Born Again

Everything is moving, everything is changing; everything must die, and be reborn.  This seems fitting as we face the prospects of a new year:

Strange as it may seem in this time of cultural anxiety, economic near collapse, terrorist fear, political violence, environmental crisis, and partisan anger, I believe that the United States (and not only the United States) is caught up in the throes of a spiritual awakening, a period of sustained religious and political transformation during which our ways of seeing the world, understanding ourselves, and expressing faith are being, to borrow a phrase, “born again.” Indeed, the shifts around religion contribute to the anxiety, even as anxiety gives rise to new sorts of understandings of God and the spiritual life. Fear and confusion signal change. This transformation is what some hope will be a “Great Turning” toward a global community based on shared human connection, dedicated to the care of our planet, committed to justice and equality, that seeks to raise hundreds of millions from poverty, violence, and oppression.

Exponential change creates exponential fear along with exponential hope. Massive transformation creates the double-edged cultural sword of decline and renewal. Exponential change ends those things that people once assumed and trusted to be true. At the same time, upheaval opens new pathways to the future. Change is about endings and beginnings and the necessary interrelationship between the two.

In his Letter to the Romans, Paul has a marvelous line: “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Romans 5:20). In so many places, there are signs of the Holy Spirit working at all levels of society. The church might well have done its work as leaven, because much of this reform, enlightenment, compassion, and healing is outside the bounds of organized religion. Only God is going to get the credit.

The toothpaste is out of the tube. There are enough people who know the big picture of Jesus’ thrilling and alluring vision of the reign of God that this Great Turning cannot be stopped. There are enough people going on solid inner journeys that it is not merely ideological or theoretical. This reformation is happening in a positive, nonviolent way. The changes are not just from the top down, but much more from the bottom up. Not from the outside in, but from the inside out. Not from clergy to laity, but from a unified field where class is of minor importance. The big questions are being answered at a peaceful and foundational level, with no need to oppose, deny, or reject. I sense the urgency of the Holy Spirit, with over seven billion humans now on the planet. There is so much to love and embrace.

I am convinced that the only future of the church, the one Body of Christ, is ecumenical and shared. Each of our traditions have preserved and fostered one or another jewel in the huge crown that is the Cosmic Christ; only together can we make up the unity of the Spirit, as we learn to defer to one another out of love.

-- Diana Butler Bass, Christianity After Religion

Permanent Process

Conversion is a permanent process, in which very often the obstacles we meet make us lose all we had gained and start anew.

-- Gustavo Gutierrez

Spoken For

Poem for the week -- "Spoken For":

I didn’t know I was blue,
until I heard her sing.

I was never aware so much
had been lost
even before I was born.
There was so much to lose
even before I knew
what it meant to choose.

Born blue,
living blue unconfessed, blue
in concealment, I’ve lived all my life
at the plinth
of greater things than me.

Morning is greater
with its firstborn light and birdsong.
Noon is taller, though a moment’s realm.
Evening is ancient and immense, and
night’s storied house more huge.

But I had no idea.
And would have died without a clue,
except she began to sing. And I understood

my soul is a bride enthralled by an unmet groom,
or else the groom wholly spoken for, blue
in ardor, happy in eternal waiting.

I heard her sing and knew
I would never hear the true

name of each thing
until I realized the abysmal
ground of all things. Her singing
touched that ground in me.

Now, dying of my life, everything is made new.
Now, my life is not my life. I have no life
apart from all of life.

And my death is not my death,
but a pillow beneath my head, a rock
propping the window open
to admit the jasmine.

I heard her sing,
and I’m no longer afraid.
Now that I know what she knows, I hope
never to forget
how giant the gone
and immaculate the going.
How much I’ve already lost.
How much I go on losing.
How much I’ve lived
all one blue. O, how much
I go on living.

-- Li-Young Lee

Truest

When we seek what is truest in our own tradition, we discover we are one with those who seek what is truest in their tradition.

-- James Finley

Coasting

I've noticed...that I don't want to coast the rest of the way.  I want to take advantage of the opportunity of these days to help me grow and be more prepared for the days ahead, whatever they may bring.

Holy Ignorance: Like the Shepherds?

I have learned to prize holy ignorance more highly than religious certainty and to seek companions who have arrived at the same place. We are a motley crew, distinguished not only by our inability to explain ourselves to those who are more certain of their beliefs than we are but in many cases by our distance from the centers of our faith communities as well. Like campers who have bonded over cook fires far from home, we remain grateful for the provisions that we have brought with us from those cupboards, but we also find them more delicious when we share them with one another under the stars. 

-- Barbara Brown Taylor

My Joy: I've Got This

​Joy is the true gift of Christmas, not the expensive gifts that call for time and money....  Let us pray that this presence of the liberating joy of God shines forth in our lives.

