The Laws of Subtraction--Inserting Space Between the Notes of Your Life

When I went shopping last week for my wife's Christmas gift, I realized something important about me (and, it turns out, about a lot of us).  I walked into one clothing store and was immediately assaulted by the endless racks of clothes--they're hanging on the walls, standing on the floors, piles everywhere.  The picture on the right is what I see when I walk into any clothing store!

The way clothing stores are being set up these days, it reminds me of airplanes--more and more seats with less and less leg room and aisle width.  I stood there for a few moments glancing around the massive store with its seemingly infinite variety--and to be honest, I got overwhelmed.  Too many choices.  I just didn't have enough head space and bandwidth, not to mention patience, to start rummaging through every rack.  I didn't even know exactly what I was looking for, which made the variety of choices even more paralyzing.

So as a shopper in those moments, I always resort to the easy way:  looking for the mannequins--I have to see complete outfits.  As a visual person, mannequins are my best friends in navigating so many choices.  So I walked around surveying all of the mannequins and never saw anything I liked.  I left.

I went into a smaller store in the mall, and in a few minutes, I saw a complete outfit hanging out in plain view, and I liked it.  Very much.  And 40% off helped make the decision easier.  In a matter of minutes I was standing in the check out line, excited with my purchase and hardly able to wait Christmas Eve for my wife to try it all on.

We live in an age of excess and choice--an overabundance of both.  And spirituality isn't immune from this challenge.  There are so many options available to explore.  We're inundated with books, DVDs, CDs, seminars and workshops, religious organizations trumpeting their truths, nonprofits vying for our attention to support their good causes, all describing different ways of believing, thinking, and acting.  Our temptation is to either ignore all of these options (we're too overwhelmed, not enough bandwidth to consider everything) or to simply keep adding to our lives--after all, it's all good, right?  We can never have too much good in our lives, can we?

But the truth is, we cannot live our lives based only on the law of addition.  Effective spirituality is as much about subtraction as it is about addition.

In his book The Laws of Subtraction, author Matthew E. May makes the observation that "at the heart of every difficult decision lie three tough choices:  What to purse versus what to ignore.  What to leave in versus what to leave out.  What to do versus what to don't.  I have discovered that if you focus on the second half of each choice--what to ignore, what to leave out, what to don't--the decision becomes exponentially easier and simpler...This is the art of subtraction:  when you remove just the right thing in just the right way, something good usually happens."  (p. xii)

I think he's dead on!  All spiritual traditions consequently emphasize this significant principle and provide practices and ways to learn this art of subtraction.  The season of winter is often used as a time to reflect on this second half of the equation:  What do I need to let go of in my life?  What isn't serving me any more that I should release?  What do I need to de-clutter in order to make room for the new?  What am I holding on to too tightly that might be keeping me from spiritual growth and renewal?

We were not created with infinite head space or bandwidth.  We cannot be healthy spiritually or otherwise if we only live by the laws of addition or even attraction.  We are called to take the counter-intuitive approach from time to time to learn the art of subtraction.

So what space are you creating in your life to have this intentional reflection and self-evaluation?  The new year is a perfect time for this experience.

For these reasons, I have developed a cycle of three weekend retreats for 2013, starting January 25-26, to carve out this significant personal space for these reflections.  This first of the three weekends will be stepping into the law of subtraction.  Winter.  Letting go.  De-cluttering.  Making room for the new.  Healthy spirituality necessitates spiritual subtraction.

I invite you to consider participating in these retreats starting next month.  Here is the link for the details.  Feel free to pass it along to friends and family.  https://www.gregorypnelson.com/Retreats.php.  The deadline for the early bird discount is in 48 hours, and it's limited to just 20 people, so check it out soon.  I would love to have you experience this transformational journey.

One of my favorite classical composers is Claude Debussy.  I still enjoy playing "Claire de Lune" on the piano.  Debussy once wrote, "Music is the space between the notes."

