Gary Mintchell

Author Archive

Offering An Opinion Lacking Understanding

January 18, 2023

“A fool takes no pleasure in understanding,
but only in expressing personal opinion.”
Proverbs 18

Sometimes I wonder if Solomon had the power to look 3,000 years into the future and view today’s society. We often hear “I’m entitled to my opinion” but never “I’m in need of understanding.”

But, no, obviously this condition of mindlessly spouting off unfounded opinion is as old as human civilization. Maybe older.

What do we admire about some people?

Is it not that they have deep understanding and yet they do not metaphorically bludgeon us with it.

Wise people share their insights derived from their understanding at a time and place where we can effectively apply it to our situation.

We admire them, perhaps even while also disliking them for the uncomfortable feeling of our own need to change. For, we hate to change–our minds, our lifestyle, our habits.

I think of people who met Jesus and understood the wisdom of his words and yet walked away sadly knowing that they had not the courage or energy to change.

And I wonder, where do we need to change beginning today? And what? And how?

The rest of Chapter 18 talks of problems we cause through our talking. Similar to cautions found in the letter of James in the New Testament. Perhaps that would be a useful change for us beginning today–how and what we communicate?

I’ve made progress and yet much work remains. How about you?

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

That Point Between Urge and Action

January 17, 2023

There are wonderful pictures in the Proverbs:

Better to meet a she-bear robbed of its cubs than to confront a fool immersed in folly. (Chapter 17)

You are scanning your social media feed. As unlikely as this sounds, you see a post from someone that is completely wrong. Using emotion-laden language, they describe an event totally made up. You feel a surge of righteous emotion, even anger. “I’ll set this right” you say to yourself as you begin to type.

Maybe you’ve forgotten about the she-bear. Maybe you remember what the writer of the Proverbs says shortly thereafter:

The beginning of strife is like letting out water; so stop before the quarrel breaks out.

TS Eliot wrote about the point, the still point, where the dance is. He didn’t mean this, exactly, but it fits. There is a moment between typing the response or speaking to the friend and clicking send or giving voice to the thought.

It is that moment that we must become sensitive to. That still point. There, we must become observers of ourselves. Recognizing that we are about to meet folly with folly, we stop.

We cannot control the genesis of our emotions. We must control the response. That is where awareness and tranquility of mind becomes the most important thing. At that moment, we breathe, we see, we become tranquil and quiet. Let it pass.

Posted in Disciplines, emotions, Wisdom | Leave a Comment »

Relate With People By How They Are Not What They Look Like

January 16, 2023

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I Have a Dream

I was a student when Martin Luther King delivered that speech. I don’t know the degree to which this comment inspired me or if I was just always this way. I have always tried to treat people individually where they are. If they are poor or rich or powerful and they have more stuffing than a Christmas goose, I deal one way. Most people are just hard-working individuals trying to do their jobs. I don’t care if they are CEO or junior assistant account executive. They deserve to be treated with honesty and respect. And I try.

Today in the US is an official holiday observing the birth and work of Martin Luther King. It is good to remember the good he did, what he stood for.

The movement did some good. Laws were passed. Barriers were broken.

Today I believe that there is broader acceptance of people of varying skin colors, races, languages. Yet, still much work remains. Some prejudices are hard to overcome. They require a change of heart in each individual.

If you read the gospels carefully, you’ll see that Jesus was doing just that. He met with people of different ethnic groups at their level of need. He healed regardless of being Jewish or not. He was forever concerned with the status of one’s heart.

How do you change hearts? We have certain Christians who think that passing more laws will suffice. That didn’t work out so well in the end for the Pharisees of Jesus’ time.

Unfortunately, you don’t change hearts with laws or with one magnificent speech. Ann Lamont wrote a wonderful little book Bird by Bird, where she tells the story of her brother. He procrastinated over writing a report on birds for school. Now it’s the night before it’s due. (Sound familiar?) He whines to his father about how he’ll ever get it done. “Just write bird by bird and you’ll get it done.”

Just like a good bread requires time to rise, so a changed heart requires time for the change to root and grow. And it happens one heart at a time.

Dr. King set out a vision. Much good did happen. But the hard work remains for each of us. What is the condition of our own heart? Where can we nurture another’s heart?

