B2C Mother

For ten years our project was the “Church of Stop Shopping!” We knew that it would take some kind of hot revival to break the strangle-hold of “stuff.” The onus was on American consumers to save the economy every Christmas, and then our shopping was supposed to save the country from terrorism, too. The marketing was so personally invasive that there was no longer much we could that was not somehow corporate sponsored. We couldn’t even fall in love, or raise our own children, without buying the experience. So yes, let’s “Stop Shopping!” Then later in our church work, after Katrina and Rita, we began to feel the earth was our leader. The earth would ultimately arouse our strongest shouts of “Stop Shopping!” – and we knew the earth would eventually stop our shopping for us.

Now we are standing in the rain, the institution has emptied. We shopped till we dropped, didn’t we… The “Shopocalypse” is at hand! And we Americans stand in the wreckage of miles of pavement, empty billboards, dead super malls. At the same time – our communities are bravely changing around us. This is the inspiration for the changing of our name. We have stopped and we are starting something new. Our neighborhoods and Main Streets, shuttered by the big boxes and their big banks, are now blossoming again. There are record start-ups each week, usually family businesses. Organic farms and green markets are strong. People are meeting their neighbors and are trading with each other, skill-swapping and loaning tools. This last Christmas, indy shops out-performed chain stores. We shopped local. Local-a-lujah!

And so we stand outside, soaked to the skin, and we feel different. We see the corporations waving to us. They are trying to catch our eye. Pepsico’s logo even stole Obama’s sunrise. But we sense the over-advertising, over-packaging, the con of the debt. We have something so much more powerful calling to us. Our neighborhoods and towns can be healthy again. Peace-a-ujah! Earth-a-luja! We will have a Life After Shopping.