Healthy Rhythms

This is going to be different and perhaps a bit more personal post than some of my previous posts. Also, it’s kind of a mix of several things that I’ve found have been healthy, helpful, beneficial, and good for me in regards to following Jesus. While some of these rhythms as I’m labeling them are more for practicing Christians, I realize they may sound foreign or strange and not be identifiable for those who aren’t Christian and for those who label themselves a Christian but don’t practice living as a Christian… you know who you are. There could be some things that I share that are beneficial for anyone, no matter what you believe, although I believe they collectively help one follow Jesus more closely. That being said…

How we begin each day is an opportunity to start anew. We often think we know what each day will bring, but the truth is each day is different than the last. We can get into a negative mindset and feel numb and a little depressed if we think we know what each and every day will bring before it’s actually happened. I’ve found that living my life with a certain intentionality has helped posture me in a position for growth as a follower of Jesus and helped me generally to be a more calm, relaxed, happier human being. So, wherever you are on the spectrum of belief, hopefully you will find something here that if practiced intentionally will benefit you as it has me.

I believe I wrote previously how in the winter of 2021, I was experiencing a bit of depression and sadness having lived in northern New England during the shortest period of daylight and having gone through both year 1 of the pandemic and that 2020 election year buzz and the social media uproar that happened all year for multiple reasons. I had deleted Facebook as it wasn’t a healthy thing in my life and people just seemed especially cruel. While, you can’t get away entirely from meanness or cruelty, Facebook felt like an unnecessary distraction from actual life, and an unhealthy one at that. Still, the emotional baggage of that year was heavy on me in February 2021. I had eliminated an unhealthy social media account and kept one other one open which had some positive attributes, but I still felt sad and a bit depressed as one suffering from SAD and having gone through that messy year of 2020. I was helping to preach on a preaching team for a church on the seacoast of southern Maine, though remotely at the time, and prior to the pandemic had preached at many churches throughout the seacoast quite regularly. I must have overheard someone on the worship team mention John Mark Comer and Bridgetown Church at one point. I listened and remember my first impression was negative, he just seemed a bit self-helpy for me. I gave it another chance around the time the Future Church series for Bridgetown Church podcast was happening and was hooked. So many in the pandemic in Christian circles and outside of it were focused on circumstantial things like masks/no masks, vaccines/no vaccines, and there were strong reactions against advise to not gather publicly especially in Christian circles. However, nobody seemed to be focusing on who we are becoming as a people through the pandemic, and rather how we could utilize the time to grow in unexpected ways and come out of that thing better than having gone into it. It deeply resonated with me. I immediately purchased and read John Mark Comer’s book “The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry” and listened to many other podcasts such as This Cultural Moment with Mark Sayers and other similar churches with similar teaching such as Realty Church San Francisco, Church of the City New York, Red Church in Melbourne. I began to purchase many books in the Christian contemplative spiritual realm, a realm that had been off-limits, frowned upon, and largely ignored by the academic Christian circles I floated in during grad school in the Boston area and in church circles afterward.

It felt that God revealed that I had neglected an important aspect of the Christian life in my theology and in my practice. Out of suspicion and a desire to be accepted to some degree by church and theological peers, I had not only thrown out the possibility of special charismatic gifts of the Spirit but largely neglected a healthy theology of the Holy Spirit in my life. I threw the baby out with the bathwater. I had neglected what was labeled spiritual disciplines in the Christian life, largely, because they seemed overly Catholic, not because they weren’t in the Bible, used by Jesus, used by God’s people for 3-4 thousand years and by the church for 2 thousand years, nor because they weren’t beneficial for living the Christian life.

Sometimes, our reactions against something can be so strong, that we distance ourselves from some very good, healthy things for us out of a desire for approval by certain groups of people or out of fear of the unknown or of change or of what we consider uncomfortable.

