{"id":148,"date":"2009-02-16T03:45:00","date_gmt":"2009-02-16T03:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/freshliving\/2009\/02\/is-buying-local-spiritual.html"},"modified":"2009-02-16T03:45:00","modified_gmt":"2009-02-16T03:45:00","slug":"is-buying-local-spiritual","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/02\/is-buying-local-spiritual.html","title":{"rendered":"Is Buying Local Spiritual?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There are environmental, economic, and logistical things to consider when deciding how much of a locavore to be.&nbsp; But is buying local spiritual?<\/p>\n<p>Our Beliefnet blog brother Gus diZerega has <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/apagansblog\/2009\/02\/the-spiritual-virtue-in-buying-locally.html\">a fascinating post<\/a> over on <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/apagansblog\/\">A Pagan&#8217;s Blog<\/a> about this very question.&nbsp; He says:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Spiritually, buying from [a] larger perspective recognizes we are<br \/>\nanything but isolated egos seeking to serve our &#8216;preferences.&#8217; As wise<br \/>\npeople have known for millennia, and as science is demonstrating on<br \/>\neven very subtle levels of our lives, we are who we are because of our<br \/>\nrelations.&nbsp; For example, the <i>New Scientist<\/i> reports on research<br \/>\nshowing our behavior is powerfully influenced not only by our friends,<br \/>\nbut also even by their friends whom we do not know.&nbsp; We are<a href=\"http:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/mg20126881.600-how-your-friends-friends-can-affect-your-mood.html?full=true\"> more likely to be depressed<\/a> if the friends of our friends are depressed!&nbsp; Even if we do not know them.&nbsp; Our world is subtle.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I like how Gus is basically defining spirituality &#8211; a very hard thing to define &#8211; as community.&nbsp; Living a spiritual life means being connected to, and responsible for, those who share our zip codes.&nbsp; It is a very individualistic world we live in, and spirituality is a vocabulary that many of us use to transcend the isolation epidemic.<\/p>\n<p>I buy locally a lot, but then again, I am lucky enough to live in a town where the only &#8220;chain&#8221; restaurant is a Boston-area chain (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.notyouraveragejoes.com\/\">Not Your Average Joe&#8217;s<\/a>, and it&#8217;s delish) and even the movie theater is locally owned.&nbsp; I&#8217;m not sure I would choose &#8220;spiritual&#8221; to describe my local-buying choices, but I would use words like &#8220;connected,&#8221; &#8220;community&#8221; and even &#8220;meaningful.&#8221; And maybe that&#8217;s all spiritual buying is.<\/p>\n<p>But is &#8220;buying spiritually&#8221; a luxury, especially in tough economic times?&nbsp; A penny for your thoughts&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are environmental, economic, and logistical things to consider when deciding how much of a locavore to be.&nbsp; But is buying local spiritual? Our Beliefnet blog brother Gus diZerega has a fascinating post over on A Pagan&#8217;s Blog about this very question.&nbsp; He says: &#8220;Spiritually, buying from [a] larger perspective recognizes we are anything but&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,27,73],"tags":[261,265,264,260,262,263],"class_list":["post-148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-holly-lebowitz-rossi","category-eco","category-shopping","tag-buying-local","tag-eco-shopping","tag-environment","tag-locavore","tag-spiritual-shopping","tag-spirituality"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Is Buying Local Spiritual? - Fresh Living<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/02\/is-buying-local-spiritual.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is Buying Local Spiritual? - Fresh Living\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There are environmental, economic, and logistical things to consider when deciding how much of a locavore to be.&nbsp; But is buying local spiritual? Our Beliefnet blog brother Gus diZerega has a fascinating post over on A Pagan&#8217;s Blog about this very question.&nbsp; He says: &#8220;Spiritually, buying from [a] larger perspective recognizes we are anything but&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/02\/is-buying-local-spiritual.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Fresh Living\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-02-16T03:45:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"hrossi\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Is Buying Local Spiritual? - Fresh Living","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/02\/is-buying-local-spiritual.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Is Buying Local Spiritual? - Fresh Living","og_description":"There are environmental, economic, and logistical things to consider when deciding how much of a locavore to be.&nbsp; But is buying local spiritual? Our Beliefnet blog brother Gus diZerega has a fascinating post over on A Pagan&#8217;s Blog about this very question.&nbsp; He says: &#8220;Spiritually, buying from [a] larger perspective recognizes we are anything but&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/02\/is-buying-local-spiritual.html","og_site_name":"Fresh Living","article_published_time":"2009-02-16T03:45:00+00:00","author":"hrossi","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/02\/is-buying-local-spiritual.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/02\/is-buying-local-spiritual.html","name":"Is Buying Local Spiritual? - Fresh Living","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-02-16T03:45:00+00:00","dateModified":"2009-02-16T03:45:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/#\/schema\/person\/168fb6fdfd4f4d1a2e41e628b308b687"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/02\/is-buying-local-spiritual.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/02\/is-buying-local-spiritual.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/02\/is-buying-local-spiritual.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Is Buying Local Spiritual?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/","name":"Fresh Living","description":"Holistic, Health and Wellness","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/#\/schema\/person\/168fb6fdfd4f4d1a2e41e628b308b687","name":"hrossi","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b92\/b928efbbb02076837659d614a160f471x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b92\/b928efbbb02076837659d614a160f471x96.jpg","caption":"hrossi"},"description":"Holly Lebowitz Rossi is Beliefnet's Health and Relationships Editor. A graduate of Cornell University and Harvard Divinity School, she has more than a decade of experience writing about religion and spirituality for Newsweek, The Washington Post, Spa Finder, Sojourners, Search, and many other publications. Her commentaries have also been heard on NPR\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153All Things Considered.\" When not at her desk, you can find her baking, in her garden, or rockin' out in water aerobics class. She lives in Arlington, Mass. Visit http:\/\/www.hollyrossi.com for more.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/author\/hrossi"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}