Phillip Berry | Orient Yourself: Recent Episodes
Phillip Berry | Orient Yourself
I write to discover what I know.
Flannery O’Connor
Where to Begin“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” Ernest Hemingway gave us this line in his novel, A Movable Feast, reminding himself that, when stuck at the beginning, this was the place to begin. His counsel seems appropriate to a piece on writing as a practice for growth. However, the “All” in “all you have to do…” can seem like a thousand-mile journey.
Even for those not dependent on writing to put bread on their table, translating an array of words into one true sentence may seem insurmountable. It might even seem pointless to bother with the effort.
Perhaps that’s the point. Words have power: to create and to destroy; to hurt and to heal; to elevate and to lay low. If words are the ammunition, then writing is the gun. What are we aiming for when we put pen to paper? Do we need to aim for anything in particular?
Maybe “aiming” is the wrong word, and seeing our words, even those in a true sentence, as an offensive tool is the wrong place to begin. Here, “writing as a practice” emerges as a more appropriate model for how we leverage the act of writing in our own growth and development. In a world obsessed with making its point, maybe there’s a better point to be made to ourselves in how we use writing to become our very best.
Let’s start our journey by moving words from our arsenal to our creative field. Words are seeds and our world is a big field. What might grow when we plant them? Ideas. Change. Movement. When they begin to grow, words can bring many things to life. Writing is the act of planting those seeds in patterned ways: sentences and structure that bring order and meaning to our thoughts through the words we choose to convey them.
The aim of writing is to direct our thinking in a particular direction, to touch ourselves and others. Our best writing touches us first. From there, it must be made to land wherever else it needs to. Change and possibility hide in these ordered words. Writing makes words real. It gives them a permanence. To write something down is to immortalize it, giving it visible form, and beginning its manifestation in the world. The first step of a vision realized are the words we choose to convey it.
Why Write? Let Me Count the Why’sWriting changes people. The act of writing changes the writer and reading the writing of another changes the reader. The words force a decision: yes or no. I agree or I disagree. Every assent takes us further into the writer’s mind and heart…or further from it. Every word written takes the writer closer to some truth…or further from it. To read something is to create extended exposure to the ideas, joys, frustrations, observations, and journeys, of another. To spend time writing is to create extended exposure to the process of thinking, structuring, refining, failing, and concluding, that accompanies the experience. There is no embarking on such a journey without something changing within us along the way.
Writing captures a moment. An image. A thought. A memory. An insight. Writing is history and prophecy. It allows us to see where we’ve been and imagine where we might go. It allows others to see as well. Writing is a glimpse into what we’re thinking, feeling, seeing, and experiencing, right now. It is a season. Some seasons are timeless and some fall quickly out of fashion.
Writing allows us to give form to complexity. Layer upon layer, words build to ideas, then to pathways, and finally to action. Writing allows us to play it out, revise it, learn from it, and redirect it, all before doing it. Writing helps us build castles in the air and tear them down, lest they fall dangerously. Within our words, we can argue with ourselves, with others, or with reality – seeking truth through syllables and sentences. Writing forces us to take a position. The formation of letters is not fuzzy. In the right order, they mean something.
Writing transports us. Words can be beautiful and uplifting, helping us soar beyond earthbound reality. They can take us somewhere else, tasting, touching, and experiencing an otherness while safely testing the terra firma across the landscapes of our mind. Writing allows others to come with us, to see what we see, and experience it in the context of our seeing.
Writing pushes us, forcing us to think clearly. This is especially true if we’re writing for the eyes of others. Words demand order and intention if they are to become coherent and meaningful as expressions of thought. Writing creates cosmos from chaos. It chases away incoherence as it illuminates. Writing reveals the rambling mind, forces us to confront it, and presents the reins to harness the scattered or the half-formed.
Writing exposes us. Whenever we put something we’ve written in front of others, it says something about us and something to them. There is always a point, even if there is no point, as the writer’s words are received by the reader wherever he or she is, regardless of where the writer is. Sharing our writing puts us at risk: risk of confusion, of ridicule, of disagreement, and of rejection. Our writing might alienate those we don’t want alienated, reveal something we didn’t intend to reveal, or convey something we didn’t intend to convey. It might also convey exactly what we intended and create unintended consequences. Though writing can expose us to risk, it also exposes us to reward. Our words might attract others, inspire them, encourage them, or soothe them. Putting our writing out there may bring praise, or scorn; it can unite or divide.
Writing allows us to safely voice confusion, frustration, and anger. When chaos consumes, writing gives it room to run, and the chance to release the pressure of potentially destructive energies into words that need not gather coherently in the wrong place. Releasing them onto the paper or the screen, drains their energy, and possibly their power to hold us fearfully or move us destructively. Their toxicity drained privately, cooler words are allowed to take their place publicly.
Writing is communication. Whether art, business, leadership, or reflection, our words are a creative conveyance of thought, intention, and direction. Writing reflects how we think, tells others where we’re going, and invites them to come along, occasionally entertaining them along the way. It is the pragmatic and the esoteric. Upon the blank page we can be all things or nothing at all, master and slave, teacher and student, artist and assistant, philosopher and laborer, leader and follower, expert and neophyte. It allows us to live within our own bubble or to bring others in with us, inviting them to react. It is part of the great human dance we call communication.
Writing is a practice. Like all we possess, it fades away when left unused. It can be profound or mundane, elevated or base, but it cannot sit statically and remain fruitful. To write is to lean dynamically into the known and unknown, wrestle with it, and engage it. It is a skill to be developed, stewarded, and used.
Writing is yours. Good or bad, elegant or elementary, it belongs to you along with all those thoughts and words you’ve collected over a lifetime. Each word perfectly happy to sit, waiting patiently, for you to call upon it in that next sentence, paragraph, post, letter, or chapter. All of them desiring expression from the fount of your being, whether on paper or in the digital universe. Writing is intelligence manifested, reason directed, and creativity brought to life, in an endless combination of letters and sentences telling the world, and yourself, that you are here, your voice engaged, and your heart ready to share. Your words cry, “I’m ready to say something, no matter the consequences.”
Writing is a gift. Writing is half of that great gift we call literacy, and it should be cherished, even in its imperfections. It is part of our cultural inheritance and given to us through our education. It is also a gift we give, to ourselves and to others, in a great expression of sharing. A gift manifested in the thinking it demands, the self-reflection it offers, and the opportunity it provides others to experience the same.
True SentencesAll you have to do is write one true sentence. Just write it to yourself first.
The points we want to make, ideas we want to convey, dreams we want to share, or even the rants we feel compelled to immortalize, all land first within ourselves. They are often just whisps of a notion in our head, but the ink or LED image of those letters transforms that notion into something else.
Even writing other people’s words and ideas sets off a chain reaction in our hearts, our minds, and our souls. Writing is the process of making real all that hides in the light and the dark of our conscious or subconscious mind. Sometimes it needs to be shared and sometimes it needs to be purged. The physical act of writing brings it all into the visible with form and structure, ready to be put to use, or put away.
Ultimately, writing reveals, then changes us. And that’s why it’s so necessary. Once we write the idea, the dream, or the observation, we’ve acknowledged it, and planted it deeply. The physical act of writing it, manifests reality. That one true sentence points to the next truth and, in so doing, begins the process of realizing it. This is the hidden power of writing. We often think of writing for the point to be made to the world, but the best writing starts with those words we need to share with ourselves.
Thank God for big personalities. My grandfather and grandfatherly namesake, “Poppy,” was a big personality. An endearingly imperfect man, he was prone to hyperbole in colorful stories of dubious accuracy, the occasional expletive, warm-hearted teasing, nicknames, and entertaining colloquialisms. His approach to raising his children was as colorful as any exaggerated story he could produce, and being around him was always a bit of an adventure. My nickname? He liked to call me Pistol Pete, though I think it had more to do with cowboys and six guns than the sharpshooting Pete Maravich.
Though I don’t believe he ever used it on me directly, one of my favorite memories of his bright colors was his classic, “I’ve forgotten more than you’ll ever know” line, typically used with smart aleck children in both serious and playful ways. I’m pretty certain he didn’t hesitate to use it on his adult children when they got a little “too big for their britches.” I smile as I recall his voice and bluster.
I’m pretty sure I’ve used it (I hope playfully) with my kids at some point or another over the years, but it came to my mind this week-end during a fishing retreat with my sons, son-in-law, two grandsons, and my dad. Though I do have a rather precocious 7-year old who could, from time to time, be worthy of bringing out such a blustery line, it came to mind as we were gathered around a fire sharing stories.
On the surface, when one claims to have “forgotten more than you’ll ever know,” he is saying that his complete span of knowledge is so much more than yours, that the collection of knowing which he’s forgotten, is actually greater than the sum of all you’ll ever possess as knowledge. Yes, on the surface this is total bluster. However, there is a profundity buried within. Looked at slightly differently, there is truth in it. Anyone saying it is actually correct in the sense that you cannot know all of the things that I have forgotten.
Sitting by the fire, old stories came up (including many classic movie references) and I realized that we often remembered some things differently in our shared experiences. What stuck with me in a particular moment was not necessarily what stuck with my boys. We remembered different details from the same stories, and held different emotional connections to them. We saw many of our shared experiences under a different light; our own perspective and filter casting meaning across the moment.
Of course it did, how else could it be? Not only have I forgotten things that no one else will ever know, we’ve even forgotten shared things that we experienced differently – only to have them recalled in a new sharing, colored by time and distance. This is a gift of community, and the potential in unity-of-experience, even as we experience something uniquely. Bringing it all back together broadens it with nuance and texture, making it more even as we begin to remember less.
Our minds are such miraculous and mysterious things. The past is never really as clear as we think it is. Our filters refract experience and memory, as certainly as a prism splits a white ray of light into the spectrum we know as color. We receive certain colors at certain moments, and we often remember them differently in time. What a gift.
Considering the many stories, refracted rays of memory, emotional connections, and the ways we see our individual and collective pasts, I realize that, moving in parallel to our growing collection of memories, is the reality that I’ve forgotten more than I’ll ever know. Don’t worry, today has no need for a winsome reflection on all that is lost in time. Perhaps we’ll go there in another post. The truth is that our ability to forget is also a gift.
To have forgotten more than we’ll ever know is simply the acknowledgement of the rich depth of our existence and the experience accompanying it. There is more to know than we can ever know, and there is more to our lives than we can ever remember. And that is ok. I have forgotten more than you can ever know, and you have forgotten more than I can ever know. What a beautiful abundance.
Looking down from the cottage, I see the span of four generations, talking, laughing, and looking with wonder upon the sunrise and the countless mysteries of the water, and its abundant life. I’m reminded that, right now, it isn’t what I’ve forgotten that matters, or even what I remember. It is this moment, present, full, and full of life, that matters. Passing, soon to be remembered differently, and then to be forgotten.
Such a gift.
What is it to be called? Some may get the “burning bush” moment when the message comes through loudly and clearly. Perhaps it’s the voice from the cornfield promising, “Build it and they will come.” For some, it may be the billboard giving clarity: “This is the song you’ve been looking for.” For most, it’s in the normalcy of life that the signs appear. Starting quietly, and only growing if we can tune-in to first consider, and then getting clearer as we begin to respond. Oddly, the signs become most clear when we look back at them through our rearview mirror.
Standing on a platform in front of a crowd of about 500 people on this beautiful Saturday morning, I looked out to see a block of white t-shirts belonging to my Northwind family…including Sally and some of our children and grandchildren. My words disappeared into the microphone as my heart soared with joyful pride. The good kind. Once again, our team showed up when needed, in a way that mattered.
Following the Signs: The Scourge of DiabetesYesterday’s event was the American Diabetes Association’s Step Out Walk to fight diabetes. This is the Indiana version of a national campaign to raise awareness and money for the ADA. Just a few weeks ago, we were invited to participate in this event but we’ve been coming to this moment for years.
First, a few facts on our nation’s growing problem with diabetes:
- 38.4 million Americans have diabetes – that is 11.4% of our population.
- Almost 23% of those with diabetes are undiagnosed.
- 1.2 million are newly diagnosed with diabetes each year.
- Diabetes is the 8th leading cause of death.
- 1 out of every 4 healthcare dollars is spent on the care of people with diabetes.
- Almost 40% of Americans have prediabetes. That is almost 100 million people.
These data points are definitely signs that need to be followed. Diabetes is a metabolic disease centered on how we process sugars in our blood but it’s implications can affect our heart, kidneys, eyes, feet, skin, hearing…you get the picture. For those living with diabetes, it demands constant vigilance with life-threatening consequences if poorly managed. Diabetes generally goes hand-in-hand with obesity which has a 40% prevalence in Americans over 20 years old and many of its own consequences beyond diabetes.
