I’ve recently started reading a book called Radical Simplicity: Small Footprints on a Finite Earth by Jim Merkel. Merkel worked for years as an engineer designing weapons systems for arms dealers(!) until, one day, sitting in a bar in Sweden he watched the tv coverage of the Exxon Valdez disaster. Struck by his (and everyone’s) complicity in the lifestyle that made such a disaster possible, he went back to California and went from being “a jet-set military salesman who voted for Regan” to “a bleeding-heart pacifist, eco-veggie-head-hooligan”: he quit his job, and began to use his engineer’s brain to calculate how he could live in a way that reduced his ecological footprint to sustainable levels. The first part of the book describes his research into the theoretical underpinnings of more sustainable ways of living, while the second part offers tips for putting it into practice.

I’m not an ecological catastrophist, but I’m also not not an ecological catastrophist. I think global warming is real, but I also think it’s possible that we may develop some kind of technological fix. But it’s hard to escape the sense that we’re living on borrowed time and that we won’t be able to dodge the bullet forever, whatever form it comes in (peak oil? avian flu? mad cow disease?). So, there’s certainly a case to be made that it behooves all of us to reduce our footprint, even if most of us aren’t going to go as far as Jim Merkel (though I’m open to arguments that we should).

But given that it is Lent, I think there’s also a spiritual dimension to the practice of simplicity that’s worth thinking about. Even if living more simply isn’t necessarty to stave off ecological disaster, it’s hard to overlook the fact that a modest lifestyle has been commended by sages of all traditions. Plato and Aristotle along with the Church fathers and doctors, were pretty much of one voice in commending simplicity, moderation, and frugality (and parallels in other traditions are easily spotted). As C.S. Lewis once observed, our society is unique not in the pursuit of wealth, but in upholding it as one of the highest goods, in opposition to the virtually unanimous counsel of our tradition.

I tend to think of the fasting of Lent as intended in part to create a “space” in our lives where God can be present. There’s a traditional line of thought which says that, since God is by definition present everywhere, the barrier to our awareness of that presence lies in us. And one way of building that barrier is by filling up our lives with distractions. Blaise Pascal (the inspiration for this blog’s title) said with typical hyperbole that “All men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.” I take this to mean that our penchant for distraction makes us unable to perceive reality as it really is.

Simplicity as a spiritual discipline (which needn’t, it seems to me, be sharply distinguished from doing it for other reasons) might then be understood as an attempt to “cleanse the doors of perception.” Part of our problem is that we tend not to see reality as it really is, but instead as something for us. Instead of affirming reality with Augustine’s “being qua being is good” we ask “what’s in it for me?” This is arguably the root of our mistreatment of nature; we see it primarily as a resource for our use rather than as a gift and something that has intrinsic value. Perhaps the practice of simplicity can be a way of “letting things be” and seeing them as the handiwork of a loving Creator.

On a more practical level, giving up something – a food, an activity, etc. – can allow us to spend more time doing the things we are always struggling to make time for, like prayer or helping others. I know I could certainly stand to spend more time doing both of those things. Lent seems like a good time to reflect on how I could live more simply, and hopefully this book will be of some help.