Modus operandi of the attentive person

A couple days ago something jumped out at me from an email. The email was from Poets & Writers website/magazine and identified stories of interest to click through and read. The thing that jumped was in the paragraph about the first story, in which Parul Sehgal, senior editor and columnist at the New York Times Book Review, was being interviewed.

Here’s what she said:

"There's something Cezanne said that I think about a lot, something like, 'I know what I am looking at, but what am I seeing?' That's what reviewing feels like to me. It's very much to 're-view,' to see again, to try to see farther and see deeper."

Sehgal was speaking there as a book reviewer, but what she said seems to me a habit for living as an attentive person, regardless of occupation: to try to see and not just look, to try to see farther, to try to see deeper.

You can read the full interview here.

~~~

[Photo: taken of a sign I saw while in Orlando this winter for a work trip. I thought it fitting for a post about paying attention.]

The year of small things done with great intention

About 20 years ago – or was it longer? – I took a class taught by a Protestant minister, the father of a good friend, about the devotional classics. We learned about and read from Thomas Kelly (A Testament of Devotion), Brother Lawrence (The Practice of the Presence of God), Thomas a Kempis (The Imitation of Christ), Saint Augustine (Confessions), John Bunyan (Pilgrim’s Progress), Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Life Together), as well as William Law (A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life).

Law was an English cleric and devotional writer from the 18th century. Based on the book’s title, it sounds oh so heavy, but Law lightened it substantially by crafting his book using fictitious stories following characters named Classicus, Octavius, Miranda, and more as they learn the importance of intention. A much younger “me” wrote the book’s key message on its first page: “We aren’t where we want to be because we never intended to be. Commitment of will.” The lesson of intention delivered by this book resonated with me all those years ago and it resonates with me now. I still have things to learn from it.

The book’s lesson came to me again the last couple of weeks as I read The Year of Small Things: Radical Faith for the Rest of Us, written by Sarah Arthur (who I’ve written about here and here) and Erin F. Wasinger, and published by Brazos Press. The Year of Small Things tells the story of how Sarah and Erin and their husbands intentionally became “communal friends” and together committed themselves to adopt, cumulatively over the course of a year, the twelve spiritual disciplines typically associated with new monasticism, with some adaptations for their young families. They began in August with their covenantal friendship, continued into September with hospitality and October with radical finances. Late fall and winter focused on spiritual habits, possession, holy time, and vows. Spring brought the practices of congregational life, teaching children, and sustaining creation. The start of summer brought self-care and justice.

Not all of us will move to the inner city or live with the homeless or protest unjust laws before city councils. Some of us will do just one of those things; a few of us might do several. But many of us are called to try this radical thing right where we are, facing our current battles and barriers, one day at a time. Mother Teresa is often quoted as saying, “We can do no great things, only small things with great love.” Well, that’s all we’ve got. Small changes, small acts of hospitality, small attempts at solidarity with “the least of these.” This is what our families, with help from some wise friends and our local church, attempted over the course of one year, taking notes as we went. We hope that others, like you, will not only rejoice with us but give it a shot.

Although this gem of a book claims the word “discernment” as its guiding word, I think the stories of these two families could have the word “intention” as the watermark on every page. I was moved by all they intended and how they did what they intended.

Reading the story of the Arthurs and the Wasingers, you may not – or you may – join them in committing to the same spiritual practices, but my guess is at the very least you will close the book, like me, with some response in mind. An idea. An idea that will become an intention that will become an action that might change your life and someone else’s too.

~~~

[Photo: taken of my kitchen window on a very cold morning]

Frederick Buechner on hope

“Hope stands up to its knees in the past and keeps its eyes on the future. There has never been a time past when God wasn’t with us as the strength beyond our strength, the wisdom beyond our wisdom, as whatever it is in our hearts - whether we believe in the God or not - that keeps us human enough at least to get by despite everything in our lives that tends to wither the heart and make us less than human. To remember the past is to see that we are here today by grace, that we have survived as a gift.”

