Be Yourself

Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.

-- Oscar Wilde

Things We Desire

The key to success is to focus our conscious mind on things we desire not things we fear.

-- Brian Tracy

One might debate what 'success' means (which isn't offered here). But, the main point, it seems to me, is that it is what we focus on that is important. Reminds me of Philippians 4:8.

To Love At All

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket -- safe, dark, motionless, airless -- it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.

-- C.S. Lewis

Thanks, Randy, for sharing this.

Does God Answer Prayer?

I believe more firmly than ever that He does (answer prayer).  He just doesn't confine His answers to the ways we envision, nor to the precise moments we demand.  ...not to mention that many of our prayers are rather preoccupied by self.

I prayed recently for the opportunity to love someone the way God would. I didn't expect the opportunity He provided...in His answer.

God is always thinking beyond what we pray for...He wants to answer in bigger ways than we tend to imagine.

Shielded

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.

-- 1 Peter 1:3-5

Dead or Dormant?

What is the difference between being dormant and being dead?

Seeing trees this time of year has reminded me that being able to tell the difference is not very easy, at least when looking from the outside. A dormant tree looks an awful lot like a dead tree...in the winter. Generally, the view from the outside may not give you the answer to whether something is dead or not. It will either take a view from the inside (which is a bit hard to do from a tree) or a waiting until another time of the year...like spring.

You can't always tell the state of something, by looking only at the outside of it. You have to allow for the possibility of other factors, like the season.

This seems possible when it comes to people as well. Not unlike water when it's not moving, knowing what is or is not happening for someone may not be fully knowable by simple observation from the outside. Things may look quite dormant, and for a long period of time, but that doesn't mean there is no life there.

So as we struggle with this reality in someone else, or even in ourselves, it is helpful to know that sometimes life is seasonal, including the signs of it. It takes a kind of faith to believe that something is there, even when it doesn't necessarily look like it.

This time of year, I essentially have to trust that the trees in my yard are still alive. I have to believe that this will be more evident when Spring arrives and they again do 'their thing'. So it is with people, a deeper confidence (faith) is helpful when they don't manifest all the signs of life. I have to believe in a Spring that is yet to arrive.

After all, being dormant may be just as necessary in our lives as it is for trees.

Life to Live Over

If I had my life to live over, I would perhaps have more actual troubles but I'd have fewer imaginary ones.

-- Don Herold

Thanks David!

Umpires

Most of us are umpires at heart; we like to call balls and strikes on somebody else.

-- Leo Aikman

Quality of Mercy

When I decide to help someone -- personally, professionally, wherever -- it’s easy to think about what I want to do, even if I'm willing to do a lot. It’s a lot harder, and a lot more important, to think about what that person needs and can accept.

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Mystery of Grace

I do not at all understand the mystery of grace--only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.

-- Anne Lamott

Compassion is Listening

Difficult as it is really to listen to someone in affliction, it is just as difficult for him to know that compassion is listening to him.

-- Simone Weil

True Dependence

True dependence is not simply asking Me to bless what you have decided to do. It is coming to Me with an open mind and heart, inviting Me to plant My desires within you.... Thus begins your journey of profound reliance on Me. It is a faith-walk, taken one step at a time, leaning on Me as much as you need. This is not a path of continual success but of multiple failures. However, each failure is followed by a growth spurt, nourished by increased reliance on Me. Enjoy the blessedness of a victorious life, through deepening your dependence on Me.

-- Sarah Young, Jesus Calling: Enjoying Peace in His Presence

Thanks, Bev, for sharing this with us.

But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.

-- Jude 20,21

Our Relationship with Money

A most fascinating little reflection on the power and role of money in our lives:

I'd been ignoring the task of addressing my ideas about money for years, hiding behind an image of myself as Bohemian, an artist, a spiritual aspirant. Money seemed something too concrete to factor into my flights of fancy. Even as an entrepreneur I never stopped to think much about money. I worried when I wasn't making it and was jubilant when I was...it was a roller coaster.

But it wasn't until an incident this summer illuminated a specific hang up of mine that I began to understand how deep the tentacles of this question of money in our lives runs. 

At first, I had a hard time noticing anything about my relationship to money. So deep were my habits and so ingrained were my views about spending, saving and earning, I was on autopilot most of the time. Even when an insight started to glimmer on the edges of my consciousness, some aspect of my self-preserving ego would erase it or color it over in washed out tones of self-soothing...

Continue Reading

...thanks David for sharing this piece.

Little Things Lead to More

When my brother and I first started out going door to door to our neighbors' homes with our push lawnmower and rake (I was only 9 years old), my dad would always say, "Do more than what they pay you to do and one day they will pay you more than what you do!!"

-- Mark R.

Not Seeing Things Correctly

Our parents were well intentioned but wrong: We can’t be whatever we want to be. We can all achieve amazing things, but we can’t do anything we set our minds to. Genetics, disposition, and luck play a part too.

…

Most of us do everything we can to avoid failure. That's a natural instinct with an unnatural by-product: We start to lose the ability to question our decisions.  And we lose the ability to see our ourselves from another person's point of view. The ability to work with and lead others is compromised when we lose perspective on what it's like to not have all the answers - and what it's like to make mistakes.

