Well! I finally got around to reading the Harvard Business Review article on Ellen Langer’s theories of mindfulness that PastorHH contributed in the comments the other day and I think it’s the BEES KNEES!
I must confess that when I saw the word “mindfulness,” my brain immediately jumped to Buddhist mindfulness practice and I thought, “Well, that’s kind of off topic.” As it turns out, it is not at all off topic, it is a very helpful framework for qualities in leadership and preaching that are hard to articulate. What Ellen Langer calls mindfulness is what I call attentiveness to the Holy Spirit, but it’s the same thing by a different name.
At any rate, this is very much what I am experiencing and trying to understand so that I can work on it in an intentional way instead of groping my way entirely by intuition and stumbling around banging into things.
Thank you so much for accompanying me in this, pigeons. Janice also suggested that this shift in preaching style is moving from classical to jazz, and although I have read a little bit about that, I already thought I was doing it. I wasn’t, exactly. Now I’m definitely moving in that direction. So thanks for that, Janice!
We are having more snow and blechiness and I am hearing about miserable, debilitating weather conditions all up and down the East. Do you find it easy to hunker down and get work done on these days when you should stay off the roads? I don’t. I find that I fall into silence and reflection (which are their own kinds of work, of course) and find it very difficult to get actual tasks accomplished. I love being snuggled up at home when it’s a choice but MAN, I hate being homebound by weather.