–Frederick Buechner, Secrets in the Dark

~~~

[Photo: taken of a display in a furniture store]

On finding the way

I first read To Resist or To Surrender by Paul Tournier, a Swiss physician, decades ago when I was in my late 20s at the recommendation of a friend. The book came to my mind again this past November, and I wrote the title in my journal. I found it long abandoned in a basement bookcase, a coupon for Centrum vitamins, dated November 1984, as an old bookmark in its very marked-up pages.

The book is about how we decide what to do in a given circumstance, particularly when choices are hard or even difficult to identify. It begins by presenting the dilemma of churches in Nazi Germany deciding whether to oppose the regime or to try to coexist with the hope of influencing it in more subtle ways. Tournier then expanded the discussion to show that the question of “resist or surrender” is basic for all points of conflict, whether in times of war between countries or in times of workplace conflict or in battles between parents and child or a husband and wife. Our natural impulse is to frame our choice as between striving to get our way or giving in, but the book is written for those who want to move beyond this impulse of a dichotomous choice when considering life problems that require something more.

Tournier offered two processes that go beyond the limited power of reason when finding our way. The first is the seeking of divine guidance by Bible reading, prayer, and meditation. Unfortunately, God often is silent in response. “We fail to see,” wrote Tournier, “that by our thus asking God questions, even in the reverence of prayer, we are still attempting to remain in charge of our meditation rather than let God direct us.”

The second is the responsive process of personal transformation. Tournier calls this process “an act of God’s grace.”

“At the very time that we are asking questions of God, questions which remain unanswered, he is ever asking other questions which we fail to heed…. Men throw out questions to God which remain unanswered. But they change and find unexpected solutions when they begin to listen to the questions God asks of them, and to answer him.”

Like all books that stand the test of time, this book written in the early 1960s and hiding in my basement has something to say today. Tournier wrote of Job who in the Old Testament did not receive an intellectual reply to his barrage of “Why’s,” but instead he received "an experience of God" and was changed.

~~~

[Photo: taken of a favorite scarf]

Excerpts from King's "Strength to Love"

Many years ago I read Strength to Love, a book of sermons, by Martin Luther King Jr. It was published in 1963 just after the campaign in Birmingham and a couple years before the historic march from Selma to Montgomery. In honor of King on this day, here are some of the passages I copied out.

“The length of life is the inward drive to achieve one’s personal ends and ambitions, an inward concern for one’s own welfare and achievements. The breadth of life is the outward concern for the welfare of others. The height of life is the upward reach for God.”

And,

“After one has discovered what he is made for, he should surrender all of the power in his being to the achievement of this. He should seek to do it so well that nobody could do it better. He should do it as though God Almighty called him at this particular moment of history for this reason. No one ever makes a great contribution to humanity without this majestic sense of purpose and this dogged determination. No one ever brings his potentiality into actuality without this powerful inner drive.”

And,

“Jesus reminds us that the good life combines the toughness of the serpent and the tenderness of the dove. To have serpentlike qualities devoid of dovelike qualities is to be passionless, mean, and selfish. to have dovelike without serpentlike qualities is to be sentimental, anemic, and aimless. We must combine strongly marked antitheses.”