At some point in early 2021, I opted to embrace the uncomfortable and to lean into things that God may be desiring for me, yet, out of an over attachment to what is comfortable to me and a desire to have the approval of others, this was more a process as opposed to a hard switch. It was like a light-bulb went on in my heart and suddenly, in the midst of a season of sadness and depression and hardship in various ways, I began to make out what looked like a path forward even if I didn’t fully know where that path would lead at the time. That transition led to my moving to the northwest simply trusting God with my whole life and not knowing what I would do – just going. That transition led to me opening parts of my life that were damaged, hurt by previous trauma, and revisiting things in order to experience healing. That transition led to me diving like a first year graduate student into all sorts of reading in the Christian contemplative spiritual realm along with books that had to do with an unhealthy reliance and attachment to electronic devices such as smartphones, tv’s, and computers (not to mention social media). That transition also led to my intentionally leaning into various healthy habits that I have incrementally added to my life to help me follow Jesus and to help me simply to be happier as a human being, which for me, those two are not mutually exclusive.

That is the background, and a long one, I’m aware, of this post about healthy rhythms. So, take a step back, breathe, well done for reading this far, take a minute to do something because we’re about to begin the actual purpose of this post…

I was inspired by John Mark’s teaching in the podcasts and in his book to incorporate some of those practices into my life. While, some of the things don’t necessarily mean someone will grow as a follower of Jesus nor necessarily move into a happier season of life, they felt more like a trellis by which to encourage and foster healthy growth in my life. So, I leaned into the prospect for change and the discomfort that that would bring.

I began to intentionally try to cultivate a non-anxious presence in my life as some have said that hurry is the enemy of the spiritual life.

So, practically, that meant revisiting some lost disciplines or rather practices (as discipline in our culture has a negative connotation). Prayer, silence, solitude, fasting, Sabbath, Bible reading, Bible memorization, praying bits of the Bible, community, generosity, hospitality, simplicity, minimalism… but the primary one that has taken time to cultivate is simply slowing down and seeking to live a less distracted, more present life.

Think of this as getting into the slow lane of traffic and being content to just stay there or getting into a lane at the grocery store with someone who has a massive, over-filled shopping cart of groceries as if they are preparing for the apocalypse even when there is a faster option nearby and being content to just stay in that lane. It means walking more. It means intentionally leaving your phone in your car or at home or dare I say, off entirely. It means not looking down at your phone while waiting for anything and allowing yourself to wait, to be there in that moment, to be available to notice other people around you and other things going on in the world.

Often, when you slow down, put the phone away, but allow yourself to be in those situations where you have to wait and do life more slowly, you begin to notice things in yourself. Perhaps it’s the urge to look at your phone, the need to get out of and escape that very moment, FOMO creeps in, but more than anything there is a discomfort at being alone with yourself. That is what I’d like to focus on.

“… all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own room… the natural poverty of our feeble and mortal condition, so miserable that nothing can comfort us when we think of it closely. Hence it comes people so much love noise and stir; hence it comes that the prison is so horrible a punishment; hence it comes that the pleasure of solitude is a thing incomprehensible.” – Blaise Pascal, quoted by Dallas Willard in the forward to Ruth Haley Barton’s “An Invitation to Silence and Solitude”

It is when we are alone without distractions from our modern devices that preoccupy our attention spans that we are forced to deal with the mess of whatever there is within us. Maybe it’s anxiety. Maybe it’s fear. Maybe it’s some unresolved trauma from some experience in the past you’ve been avoiding. Maybe it’s a flawed view of yourself. Maybe it’s all the above and then some. Remember the time before smartphones or any cellular phones for that matter, when you stood in line in a public place and you just had to be there, in line, waiting? Maybe you’re not old enough to remember that, and that’s cool, and maybe you are. Remember when that terrible song came on the radio and other radio stations either had the same song or something worse and you had to listen to that song in order to find out what came next, you couldn’t just like, play your own playlist and know what to expect?

We live in a world of instant gratification. We have something we want and we expect to get it right then, right there, with no delays. It’s a world where Amazon.com and Apple Music and Spotify reign supreme. I say that as someone who recently tried an Apple Music trial subscription and subscribed afterward. I’ll admit – it’s amazing. What we often don’t think about but many Christian and non-Christian writers are picking up on is that we live in a world fueled by dopamine addiction.