Posted in Attitude, Evangelism, Faith, Leadership, Relationship | Leave a Comment »

Repentance, or Making Decisions

January 13, 2023

It’s January 13. How are your New Year’s Resolutions going?

There is no January rush at the community’s fitness center. I have no direct data, only observation–attendance in exercise classes is stable over the past year, again no January rush.

Has no one new decided for a healthy lifestyle this year?

There is a stream within the broader Christian church that emphasizes THE decision. You make one public statement that you wish to follow Jesus (the proper formula is “accept Jesus as Lord and Savior) and that’s it. Complete. Done.

I spent my entire adult life suggesting to people that that is not the end. It is the beginning.

The stories of Jesus tell us he taught repentance–that is a decision to change the direction of your life. His cousin John taught similarly.

A sub-theme of the Proverbs tells us that many decisions we make determine the type of life we will experience.

Every day we face decision points that determine our life.

take an ethical shortcut
tell a small falsehood
help someone with a bulky package while shopping
give some money to a charity
donate some time to someone who needs support

And finally, a proverb for politicians the world over:

“The righteous hate falsehood,
but the wicked act shamefully and disgracefully.”
Proverbs 13

Posted in Disciplines, Intention, Wisdom | Leave a Comment »

Why Behave?

January 12, 2023

In the United States we allow people to make up sayings or put their names on automobile license plates. They are called “vanity plates” for a reason.

I followed a car yesterday with the license plate “Y Behave”.

I thought, how many of us think it is funny or cute to flaunt good behavior and promote prolonged adolescent behavior.

Many of us still act as if we are adolescent pushing against authority, living a dissipated lifestyle, having no real purpose in life (see my post on ickigai).

The writers of the Proverbs stress constantly the benefits of leading a righteous life. It is a life free from entanglement and anxiety. A life well lived.

I wonder how long we can sustain such a narcissistic society. I think maybe thinkers 3,000 years ago wondered the same thing.

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Learning Humility

January 11, 2023

Preparing for this little essay, I spotted this headline from today’s The New York Times, AI’s Best Trick Yet Is Showering Us With Attention. Last week Americans, and indeed the world, were treated to photos of our Congresspeople posturing for social media seeking attention in any way they could get it. But it’s not just the Kardashians or Paris Hilton, who was “famous for being famous.” We all want to get into the act.

Richard J. Foster begins his latest book with the trigger that set him on a year-long study and reflection on humility. In a society where raging narcissism dominates the moral landscape, the virtue of humility is often dismissed as irrelevant. Not only is humility vanishing from contemporary culture, but we are also witnessing how destructive a lack of humility has become among our churches and ministry leaders.

I’ve not read many of Foster’s books. I have read and taught from Celebration of Discipline. This book is Learning Humility: A Year of Searching for a Vanishing Virtue.

We learn that there is strength in humility. And there is wisdom in humility. We learn from the Bible, and from wisdom of the Lakota people, and from Julian of Norwich, and Evagrius Ponticus (one of my favorites), and more.

I recommend reading this book and joining Foster in the journey toward learning humility. And like I said yesterday, it’s not about learning it in our head, but about practicing it with our actions.

I leave you with the little prayer that guided Foster during his journey.

Lord, would you

purify my heart
renew my mind
sanctify my imagination, and
enlarge my soul.

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Bringing Wisdom To Life

January 10, 2023

Today’s reading going through the Hebrew book of the Proverbs during January is Chapter 10—beginning the proverbs of Solomon. He was a son of King David. He was not the first born. Because of rebellion, pride, dysfunctional families, death, Solomon became king upon David’s death.

God visited Solomon and said he would grant a desire. Solomon asked for wisdom. And, indeed, he became known throughout the Middle East for his wisdom.

One would never know it by the way he lived. As befitting a king, he had many wives and many women in the palace not his wives but with whom he could sleep with. He had many offspring. Despite his wisdom, he was unable to raise an upright son and heir.

This is the most ironic book in the Bible. And sad in the sense that at the end of his life Solomon realized that he had not lived according to the wisdom granted him.

His son was full of pride and in a very short time caused the division of the vast kingdom acquired by his father. It was all chasing the wind, as Solomon said later.

Take a lesson, not only from the words but also from the story behind the words.

We can read and memorize and even understand the wisdom that comes from God. But as Jesus explained time and again, unless we live out those words, we are lost.

