Most Creative Expressions

Instagram: bobgoff

We weren't just an idea God hoped would work out some day.  We were one of his most creative expressions of love, ever.  He doesn't grimace at our failures.  He delights in our attempts.

-- Bob Goff

Bias

Until the top orchestras in the US started to use blind auditions, it was almost impossible for women to pass them, but adopting the practice immediately increased women’s success rate by 300%.
​
-- Yuval Atsmon

We need to do more than just acknowledge bias, we need to really think about it.  If we don’t, we likely, at the very least, are perpetuating it.

Is it inate?  Is it cultivated?

Visual: Non-Atomic

Visual - "Non-Atomic"

Tropic, Utah

Reframe Aging

We need to reframe aging as a passage of discovery and engagement, not decline and inaction.

-- Parker Palmer

Exceptional & Deficient

It seems that people who are exceptionally good at something can also be significantly deficient in other things. Athletes are sometimes examples of this. Or, exceptionally smart people...who can often have rather poor 'people' skills.

Where does this leave us?  Hopefully somewhere compassionate (rather than just jealous).  Truth be told, this is probably true of everyone.

LT: Beyond Polarities

Good leaders must have a certain capacity for thinking beyond polarities and tapping into full, embodied knowing (prayer). They have a tolerance for ambiguity (faith), an ability to hold creative tensions (hope), and an ability to care (love) beyond their own personal advantage.

-- Richard Rohr

What If: Not About Me

What If...something I was sure had to be about me, wasn't.

Do Not Matter

Our identity distinctions do not matter to God (except when we use them to harm each other).

God seems to care about our humanity.

Pre-Wedding Advice That Actually Helped Our Marriage

Here are four pieces of advice that we were given before our wedding day that I would, in turn, now give to others getting ready to walk down the aisle:

1. Communicate your expectations.
This was the number one piece of advice that I was given before our wedding that I believe has served us very well. While my husband and I have never had terrible arguments, our biggest moments of frustration, hurt or confusion have come from unmet expectations.

2. Use "The Number System."
Some friends shared a little system (a rating system of 1 to 10 to demonstrate their personal desires to the other for any given thing) with us before our wedding that might seem silly, but has proven to be surprisingly effective! These friends explained to us that as a couple, their personalities and needs are not always in line as one is an introvert and the other is an extrovert. While one might really need alone time, the other is ready to accept every party invitation they receive.

3. Be transparent.
To “be transparent in your marriage” is simple advice but sometimes hard to carry out. When you’re dating, it’s easy and natural to want to put your best foot forward and hide those personality quirks, struggles or challenges that you’re not proud of, or have a hard time sharing openly.

But marriage can’t thrive on secrecy and acting.

4. The little things matter a lot.
The first time I went to the freezer and got a bowl of ice cream and didn’t bring two spoons back to the couch to share with my husband, his disappointment and hurt was real. Now, this may seem silly to others, but for him, the fact that we had always shared one bowl was a little gesture in our relationship that was obviously cherished, even if I didn’t know to what extent.

Read the rest here....

-- Jessica Crooke 

Untitled

Poem for the week -- "Untitled":

Dear Empire, I am confused each time I wake inside you.
      You invent addictions.  
Are you a high-end graveyard or a child?
      I see your children dragging their brains along.
      Why not a god who loves water and dancing
   instead of mirrors that recite your pretty features only?

You wear a different face to each atrocity.
You are un-unified and tangled.
      Are you just gluttony?
      Are you civilization’s slow grenade?

I am confused each time I’m swallowed by your doors.

-- Jesús Castillo

Disconnected

Living life without being connected to something is...no way to live.

We each have something to give to others. And, by the way, what we have to give is not primarily information.  It is, rather, what we know — know in the sense of our presence in the world.

Ever feel like you worked hard at preparing something or doing something, all to no real effect? The question may be not so much did I give anything, as it is, did I give of myself (as opposed to just disembodied information)?

What we have to give comes from what we are connected to; usually, who we are connected to.  Disconnection inhibits real living.

