Mission trips.

They seem to become more and more popular every year, although no one really knows how many Americans take part on an annual basis. The more popular they become, the more churches and other religious institutions such as private universities organize and send teams abroad, making any kind of calculation of participants more and more difficult.

My day job is in missions mobilization, as I’ve made note of in the past. I do marketing and graphic design for a very small organization called Mission Data International (M-DAT). We’re known for the mission trip search engine ShortTermMissions.com, thus short-term mission trips are in my mind on a regular basis. I read articles about them from time to time and look at statistics from our website weekly. I’m by no means an expert on the subject, but I’m certainly more immersed in the “field” than most.

M-DAT has a policy (I’m not sure if it’s written or implied) suggesting employees serve on a short-term trip every three years. My wife and I have yet to do this, basically on account of our complicated support situation. We talk about it though, and occasionally we come across opportunities that interest us.

A few things from this Spring have me thinking still more about mission trips, and I thought I’d take some time to sort through my thoughts in a brief post.

What is a mission trip?
The phrase “mission trips” bothers me. It is applied much too broadly in modern Christendom, doing a disservice to all of us in the faith. More basically, the word missions is used in the same way, being thrown around in a manner such that it more or less loses any specific meaning. It’s very popular to say that “Everyone’s a missionary.” I used to, in my infancy so-to-speak, be of this mind. (more…)

James Kunslter, author and critic of suburbia and proponent of New Urbanism, said something very interesting and important in a podcast referred to me by a friend:

“Please, please stop referring to yourselves as consumers, OK. Consumers are different than citizens. Consumers do not have obligations, responsibilities and duties to their fellow human beings.”

He goes on to suggest that by referring to ourselves — I might add that even by subconsciously thinking of ourselves — as consumers we are “degrading the conversation.” More than degrading any conversation about the future of America, we’re degrading ourselves. Are we to be defined by how big businesses and billion dollar corporations look at us? Should we continue to pay so much, if any, attention to things like the Consumer Confidence Index? How important is it, really, to a successful and happy life that the economy be always heading up, up, up?

We’re naive to think that the American economy is foolproof. This is especially true in light of the insane amount of federal and individual debt that owns us. Credit card and mortgage companies in their greed possessed no more foresight, it seems, than the automobile makers of 80 years ago, unless their intent involved the possible ruination of the most prosperous economy on the planet.

Kunstler’s premise in the 20 minute lecture is that the future of America, sans big oil, will be forced to look more like the America of yesteryear: We’ll have to live closer to each other, to our work, to our food supplies.

I’m probably not as militant in my thinking as he is, but his suggestion needs to be considered very carefully by all of us. It may not be that far from the truth depending on how willing we are to press for change today.

It’s completely beyond me as to how people think acts of violence such as this will actually change the way the victims think and act.

Note the specific order in the sentence above: “Think” and then “act.” People’s actions, in this case building very large, energy hoarding houses, aren’t likely to change until their worldview or personal values change. It seems to me that all such ecoterrorism will only serve to anger people; I really don’t see how it will serve to further any cause.

And have these so called ecologically guided arsonists taken into considering the likely massive amount of toxins and greenhouse gasses (their supposed prime nemesis) that burning such a large structure puts into the air? Would it not be so much more witty and productive for them to break into the house and install gray water systems and solar power? The building materials are already in place. Burning them is useless; disassembling and reusing is even a better idea. These people need a creative think-tank in their ranks.

The book Shopping for God: How Christianity went from in your heart to in your face is looked at by the blog Church Marketing Sucks.

A Protest in Italy. According to ABC news last night, each of the colorful balls which rolled down the Spanish Steps in Rome represented the lie of a politician. They quoted someone as saying “Even protests are beautiful in Italy!”

A Facebook friend alerted me to this docu-comedy titled What Would Jesus Buy? It looks hilarious based on the trailer. It’s showing in a select few theaters right now, and I’d encourage you to see it if it’s nearby as an antidote to America’s stereotypical consumerism which rears it’s borrowing head every December.

A list of partners is here under the heading “Save Christmas.” You can also save your city.

