This artfully designed bioswale at my town’s transit center is a free source of refreshment and calm in a concrete big-box world (photo: 2023). It calls to mind a phrase of the late essayist Barry Lopez: “I had risen before sunrise to take a long walk. I wanted to see things that couldn’t be purchased” (in “Flight,” About This Life).

Approx. read time: 2:00 min.

For decades, now, I’ve worked mightily to buck the consumer identity, to live simply, to keep my dollars local, and to not shop the ubiquitous too-big-to-fail national brands.

I’ve written a volume of stories of all that has changed—for the better—over eleven years of life without a car. Since college, my lifestyle choices have set me free to live simply, richly, and with a pretty clear conscience.

Still, I’m unable to endorse or engage in the 24-hour economic blackout that’s scheduled nationwide for Friday, February 28th. Given our culture’s addiction to shopping and our resistance to living within our means, my concerns are twofold. 

First, shoppers’ pent-up demand for more stuff will pour out in force the day after, giving the victory to “corporations and banks who only care about their bottom line,” as boycott promoters put it.

And second, blackout participants get to score virtue points, even as the prevailing economic power arrangements continue undeterred.

Still, my nonparticipation in the boycott asks something of me. 

I must write up, and speak up, about what really is asked of us: First, we urgently need to shed our “consumer” identity. Second, we need to stop supporting the profits-at-all-costs practices of national big-brand businesses, restaurants, and services. And third, we need to embrace a less materially complex life, one that’s within our personal means and Earth’s limits.

Sure, a one-day shopping boycott is a baby step. But our times call not for baby steps but for being “all in” with our moral instincts and our agency to act on our deepest convictions. Creative nonviolent resistance as a way of life is our only credible option to bring about sustainable change, healing of the Earth, and truly transformative justice.

If I want corporations and banks to permanently change their ways, then I first must permanently change my ways. Otherwise, I’m an enabler of all forms of destruction.

Fortify yourself with my book Gospel Vulnerability: The Key to Costly Love. It’s packed with insight, encouragement, and strength for our times.

Be well. Live in peace. Love one another. And please, forward this post!