What Is Best For You Depends

What is best for you depends on your nature, so you need to really understand yourself....

-- Ray Dalio

Just Because

Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.  Just because it is physically possible, doesn’t mean it’s good for you.

LT: So Loud

What you do speaks so loudly that people in your organization will not hear what you say.

-- Fred Kofman, The Meaning Revolution

CUBS vs Giants, 2018

Beautiful 'full moon' night at Wrigley last night!

Conner's 'losing streak' was broken - CUBS won thanks to Baez 3-run HR:



Not to mention that we were famous for the first time...ever (from ESPN — note the 4 people in the middle!):

The 'Bleacher Seats' were awesome!

Never A Dead End

God’s full life, just like nature, is never a straight line and never a dead end.

-- Richard Rohr

Kairos Changes Lives

Humanity & Time

The humanity of humans is significantly shaped by the time they spend together, or don't.

Only Way To Endure

Everything that is tough and brittle shatters; everything that is cynical rots. The only way to endure is to forgive, over and over, to give back that openness and possibility for new beginning which is the very essence of love itself.

-- Cynthia Bourgeault

A powerful connection — there may be few greater evidences of truly being open than what is required of us to forgive.

Red Logos

LT: X-Factor

​The x-factor of great leadership is not personality, it's humility.

-- Jim Collins

Post-truth politics and why the antidote isn’t simply ‘fact-checking’ and truth

We live in an unfinished revolutionary age of communicative abundance. Networked digital machines and information flows are slowly but surely shaping practically every institution in which we live our daily lives.

For the first time in history, thanks to built-in cheap microprocessors, these algorithmic devices and information systems integrate texts, sounds and images in compact, easily storable, reproducible and portable digital form.

Communicative abundance enables messages to be sent and received through multiple user points, in chosen time, real or delayed, within global networks that are affordable and accessible to billions of people.

My book Democracy and Media Decadence probed the contours of this revolution. It showed why new information platforms, robust muckraking and cross-border publics are among the exciting social and political trends of our time. It proposed that the unfinished revolution is dogged by politically threatening contradictions and decadent counter-trends. The drift toward a world of “post-truth” politics is among these troubling trends.  Continue....

-- John Keane

Among the several ideas that stuck out to me in the article linked above:

...what mainstream white society usually forgets: that truth and trust are twins.

Another helpful article on truth in these times:

Truth Isn’t the Problem — We Are

A Negotiation

Instagram: bobgoff

If we only love people who love us back,
we make faith look like a negotiation.

-- Bob Goff

Royal Wedding: Rev Michael Curry's Full Sermon

Loving, Liberating & Life-Giving God:



Love is as strong as death.  It burns like a blazing fire.

-- Song of Songs 8:6

may my heart always be open to little

Poem for the week -- "may my heart always be open to little":

may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are old

may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
and even if it’s sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young

and may myself do nothing usefully
and love yourself so more than truly
there’s never been quite such a fool who could fail
pulling all the sky over him with one smile.

-- E.E. Cummings

Some honest recognition here; like:

"even if it's sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young"

Be open; stay open.

Don't Necessarily Nurture

It’s important to be heroic, ambitious, productive, efficient, creative and progressive, but these qualities don’t necessarily nurture the soul.

-- Thomas Moore, The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life

FWIW, I hear ‘laurel’.

Until

Keep doing it, until you get it right.

-- Dolester Miles, three-time James Beard Award finalist

LT: Confessions of an idea bully

...as the advertising company I founded struggled through a painful cultural crisis, I came to a shocking realization. One day, during a brainstorm with my team, I had a sort of out of body experience, observing myself as if from across the room. And I could see the company’s problem clearly. It was me. The way I was exercising my creative abilities was depressing the creativity of everyone around me. I had become an idea bully.

What made this realization so surprising was that in other areas of life and leadership, I’ve always focused on being gentle, self-aware and concerned for the well-being of others. I hate seeing people suffer and I’m fully bought in on the idea that companies should be run on strong values.

But give me a problem to solve in a group setting...continue here.

-- Jonah Sachs

Your Body Will

I've noticed...your body will tell you; treat it right and learn to listen to it.

