Simple living is not about elegant frugality.
It is not really about deprivation of whatever is useful and helpful for our life.
It is not about harsh rules and stringent regulations. To live simply,
one has to consider all of these and they may be included to some degree,
but simple living is about freedom. It’s about a freedom to choose space
rather than clutter, to choose open and generous living
rather than a secure and sheltered way.
Freedom is about choices: Freedom to choose less rather than more.
Freedom is about choices: Freedom to choose less rather than more.
It’s about choosing time for people and ideas and self-growth
rather than for maintenance and guarding and possessing and cleaning.
Simple living is about moving through life rather lightly,
delighting in the plain and the subtle. It is about poetry and dance,
song and art, music and grace. It is about optimism and humor,
gratitude and appreciation. It is about embracing life with wide-open arms.
It’s about living and giving with no strings attached. . . .
Simple living is as close as the land on which we stand.
Simple living is as close as the land on which we stand.
It is as far-reaching as the universe that makes us gasp.
Simple living is a relaxed grasp on money, things, and even friends.
Simplicity cherishes ideas and relationships.
They are treasured more because simplicity doesn’t cling
nor try to possess things or people or relationships.
Simplicity frees us within, but it frees others, too. . . .
Simple living is a statement of presence.
The real me. This simplicity makes us welcome among the wealthy and the poor alike. . . .
We will not be happy living selfishly in a small world.
We must live in awareness and in association with the whole real world.
Our universe. Our cosmos. Our environment. Our earth. Our air.
Our water supply. Our country. Our neighbor. Our car. Our homes.
All are part of simple living.
~ Sister Jose Hobday
from Simple Living: The Path to Joy and Freedom
Sister Jose Hobday was A Seneca elder, a prominent Roman Catholic leader,
and a Franciscan sister who adheres fully to St. Francis’s radical ideal of holy poverty. . . .
She is also a mystic and contemplative; she is an earth warrior and elder guide
on the wisdom path; and above all, she is an impassioned servant of the poor,
especially poor Native Americans.
Sister José lived in the maximum simplicity of voluntary poverty
in a tiny house in Gallup, New Mexico, surrounded on all sides
by Indian reservations and pueblos.
As people once flocked to Julian of Norwich’s cell or to Dorothy Day’s Hospitality House,
so people came to Sister José’s warm hearth for spiritual guidance
and material help, and no one leaving without assistance.
~ notes by Mary Ford-Grabowsky
