The Danger of Dogma

Sometimes I think it would be easier to be dogmatic -- I've tried this.  I will not shop at Walmart, ever.  I will not buy a single new thing for a year.  I will only eat things that come without packaging.  But, I actually have a life.  And while I am inspired by people like Colin Beavin (No Impact Man http://noimpactman.typepad.com/) or Christopher and Kerri at the Dollar a Day Diet Project  (http://onedollardietproject.wordpress.com/about/), I think their projects are limited in their application for others.  (Colin Beavin has a wife with a high paying job. Christopher and Kerri are vegans and without children.) So, this is all my excuse for not following to the letter, my desire to buy nothing new.  I've done really well and bought very little new.  However, I'm also in the middle of transforming my home to a micro-farm, working at the university, raising three kids and transitioning out of a failed marriage.  So, last week when the opportunity arose to buy a pre-cut chicken coop that we could assemble ourselves in about an hour.  I bought it.  It's lovely, done and in the backyard.  My daughters and I put it together with very little stress.  It came from Portland, Oregon which is at least in the region.  And, it accomplished a major goal at my household with a minimum of stress! This weekend I also bought a metal waterer and feeder that I can attach mason jars to -- and 4 chicks at the Fair. 

Maybe it is a cop-out  on my part, but I think it is really a friendly, karmic reminder not to be so dogmatic.  Last year, Richard, a friend and activist in the Transition Communities initiative, told me that people who want to be totally self-sufficient are just control freaks.  He was right (and had been told that himself when he got on the self-sufficiency dogma bandwagon.) 

In our efforts to obtain a better way of sustainable or green or green frugal living, we can't lose sight of the goal of making our lives and the planet better.  Also, we can't forget that we do need each other and that community is a good thing.  So, it's ok to buy something we need that's made well or that we cannot do ourselves or even that we might hate doing. Bread baking, carpentry, canning, sewing, wood chopping, car repair can't or at least don't have to be everybody's thing.  We can work together to make our communities strong and economies stable without being so dogmatic. 

So that's my take on Green, Frugal, Sane Family Living for this week.