Downsizing

Dirt and I, well and Bet too, are taking a little downsizing adventure.  Rather forced but the complete extent will be elective.  After all if we were really hurting from the pay cut there are avenues for increasing the income.  But things are not dire and we have instead decided to decrease our expenses.  There are a few frivolities here and there we can do without and there is some out and out right waste, like a contract cell phone in Dirt’s hand.

So off with their heads, first went the cell phones, well not completely, I do like the security, we don’t live in the wild west any more.  Well actually we do and I wanna be able to call for the calvary.

Then went the TV hook up.  We somehow grew too fancy, not with movie channels but yeah with a few pay-per views each month, two lines on two sets, DVR’s … We had to cut the mortal head off that hydra before it turn 3D.  I say you either go up or you go drastically down, no one stays in the same spot, even anti changers.

Wow, just those two things were a big sum. Feeling good, savin’ lots.

But you know me, Clever Reader, as soon as we racked up some saved money with cuts to our current ongoing bills I began to fantasize about a camera.  Until of course EBet asks if the money we had just saved by cutting off a few entitlements was as great as the cut in income.

“Uh, ya, never mind about the camera.”

Not necessarily because of the camera desires, we’ve decided to go way beyond what the cut in income is and see exactly how much money we can not spend.  And just like a restrictive food diet, I get all excited, ready to prove I can do it and even more, then all of the bravado is quickly followed by hauntings of the food I am restricted from. 

But many things are catching my eye lately, no I don’t mean to spend money on, my eyes and ears are being caught on things that have to do with Dirt’s and my adventure.  Articles about hoarding, movies about ridiculous spending.  Feeling the need to decrease the things we already own as well and not hauling new stuff in.  Shows, documentaries about those who have so much less and yet, I see beyond to so much more.  And a friend saying the same thing just the other day.

Then I happened upon this passage today, a selected reading for the sixth day of Christmas:

I am writing to you, my own children,
whose sins have already been forgiven through his name;
I am writing to you, fathers,
who have come to know the one
who has existed since the beginning;
I am writing to you, young men,
who have already overcome the Evil One;
I have written to you, children,
because you already know the Father;
I have written to you, fathers,
because you have come to know the one
who has existed since the beginning;
I have written to you, young men,
because you are strong and God’s word has made its home in you,
and you have overcome the Evil One.
You must not love this passing world
or anything that is in the world.
The love of the Father cannot be
in any man who loves the world,
because nothing the world has to offer
– the sensual body,
the lustful eye,
pride in possessions –
could ever come from the Father
but only from the world;
and the world, with all it craves for,
is coming to an end;
but anyone who does the will of God
remains for ever.  1 John 2:12-17

I will pour out water on the thirsty soil, streams on the dry ground, I will pour out my spirit on your descendants, and they shall grow like poplars by running streams, alleluia. The water that I shall give will turn into a spring, welling up to eternal life,

So I say, “I don’t love the world.”  But boy howdy did the bit:

because nothing the world has to offer
– the sensual body,
the lustful eye,
pride in possessions –
could ever come from the Father
but only from the world;

hit me square in the gut, two fisted.  My body craves it, hungers for some new thing, a trinket, a bauble, a tasty treat, a soft silky fashion.  The eye spies it, can’t leave it alone, back to gazing on it as soon as I try to turn away.  Obsess, covet, obsess, all for a good cause of course.  Then once possessed, pride swells, in the modest, humblest of ways of course.  Of course.

Uck!  Yuck!

This time, I’m not going to pray that I hope that I can step out of the way so that God can do His work in me. 

Bring on the bulldozer God, I don’t care to come this way again.  Don’t let me step aside and out of the way, hang back, be on the fringe, not get the full brunt.  Give me both barrels.

I’m done thinking I live simply, graciously and generously.  Rub my snub nose in it God.  I’m tired, I don’t want to play at learning this any longer.

No longer do I care to be betwixt and between God and the world, pretending to be with one and not of the other.