In the busy end-of-school year, end-of-church year, beginning of summer month of June, simplicity can seem like no more than a distant dream. And yet, that is the theme of the month for June. Together we’ll be exploring: What does it mean to be a people of simplicity?
In our 21st century world, we often think we live at the height of complexity. At no other time in history, or so we believe, have people been as busy, have lives been as complicated. We have this romanticized view of “simpler times,” “back in the day.” (The Worship Associates will be exploring this notion on June 12.) And yet, Henry David Thoreau, who lived in the first half of the 19thcentury, went to live in the woods near Walden Pond because life was too complicated, because he wanted to live simply.
“I do believe in simplicity.” Wrote Thoreau, “It is astonishing as well as sad, how many trivial affairs even the wisest thinks he must attend to in a day; how singular an affair he thinks he must omit. When the mathematician would solve a difficult problem, he first frees the equation of all incumbrances, and reduces it to its simplest terms. So simplify the problem of life, distinguish the necessary and the real. Probe the earth to see where your main roots run.”
This problem of overly complicated lives, of a lack of simplicity, is nothing new, it seems. Which makes me wonder: is it really as much of a problem as we believe? Is the allure of simplicity something we dreamed up without any real proof of it’s value?
And yet, we all have had those moments when the simplest things bring us to our knees with gratitude for the gift of life. We know the joy of a warm summer day with just the right amount of breeze. We know the beauty of those first spring blossoms. We know the love of family and friends. As Donna Hilbert writes:
“I am not in love with holidays,
birthdays—nothing special—
and weekends are just days
numbered six and seven,
though my love
dozing over TV golf
while I work the Sunday puzzle
might be all I need of life
and all I ask of heaven.”
Blessings,
Allison