Money Talk – Universalist Unitarian Church of Santa Paula – March 1, 2009
What would you think if people around you started saying, “When we get through this global warming mess everything will be better again”. To me that is very similar thinking to, “When we get through this recession everything will be better again”. What if these are the good ol’ days? When we get through the recession what date in history do you want to have replicated? 1963? 1993? 2003? That will not be possible. We move in faith toward unseen goals and toward uncertain futures and startling new possibilities.
We all live in an interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part. That includes a financial web. It’s a web not a safety net. We would fall into a safety net. We crawl about a web and explore new ways of being. Reality keeps changing, even our financial reality.
I recently became a member of the Ag Futures Alliance. We meet once a month at Faulkner Farm and talk about how to bring sustainability to agriculture in Ventura County. The group is made up of farmers, farmworker housing advocates, environmentalists, civic planners, foodies and activists. I’m thinking a lot about sustainability lately as it applies not only to agriculture but to food, church, downtown businesses and my own personal life.
Our church here in Santa Paula has maintained its existence for more than 100 years. We all want it to sustain that existence into the future. To do that we must constantly change with the times. We react, respond and also initiate. We do that as an institution but mostly as a group of individuals. How we live our lives as individuals helps us maintain and sustain our existence as a church. When we become better at living our personal lives we create a better community. When the community improves our individual lives benefit. Nice web. Pull on one side and the other size gets jiggled. Cut one piece and the whole web sags a bit.
I can’t predict the future for myself, my business, the church or for agriculture in Ventura County. I do predict that most things will cost more and we will have less of them. That does not mean that we will be poor and hungry. Challenging economic times require new ways of thinking and acting. That means new ways of earning and spending along with new ways of eating and drinking. To create a better future than the one we have been heading for over the last couple of generations we could consider the issue of sustainability.
One element of sustainability is to eat as much of our food as possible that is grown within 100 miles of where we live. We vote with our forks about what kind of a food system we want to have. Avocados from Chile or tomatoes from Fillmore. Consider the implications of each food purchase. Follow that line of reasoning and consider the implications of each and every purchase. Vote with your dollars for the world you want.
I’m doing several thing on a personal level to change my relationship with food and money. I like food and money. I estimate I have saved over $1,500 in the last 6 months by one single action. I stopped going to Costco once a month. My purchases at Costco were not building a better Ventura County. Santa Paula was not becoming more sustainable when I shopped at Costco. I still go there but it is now a very mindful activity. I go with a list and avoid impulsive shopping. Not only has my financial debt been lessened but my karmic debt has also lessened. I am not as responsible for the collapse of agriculture in Ventura County.
My life has also improved by refocusing my purchases toward sustainability and the shop locally movement. I wasted a lot of money thinking I was getting a deal. I bought a sack of avocados from Chile last year. They never ripened. I had to throw them all away. They were not only cheap they were worthless and damaged the local agriculture community to boot. Bad karma. Bad deal. I bought a case of little packets that you rip open to get to a piece of tissue impregnated with eyeglass cleaner. It was about a 5 year supply. I opened one last month and it was all dried out. I had to throw away the rest of the case and feel like a fool for buying them in the first place. More bad karma, bad ecology, and bad economics.
As I move toward giving more support to the concept of sustainability my life improves. To make my business more sustainable I try to be more frugal. That’s something I did not think I was naturally suited to. It is an interesting challenge. I find it difficult to reach out to the people in Santa Paula who think they have to drive to Ventura and spend more for picture frames of lesser quality than what I offer here in town. I really appreciate all the people who buy the art I create and who do not purchase their art from phony auctions on cruise ships or while vacationing at tourist traps.
At home I am looking for quality above price in my food. I”m not ripping out the back yard and planting a garden since I have learned that that is a very unrealistic dream for me. My new, mature thinking is that if I can not bake a single loaf of bread then I most likely will not be able to grow my own food in my back yard on raised beds with compost. If I can’t make refrigerator pickles with cucumbers from the local market and a gallon of vinegar then I’m unlikely to be able to can enough food to get me through until the harvest time. Simple means simple. Start simple and keep it simple. Overreach and fail. As one friend told me, “Best is the enemy of the good.” Keep holding out for the best and you will never have the good.
Good is good. Forget the best.
