Simplifying: Part of the Spiritual Journey

 by Cari

I awakened this morning with the word simplicity in my mind and heart, and was pleasantly surprised at the synchronicity when I opened my daily reflection the title of which was Simplicity and Unity. This is our job in the second half of life: to simplify our lives so that we can remain aware of our connection with all creation, those who went before us and those who come after us. We’re part of the tapestry that is being woven. We are blessed with the time to do this, unlike previous generations of women. We have choices thanks to the revolutionary 1960’s and 70’s and to the women who started it and made some strides in the 19th century. We stand on all their shoulders and this makes us accountable.

 

Of course, our sisters in countries other than North America and Europe were and are not as fortunate. Nor was my own mother who was coming of age at the time of the Great Depression. She was born, raised, forced to leave high school to help out (her brothers were not), married, lived as a widow for 23 years, and died within a 3-mile radius in the Ohio Valley. She sobbed when I first left after my divorce in 1968, “All those years and everything you own [and my 5-year old son] is in that little car.” Upward mobility, accumulating things, albeit at a bargain, was important to her until the day she died in a small efficiency in an assisted living home.

 

When I told her 13 years ago that I was selling my house in Miami and all the “stuff” within, giving up the practice of law, and traveling 3,000 miles away to study theology, she sighed with dismay and incomprehension, “Your dishes, your furniture, everything? That’s so far away!” Yet, my mother sat at her kitchen table with a map, marking my location as she followed me across the country, giggling gleefully when I called her each night on the road. While I was living in community in a former convent with nine other theologians, sharing a bathroom with one, Mom was still living in my childhood home, three stories of space and an attic, with every closet and every drawer filled with stuff she had accumulated over 55 years. She grieved deeply until the day she died about having to leave the house that had become overwhelming for her, forcing her to simplify, to sell the house and dispose of its contents.

 

Materiality is one aspect of simplifying. Divesting of excessive things and being aware of the demon, Consumerism, provides some space for us to grow in a different way. The first half of life is building ego which is necessary for our individuation. For those of us in the second half of life, the task is going inward. That doesn’t mean we have to sleep on hard surfaces and wear those scratchy goats hair cloaks of biblical fame or engage in daily flagellation, physical or spiritual. We do need to be mindful of our busyness and its corollary tiredness, without replenishing with self-care. I enjoy sleeping on my Tempurpedic and a glass of Oregon pinot noir and gathering with friends and traveling to India.

 

When I left Miami, I told several attorneys where I was working that I was pursuing a deep spiritual calling in my soul. I recall one attorney looking at me with envy, wanting to do something different with her life, but feeling compelled to continue practicing law because “it’s all I know; besides, I need to make money.” Nothing wrong with that. Financial security is important to all of us. However, questions that I grapple with are: How much is enough, and what is the psycho-spiritual cost of becoming one of the herd in Western culture? How do I balance the financial and material with what my soul calls me to do? How do I accomplish this living in a culture that encourages busyness and consumerism?

 

Take time out to reflect on the fact that we are the first generation of women who can even articulate these choices, and remember we truly are continuing the individuation process of our mothers and grandmothers who did not. Simplifying helps us to be united with them.