a cookout. Whatever is chosen – have fun and forget about prepping for a bit.
Preparedness Goals?
Often while taking a break from prepping your mind will start to come back around and preparedness goals will begin to come into sight. It is at that time to throw in your favorite apocalyptic movie – get out a pad of paper – and write. Write some preparedness goals that you want to accomplish. Possibly you may think about getting ready for spring gardening. Start a list of gardening “things to do” to start in early spring. Get it out of your head and on paper.
If money is short do some things that are inexpensive or free. Go to your local dollar store and stock up on some really inexpensive but valuable preparedness supplies. Spend a day scouring the Internet for good info and maybe print some out to place in a “survival information binder”. Ask a friend who has a particular skill that you want to have teach you. Maybe even perform a complete inventory of your stockpile and enter everything in a spreadsheet.
We all get burnt out sometimes. Just realize that it is OK and take steps to refresh, reload, and regenerate. Often you will come back re-energized and better focused on your preparedness goals.
Take care all –
Rourke
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John – 01/31/2012 10:04:35 pm
Prepping is a bit like subscribing to same type of logic that underlies Pascal’s wager on the existence of God. From what I have read on this forum though, prepping has become an opportunity for exploration and discovery. Sounds exciting to me…not a reason for burnout.
I have seen a lot of prepper shows on TV as well as websites and I wanted to ask a question related to something you wrote above, Grant.
“that awesome AR-15 that you finally got off of layaway could have afforded the family a nice vacation to the beach. ”
A large proportion of preppers seem to be people of faith. On this site I have come across Christian references so I assume that many in the community take Jesus as their lord and savior. I also have noticed that the majority of preppers are well armed and are prepared to protect themselves and their families from any potential dangers that might confront them.
But, what is the plan if a prepper community is not confronted by a band of marauding ne’er do wells, but rather a large group of starving families? Would these Christian preppers unleash the hounds and machine guns on a refugee population of starving children to save their food stores? What would Jesus or the values of the New Testament suggest the appropriate plan of action be?
There is a concerning amount of violent undercurrent which pervades many prepper networks and communities that is of great concern to me. There is almost a perverse desire in certain cases to welcome the coming of the apocalypse, or so called cleansing.
In my opinion, what many prepper communities are doing (especially the undertakings that I read about on this blog) should be a model for the greater country as I believe that they are directly confronting the issues of sustainability which in my mind will be the most pressing issues of our lifetime. The image of preppers should be more open arms and smiles and less AK-47’s and land mines.
At the end of the day, I don’t know if I would be able to reply to a legitimate and honest cry for help with the cold response of a machine gun round.
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Grant Miller – 02/01/2012 07:31:24 am
John, as usual, you go to the heart of the matter.
First, let me clarify. I didn’t write this piece. I shared it from another blog, so I don’t own it. Having said that, I would be dishonest if I did not admit to having invested in self-defense measures.
But, underlying a genuine and realistic need to be prepared to defend oneself against evil forces, there is, as you say, a deeper need to prepare to be a part of the solution for those who are genuinely in need. The answers to this dilemma are not easy.
On one hand, no amount of preparation and industriousness (putting back food and water, growing food, becoming energy self-sufficient, etc) would be adequate if the community is over-run by people in need. Years of work and preparation to feed one’s own family could potentially be wiped out in a day, as would one’s ability to assist others in need through a desire to lovingly share.
On the other hand, there is no indication that Christ was a “prepper”. He lived day-to-day, grateful for His daily bread. Having little in the way of material goods, He and his disciples gave what they could to the poor, which was probably also very little even though it was much relative to what they had. The Bible says that Judas was the keeper of the purse and there are a few references to discussions about giving to the poor. One such comes to mind when the controversy arose about Christ being anointed with expensive ointment prior to his crucifixion. Jesus, in defense of this extravagance replied, the poor are always with you. Mark 14 It would seem from this that Christ recognized that there are inexhaustible physical needs that are beyond our ability to satisfy and that one must choose wisely how to allocate physical resources. But the allocation of physical resources was not at the core of Christ’s teachings. He repeatedly stated that His Kingdom was not of this world, not physical in nature. The abundance of what He had to offer was spiritual and far more important than the physical. It was the healing of the spirit and the body.
It is difficult to visualize all scenarios a prepper or a Christian might be faced with. I certainly want to be among those who would generously share with those in need. From discussions I have had, I am confident that all others who are invested in the Village feel the same. But I also want to protect and provide for the ones I love most. So, I suppose that, in a dooms day scenario where there is mass starvation, I would try to carefully choose between those who are non-violent and in need and those who are out to pillage. An armed mob bent on taking what I have diligently put back would be met with the best defense I could muster. But I would do my best to “give this day, of our daily bread” to the extent that I do not endanger the welfare of those in my personal stewardship.
My favorite play is Les Miserable, based on Victor Hugo’s monumental novel. The pivotal moment that sets the stage for everything else in the story is when the Priest gives all of the Church’s silver to Jean Valjean who has stolen a portion of it. Through this singular act of charity, the convict Valjean is transformed to a Christian life of giving. This example of Christian charity would seem to contradict my rationale of distinguishing beneficiaries by their intent or level of violence. But there are differences. Silver is not sustenance. It was ornamentation for the Church. It could be yielded up without threatening starvation to the priests and nuns. More importantly, the priest had spent the prior evening feeding and, one could assume, plumbing the depths of Valjean’s soul in conversation. I would imagine that the priest gave the silver for a higher cause than feeding Valjean a few more meals. He sensed the goodness there and that giving the silver would be a wise investment in the well-being of many. How many others had visited the convent prior to Valjean in similar circumstances? How many others had depleted all the silver in the Church? Apparently, Valjean was a special case.
Similarly, it is difficult to say what should be the appropriate response to all future scenarios that we face in life.
Being armed and prepared allows me to make that difficult choice in the moment and under real and specific circumstances. I am not Christ and don’t share His mission nor His ability to lay down my life as a Savior for all mankind. I may be called upon to lay down my life for some within my sphere of influence, though. If such difficult choices must be made, I just pray that I will be spiritually prepared to discern and choose as Christ would have. Like Him, I hope that my choices will transcend the physical and the consequences of those choices will yield spiritual and therefore eternal benefits.
This is why, for preppers, the most important preparation is spiritual.
Matthew 16
19 Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:
20 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:
21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.26 For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
I would love to hear more thoughts on this topic from friends and members of the Village.
Below is the full text of a long post followed by 1stVillager commentary. It’s a great article and well worth the time.
