A New Way of Life

So I was reading Bone Games, by Rob Schultheis, when I found this: “When you go looking for God, be sure to pack a lunch.” I liked this phrase immediately. It certainly speaks to my experiences. Sometimes it takes longer to find God than our perfect plan allows, and we might get hungry along the way. Better pack a lunch.

I’ve written about this before – recently, in fact - but one of the ways I look for God is by making changes in the patterns of my life. They don’t have to be giant changes. In fact, they’re usually small incremental changes.

For example, I might switch from running on dirt roads to running on city streets. Or change the route I ride. Or I might try writing on a plain-page journal instead of my regular graph-paper Moleskine. Maybe I’ll even go backpacking on a new trail, or eat in a different Whataburger, or stop wearing jeans for an entire year. And the truth is I’ve made all of these simple changes at one time or another, simply to mix up my patterns and open my eyes.

And I’ve learned to pack a lunch for the trip because I might have to live with my changed self a long time before I find any insight. And since the way or the place I find God usually surprises me completely, I’ve learned to keep moving. Keep expecting.

The most recent change I’ve made concerns my laptop computer. Just last weekend I bought my own MacBook Pro. While I was considering the purchase, Cyndi whispered to Ryan, the nice young man at Simply Mac (who was also one of Cyndi’s former 5^th-grade students), “Berry’s a big Windows guy.” She’s correct. In the context of me, this was a large change.

In the name of change I’m leaning into my new way of life. In fact, this is my first Journal Entry published from my Mac.

I don’t know how far I’ll dive into this experience, but Cyndi has started showing me an assortment of Apple decals to put on my Tacoma. I’m actually considering it. She has her little ways of persuading me to do almost anything.

Here’s the thing. I don’t expect God to reside in my Mac, but I expect God to show Himself to me whenever I go looking for Him, and changing patterns is one of my biggest personal search engines. I have my lunch packed. I am ready for the long haul.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

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A Life of Energy

Cyndi and I spent three nights last week in the Foghorn Harbor Inn in Marina Del Ray, California. It was a fun place to stay; it felt more like a mom-and-pop bed-and-breakfast than a big-time hotel. They even kept a basket full of free snacks in the lobby. Whenever we travel, Cyndi only books hotels that serve free breakfast, and sure enough this hotel fit her guidelines. We enjoyed our bagels, muffins, and yogurt each morning on the patio with nice view of the sweeping beach. Since we were tucked into a marina and removed from the ocean, the water was smooth and quiet. As was the beach itself. It was sandy and flat and smooth, with no rocks. I’ll admit I haven’t seen a lot of beaches, but this was the most stationary beach/water combination I’ve seen. It was named Mother’s Beach.

It was beautiful, and it was peaceful. But it was almost too quiet. I missed the sound of waves against sand and rocks. It wasn’t until I heard the silence that I understood how important the wave music was to my beach experience.

And so I wondered if it was possible for life to be too peaceful. Too static. Can there be real beauty without the energy of movement?

Maybe that’s the wrong question. Of course there can be beauty … as in the beauty of a snow-covered field. But the energy of movement is more important than I had given credit. I missed its presence.

Here is what I wrote about this during a summer vacation near the beaches of Kauai in 2012: The rhythm of the waves crashing into the beach was hypnotic - a cliché’, but true - every wave sounded different from those before and after, yet they all sounded just alike. The earth’s meditative breathing. Add the breeze blowing through palm trees and the result was captivating and peaceful. It’s easy to see how someone could get trapped all day listening to this song.

For fifty years I spent too much of my conscious thought trying to smooth the ripples in my life, trying to find equilibrium. I just knew there had to be an arrangement of career, ministry, relationships, and personal life that looked like Mother’s Beach. Calm, peaceful, and functional.

But while looking at this beach during breakfast I had to admit the water was not inviting me in. And that’s beside the fact that California ocean water is always too cold, even in summer, and this was November. But the very flatness of the water, well, who wants to simply stand in perfectly calm ocean water? Not me. I need waves for entertainment.

