Simplicity and Complexity

I am often surprised by the infinite complexity within any field of study. Physics, sociology, psychology, leadership, theology, cosmology – you could take any of these fields and focus on one of the specialties contained therein for the rest of your life, and never plumb its depths. Eventually, if you stay in any field of study and continue to explore it long enough, you will have explored everything that’s already been discovered, and you become one of the pioneers. You begin to assimilate new understandings and test your own theories based on what you’ve learned and experienced. This is where “original” thought comes into play (though we know nothing is truly “original”, right?).

Becoming a pioneer doesn’t mean we come to the end of a subject, however. I believe that life is constructed to be inherently mysterious, so that as we learn more about a particular subject, part of what we discover is that we can’t know it all. The latest development in physics research (e.g. string theory) is a great example. As we get closer to discovering the very mysteries of how the universe is constructed, the answers get more ambiguous and these great minds eventually just throw up their hands and say collectively, “We don’t know.” This is a comforting reality to me. I don’t want to live in a world that can be plumbed fully. I always want there to be something more to discover, learn, and embody.

On the other hand, the more I learn about the essentials of life, the simpler things get. (Notice I didn’t say “easy”, I said “simple” – many people have written about this distinction). I think life basically boils down to 1) waking up, and 2) growing up (doing our inner work). Most of the energy many of us expend on a daily basis is related to either staying asleep and numbing pain or avoiding the things we really know we need to do. Of course, one must first become aware of something before making a choice to do something about it. And unfortunately, human nature is such that we usually need to feel loads of pain before we’ll actually do something different consistently. And even then, it’s no guarantee substantive change will occur. But the thing that gives me hope here is the centrality of the human will. The will is where decisions are made. Once we make the decision to wake up and grow up, the entire universe begins conspiring to assist us in that effort. All other details begin to align and almost take care of themselves if we make an honest, consistent effort on these two fronts. We don’t even have to succeed; we just need to want to. Whatever “it” is for you, if you really want it – really, really, really – you can get it. But be prepared, it will cost you the illusions you hold most dear.

"Sorry" Doesn't Fix The Mess

My three-year-old continues to be my best teacher. Yesterday he knocked some stuff off the counter. When we called him on it, he apologized immediately. But I said to him, “Thank you for your apology, but it doesn’t fix this mess. Clean it up.” And that’s when it hit me – this is EXACTLY what I do with God! I screw up, God forgives me, then I move on. But too often I don’t stop to see clearly what mess I may have created and take steps to clean it up. I miss the fact that being forgiven merely enables me to clean up my mess, but doesn’t clean it up on its own. This is a basic reality. In fact, this truth is something A.A. gets quite well. Step 9 of the 12 steps reads: “[We] made direct amends to such people (persons harmed) wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.”

My messes are rarely physical in nature at this age, but it’s much more difficult to clean up spiritual and emotional messes, isn’t it? A physical mess I can usually take care of myself, but “cleaning up” in the invisible realm usually means admitting I’m wrong and asking someone else for forgiveness or other assistance. It means putting me at risk of being rejected. But it needs to be done, otherwise I find myself facing a years-old mess, which has hardened and festered and is really ugly and pernicious. It’s much harder to begin the cleanup effort when things have reached this stage.

I also find it’s much more difficult to make internal amends than it is to make amends to others. When I’m the one doing the hurting and receiving the injury, I usually need some third-party intervention in order to gain enough perspective to be able to forgive myself and move on. But if the hurt is allowed to continue unhealed, it has dramatic, destructive effects long-term.

What mess do you have to clean up? If something comes to mind, don’t delay, but take a concrete step toward that healing today.

