If a person does not despise all material things, all glory, all bodily rest, and all claim to righteousness, they cannot cut off their own will or be delivered from anger and sorrow or bring tranquility to their neighbor.

I love Dorotheos. I find great inspiration and direction from Dorotheos. I love to share Dorotheos. But occasionally he pushes my buttons. Reflecting on today’s maxim, I balk. I confess that I have never even tried to despise all material things. I enjoy my material things WAY too much. Furthering my confession, I have enjoyed “glory,” recognition for things I have done that have been appreciated by others. I crave bodily rest. I have never much claimed any substantial amount of righteousness, so, 1-out-of-4, right?

However, I do get the wisdom. My stuff takes up a lot of my time. In retirement, I am finding that rest is taking up even more of my time. I don’t much seek “glory,” though I do like to be praised and appreciated. Yet, the more time I am focused on myself, the less I am focused on God, God’s glory, God’s righteousness, and God’s gifts. I understand this intellectually; I don’t do anything about it. And this comes with the realization that I spend a lot of my resting time in prayer, reflection, Bible study, and reading commentaries and devotional material for fun.

In this Advent season, I pause to think about the difference between my current cultural reality and that of first century Middle Easterners. I am sitting at a computer with a movie playing in the background on a flat-screen TV, my smart phone at my elbow, surrounded by a library of books, in a warm, dry, secure home with electricity, indoor plumbing, etc. I am connected constantly and globally, with an almost infinite amount of data, information, misinformation, and entertainment at my fingertips. I am free to jump in a vehicle and go just about anywhere I want to, including an airport that can take me just about anywhere in the world. I have an entire handload of medications and vitamins to take daily to promote my health and well-being. I have a doctor, a dentist, a financial advisor, I give platelets monthly at the Red Cross, and I have people I pay to cut my hair, feed me tacos, serve me coffee, spray my house for bugs. I have food aplenty just a few miles away, produced, prepared, packaged, and replenished for me. I have clean water. I can have almost anything I want delivered to my door within hours of ordering. I have had an excellent education, a career of secure employment, and an amazing lifetime of opportunities. Alas, I do not despise these things.

But by God’s grace, I do not take them for granted. Part of the blessing of my fortunate ministry has been to travel around the world, seeing how others live who have substantially less than I have. Even in places of abject and devastating poverty and lack, I have found joy, contentment, and a level of acceptance I can hardly fathom. It has been a powerful reminder that meaning, purpose, and fulfillment are not dependent on material things, glory, righteousness, or comfort. Many people living with so much less than I have can much more easily relate to the original Advent anticipating the Messiah. They certainly have many fewer distractions and diversions.

I take the teaching today to be a needed and humbling reminder that my being, my essence, my purpose, and my value is in my faith and in the way I live with others. I do not find true tranquility, comfort, satisfaction, and meaning in all my stuff. I am blessed in so many ways – perhaps too many ways – and I acknowledge that some of these blessings actually get in the way of my relationship with God.

During this Advent season I feel called to meditate on the concept that less is more. I don’t need more stuff. I don’t need more accolades. I don’t need more rest than I already get. And I certainly need to work on those things that God deems righteous rather than the self-righteous pursuits in which I sometimes engage. What gets in your way in your relationship with God and neighbor? What would life look like if we truly despised ALL material things, ALL ego-building adoration and praise, ALL pursuit of luxury comfort and rest, ALL sense of superiority and righteousness? If we cannot achieve totality, how much is enough?