A Simpler Time

I recently started re-reading a trilogy that has been sitting on my bookshelf for far too long. Yes, you heard me right...I'm RE-reading a trilogy! I am very open with the fact that I am a book worm, word nerd, you fill in the blank. This particular book has drawn me back to it time and time again. The trilogy of "The Hawk and the Dove" is about a group of 13th century monks who are learning to love and to accept God's grace. Though they belonged to another century, their struggles are our own - finding our niche; coping with failure; overcoming pride and anger, pain and insecurity; determining who we are before God. In their daily rhythm of work and worship, they discover that the whole of life is a love story about a tender and passionate God.

I have always found myself drawn to stories of the olden days where life was full of hard work yet simplistic in nature. The monks at St. Alcuins knew the value of working with their hands to provide for their daily needs. Much like the Amish community, the monks were very self-sufficient and were able to provide everything they needed within their own small community. I can only imagine the satisfaction they felt at the end of the day when they could sit back and see all of the vegetables produced from their garden and the bales of hay that had been harvested. It must be similar to the feeling I get after having spent all day working in the yard. There is nothing I enjoy more than sitting on the front porch and admiring a freshly mown lawn or piles of pine straw that have been raked underneath a tree in the fall. I can clearly see the fruits of my labor. I'm pretty sure they had no need for sleep medications after a hard days work either. And this is when it dawned one me why I'm so drawn to this book and these stories - I long for less. I miss the days when life had nothing to do with status, but simply survival. Just "being" was enough.

So much of life is spent in complete waste; not really accomplishing much of anything. And instead of simply working for what we need, we focus on making more money than we need so we can overindulge in the things of this world that truly don't fill us. We buy more clothes, eat at fancy restaurants, go on extravagant vacations, and yet, we still long for something more. Perhaps it's the simple truth that life is not about things, but about a loving God who continually pursues us and longs for us to draw closer to Him. He says in Isaiah 58:11, "The LORD will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail." We are told that He will provide for us if we simply trust in Him. I pray that God will reveal to me the excesses in my life so that I can get back to the basics and focus on His simple truth.