Difficult and Not Tried

Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.

-- G.K. Chesterton

One has described it this way, not a populist message...(thanks for forwarding, Randy).

This is what the Lord says — your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:

“I am the Lord your God,
who teaches you what is best for you,
who directs you in the way you should go."

-- Isaiah 48:17

Hours Needed Earning Minimum Wage to Afford an Apartment

This pokes at something I've been latently pondering, regarding what money means in our society, what it means to me, and how the two are connected.  I think about this locally, when I see some of the disparity in our community housing...from the poor to the rich.  I wonder about what my own view of money indicates, as it relates to the racial tensions we're feeling nationally.  I am concerned about how all of this fits into something globally, where it really is impossible (unsustainable) for everyone to live (eat, drink, sleep, work) like I do.  

Click here...for more details.

Kind to Yourself

I hope you are kind to yourself. That you give yourself the time and space to figure things out. That’s not a license for laziness. I worked, and worked hard, in my 20s. And I wouldn’t trade the experiences I had during that time. But if there is a 22-year-old out there reading this and feeling adrift, I have this to say to you: Been there, done that. And look at me -- it all turned out better than fine, right?

For those of you with great career jobs already lined up, I have a warning: Achieving success and power will not be a function of your job, nor how hard you work at that job. Go in with that mindset and you will emerge in your 30s or 40s, exhausted and disillusioned. You are not your job. You are the sum of your thoughts, your intentions and most importantly, your actions.

-- Suze Orman

Not What's Really Important

If you’re not guided by a clear sense of purpose, you’re likely to fritter away your time and energy on obtaining the most tangible, short-term signs of achievement, not what’s really important to you.

-- Clayton M Christensen

This reminds of this reading:

But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called....

-- 1 Timothy 6:11-12

Take hold...of what's important...to you.

Saints and Sinners

The only difference between saints and sinners is that every saint has a past while every sinner (should have) a future.

-- Oscar Wilde

Uncomfortableness

The uncomfortableness we seem to be most comfortable with is our own, most likely because we are most familiar with it.  We are less comfortable with other people's uncomfortableness (unless it is a lot like ours).  It is like we, in an illogical way, love the things we hate about ourselves.

CT: Forgiving Her Sister's Murderer, Face to Face

I had built this wall that was convenient for me. I thought, ‘Because you haven’t apologized to me, that absolves me of the responsibility of reaching out to you.'

I felt my heart, hard and rigid, cracking open. I had always made a divide between Nancy’s killer and me. Him: bad murderer. Me: innocent victims’ family member. The truth was, there was no division between us before God —- we were both flawed and fallen.

It’s not okay what you did, but I am not going to hate you. I am not going to wish evil on you. I am going to wish the opposite. I am going to wish that you will be redeemed.  Continue here....

-- Jeanne Bishop

Standard Objection

One of the standard objections to the Christian message, as we saw, goes like this: how can you say the kingdom of heaven has arrived on earth, when it's obvious, looking around you, that nothing of the kind has happened? Things are still pretty bleak. Often Jesus' followers seem to be part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Jesus' own explanation of how the kingdom works is still the classic answer to this question. What did you expect: that God would send in the tanks like a totalitarian dictator, crush the opposition and set up a 'kingdom' which would leave half the world bruised and resentful? What sort of a 'god' would that be? No! God will bring in his kingdom by the same means, the same strange process, that he seems to use in the natural world. Seeds will be sown; many will apparently be lost, but others will be powerfully fruitful.  ...the kingdom has indeed been launched; yes, it is making its way in the world; but no, it isn't doing so in the way you might have imagined. It is doing so in the way God has imagined: by the Sower himself becoming the seed sown in good soil, and rising again to celebrate the harvest of God's new creation.

-- N.T. Wright, Matthew 13

Unrequited Love

Unrequited love is the love human beings experience most of the time. The very need to be fully requited may be to turn from the possibilities of love itself. Men and women have always had difficulty with the way a love returned hardly ever resembles a love given, but unrequited love may be the form that love mostly takes; for what affection is ever returned over time in the same measure or quality with which it is given? … And whom could we know so well and so intimately through all the twists and turns of a given life that we could show them exactly, the continuous and appropriate form of affection they need?

