Re-Learning How To Live

Two recent posts make it painfully obvious that we badly need to re-learn how to live, so that we can get back to learning (makes me wonder whether living really is primarily learning, rather than simply entertaining ourselves...perhaps a topic for another day):

The way you think about your body leads to the way you treat it. Thinking in terms of what can go wrong induces fear, and fear is a very poor motivator over the long run.

The biggest flaw in the machine model, as I see it, is its rejection of the mind-body connection. When I was in medical school, no such thing existed. At most we learned about psychosomatic disorders, with the clear implication that they weren't real, being the result of the patient's imagination. This situation hasn't changed much in medical school, sad to say, but the surge in alternative and integrated medicine has brought the mind-body connection to the fore.

In reality your body is a process, not a thing.  Well-being depends on finding your flow, in terms of a relaxed but alert mental state, a steady positive mood about your life, following the natural rhythm of rest and activity, taking realistic, practical steps to reduce stress, respecting the need for a good night's sleep, avoiding toxins, and relying on your body's intelligence.  Continue reading....

-- Deepak Chopra

I am drawn to Chopra's observations, in general, and here as well. He comes from traditions of truth and faith that are different from the ones I am familiar with. But, his notions of a wholistic perspective of life are in line with what seems true to me. Our western predilections toward compartmentalization seem, well, unwholistic. And, while some of the attempt to isolate thing in order to understand them may be helpful, I think in large part the approach leaves some very significant things out. We are one being, not just a series of parts. And, treating ourselves (and life) as a bunch of parts, even if related, seems to create as many problems as it resolves.

Light & Flowers

As has become my early Sunday ritual, my time in the woods again this morning was particularly...lovely.  A cardinal seemed to use his red only to flash over and over that he knew a secret he want to invite me to see farther down the path.  There is something almost electromagnetic about running next to a flowing stream...I felt like I could follow it forever.  And then the smells.  I smelled the damp today.  And cool.  I ran by a jasmine plant that would out-rank most perfumes.  Another smell was so sweet, its stink almost curled my nose.

And, then, there were flowers, which seemed to just patiently wait to be noticed, carelessly even whether I did or didn't.  In the woods, where there is light...there are often flowers.  It strikes me that this is also true in a much larger sense -- true of goodness, of work, in children, in relationships.  In love.  Something seems to bloom, when there is light.

Impact Is Occuring

We tend to live in sweeps of time and circumstance.  There are times when we live quite aware of the impact we are having ...good and bad.  And, there are times when we can barely trace any impact.  We can chafe against this rather simple reality.  Or, we can relax in it...knowing that it's truth is not primarily predicated on our recognition of it.

Impact is occurring....

I was at a funeral yesterday, where impact from my life was revealed far more than I ever realized.  I was reminded, too, of impact on me...much of which I had forgotten.  Earlier today, I had a impacting conversation with a friend.  A few weeks ago, I was lost in a swirl of (perceived) nothingness.  At the moment, I sense how nearly every movement I am making right now has impact.  I don't expect that sense to last....

Impact is occurring.

We can live a lot of the time out of a dread (or just simple worry) of the future or out of a prevailing sense of regret over the past.  Our opportunity, though, is to live 'alive' to the present, with a deep wonder about both the bursts of wonder and the tediums...of the moment.

Impact is occurring....

The Impact of Sleep on Learning

More fascinating scientific support for what the wise probably have always known regarding the value of sleep:

Research teams from the U.S. and China have discovered some of the ways in which sleep consolidates memory and learning. In the study, the scientists were able to actually see new connections being formed while we (or in this case, mice) sleep. The study also found that getting more sleep led to higher performance than training more and sleeping less.

Then there is the growing awareness of the importance of sleep for workplace performance.

Sleep affects virtually every aspect of cognitive performance, physical performance and creativity.  Continue reading....

-- Arianna Huffington

Wasted Moment?

I prayed this morning for sensitivity and wisdom in my interactions with people today - at work, at home, with people I expected to see and with people I wouldn't have anticipated seeing, etc.

I got in an argument with my daughter at lunch today...  So, what happened...to my prayer?  Was it just not answered?  Was it something I just forgot about too quickly?  Am I that fickle...?

Or, is it yet to be answered...is what I do now, my real opportunity...to be sensitive to her, and to myself...and to seek wisdom?  Perhaps the moment has not been wasted at all, perhaps it has just begun....

Too Much Sugar & the Brain

Overeating, poor memory formation, learning disorders, depression  – all have been linked in recent research to the over-consumption of sugar. And these linkages point to a problem that is only beginning to be better understood: what our chronic intake of added sugar is doing to our brains.

While a healthy diet would contain a significant amount of naturally occurring sugar (in fruits and grains, for example), the problem is that we’re chronically consuming much more added sugar in processed foods.

Research indicates that a diet high in added sugar reduces the production of a brain chemical known as brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). Without BDNF, our brains can’t form new memories and we can’t learn (or remember) much of anything.

What these and other studies strongly suggest is that most of us are seriously damaging ourselves with processed foods high in added sugar, and the damage begins with our brains.  Seen in this light, chronic added-sugar consumption  is no less a problem than smoking or alcoholism. And the hard truth is that we may have only begun to see the effects of what the endless sugar avalanche is doing to us.

-- David DiSalvo

Kindling A Flame

Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.

-- Socrates

Learn

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.

-- Gandhi

Bears Our Burdens

Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior,
who daily bears our burdens.

-- Psalm 68:19

I was recently watching one of our kids struggle with some details of life that seem...well, like things that would be beneath the normal concerns of God. So, I have been re-considering Peter's encouragement to 'cast our cares' on God. It seems we do this so infrequently or, at least, it doesn't seem to be our first instinct.

So when I read the verse above, the soil of my mind was already tilled.  He daily bears our burdens. What burdens? Which ones?  I often don't think of Him as doing this kind of thing for me...bearing my daily burdens.  And, if He does, I imagine, He must do it in some abstract sense and for the big things - things I know I can't handle.  But, it is hard to escape the specific nature of the words used here.  Burdens?  ...when I think of the type of things I tend to be pre-occupied by each day, I often don't think that He would (should) be very concerned about them.  They seem too...petty, or like things a bit below His pay-grade.

But, I wonder if this is largely much more my view of things than His.  It says daily.  He seems concerned and interested in rather specific details of our lives - the daily ones.  According to Peter, He seems interested in having me bring these things to Him.

So, what are the implications of not going to Him with the 'small' things of my life?  When I'm following my first instinct (to 'handle it' on my own)?  What part of my relationship with Him do I miss out on?

Choose

I was laying there.  "I can't move."  "I can't get up."  "I'm so tired."  "I feel awful," type sentences running through my blurry mind.  And, this, after what was supposed to be a good night's sleep....

But, the longer I laid there, the more I recognized a second voice...saying things like, "You'll feel so much better if you just get moving."  "You don't have time later in the day."  "You've done this hundreds of times, and you've rarely (ever?) regretted it -- get up!"

The 'discussion' continued until finally something rather simple emerged from the waking fog -- choose.  Which did I want?  ...both, actually.  How would I decide?  ...which did I want more?

Was it a mind-over-matter situation?  Kinda.  And, it comes down to choosing.

I got up, worked out, talked to friend afterward, and blended into my normal morning ritual.  I remember at one point noting how thankful I was that I had gotten up, that what does happen 9 out of 10 times...happened again, that I could encounter God in those few precious morning moments moving from A-to-B.

And, I ended up ready again for another day.  Refreshed.  Invigorated.  Alive.  Ready.

...all in about 75 minutes of morning transitions.  Gratefully, remarkable.

How many others things in my life am I, or would I be, so deeply thankful for because of the simple act of choosing -- of thinking about and deciding upon what I really want.

That day my mind was the wiser and really did help me overcome, what I otherwise was just 'feeling'.

Health-Span

It is well and long established that the vast majority of medical resources, and an enormously disproportionate allocation of health care dollars, are directed at end-of-life care. I am by no means arguing against such expenditures - my loved ones have been beneficiaries of them, too. But often, despite all such effort, only indignity is propagated, and death is not much forestalled. Almost never does such effort restore anything like true vitality.

Somehow, our culture manages to peddle both tanning salons, and wrinkle cream. We desperately seek longevity, while raising children potentially subject to a shorter life expectancy than their parents. We hang on every headline hinting at more years in life, and let the established means of adding life to years, and defending our native span, slip through our fingers.

This fixation, and the deus ex machina intercessions it invites, have brought us a widening gap between life span, and health span. Life expectancy has, indeed, been rising here in the U.S.- but so, too, the burden of chronic disease. We are living longer-but generally, not better. As we succumb to ever more chronic disease at ever younger age, yet do all we can to keep death at bay, we spend an ever greater portion of our lives not truly living fully and well. Not dying is not the same as living.

-- David L. Katz

Free Will and Human Dignity

Apple Store Changes Signal the Next Era of Retail

This week continues a series of 'randoms' (unless you can find a connection):

Furniture retail has learned that you can’t just sell furniture, you have to sell rooms and designs. Kitchen retailers are starting to teach customers how to cook. There are even new online clothing retailers coaching their customers on how to dress! (http://www.trunkclub.com/) Everyone thinks the Internet is killing retail, but really it is just changing its core purpose.

Before the Internet, we needed retail to SHOW us what we could buy, something the Internet does a hundred times better. However, a physical retail store can still have an advantage with showing us how to USE products, especially when we need to use multiple products together. Retail stores that innovate ways to be a gateway for customers to better their life or enter a lifestyle are the ones that will last through the next couple decades.  Continue....

-- Chris Hoyt

So much depends upon

the blonde woman who drops a potato
in the supermarket parking lot where it rolls
beneath the 89 Dodge Ram with rust patches
near the left rear fender from contact with
too much road salt during the winter of 91
which was actually one of the mildest on record
though the driver tends to remember it
as the season he was fired from his job
at the aluminum window factory where
he had worked for nearly sixteen years
without promotion as he shifts into reverse
and backs over the potato which squishes
as softly as a dream's last breath and leaves
slick asphalt for the lot boy to slip on
as he pushes a train of shopping carts
and sprains his lumbar vertebrae just
days before he is scheduled to leave
for basic training to become the cool
killing machine he's always craved
but will now have to settle for someday
making assistant produce manager
and marrying a girl he almost loves just
as the blonde woman finds herself
one potato short with dinner guests
ringing the doorbell.

-- Tom Chandler

We'd All Be Millionaires

If we could sell our experiences for what they cost us, we’d all be millionaires.

-- Abigail Van Buren (Dear Abby)

Fathers Day

There is no question among researchers that fathers who spend time with their children instill self-control and social skills in their offspring.

Exactly how dads do that, however, is largely a mystery.

Some scientists are inventing new scales and laboratory procedures to try to measure the father factor. One researcher watched fathers and children playing games like "Get Up," in which fathers try to get up from the floor while the children try to hold them down, and "Sock Wrestle," in which father and child try to snatch each other's socks.

The Father Factor:
Researchers studying fathers' role often look at how they act during rough-and-tumble play. Here are some positive signs:

• Father is immersed in the game emotionally, smiling and laughing
• Father shows spontaneity, creativity or silliness
• Father is good-natured about losing, with no signs of ego
• Father helps the child control his or her emotions and calms him or her when overexcited
• Father adjusts his effort and his technique based on the child's cues
• Father motivates the child to stay engaged and keep going, or rejoin the game
• Father is dominant but shares the upper hand, allowing the child to win sometimes

-- Richard Fletcher, University of Newcastle in Australia

More here from the WSJ.

It strikes me that there is a something very powerful that goes on with play between a father and son, not the least of which is a kind of presence that is, well, mysterious.  Among other things, it communicates that while the world rages on, in all of its fear-inducing demands, I can stop and look at you and be with just you, at this moment, because you, my child, are the apple of my eye.  As I reflect on my relationship with my father, I see that kind of presence with me.  I see it historically and I see it even now.  What a gift that is, to me.  Perhaps the greatest part of the gift is that this is the kind that automatically gives itself to my own children, through me.  Thank you, Dad, for giving to me and those I love in this way!

What a reflection that is of how God is with me.  Considering the article referenced above, I wonder whether God plays with me, too.  What if more people knew this part of God?  ...worth considering.

I Fear The Day

The truth is that one of the mind’s chief functions is to spot and utilize patterns as shortcuts, in order to process the multitude of information we observe each day.

We are more reliant on environmental triggers than we’d like to think.

-- Gregory Ciotti

Community

It often takes some kind of community to help us recognize these encounters for what they truly are.  And, to help us know and become what we've truly been made to be.

Encounters

These encounters often come in the context of disappointments, things we don't understand, failure...things that force us in often painful, yet merciful, ways to consider more than the straight-forward conclusions we have already reached.  Things that truly bring us to the door of...discovery.

Submerged

...in order to discover who we really are, that has been submerged deeply within us.

Outside Ourselves

So, we need to encounter something outside ourselves, something more than the distorted versions we otherwise become.

Don't Become Better

People don't naturally become better, on their own.

Never

By love God may be gotten and held, but by thought or understanding, never.

-- The Cloud of Unknowing

Congraduations Kenz!

We feel a deep sense of family and community in this milestone.  A heritage of faith and friends for our daughter is a gift beyond value.  Thank you...thank you to each of you for your role in her and our lives.  We are blessed by so much goodness.

More pics here....

Hate Comes From One Thing

We’re taught when we’re young that the opposite of love is hate, but it’s not. Hate is a by product, hate is a result. Being a hater isn’t cool -- nobody wants that. But hate comes from one thing: fear. Fear is the opposite of love.

-- John Legend

Cannot Let Fear

You cannot let a fear of failure or a fear of comparison or a fear of judgment stop you from doing what's going to make you great. You cannot succeed without this risk of failure. You cannot have a voice without this risk of criticism. And you cannot love without the risk of loss.

-- Charlie Day

Instead of Craving

Incredible change happens in your life when you decide to take control of what you do have power over instead of craving control over what you don't.

-- Steve Maraboli

Wrong Place Faster

If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster.

-- Steven Covey

Comfort Zone

Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.

-- Neale Donald Walsh

Continually

Life (God) is continually offering us opportunities for humility.

We often don't see them, much less take them...to our loss, as well as to those around us...but opportunities to choose humility are everywhere.

Calling (vs Ego)

Your calling is the place where your deep gladness meets the world's deep need.

-- Frederick Buechner

Continued from prior post on Ego:

If your ego is what assembles your personality and manages your identity, then your calling is invested in making sure it’s authentic—who you really are—not just a persona you show the world.

A calling expresses itself quietly, through the expression of subtle clues throughout your life. It is unconcerned with you attaining or accomplishing anything. Its primary function is to be a conduit for expressing your true self to the world. What you do with that expression is less important.

Calling needs silence to survive.

A calling, on the other hand, is discovered through observation and reflection, which is rarely found in a noisy environment. Listening to your life and discovering what it’s asking of you is your calling and it requires more silence than most of us are comfortable with.

Calling focuses on the process.

A calling reveals itself through self-discovery. Your calling comes from within and can only be revealed by paying attention to how your life is unfolding. Instead of managing the outcome, your calling can handle the stress of ambiguity. It knows that the tension is revealing something that you couldn’t otherwise learn.

A calling might begin with the expression of the self, but it moves toward the needs of others.

-- Shelley Provost

Best Advisors

Your critics can turn out to be your best advisers…They might say something we need to hear.

-- Hillary Clinton

Open Candor

A seminal study in safety makes the value of habitual collaboration clear. Post-moon-landing NASA researchers studied how to improve air flight safety. In one study, cockpit crews made up of a pilot, copilot, and navigator participated in flight simulations in which a potential crash situation occurred. The study found that pilots who acted swiftly and decisively based on gut feelings were much more likely to crash the plane than pilots who turned to other crew members for their reading of the situation before deciding how to respond.

In a look at underlying causes, the researchers found that the condition necessary for crew members to speak up and wasn’t whether the pilot asked for others' opinions during the crash simulations, but whether the crew had a history of open exchanges with the pilot. Crewmembers voiced their opinions to pilots who had habitually solicited their input. In other words, without a culture of open candor established, pilots found themselves on their own when they most needed the help.

