to live. simply. January 25, 2010
Posted by heathereliza in Musings & Reflection.Tags: challenge, college students, consumerism, Henry D. Thoreau, simplicity
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At the beginning of this semester, Kristi Pratt—a sophomore at WP—told me that she wanted to live more simply. Kristi realized that she owned too many clothes, spent too much discretionary income on unnecessary items, and wound up tangled in the alluring web of consumerism. Those are my words, not hers. Yet her personal challenge to live more simply caught my attention.
I pride myself in living with simplicity. I choose not to purchase the latest fashions when they hit the stores. I have cut back on my coffee outings. I try to purchase organic, fair trade, and local whenever I can for a simpler, cleaner diet. I find extraordinary thrill in planning creative and thrifty dates.
Yet as I thought more about it this weekend, simplicity is not merely financial. Money plays a big role, yes, especially in our consumer-driven society. But there is more to simplicity. It is, as Charles Wagner stated, a state of mind.
What does it mean to live simply? Laura Ingalls Wilder said the simple things were the real ones. Painter and inventor, Leonardo da Vinci, called simplicity “the ultimate sophistication.” Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe connected simplicity to truth. And E.F. Schumacher called simplicity a courageous act, and one that demands a touch of genius.
The man who hung out by Walden Pond—Henry David Thoreau—reflected upon Simplicity and wrote quite emphatically, “Our life is frittered away by detail…Simplify, simplify, simplify! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail.”
My affairs on my thumbnail? Not very likely. Particularly as I have unusually small fingers to begin with. Still, what would Thoreau say if he saw our daily schedules or the stacks of DVDs next to our televisions? How might Wagner perceive our culture’s ever-frenzied desire to own the newest and best? Or our constant need to be productive?
Over the course of this semester, check back here to read about Kristi’s quest to reexamine the simple side of life. What does this really look like in our 21st century, Western world? I invite you to travel with her. Join Kristi on her challenges, if you feel so prompted. Or just read Kristi’s entries as she tackles the formidable endeavor of living simply.
stained-glass service August 27, 2009
Posted by heathereliza in Musings & Reflection, Welcome.Tags: AIDS, college students, cynicism, Henry D. Thoreau, SE Portland, service
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I realized during my third year of college that I did not have a grip on service; service had its grip on me. And it would not let me go, even as I traveled throughout the country for political campaigns and journeyed abroad. What had begun as merely a job (Outreach Coordinator) had transformed into a way of life.
During AIDS Awareness at my college, I spoke with apathetic and overwhelmed students. “What’s the point in caring?” somebody asked, “If I can’t do anything about it?” The question tormented me, and I finally addressed the student body: “In some ways, the world is so fragmented that the very idea of attempting to put the tiny shards back together again seems like an impossible, life-draining task. But if I can put together a very small piece, and you put together a very small piece, and my neighbor decides to put together a small piece, then we’ll have a larger piece, and that piece can be placed with another one its size and so on until an entire corner of the shattered stained glass is pieced together again. And when the light shines through, casting waves of multicolored light, others will see its beauty and want to be a part of it, even if a small piece. Of course if you try to put the glass together again in one gigantic effort, it will fail. People would get exhausted and burned by those who mock their efforts. Restoration is a process and it takes more than a select group of individuals.”
Sure, this world is a cynical place. Despite irony and cynicism, however, there are still ribbons of idealism and hope and love. I still dare to think that a single person can change his or her surrounding world. The power of potential that each one of us has is mind-staggering, and if there is one hope I have for this new year, it is for you all to realize the power you have to change your corner of the world, to minister to those who are hurting, and to give a voice to those who have none. Henry David Thoreau wrote, “It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.” Let’s affect the quality of the day, and together we can take steps to make SE Portland – and the greater world – a better place.
-Heather McLendon
heathereliza
