balance through fasting.

Fasting helps to give us balance. It makes us more keenly sensitive to the whole of life, so that we do not become obsessed with our consumer mentality. It is something of an inner alarm to help us hold our priorities straight, to give us a sense of spiritual sensitivity… For example, there is a great need today to learn to fast from people. Most of us have a tendency to devour others, and usually we get severe heartburn from it. I suggest that we experience times of fasting from people not because we are antisocial, but precisely because we love people intently and when we are with them we want to be able to do them good, and not harm. Thomas Merton said, “It is in deep solitude that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brothers… Solitude and silence teach me to love my brothers for what they are, not what they say.”

How often I find myself in this consumer mentality around people! I want people to talk to, to empathize, or to validate me, make me feel significant, or to give me love, affection…. I want I want I want. What good is this for me or the other person if this is all that drives me? There is wisdom here for me, who often turns to people as a crutch. Fasting gives balance and increases significance. After fasting, the food abstained from is sweeter, more delicious. The contrast of the lack heightens the pleasure. The lack also reveals the weaknesses, the places that need healing or growth that have been hidden by a filling of something….be it with food, entertainment, pleasure, feelings, distractions, or for me, with people.
I love the Merton quote here. We love one another for each of us is made in the image of God. We love one another for each other’s uniqueness. For each other’s beauty. For each other’s hearts and minds. For the reflection they give us of Christ. This is what man is. We love one another for increasing our capacity to love God, to love the good and the true and beautiful… an increase that must flow from more than mere words. What do the words “I love you” mean if they are separated from the quiddity of the person saying them, or the quintessence of love qua love? They disperse into thin air, dead, without the what-ness. The love of Christ is a what-ness. It is an action, a sacrifice, and it holds for eternity.

"thingification."

"Christian simplicity demands that we break free of this “thingification.” But how do we do it? Here are some suggestions…
First, join the joyful happy revolt against the modern propaganda machine…
Second, I propose an exercise which many have found liberating. When you decide that it is right for you to purchase a particular item, see if God will not bring it to you without your having to buy it… The point is not that [we are] unable to buy [something]; [we] could have done that quite easily. But [we] want to learn how to pray in ways that might release money for other purposes… Once a decision is made to secure a particular item, hold it before God in prayer for perhaps a week. If it comes, bless God; if not, reevaluate your need for it; and if you still feel that you should have it, go ahead and purchase the item. One clear advantage to this approach is that it effectively ends all impulse buying. It gives time for reflection so that God can teach us if the desire is unnecessary. Another obvious benefit is the way in which it integrates the life of devotion with the life of service. The supply of our material needs becomes an exciting venture of faith…. One small counsel: it is probably wise to give the money you would have spent on the object to the poor in order to avoid the slightest thought of this as a means of material gain…
Third, stress the quality of life above the quantity of life…
Fourth, make recreation healthy, happy, and gadget-free…
Fifth, learn to eat sensibly and sensitively…
Sixth, know the difference between significant travel and self-indulgent travel…
Seventh, buy things for their usefulness rather than their status…
One final word needs to be said. Simplicity does not necessarily mean cheapness. Simplicity resonates more easily with concerns for durability, usability, and beauty."

I love this section. Foster gives lots of great, practical advice for breaking free of “thingification.” For me personally, my attention was caught most by his second and sixth points. The second was intriguing because I think Americans generally would never think this way. We are, as a culture, impulse buyers. Everything is, literally, just about a mouse click away. Wanting to buy a new CD? A new book? A new pair of shoes? A car? Drive down the road to the closest mall that’s only 0.2 miles away or hop online to your favorite online dealer. Really… there is no waiting in our culture. Here is where Belarus is different: when I don’t have something I want or even need, I sometimes just go without. Case in point: I have a microwave in my apartment. I use it almost every day. I use it to heat up a small amount of leftovers or milk to froth for my coffee or to melt butter when baking or….any number of reasons. This week my microwave broke. I suddenly realized how much I used it after one day, when I tried to use it 3 times and kept getting frustrated because every time I forgot it didn’t work anymore. I don’t know if my landlord will fix it. We haven’t called him. There is no point in me buying a new one – I’m leaving in a little over 2 months. So I’m living without… In America, I would have popped in my car, driven to the closet mall and bought a new one. Really. But now? Now I’m thinking it wouldn’t be a bad idea to just ask my heavenly Dad if he might like to fix my microwave… or maybe He just wants to help me simplify and learn by doing without. (After all, most people I know in Belarus DON’T have microwaves.)
But what Foster says is even more intriguing… because he says to take that money that you would have used in a split second to buy that new microwave or pair of gloves or whatever and give it to charity…. Talk about practical! Talk about awesome! It’s not just about God meeting MY (your) needs. It’s also about how He might use ME (you) to meet someone else’s….
The sixth point also caught my attention because it made me stop and think and evaluate my life. I love to travel. You could say, in a sense, I’m a world traveler. Facebook tells me I’ve been to about one fourth of the world. Whenever I had the desire or opportunity to travel, I never turned it down. I always wanted the adventure, the new experience. Belarus has been the most significant time I’ve “traveled” for a purpose other than pleasure. I have to now ask myself… just because I can travel, should I? And if I do, how can I make it significant and not just self-indulgent? Foster gave great recommendations, like moving away from the travel brochures and museums and meeting locals, helping the needy in a new place, etc. In my travel, even the travel that was motivated by my own desire for fun and adventure, I can testify to the fact that it has oftentimes been used for His glory. I’ve had or been present for meetings or conversations with fellow travelers or locals that gave the opportunity to share about things of eternal significance. But I wasn’t necessarily looking for it… maybe I should, maybe I should ask for it…
What point is a challenge for you? What can you do today, this month, this year, to implement it and a greater simplicity into your life?

risking legalism.

"Is it any wonder that we struggle and strain in an attempt to express exterior simplicity? Unquestionably, this enterprise is fraught with many pitfalls and dangers. But we must not shrink back from our task. We must risk the danger of legalism, because to refuse establishes a legalism in defense of the status quo. Until we become specific we have not spoken the word of truth that liberates."

The existing states of affairs should never be settled upon. This side of heaven, we must strive for something more. But what is this more? Often times, it seems to me, the more is about less. In wanting more than the status quo, I want a changed world, a changed self, a changed reality… I want less possessions and more significance, less to do and more time to savor, less damage and more healing, less superficiality and more depth, less commercialism and more creativity, less pride and more humility, less baggage and more freedom, less finger-pointing and more forgiveness, less apathy and more love.
Foster here talks about the less, the external simplicity, caring not for what the world tells you is success, happiness, or peaceful life, all wrapped in packages of dollar bills. But as he says at the end of this paragraph, we must be specific. Some may call is legalistic, but sometimes you need the rules, the discipline, before you can find your freedom to live without them. Sometimes it might be most beneficial to deny oneself as a rule, very specifically, in order to retrain how we think, act, and react to the world around us.