Faith Venture

Usually I meditate in the morning and then pull the laptop over to write a post. Somewhere from my reading or recent experiences I come up with an idea. Then I expand on it. I don’t try for a polished essay.

Today, I have no focus. My mind is trying to digest many things. Do you ever have days like that?

To regain focus, I’ll get back to my to-do list and work on one thing at a time.

But now, I am thinking of a number of spiritual/leadership problems. About a podcast interview coming up in three hours. About five columns I must write–all with different topics. All today. About new business planning.

I’m thinking about team building. About how often we tend to just want to work alone. It’s not always easy to build a team and let the team members do their work without our trying to manage their every move (also known as “micromanaging,” one of the big sins of team building).

People usually want to help. How do we provide a way for them to help? To find their passion? To turn them on to what the Spirit is leading them to do?

How do we keep organizations and groups from splintering with each member going off on their own direction?

Maybe it is how to lead the leaders!

This is what happens when you return home after yet another week traveling. Trying to settle back into the home routine. Maybe after going out and running a few miles, I’ll be settled in.

By the way, you don’t have to sit in Lotus position or lie on the floor in corpse pose to meditate. Running or walking are also excellent places to mediate. I’m heading out to the park to meditate. See you tomorrow much refreshed.

There have been periods in my life where I had what is called a short temper. It wouldn’t take much to set me off. Part of that time I would get into physical fights with other boys. At that time I was probably about 12 or so.

I understand a little of the older son in Jesus’ parable of the man with two sons. Yesterday I talked about the younger son and his father and whether the father condoned the son. Today, I thought I’d look at the older son. The one, like my friend, who became angry out of some sense of justice gone awry.

We meet many people who call themselves Christians, yet they are judgmental, angry, almost bitter people. They seemingly love telling other  people their faults and relish the thought that other people are going to “roast in Hell.”

The father’s response to the older son was, in effect, calm down and look with perspective. Your brother was wrong. But that is in the past. He has come back to the family, and for that we rejoice.

Often, anger issues are personal issues. I see so much anger buried in Facebook posts that I sometimes stop and grieve for the people. Sometimes, we all need to stop and get a new perspective.

Once, when I was perhaps around 12, I was fighting another kid. Who knows why anymore. In my era, that’s what boys did. But I had one of those “out of body” experiences that the psychologist Roberto Assagioli taught that we should cultivate, where I was outside my physical body looking at the situation, and I thought, “Why am I doing this? This is stupid.” And I never did that again.

A life of meditation has calmed my emotions. In the past 20 years, there have only been two people who had the ability to get through that and touch that anger nerve. The last time was about five years ago, and I remember it vividly. That event serves as a reminder that I haven’t arrived at perfection, yet.

If you find yourself getting worked up about other people (whether it is a real person or a type of people), remember what Jesus had the father (representing God) in the story counsel. Take a deep breath, step back mentally, gain perspective, then love the other. Not condone, but love.

“Mommy, I didn’t intend to do that.”

“Ref, I didn’t intend to wipe out the other player, I was just going for the ball.”

We learn about intention at an early age. But we seem to use it more for an excuse rather than a way of life.

My reading last week must have emphasized intention a half-dozen times. Live with intention, they all said.

When you get up, begin the day be praying with intention. I meant to pray. I meant to pray for God to bring people into my life. I prayed with intention for the Holy Spirit to enter someone’s life. My life.

I look at my calendar and to-do lists early in the morning so that I can fix in my mind what I need to do. Then I decide if I intend to do all of them.

I choose books and magazines to read intentionally.

Some days we just seem to go through the motions with no intent. That’s when it’s time to focus on what sort of person we are becoming. Then, upon finding our focus, we can begin to live with intention again.

Right now? I intend to go out to the park and run for a while. Then I’ll participate in a conference call/press conference with the president of Honeywell Process Solutions. Then, I’ll think and write some more.