Essay
From the series „Minima Moralia”
Simplicity…
I was thinking, these days, how much we managed to complicate everything, in everything, in the conditions where our life should be so simple, natural and natural, because its Master and Creator – „The Way, the Truth and Life” is so simple, modest, normal and natural „according to word, according to port”, as His disciples became (also) – the Holy Apostles, reaching, likewise, their disciples – the Saints and their successors – the spiritual Fathers , from and to our days!…
Without pretensions, arrogance, airs, behaviors and manners, which more, more complicated and amplified or sophisticated!…
In other words, we have become so complicated, mixing things up. We like and agree with convoluted situations, winding paths/roads. It challenges us. They increase our adrenaline and, according to some, even our lifestyle. Curious thing, but in late postmodernity, simplicity, in all its forms, is equated/equivalent to stupidity, ignorance and, why not, even arrogance, biological involution, psychological regression or sociological maladjustment. In any case, the more simplicity is present in someone’s life, the less social interest towards him, unfortunately!
I don’t think that once upon a time, more or less down in history, simplicity had a different categorization/a different fate. But not because there were no reasons for blame, even then, but because it imposed itself with more force and naturalness in the lifestyle, especially in rural communities, around the spiritual Father and the Gospel.
And yet, the simplicity of life is, today, as always, a chance. A great, rare chance. A good that we part with too easily. A discrete but concrete flower whose presence, however, we do not sense because of the dryness that overwhelms/haunts our existence.
It is said about modesty and humility that it is the ability, „man’s power to keep his place”, that is, to be content with what he is and what he has. And this can only be achieved because humility is simplicity. But not a retrograde simplicity, from a cultural, social, axiological point of view, but a simplicity that has in its manifestation a noble attitude towards the values of life. And this attitude draws its sap from the never-dry springs of divine reasons that are the basis/foundation of creatures/beings.
That’s why simplicity finds its place only in the pure/empty soul or emptied/cleansed of passions. Disenchantment means, thus, a willful detachment/detachment from the unnecessary complications of life and a return to the natural simplicity of the grace within us.
Otherwise, simplicity is not stupidity. On the contrary, it is accompanied by the deepest power and genuine rational behavior of man. Only when man will manage to overcome the surface analyzes of things, passing beyond their deceptive (and very complicated) crust, will he be able to enjoy all the unsuspected riches of simplicity. In this sense, it is said about simplicity that it is man’s sixth sense and his watchful eye, through which he can glimpse the value hierarchy of things.
That’s why the simple man never gets complicated. He does not complicate himself for the sake of beauty, tranquility and peace, joy and freshness, gentleness and honesty, so many states of mind that he enjoys continuously.
Thus, simplicity can raise man to the standards of Jesus Christ, the One who said: „Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven” (Mt. 5, 3).
In other words, it is very complicated to talk, especially these days, about simplicity. It seems even more complicated to live in its vicinity. And for us today, it becomes almost impossible to wish to live under the empire of its wealth/fertility. Then your life really gets complicated.
However, without simplicity, none of the people can say that they truly live, just as they cannot hope to see the Lord, „Meek and lowly in heart” (Mt. 11, 29).
In reality, however, and in all its depth, life is simple. It is wonderfully simple because it is a source of love that flows from God to man and returns from man to God. Beyond this simplicity that defines life are only the unnecessary ramifications that hijack its beauty, consistency and meaning.
That is why, today, always and always, the simple man is „a new Jesus Christ” who traverses the world, and the simple life is the only chance for complete happiness, promised by the Gospel of our Savior Jesus Christ, as it is the real encounter between the heart of God which- He is constantly looking for man and the heart of man, which rests unsuspectingly at the „Boss of His Love”.
The rest is nothing but a cheap complication, without meaning, substance, meaning and content!…
In other words, ordinary things should be simple, but day by day they turn out to be more and more complicated. In a world that incessantly urges competition, display of qualities and confidence in one’s own strength, contemporary man is increasingly dizzy with contrasts.
The opulence promoted in the mass media more and more violently and aggressively, has become the standard that most souls dream/aspire to reach. It is the daily dose/portion that neurons want to stay awake in the sleep of the world. And when you think that on the journey of this life we should only have with us the strictly necessary luggage that will use us in eternal life!…
Because the statistics are alarming about the stress and the congested way in which the contemporary man lives/lives, there is already talk of a current of simplicity: simplicity at work, simplicity in the kitchen, simplicity in health, simplicity and naturalness in beauty, simplicity in movies, simplicity in music, simplicity in commercials, simplicity in play, simplicity in life, etc.
In other words, simplicity is not a state sought only by people who want to get closer to God, but it is a subject that has been in the minds of philosophers and logicians for some time, on the statistical pages of sociologists and on the lips of psychologists and psychiatrists. More simplicity, less hassle, as if they were all telling us in unison!
Therefore, the solution to all problems lies in genuine simplicity, in the naturalness/normality of things. The bigger the problem, the simpler the solution, but it is hard for man to accept this reality. Why ? Because we like and are attracted to sophisticated things, speculations, excesses. We have the „gift” of turning any simple problem into one, as complicated and twisted as possible, which has no head, no tail, no beginning, and no end. Information, pain, words, dreams, frustrations, silences, loneliness, etc. entered our body and blood. We get lost in labyrinths that we entered willingly and unforced by anyone. The devil is in the details, someone said.
That is precisely why Saint Pious Paisius the Aghios always said: „simplify your life, and the stress will disappear!”
So, the simple things became the hardest. I think that just as you give up the weights, or the strings that keep a balloon tied to the ground, it simply rises and flies, so does the soul. If we give up the things that burden/burden our soul, it becomes easier, free, natural… and rises to the Creator. Because simplicity is the key to peace, the diet of the soul and the transfusion of the body.
That is why the Saints are living models of simplicity, eloquent examples of emptying the self to make room for God. The Pateric is full of such testimonies of needy old people, who through the simplicity/modesty of their lives got closer to God, being searched by the Holy Spirit, the Comforter.
Moreover, simplicity contains within itself the beautiful, which rests and unites kindness with sincerity, naturalness with discretion, humility with prayer.
As such, God wants us to be simple, life itself is a simple one, but we complicate it with all kinds of trifles, dissected into a multitude of threads, which we no longer know how to knot or intertwine. And then we sigh that we have remained defeated/kneeling in our own clumsy and ineffective work.
At the same time, simplicity does not cover nature, it is what gives soul to the universe, wings to thought, charm to youth, life and joy to all things. It lifts the soul to all that is good, just and beautiful. Is being simple today an art or a garment/adornment only for a certain category of people?!…
In simplicity and modesty, therefore, the soul calms down, becomes more indulgent, nobler, more elegant, more sensitive, more delicate, more attentive and learns the joy of being small, decent and in the right place!…
Therefore, „holy simplicity” is the spring of the mind, of the heart, of life, it is the meeting place with God, Who said „What is yes should be yes and what is no should be no!”, short, simple, punctual and concrete… And if we have Him, it is enough for us, because „all the rest will be added to you” (Mt. 6, 33).
And now, at the end of this essay, I would add/complete/conclude that a healthy, simple, normal and natural man necessarily needs three things:
– To know his place, purpose and use!
– To do his duty, fulfilling his obligations!
– To be patient, without complicating things at all!…
Dr. Stelian Gombos
Stelian Gomboș 