I’m not sure I’ve seen those 3 words or labels put together before, at least it’s not common. We live in a world, definitely a country, which favors labels and identities. Those labels and identities cannot overlap. If you’re pro-life, then you’re against women’s rights. If you’re pro-environment, then you’re against economic growth. If you’re pro-guns, then you don’t care about violence in our country. When in reality, people are much more complex than an identity or a label. We can be a lot of things, all at the same time. In fact, it’s demeaning to boil people down to simple labels and identities. So, minimalism, Catholicism, and environmentalism- I don’t use these to set limitations, but they will be discussed on my blog. So, here are the basics.
Minimalism. Have you heard the word before? I hadn’t until recently. It’s something I’ve been reading and learning about over the last year. Where does it lead your mind? Boredom, sterile white rooms, homelessness, tiny homes, zero possessions. What if I told you that minimalism was inspirational, even revitalizing? Well, I’m learning that’s exactly what it is. It can help you to become a better person, have more time and less stress, and have more of what you want in life. There are a lot of definitions of minimalism out there. My favorite is from Joshua Becker. He puts it very simply, “At its core, minimalism is the intentional promotion of the things we most value and the removal of everything that distracts us from it.” That’s it. No rules, no regulations, no restrictions. Just more of what you value, and less distractions. He talks about this in more depth in his book, The More of Less.
On to Catholicism. I would propose that minimalism makes a great Catholic. Why? It’s in the definition above. More of what you value, and less distractions. As Catholics we are called to serve God. We have this sign hanging above our dining room table.
Some people might think it’s showy or bold, or that we’re trying to announce to others that we’re Christian. Really, we bought it as a reminder for ourselves as Catholic Christians of our responsibility to serve God each day. It’s the basis of Christianity. The basis of Catholicism. To serve God above all things. The actual verse states, “If it is displeasing to you to serve the LORD, choose today whom you will serve…As for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.” ~Joshua 24:15
This is stated in a very similar way in the New Testament. Jesus is asked, “Which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.” ~Matthew 22:36-40 How do we serve God? There are many ways, but one of the best ways is to serve him by serving our neighbors. Who are our neighbors? They are our family, friends, those in our community, and also those around the globe.
That brings me to environmentalism. When I think of environmentalism or being an environmentalist, I think of saving planet Earth as if it’s for the planet’s sake. Well, I had a professor with a different perspective. I have a Bachelor’s of Science in Urban Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences (that’s right I can BS about Wildlilfe :-). My professor in my actual Urban Wildlife class was talking about the horrible locations people chose for cities. For example, building New Orleans below sea level. Then he brought up Houston, being only less than 2 hours away at Texas A&M, and he went on. He said, “Houston was built on a wetland. And come hell or high water, nature is going to turn it back into a wetland.” Basically, we don’t need to worry about our planet. Our planet has been around for over 4.5 billion years and it will take care of itself. It will destroy humanity if necessary. We need to worry about the people on the planet, ourselves and our neighbors. And those of us in developed countries; we’re doing much, much better than most of our neighbors.
A minority of the world’s population (17%) consume most of the world’s resources (80%), leaving almost 5 billion people to live on the remaining 20%. As a result, billions of people are living without the very basic necessities of life – food, water, housing and sanitation.
Specifically, 1.2 billion (20%) of the world population now lives on less than $1/day, another 1.8 billion (30%) lives on less than $2/day, 800 million go to bed hungry every day, and 30,000 – 60,000 die each day from hunger alone. You can read more about these statistics at the link below, but that’s 50% of the world’s population that lives on less than $2/day!
So at first, it seems like a lose-lose situation. Here in the United States, and in other developed countries, we have too much stuff. We’re overwhelmed by stuff. We don’t have enough room to put our stuff, and we think space and organization is the problem. We’re busy, usually too busy. We run from activity to activity. We waste time on things that don’t matter, and then we don’t have enough time for the things that do matter. And if you put that together, we spend too much time and energy feeling unfulfilled. Yet, people in developing countries are poor, literally starving to death. What if we could live a more fulfilling life with less? And help those who actually need more resources whether it’s nearby or across the globe. That sounds like a win-win to me.
Living the Life 
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