03.09 Simplicity

 
 

Our life together pursues simplicity in a world of increasing complexity. We consider simplicity with regard to clothing, food, technology, wealth, and possessions in order to practice greater solidarity with those who have less and so that we might enjoy greater freedom.

 
 

In Our Way of Life

.01

 

Each member, in collaboration with the Holy Spirit and a spiritual director, develops their own way of living that moves toward greater simplicity.  

 

.02

 

As with any formational practices and commitments that are countercultural, practices of simplicity are to be pursued with humility and without comparison.

 

.03

 

We invite members to consider the following areas as some of the major contexts where the pursuit of simplicity may come into focus.

 
 

Simplicity in Clothing

.04

 

Clothing can often express individuality and creative beauty; this can be celebrated and even nurtured. However, it can also foster some degree of obsession and comparison, feeding the need to “fit in.” We seek to hold these possibilities in tension.

 

.05

 

While we don’t share a common wardrobe or dictate a style of clothing, we invite members to consider how their choice of clothing reflects their values and desires. Some may choose to invest in a few items of clothing, manufactured in ways that honor life without dependence on slave labor. Others may find that choosing clothes at a thrift store “reuses what has not been used up” in sustainable ways. In our choice of clothing, we’re trying to combat attitudes of attachment and consumption.

 

.06

 

Our commitment is toward a deep consideration of how our purchase and possession of clothing impacts individuals and cultures that are being exploited for cheap labor under unjust conditions.

 

.07

 

In pursuit of a life of simplicity, the invitation is toward less, to create more space for God and others.

  • How much attention do I pay to my clothing (where it was made, what materials it uses, where it was bought)?
  • When do I notice when I'm discontent with how I look? When am I content?
 
 

Simplicity in Food

.08

 

Our commitment to simplicity in eating aims at supporting sustainable care for healthy bodies, as well as for a healthy and just agricultural system—from cultivation and production to transportation and sale.

 

.09

 

We invite members to take great interest in what and how they eat, recognizing how what we put into our bodies is often reflected in our emotional life and general well-being, as well as how what we consume impacts our local economies and global environment.

 

.10

 

Members are encouraged to dialogue with their spiritual director about food, eating and fasting and the role of food in their spiritual formation.

 

.11

 

Members living in a common residential community prepare meals that are simple but wholesome. Where possible, they use what they can produce and buy what they need from nearby sources. They develop a shared rhythm of “fasting and feasting” in collaboration with their community spiritual director and the Lead Spiritual Director.

  • As I pay attention to what I eat and drink, what is my relationship with food?
  • What rhythms or rituals do I experience with food, such as periods of fasting and feasting?
  • What might I sense God inviting me to try with respect to food?
 
 

Simplicity in Wealth & Possessions

.12

 

The things we have and keep often reflect cultural and personal values; they’re rarely neutral and often have a formative effect on our lives.

 

.13

 

Our commitment to simplicity doesn’t categorize possessions to be avoided and possessions to be embraced. Rather, we consider how our relationship to wealth and possessions helps form us and impacts our relationship to God and to others. We invite members to look deeply at what forces are at work in our desire to acquire or hold onto any particular possession, or the acquisition of wealth. Through regular examen and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, with the help of a spiritual director, we notice any attachments to wealth and possessions in our life.

 

.14

 

In general, we encourage our members to find greater freedom in the possession of fewer things, to hold loosely those things that we do possess, and to possess them with great intentionality and generosity.

  • How is my relationship to wealth and possessions helping me or hindering me in following the invitations of Jesus?
  • What possessions do I find myself desiring? What might be behind this desire?
  • How might God be inviting me to simplify my relationship with what I own?
 
 

Simplicity in Technology

.15

 

We don’t regard technology as good or bad. A great deal of technology allows for life, while some life is choked out by our gadgets and addiction to them. Our commitment to simplicity carries with it a commitment to open-handedness with regard to the technology we engage with.

 

.16

 

We seek to be indifferent with regard to technology. That is, we’re not striving to be countercultural for its own sake or against technology. However, we recognize simply that our relationship with technology is itself not a neutral relationship. All technology forms us in deep and crucial ways, especially when we aren’t intentional about how it forms us. We aim to engage in conversations that seriously consider what is and isn’t best for our lives and relationships.

 

.17

 

As in other areas of simplicity, we offer no hard and fast rules but rather an invitation to discern a way of life that produces greater freedom and faithful practice.

  • Where do I notice my relationship with technology complicates or clutters my life?
  • What attachments to technology can I notice in my life?
  • Where might I sense God inviting me to "fast" or "sabbath" from certain technologies?
 
 

Poverty

.18

 

Some members may feel an invitation toward voluntary poverty, either to practice more simplicity or to enter into solidarity with the poor around them. We don’t regard voluntary poverty as more spiritual, although the practice may occasion deeper formation. Above all, we wish to arrive where we desire neither to give up our possessions nor to retain them unless God directs us through prayer and affirmed in community.

 

.19

 

We seek to be open to God’s invitation toward voluntary poverty, recognizing that we could give away all our possessions to the poor yet, if we do not have love, we gain nothing.

 

.20

 

Decisions for members to move toward voluntary poverty are made within a discerning community and with the help of a spiritual director. Members wishing to enter a season of voluntary poverty first present their desire to their spiritual director, who will help them further the conversation with those around them.

 

.21

 

Members with children will be strongly discouraged from any form of voluntary poverty that adversely affects one’s responsibility to provide for their family.

  • How might being open to a season of intentional poverty help free me to respond to God's invitations on my life?
 
 
 

We want to accompany you in noticing and nurturing invitations to simplicity in your life.

 

Learn about our postulancy cohorts, which walk you through the common commitments of our rule of life, as a shared way of life in community.