-- Jeff Haden

Choosing Strength

Every time you resist temptation, you grow stronger. Every time you choose to avoid areas that offer you temptation, you grow stronger...and create opportunity to gain more strength. When I don't do this, I weaken myself.

I chose for the habit of strength this past weekend.

Every time I make this choice, I gain some strength...every time.

Every time.

Vision, not Fear

Motivation comes from vision, not from fear.

-- Geoffrey James

Loves Flows Like Water

Love is like water. It flows. Sometimes like a flood, sometimes like a trickle, but it flows. It's always moving downward, seeping through the cracks. Even when it looks like it just sits there for long periods of time, it never stops. And, just when you're not so sure that its direction isn't just escaping you, it dumps on you again.  What you do with it can perpetuate the same for others and then again from them to others beyond...and so on and so on...love flows. Never drying up above you, it provides no reason for it to do so below you (or from you, if you like that phrasing better).  You can't out-give love.  It always out-gives you.

At times, we want it to bubble back up our way a bit ('just a little', we say). And, perhaps, you can at times find evidence that it does so.  But, not primarily.  Because it is a flowing thing and it is much bigger in scope and reach than the reverse-ripple we might be tempted to try and create out of it for ourselves.

In the end, there is much more than enough and if we keep ourselves focused on its designs and directions and reaches, we lose pretty quickly our temporary grasps for our little wishes for simple returns.

Love is an unending fountain...that never stops...flowing down over us, through us, and beyond us...like water.

Aggressive Forgiveness

But sin didn’t, and doesn’t, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it’s sin versus grace, grace wins hands down. All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that’s the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life—a life that goes on and on and on, world without end.

-- Romans 5:20-21, The Message

Thanks, Jerry, for sharing this with us today.

Self-Control & Habits

People with good self-control avoid temptations and problem situations, rather than battling with them. ...research confirmed that self-control works most effectively by means of controlling habits, rather than by using willpower for direct control of one’s actions in the heat of the moment.

...new evidence suggests that self-control is most effective when it operates through habits. People use their self-control to break bad habits and establish good ones....

Viewed in that perspective, virtue is best achieved when self-control is exerted so as to establish habits of good behavior. Part of the reason is that using willpower to resist temptation is a strenuous, costly business with unreliable results. Habits are far more reliable than that.

-- Roy Baumeister, Can Virtuous Habits Be Cultivated?

Continue Reading this rather fascinating little article.

Over the last few years, I've noticed some strong correlations in my life with regard to habits, so this stuff has captured my attention a bit.  Recently, I've noted these thoughts on 'habits':

Practical Advise on Habits in Our Lives

Habit of Turning, Strength

Habits

Thinking & Feeling

Unlearn

You must unlearn, what you have learned.

-- Yoda

War with your Vices

Be at War with your Vices, at Peace with your Neighbours, and let every New-Year find you a better Man.

-- Benjamin Franklin, 1755 Poor Richard's Almanac, December

The Truth Is That US Taxes Are Relatively Low

Obviously, no one likes paying taxes.

And everyone wants someone else to pay all the taxes.

But it's impossible for a government to provide all the services that the U.S. government is providing now without taxes being even higher than they are today--because we can't run our current budget deficit forever.

So, ultimately, this is a philosophical debate about what services the government should provide.

Continue Reading

Believe It

Luke:  I can’t believe it.
Yoda:  That is why you fail.

Personality

It is hard not to notice that we respond to 'hot' personalities - those that require attention.  ...especially in the short-term.  But, perhaps overall, too.

Our responsiveness may not always be best or what is needed, but we respond.

Like Those

More often than not, man becomes like those he spends the most time with.

Expressing Itself

The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

-- Galatians 5:6

My wife wrote this on one of our windows...I am so thankful for that now regular reminder.

Little Attention to the Whole

The desire for immediate relief from specific problems has driven Christians and psychiatrists to seek and prescribe quick solutions with little attention paid to the whole person. These forces have led Christian counselors and psychiatrists to ignore or deny the existential dimensions of severe emotional suffering, neglect the life story of the sufferer, uncouple the life story from the Christian story, trivialize the Christian community as a source of healing, and superficially accommodate each other rather than engage in meaningful discourse. Psychiatrists and Christians have, in large part, drugged or denied pain and suffering and de-emphasized the importance of embedding the often-troubled stories of our individual lives within communal life.

-- Dan Blazer M.D., Freud vs. God: How Psychiatry Lost Its Soul & Christianity Lost Its Mind

Letting Them Go

If a litany of naming all things good and beautiful directs us into grace, then a litany of complaints deforms us. I have been cataloging my complaints and I am afraid they are becoming ingrained in my living. But counting faults and keeping score is tiring. And I don’t like the fact that I so willingly spend myself on counting and collecting injuries, when I could find freedom in simply letting them go.

-- Stephanie Smith

Be Not Afraid of Growing Too Slowly

How do you become better tomorrow? Be not afraid of growing too slowly. Be afraid of standing still. Forget your mistakes, but remember what they taught you.

