Rabbi Brian's Religion-Outside-The-Box Blog: 77% Weekly

Hummingbirds & Questions.

2012-12-09T19:59:00.001-08:00

Once, as I watched two hummingbirds, I found myself overwhelmed by a series of questions.

· Were they flitting in and out of the flowers to pollinate them?

· Were they trying to nourish themselves with nectar?

· Were they there so I would remember to marvel at the world?

· Why where they there?

While I was in rabbinical school, I had weekly spiritual direction meetings with a wise woman who wrote the book on spiritual direction. (Actually, she’s written a number of different books about spiritual direction.) One day, she told me something that changed everything and nothing at the same time—it was a statement that has stayed with me ever since:

The answer received depends on the question asked.

How true!

We’ll never know everything. We’ll only get some answers – and only based on the questions we ask.

In the end, I don't know why the hummingbirds were there, probably never will, and I'm okay with that. Can I learn to be as comfortable with all the other unanswered questions in my life?

With wishes for patience for everything unresolved in your heart,

Spiritual-religious advice: Be satisfied that you’ll never have all the answers.

Certainty

2012-12-09T19:58:00.000-08:00

Certainty is a state of being certain – not a state of being right or wrong.

If you’re certain about something, all it means is that you’re absolutely sure about it. You have no doubt. But the absence of doubt does necessarily mean you’re “correct.”

We all want to be right. (I’m certain of that.)

Not feeling certain is a little uncomfortable, like that sensation of your chair tipping backwards and almost falling. Nobody wants to endure that feeling for too long. (Therapists call this feeling of discomfort disregulation. In education circles it is referred to a state of disequilibrium.)

I’ve previously written “Faith: Not There, Here” and “Control or Suffer,” which both reference one of my favorite phrases:

Dubium incommodum est.

Certum ridiculum est.

Uncertainty is uncomfortable.

Certainty is ridiculous.

Let’s face it. We all want to be comfortable, and we all want to be certain about things in our lives. We want our doubts removed. But the truth is, it’s not possible to ever be 100% certain. Life is always changing, always throwing us a new curve ball at the precise moment we think we’re settled in. (Think of how the seasons change, for example.)

Ben Franklin stated,

In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.

We need to accept that we’ll never have full or complete knowledge about what will happen. We must learn to become comfortable with the awkward feeling of disregulation and disequilibrium.

Spiritual-religious advice: Know that you’ll never have full certainty, and get comfortable with feeling uncertain.

Side of the Road

2012-12-09T19:56:00.000-08:00

[You can find today’s story in issue 28/40 from 2009.... it’s the same original tale, same spiritual-religious advice, but I wanted to re-write it. Let’s call it the “new and improved” version.]

A few years ago, my wife Jane and I were traveling, and I had what I call a “side-of-the-road” experience.

We were driving to Las Vegas from California, so it was a bit of a road trip. Everything was going fine. We reached a steep hill, and as the car moved up the hill, suddenly the engine quit working.

Right there in the middle of traffic, our forward velocity decreased to zero very quickly.

Jane was the one driving. She panicked. Cars swerved around us, honking. She started freaking out.

A large truck stopped behind our car to protecting us from oncoming traffic. At that point, I got my wits about me and knew exactly what to do.

I jumped out of the passenger seat, told Jane to put the engine in neutral. I got behind our car and started pushing. The large truck shielded us as I pushed the car to the side of the road, out of traffic. Once we were there, Jane felt better. We waved goodbye to the truck, called for a tow truck, and talked casually about what had just happened.

Once the emergency vehicle arrived, that’s when I lost it. I started to convulse, my whole body shaking. All the fear and anxiety I’d been holding back now appeared.

That’s what I mean by a side-of-the-road experience.

In stressful situations, many of us “hold it together” out of a kind of necessity. We hold it together, but then it – that energy we’re hiding – needs to go somewhere.

Many of us assume that just because we look like we’re holding it together, our past traumas, our past experiences, aren’t going to need to come out. This is a spiritual-religious mistake.

When I counsel wedding couples, I often see “unexpected feelings” coming out during the sessions. One of the individuals finally feels so safe, so loved – it’s as if they’re on the side of the road, free from danger. They have someone who loves them completely for who they are, and this allows them to deal with some past trauma. All the feelings they’ve held back for years can now be fully expressed in this non-threatening place of their relationship.

That’s a side-of-the-road kind of thing.

You might have experienced this at funerals. Some people can hold it together, go through the entire burial, and they’re “fine.” But a week or so after the service, after everyone has left and gone home, that’s when they start losing it: “I don’t understand. I was fine at the funeral, how come I’m not fine now?”

This is another side-of-the-road experience. At some point in our lives, when we feel secure, we finally feel and give ourselves permission to deal with our trauma. We allow ourselves full expression of what we previously kept hidden.

Spiritual-religious advice for the week: Remember that sometimes it’s only when you’re relaxed that you can feel anxieties you thought you got away from.

A hat, the well, and insanity.

2012-12-09T19:55:00.000-08:00

Here's one definition of insanity: doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results.

My friend Charles explains it like this:

· I go to a well for water and it doesn't have any water. I am disappointed.

· I go away and come back. The well still doesn't have any water. I am shocked.

· I leave and come back a third time. But this time . . . I'm wearing a hat!

And yet we all do this — all of the time.

We expect that because we have "put on a hat" that the dry wells in our lives will suddenly contain water.

We need to face reality, make the changes we can, and then stop going to empty wells — with or without hats.

Spiritual-religious advice: Don’t think that because you are doing something different that people in your life will necessarily act differently.

