New Site

Hello!  Thanks so much for visiting!  If you’d like to know more, Finding Simplicity has moved here.

Blessings on your journey.

*Laura*

{Looking for Me?}

It’s been so long since I’ve posted to this site!  Several of you have mentioned that you miss seeing my posts.  So, I just wanted to drop by and say that I’ve been posting here and here.  Plans for Finding Simplicity are changing and a new site will launch this Summer 2011.  I will be sure to post that link when the time comes.

Thanks for being you!  I look forward to hearing from you soon.

*L*

Ignorance is Bliss?

Is ignorance bliss or denial?

I rarely watch Oprah, but today her show was actually quite eye opening.  It focused on the oppression of women and girls around the world, specifically in Cambodia and Africa.  Being an emotional person, I found my face covered by a waterfall of tears as I learned about individual struggles and losses.  Starvation, prostitution, and lack of medical supplies/services blanket so many countries.  So often, upon hearing this news, I turn the other cheek pretty quickly.  Overwhelming grief, sadness, and despair flood my being.  What can I do?  Little me, in a great big broken world?

Well, something clicked today in me.  I can write.  I can talk.  I can shine a light in the darkness.  And, so can you.

Heading into a meaningful season, full of wonder, grace, peace, and love — I feel convicted to fall on my knees in thanksgiving.  We have so much here in the United States.  Our country is overflowing with abundance and opportunity.  Yes, there is hardship.  Yes, there is pain, poverty, and injustice.  Here, there, and everywhere, people are hurting.  Voices are silenced, as shame, control, and oppression contend to take their place.  It’s just simply not okay!

Feed ONE.

So really, what can we do?  We can start small.  I find that an overwhelming anxiety soon follows an emotional outpouring, which often leads to inaction.  Yet, by starting small, we can and will make a difference.  Like the butterfly effect, where everything is interconnected, change happens from little acts.  Simple acts. We have no idea how these actions from the heart change the world.  We can leave those details up to God.

For Christmas, I am once again challenging our consumer culture.  Gifts are not wrong or bad, but refusing to open ourselves up to the  larger picture is.  Allowing ourselves to become distracted by the hustle and bustle of the season decreases our heart’s capacity.  How might your gift giving change by focusing on the realities of this world?  Feeding one child, supporting a small business, or sponsoring a child are some ways to start small.  Maybe helping out locally, giving your time to those without a warm place to rest their head is a place to start.  Time is a valuable way to give, and often creates lasting change for all involved.  How might you start a new family tradition this Christmas by cultivating awareness?  Living simply makes room to see the truth.  And from truth, comes real living and awareness.

The Girl Effect is a movement started to create awareness.  Young girls and women around the world are not treated equally and fall victim to horrendous acts.  We, you and me, those living in a safe space, can be their voice.  After all, knowledge is power and starting small, is where is begins.

“If you can’t feed a hundred people, then just feed one.”

~Mother Teresa

We can make a difference.  Will you?

{More Life}

“More Stuff.  More Space.  Less Life.” How true is this quote?  As we move into the holiday season, I am once again contemplating the meaning of all the stuff around our lives.

I met a lady yesterday, who was inquiring about a membership to the YMCA.  Her kids had asked her to come up with some “clutter free” gift ideas.  As a family, they had decided that more stuff was utterly unnecessary.

After our conversation, I was left pondering the values in our consumptive culture.  How do our things serve us?  How do they detract or add to our livelihood?  What do they do to our relationships?  How does stuff find its way into our precious homes?

When people visit, I often hear comments such as “Your place is so neat.  How do you do it?”  I often equate it to my hyper-perfectionist personality and the fact that we don’t have little people running around yet.  However, I also now see a deeper root cause.  Jeremy and I don’t live with a lot of stuff.  Consciously or unconsciously, we have been very intentional about what we bring into our home.  Throughout our marriage, we have continued to purge and let go of the things that no longer add value to our lives.  Through this process, we’ve found both healing and freedom.  The things in our home mean something and often shine on special memories.  They reflect who we are and what we believe in.  They support and nourish our souls, as we retreat from a harried, hectic day.  The stuff in our lives is separate from us.  At any time, moths or thieves, floods or fires, could take it all away.  Upon this reflection, we are centered in knowing that our eyes need to be fixed on something greater.  Something more real.  Something more lasting.

“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful”

~William Morris

So, when we go to the stores today, we walk around, immersed in the glamour and sparkling of advertisements.  Our eyes grow wide and our mouths well with thirst over all the yummy, delicious stuff within reach of our fingertips.  We dream about bigger, better, and more.  For a tiny moment, we get lost in the world of illusion; thinking all our problems will be solved if we stuffed our home with all that neat, shiny stuff.

