Each year we do a Daily Reader with daily submissions from Friends around the Northwest, so I thought I'd post them here. (We'll see if I can remember to do it each day, or figure out the "schedule" function so it will do it automatically!) I'm already a couple days behind, so I hope you'll forgive me. The entries follow the "SPICE" theme, with 6 days or so for each topic. Here are the entries for January 1-3:
January 1 – Simplicity
Cherice Bock
Welcome to
the Peace Month 2012 Daily Reader! We hope this month is restful and
spiritually revitalizing after the holiday season. This year we’re doing
something a little different with Peace Month: we’re looking at several of the
ways of living that have come to be known as the “Friends testimonies.” They
conveniently spell the acronym SPICE: Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Community
and Equality. If you want to know more about these testimonies and their
historical foundation, visit www.nwfriends.org/peacemonth
and download the document entitled “SPICE: the Friends Testimonies.”
In this
reader we will spend several days on each testimony, seen from the perspective
of various people around Northwest Yearly Meeting. We hope you will enjoy
hearing how other Friends live these biblically-based testimonies, and will be
challenged to grow in each of these areas by the Spirit of the Present Christ.
At the
beginning of each section we will start with a query from the NWYM Faith &
Practice. You are encouraged to spend time meditating on that query and
allowing Christ to speak to you about how you are called to live out that
testimony in your own life, and how we as a community of Friends in the
Northwest are invited to live out that testimony together.
Let’s begin
with a query on simplicity.
NWYM Faith & Practice Query 13:
January 2 – Simplicity
Stan Thornburg
“Early Friends
were committed to acting truth in their daily lives… at the same
time they
were quite specific about what would keep them focused on the divine
will and
what would deflect their attention from it.”
- Thomas
Hamm, Quakers in America
Read: James 4:1-2
Simplicity
is not just a move to have less stuff; it’s a way of seeing and loving all
created things. Much like purity of heart, simplicity is a way of seeing
through God’s eyes, a way of recognizing the sacred in all things. Such a view
makes one loathe to waste the resources at one's disposal. Simplicity is always
a corollary to purity of heart and cannot be separated from that virtue.
Since
simplicity recognizes the divine origin in all things, it moves us to love all
things according to the Creator’s purpose for them, even those that are
manufactured from the Earth’s resources. We find that purpose for created things
by being transformed so that we see all things through the eyes of God.
Simplicity
sees wealth through God’s eyes as well. Both the rich and the poor encumber
themselves with money-making ventures at great cost to their families, their
lives (often devoid of joy), and the chance for a meaningful experience of
church as community. Thomas Hamm puts it very well: “Luxury is a contagious and
killing disease. It creeps into all classes and types of
people. The poorest
people often exceed others in their ability to indulge their
appetite. And the
rich frequently wallow in those things that please the lusts of
their eye and
flesh and pride of life” (Quakers in America, p. 100).
Lastly,
simplicity is a deterrent to war and wasteful disputes that grow out of our
desire for more. As James indicates,
when one puts material things above love, really bad things happen. Greed and
covetousness kill the soul and tend to block our love for created things and
dull our ears to God’s instruction.
Queries:
Are you careful not
to encumber yourselves with an excess of frivolous possessions?
Are you practiced in keeping your eyes under the
discipline of the Holy Spirit?
January 3 – Simplicity
Lisa McMinn
Savoring What You
Have
Read: Ecclesiastes 6:9
Wise,
wealthy Solomon reflects on life in (often) cynical ways in Ecclesiastes. He
draws poignant conclusions. Among them is to enjoy what you have rather than
desiring and dreaming about what you don’t have.
That
wisdom runs counter to market economics that depend on our staying discontent
so that we will keep buying stuff to make us happier. We’re exposed to
advertisements and commercials trying to convince us that our life isn’t good
enough, and that some new fashion, upgraded technology or car will make it
better. What is good for our economy may well be bad for our soul.
Years
ago I learned that when I needed something (or thought I did) to look for it
among others’ discards, like my office chair (someone’s toss-away that needed
refinishing), or the wood we salvaged from a deserted barn and used to finish
our Potting Shed, or canning jars I buy at the Good Will store.
In
recent years contentment and simplicity has included learning about abundance
at our fingertips. We plant seeds and let God, the sun, and rain produce food.
Mark and I are small-scale farmers and have found joy in the work of tending
vegetables, bees and chickens. Tending dirt and creatures in ways that allow
all life that shares this space to flourish reinforces my ideas about
contentment and stuff. The most essential “stuff” for survival and wellbeing is
under my feet.
A
consumerism promising happiness can cause us to lose sight of God’s simple and
abundant gifts. Our relationship to Earth isn’t tangential to our existence,
rather our ties to Earth are essential to our collective wellbeing. Learning
contentment with and care for God’s simple gifts nourishes Life.
Prayer:
Lord, thank you for
this good Earth.
Forgive me when I do
not love it enough.
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