“A lie is as good as the truth if you can get somebody to believe it.” So goes the cynical maxim. Naturally, it contradicts the accepted public morality embodied in the saying: “Honesty is the best policy.” That saying is attributed to Miguel de Cervantes though it has been repeated by many others. I rather think that the ancient Roman satirist Juvenal had it right when he wrote: “Honesty is praised and starves.”
The way to understand these contradictory statements is in the context of evolutionary success. Animals bear deceptive markings and patterns to camouflage themselves from predators. And, animals have been known to act out lies to deceive their fellow animals. William Catton Jr. relates such a story in his book Bottleneck: Humanity’s Impending Impasse:
One of the chimpanzees at the Gombe Field station provided a modern demonstration of this. He had acquired an ability to open locked banana boxes. But he seemed to know it was unwise for him to do so in the presence of other more socially dominant apes who might attack him and take the bananas. To solve the problem this ape perfected the acted lie. By striding purposefully away from camp as if on his way to a good food source, he tricked other apes who would amble after him for a few hundred yards. By doubling back alone to the then deserted camp, he could open a banana box and peacefully enjoy its contents in the absence of the other chimps who, having seen there was no food in the camp other than what was confined to boxes they could not open, did not return with him.
It’s no surprise that humans have also found deception to be a useful survival skill. Certainly, it is useful in hunting animals. Even today we use the duck blind to conceal the position of the hunter. But deception as an adaptive behavior finds its true test in relations between humans in warfare, in sports, and even in commercial activities. We are more likely to deceive those whom we consider part of the out-group since they represent a possible source of resources for the in-group to which we belong and whose survivability we want to enhance. My in-group, however, is constantly shifting. Is it my family? Does it include my friends? How about my community? My nation? Those whom we consider appropriate targets for our cons depend on what group we place ourselves in at any moment.
All of this was brought to mind by the recent failure of the Harper administration in Canada to overturn a law which prohibits lying on news broadcasts. The change was sought to enable a Canadian upstart cable news channel dubbed Sun TV News to adopt the same style as the Fox News Channel in the United States. Apparently, lying is part of the format and not being able to lie would prevent Sun TV News from fulfilling its proper role in the world of Canadian media.
Does that mean Canadians are getting the truth elsewhere? Well, not lying is not always the equivalent of telling the truth. If you lie, it means by definition that you are saying something you know to be false or at least should have known to be false. But if you are simply mistaken, then people don’t call you a liar. They usually try to correct you.
So, there are two kinds of misinformation which we are subjected to every day in human affairs. The first is merely incorrect information. It may very well be the best estimate of the truth by the teller. If we detect the error, we call it an honest mistake. If we don’t detect the error, it may have the same effect as a deliberate lie would have on our actions.
For example, it is passed off as more or less incontrovertible that the human economy can grow indefinitely without either running out of resources or destroying the climate. The argument is that high prices for any scarce resource will lead to the discovery of more of that resource or to substitutes for it. All of this will happen in time to avert any catastrophic collapse of human industrial society.
Even among some who accept the reality of climate change, there is a belief that the offending emissions can be brought under control through technology alone, that alternative carbon-free energy sources can be deployed rapidly and in sufficient capacity to replace our current level of energy production from fossil fuels, and that geoengineering projects can be constructed if need be to alter the incoming amount of sunlight or absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. We will thereby save ourselves from civilization-destroying climate change while continuing to live pretty much as we do and with economic growth intact.
People who make these claims are, in my view, simply mistaken about the extent of the challenges. We cannot know for certain whether such people are wrong. But we can judge their chances of being right to be slight based on the evidence. The results of believing such information if it is false can be just as serious as believing intentional falsehoods.
This brings us to another kind of communication that is constructed of outright lies. Claims by industry-funded think tanks include that the Earth is not warming; that if it is, human activity is not responsible; and that such warming will somehow be beneficial to humans on balance. All these claims can and have been shown to be false by the actual scientific evidence. Another demonstrably false assertion is that there is no consensus among climate scientists that humans are changing the climate through their actions.
Catton explains in Bottleneck that the purpose of deception is to create a “false or misleading definition of the situation.” The ability to deceive depends on two things, the skills of the deceiver and a situation in which the deceiver’s words or actions will be interpreted as truthful. The generally rising prosperity of the last 150 years leads most people to conclude that the future will be more or less like the recent past, namely, continued economic growth with few constraints. So, claims of continuous growth fall on fertile ground.
Those who attempt to deceive the population about climate change also have experience as their ally. Catastrophic consequences tied definitively to climate change are difficult to demonstrate. And, most people have not been touched by frequently cited examples: Hurricane Katrina, the record 2010 floods in Pakistan, the shrinking Arctic icecap. Their experience tells them that at most climate change is benign.
The trends revealed by scientific research are far more troubling than the average person’s experience. While the scientific community has endeavored mightily to communicate these trends, the task has proven difficult because of the abstract nature of much of the scientific knowledge which must be communicated. This has made it fairly easy for the fossil fuel industry to muddy the waters with misleading and outright false information skillfully planted in major media outlets.
In the past deception may have been an adaptive behavior for the human species. But, as with any trait, changed circumstances can render previously adaptive behaviors maladaptive. The changed circumstance is that humans are now so numerous and so powerful through their technology that they are are able to undermine the very biosphere which supports their survival.
And, since humans coordinate their activities primarily through language, it stands to reason that if that language is now used most effectively to create a false or misleading definition of the actual situation, then the human community will not be able to act appropriately to ensure its continued survival in the face of multiple threats such as climate change, fossil fuel depletion, soil erosion, water pollution and so on. The ability to deceive then has become so counterproductive that it threatens humans with extinction.
Could this trait be somehow moderated to allow a more realistic assessment of our situation? Partly this would require a new definition of who is included in our community. If the definition remains narrow–for example, my climate-change denying friends in the fossil fuel industry–then there is little hope for change. If the definition can expand to all of humanity, then the need for deception is diminished. I no longer consider people halfway across the globe as part of an out-group who can be regarded as enemies and may be deceived without moral concern.
But overcoming deception will also require the inclusion of scientific information and observations not normally incorporated into what most humans call their experience. Of the two tasks I’ve outlined, this second one seems the more difficult.
It is discouraging to conclude that a human behavior which has been selected for by nature to enhance our survival has now turned against us. But in this way, language–which is perhaps the highest achievement of humankind–could become our undoing.
