Simplicity

"Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated."

-Confucius

            This writer, world traveler, so remembers the ruddiness-healthy appearance of the Irish people. My first time there, walking down the streets of Cork, I was amazed at the trimness of the people. It is only in America where you find fat people, with out a doubt due to our excess- in eating and in a generally unhealthy lifestyle.

            An early example of self control, was St. Kevin of Ireland, who was born into nobility but chose to live the simple life. He lived in a cave (called saint Kevin's bed), ate sparse food, fresh vegetables, fresh sea food such as salmon, and thus lived to the age of 120. American medical scientists, indeed medical doctors around the world, know that eating raw, green, "god food", will not only prevent most disease, but will actually cure diabetes. When this writer was in school, 60 years ago, diabetes, like cancer, was a very rare disease. Today, almost 50% of the population are diabetic and 1/3 diagnosed with cancer (1/4 of all deaths in America due to cancer, 574,738 people in 2010). We know that IF a person eliminates sugar from the diet, you can cure diabetes and prevent cancer.  There's the addictiveness of fast food restaurants and the tastefulness in most restaurant foods; sugar is added to everything, salad dressings and even sausage. There's much money in the treatment of cancer, you never hear the word "cure" anymore, just the word "treatable". There's much money involved in the treatment of diabetes- when is the last time you had a doctor ask you about your diet?

           

            In my life time (83 years), and I will remember the 'age' before plastics, even zippers, and certainly, the pollution of food with GMO's (Genetically Modified Organisms) and preservatives (SMG's, additives for preservation), when even ice was a luxury, diets were simple, because freshness was easily observable. To this day, in Africa, where refrigeration and preservatives are so limited, you go to the market each day. Thankfully farmer's markets are becoming more and more popular in America, as sensible citizens, seeking simplicity and knowing 'the crime of chemicals' seek to put wholesome food into their gullet. After all, your body is a temple not a garbage dumpster. At the grocery store, reading ingredients on a package, if you can not pronounce the words and do not know what it is, do not feed it to your family.

            We know that it is a fact of chemistry, chemicals from plastics, leech into food... particularly meats, we believe that chemicals from plastics have a very definite effect on the testosterone of males. The largest, most important organ of your body is the skin, God alone knows how many toxins enter your body, but we do know that your skin absorbs 60% of topical products. I have always said the most dangerous place a human body can go is a doctor's office or hospital. Just putting your naked arms or legs on chairs in which diseased people have sat-sweated is enough to distribute disease through out the world. Doctors at hospitals get rich from sick people, not well people. When did a pediatrician caution a parent about their toddler crawling on wall to wall carpet? Even a mind with an IQ of room temperature, can understand that disease of every type is brought into a room by soles of shoes-animals feet, only for a precious child to crawl around on the diseased carpet. Oh, think of the simplicity of the linoleum rug, which could be mopped clean. Oh, think of the simplicity of growing your own vegetables from the seed of clean genetics and, if a meat eater, clean meat from animals not terrorized-tainted with growth hormones. Please God, bring back the days of the "grist mill", when farmers could take their own grain to the mill and bring back home for their own food- cornmeal and flour, as to make bread healthy for their precious children. Give us a day when fresh water came from unpolluted wells, not municipal pipes where the water has received the toxins of fluoride and chloride. The Nazis put both into the water of the Germans, particularly those in concentration camps, because it kept them docile and pacified.

            This writer has always been a loner, wanting to escape the world of popularity with things- trends, brands. There's great consolation in having the creator of the universe as your guide, not the latest fad, or Hollywood caricature. Why should I want to imitate a sinful lifestyle? What joy does a father receive in seeing his son walk around with his trousers hanging down, his underwear showing? What joy does a mother receive in seeing her daughter letting it all hang out? Do parents, grandparents, neighbors, take pride in children who have unplanned-births from the unplanned or worse, abortions? Many, even in churches, say they don't care, but I can not help but believe that most parents would rather see a child marry someone of the opposite sex, look forward to grandchildren. God set up the entire universe, every law of nature, every chemical equation, using the attraction of opposites, the law of simplicity.

            Unbelievers can not understand this, only God can draw them into a mindset of understanding. After all, they don't want to hear this, but the unsaved think they are like the lower animals... just life as an accident of nature. The Christian knows he is of chosen of God, has constant fellowship with God, can walk-breathe in ceaseless prayer with God. He knows that trusting God through faith, by grace gives him not only the advantage on Earth, but, greater still, life eternal. Living a simple life of walking-talking with God, doing the will of God, keeps one in the simple, constant, attitude of worship. In the simple attitude of worship, you work because it is God's will for every man to work, not live off the work of others, you eat-drink-rest correctly. You know that everything you need for life and happiness in your human-Earth existence is provided for you. You know that God left every element-herb-plant for your health and healing. We have the blessed assurance of knowing that in simplicity, not extravagance, everything we need is provided and all the time and effort we use in worry about wants is useless.

             "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life ? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." (Luke: 12:25-34)