Spiritual Tactics for a Life of Glorious
Struggle
As liberals,
we believe in competently enhancing freedoms and opportunities for all,
especially those who have fewer freedoms and opportunities than the rest of
us. It is said that charity begins at
home. To effectively enhance freedoms
and opportunities for others, we must become competent. This requires enhancing our own freedoms and
opportunities, not to have more freedoms and opportunities than others; but to
become competent to help others. Conservatives
also want to enhance their own freedoms and opportunities. So the following tactics may be useful for
anyone.
The major
obstacle to becoming freer is not accepting our life as a glorious
struggle. Not regarding our every
activity as an experiment with an uncertain outcome, we become fixated upon our
wins and losses. We forget that whatever
has just happened, within our new situation, the future is open. We are free to dream and attempt to realize
our dreams within the reality of our new situation, regardless of whether it is
more or less favorable than our previous situation. We can pick ourselves up and keep going as
free and responsible human beings.
I have found the following tactics to be
helpful to maintaining my openness to acting our of my present situation. These are not the only helpful tactics. There are many others that don’t come to mind
now, or that I have never discovered.
And these tactics which I think are helpful to me, may not be helpful to
others. They are offered so that you can
decide whether they are helpful to you.
Being, Knowing, Doing, Being
To be free, we must decide our Being, who we are, what our dreams and
reality are. Then we must do our
Knowing, studying to learn from our experiences and the experiences of others
and accordingly modify our dreams and our understanding of reality. Then we must do our Doing, deciding and implementing
activities to realize our dreams, such that something happens. These implementing activities are
experiments. Now again, we must decide
our being, beginning the cycle again.
Being conscious of this cycle assists us to understand our activities as
we do them and attempt to avoid missing any of the three dynamics of personal
growth.
One example is the usefulness of orchestrating meetings to follow this
cycle. We begin our meetings with a
context, a song or ritual which brings participants to share a common
understanding of their shared visions and realities. We then study or brainstorm (such that we
learn from each other) to enhance our common understanding. We then create a new story of how to
implement our visions. At the meeting or
in follow-up action groups, we act to realize our visions. When any of these steps are skipped, our
decisions and activities become significantly less effective and efficient.
Songs, Drama and Rituals
Songs and Rituals are abbreviated ways to express our context, our
Being. People used to sing and perform
rituals in both secular and religious settings to rehearse our visions and
realities. Now we are likely to think of
song and ritual as only appropriate in religious settings, perhaps because we
separate secular and religious activities.
Our secular activities suffer from this lack of abbreviated ways to
express our shared understandings. How
often we proceed with unclear understandings, leading to poorly coordinated
activities.
Décor
Like songs, prayer or a daily office, décor can be a reminder of our
situation and visions. Some people’s
homes look like a
Prayer
A prayer is a rehearsal of an activity.
Its dynamics are Praise, Confession, Dedication and Supplication. Through Praise, we express our acceptance of
our situation. Through confession, we
express our lack of knowledge, control and will to determine the outcomes we
desire. Through Dedication, we express
our determination to proceed anyway.
Finally through Supplication, we remind ourselves that we need help and
good fortune to succeed.
Just as we stand on
two legs, our successes depend upon two factors, our efforts and our luck. If we don’t make the effort, we are unlikely
to succeed. But even if we do make the
effort, success is not guaranteed.
Daily Office
A daily office, done
soon after beginning a new day, is a prayer which rehearses our basic life
understandings and commitments. An
accompanying attachment presents a liturgy which I often repeat early in the
morning, but sometimes not often enough.
It is expressed in secular terms, except for the word ‘God’ which can be
easily removed by those who find the word loaded with offensive
connotations. When I begin my day with
my daily office, I find my day less likely to get bogged down in a mass of
trivial details. I find it easier to
stick to priorities. The day goes more
smoothly. This daily office can also be
performed by a group, with different parts assigned to different sets of
participants.
Planning (Creating Stories)
After doing a daily office and before or after breakfast, I create a
plan a story about my day. We often
think of creating a plan. But a plan
seems a rigid thing, which as the day goes on and circumstances change, causes
us to proceed with a no-longer appropriate plan of feel guilty for forsaking
it. Instead of creating a plan which
pulls our behavior, we should create a story which pushes (motivates) our
behavior. As circumstances change, we
can change our story. But understanding
this, we can call our story a plan.
