Politics

​Among the problems with politics is that there is too much talking and not enough listening AND that it is embedded in a belief that government can solve for some things that it really can't.

Looking After

Weak leaders have the luxury of looking after themselves. Great leaders have the honor of looking after others.

-- Simon Sinek

Remembrance

On Memorial Day, what are we memorializing?

Illusion

What we call sins are actually symptoms of the illusion that we are separated from God.

-- Richard Rohr


Prayer consists of Attention.

-- Simone Weil

Bloom

...who thinks up stuff (beauty) like this, much less creates it?

They Ate the Bulbs of Tulips

'Poem selection' for the week -- "They Ate the Bulbs of Tulips":

I’d have to hear it spoken in mind somehow,
my father said, of the Frisian word for hunger,
but I’d settle for memory, or grief, under
the category things that undo me. It’s a funny
thing to think. Who would be the speaker
if not him? His mother, maybe,
holding hands in the hospital with his father
after 76 years. Married the day after the war,
when the stores had no windows—the Nazis
took the glass. The mourning doves
might have the right vowels, or the red belly
in the leafless dogwood, now winging
through the sunlight peplummed through
the pines, blue tarp peeled back
on the cotton bales in the field beyond,
Merry Christmas spraypainted in blue
upon the white. Snowless, starless,
a man goes on trial in France for helping
refugees. Could’ve been your grandparents,
my father says, your Pake hid in barns, woke
once to mouse feet scrambling across his face,
but in France it was a 2 year old in a ditch,
dying of dehydration, & when I look down
I’ve pulled the petals from the bouquet,
& as I’ve neither French nor Frisian nor
courage, all I can do is sweep the body
of petals into my palms, & pour them into
the cathedral of water in front of me.

-- Mark Wagenaar

From the author:

“‘They Ate the Bulbs of Tulips’ casts its line between a speaker who is hearing a piece of familial history—a grandfather who hid in barns from the Nazis—and one of the more pressing problems of our time, the plight of Middle Eastern migrants who are fleeing war, at Christmas time. I hope the poem asks big questions of us—what is a just and merciful response to this crisis? What risks are we willing to take for the sake of the most vulnerable?”

Q&A: How to Begin the Journey to What You Want

Q&A: 

Q: What is the most difficult, overwhelmingly insurmountable obstacle that prevents most people from getting what they want?

A: They don't even try.

If I ask you what you want, you are likely to tell me what is #4, #7, or even #12 on your list of the things that you want.  But most people hide deep inside what they really want.

Let's face the facts.  Lack of talent, money, or time isn't your biggest obstacle.  It's the fact you don't believe.

Your skepticism is a greater obstacle than that of everyone else in the world.   Continue here....

-- Bruce Kasanoff

Something Different

I've noticed...that many times, you have to look for something different in order to see something different.

None Of Us

None of us are as smart as all of us.

-- Ken Blanchard

So, we should lead accordingly.

Aren't Aware Of

A healing path opens by realizing you can't change what you aren't aware of.

-- Deepak Chopra

O Gracious and Holy Father

O gracious and holy Father,

give us wisdom to perceive Thee,

intelligence to understand Thee,

diligence to seek Thee,

patience to wait for Thee,

eyes to behold Thee,

a heart to meditate upon Thee,

and a life to proclaim Thee;

through the power of the Spirit

of Jesus Christ our Lord.

-- St. Benedict of Nursia

​The greatest tragedy in life is not unanswered prayer, but unoffered prayer.

-- F. B. Myer

www.youversion.com

So that it's searchable:

Pray in the power of the Holy Spirit.

-- Jude 1:20

What Is Youth?

I tend to save things that strike something in me that I want to think more about.  Sometimes I have an immediate thought or connection.  At other times, I want to explore it further.  Still others, I don't really know why...I like it, but I do.

The above, for example, makes me wonder what the essence of youth is.  Is it merely physical?  Is youth a thing of the mind?  Or, the heart?  Or, is youth a state of being - whether our body (or anything else) keeps up with it or not.  I'm guessing now, but I'm wondering if there is something about these people, aged as they appear to be, that is still quite young about them.

So, what is youth anyway?

