Around People

We need to stop building our churches around categories and start building them around people.

-- Rachel Held Evans


If we cannot love our neighbor as ourself, it is because we do not perceive our neighbor as ourself.

-- Beatrice Bruteau

Love Floods Into

Instagram: bobgoff

None of us really fall in love, we just stop making everything about ourselves, and love floods into the space selfishness leaves behind.

-- Bob Goff

The More

'Poem for the week' -- "The More":

The more I try by going it alone
   the more I believe I need to
The more I believe I can do it alone
   the less I seem to feel
The less I feel
   the more stressed I become
The more stressed I become
   the less aware I am
The less aware I am
   the less open I am
The less open I am
   the more I seem to need others to agree with me
The more I need others to agree with me
   the more I fear
The more I fear
   the more I try to go it alone

Surprise of Its Own Unfolding

I would love to live like a river flows,
carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.

-- John O'Donohue

You know something is good when your response to it is something like, "I just want to take a deep breath right now and take this in...". ...something like the above.

When You Want To

Mostly, you start to grow up when you want to.
...unless you’ve been forced to earlier.

LT: Numbers or People

Managers work to see numbers grow. Leaders work to see people grow.
​
-- Simon Sinek

Comparing Myself

I've noticed...if I took the amount of time I have spent comparing myself to others and put it towards who I am as opposed to who they are—how much time I would save?

Oh, not to mention, how much better off would I be?  How much more happy?  Free?  How much more would I be able to offer the world?

Our Effort

The goal of the spiritual life is to allow the Spirit of Christ to influence all our activity, prayer as well as service. Our role in this process is to provide conditions in our lives to enable us to live in tune with [Christ’s] Spirit. Our effort is not a self-conscious striving to fill ourselves with the important Christian virtues; it is more getting out of the way and allowing [Christ’s] Spirit to transform all our activities. Christ will do the rest. His Spirit has joined ours and will never abandon us.

-- Richard Hauser

For years now I've contemplated the question of our effort in relation to our faith.  This is one of the better descriptions I've heard regarding how our effort relates to the spiritual life.

Hiawatha Trail, MT

There is no Wi-Fi in the forest, but I promise you will find no better connection.

-- Anonymous

More pics here....

Coeur D’Alene, ID

More pics here....

Through Your Hands

The way to move information from your head to your heart is through your hands.

-- Brené Brown

Another way to say this truth is that it is through the body that we come to access what is really going on within us.  There is something incomplete about a process that doesn’t include the physicality of our existence.

Indicator

Pain is an indicator—the question is, of what?

Transported

Just like a plane takes me from Indiana to Montana, great writing or music moves me into wonderful places in my spirit.  I often feel transported.

Not Responsible

I've noticed...that I need to have space for a while where I’m not responsible for something.

For me, orchestrating is an already well-developed muscle.  It is time for some other muscles, not energized primarily by responsibility, to grow.

If it feels like I’m wandering (rather than being responsible), it could also be that I am growing.  I need to just receive such space and to resist the urge to understand it (in order to use it).

I’m looking forward to some of this happening this week as my wife and I hike and bike in Montana and Idaho.

Where Do You Want To Go?

Instagram: bobgoff

A father's job is to get down on both knees, lean over his children's lives, and whisper, "Where do you want to go?"

-- Bob Goff

Greatest Insight

When I was sixteen and first learning to drive with my mother, I nearly side-swiped a car in the adjoining lane. I still remember the fearful jolt of discovering a blind spot. I'd assumed what I could not see was not there. What a shock to realize we can miss whole parts of the world.

Learning to see beyond our perspective can save our lives. It can also reveal landscapes previously outside our imaginations. My father has told me the story of taking a course at the North Carolina Botanical Garden when I was young. The students would go out into the countryside to find and identify flowers in the wild. The course forever changed what he sees in empty fields. In fact, those fields are not empty at all. In his transformed awareness of eye-opening study, they are full of Bee-Balm, Blazing Star, Obedient Plant and Blood Root. 

