What You Don't Do

Focus is what you don’t do.

-- Jim Collins

Primary

Your primary weakness comes from overusing your primary strength.

-- David Baker

Presence of Strength

Great leaders are not defined by the absence of weakness, but rather by the presence of clear strengths.

-- John Zenger

Earn Respect

How do leaders earn respect…by admitting their mistakes.

-- John Maxwell

But...My Times Are In Your Hands

Strengthened

Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.

-- Helen Keller

Suffering is powerful in at least 2 ways; it gives quick and deep opportunity to recognize our need for God and it makes us accessible to others. Outside of suffering, there is often one kind of separation or another going on between humans -- hierarchies and comparison seems ever-present.  Suffering over and over seems to level the playing field and draws our spirits together...perhaps because it reveals to us, like nothing else, how we are the same.  When we acknowledge how we are alike, we are converted to compassion.

And, compassion ennobles everyone.

Smile Because It Happened

Don't cry because it is over, smile because it happened.

-- Dr. Seuss

What You Miss When You’re Afraid Of Messing Up

It’s better to fly a kite and it get stuck in a tree, than to not fly the kite at all.  Every opportunity has an expiration date and the cost of missing out can be greater than the cost of messing up.

-- Pete Wilson

More here....

Comeback

Climb the Mountain

A number of my young friends are headed to the annual Momentum youth conference today, including my daughter.

I have a sense of anticipation and excitement for them.  I believe they will have an opportunity to see things they don't normally see.  And, that can be both exhilarating and broadening.  Exhilarating in the sense that they can feel their breath being caught by a glimpse of the magnitude of God's work.  Broadening in the sense that they can imagine new things, hear different things, see things differently.

One might describe such an experience as a mountain-top experience.  A high.  I hope that it is.  Who wouldn't want a wider view of life?  Not unlike the view from an airplane window, high places tend to provide that and often the perspective they give can inform us about our lives in low places.  If we can see more of what things really look like from above, we are more free, less weighed down by the seemingly terminal details of the daily grind.  Is this what it means, at least in part, when Jesus said that his burden is 'light'?  Perspective on reality can really shape it.

Sure, there are risks (even dangers) in climbing any mountain.  People can get hurt, in a number of ways.  But, the climb, in some ways is necessary...to expand our view, to see things beyond just the way we see them most days. 

It is noteworthy that no one lives on the mountain top; we all live in the valley somewhere.  But, the mountains inspire us to see more than what we tend to see day-to-day and to know more about where the help we need comes from. 

There are plenty of 'low' days to keep us...grounded.  So, look up...and climb!  And, be awestruck by the view!

I hope my young friends get a glimpse this week of something they haven't seen before and that they will be able to see some of why the climb is worth it.

Free Will

Why did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having.

-- C.S. Lewis

Milwaukee Sunday

For Sunday morning worship today, our church is visiting another church.  The leadership in both churches have begun to know each other and we felt it to be a good thing for the people in both congregations to do the same.  So we rented a bus and are driving 4 hours to church today, in Milwaukee, WI.

Why?  Why would would we do such a thing?  Here are some of my initial thoughts, answering this question:

We believe in a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ.  And, we believe that a personal understanding of this relationship is significantly enhanced by our experience with His community of believers.  In other words, my relationship with Him is not in isolation from His relationship with others like me (and not like me).  It is rare to experience my relationship with God in a deep way without the involvement of others in my life, without my involvement in others lives.

So, it is important to see some of the extent of the community God has established and continues to create.  This is true because my own version of community is limited by my own experience with it.  I grow in my understanding of the nature of God's relationship to me and my relationship with Him when I encounter how and where His work is on-going outside of my set of experiences (in my community).  We want to foster this understanding of the God we follow and serve.  We want to see more of what He is up to.  And, we want to participate more broadly in His work than in the ways we normally imagine.

We need both our time-and-space and a sense of things beyond it.

Visiting our believing friends in Milwaukee helps us imagine God more profoundly, it helps us see to a greater extent the work He is doing, and it helps us participate more fully in the time-and-space we do live in most days.

We are going to Milwaukee to embolden our hope in the great Hope-Giver and to consider how locking our arms across things like state-lines can deepen our mutual love - affection, sacrifice, and worship - for those around us...in Warsaw, in Milwaukee, and around the world.

Running Out of Water

Humankind is running out of water at an alarming pace. We’re going to run out of water long before we run out of oil.

-- Peter Brabeck, chairman of Nestlé

Continue reading....

Connected, But Alone?

We use conversations with each other to learn how to have conversations with ourselves. So a flight from conversation can really matter because it can compromise our capacity for self-reflection. For kids growing up, that skill is the bedrock of development.

And what I'm seeing is that people get so used to being short-changed out of real conversation, so used to getting by with less, that they've become almost willing to dispense with people altogether.

Technology appeals to us most where we feel the most vulnerable.

Being alone feels like a problem that needs to be solved.

You end up isolated if you don't cultivate the capacity for solitude, the ability to be separate, to gather yourself. Solitude is where you find yourself so that you can reach out to other people and form real attachments. When we don't have the capacity for solitude, we turn to other people in order to feel less anxious or in order to feel alive. 

If we're not able to be alone, we're going to be more lonely. And if we don't teach our children to be alone, they're only going to know how to be lonely.

We're so busy communicating that we don't have time to think.

-- Sherry Turkle

Above are some of the comments that struck me -- worth the time to watch and reflect.

