New, Undiminishable Hope

A new, undiminishable Hope has Come!  Truly, Happy Easter!

The ultimate droop of our collective human heads has paused their seemingly final descent.  What is this news?!  Like a tidal wave of unending momentum, the previously indefatiguable power of Death has been overcome.  Could it be...an after-all like no other!  With wonder we turn from yesterday's desperation to a Today that is surprising beyond measure, unimagined beyond comprehension, something so full of Hope that Joy is the only description of the prospect of real Peace.

The Omnipotent Power has trumped Death, once and for all, and we can now share in the reunion of All the Good God has created.  He is Risen!

...no more Fridays, no more Saturdays.  Sunday has Arrived!

The Most-Worst Saturday

The Saturday between Good Friday and Easter.  What must that have been like -- that day between an utter dashing of hope and the re-brightening of it?  The ever-brightening of it!

But, before that earth-shattering reality of the actual possibility of Resurrection, that Saturday...what were people experiencing then?  A crushing sense that all that they had so pinned their hopes on might actually not be anything more than anything else had ever been...Defeated.  Nothing had changed after all   And, now, an ever-dismaling prospect that it Never would.  Just another, even more, massive disappointment.  Confined now...to Hopelessness.

How could one go on?  That Saturday with an Easter-not-yet.  An Easter not known.  An Easter now not even likely...given the swallowing up of everything by Death just the day before.

It's hard to even imagine the devastation of what that most-worst Saturday must have been like.  But, then again, maybe not...much of our world gropes on in utter hopelessness, without knowledge of the Easter Coming.

Good Friday: No Thanks

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.

-- Romans 1:21

...knew, but not thankful....  How simple, but how profoundly corrupted.  Only Death could rescue us from such a pit.

For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

-- 1 Corinthians 11:26

We proclaim His death with our gratitude. I am grateful today...for His redemption:

• of my futile thinking
• of my foolish heart
• of my darkness

Stop Trying to Triage

Effectiveness part is choosing which priorities to focus on. Efficiency comes in when we streamline how we do those things.

“This is why you don’t see Hussein Bolt texting,” said Hanselman. “He is trying to sprint. If he were trying to multitask, he’d probably be slowed down.” Effectiveness, said Hanselman, is doing the right things, and efficiency is doing things right.

-- Francesca Levy

Continue Reading

Managing Compassionately

Wisdom without compassion is ruthlessness, and compassion without wisdom is folly.

-- Fred Kofman

As a follow-up to yesterday's post, I read Jeff Weiner's, CEO of Linkedin, article on Managing Compassionately.  A healthy read, in my opinion, underscoring the value of human dynamics in business.

When a Valuable Lesson at Work Became an Invaluable Lesson in Life

The ability to be a spectator to my own thoughts, especially when becoming emotional; putting myself in the shoes of others and seeing the world through their eyes rather than projecting my own perspective; and working hard to manage compassionately...

...as hard as I worked to manage compassionately at the office, I was not always actively applying the same approach with my family.
Put another way, I was doing what so many of us have a tendency to do: Taking the people we're closest to for granted by assuming they are the ones we don't need to make an effort with. After all, they'll understand, right? However, nothing could be further from the truth.

It's taken me over 40 years to realize what makes me happy -- simply put, it's looking forward to going to work in the morning, and looking forward to coming home at night. 

-- Jeff Weiner

A good read about how to integrate life and work...Continue Reading

Easier

It is often easier to fight for a principle than to live up to it.

-- Adlai Stevenson

Path

I headed in. It was through a familiar, but little entrance in an otherwise dense wall of trees and brush. All shades of brown and gray, mixed together this time of year. Emerging from the other side of the portal, I saw...a path. A sense of something flowed through me.

A path. What is it about a path that quickens something within us. Is it 'a beckoning' that produces a sense of anticipation that this could lead somewhere...somewhere significant? I rarely see another person on this particular path. So there's 'an embedded contradiction' here -- a path with no one on it can only infer that at one point or another there have been many others on it...otherwise, how could the path exist? Somebody, somebodies that is, has walked it...and continue to walk it. So, if I'm on it even if alone at the moment, I'm not really alone after all. I'm travelling a way that others have also traveled. I can't make a path by myself, but I can perpetuate it for someone else, just by walking it.

A path also is intriguing because it is 'a way' through something. A path is often surrounded by all kinds of things; things growing, things thick, things amass, things untouched, things beautiful, things unknown, things scary, things dangerous. In the middle of such things, physical or otherwise, we want a way through it. A means of getting from where I am to where I want to be, even if I don't yet know where or what that is.

There is a series of pictures on a wall at church, depicting a path. I am regularly drawn to something by it . In that context, I am drawn to the notion that there is a Way. A Way that is something more than an actual place. Contemplating this, a verse comes to mind:

Jesus answered, "I am the way 
and the truth and the life."
-- John 14:6


In spite of all of its attending questions, part of the mysterious power of a path is that it's only real requirement seems to be to walk it.

Remember, sinner, it is not your hold of Christ that saves you -- it is Christ.

-- C.H. Spurgeon

Perhaps this is part of the compelling nature of a path.  We can walk the path in front us, knowing the destination isn't in our hands.  The destination is good...and so is the Way to it.  Follow the path.

Claiming the Sacredness of Our Being

To acknowledge the truth of ourselves is to claim the sacredness of our being, without fully understanding it.

When we trust that our souls are embraced by a loving God, we can befriend ourselves and reach out to others in loving relationships.

-- Henri Nouwen

Continue Reading

One might ask, why is such a thing necessary...this notion of befriending ourselves (see link above)?  It actually takes some time to discover the 'why'.  Because it isn't until we run into what we are not -- in contrast to all that we think we are or want to be -- that we become aware of the serious problems with the images of ourselves we so carefully maintain.

For one thing, we are limited beings...whether we want to admit it or not.  Further, we are damaging to others when our primary commitments are to ourselves.  Both realities can lead to one of two things:  a desperation or a humility.  It is out of the latter that we have opportunity to trust the all of who we are (and are not) to God.  And, it is at those moments that we access what makes us truly alive and able to be a part of extending the embracing of God to others.

Lousy

Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose.

--Bill Gates

Without Self-Restraint

A man without self-restraint is like a barrel without hoops, and tumbles to pieces.

-- Henry Ward Beecher

Real Manhood and Steubenville

The culture of 'boys will be boys' — means 'girls will be garbage' and you were made for more than this, Son. Your Dad and I believe boys will be godly and boys will be honoring and boys will be humble.

-- Ann Voskamp, After Stueubenville: 25 Things Our Sons need to know about Manhood

A gripping and powerful must read...for all sons and their fathers.

Mastery

Research that shows the opportunity to build mastery is one of the three most motivating things for most people, professionally.  The other two are autonomy and purpose.

-- Daniel Pink, Drive

Being A Mentor

Being a mentor means fulfilling many roles but the most important is being a soundboard that steers an entrepreneur to their own answers to problems. It’s about inspiring someone to think deeply about their concerns and challenges, rather than giving simple answers which only tells them what you think is best for them.

-- Micha Kaufman

Continue Reading

Listening

The veil was different this morning. I couldn't tell whether it was gone or whether it was no longer above me, and had just descended around me. Either way, it felt like I was in the middle of something. Now I was not blocked from something; now I was in something. And the being 'in it' was wonderful. It was as if I had somehow entered into prayer, rather than trying to send it to something or through something.

A frost crunched on the thawing pad of leaves and dirt beneath my running feet. All manner of the flying were surrounding me aloud -- the winged singers were caroling away, a big black was cawing in the distance, the honking ones were apparently reading bumper stickers from the skies above me, and a rat-a-tat tatterer with the red hat was beaking his hole into something woody nearby. I was in the middle of something...something at this time of year both dormant and alive at the same time. I breathed prayer this time...into the veil.

For today I was listening...instead of punching.  Nouwen describes the difference:

Listening in the spiritual life is much more than a psychological strategy to help others discover themselves. In the spiritual life the listener is not the ego, which would like to speak but is trained to restrain itself, but the Spirit of God within us. When we are baptized in the Spirit – that is, when we have received the Spirit of Jesus as the breath of God breathing within us – that Spirit creates in us a sacred space where the other can be received and listened to. The Spirit of Jesus prays in us and listens in us to all who come to us with their sufferings and pains.

