Category Archives: Hurry Sickness

Daily Riches: A Modern “decalogue”(Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat)

Posted on by under awe and wonder, contemplative virtues, Forgiveness, hospitality, Humility, Hurry Sickness, Loving Listening, Loving Well, Mindfulness, The Sacrament of the Present Moment

First, let me hurry to say that the Brussats didn’t call this a “decalogue.” That’s on me. I use the term informally, simply to draw attention to this contemporary list of ten essentials–not inscribed on stone tablets, but important nevertheless. Rather than what not to do, these words suggest what to do. Rather than warning of danger, they invite to deep spirituality. Rather than issuing commands, they offer a compelling example. I hope you’ll take some time to “hover over” these beautiful intentions. This is how I mean to live . . . but, I need reminding!

1. I will live in the present moment. I will not obsess about the past or worry about the future.
2. I will cultivate the art of making connections. I will pay attention to how my life is intimately related to all life on the planet.
3. I will be thankful for all the blessings in my life. I will spell out my days with a grammar of gratitude.
4. I will practice hospitality in a world where too often strangers are feared, enemies are hated, and the “other” is shunned. I will welcome guests and alien ideas with graciousness.
5. I will seek liberty and justice for all. I will work for a free and a fair world.
6. I will add to the planet’s fund of good will by practicing little acts of kindness, brief words of encouragement, and manifold expressions of courtesy. [unconditional regard, exquisite tenderness]
7. I will cultivate the skill of deep listening. I will remember that all things in the world want to be heard, as do the many voices inside me.
8. I will practice reverence for life by seeing the sacred in, with, and under all things of the world.
9. I will give up trying to hide, deny, or escape from my imperfections. I will listen to what my shadow side has to say to me.
10. I will be willing to learn from the spiritual teachers all around me, however unlikely or unlike me they may be.” Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice

“Joyful is the person who finds wisdom . . . . “
Proverbs 3:13 NLT

Moving From Head to Heart

*Are these reminders helpful to you? What emotions arise as you read them?

*What does that response say about you?

Abba, grant us a world of people whose intentions these are.

________________________________

Thanks for reading my blog! Please extend my reach by reposting on your social media platforms. If you like these topics and this approach, you’ll like my book Wisdom From the Margins.

Life Skills: Walking

Posted on by under Busyness, Class Notes, dissent and resistance, Hurry Sickness, Mindfulness, neighbors & neighborhoods, Self-care, Spiritual Disciplines, Spiritual Formation, The Divine Gaze

Solvitur ambulando
(“It is solved by walking.”)
St. Augustine

One nineteenth-century observer quipped that the average New Yorker “. . . always walks as if he had a good dinner before him, and a bailiff behind him.”


Walking and Nature
“All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.” Friedrich Nietzche


“I come to my solitary woodland walk as the homesick go home. . . . It is as if I always met in those places some grand, serene, immortal, infinitely encouraging, though invisible, companion, and walked with him.” Henry David Thoreau

Walking and Science

“The physical movement of walking activates the subcortical region of the brain, including the limbic system with its sensitivity to emotional states. Clearly, something far deeper and older than culture goes with me into wilderness.” Belden Lane


“The American psychologist William James knew this from his own experience of depression. He learned that in choosing to walk (as if he were alert and alive), he could generate the very intentionality he lacked. Going through the outward motions, even in a cold-blooded way, made possible the inner disposition.” Belden Lane

“Build pockets of stillness into your life. Meditate. God for walks. Ride your bike going nowhere in particular. There is a creative purpose to daydreaming, even to boredom. The best ideas come to us when we stop actively trying to coax the muse into manifesting and let the fragments of experience last around our unconscious mind in order to click into new combinations. Without this essential state of unconscious processing, the entire flow of the creative process is broken.” Maria Popova

Walking and Mindfulness

“We are men who live in tension, we are also contradictory and inconsistent men, sinners all. But men who want to walk under the gaze of Jesus.” Pope Francis

“Learning to walk slowly with conscious awareness is a first step toward mindfulness.” Belden Lane

“I walk as though my feet were kissing the earth.”

“Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us. We need hours of aimless wandering or spates of time sitting on park benches, observing the mysterious world of ants and the canopy of treetops.” Maya Angelou

“You either walk toward love or away from it with every breath you take.” Brian Doyle

“At its heart, the journey of each life is a pilgrimage, through unforeseen sacred places that enlarge and enrich the soul.” John O’Donohue


“I reach out my hand to God that [God] may carry me along as a feather is borne weightlessly by the wind.” Hildegard of Bingen

*Does one of these quotes especially appeal to you? Can you say why?

Extended Quotations to Discuss

(1) On “Walking Well”

“Walking well is a mental state as much as a physical one. How to walk? . . . To walk out of your front door as if you’ve just arrived from a foreign country; to discover the world in which you already live; to begin the day as if you’ve just gotten off the boat from Singapore and have never seen your own doormat or the people on the landing . . . it is this that reveals the humanity before you, unknown until now.” Walter Benjamin quoted by Tom Hodgkinson


(2) “Eyes and No-Eyes”

The old story of “Eyes” and “No-Eyes” is really the story of the mystical and unmystical types. “No-Eyes” has fixed his attention on the fact that he is obliged to take a walk. For him the chief factor of existence is his own movement along the road; a movement which he intends to accomplish as efficiently and comfortably as he can. He asks not to know what may be on either side of the hedges. He ignores the caress of the wind until it threatens to remove his hat. He trudges along, steadily, diligently; avoiding the muddy pools, but oblivious of the light which they reflect. “Eyes” takes the walk too: and for him it is a perpetual revelation of beauty and wonder. The sunlight inebriates him, the winds delight him, the very effort of the journey is a joy. Magic presences throng the roadside, or cry salutations to him from the hidden fields. The rich world through which he moves lies in the fore-ground of his consciousness; and it gives up new secrets to him at every step. “No-Eyes,” when told of his adventures, usually refuses to believe that both have gone by the same road. He fancies that his companion has been floating about in the air, or beset by agreeable hallucinations.”