However, if I were here with my granddaughter I might see the beach differently. Kids probably love to be in this water, and their parents probably love it even more. (Maybe that’s why they named it Mother’s Beach … mothers love it.) There are no giant waves to knock kids over and pull them under. No rocks to avoid. What could be better than jumping and splashing all day?

Which makes me wonder, again, about my desire for choppier water and noisy waves. Where does that come from? Have I always wanted that, or is it something I’ve grown in to once I stopped being a kid?

My friend Clark introduced me to Edward Abbey’s poem, Benedicto, which begins with this line: “May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view.” Maybe that’s what I was missing … crooked dangerous views.

I don’t know. I’ve already pushed my observations of beaches further than I should. I’m not enough of a beach guy to have a legitimate opinion. I prefer mountains.

But I know this. I no longer ask God for a calm and peaceful life, the way I did when I was younger. My prayer nowadays is for a life that will pull me toward God, and for the courage and resources to live through the disturbances. I want a life full of energy.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

I need your help. If you like this, please share with your friends. You can find me at www.berrysimpson.com, or www.twitter.com/berrysimpson, or http://www.facebook.com/berry.simpson

A Destiny Reshaped

I recently finished Bill Rodgers’ book, Marathon Man, and in it he wrote, “Here is the power of running: With every mile you run, with every stride you take, you do more than reshape your body – you reshape your destiny.” That has certainly been true for me. In fact, my running habit has shaped my destiny far more than it shaped my body. For all the miles I’ve run I haven’t changed much in shape or volume, but I’ve changed significantly in heart and mind.

I first took up running in late May 1978, at the beginning of the summer between my two senior years at the University of Oklahoma. I did it to win back the heart of a girl that I wanted to be my girlfriend but who spent the previous five months dating a track and field guy. For some reason I thought becoming an athlete myself might help. Of course, I never turned into an athlete, but I did become a life-long runner. I got hooked on spending time alone on my feet.

So even in the beginning, running reshaped my destiny. I’ve now been married to that same girl for over 34 years.

And the reshaping continued. Another way running changed my destiny was through Bible verses.

When I was in college I took on the practice of memorizing Bible verses. I did it by writing them on small cards, about 2”x3”, and carrying them in my pocket so I could pull them out and review them during the day.

When I started running longer miles I needed a mental distraction to keep my mind from convincing me to turn around and go back home, so I started carrying those verse cards with me. I would review and memorize while I ran. And that very practice became one of the most consistent meditative experiences of my life. I had nothing to do but think about the verses and all the possible meanings and applications, and after a few years of that, my mind was transformed. I became a different guy.

But maybe my biggest destiny reshaping from running happened in November 1983 when I finished my first marathon, the Golden Yucca Marathon in Hobbs, New Mexico.

For some reason I still can’t explain, I started dreaming about marathons from the very beginning. It was completely unexpected. Running was the first athletic thing of significance I ever did outside of PE class. Growing up, I did not participate in sports. I preferred being by myself and wandering around in the mesquite pasture near my house looking for adventure.

The Golden Yucca Marathon was my first, and it changed me completely in one stride.

Before I crossed the marathon finish line I was a smart, clever engineer with little promise as an athlete. After I stepped across the line, a true pound-the-chest howl-at-the-moon moment, in that one shuffling exhausted step, I became a man who could do anything. I was now invincible, brave, strong, focused, and successful.

In the moments before I crossed the marathon finish line, I was nothing but an exhausted, wet (it was raining), beat-up, plodding, back-of-the-pack runner, who was too tired to complete a coherent sentence. But as soon as I stepped across that line I became a certified marathon runner who would tell running stories for the rest of his life. I was forever changed, in that instant, and I knew it immediately. Running reshaped my destiny.

Well, to be honest, I often get embarrassed that I tell so many stories about myself. But those are the stories I know best so those are the ones I tell. If, when reading my stories, you think of your own, then I have succeeded as a writer.

So let me know. Tell me your big moments that shaped you. Bill Rodgers was right about running reshaping destiny, but running certainly isn’t the only activity that can do that. What were yours?

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

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Find me at www.berrysimpson.com, or www.twitter.com/berrysimpson, or http://www.facebook.com/berry.simpson

Changes Ahead

Do you ever make changes in your life just to stir things up? I don’t mean leaving your spouse or anything goofy like that, but changes in your routine? I used to resist that sort of crazy talk. I even prided myself for not needing change. But much to my surprise, the older I get, the more I pursue intentional change.

