New, Undiminishable Hope

A new, undiminishable Hope has Come!  Truly, Happy Easter!

The ultimate droop of our collective human heads has paused their seemingly final descent.  What is this news?!  Like a tidal wave of unending momentum, the previously indefatiguable power of Death has been overcome.  Could it be...an after-all like no other!  With wonder we turn from yesterday's desperation to a Today that is surprising beyond measure, unimagined beyond comprehension, something so full of Hope that Joy is the only description of the prospect of real Peace.

The Omnipotent Power has trumped Death, once and for all, and we can now share in the reunion of All the Good God has created.  He is Risen!

...no more Fridays, no more Saturdays.  Sunday has Arrived!

The Most-Worst Saturday

The Saturday between Good Friday and Easter.  What must that have been like -- that day between an utter dashing of hope and the re-brightening of it?  The ever-brightening of it!

But, before that earth-shattering reality of the actual possibility of Resurrection, that Saturday...what were people experiencing then?  A crushing sense that all that they had so pinned their hopes on might actually not be anything more than anything else had ever been...Defeated.  Nothing had changed after all   And, now, an ever-dismaling prospect that it Never would.  Just another, even more, massive disappointment.  Confined now...to Hopelessness.

How could one go on?  That Saturday with an Easter-not-yet.  An Easter not known.  An Easter now not even likely...given the swallowing up of everything by Death just the day before.

It's hard to even imagine the devastation of what that most-worst Saturday must have been like.  But, then again, maybe not...much of our world gropes on in utter hopelessness, without knowledge of the Easter Coming.

Good Friday - No Thanks

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.

-- Romans 1:21

...knew, but not thankful....  How simple, but how profoundly corrupted.  Only Death could rescue us from such a pit.

For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

-- 1 Corinthians 11:26

We proclaim His death with our gratitude. I am grateful today...for His redemption:

• of my futile thinking
• of my foolish heart
• of my darkness

Stop Trying to Triage

Effectiveness part is choosing which priorities to focus on. Efficiency comes in when we streamline how we do those things.

“This is why you don’t see Hussein Bolt texting,” said Hanselman. “He is trying to sprint. If he were trying to multitask, he’d probably be slowed down.” Effectiveness, said Hanselman, is doing the right things, and efficiency is doing things right.

-- Francesca Levy

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Managing Compassionately

Wisdom without compassion is ruthlessness, and compassion without wisdom is folly.

-- Fred Kofman

As a follow-up to yesterday's post, I read Jeff Weiner's, CEO of Linkedin, article on Managing Compassionately.  A healthy read, in my opinion, underscoring the value of human dynamics in business.

When a Valuable Lesson at Work Became an Invaluable Lesson in Life

The ability to be a spectator to my own thoughts, especially when becoming emotional; putting myself in the shoes of others and seeing the world through their eyes rather than projecting my own perspective; and working hard to manage compassionately...

...as hard as I worked to manage compassionately at the office, I was not always actively applying the same approach with my family.
Put another way, I was doing what so many of us have a tendency to do: Taking the people we're closest to for granted by assuming they are the ones we don't need to make an effort with. After all, they'll understand, right? However, nothing could be further from the truth.

It's taken me over 40 years to realize what makes me happy -- simply put, it's looking forward to going to work in the morning, and looking forward to coming home at night. 

-- Jeff Weiner

A good read about how to integrate life and work...Continue Reading

Easier

It is often easier to fight for a principle than to live up to it.

-- Adlai Stevenson

Path

I headed in. It was through a familiar, but little entrance in an otherwise dense wall of trees and brush. All shades of brown and gray, mixed together this time of year. Emerging from the other side of the portal, I saw...a path. A sense of something flowed through me.

