Faith Venture

Yesterday, one of the keynote speakers told us that we have the power to choose to be a leader. We have the power to choose what kind of leader we will be. We can choose to be a jerk. We can choose to be motivational.

We cannot always choose our circumstances. But we have the power to choose our response.

We don’t like the way some people celebrate Christmas or “the holidays.” We can choose to celebrate in our own way refusing to let other people determine our mood.

We came to Florida for a winter vacation. It was a chilly, rainy day. We can say, “We came here, but it rained.” We can choose to say, “We are on vacation, and it rained, so we…”

One of my favorite lines from the movies is spoken by the old Crusader in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. After the bad guy dies in agony after drinking from the wrong chalice, he says in a flat voice, “He chose poorly.”

Don’t choose poorly. Choose life.

I heard a message on hope yesterday. Right now I am hoping that a Lyft driver picks up my request for a ride to the airport. It’s amazing how a bit of uncertainty can affect your attitude. I have two alternatives if one doesn’t in the next 20 minutes. But still, I hope.

2,024 years ago, people in the greater Palestine area and perhaps the entire Mediterranean rim were hoping for something better. Acute spiritual hunger lodged in the hearts and minds of many people. But as always in times of change, there was no clear agreement about the form any change would take.

Jesus was born into that time of hope. But the pregnancy was unique. Word spreading that a new King was born caused fear and loathing in the heart of the current King. Jesus spent his infant and toddler years in Egypt as his parents hid out from the King.

Hardly the peace for which people hoped.

But it came. Patience plus hope wins.

Oh, and I never received confirmation that I had a Lyft driver. That company’s Website needs great improvement. I cancelled and got an Uber. I’m at the Terminal 1 Concourse C United Club en route to Florida. Although this week it will hit 60 degrees F in Illinois. Go figure.

Let me geek out for a moment. During the late 1990s and early 2000s I played with and wrote about a software application for PCs called Think and Do. This software was loaded on a PC which then controlled the actions of a machine.

The innovation was that you thought through all the actions the machine must do to produce its products using a simple flow chart interface and then the machine would perform the required actions. Think and Do.

An unfortunate (to my way of thinking) byproduct of “reformed” thinking in the Christian tradition was that everything begins and ends with faith. Luther famously was reading in the letter to the Romans and saw the verse, “By faith are you saved…” Evidently he stopped reading at this point.

That may be a bit unfair, but too many of his followers did. I have come across far too many examples of people who think that you only need to agree with a statement, with a proposition, with them, and then everything is alright. You are done.

Reading through Matthew 5-7, for example, I don’t hear Jesus telling us to sit on our butts. Nor when Luke records the actions we should take toward a neighbor in the story of the Good Samaritan.

Jesus didn’t come and preach, “I believe.” No, he healed people. He set people free from their sins so that they could enter God’s Kingdom.

Reflecting on my spiritual and intellectual and social development, I think I have always subscribed to the the invitation to a way of life that includes pursuing the depth of faith while also living out Jesus’ teachings regarding serving other people.

It’s both faith and do.

Common greeting during December in America. Instead of “Hi” or “Bye”, we might say “Merry Christmas.” In some cultures the phrase is Happy Christmas, which may mean about the same thing.

I was thinking of “merry” and “happy” and what does that mean. Maybe it means something like an often-heard parting “Have a good day.” Just a simple wish.

Paul, the Apostle, wrote about a way of life once to his friends in Galatia. He tried to describe how you could tell if you or someone you met was living in the spirit. He said that their life would exhibit, “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” Could happiness, eudaimonia, also have fit?

I’m thinking about bringing the phrase we utter as a greeting into our self. That maybe we exhibit “having a merry Christmas” with a smile and an acknowledgement of the other person. That people can observe us and think, even if just briefly, “there is someone at peace and enjoying the season.”

