Simple Living

Gajus / Shutterstock.com

Gajus / Shutterstock.com

Jesus was clear.

You cannot serve both God and money.

Throughout my 20s, this was not a problem I thought I struggled with.

First of all, I didn’t perceive myself as having all that much money. So, how could I be serving it? (I deal with the inaccuracy of how I perceive of my own wealth here.)

Second, money was never a part of my thought process when choosing my career. If money wasn’t the motivator for choosing my job, how could I be in danger of “serving two masters?”

It’s been said that one of the greatest tricks devil ever played was convincing most of the world he doesn’t exist. His greatest encore might be wrapping up vice in the midst of a big ball of virtue and letting the whole thing rot from the inside out.

I might not struggle with being a slave to money in the sense that I obsess about how much I make. But, in looking back over the past 10 years of my life, I’ve found myself serving the master of mammon precisely in the ways that I DIDN’T think about money.

Adam Hamilton 8-01-2009

’Tis the gift to be simple,
’tis the gift to be free,
’Tis the gift to come down
where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves

Becky Garrison 12-15-2008
Thanks to the folks at Alternatives for Simple Living, I've been refocusing how I celebrate the Christmas holidays.
Tom Sine 1-01-2008

How to live as if another world were already here.

Over the past two years, educators Linda and Scot DeGraf have been building a one-room cottage made of natural, recycled, and local materials.

Reflections on the Revised Common Lectionary, Cycle C.
The Editors 6-01-2007

Instruments of Peace

Everday low prices are part of our American birthright. Right?
Rose Marie Berger 7-01-2006
Soon the first stars will move tentatively into the field of sky.
Wendell Berry 11-01-2005

The author of more than 40 books of fiction, poetry, and essays muses on farming as a writer and writing as a farmer.

Why God's abundant life won't fit in a shopping cart, and other mysteries of consumerism.

Scott DeGraf 5-01-2005

10 easy things (and a few harder ones) you can do to plug in to a simpler lifestyle.

William McDonough 5-01-2005

A world-renowned architect argues that following the law of nature can make human industry safe and healthful.

Peter Henriot 4-01-2005
With 86 percent of the country below the poverty line, the southern African nation of Zambia seems an unlikely candidate to face down the United States - and corporate giant Monsanto - over genetically modified seeds.
Ann McClenahan 7-01-2000
The complexities of 'simple living.'

Reclaiming the gift of time.