Resevoir

If then you are wise, you will show yourself rather as a reservoir than as a canal. For a canal spreads abroad water as it receives it, but a reservoir waits until it is filled before overflowing, and thus communicates, without loss to itself, its superabundant water. 

-- Bernard of Clairvaux

Fledgling

Poem for the week -- "Fledgling":

I scare away rabbits stripping the strawberries
in the garden, ripened ovaries reddening
their mouths. You take down the hanging basket
and show it to our son—a nest, secret as a heart,
throbbing between flowers. Look, but don’t touch,
you instruct our son who has already begun
to reach for the black globes of a new bird’s eyes,
wanting to touch the world. To know it.
Disappointed, you say: Common house finch,
as if even banal miracles aren’t still pink
and blind and heaving with life. When the cat
your ex-wife gave you died, I was grateful.
I’d never seen a man grieve like that
for an animal. I held you like a victory,
embarrassed and relieved that this was how
you loved. To the bone of you. To the meat.
And we want the stricken pleasure of intimacy,
so we risk it. We do. Every day we take down
the basket and prove it to our son. Just look
at its rawness, its tenderness, it’s almost flying.

-- Traci Brimhall

From the author:

“Watching my son encounter the world has taught me a dynamic kind of joy. He wants to know the world with such a ferocious intimacy, and it makes me want to know the world that way, too. To be willing to look at the awful vulnerability of hatchlings. To risk my heart on foolish and necessary miracles like love.”

Best Thinking

The best thinking has been done in solitude.

-- Thomas Edison

Not The Only Thing

​Whatever I feel is not the only thing.

LT: Not Forgotten What It Was Like

Many people believe great leaders are charismatic, have a commanding presence, are visionary, and educated at elite schools. Almost all of the leaders of the high-performing companies that I studied had none of those traits. Instead, they are what I call servant leaders.

They were people-centric, valued service to others, and believed they had a duty of stewardship. Nearly all were humble and passionate operators who were deeply involved in the details of the business. Most had long tenures in their organizations. They had not forgotten what it was like to be a line employee.

-- Edward D. Hess

Always Looking

Truly self-aware individuals are always looking for ways to learn.

-- Justin Gray

Seeking & Finding

​The more I seek you, the more I find you.

-- M. W. Smith

Dangers of Stereotyping People

The central issue here is not political correctness, free speech, or affirmative action. It is relating to people as authentic human beings, not as representatives of a group or class. Great harm is done when groups of people are stereotyped as having certain characteristics, rather than looking deeper at the individual person.

Pichai correctly analyzed this as the issue, noting that Damore’s document “crosses the line by advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace.” This violated Google’s code of conduct, thereby triggering his termination.

In his manifesto, Damore asserted that women have more “openness directed toward feelings and aesthetics rather than ideas, a stronger interest in people rather than things, prefer jobs in social or artistic areas, extraversion expressed as gregariousness rather than assertiveness, and neuroticism, characterized by high anxiety and lower stress tolerance.” As the Economist magazine pointed out, he justified his assertions by cherry-picking research on gender differences.

The real risk of Damore’s generalizations, expressed in a business context, is that they give license to people to behave as if those beliefs are true. This can lead to hidden or overt discrimination against women in the workplace. Such stereotypes have been used for decades by majority groups to hold people back and put them down for their race, ethnic origins, sexual preferences, and religion, as well as their gender. The aftermath of the Charlottesville demonstrations by neo-Nazis, KKK, and white supremacists brought these once-hidden issues back to the forefront of social consciousness.

Stereotyping contributes directly to unconscious bias...continue here.

-- Bill George

The Weaver

Poem for the week -- "The Weaver":

My life is but a weaving
Between my Lord and me,
I cannot choose the colors
He worketh steadily.

Ofttimes He weaveth sorrow,
And I, in foolish pride,
Forget He sees the upper
And I, the underside.

Not till the loom is silent
And the shuttles cease to fly
Shall God unroll the canvas
And explain the reason why.

The dark threads are as needful
In the Weaver’s skillful hand
As the threads of gold and silver
In the pattern He has planned.

-- Grant Colfax Tullar

Deny Our Disappointments

​If we deny our disappointments, not only do we lose a significant opportunity with God, but we also risk establishing a stronghold of disillusionment.

Just Me

​I wonder sometimes, if certain things in me that just won't die are being kept alive somehow for some purpose or if it is just me and I can't let go.

LT: Leaders Who Serve

In Good to Great, Jim Collins sets up an interesting metaphor using a mirror in the corner office to explain the difference between a servant leader and a self-serving leader. When things are going well in an organization run by a self-serving leader, this type of leader tends to look in the mirror, beat on their chest, and declare, "Look at what I've accomplished." But when things go wrong, this leader looks out the window to see who's to blame for the failure.

