Archive for the ‘Attention’ Category

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Have We Become Voyeurs

October 28, 2015

One of my Spiritual Disciplines is fasting–fasting from TV news, that is.

No, I’m not a flaming conservative who thinks all the media has a liberal bias. Nor do I think about whether there is a conservative bias. TV news has a distinct sensationalism bias.

It’s all about how each network can get the largest number of people to watch for a long enough period of time to serve up plenty of advertisements. Don’t kid yourselves. You get sucked in to your news source of choice because they have figured out ways to get you to watch. This is simply a business model.

We fall for it.

The TV in front of me the other day while I was running on the treadmill showed off some so-called “expert” speculating about the motives or mental health of someone who injured and killed a number of people with her out-of-control car.

What good was that speculation? There was no fact discussed. Merely opinion. And not even informed opinion. Just the fantasy of speculation about someone they don’t know and really don’t care about. And a million people watched it. I even read the closed caption for about a minute to see what was up.

This is what you get when someone thinks that showing news 24-hours-per-day is a good thing. They quickly discovered that filling all that time with valuable information was either too costly or too boring. They have to hook you and reel you in. Not enough viewers means not enough advertising which means not enough revenue.

But people watch. And not just in North America. It’s a human trait.

Why do we get so wrapped up in idle gossip and speculation about others when there is so much of ourselves that we need to pay attention to? Maybe that’s too hard.

Practice the Spiritual Discipline of fasting from TV news. You might just discover your blood pressure dropping, your emotions more centered, your friends and family more understanding, and your attention fixed upon others whom you can love and serve. I call that a good thing.

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Spring Cleaning for the Soul

April 1, 2015

It’s spring cleaning time. The traditional time to air out a house long closed while winter brought bitter cold and snow. Things that are closed up for long become stuffy and even unhealthy.

Including lives. Including churches.

It’s time for a renewal. Maybe even coinciding with Easter–the celebration of the ultimate renewal, the resurrection of Jesus.

Maybe this is a good time to take a look at yourself. What clutter has accumulated around us and in us. Maybe it is some accumulated “stuff” that just occupies space. Adding nothing. It felt good when we bought it. But…time to give it away or send to the trach.

Maybe the accumulated stuff lies in hates/aches,  cares/tears. Or maybe unhealthy relationships whose toxicity is slowly killing our energy, desire, focus. 

The power we have to improve our lives starts with eliminating, as opposed to accumulating. 

Clear out our personal physical space

  • Toss stuff
  • Clear clutter
  • Clean everything

Clean out the body

  • Weed out distressing habits
  • Weed out distressing individuals
  • Find friends who are energetic, positive
  • Drink more water
  • Eat healthy foods in moderate quantities

Calm the soul

  • Quiet the mind through prayer and meditation
  • Put worries and negative thinking behind
  • Focus on service to others, less focus on self

It all starts with a quiet mind, which lets us begin to achieve focus. Then we can find the important things in life.

“Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened, but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace, like a clock during a thunderstorm,” said Robert Louis Stevenson

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Doing The Difficult Thing Adds Value

March 25, 2015

There are two types of organizations. Two types of churches. One assumes customers or members. Its leaders see their role as stewards of what is. Others believe passionately about their mission. Their products will change the way people live for the better. Their gift of spirit will lead people to better lives.

The first is easy. The second one often challenging. The first leads to the path of decay and organizational death. The second leads to energy, growth, kindling that passion in others…and others.

Seth Godin made his mark as a marketing guru in high technology. He wrote recently:

Of course it’s difficult…
Students choose to attend expensive colleges but don’t major in engineering because the courses are killer.

Doing more than the customary amount of customer service is expensive, time-consuming and hard to sustain.

Raising money for short-term urgent projects is easier than finding support for the long, difficult work of changing the culture and the infrastructure.

Finding a new path up the mountain is far more difficult than hiring a sherpa and following the tried and true path. Of course it is. That’s precisely why it’s scarce and valuable. 

The word economy comes from the Greek and the French, and is based on the concept of scarcity. The only things that are scarce in the world of connection and services and the net are the things that are difficult, and the only things that are valuable are the things that are scarce. When we intentionally seek out the difficult tasks, we’re much more likely to actually create value.

Think of his comment about raising money relative to your church or non-profit. I am. It is condemning of the approach I took over in my ministry. Buffeting from project to project. No real stability or plan for growth. No real involvement from the larger group. No commitment to the hard work of a sustaining ministry.

What is scarce these days is attention. I wrote yesterday about distraction. We have so much information–24-hour news channels, 24-hour sports, the Internet, apps, check Facebook every couple of minutes–when do we have time to put our attention, our focus, on what’s important?

