Practical Advice on Habits in Our Lives

I ran across this reading recently and these 3 things in particular stuck out to me; I think they're helpful advice for daily living.  And, I like the suggestion that they become habits, perhaps over the new year:

Let go of your results.

The big enemy of happiness is worry, which comes from focusing on events that are outside your control. Once you've taken action, there's usually nothing more you can do. Focus on the job at hand rather than some weird fantasy of what might happen.

Turn off "background" TV.

Many households leave their TVs on as "background noise" while they're doing other things. The entire point of broadcast TV is to make you dissatisfied with your life so that you'll buy more stuff. Why subliminally program yourself to be a mindless consumer?

End each day with gratitude.

Just before you go to bed, write down at least one wonderful thing that happened. It might be something as small as a making a child laugh or something as huge as a million dollar deal. Whatever it is, be grateful for that day because it will never come again.

-- Geoffrey James

Map or Guide

If someone tells you to go someplace and you don’t know where to go and, from what you have heard, it’s quite tricky in getting there because there are few if any well-marked streets, not much lighting, and a lot of rather large potholes, would you prefer a map or rather the person who has been there, knows the way, and is quite handy should things break down to go with you? The answer is obvious....

"I will go with you", says the Lord Almighty.

-- Kent Denlinger

This echoes a post I recently read called 'Why, God?'...it is worth the read, as it faces down one of the perennial questions of all time about God and evil. Having recently watched the most recent Les Miserables movie, I am confident that we are on to something here in this collection of thoughts on 'God With Us'. The priest in Les Mis puts it like this, 'To love someone is to see the face of God'.

Hope for a new year -- who knows what is in store -- but He is with us.

My Fast from Ladder Climbing

I love feeling superior, more influential, more important, and more noticed than everybody else. I cried about what a fool I’ve been...

-- Heather Holleman

 Continue Reading

Really worth the minute or two it will take to...and the hour or two it may create for personal consideration. Sobering and delightful. And before we whisper to ourselves something like, "I'm glad I'm not like that," consider the reminder to all of us, however we are going about being important...to ourselves.

Reminds me of things a friend said to me once, when I was struggling with the identity of my own self-importance.

Not Calculate

When one loves, one does not calculate.

-- St. Therese of Lisieux

Circumstances

Circumstances allow us opportunity to be shaped.

In our culture, circumstances (particularly bad ones) are often viewed primarily as something to get out of. In our media, circumstances are presented as something to overcome. But, I suspect that our circumstances really exist more for us as contexts in which we can be shaped, if we allow them to do so.

Space

We all need space. Sometimes, the best thing we can give to another person...is space. Space to think often gives me opportunity to feel. Sometimes what I feel gives me a chance to think about something. Space creates health; constant filling of it does not. It can lead us somewhere that is often neglected within us...to a needed grieving or to an important gratitude.

I realized today that I was hoping for something deeper with my wife in some recent interactions or lack of them. I was reaching for conclusions that would urge me to 'address' it with her. But, my instincts were nudging me back...toward not filling the space with my needs. A bit later she said she has really been preoccupied with news of her father's illness. I was shocked...certainly for him, but also for what I had been ready to do...to get something that I wanted. I wasn't considering that what I was feeling from her really had nothing to do with me, as I had suspected. I was grateful for the space I had chosen in my waiting, for her sake and for mine.

She needed some space. She needed for me not to fill hers with me. I needed the space, too.

Give yourself the gift of space. Give it to someone else.

Forever

Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.

-- Isaiah 9:7

Where We Least Expect Him

Those who believe in God can never in a way be sure of him again. Once they have seen him in a stable, they can never be sure when he will appear or to what lengths he will go or to what ludicrous depths of self-humiliation he will descend in his wild pursuit of man….

This means that we are never safe, that there is no place where we can hide from God, no place where we are safe from his power to break in two and recreate the human heart because it is just where He seems most helpless that He is most strong, and just where we least expect Him that He comes most fully.

-- Fredrick Beuchner, The Hungering Dark

Peace That Empties

When we are at peace, we find the freedom to be most fully who we are, even in the worst of times, we empty ourselves so that God may more fully work within us.

-- Joseph Cardinal Benardin

His Law is Love

We don't often see ourselves for what we truly are...either direction...as bad as we really are or for the goodness that is truly within us.

Regarding the former, we are richly deserving of consequences for the sin embedded within us.  At times, I actually forget how true that is.  I reflected recently on a time in my life when I thought I was deeply wronged in an employment situation.  I may have been.  But, it was also true that there were things in my own life at the time that were also deeply wrong and God used the employment situation to get at them -- for my sake, for others' sake, for His sake.  In one sense, He saved me from the end those wrongs were leading to...through this disruption of my life.  He used Pain to reach me, to teach me.  I did not see myself accurately.  I still don't.  But my reflection has allowed me to realize a bit more that I did truly deserve something because of the sin in my life.

