Pictured Rocks 2013

 

For more pics click here....

Single Step

For a small reward, a man will hurry away on a long journey; while for eternal life, many will hardly take a single step.

-- Thomas à Kempis

Long Walk

At times it seems like a long walk through this life.  It strikes me that it takes a while to figure out what is going on. We often start the process here.  And, we end here...with lots of stuff in between.  Good stuff.   Hard stuff.  Beautiful stuff.

We hurt people along the way.  We get hurt along the way.

But, we are guided, if we are willing to follow...

"...who for the joy set before him, endured the cross".

Keep walking; there is always more.

With Joy

...with joy!

And what is often the beginning of the journey towards joy?  Click here...for one perspective.

Surprises Us

And, it is service that surprises us...

What I Really Need the Most

I regularly have to be brought back to the truth that what I really need the most is something that someone else cannot provide...only God can provide it.

For one thing, I need to be weaned from myself.

Odor of Outdoors

I stand holding the apple in both hands. It feels precious, like a heavy treasure. I lift it up and smell it. It has such an odor of outdoors on it I want to cry.

-- Margaret Atwood

Break the Connection Addiction

In an interesting article in the Harvard Business Review, Ndubuisi Ekekwe wrote, “There’s an assumption that using smart devices boosts productivity, since they allow us to work constantly. But, we’re also jeopardizing long-term productivity by eliminating predictable time off that ensures balance in our lives.”

-- Steve Anderson

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Everything

There is a communion with God that asks for nothing, yet asks for everything.

-- George McDonald

Awareness

Awareness of others can lead to self-awareness.

But, many times it doesn't seem to.  Something blocks the otherwise natural transition from what I see in others to what I see in me.  In our day and age, it seems that endless activity inhibits that process.  We, as a culture, often just don't stop long enough to let it this process happen.  And, our affluence often seems simply provide both the opportunity and the boredom to allow this default mode to perpetuate.

Awareness of others can lead to self-awareness.

And, self-awareness can lead to God-awareness.

God-awareness leads to others-awareness.

To Serve

...to serve.

Enables Us

And, it is love that enables us...

Habit Change

The basal ganglia plays a key role in the formation of leadership habits, both the good ones and the bad ones. As we keep repeating a routine of any kind, the brain shifts its control of the habit from areas at the top of the brain to the basal ganglia at the bottom. As this switch occurs, we lose awareness of the habit and its triggers. The routine springs into action in response to a trigger we don’t notice, and does so automatically. We lose control.

To change the habit we must first bring it into consciousness again. That takes self-awareness, a fundamental of emotional intelligence.

-- Daniel Goleman

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Character and Power

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.

-- Abraham Lincoln

What You Have

Many people seem to think you have what you can get.  The secret, however, is that whatever you have has been given.  ...and that changes everything.

Even Greater

Our capacity to hurt another person is great.

...our capacity to love another person is even greater.

Law and Freedom

Very few Christians have been taught how to live both law and freedom at the same time. Our western dualistic minds do not process paradoxes very well. Without a contemplative mind, we do not know how to hold creative tensions. WE are better at rushing to judgment and demanding a complete resolution to things before we have learned what they have to teach us. This is the not the way of wisdom.

Primitive and native societies might well have held this tension better than we do today. I have seen this myself among indigenous and “undeveloped” people in India, the Philippines, and Latin America. They often seem much less neurotic and anxious than we are, and can deal with failure or loss far, far more easily than we can.

In the western world, it seems we cannot build prisons fast enough or have enough recovery groups, therapists, or reparenting classes for all the walking wounded in this very educated, religious, and sophisticated society -- which has little respect for limitations and a huge sense of entitlement.

-- Richard Rohr, Falling Upward

To Love

...to love.

Frees Us

And, it is our endurance that frees us...

To Understand

Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.

-- Stephen Covey

Operation Barnabas

 

Click here for more details.  I know that girl in the middle!

Well Done

There is no room for criticism on the training field. For a player – and for any human being – there is nothing better than hearing 'well done'. Those are the two best words ever invented in sports. You don't need to use superlatives.

-- Sir Alex Ferguson

Wise Father

The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.

