“we define our dialogue and, in a sense, our future through questions we choose to address. Asking the wrong questions puts us in the philosopher’s dilemma: we become the blind man looking in a dark room for a a black cat that is not there.”
So opens part one of Peter Block’s book The Answer to How is Yes.
This opening section Peter hammers away at how “how” is a deflector from acting. In other words it is an ego piece that prevents us, or allows us to hide behind acting. He says “choosing to act on ‘what matters’ is the choice to live a passionate existence, which is anything but controlled and predictable.” (p. 7)
He is interested in exploring how risk and adventure, which we all crave, we actually prefer to crave at a distance… and we keep distance by asking all sorts of questions that keep the pursuit impossibly at arms length. We like Man versus Wild on tv, we secretly hope we could do the same, and we verbalize if given the possibility we would…but really? Don’t we want to keep this stuff at a distance and isn’t that an illustration of how we feel about our deepest passions too?
He suggests the most common question we ask is ‘how?’ We as quickly as possible reduce the questions of purpose and meaning and passion and fire down to the practical considerations which in the grand scheme of things matter little if the passion, meaning and purpose are calling us forward. He gives six versions of the ‘hows’ we ask to keep acting at bay.
Do you ask how questions to stall risk engagment? What kind of how questions?
I head again this week for very lengthy trip to South Africa and Namibia. 9 conferences 1 staff retreat, 5 consults, 6 cities 2 countries. It is going to be a ball. In keeping with the trip, this weeks blurb on the new book releasing March 1 is from Stephan Joubert, Professor of NT at the University of Pretoria. Stephan is a dear friend and the one responsible for introducing Static (my second book) to the SA audience several years ago when I did a rather extensive book tour there. Thanks Stephan.
“As one of the sharpest and most eloquent theological minds of our day, Ron Martoia in this delightfully well-written book invites us into a new, conjunctive stage of faith where paradox, society and God can exist in peaceful tension. From a new vantage point, where the Bible is no longer viewed as an owner’s manual to make everything hum but as a classic, we are challenged to live the biblical text through new conversations we engage in with the text. The jazz metaphor serves as another equally helpful image to convey the meaning of the dance of improv where the Bible becomes the score that we, in the company of other Jesus-followers, constantly immerse ourselves in. In this way the Bible comes alive through the music we are making with our lives. This masterful book by a modernday prophet in blue jeans will open up fresh new pathways for all who wish to finally replace their dated reading maps of the Bible.”
Stephan Joubert
Extraordinary Professor of New Testament studies. University of Pretoria, and editor echurch/ekerk
Most of you surfing around this site know I read quite a bit. Every once in a while I make comments on resources I know you would benefit from. The comments on Time and Soul I opted to do in the form of an interview I posted. This next book I want to let you know about was the most important book I read a couple years ago. Of the over 230 I read that year this was at the top of the heap. Unfortunately I think the title is incredibly misleading and as a result not something a lot of people would pick up.
A few years ago at an annual conversation hosted off shore I had the opportunity to meet and then spend a couple days with Peter Block. He is a brilliant organizational consultant that is deeply into community restoration, in fact one of his most recent books is called Community.
The book I will be jotting a few posts about is his The Answer to How is Yes. My first thought at that title was it was a book on negotiating or conflict resolution or something. Not so. This is a book that probes your motivations, excuses and inaction so you can get in touch with acting on what matters. Get the book and buckle in for some posts the next couple weeks. You won’t be disappointed. Used copies on Amazon right now for $6.50.
Opening quote to get you thinking…
“There is a depth in the question, ‘How do I do this?’ that is worth exploring. The question is a defense against the action. It is a leap past the question of purpose, past the question of intentions, and past the drama of responsibility. The question ‘how?’ — more than any other question — looks for the answer outside of us. It is an indirect expression of our doubts.”
Yes that quote is typed correctly. But my guess is you read it twice already anyway. It’s a thinker. How did it grab you? Do you see those issues in your own thinking and life?
One of the great wisdom thinkers of our time. Part of what I like to do is introduce people to resources they may not be fully familiar with. This is what my coaches and spiritual directors have done in my life over the last 6 years or so. Jacob is one such person I have been introduced to. If watching this vimeo piece will get you to engage the idea in it or pick up one of his books this might be the most important blog post you read in 2010. Honest…he is that important and that wise. If you are going to get one of his books get this one Time and Soul. It isn’t the Stephen Covey take on time, it isn’t a time managment book, it is the practical philosophers take on time, bringing ancient insights to bear. So rich and good.
Acceptance of the grace and mystery of life means that because of our practice of letting go the core posture of our soul and pattern of our life is letting go….letting go of the need to make every thing fit, cohere. We just need to surrender to what arises and allow the mystery and grace of life to come to us uncensored and unedited
When I say surrender what do I mean?
