“Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.” — Ambrose Bierce
“How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! And the tongue is a fire.”—James
“A gentle tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness in it breaks the spirit.”—Proverbs of Solomon
We can know all these thoughts, and, yet, still we can say hurtful things..
The most important moment in your life can be the pause before answering someone. Or the pause between a thought and a response.
Thinking more on yesterday’s post (just scroll down one on the website). The Parable of the Sower and understanding when the soil is prepared for the growth of the Word.
Farmers in my area completed the harvest in a timely manner. The fields once hiding the view from rural roads now afforded a view across the way to the ponds and woods in the distance.
No sooner had they put away the harvesting machinery, out came the tillers. Soon most of the ground was tilled lying prepared through the winter for spring planting. Next May sprouts of corn and soy beans will green those dormant fields.
Returning to our church-going friend who wishes to share what a relationship with God means with another. I suggested beginning with a question. This acts in the same manner of tilling the soil. The soil (person) must be prepared for sowing the seed (Word). Otherwise, our well meaning person wastes time and effort, perhaps even alienating the other.
Let us now look at ourselves. We also must prepare our own soil for the Word to take root, grow, and multiply. We often find that best preparation is silence. Sitting in a supportive chair. Perhaps contemplating some story from Jesus. Silence. Allowing God to speak.
Walking in nature without Air Pods or headphones. Aware of the sounds of the season—birds, frogs, dogs, the wind, a train in the distance. In the silence of our head, we open ourselves in preparation for the planting of the Word. Or perhaps cultivating that Word already planted (maybe another contemplation from farming).
May I live this day
Compassionate of heart,
Clear in word,
Gracious in awareness,
Courageous in thought,
Generous in love.
John O’Donohue
I posted this a year or so ago. But I needed a refresher. Bet you did, too.
Many years ago I accepted a position as sales & marketing manger in a small electronics company. The product was a computer peripheral that appeared to solve a real problem for digital designers. This was early in the computer market. I had an idea of how to go to market. I didn’t know how short our financial runway was.
My position turned out to have been superseded by a newer way of going to market. We had no time. We went out of business.
I bet most of us have entered something with a fixed idea of how it works or what it means.
“I am sure that Jesus meant this when he said that,” only to face a question when someone asks, “But what about this?”
What would you do when confronted with another way of approaching something? Maybe a new way of reading Paul’s letters. Maybe a new way of thinking about what church really is. Maybe a new way of organizing your life.
The key question:
Do we have the courage to face a new thought and consider how we might change?
Sherlock Holmes, “The temptation to form premature theories upon insufficient data is the bane of our profession.”
We call it “jumping to conclusions.”
My mind forms a picture of a kid jumping over a water puddle following a rain. The jump is short landing the poor child in the deepest part of the puddle splashing water, becoming wet all over much to the parent’s chagrin.
I hired a young man newly graduated with a B.A. from a leading state school in Ohio for an entry level position. Something came up in conversation. He replied, “I took a course in that at university. I’m an expert.”
We read one part of a sentence from Scripture. We conclude we know everything about that idea. We read it in English. It was written in Greek.
We look at someone newly arrived. We note their clothes, height, weight, hair. We assume we know all about that person.
We know nothing.
We jumped into the middle of the puddle splashing bad thoughts all around.
We didn’t clear the puddle, that is gather sufficient data, in order to form a more accurate conclusion. Realizing that when more data arrives we may need to revise that conclusion.
Life is all about “I don’t know” and “I wonder about that”.
…is to leave the world a better place than you found it.
Do not fall into striving for social media success.
Do not measure success by the size of the house or the price of the car in the garage.
What do those matter?
Leaving a wake behind the boat of your life’s journey of peace, joy, calm, service.
That is success.
An exchange from The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien on moving forward despite the difficulties we face:
Frodo: “I wish none of this had happened.”
Gandalf: “So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”
People around the world recently survived democratic elections. The losers face worries about the future. The winners reside in hope that what they voted for actually works. Since politicians (as well as church leaders) promise much only to discover how hard change is, most will be disappointed.
What we as individual people can do is to take Gandalf’s advice, decide what to do with the time that is given us.
We can choose to follow Jesus’s examples and teachings, or we can live in an uncertain future in our minds.
I love it when modern social science discovers ancient wisdom. Reading in Adam Grant’s excellent book, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know, “Psychologists found that the more people value happiness, the less happy they often become with their lives.”
We can read in almost any ancient wisdom literature, such as the Proverbs in the Hebrew scriptures, this same wisdom.
Unfortunately, we seem to be living out the philosophy developed by Jeremy Bentham in the late 18th century and later publicized by John Stuart Mill, “it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong.”
Bentham pushed for many good social advancements that once adopted has made life better for many. He got this wrong.
But look around. Perhaps you, yourself, are captured by this idea and certainly many people around you, who think that life is all about the pursuit of happiness.
Happiness will not be found that way.
Happiness is a byproduct of pursuing a life of service to others. Service that is performed through a spiritual alignment with God regardless of your particular brand of faith.
We’re back from two weeks of travels. A car at one parking lot sported a bumper sticker “Jesus Is (insert your particular politics)”.
Jesus, in fact, never directly addressed that particular statement.
I understand the deep need to feel that God is on our side.
Maybe I pray that God will support Liverpool to win and Manchester City to lose. Or, to use an American analogy, the Kansas City Chiefs to win and the San Francisco 49ers to lose. Perhaps the other side prays the same thing only in reverse.
Does God really pick these sides? Can we really constrain the God that created the universe and everything within it to fit our desires?
I can see praying for the spirit to infuse my body and soul with healing power. To provide me strength and wisdom to make the wise decisions. To fill me with capacity to love others—even those I feel like not loving.
Let us ponder questions such as these. What kind of life did Jesus live? If we are living like Jesus, would we plaster a divisive bumper sticker on our car? Maybe instead a bumper sticker that said simply “Love Others Always.”
I saw this on Rich’s Ride blog
Our love will change the world, not our opinions.
This worked once a couple of thousand years ago. Followers of Jesus walked a different way such that they changed the world.
Today is election day in America. I hope all who are citizens are voting today—for my candidate, of course. 🙂
Oh, I guess I didn’t mention who that was. Oh, well…
I went to graduate school with an idea of earning a PhD in Political Science. Things happened. I wound up back in technology with a side of philosophy. Much better off. But I donate to candidates I like and will vote. And hopefully the months-long low level anxiety will leave. And my email folder and messages folder will grow strangely silent.
Paraphrasing John Mellencamp, Oh, yeah, life goes on, long after the thrill of the politicking is gone.
Gary Mintchell
Faith Venture 