-- Pope Benedict XVI


On a day like Christmas, it is as if God were smiling as he says, "I've got this!"

We may reply, "then why don't you stop all the bad stuff going on?"  And God leans forward and asks, "Can you repeat that?"...not condescendingly, but with utmost gentleness and strength.  "Why don't you all stop the bad stuff from happening?"

With a twinkle in his eye, and knowing now that he has our full attention, God might then say something like , "...because you have to learn to stop hurting each other and my world; you have to."

He goes on, "But, just so you know, I AM helping you.  I'm redeeming what you're doing, in spite of how you treat each other.  I'm healing anyone who wants to be healed.  I'm doing way more than you know.

On a day like Christmas, I'm coming to you personally to let you know that all will be well again...I've Got This."


I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.

-- John 15:11

Noel: Christmas Eve 1913

A frosty Christmas Eve 
   when the stars were shining
Fared I forth alone 
   where westward falls the hill,
And from many a village 
   in the water’d valley
Distant music reach’d me 
   peals of bells aringing:
The constellated sounds 
   ran sprinkling on earth’s floor
As the dark vault above 
   with stars was spangled o’er.
Then sped my thoughts to keep 
   that first Christmas of all
When the shepherds watching 
   by their folds ere the dawn
Heard music in the fields 
   and marveling could not tell
Whether it were angels 
   or the bright stars singing.

Now blessed be the tow’rs 
   that crown England so fair
That stand up strong in prayer 
   unto God for our souls
Blessed be their founders 
   (said I) an’ our country folk
Who are ringing for Christ 
   in the belfries to-night
With arms lifted to clutch 
   the rattling ropes that race
Into the dark above 
   and the mad romping din.

But to me heard afar 
   it was starry music
Angels’ song, comforting 
   as the comfort of Christ
When he spake tenderly 
   to his sorrowful flock:
The old words came to me 
   by the riches of time
Mellow’d and transfigured 
   as I stood on the hill
Heark’ning in the aspect 
   of th’ eternal silence.

-- Robert Bridges

There is something so loud about silence, especially on a day (night) like this. Can you hear it?

After, Not Before

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Be patient when it gets weird.
The angels explained things to Joseph
after he'd talked to Mary, not before.

-- Bob Goff

Snow

Poem for the week:

...thanks, Lori, for sharing this snow.

Not Your Destiny

​Letting go means to come to the realization that some people are part of your history, but not your destiny.

-- Steve Maraboli

Instinct & Context

​I've noticed...that my wife seems to be more able to move out of what she feels, on a daily basis -- do this today (or not).
I move more out of what I think things look like over the long-term - how things should be and what that means for today. This means I can tend to disregard what I feel today because it doesn't (shouldn't) matter in light of the greater goal...yes, some real flaws here -- do this everyday (or not at all).

She seems to be more instinctual.
I seem to be more contextual.

I love the freedom of her instinct.
I'm guessing she appreciates my more contextual orientation (at least, at times).

We both are both, but perhaps we each work from more of one than the other.
The beauty of it is that we borrow from each others' more, as we continue to both merge and differentiate ourselves at the same time.

LT: Environment

​The responsibility of leadership is not to come up with all the ideas. The responsibility of leadership is to create an environment in which great ideas can thrive.

-- Simon Sinek

Extra Baggage

​In order to take flight...you need to assess your extra baggage.

-- Elle Kaplan

Space for More

Letting go is basically making space for more—and for all otherness—inside of my small self. Jesus made this point in his very opening line in his first sermon: “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (see Matthew 5:3). We do not live in a culture that appreciates letting go or “poverty of spirit.” We are consumers and capitalists by training and by habit. Yet, just as in the Trinity, all infilling must be preceded by a necessary self-emptying—or there is never room in the inn!

-- Richard Rohr

This reflects a bit of a break-through for me of late; a natural progression, perhaps, of letting go.  I cannot experience more by trying to put more in.  I can only experience more by emptying myself.  As Rohr puts it, our (my) desire to pack things a bit more tighter or more efficiently seems intuitively true, but as I have experienced it, it doesn't work.  The metaphor of a cup of coffee works for me here -- using my thumb to try to jam more liquid into it is useless -- things only spill over the rim.

I am one size, no bigger.  But that doesn't mean I don't have capacity to grow.  My capacity to grow, however, is not achieved by becoming bigger or more dense, it is about becoming more spacious and letting more flow out of me.  I can stop trying to retain what I have and start learning to empty myself, so that more can come in.  It, too, will need to flow out, which will allow the process to repeat.  This is the way I can grow - in and out, in and out...like breathing.  Holding more, carrying more, simply is not the way.

So, what does self-emptying look like?

Science says to stop buying your kids so much crap

You won’t spoil the holidays if you don’t spoil your kids.