So, I wish all of you a merry Christmas season. And if once or twice you exhibit the other meaning of merry, as in perhaps one wee nip of whiskey or whisky too much, well, so be it.

Beg our Lord to grant you perfect love for your neighbor, and leave the rest to Him. He will give you far more than you know how to desire…

Teresa of Ávila

Teresa is one of my favorite mystics. She has much to teach us.

Jesus taught us that we must love our neighbor. He didn’t qualify it. We are to just do it.

We may seek to escape the work by asking how will we know when to act or how to act.

Teresa answers. We can ask God for openness to his leading. And trust that he will lead us to someone who needs assistance and he will also give us the tools we need to show the love, be it words or money or presence.

We have sayings and proverbs, such as “don’t look a gift horse in the mouth” or “that gift is really a white elephant”.

Seth Godin recently talked about gifts explaining the origin of the white elephant idea and how it has come to mean a gift that you don’t need or want. He suggests that if it is a gift, you can always decline it if it is something you can’t get rid of and is expensive to keep—like a white elephant.

Sometimes a gift is not a benefit.

Seneca wrote about 3,000 words (in English translation, of course, I don’t know how many Latin words) about balancing the ledger if someone gives you a benefit and later injures you. How do you figure out if you are indebted for the benefit or need retribution for the injury? He suggests ignoring the injury and acknowledging the benefit.

This may be Advent, but it is also the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. You may be contemplating the appropriate gift for family and friends. You may also be anticipating a nice gift from someone special.

Practice giving thoughtful experiences as gifts and graciously accepting what is given to you—unless, of course, you find a large stock truck parked in front of the house on Christmas.

We are traveling. The journey seems longer than we anticipated. We ask perhaps the oldest question, “Are we there, yet?”

I am not a student of the liturgical calendar, but I hear that we are in the season of Advent. Even though we know that Jesus appeared in the flesh 2,000 years ago, we set aside time each year to recreate in our hearts that journey toward his coming.

Because of his invitation—the invitation to enter the kingdom of God. We journey again from where we are to where that kingdom is. Geographically, the distance is nearby. Spiritually, maybe not so close.

Some have arrived. Perhaps we know one. They have the power of living with God—not political or social power. Power of life. It’s reflected in the peace, joy, calm assurance of their life.

Maybe we are at the door of the kingdom. The journey got us that far. Maybe this season of preparation will help us open the door—for the handle is on our side of the door. It is for us to open it. The journey completes when we open our door and feel the power of God infuse us.

At the journey’s end, life begins.

We have put Thanksgiving weekend behind us in America. It can be four days of feasting at the beginning of five more weeks of feasting. Or at least eating more than usual the amount of sugary treats.

The gyms will be full of people at the beginning of January perhaps continuing into the beginning of February. They have struggled into clothes that fit perfectly only a few weeks before and have decided it’s time to get fit and lose weight.

How many men train their bodies and how few train their minds! How feather-brained are the athletes whose muscles and shoulders we admire!

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Yes, the gyms will be full. The libraries and bookstores not so. And even less those small groups where people can study and train their minds and spirits.

And after reading a few news clips about inane things some of our professional football and basketball stars have uttered recently, I see that 2,000 years have had little impact on the athlete community.

Physical training doesn’t fall into the traditional list of spiritual disciplines. I believe it should be. Movement, flexibility, strength, nutrition—these are part of being as healthy as possible. These give the stamina for study, meditation, service, prayer. Just as I have believed from an early age that education includes the arts and the sciences, the rest of us require both physical and spiritual strength.

For although the body needs many things in order to be strong, yet the mind grows from within, giving to itself nourishment and exercise. Yonder athletes must have copious food, copious drink, copious quantities of oil, and long training besides; but you can acquire virtue without equipment and without expense.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Actually, to modify Seneca, we can begin a physical fitness routine just by walking (barring infirmity, of course). And that is free. Books can be found also for free in a library or for the price of an Internet connection. And you can begin now.