Week of the Bride, Pt 3: Valley & Routine

So far, I am calling today, 'the valley'.  The brimming 'sense of anticipation' cannot be perpetually sustained and, perhaps, goodly so.  In a matter of hours (days), we will all be converted to a rush of something, if not the details themselves, the actual engulfing of the event itself.  And, that, I look forward to immensely...because 'the thing' IS happening!

But today's low spot seems rightly a more subdued day (though it's not yet over...).  A time of reflection, low-grade anticipation and building, of doing the final behind-the-scenes stuff of preparation.  Last night, opportunity for friction arose...as well as the appeal (to me) of avoidance.  I awoke this morning a bit anxious about it.  But, I stuck to the pattern of living that has served me so well in recent years and exerted myself physically, and thereby spiritually, to discover anew where my strength truly lies...in what I believe, because of Who I believe in, Who sustains me.

Here again, I risk too much about me, but I sense the moment was recognized by others in my family last night and am grateful that I chose not to use the force of self-protection, but rather a kind of patience (although, certainly, an imperfect one...given some of my internals).  The greater things are true (though it's not that the lesser things are not...), and it is those that I thankfully rediscovered this morning.  I can be something good, whether I fully and perfectly am or am perceived to be that way or not.  Others are living a dynamic as well, in their own lives, and that also actually can be deeply trusted.

The beauty of the sunrise whispered this truth to my waking mind and now the morning of these truths are again in full-bloom.  I am alive and well and goodness is on its way (like it always is).

From the valley...of the 'Week of the Bride'.

Week of the Bride, Pt 2: History & Gratitude

We watched 'home videos' last night.

Wow...how young we were.  And, to think that we (I) was entrusted with real kid's lives.... There is something powerful about history, especially in an age where the 'present' is so emphasized.  There are reasons for this, even some good ones.  But, reflection on the past can often, easily bring one back to one's knees.  We really had no ideas what we were doing, but we sure thought (hoped) we did.  We really didn't.  Perhaps, there is a grace in our naivete.

And, the video version of 'life' then doesn't capture all that was going on.  There was some real pain happening, too.  As I reflected on all of that this morning, I realized how grateful I am that God has not only preserved us, but also saved us.  Us, and our kids.  This is the real WOW.

And now we are preparing a wedding.  A wedding to celebrate a commitment to do this all again, in the form of a new family.  God's grace will again be needed.  But, God's grace will also be more than enough and will result in an equally deep sense of gratitude.

I am grateful...for the love of our God.

Week of the Bride, Pt 1: Thoughts & Emotions

In my own, small corner of the world, I am designating this as 'Week of the Bride', from a father's perspective.  My oldest daughter, Drew, gets married this coming Saturday.  Since this is the first marriage of one of my children, I think it good (for my sake, in nothing else) to capture at least some of the thoughts and emotions, particularly that I experience this week.

Thoughts: We are transfixed by both the temporal and the transcendent. Temporal -- what will the weather be like for this 'outdoor' wedding (we aren't the first to temp this fate)?  Transcendent -- what will this kind of beauty do to me?  How will it melt into and emanate from my daughter and son-in-law?  We are dealing with timeless forces here.  May a portion of God be reflected well.

Emotions:  I have had the words, but this morning the emotions, too -- that I will truly miss my daughter.  I sat a bit slumped on the stairs with my wife as tears flooded my eyes (yes, it's only Monday...).  As I hold something for my daughter, she does the same for me, too.  I will miss that, and her.  I am also over-joyed for her and this most natural of unfoldings of life.  I couldn't be happier.

Difficult and Not Tried

Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.

-- G.K. Chesterton

One has described it this way, not a populist message...(thanks for forwarding, Randy).

This is what the Lord says — your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:

“I am the Lord your God,
who teaches you what is best for you,
who directs you in the way you should go."

-- Isaiah 48:17

Hours Needed Earning Minimum Wage to Afford an Apartment

This pokes at something I've been latently pondering, regarding what money means in our society, what it means to me, and how the two are connected.  I think about this locally, when I see some of the disparity in our community housing...from the poor to the rich.  I wonder about what my own view of money indicates, as it relates to the racial tensions we're feeling nationally.  I am concerned about how all of this fits into something globally, where it really is impossible (unsustainable) for everyone to live (eat, drink, sleep, work) like I do.  

Click here...for more details.

Kind to Yourself

I hope you are kind to yourself. That you give yourself the time and space to figure things out. That’s not a license for laziness. I worked, and worked hard, in my 20s. And I wouldn’t trade the experiences I had during that time. But if there is a 22-year-old out there reading this and feeling adrift, I have this to say to you: Been there, done that. And look at me -- it all turned out better than fine, right?

For those of you with great career jobs already lined up, I have a warning: Achieving success and power will not be a function of your job, nor how hard you work at that job. Go in with that mindset and you will emerge in your 30s or 40s, exhausted and disillusioned. You are not your job. You are the sum of your thoughts, your intentions and most importantly, your actions.

-- Suze Orman

Not What's Really Important

If you’re not guided by a clear sense of purpose, you’re likely to fritter away your time and energy on obtaining the most tangible, short-term signs of achievement, not what’s really important to you.

-- Clayton M Christensen

This reminds of this reading:

But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called....

-- 1 Timothy 6:11-12

Take hold...of what's important...to you.

Saints and Sinners

The only difference between saints and sinners is that every saint has a past while every sinner (should have) a future.

-- Oscar Wilde

Uncomfortableness

The uncomfortableness we seem to be most comfortable with is our own, most likely because we are most familiar with it.  We are less comfortable with other people's uncomfortableness (unless it is a lot like ours).  It is like we, in an illogical way, love the things we hate about ourselves.

