On Selling Everything

At a retreat I attended last summer on St. Francis and Franciscanism, the question came up of the vow of poverty as taken by St. Francis and his followers. This is one of three vows that today's followers of St. Francis are asked to take, the others being a vow of charity and a vow of obedience. The Bible verse that came up was the following rather well known and often cited verse from Matthew (9:21), in which Jesus responds as follows to a wealthy young man who asks what he must do to be deserving of eternal life:

"Go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

There were a number of wealthy people at the retreat. In fact, probably only those individuals with some money could have afforded to attend the retreat. This particular verse created some consternation with them until the priest who led the retreat interpreted the verse in a way that they found comfortable to accept, and one in which I have seen it interpreted on a number of occasions, a non-literal interpretation. To support the priest, here are a couple of other sources that use the same interpretation.

From the Corporation Sole: A person who has been initiated into a Religious Order may take a vow of poverty at any time during their membership in the Order. The vow of poverty is not to be interpreted as being for ever poor, but rather to sharing everything in common. Those who embrace a vow of poverty do not claim private ownership of any possessions: everything they have is used for the common good of the Religious Order.

From a Secular Franciscan website: Poverty was another thing that worried me when I was first discerning a call to the Franciscans. The example of Francis was one of total financial poverty... I later learned ... that one could live in spiritual poverty while being financially wealthy.

I did not say anything because my reaction was diametrically opposed to the interpretation of the others. After all, Matthew tells us that the young man went away sad "because he was wealthy." It seems, then, that perhaps a literal interpretation would not be inaccurate, and certainly St. Francis interpreted the passage literally. Yet, our retreat priest supported the view of the secular Franciscan above although it would have been interesting to see how he might have reacted to my experience for, you see, I have done this literally.

At the retreat, I said nothing, following my father's guidance that it is better to be silent and let people think you are a fool than open your mouth and prove it. So, I simply listened to the scads of people, most of the 60 there, who did have something to say, all of it along the lines that while St. Francis may have interpreted it literally, (1) we really cannot do so today and (2) the passage was never meant to be interpreted literally.

How sad, I thought, as I recalled my experiences with the literal interpretation and the intense pleasure and sheer joy that came from it.

A little over ten years ago my husband, Donnie, and I sold or gave away everything we owned. All our fledglings had grown up and in one fell swoop had flown from our nest to new nesting places of their own. Our 13-room house, with its suite of empty bedrooms, required dusting and cleaning for no occupants and with no extra hands to help. Further, I enjoyed little time at home because of an international consulting job that came me up in the air most of the time. If I were to have any income at all, I had to spend many days each month on a plane.

So, we decided to buy a fifth-wheeler RV and park it on a river in a wilderness area -- which brought us lots of excitement whenever the river flooded -- and planned to travel the country in between consulting jobs as soon as we could afford to buy a hauler for it. We never were able to buy that hauler, however; the kids always needed something, and we had old debts to pay. Three years later, when I was offered a job in Jordan, we gave the RV to a neighbor and moved to the Middle East.

In 2000, to return to my original story, we had 13 rooms of goods to unload. Nearly nothing would be needed for the RV -- just a few personal items, such as a minimum amount of clothes for work and play, and some work items, such as our two computers. That was it. There was room for nothing more.

So, we told our children that they could take whatever they wanted from the family heirlooms and any other treasure trove they saw lying around our large house, and they did. Surprisingly, there were no disagreements among them as to what each took.

Then I had to do something with my 5000 books (yes, I have typed the correct number of zeroes there). Being an academic at the time, I looked upon my books as my personal treasure. Letting go of them was particularly difficult. However, I ultimately found a very enjoyable way to do so. I contacted friends all over the world who ran libraries or training programs in need of books, offering the books for free if postage were reimbursed. My books went to programs as diverse as Harvard University and an English Teachers' Association in Uzbekistan. The rare books I had collected from Siberia I sent to the Slavic Library at the University of Illinois; books there do not circulate, and so I knew I would be able to visit my books again were I ever to need to use them (I have not had that need in the last ten years). With Lizzie being a graduate student there and my having led summer workshops there, finding my way onto campus and into the library would not be difficult.

We held a yard sale for the remaining items. Some sold; many did not. Then, we opened our house to a neighbor who collected items for the impoverished communities in the Philippines. He rented a large u-haul, and off went everything else!

