“The mind is sharper and keener in seclusion and uninterrupted solitude. Originality thrives in seclusion free of outside influences beating upon us to cripple the creative mind. Be alone—that is the secret of invention: be alone, that is when ideas are born.”
-Nikolai Tesla
Archives For wisdom
An amazing passage from Under The Unpredictable Plant by Eugene Peterson…
"I learned, gradually but surely, how embarrassingly naive I was in matters of religion. I don’t blame myself too much now, for I find that it is a naivete pretty common among pastors. We assume that because people want more religion, they want more of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. We assume that when they gather in our congregations and ask us to lead them in prayer, they want us to lead them before the throne of a Holy God. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The people in our congregations are, in fact, out shopping for idols. They enter our churches with the same mind-set in which they go to the shopping mall, to get something that will please them or satisfy an appetite or need. John Calvin saw the human heart as a relentlessly efficient factory for producing idols. Congregations commonly see the pastor as the quality-control engineer in the factory. The moment we accept the position, though, we defect from our vocation. The people who gather in our congregations want help through a difficult time; they want meaning and significance in their ventures. They want God, in a way, but certainly not a “jealous God,” not the “God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Mostly they want to be their own god and stay in control but have ancillary idol assistance for the hard parts, which the pastor can show them how to get. With the development of assembly-line mass production, we are putting these idols out in great quantities and in a variety of colors and shapes to suit every taste. John Calvin’s insight plus Henry Ford’s technology equals North American Religion. Living in golden calf country as we do, it is both easy and attractive to become a successful pastor like Aaron.
All our theological texts teach this, but somehow we manage to obliterate the memory of them in actual pastoral practice. They teach us that it is characteristic of post-Eden human beings to try to be or get their own gods and that this characteristic is persistent, subtle, and relentless. But when everyone around us is self-defined as Christian, listens to us tell the gospel story regularly, and smiles in appreciation when we pray in the name of Jesus, we drop our guard, supposing that all that idol business is behind us, ancient history on the hills of Samaria. We assume that we are now free to concentrate on getting rid of the conspicuous trespasses of morality written in the second tablet of the law and no longer need to be vigilant regarding the so easily camouflaged spiritual sins in the first tablet."
"Without the regular experience of being received and loved by God in solitude and silence, we are vulnerable to a kind of leadership that is driven by profound emptiness that we are seeking to fill through performance and achievement. This unconscious striving is very dangerous for us and for those around us; it will eventually burn us out (since there is no amount of achievement that will ultimately satisfy the emptiness of the human soul), and the people we work with will eventually notice that they are mere cogs in the wheel of our own ego-driven plans."
-Ruth Haley Barton, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership
"The happy result of a theological understanding of people as sinners is that the pastor is saved from continual surprise that they are in fact sinners. It enables us to heed Bonhoeffer's admonition: 'A pastor should not complain about his congregation, certainly never to other people, but also not to God. A congregation has not been entrusted to him in order that he should become its accuser before God and men."
- Eugene Peterson, The Contemplative Pastor
“In answer to your inquiry, I consider that the chief dangers which confront the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, and heaven without hell.”
-General William Booth, Salvation Army
There's zero doubt- Facebook, Twitter, cell phones and Wi-fi- they all serve us in various ways (even if just connecting to lost friends or allowing us to work out of the office).
The problem is that the more we connect to social media, the more obligated we feel to feed them, keep up with them, check in on short micro-breaks… and so completely derail any momentum we may have gained in getting things done. The same goes for both the benefits and the hazards of constant connection through cell phones and internet. Most of us no longer have an admin that safeguards us from phonecalls and other drop-in distractions.
It's up to us to set up our own safeguards.
Thus, the "personal firewall."
No- it's not always on. But when I need to get things done, I also need to recognize that checking my email, answering a phone call, dropping a twitter update may feel like a small distraction- but in reality, it's a derailment that it will take valuable time to recover from.
Here are some ideas or your personal firewall-
1. Email- If you haven't disabled the "ding", do so now. That thing is evil. A little sound that demands your attention, that grabs your consciousness, that expects you in true Pavlovian tradition to interrupt whatever you are doing for the latest FYI, forward from your friend with too much time or spam email. Just say no.
In fact, when you are working, consider turning off email completely. If you need think of an email you need to send, rather than interrupt what you are doing, just make a to-do for when you eventually do open up the email again for batch reading and writing. Why risk the distraction that will inevitably be lurking in your inbox just to get a message to someone 30 minutes sooner?
2. Internet- consider a second browser, one dedicated to fun, and one to work. Trying to get things done on a browser that has a LOT of fun stuff bookmarked on it is tough.
COnsider even switching off the wi-fi a few times a day. Think about how much time you lose every day to misc. surfing, reading news that won't matter tomorrow, following links that lead nowhere… save yourself the time by just shutting it down or working with a distraction-proofed browser.
3. Phone. Silent might be good enough- but "off" is even better. I know, I know- what if there's an emergency? I just want you to remember that 10 years ago, you probably didn't have a cell phone, and ten years ago you didn't spend every minute studying or working in a coffee shop or library in utter panic that your family would drive off a cliff and no one would be able to reach you.
It's okay to turn off your phone for an hour or two. And if you can't bring yourself to do that, at least switch off the ringer and refuse to answer for anyone but your spouse. Seriously- if it's an emergency, they'll call back.
No one will make your firewall for you. You can't buy one, have one installed and these days- you just can't get by without it.
Being connected is wonderful. Disconnecting occasionally is necessary.
Agree or disagree? Other ideas for your personal firewall?
"You Christians look after a document containing enough dynamite to blow all civilization to pieces, turn the world upside down, and bring peace to a battle-torn planet. But you treat it as though it is nothing more than a piece of good literature."
-Gandhi
(ht: Thomas Ward)
"Cowardice keeps us double minded- hesitating between the world and God. In this hesitation, there is no true faith- faith remains an opinion. We are never certain, because we never quite give in to the authority of an invisible God. This hesitation is the death of hope. We never let go of those visible supports which, we well know, must one day surely fail us. And this hesitation makes true prayer impossible- it never quite dares to ask for anything, or if it asks, it is so uncertain of being heard that in the very act of asking, it surreptitiously seeks by human prudence to construct a make-shift answer."
-Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude
"Somehow or other an extraordinary idea has arisen that the disbelievers in miracles consider them coldly and fairly, while believers in miracles accept them only in connection with some dogma. The fact is quite the other way. The believers in miracles accept them (rightly or wrongly) because they have evidence for them. The disbelievers in miracles deny them (rightly or wrongly) because they have a doctrine against them."
-G.K. Chesterton
"If we learn anything from the Psalms, it's that God isn't afraid of our emotions, our struggles, and our questions. The one mistake we dare not make, Philip Yancey reminds us, is to confuse God (who is good) with life (which is hard). God feels the same way we do- and is taking the most radical steps possible (Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, and more to come) to redeem the present situation."
-David Sanford, If God Disappears