This weekend, I received quite a few e-mails and FB messages asking for that closing quote I read on the radio program last Thursday. The comment was written by Brian McLaren in the 30th anniversary edition of the book “Living More with Less” by the late Doris Janzen Longacre (Herald Press). So here it is:

Grace is the best motivation for a more-with-less lifestyle. Having received grace ourselves, we want our neighbor in poverty to receive it too. Even our enemies need grace, we realize. So do the rivers and streams, the soil and wind; we don’t want to stress them to their limits, but rather to treat them gently, graciously, generously. 

And the same goes for the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, the flowers and creatures of the field. We want each to be given all the grace they need to thrive and prosper. It is our joy to live with less so that others may have enough.

This is the more-with-less life: it is full of conviction and also full of grace. It is committed to practical action and also to expansive generosity. It is eager to do what’s good and beautiful and also to do it in a good and beautiful spirit. It is confident that an abundant life is a simple life, and that one enjoys more by grasping less.