-- Theodore Hesburgh


Heat of Departure

Ninety degrees of thick, rude heat — a summer guest
we can’t get rid of — hovering over our city,
our brick house. Yet our son, who’s leaving home
tomorrow, we wish would stay. No ac in his room,
but a window unit in ours for wicked waves like this.
He’s almost eighteen. Can’t sleep, he says, and, though
he’s refused our offer before, now he quickly slips
his mattress onto the floor in our room and plops
down: Six foot five, a man turned back
into a boy before us. The heat, we all keep
saying, it’s awful. In the morning I rise early
and shut off the ac just to hear him breathing.

-- Jim Daniels

It is a wise father that knows his child.

-- William Shakespeare

When I first read the poem above, I didn't realize it was written by a man. When I noticed that, it changed something for me. It tapped something, like the door of my heart, and I realized I am feeling some of the same things.  Sneaking up on me, I too am feeling the 'heat' of departure. Though I've barricaded this door with my mind, the thief is still stealing my heart. I am slowing watching my children fade into their adult lives and it is creating a 'missing', even the smallest of things...like breathing.

Seven Nation Army

So smoove!  ...nothing like good 'live' music.

Got me snappin'!

To Endure

...to endure.

Strengthens

And, it is obedience that strengthens us...

You Are The Average...

 

You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

-- Jim Rohn


I am so grateful that my 'average' is elevated by the good friends God has put in my life. What an accumulation!  I started the evening with an unannounced walk with Tami and Makenzie, only to discover that the further we went, the more the friends that joined us.  We had quite a crowd by the end of the 'walk'.  Kind of symbolic, in many ways, of all that has been added over the years and of a shared and joyous destination.  Wouldn't rather be anywhere else.

I enjoyed a wonderful surprise celebration of my 50th birthday with dear friends last evening. We had great 'old' food, lots of laughs, and enjoyed wonderful music performed by Phil Peugh. I will enjoy the cards, letters, and gifts for years to come.  A deep 'thank you' arises within me for your generosity in all these gifts of God to me through you.

To each one: YOU have increased my average!

...for more hilarious pics, click here.  Thanks, Cliff!

Rigor

Many were what I call "Guru Books". Call them MBA-lite, loaded with can-do spirit about how you too can change your life. Just read my 223 pages of inspiration about blah, blah, blah.... Everyone gets a blue ribbon.

There are great exceptions in the Land of Mediocre Guru Books. Start with Clayton M. Christensen's iconic The Innovator's Dilemma. Consider Michael E. Raynor and Mumtaz Ahmed The Three Rules. It is loaded with some serious math on what companies actually do.

What is missing in the cheerleading of these books and in most discussions about "getting ahead" is rigor. There is simply no substitute for gut courses combined with gut general reading.

Continue Reading...

I must say that this describes my experience as well. That is, the things I have learned the most have often come when I have applied myself the most.

Begins In The Dark

Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: You don't give up.

-- Anne Lamott

See God

It is safe to tell the pure in heart that they shall see God, for only the pure in heart want to.

-- C.S. Lewis

Farther Away

The farther away we are from something, the less we understand it and the less we understand something, the more likely we are to judge it.

...this can be especially problematic with regard to people.

To Obedience

...to obedience (right thinking / living).

Compels

And, it is our hope that compels us...

Judging

Blessed is the one who does not condemn himself by what he approves. 

-- Romans 14:22


Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things.

-- Romans 2:1

Resilient

When you are doing what you love to do, you become resilient.

-- Dick Costolo

What We Repeatedly Do

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit.

-- Aristotle

Discernment in Solitude

The Spirit works deep within us, so deeply that we cannot always identify its presence. The effect of God’s spirit is deeper than our thoughts and emotions. That is why setting aside a special time and place for prayer is so important. Often we do not feel like praying and our minds are distracted. The lack of motivation and difficulty focusing make us think that our prayer time is useless and wasted time. Still, it is very important to remain faithful to these times and simply stick with our promise to be with God, even if nothing in our minds, hearts, or bodies wants to be there. Simple faithfulness in prayer gives the Spirit of God a real chance to work in us, to help us be renewed in God’s hands and be conformed to God’s will. During these sacred times and places, we can be touched in deep, hidden, and tender places. We can become more fully aware of the divine presence and more open to God’s guidance as we are led to new places of love.

-- Henri Nouwen

Unconditional Love And...

I know this is not the correct version of what is psychologically 'correct', because we all seem to think we need nothing but unconditional love. Any, law, correction, rule or limitation is another word for conditional love. It is interesting to me that very clear passages describing both God's conditional love and also God's unconditional love are found in the same Scriptures, like Deuteronomy and John's Gospel. The only real biblical promise is that Unconditional love will have the last word!

