Almost there...Almost there...

"Almost there...Almost There..."
Yes, that is a Star Wars quote, so bonus to anyone who can identify where it came from (just leave a comment below). In some ways it sums up this last week as our "Thirty Days of Almost Nothing" challenge nears it completion this week. I thought I would share a few last thoughts from this journey, a few things that I have learned and what I might take away from the experience.

Firstly, I realized that it was not that big a deal. I think that we had been trying to introduce some of these principles already, although not as consciously or dramatically. This may be due,in part, to the fact that I have a bit of a cheap streak. But more importantly, I think this is because I have an amazing wife who has been trying her hardest to manage this crazy zoo we call the McGibbon home. It didn't come as quite the shock to our lifestyle that it could have.

I learned that mending is cool! We throw out so much these days and seek to repair so little. I know that in many cases, sadly, it is more economical to replace things than to repair them, and that many things are manufactured in a way that they just can't be repaired. But there are some things that we can mend. I learned how to mend my favourite pair of Jeans (well ok, I had my mother in law do it, but I found out how and passed a web site along to her) on line : mend jeans.
It was great. It had all the excitement of getting a new pair of jeans, but ones that you already know fit amazingly and were worked in perfectly - Christmas in September without the credit card bill in January!!!!

I realized coffee is a complex issue - from addiction to fair trade, cheap to gourmet, politics to economy, feast to famine, necessity or small blessing the topic is vast in breadth and depth! It will have me thinking for sure.

I was reminded that Grandparents have a lot of wisdom to share, and experience to teach from. We in North America may have a lot to learn from other cultures who manage to revere and respect the wisdom of the elders more intentionally than we do. When my mother told my Grandmother about our challenge, my grandmother looked slightly confused and asked "why would you buy something if you didn't really need it." My grandparents have lived like this their whole lives, and they didn't need to turn it into some grand experiment in order to do it. They knew a time when circumstances made this lifestyle a means of survival, and have not been swayed by the changing tide of commercialism or consumerism (aside from perhaps the Canadian Tire flyer...but even at that my grandfather was the first to notice when they lowered the percentage on the dollar for the Canadian Tire money incentive). My grandparents are also incredibly aware of how they use other resources. I was reminded of the time that the Hydro company came and replaced the water meter on their home because Hydro thought it was broken. My Grandfather told them that it was not broken, but they insisted. As it turns our my grandfather was right and the meter was fine. My grandparents just use so little water that the hydro company couldn't believe that the meter was working properly.

I have been challenged to make things this month and have loved the opportunity to be creative. I think it is an opportunity to live in imitation of the Creator God, whom we love and serve.

The last thing that I have been thinking about is hospitality, people and celebration. We managed to celebrate a wedding, our anniversary, host a last minute meal for my brother, his new wife and her brother, as well as having our usual group of about 15 people over for dinner each Thursday. In each case, there would have been a last minute scurrying to buy things, a desire to show ourselves well and thus buy things to do so, and a well intentioned hope to serve and please people that again led to last minute purchases. We learned however, to be a bit more organized and plan ahead limiting some of the last minute, costly impulse purchases. We learned to use what we have and be creative. There were some purchases to be made, but we did well and had fun finding used alternatives and making them work. The greatest lesson however, was that we got less caught up in the externals and focus more on the important things. We really connected with, shard with and celebrated with the people in our lives. Focusing less on the other things made more time and energy to focus on people. I was reminded of how many times in the gospels that Jesus was visiting with people, meeting in homes, sharing meals with people and celebrating. I can't think of many examples in which the room decor was mentioned, whether there was matching silver ware or even what food was served. We are told about the people, what Jesus was teaching or how he invested in there lives. Serving, loving and showing hospitality really is about sharing your life with others. It is about people. It has been easier to remember that this month.

So those are just some of the thoughts from this month. I am interested to see how they will affect our lives and decisions in the upcoming months now that the challenge is over.

Wedding Bells, Socks and Celebrations!

