A few weeks ago, as we prepared to move, we were bemoaning
our accumulation of stuff (see “Too Much Stuff“). I’m repeating one of the
photos of our pile of giveaway stuff here, because Peter remarked, “This is a
spiritual statement.”

He didn’t mean it in a positive sense, as if to say we were
tremendously altruistic by relinquishing so many cherished possessions. No, we
both knew that the spiritual statement was an ugly one. We won’t miss anything
that we gave away. Not one thing. In fact, we’ve only unpacked some of the
stuff we moved, and we can hardly remember what is in the boxes piled up in the
basement that we haven’t gotten to yet. The spiritual statement our stuff makes
is that we, often, are not good stewards of our money, time, and energy.

In response to all this over-accumulation and the spiritual
questions it provoked, I picked up a book that had been lying around for a
while now: Serve God Save the Planet by J. Matthew Sleeth, M.D. Sleeth was an
Emergency Room doctor who downsized his life so significantly that his current
home could fit inside his old garage. His family of four now produces less than
one grocery-store-sized bag of trash per week. Sleeth weaves together a
personal narrative of conversion (to the Christian faith and, as a result, to a
sense of personal stewardship of the earth’s resources) with practical
suggestions for how other Americans can stop accumulating so much and live with
a greater sense of purpose and freedom.

Sleeth’s motivation for energy conservation and simple
living is his faith in Jesus Christ, and he connects the two throughout the
book. I was particularly taken by his comments on the Sabbath (a topic that has
been on my mind–see “No Shopping on Sundays“). Just as Sabbath rest can serve
other people, so too it can serve the earth by not asking it to “work” for us.
Perhaps we could all choose one day a week to wash our dishes by hand, to eat a
vegetarian meal, to keep the computer turned off. He challenges us to consider
the fact that we can make specific changes in our behavior that have a big
impact. For instance, “if every household changed its five most used bulbs to
compact fluorescent lightbulbs, the country could take twenty-one coal-fired
power plants off-line tomorrow.”

Sure, Sleeth can come off as a bit shrill or self-righteous
at times (most people speaking prophetic words do). Sometimes he tries to
connect his medical stories to his environmental ones and they don’t quite fit
together. And I wanted to hear more about his personal story and how he came to
faith and what exactly they’ve done in their home to change their energy use.

With those caveats aside, I recommend this book. It offers a
host of practical advice and defends stewardship of time, relationships, and
resources Biblically. So what has changed in me, in response to reading this
book and going through the move? Well, I’m washing our clothes with cold water.
“Buy compost bin” is on the top of the “high priority” to do list. I’d like to
implement the Sabbath-keeping ideas I mentioned (some of them from the book)
above. Most of all, I’m trying to be much more careful about how and why I
purchase anything, and much more deliberate about giving it away.