Quit Letting

Instagram: bobgoff

Quit letting who you were talk you out of who you're becoming.

-- Bob Goff

LT: Fear

The essence of good leadership — it is not controlled by fear.

A Little + X = A Lot

I've noticed...nearly everything that we experience changes us a little. So, over time, we can change a lot.

Hear Him

The value of consistent prayer is not that God will hear us, but that we will hear Him.

-- William McGill

The News

Be aware of 'the news' these days.

When I was a kid, I had the impression that the news could be trusted.  Other things, maybe not so much, but at least there was something called 'the news' and it was pretty close to the truth.

Or, so it seemed....

Whenever there is motive behind news (a light-hearted example), especially when it is tied to ratings ($$), there is likely a skewing effect involved.

Skewing, in this context, seems like a tendency to see more of one side of things than another, including a temptation to simplify complexity — for a reason or purpose.

Each of these elements can be effectively be used to leverage news.

So, the question can't be avoided; what, in fact, is 'the news'?

Visual: HooDoos

Visual - “HooDoos”

Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah

Why is this so mesmerizing?  It is because it looks like something more than just what it is?  ...more of this here.

Can't See From The Center

...out on the edge you can see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center.

-- Kurt Vonnegut

Just One Thing

Nothing is just one thing.

Or, perhaps better, no thing is just one thing.

In order to develop understanding, there seems to be tendency within us to try to determine what something is. Often we do this with the assistance of determining what something isn’t.

Either way, we try understand it and then we try to maintain that understanding of it. Because it is more effort to reconsider things. But, herein lies the problem. No thing is just one thing. Each thing is actually many things.

A rock is...a rock. But, when put in a puddle, a rock is also a stepping stone. Or, it may also be a weapon, jewelry, an impediment, or....

So, it can be a misplaced notion to think of something as just one thing.  In fact, in can be hurtful to do so.  In fact, it could be really helpful to see something for more than just what it appears to be.

...really helpful, even, when considering people, who also aren't—despite our tendency to label them—just one thing.

LT: Conceal the Truth

If our leaders seek to conceal the truth or we as people become accepting of alternative realities that are no longer grounded in facts, then we as American citizens are on a pathway to relinquishing our freedom.

-- Rex Tillerson


 ...consider the relationship between truth and freedom.

What If: Wasn't There

What If...because something was so big:

You thought something you couldn't see, wasn't there.

Get A Lot Closer

Instagram: bobgoff

For a long time, I saw Jesus from a distance and thought we'd met...What I've come to realize is if I really want to 'meet Jesus', I have to get a lot closer to the people He created.

-- Bob Goff

The Mind Is a Difference-Seeking Machine

"A father and his son were in a car accident. The father dies at the scene. The boy, badly injured, is rushed to a local hospital. In the hospital, the operating surgeon looks at the boy and says, 'I can’t operate on this boy. He’s my son.' How can this be if the father just died?"

Continue here for the answer from a fascinating discussion on the mind....

Grasses

Poem for the week -- “Grasses”:

Who
would decry
instruments—
when grasses
ever so fragile,
provide strings
stout enough for
insect moods
to glide up and down
in glissandos
of toes along wires
or finger-tips on zithers—
   though
   the mere sounds
   be theirs, not ours—
   theirs, not ours,
   the first inspiration—
   discord
   without resolution—
who
would cry
being loved,
when even such tinkling
comes of the loving?

-- Alfred Kreymborg

Poetry can be such an alternate way of knowing, can’t it?  And, what it can speak to — my, oh my!

Trust Emerges

Trust emerges when we have a sense that another person or organization is driven by things other than their own personal gain.
​
-- Simon Sinek

Spin Class & the Flood of Emotion

Towards the end of 'spin class' this morning, I was flooded with emotion.  This has happened before, when physical exhaustion is in play.  But, today it happened as we finished up when they played a song that my daughter used to sing — with a blinding mixture (tears) of tenderness and strength.

She left yesterday, to live in Colorado.