Technological Obsession

Research has connected our technological obsession to increased rates of stress, attention problems, depression, cognitive function, and anxiety, not to mention the negative impacts it can have on our relationships. It also impacts our comfort level with solitude and silence as we feel we are missing out or that something is wrong.

-- Jared Kligerman

Change is Reversible, Transformation IS NOT

How often have you changed your mind, say a change in eating style or to claim that you will go to the gym religiously, or some such change? You started out well and little by little, even imperceptibly, you were right back into the old behaviors.

Did you change? Yes. For a while, but only a while, and clearly not deeply enough. So here’s one of the elements of change versus transformation:

Change is reversible, transformation IS NOT.

Once you are transformed you are not and can never be what you once were. You have changed to the depth of your identity. It’s not a change regarding this or that about you. YOU have changed. You are a different person and the change is through and through.  Continue here....

-- Jim Sniechowski

People Don't Know What They Want

It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them.

-- Steve Jobs

Know Your Stress Type

Stress hits each of us differently. Some of us feel it in our bodies. Others just can't stop worrying. Knowing how you experience stress can help you find the most effective methods to relax.

Finding a technique to help you relax is worth the effort. When we calm down from stress, we are shifting our nervous system from physiological arousal to the relaxation and recovery state known as parasympathetic activity. In this state, our minds are more open and clear, our heart rate slows, blood pressure lowers, and our muscles release tension.

And here's the part that particularly resonates with my personal experience:

Practice every day. Find a time in your daily routine that you can set aside just for this – whether during your drive to work or during personal quiet time first thing in the morning. If you develop a strong daily practice, you'll be able to call on it to help you calm down when you need to the most – right after those hassles that get you so tense in the first place.

The results may be subtle at first. You might find, for instance, you're no longer waking up at 4 a.m. obsessing about that rude person, or that you aren't...continue reading.

-- Daniel Goleman

Mindset

Over the last few months, I've been collecting and reflecting on the role of our mindset in who we are as people and how we live, including the things that impact our mindset.

It is interesting that even in Scripture, a key to the 'way' God wants us to be is rooted in 'the way we think' (one of Webster's definitions of mindset).

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

-- Phil 2:5

Paul stages his plea for the mind (as well as for our actions and spirit) this way:

...make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind.

-- Phil 2:2

Are Just Dumb

It’s true that humans have a need to categorize their thoughts in order to make sense of the world. And yet few of us would realize our categories are largely utilitarian, based loosely in fact and largely in fantasy. Austin Cline suggests that when we fall victim to black-and-white thinking, we reduce an endless spectrum of possibilities to the two most extreme positions, saying, in short, that home is either north or south, when home may indeed be southeast or northwest, or in some cases, both, depending on the necessary route.

Black-and-white thinking is attractive because it’s reductionistic; it simplifies everything so we don’t really have to comprehend. It allows us to feel intelligent without understanding, and once we are intelligent, we feel superior. People who don’t agree with us are just dumb.

-- Donald Miller

Continue reading here....

Can't Change Anything

Those who can’t change their minds can’t change anything.

-- George Bernard Shaw

Your View

Research has shown that the view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life.

-- Carol Dweck

In other words, our mindset is critical; how you see yourself affects your behavior. More here....

And, if this is correct -- how you behave affects how you think...we have a bit of a circle here.

Getting Bewildered

No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.

-- Nathaniel Hawthorne

About As Big

A man is about as big as the things that make him angry.

-- Winston Churchill

Unfortunately, this seems to be more true than it should be.

Health Care and Waiting

The last line in the article referenced below sticks out to me (at the very least, I applaud the theory):

ONE small consolation of our high-priced health care system — our $2.7 trillion collective medical bill — has been the notion that at least we get medical attention quickly.

Yet there is emerging evidence that lengthy waits to get a doctor’s appointment have become the norm in many parts of American medicine, particularly for general doctors but also for specialists. And that includes patients with private insurance as well as those with Medicaid or Medicare.  Continue reading....

-- Elisabeth Rosenthal

Here it is:

Sometimes, it would seem, a little more waiting would do us some good.

His Purpose: Too Wonderful

You saw me before I was born.
    Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out
    before a single day had passed.

-- Psalm 139:16

The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me...

...Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
    too lofty for me to attain.

-- Psalm 138:8, 139:6

God still has purpose in developing me. Only the world can leave me with the impression that I have lived past this point, because its sense of time if so limited. I am not something He has moved on from or discarded. I can live and move as if I were about to discover where and how this is true.

Commencement Address Extraordinaire

It's 'commencement' time again:

...if all we have learned here are Four Ps, and Five Forces and Six Sigma, we will prove William Faulkner right, that we labor under a curse, that we live not for love but for lust, for defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, for victories without hope, and worst of all without pity or compassion, that our griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars, that we live not from the heart but from the glands.

No, my friends, we have more work to do, hard work, frightening work, uncertain work and unending work, work that may test us, work that may defeat us, work for which we may not get the credit but work for which the whole world depends. The time is short and the odds are long but I believe that we are ready nonetheless, with the love of those who raised us, with the lessons of those who taught us, with the strength of those who stand beside us as we face what lies ahead. I say let us begin.

-- Casey Gerald

Read the rest here....

