Reflections on a Wendell Berry Poem

[If you enjoy this blog, please SHARE it with your friends and others who might be interested.  You can click in the column to the right and choose how you want to share this.] Critics and scholars have acknowledged Wendell Berry as a master of many literary genres, but whether he is writing poetry, fiction, or essays, his message they observe is essentially the same: humans must learn to live in harmony with the natural rhythms of the earth or perish.  I'm thankful that I came across one of Berry's poems this week, especially at this time of year when Spring reminds me of the promise of renewed life.  I find myself needing hope these days for a variety of reasons, but particularly in my work as I struggle with a sense of the lack of meaningful accomplishment.  Mr. Berry is writing to me.  So here's the poem, "The Peace of Wild Things."

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

I don't know if you ever feel a sense of despair over parts of your life or the lives of those you care for.  I do ... especially lately.  Maybe it's the stage of life I'm in, roaring into my second half with lots of dreams and hopes, when at the same time having to come face to face with a more honest acceptance of mortality and that all my dreams might not end up being fulfilled and that many of them could've been a tad unrealistic anyway.  Maybe it's a wrestling with what success is and isn't - the difficult task of having to redefine it in more congruent ways - and yet still deal with a deep passion to have my life count for something significant.  Maybe it's also seeing my parents reaching their sunset years and struggling with health and mortality, realizing that I'm the next generation in line to take their place, having to pay more attention to my own health needs as time goes on.

We all face a sense of despair in various ways and for various reasons.  Sometimes it steals our sleep.  Often it steals our peace.  Too often it robs us of joy.  We lose hope.  What then?  Pop the pills?  Swallow the antidepressants?  Escape or run away?  Stay in bed?  Smother the ones we're worried about with our presence?  Hang on for dear life just because we're afraid of losing?

Here's where I'm moved by Wendell Berry's perspective.  Notice his process of dealing with his despair.  "I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief." Berry has discovered that nature's ability to exist in peace is directly related to it not "taxing their lives with forethought of grief."  One of our homo sapien challenges is that because we have the ability to ponder, reflect, and evaluate everything, we are tempted to live in the past or in the future, with regret or fear, rather than in the moment.  We consequently tax our lives with "forethought of grief."  And wow, it is a tax burden, isn't it!  We're making payments from our emotional bank accounts all the time because of that tendency.  Grief is the result - a constant feeling of loss (loss of hope, loss of reputation, loss of significance, loss of meaning or fulfillment, loss of purpose, loss of love, and the list of grief from losses goes on and on).

Berry noticed that the wood drake ducks and the great herons seemed to exist differently.  He watched them sit quietly in the still waters, and patiently pick food out of the waters, and stand in the shallow water simply being in that place and in that moment.  It was a scene of peace to him.  So he intentionally placed himself there from time to time - and discovered that during those times, he was able to mirror that peace.  His mind and heart became still like the pond water.  He entered as fully as possible into those moments, letting go of his worry, fear, grief, and losses.

Looking up into the sky, he knew the stars were there behind the lighted firmament even though he couldn't see them at that time of day.  They were "waiting with their light," knowing that the time would soon come when after setting sun their light would be seen again.  Berry felt a sense of hope for his own life return.  Nature has its cycles, its seasons - times of fruitfulness and times of fallowness.  Nature seems to know this and it empowers its peace and persistence.  Day-blind stars will shine in the evening.  The barrenness of winter gives way to spring's new life.

I'm thankful for this reminder today.  Just reading this poem takes me to a place of more hope and peace inside.  Visualizing the wood drake floating quietly in the still waters, seeing the great heron now standing, now feeding, a bite here, a bite there - neither one obsessing or worrying or "taxing their lives with forethought of grief" - simply being and doing what they always do.  Can I allow myself to be in that place, too?  If even for a moment?

Berry ends his poem with, for me anyway, a helpful reminder:  "For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free."  For a time.  We can't always live in this kind of secluded peace.  Life happens, the good and the ugly, with its joy alongside despair and grief, and we often can't predict it.  But I need more times to "rest in the grace of the world."  I need to carve out moments of grace, where simply being is enough, where I am all I need to be right then, and I am loved and embraced there, period.  Maybe that's what the Hebrew poet had in mind when he wrote about the Creator God, "Be still, and know that I am God."  In life's stillness and quietness, I feel the divine, the Sacred, and I embrace my enough in the mirror of the true Enough.  Resting in the grace of the world.  Does it sound as inviting to you as it does to me?

Gran Torino and the Process of Spiritual Alignment

[If you enjoy this blog, please SHARE it with your friends and others who might be interested.  You can click in the column to the right and choose how you want to share this.] According to every spiritual tradition, we as humans, human nature, are divided – we are divided against ourselves (our truest Self), and we are divided against the Divine.  This lack of unity is in fact more characteristic of our “normal” reality than our Essential unity.

Understanding this division in us is crucial to recovering our Essential Self and becoming the people we were made by God to be, where we experience the highest level of meaning, purpose, and fulfillment.  The process of spirituality is about recovering and reclaiming our true Self and re-connecting with God.

According to the experts, we all are seeking specific needs to be met (based upon our upbringing and subsequent woundings).  And there are primary underlying feelings associated with each of those needs.  This primary need with its underlying feeling is what tends to drive us and motivate us – it describes how our ego tends to manifest itself when it doesn’t get its need met.  And therefore knowing this helps to give understanding about what we’re battling against and what we need to deal with in order to learn how to live out of our true Self.

OUR CHIEF EGO IMBALANCES AND DEFENSES

Let's look a bit more closely at this triangle of circles so we understand what it's describing.  There are three basic needs that all of us tend to gravitate toward and seek more of:  autonomy (the need to protect our "personal space," to be given our freedom, and maintain a felt sense of self), attention (the need to be validated in meaningful ways, to feel valued, to maintain a personal identity), and security (the need to find a sense of inner guidance and support, to be able to know the future clearly enough to survive and be cared for).  Each circle then reveals the default response or defense mechanism that kicks in when that specific need isn't met adequately:  no autonomy ... anger and aggression manifest either toward self or others; no attention ... feelings of being unvaluable, shame, a sense of being defective are manifested; and no security ... feelings of insecurity and fear emerge.

According to experts, we all experience all of these at various times, in various ways, and with varying intensities.  But we tend to have a primary default - our most common, easy-to-go-to, natural defense mechanism when our primary need isn't met.  These responses are the "artificial fillers" of our personality - imitations - ways we try to get our needs met that are not flowing from our Essential Self but rather from our wounded self.  So rather than helping us, they actually hinder us from receiving what we really want and need.  This causes the lack of internal and external unity all spiritual traditions describe human nature experiencing.  So every tradition has developed various spiritual practices that help a person come to greater alignment and congruence with their True Self - tools to practice, disciplines to engage in that facilitate spiritual development toward becoming the people God designed for us to be.  Spirituality, then, is the intentional process of becoming who you truly are (your Essential Self) rather than the imitation.    Spirituality is about your true Self connecting with God and reaching your ultimate potential as a child of God.

