Discerning the Next Right Thing

The management guru, Peter Drucker, once wrote, "Doing the right thing is more important than doing the thing right."

He further explains, "Efficiency is doing things right. Effectiveness is doing the right things." In other words, we can spend our lives doing things right, but not make a difference, if the things we have chosen to concentrate on are not the right things.

How are we to discern what the "right things" are? Parker J. Palmer speaks of "the thread you've followed, unknowing, all along, the thread that strings together all you've been and done, the thread you didn't know you were tracking until, toward the end, you see that the thread is what stays as everything else falls away."

What is this thread? I suppose in one sense it could refer to our conscience, or to that deepest part of ourselves, which is where the Divine Spark resides. Wayne Muller suggests, "We make only one choice. Throughout our lives, we do only one thing - again and again, moment by moment, year after year. It is how we live our days, and it is how we shape our lives. The only choice we make - what is the next right thing to do - responds to a similarly vital inner gravity, an invisible thread that shapes our life, as our life meets the world."

Muller goes on to ask, "What is the next right thing for us to do? Where in this moment, shall we choose to place our time and attention? Do we stay or move, speak or keep silent, attend to this person, that task, move in this or that direction?"

The results of following this process have shaped our lives. All of us are where we are, now, today, because of our past choices. And where we end up, tomorrow and the next day, will depend on the choices we make today.

I guess it is about learning to understand, to discern, what is right for us on the deepest level - what will nourish our hearts and souls, as opposed to making us feel fearful, worried, or empty. Of course, it is never possible to re-track, to undo the choices we have already made; but we can try to be more aware of the choice-making process, so that we don't compromise all the time, choosing the seemingly easy over the right. Because very often, a choice made in haste, just to get it over with, actually leads to more worry and heartache, rather than less.

So how can we cultivate this very sane approach to our lives? Discerning what the next right thing is, is something we need to practice every day. We also need good, honest friends, to whom we can go for advice when we are struggling, and who will tell us honestly and compassionately how we are doing - whether we seem grounded and centred, on the right track, or off-course and flailing. We also need to *be* such friends, to one another.

I think we have to believe that if we follow our intuition truly, it will not let us down. Doing so will enable us to remain in our integrity and follow the thread of our deepest beliefs.  Integrity is not something we can achieve all at once. It is the work of a lifetime. Yet every time we choose the way of integrity, the way of truth-telling, the way of following the deepest thread of our lives, the more it will become habitual and the braver we will become. It is up to us to make the attempt to be authentic, to live with integrity, to be true to ourselves and to what we value in our hearts, rather than trying to persuade ourselves into inappropriate feelings, just because they are what the majority in society believe. It is not a particularly comfortable way to live - it is much easier to run with the crowd and to follow others - to "fit in". 

But if we can learn to follow the "still, small voice" of our consciences, to follow where that invisible thread is leading, there is a better chance that we will be able to do some good in the world. We are all inter-connected - to other human beings, and to this beautiful planet we live on. As Joel Miller wrote, "Any act one of us will choose must change other lives, just as every act others choose changes our own lives."

May we all choose to trust our intuition, and follow the deepest thread of our lives, the "breadcrumbs of God" that will lead us to a place of centred integrity.

 

 

 

 

 

Following the Path

 This week's quotation, by French poet Anatole France, reads, "If the path is beautiful, let us not wonder where it leads."

Hmm. Not so sure about that... The first image that came to mind (having just written a service about John Bunyan's A Pilgrim's Progress, was of attractive paths which lead us into bad situations, whether physically, mentally or spiritually. I believe that it is only too easy to be seduced into taking a wrong direction, if the path towards it is (or seems to be) beautiful. If we are not wide awake, it can be very tempting to simply go with the flow, to continue in the direction we're going, to follow the lead of others, without asking any questions about the ultimate destination. Or, if the destination itself seems sufficiently attractive, so it awakens our desires.

Let me give you an example from my own childhood. I followed the path of teenage rebellion by beginning smoking at the age of 13, because I desperately wanted to be accepted as one of the in-crowd. I knew it was wrong, I knew it would do me no good, but it was "cool" to smoke, so to hell with the rest of it. 

Another example might be the seduction of any life-harming substance, such as alcohol or drugs. We can be tempted into trying them because of the promise of a more enjoyable life. "Everybody else is doing it, and look how happy they are, so why shouldn't I?" is the most seductive excuse in the world.

