Gary Mintchell

Author Archive

Seeking Proper Alignment

August 18, 2023

I got up this morning with a very stiff lower back muscle. That feeling is rare. I’ve had to bend a few times to loosen it.

It could be my mattress. Most likely the cause stems from a new exercise in my weight lifting routine. I’m thinking about alignment. If I don’t have my body perfectly aligned with my arms raising in the proper alignment and my breath just right, sore muscles will occur.

We teach proper alignment constantly in Yoga. One misalignment holding a pose can cause pain somewhere.

A person I’ve just met asked me about calming her soul. I told her 60 years of meditation dealt with much of my emotional and anger issues. She had heard too much about all the postures, things to do with hands, chants or mantras. I told her it is easy. Don’t stress. Just sit in a solid chair. Relax arms. Eyes closed or open. Don’t care. Thoughts fly through the brain like a flock of blackbirds in autumn. Don’t care. Just align breathing intentionally. In…Out… Thoughts come and go. I told her I can do 2 hours in corpse pose in bed. But 5 minutes a day is sufficient. Heck, even 2 minutes to begin. It’s like an old cola commercial…”the pause that refreshes.”

We align our soul with our breath.

That helps us align our soul with our life leading to a better, more appropriate response to what life brings to us.

The human condition. We think too much. We worry too much. We are anxious about being perfect too much.

Relax. Take a deep breath. Then another. Then tackle life’s challenges one thing at a time as we align our flow to the situation.

Posted in Disciplines, Meditation | Leave a Comment »

Now What?

August 17, 2023

I once shared an office with the president of the county anti-abortion organization. No, I’m not going to debate this issue here. Rather, I asked him:

Now that you have “saved” a baby’s life, Now what?

It is now in a home where most likely the mother is poor and single and the baby is not wanted. Now what?

I don’t know if that question provided the impetus, but the organization did do some things to help mothers.

A friend was focused on “saving” people. I think that meant getting people to say that they “accepted Jesus into their life.” And I asked that friend:

Now what?

Do you just leave that person adrift while you try to add another notch on the belt?

Or, do you develop a relationship that leads the person into experiencing peace, joy, hope, calmness, and so forth? Is it a numbers game? Or a life game?

“I did this.”

“Now what?”

Posted in Disciplines, Doing, Relationship | Leave a Comment »

Above The Law

August 16, 2023

How often do we think we are above the law?

Perhaps it’s petty rules we think do not apply to us. Perhaps it is driving faster than the speed limit or not stopping at stop signs. Perhaps getting away from a merchant paying far less than the price.

Maybe it’s bigger things. Cheating someone in business. Slandering an opponent.

Maybe really big things such as abusing the power given us by an organization.

People thinking they are above the law fill news stories once again. This is not new news. It evidently goes on as far back as civilization.

There is a 3,000-year-old story from the Hebrew scriptures. A very popular King, let’s call him David since that was his name, saw a woman. She was beautiful. Now, most men have seen a beautiful woman and had a fleeting thought about being with her. But, David was king. He had people. He sent one of those people to bring her. It was a request she couldn’t refuse.

As happens when you violate trust and authority, things happened. In the downward spiral he wound up killing the woman’s husband.

The a man who was close to God visited David. He told a story about a man who abused his authority. When David said that man should be punished, Nathan said, “You are that man.”

Where is that voice from God today when we need it?

Listen. It’s there somewhere.

Posted in Sin | Leave a Comment »

Forgive Yourself

August 15, 2023

The first step toward living a fulfilling life is to forgive yourself. Forgiving others, the next essential step, is truly impossible until we face ourselves.

We just finished a week of watching season eight of the English drama Grantchester. It is billed as a crime drama. That is only a setting for the real drama. At some point during the season’s eight episodes, the major recurring characters had to face situations of emotional turmoil that persisted until forgiveness came from within themselves before they could reconcile with others.

Truly seeing inside to the sources of my own emotional turmoils took a long time. Even prior to that resolution, I had learned to get past the wrongs perpetrated upon me by others. After reconciling within myself, though, moving on from those wrongs was easier. It takes energy to even remember.

The Apostle Paul taught us, “Get rid of all anger, wrath, malice, slander…”

Develop self awareness recognizing these forces that we must shed. This leads to a life filled with the fruit of the spirit.

Posted in forgiveness | Leave a Comment »

Why Do We Seek?

August 14, 2023

The topic of today’s fitness newsletter was the editor’s observation of the varying goals people have written to him about fitness and nutrition. He asked, Why do you work out? Why an hour a day on a fitness bike, or lift weights, or go out and run daily?

A friend told him once when asked why he spent an hour a day on the exercise bike, “To be lean and mean.” Really? “Well, actually to look good to women.”

That may sound trivial, but not really. It was motivational to get him up and exercising every day.

We grow from those first motivations into more mature and sustainable habits.

I ask you, “Why seek a spiritual life?”

I think I was influenced by the Zen movement of the 50s. The Beatniks. I was more influenced there than by the later Hippie movement. The goal was enlightenment. We weren’t taught the Christian mystics way back then, only Zen Buddhism. Now my library is filled with the writings of Christian mystics.

But, is that really why? A famous Zen master once said, “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.” Much of Eastern wisdom traditions I have read have less to do with enlightenment and more to do with living a full life.

Jesus never said the ultimate goal was a mystical enlightenment. I think his “biographers” (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) only recorded a two or three mystical experiences. He didn’t talk about dying and going to heaven. He talked about how we could live a better life, now, in the “Kingdom of Heaven” now. It is near us, he said. Around us.

