Will Compel You

​It is what you want that will compel you to grow.

Deepest Agony

It is often from our deepest agony that our truest love emerges.

Miss A Lot

​You can miss a lot if you're always looking down.

Listening to What They Write

Good writers of prose must be part poet, always listening to what they write.

-- William Zinsser

Deciding

'Poem selection' for the week -- "Deciding":

One mine the Indians worked had
gold so good they left it there
for God to keep.

At night sometimes you think
your way that far, that deep,
or almost.

You hold all things or not, depending
not on greed but whether they suit what
life begins to mean.

Like those workers you study what moves,
what stays. You bow, and then, like them,
you know —

What's God, what's world, what's gold.

-- William Stafford

Summer Sunset in Winona Lake

The Gift of Disillusionment

Only that community which enters into the experience of this great disillusionment with all its unpleasant and evil appearances begins to be what it should be in God’s sight, begins to grasp in faith the promise that is given to it.

-- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

This comes from an article, referenced here, called "The Gift of Disillionment":

Peter’s problem is not that he can’t see Jesus clearly. His problem is that he can’t see himself. He is too humble to let himself be washed, but too proud to do the washing. He hasn’t washed his own feet. He won’t wash the other disciples’ feet. And despite his conviction that Jesus is greater, he doesn’t even offer to wash Jesus’ feet. Peter’s objection looks like humility. It sounds like devotion. But it is really just narcissism and pride attempting to disguise itself in the rags of false humility. It may be pride in a different form, but it is still pride and just as deadly.  Continue....

-- John Koessler

Will Svitek Cares

What Have I Done?

​A wise man will ask, what have I done to contribute to this problem?

Create The Context

​It is not enough just to notice differences between things that are or are not the way we want them to be; we have to take the steps needed to create the context for something different to occur.

I've Noticed: Don't Say

​I've noticed...that I don't say as much as I would like to.  What of this is wisdom? What is fear?

Truth Differently

​We engage with truth when we actually hear it; often when we hear it differently, often when we're forced to hear it differently.

Fathers Song

'Poem selection' for the week -- "Fathers Song":

Yesterday, against admonishment,
my daughter balanced on the couch back,
fell and cut her mouth.

Because I saw it happen I knew
she was not hurt, and yet
a child’s blood so red
it stops a father’s heart.

My daughter cried her tears;
I held some ice
against her lip.
That was the end of it.

Round and round: bow and kiss.
I try to teach her caution;
she tries to teach me risk.

-- Gregory Orr

No Holier Name

Father! - to God himself we cannot give a holier name.

-- William Wordsworth

Refugees Look Into The Eyes

There is something powerful about actual contact with another human being...whether they be refugees or friends.  We must see each other as, above all else, human.

To Be United With Beauty

We want so much more—something the books on aesthetics take little notice of. But the poets and the mythologies know all about it. We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words—to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.

-- C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

Estes Park

Tami and I celebrated our 30th anniversary this week in the mountains of Colorado. We hiked a little over 30 miles throughout Estes Park. The beauty was so refreshing for me.  More of our pics here....

Greatest Source

Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.

-- Bill Gates

Change

Be the change you want to see.

-- Gandhi

A Man Said To The Universe

'Poem selection' for the week -- "A Man Said to the Universe":

A man said to the universe:
“Sir, I exist!”
“However,” replied the universe,
“The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation.”

-- Stephen Crane

Stanford: 20 Things We’d Better Tell Our Sons Right Now About Being Real Men

Dear Sons,

When you’re the mother of four sons, the Stanford rape case — it’s not about somebody else… it’s about us.

Let’s be real clear, boys — I’m never writing you a letter like the father of Brock Turner, defending any sexual assault of a horrifically traumatized young woman as merely as “20 minutes of action.” Rape is not “20 minutes of action” — it’s a violent act with lifetime consequences and it’s time for parents to take far less than 20 minutes of action and stand up right now and say hard things to our sons right now before it’s too late.

The Stanford rape case is about having a conversation with sons about hard things and asking sons to do holy things.  Continue here....

-- Ann Voskamp

Transform Suffering

I've always been impressed by the "alchemy" of the human heart — by its capacity to transform the suffering that comes to all of us into compassion and generosity of spirit.

I know so many people who have used their own wounds to become "wounded healers." Instead of growing bitter and passing their pain on to others, they've said, "This is where the pain stops and the love begins."

They've become better able to offer understanding and compassion to others — not in spite of their suffering, but because of it.

-- Parker Palmer

You Are One Day Away From Being Tabloid News: Why We Are All the Gorilla Pit Mom

There has been some remarkably graceful commentary for the mother of the boy who fell into the gorilla pit. We are telling stories about losing our kids in the grocery store or about that time they unbuckled their own car seats. But I want us to go a little deeper than that. We should not see articles criticizing this woman and think, “There but for the Grace of God go I.” We should see her image and think, “Hey! Look! There I am!”

Because our kids are always falling into gorilla pits. There may not be a camera present. People may not be internet shaming you. But every single day mothers (and fathers) make terrible parenting decisions that have the potential for dire consequences. Did you text your friend back with your kids in the car? Car accident....

What I wish for this shamed-by-the-entire-internet-mother is that she would not stand alone. I wish that we would see ourselves in her trauma. I wish we would remember those times that we have completely lost control. Unfortunately, we are not likely to do that. No one wants to admit that they have lost control of their lives. Because admitting that you have lost control means thinking back to a time when you actually felt like you had it. And let’s be honest, that time has never existed.