The many social media platforms around today provide a selection of "beautiful paths" - which have the implicit promise that if we follow the right people, post the right sentiments, it will make us more popular, more loved. Which are deep and fundamental human needs. Yet they have little to do with the real world, with out interactions with friends, neighbours and family. If our standard of what is good and bad is predicated on the number of likes we get on Facebook or Instagram, TikTok or Twitter (or its rivals) we are not standing in our own integrity, standing by our own deeply held values. And that cannot be good. I have blogged about the counter-cultural path of digital minimalism here.

It is my belief that we have a duty to ourselves, to other people, and to the planet, to question each lure to take a "beautiful path", rather than blindly following it, no questions asked. Because when we take the time and trouble to examine the path we are on, and the motives we have in following it, the ultimate outcome is more likely to be good, not only for us, but for other people and our world.

If we are lucky, we will have trusted others with whom we can discuss such things, whether they are family members, friends, members of a Unitarian or other religious / spiritual community, or therapists. All can help us to see straight, to avoid the allure of "beautiful paths" which promise much, yet deliver little.

Being in Harmony

 The 19th century playwright Oscar Wilde wrote, "Being good means being in harmony with yourself."

My Concise Oxford Dictionary defines 'harmony' as "agreeable effect of apt arrangement of parts" or "sweet or melodious sound". And it defines the adjective 'harmonious as "forming a consistent or orderly or pleasing or agreeable whole; free from dissent or ill-feeling".

Human beings are complex creatures, being possessed of a body, a mind, a heart and a soul. And often these different parts of us are in conflict with one another - perhaps our mind is suggesting one course of action, while our heart is suggesting another. And it is only when we bring the diverse parts of ourselves to the table (so to speak) and listen to all of them in turn, that we will be able to discern what is the right course for us, what is the next right thing for us to do.

This takes practice, and also the understanding that we are made up of all these parts, each of whom has the right to be heard. I was a "walking head" for many years, almost wholly run by my mind. It is only gradually, over the last twenty years, that I have come to understand that my body and my heart also have valid inputs to make and that I should listen to them. And that I have a soul, that of God within me, whose "still, small voice" might be heard if I could clear my monkey mind out of the way, or at least, still it for long enough to hear that elusive voice.

It's about learning to understand what is right for us on the deepest level - what will nourish our hearts and souls, as opposed to making us feel fearful, worried or empty. Of course it is never possible to re-track, to undo the choices we have made in the past, but we can try to be more aware of the choice-making process, of the possibility of harmony. So that we don't compromise all the time, choosing the seemingly easy over the right. Because very often, if we don't listen with all of ourselves, and make a choice in haste, just to get it over with, this will actually lead to more worry and heartache, and a distinct lack of harmony in our lives.

So how can we cultivate this very sane approach to our lives? How can we follow the "breadcrumbs from God" as Wayne Muller so beautifully expresses it in his book, A Life of Being, Having and Doing Enough? He tells us that "If our choices feel right and true, if we hold them, listen to them, and act upon them clearly and well each successive moment - regardless how seemingly small or insignificant - we are more likely to feel fruitful and sufficient, moment by moment, choice by choice... We walk moment by moment, leaning into a vigorous reliance upon our heart's knowing and an unshakable faith in our intuitive capacity to listen for and know, what must and what must not be done."

If we can manage to do this, so easy to describe, but sometimes so hard to implement, process, then we will find that our lives will be in harmony with our deepest selves, that we will experience that sweetness.

Walking Our Own Paths

 I have to admit that I find this week's quotation, by French writer, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, confusing. It reads, "Do not just walk the smooth roads. Walk paths that no-one has walked before, so that you leave traces and not just dust."

Because no-one walks exactly the same path as anyone else - we are all unique human beings, coming from unique parentage, backgrounds and past experiences, all of which will impact our choice of the roads we travel throughout our lives. 

I suppose it might mean that we should try to choose the path that makes the most sense to us, at the deepest level of our being and at the point of our decision, rather than blindly following the choices or decisions of others. We might call this the way of integrity, perhaps. For most people, it is so much easier to follow the "smooth roads", so much harder to strike out on our own, because it requires more bravery, more confidence in our own choices. Especially if by doing so, we are going against the opinions of others, of the silent majority. 

It is a deep human instinct to take our problems to someone else, someone we think is wiser than we are, stronger than we are, and allow them to influence our paths, even to make our decisions for us. But in the end, if we want to grow into the best people we can be, only we should, only we can, make our decisions, our choices, for ourselves. Because, as I said, each person is unique, so what is right for one may not be right for another.