Kurt Cobb is the author of the peak-oil-themed thriller, Prelude, and a columnist for the Paris-based science news site Scitizen. His work has also been featured on Energy Bulletin, The Oil Drum, 321energy, Common Dreams, Le Monde Diplomatique, EV World, and many other sites. He maintains a blog called Resource Insights.
Original article available here
My Turn:
One level below the practical implications of this debate is a disturbing conflict for Christians.
Said Christ, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” When challenged, “who is my neighbor?”, he declared my neighbor is all humanity.
Yet, common sense and experience teach that at the survival level, “Honesty is praised and starves.” My experience building an intentional community based on a combination of the golden rule and a self-sufficiency work ethic teaches me that with few exceptions, the world functions on the level of base self-interest. People crying out for a return to Christian principles regularly engage in deception that is harmful to others simply because it works. In its most cynical form, the preachers of many organized religions are exposed as the greatest hypocrites, calling for mutual love while plundering the gullible under the cover of religious piety. So, even the advocates of “pure religion” are among the least trusted.
The call for mankind to unite under the banner of enlightened self-interest assumes a confidence in universal enlightenment that is more quixotic than Christ’s call to love all mankind equally. In the disinformation age, truth ubiquitously couched in half-truths, smothers any possibility of getting to ultimate truth. As noted, the modern religion called science is equally compromised by special interests. It has come to the point where one must do “primary research” in order to trust the conclusions. Secondary or second-hand science is no longer trusted.
“And, since humans coordinate their activities primarily through language, it stands to reason that if that language is now used most effectively to create a false or misleading definition of the actual situation, then the human community will not be able to act appropriately to ensure its continued survival in the face of multiple threats … “
One could infer from this that language is the problem. But the problem goes much deeper than language. Language is but a tool of deception, perhaps the singular tool in a devil’s tool chest that distinguishes humans from lower animals. But the author’s final sentence clarifies,
“The ability to deceive then has become so counterproductive that it threatens humans with extinction.”
This nugget approaches the truth. Language is not the root of the problem. The problem is fundamental morality. But to clarify, the root is not the ability to deceive, but deception itself, the common assumption that “Honesty starves” and survival depends on deception. That takes us back to Christ’s call to love ALL others as yourself, not just pretend to love others as yourself.
The fog of the disinformation war is penetrated by appealing directly to an ultimate source of truth. In science, primary research, done by a competent, meticulous scientist can yield truth to that scientist. Once public, having left the scientist’s hands and forced through the sieve of special interests, it becomes suspect. The same can be said of religion. Some still cling to an older notion that the ultimate source of truth is God. As with the newer religion of science, personal revelation (the spiritual equivalent of primary research) is the only sure way to knowledge of the truth.
I am hopeful that mankind will come to its collective senses, taking a higher road that leads somewhere other than death and destruction. There seem to be two potential paths leading to salvation. One is the path of universal enlightened self-interest through education, logic and scientific inquiry leading to enlightened choices. The other path embrace Jesus Christ’s call to morality, rejecting petty self-interest in favor of the Golden Rule. Ironically, the destination of both paths is enlightened self-interest where people love others as themselves. Many believe there is a fork in the high road forcing us to choose a mutually exclusive secular or spiritual option. There is no such fork. Truth is truth, whether revealed through either the rigor of scientific or spiritual inquiry. Both paths require rigor. If forced to bet on one path over the other, I bet that the spiritual path has been historically more successful in elevating human behavior than the path of universal scientific inquiry. For me, no such choice is required. In the face of man’s power to annihilate himself and evidence that he is well down that path, we must take up Don Quixote’s challenge to “dream the impossible dream”. But I can’t get my head around that dream unless equipped with more than a lance. Mankind must do the right thing not only because it is logically in his selfish interest, but also because it is right and moral. He will get there when armed with truth discovered both through scientific and spiritual inquiry. Thinking such a quest is possible while equipped with only half the tool-chest is worse than quixotic. It is foolish.
Full disclosure, I am a Christian and a Mormon with the spirit of Don Quixote.
Every year at this time we struggle through strident calls to recognize the true meaning of Christmas. There are protests of non-Christians and atheists against creches in public places and equally enraged protests of Christians defending the traditions of a Christian nation. Strident? Protests? Enraged? Is this the new, true meaning of Christmas? Have we reached a new low, below crass commercialism? To all of that I say, “Bah Humbug”.
It’s December 25, but my family isn’t celebrating with our Christmas traditions today, although we did start the day with a reading of this special Christmas story. We decided to wait another week until our son (who works at Best Buy in another State) can join us after the Christmas retail rush. How nice! A little extra time to relax and enjoy the season without the hoopla.
This little story isn’t mine. But it inspires me. I hope it will inspire you to think of Christmas differently, whether you are Christian, religious, spiritual . . . or not.
My advice: Don’t argue about what Christmas should mean. BE the meaning of Christmas. And, if you are reading this too late to plan to do something really nice this Christmas of 2011, don’t worry. You can be the meaning of Christmas today too. There is absolutely nothing stopping any of us from celebrating our very own spirit of Christmas today . . . or any day, just like our family decided to celebrate on a day other than the one everyone else is.
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It’s just a small, white envelope stuck among the branches of our Christmas tree. No name, no identification, no inscription. It has peeked through the branches of our tree for the past ten years or so.
It all began because my husband Mike hated Christmas- oh, not the true meaning of Christmas, but the commercial aspects of it- overspending, the frantic running around at the last minute to get a tie for Uncle Harry and the dusting powder for Grandma, the gifts given in desperation because you couldn’t think of anything else.
Knowing he felt this way, I decided one year to bypass the usual shirts, sweaters, ties and so forth. I reached for something special just for Mike. The inspiration came in an unusual way.Our son Kevin, who was 12 that year, was wrestling at the junior level at the school he attended; and shortly before Christmas, there was a non-league match against a team sponsored by an inner-city church. These youngsters, dressed in sneakers so ragged that shoestrings seemed to be the only thing holding them together, presented a sharp contrast to our boys in their spiffy blue and gold uniforms and sparkling new wrestling shoes. As the match began, I was alarmed to see that the other team was wrestling without head gear, a kind of light helmet designed to protect a wrestler’s ears.
It was a luxury the ragtag team obviously could not afford. Well, we ended up walloping them. We took every weight class. And as each of their boys got up from the mat, he swaggered around in his tatters with false bravado, a kind of street pride that couldn’t acknowledge defeat.Mike, seated beside me, shook his head sadly, “I wish just one of them could have won,” he said. “They have a lot of potential, but losing like this could take the heart right out of them.” Mike loved kids – all kids – and he knew them, having coached little league football, baseball and lacrosse. That’s when the idea for his present came.
