Whatever Lens

Too often we see the Bible through whatever lens we get from our culture.

-- Brian McLaren

Half of All Colleges Won't Exist in 10 Years

Clayton Christensen has predicted traditional colleges and universities are ripe for disruption, arguing online education will undermine their business models (because education is, ultimately, a business) to such a degree that many won't survive.

A principle of Christensen's theory of disruption is that technology itself is not the disruptor. For example, Netflix created a new business model; streaming video made that business model possible. As Christensen says, "Technology enables the new business model to coalesce." Technology is the tool -- not the end result.

Which is exactly what he feels is occurring in higher education. As online and "hybrid" learning continues to grow -- and as the cost of a traditional education continues to increase -- many institutions will struggle to stay in business under their current model.  

And fewer people may be willing to pay for the piece of paper they receive.  Continue here....

-- Jeff Haden

High Dangerous

'Poem for the week' -- "High Dangerous":

is what my sons call the flowers—
purple, white, electric blue—

pom-pomming bushes all along
the beach town streets.

I can’t correct them into
hydrangeas, or I won’t.

Bees ricochet in and out
of the clustered petals,

and my sons panic and dash
and I tell them about good

insects, pollination, but the truth is
I want their fear-box full of bees.

This morning the radio
said tender age shelters.

This morning the glaciers
are retreating. How long now

until the space-print backpack
becomes district-policy clear?

We’re almost to the beach,
and High dangerous! my sons

yell again, their joy in having
spotted something beautiful,

and called it what it is.

-- Catherine Pierce

Controls You

It's what you don't know about yourself that controls you.

-- Marcel Schwantes

Preoccupied?

Are we emotionally available or emotionally preoccupied?

LT: Enduring

I believe an enduring [organization] unites partners through an emotional connection to a powerful mission, and demonstrates values through action. I believe an enduring [organization] is constantly evolving, taking on new challenges, not afraid to take risks; always learning and adapting...while staying true to its mission. And I believe an enduring [organization] handles adversity with grace, and success with humility—never losing its way.

We must always have the wisdom to know what to honor and preserve from the past... and the courage to boldly re-imagine the future.

-- Kevin Johnson

It seems to me that it takes leadership to include these things in nearly any relationship -- business, church, civic organization...marriage, family, friends -- because they are critical to healthy relationships of any kind...even with one's relationship with oneself.

Through Our Body

I've noticed...we can listen for our mind through our body because it can communicate so much from its practicality about strength and vulnerability, effort and rest, pain and pleasure, sadness and joy.

Captive

We keep the Creator captive to what we are able comprehend.

-- Peter Enns

Why Your Memories Can't Be Trusted

I've been in several discussions lately related to memory.  This explains some things that are useful to recognize.  I think we are all a bit surprised at how malleable our memories are, especially when they are replayed often and the reasons that drive that to happen.

Visual: Skyre

Visual - "Skyre"

Winona Lake, IN

...what it's like when we know something is not really what it looks like.  Nature is full of such things.

Grow Up

When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up, we would no longer be vulnerable.  But to grow up is to accept vulnerability.

-- Madeleine L'Engle

In fact, I'm not sure if anything has caused me more opportunity for vulnerability than raising a family.  And, I am deeply grateful for it -- for the state of being that it allowed me to be in and learn to stay in.

Not Sure How Much You Can

I'm not sure how much you can grow without engaging other people...especially people who are not like you or who challenge you.

LT: Trust

Trust has two dimensions: competence and integrity. We will forgive mistakes of competence. Mistakes of integrity are harder to overcome.

-- Simon Sinek

As Much

I've noticed...I learn and grow as much by doing as by thinking and talking.

Transformational Lesson

Unfortunately, with the widespread acceptance of the substitutionary atonement theory, salvation became a one-time transactional affair between Jesus and his Father, instead of an ongoing transformational lesson for the human soul and for all of history. 