A full fledged story or action plan contains four components: Vision,
Obstacles, Strategies and Tactics. We
must first express our dreams or Visions (including values) which are our
justification for all that we do. We
must then identify what are the Obstacles to obtaining our visions (especially
the basic obstacles which produce many of the other obstacles and when removed
will hopefully result in realizing our visions.
Taking our opportunities and resources, our vulnerabilities and
weaknesses into account, we must then create Strategies to remove the
obstacles. Then we decide on Tactics
which are specific actions to implement the strategies. The tactics are defined by what is to be
done, when will it be done, who will do it and how will it be done, including
the resources which will be required.
The tactics are scheduled on a horizontal time line according to when
they will be done and vertically according to who will be done. Groups can use butcher paper for the timeline,
with cards or postums naming the tactic, its components and resources. The cards can then be adjusted on the
timeline to place prerequisite actions before post requisite actions and to
avoid putting more tactics in a time period than there are available
resources. The result is a PERT chart.
Before placing the tactics on the timeline, it is helpful to indicate on the
chart, milestones when various results are to be achieved.
This describes a very comprehensive and detailed plan or story, which
may apply to every major thing we expect to do during a period of our life or
to our efforts to realize a more specific set of visions. Most of our plans will be much simpler,
omitting much of the detail.
Comprehensive plans only need be created when an existing plan has
become irrelevant to new realities.
As we attempt to implement our plans, circumstances change, requiring
mid-course corrections. These may take
the form of for each implementing group, expressing what has been realized,
what old obstacles have been overcome and new ones appeared, and what old and
new tactics should be scheduled. While
successes should be noticed, the emphasis needs to quickly shift to what isn’t
working that requires reform. We should
avoid emphasizing blame based on the past, instead emphasizing reform focusing
upon the present and future.
You may have never thought of action planning as a form of prayer or even
as a spiritual exercise. Action planning
is sometimes the most spiritual activity we do.
So lets explicitly regard it as spiritual and ensure that it is done as
part of the glorious struggle that our life is.
Poverty, Chastity and Obedience
Discipline requires
that we be obedient to our basic life visions.
It requires that we not let high standards for less important conditions
inhibit our pursuit of our basic life visions.
We create a lifestyle which doesn’t require so much that we have many
excuses why we can’t do our basic tasks. We
forsake desired comforts when necessary to our glorious struggle. Discipline requires that we be not be
promiscuously distracted from our basic priorities. Discipline is often yucky, but essential.
Discontinuity
Long marches
kill armies and burn out individuals. My
discontinuity consists of switching during each day among reading,
conversation, reflecting, organizing, writing, planning and also enjoying time
with my wife, home and yard care and shopping errands. I switch among knowing, doing and being;
among short and long run; and among self- and other-oriented foci. Long marches are interrupted by dances and
ambles.
When we do
something, we should give it the necessary attention (obedience and
chastity). Have you every noticed how
your error rate increases when you multi-task?
How often do we drop things when we hand something to someone, while
attending to someone else? How often do
we forget things crucial to our task, while our mind wonders to other tasks?
But we can
focus intensely on one thing for a while, and then before fatigue sets in,
switch to focusing upon something else.
We can do dozens of tasks in a day, but only one at a time.
Organizing
Time
On a daily
basis, we often do many tasks. In
planning our day, it is efficient to do group various disparate tasks together,
because they must be done at the same place. We can plan a trip to take this into
account. We can also plan to take an
efficient circular route that reaches all the required places. We may want to go to the furthest place first
and work back so that if we run out of time, the remaining tasks are closest to
home, thus shortening the next trip.
Freedom
requires being able to spontaneously respond to new opportunities and
threats. In scheduling a day, it is
helpful to leave some time (maybe 2-4 hours) unscheduled, so that there is time
for taking advantage of these or not having our plan totally destroyed by
having to put out a fire.
Under-scheduling and discontinuously changing tasks allows us time to
reflect, celebrate our successes and mourn our failures and perform mid-course
corrections, freeing us for our next activities.
