"There is more to life than increasing its speed."
-Mahatma Gandhi
I begin this blog with a confession: Patience is a virtue I do not have a natural predisposition toward. At the market I seek the Express line, and then find myself counting the number of items in the carts of people in front of me. I struggle to reject the belief that going less than 65 MPH in the fast lane of the freeway borders on mortal sin. I never go out to dinner between the hours of 6:00 and 8:00 without a reservation.
I dislike waiting in any way, shape, or form. Problem is, I know how vital patience is to a mature life. And waiting is intimately connected to patience.
Sooner or later, we will run into a situation where there is no short cut, no way to manipulate, no way to force change. And the lesson in patience begins.
Most of us humans operate under the adolescent illusion that we have (and should have) much more control over people and circumstances than we actually do. Some of this illusion can be helpful; it wards off anxiety about the big, dangerous world we must venture forth into, and how vulnerable we actually are in it. But like any illusion, control needs to get checked from time to time so that we don’t totally separate from objective reality.
And that’s why the man in the Express line with twelve items and not ten, and the little old lady going 60 in the fast lane when she could be going 70, and the crowded restaurant where you are invited to take a seat until your name is called can all be tremendously helpful. They make us wait. And in that waiting, we can learn.
Practicing patience develops a pace of life that ensures a care-fullness with self and others, and thus supports balance and perspective.
I am not the only person who has feelings, and needs, and a schedule. I am not the only person who wants to be seen, and heard, and respected. I am surrounded by other people who do not exist to serve me. And as I practice patience, I realize that I don’t have the ability, or the right, to control them anyway.
On the days I can remember to take a deep breath, smile, accept what I receive instead of what I want, and acknowledge that there is more to life than increasing its speed, I am one step closer to growing up.
Question for reflection: When are you most impatient, and what do these times tell you about your “unfinished business”?
Monday, September 19, 2011
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Should I blush?
“Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.”
-Mark Twain
My perspective on behavior, especially questionable behavior, changed radically when I came to the same conclusion wiser people had reached long before; that in everything there is a longing, a striving for the good…it might be well buried, but it is there somewhere.
Remembering this truth was helpful when my wife and I walked past a group of teens the other night congregating outside a movie theater. To sum up the scene, it was all about being seen…and heard. Body parts and underwear boldly on display, loud (and I mean loud) conversations peppered with “sentence enhancers” one wouldn’t hear in church, and a general unconsciousness about the larger world around them. And although it was dark, I’m guessing there wasn’t much blushing going on.
How did Whitman put it? “I sound my barbaric YAWP over the roofs of the world.” Indeed! Everyone wants to be seen. Everyone wants to be heard. This is healthy, and human, and good. But in our efforts to be seen and heard…to be recognized as existing and mattering…do we lose our dignity? Do we become less than who we are meant to be?
The great irony is that in a culture where more and more is revealed (in dress and in speech), alienation and isolation grow. Contact passes for intimacy, freedom is confused with license, and “can” hijacks “should.” What is rightfully seen as off-limits, private, and sacred nowadays? How much is too much? When does decent become indecent? Insights and answers will come as we practice the virtue of modesty.
Modesty is poorly understood and seriously under-valued because it is so often associated exclusively with rules about proper attire at schools, country clubs, and convents. But this is far too superficial an understanding. How one dresses does matter, but what’s going on below the surface matters more.
Modesty guides the sharing of one’s self with others, and safeguards dignity.
For modesty to truly make sense, though, we need to remember that we’re always communicating; sometimes with words sometimes without. How different would we look or sound if we stayed conscious of this?
In our sharing of ourselves, modesty helps us figure out healthy limits and boundaries; what is appropriate, when, and with whom? It also helps us discern what we value about ourselves, and what we truly want affirmed.
“Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.” Modesty tells us this isn’t a bad thing. All people need an occasional reminder of the call to be humans and not merely creatures…and that sometimes less is more.
Question for reflection: What does modesty look like to you?
-Mark Twain
My perspective on behavior, especially questionable behavior, changed radically when I came to the same conclusion wiser people had reached long before; that in everything there is a longing, a striving for the good…it might be well buried, but it is there somewhere.
Remembering this truth was helpful when my wife and I walked past a group of teens the other night congregating outside a movie theater. To sum up the scene, it was all about being seen…and heard. Body parts and underwear boldly on display, loud (and I mean loud) conversations peppered with “sentence enhancers” one wouldn’t hear in church, and a general unconsciousness about the larger world around them. And although it was dark, I’m guessing there wasn’t much blushing going on.
How did Whitman put it? “I sound my barbaric YAWP over the roofs of the world.” Indeed! Everyone wants to be seen. Everyone wants to be heard. This is healthy, and human, and good. But in our efforts to be seen and heard…to be recognized as existing and mattering…do we lose our dignity? Do we become less than who we are meant to be?
The great irony is that in a culture where more and more is revealed (in dress and in speech), alienation and isolation grow. Contact passes for intimacy, freedom is confused with license, and “can” hijacks “should.” What is rightfully seen as off-limits, private, and sacred nowadays? How much is too much? When does decent become indecent? Insights and answers will come as we practice the virtue of modesty.
