Faith Venture

Two people walk in the door at a gathering. You immediately judge one more competent than the other.

Perhaps you are feeling inadequate. Down.

Have you ever fought back the urge to walk over to an adolescent girl or young woman and physically pull her shoulders back and admonish her to stand straight?

I can’t count the number of meetings I’ve been in (it’s greater than the number of fingers on my hands) where I began the meeting sitting up straight and attentive only to discover 30-40 minutes in where I have slouched back to where my head is resting on the back of the chair. Guess where my energy went…

Want to change your attitude? Change your posture.

Stand up straight. Activate your abs. Bring your shoulders into proper alignment with your hips. Begin to feel more confident. Project strength.

Same with sitting. Although be careful analyzing people. One pastor criticized me for crossing my arms looking disinterested or judgmental. Actually, I was cold. Don’t crank the air conditioner thermostat down to 65 deg F. If you call a meeting, either keep it short or meaningful. Hopefully both. Or not at all.

Want to meditate? Find a posture that suits your physique. Repeat it. When you assume the posture, your mind knows to get in tune with the Spirit.

Want to pray? Open your hands. Not necessarily raising them, but if you like doing that, it’s OK. But the physical act of opening your hands relaxes you and opens you to hear God.

Your posture determines your attitude.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Steve Carter, Lead Teaching Pastor at Willow Creek Community Church, has stumbled upon a weakness of the spiritual formation of many who would be Jesus Followers.

The third person of their trinity is not Holy Spirit. It is Holy Bible.

They read the words. Often seeking verses that sound good. Looking for people who also believe what they believe about the words.

Or, they study to the minutest detail. Reading thick books with lots of footnotes. They know more and more about less and less…until they know everything about nothing as the old joke goes about Ph.D.s.

Or, you can read books like Bob Goff’s “Everything Always” that I referenced yesterday.

A scholar can explore the various meanings of the rabbinic traditions, the Hebrew and the Greek, look at the grammar, tease out previously unwritten meanings of the second command–“And the second is like it, to love your neighbor as yourself.” Or the injunction at the end of the beatitudes where Jesus says that the person who hears his words and does them is a wise man.

Goff is a challenge. He not only treats people well, he becomes a friend. He’s not only filled with the spirit, he spreads it around.

Spring in the US Midwest, probably in any of the temperate zones, is beautiful but frustrating.

There is high wind and driven rain. There is sunshine and flowers and flowering trees and birds singing their spring mating songs.

It looks so inviting outside; you go outside and it’s still cold.

You’re glad to put winter behind; but, it’s not summer.

Maybe why TS Eliot’s most famous line is “April is the cruelest month”, but he wrote that from England. Who knows?

People are beautiful but frustrating, too. (No, I’m not writing to you in particular!) When you expect warm, you get cool. Some days are stormy; some days are sunny.

What do you do?

You take each day as it comes. Don’t look back. Don’t look ahead. Live in the moment.

I just finished Bob Goff’s book, Everybody Always: Becoming Love in a World Full of Setbacks and Difficult People. He tells great stories. He’s also crazy–or, like us rednecks used to say, crazy smart. Read the book and get inspired. He dealt with some pretty difficult people. Ever try talking to the head witch doctor of a country about Jesus?

That’s crazy.

My body has adapted to sleeping in four different time zones over the past two weeks. I’ve slept in Germany, Ohio, Nevada, again in Ohio, Illinois, and (last night) in Ohio.

I met many nice and intelligent people, renewed old acquaintances, saw four great baseball games (OK, they were 10 year olds, but with more joy at playing than major leaguers), saw family.

This morning I’m contemplating this post and thinking about doing business with men who go out of their way to proclaim being Christian all the while owing me money, going back on agreements, and other nefarious deeds.

Then I look out the window. The flowering trees are in full bloom. There was a rose-breasted Grosbeak in the bird feeder. A little larger than our normal visitor, startlingly contrasted white and black with the beautiful rose breast. They are not frequent visitors. A delightful greeting.

Many people say they hate Mondays. Maybe they really do. I like Mondays. Starting a new week. Wonder what good I can do this week especially after a start like this.