That afternoon, I went to a local sporting goods store and bought an assortment of wrestling head gear and shoes and sent them anonymously to the inner-city church. On Christmas Eve, I placed the envelope on the tree, the note inside telling Mike what I had done and that this was his gift from me. His smile was the brightest thing about Christmas that year and in succeeding years. For each Christmas, I followed the tradition, one year sending a group of mentally handicapped youngsters to a hockey game, another year a check to a pair of elderly brothers whose home had burned to the ground the week before Christmas, and on and on.
The envelope became the highlight of our Christmas. It was always the last thing opened on Christmas morning and our children, ignoring their new toys, would stand with wide-eyed anticipation as their dad lifted the envelope from the tree to reveal its contents.
As the children grew, the toys gave way to more practical presents, but the envelope never lost its allure. The story doesn’t end there.
You see, we lost Mike last year due to dreaded cancer. When Christmas rolled around, I was still so wrapped in grief that I barely got the tree up. But Christmas Eve found me placing an envelope on the tree, and in the morning, it was joined by three more.Each of our children, unbeknownst to the others, had placed an envelope on the tree for their dad. The tradition has grown and someday will expand even further with our grandchildren standing to take down the envelope.
Mike’s spirit, like the Christmas spirit will always be with us.
Editor’s Note: This true story was originally published in the December 14,1982 issue of Woman’s Day magazine. It was the first place winner out of thousands of entries in the magazine’s “My Most Moving Holiday Tradition” contest in which readers were asked to share their favorite holiday tradition and the story behind it.
Well, I guess today is the official beginning of the year of hype and hysteria. One year from today, the Mayans reportedly predicted that the world will end. This History Channel doccrockumentary chronicles many of the reasons we should live in fear. To be honest, there are a lot more scenarios one could get catatonic about. Bad as these predictions are, they only scratch the surface. Not enough time in less than an hour. I found it laughable that the hosts of this program, after building to a crescendo of terror, concluded that on December 21, 2012, one would “go armed to Mom’s house” to make sure she’s OK. Another said he was thinking of stocking up on a few weeks of food. What’s THAT all about?
If the YouTube version goes away you can watch the entire show here.
What do I think? Hooey! The words “confluence of catastrophes” keep coming up in this piece. Yep, there are a lot of things happening. Who hasn’t noticed? But the greatest confluence here is between people making money out of fear, selling advertising. “Your Mercedes won’t help you”. But apparently, if you have an advanced Lincoln, things will be, oh so nice “with innovative technology built in that’s able to aid and assist you”.
I’ll double down on my bet that the world will NOT end on December 21, 2012. I won’t be doing anything special on that day. That date will come and go like Y2K, with a whimper. It’s absolutely the safest bet anyone could make. If I’m right I can brag about being right. If I’m wrong nobody will know, cause we’re all dead. 🙂
Meanwhile, the world IS gradually, but at an exponentially increasing rate, descending into poverty and chaos. Technically, what I’m about to write isn’t prophecy, since it’s already happened and is continuing. It’s been going on for some time now. There will be many more natural disasters that will happen around the world. More governments will be overthrown. Civil liberties will be lost. Corruption will grow even faster, at all levels unabated. People will watch on their TV’s and i Pads. Terrified for 15 minutes, then go to bed, waking up the next morning in the same state of denial and indifference. People kind of like to be scared. That’s why roller coasters and horror movies sell. But these things don’t require any forethought, work or sacrifice of the present luxuries, indulgently viewed as necessities. People don’t like that. So, they won’t DO anything about it other than periodically whip up their fears for a perverse thrill.
I can testify from personal experience. For years, at least 99% of the people who inquire about joining our self-sufficient lifestyle in the Village on Sewanee Creek, after confiding that they are deeply concerned for the future, are still thinking about it, but not doing. Back in 2006 when times were good, I suggested that it was time to prepare. Then the sub-prime mortgage crisis began gradually in 2007. People wanted to wait till better times came and they could get more out of their houses. Then the 2008 meltdown hit. People said they desperately wanted to be here, but were upside down on their mortgages. I suggested times probably weren’t going to get better. They didn’t. Today is no different. People have little money compared to a few years ago. But they still live in big heavily mortgaged houses, drive expensive (a bit older) cars, wear stylish clothes, eat expensive prepackaged food, pay exorbitant amounts for insurance and health care and incessantly wring their hands. They still have many assets that could be traded for a simpler, more secure future, but they won’t make any decisive changes. Frozen in the headlights. No, that light at the end of the tunnel is not natural.
The great depression was a bad thing. I believe we are in a depression now that is just as bad measured strictly by economics, but papered over by mountains of debt and extended unemployment payments. When those cease, people will feel the pain much worse than the great one. Will there be sudden jolts and disasters? Of course there will. But what we have been seeing is not a one-day event. It’s already happened and will continue to stew the masses like the clichéd frog in the pot. It’s a really BIG pot.
While the central premise of this documentary, the Mayan prophecy, is mostly hype, they did manage to get a lot of things right, the things we already knew. If you haven’t already started preparing in earnest, drastically cutting back on the frills and aggressively providing for future necessities, my bet is you won’t. You will be among those looking for a gun, pillaging your neighbors when TSHTF. Good luck with that.
What do I expect to be doing on December 21, 2012?
I won’t be surprised if my financial resources are almost completely depleted (or close to worthless, ravaged by inflation). It’s likely I will have discontinued all my insurance because it’s accounting for fully one-third of my expenses now and probably isn’t sustainable. So, I’ll be very careful to take care of my health, eating well, exercising and learning more about foraging in the woods for natural remedies. Not such a big deal. That’s the way people lived throughout all history up until just a hundred years or so ago. I’ll still be driving my old cars, some of which lack computerized chips and would survive an EMP or solar flare. But the price of gas will be pretty high, so I’ll probably be sticking close to home most of the time. It’s nice that I like where I live. It’s peaceful and naturally beautiful. I’ll be wearing my old clothes. I’ll be living in the grace of God, day-to-day raising our food. By then, my work building a self-sufficient community (marketing, blogging and sales) will be over, so I won’t depend as much on my wife to do the farming. I’ll be helping a lot more with the daily chores, feeding the chickens, chopping wood, tending the garden, making compost, taking care of the orchard. My entire focus will be on daily living. Do I fear the hoards of starving, thirsty people from the big cities? I guess there is some risk of that and it’s an unpleasant thought. But if there is anywhere that can be more easily defended than where I am and with the people who have joined us, I don’t know where it is. Will I be well armed? Is the Pope Catholic? There is some comfort in knowing that there is little here for anyone to come after. When you raise what you eat and live simply there isn’t much to plunder. It’s now late in December and we are still eating fresh tomatoes, potatoes, sweet potatoes, squash, peanuts and other produce from the greenhouse. A new crop of winter greens (Kale, Spinach, broccoli, beets, carrots, etc.) is just coming on. Kill the farmer and you kill the goose that lays tiny golden eggs. That reason for a sense of security goes double for living on the edge of Grundy County, TN where people have lived close to the bone for generations. Survivors all.
