The Irresistible Revolution- Shane Claiborne

"I am not too concerned with what I am going to do. I am more interested in who I am becoming. I want to be a lover of God and people."

Live Deliberately
Breathe Deeply
Suck the Marrow out of Life

"Don't call us saints. We don't want to be dismissed that easily." Dorothy Day

"Following Jesus is simple, but not easy."

"I'm not sure we need more churches. What we really need is a church."

"Rather than being bound up by how much stuff we need to buy, we can get enslaved to how simply we must live."

"Most good things have been said far too many times and just need to be lived." Wendell Berry

"We can do no great things, just small things with great love. It is not how much you do, but how much love you put into doing it." Mother Theresa

"In my suburban comfort, I increasingly felt disturbed by God. I became very uncomfortable in the comfortable suburbs. The beautiful thing was my discomfort arose not from a cynical judgmentalism, but from a longing for something more. I did not want to settle for comfort. I did not want to settle for a life detached from the groaning of the slums or the beauty of playing in open fire hydrants and having block parties in the inner city."

"If we are crazy, then it is because we refuse to be crazy in the same way the world has gone crazy." Peter Maurin

"All around you, people will be tiptoeing through life, just to arrive at death safely. But dear children, do not tiptoe. Run, hop, skip or dance, just don't tiptoe."

Live Simple

To live simply- what does that mean? I think a form of simple living is becoming quite fashionable right now. I was exploring Gloucester Road in Bristol this afternoon and I must have walked past tens of shops that had some kind of organic, eco-friendly, natural theme to them. You can even get an organic hair cut there! (Gloucester Road is a pretty cool place, btw, in case anyone is thinking of going there. Check it out.) Maybe people are realising that being rich and leading an extravagant lifestyle does not necessarily make one happy. Maybe it just makes people feel like they are living well and so makes them feel better about themselves.

I'm not sure what the reason is, but I can see the attraction. I love the idea of living close to nature, of having minimal impact on this planet, of buying only what is absolutely necessary, of supporting small businesses and buying products that mean everyone gets a fair deal. So is that a simple lifestyle? It is certainly getting rid of a lot of the materialism and greed that characterizes the world today.

I am reading a book called 'The Irresistible Revolution' by Shane Claiborne atm (no doubt a further post will follow) and came across this:

"Rather than being bound up by how much stuff we need to buy, we can get enslaved to how simply we must live."

Interesting thought. And I think it is true- simple living can become as much of an obsession as extravagant living. It can be anything but simple!

So, taking it back to Jesus: did He live simply? Yeah, I think so. He had this great attitude to money, an ability to render it pretty much worthless. It just wasn't important. Jesus' simple living flowed out of a love for His Father and for other people. He gave and gave and gave- He actually spent time with the poor. Maybe our ethical living trend is an excuse for our lack of actual contact with the poor, a way to make us feel less guilty?

The other side of this simple living that I have been thinking about is our total reliance on technology, particularly computers and the internet. I realised this week that on a typical day, the first thing I do when I get in from Uni is switch on the laptop and check my emails or go on facebook. And that annoys me! But it has become so necessary- everything happens online. Communication hardly ever happens face to face. I'd love to give up computers for a bit, but it just isn't practical. I can change my habits tho. Maybe that will have more of an impact than I expect.

You Cannot Separate Yourself