Although I believe that simplicity is drawn out of focused meditation or prayer, I want to talk about one aspect of the practical application of simplicity: That is:

Should we and how do we as individuals and as a community work for an environmentally responsible and sustainable future? Is this part of the query of Simplicity? We believe so.

In order to put things in perspective, let?s look at the reality of global trends:

The world?s population is increasing by about 75 million people each year continuing a trend of exponential growth over the last two centuries. Thankfully, birth rates are decreasing in most countries so that the population will likely peak around 10 billion by 2050 after which it should stabilize?so the experts say.
(The world?s population in 1950 was 2.5 billion, it sits at about 6.5 billion right now.)

At the same time, the world?s population is becoming older and more urban and generally, more wealthy at least for some?many are stagnating in poverty due to insufficient resources where they live. As more people crowd into urban areas, we will continue to see increasing pressures on resources at all levels of society. Newberg will certainly double and probably quadruple in size by 2050. Achieving Simplicity will not get any easier!!

The next century will perhaps be the most challenging in human history as we stretch the environmental resources of the world to the limit of its carrying capacity.

Advances in technology will probably see us through a rough road.

We already produce enough grain to feed 10 billion people but we know that food will not be evenly distributed and, even if it was, would everyone be happy with a vegetarian diet?

We will definitely see an economically and environmentally driven transformation from fossil fuels to cheaper, cleaner fuels and renewable energy sources.
But, in the short term, things are going to get worse since the technology to produce and distribute cleaner and renewable energy is in its infancy.
It will cost a lot of money to make the transformation?.

This is the Catch 22 of striving to live environmentally responsible!!

There are already lots of energy efficient technologies available to us but can we afford them?
For example, I?de really like to buy a Hybrid for my next car purchase, but the short term cost may be prohibitive.It is possible to build homes that use almost no net energy. But the cost is still enormous. The same dilemma confronts us when we buy lightbulbs?and many other products.

Many other aspects of living sustainably or responsibly cost, not just money, but time. It takes longer to separate recyclables from the trash. Ask my wife, she?s the environmental conscience of our home. She has much more discipline and awareness than myself. More than few times I?ve thrown away something recyclable only to have her dig it out of the trash and place it next to my plate on at the dinner table to be used as autensil.

It takes time and personal awareness to think about and act on the little things in our daily lives that make for a more sustainable lifestyle.

I certainly lack the fortitude that Stan and Kathy displayed in their youth to give up their worldly possessions in seeking to take less from the world and give more.
But, I can live more efficiently, create less waste as I go about my daily life.

We are so blessed to live at the upper end of the economic scale in the world. We are so fortunate to have the choice to live a sustainable lifestyle. I believe it is therefore, our responsibility to try.

Perhaps, the rest of the world, those who don?t have the freedom of choices that we have, are dependent upon us living more responsibly, consuming less so they can have more. This may be true at least for some of the choices we make?for instance if we purchase products from and inadvertently support corporations that exploit the people and environmental resources of impoverished countries. Our consumption is directly related to social justice on a global scale?but that?s the topic of a whole other talk.

Certainly, the quality of our children?s and grandchildren?s lives will depend on our ability to look to the future and change the way we live.

Perhaps, we can do our part in small ways of daily living to reduce our personal impact on the earth. Simple acts such as:

turning off a light when we walk out of room,
purchasing environmentally friendly (and people-friendly) products,
recycling religiously,
buying local produce or meat, growing or raising your own food or
riding our bike (instead of driving) to the post office.

I think these are things that God calls us to do in response to the increasing pressure of humanity on his creation.

As I peer through my telescope (astronomy is my hobby) into the faraway depths of the universe, I see many beautiful and fantastic places out in God?s Universe. But everywhere I look, it is decidedly inhospitable. The Earth we live on is truly a rare gem, unique in its splendor and ability to support complex life, perhaps God?s showpiece. We need to take better care of it.

Areas our family has been working on (sadly limited):

15. Striving to living free from the fruits of injustice and oppression rather than giving up such a seemingly impossible path.
(Early Friends would refuse to eat sugar which had been produced through slave labor and refuse to participate in war to gain from the spoils. Are there ways in which we could similarly opt out of benefiting from injustice in the products we buy or the places we choose to go?)

- For several years, our family has tried to:
- Avoid buying anything produced in sweatshops.
- Re-use; buy used.
- Buy locally produced, organic food.
- Fishers’ beef
- Canning/freezing
- Azure Standard
- Gardening?kids know where food comes from
- Sharing w/ friends
- Minimize our energy consumption.
- Live in town?walk whenever possible.
- Reduce trips.
- Keep heat low in winter.
- Thermal improvements on home.
- There are so many instances and degrees of oppression in the economic world that this seems nearly impossible.
- “Sustainable” purchases are more expensive (i.e. organic food, alternative energy)
- Priorities (family time?getting to WI and CA requires energy)
- Love of people & of God’s creation should motivate us?not guilt.

5. Creating a community that lives a distinctly different life?rather than a community that simply provides a religious dimension to life.
- Considered co-housing options. (Limited by land use laws in OR).
- Small group ?> lots of sharing (tools, child care/education, work, food/meals; shared struggle to live out kingdom life)
- Areas to grow: worship; outreach;

9. Participating with God?s work outside the church rather than limiting ministry to within the church.
- Teaching; being a neighbor. In theory, reaching out more.
- The kingdom life is to be lived more than talked about.

14. Living in the reality of inward and spiritual communion with God rather than just insisting that communion is inward and spiritual.
- Discipline of constant communion = the essence of a true spirituality. Fits & starts. Small groups help.

Suggestions for living out our testimony to simplicity/integrity.
These are notes from Sunday?s sermon (9-11-05)

1. Living with our willingness in submission to God?s leading, rather than filtering God?s leading through our willingness.