We used to read about Pavlov’s dogs salivating at the sound of a bell expecting a treat, but now we have traded places and we are the dogs with Facebook/Meta, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitter, and geniuses down in Silicon Valley (or up or over depending on where you’re reading this from) are Pavlov pulling the strings and performing the experiments on us.

We once lived in a world where products were marketed to us, now we are the product.

I’ve written on these things previously so I won’t dwell on it, but I’ve incorporated some healthy rhythms to counteract, to rebel against the status quo of our over distracted, busy, jaded, and low-key depressed culture in the Western world. I will say that putting your phone away isn’t easy, it takes effort. One thing I started doing was removing my phone from beside my bed so that it wasn’t the first and last thing I was looking at each day. This amounts, scientifically, to improved sleep and a less anxious, restful demeanor. Yeah, really.

Eventually, I bought a very smart alarm clock so that I can get up when I need to and not rely on my phone or be tempted to look at my phone first thing in the morning. I got a Loftie alarm clock where my phone can be elsewhere charging, not in my room at all, and my alarm schedule can be uploaded to the clock and the clock has sleep meditations and sounds to rest better. They came out with a recent update where they have custom bedtime stories where you can submit your name and the name of a friend/partner and some things you enjoy, and they upload a story with an erudite, soothing voice to your Loftie device. I’ve had adventures some adventures with Frodo on my device as a result, lol. That doesn’t have to be you, however, you can just get a regular, old school, alarm clock. I prefer to have one that doesn’t have an overly alarming sound that startles, but something that will get one’s attention to wake up.

As for the phone, I turned on grayscale to mute the engineered to addict and consume more time colors and to make the world apart from the phone more appealing than my phone. I created limits for myself on my phone, by the day, and by the app, removed email from my phone entirely (this is huge!), and simplified the apps and things on my phone. Outside of the camera, weather, and very limited time on Instagram, I use my phone as a phone and for no other purpose. I try to leave it and forget it when I go into a store or do things. The result is I am less distracted and more present for people and for God in my life. That’s a pretty solid result. Most people are addicted to their phones today as it is engineered for addiction and culturally accepted, so all of this is easier said than done. Start small and see how it goes with you.

I made a rule for myself to not be on my phone for the first 30min to 1hr of waking up and the same times for before I go to bed each day. I try to single task, intentionally, and not to attempt to do a bunch of different things poorly in order to get more done, but try to do one thing extremely well which cannot be done to the same quality when multitasking. This has been scientifically proven for all you naysayers who say, “Well, I’m the one human exception and I’m great at this.” Caveat: I will say many moms possess a special skill of focusing on tasks while being more mindful of children. That’s a gift, for sure. The rule still applies though. When you focus on one thing, you do it better and you are less distracted. This can be hard initially if you are very distractible, but oh so rewarding.

That’s it. This post is longer, so I’ve chopped it up and made it a series. Stay tune for the next one to learn more about Healthy Rhythms.

What We Do Shapes Who We Become

I’ve noticed increasingly the past year how the clothing and apparel that people wear, whether it be hats or shirts or footwear, seem to mirror whatever social media is promoting at the time. Have you noticed this phenomenon? I’ve seen targeted ads on Instagram, the only social media I’m still permitting in my life right now and it will seem as if the ads are tailored to you and your preferences, however, before long I start to see those same brands in public on people. I can’t find any of those brands in stores. It seems they are purely, or mostly, online.

I’ve been guilty in seasons of my life, I’ll confess, of picking up clothing items or desiring things purely because other people want them or have said they are cool. Who hasn’t done that or felt that? However, this feels a bit more an invasion of the thought life of individuals to the extent that I believe is gradually eliminating individuality among people who are connected to social media with the exception of the sort of individuality that gets people noticed in order to play into the algorithms to get those on social media more. How do I mean?

