Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Fayetteville

Rev. Dave Hunter
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Fayetteville
February 7, 2010

My grandfather was a grocer.  Claude Hunter, my father’s father, and Claude’s brother, Albert, for about 30 years owned and managed a grocery store in downtown Lansing, Michigan.  You could find in their store just about anything that a reasonable midwestern housewife would want to serve to her family.  The food was good, if not imaginative; the service was friendly.  It was a reliable institution in Lansing.

But the Hunter Brothers’ market was very different from the supermarkets of today.  One modern supermarket offers 285 varieties of cookies, 230 kinds of soup, 175 different salad dressings, and 275 varieties of breakfast cereal.  [Barry Schwartz, The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less (HarperCollins, 2004), pp. 9-10]

Where would you rather do your grocery shopping?  Neither strikes me as ideal.

This is the kind of situation that led Barry Schwartz, a psychologist at Swarthmore College, to write the book The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less.  As the title indicates, Schwartz believes that the amount of choice we have is excessive; we would be better off, he argues, if we didn’t have such an abundance of options.  Schwartz works in the intersection of psychology and economics, a place of particular interest to me.  He was my stepson David’s academic advisor when David was an undergraduate at Swarthmore a decade and a half ago.

Schwartz starts with the story of going out in search of a new pair of jeans.  He is confronted with slim fit, easy fit, relaxed fit, baggy, extra baggy, stonewashed, acid-washed, distressed, button-fly, zipper-fly, faded, and unfaded – and, of course, with all the permutations and combinations of those features.  When he requested “just regular jeans,” the clerk had to consult an older colleague to figure out what that could possibly mean. [Schwartz, p. 1]

Schwartz’s conclusion, that all this choice is a mixed blessing, at best, is not based on his being a curmudgeonly spoilsport or a Neanderthal Luddite or a dim-witted time traveler from the 19th century.  He uses sound empirical research to support his findings and his recommendations.

Our houses are bigger, much bigger, than they were 50 years ago.  Television channels have increased by a factor of 100 or so.  We have VCRs and DVDs and TiVos.  We have Google and blogs and iPods and – my goodness! – iPads.  We have herbs and spices and fruits and vegetables my grandfather never heard of.  We have communications technology that Dick Tracy could only envy.

But here’s the catch.  We don’t feel better off.  Here’s what Schwartz says, in reporting on satisfaction surveys:

One of the things these surveys tell us is that, not surprisingly, people in rich countries are happier than people in poor countries.  Obviously, money matters.  But what these surveys also reveal is that money doesn’t matter as much as you might think.  Once a society’s level of per capita wealth crosses a threshold from poverty to adequate subsistence, further increases in national wealth have almost no effect on happiness.

If, instead of looking at happiness across nations at a given time, we look within a single nation at different times, we find the same story.  In the last forty years, the per capita income of Americans (adjusted for inflation) has more than doubled.  The percentage of homes with dishwashers has increased from 9 percent to 50 percent.  The percentage of homes with clothes dryers has increased from 20 percent to 70 percent.  Does this mean we have more happy people?  Not at all. [pp. 106-07]

The American “happiness quotient” has been going gently but consistently downhill for more than a generation.  While the American gross domestic product more than doubled in the last thirty years, the proportion of the population describing itself as “very happy” declined by 5 percent. [p. 201]

Schwartz offers a number of explanations for these counter-intuitive results.  One explanation is hedonic adaptation.  [p. 170]  We get accustomed to the new car, the new house, the new computer, or whatever it is.  At first it gives us pleasure, but gradually we get used to it.  We adapt, and our happiness, our satisfaction with life, is back where it was.  Thus, to give an extreme example, lottery winners are no happier than the rest of us.

Schwartz offers a number of very sound and sensible recommendations for how we can avoid the trap of excessive choice.  Chapter 11 has 11 such recommendations.  The reading Kerry shared with you a few minutes ago is recommendation number six, practice an “attitude of gratitude.” [pp. 230-31]

Another recommendation that I’ll mention is number eleven, learn to love constraints.  [pp. 235-36]  “As the number of choices we face increases,” Schwartz writes, “freedom of choice eventually becomes a tyranny of choice.” [p. 235]  We can all think of examples of this.   Schwartz advises us to “learn to view limits on the possibilities we face as liberating.”  Sometimes society does this for us.  Consider how you got here this morning: speed limits and traffic lights and driving on the right side of the road – they all restricted your freedom; they reduced the number of choices you could make, but they also made the trip easier and life better.  Restaurants give us menus, not unlimited choice.

Schwartz would have us go beyond the constraints on our freedom imposed by others and impose constraints on ourselves.  He offers a couple of examples: always wearing a seat belt, never drinking more than two glasses of wine in one evening.  You can think of others.  Some rules are quite simple: Always use the toilet before starting out on a trip.

