STEWARDSHIP—LIVING CHRISTIANITY [ RADICALLY]

New World Articles

Start the Day with a Thank You . To Your Shoes

By Rich Goode

contributor "

Thank you shoes, for keeping my feet warm and dry." My son Billy blurted this out as he was getting ready for preschool. Initially, I thought that perhaps I should be worried that he is talking to his shoes.

I later learned that a Buddhist priest had visited his classroom that week and talked to the kids about another way to view material things. It got me thinking about stewardship and our relationship to the things in our life. It occurred to me that tired rants against materialism and consumerism often fail to tell the whole story.

I constantly complain about materialism in our culture. Billy reminded me of a basic truth. Shoes that keep our feet warm and dry are good. A solid house, a safe car and a warm cup of coffee . these are good things. It is easy to paint in black and white, to say that the desire for material things is "bad." Our relationship to material things is much more complex than that, however. Try telling someone in the Third World that your warm shoes are a bad thing, a symbol of materialism. We miss much when we oversimplify.

Instead of viewing our attraction to material things as an evil, stewardship asks us to do quite the opposite. My four-year-old senses that all things are from God. Everything in creation is suffused with holiness. In a sense, material things can have "soul" and we need to recognize this to truly appreciate how God has blessed us. God gave us comforts to help us care for our souls, to draw us closer.

Our desire for "good" things is easily distorted, however. Temptation is most effective when it is rooted in our desire for something that is essentially good, like success or sex or comfort. These are all good things and worthy of our desires. In a subtle, almost ingenious way, however, we can find ourselves desiring these things disproportionately, obsessively or mindlessly. The good thing we seek is a gift from God. The desire for the good thing is of God. When desire is twisted just slightly, however, the thing we covet can quietly replace God in our hearts as the be all and end all.

I am amazed how soul-deadening materialism can creep in to my life. For instance, I love talking with a close friend in a coffee shop over a delicious (and pricey) coffee creation. It is "soulful" in the way I tried to describe earlier. When I find myself buying a tall, decaf, vanilla latte too often, however, and drinking it as I rush from one meeting to the next, I have to stop myself. There's a fundamental difference in the two ways of drinking the coffee. The "soul" is lost when it is gulped mindlessly and without gratitude. It is easy to lapse from gratefully enjoying things to thoughtlessly consuming them.

It would be simple if a bell went off whenever we crossed over into mindless consumerism. Unfortunately, good and evil don't work that way. More often than not, good and evil, soulfulness and banality are intertwined so closely, it is difficult to distinguish between them.

Maybe little Billy has a suggestion to help us make these distinctions. Start each day with gratitude. Gratefulness helps us see material things for what they are--gifts, freely given by God and bathed in holiness, gifts to be cherished and shared. I hope your feet are warm as you read this. If so, say "thank you" to your shoes. While you are at it, thank the Source of all good things.

Goode is director of estates and planning for the Archdiocese of Chicago.