Travels of 2018

We began in Montana and are ending 2018 in Colorado:

...with a few places in between.  I’m grateful for the opportunity and exposure these geographical travels have afforded us, not to mention those of the mind and heart.

A Power Is Coming

A power from outside is coming, a power that is able to make a new creation out of people like us, stones like us, people who have no capacity of ourselves to save ourselves. The power that is coming is not our power—not the power of our deeds or our inner strength or our spiritual discipline or our faith or even our repentance. It is God’s power that gives good deeds and inner strength and spiritual discipline and faith and repentance. We are able to repent and bear fruit because he is coming.

We cannot trust any of the powers of this world to make us children of Abraham. We cannot presume to tell ourselves we have better genes or better morals or better theology or better attitudes or better humility or better repentance. It is God who is making children of Abraham—making people new for his kingdom, making them out of stones.

This means that we are being changed. It means we are going to be weaned away from our possessions and oriented toward being everlastingly possessed by the love of God. It means that we will become less interested in receiving personal blessings for ourselves and more interested in making Christian hope known to those “dwelling in darkness” (Matt. 4:16). It means that we will become more and more thankful as we become less and less self-righteous. It means that we will gradually become less preoccupied with our own privileges and prerogatives and gradually see ourselves more and more in solidarity with other human beings who, like us, can receive mercy only from the hand of God and not because of any human superiority.

These changes have political consequences as well as individual ones. Repentance will mean seeking after the good of all, not just the comforts of a few, and the knowledge of the coming of the Lord means that there will be hope—in the light of his power—of his intervention in the affairs of nations, that the efforts of the peacemakers will somehow, miraculously, be blessed.  Continue....

-- Fleming Rutledge

To What Degree?

To what degree will I proceed in something I believe, when others appear not to be interested?
To what degree will I proceed in advancing something I believe in, when others do not accept it?
To what degree will I proceed in doing what I believe when other people resist it?
To what degree will I proceed when others resist me because of what I am doing?
To what degree will I proceed when others reject me because I proceed?

I began 2018 a bit more intentionally.  I was looking to be willing to be more me and less of what others expect of me or prefer me to be.  As a result, I end 2018 with the question above -- to what degree will I...?

Departed Days

A poem as we end the year—“Departed Days”:

Yes, dear departed, cherished days,
   Could Memory’s hand restore
Your morning light, your evening rays
   From Time’s gray urn once more,—
Then might this restless heart be still,
   This straining eye might close,
And Hope her fainting pinions fold,
   While the fair phantoms rose.

But, like a child in ocean’s arms,
   We strive against the stream,
Each moment farther from the shore
   Where life’s young fountains gleam;—
Each moment fainter wave the fields,
   And wider rolls the sea;
The mist grows dark,—the sun goes down,—
Day breaks,—and where are we?

-- Oliver Wendell Holmes

As we begin another segment of time, where are we?  Where am I?

To answer this question, I must be willing to ask what is going on around me?  What is going on within me?  How are the two related?

Don't Want To

We don’t want to let go of the past because that is how we learned how to live and be who we are.

-- NPR interview

Can't Be New Creations

Instagram: bobgoff

We can't be new creations if everything stays the same.

-- Bob Goff

Christmas in the Heart

Christmas in the Heart

The snow lies deep upon the ground,
And winter’s brightness all around
Decks bravely out the forest sere,
With jewels of the brave old year.
The coasting crowd upon the hill
With some new spirit seems to thrill;
And all the temple bells achime.
Ring out the glee of Christmas time.

In happy homes the brown oak-bough
Vies with the red-gemmed holly now;
And here and there, like pearls, there show
The berries of the mistletoe.
A sprig upon the chandelier
Says to the maidens, “Come not here!”
Even the pauper of the earth
Some kindly gift has cheered to mirth!

Within his chamber, dim and cold,
There sits a grasping miser old.
He has no thought save one of gain,—
To grind and gather and grasp and drain.
A peal of bells, a merry shout
Assail his ear: he gazes out
Upon a world to him all gray,
And snarls, “Why, this is Christmas Day!”

No, man of ice,—for shame, for shame!
For “Christmas Day” is no mere name.
No, not for you this ringing cheer,
This festal season of the year.
And not for you the chime of bells
From holy temple rolls and swells.
In day and deed he has no part—
Who holds not Christmas in his heart!

