LT: First

​Only a true natural servant automatically responds to any problem by listening first.

-- Robert Greenleaf, The Servant as Leader

Listening enables servant-hood like servant-hood enables leadership.

What If: Actually You

What If...because something was so big:

you thought something else that moved each day, was actually you.

It's Theatre

Instagram: bobgoff

When It matters more what our faith looks like than what it is, it isn't faith anymore, it's theatre.

-- Bob Goff

Wholehearted & Half-Assed

If I could write a book right now, I would consider titling it ‘Wholehearted & Half-Assed’.  So, you ask, what would the sub-title be?

When I sit on this bench for a while and notice what is in front of me — what is moving, what isn’t moving — I find myself noticing how different the economy here is than the one I so often swim in.  Among other things, this one seems to have no regard for selling and buying; and, it appears to be doing just fine with that.  What is this one revealing?

Tami just finished, and I am now reading, Brené Brown’s book, Daring Greatly.  Brown offers something surprising.  For example, if I were to ask this question, “What is the reward of vulnerability?”, how would you answer?  “Wait, what?”, you say?  Again, what is the real reward of vulnerability?  

Brown’s answer is:  greater courage.

So, when I see something that looks like something that is truly real — that isn’t swimming in a false economy — what does it seem to call to in me?  

I think it is something more wholehearted and something that is less concerned about how well I do it.  Do it.  Do it, even if it isn’t great, finished, completely thought through, perfect or final.  Do it.  Learn from the mistakes.  Make it better.  Grow from it.  But, go for it.  Be wholehearted and don’t let the possible assessment from someone else that it looks half-assed keep me from doing it.  

Because risking vulnerability actually creates more courage.

Credo

Poem for the week -- "Credo":

I sing the will to love:
the will that carves the will to live,
the will that saps the will to hurt,
the will that kills the will to die;
the will that made and keeps you warm,
the will that points your eyes ahead,
the will that makes you give, not get,
a give and get that tell us what you are:
how much a god, how much a human.
I call on you to live the will to love.

-- Alfred Kreymborg

Avoid Criticism

There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.

-- Aristotle

Group Value

Are we primarily valued in a relationship or by a group because of what we contribute to it? Of course, this is not rocket-science folks, right?

But, there are times when it feels like we are not valued, IF we don't contribute.

There is merit to the idea of everyone doing their part to help in a relationship, a group, a team, etc. Certainly; where would we be without such things as mutuality?

On the other hand, at times, it also seems easy to see that if you don't keep up your 'contribution', your value (to whatever the entity is) seems to go down. And, from that angle, sometimes it is clear that this is a rather awful basis for things to run on because it inadvertently (perhaps?) leads to unstated things like: "we don't really like you for who you are, we just like you for what you do for us (our group)"...or, more personally, "I don't like you so much, but I do appreciate what you do for me".

An unfortunate irony is that, as long as you keep contributing, true value can go on unacknowledged  for some time in a group.

LT: The extreme leadership that got the Thai soccer boys out of the cave alive

Fear is really uncertainty about what the future holds.

Five themes emerged. The first is something called “inherent motivation.” Leaders who do well in crisis tend to be low motivators. They do not fire people up, they tend to calm people down. Dangerous places are inherently motivating — people are already spun up, so if you go in there and act like a cheerleader, they think you’re a fool.

The second was what we call an “outward orientation” or “learning orientation.” People used to being in dangerous places learn to focus on the environment — they’re not thinking about themselves. They're not focused on their own emotions. When you are task-focused, you’re activating a different part of your brain than the part where you experience fear and anger.

The number one variable — far and away — was competence. They want to know: Is that leader good enough to get us out of this fix? And the second thing they want to know is will that leader be loyal enough to take our concerns and considerations into account when he or she makes decisions? If those two things are established — competence and loyalty — they’ll trust that leader.  Continue here....

-- Jena McGregor

Open To Criticism

I've noticed...that when I am less open to criticism, it is often related to a belief I am holding on to.