What exactly is it that I am feeling?  Is it sadness? Is it change? Is it an emotion that often comes along with change?

Words seem unusually thin right now; they evaporate over what I feel.

I am glad for her; for her courage, for the stability from which she can 'go'.
I will miss her — her presence, her singing in the shower, her spontaneous laugh, her magnetism to those around her, the way she even pursues me at times.

I don't want her to stay home. But, there is a sense of losing something — a being a part of her daily existence, of hearing & knowing about her goings-on.

Fear is not her primary driver. She assumes things relationally — we want to be around people who assume (in healthy ways) relationally, don’t we?

She, like each of our kids — each in their unique ways, anticipates me (I don't feel that from very many people any more):

She knows me.
She listens to me.
She talks to me.
She treats me like a human-being, not a role.

I feel connected to her, like I do with all my kids.

Will that change? Yes.
Will it be better? I suspect it will be; growth usually is.

You know it when you’re around someone who draws you to be your better self.

I feel good emotion around people like that...like good waters to spin in.

LT: Cynical

Culture is not what anyone says, but what everyone understands.

Nothing makes people in organization more cynical than when a leader says one thing and does another.

-- Fred Kofman​

Comforts of Approval

I’ve noticed...that I need to rely less on the comforts of the approval of others.

Dynamic

Faith is dynamic. This may be one of its most basic ingredients. To say that it doesn’t change misses a core element of faith, because faith is something that grows.

Public Intellectuals

After ten years as a national correspondent, Ta-Nehisi Coates is leaving The Atlantic. In a memo to his staff, Coates’s editor Jeffrey Goldberg explained that “the last few years for [Coates] have been years of significant changes. He’s told me that he would like to take some time to reflect on these changes, and to figure out the best path forward, both as a person and as a writer.”

Coates’s writing for The Atlantic in “The Case for Reparations” and “My President Was Black”—along with his books—has shaped our national conversation on race. Although he's been surprised to find himself famous, his departure from The Atlantic is about much more than unease with sudden fame. Instead, it reflects a growing crisis for public intellectuals in the digital age.

We’re forced to ask: Is our hyper-connected culture driving to extinction the most thoughtful among us? Put otherwise, are the conditions of our times intemperate to the work of public thinkers like Coates?

...

Coates fits the description, even if he rejects the moniker. In an interview with podcast host Krista Tippett at the 2017 Chicago Humanities Festival, he explained his particular hesitations with being a public intellectual. First, he wants to demarcate the boundaries of his expertise. “One of the things that annoys me is that people act like they know everything,” he told Tippett. “You don’t know. Be clear about what you know and what you don’t.” Second, he rejects the activism expected of the public intellectual. “I’m a writer. I prefer solitude,” he explained, speaking of his preference for a certain “distance from the struggle.”

With these statements, Coates put his finger on two key concerns: It’s not simply the haste with which public intellectuals—including Christian thought leaders—are asked to speak, it’s also the breadth of their expected expertise.

...

In the context of our finite humanity, the work of public intellectuals is by nature “creaturely” work: limited in scope, limited in effect. Ta-Nehisi Coates is only one of many public figures struggling to live within these boundary lines. In knowing his own limitations, he can demur, as he did at the Chicago Humanities Festival, on questions of the “single most important legal challenge facing us in the next five to ten years” or the most reliable pedagogical methods for teaching history accurately. “I don’t know,” Coates responded. For a man (however wistfully) dismissive of Christian faith, his answer is perhaps the most Christian of responses.

As believers, we affirm one of the paradoxes of the human condition put this way by G. K. Chesterton: We are “chief of creatures” but creatures nonetheless. We are called to do good work courageously and faithfully, and part of our courage and faithfulness involves admitting the responsibilities that do and do not belong to us.  Read the rest here...

-- Jen Pollock Michel

Visual: Details

Visual - "Details"

What You Believe

You don't become what you want, you become what you believe.

-- Oprah Winfrey

This strikes me as profound as it is frightening.