But pain goes away with time, not as quickly as it arrives, but it does taper away.  And, so, what struck me this week was that what has really solidified His 'teaching' in me has been...Grace.  Grace has shown me the longer truth that God is really about resurrecting the good that He has put in me by making me in His image.  This is why He is (and we are) so hurt by our sin, because we forfeit this goodness which is designed to be given to others, like He gives to us.  Grace comes along after Pain and shows me that I have not received what I fully deserve...that some of those consequences have been borne by Someone else, on behalf of me.  Grace brings Gratitude to my door and introduces me to her.  Grace is what makes me realize that I don't really want the path of sin after all and that breathes the life into me that doesn't want to reject the goodness I have been offered, in spite of my sins.  So, the final teacher, in my view is Grace.  Pain and Grace both teach me.  And, Grace's voice is often hard to fully hear before Pain's instruction.  But, Grace wins, as it does its final training work in me...to lead me to be what I am designed to be, to who I've been made to be.

Though the verses of this week's posts have pointed me towards something I want, this Christmas season I have felt a strange absence...the absence of something that captures me like a great gift.  Something has felt...pending.  But this reflection on the above has now ushered the great gift right up to my door.

One of my favorite favorite carols puts it nearly perfectly:

       Truly He taught us to love one another,
       His law is love and His gospel is peace.

He loves us too much not to remain firmly committed to our deepest good, that which He put within us.  His love, in that way, is law.  It is hard and fast...and for our sake, it won't budge.  The good news is that through His Teachers and the training process He takes us through in this life, we are also being offered Peace.

Thank God for His many and wondrous gifts to us this Christmas.  It is enough to enjoin me this time of year to Hallelujah!  ...I have not audibly heard this 'chorus' yet this year, but I'm still hoping for the tears of joy it brings!

12/21/12 - Forecast

 

As You Trust

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

-- Romans 15:13

He Will Not Fail

The Lord will lead you. He himself is with you. He will not fail you or leave you. Don’t worry. Don’t be afraid!

-- Deuteronomy 31:8

Now...is the time of Grief

Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.

-- John 16:22

Overcome

I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.

-- John 16:33

Union

Whenever my husband and I hug each other in the kitchen, my 3-year-old daughter is inevitably there within two seconds. She squeezes through our legs until she's right in between us, at which point she announces: "Family hug!" She sees our love for one another, and she wants in.

Because of our union with Jesus we can join the Trinity's family embrace: "On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them …. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them" (John 14:20-23).

...

But if I am in Christ, I can expect suffering to be a normal part of my discipleship. It is not a detour from Plan A, but an expected component of life with Jesus. In fact, it is an opportunity to participate in Jesus' life, to share in his sufferings (for he suffers with us), and to have his resurrection made known in my body (2 Cor. 4:10-11). That can radically change my experience of suffering.

Our suffering is not a pointless impediment to our productivity or fruitfulness. It is something we share with Jesus, for the good of our souls and of his kingdom.

-- Sarah Lebhar Hall, The Key to a Purposeful Life

Click pic to Continue Reading

Second to Last

Pain is our second-to-last teacher.

This begs the question, if suffering is the second to last teacher, what is the last one.  ...more soon.

Violence: have we finally had enough?

Where? How many? How young?

What terrible questions for a society to have to keep asking itself.
No, our violence-rich culture does not make murderers of us all. But cigarettes don't give everyone lung cancer. That does not make them non-lethal.

Have we finally had enough? It must not start with just gun control. It must start with us. 

Continue Reading

...thanks Statons for forwarding.

Best Apologies

Right actions in the future are the best apologies for bad actions in the past.

-- Tryon Edwards

More Immoral

The more immoral we become in big ways, the more puritanical we become in little ways.

-- Florence King

Mirage

I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage.

-- C.S. Lewis

Want to See

We tend to see what we want to see.

...perhaps worse, we tend not to see what we don't want to see.

Babel Sounds & Angels

Every year now, it seems a new old Christmas carol sneaks up on me. This year, so far, I am a bit overcome by the quieting power and glory of this seasonal favorite:

It Came Upon The Midnight Clear

It came upon the midnight clear,
That glorious song of old,
From angels bending near the earth,
To touch their harps of gold:
"Peace on the earth, goodwill to men
From heavens all gracious King!"
The world in solemn stillness lay
To hear the angels sing.

Still through the cloven skies they come,
With peaceful wings unfurled;
And still their heavenly music floats
O'er all the weary world:
Above its sad and lowly plains
They bend on hovering wing,
And ever o'er its Babel sounds
The blessed angels sing.

