Dan and I have been pondering and discussing the concept of a “simpler life” for several years now. While I’m not sure we can define it clearly, it contains the following ideas:
- less stuff
- less reliance upon others for things we could just as easily do ourselves (thus eliminating quite a bit of shopping and driving)
- more space to witness and experience God’s creation – after all, this is one of the big ways in which He reveals Himself to mankind
- more time for the everlasting things – relationships with our family members and neighbors
- more time for thinking – meditating on Scripture or spending time in prayer
- preparing and eating more simple meals – just plain ‘ole food – made to taste good with natural flavorings like herbs and spices
I recently found a book on our shelf that I had purchased at a library book sale, but had never read entitled The Seasons of America Past by Eric Sloane. While it provides a fascinating look at the month-by-month seasonal activities of early American families, the first two chapters entitled “Speeding up the Seasons” and “Agrarian Kindergarten” offered the most thought-provoking ideas for me personally.
Mr. Sloane talks about how we’ve lost the rhythm of seasons in our modern society. He doesn’t mean the 4 seaons – spring, summer, fall, winter – but a season as defined by early American dictionaries:
season: 1. a time to every purpose (Ecclesiastes 3:1)
2. one of the quarters of the year
In Noah Webster’s first dictionary, published in 1828, he defined “season” simply as “a fit time”, completely leaving out the other part of the definition.
A time (season) for everything is quite foreign to us today. We eat fresh watermelon in January and go to an indoor ice-skating arena in August. The anticipation and ensuing enjoyment of each season’s unique activities and foods is lessened when we can have anything, anywhere, at any time, don’t you think? By trying to live a ”simpler life”, we are, in essence, trying to put things back into their proper seasons. We are attempting to learn how to experience things in their real context, not in an artifically manufactured one.
Mr. Sloane also talks about our fast-paced society and the perceived benefits thereof. But what about the detrimental effects? Are there any?
Another sad thing about unnaturally rapid progress is that it so often results in actual regression. When any group progresses as whole, there becomes less apparent need for individual intelligence. By having others think for us and design our work and pleasure, we now live comfortably without certain knowledges that only a century ago were essential. In losing our need to know so many things, our list of general knowledge has at last become exceedingly small; it equips us well for business, less well for the sciences, and very poorly for living the full life.
- The Seasons of America Past, page 15
I know that some people dismiss the idea of trying to pursue a “simpler life” for various reasons, including:
- It’s just a romantic idea
- It’s too much work
- It’s too boring
- It’s eccentric to do so (Ok, let’s just say it – it’s WEIRD)
But lately I’ve been seriously pondering this question: what advantage we have given ourselves (and our children) by living a fast-paced, highly processed-fast food, entertainment saturated life? I don’t think in and of itself there is anything sacred or elite about trying to live a “simpler life”. However, when you begin to subtract the above mentioned things that can be detrimental to a person’s well-being, by default you end up living one. Either something has to seep in and fill up the void left by those other things (such as other pursuits/hobbies in place of entertainment) or something additional must be done (preparing your own meals). This really is how a “simpler life” has come about in our family.
To us, choosing a “simpler life” does not mean that we turn our noses up at modern conveniences or things like medical assistance. Personally, I don’t want to be like a pioneer woman who has to draw my household water from the creek! 
We all have to do something with the allotted time given to live our lives. Most of us in America do things with an intended outcome of finding or experiencing “happiness”. After all, our own Declaration of Independence tells us that we have the right to the “pursuit of happiness”!
But could it be that the “pursuit of happiness” means something different to Americans now than it did in earlier times? Eric Sloane offers this:
Then ["happiness"] meant “blessedness”, or “a state of satisfaction or contentment”, but now it suggests fun. The “pursuit of happiness” which we accept as an American heritage is, it seems, too often mistaken for a pursuit of fun.
…Carl Sandburg [said] that “Never was a generation…told by a more elaborate system of the printed word, billboards, newspapers, magazines, radio, television – to eat more, play more, have more fun.” This, we are led to believe, is an American way, and a recipe for contentment.
- The Seasons of America Past, p. 8
Dan and I have asked ourselves this question:
“Does our lifestyle produce an atmosphere where contentment and happiness are actually possibilities and not just rainbows to chase?”
Although true happiness and contentment ultimately come from our relationship with God, we’re finding that when we are able to unplug from the messages of discontentment that we are constantly bombarded with in this world, we are afforded a more fertile ground for this happiness to flourish.
Photos: Dan working in the yard this summer; a walk in a nearby state game area
(I just figured out how to link my pictures so that when you click on them, you can see them bigger. Just so you know. 
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