Inward Simplicity: The Divine Center, Part I

Oh, blessed simplicity, that seizes swiftly what cleverness, tired out in the service of vanity, may grasp but slowly.

In his lofty mythology, The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien gives a penetrating picture into the effects of inward simplicity, “But the delight and pride of Aüle is in the deed of making, and in the thing made, and neither in possession nor in his own mastery; wherefore he gives and hoards not, and is free from care, passing ever on to some new work.” What an inviting picture of movement and work in harmony with the divine Center of the universe. And what a contrast to the frantic and often frustrated rush of our daily lives.

We dash here and there desperately trying to fulfill the many obligations that press in upon us. We jerk back and forth between business commitments and family responsibilities. While we are busy responding to the needs of child or spouse, we feel guilty about neglecting the demands of work. When we respond to the pressures of work, we fear we are failing our family. In those rare times when we are able to juggle the two successfully, the wider issues of nation and world whisper pestering calls to service. If anyone needs a simplification of life, we do.

What will set us free from this bondage to the ever spiraling demands that are placed upon us? The answer is found in the grace of Christian simplicity. This virtue, once worked into our lives, will unify the demands of our life. It will prune and trim gently and in the right places. It brings a liberty of soul that eliminates constant reversions to ourselves.

Life at the Center

I still remember the rainy February morning inside a Washington, D.C., airport many years ago. Exhausted, I slumped into a chair to wait for my flight. As always, I had brought reading material in order to make good use of free moments. For the first time in my life I opened Thomas Kelly’s Testament of Devotion.

Immediately, he caught my attention by describing perfectly my condition and the condition of so many I knew: “We feel honestly the pull of many obligations and try to fulfill them all. And we are unhappy, uneasy, strained, oppressed, and fearful we shall be shallow.” Yes, I had to confess I was in those words. To all who saw me I was confident and in command, but inwardly I was tired and scattered. Then my eyes came upon words of hope and promise, “We have hints that there is a way of life vastly richer and deeper than all this hurried existence, a life of unhurried serenity and peace and power. If only we could slip over into that Center!” Instinctively, I knew that he was speaking of a reality beyond what I had known. Please understand me, I was not ungodly and irreverent, just the opposite. My problem was that I was so serious, so concerned to do what was right, that I felt compelled to respond to every call to service. And, after all, they were wonderful opportunities to minister in Christ’s name.

Then came the sentence that was to prompt an inner revolution: “We have seen and known some people who seem to have found this deep Center of living, where the fretful calls of life are integrated, where No as well as Yes can be said with confidence.” This ability to say Yes and No out of the divine Center was foreign to me. I had always prayed over decisions, and yet I too often responded on the basis of whether or not the action would put me in a favorable light. To say Yes to pleas for help or opportunities to serve usually carried an aura of spirituality and sacrifice. I could say Yes easily, but I did not have the ability to say No. What would people think of me if I refused?

Alone, I sat in the airport watching the rain splatter against the window. Tears fell on my coat. It was a holy place, an altar, the chair where I sat. I was never to be the same. Quietly, I asked God to give me the ability to say No when it was right and good.

Back home, I was once again caught up into a flurry of activity. But I had made one decision—Friday nights were to be reserved for the family. It was a small decision at the time; nobody but I really knew about it. I had told the family in a casual, off-hand fashion; they did not know it was a covenant commitment, a crossroads decision. Nor did I, really. It just seemed the right thing to do, hardly what one would call a God-given directive.

But then the phone call came. It was a denominational executive. Would I be willing to speak to this group on Friday night? There it was, another wonderful opportunity. My response was casual, almost unconscious, “Oh, no, I can’t.” The reply was also casual, “Oh, do you have another commitment?” I felt trapped. (In those days I did not know that I could quite legitimately say that I did indeed have a very important commitment.) Cautiously but purposefully, I answered simply, “No,” with no attempt to justify or explain my decision. There followed a long period of silence which seemed to last an eternity. I could almost feel the words, “Where is your dedication?” traveling through the telephone wires. I knew I had made a decision that made me seem less spiritual to one for whom I genuinely cared. After a moment we shared a few pleasantries and then hung up; but as the phone hit the receiver, inwardly I shouted, “Hallelujah.” I had yielded to the Center. I had touched the margin of simplicity, and the effect was electrifying.

