Even If You're Dying

Even if you're dying, until the day you actually die, you're living.

-- Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air

Fully Alive

The glory of God is a human being fully alive.

-- St. Irenaeus of Lyon

May we live with such divine imagination.

3rd College Graduate

So proud of Makenzie, our third (and last!) college graduate.  As we cross this milestone, I am struck by the notion that everything we have, has been given to us.  For example, we were given a college education; and, we have been able to help give that to Makenzie.  If the truth be known, perhaps everything we receive is just meant to be given away.  So, what are we giving?

We are so grateful for what has been given to Makenzie the last four years through her college experience; for what she gave and now has...to give to others.

Net Domestic Migration

Character Matters (if you let it)

Choosing to develop character is difficult, because it requires avoiding the shorter, more direct path. It can be slow, expensive and difficult work.

And rewarding character is difficult as well, because someone is probably offering you an alternative that's cheaper or faster. A sure road to a quick payday.

But...

Every time we avoid the easy in favor of what's right, we create ripples. Character begets more character, weaving together the fabric of our culture, the kind of world we'd rather live in.

-- Seth Godin, Character matters (if you let it)

Quit Something

Instagram: bobgoff

The battles for our hearts are fought on the pages of our calendars.
It's Thursday — quite something.

-- Bob Goff

Feature of Fear

One thing about fear; it seems to feature creating more fear.

LT: Regularly Set The Example

If you want your staff to act or react in a certain way, then YOU must set the example. You have to find your voice, clarify your personal values, and then regularly set the example. You must align your personal actions with the culture that has been established within your organization. In other words, you must proverbially, “talk the talk and walk the walk”....

-- Harry A. Strausser III

Leaders can't just say it, but then not do it.  The method IS the message.

Do It Now

​If it needs to be done and you can do it, do it now. You don't know what tomorrow will bring.

Imprint

When the feelings recede like the tides, they will leave an imprint.  I will somehow be marked by the presence of an unbidden God.

-- Kate Bowler, Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved

Lagoon Nebula

I would recommend watching the movie 'Come Sunday' (trailer above). 

Is there any relationship between these two descriptions of...reality?

A Gate

Poem for the week -- "A Gate":

I have oared and grieved,
grieved and oared,
treading a religion
of fear. A frayed nerve.
A train wreck tied to the train
of an old idea.
Now, Lord, reeling in violent
times, I drag these tidal
griefs to this gate.
I am tired. Deliver
me, whatever you are.
Help me, you who are never
near, hold what I love
and grieve, reveal this green
evening, myself, rain,
drone, evil, greed,
as temporary. Granted
then gone. Let me rail,
revolt, edge out, glove
to the grate. I am done
waiting like some invalid
begging in the nave.
Help me divine
myself, beside me no Virgil
urging me to shift gear,
change lane, sing my dirge
for the rent, torn world, and love
your silence without veering
into rage.

-- Donna Masini

From the author:

“My sister was dead. During her illness I had prayed, or, rather, ricocheted from bargaining to demanding, to a kind of continual visceral begging. After her death, grieving, in despair, I found the world, its violence and destruction, unbearable. I was teaching Hopkins and Herbert. I was trying to learn how to drive. Driving and prayer seemed equally inscrutable. I paid lip service (good words for prayer) to The Cloud of Unknowing but I was lost. ‘Try to write a prayer,’ a friend said.”

No Matter How Slow

Never discourage anyone who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.

-- Plato

Barbara Bush Changed With Her Country

Your success as a family...our success as a nation...depends not on what happens inside the White House, but on what happens inside your house.

-- Barbara Bush

The former first lady was notably eager to learn about people she didn’t understand—and recognize she might have been wrong about them.  Continue here....

LT: Doesn't Happen By Accident

You get more ideas when you have a diverse workforce.  We all bring with us a whole set of experiences that make us unique, and when a group like that collaborates on new ideas, the power you get is amazing.

Studies have shown that for the most part, diversity doesn't happen by accident; they are usually the result of an intentional and methodical approach to building it.

-- Jeff Alvarez

In other words, good leaders both recognize this truth and work at it in their organizations, not because it is a business issue, but because it is a people issue.

Violence

​Violence is used as a means of control. It is a form of power.

But, it is ineffective in the long-run (which might be why it is used so much in the short-run) because it incites hatred and is smaller than love. Both hatred and love will overcome the perpetrator of violence — either with more violence or with something far more powerful. In the end, true peace (brought about by love) is more powerful than war — at both micro and macro levels.