If you know his music, you know that he is a master at spacing--intervals--when no sound exists--even if only briefly.  That silence and space between the notes serve to enhance the musicality and power of the notes.  Imagine listening to a pianist or vocalist (or even speaker, for that matter--I've endured too many of them) who never stops--they play/sing/speak incessantly--with no breaks--no silence--no pause.  How do you feel or react?  It's simply exhausting, isn't it?  Overwhelming.  Easy to ignore and tune out.  Our bandwidth gets used up before they're even done so we check out.  Effective composing is not just adding more notes to be played without rest or pause.  It's learning how to subtract strategically, thoughtfully, emotionally.

I encourage you as you face a new year to give yourself the profound and transforming gift of subtraction.  Carve out sacred space to reflect on what needs to be let go of, ignored, left out in your life.  Create more space between the notes of your life.  Engage in this difficult, counter-intuitive, but I guarantee you, rewarding work of making room for what is yet to come.

Dr. May has it right:  When you remove just the right things in just the right way, something good always happens."

A Spirituality Around Springtime and Butterflies

[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.] This last Saturday, the topic at my spiritual community's service was how Springtime is considered by almost every major religious tradition as a sacred portal to experiencing God and opening one's self up to deep personal and spiritual growth.  Spring is a time of year that many consider a "thin place" - an opportunity to have the curtains of our hearts and minds pulled back a bit to provide us meaningful glimpses of and encounters with the Sacred.

"Spring naturally makes us see the renewal of life," writes the Rev. Jerry Hirano whose Buddhist tradition celebrates the festival Ohigan during the spring and fall equinoxes. "It makes us appreciate the circle of life, so to speak. We see that even in the harshest of winter, there is rebirth, renewal. One naturally follows the other."

I'm especially thankful for this reality.  It reminds me that life has seasons to it - that's a natural part of life for every living thing.  So when my life feels like it's in a deep dark winter, where nothing significant seems to be happening, where it doesn't feel like my life is growing or that I'm making a difference in any tangible or visible ways, spring will come!  The Creator God has structured life to be that way - the cycle includes both times of apparent desolation when things seem to go into hibernation, as well as times of new life, new birth, growth and transformation and productive activity.

One of the profound illustrations of this in nature is the butterfly's cycle of life.  It's called metamorphosis.  That's a Greek compound word, meta - change, plus morph - form, literally meaning change in form or transformation. When you take a look at the butterfly's metamorphosis, you can't help but notice not only how intentional but also how important every step of the journey is.  Transformation involves every phase of the cycle.  Here's a short trip back to your high school biology class (remember those good 'ole days?  Look how much has "metemorphed" since then - thankfully!).

The butterfly's metamorphosis involves four stages:

Stage one:  Egg

One thing worth mentioning here is that, female butterflies are very choosy about the plants they would want to lay their eggs on. The reason is that the caterpillar has to survive by munching away the leaves of this plant. For instance, the female Monarch butterfly would prefer to lay eggs only on milkweed plants. This is because the caterpillars of this variety of butterflies can feed only on this plant. Similarly, each variety of butterflies has its preference when it comes to laying it egg. Laying of eggs commences the first phase of butterfly metamorphosis. The underside of the leaves is where you find the butterfly eggs. These are white in color and are very small. It takes almost a week for the eggs to hatch. The larva develops inside the egg and nourishes on the yolk of the egg. Finally, they make a small hole in the egg and emerge on the leaf. Here the second stage begins.

Stage two:  Larva

The larva of the butterfly is called caterpillar. This is the second phase of the metamorphosis. Initially the caterpillars are very small and hardly weigh 0.55milligrams. The length of the caterpillar is merely 0.1 inch. However, the caterpillar grows fast feeding on the leaves. In two weeks they become an adult caterpillar. Now the size of the caterpillar is around 2 inches. This is a very interesting stage. The adult caterpillar has eight pairs of legs. As the caterpillar grows longer it outgrows its skin. It sheds the skin. This process is called as molting. In this stage of butterfly metamorphosis, caterpillar molts its skin around five to six times. The fully-grown adult caterpillar, starts crawling away from the plant it was feeding on and keeps crawling till it finds a safe haven to pupate. Once the caterpillar finds a place to pupate, it makes a silk-like mat on the surface and hangs upside down. The last pair of legs is attached to the silk-like mat. It hangs for one whole day like this and takes the shape of the alphabet "J". Caterpillar sheds its skin for the last time before it moves into the next stage of butterfly metamorphosis.

