1. History of Voluntaries simplicity

6. SIMPLICITY IN THE ANCIENT WORLD

7. INTRODUCTION The people of the ancient world were not characterized precisely by there simplicity. One example of that are the pictures of there gods and goddesses. Fortunately, there were philosophers that were characterized for having a simple life. IN GRECCE -Diogenes - Socrates IN ROME -Jesus Christ

8. GREECE People in Greece were merchants and they had contact with other cultures. In Greece philosophy appeared. Two philosophers with a simple life were Sócrates and Diogenes.

9. DIOGENES Diogenes lived as a vagabond in the streets of Athens, turning extreme poverty into a virtue. It is said that he was living in a barrel and his only possesions were a blanket, a candle, a walking stick and a cavity.

10. SOCRATES Socrates was one of the most famous Greek philosophers. He was always wearing the same cap, and was tremendously austere as for food and drink. Many people said that no slave would like to be treated like he was treating himself.

11. ROMAN EMPIRE The people in the empire were practical people and excelent warriors but they were not interested in leading a simple life. Those who had the Roman citizenship were having a life full of luxury and waste. But not all people were like the Romans, Jesus Christ was an excelent example of simplicity.

12. Jesus Christ He was borned in Galilea, a zone of Palestina; in a very poor family (his father was a carpenter). When he was borned, Galilea was a province of the Roman Empire. Here in Galilea, the predominant religion was the Judaism. Some of the Judaism leaders, called pharisees, had a luxury life. But Jesus’ techings were very different:

14. Medieval Age

16. San Millán de la Cogolla

17. Biography It is born Millán or Emiliano in Berceo in the year 473. Was a shepherd of sheep to the 20 years. While its cattle grazed they say that touched the wooden flute or intoned songs with the accompaniment of the cítara. At the age of twenty and plunged in a mystical dream an angel indicates him the road of the cliffs of Bilibio (Haro) in which a hermit by name Félix or Happy will instruct him so that he continue his example. He was with him for 3 years.

18. Later returned to Suso where lived like the hermit, being already very admired. Later longing for greater severity and isolation, lived 40 years, doing austere penitence in that famous and high cave that so much themselves scallop to pending average of the top of Brown Head, road of San Lorenzo, where every year the neighbors of the towns of the valley in pilgrimage by the summer rise. Died in the year 574 having lived 101 years.

19. That gave meaning to life Its way of life goes charging fame of holiness and is called by Dídimo, bishop of Tarazona, for to be ordered priest and to name him parson of Berceo. Here one of the most curious facts of its legendary biography is produced: since these administrative tasks did not seem to insert with its character and delivered all the donations property from the parish to them you needed was accused of embezzlement for which was destitute by the bishop Dídimo.

20. Again it returns to his earthly mounts despoiled of every attribute and lives like solitary hermit while goes growing his halo of holiness. They are attributed him diverse miracles and they begin to respond numerous pilgrims to know him and there were other hermits that remained in this small valley to continue their teachings and to form a community.

21. Contributions made It based on its old age a monastery dúplice (of friars and of nuns) in Suso that great fame gave him. Almost all the members of this religious community were Saints, like the Saint Potamia, San Roast it, San Sofronio, San Citonato and San Geroncio. It is almost sure that all they were buried in that place, around Suso. Because of its teachings, the community grew and the lower monastery was founded or of Yuso, that harbored a great library and the first words in Spaniard

22. Santo Domingo de la Calzada

32. Also we have still had other more important miracles as that of the rooster and the hen, which tells the history of a 18-year-old German young man called Hugonell, who was doing the Way of Santiago. At the inn where he was lodging there was employed a young girl who falls in love with him and asks him of loves, to what the boy refuses. Driven to despair and with anxieties of revenge she guards in the husk of the young man a glass of silver and then she accuses him of theft. The young man Hugonell and his parents prepare to divide to continue the peregrinaje, when the justice comes and verify the accusation registering the husk of the boy. There is found culprit and reprobate to the gallows. The parents cannot do anything for him any more that to pray to Santiago. On having approached the body hung of their son to say goodbye they hear how this one speaks to them from the gallows and says to them that he is alive for the grace of the Saint.

36. Saint Francis of Assisi An example of simplicity and solidarity

41. Henry David Thoreau

46. He was a French Philosopher during the XX century. He was also a law professor, sociologist and Christian anarchist. His main idea was that technology was a threat to human freedom and faith.

47. During II World War, he was the leader of the French Resistance and he was awarded with the title “Righteous among the Nations” because of his efforts to save Jews. He was converted to Christianity at the age of 22. He always had a simple life and he always rejected technology because he thougth that it was taking over many aspects of human life.

48. He wrote several books about “technological society”. One of his most important books is Anarchy and Christianity (1991). He said that Anarchism and Chritianism followed the same goals. Other important work by Jacques Ellul was “The Technological Society”

49. XX-XXI Centuries

50. The Amish are a Christian group. They are known mainly for their simple lifestyle, their modest and traditional clothes and their rejection to the moderns comforts.

51. The Amish lifestyle is dictated by a strict group of rules, the Ordnung, which are different in each community, and even inside a community, between districts. What is right in one community might not be ok in another one. The Amish don’t consider all technology bad, even they can demand the acceptation of some technologies in the Amish lifestyle. Because of the fact that the Amish don’t have a central government; the communities often have different ideas about what technology should be accepted

52. The strictest Amish are Nebraska Amish, Troyer Amish and Swartzendruber Amish. The language that they use at home is the “Pennsylvania Dutch” and they use English when they aren’t in their communities. Their best products are their eiderdowns and their farming products. Typically, an Amish man will be well shaved while he is single. When he gets married he will have a beard. The Amish only baptize adults, so the children when they grow can choose their way of life. Until that the children are taught to work hard since they are very little. Although the Amish pay taxes, they don’t have Social Security and they don’t accept help from the government nor in health neither in nourishment.

