For some Presbyterians, the idea of stewardship connects to an underlying question: How do the decisions one makes about how to live influence what one has to give back to God’s world?
Increasingly, Americans seem to be paying attention to environmental issues, partly as a result of growing concern about global warming and energy costs.
And in some congregations, that’s leading to conversations about “voluntary simplicity” or sustainable living — conversations including everything from how to cut back on energy use and live a “greener” lifestyle, to whether the benefits derived from having a fast-paced, all-consuming career are worth the costs.
Some people have become advocates for scaling back, for owning smaller houses and less stuff, for spending more time with friends and family, for finding work that satisfies the soul as well as the mortgage.
One journalist, writing in the magazine Jugglezine, described it this way: “Voluntary simplicity is where Green meets Gandhi. It’s the crossroads where sustainability, quality of life and spirituality intersect.”
David Maxwell, an editor for Westminster John Knox Press and Geneva Press and for The Thoughtful Christian Web site, is living smack in the middle of that intersection. He rides his bike to work most days — trying to break a dependence on cars. He lives in a house in the city that’s just a few miles from work and not too expensive.
And, pretty much through luck and happenstance, he’s ended up living on a street that’s transforming itself into an intentional community.
Maxwell and his neighbors have planted a community garden together and are exploring solar energy. Once a month, they share potluck dinners. And “four couples have bought a house they’re fixing up with the idea they’ll sell it to someone who thinks like us, who wants to participate in our growing community,” he said.
One of the couples — he’s an accountant, she’s a teacher — have chosen to live very simply, so he works only part-time. They heat with wood and eschew air conditioning.
Summer evenings find the neighbors on their porches or pulling weeds together, swapping home-remodeling tips, helping each other out.
“Kids, families, it’s a mixed group,” Maxwell said. “It’s heaven.”
Space for living
At the recent National Pastors Sabbath, keynote speaker Cynthia Rigby, a professor of theology at Austin Theological Seminary, spoke of the need for people to have enough space and enough peace in their lives to be able to live imaginatively.
“Weariness makes us lose our passion to create space,” Rigby told the participants, according to the Presbyterian News Service. It’s important to clear space to live imaginatively, she said, which is “the only way to be in the kingdom of God where the lion and the lamb lie down together; it is what God imagines.”
And that idea — of slowing down, of having time to think, of creating space for what matters — is at the heart of voluntary simplicity.
At Central Church in Louisville, a small group met last winter to consider what voluntary simplicity might look like, using as a jumping-off point a book by Linda Breen Pierce called “Simplicity Lessons: A 12-step Guide to Living Simply.”
Melissa Atkinson, a hospital administrator who’s interested in environmentalism and frugal living, led the discussion. One of the first things she told the participants was: “No shame involved. What voluntary simplicity is about is making choices for yourself about how you want to live your life. Everybody does it differently.”
When some people think of simplicity or frugal living, they think of doing without, focusing on all they have to give up. But Atkinson said, “This was definitely not a class on 100 ways to reuse aluminum foil,” but a means to get people thinking about how they choose to live and why.
“I think people in congregations can talk about the deeper issue of simple living, which is how do we use the gifts that God has entrusted to us,” said Ann Deibert, associate pastor at Central church. “Obviously, as a country we’re using way more of the gifts that God has entrusted to the world than our fair share.”
In Genesis, when God gave Adam and Eve the world, “it wasn’t to use for their own satisfaction,” Deibert said. “It was to promote the well-being of all creation. We still live in that legacy.”
And conversations in which people talk about why they’ve chosen to live as they have can spur others in the congregation, she said, to consider their own choices.
“We realize that work could be meaningful and there is a sense of call for all of us,” Deibert said. “Often I find it’s true that you have those conversations with the people you trust and whose wisdom you value. And something may come out of it that is the little seed that you need that gets planted in your life, that becomes what you’re looking for. All of this has to do with call.”
Freedom
Melissa Atkinson and her husband, for example, have chosen to live simply, in part because doing so gives them the financial freedom to spend their time on what matters most to them.
“That’s the issue,” Atkinson said. “What kind of lifestyle do you insist on setting up for yourself, and how are you going to pay for that?”
So the Atkinsons have chosen not to have cable TV and not to buy new cars every few years. But they don’t feel they’re doing without. “Trust me, we do all the things every other family does,” Melissa said. “We go out to eat. We travel. My children attend college. … But we tend to just be more careful with our expenditures.”
As a result, her husband was able to retire at age 48 while their daughters were still in high school. The girls played sports, and “he was able to devote a considerable amount of time to supporting girls’ high school athletics, which is very important to us as a family,” Atkinson said.
He drove carpools to practices, helped maintain the softball field, participated in fundraising, still helps with repair projects at church.
“Any working person who has children can understand the pull between being at your job and being able to see them knock that home run over the fence,” Atkinson said. “Any working parent knows what that feels like.”
By choosing to live simply, “you don’t have to spend as much of your life energy working at a job. Instead you have this time you can devote to family activities. It’s priceless — absolutely priceless.”
For Deibert, the people who come to mind almost immediately are parishioners George and Jean Edwards. In their 80s, the Edwards have taken responsibility for recycling at the church — picking up paper, cans and plastic used at the church and hauling them off to the city’s recycling centers.
“They don’t want us to use disposable things that fill up the landfill,” Deibert said. “So they wash dishes at almost every church function,” their way of reducing the trail of paper plates and Styrofoam cups.
Simple acts — but they stand for something.
