What God Wants For Your Life

http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Cairo-Philadelphia-and-Self-evident-Truths-Frederick-Schmidt-02-07-2011.html

New column at:

http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Bill-Zeller-Last-Words-of-a-Lost-Soul-Frederick-Schmidt-01-31-2011.html

A New Column at: http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Thinking-Hard-Frederick-Schmidt-01-17-2011.html

In a recent blog, marketing expert Seth Godin made this observation in a piece called, “Lost in a digital world.”  Godin writes:

Allison Miller, aged 14, sends and receives 27,000 text messages a month. Hey, that’s only about sixty an hour, every hour she’s awake.

Some say that the problem of our age is that continuous partial attention, this never ending non-stop distraction, addles the brain and prevents us from being productive. Not quite.

The danger is not distraction, the danger is the ability to hide.

Constant inputs and unlimited potential distractions allow us to avoid the lizard, they give the resistance a perfect tool. Everywhere to run, everywhere to hide.

The advantage of being cornered with nowhere to turn is that it leaves you face to face with the lizard brain, unable to stall or avoid the real work….

Ten years ago, no one was lost in this world. You had to play dungeons and dragons in a storm pipe to do that. Now there are millions and millions of us busy polishing our connections, reaching out, reacting, responding and hiding. What happens to your productivity (and your fear) when you turn it off for a while?

Understandably Godin’s focus is on productivity, but his observations have their application to the spiritual world as well.

Are we distracted?  Yes, I’m convinced that we are.  Who wouldn’t be in a world that moves as quickly as ours does?

But we are also hiding in plain sight.  The variety of distractions and the busyness of our world have given us cover for a failure to focus.  We can run, but we don’t need to hide.  All we need to do is to keep on running.

And because we can take refuge in the demands that colleagues and others have made on our time, there is no end to the number of places that we can run with seemingly good reasons.  The net result can be months on end without focus, that are filled with activity.

• Is there work that God has called you to do that never gets done?

• Are there neglected dimensions of your spiritual life that you don’t want to face, but you know require your attention?

• Are there wounds or failures for which you have never found healing or forgiveness?

There’s no doubt that you are busy.  We all are.  But you might be hiding in plain sight from the work that you really need to do.

Seth’s blog, by the way, can be found at:

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/01/lost-in-a-digital-world.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+typepad/sethsmainblog+(Seth’s+Blog)

New column at:

http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Leaving-Behind-Left-Behind-Frederick-Schmidt-01-10-2011.html

In the wake of yesterday’s tragic shooting of U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords no small number of commentators were quick to lay blame for the climate in which this kind of thing could happen at the doorstep of millions who differ with Ms. Giffords’s views.  I find that troubling — not because I share those views — but because it points to a general decline in thoughtful, judicious political conversation.

The murderer who perpetrated these crimes is, by all accounts, criminally insane.  Others may be convinced that he represents a coherent point of view.  But based upon the early reports that I have read about Mr. Loughner, I can find no reason to believe that we will ever obtain any information that will provide a rational explanation for his utterly irrational, indiscriminate, and criminal behavior.  Like Timothy McVey and others, his views are a chaotic combination of fear and prejudices.  In another day and age he would have been branded as demon-possessed.  There are others like them out there, but — thankfully — they are in the minority.

But the sweeping editorializing that claimed to understand the inner workings of this madman’s mind and then attributed them to millions of other Americans is not.  It is widespread, common on both ends of the political spectrum, and far more dangerous.

For people on both the left and right, the politics of leverage has fostered a climate in which it is fair game to demonize others using the behavior of the demon-possessed.  And that practice when imperils the very structures that have made our democratic way of life possible.  At every twist and turn in political debates with one another, those who cherish the gift we have been given in this democracy of ours bear two responsibilities: thoughtful advocacy for a point of view and vigorous advocacy for the civil, respectful climate in which that advocacy is possible.

The great danger in the current political climate is that far too many are tempted to believe that the advocacy for a point of view is of preeminent importance.  It is not.  It is the defense of liberty that transcends the debates of the moment.  If we allow cynicism or fervor for a point of view to undermine the strength of our advocacy for freedom of expression, then we will have all lost.

Is there a spiritual issue here?  Yes.

As a Christian, I am convinced that advocacy for a civil, respectful climate reflects the freedom that God gives to all of us.  I also believe that God’s way of working in our lives is never coercive.  So, to the extent that our national life preserves freedom and avoids coercion, the potential for us to thrive in God-given ways is also preserved.

That makes a difference in the way I engage political issues.  And while I don’t always succeed, there are three things I try to do:

• I resist the temptation to argue that our national life should conform my understanding of the Gospel.

• I resist the temptation to argue that my political views and the will of God are one in the same.

• And I try not to demonize others, using the behavior of the demon-possessed.

It is not simply the liberty of expression that is at stake.  It is the liberty of our souls.

Physical symptoms offer useful analogies to the spiritual life.

Neuropathy is a case in point.  Frequently when patients suffer from diabetes, neuropathy is one of the early signs of the disease’s presence.  The patient can lose feeling or experience a tingling sensation as nerve damage grows and spreads; and, left unattended, amputation may prove to be the only solution.  The condition is usually at its worst in patients who haven’t acknowledged the seriousness of their condition and modified their diet.

As such, it is also an early sign of the disorder and the condition which diabetics can be slow to acknowledge.  Left unattended long enough, a patient with severe neuropathy may be forced to acknowledge the disease, the denial that has allowed the neuropathy to spread, and the life-threatening peril that they face — all at one time.

In the spiritual life of both individuals and institutions, neuropathy can set in as well.  We can be slow to acknowledge our peril, the decline can spread slowly, and — by the time we are willing to acknowledge the peril — solutions can be hard to find.

What are the symptoms?  Here are three symptoms of individual and institutional spiritual neuropathy.  Are there others you would suggest?

For individuals:

• Appeals are repeatedly made to old spiritual insights and experiences, but new ones are largely absent.
• The inability to pray.
• Cynicism.

For institutions:

• A loss of focus.
• The tendency to redefine the loss of focus as new vision.
• Recycled leadership (i.e., the same old faces, just moved to new places)

New column at:

http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Making-a-New-Year-Frederick-Schmidt.html

I love aphorisms — short, pointed, insightful observations.

It all started with writing speeches for the Optimist Club.  They once sponsored “oratorical contests” and I loved competing in them.  Each year they advertised a new topic and the assignment was to write, memorize, and deliver a speech of five to seven minutes in length.  The first year the topic was “Optimism, youth’s greatest asset.”

It seems kind of corny now, but it prompted me to think, read, and build my vocabulary.  I don’t rely nearly as much on the quotations that I once used in those speeches, but I am still attracted to the sharp, short, observation that has sticking power.  That is the genius of proverbs.

The beginning of a new year is a good time to review some of those proverbial bits of wisdom.  And, on balance, I think that kind of wisdom is a better bet than a boat load of resolutions that are too easily abandoned in the first week of February.

I’ve tried to identify a shortlist that have spiritual import.  Here’s my list.  It’s random in its selection and listed in no particular order.  If you don’t find one that is helpful to you, feel free to offer one of your own.

If you are going through hell, keep going.  Winston Churchill

We must be willing to let go of the life we’ve planned to have the life that is waiting for us.  E.M. Forster

If you aren’t going all the way, why go at all?  Joe Namath

The most misleading assumptions are the ones you don’t even know you are making.  Douglas Noel Adams

Nature provides a free lunch, but only if we control our appetites.  William Ruckelshaus

Stop living life for what’s around the corner and start enjoying the walk down the street.  Grant L. Miller

In a moment the ashes are made, but the forest is a long time growing.  Seneca

Kindness is a language that the deaf can hear and the blind can read.  Mark Twain

Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.  Unknown

The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.  Nelson Mandela

I would rather regret the things I have done than the things I have not.  Lucille Ball

Discovery consists in seeing what every one else has seen but understanding it for the first time.  Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

Vision without action is a daydream; action without vision is a nightmare.  Japanese proverb

It’s not how busy you are, but why you are busy.  The bee is praised; the mosquito swatted.  Mary O’Connor

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.  Theodore Roosevelt

We’ve celebrated two new years now…one driven by the calendar, the other driven by the liturgical year.  The liturgical year, which you can think of as the year, structured by the Christian story began at Advent in the beginning of December and takes us imaginatively through the story of Jesus’ life and the lives of the early apostles.  Apart from other things, it is a cycle designed to remind the church of its responsibilities and, more importantly, the work of God in our lives.

The two “new years” are inspired by very different assumptions.

• The calendar-new year is inspired by optimism that comes with simple change.
• The liturgical-new year is inspired by hope in a renewed sense of God’s presence.

• The calendar-new year invites personal resolutions.
• The liturgical-new year asks, “What is God doing?”

• The calendar-new year typically emphasizes personal ambition.
• The liturgical-new year emphasizes holy ambition.

• The calendar-new year lends itself to the question, “What can I do for myself this year?”
• The liturgical-new year asks, “What can I do for God?”

• At the end of this calendar-year, the old year will give way to a new one and we will repeat the cycle, dependent on the unseen events that lie ahead
• At the end of the liturgical-year, we will be reminded anew that — as always — we are dependent upon God.

Which new year do you want to have?