I recently attended a men’s weekend at Bear Trap Ranch near Colorado Springs, and I left there with this as one of my goals: Make some intentional changes in my life and in my routine, to open my ears to God, to make room for ministry expansion, and to have more creative and original thoughts.

I didn’t leave Colorado with a bullet-point list of possible changes, something you might expect, but I knew I needed something different in my life. Change adds energy.

Not changes like tattoos, shaving my head, leaving home to work for an NGO in Pakistan, or buying a Corvette. I don’t need that much. A tiny change in routine may be all it takes to alter my experience of life and move my point of perspective. They’re often the sort of changes no one would ever notice unless I tell them. Yet, even that small bit can open up my heart and eyes to new ideas.

I know from experience if I go somewhere different, away from my regular haunts, even some place familiar as Dallas, I will notice different things and think different thoughts. I learned a formula from Mark Batterson: Change in place plus change in pace equals change in perspective (?P_L + ?P_A = ?P_E), and it works for me even when the new place is not exotic or far away. The smallest change can trigger my imagination.

As I traveled home from Colorado, writing in my journal while comfortably seated in the spacious cabin of Southwest Airlines, the first change I contemplated centered on my computer.

I do almost everything on my computer. You would find it hard to take a photo of me at home in my library that didn’t show me with hands on the keyboard publishing an essay, formatting a book, updating running or cycling logs, crunching family finances, composing lessons for Sunday or Iron Men, or keeping up with friends. So anything regarding my computer is a significant change for me.

The specific change I’m talking about is what type computer I should buy next. My current laptop has become so difficult to use it has lost its place in my heart and I’m ready for a change.

The surprising thing is that, unbelievably, after all my years of making fun of Cyndi and her coven of Apple lovers, I am considering buying a MacBook.

There. I wrote it. It’s on the record.

I’ve received lots of advice from both camps of computer users about whether to switch to a Mac or stay with a Windows machine, and curiously enough, the more certain and adamant the arguer the less likely I am to listen.

The only person who hasn’t weighed in on the discussion is Cyndi, who seldom offers me advice or correction unless I beg for it. Apparently, she’s learned that behavior after being married to me for 34 years. Apparently I’m often more resistant, maybe even stubbornly rebellious, than I intend to be.

One of my Colorado friends, Chuck, the man who talked me over the Mac ledge, might feel compelled to jump into the conversation at this point and say I’m making too much of this lifestyle change. He would say it is nothing but a simple hardware upgrade.

He would be correct. But so am I. I’m not looking primarily to improve computer performance; I’m thinking in terms of identity shift.

I know I’m loading lots of expectation on an operating system and hardware design, something that would hardly register as a huge change in most circles, but in my tiny circle of one, a circle filled with predictable behavior and established routine, even the subtlest of changes can be huge. I would say I’m 90/10 in favor of buying a MacBook Pro for Christmas. Cyndi can’t wait to teach me the secret handshake.

And so, now that I’ve announced my intentions and left the gate open for wild speculation, feel free to offer up what you think I should change next. It should be clear by now I’m up for anything (Neon-colored running shoes? Plant-based diet? Cutting my hair?).

What about you? Is there something in your life you could change just to stir things up? Erich Fromm wrote, “Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.” Give it a try. Take a small leap.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

If you like this, please share with your friends. Thanks.

Find me at www.berrysimpson.com, or www.twitter.com/berrysimpson, or http://www.facebook.com/berry.simpson

Wounded Again

Last Thursday about mid-morning, my right leg started hurting whenever I stood up. It was an overall ache the full length of my quad rather than a specific point like a tear or sprain. And since it only hurt when I stood up, I assumed it was a weight-bearing problem. I missed yoga class Thursday night because I was delivering a couch to the Burmese church, so no opportunity to stretch out properly, but I was hurting so bad I probably wouldn’t have done much anyway.

