Where Life and Faith Meet
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4Ü #286

Stop being Relevant

19 July 2007

WASSUP - In the moment

Have you ever felt as if the world was passing you by,
caught by the revolving door of time
that robs you of living in the moment
and enjoying it?

Billy Collins, one of my favourite poets captures that sense brilliantly in his poem "In the moment"

I could feel the day offering itself to me,
and I wanted nothing more
than to be in the moment - but which moment?
Not that one, or that one, or that one,

Or any of those that were scuttling by
seemed perfectly right for me.
Plus I was too knotted up with questions
about the past and his tall, evasive sister, the future.

...

And so the priceless moments of the day
Were squandered one by one -
Or more likely a thousand at a time,
with quandary and pointless interrogation.

All I wanted was to be a pea of being
Inside the green pod of time,
but that was not going to happen today,
I had to admit to myself...

What's it going to take for you to be in the moment?

Andrew

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INSIGHT OUT - Count your blessings

Researchers find the virtues of gratitude include good health.

In recent years, many scientists have begun examining the links between religion and good health, both physical and mental. Now two psychologists are working to unlock the puzzle of how faith might promote happiness. Dr. Michael McCollough, of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, and Dr. Robert Emmons, of the University of California at Davis, say their initial scientific study indicates that gratitude plays a significant role in a person's sense of well-being.

From Cicero to Buddha, many philosophers and spiritual teachers have celebrated gratitude. The world's major religions, including Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Hindu, prize gratitude as a morally beneficial emotional state that encourages reciprocal kindness. Pastors, priests, parents and grandparents have long extolled the virtues of gratitude, but until recently, scholars have largely ignored it as a subject of scientific inquiry.

McCollough and Emmons were curious about why people involved in their faith seem to have more happiness and a greater sense of well-being than those who aren't and decided to study the connections. After making initial observations and compiling all the previous research on gratitude, they conducted the Research Project on Gratitude and Thanksgiving. The study required several hundred people in three different groups to keep daily diaries. The first group kept a diary of the events that occurred during the day, while the second group recorded their unpleasant experiences. The last group made a daily list of things for which they were grateful.

The results of the study indicated that daily gratitude exercises resulted in higher reported levels of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, optimism and energy. Additionally, the gratitude group experienced less depression and stress, was more likely to help others, exercised more regularly and made more progress toward personal goals. According to the findings, people who feel grateful are also more likely to feel loved. McCollough and Emmons also noted that gratitude encouraged a positive cycle of reciprocal kindness among people since one act of gratitude encourages another.

See Gratitude theory http://www.acfnewsource.org/religion/gratitude_theory.html

Go on, make a list of all the things that you are thankful for.

Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.

Colossians 4:2

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OUTSIGHT IN - Stop being relevant

James March would begin classes at Sanford each year by saying "I am not now, nor have ever been, relevant."

"For me, a feature of scholarship that is generally more significant than relevance is the beauty of the ideas. I care that ideas have some form of elegance or grace or surprise - all things that beauty give you." HBR Oct 2006

This was one of those ideas that caught me off guard and caused me to rethink.

Are our attempts to be relevant actually closing our minds to a world of thought yet unexplored?

Maybe irrelevance is as silence to music, as space to text or as rest to activity?

Maybe we have to stop being relevant for just a moment so we can be caught by elegance, grace or surprise?

Maybe irrelevance will open us to the true beauty of an idea?

What if you took your eye off the bottom line of relevance and discovered the top line of significance?

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SEE YA SUNDAY - What a difference you have made in my life

This weekend St Columba celebrates its 5th Birthday at Botany Downs

  • Friday evening: Healing service, 7pm
  • Saturday morning: Garage Sale, 8am
  • Saturday afternoon: Car rally with youth group, 4pm
  • Saturday evening: Multi-cultural Dinner, 6pm, Variety concert, 7pm
  • Sunday morning: Services of thanksgiving, 8.30 & 10.30

(over this weekend we are looking to raise $20,000 towards further debt reduction on our car park extension)

Canvas - this Sunday evening with Matt and the crew.

Can't wait ... see ya Sunday

Thanks for this time to chat.

Andrew
St Columba
Where Life and Faith Meet
andrew.norton@stcolumba.org.nz

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It's free but don't steal

If this is of help to others, you are welcome to forward it. This e-mail letter is 97% original - 3% cut and paste & 100% fat free. 4U is copyright to Andrew Norton. That means you can't cut and paste it and call it your own (that's stealing). I'm happy for it to be used but please refer to the author.

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LAST WORD - Nostalgia

This is the real crime of nostalgia. In the nostalgic mentality, the locus points for the best of times are the days of yore. Nostalgia construes bygone eras as the zeniths of earthly existence. Fantasizing about the past breeds complacency in the present and pessimism about the future. It encourages ruminating on the way things used to be, instead of envisioning the way they could be.

Kerry Rodgers


© 2008, St Columba Presbyterian Church, Auckland