Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Arsonists of the Heart
In one of his Easter poems, John Shea has the following
line:
And in the
breaking of the bread
they knew the impostor for who he was -
the arsonist of the heart.
This references the Easter story of the two disciples on
their way to Emmaus. They bump into a stranger who joins them for supper when
they arrive at their evening destination. During the meal they recognize him
for who he is, the Risen Jesus. But what is most interesting is the way they
describe their encounter with him: “were not our hearts burning with fire, when
he spoke to us on the road?” Long before they actually knew who he was, they
had a particular experience which served as a harbinger of things to come.
Simply talking to this man left them changed, with their hearts on fire.
Even lesser figures in history were known to impact the
people they came into contact with: Bill Clinton has, by all accounts, an
amazing presence which leaves you speechless; mother Theresa, though small and
sometimes gruff, invariably touched a nerve in people, so much so that many
wanted to join her in her mission. And I recently had the opportunity to see
Gideon Kremer live: he is a world famous violinist and gave an interview at the
end of one of his concerts. His manner is very quiet, almost hushed, but his
enthusiasm for music leaves you breathless, as the long conversation proved
which I had with my friends once we left the concert hall. Our hearts were on
fire.
What point am I trying to make? Surely not every human
encounter can be life-changing, but what is people’s experience when they spend
time with us? Boredom, because we have nothing meaningful to say? Or worse,
negativity, because we complain about our circumstances or about other people?
Or are they energized, fired up, enlightened. I know this is a high bar to
clear, but what would happen if we made lighting fires the goal of all human
encounters? Arsonists of the heart everywhere, and people catching vision,
energy, encouragement…quite a dream, no?
Saturday, April 12, 2014
The gift of quitting
The Catholic Church has a number of criteria before it
nominates somebody an official saint: miracles do help, but if you started a
religious community, this also counts as a miracle. So people often speak of
the charism of a founder, the gift of getting something started. What I feel is
missing, in the Catholic Church and elsewhere, is the charism of quitting and
shutting down. Have you ever been in institutions, organizations or personal
situations and wondered: “What are we doing here? This is going nowhere!” The
fact of the matter is that it sometimes almost feels easier to start something
than to kill it; at least once an initiative, project or organization has
reached a certain maturity and has established a track record of doing good. As
a result organisations linger on, way past their sell-by date, in a
semi-vegetative state, without real drive or perspective, too sick to live and
too healthy to die on its own. I am sure
we can all think of examples.
Why does it seem so difficult
to quit? Two publications have recently addressed this phenomenon. Seth Godin,
the prolific business author, has a book called “The Dip- a little book that
teaches you when to quit”. He points out that we need to learn to distinguish
whether we are in a dip or in a cul-de-sac. The former is the phase between
initial enthusiasm and complete mastery: dips occur when you learn a language, take
up the saxophone or start a business. Many people quit right there, and the dip
is the chasm that separates the men from the boys (for some reason separating
the women from the girls does not have the same ring!). So if you are in a dip,
you need to decide whether you really want this, and if the answer is yes,
power on.
But if you are in a cul-de-sac, a dead-end, you need to
quit, and quit fast. So why don’t we do that more often? The reasons are as
varied as the people involved, but a few big ones stand out: the famous “point
of no return”, i.e. the notion that we have already sunk so much resource into
the project that it would be a shame to quit. As a result Sally goes on with
med school and becomes a sad doctor, simply because she already amassed $ 150
000 of debt. Then there is the respect for tradition: people have been mining
coal in this town for the past 500 years, so who are we to break with
tradition, even if this industry is no longer profitable. And finally we find
good old-fashioned pride: we don’t want to look like quitters, and so we
soldier on. Thousands of lives have been sacrificed at the altar of pride, with
generals not wanting to admit defeat. And many careers are going nowhere for the
very same reason.
The German equivalent of “Business Week” devoted its
November 2013 issue to “Quitting”. It showcased stories as varied as IBM
selling its PC division and successful bankers quitting their jobs in order to
start a social venture. Their point wasn’t that quitting was always laudable; there
is such a thing as the virtue of perseverance. But they wanted to remove the
stigma from throwing in the towel and show that sometimes the good is the enemy
of the best, and you won’t really become the best until you quit what you are
doing.
As this season of Lent draws to an end, many of us can’t
wait to stop quitting: we have been missing chocolate, TV, booze, sex,
whatever. But maybe it’s time you quit something permanently: a job, a hobby,
an occupation, a service, a responsibility. Not if you are in a dip, of course.
But if you “know in your knower” that this is not going anywhere, get out.
Suggest a shut down. Walk out. And you might become a saint someday.