The belief I recognize the most is that I have not been heard (and, that I really need to be heard).  This tends to block me from receiving criticism from others.

Why Jordon Peterson Still Believes In God

"Scientific truth explains what things are.  Religious truths explains how you should act."

7 Skills That Are Hard To Learn But Pay Off Forever

7 Skills That Are Hard To Learn But Pay Off Forever:

1. Knowing when to shut up
2. Emotional intelligence (EQ)
3. Time management
4. Listening
5. Saying "no"
6. Getting high-quality sleep*
7. Staying positive

* We've always known that quality sleep is good for your brain, but recent research from the University of Rochester demonstrated exactly how so. The study found that when you sleep, your brain removes toxic proteins, which are by-products of neural activity when you're awake, from its neurons. The catch here is that your brain can only adequately remove these toxic proteins when you have sufficient quality sleep. When you don’t get high-quality deep sleep, the toxic proteins remain in your brain cells, wreaking havoc and ultimately impairing your ability to think—something no amount of caffeine can fix. This slows your ability to process information and solve problems, kills your creativity, and increases your emotional reactivity. Learning to get high-quality sleep on a regular basis is a difficult skill to master, but it pays massive dividends the next day.

More here....

-- Travis Bradberry

Visual: Opening Beliefs

Visual - "Opening"

St. George, Utah

A visual representation of the process of 'Loosen Your Beliefs'?  ...long, slow, over time — that opens things up, even in rock-hard environments.

Loosen Your Beliefs

In order to live your soul into the world, you must continuously loosen your beliefs about who you are.

-- David Whyte

Rough Drafts

Instagram: bobgoff

We're all rough drafts of the people we're still becoming.

-- Bob Goff

LT: Simplicity

Management is about handling complexity. Leadership is about creating simplicity.

-- Peter Docker

What If: At The Edge

What If...because something was so big:

you thought something in the center, was actually at the edge.

While In The Hospital

Deep suffering makes theologians of us all. The questions people ask about God in Sunday school rarely compare with the questions we ask while we are in the hospital.

-- Barbara Brown Taylor

How To Think

I can't recommend this book enough:

Here's one thought, from the book:

Acceptance (or non-acceptance) of ideas is way more based on the social context of approval (or disapproval) of those ideas than any of us realize.  

-- Alan Jacobs

...more to follow, perhaps.

The Light of the House

Poem for the week -- “The Light of the House”:

Beyond the cheat of Time, here where you died, you live;
You pace the garden walk, secure and sensitive;
You linger on the stair: Love’s lonely pulses leap!
The harpsichord is shaken, the dogs look up from sleep.

Here, after all the years, you keep the heirdom still;
The youth and joy in you achieve their olden will,
Unbidden, undeterred, with waking sense adored;
And still the house is happy that hath so dear a lord.

To every inmate heart, confirmed in cheer you brought,
Your name is as a spell midway of speech and thought,
And to a wonted guest (not awestruck heretofore),
The sunshine that was you floods all the open door.

-- Louise Imogen Guiney

What We Allow

We become what we receive, what we allow into our hearts.

-- Richard Rohr

Devastating and freeing:

Devastating in the sense that, as we age, we seem to tend towards closing things off, rather than continue to receive.  That is worth thinking about — why is that?

Freeing in the sense that we are free to remain open, just as easily as closing ourselves off.  It seems to me that a healthy person increasingly becomes aware of the reasons he or she maintains a disposition of humility and, therefore, has less and less to fear (and control for) because our vulnerability is already so significant anyway.

Being open allows us to receive, to be free, and to continue to become.

Posthumous Fame

Exceptions to every generalization aside, it seems most good fame is posthumous.

Why is that?  Is that because it (fame) is no longer mitigated by whatever detracts from it?  In other words, it's over; what has been done is done — nothing can take anything further from it.  In the living moment, it is still being added to and detracted from.  But, after it is over, fame stands on it’s own, by itself, finished.  Unmitigated.  Seen in final form for what it is — posthumously.

