I have often heard Catholic sisters and nuns say, “Join the convent, see the world” because many of us do travel quite a bit for ministry and mission. Along with that comes the always pleasant task of actually moving. You know what I mean — boxes, tape, clutter, dust, lifting, moving, renting, changing, bubble wrap, exhaustion!

Moving also gives one the opportunity for self-reflection, to think about what one is attached to, how simply one lives, what facilitates community and mission, etc.

As you might suspect, I am in the process of moving — like right at this moment. My computer is the last to go. In an hour I will be picking up our 17′ rental truck (the experience of driving that thing in Chicago will probably make for an interesting blog post!) in order to move out of my current abode and to a new house with another IHM sister where we can live and offer hospitality to our IHM sisters and others.

Chloe the Convent Cat is coming along with us, and as you can see, she’s a bit self-reflective too.

We’ve done a great job at sorting and donating stuff. It’s so easy to accumulate “stuff” so I’m hoping to keep things simple. I feel better when I have less clutter, less stuff to be distracted by. After traveling so much, I realize that most of what I need I can toss in a backpack.

What have been your experiences of “move”? What does living simply mean for you?