-- Paul Laurence Dunbar

Waiting Together For Wholeness

The disruption caused by God's coming and our alienation is too great for us; we cannot bear it alone. And so we gather together to light a candle in this fearsome time. We come here to find others who know something about darkness and yet dare to look for the light. We come here to wait together. The church might best be defined as the community of those who wait, who remember their losses, acknowledge their failures, their suffering, and their confusion, and yet continue to look for wholeness.

-- Ellen F. Davis

Christmas Eve Hike

We did our family Christmas Eve hike—this time to the top of Mt Herman:

What Is Truly Amazing

What is truly amazing about the Christian faith is the idea that God made the universe—from quarks to galaxies—but at the same time cared enough about us to be born as a human being, to come down, to die and be crucified in the person of Jesus, and to bring forgiveness and new life to broken people.

-- Jonathan Feng

Like those hearing the good news in Matt 2, I am amazed at the incarnation of God—that blows my mind, not to mention my broken reality.

Uniting Through Traditions

Descent

In the true Spirit of Christmas, 'Poem for the week' -- "Descent":

They sought to soar into the skies
Those classic gods of high renown
For lofty pride aspires to rise
​But you came down.

You dropped down from the mountains sheer
Forsook the eagle for the dove
The other Gods demanded fear
But you gave love

Where chiselled marble seemed to freeze
Their abstract and perfected form
Compassion brought you to your knees
Your blood was warm

They called for blood in sacrifice
Their victims on an altar bled
When no one else could pay the price
You died instead

They towered above our mortal plain,
Dismissed this restless flesh with scorn,
Aloof from birth and death and pain,
​But you were born.

Born to these burdens, borne by all
Born with us all ‘astride the grave’
Weak, to be with us when we fall,
​And strong to save.

-- Malcom Guite

To Be Authentic

To be authentic is to be at peace with your imperfections.
​​
-- Simon Sinek

Don't Let Someone

Don't let someone else talk you out of what you really want to be or do.

It’s not that you can’t ever be wrong; it’s that you forfeit the process you need to grow (even when that includes you being wrong).

LT: Hurt and Fear

Instagram: brenebrown

We desperately need more leaders who are committed to courageous, wholehearted leadership and who are self-aware enough to lead from their hearts, rather than unevolved leaders who lead from hurt and fear.

-- Brené Brown

Stop Talking

I've noticed...that knowing at times that I should stop talking doesn’t necessarily help me know when to do so.  Or, does it?

All Spiritual Disciplines

All spiritual disciplines have one purpose: to get rid of illusions so we can be more fully present to what is.
​
-- Richard Rohr

Where We Got It Wrong

In many traditions, the weeks leading up to Christmas are considered a season of self-examination and repentance. At Christianity Today, this period of reflection comes after the November online release of our complete archives, encompassing every issue of CT since the magazine first published on October 15, 1956.

This is a cause for gratefulness to God; so many articles and editorials ring true today. For example, we advocated creation care at the outset of the modern environmental movement, decades before climate change became a national conversation. Note the April 23, 1971, editorial: After arguing biblically that “to fail to respect life and all other environmental resources is to demean creation and to violate biblical principles of stewardship,” the editorial concludes with a bracing word...

There are also moments that make an editor in chief wince. Nine (mostly anti-communist) articles by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, who we later learned seriously abused his power, especially in his underhanded attempts to blackmail Martin Luther King Jr. and derail the civil rights movement.

And on the civil rights movement, our track record is checkered at best.

Clearly, we were naïve about the ugly realities of segregation, and how little it was or could be realistically “directed by a Christian conscience.” In that era, we consistently argued that racism would never end without the spiritual transformation of each individual’s heart. That was and remains true enough. But we were completely ignorant about the nature and stubbornness of structural injustice. We worried how “forced integration” would impinge upon the freedom of individuals (mostly, the freedom of whites) without recognizing that segregation already denied freedom to millions of African Americans.  Continue....

-- Mark Galli

I must say, I appreciate the reflection, candor, honesty, and confession this represents.  An exercise we perhaps all could benefit from doing collectively and individually.

