Faith Venture

For some reason unknown to my consciousness, I was thinking about my neighbor teaching math to 8th graders (14-year-olds). Math should be taught as a way of thinking, not just memorize how to manipulate numbers, letters, and symbols (or even cymbals).

Then I thought about the challenges of teaching 14-year-old boys how to think. Or even 17-year-olds. I guess the brain doesn’t even get on par with testosterone until maybe 25. Some women tell me that 35 is a more likely age for male adulthood and ability to think.

How is your thinking going these days? Can you quiet yourself to think about a problem long enough to maybe even solve it?

My current book for thinking is from Nassim Taleb, Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder.

On our trip this past week, we stopped in at the Will Rogers Museum in Claremore, OK. He stated the principle almost 100 years before Taleb (without the math).

Live your life so that whenever you lose, you are ahead.

Will Rogers

Most of what I think about here is about just that. Physical and emotional life is fragile. Easily broken. A robust spiritual life is antifragile. It helps us weather storms. We could even say that whenever we lose, we’re ahead.

Some parents are quite controlling. Once called “helicopter parents” and now sometime I’ve heard “snowplow parents”, they want to make everything smooth and painless for their soon-to-be uber successful kids.

If the kids acquiesce in this through adolescence and early adulthood (which for the past 20 years has been the same thing), I know a good therapist.

I always told my kids that the role of a parent it to set guidelines and the role of an adolescent is to push against them. It’s a dynamic tension if done in love yields healthy adults on both sides. Unhealthy adolescents never get over that “nobody’s gonna tell me what to do” attitude.

The funny thing (not funny “ha ha”) about this adolescent attitude is that you wind up missing out on things that will in the long run result in the freedom to live longer or better. Currently the debate is over vaccines, but there have been others in the past (seat belts in cars?) and will be others in the future.

It’s a dynamic tension.

I think that is similar to the dynamic tension Paul was trying to explain in writings such as the letter to the Galatians. It’s weird. You have the freedom to live in the spirit, yet by living in the spirit you wind up following the law–at least the big ones (maybe not the don’t eat bacon one, but that was different, you can’t be nomadic and raise hogs).

Some of us can live in this dynamic tension. Some need to resolve the tension by opting either for complete libertarianism, while others resolve it by seeking a new authoritarian “father” to tell everyone what to do.

I like dynamic tension. It’s creative.

We’re taking a little vacation. The end point is to attend a memorial service for an aunt who was a special blessing to my mom. That’s in Arkansas. We’re visiting three states I’ve never been to: Alabama, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. Got an early start from Huntsville, AL this morning. So, a late start on thinking.

I began noticing huge billboard advertisements for personal injury lawyers in the greater Chicago area some 20 years ago. On this trip I’ve noticed the same style through Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, and into Alabama. The photographer has the lawyers pose (always two) with a look of angry determination. They are showing teeth and pointing aggressively. They will go make money for us.

Side note: this is an American phenomenon. We have an oversupply of lawyers. They need to find a way to make a living. Then they prey on our human desire for unearned sudden wealth at some other person’s expense.

What I notice about the billboards is that while driving at 70 miles per hour on the expressway that face just as often looks like a toothy smile rather than gritting one’s teeth in determination.

When we strike a pose in a group or meeting or just a conversation, are we showing what we think we are? Or, maybe we’re showing our inner feelings we thought well hidden. Maybe that attorney really is smiling–all the way to the bank.

What is in the heart reveals itself through our eyes and expression. We try to mask it. We fail.

We’re taking a little vacation. Actually, I’m exploiting a situation. The family of one of my aunts who passed away during the pandemic has arranged a memorial service in Arkansas. I’ve never visited that state. And, I’ve never visited Alabama or Oklahoma. This seemed to be a perfect opportunity to cross three states off my list. Only one unvisited state remains (Vermont, can’t fit that one into this trip).

We are in Huntsville, Alabama adjacent to the US Science and Rocket center. This is the area where the government developed rockets at first for weapons during the War Against Fascism and then for the space program.

I’ve contemplated the achievements of science and engineering regarding exploration and discovery. I thought about exploration and discovery in the Bible–check out Abram (Abraham) who left his homeland and traveled west. And Moses who led thousands of people across a desert heading toward that same land 1,000 years later (or so). We saw Paul using the latest ship building and navigation technology spreading his message around the Mediterranean rim.

Humans are exploratory beings. We’ve always been curious about what’s around us. Some explore distant territories. Some the natural world around them. Some, the inner world where we often meet God. I’ve been on that latter journey for most of my life. It’ll never end.

What journey of discovery are you on? I hope one that benefits you, those around you, and society.

A friend posted this thought from Dietrich Bonhoeffer today on Facebook that seemed to be fitting for my mood this morning. (Yes, I do check out a few friends there. Try to limit my time to five minutes.)