All around us, unseen, are cars just off to the side, flowers out in the field, and the unique and vivid worlds of others' perceptions. It's all too easy to live a life blind to this rich complexity. Dan and Chip Heath, who wrote a book on the perils of narrow perspective when it comes to decision making, have documented the "spotlight effect," in which we pay attention only to what is focal in our minds. Everything outside that sphere of illumination is rendered invisible, even to our imaginations.

Curiosity is in short supply in our culture, political discourse and even our offices. I believe it's vital to reclaim it, as it's the path to human connection and broader vistas we could never perceive on our own. It is the prerequisite to discovery, the font of creativity and the essence of influence. It's the solution to what I'm going to dub the perception paradox: that the greatest insight is to be found in the places we don't see.  Continue here....

-- Katya Andresen

The Skylight

'Poem for the week' -- "The Skylight":

You were the one for skylights, I opposed Cutting into the seasoned tongue-and-groove Of pitch pine. I liked it low and closed, 
Its claustrophobic, nest-up-in-the-roof 
Effect, I liked the snuff-dry feeling, 
The perfect, trunk-lid fit of the old ceiling. Under there, it was all hutch and hatch, 
The blue slates kept the heat like midnight thatch.

But when the slates came off, extravagant Sky entered and held surprise wide open, For days I felt like an inhabitant 
Of that house where the man sick of the palsy 
Was lowered through the roof, had his sins forgiven, Was healed, took up his bed and walked away. 

-- Seamus Heaney

It is amazing how contextual nearly everything is...has to be.  Out of context, I might have glanced right over this one.  But, at the recent Nowhere Else Festival, this was used to open the event in a rather magnificent way (at least for me...and my context).

From Conservatives

I’ve learned a lot from conservatives—good and bad.

Loosen Our Grip

We have a sacred choice.  We can remain addicted to certainty because it seems to serve as an anchor in our often-troubling world.  Or we can begin to discover the plenty that lies within the mystery as we loosen our grip on certainty.

-- Christena Cleveland

So Much

So much of what we think seems to be a function of what we've been exposed to.  This is often what puts people in positions of leadership—because of what they know (whether or not that makes them a good leader is another matter altogether).  We often feel more comfortable with things we have seen or, even more, experienced.

This process of this exposure is a function of both our choosing, as well as not of our choosing.  Some things are thrust upon us—we have to deal with whatever it is.  Other things are more a function of what we pursue.  Often that disposition—pursuing things—leads us simply to more things, which then lead us to even more things, and so on.

At the end of the day, what and how we think are impacted as we get more comfortable with a reality that carries both great consistencies and great variations.  For those seeking a singular meaning of things, this tension can be crushing.  For others, where meaning is endless, it quite simply can't be described other than joy.

Most people who can change their thinking have been exposed to something new (at least to them).  In many cases, this can be described as growth and those who are interested in things like growth often have a propensity to lead others to do the same.

The Rinsing of Sleep

I've noticed...that sleep is like a rinsing of the mind and heart.  The crazy things you feel and think are rearranged and flushed.  When that doesn’t happen, as needed, you just get dirtier and dirtier—clogged up in your emotional mud.  It starts to affect how you see things, how you think.

You need sleep because it’s your body that does does your cleaning for you.

Church Does Not Allow

Most of us come to the church by means the church does not allow. 

-- Flannery O’Connor

An ER Doctor Speaks at a High School Graduation

Last week, I delivered the Baccalaureate address at my alma mater North Central High School in Indianapolis. This is what I said to the graduates.

In kindergarten, I got a prize in the science fair for painting Play-Doh black. I wedged plastic dinosaurs and saber-tooth tigers in it to make it look like the La Brea tar pits. I think it was in 4th grade when I won a ribbon in the Allisonville grade school pancake supper poster contest.

And those two pinnacle moments pretty much sum up the entirety of my academic accolades in Washington Township schools, including all the way through high school.

I got an F in high school chemistry, and an F in algebra and a bunch of C’s, a couple D’s and if it weren’t for gym and kings court singers, I doubt I would have gotten any A’s. Any kings court singers here? I was the jester in the madrigal dinner. I did a few other things. I was in junior spec, Reviewing the Situation, 1981 baby. I played trumpet in band — actually I was second to the last trumpet — which means I played exactly two notes in every song. Blaaamp blaaammp. Nobody ever saw my name on some academic kudos report sent out by the school and no parent ever uttered the words:

“Louis Profeta made honor roll, why can’t you?”

