Faith Venture

Mr. McCarty taught high school chemistry. When we didn’t have him off the track discussing model airplanes or aquariums, he would present an equation. We were expected to memorize that equation and then use it to solve a chemical balance reaction.

The good students did just that. They got A’s.

Then there was me. I sat there wondering, “How do they know that?” There was no satisfaction with simply memorizing an equation and working it. That was simple. I wanted to know the process involved in discovering that equation.

Already by age 10 I had been reading biographies of people who discovered things. That’s where my interest inhabited.

Whether reading scriptures or the writings of spiritual seekers (such as Thomas Merton, Pierre Teilhard, St. John of the Cross, and so forth), do you ever wonder “How do they know that?”

Whether reading something 3,000 years old or 50, the answer is they experienced it.

When I read something from a spiritual seeker, I can relate it to my experience of God and say it rings of the truth. Or, I can sniff out a fraud.

If you have not yet experienced God, that is why we have spiritual practices. The disciplines of awareness, intention, openness, along with prayer, study, mediation combine to lead you to the experience. Then you know.

A chemist experiences by repeating the experiment and observing the same result as others. A spiritual seeker also experiences by repeating the practices of thousands of years of others and the experience will come.

Today, I will be open to the experience of God.

I cannot remember when the thought impacted me that I should integrate the various aspects of my thinking. It came to me as I pondered something called First Principles thinking.

Let’s let entrepreneur (and not all-around nice guy, but look at what he has done) Elon Musk explain. “First principles is kind of a physics way of looking at the world. You boil things down to the most fundamental truths and say, ‘What are we sure is true?’ … and then reason up from there.”

What are the first principles of following Jesus, and indeed, for spiritual formation?

Jesus replied: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Then Jesus told stories and used metaphor to teach what that meant.

For those beginning at least 1,000 years before him and continuing 2,000 years after who search the scriptures for lists of rules to follow, he said things like You are like a cup, cleaned on the outside, but full of crud on the inside.

To what it means to love your neighbor and answer the question as to whom is my neighbor, he told the story we call The Good Samaritan.

In our spiritual formation, do we turn to God in various ways every day such that we are intimate—prayer, meditation, study, singing, and so on? What have we done today that shows love toward our neighbor like the traveling Samaritan who cared for the traveler who was beaten?

When we are making decisions, whether for ourselves or our group, do we stop and apply first principles thinking toward our decision-making process?

That would make all the difference.

My wife and I just finished a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle. When I closed my eyes, I saw the puzzle pieces pattern. When I went to bed before sleep, I saw the pattern. I could stare at my computer screen and if my eyes were defocused, I would see the pattern overlaid.

What if we mentally stepped back and looked at the pattern to our lives. Perhaps over the past year. Perhaps projecting to this new year. What are our daily habits and routines? Our routine interactions with other people? What to we read, watch, and see?

Are these routines serving us in our quest for a life with-God?

Pause…breathe…reread that last question.

What one little thing could I change starting right this moment to make things better? One habit? One thing I allow into my consciousness? One interaction?

Decide and act. Now. Today.

Pause and reflect periodically. Maybe monthly. Maybe weekly. What pattern am I following?

Ryan Holliday writing in the Daily Stoic about Emperor/Philosopher Marcus Aurelius pointed out that too often we worry about other people when we have enough to worry about with ourselves.

Be open to the idea that people are going to be fools or jerks or unreliable or anything else. Let them be. That’s their business. That’s not inside your control. Leave other people to themselves. You have enough to worry about.

Ryan Holliday

I believe Jesus had something similar in mind when he asked why we worried about the piece of dust in someone else’s eye while ignoring the log in our own.

If we follow Jesus’ advice on living with love, we will improve ourselves. By improving ourselves, we improve those around us.

I am finally seriously focused on this blog post. Should have been done four hours ago. I have two posts to do for my other blog. There is a book to read about consciousness lying on my desk. I have sketched out four podcasts, but I have not recorded one since the first part of October.

Procrastination.

I bet no one else suffers from that malady.

