We live in a time when our lives and values are driven by accumulation and consumption. This consumerist lifestyle leads to a future of predictably strained individualism, environmental destruction, and severe competition. In a deeper sense, possessions and spiritual wellbeing now operate in inverse proportion to one another.
Simple living is the foundational social justice teaching of Jesus, the saints, hermits, mystics, prophets, and seers since time immemorial. Spiritual growth and maturity help us realize that there is enough to meet everyone’s need but not everyone’s greed.
Climbing ladders of success would never make us happy because many will have to stay at the bottom so we can be at the top. Living simply helps sustain fairness and equality and offers abundance and sufficiency for all.
As with St. Francis, we would be able to move from tolerating and enduring simplicity, to learning to love it and find our freedom there.
Matthew 6:31-33 “So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.”
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