Gary Mintchell

Author Archive

Contempt

February 15, 2024

It’s not our disagreements that cause division. It’s contempt that causes division.

So often our attitudes define our relationships and actions.

Can we have honest discussions with others about religion, faith, politics, or our community? Can we listen with holding someone who disagrees in contempt assuming lack of intelligence? Can we speak civilly without condescension in our tone of voice?

I come back to listening. Can we even listen? What are they really saying? What is the emotion they are holding? What needs do they feel that we should be hearing? Maybe not with agreement, but with empathy.

We have all known people who seem to look upon others with contempt. They assume such superiority.

We don’t want to be one of those people.

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Second Guessing

February 14, 2024

American professional football just held its annual championship game. The two teams competed well. The coaches prepared the teams with skill and ingenuity. The players individually played with passion and athleticism. It was thrilling with one team winning on the last play.

I scanned my few news sources the next morning only to see some reporter propose that the losing coach blew one or more decisions at the end leading to the loss.

This is a person who never did the hundreds of things that bring a team together that eventually plays for the championship. But the headline received many clicks, and he got paid.

How often do we sit on the sidelines second-guessing the people actually making the decisions and doing the work? The pastor screwed up again. Or the committee or organization leader fails to lead—to our satisfaction. But how often do we stand up and take the chance to lead? This second guessing leads to dissension and division.

Worse still is when we second guess ourselves. “If only” thinking can ruin our lives. We can live in despair for years with that thinking. Of course we need to learn from experience. How often we say “I’ll not do that again!” Beware living the “if only I…” life. It leads nowhere.

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Fat Tuesday

February 13, 2024

Today is “Fat Tuesday” aka Mardi Gras. In the Chicago area it is Paczki (poochky) Day. That is a Polish treat, a jelly/fruit/cream filled pastry. Alas, by the time I arrived at the coffee house they had sold out. So, I won’t have that extra store of fat to take me through the fasting of Lent.

But then, I was not raised with an extensive Lenten tradition. Neither was my wife.

I wondered why we are so much more Advent people than Lent people. Both are celebrations of crucial events foundational to the Christian faith. First must come the birth; then must come the resurrection which cannot happen without a death.

On one hand:

Six weeks of “Christmas” or “Holiday” music that brings a certain sentimentality?
Anticipation of presents?
Shopping?
Holiday parties and treats?
Joy?

On the other hand:

One party day (today)
Six weeks of somber reflection
Six weeks of fasting (for some)
One day of party—in America celebrated with piles of chocolates for kids and others and fancy clothing

Perhaps I am, as always, overthinking. There are different seasons to the calendar and to the church calendar and to our lives.

Now at the end of another long winter we look forward to spring. It is a somber time of reflection. What does it all mean? And pointing to the resurrection—which means everything.

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The Practice

February 12, 2024

I have followed and taught on the work on Spiritual Disciplines by Richard J. Foster and Dallas Willard. Some people call them Spiritual Practices due to negative connotations of the word discipline.

If you have tried to develop a regular practice of study, prayer, meditation, and silence and found it difficult to sit every day, or even every other day, then you have met what the writer Steven Pressfield calls The Resistance. He defines it in his classic book for creative people The War of Art.

He discussed it recently in his email newsletter. “We have a practice in order to confront and overcome Resistance. A practice by definition defeats Resistance because it produces work every day with total focus and dedication. And a practice is lifelong, so we know we’ll never quit.”

He explains further with thoughts that should help us in our own spiritual practice if we but infuse them into our lives:

I was years into the act of having a practice before I even thought about its efficacy as a strategy to overcome my own Resistance. Resistance was (and is) a given for me. It wakes up with me. I know I will have to face it every day, and I know it will never diminish or relent or go away. But I have a practice. That’s all I need to know. I know at a certain time of day I will go into a certain room. I will enter with a very specific mindset, i.e. “Leave your problems (and your ego) outside.” And I will engage in a very specific (though infinitely varied in the moment) enterprise. I have left Resistance outside as well. It is not allowed into the space where my writing practice takes place.

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Teaching on Prayer

February 9, 2024

How do you imagine God? Where is this God that you imagine?

Someone said they were puzzled by how they could send a prayer all the way up to heaven and it could make it to God.

I understand. Many people imagine God as sitting in an ornate chair up in the sky somewhere.

Jesus said that the kingdom of God is all around us. Paul tried to describe it as our bodies are temples, that is the residence of God in the language of the day, of the Holy Spirit, that is the way we experience God after Jesus’s resurrection.

We could just as easily imagine prayer as a conversation with someone right here beside us. Someone I read many years ago described gatherings of the first followers of Jesus as experiencing him right there in the room with them. More than a belief—an experience.

A good and refreshing conversation includes me talking, me listening, pauses, nodding our heads in agreement, lifting eyebrows in surprise, maybe a smile or a tear.

I once offered to teach a prayer class. It should be a limited term class. Six weeks. Experiencing various types and methods of prayer developed over millennia. People came expecting me to teach about prayer, you know, six examples from the Bible to memorize or something. I wanted to show them, actually have them experience, different forms of prayer much like teaching different poses in a Yoga class or how to use dumbbells when doing resistance training where you actually must perform the action taught.

How about you? Do you just want an intellectual knowledge about God and conversations with God? Or perhaps a deeper experience of relationship?

Sometimes we are way too much into head and way too little into heart (soul).