-- Keith Ferrazzi

Status Threat

Many everyday conversations devolve into arguments driven by a status threat, a desire to not be perceived as less than another.

-- David Rock

Managing Your Identity With Ego

I've been reading an interesting article comparing the ideas of ego and calling. Here's some thoughts from it on ego:

The lifeblood of the ego is fear. Its primary function is to preserve your identity, but it fears your unworthiness. As a result, ego pushes you harder in order to achieve more. Ego communicates to you through “oughts,” “musts,” and “shoulds,” persuading you to believe that by achieving more and more, you must be worthy, right?

Ego needs anxiety to survive.

Wherever you feel the most insecurity is where your ego will work overtime to ‘fix.’ The ego needs anxiety to pinpoint the problem, then course corrects by disavowing this pesky aspect of your personality.

Ego is concerned with the self and preserving what it wants. The ego may be interested in helping others. But it isn’t inherently motivated by serving others. It is motivated by maintaining and managing your identity.

-- Shelley Provost

...more to follow on distinctions between 'ego' and 'calling'.

Memorial Day: Don't Thank Me For My Service

Memorial Day, has begun to lose its significance. It is becoming Christmas without the nativity; Thanksgiving without family and thanks. Memorial Day, previously known as Decoration Day, is a day set aside after the Civil War to honor our war dead. Unfortunately, somber reflection on the cost of our freedom and the price paid by those who never came home has been replaced by spirited discussion about holiday sales and the merits of white pants.

"So what?" you ask. It's important because Memorial Day isn't about military service, although many people will make that mistake today and thank me for my service. It's about military sacrifice. We don't talk about the latter as often because it makes us uncomfortable. We choose to shield our children from that horrific reality. The reason the distinction between service and sacrifice is important is because service doesn't provide...continue reading.

-- Jake Wood

Q&A: Caution

Q&A:

From interview with N.T. Wright:

Q: Contemporary Western Christian culture – anything we should be mindful or watchful of?

A: Beware of trivialisation, of colluding with deconstruction (breaking everything down into non-narrative fragments -- a lot of contemporary worship music does this). Beware of marginalising scripture, of assuming that we are 'biblical' by definition because we belong to some evangelical tradition, but then not really getting to grips with what the Bible actually says.

Still Good in College Football - Jack Hoffman

Not What He Is Capable of Being

Whatever else may be said of man, this one thing is clear: He is not what he is capable of being.

-- G.K. Chesterton

Honest With Ourselves

Our lives improve only when we take chances —and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves.

-- Walter Anderson

Believing In Something Greater

The most powerful form of self-belief comes from believing in something greater than you. Because when you’ve got purpose, everything becomes possible.

-- Lewis Pugh

Wisdom of Uncertainty

There is wisdom in uncertainty...only from the unknown can life be renewed constantly.

-- Deepak Chopra

Engagement

JOY! JOY!

How else could one describe what occurs when your first daughter gets engaged...to a strong, humble, and God-fearing young man?  See more pics here....

Reading Spiritually

Reading often means gathering information, acquiring new insight and knowledge, and mastering a new field. It can lead us to degrees, diplomas, and certificates. Spiritual reading, however, is different. It means not simply reading about spiritual things but also reading about spiritual things in a spiritual way.

As we read spiritually about spiritual things, we open our hearts to God’s voice. Sometimes we must be willing to put down the book we are reading and just listen to what God is saying to us through its words.

-- Henri Nouwen

Prom 2014 - Makenzie

More pics here....

CT: We All Walk Between

Speaking of paying attention, there's been several posts this week worthy of our attention, including:

I had never been challenged to view suffering and hardship in my marriage as a gift from God to grow me into Christ-likeness.  As I turned the pages of my wounded soul, I realized I didn't truly want my husband to worship God. I wanted him to worship me. I wanted, needed, his love—unadulterated and unhindered.

As long as my husband was my enemy, I was forced to bear their fruit.

My sense of control shattered. I knew I couldn't control my husband. I'd never realized I wanted to control God. My heart still beat for what I wanted: a perfect, peaceful marriage, family, and complete fulfillment. I wanted God to change my husband for myself. I had to answer God's questions. Child, what about what I'm doing? Will you still trust me even if your marriage never changes? Will you repent and be transformed by the renewing of your mind?

Would I be satisfied in God? If everything fell apart, would I be satisfied knowing that God is good, even when I am not? Yes, my heart breathed with a long and ragged exhale. Then repent and be transformed.

-- Joy Sevilla

Click here to continue reading what strikes me as important reflections on sexuality, our desires, and yielding to a greater work that God is doing (often through our suffering), not only in another person, but in myself.

Pay Attention to Attention

These days, leaders are bombarded with numerous daily intrusions: urgent email, appointments every fifteen minutes, decisions ranging from hiring to overall vision. Most leaders now travel with technology that connects them to a running stream of messages and data, 24/7.

This stream of distraction draws attention away from what’s immediately at hand; those seemingly urgent rings and alerts may not be crucial. Working to maintain clear focus on a task – despite intrusions – consistently occupies the brain’s circuitry for attention.

“Cognitive effort” is the technical expression for the mental attention demanded to process our information load. In “top-down” attention we actively decide what receives our attention. “Bottom-up” attention means we function mechanically, letting our focus be dictated by whatever grabs it. This bottom-up attention causes us to be ignorant of the preferences and blind spots in our unconscious minds. There is a place for this in life, of course – just not at work.

“Cognitive control” is the technical expression for employing our capacity for top-down attention – an essential aspect of self-awareness. In leaders, cognitive control is paramount to leadership competencies like self-management – the ability to focus on a goal and the discipline to pursue it despite distractions and setbacks. Interestingly, the same neural framework that allows for intense pursuit of goals also manages unruly emotions. Strong cognitive control is therefore present in leaders who remain calm in emergencies, subdue their agitation, and can recover quickly from defeat. Continue here....

-- Daniel Goleman

Exercise and the Brain

...just 45 minutes of exercise three days a week actually increased the volume of the brain. Even for people who have been very sedentary, Kramer says, exercise "improves cognition and helps people perform better on things like planning, scheduling, multitasking and working memory."

-- Art Kramer, a neuroscientist at the University of Illinois

Lies You Tell Yourself

Lies You Tell Yourself:  You only need 6 hours of sleep.  While caffeine and habit could trick you into believing that 5 or 6 hours a night is adequate, you're wrong.  University of Pennsylvania researchers found people who slept 6 hours a night for 2 weeks performed as poorly on memory and alertness tests as participants who took the same test after a night without sleep.  Mounds of additional research have linked sleeping less than 8 hours to higher rates of obesity, heart disease, and cancer, as well as a 15 percent drop in working memory function -- the type of brain activity that helps you solve problems and make decisions.

What Is A Salting Us?

Consider that America, purportedly, runs on Dunkin’. So a typical American day might begin with Dunkin’s bacon, egg, and cheese breakfast sandwich. If it does, it starts out with 460 calories, and 1200 mg of sodium. That’s 2.6mg of sodium per calorie, or well over twice as salty as you want your diet to be on average.

The copious excesses of sodium to which we are all exposed reside not just where we would expect them, but almost everywhere in the modern foodscape. The good news is that in all those same food categories there are alternative choices that are simpler, tasty, more nutritious, often no more expensive, and less salty besides. The very granular strategy of choosing foods with shorter ingredient lists allows for cutting out many superfluous grains of salt by way of improving overall nutritional quality.  Continue here....

-- David L. Katz, MD, MPH

Mothers Day

I never expected that a mother’s labor and delivery never ends — and you never stop having to remember to breathe.

I didn’t know that taking the path of most resistance often leads to the most reward.

No one told me that it would all happen at the same hallowed time: Mothering is at once the hardest and the holiest and the happiest.

Real Womanhood isn’t a function of becoming a great mother, but of being loved by your Great Father.

-- Ann Voskamp

More from Ann here....

I appreciate these words.  They capture something I knew, but didn't know quite how to say.  Saying and doing are bedfellows of a majestic nature, when alive towards each other.  A characteristic that so exemplifies holy mothering -- something I have both received from my mother and witnessed in my wife.  I am so grateful for its holy nature, born heavenly and grown on earth.  That sacrifice of this kind is still both ordinarily and extraordinarily alive is an encouraging thing, even for me as a man.  I am ennobled by it.  Even more wonderfully, my kids are strengthened and beautified by it.

Thank you to both of these women in my life, who take this path and breathing it both into themselves and out to those I love so much.

Facts & Misinformation

It’s one of the great assumptions underlying modern democracy that an informed citizenry is preferable to an uninformed one. ‘Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government,’ Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1789. This notion, carried down through the years, underlies everything from humble political pamphlets to presidential debates to the very notion of a free press. Mankind may be crooked timber, as Kant put it, uniquely susceptible to ignorance and misinformation, but it’s an article of faith that knowledge is the best remedy. If people are furnished with the facts, they will be clearer thinkers and better citizens. If they are ignorant, facts will enlighten them. If they are mistaken, facts will set them straight.

In the end, truth will win out. Won’t it?

Maybe not. Recently, a few political scientists have begun to discover a human tendency deeply discouraging to anyone with faith in the power of information. It’s this: Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger.

-- Joe Keohane

So if facts don't re-frame for us as often as we think they do, what does?  I can't, of course, speak for everyone, but things like the fiery-peach-indistinguishably-blending-into-lavender of this morning's sunrise do so for me.

ReFraming Language

Frames are mental structures. As a result, they shape the goals we seek, the plans we make, the way we act, and what counts as a good or bad outcome of our actions. Reframing is changing the way the public sees the world. . . . because language activates frames, new language is required for new frames. Thinking differently requires speaking differently.

-- George Lakoff

Continue here....  I am pretty fascinated by the posts so far this week; how our perceptions and language shape what and how we think.

Language Shapes

Language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about.

-- Benjamin Lee Whorf

Fiction

Fiction reveals truths that reality obscures.

-- Jessamyn West, reVision

We Read

We read to learn that we are not alone.

-- C.S. Lewis

Jack is Back!

Praying a Psalm

St. Augustine found that the best model for developing the integrating experience of past, present, and future was the audible praying of a Psalm.  The Psalmists exercise their and our memories vigorously.  Prayer is an act of memory.  If we confine ourselves to one-generational knowledge here, or even worse, to our own conversion-experience knowledge, we are impoverished beyond reason.

-- Eugene Peterson

Memory is the scribe of the soul.

-- Aristotle

These seem like good book-ends to me.

Stuff Doesn't Happen To Me

Stuff doesn't happen to me, just for me.  I try to keep that in mind when I can't understand why something is happening.

...perhaps I am going through something for the benefit of someone else.

Further

You can't take someone much further than you've been yourself.  
In other words, if you've traveled far within yourself, you can more aptly help another do the same.

This is one of the secret jewels embedded within suffering.  We trust someone who we know has suffered, because we believe they have 'been there' and know a bit about the territory.

If you really want to help others in these ways, be willing to do so in your own life.

Trouble Prevails

Trouble prevails so that we will learn to hold Him fast...and dare not trust ourselves.  Suffering strips us of our dead hopes...

-- J.I. Packer

Times When I Can't See Well

It strikes me today that extended times of not seeing a way out of things that feel wrong, or even simply uncomfortable, present us with an interesting question - "what does faithfulness look like now?" ...when I can't avoid the lurking presence of impending danger or unresolved hope, what will I do? How will I act now? What will I believe now?  What does it look like, in the face of unlikely near-term change, to continue being faithful?

I face increasing debt, without sign of relief in the years ahead.  What does it mean for me to be faithful, without the prospect of the relief or control I so often seek?

Confirmation Bias

People tend to ignore information that does not fit with their beliefs while they weigh agreeable information more heavily. This is the Confirmation Bias, and it can cause a lot of trouble. Think of it is as the counterpart to the self-fulfilling prophecy. People can often make decisions that fit with their beliefs, and ignore important information or behavior that they just don’t want to see.

-- Darcy Jacobsen

This pattern of thinking is sometimes referred to as confirmation bias, or the tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions. The official psychological term for this behavior is “motivated cognition” — a tendency to bias our interpretation of facts to fit a version of the world we wish to believe is true.

-- Pat Heffernan

Civilizations Should Be Judged

Civilizations should be judged not by how they treat people closest to power, but rather how they treat those furthest from power – whether in race, religion, gender, wealth, or class – as well as in time.

-- Larry Brilliant, President of the Skoll Global Threats Fund

Limiting God

So much worth thinking about here...if nothing else, start at 8:42 (1:35 to go). An amazingly succinct description of our addiction to externals, rather than internals.

The more you are preoccuped with forms, the externals, the less you've experienced the internal, the mystery of things; the less you can talk about matters of the heart, what's going on inside.

-- Richard Rohr

Click image to see video...

1st College Graduate

So proud of and happy for Drew, our 1st college graduate. We are mindful of the many who helped make this possible, an opportunity that not all have.

A couple of lines from a prayer offered at baccalaureate sum it up well:

Your eternal goodness
  Our unending gratitude

Why is Health Care Expensive?

I heard a story the other day that helped to frame a problem in the public debate on the cost of healthcare. As healthcare costs soar, there is a pervasive belief that the cost of healthcare is a result of profiteering companies or simply inflation. This belief goes counter to my personal experience in the highly competitive medical device supply business. Costs are and have been driven relentlessly down in all categories, so what is the disconnect? Perhaps we should get to the story...

The patient in question was female, age 93. The patient preconditions included obesity with hypertension, and diabetes. In addition to the significant complicating factors, the patient cannot walk from one side of her room to the other due to knee damage. A knee replacement is required to fully repair the damaged knee. What are our choices?

...he hospital chose to do the procedure. The patient ended up in ICU for a month after the procedure. Imagine the cost. A $25,000 knee replacement, plus a month in the ICU with significant rehab. Additionally, the patient came close to perishing in the effort. The final bill was undoubtedly more than $200,000, which allowed her to walk from one side of the room to the other. The adjustments caused by this new found freedom then stressed the other knee causing the same failure, and a return to the bed. In effect, medicare had just purchased the patient a house that she cannot live in.  Continue here....

-- Laurence Sampson

Day care costs more than college in 31 states

College costs loom large in the parental mind. According to a 2013 report by Sallie Mae, half of parents are putting away money for their kids' education. Those who aren't are fretting about it, saying that they feel "frustrated," "overwhelmed" and "annoyed" when they think about college savings. But most parents will deal with an even larger kid-related expense long before college, and it's a cost that very few of them are as prepared for. That expense is day care.

A report last fall by Child Care Aware America, a national organization of child-care resource and referral agencies, found that the annual cost of day care for an infant exceeds the average cost of in-state tuition and fees at public colleges in 31 states.  Continue here....

-- Christopher Ingraham

Produce Prices Pop

Grocery shoppers may soon need more green in their wallets to afford their next salad.  The cost of fresh produce is poised to jump in the coming months as a three-year drought in California shows few signs of abating, according to an Arizona State University study set to be released Wednesday.

The study found a head of lettuce could increase in price as much as 62 cents to $2.44; avocado prices could rise...continue here.

Earth Day 2014 - Food for Thought

It's Earth Day.

Paleoanthropologists suggest that some 50% of our Stone Age ancestors’ calories came from plants. Given that animal foods are generally much more energy dense than plant foods, a diet of 50% plant calories is, by volume, still a diet of mostly plants.

Human health is moot on an uninhabitable Earth. Living well requires a hospitable planet on which to do the living. If I do have a bias about healthful eating, it’s that our health cannot and should not be achieved at the expense of the Earth. Whatever the arguments for mostly meat-based diets, for instance, they start to fall apart rather quickly in a world of over 7 billion of us.

We all have common reason to do just that; namely, the common ground of our home planet. The environmental, ecological, and ethical costs of preferential meat consumption are all very high for a population of more than 7 billion. The water expenditure alone makes the practice dubious, if not disastrous, in an increasingly thirsty world.

-- David L. Katz, MD, MPH

Continue reading....

He's Alive - Con't

Easter Con't - He's Alive!

Easter: The Mercy of a Living Hope

I desire to please the Lord.