*What effect do these quotations have on you (insight, conviction, excitement, encouragement, shame, regret, etc.)?


(3) Bonhoeffer in Barcelona

“At the same time, the year in Barcelona inevitably broadened his social awareness. Covetous of finery though he may have remained, he judged himself ‘ever more sensitive to the plight of those who really are in need and cannot be adequately supported.’ It angered him to see Olbricht speak gruffly to an indigent who’d stopped by the church asking for help. Beyond the comfortable sphere of the German colony, in neighborhoods to the south and directly east, on his daily walks or in the cafés or in the course of some pastoral effort, Bonhoeffer discovered a different cast of characters. He would describe them vividly and with tenderness of heart, these men and women with whom, at one time, he likely would have never ‘exchanged even a single word.’ In this way he met ‘vagabonds and vagrants, escaped convicts and foreign legionnaires.’ He met ‘German dancers from the musical revues,’ ‘lion tamers,’ and ‘other animal trainers who have run off from the Krone Circus during its Spanish tour.’ There were ‘German-speaking misfits,’ among them ‘contract killers wanted by the police. All of them had heard of the sympathetic Berliner and sought him out for counsel. Bonhoeffer grew to enjoy their company, too: the ‘criminal types,’ the ‘little people with modest goals and modest drives, who committed petty crimes,’ and those driven by wild, wayward passions—the ‘real people’! And the stories they told, vivid and honest ‘to the last detail,’ gripped him with a blunt force, as of the gospel’s concern for the least of these his brethren. These people labored ‘more under grace than under wrath,’ Bonhoeffer was sure; and they were ‘a lot more interesting than the average church member.’ In a letter to Helmut Rößler, a former classmate in Berlin, Bonhoeffer described himself as learning to accept people ‘the way they are, far from the masquerade of the ‘Christian world.’ ” Charles Marsh


*Do you think this quotation is relevant to our discussion? If so, how? Have you ever had this kind of experience? Is there a lesson here for you?


(4) Cultural Ideas about Leisure


“More and more, work enlists all good conscience on its side; the desire for joy already calls itself a ‘need to recuperate’ and is beginning to be ashamed of itself. ‘One owes it to one’s health’— that is what people say when they are caught on an excursion into the country. Soon we may well reach the point where people can no longer give into the desire for a vita contemplativa (that is, taking a walk with ideas and friends) without self-contempt and a bad conscience. Well, formerly, it was the other way around, it was work that was afflicted with the bad conscience. A person of good family used to conceal the fact that he was working if need compelled him to work. Slaves used to work, oppressed by the feeling that they were doing something contemptible. ‘Nobility and honour are attached solely to otium and bellum [war],’ that was the ancient prejudice. Nietzsche’s point is: if we managed to remove our collective guilt about enjoying ourselves, then the culture of only taking time off when we are allowed by some outside force or by some inner self-controller might be damaged. The word leisure, incidentally, comes from the Latin licere, meaning ‘to be permitted.’ We have given responsibility for our free time to others, and we only have ourselves to blame.” Tom Hodgkinson

“In Buddhism the beggar, the tramp, the vagabond is not a subject for reform or liberal hand-wringing, but, on the contrary, he represents an ideal of living, of pure living in the moment, of wandering without destination, of freedom from worldly care. In Hindu culture, too, we find the figure of the Sadhu, a middle-aged man who, having performed his worldly responsibilities in the form of service to employer and family, decides that he will wander off with a begging bowl. He abandons all possessions (‘Imagine!’) and takes to the road. He is a holy figure, admired.” Tom Hodgkinson


“This [very negative] attitude to vagabondage was enthusiastically taken up by Nazi Germany in the mid 1930s. A list of ‘anti-social elements,’ issued by the Bavarian Political Police in August 1936, included beggars, vagabonds, gypsies and vagrants. Such freedom-seekers could, if necessary, be taken into ‘protective custody’ (i.e. concentration camps) where they would be forcibly taught the values of hard work and discipline. “Arbeit Macht Frei” ran the legend above the gates of Auschwitz, ‘Work Makes Us Free.'” Tom Hodgkinson


*Do you think these quotations are relevant to our discussion? If so, how? Do you wrestle with the idea of “leisure?”


(5) St. Teresa’s Famous Poem
Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours.
Yours are the eyes with which he looks with
compassion on this world.
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good.
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours.
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
with compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

*How would you restate Teresa’s words in just one sentence–relating it to our topic of walking well?


CLOSING PRAYER

“Heavenly Father, you do not lead us all by the same path. Here in your presence, take our yearning to speak with you and what words we have, and make of them a prayer worthy of your love for us. Lord you’ve heard the cry of our hearts and seen our deepest needs. Before we leave this gathering, we want to ask you . . . to commit each person here into your loving hands. If you have us . . . if we have you, God, we will want for nothing. You alone suffice.”

Supplementary Readings (for before or after the group time)

Set aside at least 5-10 minutes of quiet, take some deep breaths, and ask God to touch what needs to be touched in you by one of these readings.

From Mary Oliver “When I Am Among the Trees”

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
   but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, "Stay awhile."
The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, 'It’s simple,' they say,
and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled."

Thomas Merton’s famous prayer

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.

               Nor do I really know myself, 
               and the fact that I think that I am following
               your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. 

               But I believe that the desire to please you does in
                fact please you.

               And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. 
               I hope that I will never do anything apart from that
               desire. 

              And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the
              right road though I may know nothing about it.

              Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem
              to be lost and in the shadow of death." 

              I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will
              never leave me to face my perils alone."

Each week’s quotes usually come from Wisdom From the Margins. This is the book we will use for this discussion. If you can, try to read one reading daily in the book (perhaps the reading for that calendar day).


If this discussion sounds like something you might be interested in, please contact me for more details. (Bill at wm_britton@mac.com) Also, if you’re in a completely different time zone and you’re interested, also please let me know, since a second gathering time, designed for people in the Eastern hemisphere may be possible.

