Wear the World Lightly

There is a story I heard once about two relatives who were attending the funeral services of a wealthy family member. One of them, with a greedy glint in his eyes, leans over and whispers; “how much did he leave?“. The other looks back and responds…”All of it“. The point of the story was that when our time comes, we don’t take any of our possessions with us.

St. Francis of Assisi, who was born into a wealthy noble family, left his life of possessions and privileges to start a monastery and live a life of simplicity. His advice to those who wanted to join him was to “Wear the world like a loose garment, which touches us in a few places and there but lightly”. 

St Francis Statue

The Alcoholic Anonymous organization adopted this teaching of St Francis and shortened it to the simple phrase: Wear the World Lightly. Their 12-step program for overcoming addiction uses lots of sayings to help people detach and overcome their addictions, phrases like: live and let live, let go and let God, turn it over, easy does it, and one day at a time.

All of these statements of detachment are not intended to send a message that we should be indifferent or dead to the world, or have no feelings at all. Rather their purpose is to teach people to face the world with a kind of mindful disengagement.

It is this “detachment with love” philosophy that can help motivate people to create a peaceful space within themselves, separated from the never-ending incoming arrows of uncertainty, fear, anger, and other painful events that plague our life. Practicing detachment helps people look past the daily shocks that occur, producing a change of attitude in the mind and a physical release in the body.

To wear the world as a loose garment is to acknowledge that the world and our life will always press at us and around us, but that it does not have to touch us but “lightly”. Most things are either outside our control or ultimately unimportant. 

We do not need to grasp, manage, dwell on or react to everything that happens to us. We can choose instead to keep the world at an emotional distance so we can stay focused on doing the next right thing. It is an attitude that can relax the body and relieve the mind of the poisonous emotions that overcome us when we are confronted by the people, places or things that beset us.

To be in the world but not of it, is to live and move through life without being emotionally attached to everything that happens. Life can get hard, but those who wear the world lightly learn how to live in the world with their hardships, neither fighting them nor being crushed by them.

St Francis was essentially encouraging us to not sweat the small stuff. To not get annoyed or depressed when life does not go your way or when you do not get what you want. When you have lived long enough you come to understand that most of the things that bother us are small potatoes. Even death apparently, which the Dalai Lama described as a simple change of clothes.

I’ve heard it said that the secret to happiness as we age “is to care less and less about more and more“. The wise elders I have been fortunate to know in my life carried that attitude with them; they tended to let fewer and fewer things bother them as they got older. It’s not because they didn’t care, most likely it was just that they discovered through their life experience that it is possible to walk away, without anger or agitation, from some things they felt passionate about – and still live.

I happened across an on-line sermon about this same topic of wearing the world lightly by Bishop Robert Barron. From a spiritual point of view, Bishop Barron also believes that St Francis’ famous statement was an attempt to teach his followers about the importance of detachment – especially from the goods and achievements of the world.

Not because the world itself is bad – there are all kinds of good, true and beautiful things in the world – but because the things of the world are not the ultimate good and we are not meant to cling to them as though they were.

There are stories throughout the Bible about the futility of clinging on to earthly power, riches and glory. King Solomon is one of the greatest figures in the history of Israel from a standpoint of wealth and power. He was somebody who had it all; nobody was richer, nobody was more famous, nobody had richer palaces or clothes. But, as an old man, looking at all the possessions he has acquired over his lifetime, he says: “Vanity of vanities, all things are vanity!“.

The word vanity in Hebrew signifies something that is insubstantial and momentary, like wind or vapor or bubbles; something that is here for a brief time and then it is gone. Solomon has experienced everything: power, sensual pleasure, wisdom, honor and wealth. He has built up a reserve of wealth through his knowledge and skills and yet when he is gone, he must leave all his property to others who have not labored over it and do not deserve it.

It is not uncommon to hear complaints like this from men as they become old and infirm; “I gave my whole life to my business, I worked hard and I made a fortune. Now I’m an old man and I’m surrounded by ungrateful children and grand-children; and I’ve done all this work and yet these people are going to inherit all my wealth. What’s it all been about“?

