The Journey

“Time” to Read

/ Jeff Hora / Leave a comment
Graphic by CoPilot AI – Deep into the world of the grey cells and imagination

I was given a gift of time today. My wife and daughter were heading to workshop/event at the new Cookware-ish store in town. It was all about grinding and blending your own spices. My daughter does this quite a bit already, and my wife was interested. I got to tag along into town, although not to the event. I pulled into a coffee shop only about a block and a half from cookware store, ordered myself a green tea and piece of blueberry cake (YUM!). The place was pretty busy, but I found a good place to sit and read until they came to get me to go to lunch.

Now, it’s not really unusual for me to at least TRY to block chunks of time for reading and writing, but it’s usually in my Office/Man Cave at home and there is always something to distract me, not the least my computer. However, now there was no computer….just me and my Kindle. And an hour and a half of open time to read. What a treat! I’d been looking forward to this as much I was looking forward to going out to lunch afterwards.

Even though it was a little noisy there (it is a coffee shop after all, and is by definition a community space and place to chat.), I found it very easy to take on longer chunks of certain books that I find consume more of my cognitive energy than some. The book that I made the most headway in is “The Hidden Reality” by Brian Greene. At a high level, this book goes into the thought, math, physics, and philosophy in much of quantum science, multiverse theories, and theories of perception and reality. Greene is very good writer. I believe this is the fourth book of his that I’ve read. Quantum science and physics have fascinated me for a long time, despite the fact that the math behind it all is many light-years beyond what I can get. Greene doesn’t really dwell on the math, though, which is kind of him. He works hard at explaining in a way that allows me to “tag along” in my understanding. This is a good model for me.

Normally I can only get though about 5 to 10 pages of this before I get distracted or overwhelmed by the subject. NOT TODAY! Thanks to the less distracted block of time and the power of green tea and cake(!), I ploughed through about 40 – 45 pages of multiverse models, and philosophical approaches to the different impacts these models may have on our perception of reality, not to mention what reality might actually be. Fun Stuff!

I reached a good place to pause in quantum science for the moment and switched to some fiction. I’m in the third book of a large story arc by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter entitled “First Born”. I’m closing in on the end of the book (about 80 or so pages left) so things are accelerating to a close and I’m caught up in the story’s momentum. Then my daughter and wife showed up to get me so we could all head to lunch. That kind of yanked me out of the fiction world suddenly, but I knew I would have time later in the day to return to it and find a decent landing spot to pause; I’d either land there or charge through to the end.

I’d forgotten how satisfying being able to do this is…

Working on Agreements

/ Jeff Hora / 1 Comment
Book cover is a screen capture from Audible.com.

I recently read a book by Don Miguel Ruiz entitled “The Four Agreements“. I found it very helpful in a number of ways. But first, a bit of background…

As one who firmly believes and knows the Reality of God as The Creator Who pronounced all things as “good” and “very good“, I have been blessed with an ever widening exposure to all of the good and life-giving things, practices and people around me and in this world. Being a History buff, I began researching the histories and beliefs of Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, and Indigenous Spirituality, to name a few. Throughout this journey, I’ve been exposed to the spiritual beliefs and cultural framework of these, and have become impressed, delighted, and humbled by the overlapping of good things. Generally the most difficult thing has been “translating” (if you will…) the expressions and language used and how this may have a recognizable relation to other symbologies I have encountered to date. I have loved every step of this journey so far, and am grateful to continue to be engaged in it.

Don Ruiz’s book is about some principles of Toltec beliefs and culture. The Four Agreements, as presented in this book are:

  1. Be impeccable with your word.
  2. Don’t take anything personally.
  3. Don’t make assumptions.
  4. Always do your best.

The first agreement is one I still struggle with, as I have a hard time wrapping my head around a definition of “impeccable” that doesn’t create obfuscation for me. Also, the definition and context of the word “word” for me is pretty broad and is a bit slippery in my head. I’m still working on this one.

The other three agreements have been valuable, especially as they seem pretty straight-forward to my sensibility. I’m actually going to write separate posts on these, as there is a lot to comment upon and pull from my experiences with them in my life to date that I wish to share.

That all said, I highly recommend this work. The following posts can be read as grounds for further conversation with anyone who wants to. Keep an eye out for the next one in the next several days!

Good Food(s) and Such

/ Jeff Hora / Leave a comment
Graphic by CoPilot AI

I’ve been diagnosed as a Type 2 diabetic for about eight and a half years now. As this has settled into the regularity of what I have to learn about both the disease itself and my particular response to it, the evolution of what works for me and what doesn’t work so well has taken and continues to take place.