After the hysteria, there’s a hymn that I love. It speaks to the human condition whether in poverty or wealth, sickness or health, joy or anguish. It is an anthem of eternal hope. After viewing something like this History Channel documentary, it helps to sing:
Come, come, ye saints, no toil nor labor fear;
But with joy wend your way.
Though hard to you this journey may appear,
Grace shall be as your day.
‘Tis better far for us to strive
Our useless cares from us to drive;
Do this and joy, your hearts will swell –
All is well! All is Well!
Why should we mourn or think our lot is hard?
‘Tis not so; all is right;
Why should we think to earn a great reward
If we now shun the fight?
Gird up your loins;
fresh courage take.
Our God will never us forsake.
And soon we’ll have this tale to tell –
All is well! All is well!
We’ll find a place which God for us prepared,
far away in the West.
Where none shall come to hurt or make afraid;
There the Saints will be blessed
We’ll make the air with music ring
Shout praises to our God and King.
Above the rest, these words we’ll tell –
All is well! All is well!
And should we die before our journey’s through,
Happy day! All is Well!
We then are free from toil and sorrow too;
With the just we shall dwell!
But if our lives are spared again
To see the Saints their rest obtain,
Oh, how we’ll make this chorus swell –
All is well! All is well!
I’ve been exchanging emails with some nice folks who went to Italy to set up a ministry, ended up staying for an extended period, but are soon ready to return to America. Laurel asks some great questions. As I summarized what’s happening in the Village, I felt pleased with our progress and decided to share it. The names were changed for their privacy.
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Hi Laurel,
I’ll do my best to answer your questions within the text of your letter below.
From: Tom & Laurel Fitzgerald
Sent: Sunday, December 04, 2011 3:07 PM
Subject: Greetings from Italy
Hello,
We are seriously considering purchasing two lots at the Village. I believe my mother would be happier on her own lot.
I’ve spent many hours looking over modular home floor plans and trying to familiarize myself with the whole building process. We’ve never had a home built before – let alone considered trying it from overseas. I am the kind of person to research and understand before moving forward – but then I am ready to move quickly as I’ve already spent all that time organizing all the steps and making the decisions ahead of time.
I’ve given some thought to your question about job/income. Because we couldn’t think of actually living there earlier than 24 or even 30 months from now, it is a difficult question to answer. However, Tom has agreed that a really neat goal would be to create a job/income via a joint-venture with others at the Village who want to create a business. How or what this would look like, we are uncertain.
There are others here who are interested in working together to create income. That could take any of a number of different forms including a partnership/joint venture with joint ownership or separate, yet synergistic businesses, leveraging different skills. I have found from experience that with the best intent and integrity, partnerships are almost always problematic and tend to create friction. So, personally, I prefer the latter option. Some ideas and opportunities might include:
I’ve seriously been looking into the bed n’ breakfast idea and have already decided to go the short-term rental route which requires paying tourist taxes and registering a LLC. I believe we could generate a lot of interest in the location by Europeans, even if it is not a typical tourist stop in the US.
Marketing is always a big challenge, so your connections in Europe would be a BIG plus.
My one concern is that with all of my searching to read the covenants, I could only find a file speaking of it being updated with a Word file attached, but it didn’t show up on my browser. Would you be willing to send a copy of that to us? It would be very helpful during this stage in which we are exploring, dreaming, and researching.
I’m sending a copy of the covenants that were registered with the county several years ago. You need to know, however, that I intend to make some revisions to them, in the direction of fewer restrictions. I used a neighboring development’s covenants as a model early on because I was an inexperienced developer. As I learned and fine-tuned the philosophy of the Village, I decided to opt in favor of greater personal freedom for private property. That’s why I removed copies of the existing covenants from my website. The only rules for house construction that will remain are the requirements for a large covered porch and restriction against permanent trailers. I think porches are important to encourage interaction between families. We don’t want the village to be a low-end trailer park littered with junk. As written, the covenants on tree-cutting require my approval to cut trees over a certain size. Those covenants will disappear for land outside the natural preserve. I have lived in suburban developments before where the covenants were onerous and ridiculous, especially for a rural environment like ours where we want to encourage mini-farms with animals and technological innovation. The intent of the changes will be to avoid excess regulation.
I’ve also been kicking around that idea Becky has about starting a retreat. That could be a very interesting idea and if she is looking for collaborators, combined efforts might prove more profitable. Tom and I have experience in organizing church retreats and mission team retreats. We’ve also worked at a Christian retreat center and between us have experience in the areas of housekeeping, laundering, food prep/service and preparing an inventory database for the maintenance crew. If this is something she is interested in dialoguing about, I would welcome that.
We would be all over that idea, except that the nest egg we started this project with has hatched and flown off. 🙂 Not enough left to build a nice retreat with right now. Working together to service such a retreat would be fabulous, spread some of the work and a lot of fun, I think. We look forward to a better day when we have some extra cash to invest with no more debt.
Completely changing the subject, we used electric golf carts at that retreat center for dropping off dirty laundry, delivering clean laundry to the various linen rooms, moving cleaning supplies between buildings, moving food from the storage shed to the dining room, for answer maintenance calls and bring supplies, and for carting flowers from the greenhouse to the various flower beds.
I like that! We have a bling golf cart that could be used for that if we build the retreat.
And speaking of flower beds, I’m interested in understanding how the community garden works? Can anyone participate? Does one sign up? Is there a rotation? How does it all work, exactly? Does the community garden include a small orchard? What about the greenhouse? Is that your personal endeavor, or is that a community project?