The most effective organizations, I am told, have both a 'good boss' and a 'bad boss', who work closely together. One holds us strongly while the other speaks hard truth to us and sets clear goals and limits for us. Our naive sense of entitlement and overreaction against all limits to our freedom are not serving us well as parents and marriage partners, not to speak of our needs skills as employees, students, conversationalists, team players, or citizens. It takes the pain of others to produce a humane and just civilization, it seems.

It seems we need a foil, a goad, a wall to butt up against to create a proper ego structure and a strong identity. Such a foil is the way we internalize our own deeper values, educate our feeling function, and dethrone our narcissism. Butting up against limits actually teaches us an awful lot. "I would not have know the meaning of covetousness, if the law had not said, 'You shall not covet'," says St. Paul.

-- Richard Rohr, Falling Upward

True Hope

...to our true hope.

Invites

And, it is our desire that invites us...

Not Enough Time

Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresea, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.

-- H. Jackson Brown Jr.

False Self

If there are not serious warnings about the blinding nature of fear and fanaticism, your religion will always end up worshiping the status quo and protecting your present ego position and personal advantage -- as if it were God!

By definition, authentic God experience is always "too much"! It consoles our True Self only after it has devastated our false self.  We must begin to be honest about that instead of dishing out fast-food religion.

-- Richard Rohr, Falling Upward

Some May Say

Some may say...

...that a cloudy, rainy holiday is an unfortunate waste of time -- when we could be doing something fun or getting stuff done.  I might be one of those...at times.

But, today I am mindful of the grace of such a day, when those things can't happen...when I have to stop.  Stop and acknowledge that even weather reminds of our need for rest, for stopping, for not doing much of anything other than taking things in...even taking in something like sleep.  The cloudy, rainy is like a blanket...that can melt me into something flat.  I need to be flat.  I need to melt.

I need something as seemingly capricious as weather to stop me, because I need rest.  The last month has been a flurry of more-thans.  All things that are good, in and of themselves, but things nonetheless that have drawn deeply from me, and from my wife.  Part of what has been drawn from comes from the exuberant activity of Spring, the coming alive of everything sensual -- color, aroma, sound...all combine to form a taste, intoxicating for life, for living.  But, high demands from jobs, and kids, and many other things we have loved thru...have escorted us to our need for rest.

We just drove around quietly today, after waking up much later than usual.  We didn't say much, other than to acknowledge how unusually our tiredness has gripped us...and how much we need its limitations.

Something really good is going on today...a cloudy, rainy holiday.  We're resting...and, more than just physically.

...this text sounds a bit better suited for a Labor Day holiday.  I do feel a deep sense of gratitude from 'Memorial'izing that even the opportunity to 'rest' has come at a great price for many who served our country with their very lives.

Sins

It takes a lot of sensitivity to live with the sins of others. Not the least of which is what you have to learn from living with our own.

The Trade

Speaking at Commencement at Oklahoma State University:

“Before we go to lunch, I want to make you a thought provoking offer,” I said. “I hope you realize where you are in life today. You have the best seat in the house. I would trade you everything I have for it.”

Boy, things got serious quick.

“My Gulfstream airplane. My 68,000-acre ranch,” I ticked off a long list of my assets, before adding, “I would gladly give it all to anyone of you to be where you are sitting right now. There’s only one catch. If you make the trade, you have to be 79 and I get to be 18 again.”

Suddenly, lunch didn’t seem that important after all. They were trying to figure out how to get what I had without giving me what I wanted. Guess who had gotten their attention? After I finished my speech, two of Alexander’s classmates came up to me and said, “You really got us thinking today, Mr. Pickens.”

“You guys want to make the trade?”

-- T. Boone Pickens

Continue Reading his address....

This weekend marks the beginning of visitations of nearly a dozen young people I have gotten close to over the years; young people who are graduating from high-school this year.  I think about where they are in life; what lies ahead of them.

I think about them through the lens of my 50th birthday, a couple of weeks ago.

I think about how honest I need to be that I am often more tired than I used to be, and that I wonder more often about what my value is in a world that trades in the currency of youth.

I think about them through the metaphor of this morning's sunrise, which is occurring right now behind me, and the voice that I have become accustomed to hearing from it that says 'get up, there's beauty out there...go see it, go get in it'.

