Posts Tagged: process

“Be the Change, Even When You Can’t See the Change”

On October 26, 2022 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

Here is my response to my sponsee, concerning things changing:

“Dear __________,

I was struck by the following sentence which set me thinking: “Still feeling ready for things to be different, still feeling willing to do whatever it takes for that to happen, and enjoying having a nice day as opposed to the miserable days I’ve had recently.”

“. . . ready for things to be different . . . .” Yes! I suspect that we all are. But, as you suggest, that is somewhat in our own hands. I think that it is not so much that things need to be different (in a good way) as it is that we need to be different.

But here is the problem, at least, as I see it: We become different—in a good or in a bad way—little by little, day by day. It is such a gradual process that we can hardly notice that it is even occurring.

George MacDonald, a writer from the late nineteenth century, spoke of “being a doer of the work.” I think that the immediate context went something like this: “He who would be a hero will barely be a man, but he who is a doer of the work, he will be blessed in his work.”

You, sir, are indeed a doer of the work. And remember what we say at the end of each meeting: “It works if you work it and give a lot of love.”

You can be the change, but you will probably never see the change.”

None of likes process, but life is primarily process. So, most of us don’t like our lives very much.

I hear someone asking, “But don’t you believe in miracles?” And the answer is, yes, I do. However, I also believe in process. Often, the process is the prelude to the miracle. Much of the time, the process is the miracle. And even when wonderful miracles unfold slowly, in a process manner, they are still miracles. Amazing things, even if they are so gradual as to be imperceptible to us, are still amazing things.

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“A MERELY NEGATIVE GOODNESS”

On October 2, 2018 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

Today’s blog deals with breaking bad habits.  The thesis is simple: We can’t!

I have sometimes (often?) fallen into a simple but deadly trap—trying to be good by not being bad.  It doesn’t work.  Process precedes product.

In a book entitled, Self-Knowledge and Self-Discipline: How to Know and Govern Yourself, B.W. Murin writes the following wise and helpful words:

“The oftener we choose anything the easier it is to choose it again.  The Law of habit reigns in the moral order as truly as the law of gravitation in the physical.  The most difficult things become easy in time.  It would be as difficult for a saint after long habits of virtue suddenly to fall into mortal sin, as it would for a man living for years in habits of vice suddenly to become a saint” (115).

Concerning bad habits, Murin writes, “. . . [H]abit can only be conquered by habit” (116).

“The prodigal who wakens to find himself a swineherd in a distant land cannot get back to his father’s home, however much he longs for it, save by treading step by step the road which he journeyed in leaving it” (117).

“The result of a great battle does not depend upon the moment’s struggle, but upon the discipline and training of the troops in the past.  Before a blow is struck or the first shot fired the issue of the conflict is practically decided.

The conflict, therefore, must be unceasing; the opportunities of training the will present themselves every hour” (124).

Murin goes on to note that a merely negative approach to the mind and thought-life does not work.

“There is a better way.  The positive rather than the negative way.  Let not your mind be overcome with evil, ‘but overcome evil by good.’  The emptying the mind of evil is not the first step towards filling it with good.  It is not a step in that direction at all.  If you succeeded in emptying your mind of every undesirable thought, what then?  You cannot empty it and then begin to fill it with better thoughts.  No, you must empty it of evil by filling it with good.  Nature abhors a vacuum.  You drive out darkness by filling the room with light.  If you would fill a glass (150) with water you do not first expel the air, you expel the air by pouring in water.  And in the moral life there is no intermediate state of vacuum possible in which, having driven out the evil, you begin to bring in good.  As the good enters it expels the evil” (151) (150-151).

 

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“THE WISE OLD MIRACLE-WORKER, AND THE YOUNG SKEPTIC”

On June 18, 2017 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

“Miracle is simply the religious name for event.”  (Friedrich D. Schleiermacher, On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers.)

The story is told of a wise old miracle worker.  A skeptical young man went to the old man, and demanded, “Show me a miracle, so that I may believe in God!”

Without uttering a word, the old man planted a seed in a nearby pot.  Immediately the seed grew into a tall green plant.  In less than a minute, the plant had produced a lovely flower.

The young skeptic was in awe.  “It is a miracle!” he exclaimed.

But the wise old miracle worker looked at the young man with compassion, though his words were stern.  “Young fool!” he said, “The miracle of life, and growth, and beauty is all around you all the time.  All I did was speed up the process in this one case.”

Perhaps the process for all good things is a miracle.  Maybe all true beauty is an amazing thing.  Maybe miracles are in the eye of the beholder—like beauty.

That was apparently Friedrich Schleiermacher’s point.  If you’re amazed, an event is a miracle.  I don’t entirely agree with Schleiermacher.  Even if no one is around to observe an amazing thing, it is still a miracle.  However, I do think Schleiermacher makes a valid observation—as long as it is not pressed too far.  Miracle, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

Of course, life could be an accident, and beauty could be an illusion.  However, I’ve had several accidents (automotive and other kinds of accidents as well), and I have yet to find an accident that leads to life or beauty.

I wonder what miracles will happen in my world and in yours today.  I wonder if we will be aware of these miracles.  Perhaps awareness itself is the one of the greatest miracles.

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