Jerome Daley's Blog, page 4

Big. Story.

As a coach, I usually get hired to help people with meaningful work—a career transition, leading a company, writing a book, taking a sabbatical, and all sorts of other worthy endeavors. Whatever the client’s goal, it’s important, to them and to me. And…it’s usually not the most important part of our work together. The same can be said for your life: The most important part may not be the part you’re focused upon; but we’ll come back to that in a minute.

Early on in a coaching relationship, I usually have the “Small Story - Big Story” conversation because it sets a wider perspective for our coaching agenda. And it also gives people an out, if that’s not what they’re looking for. Here’s how the conversation typically goes:

So Taylor, thanks for sharing this vision with me. Your plan to start a church sounds really exciting. I’m honored that you would want me to join you in this venture as a guide, an encourager, an objective voice. I can tell you that most pastors struggle to find a safe place to process the challenges and opportunities of being a spiritual leader, so I’m in.

I also want you to know that planting a church is the small story—a good and important story, but still the small one. The big story is who you are becoming while you plant and lead this church. Churches come and churches go. Pastors come and pastors go. But your journey to become your true self—the person God knows you to be—that is the journey of a lifetime, and that will last forever. So let’s work on both sides of thing together.

People usually get it and respond to that invitation…and this is the same invitation I’m extending to you right now. Perhaps you can already see the smaller stories that occupy your primary attention: your current work project, your family relationships, your hopes and plans for the future. Hobbies, schooling, finances, an engagement, community service—these are all deeply significant, but there is more! Can you see that God is using all these vital activities to shape you, refine you, and prepare you for the sacred task of being you?

Perhaps the biggest single hazard of our lives, you and me, is mistaking the small story for the big one…and letting all our energy, enthusiasm, and attention get consumed in those good stories, at the expense of the best one. Which means that the great quest in life is making space to give significant attention and engagement to the big story while remaining faithful to all the important small stories.

This is not easy. Being human isn’t easy. And it helps to have a spiritual coach or companion, officially or unofficially, on the journey with you. And it’s absolutely essential to be empowered and guided by The Coach: the Holy Spirit is the only One capable of helping us live out this sacred calling. The interplay between the small story and the big story is what we call life, and this is the great adventure.

ThriveTip

Take some time with God this week to ask him about the Big Story of your life—what parts of your soul are under construction right now, and how can you participate intentionally in cooperation with that. Ask God how keeping sight of the big story brings focus and clarity to the important small stories as well. A weekend retreat is a perfect setting for this exploration, but it can happen anywhere and anytime you’re ready to go there.

 

Takeaway

God is inviting you to co-write an amazing story with your life.

Receiving.

Last night Kellie and I had my parents over for dinner. Before coming to the table, we were sitting in the living room with a glass of wine and while the ladies were in conversation, Dad turned and remarked to me, “I’ve been praying for joy for you.” That was all he said, and I think I nodded and answered, “Yeah, thanks.” But internally, it launched a cacophony of voices.

Why would he say that? Is he not experiencing me as joyful? Am I experiencing myself as joyful? Am I being judged? I guess I don’t feel super joyful. What’s wrong with me anyway?

While I knew Dad’s heart for me was good, I have to admit that I found the exchange disturbing…and a pang of guilt and uncertainty followed me throughout the evening. I mentioned it to Kellie in passing after they left but still wasn’t quite sure what to do with it.

This morning I woke up early, made coffee, cleaned up the kitchen, and went downstairs as usual for my quiet time. I like to talk to God out loud, and so I recounted the conversation with Dad, mentioning the flurry of emotions it had set in motion, and basically held the question out to him: “God, am I being joyful these days? I want to be. I know you want joy for me, and I’m not even sure I know how to measure it. What do you think?”

And I waited, listening to the birdsong that echoed in the glimmer of dawn. After a few minutes and ever so gently, I felt an answer well up in me, Well, I’d like to give you more. That was all I needed. It wasn’t an indictment; it was simply the generous response of God’s heart for me. More joy. More of him wanting to be poured into me. 

“How, Lord?” I whispered. And I waited.

The words were on my lips before I knew where they came from: Come to Me. I murmured the phrase a couple times before I connected the dots and pulled up Matthew 11 on my Bible app. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” 

Am I weary and burdened? I thought. A series of concerns I’d been carrying crossed my mental screen, and I found myself wondering whether “weary and burdened” wasn’t woven into the very fabric of life. Especially now, I thought, Is there anyone who isn’t weary and burdened in month three of the pandemic?

Alright, God. I’m ready to unburden myself and get a fresh shot of joy.

 So I let God walk me through the passage. “Come to me.” Yes, God, I’m coming. I’m here. I’m meeting you right at this point. My heart is open to receive. What’s next?

