4 Values: Simple Living

He called the twelve diciples together and sent them out two by two. He gave them authority over the evil spirits and ordered them, "Don't take anything you on the trip except a walking stick-no bread, no beggar's bag, no money in your pockets. Wear sandals, but don't carry an extra shirt." He also told them, "Wherever you are welcomed, stay in the same house until you leave that place." -Mark 6:7-10

Simple Living seems to be the hardest of the four values for someone outside of JVC to understand. I think that's because it involves a self-imposed a set of limitations. In our society, limits are often seen as burdens. But the limitations of my life as a Jesuit Volunteer aren't there to make my life harder, they are there to redirect my focus.


The most obvious limit is financial. Food and housing are covered by JVC. Aside from that, we each receive the buying power of $60/month as a personal stipend. This stipend can be spent on anything, from chocolate to toothpaste, but it isn't much. So, am I slumming it? Am I playing at being poor? My answer is no. I'm not pretending for a minute that I'm poor. I know I have a nest-egg of savings that I could access at any point if I feel I need to. I'm deciding not to access it. With such a small monthly budget, I'll gain an increased appreciation for the value of money. I'll learn I can do without many of the things I consider essential here in Boston.

The other big limit is physical. I'm not coming home until 2017. And I'm not flying all around the continent of South America either. I'm staying put; and that means I'll miss out on things. The reality of the separation caused by time and distance made this a hard decision. I'm choosing to stay in Peru, in a small town, for many reasons. The one that I will put here is that there are depths of a culture that you cannot know if you are just passing through on a trip. Let me illustrate my point by using my own culture.

A month after we had graduated from Brandeis University, I went to Cambridge with a classmate who was an international student. When we walked past the Cambridge Common, which was bathed in sunlight and covered with families playing on the green grass, my friend stopped in her tracks. "Ben," she said in a shocked voice, "I never knew this was here. I came to Harvard Square so many times, and I never knew there was a park. I say that I've lived around Boston for 4 years but I've never known it in the summer. It has only been a cold and gray place to me. I've never seen it like this." She is just one of thousands of college students that think of Boston only as a winter city, that don't know about the smell of the sea and the perfect kite-flying wind on Castle Island. She is one of the long-term residents that have never watched the fireworks over the Charles river as the BSO plays the 1812 Overture. There is so much of Boston that can be missed by missing only 3 months of the year. There is so much of Boston that can be missed by only living in college areas, by never making local friends. That's the case in Boston, and that's the case anywhere.

By staying two full years in Andahuaylillas, I'll know it in a way that I never could if I stayed only a few weeks. By living two full years in Peru, I'll have a sense of the culture and history that, despite having lived a full semester in Lima, I currently do not have access to. Simple Living is about shedding distractions from home and forcing you to immerse yourself in a new world. This poverty of wealth allows for a richness of life.

Simple living isn't about having less things, it's about making more meaning.