Faith Venture

Yesterday I talked a bit about Advent. That is in the Church Calendar. It’s for “Church People”.

For most of us, it is “Christmas Season.”

With the season, come rushes of emotions.

Melancholy for past experiences.

Acute feelings of loss of family members.

Repressed anger for long-simmering family issues.

Depression (not clinical, or maybe) because everyone else seems to be enjoying the season (they are probably faking it).

We must dissociate those feelings from our being as individuals. We have feelings, we are not that feeling. We can observe them. Play with them. Pause and breathe mindfully.

We’ll survive the family gatherings, the business gatherings, the gatherings of friends, too much cakes and candies, worries of buying the wrong presents.

Real people, those without some sort of happy facade, have fears, and struggles, and doubts, and then also joy, and happiness, and peace. We actually can choose once we recognize where we are.

Take a deep breath. Pause. Choose to focus on the good parts.

Advent began Sunday.

It’s not something we practiced while I was growing up, nor one I’ve practiced since marriage.

Some think that it is related to Christmas. But, that is a relatively recent linkage in the history of the Christian church.

Some think Advent was practiced by the 5th Century (400s) as a time of fasting and preparation for baptisms on the Feast of Epiphany.

Some think that advent (the word comes from the Latin which is a translation of the Greek for coming) related (or relates?) to the second coming of Jesus when he’ll judge the world.

Looks like it was a time of recognition of God entering the world whatever the theology of the times called for.

The Celebration of Christ’s Birth (Christmas) is such an ingrained cultural phenomenon globally (even among people not wishing to be called Christian or even Jesus-followers) that Advent necessarily is tied to it today. Until a time when all that changes.

For me–my wife takes great joy in decorating the house in celebration of Christmas. I’m writing this staring at an accumulation of mugs once filled with mulled wine or hot chocolate from Chicago’s Christkindlmarket that come out every year with the addition of the latest one acquired on “Black Friday.”

So when I rise from sleep and go downstairs to read, meditate, and pray, I turn on the Christmas tree lights and meditate on the coming of Jesus into the world. I guess that is preparation for the coming.

That means we are risking something by doing something or advising something.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb advises in his latest book, Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life, that we should beware of advice from financial planners, consultants, and others who do not have skin in the game where they are advising.

How many people do you know who profess to be Christian (or, for that matter Jewish, Muslim, or Buddhist) yet when you look at their life you cannot differentiate it from the life of a pagan or anyone else?

That is why only part of the Spiritual Disciplines address inner work.

And only part address gathering with other, like-minded souls.

Part addresses having “skin in the game”, that is, getting up off your (butt) and serving someone–or many someones.

The work need not be publicized. However, over time people will reflect “there is a person who actually acts like someone who is spiritually in tune with God”. Or, “she is a genuinely nice person”. Or, “they have skin in the game”.

Doing, not just saying, puts skin in the game.

[Oh, I don’t recommend the book unless you’re interested in the mathematics of probability or are into philosophical discussions. If you are, read The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable first.]

In the realm of the soul–walking with God, living the with-God life.

In the realm of the individual–virtue, don’t do to others that which you don’t want them to do to you.

In the realm of the social, of the groups of people–justice, construct laws that provide for the greatest justice for the greatest number, aka “Liberty and Justice for all”. Neither the “it’s all about me” or the cynical “reward my friends”.

It seems there is no escaping Black Friday.

The emails began on Wednesday, trickled through yesterday (Thanksgiving), and hit in full force this morning.

It is the Friday after Thanksgiving and the official start of Christmas shopping (buying) season. Thanksgiving is a US holiday (on this date anyway). Yet, my messages have come from Europe as well as the US. Perhaps even Asia.

First up this morning was a message from the Polish developers of my “Getting Things Done” app offering four free months with a one-year renewal for Black Friday. I’ve had messages from France, Germany, and the UK. Maybe more.

I know that retail is a tough business. Unless you’re WalMart, you’re not making large amounts of profits. Business plans are often built around a spike in sales in December.

Consumer buying supports the country’s economy. It enables worldwide manufacturing and distribution jobs.

It is your patriotic duty in many countries to buy.

This all conflicts with my natural inclination toward the spiritual discipline of simplicity. Although, giving is also a spiritual gift. But, how much must we give for Christmas? And there is financial discipline. Don’t spend more than you have.

