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Archive for the ‘Wisdom’ Category

What If You Cannot Start Your Day Perfectly

December 20, 2022

My bed has sensors and a microcontroller and networking. When I get up for the day, I can open the app and learn about my night. How much restful sleep, how much restless. How long it took me to fall asleep. Whether I met my proper circadian rhythm, spent enough time in bed, got enough restful sleep. The little computer runs through a calculation and gives me a “Sleep IQ” number.

My daughter is a therapist who numbers among her clients many people–especially teenagers–with anxiety problems often driven by the need to succeed. This number would push them even further along their spectrum. OMG, I didn’t get a 90. I’m a failure at sleep, too!

Yesterday I wrote about a way to orient yourself to a new day. It is good to have a discipline to help orient yourself to the new day.

But life happens. Sometimes you cannot hit the mark. Maybe you slept late because people came over to visit. Or there was a party. Or that chili you had for dinner talked to you all night.

Or, you have an early appointment. Or, you just feel like crap.

It’s like my Sleep IQ number. Yesterday I was 87; today I’m 60. But I still feel OK. If I look at the numbers one day at a time, I can feel good or let that low number ruin my day.

Or, I can look at a long term, say over a month or two, and realize that if I plotted those points on a graph they are actually pretty consistent.

I can get all worked up over missing a part of my morning routine and let it ruin my day.

Or, I can shrug and say “life happens” and make the best of the rest of the day. We learn to just go with the flow.

The goal is consistency over time. It is not being perfect every day. They tell me that Jesus was perfect every day (but he also lost his temper a few times). No one else has ever been recorded as being perfect every day. It certainly isn’t going to be me that breaks that string.

What has helped me learn this? One is consistent, but far from perfect, meditation practice. Another is Yoga. Another is this rural country boy learning to drive in Chicago rush hour traffic that screams along at about 5 miles per hour (8 kilometers per hour). You learn to slow your body rhythm and go with the flow. Your are better off at the end.

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Memorizing Does Not Wisdom Make

October 31, 2022

Aphorism from Nassim Nicholas Taleb, “Just as eating cow meat doesn’t turn you into a cow, studying philosophy does not make you wiser.”

Seth Godin points out that memorizing A and then memorizing B does not make you smarter. Saying B is similar to A begins to add knowledge. Metaphor (or simile) trumps memorization.

We can read and memorize as many passages of scriptures as our brains can hold. That will not bring us closer to simply following Jesus. He said in many guises, Love one another as I have loved you.

Reflecting on what we’ve read, digesting in the attitude of loving others, acting on what we know–now we are approaching wisdom.

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In The Image of God

October 20, 2022

The first story in the Hebrew Scriptures (Christian “Old Testament”) has become a source of contention among those who read spiritual writing in various ways. Some think it’s science (something unheard of 3,000 years ago when this was written). Others have other concepts.

Perhaps we miss the important point. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, former “Chief Rabbi” in England provided this analysis.

“What makes the first chapter of Genesis so revolutionary is its statement that every human being, regardless of class, color, culture, or creed, is in the image and likeness of God himself. We know that in the ancient world it was rulers, kings, emperors, and pharaohs who were held to be in the image of God. So what Genesis was saying was that we are all royalty. We each have equal dignity in the kingdom of faith under the sovereignty of God.”

We should pause. And then pause further. And then let it steep into our very DNA. And then upon meeting another one of God’s children or reading about another one of God’s children, let this knowledge that we have equal dignity in the kingdom of God guide our reactions. If we all could do that, wouldn’t this be a better place to live?

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Enough Is A Feast

September 26, 2022

Enough is a feast.

Everywhere you look or listen, others tell us we Americans must pursue more. This is no doubt true in many other parts of the world. Messages from advertising, TikTok, YouTube, friends tell us we need more clothes, more cosmetics, more money, bigger house, new car. If you are not seeking a promotion at work, you are a failure.

A man came to Jesus and asked him to tell his brother to give him more of an inheritance. Jesus replied with a story. A farmer had a bountiful crop. He had so much that he planned to tear down his barns and build bigger ones to hold all the grain. Then God said to the farmer, “Fool, today your soul will be demanded of you. Now, of what use will the bigger barns be.”

Jesus offered the point of the story. “This is what happens when you fill your barn with Self rather than God.”

When we know where are true priorities are, then striving for more is a waste. Enough is a feast.

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Truth

September 9, 2022

As far as I can remember I have been on a journey seeking truth. I had not idea what it would be when I found it. But “it” had to be out there somewhere.

Even studying the sciences, that was in the back of my mind. When I describe God in terms of quantum physics, my poor Reformed friends just shake their heads. They know what truth is and have no need to explore.

I wasn’t satisfied.

I wrote a paper as a freshman in university about the concept of truth revealed in Henrik Ibsen’s play/poem Peer Gynt. It’s stuck with me ever since.

Truth isn’t a statement. A belief. Something that separates me from other people such that I can feel justified hating or killing them.

Truth was a journey. Sort of like the peeling of an onion. Layer after layer. Day by day. I live today for the day. I learn something new today. I serve someone today. I grow a bit today. Some days I’m closer to God; some days I’m farther away. But God is always around me.

