Moving in the right direction.

Rick and I have spent the last five days getting this brick two-flat in Aurora move-in ready by pulling up old carpets and refinishing the hardwood floors ourselves. My head still hurts from the varnish stripping fumes and the sound of the industrial floor sander, but soon we hope that our efforts will pay off in multiple ways. The bottom floor apartment will be for Rick's Mom and the top floor will be for us. The idea is downsizing. Shared space means shared expenses and shared expenses means that we need less to meet our bills, so we can give away more to help other people meet their bills. Redistribution just as Paul envisioned it in 2 Corinthians 8. "He who gathered much did not have to much and he who gathered little did not have too little." Downsizing is good stewardship and that's the direction we'd like to go. Moving in the right direction -- for those of us who have gathered too much -- means moving on down. There are definitely some things I will miss about my three bedroom house with the nice big kitchen, finished basement, and great backyard, but it's much more than we need. And there is something really freeing about letting go of it. Don't get me wrong, we're no where near where we'd like to be in terms of simple living, but it feels good to be taking some steps in the right direction. I pray that this move will only be the first step in our journey of figuring out what practicing redistribution really looks like. Even as I'm writing this I recognize in myself a kind of arrogance in announcing this to the world -- or at least the handful of people who read this blog. Taking the Gospel seriously is so hard! A person definitely needs some good partners to even attempt it.