Class Notes for Life Skills #4 – Waiting

Posted on by under Busyness, Class Notes, Emotions and Spirituality, Hurry Sickness, liminal space, Patience with Yourself, Spiritual Formation, Striving and drivenness, Waiting on God

Quotations to Prime the Pump

“I wait for the LORD, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope.” Psalm 130:5 NLT
“Let all that I am wait quietly before God, for my hope is in him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress where I will not be shaken.” Psalm 62:5, 6 NLT


“Waiting patiently in expectation is the foundation of the spiritual life.” Simone Weil


“A waiting person is a patient person. The word ‘patience’ implies the willingness to stay where we are and live the situation out to the full in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us. Patient living means to live actively in the present and wait there. Impatient people expect the real thing to happen somewhere else, and therefore they want to get away from the present situation and go elsewhere. For them the moment is empty. But patient people dare to stay where they are.” Henri Nouwen


“We don’t like the way reality is now and therefore wish it would go away fast. But what we find . . . is that nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know. Even if we run a hundred miles an hour to the other side of the continent, we find the very same problem awaiting us when we arrive. it keeps returning with new names, forms, and manifestations until we learn whatever it has to teach us: Where are we separating ourselves from reality? How are we pulling back instead of opening up? How are we closing down instead of allowing ourselves to experience fully whatever we encounter?” Pema Chödrön


“We dare not get rid of the pain before we have learned what it has to teach us. . . . Fixing something doesn’t usually transform us. We try to change events in order to avoid changing ourselves. We avoid God, who works in the darkness–where we are not in control! Maybe that is the secret: relinquishing control. We must learn to stay with the pain of life, without answers, without conclusions, and some days without meaning.” Richard Rohr


“Waiting for clarity of call, waiting until God shows us the next right step, waiting for the Spirit to go ahead of us to light the way. When it’s not clear to us what is invited, we wait, watch and pray. And we trust that sometimes the Spirit is working just fine without us, as much as we’d like to help. There’s an art to the waiting, I’ve learned. Wait expectantly without expectations. Watch for what wants to unfold now, not for what I want to unfold. Pray that I may see what is being invited without imposing what I think would be the best solution. Waiting is not passive and disinterested. Waiting is not turning away. Waiting is an active, prayerful stance, a time of alert openness, a space of listening from mind-in-heart. . . . ” Leah Rampy


“Another will is greater, wiser and more intelligent than my own. So I wait. Waiting means that there is another whom I trust and from whom I receive. My will, important and essential as it is, finds a Will that is more important, more essential. . . . in prayer we are aware that God is in action and that when the circumstances are ready, when others are in the right place and when my heart is prepared, I will be called into action. Waiting in prayer is a disciplined refusal to act before God acts.” Eugene Peterson

Questions for Discussion

  1. Which quote really affected you (convicted, provoked, challenged, etc.)? Talk about that.
  2. Do you “hate to wait?” Why is that?
  3. How do you know when you’ve waited long enough?

  • REMEMBERING APPLICATION:
  • Moving From Head to Heart,
  • Moving From Words to Deeds,
  • Moving from Self-love to Love of God and Others

  1. After this discussion, is there something specific, measurable, and realistic that you are going to practice in order to develop “waiting” as a new skill?
  2. How does the practice of waiting, as you understand it, make you more able to be a person who loves well (who practices compassion and justice)?

The quotes from this week come from Wisdom From the Margins*: 2-25, 3-4, 4-7, 4-14, 6-3, & 6-14 *This is the book we will use for this discussion. If you can, try to read one reading daily in the book (perhaps the reading for that calendar day, or the ones here in italics).

For further consideration (to do before or after the session)

Three possible ways to go deeper:

(1) Set aside at least 10 minutes, find a quiet place, settle yourself with some deep breathing, and read through these words slowly, phrase by phrase, asking God to make clear to you what you need to hear most. (Maybe write that down on a 3.5 card.)

“Above all, trust in the slow work of God. We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new. And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some states of instability–and that it may take a very long time. And so I think it is with you; your ideas mature gradually–let them grow, let them shape themselves without undue haste. Don’t try to force them on, as though you could be today what time (that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will) will make of you tomorrow. Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be. Give our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you. And accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.” Pierre Teilhard de Chardin


(2) If you’re looking for a specific way to practice waiting, this is something you could start to work on–waiting for the other person to continue talking instead of jumping in to take your turn! Oy! FOTFL.


“When a pro interviewer feels a subject is holding something back on a particular topic, they’ll often use the power of silence at the end of the answer to draw out more information. Here’s how journalist Jim Lehrer describes it: ‘If you resist the temptation to respond too quickly to the answer, you’ll discover something almost magical. The other person will either expand on what he’s already said or he’ll go in a different direction.’ try counting to three–or five if you can stand it–after your subject answers a tough or thoughtful question. This method can seem agonizing at first, but–used with empathy–it works wonders to develop a deeper rapport between two people. . . . of course we’d all like to think of ourselves as attentive, curious students of the world, but one little thing gets in the way: our own egos. it’s not our fault–we’re hardwired that way. After all, talking about ourselves feels as good to our brains as money or sex. That’s why ego suspension is so essential to cultivating the kind of curiosity that lets you connect with others. Robin Dreeke . . . explains: ‘Most times, when two individuals engage in a conversation, each patiently waits for the other person to be done with whatever story he or she is telling. Then, the other person tells his or her own story, usually on a related topic and often times in an attempt to have a better and more interesting story. Individuals practicing good ego suspension would continue to encourage the other individual to talk about his or her story, neglecting their own need to share what they think is a great story.” Courtney Siete


(3) If these prayers resonate, try praying either or both of them through the week:

Abba, help me walk rather than race, receive rather than grasp, and relax rather than strive. Help me step into the flow of your divine life rather than living a frenzied version of my very human life. Help me focus on being with you and leave the results to you.