CT: Forgiving Her Sister's Murderer, Face to Face

I had built this wall that was convenient for me. I thought, ‘Because you haven’t apologized to me, that absolves me of the responsibility of reaching out to you.'

I felt my heart, hard and rigid, cracking open. I had always made a divide between Nancy’s killer and me. Him: bad murderer. Me: innocent victims’ family member. The truth was, there was no division between us before God —- we were both flawed and fallen.

It’s not okay what you did, but I am not going to hate you. I am not going to wish evil on you. I am going to wish the opposite. I am going to wish that you will be redeemed.  Continue here....

-- Jeanne Bishop

Standard Objection

One of the standard objections to the Christian message, as we saw, goes like this: how can you say the kingdom of heaven has arrived on earth, when it's obvious, looking around you, that nothing of the kind has happened? Things are still pretty bleak. Often Jesus' followers seem to be part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Jesus' own explanation of how the kingdom works is still the classic answer to this question. What did you expect: that God would send in the tanks like a totalitarian dictator, crush the opposition and set up a 'kingdom' which would leave half the world bruised and resentful? What sort of a 'god' would that be? No! God will bring in his kingdom by the same means, the same strange process, that he seems to use in the natural world. Seeds will be sown; many will apparently be lost, but others will be powerfully fruitful.  ...the kingdom has indeed been launched; yes, it is making its way in the world; but no, it isn't doing so in the way you might have imagined. It is doing so in the way God has imagined: by the Sower himself becoming the seed sown in good soil, and rising again to celebrate the harvest of God's new creation.

-- N.T. Wright, Matthew 13

Unrequited Love

Unrequited love is the love human beings experience most of the time. The very need to be fully requited may be to turn from the possibilities of love itself. Men and women have always had difficulty with the way a love returned hardly ever resembles a love given, but unrequited love may be the form that love mostly takes; for what affection is ever returned over time in the same measure or quality with which it is given? … And whom could we know so well and so intimately through all the twists and turns of a given life that we could show them exactly, the continuous and appropriate form of affection they need?

The great discipline seems to be to give up wanting to control the manner in which we are requited, and to forgo the natural disappointment that flows from expecting an exact and measured reciprocation.

We seem to have been born into a world where love, except for brilliant, exceptional moments, seems to exist from one side only, ours — and that may be the difficulty and the revelation and the gift — to see love as the ultimate letting go and through the doorway of that affection, make the most difficult sacrifice of all, giving away the very thing we want to hold forever.

-- David Whyte, Consolations

Love and reciprocation do not seem to be bed-fellows.  Though, at the beginning this can be at the very least disappointing, there is great wisdom and redemption in this discovery.

Others Expected Of Me

I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

-- Bonnie Ware

Consider both ways we can feel this.  On the one hand, we can feel this from people like parents or organizations (churches), institutions (schools)...things corporate (businesses), etc.  On the other, though, we can also feel this heavily from society itself, to conform to its own ideas...things like acceptance, sports, the 'Jones' effect, sexuality, rebellion, etc.

It is hard to be true to oneself, especially when we largely are still trying to learn / understand what that is, who we even are.  It takes courage.

You Think You Know

You have to be careful what you think you know.

-- Simon Sinek

We make assumptions about people and this leads us to conclusions about them...conclusions that often are not helpful to our relationships with them.

We also make conclusions about ourselves, almost as if we are imagining that there just isn't that much more to know, when we focus only the patterns we are currently familiar with.  And these, in turn, reinforce our assumptions about what is going in others.

And, we make conclusions about God, discussion for another day....

We simply must have the courage to wonder about who we are (even doubt, at times); not only will we discover that our conclusions are premature, but we will also discover that our relationships will grow.

Sisters: Doubt and Wonder

Doubt is Wonder's skeptical sister.

...and Lord knows in a world of fallen wonder, we need some healthy skepticism.

Crucible of Doubt

Doubt leads me to a crucible, that can refine me.

Must Be Won

The mind can be convinced, but the heart must be won.

-- Simon Sinek

Presumptuous

Let me tell you this: Faith comes and goes. But if it is presumptuous to think that faith will stay forever, it is just as presumptuous to think that unbelief will.

-- Flannery O’Connor

We Go, We Come

We go, we come.
We pass
in and out
with doubt,
until we see
Something more
than just me.
Free,
to be
without
the need
we so often feel
for others
to see
what we already are,
as we
come
and go.

...inspired by the writings of Gynnae Hochstetler.

Hurry Sickness

Hurry Sickness:  Our computers, our movies, our sex lives, our prayers — they all run faster now than ever before. And the more we fill our lives with time-saving devices and time-saving strategies, the more rushed we feel.

-- James Gleick, Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything

This just doesn't feel true, it IS true.  I, for one, am likely a bit 'sick' in this regard.  I have to choose space and choose slow, as it doesn't often choose me (although I fear I may have missed its 'selection' of me recently, during my post-knee-surgery season).  In other words, I have to build it in.  If I don't, I start to feel a kind of nauseousness in spirit.

I awoke this morning feeling the effects of this illness.  I need to go to do something...slowly.

Maps To Your Intentions

Own your words.  Your words are maps to your intentions.

-- Chris Brogan

Meddling

The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.

-- Theodore Roosevelt

Something Proportional

While the whole world is not a function of cause-and-effect, we tend to get out of things something proportional to what we put into them.

At another level, we don't get nearly what (bad) we do deserve (bad) and much more of what we don't deserve (good).

