Monday, May 3, 2021

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Katie Snipes Lancaster

Spiritual Practice: Simplicity
We’ve been talking as a staff about what a “new normal” might look like, and wondering what we’ve learned in the last year (oh, help us navigate toward this “new normal” by taking our congregational assessment if you haven’t already). Did a new simplicity emerge? Did the “giving up” of certain parts of social life offer a spiritually attentive simplicity that surprised you? What do you not want to “take back on” after all pandemic restrictions are lifted and life returns to a new rhythm?

For some of us, simplicity means leaving home. Going camping. Taking a trip to the cabin. Heading to the farm. For others, simplicity means staying home. Sitting still. Shutting yourself in with a book and some comfort food. Saying “no” to the dozens of social opportunities that pop up on the regular. For others, it means shutting down the electronics, deleting the amazon.com app, refraining from buying “more” (as the world so often demands of us).

For Jesus, simplicity meant not owning property, packing only one set of clothes, and one pair of shoes. It meant showing up unannounced for a meal, and finding sustenance along the way. It meant welcoming the hospitality of others, only for a time, before moving on. It meant offering healing when healing was possible, and offering wide welcome for those not always welcomed. It was simple. It wasn’t elegantly and “professionally” curated simplicity. It was real-life simplicity.

What ways might you incorporate the practice of simplicity into your summer? Into your weekly rhythms? Into your daily life?

Daily Prayer
Holy God,
In simplicity, you come to us
Human and Divine.
We trust your divine presence,
And we ask that you tune us
to the human and divine
simplicity held within our daily lives.
Let us see you anew.
Amen.