Ethical Consumption for the Holidays--You don't have to buy stuff to be loved. It's better for the environment if you don't.

We in Western countries are 20% of the world population, but we are consuming over 80% of the earth’s natural resources, causing a disproportionate level of environmental damage and unfair distribution of wealth.

The average North American consumes five times more than a Mexican, 10 times more than a Chinese person, and 30 times more than a person from India.

Advertisers make us feel that we are worthless if we don’t spend a lot of money on holiday gifts and give us this false image that we will achieve family bliss, sexua| success, and love if only we spend enough money on extravagant gifts. But love cannot be bought, and many people find themselves depressed at the holidays, either because they’ve increased their debts or because they find themselves lonely or disappointed with family interactions in which gifts are substituted for real loving encounter. And the spiritual meaning of the holidays is lost in a frenzy of spending.

We at the Network of Spiritual Progressives— an interfaith organization of people committed to peace, social justice, and providing an alternative spiritual voice to that of the Religious Right, are seeking to build a New Bottom Line in which materialism and selfishness is repalced with love, caring, generosity, kindnesss, ecological sensitivity and awe and wonder at the grandeur of creation. To build such a world, we need to start living in accordance with our own highest ideals. We suggest the following:

TAKE A HOLIDAY FROM SHOPPING:
On Buy Nothing Day, Nov. 25, 2005.

Ways to celebrate this spiritual exercise range from street theater to quiet contemplation. check it out: http://adbusters.org/metas/eco/bnd/  

GIVE A GIFT OF YOUR TIME:
Rather than buying a gift for someone you love, make a beautiful coupon and give them a gift of your time ... either in the form of babysitting, helping to paint a room at their house or shoveling snow or garden work in the Spring, making them dinner, food shopping, teaching them some skill, or something else that they could really use help with!  Your time with the gift recipient shows real caring, deepens your involvement with the recipient, and does not reward some manufacturer for making things that no one really needs (their tenth sweater or pocketbook or their newest hand-held electronic device). 

GIVE AN INTANGIBLE GIFT:
Your gift doesn’t have to end up in a landfill. Be creative: give dancing lessons, give tickets to the theater, invite friends to a movie or play that you all go together, or give a certificate for a massage!

MAKE SOMETHING:
Have you ever wished you had more time to... draw, sew, paint, knit? If you can take some time, treat yourself to a local crafts course to learn to throw pots, knit scarves or make other personal items that you can give to people you love!

BUY LOCALLY:
Find out about local merchants in your area to support, but go the extra step of finding out about the goods they carry and where they come from.

Don’t shop at Wal-Mart!  Look up specific brand names and where your dollars go:
http://www.responsibleshopper.org/    or  http://www.coopamerica.org

BUY ETHICALLY:
Globalize fair trade. If you don’t live in a hotbed of local merchants who give back to the community, you can still gift consciously. Here are some resources to help you find places where you can get fair trade gifts: http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/fairtrade/  

Our favorite coffee here at Tikkun is fair trade and made in Uganda by a cooperative of Jewish, Muslim, and Christian farmers. For more information go to http://www.thanksgivingcoffee.com.

Or, buy your friends a subscription to Tikkun Magazine—the voice of the Network of Spiritual Progressives. http://www.tikkun.org  or call 1 510 644 1200

OR, BUY NOTHING AT ALL!
Do you really need anything else? Why not exchange absolutely no presents at all! People may be put off for a moment at first, and you can see why. In the season of conspicuous consumption, asking for less, rather than more, is a radical act.

They’ll understand when you show them this statement. For children, buy gifts that reflect your values--not violent gifts or violence-oriented video games. And sit down with your children to explain to them why the planet needs people to stop buying things that use up the planet's rapidly decreasing resources.

Please circulate this statement to everyone you know, print it out and hand it out at a nearby shopping center or mall or movie theatre or dept. store or your neighborhood grocery store.  Send it to your friends on email, give it to the people at your workplace and in your church, synagogue, mosque or ashram. Write letters to your local media. Create a local group of friends who will hand this out with you at a shopping center.

Ideas brought to you by The Network of Spiritual Progressives, a project of The Tikkun Community. Join the Network, subscribe to Tikkun, and
more info: http://www.Tikkun.org or write Community@tikkun.org.  

Tikkun’s National chairs:

*Princeton University Professor Cornel West (author, Race Matters),

*Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister (author, Called to Question: A Spiritual Memoir),

* Tikkun editor Rabbi Michael Lerner (author of The Left Hand of God: Taking Our Country Back from the Religious Right, published by HarperSanFrancisco in Feb, 2006).

Come to the national conference of The Network of Spiritual Progressives, May 17-20, Washington, D.C.  Info: http://www.tikkun.org.  And form your own local chapter: more info, NSP@tikkun.org

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web: http://www.spiritualprogressives.org 
email: info@spiritualprogressives.org