When I was younger, I spent more time consciously trying to do this...think of how I could please the Lord.  As I have grown older, I have realized that my capacity to displease Him is so much greater than my capacity to please to Him.  My demand for things 'to work' and my petulance of self-protection are so near the surface of my being, that I am amazed at how un-far I have come.  When I compare (an unhelpful thing to do, by the way) these incapable-of-overcomings against the suffering that the saints I read about have endured, I shrink back from even the possibility of pleasing the Lord.

I suppose I have stopped trying (at least in the same ways)...to please Him.  Why, though, do I want to?  If I'm honest, I think there is a deeper motive.  The deeper motive of me, even in my trying to please Him, is a desire to just be found in Him.  The scarcity of my ability to please Him leaves me with a daunting question; will I be found in Him at all?

Will I?

It depends.  It depends on whom I trust.  Me, or Him?  ...because it is right at this moment that I have either forgotten the heart of the gospel or am ready to re-discover it and receive it again.

I discover again this reminder; that my being found in Him, or pleasing Him, is not based on much of anything that has to do with me.  For, it is Christ, in His great mercy, who has re-birthed me to a new and living hope...not because of any  capacity I have to please Him.  I disgard mercy, when I don't see myself as Barabbas.  But, He was merciful to me before I even had a notion of pleasing Him.  He was merciful to me, while I was still hating Him, while still being lost in the pursuit of my own things.

This is why we come to the Lord's Table, why we come to Easter year after year.  To remember how things really worked; how they continue to work.  That it was and is His mercy that sets us free...not our striving.  We come to this table to see again the simplicity of we need to remain alive and to be found in Him.

I do desire to please the Lord.  But, not so that I can be found in Him.  He already took care of that...before I was even interested.  May all the earth rejoice at the hope we do have because of the mercy of our Great Lord.



Click here for the lyrics.

Dark...of our Striving

Lord, save us from the dark
  Of our striving

-- Fernando Ortega, "Come, Oh Redeemer, Come"

These words struck a cord with me this week as I breathed them in and out; there is something that seems very connected between darkness and our striving.  We need more freedom, than we do of effort.  Is it, in fact, our striving that keeps in the dark a lot of the time?

When I consider this day, in the sequence of 'passion' week years ago, I wonder how we are not like living on a Saturday...after something dashing, in terms of our hopes, and before the knowledge and wonder of Easter Sunday.  We often return to our own striving.  But, what would it have been like today, that Saturday, for the once followers of a crucified Christ.  No longer with hope, no longer with the prospect of peace.  Bewildered.  Disappointed.  Duped?  Crushed.  ...with no striving left within us.

Could we even have prayed such a prayer anymore, asking our Redeemer to come?  Our hopes were pinned to Jesus and now he was dead -- no light now at all, just darkness.  Are you yet saving us...from our striving?

Darkness Is Crucial

Everything incubates in darkness. And I knew that the darkness in which I found myself was a holy dark.

Whenever new life grows and emerges, darkness is crucial to the process.  Whether it's the caterpillar in the chrysalis, the seed in the ground, the child in the womb or the True Self in the soul, there’s always a time of waiting in the dark.    

-- Sue Monk Kidd

Seems fitting for a day like today..."Good Friday".

Loss of All Confidence

Just as the sinner's despair of any hope from himself is the first prerequisite of a sound conversion, so the loss of all confidence in himself as the first essential in the believers growth in grace.

-- A.W. Pink

Act On It...Internally

When a truth of God is brought home to your soul, never allow it to pass without acting on it internally in your will, not necessarily exteriorly in your physical life. Record it with ink and with blood. Work it into your life. The weakest saint who transacts business with Jesus Christ is liberated the second he acts and God's almighty power is available on his behalf.

-- Oswald Chambers

I really like how my friend, Dawn, puts this here.  The goal simply is not to transact with life on our own, or even to try to use God to make our lives work better.  The goal is to learn to live with God...internally.

I so need God, not just for my survival (though, I need that, too), but for the health of my very being.  I need to continue to learn to 'transact' with Him; to believe in Him; to walk with Him, to talk with Him, to give myself to Him...including the insignificant and petty details of my life.  This is my only path to living liberated and with power.

Tax Day - How Washington Spends Your Taxes

Broadly speaking, for every dollar you pay in federal income taxes, about half goes to military spending (27%) and spending on federal health programs (22.7%). The latter covers everything from Medicare and Medicaid to the Children's Health Insurance Program.

Continue reading here.

Hasty and Superficial

It is because of the hasty and superficial conversation with God that the sense of sin is so weak and that no motives have power to help you to hate and flee from sin as you should.

-- A.W. Tozer

We still don't like to talk about our sin, especially our own. Statements spoken, or just thought, like "Can't we just move on?" or "What can we really do much about anyway?" produce the hastiness referenced above. This particular week, passion week, I want to acknowledge more of what all the passion was for...serious problems with me. I am the problem; my sin is the problem. I have created and contributed to the mess of things.

Only resurrection power can solve for the problem of me.  But, my oh my, what power it is!

On Palm Sunday, Jesus Rides into the Perfect Storm

The crowd went wild as they got nearer. This was the moment they'd been waiting for. All the old songs came flooding back, and they were singing, chanting, cheering and laughing. At last, their dreams were going to come true. But in the middle of it all, their leader wasn't singing. He was in tears. Yes, their dreams were indeed coming true. But not in the way they had imagined.

He was not the king they expected...continue reading.

-- N.T. Wright

маленькая девочка дирижирует хором))

...speaking of the human spirit - how young doth it develop:

We Can Risk

Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.

