Simpler Living Compassionate Life: A Christian Perspective

Michael Schut (ed.), Morehouse Publishing

Simpler Living Compassionate Life is a collection of essays on living a more balanced, more thoughtful, healthier, less selfish way of life.

Topics covered are varied and include: self interest, how to shop for food, over production and consumption, perception of what is necessary and what is a luxury, reducing damage to the environment, cars, time as a commodity, global economics and stress-related illnesses.

The book is pointed, insightful and witty with some marvellous, quotable sayings.
The essay that I found most interesting was “Excerpt from The Overworked American” by Juliet Schor, which looks at how overwork and stress-related illnesses result from an incessant desire for luxuries that are seen as necessities.

She points out that stone-age people and medieval peasants did less work than we do nowadays in our pursuit of things, and would be considered lazy by our standards.

Actually the hours they worked or the belief that if you work one day you need to rest the next sounds blissful. I bet they slept well, didn’t worry whether they saw enough of their children and didn’t hang out for the next vacation because they were so tired.

Simpler Living Compassionate Life is a “must read”.

Katy Gerner