But apathy and passivity are not excused by these things.  We so seem to grow mostly by how we engage with life.

Not Quite Enough Time

To achieve great things, you need a plan and not quite enough time.

-- Leonard Bernstein

A New Perspective For Moms

A good mother often seems to question herself (a kind of humility)...it is a gift to know that this translates to a goodness children just innately know from their moms.  Moms are not perfect; aren't meant to be either.  They are meant to be real.  What more can prepare a child to live in this world?

I am grateful for what my mother did for me and for the mother to my kids -- such an instinctual beauty!

There is a joy in giving. Perhaps this is why there is also a thing called 'mothers joy', because mothers have such a unique opportunity and capacity to give, not necessarily because of the joy they will receive, but because they invariably receive it, at one point or another, in one way or another. Can there be a greater joy, then to birth and nurture life in others? Yes, the joy can become unrequited, but nonetheless, the giving continues and the result is still realized, as depicted, at least in part, in this video.

Remains In Sight

The dynamic of friendship is almost always underestimated as a constant force in human life: a diminishing circle of friends is the first terrible diagnostic of a life in deep trouble: of overwork, of too much emphasis on a professional identity, of forgetting who will be there when our armored personalities run into the inevitable natural disasters and vulnerabilities found in even the most average existence.

Friendship is a mirror to presence and a testament to forgiveness. Friendship not only helps us see ourselves through another’s eyes, but can be sustained over the years only with someone who has repeatedly forgiven us for our trespasses as we must find it in ourselves to forgive them in turn. A friend knows our difficulties and shadows and remains in sight, a companion to our vulnerabilities more than our triumphs, when we are under the strange illusion we do not need them. An undercurrent of real friendship is a blessing exactly because its elemental form is rediscovered again and again through understanding and mercy. All friendships of any length are based on a continued, mutual forgiveness.

-- David Whyte, Consolations

As I mentioned a couple days ago, I am interested these days in the role of friendship in our lives...and, in particular, the concern that it may have become something less than it used to be. Among the many good thoughts above, this line line stood out to me:

A friend knows our difficulties and shadows and remains in sight, a companion to our vulnerabilities more than our triumphs, when we are under the strange illusion we do not need them.

We need to remain in sight of each other; we are built to be so.

Hearts Of Men

I received a link to this movie trailer from William Young (The Shack). He, Bill Thrall and Bruce McNicol (The Cure), and Dan Allender are in it.  It is interesting to see how our views of God are being shaped these days...knowing that they have been 'shaped' in every other 'days' (times) as well.

Being Pulled

If you hang around with people who behave worse than you, pretty soon you’ll start being pulled in that direction.

It’s very important always to live your life by an inner scorecard, not an outer scorecard.

-- Warran Buffett

Friendship and The Better Part

In the course of the years a close friendship will always reveal the shadow in the other as much as ourselves, to remain friends we must know the other and their difficulties and even their sins and encourage the best in them, not through critique but through addressing the better part of them, the leading creative edge of their incarnation, thus subtly discouraging what makes them smaller, less generous, less of themselves.

-- David Whyte, Consolations

A rather beautiful description, it seems to me, of the higher good of friendship.  Friendship seems to have lost its favor these days, to both our chagrin and, perhaps, demise.  It is well worth resurrecting some healthy contemplation / discussion about it.

Stand Together

Many things which cannot be overcome when they stand together yield themselves up when taken little by little.

-- Sertorius

Oxygen To The Soul

We should seize every opportunity to give encouragement. Encouragement is oxygen to the soul.

-- George M. Adams

Inescapable Egotism

Even the innocent, even those in whom Christ lives by charity, even those who want with their whole heart to love one another, remain divided and separate. Although they are already one in Him, their union is hidden from them, because it still only possesses the secret substance of their souls.

But their minds and their judgments and their desires, their human characters and faculties, their appetites and their ideals are all imprisoned in the slag of an inescapable egotism which pure love has not yet been able to refine.

As long as we are on earth, the love that unites us will bring us suffering by our very contact with one another, because this love is the resetting of a Body of broken bones. Even saints cannot live with saints on this earth without some anguish, without some pain at the differences that come between them.

-- Thomas Merton

Lily

How To Stop A Bullet

The best way to stop a bullet is a job.

-- Van Jones

...click here to learn more.

Always Right

The time is always right to do what is right.

-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

...seems especially appropriate right now, given the status of unrest in places like Baltimore.

But, the right thing does require some deeper consideration.  For example, there is something right that is needed in this moment...from the community, its citizens, its leadership, its police.  However, this isn't happening in a vacuum, so there is something right that needed to be considered before now, too.  What are the more significant contributing factors, that create the context for the situations we are now facing?

I heard a comment as a segment of a radio program was ending.  It went something like this: police cannot control society by themselves.  Society and police need to work together to control society.

It is time....

Breaking Things Down A Bit

There are many issues tangled up in the on-going discussion / debates about homosexuality and marriage.  We see the fabric of things, but also have to acknowledge that there are many threads to it.  Each thread is both significant and insignificant, at the same time.  But, nonetheless, we have a fabric.   Here are some of the threads, it seems to me:

• What is marriage?
• Who defines it...society, government, religion?
• How are 'rights' involved, from a civic perspective?
• Where has governance, based on definitions / assumptions on the first question(s), created the problems we see now in the last question (ex, if the societal rights / benefits target a narrow definition of marriage than society now wants, where does that leave us...morality aside?)
• What about sexuality?  Our perspectives on this have influenced our assumptions / definitions of marriage (as an institution...and, likely, otherwise).
• How dynamic is our sexuality (is it only hard-coded or are there other factors involved, too?)?
• How do we determine what we believe about what is constant and what isn't...from a religious, cultural, or societal perspective?

