I’m sitting in the border village of Hay-on-Wye, Powys, Wales. It has over twenty bookshops, and is often described as a “town of books.” It is both the National Book Town of Wales and the site of the annual Hay Festival. The population is fewer than 2,000.
Read morepoverty and contemplation
“It is true, however, that a certain degree of economic security is morally necessary to provide a minimum of stability without which a life of prayer can hardly be learned. But ‘a certain degree of economic security’ does not mean comfort, the satisfaction of every bodily and psychological need, and a high standard of living. The contemplative needs to be properly fed, clothed and housed. But he also needs to share something of the hardships of the poor.”
Merton, Thomas. New Seeds of Contemplation. Introduction by Sue Monk Kidd. New York: New Directions Books, 2007, ©1961, p. 251
poverty and simplicity along the way
“Our goal is the renewal of the presently corrupt creation. This makes it clear that the route through the wilderness, the path of our pilgrimage, will involve two things in particular: renunciation on the one hand and rediscovery on the other.” (p. 190)
“The problem is that it is by no means clear what we are to renounce and what we are to rediscover. How can we say ‘No’ to things which seem so much part of life that to reject them appears to us as the rejection of part of God’s good creation? How can we say ‘Yes’ to things which many Christians have seen not as good and right but as dangerous and deluded? How can we (the same old question once more) avoid dualism on the one hand and paganism on the other?” (p. 191)
Wright, Tom. Simply Christian. London: SPCK, 2006.
simplicity a safeguard
Note:
Yes, of course, evangelical poverty and evangelical simplicity are looked upon as stupid eccentricities (at worst) or reserved only for the holiest (at best). But that doesn’t mean that followers of Jesus should skip over them. The aims of simplicity are aims of love, Maundy Thursday aims. Surely these are on-going processes in which there is always one more next step to take. And the aims are easier to reach when we don’t have inordinate attachments to stuff.
Quote:
“What has happened to the Franciscan or Buddhist ideal of the rich person who voluntarily becomes poor? Who lauds the one who sets aside life’s complicating muchness for a heart more devotedly and simply given to life’s truly satisfying values? Sad to say, such thinking is relegated by most to the spiritually bizarre edge of cultural appreciation.
“Courageously we need to articulate new and more humane ways to live. The spiritual discipline of simplicity has been a recurrent vision throughout history. It doesn’t need to remain a lost dream; it can be recaptured. In this case, why should not that which can be, be?
“The spiritual discipline of simplicity may be the only safeguard that can sufficiently reorient our lives so that possessions can be genuinely enjoyed without their destroying us.
“A changed life-style in the direction of simplicity is a faithful witness to a better way to live at peace.” (p. 135)
Source: Sager, Allan H. Gospel Centered Spirituality: An Introduction to our Spiritual Journey. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1990.
voluntary poverty
Note: Voluntary poverty in the spiritual sense of the “evangelical counsels” doesn’t mean cashless groveling, but rather doing without frills, being frugal, and not being wasteful. It has a lot of overlap with the idea of simplicity, or simple living.
Quote:
“Voluntary poverty is the object of one of the evangelical counsels. The question then arises, what poverty is required by the practice of this counsel or, in other words, what poverty suffices for the state of perfection? The renunciation which is essential and strictly required is the abandonment of all that is superfluous, not that it is absolutely necessary to give up the ownership of all property, but a man must be contented with what is necessary for his own use. Then only is there a real detachment which sufficiently mortifies the love of riches, cuts off luxury and vain glory, and frees from the care for worldly goods.”
“The vow of poverty is ordinarily attached to a religious profession; a person may however bind himself to a modest and frugal life, or even to follow the direction of an adviser in the use of his property. The vow may be perpetual or temporary. It may exclude private possession, or even to a certain point possession in common. It may entail legal disability or be simply prohibitive. It may extend to all goods possessed at present, or expected in the future; or it may be limited to certain classes of property; it may require the complete renunciation of rights, or simply forbid the application to personal profit, or even the independent use of the property.”
Source: Vermeersch, Arthur. “Poverty.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 12. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911.
Pathology: the Study of a Path 