Meghan Brunson, a Phoenix mother of four girls ages 2 to 10, worried her two oldest would be disappointed four years ago when she pared the pile of presents down from around 10 apiece to the “rule of 4” being adopted by many parents: One gift they want, one gift they need, one gift to wear and one gift to read.  Continue here....

-- Nicole Lyn Pesce

...reminds me that there can be a difference between gifts and presents.  Presents aren't necessarily bad, but true gifts can be better.

The Mystic’s Christmas

'Poem for the week -- "The Mystic’s Christmas":

“All hail!” the bells of Christmas rang,
“All hail!” the monks at Christmas sang,
The merry monks who kept with cheer
The gladdest day of all their year.

But still apart, unmoved thereat,
A pious elder brother sat
Silent, in his accustomed place,
With God’s sweet peace upon his face.

“Why sitt’st thou thus?” his brethren cried,
“It is the blessed Christmas-tide;
The Christmas lights are all aglow,
The sacred lilies bud and blow.

“Above our heads the joy-bells ring,
Without the happy children sing,
And all God’s creatures hail the morn
On which the holy Christ was born.

“Rejoice with us; no more rebuke
Our gladness with thy quiet look.”
The gray monk answered, “Keep, I pray,
Even as ye list, the Lord’s birthday.

“Let heathen Yule fires flicker red
Where thronged refectory feasts are spread;
With mystery-play and masque and mime
And wait-songs speed the holy time!

“The blindest faith may haply save;
The Lord accepts the things we have;
And reverence, howsoe’er it strays,
May find at last the shining ways.

“They needs must grope who cannot see,
The blade before the ear must be;
As ye are feeling I have felt,
And where ye dwell I too have dwelt.

“But now, beyond the things of sense,
Beyond occasions and events,
I know, through God’s exceeding grace,
Release from form and time and space.

“I listen, from no mortal tongue,
To hear the song the angels sung;
And wait within myself to know
The Christmas lilies bud and blow.

“The outward symbols disappear
From him whose inward sight is clear;
And small must be the choice of days
To him who fills them all with praise!

“Keep while you need it, brothers mine,
With honest seal your Christmas sign,
But judge not him who every morn
Feels in his heart the Lord Christ born!”

-- John Greenleaf Whittier

Conscious Relationship

A conscious relationship is one that calls forth who you really are.... [Instead of looking to a relationship for shelter] we could welcome its power to wake us up in areas of life where we are asleep and where we avoid naked, direct contact with life. This approach puts us on a path. It commits us to movement and change, providing forward direction by showing us where we most need to grow. Embracing relationship as a path also gives us practice: learning to use each difficulty along the way as an opportunity to go further, to connect more deeply, not just with a partner, but with our own aliveness as well.

-- John Welwood

Iteratively

​I've noticed...that one of my personal fears is choosing self.  I think this is the case because it feels like I am choosing self over others; it sounds selfish. But, I suspect that this is a limitation of viewing things through an either / or type of lens.

Perhaps, only a few things can be fully held at the same time. Perhaps, the way things really work is more spirally - iteratively - rather than simultaneously. It is the ability to keep moving, rotating through and back through things we have discovered before, even as we discover something different or new, that is important. A few things are left behind (perhaps they should be), but mostly things are acquired, enriched, expanded. We might call this growth.

So, there are times when I need to choose something for self, as there are times when I need to choose the needs of others first.  While one is not blind to the other, choosing one doesn't mean the other is not true or needed.  Perhaps, it is just not the prevailing thing in this moment.

Fear distort things; in fact, these things.  At least it seems to for me.

LT: This 10-Year Study Had 1.5 Million People Rate 122,000 Leaders - Said A Lot About Culture

Diversity in business is easy to measure. Inclusivity is much more difficult--and most leaders don't know how inclusive they are (or aren't).

Creating an inclusive culture should be one of the main objectives for all leaders. Inclusive cultures make team members of all races, sexes, and ages feel more valued, welcomed, and heard within the organization. The more inclusive the workplace, the healthier it will be, the more productive your team will be, and the better you'll be as a leader.  Continue here....

--  Jordan Scheltgen 

Impediments

I need this reminder today:

Instagram: bobgoff

Sometimes what seem like the 
impediments
are actually the path.

-- Bob Goff

Source of Holiness

​Embrace the present moment as an ever-flowing source of holiness.

-- Jean Pierre de Caussade

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow

Nature's Christmas lights in the snowy woods were calling me today!

Fletcher liked it, too!

Threw this one in, from our yard:

Christmas On The Edge

Poem for the week -- "Christmas On The Edge":

Christmas sets the centre on the edge;
The edge of town, the outhouse of the inn,
The fringe of empire, far from privilege
And power, on the edge and outer spin
Of  turning worlds, a margin of small stars
That edge a galaxy itself light years
From some unguessed at cosmic origin.
Christmas sets the centre at the edge.