Other rules have more serious implications: For example, always be faithful to your spouse.  That’s a decision that we make, or that I hope we make, when we decide to make a lifetime commitment.  Let’s not reopen it.  And here’s one that’s dear to my heart, as someone who worked to expand and protect the right to vote for more than three decades: Always vote – no matter what the election is, always vote.

Simply listing all of Schwartz’s eleven recommendations would not be helpful, and summarizing them would take too long, but I commend the book to you.  Rather than sharing more Schwartz with you, I want to go off now in a different direction.

On another occasion I might discuss whether one of the problems of Unitarian Universalism is that it offers us too much choice.  We don’t have a creed; we believe that “revelation is not sealed;” we are open to wisdom from all the world’s religions.  Is our beloved openness one of our problems?

That’s a question for another day.  I would like, in the remaining time, to offer you three suggestions this morning, in the hope that perhaps one of them might inspire some interest.  These suggestions are in response to the world of runaway choice that Schwartz describes, the situation that we find ourselves in as residents and consumers.  My guess is that you will find them unrealistic and impractical, and, yes, I agree, they are unrealistic and impractical.

I

My first suggestion is that you take up the practice of tithing, of giving away ten percent of your income.  Many religious communities follow this practice, but tithing has not been part of Unitarian Universalist culture.  I think tithing is worthy of our consideration.

I checked the Bible, and my conclusion is that there is not a clear biblical foundation for tithing.  There are scattered references to tithing in the Hebrew Bible.  The clearest mandate for tithing is in Leviticus, chapter 27:

30 All tithes from the land, whether the seed from the ground or the fruit from the tree, are the Lord’s; they are holy to the LORD.

32 All tithes of herd and flock, every tenth one that passes under the shepherd’s staff, shall be holy to the LORD.

How this tenth part is to be used is left unclear.  The practice of tithing, however, was common in the middle east prior to the rise of the Hebrews; it was not their invention.  Tithing can be considered the ancestor of both taxes and charitable contributions.

Islam, in case you were wondering, has a related but not identical practice.  Instead of the tithe, Islam has, as one of its five pillars, the zakat.

The zakat is the systematic giving of two and a half percent of one’s wealth each year to benefit the poor.  It’s wealth based, rather than income based.

The Zakat, of course, helps the poor. But it has benefits for the person doing the giving as well.

According to Islam, the zakat helps us acknowledge that everything comes from God on loan, and that we do not really own anything ourselves.  You can leave out the theistic language, but the basic idea is a sound one.  Whatever goods, whatever wealth we have is ours only temporarily.  We have our wealth in part through our own hard work, but probably in greater part through the institutions of society, through the good or bad fortune of birth and family, and through our own good or bad luck.

The zakat reminds us, secondly, that we cannot take anything with us when we die, and thus clinging to our wealth and possessions is futile.

Finally, the zakat frees us from the love of money and possessions and from greed.

Tithing, I should think, has similar benefits.  Here is the approach that some Unitarian Universalists take to tithing: five percent of income to one’s congregation, five percent to other causes.

Some of you are probably already tithing, though my guess is you don’t use this language.

Many of you are probably saying to yourself, I can’t afford to tithe.  That may well be the case.  I won’t argue with you on that.  But my guess is that those who have the “I can’t afford it” response include those who earn $90,000 a year as well as those who earn $30,000 a year.

I think Barry Schwartz might be able to help us here.  A few minutes ago I tried to explain the strangely-named concept, hedonic adaptation.

Fortunately, hedonic adaptation works in both directions.  If you take the 10% tithe right off the top, eventually your feeling of satisfaction will adjust to the new level.

Schwartz presents another idea that’s relevant here – sunk costs.

In a classic demonstration of the power of sunk costs, [Schwartz writes] people were offered season subscriptions to a local theater company.  Some were offered the tickets at full price and others at a discount.  Then the researchers simply kept track of how often the ticket purchasers actually attended the plays over the course of the season.  What they found was that full-price payers were more likely to show up at performances than discount payers. [p. 160]

Economists will tell us that this is irrational.  The money has been paid; it’s gone; you won’t get it back.  Your decision to go to the play or not should be based on what your options are now: would I rather see the play, stay home and read a book, or watch football on TV?  But we don’t function like the economists’ rational man.

Thus if you invest 5% of your income in a college or in an environmental organization or in this congregation, then your commitment to the group that receives your money will increase.  Commitment follows contribution, and, of course, vice versa.

II

My second suggestion is that you observe a Sabbath.  That is, treat one day a week as different from the other days.  It doesn’t have to be a full day, you could start with half a day, or perhaps a Sabbath hour every evening.

Observing a Sabbath looks hard.  We’re all so busy.  It’s hard to slow down.  It’s hard not to work long hours.  It’s hard not to be a full-time consumer.  It’s hard to resist enabling our children to do soccer and clarinet and ski trip.  It’s hard, and it’s lonely being the only one not going with the program of consumption and nonstop activity.