Sale items are my poisonous apple.  While I often don’t need it, I can find every reason and excuse to bring it home.  I mean, it’s a great deal!  It was meant for me to find it!  Shoes and purses are definitely my weakness.  But, bygone, I’ll make room in my closet because it’s worth it!

New Table. Old, Spooky Decoration.

During a recent trip to Target, I came across an aisle full of clearance furniture.  Modern, sleek, new; just calling my name.  I quickly snatched up one of the tables, feeling a tiny twisting in my stomach.  Did I need it?  Heck no, but I proceeded to walk around with it in the cart.  Tiny voices, from both shoulders began speaking.  After bouncing between need and want, I headed toward the checkout line…..with the table.  I had talked myself into deciding it was worth it.  Plus, it really was something I had my eye on for a while, but knew it would only find its way into our home if it drastically came down in price.

When I got home and put the tiny table in the place my mind had picked out, I began to contemplate the price of many things filling the average home today.  This little table cost me two hours of work.  Yet, I began to think beyond that.  Time cleaning, moving (near and far), and decorating also needed consideration.  Over the course of a lifetime, this tiny table may end up taking more of my life than I originally understood.  Not to mention the real estate (space) it now required in our overall square footage.

While this illustration may seem small and worthless, I do have to wonder how this illuminates a greater story.  If our eye is fixed on this stuff, if it only adds to our meaning of success, then what have we lost?  How have we volunteered our time to this stuff, while replacing our capacity for authentic love and real relationship?  In what ways might our stuff neglect or cover feelings/situations that need to be indebted to time?

“We don’t need to increase our goods nearly as much as we need to scale down our wants.  Not wanting something is as good as possessing it.”

~Donald Horban

How will you keep space to love those around you?  What will your buying criteria, in response to more life, be this holiday season?

{Reflections at 35,000 Feet}

I love flying.  Something happens when I step into an airplane.  My heart beats faster and my palms grow clammy as I anticipate the journey and destination.  Buckling myself in tightly, I sit back in wonder over the invention of flight.  It’s fascinating and truly amazing that we can move around the world so quickly and for the most part, comfortably.

Gorgeous!

As the roar of the engine builds up and the intensity of speed increases, I relax.  The window seat is my favorite.  As we climb higher, lifting above the pearly, white clouds, my spirit is welcomed.  Souring high and fast at 35,000 feet, I gain perspective as I am forced to slow down.  All my worries, fears, and anxieties slip away with the jet stream.   On a clear day, I see the tiny world below.  Cities turn into anthills, while the magnificent tapestry of the layered landscape jumps into focus.  From this view, my problems grow small.  Again, I am reminded of my size in this world.  I am but a tiny star in the galaxies of creation.

“You haven’t seen a tree until you’ve seen its shadow from the sky.”

~ Amelia Earhart

I sense that I’m not the only one that enjoys flying.  People around me, from all walks of life, seem to let their shoulders down when they rise above the ground.  As we are forced to unplug from everydayness, many envelop this space as a gift.  Some catch up on much needed sleep, while others dive into the passionate world of words.  Reading and writing (real writing) takes place.  Dreams and ideas take flight.  For a tiny while, we experience what it’s like to just “be.”

“The air up there in the clouds is very pure and fine, bracing and delicious.  And why shouldn’t it be?  – it is the same the angels breathe.

~Mark Twain, “Roughing It”

Last week I flew to Tennessee.  Along the way, I met a beautiful and eclectic group of strangers; each with a story and each with a different destination.  Yet, for a few hours, we shared life together; through conversation and through quiet time.  Through smiles and tears, we shared a child’s first experience of flight.  We witnessed a mother caring for her newborn, who undoubtedly rested in a deep seeded peace, knowing all would be well.

Playing in the Clouds

On my return flight, I met a man.  For a short while, we shared deep, wonder-filled conversation.  We cut through the small talk and wrestled with the real, authentic, “unknowing” parts of life.  We talked about God, the Bible, family, chemo therapy, building prisons (his occupation), and making eye contact with some of the worst of the worst in modern humanity.  The conversation was real.  Challenging, yet fulfilling.  The strange part about strangers is that they’re not so strange after all.  Yet, our modern times have hurried our pace, leaving us little room to interact with those in front of us, all the time, every day.  Our conversation that day was a blessing to my life.  Our words will remain with me for some time.

Flying reminds me that I don’t have all things figured out, and that that’s perfectly alright.  It teaches me to rise above, to see everything from a new view, in order to gain perspective and clarity.  It inspires me to keep going, to keep looking, and to keep curious.  It asks me to just live, and to live well.

“When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.”

~ Leonardo Da Vinci

I love flying.  How about you?