Showing Up Where We are Called“Diabetes is a disease of degrees. Effectively managing those degrees is a life or death proposition. It is also a quality of life proposition. We are here today to support the ADA’s efforts to find answers. How do we eliminate this disease and how do we best manage it?” So began my brief comments to yesterday’s Step Out participants. As I looked at those white shirts, I thought of the St. Anthony of Padua quotation printed in black across the front: Actions speak louder than words; let your words teach and your actions speak. Seeing or hearing the signs is of little use if we don’t respond. Smiling, I considered the action-oriented group in those white t-shirts.
With regard to diabetes, Northwind directly supports thousands of individuals through our Clinical Blueprints – programs that pair medications, supplies, technology, and clinical coaching/support. We launched these about 5 years ago as one of the ways we work to help employers and their employees manage healthcare and its costs. What we’ve learned along the way is just how closely bound human flourishing is with our physical health and the state of mind it drives. When one begins to physically feel better, particularly through his or her own efforts at improvement, everything else in life begins to feel, and look, better.
Disease often attacks hope, and a massive opportunity for those in healthcare is bringing hope in those times that it is elusive. The best sources are signs of progress and the feeling that we’re not in it alone. We all get this. We know it intuitively, but such knowledge seems empty when feelings of frustration and despair grip us. The massive size and complexity of our healthcare system can make it difficult for those needing it to get what they need and for those working within it to give all of which they are able. It takes a lot of work on both sides. To show up ready and able to make a difference is a high call.
To actually make a difference day in and day out in quantifiable and unquantifiable ways is truly miraculous. Thus my smile as I looked at that Northwind team. “They showed up,” I thought. They keep showing up when and where they are needed.
We Really Do Belong to Each OtherA short while later, I found myself standing before that same team at our Fall Picnic. (Sorry Team, lots of listening to me this week-end.) “You showed up,” I said. “You keep showing up and it is making a difference.” We talk a lot about following the signs and showing up. We spend much time and energy interpreting the data we review, planning the strategies to help address challenges, and then acting on it in direct encounters with those who are counting on us. It can become easy to look at the tasks and go into execution mode with single-minded focus on getting things done.
However, when we understand why we’re doing what we’re doing, how it ties to our greater purposes and movements, and what it’s implications truly are, then we can return to the source in a way that enables us to draw energy and redeploy in ways that go beyond the tasks. In this place, we return to the call that was whispered to us through the voices, the data, and all of the signs, appearing in our lives. This source helps us unify our efforts in a way that goes beyond our individual selves and strengthens us for the difficulties and resistance we encounter along the way. Our own, our organization’s, and those being born by the people we serve.
Yesterday, looking at the beautiful collection of individuals gathered in that bigger unity we call Northwind, I was struck by the profound way that we become more in our belonging. We really do belong to each other. Not in a possessive, controlling way, but in a collective responsibility built upon our gifts, capabilities, and unity of purpose. In this way, we are made stronger together and better able to fulfill the duty of our call.
Standing together under a pavilion at a park, it is very easy to see it. Walking out into the broad world, it can get lost. Considering our morning at the ADA Step Out Walk, the broader fight against diabetes, and the possibility that comes from unity of cause and purpose, I realize that we really do belong to each other. Amid all of the complexity of the world around us and within us, there is a lovely simplicity to that notion. Perhaps that’s the brightly blinking sign hidden right in front of us.
Until You’ve Arrived, Just Enough is Never EnoughOne of my nieces recently approached me to talk through her job search. We spoke of her objectives, the types of jobs that interested her, and her approach to launching her professional career in her first post-college job search. I encouraged her to take a networking approach and pointed her in a few directions. As she progressed, she shared a few updates. Over time, I noticed that she would go in spurts. A contact would give her an idea or another connection and she would back-off going to events. A name I gave, responded, and she would stop reaching out to others on the list to see how the first contact played out.
As I watched, I realized that there was always something else she could be doing. Another phone call. Another email. Another event. Another contact. Until she had arrived at the conclusion of her search, there was never too much activity. Yet, like most of us, she would invest just enough to get to the next step of her journey. I often see this in sales-related roles. Faced with an endless horizon of opportunities that require lots and lots of activity to uncover, most development people get a few things in their hopper, and cycle on them to some form of closure before adding more.
This strategy is great if the opportunities you find first, happen to work out. It breaks down quickly if things don’t happen as desired…which is normally the case. When it comes to generating opportunities, we cannot do “too much” to increase our chances of success. However, our normal mindset is to do just enough to give us the feeling that we’re on our way. Growing up, this happens in our schoolwork, our chores, and even our friendships. We study enough to get passable grades, clean up enough to keep mom off our back, and flex enough to remain likable to our friends.
Of course there are exceptions, we also have a wonderful capacity to over-achieve. When we really want something, we’ll do almost anything to get it. Particularly when we’re young, we have amazing energy and an incredible capacity to work really hard. However, our tendency is to pull up short. We have the endurance but it costs a lot to engage it. Sports are a great example. Even when we want to achieve something, we still need coaches to push us beyond “just enough.”
As we get older, we try to live on being “smarter.” We conserve our energy and use leverage to get things done. Over time, we tend to invest less energy and expect greater returns. Here, we begin to succumb to sloth – a malaise brought-on by our resistance to give it all. It’s painful to give it all – we come to a point where we don’t want to press to that edge, let alone beyond it. We calculate and do just enough to get by. But just enough is never enough – at least to flourish. When we aim for just enough, we always come up short of all that might be. It is a failure to steward our gifts and our energy; it is a failure to show up with our best effort.
Ancient monks called sloth the “noon day devil.” That part of the day when the going gets tough – I’m tired, I’m bored, I don’t feel like it. Perhaps I don’t have to put in the work. But it catches up with us. Yes, it shows in our performance and results. However, the worst effects go unseen. It degrades confidence. It lessens joy. It removes the color from our days and prevents satisfaction. It makes our time tasteless, bereft of the flavors that make the feast of life enjoyable. It weakens us and makes us susceptible to disease of heart and mind and soul. And when the inevitable lows come, it leaves us unprepared and vulnerable to the dangers of loss.
Sloth weakens our will and erodes our strength. It causes us to forget our true capacities to create, to build, to push, and to endure. It breaks down fortitude and leaves us gasping when the hits come. It lessens us and makes flourishing impossible. Sloth convinces us that even the things we like to do aren’t worth doing. It makes life uninteresting. It makes things seem pointless. It makes goals feel impossible and people appear as barriers and vampires. The noon day devil is incredibly difficult to escape. It hides behind rationalizations and blame. It whispers and shifts and shimmies. It is a low feeling, a brain cloud, a heavy heart.
The cure is wholeheartedness, an all-in embrace of the life that is ours. To break the feeling requires us to start small and often begins on physical activity. Do something. Get moving. Get active. Volume of activity breaks sloth’s grip. The initial step demands a massive dose of will – the wheels will grind and resist but the rust shakes quickly. Walk toward the thing you don’t want to do. How much do I have to do? Do 2, 3, 4 times what you think you need to do. Push. The more you roll, the more you’ll want to roll.
What is Arrival?Many years ago, I read an interview with a beer entrepreneur – it might have been Jim Koch, the founder of Samuel Adams. In it, he described his moment of arrival: “I was standing on a cliff edge in a national park. Looking down, I noticed one of our bottle caps tossed on the ground. In that moment I knew we had arrived.” The story stayed with me as a very curious way to measure success but it also resonated: we’re so big that one might find remnants of our products as trash in an isolated spot in a national park.
Growing up, I loved to watch the Little Rascals. Sally and I still occasionally talk about an episode in which one of the Little Rascals is frustrated with having to eat mush for his meal. “Someday, when my ship comes in, I’ll never eat mush again,” he proclaims. Later in the episode, we see him sitting in a large, elegant, dining room with all of his friends. The table is set with all the fineries, and attendants bring out large serving platters with silver covers on them. We watch as the Rascals wait with hungry anticipation, while the covers are lifted to reveal fancy bowls filled with mush. Arrival indeed.
What is arrival? Is it a place? A state of mind? A number in a bank account? A bottle cap tossed on the ground in a public park? Is it that perfect job, or just our first “real” job? Maybe it’s knowing you can order any meal you want. Of course, it’s a misnomer, our lives are built on many arrivals…and many departures. For that beer baron, the affirmation of that trashed bottle cap was just a moment. Many arrivals, as well as the desire for more, surely followed his experience in the park.
As time goes on, I’m more inclined to see “arrival” as the point in time when we stop grasping. For what we don’t have. For what we should have or what we see others having. For survival, fulfillment, meaning, the passions that drive us crazy, the limelight or “Like” or positive review. Maybe arrival is when we stop saying “someday” or “when my ship comes in.”
Arrival is some form of enough. A place where we can experience contentment with our condition, place, status, address in the world. Where we surrender how we think it should be and embrace what it is. Not in a white flag, “I give up” kind of way, but in an assent to seeing what is good and true and beautiful in this place, this moment, this reality.
Can we be comfortable in our own skins? Can we trust that we’re not being short-changed, cheated, or duped in our particular reality? Not grasping does not mean sitting back, doing nothing, or giving-in to the “I don’t wanna” of sloth. It’s recognizing that the gift of this moment is enough and the next is just a bonus. It is a perpetual prayer of gratitude, even as we go about climbing the next mountain or charting a course across the open sea. It is recognizing that our grasping is what gives us anxiety, fosters fear, and creates rifts in our relationships.
We think we want arrival. We think we want to solve the puzzle and put the trophy on the shelf. But it is the working at it that makes it meaningful and brings us fully alive. In that sense, there is not, and never should be, enough, AND, we should wake each day seeing that yesterday was, in fact, enough, and that today is just one more gift.
Youth Isn’t WastedOne of the gifts of time and self-reflection is seeing the many opportunities we had to do things differently. One potential burden of such a gift is regret. Another potential burden is feeling like we’re obliged to share our expertise in life’s realities with those following behind. The glorious thing about arriving at this place in our life is that it is ours. All of it. The mistakes, the gifts, the successes, the failures, and everything in between. They are all part of our arriving. And our departing.
There is always more to be done. There is always more to be had. There is always a better way, a woulda, shoulda, or coulda. Yes, there are truly hard realities of life. We have to find our way to putting a roof over our head, feeding our family, and supporting our daily iced carmel macchiato habit. These are the necessities. Beyond such necessities, the world’s an open field of possibilities with extremes in all directions.
A great beauty of life is watching as the things one once thought were important, disappear into the background behind the things one discovers are truly important. The “enough” of yesterday is no longer near the list of priorities, and the “arrival” of today can bring about as much wonder and delight as we ever imagined possible in the things we’ve left behind. What remains are the necessities of our own experience. The way we had to get there, it’s mistakes, and the glory of its discoveries. Each shaping a piece of that blog post we’ll one day write explaining the secret of it all.
A secret we discover that was only meant for us.
Walking in our neighborhood late yesterday afternoon, we noticed dragonflies swarming. Pockets of them appeared in backyards and along the streets, darting, dipping, and weaving, in chaotic patterns across the sky. Looking up, we noticed how high they would fly: over trees and houses in twenties and thirties. On one stretch, we walked west toward the setting sun, their little silhouettes moving forward and backyard, up and down, with precision; as chaotic as the swarm appeared, there was clearly intention, purpose in the movements. Their dance was not random.
On queue, a text with a video appeared on our phones. It was three of our grandchildren, just a few blocks away, running around in their backyard as they followed the dragonflies, chasing them in their own chaotic way. We watched as they flailed their arms, singing and shouting with glee as they ran in circles, dancing in their own ordered chaos. The deepening shadows of their yard cast its own filter across the scene, making it seem to live in the now as well as some other nostalgic past. There was something profoundly elemental in their wonder at these creatures and the mystery of the moment.
Apparently, the magical swarming of the dragonflies is a kind of feeding frenzy that occurs during a seasonal migration. Precision is reality for these hunters as they catch their prey in 9 out of 10 tries and their “dance” reflects the pursuit of mosquitos and other flying insects. To see the dragonfly swarming is to experience the twilight of its existence as it moves from 2-5 years of life as a larvae in water through its six month lifespan as an adult. Sensing the seasons changing, the dragonflies move southward in front of the cold and their own changing season of life.
Watching the dragonflies swarm, and our grandchildren dance among them, I too felt the season changing. Earlier in the day, we celebrated the 85th birthday of Sally’s mom, Sherry. For the last 15 years, the appearance of her birthday has been bittersweet as it’s also the day before the anniversary of the fall leading to the death of her husband, Roy. In Sherry’s card, I wrote of seeing her reflection in my girls, Sally, Madison, and Macy, and the beautiful way her essence appears in their mannerisms, stories, and character. Though there are precise academic and clinical words for such things, to me it is simply a beautiful feature of divine design.
