"Simpler Living Compassionate Life", edited and compiled by Michael Schut

"Simpler Living Compassionate Life" is a collection of essays from a Christian perspective based on ways that people can start living more simply, losing the headaches of trying to go, go, go or trying to accumulate all the goods we can. There are essays in this collection about how we view our time, what we do with our money, and how the way that we live impacts the environment, both socially and ecologically.

I appreciated that in this book moreso than the other books we read for this class, a Christian perspective was brought into play. The other books were good and I enjoyed what they had to say and teach, but they were devoid of any reference to how our care of creation affects or is affected by our faith. This book brought this question into the forefront of discussion.

The essays that resonated the most with me were the ones on our time and how we spend it. We are always going, going, going and we hardly take any time to slow down and see what we have around us. This is an issue I deal with in my own life all the time. Between between a mother and a wife, a student, working 3 jobs that are all "part-time" (but not really) and maintaining friendships and everything else; time is scarce to come by for me!

One essay in particular that really hit me was "Entering the Emptiness" by Gerald May. In his essay, he talked about the necessity for space--space that isn't filled with other things. He writes, "Something is amiss when wasting time is something we feel ashamed of, when we must ask a quiet person, "What's wrong?" (43). In his essay, he talks about why it is that many of us are simply afraid of having space and this was especially meaningful to me. He wrote,

"At any given moment, we all have a number of worries, fears, guilt feelings, bad memories, and things we are procrastinating about that we are simply putting out of our minds. The difficulty with space, especially interior spaciousness of soul, is that it allows such repressed and suppressed annoyances back into awareness. When I pause for a moment and let my mind settle down, what comes in? The things I have put off, the worries I have been avoiding, the bad feelings I have stifled. Space is like sunlight and fresh air toward which the buried uglies of our souls crawl in search of healing. It is a very healthy thing. Space is not only potentially restful but also therapeutic. But like many therapeutic processes, it can be painful. And in matters of healing consciousness, as in love, there can be no anesthesia" (44).

May describes the problem we feel with space beautifully here. When we allow ourselves to have that space, our consciousness is allowed to breathe and we realize the things we would rather not realize. This paragraph was very moving for me. May finally goes on to say, "To miss our emptiness is, finally, to miss our hope" (47). From a Christian perspective, this hope is the only thing that can soothe a soul that has been given space. What a wonderful thing to remember.

I also found it helpful that this book included resources to work through this book as a study of sorts, with discussion prompts and questions and such to guide the leader. This would be a great book to work through with congregation members in the future.