LIVES OF COMPASSION AND MEANING.

The complexities of `simple living.'

The great irony about today's "simple living" trend is that it really isn't simple, or about simple things, at all. Two recent volumes--Simpler Living, Compassionate Life: A Christian Perspective, edited and compiled by Michael Schut, and Graceful Simplicity: Toward a Philosophy and Politics of Simple Living by Jerome M. Segal--nicely illustrate this observation.

In Schut's collection of 29 articles and two brief stories, "simple living" serves as the umbrella under which are grouped themes ranging from the value of contemplative prayer, leisure time, and daily attentiveness to the need for profound economic and ecological change. From a somewhat different perspective, Segal defines "simple living" as graceful living, a way of life in which the aesthetic dimension and the role of service are central. "Simple living" thus begins to emerge as a catch phrase for a number of personal, social, environmental, economic, and political initiatives that have both micro and macro implications.

Focusing on the latter, Harvard University's Timothy C. Weiskel offers in the Schut volume one of the most powerful and provocative presentations, where he describes the increasingly catastrophic impact of growth and consumerism on the global ecology. Referencing scientific indicators that suggest we have entered a global "extinction event" affecting numerous species, Weiskel calls for a theological revolution to unseat our dual Western commitments to human dominion over nature and to unlimited growth and consumption. He calls upon theologians--and readers--to take on the very un-simple task of articulating and acting upon a theology that locates the human species within, not above, a larger whole and that stands as a challenge to contemporary conditions of global human and ecological suffering.

Weiskel reminds us that while theology--literally talk about God or, more broadly, reflections on God, the world, and ourselves--does not determine evolutionary processes, it can "determine the character of our engagement with natural processes and thus conditions the outcome." The reader is left to reflect on the important relationship between theological thought and subsequent acts--and the potential consequences if this is ignored.

From a more micro perspective, the Schut volume includes James T. Mulligan's essay, "The Great Hunter-Gatherer Continuum." Mulligan, executive director of Earth Ministry, leads the reader through the pros and cons of patronizing various food outlets. The cultural norm, the supermarket, is contrasted with six other less convenient but more "earth friendly" options. Mulligan asks us to consider the community-supported agriculture farm, for example, where subscribers receive a portion of the weekly harvest throughout the year. What is traded for convenience and availability (tomatoes in December would be out for most of us) is made up through "keeping one more farm and one more farmer an active part of the local food economy."

Other essays compiled by Schut address issues of time, money, material consumption, and community-building advocated by 19 contributors, including Frederick Buechner, Juliet Schor, Wendell Berry, and Henri Nouwen. A useful feature of this collection is the 55-page study guide at the end, designed to facilitate small group discussions. For each of 10 sessions, Schut has included discussion topics, meditations and prayers, and suggested action steps.

JEROME SEGAL, a political activist and former staff member of the House Budget Committee, sketches his vision of what American middle-class "simple living" might look like and how it could be accomplished. Drawing on Aristotle and various utopian and anti-consumptionist strands in American thought, Segal argues that the purpose of an economy is to "liberate us from the economic--to provide a material platform from which we may go forth to build the good life."

Segal has written an easy-to-read, wide-ranging, and impassioned manifesto for social and economic policy change, but readers may stumble--or derail entirely--as a result of some of his assumptions and recommendations. I cannot speak as an African American or member of the urban poor; but as a woman who spent 20 years in American business and the past three in the academy, I do not share Segal's perspective that our society is "substantially along the way to overcoming historic legacies of slavery, mass poverty, and the subjugation of women." Nor do I share his backward-yearning observation that the "world we have lost was in many ways more interesting, more diverse, and often more beautiful than the world we have created."

After spending several weeks reflecting on "simple living," I find myself left with two lingering questions. First, which segments of society are driving this movement and which are not? I can't help wondering about the voices that are largely missing from these two volumes--the voices of people of color, of people without multiple college degrees, of people just starting to climb the economic ladder, and, yes, even of people in the business community. Is "simple living" a social, economic, and political way of life that really embraces all? I would like to hear more.

Secondly, I wonder why ideas such as these are presented under the rubric of "simple living." Is it "simple living" to initiate and effect the many social and economic changes advocated? Does the concept of simplicity serve us well in addressing enormously complex issues of hunger, homelessness, and human and ecological violence in our society? These books wrestle with how we can make time and create commitment to lives and communities of compassion, justice, respect, dignity, and meaning. But these are not simple goals, and it is hard to imagine that they will be achieved by a curiously nostalgic call to a "simple life." As a former marketing executive, I wonder if there are marketing fingerprints on that moniker.

Simpler Living, Compassionate Life: A Christian Perspective, edited by Michael Schut. Morehouse Publishing, 1999.

Graceful Simplicity: Toward a Philosophy and Politics of Simple Living, by Jerome Segal. Henry Holt & Company, 1999.

ANN McCLENAHAN spent 20 years as an advertising and marketing professional before entering Harvard Divinity School, where she completed the Master of Divinity program in June 1999.