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Guess I have nothing to add to that. Go make a difference.

I just finished my 3+ mile walk and the podcast that accompanied me. First thought, you all need to listen to this podcast. The subject is partly around policing in the US. But police are pretty much the same around the globe, just like people are pretty much the same around the globe. I know that people come to this blog from many countries, cultures, religious persuasions. This is powerful.

The podcast is called Typeology. Ian Cron is an Episcopal priest, therapist, and Enneagram guru. In this episode (which I download on Overcast, and is not yet on the Typeology website this morning, Cron holds a discussion with Mike Alexander, a former police chief and now a teacher to police and other organizations.

Personal development—how an introduction to the depth of the Enneagram gave him insight into himself (that day I met Mike Alexander, he said), and how he helps leaders learn to gain that same insight into themselves and the people they lead.

Leadership—you can’t lead and guide people that you are aloof from, you must build enough personal relationship to be able to see signs of distress and work with them to heal.

Racism—briefly they discuss strategies useful for defusing growing racism in the ranks.

People often confuse the purpose of the Enneagram. Some people treat it similar to an Astrological sign. Man at a bar, “Hi sweetie, I’m an Aries and a 7, wanna have a drink?”

It doesn’t work that way. It’s only useful for you, yourself, to work out your unconscious motivations and overcome the things that hold you back.

At any rate, when you get a chance, listen to this podcast. I listen every week and am seldom as moved as with this one. But then, I’m probably a 4 and moody 😉

My wife came home the other day and said that a neighbor told her that “people were complaining [about some picky community thing] on the community Facebook page.”

Philosophers millennia ago observed two types of logical reasoning.

There is deductive logic where we begin with a statement regarded as true and deduce other things as true. The problem I’ve observed with this method is the beginning proposition. But, that’s another essay.

Then we have inductive logic. We observe certain phenomena in one and then another and another until we say that a proposition is true in general. Say we observe that an older person often complains. And another older person complains frequently. And another. Pretty soon we think it must be true in general that old people complain often. About almost everything.

Inductive reasoning requires many observations before validly extrapolating from the specific to the general.

We humans often ignore that starting point. How often do we take one data point and say “everybody does that”?

Back to our neighbor. I check that Facebook page 3 or 4 times a week. I couldn’t recall much of a discussion about anything. So I investigated. There was one comment by one person with no replies about that picky little community thing.

How easily we jump to conclusions! Which begs the question, how often just in the past week have we each jumped to a wrong conclusion using a too small data set? How often should we pause before we say that all [whatever] are this way? Often!

My current intellectual stretch book is Antifragile by Nicholas Nassim Taleb. I’ve read several others in his series including Black Swan. An aside: I’m reading Evagrius Ponticus for my spiritual development book and for relaxation I’m reading again (first time in the 90s) the Travis McGee series by John D. MacDonald. All excellent writers.

You know what fragile is. The banking system in 2007-2008. The good wine glasses or plates and cups in your cupboard. Your iPhone when you drop it (if you go case-less).

Fragile breaks when stressed. Antifragile gets stronger when stressed. Your muscles when you work out. You are actually tearing the muscle fibers and when they heal they are stronger. That’s why you don’t work the same muscle group every day, by the way.

My granddaughter is a swimmer. She was always at the top of her group earlier this year. The coaches moved her up a group. The stress of the competition makes her improve her times even though she isn’t at the top—right now.

I thought about this in terms of spiritual development. You can cruise along with the same prayer, books, service. Or you can challenge yourself with deeper learning, more intense service. Break the mold a little in order to be stronger as it “heals”.

What of the people we know with hard, brittle faith. When troubles, stresses, come along or when challenged by new ideas, the faith breaks. It’s fragile.

Or the people who grow stronger every time they step out in faith to experience something new, perform a greater service, learn something deeper from scripture. When stresses come along, they can deal with them. They are antifragile.

Where are you? And where would you like to be?

Perhaps written 3,000 years ago, and perhaps reflecting wisdom learned much before, the writer of Ecclesiastes advised there is a time to every season under heaven.

Evagrius Ponticus wrote in the 4th Century the Praktikos, or 100 practices for the acetic life. I recently referenced some thoughts on the evil passions. He followed those descriptions with this thought;

Reading, vigils, and prayer—these are the things that lend stability to the wandering mind…But all these practices are to be engaged in according to due measure and at appropriate times.

Evagrius Ponticus, Praktikos

These are among our Spiritual Disciplines or Practices. They have been known to be helpful for those seeking spiritual life.

But a warning. We can as well spend too much time in these as too little. And at the wrong times.

We need, perhaps, to rise from our study table and prayer chair in order to serve. In another teaching, Evagrius advises maintaining good health and physical fitness. Too much sitting reduces muscle tone and leads to illnesses.

We must practice our disciplines with balance aware of the health of body and mind, as well as, soul.