Simplicity

“Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! Let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand…” 

Henry David Thoreau

I tried to buy a cell phone the other day that had but one function: the ability to make and receive phone calls. I found that no such apparatus exists. If I buy a phone I must, at the very least, play games, take pictures, view videos, surf the web, read and return email, listen to music, take notes, tell time, maintain a calendar, and learn the coordinates of my current location. Only incidentally does it make and receive telephone calls—all of which suggests that things are much too complicated these days, especially for us old folks. Most of us are minimalists, looking for ways to simplify our lives.

Thomas Aquinas suggests a wondrous simplicity. He says there are really only three things in life worth doing: (1) moral good—like loving my neighbor; (2) practical good—like keeping up my lawn; (3) and delightful good—doing stuff I find pleasing or agreeable. Thus, there are three questions I need to ask of any endeavor: Is it virtuous? Is it necessary? Is it fun?[1]

How many actions go beyond Saint Thomas’ criteria? A plethora, I fear. These are the things that accumulate, complicate and clutter up my life. In which case, I need to stop doing them. Now.

It’s just that simple.

DHR

[1] I hasten to add that not all fun is good. That’s hedonism, a pagan philosophy. I’m assuming here “good” fun.

Putting Us Right

“An’ noo, for a’ oor wrang-duins an’ ill-min’ins (misjudgments), for a’ oor sins and trespasses o’ mony sorts, dinna forget them, O God, till thou pits them a’ richt.”

—The Prayer of an Old Scot in George MacDonald’s David Elginbrod

Benjamin Franklin aspired to become an honorble man, and accordingly drew up a list of thirteen virtues he deemed “necessary and desirable,” including with each a short explanation.

1. Temperance. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation. 2. Silence. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation. 3. Order. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time. 4. Resolution. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve. 5. Frugality. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i. e., waste nothing. 6. Industry. Lose no time; be always employ’d in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions. 7. Sincerity. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly. 8. Justice. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty. 9. Moderation. Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve. 10. Cleanliness. Tolerate no uncleaness in body, clothes, or habitation. 11. Tranquility. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable. 12. Chastity. Rarely use venery (sexual indulgence) but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation. 13. Humility. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

Franklin’s intention was to make a habit of these virtues and thus he determined to fix on one character trait at a time, and, when he had mastered it, proceed to the next until he had mastered all of them.

“I made a little book,” he wrote, “in which I allotted a page for each of the virtues. I rul’d each page with red ink, so as to have seven columns, one for each day of the week, marking each column with a letter for the day. I cross’d these columns with thirteen red lines, marking the beginning of each line with the first letter of one of the virtues, on which line, and in its proper column, I might mark, by a little black spot, every fault I found upon examination to have been committed respecting that virtue upon that day.

In the end, Franklin gave up: “I was surpris’d to find myself so much fuller of faults than I had imagined,” he wrote in his diary. So it is: “No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good.”[1]

“In vain you make yourself beautiful…” Israel’s prophet concludes.[2] We cannot adorn ourselves. All we can do is come to God with our lofty ideals (along with our “wrang-duins an’ ill-min’ins”) and ask him to make us braver, stronger, purer, less selfish, and more loving. God himself is our cure. All progress toward the perfection of holiness—however gradual—is based on that premise.

Paul, who loved a good synthesis, put it this way: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”[3] “For,” he wrote, not “although” or even “and.” It is God who does the work. He does the work and we enjoy the freedom to will and to do those things that please him.

When British author F. B. Meyer was a very young man he attended a meeting in the house of emancipationist, William Wilberforce. Those gathered were discussing their struggles against impatience and other forms of selfishness. An elderly gentleman listened for awhile and then related this incident: “I was speaking to a number of children last Sunday afternoon; and finding that the flowers and birds outside were attracting them, and they wanted to get away, and that I was fast losing my patience, I turned to Christ and said: 'Lord, my patience is giving out; grant me yours, and, for that moment he gave me patience. I could stand the noise and confusion.’”

Meeting Dr. Meyer the next morning, Mr. Wilberforce said: "What did you think of that?” Dr. Meyer replied: "It has changed my life. From now on, instead of refusing, resisting, struggling against temptation, I shall ask, in the moment of impatience, for Christ’s tranquility, in the moment of impurity, for his purity, in the moment of anxiety, for his direction and wisdom.”

Put another way, “Ask what you will, and it will be done for you.”[4]

DHR

[1] C. S. Lewis
[2] Jeremiah 4:30
[3] Philippians 2:12,13
[4] John 15:7. The significance of this promise lies in its context: bearing the fruit of Christ-like character.

Beautiful, Broken Thing

“Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7).

I was walking down by the river the other day and came across a male Western Tanager on the ground. He had been mauled by a predator and was dragging  a broken wing.

I gathered the bird in my hands—rough hands it must have seemed to the bird, reminiscent of the abuse he had already endured. I’m sure he thought he was in the grip of another foul, cruel enemy. He fought ferociously, screaming his defiance, pecking at my fingers until he drew blood.

But I saw beyond the fury to his fear. I felt his heart racing under my fingers, so I held him until he calmed down, and gently tucked him into my shirt. Then I took him to the Bird Lady—a woman who lives nearby and who cares for wild, broken things. She has healing in her hands.

It occurs to me that some folks are like that bird—threatening because they are threatened. They lash out in fury, an anger that cloaks a wildly beating, broken heart.

Would that I saw their heart as God does.

DHR