And if I had to apply to college today at Indiana University, I would not get in.

...

I ask of you, in your journey to give people a break, give your fellow human the benefit of the doubt, the patience of Job. Don’t be so quick to judge another’s behavior as rude, disrespectful, racist, sexist or intolerant. Not every bit of attitude or inattentiveness directed towards you is about you. You simply are not that important to the stranger on the street. And many people simply do not have the insight that you might demand of them. They have their own lives. Spend a day in our ER: I’ll show you real problems. You’ll see what I’m talking about. Don’t be so quick to assume the professor, the waiter, the clerk or the driver has a bias against you. Instead, entertain the prospect that perhaps their own worlds are falling apart with a sick child, a failing marriage, a terminal illness, financial struggles, an addicted sibling, or just a lack of awareness and that they are simply too preoccupied with their own lives to worry about your frailties. Continue here.

-- Louis M. Profeta

Visual: Wood It?

Visual - "Wood It?":

Muir Woods National Monument, CA

Talent

Talent is often mesmerizing, isn't it?  Even startling at times.

But, talent still needs to be cultivated—developed.

And, It still requires courage and effort.  I'm amazed at the amount of both many talented people put tout.  Good artists, athletes, writers, leaders, pastors...seem quite courageous and willing to really work at what they do.

I would also venture to say that talent still needs to be offered—given to others—because it doesn't seem to grow in isolation.

From what I can tell, these are all parts of how talent gets developed.

Few Things More Precious

I am enamored with the power of wonder (click the wonder links for a sampling). Short of love—well, and maybe beauty—I suspect there is no greater power on earth than that which emanates from wonder. It is the soul of nearly everything.

Wonder is the heart blooming. It is the prayer of the curious. It is posture that draws us into the goodness that is, and the beauty all around and through us. It is the wide-eyed marvel and faith of children seeing the magic of life. It draws us into bigger and wilder, and at the same time the right here and now. It disarms the facade and hungry performing. It invites us into the mystery.

-- Hillary McBride

Instagram: hillaryliannamcbride

Everything You Are Striving For

Everything you are striving for, you already have.

-- Rob Bell

...can you feel yourself objecting?  Good—now we're getting somewhere!

More and More

I've noticed...that Mary is right:

If you notice anything, it leads you to notice more and more.

-- Mary Oliver

Why God Needs Skin In The Game

Pascal’s Wager famously argues a rational case for belief.

Given that we cannot know whether God exists, he argues, it is better to believe than not to believe. For to believe costs us very little, but offers the possibility of eternal life. Not to believe, however, risks eternal damnation. So, given we cannot know which position is true, we might as well believe – the upside to belief is so much more attractive than the downside to unbelief: heads you win, tails nothing lost.

I don’t know anyone who has actually been convinced by this argument. Nonetheless, it remains one of the most celebrated philosophical arguments for belief – and has been credited as one of the earliest examples of probability theory.

For a sustained take-down of Pascal’s position, pick up the work of the financial-markets-trader-turned-public-philosopher Nassim Nicholas Taleb. He’s a Greek orthodox Christian by background, and someone who understands belief – and probability – far better than Pascal himself.

As he sees it, there are two fundamental problems with Pascal’s Wager. First, as he puts it in his little book of aphorisms, The Bed of Procrustes: “Those who think religion is about ‘belief’ don’t understand religion, and don’t understand belief.” And, second, because, without what he calls, as per the title of his most recent book, Skin in the Game, a wager such as Pascal’s is morally vacuous.

As anyone seriously embarking on the season of Lent will know, the Christian injunction to believe is framed in terms of the instruction to share in the suffering of the cross. “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me”. “Belief”, then, is hardly the cost-free option that Pascal proposes. Indeed, as Taleb rightly suggests, to call this a “belief” – that is, a question of epistemology – seriously misunderstands the basis of Christian discipleship.  Continue here....

-- Giles Fraser



...a rather fascinating point in the discussion occurs around 9:50 into the interview—what it means to believe in God.

Birth Rates

Statistics show a continuing decline in birth-rates around the country.