What matters most to me, and what doesn’t…

 Last year I spent some time trying to explain to a lovely American why I was happy not to have more money; this was clearly a very baffling concept for him to grapple with. Why on Earth would I not want more of what he considered to be a supreme blessing? I don’t suppose he’ll ever see excess money as a potential burden and a responsibility; “enough” is a bit of a nonconcept in a consumer economy and I will happily admit that most of the time I would like a little bit more money - but I suspect I don’t actually need it. What I do need is more time, to concentrate on the things that really matter, and the only way I can achieve that is by stripping out the umpteen unimportant claims on my time that modern life tries to impose.

What do I want to have time free for? Caring properly for my family, my friends, the animals under my care, my garden and the wider world. For helping my children grow strong & sound in spirit, body, mind, knowledge & wisdom. For finding, making & mending things that are both beautiful & useful; for growing & making good wholesome food, for becoming informed about the issues that make all this harder than it should be, and passing that information on to others who may need it. 

I didn’t make a conscious decision to give up watching TV. We still have them in the house – only little ones, though; I was never willing to give up half my living space to a machine for conveying other people’s ideas directly into my children’s minds! – but I haven’t sat down to watch a programme for months, and when I did rarely managed to watch a programme all the way through without having to deal with some minor domestic emergency. But when people ask me enviously how I ever manage to make things, and claim they don’t have any free time, I sometimes have to bite my lip not to remind them that they’ve just told me they spent all last evening slumped in front of the TV… 

Shopping? It’s a chore, not a recreational experience! Best done at our local market, chatting to traders who know me & mine, whose goods I trust. I have to make the best of the resources at my disposal, so I do spend time planning & researching, but given a spare afternoon, I’d far rather be in my garden, on an empty beach, or trotting through the woods than queueing up to park at a soulless mall and spending money I haven’t got on things I don’t need.

Horror of all horrors, I don’t do a lot of housework. It’s entirely possible that one reason I am seeking to “simplify” my household is sheer unadulterated laziness! I do try to do the minimum for hygiene, and keep parts of my home presentable and welcoming for visitors, but making my home looking like something from a glossy magazine simply isn’t important to me. I don’t much care if my furniture doesn’t match as long as I can sit on it and as far as I’m concerned, curtains are for keeping us warm in winter and providing a modicum of privacy, not for making a statement about the kind of person I am, how much I’m worth, or how much time I’m willing to spend cleaning the dratted things.

I took the decision many years ago that my children were far more important to me than my career, and have only worked part-time, in jobs that didn’t demand too much of my mental energy, since. I know I’ve been lucky that that was possible for me financially, but believe me, it has not been a particularly easy row to hoe for some of the time. I’m also well aware that there are people who believe that I have “wasted” my talents and my training, and “let the side down” but I had good reasons for taking the decision I did and I don’t regret it for one moment.

For many years, I’ve known that we were making a total pig’s ear of the world we live in. There didn’t seem to be much I personally could do about that; I joined a couple of environmental organisations for a while, but they only ever seemed to be interested in  persuading me to part with money that I hadn’t got. And let’s face it, most greens have trouble even talking to someone who is responsible for their own private population explosion… So I just quietly got on with doing the things I could do in my own backyard. But that doesn’t seem to be enough any more; I need to do in my own life & say more to change the hearts & lives of anyone who will listen to me. How I can do that when I don’t have a shred of environmental street-cred, I don’t know, but let’s face it, it’s obvious - if I can do it, anyone can!

First things first…

I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t have faith. Even if it’s only because I can’t wrap my head around a physical universe without meaning, I need God; to me the Creator of the underlying order and origin of joy in the universe. It would be nice to think that God needs me, too, but one of the ideas ingrained in my Christian upbringing is humility; I am just a tiny speck in the infinite vastness of creation and if I have a small part to play in it, it’s a part that could be done by any one of umpteen others too. But hand-in-hand with that goes the idea that I am precious to God, and that in some unknowable way, I do matter and that I always have a choice; I can choose to do what’s right & what’s necessary, or I can turn my back & say, “That’s too hard. Or I’m too busy just now; I’ll think about that later.” Which I’ve done far too many times in my life; haven’t we all?

So the idea of God, and “that of God” in everyone, is central to the way I think. And Jesus is very real to me, too; not just a historical figure who spoke a lot of sense & challenged the establishment, but someone real, and supernaturally human, and there for me in both the good times and the darkest moments. Not always a comforting presence; sometimes confronting and demanding, but always better than the best that I would find within myself, by myself.

 The Holy Spirit? I need it like a plant needs water. I haven’t a clue what it is or does, but sometimes in a Meeting, or listening to beautiful music (of any genre!) or watching the sun go down from the top of a hill, I feel as if I am bathing in the River of Life. I am connected to the universe and can feel the pulse of the world and all that is, or who are, in it. It’s both a presence and a process beyond rational thought and scientific investigation, and it’s in all the things that make life worth living.

So that’s where I’m starting out from.

Complicated thing, simplicity…

For many years, I have felt an urge to try to simplify my life. It would be very easy to point out that it never had to get this complicated in the first place, but the person who could have kept it simpler just isn’t me. So now I feel I am reaching a turning point; my 5 kids are growing up fast, I have recognised that my marriage will never be like other marriages, I have drifted away from my old church and found safe haven elsewhere, and my worries about the state & future of the world around me have reached the point where inaction is no longer an option. At the same time, however, I’ve re-entered the workaday world & lost my allotment, both of which have cost me dear in terms of serenity. In order to regain that serenity, & have the time & energy to make a difference in the world, I need to restore some simplicity to my manic life.

 It seems to me that simplicity means working out what really matters to me, concentrating on those things and “letting go” of as many of the other drains on my time & energy as I reasonably can. There is any amount of advice out there about how to achieve physical simplicity; books & websites on decluttering abound. But empty, easily-cleaned rooms & wardrobes (which I’m still very far from achieving!) would mean nothing to me without spiritual simplicity, which is not quite so easily attained.

So I’ve been attending the local meeting of the Quakers, properly known as the Religious Society of Friends of the Truth, for a year now. Although I have some Quaker ancestry, I was born and raised a CofE Christian, and found my own way into the Good Shepherd’s sheltering arms after years of teenage & twenty-something rebellion & spiritual blundering in the dark. But after years of unquestioning Church membership, increasingly I’ve found myself wincing through services & sermons, wondering how people could think, sing & say some of the things they did in the name of the Prince of Peace & the God of Love. So the simple silence of Friends’ meetings, where we become still and “wait upon the Lord” seemed like a refreshing homecoming, and has given me the internal space & tranquility, away from the noise & bustle of the world, to start to let the Light shine inside me and cast my chaotic life & thoughts into stark relief. This has not been a comfortable process! This is a part of it; the way my mind works, I need to write out my thoughts, which forces me to put them into some kind of logical order, and possibly have some feedback on them, if anyone can be bothered. So I shall post this, then follow up with posts on the individual topics that seem important for me to think through properly, living my life where & how I do.

 Angie