========================================================================
  COMPLEXITY OF ENVIRONMENT
  by Thomas Kelly
========================================================================

Summary: The complexity of our lives is not due to our environment, but
rather to our own human nature and desires.

Topics: "Inner Transformation", "Simple Living"
Scripture References: Psalm 46:10, Proverbs 4:25, Matthew 6:33, Luke 10:41, Philippians 4:8

------------------------------------------------------------------------
DESCRIPTION
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thomas Kelly challenges the notion that the complexity of our lives is
solely due to our environment, highlighting that even in simpler
settings, we can still struggle with busyness and distractions. He
shares his experience of trying to find simplicity in the tropics but
realizing that the same hectic pace followed him there. Kelly emphasizes
that true simplification of life does not come from external changes but
from a transformation within ourselves, where we prioritize what is
truly needful over the many distractions that vie for our attention.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENT
------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But
one thing is needful..."

(Luke 10:41-42).

Let me first suggest that we are giving a false explanation of the
complexity of our lives. We blame it upon the complex environment. Our
complex living, we say, is due to the complex world we live in, with its
radios and autos, which give us more stimulation per square hour than
used to be given per square day to our grandmothers. This explanation by
the outward order leads us to turn wistfully, in some moments, to
thoughts of a quiet South Sea Island existence, or to the horse and
buggy days of our great grandparents, who went, jingle bells jingle
bells, over the crisp and ringing snow to spend the day with their
grandparents on the farm. Let me assure you, I have tried the life of
the South Seas for a year, the long, lingering leisure of a tropic
world. And I found that Americans carry into the tropics their same
madcap, feverish life which we know on the mainland. Complexity of our
program cannot be blamed upon complexity of our environment, much as we
should like to think so. Nor will simplification of life follow
simplification of environment. I must confess that I chafed terribly,
that year in Hawaii, because in some respects the environment seemed too
simple.

========================================================================
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/thomas-kelly/complexity-of-environment/
========================================================================