Preventative Maintenance

On our daily commute, some humorous Jiffy Lube associates have crafted the following.

this a post about balance, not petroleum

The statement is witty, obviously supportive of their business model, and easily applicable to the human need to honor priorities and balance.

It has never been easier to postpone maintenance on our relationships, bodies, and souls… to overextend ourselves, to give ourselves over to so many competing demands that we lose focus on our most important commitments.

Put another way… if we do not attend to our interior lives and the health of our bodies, we should expect costly damage to things that matter.

Blind Spot Buddy (Or: What Am I Missing Here?)

Let’s agree that humans are not good at seeing their blind spots. After all, how am I supposed to see what I don’t see?!

Enter the AI “blind spot buddy.”  

So.  Log into Claude (or whichever platform).  Choose the issue you are having trouble with.  Explain the situation as if to a friend or coach.

I can’t seem to communicate effectively with [enter person’s name]….[enter context]…

(or)

I am stuck with [enter technological problem]….[enter context]…

What might I be missing here?

Make sure to explain the issue thoroughly, and then be astounded by what your personal blind spot buddy comes up with.  Ask follow up questions.  Follow through in real life. 

Resistant to Care

“Resistant to care” is a general clinical term used to describe a patient who opposes or impedes the interventions made on their behalf.  (In this scenario, their caretakers must be more creative in their care for this individual.)

As it concerns our development as loving persons, on some basic level, we are all “resistant to care.”  We resist providing the body with what the health it truly wants.  We rush by explosions of natural beauty.  We don’t adequately attend to children. We get in our own way, complicating our reception of the love that life offers to us.

Our task, then, is to pray for the grace to become less “resistant to care.”

And Let It Begin With…

At home, growing up, we would jokingly sing the refrain to the church hymn “Let there be peace on earth” as follows:

“Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with *you*…”

While silly, this is too often how we approach all kinds of conflict.  

Understanding my role in the system of the conflict can help untangle the situation and provide a path forward.

Conversation during the extra mile

Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles. (Matthew 5:41)

Walking the extra mile (after that initial distance is completed), what is the conversation like?

Does the conversation change?  And how?

Perhaps one’s inner chatter (about what that person must be like) quiets down, defenses fall, better questions are asked and answered…

And as understanding deepens, patience is extended to the irrationality and incoherence present in everyone’s story.   

This sort of transformation (becoming human, poor in spirit) is on offer for the compassionate and curious traveler. 

The Foundational Home

Aristotle explored ethics “[not] in order to know what virtue is, but [that we might] become good.” 

With what does it begin?

The household – our management of it and the formation we internalize while in it.

When I am able to see the home not as a not a chore to begrudge, rush through, or outsource – but as a foundation for a deeply good, abundant life, a new way of living opens before me.

In Gratitude  

Understatement alert! 

Many words have been written and spoken about sin.  

What if any communication on the topic started with St. Ignatius’ contention that a lack of gratitude was the sin to watch out for.  How would that change the conversation?

“It seems to me in the light of the Divine Goodness… that ingratitude is the most abominable of sins… For it is a forgetting of the graces, benefits, and blessings received.” (St. Ignatius quoted on pg. 110 in The Ignatian Adventure)

The Professional Reader

We rightly appreciate great writing.  The value of authors that can teach a distilled concept or weave a magical world is congratulated and remunerated. 

But what about the value of readers?  How might we equally honor the student (or adult) who seeks out varied and worthy writing, courageously struggles to understand its import and beauty, and recreates their vision and engagement of the world in the encounter?

An exceptional reader may be just as valuable an exceptional writer – and perhaps more rare.  

We can choose to become and to appreciate outstanding readers.  These days, we need them more than ever.