-- Benjamin Franklin

Make Up Their Minds

Most folks are about as happy as 
they make up their minds to be.

-- Abraham Lincoln

Hope for a New Year!

To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy - to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.

-- Jude 24-25

Someone shared these verses with me recently.  I was a bit stunned at their import...the implications are both wide and deep, worth some time to unpack and consider. Reminds me that what is going on is really about Him, not us, and that it is His zeal that will accomplish it.

I can't think of a better way to express why we can be free to live in hope in a new year...whatever it may bring.

Practical Advice on Habits in Our Lives

I ran across this reading recently and these 3 things in particular stuck out to me; I think they're helpful advice for daily living.  And, I like the suggestion that they become habits, perhaps over the new year:

Let go of your results.

The big enemy of happiness is worry, which comes from focusing on events that are outside your control. Once you've taken action, there's usually nothing more you can do. Focus on the job at hand rather than some weird fantasy of what might happen.

Turn off "background" TV.

Many households leave their TVs on as "background noise" while they're doing other things. The entire point of broadcast TV is to make you dissatisfied with your life so that you'll buy more stuff. Why subliminally program yourself to be a mindless consumer?

End each day with gratitude.

Just before you go to bed, write down at least one wonderful thing that happened. It might be something as small as a making a child laugh or something as huge as a million dollar deal. Whatever it is, be grateful for that day because it will never come again.

-- Geoffrey James

Map or Guide

If someone tells you to go someplace and you don’t know where to go and, from what you have heard, it’s quite tricky in getting there because there are few if any well-marked streets, not much lighting, and a lot of rather large potholes, would you prefer a map or rather the person who has been there, knows the way, and is quite handy should things break down to go with you? The answer is obvious....

"I will go with you", says the Lord Almighty.

-- Kent Denlinger

This echoes a post I recently read called 'Why, God?'...it is worth the read, as it faces down one of the perennial questions of all time about God and evil. Having recently watched the most recent Les Miserables movie, I am confident that we are on to something here in this collection of thoughts on 'God With Us'. The priest in Les Mis puts it like this, 'To love someone is to see the face of God'.

Hope for a new year -- who knows what is in store -- but He is with us.

My Fast from Ladder Climbing

I love feeling superior, more influential, more important, and more noticed than everybody else. I cried about what a fool I’ve been...

-- Heather Holleman

 Continue Reading

Really worth the minute or two it will take to...and the hour or two it may create for personal consideration. Sobering and delightful. And before we whisper to ourselves something like, "I'm glad I'm not like that," consider the reminder to all of us, however we are going about being important...to ourselves.

Reminds me of things a friend said to me once, when I was struggling with the identity of my own self-importance.

Not Calculate

When one loves, one does not calculate.

-- St. Therese of Lisieux

Circumstances

Circumstances allow us opportunity to be shaped.

In our culture, circumstances (particularly bad ones) are often viewed primarily as something to get out of. In our media, circumstances are presented as something to overcome. But, I suspect that our circumstances really exist more for us as contexts in which we can be shaped, if we allow them to do so.

Space

We all need space. Sometimes, the best thing we can give to another person...is space. Space to think often gives me opportunity to feel. Sometimes what I feel gives me a chance to think about something. Space creates health; constant filling of it does not. It can lead us somewhere that is often neglected within us...to a needed grieving or to an important gratitude.

I realized today that I was hoping for something deeper with my wife in some recent interactions or lack of them. I was reaching for conclusions that would urge me to 'address' it with her. But, my instincts were nudging me back...toward not filling the space with my needs. A bit later she said she has really been preoccupied with news of her father's illness. I was shocked...certainly for him, but also for what I had been ready to do...to get something that I wanted. I wasn't considering that what I was feeling from her really had nothing to do with me, as I had suspected. I was grateful for the space I had chosen in my waiting, for her sake and for mine.

She needed some space. She needed for me not to fill hers with me. I needed the space, too.

Give yourself the gift of space. Give it to someone else.

Forever

Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.

-- Isaiah 9:7

Where We Least Expect Him

Those who believe in God can never in a way be sure of him again. Once they have seen him in a stable, they can never be sure when he will appear or to what lengths he will go or to what ludicrous depths of self-humiliation he will descend in his wild pursuit of man….

This means that we are never safe, that there is no place where we can hide from God, no place where we are safe from his power to break in two and recreate the human heart because it is just where He seems most helpless that He is most strong, and just where we least expect Him that He comes most fully.

-- Fredrick Beuchner, The Hungering Dark

Peace That Empties

When we are at peace, we find the freedom to be most fully who we are, even in the worst of times, we empty ourselves so that God may more fully work within us.

-- Joseph Cardinal Benardin

His Law is Love

We don't often see ourselves for what we truly are...either direction...as bad as we really are or for the goodness that is truly within us.

