Mary Betz encourages us to think about what is unnecessary in our lives and to live with less so that others have more.

MORE THAN 40 YEARS ago I travelled to Venezuela to visit some Maryknoll friends and learn about their mission work. In a barrio of Barinas, we were invited into the home of their neighbour, Rosa, who saw they had a visitor and wanted to offer hospitality.

Rosa seated us in a small dirt-floored room with three plastic chairs, a small folding table and, incongruously, a TV. A picture of Our Lady of Guadelupe hung on the wall. Then she disappeared to an outdoor lean-to kitchen which had a sink draining into a bucket and a single cooking hob. After a time, she brought us cornmeal arepas (fresh and hot) stuffed with crumbled queso blanco — some of the most delicious food I have ever eaten. She also gave us steaming cups of café con leche. It wasn’t until we had walked well down the road afterwards that my friends told me our meal would have been Rosa’s family’s meal that evening.

Returning to Canada a week later, a friend in Toronto whisked me away in a private plane for a day at a luxury golf club some distance away. The glaring contrast between the two experiences (both previously alien to me) could not help but awaken me to global realities.

Ecological and Resource Inequality

I began to connect the dots between the way developed countries consume the land, soils, forests, fossil fuels and minerals of developing countries to produce many of our foods, fuels and electronics. Developed countries left behind devastated landscapes and soils incapable of sustaining more than a few rotations of exotic cropping. As a consequence, the cities were flooding with millions of now landless small farmers living precariously with what work they could find.

With the advent of the ecological footprint and dawning knowledge of climate change, it became clear that most of us in wealthy nations are using a disproportionate amount of Earth’s resources and thus are more responsible for its ecological breakdown.

A recent London School of Economics (LSE) study showed that high-income countries with only 16 per cent of the world’s population use 74 per cent of the world’s resources. Our countries would need to scale back resource use by 70 per cent to achieve ecological sustainability, a feat which would require radical political action, and for both the relatively and obscenely affluent to adjust their lifestyles and expectations.

Inequality from a Christian Perspective

Interestingly, the study took as a premise that “the planet’s resources and ecosystems are a commons — a natural shared wealth — and that all people are entitled to a fair share within sustainable levels.” This is exactly what church “fathers” and Catholic social teaching have been saying for centuries. When we attempt to put right drastic inequalities, we can think of the statesman and bishop Ambrose of Milan (b339 CE), who wrote: “You are not making a gift of what is yours to the poor, but you are giving back what is theirs … The earth belongs to everyone, not to the rich.’’

Jesus warns us in John’s Gospel of thieves who steal, kill and destroy while, in contrast, Jesus comes to give life in its fullness. As a wealthy nation which consumes many products that are unsustainably produced from the land, resources and labour of poor countries, we might ask ourselves how much we “buy” into prevailing systems of production and consumption, rather than accepting Jesus’s invitation to follow him into a true fullness of life — one of freedom, compassion, manaakitanga, generosity, justice and whanaungatanga.

Inequality is, of course, just as much in evidence within Aotearoa as it is globally. Most of us take it for granted that we are entitled to what we have. Last month a prominent political figure demonstrated a blatant but seemingly unconscious sense of entitlement to a housing allowance on top of a huge salary, seven houses and additional private wealth. But am I, albeit with much less, also guilty of presuming I am entitled to superannuation, a life of comfort and possessions — not all of which I need?

Roles of Individuals and Government

There is much we can do to live more sustainably, including suggested actions from the Laudato Si’ Action Platform toward the goal of sustainable lifestyles. These include transitioning to more plant-based diets; gardening and composting; flying and driving less as well as choosing an electric vehicle when possible; buying mostly local, in-season food; reducing purchases of new consumer goods; and lessening our use of water, heating, lighting and cooling where possible.

But in light of the LSE study, achieving ecological and resource sustainability would also require governments to change taxation, subsidy and benefit systems and adjust to lower GDP. It would require many individuals to bring their lifestyles to a level which is more basic and provides for needs but not necessarily wants. If solving inequality meant giving up even 50 per cent of my belongings, wouldn’t I do it to ensure others could eat, have a home and equal access to education and health care?

Living Simply — Why?

Sustainable lifestyles are simpler lifestyles. Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement, provided food, housing and community for the poor, drew attention to systemic injustice against women, factory and farmworkers and voluntarily lived the same poverty they did. Thomas Merton embraced evangelical poverty when he joined the Gethsemani Abbey, looking to strip away everything in himself that was not God — and this gave him the freedom to see and write about the evils of war, poverty and social injustice. Jesus and St Francis also embraced voluntary poverty so that nothing was in the way of their ability to relate to others. Voluntary poverty may be a step too far for most of us, but “living with less” is surely doable.

Simple lifestyles can unencumber us from possessions and pursuits that distract us from what is important in life. Rosa, in Venezuela, had the freedom to offer me generosity from her heart that I will never forget. It involved sacrifice — self-giving — something Catholics once embraced perhaps in the wrong kinds of ways, but the principle is one we should retrieve.

Today the lifestyles we live separate us from those in the developing world and even those in our own cities. I talk to people begging in front of suburban shops, but I don’t have good friends outside my middle-class comfort zone.

Living more simply would be a challenge, but it would make more resources available for those who really need them, break down barriers, offer new freedoms and open us to the fullness of life we are meant for.

Tui Motu Magazine. Issue 291 April 2024: 14-15