Simplicity is forgetfulness of self and remembrance of our humble status as waiting servants of God. (qfp.quaker.org.uk)
***
Simplicity is the name we give to our effort
to free ourselves to give full attention to God’s still, small voice:
the sum of our efforts to subtract from our lives
everything that competes with God
for our attention and clear hearing.
Lloyd Lee Wilson, 1947-
***
So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you:
Take your everyday, ordinary life—
your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—
and place it before God as an offering.
Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.
Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture
that you fit into it without even thinking.
Instead, fix your attention on God.
You’ll be changed from the inside out.
Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it.
Unlike the culture around you,
always dragging you down to its level of immaturity,
God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
Romans 12:1-2 The Message
***
“Simplicity, like all virtues, is valuable because it is useful.
I have come to understand that making life simpler does for our minds
what getting in shape does for our bodies.
It makes us feel more in control, more centered, more effective…
you have to work at it consciously every day.”
Robert Lawrence Smith, A Quaker Book of Wisdom