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Archive for the ‘Disciplines’ Category

Approaching The Study of the Bible

February 1, 2023

How do we approach the reading of the Bible? Any book, actually, but especially the Bible?

I try not to bring my prejudices and biases to my reading of the Bible; rather, I try to let the Bible speak to my prejudices and biases. At least, that is my goal.

A philosopher called Jacques Derrida thought that we cannot divorce any writing or reading from our prejudices. (Side note: I’ve been forever grateful that I ignored one of my English professor’s invitation to become an English major. They seemingly all became disciples of Derrida, which I am not.)

The early Christians read the Hebrew scriptures carefully and thoroughly. But they were not particularly interested in Jewish history or religion. They searched diligently for any mention of Jesus. Jewish scholars to this day are aghast at the interpretations that arose. But it satisfied the soul of the early Christians at the time.

But I wonder…do I search the Bible for sentences that reinforce my biases and prejudices? Am I searching for what Jesus is saying to me now, in my current situation? Am I searching for universal truth?

I just read through the Proverbs. I found many ideas that spoke clearly to me at this time in my life. I’ve read them before. But now there is perhaps deeper understanding.

I try to pause, open my heart and mind, and then read the thoughts there before me. Maybe that day something will open my eyes just a bit more and give me just a bit more of God’s Wisdom.

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Speak Out For Those Who Cannot Speak

January 31, 2023

January 31 has arrived suddenly. And thus ends the 31 days of a chapter of Proverbs a day.

This collection of sayings ends with “The words of King Lemuel. An oracle that his mother taught him.”

Among the wisdom of the mother, “Speak out for those who cannot speak, for the rights of all the destitute. Speak out, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy.”

The ending is an acrostic poem—Ode to a Capable Wife. Among her many good works, “She opens her hand to the poor, and reaches out her hands to the needy.”

Further, “ Give her a share in the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the city gates.”

And again, “Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.”

Does the Bible teach that women should be subjugated? I think not.

Proverbs teaches us to be industrious and not lazy. We should reach out and be helpful to the poor and those without a voice in the government (Proverbs would say city gate or assembly). Further, our hearts must be aligned with God.

After many years of reading through this wisdom literature for a month, am I wiser? You cannot tell by what I know but by how I act. And the same with you. Are we acting a bit kinder? More aware of the needs of others? More aware of the things in life that can trap us into slipping? Greet people with a smile. Really listen. Help where you can.

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Liars and Dopamine and Social Media

January 30, 2023

Day 30 of reading a chapter from the Proverbs a day. Reflecting upon how often liars are despised.

Perhaps you were kids on the playground. Perhaps it was later in young adulthood. Someone gets angry and wants to fight. All the people around encourage him. They are not going to fight. But the angry one grows ever more belligerent and ready to go into the fight.

Liars on social media are in search of “likes”. Each like is a hit of dopamine for the mind. Like the encouragers in the mob encouraging the one to fight, the “likers” obtain some joy watching someone else play the fool. The “liked” person feels vindicated and backed up ready to go further.

We may think this is a new phenomenon—all this lying on social media. But literature from 3,000 years ago containing sayings most likely passed down from many generations before show us that lying is not new. It is as old as humans in community.

Yet, we also have the examples of the wise, the truthful. They existed at the same time.

Community, society, exist in tension between the wise and the fool, the truth teller and the liar.

Our choice, my choice, your choice is to become aware and then choose—within which side of the tension shall we reside?

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Who Is A Fool?

January 26, 2023

Today’s chapter in Proverbs hit the fools, the lazy, and the “whisperer.” So, I thought, who is a fool? Is there a picture of a fool? How would I know one, really?

Wow, did that ever send me down into a rabbit’s warren of Ecosia searches. That was 12 hours ago. A busy day and several zoom meetings later, here I am after dinner still thinking.

Perhaps I am the fool?