Regarding the former, we are richly deserving of consequences for the sin embedded within us.  At times, I actually forget how true that is.  I reflected recently on a time in my life when I thought I was deeply wronged in an employment situation.  I may have been.  But, it was also true that there were things in my own life at the time that were also deeply wrong and God used the employment situation to get at them -- for my sake, for others' sake, for His sake.  In one sense, He saved me from the end those wrongs were leading to...through this disruption of my life.  He used Pain to reach me, to teach me.  I did not see myself accurately.  I still don't.  But my reflection has allowed me to realize a bit more that I did truly deserve something because of the sin in my life.

But pain goes away with time, not as quickly as it arrives, but it does taper away.  And, so, what struck me this week was that what has really solidified His 'teaching' in me has been...Grace.  Grace has shown me the longer truth that God is really about resurrecting the good that He has put in me by making me in His image.  This is why He is (and we are) so hurt by our sin, because we forfeit this goodness which is designed to be given to others, like He gives to us.  Grace comes along after Pain and shows me that I have not received what I fully deserve...that some of those consequences have been borne by Someone else, on behalf of me.  Grace brings Gratitude to my door and introduces me to her.  Grace is what makes me realize that I don't really want the path of sin after all and that breathes the life into me that doesn't want to reject the goodness I have been offered, in spite of my sins.  So, the final teacher, in my view is Grace.  Pain and Grace both teach me.  And, Grace's voice is often hard to fully hear before Pain's instruction.  But, Grace wins, as it does its final training work in me...to lead me to be what I am designed to be, to who I've been made to be.

Though the verses of this week's posts have pointed me towards something I want, this Christmas season I have felt a strange absence...the absence of something that captures me like a great gift.  Something has felt...pending.  But this reflection on the above has now ushered the great gift right up to my door.

One of my favorite favorite carols puts it nearly perfectly:

       Truly He taught us to love one another,
       His law is love and His gospel is peace.

He loves us too much not to remain firmly committed to our deepest good, that which He put within us.  His love, in that way, is law.  It is hard and fast...and for our sake, it won't budge.  The good news is that through His Teachers and the training process He takes us through in this life, we are also being offered Peace.

Thank God for His many and wondrous gifts to us this Christmas.  It is enough to enjoin me this time of year to Hallelujah!  ...I have not audibly heard this 'chorus' yet this year, but I'm still hoping for the tears of joy it brings!

12/21/12 - Forecast

 

As You Trust

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

-- Romans 15:13

He Will Not Fail

The Lord will lead you. He himself is with you. He will not fail you or leave you. Don’t worry. Don’t be afraid!

-- Deuteronomy 31:8

Now...is the time of Grief

Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.

-- John 16:22

Overcome

I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.

-- John 16:33

Union

Whenever my husband and I hug each other in the kitchen, my 3-year-old daughter is inevitably there within two seconds. She squeezes through our legs until she's right in between us, at which point she announces: "Family hug!" She sees our love for one another, and she wants in.

Because of our union with Jesus we can join the Trinity's family embrace: "On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them …. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them" (John 14:20-23).

...

But if I am in Christ, I can expect suffering to be a normal part of my discipleship. It is not a detour from Plan A, but an expected component of life with Jesus. In fact, it is an opportunity to participate in Jesus' life, to share in his sufferings (for he suffers with us), and to have his resurrection made known in my body (2 Cor. 4:10-11). That can radically change my experience of suffering.

Our suffering is not a pointless impediment to our productivity or fruitfulness. It is something we share with Jesus, for the good of our souls and of his kingdom.

-- Sarah Lebhar Hall, The Key to a Purposeful Life

Click pic to Continue Reading

Second to Last

Pain is our second-to-last teacher.

This begs the question, if suffering is the second to last teacher, what is the last one.  ...more soon.

Violence: have we finally had enough?

Where? How many? How young?

What terrible questions for a society to have to keep asking itself.
No, our violence-rich culture does not make murderers of us all. But cigarettes don't give everyone lung cancer. That does not make them non-lethal.

Have we finally had enough? It must not start with just gun control. It must start with us. 

Continue Reading

...thanks Statons for forwarding.

Best Apologies

Right actions in the future are the best apologies for bad actions in the past.

-- Tryon Edwards

More Immoral

The more immoral we become in big ways, the more puritanical we become in little ways.

-- Florence King

Mirage

I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage.

-- C.S. Lewis

Want to See

We tend to see what we want to see.

...perhaps worse, we tend not to see what we don't want to see.

Babel Sounds & Angels

Every year now, it seems a new old Christmas carol sneaks up on me. This year, so far, I am a bit overcome by the quieting power and glory of this seasonal favorite:

It Came Upon The Midnight Clear

It came upon the midnight clear,
That glorious song of old,
From angels bending near the earth,
To touch their harps of gold:
"Peace on the earth, goodwill to men
From heavens all gracious King!"
The world in solemn stillness lay
To hear the angels sing.

Still through the cloven skies they come,
With peaceful wings unfurled;
And still their heavenly music floats
O'er all the weary world:
Above its sad and lowly plains
They bend on hovering wing,
And ever o'er its Babel sounds
The blessed angels sing.

O ye beneath life's crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow;
Look now, for glad and golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing;
Oh rest beside the weary road
And hear the angels sing.