Right now, the community garden is wide open. Those who live here now have all opted to spend their time and energies building their own gardens. As each lot has plenty of room, it’s just more convenient to tend a garden closer to the house. The primary purpose of the community garden has always been more for socialization and learning than for production. We have solved for socialization and learning by rotating every week between families on our private plots. Each week, usually Thursday, we all get together to work on a project designated for and by the Village owner on that weeks rotation. Last Friday was our turn. We had four (4’X10′) cold frames made of PVC and 5-year greenhouse plastic sheeting. They weren’t being used and had been left outside the big greenhouse and damaged in the wind. We repaired them and since Becky and I aren’t using them this year, lent two to George and two to Michael. I think Michael is actually going to use them as shelter for his pigmy goats. We put the two for George on the raised bed garden that we all built a few weeks ago on his property. Hopefully by next week, the seedlings that we planted a few weeks ago in our greenhouse will be mature enough to transplant to George’s cold frames. As for the greenhouse, it is our personal property, but it is larger than we can use in winter (2,000 square feet) and we are happy to share it with Villagers in exchange for help in it. It’s working out great. While the men worked on the cold frames on Friday, the women worked cleaning out the remnants of our tomato, pepper and peanut crops. So, even sharing it with others we still have a lot of empty beds that need planting right now. Everyone is really enjoying working together and sharing.
Back to the community garden. I built some raised beds in the Commons early on with improved top soil from the local worm farm. George has planted and tended some herbs there, but other than that, it hasn’t been used much. The Lewis family, who are building their house now and aren’t here yet have volunteered to take it over and raise a crop this spring. It will be good to see it being put to good use, as George will no longer need it. As demand increases in the future, there is plenty of room to add more raised beds in the community garden. But it’s interesting how things have evolved with people helping each other on their private land. I think that’s even better than the common area garden.
I hope this answers your questions. Don’t hesitate to call or write again if you have more.
Happy day of rest,
Laurel
My wife and I have always thought that our location is optimal for living through difficult times.
Our intuitive sense was recently validated by the foremost expert in the field. His name is Joel Skousen and you can read all about him, his analysis of world conditions and his consulting business on his website.
The third edition of his book, “Strategic Relocation” was released for sale this year. It includes:
* 200 new pages with detailed analysis of every state and province in the US and Canada
* All new color maps for regions, provinces, and US States, showing threats, private and public land use, population densities, roads and terrain
This book can be purchased here.
A few months ago, I received an email from Joel. He said,
“You’ll be pleased to know that the Cumberland Plateau received the highest rating for any area in the East in the new 3rd Edition of Strategic Relocation.”
In a follow-up conversation with Joel, I validated that his rationale matched mine. If you would like to know what and why, you can buy his book or you can drop me an email, call (931) 442-1444 or send me a message from my website.
Preppers might also be interested in one of my older posts on the ten best places to survive in America.
On a side note, Mr. Skousen recently pointed out that Atlanta has the largest disparity of wealth of any large city in North America. Thankfully, we are several hours drive from Atlanta, but that’s also fortunate for Atlanta residents looking for a safe haven within a reasonable driving distance.
This year the thanksgiving holiday (and feelings that go with it) have been extended more than usual as I have focused on the blessing of being married for 25 years to an angel.
But I think it is difficult to stay in a thanksgiving mindset these days, not because times are hard, but because we still have so much (although perhaps less than we had a few years ago). As blogged elsewhere, the abundant life is more a state of mind than a state of having lots of material stuff. Now comes more rigorous thought from economists on why that is the case. Do you remember those boring lectures in Econ 101 about the theory of utility? Basically, the theory says with each additional (or marginal) thing we get, its marginal utility decreases. And with decreasing utility, so goes our thankfulness for it.
Here is the article that discusses “Thanksgiving and Marginal Utility.”
So Thoreau was right. The formula for optimizing thankfulness and therefore, Joy, is to minimize excess stuff and live in a state of mild deprivation.
Hmmm, deprivation. that sounds kind of bad doesn’t it? I have found that deprivation, in itself, doesn’t necessarily produce gratitude or joy any more than our greenhouse always produces the best vegetables. There are plenty of miserable poor people to attest to that and it takes more than just solar heat in the daytime to grow good produce. But, like the greenhouse, maintaining the right environment is important where, with some additional care and tending, the fruits of thankfulness and joy can be most rewarding.
I know this advice is falling on a lot of deaf ears. “Mild deprivation” doesn’t sound very appealing even with some quasi-scientific/Economic justification. OK, so try a dare based on the more traditional Biblical justification found in Proverbs 30:7-9.
Two things have I required of thee; deny me them not before I die:
Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me:
Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the LORD? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain.
Economic theory confirmed in Scripture or the other way around? All I know is that this week, as I have focused my attention on being thankful for the simple, non-material things of value in my life, I have felt a deeper, lasting sense of peace. That feels pretty valuable right now.
Yesterday was a very special day for me.
Twenty-five years ago, I married the most wonderful girl in the world.
For 25 years, she has proved how wonderful she is by putting up with me through thick and thin, wealth and poverty, births and bereavements.
Five years ago she followed me into the wilderness to begin a totally new adventure, building a self-sustaining community. In that time, she has quietly raised the gardens, canned the fruit and veggies, ground the grain and baked the bread, fed the rabbits and chickens and scooped their poop, finished raising our kids, hosted numerous preparedness fairs and Village events, braved a cold winter while our house was built with four of us packed into our little fifth wheel trailer, helped build our house, handled the bills, served in the local food bank and church leadership, started a business making and selling women’s purses, researched hundreds of ways to become more self-sufficient, and cheerfully supported me in my crazy dreams and grouchy moods through it all.
If that’s not love I don’t know what is.
Several days ago I blogged about thanksgiving and gratitude. There is nothing and no one in this world I am more thankful for than my dear, eternal companion. She has literally saved my life, repeatedly. Day before yesterday, we sat down together to list 25 top memories commemorating our 25 years together. More than 100 recorded memories later, the pace slowed as we cuddled before the fire. The sun set through the trees. Darkness fell as we listened to the wind outside, the rain on the roof and the swelling creek. We realized that we had barely scratched the surface and agreed that this was the best way to celebrate an anniversary whether on a tight budget – or not.
As a follow-up to our exercise in reminiscing, we did some of the more traditional things too. We found a highly rated Thai restaurant in Chattanooga and relived, with our taste buds, one of our favorite memories. That was a fun one. In our second year together, she accompanied me on a business trip to Thailand when I was working on the business plan to develop 7-Eleven there. She was 7 months pregnant with our first child. I was busy all day every day, buried in spreadsheets, so she bravely set out by herself to explore Bangkok sites and traffic on a noisy, smelly tuk-tuk. Over spicy Thai dinners, we shared her adventures.