APPLICATION:  Circle the word in any of the three circles which you feel most protective of in your life right now, or most defensive of – your gut reaction.  Which word describes what drives you the most – what you’re truly seeking and feeling as you go through life’s experiences these days.

A Contemporary Story

Let's notice how these dynamics are played out and experienced in the story Gran Torino which came out in 2008.  The movie Gran Torino, starring Clint Eastwood, describes the weather-beaten yet poignant story of Walt Kowalski, an aging retired auto worker at Ford Motor Company in the now industrial graveyard of Detroit.  In the beginning, the film has the feel of a requiem. Melancholy is etched in every long shot of Detroit’s decimated, emptied streets and in the faces of those who remain to still walk in them.

Sort of like Walt’s life.  A veteran of the Korea War of the 1950s, Walt has been watching his “world” drastically change through the years into something he hardly recognizes much less feels a kinship with.  Everything to him is falling apart all around – the neighborhood has been taken over by “aliens,” foreigners – “Chinks-Gooks-Swamp Rats” he shamelessly calls all of them, no matter what country they’re from in Asia.  In reality, his neighbors are Hmong, the hill tribe people in Laos who allied with the US troops during the Vietnam war and then had to flee when the North Vietnamese took over.  Many of them fled to the US and settled in communities like Walt’s.  But to him, they’re still the “enemy” who don’t belong here!

He has just buried his wife and he’s basically estranged from his two sons and their families who have come to “put up” with a father and grandfather who seems crude, gruff, and uncaring.  So he pretty much lives his life alone with his dog Daisy.

And alone with the central metaphor of Walt’s life, his cherished pride – a pristine 1972 Ford Gran Torino.  He has invested all of his desires in this car – it represents to him the best days – the past – when life was more predictable, more secure, more unified, more white, success was everywhere, everyone had a chance to make it if you just worked hard enough.  The glory days.  People were patriotic then!  Like he has hanging on his porch, everyone flew the Stars and Stripes to show their pride in life and country.  So he pours himself into keeping his Gran Torino in spotless, perfect condition.  It’s his refuge from the painful, disorienting reality of this new world.  And it’s his artificial filler, his imitation self.

Interestingly enough, the writers of this movie have portrayed Walt as the Everyman who represents all of us in some ways.  His ego defenses are being threatened – he’s desperately seeking SECURITY (the safe and predictable and comfortable ways of the past).  But the changes in his personal life (losing his wife, estranged from his kids, and isolated from his Ford company past) and the radical changes in his environment (the gangs terrorizing the neighborhoods, the foreigners with their strange and distasteful customs who have moved in next door and up and down HIS street) have all threatened this security.  So he’s reacting in FEAR – inside he’s not sure how to really cope with FEAR – so he defaults to what he knows best:  prejudice, resentment, portraying a gruff, swearing, beer-guzzling, smoking hardass to everyone (including his family).

He’s also desperately seeking AUTONOMY – just leave me alone and let me live my own life!  Don’t try to tell me what to do or manipulate me or try to control my future (if you’re my kids and grandkids)!  Don’t encroach on my space!  Get out of my yard and my life!!  So he threatens his neighbors away from his yard no matter what their acts of attempted kindness and neighborliness; he threatens the gangs by pointing his Korean War U.S. Army-issued rifle in their faces; he growls and scowls at his kids and refuses to engage; he berates and castigates the local Catholic priest who keeps coming by to check on him because of a promise he made to Walt’s wife before she died.  His anger pushes him and empowers him to shove everyone away.

But in very poignant ways shown in the story, Walt also seeks ATTENTION – deep inside he doesn’t want to be alone, he simply doesn’t know how to go about connecting meaningfully.  He’s being driven by SHAME, which is ultimately unveiled in the movie when he finally reveals his painful war-time past.  The images of killing young enemy soldiers continues haunting him like ghosts from his past.  And as he gets older, he begins to realize that he’s failed as a parent, too – he’s treated his kids poorly and now he’s reaping the consequences of estrangement.  He’s a prisoner to his feelings of shame and doesn’t know how to get free.  So the only way he knows how to get ATTENTION is by being gruff and difficult and downright mean at times.

Walt Kowalski has built some strong, powerful defenses to his ego.  He’s really alone and in slavery to his misguided attempts to experience life – he’s caught up in the only way he knows how – and in a sense, he’s simply living out his life until he dies a very lonely and angry old man.  Every once in a while, he breaks into a coughing fit and begins to see blood coughed up.  After finally going to a clinic for blood tests, he informed he’s dying of lung cancer.  With no one really around him anymore because he’s driven them all way, he’s having to face an isolated and painful ending.

Is there any hope for a man like Walt Kowalski?  Is the Gran Torino all there is?  Here-in lies the power of this contemporary story, especially in light of this Season's theme of death and resurrection.

APPLICATION:  So go back to the word you circled in one of the three circles.  Spend a few moments reflecting on why you chose that word.  What examples in your life or in your experiences illustrate that word for you?  How is that word manifesting for you?  What’s the “Gran Torino” in your life that you’re using to protect your ego and that represents the “safe place” or default for you?

In my next blog post, we'll take a look at what it is that ultimately brings Walt Kowalski to a kind of personal transformation and how that applies to our lives, especially in our spiritual journey of alignment and development into who we were meant to be.

Developing A Faith That Works, 5: Faith, Vision, and How You See the Universe

[Thanks for SHARING this blog with people who might be interested!  Hit the button on the right to subscribe or to share the post] We've been talking in this series about the nature of faith and spirituality - how faith is something more than simply believing doctrinal statements about Reality, God, and life - it's about the heart, an experience that goes deeper than the mind and thoughts and impacts the deepest part of our selves and works itself out in acts of compassion and love and unselfish service.  We've seen that the original words for faith describe more than reason and propositional beliefs (read the last several blog posts to see the whole picture here).  Fiducia is about a relaxed, worry-free trust and confidence in God.  Fidelitas emphasizes a deep loyalty, allegiance, and faithfulness in heart, soul, mind, and body to God - a desire and choice to stay on the journey no matter what.  And Visio is vision, a way of seeing – a way of seeing “what is,” of seeing the whole - a choice to see Reality, God, the Sacred as life-giving and nourishing (as opposed to hostile and threatening or indifferent).  So let's unpack Visio a bit more and notice how vision (how you see the whole) impacts personal faith and spirituality.

