In my quest for simplicity, I’m often drawn back to my battered book by Richard Foster, Freedom of Simplicity. He talks about the passion to possess and how the pace of our world leaves us feeling fractured and fragmented.
Even frantic.
I so get that.
Although thankfully peace occupies more space in my pocket these days.
Richard reminds us of the paradox of simplicity.
It is both easy and difficult.
It is both simple and complex.
It is both internal and external.
It is both a grace and a discipline.
We do not necessarily fit it, but it fits us.
An unsimple gift.
The longing of my heart.
My Center and my periphery.
Focus over goal.
Release to gain.
Possess but not prize.
Free to serve.
Stay to go.
Stand firm to bow and to bend.
And when I turn ’round, as in the old Shaker hymn, no matter what direction, I want to see Jesus.
Only.
A simple gift.
Close your eyes and listen to this simply beautiful song.
“I recommend to you holy simplicity.” ~Francis de Sales
My mother gave me her tattered copy of that book many years ago. I return to it again and again. Each time, I find a new treasure tucked inside its pages. I wonder if we ever really “get it” here?
How lovely to find such beautiful words set to a tune I’ve always loved! I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything but “Lord of the Dance” to it. Thanks for sharing this.
It’s ironic that we find simplicity to be such a complex thing, isn’t it? More than a way of living, of having or not having, to me it’s a way of being. It’s about attitude, thus more internal than external. We muddle our feelings about a simpler way of life with a nostalgia of an earlier generation and convince ourselves that if we had less, or if we lived more like our grandparents, we’d be more content, but I doubt if that’s true. My feeling is that if we focused more on God and less on selves we wouldn’t find it necessary to search for contentment. But… simplicity IS complex. 🙂