So we resolved to spend our anniversary and whatever other time it takes, expanding the list, filling in the details and sequencing it by year. When finished, it will be a gift to our children. It’s time for them to know more about our love affair and why they turned out so well.
Twenty five years has been but an eye blink compared to the eternity we plan to be together. But it’s an important milestone on the path where my love for this goddess of patience, kindness and quiet perseverance increases with each year. I am forever in her debt.
Fitting that our anniversary falls every year right after Thanksgiving, don’t you think?
The abundant life starts and ends with gratitude enabled by faith.
This day, Thanksgiving, has its foundation in traditions begun by the Pilgrims.
The occasion was a successful harvest after months of extreme hardship and deprivation. The Mayflower survivors invited the Indian king Massasoit to their celebration, and he came with ninety-some of his men. The Pilgrims provided waterfowl and turkey; the Indians added five deer. There were games and athletic contests, and even a joint militia drill. The celebration lasted three days. But they did not call the feast “Thanksgiving,” and the record does not mention prayers of thanks or any kind of worship service. Some historians question whether this “first Thanksgiving” was a religious celebration at all. But that’s because they don’t know the Pilgrims and what they really believed.
The pilgrims were children of the reformation, Christians seeking to live according to their best understanding of Christ’s teachings. They understood that God graciously declares guilty sinners righteous on the basis of Christ’s perfect obedience and his death, substituting his perfection for our imperfection, paying our debt by proxy and overcoming both spiritual and physical death for us. This gift of legally transferred righteousness is received by faith and such faith is itself the gift of a sovereign God. But they also knew that grace doesn’t end there. They, no less than the Reformers, had faced the obvious questions: “Why then should believers do good works? Doesn’t the doctrine of justification by faith, a free gift, lead to sloth and lawlessness?” Isn’t it OK to simply declare your faith, then enjoy a free ride?
The Pilgrim answer, and the answer of Scripture, involves the nature of saving faith and the work of the Spirit who grants it. To the extent that one comprehends and accepts Christ’s infinite gift of redemption, won through unfathomable pain, one cannot help but feel gratitude. Gratitude changes one’s heart. The depth of one’s gratitude determines the depth of one’s joy. The video that introduces this post shows how we can cultivate a sense of gratitude by noticing and focusing on the goodness of the gifts (blessings) we receive and how gratitude is inseparably connected with joy.
This is the very nature of joy. When we enjoy a thing, we are thankful for it. We praise the gift to the giver and so enjoy both.
When we find joy in another human being, we show our joy and gratitude with words and actions. We praise and magnify the one we love. We are thankful to love and to be loved.
Joy finds its fulfillment in thankfulness, in praise and thanksgiving. Silent joy is a contradiction. Mute appreciation isn’t really thanks. God requires our thanksgiving and our love so that our joy may be full. Shakespeare said it well, “They do not love that do not show their love.”
The spirit of thankfulness and joy are gifts that are cultivated by the Holy Spirit, who also gifts us with faith. These four gifts (faith, gratitude, love and joy) are inseparable, and they begin with faith. They work together. The fruit of true gratitude is a desire to give back in some meaningful way, not only in words of gratitude but also in deeds. The Holy Spirit gives the converted sinner a delight in serving God. And so, the circle is complete. Motivated by these gifts, one’s desire to work toward perfection, which is the love of God, increases. Long before Shakespeare, James said the same thing about the interconnected nature of faith, gratitude, love, and works, “Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.” James 2:18
There is a perennial debate over whether salvation comes of faith or works. That debate introduces a needless semantic division amongst believers in Christ that is easily resolved with an understanding of the inseparability of the gifts from the natural consequences of those gifts truly appreciated and received. The core question is not whether we are saved by faith. It is, what is the quality of our faith? . . . or is my faith sufficient for salvation?
If it is true that the natural and inevitable consequences of true faith in Christ are gratitude, joy and a desire to serve, then it should be easy to measure the strength of one’s own faith to salvation. I am careful here to say, “one’s own faith” as feelings and desires are matters of the heart, known only to oneself and God. Each of us acts on those feelings in different ways that we believe will be the best ways to serve and may not be apparent to others. Hence, the command that we withhold judgment of others.
As I celebrate this day designated for Thanksgiving, I am prompted to evaluate the quality of my gifts. “For what doth it profit a man if a gift is bestowed upon him, and he receive not the gift? Behold, he rejoices not in that which is given unto him, neither rejoices in him who is the giver of the gift.” (D&C 88:33) Here is the test of whether I have actually received the gift . . . (the gift of salvation through faith):
1. Is my heart overflowing with thankfulness for my gifts?
2. Is my gratitude evidenced by deep, abiding joy that transcends the fear, pain and difficulties of this day?
3. Am I filled with a joyful desire to show my gratitude through returning obedience and service to God by serving my fellow man?
If the answer to any of these questions is questionable, then the question remains, “have I received the gift of salvation through faith if gratitude, joy and love are obviously lacking?” If not, as Shakespeare might have said it, they have not faith who do not show their faith.
Comfort and Joy
That gift of joy and comfort was not meant to be enjoyed only after this life is over. This life is hard, often painful. But Christ promised, “…my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Matt 11:30 That is the promise of joy and comfort now.
The Pilgrims and Puritans are almost always portrayed as obsessive killjoys and miserable downers. There’s little truth in that image. Joy wasn’t an afterthought for our Pilgrim forefathers. For them, joy stood at the beginning, in the center, and at the end as a natural product of faith. For them, God was joy, even when they were hungry and that same joy expressed itself in thankfulness. For the Pilgrims, a day of rejoicing is necessarily a day of thanksgiving. And throughout Scripture that sort of rejoicing means feasting, fellowship, and worship. The Pilgrims were deeply committed Christians who had braved an ocean and a wilderness to seek and serve God. When they rejoiced together, it would not–could not–be other than a time of thanksgiving to their Lord and Savior. Yes, the Pilgrims gave thanks to God and so should all of us.
On this day of thanksgiving, my wish for all is that our burdens will be light and easy, that our joy and gratitude will be full as we contemplate the eternal blessings that are our gifts from God and that we will feel compelled to share that joy, love and gratitude with others.