Many of the choices we make will have little impact on the lives of others, or even on our own lives. But sometimes, they will change our lives, setting us on a new course, which we could not have imagined before we made that choice, set our feet on that path. When I was doing German A level, many years ago, one of our set texts for the literature element was Sansibar oder der letzte Grund by Alfred Andersch. It was about exactly this - a small group of people in the little north German town of Rerik during World War II, who make decisions which will change their lives. As Walter G. Hesse writes in his introduction to it, "The people in this tense tale seem very ordinary and familiar at the outset, yet they are drawn into a web of nightmarish incidents which force all of them to decisions which raise them far above the ordinary and familiar." He calls them "the few... to whom moral values were more important than safety."

Hesse continues, "Everyone who doubts, who retains a measure of questioning intellect or belief, even if he is not as capable as those who can 'read the signs', will eventually, by talk or action, undermine an authority which can maintain itself only through the silence of the passive majority... Everyone who contradicts the money-lenders and traders in this contemporary temple is... forced to renounce selfish interests."

The symbol of this "measure of questioning intellect or belief" is a little wooden statue, called Der Lesende Klosterschuler or the reading monk, which one of the characters, a pastor named Helander, asks the fisherman, Knudsen, to smuggle out of the country, because within the privacy of his own head, the reading monk is free, and this is a symbol the Nazis cannot bear. It is a wonderful book, which had a great impact on me.

Der lesende Klosterschuler (photo in book, Rembrandt-Verlag, Berlin)

So we need to take thought at every choice point, and try to discern what the right thing, the moral thing is, for us, at that particular instant in our journey through life. We should not be afraid to do the right thing, even if it is different. We should be willing to follow the still, small voice of our consciences, or that of the Divine spark within, and blaze our own trail, thus leaving traces of our path for others to be inspired by.

Just Do It

The slogan of a certain sportswear company is "Just Do It". Simple and brilliant. I have always understood it in the context of pushing through physical pain to achieve a certain sporting goal.

This morning, I came across a rather different take on the "Just Do It" message, by none other than Mother Teresa:

"People are often unreasonable and self-centred. Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.

If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway.

If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway.

The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway.

For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. 

It was never between you and them anyway."

This is another kind of challenge altogether. It is a challenge to have integrity; to live our lives with authenticity. Because this is the only way we're going to grow, in any way that matters, in the long run. What a wonderful set of commandments: Forgive, Be Kind, Be Honest, Be Happy, Do Good, Give Your Best.

Nothing in there about Get On, Get Ahead, Look After Number One. These are the commandments of our society. I think I'd rather give Mother Teresa's a try, and Just Do It.

Flying Free

Jonathan Livingstone Seagull by Richard Bach was something of a cult book when I was a student. Most of the people I knew had a copy on their bookshelves, and it is not difficult to understand why. It is the story of one seagull who believed that there was more to life than following the fishing boats and fighting over scraps. Jonathan's great love is flying, and his one goal in life is to become the best flyer he can be.

Predictably, because his behaviour is different, and odd, and seagulls, like people, distrust those who are different and odd, he is Outcast from the Flock. He is sad about this, but it doesn't stop him working towards becoming the best Jonathan Livingstone Seagull he can be.

And this is the great enchantment of the book. I didn't really "get" it when I first read it, because I was still very much in the first half of life, trying to fit in, trying to make a place for myself in society. It has taken me most of the years since then to understand that there is more to living than this. True happiness comes when you strive to become the best person you can be, regardless of what anybody else thinks. It is living with integrity that matters.

And this is the message that Jonathan learns, from the Elder Gull, and from other enlightened gulls. And then he realises that even that is not enough; he needs to share what he knows with the Flock back home - the Flock that rejected him and spurned him. Because the freedom and joy of flight changed his experience of life from that of humdrum existence to that of joyful swooping and diving and pushing to the limits. And this needed sharing.

Which is what I'm just starting to understand. The joys, the insights, that I have learned on my own spiritual journey as a Unitarian and as a human being mustn't be kept to myself - they have to be shared with others, in the hope that they might inspire somebody else to start their own journey. Which is why I became a minister.

So I owe Jonathan Livingstone Seagull a lot, even if it took me a while to get the message.

Be True, Live Truly

This week I have been reminded of the words of a lovely hymn in our green Unitarian hymnbook, Hymns for Living. The words (after Horatius Bonar) are as follows:

"You must be true unto yourself / If truth to others you would teach; / Your soul must overflow with love / If you another's soul would reach.
Think wisely, truly, and your thoughts / This hungry world shall help to feed; / Speak truly, and your every word / Shall yet become a fruitful seed.
Let lips be full of gentle speech, / Your heart respond to human need;  / Live truly, and your life shall be / A glorious and a noble creed."