Servant leaders approach it differently. When things go wrong, they look in the mirror and consider what they could have done differently. When things go well, they look out the window to see who they can praise.

What kind of leader would you rather work for? By combining equal parts serving and leading, a servant leader creates a balance that creates both great results and great human satisfaction. Leaders who serve are the leaders we need today.

-- Ken Blanchard

Not Until It's Done With You

​The truth will set you free, but not until it's done with you.

-- David Foster Wallace

12 truths I learned from life and writing

We are all living in the current chapter of the story of our lives.  The longer we go, the more we can see all that the prior chapters have given us.  It is helpful to see how each informs and contributes to our well-being, to what we come to know and recognize.  We can use these truths for the good -- of us and for others -- especially as I increasingly imagine that the current chapter of my experience fits into my larger story and that my story fits with the larger stories of human existence and, ultimately, of God.

Conspiracy

​Conspiracies seem to bounce back-and-forth between 'yeah, right...' and 'are you serious?'. What seems to move the dial is the sense of threat involved. Whatever works to convince us of a threat to something in life seems to work in getting our attention.

What if we were able to consider some of our life through an 'up against a conspiracy' lens? If it's true that a good conspiracy is potentially threatening, at either a literal or proverbial level, what if we looked at it as something conspiring against us? We can often get mired down in self-contempt and fatal-flaws (actually worth considering once in a while). But, what if a lot of what we face is actually something trying to deny us of a part of life? What is out to get me or keep me in a state where I am unable to embrace life around me? What keeps me unaware of reality or even deadened to it?

If I viewed such things through a lens of 'what is conspiring against me' to deny me life, would it help? We all have patterns or things that tend to draw us towards something and away from an ability to be available to life around or within us. Different things seem to work on different people. If we became aware of those things, and acknowledge that they are being designed to deprive us of an opportunity to be more alive, how would that motivate me differently? Usually, it seems to me, we just wish we could avoid these things that pull us away and we become a bit fatalistic about our prospects for success in overcoming them. But, if I saw these things not so much for what they are, as what they're trying to do, perhaps this could assist me in this consistent battle.

I am drawn to life; this thing or that thing (whatever it is for each of us), however, is drawing my attention away from life and towards something else. I want to remain aware and available to life around and within me. This thing denies me that opportunity, so I want to walk away from this, because it is conspiring against me.

Would this kind of re-framing help?

To Kathleen

Poem for the week -- "To Kathleen":

Still must the poet as of old, 
In barren attic bleak and cold, 
Starve, freeze, and fashion verses to 
Such things as flowers and song and you;

Still as of old his being give 
In Beauty’s name, while she may live,
Beauty that may not die as long 
As there are flowers and you and song.

-- Edna St. Vincent Millay

Ah, the juxtaposition of flowers and poetry.  And, what connects the two...you. Here, in this one, there is both a dissonance to the idea and a beckoning harmony.

Does Not Preclude

​Accepting oneself does not preclude an attempt to become better.

-- Flannery O'Connor

Yearning Won't Do It

​Yearning for a new way will not produce it. Only ending the old way can do that.

-- Richard Rohr

Where You Want To Go

When we romanticize - and focus exclusively on - the role of the individual, we deny - what allows that individual to succeed, which is - the power of us.

We don’t need more of 'me, myself and I'; instead, we need to understand how to create and navigate the uniting frameworks of ‘us, ours, and together’. 

Over and over we see the need for a new 'us' in the global tensions we’re facing. The Brexit dichotomy, where the cities seem to benefit from globalization while rural areas struggle. Long-hidden sexism becomes an actionable agenda as crowds demand that Uber, Fox, and Google fix their inequities. Tech media companies like Reddit and Facebook face mounting public pressure to reconsider their role in enabling the spread of hate under the umbrella of freedom of speech. These vividly remind us that we don’t need more people advocating for their individual interests, but a new way to recognize — and address — shared interests.

...the organizing principle is not where you’ve come from, but where you want to go.

-- Nilofer Merchant

Quit Being "Right"

Instagram: bobgoff

Quit being "right"
be humble

-- Bob Goff

The Centuries-Old Habits of the Heart

Deep down, I suspect many of us recognize the inadequacy of our past and present efforts to combat racism. Yet, as James Baldwin observed, “people find it very difficult to act on what they know.” We content ourselves with annual celebrations of our national independence without wrestling with the hypocrisy of a freedom declaration against the backdrop of slavery. We paint a picture of gradual progress on racial fronts since the Emancipation Proclamation but fail to acknowledge that the Compromise of 1877 injected new life in white supremacy, giving racists an unparalleled opportunity to execute violence against people of color for decades.