FOR THE TIME BEING: A Christmas Oratorio

'Poem for the week' -- "FOR THE TIME BEING: A Christmas Oratorio":

A prayer from the poem:

And because of His visitation, we may no
longer desire God as if He were lacking: our
redemption is no longer a question of pursuit
but of surrender to Him who is always and
everywhere present. Therefore at every moment
we pray that, following Him, we may depart from
our anxiety into His peace.

-- W.H. Auden

Widening

A human being is a part of the whole, called by us “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. [One] experiences [oneself] . . . as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of [one’s] consciousness. . . . Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. 

-- Albert Einstein

Know Your Purpose

Instagram: bobgoff

Everybody has a plan; know your purpose.

-- Bob Goff

LT: Many Beats One

To solve complicated business problems, many perspectives beats just one.

-- Scott Page

Seems to me this applies to leadership in any arena (not just business).

Disappointing

I've noticed...how disappointing it is to learn that my ego is alive and well.  And, that's a good thing (to be disappointed in).

A God Veiled in Time and Space but Revealed in Christ

A well-beaten path to atheism: cognitive dissonance over the church’s stand on sexual orientation and gender; outrage over pain and injustice; doubts regarding the authority of Scripture; and an embarrassing feeling that science has rendered belief in the Bible’s claims ridiculous. If there are reasonable explanations for these conflicts, why doesn’t God just show us? Why doesn’t he come out of hiding? Why doesn’t he come out of hiding and reveal himself to my child, to my friend? Or, if he has, to where can I point them? The various doubts that tripped my friend before he fell into atheism were all situated on the bedrock of the hiddenness of God. His thinking went like this: Christians say that God requires people to believe in him or they will be eternally condemned; God, if he is good, would assist people in forming that belief by revealing himself; God does not reveal himself; therefore, God is either not good, or he does not exist.

As far as many of these young adults are concerned, the burden of proof is on God. If he exists, he’s going to have to prove it.

The hiddenness of God, which was once a problem for philosophers and theologians, is now a reason for millennials and their older counterparts to reject the gospel. Christian parents and leaders can help them work through this, but they must be able to offer reasonable answers to two questions. First, why would a God who insists that we believe in him not give us more evidence—why would he hide? And second, where would he hide? Continue....

-- Shayne Looper

Wassail

Gotta try this stuff — so seasonably good heated up!  Don't even need a little bourbon to go with it, but....

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

A beautiful evening of music with The Piano Guys:



...perhaps the oldest of the carols we sing each year at Christmas.

Often Breeds

Certainty often breeds absolutes, intolerance, and judgment.

-- Brené Brown

Learn How

Before you can learn to effectively listen to others, you have to learn how to listen to yourself.

LT: Bill Clinton - George H.W. Bush’s Oval Office note to me revealed the heart of who he was

No words of mine or others can better reveal the heart of who he was than those he wrote himself. He was an honorable, gracious and decent man who believed in the United States, our Constitution, our institutions and our shared future. And he believed in his duty to defend and strengthen them, in victory and defeat. He also had a natural humanity, always hoping with all his heart that others’ journeys would include some of the joy that his family, his service and his adventures gave him.

His friendship has been one of the great gifts of my life.  Continue....

-- Bill Clinton

Impacted

I've noticed...I am impacted by stars.

Really?  Actually, yes.  My sense of existence is impacted when my ability to see the stars is reduced (even by just too much unnatural light).  Or, I could say it the other way around; I am more at rest in who I am when I consider the magnitude of what is around me, especially what is above me when I see the stars of the night sky.  I was reminded of this again early Sunday morning.

It strikes me as symbolic that the stars are most visible in the darkest part of the night.

God's Silence Isn't Indifference

Instagram: bobgoff

God's silence isn't indifference; it's engagement.  He isn't quiet because He's run out of things to say or is scared about the outcome.  It's because He already believes in me, just as much as He knows the outcome.

-- Bob Goff

The blessed angels

As much as any other season, the emerging one this time of year is rife with imagery and symbolism.  Some of it is even good!  And poetry, for me, is often the clearest way to imagine it, to re-engage (believe) in it — expressing something ineffable.