At the first there was the “Holy Crap!” realization of the diagnosis. The internalization of what I needed right away and some of the changes I needed to make in my lifestyle. Fortunately, I am married to someone who has a Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology, and knew a LOT more about food, etc. than I did (and still do….). The first several months saw some draconian changes in what and how much I ate, how much I exercised, and medical changes….including needing to inject myself with insulin every day. THAT took some “getting used to”, although I never REALLY got used to it.

Several years ago I got a new physician who led me through some more changes. For me (please, if you have diabetes and are working every day with it, don’t make changes to what you’re doing without consulting your doctor…I’m lucky..I’ve got a Real Peach!), the changes consisted of:

  1. stopping insulin,
  2. changing the number of times per day that I eat from 3 to 2, and
  3. discovering, mostly on my own, the things that I eat that have horrific effects on my blood sugar and others that have little effect, although there have been a couple of surprises.

So….

(1) I take some other medications for the diabetes, but I’m working a lot harder on managing it with diet (including weight loss…) and exercise. I have truly appreciated not having to stab myself every day with insulin. I wear a Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) monitor now, which really helps me stay relatively honest.

(2) I was brought up in Iowa and I ate three meals a day. That was the rule. Honed over the years in the military and in corporate, I ate regularly, and if someone was kind enough to bring in goodies, well, I didn’t want to hurt their feelings by not joining in the frenzy. Changing from the lifestyle of three meals a day to two meals (and minimal not-so-good-for-me goodies) meant I needed to analyze what I ate at each meal, balancing protein, sugars, carbs and calories. I had to look hard at WHEN I ate, giving my body a chance to work with what I was giving it to best metabolize effectively. Fortunately, again I had the solid advice and guidance of both my doctor and that Ph.D. who lives with me.

(3) This has meant that I have had to completely give up a couple of things that I loved (particularly pastries…..especially big ol’ glazed donuts!), and cut WAY back on several others (I’m a card-carrying choco-holic [if we actually HAD cards, that is…]). I still allow myself teensy treats of dark chocolate very occasionally , but not the way I used to.

The real surprises I have come across include:

  • I can eat cheese! I love cheese, man! I don’t go nuts with it, but it is included in my regular diet as a good source of protein, which is something I need to watch.
  • I can eat ice cream! Ice cream has an almost negligible impact on my blood sugar. Granted I need to stay away from the ice creams that have a lot of candy in them, and toppings are mostly right out, but just being able to enjoy ice cream is good enough for me.
  • I can eat pizza!…at least particular kinds of pizza. I went through a phase where I tried (I really did…) to like what I term “Faux Pizza”. You may know the kinds that I’m speaking of – interestingly concocted crusts, tweaked toppings, simulated cheese product sprinkled lightly. These did NOT cut the mustard, so to speak. Then I discovered, totally by accident, that there is a brand of pizza (I’ll not disclose the brand, but the stores are everywhere….) that I can order their double-crust pizza and it has little peak effect on my blood sugar. My usual strategy is to buy one, bake it, slice it into six pieces, and then I get one per week (invariably on Saturday night…), freezing the other pieces for subsequent Saturdays until I’m out and it is time to go and get another one.

So, WOO-HOO for cheese, ice cream and pizza!. I may sound like a little kid here, but way in there someplace is a twelve-year-old that needs placating, or life gets too gray-colored and I have to up my anti-depressants. Not something I want to do, for sure.

Anyway, I guess the point here is that this diagnosis was a real turn from healthy to not-so-healthy (as I perceived myself at the time…), but I feel that my lifestyle is much more healthy in a lot of ways now.

And THAT is a gift and a good thing!

One Fades Out, One (sometimes) Fades In

/ Jeff Hora / 3 Comments

Sisyphus Photo by Gerard Van der Leun

I have a lot of things that I find of interest….some more, some less. Still, I feel that this is the norm for most of us. There’s a handful of things that you’ve held dear for your whole life, or at least for such a long time that it can FEEL like it’s been your whole life.

Then there’s the entire ocean of all the other stuff in this world that can latch onto your attention and time. The massive bulk of this you just “let be”, if only because there’s not enough time in your day or life to pay attention.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve noticed a cognitive pattern for me that lines up, more or less, with the the attentive emotions for the duration of a deeper interest and engagement with something. An example in my life was my passion for painting. Right at the beginning of the COVID shut-down, I decided that I would try my hand at painting. I have a friend who had been doing this for awhile at that point (this friend has since excelled WAY beyond what I felt I could do….her work is, well, “jaw-droppingly wowser”….), and I felt it would be a new and different outing for my creative side. I have been a musician most of my life, but my active engagement with that side of my creative self (other than CONSTANTLY listening to music….) had drawn down, and I felt that going a new direction that I’d never even considered before would be fun and an adventure.

