Simplicity and Inward Busyness

From WildWiki

“Confessions of a 6-Year Old Quaker- On Inward Busyness and the Testimony of Simplicity” College Meeting For Worship Sept. 1, 2002

Thank you for the introduction. I am pleased with the attendance given the competition from the national coon-dog fest that is in town this weekend. I would like to thank Trayce and the College Meeting cabinet for giving me the opportunity to speak today. I would also like to thank my wife, Marcie, for her patience, support, and understanding as I have struggled my way through the early stages of my Quaker faith. I have dragged her to about every Friends meeting in the states of Ohio and Indiana and she has supported and participated in this search without complaint. All she has asked in return is a reliable supply of chocolates.

I titled my message “Confessions of a 6 year old Quaker.” This title came to me earlier this summer on a trip to visit my in-laws in Greensboro, North Carolina. Now, mind you, I am not from the south. About 4:30 in the afternoon the first day down there I got it into my head that I needed to go for a run. As I bounced to the door, Marcie and her mother, seated comfortably in the air-conditioned kitchen rather incredulously asked where I was planning on going. I energetically declared “I’m off for a run!” as I passed by. The two of them exchanged a look that is only possible between a Southern mother and daughter, took sips from their mint julips, and sent me off with a courteous wave. About 5 minutes later, dehydrated, hypoxic, and swimming through the full force of North Carolina humidity, I realized why they had given me that look. No one goes for a run at 4:30pm in the south in the summer. No one does anything at 4:30pm in south in the summer. I learned two things that day. One, always listen to your wife when she is on her turf. The second has much more to do with my message here today. On my run, between gasps of breath, swats at West Nile Virus infested mosquitos, and dodging speeding, air conditioned SUV’s, I had an epiphany of sorts. A question came to me that appears every so often when I find myself in less than ideal circumstances. “Why am I such an idiot?”

In the outdoor world, we talk about the process of becoming experienced as an evolution from stages of unconscious competence (not knowing what you don’t know), to conscious incompetence (knowing what you don’t know), to conscious competence (knowing what you know), to unconscious competence (mastery). I had recently lamented my rather erratic spiritual journey to date with one of my spiritual mentors and he reminded me that I was, in fact, the equivalent of a 6-year old, in my faith. For just being a 6 year old Quaker, I was doing pretty well at this stage if I was just trying to get from unconsciously incompetent to consciously incompetent.

So, knowing that I am 6 years old and that I don’t even know what I don’t know I am sure you are excited to hear what I have to say. What I plan on doing in the few minutes I have is simply to share with you a few confessions or queries that have stuck with me during this first 6 years of my journey. They revolve around the concepts of simplicity and busyness. And my hope is that these queries, in good Quaker fashion, will resonate with something in your life.

One of the things that has been a seminal part of my young spiritual journey is the testimony of simplicity. One of the first books I read from a Quaker author was Richard Foster’s Freedom of Simplicity-a wonderful discussion on the elements of living a life with God as the number one priority. Here is how he defines it, “the Christian discipline of simplicity is an inward reality that results in an outward lifestyle. Both the inward reality and the outward aspects of simplicity are essential. We deceive ourselves if we believe we can possess the inward reality without its having a profound effect on how we live. To attempt to arrange an outward lifestyle of simplicity without the inward reality leads to deadly legalism”(Foster, 80). This notion of the importance of inward simplicity has always struck me. And, as a young Quaker, it seems at times our faith overly focuses on the outward manifestations of this testimony without also holding up the importance of the inward reality as well. Why do we seem so concerned about the type of car one drives over the ways in which that person leads a balanced, healthy lifestyle? We fret over recycling a can of soda or ensuring that our clothing is appropriately frumpy instead of caring more for the overworked colleague or friend. In fact, it seems some of the most externally active Friends lead some of the most inwardly complex and busy lives. Thomas Merton equated those of us who serve others at the expense of ourselves in a surprising way. He said that busyness is a form of violence. And that those of us who serve others at the expense of ourselves are actually perpetuating one of the things we are working to reduce or prevent. It is a remarkable concept-busyness as a form of violence. In this construct, no longer is busyness just an annoying bi-product of modern society, it perpetuates and reproduces social injustice. Is that ridiculously self-centered? That we, the privileged few, who don’t have to worry about food on our plates, shelter, or basic human necessities, are actually the victims of social injustice too? Perhaps. But it reminds me of an old outdoor leadership axiom that we teach our students here at Earlham. You have to be able to take care of yourself before you can take care of someone else. There is a reason they tell mothers to put on their own oxygen mask first before helping their child on airplanes. In the outdoors, if you as a leader are too preoccupied with your own needs-cold, hungry, tired, etc. you will be unable to focus on supporting and helping meet the needs of those in your care. So is it selfish to take care of your own needs first? Should we focus on our busyness first, before we move on to the needs of the world? In the reading from Luke from this morning, Christ asks us to consider the lillies of the field… “Consider the lillies how they grow; they toil not, they spin not, and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” (Luke: 27). He goes on to say later in this message “For where your treasure is, there will be your heart also” (Luke: 34). Where your treasure is, there will be your heart also. What is our treasure? Perhaps, in our modern language, Christ is asking us where our priorities lie and what we focus our energies on. The lilly has a simple purpose-no matter what happens around it, what environmental stresses it experiences, the lilly grows toward the light. How beautiful. How simple.

