Faith Venture

Growing through addition seems so obvious and logical. Kids grow by adding height and weight. Of course, adults grow by also adding weight although most of us try to keep that off. Business people think in terms of adding sales, income, products, customers. Couples think in terms of adding stuff–furniture, vehicles, art, bigger houses.

Personal and spiritual growth comes through subtraction.

• Reduce weight
• Eliminate senseless worry
• Eliminate toxic relationships
• Eliminate tasks that interfere with time for silence
• Reduce waste
• Eliminate toxic news sources
• Reduce social media intake

What can you begin subtracting now?

When we get out the mat, whether alone in our bedroom or in a class, to begin Yoga, we call it a “practice.” Every time whether it’s five minutes of easy stretches, some planks and ab poses for core strength, or a 60-minute class, we are practicing.

We bring our mind, body, and spirit together to each pose practicing proper alignment, breathing, focus on the muscles we are working. And we practice, and practice some more, and one day we notice strength and balance and calmness that we didn’t know we could experience.

The same with specifically spiritual disciplines. Some people worry about proper posture for meditation or contemplation. Well, the idea is to relieve yourself of worry. So, lie or sit or walk. Eyes open or closed. The important thing is breath and focus.

If we are slouching as we sit, or our legs are crossed too tightly and we arise stiff with a sore back, well then we’ll learn to adjust our posture.

And if our mind wanders too much, well, that is what it does. It doesn’t want you to reach that sublime state of experience of God. We just relax, return to breath, maybe repeat our key word (God, love, spirit, Om, whatever). It just takes practice.

We learn not to be sloppy in any of our practices. Practice does not make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect. But, we aren’t perfect. We just focus and come back tomorrow to try again.

We can drift through life. We can practice life.

It’s a daily thing. I’m no longer young. I don’t have a full-time job answerable to a boss or corporation. But I have daily practice. Meditate, exercise, eat a nutritious breakfast, write, read (maybe practice guitar on a good day).

As the itinerant Chinese Buddhist Layman Pang said:

My daily activities are not unusual,

I’m just naturally in harmony with them.

Grasping nothing, discarding nothing…

Supernatural power and marvelous activity

Drawing water and carrying firewood.

Layman Pang, 740-808

Live in harmony with nature, with others, especially with yourself.

Lately, well almost forever, news writers strive to position content so as to strike at our primal fears. We read or watch and then get that tightening of the muscles in the gut the constriction of breathing and perversely the desire to keep reading or watching.

Even though I vet my news sources, I still had a couple of those moments.

Then I recalled this Swedish proverb;

• Fear less, hope more
• Eat less, chew more
• Talk less, say more
• Love more, and all good things will be yours

That seems to be plenty to ponder for today.

The effect of our actions can be quite different from what we believe.

Some small number of people not only in the United States but across the world proclaim a belief in Jesus but their vocal, even strident, political voice alienates at least half of the people they are supposedly trying to reach.

They may drive many people out of their gatherings.

Perhaps their beliefs align with Jesus’ command to love one another as I have loved you and to go into all the world teaching what I have taught you and make disciples.

The result is that a majority of people do not see people acting like that as loving, welcoming people.

Jesus followers of the first 200 years of the movement won followers because of the way their actions were congruent with their beliefs. People said, “I want to be part of a group like that.”

How are our actions? How different from our beliefs are they? What needs to change?

Someone set this sprinkler head to assure that my path was well watered yesterday morning on my walk. The only grass it watered was from runoff along the walk.

I thought, what an exercise in futility. All that water just running off the paved path and into the street and down into the storm water system.

Sometimes we may feel that meditation and other spiritual practices are like this—an exercise in futility.

One way to look at this is that at the edge our work does set an example for others we may not even know and help them grow.

Or, maybe with just a slight change in our direction we can provide nourishment for many others and find the true purpose of our life.

Sometimes while fulfilling our purpose for others around us we find satisfaction, joy, kindness for ourselves.

Check your direction and then go out and spread some joy.

You’re trying to get somewhere and there is a queue at the entrance.

You’re focused on finishing a task around the house and one of your children needs immediate attention.

You’re coaching a youth sports team and one of the little ones needs a shoelace tied.

You’re Jesus hurrying with concerned parents to save a child from death and a woman with a need interrupts your hurry for a healing.

I imagine the scene and see Jesus momentarily annoyed that his journey was interrupted. I see him taking a breath. Pausing. Treating the woman with respect while assuring her of healing. Then, proceeding to bring life to the child.

There is no reason that we, fallible as we are, cannot also train ourselves to pause, take a breath, deal with the interruption respectfully, and continue.

There is a reason that Ancient Greek used the same word for breath and spirit. Think about that. Better yet, practice it.

My wife will ask, “When should we leave to arrive on time?”

I may reply, “Oh, between 5:15 and 5:30.”

I am thinking it should be closer to 5:15 when the car doors close and we’re about to leave. She is thinking that 5:30 is an approximate target.

How often lies that territory between sloppy thinking and misunderstanding.

I made a career from precise communication—from engineering specifications through technical standards development to magazine articles. Yet, I can be as guilty as anyone of sloppy communication.

Failure to say what we mean in a clear way reveals lack of clear thinking. Perhaps even lack of empathy with those we wish to reach.

One thing I love about Jesus is his ability to drive home a point with just a few words. Although, to be fair, sometimes he left behind a puzzle to contemplate.

Today’s lesson is to first think clearly, say what you mean and mean what you say. With kindness.