Faith As Vision (Seeing What Is)

There's an ancient story about Jesus and a blind man that illustrates the nature of faith as Visio and how that impacts life:

^35-37Jesus came to the outskirts of Jericho. A blind man was sitting beside the road asking for handouts. When he heard the rustle of the crowd, he asked what was going on. They told him, "Jesus the Nazarene is going by."  ³⁸He yelled, "Jesus! Son of David! Mercy, have mercy on me!"

³⁹Those ahead of Jesus told the man to shut up, but he only yelled all the louder, "Son of David! Mercy, have mercy on me!"

⁴⁰Jesus stopped and ordered him to be brought over. When he had come near, Jesus asked, "What do you want from me?"  ⁴¹He said, "Master, I want to see again."  ^42-43Jesus said, "Go ahead—see again! Your faith has saved and healed you!" The healing was instant: He looked up, seeing—and then followed Jesus, glorifying God. Everyone in the street joined in, shouting praise to God. (Luke 18)

Notice the contrasting visions of Reality, God, and life between the crowd and the blind man.  Placed in the context of theologian H. Richard Niebuhr's description of the 3 ways of seeing "the Whole" - Reality and Life (as I described in my last blog post) - it's interesting to see how those differing "visions" play out in this story.

THE CROWD	THE BLIND MAN
Who Jesus is:  the Nazarene – a local religious dignitary at best; so he's being seen as too busy to help a blind man; plus this view says that blindness is a punishment from God so why would a religious leader help?  The blind man is under divine judgment.	Who Jesus is:  Son of David – a designation for Messiah, chosen of God; Jesus is God's representative.
How Jesus will respond:  don’t bother him – he’s too busy, too important	How Jesus will respond:  if I can just be noticed or make myself heard, Jesus will listen and do something for me; God is on the side of sinners
The Universe:  conditional; you get only what you deserve, and you deserve only what you put it; different “layers” or stratas in life based upon worthiness, value	The Universe:  capable of giving mercy; responsive to need
Life Response:  structured and ordered – must follow by the rules of those structures – must act appropriately (keep yourself in your designated place)	Life Response:  courageous; break the rules at times when the need is greater than the system; some confidence of being heard; live life with passion and desire; express it

There are some significant implications of these contrasting visions for our faith journey:

• Notice how Jesus connects the issue of faith with “seeing” in the blind man’s experience.  In contrast to the crowd who “sees” Jesus in a very limited way (a local man, albeit a religious dignitary), this blind man, even before he’s healed of his physical blindness, in fact already “sees” – Jesus affirms to him, “You’re actually 'seeing' more than these other people who have their eyesight.”  The man’s faith in Jesus as the Chosen of God (the anointed Messiah who comes to deliver captives and bring wholeness to the broken of Israel) reveals his "enlightenment" and ability to "see."  This man’s “vision” of Jesus is as one from God who will bring him healing or at the very least is interested in his well-being and state in life.  If nothing else, Jesus will at least give him some alms for his next meal.  His view of God’s Kingdom is one of well-being, being nourished and sustained – the God of this Kingdom is gracious.  And this kind of faith empowers the man with courage, with boldness, with persistence and tenacity in the face of obstacles and social rejection.  The point illustrated here is, how you “see” the whole impacts your experience!
• Jesus says to him, “Your faith has saved you and healed you!”  Those are the words for wholeness and salvation and completeness – before he has received his physical eyesight.  Seeing – vision – this kind of faith – is a matter of the heart, the perspective – a choice you make about how you want to look at life, the world, the universe, God.  You may not be able to prove it all, but you choose to live with a paradigm of grace, confidence, compassion, and self-forgetfulness – a belief in God as a gracious, supportive, compassionate, faithful Force in your life that empowers you to not live in fear, anxiety, uncertainty, and insecurity.  One whom you’re willing to follow even when you might not feel all the reality of it.  It’s still truth to you and you shape your life around it.  As Neibuhr said, How we see the whole radically affects how we respond to life!

So here are some personal questions for your reflection:

1. Where are you in the three differing views of Reality Niebuhr describes (see my last blog post) with your VISION for Life and Faith?  Which “reality” tends to be what you SEE?  Why?
2. What do you tend to do to cultivate that VISION?
3. In this series, we’ve talked about FAITH as confident trust, faithfulness/loyalty, and vision of a gracious God. Which of those words for faith do you relate to the most (tends to be your "normal" faith experience)?  Which one would you like to possess the most?

Conclusion

Remember Mother Teresa and how her diary reveals the deep doubts and frequent sense of abandonment by God she experienced in her life?  And yet, in the midst of all this darkness, she continued living her life, following the Way of Jesus of self-forgetfulness and abandonment to God, by giving herself tireless and compassionately to the forsaken ones in Calcutta.  In reality, she was empowered to live this powerful life because she made a choice to “see” all of Life, including her faith in God and her view of others, in the context of goodness and graciousness.  She made a commitment to that Vision.

In an undated diary entry written to Jesus, she wrote, “If this brings You glory — if souls are brought to you [because of my struggling with personal darkness and pain from not feeling your Presence] — with joy I accept all to the end of my life.”

TIME magazine, in August 2007, did a cover story titled, “Mother Teresa’s Crisis of Faith,” after her diary was published.  They told the story about her encounter in 1968 with the British writer-turned-filmmaker Malcolm Muggeridge who visited Teresa. Muggeridge had been an outspoken agnostic, but by the time he arrived with a film crew in Calcutta he was in full spiritual-search mode. Beyond impressing him with her work and her holiness, she wrote a letter to him in 1970 that addressed his doubts full-bore.  It was almost like she was talking to herself and describing her own journey of faith.

She wrote:  "Your longing for God is so deep and yet He keeps Himself away from you," she wrote. "He must be forcing Himself to do so — because he loves you so much — the personal love Christ has for you is infinite — The Small difficulty you have re His Church is finite — Overcome the finite with the infinite."

Muggeridge apparently did. He became an outspoken Christian apologist and converted to Catholicism in 1982. His 1969 film, Something Beautiful for God, supported by a 1971 book of the same title, made Teresa an international sensation.  And Mother Teresa apparently heeded her own advice - she walked through the darkness by overcoming the finite with the infinite.  She chose to maintain her faith in the God of her Beloved Jesus even when she couldn't feel the love.  She chose to give the Love anyway, in acts of profound self-forgetfulness and compassion, to those who needed it.