A path. What is it about a path that quickens something within us. Is it 'a beckoning' that produces a sense of anticipation that this could lead somewhere...somewhere significant? I rarely see another person on this particular path. So there's 'an embedded contradiction' here -- a path with no one on it can only infer that at one point or another there have been many others on it...otherwise, how could the path exist? Somebody, somebodies that is, has walked it...and continue to walk it. So, if I'm on it even if alone at the moment, I'm not really alone after all. I'm travelling a way that others have also traveled. I can't make a path by myself, but I can perpetuate it for someone else, just by walking it.

A path also is intriguing because it is 'a way' through something. A path is often surrounded by all kinds of things; things growing, things thick, things amass, things untouched, things beautiful, things unknown, things scary, things dangerous. In the middle of such things, physical or otherwise, we want a way through it. A means of getting from where I am to where I want to be, even if I don't yet know where or what that is.

There is a series of pictures on a wall at church, depicting a path. I am regularly drawn to something by it . In that context, I am drawn to the notion that there is a Way. A Way that is something more than an actual place. Contemplating this, a verse comes to mind:

Jesus answered, "I am the way 
and the truth and the life."
-- John 14:6


In spite of all of its attending questions, part of the mysterious power of a path is that it's only real requirement seems to be to walk it.

Remember, sinner, it is not your hold of Christ that saves you -- it is Christ.

-- C.H. Spurgeon

Perhaps this is part of the compelling nature of a path.  We can walk the path in front us, knowing the destination isn't in our hands.  The destination is good...and so is the Way to it.  Follow the path.

Claiming the Sacredness of Our Being

To acknowledge the truth of ourselves is to claim the sacredness of our being, without fully understanding it.

When we trust that our souls are embraced by a loving God, we can befriend ourselves and reach out to others in loving relationships.

-- Henri Nouwen

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One might ask, why is such a thing necessary...this notion of befriending ourselves (see link above)?  It actually takes some time to discover the 'why'.  Because it isn't until we run into what we are not -- in contrast to all that we think we are or want to be -- that we become aware of the serious problems with the images of ourselves we so carefully maintain.

For one thing, we are limited beings...whether we want to admit it or not.  Further, we are damaging to others when our primary commitments are to ourselves.  Both realities can lead to one of two things:  a desperation or a humility.  It is out of the latter that we have opportunity to trust the all of who we are (and are not) to God.  And, it is at those moments that we access what makes us truly alive and able to be a part of extending the embracing of God to others.

Lousy

Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose.

--Bill Gates

Without Self-Restraint

A man without self-restraint is like a barrel without hoops, and tumbles to pieces.

-- Henry Ward Beecher

Real Manhood and Steubenville

The culture of 'boys will be boys' — means 'girls will be garbage' and you were made for more than this, Son. Your Dad and I believe boys will be godly and boys will be honoring and boys will be humble.

-- Ann Voskamp, After Stueubenville: 25 Things Our Sons need to know about Manhood

A gripping and powerful must read...for all sons and their fathers.

Mastery

Research that shows the opportunity to build mastery is one of the three most motivating things for most people, professionally.  The other two are autonomy and purpose.

-- Daniel Pink, Drive

Being A Mentor

Being a mentor means fulfilling many roles but the most important is being a soundboard that steers an entrepreneur to their own answers to problems. It’s about inspiring someone to think deeply about their concerns and challenges, rather than giving simple answers which only tells them what you think is best for them.

-- Micha Kaufman

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Listening

The veil was different this morning. I couldn't tell whether it was gone or whether it was no longer above me, and had just descended around me. Either way, it felt like I was in the middle of something. Now I was not blocked from something; now I was in something. And the being 'in it' was wonderful. It was as if I had somehow entered into prayer, rather than trying to send it to something or through something.

A frost crunched on the thawing pad of leaves and dirt beneath my running feet. All manner of the flying were surrounding me aloud -- the winged singers were caroling away, a big black was cawing in the distance, the honking ones were apparently reading bumper stickers from the skies above me, and a rat-a-tat tatterer with the red hat was beaking his hole into something woody nearby. I was in the middle of something...something at this time of year both dormant and alive at the same time. I breathed prayer this time...into the veil.

