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.

Jean Vanier, Savior of People on the Margins, Dies at 90

I am struck by how sharing our weakness and difficulties is more nourishing to others than sharing our qualities and successess.

-- Jean Vanier

Another passing; of a modern saint:

Jean Vanier, Savior of People on the Margins, Dies at 90

How Jean Vanier broke my heart and saved my life

Jean Vanier created a wildly inefficient model of compassion. We can learn a lot from it.

Teacher Appreciation Day: When We Support Curiosity

When we support curiosity, what we’re really developing is a child’s imagination. 

-- Esther Wojcicki

Great article on the powerful role of teachers here....

I know someone who does this in wonderful ways every day.

Envision

I've noticed...many people seem content to just maintain what is, rather than envision what could be (not to mention, what should be).

Rachel Held Evans, Christian Writer Who Challenged the Evangelical Establishment, Is Dead at 37

Rachel Held Evans, an influential progressive Christian writer and speaker who cheerfully challenged American evangelical culture, died on Saturday at a hospital in Nashville, Tennessee. Evans, 37, entered the hospital in mid-April with the flu, and then had a severe allergic reaction to antibiotics.

She started her eponymous site more than a decade ago, and in her years of writing she confronted every controversial issue in American evangelical culture. She wrote about biblical literalism, racism, abortion, evolution, theology, marriage, patriarchy, women in leadership, and evangelical support for Donald Trump.

High-profile female writers and speakers in American evangelicalism have traditionally focused on spiritual questions and shied away from controversy and confrontation. But Evans often used her platform to challenge male pastors and leaders. Over the years, she sparred about theology, culture, and politics with prominent Christian men including Russell Moore, John Piper, Rod Dreher, and Mark Driscoll.

Evans reacted righteously to injustice wherever she saw it: She published a series on her blog about abuse in the church in 2013, years before many evangelical institutions began to seriously confront the problem. But her writing was also warm and funny...continue here.

-- Ruth Graham

Here's a sampling of some of what RHE has done:

Patriarchy doesn't "protect" women: A response to John Piper

"We Believe in Mystery": Raising Kids in Faith

The myth of self-control

As the Bible tells it, the first crime committed was a lapse of self-control. Eve was forbidden from tasting the fruit on the tree of knowledge. But the temptation was too much. The fruit was just so “pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom,” Genesis reads. Who wouldn’t want that? Humanity was just days old, but already we were succumbing to a vice.

The takeaway from this story was clear: when temptation overcomes willpower, it’s a moral failing, worthy of punishment.

Modern-day psychologists might not blame Eve for her errant ways at all. Because what’s true today was also true at the beginning of time (regardless of what story you believe in): Human beings are horrible at resisting temptation.

“Effortful restraint, where you are fighting yourself — the benefits of that are overhyped,” Kentaro Fujita, a psychologist who studies self-control at the Ohio State University, says.

He’s not the only one who thinks so. Several researchers I spoke to are making a strong case that we shouldn’t feel so bad when we fall for temptations.

Indeed, studies have found that trying to teach people to resist temptation either only has short-term gains or can be an outright failure. Continue here....

-- Brian Resnick

Makebelieve

'Poem for the week' -- "Makebelieve":

And on the first day
god made
something up.
Then everything came along:

seconds, sex and
beasts and breaths and rabies;
hunger, healing,
lust and lust’s rejections;
swarming things that swarm
inside the dirt;
girth and grind
and grit and shit and all shit’s functions;
rings inside the treetrunk
and branches broken by the snow;
pigs’ hearts and stars,
mystery, suspense and stingrays;
insects, blood
and interests and death;
eventually, us,
with all our viruses, laments and curiosities;
all our songs and made-up stories;
and our songs about the stories we’ve forgotten;
and all that we’ve forgotten we’ve forgotten;

and to hold it all together god made time
and those rhyming seasons
that display decay.

-- Pádraig Ó Tuama

Cuts You Off

The modern world cuts you off from the depth of life.

-- Rob Bell

There Is A Problem

There is a problem when the primary role of government becomes protecting the people from themselves.  ...when the people believe they need government to solve that problem and that it is not our own responsibility to address what is causing that need.

LT: When You Share

When you share your passion, competence, and experience with others, you make an impact that lasts a lifetime.

-- John Eades

Leaders share themselves.

Moral Indignation

Ever noticed...that you can almost smell moral indignation?

...much more easily on others than yourself, of course.

Departed

He departed from our sight, so that we should turn to our hearts and find him there.

