Simple Things Matter a Great Deal

Andre Dubus had stopped to help a woman and a man stranded on the side of a highway when he was hit by a passing car. He saved the woman’s life by throwing her out of the way, but he lost one of his legs and spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair. Dubus was a college professor of creative writing and an author of many good short stories; as a result of that incident he said, “Some of my characters now feel more grateful about simple things — breathing, buying groceries, sunlight — because I do.”

Some folk find themselves holding on for dear life after some tragedy deals them more than they think they can possibly handle. They shift into survival mode in order to just get through the day. They adapt to the motions of living but fail to find happiness or affection. When their lives come to an end, the cause of death might simply read: “failure to survive.” By the way, Dubus once quipped that the reason he wrote was “that he didn’t want to die before he was dead.”

The current pandemic has put the fear of God in many of us, and we try to be on guard from getting it or transmitting it to others. We wash our hands and keep our distance. Some say wearing masks infringes upon our freedom, which is “just another word for nothing left to lose”. Others of us realize that it’s such a simple and respectful way of lowering contagious risks that have killed over 200,000 of our citizens so far. Surely, we have come to realize that if we take life as a gift for all to enjoy, then we see through the smoke screens of fear to a better reality based on a simplicity that matters most of all. Or as the old hymn aptly paints the upside of this catch 22: ’twas grace that taught my heart to fear and grace my fears relieved…

Perhaps nothing says it better than that old Shaker song: Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free/ ‘Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,/ And when we find ourselves in the place just right, ‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight./ When true simplicity is gained,/ To bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed,/ To turn, turn ’twill be our delight,/ Till by turning, turning we come ’round right.

On this side of the grave we examine our own failure to be and achieve what we set out so confidently to do and to be.  How we pray to God to give us power that we can overcome the problems ourselves. Just this week we realized that even the most prominent people in the world can become susceptible to a virus that is no respecter of one’s position or power.

Maybe now we will realize that we can’t ride out the storms of life on our own strength, no matter how much we have. As Andre puts it: “We don’t have to live great lives, we just have to understand and survive the one we’ve got.” In theological terms, what we really need — and have needed all along — is the grace to appreciate those simple gifts of goodness and mercy that have been following us all our livelong days.