Multi-tasking Is Making You Stupid

Talk about things (like sleep and sugar) that are affecting our learning:

A study done at the University of London found that constant emailing and text-messaging reduces mental capability by an average of 10 points on an IQ test. It was five points for women, and fifteen points for men. This effect is similar to missing a night's sleep. For men, it’s around three times more than the effect of smoking cannabis. While this fact might make an interesting dinner party topic, it's really not that amusing that one of the most common "productivity tools" can make one as dumb as a stoner.

-- David Rock

Continue Reading...

Interest

I think the big mistake in schools is trying to teach children anything by using fear as the basic motivation. Fear of getting failing grades, fear of not staying with your class, etc. Interest can produce learning on a scale compared to fear as a nuclear explosion to a firecracker.

-- Stanley Kubrick

Involve Me

Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.

-- Benjamin Franklin

To Discover

I write to discover what I know.

-- Flannery O'Connor

Re-Learning How To Live

Two recent posts make it painfully obvious that we badly need to re-learn how to live, so that we can get back to learning (makes me wonder whether living really is primarily learning, rather than simply entertaining ourselves...perhaps a topic for another day):

The way you think about your body leads to the way you treat it. Thinking in terms of what can go wrong induces fear, and fear is a very poor motivator over the long run.

The biggest flaw in the machine model, as I see it, is its rejection of the mind-body connection. When I was in medical school, no such thing existed. At most we learned about psychosomatic disorders, with the clear implication that they weren't real, being the result of the patient's imagination. This situation hasn't changed much in medical school, sad to say, but the surge in alternative and integrated medicine has brought the mind-body connection to the fore.

In reality your body is a process, not a thing.  Well-being depends on finding your flow, in terms of a relaxed but alert mental state, a steady positive mood about your life, following the natural rhythm of rest and activity, taking realistic, practical steps to reduce stress, respecting the need for a good night's sleep, avoiding toxins, and relying on your body's intelligence.  Continue reading....

-- Deepak Chopra

I am drawn to Chopra's observations, in general, and here as well. He comes from traditions of truth and faith that are different from the ones I am familiar with. But, his notions of a wholistic perspective of life are in line with what seems true to me. Our western predilections toward compartmentalization seem, well, unwholistic. And, while some of the attempt to isolate thing in order to understand them may be helpful, I think in large part the approach leaves some very significant things out. We are one being, not just a series of parts. And, treating ourselves (and life) as a bunch of parts, even if related, seems to create as many problems as it resolves.

Light & Flowers

As has become my early Sunday ritual, my time in the woods again this morning was particularly...lovely.  A cardinal seemed to use his red only to flash over and over that he knew a secret he want to invite me to see farther down the path.  There is something almost electromagnetic about running next to a flowing stream...I felt like I could follow it forever.  And then the smells.  I smelled the damp today.  And cool.  I ran by a jasmine plant that would out-rank most perfumes.  Another smell was so sweet, its stink almost curled my nose.

And, then, there were flowers, which seemed to just patiently wait to be noticed, carelessly even whether I did or didn't.  In the woods, where there is light...there are often flowers.  It strikes me that this is also true in a much larger sense -- true of goodness, of work, in children, in relationships.  In love.  Something seems to bloom, when there is light.

Impact Is Occuring

We tend to live in sweeps of time and circumstance.  There are times when we live quite aware of the impact we are having ...good and bad.  And, there are times when we can barely trace any impact.  We can chafe against this rather simple reality.  Or, we can relax in it...knowing that it's truth is not primarily predicated on our recognition of it.

Impact is occurring....

I was at a funeral yesterday, where impact from my life was revealed far more than I ever realized.  I was reminded, too, of impact on me...much of which I had forgotten.  Earlier today, I had a impacting conversation with a friend.  A few weeks ago, I was lost in a swirl of (perceived) nothingness.  At the moment, I sense how nearly every movement I am making right now has impact.  I don't expect that sense to last....

Impact is occurring.

We can live a lot of the time out of a dread (or just simple worry) of the future or out of a prevailing sense of regret over the past.  Our opportunity, though, is to live 'alive' to the present, with a deep wonder about both the bursts of wonder and the tediums...of the moment.

Impact is occurring....

The Impact of Sleep on Learning

More fascinating scientific support for what the wise probably have always known regarding the value of sleep:

Research teams from the U.S. and China have discovered some of the ways in which sleep consolidates memory and learning. In the study, the scientists were able to actually see new connections being formed while we (or in this case, mice) sleep. The study also found that getting more sleep led to higher performance than training more and sleeping less.

Then there is the growing awareness of the importance of sleep for workplace performance.

Sleep affects virtually every aspect of cognitive performance, physical performance and creativity.  Continue reading....

-- Arianna Huffington

Wasted Moment?

I prayed this morning for sensitivity and wisdom in my interactions with people today - at work, at home, with people I expected to see and with people I wouldn't have anticipated seeing, etc.

I got in an argument with my daughter at lunch today...  So, what happened...to my prayer?  Was it just not answered?  Was it something I just forgot about too quickly?  Am I that fickle...?

Or, is it yet to be answered...is what I do now, my real opportunity...to be sensitive to her, and to myself...and to seek wisdom?  Perhaps the moment has not been wasted at all, perhaps it has just begun....

Too Much Sugar & the Brain

Overeating, poor memory formation, learning disorders, depression  – all have been linked in recent research to the over-consumption of sugar. And these linkages point to a problem that is only beginning to be better understood: what our chronic intake of added sugar is doing to our brains.