Psychologists may tell me that the problem is fear. I’m afraid to start because it may not be good enough. I’m afraid to start because the initial idea may not carry through for the entire piece. I’m afraid to record the podcast because it is also video and my hair looks terrible. What will people think? If I read that book, I may learn something that changes my view of the world.

But, if I take the first step from fear to uncomfortableness I know the momentum will carry me through. There–here is the first one done. Now for the next step.

What is holding you back?

You got up at the new time. You face the treadmill or Peloton. But the desire to get fit hides behind the feeling of being uncomfortable getting on the machine and the uncertainty that it’ll be worth the effort in the end.

You decide that you need to study the teachings of Jesus this year. But you’re uncertain about where to begin as you take a chair and hold a Bible. Or you read the beginning of the parable and you’re uncomfortable with where this is going in relation to your life.

You must be able to withstand being uncomfortable and uncertain for a few minutes as you move past those initial misgivings and emerge into a new and improved you.

Try it; you may like it in the end.

The Internet is overflowing with information. One could spend a lifetime on Wikipedia immersed in things to learn. Just trying to remember everything in the Bible could take more than a lifetime.

Interested in health? The chemical and biological systems within just the human body, or even just one subsystem of the human body would take a lifetime to learn. That leaves no time for philosophy, psychology, the interoperability of the environment with life, or how computers work, or how to stop the VCR from flashing 12:00.

The best alternative is to choose what to study with intention. Instead of the entire New Testament, how about just being an expert on the Sermon on the Mount? Instead of reading 50 books this year, perhaps study one good book—maybe The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky? Or Shakespeare? Or NT Wright?

Maybe making this a year of focus would be worthwhile.

I picked this up from yesterday’s reading:

Sports writer Andy Benoit on how geniuses work: “Most geniuses—especially those who lead others—prosper not by deconstructing intricate complexities but by exploiting unrecognized simplicities.” Source: Sports Illustrated

From James Clear Newsletter

A couple of items of news germane only to me came my way yesterday. Doesn’t matter specifics here. But the point was how different types of Christians pick up and hold views that disparage or outright reveal hatred toward other humans—even other people who are trying to follow Jesus.

We humans devise complex theologies and rationalizations to justify to ourselves that our belief are OK.

But…

When I see this, it drives me back to the unrecognized simplicity of following Jesus—

He answered, “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’ and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ”

All we have to remember is that love is an action verb not an emotion.

Love God with such actions as study the word, converse, contemplate, worship, serve.

Love our neighbor by putting them before us, doing acts of kindness and service, holding them up (not bringing them down).

Like many simple things—it’s hard to do. It requires practice. Like the young violin player lost on the streets of Manhattan who asked a fellow pedestrian, “How do I get to Carnegie Hall?” The reply, “Practice.”

James Clear wrote Atomic Habits, a worthwhile companion to Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit. He wrote this in a recent newsletter, “Slowing down enables you to act in a high quality way. Kind rather than curt. Polished rather than sloppy. It’s hard to be thoughtful when you’re in a rush.”

These thoughts when incorporated into our daily life change our effectiveness and maybe even our health.

Imagine acting with quality in every interaction and everything we do. Our work improves. Our relationships improve. Slowing down while eating quality foods impacts our health.

When we slow down, we will notice other people. Not being in a rush, we can take time to be kind rather than curt or brusque.

Imagine yourself turning in polished work at your job or nonprofit organization or your church. See the impact quality work has on others and on your own self-esteem.

Some people set a goal and find a guide to reading the Bible in a year. You must go through many pages every day. What if you took one gospel, say Mark, or maybe part of a gospel, say the Sermon on the Mount, and read through it slowly and thoughtfully over the course of the year? Or maybe a deep spiritual teacher like one book of Thomas Merton or Henri Nouwen or even an ancient like Augustine of Hippo?

I think before I have quoted a former Navy SEAL, Jocko Willink, who advised, “Slow is smooth; smooth is fast.”

You could do worse for yourself in 2022 than bring this into your life. I know from experience.