Mary Dyer is sentenced to death for being a Quaker in Boston (which was prohibited) in 1660. As she was taken to the gallows, she was told she could live if she would just agree to leave Boston. Her reply exemplifies the above suggestion: ?Nay I cannot [leave Boston], for in obedience to the will of the Lord I came, and in His will I abide faithful to death??

2. Allowing our passion for obedience to confront the practical realities of life, rather than the practical realities limiting the scope of our obedience.

The prisons in England were full of Quakers who were jailed for refusing to swear an oath in court, for meeting for worship outside the state church, for refusing to doff their hats and genuflect when encountering royalty, etc. Being thrown in jail left their children on their own, cut them off from earning wages, and was in other ways extremely impractical (foolish even?). Yet their obedience was not deterred by such considerations.

3. Allowing pure, unmediated revelation bringing life to scripture and worship, rather than letting our understanding of scripture and worship limiting revelation.

God is greater than our theology or our current understanding of scripture. New revelation will never violate the clear teaching of scripture but may give new light to those teachings.

George Fox?s Journal p.34 ?I saw that the Grace of God, which brings salvation, had appeared to all [men and women], and that the manifestation of the Spirit of God was given to everyone to profit withal. These things I did not see by the help of man, nor by the letter, though they are written in the letter, but I saw them in the Light of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by his Spirit and Power, as did the holy men of God by whom the Holy Scriptures were written. Yet I had no slight esteem of Holy Scriptures, but they were very precious to me, for I was in that spirit by which they were given forth, and what the Lord opened in me I afterwards found was agreeable to them.?

4. Our vocation tailored to maximize opportunities for ministry? rather than ministry limited by time/effort in making a living.

5. Creating a community that lives a distinctly different life?rather than a community that simply provides a religious dimension to life.

6. Speaking truth with our lives and words rather than ?signing on? to the community?s view of truth.

Are our testimonies the tools we use to live in the world, or do we just agree to the testimonies without struggling to live them out in a consistent way?

?Let your lives speak? was a common way early friends expressed this dimension of their faith.

7. Calling others away from destructive ways rather than Calling others to believe our truth.

In worship we read George Fox?s sense of his call and noticed that his call was to turn people from spiritual practices that were not life giving but were created my men (and women) rather than trying to convince people of a certain way of believing. The quote we read follows:

?Now when the Lord God and His Son Jesus Christ sent me forth into the world, to preach His everlasting gospel and kingdom, I was glad that I was commanded to turn people to that inward light, spirit, and grace, by which all might know their salvation, and their way to God; even that divine Spirit which would lead them into all Truth.?
I was to bring people off from all their own ways, to Christ, the new and living way; and from their churches, which men had made and gathered, to the Church in God, and off from the world?s teachers, made by men, to learn of Christ, and off from all the world?s worships, to know the Spirit of truth in the inward parts, and to be led thereby; And I was to bring people off from all the
world?s religions, which are vain; that they might know the pure religion, And I was to bring them off from all the world?s fellowships, and prayings, which stood in forms without power, that their fellowship might be in the Holy Ghost, and I was to bring people off from ceremonies, and from heathenish fables, and from men?s inventions and windy doctrines, by which they blew the people about this way and the other way, and from all their images and crosses, and sprinkling of infants, with all their holy days (so called) and all their vain traditions, which they had gotten up since the apostles? days.
Therefore I exhorted the people to come off all these things, and directed them to the spirit and grace of God in themselves, and to the light of Jesus in their own hearts, that they might come to know Christ, their free Teacher, to bring them salvation, and to open the Scriptures to them.
I declared Truth amongst them, and directed them to the light of Christ in them; testifying unto them that God was come to teach His people Himself, whether they would hear or forbear.

8. Living lives of radical integrity rather than simply living within the law.

Its not enough to act within the law, one must act justly even if it goes beyond what the law requires. It was this belief that drove the early Friends to refuse to barter and , instead, to offer a fair price for their products. Their practice revolutionized the British economy.

9. Participating with God?s work outside the church rather than limiting ministry within the church.

10. Speaking to ?that of God? within each person rather than only speaking to persons who demonstrate ?that of God? in their lives.

11. Becoming organically involved with the needy rather than giving to the needy from a distance.

Friends? participation in the ?Underground railroad? is an example of this suggestion.

12. Confronting injustice and oppression in our society rather than complaining about injustice and oppression in our society.

Lucretia Mott went to live in the women?s prison to confront the injustice and suffering there. John Woolman would stay in slaves quarters to call attention to the unjust way slaves were treated.

13. Bringing Christ?s peace into every arena of our lives rather than simply opposing war.

Does being a peacemaker means more than being a pacifist?

14. Living in the reality of inward and spiritual communion with God rather than just insisting that communion is inward and spiritual.

Does our worship reflect the truth and power of our belief that true communion is spiritual and needs no human mediation:

Quote from Isaac Pennington after being in Friends worship: ?When I came, I felt the presence and power of the Most High among them, and words of truth reaching to my heart and conscience, opening my state as in the presence of the Lord. Yea, I did not only feel words and demonstrations form without, but I felt the dead quickened, the seed raised; insomuch as my heart, in the certainty of light and clearness of true sense, said: ?This is He; this is he; there is no other; this is He whom I have waited for and sought after from my childhood, who was always near me, and had often begotten life in my heart, but I knew Him not or how to receive him or dwell with him?

15. Striving to living free from the fruits of injustice and oppression rather than giving up such a seemingly impossible path.

Early Friends would refuse to eat sugar which had been produces through slave labor and refuse to participate in war to gain from the spoils. Are there ways in which we could similarly opt out of benefiting from injustice in the products we buy or the places we choose to go?