Simple

I want everything to be simple, but almost nothing is. Perhaps nothing is. It’s hard to say.

I have doubts about simplicity. Complexity rules, to the point of being confused with chaos, which is, I believe, an illusion. The concept of chaos is just a clever way of saying, “I can’t figure this out. I don’t know how this works. This is too complicated. I can’t keep track of the variables.” To which I say, “Big surprise there.”

But I get why we’re attracted to the concept of chaos. It kind of gets us off the hook. It’s a rationale for being comfortable with our limitations.

But life certainly feels like chaos a lot of the time.

People say, “I’m a simple person.” But they aren’t. They like to think they are, especially when they don’t want to deal with the complications. We want to be simple so we won’t have to expend the energy. We get too tired or too lazy or too disinterested to keep track of the calculations. Or they’re just beyond us. So we over simplify, you know, pretty much everything.

It’s a survival thing.

But complexity finds us: when morality won’t let us go, when problems rise up that we can’t solve with trite platitudes, when the doctors says, “I need you to come back in for some more tests.” When the simple answers don’t offer any solace.

Let me tell you: there’s nothing simple about life. And certainly not death or dying. Or human beings. God help us, the things we can do if we aren’t held back by something better than ourselves. The complexities of evil and the human heart are uncountable, unknowable. At least by us. Our hearts can be very dark. Caves. Black holes. Deny it all you want.

But it’s not all darkness, is it? What about love? Love is an amazing thing. But it’s not simple either. It’s very, very complicated. Too bright and pure to keep our eyes on for too long. Too complex to appreciate like we should. But, you give and take what you can and try to make it through the day. See a smile and smile back. Try to keep your cool when things get ugly around you. Look up at the stars and wonder. In awe. There is love in that sky.

We are fearfully and wonderfully made, planted on this little, green circle of soil and stone and water. A world so stunningly complex it leaves us without enough adjectives to adequately describe it. On top of that, we are conscious. We think, because we are. We are alive, floating in an immense, unfathomable universe. Space and time and matter, bound together to form all that is, yet like a grain of sand in the hand of God.

But there is a mark on the map of the universe. You are here. Breathe.

© LW Publishing 2011

Post Confessional Blues

So. I confessed here at Signify back in October (2010) to the strangely large number of books that I read all at the same time. The sad thing is, I found another stack of three or four more books that I failed to round up in my counting, so it’s even worse than I confessed at first.

Since then, I have honesty been trying to do better. My usual MO is to have about six or seven books, constantly jumping between them, with a backup bunch of nine or ten that I can switch in and out of the "current" reading if I feel the need, with a bunch more in strategic places like the car, for instance, which I read while waiting for the kids or whatever. And I have some larger books that are almost like textbooks, on history and art and such, that I often read in bits and pieces. And then I have the things I read for my work, which are many.

But I have been trying to do better. I have stacked up all the books in one spot. I selected three of them. One for next to the bed, which I think of as my “fun” read: a novel or biography, that kind of thing. Another one to go with me wherever I am around the house, which I think of as my “learning” read, which is the science or art or whatever book. And then one current “read for work” book, which is tough because I have a lot of things I need to keep up on with my work. Three books maximum. And I’ve really been trying to stick with this. I’m trying very consciously to NOT read the other books in the stack until I’ve finished one of the three. I’m trying to keep it at three, which seems reasonable.

I’m serious about this. But it’s hard to do.

I honestly find myself almost accidentally taking a book from the stack, you know, almost by reflex. They haunt me. So I have to stop myself. Sit it back down. Move on. And, on top of that, I just got a new book that I have to wait to read, which I don’t want to do. I just don’t. And if I choose to read it next, that means the things in the stack stay in the stack even longer.

Sigh.

I’m going to try to stick with this, but I know it’s not going to be easy. And I don’t even have a compelling moral reason to do it. I wish I did, as that helps me most of the time. I have no problem at all with the idea of doing some things simply because they are the right thing to do. There is a lot of peace in that. But in this case it's just about trying to discipline myself and be more productive and less scatter brained than I already am.

Oh, the humanity.



Romans 7:14-8:4
Peace to you.

© LW Publishing 2010