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Ripening Effort: Gentleness in What We Bring · Infinitely Precious

• 0:00
  Intro: Welcome to the Infinitely Precious Podcast produced by Infinitely Precious LLC. Your host is James Henry. Remember, you are infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift you already are.
• 0:12
  James: Hello, beloved. It's me, James, and it's good to be with you today on the Infinitely Precious podcast. I love joining you on this companioning journey that we're on together, and I'm glad to have you join me. It's an opportunity to hopefully put some space out in the world, a space for you to reflect, space for you to be open, a space for me to be open and share with you some thoughts I have about this world we live in. We have been doing a series and the series is called I've called it the Ripening Series.
• 0:51
  After doing lots of reading about some of the origins of the word, particularly the word good and the word evil, the words that are translated that way anyway from Aramaic. And I'm especially indebted to Neil Douglas Klotz and his scholarship and work around Aramaic language, the one that Jesus most likely spoke as his primary language in the first century, understanding that the root of good is ripe and the roots of the word evil are unripe. And so as I began to think about this and later on Neil Douglas Klotz wrote something, some things about ripening as well. But I began after I, as soon as those words sort of sat with me for a while, began to think about how we ripen in this life that in any given moment we're ripening. It's not about reaching the end.
• 1:53
  Although many of us have that as our goal, it's about being fully present here where I am and ripening in this moment so that in the next moment I can ripen some more. Showing up in every moment we have. And these are ripening dimensions of life. They are connected, interrelated, woven together, if you will, but they're not so much that they build on each other. The first of them is ripening view for me, followed by ripening intention.
• 2:26
  They just happen to be listed in that order. The sixth that I'm going to be talking about today is ripening effort. Now, it's not that if you don't have view, you can't have effort. It's that they are all interconnected and they're a way of sort of looking at all the interconnected pieces of our lives. I don't pretend like the nine dimensions that I have sort of spoken, vocalized, put in words are exhaustive by any stretch of the imagination.
• 3:01
  But as I practice each of, I started with eight in fact, and the ninth one, which you'll hear about in several weeks, of developed. I realized there was an aspect of ripening that I felt like was missing in my practicing in looking at the aspects of a life well lived. So when I talk about ripening effort, what am I saying? We all know what it's like to have a list of things that needs to be done in our life. Sometimes the list is long, sometimes it's short, sometimes it's a mixture of individual tasks that can be done at any time along with scheduled tasks that have to be done at a certain time.
• 3:47
  And so, we try to mix them up, put effort into them that is appropriate to each one of the things. We might not put as much effort into grinding and making the coffee, for instance, as we do writing Sunday morning's sermon. Or at least it would be a different kind of effort. And the ripening effort is, first of all, recognizing that different things ask different parts of us to be engaged. When I prepare for a Sunday morning sermon, when I prepare for time in the Infinitely Precious podcast, I sit with what I m going to be speaking about and I run it through my mind.
• 4:33
  I often pull out my journal and jot my ideas down and try to be clear about what I think about those things, what I feel about those things, what s rising for me in that moment because what rises in this moment and what rises in the next moment may be different. So being clear, trying to take a look at it from several different perspectives, trying to see what spirit might be calling me to speak into the moment. So there's a different way that I prepare for a sermon than when I grind our coffee and I do I make pour over coffee for usually just me and my wife. Sometimes we have visitors, other people. But when I make it for me and Linda, I do it out of love.
• 5:21
  So in the best moments when I make it, I grind the coffee, put the coffee in, I bring the water to a certain temperature, and then I gently pour it over the pour over, letting the grounds bloom and then pouring over it again and letting it trickle through. When am I truly attentive to that process, then I bring ripening effort to those moments. But how many of us, how many of you, how often do I become harsh in the efforts that I put forward? Really feel like I pushed beyond my capability because I wanted to show somebody who I was or I wanted to not allow this aging body to slow me down. And when I push beyond what is ripe for me, ripe effort in a moment, I feel it.
• 6:22
  I might feel it spiritually. I might feel it emotionally. I might feel it physically. When I really push beyond my limits, the abilities that I have, when I push my efforts and they feel harsh, then in sometimes when I'm feeling that harshness, it's no longer a ripe effort. It's become an unripe effort for me.
• 6:48
  It's become something that instead of giving life not only to me but to that which I'm doing or that person with which I'm engaging, I'm kind of taking something away. I'm not being ripe in my effort, whether it's because of presence or pushing. And so ripening effort is about becoming attuned to the things that we do. Sometimes we only realize that it was a harsh effort, an unripe effort after the fact. We realize, oh, that pushed me too hard.
• 7:32
  Now, what that becomes an opportunity for is learning. I think one of the best things any of us do is failure. And maybe there's room for ripening failure in the world. But I don't have a ripening failure practice. Failure always teaches me something.
• 7:52
  It always shows me what I brought, how I brought it, and maybe how it didn't work. Failure can be a wonderful teacher. But because it's interrelated with other folks and other things, it can also be complex. Ripening effort is realizing that in this moment I get an opportunity to engage and I need to choose based on the task I'm at, the person with whom I'm engaging, that the kind of effort I need to bring to that moment be ripe, be ready, be gentle. Be gentle not only for me but for the world in which I'm walking.
• 8:42
  I remember some years ago a good friend of mine who was a Buddhist sister taught a class, we Koku taught actually, and she taught us about mindful walking. And so we began to walk mindfully and gently on the earth, trying to make each step count. Oftentimes when we take step every step is merely a means of conveying us from place to place. We've talked about that too before. But each step if we're intentional about it, gently on the earth, being careful where we place our foot, to damage something that's already there, not to damage ourself, to gently walk upon this earth of which we are a part and which is a gift that we share in, which we are called to be good managers, stewards of in our living.
• 9:51
  Right effort brings all of those things to bear. And you might start saying, oh my gosh, this is just way too much, James. What is if I am thinking about everything that I do and wondering, you begin somewhere. And you begin to recognize that every effort you put forth is an effort that you do on behalf of the one who made you and who loves you just the way you are. And so the effort that you put is no longer something to prove to someone else what your value, why you matter.
• 10:31
  Instead, it is rather than proving who you are, it is an opportunity to reflect a little bit about yourself by making an effort. Hopefully a ripe effort, learning from the unripe efforts, learning in fact as well from the ripe efforts. But I do tend to learn more from the moments when I went just a little unripe. What does that say about that moment for me or about who I was in that moment or how attentive I was in that moment? What can I learn from that so that the next moment that I have the opportunity to be ripe or unripe is an invitation instead to be ripe?
• 11:17
  Sometimes we have to learn 100 ways not to be unripe so that we can find the best way to be ripe. So for me, ripening effort is approaching each thing in my life, trying to bring a gentleness to the task that is before me. Not being harsh with myself or with the people for whom I am doing it or with whom I'm doing it to the task itself. It's ripe, appropriate level of effort recognizing our finitude, recognizing what we have to bring, recognizing what we need to do in that moment and bringing it as best we can as rightly as possible. That is what I think about when I think about ripening effort.
• 12:11
  And I have been trying to do it all this week when different things come up and change my schedule, I try to give ripe effort to the thing that has changed my schedule and recognize that the thing I did not have time to give effort to today can be given effort to at another time. Well, my friends, just remember ripening effort or not, ripe or unripe, you are always infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift you are. Thank you so much for joining me. I wish you all the best on your journey of ripening effort.