The mysterious life of the dragonfly is ordered to that great design. The chaos of its swarm turns out to be purposeful and precise. Ordered to the pattern of its life, the dragonfly moves to the rhythm of its seasons, taking them as they come, and doing what it does when it is time to do so. Living to its purpose is its good, the reality of which is true, and ultimately beautiful in its fulfillment.
The simplicity of such purpose is profound to behold. The dragonfly, like children dancing, is unencumbered by self-doubt or confusion. Its existence is clarity, and moving within the pattern of that clarity liberates it to be fully what it is. The dawn of our human lives and the twilight offer similar clarity. As children, we move to simpler patterns in unencumbered innocence, following the whimsical and the precise, as we explore the edges of our emerging faculties and their burgeoning responsibility. In our twilight, we return to simplicity as our once urgent wants and needs, retreat before the necessities bound in our limitations and the struggle to navigate them.
As we walked along, the moment reminded Sally of Longfellow’s I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud:
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
We spend so much time anguishing and fearing what it isn’t, what it didn’t, or what it might not, that it becomes easy to miss life’s invitation to dance. Somewhere between the dawn and the twilight, the chaos overwhelms and the simple song of life’s beautiful waltz gets lost. Longfellow goes on:
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
As I write this, a rooster crows as sunlight emerges on the horizon. Another day and the song plays on. For a moment, I’m tempted to chase the list, the tasks, the necessities I see emerging in the day. For a moment. But Longfellow has more:
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
But the temperature is 59 degrees and the cool morning air is unhurried, unburdened with anything but its own necessity. The necessity of being. Even the dance has interludes, though they are still part of the greater drama. Longfellow concludes:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
My mind wanders to my grandchildren, and to my mother-in-law. Dawn and twilight intermingle, cascading stars across the simplicity of life’s grand design and our call to dance with it. To dance within it. Is that necessity I feel or an urging to let it go? The moment passes and I’m left with the song playing across my mind, inviting me to take the floor.
Ice is forming on the tips of my wings,
Unheeded warnings, I thought, I thought of everything.Pink Floyd, Learning to Fly
“You have to know how to fall,” she said earnestly. “People always stiffen up when they need to stay loose and roll with it. I was a cheerleader once, you know. We had to learn how to tumble.” So goes the conversation when one spends an evening sitting next to a beautiful soul who has procured true wisdom over the span of 92 years. “Of course, it doesn’t always work,” she added with great earnestness. I smiled as I replied, “Brilliant. That is going to show up in a blog sometime.” She smiled back, perhaps a little uncertain of what I meant by “blog.”
Falling is serious business, particularly for those over the age of 65. Here are a few facts:
- In the U.S., every 35 minutes, a senior dies following a fall.
- 90% of all hip fractures are related to falling.
- Each year, there are about 3 million emergency room visits and 1 million hospitalizations related to older adults falling.
- Falls are the leading cause of injury related death for seniors.
- 1 in 4 Americans over 65 fall each year.
Falling isn’t reserved for the aged. Visiting my daughter at her college a number of years ago, I walked out of the bookstore looking upward at a building on the quad and missed a step down, causing my own action roll, and relatively quick pop-up with a furtive look around to gauge how just how public my fall was. Curiously, I was literally alone at that moment and very fortunately unharmed. I’m certain my “action roll” wasn’t as graceful as it seemed in my mind. There is always room to learn more about falling with style.
The data for falling suggest that odds are pretty good for most of us that we’re going to trip, stumble, or simply miss a step, at some point and take a tumble – 25% of everyone over 65 falls each year. However, physically falling isn’t the only kind of fall we’re likely to experience. In fact, there is a 100% chance that we will experience multiple falls in our life: falls out of relationships, falls out of jobs, falls out of favor, falls out of hope, or joy, or peace, etc. Our lives as human beings are marked by falls and, physical or not, they are almost always painful.
Reflecting on my friend’s sage counsel related to managing a physical fall, I wonder how we might apply it to the other falls that pepper our existence. How do we stay loose and roll with it when the falls come?
Staying Loose When the Falls ComeOne natural reaction to falling is to “brace for impact.” Perhaps young children give us a hint at how we might approach our reaction to a fall. As I watch my grandchildren run around, I’m always astounded at how they seem to “bounce” with repeated falls. Sure, there are skinned knees and bruises, but on a percentage basis, they are really effective at falling. What’s their secret? They don’t grit their teeth. They don’t brace for impact. They don’t grasp at the situation. Even in a fall, children approach it with open hands.
Let’s face it, as we move along our crazy, bumpy, topsy-turvy, lives, we want the order of control and prefer to have a good grip on, well, everything. When the fall is upon us, we want to grab it and manage it to the proper conclusion. So many of our figurative falls mirror a physical fall: we are literally tumbling through open space and there is nothing to grab on to. However, in trying to grasp onto anything to help break our fall, we often do more damage to ourselves, and quite possibly, to those around us.
Toddler Rule Number One: Don’t grasp, your efforts to grip only add tension.
As we age, we have far less “bounce” in us than we did as children. However, most of the time, they’re not actually “bouncing.” Children have a beautiful way of surrendering to reality. They seem able to assent to circumstances in a way that so many of us have long forgotten. We’ve been convinced that success as an adult is about “making things happen” and “bending the world to our will.” Frank taught us that it’s glamorous and necessary to “do it our way.”
Such self-determination is completely counter to falling well. The toddler wants his or her way as much, or even more, than the most selfish adult, but has the gift of letting go when reality shows the necessary path. The “bounce” happens because his surrender is fast and his desires are redirected in the context of the reality of the situation. There is little lamentation, second guessing, or frustration as his energies are redirected quickly to what is possible.
Toddler Rule Number Two: Be prepared to surrender control when reality demands it. Assent quickens the bounce.
Sometimes, things just happen. We’re walking along and suddenly we trip and fall. However, there are other times when we can see it coming. Time and experience have trained us to keep our eyes open for the pitfalls, collisions, and “other shoes dropping” that mark the human journey. We just know stuff is going to happen. This early warning system can be a real life-saver but it can also exacerbate the impact of our falls.
Anticipating the falls of our lives can bring fear into our minds, hearts, and limbs. The hardening of soul and sinew that comes from the fear of what might happen can be worse than any amount of grasping or thrashing. Fear literally makes us brittle. It causes stiffness across our entire being, setting us up for a broken heart or broken will as surely as hitting a wall can break our bones. Fear is natural and necessary, however, learning to balance our circle of real influence with that greater circle of concern where things sit outside our influence is critical to staying loose when the fall comes.
Toddler Rule Number Three: A little fearlessness goes a long way in staying relaxed for the falls that inevitably come.
Rolling With ItConsidering my fall on the campus quad, there were two thoughts going through my head as I moved through it: Did I hurt something? Did anyone see me? Falls are going to happen and with them, there will be injuries. Our hearts, wills, and bodies, will break along the way. What does the toddler have to show us about these realities?
First of all, any injury sends the toddler looking for mom or dad or nanny. With the hurt comes the need for comfort and counsel. Injuries need tending. The wounds we endure require healing and we must be ready to call in help to manage them. There is no going-it-alone and all the self-reliance in the world amounts to little when we are broken.
Toddler Rule Number Four: When injury happens, seek help.
The good news is that many falls may occur but they won’t all cause major injury. At least physically. The next great danger is to our pride, and our ability to roll with it is often hampered by the sense of self that reacts to the fall. Did we stumble on our own or did we have some help? Falling by our own ignorance, mistake, or misstep, can be a devastating blow to self-esteem. Looking around as we are lying on the ground, do we see others laughing at our faltering? Perhaps even worse, do we see a look of horror in their eyes as they witness our fall?
Pride is such a tricky beast. It is both the vision we have of ourself and the expectation we have of the world to see it the same way. When our vision of self is impacted by a fall or we believe the world outside now sees us as less, the initial fall threatens to spiral further. The toddler is unburdened by such self regard. Facing the reality of the fall, embracing the need for healing, or picking herself up and motoring on, she sees it simply as it is: a bump in the road. It is just part of being and she feels no less for it.
Toddler Rule Number Five: You are not your fall.
Infinity and BeyondIn 1995’s Toy Story, toy cowboy, Woody, confronts the competing new toy, Buzz Lightyear, and all of his fancy gadgetry, by saying “That’s not flying, that’s just falling with style.” I wonder, is falling with style a form of flying?
Buzz Lightyear’s flying was his version of flourishing, a place in which he was operating at his peak self. Thinking of my 92-year-old friend and her long life, I realize that she has mastered the art of falling with style. She had to, otherwise there is no way she would have been at that table telling me about it. May we all find such a path to our own flourishing.
This week, I share my third and final reflection (at least for now) on Dante’s Divine Comedy. We’ve descended into the depths of Inferno, climbed the steep sides of Purgatorio, and now ascend into Paradiso. With Dante, and Beatrice, as our guides, we seek the pearls of great price to be applied in our own lives.
Light Through the GlassDriving down 96th Street, the familiar surroundings passed unnoticed to my eyes, clouded in fear and doubt, unable to focus on anything but the impending collision of our livelihood into the rocks of an emerging financial reality. My mind spinning, I wondered aloud, “how is this possible?” already knowing the answer and it’s seventy-seven antecedents. Building a business is difficult, so very uncertain, and loss of revenue exists as a perpetually looming threat to the fragile ecosystem of inputs and outputs that sustains any ongoing enterprise. Limping up the stairs of our empty house, I felt my own failure desperately anchored to the two-ton black monkey digging its nails into my back. “There’s no getting out of this one,” I muttered to myself, stumbling into the bedroom, hoping a heavy blanket and closed eyes would calm the nausea building in my stomach.
Between me and the bed stood a bright ray of sunlight streaming through the blinds of our northwesterly facing window, creating an angular sword-stroke of luminescence cutting across my path. Drawn to my knees in broken humility, my hands came together prayerfully as I closed my eyes and released the well of tears pooling at the corners of my eyes, “Father in heaven, I trust you. I need your help. I want our business to survive but I trust you to take us where we need to be. Please show me the way, help me to see your will and the path forward. I release my failings to you and surrender my ambitions to your will.”
The light was intense upon my closed eyelids, and I had the strangest sensation of the burning orange growing, coming closer, overshadowing me in its fiery luminosity. My heartbeat slowed. My tense fingers loosened their prayer-tuned grip. Deep breaths: in and out, in and out. There was only silence and my gentle easing into peacefulness. Having lost any sense of time, I opened my eyes to a softer sun, set lower behind the tall trees. Alone and steadied, I returned to the room, the reality of the moment, and the pragmatic. A soft whisper in my mind said, “There is always a way forward and, no matter what, all will be well.”
Moving up into Paradiso, Dante the pilgrim continues his search for the deepest truths as he ascends among the souls of heaven, now playing to the Divine song in the light of Truth itself. “So I, directly to the shimmering that spoke, and when it heard it grew more bright, such the delight it gleaned in listening” (Paradiso, Canto 5, Lines 130-132). Light and luminescence permeate Dante’s heaven, and we encounter souls glowing in their reflection of God’s love. “The holy figure in a happy blaze concealed himself by his bright reveling and from within those secret secret rays responded as the following song will sing” (Paradiso, Canto 5, Lines 136-139).
The songs that follow Dante through Paradiso echo God’s loving whisper through the wisdom offered by these souls who have secured their place in Eternity. The light moving in and among them illuminates their actions on earth, amid trial and suffering, to their great cosmic ends, while pointing toward an ongoing opening of Divine revelation in heaven itself. Paradiso’s theme of sun and light is hopeful and revelatory, assuring that the faithful choices, and trust, displayed in our temporal lives reflects onto our soul’s journey afterward, suffused with the Grace-filled opportunity to grow further through discovery in the infinite mystery of God.
Mysterious WaysAt the heart of Dante’s journey through the Divine Comedy has been a quest for the True, the Good, and the Beautiful, initiated in his mortal affections for the now eternal Beatrice. Finding her at last atop Mount Purgatory, Dante begins to learn how much more he must learn, particularly about his temporal love for her. Considering Dante’s experience with Beatrice, the rock band, U2, gives us some mortal perspective:
Johnny, take a dive with your sister in the rain Let her talk about the things you can’t explain
To touch is to heal, to hurt is to steal
If you want to kiss the sky, better learn how to kneel
On your knees, boyShe’s the wave, she turns the tide
She sees the man inside the childIt’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right
She moves in mysterious ways, yeah
It’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right– U2, Mysterious Ways
Eyes still blinded by the Divine light of Paradiso, Dante is quickly level-set by Beatrice on the deficits of his mortal perspective: “You’re making your mind dull with false imagining – you don’t perceive what you would see, if you could shake it off. You are not on earth, as you believe. Lightning that flees its proper realm is not so swift as your returning to your own.” (Paradiso, Canto 1, Lines 88-93). Mysterious ways indeed! Whatever we imagine of our Eternal home, falls far short of the spiritual realities He has waiting for us. Dante began his journey seeking a path beyond the beasts blocking his way, a path beyond the sin holding him back from his ultimate desire, represented in Beatrice, the symbol of the Fulfillment of All Desire. Now past the descent through hell and ascent through purgatory, Dante finds the limits of his mortal knowledge in its comprehension of God’s providence.
