I've been getting this thing. It's on the edge. In my peripheral vision. On the tip of my tongue. But I'm not sure where, nor even what exactly it is. It's all shrouded in hazy piles of stuff and it's hard to clear it all away and to focus. But I feel like I need to, somehow.

I've been thinking a lot lately about living simply. About not having a lot of stuff. I'm always hearing about so-and-so, who just bought a brand new such-and-such, and I've been thinking about how all this stuff is a lot of money, and rather unnecessary, and it makes me feel kind of repulsed. It seems like having so much stuff unnecessarily is so wrong. But then I was thinking that while having large amounts of material stuff is not good, so is having large amounts of financial stuff not good. What's the difference between using your money to buy things, or having it sit in some savings account by the hundred collecting interest? I think it's important to be wise with how you spend your money, but maybe if there's that much money to be had, I should be giving more.

I heard Shane Claiborne talk a few times at cs. He's one of the founders of The Simple Way, an intentional community downtown Philadelphia. Something in me calls out to that. To the idea of living simply, in community, sharing all things in common, giving and helping and serving the poor and the community, living with only the things you need, not all the things you want. I think that's more in line with how it's meant to be. If you look at the early Church, and the life of Jesus himself, it's how they lived. Where have we gone so wrong? All of this make lots of money, buy all you want, make yourself 'happy' - it's all missing the point.

But how can you share with the poor, with those in need, if you don't know any poor?

So I've been thinking about what I can do about all this. My lifestyle right now is easy and convenient, maybe it's even practical and realistic. But I feel sometimes like I'm missing the point. Maybe I'm just too idealistic.