In fact coming from the old Covey school of thought concerning goal setting, 5 year personal planning, life goal achievement the idea of surrender might seem oxymoronic.
This is a move from planning to preparedness.
Surrender is radical acceptance of our lives just as they are, it is the active turning of the mind from willfulness (resisting or trying to change what is) to willingness, (meeting what is or accepting life on life’s terms)
THIS DOESN’T imply becoming passive or condoning an unacceptable situation; instead radical acceptance is an active engagement with whatever is happening in the moment.
Radical acceptance is precisely what decreases pain. Our ability to receive and accept instead of fight and resist is what decreases pain and discomfort.
I not only read about this a lot in the larger wisdom traditions but have experienced this first hand.
When I try to control or fight circumstances in relationships or in certain church setting I work that very resistance is precisely what heightens pain and angst.
Furthermore it is in the mystery the parts that don’t initially makes sense that often God is up to something that we couldn’t see before, hadn’t planned or didn’t anticipate.
SYNCHRONICITY may be one of the greatest by products of accepting what is arising. One of the most important leadership books I have read of the several hundred on my shelf and the one I go back to over and over again is Synchronicity by Joe Jaworski. First used by Carl Jung, Synchronicity is serendipity with the “universe behind it.” In Christian language…God is involved in what might look like a coincidence.
What if we remained just as connected to the adventure of mystery and the questions of life as we did the answer seeking we are so driven by and end up in the process with these incredibly synchronicity moments?
My guess is this too is a function at some level of years and maturity.
Every once in a while a quick summary….for those that have been following skip to the “NEW MATERIAL” header half way down
transformation means a change in how you see the world and a shift in how you see yourself. Not just a shift in your point of view but a whole different perception what of what is possible.
DEFINITION- ongoing and integrated shifts in the way we see and make meaning of ourselves God others and the world.
Portals to Transformation
1 DEEP PERSONAL PAIN
jars us out of autopilot and causes us to ask deep questions and question the way things are supposed to be
2. Noetic Experiences…
3. The Right Resources, teacher, situations come on the scene
Choices that Cultivate Possible Transformative Moments – the gardeners metaphor we developed
1. Gardeners accommodate new experiences and resist assimilating them. [read more...]
Rob Wegner is a friend and colleague and has just posted a very generous review of Improv. He is doing incredible things at Granger Community Church one of the churches in the United States really getting it done. Thanks Rob!
I just finished reading a pre-release of Ron Martoia’s new book, The Bible as Improv.
Ron’s new book will shock and surprise all of us who grew up hearing the Bible taught as a series of short stories with a moral lesson attached. Bible as Improv compelling calls us out of a myopic, modernistic approach to atomize the Bible into timeless principles into a broader, wide-eyed approach that allows us to experience the breath-taking scope of the entire Story of Scripture within it’s own untamed voice and context.
Be prepared to have your assumptions questioned and unnoticed filters stripped away. If that sounds too dangerous, then this book isn’t for you. However, if you’re ready to immerse yourself in God’s Story, embrace that Story with the entirety of your life and then MOVE that story forward in history, then grab this book and start reading.
Ron is one of my mentors, so this will probably be far from an objective review. But, interestingly enough, that is one of the points of this book. [read more...]
Please click here for part 1.
Please click here for part 2
Please click here for part 3
Please click here for part 4
READING THE SIGNS
What we have been talking about here is an exercise in what is called semiotics. The Greek word semion in the Gospel accounts is the word for sign. You may remember Jesus in Matthew 16 saying, “You can interpret the appearance of the sky but you cannot read the signs of the times.” Semiotics is reading the signs of the times.
As we have read culture, we have seen a couple signs that give us hints and clues to entry points into conversations we just haven’t understood how to have. My experience as I have talked about this with many Christians, is while there might be initial resistance to think in these ways, they are simply looking for “biblical permission” to think and interact around these topics because they are so common in the cultural airspace.
Semiotics is exactly what Paul used in his now famous Mars Hill interaction. And I want to make sure we touch on it because I think it is another permission giving touch point for us as we head into a spiritually interested culture but one largely hostile to the Christian version. [read more...]
We scream about exegesis and the bible and do an absolutely dismal job of exegesis and culture. All the right bible stuff poorly translated into culture is quite honestly a waste of time, is imperialistic and colonizing in effect.
We need to be semioticians, readers of the signs of the times. And I think Matt has some very interesting things to say. You may not know Matt Mullenweg, but you are intimately familiar with his work. But it is the philosophy underlying his work that may be enormously instructive for the church. Warning this is 72 minutes…but finding the time to watch it will yield a reward.
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