It’s the latest thing, of course. As good Americans, many of us buy things all the time. Some of us, like squirrels, bury things away habitually, if not self-consciously. I recently reminded myself that I had been storing away my IRS returns for more than twenty-years! For no good reason, to be sure. So in a fit of righteous attentiveness, I got it together to toss ‘em all away. That wasn’t really downsizing, I know, but I prided myself with the thought anyway. I ended up with a whole empty shelf. Marvelous.
But that very day, by Divine inspiration, I believe, I also added something. In the entrance hallway to our apartment, I have in place an extensive (now sixteen) collection of prints of St. Francis and his ministry. My favorite: an image that I used for the cover of my book Before Nature: A Christian Spirituality (2014): “St. Francis in the Desert” by Bellini, now in the Frick Collection in New York, which I visit whenever I can. The image I just hung on the wall: “St. Francis Renounces Earthly Goods” by Giotto, now in the Basilica of San Francisco, Assisi, which I once had the opportunity to contemplate in that majestic setting.
I’ve also celebrated Francis in my writings. Inspired by him, I entitled my first book Brother Earth (1970). Francis emerged, too, as the faith-hero of my study of the history of Christian thought about nature in The Travail of Nature (1985). And he has preoccupied me ever since, as in my more recent manifesto, EcoActivist Testament (2022).
Overall, I have talked a good game, I think. I have written fairly accurately about Francis, particularly about his inspiring approach to nature. I have also lifted up Francis, rightly, as a champion of poverty – he was called “the Poverello” – not only nature.
But somehow my own life, in practice, has been preoccupied much more with nature than with poverty. My own story, more often than not, has resembled that of the rich young ruler, told in the synoptic Gospels. Jesus said to him: “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”. The rich young ruler didn’t want to do that. Enough said. That has been my own, lifelong pattern. Witness all my IRS records.
On the other hand, Jesus and his follower, Francis, were eagerly disposed to welcome sinners, maybe even death-bed conversions. So, as I’m now approaching my nineties, I believe that I still have a chance. Yes, I’m totally convinced that, whatever I do, nevertheless, through Christ and by my own faltering faith, I have received what Luther called “the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.” Praise the Lord, for that.
But I still have this wistful longing, which I’ve carried with me for many decades, to be more and more like the Poverello, that exemplary disciple of Jesus. So maybe it was a good thing for me to have thrown out all those IRS returns, however bourgeois that act was. Because that set me thinking about Jesus and Francis, all over again. So let’s hear it for downsizing, eh?