LT: When You Share

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

-- John Eades

Leaders share themselves.

Moral Indignation

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

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

Departed

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

-- St. Augustine

Adults Belonging to Church Has Plunged 20%

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

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

-- David Crary

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

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

Eccles. 9:7

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

                                   In my favorite fantasy    
                                             I am given

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

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

                     where a sunset isn’t indescribable
                                      something simply looked at

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

-- Chase Berggrun


From the author:

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

Level Of Discomfort

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

-- Hillary McBride

Willingness

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

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

LT: Imagination & Behavior

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

-- Frank Luntz

Why?

People behave differently when they see things differently.

-- Patrick Leddin

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

Choices

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

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

Easter: Crucifixion & Resurrection

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

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


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

-- Richard Rohr

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

What Is

Instagram: sarahbessey

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

-- Sarah Bessey

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

Good Friday: Betrayal

Visual - "Seeing"

Grace Cathedral - San Francisco, CA

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

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

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

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

So, my prayer today is:

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

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

I Wouldn't Spent It

Instagram: bobgoff

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

-- Bob Goff

What If: Risk

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

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

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

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

LT: Pull Together

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

-- Simon Sinek

...something a good leader knows.

So Sure Of

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

Say, regarding truth—what humility is needed?

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

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

Who Is God?

Who is God?

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

...but, I prefer a Who.

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

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

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

-- Ed Cara

Wakeful Things

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

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

-- Michael Prior

Don't Expect

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

-- Yatharth

Controversies Over Truth

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

LT: Adjusts The Sails

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

-- adapted from William Arthur Ward

Two Places At Once

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

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

God's Betting

Instagram: bobgoff

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

-- Bob Goff

Everybody

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

-- Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

The Rest Of The World

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

-- John Muir

Visual: Elements

Visual - “Elements”

Yosemite National Park, CA

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

-- John Muir

More pics here....

Train Yourself

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

-- Arshi Kondkari

Resistance

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

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

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

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

LT: Capacity for Vulnerability

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

-- Brené Brown

Inhibits

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

Whatever Lens

Too often we see the Bible through whatever lens we get from our culture.

-- Brian McLaren

Half of All Colleges Won't Exist in 10 Years

Clayton Christensen has predicted traditional colleges and universities are ripe for disruption, arguing online education will undermine their business models (because education is, ultimately, a business) to such a degree that many won't survive.

A principle of Christensen's theory of disruption is that technology itself is not the disruptor. For example, Netflix created a new business model; streaming video made that business model possible. As Christensen says, "Technology enables the new business model to coalesce." Technology is the tool -- not the end result.

Which is exactly what he feels is occurring in higher education. As online and "hybrid" learning continues to grow -- and as the cost of a traditional education continues to increase -- many institutions will struggle to stay in business under their current model.  

And fewer people may be willing to pay for the piece of paper they receive.  Continue here....

-- Jeff Haden

High Dangerous

'Poem for the week' -- "High Dangerous":

is what my sons call the flowers—
purple, white, electric blue—

pom-pomming bushes all along
the beach town streets.

I can’t correct them into
hydrangeas, or I won’t.

Bees ricochet in and out
of the clustered petals,

and my sons panic and dash
and I tell them about good

insects, pollination, but the truth is
I want their fear-box full of bees.

This morning the radio
said tender age shelters.

This morning the glaciers
are retreating. How long now

until the space-print backpack
becomes district-policy clear?

We’re almost to the beach,
and High dangerous! my sons

yell again, their joy in having
spotted something beautiful,

and called it what it is.

-- Catherine Pierce

Controls You

It's what you don't know about yourself that controls you.

-- Marcel Schwantes

Preoccupied?

Are we emotionally available or emotionally preoccupied?

LT: Enduring

I believe an enduring [organization] unites partners through an emotional connection to a powerful mission, and demonstrates values through action. I believe an enduring [organization] is constantly evolving, taking on new challenges, not afraid to take risks; always learning and adapting...while staying true to its mission. And I believe an enduring [organization] handles adversity with grace, and success with humility—never losing its way.

