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.