For lo! the days are hastening on,
By prophets seen of old,
When with the ever-circling years
Shall come the time foretold,
When the new heaven and earth shall own
The Prince of Peace, their King,
And the whole world send back the song
Which now the angels sing.

-- Edmund Hamilton Sears

...the all encompassing view of time and its unimpeded, glorious end are a compelling vision for me. And, the blending of all things I know with things I don't know that much about (like angels) creates an unusual and often surprising sense of something much greater and more wonderful that I too can join...an unearthly Peace.

I now realize afresh why we decorate our home with carolers this time of year...what better response to something so glorious than for man to join the heavenlies in such a singing.

The Innkeeper

I am moved by this presentation of the pain that surrounded what otherwise is celebrated this Christmas time of year. There is, in fact, great cause for celebration...but the context of our need for it often seems to be shoved away under a bunch of wrapping paper.

Hope for the Hurting this Christmas

Click the link for some background or the video above to watch directly (just a bit over 11 minutes).

Daily Rituals

It would seem a bit large of me to claim that I can tackle 'everything' that comes my way.

Every day I need physical energy, mental clarity, and emotional balance to tackle everything that comes my way. Self-care is the secret to performing at the highest level.

-- Mike Del Ponte

But I do concur with several of the basic rituals he goes on to recommend here. The ideas he identifies are ones that I've discovered too in recent years. I may not do them exactly as he describes, but I've found that these basic elements do go a long way toward providing me physical energy, mental clarity, and emotional balance.

Mirror

Gotta say, if a sunrise like this morning's doesn't 'wake you up', I'm not sure what will. It was fabulous beyond description, from east to west, each reflecting in literal ways something bright emerging onto us. I was again inspired...to act this day reflecting just some of the glory of this morning's voice calling out, 'Join Me!'.

Behavior is the mirror in which everyone shows their image.

-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Worry

Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow; it empties today of its strength.

-- Corrie ten Boom

Thanks, David, for this one. Reminds me of this one.

On the Crowd

A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd.

-- James Crook

Pessimist

A pessimist is a person who wants to be an optimist, but has a grasp of the facts.

-- Norman Augustine

Sunrise

I have come to rather relish the notion that a sunrise (like yesterday's) is an indication -- if not a heralding -- that God has been up a while and is rolling out another day of His glory.  Over my life, I have learned to look east with anticipation.  What does He communicate to me through this ritual exercise that is similar, but never exactly the same?  What does this tell me about Him?  And, how does that free to me to experience the ensuing day with a different and fresh perspective?

...I think it does just that and to be about doing the same thing.  It prays this prayer for me:

Lord, take me where you want me to go, let me meet who you want me to meet, tell me what you want me to say, and keep me out of your way.

-- Prayer of Father Mychal Judge

What Is

We can so easily become focused on what isn't in others. Perhaps serving our own self-promotion, we use what 'should be' to overlook what is...in them.  ...or, more importantly, what could be in them, especially in time.

Lifelong Learning

The path of spiritual growth is a path of lifelong learning.

-- M. Scott Peck

This is one of those that at first appears rather self-evident.  But, what struck me about it (other than the reference to learning and other thoughts posted this week on the 'the mind') is that I don't believe, for the better part of my life, I viewed it that way.  Spirituality, for me, had been more of a construct of principles of some sort. One either did or did not work their way through the pile of them, but they were available for acquisition, if one were so disciplined.

Now, however, I see the developmental nature of spirituality, perhaps because of the same nature I see more and more of in all realms of life.  In other words, to grow (in any respect), we must engage the process of learning.  And that is a whole-being exercise...that is never over.

Goal of Teaching

The goal of teaching is not to teach; it is to create learning.

The key to learning is engagement.

The key to engagement is creativity.

The key to creativity is effort.

So, teaching well requires a lot of effort aimed at learning.

If learning does not occur, then we are just sliding a bunch of information around...often over and over and over. Who needs more information?  Learning is a holistic experience.

Transformation

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

-- Romans 12:2

I am intrigued by this verse, especially in light of yesterday's post.

The Mind

The brain may be located in the cranium, but the mind is located throughout the body.

-- Candace Pert

What Is & What Ought To Be

Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps, for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be.

-- William Hazlitt

Habit of Turning, Strength

Forming a habit of turning to God in our lives is like developing muscle.  It has to be worked, stretched, exercised regularly or it becomes weak at best.

Perhaps the greater of the habits of our lives can be 'living with' God in our everyday details...good and bad.  This is an availing ourselves to our true strength, for otherwise we are simply rather weak and self-absorbed. The story of my life, among other things, is a battle over the development of this muscle.  When I am regularly exercising spiritually, not unlike physically, I am simply stronger than when I'm not.  I'm not sure there is a greater habit we can form than the habit of turning to God.  Life will still 'happen', so doing such things will not prevent bad things from happening.  The issue has much more to do with how I face them, with what I face them, with Whom I face them.  This is the true strength we can develop, through the spiritual habit of turning to God in our lives.

God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

-- Psalm 73:26

The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me. 

