Ave Explores Series | Faith in Action | Week 4
What Happens When We Are Content with Enough?
by Haley Stewart
How much is enough? How can we provide for our families without falling into the trap of pursuing affluence that can never truly satisfy us? These are some of the most difficult questions to tackle for Catholic lay people and yet each family must seek answers as they strive to live out their faith in the world.
As it did for many others, the COVID-19 pandemic motivated plenty of soul-searching as I reoriented myself to a “new normal.” In mid-March when everything turned upside down, I had just returned from a brief trip to California, drove straight home from the airport, and self-quarantined. When trying to wrap my head around the alarming changes in the world, I was walking in my yard grieving the loss of so much: public Masses, dinners with friends, visits to the local coffee bar and bookshop, my children’s time with friends and the classes they love, and perhaps most of all, a world where I wasn’t afraid to handle the mail, hug friends, and interact with strangers. But my anxious heart also sought to anchor itself in what we still had: the flowers in our garden, beautiful clouds at sunrise, my family members, enough food for long meals around our table, reading aloud to my children at bedtime, family Rosary, my toddler’s precious snuggles as she nursed, the list went on. Although we never could have imagined this experience, what we still had was enough.
I was reminded of when my family took on another challenge that to most of our friends and family was unimaginable: We sold our home, left our jobs, and moved our three kids halfway across the country for an internship living and learning sustainable agriculture in a 650-square-foot apartment on a farm with no flushing toilets for a year. What we discovered was that we still had “enough.” In fact, the adventure showed us that pursuing less, not more, opened up a world of possibility. My husband working fewer hours away from our family meant that our income had decreased monumentally but that our family life was thriving in a way it never had before. Prioritizing local veggies and meat from the farm meant that our pantry had less variety, but that we savored every bite having participated in each step of the process. For us it was a practice of reorienting our lives toward things of eternal value. We refocused on the little souls God gave us the responsibility to form. We slowly learned to see care of God’s creation as worship of the Creator and the cultivation of wonder for his gifts.
What we discovered through this wild experiment wasn’t a checklist of what every family has to do as they honor their Catholic faith in their daily lives. Such a thing doesn’t exist! Instead what’s asked of us all is to saturate our lives with our faith according to the circumstances God has given us. Our experience taught us about seeking a life ordered toward a radical pursuit of holiness, lessons we continue having to learn as our farm year fades into the distant past. It is an attitude of receptivity to God’s plan and openness to his grace that strengthens us to carry out that plan. While we don’t live on a farm anymore, we still try to practice growing our own vegetables and raising our own meat as much as possible (lucky for us, our neighbors don’t mind us keeping a few goats in our backyard). While we don’t have to live without flushing toilets anymore, we have to practice gratitude for our small house with one bathroom shared among six family members—and to be perfectly honest, I’m not always up to the task.
Contentment with less is a difficult practice, but it isn’t something God asks of us just so he can watch us struggle. Detachment from possessions, wealth, and control over our lives opens us up to what truly matters: our faith, our community, our families, and our world. When we have invested in eternal things, no crisis can wipe away what we have cultivated. When love for God motivates how we structure our lives, none of our efforts are wasted. When we embrace “enough” instead of “more” our extra blessings can be given away to those who lack even the essential basics. As we all face a world of shifting sands when 401ks are tanking and uncertainty keeps us up at night, practicing gratitude and orienting our lives and hearts toward God is what will give our lives a sure foundation in the hope of the Resurrection.
Download this article as a PDF here.
Haley Stewart is a Catholic writer, speaker, and cohost of the Fountains of Carrots podcast. She is the author of The Grace of Enough.
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