Organizing is
a balancing act. Too much organizing
leaves not time for acting. Too little
makes our actions inefficient. I once
had a friend who insisted that she was incapable of organizing and that any way
it would ruin spontaneity. I often
thought her life was so chaotic that little spontaneity was possible. Just keep doing whatever seems right at the
moment. I have other friends who
organize to the extent that they have virtually no spontaneity.
We all have
tasks which we want to do, but they get endlessly bumped by other more
important tasks. They just hang around,
nagging us. It may be helpful to
schedule some time each day or week to either do these tasks or decide they
aren’t worth every doing. It’s funny when
we finally do them and find that what we have been stewing about only takes a
few minutes. Often we have delayed doing
them because we are uncertain how to do them or what obstacles will occur that
will increase the time required. Often,
the only way to reduce such uncertainty is to quit thinking and do it to learn
what happens.
Organizing
Space and Inventory Control
There are
many principles for organizing space.
Everything should have a home and be returned to the home after being
used, so it can be easily found when wanted.
Things used frequently should be placed where they easy to get; things
used infrequently should be placed where they won’t intrude. Like things should be placed together; but
similar things should be separated enough that getting the right thing isn’t
confusing. Things should often be
arranged systematically, such as arranging books by topic, or author’s last
name.
Duplicates
should be obtained of things that are easily misplaced or that may wear out, so
that one can find them easily or avoid urgent trips to obtain more. Having enough on hand to avoid frequent trips
to contain more should be balanced with not having so many that take up space,
or that they deteriorate before being used.
One must decide whether to possess infrequently used things to make them
convenient or rent or borrow them when needed to save money and space. There are many other space arranging and
inventory control tactics that most of us have discovered.
Addictions
Most of us have experienced addictions, our own or among relatives or
friends. They are easier to identify in
others. When we compulsively want
something to the extent that we can’t bear the thought of giving it up, we tend
to deny our addiction or at least the negative consequences to our lives and
others. But if we find that that our
compulsions are becoming a higher priority than anything else in our life, we
are addicted. If we find that we
repeatedly fail when we try to avoid satisfying our addiction, we are
addicted. When we are addicted, we can
virtually avoid satisfying our addiction without help.
We need to admit that we need help and seek professional help. We need to recognize that professionals can’t
help us without our following their advice.
We don’t have the answers, so we need to accept the answers provided by
experts. We need to also regain hope,
based on the knowledge that others with our addictions have, with assistance,
achieved better non-compulsive lives.
Unfortunately our compulsions are so great that we delay obtaining and
accepting help until the consequences have severely damaged our freedoms and
opportunities. Once you have repeatedly
tried and failed to overcome your compulsions, little can be lost by
experimenting with professional help.
You can at least see the possibility of hope amidst your despair, even
if you don’t continue to follow the professional’s advice.
Mentors and Support Groups
Mentors are not just for Japanese employees and children. We all need supporters who are committed to
our success. The more such supporters,
the better. Why not treat everyone you
meet as a potential mentor. Develop many
mentors, a few concerned with your whole life and others concerned with only
specific areas of your life. Being open
to the ideas of others greatly enriches your learning, particularly about your
personal ideas and behaviors. There is
much such knowledge that you can’t get from books.
Don’t punish your mentors for delivering bad news. Be thankful, but after due consideration,
make you own judgment. Even people who
wish to harm you can give you good information.
If you keep hearing certain criticisms, you might at least ask what you
are doing to engender such criticism.
Support groups, such as 12-step groups are mentors. While they don’t consist of professionals,
they consist of people who have similar experiences to you own. When they describe having similar experiences
to your own, how they have learned to cope, and the results for their lives,
you may often find information helpful to improving your own life.
Conversations with God
I understand God in secular terms as all that
I can’t know and control, that has unknowably created me, and that confronts me
many times every day. But I have another
mythological God or perhaps Gods with which I carry on continual
conversations. I converse many times
each day with God about the many happenings and experiences in my life,
especially the surprises - both miracles I like and the other kind. Depending, I thank or berate God, ask or tell
him to keep it up, start fulfilling his compassionate promises or just leave me
alone. I exalt, moan and whine, cajole,
bargain or threaten.
