Contemplative life and prayer encourages us to prefer
simplicity. Part of simplicity is indeed
what is popularly called downsizing – what you have to do to go and live in
Summerset Falls – getting rid of stuff, stuff we once needed, stuff we may never have needed. It’s making space. Simplicity however is also doing this task
inwardly – seeing the ego downsized, its many demands and expectations,
discovering how to live fulfillingly, simply – as some writers put it, learning
to find happiness in the right places. St
Paul said: I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith
to be content.[1]
We learn about letting go as an alternative to possessing
and controlling. Of course we still need
to be comfortable and fed, and in pleasant surroundings, sheltered, reasonably
secure – none of that is in question here, although we know even those basic
requirements millions today can only dream about. We are challenged to be discerning – seeing more
clearly what matters and what doesn’t, or never did. There is a principle in classical philosophy
called Occam’s Razor. The medieval
Franciscan, William of Ockham, taught that simpler
solutions are more likely to be correct than complex ones. God, say some of the great theologians,
is infinite simplicity… which leads to the next point: Simplicity surely means also simplicity of
belief. Jesus advocated being like
little children. He did not mean naïve,
infantile or deliberately ignorant. I
think he did mean that requirements in our beliefs about God, Christ and the
Bible, which divide and confuse and condemn, are actually surplus
requirements. William of Ockham was
right – simplicity waits in the wings. The
Apostle John writes: God is love, and
whoever abides in love abides in God.[2] That is simplicity. It is the being of it and the doing of it
that is the ground of faith. Abiding in
love.
Downsizing however, as we well know, is probably very
difficult. I have lots of stuff I
scarcely need, but do not want to be without right now all the same. If circumstances were to decree immediate
downsizing – if for instance I went to prison – it would be a big task for
someone. Interior downsizing is really
not much easier. I remain confused by
complexity and unanswered questions that don’t simply go away. Life is often noisy and busy, of necessity. But we are practising Christian
Meditation. It is a plug of simplicity
in our lives, like a plug of healthy grass you might put in your lawn in the
hope that it will seed and spread… a kind of transplant, a complexity bypass, if
that’s not too fanciful.
I am sure that contemplative life and prayer, which is an
exercise in simplicity, and is without boundaries or prior conditions, is a
vital pathway onward for Jesus’s followers.
As Thomas Merton put it, faith is not the determination to cling to any
form of words, biblical or liturgical or theological, but is the opening of the
inward eye, the eye of the heart, to life and to God. On this path we can indeed address the very
personal challenges of simplicity in a complex and increasingly threatening
world.
[1]
Philippians 4:11. “Content” is autarkēs
(αὐταρκης),
a word which in ordinary speech means “enough”.
[2] I
John 4:16
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