We can’t compare Christian culture in a secular country to Muslim culture in a Muslim country where societal pressures have you follow traditions whether you are die-hard or simply dead in faith.

Also, die-hard public practices of faith have their price: extremism. There aren’t very many Christian suicide bombers or Christian posses out to get heretics. As much as I lament the seeming lack of faith in America, I’m not sure I want an opposite extreme where someone is ready to condemn me if I accidentally put bacon bits on my salad on Friday.

A design magazine my husband and I subscribed to recent had an issue themed on small houses. They had stories on families with not much land to build on, people who lived in small houses for sustainability reasons, and a story on a soldier in Afghanistan living in his government-provided living quarters of a shipping container. I thought it was really neat.

The magazine got a lot of negative mail from readers, however. One person said that a family residing in an 800-square foot house (one of the larger houses in that issue) was “existing, not living” and said the whole issue of the magazine was “awful”, “garbage”, and “totally useless, downright ugly and depressing.” I don’t know this person’s religious affiliation, but it saddens me that anyone is so attached to the 5,000 square foot house as a status symbol that they believe the 80% of the world with no hope of such homes might as well not be living.

I think a comparatively austere lifestyle is not a means of finding happiness. It might be a result, so I can see where people would think austere societies are on to something.

Austerity is not an end in itself, and hope I never fall into the trap of getting prideful of my austerity, should I ever become austere. But trying to change oneself to see life through God’s eyes makes one see material things differently. Which can be weird when you don’t pursue them and people feel they should help you with their counsel because, clearly, you are dim-witted as you do not feel that becoming a houseowner is the first priority in your life right now… (sorry, personal recent pet peeve)

Asceticism is valuable, but it is a means to an end, not an end in itself. The true goal is union with God. There have been rich saints and poor saints, saints who practiced extreme asceticism and those who have lived quite comfortably. What makes them saints is their love of God.

I love the story Chesterton tells in his life of St. Thomas Aquinas about St. Thomas attending a banquet at the court of St. Louis, the king of France. One man was rich and had worldly power, the other was a mendicant monk; but they were more alike than different.

I hope to write more addressing specific comments, but unfortunately I’m out of computer time for today.

In Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict, in examining the Beatitudes, meditates on the verse “Blessed are the poor”. That’s from Luke; Matthew’s account says “Blessed are the poor in spirit”. Benedict reflects on the tradition of poverty in the scriptures and emphasizes that material poverty in itself does not bring salvation. The value of great ascetics is recognized for their example to the world and to the Christian community of detatchment from the things of this earth. However, being “poor in spirit” transcends the material to be a spiritual asceticism — which does often find its expression in a material simplicity.

Benedict describes the poor in spirit: “These are people who do not flaunt their achievements before God. They do not stride into God’s presence as if they were partners able to engage with him on an equal footing; they do not lay claim to a reward for what they have done. These are people who know that their poverty also has an interior dimension; they are lovers who simply want to let God bestow his gifts upon them and thereby to live in inner harmony with God’s nature and word” (p. 76).

Excellent book!

I don’t think the idea of an afterlife or existence of God would cut it – initially, yes, but like that new big-screen TV the happiness derived from these ideas would wear off with their newness.

The thing that is missing is love. Austerity only has value if it is also love. Only love prevents those things that attract us from wearing off. And it can’t be an idea. Love must be a reality, an event that occurs in our lives: the new commandment is to love one another as Christ has loved us. If we do so, we will stick out like a sore thumb, we will impress, we will attract both new converts and persecution.

The real need is to evidence the encounter with Someone so wonderful He has enabled us to love in a radical way. For it to be the obvious reality of our lives that His love fills us with joy that is not dependent on our circumstances. To live so that others look at us and say, ‘They have something! I want that too!’