Simplicity

This article has given me a lot to think about in the building of our domestic monastery. I am taking much of his advice, working with each suggestion, one after the other, as they relate to our life here, and our goals for life and land. His first suggestion: make a list of the four or five “most important things” - values, goals, priorities. What are they, and how are they placed in my life?

1. God. My primary value, goal, and priority is relationship with him. Now, and ongoing.

2. My family falls right below God. But what does that mean, exactly? I mean that my relationship to my husband, our life together is something I value more than anything but my relationship to God. Along with that - a part of it, and only slightly below it is my relationship to my daughter. The whole of it, our family life together, our shared solitude and shared community are priorities in my life, and I work hard to make them living priorities.

3. Beauty. A quick description would be that this is my commitment to building a life that embraces and nourishes beauty in the world. A clean home, a life full of books, and growing things, time for play all fall into this.

4. Art. Sort of a sub-group of beauty, but with a need to carve out a space of it’s own, art refers primarily to my writing and pottery goals.

5. Building a natural, semi-self-sufficient life. The homestead, gardens, animals, herbalism, food and fabric. Hugely time consuming, I know, but it isn’t time spent on nothing, it’s time spent enjoying my land, growing it, nourishing it, and crafting it into a thing of beauty.