Abba, keep me from moving on before what you’re doing manifests itself. Cure me of impatience (my hurried self), impulsivity (my thoughtless self), and anxiety (my fearful self).

If this discussion sounds like something you might be interested in, please contact me for more details. (Bill @ wm_britton@mac.com) Also, if you’re in a completely different time zone and you’re interested, also please let me know, since a second gathering time, designed for people in the Eastern hemisphere may be possible. (If you know of someone for this, please let me know.)

THIS WEEK’S DISCUSSION: Slowing Down

Posted on by under Busyness, Class Notes, contemplative virtues, Hurry Sickness, Jesus the Savior, Spiritual Disciplines, Striving and drivenness
  • Keeping the Focus
  • Has anyone already started working on a practice? If you have, can you share what that is, and specifically, how you practice it? (one or two people)

B. THE PRACTICE OF SLOWING DOWN

QUOTATIONS TO DISCUSS

“Nothing can be more useful to a man than a determination not to be hurried.” Henry David Thoreau

“The one who hurries delays the things of God.” Vincent de Paul

“When the Spirit of God descends, patience is His inseparable companion.” Tertullian (cf. Galatians 5:22, 23 “The fruit of the Spirit is . . . .”)

“God never hurries. There are no deadlines against which he must work. Only to know this is to quiet our spirits and relax our nerves.” A. W. Tozer

“He who believes will not be in haste.” Isaiah 28:16 RSV

“I am always wary of decisions made hastily. I am always wary of the first decision, that is, the first thing that comes to my mind if I have to make a decision. This is usually the wrong thing. I have to wait and assess, looking deep into myself, taking the necessary time.” Pope Francis

“Jesus walked a lot. . . . This gave him time to see things. If he had been moving more quickly–even to reach more people–these things might have become a blur to him. Because he was moving slowly, they came into focus for him, just as he came into focus for them. . . . While many of his present-day admirers pay close attention to what he said and did, they pay less attention to the pace at which he did it.” Barbara Brown Taylor

“Jesus moved slowly, not striving or rushing. He patiently waited through his adolescent and young adult years to reveal himself as the Messiah. Even then, he did not rush to be recognized. He waited patiently for his Father’s timing during his short ministry. Why is it then that we hate ‘slow’ when God appears to delight in it?” Peter Scazzero

“When we’re in full possession of our powers–our education complete, our careers in full swing, people admiring us and prodding us onward–it’s hard not to imagine that we’re at the beginning, center, and end of the world, or at least of that part of the world in which we’re placed. At these moments we need . . . to quit whatever we’re doing and sit down. . . . When we sit down, the dust raised by our furious activity settles. . . . We become aware of the real world. God’s world. And what we see leaves us breathless: it’s so much larger, so much more full of energy and action than our ego-fueled action, so much clearer and saner than the plans that we had projected.” Eugene Peterson

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

*Which quote really affected you (convicted, provoked, challenged, etc.)?

*Can you describe what you feel (body and soul) when you’re rushing?

*To put it mildly, everyone wanted something from Jesus–yet Jesus never seemed hurried or frenzied. Do you really need to hurry?

*Is it hard for you to relax? Do you “hate slow?” What do your answers say about you?

REMEMBERING APPLICATION:
Moving From Head to Heart,
Moving From Words to Deeds,
Moving from Self-love to Love of God and Others

After this discussion, is there something specific, measurable, and realistic that you are going to practice in order to develop slowing down as a new skill?

How does the practice, as you understand it, make you more able to be a person who loves well (compassion and justice)?

For further reading: Wisdom From the Margins*: January 8, March 6, 11, 17, 19
*This is the book we will use for this discussion.

For further consideration (either before or after the discussion):
Are you wary of decisions made hastily? . . . of the “first decision?” What does that look like in your actual experience?

Do you factor in the realization that meeting goals will often take much longer than you expected?

Do you keep busy to outrun that internal voice that shames you with charges that you’re not good enough? Are you good enough?

__________________________________

If this discussion seems like something you might be interested in, please contact me for more details. We meet on Tuesday evenings at 7:30pm EST. Also, if you’re in a completely different time zone and you’re interested, please let me know, since a second gathering time, designed for people in the Eastern hemisphere may be possible. (Bill, at wm_britton@mac.com)

Daily Riches: God Often Keeps Us Waiting (J. I. Packer, Annie Dillard, Henri Nouwen, Søren Kierkegaard, and Jeanie and David Gushee)

Posted on by under Death Daily, Embracing Losses and Limits, Hurry Sickness, Prayer, Silence, Striving and drivenness, Waiting on God

“. . . ‘Wait on the Lord’ is a constant refrain in the Psalms, and it is a necessary word, for God often keeps us waiting. He is not in such a hurry as we are, and it is not his way to give more light on the future than we need for action in the present, or to guide us more than one step at a time. When in doubt, do nothing, but continue to wait on God. When action is needed, light will come.” J. I. Packer

“The death of the self of which the great writers speak is no violent act. It is merely the joining of the great rock heart of the earth in its roll. It is merely the slow cessation of the will’s sprints and the intellect’s chatter: it is waiting like a hollow bell with stilled tongue. Fuge, tace, quiesce. The waiting itself is the thing.” Annie Dillard

“The word patience comes from the Latin verb patior which means ‘to suffer.’ Waiting patiently is suffering through the present moment, tasting it to the full, and letting the seeds that are sown in the ground on which we stand grow into strong plants. Waiting patiently always means paying attention to what is happening right before our eyes and seeing there the first rays of God’s glorious coming.” Henri Nouwen

“As my prayer became more attentive and inward
I had less and less to say.
I finally became completely silent.
I started to listen–
which is even further removed from speaking.
I first thought that praying entailed speaking.
I then learnt that praying is hearing,
not merely being silent.
This is how it is.
To prayer does not mean to listen to oneself speaking,
Prayer involves becoming silent,
And being silent,
And waiting until God is heard.”
Søren Kierkegaard

“Since ancient times no one has heard,
no ear has perceived, no eye has seen
any God besides you, who acts
on behalf of those who wait for him.”
Isaiah 64:4

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Are you in a hurry?
  • Can you adjust yourself to a God who is “not in such a hurry?”
  • Do you pay attention to “what is happening right before [your] eyes?

