4Values Revisited: Simple Living

As you may or may not remember, the JV experience is built around 4 values: Spirituality, Simple Living, Community, and Social Justice. The idea is to grow in understanding of these values and to live them out inside the JV experience, so that you can take them with you and live them out in the rest of your life. I don't talk about them all the time, but they are right at the core of why I am here, why I do what I do, and what I want to get out of these two years.

So just like it makes sense to step back and do quarterly reviews every 3 months, it makes sense to step back and look at the values. When this blog was still new, and I was still living in Boston, I wrote a short post about each of the values. When I wrote those posts, I was writing about what I understood of each value going into this experience. Now that I'm halfway through it, my understanding of each value has evolved and developed.

“Not voluntary poverty, but voluntary wealth.” That's how Fr. James Martin, SJ describes the Jesuit value of simple living. Last year, simple living was a very theoretical value, not one I'd intentionally practiced before. After a year of living it out on a $60 a month stipend and limited community budget, I'd like to think I understand simple living a little better.

The Jesuit vow of simple living isn't about poverty (they might tell you it is, but if you hang out with the Jesuits you'll know that the idea that they live in poverty is laughable), it's about non-attachment to things. Basically simple living in the Jesuit sense means “people first.” That's the “voluntary wealth” Fr. Martin is talking about – the wealth of relationships and experiences that are available to you when you aren't focused on possessions.

Simple living in the JV context, especially the international context, can be easy to live out. We don't have a lot of money, and around here there isn't much to spend it on. For me that means spending my money on being with people. That could mean baking a cake to share, or going out with other teachers after work for chicken. But what I'm paying for there is more the time with the people than it is the item. I wouldn't buy myself a beer just for myself. I wouldn't bake banana bread just for me to eat. My attempt to live simply means that my money is meant to be shared. The $60 stipend I get isn't for me, it's for the various other people in my JV life that make the experience so much richer.

Simple living also means learning to accept generosity that you can't repay. I like to repay my debts quickly (except for my debts to myfedloan.org). During my college years, I was generally the friend with money. I worked 24 hours a week as a way to escape the academic world, but the thing about work is that it pays you, so I had a consistent income. It was no big deal for me to treat friends to ice cream. And if a friend wanted to treat me to something it was easy to accept because I knew I would return the favor in the near future.

Because my stipend is so limited, because I've shared my house with 5 other people, because our oven doesn't work, and because of a whole host of other reasons, I often can't return the favors I receive. When friends invite me to their home for a delicious meal, I can't invite them over the next week because I don't have the money to enough food to feed them all something nice and because I can't have a small party at my house without inviting everyone I live with. Suddenly returning the favor to a family of 4 for cooking me dinner means cooking dinner for 10! Way out of budget.

So I have to accept such generosity humbly. I bring a dessert, I bring over a bottle of soda. If I were to keep track of favors given and received, my ledger would be covered in red. But I'm not keeping a ledger, because simple living means that the people and experiences are more important than the things.