Instead, we cling to our mirage of control and we isolate the least, the last, and the lonely. We judge the woman and her five husbands...continue.

-- Sarah Condon

Patience

​As patient as I want or try to be, I have realized that being patient still is a tremendous battle. Battle, because it requires trusting in something I cannot see, in something I cannot control. It seems that lurking around nearly every corner of patience is the threat of or the accusation of not doing enough.  "You could do more, you know...you should do more, etc.".

This has a really powerful appeal and attack on the virtues of patience, one that I encounter nearly every day. But, this battle also walks me right up to the door of a good question; what is informing my impatience?

Old Enough

​For a long time, I didn't feel old enough...to really know.
Now, I feel only old enough to speculate.
Perhaps, I will live long enough to even have something to say.

Satisfied

​The human experience with satisfaction is so temporary. It is easily fully satisfied and then, almost as quickly, only desiring it to be again.

Lesvos

'Poem selection' for the week -- "Lesvos":

Fishermen out before dawn. None returned.
              I asked you why they left their nets behind,
but you were looking out, across to Assos,
              and maybe didn’t hear me in the wind.
We both wore the same ironic mask:
              one blue eye floating upon a white sea.
On that balcony, beside the iron table,
              a geranium held on for dear life.
All day we watched waves capsize in the rain.
              Our shoreline here: the other shoreline’s mirror.
Those aren’t nets, you said after a long time,
              but mounds of sodden jackets and lost oars.
Stray cats sheltered in the light of the café.
              We didn’t know the others huddled there.
The wind changed course and tried to explain
              by shaking the geranium, but words sank
in the crossing, so we heard under water.
              When I opened my hands, my palms burned,
as if they’d been lashed by splintered wood.
              In sleep, you told me, we have been rowing.
Truth is, no one here knows where we’re going.
              I begged you not to leave, but you’d already
slung a orange scarf over your wet head.
              There aren’t enough boats to carry them,
I shouted, so there’s nothing left to do.
              There is, you said. I’m going down to see.

-- Christopher Bakken

From the author:

“I have spent a lot of time over the years in Molyvos (a port town on Lesvos) and also in Assos (just across the water on the Turkish mainland). In the past two years, an estimated three to five thousand refugees drowned while attempting to cross the stretch of water separating those two places. Many of my Greek and expatriate friends have volunteered on Lesvos, or in refugee camps on the northern border town of Idomeni. What they have described is heartbreaking. The poem registers my sense of regret for not being there, if only to bear witness.”

Seconding The Motion

All prayer is seconding the motion. God is the initial motion, the initiative. In contemplation, we become aware of God's movement and surrender to it. We begin with "yes," ready to receive reality just as it is and ready to let it teach us. Contemplation teaches us how to say "yes"--yes to the moment, yes to the event, yes to the relationship. It is what it is before you analyze it, compare it to something else, or prefer it to something else. It takes much of your life to learn how to always begin with yes. I warn you that if you begin with no--which culture by and large trains us to do because the ego prefers the negative--it's very hard to get back to yes.

Saying "yes" to the moment allows space for the real question, which is "What does this have to say to me?" Those who are totally converted come to every experience and ask not whether they like it, but what does it have to teach them. "What's the message or gift in this for me? How is God in this event? Where is God in this suffering? What is God calling me to do?"

As you practice contemplation--in whatever form you choose--intentionally say yes to God's presence and leading. Outside your times of contemplation, stay in this posture of willingness and openness. Let the hard, consequential questions of our world's suffering stir your love into action. Discover and say yes to your unique way of participating in God's love and healing, which is already working in every life, in every place, and simply asks for you to join.

-- Richard Rohr

Medal of Honor

Pope Francis' Field Hospital for the Family

The late cardinal said that it is insufficient simply to drop the truth on people and then smugly walk away. Rather, he insisted, you must accompany those you have instructed, committing yourself to helping them integrate the truth that you have shared.

I thought of this intervention often as I was reading Pope Francis's apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia. Pope Francis wants the truths regarding marriage, sexuality, and family to be unambiguously declared, but that he also wants the Church's ministers to reach out in mercy and compassion to those who struggle to incarnate those truths in their lives.

In regard to the moral objectivities of marriage, the pope is bracingly clear.

He bemoans any number of threats to this ideal, including moral relativism, a pervasive cultural narcissism, the ideology of self-invention, pornography, and the "throwaway" society. He explicitly calls to our attention the teaching of Pope Paul VI in Humanae Vitae regarding the essential connection between the unitive and the procreative dimensions of conjugal love (80).

However, the pontiff also honestly admits that many, many people fall short of the ideal, failing fully to integrate all of the dimensions of what the Church means by matrimony. What is the proper attitude to them? Like Cardinal George, the pope has a visceral reaction against a strategy of simple condemnation, for the Church, he says, is a field hospital, designed to care precisely for the wounded (292). Accordingly, he recommends two fundamental moves...continue.

-- Robert Barron

Solitude Is Not

Solitude does not necessarily mean living apart from others; rather, it means never living apart from one’s self. It is not about the absence of other people — it is about being fully present to ourselves, whether or not we are with others.

-- Parker Palmer

How Big

​It is important to know how big we are, but more important to know how big we aren't.

I've Noticed: Force

​I've noticed...that I feel stopped sometimes, by my fear of using force with others. I think I have something yet to discover about my relationship with force.