While a healthy diet would contain a significant amount of naturally occurring sugar (in fruits and grains, for example), the problem is that we’re chronically consuming much more added sugar in processed foods.

Research indicates that a diet high in added sugar reduces the production of a brain chemical known as brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). Without BDNF, our brains can’t form new memories and we can’t learn (or remember) much of anything.

What these and other studies strongly suggest is that most of us are seriously damaging ourselves with processed foods high in added sugar, and the damage begins with our brains.  Seen in this light, chronic added-sugar consumption  is no less a problem than smoking or alcoholism. And the hard truth is that we may have only begun to see the effects of what the endless sugar avalanche is doing to us.

-- David DiSalvo

Kindling A Flame

Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.

-- Socrates

Learn

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.

-- Gandhi

Bears Our Burdens

Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior,
who daily bears our burdens.

-- Psalm 68:19

I was recently watching one of our kids struggle with some details of life that seem...well, like things that would be beneath the normal concerns of God. So, I have been re-considering Peter's encouragement to 'cast our cares' on God. It seems we do this so infrequently or, at least, it doesn't seem to be our first instinct.

So when I read the verse above, the soil of my mind was already tilled.  He daily bears our burdens. What burdens? Which ones?  I often don't think of Him as doing this kind of thing for me...bearing my daily burdens.  And, if He does, I imagine, He must do it in some abstract sense and for the big things - things I know I can't handle.  But, it is hard to escape the specific nature of the words used here.  Burdens?  ...when I think of the type of things I tend to be pre-occupied by each day, I often don't think that He would (should) be very concerned about them.  They seem too...petty, or like things a bit below His pay-grade.

But, I wonder if this is largely much more my view of things than His.  It says daily.  He seems concerned and interested in rather specific details of our lives - the daily ones.  According to Peter, He seems interested in having me bring these things to Him.

So, what are the implications of not going to Him with the 'small' things of my life?  When I'm following my first instinct (to 'handle it' on my own)?  What part of my relationship with Him do I miss out on?

Choose

I was laying there.  "I can't move."  "I can't get up."  "I'm so tired."  "I feel awful," type sentences running through my blurry mind.  And, this, after what was supposed to be a good night's sleep....

But, the longer I laid there, the more I recognized a second voice...saying things like, "You'll feel so much better if you just get moving."  "You don't have time later in the day."  "You've done this hundreds of times, and you've rarely (ever?) regretted it -- get up!"

The 'discussion' continued until finally something rather simple emerged from the waking fog -- choose.  Which did I want?  ...both, actually.  How would I decide?  ...which did I want more?

Was it a mind-over-matter situation?  Kinda.  And, it comes down to choosing.

I got up, worked out, talked to friend afterward, and blended into my normal morning ritual.  I remember at one point noting how thankful I was that I had gotten up, that what does happen 9 out of 10 times...happened again, that I could encounter God in those few precious morning moments moving from A-to-B.

And, I ended up ready again for another day.  Refreshed.  Invigorated.  Alive.  Ready.

...all in about 75 minutes of morning transitions.  Gratefully, remarkable.

How many others things in my life am I, or would I be, so deeply thankful for because of the simple act of choosing -- of thinking about and deciding upon what I really want.

That day my mind was the wiser and really did help me overcome, what I otherwise was just 'feeling'.

Health-Span

It is well and long established that the vast majority of medical resources, and an enormously disproportionate allocation of health care dollars, are directed at end-of-life care. I am by no means arguing against such expenditures - my loved ones have been beneficiaries of them, too. But often, despite all such effort, only indignity is propagated, and death is not much forestalled. Almost never does such effort restore anything like true vitality.

Somehow, our culture manages to peddle both tanning salons, and wrinkle cream. We desperately seek longevity, while raising children potentially subject to a shorter life expectancy than their parents. We hang on every headline hinting at more years in life, and let the established means of adding life to years, and defending our native span, slip through our fingers.

This fixation, and the deus ex machina intercessions it invites, have brought us a widening gap between life span, and health span. Life expectancy has, indeed, been rising here in the U.S.- but so, too, the burden of chronic disease. We are living longer-but generally, not better. As we succumb to ever more chronic disease at ever younger age, yet do all we can to keep death at bay, we spend an ever greater portion of our lives not truly living fully and well. Not dying is not the same as living.

-- David L. Katz

Free Will and Human Dignity

Apple Store Changes Signal the Next Era of Retail

This week continues a series of 'randoms' (unless you can find a connection):

Furniture retail has learned that you can’t just sell furniture, you have to sell rooms and designs. Kitchen retailers are starting to teach customers how to cook. There are even new online clothing retailers coaching their customers on how to dress! (http://www.trunkclub.com/) Everyone thinks the Internet is killing retail, but really it is just changing its core purpose.

Before the Internet, we needed retail to SHOW us what we could buy, something the Internet does a hundred times better. However, a physical retail store can still have an advantage with showing us how to USE products, especially when we need to use multiple products together. Retail stores that innovate ways to be a gateway for customers to better their life or enter a lifestyle are the ones that will last through the next couple decades.  Continue....

