Recently I read “Happy Are You Poor” by Fr. Thomas Dubay. This is not a book I could easily recommend, unless you want to feel uncomfortable, very uncomfortable. Dubay proposes a level of radical detachment that is well beyond what I’ve ever desired or even witnessed. In fact, I probably never would have chosen to read this book on my own, but it ended up in my bathroom, and so I opened it. I wondered at first if it was my husband’s attempt to get me to spend less money, but my husband doesn’t have a conniving or manipulative bone in his body, so if he wanted me to spend less, he’d tell me.

Despite the challenge that Dubay proposes, and my fears of being called to live a simpler and less materialistic life, I couldn’t put this book down. The truths he presents are uncomfortable indeed, but somehow attractive at the same time. He promises a joy and peace that this world cannot offer. Well, actually it’s not Dubay that promises this, but Christ Himself. He also promises that if we embrace this call to detatchment, we can change the world. As St. Catherine of Siena says, “If you are what you are meant to be, you will set the world on fire”.

“If we wonder why, despite the millions of us who follow Christ, the world has not long ago been converted, we need not look far for one solution. We are not perceived as men on fire. We look too much like everyone else. We appear to be compromisers, people who say that they believe in everlasting life but actually live as though this life is the only one we have.”

Ouch. Ummm.... guilty as charged. Since I stay home and my husband works for the Church, I would say we live simpler than some, but in reality we do look an awful lot like everyone else. And I’m not sure I’m ready to look “different” or to let my sons look “different”. But as Dave Ramsey says, “Normal is broke.” Normal is often also empty.

“The wealthy are bored to death in the dullness of their cocktail parties. There is a sprinkle of pleasure here and there, and it is de rigueur to put on a brave front and a superficial smile, even though one feels the gnawing emptiness in his aching heart.”

A recent video clip of two famous movie stars makes the point well:

I love this clip because it illustrates both the emptiness that even the rich and famous experience as well as our need for God, not only for His forgiveness, but also to lift us up out of the mire, or to help us stop hugging the cactus, as the case may be.

“The worldling will not face his colossal inner blah. He multiplies experiences in an unending and desperate attempt to numb his spirit. It hurts so much not to have attained the very reason for his existence, an immersion in God, that he uses things as a narcotic. The worldling pursues prestige or comfort or wealth or sexual encounters not because they basically satisfy him (if they did, once would be enough) but because they dull his inner aching. Always and eventually he is faced with his personal failure. But the sight of it is so revolting and painful, he dives once again into the aspirin sea of frantic pursuits.

The saints know better. Having tasted the best, they know how to assess the least. Having drunk at the Fountain, they spend little time with the trickles.”

I can say that I have experienced both my “colossal inner blah” as well as the deep and abiding joy that comes from God alone. I suppose that is why this book resonated with me, despite myself. I know that “things” cannot bring me joy, yet I enjoy a thousand little luxuries everyday. And while I don’t feel ready to don camelhair or fast on bread and water, I do feel like maybe God would like me to find a few of those luxuries to do without.

Dubay reminds us that many of our efforts are really distractions. Living a simple detached life

“shouts reality into the ears of anyone willing to hear. It dissipates the tinselly illusions of marketing and advertising and consumerism. It declares that elegant dining and drinking, extensive wardrobes, expensive traveling and position, prestige, and pleasure seeking are really side issues, indeed, often impediments, to the main business of life.”

And so I find myself challenged. And uncomfortable. And a little guilty. But also inspired. Maybe I can recommend this book after all. As we prepare to enter the Christmas season, we need something to counter the “tinselly illusions of marketing and advertising”. Dubay offers a vision that is radical and demanding, but also beautiful and strangely reminiscent of the simple manger where our Savior was born.