“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.” Okay, God. I want to be hooked up with you. I want to live in partnership with you. When you turn right, I want to turn right. When you pause, I want to pause. I want to stay right in step with you—not pushing ahead, not lagging behind. I thought about the day lying ahead of me: the tasks, the activities, the conversations waiting for me in the hours to come. Teach me, Lord. Keep me in sync with you. Help me to see what you’re seeing and to do what you’re doing.

“For I am gentle and humble in heart.” Oh…so that’s the first thing you want to teach me—gentleness and humility. Okay, yes, I want that. And the way it landed in that moment was less about being gentle with people as much as it was about just finding a way of occupying my life that was gentle. And humble. Not trying to force life to be what I want it to be but to receive what is being given in each moment. In fact, that line has become something of a mantra for Kellie and me lately: “Receive what’s given.” It’s harder than it sounds, but it sure contributes to rest.

Rest is what’s on tap in this passage: “I will give you rest…. You will find rest for your soul.” But how does that connect to joy? All I can say is that it does. At least it has for me today. It’s not like a giddy, amped up sort of joy. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) It’s more like a quiet, peaceful sense of well-being. But the part I like best is that it feels really intimate, really connected with the Spirit. And I think that’s why Jesus invites us to come to him, personally.

With all the insecurity and uncertainty of the virus pandemic, folks are looking everywhere for something solid and dependable. Something stable in a season of storms. Among Christ-followers I’ve seen a lot of videos that understandably point us toward the Bible as that solid place. The authority of scripture. The promises of God. The Bible is obviously loaded with great truth, and this was exactly how God spoke to me this morning. But I think it’s also important to recognize that God and God’s word are not the same thing. Why would that matter?

It matters because it’s possible to go to scripture like we would go shopping—looking for a commodity to purchase. The focus is on a solution rather than the Person, the gift rather than the Giver, so the dynamic is transactional rather than relational. God’s generosity wants to overflow to us with every conceivable blessing, but his greatest desire is for intimacy with us. All the great stuff God wants to give us—like joy, for instance—is meant to be rooted and grounded in a passionate love relationship. The place where we talk to God, and God talks back. The place where we bring our ragged soul, and he soothes us with his presence. It’s all about coming to him.

In Luke 6, Jesus brings it all together when he says, “As for everyone who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice, I will show you what they are like. They are like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built.”

What’s the torrent striking your house right now? Is it financial insecurity, distancing fatigue, something else? The answer—simple but profound—is simply coming to him, meeting him in the mess, and then following the words he gives you. Oh, and I’m praying for joy for you too.

ThriveTip

If you are holding a question and think God might have an answer, get up a little early tomorrow morning. In the quiet, ask your question…and then be still. Hold the question in your mind and turn it around: “God, what do you think? What do you want? Give me ears to hear.” Take some time with it as you listen; don’t be in a hurry. Let the question forge an intimate space between the two of you. He will have something to say, but honestly, it’s more about just being together in loving trust.

 

Takeaway

If you built it (the listening), He will come!

Obstruction.

A few days ago I was lying in bed, getting ready to go to sleep, and listening to my nightly devotional—a beautiful daily audio recording by a group of British Jesuits called “Pray As You Go.” I paused the recording in the middle to answer a question from Kellie and then tried to resume the recording. For some reason I couldn’t continue the recording and had to restart from the beginning. Argh.

The word of frustration that leapt from my mouth was, ah, impolite. And in that moment I didn’t even notice the phenomenal irony of cussing because my devotional practice was interrupted! I have a long-time feud with technology that doesn’t perform as it’s supposed to…but if I’m more honest, I just hate anything that gets in the way of my personal agenda and timetable. Whatever it is and whenever it arises, anger is my immediate response. It embarrasses me to admit it, but that’s the truth.

The next morning I was driving down to Greensboro, so I had two hours in the car to talk to God, and we were discussing the situation. Paul says that “it’s the kindness of God that leads us to repentance” (Romans 2:4), and in my experience the corrections of God come with tremendous gentleness and hope. And it was just like that: I suddenly saw with blazing clarity the white-knuckled attachment I have to my own will…and it grieved me. I deeply wanted to be free from the entrapment of such willfulness and the anger it inevitably breeds.

And a new prayer—words I have never before uttered to God—began to flow quietly from my lips as I drove. Obstruct me, Lord. Get in my way, Lord. Resist my imperial will! And don’t stop obstructing me until my heart truly changes, and I can easily yield to your will as it shows up in my circumstances. Help me trust you to complete your will in my life regardless of my own intuitive strategies.

The worship and communion I experienced throughout that car ride were absolutely precious…and I had a few simple tests over the drive to put it into practice. Slow drivers pulling out in front of me and the like.

But in the week since, it feels like all hell has broken loose!

Of course, it’s not the hell out there that’s the real problem; it’s the hell in here—my stubborn habits of resisting every obstacle and trying to power through every impediment! All it takes is two or three small hindrances in a row and my soul is awash in adrenaline, fists clenched, jaw clenched, ready for battle! But it’s a losing battle. Every time. Until I let go. Until I bow in humility and hoist the white flag of surrender. Sometimes it takes me minutes, sometimes hours, sometimes days.