Faith as vision chooses to see the Whole of life in a very profound way – that Life is nourishing and life-giving, that God is gracious, even in the midst of not experiencing it that way all the time.  Because in the end, that vision is the most empowering for a life of compassion, giving, and unselfish serving and blessing to the world.  Faith isn’t just a matter of the head – believing certain propositional statements about God – faith is a matter of the heart – a deliberate choosing to allow your heart to trust, to have confidence, to be faithful and loyal to the best in Life – and yes, to believe (which before modern times literally meant to belove) – to believe that God is gracious – to belove God and to belove what God beloves.  That’s the kind of faith that produces an empowering and sustaining spiritual life!

So how’s your vision today?  How about joining me in the following personal prayer.

MY PRAYER:  “If Jesus were here in front of me today and asked me what I wanted, like the blind man, I would say, ‘Master, I want to see again!’  I confess there are times when I look at life through the lens of fear, anxiety, self-preoccupation and lack of confidence.  But today I choose to see the Universe as life-giving and nourishing.  I choose to see beauty and feel wonder and awe and gratitude for life.  I choose, God, to see you as gracious and compassionate.  I choose to be willing to live beyond myself, to spend and be spent for the sake of others.  I choose to live in freedom, joy, peace, and love.  O God, I want to see!  Amen.”

Developing A Faith That Works, 4: A Way of Seeing

[Please SHARE this blog with people who might be interested!  Hit the button on the right to subscribe or to share the post] In August of 2007 the New York Times reported that in her collection of letters, Come Be My Light, Mother Teresa (1910-97) confessed that for years she had harbored deep, troubling doubts about the existence of God, even as she worked tirelessly to relieve the pain and suffering of the sick and dying in Calcutta.

In one of her journal entries, she cried out, "Where is my Faith - even deep down right in there is nothing, but emptiness & darkness - My God - how painful is this unknown pain - I have no Faith - I dare not utter the words & thoughts that crowd in my heart - & make me suffer untold agony.  When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven - there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives & hurt my very soul. - I am told God loves me - and yet the reality of darkness & coldness & emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. Did I make a mistake in surrendering blindly to the Call of the Sacred Heart?"

Her honest confession evoked a wave of criticism.  Was she a hypocrite?  Had she been faking it all along?  Or was she, as atheists are now claiming triumphantly, simply a self-deluded person trying to have a faith in something that obviously doesn't exist?

But in the flood of public comments that followed the publishing of her diaries, a student named Krista E. Hughes made the most telling comment in a letter to the editor.  "Mother Teresa's life," she wrote, "exemplifies the living aspect of faith, something sorely needed in a society where Christian identity is most often defined in terms of what a person believes rather than how he or she lives.  Shouldn't it be the other way around?"

Krista Hughes speaks truth, and Mother Teresa illustrates that truth:  faith is not just about what you believe, whether you give mental assent to a propositional statement about what Reality is or isn't; faith isn't simply believing that God exists.  Faith is, as Harvey Cox (emeritus professor at Harvard Divinity School) in his book The Future of Faith puts it, "more a matter of embodiment than of axioms ... a way of life, a guiding compass ... the experience OF the divine displacing theories ABOUT it." And sometimes the experience of the divine is more an action in harmony with the Presence than a feeling of Presence (as Mother Teresa showed).

There were times Mother Teresa wasn't even sure God existed, at least for her.  But she continued living the Way of Love to the suffering and dying poor in Calcutta.  She continued the practice of compassion regardless of her doubts because of her love for Jesus not just her experience of Jesus.

That's why Jesus called himself "The way, the truth, and the life."  And to illustrate an experience of Jesus in this reality, his disciples were called followers of The Way.  Following Jesus meant walking the path of Jesus, the path of self-denial and unconditional compassion and justice.  Spiritual practices and disciplines emerged to help empower followers to walk this Way of Jesus.  Following that was known as a life of faith – a way of the heart, not just the head.

SO IN THIS SERIES, we've been taking a look at three words that are translated as "faith."  We're unpacking each word and exploring what it means and what the differing nuances suggest about developing a faith that works in real life, a faith that transforms life, a faith that defines ourselves and produces a rich and deeper experience of both God and Life.  It's a return to the core of what religion was always meant to facilitate but has too often lost along the way:  a transformation of the heart.  So far, we’ve looked at FAITH AS fiducia – trust, relaxed confidence, fidelitas – faithfulness, loyalty, allegiance.  The third word is visio.

Faith As Vision

The third Latin word for faith is visio which literally means “likeness, face, visage."  It's our English word for “vision.”  This is faith as a way of seeing – a way of seeing “what is,” of seeing the whole.  The Christian New Testament often connects faith with seeing a certain way.  H. Richard Niebuhr, a mid-twentieth century theologian, in his book The Responsible Self, speaks of the central importance of how we see the whole of what is, for how we see the whole will affect how we respond to life.  He describes three contrasting ways of seeing life and reality.  Notice the corresponding attitudes and responses to life with each life vision.

REALITY 1:  Life is hostile and Threatening.  Corresponding attitudes:  Paranoia; “None of us gets out of here alive”; Life is filled with threats to our existence.  Response to life is:  Defensive; Seek to build systems of security and self-protection to fend off hostile powers; God is our Judge - God is going to get us – unless we do the right things to secure His favor.

REALITY 2:  Life is indifferent.  Corresponding attitudes:  “What is” is simply indifferent to human purposes and ends and meanings; Universe is neither hostile to nor supportive of our lives and dreams.  Response to life is:  Less anxious and paranoid than the first vision; But still likely to be defensive and precautionary; We build up what security we can in the midst of an indifferent universe; Though we may enjoy times of rich aesthetic to life, ultimately, we are likely to be concerned primarily for ourselves and those who are most important to us.

REALITY 3:  Life is life-giving and nourishing.  Corresponding attitudes:  Sees reality as gracious; It has brought us and everything that is into existence; It is filled with wonder and beauty, even if sometimes a terrible beauty; Jesus’ theology:  God feeds the birds and lilies, clothes them; God sends rain on the just and unjust; God is generous.  Response to life is:  Faith as a radical trust in God; Frees us from the anxiety, self-preoccupation, and concern to protect the self with systems of security that mark the first two viewpoints; Leads to a “self-forgetfulness of faith and thus to the ability to love and to be present to the moment”; Generates a “willingness to spend and be spent” for the sake of a vision that goes beyond ourselves; St. Paul:  leads to a life of freedom, joy, peace, and love.

