3 1/2 Responses to Jen Hatmaker’s “7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess”

There is a hole in our house. Not a literal rain-allowing, seeing-daylight kind of hole but rather a growth-promoting, soul-exposing kind of hole. That’s right, folks. The fam and I have finally taken the advice from the Red Hot Chili Peppers and thrown away our television. Not actually thrown away, but dropped off at a friend’s garage sale and driven away, with a few tearful glances backward.

Before we were married, Jim had kicked his television to the curb and it wasn’t until the babies came along and movie nights at the university became too impractical and/or too expensive that we purchased a boob tube. In this we felt justified because it wasn’t  a real, hooked-up-to-cable set but rather it was elusively video tape (and later dvd) capable. Thus we could limit our viewing to those films which we thought artistically worthy of our time along with a few age appropriate, please-can-mommy-have-a-break shows for the kids.

Fast forward several internet sprouting years and suddenly anything and everything can flow through the iPad to the TV and computer via Netflix and Hulu. With the approaching fall full of resumed homeschooling and Jen Hatmaker, author of Seven, cheering me on, I sat the kids down and announced that a change was in order. For a season at least. If you aren’t familiar with Hatmaker’s book, I can’t recommend it to you enough. Here are a few of the changes we are making in response to her mutinous call:

1) Chuck the TV. Covered this one. This includes all my sneaky TV apps and our subscription to Netflix. Good-bye Downton, Antique Roadshow, and Biggest Loser. Hello more reading time, blanket forts and board games (or as I like to call them boring games, but don’t tell the kids).

2) A revised vision of what qualifies as dinner. I love, love, love cooking. Not only that but for years, cooking for my family has been an expression of love. I have often remarked (probably to myself) that food tastes better when prepared out of affection rather than out of duty. Dinner is my love materialized in the form of mashed potatoes and extra gravy. But I am figuring out that I can saying “I love you” with simpler and less expensive meals. My love is not reflected in our grocery bill, or maybe it is. By freeing up more resources to pour out on behalf of others in need of both material and emotional support, I am giving my kids a lesson in loving the neighbors more than we love our own, overstuffed bellies.

3) A renewed commitment to waste reduction. For a few years now, we have been composting. I have to admit while I feel great about sparing my scraps from a life sentence in the landfill, composting is stinky business. My trip to the bin in order to empty out the banana peel, coffee ground soup is not my favorite. But it does greatly impact the amount of waste we haul to the curb every week. Our community doesn’t offer recycling so we have to make more of an effort there. Today I drove with a literal car-full of cardboard boxes and milk containers to a near-by recycling center. I may have driven up with a load of junk, but I drove away with a light-hearted sense of satisfaction. And next week, I won’t waste several gallons of gas due to my refusal to call and ask for directions.

3 1/2) This response only merits a “half” because it is a bit more vague but somehow I think it might end up being the most powerful. It is a feeling of greater responsibility to love my neighbors. My neighbors both near and far. I feel as though the winter does something to my spirit; it gets cramped and closed-in during the grey months of cold and snow. Seven, along with a great deal more sunshine and warm weather, has me more outward focused, feeling open-eyed and on the lookout for those in need.

I think what I appreciated most of about Jen Hatmaker’s mutinous attempt to shake free of the excess of our culture is that it doesn’t read like a preachy, self-righteous lecture on self-denial. It doesn’t sound anything like the “sermons” I give the kids about starving children who would love to eat that bowl of oatmeal. When I finished the book, I felt energized rather than shamed. I highly recommend it for anyone looking to shake things up a bit. Just be prepared for what might shake loose in the process.