Simple life

I just finished reading a chapter about Gandhi in a book by Phillip Yancey. The principles he lived by are an incredible example to the world of a man who had "soul" power. In several books about him it is documented that he began as a lawyer with the fancy suit and the top hat and tried to become part of the successful society. His journey led him down path in which he tried to teach simplicity as a core virtue. The amazing thing is that he never asked anyone to do anything that he personally was not willing to do. There is a story about a woman who came to Gandhi to ask him to tell her young son to stop eating sugar. He told her to come back in a week. When she came back Gandhi simply told the boy to stop eating sugar. The mother asked Gandhi why she had to wait a week for him to tell her son that. He told her that when she first asked, he was still eating sugar.

I can understand more clearly the principle of giving up the world in order to gain your life. The more things that we have the more that we are owned by them and the more we lose our own sense of who we are. I've witnessed it happening every time a child grows up and we tell them to go out and see the world and to do things with their life before they get tied down to a house payment, insurance, car payments, utilities, etc....

The man who has everything, is a servant to his possessions. The man who has little hasn't much to lose. It is advice that I think is very relevant to the our current time. As I think about all the things I have to support in order to do my job and provide for my family. Our way of life depends on us continually buying more stuff, going to more events and staying connected to the world in more ways. In watching Tilghman's Fiddler on the Roof last night, one of Tevye's lines says "if being rich is a sin, may God smite with it and may I never recover" swirled around the back of my brain all night. I dream of winning the lottery and doing great things with the money. Supporting my family so they can live in comfort, giving to charities that mean a great deal to me, helping my friends and community with the money. I dream of a world in which I have everything that I want. But when hard times come and I have to give up the things that I've accumulated or taken for granted, I feel the loss even deeper.

Gandhi cut his weekly expenses in half. Then he cut them in half again and again. Finally all he had was a loin cloth, his glasses, a watch, and a spoon which had broken that he mended with a string. The man wasn't a "saint" when it came to family and friends and the way he treated them. But his simple life, which changed the second most populous country on the face of the earth, calls to mind another man who died with only a robe to his name nailed on a cross whose message still resonates today. I'm not trying to say that Gandhi is a reincarnation of Jesus. But both men practiced a simple life devoted to non violence and the dignity of all.

As I struggle to budget for my personal life I think of the cell phones, Internet, cable TV, newspapers, magazines, house payments, utilities, insurance payments for life-health-property, retirement funds, college funds, donations to the charities, in short all those things that I work to pay for. Our food comes from a microwave ready at a moments notice, or from a drive through window because we are working to pay for the things that we have and don't have time to cook anymore. My daughter's idea of cooking is to put something in the microwave and punch in the time for cooking.

For the theatre I think of online ticketing, credit card acceptance, glossy programs, bigger sets, more lavish costumes and lights, more musicals with bigger royalties which require more marketing which require more tickets sold which requires more staff and support, etc...

I think I'll go back and reread the chapter on Gandhi again. The lessons of his life can be as valuable to me today as they were to his nation 50 years ago.