What sort of leader are you? Do you need a kick start? Take time to focus our attention completely, if only for 30 minute time slots, on thinking about the long, difficult work? Or just slide along becoming ever more comfortable in a state of distracted disinterestedness?

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Distraction Leads To Defeat

March 23, 2015

The basketball game is near its end. The score is close. Lose and go home. Win and play in the next round. The sound of a whistle penetrates the noise of the crowd. A foul is called. As the shooter stands at the line preparing for his free throws, the opposing crowd screams and waves towels or whatever trying to distract the shooter. Focus reigns in this moment. The shot is made. It’s “March Madness” in the US. 

He is driving on the freeway talking with animation to his friends in the car. He turns to see those to whom he’s talking.

She is also driving on the freeway. Struggling to pull on her hose. Then applying makeup.

We call that distracted driving. Many times a day it ends in disaster.

Meanwhile, my mind wandered to many things while reading my daily office this morning. Many thoughts competed for brain cycles while the “me” part of the brain was saying, “Let’s concentrate on our breath and God.”

I began to wonder. How many places in the Bible are stories about distraction?

There is the story about Mary and Martha. Mary was sitting at Jesus’ feet soaking in every word he said. Martha was preparing a meal for their guests. She complained. Jesus said to her that she was distracted by many things but that Mary had chosen the best.

The story of the wedding feast in Matthew where the king invites his most important subjects to a wedding feast for his son. They are all distracted by their businesses and cares and don’t come. The king disowns them and invites many other people.

The ability to focus–especially in this age of information overload and electronic distractions–becomes the hallmark of the successful person.

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Coaches Help Us Train

January 26, 2015

Athletes even at the highest levels practice constantly. They train both their bodies and their minds. They intentionally develop “muscle memory” such that the muscles act and react in the heat of the competition in the correct way just as trained.

Minds must also be trained. Focus on the important things is required. The higher the level of competition, the more intense the focus. An offensive lineman in American football may be trained to focus just on the position of the feet of his opponent whom he must block before the ball is put into play.

Many athletes have talent. Many also never develop that talent. They don’t practice. They fail to focus. They don’t care to learn.

There are few things more disappointing than to see someone who has talent, gifts, and opportunity, and fails to achieve what could have been.

Often it is simply due to laziness. They just don’t do the work. Sometimes, it is due to a misplaced or mistimed word. Someone says something negative that the person just cannot overcome.

If we know someone who is not developing, it is our duty to mentor that person. Say the appropriate word. Give a supporting comment. Or give the appropriate “kick in the pants” to get them off the lazy, unfocused path.

At the end of Chapter 8 of 1 Corinthians, Paul talks about being aware of our brothers. Instead of thinking “it’s all about me,” he encourages us not to do something (or say something) that would cause a brother or sister to fail. I think this applies often to us today. We know the power of words and relationship. We know that by considering others instead of just being wrapped up in our own cares we can save many a person from a path of destruction and despair; instead freeing them to fulfill their potential.

All great athletes have great coaches who guide them; all Christ-followers need a mentor to encourage them.

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God Works Through Us

January 22, 2015

While I’m studying Paul through the scholarship of N.T. Wright, there was a thought so powerful that I stopped reading. Made a note. Then just paused and contemplated for a while.

Paul thought that God worked through us. God revealed his glory through Jesus. Jesus expected his work after his ascension to be done through us.

Hit pause. Hit rewind. Hit play.

What does that mean?

It surely sounds like an awesome responsibility, doesn’t it,

What have we done with our time? I have a lot of time to look back on. Some of you more. What use have we made of that time to do God’s work?

I was just listening to Andy Stanly talk about making a wise use of our time. Our time “keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’ into the future.” (Steve Miller Band)

Our pastor is in the middle of a series on setting goals. Goals are OK. But really, what counts is our schedule. What do we do with that time?

Better than a goal of “I’ll invite 100 people to church this week,” would be, “I’ll set aside 30 minutes, and write it in ink on my calendar, three days a week to call people to invite into a relationship.” The key–write it, in ink.

Try getting out a calendar–paper, digital, whatever. Get the one-week view. Block out what you do each day in the week.

5:30, arise, fix coffee, get out my Bible
5:45-6:00, read Bible
6:00-6:15, pray, meditate
7:00-8:00, exercise/workout/run whatever
then, work, phone calls, planning, time with family

Take a look at where your week goes now. Then plan with intention to structure a week where you attend to your spiritual health, your physical health, your relationships, your God work, your community service.

Grab control of your time. Don’t let it slip away.

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Being Mindful As A Discipline

January 7, 2015

Being mindful is to focus on what you are doing. Awareness of where you are, who you are, what you are.