Wait for the Question

Wait for the question.

In other words, there comes a point where answering a question before it has been asked is no longer helpful.

LT: How Leaders Develop Their Grit

​
Leaders are people who grow from their experiences.

What If: Description vs Prescription

What If...the nature of truth is more description, than prescription? What all would that change, or shift?

If this is true, how would we understand truth differently?  How we would view a source of truth, like the Bible, differently?

To me, this only enhances the truth of truth; the power of it, because of what it is, not just what it should be.

Relationships of Meaning

Big-heartedness always draws close to the other, always draws the other close. Francis of Assisi, Benedict, Dorothy Day, Jean Vanier—like Jesus himself—draw people naturally into relationship. And the hunger of the human heart that God put in us is not just for casual and recreational relationships. We long for relationships of meaning. We long to be connected, for healing, for vocation, and for mission. . . .

Our tradition suggests that it is very difficult to live a life of integrity apart from the support, encouragement, witness, challenge and celebration of a community. Community is, if you will, the medium in which so many other important things of the Gospel can happen. Community is an engine for peace, it is fuel for justice. We are made for each other. As a species we have always known we could not survive, could not flourish without each other. Whatever is to prosper, grow, or multiply will only happen with the nourishment of people who are for each other in a significant way. . . .

-- Jack Jezreel

A good reminder for me these days.

Cooperation Over Competition

In nature, headlong growth and all-out competition are features of immature ecosystems, followed by complex interdependency, symbiosis, cooperation, and the cycling of resources. The next stage of human economy will parallel what we are beginning to understand about nature. It will call forth the gifts of each of us; it will emphasize cooperation over competition; it will encourage circulation over hoarding; and it will be cyclical, not linear.

-- Charles Eisenstein

What We Need Is Here

Poem for the week -- “What we need is here”:

Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here. 

-- Wendell Berry

The earth and heavens tell us everything we need to know.

Cannot Face

When humans cannot face and embrace the insecurities inside themselves, they project these fears outwardly, hating others instead of changing themselves.

-- Richard Rohr

Drifting or Pursuing

I try to remind myself occasionally to 'check in' with myself, to see if what is moving in my life is due to what I am pursuing or to just drifting.

LT: Don't Be A Leader

If you want to make everybody happy, don’t be a leader. Sell ice cream.

-- Jon Acuff

Only Thing You Can Do

I've noticed...the only thing you can do about the future is be present in the present.

In other words, nothing can prepare for tomorrow quite like today.

Mess With Our Heads

Instagram: bobgoff

God doesn't allow things to happen to mess with our heads; He uses these circumstances to shape our hearts.  He knows difficulties and hardship and ambiguity are what cause us to grow because we are reminded of our absolute dependence upon Him.

-- Bob Goff

Ecosystem: Integral Parts

. . . a shift of emphasis away from means towards ends; away from economic growth towards human development; away from quantitative towards qualitative values and goals; away from the impersonal and organisational towards the personal and interpersonal; and away from the earning and spending of money towards the meeting of real human needs and aspirations. A culture that has been masculine, aggressive and domineering in its outlook will give place to one which is more feminine, cooperative and supportive. A culture that has exalted the uniformly European will give place to one which values the multi-cultural richness and diversity of human experience. An anthropocentric worldview that has licensed the human species to exploit the rest of nature as if from above and outside it, will give place to an ecological worldview. We shall recognize that survival and self-realisation alike require us to act as what we really are—integral parts of an ecosystem much larger, more complex, and more powerful than ourselves.

-- James Robertson

Visual: From Above

Visual - "From Below"

...or "From Above"

Foster Falls, Tennessee

What We Say About Other People

What we say about other people says more about who we are than who they are.

-- Cory Booker

Are Ideas Just Interesting?

Ideas are interesting.

Interesting isn't bad; it's just not enough. Without something more, they just seem to melt into the great expanse of information. When do ideas seem more real? What makes them engaging?