Instructions on Not Giving Up

'Poem selection' for the week -- "Instructions on Not Giving Up":

More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out
of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s
almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving
their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate
sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees
that really gets to me. When all the shock of white
and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave
the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath,
the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin
growing over whatever winter did to us, a return
to the strange idea of continuous living despite
the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then,
I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf
unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all.

-- Ada Limón

At The Center

​At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want.

-- Lao Tzu

Your Body

​If you disrespect yourself with your body, you make it very hard for your body to respect you.

The better you treat your body (one way of respecting yourself), the more you will be able realize who you are and what you are capable of.

Any Room?

Curiosity is essential for progress. Only when we look to worlds beyond our own can we really know if there's room for improvement.

-- Simon Sinek

This is worth not brushing off too quickly and worth contemplating its implications, in a number of realms.  Curiosity is a way to countermand assumptions; assumptions can be good and they can be bad.  Room is critical, for growth to occur.

Curiosity is the doorknob to open opportunities for change. If we don't turn it, we can become hostage to our assumptions.

Correlation?

Meet Those Who “Love Jesus but Not the Church”

The Hottest Thing at Church Is Not Your Pastor or Worship Leader

Is there a correlation between these two?  Could it be that there is a group of people who are less interested in more talking and more interested in more doing? 

Mothers Day

"I love this tree," I told my wife recently.  And, this got me thinking about why -- certainly a thing of beauty, but not all that unusual.  Or, is it?  As I've reflected a bit further, I've realized that part of my affection is connected to something more historical; something, in fact, from by childhood.  I remember visiting on occasion a section of Marietta, GA, where my Mom's mother lived.  I can still vividly recall the street she lived on, which was lined from one end to the other with white dogwood trees that seemed to hang underneath a canopy of old, large and stately trees overhead.  The sight was a bit magical to me, like Christmas lights in May.

I've come to realize that some of beauty's arrow that has so pierced me so much in life has come from such experiences.  My mother's heritage is there and it's like something from another place and time.  I have also heard my mom say, on several occasions, that her best memories of Mothers Day during the years we were growing up were when she would receive her Spring flowers for the summer.  I remember her working with them on one embankment in particular, as well as throughout the rest of our yard.  While I don't recall helping her as much as I likely should have during those years, I now do something very similar every year at this time.

More important than the flowers (though I hesitate to diminish the power of flowers in this life), I think I received so much more from my mom through those experiences.  It was the time spent together that gave me so much of who I am.  And, for that, I will be ever grateful to her, who in some ways, simply shared her own life with me through these kinds of times together.

And such gifts have a way of keeping on giving, as this has allowed me to recognize similar kinds of beauty in the mothering of our own kids by my wife.  Today our youngest daughter is struggling with some hard decisions, due to circumstances where others had clearly let her and others down.  I saw my wife say to her, ​"I'm praying for you. That you may be truthful and gracious."  These could be, perhaps, some of the most simple and beautiful flowers a mother could give to her daughter.


We have to pray with our eyes on God, not on the difficulties.

-- Oswald Chambers

#OpenYourWorld

The Glory of the Day Was in Her Face

'Poem selection' for the week -- "The Glory of the Day Was in Her Face":

The glory of the day was in her face,
The beauty of the night was in her eyes.
And over all her loveliness, the grace
Of Morning blushing in the early skies.

And in her voice, the calling of the dove;
Like music of a sweet, melodious part.
And in her smile, the breaking light of love;
And all the gentle virtues in her heart.

And now the glorious day, the beauteous night,
The birds that signal to their mates at dawn,
To my dull ears, to my tear-blinded sight
Are one with all the dead, since she is gone.

-- James Weldon Johnson

When I consider the idea of 'glory', I can't help but include things like the eastern sky this morning around 6am -- just...glorious!  So the juxtaposition of this with the reality of a friend of ours hovering near death today makes the affect of this poem even more startling and compelling -- an odd, disorienting holding of two seemingly contradictory things, that at a whole other level are not completely disconnected.

Life and death...are one.