Friday is “Buy nothing day.” I’m an anti-affluenza, anti-materialism anti-consumerism type of person, so you’d think something like this would appeal to me. And it does. But as I was about to post a link to their website on my Facebook profile I had second thoughts.

I began to wonder if something like this really changes how people live. I believe the intentions of the organization intend to change American’s mentality and therein actions. Buy Nothing Day is a way to raise awareness of the stranglehold materialism has on people in the U.S. We’re all about stuff in this country, as illustrated by Dunder-Mifflin regional manager Michael Scott’s spending habits in episode 407.

My concern is that people will take part in this day without realizing the intentions of the organizers. They won’t think it through to its end, realizing that life isn’t about stuff. My concern is that this project won’t stick with people and change how they live.

I hope I’m wrong. 

An interesting NPR spot addressing the “new” home ownership in America:

“How homeownership is viewed has changed from the asset it used to be. Consumers are using their homes for home-equity loans, which makes them a source of income rather than the debt they are. Shira Boss, author of Green with Envy: A Whole New Way to Look at Financial (Un)Happiness talks about how the mortgage meltdown reflects changing attitudes toward home ownership with Steve Inskeep.”

Listen via this link.

Earlier this morning my office-mate shared a story with the rest of us. He told us of a friend, of modest means, who asked his very well-off friend a question. Modest means asked how a person could justify spending two million dollars for a home, as very well-off had done. Very well-off replied that the millions he spent on his house were less than 1% of his annual income, and how could modest means justify spending 20-30% of his entire income on housing?

(For a bit of context, we were discussing the merits of purchasing a Wii. All of us in the office are of very modest means. We also all work in the internet industry, and thus are — from time to time — intrigued by video game technology. I gamed on a Wii for the first time just two weeks ago, and must say it’s quite fun.)

The above example, of course, is not really an apples to apples comparison. The idea of two million dollars to me is, well, unfathomable. I won’t even pretend to understand the budget of a person whose two million is a measly 1% of his annual income. Those of us around the M-DAT office would be living in cardboard boxes if we only spent 1% on housing, as would most Americans. Bear in mind I’m coming from a very run-of-the-mill perspective here, living in a small community where housing prices are generally considered “affordable.” I’m not in certain real estate markets, where a cool two mil might get you a two bedroom flat.

It’s very, very difficult for me to comprehend how I might spend even one million bucks on a house. Of course, unlike many American dreamers, I have a staunch aversion to McMansions — to all things oversized, overstuffed or generally inconsiderate of practical spatial considerations. I don’t need three-gazillion square feet; nay, I don’t even want three-gazillion square feet. I don’t say this to knock people who want to recreate the open prairie in their master bedroom closets; it’s just my personal preference. I’ve said before that there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with a large house (speaking outside of cultural, social and sustainable concerns).

In many things I’m not a very detail-oriented person, much to the chagrin of most employment classifieds. However, when it comes to architecture (and most things visual), I’m extraordinarily particular when I can be. Thus, if I built my own multi-million-dollar home, for me to give attention to an exponential myriad of details — resulting in a significant cost increase — is feasible. Construction methods, materials, moldings, sustainability and so on. The price could skyrocket . . .

. . . but not, in my imagination, ever crest the two million dollar mark.

While traveling in late May we visited people who support my wife and I in our service with the non-profit we work for. Somehow, over dinner, Alice Walton’s Crystal Bridges came up. This led to a brief discussion about Walton’s failed attempt to purchase The Gross Clinic late last year. Our friend across the table listened in cynical disbelief at the 60 million dollar figure the painting eventually sold for, lamenting how people like my wife and I struggle to live in a missional and support-based lifestyle when numbers like these are somewhat regularly thrown around for paintings. And this is a serious consideration. What if Philadelphia, instead of raising $20,000,000 in pledged money (in order to secure the $60,000,000 plus loan) for a painting raised the same money in two month’s time to feed, house, clothe and provide jobs for the roughly 25,000 homeless people in the city? If a metropolitan area can mobilize so quickly for a painting, why not for people?

And I say this as an artist.

