Have you ever gotten involved in an argument? Did it go anywhere? Have you ever argued with someone who believed something different from you? Did you convince them that they were wrong?
I saw this thought on Rich Dixon’s Rich’s Ride blog, “Nobody’s ever been debated into an intimate relationship with Jesus.”
Want to know what works better?
Listening. Empathy. Curiosity about the other.
I am still thinking about being prepared.
Mise en Place—a concept or practice from cooking. You gather all the ingredients for a dish you are preparing assembled in order and even measured in small bowls or dishes. Now you are ready to begin the work of preparing the dish.
Rituals—Rex Stout in Nero Wolfe novels, Archie Goodwin dusts, gets out Wolfe’s fountain pen, fills it, makes sure it works, places the day’s mail on the desk, has the office ready when Wolfe comes to the office at 11. Wolfe places his freshly cut orchid in the vase, adjusts himself in his custom chair, checks his pen, flips through the mail. They are now ready to start work.
The question:
What good is all that preparation if one never starts cooking or writing or thinking?
Bear with me. I have some examples of insufficient preparation and some thoughts for you.
Management of the manufacturing company moved me from a role in manufacturing to one in product development. They thought (wrongly probably) that I was smart but that I required some growing. They threw me into growth positions where it was sort of “sink-or-swim.”
We were a division of a Fortune 50 company. I was assigned first to research capital equipment that we could use to reduce scrap in the manufacturing process. That I did. They they told me that a few senior executives from the Chicago HQ were coming in, and I had to present the request for capital investment. That I did.
But I was totally unprepared for all the questions that were fired at me. I sort of panicked and mumbled what I could.
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I thought about preparation as I watched the debacle of the US Men’s National Soccer Team v Panama 6/27/24. Panama is a long-time competitor of the US. Their tactics should be well known. They commit nasty fouls, kicks on the ankles, stepping on feet, and other tactics designed to provoke their opponents.
The US team members should have known that. The coaching staff should have prepared them. Unfortunately, a key player lost his cool, took a swing, and was ejected very early in the game. Now the team had to play an important contest 10 v 11 for 75 minutes.
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I have not watched anything pertaining to a US President on TV since probably 1967 and Lyndon Johnson appearing on TV telling us more “stuff” about the war in VietNam.
So I missed the Biden v Trump “debate” on purpose. It sounds like a gross example of incorrect preparation. I studied the Nixon/Kennedy debate in graduate school many years ago. Surely every political advisor should have studied it. Nixon was a champion debater. He was prepared with debate points. (Unfamiliar with TV, he also famously refused makeup. Turns out when you’re a performer on stage makeup is not feminine, it’s a necessity.) Kennedy never directly answered a question. He riffed off the question to give his message. But he did it so well that he swayed the audience. Reagan was great for finding a pointed follow up observation.
Try this intellectual experiment.
If I’m preparing Biden, I’d have brought in some psychologists to role play how to provoke someone with narcissistic tendencies into a temper tantrum. Facts and figures? No one tunes into TV for those. People want a fight. Journalists want a fight. And journalists also want someone to go down so they can kick them. (OK, maybe I do have an opinion about political journalists.)
(I’m not advising Trump, because I think he cannot be advised. He is who he is. It sounds like he just gave his stump speech. Probably something Biden should have done.)
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I don’t do politics. I like to analyze. Can’t help myself.
My point is for you—those who read my thoughts.
How are you preparing? For your next executive presentation. For your proposal to the non-profit organization board for a new initiative. For a talk with your teenagers.
Are you preparing for the last war, or the next one? Instead of looking internally, have you considered the point of view of the opposition? What will they attack? How can that attack be met or diverted? What questions could come up that I’ll need to answer with a good story?
(Note: I don’t debate politics. That is a rabbit hole leading to nowhere. If you want to discuss practices that enhance our life, that’s where I live these days.)
Wisdom from the Desert Fathers:
Abba Poemen said, ‘Teach your mouth to say what is in your heart.’
This is difficult for some of us. Maybe we have no awareness of what is in our heart.
Maybe we go with impulsive feelings rather than what is deep within us. (Especially when we have fingers to keyboard and social media applications open.)
This reminds me of the wisdom found in the Letter of James. And, remember, Jesus is always concerned with the state of our hearts. Let us get it right.