The incident was so small and insignificant that it is almost embarrassing to relate it to you. I’m sure my denominational friend does not even recall the phone conversation. And yet somehow I had turned a corner. Even now I sometimes wish I could say that something terribly important precipitated the change. But there it was, a trivial event, yet it had changed everything. Perhaps it has been that way for you also. At least I know that often the genuinely important issues are decided in the small corners of life.

I mention these little incidents of the airport and the phone conversation only because they were the first opening to me of what it meant to respond to the demands of life from the divine Center. But it is this reality that lies at the heart of all Christian simplicity. As we yield to the Center everything about us becomes focused, synoptic. This yielding is nothing more than the experience of the great commandment to love God with all our being. A French Christian, Marie of the Incarnation, wrote in 1628, “My spirit was more and more being simplified. . . . In the depths of my soul . . . these words were continual; “Ah! My Love, my Well-Beloved! Be blessed, O my God!” . . . And since that time my soul has remained in its center which is God.”

I hope you understand what I mean when I speak of living out of the Center. I am of course referring to God, but I do not mean God in an abstract theoretical sense, nor even God in the sense of One to be feared and revered. Nor do I mean God only in the sense of One to be loved and obeyed. For years I loved him and sought to obey him, but he remained on the periphery of my life. God and Christ were extremely important to me but certainly not the Center. After all, I had many tasks and aspirations that did not relate to God in the least. What, for heaven’s sake, did swimming and gardening have to do with God? I was deeply committed, but I was not integrated or unified. I thought that serving God was another duty to be added onto an already busy schedule.

But slowly I came to see that God desired to be not on the outskirts, but at the heart of my experience. Gardening was no longer an experience outside of my relationship with God—I discovered God in the gardening. Swimming was no longer just good exercise—it became an opportunity for communion with God. God in Christ had become the Center.

Our Many Selves

You may be wondering what all this has to do with simplicity. Perhaps I could explain it this way. Within all of us is a whole conglomerate of selves. There is the timid self, the courageous self, the business self, the parental self, the religious self, the literary self, the energetic self. And all of these selves are rugged individualists. No bargaining or compromise for them. Each one screams to protect his or her vested interests.

If a decision is made to spend a relaxed evening listening to Chopin, the business self and the civic self rise up in protest at the loss of precious time. The energetic self paces back and forth impatient and frustrated, and the religious self reminds us of the lost opportunities for study or evangelistic contact. If the decision is to accept an appointment on the human services board, the civic self smiles with satisfaction, but all the excluded selves filibuster. No wonder we feel distracted and torn. No wonder we overcommit our schedules and live lives of frantic faithfulness. But when we experience life at the Center, all is changed. Our many selves come under the unifying control of the divine Arbitrator. No longer are we forced to live by an inner majority rule which always leaves a disgruntled minority. The divine Yes or No settles all minority reports. Everything becomes oriented to this new Center of reference. The quiet evening can be enjoyed to the fullest because our many selves have been stilled by the Holy Within. The business self, the religious self, the energetic self, all are at peace because they know we are living in obedience. There is no need to wave the flag of self interest, since all things good and needful will be given their proper attention at the appropriate time. We enter a refreshing balance and equilibrium in life.

Until we begin to move into this way of living we cannot possibly make sense out of Jesus’ startling statement, “Let what you say be simply “Yes” or “No”; anything more than this comes from evil” (Matt. 5:37). When all of life’s motions are governed by the heavenly Monitor, then we speak and make decisions in simplicity. Before, when asked to lead a campaign for minority rights (or teaches [sic] a Sunday School class or whatever), our competing selves engaged in vigorous debate. “It’s the right thing to do!” “But really now I am just too busy.” “The need is so great, and besides think of all those who will approve of the action . . . but then what of those who will disapprove.” “And what if I become entangled with the authorities, perhaps thrown into prison.” And on it went. We jerked back and forth between Yes and No, indecisive, confused. From earliest days we had been taught that God is not the author of confusion, but there we sat in inward disarray.

But when we live out of the divine Center, thoughts and decisions flow from the Fountainhead. All relevant data are considered, to be sure, but decisions stem from a source deeper than facts and figures. Once we have understood the mind of the Father, we can speak our Yes or No with confidence. We will have no need to reverse our decision if the winds of opinion change, for we have spoken out of a deeper Reality than the latest Gallup poll.