O ye beneath life's crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow;
Look now, for glad and golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing;
Oh rest beside the weary road
And hear the angels sing.

For lo! the days are hastening on,
By prophets seen of old,
When with the ever-circling years
Shall come the time foretold,
When the new heaven and earth shall own
The Prince of Peace, their King,
And the whole world send back the song
Which now the angels sing.

-- Edmund Hamilton Sears

...the all encompassing view of time and its unimpeded, glorious end are a compelling vision for me. And, the blending of all things I know with things I don't know that much about (like angels) creates an unusual and often surprising sense of something much greater and more wonderful that I too can join...an unearthly Peace.

I now realize afresh why we decorate our home with carolers this time of year...what better response to something so glorious than for man to join the heavenlies in such a singing.

The Innkeeper

I am moved by this presentation of the pain that surrounded what otherwise is celebrated this Christmas time of year. There is, in fact, great cause for celebration...but the context of our need for it often seems to be shoved away under a bunch of wrapping paper.

Hope for the Hurting this Christmas

Click the link for some background or the video above to watch directly (just a bit over 11 minutes).

Daily Rituals

It would seem a bit large of me to claim that I can tackle 'everything' that comes my way.

Every day I need physical energy, mental clarity, and emotional balance to tackle everything that comes my way. Self-care is the secret to performing at the highest level.

-- Mike Del Ponte

But I do concur with several of the basic rituals he goes on to recommend here. The ideas he identifies are ones that I've discovered too in recent years. I may not do them exactly as he describes, but I've found that these basic elements do go a long way toward providing me physical energy, mental clarity, and emotional balance.

Mirror

Gotta say, if a sunrise like this morning's doesn't 'wake you up', I'm not sure what will. It was fabulous beyond description, from east to west, each reflecting in literal ways something bright emerging onto us. I was again inspired...to act this day reflecting just some of the glory of this morning's voice calling out, 'Join Me!'.

Behavior is the mirror in which everyone shows their image.

-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Worry

Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow; it empties today of its strength.

-- Corrie ten Boom

Thanks, David, for this one. Reminds me of this one.

On the Crowd

A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd.

-- James Crook

Pessimist

A pessimist is a person who wants to be an optimist, but has a grasp of the facts.

-- Norman Augustine

Sunrise

I have come to rather relish the notion that a sunrise (like yesterday's) is an indication -- if not a heralding -- that God has been up a while and is rolling out another day of His glory.  Over my life, I have learned to look east with anticipation.  What does He communicate to me through this ritual exercise that is similar, but never exactly the same?  What does this tell me about Him?  And, how does that free to me to experience the ensuing day with a different and fresh perspective?

...I think it does just that and to be about doing the same thing.  It prays this prayer for me:

Lord, take me where you want me to go, let me meet who you want me to meet, tell me what you want me to say, and keep me out of your way.

-- Prayer of Father Mychal Judge

What Is

We can so easily become focused on what isn't in others. Perhaps serving our own self-promotion, we use what 'should be' to overlook what is...in them.  ...or, more importantly, what could be in them, especially in time.

Lifelong Learning

The path of spiritual growth is a path of lifelong learning.

-- M. Scott Peck

This is one of those that at first appears rather self-evident.  But, what struck me about it (other than the reference to learning and other thoughts posted this week on the 'the mind') is that I don't believe, for the better part of my life, I viewed it that way.  Spirituality, for me, had been more of a construct of principles of some sort. One either did or did not work their way through the pile of them, but they were available for acquisition, if one were so disciplined.

Now, however, I see the developmental nature of spirituality, perhaps because of the same nature I see more and more of in all realms of life.  In other words, to grow (in any respect), we must engage the process of learning.  And that is a whole-being exercise...that is never over.

Goal of Teaching

The goal of teaching is not to teach; it is to create learning.

The key to learning is engagement.

The key to engagement is creativity.

The key to creativity is effort.

So, teaching well requires a lot of effort aimed at learning.

If learning does not occur, then we are just sliding a bunch of information around...often over and over and over. Who needs more information?  Learning is a holistic experience.

Transformation

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

-- Romans 12:2

I am intrigued by this verse, especially in light of yesterday's post.

The Mind

The brain may be located in the cranium, but the mind is located throughout the body.

-- Candace Pert

What Is & What Ought To Be

Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps, for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be.

-- William Hazlitt

Habit of Turning, Strength

Forming a habit of turning to God in our lives is like developing muscle.  It has to be worked, stretched, exercised regularly or it becomes weak at best.

