Advent Series 2024: Waiting for God in the Climate Crisis - Week 4 - Revolutionary Love

Please join me for a series of Advent reflections and prayers in our time of climate crisis. Each post arrives on Friday in time for the following Sunday in Advent.

Dec 20, 2024

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This is week four of my series of reflections and prayers for Advent this year. Scroll down to find this week’s offering! 🕯️

The Cognitive Dissonance of Consumerism

I was in a busy store buying Christmas gifts for my family last week. It was hectic and loud, as people frantically searched for items to purchase, the shelves were messy and chaotic, and the noise of consumers competed with the tinny Christmas music blaring over our heads. It was a confusing, distressing scene, and I experienced such a cognitive dissonance between what I value and what I was witnessing that I wanted to vomit.

Maybe you have felt this way, too. Normally, I can avoid large commercial shopping centers, and I don’t usually purchase as much in such a short period as I do in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Maybe that’s why the cognitive dissonance between what I believe about the evils of consumerism and the actions of myself and those around me was so strong.

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As I pushed my shopping cart past other shoppers, avoiding toys and other items that had fallen to the floor, I thought about how I could escape the cacophony of that store, and the cacophony in my head and heart. I don’t want to live this way anymore! I thought. I don’t want to do this anymore! I cried in my mind.

Many of you feel this way, too. Yet we are often out there, shopping for our families and friends for Christmas. There we are, buying mostly items that they need and, if we’re honest, quite a few that they don’t need, but want. We’re doing this because it’s the culture we live in and it’s what we know, as a society, about how we’re supposed to live. We’re doing this because we love our people, and want to show them our love in this way. And, we’re doing this because it is a system, and we are all complicit in the system. For those of us in the global North who are middle or higher class, we are complicit.

Yet we are also trapped in the system, as well. Consumerism isn’t just a problem at Christmas, but all of the time. Try as we might, it is impossible to escape the system of consumerism as it exists now. It is impossible to escape this aspect of life that has been intentionally designed by the power brokers of neoliberal capitalism to shape every single aspect of our society, from what our houses look like and how we get around, to what we do for work and like to do for fun, to what it means to be happy and have a good life. So, while we’re complicit we’re also trapped, and while we may be working to change the system the fact is that we’re unable to escape it.

Participating in a system that we hate but are unable to escape creates the cognitive dissonance such as I was feeling in the store last week, and that you often experience too. While we can ameliorate its worst effects by limiting how much we buy for our loved ones, and making better spending choices, such as from local businesses or buying used, we are, each one of us, unable to escape the system that was designed to ensnare us. This system that has ensnared us.

Maybe you’ve been having a similar experience of cognitive dissonance between what you believe and the actions you take. Please realize that such cognitive dissonance is normal, and is a healthy response. That dissonance, that feeling in our minds and bodies that this isn’t right, but feeling unable to escape it for something better, is the mark of health. It is a sign of a healthy sense of morality and spirituality.

We can’t escape the system, but we can take that cognitive dissonance and use it to transform the system and transform the world around us. We are complicit and trapped, but we are not powerless. We can use our voices and take action to work to change the system so that consumerism is no longer a viable option. We can take action so that there is another alternative, one rooted in community. We can take action so that there is less cognitive dissonance, now and next Christmas.

My Advent Reflection series offers ways to think and pray this season that can help with the pain of the cognitive dissonance that we feel in the climate crisis. Check it out below!

ADVENT SERIES 2024:

Waiting for God in the Climate Crisis

This is Week 4. For this year’s Advent reflection series, I have chosen the theme of kenosis. Kenosis means self-emptying, about giving of the self for the sake of the other. It is an ancient metaphor and model in Christianity, yet it has illuminating potential for today. Kenosis is about the sacrifice that is required of us if we are to effectively respond to the climate and ecological crisis. More, it is in such sacrifice, in our self-emptying that we meet the other and find ourselves.

This Advent series is available to paid subscribers of Faith. Climate Crisis. Action. Upgrade today to receive the full devotional offering (as well as access to the entire archive of this newsletter). Each week includes a reflection on the Gospel reading for that week, questions for you to ponder, and a prayer written by me that you are invited to pray at any time during Advent. I hope that these resources are meaningful to you in this season of holy waiting.

Did you miss last week’s reflection? Here it is: