Love the Notion

When we first 'fall in love', it is hard not to notice that we are mostly in love with the notion that someone, who's not supposed to (like family), actually loves us.

Comparison

Comparison, a great teacher told me, is the cardinal sin of modern life. It traps us in a game we can't win. Once we define ourselves in terms of others we lose the freedom to shape our own lives.

-- Jim Collins, BUILT TO LAST

Sow Peace, Harvest Righteousness

Believers often repeat these words to each other:

The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

-- Numbers 6:24-26

Why? ...and, where would you look for an answer?  How about above?

But the wisdom from above is first pure,
then peaceable, gentle, open to reason,
full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.

And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

-- James 3:17-18

We make peace from the peace given to us by God. And, when we are committed to this peace of the Lord, we sow a 'harvest' - a harvest of righteousness.  Fascinating how peace and righteousness are connected - seeds and fruits of each other.  Consider the opposites and how they work....

What Wisdom!  And, what Bounty we have in Him!

"I Need Thee Every Hour"

Shrink or Expand

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.

-- Anaïs Nin

The Only True Disability

After watching this, this post seems even more true.

Stronger and Weaker

You are stronger than you think you are, and you are weaker than you know.

Why People Will of Won't Remember You

I heard this story about Bill Murray once. Apparently he was alone in an elevator at a hotel when a guy got on and recognized him. The man stood uncomfortably quiet as the elevator made its way down to the lobby. Finally, the man looked over at Bill Murray and said he was a fan and it was a pleasure to meet him. Bill just nodded and smiled and then continued to look forward. The fan looked rather apologetic and when the doors opened in the lobby walked sheepishly out of the elevator. The two of them walked out of the hotel, the fan one way and Bill Murray the other. Then, suddenly, Bill Murray turned and ran toward the man, tackling him into the flower bed. Murray sat up, pointed at the man and said You will never, ever forget this and then got up and ran away.

How do they value me as a human? They listen. They ask questions. They do not want anything in exchange...Continue Reading

-- Donald Miller

Only He Who Listens Can Speak

The more faithfully you listen to the voice within you, the better you hear what is sounding outside. And only he who listens can speak.

-- Dag Hammarskjold

Growth

Part of the opportunity to grow is to decide each day whether or not you want to.

Remembering

It is important to remember.  It is important to make time to remember.

To remember:

• things past, things that have been done
• things present, things that are being done
• things future, things that will be done

Remembering is like an usher, it walks you to the door - the door of Gratitude.

Nurtures A Wise Appreciation

Higher education should be equipping students to answer these four questions:

    What is worth knowing?
    What is worth doing?
    What makes for a good human life?
    What are my responsibilities to other people?

College is not the only place in which answers to these questions can develop, but it is an important place. And siloed, specialized training in a discipline—any discipline—will answer none of them.

Liberal arts training, done well, appreciates and exposes students to the many different forms that good thinking takes, that truth takes, and that evidence takes. It nurtures a kind of wise appreciation of the complexity of the world and it’s problems. It makes clear to students that not everything is a nail, awaiting their hammer.

Specialized training can teach that. But we also need people capable of recognizing big problems and articulating them in a way that can move scholarly disciplines and professional practices in a whole new direction. I’m pretty sure that specialized training will not teach that...continue reading.

-- Barry Schwartz

Albert: On Genius and Education

A caricature of the difference between education and learning:

 

Writ Personally

True religion is always a deep intuition that we are already participating in something very good, in spite of our best efforts to deny or avoid it.

We are here to give back fully and freely what was first given to us - but now writ personally - by us!

-- Richard Rohr, Falling Upward

Shares the Sufferings

A Christian is someone who shares the sufferings of God in the world.

-- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Share Your Time

If you want to live a longer, happier, and healthier life, take all the usual precautions that your doctor recommends, and then...get out there and share your time with those who need it. That's the caring cure.

-- Sara Konrath

Feedback Is An Invaluable Mirror

Feedback of any kind is an invaluable mirror.  If we're fortunate, we grew up surrounded by a lot of mirrors -- and they reflected important truths that we might have otherwise ignored.

The older we get and the farther we move 'up'...the more those mirrors tend to get tossed in a closet.

Unhealthy things start to happen...continue reading.

- John Ryan

Remind yourself...feedback is an invaluable mirror. Remind yourself.

If you don't, you might not work through the feedback you receive and reject it, with a number of justifications for doing so. You might quit at points along the way and reach conclusions about yourself, not to mention others, with phrases like...

I Will Not Let You

I will not let you have life on your own terms.

-- God

Life Worthwhile

Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.

-- Albert Einstein

His Own Utility

No one can live happily who has regard for himself alone and transforms everything into a question of his own utility.

-- Seneca

They Still Separate Us

The seven deadly sins are still deadly, because they separate us from other people. They are all about putting 'me' first and that is maladaptive for social creatures like us.

-- Paul Zak

Blur is the Enemy of a Well-Lived Life

 

No one can deny that today’s technology is fun. It’s loaded with eye candy, which is an addiction. It’s loaded with social media, which is an addiction. It’s loaded with text messaging, which is an addiction. It’s loaded with incoming calls, maybe even incoming video calls, which is an addiction.

I say “addiction” because people do indeed get addicted to these things. There are many times when we know we shouldn’t answer, but we do. We know we shouldn’t reply, but we do. We know we shouldn’t check status updates, but we do. It’s almost like the priority is not what we’re doing or who we’re currently with. The priority is whatever’s happening through the device.

Of course, deep down, we know that’s not true. But is our behavior reflecting...continue reading.

-- Daniel Burrus

Disguised

God comes to you disguised as your life.

-- Paula D'Arcy

The Difference

What’s the difference between you and God?  God never thinks he’s you.

-- Anne Lamott, Help Thanks Wow

Ignorance

Ignorance of God and ourselves is the great principle and cause of all our disquietments; and this ariseth mostly not from want of light and instruction, but for want of consideration and application.

-- John Owen

Wisdom

Our wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid Wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.

-- John Calvin

Sitting Is Killing You

 

Read more here about how sitting may be killing you...

It Doesn't Matter

It doesn't matter how slowly you go, as long as you don't stop.

-- Confucius

How Little Can Be Done

How very little can be done under the spirit of fear.

-- Florence Nightingale

Killing Our Kids With Kindness?

One of the best books I have ever read is The Logic of Failure, where Dietrich Dorner demonstrates through real life case studies how often what seems to be the logical solution can turn into disaster. For me, this is exactly what is being played out with modern parenting. Yes, it seems logical in theory to give our kids more attention than we received; to give them the best opportunities for development with a plethora of extra-curricular activities. And because we love them, we wrap them in a cloud of cotton wool protection.

Logical measures. Well thought out plans. There is no doubt we are acting out of care and love. But are we in fact slowly killing our kids with kindness? Are we producing a generation who not only don’t know how to think for themselves, but expect everything to be handed to them on a silver platter and require constant stimulation to keep them amused? We seem to be developing a world in which, despite ultra-competitive alpha parents, children are taught that ‘you don’t have to succeed to be a winner’.

In a work environment, this translates to employees who aren’t prepared to do the tedious jobs, and don’t understand they need to earn the right to greater responsibility and progression. Churning out employees who aren’t risk takers and can rarely think for themselves – who constantly need to be told what to do when. Where will we find the risk-takers, the innovators – those who will future-proof our planet – if we don’t allow children to fail and learn to do things the right way, not the easy way?

-- Creel P.

Continue Reading

Health

...our western notion of body-mind duality is entirely false. The study shows that we are a whole organism, and when we get healthy that means our body and our mind get healthy.

-- Dr. Kathryn Kotrla

I have become increasing convinced that we cannot be healthy in just one area of our lives. When we are unhealthy in one area, we are in the others as well...and vice versa.

It Is Doubtful

It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until He has hurt him deeply.

-- A.W. Tozer

Kal-Haven Youth Bike Ride II

 

More pics here...

Duct-Tape Surfing

Leadership Failure

Speaking of character:

The most common cause of leadership failure is ego, which means that someone is looking out for number one rather than the group.

-- Deepak Chopra

Content of Their Character

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Darkness Cannot Drive Out Darkness

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. 
Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

8 Things You Should Not Do Every Day

It's for your own good. Cut these things out of your day and you'll see gains in productivity -- not to mention happiness:

1. Check my phone while I'm talking to someone.
4. Use multiple notifications.
5. Let the past dictate the future.
6. Wait until I'm sure I will succeed.

-- Jeff Haden

Click here for the rest of the list...

We Have a Choice

God doesn't promise an explanation,  but he does promise to walk with us through the pain. We have a choice - to be angry over what we think we have lost or to be grateful over what we were given.

-- Courageous, the movie

...or, perhaps in different times and ways, both....

Chaos and Order: Cracks Me Open

The first time I found myself today was on my routine morning run, when I finally panted, "God, I need you to crack open my heart...'.  I waited for the result, for an answer.  ...not much came, at least right away.  Often, I've observed, God needs a little time.  Or, perhaps more accurately, it is me who needs the time...to be able to receive Him.  A few bends on the wooded path later, I breathed, "...it feels like I'm reaching into something without being able to grab anything".

I need time.  Time to breathe my way into the chaos of my cluttered and spilling-over mind and heart.  So many things going on, so many concerns, so much transition, so much unknown about the future, so much that seems beyond my capacity to manage, to understand.  A swirl, it often is.

The morning sun bouncing off the crystal blue sky was reflected in the brook beside me (a Psalms-like shift here).  The waters are loading up on the unrevealed, yet imminent colors of Fall.  A slight ripple accentuated the shining rocks underneath it; all was moving somewhere.  The air was cool; the day's warmth was encroaching.  I felt that wonderous sense of anticipation.  It was great to be alive.

I ran farther than I anticipated and had to stop, to gage a direction on how much more I could do.  My back was towards the sun and my breath was forming a shadow of cloud.  Steam rose from my skin.  Hot and cool were dancing together.  I wondered, in that moment of pause, of catching my breath, how this and the earlier seemingly unanswered prayer were now intersecting.

I saw a smattering of yellow-headed flowers and wondered about the cluster of them that had so impressed me last year.  I saw trees strewn everywhere.  Plants had exploded in every direction over the summer.  Moss was verdant.  Fungus was creeping.  Birds were yacking away.  A jack-rabbit darted in front of me.  It was utter chaos.  Not unlike what I feel, at times.  Too much, too everywhere.  Too out of control.

And yet, there was a sense that all the chaos and disarray was still subordinate to an order that presides over all of it.  Nothing was really out of control.  All was still ordered.  The chaos was really only the current nature of my experience with it, in a small place, in time and space.  The stars will still watching it all last night.  The sun still arrived, right on time.  The flowers will doing their vaporish thing, as they do every year.

All is well.  And, I can sit in it and wonder about it, and wait for the greater of it to prevail.  ...even in the chaos of my mind and heart.  He did it...He cracked me open.

Meaningful Expression of Care

...a meaningful expression of care is far more dramatic than gun-fire.

-- Mister Rogers




Times have really changed...or, have they?  People have really changed...or, have they?

...thanks, Barb, for forwarding.

Nothing Wrong

No matter what people say true success does not come easily. Like everything in life, if you really want something you are going to have to work for it and put in the time and effort. There is nothing wrong with a little bit of hard work...

-- James Caan

Good Business

You can’t do good business with bad people.

-- Trammell Crow

You Don't Know

Do not boast about tomorrow,
    for you do not know what a day may bring.

-- Proverbs 27:1

A Way to Cling to God - Solitude

Few can willingly walk into the dark without anticipating light.

I felt that heading into the trails this morning; the possibility of sunrising light drew me into the evaporating night of woods-land.

Solitude can feel like going into the dark -- disorienting, uncomfortable, hard to get your bearings.  But, solitude actually brings us light...light for our souls.

When we enter into solitude to be with God alone, we quickly discover how dependent we are. Without the many distractions of our daily lives, we feel anxious and tense. When nobody speaks to us, calls on us, or needs our help, we start feeling like nobodies. Then we begin wondering whether we are useful, valuable, and significant. Our tendency is to leave this fearful solitude quickly and get busy again to reassure ourselves that we are “somebodies.” But that is a temptation, because what makes us somebodies is not other people’s responses to us but God’s eternal love for us.

To claim the truth of ourselves we have to cling to our God in solitude as to the One who makes us who we are.

-- Henri Nouwen

Perspective

Lately, I've sat in different chairs at my house and noticed things I can see from that perspective.  Like this morning, a glorious one at that, I'm sitting at one end of my porch and see an indescribably rich and bright green in the fronds of a fern hanging at the other end of the porch between me and the now easterning sun.  How can such color be?  Why is it such a pleasure to the eye?

I am again grateful for the power and magnitude of beauty, what it does to my soul, what it arouses within me, what it frees me to imagine.  What a blessing a different perspective can bring and what this morning's chair has brought.

Tragic Sense of Life and Correct Thinking

An extended reading from Robert Rohr's book, Falling Upward:

"The tragic sense of life" was first popularized by the Spanish philosopher Niguel de Unamuno as he told his European world that they had distorted the meaning of faith by aligning it with the Western philosophy of "progress" rather than with what he saw as rather evident in the Judeo-Christian Scriptures. Jesus and the Jewish prophets were fully at home with the tragic sense of life, and it made the shape and nature of reality very different for them, for Unamuno, and maybe still for us.

Truth is not always about pragmatic problem solving and making things "work," but about reconciling contradictions. Just because something might have some dire effects does mean it is not true or even good. Just because something pleases people does not make it true either. Life is inherently tragic and that is the truth that only faith, but not our seeming logic, can accept.

Unamuno equates the notion of faith with truth as an underlying the life force so strong that it even includes death! Faith also includes reason, but is a larger category than reason for him.

In our time, it is quantum physics that shows how true Unamuno's explanation might really be. Most of us were formed by Newtonian worldviews in which everything had a clear cause an equal effect, what might be called and "if then" worldview.  All causality was clear and defined.  The truth we are now beginning to respect is that the universe seems to proceed through a web of causes, just as human motivation does, producing ever-increasing diversity, multiplicity, dark holes, dark matter, death and rebirth, loss and renewal in different forms, and yes even violence, the continual breaking of the rules of "reason" that make wise people look for more all embracing rolls and a larger "logic".

Nature is much more disorder then order, more multiplicity than uniformity, with the greatest disorder being death itself! In the spiritual life, and now in science, we learn much more by honoring and learning from the exceptions then by just imposing our previous certain rules to make everything fit.  You can see perhaps what Jesus and Paul both meant by telling us to honor "the least of the brothers and sisters" (Matthew 25:40) and to "clothe them with the greatest care."  It is these creatures and those humans around the edge of what we have defined as normal, proper, or good who have the most to teach us.  They tend to reveal the shadow and mysterious side of things. Such constant exceptions make us revisit the so-called rule and what we call normal -- and recalibrate! The exceptions keep us humble and searching and not rushing toward resolution of our anxiety.

Our daily experience of this world is almost nothing like Plato's world of universal and perfect forms and ideas; it is always filled with huge diversity, and variations on everything from neutrino light inside of darkness, to male seahorses that bear their young, to the most extraordinary flowers that open only at night for no one to see.  Jesus had no trouble with the exceptions, whether they were prostitutes, drunkards, Samaritans, lepers Gentiles, tax collectors, or wayward sheep. He ate with outsiders regularly, to the chagrin of the church stalwarts, who always love their versions of order over any compassion toward the exceptions. Just the existence of a single mentally challenged her mentally ill person should make us change any of our theories about the necessity of some kind of correct thinking as the definition of "salvation."  Yet we have a history of excluding and torturing people who do not "think "right.