Ideas need to be something that you can touch or that touches you. They have to make a difference somehow — to address a why, a where, a how, or a who. They have to meet something on the ground, to meaningfully touch someone.

Otherwise, ideas are, perhaps, just interesting.

LT: Leaders Do Not Get People To Believe In Them

"Leaders do not get people to believe in them, leaders find ways to get people to believe in themselves."

What If: Confidence

What If...because of your perception:

the only person who didn’t have confidence in you, was you?

Our Insurmountable Obstacle

In the end, doubting that we can change becomes a denial of God’s creative power, and our only insurmountable obstacle.

-- Mother Teresa

God Never Changes?

There are things that don't change, thank God. Like His faithfulness, His love, etc.

...but, there are many things about God that do change.  In some ways, He has been and is adapting to us all the time (look at history and how He has revealed himself along the way).

The problem is where I impose my ideas about changelessness, especially about God, onto my life (or the lives of others).

Before Dawn

Poem for the week -- "Before Dawn":

You ask me again this evening
          at what price

Does wisdom finally come
          in any life

Or at any age & now I think
          I know

The answer swear to me that
          when I tell you   

It is only everything you believe 

You will travel as far from this city
          as you can before

The streets grow smeared & lost
          to the smug

& promiscuous coming of the day

-- David St. John

Wisdom, at the price of...'everything you believe' — who would have guessed?  But, it seems not unlikely to be true.  And, it is not as disappointing as we thought it would be, because what we believed in was a lot more about ourselves than we realized and because what we can still yet believe in is far bigger (and better).

Building > Fighting

The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new. 

-- Socrates

Fit In

Instagram: bobgoff

We're not supposed to fit in; we're meant to change.

-- Bob Goff

LT: Embrace Uncertainty

We crave explanations for most everything, but innovation and progress happen when we allow ourselves to embrace uncertainty.
​
-- Simon Sinek

Good leaders are not only willing to do this, but have become eager to.

A Little Frightening

I'm a little shocked as I continue to notice what creatures of habit we humans are. I mean, we are seriously habitual -- in how we think, what we do, how we see.

I'm human in this way, too.  And, it's a little frightening.

Transforms Our Actions

When love transforms our actions in a way that Christ is “represented”— then we become mothers, sisters and brothers of Christ. This birthing of Christ in the life of the believer . . . is a way of conceiving, birthing, and bringing Christ to the world in such a way that the Incarnation is renewed. It is making the gospel alive.

-- Ilia Delio

Paradox of Money

We are faced with a paradox. On the one hand money is properly a token of gratitude and trust, and agent of the meeting of gifts and needs. . . . As such it should make us all richer. Yet it does not. Instead, it has brought insecurity, poverty, and the liquidation of our cultural and natural commons.

-- Charles Eisenstein

Visual: Sky-ter

Visual - "Sky-ter"

Warsaw, Indiana

Not Fears

May your choices reflect our hopes, not your fears.

-- Nelson Mandela

Bad Habit

The bad habit of no longer asking questions reveals perhaps a rather terrible assumption: we think we already know enough...more often than not, a significant mistake (not to mention, a kind of arrogance).

LT: First

​Only a true natural servant automatically responds to any problem by listening first.

-- Robert Greenleaf, The Servant as Leader

Listening enables servant-hood like servant-hood enables leadership.

What If: Actually You

What If...because something was so big:

you thought something else that moved each day, was actually you.

It's Theatre

Instagram: bobgoff

When It matters more what our faith looks like than what it is, it isn't faith anymore, it's theatre.

-- Bob Goff

Wholehearted & Half-Assed

If I could write a book right now, I would consider titling it ‘Wholehearted & Half-Assed’.  So, you ask, what would the sub-title be?

When I sit on this bench for a while and notice what is in front of me — what is moving, what isn’t moving — I find myself noticing how different the economy here is than the one I so often swim in.  Among other things, this one seems to have no regard for selling and buying; and, it appears to be doing just fine with that.  What is this one revealing?