And it seems to me that this advice is the most important advice in the world - to be authentic, to live with integrity, and to be true to yourself, rather than trying to persuade yourself into inappropriate feelings, because they are what the majority in society believe. It is not a particularly comfortable way to live - it is much easier to run with the crowd, and to follow others -  to "fit in". But I am finding that I feel so much better about myself, if I am being authentically Sue. Of course I slip, often, because I'm a beginner at this, but I'm finding that I am becoming more aware of those slips, and they are making me feel more uneasy.

I think it was Socrates who said that "an unexamined life is not worth living." So I am examining my life, and trying to make choices that are true to who I am. As ever, I am uplifted by the Quaker Advices:

"Cherish that of God within you, so that this love may grow in you and guide you."

"Be aware of the spirit of God at work in the ordinary activities and experience of your daily life."

"Live adventurously. ... Let your life speak."

"A simple lifestyle, freely chosen, is a source of strength."

"If pressure is brought upon you to lower your standard of integrity, are you prepared to resist it? Our responsibilities to God and our neighbour may involve us in taking unpopular stands. Do not let the desire to be sociable, or the fear of seeming peculiar, determine your decisions."

So I am going to try to be true, live truly, and be Sue.

Belief's Wide Skirt

Today a friend posted a wonderful quotation from Toni Morrison on Facebook:

image by quotepixel.com

 

"For our sake and yours forget your name in the street; tell us what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light. Don't tell us what to believe, what to fear. Show us belief's wide skirt and the stitch that unravels fear's caul."

And it occurs to me that this is what ministry (and religion) should be about. It isn't about telling people what they should believe, or frightening them with bogey-stories about what will happen to them if they don't subscribe to a particular creed or ethical viewpoint. It should be about sharing our own authentic beliefs ("what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light") with courage and honesty, so that others may do likewise.

This is why freedom of belief is so important to Unitarians (and to other religious liberals, such as Quakers). We believe that everyone has the right to seek truth and meaning for themselves, and that the final authority for this is the still, small voice of your own conscience. So within the Unitarian community, belief does indeed have a wide skirt, and the best thing that we can do for ourselves and for each other is to share our authentic beliefs in a supportive community that encourages questions and doubts, so long as they are real.

Honesty - always the best policy?

I have been brought up to believe that honesty is the best policy. It was drummed into me as a child that one should always tell the truth, and that telling lies or acting dishonestly was wrong. The Quaker Advice no. 37 asks:

"Are you honest and truthful in all you say and do? Do you maintain strict integrity in business transactions and in your dealings with individuals and organisations? Do you use money and information entrusted to you with discretion and responsibility?"

And Alfred Hall, in Beliefs of a Unitarian, writes: "Unitarianism is not a system of creeds or beliefs. It is more than anything else an attitude of mind. It is a fresh way of looking at life and religion. ... Its method is that of appeal to reason, conscience and experience generally, and above all to elemental principles of truth and right which are implanted in the human heart at its nobles and embedded in the universe."

So not much room for equivocation then.

I wonder. Perhaps being honest and truthful is generally the best policy, but sometimes, just sometimes, telling a white lie, or even a whopping, great black lie may be the right thing to do. To cite just one example, look at the Dutch, German and other citizens during the Second World War, who hid and protected Jews, and saved their lives, by lying to and deceiving the Nazis.

And I honestly (there's that word again) do believe that sometimes telling a white lie in order to avoid hurting someone's feelings is definitely the best policy. Perhaps the key to knowing when to bend the truth is to use your reason and conscience, and to put what you believe to be right over the simple yes/no of telling a lie or telling the truth. I can see the dangers of this - if we do this, we are having to judge what is right or wrong in each individual case, and sometimes, we don't have enough information at our disposal to make the best decision (or what turns out to be the best decision in the long run).

I don't have any answers. Perhaps the best that any of us can do is to follow the best that we know, and to hope and pray that we will be guided to do and say what is right. May it be so.

Becoming Ourselves

My Facebook friend Hay Quaker posted a lovely quotation from Harold Babcock today, which really spoke to my condition:

"The fact is that for most of us, it is hard work to become ourselves: those true selves we not only long to be, but actually are. It is in truth a religious endeavor, this becoming what we are meant to be. It is our life's sacred work, really, because it usually takes a lifetime full of fits and starts, of beginnings and endings, of successes and failures and wrong turns, to get anywhere close to where we want and need to be."

