Matthew 11:25-30

30 September 2012 – Matthew 11:25-30       JustLiving

St. Francis has always been an intimidating factor in our family’s life.  We knew that we could never choose to discard family, possessions, and all of the security needs of housing, food, and clothing like St. Francis did when he chose to assume the “easy” burden and ‘light” yoke of Jesus that asks us to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves.  We finally realized that we COULD choose to figure out how to simplify our lives. If we could live more simply by using fewer resources, maybe we could free up resources so that our neighbors could simply live.

 As we began to focus on loving our neighbors as ourselves in the Spirit of St. Francis, we found ourselves recycling and washing napkins, cleaning rags, placemats and dishes rather than buying disposable paper and plastic items.   We were delighted to discover that our love of antiques meant that we were reusing and recycling and our love of wool oriental rugs meant we were using renewable resources in addition to creating heirlooms.  We began walking more, learned how to ride the bus, took our own bags to the grocery store and bought local.  We found a checklist on living simply and were surprised to discover that the list also included things like taking time for ourselves, knowing our neighbors, doing healthy activities and growing spiritually.  There are copies of the Simplicity Assessment in the Parish Hall if you are interested.

Have you ever considered trying to calculate your scores for recycling, carbon footprint, etc. to find ways of loving our neighbors better by simplifying our own lifestyle?  The following websites have various calculators that you might find useful:  http://www.conservation.org/act/live_green/pages/ecofootprint.aspx     http://myfootprint.org/en/your_carbon_footprint/ http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/calculators/