Friday morning, Cyndi and I went to Body Pump class, where I quickly discovered the pain was caused by elongation rather than body weight. I could do rows, bicep curls, even squats, but when I tried to lift my hands over my head while standing, clean and press, my leg hurt so bad I almost threw up. Any movement that straightened my leg and extended the hip joint caused intense and immediate pain. Not good.

My personal diagnosis was this went back to my cycling crash last March, even though I’ve had no similar symptoms for five months. At the time of the crash, all the damage to my body seemed to be close to the surface. I never noticed any hip pain or leg pain the entire time off, so I assumed I’d escaped deep injury.

However, it was too coincidental that this new pain originated at the same spot on my hip where I hit the pavement. Maybe the damage spent all that time getting angry, waiting for a change to flare up. Hard to say.

So Friday morning, Cyndi set me up for a massage with Bill at Integrity Massage and he spent the entire hour on my right leg, and most of that on my hip. “Is this it?” he asked, as I came up off the table in a silent scream. “I guess it is.” I knew I would feel worse before I started feeling better. That’s often the nature of healing.

That same afternoon I left for a men’s retreat near Junction, Texas, with several other men from my church. My leg ached the entire three-hour drive down to the retreat center, but it was tolerable. However, I couldn’t walk more than a few steps without hobbling, without pain.

We spent two nights at the retreat center, and I slept little either night. I could never find a comfortable sweet spot for sleeping. It was exhausting. As I flipped side-to-side in my bed trying to find a tolerable position for sleep I prayed, “God, please give me a good night’s sleep since I have to teach tomorrow.”

During one of the long nights it occurred to me how wounds can lay unhealed for a long time. In the past three or four years I have seen God heal some deep heart wounds in my life, some personal, others professional, but all crippling.

In one case, God showed me the answer as I was talking about it to a class of men, even as I told the story from twenty years ago, and He healed it by showing me how two puzzle pieces fit together precisely. Another time, God healed me after 35 years of haunting, first through journaling, and finally by sharing my wounded heart with a friend.

In both cases I thought I was over those wounds years before, and I also felt like I was old enough and mature enough they shouldn’t have bothered me anyway. But they would reawaken and leap into my life at inopportune times.

Friday morning before the retreat, as the massage therapist dug into my hip, I could tell he’d found the damage. Bill kept telling me to relax so he could do his work. I thought I was relaxed until he mentioned it, then I noticed how much tension I was still holding in my leg. You can’t heal without relaxing, but relaxing is harder than it seems. It takes intentional focus to relax a muscle that’s been hurting all day. Our mind keeps it tense to protect it from further damage.

It’s the same with our heart. Our mind keeps it tense to prevent further damage, but to heal we must relax our hurting heart into Jesus. It isn’t easy. It isn’t natural. We have to work at it.

So once I got back home Sunday afternoon I found my bottle of 800mg ibuprofen tablets. I took one of those, and then slept for five hours. It was amazing.

Later, Cyndi asked why I thought I was hurting so bad. I told her my theory about awakening an old unhealed wound that had spent five months laying low and getting angrier.

She smiled and said, “Well, when you started back, you ran and biked TWICE A DAY for the first two weeks. Maybe you overdid it.”

“I don’t think that had much to do with it.”

“I think that had EVERYTHING to do with it,” she said with her eyes if not her voice.

Bummer.

Maybe she’s right, that my original accident had little to do with this present condition. Maybe this is one-hundred percent self-induced, brought on because I refused to listen to advice from the people who love me most.

So many of my sad stories end with the same conclusion … my own failure to follow advice. I wonder if I can do better next time.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

If you like this, please share with your friends. Thanks.

Find me at www.berrysimpson.com, or www.twitter.com/berrysimpson, or http://www.facebook.com/berry.simpson

More Than Ready

Last Sunday morning I was at Bear Trap Ranch, near Colorado Springs, waiting for the breakfast line to begin, when I read from my Daily Chronological Bible. I already knew what it would say. I’d been looking forward to that day’s reading for a month. In my Bible, October 20 is the day we get to read about the birth of Jesus. All month long I found myself flipping through the pages to see how much longer I had to wait. Why was I so anxious? Partly because the language and stories from the Gospels breathe fresh after the hard prophecies from the end of the Old Testament era; partly because I love the Christmas season, love the music, love the movies, love the friendliness and grace that mysteriously overtakes us all, and love the fact that we’re concerned more about what we should give rather what we hope to get; and partly because the cooler air and shorter days bring fresh energy to my daily reading. By October 20 I am more than ready.

