2014 Toppers

Here are some of my favorites from 2014:

December:
Not By A Thread
Advent: Psalm 136 & Isaiah 55
The Weak
UPS Kid: One Kid's Dream & A Driver Who Made It Come True

November:
Where Is Your Joy Hiding?
I Pray
I Am Proud Of You
Great Oxymoron

October:
Judger-ing
Garden Of The Saints
What Can I Do?
Doesn't Mean

September:
Your Yes
Fatal Flaw
Resilience
Is Conspiring

August:
The Demise of Listening
Don't Ask
The Difference
7 Reasons Why Spending Time in Nature Does Wonders for the Soul

July:
What You Don't Do
Comeback
Your View
Multitasking Is Making You Stupid
Involve Me

June:
Light & Flowers
Bears Our Burdens
Hate Comes From One Thing
Community

May:
Further
Calling (vs. Ego)
Facts & Misinformation
Honest With Ourselves

April:
Confirmation Bias
Dark...of our Striving
Act On It...Internally
Dualism & Identity

March:
Jump Shot
Each Day
Disciplined Pursuit of Less
In the Dark

February:
28th
Who Means the Most to Us?

When You Are Stronger

Eating and Drinking

Need

January:
Enlarge
Mentally Strong People: 13 Things They Avoid

Our Connectedness: Creates the Self

Dr. Siegel says, ”We’re not meant to live in isolation. Our connectedness creates the self.”

So many leaders seem hapless about why people aren’t motivated. They go about trying to motivate them in the wrong way—which is either to punish them or offer them more external rewards. But a real, long-lasting motivator is internal. They’re engaged by the sense of “we”.

Studies of happiness and well-being show that when you’re a part of a community, you thrive. A leader who is aware of the importance of relationships will create an environment in the organization that engages the worker to put their best foot forward for the common good.  Continue here....

-- Daniel Goleman

Not Just By A Thread

When we consider things going on in our lives, or in the lives of those we love, it sometimes can feel like our hope is hanging by a...thread.  So precarious.  The slightest of shifts in the wrong direction, or things not turning out the way we wanted, seem quite capable of severing our hope.  Maybe this is because our hope is so thin...or, at least, our perception of it.

An irony is that when we are hanging on to our 'thread' so carefully, so protectively, we actually prevent hope from growing.  Our hope, in this mode, only seems to narrow.

When, however, we don't cling so tightly to the fragility of the thing we are hoping for and turn to what gives us real hope in the first place, we start to discover that the Giver of hope causes us to see something different.  To know something different.  In fact, to hope in something different.

And, we become less tentative and fearful about the thing we are afraid will happen or that we will lose.  We begin to live more fully out of our true hope and let it grow into the cord that is much stronger than we previously perceived.

Love drives out fear.  Fear keeps things small and tight.  Love grows, is elastic, and creates freedom.

It is almost as if love allows 'our thread' to mysteriously become a strong cable of connection to our Hope -- a kind that is unseverable.

We may still feel, or imagine, great scissors around us...getting closer and closer to cutting the cord on us or on someone we love.  But, we now also know that our real Hope has made our position secure.  No cutting can separate us...or those we love.

And, we live out of this knowledge that now has become faith.  And, we love, instead of living afraid.

...and our thread starts to be seen for what it really is, thicker and thicker and thicker.

Peace, in Due Time

See in the meantime that your faith bringeth forth obedience, and God in due time will cause it to bring forth peace.

-- John Owen

Alter Our Lives

We must alter our lives in order to alter our hearts, for it is impossible to live one way and pray another.

-- William Law

Tobaggoning!

His Name Shall Be Called

For to us a child is born,
    to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
    and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

-- Isaiah 9:6

Speaking of Gifts: What About the Gift of...Space?

One of the better gifts we can give to each other is space.

Space to stop running, performing.  Space to take a deep breath; space to be again, to listen to what is beating underneath it all...all that fills in our space.

We lose a lot when we don't have space in our lives.  Not the least of which, is the capacity to allow for the space needed in someone else's life.  When we're filled up, we tend to demand that others keep us that way...to keep attention on what I need.  When I allow the space needed to recognize that others need it, too, I am free to require less of someone else to fill what I think I need.  I begin again to imagine them as someone who can offer me something, but is not required to do so.  I can began to see past only what I need and to see what someone else needs.

Space is gift...and like a ripple-effect, it keeps on giving, especially on a glorious eve like this one.

Attune

Self-awareness drives self-management. If you’re tuned out, you can’t manage your internal world well. Self-awareness also drives empathy. If you don’t attune to yourself, you won’t be able to attune well to others.

