Traveling Light and Lean
Thursday of the Fourth Week of Lent – March 19, 2015
God sells righteousness at a very low price to those who wish to buy it: a little piece of bread, a cloak of no value, a cup of cold water, a small coin.
[Benedicta Ward, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, p. 16]
Life in the desert was stark, simple, and meager. The Desert Fathers and Mothers wanted to be freed from accumulating “stuff” so they could attend to their lives in God.
If you think about it, any journey into the wilderness must be accompanied by simplicity. Survival in a desert does not depend on how much stuff you can carry into the desert. In the wilderness, you don’t have access to the same resources you might have in the city. You have to go into the wilderness light and lean in order to survive.
It’s much the same way when you go camping in a modern sense. Of course, for some of us, camping means “Holiday Inn.” For others, camping means a “camper” or trailer which has many of the conveniences of home. But it is a completely different experience of camping to go light, to go lean, to be creative and resourceful with the little you are able to carry into the wilderness. Especially if your camping involves hiking and travel, you cannot carry lots of things. You have to travel light.
Contemporary people tend to think that spirituality is attained through addition and accumulation . . . adding prayer practices, spiritual disciplines, and holy living that would assure their deepening life in God. Earnest Christians want to read a new book or attend a special seminar or visit a holy site, thinking that something will hold the key to spiritual growth.
There is no secret knowledge or experience you must acquire in order to live a spiritual life. Neither is there something to learn, nor a set of spiritual tools to accumulate.
Spirituality happens much more by subtraction than by addition. It requires much more letting go and relinquishment than acquisition.
The Desert Christians knew that the more we possess, the more our vision is cluttered. We see things through the material goods we possess . . . and through the attitudes we hold . . . and through the beliefs that hold us. Simplicity gives us a stance with which to see more clearly what is true and stable in our deepening relationship with God, others, and the world.
Today’s saying from the Desert Fathers prescribes simplicity as the way to righteousness.
Release your grip on that which clutters. Don’t be afraid to release that which holds you. A deepening life with God comes from simplicity, not from accumulation.
God sells righteousness at a very low price to those who wish to buy it: a little piece of bread, a cloak of no value, a cup of cold water, a small coin.
[Benedicta Ward, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, p. 16]
Life in the desert was stark, simple, and meager. The Desert Fathers and Mothers wanted to be freed from accumulating “stuff” so they could attend to their lives in God.
If you think about it, any journey into the wilderness must be accompanied by simplicity. Survival in a desert does not depend on how much stuff you can carry into the desert. In the wilderness, you don’t have access to the same resources you might have in the city. You have to go into the wilderness light and lean in order to survive.
It’s much the same way when you go camping in a modern sense. Of course, for some of us, camping means “Holiday Inn.” For others, camping means a “camper” or trailer which has many of the conveniences of home. But it is a completely different experience of camping to go light, to go lean, to be creative and resourceful with the little you are able to carry into the wilderness. Especially if your camping involves hiking and travel, you cannot carry lots of things. You have to travel light.
Contemporary people tend to think that spirituality is attained through addition and accumulation . . . adding prayer practices, spiritual disciplines, and holy living that would assure their deepening life in God. Earnest Christians want to read a new book or attend a special seminar or visit a holy site, thinking that something will hold the key to spiritual growth.
There is no secret knowledge or experience you must acquire in order to live a spiritual life. Neither is there something to learn, nor a set of spiritual tools to accumulate.
Spirituality happens much more by subtraction than by addition. It requires much more letting go and relinquishment than acquisition.
The Desert Christians knew that the more we possess, the more our vision is cluttered. We see things through the material goods we possess . . . and through the attitudes we hold . . . and through the beliefs that hold us. Simplicity gives us a stance with which to see more clearly what is true and stable in our deepening relationship with God, others, and the world.
Today’s saying from the Desert Fathers prescribes simplicity as the way to righteousness.
Release your grip on that which clutters. Don’t be afraid to release that which holds you. A deepening life with God comes from simplicity, not from accumulation.
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