Practicing simplicity is a spiritual act. It calls us back to our deepest values. It invites us to be present to what matters most in our lives. In living more simply, we remember how to use “treasure” as a verb, rather than as a noun. It can be easy in our society to buy into the commercial promise that having more things, more treasures, will make our lives better.
A while ago I mentioned that I wasn't sleeping well, and my 9 year old daughter was eager to help me. “You should get a special bed that lets you rest easy,” she offered. For a tiny moment I felt a speck of relief, thinking that I could get such a bed and be able to sleep. I quickly snapped out of the revery and realized I'd heard those words before, “let you rest easy.” “Where did you hear that?” I asked her. “It was on a commercial. It could help you,” she replied sincerely.
My young daughter, who didn't know how to help me, offered this as a solution. This was such a startling clear example of how we get hooked into believing that we can buy better lives. But what would a better life really be?
A Fairy Tale by the Brothers Grimm can help us consider this question more fully:
Once upon a time, there was a Fisherman who lived with his wife in a shack by the sea. Everyday he went out in his boat and fished and fished. One day he looked into the clear water and saw a large fish swimming down at the bottom. He caught the fish on his hook and pulled it out of the water.
The fish looked at him, and spoke, “I'm not an ordinary fish, I'm enchanted, please let me go.”
The man put the fish back into the water, and he swam away.
When he got home, his wife asked if he had caught anything. “I caught a big fish, but he was enchanted and I let him go.”
“Did you ask for anything first?” asked the wife. “You saved the fish's life. Surely he'll give you what you ask for.”
The Wife instructed her Husband to go back to the fish and ask for a bigger, pretty cottage. She was happy in that for a while. Then she demanded that her husband go to the fish again, and ask for a grand palace. After a while she grew discontented with the palace, and told the man to ask the fish to make her Emperor. Then one day she demand that the man tell the fish to make her like God.
“Oh wife,” said the man, falling on his knees before her. “The fish cannot do that. I beg you be satisfied and remain Emperor.”
Anger fell over her. She shouted at her husband to return to the fish immediately. He ran to the sea.
Outside a storm was raging. Houses and trees were blowing over. Boulders were crashing from the cliffs into the sea. Thunder bellowed and lightening flashed. In the sea there were great black waves as high as mountains, all capped with crowns of foam.
The Fisherman summoned the fish.
“What does she want?” he asked.
“Oh, Fish,” he said, “she wants to become like God.”
“Go home. She is sitting in her filthy shack again.” And there she sits to this very day.
What would a better life really be ? The Fisherman's Wife shows us that in chasing after more and more possessions, we don't stop long enough to treasure what we have. This is a story about living less on more. Dissatisfaction and gratitude cannot exist at the same time. Cherishing what we have rather than chasing what we don't have is the stuff of happiness. Unless we consciously stop and reflect on what we have rather than what we don't have, dissatisfaction gathers momentum In this perpetuating way of living, we need to continually have more money, and so might chose to work longer hours or more years, and end up having less time to live our lives. As David Wann wrote in the passage we heard earlier, instead of choosing the door marked life/time, Americans are choosing the door marked money/stuff.
Living more on less calls us back to our values. Consider JUC and the values we live here. To name just two examples, our Ethically Eating taskforce encourages and educates us about how the health of our food affects the health of our bodies, and of our souls. This task force and the Green Sanctuary team call us into greater consciousness of how we use and abuse our Earth. They help us think about how we can make life-style changes that can make a difference in our world. I think of how Dolly, the heroine of our Chalice Lighting, never wasted anything, to the point of reusing thread when hemming curtains. Her frugalness was born of extreme scarcity, and the necessity of survival. How have we strayed so far from this that it seems almost unimaginable?
How can we put our energy into creating a way of life that is more sustainable, when we're worried about day-to-day sustenance? Worrying about making the rent or the mortgage, or how to keep the electricity turned on requires urgent action. Anxiety can lead to short term vision. When survival is at stake, we need to take care of the immediate situation. Finding wealth of the soul by pursuing a sustainable lifestyle is about action that we take now in service of the future. The future holds a different meaning when we have to worry about today, and not just about years from now.
The reality is that for some of us, like Dolly, living more simply is not a matter of choice. In these economic times, more and more people are losing jobs, having hours cut, having income lowered. We may not have the choice of living the money/stuff lifestyle.
This economy has set a horrible cloud of anxiety in the air. Even if we believe that our income is secure, we see all around us that securities can crash. According to the Wall Street Journal, the rate of savings in the United States is higher than it has been in 14 years. At first glance, this may seem to say that we're earning more and so can afford to put more away. Looking more deeply, however, we see that people are saving more while they can, because they can't afford not to. This saved money might be needed to pay basic bills down the line.
