And the Lord looks down on another day, and I stumble on through it.

Day one of homeschooling was a rousing success.  There were games and manipulatives and crafts, and best of all, reading–reading in a rocker, with two sweet little girls and an incredibly intelligent little guy at my feet, on big, colorful pillows.  When the kids’ moms, Emily and Amanda, were putting the classroom together, they  asked me for any input I might have on the sort of things they would need.  My response?  ”Um, I like sitting on the floor.”  Huh.  And they still hired me to educate their children.  Nonetheless, I stand by my pillow suggestion.  Big, comfy pillows are perfect for snuggling into for a good story.  And if I instill nothing else in these kids, I hope to foster a love of books–of words and turn of phrase and a good story.  And the tangibility of books, too–not a Kindle or an Ipad or any other new fangled contraption, but good, old fashioned, paper and print books, with yellowed pages and worn spines and musty scents, of libraries and home bookshelves and local bookstores with honey-warm wood shelves and people who can recommend a good book to follow The Elegance of the Hedgehog.  Pillows.  Yes, I think pillows are the way to foster that.

We read the first two chapters of the first book of A Series of Unfortunate Events.  I think the title sums up my view of my life right now.  It started with a string of misfortunes and culminated in the news of my grandfather’s inoperable lung cancer.  My grandfather, who I love so dearly, who looked so handsome when I saw him just a few weeks ago in his red plaid shirt, has a year to live.  And all is not right with the world because of that.  Never mind war and hunger and greed.  The real problem is that my grandfather won’t be around forever.  And I sort of always thought he would be.

And here’s the thing about God.  I won’t ever deny him.  I won’t ever lose faith.  But I have some serious questions.  I’ve cried out to him–cried out to him with such passion and grief and anguish.  I’ve approached his throne as boldly as I know how.  I asked him to put his hand on my grandfather’s body, and let it radiate shafts of light that would pierce the cancer that’s eating away at his lungs.  Because God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all.  And crazier things have happened.  It happens to cats all the time, right?  Friends of ours had a cat that needed surgery after being run over by a car.  They had a benefit concert for the cat.  Really.  Members of their church and community gathered for the sake of this cat. And you know what?  When they took him back for the surgery, the vet said he didn’t need it anymore, that his body was perfectly fine.  And I’ve heard of it happening in humans, too, with cancer.  So why would God heal a crippled cat and a man with brain cancer, but not my grandfather?  I truly believe in the healing power of Jesus.  I believe without doubt that he raised his friend Lazarus from the dead, that he touched a woman who believed in him and made her stop bleeding.  The fact that I believe those things makes it harder to accept that, for whatever reason, he’s chosen not to heal my grandfather.  His eye is on the sparrow, but how many sparrows perish, right under the watchful eye of God?  It makes me think God is sort of twisted.  And I guess that’s okay–I guess it has to be.

In the name of simplifying our lives, and living in a way that that decreases the “value” of money in our lives, I’ve decided to gradually take some simple steps to frugal, sustainable (I know, the term is extensively overused; I’m sorry. At least I didn’t say “green”.) living. The end results should look something like this:

-Drastically reduced personal consumption
When we find purchases necessary, I hope to make them almost entirely at our local Knox Area Rescue Ministries thrift stores, which are the best in town and support the best mission in town.  Other options are choosing used items from Craigslist (preferable because you purchase locally) or eBay.  Of course we’ll still buy groceries, but I hope to get these from discount salvage stores and limit them to flour, rice, vegetable oil, baking soda, vinegar, et cetera.

-Redefined sense of “need”

Just a few weeks ago, I would have said we had only what we needed and certainly did not live decadent lives.  But as I’ve considered need verses greed, I’ve been amazed at the excess I suddenly feel encumbered by.  I hope to continually question what we really need in our family, and live on that, plus a few happy luxuries thrown in there.

I’m not going cold turkey here.  I’m taking one baby step at a time.  This week, we purged our closets, hauled out about half of our furniture to the thrift store, posted our TV on Craigslist, and donated our DVDs to the library (this is a loop hole I created for myself so that I can check them out when I’m going through withdrawl.) 

Future baby steps include the following:

-Eliminating processed food, by making everything from scratch and growing a small garden on our deck

-Ditching our dryer in favor of a clothesline

-Replacing cleaning supplies, laundry detergent, and simple toiletries (as they run out) with home made versions from baking soda, vinegar and Castile soap

-Potentially raising hens–my innate sense of terror towards all fowl may hinder this one.  If so, no big deal, they sell local eggs at the Sutherland Market.

-Tossing the iPhone–I might save this for last because I’m getting really good at Doodle Jump

-Rethinking transportation–I thought we needed two cars, but we’ve been just fine with one.  Considerations include a cheaper car, a car that runs on vegetable oil, or no car, but instead bicycles and public transit.  This is a biggie and will probably take us a while.

So I this will be the basis of future posts–the road to frugality, one step at a time.

If you’re interested, here is some inspiration:

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Barbara Kingsolver

The Irresistible Revolution, Shane Claiborne

Radical Homemakers, Shannon Hayes

07 Jesus Is All I Need, Caedmon’s Call

01 Old Radio, Greg Adkins

I’ll keep posting our little steps toward this goal.

Now I’m off to All Souls; feeling ready for it tonight.

So here’s the deal:

I’ve been blog-absent for a while.  For all of my avid followers, I apologize.  But the thing is, I’ve been reading this book:

…and it has changed me.  It has shaken me at my foundation.  It has met me at a time in my life when everything was coming together–a cozy home in a quiet neighborhood, finally away from the homeless traffic of our old ramshackle streets–and thrown me off my axis.

I’m not sure exactly what to do with this, but I know that I can’t ignore it and that I must take action.

Some ideas in the book that really hit me are communal living, commitment to living in the rough areas of town, anti-consumerism, and overall:  lovingkindness.

A few of my favorite quotes:

“There is enough for everyone’s need, but not for everyone’s greed.”  (Okay, that was actually Gandhi.)

“If you have two coats, one of them belongs to the poor.”

“When Jesus speaks of fear he talks about how we can fear those things that can destroy our bodies (like guns and knives), but he says we should fear all the more those things that can endanger our souls… and those are the more subtle dangers, and the suburban demons – like insulating ourselves from suffering or cluttering our lives with possessions while others live in poverty. These are the things that can destroy our souls. We are more scared of the suburbs than of the ghetto.”

So we’ll see where this takes us.  I’ll keep you updated.