This shouldn't be so disappointing.

LT: Courage To Go First

Leaders are the ones who have the courage to go first, to put themselves at personal risk to open a path for others to follow.

-- Simon Sinek

Woe Is Me

I've noticed...'woe is me' can easily be too handy.

Morning Prayer

Tami and I were struck this morning by something we don’t experience as much as we would like — silence.  “Stop”, she said, “Listen to how quiet it is...”.

This led to this prayer:

Thank you, God, for the opportunity you give me each morning — to exert myself physically, in the context of the natural world, to receive from you awareness, through my mind, of my spirit — your image in me.

There can be such a quietness, even in the noise of the natural world:


Bryce Canyon National Park, Mossy Cave trail.

Utah: Bryce Canyon National Park, Peek-a-Boo Trail

Perhaps the most stunning and picturesque trail I’ve ever seen:




More pics here....

Utah: Bryce Canyon National Park, Fairyland Loop

Walked 18 miles of amazing views today:




We have the world to live in on the condition that we take care of it.  And to take care of it, we have to know it.  And to know it and be willing to take care of it, we have to love it.

-- Wendell Berry

Utah: Zion National Park, The Narrows

Nature is a place where size and time instruct you.

Utah: Zion National Park, Angels Landing

Wilderness is not a luxury, but a necessity of the human spirit.

-- Edward Abbey

As we celebrate the 4th of July, I am so proud of our country. While there are many problems, there are also so many beautiful things as well. I am grateful for the vision and work to create and maintain our national parks systems. We had a blast today on Angels Landing in Zion.

And, last night the stars were aflood in the sky. It’s been a while since I’ve seen so many twinkling!

I couldn’t agree more with Abbey’s thought above.  More pics here....

Montana: Climbing the ‘M’

Once again, an annual favorite to do with family (Tami used to do this with hers); climbing the 'M', in Bozeman, MT.




More Montana pics here....

Idaho: Bike Trip Sights

Grow The Most

Instagram: bobgoff

God isn't always leading us to the safest route forward but to the one where where we'll grow the most.

-- Bob Goff

Calm Under Pressure

Love Letters

Poem for the week -- “Love Letters”

Every day, priests minutely examine the Law
And endlessly chant complicated sutras.
Before doing that, though, they should learn
How to read the love letters sent by the wind
and rain, the snow and moon.

-- Ikkyu

Wandering In Nature

We are in Montana and Utah for the next several days wandering around.

Wandering in nature is perhaps the most essential soulcraft practice for contemporary Westerners who have wandered so far from nature. . . .

The Wanderer allows plenty of time to roam in wild nature, and roam alone. Maybe you start out on a trail, but if the landscape allows, it won't be long before you wander off the beaten track. Because you are stalking a surprise, you attend to the world of hunches and feelings and images as much as you do to the landscape. 

. . . You will get good at wandering, good at allowing your initial agenda to fall away as you pick up new tracks, scents, and possibilities. You will smile softly to yourself over the months and years of wanderings as you notice how you have changed, how you have slowed down inside. 

Through your wanderings, you cultivate a sensibility of wonder and surprise, rekindling the innocence that got buried in your adolescent rush to become somebody in particular. Now you seek to become nobody for a while, to disappear into the woods so that the person you really are might find you.

-- Bill Plotkin

Pleasure

​Despite a bout with pain today (kidney stones), I’ve been thinking lately about pleasure.

Pleasure has its place (there's a time for everything — Ecclesiastes), so be cautious of people who try to universally deny that.

However.... There is something about pleasure that seems to seek perpetuation. You might say, as some do, that it is (or can be) addictive. Observe the things in your life that bring you pleasure and notice the tendency about them that draws you repeatedly back toward them — something like, I want that pleasure again...and again.

Pleasure can have the appearance of expanding you, but it is also possible that it begins to only expand itself. When we are drawn into something, like pleasure, we can also be reducing other things, other kinds of awareness — like replacing fulfillment with satisfaction or a filling of self, rather than others. I have found that many pleasures tend to reduce my overall capacity, in part, because of their addictive appeals. They can tend to narrow my focus or ability to see beyond the objects involved. True capacity seems to be increased more through the denial of self, than through satisfying the self.

It should be noted, that pleasure has many forms — of the mind, of the body, of effort, of the spirit, etc.

Because of the way it has been misused, I am hesitant to join all the naysayers to pleasure. On the other hand, it is also true, that it is so easy to worship an object, rather than a subject.

LT: Encourage Leadership

Good principles are often true in many contexts.  To encourage leadership, take these for example:

1. Have a compelling mission tied to your purpose
2. Create clear roles for everyone
3. Encourage people to make decisions
4. Promote teamwork throughout the organization
5. Be transparent with information

More here....

-- Peter Economy

It's worth considering how many things in life apply to relationships of all kinds — businesses, civic groups, churches, partners, families, marriages, etc.  In other words, truth is often not confined to certain arenas.

What If: Moving

What If...because something was so big:

you thought that something still, was actually moving.

Need

There are few things that draw people to God like their need.


More than just good theory, this recitation points out the many many ways people need God. It reminds me that my need for God is not just theoretical and leads me back to the question of ‘what is my need today?’

Justice & Mercy

My years of struggling against inequality, abusive power, poverty, oppression, and injustice had finally revealed something to me about myself. Being close to suffering, death, executions, and cruel punishments didn’t just illuminate the brokenness of others; in moments of anguish and heartbreak, it also exposed my own brokenness. You can’t effectively fight abusive power, poverty, inequality, illness, oppression, or injustice and not be broken by it. . . .

I guess I’d always known but never fully considered that being broken is what makes us human. We all have our reasons. Sometimes we’re fractured by the choices we make; sometimes we’re shattered by things we would never have chosen. But our brokenness is also the source of our common humanity, the basis for our shared search for comfort, meaning, and healing. Our shared vulnerability and imperfection nurtures and sustains our capacity for compassion.

We have a choice. We can embrace our humanness, which means embracing our broken natures and the compassion that remains our best hope for healing. Or we can deny our brokenness, forswear compassion, and, as a result, deny our own humanity. . . .

So many of us have become afraid and angry. We’ve become so fearful and vengeful that we’ve thrown away children, discarded the disabled, and sanctioned the imprisonment of the sick and the weak—not because they are a threat to public safety or beyond rehabilitation but because we think it makes us seem tough, less broken. I thought of the victims of violent crime and the survivors of murdered loved ones, and how we’ve pressured them to recycle their pain and anguish and give it back to the offenders we prosecute. I thought of the many ways we’ve legalized vengeful and cruel punishments, how we’ve allowed our victimization to justify the victimization of others. We’ve submitted to the harsh instinct to crush those among us whose brokenness is most visible.

But simply punishing the broken—walking away from them or hiding them from sight—only ensures that they remain broken and we do, too. There is no wholeness outside of our reciprocal humanity. . . .

Embracing our brokenness creates a need for mercy. . . . I began thinking about what would happen if we all just acknowledged our brokenness, if we owned up to our weaknesses, our deficits, our biases, our fears. Maybe if we did, we wouldn’t want to kill the broken among us who have killed others. Maybe we would look harder for solutions to caring for the disabled, the abused, the neglected, and the traumatized. . . . We could no longer take pride in mass incarceration, in executing people, in our deliberate indifference to the most vulnerable.

 -- Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy

Midlife: I'm Not Screwing Around

Instagram: brenebrown

Midlife is when the universe gently places her hands upon your shoulders, pulls you close, and whispers in your ear:  I'm not screwing around.  All of this pretending and performing — these coping mechanisms that you've developed to protect yourself from feeling inadequate and getting hurt — has to go.  Your armor is preventing you from growing into your gifts.  I understand that you needed these  protections when you were small.  I understand that you believed your armor could help you secure all of the things you needed to feel worthy and lovable but you're still searching and you're more lost than ever.  Time is growing short.  There are unexplored adventures ahead of you.  You can't live the rest of your life worried about what other people think.  You were born worthy of love and belonging.  Courage and daring are coursing through your veins.  You were mad to live and love with your whole heart.  It's time to show up and be seen.

-- Brene Brown

Not From Willfulness

Vocation does not come from willfulness. It comes from listening...

-- Parker Palmer

Struggle or Adventure

We all struggle. Or, we are all involved in an adventure. Which way do you say it, to describe the challenges (or hardness) of life?

If we consider our struggle thru a lens of adventure, what does that change? What would need to change to view things through that lens?

I had an interesting conversation recently about the challenges we face in life. After discussing things a bit, we agreed that, at one point or another, we each have to face the question of who we want to be in challenging circumstances — whether the situation changes or not, whether somebody who should do something about it does or not, whether it is fair or not, whether we like it or not. Who do we want to be?

Viewing things that are challenging as an adventure can shift our sense of it from something (unnecessarily or unfairly) imposed on me to something that I can accept, work with, and determine how I can (want to) be in the middle of it. I can view it as something I can grow from, rather than as something that is stealing from me. In other words, the agency of the power involved can transition — from resentment and not asking the next question to acknowledging how powerless we feel and asking the next question.

"I have to pass an important test. I have so many bills. I don't know what my child needs. My relationships aren't working.  I don't know what is happening or why. I am so tired. I don't know what my future holds..." — things we all can catch ourselves saying.

So, who do I want to be? ...in whatever adventure I may be facing right now. Am I losing or growing?

Sometimes when you're in a dark place you think you've been buried, but actually you've been planted.

-- Christine Caine

LT: To Be Led, Too

The trick of leadership is allowing yourself to be led, too. 

-- Nelson Mandela

I couldn't agree more.  More thoughts on Mandela's leadership here....

Another

I've noticed...one thing leads to another.  And, that it can take a while.

A Father's Job

Instagram: bobgoff

I think a father's job, when it's done best, is to get down on both knees, lean over his children's lives, and whisper, 'Where do you want to go?' Every day God invites us on the same kind of adventure.  It's not a trip where He sends us a rigid itinerary, He simply invites us.  God asks what it is He's made us to love, what it is that captures our attention, what feeds that deep indescribable need of our souls to experience the richness of the world He made. And then, leaning over us, He whispers, 'Let's go do THAT together.'

-- Bob Goff

Why Your Brain Needs You to Read Every Day

Reading puts your brain to work.

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to your body.

It gives us freedom to roam the expanse of space, time, history, and offer a deeper view of ideas, concepts, emotions, and body of knowledge.

Roberto Bolaño says, “Reading is like thinking, like praying, like talking to a friend, like expressing your ideas, like listening to other people’s ideas, like listening to music, like looking at the view, like taking a walk on the beach.”

As you read these words, your brain is decoding a series of abstract symbols and synthesizing the results into complex ideas.

The reading brain can be likened to the real-time collaborative effort of a symphony orchestra, with various parts of the brain working together, like sections of instruments, to maximize our ability to decode the written text in front of us.

Reading rewires parts of your brain. Continue here....

-- Thomas Oppong

Thirsting

Poem for the week -- "Thirsting":

It’s not that the old are wise
But that we thirst for the wisdom

we had at twenty
when we understood everything

when our brains bubbled
with tingling insights

percolating up from
our brilliant genitals

when our music rang like a global siege
shooting down all the lies in the world

oh then we knew the truth
then we sparkled like mica in granite

and now we stand on the shore
of an ocean that rises and rises

but is too salt to drink

--Alicia Ostriker

From the author:

“The thirsting described in this poem comes from the experience of aging. With age comes physical depletion but also, at times, mental and spiritual depletion. When we were young we thought we could change the world; we were self-confident to the point of arrogance. And now, even if we know that self-confidence was illusory, we still yearn for it—and the world still needs changing.”