And indeed it was. For about two and a half years. Before I get further into that experience, I’d like to give a shout-out to all the fellow travelers who created (and continue to create) an enormous number of helpful online videos with tips and how-tos, as well as all the members of various online groups and forums of others willing to not only give a guy a hand, but commiserate about tough nuts to crack for a newbie.

So why only two plus years, you might ask? Good question. Age and growing personal awareness has led me to learn a couple of things about myself (“FINALLY!”….my inner voice exclaims). One big one one has been that, in those areas of interest and engagement, when it stops being fun, so to speak, it’s time to either take a break or give it up.

Now, I know about perseverance and cracking a tough nut. Those were and are the areas where that virtual “cloud of witnesses” encourage and support me. I’m writing about when it stops feeling like fun and starts feeling like work. I HAVE to make myself do something that I liked and might present me with a challenge for the period of time, or confront me with a hill that I need to get over. I don’t know about you, but I spent a LOT of life having to go ahead and just DO something (or take up the tug-of-war-rope ONE-MORE-TIME just to get to the next Sisphusian point) regardless of what I felt.

Well, I’m in a time in my life where I don’t really need to do that any more. Are there regular chores? Sure. But I’m not writing about those. I’m writing about stuff over which I have the agency to say, “Nope. Don’t want to do that any more. Buh-bye…”

I’ve discovered that there are more of those in my life than I thought. Over time, I examine the things I spend precious time and attention on and evaluate whether I can, or want to, scale down, ramp up, or drop them. I now know that this has NOTHING to do with being a “quitter”. What others may or may not think about my actions in that regard has had less and less an impact on my awareness and acceptance of myself than it might have had in earlier days.

I’m going to limit my banging on about this for now, but I wanted to get this out there as a testimony, and maybe as an encouragement to any one else who might stumble across this post and is confronting the ongoing changeableness of everything in this life. It’s OK. It’s normal. If it really isn’t fun any more, think about whether you want to keep going, or move on in some way.

Don’t worry about making “the wrong decision”. In most cases, there really isn’t such a thing.

Days of Celebration and Gratitude

/ Jeff Hora / Leave a comment
Graphic rendered by CoPilot AI

Now, that may read like a pompous title for a post, but let me relate the context here…..

Throughout the calendar year, everyone has days of particular memory, good or bad, that float up for annual pondering. I’m no different. In my life today, and for many years past, I live a block of days that each have their significance, together and apart.

In my life they have landed in this order (further explanation a little later…):

  • Bachelor Party Day
  • Wedding Anniversary
  • My Birthday
  • Veterans’ Day

These, celebrated every year, always lead me to focus on my past, present, and potential. While each has a much more involved story, here are some fore-shortened versions:

  • Bachelor Party Day – The day before my wife and I got married, we were both so amped up that we went ahead and put on our rings, and went to a hole-in-the-wall Greek restaurant for supper, then went wandering around a mall. We were so giddy about the next day that we just had to get out and burn off some emotional energy together. It was fun, and a day we both remember. The anticipation was glowing!
  • Wedding Anniversary – Many of you have had this kind of commemoration in your lives, and, if not, you know what it is. Like anyone who has lived this experience, there are a lot of big and little things I remember. Each of them is like a small light, which, when put together with all of the other small lights of that day, make the total memory (which, as I’ve gotten older, has further solidified some, mythologized some others, and allowed some others to fade a bit…). My life since that day has not been the same, and is lived in light. Some light has been harder to see at some times over the years than some other light, but it was still there.
  • My Birthday – If you’re reading this, you have one of these…someplace. Some birthdays are memorable, some pass by almost unnoticed. Some are, or feel like, milestones (I have just had my 70th and THAT feels like a milestone to me…..). I’m fortunate enough to have my immediate family living here, and several close friends, along with the stream of friends I keep in touch with, one way or another, across the ether and locally. They are all wonderful people and I am so very grateful for them. Their ongoing friendship, kinship, and intelligence makes our touching base on this day in some way more meaningful.
  • Veterans’ Day – The inclusion of this day can seem odd to some, except that I spent a large portion of my life in the U.S. Navy Music Program and the National Guard (the latter while I was in college for 5 years….). Being in a Navy Band meant that I ALWAYS had a gig to perform on Veterans’ Day, and, early in my career, enabled me to meet several women and men who were beyond any appreciation I alone could give. At one ceremony in Chicago, I got to meet a World War 1 vet. At Pearl Harbor, I got to meet a number of veteran survivors of that attack (as an aside, my father-in-law was a Pearl Harbor survivor, and my brother-in-law was a Vietnam War vet who suffered from Agent Orange exposure; my Dad was a Korean War vet, my brother was an Iraq War vet, I have several cousins who served in Afghanistan, and other uncles who served in World War 2….lots of love in our family for Vets….). I am humbled to be a member of this huge community, and I feel gratitude every day for all that’s been done, all that’s being done, and the integrity of you all.

