Simplicity is a counter-cultural practice. Never in the history of humankind have the subtle and not-so-subtle forces of culture been more at odds with a spirituality of simplicity. In this regard, the symbol of American culture is the man or woman at the gym, riding the stationary bike, donning IPOD headphones, watching the TV screen overhead, thumbing through Sports Illustrated or People magazine, munching on a Power Bar, and chatting from time to time with the neighbors on the stationary bikes on either side.

How could simplicity not be counter-cultural in a day and age when multi-tasking is promoted and celebrated as a virtue? But juggling is for jesters and appropriate as a circus act not as a healthy or holy way of life. Over-against this view, Soren Kierkegaard the Danish philosopher maintained that “purity of heart (a beatitude we spent some time reflecting on last year) is to will one thing” (emphasis mine). The Persian poet Rumi touched on the same idea:

A King sent you to a country to carry out one special, specific task. You go to the country and you perform a hundred other tasks, but if you have not performed the task you were sent for, it is as if you have performed nothing at all. So man (sic) has come into the world for a particular task and that is his purpose. If he doesn’t perform it, he will have done nothing.

The Jungian analyst James Hollis says it this way, “. . . we are here to carry out the soul’s agenda rather [than] that of our family, or our neighbors, or our peer group.” Simplicity (in addition to silence) clears away the clutter that distracts us from our soul’s task (our soul’s gift) and enables us to look and listen for it and carry it out.♦

REFLECTION:

Do you have a sense of your own soul’s agenda (not your family, church, friends, or society’s agenda)? Take some time in silence to listen deeply for your soul’s task. Try to write it in one sentence. Then ask, what gets in the way of me receiving and performing my soul’s task. What nurtures and sustains my soul’s task.