53. There are 22 closed Amish communities in the USA and in Ontario (Canada). The biggest is in Ohio, the second one is Pennsylvania. There are 228,000 Amish in the USA and 1,500 in Canada. The Amish who left their old habits often stay near their community. They don’t have influenced the modern society; on the contrary, there are some new technologies that they have adopted.

54. In 1681, William Penn received some lands from the King of England, he invited to the religious minorities which were persecuted to live in his new colony called Pennsylvania. A lot of Swiss, Swedes and Germans Anabaptists settle in farms in the east of Pennsylvania. The majority of the Anabaptist immigrants followed Menno Simons. They were called Mennonites. A minority followed Jacob Amman teaching, they were called Amish.

56. Mahatma Gandhi was born in India in a rich family, in 1869. In 1893 he went to South Africa to fight a legal case for a Moslem businessman. When he was going to came back to India a new law appeared in the country: “Indians will not be able to vote for government any more” so he decided to stay there to fight for their rights. When he was 13 years old his parents married him with Kasturba Makharji. At the age of 18 years he was sent to London to study law. He left in India her wife and his two-year-old son. In 1891 he returned to India and he tried to work as a lawyer but he wasn’t successful.

57. In 1915 he returned to India with many of his friends. He established an ashram where he took a simple life, wearing tradicional clothes of India, made in cotton boycotting the occidental clothes. Until his death he taught to the lower class how to make their own products, he also defended their rights and, thanks to his influence, he stopped the war between Moslems and Hindus, although India was divided in the actual India and Pakistan In 1948 Nathuram Godse killed Gandhi when he fired him three shots.

59. Gandhi was the person who fought for the Indians’ rights in South Africa and India. To defend the people against the poverty he taught the lower class to be self-sufficient. He also tried to abolish the unjust laws. He fasted to finished with the war between Moslem an Hindus. His way to demonstrate was without violence. He was elemental in the independence of India against the United Kingdom. Gandhi had a simple life, making his own clothes and been vegetarian.

60. The word hippie comes from the English word hipster. This new subculture has some values from the Beat Generation and from the German naturalism. They used to listen to psychedelic rock and folk, they supported the sexual revolution and they believed in free love. Some people participated in the use of drugs like the marihuana, the LSD and others hallucinogens.

61. They tended to opt for voluntary simplicity, either for spiritual-religious, artistic, political, or environmental. At the end of 60´s in USA the hippies made a big group of young, then they passed fashion and the next generations were called neo-hippies. While some smalls group of original hippies and neo-hippies are developing the same lifestyle but whit some modifications and they are living in the city or in the field.

62. Anyway we should differentiate the different attitude between Beats and hippies. The first were cynical, they believed in the existentialist philosophy and used to dress all in black or brown, the hippies had a more positive attitude and dressed in colorful clothes. The hippie movement come from the culture of the Ancient Greeks. A key figure of the union between these two movements is Allen Ginsberg who is associated with the beats as a poet and is also associated with the hippie movement.

63. However, other hippies continued to maintain a commitment to this way of life and ideals. A popular myth said that the movement had lose, but in fact continued to exist in communities installed in several countries. The evolution of some hippie communities has led to eco-villages. Even today, many of these hippies go to festivals and meetings to celebrate life and love, for example the Peace Festival.

64. The hippie philosophy had an important impact on culture. It influenced the music, film, literature and art. Also some hippy values such as tolerance, sexual freedom and their search for alternative forms of spirituality. On the other hand the hippies anticipated the New Age movements multiple reconstruction and maintenance of local cultures and also the environmental movement. The idea about the society was to build an alternative society, an idea that have had significant influence on some subcultures.

65. There are hippies who emphasize more on a bohemian lifestyle, other groups with a trend set by the alternative spirituality and eventually other communities that are involved in radical activism and the environmentalism. They used to adopt a lifestyle based on peace and love. Often they are against traditional values and bureaucracy.

73. - She was born in Skopje (capital of the Republic of Macedonia) . -She was the youngest of the children of her family. - She was baptized at the age of eight years old. - When she was twelve years old she wanted to be a missionary. Mother Teresa ( 1910 – 1997)

74. - - At the age of thirty it became missionary. - In December, she started her trip to the Indies , where she taught in the school for women St. Mary. - Characterized by her charity, she lived her consecration to Jesus between her partners with happiness.

75. - In 1950 she founded the feminine order of " Missionary of the Charity " and her masculine branch " Brothers of the Charity " in 1963. - In 1979 she received the Nobel Prize of the Peace.

76. - After of meeting for last time with the Pope , she returned to Calcutta where she passed her last weeks of life. - Victim of a heart failure died on 5 of September in 1997. - Thousands of persons of the whole world congregated in the India to see off the Holy one of the Sewage.

77. - She was beatified in 2003 by Juan Paul II.

78. + The Mother Teresa receives in life numerous prizes and recognitions, between them: - 1971 : The first Prize John XXIII of the peace. - 1978 : Prize Balzan to the humanity, peace and brotherhood between the people. - 1979 : Prize Nobel of the Peace.

79. - “I do not pray to obtain success. Only I ask for loyalty”.

80. -”If we want that our message of love is listened, we have to send it. In order that a lamp is still flushed, we have to be still spilling oil”.

81. - “Keep close to Jesus . He loves you. Let us pray . God bless you”.

82. This presentation has been done by the group of 1st Year of A level students Tomas Mingot High School 2009/2010