Easter

It's Easter, and at this time of year I often hear the phrase “so that the scripture would be fulfilled” (John 19:36) given as the reason why Jesus had to suffer and die on the cross. I have always wondered at this kind of reasoning. This morning, however, I was thinking the words of John may not so much reveal a divine plan, but rather how Jesus had listened to the scriptures. Jesus “fulfilled” the written words by experiencing them in His own flesh. Rather than carrying out a plan, He revealed the truth of the scriptures by living them. Is that not also our own experience? That we suddenly understand words we said in the past at the moment we put them into practice. We may think that we understand words when we can “explain” them, but do we really? Do the words not only come alive when felt as realities in our flesh? I hear someone say, “I am poor” and respond, “I understand.” But I do not, until I am in touched by my own poverty. Only then, do words like “need,” “possession,” and “privilege” reveal their full meaning. Only then I can “fulfil” them. This is, I feel, what The Living Experiment is all about. A ’verb’ is a word that describes an action, if I was to say ‘God is a verb’ perhaps I could be describing The Living Experiment, its communities, its circular economics, food production and retail businesses.

As a scholar of Franciscan studies, I have written about Francis’ neurotic reaction to money and his deeply felt love for a life without property. I have studied the Franciscan practice of ‘usus pauper’, a manner of using the planets resources, according to one’s individual needs, and nothing more. Historian Giacomo Todeschini describes this Franciscan attitude towards the sources of the earth and the needs of the humans as an effective economic practice. If an individual is in touch with their needs, not using more than strictly needed, they develop a sensitivity for the value of worldly goods and people. A Franciscan economy, therefore, is not only a possible, but also an effective economy. This was understood by the merchants who visited Franciscan fathers for confession and discovered that they, the merchants and the friars, were speaking the same language. Their respective practices had fulfilled the meaning of their words. And they worked.

Franciscans, like Pierre de Jean Olivi, can be considered the founders of an early economic school. Reading their writings may often lead to the thought that, paradoxically, it was poor Franciscans who laid the foundations for modern capitalism. Their state of ‘possessionlessness’ may have been a perfect disposition from which to understand the mysterious character of the markets. Developing a clear sense of the forces of need, use and dominion, Franciscans learned to control them. They understood the economy as a form of communication, of life’s mystery, communicated through the living body, its actions, the way it moved in harmony, not working against another, resisting the call of ‘what’s in it for me’?’ and embracing ‘what’s in it for us?’.

Of course, there were misunderstandings. Practicing needs practice, and practice is always open for mistakes.  If the Franciscan economy of ‘vivere sine proprio’ and ‘usus pauper’ would be a trick for good fortune, we would not have economical problems. And, perhaps, this is the evil of today’s capitalism, where the divine mystery has been replaced by the golden calf (Ex 32). 

Fulfilling the Scriptures does not mean relying on God to guarantee your success but sensing how all your actions are guided so that you can see where to set your feet.  The Living Experiment exists to showcase that, in today’s world dominated by ownership and possession, there are alternative value systems that can give humans cause for hope.

Professor Willem Marie Speelman