Nov 04 2008
Faith, Fear and Finances
One member of the Richmond Church of the Brethren plants extra rows of corn each year to share with the congregation, who picks, husks, cooks and eats together, inviting the neighborhood for dinner.
Dan Ulrich’s October sermon “Faith, Fear and Finances” has already gotten plenty of attention in the blogosphere. I’m posting about it anyway, to highlight something that Dan added for his second preaching of this great sermon, at the Richmond Church of the Brethren.
“We need more than frugality - we need generosity,” said Dan on Sunday. Brethren have been known for our frugality. One of my favorite Brethren, Sister Julie Garber, plays a charicature of a Brethren woman, Anna Bap. (Playing on the Church of the Brethren’s Anabaptist roots.) Anna Bap is a simple-living, simple-speaking, simple-dressing, classic Brethren character. She feels a humble pride because she can live off of so little.
I grew up in an Anna Bap house, and feel that same humble pride that I will be able to live in a post-carbon world. I’ll even get a strange thrill out of finding new depths of reusing and going without. But the thrill will fade quickly when many of my neighbors run out of food or don’t know how to do laundry without running water, and drain our rain barrel and raid our pantry.
How can we share the bounties of our frugailty most effectively, in a way that can sustain the most people for the most time? How can we share the skills of frugality RIGHT NOW, before scarcity is a reality for all of us?