Shouldn't Be Surprised

Instagram: bobgoff

We shouldn't be surprised when we don't understand 
what a God who says he surpasses all understanding is doing.

-- Bob Goff

Why you need to become an “elastic” thinker

Much has been written about the accelerating pace of change and the globalization and rapid technological innovation that have fueled it. What’s not often discussed: the new demands on how we must think to thrive in this whirlwind era—for as rapid change transforms our business, professional, political, and personal environments, our success and happiness depend on our coming to terms with it.

There are certain talents that can help us, qualities of thought that have always been useful but are now becoming essential. We must learn to let go of comfortable ideas and become accustomed to ambiguity and contradiction; to rise above conventional mindsets and to reframe the questions we ask; to abandon our ingrained assumptions and open ourselves to new paradigms. We must rely on imagination as much as on logic and generate and integrate a wide variety of ideas. And we must be willing to experiment and be tolerant of failure.

We use ordinary analytical/logical thinking to apply rules, but we use elastic thinking to...continue here.

-- Leonard Mlodinow

Brightest Light

​It is often out of our darkest wound that shines our brightest light of healing to others.

But, sometimes it takes a while to learn to recognize this.

No Longer A Luxury

​Lifelong learning is no longer a luxury; it is a necessity.

-- Joseph E. Aoun

Harmony

​Harmony is a bi-product, not a goal.

LT: Engage Discussion

It’s becoming more important than ever for leadership to engage in a discussion where new ideas are exchanged.

-- Rick Perr

Nearly everywhere I go, those making a constructive difference are saying nearly the same thing — engage discussion about ideas...so many good reasons for recognizing this.  Freshly articulated ideas are like fuel for living.

Opened Windows

I've noticed...that I continue to learn how many windows can be opened by our emotions. Acknowledging emotions — rather than trying to minimize them — can lead to unexpected places...places that are good for you.

The Bible

​The great — inspiring, wonderful, beautiful  — thing about the Bible is the description it gives of the human condition, and the rescue and invitation God offers in the midst of it. As a printed version of some of the oral traditions of one nation’s experience, it also describes something for all humanity. It captures a God that transcends this condition and who is doing something to offer hope to everyone — to redeem everything.

Garbage: Twice The Size of Texas

I don't know what to say...or do about this.  But, I'm going to continue to make personal choices to limit plastic usage wherever I can.  I hope it makes a difference.  It probably only does when we all make such choices.

Capable Flesh

Poem for the week -- "Capable Flesh":

The tender flesh itself
        will be found one day
—quite surprisingly—
        to be capable of receiving,
and yes, full
        capable of embracing
the searing energies of God.
        Go figure. Fear not.
For even at its beginning
        the humble clay received
God’s art, whereby
        one part became the eye,
another the ear, and yet
        another this impetuous hand.
Therefore, the flesh
        is not to be excluded
from the wisdom and the power
        that now and ever animates
all things. His life-giving
        agency is made perfect,
we are told, in weakness—
        made perfect in the flesh.

-- Saint Irenaeus of Lyon

​Not Without Death

Painful and frustrating things can actually be converted energy-wise by asking, what in me needs to die in this?  What can this make me more alive to?

There can be no transformation without some kind of death. I have to release what I am holding on to for life.


Before God, our wounds are our glory.

-- St. Julian of Norwich

Remembered For

Instagram: bobgoff

We'll be known for our opinions;
but remembered for our love.

-- Bob Goff

LT: My Ideas

​Good leaders are curious to hear ideas from others when solving a problem. Bad leaders care more that others hear their ideas.

-- Simon Sinek

Fuss About My Unworthiness

​If I cannot in honest happiness take the second place (or the twentieth); if I cannot take the first without making a fuss about my unworthiness, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

-- Amy Carmichael

No matter how you slice it, it's not about me.

I have a sensed a disconnection lately — from others and from myself...I wonder if those are related.  After the explosion of Easter, you'd think I'd feel the opposite.  But, by last night, I didn't.  I suspect it's related to something about the above.  I want to be a part of something.  I do, for my sake.  But, that's where the problem creeps in.  Because my being part of something is primarily about something else, besides what I get out of it.  That is the real explosion of Easter anyway — Calvary love — a connection to something far bigger, far deeper, than my sense of connection at any given moment.

It's not about me — my worthiness has never been more in tact.

Easter: Into The Same Image

​All of us, gazing with unveiled face on the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image that we reflect. This is the work of the Lord who is Spirit. 

-- 2 Corinthians 3:18

May we, today, recognize a fresh the true nature of what Easter is all about — a miracle of unparalleled reversal, the way of transformation, to becoming truly alive.