Things I Say To My Children That God Is Really Trying To Say To Me

• Take a deep breath.
• Clean up your mess.
• Can you ask nicely?
• What a bummer.
• Look at me.
• I know you don't like the taste of this, but it's for your own good.
• I got you.
• You're safe.
• You can do it.
• Keep trying.
• We make rules because we love you and want you to be safe.
• Sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do.
• Keep your pants on, you're not gettng naked. (OK, not this one so much - just seeing if you're paying attention!)
• Hang on with me.
• Take a bite. You'll like it.
• Give me a kiss and a hug.
• That's too bad, there isn't a choice.
• Be gentle.
• No hitting.
• It's not time to play, it's time to ______ (work, eat, sleep, etc.)
• Excellent job, buddy!
• What a sweet baby.
• Shhh.
• I love you.

God's Will?

I just found this study on the Internet...be careful when citing God's will as your reason for doing anything...it turns out that's a pretty malleable concept...

Creating God In One’s Own Image For many religious people, the popular question “What would Jesus do?” is essentially the same as “What would I do?” Through a combination of surveys, psychological manipulation and brain-scanning, researchers found that when religious Americans try to infer the will of God they mainly draw on their own personal beliefs. They use their own beliefs as a starting point, which colors their final conclusions about what God wants.
Researchers even manipulated people to change their views on God by getting them to read a speech that either supported or went against their (and God’s) stated position. The task shifted people’s attitudes towards the position in their speech, either strengthening or moderating their original views, and altering their estimation about what God’s attitude was.
People may use religious agents as a moral compass, forming impressions and making decisions based on what they presume God as the ultimate moral authority would believe or want. The central feature of a compass, however, is that it points north no matter what direction a person is facing. This research suggests that, unlike an actual compass, inferences about God’s beliefs may instead point people further in whatever direction they are already facing. If the first link is too academic, here’s another link to an article about the research.

Movie Review: The Visitor (2007)

We just watched The Visitor (2007) for the first time this week. I was riveted by this movie. The characters were real and nuanced. The direction really allowed the actors to settle in and embody the characters. The cinematography and editing really let you feel New York in an unflinching manner vs. the glitz and glamour in which large studios usually cloak the city. The story was compelling without being sugary-sweet or formulaic. In fact, I was continually surprised by the way the story kept evolving with new layers being revealed and highlighted throughout. In that way it was very much like life. It was also similar to life in that everything wasn’t sewn up neatly at the end. This shows much courage by Participant productions, and was quite refreshing, though a bit unsettling.
I think that was really the point of the movie – to leave the viewer unsettled and upset, just as its characters are. It leaves you with many more questions than answers – how can injustices such as this one happen in modern-day America? Is the episode an injustice, or justice? It also illustrates how issues that are so black-and-white when you’re dealing with abstractions become nuanced, sticky, and difficult when the issue is breathed to life in the form of an actual person.
The other theme that screamed at me was the plight of the main character, Professor Walter Vale (played brilliantly by Richard Jenkins), who hadn’t been really living his life for some time. The complications of the plot call him to truly connect with others for the first time in decades, and force him to care about subjects that were completely off his radar previously. It’s an amazing illustration of just how many aspects of life are transparent to us until we are confronted by them.
If you’ve seen The Visitor, what are your theories about how Prof. Vale’s life changes from the end of the movie forward into his life? I have my theories, but I’ll keep them to myself until I hear from you.

Pain or Pain? - You Choose (from Mattison Grey)

I had to share this blog post from my friend and colleague Mattison Grey. It's very compelling and thought-provoking (so the claims about physical strength and accomplishment are hers, not mine, ha). Mattison is actually participating in the Best Coaching Blogs contest sponsored by the School of Coaching Mastery (Julia Stewart's school), so if you like the post as much as I did, please follow the link at the end of the post and vote for the blog, and post a comment to her blog if you are so compelled. Thanks.

Life is painful. There, I said it.
Everyday we have some sort of pain that shows up: emotional, physical, mental, something. Consequently we spend much of our time running from pain. We hire therapists, life and business coaches, or consultants to help us figure out how to get out of pain and stay there. We self medicate with alcohol, food, tobacco, prescription drugs, sometimes even illegal drugs. Coaching alone is over a billion dollar a year business. Add to that what people are spending on therapists, counselors, consultants and doctors and that’s a ton of money spent trying to get out of pain. I can’t say I blame people.
The problem is we are looking in the wrong direction for relief or freedom.

