Faith Venture

Last night we were discussing the failure to plan on the part of Bev and me (actually our daughter Heather was discussing our failure) was the source of my stress.

You see, I’m writing this from my new time zone—CDT. Our new house is about 10 minutes from here, and I’m waiting in anticipation of a call from our mover to help him survey the cul-de-sac and determine where to put the large semi rig for unloading. We are completing the move to the outskirts of the Chicago area.

Heather thought we should have planned everything out well in advance. I wasn’t preparing for a move, because I didn’t want to. Bev, on the other hand, has been thinking (obsessing?) for a long time. However, from T0 (asking a realtor about selling our house) to T1 (getting an offer) was less than a week. T3, Two weeks later she found the house she wanted some 300 miles (480 km) away. It took a while for the legal/financial formalities, and at T8 we’re moving.

We had been gradually shedding possessions (reduced by one whole bookcase, but that was far from enough when you think of boxing all the books—probably about 600 lbs. worth). Many times decisions are made suddenly when the time is right. All you can do is prepare for eventualities.

So I’m thinking about this when I open today’s 300 Words A Day from Jon Swanson. His topic—preparing and planning. He is so right. Being prepared for whatever plans with the inevitable changes in plans smooths the way.

So the inevitable visited us from a delay getting the move out finished Monday due to the SleepNumber bed techs who didn’t finish their job to a delay with appliances because the Lowe’s installers didn’t finish the job to a delay when the mover’s truck broke down. But we are prepared, so I can ride it out without a huge rise in blood pressure numbers.

Jon thought about Ezekiel in his piece on preparing. I immediately thought about John the Baptizer who came to prepare the way (song from Jesus Christ, Superstar—Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord—is repeating in my brain).

It seems that in ancient times, no town leaders were so ignorant as to have a straight, smooth road leading to their town inviting invaders to come and get it. But when they were advised the king was coming, they would go out and “straighten” the road and make it smooth for the king’s arrival. That’s preparing the way.

Preparation doesn’t mean that you won’t have work to do. It just means you’ve taken the time to prepare your mind and tools for whatever work must be done. That works for moving—or for business or organizations or personally.

PS—in the middle of this meditation, I received a call from the mover. he thought the mechanic repaired his truck. He started the trip up here and discovered the repairs were not complete. With any luck, move in day it tomorrow. I have time to fix the work of the appliance installers and do my other work.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer—The morning prayer determines the day. Squandered time of which we are ashamed, temptations to which we succumb, weakness and lack of courage in work, disorganization and lack of discipline in our thoughts and in our conversation with others, all have their own origin most often in the neglect of morning prayer. Order and distribution of our time become more firm where they originate in prayer.

We have been so busy for the past three weeks with all the financing, closing, packing, and other work required by deciding to move to a smaller house far away, that the entire coved-19 problem is just one more thing to weigh on our minds. It exists among the entire jumble of thoughts churning through the juicer of our minds.

It is stress blended with more stress. And now I have a final appointment with one of my doctors before I move and have to find a new one. This will screw with my blood pressure.

But Bonhoeffer reminds us about starting the day mindfully. He was someone who knew stress. And obviously knew how to handle it.

For myself, I wake up during the past two weeks about two hours early thinking of my immense to-do list. But then I lie in corpse pose (Yoga, look it up) and focus on breathing and then on God while I remain in inner calm. Even so, I arise at my usual 5:30 am refreshed and ready to get going.

Try it; you’ll like it.

There is a different kind of prayer without ceasing; it is longing. Whatever you may be doing, if you long for the day of everlasting rest do not cease praying. If you do not wish to cease praying, then do not cease your longing. Your persistent longing is your persistent voice. But when love grows cold, the heart grows silent. Burning love is the outcry of the heart! If you are filled with longing all the time, you will keep crying out, and if your love perseveres, your cry will be heard without fail. — Saint Augustine, Source: Augustine’s Expositions of the Psalms

What would it look like if we could follow the Apostle Paul’s advice to pray without ceasing. A Russian peasant took up that challenge. His adventures are chronicled in The Way of the Pilgrim. It is worth reading many times.

There is nothing like the stress of moving compounded by the stress of uncertainty due to covid-19 and whether our moving van will be able to come Monday and load up.

This certainly is one way to test the discipline to pray without ceasing.

A scoffer would reply that every waking thought cannot be prayer. But a scoffer does not understand prayer—beyond words it’s an attitude and, well, a longing deep in the heart. Spiritual writers over these many centuries have taught that peeling potatoes can be prayer.

