Off-Grid Living for Agrarians, Part 3: Philosophy

It is time to discuss a very important point. In the previous part, I mentioned (and approved of) using "intermediate steps" in our process of going off-grid or separating from the wicked world system. An intermediate step could be anything from, say, selling your house and furniture and moving into an inexpensive apartment or camper, to getting a part time job that allows you more time to work on developing your homestead. Intermediate steps can be a propane freezer on your way to an icehouse, a refrigerator on your way to a root cellar, or a propane heater on your way to a woodburner. It is often both inevitable and necessary that we make use of intermediate means towards our ultimate goal. This is why this blog is entitled The PROCESS Driven Life, since we confess that obedience to God and our work here on earth is a process. We, as Christians, are to be PROCESS driven and not PURPOSE driven. Ultimate purposes and results belong to God, but obedience is ours. In our move of obedience, often we will make use of intermediate means - which I described in the previous part. Ok, so for example, I mentioned that moving from grid electricity to intermediate means (like propane, kerosene lamps, generators, solar power, etc.) is not only acceptable, but pretty necessary. So long as we recognize the inherent weaknesses in dependence on these things, and so long as we take steps to mitigate the dependence and the ultimate damage when (and if) our ability to use these things is lost, then we may use them to help us separate from the world system. Another example... there is nothing inherently wrong with my using a battery operated drill - so long as I recognize the inherent weaknesses in the dependence on battery power; so long as I recognize that this battery powered drill may not always be available to me; so long as I make plans for being able to continue my work if battery powered drills become useless to me, etc., then I am in a good position. Then I am not operating from a position of weakness. This same philosophy, then, should be applied to everything we do.

So now to the "very important point" I mentioned. Pay close attention. There is no greater danger to our well-being and our eventual freedom from the grid system than to rely inordinately on, or to trust in, intermediate means. Let me explain...

A truism you must face - PEOPLE ARE LIARS. Even you. And if you do not recognize that, then you are lying to yourself and doing terrible damage to yourself. Most of the dead bodies on the wayside of the pilgrimage out of the world grid system were killed by a lie they told themselves, and the cause of death was "reliance on intermediate means". Does this mean you are going to fail because you rely on battery powered drills? NO. Probably not, anyway; but, like I said, the philosophy applies to every area of your life. Remember that you are a liar, and most of the things you tell yourself about yourself are not true. As a professing Christian you have enemies (The World, The Flesh, and The Devil), and those enemies never cease to make war against you - and their most valuable weapon is YOU. Here is how this thing works. Many people deify the devil and blame him for everything bad that happens to them. Well, I can assure you that the devil need not have anything to do with most professing Christians... they are doing fine damaging or even damning themselves. The World (over which the devil reigns as the Prince of this World) and its deceptions, dainties, comforts, business, concerns, etc., is plenty enough to damn the souls of almost every man who will ever live. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. The carnal man automatically loves the world, and defends it, and will not let go of it - and almost no one sees it for what it is. So the love of this world is the reason that most people who tell themselves they want to separate from the world will not succeed. They cannot leave what they say they hate, because they really love what they say they hate. They will merely redefine what they mean when they say "world". The modern religousite has redefined the word "world" to mean - anything that has a sticker on it with a satanic symbol, or that blatantly is involved in the worship of Satan. But to them, the world economic system, the world political system, the world social system, the world education system, the world religious system - none of these things are part of the "world". Why? Because they love those things... or at least enough of those things that their use of them makes them inseparable or indiscernible from the world. This is not a rant, this is a fact. I am trying to tell you what the Bible means when it says "the world, the flesh, and the devil". The devil uses the world to appeal to your flesh. You, then, as fallen man, do what is natural to you - which is to love yourself and satiate your flesh. This does not mean that you have binges and orgies. This means that you always seek the comfortable and easy way, the way that is more pampering to your flesh. Since you are in love with the world, when you do become convinced in your mind that something is evil, if you are deceived by the devil, you will find some middle-ground that allows you to stay in the world but still say you are not "of it". You will find a way to take a half-step away from the world, but still stay in it as a part of it. This, then, is the danger of intermediate means. If you are not careful, you will park out (or camp) in "intermediate means" and you will make them your home and you will never separate from the world. You will convince yourself that since you are more separated then just about anyone else, that you are alright or acceptable - even if you are not. I've seen this more times than I can relate, and it is very, very dangerous.

