Colin Chapman, the man who founded Lotus, had a great design mantra. His aim was to:
"Simplicate then add lightness"
This has been resonating with me for several days now, not as engineering advice but as a maxim for life and faith. Jesus (quoted in John 10) talks about 'life to the full' which to my mind involves a lightness of being and spirit (even in the midst of difficulty). However our culturally driven technological materialism seems to produce the opposite of lightness and of life to the full, more of a, complicate and become busy ... with resulting heaviness.
As a minister I want to be living and modelling a counter cultural living faith and I'm liking the description of that model as 'Simplicate then add lightness'
I can't begin to explain how much I hate the Bushism which is the word simplicate. SIMPLIFY SIMPLIFY SIMPLIFY... that said, as a devotee of Taize I am TOTALLY with the sentiment of the simple answer.
On Top Gear a few weeks ago they quoted Colin Chapman as saying "simplify and add lightness" but I wanted to grab the original quote.
Also I quite like "simplicate" as an intentional juxtaposed anthithesis. Simplicate implying maybe a completely different [lighter] way of doing things rather than just reducing the complexity of the current approach.
but I may be talking rubbish :-)
maybe....
Now I understand the intenionality of the antithetical juxtapostion and the implication thereby... I still dislike it but honour your liking of it in Christian love!
I am struggling to understand what you are both on about..... I was struggling before I even got to the big words 'antithetical juxtapostion' nope definitely lost any chance of digesting the meaning of this exchange of ideas and thoughts.
Hmmm.... Life to the full.... lightness of being and spirit....
How does that compare with the ideas of depth/seriousness etc etc....
I think that the phrase is actually a warning in some ways - you aren't going to be cut off from reality, life may be good and it may be bad but within that Jesus says he's still with us...
Simplicate - isn't it just the way of dumbing down and looking trendy? Or am I harsh?