No One Path

2012-11-11T21:57:00.000-08:00

Iconoclast means someone who challenges traditional beliefs. The etymology is from the words eikon (image) and klastes (breaker). The word was coined to refer to religious folk who destroyed images that co-religionists had made of God.

Modern-day iconoclasm is what ROTB is about – replacing monolithic, arcane notions of the divine with what makes more sense.

Before I continue in that charge, let me give you some history.

In the Second Book of Kings, Hezekiah is one of the first celebrated iconoclasts. The controversy on challenging traditional beliefs got really heated in early 8^th century Byzantium, when the hot issue of the day was whether or not it was acceptable to have a pictorial representation of the divine.

(N.B.: while it is glossed over and even seemingly biblical literate types don’t know about it, the Hebrew Bible contains numerous references to God’s corporality. We won’t go in-depth with this here though.)

Hezekiah is a noted Biblical iconoclast – ridding his world of pictorial representations of the divine. [If you read the Bible account before him, you will find that God “walked” in the garden (Gen. iii. 8); closed the ark door with “his hand”; “smells” sacrifices, “ate” with Abraham (Gen. xviii. 8); “wrote with a hand” upon the tables of stone (Ex. xxxi. 18), had a “back” seen by Moses, and more. See anthropopathism and learn a new word. ]

Iconoclasm changed in early 8th century Byzantium where the question was whether or not it was acceptable to have a pictorial representation of the God-the-son. By this time, no Muslim, Christian, or Jew was depicting God-the-father.

The idea is that if is it certain, it is limiting, and if it is limited, it is not God.

An extension of this is the notion that God has no name.

To this end, anyone suggesting that there is a proper path to God, does not worship the same notion of the divine that I do.

As Jiddu Krishnamurti said, “Truth is a pathless land.”

There’s no one, singular path to God!

As William Blake said, “Jesus Christ is the only true God, and so am I, and so are you.”

There is no notion of God that is more correct than the one that you have – or are working on.

Let us love each other and each other’s notions of the divine.

Let us smash the false idols of certainty when it comes to the limitless.

Let us reclaim the word “God” for our notions of the divine.

Let us be modern-day iconoclasts.

Spiritual-religious advice: Claim God as our own, if only linguistically.

The devoutly religious and real religion

2012-11-04T20:28:00.000-08:00

(A small poem)

I often

wonder

why those

who believe

that God is on their side

and

that God controls the world

are so scared.

I must remember

to be compassionate

and kind

towards them—

they

might be

truly

scared.

_______, therefore I am. (A fill-in-the-blank spiritual exercise.)

2012-10-21T07:27:00.000-07:00

Cogito ergo sum translates as “I think therefore I am” and is attributed to the early 17th century French philosopher René Descartes.

I think therefore I am.

Is thinking the sole reason for my existence?

Am I here just because I think?

While I do love to consider, cogitate, contemplate and calculate; weigh, wonder, ponder, reason and reflect; muse, mull and be oh-so-clever, I have a hard time believing that thinking is the primary cause of my existence.

But if it’s not thinking, then what is the reason?

What word or phrase would you substitute for “I think”?

_______ ergo sum.

_______ therefore I am.

Here are a few ideas:

· I complain, therefore I am.

· I have stuff, therefore I am.

· I improve on things, therefore I am.

· My parents procreated, therefore I am.

· God loves me, therefore I am.

· I create, therefore I am.

(Isn’t it interesting the way each version gives a very different perspective on life?)

Meditate on what you would put in the blank and see what you discover.

Spiritual-religious advice: Figure out what you would put into the blank in the phrase: _______ therefore I am.

Ironically, I am

2012-09-23T15:40:00.000-07:00

Awhile ago I came away from a meditation retreat with a profound realization. (It feels cliché to say that, but nonetheless, it happened.)

Before I tell you what happened, let me just say wow – if you have any interest in meditating the “right” way, check out www.skillfulmeditation.org. Jason Siff, my meditation go-to guy, has a philosophy that there is no right way to meditate. It doesn’t matter how you do it, just that you do it. Brilliant, unbelievable stuff. He also has a wonderful book, Unlearning Meditation, which I highly recommend.

Anyway, I realized that a lot of what I do is intended to get me seen by others. I enjoy having an audience – you and many others – who reflect back to me that I’m real, that I exist.

When you comment on an article I write, when I make a person laugh, when I do something that gets me noticed, I get a sense of myself through the reaction.

I gain a sense of me from people outside of me.

Rene Descartes is famous for the phrase cogito ergo sum – “I think, therefore I am.” For me, it’s not just my thoughts, it’s the recognition: “I am acknowledged by you, therefore I am,” or to put it back into the language of Descartes, “You think I am, therefore I am.”

[Years ago, in one of the early issues of this newsletter, I wrote about Descartes’ well-known phrase and asked people to fill in the blank with their own unique words: “___________, therefore I am.”]

In my meditation, I realized it’s not because of YOU that I am. That’s ridiculous. I can’t exist only because you or others see me.

It’s because of me that I am! I am because I am.

This is not Descartes’ notion of existence because of the intellect. Rather, it is existence because of existence. (Tautological, maybe, but still it’s important.)

Now, this notion, I am that I am is actually a huge one in serious theological circles. Scholars have contemplated it for generations.

Here’s my quickie explanation as to why:

Throughout the entirety of the Hebrew Bible, the only entity who ever uses the first person singular form of the verb to be (“I am”) is God! God says the phrase that Popeye would later co-opt: “I am that I am.” This is a very significant phrase as it is sui generis (a fancy term meaning “one of a kind”).