Then
something else happens, for better or worse.
My conversations with God exaggerate and express my emotions and
thoughts. They enable me to be aware of
them, relate them to my basic understanding of life, and be prepared for the
next experiences. Since these
conversations are usually unspoken, most of my friends would not realize what a
chatterbox I am.
Mourning
In 1988, I lost my 23 year old younger son Tom, when he fell 500 feet
off a mountain doing what he loved doing, was good at, but took risks. It was the most painful experience of my
life. I was immediately torn between the
past, present and future. I wanted to remember
and record every thing I could about his life, so I wouldn’t forget. It was necessary to make arrangements for his
memorial, possessions, notifying people, and many other details. I had to get on with my life as a father with
only one living son.
I didn’t worry about why bad things happen to good people, or how
things might have been different. I
accepted that when anyone is standing on nothing 500 feet above the ground,
they are going to die. He would also
have died, if he had been standing in front of a drunken driver. I knew he was gone forever from my presence.
But I still suffered for up to a year, reminding myself of my
experiences with him. I sometimes
remembered times I hadn’t been a good father, but I also remembered that he
hadn’t always been a good son. I
continued to dwell on Tom’s life and our experiences together. I thought it would be disrespectful to forget
anything about him; yet this terribly interfered with my life. Finally my preoccupation with him faded. I especially think of him when I am hiking
and camping in the wilderness, which was the love of his life and mine.
My tough mother died two years later, one month after discovering she
had lung cancer. Her doctor suggested
she should be depressed, angry and bargaining.
Marge told him, “I haven’t got time; I’m going to die.” She spent the month visiting with
friends. Four years later, my 80 year
old stepfather killed himself after becoming extremely bitter about his lost
capabilities and increasing dependence on others.
It is important to mourn, to mourn explicitly. It is also important to accept the past as
past and accept the present. This may take
time, but help may be needed if the grief is too intense or the time is too
long.
Celebration
Celebration is important for discontinuity, for savoring success and as
a prelude to reflection. Large tasks
should be broken into smaller ones, with celebrations along the way. Both mourning and celebration are emotional
and should probably occur every day, expressed through conversations with God
and in other ways. Organized
celebrations include décor, songs, reminder toasts, drama, excited discussion,
remembering what happened and laughing at the mistakes. Before looking to the future, celebrations
are a relief from the struggle that preceded them.
Reflection
Like conversations
with God, reflections are ways to bring our experiences to consciousness, to
remember and learn from them. A separate
essay is necessary to adequate describe reflections; but a brief summary is relevant
here.
One can reflect on
an object, event, experience or time period, such as a picture, book, movie,
meeting, a task, or a day. Reflection
involves 4 steps, which can be called: objective, reactive, interpretive, and
decisional. The first is describing only
on what’s there or what happened: objects, shapes, colors, sounds, people,
words and phrases, etc.
Only with the second
do we describe our emotional and intellectual reactions: What stimulated my interest, boredom,
curiosity, suspense, anger, disgust, etc.
The third relates
the experience to our broader reality.
Where do we see these things going on in the world? Where in my own life?
Finally, how am I
different for having experienced this?
What have I learned? What
decisions or commitments have I made.
Reflection is
particularly effective in allowing groups to learn from each other’s shared
experiences. A leader asks brainstorm
questions about each of the above four aspects of the shared experience in
sequence. It is surprising how many
things others notice that you agree are or were there, but didn’t notice
yourself. Celebrations and Mournings
typically include unstructured reflections.
Reflection is a great exercise at the end of a day, remembering the
events, emotions, meanings and learnings of day. With the aid of paper, one can draw a
timeline, note the major activity periods, draw a graph to show emotional ups
and downs, and note meanings, learnings and decisions. One can also reflect on a week, month, year
or life. While reflection at the end of
the day is valuable, planning the next day may keep you awake and is best left
for the morning.
In Conclusion
My human life is a
glorious struggle, glorious because I can dream and a struggle because I do
dream amidst reality. Continuing the
struggle requires my spiritual understanding and practices. Dave Thomas