#18 - Being Present (Guest Post)

by Jason Seifert

"Now, with God's help, I shall become myself.”

- Soren Kierkegaard

I have not been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder, but I often feel a deficit.  I don’t have enough attention to go around.  I am inundated with requests for my attention.  Some of these requests are quiet and whisper-like, while some are incessant pleas.  I find myself contemplating the ways I can “budget” my attention – a little here, a little there, and save some for later.  Sometimes I spend it all, sometimes I hoard it, and sometimes I feel like it was stolen from me.

I have various areas of my life that need attention.  Some of these areas, like my yard, reveal a severe lack of attention.   At least one of the reasons my yard is becoming an eyesore is that I have decided that if something is going to experience a deficit of my attention, I don’t want it to be my family and other relationships.  I’m an introvert, so engaging with people can drain a lot of “attention energy” from me.  For my wife, engaging with people infuses her with Chihuahua-like energy.  Perhaps I could throw a party, get her hopped up on conversation with friends, and then hand her the weedeater and see what happens.  

Surely, some of my attention struggles come from weaknesses I have.  I may lack some skills and therefore look for ways to improve in areas like time-management so I can be more effective and efficient with how I spend my attention.  Still, I have noticed some red flags.

I am talking with my 4 year old son, but I’m not really “present” with him.  I realize he’s going to be 14 all-too-soon and may not be yearning for his father’s attention.  I need to forget the yard and go wrestle.

I am hurrying as I put my daughter to bed.  I rush though the book, sing a quick song, pray a short prayer … I need her to go to sleep so I can go get some work done.  Doesn’t she realize I have a lot of important things to tend to?  I realize that at some point she could rush out the door saying the same thing to me.  I think I can find the bandwidth to sing her “Itsy-bitsy spider” a few more times, before she sings “Cat’s In The Cradle” to me.

Though I may stumble in my efforts, the “budget” for my attention-giving is based on some good principles for budgeting our money: start with fixed costs, pay yourself first, etc.  In the end, I have decided that I have to “pay” attention to my relationships first.  For me, the primary relationship is with God.  It is that relationship that defines life for me, defines priorities for me, and defines me for me.  Paying attention to that relationship helps me pay better attention to all of my other relationships, to set boundaries with the attention-grabbers around me, and to live more in the present. I don’t want to pour out my attention on good things only to find they weren’t the best things.  I want to invest my attention in the things that will provide the most return, not only for me but for the ones I love – or even the world.    I want to spend it well.

#17 - God Stories

by James Baker

I have to tell you the most amazing God story.  A friend of mine sells software for a Fortune 500 company, and has consistently been a top three salesman in his region over the last ten years.  He doesn’t fit the stereotype, in that he’s not slick or smarmy.  Highly relational and extroverted, for sure, but not high-pressured. 

About a year ago, his mother fell ill, and her increasing healthcare needs became my friend’s responsibility.  He was forced to spend more and more time out of the office and away from potential clients as he dealt with in-home caregivers, health insurance companies, estate management, and the like.  Nearing the end of his fiscal year, and still miles away from reaching his quota, he was called before a sort of disciplinary board that included the company’s VP of sales and told that he needed to commit to securing his sales goals or look for another job. 

Standing before his superiors, he sensed God’s presence, and calmly but boldly let them know he was going to fulfill his obligations to his mother, and his sales would have to suffer until this ordeal was behind him.  As he was sent out of the room while the top dogs convened on his fate, he was sure that he would be let go.  Several of his co-workers had been called in on similar matters, and no one had ever survived the gauntlet.  An hour later, he was called back into the room, and he braced for the worst.  The VP sat him down, looked him squarely in the eye, and said, “You know the company’s policy on failure to meet quota.  You’ve taken a stand to prioritize personal matters over job performance.  That is commendable.  That said, you are fired.”

Cool God story, huh?

Oh wait, that’s not a God story.  God stories don’t end that way, do they?  What exactly is a “God story” anyway?  One that has a satisfying ending?  One that helps me sleep at night because the glass slipper actually fit?  I think a better question is, what isn’t a God story?  What sort of stories exist outside the realm of God’s providence?  As a friend recently posed to me, “Is there a single molecule in all of existence that is secular?”

In my experience, phrases such as “God stories” are code for “it all worked out”.  I know these should be encouraging to me, but every time I hear one of these, I’m immediately reminded of the gads of instances where no miracle came.  By definition, a miracle is an occurrence outside the realm of the natural.  Meaning, they don’t happen often.  As luck would have it, we live the vast majority of our lives in the “often”.

