If someone came up behind you and pinned your arms back, you would fight for your freedom.
Why do we not do the same to those who try to control our minds?
Be aware!
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Have you finally become aware that being with certain people drains all your emotional and physical energy? You have lunch or coffee returning home exhausted.
On the other hand, you have encounters with other people where your energy level increases. You return home or to the office strangely both energized and relaxed.
The easy decision—intentionally spend more time with the latter people, reduce or eliminate time with the former.
A harder question.
Are you the former or the latter? Do you need to change?
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Sometimes I can see it in the eyes. The person is lost. Sleep walking through life. Thinking they are free from encumbrances, while being buffeted by emotions, swayed by advertising, provoked by social media.
Reading from a retreat led by Jesuit priest Anthony de Mello—Spirituality means waking up.
Open your (spiritual) eyes. Become aware of where you are, what you’re doing, what you are allowing to guide your life.
As de Mello repeated, “WAKE UP.”
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We are in the season of Lent. Some people practice “fasting” as giving up something for Lent. I had an older friend, a devout Catholic, who gave up fried food, deserts, and beer for Lent. He lost several pounds over the six weeks or so. Easter Sunday was feast day. I think he gained it all back in a day!
The annual story around my village concerned a guy who gave up watermelon for Lent. Of course, there was no watermelon to be found.
How about you? Have you given up (renounced) anything? Maybe like being on a diet. You need to drop 15-20 pounds or more. Instead of changing your lifestyle, you focus on the foods you now cannot eat.
Then, has this happened?
Every time you renounce something, you are tied forever to it.
Some spirituality teaches to give up things. That ties you to them. Simply wake up, understand, and then the desire goes away.
The better way:
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Robert Van Gulik was a scholar of China, a excellent writer, excellent artist, and Dutch ambassador to China before World War II. Retiring, he wrote a series of murder mysteries based on a historical character called Judge Dee. The mysteries are fiction, but Van Gulik brings 7th Century China to life.
When I’m between projects and my brain needs refreshment, I’ll pull one of these from my bookcase.
The other evening it was Necklace and Calabash where he drew a character typical of ancient China—a “Taoist” recluse. A sort of spiritual guide.
Master Gourd left Judge Dee with a piece of wisdom relevant for us all:
“It is only after we have been emptied of all our vain hopes, all our petty desires and petty illusions, that we can be useful to others.”
Are we so full of ourselves that we haven’t time to love and serve others as Jesus commanded?
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Are you the product—that which is sold?
Many (most?) technologists are amoral. Without morals. They design most products to exploit human weaknesses to capture and sell our attention to advertisers. That attention can also be given (sold?) to governments who wish to track people.
When we allow ourselves to be immersed those created worlds of Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and now all the gambling apps, we need to consider the value we receive versus time lost to mindless provocations. What’s lost in the emotional upheaval of negative posts. What value to our life is gained? How much money do we throw at the gamblers?
Let’s face it. Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t need any more money.
And us? What value could we add to the world through living rather than scrolling.
These thoughts were prompted while watching the only commercial TV programs in our house—Premier League soccer. I can’t believe the gambling apps. You can bet on anything—instantaneously. Talk about getting sucked in.
This isn’t an old man telling you young people not to have fun. It’s an old man who has lived through many things attempting to point to better ways to live. After all, Jesus had fun. He was often the life of the party. He didn’t get sucked in to addictions.
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“The luminous and shocking beauty of the everyday is something I try to remain alert to, if only as an antidote to the chronic cynicism and disenchantment that seems to surround everything, these days. It tells me that, despite how debased or corrupt we are told humanity is and how degraded the world has become, it just keeps on being beautiful.”— Nick Cave (Singer, Musician, Writer)
We can get sucked into cynicism and negativity so easily. Media, social media, conversations can accumulate ideas of how bad people are and how divided we are.
Poll after poll show actually the inverse. Most people are kind. Most people are helpful. Most Americans want basically the same thing—maybe with subtle differences left or right.
Listening to Nick Cave reminds us to look for beauty everyday. It’s there. Awareness is in itself a beautiful thing.
Some people look at the Gospels and see “separating the sheep from the goats.”
I see Jesus grieving for each person who came to him and could not find the courage or strength to make the right decision to change directions and follow him.
Just for today, look for the beauty in something—nature, a building, a relationship, seeing a parent with child. And then maybe you look tomorrow. And maybe it becomes a way of life which will change our very attitude toward life.
That would be a beautiful thing.
I wrote yesterday about how the word “neo” contains the meaning of not just new but re-new—refresh, strip away accumulated crud that a philosophy (or a life) attracts to return to the simple truth.
The same day that the article appeared the provoked my thinking about renewal meaning return to the simple beginnings, my meditation teacher dropped this statement into the day’s meditation:
Strip away added complications returning to simple presence.
Jesus made everything seem so simple. Yet, the bar for achievement often seemed impossibly high for the normal human.
Forgetting the bar, think only on the simple. Throw away all accumulated justifications and fuzzy thinking. Look at the few things he spoke with clarity. Living with these leads to participation in God’s Kingdom.
Simple, yet keeping it up requires practice and persistence.
“What you’re supposed to do when you don’t like a thing is change it. If you can’t change it, change the way you think about it. Don’t complain.” ― Maya Angelou
This thought is similar to the Serenity Prayer attributed to theologian Reinhold Niebuhr: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.
My professor in graduate school hated that last part about accepting things you cannot change. But that is ancient wisdom. I use this thought when accosted by the daily deluge of news (which I mostly ignore). If I can’t do anything about it, why dwell on it? Live in the present moment.
I also like the tag that Angelou puts on the thought—Don’t complain. Once again, why waste that energy?
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Some people worry about what other people are thinking about them. Or worry they are watching them.
Surprise! Almost no one is watching. Almost no one cares.
Some people think that the opportunity to talk or speak means they can talk about themselves.
Surprise! Most people aren’t really interested in listening to you talk about yourself. Unless it’s a caring friend or acquaintance who want sincerely to know how you are doing.
The Desert Fathers wrote often about humility. And it’s cousin, pride. They warned that we must be on guard. We must become self-aware. When we notice ourselves beginning to stray into self -absorption or focusing on ourselves rather than the other person, we must pause and refocus.
I write this not because I’m perfect, but because I have once again noticed how I was more focused on talking about me instead of listening.
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Faith Venture 