I think about how I have beauty yet to know, beauty to offer, beauty to call out in others.

If I was 18 again, I probably wouldn't make the trade either (nor would I now).  You?

To Desire

...to our desire.

Escorts

And, it is our real need that escorts us...

Will Himself Restore You

And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.

-- 1 Peter 5:10

With Deep Affection for the Forest

Like the sweet seduction of goodness, the voice of the forest did its morning beckoning again today.  While my body groaned, my spirit was aroused.

Its paths were a beautiful balance of browns, dark and light - moist and dry, cutting their way now through a ganging-up chorus of Spring greens that nearly engulfed them.  My spirit was aroused.

Like fans along the streets, flowers were also crowding the now foliage-rimmed routes.  Pink, white; purple and a couple of stray yellows inched their way into the mass of leaves.  Some stood tall in the back, while others in exquisit delicateness were right on the earthen floor.  My Spirit was aroused.

Brilliant blue bathed the scene from above.

And, the creatures.  The creatures were already having a blast welcoming that great daily greeting of cool and warmth.  Creation was aroused.

It was an awesome morning of nature quietly yelling "beauty, beauty, beauty" to all who were out being consumed by it.  I was...consumed, with a deep affection.

Like Us

Most of us are drawn to certain types of people. They might be like us, or they might simply be people who like us.

-- Bruce Kasanoff

Flagship of All Relationships

A wedding is, among other things, the culmination of a waiting for a marriage relationship with someone. On it rides the hopes of all things good, good things that come from a marriage.

Our marriages are but a fore-shadowing of the ultimate relationship we will have with God in His fully manifest kingdom. In some ways, a wedding signals our desire for this ultimate relationship. It indicates our aspiration to commit ourselves to the things that make that possible (faith).

Weddings can remind us of that commitment, of that desire...even in painful ways...for what we ultimately hope for, whether we experience it now or not. We should continue to hope for such things, to have faith for such things, to love for such things.

For marriage inevitably becomes the flagship of all other relationships.  One's own home is the place where love must first be practiced before it can truly be practiced anywhere else.  No one likes to be out of joint with a good friend or with in-laws or with an employer, but such problem at least can be tolerated. Yet any little thing that comes between a man and his wife is capable of wrenching them apart inside, and if that is not the case, then it can only be due to the growth of a callousness in them that cannot help carrying over into all their other relationships.  A husband and wife are "one flesh," and to be alienated from one another is equivalent to being alienated from their own bodies.  How can a man who harbors bitterness towards himself be anything but bitter toward the rest of the world? "He who loves his wife loves himself," says Paul (Ephesians 5:28).

-- Mike Mason, The Mystery of Marriage

Leeches and Cocaine

No one uses leeches or cocaine as therapeutics anymore—but they used to.

• Cough remedies do no better than placebo for children or adults
• Angioplasties and stents do nothing to prevent subsequent heart attacks in 95% of patients receiving either of those procedures.
• Patients undergoing coronary bypass operations have prolonged life as a result only 3% of the time.

What is particularly interesting is that Medicare and healthcare insurers pay for these procedures. How much? Well in 2006 1.3 million angioplasties were performed at an average cost of $48,399 each and 448,000 bypasses at $99,743 per procedure.

Doing the math, that comes to $104 Billion. That’s $104 Billion (with a B) for procedures that are “…usually dangerous, invasive, expensive, and largely ineffective.” So while it would seem that syrups and stents are the clinical way to go, the evidence may not really be there to support it. If clinicians don’t know that, they are doomed to blindly and expensively continue on.

One of the pioneers of evidence-based medicine is quoted to have once said that “Half of what you'll learn in medical school will be shown to be either dead wrong or out of date within five years of your graduation; the trouble is that nobody can tell you which half -- so the most important thing to learn is how to learn on your own.”

-- Dr. Chris E. Stout

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To Need

...to our real need.

Awakens

It is crisis that awakens us...

Coaxed

A habit cannot be tossed out the window; it must be coaxed down the stairs a step at a time.

-- Mark Twain

Standing There Frozen

If you do what you think is expected of you, or what you are supposed to do, you will look to external sources for what to do next. You will be standing there frozen on the ‘stage’ of your life.

