Christmas, Friendship and Creature Comforts
I was meeting a friend for coffee. He arrived breathless and frustrated after spending the morning in a fruitless search for a Christmas present that would please his son-in-law - a young man who officially "doesn't do Christmas".
Having just spent several hours compiling tips on how to "do Christmas without the stuff", I was dismayed, and it must have shown in my face. Here was somebody who actually said he didn't want any stuff, but he would get it anyway. Bring on the Shopocalypse!
"So what do you and Tom do for Christmas, then?" my friend challenged.
I mumbled something about "doing birthdays instead".
"So you do like buying nice things for each other - just as I do with my family. And anyway, these kinds of choices are very personal," he asserted.
I meekly agreed that I do like to give and receive nice things, and we tactfully changed the subject.
Yes, I do enjoy giving and receiving nice things. I love prints, pottery, books and colourful Punjabi dresses. At the same time I deeply cherish the value of simplicity and right living, and feel an urgency to give voice to it with passion and conviction.
I find this is a common stumbling block for those who work for social change. We don't want to kill pleasure in the name of austere ethics. We want to be agreeable companions to our friends, not blast them with judgment. So we tone it down and fluff around it.
But what if this divide - pleasure versus ethics, preserving social relationships versus speaking out for our deepest values - was a false choice?
Wise after the fact, I begin to build a bridge of words and images that bring pleasure and rightness together.
In every object we craft or enjoy there is embedded the labour and sacrifice of countless creatures. Remembering this brings me a sense of enrichment. It is not a matter of deprivation, but of respect and appreciation for every object I possess, knowing what it cost the biosphere to produce it: my 1920 sloping desk, the Afghan rug glowing with deep reds, the walnut harvest hanging in baskets off my kitchen ceiling.
Out of this appreciation comes a sense of "enough" and a desire for balance - to enjoy the gift and leave enough for others, human and non-human, to enjoy as well.
The sense of "enough" is a small, creaturely satisfaction that I experience in the middle of my body, akin to the pleasure of nourishment. Presently it spreads as a warmth all over my chest. I am reminded of a squirrel snuggling up with its fluffy tail over its ears. What a delight to find that rightness and pleasure live right next door to each other. In fact, rightness is a pleasure, and ethical living a creature comfort!