And from this day our  world is re-aligned
A tiny seed unfolding in the womb
Becomes the source from which we all unfold
And flower into being. We are healed,
The end begins, the tomb becomes a womb,
For now in him all things are re-aligned.

-- Malcolm Guite

What You Look At

​It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.

-- Henry David Thoreau

What I Do

I've noticed...that a lot of what I do, I do because I know I can do it.  And, I primarily know what I can do it, because I have done it.

Makes me wonder what I could be trying to do right now, so that down the road I am able to do something I don't do today.

LT: One Behavior Separates The Successful From The Average

A certain farmer had become old and ready to pass his farm down to one of his two sons. When he brought his sons together to speak about it, he told them: The farm will go to the younger son.

The older son was furious! “What are you talking about?!” he fumed.

The father sat patiently, thinking...continue here.

-- Benjamin P. Hardy

Lens

Unless we come to recognize the lens through which we filter all of our experiences, we will not see things as they are but as we are.

-- Richard Rohr

Glory Of The Lord

To Close A Monastery

"Peace is in the heart already..."

"There's a monk in everybody, because there's a desire for completion, for fulfillment."

"There's an emptiness that calls out to be filled."

May Perpetual Light Shine

Now in a season of lights, perhaps this, and subsequent poem selections, can be...illuminating.

Poem for the week -- "May Perpetual Light Shine":

We have encountered storms
Perfect in their drench and wreck

Each of us bears an ornament of grief
A ring, a notebook, a ticket torn, scar
It is how humans know their kind—

What is known as love, what can become 
the heart’s food stored away for some future
Famine

Love remains a jewel in the hand, guarded
Shared fragments of earth & air   drift & despair.

We ponder what patterns matter other than moons and tides:
musical beats—rumba or waltz or cha cha cha
cosmic waves like batons furiously twirling
colors proclaiming sparkle of darkness
as those we love begin to delight
in the stars embracing

-- Patricia Spears Jones

Constant

​We want things to be constant, not ebb-and-flow. But, this cuts off a basic element of our humanity,  from the Spirit within us, who works best with us when we are aware of the nature of things -- always moving.  Emerge, recede.  Repeat.

I'm thankful for this awareness today. This is not something to fight, as much as it is something to work with; perhaps even, actively join.

Most Alive

​I've noticed...that I am most alive, when I do.

LT: How Can You Tell Someone Has True Leadership Skills? This Famous Study Narrows It Down to This 1 Rare Trait

The secret formula? Collins found they had exceptional leaders displaying a paradoxical mix of intense professional will and extreme personal humility. They were described as modest, with a determination to create results by shifting the focus away from themselves and continually recognizing the contributions of others.

1. They let other people talk.
2. They admit being wrong.
3. They rarely impose.
4. They seek input.
5. They give their people credit.
6. They speak their truth.
7. They are teachable.
8. They involve others.  Continue here....

-- Marcel Schwantes

Make Room

As I contemplate the notion of enough vs full, it seems to me that in the world (system) we live in, one of our tasks now may be to make room.  Perhaps, we need to make room, to create space, for the possibility of not just something different, but for something that can flow in and out of us again each day.  When we're constantly full, or seeking to stay full, not much gets into or out of our cup, the pouring just runs over the brim.

We need room or space within us to breathe with God for ourselves and for each other.  Otherwise, perhaps like at the time of Jesus' birth, He may just have to be born outside (of us).

Make room.  Where do I need to do that today?

Why Churches Lose Their Way

I used to be in really good shape. I ran a lot, and I was much lighter. And the result of being in shape was that I had a lot of freedom to do and to be what I’m supposed to do and be. I felt great! But over the years, I stopped running and I stopped eating well. Now I’m fat and tired and I have headaches all the time. And as I continue to age, my muscles atrophy. Many churches are like the out-of-shape me. They started out well, but they’ve lost their way. They get sidetracked by good issues that become their priority rather than the gospel and the task of making disciples. It’s easy to focus on secondary issues and lose sight of what’s most important. We all need to return to the basics again and again...continue here.

-- Joe Thorn

Mercilessly

​We are either a people who love, embrace, and enter into a caring posture with our family, friends, neighbors, strangers, and even enemies (real or imagined) or we will spend our lives mercilessly trying to define who is lovable and who is not, who is worthy and who is not, who deserves my attention and who does not. Inevitably, we will end up loving people who look like us, think like us, and pledge allegiance to the same flag—and we will exclude the rest. In this truly useless pursuit, we will separate ourselves from God (through tribal worship), from the world’s good (by avoiding healing and restoration), and from our very souls (through self-pre­occupation with ego).

