2016

The last few years, I have enjoyed reviewing Saturday Mornings entries from throughout the year. Did what we wanted in the year happen?  I'm surprised at the affection I have for so many of the ideas and events that shaped the year and us.  Here is a short list of some of my 2016 favorites:

December: Living It Two Goals of Religion	June: How Big Deepest Agony
November: Leonard Cohen Dead at 82 Chicago Cubs...World Series Title	May: Enneagram, Con't Value of Vulnerability
October: Bearings The Power of A Dinner Table	April: 2nd College Graduate Tend To Flowers
September: Process of Subtraction SM Brunch 7: Damage, Getting Even...	March: Grand Canyon Hike More
August: Wholeness vs Perfection  Compassion	February: The Gates of Hope Silence
July: Saturday Mornings Brunch Compare & Compete	January: Choices Reflect Winter

It Must Ensue

Don't aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself.

-- Viktor E. Frankl

Colorado: Skiing

Another great Colorado day -- what beauty!  More pics here....

Colorado: Hiking

Clear air and blue skies at Mt. Herman, Colorado, with family:

No Matter How Familiar

No matter how familiar, initially space is so often like an unmet friend-to-be.  You have to get used to it all over again.

Evergreen

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

I whisper to the tree, the tree,
the murmuring Tree
“I might take action”

Is romantic
Snow sun melts into streams increasing in volume
I control with my lips

Around History. Our eyes meet. White ancient
Roar I hear stream-
Side, my invisible dress threatening

A slow death. The rest I want to carry
So I listen
For the tree, and its never quite obsolete magic.

-- Rob Schlegel

From the Author:

“‘Evergreen’ raises a lot of questions for me, in me. With an ambivalent nod to Emerson, the poem reflects my uneasy relationship with Romanticism. But the poem is also about how the imagination is like magic; it can get you into trouble, but also get you out.”

Living It

The birth of Jesus made possible not just a new way of understanding life but a new way of living it.

-- Frederick Buechner, Listening to Your Life

But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.”

-- Luke 2:10-11

Angels, from the realms of glory,
Wing your flight o'er all the earth;
Ye, who sang creation's story,
Now proclaim Messiah's birth:
Come and worship,
Come and worship
Worship Christ, the new-born King.

Shepherds in the field abiding,
Watching o'er your flocks by night,
God with man is now residing;
Yonder shines the infant Light:

Sages, leave your contemplations,
Brighter visions beam afar:
Seek the great Desire of nations;
Ye have seen his natal star:

Saints before the altar bending,
Watching long in hope and fear,
Suddenly the Lord, descending,
In his temple shall appear.

Lord Himself

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.

-- Isaiah 7:14

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

Moving up my Christmas favorites list:

O come, O come, Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear

O come, O come, Thou Lord of might
Who to Thy tribes, on Sinai's height
In ancient times didst give the law
In cloud, and majesty and awe

Thine own from Satan's tyranny
From depths of hell Thy people save
And give them victory o'er the grave

O come, Thou Dayspring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death's dark shadows put to flight

O come, Thou Key of David, come
And open wide our heavenly home
Make safe the way that leads on high
And close the path to misery

O come, Thou Wisdom from on high
And order all things, far and nigh
To us the path of knowledge show
And cause us in her ways to go

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel

Why Hope?

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

-- Romans 12:12


It doesn’t take long to look around the world, into the present darkness and evil that surrounds us, and conclude that we have little reason to hope. We all experience pain and suffering. Peace and safety are hard to come by. Injustice, sorrow, sickness, poverty and violence are all alive and well.

But The Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). When Jesus stepped onto the scene, hope was made possible. The advent of Christ ushers in hope.

When we trust the work of Christ on the Cross for salvation, we are saved by faith (Ephesians 2:8). Given that hope is faith in the future tense, we, as believers, have hope, we possess it and it is ours for the taking. It is at the root of our saving knowledge, understanding and belief in Christ. And if we believe that Christ bore the weight of our sin on the cross and defeated death in His resurrection, Peter says that we are born into a living hope, a hope in Jesus’ victory on our behalf, no matter the trials and tribulations of this world.

Having been justified, we rejoice in the hope of God’s glory, even in the midst of suffering. In fact, as believers, suffering produces hope, because we know that despite our present troubles, God’s love has been poured out on our behalf in Christ. As His followers, life will be difficult, but our hope is not at the mercy of our circumstances and our perspective is not limited to what is seen, but is wrapped up in the truth of the Gospel for all eternity. We have hope and can hope because it has been given to us in Christ.

-- www.121cc.com

Emptied Himself

When ultimate glory is involved, one can do anything for its sake:

Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, 

who, existing in the form of God, 

did not consider equality with God 

as something to be exploited. 