Prayer is so devastatingly vulnerable. And if it’s not vulnerable, it may not actually be prayer.

Every year or two, another book is published offering us a fresh strategy for prayer. Often it’s described as a new way to extend our spiritual influence, flex our spiritual muscle, convince God to do what we want him to do…or what we think he should do. It’s a little disturbing to realize how quickly our ego can grasp hold of something that sounds really spiritual, only to find that it’s just another prop, once again, for our own agenda. The problem is probably less with the books on prayer and more with our human capacity for hijacking spiritual stuff to feel powerful and in control.

I find it oddly refreshing to know that “The Obstruction Prayer” will never sell. Its essence is fundamentally foreign to the ego; it runs counter to every human instinct. Where’s the appeal in that?

Truth is, we don’t really have to ask God to send us obstructions. Life will oblige us on that point readily enough. More days than not, impediments and obstacles are woven into the fabric of our schedules and to-do lists. The Obstruction Prayer is really a request for God to change the way we relate to obstacles. Honestly, it’s about changing the way we relate to life itself! God is ever and always more interested in the transformation of our internal character than the multiplication of our external successes, no matter how noble they may appear.

ThriveTip

So there you have it. If you’re tired of feeling frustrated, tired of getting mad, tired of fighting circumstances, join me in this prayer…

Obstruct me, O Lord

When I grasp after my own agenda, set an obstacle to block me.

When I insist upon my own timetable, set a barrier to slow me down.

Obstruct me, O Lord,

Break my attachments to my stubborn will.

Shatter my illusions of my own importance.

Obstruct me, O Lord,

Until I can receive the gift of what is.

Until I can delight in the choices of your heart.

Obstruct me, O Lord,

Train my heart in the freedom of acceptance.

Release my heart into the joy of surrender.

Let my soul be held in a pervasive trust

That you work all things together for good

Especially when I am met with impediments.

In your mercy, obstruct me, Precious Lord.

 

Takeaway

Unconditional surrender is the only path to freedom.

Volume

I was nine years old when I unwrapped a most wonderful Christmas present—my first guitar! I immediately started taking lessons from a family friend who taught me the basics and launched me into a life-long love affair with worship. My passion has never been the guitar itself but rather the experience of creating the kind of environment where a spiritul community can experience God and one another together in a powerful way.

Although the acoustic guitar has always defined my musical comfort zone, it is the electric guitar that inspires my musical fantasies! One of the first things you learn about electric guitars is that there are essentially only two classic styles of instrument that every guitar maker emulates: the Fender Stratocaster and the Gibson Les Paul. The picture on this post is the Les Paul, my personal favorite.

There are four knobs at the base of the guitar—two for each pickup. One controls tone and the other volume. Among those four knobs lies a wealth of tonal possibilities. And this is where I’d like to pick up and continue the conversation from my last blog post on finding a new Story for the new year.

The guitar metaphor hit me forcefully a couple days ago, and it looks like this: We have two “pickups” in our lives that affect the tone of our souls. One pickup amplifies the sounds of the world around us—the circumstances, pressures, expectations, and values of our earthly environment; the other pickup amplifies the sounds of a much more profound reality that lies underneath all that noise. It represents the values, perspectives, and opportunities that Jesus called the “kingdom of God.” It was this kingdom reality that he came to earth to illuminate (Mark 1:15)…and it is this reality that we have the opportunity to embrace every day. If we can only hear its voice.

Within the normal, natural flow of our lives, the “volume” of this world’s perspective runs about a 10, while the more trustworthy kingdom perspective runs somewhere between 1 and 3. At least that’s the way I experience it most often. Which, by the way, is one of the many reasons that I am so passionate about taking spiritual retreats: because that environment almost effortlessly and automatically brings down the volume of the unreal and boosts the volume of the real. I need that recalibration constantly! Don’t you?

And that’s the question I’ve been pondering lately. We can only go on retreat so often, so how can we intentionally turn down the volume on all the distracting messages and turn up the volume on what is true and trustworthy? Read my ThriveTips below for some ideas.

ThriveTip

Try turning down the volume on this world’s values and perspectives this year by…

Setting firm boundaries around your work so that it doesn’t occupy your attention in the off-hours.

Spending less time on TV and internet.

Setting aside the inner worry and scarcity that skew the true shape of things.

Becoming consciously aware of your breath, which allows the perceived urgency of circumstances to lose their hold on you.

Try turning up the volume on kingdom values and perspectives by…

Taking intentional time for silence, meditation, and prayer each morning.

Reading scripture and spiritual books that reinforce what is true.

Investing in time with spiritual friends who can help you interpret your story in a trustworthy way.

Incorporating Sabbath and retreats on a regular rhythm.

