Poverty | Chastity | Obedience

My local Third Order has been going through the book “Franciscan Spirituality” by Brother Ramon over the last months and discussing a chapter each month. Since I find very little time for reading books at this stage in my life, I’ve always been behind.

During my Franciscan time today I read the chapter “The Evangelical Counsels” which explored and explained the vows of Poverty, Chastity and Obedience within the Franciscan Order.

I’ve always been drawn to the challenge and counter-cultural aspect of Poverty and I hope that my family and I learn to joyfully live much more simple and uncluttered lives. It is certainly a confusing idea at the moment when we are moving to a larger house and where Toby and Milo, 3 and 1, have (and need?) so many toys and books and play things. I’m also aware that Poverty challenges me, and our society, in terms of our technology, devices and gadgets. It’s not so much the cost of these things than the distractions they provide making our lives more complex rather than more simple.

Chastity always felt like the easy one, suggesting simple faithfulness to Mary-Lou. But Brother Ramon suggests:

We know that all our relationships, all our creativity, inspiration, and appreciation of things good, true and beautiful are suffused by our sexuality, which lends warmth, tenderness, and enchantment.

Celibacy, in such a context, is not a denial of sexuality, but a way of sharing that has not only an intellectual, but also an emotional and tender dimension.

My sexuality feels very shallow in this light!

The thing which stuck with me most from Brother Ramon’s writing about Obedience was the origin of the word.

The word obedience comes from the Latin root audire – to hear, to listen. The prefix, making it ob-audire, signifies instant and alert listening.

So the vow of Obedience is to be alert to the voice of The Spirit at all times, and react out of love for God, something I eagerly want to learn.

No Time To Read

Being a dad (obviously) involves sacrifice. One thing I realised recently that I’ve sacrificed is reading. I enjoy reading and there is so much I want to read right now. I’m actually in the middle of a number of books as you can see from my Shelfari Bookshelf.

I just don’t have the time for reading books anymore and I feel frustrated about that. My time is taken up with Toby, and if he’s in bed, spending time with Mary-Lou or sleeping – all wonderful things I wouldn’t swap!

I used to have subscriptions to National Geographic, New Scientist and Ethical Consumer but stopped renewing them over the last year because I wasn’t able to read them in time before the next magazine arrived.

I have trays in my bedside table to organise the things I am reading, want to read and have read which need to be put back on a shelf, but we are moving the trays to the kitchen for filing bills etc. because I just don’t use them anymore because I’m not reading anything.

That’s not entirely true, I am reading things on my iPhone, mainly tweets and some interesting pages they link to, but this does not take alot of time. My reading has become bite-sized, and I don’t like that. I like a meaty read which makes me think and learn and change opinions. Twitter rarely does this!

So I’ve resigned myself to the idea that I just can’t read a book anymore. If ever I find time on a holiday or something, that will be lovely, and it will have to be a brilliant read. So please feel free to recommend a book or two in the comments below!