Encountering Saint Thomas Aquinas in the fourth circle of Paradiso, the sun, Dante is counseled by the wise saint: “People besides should never be too sure of what they judge, like farmers in the corn who count their crop before ears mature. For I’ve seen all the winter a bare thorn looking like nothing but a stiff rough stick, whose crown would blossom when the rose was born, And I have seen a vessel sleek and quick, racing through all its course along the main, founder as it was putting into port. So let no Master Dick and Lady Jane, seeing one rob, another give his all, think they can see with providence divine, Because the one can rise, the other fall” (Paradiso, Canto 13, Lines 130-142).
Many years from the fiery orange glow overshadowing closed eyelids in my sunlit bedroom, I found myself standing at the base of the Cruz de Ferro, the pole and iron cross standing nearly 5,000 feet above sea level atop Monte Irago along the Camino de Santiago. Now 650 miles into the journey and considering what I would leave at the foot of this iconic symbol of the Way, I realized that, though we came on this journey seeking God through the places and people of this pilgrimage, it was He who had found us. Like Dante’s journey through Inferno and Purgatorio, our Camino started as our quest to unify our suffering to Jesus’ Way of the Cross, but we discovered that it was, in fact, God’s quest to conform us to himself.
Thus is Dante moved in Paradiso from the particularities of sin and purgation to the higher refinements of conformity to God’s perfect will. Dante’s search for Goodness, Truth, and Beauty, results in that glorious Trinity finding, refining, and ultimately revealing to him the salvific insight into the gift of free will: “The greatest gift God made for any creature by His own bounty, gift most perfectly like His own excellence, gift He hold most dear, Was from the first the will at liberty: all creatures made to be intelligent were and are so endowed, and only they” (Paradiso, Canto 5, Lines 19-24).
Beatrice proceeds to enlighten Dante by describing vows in the context of this extraordinary gift and why they are irrevocable, ultimately setting up the spiritual logic of Christ’s paschal sacrifice. “You’ll see, then from this line of argument, the high value of vows if they’re so made that God consents as soon as you consent. For when both God and man have sealed the pact they slay this treasure in a sacrifice, and do so, as I say, by a free act. What could restore the loss, what could suffice” (Paradiso, Canto 5, Lines 25-31)? The free will we refused Him in the Fall, could only be restored in Jesus’ sacrifice. We, and Dante, in our mortal knowledge, set out seeking our Creator according to our understanding and with the designs of our desires. Dante reminds us that, all along our journey, and hidden in the mysterious ways of His own designs, God has been seeking us, and our heart, in the sacrifice of our free will to him.
The Flesh is WeakNot so long after descending from the Cruz de Ferro, I found myself in conversation with a very charming, and intelligent, investor. He had approached me, impressed with what he saw as a successful company and fascinated by the potential he saw in helping us grow our business. He spoke of growth, investment, impact, and valuations. Early in our conversations, I asked him if he believed in God and he shared stories of his family life, commitment to attending church, and priorities as a man. I saw signs and serendipity in our paths crossing and began to follow him down the path he showed me. During one of his visits, while he was again speaking of investments and exits, Luke 4:5-6 came to my mind:
5 Then he took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a single instant.
6 The devil said to him, “I shall give to you all this power and their glory; for it has been handed over to me, and I may give it to whomever I wish.”
With that warning, the insidiously twisting nature of the process revealed itself as I watched all conversations around the purpose of my business shift from the mission of improving health to the mission of maximizing investor value. Promises of a “long game exit” turned into a focus on short-term decisions to increase profit and quickly “demonstrate increasing EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes depreciation, and amortization).” I woke up to the realization that my original good intentions of doing more, impacting more, and truly changing lives, had been lost among the “what if’s” and “we could’s” of ideas centered on what a windfall bright bring. The velvety possibility of “more” had changed the fundamental nature of “why.”
Now in the sphere of Saturn, Dante the pilgrim encounters Saint Benedict, lamenting corruption within the monasteries he had founded so many years before: “Unto that height he saw this ladder rise, patriarch Jacob, with its topmost parts, and angels swift to duty. But these days No one wishes to climb it, no one starts one foot from off the earth, and so my rule’s nothing but parchment fit to throw away. Where there was once a chapel, now the halls are dens for thieves; and sacks of wormy grain, sacks brimming over, are the brothers’ cowls” (Paradiso, Canto 22, Lines 70-78). Dante the poet saw how the goodness of the monastic orders of his day had fallen from service to those most in need to satisfying the mortal appetites of those meant to serve.
How does this happen? The worldly success of the monasteries brought the possibility of more: more money, more power, more comfort. Saint Benedict continues, “The flesh of mortal beings is so weak, on earth a good beginning may not hold long enough to bring acorns from the oak.” (Paradiso, Canto 22, Lines 85-87). Even the best intentions find themselves challenged in the face of such temptations. Later, Beatrice provides more perspective on the challenge of worldly desires, “Cupidity! You who drown mortal men so far beneath you, no one has the power to lift his eyes out of your waves again! Good will in man is born and comes to flower, but the rains ever battering the ground swell the true plums and turn them soft and sour. For faith and innocence are only found among the children – but they flee at last, even before the down is on the cheek” (Paradiso, Canto 27, Lines 121-127).
Earlier, in Canto 26, and speaking to a blinded Dante, Saint John asks, “Begin, and tell to what felicity your soul aspires as to its single end. It’s well your sight has only gone astray, not died…” (Paradiso, Canto 26, Lines 7-10). Saint John is asking Dante: what is your center? What do you truly desire? A particular beauty of the Divine Comedy is in how it sustains the binary tension between pursuing the “good” and competing worldly desires, our human concupiscence, that makes attaining the “good” so difficult. Saint John presses Dante to explain his desire. “For good, as it is good, and known as good, enkindles love, and lights love all the more according to the good it comprehends” (Paradiso, Canto 26, Lines 28-30). God is the most desirable good. “For this world’s very being, and my own, the death He suffered so that I might live, the joy that I and all believing men Hope for, with that sure knowledge ever alive, have drawn me from the ocean that deceives and set me on the shores of the true love” (Paradiso, Canto 26, Lines 58-63). Thinking back to my brush with a different destiny, or at least a really bumpy ride down the primrose path, I see the tension in my own temptation to worldly desire and the call to a greater destiny; one unified with God’s mysterious purposes in His will for me, the business, and for those sharing in our mutual journey.
Every Longing Ripe and PerfectAfter over 500 miles and six weeks of walking, we entered the Plaza del Obradoiro, the square lying to the west of the main façade of the Cathedral de Santiago de Compostela – the culmination of the ancient pilgrimage known as the “Way of St. James.” The “golden square” was packed with peregrinos, many of whom we had seen along the way, including some of our “inner circle” with whom we had shared much of the journey. “You made it!” We were tired and exultant as we embraced each other and many of those special souls we had accompanied on the journey. I thought of Sven, a young man we had encountered a couple of weeks earlier and his response to my question, “What are you looking forward to in Santiago?” He responded, “Seeing all of the people I have encountered on the Camino.”
Sally and I had spoken much about this thought as we considered our arrival into Santiago. The pilgrimage, and it’s culmination, seemed a metaphor for moving through life with the hope of an eternal arrival. His answer spoke to the very human desire to be reunited with those we’ve loved, and lost, along our way. The joy of reunion with all our friends did not disappoint, but it passed. Quickly. Within twenty minutes, everyone had moved on, most to not be seen by us again. Leaving from our hotel on the square two days later, we shouted “Alto!” to our cab driver as we saw Sven, limping through the rain into a completely empty plaza. Jumping out of the car, we greeted him warmly, welcoming him and simultaneously bidding him farewell. Driving off, I wondered how disappointed he must have felt in his arrival, bereft of a throng of friends waiting for him.
Entering the tenth circle of Heaven, the Empyrean, Dante finds himself “enveloped in a live gleaming of light that veiled me in a veil so vivid all around, I lost all sight” (Paradiso, Canto 30, Lines 49-51). Soothed by Divine grace, his eyes are opened in a deeper way: “And I beheld a stream, A river of flashing light that flowed between two shores the spring had touched with wondrous hues, dappled with glimmerings of a golden sheen. And from that river living glints arose to settle on the banks with stippling blooms like rubies in a rounding ring of gold” (Paradiso, Canto 30, Lines 60-66). Having ascended through nine previous circles to this tenth and final level of Heaven, the pilgrim was now standing amid “an ocean filled by one reflecting ray,” a wide ring of light. Looking around he remarks, “…standing above the light surrounding me I saw in far more than a thousand rows the mirroring of the souls that had returned to Paradise…” (Paradiso, Canto 30, Lines 112-114). But it is not reunion on Dante’s mind: “Neither the height nor vastness swept away my clear perception, for I saw that joy in all its quantity and quality” (Paradiso, Canto 30, Lines 118-120). Those souls reflected Divine joy, and drew him all the more fully toward the fulfillment of all desires.
Dante the pilgrim’s heavenly journey is soon complete, but the journey of his life is not over. The pilgrim, newly educated in God’s salvific plan for him, must return to his temporal existence, and fight the good fight of his own salvation. Like Dante, we had to return. Our arrival and reunion in Santiago were a short-lived, temporarily satisfying, glimpse of Heaven. We recognized, in our longing to return to our children and our grandchildren, another glimpse of Heaven, imperfectly mirroring the longing for our Creator built into us. Standing at the edge of the Beatific Vision, Beatrice tells Dante, “The flames of longing, flames that now impel, urging you on to learn more of what you see, delight me all the more the more they swell, But such a thirst you cannot satisfy before you’ve drunk the water of this spring” (Paradiso, Canto 30, Lines 70-74).
Augustine wrote long ago of the restless hunger for God embedded in our hearts. In the Comedia, Dante has taken on us a journey down through all the sinful disorder we can imagine, back up through the heights of God’s mercy, and into the cosmic brightness of eternity, to show us a glimpse of the Unimaginable. He affirms that the thirsts of this life cannot ultimately be satisfied by anything less than our Creator. Within it all, Dante reminds us that we cannot do it alone and that, while we are looking for God in our own lives, we must open our hearts to receive, so he may find us, lovingly guide us, and forgive us when we fail. Midway in the journey of our lives, we still have the opportunity to find, and to be found, if we can keep our eyes on Him, recognize the limits of our own knowledge, and trust that His will is the perfect will for us.
Welcome to Part II of my three part reflection on Dante’s Divine Comedy. My goal is to offer a modern reflection on each of the Comedia’s three books and share some insights into Dante’s brilliant and profound epic poem. I’ve headlined this post with a 2004 painting by Sandow Birk entitled “On the Steps of Purgatory.”
Crossing the street in a mass of bodies, I saw the line of humanity stretching from a large doorway half a block away. Winding its way around landscaping and street vendors, the line proceeded to turn the corner and continue west to the horizon of my vision, disappearing in traffic and streetlights. I could feel the irritation welling within me, a visceral repulsion to the scene of people, the din of their voices, the seemingly endless line, and the waiting. Walking along the cheerfully buzzing throng behind bodies in no apparent hurry to claim their last position in the line as a cheerful nun encouraged over a bullhorn, I resisted the urge to turn around and leave. Fighting (mostly unsuccessfully) against the broadening grimace on my face, I forced myself to cover the nearly three city blocks to the end of the growing line. Looking at Sally, I felt the immediate sting of shame in her patient recognition of my impatience.
Later that night, kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament alongside 55,000 other Catholics in a cavernous football stadium made sacred, Dante the pilgrim came to my mind. Standing on the shores of Mount Purgatory, the pilgrim sees a bright and dazzling sight coming across the water: “The heavenly pilot stood before the bow; beatitude seemed written on his face. More than a hundred souls sat toward the prow: ‘When from the land of Egypt Israel came,’ they sang together in a single voice, with all the verses written in that psalm. He blessed them with the signal of the Cross, and they cast themselves upon the beach…” (Purgatorio, Canto 2, Lines 43-50). The pilgrims around me looked heavenward toward the monstrance below, filled with desire, a hunger for the Eternal.
Modern culture has fostered a disordered relationship between our desires, the notion of satisfaction, and timing. Ours is a world in which we suffer from FOMO (fear of missing out), fueled by the urgency of knowing that YOLO (you only live once), even as we create “bucket lists” feeling that we need to “live like we are dying.” The intersection of these social forces fosters a rapacious hunger demanding to be sated, often at great cost, with the short-sightedness of beasts instinctively following their animal appetites. We are driven by these unseen needs welling within us, unaware of their source, compelled by their urgency, and dissatisfied in their fulfillment. Impatiently baying for satisfaction, we resent the delays even as we retain the hunger which cannot be gratified in the many things we chase at its prompting.