I get to celebrate and dwell on memory through this block of days at this time every year.

I don’t know, obviously, what each of your experiences are and what kinds of memory-encased days you may carry with you. I just want to express the particular frame I encounter every year at this time. Remembrance can truly help focus perspective. Each time this block of days comes up, there are always interesting things going on in my life, community, and world. Celebrate and be grateful…a pretty decent way to approach them for me, and I hope for you too.

A Starting Point on Spiritual Direction

/ Jeff Hora / Leave a comment
I am an explainer and a storyteller. What that can mean, as many who know me well can attest to, is that many times, when asked a question that I feel needs some context to understand, my answer can be long and seem convoluted (kind of like this sentence…). I’m not a bullet-point kind of guy (although I have gotten a little better at this over the years, to the relief of my family and friends…).

Why do I mention this? Well, I am a spiritual director (and have been for 13 years), and I want to frame the reasons why I have a hard time giving a succinct answer to the question, “What is spiritual direction?” I would like to share a few quotes by authors and spiritual directors that provide a starting point for understanding / dialogue:
“The whole purpose of spiritual direction is to penetrate beneath the surface of a person’s life, to get behind the façade of conventional gestures and attitudes which one presents to the world, and to bring out one’s inner spiritual freedom, one’s inmost truth, which is what [Christians] call the likeness of Christ in one’s soul.  This is an entirely supernatural (spiritual) thing, for the work of rescuing the inner person from automatism belongs first of all to the Holy Spirit.”
“Spiritual direction is, in reality, nothing more than a way of leading us to see and obey the real Director — the Holy Spirit hidden in the depths of our soul.” – Thomas Merton, Trappist monk, USA (both quotes)
“We define Christian spiritual direction as help given by one Christian to another which enables that person to pay attention to God’s personal communication to him or her, to respond to this personally communicating God, to grow in intimacy with this God, and to live out the consequences of the relationship.” – William A. Barry, SJ and William J. Connolly, SJ, Center for Religious Development, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
“The greatest teacher is silence. To come out of interior silence and to practice its radiance, its love, its concern for others, its submission to God’s will, its trust in God even in tragic situations is the fruit of living from your inmost center, from the contemplative space within. The signs of coming from this space are a peace that is rarely upset by events, other people and our reactions to them, and a calm that is a stabilizing force in whatever environment you may be in. God gives us everything we need to be happy in the present moment, no matter what the evidence to the contrary may be. A good spiritual director helps us to sustain that trust.” – Father Thomas Keating
A little over 2 years ago, I was approached by my pastor and our Synod to consider being trained as a Discipleship Coach (a program that is also referred to as From Promise to Practice or FP2P). Being unsure what this was, I asked for and received some clarification from several parties. This was helpful, as my first default visualization of the word “coach” was a picture of the famous football coach Vince Lombardi going after one of his players.

Vince Lombardi

Vince Lombardi

 Needless to say, that was unnerving. Certainly not my idea of my own or any else’s journey as a follower of Christ! Fortunately, I was completely wrong in that visualization, for which I am thankful.

While there are a few differences between spiritual direction and discipleship coaching, the role and call are really the same:
  • The role of the directee or person being coached is first of all to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s movement in your life, calling you to a deeper, closer relationship with God, but desiring someone to “walk with you” and help you to pay attention to what God is doing
  • The role of the director (I prefer spiritual companion or friend) or coach is to be that person. It is a calling and a ministry.
From a more Lutheran perspective, consider the baptismal covenant for what the life of a disciple looks like:

Do you intend to continue in the covenant God made with you in holy baptism:
                to live among God’s faithful people,
                to hear the word of God and share in the Lord’s supper,
                to proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed,
                to serve all people, following the example of Jesus,
                and to strive for justice and peace in all the earth? (Evangelical Lutheran Worship, p. 236)
RESPONSE:  We (I) do, and ask God to help and guide us (me).