But I guess we are not flowers. We have competing priorities and complex lives. We should not be so naïve to think that we can lead such a life of single minded simplicity and purpose. But does that mean that we cast up our hands and say that there is nothing we can do? Nothing we can change? Perhaps it will help to examine what all this busyness truly costs us. More than just an outward collection of actions, busyness affects our inward state of being-which then in turn affects our actions. This is what Thomas Merton has to say about it. “Our being is not enriched merely by activity or experience as such. Everything depends on the quality of our acts and our experiences. A multitude of badly performed actions and of experiences only half-lived exhausts and depletes our being” (Merton, 123). According to Merton then, busyness actually depletes our being. He goes on to say, “We must first recover the possession of our own being before we can act wisely or taste any experience in its human reality. As long as we are not in our own possession, all activity is futile. If we let all our wine out of the barrel and down the street, how will our thirst be quenched?”(Merton, 123-124). So how do we get to a place of inward simplicity so that our outward actions come from a place of meaning-and they actually reinforce who we are rather than drain our very being?

Paul Petzholt was a revered figure in the outdoor world-starting organizations like the National Outdoor Leadership School and the Wilderness Education Association. Paul was known for his witty but meaningful one liners. One of these was his advice for what you should do if you get lost in the woods. Paul said, “sit down and smoke a pipe.” Of course, he was not referring to the act of smoking as being the most important thing you could do but rather to stop, slow down, collect your thoughts, and make decisions from a place of inward calm. As I move through my spiritual stages of competence, I find that now, all I can do is remember-maybe once a day or even a week, to sit down and smoke a pipe. This might mean listening to the birds in the morning, looking a student in the eyes and listening, really listening to what they are telling me, or truly enjoying an evening walk with my wife and dog. To me, it is the conscious act of being present with God. Right now, these feel like small interruptions in the middle of long bouts of busyness. But, it is my hope that eventually, as I grow, these pleasant interruptions will be more frequent and will stay longer. So that I will experience God’s companionship, rather than having him “on call.” An old Quaker friend of mine once said that we always ask God to be with us for this reason or that, but why don’t we ask God if we can be with Him? I like to think that having companionship with God comes from asking if we can spend sometime with Him for awhile. This is the same fellow who was an elder in my meeting in Charlottesville and I remember watching him in meeting one day thinking how peaceful he looked. We do this thing called after-thoughts at the end of worship which is a time for people to share any messages that they had that did not seem appropriate or fully formed enough to share during meeting and Chic stood up. I remember thinking that this should be good given how settled he looked in meeting. He said “I was really thinking hard about God and issues of life and death, but then I didn’t get anywhere so I took a good nap.” I realized that day that even the weightiest of Friends do not walk around all day in a centered-down cloud of euphoria. I learned it is OK to take spiritual naps every once and awhile. Just be careful not to sleepwalk through your life.

For me, attempting to move into unconscious incompetence, I simply try to be aware of my inward busyness and attempt to stop it and center down-if just for a moment. My hope is that, as I grow older in my faith, these moments become more frequent, my times of inward quiet more lasting, and, eventually, this possession of my own being again will reflect on my outward actions.  But is this a cop-out? A way of avoiding the fact that we all have become too busy-saving the world but losing our souls? By focusing inwardly, are we just avoiding having to make the painful outward decisions that are in front of us? Why can’t we just say no? Again, Thomas Merton’s thoughts on the matter help me. “ We cannot avoid missing the point of almost everything we do. But what of it? Life is not a matter of getting something out of everything. Life itself is imperfect…If we are too anxious to find the absolute perfection in created things we cease to look for perfection where alone it can be found: in God. The secret of the imperfection of all things, of their inconstancy, their fragility, their falling into nothingness, is that they are only a shadowy expression of the one Being from whom they receive their being. If they were absolutely perfect and changeless in themselves, they would fail in their vocation, which is to give glory to God by their contingency”(Merton, 128-129).  Being incompetent, in a very real sense, glorifies God. In fact, to seek perfection, to seek unconscious competence, is a folly we can date back to the original sin. Out of our struggles, our missteps, indeed even our busyness, we achieve our true vocation.

The old Shaker hymn, Tis A Gift, has meant a lot to me in my young spiritual journey and it seems appropriate to end my message recalling the refrain. “When true simplicity is gained, to bow and to bend we will not be ashamed, to turn, turn, will be our delight, till by turning, turning, we come round right.” I feel blessed and thankful for the opportunity to turn and turn here at Earlham, and today, at this moment, with all of you.