'Poem for the week' -- "The blessed angels":

How much like
angels are these tall
gladiolas in a vase on my coffee
table, as if in a bunch
whispering. How slender
and artless, how scandalously
alive, each with its own
humors and pulse. Each weight-
bearing stem is the stem
of a thought through which
aspires the blood-metal of stars. Each heart
is a gift for the king. When
I was a child, my mother and aunts
would sit in the kitchen
gossiping. One would tip
her head toward me, “Little Ears,”
she’d warn, and the whole room
went silent. Now, before sunrise,
what secrets I am told!—being
quieter than blossoms and near invisible.

-- Toi Derricotte


From the author:

“In the morning I make an espresso and sit in a comfortable chair where I can see the outside. Sometimes I’m up so early I can feel the light coming. I just listen to the air. The angels are lovely creatures to talk to. Rilke also enjoyed it! Often I can’t tell the difference between my voice and theirs.”

This feels 'Saturday Morning'-esqe to me, especially as we enter December.  Last year, I collected a number of Christmas poems, in particular, which can be found by scrolling here (along with a few other seasonal gems).

Explore Alternatives

Perhaps my greatest disappointment with the tradition I consider my "home" is that it wasn't and still isn't a safe place to ask questions, explore alternatives, launch creative ideas of a political or social orientation. It is often overrun by a mindset that puts people in a box after just a few words are said that don't sound safe and familiar.  

More here...

-- Gordon MacDonald

I’m guessing that this problem is not limited to any one tradition, but I must concur that I have encountered many of the same things in mine.

It is hard not to notice how often belief becomes tethered to safety.

Strength Lies

Strength lies in differences, not in similarities.  
​
-- Yuval Atsmon

Unless

Eventually we realize that the value of what we have isn’t very much, unless we share it.

LT: Clear Sense

When we have a clear sense of where we're going, we are flexible in how we get there.
​
-- Simon Sinek

...a helpful reminder for leaders.

Something Is Wrong

I've noticed...when the means becomes the end, something is often wrong.

Call To Discover

A writer's problem does not change. He himself changes and the world he lives in changes, but his problem remains the same. It is always how to write truly and, having found out what is true, to project it in such a way that it becomes a part of the experience of the person who reads it.

-- Ernest Hemingway

Referring to Hemingway...

So whether he was writing about an old fisherman on small boat in the ocean or a Spanish bullfighter, he communicated the realities he’d found. I was struck by how his comment also applies to pastors, whose call is to discover God's truth and the realities of the gospel and God’s kingdom, and to present them in ways that allow listeners and observers to experience that truth .

-- Marshall Shelley

Perfectionism

Most people think of philosophy as a system of ethics or an explanation of the purpose of life, so they miss its most practical aspects. Ancient philosophy was a way to create mental clarity — to clear the mind of what psychologists today refer to as cognitive distortions.

Epictetus, the Stoic slave-turned-philosopher, told his students that the place to “begin in philosophy is this: a clear perception of one’s own ruling principle.” He meant that people became philosophers when they began to question what guides their thinking and analyze their thoughts. Epictetus wanted to help his students break out of the exaggerated thinking patterns that have a destructive impact on the life of the thinker. Patterns like negative self-labeling, catastrophizing, disqualifying the positive, emotional reasoning, and other cognitive distortions.

Today, one of the most common destructive thought patterns is all-or-nothing thinking (also referred to as splitting). Examples of this include thoughts like:

If you’re not with me, you’re against me.
He/She is all good/all bad.
Because this attempt wasn’t a complete success, it is a total failure.
In other words, perfectionism.

We often hold up perfectionists as models, but psychologists know that this sort of extreme thinking is associated with depression and frustration. It’s a miserable, unproductive way to live. How could it not be? Perfectionism rarely begets perfection, or satisfaction — only...continue here.

-- Ryan Holiday

Visual: Patient

Visual - "Patient"

St Anne's Catholic Church - Mackinac Island, MI

Enter With Thanksgiving

Enter His gates with Thanksgiving.

-- Psalm 100:4

Six Words

Instagram: bobgoff

Someone once asked me what I would write if I only had six words for my autobiography.  Here's what I came up with:  What if we weren't afraid anymore?

-- Bob Goff

What would your Six Words be?  I'm working on mine....

LT: Suspicious

When you lead from a position of fear and control, people become suspicious.

What If: Only Capacity That Really Grows

What If...the only capacity that really grows as we age is the capacity to increasingly carry the tension of this world...by releasing it to God.