I remember the final words of my professor of church history, a very orthodox priest theologian, who said as he walked out of the classroom after four years of study with him, "Well,  after all is said and done, remember that church practice has been more influenced by Plato than by Jesus."  After our shock started to dissipate  we realized that what he meant, of course, was that we invariably prefer the universal synthesis, the answer that settles all the dust and resolves every question -- even when it's not entirely true -- over the mercy and grace of God. Jesus did not seem to teach that one-size-fits-all, but instead that his God adjusts to the vagaries and failures of the moment.  This ability to adjust to human disorder and failure is named God's providence or compassion.  Every time God forgives us, God is saying that God's own rules did not matter as much as the relationship that God wants to create with us.  Just the Biblical notion of absolute forgiveness, once experienced, should be enough to make us trust and seek and love God.

But we humans have a hard time with the concrete, the individual, the anecdotal story, which hardly ever fits the universal mold. So we pretend. Maybe that is why we like and need humor, which invariably reveals these inconsistencies. Our mind, it seems, is more pleased with universals: never broken, always-applicable rules and patterns that allow us to predict and control things. This is good for science, but lousy for religion.  Jesus is never upset at sinners (check it out!); he is only upset with people who do not think they are sinners!


The genius of the biblical revelation is that it refuses to deny the dark side of things, but forgives failure and integrates falling to achieve it's only promised wholeness. 

-- Richard Rohr, Falling Upward

Hallelujah - Street Artist Style

Enlivened

We seem to be enlivened in areas where we are the most comfortable.

We are energized where we feel natural.  And, these tend to be areas that make us feel alive.

Conversely, we seem to feel tired or depleted in areas where we are less comfortable, ill at ease, or out of our element.  Perhaps, at least in part, because these are areas where we have to work harder.

The same thing can sound 'fun' to some people and 'tiring' to others.  Many times, what sounds like fun or energizing are tshings we enjoy because they are familiar to us.  We understand them, how they work, how things will likely turn out.  Where these things are more unknown - less familiar - we feel less comfortable and, often, more shut down.

My observations of myself and others is that this works pretty consistently in both our external and internal worlds.

Familiarity

We tend to see truth mostly through the lens of things we are comfortable with...things familiar to us.

Or, to say it differently, we are less able to recognize truth in contexts we are less comfortable with or that are less familiar to us.

A Mindset

Proactive bonding is a mindset. You actively look for the common goal between yourself and the other person or team. This helps eliminate any built-in adversarial filter you bring to a meeting or project. It stops that inner-dialogue of tribal seeking. The brain is looking for tribal behavior: you’re like my tribe or you're different from my tribe. You're a friend or an enemy. It's you or us. Looking for the common goal, or a positive outcome, can also help you feel open minded and calm – an ideal state for finding creative solutions.

-- George Kohlrieser

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Forgiveness

To forgive is the highest, most beautiful form of love. 
In return, you will receive untold peace and happiness.

-- Robert Muller

Sin

I am mindful of my sin today. Sin is ugly. It is damaging. It is evil.

I am only a couple of choices away from the kind of thinking and behavior that I can often easily think is only in the most awful of people.  I am those people.

We might as well close the door. Shut the book. No relationship can survive the destruction of sin.  It's hopeless.

But wait...the finality of this reality is not final after all. A way has been made for us; a path towards the unexpected...towards restoration.

My kids drove by me yesterday. "Where's mom?" they asked. "She went another way", I said, "we got in a fight."

...the path of restoration starts with confession. I just had to admit it; to them, to myself. And confession leads us to the great light of forgiveness that out-shines the deep dark forest of sin.


Forgiveness is the final form of love.

-- Reinhold Niebuhr

Science Believes

Science believes. It believes that something is knowable - otherwise, why bother. It believes that knowing matters, perhaps because knowing can or should make life better.

Science believes that knowing is based on verify-ability. If believes that if you can verify something, it must be true. And, it can tend to believe that if something can't be verified, it isn't true. This is where science falls in love with itself and begins to work against itself, because science is based on the ethos of verification.

Here science claims a corner on truth; it strives to provide evidence for it. The reality is that truth simply is. And, only some of it is knowable. Science is an attempt to know it and, at times, a good attempt. But, it remains highly subordinate to truth. Good science likely always supports truth, though not necessarily the other way around.  It has discovered, at a human level, many rather amazing things.  And, it has often discovered that what it thought it had discovered was actually wrong.  Science, after all, is another form of the quest of the human spirit, subject to the limitations of the investigator, to interpretation, and to mis-interpretation.

Besides, Twain wasn't too far off when he said:

Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.

-- Mark Twain

Science, among other things, is still belief.

With, Not Above

To become truly great,
one has to stand with people, not above them.

Through Each Other's Eyes

Could a greater miracle take place
  than for us to look through each other's eyes
                                                      for an instant?

-- Henry David Thoreau

Change Your Habits with a Good Checklist

Despite how unfashionable they are, some old ideas are still quite good, like this one:

When I was 21, the U.S. Navy taught me how to fly an airplane.

We practiced for a while in a flight simulator, and eventually the opportunity came to do the real thing.

With an instructor sitting behind me in the cockpit, I started the engine, taxied out to the runway, got clearance for takeoff, set the power, scanned the instruments and released the brakes. For a guy who had always dreamed of flying, this was pretty exciting stuff! As we raced down the runway and lifted off, I savored the moment.

“Is there anything you want to do now?” the instructor asked, shortly after we were airborne.

“No,” I said. “Everything seems to be going well.”

“Do you notice anything about the aircraft?” he insisted.

Well, now that he mentioned it, the plane was kind of slow. I re-checked the power settings, which were correct. The instruments looked good. What was dragging us down?

Continue Reading

Door

When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.

-- Helen Keller

Shock & Grief

Our celebration of Tami's Dad was soon over as we left town last night and learned that his sister was killed in an auto accident just two hours into her trip home. And, to think that not just a couple of hours earlier we shared hugs and anticipation of other times together.  We are still shocked as we grieve her loss.

How precious and fleeting this life is...and loss has a way of thrusting us into many deep and otherwise unfathomable places.  Places where only God can meet us.

Ironically (or perhaps not), I heard this quote by A.W. Tozer earlier yesterday morning:

When I realize that everything that happens to me is designed to make me more like Jesus, a lot of anxiety is relieved.

–– A.W. Tozer

Inexcusable

To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.

-- C.S. Lewis

Happy 80th, Lennart Gustav Anderson!

 

More pics here...

Seasons of Grieving

It takes seasons of grieving to be reconciled to it. 

-- Holly Benyousky

How You React

Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.

-- Charles Swindoll

Slow Accumulation

Life is a slow accumulation

...of good or ill.

Plans

Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.

-- Peter Drucker

Even If You Fail

Pursue something so important that even if you fail, the world is better off with you having tried.

-- Tim O-Reilly

Far-Reaching Purposes

Life is not a straight line leading from one blessing to the next and then finally to heaven. Life is a winding and troubled road. Switchback after switchback...God is not just showing up after the trouble and cleaning it up. He is plotting the course and managing the troubles with far-reaching purposes for our good and for the glory of Jesus Christ.

-- John Piper

Poverty

Poverty is not a natural condition; it is man-made.

-- Nelson Mandela




Some time well-spent...a Charlie Rose interview with Bono at the Spotted Pig.

Liberties

Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Self-Interest

We are on the back-side of democracy when citizens vote primarily in their self-interest based on unrealistic promises.

-- David C. Baker

Parents Obey

The thing that impresses me the most about America is the way parents obey their children.

- King Edward VIII

Only 7 Percent

Only 7 percent of the information people take in comes from the words they hear. Most of the information comes from vocal inflection and body language.

-- David Mann

Good Listener Gets Rewarded

You can’t really talk effectively until you understand what your audience wants. Digital is creating all sorts of hints and clues that a good listener can interpret. In the digital space, brands must continually keep a finger on the virtual pulse to understand what they want from their brand or product experience. A company that shows it’s a good listener gets rewarded. A survey by InboxQ found 64 percent of customers surveyed are more likely to make a purchase from a brand that responded to them.