-- Chris Hoyt

So much depends upon

the blonde woman who drops a potato
in the supermarket parking lot where it rolls
beneath the 89 Dodge Ram with rust patches
near the left rear fender from contact with
too much road salt during the winter of 91
which was actually one of the mildest on record
though the driver tends to remember it
as the season he was fired from his job
at the aluminum window factory where
he had worked for nearly sixteen years
without promotion as he shifts into reverse
and backs over the potato which squishes
as softly as a dream's last breath and leaves
slick asphalt for the lot boy to slip on
as he pushes a train of shopping carts
and sprains his lumbar vertebrae just
days before he is scheduled to leave
for basic training to become the cool
killing machine he's always craved
but will now have to settle for someday
making assistant produce manager
and marrying a girl he almost loves just
as the blonde woman finds herself
one potato short with dinner guests
ringing the doorbell.

-- Tom Chandler

We'd All Be Millionaires

If we could sell our experiences for what they cost us, we’d all be millionaires.

-- Abigail Van Buren (Dear Abby)

Fathers Day

There is no question among researchers that fathers who spend time with their children instill self-control and social skills in their offspring.

Exactly how dads do that, however, is largely a mystery.

Some scientists are inventing new scales and laboratory procedures to try to measure the father factor. One researcher watched fathers and children playing games like "Get Up," in which fathers try to get up from the floor while the children try to hold them down, and "Sock Wrestle," in which father and child try to snatch each other's socks.

The Father Factor:
Researchers studying fathers' role often look at how they act during rough-and-tumble play. Here are some positive signs:

• Father is immersed in the game emotionally, smiling and laughing
• Father shows spontaneity, creativity or silliness
• Father is good-natured about losing, with no signs of ego
• Father helps the child control his or her emotions and calms him or her when overexcited
• Father adjusts his effort and his technique based on the child's cues
• Father motivates the child to stay engaged and keep going, or rejoin the game
• Father is dominant but shares the upper hand, allowing the child to win sometimes

-- Richard Fletcher, University of Newcastle in Australia

More here from the WSJ.

It strikes me that there is a something very powerful that goes on with play between a father and son, not the least of which is a kind of presence that is, well, mysterious.  Among other things, it communicates that while the world rages on, in all of its fear-inducing demands, I can stop and look at you and be with just you, at this moment, because you, my child, are the apple of my eye.  As I reflect on my relationship with my father, I see that kind of presence with me.  I see it historically and I see it even now.  What a gift that is, to me.  Perhaps the greatest part of the gift is that this is the kind that automatically gives itself to my own children, through me.  Thank you, Dad, for giving to me and those I love in this way!

What a reflection that is of how God is with me.  Considering the article referenced above, I wonder whether God plays with me, too.  What if more people knew this part of God?  ...worth considering.

I Fear The Day

The truth is that one of the mind’s chief functions is to spot and utilize patterns as shortcuts, in order to process the multitude of information we observe each day.

We are more reliant on environmental triggers than we’d like to think.

-- Gregory Ciotti

Community

It often takes some kind of community to help us recognize these encounters for what they truly are.  And, to help us know and become what we've truly been made to be.

Encounters

These encounters often come in the context of disappointments, things we don't understand, failure...things that force us in often painful, yet merciful, ways to consider more than the straight-forward conclusions we have already reached.  Things that truly bring us to the door of...discovery.

Submerged

...in order to discover who we really are, that has been submerged deeply within us.

Outside Ourselves

So, we need to encounter something outside ourselves, something more than the distorted versions we otherwise become.

Don't Become Better

People don't naturally become better, on their own.

Never

By love God may be gotten and held, but by thought or understanding, never.

-- The Cloud of Unknowing

Congraduations Kenz!

We feel a deep sense of family and community in this milestone.  A heritage of faith and friends for our daughter is a gift beyond value.  Thank you...thank you to each of you for your role in her and our lives.  We are blessed by so much goodness.

More pics here....

Hate Comes From One Thing

We’re taught when we’re young that the opposite of love is hate, but it’s not. Hate is a by product, hate is a result. Being a hater isn’t cool -- nobody wants that. But hate comes from one thing: fear. Fear is the opposite of love.

-- John Legend

Cannot Let Fear

You cannot let a fear of failure or a fear of comparison or a fear of judgment stop you from doing what's going to make you great. You cannot succeed without this risk of failure. You cannot have a voice without this risk of criticism. And you cannot love without the risk of loss.

-- Charlie Day

Instead of Craving

Incredible change happens in your life when you decide to take control of what you do have power over instead of craving control over what you don't.

-- Steve Maraboli

Wrong Place Faster

If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster.

-- Steven Covey

Comfort Zone

Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.

-- Neale Donald Walsh

Continually

Life (God) is continually offering us opportunities for humility.

We often don't see them, much less take them...to our loss, as well as to those around us...but opportunities to choose humility are everywhere.

Calling (vs Ego)

Your calling is the place where your deep gladness meets the world's deep need.

-- Frederick Buechner

Continued from prior post on Ego:

If your ego is what assembles your personality and manages your identity, then your calling is invested in making sure it’s authentic—who you really are—not just a persona you show the world.

A calling expresses itself quietly, through the expression of subtle clues throughout your life. It is unconcerned with you attaining or accomplishing anything. Its primary function is to be a conduit for expressing your true self to the world. What you do with that expression is less important.

Calling needs silence to survive.

A calling, on the other hand, is discovered through observation and reflection, which is rarely found in a noisy environment. Listening to your life and discovering what it’s asking of you is your calling and it requires more silence than most of us are comfortable with.

Calling focuses on the process.

