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discipline

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June 16, 2013 9:57 pm

Punctures and the Spirit: 10 lessons

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by    in Lists

Sometimes, we feel deflated; like the Spirit (1) has left us; and it feels a bit like riding a bike with a flat tyre. In more ways than one, the simile is helpful:

puncturePhoto: SamuraiGhost, re-used under CC License

1. You can avoid punctures easily, by very carefully checking where you ride. The thing is, if you do, you might as well be walking, you’d be quicker.
There is a famous apocryphal story of a person who would engage in contemplative prayer before any decision, including getting out of bed. That sort of behaviour is safe, but not quite commendable.

2. Even without a puncture, tyres go flat. They’re porous. Therefore, they need regular top-ups. Just the same with our spiritual life: being baptised, or giving your life to Jesus, or whatever you did at the start of your Christian journey is still there. But on its own, it gets weak. Get praying.

3. A puncture needs repairing. You can try to bike on a flat tyre. It will be exhausting, especially uphill; and you won’t go quite as fast. Don’t rely on your own steam to get stuff done; make sure that you are relying on the Spirit. If you don’t, you may still get it done – but it will be far less pleasant.

4. Repairing does not need to be immediate. Especially if you have it in the middle of oncoming traffic. In order to carry out the relevant repairs, you need to stop and take the time to do it properly… and you can’t always do that in the middle of our busy lives. Don’t get me wrong, the repairs must happen, but it’s alright to finish off urgent tasks before dealing with the repairs. Get out of the oncoming traffic. But don’t use that as an excuse to keep on putting off the repairs.

5. Repairing requires the appropriate tools. If you carry them with you, it will allow you to have a speedier answer (I remember how a tour guide in Amsterdam carried around spare inner tubes). Biblical knowledge, prayer discipline, routine – all these are tools that can support your spiritual life. Find the ones that work with your type of punctures, and keep them around with you, even when you don’t need them. If nothing else, they can be of service to someone else with a puncture.

6. Having a friend with the adequate know-how can help. Someone to talk to, someone to support you in prayer, is always beneficial.

7. You need to deflate the inner tube a fair bit before you can get the tyres off. If you just keep on going at full steam, you won’t manage to fix the punctures. All you’ll do is pump air back into your tyre, and that will last every time less.

8. Most punctures are invisible. That’s why you do the whole inner-tube-in-a-bucket-of-water thing. If no matter what the amount of prayer you do, no matter your willingness to get closer to God, you keep on drifting away, there might be something holding you back. Find the hole in the inner tube, and fix it.

9. If you don’t make sure the inside of the tyre no longer has any glass shards in it, your inner tube will perforate quickly, although not necessarily immediately. Some punctures come from our daily habits, others from our environment, others from part of our identity. If we manage to repair, through prayer for instance, our inner tube, but go back to the same routine, we’re going to get another puncture quickly.

10. Even when a tyre seems to be flat, there’s still some air in it. Just because we don’t feel it quite as strongly as before, or even not at all, it doesn’t mean the Spirit has left us altogether! On the contrary, the Spirit is always with us, even when we don’t feel it.

Do you have any to add?

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(1) Fittingly, the Greek for Spirit is πνεῦμα, which also means breath!

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January 27, 2013 4:38 pm

Some slippery boots

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by    in Notes

boots

Photo in the public domain, original on Pixabay

I love my boots. I’ve had them for ages: I remember wearing them in high school, so that’s at the very least 10 years ago (and yes, they still fit). For some reason, I forgot about them for a while, and rediscovered them a couple of years back. I use them when I need some warmth around my feet: canvas shoes just don’t cut it in the snow and rain. Which is pretty much all year round in Britain.

I have “broken into” them, that is, they are now shaped nearly perfectly to my foot. They are highly comfortable, and still waterproof, even though they look tattered. A bit of polish wouldn’t hurt, but I’ve never cared about looks that much.

The outer sole has lost a fair amount of its thickness, but still has a good inch on the heel (how thick they were to start off with, I have no clue, but it sure is impressive). The issue is, the tread has been worn through. The outer soles are now virtually smooth. To the point of being slippery over zebra crossings when it’s been raining. So imagine what it’s like with the recent snow and icy patches… (I only fell once!)

I am now convinced I need to go and see a cobbler (such a cool word) and try and get some new soles on them. And maybe give them a good polish all round, and new laces and everything.
Yet part of me is reluctant to do so:

  • reluctant to recognise that some form of change is needed. This is harder to do than just going to buy new shoes, because I could always choose that I don’t like my new shoes and go back to my old, tattered boots.
  • reluctant to recognise that that change will come from the outside. I will not have complete control over the type of sole, although I can be involved in the process (choosing, for instance, the pricier or cheaper option)
  • reluctant, ultimately, because even if it’s only the sole that gets changed, I will still have to break into it (the wearing off of the sole is irregular, there’s much more left on the inside). I will temporarily lose some comfort.

As you’re reading this, you are probably wondering where I’m going with this: no mention of the Bible, no mention of leadership, no mention of anything remotely Christian, and not one single mention of tea. The presence of “slipper” in the title should not really be enough to warrant being on here, either.

