Wayne Muller asserts that the good life is the life of enough. A life of enough is a life where we aren't wanting and grasping all the time, aren’t perpetually parched and dissatisfied, aren’t running around wrecked by our own impossible schedules. The good life, the life of enough, as opposed to the frenetic, never-enough life, is one where we breathe easy, one that includes moments of relaxation and recognition of beauty around us. A life of enough is one where we say "agh, this is it, I am content, all is well" and don’t feel guilty about our own sense of sufficiency. A life of enough is one of rhythmic harmony, of shalom.
I’ve never met anyone on this
Earth who seems to live the life of enough all the time. But I have known pilgrims
upon the planet who seem to get it most of the time, a majority of the time, or
perhaps just when it matters most. And what I notice about all of them is their
capacity to make wise decisions. On page 27 of his “A Life of Being, Having and
Doing Enough” Wayne writes these words:
We make only one choice. Throughout our
lives, we do only one thing-again and again, moment by moment, year after year.
It is how we live our days, and it how we shape our lives. The choice is this:
What is the next right thing for us to do?
The people I know who do “enough” well are people who have
a knack for wisely deciding the next right thing. That is, they are people who
discern well. I think discernment is the key variable in the life of enough.
So, you might ask: what makes for good discernment? Glad you asked…
I think Jesus gives us the
ultimate model of holy discernment. Jesus spent time in solitude, in quiet
contemplation. Jesus spent time in community, surrounded by people who would
engage with him (both people like him and those who took issue with his
ministry). And Jesus kept close to nature. I think all of us need these three
unique portals for discernment in our lives. We need time alone, time to think
and read sacred text, time to pray and silence ourselves. We need time and
sharing with other humans who have distinct experience of their own that can
shine a light, pose a challenge and strengthen our own understandings/options.
And we need to spend time surrounded by what poet Wendell Berry calls “the
peace of wild things.”
The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
— Wendell Berry
Wayne Muller is right: the
good life is a life of enough. And he’s right that the life of enough comes
about through constant decision making, comes through days and moments of
choosing the next right thing. My sense is that we have a lot better shot at
making wise decisions and choices if we follow Jesus’ 3-fold model of discernment,
a model that keeps solitude, community and nature at the rhythmic center of our
lives.