“Some wait in confident expectation–others wait in quiet desperation. This night I close my eyes in darkness and yearn for Your Light, brighter than a thousand suns.” (Jeanie and David Gushee)

For More: Knowing God by J. I. Packer

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Daily Riches: Stability–Looking for God Where You Are (Paul Wilkes, Lynne Baab, and Amy Peterson)

Posted on by under Asceticism, contemplative virtues, darkness and doubt, dissent and resistance, Embracing Losses and Limits, Hurry Sickness, monasticism, Spiritual Formation, the importance of stability, The Sacrament of the Present Moment, Waiting on God

“The first vow laid out in Benedict’s Rule is stability. To a monk or sister, it means being committed to stay in this particular monastic house with these particular people. It means being willing to look for God here in the constancy of this place in this rhythm of life, rather than seeking God in ever-changing places and varied routines. In Beyond the Walls: Monastic Wisdom for Everyday Life, Paul Wilkes calls stability a ‘sense of where you are,’ and he believes that our disjointed lives and fragmented society present ample evidence that we desperately need to embrace stability. ‘What was needed, Benedict taught, was maddeningly simple. It was a commitment to trust in God’s goodness–that he was indeed there, in that very place; and that holiness, happiness, and human fulfillment were to be found, not tomorrow or over the hill, but here–today. . . . Stability’s goal is that we might see the inner truth of who we are and [where] we are going. That we might be still long enough to be joined intimately to the God who dwells within . . . . It is difficult–no, it is impossible–to find and maintain that center if our waking hours are a blur of mindless activity, without the presence and practice of stability in our lives.’” Lynne Baab

“I begin to wonder if I, like the brothers at Taize and the desert monks, need to learn the discipline of stability. Do I need roots, when this earth is not my home? That third instruction from Saint Anthony sinks like a seed into the dark recesses of my heart and lies dormant for a long time: ‘In whatever place you live, do not easily leave it.’” Amy Peterson

“So Boaz said to Ruth, ‘My daughter, listen to me.
Don’t go and glean in another field and don’t go away from here.
Stay here with the women who work for me.'”
Ruth 2:8 NIV

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Do you tend to give up too easily on a place? . . . a call? . . . a relationship?
  • Will you determine to “wait for the right moment?” . . . to wait for God’s permission before you decide to “move on?”

Abba, slow me down when my instinct is to flee.

For More: Beyond the Walls by Paul Wilkes

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.
Peterson, Amy. “Wanderlust: A Personal History.” Essay in The Other Journal: Geography, No. 24.
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Wilkes, Paul. Beyond the Walls: Monastic Wisdom for Everyday Life. New York: Doubleday, 1999.

Daily Riches: Rushing Down the Trail of Life (Joyce Rupp)

Posted on by under aging well, awe and wonder, Embracing Losses and Limits, Hurry Sickness, Self-care, Striving and drivenness

“I recall the time that I was in British Columbia participating in a wilderness retreat. On the first evening that our group gathered, we listened to the wilderness advice of a wise forest ranger named Ferguson. He warned us about taking necessary clothing and provisions in our packs, about staying on the trails, and what to do it we were to get lost. ‘If you get lost,’ he said, ‘don’t try to keep finding the way out. [Stay put.] Wait for someone to come and show you the way home. Whatever you do, don’t panic.’ The ranger assured us that he and his associate knew those paths well and that they would come and find us. He also commented that getting lost and waiting to be found could be an ‘exalted’ thing; one could get in touch with the woods and earth, really look and see in a way that one would not when hiking busily down the trail. . . . Years later, I realized how wise the ranger’s advice was, not only for hikers, but also for midlife journeyers. I have gotten lost in the mystery of who I am. I have needed a wise companion to help me find the way home to my true Self. I had to learn how to trust another with my lostness. . . . And, yes, it has been a most exalted time when I stopped to look deep and long at my inner world. I saw things that I missed entirely when I was fully in control, rushing down the trail of life.” Joyce Rupp

“Cease striving and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.”
Psalm 46:10 NASV

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • What might you have failed to see while “rushing down the trail of life?”
  • What will it take to slow you down? Will it require some great loss?
  • Is routinely missing what is precious, important or “exalted” acceptable to you?
  • Do you give excuses for not slowing down? Have you genuinely tried it?

Abba, it’s all about the striving. Help me to reject the striving.

For more: Dear Heart, Come Home by Joyce Rupp
and my new book:
Wisdom From the Margins: Daily Readings (click link)

Thank you for your interest in Daily Riches! Please subscribe and share!

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Daily Riches: The Problem With Coping and Fixing (David Benner and Gerald May)

Posted on by under Change Yourself First, darkness and doubt, Desolation's Gift, Ego Issues, Embracing Losses and Limits, Emotions and Spirituality, God's Grace, Hurry Sickness, Jesus the Savior, Loving Well, Waiting on God, Wholeness and Brokenness

“It’s so hard for many of us to encounter things we can’t fix. That’s the trouble with living in a broken world. There is so much that we simply can’t fix–in ourselves, in others, in the world. The problems are simply too vast and our solutions are, at best, half-vast. Welcome to God’s world. But note how God seems to relate to these vast problems. God’s response seems to be to come along side those who are suffering and hold their pain, not eliminate it. Perhaps there’s a lesson in that for fixers. Perhaps it’s an invitation to stand with God in holding things that we can’t fix. But, this is where the real miracle enters this process–in that holding we become shaped in the image of Compassion. Maybe that’s the ultimate point of the encounter with unfixable realities.” David Benner

“I have come to hate that word, because to cope with something you have to separate yourself from it. You make it your antagonist, your enemy. Like management, coping is a taming word, sometimes even a warfare word. Wild, untamed emotions are full of life-spirit, vibrant with the energy of being. They don’t have to be acted out, but neither do they need to be tamed. They are part of our inner wilderness; they can be just what they are. God save me from coping. God help me join, not separate. Help me be with and in, not apart from. Show me the way to savoring, not controlling. Dear God, hear my prayer: make me forever copeless.” Gerald May

“Who is weak without my feeling that weakness?
Who is led astray, and I do not burn with anger?”
2 Corinthians 11:29

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Think for a moment about all you can’t fix in your world. What emotions arise?
  • Think about God as you understand God. In what sense is God a fixer or not a fixer?
  • What is the problem with “coping” and “fixing?”