Click here for one summary of the Supreme Court discussion yesterday....

I get the feeling there are too many threads, than any one of us can keep good track of.  Life is both science and mystery.  Is the more significant / helpful question something like, how do we live (what is our disposition?) with things we don't fully (or even largely) understand?  What are we afraid of?  What do we turn to, in an effort to calm our fears?  

Why I Haven't Spoken Out on Gay Marriage--till Now

We can’t control our passions (our desires), but we do control our actions. Today we think of sexual desires as mandating behavior; we assume these desires must be obeyed. But for most of history people have thought that this desire should be directed and controlled. It’s not the case that heterosexuals can have unlimited sex, but gays aren’t allowed. Not every straight person gets married. Not everyone’s marriage works out. Some spouses become sick in mind or body, and sex is no longer a possibility. The celibate path, down through history, is much more crowded with straights than gays, simply because of their numbers in the general population. Advertising pushes sex at us so relentlessly that it’s hard to believe, but you actually can live without it.

Bob Dylan, of all people, put it forcefully in his March 2015 interview in AARP Magazine. He was talking about his new album of classic American love songs, and the interviewer asked if young listeners would find them “corny.” He said, “These songs are songs of great virtue. That’s what they are. People’s lives today are filled with vice and the trappings of it. … We don’t see the people that vice destroys. We just see the glamor of it.” We see the beautiful and enviable young people partying; we don’t see the 50 or 60 or 70-year-old whom no one wants anymore.

By the same token, the disintegration of community is hard on people who want to live by the old morality. These days, living without a romantic partner appears to be the same thing as living without love. But life without sex didn’t always mean life without love, for love used to come from many other sources. Families were less nuclear; leftover cousins and widows still had a place. Even if you didn’t have a romantic partner, you still had friends and family who felt you had a real claim on their help and love. Communities were closer. Neighbors kept an eye on each other. (That last was an early casualty of the sexual revolution, for we started to think neighbors should keep their eyes to themselves.)

Same-sex, non-sexual love is unlike romantic love in that it, obviously, doesn’t include a sexual component, but it can be every bit as strong. It is to our loss that the concept of nonsexual friendship love has largely vanished. Those bonds between men and men, and between women and women, run strong and deep, and are foundational to society. Under the traditional morality, it was never expected that people would live without love, or live all alone. Today, loneliness is epidemic. 

-- Frederica Mathewes-Green

A lot to consider; I would recommend reading the full post here...especially in light today's Supreme Court case(s).

Sexuality: Total Selves

We need to realize that sexuality involves our total selves – mind, body, emotions, and spirit. God created us that way, and sexuality is a powerful force in our lives for good or for evil.

--  Cecil Murphey, Not Quite Healed

CT: Our Bodies Were Made for You

It’s not easy to live as embodied creatures today (to say nothing of previous eras). All too often, human bodies are treated (by others, and even ourselves) as commodities or instruments of sexual satisfaction. They are bought and sold, mutilated by others, and hit with self-inflicted harms. Yet Moll reminds us how high a privilege it is to dwell in flesh. “Our bodies, the Bible says, are the temples of God—the place where God lives.”

The spiritual life can seem like an endless, futile attempt to overcome the very fact that we have bodies. But Moll is deeply reassuring. He encourages us to recognize, celebrate, and strengthen the body–soul connections that are part of God’s good design. Pain breaks us open, allowing us to become kinder and more generous toward others who suffer and preparing us to recognize God’s suffering in the person of Christ.

We can choose to discipline our lives, both body and spirit, with worship, prayer, and service. These practices put our bodies and souls on the same page, supplying “the routines necessary to train our bodies, and thus our minds as well, to follow after Jesus.”

In societies influenced by the artificial mind–body divide, spiritual pursuits might enliven the heart while seeming to leave the body untouched. The best the body can do, from this perspective, is to avoid sin. Its only job is to not interfere with the soul’s progression toward heaven. What Your Body Knows About God is just the right antidote to this platonic way of thinking.

“Spirit and flesh, it turns out, are intimately intertwined,” writes Moll. “And understanding how things work—how our bodies are designed to commune with God—can enhance our faith and give us a fuller picture of God’s work in the world and in our lives. As we connect with God and invite others to join this life of prayer, worship, community, and service,” writes Moll, “we align our biological and spiritual selves with the Creator of the universe and the most fundamental guide for life—loving God and loving others.”  Continue here....

-- Jenell Williams Paris, a review of Rob Moll's book, What Your Body Knows About God

B&W

I have often wondered what makes black & white photographs so compelling.  I'm not claiming to have figured it out, but I think B&W appeals more to our sense of imagination, than color does.  Color answers what we wonder about in B&W photographs; it removes the mystery of what it might really be.  B & W is real, but something has been removed...obviously, the color.  And this leaves us open a bit, to wonder more...about something.

Take, for example, the two photos above; which is more compelling to look at?  Perhaps the subtleties of photographic content bears the answer, but I wonder about the simple, intangible effects of B&W.  Somehow (that professionals could likely easily explain), there is something that draws you more in the B&W photo.

Or, these samples...from here:

Self-Coaching

I have become more interested in self-coaching lately.  There are things that I want to do and things I don't want to do.  I need to hear myself repeat these things...to coach myself accordingly.

Perhaps this feels helpful as a way of lifting certain things more into my focus...in a world where more and more information competes for my attention.

Where He Can't

All coaching is, is taking a player where he can’t take himself.