In English, the phrase “I am” is a fairly commonly used. “I am hungry, I am tired, I am this, I am that.” However, in Hebrew, the verb “to be” (lee-hee-ot – lamed, hay, yud, vuv, taf) is only conjugated in the present tense by God. God is the only one who says, “I am” anything. (This is why native Hebrew speakers who are novices at English will often sound a bit Tarzan-like: “I hungry.” In Hebrew you just don’t say, “I am.”)

This is also why in certain circles God is referred to as “the great I Am.”

The big idea here is: to say “I am,” is to be godly.

Being godly is realizing we are based on who we are – nothing else. We don’t exist based on other people seeing us, or not seeing us. We don’t exist because of our thoughts, material possessions, or how others perceive us. We exist because we are.

Wow.

The irony, of course, is that I’m writing this article to tell you about my realization. I realized I must find my sense of self outside of you seeing me.

(Consequently, there’s no need to reply to me about this newsletter.)

Spiritual-religious advice: Be simply because you are, not because of others.

Compassion

2012-09-06T14:10:00.000-07:00

Consider the following five attributes:

Compassion

Wisdom

Cleverness

Kindness

Intelligence

Which one best describes you?

If we were to take an honest assessment of your character – if we were to ask people with whom you interact on a daily basis – which quality would they say best reflects you?

Are you wise? Compassionate? Clever? Kind? Or smart?

I hope folks would report me as being kind or compassionate. But I’m afraid the most popular answer for me would be that I’m clever. “Yeah, that Brian, he is clever.”

Interestingly, there is a difference between the characteristic I wish people used to describe me, and the one they would actually use to describe me.

I imagine I’m the only one with a difference between who I wish I were and who I actually am.

Which of the above five characteristics would you most like to be?

While I certainly take pride in my creativity, my outside-the-box, divergent thinking, I would rather be known for being kind than for being smart or wise.

I’ve come a long way from my childhood when clever and smart were über-paramount to my sense of self worth, but I’ve got a long ways to go still.

There’s a great quote by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel who said,

When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.

I strive to open up more towards my fellow human beings and be kinder.

How about you?

What’s most important to you?

Which quality do you need to develop in your life?

Which would make you more human?

Which would bring you a fuller, richer life?

What steps can you take to cultivate more of that particular characteristic in yourself?

Spiritual-religious advice: Ruminate on the quality you most want to embody, and live it.

Teasing (The True Outcome of Your Words)

2012-06-17T18:22:00.000-07:00

Have you ever made fun of someone?

Or have you ever been teased by someone else?

My guess is you answered “yes” to both questions.

A recent incident opened my eyes to the true nature of teasing. It happened at a dinner. It was a man and his wife talking:

The man casually says something about his wife.

She interjects, “I can’t believe you just said that. That was really rude.”

“Oh, honey,” he replies, “I’m just kidding.”

This exchange blew my eyes wide open. The guy really thought he was just kidding. And his wife was really upset. Who was right?

Here’s a quote that has been made (somewhat) famous in the NLP world:

The meaning of communication is in the response elicited, regardless of the intention of the speaker.

(I’ve noticed when I introduce this idea to people, many have an immediate aversion to it — of course, disliking a quotation doesn’t mean it’s not true.)

The take-home message behind these words is that it doesn’t matter what you meant to say – it’s how the recipient takes your information that counts.

It doesn’t matter if you thought you were playing around, or if you perceived yourself to be “just kidding.” If the other person was upset by what you said, then your words were upsetting.

Stated another way: good intentions aren’t enough. It’s the outcome that matters. How people hear you is what counts – not your intention.

Let me recount an example. When I was on a bus for a high school field trip, David fell asleep and Hobart quietly began removing David’s sneakers. David woke up thinking a prank was being pulled on him. Hobart explained that he was just trying to make David more comfortable... it was something that he did for his brother when his brother fell asleep. But, to David, it was invasive. He didn’t like it. Despite Hobart’s good intention, the outcome was bad. The meaning of communication is in the response elicited, regardless of the intention of the speaker.

Bringing us back to teasing...

Years ago, I used to tease Jane about her cooking (among other things). But then I had a realization: how is she supposed to know I’m supportive of her if I’m making fun of her? (Funny enough, ever since my cajoling ended, she’s cooked a lot more meals for me.)

How is a person supposed to believe you care about them, that you actually support them, when you ridicule them?

Teasing is powerful and subtle. Moreover, teasing is rude. Period.

Spiritual-religious advice: Be kind. (Don’t tease.)

Like. Dislike.

2012-06-04T08:06:00.000-07:00

Here is one of my favorite quotes.

And, it’s true:

If I dislike someone,

the way they hold their spoon

will offend me.

If I like someone,

they could drop a plate of food

in my lap and I wouldn't care.

Our preconceived notions of who people are keeps us seeing them as we envision them.

Perhaps people in our lives don’t change because we insist that they are a certain way?

Spiritual-religious advice: Be aware when you are creating stereotypes – even little ones.

Wisdom and Serenity

2012-05-22T20:47:00.000-07:00

Take a moment to reflect on you.

Think about what’s going on, how you feel, and how it seems life is treating you.

Now, make a list of 5 things that are bothering you.

Just write down (or think about) anything that’s troubling, worrying, or irking you — whatever the case may be.

(For some of you, it should be fairly easy to create this list.)

Five things that are bothersome to me:

(If you can’t come up with 5 items, don’t sweat it, 2 will do just fine.)

Do you have your list? Good.

Pinpoint one of these bothersome issues.

Now answer a very simple question: Can it be changed?