The great discipline seems to be to give up wanting to control the manner in which we are requited, and to forgo the natural disappointment that flows from expecting an exact and measured reciprocation.

We seem to have been born into a world where love, except for brilliant, exceptional moments, seems to exist from one side only, ours — and that may be the difficulty and the revelation and the gift — to see love as the ultimate letting go and through the doorway of that affection, make the most difficult sacrifice of all, giving away the very thing we want to hold forever.

-- David Whyte, Consolations

Love and reciprocation do not seem to be bed-fellows.  Though, at the beginning this can be at the very least disappointing, there is great wisdom and redemption in this discovery.

Others Expected Of Me

I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

-- Bonnie Ware

Consider both ways we can feel this.  On the one hand, we can feel this from people like parents or organizations (churches), institutions (schools)...things corporate (businesses), etc.  On the other, though, we can also feel this heavily from society itself, to conform to its own ideas...things like acceptance, sports, the 'Jones' effect, sexuality, rebellion, etc.

It is hard to be true to oneself, especially when we largely are still trying to learn / understand what that is, who we even are.  It takes courage.

You Think You Know

You have to be careful what you think you know.

-- Simon Sinek

We make assumptions about people and this leads us to conclusions about them...conclusions that often are not helpful to our relationships with them.

We also make conclusions about ourselves, almost as if we are imagining that there just isn't that much more to know, when we focus only the patterns we are currently familiar with.  And these, in turn, reinforce our assumptions about what is going in others.

And, we make conclusions about God, discussion for another day....

We simply must have the courage to wonder about who we are (even doubt, at times); not only will we discover that our conclusions are premature, but we will also discover that our relationships will grow.

Sisters: Doubt and Wonder

Doubt is Wonder's skeptical sister.

...and Lord knows in a world of fallen wonder, we need some healthy skepticism.

Crucible of Doubt

Doubt leads me to a crucible, that can refine me.

Must Be Won

The mind can be convinced, but the heart must be won.

-- Simon Sinek

Presumptuous

Let me tell you this: Faith comes and goes. But if it is presumptuous to think that faith will stay forever, it is just as presumptuous to think that unbelief will.

-- Flannery O’Connor

We Go, We Come

We go, we come.
We pass
in and out
with doubt,
until we see
Something more
than just me.
Free,
to be
without
the need
we so often feel
for others
to see
what we already are,
as we
come
and go.

...inspired by the writings of Gynnae Hochstetler.

Hurry Sickness

Hurry Sickness:  Our computers, our movies, our sex lives, our prayers — they all run faster now than ever before. And the more we fill our lives with time-saving devices and time-saving strategies, the more rushed we feel.

-- James Gleick, Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything

This just doesn't feel true, it IS true.  I, for one, am likely a bit 'sick' in this regard.  I have to choose space and choose slow, as it doesn't often choose me (although I fear I may have missed its 'selection' of me recently, during my post-knee-surgery season).  In other words, I have to build it in.  If I don't, I start to feel a kind of nauseousness in spirit.

I awoke this morning feeling the effects of this illness.  I need to go to do something...slowly.

Maps To Your Intentions

Own your words.  Your words are maps to your intentions.

-- Chris Brogan

Meddling

The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.

-- Theodore Roosevelt

Something Proportional

While the whole world is not a function of cause-and-effect, we tend to get out of things something proportional to what we put into them.

At another level, we don't get nearly what (bad) we do deserve (bad) and much more of what we don't deserve (good).

But apathy and passivity are not excused by these things.  We so seem to grow mostly by how we engage with life.

Not Quite Enough Time

To achieve great things, you need a plan and not quite enough time.

