There is a lot of speech and writing these days about living a simple(r) life. I use”(r)” because most of really have no or a rather limited idea of what a simple life really is. there are many who long for something like this, even turn their backs on what they had. They have become disenchanted with the ‘rat race,’ ‘living the dream,’ ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ or whatever other expression describes our busy and cluttered lives these days. And when I write cluttered I mean both our days and our homes. In our wealthy society, even the homeless cart around loads of stuff they value. It even keeps some of them from entering shelters for fear of theft. Those of us who are fortunate enough not to be homeless have so much of this world’s goods we have created a new business – storage of the stuff we have no room for in our homes!
Some strive for a simpler life because of some grain of past input about that kind of life. Maybe they saw it in their grandparents. Others have come to this because they’ve adopted some new philosophy of life, perhaps because of a spiritual awakening, regardless of what religion. All the great world’s religions really have teachings about this kind of life and hold it up as something of an ideal. Maybe they’ve traveled or done some service abroad and learned that even the poor in the world – by our standards – are happier and more generous than we are. We would know that is true of many of the less-well-off here at home too if we knew them, but most of us don’t know any or many of them personally.
I come at the simpler life from a Christian perspective, particularly the Anabaptist perspective on Christianity. Now, I will be the first to say that most of us fail to live up to what we might hold as an ideal in this regard – if we have even come close to figuring out what that might be. However, we keep at it.
I want to be practical in what follows. You might call it giving advice, although that stops many right there. We are told in the Bible to imitate Christ. Interestingly, St. Paul also says we can imitate him. He was confident enough about his walk with Christ that he could say that. I am no Apostle Paul but, again, I think I can say something similar. After working at this for over 50 years, I believe I do have something I can share to help others on this journey. We can all learn from one another, so I invite such feedback.
How and where do we start with this? I think we begin with what we know ‘the world’ seeks after. Not to make too long a list, we can start with some common things many wish for or work for. Some of these things are important, even essential one could argue. One other thing before we go on. To me, simple living also clearly means spending less money in most instances. There are other good things you can do with your money besides spend it all or mostly on yourself or your family.
So, let’s begin with the basics of food, clothing and shelter.
1. Food – We can live more healthily and less expensively if we buy our own ‘raw’ materials with which to make our meals. Let’s start with breakfast. Get your own yeast, flour, oil and other ingredients and learn
to make your own bread. Better yet, learn to make sour dough by propagating your own yeast. True confession here – it’s mostly my good wife who does this in our home.
Have you looked at the list of additives on that bread from the supermarket? I’m referring to all forms of ‘bread’ here, whether it’s the loaf we are familiar with or the baguette from France the naan from India, the pita from the Middle East and Mediterranean, a wrap or even pancakes. You can get bread from bakeries that would have less, maybe no additives, but we’re aiming to be simple right? Such bread usually costs a lot more. One more point – for more health, and it’s really not more expensive – use whole wheat flour or buy whole wheat bread products.
What do you put on your bread? Do you need to put something on it? Nutella? Really, still? There’s a big debate over butter vs. margarine. Cheese is a good source of protein and fat but it is more expensive, and we won’t even begin to talk about all those even more expensive fancy and imported cheeses. Some fat does help keep the hunger pangs from developing too much before lunch time though. Peanut butter? Organic or not? That’s another whole discussion. We all know organic products are often more expensive and much that is non-organic may be healthy enough. Syrup? Some is pretty artificial. Honey is probably better. Jam? Can you pick and can or freeze your own berries or fruit, whether ‘wild’ or from someone’s garden or orchard? We regular pick blackberries which make great jam and sauce. They are even organic as they grow in our city parks which can not be sprayed with anything and the city is all too happy for you to pick them and so help cut down the spread of these invasive plants – brambles. We sometimes also get to pick blueberries to preserve. On the prairies you have those lovely saskatoons, even wild raspberries and strawberries.
Or do you make something to dip it in or scoop up with it, e.g. hummus. Oops – are chickpeas imported? Olive oil? Supposedly better than other oils but again, it’s imported. Can we not survive on sunflower or canola oil grown on our own prairies?
Do you eat cereal? To be healthier, skip all those packaged cereals, which will also save you money – simpler living. Do you know how much sugar is in most of those? Three grams of sugar equals a teaspoon. Read the labels provided and do the math. Then there’s fat. We make and eat our own oatmeal from rolled oats almost every morning and have done so for years. In recent years we’ve even cut out the milk topping. Now we’re no longer adding sugar. You can add fresh fruit to give it more flavor and reduce the sugar. You can cook it with raisins or chopped apples, chopped sweet potatoes. We actually often eat it with bananas. We’ve been using cinnamon too, which has health benefits but, again, imported. That probably started with using raisins.
You like granola? That healthy cereal we got to know and love in the ‘70s? If you can get plain granola, fine. But so much of the packaged stuff is again chockful of additives. You can make you own with some imagination – oatmeal, chopped nuts, seeds, maybe some dried raisins. Ah, there we go again with imports, unless you live near vineyards from which raisins come.
Another general point here. Some might just have said – Aha, sweet potatoes, bananas. Aren’t they imported? Indeed, so that might be a consideration for simpler living. Simpler living can mean trying to cut down on imported things. Look at obtaining and preserving what is grown locally. Again, this is all not that easy. Imported foods can be cheaper. Then there is the whole idea of the global economy. Are we really helping those in other nations by buying what they grow? That’s another whole discussion I will not get into now.
Sometimes we have eggs with breakfast. Again, more protein to help fill you up with more than just carbohydrate bread. Usually cooked, or sometimes we’ll fry them. You can also ‘poach’ eggs easily in the microwave, or does living simply preclude that appliance? I just put whole stirred egg in a dish, with salt and or pepper if you wish, or even some chopped vegetables. Now we’re getting close to a kind of omelette. A thin film of oil on the dish first will keep the egg from sticking to it too much.
Some will have yogurt for breakfast. We’ve done that, even putting it on oatmeal – after it’s cooked! Pure yogurt with no additives is best. Again, just throw in some fruit or jam if that’s too much to ask. Some even make their own yogurt. If you want to indulge in a flavoured one, watch the sugar content – you’d be surprised!
Simpler living can simply mean trying to cut down on all kinds of things that are added to foods – to make you want to eat more. You know that a lot of research goes into the right balance of sweet and sour or sweet and salty, sweet and spicy. Notice how ‘sweet’ is in all of that, which means sugar, syrup or honey. Why do you think we have an obesity epidemic?
Is breakfast over? I’m sure some of you have other things you eat at breakfast, like bacon or sausages. What about all that fat? Those nitirites? That salt. But we do like such - once in a while, right? Like protein, fat tides you over better till lunch.
I think we’re off to a good start. We’ve touched on a number of issues that simpler living raises – how much? From where? What’s in it? How much does it cost? These questions can all apply to a range of other items we can consider under this overall heading of simple living. More next time.