-- Dick Costolo

The Problem is Not the Internet - It's Me

I must say I've been tempted to join some of the yelling on the sideline...about the Internet, or at least some of the forms that ride on it.  But, I've also felt an urge to 'keep it down'.  Something about doing so feels a little moralistic, and that it didn't really match my own habits with regard to the Internet.  I've taken on some fasts.  They were helpful.  But, I use still use it every day in one form or another.

Then I ran across this article and some good visual-type relief was created for me about the subject.

The problem is more as I suspected, even if unclearly; the problem is not the form, in this case, the Internet.  The problem is me.  ...although, I do think that forms can often contribute or enhance the problem of me.

Read:  I’m still here: back online after a year without the internet

Trust

Trust the past to God's mercy, the present to God's love, and the future to God's providence.

-- St. Augustine

Trust God for everything; He is trustworthy.

The Most Valuable Thing We Can Give

"What can I get for you?" the old man asked when I walked in the store. The expression on his face was expectant and hopeful, almost uncomfortably so.

I was on my bike, two mountains into West Virginia on a long ride. "Just a couple bottles of water," I said. His shoulders sagged, disappointment obvious, and I noticed the chalkboard menu behind him.

"And one of your sandwiches," I added quickly.

He asked what kind. I told him to make me his favorite.  I pulled an old metal chair up to a scarred wooden table and...


That memory of the flicker of desperation in a struggling entrepreneur's eyes inspires me to try to give others in the same position a few tools that might go some small way towards helping them achieve their dreams.

And barring that, I try to provide a little spark of hope, because the most valuable thing we can give, no matter how faint or fleeting, is the gift of hope.

Continue Reading this good read by Jeff Haden

A provoking description of the changes afoot now for some time in our American-Dream land.  The gift of hope...taps something deep within me, something I too want to be a part of giving to others.

50!

 

Click image for a well-candied story....

On my 50th birthday, I recognize how much I have for which to be thankful. A swell of gratitude rose within me during my morning run and like icing on cake, the above was awaiting me upon my return...with all 3 'musketeers' eager for my enjoyment of it.

I give my loving and faithful wife credit for inspiring them to honor me. Her words were also very dear, overcoming me in their observation of my life with her.

My parents, brother, friends, co-workers all wished me well in this milestone of sorts.

Because of all of these graces and the many more from my walk with God over the years that have freed me in many ways to be more alive and live with more energy towards life and towards others.  Among the many capstones of life, I must put Gratitude near the top...or perhaps near the bottom, as a foundation of all else that is good, honorable, pleasurable, and full of joy.  THANK YOU 50!

...by the way, a friend whispered to me today that Lewis' notion that the 'best is yet to come' isn't really the case...for the next 50 anyway (he's in his 60s).  ;-)

...uncool to put a smiley-face on a blog, but couldn't resist this time.

Ends Up Rotting

As fearful people we are inclined to develop a mind-set that makes us say: “There’s not enough food for everyone, so I better be sure I save enough for myself in case of emergency,” or “There’s not enough knowledge for everyone to enjoy; so I’d better keep my knowledge to myself, so no one else will use it” or “There’s not enough love to give to everybody, so I’d better keep my friends for myself to prevent others from taking them away from me.” This is a scarcity mentality. It involves hoarding whatever we have, fearful that we won’t have enough to survive. The tragedy, however, is that what you cling to ends up rotting in your hands.

-- Henri Nouwen

Will Crush Them

The mercenaries will always beat the draftees, but the volunteers will crush them both.

-- Chuck Noll

Underneath All the Layers

It is a revolution, but it is a joyful revolution. It is a revolution based on a simple idea: each of us has something inside that is making a noise. Underneath all of the layers…the me-first layer and the get-out-of-my-way layer and the keep-your-hands-off-my-stuff layer…a halfway decent person is in there, waiting to be heard. That person isn't angry, he/she just wants out.

-- Dr. Chris E. Stout

I would probably describe it differently, especially the 'halfway decent person' part.  But, the depth of something inside of us that is good...covered up by such layers, certainly seems true in my experience of others.  In my experience of myself.

Continue Reading

I Can't Persuade Myself

After the start to my day yesterday, I wondered what the rest of it would bring.  I was surprised to be so broken open emotionally at church later that morning.  Several young people shared about how they were impacted by the book, The Hiding Place, by Corrie ten Boom.  They spoke deeply from within themselves.  They spoke deeply to me about trusting in God, during times when it is hard to do so.  They spoke about how they encountered God because of the book, because of the way Corrie lived her life.  They spoke that it is often during these times, that we encounter God.