-- Daniel Goleman

Caroling

Lori, is this what we're up to tonight?  ...gotta love the kids' reactions.

Vision: Complete Harmony & Holy Greed

All of creation belongs together in the arms of its Creator. The final vision is that not only will all men and women recognize that they are brothers and sisters called to live in unity but all members of God’s creation will come together in complete harmony. Jesus the Christ came to realise that vision. Long before he was born, the prophet Isaiah saw it:

The wolf will live with the lamb,
the panther lie down with the kid,
calf, lion and fat-stock beast together,
with a little boy to lead them.
The cow and the bear will graze, 
their young will lie down together.
The lion will eat hay like the ox.
The infant will play over the den of the adder;
the baby will put his hand into the viper’s lair.
No hurt, no harm will be done
on all my holy mountain,
for the country will be full of knowledge of Yahweh
as the waters cover the sea.

-- Isaiah 11:6-9

We must keep this vision alive.

-- Henri Nouwen

The sights and songs of Christmas remind me of our hope of this vision (reminds me of Mary's).  I wait for one more gift this season...a chorus of Hallelujah, for which I feel a bit greedy. A holy greed I hope! -- the kind that hopes for just one more hearing...with all of the hopes above in tow!

UM vs SMU

...didn't win, thanks for the pic, Cliff!

...but enjoyed the day -- food, drinks, and each other.

Ice Skating Anyone?

Advent: Psalm 136 & Isaiah 55

If we’re left feeling empty, then we’re who God has in mind in this passage from Isaiah the prophet:

     You who have no money
       come, buy and eat!

     Come, buy wine and milk
       without money and without price.

Our destitution is our currency: we trade it in.

-- Daniel L

A beautiful Advent piece...continue here.  May we find ways to give and receive without our money.  For our money can't really buy what we want or what is needed.  Let us give from the destitution of our waiting for God -- for from Him our empty is filled.

Among other things, I hope to try something along these lines with my family this Christmas -- what would I give if using money was off-limits?  ...we shall see.

The Weak

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong.

-- Gandhi

Easy To Be Afraid

It is easy to be afraid of things we don't understand.

For example, white cops of black men in stereotypical situations.

Fear, unacknowledged or misunderstood, nearly always leads to violence...of one kind or another.

Experience Our Emotions

We need to experience our emotions in order to come to know deeper truths...for ourselves and for others. Emotions can be pathways to our heart and to God's Spirit within us, guiding us to understandings of things we otherwise would not know.

Two Beautiful Daughters

Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage; anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are.

-- St. Augustine

Root of Joy

The root of joy is gratefulness...It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.

-- Brother David Steindl-Rast

Joy is a deep, internal response to something...to something deeply good. Inherently, good. Good, in contrast to bad. Or, good, that prevails...that has been waited for, hoped for.

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.

-- Romans 12:12

Angels we have heard on high
Sweetly singing o’er the plains,
And the mountains in reply
Echoing their joyous strains.

    Gloria, in excelsis Deo!
    Gloria, in excelsis Deo!

Shepherds, why this jubilee?
Why your joyous strains prolong?
What the gladsome tidings be
Which inspire your heav’nly song?
Come to Bethlehem and see
Christ Whose birth the angels sing;
Come, adore on bended knee,
Christ the Lord, the newborn King.
See Him in a manger laid,
Whom the choirs of angels praise;
Mary, Joseph, lend your aid,
While our hearts in love we raise.

-- "Angels We Have Heard On High"...I've enjoyed this version lately

Joy is connected to gratitude...for true goodness.

The Flu Vaccine: of Flubbing, and Drubbing

Vaccine protection against flu is never 100%. Even when the vaccine and virus are well matched, there can be a mix of flu strains in circulation, with some less like the vaccine strains than others. The vaccine depends on the host’s immune system response, and often those most in need of protection -- the elderly, the very young, the chronically ill -- have the weakest immune system responses. And then there is simply the fact that no defense against anything is ever 100%. A given bullet from a given gun can pierce a bulletproof vest. That doesn’t make the vest useless; just imperfect.

The use of flu vaccine imperfections as an argument against immunization is not only misguided, but a classic instance of making an elusive perfect the enemy of attainable good. The fact that people can still die in car crashes is scarcely an argument against seat belts and airbags. Those not saved in no way obviate the merit of those who are. Were we to treat seat belts like vaccines, there would be websites devoted to deaths among those wearing seat belts; arguments that seat belts were to blame for those deaths; the insinuation, or overt accusation, that seat belts are in fact a genocidal tactic of some government agency; and a patina of “back to nature” virtue painted over the anti-seat belt movement.  

