Dear Adrienne and Lance,

Well, there goes the neighborhood. No, I don't mean that our neighbors have stopped painting and weeding – or are raising pigs.

To the contrary, in the consumer mentality of today's United States, our neighbors probably think they are improving things. But I'm not so sure. I mean, everything seems to be getting bigger.

Exhibit No. 1: the houses. Our neighborhood once had many houses like ours. Three bedrooms, kitchen, dining room, living room, basement and a couple places to wash your face. But many of our-size houses have gone under the wrecking ball to be replaced by single-family houses the size of apartment buildings.

There are good reasons for having such a big house: You are a faithful Catholic family with a heap of children. You have taken in your destitute relatives. You operate a home day care center.

There are some bad reasons for having such a big house: You have accumulated so many worldly goods that you need a huge place to store them. You think it will impress others. You prefer a large mortgage-interest deduction to a deduction for gifts to charity.

Exhibit No. 2: the cars. Well, I probably should say trucks, since that is what a three-ton sport-utility vehicle really is. People in the neighborhood used to drive sedans and, in the case of large families, mini-vans. Now they drive vehicles bigger than the school bus I rode to Crestview Junior High.

There are some good reasons for driving a mammoth SUV: You have enough children or extended family members in the household to fill all the seats. You tow a boat, camping trailer or other device that brings your family together for warm moments of bonding. You are part of an elite search-and-rescue team that saves the lives of poor souls lost in the mountains.

Letters to my Children

And there are some lousy reasons for having a mammoth SUV: You want to be ready for the daring three-block trek to the grocery store. You want to show everyone that you can afford something really expensive and fuel-inefficient. You want to take your half of the road from the middle.

Exhibit No. 3: french (or freedom) fries. An order of these little crunchies once fit in the palm of my hand. Now a “regular” order fits in a grocery bag, a large order requires a shopping bag and an extra-large order needs one of the SUVs discussed above.

There are good reasons for having immense orders of fries: One order can feed a small family. My pet bird likes the leftovers. Increased sales of potatoes benefit farmers.

Of course, there are bad reasons for giant orders of fries: A big bag costs more than a small bag. Eating big bags of fries makes for big bellies in people. Throwing away uneaten fries is just plain wasteful.

What I'm trying to say is that “bigger” and “more” aren't necessarily good things. After all, all this stuff we have on this earth isn't really ours – it is just stuff God gives us to use. If the stuff you have serves a good purpose, fine and dandy. But “good purpose” does not include “makes me feel important and cool.”

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says it well (No. 2548): “Desire for true happiness frees man from his immoderate attachment to the goods of this world so that he can find his fulfillment in the vision and beatitude of God.”

Jim Fair writes from Chicago.