A calling reveals itself through self-discovery. Your calling comes from within and can only be revealed by paying attention to how your life is unfolding. Instead of managing the outcome, your calling can handle the stress of ambiguity. It knows that the tension is revealing something that you couldn’t otherwise learn.

A calling might begin with the expression of the self, but it moves toward the needs of others.

-- Shelley Provost

Best Advisors

Your critics can turn out to be your best advisers…They might say something we need to hear.

-- Hillary Clinton

Open Candor

A seminal study in safety makes the value of habitual collaboration clear. Post-moon-landing NASA researchers studied how to improve air flight safety. In one study, cockpit crews made up of a pilot, copilot, and navigator participated in flight simulations in which a potential crash situation occurred. The study found that pilots who acted swiftly and decisively based on gut feelings were much more likely to crash the plane than pilots who turned to other crew members for their reading of the situation before deciding how to respond.

In a look at underlying causes, the researchers found that the condition necessary for crew members to speak up and wasn’t whether the pilot asked for others' opinions during the crash simulations, but whether the crew had a history of open exchanges with the pilot. Crewmembers voiced their opinions to pilots who had habitually solicited their input. In other words, without a culture of open candor established, pilots found themselves on their own when they most needed the help.

-- Keith Ferrazzi

Status Threat

Many everyday conversations devolve into arguments driven by a status threat, a desire to not be perceived as less than another.

-- David Rock

Managing Your Identity With Ego

I've been reading an interesting article comparing the ideas of ego and calling. Here's some thoughts from it on ego:

The lifeblood of the ego is fear. Its primary function is to preserve your identity, but it fears your unworthiness. As a result, ego pushes you harder in order to achieve more. Ego communicates to you through “oughts,” “musts,” and “shoulds,” persuading you to believe that by achieving more and more, you must be worthy, right?

Ego needs anxiety to survive.

Wherever you feel the most insecurity is where your ego will work overtime to ‘fix.’ The ego needs anxiety to pinpoint the problem, then course corrects by disavowing this pesky aspect of your personality.

Ego is concerned with the self and preserving what it wants. The ego may be interested in helping others. But it isn’t inherently motivated by serving others. It is motivated by maintaining and managing your identity.

-- Shelley Provost

...more to follow on distinctions between 'ego' and 'calling'.

Memorial Day: Don't Thank Me For My Service

Memorial Day, has begun to lose its significance. It is becoming Christmas without the nativity; Thanksgiving without family and thanks. Memorial Day, previously known as Decoration Day, is a day set aside after the Civil War to honor our war dead. Unfortunately, somber reflection on the cost of our freedom and the price paid by those who never came home has been replaced by spirited discussion about holiday sales and the merits of white pants.

"So what?" you ask. It's important because Memorial Day isn't about military service, although many people will make that mistake today and thank me for my service. It's about military sacrifice. We don't talk about the latter as often because it makes us uncomfortable. We choose to shield our children from that horrific reality. The reason the distinction between service and sacrifice is important is because service doesn't provide...continue reading.

-- Jake Wood

Q&A: Caution

Q&A:

From interview with N.T. Wright:

Q: Contemporary Western Christian culture – anything we should be mindful or watchful of?

A: Beware of trivialisation, of colluding with deconstruction (breaking everything down into non-narrative fragments -- a lot of contemporary worship music does this). Beware of marginalising scripture, of assuming that we are 'biblical' by definition because we belong to some evangelical tradition, but then not really getting to grips with what the Bible actually says.

Still Good in College Football - Jack Hoffman

Not What He Is Capable of Being

Whatever else may be said of man, this one thing is clear: He is not what he is capable of being.

-- G.K. Chesterton

Honest With Ourselves

Our lives improve only when we take chances —and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves.

-- Walter Anderson

Believing In Something Greater

The most powerful form of self-belief comes from believing in something greater than you. Because when you’ve got purpose, everything becomes possible.

-- Lewis Pugh

Wisdom of Uncertainty

There is wisdom in uncertainty...only from the unknown can life be renewed constantly.

-- Deepak Chopra

Engagement

JOY! JOY!

How else could one describe what occurs when your first daughter gets engaged...to a strong, humble, and God-fearing young man?  See more pics here....

Reading Spiritually

Reading often means gathering information, acquiring new insight and knowledge, and mastering a new field. It can lead us to degrees, diplomas, and certificates. Spiritual reading, however, is different. It means not simply reading about spiritual things but also reading about spiritual things in a spiritual way.

As we read spiritually about spiritual things, we open our hearts to God’s voice. Sometimes we must be willing to put down the book we are reading and just listen to what God is saying to us through its words.

-- Henri Nouwen

Prom 2014 - Makenzie

More pics here....

CT: We All Walk Between

Speaking of paying attention, there's been several posts this week worthy of our attention, including:

I had never been challenged to view suffering and hardship in my marriage as a gift from God to grow me into Christ-likeness.  As I turned the pages of my wounded soul, I realized I didn't truly want my husband to worship God. I wanted him to worship me. I wanted, needed, his love—unadulterated and unhindered.

As long as my husband was my enemy, I was forced to bear their fruit.

My sense of control shattered. I knew I couldn't control my husband. I'd never realized I wanted to control God. My heart still beat for what I wanted: a perfect, peaceful marriage, family, and complete fulfillment. I wanted God to change my husband for myself. I had to answer God's questions. Child, what about what I'm doing? Will you still trust me even if your marriage never changes? Will you repent and be transformed by the renewing of your mind?