So sitting at the couch near one of the few reading lamps in Bear Trap’s dining hall, reading, I stopped on this phrase. It was from what we call The Song of Mary, or The Magnificat:

My soul glorifies the Lord

And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior

For He has been mindful of the humble

State of His servant

(Luke 1:46, NIV)

Being the heart-opening nature of the weekend, I was already a little emotionally soft, so I started to tear up as I read those words. I was at a men’s retreat so I didn’t really want to cry before breakfast and give the guys an opportunity to earn their counseling badges on me, but there it was. And as I read the words, what I heard in my heart was the phrase I remembered from long ago, as introduced to me by 14-year-old Adriana in about 1992, when she was singing the role of Mary in a church choir presentation. She sang:

My soul magnifies the Lord

I’ll be honest; this song always breaks me down, no matter who sings is. But that particular morning, the reason I stumbled over those lines was that I realized they described who I want to be.

For all my writing and teaching and talking about journey and calling and purpose and meaning, and if you are around me much you know I talk about those all the time, but the person I want to be, who I want my life and legacy to be, is a man to magnifies the Lord.

Not magnify, as in making the Lord bigger. That’s impossible.

But I want to magnify the Lord, making Him easier to see, making His grace more comfortable to accept, opening His comfort for healing, illustrating His huge strong hands that have a firm grip on me. I want my life and my writing and my teaching to be a continuous stream of, “Hey, take a look at this,” and point directly toward Jesus. I want to describe and reframe and illustrate and illuminate the grace of God through my own experience and my stories.

I will be singing the song in my head for the next week or so, so don’t be surprised if I look a little distant yet surprisingly happy.

It is almost Christmas. Let us all magnify the Lord as we give ourselves away to each other. I am more than ready.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

Find me at www.berrysimpson.com, or www.twitter.com/berrysimpson, or http://www.facebook.com/berry.simpson

What Were Your Pool Moments?

I have been working through the movie, A Good Year, preparing to use it to teach a short lesson at an upcoming men’s weekend at Bear Trap Ranch, Colorado. In the movie, Russell Crowe played Max Skinner, an edgy bond trader that got rich taking huge risks with other people’s money. As a result of one of his successful but quasi-legal gambles, Max was suspended for a week. He spent his time at a French vineyard that he’d inherited but wanted to sell.

One day, while taking photos for his realtor, Max fell into an empty swimming pool and couldn’t get out. Not only that, he lost his phone so he couldn’t call for help. At the bottom of the pool he was invisible to passers-by, so his only recourse was to wait for someone to come along and rescue him.

This was a significant turning point in the movie; it was when Max started rethinking his life. Disconnected from the outside world, feeling helpless, he began to reevaluate his success.

Has this happened to you? Have you ever found yourself disconnected, slowed down, forced to wait for rescue, and left to assess your life? What were your own personal pool moments? How did they change you? Did you take advantage of them?

Maybe you’re in the pool right now.

I recently told one of my own pivotal pool moments while teaching Sunday School. Our class has been going through the Gospel of John, and for some reason, totally unplanned on my part, my lessons have been even more personal than usual.

OK, the truth is, I don’t know how to teach the Bible without making it personal. And by that, I mean that I include lots of personal stories. The more years I teach – I first started teaching small groups in college, about 1977, but this particular phase of teaching adults began in 1990 – the more I lean on stories to make a point instead of theology or linguistics.

I’m not sure why I’ve drifted so much toward storytelling, but it makes me happy.

So the lesson from John 4 was about a government official who asked, begged, Jesus to heal his son. And Jesus healed him.

I told a story of a time when I begged Jesus for help, when my son, Byron, was hit by a reckless, speeding driver while riding his bike. It was a Saturday afternoon in September, on Caldera street, Byron was six years old, I was about ten feet behind him riding my own bike, with 3-year-old daughter, Katie, in a bike seat behind me, when it happened.

It was terrifying, and I was powerless to help.