Earlier I spoke of God on the periphery of my life. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that I was on the periphery of his Life. It was I who needed to come into the Center, the Core. It is one thing for God to come into us (and a very necessary thing), but it is quite another for us to come into God. In the first instance we are still the center of attention; in the second God is the focal point. When God comes into us we still have a certain autonomy; when we come into God we have come IN. He is in all and through all and above all. This is no infantile pantheism, as if God could be captured in his creation; it is a marvelous majestic monotheism—one God from whom all life is sustained. It is life out of the divine Center.

The focus of Christian simplicity becomes more clear when we change the image flow from God coming into us to our coming into God. “Christ in you” was certainly an important theme in Paul’s teaching, but his favorite and most frequent image was of us “in Christ.” In the latter case, Christ has become the reference point and we are making the movement into him. When we are in Christ, truly in Christ, our deeds and words are of one piece, because they both flow from a single Spring.

Perpetual Communion

You may well ask if such a life is possible. Can we really hear God in such a way that each decision can be ordered and governed by him? Can we live in virtually constant communion with the divine Center of the universe? Can Christ truly be present among his people so that he can be heard? Oh, yes! His voice is not hard to hear. His vocabulary is not hard to understand.

Through his illustrious missionary and literary career, Frank Laubach bore repeated witness to this reality. His diaries and books on prayer are peppered with his many experiments to remain in constant communion with God. On the first day of 1937 he wrote in his diary, “God, I want to give you every minute of this year. I shall try to keep You in mind every moment of my waking hours. . . . I shall try to let You be the speaker and direct every word. I shall try to let You direct my acts. I shall try to learn Your language.” What a marvelous resolve for the new year! Three months later, he noted his progress in teaming to practice God’s presence: “Thank Thee . . . that the habit of constant conversation grows easier each day. I really do believe all thought can be conversations with Thee.”

Think of the number of people who have been encouraged in this way by the simple writings and profound life of Brother Lawrence. How vastly enriched we are that he was finally persuaded, almost against his will, to write down how he had learned The Practice of the Presence of God. His famous words still throb with life and joy, “The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquillity as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament.” Every thought, every decision, every action stemmed from the divine Root. A simple kitchen monk, who meekly referred to himself as the “lord of all pots and pans,” found it to be possible. We can too!

But we fool ourselves if we think that such a sacramental way of living is automatic. This kind of living communion does not just fall on our heads. We must desire it and seek it out. Like the deer that pants for the flowing stream, so we thirst for the living Spring. We must order our lives in particular ways. We must take up a consciously chosen course of action that will draw us more deeply into perpetual communion with the Father.

I have discovered one delightful means to this end to be prayer experiments that open us to God’s presence every waking moment. The idea is extraordinarily simple. Seek to discover as many ways as possible to keep God constantly in mind. “There is nothing new in that,” you may say. “That practice is very ancient and very orthodox.” Exactly! This desire to practice the presence of God is the secret of all the saints. “Pray constantly,” urged Paul (1 Thess. 5:17). “In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” (Phil. 4:6). “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God” (Rom. 8:14). Of course it is not new. Countless millions have shown it to be a practical living reality.

Have you ever tried to live out your day so that you fill each moment with the thought of God? I do not mean that you are to cease normal activity. Oh no! just the opposite. Bring God into each activity, infusing it with the divine Light.

One night I made a high resolve: every person whom I saw the next day I would consciously try to lift into the light of Christ. In the morning I jumped up, had breakfast, and was on my way to work before I realized I had not prayed at all for the family. One by one I sought to immerse them in the Light. Once at the office I rushed in, gave the day’s work to my secretary, and was walking out the door before I realized my omission once again. I prayed for the joy of the Lord to enter her day. By now I was beginning to realize how far my life was from constant communion. I became more collected within. Then as I went through the routine of my day I sought to beam prayers at each one I met. I asked for discernment to perceive what was in people, inviting Christ to comfort those who seemed hurt, encourage those who seemed weary, challenge those who seemed indifferent. It was a wonderfully happy day. Sometimes people I would pass on the street would turn, smile, and wish me a good day.

