Teachable Moments

"Paw Paw, why does every conversation have to include a life lesson?'
-My Granddaughter

I think every experience in life is a teachable moment.  These moments are not only an opportunity for me to teach others but also an opportunity for life to teach me.  In the work environment we often use the term “coachable” moment.  I don’t really like this term because it implies to me that the events of a particular moment always need to be corrected.  Some experiences are what they are, and while some mistakes may need to be corrected, mistakes are not the only soil from which a learning opportunity sprouts.  As a teacher of mine once said, “The moment is as perfect as it can be”.  All of life is a never ending learning experience.  It doesn’t matter how old you are or how many degrees you hold, life will continue to teach you.  Sometimes I think I know everything I need to know but life keeps enlightening me with even more knowledge and wisdom.  As I’ve said before, in recent years my granddaughter has been my teacher.  Like most children, she is a natural Zen Master.  When I am with her I try to see life through her eyes.  When I am with her I try to let my inner child appear as her playmate.  Sometimes, when I let go, I can be a ten year old child.  When this happens I can see life with a renewed freshness and not through the eyes of a tired, slightly jaded, sixty four year old man.  Of course, there are some people who think I act like a ten year old way too often. 

Life And People Are Imperfect

Life is imperfect.  People are imperfect.  Everyone I know is imperfect.  This includes people I care about and people I simply tolerate.  I am imperfect.  My own flaws are like a bright light shining into my eyes.  I accept my own imperfections and the flaws of others.  I try to see beyond the flaws.  I try to see the total person.  I try to see beyond gender, race, ethnicity, and sexual preference.  I try to see every person’s gift because I think we all have one regardless of how hidden it may be.  Increased tolerance is one of the things I like about getting older.  If you have any age on you my guess is that you have survived a lot.  When you are aware of your own struggles and weaknesses, you are better able to accept the struggles and weaknesses of others.  I am not sure where I first heard the saying “We all have a cross to bear” but I think it is true.  Even though people can make me crazy sometimes, I think most people are doing the best they can to be good people, good spouses, good parents, good employees, good neighbors, and good friends.  I don’t think I know a single person who wakes up in the morning and thinks “I am going to be a terrible person today and I am going to do as much as I can to make other people’s lives miserable”.  I am not saying there aren’t people that do this but those that do represent a very, very small percentage of humanity.  People are imperfect and flawed but they are still good.  Think about this today when you feel judgmental towards others.  Cut other people some slack and hopefully these other people will do the same for you.  

Some Bad Experiences Actually Happened

I am an old man and I’ve had many problems in my life.  Some of them actually happened.

-Mark Twain

 

Many people worry too much and they worry about things that rarely happen.  Why are we so prone to live in fear?  What do so many of us always expect the worst?  A lot of people believe in what is called “Murphy’s Law”.  Murphy’s Law is the belief that if something bad can happen, it will.  Many other people are pessimists and they live their lives in a negative and fearful way.  I am generally an optimist, I rarely worry, and I’ve learned that any feeling of fear I have is usually a sign that I am stressed.  I am not a psychologist, although I sometimes play one at work, but I do know that fear originates in the mind.  Feelings of fear are not necessarily based on any reality.  Our minds often create our fears and our suffering.  I believe that most feelings are not based in reality and they are not who we are.  I once read a wonderful analogy in a book called “Into The Silent Land” by Martin Laird.  Martin compares our feelings to the weather surrounding a mountain.  We tend to identify with the weather although we are actually the mountain.  The mountain is stable but the weather comes and goes.  More and more I try to ignore many of my feelings or at least try to understand what might have caused them.  Feelings and weather don’t just happen.  Forces of nature and life tend to generate a wide variety of weather and feelings.  Some days I feel pretty happy for no particular reason.  Other days I feel sad for no particular reason.  Maybe it was no more than the sun shining bright one day and the skies being overcast another day.  If it’s a good feeling, I enjoy it.  If it’s a bad feeling, I seek to understand its source and why it makes me feel the way I do.  If nothing else, hang in there because all feelings are transitory and will change, just like the weather.      

Do What You Do, Be Where You Are

Zen is doing what you are doing and being where you are.  It sounds simple but in reality is quite challenging.  Zen is also about balance.  This is also very challenging.  Keeping the different parts of our lives in balance can be like spinning five or six plates on the end of long sticks all at the same time.  Getting enough rest, doing enough but not too much work, being with others and being with self, being active and being still, enjoying life and being present to the sacred, knowing when to go and when to stop, when to speak and when to be silent, is a daily challenge.  If your life feels out of balance, it probably is.  Life moves fast.  Sometimes you must slow down to keep it all from spinning out of control.  You can't be present to the moment if you meeting yourself coming and going.  Stop now, close your eyes and simply breathe for a moment.  Refresh yourself.  Do this throughout your day.  At the end of your work day practice slowing down.  Pay attention to your own breath and remember it is the source of your life.  Be where you are....

 

What Is A Contemplative?