Read the rest of this post here...

http://www.schoolofcoachingmastery.com/best-coaching-blogs-2010

More From Richard Rohr

I get a daily meditation email from Richard Rohr's Center for Action and Contemplation. He's really rocking it right now--check out exhibit A below. Have a lovely day!


Question of the Day:How will the New Cosmology affect my relationship with the earth?

Once you are reconnected and realigned with God in this New Cosmology, it is no longer a disenchanted universe, as it is for most postmodern people. If people had experienced the soul of the earth, we could never have poured chemicals and pollutants into the rivers the way we did for the past one hundred years. We could never have filled the world with trash and garbage.
But the material world was of no consequence. It was just to get human beings to heaven. As Brian McLaren says, salvation became “an evacuation plan for the next world.” Then this world doesn’t mean anything as such. It’s merely a holding tank, even though the Bible ends with the promise of the “new heavens and a new earth” (Revelation 21:1). This earth is clearly seen as participating in this mystery called redemption, liberation, salvation. It’s not just about the human beings.
The whole creation, as Romans 8:18-25 says, “is groaning in one great act of giving birth.” The whole thing is being reborn, recovered, realigned.

Release and Renew

This morning I tried to log on to the network at work, and was unable to connect to the Internet. My computer hadn't severed the connection from my personal network from yesterday. I knew what I had to do in order to restore the connection. It's a process all the tech heads are familiar with - "release and renew". It's where you tell the computer to let go of the old Internet connection and re-establish a new connection.
It got me to thinking, there are probably many areas in my life that could use a "release and renew" process. We humans tend to hold on to things for longer than they are useful, and it's impossible for us to receive anything better when we are attached to what's already here. The scary part is the part between the "release" and the "renewal" - this is the step that usually feels like falling or stepping into the dark. It's not usually an instantaneous renewal or replacement. There's usually a period of uncertainty and doubt that demands we continue to step out in faith with no guarantee of what the "renewed" connection is going to look like. But inevitably, if we've done the work and truly released what we were holding onto, the new connection always gives us what we need and serves us in a better, purer way.

Value Isn't Free

All valuable items (tangible or intangible) cost something to get; whether this price is time, money, effort, or more than one of these things. And the more valuable the item is, the higher the price that will be paid.
This wouldn't be an issue in a vacuum, but since most of us are operating with very little margin, invested in many different areas of life and in various pursuits, any new pursuit means we need to give up something in order to get what we say we want. And if we refuse? That's easy - a void will be created one way or another. This usually appears as a destruction or removal of something in our lives that is taking up valuable resources. If our deepest desires and our shallow wants are at odds, the shallow pursuit needs to be set aside to make room for the deep, real, true, abiding gift to appear.
So if your words aren't matching your actions (e.g. you say you want to lose weight but continue to shovel in the sweets), ask yourself what you have given up in pursuit of the goal. It may not be fun to deny yourself in the short term, but the price to be paid in the long term is much higher.
And remember, the payoff isn't usually dramatic and sexy, but ordinary and incremental. This is just a reality of growth. Shoots don't appear immediately from the soil, but only after a period of nurturing and attending without seeing any visible results. Growth only appears after we pay the price of being patient and present during this time when "nothing" is apparently going on. But to quote the movie Peaceful Warrior, "Nothing is never going on." To put it another way, my friend Devon Plumberg says, "Don't assume you have to be doing something in order for anything to be going on."

The Present Lighting the Past

My tendency is to throw away past experiences that don't match my current experience. (Actually I think this is a human tendency so I guess that proves it.) So when I have any difficulty, there's a part of me that says, "Oh, all that peace I was feeling before was a lie, and this is reality." But reality consists of both light and shadow, peace and struggle, sunshine and rain. They are both valid and have their place and purpose in life. I may see my past experiences differently in the light of today, but that's just part of presence - allowing my experiences to transform me.