-- Bill McCartney

Reserves

You are usually judged by the team on the way you treat your reserves.

-- Lee Corso

Initiate

Is there a greater muscle to develop than the one it takes to learn to initiate?  

If there is, it may be the one required to learn to wait.  But, learning to initiate is crucial for our growth.

More Real

The more you engage with life, the more real it will become to you and the more real you will become.

To underscore the point, a counter-thought brings it into focus: the less engaged you are with life, the less real you will be.

Atheism

Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that is has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark.

-- C.S. Lewis

Moral and Spiritual Value

I propose to create a Civilian Conservation Corps to be used in simple work...More important, however, than the material gains will be the moral and spiritual value of such work.

-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

In less than 10 years, the Civilian Conservation Corps built more than 800 parks and planted nearly 3 billion trees nationwide. I, for one, am grateful for spaces like these...and the values they both represent and transfer.  More here....

UN-

We have to go through periods of UN.

Periods of  UN-clarity, UN-feeling-great, UN-clear, UN-able, UN-sure, etc. provide us with opportunity to understand that something is still going on, even when we don't have data to confirm that it is. As we get older and deplete our ability to 'make things happen', we have to increasingly believe this to be true (although, the sooner we learn this, the better...because if affects how we treat others).  We can only really believe this, though, through the experience of it...through the personal experience of UN- in our lives.

UN- is necessary.  Important even.

Real Thing

So it's searchable:

Character is like a tree
and reputation is like a shadow.
The shadow is what we think of it;
the tree is the real thing.

-- Abraham Lincoln

Pain and Disruption

We need pain and disruption.

We really do. They re-orient our perspectives.

Blocked

Perhaps what is needed most, when you can't get to where you're trying to go, is to stay where you are.

Maybe someone where you are needs you...to be present with them, rather than have you hurry on to your destination.  If you're blocked, stay a while.  Look around, and see who may be near you.

Poverty of Attention

Time starvation is both a function of how we perceive it and also founded in reality. People on average take in 5 times more information today than they did 15 or 20 years ago. And it takes time to absorb all this information. There was an observation made that information consumes attention. So, a wealth of information means a poverty of attention. That’s just the fact of life today.

That’s why I feel it’s so important for everyone—whether you’re a leader or not—to be strong about the boundaries of your attention. Do not become seduced by the wealth of information around you; get done now what you need to get done, and only pay attention to what’s relevant to that.  Continue...

-- Daniel Goleman

Lack of Faith

And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.

-- Matthew 13:58

When is this happening to me?

Does Sexual Orientation Equal Identity?

The Plight of Poor Phineas

A most remarkable story:

Phineas had earned his reputation as “the most efficient and capable foreman” in the company. The discipline and passion he brought to the site ensured projects were completed on time, and the social niceties he espoused made him a favorite with the men he supervised. A “shrewd, smart business man,” he walked his talk, avoided the alluring depravity of the local saloon, and got along famously with everyone he met.

The assistant failed to place sand in the hole and the scrape of Phineas’ iron against the rock perimeter of the crevice created a spark big enough to ignite the unprotected powder at the bottom. The raw force of the explosion launched Phineas’ tamping iron like a rocket. It pierced his face below his left eye and continued upward through the top of his head and beyond. The iron finally settled in the weeds 100 feet from the spot where Phineas stood.

Phineas’ loyal crew rushed to his side and looked into his eyes for any sign of life. They laughed anxiously as Phineas peered up at them and groaned, “I think I’m going to need to see Dr. Harlow.” His sense of humor still intact, Phineas’ men loaded him into an ox cart to take him to town.

"The effect of the injury appears to have been the destruction of the equilibrium between his intellectual faculties and the animal propensities. He was now capricious, fitful, irreverent, impatient of restraint, vacillating…His physical recovery was complete, but those who knew him as a shrewd, smart, energetic, persistent business man, recognized the change in mental character. The balance of his mind was gone."  Continue here....

-- Travis Bradberry

Scorn

Why is it from the church, that people seem to feel the most scorn?

Or, is the church, just a another place from which they feel it?

Ignoring

Ignoring is not the path to redeeming.

-- Wesley Hill by way of 'Jenna', Washed and Waiting

Sum Of The Five

They say that we are the sum of the five people we spend the most time with. I think that’s absolutely true. And that fact makes me all the more committed to friendship, to life together, to becoming the woman I want to be because these guides are showing me the way. The birthday girl, eight years younger than me, was a guide to me that morning. I want to be honest, passionate, and unwilling to begin another decade tangled up in anxiety and fear. The other faces around the table are guides to me: teaching me how to pray, how to forgive myself, how to practice Sabbath and dwell deeply with God through prayer.  Continue....

-- Shauna Niequist

The Fam - Easter '15

One of the joys of Easter!

Easter: Day of Days!

Easter is a day to put everything upside down and inside out.

...once more, they are told not to be afraid (v 5). What is there to be afraid of, if Easter has dealt with the greatest monster of all, death itself? Why should you be afraid of anything, if Jesus has been raised from the dead, if the old world has cracked open and a new world has been born?

Easter always looks outwards. From the very start, the news that Jesus is risen contains a command: 'Go!' Go, first to Galilee; go back to where it began, back to your roots to meet the risen Jesus there and watch him transform everything, including your oldest memories. And, as you obey the command of the angel, Jesus himself may perhaps meet you in person (v 9). Take hold of him. Worship him. This is his day, the Day of Days. Make it yours, too.

-- N.T. Wright, Matthew 28

We are being forever invited to something much more than the temptation surrounding us now...because HE IS ALIVE afterall!