Instead he emptied himself 

by assuming the form of a servant, 

taking on the likeness of humanity. 

And when he had come as a man, 

he humbled himself by becoming obedient 

to the point of death — even to death on a cross. 

For this reason God highly exalted him 

and gave him the name that is above every name, 

so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow 

— in heaven and on earth and under the earth — 

and every tongue will confess 

that Jesus Christ is Lord, 

to the glory of God the Father. 

-- Phil. 2:5-11

...the most beautiful hymn in Scripture?  Continue here....

Waking Us Up

God, we are sleeping:

O little town of Bethlehem
How still we see thee lie
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight

For Christ is born of Mary
And gathered all above
While mortals sleep, the angels keep
Their watch of wondering love
O morning stars together
Proclaim the holy birth
And praises sing to God the King
And Peace to men on earth

How silently, how silently
The wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of His heaven.
No ear may hear His coming,
But in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive him still,
The dear Christ enters in.

O holy Child of Bethlehem
Descend to us, we pray
Cast out our sin and enter in
Be born to us today
We hear the Christmas angels
The great glad tidings tell
O come to us, abide with us
Our Lord Emmanuel

- Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem

...thank you, God, for coming to us and waking us up to you!

Spirituality is about consciousness.

-- Deepak Chopra

Coming

Perhaps in a Spirit of Advent, I found myself waking this morning looking for (wanting) something.  Perhaps it is something I want to feel, to find again.  Or, perhaps, it is something I want to know, that I haven't yet discovered.

Under the unusual blanket of cold this particular morning, it seems like a kind of silence has descended.  A silence over me, in me.

...almost like something is coming, but not quite here. And, yet, as I reflect with the benefit of several passages of Scripture, I realize that what is coming has, in another way, already come.  It is in such a silence as this that I am able to know...His coming IS.

Preparing the Heart: To Wear Our Skin

'Poem selection' for this last week before Christmas -- “Preparing the Heart: To Wear Our Skin”:

To wear our skin
is to know our frailty:
our bruises and callouses,
our sunburns and warts,
our tears and our bleeding,
our spasming backs,
and toothaches.

To pulse within our hearts
is to know our temptation
for self-promotion,
knowing our desire
to fill our own emptiness
rather than love and serve others first.

To inhabit our souls
you have humbled yourself
to pull together
our million broken pieces,
becoming the adhesive
to glue us back whole,
loving us by becoming us
as we crumble to dust.

Humble and Human, willing to bend You are
Fashioned of flesh and the fire of life, You are
Not too proud to wear our skin
To know this weary world we’re in
Humble, humble Jesus

Humble in sorrow, You gladly carried Your cross
Never refusing Your life to the weakest of us
Not too proud to bear our sin
To feel this brokenness we’re in
Humble, humble Jesus

We bow our knees
We must decrease
You must increase
We lift You high

Humble in greatness, born in the likeness of man
Name above all names, holding our world in Your hands
Not too proud to dwell with us, to live in us, to die for us
Humble, humble Jesus

We bow our knees
We must decrease
You must increase
We lift You high

We lift you high

Humble
You are humble
Make me humble like You
We lift You high

-- Audrey Assad

SM Brunch 11: The Third, Boredom, Imagination, Forgiveness, and Fear

More Saturday Mornings Brunch:

There are three things that are real:  God, human folly and laughter. The first two are beyond our comprehension, so we must do what we can with the third.

-- The Ramayana

****
​I have heard that there is no word for boredom in ancient languages.

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Imagination is like magic; it can get you into trouble, but also get you out.

-- Rob Schlegel

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​If we don't own our mistakes, we forfeit our opportunity for forgiveness (of ourselves and from others), which is our path to healing.

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Through

The best way out is always through.

-- Robert Frost

...such a beautiful and succinct rendition of this week's posts.

Example, Not Opinion

The world is changed by your example not your opinion.

-- Paulo Ceolho

Cannot Be

Our greatest joy cannot be in being right.

More Leaders

True Leaders don’t create followers, they create more leaders.

-- Tom Peters

Breakage

'Poem selection' for the week -- “Breakage”:

I go down to the edge of the sea.
How everything shines in the morning light!
The cusp of the whelk,
the broken cupboard of the clam,
the opened, blue mussels,
moon snails, pale pink and barnacle scarred—
and nothing at all whole or shut, but tattered, split,
dropped by the gulls onto the gray rocks and all the
       moisture gone.
It's like a schoolhouse
of little words,
thousands of words.
First you figure out what each one means by itself,
the jingle, the periwinkle, the scallop
       full of moonlight.

Then you begin, slowly, to read the whole story.

-- Mary Oliver

Grateful Joy

So it's searchable:

No amount of regret changes the past

No amount of anxiety changes the future.

