One of the tangible expressions of living in a place of rest…of simplicity…is learning to live below our means…not just within our means…but below.  It’s interesting to hear the economists and governments suggesting that the key to economic recovery is to free up credit markets.  I wonder, how does freeing up credit so that people can spend money they don’t have help to stimulate the economy?  Isn’t that what got us into trouble in the first place.

The writer of Proverbs warned the community that “The borrower is slave to the lender”.  It is one thing to owe money for something that when sold will actually cover the loan – like a house.  It is another to owe money for anything else that once purchased isn’t worth what you paid for it.  We have created a culture of access and entitlement that has done nothing more than turn us into economic slaves.  The result is that we are prisoners of our own lack of simplicity.

We still have amongst us an entire generation that knew what it was to not have unless they could pay for it first, and somehow managed to also save – that meant they were living below their means.  Would that we would open our ears to hear their wisdom about how to do life that way – they were economic geniuses in their day.

My mother’s parents have both died, but when they were alive I used to visit them quite often.  I was always amazed that the refridgerator in their kitchen was the original one they had purchased, with cash, back in 1939.  That fridge was still there when my grandfather died in 1998 and my grandmother moved into a nursing home.  Their thinking was, it worked so why replace it.  Yes, I know, it didn’t run as efficiently as the newer models, but that’s not my point.  My point is this – they were very clear on the difference between need and want. That is one of the lessons we so desperately need to relearn and embrace today. 

And it goes beyond material possessions.  It speaks to our sense of value and worth (exactly why do we need “new” when the “old” is working just fine) as well as our capacity to be generous with our lives for the sake of others.  An orientation of simplicity is not just for our own sakes – for the “rest” we carry in our own souls.  It is for the sake of those we know, or know of. 

Chris Heuertz refers to a quote often ascribed to Ghandi, “Live simply that others may simply live.”

Mark Kielburger spoke to thousands of young people at the “Me to We” gathering in Toronto last fall and said, “We don’t have a money problem, we have a priorities problem.” 

Chris echoes this as he writes about the questions we ask as we try to move to simplicity: “…most of the questions, and most of the typical answers, are about what we have, want or need.  I wonder if the questions shouldn’t be more about what others don’t have, still want and desperately need.” (97, Simple Spirituality)

As I look around my home and consider financial commitments we have made and will be facing soon (post-secondary costs are just around the corner for two of our children), and the push we are making this year to be free from “lenders” so that we can be free to be generous to others, the call to simplicity in both its material (what we have and do) and immaterial (what we value, and what is our prevailing orientation) expressions is a constant that helps to prioritize our needs and wants in such a way that we live below our means and thus live truly free with the hope that we might be better positioned to help others “simply live”.