Perhaps the greater of the habits of our lives can be 'living with' God in our everyday details...good and bad.  This is an availing ourselves to our true strength, for otherwise we are simply rather weak and self-absorbed. The story of my life, among other things, is a battle over the development of this muscle.  When I am regularly exercising spiritually, not unlike physically, I am simply stronger than when I'm not.  I'm not sure there is a greater habit we can form than the habit of turning to God.  Life will still 'happen', so doing such things will not prevent bad things from happening.  The issue has much more to do with how I face them, with what I face them, with Whom I face them.  This is the true strength we can develop, through the spiritual habit of turning to God in our lives.

God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

-- Psalm 73:26

The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me. 

-- Psalm 28:7

In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength...

-- Isaiah 30:15

...but those who hope in the Lord

    will renew their strength.

-- Isaiah 40:31

We are shaped by our habits.

Rivalry Rebooted

 

POST GAME Review: What was true in Bo and Woody's time is still true today; you can't win Big Ten championships if you don't win key games on the road. And you can't win those games if you don't avoid turn-overs and big mistakes.

...true again today. And, seniors are the ones who need to lead the way.

Songs

Songs can help us take a few steps toward healing. Songs are safe containers for the best and worst that life has to offer.

-- Linford Detweiler

Thanks Giving

Thanksgiving: We all have so much for which to be thankful, especially when we don't confine our gratitude to possessions.

The dirt of our brokenness leads to a true experience of Grace. And gratitude is the flower that grows from her soil.

It is striking how illusive gratitude is when we're avoiding brokenness...and how overwhelming it is when we're not.

Happy Thanks Giving!

Power of Music at any Age

Brokenness

Our life is full of brokenness - broken relationships, broken promises, broken expectations. How can we live with that brokenness without becoming bitter and resentful except by returning again and again to God's faithful presence in our lives.

-- Henri Nouwen

Our diversions prevent us from such returning.

Diversion

How much of our busyness and our business has this - diversion - as its deepest root? It is not only when something terrible happens, like a death, that we seek diversion, but always. This indicates that there is a pervasive presence of death and despair in our lives that we are always seeking diversion from.

-- Peter Kreeft

Regarding Thanksgiving, one thing that siphons gratitude from me more than anything else is busyness...not taking the time to reflect on the actual state of things and, instead, racing on to the next set of things that need to get done. This disposition drains me and simultaneously arouses the addiction to diversion. Busyness is a thief.

Thanks, Kent, for sharing this one.

Faith Never Knows

Faith never knows where it is being led, but it loves and knows the One who is leading.

-- Jim Elliot

This morning, with...
the night mysts still clinging to earthen valley,
the tickling of jack's frost on the end of my nose,
the splatter of sun across the banked ravine of a sea of fallen browns,
the fire-bush's burning reds between me and sunlight,
the rustle of leaves from the spooked white-tail,
the barkless sycamore's crisp white against the blue ocean above,
the honk of the flying V headed away from northering winter,
and the aroma of conifers reaching down to pull me up,

...all embed themselves into me like a series of endless surprises in about as a wonderful a manner as I can imagine. I may not know where such things are leading me, but I have come to recognize Who is.

Seems like a great way to start this Thanksgiving week.

UM vs Iowa

 

Another great day with friends at the Big House!  Click pic for more pics....

Culture

Culture eats strategy for breakfast.

-- Peter Drucker

Teacher's Voice

The main reason we have dysfunctional education policies in this country is that the teacher’s voice is almost absent from public discourse about how to transform education.

-- Parker Palmer

What You Can't Handle

What you think you can’t handle — might actually be God handing you a gift.

-- Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts

Continue Reading more from this post....

A friend shared with me a confession recently that felt a lot like this. We face the seemingly unfaceable. But, when we turn, see a face we've never seen as fully before, right beside us.

Be Strong...and Work

'Be strong, all you people of the land,’ declares the Lord, ‘and work. For I am with you,’ declares the Lord Almighty. ‘This is what I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt. And my Spirit remains among you. Do not fear.’

-- Haggai 2:4-5

Very interesting connections here between effort and fear. Do we not work at things because we are afraid to? The bridge is the real source of the strength needed to face our fears -- His Spirit. He is the strength we need and we have Him. We can work at things because we have Him right with us...in whatever we do.

...and this seems to apply to everyone (all the people of the land).

Will of God

It's harder to fall out of the will of God than you think...chew on that for a while.

-- Lorraine Green

Himself By Himself is Nothing

Humanity, potential with God, all great knowledge is this, for a man to know that he himself by himself is nothing; and that, whenever he is, he is from God and on account of God.

-- St. Augustine

Clings

To that which your heart clings is your god.

-- Martin Luther

Shining Through

We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent, and God is shining through it all the time.