When we dare to fully trust in the power of God’s Spirit listening in us, we will see true healing occur.

-- Henri Nouwen

Thinking

I don't know what I think until I try to write it down.

-- Joan Didion

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos preaches the value of writing long form prose to clarify thinking. Unless you're a professional writer, writing is not always about the written output; it's about the thinking that happens as you attempt to communicate. Do not assume you have to share your writing with others for it to be time well spent.

Continue Reading about writing...and thinking.

Once You're Motivated

Once you're motivated to learn something, you can get a lot done in a short amount of time.

-- Logan LaPlante

Dispatch from a Near Drowning, and A Love Note to Self-Loathers

I was swept off my feet a few days ago.

By the massive cold hand of a wave—an ocean wave twice as big as its brothers. I was there on the beach beside my house with camera in hand because of a certain desperation. A certain hate of the familiar.

Rain and snow had lashed our houses and windows for days on end, which is usual for this island in the Gulf of Alaska. We live and commercial fish surrounded by wilderness, among stupendous beauty, but it is not always enough.

Continue Reading...a lovely read.

Not A Hero, A Servant

O Lord, this holy season of Lent is passing quickly. I entered into it with fear, but also with great expectations. I hoped for a great breakthrough, a powerful conversion, a real change of heart; I wanted Easter to be a day so full of light that not even a trace of darkness would be left in my soul. 

But I know that you do not come to your people with thunder and lightning. Even St. Paul and St. Francis journeyed through much darkness before they could see your light. Let me be thankful for your gentle way. I know you are at work. I know you will not leave me alone. I know you are quickening me for Easter - but in a way fitting to my own history and my own temperament.

I pray that these last three weeks, in which you invite me to enter more fully into the mystery of your passion, will bring me a greater desire to follow you on the way that you create for me and to accept the cross that you give to me. Let me die to the desire to choose my own way and select my own desire. You do not want to make me a hero but a servant who loves you.

-- Henri Nouwen

Thanks for sharing this with us, Veisa.

Covers

Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses.

-- Proverbs 10:12

The Most Important Thing My Dad Ever Told Me

 

...I remember my father asking me why I was upset. After I told him that I wanted to be pretty, I remember his response even better: “Sallie, you are pretty. And look at Gloria Steinem. She wears glasses, she’s a knock-out, and she’s changing the world.”

Here’s the important point. There is research showing that the most important relationship in determining a woman’s success in the workplace is the one with her father.

Over to you, Dads... to Finish Reading.

Make Every Effort

For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. 

-- 2 Peter 1:5-9

Practice

A fascinating WSJ article is referenced below in this helpful consideration about matters of faith. Both are good, but I especially like the WSJ content on the role / power of practice (reminds me of the post earlier this week on neuroplasticity):

In a recent Wall Street Journal article (“Practice Makes Perfect – And Not Just for Jocks and Musicians”), author Doug LeMov states what my mom knew all along: “Practice lets us execute a task while using less and less active brain processing. It makes things automatic… What drives mastery is encoding success – performing an action the right way over and over.”

“Practice lets us execute a task while using less and less active brain processing. It makes things automatic. When performers master one aspect of their work, they free their minds to think about another aspect. This may be why many of us have our most creative thoughts while driving or brushing our teeth. Rote learning and conceptual thinking often feed synergistically on each other, freeing our brain capacity for those tasks that require the maximum amount of attention and creativity.

Research has established that fast, simple feedback is almost always more effective at shaping behavior than is a more comprehensive response well after the fact. Better to whisper "Please use a more formal tone with clients, Steven" right away than to lecture Steven at length on the wherefores and whys the next morning.”

A few weeks ago, when I found myself heading into a highly charged situation, I remembered the Wall Street Journal article about practice.  Even before I started to freak out over it, before I gathered my verbal ammunition and prepared my defenses, God impressed upon my thoughts:   “Practice grace in this.”  So I did. I approached the situation with a recalibrated mindset and a different vision.   I practiced something new.  And God transformed a difficulty into an opportunity.

I know of an eleven year old budding violinist who has set an alarm on her iPod to remind her to practice an hour a day.  How different would I be if I reminded myself to practice grace an hour a day?

