This week I needed a pep talk for practical growth steps and the reasons to take them. Quick attribution of credit—these are my personal conglomerate of daily activities for improvement derived from books like: “My Miracle Morning”, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, “Buddha’s Brain”, “The Upward Spiral” and the Bible. Also, I desperately need to resume consistency with these habits. If you get nothing from this string of arguably trite PD commentary, that is awesome. I'm proud of you. Keep it up! But if you see me, ask how I’m doing with them. Accountability is good stuff. Affirmations: Christians call this “believing God’s promises” or “speaking truth over yourself”. In non-Christianese people call it self-empowerment or positive self-talk. It feels a little awkward to do, but repetition of an affirming phrase dulls the incessant need for affirmation from others. The desired result is fewer destructive and attention-seeking behaviors, increased confidence, and reduced self-pity (don’t take that second dart). And it really works. I am a child of God; I am a co-heir to the kingdom. Uniquely gifted to be a fruitful asset for my family. Reading: Reading is the only daily practice I’ve maintained over the last year and a half. If reading is a challenge, five minutes a day will still make a difference. Not five minutes of looking at words on a page. That’s like “listening” to someone talk while perusing social media. Read with the intention of looking up words that need to be defined. Read with the intention of re-reading things that deserve applause or tears. Really read. The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them. ~ Mark Twain Meditation: I had someone tell me once that meditation is a way to, “approach the throne room of God,” and I should close my eyes and visualize it. That is probably good advice for some people. But I tried and the throne room of God looked like the Lincoln Memorial. So, now I close my eyes and I fill my belly with air and exhale it out of my mouth. Yahweh, the I Am, is found in the Being. I focus on the sounds far off—the steady drone of moving cars and calls of birds. Then I focus on things close—whirring fans, the dryer, the hum of the refrigerator. This takes away the sounds in my head (my thoughts aren’t usually scrolling words or pictures I’ve got constant audio in there). Things start to quiet down. I shift to focusing on about 20 breaths. When I open my eyes things are sharper, words have more meaning, and it feels easier to be where I am. It seems natural to be still and know, to listen and hear, to see and believe. It’s a little better, for me anyway, than visualizing a statue of a president. Writing: Daily writing/reflection is not my go-to. When it is I’m more inspired and have fewer issues with deadlines. Allocating five minutes a day to writing is a mortgage on the present for future returns. All the unsorted things have time to sort themselves. Writing, even if it is not about the day or life, provides new perspective. It emphasizes creativity and awareness and improves memory. But those five minutes are elusive and unhabitual. So, reader, let’s sow a bit of time for this and be pleased with the harvest. Exercise: There is absolutely no point in touting the benefits of exercise. Everyone knows them. So, let’s change perceptions of exercise. It is fun. Go outside. Run around. Lift heavy things, hike, bike, paddle, swim, walk, play pickle ball and spike ball, chase a Frisbee, throw a football, kick a soccer ball, do the things you did when you were a kid. Enjoy the sweat that comes from movement. Make time for activity. And if all else fails, spend five minutes doing pushups or crunches or yoga in the morning or before bed. I’m looking at you, mirror. It’s time. Pray: How to pray:
Dear reader, if you have arrived at this point, my encouragement to us is to go and live well. Being where you are is the best way to get where you are going.
0 Comments
I hear and feel her steady breath inhaling the moment. She sleeps soundly while I dream dreams of our future. The tremor from a tiny flame dances light across the ceiling and soft music serenades my thoughts, drawing them out to be shared. She is close. There are moments where the soul is over-full and exceeds the ability to feel, fathom and express. Tingling fingers and swelling heart grant these moments an unknowing capacity to hold in beauty, and as it expands like breath it molds me into something bigger and better. There is a close, nearly fearful, sense of vulnerability. The soul grows deep like roots when it rains and when it shines and when it drinks in the rebirth of the soils composition. If, in those moments, I stop to listen intently—I hear the belligerent noise of progress. But it is an outdoor noise. And as I continue to listen I hear things more real and present. Slowly the endless droning fades as I draw even nearer the moment and in its place is a crisp sound of pleasantness and immeasurable joy. I drink in these minutes. Wholly submerging in them with gratitude for their coming. Like a comforting song I replay them often. And when the song is not in my ears it is in my mouth singing fragments of lyrics throughout the day. Because these moments are the richness of life on earth and the whispers of things to come. They tell me quietly of things I'll always desire in places I have not -and cannot- ever travel. They ease the sharp desire to be removed from treachery and tumult and see heaven now. They dull the pain of unanswered questions. This is a pursuit of happiness. Not in forceful, fleeting measure, but in the quiet of peace worked for yet still undeserved. This is seeking the kingdom of heaven on earth and embracing light and warmth and salt when it arrives. This is sowing effort and humility and grace and celebrating the harvest. Dear Reader, It is not all hard work and glaring weakness. There is sweetness in life that must be held and loved. It's easy when seeking improvement to focus on the work and the effort and the failure. But, that starts to generate a negativity bias. Critical reflection must be balanced with gratitude. Presence of mind and patience must be combined with the courage required to absorb a beautiful moment. Say thank you and let it be.
