Faith Venture

Here in west Ohio this Spring was very wet. Standing water everywhere. Everyone predicted an infestation of mosquitoes this summer.

I work outside on the patio (thank you inventors of WiFi) all summer. Saw maybe one mosquito.

It doesn’t even work always for the same or next day. “Red sun in morning, sailors take warning; red sun at night, sailors delight.”

The ancient Hebrews studied their writings searching for predictions. But, they missed all the contemporary ones–such as Jeremiah and others going around saying, “If you continue doing this, then that will happen.” They did; it did.

The first Christians were the same. Searching for signs of the second coming and the end of the world. It got so bad that even the apostle Paul had to tell them to go back to work. They would need to eat until the Day of the Lord came.

Now, people over here in west Ohio are predicting that after a very wet Spring and a very hot and dry summer (which, by the way is still with us into what should be Autumn), we will have a cold and stormy winter.

I don’t know. I prefer to just take one day at a time. If the rapture comes, it comes. If it snows, I go out and hike in the beauty of the quiet whiteness of nature.

There is discipline in not worrying about tomorrow. Just live in the moment doing what walking with God requires of me.

Seth Godin just warned us about buying cheap chocolate for Halloween.

It’s the same economic principles and outcomes buying cheap coffee.

These tend to become commodities.

World markets drive down the price of beans. Add the presence of a few “middle men”, and the farmer’s profits plummet. They become so indebted to the banks that they are almost indentured servants. To survive, they hire children to work the fields.

Farm workers eke out a subsistence living. Not able to afford extra children, they sell their daughters into the sex trade.

It’s a cycle of despair caused by our appetite for the cheapest (and not best quality) chocolate and coffee.

Buy better chocolates and coffees from direct trade sources.

I know a farmer in Thailand who brought 72 women back home from the Bangkok sex trade when he started selling coffee directly to a US roaster and earned a fair return on his product.

I met a farmer from Nicaragua who saved himself from dependency on the bankers and paid all his workers a living wage by selling coffee directly to a US roaster.

Don’t stuff your face with cheap chocolate this Halloween. Eat higher quality direct-trade chocolate. Give yourself a treat and help a farm family survive.

Sustainable economics is also a spiritual discipline.

John the baptizer was quite the interesting character in the Jesus story. A wild man. Dressed simply, yet unconventionally. Ate a simple diet. Preached a simple and direct message. Turn your lives around. Stop living like you were. Start living in God’s spirit. And, oh by the way, someone is coming right after me who will be greater than I.

A couple of hundred years later, the Desert Fathers took his example to the extreme, just as some humans do, and fled the cities to desert monasteries. They live simple lives with simple diets with few possessions. They focused their entire lives on God. Remnants of that tradition live on.

Theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer has said, “If there is no element of asceticism in our lives, if we give free rein to the desires of the flesh…we shall find it hard to train for the service of Christ.”

We don’t have to mimic John and the Desert Fathers. Bringing something of their spirit of simplicity and focus would not hurt us any. Simplifying our diets would be healthier, if nothing else. Fewer possessions makes life easier.

Most important is the attention and intention of turning our lives from pursuit of more stuff to pursuit of more Spirit.

John Mellencamp wrote a little ditty ’bout Jack & Diane. “Oh, yeah, life goes on, long after the thrill of livin’ is gone.”

I am out on a Saturday morning, usually driving to referee a soccer match and pass by a bar. And there are a dozen cars in the parking lot. And the unkind thought just pops into consciousness–don’t they have a life?

The teacher who started my meditations on trust (see yesterday’s post) discussed relationships. He talked about how women want love and men desire respect.

Love typically implies stability, security, someone there to listen, help, provide, get through life.

Respect is, well, respect. Looking at the opposite, it’s not constantly putting down the husband. How many couples do you see where you wonder how they stay together with the wife offering a constant stream of criticism and negativity toward her husband?

Perhaps the “thrill of livin’ is gone” when it’s killed by a thousand digs.

The spiritual disciplines of the day, mind your awareness and watch your tongue.

Once upon a time, I needed to hire two salespeople. I had a good track record for hiring, so I guess I got cocky.

The first guy turned out to be quite insecure. Never made a sale.

I slightly knew the second guy and should have seen the red flags. He was quite up front about going around his last three bosses to the owner or president of small companies and forcing out his boss so he could get the job. I hired him anyway. Yes, he did it to me. The caveat being that I had already seen the future, and it wasn’t with the company I was with. The market passed us by, and we were soon to be toast. So, I also had emotionally checked out.

