Connecting the Dots - True-self

My blog has moved to http://www.lrtministry.org/scotts-ponderings/.  This blog will become inactive at the end of October.

One of Henri Nouwen’s spir­i­tual polar­i­ties and a com­po­nent of authen­tic pres­ences is the inward reflec­tion and our strug­gle with self — true-self vs. false-self. That is is the per­son who we are one the inside accu­rately reflected by who we project our­self to be to oth­ers? As I speak of self I am look­ing at it at a very basic level. The ques­tions I ask when I speak of self are: 1) Are the things we say we believe and value reflected in the way we live our life?, 2) Do you lever­age the way you are wired, your nat­ural skills and your spir­i­tual gift­ing so as to ben­e­fit oth­ers around you?, or as described in James 2 3) Does your faith lead to action?

The prob­lem that many of us face when look­ing at these ques­tions is that we don’t always know what we fully believe and value, we don’t know the extent of our wiring and gift­ed­ness, we don’t know how to put our faith into action. It’s not that we don’t have any beliefs, val­ues, gifts or faith, it’s that we have never taken the time to eval­u­ate, orga­nize and act on them.

Foun­da­tional Beliefs
We all have a set of foun­da­tional belief, we may not be able to artic­u­late them but they are part of our life. The ques­tion to ask here is “What or who is it that is inform­ing my foun­da­tional beliefs?” Is it cul­ture and soci­ety? Is it God? Is it the peo­ple we asso­ciate with? Is it the things we watch and read? To be hon­est it is prob­a­bly a com­bi­na­tion of some or all of these. The trou­ble with hav­ing mul­ti­ple sources is that there will be times when two or more will con­tra­dict each other. The ques­tion then “Which one trumps?”

For me it is God who I have cho­sen as the “trump card.” My foun­da­tional beliefs are drawn from the sto­ries God has given us in the Bible. I actu­ally talk of my foun­da­tional beliefs in the from of three meta-narratives that I find as I read the Bible — the cre­ation nar­ra­tive, the restora­tion nar­ra­tive, and the eter­nal nar­ra­tive. I don’t have the space to dive deeply into each of these right now but my beliefs on cre­ation, rela­tion­ship, mean­ing, restora­tion, and pur­pose all fol­low out of these narratives.

Oper­a­tional Beliefs and Val­ues
Flow­ing out of my foun­da­tional beliefs are my oper­a­tional beliefs and val­ues. I am cur­rently work­ing on liv­ing out eight oper­a­tional beliefs. Each belief is grounded in scrip­ture, has an asso­ci­ated value, and an action plan for putting the belief into action.

The ques­tion I have been pon­der­ing for the last year or so is “Who am I and how best can I lever­age my answer?” The short answer that I have come up with is I am called to come along side other and help them to… How I fin­ish this ques­tion depends upon the con­text in which it is asked — at work, at home, at church, and doing min­istry will all have their own par­tic­u­lar responses.

I did not arrive at this point in my pon­der­ings overnight. I have been actively reflect­ing on dif­fer­ent aspects of these ques­tion for the last 10–12 years. I have put a lot of effort in to fig­ur­ing out who my true-self is and make sure that I am not pre­sent­ing a false self to oth­ers. I know that I suc­ceed more than I fail, but there is still work to be done. The dis­cov­ery of true-self is not a one and done things. Doc­u­ments that I cre­ate are organic in nature — I have three doc­u­ments that I pull out 3–4 times a year that allow me to assess where I am in the true-self vs false-self bat­tle. These doc­u­ments con­tinue to evolve as God con­tin­ues to trans­form me into the man he knows I am.

It is through this process of get­ting to know myself bet­ter that I am bet­ter able to be authen­ti­cally present with oth­ers as I inter­act with them in life.

Connecting the Dots - Distractions

I was recently in a discussion about the topic of listening. Questions were asked and responses were given. I was a great conversation. As I listened my mind was wondering what I was hearing - I was trying to discern what was being said. My mind wandered to my current thoughts about what Henri Nouwen called "authentic presence" and how the art of listening plays into this. Now, when I fall asleep to certain thoughts or ideas and then come back to them in the morning - I begin to wonder what it is God is trying to teach me or show me.

As I reflected on the conversation the word "distraction" jumped out at me. The context being that at times we are distracted listeners or as Nouwen might say we are not being authentically present with the person we are in conversation with. It was pointed out that the main source of our distraction was the ever-present cell phone. As I thought about that, i don’t think the phone is the problem, rather it is a symptom or the diagnostic tool that God may be using to say it's time to take a step back and take a deep breath. Am I really to busy to take an hour break from technology to spend time with someone else? Then I have to ask myself “am I to busy to spend an hour with God?”

Distractions! They come in all shapes and sizes. They come in a variety of colors and flavors. Some are welcome, others are unexpected. The question I ask myself is, how am I going to manage my distractions when I want to be authentically present for someone else? The key here is to have a management plan. Believe it or not, but the odds of disaster striking if you were to turn your cell phone off for an hour or two is nil. You might not think so but I think you will survive. Want to test this theory, go away on a silent retreat for a couple of days and see what happens. Not only will your family survive but you will grow in a deeper, richer relationship with God. Take an hour and grow in a deeper, richer relationship with another. This single act can boost ones spirits because you are saying to them that for this next hour is yours.