-- Leonard Bernstein

A New Perspective For Moms

A good mother often seems to question herself (a kind of humility)...it is a gift to know that this translates to a goodness children just innately know from their moms.  Moms are not perfect; aren't meant to be either.  They are meant to be real.  What more can prepare a child to live in this world?

I am grateful for what my mother did for me and for the mother to my kids -- such an instinctual beauty!

There is a joy in giving. Perhaps this is why there is also a thing called 'mothers joy', because mothers have such a unique opportunity and capacity to give, not necessarily because of the joy they will receive, but because they invariably receive it, at one point or another, in one way or another. Can there be a greater joy, then to birth and nurture life in others? Yes, the joy can become unrequited, but nonetheless, the giving continues and the result is still realized, as depicted, at least in part, in this video.

Remains In Sight

The dynamic of friendship is almost always underestimated as a constant force in human life: a diminishing circle of friends is the first terrible diagnostic of a life in deep trouble: of overwork, of too much emphasis on a professional identity, of forgetting who will be there when our armored personalities run into the inevitable natural disasters and vulnerabilities found in even the most average existence.

Friendship is a mirror to presence and a testament to forgiveness. Friendship not only helps us see ourselves through another’s eyes, but can be sustained over the years only with someone who has repeatedly forgiven us for our trespasses as we must find it in ourselves to forgive them in turn. A friend knows our difficulties and shadows and remains in sight, a companion to our vulnerabilities more than our triumphs, when we are under the strange illusion we do not need them. An undercurrent of real friendship is a blessing exactly because its elemental form is rediscovered again and again through understanding and mercy. All friendships of any length are based on a continued, mutual forgiveness.

-- David Whyte, Consolations

As I mentioned a couple days ago, I am interested these days in the role of friendship in our lives...and, in particular, the concern that it may have become something less than it used to be. Among the many good thoughts above, this line line stood out to me:

A friend knows our difficulties and shadows and remains in sight, a companion to our vulnerabilities more than our triumphs, when we are under the strange illusion we do not need them.

We need to remain in sight of each other; we are built to be so.

Hearts Of Men

I received a link to this movie trailer from William Young (The Shack). He, Bill Thrall and Bruce McNicol (The Cure), and Dan Allender are in it.  It is interesting to see how our views of God are being shaped these days...knowing that they have been 'shaped' in every other 'days' (times) as well.

Being Pulled

If you hang around with people who behave worse than you, pretty soon you’ll start being pulled in that direction.

It’s very important always to live your life by an inner scorecard, not an outer scorecard.

-- Warran Buffett

Friendship and The Better Part

In the course of the years a close friendship will always reveal the shadow in the other as much as ourselves, to remain friends we must know the other and their difficulties and even their sins and encourage the best in them, not through critique but through addressing the better part of them, the leading creative edge of their incarnation, thus subtly discouraging what makes them smaller, less generous, less of themselves.

-- David Whyte, Consolations

A rather beautiful description, it seems to me, of the higher good of friendship.  Friendship seems to have lost its favor these days, to both our chagrin and, perhaps, demise.  It is well worth resurrecting some healthy contemplation / discussion about it.

Stand Together

Many things which cannot be overcome when they stand together yield themselves up when taken little by little.

-- Sertorius

Oxygen To The Soul

We should seize every opportunity to give encouragement. Encouragement is oxygen to the soul.

-- George M. Adams

Inescapable Egotism

Even the innocent, even those in whom Christ lives by charity, even those who want with their whole heart to love one another, remain divided and separate. Although they are already one in Him, their union is hidden from them, because it still only possesses the secret substance of their souls.

But their minds and their judgments and their desires, their human characters and faculties, their appetites and their ideals are all imprisoned in the slag of an inescapable egotism which pure love has not yet been able to refine.

As long as we are on earth, the love that unites us will bring us suffering by our very contact with one another, because this love is the resetting of a Body of broken bones. Even saints cannot live with saints on this earth without some anguish, without some pain at the differences that come between them.

-- Thomas Merton

Lily

How To Stop A Bullet

The best way to stop a bullet is a job.

-- Van Jones

...click here to learn more.