Rules of Life - as lived by a friend

In 2002 I worked on temporary assignment for a crackerjack manager.  She was bright, funny, effective.

Our team worked long hours together.  She was the one who took responsibility for solving problems and finding solutions.  By the way she lived, she taught wonderful life-lessons.  I wrote them down one day before the assignment ended.  Here’s what flowed from my fingers to the keyboard. 

• If it’s at all important, pray first.
• Pray first, Pray often.  Pray always. 
• If something doesn’t feel quite right, pause, step back.  Don’t proceed with anything that feels mushy.  Pray about it.
• Act on your intuitions.
• Be quick in obeying your highest sense of right.  If a direction or a conversation suddenly seems not quite right, don’t ignore that intuition.  Take control and move graciously in a right direction.
• Praise first, praise often, praise generously, praise exuberantly.  Praise whenever you can.  Find the good, and build on that.
• Support your team consistently. Publicly praise individuals.  Privately discuss needed improvements.
• Recognize incursion of evil and don’t tolerate it.
• Forgive and forget.  Move forward.
• Recognize your own shortcomings.  Be willing to apologize.
• Have fun.  Be fun.  Laugh often.  Laugh rather than cry.
• Laugh at yourself a lot.  Keep your jokes gentle.  Never joke, even a little, at someone else’s expense.  Use clever wit that uplifts.
• Keep your joy spontaneous.  Expect good from every direction.  Deny evil power, presence, activity.
• When you’ve worked long and hard all day, take a break.  Put on some good music and dance!
• Pray before speaking.  Keep your tongue a servant to kindness.
• Don't criticize.  Pray for the right wording to present criticism in a constructive way, so that it doesn’t even sound like criticism.
• Don’t personalize evil ever.
• Don’t argue.  Either contribute a constructive idea (perhaps through a carefully crafted question), or be quiet and pray.
• Keep your goals in focus.  Recognize and resist distractions.  Tangents, even worthy ones, are time-wasters if they do not immediately support the goal at hand.  Move them to another time, or eliminate them.
• Be willing to help.  Also see clearly when appropriate help lies in another direction, and point that direction.  Be firm on not getting involved when it is inappropriate.
• Don’t be wishy-washy.  Make your best decision at the time.  Be flexible and willing to change direction as new information comes to light.
• Go for the big picture.  Comprehending the big picture helps you make intelligent decisions.
• Be thorough in a project.  Pay attention to detail.  Every detail.  Assume nothing.
• Don’t get into the dream.  Life is not a burden, but a joy.  If you feel a burden you are in the dream.  Get out of the dream.  Refuse to be part of somebody else’s dream.
• Don't react even when reaction seems justified.  Stay quiet and pray   Find God’s power and strength.  You don’t always have to say something.  Your strength may be in active silence, in letting others feel you have listened.
• Stay humble by staying close to divine Love.

Hubble finds crowd in empty space

Logic insists on reasons for doing, or not doing, something.

Intuition is not logic. Listening to our intuition can help us avoid danger; can help us be in the right place at the right time to recognize a blessing or to be a blessing; helps us make surrendipitous discoveries.

Have you ever followed your intuition, even when it went counter to all logic? And were glad you had?

That's what Scientists did with Hubble when they pointed it at a blank area in outer space -- just to see if possibly anything was there.

Letting go of the controls

Sometimes just knowing you have done

your best is your reward.

Ever stayed in the right place too long? And at some point it just doesn’t feel like the right place any more?

I remember having worked hard at a career until I felt I was doing a really good job. Then after some years I kept having an intuition that it was time to move on to something else.

I didn’t listen because there weren’t enough details. We want all the details first, don’t we? Then we want to decide whether we like them. We want to be in control.

In this case, I realized eventually that it was right to move on. But it was not as smooth or easy as it would have been, had I danced graciously with those early intuitions.

Since then I have seen countless others in the same boat – staying in a relationship, career, volunteer position that they have outgrown, that just isn’t blessing them any more.

And it always causes rejoicing when these folks realize that the “unknown” future has turned out to be much happier than the “familiar” circumstances they were clinging to. The adage, “Better the devil you know, than the one you don’t,” is not necessarily good advice.

And one thing is sure – if what we are doing isn’t blessing us, it isn’t blessing anyone else. And vice-versa – if it isn’t blessing others, it is not blessing us.

Change involves a certain amount of trust in a higher intelligence as one who has our best interests at heart. A lot of trust, in fact, because lack of details pushes our anxiety button. It’s the control thing again.