Until I learn this truth completely, I write to remind myself: the miraculous feeling of peace that I had been feeling before the current crisis broke is real and valid. Both situations are gift-givers and teachers. They just come bearing different gifts and teaching different lessons. Or is the lesson the same - "trust in God"? It's a good thing God is eternally patient with us, giving us the rest of our lives to learn that lesson.

Richard Rohr's Daily Message Today

I receive a daily meditation from Richard Rohr's Center for Action and Contemplation. I thought today's message was particularly helpful, so I thought I'd share. You can sign up here: http://www.cacradicalgrace.org/

After the first levels of enlargement, connection or union, and some degree of emancipation, mystical experiences lead to a kind of foundational optimism emerging. We would usually call it hope. You wonder where it comes from, especially in the middle of all these terrible things that are happening in the world. Hope is not logical, but a participation in the very life of God (just like faith and love).
The next descriptor I’d like to add is a sense of safety. Anybody who has ever loved you well or has felt loved by you always feels safe. If you can’t feel safe with a person, you can’t feel loved by them. You can’t trust their love. If, in the presence of God, you don’t feel safe, then I don’t think it’s God—it’s something else. It’s the god that is not God. It’s probably what Meister Eckhart is referring to when he says, “I pray God to free me from God.” He means that the God we all begin with is necessarily a partial God, an imitation God, a word for God, a “try on” God. But as you go deeper into the journey, I promise you, it will always be more spacious and more safe. If you still feel a finger wagging at you, you’re not going deeper. You’re going backwards.

Birds Walking Around

I saw a compelling bumper sticker a few weeks ago: "When birds can't fly, they walk." That got me to thinking about how we're all designed to fly in our own way, but we often limit ourselves to walking instead of flying. Let's face it, flying is dangerous. You can fall and hurt yourself. The fear of the potential pain keeps most of us earthbound. But flying also enables you to travel much farther than walking and see things from a perspective not possible from the ground. It also calls others to flight.

I have often taken pot shots at those "birds" I see soaring near me. How dare they fly around me, taunting me? Can't they see my wings have been clipped, that I'm not able to fly like they do? But it's easy to bring down those who are soaring. It's much more challenging to continue to care for my wounds and work on the healing I need to do in order to get to a state where flying is the most natural thing in the world. This is a state where walking seems silly. This is a state of mind that says to me, "Why wouldn't you just spread your wings and take flight? So what if you fall and get hurt? You'll be able to rise, heal, and try again."

I'm trying desperately to listen to and heed that voice. I pray it will grow stronger as my wings continue to heal and work themselves back and forth, priming themselves for that first (or next) big flight. And I pray that voice grows within you as well.

"Your Life Is Your Life" Quote from Taming Your Gremlin

This quote was so inspiring to me that I copied it and pasted it to my wall. Please let me know if you resonate with it as well or if it brings up questions or thoughts for you. Peace!

"One way or another we all at some point get hit in the face by a blast of wind, open our eyes, and see that we are not only on the bow of a colossal sailboat on an open sea, but that we’re the captain of the damned thing. Once you glimpse this fact of life, you have some choices. You can squeeze your eyes shut and make believe that you don’t have to take the wheel, you can run around flapping your arms and yelling “Somebody take the wheel, somebody take the wheel,” or you can take the wheel and learn to handle it.
If you settle down and trust the wind instead of fearing it, you’ll eventually become pretty good at sailing. You will find that while you don’t know what’s around the next cape, and while you may at times work up a soaking sweat trying to stay afloat in a nasty storm, all in all you can have a fine time sailing where you want to and occasionally you can drop anchor and bask in the sun. The breeze is always blowing, at least a bit, so keep your sails unfurled.
What you do with your life is up to you. It’s not up to your mom, your dad, your spouse, your pals, your coach, or your therapist. It’s all up to you. Just underneath the fear of being in command of your life is outrageous excitement about being in command of it. Best of all is the freedom – the freedom to lead your life your way, testing the waters on your won, getting your very own battle scars, and relishing your own rewards. You may hook up with a sidekick or two in this sea of life, but even those relationships will work best if each of you has a clear sense of ownership of your own life."

