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Before I start my morning ritual of getting ready for work, I wanted to share this one. This is not critical, just sharing some rather amusing irony observed.
Yesterday our minister prepared and excellent service focused on Buddhist teachings. She did a great job of presenting the concept of not finding happiness in the material but rather through compassion for all life around us. It also touched on our very consumerist society and how we really should be happy with the bare necessities. Our minister used examples from her own life to show how consumerism plays a part in our lives and how often one purchase leads to a spiral of purchases, how we can find dissatisfaction in a culture filled with abundance and so much choice. I thoroughly enjoyed it! The irony came in what followed.
First, a little background: the fellowship hall was originally designed to be twice the size. When it was first constructed they ran out of funds and were not able to fully build out, meaning they built what they could with the hope of someday finishing it. The fellowship has grown and there isn't enough room to have the social hour after service in the foyer. A lot of the programs the fellowship creates end up hosted elsewhere because of lack of space. Thus there has been an effort to design, fund and build an expansion.
After the service on not finding happiness through the material and commentary on our consumerist society, we held a meeting of the membership. This meeting was to hear the results of the feasibility study on a capital campaing for the building project. We were rallied to get excited about raising funds to expand a building. There was also discussion on how the capital campaign would affect the usual annual budget drive and the need for an endowment. There was also discussion on how the expansion of the building would bring additional maintenance costs and cautionary tales of how renting the space to other groups may not be a good idea since that would add to building wear and tear and that the returns would be diminished as a result and the fellowship might not make much money from it to support the budget.
Oh the irony! lol
Yesterday our minister prepared and excellent service focused on Buddhist teachings. She did a great job of presenting the concept of not finding happiness in the material but rather through compassion for all life around us. It also touched on our very consumerist society and how we really should be happy with the bare necessities. Our minister used examples from her own life to show how consumerism plays a part in our lives and how often one purchase leads to a spiral of purchases, how we can find dissatisfaction in a culture filled with abundance and so much choice. I thoroughly enjoyed it! The irony came in what followed.
First, a little background: the fellowship hall was originally designed to be twice the size. When it was first constructed they ran out of funds and were not able to fully build out, meaning they built what they could with the hope of someday finishing it. The fellowship has grown and there isn't enough room to have the social hour after service in the foyer. A lot of the programs the fellowship creates end up hosted elsewhere because of lack of space. Thus there has been an effort to design, fund and build an expansion.
After the service on not finding happiness through the material and commentary on our consumerist society, we held a meeting of the membership. This meeting was to hear the results of the feasibility study on a capital campaing for the building project. We were rallied to get excited about raising funds to expand a building. There was also discussion on how the capital campaign would affect the usual annual budget drive and the need for an endowment. There was also discussion on how the expansion of the building would bring additional maintenance costs and cautionary tales of how renting the space to other groups may not be a good idea since that would add to building wear and tear and that the returns would be diminished as a result and the fellowship might not make much money from it to support the budget.
Oh the irony! lol