Whatever your issue is — whether it’s something that is happening now, will happen in the future, or took place in the past — can you change it? Are you capable of affecting it somehow? Is it possible for you to alter its outcome?

The answer here is either “yes” or “no.”

Either it can be changed, or it cannot.

Yes or no.

If it’s a “no” and that particular bothersome thing on your list can’t be changed, do you have the fortitude to accept it? Can you tolerate this fact in your life for what it is, whether you like it or not?

I need to take a moment to elaborate. When a loved one dies (or something else majorly bad happens), certainly there is nothing you can do to change it. Accepting that it happened doesn’t mean you have to like it or that you should say, “Hey-ho,” pick yourself up, and get on with life. Accepting means fully acknowledging the reality of what is, even if you don’t like it. Here’s a bit of a lengthy, but thorough definition of acceptance:

Acceptance is not abetting, advocating, agreeing, aiding, approving, assisting, authenticating, authorizing, backing, complying, concurring, confirming, consenting, cultivating, encouraging, endorsing, furthering, liking, maintaining, permitting, promoting, ratifying, reinforcing, sanctifying, supporting, or sympathizing. Acceptance is saying, “It is what it is, and what it is, is what is.”

The question in the above isn’t if you like it, but, if you can’t change it, can you accept it?

Going back to your bothersome issue — if that particular thing in your life can be changed, does changing it from “irksome” to “less irksome” require you to take action? Often, the idea of effecting even a little change is somewhat scary. The follow-up question here is, will you do it anyway?

Now, go through the same process with the other 4 annoyances on your list. For each item, ask yourself if you can change it. If not, are you willing to accept it? And, if so, are you are willing to accept it fully?

I sometimes use the discussion above to introduce the topic of philosophy to middle and high school students. I tell them: Knowing the difference between what can and cannot be changed is the roots of wisdom. By the end of these talks, the students understand that “a love of wisdom” (a translation of the Greek philosophia) is truly beneficial to their lives.

Analyzing problems in this way is really just a step-by-step interpretation of the Serenity Prayer — a beautiful text attributed to theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, who is said to have written it in 1934.

Here’s the prayer (and remember, it doesn’t really matter if you believe in an active, external deity or not — the words of a prayer are about changing the person who prays):

God grant me the serenity

To accept the things I cannot change;

Courage to change the things I can;

And wisdom to know the difference.

A wonderful petition, no?

Spiritual-religious advice: Be wise, accept, and have courage.

Children and Religion

2012-04-22T20:54:00.000-07:00

My son, when he was 3-years-old saw a man standing on the top of a building and asked me, “Is that man God?”

“I don’t think that’s God,” I replied.

“Yes, I think it is God,” Emmett said.

Was I to disagree? I didn’t know.

Would it be wrong to tell him that the man standing on the roof was a repair-maintenance guy, and not God? Would it matter?

This incident reminds me of a question I’m commonly asked. I receive a lot of emails that go something like this:

Dear Rabbi Brian, I understand this idea of questioning God and having an adult relationship with God. I can get behind that. But how do I apply this notion to my children? I want to do the right thing. I want to give them some religious background. But what do I tell them?

I’ll be the first to admit I’m not an expert at parenting. Although I’m working on it daily, I’m not there yet. My kids are young, and I’m still pretty new at this. (My brilliant friend Noa quips, “I was a great parent before I had kids.”)

Even when my children are older, I doubt I’ll be an expert on how to raise them – let alone how to handle the issue of kids and religion.

Although I obtained one Masters in Religion and another Masters in Education with a concentration in the spiritual-religious development of adolescents, this doesn’t mean I’m an authority on the topic. But what I can tell you is this: nobody is an expert.

There are no longitudinal studies giving any solid advice for parents. Although a few studies have been conducted on the ‘typical’ development of God beliefs from childhood to adulthood, there’s nothing in academic world telling us how parenting or different communities affect a child’s religious beliefs.

No one has a clue if having a Christmas tree or not having one, believing in the tooth-fairy or not, or having a Mormon neighbor has any correlation to a child’s ability to develop a healthy spiritual-religious life when they are older. (Studies do suggest that having a weakened or broken relationship with a father lead to a desire to delve into religion, but that’s about it.)

This leads me to suggest to parents: you are the expert. It’s your child. You are your child’s guide. Do the best you can.

Here are my general guidelines:

· Be honest with your child. Tell them you don’t have all the answers, and that any answer must come from inside of them.

· Allow your child to have different beliefs than you at different times in their life. They’ll go through stages. Don’t tell them what to believe. Instead, allow them to explore. Allow them to ask questions.

· Be a model for them. Show them it’s OK to struggle with God beliefs. Tell them “not knowing” is fine.

· Encourage them to ask other people what they think. Inspire them to ask other adults, “What do you think about God?”

· For that matter, I encourage you to ask other adults what they think about God. If you are bold enough, do it openly instead of hiding behind your child. Instead of saying, “Little Jimmy was wondering...” say “Jimmy and I were wondering...” Or better yet, say “I was wondering.” That’s real modeling.

I know as parents, we want only the best for our children. We want our kids to grow up and live in a world where they can clearly distinguish right from wrong, good from bad, God from non-God. We want certainty and solutions, but sometimes this is not possible. With regard to all the impossible questions, there are only different levels of comfort in the discomfort of unknowing.

The worst thing I or any other religious person can do is undermining you as the foremost authority on your child’s religious development. To downplay your own expertise would be a terrible thing.

Spiritual-religious advice: Be the expert for your child, and own your expertise.

I have so much love and compassion for anyone raising children, and for anyone reading this article.