Besides, a discipline does not imply perfection. God is perfect. We just practice our disciplines in order to walk more closely with God and let some of that perfection rub off on us.

So goes a famous phrase. It is as true today as any time since humans were hunter/gatherers.

On the one hand, some people disappoint me with their responses. News “reporters” pander idle speculation in lieu of facts and call it reporting (a recent comment by the editor of Axios, formerly my favorite go-to news app, now I prefer Morning Brew). Politicians puff themselves up as great leaders while they flounder to juggle all the ramifications of different courses of actions.

Yet, we traveled once more to the Chicago area yesterday to close on the purchase of our new house and to take possession. Once again we met pleasant, professional, and helpful people wherever we went. The only strange thing was no concluding handshake or hug. Some writers think that we’ll never go back to touching. I beg to differ. It’s a human need. As soon as we get past worry, we’ll be back to human normal.

Speaking of leaders, the last of the “good 5” Roman emperors and fervent Stoic, Marcus Aurelius, developed mindfully a humble attitude. He searched out the best and brightest people to help him run his empire. He brought them to Rome, put them in charge, and let them do their thing. His reign experienced years of plagues and disease. He brought Galen, the foremost doctor of the time, to work things out.

American presidents such as George Washington (steeped in the Stoics) and Dwight Eisenhower acted in the same manner.

As to keeping your head—this is the most important thing we can each perform. Spreading calm concern and a helpful attitude rather than spreading worry and panic like the dust that always followed Charlie Brown character Pigpen.

We do that by a regular discipline of meditation, prayer, and returning to spiritual writers and the Bible for inspiration and the reminder that God is. (Thanks for that thought, Jon)

Dire predictions of the end of industries, end of the world, end of life as we know it are everywhere throughout my news scan these days.

Yet, here I am about to sign the papers to own a new house 270 miles from where I’ve lived for the past 40+ years. The movers assure me they will be there Monday to load up.

I received a press release about a company buying land to build two more buildings on its site. I figured the company was doing well, but plans to triple size—wow.

I study the “Internet of Things.” This technology forms an integral part of smart cities. There have been some interesting applications over the past few years principally traffic monitoring and flow control. Now, I’m receiving news of focusing smart cities ideas into both fighting this virus outbreak and controlling or preventing future ones. People around the world are pooling talents, knowledge, initiative to solve serious problems to benefit all humans.

I saw a news item from San Francisco about an organization trying to help those who help and at the same time helping those who might lose their jobs and businesses. For $1,000, they buy 50 meals from some of the best restaurants and take them to front-line health care workers. Maybe you, your church, your organization could spearhead something like that for your community.

I had to resign from a community center board due to my move. I returned some materials yesterday and saw how they were handing out box lunches to those in need of a meal. Serving still goes on.

Perhaps extended time at home allows for deeper reading of spiritual writers bringing you closer to living with God. Part of living with God is helping out those in need. Have a neighbor who needs help getting food? Deliver some coffee to someone trying to help? There must be something.

In my other blog, I’m a well-known writer/analyst about manufacturing—leadership, technology, strategies. That email box is filling with messages from PR people announcing this or that company’s response to the virus. CEOs and Marketing officers are more than willing to be quoted. Everyone wants to be a thought leader.

Reminds me of Prairie Home Companion and stories from Lake Wobegone where all the children are above average.

However, it is important to stop the spread of the virus. Like the flu and other such diseases, 99% of the general population will survive the sickness and a huge percentage of at-risk people who get the virus will not (although hopefully we can keep the number who do get it small).

Be careful of information you take in. Like I do for health and nutrition and fitness, I carefully vet my sources. Most likely similar to you I am amazed at the number of people pandering to fear and feeding false information.

I maintain my spiritual disciplines first. Then my health and nutrition disciplines (it is important to keep the immune system healthy). I know what I can only do what I can control and as to the rest that I can’t—well, I know I must focus on other things.

These are weird, even surreal, times. One place of normal gatherings after another closed by order of the government. Schools, churches, restaurants, bars. People panic-buying toilet paper, bottled water.

I saw one family at the grocery yesterday afternoon evidently stocking up for the “cocooning” (as we used to say) who had a grocery cart filled to overflowing with snack “foods”. I can see them in a week, 20 lbs. heavier each with clogged arteries and unable to walk up a flight of stairs…

We need to remember advice from the most ancient of sources—that we realize what we can control and do that. The rest is outside our power to affect. Be aware, but don’t worry about it. That is lost energy better applied elsewhere. So we do what we can and survive a day at a time. Most of us will, of course.

