O.k., so I didn't actually meet Shane Claiborne this evening, but I did hear him speak, and I stood close enough to realize that his clothes are definitely homemade. For those of you "googling" Shane Claiborne by this point, let me just say, he may have the monopoly on the market of simple living. Of course, that in itself is an oxymoron. Shane Claiborne has created this intentional community called The Simple Way, where they are surrounding themselves around the idea of laying down their needs to meet the needs of others. Part of their ideology is that : "The life of the simple way is the story of that struggle to love and to be loved." And I think that is all of our struggle in this life. We try to find balance between loving others, and finding love for ourselves. More times than not, we focus more heavily on the latter. So back to the point about Shane Claiborne.
He used the illustration in his address to Furman Students (yea, we sort of snuck into the chapel for this one) about the time when several homeless families found an old abandon church building and decided to move in, as opposed to being on the street. Well apparently the church folk didn't like the fact that people were staying in their abandon building. And so they got their religious underwear in a wad and decided to kick these families with no homes out on the streets again. Well, the media had a field day with this. Because I'm almost positive that the entire red-lettered parts of the Bible talk about giving and loving others. So, instead of giving, they decided to be a little less harsh and twist the message around saying it wasn't safe for the families to be taking up residence there. Smart religious folk they were. So they get the fire marshall involved and all the other officials to investigate the building. Interestingly though, the night before the big search, the entire fire department shows up to the church building, not to kick them out, but to help them get up to code on all safety issues. So the next day, the fire marshall had absolutely no reason to kick them out. I'm sure this posed a problem for the religious folk, because now they were faced with the problem of following Jesus, or following a societal flow...
So this may be an extreme case of choosing to give and love others, but in reality, I think it sets the tone for how we should see things. What are we called to do? Who are we called to give to? Who are we called to love? It's pretty simple if you think about it. Hence The Simple Way. Everything Jesus ever talked about was Kingdom living, and with the right lenses, it's a pretty simple way of life.
I don't have much more to add to this post. Just a quote from Shane:
"We've got to be more committed to creating communities and a society where the right thing to do is easier."
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