For today I was listening...instead of punching.  Nouwen describes the difference:

Listening in the spiritual life is much more than a psychological strategy to help others discover themselves. In the spiritual life the listener is not the ego, which would like to speak but is trained to restrain itself, but the Spirit of God within us. When we are baptized in the Spirit – that is, when we have received the Spirit of Jesus as the breath of God breathing within us – that Spirit creates in us a sacred space where the other can be received and listened to. The Spirit of Jesus prays in us and listens in us to all who come to us with their sufferings and pains.

When we dare to fully trust in the power of God’s Spirit listening in us, we will see true healing occur.

-- Henri Nouwen

Thinking

I don't know what I think until I try to write it down.

-- Joan Didion

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos preaches the value of writing long form prose to clarify thinking. Unless you're a professional writer, writing is not always about the written output; it's about the thinking that happens as you attempt to communicate. Do not assume you have to share your writing with others for it to be time well spent.

Continue Reading about writing...and thinking.

Once You're Motivated

Once you're motivated to learn something, you can get a lot done in a short amount of time.

-- Logan LaPlante

Dispatch from a Near Drowning, and A Love Note to Self-Loathers

I was swept off my feet a few days ago.

By the massive cold hand of a wave—an ocean wave twice as big as its brothers. I was there on the beach beside my house with camera in hand because of a certain desperation. A certain hate of the familiar.

Rain and snow had lashed our houses and windows for days on end, which is usual for this island in the Gulf of Alaska. We live and commercial fish surrounded by wilderness, among stupendous beauty, but it is not always enough.

Continue Reading...a lovely read.

Not A Hero, A Servant

O Lord, this holy season of Lent is passing quickly. I entered into it with fear, but also with great expectations. I hoped for a great breakthrough, a powerful conversion, a real change of heart; I wanted Easter to be a day so full of light that not even a trace of darkness would be left in my soul. 

But I know that you do not come to your people with thunder and lightning. Even St. Paul and St. Francis journeyed through much darkness before they could see your light. Let me be thankful for your gentle way. I know you are at work. I know you will not leave me alone. I know you are quickening me for Easter - but in a way fitting to my own history and my own temperament.

I pray that these last three weeks, in which you invite me to enter more fully into the mystery of your passion, will bring me a greater desire to follow you on the way that you create for me and to accept the cross that you give to me. Let me die to the desire to choose my own way and select my own desire. You do not want to make me a hero but a servant who loves you.

-- Henri Nouwen

Thanks for sharing this with us, Veisa.

Covers

Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses.

-- Proverbs 10:12

The Most Important Thing My Dad Ever Told Me

 

...I remember my father asking me why I was upset. After I told him that I wanted to be pretty, I remember his response even better: “Sallie, you are pretty. And look at Gloria Steinem. She wears glasses, she’s a knock-out, and she’s changing the world.”

Here’s the important point. There is research showing that the most important relationship in determining a woman’s success in the workplace is the one with her father.

Over to you, Dads... to Finish Reading.

Make Every Effort

For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. 

-- 2 Peter 1:5-9

Practice

A fascinating WSJ article is referenced below in this helpful consideration about matters of faith. Both are good, but I especially like the WSJ content on the role / power of practice (reminds me of the post earlier this week on neuroplasticity):

In a recent Wall Street Journal article (“Practice Makes Perfect – And Not Just for Jocks and Musicians”), author Doug LeMov states what my mom knew all along: “Practice lets us execute a task while using less and less active brain processing. It makes things automatic… What drives mastery is encoding success – performing an action the right way over and over.”

“Practice lets us execute a task while using less and less active brain processing. It makes things automatic. When performers master one aspect of their work, they free their minds to think about another aspect. This may be why many of us have our most creative thoughts while driving or brushing our teeth. Rote learning and conceptual thinking often feed synergistically on each other, freeing our brain capacity for those tasks that require the maximum amount of attention and creativity.