The following morning, Monsignor James Shea quoted Amos 8:11, “See, days are coming—oracle of the Lord GOD—when I will send a famine upon the land: Not a hunger for bread, or a thirst for water, but for hearing the word of the LORD.” From there, he spoke of this recurring hunger present through salvation history, as well as the impatience of God’s people. “The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died at the LORD’s hand in the land of Egypt, as we sat by our kettles of meat and ate our fill of bread! But you have led us into this wilderness to make this whole assembly die of famine” (Exodus 16:3)! Thousands of years later, the story has not changed. The hunger, and the impatience, remain.
In Purgatorio, Dante the pilgrim lands among souls destined for heaven but required to purge the remnants of disordered desires from their earthly existence. Finding himself on the ring of wrath, Dante gets a lesson in hunger and satisfaction from Virgil: “Because your longings focus on a point where company would lessen each man’s share, envy blows up its bellows for your sighs. But if love for the highest heavenly sphere had wrung your yearnings, turning them above, your breast wouldn’t be troubled by such fear, For there, the more who say, ‘This joy is ours,’ the more joy is possessed by every soul, the more that cloister burns in charity” (Purgatorio, Canto 15, Lines 49-57). Now even hungrier to be satisfied, Dante asks, “For how can something good, if shared by more, make each ones portion richer in its worth than if the same thing were possessed by few” (Purgatorio, Canto 15, Lines 61-63)?
Dante speaks for modern man as well, as we struggle to believe there will be enough for us while we watch others receive, making us even more impatient to be satisfied. Virgil explains the heavenly physics of abundance, “And the more souls that burn in Heaven above, as mirrors flashing light on one another, the more there is for all of them to love” (Purgatorio, Canto 15, Lines 73-75). How do we know when our impatient desire is disordered? Dante shows us that, by God’s math, well ordered desires center on things that multiply when given away.
“So what?” asked Father Mike Schmitz later that night, as he took the stage at the National Eucharistic Congress. “In their hunger, Adam and Eve broke the world,” he continued. Impatient, fearful that they might be missing out, they disobeyed to satisfy a desire for something good, that in their disobedience, became disordered. Later, Father Mike added, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. The Eucharist is a beautiful gift, but it doesn’t end as a gift of sacrifice. We must repent.” In Canto 17, Virgil offers some insights on love and the ordering of desires: “Not the Creator nor a single creature, as you know, ever existed without love, the soul’s love or the love that comes by nature. The natural love is just and cannot rove. The soul’s love strays if it desires what’s wrong or loves with too much strength, or not enough” (Purgatorio, Canto 17, Lines 91-96). That original impatient desire, a love for a good, made bad out of disobedience, broke the world.
Virgil goes on, “Now understand the other, too, the love which, though its order’s been corrupted, pursues the good. Each soul can dimly see the one good that will lay the heart at rest; this it desires, and struggles valiantly to join with it” (Canto 17, Lines 125-129). Dante understands disordered hunger, even hunger for a good. Purgatorio is the path of the repentant. “Other good things there are – not the good Being, not our blessed Joy, the root of all good things, and their fruition. The love that yields itself too much to these (lesser goods) is mourned for in three circles toward the top” (Purgatorio, Canto 17, Lines 133-137). As he moves us up the mountain of repentance and purgation, Dante shows us that, our restless, impatient, hungers, even for that which is a good, become sin when they are not ordered toward God’s ultimate goodness.
“He moved his feathers, fanning us a breeze, asserting that all they who mourn are blest, whose souls will be consoled, and dwell at ease” (Purgatorio, Canto 19, Lines 49-51). With that, another peccato (sin) was purged from Dante the pilgrim, as he climbed to the fifth cornice. Sitting in a massive hall with about 5,000 other pilgrims, I listened as Sister Josephine Garrett spoke of hunger and the wounds so often sitting behind it. As with Dante’s pilgrims, this group, aware of sin and its wounds, climbed imperfectly toward redemption. “Healing begins with repentance,” said Sister Josephine, “but we struggle to be patient as God does His work.” There it was again, patience. Why must I carry this? Where are You? Why haven’t You shown up yet? Impatience is fuel on the fire of incontinence and an anchor on the climb of redemption: in desire, rapaciously claiming its love, and in suffering, lamenting the healing thorn in our side.
Back on the mountain, Dante encounters an old friend, Forese, who gives us an insight on patience: “And all these people singing in their pain weep for immoderate service of the throat, and thirst and hunger make them pure again. The odor of the fruit and of the spray splashing its fragrant droplets in the green kindle desire in us to eat and drink. And many a time along this turning way we find the freshening of our punishment, our punishment – our solace, I should say, For that same will now lead us to the tree as once led the glad Christ to say, ‘My God,’ when by His opened veins He set us free” (Purgatorio, Canto 23, Lines 64-75). Patient suffering by the starving soul speaks to the ordering of desire and the healing nature of that process. In this way, the temporal nature of Purgatory reminds us that time is necessary for our wounds to heal, for our hungers to be sated, and for patient trust to become a pathway to joy in our journey.
In The Seven Story Mountain, Thomas Merton gives powerful witness to the unifying power of the desire – the thirst – that sacrificially binds us to God, as he describes the death of his brother after a plane crash in WWII: “He was very badly hurt: maybe his neck was broken. He lay in the bottom of the dinghy in delirium. He was terribly thirsty. He kept asking for water. But they didn’t have any. The water tank had broken in the crash, and the water was all gone. It did not last too long. He had three hours of it, and then he died. Something of the three hours of the thirst of Christ Who loved him, and died for him many centuries ago, and had been offered again that very day, too, on many altars” (The Seven Storey Mountain, Merton, Page 443).
Moving up into the ring of lust, Dante the pilgrim encounters more souls: “O you who are no slower in desire but walk behind to show your reverence, respond to me, who burn in thirst in fire. I’m not alone in needing your response – everyone here is thirsting for it more than Indians or Ethiopians Thirst for cold water” (Purgatorio, Canto 26, Lines 16-22)! Such thirst, hunger, and suffering, are made redemptive in their joining to Christ’s suffering. Considering the passing of his brother, Merton closes a poem with the following stanza:
For in the wreckage of your April Christ lies slain,
And Christ weeps in the ruins of my spring:
The money of Whose tears shall fall
Into your weak and friendless hand,
And buy you back to your own land:
The silence of Whose tears shall fall
Like bells upon your alien tomb.
Hear them and come: they call you home.
Now, close to Earthly Paradise, a final shade responds to Dante: “So pleasing to me is your fine request, I neither can nor wish to hide my face. I am Arnaut, who walk and sing in tears. I see too well the folly of my days, and see, with joy and hope, the joy ahead. And so I beg of you, by that same power that leads you to the summit of the stairs, at the just time recall my sufferings. At that he hid in the refining fire” (Purgatorio, Canto 26, Lines 140-148). In the end, we can find joy in the thirst and patient suffering, but only if we can unite it to a higher purpose, just like those souls in Dante’s Purgatorio, waiting for their liberation into Paradise.
Confessing my own impatience late the night of the closing of the National Eucharistic Congress, I too found myself liberated. Thousands of pilgrims descended upon Indianapolis, each climbing his or her own cornice of Mount Purgatory, each possessing the many hungers that grip us in our earthly lives, and each feeling the sorrow of those which have become disordered. For each of us, Dante’s Purgatorio offers an eternal message of hope amid the failings that mark our days. We are designed to hunger for Him who made us, and though we will continue to pursue our loves imperfectly and often impatiently, His sacrifice for us has made redemption possible for all those who can see their own need to repent.
For this, Dante offers his closing words: “But because now the pages set upon this second canticle’s loom are all complete, the rein of art prevents my writing on. From its most holy waters I returned as remade as a new young plant appears renewed in every newly springing frond, Pure, and in trim for mounting to the stars” (Purgatorio, Canto 33, Lines 139-145).
What might a 720-year-old epic poem offer the working professional, parent, teacher, healthcare worker, or leader of the 21st Century? Plenty. I recently completed a course on Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, a journey through Inferno, Purgatory, and into Paradise through the lens of this 14th Century poet. The work, comprised of three books with the names above, is a tour de force of poetic form, historical commentary, philosophical exploration, psychological insight, and theological reflection. For the me, the books have provided a profoundly revelatory burst of intellectual curiosity and I will be contemplating Dante’s wisdom and insight for years to come. There is far too much to unpack in a few posts but I wanted to offer a bit deeper dive into these works through a modern reflection on each book offered over the next three weeks. Whether or not you’ve journeyed into the Divine Comedy, I hope this piques your curiosity and inspires deeper reflection on some of the insights I’ve gleaned from his brilliant work.
What’s the Point? A Journey Into Dante’s InfernoLooking at me sincerely, she replied, “Jesus wants your heart.” After reading 34 Cantos, watching 34 videos and a documentary, reading thousands of words of supplementary material, and participating in four robust class discussions on Dante and The Inferno, I found myself spinning in the facts, characters, imagery, opinion, history, and legend, of this classic work and its author. The layers and intricacies astounded and confounded me. I found myself stuck, frozen in the Cocytus under the flapping wings of Lucifer in my own lead-lined cloak of gold, hypocritically grasping for complete understanding even as I critiqued Ulysses’ sin, suspecting it more than slightly reflective of Dante’s own disordered quest for knowledge.
Sensing profundity hidden behind the veiled references and clever rhyme, I grasped, frustrated, asking, “What’s the point?” Sally’s pronouncement landed like a thunderous punch from the giant, Antaeus, shaking the 9th Circle of Hell. The voices of numerous scholarly commentators came to my mind, counseling a reading of The Divine Comedy knowing it is also reading me. The Inferno is the first leg of Dante’s spiritual journey which will ultimately lead him to Paradise and the fulfillment of all desires in the Beatific Vision. “Jesus wants your heart,” she repeated. The Inferno suddenly had purpose beyond the facts and figures, for me and for those who move in the world with me. The words of my patient wife chased chaos away like a terza rima wave artistically ordering the thoughts of the Poet.
Waking the following morning, a Pope Benedict XVI reflection transported me on this Feast Day of Saint Benedict of Nursia, into the vision that led the Saint up the mountain to a tower and into the upper room – symbolic of Jesus’ Last Supper with the Apostles. Here, Saint Benedict looked out the single window to see the wall of the world removed while earth and heaven were revealed. Dante’s vision in the Divine Comedy reflects heaven and earth, as well as the distance between. The Inferno is a revelation of what sits in between: sin and its distancing effect from the Bread of Life. Saint Benedict’s efforts to preserve Roman texts through the ending of the Roman Empire, gave the pilgrim Dante access to Virgil, Dante the poet’s heavenly choice to guide him through the Inferno, eight hundred years later. Saint Benedict also gave the world The Rule, a book on structure and order which, not only underpinned Benedictine monastic life, but served as the blueprint for European civilization post Roman Empire, and points to the structure and order of the Inferno. Both echo the ordered symmetry of Creation, the fashion in which God brings cosmos from chaos.
Dante builds his epic on mathematical structure and order, using terza rima, a rhyming structure built on three-line stanzas, to symbolize the Trinity. Is it random chance that Saint Benedict’s Feast Day falls on our last day of discussion of the Inferno? For Dante, Fortune is a general minister of God, “scrambling now and then the empty goods from race to race, from one blood to another, past all defense man’s shrewdness might devise” (Canto VII, 78-80). In Dante’s universe, even chance answers to God’s great plan. From across the centuries, Saint Benedict pronounces his first rule, “Ausculto” or listen, challenging us to hear God’s voice and see the Divine threads crossing time from his vision to Dante’s Inferno, and what it can tell us today.
We’ve Lost Our Sense of SinDante starts the Inferno, “Midway upon the journey of our life.” A place where he realizes: “I found myself in a dark wilderness, for I had wandered from the straight and true.” Nearly a thousand years later, sixties singer Norman Greenbaum reflects the spirit of modernity in Spirit in the Sky, “Never been a sinner, I never sinned. I got a friend in Jesus.” Looking around, Dante sees a path to Heaven, but realizes his way is blocked by a leopard (excessive appetite), a lion (representing bestial violence), and then a ravenous she-wolf (representing avarice, fraud, and treachery). Sin has beset him, barring his way to paradise, and only the appearance of Virgil, sent by Beatrice in Paradiso, saves the pilgrim Dante from these beasts.
Modern culture has relegated sin to the guilt-ridden dogma of backward religion. “I’ve never been a sinner” might be a cultural slogan telling us there should be no guilt, and even those believing in Jesus often see him as the friendly hippy, loving everyone without judgment – just or otherwise. American culture in particular festers in a pool of subjective truth, affirming that “I’m alright and you’re alright,” in whatever ways we choose to live our lives. Our hyper-focus on individual rights and self-determination has obscured objective truth, and the very real dangers to our humanity, and our soul, when we guide our lives by our everchanging desires. “In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes” (Judges 17:6).