Stage three:  Pupa

When the larva enters the third phase, it has already shed its eight pairs of legs and the head capsule, which had housed six eye lenses. The skin of the caterpillar is shed for the final time and the casing takes the color of jade. This casing is called chrysalis. Though initially chrysalis is soft gradually within an hour it hardens to form a protective shell. Within the chrysalis the caterpillar slowly turns into a butterfly. There is a transformation taking place within the pupa. The body parts of the caterpillar disintegrate to form the body parts of the butterfly. The transformation period of chrysalis to butterfly takes around 10 to 15 days.

Stage four:  Adult

The hardened chrysalis cracks and the butterfly emerges from it. The wings of the butterfly are small and wet. It clings onto the shell of the chrysalis. At this juncture, a life-saving fluid known as hemolymph is pumped into the body of the butterfly. Hemolymph spreads slowly throughout the body and the wings. This crucial spreading is assisted by the struggle of the butterfly to emerge from its small cocoon opening.  This helps in enlarging the wings and the body of the butterfly. Remember that the wings are wet and the butterfly is unable to fly. However, within an hour the wings become dry and the butterfly is ready to fly and ultimately to mate and start the cycle all over again.

Some Lessons

Did you notice not only how intentional but also how important every step of the butterfly's journey is?  Metamorphosis / transformation involves every phase of the cycle not just the final stage of adulthood.  Here are a few lessons:

• Everything has its place, its reasons and purpose, its timing.
• Everything is provided for the butterfly in each stage to experience optimum health and growth for that stage - whether from its own DNA code written into its make-up or from external support systems.
• Nothing is wasted (notice the effective recycling that takes place).
• In order for growth and transformation to take place, multiple "sheddings" (or molting) have to happen.  It's amazing how difficult this step is to humans - we have a tough time letting go of something we've clung to at certain stages.  But if the caterpillar never molted, it would never continue transforming.  In fact, did you notice that it even drops its 8 pairs of legs and its head capsule with its six eye lens?  Does that mean it will never walk or see again?  No.  Its final body will be for a different purpose - it won't be crawling anymore, it will be flying.  So it will need 6 legs and 2 wings and 2 antennae.  And eyes?  The adult butterfly has 2 eyes with 6000 eyelets or ommatidia in each eye. An ommatidia is like an eye within an eye. It actually divides the eyes in the shape of a disco ball which helps the butterfly to locate things easier. They work like the pixels of a camera.
• So with each new stage, new systems and structures are needed for the newly developed form because each form has a new purpose with new needs.  And before the new structures and systems are in place, the old ones have to be shed and let go of.
• Crisis, difficulty is an inherent part of the transformational cycle.  The emerging butterfly with its new wings has to go through the small opening in order for the hemolymph to get spread to all parts of its body and wings.  Cut the opening wider so the butterfly doesn't have to work as hard to emerge and it is damaged irreparably, never able to fly, its death hastened.

In my next post, I'll talk about how this metamorphosis process applies to our spirituality and personal development.  Stay tuned!

A man once asked God for one thing – something to add beauty to his small potted garden. So God presented him with an ugly, prickly cactus plant and a wrinkled up, alien-looking caterpillar. The man was surprised, because he had asked for one thing and God gave him something else. After many days, the cactus bloomed with spectacular flowers and in the place of the caterpillar, there was a beautiful and stunning butterfly.

God seems to know what metamorphosis and genuine transformation are all about.  I'm discovering that the process of life for me is more and more about learning how to trust God's wisdom for life, and how to trust the process and the journey.  This Spring is a good time to embrace this kind of Life.

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?