THE EARTH IS BUT ONE COUNTRY
We cannot segregate the human heart from the environment outside us and say that once one of these is reformed everything will be improved. Man is organic with the world. His inner life moulds the environment and is itself also deeply affected by it. The one acts upon the other and every abiding change in the life of man is the result
 of these mutual reactions.

— Shoghi Effendi, The Compilation of Compilations Vol. 1

As landscapes start to overflow with storage lockers, our consuming culture now makes money housing the disparity between our needs and wants.

In our neighborhood, spring and fall are each heralded by collections of household items and other goods that appear outside homes overnight in anticipation of the big seasonal trash pickup.

One morning years ago, I awoke to the clanging of aluminum tubing striking a metal surface. We’d left a cache of it outside the night before, stuffed into a trash barrel like unruly stalks of celery, one of dozens of items we’d hauled to the curb from the dark recesses of our basement.

Outside, one man was methodically examining the goods we’d stockpiled while another was making the clanging sound as he tossed those tubes into a well-used pickup. Seeing these early birds find something they could use among our junk was a real jumpstart to my day.

All over town that week, people started to visit these roadside stashes to have a look. Nobody seemed self-conscious about it, and some were downright helpful. One woman pointed out a nice little cabinet she was giving away that’s been a part of our kitchen ever since.

Nobody organized this “road mart” activity. The exchange just seemed to spring up by itself, almost as if we’d all been waiting for the opportunity.

As the piles grew, I discovered one morning that our rapidly growing prepubescent son no longer fit into his only white shirt, the one we’d bought just two months before, and the required attire for his school concerts. My wallet yawned empty when I looked inside.
Desperate, I phoned a fourteen-year-old friend of the family for help.
“Sure,” he said, searching his closet. “I’ve got three—one should fit. And would you be willing to drive me downtown? My friend says there’s some really good stuff out now, and we’d like to check it out.”

The neighborhood where I dropped him off had a pile at every house. He looked delirious as he raced away, but not before I thanked him for saving me—and my wallet—a trip to the store. This was my kind of grassroots economy, for sure.

Where our son was sometimes careless with new clothes, he treated this borrowed shirt like some sort of grail. “Better not spill on Seth’s shirt,” he said, tucking a napkin in his neck at dinnertime (a level of concern he’d never demonstrated with any of his clothes before). As we drove to the concert, he realized, “Hey, Mom! You didn’t even have to spend money to get this shirt! I bet there are lots of ways not to spend money.” I actively encouraged a new hobby of seeing how many alternatives to buying new things he could find.

Indeed, God, Who counsels that every hair of our heads is accounted for, urges stewardship of all things, including material goods. Worldly things benefit us most when we acquire and use them thoughtfully, so that they don’t “own” us.

If ever we needed such stewardship, it’s now. In one month, two friends described storage lockers from which they’ve never reclaimed goods after moving, because they haven’t the space for (i.e., don’t really need) them. I recently noticed several failed strip malls advertising space for personal storage. Where it once sold us the goods, our consuming culture now capitalizes on providing space for what we no longer need—or perhaps never needed in the first place. It’s amazing that even sitting forgotten and unused, those goods are still consuming energy.

The disparity between our genuine needs and our often undisciplined wants affects a wider sphere than that of our own lives, of course. For a long time it seemed possible to overlook this truth, but it stares back at us from every direction now. The more we acquire, the less we recycle or reuse, and the more energy we consume, the larger that “carbon footprint” we leave behind. No matter who’s doing the studies about our impact on the environment, the evidence seems to indicate that it’s those of us living in the U.S. who are leaving the biggest footprint.

In addition to conserving energy and preserving our shared home, knowing what we truly need and when we no longer need it is a valuable skill of discernment for many reasons, especially when it’s matched with a spirit of generosity. Even if we have to spend the next couple of decades shifting our thinking and behavior in this way, wouldn’t it be worth it if, as a result, we see the extremes of want and poverty—and of drowning in excess—disappear?

Some cultures have long held simple but effective solutions for renewing, recycling, and conserving resources in this way. A friend described one example of creative stewardship she witnessed on a visit with the Cowichan band of Native people in British Columbia. They introduced her to a long-established tradition called a potlatch, an event where participants bring belongings they wish to share or no longer need so that others will have access to them. She described a convivial affair with lots of music and food, and those of all ages going home with useful things, with few having to cart many old belongings home.

They don’t have curbside trash pickup. But they do get together like this every once in a while to enjoy each other’s company and pool resources.

Sounds like mighty good stewardship to me.