-- St. Augustine

Adults Belonging to Church Has Plunged 20%

The percentage of U.S. adults who belong to a church or other religious institution has plunged by 20 percentage points over the past two decades, hitting a low of 50% last year, according to a new Gallup poll. Among major demographic groups, the biggest drops were recorded among Democrats and Hispanics.

Gallup said church membership was 70% in 1999 — and close to or higher than that figure for most of the 20th century. Since 1999, the figure has fallen steadily, while the percentage of U.S. adults with no religious affiliation has jumped from 8% to 19%.  Continue here....

-- David Crary

My sense is that the church may never be the same.

...but then again, it never has been, and that's the point.

Eccles. 9:7

'Poem for the week' -- "Eccles. 9:7":

                                   In my favorite fantasy    
                                             I am given

                                   permission    I am prone    
                                   face toward the light 
                                                beach queen    bathed in body

A thought that comes from a coming-from    the sweet place

                     where a sunset isn’t indescribable
                                      something simply looked at

                                                 The sun sets    I sit
                                                 sinless in sand 
                                                 I sip only once

-- Chase Berggrun


From the author:

“Ecclesiastes 9:7 reads, ‘Go, eat your bread in gladness, and drink your wine in joy; for your action was long ago approved by God.’ I think for some alcoholics, our wildest dream is to be able to live consequence-free, to be able to feed one’s own unimaginably loud desires without the inevitable pain, resentment, regret, and instability that feeding must result in. Or, to be rid of those desires. To not have to nosedive into the glass. The very idea of moderation is a foreign one to me: this poem imagines an impossible dream.”

Level Of Discomfort

There has to be a level of discomfort for us to grow.

-- Hillary McBride

Willingness

Courage seems to be mostly expressed by willingness; willingness to move (to pursue what is good and right).  ...particularly in contrast to unwillingness to do so.

What am I unwilling to do, because of my lack of courage?

LT: Imagination & Behavior

Imagine is one of the most powerful words in the human language.

-- Frank Luntz

Why?

People behave differently when they see things differently.

-- Patrick Leddin

This is the challenge and opportunity of leaders—to help make this happen.

Choices

I've noticed...that our capacity can be related to our choices—choices in our thinking, choices in our lifestyle, choices in our discipline, choices in our habits, choices in our eating.... There are consequences to our choices; at the very least, results. Some of these limit our capacity to even function, not to mention grow.

We even seem to wonder, at times, why our capacity seems to be limited, without considering how our choices are involved.

Easter: Crucifixion & Resurrection

This setting of Easter over against the cross and its significance is in conflict with the apostolic preaching. There was no thought of separating cross and resurrection, or of elevating one over the other. … you can’t have the crucifixion without the resurrection—and vice versa. The resurrection is not just the reappearance of a dead person. It is the mighty act of God to vindicate the One whose very right to exist was thought to have been negated by the powers that nailed him to a cross. At the same time, however, the One who is gloriously risen is the same One who suffered crucifixion.

-- Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ


Evil is not overcome by attack or even avoidance, but by union at a higher level. It is overcome not by fight or flight, but rather by “fusion”.

-- Richard Rohr

I am amazed and love how God joins us in our humanity, suffering, and death...as his way of  making us alive again.

What Is

Instagram: sarahbessey

Losing my illusions about church and even losing my ideals, in some ways, has made me more able to love what is.

-- Sarah Bessey

As I have faced ‘Holy Saturday’ disillusionment in my own life, over many of the same kinds of things, I resonate with learning the value of what is.  May I continue, especially when my Sunday hasn’t come yet.

Good Friday: Betrayal

Visual - "Seeing"

Grace Cathedral - San Francisco, CA

Sometimes you have to look at something long enough...to actually see something.

So, when do things register with us?  Why then and not at other times?  Often the explanation for this is tied to our present, and sometimes historical, experience.

This year, on Good Friday, I am mindful of the experience of betrayal.  I feel, in a personal way right now, a small portion of what Jesus must have felt from society, religion, and...friends.

This sermon on betrayal has been particularly poignant for me of late.

So, my prayer today is:

"Lord, help me grow in the spirit of Jesus who, even in the face of betrayal, asked God to forgive those who were hurting him."  

Was it because of this, that Jesus was able to receive death by 'committing his spirit' to God?

I Wouldn't Spent It

Instagram: bobgoff

If I had one last meal, I wouldn't spend it with someone I knew would betray me.

-- Bob Goff

What If: Risk

What If...the moments of our greatest creativity are born out of our moments of greatest risk?

Is this true because risk most often heightens some part of our awareness?

What if it is out of our greatest awareness that we have our greatest opportunity to love?

