Faith Venture

Anne Lamott told this story, “I heard an old man speak once, someone who had been sober for fifty years, a very prominent doctor. He said that he’d finally figured out a few years ago that his profound sense of control, in the world and over his life, is another addiction and a total illusion. He said that when he sees little kids sitting in the back seat of cars, in those car seats that have steering wheels, with grim expressions of concentration on their faces, clearly convinced that their efforts are causing the car to do whatever it is doing, he thinks of himself and his relationship with God: God who drives along silently, gently amused, in the real driver’s seat.”

Some of us have personalities that love control. We all know the control-freak bosses and teachers. They drive people like me, who are more of an independent type, crazy. These people, aka micro-managers, trust no one else to do a good job and tell us what and how to do everything. I can imagine them telling God the things he got wrong when he invented the universe.

Some people give up control. They let other people control their lives. They live in fear that they will be trampled by chaos, but they do not feel up to the responsibility and power to grab the reins and guide those horses. They look for someone strong to grab control.

One group won’t let God be in control; the other group doesn’t trust that God is in control.

God, however, doesn’t care what we think. He did start this whole thing moving and knows where it’s going. Trust that.

A brother came to Abba Theodore and began to converse with him about things which he had never yet put into practice. So the old man said to him, “You have not ye found a ship nor put your cargo aboard it and before you have sailed, you have already arrived at the city. Do the work first; then you will have the speed you are making now.”

You may think you are entitled to your opinion. Unless you have done the work of study and prayer first, no, you are not entitled to an opinion.

I have hired people in the past at entry positions who wondered how many months it would take before they’d be considered for president of the company. Unless you have done the work to learn the business and learn how to lead, you will only be president that quickly if your foolish dad owns the company.

I have watched craftspeople at work in awe of their skill. Then I realize the years of practice and learning behind that ability to form pottery on the wheel or pound out beautiful iron work or weave a beautiful carpet.

Do the work first, and then you will sail.

A story of a 4th Century Desert Father, Abba Bessarion.

A brother who had sinned was turned out of the church by the priest; Abba Bessarion got up and went with him saying, “I, too, am a sinner.”

How often do we look at other people and label them as sinners–perhaps even for things that are not a sin, just something we personally don’t like?

Yet, we are blind to ourselves, to our thoughts, to our actions.

Who among us has the strength and courage to follow this example of Father Bessarion and identify with the sinner?

We cannot even say, “But my sin is not as bad as that other person.” For, we must remember Paul’s argument in his letter to the Romans that all have sinned and fallen short. There is no relative scale. It is binary–sin or not sin. One human falls into the “not sin” category; all of the rest of us fall into the “sin” category.

Another saying of Abba Bessarion–do not compare yourself to others.

I scanned my current notebook. There it was. Big letters. Almost shouting out at me.

BE KIND

• To Yourself
• To Others
• To Nature

We must begin with ourselves, of course. How could we find the capacity to be kind to anyone or anything without that capacity within us?

Part of self-awareness is recognizing how we talk to ourselves. Do we constantly say bad things to ourselves about ourselves? What is our favorite word we call ourselves? Dummy? Ignorant? Worse than those?

Be kind to yourself. Exercise. Eat moderately and only “real” food. Give yourself an occasional treat. Stop dressing like a slob, show a little pride.

When I have calmed myself, I can find the capacity to be kind to others. Even the obnoxious others (you know who you are).

Get outside. Enjoy the air, flowers, trees, rain, snow, hills, and creeks. Be kind. Enjoy, but perhaps pick up litter and put in the small bag you pack for that purpose. Leave things a little better for the next person.

Today’s mantra to get into the spirit–and perhaps an able antidote to the toxicity of today’s political environment–Be Kind.

Yesterday, I thought about the words of the 4th Century Desert Father Poemen. He said those who seek to justify themselves are lost.

Yet, that almost seems to be the reason we grew a prefrontal cortex in our brain. Do we humans think simply to justify our actions and thoughts to others and ourselves?

People see through our justifications. We lose their trust. We lose their respect.

With training and practice we can develop awareness of our tendency to self-justify our bad behavior. We can see it developing and nip it in the bud.

We then recognize we have a choice. We can ignore the act. We can decide to own it. It is our choice to behave or speak one way or another.

