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Archive for the ‘Doing’ Category

Many Nice People

November 28, 2023

Need to know what’s going on in the world? It’s easy to know enough without immersing yourself in the news-media-advertising-complex.

As side benefit you stop noticing so much the bad side of people (like my post yesterday about people whose behavior belies their stated beliefs).

This morning during meditation the number of good people I come across every day came into focus. We moved during Covid shutdown to a new city in a different state. We don’t know many people—even now. It’s not easy.

Several women I know volunteer at food banks and/or serve meals to those who need a good hot meal.

I had met a woman who at first glance looks like one of those girls you knew in high school who is pretty, knows it, and is a bit stand-offish. I recently had a chance to talk with her as she is one of the owners of the coffee house where I work once a week or so (writing, not making cappuccinos). Several people came through the shop who knew her and were happy to see her. She turned out to be nice to everyone.

There are people who reach out to those around who are hurting. Many people help out just with random acts of kindness, even small tokens like opening a door for someone or carrying a load.

None of these people rate headlines in the news-media-advertising-complex. But they form the backbone of the community or church or organization.

Be one of those. It is as good for your health as for those being served. And when you meet these people, say Thank You.

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Positive Response In The Face of Negativity

October 6, 2023

Peter Diamandis writes a newsletter emphasizing developing an abundance mindset rather than a scarcity mindset. Sometimes he’s a little over the top for me, but he publishes much science-based information on health, longevity, and abundant living.

Recently he reviewed The Rational Optimist, by Matt Ridley. I have not read it, yet (too many books stacked up right now). But it sounds intriguing.

Diamandis says, “And lately, the behavior that has most caught his attention is humanity’s predilection for bad news. As Ridley puts it:

“It’s incredible, this moaning pessimism, this knee-jerk, things-are-going-downhill reaction from people living amid luxury and security that their ancestors would have died for. The tendency to see the emptiness of every glass is pervasive. It’s almost as if people cling to bad news like a comfort blanket.”

Diamandis continues, “In trying to make sense of this pessimism, Ridley, like the psychologist Daniel Kahneman, sees a combination of cognitive biases and evolutionary psychology as the core of the problem. He identifies the cognitive bias ‘loss aversion’—a tendency for people to regret a loss more than a similar gain—as the bias with the most impact on abundance. Loss aversion is often what keeps people stuck in ruts. It’s an unwillingness to change bad habits for fear that the change will leave them in a worse place than before.”

Ridley cites a number of cases where pessimists who were widely publicized were completely wrong. Sometimes, the alarm actually drove humans to change behavior in order to avert disaster. (Maybe the same may one day be said about climate change.)

I think we can learn something from this. Check out how often God (or Jesus) performed some sort of miracle, but almost always it entailed the human in the story to do something. God alerted them or helped a bit. The human was expected to step up and respond with action. Here’s a quick list just off the top of my mind as I write this:

Moses
Gideon
David
Nehemiah
Jeremiah
The rich young man
The lepers
The disciples

Where do we put ourselves? How should we be responding right now?

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Two Kinds of Disciples

August 30, 2023

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Jesus’s last instructions to his disciples. They can believe what he told them. They need to go and do. And they can rest assured in his continual presence.

I am a contemplative. I have found sitting in meditation life changing. Did Jesus tell me (through them) to sit in meditation? No.

I love to study. Learning has been a lifelong joy. Did Jesus tell me to learn more? No. Well, not exactly. There is the teaching part. That is the last part of the instructions.

There are two kinds of disciples. One knows and can explain. One lives out the instructions in everyday life.

Meditating may center me. Learning may enrich me. But, Jesus requires more out of me (and you).

The first instruction is Go—into all nations.

Next is Make—disciples. (Not people who agree with my particular theology, but disciples, followers, learners.)

Next is Baptizing.

Next is Teaching—everything he has commanded.

There are two kinds of disciples—those who think and those who do. Jesus preferred the doers.

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Now What?

August 17, 2023

I once shared an office with the president of the county anti-abortion organization. No, I’m not going to debate this issue here. Rather, I asked him:

Now that you have “saved” a baby’s life, Now what?

It is now in a home where most likely the mother is poor and single and the baby is not wanted. Now what?

I don’t know if that question provided the impetus, but the organization did do some things to help mothers.

A friend was focused on “saving” people. I think that meant getting people to say that they “accepted Jesus into their life.” And I asked that friend:

Now what?

Do you just leave that person adrift while you try to add another notch on the belt?

Or, do you develop a relationship that leads the person into experiencing peace, joy, hope, calmness, and so forth? Is it a numbers game? Or a life game?

“I did this.”

“Now what?”

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Not Just Listening To His Words But Acting Upon Them

August 2, 2023

Yesterday I looked at Jesus’ teaching about not just listening to his words but acting on them.

This from a health and fitness newsletter that intentionally comes my way:

People will post about schools failing our kids on social media and never offer to volunteer at an after-school program or as a tutor. They’ll tweet about childhood obesity but never think of coaching youth sports. Their Facebooks are filled with complaints about rising homelessness, but they’ve never donated or volunteered to help expand shelters. They’ll say our politics are rigged but never volunteer to collect signatures to get political reforms on the ballot or through the legislatures.

If you want to complain about something, stop, and find something you can do about it.

I was president of an organization once upon a time. A prominent man approached me one day. A thoroughly capable professional with an interest in our purpose. He said he had an idea. I said, wow, that sounds great. Would you like to lead that initiative? He disappeared.

Ideas, complaints, suggestions—they are all cheap. The trick is not just listening to the words but acting upon them. That is all the difference.