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Power of Listening...and Telling

I've been collecting observations about listening this week.  I've been doing more listening this week.

It is a powerful action to listen to others, to another person.  In fact, there may not be much that could be more sacred.  Listening creates the space for another to actually tell something, something important about them.  We don't often stop long enough to do this great service for another person.  But, everyone has a story...one that needs to be told, if not for the sake of the one listening, then for the one telling.  Our lives take shape through words, through telling our story. Sometimes words aren't needed, but often not indefinitely.  Because a good story needs to be told, it needs to be heard.  The need for communication is the bond of our humanity.  It creates the mortar needed to build the substance of good life.

I listened to lot of good stories this week.  Stories of people I hadn't met before, stories of people that I live around and now know better. People now that I love more...because of what they told me.  I also learned more about myself because of what I learned about others.  I know how we are connected, in deeper ways.  I know how to identify with them more, to view them as more alike than different from me.  All because I took the time to listen to them.

A group of young people attended a conference this week, a conference where great stories were told, where great thoughts were shared, where stretching experiences were participated in, where people profoundly worshiped together.  I was struck by the range and depth of what people carry around within them.  By the importance of sharing these things with others.  By the ways a person is expanded through deep, rich, and good experiences with other people.  By the telling.  By the listening.

It is a privilege to listen.

Listening and Healing

To enter into solidarity with a suffering person does not mean that we have to talk with that person about our own suffering. Speaking about our own pain is seldom helpful for someone who is in pain. A wounded healer is someone who can listen to a person in pain without having to speak about his or her own wounds. When we have lived through a painful depression, we can listen with great attentiveness and love to a depressed friend without mentioning our experience. Mostly it is better not to direct a suffering person’s attention to ourselves. We have to trust that our own bandaged wounds will allow us to listen to others with our whole beings. That is healing.

-- Henri Nouwen

What Isn't Said

The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn't said.

-- Peter Drucker

Most Basic of Needs

The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood. The best way to understand people is to listen to them.

-- Ralph Nichols

Listen Completely

When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.

-- Ernest Hemingway

Momentum 2013 - VSF Youth

 

...plus Joel and Makenzie are participating in the Momentum 2013 Youth Conference this week at Indiana Wesleyan University.

Click here for links to sessions.

...or here to see some pics being collected (new pics added!).

Keep Seeking

The secret to joy is to keep seeking God where we doubt he is.

-- Ann Voskmp

Our Hands Are Too Full

God is always trying to give good things to us, but our hands are too full to receive them.

-- St. Augustine

Unexamined Life

The unexamined life is not worth living.

-- Socrates

Want Something New

If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old.

-- Peter Drucker

Change - Con't

Speaking of change:

Let nothing upset you, Let nothing frighten you. Everything is changing; God alone is changeless. Patience attains the goal. Who has God lacks nothing; God alone fills all their needs.

-- St. Teresa of Avila

It is interesting to note that Theresa and Darwin had deep roots in their beliefs about God.  Perhaps they ended with quite different perspectives about change...or did they?  Someone else said, "Change is the only constant."  Many struggle with change, others get used to it, while yet others welcome it eagerly.

It seems to me, like many things, that your starting points are pretty important to your view...

...of things, like change.

Change

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.

-- Leon C. Megginson

Hard to Fail

It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.

-- Theodore Roosevelt

Pictured Rocks 2013

 

For more pics click here....

Single Step

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

-- Thomas à Kempis

Long Walk

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

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

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

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

Keep walking; there is always more.

With Joy

...with joy!

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

Surprises Us

And, it is service that surprises us...

What I Really Need the Most

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

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

Odor of Outdoors

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

-- Margaret Atwood

Break the Connection Addiction

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

-- Steve Anderson

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Everything

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

-- George McDonald

Awareness

Awareness of others can lead to self-awareness.

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

Awareness of others can lead to self-awareness.

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

God-awareness leads to others-awareness.

To Serve

...to serve.

Enables Us

And, it is love that enables us...

Habit Change

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

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

-- Daniel Goleman

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Character and Power

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

-- Abraham Lincoln