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Archive for the ‘Attitude’ Category

That Complex Relationship With Emotions

August 26, 2022

Once when somewhat stressed and flooded with email requests of my time and energy, I responded to one with some extra comments. I don’t remember the exact topic or words or the exact response from the woman who sent the original–someone I’d known for several years–but her response pricked at a sore point. She said something like, “I know how you are…”

That stung. And 15 years later, I still feel it.

And, god bless electronic media. It’s so easy to delete 2/3rds of your response to an email or entire Twitter or Facebook posts!

I am emotional. I try to keep the emotions in check. I hate emotional movies–I tear up.

This thought from Pema Chodron came my way:

“If you open to all your emotions,

to all the people, to all situations,

staying present and trusting,

that trust will take you as far as you can go,

and you will understand all the teachings

anyone has ever taught.”

– Pema Chodron

If you pause to consider this little poem, you’ll find complexity and compassion.

Try “open to” as a key word. And then “trust”.

So much of Jesus’s “blessed’s” that I’ve been pondering lately contain these. Open to God, open to yourself, open to others. Trust God.

I need this. How about you?

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Blessed When People Don’t Like You, or Worse

August 24, 2022

We are reaching the end of the Beatitudes. Sort of an outline for Jesus and his teaching. This one is a bit different. We must be careful how we approach this one, which is longer.

You’re blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God’s Kingdom. Not only that—count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens—give a cheer, even!—for though they don’t like it, I do! And all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company. My prophets and witnesses have always gotten into this kind of trouble.

Some people, at least in America I’m not sure about other places, seem to go out of their way to achieve this one. Or perhaps look for instances of this. But their view of persecution stops short of anything personally threatening. It’s more along the lines of “the popular people in town don’t like me.” Some actually use this as a source of pride.

I think of people who emulate the preacher in the stage play and movie Paint Your Wagon who thought it was his role to condemn people and took a perverse pride in not being liked.

I don’t think that Jesus told us to try to be disliked. That is merely being obnoxious. But in Jesus’s day, choosing him (God) was rejecting both the Roman power structure and the Jewish power structure. Either one of which could cause death in the extreme cases.

Continuing to live on the path of following Jesus–living in the moment with-God–will threaten some people who may attack you physically, emotionally, financially. You are blessed because you are still with God. It’s not a disgrace. It’s not a source of pride. It’s a blessing to live with-God no matter what.

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Blessed Are The Peacemakers

August 23, 2022

The seventh Beatitude in The Message translation:

You’re blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That’s when you discover who you really are, and your place in God’s family.

And, God, can we use more of these today!

This blog has an international readership. I studied international politics at university writing a major paper on US-China relations (in 1968). I’ve imported and exported and dealt internationally for most of my career. I don’t think there exists a single place where I know people or read about in the entire Earth that cannot use someone who can show people how to cooperate.

I am working on a blog post/essay analyzing several announcements by technical trade organizations that have competed vehemently over the past 15 years or more. These announcements have at least one common theme–cooperation. They still compete. But, for the good of the customer, they are cooperating on standards and compliance. The organizations represent companies from Germany, US, France, Finland, Norway, Switzerland, Italy, Japan, even China. And more.

Cooperation makes life better for us all.

That’s why I turn off all inputs to my mind that emphasize divisiveness. TV news. Social media. Most print/web news. I pick my sources carefully with the goal of knowing what’s going on in the world with as little hype as possible.

And I tune out all the people who seek to make faith in God political. The guy I follow, Jesus, shunned politics. His kingdom was God’s kingdom. It was about living with God. He tried to show both the Roman governors and the Jewish leaders a new way.

Every day in every way we can point to cooperation and reconciliation rather than strife and conflict. We could make this a movement.

Posted in Attitude, Disciplines, Justice | 1 Comment »

Content Within Our Own Skin

August 17, 2022

Walking through the Beatitudes in The Message translation. Here is the third one, which is akin to the first two.

You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are—no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.

The theme of the first two of these theme points of Jesus’s talk concerned emptying yourself so that there is room for God to enter.

This one talks of emptying yourself of all the delusions you have about yourself. Maybe you think that within you are the seeds of being a gazillionaire technology entrepreneur. Maybe, on the other hand, you think that you are worthless–someone who can’t do anything.

Neither is true.

I was lying on the ground staring up at a circle of faces. Below one face was the body of a boy my age wearing boxing gloves. We were maybe 12. I also had on boxing gloves. I don’t think he hit me that hard, but I was down. At that moment I saw the entire scene as if I were above it. I saw the stupidity and futility of living with anger and fighting. More than likely that was the moment I became a pacifist and sought peace in life. Perhaps I was on the way to being content with who I was.

Jesus said that when we empty out the illusions, when we, as Scottish poet Robert Burns said to “see ourselves as ithers see us,” then, at that moment, we own that which cannot be bought–God.

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Catch Them Doing Good

August 8, 2022

Keep your eyes open and try to catch people in your company doing something right, then praise them for it.
Tom Hopkins

Business management thinker and writer Tom Hopkins nailed it with this little piece of advice.

How often in our organizations, churches, businesses, do we sit in judgement on people? People around us? Committee members? Leaders? People outside the organization? We can’t wait to catch someone doing it wrong.

I have a vision of elementary school teachers who sit at their desks or pace the floor watching for miscues. When you go to the board at the front of the class, they’re watching for each mistake. And we’re all like that. All the time.

In Jesus time, there existed a group of people who lived that life. They were the antagonists of the Christian Bible story. They were called Pharisees. Jesus was so encouraging in general, but not to the self-righteous. He pointed to the hypocrisy.