The motives have to be right. A move must not be out of anger, frustration, or revenge. But rather because of this little voice that tells us we have given all we can. A quiet kind of, "My work here is done," message.

We can leave graciously what we have outgrown, and ask God, Elohim, Allah – whatever we call the higher power in our lives – to show us our next steps. To show us where we can be a blessing, and also be blessed. Where we can contribute our considerable talents for the common good, and find the ability to meet our legitimate obligations.

A simple willingness to let the Mind of the universe control the details of our lives is a great stress reliever. Anyone who hasn't tried this kind of yielding lately, might want to consider it.

In the collective experiences of all those I can recall, the details do unfold. And they are consistently very good.

A tale of two vendors

Innocent looking panel box -

but something needed fixing.

Condo living is great. Somebody else is responsible for shoveling the snow, cutting the grass, raking the leaves.

However, there is a lot that goes on behind the scenes. What's behind the scenes is called the condo board, elected volunteers who connect with the management company and the vendors and make sure things continue running smoothly.

In one of our buildings, the alarm panel that automatically alerts the fire department in case of emergency, malfunctioned. The state requires that panel to function properly. So the fire sprinkler inspection people came out and checked their equipment and said everything was working fine. Therefore, it must be the telephone people's responsibility.

The phone company technicians came out and tested their equipment. Everything worked properly, they said.

It was back to the fire sprinkler inspection vendor. They came out again and confirmed their equipment was fine. Back to the phone company, and so on. Would you believe, for months?

Solutions are not supposed to be this complicated.

So, what exactly wasn’t working, and who could find it and fix it?

Since I was the contact for these vendors, I finally realized (better late than never!) I’d better pray about this puzzle. My prayer went something like this: Dear Father, You are Mind itself, infinite intelligence, and it is your loving nature to meet every human need. It’s a human need to comply with state regulations, and I don’t know what to do next. But you do. So I am ready to hear what it is you want me to do.

It came to me to call the sprinkler inspectors again, and talk to Brad, the service manager. Brad wanted very much to solve this lingering problem. So he sent a technician who came armed with 30 years' experience. He studied the alarm panel parts carefully and then asked an out-of the-box question for a sprinkler inspector. “Where is your phone equipment?”

In that room he opened a box to find a little rectangular green module that connects the alarm panel to the phone lines. He ran some tests on that little rascal, discovered a bad wire, replaced it and, quick as a bunny, the alarm panel was back on-line. We were connected and in compliance – for the first time in months.

Did prayer make a difference? I believe it did. Because phone calls without prayer had, for months, solved nothing. Phone calls after honest prayer resulted in a quick and permanent solution. As I see it, the successful technician was inspired to push the boundaries of where to find what needed fixing.

Hurray! Or as a dear friend often cheers, sincerely, "Yea God!"

Finding the harmony within

The joy of

harmony on horseback

Animal trainer Vicki Hearne writes about her experience in restoring difficult horses, horses mistrained so badly their views on life and sometimes people have soured.

Her goal, if I understand her correctly, is to connect with the beauty and honesty the horses inherently know is true about themselves, but that has been buried by confusing signals from humans.

She explains her ability to adapt to the needs of a particular animal -- she knows how to meet each where it is.

Hearne describes a beautiful young mare who reacted murderously to sweet-talk and touching. So the woman had to find another way to communicate.

The form her respect and love (my term, not Hearne's) took was unorthodox, but communicated so clearly to the horse that in four days that same animal ambled up to a picnic table in the pasture and allowed a total stranger to scratch her neck.

Another family came after a week to check on the progress of their troubled horse. As they waited at the fence, they failed to recognize the docile animal loping along under saddle as theirs.

In her book, "Adam's Task," Hearne says, "As it happens, I never encountered a horse in whose soul there was no harmony to call on, though I have thought about giving up more than two or three times. I believe in such horses..." (P. 146)

At this point I'm going to make a huge leap that Hearne might not. That is to say that she was honoring the inner majesty and nobility of her client's animals, much as Christ Jesus showed his respect and love for the inner majesty and nobility of the sick, the scrabblers, and the sinners who crossed his path longing for their genuine life-purpose and life-meaning.

He saw God's man -- whole, useful, generous, caring, intelligent -- right where the rest of the world saw the lame and blind, lowlife and sinners. Where people were willing to connect with that good God who loved them, and discover their inseparability from this infinite goodness, there was healing and transformation.

Sometimes a blessing followed, "Go in peace." Occasionally a solution for making the transformation permanent followed, "Go and sin no more."

Eddy writes, "Whatever is governed by God, is never for an instant deprived of the light and might of intelligence and Life."

I believe Hearne works her transformations from the basis of this intelligence as a constant in her equine clients.

I believe Jesus also lived and healed from the basis of this Principle in his daily encounters.

You and I can find the spiritual intelligence from God active in our lives as well, that allows us to recognize and draw it out in others.

Saying "No!" to doubt - over and over

Sometimes good listening pushes us way out of our comfort zones, out of our comfortable little habits. Sometimes we just can’t afford to doubt. Alan’s 9th birthday party was Sunday noon, and I was bringing the cake.

Only problem was that I realized with dismay – on the way to a Christmas party Saturday evening – that I hadn’t ordered a cake, nor baked one. What to do?

Previously I might have wasted a lot of time condemning my inattention to this important detail. But one great lesson God has been teaching me is to bypass the blame game, and get on to the solution. So instead of self-recrimination, there was just a simple, “Father what should I do?” Should I skip church in the morning, and buy ingredients for a quick cake?

The answer that came was, “See if you still have that carrot cake mix you bought recently.”

So I enjoyed the Christmas party, came home and there in the pantry were the needed supplies. Doubt asked, “Does Alan even like carrot cake?”

Rebuke to doubt: "Be quiet!"

I followed my intuition and went ahead and baked a 13 x 9 flat cake.

Doubt asked, “Not even a traditional layer cake?”

Rebuke to doubt: "Hush!" This cake saga became even more unusual, as I cast about for decorations for the blank looking cream cheese frosting.

The thought came, “Let Alan decorate it.” Doubt asked, “Let Alan decorate his own cake? That he may not even like?”

Rebuke to doubt: "Go away!"

So I stopped after church at a grocery store, and found decorating supplies. Alan and younger brother Lee were at the other Grandma’s when I arrived at their house. Doubt asked, “So the boy isn’t even here. Now what?”

Rebuke to doubt: "I am not listening to you!"

Other Grandma and boys showed up shortly in good spirits. Fast forward. Alan, totally engaged, uses a skewer to outline a Calvin in the frosting, then fills in the outline with decorative colors, encouraged by great grandma and great grandpa.

Little brother comes over and is impressed; asks to help place the candles. Mom takes photos. Everyone praises the artist. In short what started out as a catastrophe becomes a happy success.

The apostle Paul was speaking of much more serious matters when he wrote to his fledgling church in Rome,

“Moreover we know that to those who love God,
who are called according to his plan,
everything that happens fits into a pattern for good.”
(Phillips)

I believe this applies to the minutiae of daily life too. If we are doing our best to know how to please God and love our fellow man, He/She is there for us in the details as well.

But we do have to say "NO!" to doubt. As many times as it takes.

Doing the right thing

Chicago transportation - many alternatives

Today I attended an all-day seminar on “The Social Media Revolution.” Very cool insights on the role of blogs and podcasts within an organization.

But that’s not what this piece is about. This is about doing the right things.

I had learned through an email that Bill was signed up for this seminar too and, amazingly, he lives not far from me. I don’t get excited about driving into Chicago, especially during rush hours. Bill had received the same email, so, "Aha," I thought, "Perhaps he’ll offer to drive."

He didn’t. Two days before the meeting it occurred to me to offer him a ride (and then maybe he would offer to drive). Since I’m trying really hard to listen to what I call “angel messages,” those intuitions from God that guide us safely and wisely, I emailed Bill and offered to pick him up.

He accepted – but did not offer to drive. In fact, he needed a ride. It turns out that he is very familiar with side streets into and out of Chicago, and he had a great route for us that avoided the gridlock of the expressways. Because of his newspaper writing background, he shared a wealth of Chicago history unknown to most folks.

He also told me about parking at Midway Airport's CTA lot and taking the Orange line into the city – something he has done often. I was grateful to learn about this practical alternative.

From time to time I’ve noticed that God helps me do the right things – in this case taking the initiative to offer Bill a ride -- in spite of my own line of (well, yes, sometimes self-centered) reasoning.

Speaking of doing right things, I remember hearing how my grandfather came upon a car accident beside the road. Think 1930s. He stopped to help and discovered someone pinned underneath. He should not have been able to physically do this, but Walter was able to lift the car, so the injured person could be pulled to safety.

As I see it, there’s a lot God can do with an honest heart.

Do not forget that an honest, wise zeal,
a lowly, triumphant trust, a true heart,
and a helping hand constitute man,
and nothing less is man or woman.
Mary Baker Eddy