Tami just finished, and I am now reading, Brené Brown’s book, Daring Greatly.  Brown offers something surprising.  For example, if I were to ask this question, “What is the reward of vulnerability?”, how would you answer?  “Wait, what?”, you say?  Again, what is the real reward of vulnerability?  

Brown’s answer is:  greater courage.

So, when I see something that looks like something that is truly real — that isn’t swimming in a false economy — what does it seem to call to in me?  

I think it is something more wholehearted and something that is less concerned about how well I do it.  Do it.  Do it, even if it isn’t great, finished, completely thought through, perfect or final.  Do it.  Learn from the mistakes.  Make it better.  Grow from it.  But, go for it.  Be wholehearted and don’t let the possible assessment from someone else that it looks half-assed keep me from doing it.  

Because risking vulnerability actually creates more courage.

Credo

Poem for the week -- "Credo":

I sing the will to love:
the will that carves the will to live,
the will that saps the will to hurt,
the will that kills the will to die;
the will that made and keeps you warm,
the will that points your eyes ahead,
the will that makes you give, not get,
a give and get that tell us what you are:
how much a god, how much a human.
I call on you to live the will to love.

-- Alfred Kreymborg

Avoid Criticism

There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.

-- Aristotle

Group Value

Are we primarily valued in a relationship or by a group because of what we contribute to it? Of course, this is not rocket-science folks, right?

But, there are times when it feels like we are not valued, IF we don't contribute.

There is merit to the idea of everyone doing their part to help in a relationship, a group, a team, etc. Certainly; where would we be without such things as mutuality?

On the other hand, at times, it also seems easy to see that if you don't keep up your 'contribution', your value (to whatever the entity is) seems to go down. And, from that angle, sometimes it is clear that this is a rather awful basis for things to run on because it inadvertently (perhaps?) leads to unstated things like: "we don't really like you for who you are, we just like you for what you do for us (our group)"...or, more personally, "I don't like you so much, but I do appreciate what you do for me".

An unfortunate irony is that, as long as you keep contributing, true value can go on unacknowledged  for some time in a group.

LT: The extreme leadership that got the Thai soccer boys out of the cave alive

Fear is really uncertainty about what the future holds.

Five themes emerged. The first is something called “inherent motivation.” Leaders who do well in crisis tend to be low motivators. They do not fire people up, they tend to calm people down. Dangerous places are inherently motivating — people are already spun up, so if you go in there and act like a cheerleader, they think you’re a fool.

The second was what we call an “outward orientation” or “learning orientation.” People used to being in dangerous places learn to focus on the environment — they’re not thinking about themselves. They're not focused on their own emotions. When you are task-focused, you’re activating a different part of your brain than the part where you experience fear and anger.

The number one variable — far and away — was competence. They want to know: Is that leader good enough to get us out of this fix? And the second thing they want to know is will that leader be loyal enough to take our concerns and considerations into account when he or she makes decisions? If those two things are established — competence and loyalty — they’ll trust that leader.  Continue here....

-- Jena McGregor

Open To Criticism

I've noticed...that when I am less open to criticism, it is often related to a belief I am holding on to.

The belief I recognize the most is that I have not been heard (and, that I really need to be heard).  This tends to block me from receiving criticism from others.

Why Jordon Peterson Still Believes In God

"Scientific truth explains what things are.  Religious truths explains how you should act."

7 Skills That Are Hard To Learn But Pay Off Forever

7 Skills That Are Hard To Learn But Pay Off Forever:

1. Knowing when to shut up
2. Emotional intelligence (EQ)
3. Time management
4. Listening
5. Saying "no"
6. Getting high-quality sleep*
7. Staying positive

* We've always known that quality sleep is good for your brain, but recent research from the University of Rochester demonstrated exactly how so. The study found that when you sleep, your brain removes toxic proteins, which are by-products of neural activity when you're awake, from its neurons. The catch here is that your brain can only adequately remove these toxic proteins when you have sufficient quality sleep. When you don’t get high-quality deep sleep, the toxic proteins remain in your brain cells, wreaking havoc and ultimately impairing your ability to think—something no amount of caffeine can fix. This slows your ability to process information and solve problems, kills your creativity, and increases your emotional reactivity. Learning to get high-quality sleep on a regular basis is a difficult skill to master, but it pays massive dividends the next day.

