What is kenosis and what does it have to do with living lightly? Theologically speaking kenosis is the act of self-emptying in order to become entirely receptive to God’s divine will. So, what’s this got to do with Living Lightly? I started down this path because my To Do list was getting too long and […]
Living Lightly
Susan Vogt on living more simply but abundantlyBrowsing Posts tagged Musings
Is it better to save time or to save money? I notice that I value both time and money but sometimes that complicates my life because one comes at the cost of the other. For example: Eating Out vs. Eating at Home: Eating out saves preparation time (if you don’t count travel time). Still, it […]
Last week I had two experiences of being forced to wait with strangers. My first reaction was annoyance at being delayed. But upon reflection, I realized that these were opportunities to let go of my compulsion to not waste time. I like to be on time and to make the most of my time. In […]
How does one count the value of things we give away? (click to enlarge) Originally I had divided this blog into 2 categories: EXPENSIVE GIVEAWAYS. This included a silver/gold chalice, a framed piece of art from France, a fancy metal lighter from Paris, a heavy metal flask with leather carrying case, a large unused candle […]
Lent is over but my 2019 Room by Room pruning is not. I’m taking a breather to reflect on what I’ve learned over the past 6 weeks. The photo at right shows much of what I decided to give away but not all of it since some items have already been disbursed, recycled, or trashed. […]
The past 10 days have included a trip to urgent care, 3 days of company, and a weekend of contra dancing so I pruned my finely tuned schedule instead of stuff. Fortunately 2 of those days were Sundays and the rooms didn’t contain a lot of stuff to give away. LIVING ROOM: Since our furniture […]
About 6 months ago I focused on trying to be kinder for Lent. One dimension of this was to be less judgmental of other people. By the end of Lent I realized that it’s harder to actually change my internal critical self than to give things away. Today, over half a year later, I’m noticing […]
I’m a speaker and a writer. That means I care about words. I suppose we all do. I recently attended an international meeting that heightened my awareness of how we use words. Because the meeting included people from 23 countries that covered 5 continents we spoke many different languages and had simultaneous translations into 4 […]
I feel too busy. That seems to be my mantra lately. Maybe it’s yours too. I thought my Taming Time blog post would help me declutter my calendar and life. It did help, but I want more. I’m finding that I’m being led into a deeper dimension of time. Lately I’ve realized that some of […]
Now that we have our solar panels installed, I thought I would be so happy. I am, but the feeling is fleeting. The same thing happened after we got replacement windows, or even when I get a book from Amazon, or the perfect all purpose travel blazer. But it’s not just about stuff. Often I […]
Sometimes life gets messy, complicated, too busy, or painful. We, who like to think of ourselves as responsible hardworking people, can beat ourselves up thinking we’re not doing enough. It might be missing deadlines, not recycling enough, being lazy, or not living up to our values as fully as we would like. This week was […]
For 6 weeks I’ve been trying to be kinder. This Lenten resolution stemmed partly from my kids kidding me about being judgmental of others. Although their examples were humorous, I recognized that there was some truth in my complaining about others’ foibles, the political state of the world, and also being hard on myself. Being […]
Kindness can mean many things – giving people stuff, helping folks, saying kind words, not saying or thinking mean things about people, protecting the environment, and praying for people. On that last one – praying – I haven’t written much because it seemed like a throw away phrase. Something you say when someone dies and […]
I’m finding it easier to be kind by giving stuff away or helping someone than to be kind by refraining from being judgmental. For example, I took some blankets and jackets to the cold shelter some toiletries to the Respite Care Ctr. for indigent patients a therapy brace to Guatemala. (Well, I didn’t quite take […]
Ash Wednesday: I started this first Be Kinder week with giving several things away and trying to bite my tongue from making a criticism. The latter was by far the harder. I was successful at taking 2 pairs of jeans and 2 tops to Goodwill. I also took 2 sheets to the Catholic Worker House. Yea! […]
Over the past 8 years rather than just giving something up for Lent I’ve tried to do something pro-active to make me a better, more loving person. This has included: 2010-Giving away one category of possessions a day 2011-Continuing to give stuff away including intangibles 2012-Eating on a Food Stamp budget 2013-Creating less waste 2014-Decluttering […]
In the spirit of end of the year lists, I’ve picked a dozen favorite snippets from my 2017 blog posts. This was like picking a favorite child but in my ongoing effort to save you all reading time, I forced myself to whittle my original 18 down to 12. Click on the links to get […]
HANGING ON: It was just one leaf – but it kept hanging on. That’s what I thought as I looked outside my bedroom window from Nov. 21 to Dec. 5. As I sat in my prayer space during those two weeks, I kept pondering the spunk of this lonely leaf (see the middle of our […]
Living lightly is not only a matter of reducing material possessions but also not crowding my time with trivia. By virtue of my personality, I enjoy the challenge of saving time. Sometimes this means doing things faster or multitasking. Of course there are pros and cons to speed and efficiency. It takes time to play, pray, […]
I’ve been writing this blog since 2010 and over these 7 years have explored many angles of voluntary simplicity (material, emotional, spiritual, and technological). The question I keep coming back to is: How much is enough? – How much is too much? On the material level I realize that there is a point where more […]
