Connie sent me this great quote by G.K. Chesterton about Francis of Assisi. It says:

“it is utterly useless to study a great thing like the Franciscan movement while remaining in the modern mood that murmurs against gloomy asceticism. The whole point about St. Francis of Assisi is that he certainly was ascetical and he certainly was not gloomy…there was nothing negative about it; it was not a regimen or a stoical simplicity of life. It was not self-denial merely in the sense of self-control. It was as positive as a passion; it had all the air of being as positive as a pleasure. He devoured fasting as a man devours food. He plunged after poverty as men have dug madly for gold. And it is precisely the positive and passionate quality of this part of his personality that is a challenge to the modern mind in the whole problem of the pursuit of pleasure.”

I’ve been trying to figure out this whole thing. Trying to explain to myself and to others why I would be choosing the type of lifestyle for myself and my family that I’m trying to choose.

I’m definitely far from the ascetic that Assisi was, but I do desire to have the same passionate pursuit for the things of God that he had.