Our year is over

As 2008 drew to a close last night Malora and I both felt very proud and relieved about what we had done throughout the past year. We went an entire year without buying anything new. No shopping malls - No Old Navy. Nothing. We didn’t cheat or break down and we stayed the course for one whole year.

It was an interesting journey and I never expected to get the attention that we got. I think Malora and I have both been significantly changed in the way we view our relationship to money and the stuff we buy. I think we learned to be more generous and view everything we have as a gift from God.

So what’s next? We got an email from a guy who encouraged us to keep the compact going indefinitely. Although I agree that we do not want to end this fast by gorging oursleves on consumption - I think that our year long experiencement of the Compact life is over. Now we have the difficult task of living within (or below) our means in a consumeristic society. It is much easier not to be consumed by shopping when you have rules against it, but the real test is living within that society without being consumed by it.

As we struggle to find balance within the culture of consumption we will continue to write posts about our experiences. The experiment is over for us - but the experience is not because it has deeply altered who we are and how we live in this world. There are definitely certain principles and rules that we will live by now that I will expound on later. We have become conscientious conscious consumers.

Thank you to every one who was a part of this journey with us. Thank you for the encouragement, prayers, emails, comments, and ideas. Thank you for reading our blog and being an integral part of this past year. Thanks for sharing our story. We are very thankful for everyone who has been impacted in any small way by our compact life.

So that’s it. Our year is over - but our new life begins today.