Niebuhr's point is that the way we see the whole radically impacts the way we live life.  Vision makes a transforming difference.  And since faith is about vision, how we see, the quality of one's faith directly affects the quality of one's life.  This is why Albert Einstein made the provocative observation, "The most important question you'll ever ask yourself is, Is the universe friendly?"  With all his scientific knowledge, along with his growing spiritual awareness, he began to put the two "worlds" together and realized that one's perspective on the universe and the cosmos and the Force behind and in it all was a hugely important issue.  Is Life, is God, is the Universe friendly or not?  That starting point affects everything.

But to develop a vision of reality as life-giving and nourishing is not to be naive or to turn a blind eye to the darker side of life.  Here's the way Marcus Borg summarized it:  “Niebuhr was no Pollyanna.  He knew about the Holocaust and all the terrible things that we are capable of doing to each other.  The point is not that reality is simply ‘nice,’ or that one can demonstrate that it is gracious.  Rather, the point is that how we see reality matters, for how we see ‘what is’ profoundly affects how we experience and live our lives.” Marcus Borg, The Heart of Christianity, p. 36

Faith then is a choice for how you want to see, what lens you want to look at life through.  As quantum physicists are saying these days, your perspective helps to create and shape your reality.  You end up seeing what you choose to see.  The depth and quality of your spirituality and faith is a lot about making choices about vision and sight and a view of reality.  And what you decide impacts what you experience.

So of the three realities Niebuhr describes, which do you tend to live in the most?  How has that impacted your life experience?  Do you see yourself as being able to change visions and lens?  Or are you simply stuck where you're at?  Are you living out of an expansive and liberating life view or a constricted and confining view?  Are you caught up in your own little world (preoccupied with self survival) or are you living life with a clear vision of the whole, an ability to live beyond yourself in loving response to others?  Or like many people, perhaps you're somewhere in the middle between those two poles, leaning toward one side or the other depending on your current life circumstances?

I'm amazed at Mother Teresa's honest recounting of her often painful spiritual journey.  But I'm also comforted.  I can relate to pieces of her journey.  Faith isn't about never doubting God or about never questioning or about having all the right answers.  Faith is about staying on the journey even in the midst of uncertainty, about hanging on even when you can't sense the divine.  And that comes from a certain vision, a way of choosing to look at life and what's most important.  Mother Teresa, though not feeling God's direct comforting presence, chose to hang on, continually addressed her journal to her Jesus,  expressed honestly her doubt and pain, and kept on working for the poor and suffering in the world anyway.  She chose to live compassionately as her highest value.  Which of the above 3 Realities was she choosing to see and live from?

In my next blog post, we'll look at an intriguing story from ancient scripture showing how these contrasting views of reality impact life experiences and how this Latin word for faith (visio) plays out.  Maybe you'll see your current faith journey illustrated somewhere in the story.  Stay tuned.

Developing A Faith That Works, 2: What Is Fidelity?

[Please SHARE this blog with people who might be interested!  Hit the button on the right to subscribe or to share the post] The word "faith," especially to Westernized Christians, has come to be seen as a primarily notional experience - having to do with what you think about God.  It tends to mean holding a certain set of "beliefs," believing a set of statements to be true, whether cast as biblical teachings or doctrines or dogma.  Your faith is judged by how much you believe and how accurate your beliefs are.  If you possess this "right" kind of faith, you're called a "believer."

As a result, this concept of faith as primarily an intellectual exercise has turned faith almost exclusively into a matter of the head, too often with disastrous results by heartless, nonloving "believers."

But significantly, that was not the central meaning and usage of the word "faith" in the history of human religion (including early Christianity).  As Karen Armstrong, in her powerful book The Case For God, states, "Religion was not primarily something that people thought but something they did ... Religion [from its very inception in human history] was always a practical discipline that teaches us to discover new capacities of mind and heart."

It was a way of being and living, not simply a way of thinking.  The stories and sacred scriptures of every religion emphasized the journey of heart and spirit in learning the sacred art of self-forgetfulness and compassion.  As a result, religions developed powerful rituals and practices that, if followed and wholeheartedly engaged in, would enable adherents to step "outside" their egos and experience the Sacred and Divine, empowering them to live more compassionately and unselfishly toward others.

For example, as Armstrong points out, the early Chinese Daoists (over 300 years before Jesus and the early Christian followers) saw religion as a "knack" primarily acquired by constant practice.  They, like the earlier Buddha and even Confucius, refused to spend lots of time speculating about the many metaphysical conundrums concerning the divine (as Buddha once said to a follower who constantly pestered with those kind of questions:  "You are like a man who has been shot with a poisoned arrow and refuses medical treatment until you have discovered the name of your assailant and what village he came from.  You would die before you got this perfectly useless information!").

Zhuangzi (c. 370-311 BCE), one of the most important figures in the spiritual history of China, explained that it was no good trying to analyze religious teachings logically.  He then cited the carpenter Bian:  "When I work on a wheel, if I hit too softly, pleasant as this is, it doesn't make for a good wheel.  If I hit it furiously, I get tired and the thing doesn't work!  So not too soft, not too vigorous.  I grasp it in my hand and hold it in my heart.  I cannot express this by word of mouth, I just know it."

Like the Chinese hunchback who trapped cicadas in the forest with a sticky pole and never missed a single one.  He had so perfected his powers of concentration that he lost himself in the task, and his hands seemed to move by themselves.  He had no idea how he did it exactly, but he knew only that he had acquired the knack after months of practice.  This "self-forgetfulness," Zhuangzi explained, was a "stepping outside" the prism of ego and experience of the sacred.  (from Armstrong, The Case For God, pp. xii-xiii, 23.)

No wonder Jesus, centuries later, reiterated this paradigm of spirituality and religious experience when he called his followers to "take up your cross and follow me."  He's not simply talking about believing in your head the right doctrines and the core truths.  He's talking about a "way" of living.  Referring to his own experience as the example for his followers, he said, "I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who is willing to give up his life in this world will keep it forever." John 12:24-25

Genuine faith is not just about your head, it's about your heart, it's about your journey, it's about life transformation that comes from self-forgetfulness and an experience with God the Sacred and the Divine.

SO IN THIS SERIES, we're taking a look at the four words that are translated as "faith."  We're unpacking each word and exploring what it means and what the differing nuances suggest about developing a faith that works in real life, a faith that transforms life, a faith that defines ourselves and produces a rich and deeper experience of both God and Life.  It's a return to the core of what religion was always meant to facilitate but has too often lost along the way:  a transformation of the heart.  In my last blog, we explored the 1^st word for faith, “fiducia,” from which we get our English word "fiduciary" (a person in whom we place our trust to protect our finances and estate).  So “trust," is the central definition, which in the realm of faith then conveys a profound kind of relaxed, solid, worry-free confidence in God as a power that can be trusted and relied upon to have our best interests in mind.