Go back 30 years ago and you find yourself in the early 90’s. Alternative grunge rock is a thing. Hip hop is happening with the media spinning an east and west coast rivalry that was more a media spin than an actual thing, we know this now. Kurt Cobain, Tupac, and Christopher George Latore Wallace better known as the Notorious B.I.G. or “Biggie Smalls” were all still alive. The internet was primarily in school offices and making its way to libraries, but personal computers were not common yet. Smart phones didn’t exist and cell phones were rare, and if they existed, wealthy people had them and they could double as a giant projectile weapon. Thinking of the cell phone Zach Morris used in Saved by the Bell. Most people had phones with cords connected to the wall, or perhaps a cordless phone that was convenient but had a strange static that would happen as it picked up other waves. The Gulf War was happening, Operation Desert Storm. News was primarily about things that happened whether locally, regionally, nationally, or internationally. The news were at set times of the day and you had to tune in to those times, adjust your schedule to when the news happened. People regularly got local newspapers and read them in order to be “in the loop.”It was a slower pace of life. When you stood in line somewhere, you didn’t have a phone to look at, you just stood there. I remember as a kid my mom would want to go shopping and take me with her and I would wait for what seemed like forever. In reality, it was probably 1-2 hours, but as a kid time moves slower, whereas, it seems to move at light speed as an adult. If you wanted music, you bought these new things called CDs which were more expensive but sleeker somehow than a cassette tape. And if you wanted music for free, you used a cassette tape to record whatever song you wanted from the radio on your boombox. If you were clever and a young entrepreneur, you sold those mixtapes and created a business. I wasn’t clever, lol.

You get the idea. The 90’s. 30 years ago. It was like a different world. You started school with 2 number 2 pencils and paper, you practiced writing in cursive in school, had Trapper Keepers, were mesmerized by Nintendo but still spent more time outside. People wore all sorts of clothes. You had the plaid shirt, jeans, Airwalks and skater shoes, grunge look. You had people with Fubu shirts and Jnco jeans. You had people just doing their own thing. I’m an outdoorsy person and use my Instagram account to post photos typically of various adventures whether hiking or visiting the coast for a surf. Many of my friends and connections aside from people I’v met in places I’ve lived are likewise connected to outdoor sports. So, when I open Instagram, I’ve been tempted to look at and buy targeted products like Forsake shoes/boots, Topo Design shirts, LEMS shoes, and various random adventure themed hats and apparel bits. I’ve exercised restraint and not purchased anything from Instagram nor purchased things their algorithm has suggested. However, I’ve noticed where I work that people regularly are walking in with Forsake and LEMS shoes, Topo Design shirts, and those exact random hats that were marketed to me on Instagram. Every single person I’ve asked about their products out of curiosity has shared they were browsing on social media and made a purchase from social media.

My concern is not that people are buying the same things or buying from social media necessarily, but how perhaps the motive in browsing and purchasing for one, and also the algorithms tapping into preferences and at times steering preferences and manipulating them could be both creating a public pseudo personality much like social media profiles but in real life, and that that frenetic activity could be distracting us from what is really going on inside us and from God. We busy our lives with things that feel relevant and important, but are we really busy or do we spend a lot of time doing unnecessary things? It is one thing to be busy taking your child to the doctor and another to lose 2-4hrs a day on your smartphone or streaming device.

My concern is that more often than not, we do things because we can, but we sometimes fail to ask whether we should? If it is good for us? What are the consequences of how we spend and use our time? How are the things that vie for and populate our attention spans and spending habits forming us as human beings?

It has become commonplace in Christian and religious circles to discuss discipleship. Sometimes, these terms have been used so frequently that somehow they can lose their meaning or their meaning can be confused with other things. In some churches today, discipleship is reading a book, possibly with a group who are also reading that book, then talking about it once a week with snacks. What is a disciple? According to the Bible, it is simply someone who follows Jesus and not simply follows from one place to the next, but someone who follows in the sense of an apprentice as someone might apprentice under an experienced electrician or carpenter or welder in order to learn a trade and learn it well, in order to do that same trade themselves. This is what it means to follow Jesus and that is why we see the disciples Jesus has called, who have responded to Jesus’ call to follow him, being with Jesus, learning from him, becoming like him over time in some ways, and being sent out to do the things that Jesus did. That’s what the Bible reveals is being a disciple or follower of Jesus. Reading a book and talking about it might satisfy an intellectual craving, and provide good content, but isn’t discipleship.