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Taming the Tongue

February 8, 2024

James, one of the first leaders of the Jesus Movement, wrote about the tongue. It’s a small part of the body, he says, yet like the bridle in a horses’s mouth or the rudder of a ship, it can move great things. Like a forest fire started by a small fire the tongue is a fire.

Every species of beast or bird or reptile or sea creature can be tamed—but not the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

Every one of us has experienced recriminations from saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. Each of us has hurt someone sometime by saying something hateful.

And yet we believe we have the “right” to say whatever we want whenever we wish—without suffering from the repercussions.

Why are we shocked when we spread lies, half-truth, hate and then people respond strongly against us?

We can say whatever comes to mind first. That doesn’t mean we should. Wise people choke back those first comments, count to 10 or even 100, and then see the harm those words would cause and how better off the world would be if we stay silent.

Words have power—use them wisely.

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Dandelion in Crete in Winter

February 7, 2024

We were on the Greek island of Crete last week. It is winter in the Mediterranean. Cool, rain. The wind from the sea must have been gusting at 40 mph. Maybe there was just a glimpse of the stories of Paul and ships on the Mediterranean at the wrong time of year.

We walked along a fortress wall by the harbor at Souda Bay. Bad weather and rough seas changed our itinerary from Heraklion. No problem.

Here grew one lonely dandelion amidst the rocks. The dark spot on one flower is a honey bee. One plant struggling up from the rocks, yet seemingly successful against all odds.

One bee. Found a flower. Some juicy food to take back to the hive.

Sometimes we struggle against the odds in our spiritual development journey. Sometimes we find success.

Sometimes we do our job. Maybe alone. Against the odds. Yet, we find nourishment.

Posted in Awareness, spirit | Leave a Comment »

The Knights of St. John in Rhodes, Greece

February 6, 2024

We toured Rhodes, an island in Greece just off the western shore of Turkey, on our recent vacation. The focus of the tour was a palace/fortress built by the Knights of St. John to protect the island from Ottoman invaders about 1,000 years ago.

We met our tour guide. As we entered the old city:

We heard a priest conducting Mass at a Greek Orthodox church;
Then walked along nearby synagogue;
Passing by a Roman Catholic church,
We heard the call to prayer by the local Imam to the Mosque

Noting these different religions, the guide noted, “We have learned to get along together.”

By the way, the St. John in the order’s name is John the Baptist. They were initially a healing order commissioned by the Pope during the first Crusades. They became a military order with soldiers and naval fleets. They still exist today in a different format.

Their healing practice is informative. They carefully screened incoming patients admitting those who would be amenable to their therapy. The assigned an assistant to each patient. The first therapy was sleep. They provided private rooms. At night, they induced opium smoke into the room to help with sleep. The assistant would stand outside the room and whisper positive affirmations through a small window. They would encourage the patients to get up and walk around during the day. Supposedly they had a 100% success rate of healing.

Speaking as someone with a number of health and fitness certifications, I don’t recommend the opium. However, rest, positive affirmations, and exercise as much as one is capable are excellent therapies for many ailments.

Posted in healing, Relationship, Service | Leave a Comment »

Living in History

February 5, 2024

In the land where I grew up the oldest human structures dated from the 1790s. AD. Or CE if you are an historian.

We have just returned from a couple of weeks touring the western edge of Turkey (Turkiye) and the east of Greece. Once all Greece. Of course then Roman, Ottoman Muslim, then independent.

We visited Ephesus. The Apostle Paul walked those same marble streets that we just did. As did the Apostle John who accompanied Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Before travel all of this is theoretical. Just something I read perhaps in the Bible or other history. Perhaps taught in school.

Traveling we stood right there. We could see marble structures that were there more than 2,000 years ago. This is where history was made. This is where Paul spoke about one true God. Where the economic livelihood of many depended on selling silver trinkets to religious tourists to the Temple of Artemis. Where they led a riot to the auditorium trying to capture and kill him.

And where John brought Mary to escape the ravages of Jerusalem. Where John also spoke of the one God, also threatening the livelihood of the silversmiths. When he agreed to leave town to go to the island of Patmos, he provided a house for Mary out of town on the mountainside to offer a measure of protection from the mobs.

Here is a photo of her house and one of the streets of Ephesus.

My point is to encourage travel. Burst out from your preconceived ideas. Experience the world and other people.

Posted in Awareness, Disciplines | Leave a Comment »

Attitude Makes All The Difference

February 2, 2024

Note: Today we are returning home from a 10-day vacation to Turkey and Greece. More later. I’ve been posting things I wrote a year ago. This post was written a year ago following another business trip to Florida. But it’s relevant to our trip this month.

I am traveling again. Not as much as the old days in the industry, but it’s nice to get out after the pandemic lockdown days.

Traveling can be tiring. The three hour maintenance delay of my flight was not that stressful. Then a taxi to the conference hotel. Directly to the press conference room. Meet people, listen to presentations, take notes, digest information. Then to meet people, ask questions, absorb more information. Eat very little. Walk 1.5 miles to my hotel. It’s 9 pm and I’m tired.

Now, the question is, I got in my steps, but when to do strength and flexibility work?

It’s attitude.

With a positive, energetic attitude, I can work in a little Yoga and write. Or, scan email from for the first time in several hours, send a couple of text messages, get in a few minutes of Duolingo language study to keep my 159-day streak alive, and go to bed.

It’s attitude that either allows me or prevents me from overeating

It’s attitude that guides me to my daily mediation even with a different schedule and environment.

It’s my attitude that I must nurture. And allow it to guide me in the proper direction.

Guard your attitude. It makes all the difference.