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What Are You Saying By What You’re Doing?

April 3, 2023

I am writing this at the beginning of what we call Holy Week. Approximately 2,000 years ago, a man named Jesus of Nazareth began his well documented last week. This week was so important in the lives of his friends and followers that his close friend John devotes a substantial part of his writing (we call the Gospel according to John) to just this last week.

Jesus spent four or five days teaching, being with friends, being alone with God. Then what we call Good Friday (from the time I was a child, I wondered what was “good” about Good Friday, I’ve always played with words) came with his execution. Of course, the most important remembrance of this week concerns Sunday that we call Easter when his closest friends discovered that he had returned to life. Some sort of weirdly physical life (he told one friend not to touch him, and he walked through walls). But, still, life.

In contemplation this morning, I was stuck on the thought of what 2,000 years of his followers have done to his church. My thoughts rapidly scanned through just people I’ve known or read about in the past decade. Many have advertised themselves as followers, yet the actual advertising I see by their actions betray that self-promotion. Many lives definitely do not reflect the commands Jesus gave about loving God and loving others.

In contemplation, I can reflect on my own actions. What do they advertise? Have I always acted in the right way even through my weaknesses of personality?

Perhaps if you claim to follow Jesus, this is a good week to contemplate what your life has revealed. Perhaps that is motivation for us, you and me, to change. There is still time.

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Responsibility Can Only Be Borne

March 20, 2023

I remember the rise of Vaclav Havel—poet, playwright, anti-communist dissident, president of Czechoslovakia and later the Czech Republic. His observation was true then and still true today.

An enormous conflict between words and deeds is prevalent today: everyone talks about freedom, democracy, justice, human rights, about peace and saving the world from nuclear apocalypse; and at the same time, everyone, more or less, consciously or unconsciously, serves those values and ideals only to the extent necessary to serve himself and his “worldly” interests, personal interests, group interests, power interests, property interests, and state or great-power interests.…
Vaclav Havel

Many people claim to follow Jesus in most places of the world today. Each of us must reflect on what ideals we are really serving—with our money, feet, beliefs, soul.

And what to do?

So the power structures apparently have no other choice than to sink deeper into this vicious maelstrom, and contemporary people apparently have no other choice than to wait around until the final inhibition drops away. But who should begin? Who should break this vicious circle? Responsibility cannot be preached but only borne, and the only possible place to begin is with oneself.
Vaclav Havel

Just as “free speech” does not imply irresponsible speech, merely saying you are a Christian does not cut it. Jesus himself said so, “Many people will call Lord, Lord, but I will not know them.

Just like parents preach to their youth responsibility yet live irresponsible lives as a role model, so we cannot either preach or learn from preaching. We must seize responsibility and act as true disciples.

And, yes, I’m aware of the irony that I’m writing these words—a form of preaching. But I’d rather hope that I’m encouraging self-reflection and then right action.

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Don’t Just Do It–Finish It

February 10, 2023

Consider this story told by Jesus.

“A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. Whoever has ears, let them hear.”

I heard someone say that there are many books and teachers instructing with tips on how to begin. You know, get busy and get started.

How often have we been taught how to finish?

How often are we like the first three “seeds” in Jesus metaphorical farm?

We get an idea—write a book, cook a meal for someone, do a project—then the idea flits away like finches in the bush.
We get an idea. We’re going to take up painting. Or write that novel. Or prepare that meal to take to someone. We purchase the supplies. We’re all set. Then, something else comes to mind. All those supplies gather dust while we, well, flit off like those same finches.
We get an idea. Friends, neighbors, relatives, strangers even, tell us we’re crazy. We can never do that. We worry we’re not good enough. We never finish.

Jesus was right—again. We must learn to finish what we start. That makes for a satisfying life. Don’t be like the shoe slogan—just do it. Be more like—I did it, and I’m happy that I did.

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Reading Proverbs Understand the Meaning of the Picture

January 24, 2023

Sometimes the writers of the Proverbs include a saying that is blunt. Do not do this…for this will happen. Sometimes the sayings are little pictures. Sometimes, like Jesus, the stories require work on our part to understand.

Once I quoted from the German writer Thomas Mann, “If everyone swept in front of their house, the whole world would be clean.” An engineer wrote to me and explained how that was impossible. He was thinking of a literal broom. Mann was most likely thinking of what would happen if each of us got ourselves in order first, rather than trying to fix everyone else.

Sometimes, like this one, the story is pretty clear.

“I passed by the field of one who was lazy,
by the vineyard of a stupid person;
and see, it was all overgrown with thorns;
the ground was covered with nettles,
and its stone wall was broken down.
Then I saw and considered it;
I looked and received instruction.
A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest,

and poverty will come upon you like a robber,
and want, like an armed warrior.”

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Proverbs 24

Avoiding laziness pops up often in the Proverbs. This is a nice little story to illustrate.

Get your 7-8 hours of sleep. Then get up and work on your field–whatever that field may be. I wrote a few days ago about the Japanese theory of ickigai–having a purpose to get out of bed in the morning. Find your purpose and work at it.

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Seeing What Is Before Us

December 14, 2022

We pray for God’s guidance for the day.

Have we done the little things set before us that reflect God in us?

It’s Advent. We sing carols and pray for peace, hope, joy.

What did we do yesterday and what will we do today to reflect that peace, hope, and joy?

We must beware that praying becomes mere words in a formula.

Prayer sets an attitude and perhaps a communication with God. But attitude just sets a direction. What we do when we leave our prayer mat or chair is what pleases God.

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