Not By What We Know

Instagram: bobgoff

We're not limited by what we know, but what we can imagine.

-- Bob Goff

Many Things You Don’t Want To Do

Many things you don’t want to do are actually ways for you to get better or stronger.

Mowing The Grass

I've noticed...when I mow the grass, I sometimes complain and feel sorry for myself.

Maybe that's because I think no one will notice or hear me.

Sometimes I catch myself thinking that such things are bad.  But, I’ve been wondering if I need to do such things more often (no, I'm not referring to mowing the grass...).  Because complaining and feeling sorry for myself seems to lead me to other things—like being more honest about the impact life is having on me.  And, that seems to lead me toward compassion for the impact of life on others.  I need to feel life's impact on me; feeling things keeps me alive and attentive, to myself and to others.

I need to acknowledge the basic-ness of my humanity; that I feel things, too; that I don't live above the drama of life; that I'm fully in and fully feeling the fray of human existence.  Being human is what I need to most be.

Mowing the grass is really a first-world thing; so, perhaps it is really the physical labor that provides the opportunity, to complain AND to be more fully...human.

Have The Power

We have been given God in our souls and Christ in our flesh. We have the power to believe where others deny, to hope where others despair, to love where others hurt. 

-- Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel

Debt

"Houston, we have a problem...".

The Creative Drive

'Poem for the week' -- "The Creative Drive":

A recent study found that poems increased
the sale price of a home by close to $9,000.
The years, however, have not been kind to poems.

The Northeast has lost millions of poems,
reducing the canopy. Just a few days ago,
high winds knocked a poem onto a power line

a few blocks from my house.
I had not expected to lose so many at once.
“We’ve created a system that is not healthy

for poems,” said someone. Over the next thirty years,
there won’t be any poems where there are overhead wires.
Some poems may stay as a nuisance,

as a gorgeous marker of time.

-- Catherine Barnett


From the author:

“Thinking about literary influence, I wanted to write an ars poetica out of a day’s New York Times. I turned first to the Real Estate section, which would, I figured, be least poetic and therefore most challenging. It was a fortuitous mistake—there I found Ronda Kaysen’s thoughtful lament about the fate of trees in her New Jersey suburb; her article provided the raw material for this cento (with substitutions). I tip my hat to all of the Times reporters, to whom we are indebted for their excellent and very real reporting (along with environmentalist Mike Brick and forester John Linson, whose quotes also slip into the poem). I tip my hat to all trees, which, like poems, prove simultaneously fragile and resilient.”

Accurate Mirror

How we relate to someone we love . . . provides an extremely clear and accurate mirror of how we relate to ourselves.

-- John Welwood


We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness.

-- Thich Nhat Hanh

Generalizations

Some people seem to be easily pissed off by generalizations—perhaps because they don’t feel accurately represented by whatever is being generalized.  We live in a time when this is important to recognize because we have, in fact, over-stayed our welcome with our generalizations.

That doesn’t make all generalizations untrue (though, some truly are...untrue), it simply reveals that there are ranges to things; there is variety, there are alternatives and, yes, there are patterns that are true (generally).

LT: Questions They Ask

The quality of a leader cannot be judged by the answers they give, but by the questions they ask.

-- Simon Sinek

Often times, people in leadership roles just don't ask questions, because they don't really want to know.

Threats

I've noticed...that as they get older people tend to become preoccupied by potential threats in life.

My Work

My work is to free
myself of myself
so that You can be
born in me.

-- Meister Eckhart

A Privilege To Sleep With Someone

It's a privilege to sleep with someone.

OK, I might now have the attention of some.  It struck me the other day what a privilege it is to be able to have a relationship with someone for many years, not to mention the extent to which that is true about someone you sleep with (like a spouse) for that long, too.  Perhaps, another way to put it is, it is a privilege to love another person, especially over a long period of time.

When you consider what that involves; the vulnerability at so many levels, the risk, the imposition, the challenges, the forgiveness, the joy...loving someone is as much a wonder as being loved by someone.

Visual: Once

Visual - "Once":

Joshua Tree National Park, CA

More pics from a recent trip to San Diego here....