Johnny, Sally, & the Duck: a modern parable.

2012-04-02T04:00:00.000-07:00

(This is article 5 out of 5 about freedom.)

I don’t remember where I first heard this story. It’s a modern parable about setting ourselves free:

Johnny, a little boy and Sally, his older sister, were visiting their grandparent's farm.

As a gift, Johnny was given a slingshot. He immediately ran off to practice in the woods, but found he could never hit his intended targets. Feeling discouraged, he headed back to the house for dinner.

Near the farmhouse, he saw his grandmother's pet duck. Impulsively, he let a rock fly from his slingshot. It hit the duck square in the head, killing it instantly. Johnny was shocked! In a panic, he frantically hid the dead duck, only to discover that his sister was standing not five feet away. She had silently witnessed everything.

After dinner, Grandma said, "Sally, let's wash the dishes." Sally said, "Grandma, Johnny told me he wanted to help in the kitchen."

Johnny did the dishes.

The next morning Grandpa asked if the children wanted to go fishing. Grandma interjected, "I'm sorry but I need help preparing supper." Sally smiled smugly and said, "Johnny told me he wanted to help."

He squirmed, but she raised her eyebrows and then whispered, "Remember the duck?"

Sally went fishing and Johnny stayed to help.

Over the next several days, Johnny found himself doing both his chores and Sally's.

Finally, he couldn't stand it any longer.

He confessed to his grandmother that he had killed her pet duck. She knelt down, gave him a hug, and said, "Sweetheart, I know. You see, I was standing at the window and I saw the whole thing. But because I love you, I forgave you. I was just wondering how long you would let Sally make a slave of you."

Spiritual-religious advice: Set yourself free.

Freedom (on the inside)

2012-03-25T04:00:00.001-07:00

(This is article 4 out of 5 about freedom.)

When I looked at my in-box, I saw 30 e-mails requiring answers. My phone registered 4 text messages and 2 voicemails. I knew I had on my desk 3 bills needing payment and that I had about 15 minutes of paperwork related to ROTB’s non-profit status.

I suddenly found myself overcome by an overwhelming feeling of anxiety. It felt as though I was choking.

“Suck it up,” I told myself. But what would battening down the hatches accomplish? It would suffocate me, stuffing the scared feeling down while I robotically muscled through my responsibilities. I knew from experience that ignoring my anxiety would just wreck havoc later on—in various nefarious and incalculable ways.

So, I decided to try something different.

I wrote God a prayer for help.

I didn’t write to God because I expected God to change things for me. On the contrary, I wrote it because I know that when we engage in real earnest prayer, the one who prays is changed. (There’s lots about what real prayer is in my first book, How to Find Out What (the) God (of your understanding) Wants From You. If you haven’t read it, you ought to – despite the long title, it’s pretty good.)

Five paragraphs into my stream-of-consciousness-prayer, a favorite Robert Frost quote came to mind: The best way out is usually through. And a thought occurred to me, "What if I embrace my feelings? Why not just sit with the panic . . . lean into it?"

So, I did.

I placed the fleshy part of my palm on my cheeks, my fingers covering my eyes. I bowed my head toward my chest, and I started to cry. I dove in to the feelings. I allowed my panic and fear to wash over me.

To my amazement, it didn’t last forever. In reality it lasted all of 40 seconds.

Then, looking like a two-year-old who has just finished a tantrum—with tears still damp on my cheeks—I felt my countenance lift. The feelings of panic had disappeared.

Do you see how this experience relates to the previous articles on freedom?

We all know that we are able to choose how we react to the external forces in our lives. How do we react when we’re at a restaurant and our salad arrives with the wrong dressing? We have choices: rage at the waiter, politely request a change, accept it and enjoy something unexpected, or other options.

Are we not able to choose how we react with regard to our internal emotional lives?

Feelings we were neither expecting nor desiring, like salads with wrong dressings on them, will come.

What will you choose?

Are you willing to feel sad when you are sad . . . to feel angry when you are angry . . . and to feel overwhelmed when you are overwhelmed?

Or will you ignore your true feelings by pretending everything is fine . . . even when it’s not?

Spiritual-religious advice: Be free to experience what it is that you experience; even if you don’t like it.

Freedom

2012-03-18T04:00:00.000-07:00

(This is article 3 out of 5 about freedom.)

Free.

The English word "free" comes from the German frei—meaning dear or beloved. (Interestingly, the word "liberty" comes from the Latin liberi—meaning both free and children.) The idea is that if you are "dear" to those in charge (like the children of a medieval ruler), you get to have certain privileges.

This makes sense. We cut slack for people closest to us more than we do for those people – the ones we think of as far away and who we pretend we are nothing like.

Can you imagine that the universe or God (whatever you want to call it) finds you to be dear?

If your personal theology gets all mixed up in the above God language, you aren’t alone. Most adults get confused when we introduce the three letters gee-oh-dee. For the purposes of this short article, let’s think of it this way: your host for the weekend has told you to make yourself comfy—eat what you like, sleep as late as you like—relax. Oughtn’t you?

Spiritual-religious advice: contemplate your freedom.

A Passover Reflection

2012-03-11T04:00:00.000-07:00

(This is article 2 out of 5 about freedom.)

Understand the following and you'll get an understanding of both Passover and freedom.

Passover is all about your freedom.

It's not about how you choose to restrict the carbohydrates in your diet. (Although that can be a wonderful path for realizing your freedom.) It's not really about the ancient Israelites leaving their constrictions. (Although re-telling that story can be a powerful experience.) It's about you being, reclaiming, and realizing your own freedom. (Re-read the previous sentence, please.)