Would I be satisfied in God? If everything fell apart, would I be satisfied knowing that God is good, even when I am not? Yes, my heart breathed with a long and ragged exhale. Then repent and be transformed.

-- Joy Sevilla

Click here to continue reading what strikes me as important reflections on sexuality, our desires, and yielding to a greater work that God is doing (often through our suffering), not only in another person, but in myself.

Pay Attention to Attention

These days, leaders are bombarded with numerous daily intrusions: urgent email, appointments every fifteen minutes, decisions ranging from hiring to overall vision. Most leaders now travel with technology that connects them to a running stream of messages and data, 24/7.

This stream of distraction draws attention away from what’s immediately at hand; those seemingly urgent rings and alerts may not be crucial. Working to maintain clear focus on a task – despite intrusions – consistently occupies the brain’s circuitry for attention.

“Cognitive effort” is the technical expression for the mental attention demanded to process our information load. In “top-down” attention we actively decide what receives our attention. “Bottom-up” attention means we function mechanically, letting our focus be dictated by whatever grabs it. This bottom-up attention causes us to be ignorant of the preferences and blind spots in our unconscious minds. There is a place for this in life, of course – just not at work.

“Cognitive control” is the technical expression for employing our capacity for top-down attention – an essential aspect of self-awareness. In leaders, cognitive control is paramount to leadership competencies like self-management – the ability to focus on a goal and the discipline to pursue it despite distractions and setbacks. Interestingly, the same neural framework that allows for intense pursuit of goals also manages unruly emotions. Strong cognitive control is therefore present in leaders who remain calm in emergencies, subdue their agitation, and can recover quickly from defeat. Continue here....

-- Daniel Goleman

Exercise and the Brain

...just 45 minutes of exercise three days a week actually increased the volume of the brain. Even for people who have been very sedentary, Kramer says, exercise "improves cognition and helps people perform better on things like planning, scheduling, multitasking and working memory."

-- Art Kramer, a neuroscientist at the University of Illinois

Lies You Tell Yourself

Lies You Tell Yourself:  You only need 6 hours of sleep.  While caffeine and habit could trick you into believing that 5 or 6 hours a night is adequate, you're wrong.  University of Pennsylvania researchers found people who slept 6 hours a night for 2 weeks performed as poorly on memory and alertness tests as participants who took the same test after a night without sleep.  Mounds of additional research have linked sleeping less than 8 hours to higher rates of obesity, heart disease, and cancer, as well as a 15 percent drop in working memory function -- the type of brain activity that helps you solve problems and make decisions.

What Is A Salting Us?

Consider that America, purportedly, runs on Dunkin’. So a typical American day might begin with Dunkin’s bacon, egg, and cheese breakfast sandwich. If it does, it starts out with 460 calories, and 1200 mg of sodium. That’s 2.6mg of sodium per calorie, or well over twice as salty as you want your diet to be on average.

The copious excesses of sodium to which we are all exposed reside not just where we would expect them, but almost everywhere in the modern foodscape. The good news is that in all those same food categories there are alternative choices that are simpler, tasty, more nutritious, often no more expensive, and less salty besides. The very granular strategy of choosing foods with shorter ingredient lists allows for cutting out many superfluous grains of salt by way of improving overall nutritional quality.  Continue here....

-- David L. Katz, MD, MPH

Mothers Day

I never expected that a mother’s labor and delivery never ends — and you never stop having to remember to breathe.

I didn’t know that taking the path of most resistance often leads to the most reward.

No one told me that it would all happen at the same hallowed time: Mothering is at once the hardest and the holiest and the happiest.

Real Womanhood isn’t a function of becoming a great mother, but of being loved by your Great Father.

-- Ann Voskamp

More from Ann here....

I appreciate these words.  They capture something I knew, but didn't know quite how to say.  Saying and doing are bedfellows of a majestic nature, when alive towards each other.  A characteristic that so exemplifies holy mothering -- something I have both received from my mother and witnessed in my wife.  I am so grateful for its holy nature, born heavenly and grown on earth.  That sacrifice of this kind is still both ordinarily and extraordinarily alive is an encouraging thing, even for me as a man.  I am ennobled by it.  Even more wonderfully, my kids are strengthened and beautified by it.

Thank you to both of these women in my life, who take this path and breathing it both into themselves and out to those I love so much.

Facts & Misinformation

It’s one of the great assumptions underlying modern democracy that an informed citizenry is preferable to an uninformed one. ‘Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government,’ Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1789. This notion, carried down through the years, underlies everything from humble political pamphlets to presidential debates to the very notion of a free press. Mankind may be crooked timber, as Kant put it, uniquely susceptible to ignorance and misinformation, but it’s an article of faith that knowledge is the best remedy. If people are furnished with the facts, they will be clearer thinkers and better citizens. If they are ignorant, facts will enlighten them. If they are mistaken, facts will set them straight.

In the end, truth will win out. Won’t it?

Maybe not. Recently, a few political scientists have begun to discover a human tendency deeply discouraging to anyone with faith in the power of information. It’s this: Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger.

-- Joe Keohane

So if facts don't re-frame for us as often as we think they do, what does?  I can't, of course, speak for everyone, but things like the fiery-peach-indistinguishably-blending-into-lavender of this morning's sunrise do so for me.