Inferior

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

-- Eleanor Roosevelt

Give To The World, But...

You should give to the world.

But just know, what you should give should come from the uniqueness of who you are (not from what is expected by others).  And, learning what this is can take a while, perhaps a lifetime.

In the meantime, your best route is to just start giving — which will lead you to learn about your gift...to the world, and to yourself.

After all, you can give something every day already.

LT: Truth, Not Greatness

Leaders seek truth, not greatness.

-- Oleg Vishnepolsky

What If: Flat

What If...because something was so big:

you thought something flat, was actually round.

Visible

Jesus did not come to make God’s love possible, but to make God’s love visible.

-- Unknown

Running Out Of Sand

​

Breaks My Trance

G is for gratitude. When I'm in gratitude, if I even stop and make a list of the things I'm grateful for, that's a form of prayer. It breaks my trance of misery or self-absorption.

-- Anne Lamott

What You Intend

[There are] moments when it is clear—if I have the eyes to see—that the life I am living is not the same as the life that wants to live in me. 

Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen to what it intends to do with you. Before you tell your life what truths and values you have decided to live up to, let your life tell you what truths you embody, what values you represent.

-- Parker Palmer

Midlife: Painful Irony

Instagram: brenebrown

So it's searchable:

Midlife is not about fear of death.  Midlife is death.  Tearing down the walls that we spent our entire life building is death.  Like it or not, at some point during midlife, you're going down, and after that there are only two choices: staying down or enduring rebirth.

It's a painful irony that the very things that may have kept us safe growing up ultimately get in the way of our becoming the parents, partners, and / or people that we want to be.

-- Brene Brown

LT: Direction

Directions are instructions given to explain HOW. 
Direction is a vision offered to explain WHY.

-- Simon Sinek

Leaders often have vision.

Faster = Less

I've noticed...the faster I keep moving, the less imagination I have for others.

Shouldn't Say Everyone's Invited

Instagram: bobgoff

We shouldn't say everyone's invited 
if we're going to act like they're not welcome when they come.

-- Bob Goff

Why Do You Look For What You Do?

Have you ever wondered about why we see what we see?  Or, isn't it a little conspicuous that we tend to only see what we're looking for?

At one level, it's just obvious.  Is this really news?

But, why?  Wouldn't it be important, even helpful, to consider why we look for what we do?  ...because it so obvious that we do it, whether we do this or not is hardly even the question.  So, why do we do this?

I'm going to make this post a little more 'live' today — like adding to it, as my contemplation on this question comes and goes:

• I often see something, especially when I look for it — that could be interesting, even good.  But, very problematic, too. (10a)

• Two people can see the same event, read the same book, be at the place...and see, perceive, and feel very different things.  How does that happen? (11:50a)

• Is there just one reality of something?  Only one 'real' occurrence, idea, or truth? (12:39p)

• What influences such perception?  Is it built-in, like gravity? (4:14p)

• Is it sociological, like air? (7:36p)

• Is it experiential, like muscle?  Mental, like memory?  Spiritual?  Conditioned? (8:54p)

• Do we look for certain things as a means of reinforcing our sense of identity?  As a mechanism for our credibility, our survival. (9:48p)

Or, is it more simple than all of this — humans just tend to look for what we're familiar with and not we're not?  So, just let me be; I like what I like, what I'm comfortable with.

The problem, though, is when our disposition to wonder stops looking for (and, therefore, seeing) anything different...and the challenges that differences bring to the table — the openness that is required — we also lose other things, like the capacity to genuinely imagine who someone else may actually be (rather than just how we see them or want them to be), not mention to love them in the differences they represent.

So, how can 'what do I look for' change...to 'what can I look for'?

The Seven of Pentacles

Poem for the week -- “The Seven of Pentacles”

Under a sky the color of pea soup
she is looking at her work growing away there
actively, thickly like grapevines or pole beans
as things grow in the real world, slowly enough.
If you tend them properly, if you mulch, if you water,
if you provide birds that eat insects a home and winter food,
if the sun shines and you pick off caterpillars,
if the praying mantis comes and the lady bugs and the bees,
then the plants flourish, but at their own internal clock.

Connections are made slowly, sometimes they grow underground.
You cannot tell always by looking what is happening.
More than half a tree is spread out in the soil under your feet.
Penetrate quietly as the earthworm that blows no trumpet.
Fight persistently as the creeper that brings down the tree.
Spread like the squash plant that overruns the garden.
Gnaw in the dark and use the sun to make sugar.

Weave real connections, create real nodes, build real houses.
Live a life you can endure: make love that is loving.
Keep tangling and interweaving and taking more in,
a thicket and bramble wilderness to the outside but to us
interconnected with rabbit runs and burrows and lairs.

Live as if you liked yourself, and it may happen:
reach out, keep reaching out, keep bringing in.
This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always,
for every gardener knows that after the digging, after
      the planting,
after the long season of tending and growth, the harvest comes.

-- Marge Piercy

What Is Best For You Depends

What is best for you depends on your nature, so you need to really understand yourself....

-- Ray Dalio

Just Because

Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.  Just because it is physically possible, doesn’t mean it’s good for you.

LT: So Loud

What you do speaks so loudly that people in your organization will not hear what you say.

-- Fred Kofman, The Meaning Revolution

CUBS vs Giants, 2018

Beautiful 'full moon' night at Wrigley last night!

Conner's 'losing streak' was broken - CUBS won thanks to Baez 3-run HR:



Not to mention that we were famous for the first time...ever (from ESPN — note the 4 people in the middle!):

The 'Bleacher Seats' were awesome!

Never A Dead End

God’s full life, just like nature, is never a straight line and never a dead end.

-- Richard Rohr

Kairos Changes Lives

Humanity & Time

The humanity of humans is significantly shaped by the time they spend together, or don't.

Only Way To Endure

Everything that is tough and brittle shatters; everything that is cynical rots. The only way to endure is to forgive, over and over, to give back that openness and possibility for new beginning which is the very essence of love itself.

-- Cynthia Bourgeault

A powerful connection — there may be few greater evidences of truly being open than what is required of us to forgive.

Red Logos

LT: X-Factor

​The x-factor of great leadership is not personality, it's humility.

-- Jim Collins

Post-truth politics and why the antidote isn’t simply ‘fact-checking’ and truth

We live in an unfinished revolutionary age of communicative abundance. Networked digital machines and information flows are slowly but surely shaping practically every institution in which we live our daily lives.

For the first time in history, thanks to built-in cheap microprocessors, these algorithmic devices and information systems integrate texts, sounds and images in compact, easily storable, reproducible and portable digital form.

Communicative abundance enables messages to be sent and received through multiple user points, in chosen time, real or delayed, within global networks that are affordable and accessible to billions of people.

My book Democracy and Media Decadence probed the contours of this revolution. It showed why new information platforms, robust muckraking and cross-border publics are among the exciting social and political trends of our time. It proposed that the unfinished revolution is dogged by politically threatening contradictions and decadent counter-trends. The drift toward a world of “post-truth” politics is among these troubling trends.  Continue....

-- John Keane

Among the several ideas that stuck out to me in the article linked above:

...what mainstream white society usually forgets: that truth and trust are twins.

Another helpful article on truth in these times:

Truth Isn’t the Problem — We Are

A Negotiation

Instagram: bobgoff

If we only love people who love us back,
we make faith look like a negotiation.

-- Bob Goff

Royal Wedding: Rev Michael Curry's Full Sermon

Loving, Liberating & Life-Giving God:



Love is as strong as death.  It burns like a blazing fire.

-- Song of Songs 8:6

may my heart always be open to little

Poem for the week -- "may my heart always be open to little":

may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are old

may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
and even if it’s sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young

and may myself do nothing usefully
and love yourself so more than truly
there’s never been quite such a fool who could fail
pulling all the sky over him with one smile.

-- E.E. Cummings

Some honest recognition here; like:

"even if it's sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young"

Be open; stay open.

Don't Necessarily Nurture

It’s important to be heroic, ambitious, productive, efficient, creative and progressive, but these qualities don’t necessarily nurture the soul.

-- Thomas Moore, The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life

FWIW, I hear ‘laurel’.

Until

Keep doing it, until you get it right.

-- Dolester Miles, three-time James Beard Award finalist

LT: Confessions of an idea bully

...as the advertising company I founded struggled through a painful cultural crisis, I came to a shocking realization. One day, during a brainstorm with my team, I had a sort of out of body experience, observing myself as if from across the room. And I could see the company’s problem clearly. It was me. The way I was exercising my creative abilities was depressing the creativity of everyone around me. I had become an idea bully.

What made this realization so surprising was that in other areas of life and leadership, I’ve always focused on being gentle, self-aware and concerned for the well-being of others. I hate seeing people suffer and I’m fully bought in on the idea that companies should be run on strong values.

But give me a problem to solve in a group setting...continue here.

-- Jonah Sachs

Your Body Will

I've noticed...your body will tell you; treat it right and learn to listen to it.

Mom, Thank You For Changing My World

"Love is true, love is kind...keep going."  

Thank you, Moms, for your part in teaching us all the magnificence and the mundane of these timeless truths.

Spread of Lyme Disease

...more here.

How Trying to Be Strong May Be Blocking You From the Love You Want Most

This beautiful chain of love that had transformed more than one person’s soul all began when I let go of my white-knuckle grip on the situation, and turned my open palms upward to God in an act of surrender.

My sixth child, Joseph, had been born under difficult circumstances, and then a problem with his lungs landed him in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

I knew exactly how to handle this: I would be strong.

I spent all day at the hospital, then, at home, I’d stay up until the wee hours of the morning catching up on housework and other chores.  I stumbled through the NICU floor and through the rooms of my home exhausted and bleary-eyed, forcing myself to keep doing it all because that’s what strong moms do.

To help him heal, I wanted Joseph to be held as much as possible.

I tried extending my hours at the hospital, covering all the times of day that my husband couldn’t be there, but I didn’t last very long. With five children who needed me at home, I broke down under the pressure.

I sent out a desperate plea to all friends and family members, asking them to come hold my baby.

And you know what? I felt guilty as I typed those emails.  Continue here....

-- Jennifer Fulwiler

55 - Just Beginning

After 55 years, why does it feel like I'm only just beginning?

Is that an indictment?  Or, a sign of growth — the older we get, the closer we are to becoming our true selves?

God Sees Foundations

Instagram: bobgoff

God finds us in the hole we dig for ourselves.  
Where we see failures, God sees foundations.

-- Bob Goff

LT: Leadership Wisdom From The Jedi

How much of leadership starts with one's disposition with (awareness of) oneself?

• Let go of your fear
• Approach tasks with success in mind
• Be mindful of the present
• Don't let emotions cloud your judgment
• Believe in your cause

A variety of studies have demonstrated that people would prefer to avoid a loss than to acquire a gain...continue here.

-- Alex Knapp

I wonder how this tends to change as we get older, particularly if / when we have acquired too much.

Forge A New One

​Emma hadn’t given me my old identity, she had protected my ability to forge a new one.

-- Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air

This comes from one of the more inspiring books I've read in a while — a strong 'recommend' from me (thanks, Phil, for bringing this to my attention).

It Is Enough

What if rich did not have to mean wealthy and whole did not have to mean healed?  What if being people of the gospel meant that we are simply people with good news?  God is here.  We are loved.  It is enough.

-- Kate Bowler, Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved

Generations