a few words on downward mobility

 

 

For the people who critique downward mobility, the term: 

I’m sorry. It’s just words. Use different words if you need to. I use it as an easy, succinct way to describe consciously choosing to not pursue climbing the ladder of the American dream. Smaller living spaces, simple living, done with reconciliation and relationship as the goal. Arguing about the terms is boring and useless. In fact, arguing in general just tires me out.

 

 

For the people who critique downward mobility, the practice:

This is probably not the series for you.

 

 

For the people who feel guilty, or shamed in regards to conversations about downward mobility:

I’m sorry. Nothing good ever comes from guilt. But everything beautiful comes from love.

 

 

For the people who feel like failures: 

You’re not. You’re not. You’re not.

 

 

For the practitioners, the people who are trying to live this out, in one or two or twenty very small ways; to the people living with mice and cockroaches and bedbugs, those with neighbors who slam doors in their faces or cook them a lovely pot of curry; those who lay awake at night thinking about violence and abuse and neglect and grief; for those with one coat or one bike or pots with no lids; for those who work all day with little or no recognition, who hang out with the mentally ill and the lonely and the brusque; for those who love the urine-soaked city streets and the quiet rural poor; for those that cook big pots of lentil soup, who leave the doors unlocked, who see the world as big and broken and offer up what little you have, the tiny, laughable loaves and fishes of your life, your privilege, your face, your body, your hands and face and smile, day after day after day, in the neighborhoods far from where you grew up:

I love you.

May the peace of Christ be with you, wherever he may send you.