Oh, and speaking of being awake....

Awakening

Awakening is the expression of that grace in which we see through our apparent separation and notice that we are already one with divine Presence and with all that is. All that is missing is awareness.

-- David Benner

Hey, it's snowing! I gotta go...for a run.

Dear Daughter: Leave When You Are Not Valued.

Dear Daughter,

Unfortunately, in life there are times you will not be valued. Do not stay where you are not valued. Do not waste time in self-pity because someone did not value you. Your value, your worth, comes from your heart, not from someone else.

Today you were rejected by someone. Your heart felt broken, it was not. You even trusted the person who did not value you. They led you to believe they valued hard work, passion, off-season dedication, and attitude. They led you to believe these qualities were important to them when in fact to them they are not. Your heart hurts because you believed the words of someone who let you down. You are better leaving when you are not valued.

It is ok and normal to grieve when you close a chapter in your life and start another. Do not confuse self-pity for grief. Grief is part of celebrating what was joyful and good, grief is sadness to saying good-bye, grief is leaving to move onto the next journey. Self-pity is subjecting yourself to another person’s power. Self-pity is allowing imperfect people’s errors to consume your energy. Continue here....

-- Sara Johnson

I feel increasing aware that nearly all positions have some merit and that they are often mixed with other things, too.  In this case, I like admonition to consider the source of value, especially under the circumstances involved.  But, I'm not sure leaving every time you feel you aren't, is the best advice. 

Each situation is different and perhaps that is the point.  Knowing that something might be helpful but that it also may not be in every situation is, too.

Sometimes

Poem for the week -- "Sometimes":

Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

-- Mary Oliver

There really isn't enough space to record everything that is significant or even good. So what should we do with this limitation? Get better at selecting what is worth recording? Or, just get closer to your version of it and tell that.

We Will Transmit It

If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it — usually to those closest to us.

-- Richard Rohr

Speaking From Power or Freedom

How often do we say what we say when we feel we have the advantage when saying it? In other words, if we didn't feel we had some basis for proving that we are right (and that the other is not), would we just not say it (if there's nothing to be gained)?

Speaking intentionally from a position of power, especially as a premise, can be a dicey proposition.

So, what would the opposite look like?  I'm guessing it's much closer to speaking from a position of freedom — not from one of imposing something, but rather from a position of true humility, curiosity, and wondering.  The effect of which is the more desirable one of inviting another person towards something, rather than trying to control them with power.

LT: Striking Example

On leadership:

Yahoo! — a striking example of not listening, not understanding, and not being interested in changing.
​
-- Fred Kofman

Few Things Are Like Pain

I've noticed...there are few things that get my attention like pain.

...which can be a giver of the many gifts that awareness brings.

Why Christian?

Instagram: bobgoff

Jesus doesn't turn people into Christians.  He turns them into love.

-- Bob Goff

The Perils Of Pushing Kids Too Hard, And How Parents Can Learn To Back Off

On New Year's Eve, back in 2012, Savannah Eason retreated into her bedroom and picked up a pair of scissors.

"I was holding them up to my palm as if to cut myself," she says. "Clearly what was happening was I needed someone to do something."

Her dad managed to wrestle the scissors from her hands, but that night it had become clear she needed help.

"It was really scary," she recalls. "I was sobbing the whole time."

Savannah was in high school at the time. She says the pressure she felt to succeed — to aim high — had left her anxious and depressed.

"The thoughts that would go through my head were 'this would be so much easier if I wasn't alive, and I just didn't have to do anything anymore.' "

Looking back Savannah, now 23, says the pressure started early.

She told us her story as we sat at the kitchen table of her childhood home in Wilton, Conn., a wealthy community near New York. Her dad commutes to the city where he works in finance.

From the outside, Savannah's life may have appeared picture-perfect: two well-educated, loving parents; a beautiful home; siblings and lots of friends.

From an early age, Savannah says, she was considered one of the smart kids, and when she arrived at Wilton High School, she was surrounded by many other high achievers. Lots of kids take a heavy load of Advanced Placement and honors courses. They play varsity or club sports and are involved in lots of extracurricular activities.

But by sophomore year, the high expectations began to feel like a trap. Like many kids at her school...continue here.

