Become more real, more authentic, more myself

In a letter to Robert Meuchin dated 15 January 1966, Thomas Merton wrote:

I would say that there is one basic idea that should be kept in mind in all the changes we make in life, whether of career or anything else. We should decide not in view of better pay, higher rank, “getting ahead”, but in view of becoming more real, entering more authentically into direct contact with life, living more as a free and mature person, able to give myself more to others, able to understand myself and the world better.

Thomas Merton, Witness to Freedom: Letters in Times of Crisis, 254-255.

 

John Gierach on Instant Communications

I’m still waiting for Americans to realize that being in constant communication is not an advantage, but a short leash. Cell phones have changed us from a nation of self-reliant pioneer types into a bunch of men standing alone in supermarkets saying, “Okay, I’m in the tampon aisle, but I don’t see it.”

John Gierach, Fool’s Paradise, p5.

 

When we fail humanly, do we grow spiritually?

failure on the human level may feel like a curse but on the level of spiritual unfolding it can be a blessing in disguise. . . . This shift to the spiritual perspective shows us the relative value of success in God’s eyes. The Pharisee, who was the symbol of human success, was a failure before God in comparison to the humble Publican. . . . Instead of making failure an occasion for self-flagellation, we can see it in faith as a condition for our spiritual progress

Susan Muto and Adrian van Kaam, Practicing the Prayer of Presence, 91-93

Failure ploughs the soil of my soul;

     it prepares me to receive the seed of the gospel.

Failure bends my back low,

     the right stance to carry my daily cross.

Failure humbles me into the common man,

     so I may learn to love my neighbour.

Failure pierces my heart with pain,

     that I may know the Suffering Servant.

–by Wan Phek How

 

Conversations about Heaven

Over dinner last night, my daughter, a joyful five year old who is full of life, off-handedly said, “I want to die at the age of five and go to heaven.” My son, aged eight, responded, “No, God does not want you in heaven at the age of five just so you can have fun. He wants you to tell other people about Jesus. That is why He wants you to live in this world until you are old.”

Mum said, “We don’t want you to die at the age of five. You’re five right now, and we will miss you.” To which, Daughter replied, “Then let’s all (die and) go to heaven together.”

In case you think this is a holy family, a few days ago, Son was upset that Daughter was talking about him to her friends behind his back. He said, “If I were to die first and go to heaven, I can hear all the lies you tell about me.”

There certainly is some interesting theologizing going on at the dinner table

 

Leaving family, gaining family

One of the most beautiful things that can happen in a human life is that parents become brothers and sisters for their children, that children become fathers and mothers for their parents, that brothers and sisters become friends and that fatherhood, motherhood, brotherhood, and sisterhood are deeply shared by all the members of the family at different times and on different occasions.But this cannot happen without leaving. Only to the degree that we have broken the ties that keep us captives to an imperfect love can we be free to love those we have left as father, mother, brother, or sister and receive their love in the same way. This is what Jesus means when he says: “In truth I tell you, there is no one who has left house, brothers, sisters, mother, father, children, or land for my sake and for the sake of the gospel, who will not receive a hundred times as much houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and land–and persecutions too–now in this present time and, in the world to come, eternal life” (Mark 10:29-30).

The great mystery of leaving father and mother is, indeed, that their limited love will multiply and manifest itself wherever we go, because only insofar as we leave, can the love we clung to reveal its true source.

Nouwen interprets leaving family in terms of emotional ties, especially ties that bind us to family and inhibit our emotional and spiritual growth. This is one way of looking at things, and I think a valid interpretation, but perhaps not the only interpretation. Sometimes the only way to leave emotionally is to leave physically, at least for a season. At times, maybe oftentimes, the physical leaving is more easily accomplished than the emotional leaving, which may take a lifetime for some.

Henri Nouwen, Here and Now (New York: Crossroad, 1994), 116.

 

A techie parable

No one runs untested code on a network server, for the code may crash and take down the server. Likewise, no one puts old format data files into new databases. The new database will be corrupted, and the data will be lost. No, you put new-format data into new databases (Matt 9:14-17).

