Archive for the ‘Attention’ Category

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Distraction, Er, What Was I Just Doing?

July 19, 2016

Martha, Martha, You are distracted by many things.–Jesus

I help out with marketing for a “coffee cafe” that I’ve invested in. High Grounds Cafe is a “business as a mission” cafe featuring Direct Trade coffee. Our roaster buys directly from the farmer. This means the farmer earns an income sufficient for feeding his family, paying his workers fairly, and even, in some cases, funding church startups in his country.

Every morning I post to Facebook. Right now, that is one of the best ways to reach people with information about your local business.

Pam texts me about 6 am with a list of the brewed coffees of the day and any other specials for the day.

I open Facebook in my browser. Then I see my notifications. So, I have to click on the red button and go through them. Then I go to my home page. See a photo. Check it out. Scroll down a little. 15 minutest later, I click on the High Grounds administrator page. Compose my message, load a photo, and publish.

A 10-minute task consumes almost a half-hour of my morning.

Thank you distraction.

We have banned email from our internal communications. — Michael Sliwinsky, founder/CEO of Nozbe

I use a task manager (to-do list on steroids) called Nozbe. The CEO writes often about productivity. He noticed years ago that email is a distraction. He banned email as an internal communication application. People only use it to communicate with the outside world.

More and more companies are banning email. If you work in an organization, have you ever been caught in a group email “chain” where everyone is “replying all” to the message and you wind up mired in mindless (lack of) communication?

Distraction.

Writing this post, I was distracted by Facebook. Email. My soccer referee assigning application. Messages. Newspaper. That is all before 6:30 am. And I try to focus.

Is this a modern thing caused by so many devices?

Apparently not. Jesus addressed Martha who was getting frustrated. He calmed her. Told her to focus. To focus on what’s important first. Then focus on the next.

Focus negates distraction. Eliminate distraction. Close all apps except what you’re working on. Concentrate on that one thing–the one thing that is important in the moment.

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Can We Work Hard Enough To Earn Salvation?

February 23, 2016

I have a friend who is greatly concerned with faith versus works.

Jesus constantly picked on those Pharisees who placed priority on following the letter of the law. It’s really a matter of attitude. The Law essentially takes the place of God. In their view, they could only approach God by perfectly following the Law.

And they tried. They tried hard. It was a stress. It was also a source of pride. When it’s all about you and what you do, then you can point fingers and compare. You can say, “I’m better than you.”

That doesn’t sound very spiritual, does it?

Jesus picked on those people.

Paul addresses this in his letter to the Romans. He takes a long way to the argument that there is no way we can possibly follow the laws so perfectly that we can be made right with God.

It is only through grace freely given by God alone that we can be made right with him.

So, there are the Spiritual Disciplines or Spiritual Practices.

My friend worries at times that I am falling into the works side of grace / works. Certainly one could look at the Disciplines as works. If I pray every day, worship at every opportunity, serve when I can, study daily, and so on, then I am right with God.

Wrong.

A study of 17,000 Christians who had drifted away from church and faith and then returned was quite revealing. Overwhelmingly they said that what brought them back were spiritual practices–mostly reading the Bible daily.

Dallas Willard says, “The disciplines are activities of mind and body purposefully undertaken to bring our personality and total being into effective cooperation with the divine order.”

A key word–purposefully. Another word is intentional. We are intentional that we’ll practice certain spiritual disciplines in order that we will be brought closer to God. The goal is not the practices. They merely are used intentionally to draw us close to God.

Intention and attitude determine if we are mired in works or actively participating in grace.

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Do You Know What Pulls Your Trigger?

February 15, 2016

Jesus was annoyed by a fig tree that had no fruit. He cursed it. It died.

Jesus was angered by how the Temple had been converted from a holy place of worship into a commercial marketplace where apparently people gouged gullible pilgrims with high prices. He overturned tables scattering money and “souvenirs”.

In a way, I don’t feel so bad about the times I’ve lost it–except I wasn’t nearly so righteous.

Do you know what pulls your trigger?

