Living a simple life means that we come to the point of defining a lifestyle to which we can then apply common-sense organization.
Richard Foster says, "Contemporary culture lacks both the inward reality and the outward lifestyle of simplicity. Inwardly, modern man is fractured and fragmented. He is trapped in a maze of competing attachments. One moment he makes decisions on the basis of sound reason, the next moment out of fear of what others will think of him. He has no unity or focus around which life is oriented."
We can see evidences of a simple life around us. Just as I Corinthians 13 gives evidences of a life of love. What are they? Where do we see them? I think the Quakers have done a better job than any other group I know in fully understanding the dynamics, the beauty, and the elegance of the simple life. Therefore let me quote:
"Experiencing the inward reality liberates us outwardly. Speech becomes truthful and honest. The lust for status and position is gone, because we no longer need status or position. We cease from showy extravagance, not on the grounds of being unable to afford it but on the grounds of principle. Our goods become available to others, we join the experience that Richard E. Byrd recorded in his journal after months alone in the barren arctic, "I am learning that a man can live profoundly without masses of things."
Francois Fenelon says it this way: "When we are truly in this interior simplicity, our whole appearance is franker, more natural. This true simplicity makes us conscious of a certain openness, gentleness, innocence, gaiety and serenity which is charming when we see it near to and continually with pure eyes, 0 how amiable this simplicity is."
To paraphrase, we possess natural charm. I was on a television talk show with one of the plainest women I have ever seen. She had a bony facial structure topped with short gray hair, and she was wearing absolutely no makeup. When I saw her, I thought she probably was one of the most unattractive women I had ever met. Yet when she came over to talk to me following my part on the show, she suddenly was one of the most charming, naturally charming people I have ever met. There was no phoniness. There was no studied compliments, no choreographed repartee, no trying to please me so that I would like her, no fear of my disliking her. She had a natural charm. When we have nothing to hide, we can afford this frankness and this openness. When we have no more need to shove people around we can be gentle, like a velvet-covered brick, soft but firm. We can have the innocence that I see in men like Billy Graham. It is not naivete; it is genuine innocence without guile. We can have the gaiety, the zest of living and not the pseudo, hyped up "waltz me around again, willie," enthusiasm that feels like it is sprayed out of a can. We can have a genuine zest for living and serenity, for we own ourselves and we are not for sale. Even more importantly, we are not trying to buy anyone.
The simple life is more than "simply living." It takes consideration, evaluation, formulation and action. When we take the true measure of what really counts we can move toward simplicity. We define our lifestyle and shut our all other voices that would draw us away.
