It’s Not Worth it To Me (or what I learned on a ten day trip back into the industrialized world)
It’s 6:30 in the morning and I’m woken up by a set of pigtails that wants to wrestle. I take her to the kitchen, open up a large refrigerator, dispense the milkies, and turn to the coffee pot. This is a machine that heats the water and makes a single cup from coffee grounds held in a small plastic container with an aluminum lid. Before long my perfectly portioned single cup of coffee is ready for sipping.
These past ten days I’ve taken countless hot showers without having to heat water, washed dishes using water that runs hot from a tap, and cooked many a meal from scratch using a stove you don’t have to add wood to. We have experienced electricity and refrigeration and temperature control and washing machines. (Washing machines!) And it has been nice and easy and less time consuming.
And you know what? I get it.
- I get that it’s nice to be able to open a refrigerator powered by electricity and have access to all sorts of cold foods.
- I get that it takes less time to cook a meal when you have predictable, uninterrupted heat on the burners.
- I get that a hot shower in the morning is nice, and the ones that take four times as long with water you haul and heat yourself on the stove doesn’t quite have the same effect… and aren’t taken as often for obvious reasons.
- I get that washing dishes takes a fraction of the time in a large sink with water that comes out of the tap already heated. Boy howdy do I ever get that. And don’t get me started on those machines that wash your dishes for you.
- And wow our home is smaller than most people’s living rooms. I get that now too.
.jpg)
We’re almost home now after spending ten days visiting family during a difficult time. It is through this crossing back over, if you will, that a lot of things are made clear.
I miss the sense of Christian community that can only come when you are living amongst one another, interacting on a daily basis, living outside of a rat race, sharing the most mundane daily details that make up a life lived.
We live in a society that is constantly screaming at us and our children to covet, want, buy, more, more, more! We can’t walk into a grocery store or drive down a freeway without someone somewhere selling something ungodly to my children. It is lust dressed up as capitalism and it makes me furious and mama bear-protective and thankful that we have a place to raise our children separated from it.
You really can’t see how bad it is until you get out. There are elements of our society that seemed harmless just a couple of years ago. Now I feel like I have a clearer picture of how harmful they can be to anyone attempting to live a family-oriented life dependent only on the Lord. But you can’t see it while you’re still in it.
There is a fulfilling rawness to agrarianism that can’t be had in an industrialized way of life. If there is a word for this quality then I am at a loss. But to me there is a rawness to the act of doing things by hand the old-fashioned way that allows one to see and experience things they might not otherwise. This quality lacks in doing things through a more mechanized process and the experience is more numb and less fulfilling.
I don’t want to need money. That washing machine and larger home and electricity all require money. That food we have to buy because we can’t raise it ourselves requires money. Those people who are selling those things encourage covetousness and greed and lust. When I give them my money I enable them to keep doing something I claim to hate.
We will continue to write and freelance and be thankful for all of the work we are given. But I pray that we can spend every dollar we can catching more water, planting more sustainably, and learning how to live a separate agrarian way of life while attempting to create a Biblical culture for our children.
Because having those comforts that require that money that fuels something I claim to hate… it’s just not worth it to me.
I admire the simplicity you have achieved! Thanks so much for sharing the glimpses into your world!
As long as you have found your niche and are comfortable with the life you are living, no-one has the right to say it’s not the right way. As Jenni said, I admire you too! Happy days to you all!
I check your blog every day especially for posts like this one! I live in a small town in the Italian Alps and I get so much inspiration from your words. There isn’t going to be a homestead in my life any time soon, but I do hope to be able to grow at least part of my food and live a more sustainable life. I think you are giving your kids a great gift. Keep sharing your thoughts, please!
Ain’t it so, sister! I do so enjoy your posts.
Bless you and your family. Going back to “civilization” can be a shock. In 1984 God sent our family to a small Canadian town for 10 months. When we returned home we suffered culture shock. And that was almost 30 years ago. I would imagine it was even more so for you and your family. We do not watch a lot of TV, at least not the “modern” stuff because we do not like it. However, because God has been working on our hearts and minds, I find I do not like some of the “old” shows either. I am so thankful that God continues to work on our hearts and minds. I am also thankful that He has used you and your blogs to remind us of His mercy and grace to us. God bless you! 🙂
My husband and I lived off-grid in our self-built straw bale house for ten years. Eventually drought drove us away to a more-mainstream house, although not in suburbia. As we get older we find our previous life not as quite appealing as it once was, but we really miss the smug factor and the security of solar power. Hopefully we will have it again. Our next house will have wood heat and a wood cookstove but local building codes will not let us have wood heat alone. Although we are not church people, we have no interest in television, so I appreciate Kathryn’s change in taste. It’s like quitting sugar.
Janet – We’ve considered straw bale as well so it is nice to hear that someone else has tried it :). What do you mean by the smug factor?
@Shannon, Maybe it was a bit naughty to feel this way, but I found that being on solar afforded me a smug feeling that I rather enjoyed. Doing something that other people just talked about. When I hear people doing the financial “is it worth it” calculations I try to tell them that there’s more to it than the dollar value, that the smug factor is worth something as well.