What is a contemplative?  I am not an expert on contemplation but here's my perspective.  Keep in mind, however, that this is only one approach to the contemplative life.  People who know me well know I am introverted and introspective.  I think you can learn to be contemplative but some personality types seem to be naturally contemplative.  I hesitate to call it a skill but as a behavior and a way of being one can practice it even if it does seem to go against your nature.  In all the major religions there are contemplative traditions but I also think you can be a contemplative person without necessarily being a religious person or one that goes to church every Sunday.  In my mind a contemplative person is one who takes the time to stand back or step away from the fast pace of life to simply breathe.  The contemplative is someone who likes life in the slow lane.  It's about being awake enough and present enough to not only notice the flowers but also be willing to stop and smell them.  It's being present to life in all its details.  Some call this mindfulness.  For those who are spiritually inclined it can also be about awareness of God's presence in life.  Perhaps you have read the story of the prophet Elijah in the Book of Kings in the Hebrew Scriptures.  He had challenged the prophets of the false god Baal to a duel.  To make a long story short, Elijah’s God won so the guys that lost ran Elijah out of town.  He hid in a cave on a mountain.  There was thunder and lightning and earthquakes and all kind of scary stuff but God was not present in these things.  Finally, there was a small whispering sound like a gentle breeze.  Elijah hid his face for God was present in the gentle breeze.  The contemplative person is one who has achieved an interior quiet that allows him to notice the small whispering sounds in life where God is often present.  If you are constantly running through life, busy all the time, stressed out, and meeting yourself coming and going, you will miss such opportunities.  I don't think you can truly be a contemplative person if you are running through your life like your hair is on fire.  

My Childhood

I once read the autobiography of a man who was a teacher at a seminary I attended.  We are not really friends but I have met and talked with him on occasion.  Like many such books it begins with some reflections on his childhood.  This caused me to think about my own childhood in the 1950’s and early 1960’s.  It was a different world then and very different from the world of my children and granddaughter.  I am the oldest child in a family of six children.  I was born in the spring of 1951.  We grew up in the suburbs.  At the time the suburbs were relatively new and had more of a country feel than a city feel.  My mother still lives in the same house where I grew up.  She has been there close to 60 years.  In my neighborhood all the dads went to work and all the moms stayed home.  Everyone knew everyone else’s parents.  Single parents were very rare.  We had no air conditioning or video games so children played outside all day in the summertime.  I can’t remember any fat children because we all played sports and rode our bikes a hundred miles a day.  In my childhood there was only one McDonald’s in Louisville and it was considered a real treat to go there.  I only remember one young mother with a job outside the home.  No one had heard of a daycare center.  My mother watched the child of the one woman that had a job.  Her job was as a secretary in a Mad Men kind of office.  I didn’t know what divorce was until high school when my aunt divorced my uncle.  It was a scandal.  My parents had been married 59 years at the time of my dad’s death in 2009.  I attended eight years of grade school with the same 20 or so kids.  Most parents of my classmates knew everyone else’s parent’s because they saw one another at church, scouting activities, and sporting events.  I realize now that my parents probably struggled quite a bit to feed and clothe six children on one blue collar salary.  I also realize now that we were probably poor but I didn’t know it.  I never missed a meal and I always felt safe.  Life wasn’t perfect but looking back it seems like a dream to me now.  In terms of material possessions and money I am now rich compared to the way I grew up.  However, despite these things I think I had a better quality of life as a child.  Today life seems stressful most of the time.  I understand that I was a child then and I am an adult now but life is too busy, too fast, and there are way too many people with way too many expectations.  My old neighborhood from a time long past now seems like Mayberry.  Come to think of it I did spend a lot of summer days fishing with my dad or my friends. 

The Value Of Education

Education gives you knowledge but life gives you wisdom.  Many of the people I have interviewed for jobs and some of the people who work with me now are better educated than I am.   Their education, however, is just a starting point.  It is the foundation on which their life experience will build.  I am a strong advocate of education.  I think education, or lack of it, separates people more than anything, including race or gender.  I wish now that I had given my formal education more attention when I was younger.  The experience of life hopefully makes us wiser but that is not guaranteed.  Older people are not necessarily wise and not all younger people are naive.  Wisdom chooses its home.  In the Rule of St Benedict, a 1500 year old guidebook for monasteries, the old are told to listen to the young for God often speaks through them.  Likewise, the young are told to treat their elders with respect and to listen to them when they speak.  Those of us who are older can learn from the young.  It happens to me almost every day at work.  However, those who are younger should realize that their parents and other older people…including co-workers…are not clueless.  We've been down many roads in our lives and we have experienced many things that might prove helpful for those who have not yet had these experiences.  Most of us have learned a few things along the way.  The bottom line is that you should never should stop learning.  To be a truly educated person, you must be open to everything that books and life teaches you and you must remember that education is also more than just having a skill.  An educated person is a thinking person who can see the connectedness of life and knowledge and be able to apply that knowledge and wisdom to the continuing unfolding of life.