Pick one or two to implement this week!

 

Takeaway

Turn up the volume on what is true.

New?

The New Year is another “advent” of sorts: a new beginning, a new coming. But, if we’re honest, many times January 1 merely brings another year. Not really a new year. Let’s think about this.

What really makes the first week of January any different from the last week of December (barring holidays)? It’s the week that most of us really get back to work, back into the swing of things, back into life as usual. That doesn’t sound terribly “new,” does it?

But it could be new.

What would it take for “another” year to become authentically, genuinely new? Something tangibly different from last year. A year that moves us forward, not simply in time but in our life’s trajectory. Here’s an idea: You could be new. I could be new. We could truly take on a new way of being in the world. You and I could show up with new ways of thinking and acting. Now that holds some serious potential!

Think about this: You and I don’t actually live in our lives; we live in our “stories” about our lives. Here’s what I mean. Every day we each have certain experiences—some routine, some fresh. Conversations, tasks, moments of work, moments of rest. These are objective happenings, but we don’t experience them objectively; we subjectively set those circumstances into a context, a story that assigns them meaning.

We take one set of events and call it a “good” day, right? Another set of events we call a “bad” day. We decide whether each experience is good or bad according to the story we tell ourselves about it. And here’s the amazing thing: two people may experience the exact same circumstance…but then tell themselves a radically different story about it. Can you feel the power of the story to shape our experience of life?

Here’s a practical example. I tend to determine a good day by the amount of tasks I get checked off my list. Sad, I know…and not at all the person I want to be! But that is my old story. For the last few months I have been making progress with living in a very new and different story: that a good day is one marked by peace and purpose. It’s more about quality than quantity, and I am practically assisted in living in my new story by integrating work and prayer throughout my day (the rhythm of the Benedictine monks, by the way).

I believe that 2020 can be a substantially new, different, and better year for me than 2019…by entering into the year with a new mindset or belief about what matters most. Make sense?

Now it’s your turn!

ThriveTip

As you may know, I begin each year with a personal retreat: several days, sometimes weeks, to get still and quiet in my soul. To detox from my compulsions around productivity and to listen for the still, small voice of God. This reminds me of who I am and whose I am…and what matters most as I enter into a new year. I recommend it!

Whether you take a retreat or simply take a quiet hour, ask yourself what needs to change in you in order for 2020 to be truly new. What is the old story that may no longer be serving you well…and what new God-sized story resonates and invites you into this new year? Write it down. Journal or blog about it. Tell someone. Tell me.

 

Takeaway

Find a new Story for a new Year.

Sabbath.

Sabbath seems to be the gift that nobody wants. Including, sometimes, me.

If there is one set of moral imperatives that is universally understood to be timeless, even largely among those who don’t consider themselves Christians, I’m guessing it would be the Ten Commandments. So how many of those ten could you name right now? Don’t murder, don’t steal, don’t commit adultery… What else?

Here they are:

No other gods before Me.

No carved image or idol.

No taking God’s name in vain.

Remember the Sabbath. Really?

Honor your father and mother.

Do not murder.

Do not commit adultery.

Do not steal.

Do not testify falsely.

Do not covet.

 

We could spend some meaningful time unpacking the modern applications of these timeless truths, but let’s turn our attention to just the one: Sabbath.

Among modern Christ-followers we often substitute going to church as the contemporary equivalent of Sabbath-keeping. But these two things, both good of course, are substantially different. In fact, it’s not uncommon for well-meaning church activities to actually create obstacles to God’s original intention for Sabbath. How has that come to be…and how do we unwittingly rob ourselves of this great gift?

The original idea of the Sabbath was rest, pure and simple. Stop working. Even work that feels most pressing, most urgent. Particularly in an agrarian culture where the connection between labor and food was immediate, this was radical. As a result the Sabbath emerged as a profound and unprecedented declaration of trust (trust that God is the abundant Provider) and humility (that we are not our own Source).

Unfortunately we have endured some generations where the demands of religious legalism twisted God’s intent for rest into something more defined by sobriety and constraint. Practically, it looked like a prohibition on anything remotely fun. And who knows, maybe even the Israelites chafed and resisted this gift at the beginning. There is in us, to be sure, that which resists humility and asserts its own independence and power.

With our recovery from legalism, it’s easy to cast off old strictures and relegate anything Old Testament into the category of obsolete. This is how one of God’s kindest gifts has been cast aside in the name of liberty. Maybe our modern pathology of stress and striving might invite us to take a fresh look at the command to rest.

What might the gift of Sabbath look like today?

The first step is a no-brainer: stop working. Seriously. Draw a hard line there except for true emergencies. And yes, embrace your spiritual community in a worship gathering. Now where does a vision for rest take you? Maybe a gentle hike in the woods. Maybe reading a book by the fire. Maybe a Skype call with extended family. Maybe a nap. Silence and solitude are always good choices. Journaling. Reflection. Try going easy on entertainment and activity. Push off home projects to Saturday.

