Readings

After complexity

Some days you just have to love complexity–there’s beauty and wonder in complexity–and other days you may want nothing more than a set of simple propositions or behaviors that dissolves deceptive complexity like the sun shining through a rainstorm.

If you’ve lived through any life-changing difficulty, you know that on the other side of complexities are new simplicities. Past the cross there’s a resurrection; past the loss of a loved one’s death there’s a new beginning; past the agonizing confusion of which lifework to pursue there’s the joy of living into a new career.

In trying to find ways for your congregation to be engaged in simple living, there are also simplicities after the complexities. After the complexity of discipleship (“Follow these principles, work on these disciplines.”) there’s the simplicity of stewardship (“However you do it, get God’s work done.”). After the study of sophisticated macro-economics and the biblical witness for simple living come the halting first steps of actions that beget other actions.

What helps you go beyond complexity? Mental maps or aphorisms–“Start somewhere, do something”. Getting in touch with your inner yearnings, like “What do you really want to be known for?” or “Why do you want people to pay attention to you?” You look for unifying threads, idea-magnets that line up all the little idea-iron filings in the same direction. Prayer, certainly. Conversation with people who are already well on their way.  Prayer and conversation together.

What you do to move past complexity will become an example for others, and soon you’ll find that the wall of insurmountable complexity actually has some doors and windows in it, places where you can travel through.

To simple thoughts and actions about simple living.