Forgiveness

A friend shared a beautiful story of a local, attorney friend of his who posted this on his FB page yesterday (thanks, Jim):

Yesterday I went into the courtroom because I needed to talk to Deputy Prosecutor Jack Roebel and Judge Joe Sutton. They were conducting a sentencing so I decided to watch and wait.

An Amish family sat behind the defense table where the defendant, an Amish young man, sat with his lawyer.

On the other side of the aisle was an African American man in a wheel chair with two boys next to him.

The story was simple and tragic. The young Amish man had gone to a Notre Dame tailgate party and gotten drunk. He then drove back home. On the way he ran a stop sign and hit a car driven by the African American man with some kids in it. The man nearly lost his leg, suffered a collapsed lung and endured other pretty severe injuries. For a long time he was placed in a medically induced coma. One of the kids suffered an orbital fracture and frankly I missed who else was hurt and how badly.

The arguments were made by the lawyers and it then came time for the victim to speak. Clearly he was now disabled and his life is forever changed. And what he did was incredible--he completely forgave the offender. He looked at him and talked about how he had gotten off the right path earlier in his life. He told the defendant that he believed that the young man was a good person and could get back on the right path if he followed what his family taught him. He exhibited a grace, mercy, and forgiveness which I cannot remember seeing in 36 years of criminal law. And after the hearing the Amish family embraced him and all broke down in tears.

I came away realizing that my resentments and grievances are largely petty and am inspired to embrace and display as much forgiveness as I am able.

Cracks

​I've noticed...things can grow in the smallest of places, in the tiniest of cracks.  Perhaps, this is because things in cracks are often held in tight confines and are somewhat protected from being washed or swept away.

This is not unlike some things inside of me - good and bad - that grow in the tightest of places, even the cracks in my own heart.

People's Weaknesses

No man should be appointed to a managerial position if his vision focuses on people's weaknesses rather then their strengths.

-- Peter Drucker

Didn't Know You Could

There's something kind of amazing about doing something you didn't know you could do - like running a mini-marathon. So happy for the kids, who dedicated themselves to the idea and worked for months to prepare for the Indy Mini-Marathon, 2017. They did it!  A wonderful example of the merits of setting a goal and persevering to accomplish it; it was thrilling to watch them 'finish' - made me tear-up, just thinking about it (well, yes, and wishing I had done it with them!).  More pics here....

Peacemakers

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.

-- Matthew 5:9

This Beatitude follows as the logical consequence of all that has been laid out so far. When our hearts are gentled and single, when we’ve tamed the animal instincts, we become peacemakers. We are no longer wielding the sword of the binary operator that divides the world into good guys and bad guys, insiders and outsiders, winning team and losing team. When the field of vision has been unified, the inner being comes to rest, and that inner peaceableness flows into the outer world as harmony and compassion. This is what we mean by contemplative engagement: right action in the world stemming from inner attunement. Only from the unified perception of the heart can we discern what action is required of us to lovingly and effectively serve our hurting planet.

-- Cynthia Bourgeault

Instagram: bobgoff

So it's searchable:

Tell people who they are.
Not what they want.

-- Bob Goff

#EatTogether

​
Unrelated (or maybe not):

TG: Is it possible to have a more mindful relationship with technology?

JKZ: You can be more mindful of how addicted you are, but unless you impose behaviors on yourself, it’s like heroin. It’s not like you can live without technology — I own an iPhone. But you can’t live with it unless you find some kind of way to not lose yourself in digital reality to the point where you forget that your body is analog. Continue here....

Freedom

​I am caught sometimes, somehow
between two kinds
of freedom:
real and unreal

So compelled
by the moment
sabotaging what is beyond
the now

Availability to moments
I can't yet see;
Affected by openness
I can choose now

Desire of two kinds
to be free:
One real
One fantasy

What I Didn't See

​The people who have taught me the most in my career are the ones who pointed out what I didn't see.

-- Sheryl Sandberg

Hard Things

​I've noticed...that many hard things end up making you better, more capable of helping others.

This is the staggering loss of avoiding difficult or challenging things.

What Got You Here

What got you here won't necessarily get you there.

-- Marshall Goldsmith

Great Minds

​Great minds discuss ideas;
average minds discuss events;
small minds discuss people.

-- Eleanor Roosevelt