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Lent: Simplify Our Lives

2-8-15

FLAME Teen Handout

Conscience Need Happiness Greed

Temple $ Brands Want

Simplicity sin

Try this: read one of the quotes below and ask “What word or phrase jumps out at

you?” Read a second time and ask “How does this connect with your life?” Finally,

read a third time and ask “What are you called to do?”

Colossians 2: 1 "For I want you to know how great a struggle I am having for you and

for those in Laodicea and all who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be

encouraged as they are brought together in love, to have all the richness of fully assured

understanding, for the knowledge of the mystery of God, Christ, in whom are hidden all

the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” (New American Bible)

Gen 28:20-22: Jacob then made this vow: "If God remains with me, to protect me on

this journey I am making and to give me enough bread to eat and clothing to wear, and I

come back safe to my father's house, the LORD shall be my God. This stone that I have

set up as a memorial stone shall be God's abode. Of everything you give me, I will

faithfully return a tenth part to you." (New American Bible)

Other Questions:

1. What are God’s riches? Which are the most important ones?

2. Does God provide our food and clothes as Jacob says? If so, how?

3. Tithing is the tradition of giving 10% of your income to charity. What do you

think of this? What would stop you from doing this, even as a teen?

4. What are the signs of greed in someone your age?

What is Materialism?

As the word itself signifies, Materialism is a philosophical system which regards matter as the only

reality in the world, which undertakes to explain every event in the universe as resulting from the

conditions and activity of matter, and which thus denies the existence of God and the soul. It is

diametrically opposed to Spiritualism and Idealism, which, in so far as they are one-sided and

exclusive, declare that everything in the world is spiritual, and that the world and even matter itself

are mere conceptions or ideas in the thinking subject.

Catholic Encyclopedia http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10041b.htm

“Gre

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rom

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IGNITE TEEN HANDOUT

Week 20 – 3/29/2020

Lent

SET THE WORLD ABLAZE!

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The average

American

consumes 60

times as much as a

person in the

poorest areas of

the world

How do we compare with the rest of the world?

Us (as is U.S. or yours truly)

Poorer 20% of the world

Income $34,000 $300

CO2 emissions 10 tons 0.1 tons

Fossil Fuels consumed

20% of the world supply None (they don’t have electricity)

Paper consumption 760 pounds/year Less than 1 pound/year

Water used per person (includes

industrial)

1300 gallons Most have no clean water. There is not one tap in the country of Guatemala which has drinkable water.

DOES MONEY BRING HAPPINESS? CONSIDER… In the 1990s, the Irish were happier than the much richer Germans and Japanese.

People who to go to work in overalls on the bus are just as happy as those who drive to

work in their own Mercedes.

Happiness among the Forbes 100 richest Americans is only slightly higher than average

Americans.

Lottery winners return to the same state of happiness within 8 weeks of winning (euphoria

does not last!).

Between the 1950s and today, our income is twice (in today’s dollars), but our happiness is

much lower. Teen suicide is up x4, divorce x2. From The Price of Privilege by Madline Levine.

http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/11/28/15463411-550-million-will-buy-you-a-lot-of-misery?lite

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More on Money and Happiness

$550 million will buy you a lot of ... misery

By Melissa Dahl, NBC News, November 28, 2012

You surely know by now that the Powerball jackpot is set to hit at least $550 million tonight. You should also know that your odds of winning the grand prize are somewhere around 1 in 176 million (at least, we really hope you know that). So here's a bit of comfort for you tonight as you stare dejectedly at your losing ticket: Most lottery winners don't end up any happier than the rest of us.

Yeah, yeah, you can probably name 550 million reasons why winning the jackpot tonight will make you happy. But here's the truth: A handful of psychology studies over the years have evaluated the happiness of lottery winners over time, and found that after the initial glee of getting one of those big giant checks has faded away, most winners actually end up no happier than they were before hitting the jackpot.

Arguably the most famous paper on this subject was published the late 1970s, and it's a doozy: Psychologists interviewed winners of the Illinois State Lottery and compared them with non-winners -- and, just for good measure, people who had suffered some terrible accident that left them paraplegic or quadriplegic. Each group answered a series of questions designed to measure their level of happiness.

Stefanie Graef holds what she hopes is the winning Powerball ticket she just bought at Circle News Stand on Tuesday in Hollywood, Fla. If she's lucky, she won't win.

