I was lying on my bed in my little wooden chalet and the
rain was pouring down outside making beautiful noises on the roof. I went to
get a sweater out of my bag and I realised that everything I owned in the whole
world now fitted into a single suitcase, yet I still had more than enough. I
was never needing anything I didn’t have in that bag.
So these past few months, one of the themes that seemed
to be in my heart a lot is that of simplicity.
Some of this happened naturally from me having only a
suitcase to call my own, but has developed into a whole new way in which I view
possessions and money and space.
Over the summer I talked a lot with people about what it
looks like to live a simple life, to go with less food, clothes, entertainment,
electronics, space etc so there is room for the eternal things like people,
silence, compassion, God, the bible, empathy... things like that.
And in my search for what simplicity looks like, I’ve
found two very different pictures...
Apparently leading a simple life is now a popular trend,
a new consumer interest, something that the media is grabbing onto...this looks
a lot like huge empty white rooms in a house, with a single table and flower.
It looks like large gardens with only mown grass and piles of rocks stacked up.
It looks like having a bare wall with a single canvas of some strange abstract
colour scheme on it. It looks like eating at only organic restaurants and
drinking herbal tea instead of coffee. It looks like buying a lot of nuts and
seeds and wearing loose fitting pants that look they came from India...
The only problem with this, as attractive as it may be,
it’s expensive. And expensive simplicity
seems to contradict itself somehow.
The other picture of simplicity I found in Jesus. He
travelled a lot and didn’t own much, yet He was never lacking. When He sent His
disciples out He instructed them not to take bread or a walking stick or an
extra shirt or even money... they were to rely on the hospitality of the
church. He ate with other people almost all the time and lived with lots of different
people. What He had, He shared and what He didn’t have, He didn’t need.
So for a while now I’ve felt this conviction, this desire
to lead a much more simple life.
This goes far beyond simplicity being a fad at the
moment, because I honestly didn’t even realize this was a trend until I started
looking into it further and saw these heart breaking pictures of massive empty
rooms with a small dining set in them and nothing else. It goes much further
than that, a deep calling within me to live out the simplicity I see in the
gospels.
 |
| The article said "Maximise simplicity with this stylish decor" |
In saying this, I want so much for people to not think
this is a radical idea, a self sacrificing life style that one must embark
on...because most people in the world do not even have the luxury of this
choice. The idea of choosing to live a simple life is ridiculous, they live
simply anyway because they don’t have enough food to think about reducing
waste, they don’t have enough clothes to think about which ones they should
give away, they don’t have a car to think about using less gas...this is just a
way of life. And something in me cringes when I see how arrogantly, as rich
people we have grasped onto and are now marketing the idea of simplicity as
fashion, as a superior way of life to everyone else, like we have come across something
new. No.
Maybe this is different for everyone, but for me
simplicity looks a little like this...
It looks like having less clothes so that other people
can have enough clothes. What does it matter if we need to wear the same shirt
for a few days in a row?
It looks like not eating more than we need so that others
have enough food to eat. How can obesity
and starvation be such big problems at the same time?
It looks like sharing cars so that less money is spent on
gas. Individualism is choking the beauty of community in many places anyway,
not an issue that is helped by us all driving separate cars in the same
direction.
It looks like giving away those things that we don’t use
all the time, it looks like sharing things like lawn mowers, trailers,
port-a-cots. It looks like eating together with people and sharing food and
company, it looks like reusing bottles and boxes and bags....
And in no way have I got this sorted. I am seeking after
these things and giving things away and living with less...but I feel every day
the tension between the consumer, materialistic desires in me (and they
sometimes win) and the pull of the humble kingdom where treasure is stored in
heaven, not in the basement. It’s a journey. And I long for you to join me. To
look at where your treasure lies, to understand the truth that there are enough
resources in this world for everyone, they just haven’t been shared well, to
think about how your life can begin to bridge that gap.
No comments:
Post a Comment