The reality is that what we do, what we posture ourselves, our lives around, shapes and transforms us. In reality, everyone is a disciple of something or someone, the question is, what?

You’ve heard the phrase, “You are what you eat”? Well, “we become what we spend our time primarily doing.”

If we spend our time streaming hours of Netflix or Hulu or Amazon Prime every day, we will be shaped and molded by the type of entertainment that we watch as our brains are literally rewired to accommodate what we consume or rather what consumes us. It’s like in hiking when you hike a trail through some tall grass. At first, there isn’t much of a trail, just tall grass, but over time upon repeated excursions of that same trail perhaps by many people the grass lays flat where people have tread the same ground over and over and over again, forming a path. It becomes easier over time to find the trail and to travel a trail that is well-traveled. The same is true with our brains. What we do shapes us and our neural pathways in our brains like trails are formed. Some habits can become very easy to do, so easy we might not realize they are habits at all and they become very difficult to break.

It’s because what we do shapes us, whether we follow Jesus or not. It’s a human thing, not explicitly a Christian/religious thing.

This is problematic for a number of reasons, but one can begin to see why a 1 hour talk on Sunday is insufficient for remedying a week and perhaps months and years or unhealthy habits that have formed in a life.

Increasingly, being a Christian is about living in quiet, subtle resistance to the flow of the culture in which we inhabit.

We need to be mindful of the ways in which we might be malformed as followers of Jesus in ways of living and bits of daily life that our culture finds normal, common, acceptable. If these things fail to shape us into becoming more life Jesus, then we need to audit our lives and decide what is healthy for our life with Jesus and what helps to enable further growth in love for Him and others, and what hinders that? Like pruning a plant, as we are all pruned as followers of Jesus whether we desire it or not by the Master Gardener, we can also seek to posture our lives as we are able to more closely align ourselves for healthy growth in a life with Jesus. Simple questions such as, “What am I doing to cultivate a life with Jesus?” “Am I spending time with Jesus?” “How do I spend time with Jesus?” “How can I tweak my schedule, adjust the ways my life might be leading me down a trail that doesn’t lead to becoming more like Jesus?”

Then, it amounts to deciding on a course of action and following through with it. If I can share one personal example, I commute into the city a ways for worship with my church family every Sunday. As I live a bit outside the city, I am unable to get connected with the Community Groups during the week. I have inquired about getting connected more but it isn’t possible unless I move into the city. I’ve even inquired about starting my own where I live in a more mountainous, beautiful area. Anyway, I’ve felt for a long time that the technology we’ve all become familiar with during the early part of the pandemic could be leveraged on a regular basis in healthy, needed ways to help with community. I sensed this past Sunday that while I’ve considered this for some time, I needed to follow through with it. So, I had one friend from seminary in mind and another friend I’ve connected with back in New England come to mind. I reached out to both about meeting once a month over a Zoom meeting to share life together, encourage one another, pray for one another. I’ve had many spiritual practices/disciplines that I do regularly to help me grow as a follower of Jesus, and I’ve become increasingly aware of the effects of modern tech on our relationship to Jesus and to others, but I haven’t cultivated much of a community apart from Sunday and apart from people with outdoor sport interests where I live. This would be a greater, more intimate community of accountability. We’re going to start meeting once a month. One friend lives in the Bay area in California and another in southern Maine, an hour or so north of Boston, and I live in the Pacific Northwest.

Think of your schedule and what you do as a trellis for a plant, the plant being your heart and life with Jesus. How is that trellis helping you or hindering you from growing in healthy ways to be more like Jesus and to do what Jesus did in your life? Is it time for a needed change? Like working out, it takes a couple weeks to form the habit and make it routine. Whatever you do, stick with it. You might not notice a change immediately, that’s okay. This following Jesus thing isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon. Pruning and new healthy practices can feel at first like hills in the race, but can become great sources of strength in the long haul.