Extraordinary is just ordinary done over, and over, and over again

“. . . I think there might be some presentations that go right over my head, but the most amazing concepts are the ones that go right under my feet.”  —Louie Schwartzberg

Louie Schwartzberg has been doing time-lapse filming of flowers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for more than 30 years. It takes him a month to shoot a 4-minute roll of film.

His subjects are ordinary. He shoots things we pass by every day with barely a glance: a bee landing on a flower, a strawberry, or a drop of water on a leaf.

When Schwartzberg focuses on the flight of the bee, the ripening of the berry, or the movement of the water drop, he does so intensely and over, and over, and over again.

The ordinary becomes extraordinary. Watch his work at the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQXaap6owZE

The same is true for professional athletes.

Wayne Gretzky’s DNA blessed him with many natural hockey gifts, but if Gretzky hadn’t passed pucks on his backyard rink until his toes froze night after night from a young age, he would never have become the hockey legend that he did. He focused on the ordinary and did it intensely over, and over, and over again.

Andre Agassi’s book, Open (which I highly recommend), tells of his hours spent returning tennis balls spit at him by the “dragon,” a ball machine modified by what he calls his “fire-breathing father.” Agassi didn’t return all those balls by choice—he desperately wanted to quit—but the ordinary act of returning tennis balls over, and over, and over led to Agassi having an extraordinary return of serve.

Even extraordinary parenting arises from the ordinary.

Provide your children with nutritional food over, and over, and over. Squeeze your children with warm hugs over, and over, and over. Wash their dirty socks over, and over, and over. All these ordinary acts add up to extraordinary lives together.

So if you’re spending your days mired in the ordinary, place an imaginary time-lapse camera on your day and marvel at your simple, amazing, extraordinary acts.

Wednesday Book Review—The Little Red Book of Wisdom

Wednesday Book Review—The Little Red Book of Wisdom Revised Edition
Mark DeMoss: ISBN 978-1-59555-354-6, 208 pp., Thomas Nelson, 2011

“Wisdom does not favor intelligence or education, affluence or sophistication; it calls to everyone everywhere. We need only to respond.”
—The Little Red Book of Wisdom

No deathbed regrets: that is the wish of Mark DeMoss. He would like all of us to return to basics and practise skillful living to nurture success and prevent pitfalls.

Wisdom doesn’t favour intelligence or education, and it does call to everyone. This book, however, does favour those of the Christian faith. Some of his advice will resonate with all humanity (learning to use technology wisely, or reclaiming the lost art of letter writing), but other suggestions will seem unwise, or even offensive, to some readers (tithing, drinking no alcohol at all or never being alone with a person of the opposite sex who isn’t your spouse). DeMoss makes a practice of reading a chapter of the book of Proverbs every day, and many of the ancient truths on which he recommends we build our wisdom arise out of this daily meditation. This will be a source of comfort for some readers, and a source of concern for others. After all, some of the ancient writings in the Bible aren’t really very wise.

According to DeMoss, the Hebrew word for wisdom means “skill in living.” Wisdom, or skill in living, takes practice and is honed over time after many mistakes.

If we take DeMoss’s advice we can incorporate wise practices into our lives. We can seek the company of older people, try mindful listening, and tackle challenging tasks. Perhaps we can also raise a glass of wine across the table from a close friend of the opposite sex while discussing the best option for charitable givings. Perhaps we can do that knowing that it’s wise, too.

Wednesday Book Review—Quiet

Wednesday Book Review—Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking
Susan Cain: ISBN 978-0-307-35214-9, Hardcover, 352 pp., Crown Publishers, 2012

“Our culture made a virtue of living only as extroverts. We discouraged the inner journey, the quest for a center. So we lost our center and have to find it again.” —Anaïs Nin

Susan Cain’s book will come as a great relief to introverts. They will find themselves saying out loud, “Yes! Yes!” They will be filled with a sense of vindication: finally someone understands them, and, more importantly, someone values them. They will find an answer to a question they might have asked themselves:

“Is there something wrong with me?“

Every introvert should read Quiet to gain greater understanding of themselves and what they have to offer to society. Every extrovert should read Quiet to gain greater understanding of the powerfully quiet people in their lives, and how a lack of understanding can cause deep pain.

“. . . introverts relate to other people. Of course they do. They just do it in their own way.”

There is no clear definition of introversion or extroversion, and most people fall at different points on the spectrum of one extreme to the other, but recent science points to “fixed traits” and “free traits” and “temperament” versus “personality.” We all have free will and can adapt our outward behaviours, but we all have inborn, biological behaviours and emotions. Our culture and life experiences affect us, but we have an underlying temperament that forms the foundation for our approach to life.

Science also says that introverts and extroverts operate differently.

Introverts are more sensitive to stimuli and new situations. They begin tasks slowly but then work deliberately with fixed concentration. They persevere with difficult tasks through to completion. Extroverts soak up new stimuli, and dive into tasks enthusiastically. They are easily distracted and tend to give up on difficult tasks more quickly than their introvert counterparts.