Speaking of fools, I thought about our politicians in the US. A big group of them keep trying to run every detail of our lives. Many of these were youth and adolescents of the 70s.

This 70s song by Jonathan Edwards (Sunshine Go Away Today) appeared on our Sonos speakers

Sunshine, go away today
I don’t feel much like dancing
Some man’s gone, he’s tried to run my life
He don’t know what he’s asking
When he tells me I better get in line
I can’t hear what he’s saying
When I grow up, I’m gonna make it mine
These ain’t dues I been paying

Well, how much does it cost?
I’ll buy it
The time is all we’ve lost
I’ll try it
And he can’t even run his own life
I’ll be damned if he’ll run mine, sunshine

The song is packed with teenage rebellion. On the other hand, I was impacted by the line–he can’t even run his own life I’ll be damed if he’ll run mine.

How often do we, yes we, you and me, try to tell other people how to live yet our own lives leave so much to be desired?

Once again a use for the discipline of pause, breathe, consider, be quiet.

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Reading Proverbs Understand the Meaning of the Picture

January 24, 2023

Sometimes the writers of the Proverbs include a saying that is blunt. Do not do this…for this will happen. Sometimes the sayings are little pictures. Sometimes, like Jesus, the stories require work on our part to understand.

Once I quoted from the German writer Thomas Mann, “If everyone swept in front of their house, the whole world would be clean.” An engineer wrote to me and explained how that was impossible. He was thinking of a literal broom. Mann was most likely thinking of what would happen if each of us got ourselves in order first, rather than trying to fix everyone else.

Sometimes, like this one, the story is pretty clear.

“I passed by the field of one who was lazy,
by the vineyard of a stupid person;
and see, it was all overgrown with thorns;
the ground was covered with nettles,
and its stone wall was broken down.
Then I saw and considered it;
I looked and received instruction.
A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest,

and poverty will come upon you like a robber,
and want, like an armed warrior.”

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Proverbs 24

Avoiding laziness pops up often in the Proverbs. This is a nice little story to illustrate.

Get your 7-8 hours of sleep. Then get up and work on your field–whatever that field may be. I wrote a few days ago about the Japanese theory of ickigai–having a purpose to get out of bed in the morning. Find your purpose and work at it.

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When Love Meets

January 19, 2023

When love meets pain, it becomes compassion.

When love meets happiness, it becomes joy.

Joy is an expression of the awakened heart, a quality of enlightenment. When we live in the present, joy often arises for no reason.
Jack Kornfield

When I came across these thoughts, I was compelled by the spirit to pause and consider. I love that thought of “when love meets…” What a powerful picture.

And I thought about how joy is a fruit of God’s Spirit according to the Apostle Paul.

Then I remembered this little folk song from the time when I sold my electric guitar and bought a nylon-stringed acoustic one and sang folk songs. Many from Catholics in the mid-to-late 60s. Like this one written by Sister Miriam Therese Winter, Joy Is Like The Rain.

I saw raindrops on the river, Joy is like the rain.

Bit by bit the river grows, till all at once it overflows.

Joy is like the rain.

Perhaps today I can rest in joy. Care to join me?

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That Point Between Urge and Action

January 17, 2023

There are wonderful pictures in the Proverbs:

Better to meet a she-bear robbed of its cubs than to confront a fool immersed in folly. (Chapter 17)

You are scanning your social media feed. As unlikely as this sounds, you see a post from someone that is completely wrong. Using emotion-laden language, they describe an event totally made up. You feel a surge of righteous emotion, even anger. “I’ll set this right” you say to yourself as you begin to type.

Maybe you’ve forgotten about the she-bear. Maybe you remember what the writer of the Proverbs says shortly thereafter:

The beginning of strife is like letting out water; so stop before the quarrel breaks out.

TS Eliot wrote about the point, the still point, where the dance is. He didn’t mean this, exactly, but it fits. There is a moment between typing the response or speaking to the friend and clicking send or giving voice to the thought.