-- Thomas Merton

It's whether or not we recognize Him...reminds me of the contradiction of the lines from the hymn Holy, Holy, Holy:

        Though the eyes of sinful man
        Thy glories may not see

If Only We Would Listen

One characteristic of the recent elections is that there seemed to be very little listening going on.  We hear a lot about a divided country.  But what divides us?  ...do we care enough to find out?  Or, are we just increasingly committed to maintaining only what we think.  What keeps us from listening to each other?  Much of the subsequent 'discussion' regarding the election seems to be more about who 'won' than anything else.

This interview with Parker Palmer (by the way, thanks to Jerry McCoy for introducing me to Palmer years ago), therefore, seems relevant:

We need to change our calculus about what makes an action worth taking and get past our obsession with results. Being effective is important, of course. I write books because I want to have an impact. But if the only way we judge an action is by its effectiveness, we will take on smaller and smaller tasks, because they’re the only kind with which we are sure we can get results. I’m not giving up on effectiveness, but it has to be secondary.

If I cling to effectiveness, though, I’m going to die an unhappy man. I’m committed to educational goals more ambitious than getting kids to pass tests, and to political goals a lot bigger than getting people to “tolerate” each other. Teaching a kid to pass a test is a piece of cake compared to educating a child. And tolerating people is a long way from understanding how profoundly interdependent we are. As I say in the new book, the civility we need in politics will not come from watching our tongues but from valuing our differences. Somehow my heart doesn’t beat faster when someone says they’re willing to “tolerate” me!

But when I’m talking with people whose views I regard as wrong but not evil, I need to ask myself: Am I here to win this argument, or am I here to create a relationship? Research shows that when you throw facts at people to refute what they believe, it only hardens their convictions. But if you create a relational container that can hold an ongoing dialogue, it’s more likely that someone will change — and that someone may be you! Failing that, we usually just walk away and revert to talking to people who agree with us. What good is that?

-- Parker Palmer, If Only We Would Listen Interview

Continue Reading -- lots of good things to think about here.

Post-Election Day Prayer

You creator God

       who has ordered us

              in families and communities,

              in clans and tribes,

              in states and nations.

You creator God

       who enact your governance

              in ways overt and

              in ways hidden.

       You exercise your will for

              peace and for justice and for freedom.

We give you thanks for the peaceable order of

   our nation and for the chance of choosing--

      all the manipulative money notwithstanding.

We pray now for new governance

     that your will and purpose may prevail,

     that our leaders may have a sense

        of justice and goodness,

     that we as citizens may care about the

        public face of your purpose.

We pray in the name of Jesus who was executed

     by the authorities.

-- Walter Brueggeman, Prayer for a Privileged People

Election Day Communion

Let’s meet at the same table,
with the same host,
to remember the same things.

We’ll remember that real power in this world — the power to save, to transform, to change — ultimately rests not in political parties or presidents or protests but in the life, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus.

We’ll remember that, through the Holy Spirit, this power dwells within otherwise ordinary people who as one body continue the mission of Jesus: preaching good news to the poor, freeing the captives, giving sight to the blind, releasing the oppressed, and proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favor (Luke 4:16-21).

We’ll remember that freedom — true freedom — is given by God and is indeed not free. It comes with a cost and it looks like a cross.

We’ll remember our sin and our need to repent.

We’ll remember that the only Christian nation in this world is the Church, a holy nation that crosses all human-made boundaries and borders.

We’ll remember that our passions are best placed within the passion of Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God (Hebrews 12:2).

We’ll remember that we do not conform to the patterns of this world, but we are transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2).

We’ll remember that God’s strength is made perfect in weakness.

And we’ll remember the body of Christ as the body of Christ, confessing the ways in which partisan politics has separated us from one another and from God.

-- from http://electiondaycommunion.org/ (thanks for sending and organizing, Jim)

A small gathering from our fellowship gathered for an Election Day Communion. We were grateful for the knowledge that other groups around the country were doing the same.

Phil Keaggy

Click pic to listen to Phil Keaggy!

Only Prayer

If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is 'thank you', it will be enough.

-- Meister Eckhart

At one point in my life (well many perhaps) I would have argued that more was needed than this...just a simple 'thank you'. But now, I see the wisdom of this simplicity. A 'thank you' to God is a profound thing, given our more natural tendencies. It takes time for us to realize our true nature, that which was created in the image of God and which seeks His glory through our being.  When we are aligned in this way, gratitude permeates us.

When I awoke this morning, the skies were shrouded in gray. I was a bit disappointed, having awakened with my normal Sunday hope of the woods. But I headed out anyway. And, as I headed into the thick, I noticed an emerging ambiance of light. Above me, the clouds were rolling back like a blanket and sunlight was over-taking the world. I had to stop and admire it.

Spotting across the stream my favorite fire-bushes lining the path with their tiniest little bulbs of red, I continued. I was going a different direction, but turned back their way...I just had to run through them.

