Travels of 2018

We began in Montana and are ending 2018 in Colorado:

...with a few places in between.  I’m grateful for the opportunity and exposure these geographical travels have afforded us, not to mention those of the mind and heart.

A Power Is Coming

A power from outside is coming, a power that is able to make a new creation out of people like us, stones like us, people who have no capacity of ourselves to save ourselves. The power that is coming is not our power—not the power of our deeds or our inner strength or our spiritual discipline or our faith or even our repentance. It is God’s power that gives good deeds and inner strength and spiritual discipline and faith and repentance. We are able to repent and bear fruit because he is coming.

We cannot trust any of the powers of this world to make us children of Abraham. We cannot presume to tell ourselves we have better genes or better morals or better theology or better attitudes or better humility or better repentance. It is God who is making children of Abraham—making people new for his kingdom, making them out of stones.

This means that we are being changed. It means we are going to be weaned away from our possessions and oriented toward being everlastingly possessed by the love of God. It means that we will become less interested in receiving personal blessings for ourselves and more interested in making Christian hope known to those “dwelling in darkness” (Matt. 4:16). It means that we will become more and more thankful as we become less and less self-righteous. It means that we will gradually become less preoccupied with our own privileges and prerogatives and gradually see ourselves more and more in solidarity with other human beings who, like us, can receive mercy only from the hand of God and not because of any human superiority.

These changes have political consequences as well as individual ones. Repentance will mean seeking after the good of all, not just the comforts of a few, and the knowledge of the coming of the Lord means that there will be hope—in the light of his power—of his intervention in the affairs of nations, that the efforts of the peacemakers will somehow, miraculously, be blessed.  Continue....

-- Fleming Rutledge

To What Degree?

To what degree will I proceed in something I believe, when others appear not to be interested?
To what degree will I proceed in advancing something I believe in, when others do not accept it?
To what degree will I proceed in doing what I believe when other people resist it?
To what degree will I proceed when others resist me because of what I am doing?
To what degree will I proceed when others reject me because I proceed?

I began 2018 a bit more intentionally.  I was looking to be willing to be more me and less of what others expect of me or prefer me to be.  As a result, I end 2018 with the question above -- to what degree will I...?

Departed Days

A poem as we end the year—“Departed Days”:

Yes, dear departed, cherished days,
   Could Memory’s hand restore
Your morning light, your evening rays
   From Time’s gray urn once more,—
Then might this restless heart be still,
   This straining eye might close,
And Hope her fainting pinions fold,
   While the fair phantoms rose.

But, like a child in ocean’s arms,
   We strive against the stream,
Each moment farther from the shore
   Where life’s young fountains gleam;—
Each moment fainter wave the fields,
   And wider rolls the sea;
The mist grows dark,—the sun goes down,—
Day breaks,—and where are we?

-- Oliver Wendell Holmes

As we begin another segment of time, where are we?  Where am I?

To answer this question, I must be willing to ask what is going on around me?  What is going on within me?  How are the two related?

Don't Want To

We don’t want to let go of the past because that is how we learned how to live and be who we are.

-- NPR interview

Can't Be New Creations

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We can't be new creations if everything stays the same.

-- Bob Goff

Christmas in the Heart

Christmas in the Heart

The snow lies deep upon the ground,
And winter’s brightness all around
Decks bravely out the forest sere,
With jewels of the brave old year.
The coasting crowd upon the hill
With some new spirit seems to thrill;
And all the temple bells achime.
Ring out the glee of Christmas time.

In happy homes the brown oak-bough
Vies with the red-gemmed holly now;
And here and there, like pearls, there show
The berries of the mistletoe.
A sprig upon the chandelier
Says to the maidens, “Come not here!”
Even the pauper of the earth
Some kindly gift has cheered to mirth!

Within his chamber, dim and cold,
There sits a grasping miser old.
He has no thought save one of gain,—
To grind and gather and grasp and drain.
A peal of bells, a merry shout
Assail his ear: he gazes out
Upon a world to him all gray,
And snarls, “Why, this is Christmas Day!”

No, man of ice,—for shame, for shame!
For “Christmas Day” is no mere name.
No, not for you this ringing cheer,
This festal season of the year.
And not for you the chime of bells
From holy temple rolls and swells.
In day and deed he has no part—
Who holds not Christmas in his heart!