People have said that it’s within my personality type to offer trust until someone proves me wrong. Usually I’m right. At times, like the guy above, I am burned. The thing is, I’ll probably never trust that person again. But I keep on trusting people at some level.

Other people have trouble trusting another until deep into a relationship–whether work, or friend, or romantic. Most likely there is a reason in their past that is the cause. It must be depressing to always be distrustful.

Somewhere in the middle between that person and me is a balance.

Offering some openness to trust, but with eyes wide open. Then, with experience, closing our eyes a bit to the other person’s faults while we have learned to trust.

I am not a conspiracy theorist.

Dad believed there existed a small group of men who met in Paris who controlled what happened in the world. All the politics. All the beliefs. All the religions. I forget their name, but many thought they were Masons. Many are gullible.

That theory has existed for perhaps centuries. It is so strong that Umberto Eco wrote a novel spoofing the idea called Foucault’s Pendulum. Eco was a professor and author from the University of Bologna (in other words, not American).

But there are companies utilizing every psychological trick they can uncover to manipulate your thoughts and actions. These are Facebook and Google. And today I saw a news item that says McDonalds wants to join the data gathering and “suggestion” ecosystem.

Read Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe by Roger McNamee.

If we are to be fully human, we need to live with intention.

We need to eat with intention not just mindlessly reacting to stress or while watching TV.

We need to use social media with intention. I heard on Silicon Valley guy on a podcast say, “I use Facebook; I don’t let it use me.” I am only on it to keep up with friends and family. But so much peripheral to that pops up in the news feed that is designed to stir up my emotions, start liking and reposting crap, and (oh, by the way) spend more time on site so that I’ll see more ads.

Usually I search for people I want to keep up with rather than rely on the newsfeed.

And I avoid all the emails from Amazon and Twitter designed to suck me into more time on those sites.

Use the Internet and Web with intentionality; don’t let it use you. That’s today’s spiritual discipline lesson.

Humans have been ignoring warnings forever. The Hebrew Laws and Prophets details many, many times God warned the people that if they kept turning away then something bad would happen. They didn’t, and it did.

Isn’t it amazing what one young person can do? Wherever you stand on the Global Warming issue (or water it down to Climate Change so we don’t have to worry), the example of Greta Thunberg, the young lady from Sweden who sparked a global uprising is inspirational.

I’m with the young people. Millennials and younger. I’m tired of old white guys who excel in drama or smoothing things over or wars. I like the spirit of youth. Go for it.

I was sitting in contemplation.

An image presented to me. Two hands stretching a plastic wrap or rubber sheet.

The voice warned about covering our fears, prejudices, hates.

The image changed to a Bible being stretched almost beyond recognition.

Beware, said the voice, of stretching the Bible to cover our fears, prejudices, anger, hate by pulling out bits to justify our lack of love and compassion.

We are all convicted.

It’s time to turn our lives toward light.

We have a story. All of us.

We tell ourselves that we are the type of person who likes certain kinds of food. And that it is OK to over-indulge in them, healthy or not.

Our story is that we are the type of person who exercises and is fit. Or not…

Worse, we allow stories from outside us to capture our story.

Facebook changes our story to someone who supports certain politics. Or our story becomes one of consumerism.

Other people tell us what they think our story should be.

And we allow them.

Our spiritual discipline is to ground our story in our values, tried and tested by generations of spiritual masters.

That is why using consistent meditation to ground is in the present moment is so important.

Take care to know and develop your own story.

I’m writing this on an airplane returning from a tech conference in California.

I renewed a number of acquaintances on this trip. Many I have not seen since February, and some for a year.

There was a guy I’ve known for twenty years. He’s always full of energy. His company had developed a cutting edge product a couple of years ago. When I left him, he had the same high energy and enthusiasm as ever. He’s in his element. Having fun.

The husband and wife who own the company sponsoring the conference were still enthused and energized some 15 years down the road from founding the company.

When I talked with the host’s chief advisor, we chatted about the industry and how they were doing. He asked about me and then asked several times, But you’re still having fun, right.

Advice books abound telling us to pursue our passions and dreams. Many are full of just so much hot air.

But doing what you’re good at–that is fun.

Creating–that is fun.

The discipline to get up every day and do it–that, too.