It was quite a liberating experience, and we have not felt the need for "things" since. We took nothing except four suitcases to the Middle East -- mostly clothes and work equipment (especially Donnie's electronics). We brought nothing back from the Middle East when we returned to the USA in 2006 except for those same clothes and electronics. (Oh, and, of course, the cats that we rescued there.)

There is something magical about letting go of everything. Letting go and giving away worldly possessions creates a different and more important kind of wealth. That is what I think Jesus was telling the young man who, like many modern wealthy folks, just did not want to hear it. So, irregardless what the retreat priest told us, irregardless how some, perhaps most (?), secular Franciscans interpret the "vow of poverty," and irregardless of how anyone might prefer to treat Jesus's words metaphorically, like St. Francis, I plan to continue taking them literally.

Monday Morning Meditation #84: Advice to a Son

I continued on in the Book of Tobit, where I found an interesting series of maxims. Tobit, having escaped death, goes to his son, thinking to instruct him in how to conduct himself over the span of the rest of his life, as well as to give him some money he had set aside. The maxims focus on the following: duties toward parents, perseverance in virtue and avoidance of evil, necessity and value of almsgiving and charity, diligence in work, prompt payment of wages, the golden rule, temperance, obedience to God, and prayer.

The chapter ends with a comment on poverty. In Tobit 4:21, Tobit tells his son:

21 Do not be discouraged, my child, because of our poverty. You will be a rich man if you fear God, avoid all sin, and do what is right before the Lord your God.

Reading: Tobit 4.

Meditation: Most of Tobit's advice to his son would be pertinent today, both for us and for our children, as would be his final comment in chapter 4. I wonder if we give our children as sound advice. Of course, if we give them no advice, we will still give them advice. They watch us; they talk with us; they apprehend our values. So, without saying one word, we do end up giving them advice. I found out that not too long ago when my oldest daughter, Lizzie, posted on facebook for one of my birthdays, "Lessons from Mom." (While they all make sense, given the shared experiences of her youth, I had no idea at the time that I was imparting such lessons.) We would do well to think about the advice we are giving through our everyday behavior before and not after our children have determined just what that advice might be.

The last comment caught my attention especially for the chihuahua of poverty has followed for a good portion of my life: throughout my childhood and, because of two children with birth defects (and a third with birth defects whom we took in), throughout the childhood of my children. Now, my older son is experiencing the same poverty for the same reason. He has an adequate income were he to have a normal family life; however, with two children with birth defects, the salary is just not adequate to the task. Donnie and I help as we can. The rest is up to God. I believe that Tobit is correct. We should not be discouraged by poverty. There is so much in life more important than money. One can have a very good life without money. A good life is not necessarily a carefree life. In fact, a good life might just be the opposite.

Contemplation: That is far as I can go with you this Monday morning. I now retire to private prayer to thank God for everything I have experienced in my life, including decades of poverty up until just a few years ago. I will praise God for the ways in which God taught me to appreciate a lack of fiscal riches and enjoy the human riches I was given. The only thing I would ask is for God to continue to decide what I will have and will not for I have learned that if I have a lot, then I can, like Tobit suggests, give much to others, and if I have only a little, then I can accept from others and I can use my God-given creativity in how I go about making the best of whatever I do have -- and that is truly exciting. I don't ever remember complaining about the poverty or envying others, but in the event that I have and do not remember, then those will be points of repentance for me. Then I will move on to contemplation, my favorite part of the day, letting God take over the direction in which my relationship with Him moves.

I will leave you now to your prayer and contemplation. First, though, I would like to bring to your attention a Monday morning prayer post that you might enjoy:

Fr. Austin Fleming, priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and pastor in Concord, Massachusetts, posts a prayer each Monday morning that he calls "Monday Morning Offering." I enjoy his prayers very much. I think you also will find them inspirational. He has graciously given me permission to include a link to his blog on my Monday Morning Meditation posts. (During the week, he also posts great homilies and other thoughtful discussions. I enjoy reading those, too, as do readers of this blog who have taken the stroll over to his blog.)

For additional inspiration throughout the week, I would point out two sets of blogs: (1) the list of devotional blogs on my sidebar and (2) my blogroll, where I am following a number of inspirational priests and writers about spiritual matters. I learn so very much from all these people. I highly recommend them to you.