Everyone’s choices will be their own, but here are some of my personal guidelines:

If it feels like work, don’t do it.

If it feels renewing to the soul, do it.

If it feels like the other days of the week, don’t do it.

If it feels centering, wholesome, and deeply good, do it.

 

If I’m not careful it’s easy for me to wind up with a mental glut of all the “Sabbath activities” I could potentially fit into a given day. Funny, isn’t it! I’m still recovering from a lifetime of cultural programming and internal compulsion to get stuff done. Yet observing the Sabbath isn’t about getting all our spiritual stuff done; quite the contrary, it’s about detoxing from our inner angst and restlessness in order to embrace a more enduring truth: that we are no longer slaves.

Paul urges us with something approaching desperation in Galatians 5, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” Paradoxically, there is something in us that is actually reluctant to cast off our slavery. Our slavery to getting stuff done makes us feel ever-so-briefly powerful, yet that illusion vanishes in a moment, and we are catapulted forward into the next compulsive act.

When will we learn?

I learn—or better yet, I remember—when I receive the gift of Sabbath. I "re-member," I get reconnected. I remember who I am and whose I am. I remember who I’m not: I am not a human doing. I am a beloved child of God made to enjoy the presence of God in both the engagement and the withdrawal of healthy life rhythms.

 

ThriveTip

If the practice of an honest Sabbath is new for you, take one month and choose a weekly Sabbath day. While Sundays are traditional, it can be any day that most allows you the freedom the choose rest. For these four weekly respites, be ruthlessly intentional about resisting the clamor of doing and embrace the joy of being. Journal each week about your experience. At the end of your month, see if this isn’t a gift that you want to carry forward into the rest of your days!

 

Takeaway

Rediscover the delight of Rest.

Breath. Prayer.

Breath is life.

When was the last time you held your breath? When my wife Kellie was a kid, she played a game with her siblings where they tried to hold their breath whenever they drove over a bridge. A long span made it quite the challenge.

I remember challenging myself as a kid to hold my breath under water, timing myself on a watch and attempting to make it for three minutes. I can’t recall whether I hit that mark or not, but I do remember the burn in my lungs as I neared my limit. My body began to crave its most essential commodity: Air. Oxygen. Breath.

So maybe it should come as no surprise that breath would be a natural point of connection with the divine life generally and with the Holy Spirit specifically. Let’s connect a few biblical dots…

Both the Greek and the Hebrew words for breath also mean spirit.

In this sense, the Holy Spirit could be legitimately considered the breath of God. It’s not by accident that Pentecost was marked by a supernatural wind!

When God created humans, Genesis tells us that he fashioned Adam’s body from the soil…and then breathed his own breath into him. Holy CPR.

Paul wrote to Timothy that “Scripture is God-breathed,” literally inspired. Breathed into.

And in a curious account, the resurrected Jesus enters past locked doors to encourage his disciples. John says that “he breathed on them and said, Receive the Holy Spirit.” Interesting.

 

So if there is a connection between our natural human breath and the divine life, how might this help us practically?

The contemplative tradition holds that bringing conscious awareness to our breath is an act of spiritual centering, of returning our attention to the presence of God. And oh how we desperately need that! How many times in the space of a day do we experience worry or frustration or insecurity or uncertainty or any number of other emotional hooks? These feelings tempt us to try to meet our legitimate core needs for control, approval, and security in illegitimate ways. Only God can satisfy these needs, but how do we connect with God when we need him most?

Perhaps by breathing.

Sometimes the most emotionally accessible lifeline to the Holy Spirit is to access our own spirit, our own breath. To simply tune in to the life already moving dynamically in and out of our bodies, without any effort on our part. Both the natural breath and the spiritual breath are already with us. Flowing in and out without fail. Inhaling. Exhaling. Just as the Spirit of God abides in us, coursing through us without fail. What a beautiful reality.

Pause right now and pay attention to your breath. Don’t try to change it, just notice what’s happening for a minute or two. Wondrous, isn’t it?

An ancient Christian practice emerged around the sixth century to give expression to this truth; it was called a breath prayer. A word or phrase was repeated as the simplest essence of a prayer, timed to the inhale and exhale of the breath. The earliest recorded breath prayer is the longish phrase, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner” later shortened to “Lord, have mercy.”

This evocative phrase (Kyrie eleison in Greek) so captured the yearning of the Godward heart that it was woven into music both ancient and modern. Listen below for a gorgeous choral rendition…or further below for an unexpected version by the band Mr. Mister in all its 80’s pop rock glory! On opposite musical poles, both carry a heartfelt prayer for meeting God right at the point of our need. Even in a breath.

Maybe you have wondered at, or even dismissed outright, Paul’s ambitious challenge to “pray continually” or “pray without ceasing.” Surely that must be hyperbole! And yet, the idea that we might learn to pray within our very breaths, both consciously and even unconsciously, brings us closer to that reality than we ever dreamed!

