Simplicity: The Wisdom of Contentment
The Fourth Sunday of Lent – March 15, 2015
ABBA ZOSIMAS would pick up small objects such as a nail, a short thread, and other valueless castoffs. He would ask, “Would you fight or argue over this? Would you harbor a grudge or get sick over this? That would be insanity. Anyone who is making progress in God can think of the entire world as this nail, no matter how much of the world he possesses. There is no harm in owning something, but trouble comes when we are attached to what we own.”
[Bernard Bangley, By Way of the Desert, p. 344]
This week we will reflect on the spiritual practice of simplicity. The Desert Fathers and Mothers did not speak to simplicity as much as they modeled simplicity in their style of life, in their manner of following Christ. When they spoke about simplicity, they did so with the wisdom of their own depth of experience.
At its root, simplicity has to do with contentment. It invites us to be content with what we have. It invites us to be content with the way life is.
This contentment is not an invitation to complacency, to a casual attitude about life in which we don’t care or we just float through life. Rather, it is a contentment of soul that says, “I’m okay no matter what I have or don’t have, no matter what life deals out to me, no matter whether things go my way or not.” I will not be moved and I will not be shaken. Simplicity as contentment acknowledges that a full and soulful life involves more than possessions and accomplishments.
Actually, at issue is the belief, continually reinforced by our consumer-oriented culture, that we need more in order to be happy . . . more of this or more of that. We are inundated by those messages that constantly whisper our names, creating within us an “artificial need” for this product or that service.
Abba Zosimas said, “There is no harm in owning something, but trouble comes when we are attached to what we own.”
In other words, I don’t need more stuff. Enough is enough.
ABBA ZOSIMAS would pick up small objects such as a nail, a short thread, and other valueless castoffs. He would ask, “Would you fight or argue over this? Would you harbor a grudge or get sick over this? That would be insanity. Anyone who is making progress in God can think of the entire world as this nail, no matter how much of the world he possesses. There is no harm in owning something, but trouble comes when we are attached to what we own.”
[Bernard Bangley, By Way of the Desert, p. 344]
This week we will reflect on the spiritual practice of simplicity. The Desert Fathers and Mothers did not speak to simplicity as much as they modeled simplicity in their style of life, in their manner of following Christ. When they spoke about simplicity, they did so with the wisdom of their own depth of experience.
At its root, simplicity has to do with contentment. It invites us to be content with what we have. It invites us to be content with the way life is.
This contentment is not an invitation to complacency, to a casual attitude about life in which we don’t care or we just float through life. Rather, it is a contentment of soul that says, “I’m okay no matter what I have or don’t have, no matter what life deals out to me, no matter whether things go my way or not.” I will not be moved and I will not be shaken. Simplicity as contentment acknowledges that a full and soulful life involves more than possessions and accomplishments.
Actually, at issue is the belief, continually reinforced by our consumer-oriented culture, that we need more in order to be happy . . . more of this or more of that. We are inundated by those messages that constantly whisper our names, creating within us an “artificial need” for this product or that service.
Abba Zosimas said, “There is no harm in owning something, but trouble comes when we are attached to what we own.”
In other words, I don’t need more stuff. Enough is enough.
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