With further practice, we learn to decided to own our mistakes and the hurt we may have caused.

At some point in the future with practice, we can decide earlier such that we avoid many, most, all (?) of them. We have decided to be a different kind of person. One who is respectful, trustworthy. We find a calmness. No longer are we anxious about how we appear–or try to say we don’t care.

That is why I suggest that New Year’s Resolutions be replaced by defining the person we want to be and writing a picture of that person. Then over the year we become that sort of person.

I didn’t make it to the appointment and didn’t call. I was busy with something else that was more important.

I couldn’t practice this week. I forgot about it and was too busy anyway.

I didn’t show up for the project, but I was working on something more important and it didn’t matter anyway.

–or–

I chose to do something else. I chose not to practice. I chose to ignore our date.

Abba Poemen, one of the 4th Century Desert Fathers, once said about the son of Shemai, “His mistake was to justify himself; whoever does that destroys himself.”

When a proud person thinks he or she is humble, then their case is lost.

Pride kills the soul.

Self-awareness guides our spiritual formation.

Personality assessments such as the Enneagram are useful only when used to probe for unconscious motivations and understanding tendencies. They also should be a guide toward wholeness as we work on those unhealthy parts of the personality.

Sometimes I think that Wisdom literature assumes that there is no cure for the proud person. I would hope there is. It’s called self-awareness. But an event must happen in our life that wakes us up.

We listen to the little boy who loudly proclaimed the emperor has no clothes!

That cloak of humility covering over our pride is actually transparent to all but the wearer.

Meditate on our thoughts until we can see–see ourselves in the mirror as others see us. The first step of growth.

My recent reading has led to a couple of lists of daily habits of successful people. I like lists. I make lists.

This list came from Richard Koch in his book The 80/20 Principle that I touched on yesterday. These are seven things he tries to do every day.

• Exercise
• Mental Stimulation
• Spiritual/Artistic stimulation/meditation
• Doing a good turn
• Taking a pleasure break with a friend
• Giving yourself a treat
• Congratulating yourself (at the end of the day)

These are actually common among successful people however you wish to define success.

Get the body moving, get the brain going, get in touch with your soul and God, do something good for someone during the day even just a random act of kindness, evaluating your day (Benjamin Franklin liked to begin the day with “what good shall I do today” and finish with a reflection “what good did I do today”.)

I liked Koch’s idea of a “pleasure break”–maybe a coffee or even a phone call. Sometimes we forget about ourselves. Get outside for a bit. Or allow yourself a scoop of ice cream.

The key is to be intentional about your day. Avoid just getting out of bed and drifting from one crisis or annoyance to the next. Avoid the things that get your negative emotions agitated.

And when the day is done, you can look back and say to yourself, “I’ve contributed today. Good!”

Richard Koch sat in a library at university in Oxford (England, not Ohio) and discovered the works of Vilfredo Pareto. Pareto was studying wealth in late 19th Century Italy and discovered that 20% of the people owned 80% of the wealth. And it was roughly the same in England. And in other countries.

Koch thought about that and eventually brought his thinking into a coherent statement in the book The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Achieving More with Less. Tim Ferriss used the same thinking when he reorganized the way he worked at his health food distributorship so that he could take time off for vacationing and experiences while still earning a substantial income which he also chronicled in The 4-Hour Work Week.

Koch expanded the idea that 20% of your resources (time, effort, money, etc.) give you about 80% of your outcomes (happiness, income, etc.).

20% of your study time yields 80% of your learning. You could figure out where you are getting less return on your study and emphasize what you do in the 20%. Maybe you spend 80% of your prayer time worrying about getting the cup of coffee or tea and getting the chair just right and only spend 20% actually praying. Realizing that, perhaps you reorganize to emphasize what that effective 20% is and feel better because you’ve increase your effective prayer time and perhaps saved some time.

Some people have taken this idea too far, of course, just like they can take other teachings or insights too far. But if you can get done with what you need to in less time, then you have time for other things you want to do. Read that stack of novels. Walk in the woods. Travel to other cities and countries (when we can travel again).

As you know, I have eclectic reading habits. Maybe I want to know everything about everything. Or, maybe I find insight in almost everything I read–even murder mysteries and business books.