21C Pilgrim

After a couple of years of coasting along comfortably I’ve recently started a new job working in an area that I am completely unfamiliar with.  Its been a shock to the system. A recent article about babies in the Sydney Morning Herald got me thinking about what it means to be vulnerable, to be a beginner again.  The article is based around the ideas of a book written by a UC Berkeley professor which explains that the relatively long period of helplessness that human babies have turns out to be an advantage as it allows them to learn about the world and other people and make neural connections.

I remember Mihaly Csikszentimihalyi making the point in his seminal book Flow: The psychology of optimal experience (which I do recommend) that children tend to spend far more time in a state of flow than adults.

Every time I read something in this vein I can’t help but think back to the 2,000 year old quote from Jesus himself: “unless you return to square one and start over like children, your not even going to get a look at the kingdom, let alone get in.  Whoever becomes simple and elemental again, like this child, will rank high in God’s kingdom” (Message Bible).  Being the father of an 18 month old boy continuously exposes the rut and brittleness of my adult existence and reveals the mental and spiritual necessity of becoming like a child again.

I wander what it really means to become like child and what rituals or activities can actually facilitate this.

My wife and I have a ritual that we like to do on the last day of every year.  Its something that we did once to pass the time as we drove somewhere and found it to be such a spontaneous and refreshing experience that we decided to do it again and again.  We relived the past year, month-by-month, in as much detail as we could possibly remember.  We talked about the details, the emotions, the fear and the excitement.  It takes a good couple of hours but we are always amazed at  how a year that seemed to blur past is actually rich with holy moments of success, failure, joy, fear and growth.  Its like reliving the key moments of the year in slow motion.

Opportunities for reflection are rare and holy in the 21st century.  Acknowledging and meditating on the key moments in your life gives them a sanctity and clarity that you would otherwise miss in your effort just to get through the day.  Its a dual act of worship and learning.

Imagine how enriching it would be to spend 30 minutes at the end of each week going back over everything that happened in the week, giving thanks for the moments of grace, crystalising what you’ve learned.  A tiny space of slow motion in a week of fast-forward.

Jesus put it like this: “What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving” (Message Bible).

This is my new year’s resolution: Set aside 30 minutes a week to relive each key moment and savour it like a large glass of 1997 Dom. Romane Conti.  After all, Jesus’ first miracle was turning water into wine…

I’ll play with some different approaches to implementing this and let you know how it goes.  If you do something similar please share it with us in a post below.

My update is here.

Welcome to the next installment of my ‘Life design’ blog. To move forward in achieving my goal of seeding ideas and debate that will allow us to explore what it means to live well and do life design, I’d like to outlay a framework for thinking about life design.

Design thinking refers to a certain way of coming up with solutions to problems. Read about it at wikipedia and watch this video:

One of the keys to good design is understanding the problem deeply, trying to view it from different perspectives and angles. Rather than deducing the ‘right’ answer, possible solutions are explored; design is often referred to as a ‘game’ and designers play with ideas. They come up with multiple solutions and see what works. It is in this spirit that I approach this blog – and invite you to as well.

In loosely following the 7 steps of design thinking (define, research, ideate, prototype, choose, implement and learn), I’d like to suggest a design problem and then explore ways of solving it – the more left-field the better! This is where the fun starts – how do you prototype life design ideas? Live them! See what works and what doesn’t, feed it back to us and adjust accordingly. As a community we can develop new and exciting ways of integrating spirituality into our everyday lives that make a huge and tangible difference to the quality of our lives and relationships.

There are no ‘right’ solutions so lets generate as many ideas and examples of implementation as possible – but the way that you choose to design something into your lifestyle may look very different to mine. As designers we each have our unique styles.

In my next entry I’d like to start with something fundamental to 21st century life – time. No one seems to have enough. People are working longer and longer hours. Terms like ‘time-starved’ are being coined to describe the busy and rushed people around us – how should a 21st century pilgrim think about time? What does a deep, meaningful use of time look like? Stay tuned…

Design has enjoyed a significant rise to prominence in the last few years – both as a concept and a profession. People want well-designed objects that are enjoyable and intuitive to use. Architecturally-designed houses that make great use of space and facilitate quality lifestyles are growing in demand. These qualities are even becoming fundamental to software and websites! People are rediscovering that our objects and spaces actually help to shape us spiritually – and vice-versa.

While this is all good – I can’t help but notice the contrast between the quality of design that people demand from their objects/houses/cars/clothes/kitchen appliances while at the same time living lives that are so poorly designed that they don’t even satisfy basic needs for happiness or spiritual growth.

As both a designer and a pilgrim, I would love to see a ‘life design’ movement emerge where the design process becomes a metaphor for us really thinking about what it is to live well – and then DESIGNING AND LIVING a life that makes it possible. Although the fundamental things that we need to achieve are the same, my life design may look very different to yours. Each designer has their own style and brings their own unique perspective.

I’m hoping that this entry will seed some ideas and debate that will allow us to explore what it means to live well and what it is to do life design. As this blog is about ‘integrating spirituality into everyday life’, I would love to take this entry to the next level and really flesh out some tangible ideas for what life design might look like.

In the meantime take a look at Len Sweet’s paradigm-shifting book SoulSalsa which he describes as a “lifeware design package”.