-- E.E. Cummings

Greatest Killers

Fear and self-doubt are the greatest killers of personal genius.

-- Ziad K. Abdelnour

Things You Believe

Your attitudes came from actions that led to observations that led to explanations that led to beliefs. Your actions tend to chisel away at the raw marble of your persona, carving into being the self you experience from day to day. It doesn’t feel that way, though. To conscious experience, it feels as if you were the one holding the chisel, motivated by existing thoughts and beliefs. It feels as though the person wearing your pants performed actions consistent with your established character, yet there is plenty of research suggesting otherwise. The things you do often create the things you believe.

-- Maria Popova

Continue reading....

Grit

Grit is the disposition to pursue very long-term goals with passion and perseverance. And I want to emphasize the stamina quality of grit. Grit is sticking with things over the long term and then working very hard at it.

Grit is living life like it’s a marathon, not a sprint.

So far, the best idea I’ve heard about building grit in kids is something called growth mindset. This idea is the belief that the ability to learn is not fixed. That it can change with your effort. Research has shown that when kids read and learn about the brain and how it changes and grows in response to challenge, they’re much more likely to persevere when they fail because they don’t believe that failure is a permanent condition.  

-- Angela Duckworth

Continue reading....

Change

People do not naturally resist change. They resist the pain of change. They resist the fear of the unknown. The brain is naturally going to seek, be curious, explore, and do new things. It’s how the brain thrives. But to do that, you have to feel safe. When you feel safe enough, then you go out and explore.

-- George Kohlrieser

Worry & Prayer

So it's searchable:

Worry just leaves your wheels spinning
It's prayer that puts your life into drive.

-- Ann Voskamp

Submit

"Lord, today I submit to you."

Some days, I feel more like saying, "I want to submit to you today", because I'm not really sure how committed I am to the first version.  It may be splitting hairs; but, it may not.

Either way, a thought drifted into my mind about 30 minutes later.  It had to do with how little others seem to care about me, proven by something I would desire from them, that rarely happens.  Deciding how far to 'run with' this thought, I was reminded of my earlier prayer.  "Lord, I want to submit to You today", was being afforded an opportunity.  Would I submit...right now?  Would I be willing to believe, that God will meet my needs, when others don't or can't?  Or, would I perpetuate the thought that I need something from others, that I deserve something from others, that I will pursue getting it from them, one way or another?

I need to submit such things to God.  If I don't, I end up reaching for the all-too-handy tools of violence (however masked that violence may be) to require others to give me what I need (want).

"Lord, today I submit to you."

Dualism & Identity

You can't be happy with a dualistic mind.

-- Richard Rohr

Click image to see video...

It's Not The Past

It isn't the past which holds us back, it's the future; and how we undermine it, today.

-- Viktor E. Frankl

Everything At Once

Time was invented so that you don’t have to do everything at once.

-- David Kelley, Chairman and founder of IDEO

World on the Move

Fascinating depiction of migration flows among regions of the world...click pic (or here) to rotate through 5-year patterns.

The Brain Cannot Be Bullied

Remember that the brain cannot be bullied into becoming effective. It must be respected and nurtured. Focus is important — yet you must also offer rest. Identify those activities that accomplish this, and build them into your day.

-- Dr. Marla Gottschalk

Prevention Is What Matters

In the last decade or so mounting research has shown how lifestyle changes, including exercise, stress management, and diet can prevent almost ninety percent (90%) of chronic illnesses in our society.

Meditation, restful sleep, healthy diet, emotional and social well-being, exercise, breathing techniques, and healthy relationships can change disease-related gene expression, which in turn can dynamically change how we experience health or disease.

-- Deepak Chopra

Tumbleweeds or Watered Trees

This is what the Lord says:

“Cursed is the one who trusts in man,
  who draws strength from mere flesh
  and whose heart turns away from the Lord.
That person will be like a bush in the wastelands;
  they will not see prosperity when it comes.
They will dwell in the parched places of the desert,
  in a salt land where no one lives.

“But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord,
  whose confidence is in him.
They will be like a tree planted by the water
  that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
  its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought.

-- Jeremiah 17:5-8

What do I want to be? A tumbleweed blowing around where no one else lives or a nourished and strong tree offering life to my surroundings?  The answer (result) is in where I place my trust (confidence).

Happy!

This one makes me feel about as good as this one did!

The anxiety of unplugging and why we should disconnect to connect

I recently read The Big Disconnect: Protecting Childhood and Family Relationships in the Digital Age by clinical psychologist Catherine Steiner-Adair with Teresa H. Barker and was horrified by how much I saw of myself and my family and friends in the authors' case studies. Steiner-Adair is a clinical instructor in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and an associate psychologist at McLean Hospital. I reached out to Steiner-Adair because I wanted to better understand how to take control of our technology instead of letting it control us. The conversation was good timing for me as Reboot’s National Day of Unplugging begins this Friday night and I'm the spokesperson. But this was the chance for me to listen to someone else urging us to pause and consider the benefits and risks of technology. Read the interview here....

-- Tanya Schevitz, spokesperson for Reboot's National Day of Unplugging

Presence matters....

Expert

I don't believe in innate talent. You have to work with perseverance to become an expert in any discipline.

-- Ben Heine

Perseverance

In the realm of ideas, everything depends on enthusiasm; in the real world, all rests on perseverance.

-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Forgiveness - Eva Kor

A powerful story about something even more powerful than you can imagine -- forgiveness.