More Simplicity

In thinking through money, possessions, inner detachment and the freedom of simplicity, this quote has come to mind more than once:

“Grace and latitude should mark our relationships. All too often we can injure each other unduly in our zeal for justice and truth and righteousness. The spirit of condemnation can creep into our relationships terribly subtly. We can begin to look at each other’s possessions with a mental calculator. But there is a more excellent way: we simply need to be with one another, loving, supporting, caring. Of course, we live and speak the truth as it has been given to us, but the business of straightening each other out belongs to God, not us.” (Foster, p. 193)

And one more:

“Let us seek to develop many corporate celebrations and feast days. We are enriched by celebrating the goodness of God and our life together…We need times when our frugality gives way to the joyous slaying of the ‘fatted calf’…We all need festivals of joy as together we seek the holy simplicity so inherent in the kingdom of God.” (p. 194)

So in that spirit, one that is full of joy and freedom, I want to travel on with longer strides.

One way we can use outwardly simplified lifestyles is by allowing our pared-down needs to free us up to serve. Foster talks about a carpenter who supports his family by working 2 days a week, while the rest of the week he and his family focus on justice for the poor in the city. Or teachers who keep their needs low so they can use summers for ministry. Where? Anywhere there are people. “Crisis centers, counseling services, hospitals, and a host of other agencies all need our help. In one metropolitan city a small fellowship was able to find homes for some 350 homeless children.”

Our church takes small group life seriously, but also asks those groups to look outside themselves in service. I’m sure most church leaders know of lots of opportunities to help lend a hand if they are asked.

Of course the best way to know where to serve and how is to be in people’s lives. And that’s where it gets sticky. That is a whole ‘nother story. A messy one. I’m sure you know that. It’s called friendship. And when it’s with the vulnerable of society, Foster calls this “identification with the poor.” Finding out who in our cities are truly forgotten, abandoned and defenseless. Bringing their needs to the attention of officials and pleading their cause before the powerful.

Another way is to live among those vulnerable or needy. Think Mother Teresa in India. Or you right where you are. “Many of us, however, will be called to be among the abandoned of the earth in less dramatic ways. We will respond to divine promptings to visit prisons and hospitals, rest homes and mental institutions. We will tutor little ones deprived of basic skills. We will take time to play with the child down the street that sits on the curb alone.”

Just as I typed that I thought of all the people I know who are doing that. There are probably way more than I know simply because humility doesn’t demand attention. I’m so grateful to know so many who love God and love others well.

And for the one that kills me. The quote I think of often, knowing there needs to be a balance between sheltering and showing in parenting:

“Our children need to join us in this ministry of identification. We do them no favor by shielding them from suffering and need. If we imprison them in ghettos of affluence, how can they learn compassion for the broken of the world? So let us walk hand in hand with our children into pockets of misery and suffering.

One specific means of identification with the poor is discovered in our approach to education. Do we see a college education, for example, as a ticket to privilege or as a training for service to the needy? What do we teach our teenagers in this matter? Do we urge them to enter college because it will better equip them to serve? Or do we try to bribe them with promises of future status and salary increases? No wonder they graduate more deeply concerned about their standard of living than about suffering humanity.”

Obviously, wisdom is needed in filtering those quotes. But there they are.

Parenting constantly presents me with opportunities to choose “safe” over “obedient” in situations. One of my main roles as parent is protecting my children. One of my main roles as Child of God is obedience to Jesus, even when it is inconvenient or intimidating.

For example. There are lots of things Caden is picking up from hanging out with neighborhood kids or from school. (And so that I don’t come across as naive or arrogant, my child has introduced others to a few things himself.) As we’ve started this journey through schooling, I see why homeschooling, private schooling, and transfering to more prestigious schools are so desirable. I’m not saying we won’t do any or all of those things. Our plan is to take it one year at a time one child at a time. (Obviously there’s no other way to do it, I’m just saying I haven’t landed on some dramatic ‘stance’ toward schooling.)

And yet.

There’s something in me that wonders. We are well-educated people from good families with good jobs. If every person with that background moves to certain neighborhoods, or takes their kids to certain schools, what will become of the rest of them? If the school down the street has low parent involvement and low finances (since the tax values of homes nearby are lower) couldn’t that mean throwing in in this neighborhood would be good? And if not, how else do things change?

This topic is especially close to home as we regularly talk seriously about buying our first home. We don’t have all noble ideals in talking through where to live or what kind of house to buy. Foster touches on this in regards to real estate. “In a system where funding for schools, public infrastructure, and other governmental services is determined by local-area tax base, those who find themselves poor receive inferior services and have fewer employment, social, and recreational opportunities than the wealthy…Those with abundant money to spend can live where they like and often end up as neighbors, while those with lesser means live in less affluent neighborhoods. The aggregate of these individual decisions segregates the poor from the rich.” (p. 201)

Foster makes sure to point out he owns a home. We plan to make sure the home we invest in one day is a good one. This is not about buying or not buying houses or feeling guilty. For me at least, it’s about a level of awareness we tend to go through life without.

If there is a division in our world between rich and poor, haves and have-nots, why? And if the Bible has much to say about what His children’s heart attitude toward the poor should be, why doesn’t mine line up with that? And if there are real problems within the structure of our society, whose problem is it?

I’m not typing all this out just to feel good about it. These are real questions I have and real topics I struggle with and real conversations I have with people. Through reading and praying and thinking I have come to a few conclusions. I plan on continuing to document that journey.

For today, I’ll end with saying I know there are both individual and corporate measures to be taken. Since I am one person writing to other one persons, I’ll quote Foster on some steps we one persons can take:

“We can recycle. We can reuse. We can decide not to buy in the first place.

We can bike. We can walk. We can choose to stay at home and get to know our neighbors.

We can write. We can sing. We can decide to entertain ourselves and our friends.

Taking the values we find in Christian simplicity and implementing them in our own lives is the primary way we can encourage these values in the world in which we find ourselves: our homes, our neighborhoods, our cities, our nations.” (p. 210)

More next time!