We must always have the wisdom to know what to honor and preserve from the past... and the courage to boldly re-imagine the future.

-- Kevin Johnson

It seems to me that it takes leadership to include these things in nearly any relationship -- business, church, civic organization...marriage, family, friends -- because they are critical to healthy relationships of any kind...even with one's relationship with oneself.

Through Our Body

I've noticed...we can listen for our mind through our body because it can communicate so much from its practicality about strength and vulnerability, effort and rest, pain and pleasure, sadness and joy.

Captive

We keep the Creator captive to what we are able comprehend.

-- Peter Enns

Why Your Memories Can't Be Trusted

I've been in several discussions lately related to memory.  This explains some things that are useful to recognize.  I think we are all a bit surprised at how malleable our memories are, especially when they are replayed often and the reasons that drive that to happen.

Visual: Skyre

Visual - "Skyre"

Winona Lake, IN

...what it's like when we know something is not really what it looks like.  Nature is full of such things.

Grow Up

When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up, we would no longer be vulnerable.  But to grow up is to accept vulnerability.

-- Madeleine L'Engle

In fact, I'm not sure if anything has caused me more opportunity for vulnerability than raising a family.  And, I am deeply grateful for it -- for the state of being that it allowed me to be in and learn to stay in.

Not Sure How Much You Can

I'm not sure how much you can grow without engaging other people...especially people who are not like you or who challenge you.

LT: Trust

Trust has two dimensions: competence and integrity. We will forgive mistakes of competence. Mistakes of integrity are harder to overcome.

-- Simon Sinek

As Much

I've noticed...I learn and grow as much by doing as by thinking and talking.

Transformational Lesson

Unfortunately, with the widespread acceptance of the substitutionary atonement theory, salvation became a one-time transactional affair between Jesus and his Father, instead of an ongoing transformational lesson for the human soul and for all of history. 

-- Richard Rohr

Menthol Smokers

The Exercise of Forgiving

'Poem for the week' -- "The Exercise of Forgiving":

Six months ago, the measuring of whiskey
left in the jug, urine on the mattress, couch
cushions, the crotch of pants in wear. You watch
how breath lifts a chest, how a person breathes—
sick hobbies of when we must. You watch
how you become illiterate at counting.
Six or seven broken breathalyzers; a joke
formulates in your throat & you
choke back your windpipe as punchline.
How many sobs in parking lots before sun
lugged above horizon? The heart hammers
all too familiar songs behind your ribs
& these notes cut away at you. You read online
how television, internet, starving children
in numbers greater than three, polar bears,
rain forests, light from an off direction
all desensitize the human brain’s ability
to empathize. You wonder how
you chew the word panic in your jaws,
let meaning burrow into molars
seep in crevasses between root & bone.
How rot tends to the insides. You wonder
now with the inpatient tags, the cafeteria visits,
the doctors, the psychiatrists, the when do you
get to come homes, the hesitation of our bodies
sharing space again, the words I have not
drank today & your brain in flinch, how you
excavate organs for what’s left, for salvage.

-- Felicia Zamora

From the author:

“For the past few years, someone I love has been struggling with clinical depression and alcoholism, a journey that has reshaped both our understandings of ourselves as humans and the space we inhabit with each other. These diseases can make people raw, rub you down to only nerve endings, and make you question everything you know. I naively thought I understood empathy and forgiveness before, but now I’m learning how to regenerate, pay attention, listen, and love boldly, and how sometimes we must brave the wound’s exposure to allow for any real healing to begin.”

Consuming Things

Contrary to historical and popular opinion, life and the things in it do not exist to be consumed.

Dwarfs Our Opinions

Instagram: bobgoff

We'll know we're growing when our love for people dwarfs our opinions of them.

-- Bob Goff

LT: They Need To Impress

True measure of a leader is how they treat everyone, not just those they need to impress.

-- Oleg Vishnepolsky

Starting Points

I've noticed...so many things are symptoms of our starting points.

Obsessed With Belief

Over the past few decades, our Christianity has become obsessed with what Christians believe rather than how Christians live. . . . But in Jesus we don’t just see a presentation of doctrines but an invitation to join a movement that is about demonstrating God’s goodness to the world.

-- Shane Claiborne

Things Must Change

Things must change.

In fact, things will change whether we want them to or not.

Right; eternal things don't change.  But, we don't know precisely what all those things are (we might not even know what very many of them are).  We believe we know, but we largely don't.

Jesus basically said, both by his words and his deeds, I am here to change everything...especially the things you think you know.

It is often religious people who think they know the most.  Because they seem busy trying to avoid dying: "I'm right—follow me, and you will live."  They cite Jesus as the one who said that—and he did.  But, what he meant was that in order to live you have to change, largely by dying to things (that we think).

Jesus, too, moved through this change, knowing everything dies—including himself—because he is interested in resurrection, in life after death.  ...in the life that comes from being born again (changing).

Everything around us is changing and so are we.

Things do change...because they must change.

Visual: Distance

Visual - "Distance"

Glacier National Park, MT

How Casually

How casually and certainly 
we say things about the only world we know.

-- Maggie Anderson

Every Day

Every day presents a freedom to begin again.

LT: Transcendence and Connection

Respect, freedom, and service...addresses our spiritual needs for transcendence and connection to something more permanent than ourselves.

-- Fred Kofman

Leaders know this and, more importantly, live this.

Valued

Ever noticed...when it feels like you are valued for what you do, rather than for who you are?

Ultimate Reality

I don't follow Jesus because I think Christianity is the best religion. I follow Jesus because he leads me into ultimate reality.
​
-- Rob Bell

OtR: Love & Revelation

...there are no delusions here about just how deep in the shit you can be. But if Over the Rhine’s body of work proves anything, it’s that deep shit can be a conduit for amazing grace....

-- Josh Hurst

This is so real, it hurts.  After the week I’ve had, I'm feeling a lot today—perhaps because of the space a long run this morning gave me to do so.

The rest of a review of OtR's imminent new album can be found here.

History: Human history, in one chart

You may need to click the image above - a lot of things have moved lately.

Almost all the gains in human well-being in history happened since the Industrial Revolution.

In short, for most of history, all human events — the rise and fall of empires, the spread of plagues, the spread and schisms of religions, the invention of wheels and aqueducts and the printing press — barely affected the typical person’s life span, political freedom, economic productivity, or wealth.

And then, with the Industrial Revolution, all those things changed at once. Within 200 years, the human experience looked very different.  Read the story here....

-- Kelsey Piper


Unrelated (perhaps):

Being Right

'Poem for the week' - "Being Right":

What is the source
our so apparent
need
to be right?
Why so instinctive
within us?
...so
religious
its connection?

It's not
benign.
It tends to
villainize,
mostly what
we don't understand.

But, is it necessary
for arrival?
acceptance
that what is
right

is far more
accommodating,
inviting,
inclusive,
than we would
otherwise
ever know?

Or, am I wrong?

Submission To Another's Opinions & Viewpoints

To be accountable means that we are willing to be responsible to another person for our behavior and it implies a level of submission to another's opinions and viewpoints.

-- Wayde Goodall

To put it differently, what does it mean when I am unwilling to submit to the possibility that other people's opinions and viewpoints have some validity?

What, in fact, is it that would make me even wish for this not to be true?  Does such unwillingness somehow validate my own?  After all, how would my viewpoints even be compromised by someone else's?

Why does making such judgments feel so useful?  Who even asked me to judge?  But, without such submission, I unwittingly do so.

It's Armor

Instagram: brenebrown

It's not fear that gets in the way of showing up—it's armor.  It's the behaviors we use to self-protect.  We can be afraid and brave at the same time.

But the armor suffocates courage and cages our hearts.  The goal is to create spaces where armor is neither necessary or rewarded.

-- Brené Brown

LT: As Much About

Leadership is as much about learning as it is about teaching.

-- Rich Sheridan

Since leadership implicitly involves people, it would follow that little of it could be done without being open (willing to learn) to who they are.

From A Distance

I’ve noticed...it is hard to be human from a distance.

Relating seems to almost require proximity.