The white Camaro spun around in the road and its rear fender hit Bryon on the left side of his head. Byron spent the weekend in the hospital with a concussion and a giant black eye, worrying about whether he would get a new bike. He loved riding that bike and since he didn’t remember the accident, he was afraid he did something wrong and might not get bicycle.

That afternoon, at the scene of the accident, and later at the hospital, was the first time in my life I prayed to God when I had something to lose. I was begging Jesus for healing.

I’ve believed in Jesus my entire life, I’ve prayed as long as I’ve been lingual, and I believed in the power of prayer, but up until that moment my praying had been mostly about obedience and discipline. On that day, my praying was about fear and helplessness. I was afraid I would lose my little boy.

I should add that Byron is fine nowadays, and has no lasting injuries, or even memories, from that day. But that afternoon changed me.

For the first time, as a husband and father, I had to admit that I could not protect my family on my own. Even if I coached them on safety and even if we did all the right things, some crazy person could still take them away from me. It was a hard blow.

But I became a better dad because of it. Before the accident I was so full of myself and too smart. The accident and the weekend in the hospital disconnected me from all my usual resources and I had to reevaluate my understanding of what it meant to be a good dad.

Looking back, I’ve realized I needed that shock to make room for later growth.

Well, after I told that story on Sunday morning I was surprised how many wanted to tell me their similar stories. It turns out we all had much more in common with the desperate government official from John 4 than we knew.

And so I’ll repeat my questions. What were your pool moments? When were you forced to slow down and reevaluate? How did it change you? Did you take advantage of it? Are you in the pool right now?

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

Find me at http://berrysimpson.com and learn more about my books. Or find me at  http://twitter.com/berrysimpson and at http://www.facebook.com/BerrySimpsonAuthor

Following Advice

Uncharacteristically, I did what someone else told me to do. I didn’t do it right away; I stalled for a couple of years first. Maybe four years. My ophthalmologist has wanted me to sleep wearing an eye patch. Why? Because since I was six years old I’ve slept with one eye open, and it has a tendency to dry out and get irritated. My doctor felt like wearing a patch over the eye would keep me healthy longer. He’s been recommending this every year for at least four years.

I knew he was right, I knew his advice was correct, and he is a good friend and I trust what he says, but I didn’t want to sleep in an eye patch. It just seemed too bizarre. Too old-mannish. Too much Captain Ron.

But several months ago, in a hugely unpredictable move, while I was at Walgreen’s shopping for first aid materials to treat my cycling wound, I added an eye patch to my kit. And the first time Cyndi left for the weekend, I tried wearing it.

And then, I wore it the second night.

And much to my surprise, those were the best two nights of sleep I’d had in, well, maybe ever. I never realized how much energy I was consuming during the night protecting my eye with my hand or my pillow. I was so used to taking care of it – it’s been this way since I was about six years old – I never realized it was causing me trouble.

So Monday afternoon when I went in for my annual checkup and contact lens renewal, I had my eye patch in my pocket to show him how obedient I’d been. And to tell him he was right. The doctor was pleasantly surprised that I had a patch and gracious about the outcome. He didn’t even say, “I told you so.” In fact, it was as if he was more concerned with helping me than he was about being right all along.

Here’s the thing. I am good at following advice I already agree with. I can follow that sort of advice with no effort, almost without listening. It’s much harder to follow advice from anyone else that isn’t like me. Or maybe I should say anyone that isn’t me.

My eye patch experience caused me to wonder how many other things in my life burn up energy and I don’t even notice because I’ve tolerated it so long it feels second nature? How much advice have I ignored because I’m determined to do things my own way, advice from people I know and respect and like, because I don’t want to admit I occasionally need help.

Sometimes I even force myself into the position of hearing from teachers who have different personalities than I do, just to open up my life. To keep it from becoming too small.

For example, in Iron Men this fall we are reading Bob Goff’s book, Love Does. It is the most nonlinear book I have ever taught. And that is why I picked it. I have all the linear reinforcement I need; I wanted to hear advice from a completely different quarter, a completely different pattern, with a completely different result. I don’t know how much Goff will pull me off my straight-line life, but I’m open to thinking about considering some possible changes.

