"Maintaining a complicated life is…..one of the best ways we have to avoid looking at some of the larger questions. ~Elaine St. James, from Living the Simple Life
Last week I was about to throw away a newsletter I'd received when I saw this quote at the bottom of the page. I had to smile. I thought I could get away with pitching this piece of paper but it wasn't finished with me yet. There was a little message meant just for me and it was going to find its way to me no matter what. I thought of all the ways I perpetuate the complicated life. Too busy for this or that. Saying yes to too many obligations. Allowing myself to be consumed by the seemingly urgent while ignoring what is truly important. It is a common dis-ease of our 21st century life.
Creating a complicated life does, indeed, allow us to hedge the larger questions. If my life is too full, too busy, too overbooked, too….you can fill in the blank…..it is very easy to never get to the larger questions of life. It becomes, at least for me, easy to continually tick away at the to-do list than take the time to grapple with the bigger issues that press at my heart, that stir my soul. It is also easier to continue to put off till tomorrow, when things are less complicated, those questions that really are calling to me at a deeper level, those experiences that bring me pleasure, fulfill me. Living the complicated life is, after all, exhausting.
What is complicating your day? What is complicating your life? Are there dreams and goals you have been putting off until the time when life is less complicated? Sometimes we have no control over the complications that come our way. They simply need to be dealt with in the here and now.For those times we offer our prayers. But other times we create complications to keep us from taking the risk, seeing the bigger picture, taking stock, asking the hard questions. It is important to recognize the difference in these complications of life.
Nicola Slee wrote this grace for distracted eaters: "Today my food has no flavor. I do not notice what the weather is doing. I eat distractedly, consumed by my own absorptions. Still I make this prayer and my lips utter Thanks." Whether we describe our living as complicated or distracted, it is my belief that we all want to taste the glory that is our food. We all want to look outside our windows and notice the blazing sun and the melting icicles. We all want to arrive at the end of another day of life, which is pure gift, knowing that our mouths can form a 'thanks'.
And so, perhaps it is a good idea to clear out a little space where complications cannot live. Five seconds, five minutes, five hours, five days to rest in the larger questions. Whatever we can muster that will get us to that place called gratitude. I have to believe it will make a difference, not only to us, but to our world.