In effect, the wisdom of Jesus describes the powerful, but often neglected, bridge between spiritual insight and social action/real compassion. In fact, the wisdom of Jesus seems to suggest that the link is even more intimate than a bridge; it is the collapse of the two categories altogether. The separation of spirituality from action is a false one. In other words, we are not called to do spiritual prac­tices—prayer, study, meditation, retreat, ritual—and then make our way, now inspired, to the work of mercy and justice. In fact, it might be argued that, if anything, it’s just the reverse: Love those who strug­gle with poverty and suffer abandonment and the effect is that we will find ourselves on a path that leads to maturity, prayer, wisdom, and Christ-likeness. If, however, we choose to avoid engagement and community with those who suffer, we will certainly live an incom­plete life, including an incomplete spiritual life.

To put it rightly, I think, the practice of prayer and the practice of compassion are both necessary and complementary spiritual practices. . . . We are called to be both activists and mystics, missionaries of love and contemplatives, great lovers and deep thinkers. And, in all of that, the spiritual journey can happen; in all of that, we can be made whole; in all of that, the world can be made whole. . . . Personal transformation and social transformation are one piece. . . .

-- Jack Jezreel

Merry Autumn

Poem for the week -- "Merry Autumn":

It’s all a farce,—these tales they tell
     About the breezes sighing,
And moans astir o’er field and dell,
     Because the year is dying.

Such principles are most absurd,—
     I care not who first taught ’em;
There’s nothing known to beast or bird
     To make a solemn autumn.

In solemn times, when grief holds sway
     With countenance distressing,
You’ll note the more of black and gray
     Will then be used in dressing.

Now purple tints are all around;
     The sky is blue and mellow;
And e’en the grasses turn the ground
     From modest green to yellow.

The seed burrs all with laughter crack
     On featherweed and jimson;
And leaves that should be dressed in black
     Are all decked out in crimson.

A butterfly goes winging by;
     A singing bird comes after;
And Nature, all from earth to sky,
     Is bubbling o’er with laughter.

The ripples wimple on the rills,
     Like sparkling little lasses;
The sunlight runs along the hills,
     And laughs among the grasses.

The earth is just so full of fun
     It really can’t contain it;
And streams of mirth so freely run
     The heavens seem to rain it.

Don’t talk to me of solemn days
     In autumn’s time of splendor,
Because the sun shows fewer rays,
     And these grow slant and slender.

Why, it’s the climax of the year,—
     The highest time of living!—
Till naturally its bursting cheer
     Just melts into thanksgiving.

-- Paul Laurence Dunbar

Thanksgiving - Indescribable

Thanksgiving Day:

Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!

-- 2 Corinthians 9:15

His gift frees us to live.

Enough vs. Full

Full vs. Enough

One of the lessons of Thanksgiving is that we eat too much. We eat until we're full, experiencing the sensation of too much.

It's easy to confuse our desire for that that feeling with the feeling of 'enough'. Enough doesn't feel like full, but that's okay.

Too often, we've been persuaded by marketers and other maximizers that the only satisfying state is 'full'. Not just in what we've eaten, but in what we own, control or receive.

In fact, full doesn't last and full isn't desirable. No thanks, I've got enough. It's better that way.

-- Seth Godin

The Secret

Gratitude, not understanding, is the secret to joy and equanimity.

-- Anne Lamott

Deeply Awake, Grateful Awareness

All of us are here (wherever we may be), right here. But the degree to which each of us is here right now—in terms of a deeply awake, grateful awareness of the gift and miracle of being here—varies greatly from person to person. 

-- James Finley

What Kind Of A Church Would We Like To Be?

Vision is essential to a church. However, unlike the values, mission, and purpose, the vision is more subject to change. It is dynamic, not static. Over time, the vision must be renewed, adapted, and adjusted to the cultural context in which the congregation lives. The change takes place only at the margins of the vision, not at its core. The core—the Great Commission—does not change. The details of the vision and the words used to convey them will change. The vision provides us with a picture of what the mission will look like as it is realized in the community:

A Vision Encourages Unity
A Vision Creates Energy
A Vision Provides Purpose
A Vision Fosters Risk Taking
A Vision Enhances Leadership
A Vision Promotes Excellence
A Vision Sustains Ministry 

...continue here.

-- Aubrey Malphurs

Strengthen or Weaken

​I wonder how we are strengthened or weakened by the smallest of our choices.

Every once in a while, the implications of small choices become more clear. The smallest of decisions can really impact the course of a whole day. And, the course of a whole day can affect a week, and so on...until it becomes clear that such things are adding up in some kind of way. Sometimes our choices are so small, or so familiar, that we don't even detect them. I've noticed this particularly with food. A choice early in the day (conscious or not) about what I eat can set a whole chain reaction of 'hunger'  (bad or good) in motion throughout the rest of the day.

I suspect that thought patterns may not be too different. What I choose to think about or how I choose to dwell on something, may have far-reaching implications.

