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Consuming Religion: Faith, Desire, and the Economy
Ecumenical Christian Chapel Service
April 24, 2008
Caring for Our Pants: Thoreau on Living In, But Not Of, the World
Matthew 16:24-26
In the opening chapter of Walden, Henry David Thoreau recounts an
encounter he had with a local tailor, perhaps regarding a pair of pants.
“When I ask for a garment of a particular form,” Thoreau writes, “my tailoress
tells me gravely, ‘They do not make them so now,” not emphasizing the ‘They’ at
all, as if she quoted an authority as impersonal as the Fates, and I find it
difficult to get made what I want, simply because she cannot believe that I
mean what I say.”
Surrounding Thoreau in the 1840s, even in an unassuming tailor shop, was
evidence of the rise of the Industrial Revolution. The market economy was
expanding. Farmers’ livelihoods increasingly depended on their ability to
produce more and more crops beyond the local marketplace. Railroad tracks
had been built that nearly brushed Thoreau’s beloved Walden Pond, and the
schedule of the railroad cars was newly synchronized with time zones for the
sake of commerce. Men were becoming tethered to mean, monotonous jobs to
turn incomes. Thoreau understood that the market has the insidious
capacity to consume the soul, and to counter that juggernaut, he sought to
harness the market so he could consume the richness of life.
It’s popularly believed that Thoreau built a cabin in the woods to escape
the world. Yet, to believe so is mistaken. Thoreau’s project of
living on Walden Pond near his native Concord, Massachusetts was motivated by
precisely the opposite reason: his was an experiment in living in, but
not of, the world.
It’s no coincidence that the first chapter of Walden is titled
“Economy.” “I have always endeavored to acquire strict business habits;
they are indispensable to every man,” Thoreau writes. He fashioned his
house with boards and shingles from a dismantled shanty, some plywood, two used
windows with glass in tact, old bricks, two containers of lime, hair, some
iron, nails, hinges and screws, a latch, and some timber, rocks, and sand from
the woods. I can tick off all the materials because Thoreau meticulously
listed them—with the price he paid for each. In total, he spent $28.12½
on his house. To defray some of his expenses, he cultivated
two-and-a-half acres to plant beans, corn, peas, potatoes, and turnips.
From selling the surplus, he netted $8.71½ by the end of the growing
season. Other food he bought amounted to $8.74. He also purchased
$8.40¾ worth of clothing and spent $2.00 on lamp oil and household
utensils. After including the start-up capital he invested in his
enterprise, Thoreau was budget neutral by the conclusion of his first year at
Walden Pond. In return, he could afford, he writes, “the leisure and
independence and health thus secured, [and] a comfortable house for me as long
as I choose to occupy it.”
Thoreau was successful in his experiment. He exemplified the difficult
task of living in, but not of, the world: he sold just enough produce in
the market to support his necessities, not his desires. Our desires are
themselves not blameworthy. I can certainly imagine Thoreau in a bookshop
wanting a certain book that’s out of his budget. Undoubtedly, we’ve all
been in that position. But the danger of the market—indeed, of the
world—is the way it seduces our desire for more, that unwavering tendency baked
into human nature since Adam and Eve. The market has the ability to lure
us into thinking that because it can offer us more goods, we need more than
what we already own. And as our focus shifts from attending to our needs
to gazing toward what could be ours, we gradually become disciples of the
world, growing obsessed with making more and more money in a futile attempt to
fulfill those desires, regardless of how it taxes our soul.
Today, situated in the early years of twenty-first century America, we
nearly always forgo purchasing cloth and sewing pieces of it together when we
desire a new pair of pants. Instead, we can first choose among numerous
stores that sell them. Each of these stores contains dozens of pairs of
pants, likely assembled in faraway places. We might find a pair whose
fabric and style—and price—are appealing. Then, we might head to a
dressing room to try on different sizes until we choose the pair that fits
best, though because they weren’t made directly from the dimensions of our own
figure, they fit imperfectly. Finally, we can purchase these pants
without any exchange of physical money, only the swipe of a credit or debit
card linked to an electronic stock of currency.
When our pants become dirtied from a few days’ wear, what do we do with
them? Instead of filling a bucket with water, adding some soap, and using
a thick brush to scrub those pants clean, we take less than a minute to throw
them in a washing machine with some detergent and let the washer churn them
clean. Then, we might take a few seconds to throw them in a dryer.
And what do we do when a hole rips open on our pants? In Thoreau’s
day, we would likely reach for needle and thread and do the mending
ourselves. A hundred years after his time, we might take them to a
tailor, a specialist in mending clothes. But today, our most likely
response to a ripped pair of pants is to consign them to the garbage—or, if
we’re feeling up to the hassle, we might give them to a second-hand clothing
store. The pants are disposable because they can easily be
replaced. We don’t even need to wait for the store to open to buy a new
pair of pants. Since we know their brand, style, and size, we can search
for a vendor on the Internet, pay for them electronically, and await their
delivery at our doorstep.
Observes Thoreau, “A hundred ‘modern improvements;’ there is an illusion
about them; there is not always a positive advance. The devil goes on
exacting compound interest to the last for his early share and the numerous
succeeding investments in them. Our inventions are wont to be petty toys,
which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved
means to an unimproved end, an end [to] which it was already but too easy to
arrive.”
We live in an age when it is terribly easy to be consumers. The
antidote, Thoreau teaches us, is to live deliberately in the world—that is, to
live consciously amid what can consume us. Meticulously tend to things as
ordinary as pants, from purchasing, to cleaning, to mending them.
Deliberately invest the time, energy, and patience in conserving to deaden the
desire of consuming. Seek opportunities to simplify. And above all,
be mindful of Economy.
Amen.
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