"I gradually moved away from the emphasis on plainness, and back to calling it simplicity. What I had learned, stayed with me, but the perspective underwent a gradual and subtle shift.Now, thirty years later, I am wondering about the wisdom of that. Many Friends are once again feeling the call to plainness.
First, I want to say that my suspicion that it takes community to have a real, vital expression of plainness is proving to be accurate. It may be, in our current situation, that this community is more “virtual” than was possible before. People who might never have met can now, through internet social networking media, question each other, support each other, serve as role models for each other. As this discussion grows, and more people engage with the effort, I expect that actual (or “analog”) communities will grow, in which people in the same Yearly Meetings (and not just the Conservative ones), or even the same local Meetings, will be practising plainness together, face to face and not just keyboard to keyboard......
What is plainness, then, and why is it different from simplicity? I am struggling to answer this question, myself. While I find it useful to distinguish the two, it is hard to come up with a pat definition that can withstand all objections.I know this, though: plainness has more to do with trying to be humble than it does with trying to be good."
Bruce Arnold
More from ~ http://lettersfromthestreet.wordpress.com/2012/03/04/quaker-plain-i/
Artwork from Matthew Hopkins http://www.matthewhopkinsart.com/
First, I want to say that my suspicion that it takes community to have a real, vital expression of plainness is proving to be accurate. It may be, in our current situation, that this community is more “virtual” than was possible before. People who might never have met can now, through internet social networking media, question each other, support each other, serve as role models for each other. As this discussion grows, and more people engage with the effort, I expect that actual (or “analog”) communities will grow, in which people in the same Yearly Meetings (and not just the Conservative ones), or even the same local Meetings, will be practising plainness together, face to face and not just keyboard to keyboard......
What is plainness, then, and why is it different from simplicity? I am struggling to answer this question, myself. While I find it useful to distinguish the two, it is hard to come up with a pat definition that can withstand all objections.I know this, though: plainness has more to do with trying to be humble than it does with trying to be good."
Bruce Arnold
More from ~ http://lettersfromthestreet.wordpress.com/2012/03/04/quaker-plain-i/
I didn't fit into the Friends, but I was Plain before and am Plain still. Plain is to teach me humility and to kill my vanity.
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