Welcome back. You belong here.

Simplicity deals with, well, I’m actually not sure how to word it because it’s not an easy thing to describe.

There’s a lady at school, here name is Anne who is simple. She wears older clothes, not fashionable, she would come with her baby in a sling, a hammock like pack.

Anne compresses her trash, she burns it in the back yard, she wears no makeup, she is a very simple person. She is not poor, she is not better than thou telling everyone how her “faith” is better than your faith. In fact, she has me “believing in her religion” just by her actions.

Her daughter and our daughter Isabela are friends, they are both in first grade. She is amazing, the girls are having a sleep over here this weekend.

Anne lives simply, no traps.

Simplicity can easily turn to ascetism, the despise of all material things which is not what Jesus taught. We are to enjoy a good beer, a nice haircut, a great piece of furniture. That’s part of God’s gifts to us.

For me, a simple life choice I’ve made is to turn off the data plan and text feature on my phone. The phone I have is complicated and trinketty enough as it is! My compulsion is checking email and being connected all day long. So a few months ago I called AT&T and asked them to turn off my data plan, which cuts down $20 off my bill, another choice towards simplicity. I feel FREE.

The other day, the data plan was back on. So for the last few days I’ve been compulsively checking email at the stop light, the library, the post office. It’s horrible. I called the phone company again and they said the data plan is off on their records, I’m not being charged, it’s just a tech error. So it’s still on. I hate it, I don’t know what to do. I am going to try to turn off the data feature on the phone and see if that works.

Simplify, declutter, degadgetize.

There are so many other aspects of simplicity – fast on blogging, computer time, focusing on creation, not shopping at Wal-Mart for their unjust work practices, etc.

One of the other choices we’ve made as a family is to go put our children at an elementary school in a “poor part of town”. People ask me all the time, why not put them in the fancy, “best schools”? I said, I want to live differently, and make a difference in the lives of our children and others.

Have a great day,

Into the future,

davidT