-- Allison Aubrey, Jane Greenhalgh

Visual: Fall Tree Of The Day, 2018

Visual - "Fall Tree Of The Day, 2018"

Warsaw, IN

Autumn is like a second Spring when every leaf is like a flower.

-- Albert Camus

Hate

Hate is just a bodyguard for grief. When people lose the hate, they are forced to deal with the pain beneath.

​-- Sarah Fields

Religious People Try To Control What You Think

Why does it seem like religious people often try to control what you think?

OK, it's not just religious people...makes me wonder when I'm being 'religious', in this way.

Why Women Leaders Are Outperforming Men

Women leaders:

• place a high value on relationships,

• have a bias for direct communication rather than following the chain of command,

• put themselves at the center of the people they lead,

• are comfortable with diversity, and

• are skilled at integrating their personal lives and their lives at work rather than compartmentalizing.

Continue here....

What If: True Color

What If...like the color of autumn leaves, our true colors aren't apparent until the end of our season of life either?

Jesus Has This Effect On Dead People

This week out at the prison Bible study we were studying the healing of Jairus' daughter in Mark 5.

Casey was discussing the story, sharing his observations, and while he was sharing he said this:

"Jesus has this affect on dead people."

Casey was connecting the raising of Jairus' daughter with the healing of the woman with the issue of blood.

Both women are dead, one physically, the other socially and ritually. Jesus comes into contact with both, bringing...continue here.

-- Richard Beck

“She Really Thinks For Herself”

Megan Phelps-Roper didn't start "thinking for herself" -- she started thinking with different people.  To think independently of other human beings is impossible, and if it were possible it would be undesirable.  Thinking is necessarily, thoroughly, and wonderfully social.  Everything you think is a response to what someone else has thought and said.  And when people commend someone for "thinking for herself" they usually mean "ceasing to sound like people I dislike and starting to sound more like people I approve of."

This is a point worth dwelling on.  How often do we say "she really thinks for herself" when someone rejects views that we hold?  No: when someone departs from what we believe to the True Path our tendency is to look for bad influences.  She's fallen under the spell of so-and-so.  She's been reading too much X or listening to too much Y or watching too much Z.  Similarly, people in my line of work always say that we want to promote "critical thinking" -- but really we want our students to think critically only about what they've learned at home and in church, not about what they learn from us.

-- Alan Jacobs, How To Think

Playlist: 11 Weeks

Poem for the week -- "Playlist: 11 Weeks":

1. lush field of shadows, static
    hush and radial itch, primordial

2. goo of the sonogram's wand
    gliding across my belly

3. my daughter blooming
    into focus, feathered

4. and fluttering across the stormy
    screen, the way it rained

5. so hard one night in April
    driving home from the café in Queens

6. where we’d eaten sweet tamales
    I thought we might drown

7. in the flooded streets
    but we didn’t and I want to say

8. that was the night she was conceived:
     husk and sugar,

9. an apartment filled with music,
    hiss of damp clothes

10. drying on the radiator,
      a prayer made with a record’s broken needle

11. to become beaming
      and undone.

-- Kendra DeColo

Think We Know

The minute we begin to think we know all the answers, we forget the questions.

-- Madeleine L’Engle

Don't Use

Instagram: bobgoff

We're not held back by what we don't have, but by what we don't use.

-- Bob Goff

LT: Preparation

We rarely ever perform to a capacity greater than our preparation. In other words, if we don't prepare, we're often not ready and, therefore, just not as capable as we could be.

We also often don't seem to prepare to a greater degree than our leaders challenge us to. Perhaps, this is due to our limitations at times in recognizing the connection between preparation and performance on our own.

Thinking About

I've noticed...I often wake up thinking about what I went to bed thinking about.

Eugene Peterson (1932–2018): Tidbits

Eugene taught me that the pastoral vocation was a call to be relentlessly personal. It meant unhurried conversations marked by listening. It meant preaching to people, not an audience. It meant loving people, not using them. It meant hours of prayer for people and with people.

-- Jamin Goggin

Anyone seeking to have a long obedience in the same direction needs a regular rhythm of stopping. Otherwise, we won’t make it. I’m grateful Eugene gave me a vision of what faithful pastoring could be.

-- Rich Villodas

...more from some of those he impacted here.


Here are some (unrelated) tidbits from Eugene Peterson:

...the goal of reading Scripture was not to know more, but to become more.


