“Frugality is one of the most beautiful and joyful words in the English language, and yet one that we are culturally cut off from understanding and enjoying. The consumption society has made us feel that happiness lies in having things, and has failed to teach us the happiness of not having things.”
After writing more complexly about simplicity, I thought I should let the pendulum fall the other way, so that I don't lose the few faithful readers that may show up at my blog from time to time. :-) Here's to all four of you! jk
Sometimes the truly simple and meaningful life is a rather complex one, as I have mentioned. That in the process of becoming simple, the journey is forged by the refinement of our heart becoming broken by injustices, making us shed the meaningless for the enduringly meaningful. And in this case (maybe all cases) that 'meaningful' is Christ. Sometimes the answer is simply Christ. An answer that, as I have mentioned previously (via Manning's The Boy Who Cried Abba), raises a million new questions. But forgetting about the other questions, what about the answer? The answer that has led many throughout history to live meagerly, in lives of service with impacts that were anything but meager. Those who touched lives that we'll never see. Why? Jesus. The answer was simple enough.
Or how about the hot day by the lake. Maybe it was an hour or so before lunch. Maybe John was untangling nets for the next run out on the sea. Maybe he was pushing through the stickiness of the sweat on his inner elbows while trying to bury his feet in the sand so that it didn't hurt so much as he was standing bear foot on the baking ground. And as all this was going through his head, maybe he looked up and saw that Rabbi, Jesus from Nazareth. The man who he heard speak so eloquently and clearly, came up to him (smelly and all), and He said, "Follow me." And that was it. Because that was enough for John. Jesus was enough for John.
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.
When Jesus is the answer, it seems that the things the world offers us to medicate ourselves with just aren't as attractive. Frugality is actually enjoyable when your life is being directed purposefully toward reflecting Christ.
Just a thought...well, a few thoughts
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