It’s Not Where We’re Going, It’s What We Do

February 19, 2014

My study is in a period of John. One of my small groups is reading the Gospel, another the Revelation. I’m more interested in the Gospel.

I’ve been reflecting on all my readings of the Gospels over the past 50 years or so. The thought popped up some time ago–the message of the Gospels and indeed the message of Jesus rarely had anything to do with heaven and hell.

Many of my friends devote many cycles of their brain functioning worrying about who is going to heaven and who is going to hell.

Mostly the message is all about our relationships. Primarily our relationship to God. That determines our relationships to money (often a topic) and to others. That may be why thinkers such as Richard Foster and Dallas Willard talk so much about the “with-God” life.

I started to meditate in my late teens. The theory was that you meditated to achieve “enlightenment” or a God experience. Many contemplatives have written about their revelations and experiences. I have also on occasion.

But this old Zen proverb just came to my attention again–“Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.”

It’s not about enlightenment, God experiences or who’s going to heaven. It’s about what we do and how we do it and our motivations in the next minute. I often ask my students, “When you leave this room, what will you do? How will you act? What will be your attitude?”

Am I living with-God minute-by-minute? It’s the relationship.

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Our Body as a Temple

February 18, 2014

I grew up in a German community in rural west central Ohio. Although by my mom’s generation, speaking the language was beginning to die out. My mom was from a “mixed” marriage–a German-speaking Alsatian and a woman of Welsh heritage. I don’t believe she ever spoke German.

But, I heard German spoken around town as a kid. We picked up words. But the words had no emotional impact. I learned later, much to my embarrassment during my first trip to Germany, that some of the words had great emotional impact. Sort of like dropping the “F-bomb” in church.

From that lesson, I learned that while reading the Bible or other works in translation I should try to be aware of the emotional impact of words on the first readers even when the emotional impact in me is slight.

John places the story of Jesus cleansing the Temple early in his Gospel. John transitions from a story about keeping the Temple–an emotion-laden word–pure to talking about the Temple as Jesus’ body.

Paul, writing to the church in Corinth, takes this concept (realizing he probably never read the Gospel of John, but he no doubt knew John and talked with him) further and talked about our bodies as the Temple of the Holy Spirit.

Paul talked about what goes into and what comes out of our bodies. He talked about the proper use of our bodies.

I’m like most of the people in America, I suppose. I keep saying I need to lose 10 lbs. But really what I wind up doing is maintaining my 175 plus or minus 5. I really should be 165 for my 5’10” frame.

So, while saying one thing, I’ll watch some sporting event on TV on Sunday afternoon and eat a bag of potato chips. Or order the big meal on a business trip. And convince myself I’m tired and cut my workout short.

There are others who do much worse. Sex with the wrong people. Greatly overeating. Drugs. Too much wine.

It is good to make the link back from our obsession with looks to Paul’s analogy of the Temple to John’s use of the word relative to Jesus’ body to Temple as the place to worship God. Our bodies are where we actually house the Spirit and worship God. Let’s keep it clean.

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Misinterpreting Requests

February 17, 2014

I was perhaps eight or nine. On first base in a Little League game. Don’t remember how that happened, since it was not a common occurrence. The next kid hit a pop fly. The coach (my dad) yelled, “Tag up.” Well, I knew to go back to the base and wait. So, I interpreted that as “tag up and go.” So, I did. Got thrown out at second. Dad asked what in the world was I thinking. I said, you told me to go.

We were discussing the story of the wedding feast in Cana as told by John. Mary, being one of the few people perceptive of other people’s situations, noticed that the wine was about gone. That would result in humiliation for the bridegroom. She knew that.

She asked her oldest son (or only son if you’re Catholic, but we won’t go there) to do something.

At this point, we all know the story, so we assume that she meant for Jesus to perform a miracle. Someone suggested, we don’t know what she had in mind. Maybe she just meant for Jesus to gather his new friends and run to the store and buy some more. The writer never says.