I loved hearing about the redemption of the YouTube sensation, “the man with the golden voice”.  The subsequent domestic dispute with his daughter and quitting rehab – not so much.  Watching the Chilean miners exit the earth’s crust after a grueling 69 days literally brought me to tears.  But accounts of mistresses and bickering over the money for exclusive story rights left a little stain on the whole affair.  The problem with storybook endings is that the story doesn’t really end. 

God’s activity in our lives is not evidenced by happy endings.  It is evidenced by, well, the fact that He exists.  I have to start with the premise that God is real and that He is good.  That premise wouldn’t serve me very well on debate team, but it is how I must live my life if I am to remain remotely faithful to God and His cause.  True enough, miracles do occur, and I certainly don’t want to denigrate the experience or results of divine intercession.  I just don’t believe they are meant to be the slab upon which we build our understanding of God.  If I look to circumstances alone (see “God stories”) to bolster my faith, then I will tend to live each day in utter despair.  But if I make the conscious decision to believe that the unseen holds far more promise than what I can rationalize with my senses, then God seems much more reliable.  Even if “the man with the golden voice” isn’t.

#16 - Space (Guest Post)

by Wendy Scott

I have spent a great deal of time recently considering space. Not outer space, but personal space. As a self-diagnosed borderline claustrophobic, I have probably spent an abnormal amount of time obsessing over my personal space. For example, this past summer I slept in one of those mummy-style sleeping bags on a camping trip. I found it impossible to sleep at night. From the moment I slipped into that cocoon of a bed I couldn’t help but consider the similarities between me and a fly caught in a spider’s web that the spider has wrapped up and is saving for dinner later. In spite of the intensely cold mountain air, there were a few times when I had to unzip and get out to prevent the onset of a claustrophobia-induced panic attack.

The real reason I think I have been consumed with considering my personal space lately, though, is because of my rapidly expanding belly. My husband and I are anticipating the birth of our son in early April, which is unbelievably exciting. But just because it’s exciting doesn’t mean it is comfortable. In the past weeks I have noticed on a number of occasions the alarming sensation that my surroundings seem to be shrinking. It finally occurred to me, my surroundings aren’t shrinking, but like Alice after she ate one of the tea cakes, I’m growing! I can’t slip through the space between the dining chair and the wall anymore (only a few weeks ago I could). My clothes are beginning to stretch across the front of me like an over-inflated balloon, and on a regular basis, I turn around in my kitchen and nearly knock something off the counter with my swollen abdomen. It’s all serving to make me feel… a little bit claustrophobic.

I think my baby feels the same way, too, because he spends the majority of his time pushing against the walls of his home in protest of the restrictive living quarters.

My family and I live in a very modest 1,375 square-foot home. We love it here. We like the coziness. Living in a small house forces us to live the kind of life we advocate, but might not otherwise actually live out if we were in a bigger place. We don’t hold on to very many things since space is a premium. Often we are forced to consider our belongings and ask, “Do I really need this?” More often than not, the answer is “no,” so we give it away. But in reality, we are about to add a whole other person in our cozy 3-2-2, and I find myself wondering—in early April, will our house still feel cozy or more like that mummy-style sleeping bag? Will we feel snuggled in here or will we, like this baby, protest against the confines of our claustrophobic space? Honestly, I fear the latter.

Then again…

I look around my tiny house. If I start feeling sorry for myself, I can talk myself into feeling claustrophobic, that the walls ARE closing in and that the only solution is a larger place, more space. Those things, however, are merely illusions. This tiny house (and my growing belly) is teaching me a very significant lesson about tight spaces in life. What may feel like a prison cell to me is, in reality, very often more like a womb. I’m noticing the regular basis on which God tends to use the tight spots. Confined areas are so uncomfortable, and I want to rebel violently against anything that feels restrictive. I demand to get out of tight spots immediately. But I’m coming to understand— God always uses the tight spaces in my life to eventually birth beautiful things.

In early April, my family and I will most likely find ourselves scooting past each other sideways in the hall. There will certainly be days when this space seems too small for the five of us, and I will want to scream for my own space. God may or may not provide a larger place for us. But if He doesn’t, on those hard days I’ll settle my heart with this knowledge. As with the baby currently growing inside me, God is working, developing and building something beautiful inside the tiny Scott house.