“It’s not that I’m so smart,” said Einstein, who was a consummate introvert. “It’s that I stay with a problem longer.”

As Cain points out, in our North American culture, quiet perseverance isn’t sexy. People who don’t talk are seen as failing in some way. We like the engaging enthusiasm of the extroverts, so it is easy for introverts to feel underappreciated or even shunned. Cain hopes that her book will encourage introverts to honour their true nature. After all, introverts brought us such fun and important things as Charlie Brown, the theory of relativity, Google, Harry Potter and E.T. (That’s right, Spielberg is an introvert.)

In order for introverts to function well in our extrovert-loving society, they must spend a lot of time pretending.

Introverts learn from an early age that their inborn temperament doesn’t click with societal expectations. They learn how to act. They learn how to pretend to speak comfortably in public, and then they hide in the bathroom on breaks. They develop an effective sales pitch that puts them at the top of their sales team, and then they curl up by themselves and read all weekend. To get by introverts spend a lot of time pretending to be something they are not—but only so far. The “rubber band theory” proposes that people are elastic and can stretch, but only so much. Then they need a “restorative niche.”

It seems unfair to introverts that they must spend so much time being something they are not when the extroverts go about life with carefree ease. Shouldn’t they have to learn to turn it down a notch sometimes?

Cain believes this to be true.

Our society needs a better balance of both and a better understanding of both. Companies gain from hiring employees with both the outgoing enthusiasm of extroverts and the thoughtful perseverance of introverts. Our financial system benefits from having a balance of risk-takers to ensure growth and careful monitors to ensure stability. Spouses learn how to relate to each other. Parents accept children that may think and behave in ways they don’t understand.

“Whoever you are, bear in mind that appearance is not reality. Some people act like extroverts but the effort costs them in energy, authenticity and even physical health. Others seem aloof or self-contained, but their inner landscapes are rich and full of drama. So the next time you see a person with a composed face and a soft voice, remember that inside her mind she might be solving an equation, composing a sonnet, designing a hat. She might, that is, be deploying the powers of quiet.”

Wednesday Book Review—Evolutionary Enlightenment

Wednesday Book Review—Evolutionary Enlightenment: A New Path to Spiritual Awakening
Andrew Cohen: ISBN 978-1-59079-209-4, 208 pp., SelectBooks, Inc. 2011

 “You see, the big bang is not just a metaphor or a disputed scientific theory about what occurred fourteen billion years ago. It’s happening right now. Something is coming from nothing every second.”  
 —Andrew Cohen

In Evolutionary Enlightenment, Andrew Cohen invites readers to reverberate along with the big bang. The creation of the universe was not something that happened in the past, he argues, it is something that is happening right now, and we are all in on it.

If he’s right, what awe-inspiring responsibility, and potential, we have.

Cohen is a writer, teacher and retreat leader who has been exploring cosmic consciousness since 1986. His ideas have support from some powerful opinion leaders in the area of enlightenment. Deepak Chopra wrote the foreword for this book. Ken Wilber, Joan Borysenko and Brian Swimme, among others, offered words of support. With that kind of mind power behind the book, the reader can expect to find in it insights that will shake up slumbering brain cells. And this book does offer some of those—if you are open to them.

Your willingness to open yourself to the ideas in this book might rest in your world view. Cohen explores the different ways that people look at life and the big bang. 

“When something came from nothing, was it a big YES? A big NO? Or a big NEUTRAL?” 

Those with fast-held religious views might see life in this world as suffering from which we want to escape, or in other words, a big NO. Scientific materialists would see life as a material event, scientifically unfolding but devoid of any purpose or meaning. A big NEUTRAL. But others see life as a big GOOD at a fundamental level. “That doesn’t necessarily mean that everything that happens in life is good,” he writes. “Of course, many things occur within the process that are tragic, painful, senseless and even evil. But “. . . the essence of the experience is fundamentally good.”

Those in the first two categories might find this book a bit of a trial. Those in the third category will read this book with interest.

“That which burst into being fourteen billion years ago has become you.”

 The seeds of you were planted billions of years ago, and the evolutionary impulse continues to pulse through you. If you awaken to it, you recognize your ongoing need to move forward, to become better. He calls this “the evolutionary impulse.”

“While Being feels like eternal peace, Becoming feels completely different. The evolutionary impulse is felt as a sense of tremendous urgency, an ecstatic urgency. At the level of consciousness, it is experienced as a sense that something unthinkably important must occur NOW.”

This is good news for people who feel their thumbs twitch at the thought of sitting still. But it is surprising, maybe even unwelcome or abrasive, news for those who have spent a lifetime seeking inner peace through stillness, meditation and prayer. Those who rely on “The Power of Now” to find peace might find the idea of spiritual enlightenment through Becoming rather than Being counter-intuitive. 

