Faith Venture

Someone once told me they appreciated hearing about books I’ve read. Well, maybe not this one. The topic is a study of randomness, or rather, random events. It is part math, part philosophy, part economics, part daily life. It is The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

A Black Swan is a seemingly random event that has great effect. Perhaps you could see something coming, but still the event precipitates suddenly. As we say in English “out of the clear blue sky.”

The economics part of the book discusses that Taleb, both a Ph.D. in math and a stock trader, protected himself from a potential black swan and made a lot of money in the 2008-2009 crisis.

One thing I picked up (and it actually reinforced observations I’ve made for years) is to beware the experts.

He actually began to suspect this as a youth. He grew up in Lebanon during the civil war. He had a close relative in the government. After talking with both the minister in the government and his chauffeur, Taleb discovered that there was no difference in understanding between the two. The expert and the “man on the street” had almost equal lack of understanding.

Taleb documents many times that Nobel laureates in economics got things wrong–about the economy.

Beware the expert!

Transferring the thought to our spiritual formation–look for practitioners who humbly share their insights. I have tuned in to books and podcasts by popular religious teachers and discovered that they are so full of themselves that I wonder if there is room for the Spirit.

Beware “experts” who know much theory and so little practical spiritual practice.

I am so influenced by a statement of Carl Jung the psychologist and opponent of Freud who, after years of personal experience, answered the question do you believe in God, “Believe? No, I don’t believe. I know.”

Or as the teacher Mike Breaux said in a podcast I listened to yesterday, “Don’t believe in God; believe God.”

Do you find that sometimes you sit down to prayer or meditation and just cannot find peace.

Some advice from, Jeanne de Chantal, “It sometimes happens that you go to your prayer after having spent the whole day dissipated and without recollection; it is no wonder you are distracted, for you well deserve it. You follow your own inclinations, you are cross-grained and resentful in your obedience, lacking in sweetness, and condescending towards your neighbor, and then you go boldly to prayer in order to unite yourself to God and to have consolation and sweetness. If you find the door shut, why should you be surprised?”

Yes, the fault when prayer goes dry comes back to us. Remember the advice of Jesus about forgiving the brother before praying at the temple?

Go and do likewise.

Henri J. M. Nouwen, one of my favorite spiritual writers, said, “To be grateful for the good things that happen in our lives is easy, but to be grateful for all of our lives – the good as well as the bad, the moments of joy as well as the moments of sorrow, the successes as well as the failures, the rewards as well as the rejections – that requires hard spiritual work.”

This reminds me of the words of Jesus who once said that even the pagans can be kind to their friends. It’s when you do the hard spiritual work of loving your enemies that your heart for God is revealed.

Sometimes we get lazy. We don’t want to do hard spiritual work. Being grateful for those experiences that have shaped us–the good and bad–takes that hard work.

Don’t be afraid to roll up your sleeves and go to work.

Marcus Aurelius–Instead of talking about other people’s selfishness and stupidity, our job is “to run straight for the finish line, unswerving.”

Several times in my business life people I’ve worked with have lied, cheated, mistreated me.

My response? Of course, I have a brief “grieving” period. But then it is time to move on. Sometimes a memory pops up–like now when I read this advice from Marcus. But I remember, my job is to run straight to the finish line, unswerving.

Marcus was a Stoic not a Christian. But the Stoics left behind a lot of wisdom. And this suggestion sounds much like the Apostle Paul who ran the good race to the finish line.

Other people? Avoid those people with less than honorable motives and go do your own life.

Richard Stearns–“As followers of Jesus, we are called to be salt and light – to form communities that are attractive, winning people to Christ through our lives of love and truth. We’re not called to shake a finger at non-believers or to coerce them to be like us.”

Sometimes we think we know everything.

And we want to tell everyone what we know.

As if they don’t know anything. Or don’t agree with us–so, they are obviously wrong.

That is so not attractive.

Better to try understanding other people. Rejoicing when they rejoice; sharing compassion when they hurt; leading them to study or prayer when called for.

We are salt to enhance the “flavor” of others and light to show the way. Not judging, which tries to make the other person feel inferior and ourselves superior.

Please pass the salt…

“Believe? No, I don’t believe. I know.” –Psychologist Carl Jung’s response when asked toward the end of his life if he believed in God.

Some people believe in things. It seems that they believe so that they can argue with people who do not believe exactly with them.

There are still people who believe that all that moon walking stuff was staged in Hollywood. And I mean Neal Armstrong, not Michael Jackson’s moon walking.

Why do we “practice” spiritual things?

Maybe we got a nudge from God. And we began to pursue.

And then we experienced.

And reflected experience backed up by study and prayer (meditation) leads to knowledge. Which leads to wisdom.

Which leads to a decrease of arguing. And deeper understanding.

When our enemies are about to kill us, they do not ask what kind of Christian we are. They just ask if we are Christian. Why, then, do we Christians spend so much energy fighting against each other? (My paraphrase from Albert Tate’s report of an audience between the Pope and Evangelical leaders.)

I scan the podcast universe for good teachers. Good meaning they will expand my knowledge and understanding.

Albert Tate, a black pastor from Southern California, spoke at Willow Creek last weekend teaching on 1 Corinthians 12–the body that is the church. He relayed this story from the Pope.

Consider that thought from the Pope (I’m not sure if John Paul or Benedict).

I live in what people on the coasts would call the Bible Belt. In my county of about 60,000 people, there must be 100 churches. On any given Sunday perhaps 20% of the population is in church. And that is The Bible Belt!

And just try to get all 100 churches to get along. Long ago when I was involved with the Church League softball league, it was hard to get agreement about ground rules for the league let alone anything really meaningful. (There was a woman who I wanted on our team. Several churches didn’t like the idea. But then when she, playing outfield, threw out a guy running home, well, that surprised a few!)

Just think of the difference we would make in the world if all 100 churches operated as the one body of Jesus like Paul describes in chapter 12 using the love he describes in chapter 13.

“What a wonderful world it would be.”

[Updated with link]

We will now practice balance through Tree Pose. First, we root our right foot into the mat. We bring our left foot to the ankle to prepare. We bring our hands together at heart center. Now we focus on an object that doesn’t move, clear our minds, relax our shoulders, then bring the left foot up to press against the outside of the right calf or thigh…

A version of leading the class into balance in Yoga.

I talked about using personality trait analysis as a means of coming into balance–becoming a whole, integrated, spiritual person–yesterday.

We come to balance through these elements:

• Focus on the proper object
• Clear our minds of detritus
• Relax
• Act

We study our personality in order to balance our positive impulses and negative ones bringing our personality into an integrated whole.