It may be hard to get your mind around what I am saying, because I am NOT condemning intermediate means. I am not even saying that you MUST move past them to some perfect, idyllic, pre-industrial/agrarian life, and that the use of any of them after that is heresy. Some of us will likely always be using some intermediate means. I am saying that you must be able to see things rightly, and to recognize your natural proclivity to not do things all the way, and to rely inordinately on intermediate means. If you do this, then you are in just the same precarious position as the world, you are just one step removed from it. So, say you procure yourself 5 acres of land, build a cabin that is powered on solar power or generators, put up a store of food and batteries, and then rest as if you have it made. If a collapse happens, you are just one step away from being in the same situation as the world. Your lights won't go out as fast, but they will go out eventually, and if you have not made plans to operate without the assistance of the industrial world, then you will go down with it.

REASON

The basic point is that we must employ our REASON during the process of going off-grid. Let's don't get too focused on not paying an electric bill, then forget the real reasons we want to be independent from the system.

Time for some examples. All of these are real world examples of folks who suffer from the lies they tell themselves...

The man that I mentioned before goes out and gets him some land out in the country. He builds himself a cabin (or moves in a camper) and begins to sock away food and supplies. He may even get himself a few animals. He never gets around to planting a garden (or even planning to plant one) and he soon finds out that living off-grid, if it is not done properly, is just as expensive as living on the grid. He doesn't have an electric bill to be paid to the electric company - he pays it to the gas station instead in the form of gas for his generator. He still has a food bill, still has a phone bill, still has a clothing bill because he still does all of his shopping in town. What has changed? Well, he has to drive farther to get to all the stuff he still loves.

Another man decides to move off grid and does many of the same things. He decides, though, that rather than move to his off-grid life before he is ready, he will work his way out of the system. He minimizes his life and moves into a camper or a small rent room. He spends all of his money on getting prepared to go off-grid... The problem? He never does. He never pulls the trigger. His incremental nature causes him to slide unknowingly right back into everything he was doing before. He slowly begins to reacquire all of his "stuff" and the expenses related to that stuff. Pretty soon he is just as far away from going off-grid as he ever was, only now he doesn't have a nice house to do it all in, because he got rid of that.

There will always be a reason to NOT do what you know you should do. There will never be enough money, no matter how much you save, to go off-grid if your heart is still on-grid. However much you con yourself into thinking that you will one day miraculously have enough money to splash it all down on a pre-fab farm with everything off-grid and ready to go, that will never happen.

Prepare thy work without, and make it fit for thyself in the field; and afterwards build thine house. (Proverbs 24:27)

The problem is that people have things out of order. They want to build their house first (and by this I mean that they want to keep the fleshly man comfortable and protected above all things). They want all the comforts of the old worldly/industrial life before they are willing to pull the trigger on separating from that old industrial world. They want to bring Egypt with them. The Bible says that we should prepare for our future provision (food and water) BEFORE we worry about the comfort of our flesh (shelter). Don't go taking this too literally. I am not condemning anyone who throws up a quick shelter, so long as they are preparing for their future provisions too. I am pushing the more spiritual aspect of the verse - that we should think about what it will take to not be reliant on the world for our food and raiment, and then we should be concerned with creature comforts. For those just now planning to go off-grid, this means that if you sit there and plan out all of the alternative ways to keep your current standard of living (but do it off-grid) the sheer cost of that plan will keep you from ever implementing it. It will be overwhelming, and you never will have separated from the world, which was the whole point in the first place.

Going off-grid is often a slow and arduous project, and often it is incremental, and often the process relies completely on intermediate means. Those are facts. The problem is that, if we are truly serious about going off-grid, there must be progress. We must be constantly moving, and we will need to be constantly checking ourselves and our heart to make sure we aren't just whistling in the dark. We need to be on the pilgrim's path and not hanging around in Vanity Fair.

Are you moving out?

Your servant in Christ Jesus,

Michael Bunker