So, what kind of habits am I forming through awareness of my smallest choices?  And, how am I strengthening something later, when I say 'no' or 'yes' to something right now?

Epistemology

Poem for the week -- "Epistemology":

Mostly I’d like to feel a little less, know a little more.
Knots are on the top of my list of what I want to know.
Who was it who taught me to burn the end of the cord
to keep it from fraying?
Not the man who called my life a debacle,
a word whose sound I love.
In a debacle things are unleashed.
Roots of words are like knots I think when I read the dictionary.
I read other books, sure. Recently I learned how trees communicate,
the way they send sugar through their roots to the trees that are ailing.
They don’t use words, but they can be said to love.
They might lean in one direction to leave a little extra light for another
          tree.
And I admire the way they grow right through fences, nothing
stops them, it’s called inosculation: to unite by openings, to connect
or join so as to become or make continuous, from osculare,
to provide with a mouth, from osculum, little mouth.
Sometimes when I’m alone I go outside with my big little mouth
and speak to the trees as if I were a birch among birches.

-- Catherine Barnett

Some Do, Some Don't

​Some get it; some don’t.  The ones who do, seem to have joined the parts of life that are bigger than themselves.

Assumptions

​I've noticed...that I need to test my assumptions; at least, try to be aware of them.

LT: Not Any Harder

Most of the time, people will not do any more than their leader does.  But, if a leader works hard, literally or figuratively, they will, too.  Leaders set the pace by example, especially when it comes to effort because effort is often translated as evidence of vision, belief, and commitment.

Change The Ending

​You can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.

-- C.S. Lewis

Mistake About God

Any mistake we make about creation will also be a mistake about God.

-- Thomas Aquinas

Entertain Me

​In our marketing-based economy, we seem to have moved into an 'entertain me' culture. Most of our lives look preoccupied with consuming content and evaluating whether or not we were adequately entertained -- good commercial, good show, good movie, good album, good game, good World Series, good sermon or "eh...it was OK, I guess".

Everything starts to feel like it has to out-do the prior version, be more awesome, etc. despite that we can almost smell the edges of all this entertainment as really not satisfying.

Joint Message of Pope Francis And Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew on the World Day of Prayer For Creation

The story of creation presents us with a panoramic view of the world. Scripture reveals that, “in the beginning”, God intended humanity to cooperate in the preservation and protection of the natural environment. At first, as we read in Genesis, “no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up – for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground” (2:5). The earth was entrusted to us as a sublime gift and legacy, for which all of us share responsibility until, “in the end”, all things in heaven and on earth will be restored in Christ (cf. Eph 1:10). Our human dignity and welfare are deeply connected to our care for the whole of creation.

However, “in the meantime”, the history of the world presents a very different context. It reveals a morally decaying scenario where our attitude and behaviour towards creation obscures our calling as God’s co-operators. Our propensity to interrupt the world’s delicate and balanced ecosystems, our insatiable desire to manipulate and control the planet’s limited resources, and our greed for limitless profit in markets – all these have alienated us from the original purpose of creation. We no longer respect nature as a shared gift; instead, we regard it as a private possession. We no longer associate with nature in order to sustain it; instead, we lord over it to support our own constructs.

The consequences of this alternative worldview are tragic and lasting. The human environment and the natural environment are deteriorating together, and this deterioration of the planet weighs upon the most vulnerable of its people. The impact of climate change affects, first and foremost, those who live in poverty in every corner of the globe. Our obligation to use the earth’s goods responsibly implies the recognition of and respect for all people and all living creatures. The urgent call and challenge to care for creation are an invitation for all of humanity to work towards sustainable and integral development.

Therefore, united by the same concern for God’s creation and acknowledging the earth as a shared good, we fervently invite all people of goodwill to dedicate a time of prayer for the environment on 1 September.  On this occasion, we wish to offer thanks to the loving Creator for the noble gift of creation and to pledge commitment to its care and preservation for the sake of future generations. After all, we know that we labour in vain if the Lord is not by our side (cf. Ps 126-127), if prayer is not at the centre of our reflection and celebration. Indeed, an objective of our prayer is to change the way we perceive the world in order to change the way we relate to the world. The goal of our promise is to be courageous in embracing greater simplicity and solidarity in our lives.

We urgently appeal to those in positions of social and economic, as well as political and cultural, responsibility to hear the cry of the earth and to attend to the needs of the marginalized, but above all to respond to the plea of millions and support the consensus of the world for the healing of our wounded creation. We are convinced that there can be no sincere and enduring resolution to the challenge of the ecological crisis and climate change unless the response is concerted and collective, unless the responsibility is shared and accountable, unless we give priority to solidarity and service.

Why Incompetent People Think They're Amazing

Not Entitled

​I wonder sometimes, if we’re not all wanting something we’re a little bit not entitled to.