For the modern Catholic on his or her own journey, as well as the budding evangelist, one of Dante’s lasting gifts is to give us a dimensional perspective on the nature of sin as a barrier to eternal joy as well as earthly happiness. The image of hell in the Inferno gives us both geography and topography, evoking a sense of distance and depth. Approaching the city of Dis, Dante observes, “We sped along into the deep-trenched moats that fortify that never-solaced land, the city seemed to loom with iron walls” (Canto 8, Lines 76-78). Here, hell consumes space with ominous, imposing presence. “At the edge of a ring of broken stones, heaped in a tumble down to the steep pit, we came upon a crueler pack of woe, where for the horrid overwhelming stink belched up out of the depths of the abyss…” (Canto 11, Lines 1-5). Dante takes us on a sensual journey into the depths of sin as he paints a picture of a world so very distant from goodness, and He who is goodness.
In his writing and speaking, Bishop Robert Barron frequently references “spiritual physics,” suggestive of the Divine playbook and its fixed set of rules governing our spiritual lives in cause-and-effect fashion. Dante vividly demonstrates these spiritual physics with contrapasso, a reflection of natural law in that every sinful choice has an equal and fitting punishment. “Stuck in the mire they say, ‘Sullen we were up in the sweet air gladdened by the sun, bearing a sluggish smoke within our hearts. Now we are sullen in this black bog here.’ Such is the hymn they gargle in the throat. They cannot get the words out whole and clear” (Canto 7, Lines 121-126). Dante names the sin, evokes its heaviness, and describes its contrapasso, it’s punishment: they are literally stuck in the mire of hell as they were emotionally stuck on earth, unable to intelligibly describe any just source for their melancholy. These equal and fitting contrapasso appear in all nine Circles of Hell, each one depicting the earthly sin and its matching punishment for the unrepentant sinner.
The spiritual physics become more intense as we go deeper. In the 10th ditch of the 8th Circle of Hell, Dante shows us the falsifiers: “Down toward the bottom, where the minister of God on high, Justice infallible, punishes counterfeits who’s sins on earth It enters in its book. No greater gloom did all the sick of Aegina behold, when the air was so full of pestilence” (Canto 29, Lines 55-58). He goes on to describe their punishment: “And I’ve not seen a currycomb so fast scrubbed by the stable boy whose master’s coming, or by one waked against his will to hurry, As did each soul rake himself with the bite of fingernails in the great maddening itch, itch that will never find relief or rest…” (Canto 29, Lines 76-80). The itch for more, driven by falsification on earth, translates to an eternal itch scratched endlessly without satisfaction. Dante’s powerfully sensual descriptions affirms the temporal dissatisfaction in the sin and its eternal consequence.
Sin is Progressively CorruptingThe structure of the Inferno reflects a descending progression into worsening sin. Upper Hell is composed of Circles 2 through 4 describing sins of incontinence, or excessive appetite, resulting in lust, gluttony, avarice, and prodigality. These sins are disordered desires for sex, wealth, power, and prestige – the things of the world that, in moderation, can be good but in sin turn to excess. Dante’s prowess as a poet, insights as a repenting Catholic exiled from his home, and experience as a sinner, reveal themselves in the Inferno. In one story from Francesca, a young lover caught in adulterous lust, we hear: “One day we two were reading for delight about how love had mastered Lancelot; were alone and innocent and felt No cause to fear. And as we read, at times we went pale, as we caught each other’s glance, but we were conquered by one point alone. For when we read that the much-longed-for smile accepted such a gentle lover’s kiss, this man, who nothing will divide from me, trembled to place his lips upon my mouth. A pander was that author, and his book” (Canto 5, Lines 127-137)! Francesca’s tale reveals the danger of human frailty, naively caught in a near-occasion, in which passion overtakes reason, and the brokenness of which all humanity is prone, is revealed. Murdered in the act by her husband, she could not repent and now sits in Hell, doomed to blame love, and the writer of a story, for the choice she made.
From there, the Inferno moves to Middle Hell, composed of Circles 5 through 7, holding those guilty of sins of violence, against others, against oneself, and against God. In the second round of the 7th Circle, we find the spoilers and suicides. The pilgrim Dante plucks off a branch from a tree he encounters only to hear it cry, “Why do you hack at me?” Virgil asks one of the trees how the “soul’s grafted here inside these knobs” and receives this response: “When the ferocious soul that plucks itself from its own body leaves it and departs, judge Minos sends it to his seventh shelf. In the woods it falls, no chosen place. Wherever Fortune’s crossbow slings it, there is puts its roots down like the rankest weed., It shoots into a sapling, a wild plant. The Harpies chew its foliage for their feed…” (Canto 13, Lines 94-100). Dante learns that this tree was once an advisor to King Frederick II, became scorned at court, and was driven to kill himself to escape the shame. The Poet’s description captures the degrading nature of this sin’s corruption in a kind of animalistic domination of the mind. But Dante is not done showing us how sin progressively corrupts.
Lower Hell, Circles 8 and 9, show us sins of the intellect: avarice, fraud, and betrayal. Dante’s characterization of these sins reflects the deepening corruption of darker sin born of malice and intention. The characters, stories, and contrapasso, become increasingly repulsive as we delve further toward Satan’s icy domain at the bottom of the 9th Circle. The 8th Circle presents seducers and panderers, guilty of fraud in their deceits. In the 1st ditch, we learn of Jason the Argonaut who “With acts of love and words of sweetest skill he fooled the pretty Hypsipyle, who’d fooled the rest in leading them to kill. He left her great with child and all alone;” (Canto 18, Lines 91-94) and then drop to the 3rd ditch where those guilty of simony, selling church favors, are reviled, “The things of God should be espoused to righteousness and love, and you Rapacious wolves, you pander them for gold, foul them for silver (Canto 19, Lines 2-5)! Dante takes us further and further into human depravity, demonstrating the darkening of souls and intellect to its most base with contrapasso to match. Canto 21, line 52, tells of punishment for those guilty of accepting bribes: “When they’d harpooned him with a hundred prongs they jeered, “You do your jigs here undercover, so grab the cash in hiding, if you can!”
Thinking back to Saint Benedict’s vision of the Upper Room and its revelation of heaven and earth, we are reminded of this line from Jesus’ Bread of Life discourse in John 6:54, Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.” By Line 54, Jesus has upped the ante by using the Greek “trogo” as the word for eat – a version that dramatically means “to chew on” or “gnaw on” (https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/the-real-presence-part-two?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss). Now near the very bottom of Hell, we meet Count Ugolino and Archbishop Ruggieri, both betrayers and enemies now trapped together in Antenora, an area of the 9th Circle of Hell devoted to betrayers of nation or party. In life, Count Ugolino was locked in a tower with his young sons and left to starve. Watching them all die over a period of days, Ugolino resorts to cannibalism before he too dies.
Now trapped at the bottom of hell, we see them, “two frozen in one hole in such a way that one man’s head was like the other’s hood, and as a hunk of bread is chewed in hunger, so did the top soul tear his teeth into the other, where the neck adjoins the brain, Just as Tydeus in his spiteful rage gnawed at the temples of his enemy, so did he gnaw the brains, the flesh, the skull” (Canto 32, Lines 125-134). So deeply has sin corrupted these souls, that they are completely cut off from the Triune God, resorting to gnawing on each other in eternal damnation, rather than on the gift of the second person of the Trinity, the Bread of Life. Dante’s special gift is to give us this stark vision as both contrapasso to Ugolino and Ruggierie’s sinful choices, and contrast to Christ’s offer of His body for the redemption of humanity.
Beginning the Climb UpWhat’s the point? Returning to Sally’s words, “Jesus wants your heart,” I’m reminded that Dante’s journey through Inferno was only the beginning. Saint Benedict entreats us to listen: to the Word, to each other, and by sign and implication, to the poet Dante. Beatrice’s rescue operation was a Divine intervention in the hope of bringing the pilgrim to Paradiso. Jesus wants the hearts of all people. The facts, figures, structure, characters, and veiled wisdom of The Inferno are complex layers building Dante’s inspired creation of a world and narrative meant to shock, challenge, inspire, and invite, in such a way as to turn our eyes heavenward. The Inferno is a descent on the first leg of a journey in pursuit of truth, toward the ultimate Truth. But rather than Jesus’ truth: I am the way the truth, and the life, the Inferno offers us a warning:
I AM THE WAY INTO THE CITY OF WOE
I AM THE WAY INTO ETERNAL PAIN
I AM THE WAY TO GO AMONG THE LOST
JUSTICE CAUSED MY HIGH ARCHITECT TO MOVE:
DIVINE OMNIPOTENCE CREATED ME,
THE HIGHEST WISDOM, AND THE PRIMAL LOVE.
BEFORE ME THERE WERE NO CREATED THINGS
BUT THOSE THAT LAST FOREVER – AS DO I.
ABANDON ALL HOPE YOU WHO ENTER HERE.
For Dante, there is hope. Despite the layers of sin he experiences, Virgil continues to remind him that they are progressing. God’s great promise of redemption is all the greater from the depths of sin we find in the Inferno. These souls are lost, relegated to a Circle for their particular sin, but in Hell for lack of repentance. For the living, this makes the Inferno a story of hope. Given the imagery and language to evince a new sense of sin and its eternal consequences, we are armed to understand and share the Good News with a renewed relevance to a world who has forgotten about the weight of sin, and the insidious effects of its corrupting nature. From here, we’re ready to begin the long journey home.
Opening the Wall Street Journal yesterday, I read that their poll shows that Kamala Harris, a week into her run for President, is now even with Donald Trump – a dramatic turn of events for this year’s election. Thinking about this contest, knowing how divisive it will be, and not looking forward to it in the least, I thought: how comfortable we’ve become with being underwhelmed. Our country is going to duke it out passionately over a couple of candidates, put forth by two parties, who few think are the best options we can produce. How strange.
Another headline over the week-end referenced the opening of the Olympic Games in Paris and outrage in the Christian community over the parodying of DaVinci’s Last Supper by a troupe of drag queens. I didn’t bother to watch the video, but I find it curious that this type of performance would be chosen as part of the pomp and circumstance of an international sporting event with the tradition of the Olympics. Of all the subjects in the universe, they chose to lampoon that particular painting focused on a very specific (and sacred) event in a major world religion. Actually, it’s not curious at all – banal seems to be a better word choice.
Thinking of both headlines this morning, one question came to my mind: when did we become so comfortable with being underwhelmed?
Circus of the InaneIt’s not just politics or entertainment feeding our circus of the inane. A major hot-button issue in healthcare is price transparency. Politicians, lobbyists, employers, etc. are demanding that purveyors of healthcare goods and services actually communicate what they are charging. What? This is a thing? Like me, you may find yourself asking: isn’t that pretty basic? Yes, it is.
Talking to a health system executive a few years ago, I was told that one of their major initiatives was a “do no harm” initiative. Huh? The goal was to reduce things that happened in their hospitals which caused patients additional issues to the ones they brought in with them. Describing our offering to an employer recently, he looked at me solemnly and asked, “Will that aggravate ________, our current insurance provider?” I said, “Yes, most likely.” “Great!” he replied. “I love to stick it to them.”
Finally, in a recent conversation with another client, we were closing the call and she commented: “Great call! Thank you so much. It’s nice to finish a conversation like this and not feel like I need to go take a shower.”
What is going on? In what universe does it make sense to not know what a thing costs before it’s purchased, to need to remind someone not to cause harm to patients, or that we continue to work with any company who we dislike enough to admit that we want to implement a program that undermines them? Aren’t these things just an ante to the game? Table stakes to even contend? Why would we work with anyone who was “slimy enough” to make us want to shower afterward?
Alas, we’ve really gotten comfortable with minimum expectations. In our politics. In our entertainment. In our workplaces. In our relationships. It often feels like we’ve lost our sense of excellence or at least the energy to demand it. What happened to doing something because it’s the right thing to do or doing our best because…well, because it’s our best?
Cultural SlothWe seem to be suffering from cultural sloth. A 25th century form of urban malaise that has dumbed-down our dialogue, our entertainment, and our expectations. We’ve white-washed the complex wisdom of our western heritage and gotten comfortable with “good enough,” “not too bad,” and “at least.” There are plenty of smart people, why do we have so few good ideas? Or good political candidates? Or good leaders? Why are we so tolerant of “just enough” and “average” and “banal?”
Staples was right, we like the “easy button.” The store that makes it easy to buy. Push. The sound bite that makes it easy to think. Push. The political party that makes it easy to vote. Push. The brainless show that makes it easy to laugh. Push. The life that makes it easy to get by. Push.
