"Voluntary Simplicity"

I love Grand Rapids. I've become quite comfortable here. The hot summers filled with fireflies and beach visits make up for the spiteful, stinging winters. There's something about comfort, though, that allows me to start thinking, "Yeah, I'm pretty awesome." In places of comfort, I often fool myself into a kind of blissful complacency when it comes to evaluating my own character. However, I've found I'm never allowed to remain happily ignorant for long...

More than one person has told me that I don't deal with change very well. In all fairness, I've experienced more than my fair share of "big life changes" moving back and forth from Colorado to Japan to South Korea. I would say I adapt pretty well, but those people are right; change in my life is usually met by great resistance and a shocking volume of tears. I'm moving into my senior year at Calvin, and as though I weren't facing enough change, my nineteen-year-old sister has moved in with me. Suffice it to say we have never gotten along.

At the Service-Learning Center, we have a summer reader filled with insightful articles that introduce old and new staff to service-learning as pedagogy and life philosophy. This week's article was titled "Preparing the Way for Justice." Lofty, right? "Here we go..." I thought as I dove into the reading. After skimming my way through a discussion of Kant's Metaphysics and Morals, my eyes and mind slowed down to read about the application of these metaphysics and morals through the lens of Thomas Merton's Life and Holiness. The spiritual discipline of "voluntary simplicity" especially caught my eye. Bradford Hadaway, the author, was presenting spiritual disciplines like voluntary simplicity as a teaching method for introducing students to a deeper understanding of service-learning. As always, such practices just as useful outside the classroom as inside. The author writes that, "simplicity expressed as a spiritual discipline is first and foremost an attempt to clear away things that clutter both our inner and outer lives." My mother, ever-ready with her piercing insights of my character flaws, told me yesterday the reason I don't get along with my sister is because we have inherently different value systems. Over 20+ years, she noticed that I value materials, while my sister values relationships. Both have their benefits and pitfalls, she told me. I take good care of my possessions but cling to tightly to them sometimes. My sister takes good care of her friends but sometimes can't see when helping them is hurting them. Needless to say, the fullness of both our personalities clash when my stuff is scratched, broken, or otherwise carelessly strewn around. I'm person that likes explanations more than coincidences, so as much as it makes me cringe to admit it, sometimes articles, conversations, rainbows, or what-have-you catch me at just the right moment and make me think hard about the space between who I am and who I'm called to be.

With all this change happening, I've had plenty of opportunities to be reminded that I'm not nearly as good, patient, understanding, and generous as I sometimes think I am. Hadaway writes, "The practice of the spiritual disciplines in their thick sense can develop the moral imagination necessary to break out of our narrow and limited perspectives about how the world operates and what people are like." Service-learning is all about discomfort. It's about the life-value-changing, world-rocking, headache-generating activity of making ourselves vulnerable enough for our flaws to be exposed and to be reminded that things aren't always as they seem. I honestly may never get along swimmingly with my sister, but her presence reminds me that I'm called to "lay up treasures in heaven" and not cling to desperately to my "stuff." As for being a senior, I still dislike the prospect of leaving the comfort I've found in Grand Rapids in less than one year, but maybe I can welcome the opportunity to develop a deeper understanding of God's work in other cities.

Peace,

Anna
StreetFest Coordinator