More here....

-- Travis Bradberry

Visual: Opening Beliefs

Visual - "Opening"

St. George, Utah

A visual representation of the process of 'Loosen Your Beliefs'?  ...long, slow, over time — that opens things up, even in rock-hard environments.

Loosen Your Beliefs

In order to live your soul into the world, you must continuously loosen your beliefs about who you are.

-- David Whyte

Rough Drafts

Instagram: bobgoff

We're all rough drafts of the people we're still becoming.

-- Bob Goff

LT: Simplicity

Management is about handling complexity. Leadership is about creating simplicity.

-- Peter Docker

What If: At The Edge

What If...because something was so big:

you thought something in the center, was actually at the edge.

While In The Hospital

Deep suffering makes theologians of us all. The questions people ask about God in Sunday school rarely compare with the questions we ask while we are in the hospital.

-- Barbara Brown Taylor

How To Think

I can't recommend this book enough:

Here's one thought, from the book:

Acceptance (or non-acceptance) of ideas is way more based on the social context of approval (or disapproval) of those ideas than any of us realize.  

-- Alan Jacobs

...more to follow, perhaps.

The Light of the House

Poem for the week -- “The Light of the House”:

Beyond the cheat of Time, here where you died, you live;
You pace the garden walk, secure and sensitive;
You linger on the stair: Love’s lonely pulses leap!
The harpsichord is shaken, the dogs look up from sleep.

Here, after all the years, you keep the heirdom still;
The youth and joy in you achieve their olden will,
Unbidden, undeterred, with waking sense adored;
And still the house is happy that hath so dear a lord.

To every inmate heart, confirmed in cheer you brought,
Your name is as a spell midway of speech and thought,
And to a wonted guest (not awestruck heretofore),
The sunshine that was you floods all the open door.

-- Louise Imogen Guiney

What We Allow

We become what we receive, what we allow into our hearts.

-- Richard Rohr

Devastating and freeing:

Devastating in the sense that, as we age, we seem to tend towards closing things off, rather than continue to receive.  That is worth thinking about — why is that?

Freeing in the sense that we are free to remain open, just as easily as closing ourselves off.  It seems to me that a healthy person increasingly becomes aware of the reasons he or she maintains a disposition of humility and, therefore, has less and less to fear (and control for) because our vulnerability is already so significant anyway.

Being open allows us to receive, to be free, and to continue to become.

Posthumous Fame

Exceptions to every generalization aside, it seems most good fame is posthumous.

Why is that?  Is that because it (fame) is no longer mitigated by whatever detracts from it?  In other words, it's over; what has been done is done — nothing can take anything further from it.  In the living moment, it is still being added to and detracted from.  But, after it is over, fame stands on it’s own, by itself, finished.  Unmitigated.  Seen in final form for what it is — posthumously.

This shouldn't be so disappointing.

LT: Courage To Go First

Leaders are the ones who have the courage to go first, to put themselves at personal risk to open a path for others to follow.

-- Simon Sinek

Woe Is Me

I've noticed...'woe is me' can easily be too handy.

Morning Prayer

Tami and I were struck this morning by something we don’t experience as much as we would like — silence.  “Stop”, she said, “Listen to how quiet it is...”.

This led to this prayer:

Thank you, God, for the opportunity you give me each morning — to exert myself physically, in the context of the natural world, to receive from you awareness, through my mind, of my spirit — your image in me.

There can be such a quietness, even in the noise of the natural world:


Bryce Canyon National Park, Mossy Cave trail.

Utah: Bryce Canyon National Park, Peek-a-Boo Trail

Perhaps the most stunning and picturesque trail I’ve ever seen:




More pics here....