It’s the buzzword of the decade. Wrapped up in that word are other buzzwords like “green” and “eco-friendly“. But these words represent passing fads. The bedrock reality underlying sustainability is a much more prosaic, boring, yet little understood word, “Economics”. It’s a terrifying word. It suggests complex supply / demand curves and the inscrutable workings of inscrutable institutions like the Federal Reserve, the IMF and the World Bank. People are increasingly frustrated and angry with the “banksters”, politicians and other manipulators of “the economy”.
Take a deep breath. It’s actually quite simple at our level. Make more than you spend. That’s it. Take charge of your life. Live frugally. Be industrious. Build and create.
That’s not to say that one need not be aware of the many external factors that weigh in on the spending side of the equation. America’s favorite holiday, Thanksgiving, is next week. 
The Washington Post informs us Thanksgiving Dinner this year will cost 13% more than last year. Yup, inflation is accelerating. It’s about to get a lot worse. Thankfully, I’ll be keeping more of what most people will be spending on a Thanksgiving feast this year. We raise our own vegetables and poultry!
We’ll be enjoying some non-traditional, but delicious green tomato pie, remnants of our summer garden after a hard freeze last week. Interesting how that word “Sustainability” is increasingly associated with another buzzword, “self-sufficiency“. Keeping more of your output is inseparably connected with controlling both your income and outgo. And that’s what self-sufficiency is all about – personal independence and control.
The good life is about more than financial economics. Peace of mind is an even bigger part. That’s why self-sufficiency, the sense that I’m in control of my destiny is so closely connected with sustainability and economics, which are all about achieving an abundant life. Abundance can be in things, but has a lot more to do with state of mind. It’s hard to have one without the other.
It’s not easy to be self-sufficient and independent. It takes forethought, planning, intelligence and work, all values that were common to the early American ethic that seem to have become lost in the generations of excess. Thankfully, those values are coming back into fashion.
One of the obvious elements to consider in the outgo part of the equation is the general cost of living. We selected rural Tennessee as the place to buy land and put down our homestead. Tennessee offers the lowest overall cost of living in the U.S. For thinking people who want an abundant life, keeping more for themselves of what they produce, it’s an obvious choice.
For thinking people, there are many ways to cut costs beyond the current coupon fad. Coupons only tie people to existing products and systems that reduce your control of your life. Coupons might be put to better use as band-aids with a little stick-em. That’s all they are anyway; short-term relief for a chronic disease. Band-aids can be useful, but not for long. In the Village on Sewanee Creek, an intelligent “Intentional Community“, people work together. Cooperative effort on gardens, homes and other projects increases productivity and reduces costs. We try to standardize on equipment and vehicles. That way, it’s easier to repair things (increased productivity) and maintain extra parts (reduced, shared costs on a few critical items). This kind of coöperation takes extra thought, extra preparation, extra commitment. That’s why most people don’t do it. That’s why most people don’t keep a lot of what they make.
At the end of the day, economics is pretty simple at our level. Keep more than you spend. Spend only on things of lasting value. Work with your neighbors. It’s all natural law. We call it … “in harmony with people and nature”. It’s our motto and it’s working to create a more sustainable, abundant life for people in the Village.
It takes me a while to process information like that. This morning I awoke with a lovely thought. Good people are a lot like a good quarter horse. They are bright, sensitive, hard-working, responsive to a light touch, but may buck under a rough hand. Because I sometimes view myself as ineffective, an unskilled horseman, I often feel that people don’t understand what I’m saying or respond as I would like. When I feel that way, the tendency is to be less sensitive myself, to tug on the reigns too hard or dig in with the spurs. Almost inevitably, that brings on a rough ride.
That thought reminded me of Christ, quietly writing in the dirt. A gentle suggestion, “let he who is without sin cast the first stone”. The accusers who were ready to stone the adulterous woman melt away. He turns to the woman and gently asks, “where are your accusers?” Then, I can imagine he said lovingly, almost in a whisper, “I don’t condemn you either. Go your way and sin no more”.
Good people are like a good quarter horse and the adulterous woman. Imperfect, sinful, like everyone else, but humble and sensitive, ready to respond to a gentle touch with power and grace. It’s a lesson I struggle with over and over. Today, I will try to remember Joe’s parable of the quarter horse and live with a lighter touch.
This was my mother’s mantra when I was little. Having survived the great depression in her childhood, she was a raving evangelist of frugality. That didn’t mean I was deprived in any way. My Halloween costumes, made from pieces of this and that, were always extravagant pieces of art. I was always the best dressed kid in my school, consistently walking away with the best costume award.
Speaking of school, when I decided to run for school president in the 6th grade, I easily trounced my opponents due entirely to my father’s artistic creativity. He built an amazing, rotating sign from old wood scraps, a rotisserie motor, photos we developed in his basement dark room and his hand drawn Peanuts cartoons. How could I lose with an endorsement from Charlie Brown? Back in the day, that sign was so far ahead of its time, it became a sensation.
Some years lager, my wedding reception had a Hawaiian theme because my bride and I had lived in Hawaii as college students. True to form, both my parents dialed up the heat. My Dad created a replica of the church where we were married standing about eight feet tall. The room was decorated with life-sized coconut trees and an outrigger canoe, all made from scavenged stuff, but looking like they came out of a Madison Avenue design studio. The brides maids and grooms men wore authentic Hawaiian formal wear, made by my mother. Hawaiian friends provided the entertainment. They were willing to do the gig for free because they felt they owed my parents so much.
I guess that’s why this YouTube Video caught my attention. Whether or not you buy into man-made global warming and the need to reduce our carbon footprint, it’s just way cooler to get the creative juices going and make great stuff out of almost nothing. In our intentional community at the Village, we look for opportunities to be creative, together when possible, and as frugal as we can be. It’s what I would call an abundant lifestyle.
Anyway, I hope this video inspires you to do more. With some creativity, even a depression can be fun.
Good Samaritan
If there is one principle that the greatest sages, prophets, philosophers and religions throughout the ages agree on, it is the golden rule.
“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” It is the foundation of moral behavior.
Cultures that foster the golden rule have a higher degree of trust, resulting in greater coöperation, productivity and wealth.
The Village on Sewanee Creek has three foundational principles:
Focus on these three principles creates an environment where harmony, trust and productivity can flourish. But people are imperfect regardless of good intentions. So the message of this TED talk is encouraging. Above good intentions, there are physical explanations for different people’s ability to empathize and practice the golden rule.
Turns out that bio-chemistry plays a major role and there are things we can do to improve our own natural tendencies to live moral, harmonious lives. I particularly like the concluding prescription. Hope you enjoy this talk as much as I did.
the Village on Sewanee Creek 