Category Archives: Attentiveness

The Final Freedom

Viktor Frankl named “the last of the human freedoms” as the ability “to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances… to choose one’s own way.” (Man’s Search For Meaning)

And, of course, he has serious authority.  This assertion was made as he reflected on his time in four different concentration camps.

His point is universally important and applicable: how we face the day is a deeply moral and creative act.  

Every moment offers us the possibility to change the story to be more constructive, more loving, more curious.

The Silent Request

I am rereading the remarkable Religious Potential of the Child, and was stopped short by this sentence which begins the third chapter.

“The adult who accepts the silent request of the child: “Help me to come closer to God by myself,” must choose the way to give the child the help [he or she] asks for.” (page 33)

Whoa!

And, I wonder if this is actually the silent request of all to show up in a given faith community.  

What would it mean to prioritize attentiveness to this longing?  How would the church change?

I think we would become like a network of spiritual directors, with individuals becoming deeply curious about the silent request of their neighbor and responding with excellence to it.

Free Will

In college, I recall discussing “human free will” as a sort of a given, an endowment that we are born with, like our bones and muscles.

The mystics and behavioral economists, though, show us that this is hardly the case.  The freedom of our will is only a potential within us and something that, with grace and intentional work, we can slowly actualize.  

That is, so much of what I think are “my actions” are only reflexive reactions, based on my mental and physical makeup, my past conditioning, my environment.  I have been programmed, by nature and by nurture, to do certain things.  The path to freedom, then, consists in accepting the (occasionally brutal) grace of seeing the particulars of this reality, and accepting this “learning to see” as a daily process and discipline.  

Then, when we are able to love in ways that do not compute, we can know that we are on the path of freedom.

What’s Working?

No life is free of constraints.  Time is limited.  Environment is limiting.

It is not a worthwhile use of this limited time to fixate passively on these limitations and blame our problems on them… because someone with our same constraints is thriving despite them.

Getting curious about what is working for that person or group just may get us unstuck and back on the road where we want to go.

Each Day, Fresh Eyes

Our sons love this sunflower (below) that has sprung up just outside the fence of a community garden near our home.

Each day, they ask to check up on this flower (both to and from school) so they can see if it has changed.

I bored quickly of this game, until I realized that, once again, they were teaching me how to love.

They are ready, every day, to see this flower with fresh eyes.  

Similarly, we simply cannot love (a partner, a child, a plant) if we do not approach them with the same openness and freedom.  We are able to love only that which we can constantly discover anew.

The Examen Book Turns One

The Examen Book is turning one!  It’s a wonder how fast these kids grow up.  And what a way to celebrate the year… … a Loyola press webinar roundtable this week on the Examen prayer with three formidable interlocutors – Becky Eldridge, Jim Manney, and Fr. Mark Thibodeaux, SJ.  Here is the recording.  If youContinue reading “The Examen Book Turns One”

A Different Way Home

While riding home on our bike after dropping his brother off at school, our younger son turned to me and asked: “Can we take a different way home?”

I am programmed to optimize for efficiency (“Must find quickest route possible!”), often to the detriment of my quality of life. Our son was opting for something else, a new adventure.

Productive routines and healthy habits are great, as far as they go. But routines also limit what we experience and see. It can be enlightening to take a different way home.

The adventure our son eventually chose was to go give his mama a hug at work. Not a bad choice considering our true home is in the heart of a God who is love.

Slack in the System

It can be tempting to maximize every system to its limit.

To squeeze as much productivity out of our minds and bodies selves as possible…

To be satisfied only with the best (whatever it might be)…

To overanalyze every moment to make sure it is producing maximum pleasure…

To take from the earth without regard for ecological limits…

At some point, this is going to break down and we will bear the cost.

And this maximization mindset actually makes us unhappy, pounding our interior lives dangerously thin.

Keeping the slack in life’s systems is a worthy and indispensable discipline.

The Infinite Game

Yesterday, for an hour or so, I tossed a plastic stingray, lobster, and octopus onto the floor of the community pool for our 6 year old to swim down and return triumphantly.  He loves this game, and so does his younger brother who also took turns throwing the “sinkies” while splashing around in his floaties.  Continue reading “The Infinite Game”