I knew a man who never hurried, never raised his voice. He accomplished much.
I knew a man who managed by edict. He was a flurry of energy and orders and forcing others. He accomplished little.
The caption in an old cartoon called Pogo once had one character talking to another, “The hurrieder I go, the behinder I get.”
Slow is smooth; smooth is fast.
Easy is hard; hard is easy.
A movie actor weighed more than 550 lbs. (250 kg). He lost about 300 lbs. Much of that new 250 lb. person was packed with lean muscle.
He related that maintaining the lifestyle that resulted in a 550 lb. person was easy. But living at that size was hard.
Working in the gym was hard. But living in the new body was easy.
Living a life oblivious to the spirit is easy. One can just slide along. But life that way can be hard facing up to relationships and decisions.
Spiritual disciplines (similar to going to the gym) can be hard. But life in the spirit with peace, hope, joy, and the rest is easy.
You want to lose weight. You choose a diet. Any one will work.
You want to improve health. You choose a healthy diet and a workout routine. Almost any one will work.
You wish to pursue a spiritual life. You choose to meditate.
Can you do this almost every day for the rest of your life?
Just a few days or weeks will not accomplish the goal. It must become the new you. Every day. For the rest of your life.
I was the school’s geek in high school. Electronics fascinated me.
One day the speech teacher had me pulled from a class to go to his room to plug a microphone into the school’s new oscilloscope so that they could see their voice as a wave form on a graph. Pretty advanced for 1964.
Great idea, except that I was expected to set it up instantaneously in front of the class without prior trial. That didn’t work.
Brilliant ideas are nice. Taking the time before to prepare, try out methods, get things right–those are the work that will make or break execution of the idea.
So, you want to be the local (or regional) Bible teacher. Have you invested the time and effort to study words, context, geography, settings, and so forth?
You want to be a spiritual guru. Have you directed your effort and attention to sitting in meditation daily for weeks, months, years?
Do you have the discipline to prepare?
Nassim Nicholas Taleb writes in The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms, “Upon arriving at the hotel in Dubai, the businessman had a porter carry his luggage; I later saw him lifting free weights in the gym.”
I drove to the Y to work out after exercising in a park. I always parked in a spot at the far corner of the lot. Many people jockeyed to get a parking spot close to the door before going in to use a treadmill or elliptical trainer to walk.
I now walk to the community center of our little community to use the fitness equipment, hardwood floor for Yoga, and the hot tub. Everyone else drives.
It is not that I am better than others. It’s just a mind set.
Do we carry over that mind set to other areas of our lives?
Do we skip the hard part of scholarship before reading a few passages from the Bible and then formulating a theology?
Do we skip the hard part of sitting in prayer and meditation daily while thinking we are becoming spiritually mature with a few “good thoughts”?
I’m reading a book of aphorisms from Nassim Nicholas Taleb called The Bed of Procrustes. (A link for those who need a refresher on the old Greek story of a bandit called Procrustes–the stretcher.)
It is as difficult to avoid bugging others with advice on how to exercise and other health matters as it is to stick to an exercise schedule.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Does this same idea apply to meditation, prayer, repentance?
Vitaliy Katsenelsen emigrated from Soviet Russia with his family when he was 18. He was thoroughly indoctrinated into the Soviet system with a few difficulties because he was Jewish. He is now a successful financial analyst and CEO of an investment firm in Denver called IMA. I follow him because of his financial analysis writing. He also calls himself a “student of life.” I like that phrase. I resemble that remark.
He published a book called Soul in the Game: The Art of a Meaningful Life. He talks of family life and also of his discovery of Stoic philosophy. You may wonder about bringing the Stoics into this blog. I have done it before. Seneca’s writing sounds so much like Paul’s that Christians in the 4th and 5th centuries thought he was a Christian.
Katsenelsen writes, “Stoic philosophy is not an academic distraction; it is a practice.”
Those words should also describe following Jesus.
Christ-followers for a couple of centuries after Jesus were known by how they lived, not by what they said.
Then Christianity became political in the middle ages. Then a proposition to agree with rather than a way of life.
Rebellion to this spurred the “Jesus movement” of the late 60s and early 70s. But the movement was co-opted by commercial interests. This gave us the mega-church movement of the last 40 years with its rock concert followed by a TED Talk.
I’ve always pictured following Jesus as like those scouts in the American West during the 1800s. Pioneers. Out in front of the trail. Showing the way with wisdom and foresight.
Following Jesus is not an academic distraction; it is a practice.
All the lonely people
Elenor Rigby, Lennon/McCartney
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?
Not being lonely constitutes one path to longevity.
Have you friends? A friend? Someone?
I think of Jesus and how he was at times alone among friends. Have you ever been in a room full of people and still feel alone? Have you called that room a church sometimes?
Maybe a family? I have memories of being a child at home and being alone even with three brothers. My mom probably wished for alone time.
Being alone does not equal being lonely. I like times to be alone. I like times to be with others. I am both extrovert and introvert—like most of us.
But lonely? When that visits, we hope it intends a short stay hotel not an extended stay residence.
I wish I could advise you on being unlonely. If I knew, I’d practice it. Go to a coffee house, see someone and ask a question, I guess. Questions are your friend.
What does it take to be better at work? Even for someone like me who works alone?
One of my few go-to news sources is called Axios. They use a technique called smart brevity. What I like. Short and to the point. I wrote to them about too many adjectives, but in reality they minimize those extraneous and emotion-laden words. (Did you notice what I just wrote?) I’ve always tried that here.
They have a daily newsletter called Finish Line that ponders personal issues. They ran a series where they asked readers from different generations to send their thoughts on work. I appreciated how similar the thoughts were. Founder Jim VandeHei summarized all the comments in a column called the 10 Commandments of Work Success.
Click the link to read them all. My picks from the litter include:
The bottom line: When the clock stops, smile confidently — knowing you did it right and well.
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.
Gary Mintchell
Faith Venture 