If you live to be old enough, at some point, you finally come to realize that everything in this world has a quality of evanescence – it disappears and does not last. It is a good thing if you have been successful and built up a fortune – but it’s not going to last. Because you are going to fade away and it’s all going to go to somebody else.

Should we just be depressed then? Father Barron says no, not depressed, instead we should be detached. Our wealth, power, pleasure and the esteem of other people. It’s good. We should take it in and then let it go. We should enjoy it the way you enjoy a firework going off. Learn to live in the present moment, savoring what we can, but then letting it go.

Why? Because we come to realize that the truly good and beautiful things belong to a higher world. We can sense them in the good things of this world but none of our earthly things last and so if we cling to them, what happens is they disappear, they crumble as we try to grasp at them. Rather see them, appreciate them and then let them go.

We can get caught in an addictive pattern when we cling to the goods of the world. You worry about them so you say to yourself, oh no I better get more. Instead, we would be wise to remember the cautionary parable of the rich fool told by Jesus:

“The ground of a certain rich man brought forth abundantly. He reasoned within himself, saying, ‘What will I do, because I don’t have room to store my crops?’ He said, ‘This is what I will do. I will pull down my barns, and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. I will tell my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years. Take your ease, eat, drink, be merry.”‘ “But God said to him, ‘You fool, this very night your soul is required of you. The things which you have prepared— whose will they be?’

Luke 12:16-21

St Francis asks us to cultivate an attitude of detachment in our life. To stop clinging and hanging on to the things of the world. The more we cling to them, the more we become imprisoned by them. We’ll become bitter, angry , empty if our only focus is on the acquisition of ephemeral things. But if we practice the proper spiritual attitude of detachment and keep our eyes on the true and beautiful things that do not fade away then we will know how to handle the goods of the world as they come to us.

Fr Barron closes his sermon by emphasizing again that wealth in itself is not the problem. He points out that wealthy people can be saintly when they know how to use their wealth, how to wear it lightly and how to become generous with it. The only thing we take with us into the life to come is the quality of our love and what we’ve given away on earth. So, we should forget about trying to fill up our lives with bigger barns; true joy in life comes through building up our treasure in heaven.

The publication of this particular blog represents a milestone for me and the achievement of a goal I set for myself way back in 2013 when I posted my very first Words to Live By blog entry. I have been publishing this monthly blog for almost 10 years now and and have managed to author 100 different blog entries in that time.

I have attempted in this collection of postings to communicate ideas and philosophies that have helped me along the way and given my life direction and meaning. It has been a wonderful mental exercise for me and a labor of love that has helped me recognize things that make life interesting and wonderful. I hope my readers have discovered some of their own words to live by that will be of specific value to them in their own life.

In the spirit of “wearing the world lightly”, I plan to cut back on my blogging activities moving forward so that I am can devote more time focusing on doing the next right things in my life that will increase the quality of my love. I don’t plan to walk away from blogging completely though, as there are always more words to live by to be discovered and examined.

So, keep an eye out for the occasional future posting from me; and until then, may the blessings abound in your life.

“Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!”

In the book “Winesburg, Ohio”, a collection of short stories published in 1919, author Sherwood Anderson reveals the individual struggles of  the inhabitants of a small Ohio town as they try to reconcile their day to day lives with their roles in the community and their ambitions for the future.

The reader gradually discovers how the lives of each of the inhabitants intersect with one another and by the end of the book Anderson has painted a masterful portrait of the life of an alternating complex, lonely, joyful and strange American town.

While exposing the innermost thoughts of the character George Willard, a young man working as the town’s newspaper reporter, Anderson writes a very insightful commentary about the inner workings of a young mind as it begins to transition into manhood.

“George Willard, the Ohio village boy, was fast growing into manhood and new thoughts were coming into his mind… The mood that had taken possession of him was a thing known to men and unknown to boys.

There is a time in the life of every boy when he for the first time takes the backward view of life. Perhaps that is the moment when he crosses the line into manhood. The boy is walking the street of his town. He is thinking of the future and of the figure he will cut in the world. Ambitions and regrets awake within him. Suddenly something happens, he stops under a tree and waits as for a voice calling his name.