Holy Saturday

Christians need to observe a Holy Saturday moment. On Holy Saturday, there is nothing you can do except wait.

We aren't sure why we've got to this place, why things aren't going as we wanted or planned, and the life seems to have drained out of it all. That's a Holy Saturday moment. Do what has to be done, and wait for God to act in his own way and his own time.

-- N.T. Wright

Good Friday

Overwhelmed with horror at what we are seeing, we join the crowds as they hurry along behind the soldiers with their prisoner. Forget the calm tableau of so many historic paintings of the scene, with Mary and John standing at a discreet distance from the foot of Jesus' cross. In the Middle East, then as now, there were always more people in the crowd than would fit into the small streets, always people pushing and shoving. The soldiers might keep people at arm's length, but not much more. There were probably fifty people within ten feet of Jesus, jostling, shouting, jeering, pointing, spitting. Some weeping.

You could tell the story a thousand different ways, and they'd all be true. Jesus' followers quickly came to tell it in such a way as to bring out what Jesus himself had been trying to say all along, and what Matthew has been trying to tell us through- out his gospel: this is the event through which Jesus became king. King of the Jews. King of the world.

To see how Matthew has done this, you have to imagine yourself, in that crowd, as someone who has prayed and sung the Psalms all your life. The Psalms turn the hard lumps of Israel's story and hopes into liquid poetry, flowing along like a great river, carrying you with it. And as you stand at the foot of the cross, you have a nightmarish sequence of flashbacks, of déjà vu moments, watching Israel's hopes and dreams come to life, or rather to death, in front of your eyes. Bits and pieces of the Psalms, acted out right there. Jesus is offered sour wine to drink. They cast lots for his clothes. They hail him as 'king of the Jews'. They mock him with his own words. And, after three hours of darkness, Jesus screams out the words that begin the Psalm (22) where some of those things happen: 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' The fulfilment has come, and it is a moment of utter terror and hopelessness. It is as though the sun were to rise one day and it would be a black sun, bringing a darkness deeper than the night itself.

As you stand there in this strange, powerful mixture of recognition and horror, bring bit by bit into the picture the stories on which you have lived. Bring the hopes you had when you were young. Bring the bright vision of family life, of success in sport or work or art, the dreams of exciting adventures in far-off places. Bring the joy of seeing a new baby, full of promise and possibility. Bring the longings of your heart. They are all fulfilled here, though not in the way you imagined. This is the way God fulfilled the dreams of his people. This is how the coming king would overcome all his enemies.

Or bring the fears and sorrows you had when you were young. The terror of violence, perhaps at home. The shame of failure at school, of rejection by friends. The nasty comments that hurt you then and hurt you still. The terrible moment when you realized a wonderful relationship had come to an end. The sudden, meaningless death of someone you loved very much. They are all fulfilled here, too. God has taken them upon himself, in the person of his Son. This is the earthquake moment, the darkness-at-noon moment, the moment of terror and sudden faith, as even the hard-boiled Roman soldier blurts out at the end. (Don't forget that 'Son of God' was a regular title claimed by Caesar, his boss.)

But then bring the hopes and sorrows of the world. Bring the millions who are homeless because of flood or famine. Bring the children orphaned by AIDS or war. Bring the politicians who begin by longing for justice and end up hoping for bribes. Bring the beautiful and fragile earth on which we live. Think of God's dreams for his creation, and God's sorrow at its ruin.

As we stand there by the cross, let the shouting and pushing and the angry faces fade away for a moment, and look at the slumped head of Jesus. The hopes and fears of all the years are met in him, here on the cross. God chose Israel to be his way of rescuing the world. God sent Jesus to be his way of rescuing Israel. Jesus went to the cross to fulfil that double mission. His cross, planted in the middle of the jostling, uncomprehending, mocking world of his day and ours, stands as the symbol of a victory unlike any other. A love unlike any other. A God unlike any other.

-- N.T. Wright, on Matthew 27:33-56

Challenge

Can anyone grow, without challenge?

Exercise Makes You Smarter

"Exercise," she writes in this New York Times article, "...does more to bolster thinking than thinking does."

-- Gretchen Reynolds, The First 20 Minutes

Speak Today

The point isn't so much that something new has to be said; I' m not so sure there is that much that is really all that new (as the saying goes, "the more things change, the more they stay the same"). The point is, that it is being said, that it needs to be said...that someone in this time and place is saying it.  Speak today...with your life.  ...use words, if you have to.

Human

Great leaders don't see themselves as great; they see themselves as human.

-- Simon Sinek

CT: Lent -- An Emptying For Others

This is the wonderful exchange which, out of his measureless benevolence, he has made with us, that, by his descent to earth, he has prepared an ascent to heaven for us; that, by taking on our mortality, he has conferred his immortality upon us; that, accepting our weakness, he has strengthened us by his power; that, receiving our poverty unto himself, he has transferred his wealth to us; that, taking the weight of our iniquity upon himself (which oppressed us), he has clothed us with his righteousness.

-- John Calvin

That’s good news! Christ’s whole life was lived on behalf of others, a continuous pursuit of others’ wellbeing. And Christ’s fast in the wilderness is a crucial example of that reality. So if we want to imitate his life and his fast to the degree we can, then we should consider fasting on behalf of others—that is, for their benefit and blessing. This is exactly the type of fast Isaiah talks about:

Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? 

