I recently finished reading a fascinating book titled "Simplicity" by Richard Rohr. Despite that fact that he is a Franciscan priest, much of this well written book will resonate quite well with Pagans. Richard identifies and speaks against many evils that Pagans struggle with as well, and the only place where we differ is in the final solution which for him, of course, involves accepting Jesus. I highly recommend it to anyone as a great and thoughtful read.

Richard talks specifically about how shallow and materialistic our society has become, and what a trap it is. He points out how difficult it is to be truly spiritual if you are addicted to material possessions. This struck a chord with me since I confess to being a total Pack Rat. I collect stuff. Good stuff, bad stuff, useless stuff, but never "junk"! I hate to throw things away, and if I have a chance to add something to my collection of "stuff" I do so. Who knows when you might need it? To be fair, my biggest problem is that I have way too many hobbies, and each one has its own collection of tools, supplies, etc.

Now I'm trying to slowly recover from my addiction to stuff. I go through things and try to weed out stuff I haven't used in 3 years or more. Even if I might need them someday. Recycle, sell, or throw away. Part of the problem is admitting that some hobbies I just won't ever have time to come back to. Instead I work at concentrating on a few key passions. And while I have far to go, I must admit that I feel a little freer and lighter with each batch of stuff that leaves the house. And I'm doing pretty good on bringing new stuff into the house at a slower rate than old stuff is going out.

Thinking about this, I was reminded of the Janis Joplin song "Mercedes Benz" which she wrote to poke fun at materialism and I thought it would be fun to record a version of it. Using some of my recording "stuff" I did a multi-track version of it by myself. If you are interested you can check it out at http://www.bluesparksmedia.net/Music/MercedesBenz.mp3 - just a litte fun!

Janis' song is particularly interesting because in it she keeps asking God to "give" her things. Not only are they things that she doesn't really need, but wants because all her friends have them, but she doesn't want to work for them - she just wants to have them handed to her!

BTW - Janis died 4 days after recording her original version. Fortunately, I have made it well past that mark.