Not First-Class Material

Because I am a very, very frequent flyer (nearly 150,000 miles a year), I am often provided complimentary upgrades to first class, which, of course, I immensely appreciate although first class is often lost one me: I fit easily into economy seats, not knowing what to do with the extra space in first-class seats, and I generally sleep for the duration of the flight, losing out on enjoying the various amenities offered. On a recent flight on which I had, once again, been upgraded, as I stood in line to use the toilet in the plane's first-class cabin, where I was seated, one of the stewardesses approached me and said, "Please use the toilet in your class."

Dutifully, I began to move toward the rear of the plane until I realized that she thought I was in economy class. I pointed out my seat in the corner of the first-class cabin, and she apologized, "I did not realize that you were so short."

Hm, is there a height requirement for first class? Obviously (or at least, it seemed obvious to me at the time), it was not a matter of my being short but rather that I did not look like I belonged in first class. I was offended, not because I personally had been regarded as not belonging in first class but rather because I live in a society without social classes -- or so I tell people in other countries when I visit. The stewardess's comment revealed openly what I try to hide even from myself: we are not a classless society in the United States any more than Soviet Russia was a classless society. The political propaganda says one thing; the behavior of the people say another.

I suppose I can understand why I was considered not first-class material by that particular stewardess. I travel comfortably, in jeans and tees. I look like a farmer's daughter. Stop! I am a farmer's daughter.

That intellectually gifted but highly impoverished farmer helped develop my mind as much or more than any of my college professors. Without the room in our old drafty farmhouse miles from town that he turned into a library, replete with a large number of the classics taught in college courses, bought at times at the expense even of daily necessities, and debates and philosophical discussions that we had on the way to and from high school in a nearby city, to which he had to drive me and my siblings since our farming community had no high school, I would not have been able to hold my own in college and graduate school and in increasingly responsible positions in the workplace.

So, get used to it, first-class attendants! A farmer's daughter may be on your next flight!

Going to the Ball

As I emulate Cinderella and head off to this year's ball, I will leave a post for the sharing in my absence. First, let me say that I am not the ball type. I would rather be hiking mountains than sipping tea. But, I do not always get to choose. As one of the more visible leaders of our organization (combination of high post and big mouth), I cannot ditch the annual ball, much as I would like to.

Last year I wrote a post that garnered a fair amount of comments and discussion about my dilemma in what to wear. (I had actually been able to avoid earlier balls for acceptable reasons, but I had no acceptable reason last year, and so I appeared upon demand.) I could not bring myself to spend hundreds (or dozens) of dollars on the required attire: tuxedo or gown. There was so much more I could do of value with that kind of money, and there was also that Franciscan vow of poverty. So, I decided to wear a dress from Jordan that I had purchased there for $5 and that would look dressy in the USA although I had some serious doubts when I arrived and started to mix in among the tuxedos and ball gowns. (You can read the post here: VIP or VOP or Both? It includes a larger discussion of the decision-making process and results).

The most evident result was the reputation I gained by wearing ethnic dress. Everyone who did not attend the ball heard about it. This year, a few weeks ago, several people who had been to their home countries in the last few months brought me local dresses, asking me to wear them in honor of their culture. (I ensured that they had bought them for $25 or less, the ethical limit our organization places on gifts from employees to supervisors.) I understood the intent. They were not bribes; they just wanted to feel that their senior supervisor respected and even liked their cultures. Of course, I do. I have been to most of their countries and speak most of their languages. Wherever I am, I try to blend and often succeed. I felt honored by the requests. The situation, however, contains its own dilemma: which of the six ethnic dresses and four ethnic shawls should I wear?

Actually, I have decided on none of them. I will wear that $5 Jordanian dress again. Then, I will find other occasions to honor all those who have requested it through the gift of their ethnic attire.

Interestingly, I may have started something. This year's ball announcement again listed tuxedos and gowns as acceptable attire but added "or culturally appropriate attire." Never think that one person cannot create change!

[Note: Image above drawn by Tom Dubois -- click here to see more of his beautiful art work, which is for sale.]

My Unremarkable House

For the first three years I lived in San Ignatio, I lived in a quite unremarkable house, unremarkable being the most generous word possible to describe it. It was tiny and clearly had gone through many internal modifications over the years. Our best guess is that it had once been a bunkhouse for field hands before San Ignatio expanded from three streets to six.