Posted in Disciplines, Sin, Wisdom | Leave a Comment »

The Beginner’s Mind

January 9, 2023

Jesus said, “Unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

All the spiritual traditions of which I’m aware contain a form of the concept of the beginner’s mind.

The quote from Jesus popped up in my current reading. I paused to contemplate.

“In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.”

I remembered a joke from a boy’s magazine from my early adolescent period. Two farmers were talking one day. One says, “My son went off to university and got a BS and then an MS and now he is getting a Ph.D.” The other replied, “What’s that?” “Well,” said the first farmer, “I guess it’s like this. You know what BS is. MS is More of the Same. And PhD is Piled Higher and Deeper.”

Now, I don’t want to disparage all people who have earned a PhD (Doctor of Philosophy) degree. I have friends who earned that degree and are brilliant and useful in their fields. I’m currently listening to the podcasts of Dr. Andrew Huberman who has a PhD in neuroscience yet retains insatiable curiosity about many things.

Yet, I’ve known countless people with advanced degrees without the sense to come in from the rain. Their heads got so choked with what they know that there is no room for learning.

There are many whose heads are so full of what they know that there is no room for learning, no curiosity, they know it all–and they have no degrees. It works in many ways.

Like a child, like a beginner, our minds need to be open and curious ready to take in new experiences and new understanding. I loved taking walks with my grandson when he was a toddler. He would stop and explore many things–bugs, worms, leaves, whatever was there. I hoped he would never lose that attitude toward life.

Posted in Attitude, Disciplines, Learning, Wisdom | Leave a Comment »

Keeping Busy With Joy

January 6, 2023

How often it occurs that my eclectic reading and listening habits bring different ideas together. Many (most?) people experience this. It’s so common that the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung had a word for it—synchronicity.

It happened to me now. We should be busy. Not mindlessly busy (another podcast about mindfulness I heard yesterday, but that’s another topic). But a reason to be busy. And be happy doing it. When you are older. It may be looking after family. Or gardening. Or writing. Or hopefully your job. Or hobby.

The Japanese have a word for it—Ikigai (ick—ee—guy). It can be translated as the reason you get up in the morning.

How many men (it seems to occur more often with men) have you known who retire from work in order to do nothing. And they die way too soon. Forty years ago I decided that wouldn’t happen to me. It got me through the pandemic—a reason to get up and do something every day.

In the Proverbs we read (Chapter 6, today’s reading)

“6 Go to the ant, you lazybones;

consider its ways, and be wise.

7 Without having any chief

or officer or ruler,

8 it prepares its food in summer,

and gathers its sustenance in harvest.

9 How long will you lie there, O lazybones?”
Proverbs 6th Chapter

Yesterday I listened to a conversation (called a podcast) with Guy Kawasaki and Héctor García, who wrote Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life with Francesc Miralles. Héctor moved from Spain to Japan as a software engineer and became a best selling writer. They interviewed people in a small village in Okinawa known for its concentration of people over 100 years old. They universally had an ickigai. I have just ordered the book. Just listening to a guy born in Spain, living in Japan, who is also articulate in English was enough to sell me the book.

The Spiritual Disciplines can help us here. Get up, read (study), meditate, and then perform some work of service (small or large). Repeat.

Find your ickigai.

Posted in Attitude, Disciplines, Wisdom | 1 Comment »

Reading Through Proverbs In January

January 5, 2023

I am in the first week of my annual discipline of reading a chapter from the book of Proverbs every day for the month of January. There are 31 chapters and 31 days. Seems to fit.

Why read this book? The beginning words give us a good reason.

“For learning about wisdom and instruction,

for understanding words of insight,

for gaining instruction in wise dealing,

righteousness, justice, and equity”
Proverbs chapter 1

Or, as Andy Stanley puts it, “Make better decisions; live with fewer regrets.”

Why re-read the book every year? And perhaps read randomly throughout the year? It’s hard to remember all of these thoughts. If we are to hold them in our hearts and minds, we need to refresh ourselves. Like drinking from a fountain of fresh water, one gulp does not last. It’s the continual sipping of water that refreshes.

The human soul needs the continual refreshing of good thoughts. Reflect upon the past year (week? day?) and see where you fell off the path and feel the consequences. Do yourself a favor and spend 15 minutes at the beginning of each day filling your mind with helpful thoughts.

Posted in Disciplines, Wisdom | Leave a Comment »

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