Here are some observations on Sabbath observance by Wayne Muller:

Sabbath is a time to stop, to refrain from being seduced by our desires.  To stop working, stop making money, stop spending money.  See what you have.  Look around.  Listen to your life.  Do you really need more than this?  [Wayne Muller, Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in Our Busy Lives (New York: Bantam Books, 1999), p. 137]

During Sabbath we stop counting.  How do we count friendship or laughter?  How do we count the value of honesty, or bread from the oven?  How can we count the sunrise, the trusting clasp of a child’s hand, a melody, a tear, a lover’s touch?   [Muller, p. 112]

The Sabbath is a patch of ground secured by a tiny fence, when we withdraw from the endless choices afforded us.  Sabbath restrictions on work and activity actually create a space of great freedom; without these self-imposed restrictions, we may never be truly free. [Muller, p. 143]

We used to have laws, blue laws, that forced us to take breaks from activity.  There was a flap in Virginia a few years ago when the legislature inadvertently repealed a section of a law that authorized certain types of stores to open on Sundays.  For some, the accidental blue law would mean the inconvenience of not being able to shop on Sunday – the only day available to them.  For others, it would mean a day with family, without the compulsion to staff the store.  The legislature quickly corrected its mistake – if it was a mistake.

I remember when I was a boy, living in a suburb of Detroit.  The lots were fairly large, and everyone had a power mower.  I remember my father expressing his understanding that neighbors should not mow their lawns on Sunday.  We would have one a day a week of peace and quiet.

By the way, if you recall the creation story from Genesis, the one in which God creates the world and its inhabitants in six days, on day seven God rests.  It was written that way to justify the institution of the Sabbath, resting on the seventh day, following the example of God.

III

You might see some connections between Schwartz’s idea that we face more choices than are good for us and the suggestions that we would benefit from tithing and from observing a Sabbath.  They all go in the direction of a simpler, more focused, more intentional life.  And don’t forget the responsive reading, Henry David Thoreau’s advice that we live deliberately. [SLT #660]

My third suggestion, I would like to imagine, builds on this foundation.  My third suggestion is to do theology.  I mean “do theology” in the broad sense: not the narrow sense of theology as theorizing about the nature and existence of God, but theology in the broad sense of examining our basic values, exploring the meaning of life, contemplating what’s the point of it all.  As David Ray puts it, “I understand theology to be one’s ultimate approach to life.  By this definition, every person has a theology, even those who claim no religious conviction.  Out of our theology we craft our values, beliefs, and actions.” [David R. Ray, The Indispensable Guide for Smaller Churches (Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 2003), p. 43]

It was Socrates’ view that an unexamined life is not worth living. [Plato, Apology 38a]  I don’t think I would go quite that far, but he has a point. He did not make this statement lightly, by the way, but in his argument to the Athenian jury, shortly before he was condemned to death.

The implicit premise of Schwartz’s book is that our goal in life is happiness or satisfaction.  You measure that by how you’re feeling, or by how you answer questions on a survey.  The practice of doing theology or of examining one’s life pushes a person, however, to ask whether happiness is indeed our goal.  Is happiness the key to the meaning of life?  This leads to the further question, how could we possibly decide what our goal in life is?  We are, perhaps, inclined to use our feeling of happiness or satisfaction as the measure for evaluating other goals.  But that approach becomes circular.

In addition to this theoretical problem, there is as well, a practical problem with using our feelings of happiness or satisfaction as our goal in life.  Schwartz reports research that indicates that “what we remember about the pleasurable quality of our past experiences is almost entirely determined by two things: how the experiences felt when they were at their peak (best or worst), and how they felt when they ended.” [Schwartz, p. 49]

Thus, you might, in retrospect [Schwartz explains], remember a one-week vacation that had some great moments and finished with a bang as more pleasurable than a three-week vacation that also had some great moments, but finished only with a whimper.  The two extra weeks of relaxing in the sun or seeing the sights or eating great food make little difference, because they recede from awareness over time.”  [Schwartz, pp. 50-51]

We cannot trust our own recollection of how our experiences felt to us.

Doing theology is a challenge – a worthy challenge.

*     *     *

To sum up, my advice is–

o first, tithe – give away ten percent of what you earn,

o second, observe a Sabbath – in the form that fits your life,

o and, third, do theology – take time to think about what it all means, and what the purpose might have been for your having been put on this earth.

I don’t imagine that following this advice is easy, and I have not claimed that I follow these three practices myself.  Here are four suggestions that might help.

First, following these practices with others, as part of a religious community, makes them easier.  It won’t be as lonely, and you’ll have the support of others.

Second, see the three practices as related to each other.  They help each other.

Third, work into them gradually.

Fourth, don’t be discouraged by relapses.  Your journey will be an interesting one, but don’t expect it to be a straight line.  There will be hills and valleys, washed-out bridges and dead-end roads.

So may it be; amen.