J
JimR-OCDS
Guest
In his book, Walden Pond, and Civil Disobedience, Thoreau gives us a lesson in life, and as he called it, “living deliberately.”
His experiment at Walden Pond was actually putting Emerson’s theories to the test, that living a simple life, in communion with the nature God created, is the best way live.
Its monastic in this respect.
During 1845 when Thoreau moved out to Walden Pond, life around Concord Mass, was centered on the protestant work ethic and as Thoreau observed, enslaved most people to their material goods, i.e. their homes, their status symbols, etc. As he points out in his book, that every farmer that he knows of, has a mortgage which he is a slave to and he could not count on one hand, the number of farmers who had ever paid off their mortgages. In Concord Mass of that time, people lived in huge homes. In fact, if you visit Concord today, those homes are still standing and they are large, even by today’s standards. However, not only were their homes to large, but their entire way of life, shackled them to their labors in paying off loans, which were made to purchase most of what they had. Does this sound familiar in our own day?
As he wrote, “the true cost of a thing, is how much life one has to sacrifice, to obtain it.”
Is this statement less true because Thoreau wasn’t a Catholic, or that the Catholic Church didn’t phrase it this way?
The Church does teach the values of living a life of “poverty in spirit,” which is essentially its the same thing Thoreau taught.
I hope we never come once again to a day where we are to read only the books on the approve list of the Catholic Church, which I see a hint of being suggested in this forum.
If you haven’t read Waldon Pond, read it. While your at it, also read Robinson Caruso, even if you read it before. Its one of the best stories of conversion to faith, that was ever written. …And you probably thought it had more to do with survival on an desert island.
Jim
His experiment at Walden Pond was actually putting Emerson’s theories to the test, that living a simple life, in communion with the nature God created, is the best way live.
Its monastic in this respect.
During 1845 when Thoreau moved out to Walden Pond, life around Concord Mass, was centered on the protestant work ethic and as Thoreau observed, enslaved most people to their material goods, i.e. their homes, their status symbols, etc. As he points out in his book, that every farmer that he knows of, has a mortgage which he is a slave to and he could not count on one hand, the number of farmers who had ever paid off their mortgages. In Concord Mass of that time, people lived in huge homes. In fact, if you visit Concord today, those homes are still standing and they are large, even by today’s standards. However, not only were their homes to large, but their entire way of life, shackled them to their labors in paying off loans, which were made to purchase most of what they had. Does this sound familiar in our own day?
As he wrote, “the true cost of a thing, is how much life one has to sacrifice, to obtain it.”
Is this statement less true because Thoreau wasn’t a Catholic, or that the Catholic Church didn’t phrase it this way?
The Church does teach the values of living a life of “poverty in spirit,” which is essentially its the same thing Thoreau taught.
I hope we never come once again to a day where we are to read only the books on the approve list of the Catholic Church, which I see a hint of being suggested in this forum.
If you haven’t read Waldon Pond, read it. While your at it, also read Robinson Caruso, even if you read it before. Its one of the best stories of conversion to faith, that was ever written. …And you probably thought it had more to do with survival on an desert island.
Jim