The bottom line is that anti-vaccine sentiment and associated conspiracy theories are a luxury accessible only to societies largely spared the historical toll of dreadful, vaccine-preventable diseases. If our children were still prone to polio, any anti-vaccine evangelists would be trampled by the mob rushing to the immunization clinic.  Continue....

-- David L. Katz, MD, MPH

UPS Kid: One Kid's Dream & A Driver Who Made It Come True

Close Contact

Our work brings people face to face with love. To us what matters is an individual. To get to love the person must come in close contact with him.

-- Mother Teresa

That They Matter

Here’s what I know to be true, nobody gives their best for a paycheck exchange.

We like to pretend that business is just business and niceties like “thank you” don’t matter. But what differentiates great companies that attract and keep extraordinary talent willing to give it their all – to put their heart and soul into what they do – is that they recognize the human investment being made. Heart and soul cannot be commoditized.

People need to know that they’re seen. That they matter. That is the greatest gift we can give each other.

-- Kimberly Davis

Play: Great Neurologically

There’s a circuit in the emotional areas of the brain that’s involved in playfulness. It actually promotes plasticity of the brain. It engages creative combinations of things that can really benefit a worker. Too often we separate work from play. Yet incorporating more joy in our work life is a great thing to do neurologically.

For innovation to happen, you really want to have people step out of the familiar and take joy in making new combinations. That requires vulnerability. A person has to feel like she’s in an environment that respects that when she steps out of the familiar, she’s going in to territory where it may not work out. And that’s okay.

-- Daniel Siegel

Best Practices

Strategy is about folding in the future, not extrapolating the past.

I don’t believe in best practices, I believe in next practices.

-- C.K. Pralahad

True Peace - And The Weight of Ferguson, ISIS, and Boko Haram

True peace is not merely the absence of tension, it is the presence of justice.

-- Martin Luther King, Jr


Some thoughts on injustice and the peace we can bring through the suffering we share with Christ...here.

Ferguson's Real Problem is Poverty

W.E.B. Du Bois said in 1897…“The man who won’t control his finances won’t control anything else,” and, “...nothing positive will ever occur in a community that fails to circulate its dollars.”

Frederick Douglass said in 1874, "…the failure of the Freeman Bank did more to set freed slaves back than 10 more years of slavery." The Freedman's Bank, signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln on March 3rd, 1865, was chartered to teach freed slaves about money (the circa 1865 version of modern day financial literacy).

Ambassador Andrew Young said in 2005, speaking before 18 African Heads of State, “..you can make more money, honestly, from a growing economy, than you can steal from a dying economy.”

Van Jones said in 2013, “..nothing stops a bullet like a job."

I said earlier this week at the launch of Jacksonville 2020 in Jacksonville, Florida with Mayor Alvin Brown there, “if you deal with class, you get race for free.”

The real challenges of Ferguson, Mo. in November, 2014, are more about money, poverty and class, than race, police and the color line.  Continue....

-- John Hope Bryant

Magical Piano

Listening & Compassion

It is your life experiences that open up your heart to have compassion for the most difficult challenges that people face along life’s journeys. Every day we have opportunities to develop our hearts, through getting to know the life stories of those with whom we work…”

-- Bill George

By listening, leaders can see the world through another’s eyes, find solutions and build a open, transparent culture. Listening gives leaders the opportunity to connect with people on a completely new level, building stronger, more trusted relationships on the path to authenticity.

-- Carolyn Ray

Validation

We tend to look for things to validate our own experience.

It could be what we like, or the way we go about business, articles that say things that we agree with, political positions, sides of a controversy like Ferguson, the way we do church, etc.  We say things like, "I have always thought that..." to help validate something about ourselves.

It is more difficult to look for things that we don't like or that come from  a perspective we don't understand or isn't 'like us'.

Perhaps, in doing this, we are hoping that we are right, that something is true about us, that we can get that confirmed.  Perhaps this will increase our standing or get us closer to something else we are wanting even more.

Here's the thing, we must be willing to set aside our demands for validation.  Though we will always need some of it (to function as human-beings), if we are or become unwilling to see things from another person's point-of-view, we will doom ourselves to the inevitability of violence against others.  We can see this happening at nearly all levels of relationships -- inter-personally, in families, with our neighbors, within our communities and country, and between nations.

The Art of Listening

-- Bruce Kasanoff

Is there something more important we can do for people than to listen to them?

What Is Going On

Usually, when someone does something that hurts us, it has more to do with what is going on within that person than it has to do with you or me. This doesn’t excuse the behavior, but it does mean the behavior is likely misdirected and not personal, although it feels that way initially.

-- Lauren Lamarche