Olivia Publishes Her first Book

The title of Olivia's new book is Sophia and Joseph Get a Whole Can, but Olivia Gets a Half Cup by Olivia Drapeau.

I think it's brilliant.

Reflections on Heroic Leadership

The following is an excerpt from my journal that I thought I'd put up here. If it is boring or rambling, forgive me and just scroll down to the previous post of my kids' videos. At least they're cute.

I have started reading a new book called Heroic Leadership written by a former Jesuit and given to me by a dear friend. So far it is interesting, but not fascinating. I think my exposure to things Ignatian has lessened the novelty of many of his insights, but he is making me think of things I haven’t thought of in a while.

This morning I want to consider and explore one of the things that comes up in that book, namely, the importance of self-awareness. Also, I want to examine the Ignatian legacy in my life.

The current state of my life is best characterized by the phrase “in transition.” As I’ve written elsewhere, I see what has been going on these last few years as an Exodus of sorts. Certainly the most resonant scripture account has been the story of the Israelites’ journey from slavery to freedom in the Promised Land. I have identified closely with this recently and when I say I’m “in transition” this is what I’m referring to—the transition from slavery to freedom; from death to new life.
But, this new life I’m experiencing/preparing to experience is an enigma to me. I’m genuinely bewildered about what “new life” means for me.

In many ways I find my experience analogous to being born. The transition is laborious and quite painful, and now that I’m in this new environment, I have to learn everything from scratch. I know how to be a slave; I don’t know how to be free.

This is a very unusual position to be in for me. I who prided himself on being so self-aware, for keeping a journal, for being wise, etc. find myself wide-eyed and paralyzed in my current situation. In my mind’s eye, I appear as mystified as my son Maximilian waking from a nap in the afternoon. How odd to not know myself.

This brings me to the discussion on Ignatius and the influence of the Jesuits on my life. Am I Ignatian? Have the Jesuits marked me for life? If so, how do I cultivate the good of the Jesuits and filter out the poison that seems to be contaminating the order at present? Am I not Ignatian? Is my desire to be Ignatian a romantic notion akin to my desires to speak Latin, have a degree from TAC, and be physically/lethally fit? Is it a lie for me to consider myself a product of the Jesuits when I am not financially successful, politically influential, whatever? Am I not primarily a Chestertonian? Do I not identify with Opus Dei more than with the Society of Jesus?

On the other hand, do those things not come from my love of my Jesuit education? After all, I learned of GKC at BCP; I came to love the idea of AMDG present in Opus Dei from Jesuit priests and authors I met and read while in high school. In fact, the most influential books I’ve ever read are ones I came across during my time as a student at Brophy Prep.

So, what? How do I make use of my Jesuit legacy? Must I still be involved with the place that was for me both the Egypt of Joseph and the Egypt of Moses? Can I truly maintain an Ignatian character apart from a vital connection with the order? Will I wither and fade like a cut flower in my isolation? Will Brophy/the Society of Jesus become the Great Pyramids of my life’s landscape—impressive edifices, filled with hieroglyphics and dead men’s bones?

How can I distill from my time with Ignatius’ company a practical potion for making my own company prosperous? What can Inigo teach me about freedom and learning to walk? I don’t know the answers to all these questions. In reading Heroic Leadership, I’ve come across a few phrases that sparked this reflection:

“our way of proceeding”
“greater love than fear”
“magis”

Greater love than fear. This is how Ignatius hoped to characterize his order. It is emphatically not how Brophy was run during my time as a teacher there. It is however the way I want to live my life.

This theme of love being stronger than fear has run through my life for a long time. I think freedom from fear is one of the most important things I need to learn/am learning here in the land of Canaan. For me, this virtue of courage is crucial. I need it so that I can give it away, lead my family, inspire my sons. I need I to be real, too. I need to be brave so that when I talk to students, my consolation is strong and not merely a platitude.

I believe more than anything in the power of love. From John Donne to Tonio K. to Amy Elizabeth to my children to wordSwell, I believe in love connections. I believe in making them, keeping them, strengthening them. I want my life and my work to be like St. Andrew—I want to bring people to Love; I want to love people to God.

Our way of proceeding. The author of Heroic Leadership points out that the Jesuits “way of proceeding” is never written out as a formula. Rather, it issues forth from a state of being that St. Ignatius inculcated in his company. This simplest way to explain this is that Ignatius didn’t give a man a fish, nor did he merely teach a man to fish. What he did was more radical: he helped men become fishermen.

My way of proceeding must also necessarily flow out of my being and not be limited to my doing. I think here is a place for intuition to operate. At Brophy, my intuition was the first place that seeds of self-doubt were sown. I’m still affected by it. Here, too, the role of habits becomes so obvious and important. Good intuition comes from good habits; habits form one’s way of proceeding. Consequently, I do not proceed how I would.

The question for me is “how do I effectively change my habits?” I’ve gotten past the immaturity of strongly worded resolutions and may just be coming out of a jaded cynicism, but here is a prime example of where I’m a newborn without a clue.