Events along these lines are not inconsistent with our national identity. In fact, they are a part of our DNA. They illustrate how our country has tolerated pervasive forms of racism—and even genocide—to gain power, wealth, and influence. The current fight to preserve positions of honor for Confederate monuments reflects an unwillingness to confront the vicious legacy of white supremacy. The goal of these removal efforts is not, as some argue, to whitewash the past, but to recontextualize it. Defense of an institution that legitimated forms of physical, psychological, and sexual trauma is not a cause to honor but lament.

Our history of accommodation has instilled in us what Princeton professor of religion Eddie Glaude labels “racial habits” in his recent book Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul. Racial habits surface in “the ways we [often unconsciously] live the belief that white people are valued more than others.” Our responses to current events often reveal these racial habits. We devote time, resources, and social media platforms to the precious life of Charlie Gard, but we fail to give the same sort of attention to the hundreds of precious people who perished during the same time period in Venezuela due to political unrest. The disparities in our engagement reveal a fundamental gap in how we value different lives.

Yet, in the midst of these painful realities, the church is called to speak boldly to the power of the gospel. This task requires pastors who faithfully preach against the sin of racism in its structural and individual forms. It demands congregations who refuse to sit on the sidelines as long as injustice is a norm in their community, becoming advocates for racial justice through advocacy, protest, and partnerships.

My prayer is that God will raise up a generation of his people who reject accommodation and embrace the struggle for racial justice as an outgrowth of the gospel. As Frederick Douglass observed, “If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. … Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”  Continue here....

-- Theon E. Hill

UM vs Cincinnati, 2017

Another beautiful day in Ann Arbor:

Game story here....

Hummingbird

Poem for the week -- "Hummingbird":

I love the whir of the creature come
to visit the pink
flowers in the hanging basket as she does

most August mornings, hours away
from starvation to store
enough energy to survive overnight.

The Aztecs saw the refraction
of incident light on wings
as resurrection of fallen warriors.

In autumn, when daylight decreases
they double their body weight to survive
the flight across the Gulf of Mexico.

On next-to-nothing my mother
flew for 85 years; after her death
she hovered, a bird of bones and air.

-- Robin Becker

Unknowingly Surrender

​Most of us unknowingly surrender our lives to the messages that most perforate our beauty.

-- Ian Morgan Cron, The Road Back To You

"Nothing matters more than results"

"Nothing matters more than results"

Except for:

Community, contribution and what our friends think

Trust

The perception of quality

How much we like doing business with you

Side effects

and self-esteem.

Also... doing work that matters, with people we care about.

It seems like almost everything important matters more than results.

-- Seth Godin

LT: Newness

​The most successful seem to regenerate — they keep coming up with newness. Perhaps this is because they actively try to free themselves from distraction and can stay focused and awake to new possibilities.

John Mayer, Noblesville 2017

What a night last night in Noblesville, a thing of beauty in so many ways:

The talent and artistry of musicians -- nothing short of amazing.





...and, my current, personal favorite of his:

Beautiful and Terrible

Here is the world.  Beautiful and terrible things will happen.  Don't be afraid.

-- Frederick Buechner

Disconnected

​We are so disconnected, aren't we? This should be rather obvious by the appetite we seem to have culturally for trying to be connected. But, nearly everyone acknowledges that whatever this type of connectness seems to portray, it is largely not real. At the very least, it is mostly unsatisfying.

The irony is that despite the variety of its chaos, the universe practically screams about its inner-connectedness. Maybe that's proof right there, we want what it has - wild, abandoned, and still connected...everywhere.

We could learn a lot, if we would just pay attention to what is already -- what is all around us. The Aspen tree is actually like a vine that grows underground in an inter-connected web that sprouts up in the form that we would call trees (lots of imagery here...). Perhaps, this is emblematic of a much larger vine that all things feed from as they relate to the world.

I recently heard the end of a clip on NPR about Tolkien's interest, even affection for plants and in particular trees. He was very interested in this idea of connectedness and the need we have to participate in it, as the real world. His 'underworld' was really a call-out to reality and he used the forces of nature to illustrate it.

The truth is...we are all connected, to everything. The problem is...that we're seeking something we already have and that has actually created disconnection. From our world, from each other, from God.

Old Selves

Poem for the week -- "Old Selves":

Ok, I no longer want them,
the many selves I had to manage

that once exhausted friends. I believed

in angels then, thought I might be
an angel—that was me, flying off

on a tangent, just so we could land
on one of my many balconies

so we could look down on everyone.

-- Ira Sadoff