We began our Christmas season with the annual watching of “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.” Let the holiday music begin…

In America, today’s Thanksgiving.

If only for one day, pause and thank someone for something.

If for no other reason than it is beneficial for your own physical and mental health.

Thank you for following.

My mom was Midwestern traditionalist all the way through. Holidays were to be celebrated according to tradition on the appointed day.

To my wife, the second time she does something–say visit the Christkindlmarkt in downtown Chicago on “Black Friday”–becomes a tradition.

Many countries now celebrate some form of Thanksgiving. Tomorrow is the day in the US. Most of the people of the country will be traveling today.

We celebrate on a day called Thanksgiving thanks originally to a woman who wrote letters to the Presidents for 40 years pleading for a day observing Thanks. Abraham Lincoln looking for a symbol of unity for a divided nation (think it’s bad now, try living in the 1850s and 1860s) proclaimed a holiday for Thanksgiving.

But it soon became a commercial holiday as retailers jumped on a way to promote sales. By the late 1930s, it was so well known as a commercial holiday that Franklin Roosevelt tried to move it up a week to get people in the buying mood earlier to help spend us out of the Great Depression. But tradition said, leave it alone.

Tradition and Commerce. The foundation and structure of the holiday.

We don’t have to wait for one day a year to offer gratitude. It is a spiritual discipline. I have a recurring “to do” in my app that pops up every week that reminds me to slow down for a moment and reflect on everything for which I am, or should be, grateful.

It’s too bad I need the reminder.

…as you would have them do unto you.

Or refrain from doing to others that which you would not like them doing to you.

This is individual to individual; but it also can be group to group; country to country.

When you have made things theoretical, a universal law of sorts, when you live in generalizations…

Then you are free to not practice the Golden Rule or its inverse the Silver Rule.

When I make it a theory that a certain group of people are outside my preferred grouping, then I am free to treat them exactly the opposite of how I wish to be treated.

Take white people’s treatment of black people, for example. Or “straight” people’s treatment of “gay” people. Or men’s treatment of women.

Jesus, for example, took the Jewish tribal law (which by the way was most likely derived from a more ancient law) and applied it generally for individuals of any group toward individuals of any another group.

Living a with-God life is not intellectual or theory. It is lived minute-by-minute, person-to-person in the hard realities of daily life.

We are judged on how we treat each individual person by our actions or policies. Not by being holier than some other group. When we recognize the struggle other people go through and provide help–that is the Golden Rule. It lies not in pointing fingers at others.

Amongst all my studying, there are two disciplines that evoke the most confusion.

Interpretation of Christian theology.

Fitness and nutrition.

I just listened, for example, to two MDs interviewed. One had done the usual thing–discovered one molecule and extrapolated into a book and then a writing/speaking career.

Talking about good and bad foods, one MD said stay away from peanuts and peanut butter–it’ll kill you.

I hit pause. What?? Those are nutritionally dense foods you can snack on and not gain weight.

He went on, “I was at a conference where a doctor from Harvard said they feed lab rats peanut butter when they want them to develop atherosclerosis.”

Interest piqued, I researched. Found at least 25 papers on nutritional benefits of peanut butter.

It worries me that even a highly trained medical doctor who runs around the country espousing his “wisdom” would develop a teaching from an offhand comment.

Same with spiritual matters.

Someone lifts one comment or aside from a writing of a Gospel writer or from an apostle and develops a speaking/writing career spreading confusion and misinformation.

I still remember vividly where I was and what I was doing on another November 22 some 56 years ago.

And there was 9/11/2001 (can you believe 18 years ago now?).

Some people remember the day vividly when they met Jesus. Or their spouse-to-be.

I don’t remember the first time I began the contemplative life. But I have imprinted experiences along the way.

Sometimes scientists studying animal life talk of imprinting desired actions in the brains of young.

We all have certain ways of thinking and acting imprinted in our brains by our parents (do you walk the same way your mother walked?) or more likely by our peers.

Many of these we need to grow beyond and set aside in the quest for maturity.

I can look back and see the way I was at 17 and the way I am now and marvel at the changes mostly due to self-awareness that comes from spiritual disciplines of contemplation and meditation with a feedback loop from deep study of spiritual things.

I hope you are all growing past those youthful thoughts and actions into a changed and more mature direction.

The tricky thing is retaining the energy and enthusiasm of our youth and integrating with a more humble and wiser life.