LT: Common Vision

​Part of leading is helping a group of people stay together.

Groups often disintegrate over time.  Helping them stay together is often best achieved through building and fostering a shared commitment to a common vision.

99

"Happy Birthday" will be on the lips of well-wishers around the world as evangelist Billy Graham celebrates his 99th birthday Tuesday.

"Nov. 7 will be a big milestone for my father as he turns 99 and enters his 100th year. As a family, we are just so very grateful that he is still with us. His mind is good but he's quieter these days. He can't see or hear well, but his health is stable," Franklin Graham, president, and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association said in a statement.

The elder Graham spent three-quarters of his life preaching the gospel to millions of people around the world. Although he has been out of the public eye, according to his website, he is still one of the most admired men in America.  Continue here....

For All Its Horror

This is the central Christian mystery. Life has, for all its horror, been found by God to be worth dying for.

-- Flannery O’Connor


If this 'Fall Tree Of The Day' could be included (in this worth):

...imagine what God sees in the human soul.

Successful Career Women Finish the Phrase ‘If Only …’

The next frontier of gender equality is tackling unconscious bias in organizational structures, processes and environments. Research shows that individual-level stereotypes and prejudices are incredibly difficult to eradicate.

More observations and wisdom here....

Rose of Jericho

Poem for the week -- "Rose of Jericho":

I’m not sure about this gift. This tangle
of dried roots curled into a fist. This gnarl

I’ve let sit for weeks beside the toaster
and cookbooks on a bed of speckled granite.

What am I waiting for? Online I find
Rose of Jericho prayers and rituals for safe birth,

well-being, warding off the evil eye.
At first I thought I’d buy some white stones,

a porcelain bowl. But I didn’t and I didn’t.
I don’t believe in omens. This still fist

of possibility all wrapped up in itself.
There it sat through the holidays, into the New Year.

Through all the days I’ve been gone. Dormant.
But today, in an inch of water,

out of curiosity, I awakened
the soul of Jericho. Limb by limb it unfolded

and turned moss green. It reminded me
of the northwest, its lush undergrowth,

how twice despite the leaden clouds,
the rain, I found happiness there.

From tumbleweed to lush fern flower,
reversible, repeatable. And what am I

to make of this? Me, this woman who doesn’t
believe. Doesn’t take anything on faith. I won’t

let it rot. I’ll monitor the water level. Keep the mold
at bay. I tend things, but I do not pray.

-- Cindy Veach

Nuanced and Multi-Dimensional

You are far far bigger, more nuanced and multidimensional than who you think you are, the story of you.

-- Jon Kabat-Zinn

Over Time

I've noticed...there seems to be kinds, even phases, of recognition - what and when I recognize things about life, the world, myself. And, it doesn't always seem to work in the same order or at the same pace. I might, for example, only be able to recognize something cognitively, before I feel it. At other times, it may be the other way around. The good news is that, over time, recognition seems to grow, occuring at multiple levels.

I am continuing to learn to trust the process.

LT: You Can't Lead

​The personal mission statement was important for me because I believe that you can’t lead others unless you have a strong sense of who you are and what you stand for.

--  Denise Morrison, CEO of Campbell Soup

Belonging Starts

​The truth is: Belonging starts with self-acceptance. Your level of belonging, in fact, can never be greater than your level of self-acceptance, because believing that you're enough is what gives you the courage to be authentic, vulnerable and imperfect. 

-- Brene Brown

The Godness of God

More interesting to me is that the book contains themes that I believe are particularly relevant to evangelicalism today, one of which we’ll consider here: Karl Barth saw in Romans a complete refutation of the human-centered religion of his day. Describing “the characteristic features of our relation to God,” he wrote:

Our relation to God is ungodly. We suppose that we know what we are saying when we say “God.” We assign to him the highest place in our world: and in so doing we place him fundamentally on one line with ourselves and with things. . . . We press ourselves into proximity with him: and so, all unthinking, we make him nigh unto ourselves. We allow ourselves an ordinary communication with him, we permit ourselves to reckon with him as though this were not extraordinary behavior on our part. We dare to deck ourselves out as his companions, patrons, advisers, and commissioners. ...

Secretly we are the masters in this relationship. We are not concerned with God, but with our own requirements, to which God must adjust himself. . . . Our well-regulated, pleasurable life longs for some hours of devotion, some prolongation into infinity. And so, when we set God upon the throne of the world, we mean by God ourselves. In “believing” on him, we justify, enjoy, and adore ourselves.

Instead, Barth discovered in Romans “that the theme of the Bible . . . certainly could not be man’s religion and religious morality, nor his own sacred divinity. The Godness of God—that was the bedrock we came up against . . . God’s absolute unique existence, power and initiative, above all in his relationship to men.”  