Remember the most common commandment in the Bible? “Fear not!” Take that thought into our being. And do something for someone today. Like maybe thanking a healthcare professional.

Covid-19 appears to be a respiratory illness, yet even here in the rural Midwest there is a massive purchasing of toilet paper. I guess when all around you are messages of fear and uncertainty, you grasp for something safe.

I was thinking that the skills that get you somewhere are seldom the skills that serve you well when you arrive.

If your speaking skill is stirring the emotions of your true believers, then when you arrive as a leader and panic of the led requires a reasoned, calming speech you are ill prepared.

Same thing works in business. The skills that got you to CEO or other leadership position are not the skills you need to survive at that level. Only those who continually learn and adapt survive. Nature teaches us that every day.

I never wrote as much as a paragraph in school until I was 16 and a senior. The teacher did not teach us how; he just said Write. I have written something every day for the past 22 years. I guess I had a lot of stuff building up for those 16 years that’s taking a long time to get out…

Back to the current situation.

• Wash your hand thoroughly and often
• Maintain a healthy immune system
• Get adequate sleep
• Eat good food, lots of berries and veggies, but not too much
• Get some exercise daily
• Yoga, mediation, classical music—whatever is calming
• Consider supplements such as Emergen-C to boost immune system
• Yes, I heard you mom, I’ll wash my hands

Yesterday afternoon the emails notifying cancellations of events began pouring in. My last chance at mentoring at a soccer referee academy in Ohio was cancelled. Games we were assigning referees were cancelled. State championship basketball games were cancelled. Think of that…teams worked hard all season to be able to play for the big prize, and poof, gone.

I hope the movers still show up on the 23rd. It’s only two of us…

Happy wife, happy life. —American myth

Well, it’s a common saying, anyway. In my case, there is a very happy wife.

She has desired a move to a different type of house for the last 12 years after she saw one that a friend bought. Back then the market was terrible.

Since then, instead of kids in Illinois and Florida, they are all in Illinois. And the market has turned to a seller’s market.

So, she said she’d call a friend of mine who is a realtor to see what the going price for our house would be. Turns out quite higher than I’d thought.

One day later the house was listed. Four days later, an offer. Two days later, a second offer. And we had no place to go. After a few moist eyes, I mentioned that if we were ever going to move close to the grandkids (at least the very few years they will still be around), now was the time.

Two weeks later, I get a call after teaching a soccer referee class. “Drive up here to the Chicago area and sign the papers.” By the end of this month, less than two months after that first glimmer of hope and a lot of work on my part, we’ll be Illinois residents. After coming home for a part-time job after university work in Louisiana, we stayed here for 49 years. Guess it was time.

There is no cool little coffee house selling direct trade coffee near by, but there is a coffee place with WiFi. As I tell people, that’s all I need for my “day job”. And flights will be direct from O’Hare rather than connections from Dayton.

I’ve given up all my soccer referee responsibilities except for assigning (couldn’t find a replacement, plus I’ve already done that from Germany, China, and Japan, so why not Illinois?). That also means there is an unemployed referee in the northwest suburbs. Any readers here looking for a Regional Emeritus and former college referee? 😉

And I have a very happy wife.

That we can’t fix it.

Dorothy Day, a Christian social activist of the early 20th Century when problems looked at least as grim as today, said, “The sense of futility is one of the greatest evils of the day.…People say, “What can one person do? What is the sense of our small effort?” They cannot see that we can only lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time; we can be responsible only for the one action of the present moment.”

That is the discipline. One step at a time. One day at a time. Actually, one hour at a time. Choosing in this minute just what I’ll do for one other person. Even Presidents of the United States soon discover that there are limits to even their power.

I recently talked with two guys in the locker room who run marathons. Each has qualified for Boston in their careers. I run to keep up with soccer players. I can’t fathom three hours of plodding along.

“What do you think about?” I asked. “You can’t think,” they replied. It is just a focus on putting the next foot in front. That’s the trick. One step at a time and then there you are at 26 miles.

The media has your emotions and fears amped up? Wash your hands frequently. Keep your immune system healthy with proper sleep, nutrition, and exercise. Just one step at a time. That’s what you can do.

Unless, of course, you happen to read this blog and you’re a microbiologist who knows how to design vaccines. Then, by all means, your step-at-a-time is to put the building blocks of a vaccine together. For the rest of us, though, we help immensely just by staying sane and taking proper precautions.

Same with political and religious/political viruses. They spread perniciously, too. Same thing…