I Do What I Can
(During Lent, we have invited members of the Peace of Christ Church Community to share their own reflections, stories, or poetry about what Lent means to them. This Reflection comes from David Stippick, Pastor of Operations.)
Cosy did a phenomenal job of introducing us to the Lenten season on Ash Wednesday a few weeks ago.
Miles summed up nicely how I feel about giving up something for Lent just for the sake of…giving something up.
And so I’m left to share that this year we’re not giving something up. Well. I’m not, I guess I can’t speak for the others who live in my home individually. However, together we decided that on Mondays we will spend no money.
This may sound…like not a big deal. I understand that.
For us this came out of examining our values around spending and accumulating things. Late last year we cancelled our Amazon Prime membership and have significantly scaled back what we buy there. We went from sometimes having multiple deliveries a day to where I can’t remember the last time we had one. Additionally, we were moved by the compelling arguments made against Target when they chose to roll back their DEI initiatives in advance compliance with political threats.
Doing these two small things made us begin to look at the full scope of how we spend out money and what it means about what we do or don’t bring into our home - do we really need to “declutter” two or three times a year?
Or can we just stop getting so much.
Or using what we already have (which means look at the shit we have before getting new shit).
I know for us there is a component of “numbing” with buying, and as we examine that, we are asking what actually makes us whole in the Lenten season. How do we take what we’re learning about ourselves in this time of self-imposed inconvenience - it’s harder to get things as quick as we want them when we are trying for some kind of ethical consumption - and move more towards love of the earth, of the economy, of those around us?
None of this is to prescribe anything to you, dear reader, or showcase anything in particular about me; please. It’s a sharing of doing what I can with what I have. I have the financial privilage to choose where I’ll shop and when. What will you do with what you have?
David Stippick is a native of Georgetown, Texas where he still lives with his family - wife, 4 kids, mother, and two pets. He loves to read and watch tv. He currently serves as Pastor of Operations at Peace of Christ Church.