Simplicity Shouldn’t Be Complicated

One of my favorite musical compositions is Aaron Copeland’s “Appalachian Spring.” Near the end of this luscious piece of music is Copeland’s moving arrangement of the old Shaker hymn “‘Tis the Gift to be Simple.”

Ordinarily, this hymn is sung upbeat so the wonderful text trips off the tongue with less thought of the message and more thought to getting all the words connected to the right notes. But Copeland’s intuitive genius lowered the music down to a deliberate, reflective pace. That allows the listener to sing the words and still give pause to their profundity:

“‘Tis the gift to be simple, ‘Tis the gift to be free, ‘Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be, And when we find ourselves in the place just right, ‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight.”

Simplicity has this two-edged irony: We over-complicate the simple! It just isn’t easy for us to get simple. Apparently we have to analyze and agonize over every effort to simplify our lives.

Or we go the other way and over-simplify the complicated. Like the car ad with a new car in the middle of a mostly white page, with the word “Simplify” beneath. At the bottom, we read “Swift. Responsive. And you’ll never find yourself yelling at one. What decision could be easier?” Of course advertising is, by design, the near-ultimate in simplistic communication.

Maybe we complicate simplicity as a way of doing penance. It’s like we unconsciously know we allowed our lives to get so complicated that we are blinded to the core reasons for delighting in the life God has offered.

God’s gift is simple and free. It is found in “the place just right” where our inner needs and wants are balanced with our outer needs and wants.

One of the 20th-century theologians I struggled to understand in seminary was Karl Barth. It wasn’t until well after those academic struggles were over that I read how Barth felt that all of his theology boiled down to “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible told me so.”

Why didn’t I read that when I was in seminary? It would have save me a whole lot of analysis and anguish!

‘Tis the gift to be simple - so what do we usually do with this gift? We stand at the exchange counter, eager to turn in the “simple” gift and get something more fun, more complex! We work too hard and with too little gratitude at simplifying our lives.

Maybe our work ethic says we must work hard for anything worthwhile. After all, being lazy isn’t the same thing as living a simple life, is it? No, I don’t think so. I know many people who work very hard just to keep their lives simple. Keeping life simple in our complicated culture is a very difficult balance to achieve and then maintain.

Or maybe we believe simplicity is too good to be true. There are so many things about God we think are too good to be true. Do you think that way about simplicity? That it is too good to be true? How can we truly be thankful for that which we can’t trust?

For me, it’s a great challenge to keep my life simple without thinking simplistically about the solutions. I resist quick answers, especially religious answers.

While I believe strongly in prayer, I resist “Let’s pray about it” as a quick response to any crisis large or small. It works easily for some, but not for me.

And while I keep finding new reasons to “let go and let God,” that sounds simplistic to me. Its message is almost putting everything on God and assuming no responsibility myself. And I’m not sure that’s the kind of obedient dependence God wants from us.

Do you see my dilemma about simplicity? It has something to do with my own belief that God created us to be partners in the grand complexity of creation. It also touches on how absurdly complex we make God’s simple call to be just, loving, compassionate and courageous in our dealings with other people and ourselves.

But before we either over-simplify or over-complicate those acts, we might remember this: Simplicity has to do with knowing when to stop in mid-breathlessness and simply remember to say “Thank you” to God for the moment of life we experience right now.

I trust - without courting paralysis by analysis - that simple gestures of genuine, ongoing thanksgiving to God will move us toward the basic enjoyment and embracing of life continuously offered us by God.

Now that’s a simple and free gift to sing in our hearts!

xxxx