We just know that Jesus interpreted it as a strong request to perform a miracle. He said, “Woman, my time is not yet come.” Weird comment.

But then he began issuing commands. He took charge of the situation. Mary tells the others to do what he says (good mother, she is).

I love theology and literary tricks. I take the miracle from that point of view that Jesus, whether he knew it there or not but probably did, changed water meant for Jewish purification rites into Communion wine (you saved the best wine for last, said the steward to the bridegroom, surely an ironic statement). A different sort of purification.

But what if it all started because he thought his mother meant one thing, and he interpreted it as another?

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Controlling Urges

February 14, 2014

Urges. That sometimes overwhelming feeling to do something. The moment before the brain kicks in and says, “Wait a minute. That’s a stupid idea.”

Ever been there? Oh, come on, remember being a kid? An adolescent? I do all too well. I never would want to go back there.

Paul talked about “when I was a child, I acted like a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”

Last week I had meetings at my Chicago office and we stayed at our son’s house. Our 6-yr-old grandson would sit there occasionally and do things to his 4-yr-old sister. Just little things. Reach out and touch annoyingly. Hit her toy. Whatever.

We can yell at him for tormenting her (remembering that the reverse happens, too. But what are we trying to teach him? It is that a mature person controls those urges.

As we reach adolescence, the urges that bubble up within us multiply. And they can cause much more serious problems both for us and for others than simple annoyance.

When I look at society over the past 25 years or so, I see so many people who grow up physically, but who still act like a child (or adolescent). Some will blame media or parents. And they exacerbate the problem at times. Certainly role models of maturity are often scorned or ignored. They get into the way of “fun.”

We have 4,000 years of wisdom that teaches about how to live a mature life. Yet, we have to teach and remember it every day. Part is to just remind the little ones as they grow to recognize and control their urges.

We must also, as we grow, learn to recognize and control our urges.

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Release Hidden Tensions

February 7, 2014

Neighbors called the rescue squad. There was something unusually quiet about the apartment of the old woman. They entered, found her in distress, and took her to the hospital. She had one hand tightly clenched into a fist. They could not get her to release. Finally, a doctor in the emergency room pried open her hand. Inside was a quarter.

Henri Nouwen tells this story in the beginning of his book “With Open Hands.” It is an image that has stayed with me for many years. The image of someone desperately hanging on to something valuable. So incredibly tensed up. Hanging on.

Jesus told stories about people trying to hang on to things. And he taught about the futility of that. Today I’m told there is a TV series (maybe more than one) about “hoarders” who can’t bear to throw anything away.

I’d like to relate this to the mindfulness discussion I started with this week. And prayer–which is where Nouwen took the story.

Part of being mindful is to open up. Become open to the world around you. Become open to God. You cannot walk around and really be with people if you are tensed up with worry about things which are of no value to God and actually impede your relationship with God and people.

In Yoga, I put people into positions where they hold a pose designed to stretch and strengthen a  particular muscle or muscle group. Then I will suggest that they do a mental scan of their bodies at that time. If we are working the upper leg muscle (say in Warrior pose), we discover often that we are holding tension in our shoulders. We should not be holding tension there. We should only be working the leg muscle. We remind ourselves to relax.

While warming up, I will have the class in sitting position cross-legged on the mat. We sit erect, stretch our arms out straight, then bring the palms of the hands together in front. Breathing deeply, we bring our arms back until we are pinching the shoulder blades together. We put the thought in our minds that we are opening ourselves up to greet the day. Then we bring our arms forward on the exhale and put the thought in our minds that we are releasing all the tensions of the day. Repeat about 4-6 times.

We have our minds and bodies intentionally working together alert to the moment–and only the moment. Now we can pray.