Blue sky now mirrored itself on the paralleling stream beside me. I rounded a corner and there...stunning me was the largest red-headed woodpecker I have ever seen. It had to be nearly 15" and the sun now shining behind it lit its red plume like fire. Its size portrayed the beauty of its coat of black and white, further accentuating its brilliant hat. I stopped again.... I recovered and continued and nearly ran into a batch of climbing yellow berries, so replete with the season of fall that no store could have come close to capturing the essence of its garland. As if that weren't enough, the next scene crashed into my sight...nearly two dozen scintillating silhouettes of white swanned effortlessly on a glassy lake before me. I couldn't quite take all this in. I couldn't quite breathe.

...I could only pray 'thank you'.

At First Wake

Faint the blow of wind on leaves
Warm the tang my old bed cover
Darkness quits like tip-toeing thieves
A day begins like any other.

Comes the world to me slowly;
Ears, then nose, eyes then touch:
Fumbling for a hint of holy
But finding forth so little much.
  
Lord, make this wake, this very morning,
Make this wake the Final One…
Turn today into a borning:
Let me sense the world won. 

-- Tim Koshnick

Why Parenting Is More Important Than Schools

A study published earlier this month by researchers at North Carolina State University, Brigham Young University and the University of California-Irvine, for example, finds that parental involvement — checking homework, attending school meetings and events, discussing school activities at home — has a more powerful influence on students’ academic performance than anything...

...research also reveals something else: that parents, of all backgrounds, don’t need to buy expensive educational toys or digital devices for their kids in order to give them an edge. They don’t need to chauffeur their offspring to enrichment classes or test-prep courses. What they need to do with their children is much simpler: talk.

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Habits

We first make our habits, and then our habits make us.

-- John Dryden

Hard Work

Motivation will beat raw intelligence almost every time.

The single most important trait that our schools, families and other institutions can ingrain in our students is the importance of character. Without a strong ethical compass a student in his or her lifetime can only harm the world -- and most likely themselves and those around them. Beyond that, I would emphasize the importance of hard work. That is certainly true of the process of learning. More and more evidence suggests that it takes long hours working on very demanding tasks for one to learn. This is a disconcerting observation given that the number of hours per week college students study today is about half what it was a few decades ago, at which time it was not terribly large to begin with. But one simply can't hope to understand...without hard work.

-- Norman Augustine

From a really good interview:  Continue Reading

Correction

Correction does much, but encouragement does more.

-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Courtesy and Egos

I believe in courtesy, the ritual by which we avoid hurting other people's feelings by satisfying our own egos.

-- Kenneth Clark

Mornings

There is something a bit indescribable about mornings. The older I get, the more I recognize the wonder and beauty of them (like today's sunrise), the more I look east to see what might be coming.

Perhaps it is because I get up earlier these days, due to a variety of things...work, a busied mind, the purging of the night's dreams, the shifting of my internal clock, the call of my morning workouts (or, in today's case, my Sunday morning ritual of a dawn-run through the woods -- by the way, Nature's Christmas Lights are on again!). Nonetheless, I anticipate morning. And, perhaps not unlike the majesty of sunsets, I have discovered what many others before me have discovered that there is something powerful about mornings.

Saturday mornings (not the Saturday Mornings posts per se), in particular, hold the prospect of something less predictable, less pre-determined. I feel a sense of openness...to my choice of what to do; what to get done, what to leave undone. There is a freedom in it that I have come to relish.

But, even more than this, morning strikes something deeper within me. The prospect of starting a day with beauty, rather than duty. The possibility of a new start, even in something regular. A deeper sense of grace.

I used to not even miss mornings; 'nothing going on anyway' (or so I thought). But now, the chance to freely wonder from the day's earliest moments what a day may hold, energizes me, particularly when I am blessed to have such color and beauty cascading behind me.

West-ward then!

 

Effort

What is it about effort that so many are afraid of? ...that makes us too willing to let those who do it, do it? We love stories about the effort involved in over-coming. But, we don't really want to work any harder than we have to.  What do we believe, when we behave this way?

Perhaps, we should consider what drives effort?  More often than not, it seems to me, effort is driven by desire.  We want something.  It we want something bad enough, we will work for it.  At other times, desire is driven by need.  We need something, so we will work for it.  And, when the chips are really down, our need can be even more basic, like the need just to survive.

Maybe we don't put out too much effort because we really don't need to.  We already have the better part of what we want without having to work very hard for it.  But, under this reality, I suspect we are missing out on something good that was intended for us as humans, something that is a result or by-product of effort.