It reminded me straight away of another quotation, by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, about God's calling for everyone, which was given to me when I started my ministry training:

"You must give up everything in order to gain everything. What must you give up? All that is not truly you; all that you have chosen without choosing and value without evaluating, accepting because of someone else's extrinsic judgement, rather than your own; all your self-doubt, that keeps you from trusting and loving yourself or other human beings. What will you gain? Only your own, true self; a self who is at peace, who is able to truly love and be loved, and who understands who and what [s]he is meant for. But you can be yourself only if you are no one else. You must give up 'their' approval, whoever 'they' are, and look to yourself for evaluation of success and failure, in terms of your own level of aspiration that is consistent with your values. Nothing is simpler and nothing is more difficult."

It's about having integrity, which I have written about before on this blog. Acting with integrity, being true to yourself, involves thinking for yourself. I love the Abraham Lincoln quotation: "I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to the light that I have." This implies making a judgement about what you believe to be right and true, and then sticking to it, no matter what anyone else thinks. Take Jane Eyre as an example. When she discovers that her master, Mr. Rochester, has a wife still living, she has a hard choice to make. She was desperately in love with him, and wanted nothing more than to live with him and be his love, but she knew that this would be morally wrong; as she says "Laws and principles are not for times when there is no temptation; they are for such moments as these, when body and sould rise in mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be." I admire her so much for this - she could so easily have followed her heart and stayed with her master. But she knew that is was the wrong thing to do "And there I plant my foot." To Jane, integrity meant self-respect, and following the dictates of her conscience in defiance of her wishes and desires.

Well that was in 1847. What about today? How can anyone behave with integrity, become their own true selves, in our complex modern society. To my mind, the answer is clear - the attempt must be made. Two politicians have died in recent years, Mo Mowlam and Robin Cook. Both were spoken of as having personal integrity. What does this mean in the wider context of our society? I believe that it means exactly what it always has - acting in accordance with your beliefs in what is right and proper, not matter what the personal cost. In Robin Cook's case, this meant resigning from his post of Foreign Secretary because he believed that the war against Iraq was an unjust one. In Mo Mowlam's case, it meant speaking out against the government when she believed it was doing the wrong thing. Personal integrity is not cheap - it means refusing to compromise when you are told to do something that you believe in your heart is wrong. It means following your principles, at whatever personal cost. It means putting what you know to be right about what you would like to happen, and above the approval of 'them'.

It is the surest way to become your true self that I know.

 

The right thing for the right reason

A few days ago, my friend and colleague Danny Crosby published a blogpost about that still small voice that can be heard in the silence. One phrase really jumped out at me: "the voice of conscience that lives in that space between what we say and what we do, between the talk and the walk."

For me, the voice of conscience urges us to act with integrity - to be honest, straight and honourable in all our dealings and doings, whether or not anybody knows about it. The thing that matters is that we know we have done the right thing for the right reason. A more down to earth example is that of a blacksmith mending a cart:

"Always do the very best job you can," he said on another occasion, as he put a last few finishing touches with a file to the metal parts of a wagon tongue he was repairing.
"But that piece goes underneath," Garion said. "No one will ever see it."
"But I know it's there," Durnik said, still smoothing the metal. "If it isn't done as well as I can do it, I'll be ashamed every time I see this wagon go by - and I'll see the wagon every day."

So integrity may be defined as doing the right thing for the right reason. But there is more to it than that. I used to be a librarian, so the first thing I do when I want to find out what something means is to turn to a reference book, in this case The Concise Oxford Dictionary. The dictionary defines integrity as "wholeness, entirety, soundness, uprightness, honesty." It means adopting a whole heart and soul approach to our lives, so that we do not detract from our spiritual wholeness by any mean action or thought. This is a lot harder than it sounds - most people (and I would certainly include me in this) often fall short of this ideal, and compromise our standards of what we know to be right, falling into the gap between the talk and the walk.

I think that integrity means more than this, however. To me, the most important part of that definition is "wholeness." For example, you can talk about a machine or a building having 'structural integrity', which means that all the parts of it fit together in the right way and work together. Going back to people, it means striving towards the best we know, acting consistently according to what we believe is right, and not allowing ourselves to deviate from this standard. In this way, our whole selves, body, mind and soul, can have integrity and wholeness.



Abraham Lincoln



Acting with integrity also involves thinking for yourself. I love Abraham Lincoln's words: "I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to the light I have." This implies making a judgement about what you think and believe to be right and true, and then sticking to it, no matter what anybody else thinks.

It is not an easy path, but the attempt has to be made.