What they found was counterintuitive, to say the least: In terms of overall happiness, the lottery winners were not significantly happier than the non-lottery winners. (The accident victims were less happy, but not by much.) But when it came to rating everyday happiness, the lottery winners took "significantly less pleasure" in the simple things like chatting with a friend, reading a magazine or receiving a compliment.

"Humans tend to have a relatively set point of mood," explains Gail Saltz, a New York City psychiatrist and frequent TODAY contributor. Most people tend to bounce back to that set point after a major life event, whether it's something negative or positive. But for some lottery winners, psychologists believe hitting an especially huge jackpot may alter that happiness baseline, making it harder to see the joy in everyday things.

Do you buy this?

What brings happiness?

Is it a choice?

JOE RAEDLE / GETTY IMAGES

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SIMPLE LIVING

Simple living is the radical idea of organizing our lives around Jesus’ mandate to love each other

and applying it to everything we do each day. This would mean re-ordering our priorities based

on a few simple principles:

o Our purpose in life is to love and care for others;

o In our loving, as it is said by physicians, “first do no harm” – to other people here

and around the world, or to God’s creation;

By following these principles, we reduce the burden we place on God’s people and his creation,

and we re-focus our lives on sustaining people, communities, and the earth. As Gandhi said, we

“live simply, so that others might simply live.”

Be warned: this is not for the faint-of-heart! It takes knowledge, skill, effort, and commitment,

and we may be ridiculed or attacked by others. Few of us in 21st Century America want to hear

about the problems we are causing, much less do anything about them, so many people will

resent our way of living and try to stop us.

So if you begin to live authentically and simply, some folks might think you are an extremist,

unpatriotic, or at least an economic ignoramus. And if you go on to become an out-spoken

advocate for Christian simple living, you may lose some friends, but you'll also gain some great

new ones!

HOW DO WE MAKE THE SHIFT FROM CONSUMER LIVING TO SIMPLE LIVING?

The first step is to make a realistic assessment of our daily living values to see if they are really

in sync with Jesus' teachings about how we should value money, things, position, our families,

and other people. Obviously we should be valuing people and their needs far above having a

large salary, lots of stuff, or a 'convenient' life. This is easier said than done for most of us. But

without having made this emotional values-shift, it is hard to live simply because we spend a lot

of time rationalizing-away many of our habitual self-interested consumer behaviors so that we

don't really have to change much in the end.

Once we have really made the shift from our values to Jesus', the rest is very intuitive. We can

then begin to live more simply...

By Stopping

… the thoughtless purchase, use, and discarding of all those things we don’t really need in the

first place. Instead, we can:

o Buy less of what we want, and buy only enough of what we actually need.

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o Not soothe our egos on ever-trendier, bigger, faster, or more convenient

appliances, gadgets, and other possessions.

o Use environmentally, economically, and socially conscious values when buying those

few things we actually do need, including large items (homes and cars), and small

things (detergent and paper).

o Use energy-efficient and minimally polluting appliances and tools.

o Recycle everything, because in God's economy, there is no garbage and everything

is valuable.

And By Starting

… to use our time and money focusing, instead, on truly important things like nourishing

relationships with our families and communities, serving those who need our help, and working

harder for justice, here and abroad.

This, after all, is the point of the Gospel - loving and caring for others rather than manipulating

the world, its people, and its resources, so we can have an easier life.

http://www.christiansimpleliving.org/Pages/BraveDareNot.htm

Questions:

1. Do you have any clothes you have worn only once or twice? 2. What cell phone apps are really necessary? Is a smart phone necessary at

all? 3. Do you care what brand of clothing you wear? If so, why? What is the extra

cost and what could be done with that money? 4. When you get a chance to purchase your first car, will it be a fuel efficient

hybrid or a sports car? 5. Do you carry around a reusable water bottle or do you use and throw away

disposable water bottles? 6. What can you stop doing now to live more simply? 7. What can you start doing now to live more simply?

“Gratitude is desiring what you already have.”

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Faith in Action – Create Your Own!

Ideas for thought:

ᵻ How can I live more simply?

ᵻ What are the things in my life I could live without?

ᵻ What changes can I make?

ᵻ My goal for lent is…

This week I learned______

______________________

______________________

______________________

______________________

______________________

______________________

______________________

______________________

______________________

This week I was most inspired by ________________________

because____________________________________________

___________________________________________________

I wish I knew more

about

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

__

The thing I liked best about this

week was ___________________

____________________________

Before our next session I will

_______________________________

_______________________________

__

________________________________

to put my faith into action.