Pinterest: The neverending wish list of things we absolutely don't need.

I am teaching a new series in my Sunday school class starting tomorrow--Economy of Love, which is a book/DVD series produced by Shane Claiborne and friends. I don't know much about it, but when I saw it for sale at a conference in November I just felt called to include it in our Sunday school curriculum. I think this is one of those cases where I picked a series because I felt like I needed to hear it... but maybe that's not such a bad thing. Hopefully it will spark some good discussion tomorrow.
From the little that I know about this series, I've managed to glean that the overall theme is the idea of living with "enough." We live in a part of the world, a part of the country, and a part of Memphis where we feel like we never have enough. I struggle with this. There is pressure to "keep up" with everyone else, and it is stressful to be so young and to already feel this economic and status-driven pressure.

On a somewhat related note, after much pressure from friends, I joined Pinterest right before the holidays, and it has become a great tool for finding creative handmade gift ideas. I also love searching Pinterest for healthy recipes and classroom ideas. I (grudgingly) admit that Pinterest is a clever and useful social media tool. However... I think that Pinterest just adds to our overall feelings of not having enough, of wanting more. My feed of "pinners I follow" (mostly friends from Facebook that Pinterest automatically added) is full of photos of homes that we will never be able to afford, outfits that would cost an entire month's salary, and elaborate wedding reception plans that would bankrupt any bride-to-be's family. You don't need a master bedroom overlooking a waterfall with a king-size bed suspended from the ceiling. You don't need a jewel-incrusted designer wedding dress (especially if you are still in high school!) You don't need a wedding reception in a rustic abandoned barn draped with thousands of twinkling lights. Do we even have rustic abandoned barns in Memphis? We are getting into a pattern of pinning everything we wish we had--creating endless wish lists of things we'll never be able to afford and that we just really don't need.
Fellow pinners, let's stop pinning for the lives we wish we had and focus on the lives we're living now! Embrace your singleness and quit pinning wedding photos! Embrace your thriftiness and quit pinning designer dresses! Embrace your love for humanity and quit pinning photos of diamonds that were mined unethically! (Sorry, I had to slip that last one in.) Let's quit treating Pinterest like it's a neverending wish list of things we absolutely can't live without and start trying to be satisfied with where are lives are and what we have now.