We’re too comfortable with comfort. We’re too accepting of mediocre. We’re too addicted to easy. It’s made us soft. Soft in our thinking. Soft in our expectations. Soft in our will. We’re not made for easy and it’s killing us. Literally. Easy calories make us fat. Easy sex undermines families and relationships. Easy religion demands little of us. Easy “whatever I want when and how I want it” cheapens, softens, and weakens.
Butterflies and Sea TurtlesOver the last week, I’ve referenced caterpillars and cocoons several times. Sally suggested sea turtles. In both the emerging butterfly and the baby sea turtle, it is the struggle of its first efforts that makes it strong enough to survive. The newly formed butterfly will not be strong enough to fly unless it builds its strength in the struggle to get free of the cocoon. The baby turtle will not be strong enough to swim against the waves crashing upon the beach unless it has dug out of its nest and fought its way across the beach to the water. Ease is the enemy of strength.
When the hard work is outsourced, the hard lessons softened, and the hard thinking abdicated, we cannot build the strength, the will, or the intellect to do the hard things that life demands. Our resolve, fortitude, endurance, resilience, grit, etc. are forged in the flames of adversity, difficulty, challenge, suffering, disappointment, and exertion. Weakness is the straw house built on easy.
We’ve grown to accept underwhelming, average, and banal, because they are easy. We tolerate a lack of virtue because it is hard to live virtuously and hard to find those who fight the good fight though it is really, really, difficult.
I’m not suggesting we all become stoics or ascetics, eschewing all goods or pleasures of the world. But we could all benefit from more self-denial. We do not have to pursue struggle or difficulty in some kind of fabricated masochism, ready or not, it will find us. But we do have to choose to strengthen our self. We do have to work on our “will muscle” as well as our physical muscle. We can push others to do better and tolerate less of the banal in our entertainment, politics, and purchases. We can and should expect honor and integrity from others…and from ourselves.
Want to stop being underwhelmed? Beware of the siren song of the “easy button” – it is beguiling and it is a trap. Instead, push the “hard button”: give more, expect more, and be patient in putting off the mediocre of now for the excellent of later. The malaise of our cultural sloth will resist, but the strength built climbing out of that cocoon will be worth it.
Kneeling on the floor of Lucas Oil Stadium last night, I scanned the massive audience, straining my eyes and my attention to focus on individuals among the throng of 60,000 people. What a surreal experience. The hard concrete floor was unforgiving, but 45 minutes disappeared in the faces, the music, and the moment.
Catholics from around the country gathered this week for Indianapolis for a Eucharistic Revivial – an intimate gathering of thousands to re-energize our faith. I think it worked. Why was I kneeling? Because that is what one does when he finds himself in the presence of his Creator. But that is a story for another day.
Have you ever taken a moment at a massive sporting event or concert and tried to look at the individuals blended into the sea of colors? Moving my eyes across the cavernous expanse of the stadium, I suddenly felt a strong desire to see each person. There was an incredible variety of shapes, sizes, colors, hair styles, clothing choices, and facial expressions, standing, sitting, walking, and kneeling everywhere around me. I quickly realized that it was physically impossible for me to focus on each individual. How many of the 60.000 people did I actually see? At one point I started to count – 20, 50, 70 – at 100, the counting became distracting. Twenty minutes later, I wondered, did I see 500? 1000? 10,000?
At one point during the night, Bishop Robert Barron asked, “What would happen if this crowd of 60,000 people went out and lived their faith fully?” The he asked, “What if America’s 70 million Catholics suddenly began to live their faith fully?” Then he followed, “It would change our country. It would change the world.”
There could be many definitions of “living one’s faith” fully. Some might suggest that “following the rules” is a good place to start.
Perhaps.
Kneeling among this crowd, seeking the faces of individual human beings, I found myself thinking about stories, struggles, hopes, dreams, and fears. These things that pervade our common experience as Homo sapiens. Each story as distinct and personal as a fingerprint. Each face, voice, and personality, different at a scale beyond imagining, and yet, sharing so many of the same experiences of existence. Each given by his or her Creator a dignity, a specialness, born of being made in the Imago Dei, the image of God, and the soul accompanying that image.
The last few days have been an exercise in patience as we’ve navigated the frustrations of moving among thousands of people trying to get to their destinations within constricted spaces. Even massive hallways, exhibit halls, meeting rooms, and stadiums become small and cramped in the shadow of 60,000 people. The size and scale make it easy to lose sight of the individual. The mass of bodies becomes a moving barrier to what it is one wants to do or wherever it is one wants to go. Together and apart, the person disappears into the crowd, blurred into the backdrop. We cannot process such volume, we can’t engage at such scale. It becomes very easy to lump the individual, and his innate God-given dignity, into the amorphous blob of the throng – now, simply a barrier.
A barrier to what? To what I want. What I desire. Where I want to go. My plans. Humanity gets in the way and it’s frustrating.
Now beginning to see individuals in the crowded stadium, my mind wanders to the other end of our human experience. Each person’s story revolves around their relationships with those they encounter in life in how they treat and how they are treated. If the crowd is a barrier, the individual often becomes a means to an end. To a large degree, the great sin of the world is that we use others to fulfill our desires. Directly and indirectly. How well they serve our purposes often dictates our happiness with them or disappointment in them. We get lost in our own self-regard, often losing sight of the human being before us, and his or her particular needs. Ours are so much more important.
What is it to live one’s Catholic faith fully? What is it to live one’s humanity fully? Rather than the rules, Bishop Barron suggests that love is a good place to start. What is love? He quotes Thomas Aquinas: “Willing the good of the other.”
Kneeling there, in a communal silence among 60,000 people, I imagined the faces I couldn’t see, and the human beings behind them. What would happen if we all willed each other’s good in each encounter?
Then, it hit me: what would happen if I willed the good of every person I encountered?
Maybe love can save the world.
For over twenty years, we’ve had a pretty steady tradition of having breakfast as a family after Sunday Mass. One of the staples of that tradition has been Le Peep in Castleton, an area on the northeast corner of Indianapolis. Our kids grew up on “The Eighteen Wheeler” and “Funny Face Pancakes” as well as with a host of friendly characters we’ve gotten to know in many years of going to the same place. Who says that Cheers is the only place where everybody knows your name?
Interestingly enough, next month we celebrate 20 years in our current home. This is a milestone for our married life and for my entire life. A fun dynamic of such longevity in one place has been the chance to expand some of our children’s traditions to include our grandchildren. We still do Sunday breakfast, and it still ends up at Le Peep most of the time.
Picking up Cooper recently to spend a day together, we found ourselves talking about plans for the day. He wanted to go to Le Peep for breakfast after daily Mass, and I told him that we’d need to do something different because we were going to be at the office for a little while that morning. We settled on Lincoln Square Pancake House as a reasonable alternative and I asked him what he wanted for breakfast. “I think I want pancakes,” he replied. “Great! Will you be able to look at the server and order it for yourself?” I responded. “Ok Poppy,” he said. “That’s why I like to go to Le Peep. With Travis, it’s easy to speak for myself.”
Ahh, Travis. Of course. I’m not certain if Travis has been at Le Peep for the entire time we’ve been going, but it’s close. Cooper doesn’t know a world without Travis in it. You know Travis, he’s the guy who has your table set before you arrive (including perfectly timed macchiato’s for your girls delivered as they’re sitting down), taps you on the shoulder at a Dave Matthews concert to say “Hi” because you happen to have seats next to one another, holds the back room for you even though they don’t accept reservations, and knows what you want to order even if you happen to fancy something different on a particular day.
We all love great service, appreciate places where it’s comfortable and familiar, and love those individuals who help make the things we do great experiences. But how many people do we know who make it easy to speak for ourselves? It wasn’t something I had every considered.
Last week, I attended a conference at which a grandmotherly figure complimented me on my “firm handshake.” “Why, thank you,” I replied, smiling. These are the things we like to teach our children and grandchildren. Stand straight, say “please” and “thank you,”look the person in the eye when you shake his/her hand, smile. When we’re young, transitioning from mom and dad speaking on our behalf to owning it ourselves is a big move. Oh, the pressure of talking to an adult! These are dangerous waters and all children must pass through them on their way to adulthood. Many struggle.
Speaking for ourselves has many risks. The risk of a mistake. The risk of going blank. The risk of weird eye contact. The risk of being asked a question to which you don’t know the answer. All pointing to the ultimate risk: the risk of being made to look or sound foolish. Kids get this intuitively, knowing the stakes are high. As adults, we often mask or avoid it in different ways.
How is it one can make it easy for another to speak for him or herself? Put another way, how do we make it safe to speak up? With Travis, familiarity is a big part of it. He is a known quantity. However, all of us have known quantities in our lives who have the exact opposite effect. Jokesters. Sarcasm. Cynical humor. Trick questions. They all feel like traps – efforts to put the other in an awkward or humorous situation…normally at their expense. Positive familiarity is absolutely necessary. For a child, or anyone, to speak for himself, there must be trust.
Thinking of Travis, the playbook is pretty straightforward. He greets warmly, asks sincerely, listens intently, smiles knowingly, and genuinely seems to care. He’s not overdone or sappy with sycophantic servitude – there is no hint of “being managed” in interactions with him. He’s steady; busy or slow, good day or bad…you can’t tell. His tone is consistent, his expressions convey sincere interest, and he seems to like the work he does, even on the days when I’m sure it’s not easy. He’s not “put-on,” you can’t fake it over 15-20 years. It is who he is and it just shines through. He’s likable, in all the right ways. With Travis, it’s easy for all of us to speak for ourselves.
Thinking of recent interactions with children, I wonder if I made it easy for them to speak for themselves? Did I play with with their awkwardness or create an open channel for connection? What about the adults I encounter? Do I add risk or take it away when speaking to others?
I think Travis has a super-power. To empower others with the gift of making it easy for them to speak for themselves is laudable. To have a seven year old describe you thus is high praise. Think about a Travis in your life, how might you encourage the stewardship of this gift? Thinking about seeing Travis today, I’m going to make a point to encourage him and then work to emulate his great example in my own life.
Mirrors of Our DreamsWalking into the broad conference hall, I recognized many people. After a few casual “hello’s” and some hand shaking, I mounted the podium and proceeded to make my presentation. It went really well. I nailed my points, heads were nodding in agreement, and the clapping at the close, affirmed mission accomplished. Walking into the crowd afterward, I received a few questions and enjoyed some follow up conversations. The day proceeded and I was able to make my rounds, meeting a few new people, and reconnecting with old acquaintances. I felt really good about the day and my ability to connect our story to the priorities of so many attendees.
The following morning, the breakfast hall was filled with people. The room was filled with the sound of plates, glasses, and chatter. It was a dull roar of activity and I made my way to the coffee. Oddly, the warm interactions of the day before were missing and I found myself alone at a table in the corner. Looking around, the faces seemed less familiar and completely unengaged. Not a single person made eye contact with me. Moving to a full table, I greeted its occupants and received terse acknowledgements as everyone picked up their plates and left.
Noticing a guy I had spent some time with the day before, I walked over to him and asked, “What is going on?” The man cocked his head slightly and squinted his eye as he responded, “Didn’t you notice?” I shook my head. He continued, “You strode into this hall yesterday, your head held high. You stood in front of this room of highly successful experts and pontificated on your brilliant ideas. Your remarks were boorish, unimaginative, and borderline offensive. Afterward, you feigned interest in numerous conversations, asking questions you thought were ‘sincere and insightful’ when in fact they betrayed your pride, arrogance, and indifference.”
Dumbfounded, I looked around and noticed the noise in the hall had stopped and everyone was looking at me. A veil across my eyes was suddenly lifted and I realized that he spoke the truth. All the conversations from the day before jumped into my head and I saw it all clearly. My “insights” were actually rude and bearish bragging. Individual interactions revealed my biases and preconceived conclusions while not so subtly trying to highlight my own brilliance. Thinking I was being clever, I anticipated comments or read the expressions of other people incorrectly. My “intuitions” were crass self-adoration. I was blind-sided by his astute feedback.
Waking from the dream, I was left with the uneasiness of a strange trip ending with a return to reality. As the details of the dream faded, the words “blind spots” remained, imprinted on my mind like the flickering remnant of a lighted sign glimpsed moments before.
Blind SpotsIn Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, the pilgrim finds himself descending through Hell led by the poet Virgil. Encountering lost souls along the way, he witnesses them experiencing punishments that reflect the nature of their sin in life. Even in the midst of their tortures, these lost souls frequently seem unrepentant of the sin that landed them in Inferno, often blame it on someone or something else, and remain consumed with their life and reputation left behind. All of them went through their earthly lives oblivious to the dangers of their choices relative to their eternal life.
Dante’s poem is a brilliant reflection on living a virtuous life and the potentially hellish consequences of our choices. Few would intentionally choose damnation, suggesting that many of these tortured souls fell due to “blind spots” in their own lives; places where they couldn’t see clearly. Considering my dream, I was left thinking about blind spots in my own life, what causes them, and what I might do to illuminate them.