The Desert Fathers were weird in many ways. Especially to our modern, materialistic minds. Most of us have never met a recluse seeking spiritual insight.
So many of us are partially university trained into an excess of criticality.
I picked up this thought in my reading this week:
“If we wish to understand the sayings of the Fathers, let us approach them with veneration, silencing our judgments and our own thoughts in order to meet them on their own ground and perhaps to partake ultimately—if we prove able to emulate their earnestness in the search, their ruthless determination, their infinite compassion—in their own silent communion with God.”
Yes, we can rush so quickly to judgement without first checking our attitudes at the door. We pick up the books with open hands and open hearts to let some drop of wisdom touch the tongue of our mind.
An understanding of the thoughts can come later.
Let us pause and consider our breathing.
With intention we slow our breathing.
Inhale…exhale.
Under stress, the breath comes quickly,
raising blood pressure,
ready to face the enemy.
Slowing breath with intention,
our body slows,
mind focuses on breath and spirit
blood pressure drops.
The ancients knew the connection
between breath and spirit, vital life force.
Ruach in Hebrew,
Pneuma in Koine Greek,
Prana in Sanskrit.
Inhale spirit;
Exhale worry, fear, hate.
Calm is Contagious
So is Fear.
Which do you choose?
I once taught a class focusing on Roger Williams, an early proponent of church-state separation, in the American colonies in the 1600s. He was instrumental in the founding of Rhode Island as a place to escape Puritan rule in Massachusetts.
While we were in Quebec, we learned about the quiet revolution where people rebelled against the Catholic Church’s intrusion into government. It seemed as if the Catholic Church was running everything telling people how to live the minutest part of their lives. The result was a separation of church and state and reaction against the church such that these days few people attend mass, even though they somewhat identify as Catholic.
During my university years, I did much reading about the early middle ages in Europe, where Bishops and Cardinals of the church, and indeed even the pope, exerted much influence over the kings and princes of Europe. Of course, then came the reformation leading to extended and prolonged wars between protestants and Catholics. After more than 100 years of war, no wonder Europeans, tired of such extreme religious fervor.
Humans must have a need for certainty. In this era look at Iran, where a religious government took over from an only mildly corrupt secular government. It has lasted for some years, but people are growing tired, even there, of the extreme religious intrusion into daily life.
Even in America founded on the idea of separation of church and state there is a movement of religious fundamentalism seeking to install a Christian government trying to have the government intrude minutely into peoples daily lives.
I was just reading in Matthew’s Gospel chapter four about the beginning of Jesus ministry. Matthew says that theme was gods kingdom. Not our kingdom, but gods kingdom.
I stand amazed at the number of humans seeking to replace God with themselves—in the name of God.
Some of us simply wish to follow Jesus’ call to love and service.
We recently vacationed in Québec City. Our tour guide on a walking tour explained the history of the city from the coming of the first French explorers to politics in the 1960s and again in the 1980s. You may recall that the country held two referendums in Quebec to find the sentiment of the people toward staying in Canada.
The first vote was not close, but a second vote a decade later tallied almost a 50/50 split. This told the rest of Canada that something must be done.
Politicians worked out a compromise making Quebec sort of a “nation within a nation.” It does not have embassies or passports, but it does have some special prerogatives within the nation.
The guide had two phrases. The first was, “it means nothing.” The notion of the “nation within a nation” isn’t exactly true. But his second phrase is something that could be used within American (and many other countries) politics, as well as within the general Christian movement in the world—We make it work.
In so many areas of life stubbornness, tempers, lack of empathy, closed minds get in the way of working things out.
We should also be able to say, “We make it work.”
A 19th Century critic of the Christianity of his day, but what could easily be the Christianity of today, observed, “Christians have never practiced the actions Jesus prescribed them.”
I remember a teacher remarking when I was in high school, “Do what I say, not what I do.”
Some people have derisively shouted at another, “Practice what you preach.”
Today’s news reading informed me of several (many?) church leaders whose sexual exploits either with same sex or opposite sex victims have come to light forcing even more resignations of high profile preachers.
Jesus left a command twice about loving one another and loving our neighbors. Not the kind of “love” those preachers and leaders practiced. Rather Jesus showed us with stories like the Samaritan who cared for the injured traveller.
Gary Mintchell
Faith Venture 