This passage from an article I came across in the course of my studies brings back to mind a lot of issues I was contemplating last summer, which I desire to bring to bear on my post-grad life. Possessions: burden? blessing? both?
"Even small pieces of excess baggage may mean the difference between success and failure in reaching our heart's desire. As the hobbits reach the end of their endurance, Sam realizes they must strip themselves of their remaining pitiful possessions, which literally weigh them down:
" 'I've been thinking, Mr. Frodo, there's other things we might do without. Why not lighten the load a bit? We're going that way now, as straight as we can make it.' He pointed to the Mountain. 'It's no good taking anything we're not sure to need.'
"Frodo looked on again towards the Mountain. 'No,' he said, 'we shan't need much on that road. And at its end nothing.'
"The more things we surround ourselves with, the more we usually think we need. One of the hardest aspects of monastic life is that it is not enough to renounce one's possessions once. Around the time of entering the monastery or making final vows one is, wuite appropriately, filled with ardor and really intends and desires with all one's being to give everything up for the sake of Christ. But it turns out that the desire to possess keeps creeping back, and we make little nests for ourselves -- a favorite chair or sink, a way of arranging our choir books, an occupation no one is permitted to take from us. An early monastic story describes a monk who gave up great wealth, then gets bent out of shape because some other monk has walked off with his pen. This is human nature -- we keep grasping, and God in his mercy keeps taking away. Because the truth is, we need very little on our road to God -- and at its end, nothing.
"As a result of the ever-growing magnitude of his struggle with the Ring and its temptations, Frodo is well beyond the point at which this small dispossession can have any significance for him. But for Sam this final stripping of all superfluity is not without pain. As he takes everything out of his pack to sort through it, he grieves over his small things: 'Somehow each of them had become dear to him, if only because he had borne them so far with so much toil. . . . Tears welled up in his eyes at the thought of casting it away". Isn't that how it is with us? We have invested so much in what we have, whether this be physical possessions, or employments, or experiences of prayer, or friendships, or any of the things we may be called to let go of. We have put so much labor into them; how can we give them up? The pain of letting go may even stop us from doing what we know would be best for ourselves. But sometimes, when we know it is right, we are given the grace to do it. Sam 'carried all the gear away to one of the many gaping fissures that scored the land and threw them in. The clatter of his precious pans as they fell down into the dark was like a death-knell to his heart'. It is indeed a little death to us, a losing of part of ourselves, which we can undertake only for the sake of those deepest desires we cherish above all. What sounds like a 'death-knell' to our aching hearts may in reality be the ringing of a joyful carillon in heaven."
(O'Neill, Kathleen . '"Tolkien's Lord of the Rings: A Cistercian Perspective." Cistercian Studies Quarterly 40.3 (2005): 293-324.)
Adriel, too, got me thinking with her recent post:
"Another thing that I learned through my work marathon is that just because I have more free time as a result of not being in school doesn't mean that I should fill it with constant activity - specifically planned activity. One of the houses I work at is short staffed right now, and I appreciate both the paycheck and the feeling that comes with being helpful. But that doesn't mean it's a good thing. I don't enjoy life as much."
I notice with myself that as soon as my schedule clears, I often start making promises to everyone about what I will do with/for them -- "Oh yeah, I'll be done exams soon, and then I'll have tons of time." -- to the extent of booking myself so tightly I have no breathing room, or even double-booking. (Then, as often as not, I feel so overwhelmed that I do nothing.)
It's always so tempting when I do some spring cleaning in any area of my life to fill the figurative crawlspace up with new stuff: "Oh, now I have room to [get involved in/learn about/purchase/watch/listen to/read] this!"
What will it really mean, I wonder, to live simply?