Not Understanding Ourselves

For the most part all [our] trials and disturbances come from our not understanding ourselves.

-- Saint Teresa of Ávila

See One's Self Pass By

How good it is to center down! To sit quietly and see one’s self pass by! 

-- Howard Thurman

Thinking

Truth be told, there may not be that much great thinking going on—a  lot of thinking, perhaps, but not much of it great.

But, as indicting as that may sound, it usually takes a lot of thinking of one kind or another to get to great thinking, perhaps even to good thinking.

Like a river, it takes a lot of moving water to get downstream, to somewhere you haven't been before.  To see something you haven't seen before.  To think something you haven't thought before—perhaps even, something great.

Self-Imposed

So many (most?) of our fears are self-imposed.

Loyalty

Ever noticed...that those who preach loyalty often require much more of it than they are willing to provide?

And, how they often use a group of people to secure it, disguising it as loyalty to certain ideas, when it is really mostly just loyalty to them?

Tell God

Instagram: bobgoff

Each of us gets to decide every day whether to lean in or step back—to say yes, ignore it, or tell God why He has the wrong person.

-- Bob Goff

Belief Narratives

Consciously (or sub-consciously), some often try to keep people 'in' a group by constructing, and then maintaining, a belief narrative. And, often the same people try to keep others 'out' of the group by questioning or challenging what they believe (not believing the 'right' thing...that the group believes).

Using belief narratives this way is really just a way of avoiding something—like the hard work in a relationship of really dealing with the pain or the discomfort that is often involved between people, especially over time.  In that way, working on what people believe or saying (narrative) that 'they' don't believe the right (same) thing is a cop-out.  It is easier—but, it's really just avoidance, it's self-protective.

And, it certainly isn't love.  Which is a bit ironic because love is often the more compelling piece of what belief itself tends to call for.

A Skull

'Poem for the week' -- "A Skull":

is like a house
            with a brain inside. Another place
where eating
            and thinking
                         tango and spar—

At night
             you lean out, releasing
thought balloons.
             On the roof
                         someone stands ready

                         with a pin—

-- Dana Levin


From the author:

“A poem can sometimes feel like something hidden behind a door: the door opens and you are invited into something strange—maybe something confounding, disturbing—in some way that is felt, beyond intellect. The reader, the writer, tries to clothe the poem in interpretation, but such poems will not completely surrender to analysis, will prefer, always, to be naked and beyond. This is part of the intimacy of poetry, part of its stubbornness, part of its genius.”

Not How This Will End

At any given moment you have the power to say:  this is not how the story is going to end.

-- Christine Mason Miller

Women Who Fight

When men will only fight to protect their own comfort, women are left to fight for others alone.

Thank God they do.

LT: Stand Up For

Good leaders stand up for the people they lead when they don't view them simply as problems.

So Different

I've noticed...I can feel so different (physically, mentally, emotionally ...spiritually) in one part of a day than in another, not to mention one day from another.  So different, in fact, I sometimes wonder what happened.  Am I the same person, each time?

Wholiness

In very real ways, soul, consciousness, love, and the Holy Spirit are one and the same. Each of these point to something that is larger than the individual, shared with God, ubiquitous, and even eternal—and then revealed through us! Holiness does not mean people are psychologically or morally perfect (a common confusion), but that they are capable of seeing and enjoying things in a much more “whole” and compassionate way, even if they sometimes fail at it themselves.

-- Richard Rohr

Piano Forte

Another rather wonderful edition of Michiana Chronicles:

A few weeks ago, I had the chance to sit in on a singing lesson with a well-known voice teacher. It was like stepping back in time. The walls of her one-room studio were covered in posters commemorating performances around the world, each one boasting faded signatures and dedications in foreign languages. On the hardwood floor sat piles of sheet music, along one wall an overstuffed couch, and in its neighboring corner a bed covered in all manner of papers. From my perch on the couch, I contemplated the ceiling with its peeling paint, the result of who knows what disasters from upstairs neighbors over the years. But of course, the main attraction of this room was on the far side: taking up one whole end of the room, a fabulously appointed honey-colored grand piano, with seductively carved legs and scrolls in all the right places.

Teacher and student took their places...continue (or listen) here.

-- Andrew Kreider

"...value, not volume. Gentle AND strong."

Visual: Active

Visual - "Active":

Monterey Bay, CA

Freedom

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.

-- Galatians 5:1

My how we humans use the Bible sometimes.  Of course, the statement alone should lead one to wonder something like, set us free from what?  I'm contemplating that today.

Though perhaps only indirectly connected, I am mindful this 4th of July of some of the wonderful freedoms I enjoy, we as a nation enjoy.  I know not everyone does or can.  That knowledge alone gives me pause....

As I ran trails near our house today, I met numerous people who were doing the same -- outside, freely walking, running, or biking simply for the enjoyment of it.  Almost completely without fear, at least when compared to many of our human brethren around the world who live nearly every minute in fear of one kind or another.

I have so much freedom.  I don't have to work today, because my employee is paying me not to work.  I have mobility to be out and about, exercising however as I wish.  I have emotional equilibrium to imagine the wonder of everything around me this morning -- the color, the coolness, the sound, the smell.  I even enjoyed food I don't normally eat because I had the freedom to eat it.  So much freedom.  So much to enjoy.  I am so grateful to be aware of a God who provides of all this and more.

"It is for freedom, that Christ has set us free..."

May I live and give out of the abundance of such freedom.

Without Fully Knowing

In the initial stages of our journey in life, we seek to understand the meaning of our reality by describing our experience with it.  This is necessary and normal—among other things, it is a function and purpose of language.

As we grow and develop, we become more aware of reality we can't fully describe, because of the limitations of our experience.  And, we continue to reach for experience to impute meaning onto what we can't fully describe, what we don't fully know.  Nonetheless, an ability to know without fully knowing grows within us.

Our Limits

The fears we don't face become our limits.

-- Robin Sharma

Clarity

I’ve noticed...I think with more clarity when I am doing something else.

Around People

We need to stop building our churches around categories and start building them around people.

-- Rachel Held Evans


If we cannot love our neighbor as ourself, it is because we do not perceive our neighbor as ourself.

-- Beatrice Bruteau

Love Floods Into

Instagram: bobgoff

None of us really fall in love, we just stop making everything about ourselves, and love floods into the space selfishness leaves behind.

-- Bob Goff

The More

'Poem for the week' -- "The More":

The more I try by going it alone
   the more I believe I need to
The more I believe I can do it alone
   the less I seem to feel
The less I feel
   the more stressed I become
The more stressed I become
   the less aware I am
The less aware I am
   the less open I am
The less open I am
   the more I seem to need others to agree with me
The more I need others to agree with me
   the more I fear
The more I fear
   the more I try to go it alone

Surprise of Its Own Unfolding

I would love to live like a river flows,
carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.

-- John O'Donohue

You know something is good when your response to it is something like, "I just want to take a deep breath right now and take this in...". ...something like the above.

When You Want To

Mostly, you start to grow up when you want to.
...unless you’ve been forced to earlier.

LT: Numbers or People

Managers work to see numbers grow. Leaders work to see people grow.
​
-- Simon Sinek

Comparing Myself

I've noticed...if I took the amount of time I have spent comparing myself to others and put it towards who I am as opposed to who they are—how much time I would save?

Oh, not to mention, how much better off would I be?  How much more happy?  Free?  How much more would I be able to offer the world?

Our Effort

The goal of the spiritual life is to allow the Spirit of Christ to influence all our activity, prayer as well as service. Our role in this process is to provide conditions in our lives to enable us to live in tune with [Christ’s] Spirit. Our effort is not a self-conscious striving to fill ourselves with the important Christian virtues; it is more getting out of the way and allowing [Christ’s] Spirit to transform all our activities. Christ will do the rest. His Spirit has joined ours and will never abandon us.

-- Richard Hauser

For years now I've contemplated the question of our effort in relation to our faith.  This is one of the better descriptions I've heard regarding how our effort relates to the spiritual life.