An Easter Psalm

You restore me and refresh me, my God.
You call me out of the grave, restoring my soul,
Blowing your breath into me,
Calling me back to life and vibrance.
All the world around me is vibrating with
Your love.

When I quiet the fears and doubts churning
Inside me, when I let them go,
I begin to hum harmonically with those notes.
I participate in the eternal song of praise
And worship that all of creation is singing to You.

Who am I that You would sing your song
Through me?
Who am I that You would come into this
World and do your work through me?
I am unworthy, limited, small, and broken.
Sometimes I think you have the wrong guy.

But then the dawn breaks, your sun shines forth.
And all is new.
And I am new.
And you are real. And here. And alive!

Praise be to the GOD of heaven and earth!
All creation sings together, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty.
Amen. Alleluia!

Seeds and Stems

I was cleaning some grapes the other day and found myself complaining silently about the stems. “If only it weren’t for these stupid stems, this process would be much easier,” I said to myself. Then I thought, “It’s a good thing these are seedless grapes, because I hate seeds.” But wait, what about that? Where do they get the next generation of seedless grapes, anyway? But I digress.
I then realized that without the stems, there would be nothing attaching the grapes to the vine, so they wouldn’t be able to receive their nutrients. This holds true in life. No stems = no fruit. Likewise, without seeds, there would be no new growth or fruit in life. I don’t have to look far in my life to discover many “stems” - things that may not be very tasty but connect me to Life, and “seeds” - things that don’t bear fruit in my life in and of themselves, but with time, patience, and nurturing will grow into something much larger than themselves and bear fruit of their own. These aspects of life aren’t merely things to tolerate, they are necessary for life to be here in the first place. I’m learning to be thankful for these elements, both literal and figurative, recognizing that even these seemingly meaningless aspects of life still have a purpose in the big picture (of which I can only see a small corner). Engaging them with this attitude transforms my posture from one of defiance and resistance to an open, embracing one. It enables me to remain in a state of gratitude even while a seed gets stuck between my proverbial teeth.

Still Healing

I had surgery to fix a deviated septum in December. The surgery went quite well, but it takes at least eight weeks to feel the full benefits of the procedure. I wanted to be sure I had patience with the process, so I put a reminder on my calendar so it would remind me, "Patience - still healing", twice a week. It really helped me remember to keep my expectations in check and not expect too much, too quickly.
Since then, that thought, "Patience - still healing", has come to mind when I find myself getting twisted up about something in my life being imperfect or just not the way I want it at the moment. There are so many areas which are still healing in my life. And, God willing, I'll continue to heal and grow so eventually the things that bother me today won't be such a big deal. I imagine there will be a whole new layer of challenges to overcome at that time. But I'm beginning to understand that the cycle of being stretched outside of my comfort zone, growing in the ways I'm being called to grow, and being stretched again is all part of the process of life. Without this process, it's easy to fall in to atrophy. Sure, it's painful, but the pain is directly proportional to my investment in my old ways of being or relating to the world. And the gifts that I receive when I embrace this process are way beyond my imagination.
So the next time you find yourself railing against any situation, just tell yourself, "Patience - still healing".

Giving Up

We are programmed to never give up in this culture. "Keep striving, keep trying, don't give up!" is a common mantra. This is usually a good thing, since it's all too easy to short-change ourselves when we meet with obstacles of any time. However, the problem with this cultural habit is it makes it more difficult to give up things when it's time to let them go. We grasp on to things that are slipping through our fingers. If our circumstances are wresting control from us, it's likely that God has something greater in mind for us. But as long as we continue to grasp on desperately to the last vestiges of control, we make it impossible for God to fill up our arms with these blessings. So what if we took a different view of giving up? What if we saw giving up something that needs to go as an offering to God?

My friend Devon (www.divinecoach.com) defines surrender as "moving over to the winning side". Now that's a revolutionary view of giving up! With Lent approaching, maybe it's time to examine our lives (yes, me too) and ask, "What am I being called to give up today?".

