catapult magazine

catapult magazine
 

Vol 8, Num 14 :: 2009.07.02 — 2009.07.16

 
 

Small life

I live in a closet in a house that a church lets my friend live in for free. They were thinking about bulldozing it. I came here because we had been asking some questions about what it means to live in community. I also didn’t have anywhere else to go after I graduated college. But as we were figuring out what living with people in a life-giving environment looks like, I started to realize something important in my relationship to space — specifically, in my relationship to my space.

Living in a closet is about as simple as it gets, right? But there still was this part of me that had set up my barriers saying, “This is home. This belongs to me. I rule this space.” The less space I live in, the more I see the consequences of my possessiveness.

As I start to trim away possessions, assumptions, ideas and identities, I begin to enter a healthy relationship with what I need. My food is better because I know what I need. My relaxation is better because I’ve cut out what doesn’t work. My faith is stronger because it’s less about belief. And my life is better because there is less holding it back.

People say that I’ve cut back and simplified. I think that everything that supposedly preserved and sheltered my soul really preyed off of my fear. But the more that I cut out what is unnecessary, the more room I have for other people. By giving up home, I can become home-ness for others. I haven’t simplified, I’m tasting complexity, and there’s no poison in this cup, even if it’s 40 proof.

I’m looking forward to the next stage of my life. I’m hoping to get rid of this closet entirely. Sleep on a mat on the floor. When I sleep on the floor, my bed is the size of the room.

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