Session Three
The Simplification of Life
The problem is simple - “our lives in a modern city grow too complex and overcrowded.”
Even the well intentioned are soon “bowed down with burdens and crushed under committees, strained, breathless, and hurried, panting through a never-ending program of appointments.”
We grow “weary and breathless” lamenting that our lives are slipping away.
This week is too full but next week we’ll strive calmly for peace. Only the less full week never comes.
We cannot blame our over busy lives on the complexity of the contemporary world. Kelly notes that we carry complexity into simple places.
The roots of the problem lie in our lack of skill with the inner life.
“We are not integrated. We are distraught.”
There is a life within this time-bound dimension that is unhurried, serene and peaceful. This life is lived from a Center, a Divine Center.
We can live this way from this Center “if we really want to.” We must resolve to be attentive to the Holy Voice within always, not sometimes.
If we say we don’t have time to turn toward God in everyday affairs then we “don’t really want to.” There is a life “that is freed from strain and anxiety and hurry” in which “something of the Cosmic Patience of God becomes ours.”
“I find that one can carry the recreating silences within oneself, well-nigh all the time.”
“Our real problem, in failing to center down, is not lack of time; it is, I fear, in too many of us, lack of joyful, enthusiastic delight in Him, lack of deep, deep drawing love directed toward Him at every hour of the day and night.”
This is a “revolutionary way of living.”
Life with God at center is primary, the foundation, all the rest of life is then re-modeled around the Center in a calm, unhurried, peaceful construction.
“The deepest need of men and women is God.”
“We cannot keep the love of God to ourselves. It spills over. It quickens us. It makes us see the world’s needs anew.”
“The world needs something deeper than pity, it needs love.”
Don’t help people out of sympathy. To help them out of love is the better path.
That doesn’t mean our task is to love and heal and help all people. That’s God’s task. Ours is to take upon our shoulders that which God gives us to do and nothing more.
“God never guides us into an intolerable scramble of panting feverishness.”
“We need not get frantic. God is at the helm. And when our little day is done we lie down quietly in peace, for all is well.”