Abba, may I not be deterred from loving well because I insist of fixing what can’t be, or shouldn’t be, fixed.

For More: The Wisdom of Wilderness by Gerald May

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek God and God seeks you. My goal is to regularly give you something of unique value in 400 words or less. I hope you’ll follow and share my blog. Thanks for your interest! – Bill

Sources:

Benner, David. “Holding Rather Than Fixing.” His Facebook post from September 27, 2017.

May, Gerald G.. The Wisdom of Wilderness: Experiencing the Healing Power of Nature . HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

 

 

 

 

Daily Riches: The Practice Of Waiting (William Britton)

Posted on by under Busyness, Embracing Losses and Limits, Humility, Hurry Sickness, stability, Striving and drivenness, Waiting on God

“Simone Weil considered patient waiting to be ‘the foundation of the spiritual life.’ And John Ortberg condemns hurry, which is the rejection of patient waiting, as ‘the great enemy of the spiritual life.’ Obviously, for me to flourish spiritually will require that I learn to wait, and like with anything else, that will require practice. I can practice waiting as I refuse to take matters into my own hands (being controlling or vengeful)–and instead wait on God to do as God see’s fit. I can practice waiting as I refuse to indulge in despair or cynicism–instead looking for evidence of God’s coming yet present Kingdom. I can practice waiting as I refuse to forge ahead when I don’t know what to do–admitting my limitations and need for help. (From the outside my waiting may look like doing nothing–but really it’s creating a space for God to do what only God can do.) I can practice waiting as I refuse to give in to temptation–refusing to insist on what I want, or feel I need–trusting the one who knows better than me what I need. I can practice waiting as I refuse to complain bitterly (or worse) curse angrily–reminding myself that things aren’t necessarily supposed to go as I planned. I can ‘sit tight’ in anticipation of something transcendent–something that transcends my oh-so-important strategy. I can practice waiting as I refuse to make happiness my primary motivation for the day. God invariably has something better than happiness in mind for me–and it’s not about me anyway. Finally, I can practice waiting as I refuse to worry. I can remind myself that God is always at work for good, that my worrying won’t add anything to that, that my rushing ahead will only make a mess and create a lot of needless anxiety.” William Britton

“I waited patiently for the Lord;
he turned to me and heard my cry.”
Psalm 40:1

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Think of all the things that seem “foundational” to you in your Christian life. Is waiting well one of them?
  • How can you practice waiting? Can you think of some ways to make this personal for you?
  • Are your convictions about the need to wait strong enough to cause you to wait the next time you feel like “forging ahead?”

Abba, I want to live at a the pace of god-fearer, and in a calmness that comes from taking my cues from you. Help me to make this my way in the world.

For More: Godspeed

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek God and God seeks you. My goal is to regularly give you something brief and of unique value. I hope you’ll follow and share my blog. Thanks! – Bill

Daily Riches: Jacking Up the Pace of Life (Carl Honore and Alexis de Tocqueville)

Posted on by under Asceticism, Busyness, dissent and resistance, Embracing Losses and Limits, Hurry Sickness, Striving and drivenness

“Modern medicine may have added an extra decade or so to the three score years and ten originally laid down in the Bible, but we still live under the shadow of the biggest deadline of all: death. No wonder we feel that time is short and strive to make every moment count. But if the instinct to do so is universal, then why are some cultures more prone than others to race against the clock? Part of the answer may lie in the way we think about time itself. In some philosophical traditions—Chinese, Hindu and Buddhist, to name three—time is cyclical. On Canada’s Baffin Island, the Inuit use the same word—uvatiarru—to mean both ‘in the distant past’ and ‘in the distant future.’ Time, in such cultures, is always coming as well as going. It is constantly around us, renewing itself, like the air we breathe. In the Western tradition, time is linear, an arrow flying remorselessly from A to B. It is a finite, and therefore precious, resource. …As long ago as the 1830s, the French writer Alexis de Tocqueville blamed the shopping instinct for jacking up the pace of life: ‘He who has set his heart exclusively upon the pursuit of worldly welfare is always in a hurry, for he has but a limited time at his disposal to reach, to grasp, and to enjoy it.’ That analysis rings even more true today, when all the world is a store, and all the men and women merely shoppers. Tempted and titillated at every turn, we seek to cram in as much consumption and as many experiences as possible. As well as glittering careers, we want to take art courses, work out at the gym, read the newspaper and every book on the bestseller list, eat out with friends, go clubbing, play sports, watch hours of television, listen to music, spend time with the family, buy all the newest fashions and gadgets, go to the cinema, enjoy intimacy and great sex with our partners, holiday in far-flung locations and maybe even do some meaningful volunteer work. The result is a gnawing disconnect between what we want from life and what we can realistically have, which feeds the sense that there is never enough time.”

“making the most of your time,
because the days are evil.”
Ephesians 5:16

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • What does “making the most of your time” mean to you?
  • Are you always in a hurry to “cram in as much consumption and as many experiences as possible?”
  • Could striving for more actually be providing you with less?