-- Isaiah 58:6–7

Lent is not just about personal holiness. Nor is it about pursuing simplicity of life for its own sake. Lent also has a remarkable social dimension. As pastor and columnist Chuck B. Colson said, “Lent gives us the opportunity to move towards our neighbor in charity” because it “emphasizes simplicity for the sake of others.” It’s fine and good to give up sweets, alcohol, TV, or whatever you might abstain from. But what if our abstinence reflected our care for others more than our care for ourselves? What if, as Colson suggests, we allocated the savings from our fasting and gave them to the poor and marginalized?

-- Kevin P. Emmert

Hatred and the Holocaust

I heard a fascinating program on the radio this week on hatred and the Holocaust (click here to listen to the program...a segment about a 'skinhead' is particularly good).  Here are some initial comments from the program, which is really worth listening to:

The Holocaust  was not a tsunami, it was a man-made event.

It is far more comforting to imagine it an aberration, something separate from humanity.  What we must avoid, is to look at the Holocaust as some kind of supernatural event, in which we don't have to see it in the human terms of the people who committed it...to capture the horror of what all this means.

Once we treat the perpetrators as human beings, we are faced with the uncomfortable awareness -- are these people fundamentally different than I am?  What would I have done?

-- Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men

Doubt & Certainty

Doubt is an unsettling condition, but certainty is a ridiculous one.

-- Voltaire

I asked a young lady who she thinks she would rather be around, a 'doubtful' person or a 'certain' person. She said 'doubtful'. I asked her why. She said a doubtful person would probably understand her more.

Collectors

To varying degrees, there may be something within all of us that desires to collect things.  These can certainly be physical things, but they also can to inanimate things.  For example, in addition to collecting things we like, do we also 'collect' our fears?  Whatever it is that we collect, I wonder if the component they have in common has to do with control.  Good and bad things could apply here.

Either way, wouldn't the value of what we collect actually be in our opportunity to give them away?  After all, what good does it do to hold on to things, only for ourselves?

I can give away the goodness I have received, so that others can share in that wealth.  I can also give away my fears, rather than hoard them (as if that helped), not only for my sake, but also for the sake of someone else...who may become more able to let go of theirs.

Whatever we collect, collect to give away.

Holding On

Holding on is easier than letting go.

...depending on what we are holding on to.

Greatest Asset

The greatest asset in any negotiation is patience.

-- Simon Sinek

So, what creates patience? Perhaps more to the point, what creates impatience?

No Computers!

The moment of truth for me came in the spring 2013 semester. I looked out at my visual-communication class and saw a group of six students transfixed by the blue glow of a video on one of their computers, and decided I was done allowing laptops in my large lecture class. "Done" might be putting it mildly. Although I am an engaging lecturer, I could not compete with Facebook and YouTube, and I was tired of trying.

The next semester I told students they would have to take notes on paper. Period.

A study published last year in Psychological Science showed that students who write out notes longhand remember conceptual information better than those who take notes on a computer. "Whereas taking more notes can be beneficial," the article’s abstract reported, "laptop note takers’ tendency to transcribe lectures verbatim rather than processing information and reframing it in their own words is detrimental to learning."  Continue....

-- Carol E. Holstead

Awake

Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones. And when you have finished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.

-- Victor Hugo

Something We Do Without Thinking

Mens natures are alike; it is their habits that separate them.

-- Confucius

A habit is something we do without thinking. Anyone who’s learned to drive a car gets the impact of habit. You don’t have to stop and think about putting the car in gear after you put the key in the ignition. It’s a mindless action. “Habits are the invisible architecture of everyday life, and a significant element of happiness,” says Gretchen Rubin.

A Duke researcher suggested in 2006 that more than 40 percent of our daily actions are performed by habit. When researchers at MIT began exploring the notion of habit in the early 1990s, they found that repeating an action makes it automatic and increases our skill — even as mental activity decreases. Our brains aren’t keen on expending energy. It’s the underlying reason we so often fail at resolutions no matter what time of year we make them. When something takes effort, eventually our motivation wanes and we stop doing it. But our brains excel at turning routines, no matter how complex and effortful (driving a car, for instance), into habits that are effortless.

Developing a habit involves three distinct elements: a cue, a routine and a reward. The cue tells your brain to shift to autopilot. See a stop sign and you automatically step on the brake. No thinking required. The routine is the set of actions or patterns of thinking that are set in motion by the cue. When you see a stop sign, you take your right foot off the gas pedal, shift it to the left and gently depress the brake pedal. The reward is any immediate response that tells your brain you just did a good thing that’s worth repeating. Anything that triggers the reward circuit upstairs reinforces to the brain that you want to repeat the action. We need the reward only while the habit is forming. In driver’s ed, you probably got praised for making a smooth stop. Once a smooth stop became habitual, you no longer needed the reinforcement.

In the beginning, creating a habit will feel like work — perhaps a lot of work. But once ingrained, the habit will require virtually no effort for the rest of your life. Unwanted and outdated habits don’t ever really go away. But they do go dormant when unused, just as a footpath grows over when it’s unused. You can wire new habits over the old ones. Habits are made up of a sequence of events in your brain — thoughts that follow a familiar pathway. Wiring over an old habit is like putting up a detour sign at the point where the cue occurs. You get in the elevator at work and automatically press 3. When you get promoted and move to the sixth floor, you still press 3. So you put up a mental detour sign and send your brain on a different route — you have to think about it a few times before you automatically begin pressing 6. But use a new mental pathway often enough and fairly quickly, it becomes your brain’s default. That’s the beauty of habit. It lets us stop thinking about it.

-- Molly Rose Teuke

How We Lose Our Way

Because we do not rest we lose our way…poisoned by the hypnotic belief that good things come only through unceasing determination and tireless effort, we can never truly rest. And for want of rest our lives are in danger.

