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.

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