-- Richard Rohr

Menthol Smokers

The Exercise of Forgiving

'Poem for the week' -- "The Exercise of Forgiving":

Six months ago, the measuring of whiskey
left in the jug, urine on the mattress, couch
cushions, the crotch of pants in wear. You watch
how breath lifts a chest, how a person breathes—
sick hobbies of when we must. You watch
how you become illiterate at counting.
Six or seven broken breathalyzers; a joke
formulates in your throat & you
choke back your windpipe as punchline.
How many sobs in parking lots before sun
lugged above horizon? The heart hammers
all too familiar songs behind your ribs
& these notes cut away at you. You read online
how television, internet, starving children
in numbers greater than three, polar bears,
rain forests, light from an off direction
all desensitize the human brain’s ability
to empathize. You wonder how
you chew the word panic in your jaws,
let meaning burrow into molars
seep in crevasses between root & bone.
How rot tends to the insides. You wonder
now with the inpatient tags, the cafeteria visits,
the doctors, the psychiatrists, the when do you
get to come homes, the hesitation of our bodies
sharing space again, the words I have not
drank today & your brain in flinch, how you
excavate organs for what’s left, for salvage.

-- Felicia Zamora

From the author:

“For the past few years, someone I love has been struggling with clinical depression and alcoholism, a journey that has reshaped both our understandings of ourselves as humans and the space we inhabit with each other. These diseases can make people raw, rub you down to only nerve endings, and make you question everything you know. I naively thought I understood empathy and forgiveness before, but now I’m learning how to regenerate, pay attention, listen, and love boldly, and how sometimes we must brave the wound’s exposure to allow for any real healing to begin.”

Consuming Things

Contrary to historical and popular opinion, life and the things in it do not exist to be consumed.

Dwarfs Our Opinions

Instagram: bobgoff

We'll know we're growing when our love for people dwarfs our opinions of them.

-- Bob Goff

LT: They Need To Impress

True measure of a leader is how they treat everyone, not just those they need to impress.

-- Oleg Vishnepolsky

Starting Points

I've noticed...so many things are symptoms of our starting points.

Obsessed With Belief

Over the past few decades, our Christianity has become obsessed with what Christians believe rather than how Christians live. . . . But in Jesus we don’t just see a presentation of doctrines but an invitation to join a movement that is about demonstrating God’s goodness to the world.

-- Shane Claiborne

Things Must Change

Things must change.

In fact, things will change whether we want them to or not.

Right; eternal things don't change.  But, we don't know precisely what all those things are (we might not even know what very many of them are).  We believe we know, but we largely don't.

Jesus basically said, both by his words and his deeds, I am here to change everything...especially the things you think you know.

It is often religious people who think they know the most.  Because they seem busy trying to avoid dying: "I'm right—follow me, and you will live."  They cite Jesus as the one who said that—and he did.  But, what he meant was that in order to live you have to change, largely by dying to things (that we think).

Jesus, too, moved through this change, knowing everything dies—including himself—because he is interested in resurrection, in life after death.  ...in the life that comes from being born again (changing).

Everything around us is changing and so are we.

Things do change...because they must change.

Visual: Distance

Visual - "Distance"

Glacier National Park, MT

How Casually

How casually and certainly 
we say things about the only world we know.

-- Maggie Anderson

Every Day

Every day presents a freedom to begin again.

LT: Transcendence and Connection

Respect, freedom, and service...addresses our spiritual needs for transcendence and connection to something more permanent than ourselves.

-- Fred Kofman

Leaders know this and, more importantly, live this.

Valued

Ever noticed...when it feels like you are valued for what you do, rather than for who you are?

Ultimate Reality

I don't follow Jesus because I think Christianity is the best religion. I follow Jesus because he leads me into ultimate reality.
​
-- Rob Bell

OtR: Love & Revelation

...there are no delusions here about just how deep in the shit you can be. But if Over the Rhine’s body of work proves anything, it’s that deep shit can be a conduit for amazing grace....

-- Josh Hurst

This is so real, it hurts.  After the week I’ve had, I'm feeling a lot today—perhaps because of the space a long run this morning gave me to do so.

The rest of a review of OtR's imminent new album can be found here.