Today's word for faith is "fidelitas," which is the Latin word for "fidelity."  It literally means loyalty, faithfulness – originally referring to a vassal's loyalty to his Lord; a steadfast and devoted attachment that is not easily turned aside; constancy, steadfastness.  Faith as fidelity means loyalty, allegiance, the commitment of the self at its deepest level, the commitment of the “heart” to the experience of God not simply to statements about God.  A radical centering in God from your heart and soul not just your mind.  So what does that look like in real life terms?

There are two metaphors that the sacred scriptures use in describing our faith relationship with God that I'll unpack in my next blog post.  These metaphors describe what "fidelity" is NOT and so help to increase our understanding of what genuine faith as fidelity and loyalty is.  Stay tuned!

Spiritual Lessons From the Rainbow

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Don't you just love seeing rainbows?  There's something both ethereal and inspiring about them.  People get so excited when they see one in the sky, telling whomever's around, "Look!  There's a rainbow!  Over there, over there!  See it?"  And everyone strains their necks to get a glimpse of those spectacular colors in the sky.  It's almost as though seeing a rainbow brings some kind of unique gift to the observer (kind of like the proverbial treasure at the end of the rainbow).  And if you're really lucky, you might see a double rainbow sometime - double the luck or blessing. Rainbows have been centrally portrayed in art, literature, music, and sacred scriptures for millenniums.  For example, in John Everett Millais' 1856 oil painting he titled, "The Blind Girl," he used the rainbow - one of the beauties of nature that the blind girl cannot experience - to underline the pathos of her condition.  Notice how she sits there, totally incapable of seeing this double wonder of nature that the little girl in her lap is craning her neck to see and enjoy.  A rainbow is so powerfully evocative of life and hope, if you can't see one, you've missed a profound human experience.

In most religious cultures, the rainbow is a symbol of the divine presence, the bow of God, the brilliant light display of glory around God's throne.  So the rainbow evoked a kind of deep spiritual fervor and hope for a divinely blessed life.

And here's where this beautiful symbol and metaphor takes on expanded meaning.  Experts tell us that there are 7 basic colors to the light spectrum we see in the rainbow:  red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.  But in reality, as they point out, there are infinitely many wavelengths between 380 and 740 nanometers - the visible spectrum of light. That doesn't even count the different tints and shades obtained by mixing in white, black, etc. So, in truth, there is an infinite number of colors, if you look at it that way.

"The actual estimate for how many different colors the human eye can distinguish varies between one and ten million, depending on the reference which you consult. However, the perception of color varies from one person to another, so there can be no single number that is true for everyone. The number of different colors that you, as an individual, can distinguish also varies dramatically according to the conditions; it drops to zero in low light conditions, in which only the rod cells of the retina can function, as the cone cells of the retina are required for color vision." (Paula E. Burch, Ph.D.)

In other words, the whole color experience and reality of the light spectrum is about diversity, differences, innumerable options and shades and perceptions.  No one person sees it the same way.  And there's infinite variety in what can be seen.

So here's what we have with the rainbow:  a powerful universal symbol of Hope, of the divine presence and blessing, and of the amazingly rich diversity in the human experience.  Amazing, isn't it?  That which has always been a symbol for God is also a picture of infinite diversity.

Like sometimes happens when we end up missing the opportunity to see a rainbow because we're perhaps looking somewhere else or distracted by something else or simply not looking for one, could it be that we too often miss experiencing a profound divine blessing because we don't appreciate the rich diversity of life?  We don't see God in the midst of life's variety and infinite spectrum of life because we've boxed God inside boundaries that are in fact too limiting to the infinite God of life - boundaries of belief, boundaries of faith, boundaries of the way we think people should be like.   We allow ourselves to have such narrow expectations of ourselves, others, life, and even God and end up shrinking our souls a bit more and more as time goes by.  If spirituality involves the experience of the Sacred and Divine in all of life, then our spirituality is diminished by refusing to let God encounter us in the midst of the rich diversity and variety and differences inherent in the fabric of life all around us.  To experience diversity is to experience God.

So why would any one of us think we had the conclusive picture of reality and life?  Why would any one of us think that there's only one way to look at God, or there's any one religion or organization that speaks exclusively for God, or there's only a few ways to be human, or there's only one perspective on an issue, or that some people are better than others?  It's too much of a tendency for me to put people in boxes or to place my expectations on others, thinking they need to be more like me.  It's too easy for me to sometimes feel threatened by someone else's views or contributions or life, thinking that if they get away with their perspective, I'm diminished in some way - rather than embracing the truth that all of us are strengthened and deepened if we each are given the freedom and encouragement to be ourselves.  The very nature of life, as the rainbow so beautifully portrays, is the beauty and divinity of diversity.

No wonder William Wordsmith's 1802 poem "My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold the Rainbow" begins:

My heart leaps up when I behold

A rainbow in the sky:

So was it when my life began;

So is it now I am a man;

So be it when I shall grow old,

Or let me die!…

I love the passion for life he portrays.  He feels his heart "leaping up" when he sees the rainbow - he willingly enters into the joy of life, allowing himself to be ushered into the chambers of awe, wonder, mystery, and Spirit.  It's so valuable for him to experience this divine reality of life through the rainbow that if he can't have it, he would just as soon die.  Why go through life just trying to make it to death safely?  That's not living.  That's being dead already, even though the heart might be pumping and beating.  Wordsworth's reality is that life leaps for joy when it sees the rainbow - the depth and richness of life happen in the midst of variety and diversity and difference.

I want a deep and more joyful life, don't you?  So maybe we should open up the box more to include more, to appreciate and value more, to be aware of more, to experience more.  Maybe we should let God be more.  And then watch ourselves be surprised by the God of the rainbow!

Can Holiness Invade Your Office and Your Kitchen? Part 2

[If you're here at this Blog for the first time, click back and read Part 1 of this topic:  "Can Holiness Invade Your Office and Your Kitchen?"  It will fill out this post more meaningfully.] As I noted in my last blog post (see "Can Holiness Invade Your Office and Your Kitchen?  Part 1"), Dr. Susan Smalley, a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA, talks about the importance of developing a pervasive spirituality, where the sacred is seen and experienced as inherent to daily life.  She has discovered that this kind of spirituality has great impact on minimizing individual self-centeredness and increasing a deeper sense of personal well-being and compassion for others.

I love the way Brian McLaren, in his book Finding Our Way Again, describes the process of developing a pervasive spirituality.  He says that rather than simply trying so hard to practice our faith (which ends up only adding to our already over-filled To Do lists), we could be “Faithing our practices” - "embuing our normal [everyday] practices with meaning derived from faith.” It's about learning how to see Holiness in every part of our ordinary days.

