“Living a Life of Simplicity” is the title for this session’s Spiritual Gathering of Women.  This week we discussed simplicity of space.  Doesn’t that sound nice?  Visions come to mind of a house with clean lines, free of clutter – a schedule with lots of white space, food that is enjoyed for its quality, not quantity.  Feelings of peace, serenity and joy come to mind.  However, it is easier said than done!  When we moved from our 800 square foot house, and marveled at all of our newly acquired space – a full basement, attic, lots of closets and a one car garage, our real estate agent said, “I give you about 6 months until it gets filled”.  She was pretty much dead on the money.  Within months both of our mother’s called and said it was time we get the boxes of our personal belongings and keepsakes they had been moving and storing for years.  We emptied our storage unit in Brewster that held furniture and items from our apartment in Boston and my grandmother’s house.  It didn’t take long before we were overwhelmed with stuff! (and still are!) What I learned on Monday night is that I am not alone.  Most of us struggle with maintaining all of our stuff, particularly those of us, who are sentimental.
Americans are not alone in this, but I think it’s fair to say we take the blue ribbon.  I recently read that as a society, we’ve become consumers rather than citizens.  The following statistics speak for themselves and certainly should cause us to pause and reflect on our own personal consumption.

• Enough K cups were thrown out in 2014 to circle the earth 12 times.
• In America more money, is spent on fashion accessories than college tuition.
• Nearly half the world’s toys are in America.
• The size of the average American home has tripled since the 1950s.
• Nearly 40% of food in America goes to waste.
• The amount Americans spend in a single weekend is more than half of the total they give to churches in an entire year.
• 25% of people who have two car garages, do not have room to park even one car in them.
• Each year the average American throws out 65 pounds of clothing.
• The average person will spend 153 days (or 3,680 hours) of their lives looking for misplaced items.
• 1 in 10 Americans rents a storage unit outside of their home.

Over the next several weeks, we are looking at simplicity as a spiritual practice, along with the spiritual disciplines of mindfulness and gratitude.  I can’t think of a better focus for the season of Lent.  In my research, I found the most wonderful definition of a life of simplicity (minimalist life) “it’s one that is stripped of the unnecessary, to make room for that which gives you joy.  It’s a removal of clutter in all its forms, leaving you with peace and freedom and lightness.”  As a spiritual practice, living an uncluttered life equates becoming more distilled as person.  It means being intentional with our time and about creating space to not only connect with God, but to connect with those things and people whom we truly love. 
The following is from www.simpleliving.org  It provides a great overview of the benefits and meaning behind living a life of simplicity.
The Art of Simple Living
Simple Living is "living in a way that is outwardly simple and inwardly rich. This way of life embraces frugality of consumption, a strong sense of enviromental urgency, and a desire to return to living and working enviroments which are of a more human scale." (Duane S. Elgin and Arnold Mitchell)
The practice of voluntary simplicity is advocated in the teachings of Jesus, the early Christian Church, St. Paul, St. Francis, and many others. It also has it roots in the teachings of other world religions, the teachings of Gandhi, and the writings of Thoreau. The American Friends Service Committee (The Quakers) define simple living as a "non-consumerist lifestyle based on being and becoming, not having."
Seven Reasons for Choosing a Simpler Lifestyle:
1. As an act of intentional living performed for the sake of personal integrity and as an expression of a commitment to a more equitable distribution of the world’s resources.
2. As an act of creation care for ourselves and especially for our children and grandchildren against the earth destroying results of over-consumption such as pollution, climate change, and resource wars.
3. As an act of solidarity with the majority of humankind, which has little choice about material affluence.
4. As an act of celebration of the riches found in God’s creation, and the riches of community with others, rather than in the "poverty" of mindless materialism.
5. As an act of spiritual discipline ordering our lives to reflect the values of simplicity and just living taught by Jesus and teachers in other world religions.
6. As an act of advocacy for changes in present patterns of production and consumption.
7. As an act of provocation (ostentatious under consumption) to arouse curiosity leading to dialog with others about affluence, and sustainable "green" living to redirect the production of consumer goods away from the satisfaction of artificially created wants toward the supplying of goods and services that meet genuine social needs.
(Based on an article by Jorgen Lissner)  
 

13 years ago I attended my first NEAUCE (New England Association of United Church Educators) conference in Craigville.  At the event, were Rev. David Anderson and Rev. Dick Hardel from Youth and Family Institute in Minnesota.  These gentlemen blew our socks off!  They talked about the ramifications of mainline protestant churches keeping children and the Christian education in a silo.  In the 1950s and 60s the trend was to build education wings, much like we have here at FCC, and model church education after school. It was also in response to the baby boom, congregations needed to find cost effective ways to gain more space in the sanctuary.  Children and youth were taken out of worship and attended Sunday School instead.  All of this was well intended of course, but the problem is that when you take the children out of worship, they have no connection to it whatsoever.  And as a result, it is no wonder that they disappear after confirmation.  They’ve only built a relationship to Sunday School and its teachers, but are completely disconnected to the worship service and the congregation.
 
This is what motivated us to intentionally integrate intergenerational worship into the life of the church.  We began by breaking down Children’s Sunday and fitting into the order of worship.  It had been an hour devoted to a musical presented by the children and presentations of gratitude to the teachers.  We then created an intergenerational worship service out of World Communion Sunday, a service that already was a little outside-the-box and lent itself perfectly to a service of this nature.  Joe and David taught me the importance of keeping the integrity of the worship service, following the order of worship and keeping that rhythm and flow intact.  This was never going to be a contemporary/alternative praise service.  They almost always follow the lectionary, and we typically offer 5 or 6 of them a year.
 
As a result, I am proud to say that our children are deeply connected to worship and to the members of the congregation.  They are knowledgeable about the order of worship.  They understand the prayer of confession, the offertory, the prayers of the people.  They are learning the hymns and enjoying the voices of the choir.  They are respectful and engaged in the service.  Adults have commented that not only do they love to see the children engaged and are impressed by their preparation and presence, but they also enjoy the colorful nature of these worship services where the Bible stories are accessible and truly come to life.  As a bonus, we are teaching a life skill in that we are raising young people who are confident in public speaking because they cut their teeth with the most loving audience, their congregation.  And every time I’ve taken them on a field trip or a retreat and the leaders ask for participants, FCC kids are the first to raise their hands. 
 
I am grateful that we are a church that is welcoming and hospitable to its young people.  I am grateful for Joe’s openness and trust in inviting the children to lead us in worship.  I am grateful to the parents who are encouraging and supportive of their children’s participation.  I am grateful for our young people who are courageous enough to stand before you.  But most of all, I am grateful that our children have the opportunity to not only participate in worship, but worship alongside their parents.  It is my hope that these special moments of time will be valuable memories in their faith story.