The Arbor
Like those among the early church, the community called The Arbor shares time, space, belongings, finances, and life with one another. Individuals within The Arbor commit to living their lives guided by traditional practices of Christian faith such as hospitality, prayer, discernment, worship, fellowship, forgiveness, and simple living.
Simple Living
Living simply seems to have become something of a trend these days. There are many articles, books, lectures, workshops, events, sermons, and seminars on the idea of simple living. And yet a look at the types of lives we tend to live in our society practically forces one to ask, "Do we even have a clue?" But simple living has been a formative and central practice to Christians seeking to follow Christ since Jesus was born into the utterly simple setting of a stable and manger.
Members of The Arbor seek to cultivate a life of simplicity through studying writing and following practices from faithful followers such as the Desert Fathers and other Christian monastics, Quaker, Shaker, Amish and Mennonite traditions, as well as modern day folks such as Clarence Jordan and Kononia Farms, Gordon Crosby and the Church of the Savior, and Wendell Berry. We do not claim to really "live simply," but to do strive to cultivate simple living within our personal and corporate lives. For example, we
- intentionally work only part-time jobs and commit the rest of our daily and weekly time to our neighborhood, neighbors, and community,
- share meals and resources with one another as any has need,
- purchase goods locally whenever possible,
- regularly sit on our front porch or out-of-doors with neighbors,
- find ways to create rather than consume, and
- cultivate contentment within our minds and bodies
Through the course of The Arbor's shared life, we have at least begun a sort of working definition for simple living that we feel points us in a helpful direction amidst the scattered voices of simplicity:
Simple living - a contemporary response to contemporary perversions and excesses based upon God's word for Christian living
Some contemporary pervesions/excesses in our own (US) society and simple living responses are as follows:
| Perversion | Simple Living Response |
|
Individualism (living for self) |
Communal living (living with and for others as well as self) |
|
Materialism (living for things, "more, more, more") |
Contentment &/or Renunciation (living without) |
|
Capitalism (life based on supply/demand) |
"sharing as any has need" (life baed on needs) |
|
Consumerism (I am a consumer) |
Creating more, buying less, using less, reduce, reuse, recycle (I am created in the image of God to care for God's creation, i.e. I am a Co-Creator, imago dei) |
In sum, as we have thought, discussed, failed, and journeyed through the Christian practice of simple living, we have found the following resources helpful:
- Freedom of Simplicity by Richard J. Foster (New York: Harper, 1998)
- Life Together by Detrich Bonhoeffer (New York: Harper & Row Pub, 1954)
- The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical by Chane Claiborne (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006)
- Various collections of saying of the Desert Fathers
- Simpler Living, Compassionate Life: A Christian Perspective edited by Michael Schut (Denver: Living the Good News, 1999)
- Various writngs of Eberhard & J. Heinrich Arnold, Wendell Berry, Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day and Stanley Hauerwas