Visual: Spaces

Visual - "Spaces"

Christ Church Cathedral - Indianapolis, IN

I like this title because I sense that something new is happening in old places.

Perhaps, that's because of the space that has been created in them, for things to be re-done, or reborn, with different people.  Space is often necessary for such things.

I’m seeing and hearing about these kinds of changing spaces (like the one shown above or this one - SBCC) developing in a variety of ways all over the country, as faith is being reclaimed and discovered anew by old and new people alike.

The Spiderman Paradox

The Spiderman Paradox

On one hand, Uncle Ben’s rule makes great sense: “With great power comes great responsibility.”

The essence of the rule is that once you have great power, you need to take the responsibility that goes with it.

And yet, it’s backfiring.

It’s backfiring because so many walk away from their great power. They walk away because they don’t want the responsibility.

We have the power to vote, but decide to stay home and whine.

The power to publish, but click instead.

The power to lead, but follow meekly.

The power to innovate, but ask for rules of thumb instead.

The power to lend a hand, but walk away.

Most people watch videos, they don’t make them. Most people read tweets, they don’t write them. Most people walk away from the chance to lead online and off, in our virtual communities and with the people down the street.

In a democracy, we each have more power to speak up and to connect than we imagine. But most people don’t publish their best work or seek to organize people who care. Most of the time, it’s far easier to avert our eyes or blame the system or the tech or the dominant power structure.

There are millions who insist we’d be better off with a monarchy. The main reason: what happens after that is no longer their responsibility. Go work for the man, it saves you from having to be responsible.

When the local business disappears, it’s because we didn’t shop there. When the local arts program fades away, it’s because we watched Netflix instead. And when the local school persists in churning out barely competent cogs for the industrial system, it’s because we didn’t speak up.

Culture is what we build, and that’s powerful.

-- Seth Godin

33

As I reflect today on another year, now 33 of marriage to Tami, I am a bit overcome.

Collecting reflections on this in recent years has made me recognize a bit more of what all is happening through this experience together.

What a deep beauty is the kind of acceptance we have learned—an acceptance both of ourselves and of each other.  Even more resonant is the opportunity each of us has been given to grow—to not only be who we are, but also to change.  I am so excited about the growth I see in Tami and how that has en-couraged growth in me.

It is sometimes easier to see such things in another than it is in oneself.  But, the mere likelihood that what happens in another is also happening in me is more than enough.  I am so grateful that we have learned to trust this more and more.  And, as a result, I can hardly wait to continue growing...together.

With such deep affection for you, Tami.

Frequent Interactions

Close relationships only thrive when you have time for frequent interactions. 

-- Brian de Haaff

Cases Against

It's easier to build cases against people when you're not in relationship with them.

Even more powerful are the number of ways the opposite is true.

LT: Advance A Vision

A boss tells people what they can do to achieve a goal. A leader asks people what they can do to advance a vision.
​
-- Simon Sinek

For vs Against

I've noticed...groups often start around something in common that they’re working against. But, they stay together when they continue at something in common that they’re working for.

Fully Human

Humanity now needs a Jesus who is historical, relevant for real life, physical and concrete, like we are. A Jesus we can imitate in practical ways and who sets the bar for what it means to be fully human.

-- Richard Rohr

How modern life gets in the way of sleep

Up to 30% of people in developed countries now suffer from chronic insomnia. How did we get so sick and tired?

We evolved on a rotating planet, with regular patterns of light and dark exposure, and our biology is set up to work with this cycle. Our kidneys produce less urine, our body temperature is lower and our immune systems are less capable of fighting off foreign invaders at night. During the day, blood pressure rises, hunger hormones kick in and our brains shift into a higher gear. These daily fluctuations in our biology are called circadian rhythms, and they dictate when we feel sleepy.

For most of human history, we slept at night and were more active during the day. 

These same studies have found that, on average, people from traditional societies go to bed and wake up several hours earlier than we do in developed countries. Not only do they sleep earlier than us, they also seem to sleep better. Between 10 and 30% of people in developed countries experience chronic insomnia, whereas just 1.5% of Hadza people (Tanzania), and 2.5% of San people (Namibia) say they regularly have problems falling or staying asleep. Neither group has a word for “insomnia” in their language.  Continue here....