Research has established that fast, simple feedback is almost always more effective at shaping behavior than is a more comprehensive response well after the fact. Better to whisper "Please use a more formal tone with clients, Steven" right away than to lecture Steven at length on the wherefores and whys the next morning.”

A few weeks ago, when I found myself heading into a highly charged situation, I remembered the Wall Street Journal article about practice.  Even before I started to freak out over it, before I gathered my verbal ammunition and prepared my defenses, God impressed upon my thoughts:   “Practice grace in this.”  So I did. I approached the situation with a recalibrated mindset and a different vision.   I practiced something new.  And God transformed a difficulty into an opportunity.

I know of an eleven year old budding violinist who has set an alarm on her iPod to remind her to practice an hour a day.  How different would I be if I reminded myself to practice grace an hour a day?

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Sex, Love, and God

Thanks, Randy, for sharing this one.

Neuroplasticity and Habits

You may have heard that we're born with a huge amount of brain cells, and then we lose them steadily until we die. Now, the good news: that’s neuromythology.

The new understanding is what’s called ‘neurogenesis’: Every day the brain generates 10,000 stem cells that split into two. One becomes a daughter line that continues making stem cells, and the other migrates to wherever it’s needed in the brain and becomes that kind of cell. Very often that destination is where the cell is needed for new learning. Over the next four months, that new cell forms about 10,000 connections with others to create new neural circuitry.

Neurogenesis adds power to our understanding of neuroplasticity, that the brain continually reshapes itself according to the experiences we have. If we are learning a new golf swing, that circuitry will attract connections and neurons. If we are changing a habit – say trying to get better at listening – then that circuitry will grow accordingly. On the other hand, when we try to overcome a bad habit, we’re up against the thickness of the circuitry for something we’ve practiced and repeated thousands of times.

For more from this compelling article, Continue Reading

My View of Things

My view of things is limited by my experience of things.

Truth - Unbudging and Unpredictable

The truth most often just sits there...waiting for us. There are exceptions to every rule, of course, especially since truth rides above and beneath and around things like rules. At times it barges in on us. But generally, the truth is simply patient, beckoning but only softly until we collide with it enough to recognize our need for it. And, then, it pierces us like a dagger because it has tied itself into something we really want. We are changed by it, but often not in many of the ways we expect or want it to. It gives us something far more valuable, perhaps most poignantly in its invitation to pursue it further. And, in that endeavor, something about us changes...as we pursue its pursuit of us. Like a river it flows, whether we notice it or not, but when we do, we are mesmerized. Called. Enlivened. Changed.

A Leader Must Be Aware

...only by being fully conscious can you arrive at a realistic assessment of yourself and others. Objective data can deliver information, but only awareness answers key questions like "can I handle this challenge?", "Who's my best ally?", and "Who's not telling me what he really feels?" to put it in reverse, if you aren't aware, you will quickly lose touch with the human level.

I know that sensitivity training is anathema to many, especially males, and that empathy is often equated with being squishy or weak. But in reality the greatest secret to success is knowing how to feel your way through life. As much as we exalt thinking, being able to feel your way involves empathy, bonding, catching subtle signals, sensing danger signs, knowing what others need, and much else. It takes the complete person to feel his or her way through life; a good computer can do analytical processing far better than almost any of us, but no one ever voted a computer to lead a company.

-- Deepak Chopra

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All Fortune

We ought to give thanks for all fortune: if it is good, because it is good, if bad, because is works in us patience, humility and the contempt of this world and the hope of our eternal country.

-- C.S. Lewis

Unless You Try

Unless you try to do something beyond 
what you have already mastered, 
you will never grow.

-- Ronald E. Osborn

Inspiration

We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. 
Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action.

-- Frank Tibolt