The Jews do this with what they call "the blessing."  By giving a blessing for everything they encounter during the day, they are reminded of the sacredness of all of life because a Blessing isn't something that embues what is being blessed with goodness or God's presence.  A blessing is simply a tangible, intentional act of acknowledging the inherent Sacredness and Goodness in those things as gifts from God.  “The purpose of the ancient way and the ancient practices is not to make us more religious.  It is to make us more alive to God ... alive to [God’s whole world].” (McLaren)

The Hebrews in scripture also built altars of remembrances out of stones at places where they encountered the Sacred and Divine in meaningful ways.  Why put ordinary rocks on top of each other on the side of busy thoroughfares and even in out of the way places?  The point was that every time they saw them they could be reminded of God's activity in their lives.  They could tell each other the story of their encounter with God and remember that life is sacred and blessed.  Stone altars to help holiness pervade ordinary life.

I wear a ring that has a cross on it on the middle finger of my right hand.  It was a gift from my wife.  It's there as a constant reminder of my calling and life purpose.  Throughout the day, I'll feel it and look down and notice the cross and remember:  I am loved; I have a divine purpose; my life is a calling to live for God.  It's amazing how that thought, generated by a tangible symbol, suddenly transforms that moment into a sacred moment, a divine encounter, an embracing of God's continuing and pervasive presence in my life.

Last Saturday, at my Second Wind spiritual community, in the middle of our discussion on this topic, we engaged in what is called prayerwalking.  We all went outside and individually walked around the neighborhood community with the goal of  intentionally noticing what captured our attention.  We were to do several things:  1) What did we notice?   2) Offer a blessing on it.  3) Consider how it reflected God to us?  How was the Sacred revealed to us through it?  And 4) pause and be in the moment.  Then when we all returned to the room, we tried to capture our experience by jotting thoughts/reflections on paper, staying silent, staying in that Sacred Space.

When we debriefed the experience, it was astounding how much all of us described paying attention to life around us in new and meaningful ways.  There was a sense of sacredness we expressed feeling as we each walked around the blocks in such an intentional frame of mind.  The activity reminded us how something as simple as walking around with a different intention (an open, more "enlightened," purposeful mind) could contribute to a more meaningful spiritual experience and a greater receptiveness to life around us.  When you begin seeing all of life as sacred and spiritual, you look at it all very differently.

What symbols, reminders, tangible ways do you have to remember the Sacred and the Divine all through your day?  How are you decompartmentalizing your spirituality so that all of life is experienced as holy and sacred and thus more meaningful and purposeful?

I love the way Carrie Newcomer describes this in one of her songs, "Holy As A Day Is Spent":

holy is the dish and the drain the soap and sink, and the cup and plate and the warm wool socks, and the cold white tile showerheads and good dry towels and frying eggs sound like psalms with bits of salt measured in my palm it’s all a part of a sacrament as holy as a day is spent

holy is the busy street and cars that boom with passion’s beat and the check out girl, counting change and the hands that shook my hands today and hymns of geese fly overhead and spread their wings like their parents did blessed by the dog, that runs in her sleep to chase some wild and elusive thing holy is the familiar room and quiet moments in the afternoon and folding sheets like folding hands to pray as only laundry can i’m letting go of all my fear like autumn leaves made of earth and air for the summer came and the summer went as holy as a day is spent

holy is the place i stand to give whatever small good i can and the empty page, and the open book redemption everywhere i look unknowingly we slow our pace in the shade of unexpected grace and with grateful smiles and sad lament as holy as a day is spent

and morning light sings “providence” as holy as a day is spent

Perhaps every day life could be filled with a deeper sense of well-being and meaning if we intentionally saw the holiness in all of it?  Maybe we could close the HPI (Happy Planet Index) gap here in the States if we allowed our spirituality to pervade all of life, including our offices, our kitchens, and even the baby's play pen?  Want to join me in experimenting with this?

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Can Holiness Pervade Your Office and Your Kitchen? Part 1

I read recently about a person who discovered that he should drink 16 glasses of water a day. The next morning he brought to his office a large pitcher filled with water. Throughout the day that pitcher on his desk frequently reminded him of his need, and he'd pour another glass and drink. Overall, it was a positive experience—other than having to go to the bathroom 27 times in a period of eight hours. Remaining hydrated, he learned from that experience, requires intentionality. He had to stop periodically in the midst of his busyness, become aware of his body's need for liquid, and take a few moments to drink a glass of water.  It was amazing how helpful having that pitcher of water in front of him all day was to his intention of drinking more water. Intentionality is a huge piece of what makes people effective and successful - setting intentions and then determining a specific course of action to accomplish those intentions.  It applies to every area of life, right?  We intentionalize what we desire, what we can and what we have control over, and then hold it all with an open hand, recognizing that sometimes the best things that happen do happen as surprises.  However, intentionality is an important value.  And what helps our intentions become reality are the tangible reminders we put in front of ourselves regularly of what we're trying and wanting to do - finding ways to integrate our intentions with the rest of our lives.

Dr. Susan Smalley, a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA, posted an article in the Huffington Post last week in which she tries to understand some of the  reasons India ranks so much higher than the United States on the Happiness Index (especially considering the comparative massive economic disparity and rampant poverty in India).  The Happy Planet Index (whose most recent compilation came out in July 2009)  strips the view of the economy back to its absolute basics:  what we put in (resources), and what comes out (human lives of different length and happiness).  Its the first ever index "to combine environmental impact with well-being to measure the environmental efficiency with which country by country, people live sustainable, long and happy/meaningful  lives."  That's the way they define it.  The resulting global index of the 143 nations reveals some interesting comparisons.

So after just returning from her first trip to India, she reflects on her experience of its culture and posits a significant observation.  First of all, she defines spirituality as "a sense of connection to something larger than oneself."  And then, recognizing recent research that shows that spirituality positively impacts health and well-being, she describes her experience in India:

"In India this attention to spirituality is pervasive.  It is evident in every aspect of the culture - there is constant integration of reminders that we are part of something larger than the self ... in the shrines present on every street corner, sides of houses, roadside stops, hilltops, alleyways, back of tractor trailers, and beyond.  Shrines are big, small, colorful, bland, dedicated to Shiva, Ganesh, Hanuman, or thousands of other manifestations of our shared nature, to Hindus the manifestations of a Oneness or God or an Ultimate Reality.  It is evident in the pervasive Namaste - a greeting with hand folded in a prayer position accompanied by a bow that means something like 'I see the Oneness in you.'  It is evident in the pervasive 'bindi,' the smudge of color between the eyebrow - a reminder that we are part of something larger than the self - visible by a 'third eye' if you will … I am so impressed with the complete integration of spiritual development into daily life.  Being surrounded by constant reminders of our connectedness and dependent nature make emotions and actions stemming from self-centeredness more difficult to come by."

