It’s a paradox that things can be simple and complex at the same time.
I woke up at 3:30 a.m. to discover it had snowed overnight. Looking out the window at a landscape bright despite the overcast a few nights past full moon, everything was stark black and white. The tree trunks and limbs, the wooden fence, the vertical parts of the iron table and chairs on the patio: black. Everything else was perfect white, sharp lines and edges softened beneath a blanket of new snow.
I thought about what the snow might represent as a metaphor. Grace coming down from heaven to make everything white and clean and fresh? Mainly, it was just snow. Simple and uncomplicated as snow is -- unless you get down to the granular level of examining individual snowflakes, which are supposed to be infinite in their crystalline variety.
I spent time yesterday catching up on news from the Anglican communion.
I read that Bishop Mouneer Anis of Jerusalem has resigned from the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion. The bishop was quoted as saying his presence on the committee had “no value whatsoever” and his voice was “like a useless cry in the wilderness.”
I’ve always liked Bishop Anis. He speaks his mind and uses plain language.
At the Stand Firm website, where there is always good discussion, Sarah Hey put up a post delving into difficulties with the Anglican Communion Covenant -- details which become increasingly byzantine and problematic the closer you study them.
It is easy for a lay person to gloss over the difficulties of getting the primates and bishops to settle on a framework that preserves orthodoxy -- especially considering the fact that there are people in authority working hard to do just the opposite.
Still, it seems to me Christianity is very simple. Love God. Love thy neighbor. Participate with Christ in the suffering of the world. Through Christ come to know God and receive the hope salvation.
Personal experience has taught me that the simpler things are, the truer they are, although maybe that is because I am simple-minded. The Devil really is always in the details. The simpler things are, the fewer the places for the enemy to hide.
Maybe sometime things simply are black and white. Even though, looked at from a different perspective, they are also complex.
For God alone my soul in silence waits;
truly, my hope is in him.
He alone is my rock and my salvation,
my stronghold, so that I shall not be broke.
My problem is that often my ego convinces me something is really simple when it is in fact more complex than I realize. Or maybe it is that my ego has lead me to what I believe is the obvious "simple answer" when I have just plain analyzed the problem incorrectly. I agree that experience has shown that the simplest solutions are most often the best. I just have a problem finding the "real simple" solution. Of course, when I can remember to have Christ as my focus, I don't worry about having the answer. As is probably obvious from this post, my "human nature" causes me considerable difficultly in this area. I am reminded of one of C.S. Lewis' quotes; "He said take and eat, not take and understand."
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