Category: Random Thoughts

Posted on

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.
Posted on

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
Posted on

It’s Been A While

Gar­ri­son Keil­lor begins his A Prairie Home Com­pan­ion monologs with the phrase “It’s been a quiet week in Lake Wobe­gon” and then launches in to a dis­cus­sion as to why it really hasn’t been all that quiet of a week.
Well, for me I could start out by say­ing ‘It’s been a quiet 8 months in my life’ but now let me share with you the rest of the story — a famous line from another great radio voice Paul Harvey.
As I reflect back over the last 8 or 9 months I believe I have had only 1 blog post­ing, writ­ten while on a retreat last spring. My tweets have really been lim­ited to post­ing scrip­tures have in some way caught my atten­tion. So why the silence? Well I guess I just haven’t had much to say. I have described these last few months as an infor­ma­tion or knowl­edge gath­er­ing time. I have spent time read­ing a vari­ety things — scrip­ture, a num­ber of books — Henry Nouwen and Spir­i­tual Polar­i­tiesby Wil Her­nan­dez, Becom­ing Whole and Holy by Jean­nine Brown, Carla Dahl and Wyndi Corbin Reuschling. I have spent a lot of time think­ing about what I want to do when I grow up. I have just been busy gath­er­ing lots and lots of stuff. What I have failed to do is slow down and start putting all the pieces together. So I have slowly been push­ing the pause but­ton on the whole sale gath­er­ing of more…
I don’t know about you but my mind goes a lot of dif­fer­ent direc­tions when I pon­der things — I make great use of mind map­ping soft­ware and big white boards when I am down­load­ing my pon­der­ing mate­r­ial. I put up all the ran­dom thoughts that I have and then I play con­nect the dots. I am always excited to see con­nec­tions that come out of a bunch of seem­ingly unre­lated blurbs.
If you are still read­ing this, thanks and you now have a glimpse at how my through process works and why I am the way that I am. So what have I learned and where am I headed. The biggest thing with regards to my blog is that it live in a new place. This past spring I put together and did a very soft launch of a new web site call LRT Min­istry. You can read more about the min­istry by hit­ting the home but­ton above. In a nut shell LRT is an acronym for Loved, Redeemed and Trans­formed — Loved by God, Redeemed by Christ and Trans­formed by Spirit. What LRT Min­istry allows me to do is gather in one place the var­i­ous things that I do or hope to do in the not to dis­tant future. This could also be the plat­form for part of my doc­toral the­sis which I will be begin­ning in January.
My goal for the near future is to have a weekly blog post­ing (hope­fully on Mon­days) as I begin to con­nect the dots and share with you my process and what God is teach­ing me. It is my hope that together we can be part of each oth­ers trans­for­ma­tion process and grow in our under­stand­ing of God and who God wants each one of us to be.
The lead-off topic of dis­cus­sion be a word that seemed to come up a lot in my pon­der­ings — Authentic.