Seeds of peace and war.

When we moved to our big old house, two households joined into one. Five of us live together.

This brings immense benefits and a few challenges.

One of the benefits is that we like each other. It’s a cheering and companionable thing to have the encouragement and delight of each other’s friendship, doing the journey together.

Another benefit is sharing. Two houses half the size, each with a garden half the size, would cost a lot more than half the money. Here, each person benefits from the big, lofty rooms and spacious garden with its trees and wildlife, that none of us could have if we lived separately. If each of the five of us had a dwelling for one, all of us would need mortgages and probably none of us would have a garden or a freehold.

Though five of us live here, we don’t need belongings x 5. We have one juicer, one 3-tier veg steamer, one cooker, one fridge-freezer, one electric kettle, one toaster, one water distiller. Our big house absorbs these things comfortably without feeling cluttered. So the space-to-stuff ratio is higher than if we lived separately.

There are not many challenges. Two that come to mind (essentially two manifestations of the same challenge) are the vacuum cleaner and the lawn mower. Neither really affects me because I loathe power tools, almost never vacuum the floors and have never mowed an entire lawn in my life. Though there is an ancient ciné film of me, aged three, wearing sunglasses, valiantly attempting to mow the lawn at dusk (why?)

Household 1 (in order of moving in to this house) brought a Vorwerk vacuum cleaner with a large train of accoutrements, and owns two power mowers – one electric, one petrol. At the time of moving in, the Vorwerk accoutrements had lain almost untouched since purchase, transported from home to home in various moves, ‘in case’. They included cardboard items chewed and peed on by mice, but one of us found these and threw them away.

Household 2 brought a Henry Hoover and a hand-mower.

Each household swears by their tools and neither wishes to part with them, though the owner of the Vorwerk did (after time and persuasion) ruefully agree to the unused accoutrements being despatched to the dump, and Henry's similar accoutrements went the same way.

Which tools are best and should be used, and why, gives rise to a certain amount of friction. Best I not go into this: I mention it merely to explain the background of the reflection that follows.

It occurred to me today that, in our household at any rate, the seeds of peace are found in the areas where we have less, and the seeds of war where we have more. Back to the wisdom of Toinette Lippe: “Problems arise where things accumulate”.

The peace and delight of our multi-home lies in the space and the sharing – we all get more by owning less. Having just the one kettle, toaster, fridge etc, means we all have more money and we all have more room. Everything goes further and makes life nicer. Less is more quite literally in our house.

The friction and stress occurs in those areas where we clutch tightly to our own things, insisting our version is best and adamantly hanging on to it. It’s understandable, of course; “To each his own”, as the saying goes. We all have our own way of doing things.

As my thoughts wandered through this territory, I remembered another source of friction from early in my marriage. I owned a few (three, I think) buddhas. Attending a conservative evangelical church whose members would be coming round for housegroup meetings, my (then new) husband thought it prudent I keep them out of sight. I know why: “Idols!” a Methodist neighbor had referred to them, in tones of contempt, at a previous location. [FYI, statues of the Buddha are not idols: they are not worshipped – they represent the awakened self and are merely the alarm clocks of the soul saying “Wake up!” in a most pleasing and beautiful way.]

At the time, this annoyed me intensely. I clung to my buddhas and it put me off the church big-time. There you go – seeds of war!

In every scenario where material objects are treasured and clutched tight, lies the potential for division. Things are divisive. They are seeds of war. The seeds of peace lie in sharing them and getting rid of them. Problems arise where things accumulate.

I now think the right place for the awakened self is not in a work of art but the interior of my soul.

It have come to think that every time I take to myself a material object, I increase the likelihood of dissent and division. Things not given material expression do not develop into seeds of war. War is about territory and power. Territory and power are about acquisition and possession - ownership. 

Likewise in the church. The wars and quarrels often arise around the music ministry or the flower ministry, or whether women can or can’t be leaders, or who can preach or be ordained, or who can sit in this pew.

Take away the hierarchy, the liturgy, the flower arrangements and the pews, stick with silence, no leadership, a bunch of wildflowers in a jam jar and chairs in a circle, and suddenly you have the seeds of peace. Which is one reason I like Quakers – they’ve noticed this.

Material possessions, and thoughts formalized into rules and organisations, become love objects and get between us and our fellow human beings. Problems arise where things accumulate, where anything ossifies into rules that define and exclude, where acquisition is in ascendancy, possessions multiply, and territory and power are factors at all, let alone the focus.

Simplicity testimony is peace testimony. They go hand in hand.

Simplicity is the seedpouch of the peaceable kingdom.