For More: In Praise of Slowness by Carl Honore

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Thanks for following my blog! I appreciate it. – Bill (Psalm 90:14)

 

Daily Riches: Disrupting the Dominant Culture With Tenderness (Ed Clark and Pope Francis)

Posted on by under Busyness, dissent and resistance, Hurry Sickness, Loving Well, Striving and drivenness, The Sacrament of the Present Moment, True Greatness

“I sat in the audience as the silence settled over the crowd. Rather than seeing this 80-year-old priest’s message as out-of-date or cliché, rather than pushing back against the value of religious belief writ large, it seemed like the TED audience was actually starving for his words. What struck me most was what he said about our need for a ‘revolution in tenderness’:

And what is tenderness? It is the love that comes close and becomes real. It is a movement that starts from our heart and reaches the eyes, the ears and the hands. Tenderness means to use our eyes to see the other, our ears to hear the other, to listen to the children, the poor, those who are afraid of the future.

At a conference known for its culture of young people celebrating ‘moving fast and breaking things,’ here was an old man talking about slowing down and really seeing people. At a conference where positivity and courage are celebrated, where the future is often painted with an unapologetically optimistic patina, here was a reminder that the world doesn’t feel so hospitable to everyone, that people have deep and understandable fear of what is around the corner—either in their personal lives or in our political sphere. It was truly radical. Tenderness, it strikes me, is an endangered virtue in so many of our professional and public spaces.  …when I’m out in the ‘real world,’ I am conditioned to produce, achieve, and only ask for or offer help if its understood as a mechanism for getting to a goal faster or better, not acknowledging inherent human weakness. …There are so many moments in our fast, furious public lives these days where we miss an opportunity for this kind of brave tenderness, this kind of dignifying gravity. We rush through our neighborhoods, through airports, through workplaces as if trying to bypass the presence of embarrassing emotion, as if none of it matters enough to slow us down, as if—and this is the Pope’s real point—no one matters enough to slow us down. So this week …I’m going to slow down wherever and whenever I feel tenderness—in myself or others—and actually experience it.  …I’m going to, as the TEDsters might say, ‘disrupt’ the dominant culture—not with a new app or a crazy idea—but with the unorthodox assumption that there is room enough for tenderness, here and now, always.”

“therefore if you have any tenderness…”
Philippians 2:1

Moving From Head to Heart

  • Are you striving for tenderness?
  • Can you afford the time to show tenderness? …to receive it?
  • Where can you practice “revolutionary” tenderness?

Abba, help me disrupt the dominant culture.

For More: The Infinite Tenderness Of God by Pope Francis

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Thanks for following my blog! – Bill

Daily Riches: The Enormous Value of Ordinary Things (Belden Lane, Alice Fryling and Teilhard de Chardin)

Posted on by under Asceticism, Busyness, Hurry Sickness, Simplicity, Striving and drivenness, the ordinary, The Sacrament of the Present Moment, truth and illusion

“In spiritual direction, we look at the truth of our present situation and experience. The question asked is not ‘What should be happening in my life?’ but ‘What is happening in my life?’ We look for God here, now, because the place we are in in our lives is the place where we find God.” Alice Fryling

“Never content with ordinariness, unable to address our fears, we pump up the volume on every dramatic (and violent) possibility. We live from one moment of fear-stifling exhilaration to the next. Only in this way do we feel engaged with life. In our best-selling novels, current films, and the tensions of urban life and foreign policy, the dragons of awfulness lurk in every corner, reminding us that if we’ve survived the terrors of death, we must be alive. Supervivo, ergo sum. But when the drama fails, when we grow weary of the intense pressure of life on the edge, we’re forced to reconsider the myths by which we live. War is not the principle metaphor of human existence. Death is not always an enemy. Life is more than a matter of breathless contention, triumphing over obstacles, denying the monsters of our own feelings. The dragons of the ordinary invite us back to simplicity and a quiet acceptance of life’s rhythms. The deepest joys are not so much spectacular as commonplace. ‘Do not forget,’ wrote Teilhard de Chardin, ‘that the value and interest of life is not so much to do conspicuous things …as to do ordinary things with the perception of their enormous value.’ …There are graces, we all come to realize, that we’d rather not receive. Theologians used to distinguish between special grace and common grace, but we’ve never much valued the latter. Special grace is extraordinary; it comes with drama and flair. We are rescued, singled out in a momentous act of boldness. But common grace falls upon the just and unjust alike. It strikes us as simply too …ordinary. …Yet the route to all grand things passes by way of the commonplace.” Belden Lane

“He causes his sun to rise
on the evil and the good”
Matthew 5:45

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Do you live as if war were “the principle metaphor of human existence?”
  • Do you see death only as an enemy?
  • Are you addicted to drama? …to violence? …to anything but simplicity?
  • What would it look like for you do to “ordinary things with the perception of their enormous value?”

Abba, make me faithful when things are dull.

For More: The Solace of Fierce Landscapes by Belden Lane

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek God and God seeks you. I hope you’ll follow/share my blog. Thanks for your interest! – Bill

Daily Riches: When Things Happen Too Fast (Carl Honore and Milan Kundera)

Posted on by under Busyness, Ego Issues, Embracing Losses and Limits, Emotions and Spirituality, Hurry Sickness, Loving Well, Patience with Yourself, Rest and Relaxation, Self-care, Striving and drivenness

“When things happen too fast, nobody can be certain about anything, about anything at all, not even about himself.” Milan Kundera

