The Loss of Simplicity: What Today's Society Can Learn from the Basic Tenets of Life, Love and Humble Prayer

Ever wonder how our society became so far removed from the study of prayer and life of monastic life? Maybe not many of you, but I do. 

Today I was reading Ken Follet's The Pillars of the Earth and got to thinking, What ever happened to the old medieval ways of thinking? How did society get to be so consumed with themselves? It seems crazy, but I wish we still had that kind of life...Not completely of course, I do enjoy the comforts of home and technology just as much as the next person, but I can't help but wonder why we don't have that same passion for life and love and prayer?

I'm not exactly what you would call a 'religious person', but I do believe in a higher power and the maxim that things happen for a reason, whether or not it's good or bad, or whether or not it's evident to us now or later. And going along with that, I think our society as a whole has lost that sense of simplicity and purpose to work for something greater than ourselves; something that gives you the feeling that life will go on as it always has; that humans are small and insignificant and rare; that life is precious and so unbelievably unpredictable.

So much we don't know in life today, we try and explain and reason. While that's a great thing in so many ways, I think that leaves little to no room for the fact that we really don't know everything, and we can't. We will never achieve total and complete knowledge of life on Earth - it's just not possible, and it wasn't meant to be. We have to learn that learning will never serve us all the answers. And we have to accept that.

Reconnecting with our simplistic past would be so wonderful - I for one would be less stressed with 'keeping up with the Joneses' and running 110 miles an hour everyday and never feeling adequate - and we could focus on what really truly matters - life, love, and graciousness. We absolutely need to reestablish this connection - without it, I think life isn't worth as much - essentially we're living blind.

So many of us these days are constantly running - running to the next appointment, running to our jobs, running for exercise, running to the grocery store, running away from our problems, running into the next relationship - we're consistently running to or away from something. And that's not a nice way to live - you must take some time to enjoy the ride, and accept life as it comes, otherwise you're fooling yourself into thinking that you're really living, when you're not at all, not even close.

I say this as I'm blogging and writing on a computer - quite the oxymoron, I know. But at the same time, at least I recognize that I need to spend more time living in the moment, that patience is indeed a virtue, that loving others is such a fantastic feeling and accomplishment, that mediating on your life and what's happening in the world is a good thing, and that we can't ever really control everything - and that should be a relief, not a burden!

Join me in offering a prayer of thanks - not to anyone in particular, God or Allah or a simple higher power or even yourself will do - to the life we currently lead, and to the one that still exists in the future. Hopefully we can all learn a thing or two about ancient societies and their dedication to silence, simple existence, acts of thankfulness, prayer, meditation, humbleness and love. 

To me, those are truly worth living for. :)

Godspeed to you all!