When I was in Zambia an African women said to me, 'You know Penny, we have a poverty of income and all that goes with that here where as

you in the West have many things but you have a poverty of time and all that goes with that..' Her observation I felt was very wise and

has stayed with me. I often reflect on that when I hear people say 'I am just so busy. I feel like a hamster on a wheel. I go and go but I

never seem to get any where. I am behind at work, I can't seem to get caught up, supper hour at home is chaotic with all the different schedules the kids are on, what with hockey, and other programs they are involved with. There just never seems to be enough time in my life'.

Does that resonate with you or have you heard others say that. There was a saying 'stop the world I want to get off'. Let me find time in my life for the things that have meaning. But where do I find meaning and purpose in life when life is so busy?

Today I read that Wal- Mart is going to make things easier for the busy woman, "Linda" is her name. "Linda" is Wal-Mart's 30-45 year old prototype; she has 2 to 3 children, a husband and a career. She's a soccer Mum who multitasks, and she is timestarved. Now Wal-Mart will offer her a chance to one stop shop in a store the size of 3 foot ball fields. It will carry 120,000 products including food, allowing timestarved "Linda" to do one stop shopping. The store will cost $20 million to build. What is the world coming to!

Perhaps many of us long for the 'good old days' when things seemed slower, when there was a SIMPLICITY of life. When one had time to reflect on life and not just react. But surely there were other issues then; our life spans were shorter, no Medicare, few safety nets for those who were down and out etc. There is no doubt that some of the busyness can come from wanting it all and then looking after the 'all' that we have. Also we live now in a complex world with text messages, Ipods, Blackberries. We want instant and often constant communication.

When I am c o n - stantly c h e c k - ing my p h o n e, fax and e m a i l m e s - sages and responding, wow that's a job in its self. So I am left with the question, is there life without stress? Without distress?

In her book In the Heart of the Temple, Joan Chittister has a chapter entitled 'Simplicity' in which she says so many of us long for life to be less frantic. She goes on to say that the issue is not so much how busy our lives are but rather what mindset do we bring to the busyness. 'We must learn to deal with our complexities with simplicity'. Simplicity can be a life lived without clutter.

Perhaps it is our need to control, our compulsions to the never ending cycle to do, to buy, to own. She challenges us to live life with a contemplative vision.

Now that is a real challenge in the midst of daily demands on our time. I think she is s p e a k - i n g a b o u t living a responsive life r a t h e r than a reactive life. For those of faith it is stopping and asking the question "how am I being called to respond. For those of us who are Christian we can ask the question 'how would Jesus respond'. Chittister speaks of living life with 'the habitually relaxed grasp'. That unless we are in a life and death emergency we need not feel that life is so intense so frantic. Hard to do I know, as I try to write this article and I have fallen behind the deadline.

'Simplicity of life may simply be more the ability to handle with singleminded unity of the soul what life brings than it is to refuse to accept anything except what is offered on our own terms.' God calls us like Jesus to live life with honesty and authenticity. How can we respond to all this pressure rather than react.

Simplicity can be about being open to the beauty of the present. A child's laughter, the color of the sky as seen from the car window on the way to the hockey rink, the smile I offer an other as I stand in line at Tim Horton's. Yes and even the pattern of the jumble of the child's bedroom. God's creative energy abounds around us.

Simplicity is not about refusing to be involved with life but rather seeing and experiencing life in a contemplative way. Yes, there is pain, struggle, and disappointments in the heart of life but also there's unexpected beauty in life if we can be mindful of each moment and not let this beauty rush by us lost in the midst of our busyness. Our God is present walking with us in the every-dayness of life.