Ghosts of old things creep into his consciousness; the voices outside of himself whisper a message concerning the limitations of life. From being quite sure of himself and his future he becomes not at all sure.

If he be an imaginative boy a door is torn open and for the first time he looks out upon the world, seeing, as though they marched in procession before him, the countless figures of men who before his time have come out of nothingness into the world, lived their lives and again disappeared into nothingness. The sadness of sophistication has come to the boy.

With a little gasp he sees himself as merely a leaf blown by the wind through the streets of his village. He knows that in spite of all the stout talk of his fellows he must live and die in uncertainty, a thing blown by the winds, a thing destined like corn to wilt in the sun.

He shivers and looks eagerly about. The years he has lived seem but a moment, a breathing space in the long march of humanity. Already he hears death calling. With all his heart he wants to come close to some other human, touch someone with his hands, be touched by the hand of another… He wants most of all understanding.“

Anderson’s striking observation struck a chord of recognition with me because I can remember when this transition happened in my life. It was after I ventured off to college, leaving behind the comfort of my own small town and the loving protection of my parents. It was then that I began to study and think about all the great thinkers, theologians and scholars that came before me and how their lives had contributed to human progress.

Like the character George Willard, I began to think backward for the first time in my life. I realized that all of those great men and women who inspired us with their accomplishments were now gone – countless figures who came out of nothingness into the world, lived their lives and again disappeared into nothingness. The limitations of life began to become startlingly clear.

My professor of Medieval Literature studies was especially influential and enthusiastic about exposing me to the different philosophies and spiritual themes behind the great works of the middle ages – and describing how those writers grappled with trying to understand the meaning of life and their place in it.

He shared the despair felt by the pious man Geoffrey Chaucer as he considered his great work The Canterbury Tales; recognizing his book was a masterpiece, but also acknowledging that the work fell short and was ultimately meaningless; saying “What does it matter in the face of eternity“.

Shakespeare also brought readers face to face with the deepest questions about the pain and emptiness of life in Macbeth describing our existence as meaningless; “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing”.

The idea of the meaningless of life was a theme Solomon used in the Book of Ecclesiastes. He wrote “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity“. The word vanity as used by Solomon does not represent pride or vainglory. The Hebrew meaning for the word “Vanity” translates to vapor or breath, so Solomon was really trying to convey that all things are like a breath – short, impermanent and passing.

Unlike most other books in the Bible which teach about the meaning of life, Solomon in Ecclesiastes instead points a finger at the whole world and declares it meaningless. The world has no satisfaction in the end and all our accomplishments will be forgotten. He shares the same sentiment that his father before him, King David, expressed in Psalm 103:

“The life of mortals is like grass,
  they flourish like a flower of the field;
  the wind blows over it and it is gone,
  and its place remembers it no more.”

Solomon presents us with the problem of what it means to be human. We search high and low for answers to a gnawing fear inside us that we’re alone, that all of life is useless and we’ll just end up six feet under ground with no one to remember us. Solomon stares this fear in the face, offering up the most despairing of answers—there is no answer:

“I have seen all things that are done under the sun, and behold all is vanity, and vexation of spirit.“ – Ecclesiastes 1:14

The effect all this deep questioning had on that young college kid coming of age was bracing. It did not cause me to despair because my faith and my upbringing provided me with an innate certainty that life does have meaning and purpose. But it did change my outlook on life in a profound way.

It made me realize that life was short and that no one is indispensable. It motivated me to put away childish things, focus on things of substance and appreciate each day. It reminded me to avoid selfishness knowing that whatever I accomplished or how much wealth I accumulated, it would die with me.

The biggest effect this change of thinking had on me, however, was the same one it had on George Willard. It made me want with all my heart to come close to some other human, to touch someone with my hands, to be touched by the hand of another. To find understanding with another soul. I reasoned that if you mean something to someone, and someone means something to you, then life can never be meaningless.

I was blessed to find that someone in College, that understanding with another human that brought life wonderful purpose and meaning; and even though that relationship was finite, as all relationships must be, the good news is that there are an unlimited number of  humans out there looking for understanding and love.

My advice is to venture out and mean something to someone – and in the end, your life will have meaning.