I love tuning my imagination to the picture of the very Breath that first filled Adam’s lungs now filling mine, infusing my soul with divine provision, securing my identity, whispering blessing, pouring out an endless offering of mental guidance, emotional stability, physical strength, and spiritual connection. May we never take our most common act—breathing—for granted again.

 

ThriveTip

Take a couple minutes now to create your own breath prayer. Choose a word or short phrase that echoes the current yearning of your heart. Practice breathing that prayer, allowing the words to be carried gently on the currents of air flowing in and out of your body. Perhaps write your prayer down and post it at your desk or in your car where it can invite you into that instant connection between your spirit and God’s. Prayer has never been so easy…or so profound.

 

Takeaway

God’s breath flows in your lungs.

True.

The Dutch priest / professor / writer / pastor Henri Nouwen—one of my personal heroes—said that the most personal is the most universal, which is why I attempt to weave examples from my own life into the fabric of big ideas when I write. In other words, if an action or emotion or event feels particularly intimate or vulnerable to me, then I am probably rubbing up against the larger human experience, The Story in which we all participate.

Right at the heart of the human story is our daily struggle between the True Self and the False Self. At least I hope you experience that as a struggle, or at least a tension. Where there is no struggle, generally the false self has been given full rein. The greatest purpose of our life journey is to let go of the false and incarnate the true, or in Paul’s words, to be formed into the fullness of Christ (Eph. 4:13). But although the terms false self and true self evoke a vague sense of morality, what do they actually mean?

Back to the personal. Any given twenty-four hours of life contain both true and false. Here is a bit of mine: I was headed into a dinner with extended family, and I was running on fumes. Tired and stressed by last-minute preparations for a retreat (ironic, huh?) I allowed questions about my driving and parking to induce irrational feelings of failure and shame, which showed up in snarky replies that created a toxic environment. False self. Diminishing to myself and others.

To add insult to injury, I got food poisoning at that dinner and was up all night horribly sick. But the next day I stumbled into the retreat and felt fresh grace and strength to extend genuine presence and hospitality to those who gathered and guide them into meaningful encounters with God, one another, and their own hearts. True self. Enriching to my own soul and others.

It was a modern monk Thomas Merton (1915 – 1968) who fleshed out those terms with a specific meaning, which I will describe here through my own lens. The true self is the authentic expression of Christ’s life uniquely channeled through you. For example, every person has a creative spark, but your creativity is specifically yours, one of a kind.

Every one of us is shadowed by an illusory person: a false self. This is the man that I want myself to be but who cannot exist, because God does not know anything about him. … My false and private self is the one who wants to exist outside the reach of God's will and God's love — outside of reality and outside of life. And such a life cannot help but be an illusion. … The secret of my identity is hidden in the love and mercy of God. … Therefore I cannot hope to find myself anywhere except in him. … Therefore there is only one problem on which all my existence, my peace and my happiness depend: to discover myself in discovering God. If I find Him, I will find myself, and if I find my true self I will find him (Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, p. 34-36).

So whether it shows up as creative hospitality or creative blogging or creative songwriting or creative business-building, its origin is from The Creator and filtered by the specific grid of your personality and experience. This truth of the self is equally valid for the Godward and the Godless, although the former consciously seeks to clean the lens for a more genuine divine light whereas the latter unconsciously clouds and dims the lens with the shadow of their false self.

Proverbs 4:18 says, “The path of the righteous is like the morning sun, shining ever brighter till the full light of day.” The Old Testament historical commentary tended to assign the polarities of righteousness and evil to particular people: this king was righteous and that king was evil. Very contained and unambiguous assessments.

But the actual biographies of Old Testament players showcased a more nuanced reality, one that I think resonates more honestly in our modern perspective: that each of us contains a complicated mixture of both true and false, good and evil. So although few of us are completely upstanding or completely debauched, there is a righteous path—one that we have the freedom to choose every day—and that when we do choose it, it shines brighter and brighter with the divine light of Truth. That is the true self.

The false self is, of course, its opposite. The false self is the anxious, defended, self-referencing, wounded, and coping self that diminishes the light of God in ourselves and others. The old Bible word is sin, and true to form, it brings death to our souls. It squelches the light of God in the world and contributes to our universal alienation and suffering. The aggregate extension of our human falseness results in all the global division and war and injustice that clogs the media channels with despair. In certain moments it feels like the False Self rules with an iron grip. Only to be surprised when the light of God shines brilliantly once again through another human representative or group. 

Again Paul urges us to “not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Rom. 12:21). The life of Christ within us is constantly seeking to manifest itself. This is what Paul calls being “in Christ” in over 200 references and what Jesus refers to as “remaining in me and I in you” (John 15:5). The more we are being sourced by the life of God in Christ, the more we (and others) are experiencing the true self in us!

