Category Archives: Attentiveness

Cozy or Compelling

Steve Jobs died 10 years ago this month. To mark the anniversary, one of his closest collaborators, Jony Ive, reflected on his relationship with Jobs in the Wall Street Journal. Ive remarked that:

“I had thought that by now there would be reassuring comfort in the memory of my best friend and creative partner, and of his extraordinary vision.”

“But of course not. Ten years on, he manages to evade a simple place in my memory. My understanding of him refuses to remain cozy or still. It grows and evolves.”

This type of dynamic, compelling memory is a remarkable thing to consider.

Are we able to say the same about our memory of mentors who made us dream of significant lives? Or of our “favorite” saints? Wasn’t it Dorothy Day who said she hoped she would never be considered a saint because she did not want to be dismissed so quickly?

Let us pray for the grace of memories that compel us to lives of significant generosity.

Who Loves?

Let’s think about the Good Samaritan story for a second and see something cool.

The story starts with the commandment to love your neighbor as yourself, and the young man’s follow-up question: Who is my neighbor?

And you know the middle.  Man is beaten, left for dead.  The “holy” people pass by.  The outsider acts mercifully on the beaten man’s behalf.

Good.  

Now notice the end.  Jesus asks: “Which one of these was neighbor to the [wounded man]?  Neighbor = Helper Samaritan.

But wait!  The commandment is to love the neighbor!  If we can trust the syntax of the translation, the one who is doing the loving, then, is the beaten man!

The point, for me, is this: Robust, expansive love can begin when we are able to bear our wounds, in vulnerability, to people we trust.  In this sense then, yes, the wounded man plays an important part in the relationship.

Shall we go and do likewise?

Straw Man or Steel Man

When we consider a person that, at this moment, we do not agree with, what is the story that we tell about them?

Does it resemble a “straw man?”  That is, do we pick only the flimsiest parts of their perspective and rail against it?

Or do we set up a “steel man?”  That is, do we consider their position with cognitive empathy and fill out their narrative as strongly as possible?

One strategy will help us productively and compassionately engage the world as it is.  The other will inflate our ego’s self-righteousness.

Effort and Effortlessness

An integrated interior life certainly requires an element of effort: to show up each day in silence, to carve out time in defiance of all of life’s distractions, to conquer the resistance of “Oh, I will just pray tomorrow.” 

But, truly, a bigger and trickier part is the commitment to effortlessness.  If the point is to tune to how deeply we are loved and to trust in this love, then a massive egoic effort will not help us.  We need effortlessness, a sense of abandon, as in love or sleep.

This effortless effort is certainly a paradox, but a fruitful one, worth engaging.

Seasons

This weekend, our family moves from Northern Mexico to Greater DC.  

I believe that, if we pay attention during life’s transitions, the seasons of our lives can reveal themselves with unique clarity.  That is, it is possible to harness the emotional intensity of a transition and, holding the moment gently, to gather the meaning of the past years.

I often need help to pay attention in this way, and one song in particular helps me achieve this disposition.  It was written and performed by former colleague, master teacher, and dear friend, Michael Crean.  It is from an album that forms the musical backbone of the audiobooks for Audacious Ignatius and Sorin Starts a School.

Here is the song, entitled “Seasons.”  (It is registered on SoundCloud under his pen name.)  For an optimal experience, listen with good headphones after everything the day requires has been done.

Here’s to attentiveness, whatever the season.

Halten

A German verb for “to hold” (halten) can be used as the verb “to think,” as in: What do you think about that idea?

This structure illustrates a healthy relationship with our mind’s activity.  I am holding a thought in awareness.  I do not over identify with it.  I can let it go.  I can share it.  I can do something about it. But I am not the thought.

So.  Was hälst du?  What do you think?  (That is, what do you hold?)

Our Defenses Affect Our Flourishing – Part I

Life presents us with conflict, stress, and change, so we develop (often unconscious) defensive habits to deal with this pain.

There is compelling evidence* suggesting that the maturity of our defenses can determine the extent to which we develop psychosocial health. 

Here are some mature defenses (articulated in the DSM-IV).

(1) Altruism – Taking action to decrease the world’s suffering

(2) Anticipation – Holding future pain in awareness (i.e. memento mori)

(3) Humor – Being able to laugh at oneself and the vicissitudes of life

(4) Sublimation – Engaging healthy, gratifying alternatives to an opportunity denied

(5) Suppression – Stoicism (i.e. “If you are going through hell, keep going.”) 

Development of these habits is not a matter of will power.  They are cultivated in the context of significant relationships, drawn out of us in empathy and safety.  

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*For more, check out Chapter 8 (entitled “Resilience and Unconscious Coping”) of this fascinating book reflecting on the Harvard Study of Adult Development.

Our Defenses Affect Our Flourishing – Part II

Here I wrote that the maturity of our unconscious defenses in the face of life’s pain contributes to our overall psychosocial wellness.

And the opposite seems true as well.  Immature defenses tend to undermine our wellness. 

Here are some common immature defenses.

Some (dissociation, fantasy, passive aggression, projection) avoid or externalize responsibility for the situation we find ourselves in.

Other defenses keep the threatening thought or feeling out of our awareness.  These include displacement (directing anger at something other than the source of the anger), intellectualization, and repression.

Awareness of these immature defenses can help us leave them behind.  To truly grow, though, we need to witness exemplars of the mature defenses as well as experience the relational support to integrate them.  

Showing One’s Face

My wife and I used to work here in downtown Cairo, Egypt.

My wife’s work was in the legal aid clinic.  She worked often with one translator, a young woman from Somalia, when preparing the cases of Somali clients.  This woman wore the niqab, so my wife had only ever seen her eyes.

Then, the day before we were to return to the US, this young woman approached my wife to say goodbye and told her that she wanted to find a place alone so that she could show my wife her face.     

There was no real privacy on the compound.  The workspace of the entire legal aid clinic was, generously estimated, about 14 feet by 24 feet, with an adjoining bathroom.  So my wife and this Somali woman went into the bathroom, saw each other face to face, and said goodbye.

Deciding to show our face to someone takes significant courage. 

How do we become people who have the desire to show our face to one another?  

How do we become someone of such love that people want to show their face to us?