Faith Venture

You make a big pot of soup and take a container to a neighbor. It seems that before you even return home, the container is waiting on your doorstep filled with some delicious food from her kitchen.

You do some act of kindness for a friend just to be of service. Before you can even settle back in, a return gift arrives.

Sometimes you wonder if what you are doing is a form of manipulation. I learn that if I do a small thing for someone, they’ll return the favor with something I like.

Or, maybe you are that person who reciprocates. You just can’t stand feeling like you owe someone something. Or, perhaps unlike me you were taught to return favors. (It would be a long post to talk about the social graces I was not taught as a child.) But, you become obsessive about doing a return favor.

Intention forms one of key attributes of our spiritual formation. Are we careful to check our intentions regularly to assure that we are following Jesus’ command to do things in love?

Yesterday, I wrote about practice, or the lack thereof.

Here is a thought attributed to people as widely varying as Yogi Berra and Albert Einstein, but probably a Yale student called Benjamin Brewster writing in 1882 said, “In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is.”

That sounds profound, yet also seems a bit of nonsense.

However, I can (and do) have theories about practicing on my guitar. I know various scales to practice fingering, chord progressions for a variety of songs, maybe even a theory of tuning before I begin.

My practice should follow those theories.

I pick up the guitar. It is out of tune. I don’t feel like tuning it just then. I put it down. The theory might have been good. The practice sucked.

I sit to meditate. I know about posture. The theory of breath. Techniques of prayers and mantras. Some days I sit in a slouch. Can’t focus on my prayer verse.

I suppose there must be a phrase in all cultures uttered by parents and teachers, “Practice makes perfect.” But that is not accurate.

Perfect practice makes perfect. And that requires intention, attention, and energy.

He stuck his hand out to shake. I felt awkward realizing that it had been 16 months since I had performed that small social ritual. The whole process seemed surreal.

I guess it takes practice even to do that properly.

My guitar stands in a corner of my office. Some months I get it out for a time and run through chords and scales. Sometimes I go for months only looking at it. Needless to say, without practice, I cannot just pick it up and sing 50 songs anymore.

So, how is your prayer and meditation life? Need practice?

OK, there is some irony in this as I turn to the writing of one of my favorite mentors, Augustine of Hippo.

Some people, in order to find God, will read a book. But there is a great book, the book of created nature. Look carefully at it top and bottom, observe it, read it. God did not make letters of ink for you to recognize him in; he set before your eyes all these things he has made. Why look for a louder voice?

Augustine of Hippo

It is my habit to get outside for exercise at least five days a week—seven if a normal week. My body needs the work. It also needs the Vitamin D and other nutrients from sunlight. There are birds. Little furry animals (hopefully only the little ones).

From late spring through early fall I can find my morning reading and meditation time out on the patio.

To the one who notices, the presence of God can be found out in his creation.

To what you direct your attention determines your attitude for the day or for your life.

It is said that attention is the oxygen of conflict. If you withdraw your attention from the source of the conflict with your sister or brother, the flames of passion will cool.

Conversely, feeding service to others with the oxygen of your attention results in equanimity and satisfaction.

We get to choose. That is life. Choose to feed your soul with the oxygen of conflict with others or of service to others.

Choose wisely.

There was a man. Within his race, religion, and culture, there were none smarter or more steadfast in the traditions.

He lived and taught the principles of strict separation of the races of people (one obviously better than the rest). He lived and taught the strict separation of the genders within religious gatherings (with one gender obviously better than the other).

One day while walking along a road, he experienced another man unlike anyone he had ever met. After that, he was taken to a place where he unlearned everything he had stuffed into his brain in his advanced PhD studies. He was shown and taught an entirely new way of thinking.

Afterward, he taught this entirely new way. Within the gatherings of people, he encouraged people of all races and genders to come together. All were permitted to pray and speak and lead. If there were multiple cultures present, they all had to learn to eat foods brought by others.

He taught about God’s grace and how we should love one another. Gone were his hatred and prejudices (well, mostly) replaced by openness and willingness to relate to all.

We call this man the Apostle Paul. We sometimes read what he wrote and apply interpretations that would surely astonish him.

I have been thinking lately that we need to study his life and how he changed and how he changed other people rather than parsing his words looking for rules to reinforce how good we feel about ourselves relative to others.

Today is a holiday in the US—Memorial Day.

When I was small, my great-grandmother called it Decoration Day. I thought it was about decorating the graves of family. It was always May 30.

From the time I was about 10 until I was 17, May 30 meant a small parade in my village of 1,000. We would march either as a Scout or in the high school marching band from the water tower where there would be speeches and prayers to the cemetery on the outskirts of town. There we would lay flowers (I suppose provided by the American Legion chapter) on the graves of military veterans.

Then we would travel 5 or 6 miles to an even smaller village and repeat the cemetery observance.

The scouts would lay flowers on the grave. The band would play a couple of Sousa marches. The lead trumpeter would play Taps.

Scenes probably repeated everywhere in the country. I don’t know about the South, since the origin of the day was to recognize those who “fought against the rebellion” also known as the Civil War. But the meaning spread to include veterans of all American wars.

Since 1971, the day is always the 4th Monday of May. Making it a 3-day weekend made it easier to plan the Indianapolis 500 auto race or the 3-day soccer tournament I worked at for 30 years.

I personally shun nostalgia and don’t spend much time in remembrance. But it’s good to recall once in a while from wherever you are.

Honoring those who gave their life for a greater cause is a good thing.

In How to Read a Book, Mortimer J. Adler advises reading a book taking an overview, then reading the arguments, then outlining and thinking of the whole. He suggests you’ll only read a few books a year with that thoroughness. He’s right.

Some people stop reading the Christian scriptures after compiling a sufficient number of rules to live by (or force others to live by). It is a very good practice to take our point of view out much wider and consider the scope of all the writers and documents.

While doing that practice over the weekend, I was struck by the diversity of peoples. Jesus, as a rabbi, was supposed to interact mainly with Jewish male people. Or, perhaps “good” Jewish male people.

What do we find? Jesus had many women among his retinue. Jesus dealt person-to-person with Romans, Syro-Phoenicians, Syrians, Samaritans, and most likely many more. There would have been peoples from the land we now call Turkey. Most likely some Egyptians. Most likely Babylonians and Persians.

Later Philip evangelized a black person. There were eunuchs. Peter had a dream where God told him it was OK to associate with people who were not Jewish. Paul accepted women leaders and worked with a wide variety of people on his journeys.

People were accepted where they were and how they were. And people were attracted by the love they saw expressed by followers of the Way even toward them.

I think that is all meant to be an instruction for us. Look around. Whom do you see?