Living Simply

Five weeks on and I’m getting used to being home. I’m diving into my classes and meeting new people on campus and in the neighbourhood. I’m not quite sending down roots yet but I’m getting to know the soil, preparing to be planted.

So much of what I experienced in the Philippines last year is present with me here in Toronto. I think of my boys at Sarnelli often and of my experience with them, living simply and openly. I desire to live as simply as possible here in Toronto. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve had the opportunity to learn more about what that might look like.

As part of our Institute’s celebration of Mary Ward Week, we participated in a workshop entitled “Living Simply, Living Well”, facilitated by Ann McGowan from the Mary Ward Centre. Ann shared a variety of resources with us and invited us to challenge our understanding of economic growth and wealth. We briefly talked about alternatives to current models of growth and consumption and about investment in things aimed towards the common good (for example, libraries, the arts, etc.).

That discussion continued through my participation last week in a Jesuit Forum discussion group focused on Pope Francis’ encyclical on the care of creation, Laudato Si. Our group had a fascinating and far-ranging discussion about Canadian mining practices, current U.S. politics and recent protests, as well as alternative cultural movements like minimalism and freeganism and freecycling. I went away feeling buoyed by the way the Holy Spirit seems to move through small grassroots movements. When I get discouraged by the seemingly unstoppable societal movement towards excessive consumption and waste, these counter-cultural movements bring me a whole lot of consolation – increases in peace, love, and faith.

I’ve already written about the vow of poverty that I will eventually take, here and here, but poverty and living simply continue to be on my mind. I’ve started volunteering to serve breakfast to the homeless on Saturday mornings and it has increased my desire to not only live simply but to get to know and accompany those who are truly materially and spiritually poor. I feel like God is really pulling me (or pushing me?) in the direction of being with the poor and I am doing my best not to stand in God’s way. I don’t know where this will lead but I trust that consolation will follow. I have a feeling that living simply will be an evolving act of faith.