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When You Are Empty, Then You Can Be Filled

August 16, 2022

I’ve been reading the Christian Bible, the New Testament, in a different translation. I like to do that. The new choices of words open my mind enabling deeper insights into meaning. These sentences are the first two “Beatitudes” or the opening words of the way Matthew presented what we call The Sermon on the Mount.

You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.
Your blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the one most dear to you.

Both of these speak to our condition. When we are too full of ourselves, too full of our competence, importance, possessions, people, then we have no room for God.

The presentation seems to prepare us for all the teaching that follows throughout Matthew chapters 5, 6, 7.

We should not have the hubris to dive in and just read those teachings as if we can easily pick up the meaning. We must begin, much like the 12-step program, by recognizing our limitations, by emptying our self-importance. Then we can appropriately approach what Jesus is trying to teach us.

Scholars, both professional and amateur, miss the next point which is the conclusion of of the sermon:

Whoever hears these words and does them…

Posted in Disciplines, Doing, Wisdom | Leave a Comment »

What Are We Doing With Our Time

July 18, 2022

Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’
Into the future
Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’
Into the future
Steve Miller Band

My morning reading took me to the Stoic philosopher who sounds almost Christian at times. Seneca talked about how we easily allow others to take our time. We rush to meetings. Take trips we didn’t need. Say yes when no was a better answer.

What are we doing with that most precious of resources?

We must determine what is a waste of time and what is valuable. Sometimes just sitting is valuable. Sometimes listening overrides talking. Working on the most important task has become a time management proverb–but, make it what is most important to us, not to someone else.

Pete Seeger composed a song laden with meaning from the Hebrew book of Ecclesiastes popularized by The Byrds

To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn)
There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn)
And a time to every purpose, under Heaven
Pete Seeger

Know our time.

Know our season.

Know our purpose.

Maybe like the Steve Miller Band in the next chorus of the song

I want to fly like an eagle
To the sea
Fly like an eagle
Let my spirit carry me
I want to fly like an eagle
Till I’m free
Steve Miller Band

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Productivity Misconceptions

July 15, 2022

I still remember the theme of the first personal development speaker at the first management conference I attended–TRY…EASY.

Try to do a good job. Try to get it done. But don’t kill yourself doing it.

This was probably 10 years before Yoda told Luke Skywalker, “Do or do not. There is no try.” But that’s a different story.

That speaker gave all the attendees a DayTimer planner. I’ve been through so many different systems over the following 40 years, I should have saved them and started a productivity museum. The last thing I used was computer-based called Nozbe, loosely based on David Allen’s Getting Things Done methodology. I even have a category on this web site for productivity.

Some people, perhaps many people especially in Silicon Valley of the 90s and aughts, following productivity guru Frederick Taylor thought of productivity as “how much more can I get done in my 70-hour work week”.

Tim Ferriss published The 4-Hour Work Week in 2007. It was sort of an anti-productivity book in the sense above. Cal Newport somewhat later published Deep Work. Both of these talked about getting the important things done while leaving time for hobbies, family, leisure, and the like. That is, until they were co-opted by the “how much more can I get done in my 70-hour work week” crowd.

These days I have a list of things I need to accomplish. I work on these for a set number of hours a day, then set aside other time for other things–reading, guitar, whatever.

We don’t need more. We need enough. Or, as a retired US Navy SEAL taught me, “Slow is easy; easy is fast.”

TRY…EASY

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Right and True

July 14, 2022

If it’s not right, don’t do it;
If it’s not true, don’t say it.
Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor and Stoic

Preacher and teacher Andy Stanley teaches this simple thought, “Pay attention to the tension.”

There is a moment, often fleeting, between the impulse to do something and the action.Sometimes in that moment there arises a tension within us. This may not be the right thing to do. How often we ignore that tension, do the deed, then regret it.

If it is not right, do not do it. How, by paying attention to the tension.

The Apostle James teaches how the tongue is the mightiest muscle in the body. Just like a small rudder steers a great ship, the small tongue guides us causing all manner of mischief. Sometimes just before we hit “post” on social media when we are passing along something we heard, Stanley’s tension pulls at the back of our mind. If we pause before we post, we can save ourselves grief.

If it is not true, do not say it. Or post it on social media.

Posted in Disciplines, Doing, responsibility, Wisdom | Leave a Comment »

Motives

June 24, 2022

People who lived prior to 1890 or so described emotional/psychological issues as caused by spirits. Or demons. In “Discernment of the Spirits,” the anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing describes someone driven by the spirits of wrath, malice, and wickedness.

“For that wicked accursed wretch will sometimes change his likeness into that of an angel of light, in order that, under the color of virtue, he may do more mischief. He leads them on…always under the pretext of devotion and charity, not because he takes any delight in works of devotion or of charity, but because he loves dissension and scandal.”

Does that describe anyone you know? Church leader? Politician? Neighbor? Yourself?

Discern carefully the spirit of those you meet. Some will be genuinely full of the spirits of love (charity) or devotion. Others may be masking anger, anxiety, fear, or just plain wickedness.

Always be aware.

Posted in Awareness, emotions, Wisdom | Leave a Comment »

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