5 Guidelines for US “Spirit Month”

Each fall, American high schools and colleges organize a series of events to celebrate during what they call “spirit week.” Generally it refers only to “school” spirit and is connected mostly to a big football game.

*How are you celebrating “spirit month?? (photo by Jacob Rice through Unsplash)*

It wouldn’t be much of a stretch to call December in America “spirit month” -- and not because of football. Whether you celebrate Christmas (88% of Americans do — though only about half for “religious” reasons), Hanukkah (about 5%) or Kwanzaa (about 3%), or nothing at all, it’s very hard to escape spending some time this month asking yourself questions about what you care about and believe in.

So this seems like the right time to write a companion piece to the two (here and here) I did recently on the best advice I have received about my work life.

This one focuses on the best advice I’ve gotten about my spiritual life (I’ll do another one later on the best advice I’ve received about play).

I see this advice through a Christian lens, but I’ve tried to focus here on advice I’ve gotten that might inform anyone’s spiritual life.

After each one I propose you try a quick experiment to test it. And for those interested, I also include a reference from the Judeo-Christian scriptures to amplify:

1. You can find something nice/good/interesting in anyone. This comes from my Great-Aunt Sue Shepard (you may recall she reminded me there was a reason I had “one mouth and two ears” in this piece). She was so unwilling to speak ill about anyone that friends would test her. One day when they asked her about the consensus meanest person in Wallace NC, she reportedly said, “Well, he has a nice whistle.” Gossip and criticism are the first steps to “otherizing” the people we disagree with; insidiously, they make it easier to treat them as something other than human. We don’t have to agree with them or stay silent about evil, but getting in the habit of looking for something positive helps us to humanize them. Humanizing helps us begin a conversation. And conversation brings the possibility of finding common ground.

Experiment: Next time someone talks smack about another person, offer up something positive in response and see if the conversation changes.

(Proverbs 15:4, 16:23,24, 18:4; Matthew 12:36)

*From “Pop” Momand’s comic strip “Keeping up with the Joneses,” which ran in the US 1913-1940 (I can’t find who first said, “Forget the Joneses!”)*

2. Forget the Joneses: Before the Kardashians, it was the Joneses we nearly killed ourselves trying to keep up with. Either way, we see to have a built-in predisposition to want the things celebrities buy; it sticks in our craw every time we see our neighbors with a cooler car/hair dryer/lawnmower/washing machine/stroller than we do. And now we see all of those things more than we used to. In the old days, for most of us, there were just two next door neighbors, maybe 15 other families nearby, and we only had to see their new car once a day or so; now there are a gazillion “Joneses” to keep up with, available 24/7 on Instagram/Facebook/Twitter/TV. Having the spiritual insight and strength to determine what we really need is a ninja power.

Experiment: Think of two things you don’t have, but actually need. Think of two things you have but don’t need. Is the second group of stuff getting in the way of the first group?

(Matthew 6:19-21)

3. God doesn’t need you to do anything: This one is tricky, but it has been immensely helpful to me. A few years ago I was obsessing about a job move, trying to discern what God “needed” me to do, when my friend Doug Gill gave me this advice. Of course I pushed back, but he explained that he didn’t mean that we don’t have any responsibilities to act in this world. What he meant is that the world would continue whichever job I ended up in, and that there would be opportunities to serve wherever I was working. Think how much pressure that takes off of us – that God has this thing -- and think what a good reminder it is to us to be humble.

Experiment: Think of a time when you made a choice to listen to a friend/colleague/family member instead of knocking another item off your to-do list. If you are keeping score of your accomplishments, would the intangibles make the list?

(Acts 17:24,25; Matthew 6:19-21)

4. It’s amazing what you can get done if you don’t care who gets the credit. As far as I can tell, it was US president Harry Truman who first said this. And as annoying as it can be, the older I get, the righter he seems to be. Of course we all want credit for the contributions we make to a work project, to a team’s success, to a community initiative. This is not advice to lie about our contributions or undervalue them. When I can find my way to do the thing because it is a good thing to do and I do it in such a way that it can have the greatest chance of success, instead of doing it for the credit I get, I find the thing is done better.

Experiment: Think of three projects/teams/initiatives you were part of that succeeded. Did credit-taking (yours or someone else’s) spoil the satisfaction of any of those? In those where credit was widely shared, what did people say about them afterward?

(Matthew 6:2-4)

*Where’s your faucet setting on the big things? (photo from Tobas Photography through Unsplash)*

5. “Because you are neither hot nor cold but lukewarm I will spit you out”: This was my choice for “favorite” verse in a Bible study group a few years ago. It’s a good reminder to me that we shouldn’t be indifferent about our faith: we should find ways to actively, enthusiastically live out our beliefs. Similarly, we can be lukewarm about Season 7 of the Flash or the Luke Combs cover of “Fast Car,” but if we want the feeling George Bernard Shaw writes about below, we should never be lukewarm about the things that really matter.

Experiment: Reflect on your work or family life or spiritual life: where are you with each on the temperature scale?

(Revelation 3:16)

““This is the true joy in life, being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one. Being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it what I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.” ”

— George Bernard Shaw

Looking at the five pieces of advice as a whole, it’s hard not to see a throughline of humility in every piece of it.