Simplify! Simplify! Rali Weaver

November 16, 2008 First Church and Parish in Dedham

I desire to preach a sermon of simplicity and yet it seems as Thoreau did I can only describe simplicity in relation to what already exists. Our own culture is so complicated. I wonder sometimes how we could ever find simplicity in the midst of such a complex system of commerce and technology? Where does the nature of things lie within the midst of anything I do?

I love the image of counting no more than your fingers (and your toes only if you have to). As though there were not numbers higher than that to consider. What if we were to pay attention to just one day and never more than a week how might our perspectives change? How might our spending money change if there were just today? Or how might our treatment of others change if we only had today to express our feelings? How might our goals be different if we were to live just in this moment?

In many ways our entire culture is focused on the quick fix, the fast turnaround, the immediate results. We are often so wholly focused on the expectation of today that we lose sight of the gifts of waiting and of taking time and even of failure.

How often do we get to benefit from the gifts that arise out of a rainy day when we had planned to rake leaves?

I believe that we have mechanized our world to the point that we are rarely fully aware of the times of day and the true seasons of our lives.

Our money is not tied to any real physical commodity such as silver or gold -any more than our food is tied to the plant it was grown on or the animal from which it was offered.

Our lives are marked by calendars and clocks, which hold resemblance to the seasons of our lives, but measure them in increments foreign to the tides and lunar cycles, which move to their own rhythms.

There is much that nature has to teach us but the truth is that nature is also a harsh and demanding and often unpredictable teacher.

The reason much of the infrastructure we now benefit from exists in the first place is that it is needed to overcome the difficulties created in the natural world. And perhaps the question is not how to eliminate the gifts of progress and live in a cottage by a lake, but instead how to integrate the gifts of nature into our daily lives in ways that are purposeful and thoughtful and meaningful.

Which of us would trade the gifts of modern healing for the uncertainty of natural cures alone? Which of us would give up our cars completely to walk feet on the ground for the rest of our days? And which of us would trade our shelter for a shack beside a lake?

By all accounts Henry David Thoreau was an extremist. Even in his own day he most likely was a person that stood out as a non-conformist – rowing against the tide of society for much of his life. But what is remarkable about his life is how his words critiquing the culture of his day still resonate with every new generation.

Perhaps it is because we all had to read Walden in High School but I believe it is also because of this call to a life of independence and freedom that is enticing to the human soul.

In the period of “enlightenment” that followed the industrial revolution the use of reason and experience was commonly touted as the best learning. And the call for the day was to encourage everyone to think for themselves to remove all expectations and discover “what life has to teach”.

By training his brain away from the expectations of others and of society at large Thoreau was able to live in his own fashion and to make his own rules. The part of his life that isn’t written much about though is the time after he left the woods and retuned to town and worked in his family’s pencil making industry. This leads me to wondering how his ideas of self-sufficiency served him outside of the woods.

Without meaning to criticize one of our forefather’s of transcendental thought, I must say that it is one thing to live simply in a small shack by yourself and quite another when you live within the complications of society.

I know this from experience because last summer I spent 21 days in a shack in the Adirondack mountains. I spent most of those days in full harmony with the earth around me. There were violent storms and beautiful sunrises and birds and frogs I became close friends with in those 21 days. I labored hard in the out of doors for each of those days and my time in the woods renewed my spirit in ways that it is difficult to describe with words. There was a spirit in those mountains that fed my spirit and all the usual complications of this life became quite simple because there were no distractions there.

Over those days in the woods I knew what my priorities were. And after a manner of time I found I was able to live in harmony with all that surrounded me.

Yet since I have returned my life has felt increasingly more complicated. There are often demands from conflicting corners and it is more difficult to determine what to put first and last and where to focus my attention.

You might say this is simply the difference between vacation and your day-to-day life and this might be true.

Still I believe as Unitarian Universalists we strive to live the ordinary life in a non-ordinary way and so I strive to integrate all the spirit of simplicity of my vacation life into the chaos of my daily life and I often feel I am falling short.

This leads me to wonder what concessions Thoreau might have had to make once he moved back in town. I wonder how his independent spirit was compromised by the expectations of the family business. I wonder how much he was he able to enjoy nature once he left his cottage by the lake?

And so I say: If the call to simplify is to change anything it must be more than a two-year commitment you make while living as a hermit. Simplification includes removing all the excess and “reducing life to its lowest terms”. To be of any use the quality of living simply and uncombined needs to happen when we are surrounded by others, and living amidst all of the excess of life. And I believe this is a bit harder than what Thoreau was doing on Walden Pond.

As I have meditated upon simplicity this week my mind has kept returning to the words of William Blake

To see a world in a Grain of Sand,

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,

And eternity in an hour.

William Blake

I believe the call to simplify is not really about divesting ourselves of all our worldly goods to live in a shack but it is to open our hearts to the beauty of life that surrounds us wherever our life takes us.

We could start by slowing our lives down, and paying attention to the seasons that surround us and to strive to clear away all of the obstacles that obstruct our view. The call to simplify is the call to look with open eyes and with an open heart to all that comes our way.

As we enter this season of excess with Thanksgiving and Gift Giving ahead, let us simplify by taking pleasure in the simple things and releasing ourselves from all external expectations, living only in the blessings of each moment.

May it be so