At every festive Passover meal the following sentence is recited, yet so few understand it: we are not here because of what God did for our ancestors, it is because of what God has done for me. The Biblical story of freedom–the story of Exodus–is retold, but only as the backdrop for each of us to understand that we, we are the ones whom God has set free.

God has freed you. (Please don't get too hung-up by the word "God." It need mean nothing more or less than you want it to.)

And, God has freed me.

How wonderful that is.

How truly wonderful.

Spiritual-religious advice: if the word God is throwing you off, ponder that. Otherwise, think about your freedom.

Freedom on the inside

2012-03-03T04:00:00.000-08:00

(This is article 1 out of 5 about freedom.)

The 1^st century Roman poet Virgil wrote Possunt quia posse videntur — which means, "They can because they think they can."

I want to look at the opposite—the self-imposed, yet non-existent boundaries that keep us from doing the things that we could do if only we just didn't think otherwise.

It's fear that keeps a friend of mine at a job that he hates, complete with a sub-par salary and an atrocious commute. He doesn't believe that he deserves better. He doesn’t believe that he deserves anything and everything that he wants.

It's a sense that she just shouldn't shine and be splendid that keeps another friend from shining and being splendid.

Why is this? Why do we limit ourselves so much?

The best explanation I know of is the following:

Think about a dog wearing a shock collar that activates whenever it walks past a certain boundary. Basic conditioning teaches it to stop walking past that point—and after some time, you can remove the shock-collar and the dog still won't venture pass where it had learned not to go.

The same is true with people—with you and me.

At some point in our explorations of life, someone (often a parent) zapped us and we internalized the notion that we shouldn't go there or do that. We learned to live inside a certain safety zone and not to venture outside the box.

We got conditioned—even without the external authority figure telling us that it was wrong—to limit ourselves.

Personally, I learned that I shouldn't relax and let others take care of me. (I'm not certain about the particulars of how I learned this, I just know that I did.) I felt that it was my job to take care of others.

But it's not my job. As real as that restriction feels, it's not real. I can relax and myself be taken care of.

(Similarly, I mis-learned that I shouldn't express my anger and that I shouldn't be straightforwardly honest if it might upset someone.)

What I'm proposing is that we recognize that some of the very "real" boundaries in our lives actually aren't really real at all.

What I'm proposing is some faith to try to free ourselves from our perceived limitations.

This might seem like a radical idea, but it’s true, you aren't limited!

(Of course there is gravity and the government has laws . . . but outside of those there isn't much stopping you from doing what or being who you want to be.)

True freedom, philosophers teach, is God. For the rest of us, we must learn to recognize our self-imposed limitations and be brave enough to venture out beyond where we thought we were safe.

Be brave.

You are safe.

As the late 16th century philosopher and priest Giordano Bruno said before he was burned at the stake as a heretic, "Out of this universe you cannot fall."

Or, in other words, the universe or God – if you imagine a notion of an external deity – isn't going to treat you the way that your parents might have when you violated a boundary. In fact, neither the universe nor God want you to be limited at all.

Spiritual-religious advice: reflect on the limitations you have set for yourself and consider setting yourself free.

Mowing the Lawn, but Why?

2012-01-12T04:00:00.000-08:00

I had a conversation with my friend Jeremy, who is in high school. It went like this:

J: I’m saving up my money!

RB: Wonderful. What are you saving up money for?

J: I want to buy a lawn mower.

RB: Really? What do you want to buy a lawn mower for?

J: I want to start mowing people’s lawns so I can make a lot of money.

RB: That sounds great. What are you gonna do with all that money?

J: Oh, save it, and then buy something better.

RB: What are you gonna buy that’s even better than a lawn mower?

J: I don’t know... but I gotta get the lawn mower first.

RB: Jeremy, do you even like mowing lawns?

J: No.

This is a kid, so we see right through his “logic.” We know it’s absurd.

He wants to obtain a lawn mower so he can get something better than a lawn mower, but he’s not even sure what that “better” thing is yet.

From time to time, we all work towards a goal solely so we can surpass it in pursuit of a loftier goal that we can’t name.

We might not do it in such obvious ways as my friend did. But we all do it.

We all chase someone else’s dream. The iPad for example – as soon as it came out, I wanted one. I didn’t have a clue what good it would do for me, nor did I know of any part of my life that could be improved by owning one. Yet I wanted it anyhow.

The antidote to not chasing something is to sit with the desire long enough to find out what’s behind it. However, sitting is hard. It’s much easier to pony-up to the Apple store than it is to quietly observe our own greed.

The acknowledgement that we can’t ever get everything we want is an important spiritual-religious theme. It’s timeless. The proverbial itch will never be scratched. Here are four different historical re-tellings of this same concept:

· Buddhism teaches that when we create attachments to impermanent objects, there is suffering (Buddha, 5^th century B.C.E).

· In the Bible, the book of Ecclesiastes teaches that as death is unavoidable, the pursuit of worldly living is vanity, mist, and vapor. All achievements and possessions are ultimately profitless, like chasing the wind (4^th century C.E.).

· Renaissance Italians in Florence, Italy, set up a giant bonfire of the vanities (1497). They believed that if they burned the objects of their desire, they would be less tempted to want them.

· Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones sang about the perennial shift from optimism to disillusionment in their song, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” (from the 1969 album, Let It Bleed album). The conclusion of their song seems like a fitting place to end here: “And if you try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need.”

Spiritual-religious advice: Be incredulous about what you want, because it might not be what you really want.

