Faith Venture

Restful?

March 18, 2024

The sign along the highway proclaimed a Bible verse something about Jesus and rest or another about Jesus and peace.

I wondered what message whoever erected that sign wished to convey. I wonder where you go to just find rest and peace.

Do we join a church and get uptight about many things? Do we get trapped in an endless circle of meetings and busyness? Do we worry about having the correct theology?

Or, did they point to a place where you walk in and people accept you and are there for you when you need someone to listen or a meal when times are tough? Is it like “Cheers” where everybody knows your name—“Hi Norm!”

Or, I wonder why when I see a sign along the road that I wonder about motivations. Maybe just accept the thought and move on. Follow my own advice about people who think too much..

Just accept the fact that following what Jesus told us will lead to a more peaceful and restful life.

Or, I could wonder why I had a series of dreams last night that started with trying to get certain tones from musical instruments, capturing the waveform, going through analog to digital, doing a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), finding the fifth harmonic, and solving a complex manufacturing problem. Probably just random neurons firing. But I wish it had told me exactly what problem was being solved and the algorithm that came from analyzing that harmonic!

See, I type a sentence to start these posts and never know where I’ll wind up.

Posted in Thinking | Leave a Comment »

Prayer, Then Words

March 15, 2024

Something within me, whether intentional or not, brings awareness toward God to prayer.

…

Then words—maybe.

Posted in Disciplines, Prayer | Leave a Comment »

Slow Productivity

March 14, 2024

Are you the type of person who is known for getting things done? Is yours the first name that comes to mind when someone in the organization needs a report written or a light bulb replaced? Is “no” a seldom used part of your vocabulary?

In other words, do you always feel busy yet not accomplishing the work that would most boost your career or inner peace?

These thoughts are not specifically about spiritual practice as much as just practice practice.

When you feel the need to focus on the things that really matter needing a way to say “no” more—or better stop being the name everyone thinks of first—then you need to dive into Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout by Cal Newport (author of Deep Work, A World Without Email, Digital Minimalism, So Good They Can’t Ignore You, and more).

Influenced through reading about the Slow Food movement in Italy, Newport thought about how our decades long obsession with productivity has led to what he calls pseudo-productivity—busy-ness just for the sake of appearing to be, well, busy.

He will show you a few calendar tricks to help you say “no” or at least something like “I’d be glad to help if you see where on my calendar I could get to it.”

How do I get to Slow Productivity?

Do Fewer Things.
Work at a Natural Pace.
Obsess over Quality.

If you do what you’re supposed to do and do it well, how can anyone complain?

Posted in Disciplines, productivity | Leave a Comment »

The Practice

March 13, 2024

Best-selling author and screenwriter Steven Pressfield publishes a weekly newsletter called Writing Wednesdays. He often talks about the practice of being a creative. This is similar to the practice of entering a spiritual practice as we delve into a deeper spiritual life.

Recently he quotes a dance teacher, “This class is a practice. When you step inside this studio to dance, leave behind your fear, your competitiveness with others, your anger, your worry, your grudges, your complaints, your dissatisfaction with your lot, your greed for glory, your avarice for attention. You are here to dance as well as you can. Leave your ego and your problems outside.”

Pressfield adds his own advice:

In other words, when our motivation is grounded in our ego, we do not have a practice. Or to flip that statement on its head, the aim of a practice is effacement of the ego.

Whether we enter prayer, meditation, study, or even service, these are foundational words. Leave the ego behind—that part of us that seeks control and “me-first” attitudes.

Posted in Disciplines | Leave a Comment »

Not Mine, But Yours

March 12, 2024

The class at the university taught management of public organizations. I don’t remember why, but that class introduced me to a psychologist called Leon Festinger and the idea of cognitive dissonance.

When I am introduced to new information, sometimes as I digest it I experience some amount of stress figuring it all out. Of course, that’s my personality type. Some people solve that problem by just rejecting any new information. That’s their loss.

Try out these thoughts, for example. Don’t we all think in terms of ourselves? Seems natural.

Today, Jon Swanson pondered as he leads us through this part of Lord’s Prayer, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.” He notices, “Not my kingdom. Not our kingdom. Your kingdom.”

The pastor of the church we now attend likes to say as he institutes the Lord’s Supper, “Not my table, not your table, but God’s table.”

Cognitive dissonance? What? It’s not my table to decide who and what? It’s not my kingdom to rule over this and that?

Who is this God who thinks he’s in charge? Oh, I guess he is. Whether I like it or not. And I’d better digest that piece of information for my own well being.