-- Psalm 28:7

In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength...

-- Isaiah 30:15

...but those who hope in the Lord

    will renew their strength.

-- Isaiah 40:31

We are shaped by our habits.

Rivalry Rebooted

 

POST GAME Review: What was true in Bo and Woody's time is still true today; you can't win Big Ten championships if you don't win key games on the road. And you can't win those games if you don't avoid turn-overs and big mistakes.

...true again today. And, seniors are the ones who need to lead the way.

Songs

Songs can help us take a few steps toward healing. Songs are safe containers for the best and worst that life has to offer.

-- Linford Detweiler

Thanks Giving

Thanksgiving: We all have so much for which to be thankful, especially when we don't confine our gratitude to possessions.

The dirt of our brokenness leads to a true experience of Grace. And gratitude is the flower that grows from her soil.

It is striking how illusive gratitude is when we're avoiding brokenness...and how overwhelming it is when we're not.

Happy Thanks Giving!

Power of Music at any Age

Brokenness

Our life is full of brokenness - broken relationships, broken promises, broken expectations. How can we live with that brokenness without becoming bitter and resentful except by returning again and again to God's faithful presence in our lives.

-- Henri Nouwen

Our diversions prevent us from such returning.

Diversion

How much of our busyness and our business has this - diversion - as its deepest root? It is not only when something terrible happens, like a death, that we seek diversion, but always. This indicates that there is a pervasive presence of death and despair in our lives that we are always seeking diversion from.

-- Peter Kreeft

Regarding Thanksgiving, one thing that siphons gratitude from me more than anything else is busyness...not taking the time to reflect on the actual state of things and, instead, racing on to the next set of things that need to get done. This disposition drains me and simultaneously arouses the addiction to diversion. Busyness is a thief.

Thanks, Kent, for sharing this one.

Faith Never Knows

Faith never knows where it is being led, but it loves and knows the One who is leading.

-- Jim Elliot

This morning, with...
the night mysts still clinging to earthen valley,
the tickling of jack's frost on the end of my nose,
the splatter of sun across the banked ravine of a sea of fallen browns,
the fire-bush's burning reds between me and sunlight,
the rustle of leaves from the spooked white-tail,
the barkless sycamore's crisp white against the blue ocean above,
the honk of the flying V headed away from northering winter,
and the aroma of conifers reaching down to pull me up,

...all embed themselves into me like a series of endless surprises in about as a wonderful a manner as I can imagine. I may not know where such things are leading me, but I have come to recognize Who is.

Seems like a great way to start this Thanksgiving week.

UM vs Iowa

 

Another great day with friends at the Big House!  Click pic for more pics....

Culture

Culture eats strategy for breakfast.

-- Peter Drucker

Teacher's Voice

The main reason we have dysfunctional education policies in this country is that the teacher’s voice is almost absent from public discourse about how to transform education.

-- Parker Palmer

What You Can't Handle

What you think you can’t handle — might actually be God handing you a gift.

-- Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts

Continue Reading more from this post....

A friend shared with me a confession recently that felt a lot like this. We face the seemingly unfaceable. But, when we turn, see a face we've never seen as fully before, right beside us.

Be Strong...and Work

'Be strong, all you people of the land,’ declares the Lord, ‘and work. For I am with you,’ declares the Lord Almighty. ‘This is what I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt. And my Spirit remains among you. Do not fear.’

-- Haggai 2:4-5

Very interesting connections here between effort and fear. Do we not work at things because we are afraid to? The bridge is the real source of the strength needed to face our fears -- His Spirit. He is the strength we need and we have Him. We can work at things because we have Him right with us...in whatever we do.

...and this seems to apply to everyone (all the people of the land).

Will of God

It's harder to fall out of the will of God than you think...chew on that for a while.

-- Lorraine Green

Himself By Himself is Nothing

Humanity, potential with God, all great knowledge is this, for a man to know that he himself by himself is nothing; and that, whenever he is, he is from God and on account of God.

-- St. Augustine

Clings

To that which your heart clings is your god.

-- Martin Luther

Shining Through

We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent, and God is shining through it all the time.

-- Thomas Merton

It's whether or not we recognize Him...reminds me of the contradiction of the lines from the hymn Holy, Holy, Holy:

        Though the eyes of sinful man
        Thy glories may not see

If Only We Would Listen

One characteristic of the recent elections is that there seemed to be very little listening going on.  We hear a lot about a divided country.  But what divides us?  ...do we care enough to find out?  Or, are we just increasingly committed to maintaining only what we think.  What keeps us from listening to each other?  Much of the subsequent 'discussion' regarding the election seems to be more about who 'won' than anything else.

This interview with Parker Palmer (by the way, thanks to Jerry McCoy for introducing me to Palmer years ago), therefore, seems relevant:

We need to change our calculus about what makes an action worth taking and get past our obsession with results. Being effective is important, of course. I write books because I want to have an impact. But if the only way we judge an action is by its effectiveness, we will take on smaller and smaller tasks, because they’re the only kind with which we are sure we can get results. I’m not giving up on effectiveness, but it has to be secondary.