Turning off the phone can eliminate a lot of the external distractions, but how do we turn off the internal distractions that are bouncing around in your mind. Unlike our cell phones our mind doesn’t have an off button. This is where a little soul care can go a long way. If we practice the spiritual discipline of solitude we can begin to unload some of our distractions in a healthy way. Solitude is not about going out into the middle of nowhere to be alone, rather solitude is finding the moment of time (from a few minutes to a few hours) regularly where we can be alone with our thoughts, process what is going on in life and hopefully settle things down. We need to take the time to process life and learn deal with our own “stuff” so we can be present for others. This time of solitude is when we invite the Holy Spirit in to help us, transform us, and renew us. If we can lower the “static” of our own distractions we are better able to present for others.

Prayer is a natural fit with solitude. Solitude forces us to look inward while pray forces us to look upward. Prayer is actually great practice for listening to others. Prayer isn’t so much about us talking at God, rather prayer is about talking with and listening to God. I say this often when talking about prayer, but it is the toughest spiritual discipline for me.

I hope this wasn’t to random and rambling, it sounded a lot better as these ideas bounced around in my brain. I want to be a better listener, I want to be authentically present with other when I am in conversation with the, so this is my distraction management plan: 1) Be intentional about putting the other first - turn of the external distractors, 2) Spend time in solitude so that I can better react to my internal distractions, and 3) Spend time in prayer, conversing with God. If you want to be a better listener which piece do you need to work on? Or if you have additional tips or suggestions please leave a comment.

Connection the Dots - Authentic Presence

The idea of authentic presence is that when you are engaging with someone you are truly present with them. If we look in the Book of Acts we see the early church living in community. They were taking care of one and other. They were providing for each others needs. They were present for each other. For many today I think the idea of authentic presence is a lost art.

Wil Hernandez in his book, Henri Nouwen and Spiritual Polarities, describes three things that we need to practice in order to be authentically present with others. These three practices are solitude, hospitality, and prayer. Nouwen would talk about this in terms of our inward, outward and upward focuses.

In solitude we are able to best understand who we are. To be present for others you need to be present with yourself. As you become better at understanding yourself you are better able to relate with others in a deeper, more intimate way. To be authentically present. If you remember how I am using the word authentic, authentic presence is where the other can truly sense that your are there with them and for them.

Carla Dahl in her book Becoming Whole and Holy, defines hospitality as “the ability to create a space in which others can recognize and experience the presence of God.” When we are authentically present with others we should be creating a space where they can feel you have a genuine concern and/or connection to what they are saying. You in a way have become “God’s ears” in the conversation.

In prayer we deepen our presence with God and in so doing we create an environment for ourself which can then be used to create a sense of hospitality for others. If I am being true to myself then my relationship with God needs to be reflected in and through my authentic presence with others. 

I have just given a brief introduction to each of these practices: solitude, hospitality, and prayer. In the future I will come back and flesh them out in greater detail. In the mean time here are three things to think about as you practice the art of authentic presence:

1. Spend some time alone getting to know yourself
2. Create an environment of hospitality where God is center stage
3. Take time to cultivate your presence with God

Connecting the Dots - Key Words

[My blog has moved to a new home http://www.lrtministry.org/scotts-ponderings/]

This is the first in a series of posts I am calling Connecting the Dots. A tool I use as part of my spiritual reflection is called The Grand Examen. In this exercise the first thing you do is take time to reflect on things you have been learning from a variety of sources. The next step is what I call "connecting the dots." You look for the themes, ideas, words, scriptures, etc. that seem to be running through your reflections. Today I want to look at some key words that have come up in my reflections from the past several months. These words are authentic, genuine and true. These words all have a similar meaning yet each lends it own nuances to my larger reflection. This is how I have defined each one of these words:

genuine - being or reflecting the essential or genuine character of something authentic - conforming to fact and therefore worthy of belief true - not pretended; sincerely felt or expressed

I want to pause here for a moment to say that words are nothing more that a series of letters arranged in a specific way that have then had some meaning given to them - that is I am not as much intrigued by the words authentic, genuine and true as I am to the the idea or meaning that comes from them. A couple of weeks ago I was listening to a speaker and he was using a word to present an idea that for me based on how I defined the word was flawed. Half way through the presentation the speaker took the time to define what he meant by using the word and I then understood his context and the idea that he was getting across. This wasn't some unique or seldom used word, the word was "happiness." I share this story simply to show that when we use words we should also define what we mean by them. The context for these three words come from a number of books that I have been reading. The ideas presented were authentic presences, genuine presence, genuine ministry and true-self. The first, third and the last come from writings from or about Henri Nouwen and the second comes from a book by David Brenner. Over the next few weeks I will be exploring each of these ideas authentic/genuine presence, genuine ministry and true-self. Each of these ideas or topics feeds into our transformational process of becoming more like Jesus.

But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:16-18 ESV)

In your own life have you taken the time to slow down and see what God is teaching you? What have you been reading about? What have you been hearing people say? What obstacles or opportunities have presented themselves to you? Write these things down and start connecting the dots.