LCK - Making a Good Impression

2012-01-09T04:00:00.001-08:00

Lord, I heard a mother say to her little child the other day: "Be careful what you say. I want you to make a good impression."

That is what most of us are busy trying to do each day, dear God. We are trying to make good impressions. We are trying to be so very careful because if we are not our impressions will not always be very attractive ones.

Maybe that is our problem. Maybe we are trying too hard. Maybe we impress the least when we try to impress the most.

The more careful we are at getting our impressions right the more often we end up getting them all wrong.

Please help me, Lord, to present myself as I am and not as I think someone else wants me to be. Keep me from dressing up my true self in appearances that no one who truly knows me well would recognize as being the real me. Whatever I am, on any given day, let it be honestly me not some close approximation of the real thing.

Help me to love myself as I truly am so I can put everyone who meets me at ease. Make a good impression on me, dear God, so I won't have to be so concerned with making one on everyone else.

The "How stressed can I be?” Contest

2012-01-02T07:28:00.000-08:00

Religion-Outside-The-Box originally ran this contest when it only had a few hundred people on the mailing list. I’m thinking that now that there are more members, we ought to run this is utterly sarcastic spiritual contest again.

The contest is this easy, the person who is the most stressed wins.

Simply use this convenient scale to calculate how many different stress-filled events you’ve managed to simultaneously survive over the last 12 months. (You can add additional points if you’ve had multiple experiences of an event.) Or just be creative and calculate your stress according to your own scale.

Stress-filled events may include, but are not limited to:

· Worry

· Change

· Responsibility

· Trouble

· Illness

Total all your applicable stressors and e-mail me with your point total

Grand prize: Perverse satisfaction & pity.

Runner-up prize: More stress because you didn't win.

Note: Artificially inflating your stress for the purpose of winning this contest is strictly frowned upon and may result in disqualification.

Spiritual-religious advice: Take it easy on yourself... or, chance winning this contest.

What are we waiting for?

2012-01-02T04:00:00.001-08:00

I few years ago, my brother-in-law, Bob, had me laughing hysterically. What he did was struck me as so funny that every time that I thought about it, I was amused again.

The background was that I told him about someone I knew who was diagnosed with cancer. So, the air was a bit tense. Bob pondered a moment and then said, quietly, almost as though he was thinking aloud, "What a relief that would be."

I didn't say anything. I waited. And he elaborated.

Bob verbalized a mock phone-call with his doctor, "Really, Doctor, I have only a year to live? Wonderful, that's just wonderful. Thank you." He hung up the pretend phone, sighed, looked relaxed in the shoulders, and a sense of content glowed about him.

"If I only had a year to live," Bob exclaimed, "I wouldn't be so worried about things. I'd enjoy my meals, I wouldn't rush, I'd take it all in with simplicity and grace."

"If I only had a year to live, I could finally just relax and really start living."

Funny how thinking we're going to live forever might take some of the joy out of living.

The truth is, of course, none of us know if this is our last year, last month, or last week on earth.

Spiritual-religious advice: Perhaps we should all seize the day. . . carpe deim. . . if only for a week.

39 Heaven on Earth

2011-12-12T04:00:00.001-08:00

Needed Now: a New Story That is Out of the Box

By: Martin Rutte

It’s time for us to step out of the box.

Why? The significant problems we’re facing aren’t being solved: wars drag on, millions suffer severe drought and famine, ice caps melt, global financial markets collapse, terrorism continues. People have lost faith in many of our institutions – schools that don’t teach, governments that can’t govern, marriages that don’t endure, religions that fail to use their moral authority to end the world’s sufferings.

Add to this the underlying belief that we as individuals can’t make any impactful difference, not just in making these situations better, but in ending them. The prevailing sense is that none of us can make a difference, that one individual can’t take on a problem—war, hunger, disease—and end it. We’re led to believe that one individual can’t take on an institution — government, the financial industry, the church—and make it work. There’s nothing we can do, the world’s problems are too overwhelming. We are blocked by hopelessness, powerlessness, and resignation.

The world’s current story is not helping the world work; it doesn’t empower us with optimism; it doesn’t cause us to engage the major sufferings and solve them. It gives us no sense that we’re moving in the right direction with a momentum that’s growing and expanding. It has run its course. It is tired and ineffective. It can, and it must change.

Hope lies in creating a new story of what it means to be human and what it means to be humanity. We need a new narrative that touches our souls and engages us to participate in creating the kind of world we long for. We need a new vision that unleashes what we already know deep in our souls about the kind of world we want, that helps set free our optimism and energy, and that supports us in taking the steps to make our vision for our world real.

At present, we know how to create Hell on Earth. Why not create its opposite? Why not create Heaven on Earth? And why wait? We can start right now. After all, the journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.

It’s easy to begin. Here’s how:

Recall a time when you experienced Heaven on Earth.
Imagine you have a magician’s wand and can create Heaven on Earth. What is Heaven on Earth for you?
What simple, easy, concrete action will you take in the next 24 hours to help make this real?

Each of us starts by asking and answering these questions of ourselves and perhaps two others. By engaging people in creating Heaven on Earth, we help start a new, fresh, view of the world. That world becomes full of opportunities and brimming with possibility. Into this new human story we are invited to creatively contribute how we can each make a difference. The new story of Heaven on Earth provides the context, but it is you, the individual, that creates the content. If you speak to just two people today about Heaven on Earth and each of them speaks to two the next day and so on and so on, everyone on the planet can be spoken to in only 32 days!

