Spiritual Poverty

Notes from Elena's talk on 11/6:

The two requirements of spiritual poverty are: a) to be grateful for what we have (taking good care of our possessions, home, relationships) and b) a detachment to what we have. Spiritual poverty doesn't have to mean complete material poverty, but freedom from attachment to our material things. When Gog calls us to part with certain luxuries or comforts that we are used to, can we do it? Does the parting bring us closer to God?

A path for us to concretely obtain the virtue of spiritual poverty is to map out a realistic understanding of our material needs and then create a budget for those needs. Living within our needs helps to keep us on track with this virtue.

Furthermore, once we have established this in the material part of our life we can then transfer the ideas of gratitude and detachment to all aspects of our life. For example, thinking that, "I will be happy when we finally 'get a bigger car,' or 'once my child is eating solids,'" is an attachment to a state other than the present. While it is good to he hopeful and optimistic for the future or reminiscent of the past, we cannot waste our time in the what-ifs of life if they are making us unhappy with our present condition.