But as Chopra wrote in the foreword: “. . . to limit spirit to inner peace—or even the inner world—was misleading.” Cohen agrees. The big bang set in motion an outer world of choice and relationships and in every moment, every now, we have the power to choose what comes from nothing for the next moment. “. . . when people ask me what the self is, I say that the self is the one who is making the choices,” he writes.

The trick is to align our choices with spiritual aspirations for “conscious evolution.” To do this, Cohen outlines five tenets of evolutionary enlightenment:
Clarity of Intention
The Power of Volition
Face Everything and Avoid Nothing
The Process Perspective
Cosmic Conscience

If you see the big bang as a big GOOD, and if you want to move beyond inner peace to outer enlightenment, this book will be a good guide book for your new evolution.

If he’s right, what awe-inspiring responsibility, and potential, we have.

Wednesday Book Review—Putting Away Childish Things

Wednesday Book Review—Putting Away Childish Things: A Novel of Modern Faith
Marcus J. Borg: $16.99 trade paperback, ISBN 978-0-06-188816-8, 338 pp., HarperOne 2011

Does faith have a place in our modern society? Can religion evolve to keep pace with knowledge? Should it?

Marcus Borg thinks so, and for the first time he puts his insights into the form of a novel. Borg is a leading New Testament scholar well-known for his many non-fiction books on theology. (Read about him at www.marcusjborg.com.)

Readers of his non-fiction work anticipated this novel with interest, curious about how he would apply his take on theology to characters in real-life situations. Could Borg’s fictional story enrich our real lives?

Borg approaches fiction with some trepidation. His preface, where he admits to lacking a novelist’s imagination or gifts and writing a “didactic” novel, reminds me of a cook standing in the kitchen door saying, “Thank you for coming to dinner, but it’s my first stab at pot roast, and I’m sure it’s not very good.”

The novel is, in the end, both fiction and non-fiction. The fictional part of the book involves the main character, Kate Riley, a professor of religious studies at an American college. Kate faces the conflicts that arise in such a situation and ponders her challenges over glasses of perfectly poured Guinness. The university setting provides the perfect opportunity for Borg to showcase his non-fiction expertise. Kate’s lectures and interactions with students are summarized versions of Borg’s non-fiction work. The overall effect is that of fictional openings created into which to plunk non-fiction writing.

Those who have read Borg’s non-fiction works might be disappointed in this book. They will be familiar with the themes, and the supporting fictional framework is not strong enough to create a page-turning reading experience.

But Borg wrote Putting Away Childish Things for readers who would not normally pick up his non-fiction books. Newcomers to a spiritual quest will find this book enlightening and thought-provoking. They will enjoy the read and come away richer for the theological insights.

Wednesday Book Review—A New Earth

Wednesday Book Review—A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
Eckhart Tolle: $15.50 trade paperback, ISBN 978-0-452-28996-3, 309 pp., Penguin Group 2005

Are you ready yet? That is Eckhart Tolle’s question.

According to Tolle, great wisdom leaders in our history─Buddha, Jesus and others─lived and taught a message that the societies of their time were not ready to accept. The societies of their time were not equipped with enough knowledge and experience to learn to “defy the gravitational pull of materialism and materiality and rise above the identification with form.” As a result, the teachings were misunderstood and have become distorted over time.

Are you ready yet?

“This book is about you,” Tolle writes. “It will change your state of consciousness or it will be meaningless. It can only awaken those who are ready. Not everyone is ready yet, but many are, and with each person that awakens, the momentum in collective consciousness grows, and it becomes easier for others.”

Tolle explores the issues in daily life that tie us to our egos and impair our readiness: resentments, grievances, religion, pain, unhappiness and our attachment to material things. He strips away the disguises these issues hide behind and shows them for the imposters they are. We often blame others or external circumstances for our unhappiness, for example. We think: “You should do this so that I can be at peace.” Or “There is something that needs to happen in my life before I can be at peace.”

The power of now

Eckart Tolle is best known for his first book The Power of Now. He draws on ideas from that book to centre each reader in the peace of his or her own now. “Listen to people’s stories,” he writes, “and they could all be entitled. ‘Why I Cannot Be at Peace Now.’ The ego doesn’t know that your only opportunity for being at peace is now. Or maybe it does know, and it is afraid that you may find this out. Peace, after all, is the end of the ego.”

If you are not feeling at peace, a walk through Tolle’s book might unveil some reasons behind your unrest, worry or anger. His words might encourage you to take three deep breaths, look around you right now and discover the freedom of the present moment. “Nothing is going to make us free because only the present moment can make us free.”

The virtual collective consciousness

Following the publication of this book, Tolle participated in a “virtual book club,” A New Earth: Are You Ready to be Awakened? , with the viewers of Oprah. Millions of people participated in weekly live chat sessions and online classes. Buddha and Jesus and the other great wisdom teachers of history had to rely on their feet and word of mouth to spread their message. Today, with the internet and Oprah on hand, maybe we are ready for a global transformation─for a New Earth. You can, right now, tap into the collective consciousness and rise above your ego.

Are you ready yet?