Complicated Lives
We experience our lives as extremely complicated and getting more so every day.
Connected to people and places around the globe, some of us are nostalgic for simpler times. We remember when truths were obvious and when we knew what we believed. Many of us long for someone to take us home, to lead us back and make us great again.
The complexity of our lives makes us feel confused and afraid. We feel like we do not have time to really understand anything.
The challenges and details of each day require our attention. Our lists of tasks to be completed and things to be acquired block our view of everything else.
Caught up in complexities of our own invention, we seem to want to avoid simplicity. Rather than speaking direct, simple truth, we cover ourselves with complicated words.
The claims we want to be clear become part of our growing tapestries of complications. We appear to believe we can hide from simple truths in thickets of complex ideas.
The Intricate Simplicity of Spiritual Life
Spiritual life may seem complicated. It appears to consist of so many ideas, so many considerations in a tangled web of theology.
We confuse ourselves by knowing so much about spiritual life without experiencing it.
At its core, spiritual life is simple. As we learn to set aside all the rules and concepts, the essence of spiritual life becomes clear.
Spiritual life is a relationship with the Sacred truth of existence. The life and love of that Sacred truth unfolds all around us, everywhere, and within us. The patterns of that unfolding are infinitely intricate and infinitely intimate.
Each of us is drawn into the life and love and light along our own paths. We learn from each other’s examples, though no two of us are drawn in exactly the same ways.
We look into the darkness of the night sky and see the pattern of the stars. The sky is always changing, the stars always moving, the earth always turning. We recognize the patterns which are new every night.
Practicing Simplicity
We practice simplicity by discerning what is true for us and paying attention to it. Each of those challenge us in their own ways.
Many of us do not put much time or effort into recognizing what is true for us. We have become accustomed to accepting what we receive at face value. There are layers of meaning and truth beneath the surface of our lives we never explore. We like to believe simplicity is about the surface of life, but it is about going deeper.
The truth is there are intricate patterns to simplicity. Scientists refer to simple, effective, beautiful approaches as elegant solutions. The elegance of these solutions comes from combining rational analysis with reflection.
We often do not arrive at simplicity in a straight line from A to B. Being simple is not the same thing as being obvious.
Some of us experience our recognition of the intricacies of simplicity as an awakening. As we begin to understand we see the beauty and elegance all around us. It can be as if something which has always been there is finally revealed to us.
As we begin to appreciate what is true we can pay attention to it and put it into practice.
We want more to incorporate the elegant, intricate simplicity we find into our own lives. Our attraction to what we found so complicated slowly falls away.
I know people who gradually transform their lives to reflect simplicity in new ways. Some of them pay attention by changing how they spend their working lives. Others make a new commitment to a specific way they hope to affect the world around them. Still others find ways to focus more attention on their most important relationships.
New patterns emerge as each of us is drawn into new simplicity.
Finding the Simplicity of Spiritual Life
There is no definitive checklist or formula for determining the pattern of our own simplicity. Exploring the intricate patterns of simplicity is an intimate spiritual quest for each of us. Other people can help and guide us, but no one can tell us what to do.
One of the keys for me is the beauty and elegance of the patterns in my life.
Simplicity draws me in not by being austere and legalistic, but by fitting so well. It is as if the pieces of a puzzle slide into place and the solution reveals itself.
As I begin to see, begin to awaken, the simplicity of spiritual life permeates all of life. I discover intricate simplicity in art, in relationships, in work, in the environment. It is as if the simplicity has been there all along waiting for me to pay attention.
The Universe in a Drop of Water
Scientists, and poets, tell us we could discover the entire universe in a drop of water. The difficulty for us is being able to pay enough attention.
As we learn to pay attention we begin to recognize the intricacy of simplicity. We do not need to be distracted, caught up in all the complexities we invent. Each moment, each drop of water, is filled with simplicity meant for us and our attention.
In some ways it is a matter of priority, of where we choose to pay attention. We can decide to be caught up in all the things we need to do, all our responsibilities. There are moments we can choose to see the intricate patterns of simplicity all around us. It may be just for a moment, but it can change everything.
We look up into the intricate simplicity of the night sky and realize the stars are always there. It is just a challenge for us to pay attention during the day when the light of the sun distracts us.
How will you pay attention in new ways today?
What will attract your attention this week?
[Image by Claudia Regina CC]
Greg Richardson is a spiritual life mentor and leadership coach in Southern California. He is a recovering attorney and university professor, and a lay Oblate with New Camaldoli Hermitage near Big Sur, California. Greg’s website is StrategicMonk.com, and his email address is StrategicMonk@gmail.com.
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