In short, he was toppling the liberal pillars of experience, ethics, and history, showing that, when it comes to knowing God, we bring absolutely nothing to the table. ...continue here.

-- Mark Galli

Falling

The soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts.

-- Marcus Aurelius

 We enjoyed some R&R this week and this year's colors of Fall (more pics from Saugatuck State Park here...).

The concept of a path as a metaphor for the journey of life has grown on me over the years, so here are a few more contributions to this imagery.

Upon the Heights

Poem for the week -- "Upon the Heights":

And victor of life and silence,
I stood upon the Heights; triumphant,
With upturned eyes, I stood,
And smiled unto the sun, and sang
A beautifully sad farewell unto the dying day.
And my thoughts and the eve gathered
Their serpentine mysteries around me,
My thoughts like alien breezes,
The eve like a fragrant legend.
My feeling was that I stood as one
Serenely poised for flight, as a muse
Of golden melody and lofty grace.
Yea, I stood as one scorning the swords
And wanton menace of the cities.
The sun had heavily sunk into the seas beyond,
And left me a tempting sweet and twilight.
The eve with trailing shadows westward
Swept on, and the lengthened shadows of trees
Disappeared: how silently the songs of silence
Steal into my soul! And still I stood
Among the crickets, in the beauteous profundity
Sung by stars; and I saw me
Softly melted into the eve. The moon
Slowly rose: my shadow on the ground
Dreamily began a dreamy roam,
And I upward smiled silent welcome.

-- Yone Noguchi

What will you do with your surplus?

What will you do with your surplus?

If you have a safe place to sleep, reasonable health and food in the fridge, you're probably living with surplus. You have enough breathing room to devote an hour to watching TV, or having an argument you don't need to have, or simply messing around online. You have time and leverage and technology and trust.

For many people, this surplus is bigger than any human on Earth could have imagined just a hundred years ago.

What will you spend it on?

If you're not drowning, you're a lifeguard.

-- Seth Godin

Fraudulence

​I've noticed...that there seems to be something a little bit fraudulent in everyone.  And, as much as I hate to admit it, there is fraudulence in me, too.  Something imperfect, something inconsistent, something that tends to keep track of the ways this is true in someone else, even while I, myself, think and do many of the very same things.

Fraudulence is not mitigated very much by comparison either.

LT: Flawless Execution

​Success is not determined by flawless execution of a plan.  It is determined by how people react to failure.

-- Don Schmincke

Architect vs Victim

​You don’t have to be the victim of your environment. You can also be the architect of it.

-- James Clear

Holy Now

​Everything is holy now. The only resistance to that divine flow of holiness and wholeness is our human refusal to see, to enjoy, and to participate.

-- Richard Rohr

In the end, silence has the loudest voice in combating our resistance.

Don't Let Pain

Instagram: mariagoff

Don't let pain keep you from going to deep places,
from doing some work on your hurts
so you can get on with the important business
of living the rest of your life.

-- Maria Goff

Strictly Speaking

Poem for the week -- "Strictly Speaking":

There is the question
of bearing witness, of being yourself seen
by yourself, & seen clearly, cleanly,
without weapon or bible in hand;
as this was the wish,
the sturdy & not-so-secret wish
of those who named us—

our parents wanted us to be
known to ourselves without confusion:
without judgment,
sans suffering. Never force it,
they said, always find it.

OK, strictly speaking, that’s not entirely true.
My particular, sole, insistent, moody mother & father
probably never thought much about it at all.
Those two anxious citizens,
they were never exemplars of patience.
The weightlessness of detachment & acceptance
as I think of it now
would have frightened them—
for good reason.

If you could see these words
I’m speaking to you tonight printed on a page
as typeface & magnified x 500
you would feel just how ragged & coarse
they really are, heavy.

Well, playing the part of a butterfly
must be tiring, right?
I’m happier being the old ox, right?

On some plane of existence
these two scraps are all my news:
where the mess is
that’s where my heart is.

-- David Rivard

Don't Let Other People

Instagram: bobgoff

Don't let other people
decide who you are.

-- Bob Goff

Unknowing & Recognizing

​I've noticed...that life seems to unfold in a series of periods; periods where I live with a lot of unknowing, followed by periods of recognizing what is going on or what has been happening all along.

I may not be able, in fact, to the have the latter without the former.  So, the times of unknowing need not be as disquieting as they seem.

LT: It Is My Job

​Being a leader means that it is my job to help others do theirs.

More Courage

​It takes more courage to examine the dark corners of your own soul than it does for a soldier to fight on a battlefield.

-- W.B. Yeats

Work In The Soul

​God has to work in the soul in secret and in darkness, because if we fully knew what was happening, and what it will eventually ask of us, we would either try to take charge or stop the whole process.

-- Gerald May