The dominant (not the only) cause of obesity and being overweight is simply eating too much. We eat too much because we simply start shoving food into our mouth without paying any attention.

When you eat, focus on your eating. The sights, sounds, smells, tastes. Slow down and eat with mindfulness.

When I cut myself while shaving, it is almost always because my mind has drifted and I am no longer mindful of what I am doing with that sharp instrument in my hand.

Nehemiah prays (chapter 9) about his people saying they have not been mindful of God for a long time.

Do we wake up in the morning and set our mind first thing on God and the mindfulness that we are part of God’s people? Doing so will start our day off in a good way.

The best way to return to mindfulness is simply to pause. It is in the pause that true life returns. We can then return to our work refreshed. The pause before saying something hurtful can turn our words into words of encouragement rather than destruction.

When we work, work. Focus on the task at hand. Don’t be like Martha of whom Jesus said, “Martha, Martha, you are distracted by many things.”

Mindfulness also is a key to listening. Being mindful of the other person–focusing on them and not us–will help us grow and love more.

Mindfulness is a foundation to putting disciplines into practice.

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Pause to Find Self-Awareness

December 19, 2014

Everywhere are conversations among people this week, “Are you ready for Christmas? I have so much to do. Not enough time to do it.”

We hurry from work to shopping to wrapping to parties to work. It’s all a big blur.

We don’t have time to “feel the Christmas spirit” because we don’t have time to notice.

Gene Appel, senior pastor of the Eastside Christian Church in Orange County, California, drew a lesson from one of Jesus’ stories to (and about) his local Pharisees in a message a few weeks ago.

It seems that a man had two sons. One tapped into the old man for a chunk of money and took off for the good life. One day after the money was gone, the friends were gone, the women were gone and he woke up in a pigpen, he “came to his senses.” He became what is one of the hardest things for us to do—to become self-aware.

When did he become self-aware? When he stopped. There was no more hurry. No more drinking, no more women, no more friends, no more hurrying from one party to the next. He stopped. And then he came to his senses.

Perhaps it is time we stop. Just pause and take a deep breath. Inhale until the lungs fill; then keep going until the stomach is “filled”; then keep going until the abdomen grows. Then slowly release the breath. Two or three of those should slow us down until we can become aware of our circumstances, our emotions, our environment.

Stop. Look around. Place your thoughts on Jesus. Rejoice in the celebration.

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How Much Are You Paid To Watch TV?

December 9, 2014

How much are you paid to watch TV?

How much TV do you watch? Do you watch to learn anything? Or do you watch to pass the time and deaden the mind?

I just read that quote in a book yesterday afternoon. Then I came home and settled in to turn on the NFL football game and do some proofreading. Next thing I knew, it was time to go to bed. TV does that to me.

If I am supposed to be waiting in anticipation during advent, then watching TV is a lot like the five foolish maids at the wedding who went to sleep and let their lamps burn out before the wedding party arrived. They were not prepared.

My wife has her morning ritual of eating breakfast while watching a recorded episode of The Chew. I guess that there is TV watching that is OK.

I’d watch why I turn on the TV, though. Am I diverting my attention just to escape what I should be doing?

I used to go down to the family room to watch one episode of a comedy then return to my chair to read. I discovered that my mind was dead. It took quite some time to get my mind back in focus.

My advent wish for you is that you can be intentional about TV watching and other habits that distract us from our preparation and waiting mindfully.

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Take Time To Be Grateful

November 21, 2014

This week I had a birthday while I was away at a conference. Some people knew and said something. I just said, well it’s just another day where I am thankful to be up and breathing.

Then I thought, well that is something to be grateful for. Maybe I should just pause right there and say a little prayer of gratitude for being alive, mobile, and alert.

Being grateful begins with that attention and reflection. Something good happened. I paused to recognize it and place my attention there–even if only for a few minutes. Then I reflect upon the thing for which I’m grateful.

I have a “to-do list” manager. Permanently on the task list is the note–practice being grateful. Every day when I scan my list of things to do, there it is. It forces me to stop in the midst of my hurry and think of something for which I’m grateful.

Sometimes it’s just for social interaction. Sometimes I wonder if I was born with some level of autism or Aspergers or something. I was pretty socially isolated as a youth and young adult. Studies show that being socially isolated is not good for your health.

Through business I know literally thousands of people (there are more than 6,000 people in my contact database, more than 1,000–I think–on LinkedIn. We’re not “friends” in a close way, but when I see them at conferences, it’s a good interaction. This week I saw more than 100 people I knew and could talk with for a while. It is energizing. I’m grateful to know so many interesting people.

If you have trouble with pausing from focusing on what you want or your cares and worries, maybe a permanent line item on your to-do list is the prescription. It reminds you several times a day to pause and think of something good.

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