I had some inner drive for contemplation and enlightenment. Maybe I’ve had some enlightenment experiences. But, in the end, it was to calm my inner emotions driving anger and anxiety and low self esteem.

Think about your question. What are you seeking? Really? Once uncovered, then you can grow from it. And become a better human for it.

Posted in Living, Spirituality | Leave a Comment »

Process Control, Quality In, Quality Processing, Quality Out

August 11, 2023

Two conversations this week involved process control. One involved coffee beans and the other scrap steel. One discussed why the direct trade coffee (from the Chavarria farm in Nicaragua) tastes so much better than the big chain brands. The other conversation with the CEO of a software company discussed achieving high quality steel products from the raw material input of assorted scrap steel.

A couple of takeaways.

The quality of the feedstock, the raw material the process begins with, impacts the process and the final product.

Adjusting the process to allow for variations of feedstock impacts the quality of the final product.

Just so in our own development.

What is the quality of the feedstock with which you fill your attention and mind?

How do you process, that is, reflect on, the stuff filling your attention and mind?

Posted in Disciplines, Learning, Listening, Thinking | Leave a Comment »

Let Jesus Do The Talking

August 10, 2023

During a tour of the sites Louise Penny popularized in her detective novels featuring Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, the tour guide gave us identifying wrist bands saying What Would Gamache Do? This brought back memories from years ago when the popular fashion accessory was a rubber wrist band emblazoned with WWJD (what would Jesus do).

Jon Swanson gave me an idea today when he wrote about how sometimes we decide what Jesus would say (and do). That resonated with much of my thinking.

My wish is that we who identify either as Christians or as Jesus-followers would actually read, digest, infuse his actual words and deeds instead of making up stuff or taking at surface-value what others have said about him.

Rather than What Would Jesus Do, perhaps better is What Did Jesus Do and Say and how do we incorporate that into our every day lives?

I like the word infuse. I approach spiritual disciplines with the idea of infusing Jesus’ teachings into my very being reflected in the way I behave.

Posted in Disciplines, Spirituality | Leave a Comment »

Make Haste Slowly

August 9, 2023

Sometimes I allow other people to influence my behavior. It’s not intentional. It just happens. Like yesterday when I was unloading the dishwasher. My wife decided to help. She wants to get it done. I unconsciously speed up. I grabbed a coffee mug from one of her favorite sets. It slipped from my fingers. Dropped onto another mug. In an instant what had been one useable object was three pieces of trash.

Once I rushed through everything. And I made mistakes. I overlooked part of the equation or one silly word in the story problem.

Slow is actually fast. And better. A slight reduction in hurry and my wife would have a full set of six coffee mugs in the set instead of five.

A slight reduction in reading speed and I would have more perfect scores on my Duolingo language lessons. A slight reduction in learning new chords on the guitar would result in deeper understanding of the nuances of the chord.

Not rushing through meditation and prayer—priceless.

Pausing to ponder one of Jesus’ stories—deeper understanding.

Slowing down to actually listen to those I’m with—better relations.

Slower can be faster and with more quality.

Posted in Disciplines | Leave a Comment »

Sharing Christ

August 8, 2023

Church people are often encouraged to “share Christ” with others. People undergo training not unlike the sales training I suffered through as an introverted engineer transitioning to a sales position. I can still remember the “furniture store close”.

The furniture store close is a short term event. People come to the furniture store to look. Statistically they will not return to buy. Therefore, you must sell them before they leave. Salesperson has an order form. Fills it out as they talk with prospect. Then say, just sign here and we can ship next week.

Is this like “sharing Christ?”

First the question: Why are you sharing Christ?

Most likely you wish for that person to experience a changed life. A random conversation will rarely do that. However, you could view this as the farmer scattering seed in one of Jesus’ parables. You may never know which soil you planted the seed. But for the receptive soil, it will be life changing.

The best salespeople I have known (and what I tried to be the few years I was a sales engineer) were relationship sales people. They spent time and effort getting to know their clients.

In our context here, this approach answers the question, “Can we share Christ without knowing what question the other person has weighing on their soul?” Can we take the time and effort to really know someone?

There is another approach. We find this one in the book Acts of the Apostles. The sharing part was simply living a life filled with the fruit of the spirit. And people around those people said, “I want what they’ve got.”

How much of this one have you experienced lately? It is your fault?

Posted in Witness | Leave a Comment »

When To Quit and When Not To

August 7, 2023

The hardest decisions for the owners and managers of a successful athletic organization involves timing the retirement of its star athletes. The hardest decision for almost all premier athletes is knowing when time and age have caught them and they need to step down.

The same can be said for politicians and business leaders. I’ve observed church leaders in the same situation. They stay too long. Lose their edge. Begin to make mistakes. Think they are not only above the law, but that they are the law.

The opposite holds true in the spiritual life. We can retire too early. We may have had a spiritual experience of oneness with God. Then spend our lives trying to recapture that moment.

Or we become convinced of a certain “truth” early on and never grow from that or re-evaluate in light of further study and experience.

Every day in the spiritual life we can sit in the first hour of the morning and open ourselves to God asking what new experience or opportunity will be shown us that day. And opening ourselves to making the appropriate response. Living a life of loving God and loving other humans only ends at death. There is no retirement.

Posted in Attitude, Awareness, Disciplines | Leave a Comment »

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