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Give the Gift of Your Attention

February 4, 2014

Give whatever you are doing and whomever you are talking with the gift of your attention. Jim Rohn

My thoughts on mindfulness resonated with many yesterday. There are three words, or concepts, that play well together–attention, focus, and mindfulness.

In my youth, I loved the murder mystery series by Earle Stanley Gardner about the legendary attorney, Perry Mason. There was a comment Gardner made about Mason’s personality that stuck. “He had such great power of concentration that he could move from the murder case he was on to complete concentrate on another case.”

Our current age is marked by “multi-tasking.” That’s a term borrowed from microprocessor hardware developement. Chips can be so designed that they partition off parts and can therefore support many tasks running simultaneously. Humans think they can do the same thing. (Actually, the chips usually use “time slicing” where moving at an extremely rapid speed, they work on each task a little at a time and it only appears to the much slower humans that the tasks are accomplished simultaneously.)

Humans cannot multi-task. Period. Humans can try time-slicing. Doesn’t work well.

When you are at a task, give it the gift of your attention. When you are in conversation with someone, give that person the gift of your attention (ouch, my weakness at times).

There is a mindfulness diet. It’s not what you eat (but please make good choices). It’s how you eat. What was the taste of the last thing you ate? The texture? Are you like so many humans who eat so quickly that the flavors and textures are lost in the speed of eating?

In the mindfulness diet, take a bite of food. Stop your hand and arm motion. Chew the food with attention. Notice the flavors, aromas, textures. Enjoy it. Then, and only then, take the next bite. By slowing down and becoming aware of the food, we actually eat less. For most of the people in the world, that’s a good thing.

Don’t fall into a trap thinking this is only a Buddhist or New Age concept. If you carefully read the stories about Jesus, not for what he said, but to gain a sense of how he acted and related. He had marvelous powers of concentration and focus. Remember him being startled by the woman who touched him seeking healing? He was concentrating elsewhere when he felt energy leaving him.

Thank you for your attention 😉

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A Little Mindfulness Every Day

February 3, 2014

It is better to master your attention than to have a to-do list.

I try to practice the discipline of Getting Things Done (book by that name by David Allen). The practice is to write down everything on your mind so that it is free to concentrate on the task at hand. You write down ideas about tasks you need to do, projects to be completed, what you’d like to do this day/month/year. Then your mind is empty and you can turn your attention to the immediate task that needs to be done.

Being digital, I use an application called Nozbe (affiliate link) to keep track of and organize my list.

Michael Sliwinski created Nozbe and then started “Productive! Magazine” to write more about practices for Getting Things Done. You can download the magazine to your tablet via the App Store. In a recent issue, Augusto Pinaud discusses the importance of where you place your attention.

Do you focus your attention on the task at hand? Or does your attention drift? In her book “Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes,” Maria Konnikova begins with a discussion of the ability to be mindful–the ability to focus attention. Holmes was observant of the smallest detail because he was mindful–his attention was focused in the present and on what he was seeing.

I believe Jesus exhibited the same characteristic. He took time alone to be with God. When he was with people his attention was focused on people–so much so that he could see right through to their needs and motivations.

There are health benefits to slowing down for 15 minutes or so every day. Just practicing mindfulness, placing attention on the breath or a phrase or a single thought. The spiritual benefits are greater if you place your attention on spiritual things–a story from the Bible, for example.

I thought I’d start off the week suggesting we organize our week around mindfulness, attention, focusing on the right things. I do this to remind myself as much as to teach others.

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Is Fear Ruling Your Life?

January 30, 2014

I’m on a business trip to Austin, Texas. When I checked in, the agent said that there were two rooms open. A king bed on the first floor or doubles on the second.

I said, “I don’t care. Let’s check with my friend and see what he prefers.” He said that he preferred the higher floor. So, I took the first floor. The agent said that few people want the ground floor and that almost no woman traveling alone will take the ground floor.

Either I am clueless; or, I just don’t have fear on my mind. I am neither violent nor particularly physically strong. I just “decided” a long time ago not to live in fear.