Reclaimed wood can be acquired for basically nothing because most people don't want it. It takes a time investment to source, acquire, and morph into usable shape. It takes imagination to utilize pieces varying in size and wear and scar and assemble something functional or beautiful. But the imagination and the imperfection (and mostly the inexpensiveness) are the things making it most attractive. The inexpensiveness is initially attractive because if my project fails I am out nothing but time. But the harmonious feeling I get from taking something from behind a dumpster and generating value, it's a peace somehow affirming to my own worth. I am attracted to the beauty that comes from the scars in the pieces, the weathered look, the imperfect edges, the individual shapes, and the creation of value. Reclaim. verb:“To rescue from an undesirable state” Re-. prefix: "Once more" Claim. verb: "To call out" Self-deprecation, like false modesty or worse yet, true devaluation of the self, is my spiritual tendency. And it is no better than pride or arrogance. Arrogance being a self-involved claim of worth for my own merit, and devaluation being a belief in my general state of worthlessness. But there is a better way. Creating with reclaimed materials is something I do to remind myself my value is not attached to the state in which I find myself or the state in which I once was. It keeps fresh in my mind that I have been claimed. I've been called out to be used for some purpose. And feeling the rough edge of a weathered board with a large knot and a few holes from some rusty nails I hear in my soul my creator saying, “That’s mine. That one, right there. He will be part of something great. He may not look like much, but he is unique. His weaknesses I will make into strength.” And that's just about the most affirming thing that could ever be heard. I've not just been rescued; I've been reclaimed. Put into a new state with a new purpose, assured in the midst of the undesirable there is something useful. And the creator calls me out, he pulls me into something wonderful. He claims me. Again. And you, dear Reader, perhaps your time and function in a role has expired and you find yourself teetering on the edge of irrelevancy--feeling as though you are no longer useful. You may find yourself in some undesirable state, far removed from your purpose and unsure of your worth.Or you’ve been discarded, misused, or underutilized. Know this: There is someone who will claim you. Again and again. He will set you up with a purpose. Let go of self-deprecation, take off your false modesty, lose the arrogant front and humbly, and vulnerably take up grace. O Thou, far off and here, whole and broken, I spend a lot of hours on benches thinking. It's a reflex leftover from my time as a baseball player. And these thoughts I️ am chronicling now are more than just a passing phase, they are the culmination of many quiet musings; they are the form and shape my mind has taken from the last several years’ experience. Like most of the world I️ am in a constant fight with time. An endless war of too much and too little, skirmishing with patience and commitment, debating effort vs. cost. I️ idealize life as a moment, a today; believing the present is the only place to live. And in a way I'm right. But, slowly, I’m realizing the essential point of long relief. Baseball terms have always been my way of making sense of the world, so I’ll argue this side of the story. For years I pitched out of the bullpen in short relief. Short relief is ideal because you’ve only got to do a little bit to be a big hero. I️ loved that. Coming into a high-pressure situation with just a few quick pitches to rally the troops. It’s highs and lows and that’s the beauty of it. A flash of vivid life, and then on to other things. 1-2 innings, sometimes just one or two outs. I’ve still got that short relief mindset. Avoiding things built with patience, I prefer the things that come from feverish passion and a quick blaze of inspiration. But, to be something truly great I either string together an exhausting number of tiny blazes or patiently and stoically build a roaring fire. I️ frequently try my hand at crafts and wood working, blogging and writing, in attempts to create, but I lack consistency, and I despise working without inspiration. It's why its so important that I post every week. But, if I only work when inspired the flame (or my patience) runs out, and I️ become disinterested. Or worse yet, I start things that I never finish but know I ought to and have an endless number of open tabs and unfinished to-do lists that work their way into an exhausting sense of duty. Even now I️ struggle to close out this post. I️ always say the greatest pitchers are the ones who come out and give a solid six innings when they don’t have their best stuff. The guys who can grind out a 3-4 run outing when the breaking ball isn’t sharp, and the fastball lacks the bit of extra zip. Those players who somehow keep competing for a win without feeling the poetry in their pitches. My definition of pitching greatness fits neatly into this Oswald Chambers quote, “The proof that we are rightly related to God is that we do our best whether we feel inspired or not.” And baseball and the Bible and literature and life experience are consistently reminding me the romanticism and wonder in life are only partially in the spontaneity. To build or be something truly great I️ must do more than just ride the moment. Even those laid back surfers swim hard and far to catch the wave. To perfect my craft, whatever it is, I must try my hand at looking beyond my inspiration to work on something long and sometimes tedious, that may not end in glorious fashion but brings about those June wins that get me to the postseason. Dear Reader, my encouragement to you (and mostly to me) is to practice daily practice every single day. Even when it is redundant. And to have patience. Even when you (and I) don't feel like it. There's some mysterious joy in these everyday challenges we do not see now but will love later. And watch some baseball this week. It’s a metaphor for life.