Bless you. We live on a very small farm and grow a lot of our food. I do have electricity and a washing machine but I wash my own dishes and would prefer not to have a TV but my husband enjoys it. I would like to have community but life where we live is made up of rather materialistic folk who are nice but very worldly. I will continue to try to live the gentler life you speak of. This is where I feel more comfortable.
Blessings Gail
I yearn for simpler…we are trimming back as best as we can. For now, we are very dependent on my husbands income. But Lord willing one day will not be as much and can go off the grid more and more as we shift our focus.
Lindsey – It’s a process, isn’t it? We were certainly there once. May God grant you blessings in your obedience to Him.
If you are doing what makes you happy and fulfilled and your children are not lacking in their basic needs then keep on that road. We could do it but frankly we don’t want to live so such a spartan existence. I love instant hot water, flushing toilets, well built/waterproof homes, and washing machines. We are learning to do things more simply but not to the extreme your family has chosen. Despite what some say, you don’t have to do it all or nothing to be effective. If everything we had disappeared we would be fine. Dirtier and colder but fine. Keep up the great posts!
Hello Shannon,
Good post. My family and I live simply, too; growing vegetables and fruit, raising meat and eggs, making stuff, fixing stuff etc. Neither myself nor my wife have a ‘job’ anymore. We homeschool our 4 eldest children, have no TV or computer games, one mobile phone that receives calls only. By the grace of God, my own faith is deepening and I am leading (for the first time) my family down the narrow path.
I hear what you are saying about how your foray into the world has only served to re-confirm your commitment to living the way you do, on your farm, with the community.
And I share your fears and concerns for our children. It is my hope that any exposure to the world and it’s ways will serve to further emphasize the rightness of how we live, in the minds of my children, rather than tempting and confusing them.
Thankyou for sharing your thoughts and experiences – understand that you have kindred spirits and like-minded brethren among us here in Western Australia, too.
God bless you
Hope this finds you well
Justin
Western Australia
Justin,
Thank you for your thoughts. It is nice to know that we have the support of others, even if so far away. Praise the Lord that He is showing you all that He is!
By the way, before we left I pulled back the wood chips on a section of one of our gardens, added chicken manure, straw, and some goat manure from a neighbor. Then I covered it back up with the wood chips. This is a test patch to see how well and fast it decomposes to create better soil. I really appreciate your insights into the soil-building stuff and would love it if you shared more. Perhaps a guest post on soil building?
Thanks bunches and God bless,
Shannon
All my childhood, I hoped for the day that I would leave the small farm. Lots of work- work that lasted all day- from sun up to sun down. And now, that I am 60 – it is so so ironic –how I miss that simple life. I miss seeing the Lord’s miracles (seeds growing, animals having their babies and watching that day turn to night) . I miss the taste of fresh- grown corn and how cool I felt after drinking real, clean spring water. And, I miss how much my parents and grandparents showed me they loved me by working so hard- sun up to sun down.
Nope, don’t get you at all! I grew up in Soviet Union where I washed all clothes and dishes by hand, had no fridge, often no water or power, dismal powerty. At 12 I decided to become an American to enjoy the amenities. Exactly ten years after I fulfilled that goal. Granted, I live on a homestead far simpler than most and don’t have a dishwasher or TV and make a lot of stuff and get things used a well as raise and kill more food than most can dream, but I am clear that I like the comforts these “civilized” things afford. I also have a four bedroom house and about to start a remodel that costs as much as the house to get a gigantic kitchen and a fifth bedroom among other things (we plan to have 5-6 kids). I wouldn’t have it any other way. Still, I understand where you are coming from.
Girls Guide – Love your blog title and wish I was that creative. 🙂
I think it is easy to come away from what I wrote that I would never have a larger home or any amenities to make my life easier. That’s actually not what I’m saying, so perhaps I’m not communicating clearly. I am planning to publish another piece that trails into this one and another one I recently wrote in which I explain exactly what it is I’m saying and what it isn’t.
But I really don’t have a problem with having a larger home (especially with 3 little ones underfoot). It’s just not worth it to me to jump the gun, get a mortgage, be in debt, have my husband work at a job he wasn’t made for, etc. all so that I can have that home I want. I’d rather take our time, start from scratch, build our homestead as money comes on, Lord willing, and live our lives simply in the process. Whether we achieve our own homestead and home life goals or not, I believe we will learn and grow as a family in the process.
I agree with the wisdom to avoid a mortgage and all the “things” and do it as you can. Having a mortgage is like being in slavery, not to mention you are participating in the sin of usury. It is my prayer that we can go back to this way of life, though a well pump, aqua star, top loader, flushie and bathtub would be necessary with 7 children here.
I am a witness to the idea that a larger home or more stuff will not add one jot to your happiness, especially if you can barely afford it. It stinks when you hardly have the money to invest in your yearly meat birds because the bank takes so much for your huge house every month.
God Bless you.