I hinted as ending my post yesterday with the notion that the day may yet have something I didn't expect.  It certainly did, through the passion of these young lives.

But more than that, I felt - no, not beautiful. Even on such a romantic day as this, I could not persuade myself of that. I knew that my jaw was too square, my legs to long, my hands to large. But I earnestly believed - and all the books agreed - that I would look beautiful to the man who loved me.

-- Corrie ten Boom

This passage was shared yesterday by a young lady at our church, she herself went on to say:

I liked these stories because even though I can't persuade myself that I’m beautiful, when my family and friends remind me that I am, I can go deeper than my feelings and believe those that are close to me.

-- Gynnea Hochstetler

...it turned out to be a 'great day' after all, because I was reminded again of things that matter...of truth I can believe even when I don't feel it.  I wonder how my beginning of it affected what happened later in it.

Not Every Day is 'Just Great'

Today is one of those days for me...just not great.  I'm feeling yanked a bit by emotions, pulling on the tiredness I feel in my body and in my mind.  I feel emotionally drained and weakened.  I think it has something to do with disappointment I feel about myself in the way I've reacted to things in the last few days.

This is a bit unusual for me on a Sunday morning, especially after a good run in the woods, where the sunshine was doing its slant thing I love in beautiful fashion and the fresh season's red-buds were floating their purple throughout the forest.  I was awakened to something again, as usual in that scene.

But, returning home, I felt pulled right back into all the work that feels in need of attention.  When the dogs carelessly trampled some of the good bit of it I did yesterday, I felt angry.  I feel anger at my anger, especially over such things.

Some days don't feel..."just great!"  But, who knows how this one will turn out...it's not over yet.

What About You? Do You Like the Chelsea Clintons?

Pretty funny, us humans and our needs to be...seen or known as something or other. Kind of sad, too...all our little desperations.

Freedom Attracts

When you are interiorly free you call others to freedom, whether you know it or not. Freedom attracts wherever it appears. A free man or a free woman creates a space where others feel safe and want to dwell. Our world is so full of conditions, demands, requirements, and obligations that we often wonder what is expected of us. But when we meet a truly free person, there are no expectations, only an invitation to reach into ourselves and discover there our own freedom.

-- Henri Nouwen

...for a nice thread on some ideas connected to this notion of the importance of 'space' in our lives, click the 'space' link above and follow the links in subsequent pages, too. These have been very helpful for me...against the back-drop of all the demands I feel in life (including the ones I've created for myself!).

Opportunities and Environment for greatness

My view of leadership is grounded in the belief that it is not a leader’s job to put greatness into people. But rather, it is our job to acknowledge the greatness that already exists and create opportunities and an environment for that greatness to come out.

-- Brad Smith, President & Chief Executive Officer, Intuit

I would use the word 'greatness' advisedly since, to me, it is a bit over-used, not to mention presumptuous. But, the notion of fostering a context in which such a thing, even greatness (with a small 'g'), could be discovered and grow and reveal itself I find quite appealing when working with others.

Q&A: Being Humble and Listening

Q&A:

Q: What were some early leadership lessons for you?

A: When you’re in your 20s and have that leadership gene, the bad thing is that you don’t know when to shut up. You think you know all the answers, but you don’t. What you learn later is when to just listen to everybody else. I’m finding that all those adages about being humble and listening are truer and truer as I get older. Creativity cannot explode if you do not have the ability to step back, take in what everybody else says and then fuse it with your own ideas.

-- interview with Francesca Zambello

Not Doing Anything

If you’re not making mistakes, then you’re not doing anything.

-- John Wooden

How Close They Were

Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

-- Thomas Edison

Like A Nail

Christianity is like a nail, the harder you strike it, the deeper it goes.

-- Yemelian Yaroslavsky, "League of the Militant Godless"

Surprise of Joy

I love the child-like joy of so many in the crowd.

I've Failed, too...

I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.

-- Michael Jordan

Though it's difficult to know how much to argue that Michael Jordan failed, at least athletically...it does seem like it is an important concept for our kids to consider -- to see in a success-dominated messaging culture that adults fail, including their parents.  If they never see me fail, how can my kids become convinced that it is OK when they do...that they will actually survive their failures, that failing actually creates opportunities for them?  In other words, I am not just the presentation of my successes to my kids.  I am my failures, too.

Here's an example to consider...continue reading.