There can be no maturity in the spiritual life, no obedience in following Jesus, no wholeness in the Christian life apart from an immersion in, and embrace of, community. I am not myself by myself. Community, not the highly vaunted individualism of our culture, is the setting for living the Christian life.


Sabbath:

• Uncluttered time and space to distance ourselves from the frenzy of our own activities so we can see what God has been and is doing.
• Quieting the internal noise so we hear the still small voice of the Lord.
• Uncluttered time and space to detach ourselves from the people around us so that they have a chance to deal with God without our poking around or kibitzing.

If we pray without listening, we pray out of context.  

-- Eugene Peterson

Year Of The Mountain

An amazing experience for our son, Conner.  We are thrilled  for him and how nature speaks to who he is.

His very talented friend and fellow hiker, Cam Hershberger, made this beautiful video of their most recent trip.

Visual: Carving

Visual - "Carving"

Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument, New Mexico

Our Conveniences

Authentic love will not allow us to continue to ask the rest of the world to put itself at the mercy of our conveniences.

-- Richard Rohr

Focus

The achievement of challenging things requires focus, often intense focus.

Often Uncomfortable

Bad leaders may edit the truth for fear of causing discomfort. Good leaders accept that the truth is often uncomfortable.
​
-- Simon Sinek

What If: Unwillingness

What If...I thought someone’s unwillingness was really a matter of ability? What if the majority of situations are really more a function of ability, than will?  I can easily assume that things are primarily a matter of will — why?

I think it is because I believe that ability can grow — that it can be overcome with the aid of things like will.  For example, when is awareness a matter of the will?

Nonetheless, what if...?

It's Easy When

Instagram: bobgoff

It's easy to trust God when He does what we want; it's the other times when we grow.

-- Bob Goff

We Are All Accumulating Mountains of Things

An article in The Atlantic titled, "We Are All Accumulating Mountains of Things" noted "how online shopping and cheap prices are turning Americans into hoarders."

In 2017, Americans spent $240 billion—twice as much as they'd spent in 2002—on goods like jewelry, watches, books, luggage, telephones, and related communication equipment. Spending on personal care products also doubled over that time period. Americans spent, on average, $971.87 on clothes last year, buying nearly 66 garments, according to the American Apparel and Footwear Association. That's 20 percent more money than they spent in 2000. The average American bought 7.4 pairs of shoes last year, up from 6.6 pairs in 2000.

All told, "we are all accumulating mountains of things," said Mark A. Cohen, the director of retail studies at Columbia University's Graduate School of Business. He sometimes asks his students to count the number of things they have on them in class, and once they start counting up gadgets and cords and accessories, they end up near 50. "Americans have become a society of hoarders," Cohen said.

At the same time we are amassing all this stuff, Americans are taking up more space. Last year, the average size of a single-family house in America was 2,426 square feet, a 23 percent increase in size from two decades ago. The number of self-storage units is rapidly increasing, too: There are around 52,000 such facilities nationally; two decades ago, there were half that number.

-- Alana Semuels

Things You’ve Never Seen

Poem for the week -- "Things You’ve Never Seen":

When I tell it, the first time
I saw hail, I say
it was in a desert and knocked

a man unconscious
then drove a woman into my arms
because she thought the end was near

but I assured her
this wasn’t the case.

When he tells it,
he smiles, says the first winter
after their exodus
was the coldest.

Rare snow
came down, and his mother,
who knew what the fluff was

but until then had never seen it,
woke him and said, Look outside,
what do you see?

She called his name twice.
It was dark. Snow fell
a paragraph to sum up

decades of heat. He had
no answer. She said,
this is flour from heaven.

When he tells it,
he’s an old man returning
to his mother.

-- Fady Joudah

Bad Judgment

Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.

-- Rita Mae Brown

Draw Us Away

So much in the culture, structure, and organization of our lives is designed to draw us away from ourselves.

If we're honest, we are so relieved at the very notion of returning to our true selves — to discovering and just being who we really are — not who we're expected to be.

See Things Differently

Leaders are curious.  They want to know more than they already know.  And this helps leaders respect others and their perspectives.  In fact, real leaders pursue those that see things differently because they believe that others have key insights and contribution that is needed for the good of the whole.