“Speed has helped to remake our world in ways that are wonderful and liberating. Who wants to live without the Internet or jet travel? The problem is that our love of speed, our obsession with doing more and more in less and less time, has gone too far; it has turned into an addiction, a kind of idolatry. Even when speed starts to backfire, we invoke the go-faster gospel. Falling behind at work? Get a quicker Internet connection. No time for that novel you got at Christmas? Learn to speed-read. Diet not working? Try liposuction. Too busy to cook? Buy a microwave. And yet some things cannot, should not, be sped up. They take time; they need slowness. When you accelerate things that should not be accelerated, when you forget how to slow down, there is a price to pay. …For a chilling vision of where this behaviour leads, look no further than Japan, where the locals have a word—karoshi—that means ‘death by overwork.’ One of the most famous victims of karoshi was Kamei Shuji, a high-flying broker who routinely put in ninety-hour weeks during the Japanese stock market boom of the late 1980s. His company trumpeted his superhuman stamina in newsletters and training booklets, turning him into the gold standard to which all employees should aspire. In a rare break from Japanese protocol, Shuji was asked to coach senior colleagues in the art of salesmanship, which piled extra stress onto his pinstriped shoulders. When Japan’s stock bubble burst in 1989, Shuji worked even longer hours to pick up the slack. In 1990, he died suddenly of a heart attack. He was twenty-six. …All the things that bind us together and make life worth living—community, family, friendship—thrive on the one thing we never have enough of: time.” Carl Honore

“Everyone should be quick to listen,
slow to speak and slow to become angry”
James 1:19

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • How often do you realize you’re hurrying for no reason? Do you then slow yourself down?
  • Do you feel compelled or driven to be more productive? What does your answer say about you?
  • Does the way you live allow enough time for “community, family, friendship?”

Abba, in practicing more slowness may I discover more bountiful living.

For More:  In Praise of Slowness by Carl Honore

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek God and God seeks you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to regularly share something of unique value with you in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest! Please leave a question/comment. – Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: The Rhythmic Dance (Wayne Mueller and Geri Scazzero)

Posted on by under Asceticism, Being and Doing, Busyness, Contemplation and Activism, Detachment and Attachment, Embracing Losses and Limits, Hurry Sickness, Rest and Relaxation, Sabbath Rhythms, Self-care, Striving and drivenness

“When we live without listening to the timing of things, when we live and work in twenty-four-hour shifts without rest–we are on war time, mobilized for battle. Yes, we are strong and capable people, we can work without stopping, faster and faster, electric lights making artificial day so the whole machine can labor without ceasing. But remember: No living thing lives like this. There are greater rhythms, seasons and hormonal cycles and sunsets and moonrises and great movements of seas and stars. We are part of the creation story, subject to all its laws and rhythms…. To surrender to the rhythms of seasons and flowerings and dormancies is to savor the secret of life itself. Many scientists believe we are ‘hard-wired’ like this, to live in rhythmic awareness, to be in and then step out, to be engrossed and then detached, to work and then to rest. It follows then that the commandment to remember the Sabbath is not a burdensome requirement from some law-giving deity—’You ought, you’d better, you must’—but rather a remembrance of a law that is firmly embedded in the fabric of nature. It is a reminder of how things really are, the rhythmic dance to which we unavoidably belong.” Wayne Mueller

“Honoring our different rhythms involves respecting and negotiating our needs and preferences at work, with friends, at church, in our marriage, our extended families, and even our parenting. To begin listening to your inner rhythms, consider the following questions: Do you know when it is time to be with people and when it is time to be alone? Do you know when it is time to rest or time to play? What are your most optimal work hours? How much sleep to you need? When is it time to eat? Is it time for you to wait on something or is it time to move on? How does the pace of our life feel? What can you do to establish an enjoyable routine and healthy balance in this season of your life? And finally, what are the one or two changes you can make in order to get more in step with your God-given inner rhythms?” Geri Scazzero

“There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens”
Ecclesiastes 3:1

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Do you have “rhythmic awareness?” Are you listening to your inner rhythms?
  • Can you see this as a spiritual issue? …one measure of mature faith?
  • Have you “surrendered” to the rhythms built into our world, or are you bucking them?

Abba, help me to listen to what your world, and my body, are telling me.

For More:  I Quit! by Geri Scazzero

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Thanks for reading and following my blog! – Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: The Renunciation That Is Passivity (Eugene Peterson and Emily Dickinson)

Posted on by under Asceticism, Being and Doing, Being the Beloved, Busyness, contemplative virtues, Hurry Sickness, Rest and Relaxation, Sabbath Rhythms, Self-care, Silence, Solitude, Spiritual Disciplines, Stillness, Striving and drivenness

“Sabbath is the time set aside to do nothing so that we can receive everything, to set aside our anxious attempts to make ourselves useful, to set aside our tense restlessness, to set aside our media-saturated boredom. Sabbath is the time to receive silence and let it deepen into gratitude, to receive quiet into which forgotten faces and voices unobtrusively make themselves present, to receive the days of the just completed week and absorb the wonder and miracle still reverberating from each one, to receive our Lord’s amazing grace. ….waiting provides the time and space for others to get in on salvation. Waiting calls a time-out, puts us on the sidelines for a while so that we don’t interfere with essential kingdom-of-God operations that we don’t even know are going on. Not-doing involves a means of detaching my ego, my still immature understanding of the way God works comprehensively but without forcing his way, without coercion. The restraint of passivity allows for the quiet, mostly invisible complexities and intricacies that are characteristic of the Holy Spirit as he does his work in us, in the church and in the world for whom Christ died. ‘Renunciation–the piercing virtue’ is Emily Dickinson’s phrase for it. It couldn’t have been easy for the father to not go out looking for his son the way the shepherd looked for his sheep and the woman looked for her coin.” Eugene Peterson

“The Sabbath was made for man….”
Jesus in Mark 2:27

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Have you tried setting aside time “to do nothing”–with the purpose of receiving “everything” from God? Have you made it a regular practice?
  • We stop, rest, and quiet ourselves in order to open ourselves to receive–from others, from our day, from God–what doesn’t come otherwise. Is the constant motion of your life secretly impoverishing you?
  • Renunciation is hard work. The father didn’t go out to look for his son. Think about that. What is God’s word for you in today’s reading?

Abba, help me renounce my grasping, striving, rushing–my need for noise and company–and help me receive what you are always so graciously giving.

For More:  Tell It Slant by Eugene Peterson

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek God and God seeks you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to regularly share something of unique value with you in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest! Please leave a comment or question. – Bill (Psalm 90:14)

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