Simplicity

"Simplicity of life requires that we be honest about who and what we are. We live a simple life when we do not pretend to be something we are not.

Simplicity is honesty, but it is also detachment. Honesty enables me to discover the hard truth that simplicity of life is not frugality of life. It is life unencumbered, life free of the things we own so that they do not own us.

Simplicity is openness to the beauty of the present, whatever its shape, whatever its lack. It enables us to be conscious of where we are and to stop mourning where we are not.

Simplicity and serenity, simplicity and honesty, simplicity and openness, simplicity and acceptance are synonyms too long kept secret."


What is a simple life in a world and a society where having enough is never quite enough? What is the value of simplicity?

This is what becoming fully human is all about...


Joan Chittister, Benedictine sister, author - 2005