-- Paul Laurence Dunbar

Waiting Together For Wholeness

The disruption caused by God's coming and our alienation is too great for us; we cannot bear it alone. And so we gather together to light a candle in this fearsome time. We come here to find others who know something about darkness and yet dare to look for the light. We come here to wait together. The church might best be defined as the community of those who wait, who remember their losses, acknowledge their failures, their suffering, and their confusion, and yet continue to look for wholeness.

-- Ellen F. Davis

Christmas Eve Hike

We did our family Christmas Eve hike—this time to the top of Mt Herman:

What Is Truly Amazing

What is truly amazing about the Christian faith is the idea that God made the universe—from quarks to galaxies—but at the same time cared enough about us to be born as a human being, to come down, to die and be crucified in the person of Jesus, and to bring forgiveness and new life to broken people.

-- Jonathan Feng

Like those hearing the good news in Matt 2, I am amazed at the incarnation of God—that blows my mind, not to mention my broken reality.

Uniting Through Traditions

Descent

In the true Spirit of Christmas, 'Poem for the week' -- "Descent":

They sought to soar into the skies
Those classic gods of high renown
For lofty pride aspires to rise
​But you came down.

You dropped down from the mountains sheer
Forsook the eagle for the dove
The other Gods demanded fear
But you gave love

Where chiselled marble seemed to freeze
Their abstract and perfected form
Compassion brought you to your knees
Your blood was warm

They called for blood in sacrifice
Their victims on an altar bled
When no one else could pay the price
You died instead

They towered above our mortal plain,
Dismissed this restless flesh with scorn,
Aloof from birth and death and pain,
​But you were born.

Born to these burdens, borne by all
Born with us all ‘astride the grave’
Weak, to be with us when we fall,
​And strong to save.

-- Malcom Guite

To Be Authentic

To be authentic is to be at peace with your imperfections.
​​
-- Simon Sinek

Don't Let Someone

Don't let someone else talk you out of what you really want to be or do.

It’s not that you can’t ever be wrong; it’s that you forfeit the process you need to grow (even when that includes you being wrong).

LT: Hurt and Fear

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We desperately need more leaders who are committed to courageous, wholehearted leadership and who are self-aware enough to lead from their hearts, rather than unevolved leaders who lead from hurt and fear.

-- Brené Brown

Stop Talking

I've noticed...that knowing at times that I should stop talking doesn’t necessarily help me know when to do so.  Or, does it?

All Spiritual Disciplines

All spiritual disciplines have one purpose: to get rid of illusions so we can be more fully present to what is.
​
-- Richard Rohr

Where We Got It Wrong

In many traditions, the weeks leading up to Christmas are considered a season of self-examination and repentance. At Christianity Today, this period of reflection comes after the November online release of our complete archives, encompassing every issue of CT since the magazine first published on October 15, 1956.

This is a cause for gratefulness to God; so many articles and editorials ring true today. For example, we advocated creation care at the outset of the modern environmental movement, decades before climate change became a national conversation. Note the April 23, 1971, editorial: After arguing biblically that “to fail to respect life and all other environmental resources is to demean creation and to violate biblical principles of stewardship,” the editorial concludes with a bracing word...

There are also moments that make an editor in chief wince. Nine (mostly anti-communist) articles by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, who we later learned seriously abused his power, especially in his underhanded attempts to blackmail Martin Luther King Jr. and derail the civil rights movement.

And on the civil rights movement, our track record is checkered at best.

Clearly, we were naïve about the ugly realities of segregation, and how little it was or could be realistically “directed by a Christian conscience.” In that era, we consistently argued that racism would never end without the spiritual transformation of each individual’s heart. That was and remains true enough. But we were completely ignorant about the nature and stubbornness of structural injustice. We worried how “forced integration” would impinge upon the freedom of individuals (mostly, the freedom of whites) without recognizing that segregation already denied freedom to millions of African Americans.  Continue....

-- Mark Galli

I must say, I appreciate the reflection, candor, honesty, and confession this represents.  An exercise we perhaps all could benefit from doing collectively and individually.

FOR THE TIME BEING: A Christmas Oratorio

'Poem for the week' -- "FOR THE TIME BEING: A Christmas Oratorio":

A prayer from the poem:

And because of His visitation, we may no
longer desire God as if He were lacking: our
redemption is no longer a question of pursuit
but of surrender to Him who is always and
everywhere present. Therefore at every moment
we pray that, following Him, we may depart from
our anxiety into His peace.

-- W.H. Auden

Widening

A human being is a part of the whole, called by us “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. [One] experiences [oneself] . . . as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of [one’s] consciousness. . . . Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. 

-- Albert Einstein

Know Your Purpose

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Everybody has a plan; know your purpose.