Like squirrels gathering nuts to last them through the harsh, barren winter, there is an instinct in us to squirrel things away while we have them. Squirrels are best known for their ability to plan for the future. Every fall, the gray squirrel spends its day gathering nuts and seeds. Then it hides them so it will have enough food to last through the winter and into the spring.
Like Dolly, my grandmother came of age during the Depression. When she died we found money stashed in envelopes and drawers. She still had a budget book from many years previously. In it was cash to pay emergency bills that might come some day.
Planning for the future is practical, and necessary. It can also be driven by fear. The squirrel hides the nuts as part of life. My grandmother probably hid the money because she was afraid.
When we're most anxious, it can be the hardest time to put aside that fear. Who can take time to focus on our breathing when we're trying so hard to survive that we can't catch our breath at all? Ironically, living simply can seem like a luxury. It might seem that it is only available to people who have the time and energy for it.
Practicing simplicity as a spiritual act doesn't have this element of anxiety. Worry is about the future. It is something we do when we're afraid of what might happen. When we don't have control over what will happen, we can spend lots of energy just fretting about it.
Spiritual practices keep us in the present moment. They invite us to calm the busyness of our bodies and our minds, and to become aware of our deeper selves. When we are present to this moment, there is not space to be worrying about what might happen later. When we are centered like this, we can make decisions from a place of calm. This inner calm is a sacred place. When our hearts are in a Holy Place, we are blessed with love and amazing grace. This is living in harmony with our souls. This is the invitation that is extended to each of us every Sunday morning here in this Sanctuary.
If we find ourselves having to live more on less when we haven't chosen to do this, our Unitarian Universalist faith can provide wisdom that can guide us. The powerful anthem that the choir sung this morning is “No Other World.” It tells us that this world, the here and now, is where we find love and hope and salvation. This is the Good News that Humanism promises us. We can effect our lives and the lives of those around us. We have the power to make things happen.
Following this wisdom, we are not helpless or at the mercy of the economy. We have the ability and also the responsibility to bring about change in our own lives. And we are called to compassion for others, knowing that we can make a difference for one another.
Living more on less is an invitation to reflect on the resources we already have. Resources here means a couple different things. Look around, and look within. Who are the people who will stand by us through tough times? It can be easy to take people for granted. This can be a time to remember how we value those who mean the most to us. Support can also come in unexpected ways, from people we know only as acquaintances, or who have been strangers even. Our whole families are effected by a loss of income, and so anxiety might be high for the whole household. We might be graced by others as well. People who are not personally effected can have a more objective point of view.
We often go though life unaware of the strengths that we have deep within. Recognizing our own personal capabilities, skills, interests is valuable. What may be even more valuable is becoming aware of our attributes, the way we look at the world, the way we face adversity. Holding hope when hope is hard to find. Keeping love in our hearts when it could be easy to place blame. Encouraging others when we are feeling depleted ourselves. Quieting the voices that speak discouragingly.
Resilience is the way we climb out of the shadows of depression, both economic and emotional. Resilience is a complex combination of faith, perspective, resources, and a good dose of humor helps things along as well. Our story of Dolly tells us that though she faced many hardships she always held onto her sense of humor.
Humor like this comes from our perspective. When we are able to step outside of our troubles for a moment, we can gain insight into our situation. Nothing actually changes about our current circumstance, but we can reflect on it in a way that lets hope in. In stepping back like this, we can see our difficulties in a new way. It's easy to get lost in our troubles. Humor expands the way we look at things and opens our eyes to more than just our problems. Life isn't a joke, and economic hardship certainly isn't either. Humor is not about joking. It's about not taking ourselves too seriously even when our situations are. If the Fisherman and his Wife could have gained some perspective on the absurdity of a talking fish, they might have laughed with one another and not gotten themselves into such a mess.
Friday a week ago, as I was thinking about this service, my sister called to tell me she'd been laid off. We only talked for a bit as she and her husband were on their way out to celebrate. This seemed like an interesting reaction. She had wanted to change jobs for a while, but she's practical and wouldn't quit one job before she had another lined up. This gave her the push she needed to make the changes she had been putting off. Even though the lay-off could be seen as a “bad” thing, it will give her the opportunity to search for a job that will help her become more of who she is, rather than keeping her in a position that was safe, but life-less.
By living more on less, we walk in the world knowing that wealth comes from living in harmony with our souls.
We cannot create this depth of connection with our deeper selves and with other people by shear determination alone. We cannot will this into being. Hard as we may work to turn away from chasing a better life, living life more fully comes by reconnecting with our values, which is different from buying less things.
This is what makes this a spiritual practice. It's not about giving something up. It's about quieting the voice of desire for objects and listening for the presence of real wealth.
Some embrace this way of living by making a conscious choice. Some are invited into it by economic necessity. Either way this is an opportunity to become more alive, to cherish our relationships, to realize what we bring to this world. May we walk through the door marked life/time.
Amen