A house is never done. Every homeowner knows this. When there are no more projects or updates the home is sold, or something needs to be re-done or renovated. It's an accurate depiction of human life. The constant in life is called change; I’m learning how to befriend it. I admitted in a previous post my tendency to be change averse, but I committed to working on it. A fortuitous decision because at this moment I am staring down the mouth of life upheaval with a much better perspective than I had this time one year ago. Foundations and frameworks seem to be the things needed to mitigate a disdain for change. They provide necessary insurance some things cannot be destroyed or taken away. Emerson said, “It is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.” Jesus said, “The rain came down, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it didn’t fall, for it was founded on the rock.” You may find yourself, dear reader, as you read this, amid some great tumult. Or perhaps just on the verge of a new start and new adventure. Staring at the blank page of the unexpected, terrified to pen the next words lest they be written in stone. For there is no undoing, but only the doing. And like my disdain for change, the fear of writing and the fear of making decisions may lead you into non-direction. And non-direction will inevitably lead you to depression. And you may pray and pray for a sign, like Tommy Wilhelm. But no sign will be given but the sign of Jonah, the sign of resurrection. I made a lofty claim last week that the cross and the empty tomb are invaluably relevant to practical everyday living. And this claim didn’t have much evidence or follow up attached. Outside Wendell Berry's encouragement to, “practice resurrection”, the necessity of revival, (and support for my claim), is evident in human life, and in nature. Death and rebirth are as inevitable as change. In business and economics, they call this forcing of death/life combo “creative destruction” and it is vitally important to sustainable long-term market growth. In conservation they call it "controlled prairie burn". It’s a sort of intentionally bursting people’s bubbles, or acting on the environment to prevent extreme trends because of the patterns of the landscape or the market. But it is counter-intuitive. It’s not the pattern people naturally take. It’s this minor shift from doing what feels habitual, to doing something with forethought, even if it means doing something different from what’s been done. These patterns of counter-intuitive growth, (you may call them supernatural if you want) the patterns of rebuilding and changing, of revival and resurrection and all the other wonderful re words, are sweet but they are vulnerable. They necessitate things like hard goodbyes, new lives, new places and new habits. At the least they mean disruption of current patterns and at the most they mean utter upheaval. And as a human, it is natural to desire comfort and security and normalcy. But know this, as I have learned, the patterns of change aversion will still lead us into change whether we desire to arrive there or not. We will just be unwitting and subjugated and most likely, extreme. But that cross/grave combo I mentioned is a ticket to this free-will word, transformation. It's a pattern of restoration through creative destruction. It’s renewal. A break from the inertia of our minds and unintentional habits. A resistance to those natural tendencies, like a dog going back to its vomit. The supernatural tendencies are new patterns. Like resurrection. Patterns where things cycle upwards and are made whole. But they require something challenging. A vulnerability, a letting go. And that vulnerability—the vulnerability it takes to accept change, to steer into the beautiful and challenging future, to make peace with an unlived past—it’s possible because as humans, created in an image, following a creator, we rise. And we rise again. And we practice resurrection, and we build on a rock, and we shine bright, and we worship loud with resounding voice. Because we are the redeemed, the revived, the resplendent. Dear reader, if you have made it this far, thank you. I want to encourage you this week to pray with gratitude for your past. If you need to write down memories, do it. But do not live there. Embrace the reality of your present, with quiet meditation and wholesale consumption of its wonder. And do not fear change. It is a ticket to a transformational future. Shake your grave clothes off. A quick shoutout to my sister for her wonderful insight into patterns. She was a major influence in a lot of these ideas.
|
Author
I'm a Hoosier. I like the outdoors. Taxes are my job. I write for a living. This Blog
Writing my way to an adult life of minimalism, sustainability, and joy rooted in Truth. I'm learning, unlearning, and relearning.
Categories
All
Archives
August 2021
|