Many of us struggle with questions of livelihood. What are we drawn to do? Where is the place where our passion meets the world’s need? Can we both make a living and make a meaningful difference? Is it possible for us to do good and do well? For more and more of us, work is where we put our spiritual life into practice. We may face expectations of availability around the clock. We may feel pressure to perform more and more... Read more
We see ourselves as the masters of our own schedules. We can adjust our time commitments on all our devices with the touch of a fingertip. Whether working or taking a trip, we try to make our time as productive as we can. We try to squeeze more things into our schedules in an effort to squeeze more out of them. Time is money, and we want ours to be as profitable as possible. The monks I know have a different system of time management with other... Read more
We believe in the power of holding on tight. We surround ourselves with things we have accumulated, grasping them poignantly. We hold onto artifacts of our lives, treating them like memories. We believe life is the sum total of what we have acquired. We measure ourselves by the friends, lovers, information, experiences, property we have amassed. We think the more we hold, the richer, fuller, better our lives become. We treat life like a bank account, and spend our time buying things.... Read more
Lots of people have taught me a wide variety of lessons. I am not sure I have ever learned anything I did not learn from another person. Parents and siblings, teachers and preachers, coworkers and friends, people have taught me. I have learned from some people by listening to them, or by reading what they have written. Each person who has taught me anything has helped shape who I am and what I do. One kind of person has taught me... Read more
Spiritual life is more than a feeling, more than an idea, more than how we see the world. We do more than experience spiritual life. We put spiritual life into practice. Our spiritual practices do not make us better people, more deserving of love. We do not practice spiritual life to earn rewards or punishments. We practice spiritual life to try to see what we could only yet imagine. We practice spiritual life to find intimate connections to deep, immense truths. When... Read more
Some people believe they have earned the right to be leaders. Some are confident our experience or our education means we deserve to be leaders. Some of us think we have inherited leadership from our ancestors. Some people see themselves as having the personality or the ambition it takes to be a leader. Some of us understand our leadership as coming from planning, or communication, or vision. Some people want to lead by tapping into primal emotions, or by making... Read more
I spent more than my usual share of time this week in waiting rooms. I generally do not enjoy waiting, though I am becoming more willing to practice patience. Rooms which are specifically intended for waiting often have specific hazards designed into them. I have learned to avoid watching anything that might be on a television, especially in the morning. The magazines often leave much to be desired. You can meet some very interesting people while waiting. I tend to play with... Read more
Every so often, we need to look behind things and give our leadership a thorough cleaning. There are boxes we need to open and move around, trying to remember why we have them. We may have received gifts, and have forgotten why we kept them. There may be things we have put away because, “you never know when we might need that.” We may have held onto something that no longer works, thinking “I will get around to fixing that someday.” We may... Read more
Some people appear to believe spiritual life is all about getting things. We may pray to receive specific objects, as if God were like a celestial Amazon or Netflix. We would love to have a new car or move into a different house, and we pray to obtain it. We begin to see spiritual life as like Santa Claus, giving us good gifts. We may try to bargain with God to give us more so we have better things to give away.... Read more
People, especially people interested in leadership, like having a plan. Many people want to be able to understand everything, to have all their questions answered in advance. They want a predictable, easy to remember set of steps to turn themselves into great leaders. They do not ever want anything unexpected to surprise them. Some people ask me about different academic programs, or about the books they should read. I went to school for a long time, studying law, leadership, and administration. I read books... Read more
Strategic Monk
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