I haven’t had a bad one for years. The incident is embedded in memory. It recurs in a flash. It’s a blend of insecurity and attitude. I hold great dislike for arrogant and condescending attitudes. Especially from someone less experienced or knowledgeable who tries to teach.

There are warning signs I need to remain aware of. Sometimes I see it coming. Sometimes they sneak up on me and catch me asleep, so to speak.

  • When I’m tired.
  • When I’m overworked and frazzled.
  • When I’m stressed.

There were a couple of seasons of life over the past 10 years or so when stress buried itself deep within me. Meditation and Yoga–no help. Awareness and mindfulness–no help. I know all this stuff, yet, a mild but persistent living with stress took a toll on my health and response to others at times.

Recognition is a great first step. Probably talking with others would help–if they the helpful sort, not the enabling sort.

A recent talk from a person with a similar experience was enlightening. He tried mindfulness. Meditation–trying to be still and focus on breath was more stressful than his original stress.

He discovered curiosity. He rather toyed with the thoughts. Was curious about them. Asked questions of them. Explored what their hold was. By treating the stressful thoughts as an object of curiosity, he was able to move them from the dominant place of consciousness that gripped him.

He was right. When you finally realize the stressful thought and stop to analyze it, just the stopping helps. Then the curiosity and the calmer exploring of the situation brings peace–or at least a plan of action.

What do you find that works?

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Quitting My Facebook Addiction

February 12, 2016

I am not one given to hate. I don’t hate specific ethnic, racial, or gender groups. There are individual people I don’t particularly like. But hate…that’s way too strong.

What I do hate is distraction–mine–when I allow myself to get distracted from what’s important. I hate unfounded, uneducated, prejudiced opinions. Not the person, most of whom I don’t know. (I guess it’s easier to hate people you don’t know, though.)

So, why do I get sucked into reading Facebook posts? And the comments? Many of those hateful or ignorant (meaning uneducated and not thought out) opinions are from people who also describe themselves as Christian. I have to imagine when they meet God and explain themselves, He’ll pull out all these posts and say, “What were you thinking????”

So, I read them–sometimes. Then my nice, usually calm, outlook gets agitated like when you stick your hand in an aquarium.

It’s worse when I actually make a comment. I know that there is no such thing as a true conversation on Facebook. It’s more like ping pong. Batting opinions back and forth to no useful purpose.

I was on AOL back in the early 90s. It was supposed to be about conversations. I never saw one. It was much like today’s Facebook–except that the opinions have become more strident and violent.

It’s nice to stay in touch with friends and family, but golly the whole conversation has degenerated. And I’ve even muted dozens of people.

Anyone want to have an honest conversation even if you disagree. It is said that Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neil were the best of friends even though they disagreed on many policies. Try that today in our political discourse. Please.

As for me, if I miss your post on Facebook, sorry. I have to narrow my reading. We have to choose what we fill our minds with–that determines our character.

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Be Real In Faith, In Life

January 28, 2016

“I always look for the mask people are wearing,” said a friend once.

I suppose that comment is cynical, since he assumes everyone has ulterior motives or is hiding something.

But many of us are hiding something. Pain, uncertainty, feelings of being inferior, feelings of inadequacy. Or, we are acting a role. We want to convince people we’re smarter, better, more spiritual than others.

You can devote your life to spiritual practices. But, in the practices themselves, where is your heart?

Do you study not only to learn but also to impress others? Do you worship because your heart is joyful or out of duty? Do you fix a smile on your face and raise your hand in celebration, but you “really want to get away?”

More important is the question, is what I am doing helping someone else along their journey to God?

Maybe I have adopted the language, dress, and attitude of another group. I talk at them, not with them. How is that working for you? Or your worship music changes every year while seeking to appeal to a specific group.

But what do people, especially seeking people or young people, really  want to see? They want to see you being real.

When you talk about study, you can teach yet acknowledge that you still haven’t figured it all out, yet. When you discuss the with-God life, you confess that it is not an easy path and that there are times you get off the path.

Has the spiritual life helped you? And you can answer honestly where it has and where you still need to grow.

We probably all wear masks at times. But if we are trying to help someone else, we’ve got to drop the pretense. We are what we are. Struggling seekers longing for a better relationship with God.

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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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