Utah: Bryce Canyon National Park, Fairyland Loop

Walked 18 miles of amazing views today:




We have the world to live in on the condition that we take care of it.  And to take care of it, we have to know it.  And to know it and be willing to take care of it, we have to love it.

-- Wendell Berry

Utah: Zion National Park, The Narrows

Nature is a place where size and time instruct you.

Utah: Zion National Park, Angels Landing

Wilderness is not a luxury, but a necessity of the human spirit.

-- Edward Abbey

As we celebrate the 4th of July, I am so proud of our country. While there are many problems, there are also so many beautiful things as well. I am grateful for the vision and work to create and maintain our national parks systems. We had a blast today on Angels Landing in Zion.

And, last night the stars were aflood in the sky. It’s been a while since I’ve seen so many twinkling!

I couldn’t agree more with Abbey’s thought above.  More pics here....

Montana: Climbing the ‘M’

Once again, an annual favorite to do with family (Tami used to do this with hers); climbing the 'M', in Bozeman, MT.




More Montana pics here....

Idaho: Bike Trip Sights

Grow The Most

Instagram: bobgoff

God isn't always leading us to the safest route forward but to the one where where we'll grow the most.

-- Bob Goff

Calm Under Pressure

Love Letters

Poem for the week -- “Love Letters”

Every day, priests minutely examine the Law
And endlessly chant complicated sutras.
Before doing that, though, they should learn
How to read the love letters sent by the wind
and rain, the snow and moon.

-- Ikkyu

Wandering In Nature

We are in Montana and Utah for the next several days wandering around.

Wandering in nature is perhaps the most essential soulcraft practice for contemporary Westerners who have wandered so far from nature. . . .

The Wanderer allows plenty of time to roam in wild nature, and roam alone. Maybe you start out on a trail, but if the landscape allows, it won't be long before you wander off the beaten track. Because you are stalking a surprise, you attend to the world of hunches and feelings and images as much as you do to the landscape. 

. . . You will get good at wandering, good at allowing your initial agenda to fall away as you pick up new tracks, scents, and possibilities. You will smile softly to yourself over the months and years of wanderings as you notice how you have changed, how you have slowed down inside. 

Through your wanderings, you cultivate a sensibility of wonder and surprise, rekindling the innocence that got buried in your adolescent rush to become somebody in particular. Now you seek to become nobody for a while, to disappear into the woods so that the person you really are might find you.

-- Bill Plotkin

Pleasure

​Despite a bout with pain today (kidney stones), I’ve been thinking lately about pleasure.

Pleasure has its place (there's a time for everything — Ecclesiastes), so be cautious of people who try to universally deny that.

However.... There is something about pleasure that seems to seek perpetuation. You might say, as some do, that it is (or can be) addictive. Observe the things in your life that bring you pleasure and notice the tendency about them that draws you repeatedly back toward them — something like, I want that pleasure again...and again.

Pleasure can have the appearance of expanding you, but it is also possible that it begins to only expand itself. When we are drawn into something, like pleasure, we can also be reducing other things, other kinds of awareness — like replacing fulfillment with satisfaction or a filling of self, rather than others. I have found that many pleasures tend to reduce my overall capacity, in part, because of their addictive appeals. They can tend to narrow my focus or ability to see beyond the objects involved. True capacity seems to be increased more through the denial of self, than through satisfying the self.

It should be noted, that pleasure has many forms — of the mind, of the body, of effort, of the spirit, etc.

Because of the way it has been misused, I am hesitant to join all the naysayers to pleasure. On the other hand, it is also true, that it is so easy to worship an object, rather than a subject.

LT: Encourage Leadership

Good principles are often true in many contexts.  To encourage leadership, take these for example:

1. Have a compelling mission tied to your purpose
2. Create clear roles for everyone
3. Encourage people to make decisions
4. Promote teamwork throughout the organization
5. Be transparent with information

More here....

-- Peter Economy

It's worth considering how many things in life apply to relationships of all kinds — businesses, civic groups, churches, partners, families, marriages, etc.  In other words, truth is often not confined to certain arenas.