It was not the kind of house to which one would invite company. My boss dropped by once and never returned. We once also held an SFO (secular Franciscans) formation meeting there, and the formation director did not want to return. In neither case was it a matter of hospitality. I exhibited the same hospitality I offered in other, more popular, houses I have lived in it. No, it was the house.

A muddy path led up to it. The strangely rectangular living room did an inadequate job of hosting facing couch and chairs. A small, square dining room that lurked on the edge of a tiny, turn-in-a-circle only kitchen held no more than four metal chairs and a small, glass-topped table. It was enough for Donnie and me, but guests were crowded. I have always considered that guests came to visit me, not my house. I may have been wrong. The only repeat guest I had was Padre Julio.

Now I live in a house with a green lawn, gravel driveway, deck, and white picket fence. Our rooms are only slightly larger but shaped more regularly. Guests come in droves. We are the popular spot for the prayer group's movie nights and the neighborhood BBQs. My boss has made repeat visits. Padre Julio returned to his home country of Colombia and then was reassigned to San Diego before we moved into our new house, but I am sure that he would have liked it.

What I liked about Padre Julio is that he accepted the first house, too. Three times a week he came for English lessons. When he was in town for other reasons, he would often park in my yard because it was a convenient, albeit muddy, location and parking is hard to find in San Ignatio -- not because of congestion, of which there is none, but simply because of a lack of parking spaces in general. Often, he parked without without asking. He knew mi casa es su casa.

I understood later why he accepted mi casa so easily. One night toward the end of our sessions, as he was preparing to return to Colombia, he pulled out his laptop for Donnie to configure so that we could continue to communicate via Skype. This way, he would not lose his English-language proficiency, which he had developed with great effort (his and mine -- 9 hours a week for ten months). There on the screen was a one-room shack, the kind one sees in ads asking for charitable donations. "That's my home," he told me with nostalgia.

I understand the nostalgia. It's not what the home looks like. It's what happens inside it. Padre's warm, loving mother raised seven sons in that shack, three of whom became priests.

Mi casa, by comparison, was a palace. At the same time, he was familiar enough with American culture to know that mi casa was very humble in comparison to other American homes. Knowing that allowed him to share with me unashamedly -- in fact, honestly and somewhat proudly -- the humble abode in which he was raised. Somehow, through the picture of that shack in which he grew up, I instantly understood Padre Julio well. We had something in common: unremarkableness.

Thankful Thursday #7

Today my brother sent me a story that had been sent to him. Obviously, it originated somewhere on the Internet, but I cannot find it in order to give proper credit. Nonetheless, I will repeat because it is a perfect example of what Thankful Thursday is all about.

One day, the father of a very wealthy family took his son on a trip to the country with the express purpose of showing him how poor people live. They spent a couple of days and nights on the farm of what would be considered a very poor family. On their return from their trip, the father asked his son, "How was the trip?"

"It was great, Dad."

"Did you see how poor people live?" the father asked.

"Oh, yeah," said the son.

"So, tell me, what did you learn from the trip?" asked the father.

The son answered:

"I saw that:

- We have one dog, and they had four.

- We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden, and they have a creek that has no end.

- We have imported lanterns in our garden, and they have the stars at night.

- Our patio reaches to the front yard, and they have the whole horizon.

- We have a small piece of land to live on, and they have fields that go beyond our sight.

- We have servants who serve us, but they serve others.

- We buy our food, but they grow theirs.

- We have walls around our property to protect us; they have friends to protect them."

The boy's father was speechless.

Then his son added, "Thanks, Dad, for showing me how poor we are."

Isn't perspective a wonderful thing? Makes you wonder what would happen if we all gave thanks for everything we have, instead of worrying about what we don't have.

More information about the Thankful Thursday meme can be found at the website of Grace Alone.

V. I. P. or V.O.P or Both?

How does a VIP (Very Important Person) take a VOP (Vow of Poverty)? This troubling non-equation plagues me on some rare occasions. Take Saturday night, for example. Our organization was having a formal ball. And "ball" was the appropriate title for that event, the required attire being tuxedos for men and gowns for women. Now, being a VIP in our organization (by position, not necessarily by self-view) meant that I could not avoid attending the ball, and indeed my VIP-ness evidenced itself several times throughout the evening by what I was called upon to do and where I was required to sit. That is the work side of me.

