Kevin Kelly, founding editor of Wired magazine and author of several good books, offered this advice, “Don’t aim for better ways to do your tasks. Aim for better tasks that you never want to stop doing.”
Where are you doing things that fail to bring joy?
What tasks bring nothing to yours or others well being?
What is the one thing, or the few things, that bring joy to your soul and serve others?
Throw out the meaningless tasks. Focus on what matters.
I’ve had the pleasure of trouble-shooting computers and automation equipment during my career.
First question I asked was always is it plugged in? Does it have a power source?
Follow up if yes, unplug it, count 20, plug it back in. (Turn it off, then turn it back on.)
That latter just fixed a glitch in my iPhone.
It’s the same with us.
Are we connected with a power source?
Think God.
Are we stressed, unfocused, frustrated?
Unplug for a bit. Probably longer than a count to 20, but you get the idea.
Maybe we only need to unplug for a few minutes several times a day. Maybe we need a week to unplug, refresh the mind, do something different. Then we can plug in again full of power and energy.
The vehicles they drive.
Hairstyles.
Clothes.
Physical size—fit, heavy, obese, short, tall.
Race, skin color, gender.
Have we already judged? Type cast?
Do we take time for conversation?
Figure out their story?
Could we learn from the Master?
When Jesus met someone, he looked first into the heart.
And he helped according to need.
It’s all about the heart.
I write about practice. I practice Yoga. I practice my guitar (OK, not enough). I have spiritual practices. I encourage you often to intentionally develop practices.
Then I came to this thought from the writer Steven Pressfield, “In other words, when our motivation is grounded in our ego, we do not have a practice.”
Yes, motivation. Do I make that list in order to impress people? Or to make myself feel better? Or, do I want to improve my physical health, develop a skill, and experience God?
Checking where our ego resides becomes an important part of the day. The ego can provide strength. It can also assume power over us negating our practices.
By the way, Pressfield’s The War of Art is a classic for creatives.
Yesterday I looked at spiritual practice as a process. Let us consider today and take the thought just a bit further.
Does following Jesus consist of an hour or two on Sunday morning (or, for my Seventh-Day Baptist ancestors, Saturday morning)?
Perhaps it is good enough to just proclaim that one is a Jesus follower? Many people seem to go with that thought. “I said it; that settles it.”
Perhaps we can look at following Jesus in terms of a job. Not something you have to do. Many people take on jobs for the pure enjoyment of the effort and the good product at the end.
Perhaps we should consider following Jesus as a full-time job. We should be kind to everyone we meet. Helpful when we can. Teaching where needed. Praying constantly for joys and concerns.
Some people think that Christianity—following Jesus—is a completed state. You repeat the special prayer (and promise to obey all the rules), and that is it.
While yet a youth, I seemed to believe what I read in the New Testament (well, also much of the Old). Jesus taught me that following him was a way of life. It’s something that took practice.
We called Yoga a practice. You didn’t “come to class”; you came to practice. And one would hope that the students went home and practiced on their own what they learned in class.
Practice means to work at the desired behavior or learning repeatedly over time in order to become proficient.
Some call the spiritual disciplines practices. Things like prayer, study, worship, meditation, fasting, simplicity, service are not end points. They are practices. Repeated they develop those “muscles.”
Like the Yoga class, we attend church or small groups to reinforce our learning and pick up new ideas and enjoy community. But in the end, it’s a practice. And practice doesn’t stop when we leave the group. Practice is something done repeatedly so that we become proficient—not perfect, but proficient.
Arnold Schwarzenegger forged a career from body builder to actor to “governator” of California. Preaching fitness for everyone has been a consistent concern throughout his life.
Writing this week in his daily newsletter Pump Club, he discusses how so many of us plan to do things but then never get around to actually doing.
In more than 50 years of my fitness crusade, I cannot count how many times I’ve heard people say they are planning on starting to train or planning on starting a diet. It is always a plan to start on Monday, or the first of the month, or next year. It is never a plan to start now. I see it in the comments of the Pump Club app, in the replies to our daily emails here, and I even hear it from people in the gym. Always planning. Everybody who plans has good intentions, but let’s be honest about what it really is. Planning means you’re not taking action. You’re choosing to avoid getting started. Doing takes effort. Choosing to work on yourself is hard. You know it will be uncomfortable. Changing the status quo is never easy. So you plan. You research. You spin your wheels until you say you wish you could be healthy. And then you start all over, planning and wishing. You wait and wait.
This sounds so familiar. The change you wish may be to lose weight. Or maybe start getting physically fit. Or maybe spiritually fit—I will start studying the Bible Monday or I will have a prayer and meditation session every early morning some day.
Back to Arnold:
I spoke to the annual convention of thoracic surgeons last month. When I sat down to talk to some of my cardiologist friends for coffee after my fireside chat, it was clear most people wait until the choice is made for them — or until it’s too late to make any choices at all.
Will it take a crisis of soul to divert us from the easy path to a life of intentional spiritual practices? Don’t wait for next Monday. Begin today. Right now.
A couple of Haiku meditating on how joy that can seem so fleeting leads to fruitful growth.
***
Spring trees fully flowered
Bright colors of joy yet fleeting
Yield to summer fruit.
***
When the flowers fall
Bright momentary joy yields to
Summer’s growth of fruit.
When Jesus invited people to follow him, he never led them to a library.
I watch the society of various birds from my study window. How the robins bicker over territory and the geese in formation and the blackbirds swarm. A true ornithologist cannot sit in a library and read books all day. She must go out into the woods and fields and observe and note and think.
Yet, how many Christians think that following Jesus can be done from a library filled with books or at a conference room table discussing books? How many theologians spend too much time in the library and not enough time with God?
Jesus took his followers out amongst people. And he taught his new message. And healed. And advised. And ate and drank with a variety of people. And associated not only with his own kind—Jewish males—but with Romans and women and Samaritans and Syrians and common people.
Study is a spiritual discipline. But so is service. And worship. Getting out from the library and meeting people.
Arnold Schwarzenegger told of a time when he was Governor of California attending the funeral of a war hero. Also attending was the local State Senator, who spoke eloquently of the sacrifice of the young man for the greater good.
Following the service, Arnold spoke to the legislator. “We have an important piece of environmental legislation coming up for vote. We need your support.”
“I cannot vote to support the bill even though I think it’s right,” came the reply. “It would be political suicide.”
On the one side he praised the courage of a war hero; on the other side he intentionally rejected the courageous act of his own.
We can sit here in judgement of that legislator.
Or…
We can reflect on the story. Place ourselves in the protagonist role. When have we chosen not to do the right thing because we might suffer an embarrassment or hurt or loss of stature or job?
Pointing fingers at others does no good. Jumping on social media to berate another human does nothing but instigate hurt. Being convicted of our own shortcomings and vowing to change our life’s pattern toward doing the right thing—priceless.
Gary Mintchell
Faith Venture 