It is the Tuesday morning after four straight days of festivities in celebration of the marriage union between my brother and his now wife (and no longer "almost" aunt) Nathalie. Friday was a dinner and a great opportunity for the two families to come together, many of us meeting for the first time. What a great chance to see all the faces of the many people that Nathalie has told us so much about. Saturday was the rehearsal which we did as a picnic at the Toronto Island. The celebrations were growing as we added the wedding party and many friends to the festivities. Then came Sunday, the big day, as all the family, extended family and friends came together to witness, participate in and celebrate the momentous occasion. I had the honour of officiating the ceremony and was thrilled to be invited to play a role in such a special day.
As many of you know, my family has been living out our Thirty Days of Almost Nothing experiment during this month and we knew that when we started, this major celebration for our family could provide some unique challenges. We all had a role to play in the service from ushering to being the flower girl, from ring bearer to officiating as well as Kim singing with my dad and I. There was no hiding in the back corner so we would all have to look presentable! Well, for the most part I think we did quite well. In all honesty, the girls had there dresses bought months before our challenge began. The boys and I were not as proactive, however, and so had to find outfits during our month of challenge. We managed to start with what we did have and dug into our closets for our shoes shirts and ties. I also had a suit that perfectly matched the requirements of the day. The boys, however, had definitely grown a bit since the last occasion that they needed to dress up for, and being in the wedding, also needed to match the colour scheme. We took the opportunity to scour my favourite clothing outlets including The Salvation Amy Thrift Store, Goodwill and when all else fails Value Village. I love these stores, and without a word of a lie, I have an unofficial challenge to see my whole wardrobe consist of used clothing from these stores (except maybe underwear, but that is not really relevant here). For one thing, when there is a necessity to purchase something, the prices are far below regular retail. I feel like I am being a good steward of my finances. There is the added ecological bonus that when I buy something from a used clothing store, I am re-using and therefore helping to keep something out of a landfill. And lastly, in many cases, as I am buying used clothing I am also helping to support some important charities in my community. Another great thing about buying used clothing for kids is that kids grow out of clothing so fast that there is a lot of clothing available, especially for special occasions, that have only been worn once or twice and are in great condition. We were able to find suits for both the boys!
The one challenge came when we realized quite late in the week, that my one son did not have black dress socks. He had found black sweat socks that he had assumed would be fine. Kim and I has to stop and ask whether this was a necessity, and whether we should buy some proper dress socks. In reality, we new the sweat sock would be fine, would serve the purpose and that no one might even notice, and even if they did would not care in the least. On the other hand, however, this was a wedding, a very special occasion between two people that we care for deeply. We really wanted to help them make this a very special day and wouldn't new socks be the least we could do?
I found myself thinking about Jesus, and his first recorded miracle as told in John chapter 2. Jesus' first recorded miracle is the changing of the water to wine at a wedding in Cana. I recognize that this is a very deep and theologically dense passage. Consider the location, consider what the wine might signify metaphorically, consider the significance of the stone jars used in ceremonial washing, and consider the role of signs in John and there is no doubt a lot to unpack. There still, however, remains a surface level to the story and I have often been struck by this wedding scene.
Firstly, Jesus is at a wedding. Having just chosen his first disciples, he takes them not to an intense bible study, but to a wedding celebration. When the creator of the world goes to a wedding celebration I can't help but think that He considers it a worth while endeavour. The fact that he does a miracle there, so that it would for sure be recorded and remembered for posterity, only lends weight to the idea that Jesus himself considered weddings special and important. This should not surprise us as it was God himself after all who created man and woman and ordained this special relationship from early on.
Secondly, although the miracle itself had a very rich theological significance, it also had the direct impact of keeping the celebration going. When the wine ran out, the celebration had the risk of ending and ending in embarrassment. Jesus' miracle, however, kept the celebration alive. The celebration was important enough to do something special about.
With this in mind, I came to the conclusion that there are times worth celebrating, worth doing something a little bit special to mark. As someone noted in a comment a few weeks ago, there are times for feasting. Weddings are definitely one of those occasions. A pair of black dress socks, although not a definite necessity, was surely one small way we could mark this occasion as special.

By the way, the socks came in a pack and so I too wore a pair. They were made from bamboo fibre...and they were nice!

Another way the event was made special was the cake (seen above) that my aunt Coleen made...AMAZING (and it tasted great too!!!)


Thanks to everyone who has been leaving comments, e-mailing me your thoughts or posting on facebook. I love to read your thoughts. Thanks especially to all those invested in my choice of coffee I appreciate all the advice and help with choices to satisfy both my palette and my conscience.

