Disruption

Disruption is a gift. It breaks the habits we otherwise would become so content with and smaller by. We need disruption to look up, to look out, to look at things differently. Without it we would be swallowed up by ourselves; by our tendencies to refine, reduce, eliminate.

Good & Bad

Good leadership is powered by love.  Bad leadership uses fear.

Imprisoned

It is impossible to go through life without trust: that is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself.

-- Graham Greene

Surrounded By Love

We are 'Surrounded By Love'.  Thanks, Dick, for bringing this into focus for us.

More pics from our annual church camping weekend here....

No Greater Difference

There is no greater difference between men than between grateful and ungrateful.

-- R. H. Blyth

Truth be told, we have received gift after gift after gift.

As recipients of this kind of lavishness, why would we hold on to anything?

A Pleasure

When should we give up a pleasure?

Something in between asceticism and idolatry is room to consider when to choose sacrifice.

We Want It

Something is purified by sacrifice.

We want it, just not the way to it.

Self-Create Focus

Self-create focus -- few things in this life anymore will do it for you .

Too Many

What if we're just trying to be too many things?

What if we became willing to just be who we really are, not everyone else?  Would that be 'settling?  Or, would that be a true becoming?

The Great Divorce

A dramatic presentation of the C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce last night by Anthony Lawton was nothing short of...sacred.  Great content certainly helps -- this is a rather amazing book -- but the rendering of it over 90 minutes was riveting, not to mention convicting.  A treat of many dimensions.

My Two Days With Eugene Peterson

...they practiced the art of paying attention — to us, to what the Lord was doing in us, and to how they might participate in it during our visit.

...it was a mark of his lifelong habit of letting pastoral work be unhurried. In our conversations, there were no mass-produced answers to announce, no pithy truisms to make us write down. There was just careful, slow attention.

They give dignity to the unglamorous, ordinary work of pastoral ministry. The truth is, much of my life is nothing like what gets posted on social media.  Read further here....

-- Glenn Packiam

Who Agree

A community is a group of people who agree to grow together.

-- Simon Sinek

Bear One Another's Burdens

"Bear one another's burdens..."  ...from here.

-- Galations 6:2

Someone Else

Most of us want other people to change.

Ever Notice?

"What do I get out of it?"

Ever noticed how short-lived the answers to this question are?

Easier To Let Go

It is easier to let go of what you don’t have to hold on to.

Don't Understand

Though I am familiar with a few things about myself, there are also many things I don't understand.

Creator In Us

We become truly personal by loving God and by loving other humans...In its deepest sense, love is the life, the energy, of the Creator in us.

-- Kallistos Ware

Chain Yourself

Like all great commitments, love operates simultaneously on two different levels: the level of gritty reality and the level of transcendent magic.

It’s the things you chain yourself to that set you free.

-- David Brooks

...from a rather marvelous commencement address.  A wonderful challenge to commit ourselves to things that really matter.

How Hard

Pushing through hard things helps us realize that we get more from hard things than just knowing we can get through them.

Thank For Little

Who does not thank for little will not thank for much.

-- Estonian Proverb

Caine's Arcade

My wife's students were so excited about this. One of them went that night and started working on his own 'arcade'!

No Real Substitute

There’s simply no real substitute for physical presence.

-- Frank Bruni

From a delightful article here....  Not only is there power in being present, there is wonderful opportunity as well.  Like most good things, though, it takes a commitment...and usually one that includes a lot of other less enjoyable things.  Nonetheless, you have to 'be there'.

Far More Self-Doubt

Men have far more self-doubt than women realize. 

-- Shaunti Feldhahn

From an interesting article here....

Involves You

You make known to me the path of life; 
    in your presence there is fullness of joy; 
    at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

-- Psalm 16:11

So it's searchable:

God’s plan for moving people from the broad road to the narrow road involves you.

-- Alistair Begg

Kalhaven Bike Trail

Great time today with youth and friends from church!

More pics here....

Miracle of Efficiency

As an operating device obeying the mind, the brain is a miracle of efficiency. One thing is does amazingly well is to take repeated patterns and turn them into automatic habits and reactions. If you smile when you see the face of a friend, your brain has created a default reaction, a nice, positive one. If you can't end a restaurant meal without ordering dessert, that's also a default reaction but a negative one. Unlike computers, the human brain can decide how to change is wiring so that new pathways weaken and then erase undesirable reactions.

The root of all bad habits and negative behavior lies on the inside, where our biases, prejudices, beliefs, and self-judgments have taken root. If you believe that eating makes you happier, your brain will make a default connection. Every time you feel sad, your will face a chemical reaction that impels you to eat. So the real question is how to change your brain's default settings? Continue here....

-- Deepak Chopra

Football Season: 2015 UM 'Hype'

We did what we thought was expected. It's not wrong. It's not enough. It's not the Michigan standard.

-- Jehu Chesson, 2015 UM Receiver

Hard to believe it is football season again already!  There is a somewhat indefensible, even unexplainable, comfort that comes from simple things we are familiar with in our annual routines.  I, for example, don't have particularly high hopes for anything in particular this 'football season', or especially even for tonight's opening game, and yet also have a strange excitement about another season.

There is something about having something familiar to look forward to...something in the near and proximate.  We are creatures of both routine and change...like seasons.

Pangs of Memory

Gratitude changes the pangs of memory into a tranquil joy.

-- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Applicable to a number of situations, one I'm contemplating today is our son leaving for his final year at college...which may be his final leaving, too.

An opportunity, for regret or for gratitude.  I want to choose the latter today because, in fact, one can lead to the other...and does.

Misfortunes

The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.

-- Voltaire