31 Blog Post October 4, 2024 “Enough”
I know this article is about our travels, but it is also an exercise in lifestyle. How can two ministers who typically have low-key lives navigate in a world of extreme abundance? In many ways what Alistair and I are doing is unnatural. Who travels for two months straight? Sometimes it makes me uncomfortable. And I found myself asking--when is enough ENOUGH?
I sent that question to my son today, along with an article about gratitude by a pastor named Carey Nieuwhof.. Nieuwhof asks the question: “Why Aren’t We More Grateful?” It hit a nerve with me because I can barely deal with the abundance of traveling through the UK and Europe the way we are. We are meeting couples who are our age and this is what they do—they travel all the time. We don’t really fit in with them, but we know we’re doing something pretty extraordinary that almost feels normal, and that seems a bit dangerous. Here’s an excerpt of what I wrote to Alex:
Alex--
When is enough ENOUGH?? I am asking myself this question as we get to celebrate all these amazing things we're doing in Italy and soon Greece. Eating out every night. Seeing all the fabulous artifacts of the world. Having no other agenda other than asking ourselves what we want to do today and trying to remember what day of the week it is. Without a working Sunday as our true north, we have found ourselves letting one day slip into the next and occasionally checking in with each other to see exactly what day of the week it is.
What standards do we set for what is enough and how can we be grateful for what we have instead of what we want?
Nieuwhof’s article brings up three salient points about appreciating what we have, instead of what we want, or we think we want and he brings up three things to help us understand how to be grateful for our ordinary lives as we do ordinary things:
1. High Expectations—why do we expect so much from others, and why do we expect so much for ourselves? How can we let go of high expectations in order to dwell more completely in the real world with real, flawed people just like us?
2. The Thirst for More—Nieuwhof has a super phrase “If you had what you have now back when you were 15, you would have thought you won the lottery, wouldn't you? And yet chances are you still feel you don't have enough.”
Ouch!!! Our Western culture has taught us to want more because getting more is an achievement, right? How can we feel content when we have what we need, and often even more than that?
3. Comparison—I’m not sure I need to say much about this. We are all guilty of looking at someone else’s life and thinking that their life looks so much better than our own. Honestly, being in Italy makes me covet, in no particular order—the style Italian women have. Their clothing is impeccable. Italian women’s hair—long and thick for even older Italian women and very few who have grey hair. I am a definite minority in this culture. And the SHOES!! I can’t even begin to tell you about the shoes with heels, sparkles, straps, color and sass. Italian women wouldn’t be caught dead in hiking shoes in the middle of Rome. It’s hard not to compare, and to choose contentment instead of covetousness (my favorite commandment to break--#10, in case you are wondering.)
Once again, today was a great day. We mailed about 12 pounds of stuff home through DHL, lightening our load considerably (bye-bye dress shoes!!). We managed to get to the Vatican to mail my postcards (The Vatican is the smallest country in the world so they have their own stamps and post office—I just think that’s incredibly cool.) Then we visited the oldest building in the world that is still in use—the Pantheon which was built in the early 100’s AD. The Pantheon’s design includes a 30 foot diameter round hole in the center of the dome, called an oculus, that lets air and water in—and this is still a working church! It was beautiful and when we were there, a live concert was being performed with an organist, vocalist and saxophonist that filled the entire space with the warmth of music.
As this is our last night in Rome, we then had a great meal out with homemade pasta (me) and meatballs (Alistair).. We feel the way we have felt with every city (except Florence for me), we don’t want to leave. There’s more to see, more to do, more people to meet. We’d like to dwell a little more. Imagine that.
I also found myself wondering, after all of these experiences, how we’re going to adjust to ‘normal’ life again. What will gratitude look like and feel like when I’m making my usual peanut butter wrap in the morning instead of going to the astonishing buffet the hotel provides with pastry, eggs, fresh fruits and vegetables? And the BEST coffee in the world.
That’s when I started to think about gratitude and I began to have a conversation with God about what it means to have enough, and I asked for the ability to appreciate deeply what we have done and what we will do on this sabbatical. But I also asked God to help me hold it lightly. I don’t need an Italian trip to help me love God more, or a Greek Island to show me God’s grandeur in creation. We have autumn in upstate NY, right? Does anything compare to that? And does anything have to? Nope. We get to love each of these dazzling experiences on their own, with their own integrity and beauty.
My son answered my email with generous words of his own:
It's interesting that you read this while on vacation, Mom. In part, vacation is excessive, but at the same time I feel like the spirit of vacation - or rather, when vacation is at its best - is when it allows us to return to a certain contentedness with "little" in the sense of time. As in an old-world sense of time, where days are not measured by weeks or productivity.”
I think Alex is right. This is the first time that I am not measuring myself by what I produce in the world, by sermons, or parishioners or donations or ministries, or papers, or degrees, and it is restorative at the deepest level. I am grateful for this time and all these places where God continues to nourish us physically, spiritually and practically.
But nourishment also means having an awareness when enough is ENOUGH. To be nourished is to have what you need for a full life, but not to hoard or covet or regret. I probably need to work on that a bit. (Remember the manna during the Exodus? They could only collect what they needed.)
Tomorrow we head to the Amalfi Coast for three days, and tomorrow Alistair gets to do the one thing he has wanted to do most—visit Pompeii. We’ll tell you how it goes.
In the meantime, when is enough ENOUGH in your life? How do you define abundance?
With prayers that you are able to share a special meal with others, no matter where it is or what it is,
ML+
