Here’s a great quote from a man whose writings have deeply shaped my life:
All real living is meeting. – Martin Buber
I could write a few paragraphs of commentary or I could simply let it stand and encourage you to think about that for a little while today. Good words.
Before you get totally immersed in technobabble world today, why not pause and listen to the thoughts of a 14th century Sufi mystic.
I hold the Lion’s Paw
Whenever I dance.
I know the ecstasy of the falcon’s wings
When they make love against the sky,
And the sun and the moon
Sometimes argue over
Who will tuck me in at night.
If you think I am having more fun
Than anyone on this planet
You are absolutely correct.
But Hafiz
Is willing to share all his secrets
About how to befriend God.
Indeed dear ones,
Hafiz is so very willing
To share all his secrets
About how to know the
Beautiful
One.
I hold the Lion’s Paw whenever I dance.
Hafiz
Every act should be performed as though all eternity depended on it.
– Franz Rosenzweig
“I’ve heard of Alex Presley, but I wouldn’t know any of his music.” Sister Mary Pia
A longtime resident of Hollywood, Sister Mary Pia lives completely separated from this “Babylon of the USA.” She spends her days cloistered away in prayer at the Monastery of the Angels. Having entered the novitiate in 1950, she completely missed the rock-and-roll revolution: not to mention other earth-shattering culture shifts.
This little piece on the Monastery of the Angels in today’s NY Times sheds light on a population that lives separated from the cultural overdrive that most of us experience on a minute-by-minute basis. I find it refreshing to encounter folks who choose to live intentionally as opposed to living driven. While I may not take to the cloistered life (although it can be deeply appealing), I can learn from their simplicity and willingness not to give into the “needs” of our current cultural fixations.
In Andrei Tarkovsky’s beautiful film Nostalghia, a Russian poet is seeking inspiration in Italy. In the midst of his creative struggles, he longs, aches for the homeland. He is homesick. The question is, “Where is home?” He may be longing for something much deeper than a city, a street or an address.
Ronald Rolheiser offers a Chestertonian meditation on the question of home, that I found inspiring.
Home is a place in the heart, not a bloodline, building, city or ethnicity. Home is that deep, fragile place where we hold and guard what’s most precious to us. It’s that place where, in some dark way, we remember that once, before we came to awareness, we were caressed by hands far gentler than any we’ve met in this life and where we were once kissed by a truth and a beauty so perfect that they are now the unconscious standard by which we measure everything. Home is where things “ring true,” where what’s most precious to us is cherished, the place of tender conscience, of intimacy.
I came across another article on customer-centric thinking today on Click Z by Heidi Cohen. Cohen relates a story of planning her summer vacation online, making reservations, and then canceling after reading a bad review. She later received an email asking for more feedback about the cancellation. This causes Heidi to wax eloquent about how small hotel managers are very sensitive to online ratings and work hard to listen to customer needs so they can make sure their customers enjoy the service.
The rest of the article lays out a few tips for listening to customers, gathering information and applying it. I appreciate this current focus on customer centrism and usually try to follow what people are saying about it. The trend toward customers seems like a good thing.
Especially if is for real.
Listening is an art. If I listen to a customer just to figure out a plan for the best way to manipulate them to purchase my goods, I may not listen for long. Or they may not speak for long.
Granted most of us listen to other people for selfish reasons. It is hard to listen for the sake of listening. This is challenge of turning and facing another person in all their ambiguity; valuing them as unique person; and listening to what they say (without immediately figuring out how to use or retort it). Our culture has little time or capacity for really listening, but if we learned it, it might change our lives.
Can this kind of listening work in business? It depends on the business model. Does the business exist for pure profit? Or are there other reasons? Under some models, a company might be willing to lose some profit if it means listening and responding to some genuine customer concerns. Then this stuff becomes real.
Otherwise it is just a means to end. Another method to ultimately use another for our own ends. If we practice this in business, I’m not sure we can turn it off when we go home.
I have a silly idea (maybe its purely eschatalogical), but I believe there could be another kind of commerce. Commerce is good because it involves exchange, thus presupposing relationship at some level. So could there be a commerce of love? And could it happen on this planet in this age?
