Making do with Less
We have found two great new walks from our house that our black Labrador, Kandy, loves. We’ve only discovered them because we are no longer able to drive out to the many wonderful walks there are within a 10/15 minute drive. Restricted freedom of movement has opened up new opportunities to notice what is on our doorstep. As many of you know the Chinese word for Crisis includes the characters danger and opportunity. Seems very relevant for today.
Yes there is a danger that having to make do with less freedom, less contact with others, less money, less conversation topics, less variety, less exercise etc will have a negative effect on many of us. There is no doubt it is a real challenge especially for those with small children, or who have lost their income, or who are living alone or who have underlying health issues.
Yet it is amazing what creativity and discoveries have been unleashed by people being forced to make do with less. It was Vaclav Havel, the dissident poet turned first President of the free Czech Republic, who said after many years in prison, that great creativity often comes out of a place of great confinement.
I’ve seen clips of parents acting as tour guides around the pictures in the house to their children, and innumerable home concerts and crazy games and disguises. Our Curate has got involved in helping her pal home school her children by giving an online ‘class’. I’ve had more conversations with our young neighbours (at a distance ) in the last 4 weeks than in the previous 1 year as they were hardly ever home. I’ve also made more phone calls to old friends that my ‘lesser’ social calendar has given space for.
Or perhaps I should correct that. I actually could have made time to phone old friends before, but with the fullness of life and the distraction of multiple options of what to do with my time, I never quite got round to doing it. The relative stillness and ‘less-ness’ of our lives is creating margins we never had before and the chance to value somethings in a new way. Henry Thoreau says in his book Walden I love a broad margin to my life. Making do with less unclutters and paradoxically opens up new spaces and opportunities in unexpected places. In having less we may end up with more for which we had little space or time for before.
Different conversations with our spouses, different books than we would normally read, different music and radio programs, different walks nearby, different experiences of God, different encounters with technology (not easy for many of us, but opening up a new world too), different ways of being with friends, different interests and so on. Please take a moment and think of the margins that may have opened up for you. What could grow in this space? How could making do with less be a gift to you?
And did you know that one of the original meanings of prayer was ‘to notice’? Just saying!
We have found two great new walks from our house that our black Labrador, Kandy, loves. We’ve only discovered them because we are no longer able to drive out to the many wonderful walks there are within a 10/15 minute drive. Restricted freedom of movement has opened up new opportunities to notice what is on our doorstep. As many of you know the Chinese word for Crisis includes the characters danger and opportunity. Seems very relevant for today.
Yes there is a danger that having to make do with less freedom, less contact with others, less money, less conversation topics, less variety, less exercise etc will have a negative effect on many of us. There is no doubt it is a real challenge especially for those with small children, or who have lost their income, or who are living alone or who have underlying health issues.
Yet it is amazing what creativity and discoveries have been unleashed by people being forced to make do with less. It was Vaclav Havel, the dissident poet turned first President of the free Czech Republic, who said after many years in prison, that great creativity often comes out of a place of great confinement.
I’ve seen clips of parents acting as tour guides around the pictures in the house to their children, and innumerable home concerts and crazy games and disguises. Our Curate has got involved in helping her pal home school her children by giving an online ‘class’. I’ve had more conversations with our young neighbours (at a distance ) in the last 4 weeks than in the previous 1 year as they were hardly ever home. I’ve also made more phone calls to old friends that my ‘lesser’ social calendar has given space for.
Or perhaps I should correct that. I actually could have made time to phone old friends before, but with the fullness of life and the distraction of multiple options of what to do with my time, I never quite got round to doing it. The relative stillness and ‘less-ness’ of our lives is creating margins we never had before and the chance to value somethings in a new way. Henry Thoreau says in his book Walden I love a broad margin to my life. Making do with less unclutters and paradoxically opens up new spaces and opportunities in unexpected places. In having less we may end up with more for which we had little space or time for before.
Different conversations with our spouses, different books than we would normally read, different music and radio programs, different walks nearby, different experiences of God, different encounters with technology (not easy for many of us, but opening up a new world too), different ways of being with friends, different interests and so on. Please take a moment and think of the margins that may have opened up for you. What could grow in this space? How could making do with less be a gift to you?
And did you know that one of the original meanings of prayer was ‘to notice’? Just saying!
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