Are we simply caught up in the exceptions of cause-and-effect?  For example, sometimes the results of effort don't come just because of the effort.  But, just because that is true, it doesn't mean that most of the time results do actually come from effort; thus the common phrase, "you get out of it what you put into it".  The problem shows up when we require that they do, when we put forth effort because of the results, for the sole purpose of achieving the results we want.  When we get here, we get mad when we don't get what we want, especially when we've worked hard at something and it didn't yield the result we were hoping for.  When we are here, we find ourselves operating with a sense of entitlement -- I am owed the result just because of my effort.

We, however, were created differently, to act differently, to believe differently.  We were made to be care-takers in life, to preserve it, to offer it.  And, this requires effort, a working at it.  But, the real granting of life is a harmony with the Giver of life -- the One who can make things grow.  We can plant seeds, but we can't make them grow.  So, our effort isn't owed a result, but it does join in harmony with the results that can be given.  This is why we are free to work hard, in fact created to work hard, not because of what we will get out of it, but because of what is broadly given when we join something good that we were made to take care of.

Wrath

If God were to return and judge the world of evil, what would happen to us? Would we be able to inhabit a perfect world? What happens when we realize that we are part of the the problem, not just the ones longing for a solution?

When we imagine our place within the cosmic story of redemption, we come to realize we are more than passive victims of evil's consequences. We are evil insurrectionists, rebels against the good and loving authority of God our Creator. In the Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who suffered at the hands of the Soviet Communists, put it well: "Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart." We thirst for justice, but once we consider the fairness of God, we quickly discover that Christ's return can only be good news if we have found mercy in God's sight.

-- Trevin Wax, "Rejoicing In The Wrath" (CT - Global Gospel Project)

Yearns for Beauty

Beauty is something everybody longs for, needs, and tries to obtain in some way — whether through nature, or a man or a woman, or music, or whatever. The soul yearns for it.

-- James Hillman

Him vs Me

The first question that the priest asked, the first question that the Levite asked was: "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" But... the good Samaritan ...reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?"

-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Plant Trees

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

-- Nelson Handerson

Thank You

 

Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.

-- William Arthur Ward

Fuel

He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other.

-- C.S. Lewis

Friendly Intercourse

After the city, where we had always lived, those country years were startling. . . . The surprise of animals . . . in and out, cats and dogs and a milk goat and chickens and guinea hens, all taken for granted, as if man was intended to live on terms of friendly intercourse with the rest of creation instead of huddling in isolation on the fourteenth floor of an apartment house in a city where animals occurred behind bars in the zoo.

-- Elizabeth Janeway

This reminded me of a one recent pre-dawn; the glint of Orion's sword flashed fabulously against its black velvet backdrop. It was mesmerizing. Not much later, the dense green of the forest was alight with a thousand tiny flames of yellow-leafed candles beckoning on the deeper autumn. The reds hadn't come yet, but the big browns were already crunchy under my feet. The air was thick with the moist and cool of the seasonal-adjustment now fully underway and the faintest whiffs of the evening-before burnings hung heavy in my nostrils. All conjuring up some kind of familiar, yet not fully known, ache for something both past and present. Quite a union on many levels. It was great to be alive. And still is....

There is a joy in beauty.

True Freedom

True freedom is not choice or lack of constraint, but being 
what you are meant to be.

-- St. Augustine

Fascination

God, help me to move more out of fascination with what you are doing in someone else, than out of interest in seeing change in someone else.

I don't see all that you see...or even how what is going in on is being used by you to do your good work in another way or in another person.  Such things are dimly lit waters, over which only you are the lighthouse.

Fascination would be born out of a deep trust in you, in your work.  And you are a much better beacon than I.

GO TIGERS II

Looks like they're going to make it all the way this year!  Ready for a sweep tonight!?

One God - Economics

I think we’re miserable partly because we have only one god, and that’s economics. Economics is a slave-driver. No one has free time; no one has any leisure. The whole culture is under terrible pressure and fraught with worry. It’s hard to get out of that box. That’s the dominant situation all over the world.

-- James Hillman

Our Political Environment of Election

We live now in, among other things, a market-driven society, where everything is marketed to us, whether we need it or not (even products designed to help with dysfunction are marketed to us whether we have dysfunction or not). And, yes, even Presidents are marketed to us in American Idol fashion (this link on that is worth your time to listen), borrowing heavily on both our deeper hopes and fears about life and the world.  But the government can't do everything we want, much less everything we need:

Governments can do lots of things, but there are a lot of things they cannot do. A government can pass good laws, but no law can change a human heart. Only God can do that. A government can provide good housing, but folks can have a house without having a home. We can keep people breathing with good health care, but they still may not really be alive. The work of community, love, reconciliation, restoration is the work we cannot leave up to politicians. This is the work we are all called to do. We can’t wait on politicians to change the world. We can’t wait on governments to legislate love. And we don’t let policies define how we treat people; how we treat people shapes our policies.