And,

“I am thankful that we worship God who is both toughminded and tenderhearted. If God were only toughminded, he would be a cold, passionless despot sitting in some far-off heaven “contemplating all” as Tennyson puts it in "The Palace of Art." He would be Aristotle’s “unmoved mover,” self-knowing, but not other-loving. But if God were only tenderhearted, he would be too soft and sentimental to function when things go wrong and incapable of controlling what he has made. He would be like H. G. Well’s lovable God in “God, the Invisible King” who is strongly desirous of making a good world, but finds himself helpless before the surging powers of evil. God is neither hardhearted or softminded. He is toughminded enough to transcend the world; he is tenderhearted enough to live in it.”

~~~

[Photo: taken yesterday in the sanctuary of my church.]

Brian Volck on attending others

My friend Brian Volck has a new book out, his third: Attending Others: A Doctor's Education in Bodies and Words (Cascade Books). I finished it early this week and the last few days I’ve been pondering what I want to say about it, trying to boil down one main impression to send you. That’s not an easy task given what a rich and beautiful memoir this is.

Brian is a pediatrician, which means you could read this book for a view into how physicians think and learn. Of course, that wouldn’t be an incorrect approach. Read Attending Others and you’ll discover much about how clinicians make diagnoses and treatment decisions as well as the things they think about before opening the door to meet a new patient – or more interestingly, what they think about after they leave the room. If you’re a physician yourself or an aspiring physician, you will be in the presence of a fine tutor. But read it for that alone and you’ll miss much of what this book offers.

No one is left out of the activity suggested by the book’s main title, regardless of what kind of diploma or post-nominal initials you do or don't have. Attending others is the education written of on these pages. It is the education that develops across 15 chapters, across decades, across a continent and a hemisphere. This book is a journey of the practice of attending others and the hope that emerges from such practice. Even though such attending would look different for each of us depending on who we are and what we do, few of this book's readers will be able to close the book without feeling drawn to look at those around us in a new way.

I copied out six pages of passages from this book and, after looking through them just now, choose these to pass along to you:

"I use my body and senses to diagnose, treat, and reassure. Placing the diaphragm of my stethoscope on the chest of the febrile child, I listen for the rustle of breath, the murmur of a heart. I touch the pads of my fingers to a frightened adolescent’s wrist, taking her pulse. I watch amazed at the ferocity with which a hungry infant nurses at his mother’s breast. I stir with passions that, despite Dr. Osler’s warning, ground my compassion. I am an embodied creature working among other such creatures. It took years to learn that only by nurturing affection for these others can I rightly serve them, much less understand what it means to be healthy."

And,

"They bless me with fierce hope."

~~~

[Photo: taken of a swath from the book cover. Click here to have a look at the whole cover, "Pillar," designed by Tim Lowly, about whom Brian writes in the book.]

New Year's Eve: Intentions for 2017

Here it is again, on the eve of 2017: the list of intentions that I've posted a couple times before on previous New Year's Eves – although slightly edited. I'm posting it again because there are readers for whom this list has meaning, because this blog has new readers for whom this list might be of interest, and because I need to put it in front of myself once again as a reminder of a chosen way of being.

I've done poorly at many things on this list and done well – or maybe okay – at others, but that's why I like the word "intention" rather than "resolution." It implies something to work toward, move toward, rather than something at which you either succeed or fail.

Here's the list:

Experiment more.
Create more; consume less.
Trust more; worry less.
Read more; write more; watch less.
Write more of what lasts longer.
Waste less time.
Spend more time in "creative idleness".
Spend less; save more.
Pray more, including for the people who read the words I write.
Use more paper, lots of paper.
Use a pen more, a keyboard less.
Love more.
Talk less but say more.
Figure out how patience and urgency co-exist.
Hope always.
Cook more; eat less.
Play the piano more.
Pursue truth, beauty, and goodness at every opportunity; realize every moment is an opportunity.
Stand up straighter.
Speak more often in the strength of my own voice.
Find the way to do what needs to be done; sit quietly and wait for the Lord.
Accept paradox.
Pray more, pray without ceasing.
Hope more absolutely.
Be more available to and vulnerable with God and others.
See the signs, ask for signs; be more willing to step into the unknown.
Use less; have less; give more away.
Shorten my to-do lists.
More intentionally be a conduit for the flow of God's grace to the world.
Be silent more often.
Pray more fervently for safety coast to coast but live less fearfully.
Remind myself as often as needed where true hope lies.
Start fewer projects but finish more of those I start.
Be encouraged.
Be excited.
Hope more purely.
Be more attuned to the burdens of the people I pass on the street as well as those with whom I share a table or a home.
Pray for the world and its leaders.
Love God with ever more of my heart, soul, strength, and mind.
Thank more.
Eat less sugar but more dark chocolate.
 

I'd love to hear some of your intentions. If you want, you can share them in the comments below.

~~~

[Photo: the sky above on this New Year's Eve day.]