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!
Don't forget to subscribe to the blog - just put your email address in the bar on the right. Happy simplifying!
No comments:
Post a Comment