If I cling to effectiveness, though, I’m going to die an unhappy man. I’m committed to educational goals more ambitious than getting kids to pass tests, and to political goals a lot bigger than getting people to “tolerate” each other. Teaching a kid to pass a test is a piece of cake compared to educating a child. And tolerating people is a long way from understanding how profoundly interdependent we are. As I say in the new book, the civility we need in politics will not come from watching our tongues but from valuing our differences. Somehow my heart doesn’t beat faster when someone says they’re willing to “tolerate” me!

But when I’m talking with people whose views I regard as wrong but not evil, I need to ask myself: Am I here to win this argument, or am I here to create a relationship? Research shows that when you throw facts at people to refute what they believe, it only hardens their convictions. But if you create a relational container that can hold an ongoing dialogue, it’s more likely that someone will change — and that someone may be you! Failing that, we usually just walk away and revert to talking to people who agree with us. What good is that?

-- Parker Palmer, If Only We Would Listen Interview

Continue Reading -- lots of good things to think about here.

Post-Election Day Prayer

You creator God

       who has ordered us

              in families and communities,

              in clans and tribes,

              in states and nations.

You creator God

       who enact your governance

              in ways overt and

              in ways hidden.

       You exercise your will for

              peace and for justice and for freedom.

We give you thanks for the peaceable order of

   our nation and for the chance of choosing--

      all the manipulative money notwithstanding.

We pray now for new governance

     that your will and purpose may prevail,

     that our leaders may have a sense

        of justice and goodness,

     that we as citizens may care about the

        public face of your purpose.

We pray in the name of Jesus who was executed

     by the authorities.

-- Walter Brueggeman, Prayer for a Privileged People

Election Day Communion

Let’s meet at the same table,
with the same host,
to remember the same things.

We’ll remember that real power in this world — the power to save, to transform, to change — ultimately rests not in political parties or presidents or protests but in the life, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus.

We’ll remember that, through the Holy Spirit, this power dwells within otherwise ordinary people who as one body continue the mission of Jesus: preaching good news to the poor, freeing the captives, giving sight to the blind, releasing the oppressed, and proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favor (Luke 4:16-21).

We’ll remember that freedom — true freedom — is given by God and is indeed not free. It comes with a cost and it looks like a cross.

We’ll remember our sin and our need to repent.

We’ll remember that the only Christian nation in this world is the Church, a holy nation that crosses all human-made boundaries and borders.

We’ll remember that our passions are best placed within the passion of Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God (Hebrews 12:2).

We’ll remember that we do not conform to the patterns of this world, but we are transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2).

We’ll remember that God’s strength is made perfect in weakness.

And we’ll remember the body of Christ as the body of Christ, confessing the ways in which partisan politics has separated us from one another and from God.

-- from http://electiondaycommunion.org/ (thanks for sending and organizing, Jim)

A small gathering from our fellowship gathered for an Election Day Communion. We were grateful for the knowledge that other groups around the country were doing the same.

Phil Keaggy

Click pic to listen to Phil Keaggy!

Only Prayer

If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is 'thank you', it will be enough.

-- Meister Eckhart

At one point in my life (well many perhaps) I would have argued that more was needed than this...just a simple 'thank you'. But now, I see the wisdom of this simplicity. A 'thank you' to God is a profound thing, given our more natural tendencies. It takes time for us to realize our true nature, that which was created in the image of God and which seeks His glory through our being.  When we are aligned in this way, gratitude permeates us.

When I awoke this morning, the skies were shrouded in gray. I was a bit disappointed, having awakened with my normal Sunday hope of the woods. But I headed out anyway. And, as I headed into the thick, I noticed an emerging ambiance of light. Above me, the clouds were rolling back like a blanket and sunlight was over-taking the world. I had to stop and admire it.

Spotting across the stream my favorite fire-bushes lining the path with their tiniest little bulbs of red, I continued. I was going a different direction, but turned back their way...I just had to run through them.

Blue sky now mirrored itself on the paralleling stream beside me. I rounded a corner and there...stunning me was the largest red-headed woodpecker I have ever seen. It had to be nearly 15" and the sun now shining behind it lit its red plume like fire. Its size portrayed the beauty of its coat of black and white, further accentuating its brilliant hat. I stopped again.... I recovered and continued and nearly ran into a batch of climbing yellow berries, so replete with the season of fall that no store could have come close to capturing the essence of its garland. As if that weren't enough, the next scene crashed into my sight...nearly two dozen scintillating silhouettes of white swanned effortlessly on a glassy lake before me. I couldn't quite take all this in. I couldn't quite breathe.

...I could only pray 'thank you'.

At First Wake

Faint the blow of wind on leaves
Warm the tang my old bed cover
Darkness quits like tip-toeing thieves
A day begins like any other.

Comes the world to me slowly;
Ears, then nose, eyes then touch:
Fumbling for a hint of holy
But finding forth so little much.
  
Lord, make this wake, this very morning,
Make this wake the Final One…
Turn today into a borning:
Let me sense the world won. 