To the skeptics who ask, “What about those for whom Heaven on Earth would be eliminating a particular race or belief, or continuing to pollute the environment?” They are the minority, the very tiny minority. Unfortunately, they are often the people who control the world’s agenda today. No more. It’s now time for the vast majority of people in the world who want a good and decent and working world to be in charge of building our new world story.

Historically, the problem with world visions is that they seek to impose their view, “Follow my way and it will all work.” But imposing a vision never works. It can’t because it removes the freedom to choose. The vision of creating Heaven on Earth is different in a very significant way. It doesn’t impose, it evokes. It evokes the global vision that already lives within each of us.

People do know the kind of world they want, but they’re overwhelmed at the thought of making it happen, or embarrassed at what people might say if they talk about it. Once people are given the opportunity to discover their own truth about the kind of world they want and feel free to talk about it a powerful transformation occurs. A part of themselves they’ve always known, but haven’t met, is revealed. And once this evoked vision of Heaven on Earth is unleashed, a simple, powerful, and effective creativity emerges that begins positively impacting the world.

We can begin to have the kind of world we long for. We can begin living a new story of what it means to be human and what it means to be humanity. We can begin creating Heaven on Earth here and now.

***

Martin Rutte is a co-author of the New York Times business best-seller, ‘Chicken Soup for the Soul at Work,’ and is Chair of the Board of the Centre for Spirituality and the Workplace, Sobey School of Business, Saint Mary’s University, Halifax. He is also the founder of Project Heaven on Earth and is a management consultant specializing in corporate social responsibility and strategic visioning. He conducts Heaven on Earth workshops globally. More at: http://www.projectheavenonearth.com <http://www.projectheavenonearth> , and on Facebook at: Project Heaven on Earth.

38 Great Gift of Greed

2011-12-05T04:00:00.001-08:00

I heard a great story from the late Father Anthony de Mello (AKA Father Tony), a Jesuit priest from Goa, India’s smallest state.

Father Tony talked about the God Vishnu who, according to the Hindu tradition, is the Supreme and all-pervading being who brought the universe into existence. (Substitute your own deities and names as needed.)

Here’s my telling of his story:

Once upon a time, Vishnu visited a man in his dream.

He told the man, “If you go to this corner at noon, there will be a wandering mendicant, and he will give to you the greatest of all gifts, if you only you ask him for it.”

As instructed, the man went to that corner at the specified time.

Then, as predicted, a wandering mendicant approached him.

The man was so excited. He exclaimed to the mendicant, “Excuse me, you won’t believe this...or maybe you will...but I was visited by the God Vishnu, and he said you would give me the greatest of all gifts, if only I asked you for it.”

The mendicant replied, “Certainly. Anything I have, I would be so happy to give to you.”

The mendicant opened his satchel and showed the man its contents. Among them was a giant, glittering diamond the size of a baseball.

The man eyed it, mesmerized. “May I have that?”

“Sure! I don’t need that. I picked it up at a river bank about a week ago.”

The man was thrilled! He took the diamond, and shortly thereafter, the mendicant walked off.

The man fantasized about riches, fame, and everything he could get now that he owned this diamond.

About ten minutes later, he realized he had made a terrible mistake. He raced after the mendicant.

“Wait! Sir, wait!” He caught up and pleaded, “I’ve made the wrong decision. I don’t want this diamond. I don’t want it at all. Please take it back.”

The mendicant took the diamond, placed it back in his satchel, and said, “Okay. Well, what is it I have that I can give to you?”

The man answered, “What I want is your ability to not want the diamond.”

Isn’t that a great story?

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be free of want, desire, and greed?

Architect Frank Lloyd Wright once quipped, “Give me the luxuries of life and I will willingly do without the necessities.”

Personally, I love material stuff. I love electronics, technology, and whatever the people at Apple are selling. I have greed. I fantasize about extinguishing my wants (and perhaps you have thought about doing the same for yourself), but I don’t think any of us can ever fully eliminate our desires. The best we can do is to realize our wants, and then work towards minimizing them.

If you could ask that mendicant for anything, what would you ask for? The diamond or the ability to not want the diamond?

Spiritual-religious advice: In lieu of (or in addition to) the tangible gift you would normally give someone during a holiday or other special event, write a card stating what qualities or attributes you would give to that person if you could. I’m certain they will appreciate it more than any “thing” you might buy them.

37 OY Thinking

2011-11-21T04:00:00.001-08:00

OY Thinking = putting others before yourself.

O = Others. Y = You.

OY Thinking is the mindset where the desires of others are given priority above your own needs.

Are you guilty of OY Thinking?

I know that I often am.

(OY Thinking is endemic amongst “nice” people.)

It often feels easier to be a caretaker for others than to take a good, hard look at ourselves, acknowledge what it is that we want, and then do it.

(Also, being “selfless” looks good.)

But, to be healthy, functioning adults, we need to put ourselves first. If not we are willingly — and often unwittingly — committing violence against ourselves. Putting others first is both exhausting and unfair.

The recently deceased sage Thomas Merton wrote:

To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender oneself to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is to succumb to violence. More than that, it is cooperation in violence. It destroys your own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of your own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom, which makes the work beautiful.

I’m not talking about being selfish — insisting on your own way to the point of doing things to others that you wouldn’t want done to you. What I’m talking about is putting our priorities in the right order.

I’m not saying that we oughtn’t take the concerns of others into account, and certainly, certainly, there are plenty of circumstances in which we need to put the needs of others before our own. (Parents, anyone?)

There is a very famous aphorism attributed to Rabbi Hillel (a contemporary of Jesus) which says:

If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, what am I? And, if not now, when?

Spiritual-religious advice: Put a stop to your OY Thinking.