Continue Reading

Sex, Love, and God

Thanks, Randy, for sharing this one.

Neuroplasticity and Habits

You may have heard that we're born with a huge amount of brain cells, and then we lose them steadily until we die. Now, the good news: that’s neuromythology.

The new understanding is what’s called ‘neurogenesis’: Every day the brain generates 10,000 stem cells that split into two. One becomes a daughter line that continues making stem cells, and the other migrates to wherever it’s needed in the brain and becomes that kind of cell. Very often that destination is where the cell is needed for new learning. Over the next four months, that new cell forms about 10,000 connections with others to create new neural circuitry.

Neurogenesis adds power to our understanding of neuroplasticity, that the brain continually reshapes itself according to the experiences we have. If we are learning a new golf swing, that circuitry will attract connections and neurons. If we are changing a habit – say trying to get better at listening – then that circuitry will grow accordingly. On the other hand, when we try to overcome a bad habit, we’re up against the thickness of the circuitry for something we’ve practiced and repeated thousands of times.

For more from this compelling article, Continue Reading

My View of Things

My view of things is limited by my experience of things.

Truth - Unbudging and Unpredictable

The truth most often just sits there...waiting for us. There are exceptions to every rule, of course, especially since truth rides above and beneath and around things like rules. At times it barges in on us. But generally, the truth is simply patient, beckoning but only softly until we collide with it enough to recognize our need for it. And, then, it pierces us like a dagger because it has tied itself into something we really want. We are changed by it, but often not in many of the ways we expect or want it to. It gives us something far more valuable, perhaps most poignantly in its invitation to pursue it further. And, in that endeavor, something about us changes...as we pursue its pursuit of us. Like a river it flows, whether we notice it or not, but when we do, we are mesmerized. Called. Enlivened. Changed.

A Leader Must Be Aware

...only by being fully conscious can you arrive at a realistic assessment of yourself and others. Objective data can deliver information, but only awareness answers key questions like "can I handle this challenge?", "Who's my best ally?", and "Who's not telling me what he really feels?" to put it in reverse, if you aren't aware, you will quickly lose touch with the human level.

I know that sensitivity training is anathema to many, especially males, and that empathy is often equated with being squishy or weak. But in reality the greatest secret to success is knowing how to feel your way through life. As much as we exalt thinking, being able to feel your way involves empathy, bonding, catching subtle signals, sensing danger signs, knowing what others need, and much else. It takes the complete person to feel his or her way through life; a good computer can do analytical processing far better than almost any of us, but no one ever voted a computer to lead a company.

-- Deepak Chopra

Continue Reading

All Fortune

We ought to give thanks for all fortune: if it is good, because it is good, if bad, because is works in us patience, humility and the contempt of this world and the hope of our eternal country.

-- C.S. Lewis

Unless You Try

Unless you try to do something beyond 
what you have already mastered, 
you will never grow.

-- Ronald E. Osborn

Inspiration

We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. 
Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action.

-- Frank Tibolt

The Harder You Work

"The harder you work, the luckier you get."

There's some debate about who first made this statement. Ben Franklin apparently once said “Diligence is the mother of good luck," although more recently people think of legendary South African golfer Gary Player as the person who coined the phrase. That's probably how it was eventually passed along to me, as my Dad started teaching me ...

Continue Reading

Best Advice: Live The Questions

 

Success, he said, doesn’t just happen. It requires daily effort. And he began to list the things that went into it. This list seemed endless and impossible to achieve. He described physical, mental and emotional discipline, ranging from daily exercise to regulating passionate reactions to circumstances beyond my control. It was pouring by then, and the world outside the window was a spangled gray mass of teary rectangles, crying with me. I was overwhelmed. I wished I’d never bothered to send him a letter. He knew this, so he gave me a copy of Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet:

“Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.”

In the days that followed, I realized that maybe I would never achieve mastery of every item on the long list of advice that had been presented, but my life would only improve if I tried.

Continue Reading

I was quite excited to run across this today. Rilke's thought is one of my favorites, after a period of my life where I needed to learn the beauty of this kind of living.  I have it on my desk in my office.  Years ago, I tediously painted some of it on one of the walls at our church...that process sank it's truth deeply into me.  It is the voice of God to me.