-- Tim Koshnick

Why Parenting Is More Important Than Schools

A study published earlier this month by researchers at North Carolina State University, Brigham Young University and the University of California-Irvine, for example, finds that parental involvement — checking homework, attending school meetings and events, discussing school activities at home — has a more powerful influence on students’ academic performance than anything...

...research also reveals something else: that parents, of all backgrounds, don’t need to buy expensive educational toys or digital devices for their kids in order to give them an edge. They don’t need to chauffeur their offspring to enrichment classes or test-prep courses. What they need to do with their children is much simpler: talk.

Continue Reading

Habits

We first make our habits, and then our habits make us.

-- John Dryden

Hard Work

Motivation will beat raw intelligence almost every time.

The single most important trait that our schools, families and other institutions can ingrain in our students is the importance of character. Without a strong ethical compass a student in his or her lifetime can only harm the world -- and most likely themselves and those around them. Beyond that, I would emphasize the importance of hard work. That is certainly true of the process of learning. More and more evidence suggests that it takes long hours working on very demanding tasks for one to learn. This is a disconcerting observation given that the number of hours per week college students study today is about half what it was a few decades ago, at which time it was not terribly large to begin with. But one simply can't hope to understand...without hard work.

-- Norman Augustine

From a really good interview:  Continue Reading

Correction

Correction does much, but encouragement does more.

-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Courtesy and Egos

I believe in courtesy, the ritual by which we avoid hurting other people's feelings by satisfying our own egos.

-- Kenneth Clark

Mornings

There is something a bit indescribable about mornings. The older I get, the more I recognize the wonder and beauty of them (like today's sunrise), the more I look east to see what might be coming.

Perhaps it is because I get up earlier these days, due to a variety of things...work, a busied mind, the purging of the night's dreams, the shifting of my internal clock, the call of my morning workouts (or, in today's case, my Sunday morning ritual of a dawn-run through the woods -- by the way, Nature's Christmas Lights are on again!). Nonetheless, I anticipate morning. And, perhaps not unlike the majesty of sunsets, I have discovered what many others before me have discovered that there is something powerful about mornings.

Saturday mornings (not the Saturday Mornings posts per se), in particular, hold the prospect of something less predictable, less pre-determined. I feel a sense of openness...to my choice of what to do; what to get done, what to leave undone. There is a freedom in it that I have come to relish.

But, even more than this, morning strikes something deeper within me. The prospect of starting a day with beauty, rather than duty. The possibility of a new start, even in something regular. A deeper sense of grace.

I used to not even miss mornings; 'nothing going on anyway' (or so I thought). But now, the chance to freely wonder from the day's earliest moments what a day may hold, energizes me, particularly when I am blessed to have such color and beauty cascading behind me.

West-ward then!

 

Effort

What is it about effort that so many are afraid of? ...that makes us too willing to let those who do it, do it? We love stories about the effort involved in over-coming. But, we don't really want to work any harder than we have to.  What do we believe, when we behave this way?

Perhaps, we should consider what drives effort?  More often than not, it seems to me, effort is driven by desire.  We want something.  It we want something bad enough, we will work for it.  At other times, desire is driven by need.  We need something, so we will work for it.  And, when the chips are really down, our need can be even more basic, like the need just to survive.

Maybe we don't put out too much effort because we really don't need to.  We already have the better part of what we want without having to work very hard for it.  But, under this reality, I suspect we are missing out on something good that was intended for us as humans, something that is a result or by-product of effort.

Are we simply caught up in the exceptions of cause-and-effect?  For example, sometimes the results of effort don't come just because of the effort.  But, just because that is true, it doesn't mean that most of the time results do actually come from effort; thus the common phrase, "you get out of it what you put into it".  The problem shows up when we require that they do, when we put forth effort because of the results, for the sole purpose of achieving the results we want.  When we get here, we get mad when we don't get what we want, especially when we've worked hard at something and it didn't yield the result we were hoping for.  When we are here, we find ourselves operating with a sense of entitlement -- I am owed the result just because of my effort.

We, however, were created differently, to act differently, to believe differently.  We were made to be care-takers in life, to preserve it, to offer it.  And, this requires effort, a working at it.  But, the real granting of life is a harmony with the Giver of life -- the One who can make things grow.  We can plant seeds, but we can't make them grow.  So, our effort isn't owed a result, but it does join in harmony with the results that can be given.  This is why we are free to work hard, in fact created to work hard, not because of what we will get out of it, but because of what is broadly given when we join something good that we were made to take care of.

Wrath

If God were to return and judge the world of evil, what would happen to us? Would we be able to inhabit a perfect world? What happens when we realize that we are part of the the problem, not just the ones longing for a solution?

When we imagine our place within the cosmic story of redemption, we come to realize we are more than passive victims of evil's consequences. We are evil insurrectionists, rebels against the good and loving authority of God our Creator. In the Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who suffered at the hands of the Soviet Communists, put it well: "Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart." We thirst for justice, but once we consider the fairness of God, we quickly discover that Christ's return can only be good news if we have found mercy in God's sight.

-- Trevin Wax, "Rejoicing In The Wrath" (CT - Global Gospel Project)