Falling

We are not helping our children by always preventing them from what might be necessary falling, because you learn how to recover from falling by falling!  It is precisely by falling off the bike many times that you eventually learn what the balance feels like.  The skater pushing both right and left eventually goes where he or she wants to go.  People who have never allowed themselves to fall are actually off balance, while not realizing it at all.  That is why they are so hard to live with.

-- Richard Rohr, Falling Upward

Seven-years-olds and Grownups

I'm convinced that the main difference between seven-year-olds and grownups is that adults have learned to hide our emotions. But that doesn't mean we no longer have fears or dreams. It doesn't mean we no longer have short attention spans. It just means we have gotten very, very good at pretending to listen and understand.

Likewise, if you make adults listen to a convoluted strategy that you pay them to follow, adults will pretend to follow it. But the strategy still won't work.  Continue here....

-- Bruce Kasanoff

National Anthem - of Hell

The national anthem of hell is, "I Did It My Way".

-- Peter Kreeft

Emptiness

A friend spoke yesterday about the role of emptiness in our lives. It is counter-intuitive to consider its value, especially in our culture. People don't understand emptiness and the importance of it until they've been emptied....

Our frantic days are really just a hedge against emptiness.

-- Tim Kreider

Some may think this is 'a bit over-stated', but I think not.  Just watch what happens when you don't have something to do...how quickly you run to fill it with something else.  Watch how ferociously you are willing to attack something (someone) that pokes at the possibility of you being emptied.  We are frantic about it...much more than we realize.

The good news is that emptiness creates an echo of the bitterness we hold over not getting what we want...but in way that reveals to us what we didn't even know we wanted.  It is the beauty of submitting to something that is good for us.

Growing Into Freedom

True freedom is the freedom of the children of God. To reach that freedom requires a lifelong discipline since so much in our world militates against it. The political, economic, social, and even religious powers surrounding us all want to keep us in bondage so that we will obey their commands and be dependent on their rewards.

But the spiritual truth that leads to freedom is the truth that we belong not to the world but to God, whose beloved children we are. By living lives in which we keep returning to that truth in word and deed, we will gradually grow into our true freedom.

-- Henri Nouwen

Cultural Narcissism

This...is critical for our own civilization right now.  We have too many people on the extremes:  some make a "sacrificial" and heroic life their whole identity, and end up making everyone else around the sacrifice so they can be sacrificial and heroic.  Others, in selfish rebellion and without any training in letting go, refuse to sacrifice anything.  Basically, if you stay in the first half of life beyond its natural period, you become a well-disguised narcissist or an adult infant (who is also a narcissist) -- both of whom are often thought to be successful "good old boys" by the mainstream culture.  No wonder that Bill Plotkin calls us a "patho-adolescent culture".

-- Richard Rohr, Falling Upward

Courage is Not the Absence of Fear

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.

-- Meg Cabot

This makes a lot of sense towards explaining how the things in yesterday's post post could happen...where people move to help others in need.

The World - A Dangerous Place

The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.

-- Albert Einstein

We went to a local CASA vigil one evening this week, where the thought above was shared.  We have a responsibility to help those who are powerless.  I particularly like Bonhoeffer's perspective on this.

...like those that helped in the bombings in Boston earlier this week.  It seems to me that those who help others the most are the ones who have traveled through the pains of this life themselves -- they have seen the other side of pain and can reassure others that it is survivable and may even give you a gift in the process.  When this happens, we let go of the fist that grips the things that we believe we need to avoid pain and allows us to offer the same 'release' to others.  Here is a beautiful story from the bombings in Boston earlier this week that illustrates this surprising, but deeply true discovery.

Habit Formation: The 21-Day Myth

Most people believe that habits are formed by completing a task for 21 days in a row. Twenty-one days of task completion, then voila, a habit is formed. Unfortunately, this could not be further from the truth. The 21-day myth began as a misinterpretation of Dr. Maxwell Maltz’s work on self-image. Maltz did not find that 21 days of task completion forms a habit. People wanted it to be true so much so, however, that the idea began to grow in popularity.

-- Jason Selk

Continue Reading -- worth consideration.

What You Know vs What You Feel

 

Ego

It is often when the ego is most deconstructed that we can hear things anew and begin some honest reconstruction, even if it is only half heard and halfhearted.

-- Richard Rohr, Falling Upward

One Act

One act of obedience is better than one hundred sermons.

-- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Who vs Why

One of the deeper questions we have during suffering is 'Why?' Why is this happening? What is this happening to me? What is wrong? What can I do about it? Why, God?

We live enculturated with the assumptions of cause-and-effect. So, we can hardly avoid our 'whys'. We almost require an explanation.

But, the answers to our deeper questions really come more from the question of 'who?'...than from the question of 'why?'

In other words, it is not really the answer to 'why' that satisfies us (even though we crave that answer)...because it only lasts until we are forced to ask it again.  It is the answer to a different question that we really need, 'Who?'.  Who is with me...during this time of suffering?  Who am I? Who do I belong to?  ...the answers to these 'who' questions satisfy.  The Answer helps address our more human question of 'why?'.

This, by the way, is what so many people don't get about The Bible.  They think, as I have so often thought, that it is supposed address our questions of 'why', particularly when we suffer.  It doesn't.  It wants to tell us Who is with us, especially in our suffering.  ...a far different question, with a far different answer.

God doesn't offer us explanation for our pain nearly as much as he offers to be with us in it.

Words

Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.

-- Rudyard Kipling


Whether we use that drug to heal or harm lies in the power of the tongue.

-- Darlene Price

the Table

Most of the time, I eat like someone’s about to steal my plate, like I can’t be bothered to chew or taste or feel, but I’m coming to see that the table is about food, and it’s also about time. It’s about showing up in person, a whole and present person, instead of a fragmented, frantic person, phone in one hand and to-do list in the other. Put them down, both of them, twin symbols of the modern age, and pick up a knife and a fork. The table is where time stops. It’s where we look people in the eye, where we tell the truth about how hard it is, where we make space to listen to the whole story, not the textable sound bite.

-- Shauna Niequist

Love this read on the value of taking time to eat together...

Up and Down

Loss and renewal is a pattern so constant and ubiquitous that it hardly could be called a secret. Yet it is still a secret, because we do not want to see it. We did not want to embark on a further journey if it feels like going down, especially after we put so much sound and fury into going up. This is certainly the first and primary reason why so many people never get to the fullness of their own lives. The supposed achievements of the first half of life have to fall apart and show themselves to be wanting in some way, or we will not move further. Why would we?

-- Richard Rohr, Falling Upward

The Block (er, I mean...Foul!)

 

Sent to me from a Cardinal fan!

National Championship Game!

 

Deeply Rooted

Trees that grow tall have deep roots. Great height without great depth is dangerous. The great leaders of this world – like St. Francis, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. – were all people who could live with public notoriety, influence, and power in a humble way because of their deep spiritual rootedness.

Without deep roots we easily let others determine who we are. But as we cling to our popularity, we may lose our true sense of self. Our clinging to the opinion of others reveals how superficial we are. We have little to stand on. We have to be kept alive by adulation and praise. Those who are deeply rooted in the love of God can enjoy human praise without being attached to it.

-- Henri Nouwen

From:  http://wp.henrinouwen.org/daily_meditation_blog/?p=2031

Tragedy

Tragedy rightly calls faith into question, but it also affirms faith.

God has chosen to respond to our predicament not by waving a magic wand to make evil disappear, but by joining us and absorbing it in his very person.

-- Philip Yancey, National Tragedy and the Empty Tomb

The Mute Button

Another video...two in one week makes me think I need to get back to work. I did do some really good reading though, too.

Pretty funny study (using the term loosely) in human group dynamics!

Vision

The prophet does not ask if the vision can be implemented, for questions of implementation are of no consequence until the vision can be imagined.  The imagination must come before the implementation.  Our culture is competent to implement almost anything and to imagine almost nothing.  The same royal consciousness that makes it possible to implement anything and everything is the one that shrinks imagination because imagination is a danger.

-- Walter Brueggemann

Thanks, David, for passing this along...seems true in a number of domains of life.

The Familiar and The Habitual

The familiar and the habitual are so falsely reassuring, and most of us make their homes there permanently.  The new is always by definition unfamiliar and untested, so God, life, destiny. suffering have to give us a push -- usually a big one -- or we will not go. Someone has to be clear to us that homes are not meant to be lived in -- but only to be moved out from.

-- Richard Rohr, Falling Upward

Immodesty

Immodesty is a terrified attempt 'to be seen'.

-- Karla Denlinger

Modesty is Hottesty

More Than Once

You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.

-- Margaret Thatcher