Mom, Thank You For Changing My World

"Love is true, love is kind...keep going."  

Thank you, Moms, for your part in teaching us all the magnificence and the mundane of these timeless truths.

Spread of Lyme Disease

...more here.

How Trying to Be Strong May Be Blocking You From the Love You Want Most

This beautiful chain of love that had transformed more than one person’s soul all began when I let go of my white-knuckle grip on the situation, and turned my open palms upward to God in an act of surrender.

My sixth child, Joseph, had been born under difficult circumstances, and then a problem with his lungs landed him in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

I knew exactly how to handle this: I would be strong.

I spent all day at the hospital, then, at home, I’d stay up until the wee hours of the morning catching up on housework and other chores.  I stumbled through the NICU floor and through the rooms of my home exhausted and bleary-eyed, forcing myself to keep doing it all because that’s what strong moms do.

To help him heal, I wanted Joseph to be held as much as possible.

I tried extending my hours at the hospital, covering all the times of day that my husband couldn’t be there, but I didn’t last very long. With five children who needed me at home, I broke down under the pressure.

I sent out a desperate plea to all friends and family members, asking them to come hold my baby.

And you know what? I felt guilty as I typed those emails.  Continue here....

-- Jennifer Fulwiler

55 - Just Beginning

After 55 years, why does it feel like I'm only just beginning?

Is that an indictment?  Or, a sign of growth — the older we get, the closer we are to becoming our true selves?

God Sees Foundations

Instagram: bobgoff

God finds us in the hole we dig for ourselves.  
Where we see failures, God sees foundations.

-- Bob Goff

LT: Leadership Wisdom From The Jedi

How much of leadership starts with one's disposition with (awareness of) oneself?

• Let go of your fear
• Approach tasks with success in mind
• Be mindful of the present
• Don't let emotions cloud your judgment
• Believe in your cause

A variety of studies have demonstrated that people would prefer to avoid a loss than to acquire a gain...continue here.

-- Alex Knapp

I wonder how this tends to change as we get older, particularly if / when we have acquired too much.

Forge A New One

​Emma hadn’t given me my old identity, she had protected my ability to forge a new one.

-- Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air

This comes from one of the more inspiring books I've read in a while — a strong 'recommend' from me (thanks, Phil, for bringing this to my attention).

It Is Enough

What if rich did not have to mean wealthy and whole did not have to mean healed?  What if being people of the gospel meant that we are simply people with good news?  God is here.  We are loved.  It is enough.

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

Generations

In the Beginning God Said Light

Poem for the week -- "In the Beginning God Said Light":

and there was light.
Now God says, Give them a little theatrical lighting

and they’re happy,
and we are. So many of us

dressing each morning, testing
endless combinations, becoming in our mirrors

more ourselves, imagining,
in an entrance, the ecstatic

weight of human eyes.
Now that the sun is sheering

toward us, what is left
but to let it close in

for our close-up? Let us really feel
how good it feels

to be still in it, making
every kind of self that can be

looked at. God, did you make us
to be your bright accomplices?

God, here are our shining spines.
Let there be no more dreams of being

more than a beginning.
Let it be

that to be is to be
backlit, and then to be only that light.

-- Mary Szybist

Isn't So Common

I have known a thousand scamps; but I never met one who considered himself so. Self-knowledge isn't so common.

-- Ouida

Wits' End

​When I am at my wits' end, it seems mostly due to some form of loss of vision. When I can no longer see what I have been imagining, it is easy to lose my bearings. I tend to think I know who I am when I think I can see.

When I lose sight of that, I can feel lost. When I feel lost, I can feel terrified. So, I thrash about to see again.

But, I believe it is important for me to lose my vision from time to time. Because loss of vision seems to actually create more of it. Not immediately. But, this IS what stretches my imagination, both for what is true and for who I am in relation to it. I don’t welcome it, but I crave it at the same time. I am grateful for it — though mostly afterward — increasingly able to imagine that gratitude even during it.

LT: Something To Work Toward

Average organizations give their people something to work on. Great organizations give their people something to work toward.

-- Simon Sinek