We know that baptism is not a “one and done” thing. It shapes who we are every moment, as there is no moment when we are not held and helped by God. This world, however, is constantly a-swirl and confronts us with confusing and conflicting messages and scenarios. Remaining mindful of God’s Presence, aiming to be intentional in our relationships and actions, is a real challenge. Discerning what our next move is, how to handle the good, the bad, and the ugly every day and not feel like we’re completely lost (or even just neutral…) is hard.

There can come a time when it would be just plain helpful to have someone we could get together with pretty regularly and be able to go over what’s going on your life. Spiritual direction, or discipleship coaching, is NOT counseling or therapy. In spiritual direction, the relationship is about the person “in direction” and God, and how that’s going. The director is there to “notice” and accompany that person along the way, being helpful and aware of what God is doing, especially if the person is kind of in the middle of it all and is trying to make sense of it. This is NOT a hierarchical relationship (God is in control, not the director!)!

One last thing to mention: this is NOT a new thing. While the most popular example of guidelines given for spiritual direction are the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola (written around 1524), the descriptions of Jesus serving as a mentor to his disciples, Paul mentoring Timothy and Titus, and John Cassian (4th century) providing some of the earliest direction guidelines show a long history of this ministry and role in the church. It has been more visible in the past 50 years as Christians have become more and more attuned to their desire to deepen their relationship with God and the Spirit has responded through the church by drawing more and more people into this ministry and role.

Spiritual direction, among many, many other topics, is an area of interest for me and I intend to share how this has changed my way of being and what my ongoing experiences are like. Thanks for sharing this with me.

Is Your Tribe Remarkable, Unfocused or Mainstream?

/ Jeff Hora / Leave a comment

Which Tribe do you belong to?

That seems to be an over-riding, occasionally unsaid, concern in our society. Conservative or Liberal? Religious or Agnostic? One percent or ninety-nine percent? Blue collar or white-collar? Introvert or extrovert? College Graduate? Technical? Gender? Race? We have innumerable ways of identifying, classifying and limiting the understanding of ourselves and those around us.  Labels and categories carry assumptions and expectations, whether they’re true or not. And how much of this relies upon context? It’s something that has challenged our species for all time and it doesn’t seem to be getting better….

That’s a pretty broad brush with which to start a conversation.

Continue reading →

Is Being Authentic Harder Than Faking it?

/ Jeff Hora / Leave a comment
Dave and Me CROPPEDI named my blog “Authentic Voice” when I started seven and a half years ago. Since then I’ve learned that walking the walk of authenticity is way harder than the talk.

Something that I confront when working through this is having to admit when I am not up to the task. These last few days have been very hard and, without going too deep into the particulars, I’m sharing them because I need you to know.

Yesterday my younger, and only, brother died.

Do You Know The Lie of “Comfortable with Ambiguity”?

/ Jeff Hora / Leave a comment

Caterpillar using a hookah. An illustration fr...

Caterpillar using a hookah. An illustration from Alice in Wonderland (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

How many jobs have you had where the expectation was that you would be “comfortable with ambiguity“?  Be honest….is anyone really Comfortable with Ambiguity?! Or is this just the company’s way of stating the obvious: everything changes, so hang on?

I wrote a post last year about being in the moment and how each moment was nearly certain to be different from the moment expected. Certainly my life is in a very different place now, and yours may be too.  I’ll bet it is, since this world is anything but static.
It’s interesting that I haven’t seen that particular phrase used quite as frequently as before (say 5 to 7 years ago…). Has anything changed? Has the workplace become more aware, more mindful of the realities and discomforts of change, thanks to greater awareness? There continues to be a lot of discussion of mindfulness in the workplace…perhaps this has created the environment where change and ambiguity don’t need to be called out. They are accepted as the norm and natural.

Continue reading →

The Change of the Moment

/ Jeff Hora / 3 Comments

mindfulness 1.0

mindfulness 1.0 (Photo credit: Mrs Janet R)

Like it or not, most of the passing moments bring something a bit different than what I am expecting.  That’s really just a fact, an observation. Whatever I plan, even in the midst of doing something that I feel like I have complete control over (like writing this post…), moments seem to move in a slightly different way than I thought they might.  Most of the time the changes are so small, so quantum-sized that they are virtually unnoticeable. That doesn’t change the fact of their existence.  What does change is my perception and acceptance of them.