Metanoia Story: Anastasia Brewster

Reflecting on the Trek

I have the immense privilege to participate in a weekly small group with four dear women I met through my local church. We all happen to be raising small children, live in urban San Diego, and desire to make lifestyle choices that reflect our identity as children of God. This Spring we decided to be guided by the Mennonite Central Committee’s “Basic Trek: Venture into a world of enough”, a 28-day reflection guide on living not with less, but with enough for everyone.

When I’m completely honest, I wasn’t sure what I would get out of the Trek. You see, ten years ago, I was first introduced to the holistic Gospel of the Kingdom at a Christian Community Development Association (CCDA) conference, where I immediately resonated with good news that represented not just good news for my soul, not just good news for everyone’s soul, but good news of a redemptive plan for all of Creation, including the seen organic world, and the unseen systemic structures. I immediately applied the teaching to my life by throwing my corporate consultant self into community life in a forgotten corner of urban Phoenix. Rubbing up against severe poverty and abandonment experienced by many of the children I mentored in my free time, it wasn’t long before my husband and I felt led to consider downward mobility so he could intern and work at an inner city faith community. Soon after Chris took the new job, our biblical understanding of the incarnation asked us to consider relocating from our quiet suburban townhome to live among our friends in downtown Phoenix. It was in this context of life, worship, and service that our hearts were forever married to working with the marginalized and suffering. We lived on a gang- and drug-infested street that suffered invisibility and disinvestment despite being a main commuter artery to the State Capital campus. There, the problems of this forgotten barrio became our problems. In so many ways my social justice conscience was cultivated.

And yet, as these past two months in Trek has shown me, there is always still so much more to learn.

Due to effective corporate media and my own laziness, it has been relatively easy to miss the connectedness between my consumer habits and the plight of the poor, both locally and globally. I confess that I dismissed some messages that infiltrated my “ignorance is bliss” bubble as trendy and out of reach for all but the privileged who can afford organic food or shiny new hybrid cars. But my concern for the poor is untenable with a disregard for environmental health since they are so inter-connected. Pesticides don’t merely hurt watersheds, they hurt entire workforces of farmers and communities who lack the resource and voice to advocate for themselves. And that is why Basic Trek was such an important journey for me. The 28-day guide carved out time for sustained thought processes to make those intellectual connections that lead to a heart connection and then, hopefully, on toward a practical day-to-day connection to action. For me, as a gradual change sort of person, this has translated into these new commitments:

• EAT SLOWER: cook more, menu plan (meatless Mondays, waste-free lunches for kids, grow salad garden)
• LIVE MORE: commit to scheduled reflection time, stick to work hour limits so I can parent well & be involved in our community, make gifts
• CELEBRATE: initiate hospitality (don’t wait for invitations), verbalize gratitude

The questions that still linger center on time. Many of the purist actions suggested by the Trek involve very time-consuming domestic work with which our modern culture is simply unfamiliar—like thrift-shopping, gardening, canning, taking public transit, limiting appliance use. For a mom of small children, who has little free time, this can feel unachievable, so instead of getting overwhelmed, I celebrate the small changes and hope to gradually add more every year. For example, I grew up eating Minute Rice, so I’m proud to have added such foods as brown rice, lentils and other raw beans to my recipe box. I now buy eggs from a friend, and I buy more organic produce. I tend to over-commitment, so I have committed to making calendar apppointments for time to reflect. Perhaps the most significant, transformative realization, though, is my new desire to remain part-time employed even as my children become school-aged. And it comes down to time. I choose to live with enough time not just to work and care well for my family, but also to live well as a neighbor. And for my family, 1.5 full-time employment is our max.

If you are looking for a resource to guide you in a more sustainable lifestyle, the Basic Trek is relevant, accessibile workbook. I do, however, think it is more useful for group study to help you go deeper and sustain some of the changes you are inspired to make.

Anastasia is a guest on episode 8 of The Common Good Podcast, along with Richard Lawrence of the San Diego Community Land Trust.