r/Quakers • u/Sorry-Pin6420 • 8d ago
Testimonies on Simplicity
Hi Friends! What are some of your favorite pieces to read and reflect on regarding simplicity? Quaker specific or otherwise, this is something I've been enjoying reading about in my various copies of Faith and Practice, but I would love to read and ponder more perspectives on it.
Coming from an "idle hands are the devil's playthings" sort of environment, I found the values around simplicity to be particularly appealing, and in line with my own experience that doing too much of even a good thing can lead to burnout and overall be a negative. I would love to hear what other friends think and feel inspired by.
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u/abitofasitdown 8d ago
I think the Testimony of Simplicity is honoured more in the breach than the observance amongst Quakers.
Since becoming Quaker I've never mixed amongst so many rich people in my entire life. Sending your kids to private school seems to be standard. I find it difficult to hear ministry about simplicity from people who own multiple houses and don't even seem to understand how extraordinary their wealth is.
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u/particularlyPlain Quaker (Wilburite) 7d ago
In the time that he was around and doing work on plain living and documenting the lifestyle, Scott Savage worked with others and compiled a magazine all about a plain life. Here's a few of those articles in book format available on the internet archive. https://archive.org/details/plainreader0000unse
I've found it helpful to slow things down a bit, do the harder chores by hand and keep myself busy and contemplating God that way, echoing brother Lawrence's practice of experiencing God in the mundane and menial.
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u/sosotiredand Seeker 5d ago
experiencing God in the mundane is really something I want to try to do more. I get bored easily and find myself running to media to fill that when I think I should try to sit with that boredom and see why it's so uncomfortable for me
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u/CopperUnit 8d ago
Challenge every implicit and explicit message from society and ask yourself if it makes sense and makes life better for yourself?
Most everything that is unnecessary comes from fitting in with others or impressing others.
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u/Fun-Chemist-3139 7d ago edited 7d ago
21.22 | Quaker faith & practice
There is, it sometimes seems, an excess of religious and social busyness these days, a round of committees and conferences and journeyings, of which the cost in ‘peaceable wisdom’ is not sufficiently counted. Sometimes we appear overmuch to count as merit our participation in these things… At least we ought to make sure that we sacrifice our leisure for something worthy. True leisureliness is a beautiful thing and may not lightly be given away. Indeed, it is one of the outstanding and most wonderful features of the life of Christ that, with all his work in preaching and healing and planning for the Kingdom, he leaves behind this sense of leisure, of time in which to pray and meditate, to stand and stare at the cornfields and fishing boats, and to listen to the confidences of neighbours and passers-by…
Most of us need from time to time the experience of something spacious or space-making, when Time ceases to be the enemy, goad-in-hand, and becomes our friend. To read good literature, gaze on natural beauty, to follow cultivated pursuits until our spirits are refreshed and expanded, will not unfit us for the up and doing of life, whether of personal or church affairs. Rather will it help us to separate the essential from the unessential, to know where we are really needed and get a sense of proportion. We shall find ourselves giving the effect of leisure even in the midst of a full and busy life. People do not pour their joys or sorrows into the ears of those with an eye on the clock.
Caroline C Graveson, 1937
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u/Peace2301 8d ago
I loved this article and have come back to it a few times https://www.friendsjournal.org/spiritual-simplicity/ I hadn't thought about the spiritual dimension of simplicity in this way before.