The spiritual side of me is quite different. Usually that different spiritual side, with God's help and guidance, splashes out around me at work. I am a secular Franciscan (well, almost -- I have not yet professed but am entering my third year of candidacy), and as such I tend to follow St. Francis's model of giving away what I have and making do with very little. After all, I don't really need much now that the kids are grown. I do not feel compelled to live this way; I feel impelled to do so. It brings me great happiness to use my fairly decent salary (albeit less than it might be if I were not living in the "Land of Splat!") to help those who have no salary at all, to pay off God's credit card, and to contribute to divine projects such as rebuilding the St. Francis Retreat. Splurging on a fancy ball gown that I would wear only once, then, did not fit with my truly Franciscan lifestyle that, alas, at times conflicts with my truly secular life. I did not want to buy a gown; I wanted the gown money to help my kids with their medical bills, the orphans of Kaluga or Liberia with finding care and perhaps even homes, the children of Palomar with getting a school, the young mother in need of a home, the foreign handicapped child in need of an American doctor, and the strangers passing through my life in need of food. I find far more pleasure in helping them than in looking at a pretty dress. But this was a ball! And it was for my office where I was supposed to be some kind of role model!

I did have an alternative -- or so I thought. Since our foreign nationals were allowed, indeed encouraged, to wear their national dress, I figured that perhaps the Arabs would allow me to claim their ethnicity for a night since I had lived in Jordan for more than two years as a resident (equivalent to a green card holder in the USA). After all, on more than one occasion I had gotten away with wearing a pretty Arabic dress for a dress-up event. So, I donned a Jordanian dishdasha hashemiya (the kind of dress in the picture above) and, like Cinderella, left for the ball.

Yes, like Cinderella. Except for one thing -- no ball gown! The closer I approached the ball on my 45-minute drive there, the more concerned I became that I would be sitting at or near the head table where everyone would have on their fancy tuxes and gorgeous gowns, and there I would be in a pretty but everyday dress that I had picked up for $7.50 (yes, the period is in the right place) on the streets of Aqaba from a shopkeeper whose wife had probably done the hand embroidery. I started to squirm, well, at least, emotionally. What would people think? If I were sitting with the rank-and-file, it would be one thing, but at the head table in a Arabic dress, not a gown, and, in fact, in a dress that even the poorest of people in the Middle East could afford and would typically wear? What was I thinking? I could have afforded to buy a beautiful gown to show off for my employees and superiors. How dumb to have put my last dollar for this month in the church collection plate for this week's cause! If people who worked for me deserved to look pretty, so did I!

I was still squirming when I reached the ballroom. I should not have been. All my Arab national employees flocked to me, pleased as punch that I would dress as one of them. They wanted my picture taken with them. They introduced me to friends who had come with them. The other nationalities suggested that next time it was their turn to be so honored, that I should don their native attire. (I think I will -- I have some dresses from Russia, Uzbekistan, Brazil, and Turkmenistan in my closet, all of them gifts from friends and colleagues with whom I worked in those countries.) Needless to say, I enjoyed my gownless ball experience very much.

Driving home, I realized that my thoughts during the earlier drive to the ball had dramatically illustrated some Biblical precepts, like the man who asked Jesus what it would take to get to Heaven and to whom Jesus responded that he should give everything away and follow him (whether taken literally or figuratively, I was on the wrong side of that equation on my way to the ball). And how about that camel that could make it through an eye of a needle easier than a rich man can make it to Heaven? Well, thank God, I am not rich! But I was acting like it on the way in. Really, who cares what others think about what I am wearing physically? Is it not more important what I am wearing spiritually? Is not the armor of God far preferable to a pretty ball gown? I may have questioned that on the way to the ball but certainly not on the way from the ball.

God taught me a lesson that night about who is important, who is really a VIP. No VIP of God's was at the ball that night (at least, none that I was aware of, there being much of which none of us are aware). He also taught me a lesson about what is important. Certainly, not a gown.

God gives me everything I need. If I had needed a ball gown, He would have given me one. Instead, He showed me that my simple Jordanian dress was sufficient, just as His grace is sufficient. So, any dollars I have, extra or not, belong to God. Deep down, I think I knew that on the way to the ball, too. Just sometimes, God has to reach down and clunk me on the head again so that I remember just what kind of role model I am really supposed to be.