ReFraming Language

Frames are mental structures. As a result, they shape the goals we seek, the plans we make, the way we act, and what counts as a good or bad outcome of our actions. Reframing is changing the way the public sees the world. . . . because language activates frames, new language is required for new frames. Thinking differently requires speaking differently.

-- George Lakoff

Continue here....  I am pretty fascinated by the posts so far this week; how our perceptions and language shape what and how we think.

Language Shapes

Language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about.

-- Benjamin Lee Whorf

Fiction

Fiction reveals truths that reality obscures.

-- Jessamyn West, reVision

We Read

We read to learn that we are not alone.

-- C.S. Lewis

Jack is Back!

Praying a Psalm

St. Augustine found that the best model for developing the integrating experience of past, present, and future was the audible praying of a Psalm.  The Psalmists exercise their and our memories vigorously.  Prayer is an act of memory.  If we confine ourselves to one-generational knowledge here, or even worse, to our own conversion-experience knowledge, we are impoverished beyond reason.

-- Eugene Peterson

Memory is the scribe of the soul.

-- Aristotle

These seem like good book-ends to me.

Stuff Doesn't Happen To Me

Stuff doesn't happen to me, just for me.  I try to keep that in mind when I can't understand why something is happening.

...perhaps I am going through something for the benefit of someone else.

Further

You can't take someone much further than you've been yourself.  
In other words, if you've traveled far within yourself, you can more aptly help another do the same.

This is one of the secret jewels embedded within suffering.  We trust someone who we know has suffered, because we believe they have 'been there' and know a bit about the territory.

If you really want to help others in these ways, be willing to do so in your own life.

Trouble Prevails

Trouble prevails so that we will learn to hold Him fast...and dare not trust ourselves.  Suffering strips us of our dead hopes...

-- J.I. Packer

Times When I Can't See Well

It strikes me today that extended times of not seeing a way out of things that feel wrong, or even simply uncomfortable, present us with an interesting question - "what does faithfulness look like now?" ...when I can't avoid the lurking presence of impending danger or unresolved hope, what will I do? How will I act now? What will I believe now?  What does it look like, in the face of unlikely near-term change, to continue being faithful?

I face increasing debt, without sign of relief in the years ahead.  What does it mean for me to be faithful, without the prospect of the relief or control I so often seek?

Confirmation Bias

People tend to ignore information that does not fit with their beliefs while they weigh agreeable information more heavily. This is the Confirmation Bias, and it can cause a lot of trouble. Think of it is as the counterpart to the self-fulfilling prophecy. People can often make decisions that fit with their beliefs, and ignore important information or behavior that they just don’t want to see.

-- Darcy Jacobsen

This pattern of thinking is sometimes referred to as confirmation bias, or the tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions. The official psychological term for this behavior is “motivated cognition” — a tendency to bias our interpretation of facts to fit a version of the world we wish to believe is true.

-- Pat Heffernan

Civilizations Should Be Judged

Civilizations should be judged not by how they treat people closest to power, but rather how they treat those furthest from power – whether in race, religion, gender, wealth, or class – as well as in time.

-- Larry Brilliant, President of the Skoll Global Threats Fund

Limiting God

So much worth thinking about here...if nothing else, start at 8:42 (1:35 to go). An amazingly succinct description of our addiction to externals, rather than internals.

The more you are preoccuped with forms, the externals, the less you've experienced the internal, the mystery of things; the less you can talk about matters of the heart, what's going on inside.

-- Richard Rohr

Click image to see video...

1st College Graduate

So proud of and happy for Drew, our 1st college graduate. We are mindful of the many who helped make this possible, an opportunity that not all have.

A couple of lines from a prayer offered at baccalaureate sum it up well:

Your eternal goodness
  Our unending gratitude

Why is Health Care Expensive?

I heard a story the other day that helped to frame a problem in the public debate on the cost of healthcare. As healthcare costs soar, there is a pervasive belief that the cost of healthcare is a result of profiteering companies or simply inflation. This belief goes counter to my personal experience in the highly competitive medical device supply business. Costs are and have been driven relentlessly down in all categories, so what is the disconnect? Perhaps we should get to the story...

The patient in question was female, age 93. The patient preconditions included obesity with hypertension, and diabetes. In addition to the significant complicating factors, the patient cannot walk from one side of her room to the other due to knee damage. A knee replacement is required to fully repair the damaged knee. What are our choices?

...he hospital chose to do the procedure. The patient ended up in ICU for a month after the procedure. Imagine the cost. A $25,000 knee replacement, plus a month in the ICU with significant rehab. Additionally, the patient came close to perishing in the effort. The final bill was undoubtedly more than $200,000, which allowed her to walk from one side of the room to the other. The adjustments caused by this new found freedom then stressed the other knee causing the same failure, and a return to the bed. In effect, medicare had just purchased the patient a house that she cannot live in.  Continue here....

-- Laurence Sampson

Day care costs more than college in 31 states

College costs loom large in the parental mind. According to a 2013 report by Sallie Mae, half of parents are putting away money for their kids' education. Those who aren't are fretting about it, saying that they feel "frustrated," "overwhelmed" and "annoyed" when they think about college savings. But most parents will deal with an even larger kid-related expense long before college, and it's a cost that very few of them are as prepared for. That expense is day care.

A report last fall by Child Care Aware America, a national organization of child-care resource and referral agencies, found that the annual cost of day care for an infant exceeds the average cost of in-state tuition and fees at public colleges in 31 states.  Continue here....

-- Christopher Ingraham