I could spell out the ways in which I think we sometimes have a similar experience in various aspects of our lives. I’m thinking particularly about Bible reading and theological hobby-horses because I feel, personally, that they are the areas that this attitude is the most dangerous, and the fall that follows the slip there is the most hurtful.

But I also think that this is the kind of experience that is extremely personal, and that it affects us all in quite different areas. So what I suggest, this once, is that you go back over this little story and think on all the details, how they might transfer to your own experience. Are there any areas where you got a little too comfortable? As far as the two areas I mentioned above are concerned, this should be transparent enough. And please, please share any insight.

I will highlight a few elements, by way of conclusion.

  • breaking into my boots was a good thing. Comfort was a good thing – until it left me hanging on to dangerous things. Intrinsically, there’s nothing wrong with looking for comfort!
  • my shoes were looking tattered. People could see that they were well worn, and (not in a mean way) someone had mentioned it. Looks sometimes betray a deeper problem – opening up to scrutiny could have helped before the snow fell.
  • the boots were completely safe, and still waterproof, as long as there was no icy patch.
  • I don’t have to replace all the boots – just the sole. Don’t throw out the baby with the bath water!
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July 22, 2012 5:28 pm

9 lessons from 3-foot grass

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by    in Leadership,Lists

I dislike gardening. I don’t even really enjoy having a garden. Somehow, we left our garden fairly (read: completely) unattended. The grass was about hip high a few weeks ago; when we finally got around to doing something about it. But the grass was too tall to use a mower on, and too wet to use a strimmer on (not that we have one anyway). So I went at it with shears and a rake. It was slow, not very pleasant, but little by little, the garden looked nicer. Yesterday, after a dry spell (finally!), the landlords came with strimmers and finished the job. Here’s what I got from the whole experience:

Picture of tall grass

1. You can’t do anything without tools. If you don’t have anything sharp (ish), there is no way you can do anything. Equip yourself: read, listen, seek wisdom. But don’t do it on your own, because you won’t be able to be discerning enough. Without tools, all you’ll do is uproot handfuls of grass and end up with a patchy garden. Without spiritual tools, you’ll end up with disconnected islets of knowledge which won’t help you and quite frankly don’t look good at all.

2. There is no magic tool. I had never used a strimmer myself, but somehow, I imagined that it was just a matter of quickly moving the tool over the grass, and that it would be done in next to no time with strimmers. The landlords took over a full day to do it. Surrounding yourself with books that just sit on the shelves is useless. Reading a ton of blogs (this one included) without allowing them to affect you is useless. Butterflying between leaders is useless. Going to three different churches (something I used to do) is not helpful if you’re just listening. When you decide to use a tool, you need to know that you’re going to commit to it, and allow it to affect you.

3. “Not having the right tool” can be an excuse; as can the specific circumstances. Oh yes, it was too wet, and we did not have a strimmer. But that never meant we couldn’t use shears. I may not find myself in a place with the most helpful structures around me… but it does not mean that it allows me to just sit on my arse and do nothing. Wherever you are, make sure you’re not using lack of ressources as an excuse. Don’t even do it to talk about your past, lest you give people the impression that your excuses are valid excuses and use them themselves.

4. Tasks generally look daunting until you put yourself to them. This has been repeatedly true: when I started cutting the grass with the shears, it looked better, and a lot of groundwork could be achieved quickly. It was slow, yes, but I could see the progress, square foot by square foot. When I had to write a disseration, I did not know where to start and had empty page syndrome for a long time… until I just decided to give a go at writing. Sure, it wasn’t perfect, but little by little, the word count was reached, and then improvements were made upon what was there. So when you have a vision but do not feel it’s possible – still, give it a try. Little by little, you will get there.

5. If your work is not perfect, it can still be useful. Using shears to cut grass will never get it to a perfect green, but it did allow the landlords to use the mower directly onto this patch rather than using the strimmer. We live in communities. What you do will generally benefit someone – but you have to let other people pick it up. When you’re growing spiritually, you’re also helping others bounce off your growth. So keep on growing!

6. It wouldn’t have got to that stage if I had taken more care of it throughout the “summer” months (inverted commas necessary: this is, after all, England). Discipline is important as a frequent practice. Depending on the activity, different frequences are appropriate: I wouldn’t expect to mow the lawn daily; but finding the appropriate rhythm is key. For this blog, I’ve settled on weekly updates – and it does make writing easier to tackle. Reading the Bible can be a daily or a weekly activity – but once you found your rhythm, don’t slack, or you will find it harder to get back to it.

7. Cutting clutter allows more light to come through. Or maybe that’s just the sun that’s finally come out. But our living room is brighter. Similarly, with spiritual growth: you can’t just keep everything you believe.

8. Sometimes, the inspiration comes where you least expect it. I had the idea to use the shears whilst biking past people who were doing that to their own front lawn. Blog ideas can come from snippets of everyday life, as can spiritual growth. The important part is not to let that inspiration go unattended.

9. Boy, grass does grow quickly when there’s lots of rain and lots of sun! I could probably wrangle a way to tie that in with spiritual growth, but I’ll leave that to you: comment away!

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