As a slave, my habits were more conditioning than anything else. I acted as was expected (out of fear) or as unexpected (out of passive resistance), but never truly out of virtue. Even my fidelity to the Church was largely a rebellion against the “System”. (I have always wanted to be orthodox, but my self-identification as “Mr. Orthodoxy: heroic martyr” was not authentically me. The real me is a reconciler; a defender of the Faith who seeks understanding.)

As a free man, how do I form good habits? I am accustomed to failure and disappointment. I fear success more than anything else, so I sabotage myself constantly by overextending myself and causing chaos. Steven Pressfield might insist that doing my Work will form my work habits. I think that’s true.

Magis. I won’t say much about this except perhaps “Amen”. I want my life and work to be more than the minimum--I want to live for God’s great glory. But I also want it (my contribution to his glory) to be truly great.

Book Review: The War of Art

A couple of posts ago I mentioned that I was reading a book by Steven Pressfield called The War of Art. In this post, I want to briefly review and reflect on the book, but, just enough to “free the prisoners” of my thoughts on the book; this is not the definitive review/interpretation of the book. I am very interested in hearing what other readers think, so please comment on this post.

The book’s title is obviously a play on the title of Wesley Snipes’s movie, er...Sun Tzu’s book, The Art of War and it is a particularly fitting title for a book on writing by a man whose body of work consists mostly of historical war novels set in ancient times. Like Sun Tzu’s book, The War of Art presents very practical, very solid, straightforward advice about its subject; like the Wesley Snipes movie, the appeal wears off rapidly and the last third is barely coherent.

In the first part of the book Pressfield introduces a concept he calls “Resistance”, which is broadly defined as anything that keeps us from our work. Our work, Pressfield says, is what we were meant to do on this planet. Don’t read that wrong. He’s not saying that we’re called to be ants in a hive, he’s saying that each us has a particular job to do, a special vocation. For some, it could be writing; for others it could be painting or starting a business or being a mom. Our work is the thing that we are uniquely suited for and that we must do for our own sake and the sake of the universe. We avoid this work at our peril. Resistance is anything and everything that we put in the way of doing our work. It’s all the excuses, neuroses, diseases, relationships, and rationalizations that we give in to instead of doing what we’re supposed to.

His litany of the many ways Resistance manifests itself was easily the best part of the book. It was, if you’ll forgive the expression, shock and awe. I was had like Bagdad. He named every one of my evasions and left me with nowhere to run. He kicked my ass. And his recommendation for overcoming Resistance is tough love at its finest. Basically, his advice is “Man up, Nancy. Get over yourself and do your work.” So far, so good, but then the book starts to go wonky.

Pressfield is dead on target about what’s wrong with most writers, artists, and people: we are afraid of our own potential greatness so we sabotage ourselves. Everything he says about Resistance rings true, even if the term itself is inexact. What he has to say about muses and the gods (they’re real…kinda), the evolution of man (we are inexorably getting better), and God (a.k.a. the Universe), does not ring true. It rings inconsistent and potlucky. The world view he proposes as response to Resistance is a syncretistic, new-agey mess.

For Pressfield, art comes from resisting Resistance and doing one’s work. The manly advice he gives at the beginning of the book seems to be heavily influenced by his study of ancient Sparta and stoics. That’s fine as far as it goes, but what is glaringly absent (at least from this Catholic’s point of view) is a sense of grace. His notion of cooperating with the muses is profound, but not as profound as Tolkien’s idea of man as sub-creator. His notion of work is noble, but not as noble as Josemaria Escriva’s.

To sum it all up, I recommend this book, especially the first two thirds, but with reservations. For anyone who is used to exact terms and a consistent worldview, this might be a bit tiring—it was for me. But for anyone who needs a good kick in the pants to start writing, working, starting a photography business and getting out of the corporate world, this is a great motivator.

Do You Know This Man?

His name is Steven Pressfield and he's been kicking my ass for over an hour.

My new friend Mark of the Kindlings turned me on to Pressfield at our last writer's meeting. I got the CD of his book The War of Art at the library and have been listening to him describe all my bad habits as if he knew me. It's a bit spooky.

I'm about a third of the way through the book and it's very good. He writes very directly, in a no-bullshit manner. So far he's spent a lot of time talking about what he calls "Resistance". This is a term he applies to anything that keeps us from doing our work. As far as I can tell, Resistance is roughly equivalent to Freud's thanatos impulse, or Death Wish, that force in our lives that moves us toward death and not life. The life force (Freud calls it eros) pushes us out of the comfortable womb, through pain to life. Thanatos moves against this, seeking pleasure that ultimatley leads to death. You can imagine the deadly effects of trying to be a grown man inside a womb.

Pressfield says that there are a million ways that Resistance can manifest itself--writer's block, illness, addiction, drama--but it must always be combatted by doing one's work, what one was put on the planet to do.

He seems to be headed toward Mother Theresa's "faithfulness, not success" comibined with a heaping helping of Josemaria Escriva's philosophy of work. I'll keep you posted.