Posted: August 12, 2023 • Posted in: Action, Discussions, Faith

Simplicity in a complex world

Try to live simply. A simple lifestyle freely chosen is a source of strength.

(from Advices & Queries No.41)

After Quaker meeting on two Fridays a month we hold a discussion. We invited Nicky to share her introduction to this stimulating conversation.

‘The start

The testimony of outward simplicity began as a protest against the extravagance and snobbery which marked English society in the 1600s. In whatever forms this protest is maintained today, it must still be seen as a testimony against involvement with things which tend to dilute our energies and scatter our thoughts, reducing us to lives of triviality and mediocrity.

Simplicity does not mean drabness or narrowness but is essentially positive, being the capacity for selectivity in one who holds attention on the goal.

(North Carolina Yearly Meeting (Conservative), 1983 quoted in Quaker faith & practice 20.27)

In solidarity

Every year my partner and I go to help on ‘Refugee Tales’ a long walk in solidarity with refugees and asylum seekers. As I write this we are just back from the 2023 walk – an experience which slims down life to pretty bare necessities. It’s like a pilgrimage – 50- 100 people walking across the countryside, listening to music and stories each evening and camping in churches or village halls. We eat together, walk and talk together – live together – and it makes us all realise how much we have in common at the basic, simple human level. This makes me feel the Quaker testimony of simplicity particularly keenly and recognise the inadequacies in my response to it.

Quaker values (testimonies)

One thing that most Quakers have in common is a set of testimonies, or values, by which we try to live our lives. We are urged to see ‘that of God’ in every person and the sacred in all life. The testimonies arise out of a deep, inner conviction and challenge our normal ways of living. They do not exist in any rigid, written form; nor are they imposed in any way. All of us are free to search for the ways in which the testimonies can become true for us.

As the testimonies come from “leadings of the Spirit,” this may mean taking a stand against common social practices. Early Quakers stood out by their simplicity of dress – no bright colours, no buttons, none of the fripperies of current fashion. In a way it acted as outreach, people knew from what they wore that there was something unusual about this person’s beliefs.

Which faith groups does that remind you of in 21^st century Britain?

Quaker simplicity – it’s not (necessarily) simple

Quaker simplicity is not about forbidding all earthly pleasures, though it does mean rejecting indulgence. We are urged constantly to challenge the way we live and what our true needs are. At our best we try to avoid a standard of living achieved at the expense of others and we try not to define our place in society by material possessions.

Making moral choices nowadays often seems dauntingly complex – globalisation for instance means that we don’t see the working conditions of the people who make our food, clothes, furniture. But this doesn’t mean we can throw our hands up and stop bothering. We are not let off the hook. My desire for simple easy choices really shouldn’t rest on other people’s suffering.

Occasionally we must all have had our ‘deception alarm’ set off by the politician / salesperson / person in the pub who prefaces their message with, “It’s very simple”. This phrase is designed to lull us into not thinking critically and can trap us into swallowing something untrue or distorted. Oscar Wilde wrote in The Importance of Being Earnest, “The truth is rarely pure and never simple”, reminding us to look for nuances and seek out the complexities which need unravelling.

Better, simpler choices?

I like the Quaker testimony of simplicity but in some ways find it hard. I’ve come home this year with the aim to try to make better, simpler choices:

To focus on what is really important,
Not to make a great song and dance about simplicity,
To make things as simple as possible but not distort the truth for the sake of making it seem simple.

Do you have an example of a choice you’ve made which was guided by the aim for simplicity?’