-- Linda Geddes

In Blackwater Woods

'Poem for the week' -- "In Blackwater Woods":

From the poem:

to live in this world
you must be able to do
three things:

to love what is mortal;
to hold it against your bones
knowing your own life depends on it;

and, when the time comes to let it
go,
to let it go.

-- Mary Oliver

Outward & Forward

The nature of life has an assumed direction embedded in it—outward.

And the arc of that outwardness is forward.

The only way out of something is forward.  Mining the past is a diversion of energy.  Though it can be highly informative, even helpful at times, trying to stay there is a waste.  What we do now is motivated by what compels us to move forward.

History seems to have an inertia to it—holding on to the past just inhibits the natural flow of things.  Each generation indicates this very thing to the prior one through both what it rejects and what it accepts.

We tap into our outward energy by engaging the relationship between what is and what can be—to what calls us forward, to what we can do to nudge things closer to how things should be.

As Much As We Give It

Instagram: bobgoff

Fear only has as much power as we give it; hope works the same way.

-- Bob Goff

Sound familiar?

Do not fear, only believe.

-- Mark 5:36 (RSV)

LT: Hidden in Problems

Leaders know that often hidden in problems are some of the best opportunities—ones that we often miss because we only see them in a certain way, as problems.

Simulated Life

I've noticed...that, in the end, we don't want the simulated life—we want what is real, alive, and engaging.

Not A...

Throughout the first five centuries people understood Christianity primarily as a way of life in the present, not as a doctrinal system, esoteric belief, or promise of eternal salvation.

-- Diana Butler Bass

What Staring At A Screen All Day Is Doing To Your Brain And Body

The brain, the body and screens—it makes sense that what and how we take in the world has impact on how we exist, especially since we are fully integrated beings, not just a series of pieces and parts.

Visual: Textearth

Visual - "Textearth"

Glacier National Park, MT

Shared Threats

...when everyone around you is going negative. Your mammal brain wants to run when the rest of the herd runs. In the state of nature, you’d end up in the jaws of a predator if you ignored your group-mates’ threat signals and waited to see the threat for yourself. 

Mammals bond around shared threats, and fighting the common enemy raises a mammal’s status within its group. If you ignore the perceived threats that animate your group mates, you will probably pay the price in social rewards.

-- Loretta Breuning

Sound familiar?

Often Relative

Our sense of who we are is too often relative. We see or evaluate ourselves through the lens of how we see others (I'm not like that, I am like this, etc.), which is heavily influenced by how we think they see us. This is both true and dangerous.

LT: Natural Pattern

The journey of a leader is fraught with trials that reveal, test, and sharpen his / her spirit. There is a natural pattern to human growth. It is a trajectory from unconsciousness to consciousness to super consciousness.
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-- Fred Kofman

Looking For

Ever noticed...that we often don’t recognize certain things because of what we’re looking for?

Lose Our Vision

If we deny anyone their humanity, if we do not recognize everyone as a sister or brother, if we oppose others who are different and seek to dominate everything according to our group or nation, we disregard the Gospel and lose our vision. More fundamentally, we lose our humanity.

-- John Dear

Confronting Human Trafficking

Hotels are often on the frontlines of human trafficking.

It’s a horrific form of modern slavery that has entrapped more than 40 million people worldwide, according to the International Labour Organization.  The victims can find themselves in forced-labor or sex-trafficking situations.

I’ve spoken out about these crimes before and encouraged the hospitality and tourism industry to do what it can to stop these human rights abuses.

Two years ago, Marriott International made a decision to make human trafficking awareness training mandatory for all on-property associates ...continue here.

-- Arne Sorenson

The video included in the article referenced above underscores that it takes awareness, policy, and a shared commitment by all to work on this problem.

Another article this week references plans being put in place this SuperBowl weekend (though some click-bate myths also exist) and some of the larger realities of Atlanta in general.

On the Lighter Side: Weather Week

I've never seen the thermometer on my car hit -20 degrees before: