in belief we trust

People trust their beliefs, whether they’re actually true or not.

To believe in something requires only an intellectual agreement with the perceived facts – produced from one’s knowledge. To fully trust in something requires an authentic emotional connection with the source - producing one’s truth.

While we may applaud someone’s strong beliefs and heartfelt convictions (their truth), we have to connect to the feelings around their experience to ultimately be swayed in their direction (for it to become our truth).

Believing in… and, trusting in… are not the same truth, in and of themselves.

©2008 Tom Leu

your church sucks?

Do you think other churches, religions, traditions, or faiths suck because they’re different than yours? For something to suck, something else has to be better right… to not suck? People are compelled to rank things; to put stuff in order from best to worst. It’s human nature. It helps us make sense of things and feel better about that which we don’t have the time or energy it takes to truly understand.

Most people can drive by the numerous local churches in their cities and towns without really knowing how they all differ. A lot of people claim they attend a church, but few can give you good reasons why they attend. The questions really shouldn’t be “if” or “where” you attend, but ”Why did you choose that one?” The names of the churces on the signs out front mean little to most people because they’ve never taken the time to really look into it.

Except for a rare few theologically educated and astute individuals, (myself excluded), descriptions like evangelical, episcopalian, baptist, presbyterian, methodist, lutheran, pentecostal, adventist, etc., mean very little to most people because there is little understanding of what these words mean and what these denominations actually believe.

So why do so many adhere then to some “religion” that they don’t fully understand? And why do so many (yes I’ll say it), blindly follow a set of faith principles that they really only understand on a surface level. And why do these same people then criticize others who disagree with them? For example, to claim to be a “Christian” in the United States can have very different and diverse meanings, though few really understand these differences.

Good communicators and individuals of influence are able to disagree without being disrespectful.

So, no, your church doesn’t suck. Neither does mine, or hers, or his, or theirs. That’s the whole point… that’s the irony here. I am not shooting down any specific religion, tradition, belief or faith. Rather, I’d propose building them up through awareness from discussion and exploration. Endorsing or opposing anything without proper and thorough knowledge is ridiculous. Though we’ve all been guilty of this from time to time if we’re being honest.

“There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance – that principle is contempt prior to investigation.” – Herbert Spencer

©2008 Tom Leu

the longest journey

True contentment and serenity are matters of the heart. We cannot think them into place; try as we might. Everyone needs to make some changes from time to time to cure what ails us. Genuine change begins in the mind but has to travel down to the heart to have lasting impact. The behavior follows the thinking. It’s been said that the longest journey is the 18 inches between the head and the heart. Intellectual knowledge turned into emotional wisdom is where real progress and breakthroughs are made. It’s not enough to know it; we have to experience it for it to be real to us.

©2008 Tom Leu

working out

I think, for a lot of us, working out or exercising and embarking on ”spiritual” pursuits are procrastinated similarly. It usually goes something like this: 1) you know you ought to, 2) you realize it’s good for you, 3) you often don’t feel like it, 4) but when you do, you’re always glad that you did.

©2008 Tom Leu

a new religion

Our purpose is not to create a “new” religion, to endorse a movement, nor a devotion to a tradition. But rather, it’s about remembering an old realization:

The realization of who we are… what we are capable of… where we are going… and when we will finally realize why we are here.

©2008 Tom Leu

two out of three

Some of us get so busy “doing” that often we forget the “being” part of life.

“….life is about your soul, not about your body and not about your mind. Most people work hard to keep the body happy. Then they seek to stimulate their mind. Then… if there is time… they look after their soul. Yet the most beneficial priority has it just the other way around.”  – Neale Donald Walsch

Mind, body, soul… in this case, “two out of three IS bad.” Whatever it is for you that feeds your soul; those things or activities that reconnect you, center you, bring you serenity in the face of calamity… do those things. Do them today, and be who you are called to be.

©2008 Tom Leu

gray

Things are rarely black or white; all or nothing. Most things in life reside in the “gray areas;” on the fringes, in between. “God” is in the gray. This is hard. “God” resides here because this is where most people live. We need help sometimes. Answers aren’t always obvious. Existing and finding truth in the gray areas requires faith. And one’s truth is based exclusively on one’s faith. This is good. Many insist on absolutes when relative is really the only reality. This is common. It’s in the pursuing, the seeking, that we find what we’re looking for… in the gray. This is beautiful.

©2008 Tom Leu

Why is it…? #6

…that what often bothers us most about others is often what troubles us most about ourselves?

©2008 Tom Leu

the ultimate gift

We tend to get tunnel vision when we’re only thinking about ourselves. The big picture becomes impossible to see.

Things eventually get real small and the pressure goes up.

Ironically, it’s through service – the efforts that bring forth a greater good, the energy that positively affects others – that the self’s needs truly get met.

As life’s possibilities and passions begin to be realized, the world opens up, gets bigger, and the pressure goes down.

Once things become more about others and less about ourselves, do things really begin to matter.

This is the only way to spend one’s life for maximum meaning to emerge.

This pursuit of life’s purpose, and the hope of finding it, is the great obsession of many who desire to make a difference in the world.

And to make a difference – to leave more than you take – is the ultimate accomplishment… and the ultimate gift.

©2008 Tom Leu

“Reinventing the Sacred”

Reinventing the Sacred by Stuart A. Kauffman

If you’re one who enjoys deep, philosophical reflection, meaning-of-life-type books then Reinventing the Sacred, by a renowned biologist and complexity theorist, may just be for you. This book addresses the limitations of rationality (and reason) in the face of an evolving, creative universe. It’s heavy, yet helpful:

“One view of God is that God is our chosen name for the ceaseless creativity in the natural universe, biosphere, and human cultures. Because of this ceaseless creativity, we typically do not and cannot know what will happen. We live our lives forward, as Kierkegaard said. We live as if we knew, as Nietzsche said. We live our lives forward into mystery, and do so with faith and courage, for that is the mandate of life itself.

But the fact that we must live our lives forward into a ceaseless creativity that we cannot fully understand means that reason alone is an insufficient guide to living our lives. Reason, the center of the Enlightenment, is but one of the evolved, fully human means we use to live our lives. Reason itself has finally led us to see the inadequacy of reason. We must therefore reunite our full humanity. We must see ourselves whole, living in a creative world we can never fully know.”  - Stuart A. Kauffman, Reinventing the Sacred

Whew! The translation you ask? Here’s my take in 87 words:

Reason and intelligence have limits that the most reasonable and intelligent among us, by definition, have to concede. To declare that we “know” what is impossible to know is unreasonable and the ultimate ignorance. We cannot know what we do not understand. Yet we understand that some things are unknowable. Moving forward through life we make our way while taking our best guesses at how things will play out. When we’re right, we say we knew it; when we’re wrong, we should say we knew that too. BUY the book.

©2008 Tom Leu