Advice I Wish Someone Had Given Me for My First Job

Revel in working hard no matter what the job is. You might be smart and clever, but a solid work ethic is the main thing that'll separate you from all the other viable candidates. You may start with a bunch of grunt work, but you can't be an oversensetive employee. If you're not learning anything, it's time to look at yourself and...

Continue Reading

Want To Be Taken Seriously?

Want to be taken seriously?...become a better writer.

A tourist in New York asked a woman on the street, “How do I get to Carnegie Hall?” and she replied, “Practice, practice, practice.” The truth is, the best way to get better at anything is to do it repeatedly.

So it is with writing...

Continue Reading

I Asked

Prayer of an Unknown Confederate Soldier, The Creed for the Disabled

I asked God for strength that I might achieve.
I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey.
I asked for health that I might do greater things.

I was given infirmity that I might do better things.
I asked for riches that I might be happy.
I was given poverty that I might be wise.
I asked for power that I might have the praise of men.
I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God.
I asked for all things that I might enjoy life.
I was given life that I might enjoy all things.
I got nothing that I asked for, but everything I hoped for.
Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered.
I am, among all men, most richly blessed.

Thanks, Jake, for sharing this with me.

Goals

Long-range goals keep you from being frustrated by short-term failures.

-- James Cash Penney

I was talking to a friend yesterday about his observation that this (his) generation doesn't reflect very much, they just live in the moment.  There is always a risk of over-generalizing, but I found it fascinating.  It seems to me that this is quite a by-product of our times.  In reaction to something, we have really pushed culturally the importance of 'the moment'...and perhaps succeeded.

We talked at length about this.  Thinking about the future really isn't much on the radar...almost an ambivalence to it.  Is it masking a fear -- too much to take on, to truly consider?  He also mentioned the role of consequences...or the lack of it.  'Just do it' seems to prevail (wonder where we got that one?).  Further into the conversation, he reflected on how important the realization is that one thing in life leads to another...in essence, that we have to be thinking ahead.  He is seeing a connection between his action and his opportunities...especially now that he sees something that he clearly wants (which may be the key anyway).

He has a goal...and 'the moment' doesn't need to prevail.  Fun to watch and to reflect on.

The Veil

It feels like I can't punch through a veil today.  It seems like there is a veil between me and God...like a bubble or a force-field surrounding me.  My prayers just seem to stop and vaporize.

Thinking about it, I realize that my mind keeps wandering.  Wandering to all the things that keep filling my mind, things I'm working on.  Things I need to get done.  Things that aren't right.

I am reminded of a book I read last year during Lent about simplifying the soul.  Given the above, I'm guessing my mind is too full.  I need to simplify, to stop the 'so much going on' in my life so that I can simply pray.

...so the veil can vaporize and I can just 'be' with God again.

The Goodness of Work

"...they have enjoyed earning and spending that money far more than they have enjoyed their allowance or birthday money."

The boys are not working to get good grades, or to get into a good college. They are working because working is good, in and of itself. And working can be good because it allows you to buy things, for yourself and for others, that are good. And working is good because it allows you to produce things, for yourself and others, that are good.

Continue Reading

The Honest Rich

The honest poor can sometimes forget poverty. The honest rich can never forget it.

-- G.K. Chesterton

Getting Even

Getting even...has never healed a single person.

In Medias Res

 

For more pics, click here

Satisfied

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be satisfied.

-- Matthew 5:6

Deeper and Closer

What is the purpose of grace? This is what all the work of grace aims at—an even deeper knowledge of God and an ever closer fellowship with Him.

How does God in grace prosecute this purpose? He does this by exposing us to burdensome and frustrating circumstances so as to overwhelm us with a sense of our own inadequacy, and to drive us to cling to him more closely. This is the ultimate reason why God fills our lives with trouble and perplexities of one sort or another — it is so ensure that we shall learn to hold Him fast.

The reason why the Bible spends so much of its time reiterating that God is a strong rock, a firm defense, and a sure refuge and help for the weak, is that God spends so much of His time bringing home to us that we are weak, both mentally and morally, and we dare not trust ourselves to find, or to follow the right road. When we walk along a clear road feeling fine, and someone takes our arm to help us, as likely as not we shall impatiently shake him off; but when we are caught in rough country in the dark, with a storm getting up and our strength spent, and someone takes our arm to help us, we shall thankfully lean on him.  And God wants us to feel that our way through life is rough and perplexing, so that we may learn thankfully to lean on Him. Therefore He takes steps to drive us out of our self-confidence and away from the things of this life to trust in Himself.