(excerpted from Parables for Modern Academia by Deborah and Loren Haarsma)

 

Travel and the Spiritual Life

According to Henri Nouwen,

Traveling is seldom good for the spiritual life. Especially traveling alone. Airplanes, airports, buses and bus terminals, trains and railroad stations filled with people moving here and there, cluttered with magazines, books, and useless objects–it’s all too much, too sensual and distracting to keep our hearts and minds focused on God. When I travel alone I eat too much, drink too much, and look around too much. Meanwhile, I let my mind wander to unhealthy, imaginary places and allow my heart to drift along with confusing emotions and feelings.

I concur with Nouwen, and would like to add that vacations too can be distracting for the spiritual life. Much depends on the type of break we have, whether it is to secluded spots in nature or to busy entertainment. Rest is part of the spiritual life, and a Christian ought to be known by the way she rests. There is a world of difference between rest and retreat compared to a holiday jam-packed with activities and entertainment. Often one needs a rest after the latter type of vacation.

Notes

Henri Nouwen, Here and Now (New York: Crossroad, 1994), 85.

 

All I want for my birthday

We just celebrated our son’s eighth birthday. Instead of a gift, he asked friends to bring two dollars, one for him and one for charity. One friend did that; the others brought two dollars and a gift. No, my son did not complain. Ten days later, I was spending special time with my five year old daughter. It was time to do whatever she wanted to do–only together. The activity? Colouring. In the midst of colouring, she looked at me and said, “Dad, if you can’t think of a present for my birthday, just sing me a song.” Just sing me a song–such simple joy. No wonder Jesus said we need to be like little children in order to enter the kingdom of heaven. Dear God, please fill my heart with joyous song so I can sing to my daughter.

 

Al Gore: Our modern existence and nature

I have a healthy regard for the mesmerizing power of an overscheduled, overpopulated, hyperstimulated existence. It’s designed to monopolize our attention, to sell us things, to speed us from one place to the next, to focus us on matters that appear to be vital, even when they’re not. It’s such an encompassing artificial environment that it can seem to be all there is.

Nature, by contrast, is slow-moving, undemanding, maybe underwhelming for many people. But if you never put yourself in the midst of nature–to understand that its essence is our essence–then you’re inclined to treat it as trivial. You become willing to abuse and destroy it through carelessness, not recognizing that to do so is wrong. Nature becomes the wallpaper of experience . . .

But what we do to nature we do to ourselves. The magnitude of environmental destruction is now on a scale few ever foresaw; the wounds [of nature] no longer simply heal themselves. We have to act affirmatively to stop the harm.

Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth, 161.

 

Hiring Talent

Apparently, there is a skills shortage in the Canadian IT industry. Well, it all depends on what hiring managers are looking for–specific skills or the ability to learn, unlearn and relearn? According to Diana Oblinger, the keynote speaker at UBC’s 2007 e-Strategy Town Hall, the future jobs we are preparing our students for do not yet exist! The world is moving from “command and control” to “collaborate and participate.” To meet that challenge, problem-solving abilities involving pattern recognition and metacognition will be highly sought after. Isn’t it interesting that Google’s approach to hiring talent is to place ads with complex problems, challenging job seekers to solve them? This flies in the face of the common approach requiring a few years of AJAX programming experience, without which the screening database would not even highlight a resume.

How then should employers look for the ability to learn and problem-solve? Instead of having an initial phone screening interview, ask your most talented developer to design an open book test. What problems have been solved in the past year? Recast them in the form of questions. Invite shortlisted candidates to the test. Give them access to the Internet, let them call their friends, refer to manuals, and ask questions of the examiner. The level of difficulty with each progressive question or task should increase exponentially.

The basic aim is to identify candidates’ foundational skills. Beyond that, the most important part of this test is to hear the questions asked by candidates. Those questions will reveal strategies used by candidates to problem solve. The examiner may give hints to nudge people along. Because talented job seekers may interview poorly, the results may be surprising.

On one occasion, a college educated programmer who spoke poor English completed a series of programming problems in 5 minutes when a university graduate was still stumped after an hour. The college guy was hired!

We sometimes get HRDC grants in the summer to hire student trainees. This is usually awarded in the beginning of summer, but after all the best students with the highest grades have secured internships. Using this testing process, we have identified and hired a few promising programmers. Some are children of immigrants who are studying in community colleges and seeking transfers to university in their 3rd or 4th years. One student in particular performed so well that we could not give him enough work to keep him busy.

There are lots of job seekers out there who may not have skills but have talent, who may not have credentials but have the ability and desire to learn, who may not have experience but have innate passion. We’ll talk about passion in the next post–hiring passion!