Want to be a healthier you? Try these habits to make your body an acceptable temple for the spirit.

Walk–turns out the 10,000 steps thing is for real according to recent research. Get up and go.

Sleep–maybe eight hours for most people, maybe a little more or a little less. Your body rebuilds and refreshes during sleep. It is a must have for stress control, too. A nap in the early afternoon has also been proven a good thing. Kindergarten teachers may be on to something.

Sun Salutations–this Yoga flow series provides a full rotation of the joints and an activation of just about all muscles. There is a reason ancient Yogis recommend 12 to greet the sun daily. Check out YouTube for instructions. Start slowly. If one is tough, then one is plenty to begin with.

Full squat–Try this, with both feet flat on the ground, squat all the way down to almost sitting. Hold this for 10 breaths or more. Can’t do it? That means you need to practice (see yesterday’s post on practice). This not only gives range of motion to the knees and hips, it stretches out hips and aligns the sacroiliac and back. Good for things that ail you.

Handle stress–take a news fast, reduce the stress hormone cortisol by finishing a shower with up to two minutes of a cold shower, meditate.

Drink water–also green tea, some coffee, maybe a glass of red wine a day (but not before bed time–see item two).

[If you live near Sidney, take a Yoga class from me or my wife. We have testimonials from many people about the benefits of regular Yoga practice.]

Your mom signed you up for piano lessons. Or maybe guitar or saxophone or violin. She drags you off to a teacher. You meet the teacher, who seems forbidding, and are awarded a beginner’s instruction book.

Returning home, mom says, “Now sit down and practice the first lesson. Remember, practice makes perfect.”

She was wrong.

Gasp?!! I’m calling mom wrong? Yep.

Practice makes permanent.

We learn that from habits. We do something a few times, and it becomes a habit. Maybe a good habit like rising from sleep at the same time every day, refreshed and ready for the day. Maybe a bad habit like turning on a TV show to unwind at the end of the day accompanied with a glass of wine and a bag of potato chips.

Perfect practice makes perfect.

Perfect practice demands awareness.

Practicing that pose in Yoga aware that all the body parts are in proper alignment.

Practicing musical scales until muscle memory makes it easy to go up and down the scale and then change keys and do it again.

How about reading material that enhances your brain and emotional stability–spiritual writing, math and science, fiction that activates your imagination? Yes, that, too.

Prayer? Yes. Not just dashing a quick thought (although nothing wrong with that), but disciplining your time to approach a few minutes a day (maybe three times a day like Daniel of the lions fame) with intention.

Meditation? Ten minutes at a regular time daily is enough to get you started toward rewiring your brain and changing your outlook on life.

With intention and awareness. Perfect practice makes perfect.

Do you know what you need to do today? Something that will move you closer to your goals? Serve someone? Enlighten someone?

Let’s see if this describes the experience of someone you know.

First thing in the day, you say, “I’ll just glance through email to see if there is any important information that came through last night.” Then, maybe, “Just let me glance through my Twitter feed.”

Then maybe an hour later all momentum for the day is gone.

I try to look at spiritual disciplines here. But spiritual disciplines, rightly understood, must become part of daily life in the world. Thinking through this, I thought of the story of the monk I wrote about the other day. You know the type–physical labor is beneath me, yet I still want to eat.

I use a task manager called Nozbe. I dump every thought into it of things that I need to do. Some things need to be done today, others can wait. It has a function called “Priority” where you can mark the things that are important.

Two things are important disciplines:

1. Do a weekly review to scan the entire list, make any additions, and then prioritize tasks.
2. Every evening just before sleep or every morning before the daily news (if you must) and definitely before email, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook (if you are still there), write in you journal (yes, pen and paper) the most important task for the day. Not urgent…important. Maybe do also numbers two and three. If you finish those, then you can return to the app and choose the next most important task.

Work on these priorities during the time of the day when you are most alert and sharpest. Then check and reply to emails, Twitter, and the like. Although for some of us Twitter is work. So it may be a most important task for 15 minutes or so early on.