How wonderful to refocus our attitude and begin watching for people doing something right. Being helpful. Solving a problem. Trying.

Then, instead of being the voice of judgement, being the voice of encouragement. What a change for everyone.

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Personality

August 4, 2022

The woman next door dressed most of the summer in the back yard in very skimpy bikini swim suits. Yet, she did not exude sensuality–that special personality.

A teenage girl talked with me about a career in entertainment. She possessed a marvelous singing voice. Her posture, however, portrayed defeat. I tried to guide the discussion into the areas of self-assurance, personality,

I was a nerd as a teenager with no particular personality until I was almost 30.

Listening to Guy Kawasaki’s podcast interview with Abraham Paskowitz about surfing brought out a key component of personality–that inner joy with being and with doing what you love.

I think Jesus had that characteristic–doing what he was meant to do and enjoying it immensely (well, except for those three days).

The Apostle Paul’s preaching was so bad that once he put a young man to sleep. He was unfortunately sitting in an open second floor window, fell out, died, and had to be revived by Paul–who went on preaching. But he must have exuded that inner joy of doing what he was meant to do.

Having a personality infused with the fruit of the spirit–love, joy, peace, and so forth–shines through the personality. People can tell. We can tell. It’s quite a way to live.

Posted in Attitude, emotions, Living, Spirituality | Leave a Comment »

Each Day As It Comes

July 28, 2022

Leaders of the early Christian church faced a problem. Belief that Jesus would return any day soon to establish his kingdom on earth ran through the movement like dropping red dye in a glass of water. That led to problems. No one wanted to work. They just sat around singing and talking…and waiting.

Paul directly addressed the problem. Other writers did indirectly.

We need to live as if Jesus could come at any moment; yet, we also needed to live not knowing if it would be days or years (they didn’t comprehend millennia back then).

Substantial numbers of Christians today feel no urgency toward fulfilling God’s instructions about stewardship of the earth and its inhabitants because Jesus could be (will be?) returning any day now.

I go with ancient wisdom proved out through millennia. Live each day at a time. If I die tomorrow, so be it. I’m ready. If not, I have planned for living longer, too. But for now, I do what’s best for today. Not living in recrimination of the past; not worrying about tomorrow. I work today and let yesterday and tomorrow take care of themselves.

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The Power of And

July 20, 2022

Attitude determines almost everything.

Rosamund Zander writes about being in Florida on vacation. It was raining. She says that she could have thought “it is raining, but I cannot go to the beach.” Or, she could have thought, “it is raining, and I can now use this time to practice cooking a new recipe.” Check out The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life that she wrote and published with her husband Benjamin Zander.

It is all a matter of attitude. I can accept defeat. Fail to see the possibilities. Sit in my despair.

I can say and to open the way for an alternate experience. I can learn something new. Meet new people. Experience the place I’m in.

An obstacle appears as if from nowhere. It threatens delay or defeat in my project for the business or organization. I can say, I can’t do this now, and I can choose to do that.

Open up possibilities for the working of the spirit to open you to alternative experiences.

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Equanimity

July 7, 2022

I found a new word to learn and apply. Equanimity.

This appeared in a book describing characteristics of the various Enneagram types. Evaluations I’ve taken are somewhat conflicting sometimes typing me as a 4 and sometimes a 5. Reading through this latest book, The Road Back To You, I’ve settled on typing myself as a 4 with a strong 5 wing. That may not mean much, but 4s tend to have more mood swings. You can’t always tell mine from the outside, but sometimes this writing reveals them.

So the author, Ian Morgan Cron, brings out this word for 4s–equanimity. “Fours need to cultivate what’s called equanimity, a sorely ignored virtue in the Christian tradition. Equanimity refers to the ability to remain emotionally composed and steady regardless of what’s going on around us.”

People almost everywhere in the world live on a diet of social media and biased TV news specifically designed to unbalance us emotionally. We too easily get sucked into the vortex of hyped up emotions. Some people thrive (emotionally and financially) on being perpetrators.

We, the recipients, must cultivate this virtue called equanimity. We need a daily (hourly?) reminder.

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Emphasize How We Are Alike

July 6, 2022

More people recognize the dangers and evils that lie in divisiveness. They talk about it more often in public. That in itself is a triumph. Trolls are everywhere to swamp your comments with, well, divisiveness.

Why I wonder do we devote so much effort emphasizing how we are different from one another. And why those on the other side of the dividing line are evil, bad, very unlikable versions of humans.

Our wish to feel superior to others forms the substructure of this attitude.

Christians specialize in dividing themselves from those who are not. But also so do those of other faiths–Islam, Hindu, Buddhist, nothings, and on and on.

Even within Christianity love divisiveness, there are liberals, mainstream, evangelical, reformed, Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Pentecostal (if you haven’t spoken in tongues, are you even saved?)–I think I could probably go on.

Christians who worship in all manner of forms and who hold some tenets stronger or weaker all have one thing in common–Jesus. Thinkers have devoted way too much time figuring out just who or what Jesus was. But at least all agree he existed. That’s a start.

Thomas Merton (one of my spiritual heroes) found common ground of contemplative Christianity and Buddhism. And, after a lifetime of experience, I agree with his path. He was on to something.

I bet that if we tried that we could find more common ground. But we would have to lay aside our pride, and our fears, and open our eyes and hearts. That’s not impossible. But it’s hard.

Posted in Attitude, Christianity, Ethics, Justice, pride | Leave a Comment »

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