Frank J. Buchman

Cowboy • Horseman • Writer

Simplicity Is Start To Solving Complications

Life is a complicated journey.

There are so many decisions to make. It seems when one is in the adolescent years, all answers lie just ahead, and everything will be just right. Or, sometimes, at that immature stage in life, one might have a secure, even smug, feeling of actually possessing all the exact solutions.

It doesn’t take long into adulthood to discover one really doesn’t grasp much at all. Despite knowing a little about many things, or even a lot about a few, one still doesn’t have great knowledge in the entire realm. Of course, nobody is expected to understand it all, but we’ve sure been around some folks who like to think they do.

Interesting part of that is they hardly comprehend anything. However, admittedly there are minute percentages who are very smart about a whole lot of things. We’re not really envious of them, but we are truly impressed at how much they can accomplish.

For those of us in the vast majority, solutions to the unending boggles continue to become more confusion. All of life presents challenges, but when one is intermingled in the diversity of agriculture, complications are even more complex.

Actually, the more one has further intensifies inability to make the call of what is right and wrong to do. Hardest for many to admit, and even more difficult to understand, is that often there is no correct answer.

While one feels the need to decide what to do, often the best solution is really nothing. Leave things exactly as they are, and life will run its intended course. To help ease burdens of those intricacies, one should simplify.

It’s just a token matter, but sorting socks is an added chore whenever the washing machine completes a load of them. There are supposed to be two of every kind, purchased at different times when an old pair wears out. With so many similarities, we have often ended up wearing unmatched, knowing there is a correct hookup in the heap.

That never was a problem when we always had our boots on. Now that we often wear what we sometimes refer to as “cowboy shoes,” it’s kind of embarrassing if the black, brown, gray and in-between faded ones aren’t matched.

Folks don’t mend socks too often anymore, finding it cheaper, and certainly easier, to just get new ones. We have threatened to buy seven pairs of exact matching red socks, so we would never have to sort. However, realizing that might look more than just a little strange, we found just the right solution and purchased six, luckily with an extra pair free.

The black socks have red toes, heels and a red border around the top, so the color isn’t visible but quite handy for matching. Most of life’s predicaments can’t be simplified so easily, but it is a start.

That makes us think of Mark 10:15 and Luke 18:17: “Unless you accept God’s kingdom in the simplicity of a child, you’ll never get in.” One should also consider Ecclesiastes 7:13: “Take a good look at God’s work. Who could simplify and reduce Creation’s curves and angles to a plain straight line?”

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