I wish someone would buy my paintings for sixty million, or six million or even six hundred dollars, even knowing such financial tension exists in a lot of people’s personal budgets. I’ve come to a point where I desire to not pass judgment on how people spend their money (with certain exceptions such as inadvisable and basically foolish amounts of consumer debt, i.e. not living within your means), knowing the difficulty of such decisions. I say “desire to not” because it’s very difficult to not pass such judgment (as a human being) living on support.

Getting back to the Wii, my boss was having a hard time justifying the $249 he needed to shell out for the system when the people depicted on posters around our office live on that amount of money in an entire year. My office-mate (who’s spent years living overseas) noted that even people who live on so little spend 1% of their income on entertainment.

I found the above W.H. Auden quote on my brother’s Facebook profile. The author’s comment resonates strongly with my own personal sentiment. My wife and I watch — at least in my estimation — a lot of movies. Some of these probably don’t fit under Auden’s definition of “mass media” (that is, they’re pretty obscure indie or foreign flicks) although without more context I can’t be certain. We also watch a lot of Hollywood fluff, perhaps to temper the weirdness of things like Donnie Darko (a pretty good film, by the way).

I have a difficult time recalling the fluffy films, so when Auden refers to these as “entertainment which is intended to be consumed like food, forgotten, and replaced by a new dish” it makes perfect sense to me. I rent the video, amuse myself for a couple of hours, and take it back to the store (or drop it in the mailbox). By the next week I am hard-pressed to recall the title of the movies we watched the week before. I’m much more interested in what Netflix are sitting on the ledge today.

Films outside of mass-consumption I am much more likely to remember. Right now, my own Facebook profile lists Brick, Scoop, Thank You for Smoking, Little Miss Sunshine and Stranger than Fiction as my [current] favorites, just to give you an idea of the films I remember. Not all of these are as obscure as some, and there are a number of mainstream titles I dig as well. [Adding: One of the most memorable pieces of film for me was an installation by Ray and Charles Eames. Projected onto the floor of a dark room you watched soapy water, as if coming off of a car as somone washed it, rolling across asphalt.]

I suppose people would suggest that film and television have highs and lows just like any other artistic medium. It can certainly be argued that purchasing a Thomas Kinkade print is hardly different than renting the latest blockbuster. One difference is, however, that the Kinkade print — even though it’s a mass-produced marketing marvel more than it is a painting — at least sticks around in a palpable sense for more than two hours. It may even stick around for two years, before you get tired of it and shove it into the garage.

And then into mini-storage.

ZIA has published an article by Jocelyn Green talking about affluenza — a very seldom considered topic in our (artificially?) prosperous America. Much of the piece rehashes things I’d thought about and researched in the last few years, but there were some new tidbits:

• Cosmetics companies tell us we’re “worth it,” and Target’s latest TV commercial is set to the repetitive jingle, “A little bit more, a little bit more.” My personal favorite in the category of blatant appeal to vanity is the magazine ad for “The New Diamond Right Hand Ring” which reads: “Your left hand says ‘we.’ Your right hand says ‘me.’”

• The average North American consumes five times more than a Mexican, ten times more than a Chinese person and 30 times more than a person from India. As De Graaf says, it’s as if we are suffering from some kind of Willpower Deficiency Syndrome, a breakdown in affluenza immunity. When you’re never satisfied with your stuff but keep shopping anyway, you’ve probably reached the addiction stage. Shopping on this level is almost always to a futile attempt to fill some sort of void.In 1991, Domino’s Pizza founder Thomas Monaghan figured that out and sold off three of his homes, 30 antique automobiles and his Detroit Tigers baseball team. He was quoted as saying, “None of the things I’ve bought, and I mean none of them, have ever really made me happy.”Monaghan got it right. Although people today are, on average, four-and-a-half times richer than our great-grandparents were at the turn of the century, Americans report feeling “significantly less well off” than in 1958. And research from the 1999-2001 World Values Survey suggests that the more consumer goods you have, the more you think you need to make you happy. Happiness through consumption is always out of reach.

Read the article in its entirety via this link.