Simplicity, Week 4: Lent Begins

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. (More on Lent here if you're interested.) One Lent tradition is fasting. Yes, fasting. Like, from food.

I like to eat. I'm constantly hungry. Sometimes I'm in the middle of eating dinner and I think, "I'm so hungry, I can't wait for dinner. Oh, right, here it is."

I've tried fasting three times in my life. The first time was as a teenager, for the 30-Hour Famine, a fundraiser for ministries around the world supporting those in hunger. It didn't work out at all - I got dizzy and grumpy and it was awful. The second time I was a youth leader, again doing the 30-Hour Famine. I couldn't even get myself to do it as a good example for the youth.

Then, last year during Lent, I tried it again - one day (not 30 hours, just 24). It was fantastic. I was so aware of God's presence and love. I was so aware of how much I depend on God. I was hungry, yes, but that hunger was just a constant reminder, saying, God is here, God is here, God is here. I understood Jesus saying that we don't live by bread alone. It was truly one of the greatest days of my life.

I wanted to try it again, but just haven't gotten around to it. God is leading me to it now, as something to practice during Lent: I'm going to fast one day each week. Erik and I are also going to decrease our weekly discretionary cash by 10% (since I'm skipping a couple of meals), and we're going to give away whatever we don't spend, and also that extra 10%, each week.

As it happens, I'm in the middle of the first day of fasting right now.

I'm in a very different place than I was a year ago, and this has been a bit of a rough week. Not great fodder for fasting. Yesterday at dinner time I almost quit - before even really starting. I'm hungry. I'm a little bit grumpy. So far, this 24 hours of fasting is not having the same effect that it did last year.

But, well, that's part of the process. That's part of the gift. When Jesus went into the desert for 40 days and fasted, of course there were times when he was hungry, when he was grumpy, there were times when it was not great. But with time, it was transformative.

So today, I'm praying for transformation. I'm praying that with time, this practice that has been used by Christians for centuries will again bring me closer to God. I'm praying that I can again experience hunger not just as something to endure, but as a reminder that I do not live on bread alone, as a tangible, physical reminder of God's presence and love.

What are you doing to observe Lent? When we really enter into this season of simplicity, repentance, generosity, and yes, fasting, then when Easter comes, we get to see the miracle with open eyes - we get to see that it really is a miracle. So how are you entering this season?

Simplicity, Week 3: Fruits of the Spirit

This week as I prayed for guidance about simplicity, I was reminded of something I found myself saying on Sunday during the sermon: I don't have much patience.

And, as I said on Sunday, simplicity is patient.

I don't like feeling like I'm giving away my moments, my seconds and minutes and hours, because someone else wasn't ready, or wasn't prepared, or made a mistake - even though there are countless, countless times when someone else is the one waiting for me, because I wasn't ready, I wasn't prepared, I made a mistake. I want them to be patient with me, but at the same time I think that my time is somehow too valuable to be patient with someone else.

Which, of course, is foolish, arrogant, and just puts me in a bad mood. And it's not living in simplicity. Simplicity holds the gift of time lightly, gratefully but without having to grab at every second. Simplicity is happy to give time away when it's right and good.

So as I prayed for guidance about simplicity, I found God guiding me to a practice of remembering and considering the Fruits of the Spirit (from Galatians 5) - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Patience is in there, but it's helpful for me that patience isn't there all by itself. It's a part of living in simple love for those around me.

Today I printed up a few copies of the Fruits of the Spirit. I'm going to put one in my office, one on the bathroom mirror so that as I'm getting ready for the day, I can get my heart ready too. I've got a couple of other places in mind as well.

What is Simplicity?
This past Sunday in church we explored a working definition of simplicity: "A way of living in which everything we have we receive as a gift, everything we have is cared for by God, and everything we have is available to others when it is right and good" (Richard J. Foster, Freedom of Simplicity). Click here for more information, including a fun word search! Click here for some practices you might try related to simplicity.

52 (or at least 49) Weeks of Simplicity

This year our church has found itself called to explore simplicity. One of the main ways that we learn is by doing - and then reflecting. So that's what I'm going to do. Each week, I'll choose some practice around simplicity to try out. It may be something I decide to try for only one week, just to see how it goes, or it may be something I decide to incorporate into my life for (at least) the rest of 2015. And each week, I'll post here what I'm trying out, as well as what I've been learning from previous experiments.

As many of you know, the first few weeks of this year were very, very simple for me, but not by choice. I had shingles and pretty much didn't leave the house for two weeks. One of those weeks was planned as vacation (don't worry, I still got lots of vacation before that), but the other one was unplanned. That week was a lesson in how well the world can do without me. It turns out that one week without Rachon is not life-changing for just about anyone. I did actually know that before - in fact, that's why I was able to take that second week off without worrying too much. But it's still helpful to be reminded. That's not to say that it didn't matter at all; there were one or two places where things would have happened differently, and I know that being gone for one week is not the same as being gone forever. Still, it was quite an experience.

We'll be thinking about that in church one of these weeks coming up - why do we need to feel indispensable? How do we complicate our lives by trying to make ourselves indispensable? What's the balance between What we do matters and There are limits to how much what we do matters?

That experience is why I didn't start this weekly experiment at the beginning of the year (and why the title of this blog is 49 weeks, rather than 52, of simplicity).

Here are the two experiments I've started (one last week, and one this week):

Last Week: 2 Days of Weekend
Coming off this experience of what happens when I'm gone for a week, I decided that this year I'm going to be pretty intentional about taking two days off each week. I've always been very intentional about one day off as a Sabbath, but lately I've been pretty loose about the second day. Sometimes it's been half a day here and half a day there. Sometimes it's been just half a day, or not even that.

And then I saw something on Facebook: a pastor who I respect very much said that she takes two days off every week. Every week! I thought. Wow! It sounded so great. I love, love my job, but I recognize that I get a little resentful if it feels like I'm working all the time. I get jealous of people who get two- or even three-day weekends. And that's not how I want to be. Plus, that's not how I believe a pastor offers their best leadership. Pastors who are working all the time are setting up systems that rely too much on themselves, and those systems are unsustainable.

So this year I'll be taking Mondays and Fridays off. This is already a bit of a challenge because there are recurring meetings and groups that happen on Mondays that I'm pretty committed to. At this point I'm okay with one (or at most two, back-to-back) short meeting on Mondays... we'll see how that goes and if it still feels like a day off. So far, so good.

This Week: Switching to Cash
This week, my husband Erik and I are switching to cash for all of our food and entertainment spending - basically all of our discretionary spending. We're not trying to limit that spending right now - we've given ourselves a pretty generous allowance per week. At this point, it's not about trying to change our spending habits, but about trying to be aware of them. We used to budget carefully, but over time we lost that habit and none of our efforts to recover it have worked out. We're careful about how we spend, so we always end up staying within our income, but we need to re-learn just how much we are spending. Only after learning that can we make a good decision about what we want to be spending, what we're called to be spending.

I keep finding myself wanting to jump ahead and limit the spending, or start putting aside money for a special trip, something like that. And I keep reminding myself: One step at a time. Every time we've tried to make some kind of dramatic and far-reaching change in our habits all at once, it's fallen apart very, very quickly. So, one step at a time. Right now, just awareness. I'll keep you posted on how it goes!

How are you practicing simplicity? How are you experimenting with it? Share here, or on the church's Facebook page, or on the bulletin board at church!

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