Last week I was talking with a friend at lunch at a McDonalds. He nodded over to a guy sitting down to lunch with (I presume) his wife and young daughter. He neither was in uniform or looked like a policeman. He had a large handgun in a holster on his belt. I said, “I bet he feels secure, sort of, but I’d prefer not to get caught between two people living in fear and armed.”

There is so much fear drummed into our heads through incessant media coverage of all manner of things, when the reality is that things almost never happen–especially where I live. Most of the violence we read about is drug-related. If we stay out of that culture….

Scanning the magazine rack at the local Kroger in Sidney, I counted 21 gun magazines. I used to know of about 2. Even six months ago there were not so many. (I’m in the magazine business. I stop and check out titles and covers periodically.)

Matthew and Luke both tell of the time Jesus said, “Don’t fear those who can kill the body but not the soul. Instead fear him who can cast your soul into hell.”

My trust is in The Lord.

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Spirit or Religion

January 29, 2014

The other day a thought popped into my brain–I don’t think about religion. I think about living a life in the spirit. I don’t think about religion. Ever. I like to read books by (not about) spiritual seekers of all paths. I don’t really know much about religions since my early reading. I’ve seen Hindu paintings and Buddhist art. In the West, we’re filled with Renaissance art that still fuels the popular mind with pictures of what Jesus looked like, or what Hell looks like.

Last Sunday John Ortberg and the Menlo Park Presbyterian Church (California, of course) took a chance that would never fly in rural Sidney, Ohio. The message was a panel discussion conducted with respect and honor that included representatives of Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, humanism and Christianity.

It was interesting. You can navigate here and find it or go to iTunes.

As a Jesus-follower, I live the words “I am the vine and you are the branches” and “I am the way.” But I’ve known so many spiritual seekers who know nothing, or very little, about Jesus, yet their spiritual quest seems little different from mine. Well, forget the humanist who denies a spiritual realm. Sorry about his luck.

Most of the people I grew up with or relate with today would say that all these people are going to hell. Heck, I grew up taught that Catholics were going to hell! I am not prepared to be that judge. To me, that’s a God thing.

It was interesting to learn that in both the Judaic and the Islamic traditions, the Scripture is more of a living document. Most Christians seem to think that revelation from God ended somewhere around 100 AD or CE. When I’m interpreting Scripture, I tend to go back to the 4th or 5th Centuries and before. But there are many people who lived in the ensuing 15 centuries with tremendous Spiritual insight whose writings are worth studying.

Anyway, blessings on the MPPC and the ability to listen to others. Listening surely beats wishing bad things on them or even trying to kill them.

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The Conscience of a Society

January 28, 2014

Pete Seeger has passed away at age 94. That’s what an alert from the Wall Street Journal on my iPhone told me this morning. He was the conscience of the nation at a time of great changes in our society. I was greatly influenced by him. I can see many of the things he saw about society, but in the end I lack his courage to live an entire life as a conscience.

In that fear part of the 50s and the rise of Joseph McCarthy, he was branded a communist and lost the ability to earn a living for many years. Still, he persisted. He followed the footsteps of another folk-singing legend–Woody Gutherie. And some who followed him, such as Paul Stookey and Peter Yarrow of the group Peter, Paul & Mary, did not have the same stamina.

I wonder who is today’s conscience. In America, is it John Stewart? Not the same. Most likely Bono of U2 fame.

Seeger probably looked like our mental image of some of the Old Testament prophets. He was like some of them. He saw injustice in society and pointed it out. Much as those old prophets, he was not often revered. Instead often ridiculed, despised.

Still, the last time I heard him, he was firm to his convictions and ever watchful of the movements in society. Still seeking a society that has justice for all. Still pointing out shortcomings.

As the prophet Amos said (5:24), “But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”

Seeger lived that. Why do I fall short?

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