This weekend I dove head first into Jen Hatmaker's book, Seven; recommended to me by my amazing friend Stephanie. Her and I share similar tastes and have been walking down a spiritual road together for the past several months, so if she said it was good - I knew I had to see what it was all about it! And let me tell you, she was right.
Seven is an "experimental mutiny against excess", as described by author Jen Hatmaker. Jen is a blogger, Bible teacher, traveling speaker and wife to pastor Brandon Hatmaker. I've followed her blog on and off, and definitely mesh with this girl! I had loved her reading her insights about every day life. She can talk about things in a humorous way that's easy to relate to, but at the same time she really gets you to THINK about things and challenges you to take action. Love it!
Seven is like a big fat slap in the face that forces you to examine the areas of excess in your life... your consumerism, selfishness, waste, greed, entitlements, distractions, etc. Here's an excerpt from the introduction:
"I started seeing my stuff with fresh eyes, realizing we had everything. I mean everything. We've never missed a meal or even skimped on one. We live in a beautiful home in a great neighborhood. Our kids are in a Texas exemplary school. We drive two cars under warranty. We've never gone a day without health insurance. Our closets are overflowing. We throw away food we didn't eat, clothes we barely wore, trash that will never disintegrate, stuff that fell out of fashion. And I was so blinded I didn't even know we were rich. How can I be socially responsible if unaware that I reside in the top percentage of wealth in the world? (You probably do too: Make $35,000 a year? Top 4 percent. $50,000? Top 1 percent). Excess has impaired perspective tangled in unmanageable debt while feeding the machine, because we feel entitled to more. What does it communicate when half the global population lives on less than $2 a day, and we can't manage a fulfilling life on twenty-five thousand times that amount? Fifty thousand times that amount? It says we have too much, and it is ruining us.".
WOW. It makes you think a bit, huh? Why do we spend so much? We do we think we need so much stuff? What are our priorities? What would Jesus think about all of this? Are our things or how we spend our time getting in the way of what Jesus has called us to do: to serve and love others.
So Jen sought out to examine 7 areas of her life, for seven months (one a month), and reduce them to seven simple choices to embark on a journey of less. I love this idea. I've made some better choices towards being responsible lately, namely joining Avalon Acres, a CSA (community supported agriculture) which allows us to eat healthier food that is organic and supports local farmers. I pack my son's lunch in entirely reusable containers and try to send as many healthy food choices as I can. I love to shop second hand and thrift, and buy many of my children's clothes second hand at consignment sales. But overall, I still buy. too. much. too. often. The spending and excess has been a bit (a lot) out of control this year and I would also like to be even more environmentally responsible. So for me this journey is two-fold, make reductions and smarter choices and also as Jen said it "will be an exercise in simplicity with one goal: create space for God's kingdom to break through" and living life more like Jesus. She closes the first part of her introduction with "Jesus, may there be less of me and my junk and more of You and Your kingdom". Amen to that!
So what are the 7 areas that Jen simplified?
Food
Clothes
Possessions
Media
Waste
Spending
Stress
I plan to follow along and do these monthly as well. Which means food starts this month. But before I get to that, I mapped out the months and found that Media is in December and Waste is in January. Uh oh! You're telling me I can't get on facebook in December and share pics of my kids doing Christmasy things. Wait, we'll still actually be DOING the Christmasy things and I can still take pictures of them and share them (later) just not RIGHT NOW, what a rare idea in our constant state of instant knowledge and media access! But how can I do Waste in January when I can't plant a garden then and we can't share one car because John leaves for midnight and that'd mean waking the kids up at midnight to put them in the car and drive daddy to work. That's obviously not feasible. But I CAN do other things to reduce waste. I can follow Jen's suggestions of recycling and buying locally, and I can add some of my own like a 5 minute shower limit or trying not turn on our lights for an entire month (Seriously considering this one. Yes, I am crazy). Before thinking those things through logically, I almost backed out of wanting to do this or started rearranging the months/order (well, maybe I can move this one to this month instead since it'll be easier to do that month). Really? EASIER? That's certainly not what this is about! It's supposed to be radical, and a challenge, and eye opening, and habit changing. Will I fail along the way? You bet ya! So did Jen. But it's more about the journey and what I can learn from it than legalistically following all the rules to the T! But I will try my hardest and I'm going to start today! Why not?
So month one begins today (yay for me that I got 2 freebies this month since it's already the 3rd). Month one is Food, and that will be without a doubt the hardest one for me. I love to eat. I love food! Pray for me folks, I'm going to need it! I will get into more about food and what I'm doing/how it's going in my next post so I can go ahead and wrap this one up. But quickly, I'll let you know that I've decided to do the same 7 food choices that Jen went with. I'll get more into my reasoning behind that in my next post. For the next month I will be eating:
Chicken
Eggs
Whole-wheat bread
Sweet potatoes
Spinach
Avocados
Apples
And that's it.
Like I said, pray for me! haha
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