The picture at left is pretty much what it looked like at the coat and hat giveaway today on the west side of Columbus, Ohio.

We've been reaching out to the residents of a small low-income housing complex consistently every month for the past three years - mostly by giving away groceries - and during that time we've witnessed the incredible growth of one of the most explosive new populations in the city: Somalian refugees. The transformation during that time has been amazing.

Somalians now number over 45,000 in central Ohio alone, and more continue coming to America. 15% have become U.S. citizens, they have an average family size of 7-8 members, and 99.99% are muslim. They're friendly, yet quiet and suspicious. They're colorful and desperate, and during outreaches like today they tend to adopt an incredibly aggressive tactic of swelling forward in a mad frenzy to get whatever they can. It can be a bit overwhelming for people unaccustomed to it.

Sometimes it’s the little things that bug me. I order a cup of coffee and the cashier wants to sell me the next size up: “It’s only an extra twenty-five cents!”

No thanks.

It’s like this everywhere. “Can I super-size that for you? Can I talk to you about our extended warranty? Have you heard about our exclusive-customer-rewards-membership-club?”

Thank you, no.

My credit card company wants to sell me life insurance, my life insurance company wants to sell me a coffee maker, and the coffee shop wants to sell me CD’s.

These people aren’t being considerate. They don’t care about my well-being. They don’t really see me. I’m a margin on their spread-sheet; a sales-lead; a customer contact; or a “valuable community partner.” They’ve been meticulously taught to talk every penny of profit from my reluctant pockets.

In a world like this it threatens the natural order of things when you give stuff away. It confounds people when you’re kind to them for the sake of being kind. It shakes the ground beneath their feet.

Have you ever thought about where all the stuff we buy comes from and where it all goes?

There's a fantastic little film about the consumer economy over at a website called thestoryofstuff.com. Twoshirts was created for the explicit purpose of addressing some of the problems Annie Leonard details in this film, so I thought it would be fun to take a couple of blog posts and discuss it here.

What I'm going to do is post the film here in seven parts, all about 2-3 minutes a piece. That way you can wander over here when you have a little time and digest all this information in bite-sized chunks, then join the discussion.

Now, here's where I issue an important request: please don't get sidetracked by politics. There are tons of little political jabs in this film, and it's fairly obvious that Annie has strong political opinions, but even if you disagree with those opinions please set that aside for now and give the bigger issue a fair hearing.

When we left off in chapter one Annie had just said that one of the things missing from the "system" on the white board was people. Part of what she's saying is that when we discuss the bigger picture of the "materials economy" - or what I'm calling the "consumer culture" - we tend to talk about the larger, abstract mechanistic structures that dominate the system, but we often forget that the whole thing involves regular folks. These regular folks are part of corporations, work as employees, serve in governments, live as citizens, and, of course, shop as consumers. Moreover, she said that some people in the system have more authority over how the system operates than others.

In this installment, Annie discusses the first abstract mechanistic structure in the system, namely "Extraction" and its consequences. Please watch the 2 min video below and then comment on the questions I've proposed as a starting point for discussion.

My questions:

1. Is it a problem that the United States represents 5% of the world's population, but consumes 30% of the world's resources? If not, then why not?

We've come to part 3 of our 7 part discussion on the Annie Leonard short film, The Story of Stuff. I want to thank everyone who has contributed so far; you've all provided some diverse perspectives and that's what I was hoping for. If you haven't already, you can check out Part 2 here, and Part 1 here.

In this 3 minute segment Annie moves on to the next step in the process of creating the material products we consume - the means of production - and in it she introduces some key concepts.

Please watch the 3 minute clip below, then provide us with your input. I'd particularly like to hear your thoughts around one or both of these points:

Part 4 of our "Story of Stuff" Discussion is upon us! In the previous three episodes we followed Annie Leonard as she sketched out some of the missing parts of the picture in the normal story of how our everyday products are created. Today we look at the next step, distribution.

This is where things start to get more relevant to the average person in the United States, and in this chapter Annie says a few things that are worth paying very close attention to.

For example, Annie talks about how products often have "externalized costs," which just means that the true cost of the object isn't included in the price.

So my question is very simple: is it right for one person (or company, or country) to profit at the expense of another person (or company, or country)? Always, sometimes, never? What's the difference?

Watch the episode below, then share your thoughts:

In this episode Annie says something that is essentially a profoundly spiritual diagnosis of our culture:

"Our primary identity has become that of being consumers...The primary way our value is measured is by how much we [...] consume."

This is a staggering statement, and frankly the fact that we aren't outraged by it is an indication of the extent to which we've been pacified into oblivion by the marketing machinery of popular culture.

In fact, if we are in a spiritual crisis in this country, as some believe, then in my opinion much of that crisis can be traced back to the fact that fundamentally we aren't regarded as people. Our identity is not in who we are but in what we do.

By contrast, ancient Christian tradition teaches that people are to be afforded tremendous worth, and therefore tremendous respect, because we are the image, or reflection, of God. That's supposed to be our identity. We are amazing creatures with astonishing potential (for good and evil) who are inherently worth more that any thing, idea, or task. This is supposed to be a inexhaustible source of human dignity.

Okay everyone, it's time to wrap up our Story of Stuff discussion with the final two chapters. I've personally enjoyed reading your comments so far, and I appreciate how you've played along with me while I've tried to stir the pot a little.

In this installment I'm going to ask a few deeper questions, so please take the time time to pitch in your thoughts. Each of us has something valuable to contribute. Watch both final chapters before commenting. I've embedded them below:

Here's Part 6:

And here's part 7:

The Grove City Vineyard Group is conducting a food drive to benefit the Mid-Ohio Food Bank for the whole month of June! Why not join us? This is an excellent opportunity for church small groups, employers, and individuals to make an impact in Central Ohio. Our goal is to collect 25,000 items and $2,500 dollars by June 25th!

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News about the economy seems to get worse every day. So, we want to hear from you! We've setup a couple of forums to discuss how you're managing to get by during harder economic times. has your family been affected? If so, how?

We also want to hear from you about how the Twoshirts community can better help their friends and neighbors during these tough times. What are your ideas?

Head over to the forums to check it out.