In contrast here in the West, we tend to compartmentalize our time for spiritual practice if we engage in any at all - once a week in spiritual gatherings, or a specific meditation time each day, or at religious Holidays, or prayer at meals.  Other than these moments, the rest of our lives is rarely surrounded by spiritual reminders or awareness.  Our passion to separate Church from State, our carefulness to maintain distinction and distance between the spiritual and the secular, has led to an overly heightened sense of individuality and independence and self-importance.  Our worldviews have gradually narrowed through the decades from cosmos to planet to nation to city to neighborhood to self, with whatever happening to self carrying the ultimate significance and importance.

This reality, suggests Dr. Smalley, helps to explain some of the difference between India and the U.S. on the Happiness Index - it's about how pervasive spirituality is in everyday life.

The point is, the journey of spirituality (and a corresponding sense of well-being and happiness) don't simply happen by chance.  It takes intentionality and thought and discipline.  It takes structuring our lives around tangible reminders of our connection "to something larger than ourselves."  It takes decompartmentalizing our lives and integrating spirituality into the flow of daily existence.  It means allowing the divine to incarnate itself into the fiber and fabric of our lives.  It means engaging in specific activities, tangible reminders, intentional words, visual - auditory - kinesthetic experiences.

So what would it look like to make spirituality a way of life for me?  What intentional ways do I build into my day to be reminded of transcendence?  How intentional are I about living life deeply and with greater awareness and enlightenment?

STAY TUNED TO PART 2:  What are some tangible ways to facilitate a more pervasive spirituality?

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Skyscrapers and the Human Spirit

Okay, I admit it - I'm drawn to cities ... always have been!  I was born and raised through my teenage years in Tokyo, at that the time the world's largest city.  Ever since then, whenever I go anywhere, I always want to get to the downtown of any city. Among many things, I especially love the skyline of huge, tall skyscrapers.  I love driving home to San Francisco across the Bay Bridge and seeing the massive skyline of downtown getting closer and closer, and then suddenly being right in the middle of it all, feeling awe, inspiration, wonder and excitement that I live here.  Is this weird?  I think I know why I love this, though.  Read on.

My interest obviously got piqued when I read about the world's tallest skyscraper officially opening way over in Dubai last month to a spectacular fireworks, laser, and water extravaganza choreographed to music.

The characteristics are quite impressive:  The Dubai Tower's 160-stories reach 2,716 feet.  It's so tall that it's visible from 60 miles away, reports say, and the temperature drops 6 degrees from base to peak. Winds at the top can reach 90 miles an hour. The highest floor offers views of Iran. Its elevators will travel the world's longest distance, operating a speeds of up to 22 mph. Its nightclub on the 143rd floor is the world's highest; above it, on floor 158, the world's highest mosque.

The skyscraper is not only a testament to engineering and architectural genius but also to a bold and courageously counter-intuitive vision that gave birth to the original idea.  Phil Anderson, managing director of Economic Indicator Services, an economic forecasting service based in London, blogged recently about the beginning of this modern phenomenon:

"Bradford Lee Gilbert designed and built the very first so-called skyscraper in 1887 as a way of tackling a client's unusually shaped six-and-a-half meter plot on Broadway in New York. The solution was to build an iron bridge truss, but stand it on end so that the real structure of the building started several stories above the curb - producing the best design to maximize occupancy and rentals.

New York's press ridiculed the idea. Fellow architects pronounced the building unsafe. Building experts said it would blow over in the wind, if it ever got off the ground. New Yorkers themselves were aghast at the notion of a building that would tower above their side-walk to a height of 160 feet. A fellow engineer and friend begged Gilbert to abandon the idea, pointing out that if the building really did fall over, his legal bill would ruin him. Lawyers confirmed this.

But Gilbert knew better, arguing that the building's structure, with wind bracings from top to bottom, meant that the harder the wind blew, the safer it would actually become. To put the matter to rest Gilbert requested the top two floors of the new building for his offices.  And the rest, of course, is history."

I'm always in awe of people who have a vision to do something that is often ridiculed or thought impossible, a vision that is counter-intuitive to conventional wisdom, a vision that takes boldness and courage to live out.  When those visionaries refuse to give up, when they build their dreams based upon their best research and understanding and end up producing something transformational, the world is left a little bit better for it.  Little did Lee Gilbert know the global legacy he was leaving because of his act of courage and vision!

One of the things I love doing is walking into San Francisco's downtown financial district, right into the middle of that urban forest of monolithic, giant trees.  I crane my neck and allow my eyes to follow the path straight up to the top of the skyscrapers.  Especially when those tall glass-encased structures, glimmering in the sunlight, stand against a dark blue sky, the feelings I get every time are a mixture of awe, wonder, and hope.  There's an instant elevating of my inner spirit and passion for life.  Almost a sense of transcendence ... in the midst of the hubbub of activity and life all around me.

Interestingly enough, ancient cathedrals were designed to evoke similar emotions - the human spirit was being led to look up toward the divine as a person's eyes followed the upward lines toward the tops of the spires and high, vast ceilings.  A place where the divine and human meet.

That's the way I feel when I'm in the middle of our urban glass "cathedrals" in downtown.  I realize that I'm in direct contact with the amazing human spirit of creativity and vision and skill that put these buildings first on paper and then on the streets.  It's awe inspiring to me when I think of everything that went into making these dreams reality.  All of this helps explain why I love being right in the middle of big city downtowns.

Skyscrapers are by design symbols of the willingness to break normal limits, their peaks pointing to the limitless sky of possibility.  Their existence stands as monuments to courage and boldness in the face of ridicule and doubt.  In some ways, they're our urban cathedrals for the elevation of the human spirit toward the divine life of creativity and possibility.

I want to challenge myself and all of us urban dwellers to embrace skyscrapers this year as one of our symbols of hope and courage.  As we each forge into new territory, I want to live a life of possibility, I want to keep dreaming and planning and working to help make the world a better place.  I want to create sanctuaries of hope, where people's inner spirits are elevated and drawn to transcendence, where bigger dreams are dreamed, and profound transformations take place, even when others might ridicule or doubt.  And I want to be a part of a community that helps others embrace their highest possibilities, too.

Hey, here's a great idea:  maybe we should all take a trip over to Dubai to soak up some of Brad Gilbert's inspirational legacy.  If you book me a ticket, I'll fly over there with you!  Or just as good for me, come on over to San Francisco and we'll take my favorite walking tour through downtown together ... and see what happens to our spirits.