Christmas is less than three weeks away and here in Wisconsin the winter temperatures are now upon us! It's just for these reasons that I challenge you to think about getting back the beach. Not a literal beach, but the simplicity of beach-living.
These ideas aren't mine. I am quoting (at times paraphrasing) "Gifts From the Sea" by Anne Morrow Lindbergh (the wife of Charles Lindberg and fiction and poetry writer), and the message from this book is very timely and appropriate.
Drawing from inspiration from the shells on the shore during a brief vacation by the sea, Anne writes...
1")Physical shedding is first, obviously you'll need less clothes rather than more. One does not need a closet-full only a small suitcase full. And what a relief it is. Taking up and down hems, less mending and best of all, less worry about what to wear. One finds one is shedding not only clothes - but vanity.
2)Next, shelter. Here I live in a bare sea-shell of a cottage. No heat, no telephone, no gadgets to go wrong. I find I don't bustle about with unnecessary sweeping and cleaning here. I am no longer aware of the dust. I have shed my "Martha-like" anxiety about many things. Washable slipcovers, faded and old - I hardly see them, I don't worry about the impression I make on other people. I am shedding pride.
3)I need very little furniture. I shall ask into my shell only those friends with whom I can be completely honest. I find I am shedding hypocrisy in human relationships. The most exhausting thing in life is being insincere. That is why so much of social life is exhausting, one is wearing a mask. I have shed my mask.
I remember that today more of us in America have the luxury of choice between simplicity and complication of life. And for the most part, we choose complication...
...I love my sea-shell house. I wish I could transport it home. It will not hold husbad, children and the necessities and trappings of daily life. I can only carry back my shell. It will sit on my desk, to remind me of the ideal of a simplified life, to encourage me in the game I played on the beach - to ask how little, not how much, can I get along with. To ask - is it necessary? - when I am tempted to add one more accumulation to my life, when I am pulled toward one more centrifugal activity."
I encourage all of you to read the reast of Anne's wisdom and thoughts in her book, "Gifts from the Sea" and ask yourselves daily "is it necessary?" "Is this new outfit really necessary?" "Is this obligation necessary?" etc., then listen to the Holy Spirit's prompting.