-- Wayne Muller

Norms

Roughly 10 percent of the children born to college grads grow up in single-parent households. Nearly 70 percent of children born to high school grads do. In the 1960s or 1970s, college-educated and noncollege-educated families behaved roughly the same. But since then, behavior patterns have ever more sharply diverged. High-school-educated parents dine with their children less than college-educated parents, read to them less, talk to them less, take them to church less, encourage them less and spend less time engaging in developmental activity.

It’s increasingly clear that sympathy is not enough. It’s not only money and better policy that are missing in these circles; it’s norms. The health of society is primarily determined by the habits and virtues of its citizens. In many parts of America there are no minimally agreed upon standards for what it means to be a father. There are no basic codes and rules woven into daily life, which people can absorb unconsciously and follow automatically.  Continue...

-- David Brooks

Serving

Let everyone understand that the real love of God does not consist in tear-shedding...but in serving God by serving those around us, in justice, fortitude of soul, and humility.

-- St. Teresa of Avila

Not Consolation

Love is not consolation, it is light.

-- Simone Weil

Become Human

Our society will really become human as we discover that the strong need the weak, just as the weak need the strong.

-- Jean Vanier

$1.7 Million Templeton Prize Awarded to L’Arche Disability Ministry Founder, Jean Vanier

Can Do Nothing

The Christian life is what you do when you realize that you can do nothing.

-- Dallas Willard

And God is faithful to reveal this to us.

EIEIO!

Somebodies

It seems we all are trying to be somebodies.

...what would happen, if we recognized our commitment to this and acknowledged that we mostly aren't?

Our Children Don’t Think There Are Moral Facts

Our schools do amazing things with our children. And they are, in a way, teaching moral standards when they ask students to treat one another humanely and to do their schoolwork with academic integrity. But at the same time, the curriculum sets our children up for doublethink. They are told that there are no moral facts in one breath even as the next tells them how they ought to behave.

We can do better. Our children deserve a consistent intellectual foundation. Facts are things that are true. Opinions are things we believe. Some of our beliefs are true. Others are not. Some of our beliefs are backed by evidence. Others are not. Value claims are like any other claims: either true or false, evidenced or not. The hard work lies not in recognizing that at least some moral claims are true but in carefully thinking through our evidence for which of the many competing moral claims is correct. That’s a hard thing to do. But we can’t sidestep the responsibilities that come with being human just because it’s hard.

That would be wrong.  Continue here...it's worth it.

-- Justin McBrayer

Interior Stability

To listen is very hard, because it asks of us so much interior stability that we no longer need to prove ourselves by speeches, arguments, statements, or declarations. True listeners no longer have an inner need to make their presence known. They are free to receive, to welcome, to accept.

Listening is much more than allowing another to talk while waiting for a chance to respond. Listening is paying full attention to others and welcoming them into our very beings. The beauty of listening is that, those who are listened to start feeling accepted, start taking their words more seriously and discovering their own true selves. Listening is a form of spiritual hospitality by which you invite strangers to become friends, to get to know their inner selves more fully, and even to dare to be silent with you.

-- Henri Nouwen

Thanks, Veisa, for sharing this with me.

Both

We are both -- already and not yet.

If I Would

I will only hire someone to work directly for me if I would work for that person.

-- Mark Zuckerberg

Greatly Reduce

In my experience, it is those with the least who are most desperate for God. In fact, having everything one needs can greatly reduce one’s constant dependence on God. I’m rarely tempted to abandon God in loss; I’m most often tempted to abandon God when I’ve everything I want in life.  Continued....

-- A.J. Swoboda

Stop Yelling

It seems increasingly true as a culture that we believe the only way we can be heard anymore is to yell.

The media is either creating some of this or, at the very least, fostering it.  I can hardly pass by a screen anymore where there isn't someone yelling at someone else about their rights.  This will take us to a logically undesirable end.

We must learn to talk again.  To talk to each other, to talk with each other...especially with people who aren't 'just like us'.  And, good talking requires listening...something very hard to do when you're yelling.

I was reminded last night at a local Oratorically Society presentation that there are other ways to effectively communicate, where talking and listening are both honored, simultaneously.  Voice and thought can still co-exist, if not harmoniously, then effectively.

We need to stop yelling, in order to be heard.  To re-learn how to just talk...and listen.

When We're Most Like Ourselves

"We're most like ourselves when we're laughing," said the doctor, "it's very easy to kids as the condition they have, instead of the person they are".  Interesting how laughter and healing are connected.  Worth watching this short video....

Didn't Have Words For

The piano became a safe place for me as a child to figure out stuff that I didn’t have words for.

-- Linford Detweiler

There are things we do, not just because we do them, but because they help us orient ourselves to things we otherwise don't know how to relate to or understand.  For there to be a place or a thing that can make us feel safe enough to do this kind of thing is truly a gift.  Perhaps it is out of such gifts that we become capable of giving to others.

...this certainly seems to be the case for Linford.

Present Circumstances

Your present circumstances don't determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start.

-- Nido Qubein

That We Start

It doesn't matter when we start, it doesn't matter where we start, all that matters is that we start.

-- Simon Sinek

Journey Without Maps

Faith is not being sure where you’re going, but going anyway. A journey without maps.

-- Frederick Buechner

CT: 5 Damaging Messages about God’s Presence

We need to be more honest about our spiritual experiences.  

The vast majority of people are not like Mollie. God’s tangibility, his “felt presence,” seems elusive to them.

The dissonance between our “unspoken theology” and our “declared creed” is the playground of spiritual disconnect and pain.

There was generation after generation that experienced God as silent.  Continue...

-- Tony Kriz