I guess this why I’m a bad blogger. Too much writing and not enough linking! So I’ll stop.
I just posted a long reflection over at Floydville if anyone is interested.
Over the last couple years, my struggles with the failing kidney gradually drained my capacity to dream. I learned to find joy in the midst of my struggles and trust God’s goodness, and yet I had difficulty looking forward to the future with any expectation.
In the midst of this, I sensed God continuing to challenge me in Scripture to trust Him not just for today but for tomorrow as well. Abraham became a picture for me of someone who was moving toward a vision of tomorrow and yet still lived in the present reality of today’s problems. In him, I saw God’s grace at work and the essay below is a way of processing this. While others may not have kidney problems, I realize everyone struggles in different ways, and sometimes the weight of today can cause us to lose hope in tomorrow. This is my poor attempt to reflect on that struggle. Link
I’ve been reading and thinking about how our prayer and worship is embodied in our actions. For someone who spends a great deal of time in the virtual world of the web, I am conscious of how important the physical, earthy material world is. Just as face-to-face personal encounters are fundamental in relationships, our spiritual life is not a mere abstraction in search of a feeling. Rather we embody our faith in our lives by the way we act and live. Our prayers may take place in private and public places of worship, but they should be embodied in our action. If I pray the needy, my prayer should be embodied through helpful action toward the needy. Frank Laubach taught me that when I am in public around people, every encounter can be a prayer and a blessing. Would that our world thought in terms of blessing instead of cursing and killing.
Anyway, I ran across an interesting series related to this that some might enjoy.
Transforming Sermons pointed me to a blogs series by John Frye about Jesus in the Margins. Take a pause from the barrage web news and find yourself inspired.
I just posted a new, long essay over at Floydville:
Five weeks and two days ago, I received the priceless gift of Izaak’s kidney. Each week my body grows a little stronger, and I feel a little better. Soon I will be back to full strength. Every morning and evening, I record my blood pressure, blood sugar, weight, and temperature. At different times through the day, I take a variety of medications.
When our news is fixated on doom, death and misery, I thought I might include a few inspiring thoughts from one of the Rabbis that has touched my life, Abraham Joshua Heschel. I encourage you to read him, soak in him. Soon all the latest bits of news may fade as virtually insignificant compared to the deep well life flowing out from him.
In reference to my post on the Inconvenient Truth, I agree with Ryan’s comment that regardless of the accuracy of global warming reports shouldn’t we all take care of the environment. Amen to that. For me, when science is reduced to data, we are in danger of losing the wonder. And it is the wonder that inspires me to care for this stunning, glorious creation. And now a word from the Rabbi…
Awe is the intuition for the dignity of all things, a realization that things not only are what they are but also stand , however remotely, for something supreme.
Awe is the sense for the transcendence, for the reference everywhere to mystery beyond all things. It enables us to perceive in the world intimations of the divine…to sense the ultimate in the common and the simple; to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal what we cannot comprehend by analysis, we become aware of in awe.
……………..
In the confinement of our study rooms our knowledge seems to us a pillar of light. But when we stand at the door which opens out to the infinite, we realize that all concepts are but glittering motes that populate a sunbeam.
…………….
We can never sneer at the stars, mock the dawn or scoff at the totality of being. Sublime granduer evokes unhesitating, unflinching awe. Away from the immense, cloistered in our own concepts, we may scorn and revile everything.
But standing between earth and sky, we are silenced by the sight…
…………..
To pray is to regain a sense of mystery that animates all beings, the divine margin in all attainments. Prayer is our humble answer to the inconceivable surprise of living. It is all we can offer in return for the mystery by which we live. Who is worthy to be present at the constant unfolding of time? Amidst the meditation of mountains, the humility of flowers–wiser that all alphabets–clouds that die constantly for the sake of His glory, we are hating, hunting, hurting. Suddenly we feel ashamed of our clashes and complaints in the face of the tacit glory in nature. It so embarrassing to live! How strange we are in the world, and how presumptuous our doings! Only one response can maintain us: gratefulness for witnessing the wonder, for the gift of our unearned right to serve, to adore, and to fulfill. It is gratefulness which makes the soul great.
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