Enoughness: Difference between revisions
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==The Franciscan notion of enoughness== | ==The Franciscan notion of enoughness== | ||
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM: | |||
"The Franciscan alternative orthodoxy asks us to let go, to recognize that there is enough to go around and meet everyone’s need but not everyone’s greed. A worldview of enoughness will predictably emerge in a person as they move to the level of naked being instead of thinking that more of anything or more frenetic doing can fill up our basic restlessness. Francis did not just tolerate or endure such simplicity, he actually loved it and called it poverty—a word which we often view as a bad thing. Francis dove into poverty and found his freedom there. This is hard for most of us to even comprehend. Thank God, people like Dorothy Day and Wendell Berry have illustrated how this is still possible even in our modern world. | "The Franciscan alternative orthodoxy asks us to let go, to recognize that there is enough to go around and meet everyone’s need but not everyone’s greed. A worldview of enoughness will predictably emerge in a person as they move to the level of naked being instead of thinking that more of anything or more frenetic doing can fill up our basic restlessness. Francis did not just tolerate or endure such simplicity, he actually loved it and called it poverty—a word which we often view as a bad thing. Francis dove into poverty and found his freedom there. This is hard for most of us to even comprehend. Thank God, people like Dorothy Day and Wendell Berry have illustrated how this is still possible even in our modern world. | ||
Revision as of 05:33, 1 May 2016
Discussion
The Franciscan notion of enoughness
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM:
"The Franciscan alternative orthodoxy asks us to let go, to recognize that there is enough to go around and meet everyone’s need but not everyone’s greed. A worldview of enoughness will predictably emerge in a person as they move to the level of naked being instead of thinking that more of anything or more frenetic doing can fill up our basic restlessness. Francis did not just tolerate or endure such simplicity, he actually loved it and called it poverty—a word which we often view as a bad thing. Francis dove into poverty and found his freedom there. This is hard for most of us to even comprehend. Thank God, people like Dorothy Day and Wendell Berry have illustrated how this is still possible even in our modern world.
Francis was known in his lifetime as the joyful beggar. He communicated happiness, freedom, humor, and joy to everyone around him. Francis and his followers wore ropes for belts to indicate they had no money (at the time, leather belts were used to carry money). Francis wanted people to see that humans could be happy even without money. I have met some poor people and some homeless people who prove to me that this can still be true, although I don’t think we need to make it our goal as Francis and Clare did. But we can indeed be happy in mutual interdependence with nature, with the kindness of others, and with our own hard work and creativity, while living in the natural rhythms of life.
Francis knew that just climbing ladders to nowhere would never make us happy nor create peace and justice on this earth. Too many have to stay at the bottom of the ladder so I can be at the top. It is a zero sum victory. I suspect simplicity and a worldview of enoughness will forever be an alternative orthodoxy, if not downright heretical, in most of the “developing” world." (https://cac.org/enoughness-instead-of-never-enough-2016-02-19/)