Any amount of grateful, joy changes the present.

-- Ann Voskamp

Alone?

​Our most natural fear is of being alone.

We will do a lot in an attempt to prevent it. We often fear change primarily because of the risk we feel of being isolated, of losing something we have. When I made a significant decision recently, this was the one thing I anticipated that felt worse, once the decision was made. In other words, this is where I went first, wondering if I'd made a bad decision, what it might cost me in terms of relationships.

But, I am not alone...and it's really something else that is going on:

The wounds to our ego are our teachers to be welcomed. They should be paid attention to, not litigated or even perfectly resolved.

Whenever we’re led out of normalcy into sacred, open space, it’s going to feel like suffering, because it is letting go of what we’re used to. This is always painful at some level. But part of us has to die if we are ever to grow larger (John 12:24).

-- Richard Rohr

Womb

Uncertainty is the womb of creativity.

-- Deepak Chopra

Change

Sometimes the only way for change to occur is to make space for it.

Attained

Whenever an individual or a business decides that success has been attained, progress stops.

-- Thomas J. Watson

Seeing

I've noticed...once things become familiar, I start to see new things I hadn't noticed before.

But, I also can stop seeing things when they become familiar... because I so easily tend to see what I expect to see.

The Map

'Poem selection' for the week -- "The Map":

The failure of love might account for most of the suffering in the world.

The girl was going over her global studies homework  

in the air where she drew the map with her finger


touching the Gobi desert,

the Plateau of Tiber in front of her,


and looking through her transparent map backwards

I did suddenly see,

how her left is my right, and for a moment I understood.

-- Marie Howe

Let It Snow!

There's something nearly magical about snow....

Two Goals of Religion

Ken Wilber sees religion as having two primary functions. The first is to create “meaning for the separate self.” The second and mature function of religion is to help individuals transcend that very self.  Great religion seeks full awareness and expanded consciousness (often called “holiness”) so that we can, in fact, both give and receive in equal measure. For me, this is the simplest sign of emotional and spiritual health. Things can be both received and also let go of—exactly as it is between the three persons of the Trinity. Remember, I believe the Trinity sets the pattern for all creation and all growth into Love. Trinity is the ultimate code breaker!

Although the majority of religions and individuals remain at the first stage of creating meaning for the separate self, I continue to find people inside every religion and profession who are on the true further journey. These are the ones who have “died before they die,” who have let great love, suffering, or prayer lead them beyond their small self into the Big Self. They have let go of who they thought they were, or needed to be, to discover who they always were in God.

The second function and goal of religion, Wilber says, “does not fortify the separate self, but utterly shatters it.” Mature spirituality offers “not consolation but devastation, not entrenchment but emptiness, not complacency but explosion, not comfort but revolution.” Rather than bolster our habitual patterns of thinking, it radically transforms our consciousness and gives us what Paul calls “the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16).

The mind of Christ is not binary, either/or thinking. The mind of Christ can live with paradox, uncertainty, and mystery. This way of not knowing, and not even needing to know, is precisely what we mean by Biblical faith. In the first half of our lives (not strictly chronological!), we are largely not ready to understand what faith is, because we still cling to naïve beliefs and false certainties. We need them to get us started! In the first half of life we are still afraid of darkness and “the cross.”

In time, through trials, suffering, and prayer, we will allow ourselves to be broken open to the Larger Knowing that can hold everything in love, grace, and freedom.   Only at that point do we move from mere religion to the beginnings of a spiritual journey that will help us and the world.

-- Richard Rohr

The Way You Think About Willpower Is Hurting You

​Fundamentally, we give up on tasks that don’t engage us.

-- Nir Eyal

Not so long ago, my post-work routine looked like this: After a particularly grueling day, I’d sit on the couch and veg for hours, doing my version of “Netflix and chill,” which meant keeping company with a cold pint of ice cream. I knew the ice cream, and the sitting, were probably a bad idea, but I told myself this was my well-deserved “reward” for working so hard.

Psychological researchers have a name for this phenomenon: it’s called “ego depletion.” The theory is that willpower is connected to a limited reserve of mental energy, and once you run out of that energy, you’re more likely to lose self-control. This theory would seem to perfectly explain my after-work indulgences.

But new studies suggest that we’ve been thinking about willpower all wrong, and that the theory of ego depletion isn’t true. Even worse, holding on to the idea that willpower is a limited resource can actually be bad for you, making you more likely to lose control and act against your better judgment.  Continue here....

A Lot

A lot of what we got, we got from the swirling tides of culture around us. But, a lot of what we got, we also got right from ourselves...right from the middle of our own hearts.

Don't Really Matter

​Our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter.

-- Francis Chan