History: Human history, in one chart

You may need to click the image above - a lot of things have moved lately.

Almost all the gains in human well-being in history happened since the Industrial Revolution.

In short, for most of history, all human events — the rise and fall of empires, the spread of plagues, the spread and schisms of religions, the invention of wheels and aqueducts and the printing press — barely affected the typical person’s life span, political freedom, economic productivity, or wealth.

And then, with the Industrial Revolution, all those things changed at once. Within 200 years, the human experience looked very different.  Read the story here....

-- Kelsey Piper


Unrelated (perhaps):

Being Right

'Poem for the week' - "Being Right":

What is the source
our so apparent
need
to be right?
Why so instinctive
within us?
...so
religious
its connection?

It's not
benign.
It tends to
villainize,
mostly what
we don't understand.

But, is it necessary
for arrival?
acceptance
that what is
right

is far more
accommodating,
inviting,
inclusive,
than we would
otherwise
ever know?

Or, am I wrong?

Submission To Another's Opinions & Viewpoints

To be accountable means that we are willing to be responsible to another person for our behavior and it implies a level of submission to another's opinions and viewpoints.

-- Wayde Goodall

To put it differently, what does it mean when I am unwilling to submit to the possibility that other people's opinions and viewpoints have some validity?

What, in fact, is it that would make me even wish for this not to be true?  Does such unwillingness somehow validate my own?  After all, how would my viewpoints even be compromised by someone else's?

Why does making such judgments feel so useful?  Who even asked me to judge?  But, without such submission, I unwittingly do so.

It's Armor

Instagram: brenebrown

It's not fear that gets in the way of showing up—it's armor.  It's the behaviors we use to self-protect.  We can be afraid and brave at the same time.

But the armor suffocates courage and cages our hearts.  The goal is to create spaces where armor is neither necessary or rewarded.

-- Brené Brown

LT: As Much About

Leadership is as much about learning as it is about teaching.

-- Rich Sheridan

Since leadership implicitly involves people, it would follow that little of it could be done without being open (willing to learn) to who they are.

From A Distance

I’ve noticed...it is hard to be human from a distance.

Relating seems to almost require proximity.

Visual: Spaces

Visual - "Spaces"

Christ Church Cathedral - Indianapolis, IN

I like this title because I sense that something new is happening in old places.

Perhaps, that's because of the space that has been created in them, for things to be re-done, or reborn, with different people.  Space is often necessary for such things.

I’m seeing and hearing about these kinds of changing spaces (like the one shown above or this one - SBCC) developing in a variety of ways all over the country, as faith is being reclaimed and discovered anew by old and new people alike.

The Spiderman Paradox

The Spiderman Paradox

On one hand, Uncle Ben’s rule makes great sense: “With great power comes great responsibility.”

The essence of the rule is that once you have great power, you need to take the responsibility that goes with it.

And yet, it’s backfiring.

It’s backfiring because so many walk away from their great power. They walk away because they don’t want the responsibility.

We have the power to vote, but decide to stay home and whine.

The power to publish, but click instead.

The power to lead, but follow meekly.

The power to innovate, but ask for rules of thumb instead.

The power to lend a hand, but walk away.

Most people watch videos, they don’t make them. Most people read tweets, they don’t write them. Most people walk away from the chance to lead online and off, in our virtual communities and with the people down the street.

In a democracy, we each have more power to speak up and to connect than we imagine. But most people don’t publish their best work or seek to organize people who care. Most of the time, it’s far easier to avert our eyes or blame the system or the tech or the dominant power structure.

There are millions who insist we’d be better off with a monarchy. The main reason: what happens after that is no longer their responsibility. Go work for the man, it saves you from having to be responsible.

When the local business disappears, it’s because we didn’t shop there. When the local arts program fades away, it’s because we watched Netflix instead. And when the local school persists in churning out barely competent cogs for the industrial system, it’s because we didn’t speak up.

Culture is what we build, and that’s powerful.

-- Seth Godin

33

As I reflect today on another year, now 33 of marriage to Tami, I am a bit overcome.

Collecting reflections on this in recent years has made me recognize a bit more of what all is happening through this experience together.

What a deep beauty is the kind of acceptance we have learned—an acceptance both of ourselves and of each other.  Even more resonant is the opportunity each of us has been given to grow—to not only be who we are, but also to change.  I am so excited about the growth I see in Tami and how that has en-couraged growth in me.

It is sometimes easier to see such things in another than it is in oneself.  But, the mere likelihood that what happens in another is also happening in me is more than enough.  I am so grateful that we have learned to trust this more and more.  And, as a result, I can hardly wait to continue growing...together.

With such deep affection for you, Tami.

Frequent Interactions

Close relationships only thrive when you have time for frequent interactions. 

-- Brian de Haaff

Cases Against

It's easier to build cases against people when you're not in relationship with them.

Even more powerful are the number of ways the opposite is true.

LT: Advance A Vision

A boss tells people what they can do to achieve a goal. A leader asks people what they can do to advance a vision.
​
-- Simon Sinek

For vs Against

I've noticed...groups often start around something in common that they’re working against. But, they stay together when they continue at something in common that they’re working for.

Fully Human

Humanity now needs a Jesus who is historical, relevant for real life, physical and concrete, like we are. A Jesus we can imitate in practical ways and who sets the bar for what it means to be fully human.

-- Richard Rohr

How modern life gets in the way of sleep

Up to 30% of people in developed countries now suffer from chronic insomnia. How did we get so sick and tired?

We evolved on a rotating planet, with regular patterns of light and dark exposure, and our biology is set up to work with this cycle. Our kidneys produce less urine, our body temperature is lower and our immune systems are less capable of fighting off foreign invaders at night. During the day, blood pressure rises, hunger hormones kick in and our brains shift into a higher gear. These daily fluctuations in our biology are called circadian rhythms, and they dictate when we feel sleepy.

For most of human history, we slept at night and were more active during the day. 

These same studies have found that, on average, people from traditional societies go to bed and wake up several hours earlier than we do in developed countries. Not only do they sleep earlier than us, they also seem to sleep better. Between 10 and 30% of people in developed countries experience chronic insomnia, whereas just 1.5% of Hadza people (Tanzania), and 2.5% of San people (Namibia) say they regularly have problems falling or staying asleep. Neither group has a word for “insomnia” in their language.  Continue here....

-- Linda Geddes

In Blackwater Woods

'Poem for the week' -- "In Blackwater Woods":

From the poem:

to live in this world
you must be able to do
three things:

to love what is mortal;
to hold it against your bones
knowing your own life depends on it;

and, when the time comes to let it
go,
to let it go.

-- Mary Oliver

Outward & Forward

The nature of life has an assumed direction embedded in it—outward.

And the arc of that outwardness is forward.

The only way out of something is forward.  Mining the past is a diversion of energy.  Though it can be highly informative, even helpful at times, trying to stay there is a waste.  What we do now is motivated by what compels us to move forward.

History seems to have an inertia to it—holding on to the past just inhibits the natural flow of things.  Each generation indicates this very thing to the prior one through both what it rejects and what it accepts.

We tap into our outward energy by engaging the relationship between what is and what can be—to what calls us forward, to what we can do to nudge things closer to how things should be.

As Much As We Give It

Instagram: bobgoff

Fear only has as much power as we give it; hope works the same way.

-- Bob Goff

Sound familiar?

Do not fear, only believe.

-- Mark 5:36 (RSV)

LT: Hidden in Problems

Leaders know that often hidden in problems are some of the best opportunities—ones that we often miss because we only see them in a certain way, as problems.

Simulated Life

I've noticed...that, in the end, we don't want the simulated life—we want what is real, alive, and engaging.

Not A...

Throughout the first five centuries people understood Christianity primarily as a way of life in the present, not as a doctrinal system, esoteric belief, or promise of eternal salvation.

-- Diana Butler Bass

What Staring At A Screen All Day Is Doing To Your Brain And Body

The brain, the body and screens—it makes sense that what and how we take in the world has impact on how we exist, especially since we are fully integrated beings, not just a series of pieces and parts.

Visual: Textearth

Visual - "Textearth"

Glacier National Park, MT

Shared Threats

...when everyone around you is going negative. Your mammal brain wants to run when the rest of the herd runs. In the state of nature, you’d end up in the jaws of a predator if you ignored your group-mates’ threat signals and waited to see the threat for yourself. 

Mammals bond around shared threats, and fighting the common enemy raises a mammal’s status within its group. If you ignore the perceived threats that animate your group mates, you will probably pay the price in social rewards.

-- Loretta Breuning

Sound familiar?

Often Relative

Our sense of who we are is too often relative. We see or evaluate ourselves through the lens of how we see others (I'm not like that, I am like this, etc.), which is heavily influenced by how we think they see us. This is both true and dangerous.

LT: Natural Pattern

The journey of a leader is fraught with trials that reveal, test, and sharpen his / her spirit. There is a natural pattern to human growth. It is a trajectory from unconsciousness to consciousness to super consciousness.
​
-- Fred Kofman

Looking For

Ever noticed...that we often don’t recognize certain things because of what we’re looking for?

Lose Our Vision

If we deny anyone their humanity, if we do not recognize everyone as a sister or brother, if we oppose others who are different and seek to dominate everything according to our group or nation, we disregard the Gospel and lose our vision. More fundamentally, we lose our humanity.

-- John Dear

Confronting Human Trafficking

Hotels are often on the frontlines of human trafficking.

It’s a horrific form of modern slavery that has entrapped more than 40 million people worldwide, according to the International Labour Organization.  The victims can find themselves in forced-labor or sex-trafficking situations.

I’ve spoken out about these crimes before and encouraged the hospitality and tourism industry to do what it can to stop these human rights abuses.

Two years ago, Marriott International made a decision to make human trafficking awareness training mandatory for all on-property associates ...continue here.

-- Arne Sorenson

The video included in the article referenced above underscores that it takes awareness, policy, and a shared commitment by all to work on this problem.

Another article this week references plans being put in place this SuperBowl weekend (though some click-bate myths also exist) and some of the larger realities of Atlanta in general.

On the Lighter Side: Weather Week

I've never seen the thermometer on my car hit -20 degrees before:

The Cabbage Butterfly

'Poem for the week' -- "The Cabbage Butterfly":

The human brain wants to complete—

The poem too easy? Bored. The poem too hard?
Angry. What’s this one about? Around the block
the easy summer weather, the picture-puff clouds
adrift in the blue sky that’s no paint-by-numbers.

In the corner garden, the cabbage butterfly
bothers the big leafy heads, trying to complete
its life cycle by hatching a horned monster to
chew holes in the green cloth manufactured so
laboriously by seed germ from air, water,
light, dirt. There’s no end to this, yes, no end.

Even when we want to stop, stop, stop! Even
when someone else calls us monster. Even when
we fear and hope that we will not have the final
word.

-- Minnie Bruce Pratt

While not consistent with this time of year, this poem touches the essence of many vectors of my experience this week.

And then, Tami graced me with these three words, “I trust you”, obliterating my sense of the accumulating monster within me.  How much do we all long to hear those words?

Waste So Much Time

When we waste so much time with things that numb us—things that keep us from being alive to ourselves and, thereby, to those around us—we have such a false sense of living.

Purposeful Life

Instagram: bobgoff

It's easy to confuse a lot of activity with a purposeful life.

-- Bob Goff

Desperation makes us believe (act) out of a kind of panic about what people think about us, if we:

• Aren't seen as the first one connected to this (idea or person)
• Don't get in front of that (issue or problem)
• Can't be somewhere that is socially (or even spiritually) approved

How often is all our activity really just seeking credibility or respect, not to mention just plain old acceptance?

LT: Controlling vs Engaging

When it comes to leading human-beings, we already tried controlling them—what they want is to be engaged.

Good Friends

I've noticed...good friends are those who remain interested in knowing you well enough to love you by encouraging—even challenging—you to keep growing toward:

• becoming who you really are
• offering who you are to others

Expanded Receptivity

[Contemplative] practices beckon earthbound bodies toward an expanded receptivity to holiness.... Receptivity is not a cognitive exercise but rather the involvement of intellect and senses in a spiritual reunion and oneness with God.... [The] contemplative moment is a spiritual event that kisses the cognitive but will not be enslaved to its rigidities. 

-- Barbara Holmes

Snowglobe

Our 'live' snowglobe is all shook up out there.  An hour of tromping around in the woods' blanket of white-silence was still not enough to satisfy our dog, Fletcher.

Me either.

The Four Mistakes We Make When We Talk About Technology

I think the way we talk about technology is in danger of repeating a mistake. It's a mistake that we made very recently and with catastrophic consequences, so it's particularly poignant that we may make it again.

The mistake we made was in the way we talked about globalisation... It was portrayed as an unstoppable force, something that there was no point trying to object to and you were stuck in the past if you did. "Globalisation is coming, there is no alternative".

Secondly, it was portrayed as something which would have winners and losers, but that there would be more winners than losers. So the losers just need to suck it up, realise they're on the wrong side of history and adapt.

Thirdly, it was argued that globalisation would mean some things that you cared about, like national sovereignty or defending certain industries, these were things you could no longer expect to control. Read on here....

-- Azeem Azhar

Seems to me we talk about other things this way, too. Like theology....

Visual: Contradictions

Visual - "Contradictions"

Winona Lake, IN

Not By Special Exertions

The strength of a man’s virtue should not be measured by his special exertions, but by his habitual acts.

-- Blaise Pascal

Capable

The point isn't what you're not capable of; rather, it is what you are capable of.

Deficiencies are a given, not an indictment—let that settle in.....

The good news is that is not the point. Focus on what you are capable of becoming, rather than what you're not.

LT: Where We're Going

Leadership...is the ability to focus on where we're going, not where we're coming from.

-- Simon Sinek

MLK Day: The Day We Become Silent

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Ever noticed how death seems to clarify things? So often, we only seem capable of really listening after the fact, like after someone dies...because of what they lived for.  Then we see it, for what it was.

Contagion

What is the relation of [contemplation] to action? Simply this. He [or she] who attempts to act and do things for others or for the world without deepening his own self-understanding, freedom, integrity and capacity to love will not have anything to give others. He will communicate to them nothing but the contagion of his own obsessions, his aggressiveness, his ego-centered ambitions, his delusions about ends and means, his doctrinaire prejudices and ideas. There is nothing more tragic in the modern world than the misuse of power and action.

-- Thomas Merton

Mentally Strong

Raising mentally strong kids who are equipped to take on real-world challenges requires parents to give up the unhealthy — yet popular — parenting practices that are robbing kids of mental strength.

Of course, helping kids build mental muscle isn’t easy — it requires parents to be mentally strong as well. Watching kids struggle, pushing them to face their fears, and holding them accountable for their mistakes is tough. But those are the types of experiences kids need to reach their greatest potential.

Parents who train their children’s brains for a life of meaning, happiness, and success, avoid these 13 things:

1. They Don’t Condone A Victim Mentality
2. They Don’t Parent Out Of Guilt
3. They Don’t Make Their Child The Center Of The Universe
4. They Don’t Allow Fear To Dictate Their Choices
5. They Don’t Give Their Child Power Over Them
6. They Don’t Expect Perfection
7. They Don’t Let Their Child Avoid Responsibility
8. They Don’t Shield Their Child From Pain
9. They Don’t Feel Responsible For Their Child’s Emotions
10. They Don’t Prevent Their Child From Making Mistakes
11. They Don’t Confuse Discipline With Punishment
12. They Don’t Take Shortcuts To Avoid Discomfort
13. They Don’t Lose Sight Of Their Values

Continue here....

-- Amy Morin

Mary Oliver: “When Death Comes”

'Poem for the week' -- “When Death Comes”:

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder

if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,

or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

-- Mary Oliver


Mary Oliver, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet whose work, with its plain language and minute attention to the natural world, drew a wide following while dividing critics, died on Thursday at her home in Hobe Sound, Fla. She was 83.

For her abiding communion with nature, Ms. Oliver was often compared to Walt Whitman and Robert Frost. For her quiet, measured observations, and for her fiercely private personal mien (she gave many readings but few interviews, saying she wanted her work to speak for itself), she was likened to Emily Dickinson.

Ms. Oliver often described her vocation as the observation of life, and it is clear from her texts that she considered the vocation a quasi-religious one.

Given its seeming contradiction — shallow and profound, uplifting and elegiac — Ms. Oliver’s verse is perhaps best read as poetic portmanteau, one that binds up both the primal joy and the primal melancholy of being alive. Continue here....

-- Margalit Fox


Here are a couple of perspectives about Mary Oliver from other traditions:

Mary Oliver, our devotional poet

Hidden pencils, urgent warnings and instructions Mary Oliver left the Church

Most Perfectly

​Love is most perfectly displayed when we give goodness to those who disregard us, especially to those who hate us.

More Eager

Instagram: bobgoff

You'll be able to spot people who are becoming love because they want to build kingdoms, not castles.  They fill their lives with people who don't look like them or act like them or even believe the same things as them.  They treat them with love and respect and are more eager to learn from them than presume they have something to teach.

-- Bob Goff

LT: Only Hear What You Do

After a while, people only hear what you do, not what you say.

Power

Ever noticed...that those with perceived power do not seem as capable of listening to others as those who are truly powerful because they listen to others and respond with action?

Good power is used for more than protection and perpetuation of what is (fear), it is used for liberation and discovery of what could be (freedom).

Simultaneous Discovery

The genius of Jesus’ ministry is that he reveals that God uses tragedy, suffering, pain, betrayal, and death itself (all of which are normally inevitable), not to punish us but, in fact, to bring us to God and to our True Self, which are frequently a simultaneous discovery.

-- Richard Rohr

Is this not true or what?  It certainly is descriptive both of my experience and a mode and mood of God that I am so grateful for.

Snow-Happy

Snow makes me happy.

I wonder why.  At some level, it doesn't matter.  But, at another, I wonder what snow triggers within me.  I have to go out into it...not just to see it, but also to feel it.  Is this a clue to my question about it?

One of the unique beauties of snow for me is knowing that it will both leave and return—like something that can only be enjoyed in the moment, that will also come again.

Guess you know where I'll be in a few minutes....

Intellectual Humility: the importance of knowing you might be wrong

Our ignorance is invisible to us.

-- David Dunning


For every sense and every component of human judgment, there are illusions and ambiguities we interpret arbitrarily.

Some are gravely serious. White people often perceive black men to be bigger, taller, and more muscular (and therefore more threatening) than they really are. That’s racial bias — but it’s also a socially constructed illusion. When we’re taught or learn to fear other people, our brains distort their potential threat. They seem more menacing, and we want to build walls around them. When we learn or are taught that other people are less than human, we’re less likely to look upon them kindly and more likely to be okay when violence is committed against them.

Not only are our interpretations of the world often arbitrary, but we’re often overconfident in them.

Chabris says. “We’re not all-knowing and all-seeing and perfect at our jobs, so we put [the data] out there for other people to check out, to improve upon it, come up with new ideas from and so on.” To be more intellectually humble, we need to be more transparent about our knowledge. We need to show others what we know and what we don’t.

And two, there needs to be more celebration of failure, and a culture that accepts it. That includes building safe places for people to admit they were wrong.

For a democracy to flourish, Lynch argues, we need a balance between convictions — our firmly held beliefs — and humility. We need convictions, because “an apathetic electorate is no electorate at all,” he says. And we need humility because we need to listen to one another. Those two things will always be in tension.

To be intellectually humble doesn’t mean giving up on the ideas we love and believe in. It just means we need to be thoughtful in choosing our convictions, be open to adjusting them, seek out their flaws, and never stop being curious about why we believe what we believe.
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-- Brian Resnick

This one is packed with good stuff to consider...continue here.