All Cylinders vs. Fifth Gear

I often use the term “hitting on all cylinders” to describe my ideal state of energy output. By this I mean I want to be fully engaged, not “missing out” on any potential value that I can add to the situations that I’m engaged in due to my “misfiring” on any front. I want to bring my A game as consistently and as often as I am able, regardless of the externals of any given situation.

I recently had sinus surgery to correct a deviated septum, and it threw me off this intention for a bit and prevented me from being as engaged as I usually am, and that was frustrating for a while. That is, until I thought more about this metaphor. I realized that just because an engine is working properly doesn’t mean that it’s running at full speed all the time. In fact, if you run an engine full-out for very long, it will break down. Everything (natural and man-made) needs the opportunity to recover from exertion or it won’t be able to perform for very long, and that includes humans. So I’m learning to give myself grace when there’s something about me or my situation that prevents me from running at full speed. Instead, I add the value I am able to add in the moment and try not to get hung up on whether what I’m adding is “enough”. All you can do is all you can do, and sometimes that’s not very much.

Conversely, being aware of which “gear” I’m in keeps me aware of my energy output and accountable for adding the value I’m able to add. If I’m only in second or third gear and there’s no external reason why, I can examine what’s going on inside of myself and stop any energy drains, which mostly appear as getting tied up in imagining the future or recollecting the past. It helps me to show up fully here, now instead of time travelling in my mind. Again, grace is a key element in this process, since judgment and condemnation never helped anyone accomplish anything.

Here’s to a year of full engagement, regardless of what gear you’re running in today.

Building Up My Self

I often find myself having harsh emotional reactions to situations that are less than ideal. If everything doesn't go precisely to my plan, I tend to react with some pretty predictable emotional patterns. Here are the patterns I've noticed:

• Denial - Ignoring situation altogether
• Resistance - "I don't want to."
• Rebellion - "I'm not going to."
• Self-Pity - "Why do I have to?"
• Resentment - "I shouldn't have to."
• Procrastination - Delaying engaging situation

I think I recognized a root to these patterns. I think the root here is an exultation of self. It's the core belief that I am "above" or "beyond" whatever I'm going through in one way or another. I think we all know people that have made this posture a lifestyle and they bear the effects of that posture over time. Personally, I can twist in these patterns for hours or even days before setting them down. I'd like to get to a point where I notice these thought patterns and choose not to attach to them. I truly think that's possible.

The first step, of course, is awareness. The next step is seeing that I have a choice and can choose to exult my self or humble my self to my circumstances. If I choose the latter path, I begin to see what the situation has to teach me. It also helps me to simply accept any aspects of the situation I cannot change and puts me in a mode of action to change the aspects I am in charge of. I'm not saying it's fun, but it does transmute the situation into one that is bearable and even fruitful.

The Pain of Awareness

When I began my meditation and prayer practice years ago, and as I continued to hone those skills and build my "presence muscles" through repeated contemplative practices, I always assumed at some level that the awareness I was cultivating would somehow make life all better. Now that I'm a few years into it, my awareness has grown greatly. I am aware of the fact that life is truly a miracle and a gift. I am aware of much more of the beauty and joy that surrounds me than I used to be. I'm actually "here, now" much of the time. It's great. But it's not all roses.
As my awareness has grown, I've also become aware of some destructive mental and emotional habits, of how I hurt others and sabotage myself, and how I react like a toddler when things don't go just my way. It's pretty sobering and humbling. Humiliating, actually. But as my awareness has grown, my ability to detach from these caustic patterns, to see other options, and to actually choose these healthier options in the moment has also grown. Awareness by itself doesn't make things better, it simply exposes the truth of the current reality. That reality is often more painful than we can bear, so we deceive ourselves and fall asleep. Contemplative practices act as a gradual alarm clock, helping us to awaken to whatever is in our lives, and simultaneously build the very "muscles" needed to change it when needed and appreciate it when it doesn't.