A Reflection On Two Daily Works by SANDRA POVEDA & PAULINA RUBIO

Considering the meaning of life in community and of ‘simple lifestyle’ and what that means for us has not been an easy task. Because each person’s experience and each community involves different aspects that make them unique. Each one of us, with our different personalities, cultures, interests, feelings and ways of perceiving the world, enrich the experience of community and individual reflection whilst all trying to live a simple lifestyle. We have tried to overcome the difficult discussions in attempting to find an answer and in the end have found that we in community all have a common purpose – to foment by love and respect for one other – and we find it is one of the most important works in our daily life. We are going to say something about starting life in community, what values need to be shared by the people in it and about some of those values we share, including that of living ‘simply’.

Starting with Yourself
In order to have a good relationship with the other members of the community it is important that you are happy and at peace with yourself. This is because if you are not comfortable with yourself, you will not be able to give the best or even a little part of you. So begin by understanding how it is or what you need to feel these things. There may be a danger, you might think, of starting life in community concentrating too much on yourself when the focus should be on others, or that it may lead to becoming a selfish person. But give real importance to these things first and think how they will change and how you will cope with the changes and what you really need or can live without. A large aspect of a comfortable environment in your community is each member of the community having their own time and space. In this way we can feel free and not obliged to be ‘in’ the community every hour of every day and because of this, we value our time together.

Shared Values
The respect, responsibility, honesty, dignity, independence and effort of every member is basic to starting to have a good relationship with the community. Maybe your community can become a second family, but if it does not have one of these values shared between its individuals, it’s going to be tricky for the people to become close until a common value is found. We know that we live in a world of deep inequalities and social injustices, where poverty, social exclusion, war and environmental deterioration affect the lives of thousands of peoples. There are men and women of different nationalities, ages, races and religions who have been caught in economic marginalisation and who have suffered the costs of war and the subsequent economic alienation.

As young people we keep the hope of living in a more human and more fraternal world for all. We have hope of living in a more human and more fraternal world. We have hope that wars will no longer be made against the poor but against poverty and the conditions of life of those displaced refugees, poor and homeless who need decent homes. We have hope that people place more value on your ideas than your skin colour, your nationality, your religion or your social condition and affirm that humanity is a single family and that we inhabit a single country called earth and when humanity suffers we all suffer for each one of our siblings, parents, friends and relatives.

Motivations Toward Simplicity
Living a Simple Lifestyle was a voluntary choice, motivated by spiritual, ecological and health reasons. When we hear “Simple Lifestyle” we always think that it’s about our money or material things, but it is not always that. It also applies to the way of being of each one of us and, in other words, we are also talking about Humility. But… do we know what humility means? The meaning depends on each person, but for us it is very simple. It means rejecting as much as possible whatever creates division between you, me, us, and everyone. If we are people living by humility we will be more able to be a real family without caring about material things. Our experience as volunteers and living a simple lifestyle as one of the principal values of our community has enabled us to value more our lives in general, starting from small and simple things like the daily exercise simple living entails to being two important instruments for reflection, helping us to take conscience on as our lifestyle as it impacts on our social environment (and that includes all people in all places).

Because the value of human life and human dignity is paramount and equal, the hope and the love we have experienced in our communities aspires toward all in the world and it is all our responsibility to promote this.
Sandra and Paulina were JVC volunteers 2006-. Sandra worked with Refugees, Paulina in a school and with visitors to Manchester Prison