-- J.I. Packer

...for God.

Ultimately, to fast means only one thing - to be hungry - to go to the limit of that human condition which depends entirely on food and being hungry, to discover that this dependency is not the whole truth about man, that hunger itself is first of all a spiritual state and that it is in its last reality hunger for God.

-- Alexander Schmemann

...thanks, Veisa, for sharing this!

Hunger

Hunger in the midnight, hunger at the stroke of noon
Hunger in the mansion, hunger in the rented room
Hunger on the TV, hunger on the printed page
And there's a God-sized hunger underneath the laughing and the rage

-- Jackson Browne, "Looking East"

Thanks, Jim, for this one!

Ash Wednesday - Revisited

It has been said that forgiveness is among the more powerful forces in life.

Yet even its glory cannot be realized without a personal acknowledging of that which even causes it to be necessary. Ash Wednesday is a reminder of this, of who we are or of who we have become because of our sin.

It marks the beginning of another opportunity for me to recalibrate myself to what is true about me.  To pray out of it again this prayer from last year and into hope.

The purpose of Lent is not to force on us a few formal obligations, but to soften our heart so that it may open itself to the realities of the Spirit, to experience the hidden thirst and hunger for communion with God. The sadness of my exile, the mess I have made of my life and the brightness of God’s presence and forgiveness, the joy of the recovered desire for God, the peace of the recovered home. Such is the climate of Lenten worship.

-- Alexander Schmemann

No One Can Truly Innovate

No one can truly innovate based solely on the contents of his or her own head. You have to close your laptop, get out of your chair, and take what I call “innovation trips” to explore new places and meet people who are doing your thing differently – and maybe better.

-- Delos Cosgrove, CEO and President at Cleveland Clinic

Awareness

A leader has to be aware of other people and quite often aware for other people. That is, he anticipates what the group is thinking and feeling. Ego blocks this kind of awareness, and so does ambition, selfishness, and competitiveness - if you let them stand in the way.

-- Deepak Chopra

Be Still

Be still, and know that I am God.

-- Psalm 46:10

One of the implications here appears to be that there is an integral link between our ability to know God and our willingness to be still. Is it conversely true, that there is a part of knowing God that cannot happen unless we are willing to stop?  ...to stop our rushing around, our clamoring, our grasping for things, our busyness that we use to keep us from embracing the ache within us.

Perhaps it is our being still that affords us the opportunity for our ache to take us somewhere truly satisfying, rather than simply continuing to chase all the activity that essentially only numbs us.

A Bird & Strengthening

We so often try to strengthen ourselves by 'being strong'.  More often than not, though,  it seems we are actually strengthened when we acknowledge our weakness.

This is not the way of our culture or the imagery that is often promoted to us in realms of achievement like sports, the military, or business.  But even there the benefits of this truth are being acknowledged.

A bird flew into our garage the other day and it relentlessly tried to get out by flying its way through a window pane...to no avail.  I opened the garage door a day later thinking he had made it out somehow, only to find the bird continuing his beak-bruising efforts.  I left the garage door open again and tried to shew him towards it, but he would have none of it.

I had to go, so I just left door open...figuring eventually he would notice the much larger opening behind him and take the opportunity.

I think this is not unlike our cultural beliefs about strength...and especially that we can't afford to acknowledge our weaknesses because we have to 'be strong'.  The truth is that we actually aren't that strong.   But by acknowledging them, we gain access to an opening of True Strength that is always available to us.

...like a big garage door open behind us.  Why would we continue to believe that our only way is try harder to fly through a window pane?

...and, sometimes, all we can do is leave the garage door open and wait for others to see it.

The Need for Silence

We need silence in our lives. We even desire it. But when we enter into silence we encounter a lot of inner noises, often so disturbing that a busy and distracting life seems preferable to a time of silence. Two disturbing "noises" present themselves quickly in our silence: the noise of lust and the noise of anger. Lust reveals our many unsatisfied needs, anger or many unresolved relationships. But lust and anger are very hard to face.