Hiawatha Trail, MT

There is no Wi-Fi in the forest, but I promise you will find no better connection.

-- Anonymous

More pics here....

Coeur D’Alene, ID

More pics here....

Through Your Hands

The way to move information from your head to your heart is through your hands.

-- Brené Brown

Another way to say this truth is that it is through the body that we come to access what is really going on within us.  There is something incomplete about a process that doesn’t include the physicality of our existence.

Indicator

Pain is an indicator—the question is, of what?

Transported

Just like a plane takes me from Indiana to Montana, great writing or music moves me into wonderful places in my spirit.  I often feel transported.

Not Responsible

I've noticed...that I need to have space for a while where I’m not responsible for something.

For me, orchestrating is an already well-developed muscle.  It is time for some other muscles, not energized primarily by responsibility, to grow.

If it feels like I’m wandering (rather than being responsible), it could also be that I am growing.  I need to just receive such space and to resist the urge to understand it (in order to use it).

I’m looking forward to some of this happening this week as my wife and I hike and bike in Montana and Idaho.

Where Do You Want To Go?

Instagram: bobgoff

A father's job is to get down on both knees, lean over his children's lives, and whisper, "Where do you want to go?"

-- Bob Goff

Greatest Insight

When I was sixteen and first learning to drive with my mother, I nearly side-swiped a car in the adjoining lane. I still remember the fearful jolt of discovering a blind spot. I'd assumed what I could not see was not there. What a shock to realize we can miss whole parts of the world.

Learning to see beyond our perspective can save our lives. It can also reveal landscapes previously outside our imaginations. My father has told me the story of taking a course at the North Carolina Botanical Garden when I was young. The students would go out into the countryside to find and identify flowers in the wild. The course forever changed what he sees in empty fields. In fact, those fields are not empty at all. In his transformed awareness of eye-opening study, they are full of Bee-Balm, Blazing Star, Obedient Plant and Blood Root. 

All around us, unseen, are cars just off to the side, flowers out in the field, and the unique and vivid worlds of others' perceptions. It's all too easy to live a life blind to this rich complexity. Dan and Chip Heath, who wrote a book on the perils of narrow perspective when it comes to decision making, have documented the "spotlight effect," in which we pay attention only to what is focal in our minds. Everything outside that sphere of illumination is rendered invisible, even to our imaginations.

Curiosity is in short supply in our culture, political discourse and even our offices. I believe it's vital to reclaim it, as it's the path to human connection and broader vistas we could never perceive on our own. It is the prerequisite to discovery, the font of creativity and the essence of influence. It's the solution to what I'm going to dub the perception paradox: that the greatest insight is to be found in the places we don't see.  Continue here....

-- Katya Andresen

The Skylight

'Poem for the week' -- "The Skylight":

You were the one for skylights, I opposed Cutting into the seasoned tongue-and-groove Of pitch pine. I liked it low and closed, 
Its claustrophobic, nest-up-in-the-roof 
Effect, I liked the snuff-dry feeling, 
The perfect, trunk-lid fit of the old ceiling. Under there, it was all hutch and hatch, 
The blue slates kept the heat like midnight thatch.

But when the slates came off, extravagant Sky entered and held surprise wide open, For days I felt like an inhabitant 
Of that house where the man sick of the palsy 
Was lowered through the roof, had his sins forgiven, Was healed, took up his bed and walked away. 

-- Seamus Heaney

It is amazing how contextual nearly everything is...has to be.  Out of context, I might have glanced right over this one.  But, at the recent Nowhere Else Festival, this was used to open the event in a rather magnificent way (at least for me...and my context).

From Conservatives

I’ve learned a lot from conservatives—good and bad.

Loosen Our Grip

We have a sacred choice.  We can remain addicted to certainty because it seems to serve as an anchor in our often-troubling world.  Or we can begin to discover the plenty that lies within the mystery as we loosen our grip on certainty.

-- Christena Cleveland

So Much

So much of what we think seems to be a function of what we've been exposed to.  This is often what puts people in positions of leadership—because of what they know (whether or not that makes them a good leader is another matter altogether).  We often feel more comfortable with things we have seen or, even more, experienced.

This process of this exposure is a function of both our choosing, as well as not of our choosing.  Some things are thrust upon us—we have to deal with whatever it is.  Other things are more a function of what we pursue.  Often that disposition—pursuing things—leads us simply to more things, which then lead us to even more things, and so on.

At the end of the day, what and how we think are impacted as we get more comfortable with a reality that carries both great consistencies and great variations.  For those seeking a singular meaning of things, this tension can be crushing.  For others, where meaning is endless, it quite simply can't be described other than joy.

Most people who can change their thinking have been exposed to something new (at least to them).  In many cases, this can be described as growth and those who are interested in things like growth often have a propensity to lead others to do the same.

The Rinsing of Sleep

I've noticed...that sleep is like a rinsing of the mind and heart.  The crazy things you feel and think are rearranged and flushed.  When that doesn’t happen, as needed, you just get dirtier and dirtier—clogged up in your emotional mud.  It starts to affect how you see things, how you think.

You need sleep because it’s your body that does does your cleaning for you.

Church Does Not Allow

Most of us come to the church by means the church does not allow. 

-- Flannery O’Connor

An ER Doctor Speaks at a High School Graduation

Last week, I delivered the Baccalaureate address at my alma mater North Central High School in Indianapolis. This is what I said to the graduates.

In kindergarten, I got a prize in the science fair for painting Play-Doh black. I wedged plastic dinosaurs and saber-tooth tigers in it to make it look like the La Brea tar pits. I think it was in 4th grade when I won a ribbon in the Allisonville grade school pancake supper poster contest.

And those two pinnacle moments pretty much sum up the entirety of my academic accolades in Washington Township schools, including all the way through high school.

I got an F in high school chemistry, and an F in algebra and a bunch of C’s, a couple D’s and if it weren’t for gym and kings court singers, I doubt I would have gotten any A’s. Any kings court singers here? I was the jester in the madrigal dinner. I did a few other things. I was in junior spec, Reviewing the Situation, 1981 baby. I played trumpet in band — actually I was second to the last trumpet — which means I played exactly two notes in every song. Blaaamp blaaammp. Nobody ever saw my name on some academic kudos report sent out by the school and no parent ever uttered the words:

“Louis Profeta made honor roll, why can’t you?”

And if I had to apply to college today at Indiana University, I would not get in.

...

I ask of you, in your journey to give people a break, give your fellow human the benefit of the doubt, the patience of Job. Don’t be so quick to judge another’s behavior as rude, disrespectful, racist, sexist or intolerant. Not every bit of attitude or inattentiveness directed towards you is about you. You simply are not that important to the stranger on the street. And many people simply do not have the insight that you might demand of them. They have their own lives. Spend a day in our ER: I’ll show you real problems. You’ll see what I’m talking about. Don’t be so quick to assume the professor, the waiter, the clerk or the driver has a bias against you. Instead, entertain the prospect that perhaps their own worlds are falling apart with a sick child, a failing marriage, a terminal illness, financial struggles, an addicted sibling, or just a lack of awareness and that they are simply too preoccupied with their own lives to worry about your frailties. Continue here.

-- Louis M. Profeta

Visual: Wood It?

Visual - "Wood It?":

Muir Woods National Monument, CA

Talent

Talent is often mesmerizing, isn't it?  Even startling at times.

But, talent still needs to be cultivated—developed.

And, It still requires courage and effort.  I'm amazed at the amount of both many talented people put tout.  Good artists, athletes, writers, leaders, pastors...seem quite courageous and willing to really work at what they do.

I would also venture to say that talent still needs to be offered—given to others—because it doesn't seem to grow in isolation.

From what I can tell, these are all parts of how talent gets developed.

Few Things More Precious

I am enamored with the power of wonder (click the wonder links for a sampling). Short of love—well, and maybe beauty—I suspect there is no greater power on earth than that which emanates from wonder. It is the soul of nearly everything.

Wonder is the heart blooming. It is the prayer of the curious. It is posture that draws us into the goodness that is, and the beauty all around and through us. It is the wide-eyed marvel and faith of children seeing the magic of life. It draws us into bigger and wilder, and at the same time the right here and now. It disarms the facade and hungry performing. It invites us into the mystery.

-- Hillary McBride

Instagram: hillaryliannamcbride

Everything You Are Striving For

Everything you are striving for, you already have.

-- Rob Bell

...can you feel yourself objecting?  Good—now we're getting somewhere!

More and More

I've noticed...that Mary is right:

If you notice anything, it leads you to notice more and more.

-- Mary Oliver

Why God Needs Skin In The Game

Pascal’s Wager famously argues a rational case for belief.

Given that we cannot know whether God exists, he argues, it is better to believe than not to believe. For to believe costs us very little, but offers the possibility of eternal life. Not to believe, however, risks eternal damnation. So, given we cannot know which position is true, we might as well believe – the upside to belief is so much more attractive than the downside to unbelief: heads you win, tails nothing lost.

I don’t know anyone who has actually been convinced by this argument. Nonetheless, it remains one of the most celebrated philosophical arguments for belief – and has been credited as one of the earliest examples of probability theory.

For a sustained take-down of Pascal’s position, pick up the work of the financial-markets-trader-turned-public-philosopher Nassim Nicholas Taleb. He’s a Greek orthodox Christian by background, and someone who understands belief – and probability – far better than Pascal himself.

As he sees it, there are two fundamental problems with Pascal’s Wager. First, as he puts it in his little book of aphorisms, The Bed of Procrustes: “Those who think religion is about ‘belief’ don’t understand religion, and don’t understand belief.” And, second, because, without what he calls, as per the title of his most recent book, Skin in the Game, a wager such as Pascal’s is morally vacuous.

As anyone seriously embarking on the season of Lent will know, the Christian injunction to believe is framed in terms of the instruction to share in the suffering of the cross. “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me”. “Belief”, then, is hardly the cost-free option that Pascal proposes. Indeed, as Taleb rightly suggests, to call this a “belief” – that is, a question of epistemology – seriously misunderstands the basis of Christian discipleship.  Continue here....

-- Giles Fraser



...a rather fascinating point in the discussion occurs around 9:50 into the interview—what it means to believe in God.

Birth Rates

Statistics show a continuing decline in birth-rates around the country.

O Me! O Life!

In celebration of Walt's 200th birthday...

'Poem for the week' -- "O Me! O Life!":

Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer.
That you are here—that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

-- Walt Whitman

Isn't About You

In the end you'll realize it really isn't about you.

-- Unknown

A description or a promise? Either way, this strikes me as relief.

Bad Enough

You will change, when it hurts bad enough not to.

....unless you want to do it earlier.

LT: Excavate the Unsaid

If you don't deal with things, they will have a way of dealing with you.

Brave leaders are never silent around hard things. Their job is to excavate the unsaid.

-- Brené Brown, The Call To Courage

It seems to me that when leaders don't move into hard things, they are most likely protecting something and, more often than not, it is themselves.  They're afraid of losing something, rather than believing that something can be gained, even if they don't know exactly what that is.

Nothing makes this more clear than when you are on the receiving end of this.

Gifts

I’ve noticed...that challenges in my life were also giving me gifts.

As I reflect on a number of artists I heard this weekend, I see a similar truth in them (perhaps, in us all).

It seems a fitting reminder, on a national day of remembrance like today.

Unity

Spiritual unity is diversity embraced and protected.

-- Richard Rohr

This mostly feels like a platitude until you personally have experienced what it is like to not be embraced or protected in your difference or uniqueness—then you know more deeply how true this is.  I have gone through an experience like this recently—“now I know” more of what this feels like.  It’s funny (well actually, it's sad) how so often it takes our own experience of something in order to engage our compassion for the experience of others.

Nowhere Else Festival

I want to re-learn how to receive.  Music, for me,  is often one of my great teachers.

So, I’m eager for the merger this weekend at the Nowhere Else Festival.


9:37p:  Music is such a healing balm for me.  It restores some of my faith in what true humanity is and, thereby, in myself.

Visual: Beads

Visual - "Beads":

Winona Lake, IN

I've noticed...I am easily enthralled by color and detail, especially when its objects interact with other elements—like water.

Conviction & Creativity

You great Morehouse men are bound only by the limits of your own conviction and creativity.

-- Robert Smith

I'm guessing you heard about what Robert Smith recently did (see here).  Having been thinking about creativity lately, I am intrigued by the claim of the inter-related nature of conviction and creativity.  It strikes me as more profound than it might appear at first glance.

What is it about conviction that sparks creativity? Assuming this does go both ways, what type of conviction does creativity foster?

Ego - Can Never Stop

The ego can never stop—in the end, it will build a cage right around you, if you let it.

It seems we must choose things that thwart the fuel on which the ego feeds—to pursue other people, viewpoints, perspectives.  To pursue community, not just ourselves; believing that we are not well-enough defended to protect ourselves on our own and that attempting to do so only perpetuates the very thing that will trap us after all, ourselves alone.

LT: First Into Danger

Leaders volunteer to go first into danger. Their willingness to sacrifice for us is the reason we're inspired to follow.

-- Simon Sinek

Won't Say

I've noticed...that I can be more hurt by what people won't say than what they will.  It often doesn't feel as much like love, as it does self-protection.

I, too, have been silent at times and it hurts.

Safe, But Not Comfortable

Imagine if every church become a place where everyone is safe, but no one is comfortable.  Imagine if every church became a place where we told one another the truth.  We might just create sanctuary.

-- Rachel Held Evans

From A to ?

Perhaps I am beyond 'A'; but whatever letter I'm on, it seems like whatever is next will be after this pregnant moment in time.

Tami and I moved our last child out of town today and we are experiencing it through different parts of ourselves.  In our heads, we know it is good and it is time.  We want it for our son, for his growth.  In our hearts, we ache for something we have so enjoyed, raising a family.  We love the uniqueness of each of our kids.  We miss the coming sense that we won't have the same kind of intimate knowledge of their lives that we've had.  We know it is more that reality isn't gone, it is just changing--that there will be new ways to enjoy our relationships with them.  And, yet, we feel a missing of something, too.  I missing of them, of their presence, of all that is baked into being together as we have been.

Life is dynamic; it changes.  That is a good thing, at many levels.  Our ability to be alive is contingent upon that kind of change.  We continue to grow because of it.

So, what is our next letter?  What does it look like?  What isn't anymore?  What will become?  What remains?  How do we move with a healthy mix of grieving what no longer is and anticipating what is already on its way?  What does it mean to recognize this moment for what it, as we wait for what is still coming?

Same Shade

So, perception is the difference.

At the Grave of the Forgotten

'Poem for the week' -- "At the Grave of the Forgotten":

In a churchyard old and still,
Where the breeze-touched branches thrill
             To and fro,
Giant oak trees blend their shade
O’er a sunken grave-mound, made
             Long ago.

No stone, crumbling at its head,
Bears the mossed name of the dead
             Graven deep;
But a myriad blossoms’ grace
Clothes with trembling light the place
             Of his sleep.

Was a young man in his strength
Laid beneath this low mound’s length,
             Heeding naught?
Did a maiden’s parents wail
As they saw her, pulseless, pale,
             Hither brought?

Was it else one full of days,
Who had traveled darksome ways,
            And was tired,
Who looked forth unto the end,
And saw Death come as a friend
             Long desired?

Who it was that rests below
Not earth’s wisest now may know,
             Or can tell;
But these blossoms witness bear
They who laid the sleeper there
             Loved him well.

In the dust that closed him o’er
Planted they the garden store
             Deemed most sweet,
Till the fragrant gleam, outspread,
Swept in beauty from his head
             To his feet.

Still, in early springtime’s glow,
Guelder-roses cast their snow
             O’er his rest;
Still sweet-williams breathe perfume
Where the peonies’ crimson bloom
             Drapes his breast.

Passing stranger, pity not
Him who lies here, all forgot,
             ’Neath this earth;
Some one loved him—more can fall
To no mortal. Love is all
             Life is worth.

-- Effie Waller Smith

Cost Of Your Silence

The cost of your silence is greater than the cost of your truth.

-- Brittany Packnett

What If: Curious About That

What If...what doesn’t make sense to me about another person, makes a lot of sense to them? What would it mean to be curious about that (as opposed to just lazy or even judgmental)?

Do I really even want to know? Or, would it just be easier for me not to (know)? ...that way I can keep my system of perceptions closer to the way I like it.

LT: Not Issues

Good leaders treat people as those to serve, not as issues to manage.

Rejection

Ever noticed...that one of the easiest things to feel from others is rejection?  Like it is almost at the tip of our social tongue, at nearly any moment.  This is partly evidenced by the reality that one of easiest ways to react to rejection is...with rejection.

As if, rejection offsets rejection.  The only thing is, what seems more true is that you just have two people who feel rejected (rather than zero).

A better approach is to allow oneself to grieve the loss involved and, whenever possible, to be open to allowing that vulnerability to be shared (rather than to just grieve privately).  Rejection is often involved with something communal.  To not acknowledge this, is also to reject something within one's self.

Most Risky Place

Christian vitality has not always been maintained by the majority. It has, in fact, often been found only in small minorities. Such minorities have no voice where conformity to "official" interpretation is required. Unless we wish to stifle emergent spiritual vitality, we must be sure that people within our fellowship will be free to express themselves in ways which are different from the majority position without the fear of being labeled as disloyal.

-- "Biblical authority and Christian freedom", Evangelical Covenant Church, 1963

Church is too often the most risky place to be spiritually honest.

-- Peter Enns

"Loyal To Soil"

 Emma Donahoe sent me a link to this reading, 'The Ground of Hospitality'.  She is now working in Washington on a farm where the motto is "Loyal to Soil".  This is a must read, as it considers so many beautiful dimensions of our relationship with life and death through the soil of the earth.  Sobering.  Liberating.

Reminds me of the hidden regenerative power of the cycle that is built into things and points to the life that lives on after death occurs physically, including some of the more recent examples posted here -- Jean Vanier, Rachel Held Evans, among a few.


From the reading referenced above -- "Enriching The Earth":

To enrich the earth I have sowed clover and grass
to grow and die. I have plowed in the seeds
of winter grains and of various legumes,
their growth to be plowed in to enrich the earth.
I have stirred into the ground the offal
and the decay of the growth of past season
and so mended the earth and made its yield increase.
All this serves the dark. I am slowly falling
into the fund of things. And yet to serve the earth,
not knowing what I serve, gives a wideness
and a delight to the air, and my days
do not wholly pass. It is the mind’s service,
for when the will fails so do the hands
and one lives at the expense of life.
After death, willing or not, the body serves,
entering the earth. And so what was heaviest
and most mute is at last raised up into song.

-- Wendell Berry

Visual: Silent Broadcast

Visual - "Silent Broadcast":

Holliday Park - Indianapolis, IN

Why do I feel like crying?  ...I think I know the answer, even if only partially.

Beauty is a form of power.

Evolving? Transforming?

To love is to pay attention enough to know what needs to change.

-- Micha Boyett


Why are the ideas related to the words evolving and transformation so different (to the ears of certain people)?  Do we not change over time, in almost every way?  What, in fact, does not change?

"Truth!"—there you go, I got you on that one—"that doesn't change!"

So, are we saying that we know (or even can know) everything there is to know about truth?  Do we think we know the sum total of it (or, even the most important parts about it)?

A lot of what we know about truth is evolving (that still leaves room for the possibility that it, in and of itself, does not).  But, unless we say that we are God or know enough of what God knows, our understanding of truth is always growing and, in that way, changing...or, evolving.

What I understood to be true, or even believed in, as a child is not the same understanding (or belief) I have now in my 50s...and I don't expect what I know now to be exactly the same when I am 80, or....

In fact, I would suggest that our evolving sense of things—our faith in them—IS the substance of what is being transformed in us, as we become more awake to ultimate reality of love.