After all, I’ve been wearing this eye patch, and once you start sleeping like a pirate, who knows what will happen next.

QUESTION: What advice is hard for you to follow?

P.S. Let me just confirm the risk I’m taking by writing about this eye patch episode. The last time I wrote about my eye problems, and my hesitation to follow the doctor’s advice, his office put a copy of my journal in MY OFFICIAL FILE. They showed it to me on my next visit just to remind me they were paying attention and that they had me on the record.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

Find me at www.berrysimpson.com, or www.twitter.com/berrysimpson, or http://www.facebook.com/berry.simpson

A Simple Journey

My journey started last Tuesday when I read this quote from Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia, “The more you know, the less you need.” I was hooked. Because I want to know more and I want to need less. I’ve written about this before since it is, in fact, the backpacker’s dilemma. Every ounce we carry makes the trip more enjoyable, more comfortable, and safer. And yet every ounce we carry also makes our trip less possible, less enjoyable, less comfortable, and less safe. The more things we are afraid of the more gear we carry and the heavier our pack becomes.

After every backpacking trip I pull out my gear list and mark the items I actually used and make notes for next time, the goal being to whittle away the list to minimize my load. I’m trying to use my experience, to need less. “The more you know, the less your need.”

Then a new friend added this, from writer Sebastian Junger, “Risk increases as one’s range of options decreases.”

So the formula is more complicated than I thought. Having less, living more simply, isn’t necessarily easier. In fact, it reduces the range of options, which means taking on more risk.

I asked my Facebook friends, “Is Chounard’s quote – ‘The more you know, the less you need’ - true for life in general, or just backpacking?” Here are some phrases from the answers I received:

“I think it is true in general. I find life being simpler and simpler as I go through it. I just find I need less.”

“It takes a huge spiritual discipline to be simple.”

“As I age, my need for things, the stuff I own and think I need, is changing.”

“Graceful aging means continually throwing the excess over the side; constant winnowing.”

For me personally, the older I get the less stuff I need. One surprising result of that is I’m becoming one of those guys who are hard to buy gifts for. This is a common complaint I hear every Christmas. However, only a portion of that comes from intentional simplification. The rest is because my clothing styles seldom change and I can afford gear that doesn’t wear out quickly.

Back to my original question about simplicity and risk and knowledge. A few days after I started this journey of thought I read in my Daily Bible, from Psalm 116:6, “The Lord protects the simplehearted.” (NIV)

That’s cool. Not simpleminded or purehearted, which are more common words, but simplehearted. I asked my Facebook friends another question: What do you think it means to be simplehearted?:

“One whose emotional needs are easily met”

“Someone who doesn't seek to complicate things”

“One who loves first, last, and always”

“Integrity of heart”

“A heart that is uncomplicated and less cluttered by life stuff”

“Unmixed motives”

“Being fully alive and optimal.” (I really liked the word “optimal.”)

I didn’t stop there. I realized my mind was locked into this idea of simplicity when I read this from Peter Matthiessen's The Snow Leopard: "The sense of having one's life needs at hand, of traveling light, brings with it intense energy and exhilaration. Simplicity is the whole secret of well-being"

And so, I want to live more simply, both in regards to how much stuff I need (less and less), and in regard to my heart (uncluttered and full of integrity).

Merely having less isn’t enough, though. Nobody wants to live a striped-down lowest-bidder life. We need something deeper. We need meaning.

John Maeda, in his book The Laws of Simplicity, wrote, “Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful.”

For me, one part of my life where I don’t take the simplest route is writing. I do all my first-pass writing by hand, with ink, in a paper journal. Later I type it into Word and start editing. I’ve learned if I try to simplify this process and do my original work on the computer, I’m not as creative. I’m not as original, and not as meaningful. So I appreciate Maeda’s quote … the real life goal isn’t just to simplify, but to live meaningfully.

How about you? What do you do to simplify your life? Does it add meaning?

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

 Find me at www.berrysimpson.com, or www.twitter.com/berrysimpson, or http://www.facebook.com/berry.simpson

At Home in My Library

What part of your house feels most like home? In which room do your obsessive tendencies come alive? For me, it is my library. I used to keep most of my books in banker’s boxes in a rental storage unit because we didn’t have room in our house. Fortunately the storage unit was close to where we lived; I made the trip often, flashlight in hand, looking for a particular book.