Modesty is poorly understood and seriously under-valued because it is so often associated exclusively with rules about proper attire at schools, country clubs, and convents. But this is far too superficial an understanding. How one dresses does matter, but what’s going on below the surface matters more.
Modesty guides the sharing of one’s self with others, and safeguards dignity.
For modesty to truly make sense, though, we need to remember that we’re always communicating; sometimes with words sometimes without. How different would we look or sound if we stayed conscious of this?
In our sharing of ourselves, modesty helps us figure out healthy limits and boundaries; what is appropriate, when, and with whom? It also helps us discern what we value about ourselves, and what we truly want affirmed.
“Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.” Modesty tells us this isn’t a bad thing. All people need an occasional reminder of the call to be humans and not merely creatures…and that sometimes less is more.
Question for reflection: What does modesty look like to you?
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
First things first
Genius always gives its best at first; prudence, at last.
-Seneca
Welles Crowther worked for Sandler O’Neill Partners on the 104th floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center. And that’s exactly where he was on the morning of September 11, 2001 when the plane hit. Undaunted, Crowther, with a red bandanna covering his mouth and nose to protect him from the smoke, sprang into action. Witnesses report that he worked with a combination of intensity and calm to rescue people, re-entering the building three times. He is directly responsible for saving the lives of at least 18 people.
The fact that he made it out of the inferno three times when so many didn’t make it out at all is remarkable enough. But that he went back three times to help others is the epitome of heroism. Six months after the South Tower collapsed, the body of this hero was finally recovered in what had been the lobby, along with members of the New York Fire Department with whom he had joined forces. They were trying to go back up once more with a “jaws of life” tool to free victims trapped under rubble.
Courage? Crowther was the very embodiment of it. But I want to focus on another virtue he displayed that day: prudence.
Prudence is about putting “first things first”; it is the virtue that guides sound judgment. Some might quietly and respectfully question the “sound judgment” of a man who would go back into a collapsing sky scraper three times. Back up the stairs as people rushed out. Back into the smoke, and fire, and horror, and death.
Three times.
But prudence isn’t about playing it safe. We’re talking about virtue here, not the basic rules of accounting. Welles Crowther went back again, and again, and again because it was who he had become.
Crises don’t make or break people, they reveal people. And long before September 11, 2001 became synonymous with both evil and heroism, Crowther was figuring out what it meant to make good decisions, judgments that were based on more than just emotion, and ease, and self. In the home and in the classroom, on the athletic field and with friends, as a boy scout and eventually an investment banker and a volunteer firefighter…in a thousand little ways, he learned to put first things first. He learned to focus and stay focused on what was most important, most essential at any given moment.
“Genius always gives its best at first; prudence, at last.”
In the last hour of his life, Welles Crowther made the sound judgment that saving lives was what he was supposed to do…first things first. Not because he had to, but because he could.
And the demons shuddered, and the angels bowed.
Question for reflection: Do you put “first things first”?
-Seneca
Welles Crowther worked for Sandler O’Neill Partners on the 104th floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center. And that’s exactly where he was on the morning of September 11, 2001 when the plane hit. Undaunted, Crowther, with a red bandanna covering his mouth and nose to protect him from the smoke, sprang into action. Witnesses report that he worked with a combination of intensity and calm to rescue people, re-entering the building three times. He is directly responsible for saving the lives of at least 18 people.
The fact that he made it out of the inferno three times when so many didn’t make it out at all is remarkable enough. But that he went back three times to help others is the epitome of heroism. Six months after the South Tower collapsed, the body of this hero was finally recovered in what had been the lobby, along with members of the New York Fire Department with whom he had joined forces. They were trying to go back up once more with a “jaws of life” tool to free victims trapped under rubble.
Courage? Crowther was the very embodiment of it. But I want to focus on another virtue he displayed that day: prudence.
Prudence is about putting “first things first”; it is the virtue that guides sound judgment. Some might quietly and respectfully question the “sound judgment” of a man who would go back into a collapsing sky scraper three times. Back up the stairs as people rushed out. Back into the smoke, and fire, and horror, and death.
Three times.
But prudence isn’t about playing it safe. We’re talking about virtue here, not the basic rules of accounting. Welles Crowther went back again, and again, and again because it was who he had become.
Crises don’t make or break people, they reveal people. And long before September 11, 2001 became synonymous with both evil and heroism, Crowther was figuring out what it meant to make good decisions, judgments that were based on more than just emotion, and ease, and self. In the home and in the classroom, on the athletic field and with friends, as a boy scout and eventually an investment banker and a volunteer firefighter…in a thousand little ways, he learned to put first things first. He learned to focus and stay focused on what was most important, most essential at any given moment.
“Genius always gives its best at first; prudence, at last.”
In the last hour of his life, Welles Crowther made the sound judgment that saving lives was what he was supposed to do…first things first. Not because he had to, but because he could.
And the demons shuddered, and the angels bowed.
Question for reflection: Do you put “first things first”?
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