Author Archives: Paul Mitchell

How Not to Receive a Gift

Imagine that we each have just received a free and mysterious gift – one that, when explored, grew more and more wonderful.

Here is a list (not exhaustive!) of how I should probably not receive this gift.

-Convince myself it is not that cool anyway, and not really engage it.

-Try to subtly earn it, and thereby convince myself that I control the gift.

-Trash it.

-Tell myself that I do not deserve it, and thereby excuse myself from encountering the wonder of the thing.

-Otherwise ignore or neglect it.

I’d be silly to do these things, right?  

And yet I know that I have, in one form or another, with the free gifts of my inner life, outer life, the earth, my mind and body.

Let’s agree to receive these gifts in wonder and, humbled by their depth, attend to each with deep love.

The Way We Play

I once heard this story of a student auditioning at a school of music.  

He had exhaustively prepared his audition piece.  During the actual audition, though, the instructor interrupted him almost immediately and asked him to play it differently.

That’s great.  Now, play it at double speed.

Now, play it at half speed.

Now, play it like Adele sings. 

Now play it like Santana.

Now play it like Dylan.

The teacher wanted to see how well the student adapted to the challenge of changing his default mode.

In life, we typically have a default “way we play.”  Call it our personality, or our narrative, or our way of being.  It has helped us survive this long and do some things well.

Crucial to the skill of living artfully, though, is beginning to see this “way we play” as limited, learn to experiment with playing differently, and then watch new doors open wide.

Playing to Learn

The few times that I have shadowed our sons in their (mostly German-speaking) school, I’ve gained an appreciation of how difficult it must be to be immersed in a new language in that context. Yes, young brains can pick up language fast, but going from zero to playground proficient is still a hard thing.

Lately, at home, we have noticed that they are most likely to practice their German when they are playing. Either alone or together, they play with both toys and language. They get in a lot of hours of practice that way and the German becomes part of their joy.

So: that new thing we want (or need) to learn… how can our learning feel like play?

Elders

When we moved into our house last summer, I found that someone had left an unassuming book in the dresser… an independently published book, “20 Walks from Munich.” Each of the twenty walks is exhaustively (and often hilariously) detailed, like a pirate map in a children’s story. (As in: “Look to the left. Do you see the big rock? Walk past it and turn right.”)

When I tried out the first walk, I was looking up and down from the book every few minutes. I was a novice and wondered often if I was on the correct path. But the more I walked, the more I saw folks in their sixties and seventies in small groups on the very path that my book was describing.

They knew the way by heart.

I put away the book and followed where they were walking.

Our modern life typically does not prioritize listening to elders, but it could and, in many cases, should. The elders have walked this way before.

I Can’t See My Face!

The other morning, our four-year-old emphatically observed:

“Did you know that I can’t see my face?!?”

And he is right!  Without a mirror (or the like), one cannot see the non-verbal cues that their face communicates.

This reality is kind of a bummer, too, since the face gives off a huge amount of information, and we have evolved to subconsciously interpret even the smallest, quickest emotion on the face of another.

So, what do you hope to unconsciously communicate?

The answer may represent yet another reason for committing to a slower, simpler life and to mindfully accept what we feel when we feel it.

Because I can’t see my face, but everyone else can.

Contribution, the Criterion

Foreign Service families move countries every few years, so that means we have to find a new faith community quite often.

Upon moving to a new country, one FS family we know asks these questions of a new faith community that they enter:  

Is this a place where I can contribute?  Is this a place where I can pour out my love, generosity, and experience? 

If “yes,” they dig in and make it their home.  If “no,” they move on and look for another.

Contribution is their criterion.

So obviously there is more to a strong faith community than that… but I would be willing to bet that this “more” would be there in a community strong enough that it seeks to involve everyone in a robust contribution party. 

I love this family’s mindset and feel appropriately challenged by it.  It is a proper antidote to how many, especially Catholics, have been habituated to engage (or not) in the church.

We are creators of culture, not merely consumers of it.

Jack Sparrow’s Indignation

Remember that moment in Pirates of the Caribbean where Jack Sparrow finds himself on a different ship with cannons firing on his beloved Black Pearl? 

“Stop blowing holes in my ship!” he wildly protests.

I think that we blow holes in our ship – more than we are aware or would like to admit.

In families, when we harbor the grudge or the old way of being…

In the church, when we cling to “commentary” instead of weaving communities and offering contribution… when we polish a tiny idol rather than pray for the Mystery…

And on the earth, when we do not acknowledge what is happening and imagine a new way forward together.

For Lent, let’s give up blowing holes in our ships.

The Availability of Responsibility

Lots of things in life are scarce.

Opportunities to take responsibility are not among them.

Responsibility for one’s actions or anger or aloofness…

Or for what is happening to the earth…

Or for a languishing ministry at church, a weak workplace culture, that pile of dishes…

Or (and perhaps most importantly) for engaging that person who needs to be seen as they are…

Chances to take responsibility abound.

The opportunity to say “I’m here. How can I help?” is a grace and a gift.

I Don’t Have Time For That

For a long time, I thought about contemplative practice, but never really committed to it.

“I don’t have time for that,” I told myself.

Then some time ago, I began to think about this differently by considering two things.

1) Life is short – like, wildly short – even in the best case scenarios.

And 2) if contemplative practice is how I am going to (slowly, day by day) begin to see people as they truly are, witness the sacramentality of life, not be reactive and ego-driven… if I am going to do any of this… I don’t have any time to lose.

Put a different way, from the perspective of my short lifespan, the “that” that I don’t have time for is putting off contemplative practice, the cultivation of solitude, the expansion of awareness.

That is what I don’t have time for. I don’t have time for avoidance.

The Beam

First take the beam out of your own eye… -Matthew 7:5

So that old beam in the eye… what is it like?

Maybe it’s clinging to a story that is no longer true…

Or nursing an old hurt because it gives an odd (if destructive) sense of comfort… 

Or seeking always the approval of others…

Or analyzing and rearranging the world to fit my fragility, my idea of how things should be…

Or barricading myself on the moral high ground instead of encountering another and listening…

Or compulsively avoiding all pain…

Or believing my narrative over anything else…

And being scarcely aware of any of the above…

Whoa! That’s a big beam!!

Being sick of the beam is a good first step to see about removing it.