Posted in Awareness, Humility | Leave a Comment »

Seeing The Whole Picture

March 11, 2024

We worked off and on for a week. We looked for a small feature or shape or subtle change in color. The pieces covered most of our dining room table.

Of course, the wife and I were putting together a jigsaw puzzle. The motif of this series of puzzles concerns murder mysteries. This one was a Sherlock Holmes story. You read the story. It ends just before the detective solves the mystery. You solve the mystery which tells you the scene of which the puzzle is a picture. There is no picture to guide you. You figure it out as you go.

Now it’s complete. Seeing the complete picture brings all the elements together. Seeing the whole, you almost forget all the little parts.

Studying a difficult text is a similar endeavor.

I read the words of the Apostle Paul, for example, for years. Words. Sentences. Even paragraphs (in English, since there was not such a thing in Greek).

Then I read 1,800 pages of scholarly research getting into the debate among scholars of the meanings of Greek words and themes. Somehow the scholar was one of those writers who could go from the detail to the theme.

What a difference in interpretation when you begin to see the whole picture and then go back to the parts finding where they each fit in the big picture.

We call it getting lost in the weeds. You must get out of the weeds to see the entire landscape. Same with study. Don’t get lost in the weeds. You’ll lose your way and miss the picture.

Posted in Study | Leave a Comment »

Kindness, Generosity, Respect

March 8, 2024

I remember talking with education majors at university. They wanted to just teach skills. They neither wanted to model or teach any kind of morals.

How many of us, I wonder, of mine and succeeding generations have also abdicated teaching morals to the next generation?

I don’t mean the kind of teaching from many (most?) Protestant churches and also from what little I know of Catholic youth education. How often was that teaching geared toward all of the personal “thou shalt nots”? Thou shalt not drink, smoke, have fun.

I mean the sort of things we need to inculcate into ourselves and teach the next generations—the skills and inclination to treat each other with kindness, generosity, and respect. It begins with me and what I model. It’s like John Fischer’s theme—Grace Turned Outward.

Posted in Grace, teaching | Leave a Comment »

Finding the Meaning of Life

March 7, 2024

A popular theme of cartoons from years ago concerned a seeker climbing to a mountain top to find the guru sitting cross-legged at the summit. “What is the meaning of life?” the seeker questioned. Then the cartoonist would riff on jokes.

The meaning of life is what happened while you were wasting time finding a guru hoping they would tell you the meaning of life.

We find meaning through what we do and how we act as we make our way daily through life. As Jesus-followers we follow the way he taught so that each day’s meaning plays out in our relations to other humans.

Posted in Disciplines, Wisdom | Leave a Comment »

Talking At, Not With

March 6, 2024

They were a group of five middle-aged women. Friends. Meeting at the downtown hotel lobby bar after work, maybe. Having drinks and appetizers. Boisterous without being obnoxious. And in my line of sight when I looked up from my laptop.

I noticed one got up and walked about 10 feet away to take a picture. I usually offer to take the picture so that they can all be in the photo of the moment. I was about to get up when a guy got off his bar stool and loudly offered to shoot the photo. Then he took about 15 or so more. Loudly having them pose in different ways.

He was so loud, I couldn’t help but watch for the next half-hour as he gradually moved in on their table. Soon he pulled up a chair at the high top, bought a round of drinks, and established himself in the group—sort of. He talked. I could hear him from 30 feet away. The women were still paying attention to their friends, but quieter now.

I hate it when my self-awareness kicks in with the realization that I’ve talked too much. I wonder how often do we get caught up in a situation where we are simply talking at someone rather than conversing? Isn’t that a caricature of a Christian? Do we really want to be that guy?

Not I.

Posted in Awareness, Listening | Leave a Comment »

Transformation

March 5, 2024

This morning I am sitting at a table in a room full of tables populated with about 300 engineers. The presenters are talking about how to use digital data to transform product development and eventually business.

This is similar to our journey of developing and using spiritual practices—study, prayer, meditation, service, and the like.

When we pause and look back over our lives, we can observe how our practices have changed how we live. We have, so to speak, undergone a transformation from someone a little or a lot lost, directionless, drifting through life with the development and habits of our practices.

I have seen how many years of meditation, for example, have changed my inner workings from insecure and anxious to calmer (not perfect) with a broader understanding of people. I have learned tolerance and empathy.

It is never too late to begin a spiritual practice. Let the engineers talk about digital transformation. We can practice personal transformation. And it never ends.

[Side note: I just received a notification that 16 years ago today I started this blog on WordPress. That, in itself, was a transformation.]