The Good in the Bad

“What difficult event from your life can you now genuinely give thanks for?”  That was the Thanksgiving question from our facilitator.

“This could get depressing really fast,” I thought to myself.

As usual, I was wrong.  As person after person spoke, I found myself inspired more than anything.  People have been through a lot—there were stories of health crises, pink slips, divorces, deaths and academic failures.  In general, when more time had elapsed since the event, and when people had done some “inner work”, there was less pain and more gratitude.  There were still scars. But amazingly, people were able to find the good in the bad.  There was genuine gratitude even for the hard things.

There are blessings to be found even in the challenges.  As people spoke, this quote from Helen Keller came back to me:  “I thank God for my handicaps, for through them I have found myself, my work, and my God.”  Painful events can lead us to things well worth finding.

This Thanksgiving, a couple of suggestions.  The first is to sing.  Check out our latest e-news for some ideas on how to do that around the Thanksgiving table.  The second is to include the hard things in your thanksgiving.  Along with the blessings, reflect on the struggles you have faced.  Is there anything in that story for which you can genuinely give thanks?

Tell us, Poet, what do you do?
I praise.  But the deadly and the monstrous things, how can you bear them?
I praise.  But what is nameless, what is anonymous, how can you call upon it?
I praise.  What right have you to be true in every disguise, 
behind every mask?
I praise. How is it that the calm and the violent things
like star and storm know you for their own?
Because I praise.
Rainer Maria Rilke

Doug Wysockey-Johnson
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Certain in Our Uncertainty

“I’m not sure if I should hang any pictures on the wall.”  That was my friend’s response after I asked him how his new job was going.  He went on:  “All I know for sure is that I am going to get paid next month.  Beyond that, nothing is guaranteed.”

Last weekend I heard an advertising executive say when asked about trends in marketing:  “Anyone who says they know what is coming next and where this is all going is lying.  They don’t.  None of us do.”

This is the new reality.  I don’t know anyone who is able to be certain about their work future, their health, or what is coming down the pike in their life.  In the ancient words of the King James Bible, “It doth not yet appear what we shall be.”

Most of us are a bit on edge about all this uncertainty.  If you are out of work, or have received an ominous medical report, you are probably more than on edge.  Terrified maybe, and I would be too.

In the face of this ambiguity, and in an earlier time, Oswald Chambers wrote:

The nature of spiritual life is that we are certain in our uncertainty.  Certainty is the mark of the common-sense life; gracious uncertainty is the mark of the spiritual life.  To be certain of God means that we are uncertain in all our ways, we do not know what a day may ring forth. 

Certainty isn’t exactly how I would put it.  There are days when my spiritual life is as uncertain as anything, and I wonder (along with the Psalmist and Jesus) exactly where God has gone.  But there are more days when, if not certain of God’s presence in the uncertainty, I trust it.

 I can live without certainty.  But trust?  That I need.


Doug Wysockey-Johnson
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Stalking Your One Necessity

In the wonderful mind of Annie Dillard, weasels teach us something about following our call.

 Dillard speaks of “stalking your calling.”  In her essay Living Like Weasels, she notes the animal’s alertness, single mindedness and tenacity.  She recalled the story of a man who once shot an eagle.  When the man examined the eagle, he found the dry skull of a weasel fixed by the jaws to the throat of the eagle.  Evidently this eagle lived for awhile still with the dead weasel fixed to her throat.

About this story, Dillard writes:


I think it would be well, and proper, and obedient, and pure, to grasp your one necessity and not let it go, to dangle from it limp wherever it takes you…..The thing is to stalk your calling in a certain skilled and supple way, to locate the most tender and live spot and plug into that pulse. 
Teaching a Stone to Talk, p.69

Whether talking about our work, relationships or volunteer efforts, we too must be willing to stalk our calling.   Like the weasel we can be alert, focused and attentive to our lives.  When we sense something that is a “one necessity”, we must go for it, and latch on tight when we find it.

In a related but different way, Parker Palmer makes connections between wild animals and the spiritual world.  He writes,

 Like the wild animal, the soul is tough, resilient, resourceful, savvy, and self-sufficient:  it knows how to survive in hard places….If we want to see a wild animal, we know that the last thing we should do is go crashing through the woods yelling for it to come out.  But if we will walk quietly into the woods, sit patiently at the base of a tree, breathe with the earth, and fade into our surroundings, the wild creature we seek might put in a n appearance. 
A Hidden Wholeness, p. 58 

While Palmer here is speaking of the soul, it applies to listening for call as well. What is common in both stories is the necessity for alertness and quiet attentiveness to our lives.  Sometimes that will lead to a leaping and  latching on to some opportunity,  invitation or “one necessity.”  Other times it will mean sitting quietly and waiting for the call to come to us.

Life is about trying to figure out how to best spend our time and energy, and for whom.   Sometimes we stalk, other times wait.   Blessed is the one who knows the timing of their time.

Doug Wysockey-Johnson
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Good to Great to Excellence

Is good the enemy of great?  Or is great the enemy of excellence?

In his book From Good to Great Jim Collins makes the point that settling for good enough can prevent a company from becoming great. We major in too many minor things. Collins encourages companies to find the one thing that they can be great at, and focus on it in a disciplined way.  I believe he is right as far as organizations go.  Our personal life might be a little different.

The Greek word for excellence is arete.   While we live in an era of specialization and “only first place matters”, the Greek understanding was different.  For them excellence had to do with well roundedness.  David Hawkinson writes, “The ideal of arete for a human is not to be the best at one thing, but to give oneself to many things—to be an ‘all-rounder’.”

What does it mean to be in an all-rounder? I am in a month where my work life is involving more travel and therefore more time away from home.  Time with the family and volunteer efforts, not to mention my exercise “discipline” is taking a hit.  Earlier this fall my wife needed to spend a week at her parents. That week my work was the thing that didn’t get the attention it needed. When I focus on a volunteer effort, it usually means missing something else.   Perfect balance is nonexistent in my life.

Taking the Greek idea of arete and running with it (but not in a toga), I would say that excellence requires paying attention to my life.  Noticing when I am out of balance or my actions are not consistent with what I say is important.  Arete requires pausing and checking the dashboard regularly.

I want to be great at work, but not at the expense of my family.  I want to be a great dad and husband, but not at the complete expense of my work. I want to be a great member of the community, both local and distant.  But not if it means sacrificing my health.

Maybe greatness lies in letting each of the important areas of our lives speak to the other.  At any given time one may need more attention, but paying attention all the while to the whole.  Maybe that makes us an all-rounder.  Excellent!


Doug Wysockey-Johnson
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