'Tis THE Gift to Be Simple

I have been thinking lately about being "simple" or "living simply."

I'm not certain if the reason for this is that I'm completing Christmas wish lists and contemplating all of the new toys and pieces of furniture that are about to move into my already cluttered and messy house. It might be that the reason is that another person has moved into our house, and I am again lamenting the loss of space my husband and I have endured as a result of the first two little people who moved into our house. They take up a lot of room, and they carry a lot of baggage. (Or maybe that's me.) It could be that I'm sensing a lot of emotional lessening that I need to do, and that is carrying over into my physical life. Or it could just be that I watched just five minutes of Hoarders the other day. That freaked me out.

All I know is that I want to simplify. I go through this phase from time to time, and my husband hates it. I always fill up the garbage or the basement "garage sale" pile or bags (and our living room!) with items that I continue to forget to drop off at Goodwill. I just want less. Less stuff. Less needs. Less stress. Less debt. Less. Less.

But how do I get there? And then how do I stay there. Because inevitably I purge and then I binge. There's always more that I want just as there is much I long to lose.

I have long sung an old Shaker dance hymn, though I discovered today that I have sung it wrong. I sing it more as a reminder to myself or in an effort to convince myself that it really is true. Every time I have sung it, I have replaced the essential word with a word that changes the meaning completely. I am not alone in this, but I still lose what Brackett intended. It just doesn't work to say, "It is A gift to be simple." As if to say, "There are many gifts, and today I choose another." Brackett wrote, " 'Tis THE gift to be simple." The only one there is. Everything else flows from this gift to be simple, this gift to be free. This gift to come down where we ought to be.

Dear Lord, grant that I may somehow find a way to simplify. In this world that pulls at my heart and creates longings I do not want for things I do not need, help me to live simply. Open my eyes to see that all I need to live is already mine. Amen.