So when Cyndi and I designed this house where we now live, having a library was one of three personal requests I made (the other two: I wanted my own closet, and I never wanted to mow the lawn again).

I’m writing about my library because with the feel of fall in the air I’m converging toward the project I’ve put off all summer - reorganizing my books. I put it off until the weather got too cool to work around the house outside, not that I have worked around the house outside that much this summer. Now, the time to hesitate is through.

I need to reorganize is because some of the categories have outgrown their original shelves. And when I say “reorganize my library,” I mean it like I might reorganize my garage. I have no intention using any of the really cool new software programs for home libraries. I don’t want to add another activity to my life that must be constantly maintained or updated. If other people used my library I would have to be more organized; but they don’t, so I don’t.

In preparation, I’ve begun to thin my shelves a little, donating a few books to Friends of the Library, and moving some upstairs to my backup shelves. Unfortunately this stage looks random and disorganized with unrelated stacks of books everywhere.

In fact, during a recent Sunday School party at our house, a friend and fellow engineer asked, “Do you organize your books? Do you have a system?” He asked because he knew I did, but it wasn’t obvious at the time.

I organize my library in broad themes: spiritual, writing, humor, running, cycling, hiking/backpacking, adventure, travel, politics, history, science and math, modern thinkers, books I’ve taught, etc. On my Bedroom shelves I keep to-read books and certain influential books that are close to my heart. Upstairs, I store the books I seldom use but feel I need to keep just because I need to keep them.

The secret to having a home library, besides physical space, is you have to read a lot. A lot. I always have at least two books going: one on my nightstand and the other in my black backpack in my pickup. The pickup-book idea started when the kids were young and I was continually waiting for soccer practice, or swimming practice, or dance rehearsal, to end. Having a book to read turned the wait into a treat.

I’ve loved to read since elementary school. I was the kid who tried to sneak one more chapter after his mom told him turn off the light and go to sleep, even during the summer.

School and college assignments took over my reading list for several years. The first books I read for my own enjoyment were The Chronicles of Narnia after I found a copy of The Horse And His Boy in a study carrel in the basement stacks of, you guessed it, the University library, and I read the entire book in one sitting instead of finishing my thermodynamics homework.

My first book after graduating from college was American Caesar, a biography of Douglas McArthur. Cyndi gave it to me for Christmas in 1979.

Jim Rohn taught me to keep a list of books I read as part of gathering wisdom, and as you might guess, my list is in Excel and dates back to 1986. (I will send it to you if you’re interested.)

I don’t necessarily treat my books well. I often take the paper jacket off while reading, but that is my only concession. Books are made to be used rather than cherished and I freely use a highlighter or write notes and questions in the margins. Another thing I learned from Jim Rohn was that my margin scribblings were the most valuable thing I’ll hand down to the next generation.

I get asked often, by people standing in my library, “Have you read all these?” It’s a fair question. I don’t expect other people to read as much as I do; we each have our own compulsive hobbies.

My answer is, “Yes, at least 90% of them.” Again, not to be snobbish, but I seldom buy books I don’t intend to read. On occasion a book won’t capture my attention and I’ll put in on the shelf without finishing, but that is rare.

Cyndi and I used to go to dinner parties at a friend’s house and I was always directed to his extensive library. Only all the books were literary classics and all the covers matched, telling me he bought them as a set. And none of the bindings had creases, telling me they were for show and were never read.  He was a gracious and friendly host and I liked him, but he wasn’t the sort of book guy I am. Mine don’t match, and there are lots of creases.

So back to my original design criteria for our house. I wanted no yard to mow because I was tired of keeping a lawn that no one played in, and I wanted my own closet because the dividing line in a shared closed moves. Both of those were about simplifying life.

But having a library is not simplifying, it’s enriching. I simply love books, and reading books has made me a better man, and having my own library makes me happy.

How about you?

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

Find me at www.berrysimpson.com, or www.twitter.com/berrysimpson, or http://www.facebook.com/berry.simpson