This past weekend, a friend and I spent an evening at the Ohio Theater in Cleveland attending Rob Bell’s Holy Shift tour. This post will not summarize what Rob said that evening. As a matter of fact, I am still processing what I heard over those three hours.
While Rob’s and Peter Rollins’ presentations (Peter opened for him) were thought-provoking, sobering, and inspiring, the part of the evening that touched me the most was the Pre-show Q&A.
There were about 30 of us in the room and as we started, Rob said there is always someone at every Q&A that has a question they have been dying to ask and they usually go first.
After a few seconds of silence, I raised my hand and said, “I’ll be that person tonight.”
To summarize my question, I stated that I am a Type 7 on the Enneagram (as is Rob) and that I struggle with being present in the moment. (To quote me, I said, “I suck at being present in the moment.”)
For the next ten minutes or so, it felt like Rob and I were sitting at a coffee shop discussing my life. While he looked around the room, his eyes often returned to me and he even spoke to me by name. Below is a summary of what I heard in those ten minutes…
Don’t be so hard on yourself.
He called me out for saying that I suck at being present. I was reminded that my thoughts often shape my attitude. Most of us have negative things we tell ourselves. We’re not good enough. We’re a failure. We suck.
The reality is we are all inherently good. We are all created in the image and likeness of the divine. We might be struggling, but – as Rob likes to say – the universe is rigged in our favor. We just have to remind ourselves of that.
Stop filling your schedule.
One of the worst habits of an Enneagram Seven is staying busy to avoid pain. We run from one thing to the next, constantly trying to numb the pain and run away from it.
I was reminded that I need to change my behavior. When I am constantly filling my schedule, I am looking to the future, planning the next adventure, and in the meantime, robbing myself of the opportunity to enjoy where I am in that moment and not leaving time for rest and reflection.
Slow down.
I move too fast. I need to learn to live by one of my favorite movie quotes. These words, spoken by the famous theologian Ferris Bueller, are ones I say often, but seldom heed: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it.”
I miss life more than I care to admit. In my effort to outrun my pain, I also outrun pleasure. When I seek to numb the bad, I numb the good as well.
Observe everything going on around you.
There is so much around me I miss. My mind usually races so fast that I can be in a conversation and miss half of what is said. I am easy distracted and often find myself picking up my phone anytime I feel the slightest amount of boredom sneaking in.
Unfortunately, that causes me to miss a lot. About the only time I really slow down and observe what is around me is when I am in nature. And even in those moments it doesn’t take much for my mind to seek distractions.
Remember that you are a student of life and you’re always learning.
Life is one giant laboratory. Every moment is an opportunity to observe. An opportunity to learn. An opportunity to grow. But when we aren’t observing, we aren’t learning. And if we’re not learning, we aren’t growing. And if we aren’t growing, we are slowly dying.
There is so much more I took away from that evening. I haven’t even touched on the idea of the holy in the ordinary, the profound in the simple.
I have so much to learn. So much more growth to experience.
I could write a book about what I have learned about myself and about life, but this one page, this one moment shifted the way I look at myself. Many of the things I have heard before, but in that evening, in that moment, I saw them more clearly than I ever have.
And that, my friends, caused me to experience a holy shift.
Breaking Into Peace 