It’s also important to point out that the false self can appear extremely spiritual; we might call this the religious false self, and this is a disturbing reality that most of us experience from time to time. Just about any spiritual practice you could name can get hijacked by the ego to make us feel good about our spiritual performance. This is a particularly insidious form of falseness, embodied by the Pharisees of Jesus’ time. And we all have a little Pharisee in us. In our true self moments we recognize and let go of that imposter with great relief.

Of the many biblical passages that describe the struggle between the true and the false, perhaps the most beautiful is Psalm 139, where David affirms the divine formation of our birth and our destiny, and how the darkness can never overcome the light within us. It ends with a poignant plea, “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (v. 23,24). 

Being led in the everlasting way is the journey from false self to true, a journey both joyful and arduous that occupies the lifetime of the Godward soul. This is what we are meant for, and everything else in life—marriage, work, and all the rest—is simply the canvas for that emerging masterpiece. How do we walk the path from false to true? That will be another post, but the true self – false self paradigm is the context for the journey.

ThriveTip

Puzzled about the trends of your true and false self? The Enneagram is a modern-ancient map that helps us understand the tendencies of the nine personality types, both true and false, and set a course for ongoing transformation. For a little Enneagram fun, watch the creative video below!

Takeaway

Verbally affirm the true in yourself and others today!

Groundhog.

The movie was made in 1993—twenty six years ago! Bill Murray and Andie McDowell are ridiculously young. If you managed to miss it, you must watch the movie Groundhog Day. Besides being an enormously creative and genuinely funny romp, it is the quintessential story of transformation. Bill is an egocentric weatherman who manages to be callous and dismissive to everyone in his path…until he meets the new channel producer played by Andie McDowell.

At that point he makes the classic blunder: confusing love with possession. Reliving the same day, day after day, he moves through predictable stages of bewilderment and resentment, exploitation and manipulation, and finally desperation and despair. It is not until he reaches the end of himself and his control that he begins to uncover his rich humanity. It takes a while, but it emerges.

Over the endless repetition of February 2, Groundhog Day, he begins to wake up to the needs of people around him…and to realize he has the power to meet those needs. One crisis at a time, he moves beyond his innate selfishness to care for and serve those around him. And the love he tried so desperately to achieve by conquest he eventually wins by admiration, attentiveness, and kindness. Which breaks the cycle of meaningless repetition.

The metaphor hits close to home.  

It is enormously easy to fall into a rut where, even if the day is not a technical repeat of the day before, it feels like it for all practical purposes. The mundane striving, the endless grasping, the pervasive futility…it numbs the soul until you’re not certain a soul remains. 

But God always sends a wake-up call. Something that throws a monkey wrench into the machinery of meaninglessness and unconsciousness. Often the wake-up call is a crisis of some kind, some threat that thrusts a stick into the wheel of our bicycle and launches us over the handlebars. This terrifying experience is called grace. The gift reveals the brokenness of all our misshapen efforts. All the juggling balls and spinning plates come crashing down, and we think we’re done.

Until we realize life may have just begun.

In the place of all our self-referencing and ego, we begin to actually see the lives swirling around us…and to care. We wake up to ourselves, and our own appetites dim in the light of others’ great needs. We take one step to help, to serve, to sacrifice…and that leads to more such steps…until we have become something we were meant to be all along. A human being infused with divine love and creativity.

The movie is an enjoyable launching pad into the transformational journey toward the Second Half of Life.

 

ThriveTip

If it’s been a while, watch the movie again, preferably with someone you can dialog with about its message of transformation. Then discuss and/or journal about where you are still sleep-walking in your life. What would it take to wake up to your true self? What would aid in the shift from self-referencing to other-serving? Create one simple but measurable step…and take it within the next few days.

Takeaway

Choose mindfulness over mindlessness.

Second Half.

From time to time we uncover a new paradigm that leads us to a whole new way of thinking: maybe it’s technological like a smart phone. Sometimes it’s vocational like an experience that shows you what you were always meant to do with your life. Maybe it’s relational like discovering the Enneagram. And then sometimes it’s spiritual like your first real encounter with God…or with a thriving church family…or a breakthrough from generational dysfunctions. Whatever it is, it’s a game-changer.

Hopefully we get to tap into this transformative leap multiple times in our lives, but when it happens, it changes the way you see and experience that part of your life forever. There is no going back. Perhaps you can think of one or two in your history already. Well, the idea of there being two “halves” of life—two major chunks of living on planet earth—that operate on fundamentally different rules, values, and priorities…that was a new paradigm for me. I hope it just might be one for you too.

Just for fun, here’s the brainstorming chart I used to try to map the paradigm before I ran out of space!