Shakespeare, Stratford and the Auto-Flush

Last week we took our kids on the first field trip of the school year. We headed to Stratford to the famous Shakespeare Festival to see a production of A Mid Summer Night's Dream. I do have some specific thoughts about the production itself, but it was not really that performance that has left the greatest impression upon me. The performance that has stuck with me, challenged me and has had me thinking a lot actually happened a few minutes before the play began, in the downstairs washroom of the theatre that my sons and I visited just before the show began.
There we were, alone in the washroom when all of a sudden, while minding my own business, I hear a "woo-hoo, all electric." I looked over just in time to see my son Liam doing a happy dance in front of the auto-flush urinal. While I tried to whisper forcefully for him to stop being an idiot before someone comes in and sees him, he proceeded to swagger/dance over to the sinks and finally to the stalls to confirm that, yes, all the amenities worked automatically by a motion sensor. He was quite impressed and very excited by this fact. It is not as if he has never seen these things before, but none the less he still thought it was cool and worth making mention of.
I have been thinking a lot about this incident over the past week, and wondering if there are some good lessons for me. How many opportunities to celebrate, to be thankful and to express gratitude do I miss everyday because I forget to see the small things. If I am being completely honest, I think that there is a very important lesson for someone like me who battles with bouts of depression, to intentionally take pause to appreciate, give thanks and celebrate the many little blessings around me. I often take the "little things" around me for granted only to invest that energy fretting over the negative things or the challenges in life. What if I were to retrain my brain to recognize and give thanks for the many wonderful things all around me. There is so much to be thankful for and to celebrate!
I have been thinking about what I have learned in terms of our Thirty Days of Almost Nothing experiment as well. I recognize this as a key to breaking the patterns of consumerism in a commercialized culture. By focusing on all that I do have, I hope to be less tempted to be influenced by the many different voices around me suggesting that happiness and contentment will come by having one more product, one more service or one more opportunity to scratch a metaphoric itch. The funny thing about scratching an itch is that it always seems to reveal another itch creating a seemingly never ending cycle of unscratched itches. Final satisfaction never seems to come.
I am going to endeavour to appreciate the small things, the many blessings around me that I so often take for granted. I wonder if this was a key that the apostle Paul understood when he wrote about "the secret of being content in any and every situation..." (Philippians 4:12)
So how about you, what are some of the blessings, the little things all around you that are worth celebrating and giving thanks for? Feel free to leave a comment!

Coffee, Cream and Culture

I have two basic rules when traveling. 1) Beware of biscuits and gravy above the Mason/Dixon line and 2) Beware of Coffee below the Mason/Dixon line. In my experience coffee is best understood, appreciated and brewed by those in northern climates where it is less a luxury and perhaps borders on necessity.
Coffee has definitely made its way to the centre of Canadian culture, and if the proliferation of Tim Horton's franchises, merchandising and advertising is any indication, it remains at the centre of Canadian pop culture. I must admit, that coffee is big part of my day as well. Since my family started our Thirty Days of Almost Nothing challenge last week, I have been forced to consider what role coffee might play in our purchases.
For the most part, it hasn't been that big a challenge. I actually drink most of my coffee at home and don't go out to purchase a cup of coffee all that often. I also have a deal with my favourite local coffee shop (Cafe Deda in Milton) where I play music some Sunday nights in exchange for drinking coffee for free throughout the week. The challenge came, however, when we reached the dairy isle of the grocery store. What about cream for our coffee, was that necessary? Could we just use milk which we already have in the house?
At this point I must confess to the influence of Tim Horton's on my coffee habit. Over the years, Tim Horton's coffee lingo has become so influential that it has become part of the Canadian English lexicon and has in fact made it into our dictionaries. The term "double-double" for instance is in our dictionaries and refers to two cream and two sugar. The cream at Tim Horton's, and this is the part that has influenced me, is 18%. As I was beginning to drink coffee with some consistency, it was Tim Horton's and so I got used to 18% cream. Now when we get 5% or 10% cream from the store it already feels like a bit of a compromise. The thought of going down to milk then for me is, to say the least, undesirable. But although milk is undesirable is cream really a necessity? In reality probably not, but here is what we figured and how we made our decision:
We had saved a lot by purchasing a less expensive brand of coffee, enough to more than make up for a carton of cream..so in the end we bought the cream and still had a net savings on our bill. We did really well in many other areas as well and so had a significantly lower grocery bill than usual.
Well that is what we did...we still saved a lot...but perhaps allowed for more "flexibility" in the necessity determination. What do you think? (feel free to comment below if you have a thought)

Necessities

Necessities...you'd think that they would be easy to figure out, those things that you just can't live without and that you need for basic sustenance, life and survival in a particular context. The funny thing is that it is probably harder to ascertain then we'd think. We live in a culture and context in which we are constantly being bombarded by adds, images, enticing us to spend and telling us that we just can't live without these products. We live in an economy that is based on credit at just about every level. For these, and a whole host of other reasons, it becomes harder and harder to decide what is really a necessity. As Christians we believe that God has promised to care for all our needs (Matthew 6:31-34). We also believe that all that we have is a gift from God to be used for His kingdom purposes (Matthew 25:14-30) including our time, treasure, talents and gifts. The question we have been asking ourselves is how much do we really need to get by? How much money do we spend on things that are not necessities? When we spend more financially on things that are not needs, then how much time, energy, talents and other resources do we need to spend in order to afford the extra expenditure? With these questions in mind our family has decided to embark on a month long experiment. We are going to try to spend as little money as possible, and before we make the smallest purchase we will stop and ask ourselves "is this really necessary?" The answer to that question will determine our spending habits. Our goal is to have a better understanding of how we spend all of our resources so as to be able to make a more thoughtful and careful investment for the Kingdom. So for the month of September at least my cheap side will thrive!
Here we go!!!
If you want to follow some of our thoughts and discoveries as we go then feel free to check out my wife's blog over the next few weeks.