Enough

So I finished reading Enough: Contentment in an Age of Excess by Will Samson.  I have read Will's blog for some time (although he hasn't posted in a while), and have always found his writing to be insightful, incisive, and practical.  Enough was even better.  Will takes on our culture's obsession with stuff, pulling back the blinders that we usually use to hide it, and not only points out the dangerous implications of living this way, but also uses Eucharist as a model for a different type of life.  His points are well researched, his suggestions are clear and very practical.  His own words will give you a clear inclination of what it is he is attempting with the book.

Is there enough for everyone? This is an important economic question, and in our discussion here I am certainly going to try to address the question from an economic perspective. But it is not just an economic question, is it? In fact, the question of whether there are sufficient resources in this world may be one of the most important theological questions of our time. How we answer it reveals much regarding our belief about the character of God: who we think God is, how we think God provides for the creation, and what role humans play in that work—this all relates directly to our understanding of God.

In this book I hope to narrate two distinct visions. The first is a vision of people and communities whose lives are out of whack and who are consumed by stuff. Our view of God and our understanding of the way we participate in God’s work in the world have become distorted, and we have transformed ourselves into unthinking consumers of products, ideas, and cultural narratives about what will bring us happiness.

The second is a view of people and communities who are guided, and even made more whole, by a vision of God and God’s work in the world by which they are consumed. Our decisions regarding what resources and how many of those resources we use are not rooted in oversimplified categories of “more or less,” but instead are nourished by a story of a God who is sufficient, active in the world, and forming a community of co-laborers to manage the created order.

This book is so worth the read.  Will challenges assumptions that we aren't even aware that we have.  And he presents a way forward that is faithful to what God envisions in the renewal of all His creation. There's a lot of stuff that we don't need, but this book is something that we do.

Want to read more for yourself? Go here.