 























 

Before I try to explain the paradigm, let me offer another fundamental paradigm shift that we all understand at some level: the Old Testament and the New Testament. Both of these stories (and the covenants or systems that undergird them) are part of our rich heritage. God fully occupied both, yet Jesus brought a necessary revelation and transition that anchors us firmly in the “rules, values, and priorities” of the new covenant. To be exposed to the wonder and beauty of the new way—and then choose to stick with the old way—would be in a very real sense tragic.

First Half.

I apologize from the start that this will be a longer post—and I will only scratch the surface of these profound ideas, but I hope it plants a seed that continues to grow and bear good fruit in your journey.

The First Half of Life is about developing a strong sense of self, and we typically do that—just as we do physically with children—by setting strong emotional boundaries. I belong to this family, not that family…to this religion, not that one…to this nation, not all the other nations…to this socioeconomic group, not that one. As you can see, it is very dualistic and focuses upon our differences. The results, however, are initially healthy and produce strong loyalty to the tribe, certainty of belief, and a certain level of exclusion or rejection of those outside the tribe. 

Let’s dig a little deeper. This burgeoning sense of self—the ego, if you will—is vested in being on the inside, on the right side. It finds security in a carefully defined and protected set of behaviors, values, and beliefs (even if the beliefs are not religious). Nationalism and fundamentalism are ways of expressing the priority attached to the lines of demarcation, lines that will be protected at all cost, even violently. It is a closed system that reinforces its established answers and penalizes those who question the status quo.

So while my description probably feels somewhat negative, it is a necessary stage of development…as attested by children who grow up without behavioral boundaries. To experience the healthy freedom of adults, we must pass through the constraints of childhood. 

Second Half.

So what’s on the other side of the First Half of Life? The Second Half winds up being the mirrored opposite to the first: instead of tribalism and nationalism arises a sense of connection across all stripes of the human family. As we begin to recognize that we surely don’t have all the answers to the big questions of life, we become more comfortable with exploration and not knowing. Instead of judgment and exclusion, we move more instinctively toward compassion and inclusion. Restoration more than retribution. 

Does it sound like the Second Half is a reckless abandonment of all our convictions and communal tethers? It’s really not. As you’ve probably heard me say before, every human carries three fundamental needs—for approval, security, and power—and we carry these needs corporately as well as individually. What changes in the Second Half is not the diminishment of these needs but the source from which we draw them. In the First Half, we find approval from the tribe, security from our belief systems, and power from the ability to judge and exclude. In the Second Half, we find approval from the Creator, security in divine relationship, and power in love. For real. This is not a small shift; it is seismic. It changes everything.

The Second Half brings a rootedness that needs no protection because its roots are in God’s own self rather than the ego. There is no ambition, comparison, or competition in the Second Half because everything the soul longs for is already lavishly provided. Fear subsides and shame evaporates as we land in the safe arms of Mystery. This is the domain of the restored prodigal son, whose great fall gave him access to the Father’s heart that his older brother eschewed from his First Half rule-tending. Does that speak to something deep in you? 

Transition.

Remember, paradigms are not right or wrong—they are merely helpful or unhelpful. If you find the Second Half of Life paradigm inspiring and appealing, then go for it. If not, no worries.

So let’s assume for a minute that you resonate with the need to grow into a new way of being in the world. That perhaps you even hear echoes of this transformation in Jesus’ critique and fulfillment of the Old Testament system. How does it happen? How does one make the jump?

In a word, death.

Whoa. That doesn’t sound very appealing! But Jesus once again shows us the way; the new order required his death and so it requires ours. His life, death, and resurrection is the archetype for all transformation: order is followed by disorder which then paves the way for reorder. The First Half is a season of profound order; everything belongs in its place. The Second Half also has its order, albeit a complete reshuffling of the deck! But between the two is a necessary suffering, the trauma of disorder.

Practically speaking, most of us are not ready to consider, or even interested in, the Second Half of Life until we have experienced a massive upheaval in our lives…and God is faithful to allow such traumatic events into our lives for just such a purpose. It comes in many different hues, but it is always humiliating, disorienting, and painful. Common disordering events include a devastating blow to career or finances, a life-threatening disease or death, marital separation or divorce, the betrayal of a trusted friend or mentor, or some circumstance that exposes your darkness on the public stage. There are many more, and each one feels like a profound death…perhaps even to the questioning of whether there is life on the other side.

Fortunately, there is! And finally we are ready to receive it.

This transition is not generally immediate; more often it involves a gradual yet determined journey over some years. And in addition to this paradigm’s macro operation (as a singular transition in life), it also plays out in innumerable micro versions on the daily path of soul-making. I’m just learning; want to join me?

ThriveTip

If you get a big “wow” from this idea and want to explore it further, let me offer you two avenues: first, buy Richard Rohr’s book Falling Upward, which unpacks this vision far more eloquently than I can. Second, consider attending my January retreat in Valle Crucis, where we will explore this vision ourselves at a deeper level within the intimacy of a small group.

Takeaway

Where are you on the order – disorder – reorder progression?