Would it then follow that our ability to love, most appears in the form of our creativity?

LT: Pull Together

The ability of a group of people to do remarkable things hinges on how well those people can pull together as a team.

-- Simon Sinek

...something a good leader knows.

So Sure Of

Ever noticed...what goes on internally for you when something you were so sure of, turns out not to be the case?

Say, regarding truth—what humility is needed?

Or a relationship—where your disappointment or hurt starts (anger, blame?) and ends up (compassion, forgiveness?).

Whatever the case, as a result, are you more closed off (protective) or more open (receptive)?

Who Is God?

Who is God?

God is all being.  The Creator and Sustainer of the universe—not a he or a she (but could be described that way)—who can be described in many ways, as many things, even a what.

...but, I prefer a Who.

Teens and Young Adults Are More Depressed Now Than in the Mid-2000s

Teens and young adults are in the midst of a unique mental health crisis, suggests a new study out Thursday. It found that rates of depressive episodes and serious psychological distress have dramatically risen among these age groups in recent years, while hardly budging or even declining for older age groups.

Twenge and her co-authors argue that since this rise in depression began in 2012, right around the time smartphones started becoming an universal accessory, they and similar devices have to be playing a large role. They could be making it even harder for teens and young people to sleep—lack of sleep being a well-known driver of poorer mental health—or limiting the amount of face-to-face social interaction people get with their friends and family. And while these same effects might also be happening to millennials and older generations, the authors say, they’d be more influential for people in their formative years. More here....

-- Ed Cara

Wakeful Things

'Poem for the week' -- "Wakeful Things":

Consider that the insects might be metaphor.
That the antlers’ wet velvet scent
might be Proust’s madeleine dipped into a cup of tea
adorned with centrifugal patterns of azalea
and willow—those fleshing the hill behind this room,
walls wreathed in smoke and iron, musk
of the deer head above the mantle. He was nailed in place
before I was me. Through the floorboards,
a caterpillar, stripped from its chrysalis by red ants,
wakes, as if to a house aflame. Silk
frays like silver horns, like thoughts branching from a brain.
After the MRI, my father’s chosen father squinted
at the wormholes raveling the screen
and said, Be good to one another. Love, how inelegantly
we leave. How insistent we are to return in one form
or another. I wish all of this and none of it
for us: more sun, more tempest, more
fear and fearlessness—more of that which is tempered, carved,
and worn, creased into overlapping planes. The way
I feel the world’s aperture enlarge in each morning’s
patchwork blur of light and colour while I fumble
for my glasses beside the bed—lenses smudged
by both our hands. When they were alive,
those antlers held up the sky. Now what do they hold?

-- Michael Prior

Don't Expect

Don't expect to see a change
if you don't make one.

-- Yatharth

Controversies Over Truth

Controversies over truth are often not nearly as spiritual, as they are social. 

LT: Adjusts The Sails

The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the leader adjusts the sails.

-- adapted from William Arthur Ward

Two Places At Once

I've noticed...it's hard to be in two places at once.

...including the past and the present or the future and the present—not to mention that it takes some real integration to be in the present at all.

God's Betting

Instagram: bobgoff

God's betting that we'll have the guts to be who He made us to be, rather than acting like someone He doesn't know.

-- Bob Goff

Everybody

We all came into this world gifted with innocence, but gradually, as we became more intelligent, we lost our innocence. We were born with silence, and as we grew up, we lost the silence and were filled with words. We lived in our hearts, and as time passed, we moved into our heads. Now the reversal of this journey is enlightenment. It is the journey from head back to the heart, from words, back to silence; getting back to our innocence in spite of our intelligence. Although very simple, this is a great achievement. Knowledge should lead you to that beautiful point of “I don’t know.” . . . The whole evolution of man [sic] is from being somebody to being nobody and from being nobody to being everybody. 

-- Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

The Rest Of The World

When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.

-- John Muir

Visual: Elements

Visual - “Elements”

Yosemite National Park, CA

When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.

-- John Muir

More pics here....

Train Yourself

Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.

-- Arshi Kondkari

Resistance

Wouldn't it be nice if there was no resistance...to us, to what we think or want?

If there was no resistance, though, how would wider understanding be able to develop?

We value what we value and that is good (for the most part).  But, that's not the point.  The point is we tend to not value what other people value.

We can learn to discover that what other people value, is also valuable to us and, in so doing, we become better for it...often one result of resistance.

LT: Capacity for Vulnerability

Our ability to be daring leaders will never be greater than our capacity for vulnerability.

-- Brené Brown

Inhibits

I've noticed...that fear inhibits curiosity.

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?