-- Bob Goff

LT: Many Beats One

To solve complicated business problems, many perspectives beats just one.

-- Scott Page

Seems to me this applies to leadership in any arena (not just business).

Disappointing

I've noticed...how disappointing it is to learn that my ego is alive and well.  And, that's a good thing (to be disappointed in).

A God Veiled in Time and Space but Revealed in Christ

A well-beaten path to atheism: cognitive dissonance over the church’s stand on sexual orientation and gender; outrage over pain and injustice; doubts regarding the authority of Scripture; and an embarrassing feeling that science has rendered belief in the Bible’s claims ridiculous. If there are reasonable explanations for these conflicts, why doesn’t God just show us? Why doesn’t he come out of hiding? Why doesn’t he come out of hiding and reveal himself to my child, to my friend? Or, if he has, to where can I point them? The various doubts that tripped my friend before he fell into atheism were all situated on the bedrock of the hiddenness of God. His thinking went like this: Christians say that God requires people to believe in him or they will be eternally condemned; God, if he is good, would assist people in forming that belief by revealing himself; God does not reveal himself; therefore, God is either not good, or he does not exist.

As far as many of these young adults are concerned, the burden of proof is on God. If he exists, he’s going to have to prove it.

The hiddenness of God, which was once a problem for philosophers and theologians, is now a reason for millennials and their older counterparts to reject the gospel. Christian parents and leaders can help them work through this, but they must be able to offer reasonable answers to two questions. First, why would a God who insists that we believe in him not give us more evidence—why would he hide? And second, where would he hide? Continue....

-- Shayne Looper

Wassail

Gotta try this stuff — so seasonably good heated up!  Don't even need a little bourbon to go with it, but....

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

A beautiful evening of music with The Piano Guys:



...perhaps the oldest of the carols we sing each year at Christmas.

Often Breeds

Certainty often breeds absolutes, intolerance, and judgment.

-- Brené Brown

Learn How

Before you can learn to effectively listen to others, you have to learn how to listen to yourself.

LT: Bill Clinton - George H.W. Bush’s Oval Office note to me revealed the heart of who he was

No words of mine or others can better reveal the heart of who he was than those he wrote himself. He was an honorable, gracious and decent man who believed in the United States, our Constitution, our institutions and our shared future. And he believed in his duty to defend and strengthen them, in victory and defeat. He also had a natural humanity, always hoping with all his heart that others’ journeys would include some of the joy that his family, his service and his adventures gave him.

His friendship has been one of the great gifts of my life.  Continue....

-- Bill Clinton

Impacted

I've noticed...I am impacted by stars.

Really?  Actually, yes.  My sense of existence is impacted when my ability to see the stars is reduced (even by just too much unnatural light).  Or, I could say it the other way around; I am more at rest in who I am when I consider the magnitude of what is around me, especially what is above me when I see the stars of the night sky.  I was reminded of this again early Sunday morning.

It strikes me as symbolic that the stars are most visible in the darkest part of the night.

God's Silence Isn't Indifference

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God's silence isn't indifference; it's engagement.  He isn't quiet because He's run out of things to say or is scared about the outcome.  It's because He already believes in me, just as much as He knows the outcome.

-- Bob Goff

The blessed angels

As much as any other season, the emerging one this time of year is rife with imagery and symbolism.  Some of it is even good!  And poetry, for me, is often the clearest way to imagine it, to re-engage (believe) in it — expressing something ineffable.

'Poem for the week' -- "The blessed angels":

How much like
angels are these tall
gladiolas in a vase on my coffee
table, as if in a bunch
whispering. How slender
and artless, how scandalously
alive, each with its own
humors and pulse. Each weight-
bearing stem is the stem
of a thought through which
aspires the blood-metal of stars. Each heart
is a gift for the king. When
I was a child, my mother and aunts
would sit in the kitchen
gossiping. One would tip
her head toward me, “Little Ears,”
she’d warn, and the whole room
went silent. Now, before sunrise,
what secrets I am told!—being
quieter than blossoms and near invisible.

-- Toi Derricotte


From the author:

“In the morning I make an espresso and sit in a comfortable chair where I can see the outside. Sometimes I’m up so early I can feel the light coming. I just listen to the air. The angels are lovely creatures to talk to. Rilke also enjoyed it! Often I can’t tell the difference between my voice and theirs.”

This feels 'Saturday Morning'-esqe to me, especially as we enter December.  Last year, I collected a number of Christmas poems, in particular, which can be found by scrolling here (along with a few other seasonal gems).