How do we befriend our inner enemies lust and anger? By listening to what they are saying. They say, "I have some unfulfilled needs" and "Who really loves me?" Instead of pushing our lust and anger away as unwelcome guests, we can recognize that our anxious, driven hearts need some healing. Our restlessness calls us to look for the true inner rest where lust and anger can be converted into a deeper way of loving.

-- Henri Nouwen

Behavior and Reflection

Charles Duhigg’s excellent book The Power of Habit cites a Duke University study that says at least 45 percent of our behavior is habitual. In other words, almost half of what we do, we do unthinkingly.

    You have to create the time and space
    to reflect on how you behave.

-- Michael Bungay Stanier

Not A Reward

Love is a gift, not a reward for service!

-- Jack Winter

Marriage - Cont.

It is not your love that sustains the marriage --
but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.

-- Deitrich Bonhoeffer

Marriage

This is how to make love out of a marriage:  Love lays down it’s own wants to lift up the will of another.

Love lets go of its plans -- to hold on to a person.

-- Ann Voskamp, How to Be a Better Lover

White As Snow

"Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow..."

-- Isaiah 1:18

I thanked God in the middle of all the woody white this morning when a voice within me said, "YOU can't thank God. You sin one day and then pretend to thank Him the next! That is not right. You are not worthy to imagine yourself in a relationship with Him." I felt stung, partly because the Accuser's words were true. I am not worthy. I said that to myself in response. I am not worthy.

"...but, that is not the basis of my love for you", said another Voice. At this, I could almost feel the snarl of indignation from the former voice as it vaporized from the scene. It felt as if he couldn't slay me with the half-truth he was using against me, he would leave silence to linger around my response to see if I really believed it, really accepted it. It was odd that something so loud could grow so quiet, and so quickly.

I thanked God again for the beauty of the morning, for the snow, and for the gift of knowing that I will be as white as it is.

Good to Complain

One of our more common and basic complaints at one point or another is that our needs are not being met. They can become a general view of things, or more often than not, they can take the form of what we believe about another person -- a spouse, an employer, a church, a friend, a family member. Whether directly or passively, we operate from something as we complain about what we feel we need...that someone else is not giving us.

I caught myself in this the other day. And, it took a good run to sort it out. In the end, through my complaining, I realized that the evidence I had been accumulating was highly selective. The conclusions I was reaching for based on that evidence were leaving quite a bit out. Because the truth is...my needs have been met. Not always...and not completely by another person, but even in those cases a lot has been met that I tend to forget about.

I rediscovered that ultimately, what I really need has already been met and I don't need to require of others that they keep meeting them in order for me to be happy. They don't need to do it and I don't need them to. Everything I really need has already been given to me. I am free to live out of that truth and to give to others without getting everything I want back. When I live this way, something unexpected happens...what I need is met again.

...sometimes, it's good to complain. It exposes some things that I have forgotten, about what is true.

Expertise

Expertise, it seems to me, is built on repetition.

I was introduced to someone the other day.  I didn't think much of the person's name at the time.  A couple of days later, I saw that person again and tried to quickly remember the name.  It came at the last second.  I repeated it as I walked away and I realized that by making a mental note the third time, I would probably remember the name.  One might not be viewed as an 'expert', if he or she remembers people's names, but we do admire people who can do it well.

The more I thought about it, the more this technique seemed true in other areas as well.  Finding ways to repeat things, helps me learn.  The things I do over and over are things I become pretty good at.  Experts, in fact, seem to be those who have done something or looked at something enough that they seem to understand it or do it very well.

Some examples come to mind: studying for a test, learning to ride horses or a bike, learning a language, scientists who pour over data again and again, athletes who perfect their skill, becoming a musician or a great cook or a writer, counselors who listen to many people, etc. all use repetition.

At some level, this observation doesn't seem all the revolutionary.  Perhaps it's not.  But, in our culture, we often think of repetitive things as boring or that we want something new or different.  The real 'perhaps', however, might be that it is through repetition that we truly become able to learn something deeply, out of which we can then offer something of significance to another.


Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential.

-- Winston Churchill

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.

Continue Reading

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