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I think this is another helpful read on some of what is going in an election environment like what we are experiencing these days:

If the Thought of Either Romney or Obama Getting Elected Makes You Fearful, Angry, or Depressed, You Have What we Call a Theological Problem

Joy

Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God.

-- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Nature

I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority.

-- E.B. White

When you have a moment, for silence, choose to watch the video at the bottom this link:

http://www.michellederusha.com/2012/10/one-square-inch.html

Choices

It is our choices...that show what we truly are,
far more than our abilities.

-- J. K. Rowling

Beneath Our Feet

We spend our lives hurrying away from the real, as though it were deadly to us. “It must be somewhere up there on the horizon,” we think. And all the time it is in the soil, right beneath our feet.

-- William Bryant Logan


In hurrying for more happiness, you can hurry right past it.

-- Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts

Prejudice, Pride, and Vanity

When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures bristling with prejudice and motivated by pride and vanity.

-- Dale Carnegie

Education

...the best education is always self-inflicted.

-- Dr. Philip Riley

From: The Power of Small Moments

More often than not, we don't really learn until we want to...or need to.

Have Seen

All I have seen teaches me
to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Yellow-Head Dance

I came around another dirt-beaten bend on a forested path and there they were, hundreds of them. Slender. Tall. Radiant yellow-headed flowers all facing skyward, as if looking for something. Or, praising Someone.

I was running...but not now. I was stopped, in wonder at what all might be going on...in this one sun-drenched spot in an otherwise dense woods. A slight breeze introduced its music to the mix, making the scene as close to a Nature Dance as I've ever seen.

After being transfixed, I continued my run...coming across 2s and 3s of more yellow-heads creeping along the trail.  It seemed as if they were headed somewhere...like to the gathering of them I had enjoyed just a few minutes before.

It struck me how not unlike them we are...as we gather together on days like today, to worship.  Looking for the Light to warm and fulfill our lives.  We take courage by the gathering, of others like and unlike us, and by those striving to get there at various points along their journey.

I wish I had a camera at the time; the radiance of the bright-yellowed scene rhythmically coming both from the earth and heaven at the same time was more than words can capture.

Sometimes we walk together, sometimes alone. But like the yellow-heads, whether we realize it or not, we are reaching upward for the Source of our life.

And, boy is it fun when the music's playin'!

Calling

 

You will never lighten any load until you feel the pressure in your own soul.

The ultimate imperative and the training of your character, the training of your own heart, is going to happen when you are alone.

-- Ravi Zacharias

Really enjoyed this thinking / challenge regarding our 'calling' in life from a recent address at Wheaton College.  Click image to watch the series.

What You Become

What you get by reaching your destination
is not nearly as important as what you will become
by reaching your destination.

-- Zig Ziglar

Enduring

Nothing great was ever done without much enduring.

-- St. Catherine of Siena

Total Effort

Always make a total effort,
even when the odds are against you.

-- Arnold Palmer

Disposition

I have learned that the greater part of
our misery or unhappiness is
determined not by our circumstance
but by our disposition.

-- Martha Washington

Some call this attitude. Some call this faith. Disposition puts it a bit uniquely; I like it. I especially resonate with the observation on 'our circumstances'.

Contemplative simplicity isn't a matter of circumstances; it's a matter of focus.

-- Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts

Sunrise

 

At our annual church harvest holiday week, the sunrise does it again.

Click pic...for more pics. 'Wasting' time, eating, talking, playing, and dancing (some of the dancing pics are pretty fun to click through quickly)!  Quite the harmonies of 'being together'.

Fruit

The fruit of Silence is prayer. The fruit of Prayer is faith. The fruit of Faith is love. The fruit of Love is service. The fruit of Service is peace.

-- Mother Teresa

Obstacles

Most of our obstacles would melt away
if, instead of cowering before them,
we should make up our minds
to walk boldly through them.

-- Orison Swett Marden

I think this is true particularly in the context of our fears. Not favoring this as a form of self-determinism, but as a renewing of our minds, since it is often our fear that disables us.

Char-cool

Last night's dark punctured, with the sky's pin-prick leakings of light. The air chilled now with October's anticipation and the nose welcomed the smokey of still charring wood.

I have come to so love this conspiratorial deluge of the senses, what they arouse so deep within me. Welcome Char-cool!

...camping this weekend. I anticipate. The life of direct conversation with others, the escape from the dominance of our flat-screens, the surprise of the blend of the 3-dimensional world of nature and the unique interaction of souls it prompts.

Parenthood - Everything Is Not OK

 

I have plugged for this show before. This week's episode was another really good one - very family, very human. I was prompted to confess a bit of me I saw in Adam (one of the characters) to Tami.

Worth your while. Click pic to watch....