We can help people immensely in this secret ministry. Once, in an ordinary committee meeting, I felt moved to pray for one member who seemed weighted with sorrow, even bitterness. I, of course, participated in the discussion, but all the time inwardly I sought to bathe this person in the light of Christ. The meeting was somewhat difficult due to her rather caustic remarks, especially toward two others in the group. But as we prepared to dismiss, this person suddenly began to weep and finally said to the group, “I wish you would pray for me.” After she had shared the source of her hurt and anger, the two who had been verbally attacked gathered around her and prayed the most tender prayer of healing and release. The room seemed full of power and joy.

Frank Laubach spoke of his “Game with Minutes.” The idea is to take a given hour each day and see how many minutes during that hour you can be conscious of God’s presence. At first you will find the practice difficult and your “score” will be low. That is all right; you are developing new spiritual muscles. With practice, the habit will become more and more ingrained. Make your first experiment in a worship service and hopefully that will be an aid to your concentration. In time extend the experiment to the whole of your day.

When I first began reading Laubach’s journals, I was puzzled by the notations at the top of each day: “Conscious 50% . . . Conscious 25% . . . Conscious 80%.” No explanation whatever was given and I would wonder, “Conscious of what?” Finally I realized that he was playing his little game with minutes and recording the percentage of each day that he felt he was living conscious of God’s presence.

I’m glad he called it a game, because it is a delightful spiritual exercise. Besides, there needs to be a certain joyful lightheartedness about our task. Otherwise we will become overly serious and dreadfully boring. Meister Eckhart remarked, “The soul will bring forth person if God laughs into her and she laughs back into Him.” Our work is no grim duty. It is a delightful privilege. We are engaged in a joyous adventure, not a sourfaced penance. God is no killer of happiness. In this little exercise we are coming alive to God. Every person, every tree, every flower, every color is alive with God for those who know his language. Kagawa said that every scientific book was a letter from God telling us how he runs his universe.

And the glory of this experiment is that it works best when we concentrate not upon ourselves but upon others. We miss the point if we are taking our spiritual temperature every few moments to see if we are concentrating upon God enough. How much better if we try every moment to give God to someone else. It is wonderful to walk onto a grade school playground and inwardly lift every child into the arms of Christ. Or to ride in the back of a bus and invite Christ to visit with each person that boards. Carpenters and plumbers and electricians can fill the homes in which they work with the light of Christ, praying for each member of the family, or if it is a new home for the family which will live there. Grocery store clerks and retail checkers can pray for each person who passes through the line, imagining him or her drawing closer to God. In my work I write many letters, and so each time I sign my name I try to pray for the person to whom the letter is addressed. It is great fun to imagine the recipient opening the letter and being strengthened with a fresh sense of God’s presence. There are thousands of these little experiments you can try, and very often you will be startled by the results.

And most wonderful of all is what happens inside us. More and more we develop what Thomas á Kempis called a “familiar friendship with Jesus.” “No longer is “Jesus, Lover of My Soul” a quaint song—it is an amazing experience. To our astonishment we find that we are walking with God. His thoughts are becoming our thoughts, his desires our desires. Increasingly, old ugly thoughts melt away and our minds become pure as a mountain stream. Proof upon proof begins to pile up that God is at work in our daily lives, until we become certain of God, not from books or preachers, but from experience. The old strain and indecision are replaced by a greater ease and confidence.

Of all the inward changes we experience, the most awesome is that we begin to know his Voice. We become inwardly acquainted with the language of the true Shepherd. Humbled under the cross, we are able increasingly to discern the true Spirit from the clatter and clamor of human voices, and even the hollow voice of the enemy who comes under the guise of an angel of light. We begin to live in guidance. Inward promptings give unity to our decisions. All the demands for service are somehow filtered through the Light. Our lives are being simplified because we are giving attention to only one Voice, and our Yes and No arise from that Center. We no longer rush puffing and panting through our jam-packed day, yet somehow we accomplish more. Thomas Kelly witnessed, “Life from the Center is a life of unhurried peace and power. It is simple. It is serene. It is amazing. It is triumphant. It is radiant. It takes no time, but it occupies all our time. And it makes our life programs new and overcoming.”

» Continue on to Inward Simplicity: The Divine Center, Part II »