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”
Category Archives: Attentiveness
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”
Religion DTR
In college, we used to jokingly talk about “the DTR”… where two people, with unspoken interest in a romantic relationship need to take time to “define the relationship.”
It’s a great turn of phrase and a useful tool.
It is worth it, too, to periodically have a DTR with one’s practice of religion.
That is, does my practice of religion:
Pad my ego and sense of superiority?
Narrow what I am willing to see?
Or does it represent a humbling preparation to enter a mystery of love, to engage a life more abundant than we could have imagined or engineered?
1984 or Brave New World
In school, we were introduced to two classic dystopian visions of the future: 1984 and Brave New World.
In 1984, the tyranny of a fearsome dictator reduces humans to submissive beings.
In Brave New World, humans are so preoccupied with pleasure and trivialities, they subdue themselves into submissive beings.
In your world, which one is coming true?
You Don’t Need Permission
To contribute generously in a challenging situation.
To show up a daily habit of meditation or prayer.
To gather a small group for a purpose close to your heart.
To open that conversation.
You don’t need permission to begin doing any of these things.
Or, put another way, the only person you need permission from is you.
A New Decision
When someone says “no” to something we offer them, we can beg them to change their mind, but it probably won’t work.
What we can do, though, is offer a subsequent opportunity to make a new decision based on new information.
That is, we can offer a little more insight, and invite them to take another step forward.
Talking About the Problem
Talking about fixing problems… is not the same as actually addressing them.
Yes, talking about strategy is important. It should also not be confused with the action, the actual fixing.
Here may be the hard part: Talking about a problem, finally getting it out in the open can feel good. A sense of relief follows. But if we let the tension of the moment drain all the way out, we will never do the thing we said we would do.
Lurk or Lead
At work, at church, in your family, or online… Do we typically lurk (that is, sit in the back without interacting, watching what other people do) or lead (by connecting with one or more people, by starting a conversation about what is important)?
Lurking is easy to fall into. It can be scary to speak up, especially in the presence of a difficult problem.
But difficult problems are the only ones that are left. All of the easy ones are taken.
And so, leadership, not lurking, is really what we need from each other.
What does leadership look like? To risk having the generous conversation, to offer the next best idea to move the issue forward. To see someone as they are (and not as we want them to be), and then inviting them to be generous as well.
Leadership does not have to be loud or in front of everyone. We can lead from any chair in the “orchestra” of a community… as a conductor, an oboist, or the person who stacks the chairs at the end of the day. We each see something important and can make things better.
We need to lead, not lurk.
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