Keep It Simple

Recently I met a woman in remark­able health, espe­cially spir­i­tu­ally and emo­tion­ally.

As it turns out, she fol­lows a 12-step pro­gram and attrib­uted her well­be­ing to “keep­ing it sim­ple” and “work­ing the steps” of the pro­gram.

After a while she com­mented, “It’s a sim­ple pro­gram — so sim­ple that you need help to screw it up,” by which she meant that some over­com­pli­cate the process and, in so doing, ham­per oth­ers too.

This struck a chord in me.  I believe that adding unnec­es­sary com­plex­ity is a big prob­lem for a lot of us in my two areas of inter­est — well­ness and God.

Of course, some things in life are com­pli­cated.  Quan­tum physics is com­pli­cated.  The U.S. Tax Code is com­pli­cated.  Today, even health­care is com­pli­cated, but well­ness is sim­ple.

Want to be well?

Eat more plants and fewer ani­mals.  Avoid processed food and sugar.  Don’t smoke or drink to excess.  Exer­cise.  Wear seat belts.  Learn to man­age your emo­tions.  Get enough sleep.  Don’t for­get to relax.  Seek mean­ing and pur­pose in your life.  Keep at it.

It really is that sim­ple.  Beware of those who want to make it more com­pli­cated.

You don’t need every new blood test, and you don’t have to read the med­ical jour­nals.  Just do a lit­tle learn­ing; cre­ate your plan, and then fol­low your own sim­ple steps.  And keep at it.  Avoid the well-intentioned offers of “expert help” that could screw it up for you.  Keep it sim­ple.

Sim­ple works in your spir­i­tual life too.  Find­ing God doesn’t require a divin­ity degree or under­stand­ing a com­plex the­ol­ogy.

Seek and you will find.  It’s reli­gion that has been made overly com­plex — by we humans — not by God.  How do you think we arrived at so many Chris­t­ian denom­i­na­tions?  Did Jesus come to estab­lish hun­dreds of dif­fer­ent sects?  No he came to con­nect us with God and his mes­sage was a sim­ple one.

Doesn’t this make sense to you?  Imag­ine for a minute that you’re God and you’re about to make humankind.

Will you make it hard or easy for humans to main­tain their bod­ies and to be well?  Will you make it com­plex or sim­ple for peo­ple to have a rela­tion­ship with you?  Remem­ber, you love these peo­ple.  So of course you will make it easy for the right thing to hap­pen.

And that’s exactly what God did.  Ask any holis­tic prac­ti­tioner about the innate wis­dom of the body and it’s abil­ity to heal itself.

Ask a min­is­ter about how easy it is to con­nect with Jesus.  Bet­ter yet, just try it for your­self.  Start seek­ing well­ness.  Ask Jesus to help you.  It is sim­ple, but noth­ing hap­pens until you start.

Get going.  You can do it.