It is that moment that we must become sensitive to. That still point. There, we must become observers of ourselves. Recognizing that we are about to meet folly with folly, we stop.

We cannot control the genesis of our emotions. We must control the response. That is where awareness and tranquility of mind becomes the most important thing. At that moment, we breathe, we see, we become tranquil and quiet. Let it pass.

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Repentance, or Making Decisions

January 13, 2023

It’s January 13. How are your New Year’s Resolutions going?

There is no January rush at the community’s fitness center. I have no direct data, only observation–attendance in exercise classes is stable over the past year, again no January rush.

Has no one new decided for a healthy lifestyle this year?

There is a stream within the broader Christian church that emphasizes THE decision. You make one public statement that you wish to follow Jesus (the proper formula is “accept Jesus as Lord and Savior) and that’s it. Complete. Done.

I spent my entire adult life suggesting to people that that is not the end. It is the beginning.

The stories of Jesus tell us he taught repentance–that is a decision to change the direction of your life. His cousin John taught similarly.

A sub-theme of the Proverbs tells us that many decisions we make determine the type of life we will experience.

Every day we face decision points that determine our life.

take an ethical shortcut
tell a small falsehood
help someone with a bulky package while shopping
give some money to a charity
donate some time to someone who needs support

And finally, a proverb for politicians the world over:

“The righteous hate falsehood,
but the wicked act shamefully and disgracefully.”
Proverbs 13

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Bringing Wisdom To Life

January 10, 2023

Today’s reading going through the Hebrew book of the Proverbs during January is Chapter 10—beginning the proverbs of Solomon. He was a son of King David. He was not the first born. Because of rebellion, pride, dysfunctional families, death, Solomon became king upon David’s death.

God visited Solomon and said he would grant a desire. Solomon asked for wisdom. And, indeed, he became known throughout the Middle East for his wisdom.

One would never know it by the way he lived. As befitting a king, he had many wives and many women in the palace not his wives but with whom he could sleep with. He had many offspring. Despite his wisdom, he was unable to raise an upright son and heir.

This is the most ironic book in the Bible. And sad in the sense that at the end of his life Solomon realized that he had not lived according to the wisdom granted him.

His son was full of pride and in a very short time caused the division of the vast kingdom acquired by his father. It was all chasing the wind, as Solomon said later.

Take a lesson, not only from the words but also from the story behind the words.

We can read and memorize and even understand the wisdom that comes from God. But as Jesus explained time and again, unless we live out those words, we are lost.

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The Beginner’s Mind

January 9, 2023

Jesus said, “Unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

All the spiritual traditions of which I’m aware contain a form of the concept of the beginner’s mind.

The quote from Jesus popped up in my current reading. I paused to contemplate.

“In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.”

I remembered a joke from a boy’s magazine from my early adolescent period. Two farmers were talking one day. One says, “My son went off to university and got a BS and then an MS and now he is getting a Ph.D.” The other replied, “What’s that?” “Well,” said the first farmer, “I guess it’s like this. You know what BS is. MS is More of the Same. And PhD is Piled Higher and Deeper.”

Now, I don’t want to disparage all people who have earned a PhD (Doctor of Philosophy) degree. I have friends who earned that degree and are brilliant and useful in their fields. I’m currently listening to the podcasts of Dr. Andrew Huberman who has a PhD in neuroscience yet retains insatiable curiosity about many things.

Yet, I’ve known countless people with advanced degrees without the sense to come in from the rain. Their heads got so choked with what they know that there is no room for learning.

There are many whose heads are so full of what they know that there is no room for learning, no curiosity, they know it all–and they have no degrees. It works in many ways.

Like a child, like a beginner, our minds need to be open and curious ready to take in new experiences and new understanding. I loved taking walks with my grandson when he was a toddler. He would stop and explore many things–bugs, worms, leaves, whatever was there. I hoped he would never lose that attitude toward life.

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