Blind spots are places where we’ve lost visibility. When using mirrors on our car, there are places behind and around us that fall outside of our ability to see. Entire semi-trailers can disappear in these blind spots. Blind spots can occur when lighting is poor, hiding objects in the dark. Blind spots also happen with gaps in knowledge or information. On the way to a destination, we might not know to turn on a particular street because it is missing from our map.
The imperfect vision of our daily lives leaves lots of room for blindspots. We can never have perfect or complete information, which requires that many of our choices be based on educated (or uneducated) guesses, depending on available data. Also informing these guesses are experience, bias, and desire. The conclusions we have about the world around us are formed through these filters and tend to adjust based on changing information and circumstances.
Over time, we build confidence in our perspectives. Is it calcification or conviction? The hardening of our mind, and/or our heart, holds us back from discovery, insight, and evolution. Where and when does pliable intellectual growth turn to brittle conclusion? Our convictions may be born of objective truth and the hard facts of our experience. However, the subjective reality of changing circumstances demand that we wrestle with doubt or new inputs to firm or refine perspective. Calcification occurs when our subjective reality becomes fixed despite the evolving world around us.
World Views and Echo Chambers
Howling, crying,
Screaming at the moon
Only my voice came back
Only the echo came backBilly Idol, Prodigal Blues
In a recent conversation, I asked a friend about some disagreements he had with another. He responded, “We have a different world view.” In addition to the lessons learned from hard experience, we each possess a moral center that informs our convictions. Our world view is born of biases formed from experience and the moral frame underpinning our sense of write and wrong. As our convictions in this world view firm, we become more convinced of our own “rightness.” One of life’s great challenges is balancing conviction in our world view with the changing in puts of reality around us.
Pride is the great danger of our convictions. Not pride in the sense of being “proud” of our children or in the quality of our work or in keeping our house nicely maintained. The deadly sin of Pride occurs when we become so convinced of our own “rightness,” that we tip into the prejudice of believing that all who disagree are “wrong.” Here, conviction can turn to calcification as we set ourselves up for real blind spots that foster resentment within ourselves and the people around us. Our fixation hardens our heart causing us to reject others and their ideas – often to everyone’s detriment.
In our organizations and personal lives, the calcification of our world views tend to create their own echo chamber, a place where the only voice we can hear is our own, repeating our truths and conclusions back to us. Moral conviction may be the right place to hold our ground, but sclerotic thinking impedes innovation, imagination, and our overall ability to solve the problems confronting us. Our own fixations limit our ability to grow and evolve as the world places new demands upon us.
Blind-SidedThe pride and prejudice born of our own convictions can create blind spots, not only hampering our effectiveness, but potentially exposing us to being blind-sided by the unexpected. There are places where we must run with conviction and places where our convictions run into a reality missed or unseen. Here, we live with the stories we tell ourselves even as life demands a pliability necessary for us to evolve in new discovery.
Being blind-sided is waking to a world that brutally opposes your conclusions and suddenly realizing that its may be right. The jarring discovery of a hidden domain lying beyond all that you knew was correct and real, destabilizes and threatens the very foundations of that comfortable world you’ve built. Here, we walk into a room of people who reject us for the calcification they experience in our pride and prejudice, finding ourselves on the outside of what we once thought was firmly in our grasp.
With age, we tend toward being fixed and will stay there when we stop asking, seeking, and feeding the machine that draws conclusions. This is the status quo of much of our world and dangerous in its invitation to be blind-sided. What do we do to avoid it?
Heart and Humility
But as it is written:
“What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard,
and what has not entered the human heart,
what God has prepared for those who love him,”
this God has revealed to us through the Spirit.1 Corinthians 2:9-10
We spend so much time processing inputs through our mental machine, always with the goal of drawing a conclusion. “What’s the answer?” we ask. In work, we position our solutions as answers to others’ problems. At home, we work to fix family members by solving their issues. Along the way, we alienate others through our own fixed views of the world or by piping our voice outward from the echo chamber we’ve built to convince ourselves. Along the way, we stop asking the questions, or even worse, waiting for the other’s response.
New information, fresh perspective, and surprising insights are where we grow, and, the only counter to our blind spots. A powerful antidote to the pride and prejudice of calcified conclusions is humility. In 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, Jordan Peterson’s best-seller, rule #9 says “Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don’t.” This seems like a good place to start.
Thinking back on my dream, I wonder about my own conclusions. Where have they calcified? Perhaps the issue is one of heart more than mind. Facts may inform our intellect, but experience and encounter with others shape our heart. Perhaps the more powerful antidote to the blind spots is an open heart, ready to see, and to hear, the possibilities beyond my own “rightness.”
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776
In their wisdom, America’s Founding Fathers summed up some self-evident truths and presented them as a cornerstone in the foundation of the most enduring democracy and, arguably, most successful nation in all of history. For nearly 250 years, the United States has been fighting for, testing, arguing about, and often imperfectly, moving these principles forward at home and abroad. Our great experiment, with all of its flaws and challenges, remains a bastion and beacon for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
One of the great features of our founding, and the principles laid out in both the Declaration and the Constitution, is the room they allow for argument and discourse. Somehow, they allow enough specificity to guide us meaningfully while giving space for argument over interpretation and actualization. Some might argue that these gaps have fostered great strife but I would rebut that they have also enabled our country to scale in a massive and highly integrated way. Despite personal preferences and beliefs, our founding structure and rule of law have largely maintained our steady worldview. They have given us just enough rigidity and flexibility to evolve.
Recognizing the pursuit of happiness as an inalienable right is a fantastically brilliant bit of fuzziness built-in to our Declaration. We do not have a right to actual happiness but we are free to chase it in whatever way we desire as long as our pursuit does not break laws or otherwise impinge on the rights of other citizens. So what is happiness?
Happiness is a tricky word and leaves lots of room for interpretation. Loyola Marymount Professor, Christopher Kaczor, describes four levels of happiness: level one reflects bodily happiness in the fulfillment of basic human needs like food and shelter, level two centers on achievement in what status, power, and wealth, level three happiness stems from love and service to others, and level four is agape, love of God – the place where we begin to approach true joy.
The fact that one word needs four levels to begin to break it down and is supplanted with the word “joy” at its highest state, points to the broad sweep of possibility in its pursuit. Kaczor’s point with the levels is to highlight the fact “happiness” is fleeting in most of its forms and our pursuit of a particular level often leaves us wanting for more as it fades. From there, we begin to fill our need for happiness with things that ultimately do not make us happy.
In his book, Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being, psychologist Martin Seligman introduces his PERMA model suggesting that positive emotions, engagement, relationship, meaning, and achievement, are the keys to the highest state of happiness which is flourishing. Seligman’s argument is that these are the fundamental elements necessary for us to flourish in this life and the degree to which we are experiencing them will dictate our ongoing happiness.
In the 5th Century, St. Augustine wrote of the “Imago Dei,” the image of God in the soul of man as the source of fundamental human dignity – a central theme to Catholic teaching. The notion of fundamental human dignity is the ultimate inalienable right and is foundational to justice in the core sense of giving the other his or her due as a beloved son or daughter of God. Augustine saw our mind as composed of memory, understanding, and will, empowered with reason – all reflections of the Creator. If we are each endowed with the image of our Creator imprinted upon our very soul, then there is inherent value, dignity, in us as human beings.
In Against Heresies, St. Irenaeus of Lyons wrote “For the glory of God is the living man, and the life of man is the vision of God.” This line is often misquoted as “The glory of God is man fully alive” but one might interpret the spirit of Irenaeus’ message pointing toward human flourishing – an existence fully alive with positive emotion, full engagement in existence, loving relationships, meaning in work and activity, and achievement through the stewardship of gifts given.
From a governmental perspective, protecting the right to pursue happiness may be enough, particularly when the very notion of happiness can be defined so personally. However, for us as parents, teachers, friends, siblings, and leaders, perhaps there is higher call and deeper possibility. If every person has a fundamental human dignity and justice demands that we we give them the due of that dignity, what is our responsibility? Looking in the mirror, if we are called to flourish, to be fully alive, what is our duty to ourselves?
Maybe human flourishing is the point. Our flourishing and the flourishing of those around us. Let’s break it down.
- Capacities. Charisms. Gifts. Vocations. Purpose. Call. Practicing at the top of your license.
- Giving. Everything. Pouring yourself out for those you love. Loving everyone. Sharing. Leading. Following.
- Feeling. All of it. Joy. Sorrow. Pain. Pleasure. Satisfaction. Hunger. Desire. Detachment. Sacrifice. Receipt.
- Using the gift brings joy to the Giver. Glorifies Him.
- Making a difference. Mattering. What we do in life echoes in eternity. Touching one soul. Changing the world.
- Leave it better. Be a good steward. Show up every day. The signs are all there.
- This moment is our closest point to eternity. Remember who you are. Who you are made to be. Love like you are dying. Because you are.
- We have the playbook. We know the path. God calls each day. But it is we who get lost. Leave the path. Wander. We get in our own way. We choose.
- Never enough. If not stuff, then happiness. It not happiness, then pleasure. If not pleasure, then power. If not power, then control. If not control, then clarity. If not clarity, then…
- Where’s the joy? Where’s the peace? Where’s the love? The patience? The kindness? The goodness? The gentleness? The generosity? The faithfulness? The modesty? The chastity? The self-control?
- The gifts must be accepted. They must be accepted, internalized, and acted upon. Action begets the fruits. Action.
- Think, yes. But the mind spins. Action breaks the cycle. Action moves, energizes, engages, what we know and how we are called. Action creates momentum. We cannot think our way to motion or momentum. Only action moves us forward.
- Action. Love. Give. Jump. Run. Talk. Touch. Laugh. Dance. Throw. Smile. Write. Listen. Look. Imagine. Draw. Play. Pet. Move. Exert. Walk. Live. Act.
- Action. Action. Action.
- Time moves on, it does not wait. Seize the day. Make your life extraordinary. Delayed obedience is disobedience.
What’s the point? If we approached our relationships as a solemn duty to help the other flourish, what would happen? If we led this way, loved this way, trusted this way, and forgave this way, every day, what change would occur in our little worlds?
Too vague? Perhaps a bit too foo-foo? A focus on the dignity of the individual and his or her flourishing is wildly pragmatic. If the people working for us are flourishing, it will help our customers flourish. If our children are flourishing, it will help their friends flourish. If our spouse is flourishing, it will help our children flourish. If our friends are flourishing, it will help their families flourish. And, if all of these people are flourishing, we can’t help but flourish too.
Why have a government? Why have an organization? Why have a community, a society, a culture, or a family? What’s the point? The Founding Fathers were on to something, but let’s not just pursue happiness. Let’s flourish. How? Help enough other people get there and we can’t help but find ourselves fully alive.
Leaving a recent dinner presentation, I remarked to Sally, “There was something in that talk that isn’t sitting well with me.” She paused for a moment, then replied, “He has obviously done many great things, is clear on his gifts, and seems to know where he is called to share them.” Without saying it, she knew where I was headed and prudently took the high road on a conversation that I was going to turn into a negative critique.
A few days later, the subject came up again, and Sally shared something she had heard in a podcast suggesting that, when listening to speakers, our tendency is to either idolize or despise them. I didn’t despise the man who presented to us, but the point of casting our reception of such presenters in the extremes of “idolize” and “despise” are great reference points for our own hearts. We tend to buy-in or we don’t.
What was it that troubled me? The talk centered on good things: business success, generosity to employees, great charity to the community through a foundation and direct giving, and lots of praise for team members. The presenter shared his faith and how it shaped his perspective on his works – all of which aligned with my own worldview. Was I reacting to his personality or style of presentation? Was I feeling some sort of envy or the resentment of comparison?
Digging a bit deeper, I was able to discern the elements that grated upon me: lots of “me’s” and “mines,” the success report card, the call-outs to team members that still seemed to point back to the speaker, the casual name dropping that is rarely casual, the subtle but not so subtle reflections of power and authority, etc. Actually, I didn’t have to dig very deeply, each of those items was bobbing in pretty shallow waters. My internal critique was biting, and in my mind, justified.
It also troubled me. Idolize or despise. There is a deep-seeded tendency in all of us to tear-down others in some kind of twisted notion that it makes us more. Somehow, I’m better if she’s less. Of course, the truth is that it doesn’t make us more and rarely makes us feel any better. Was I simply tearing at this man in my own head out of my own small need to feel like I was more?
We filter the world through a lens of many colors. Brilliant or base, that filter colors all that we receive, often shifting, categorizing, interpreting, and even manipulating it into those places that fit our view of ourselves, and the universe around us. Considering this man and his words, I realized that I did not know his heart, the sincerity of his words and actions, his struggles, his failures, or how he interacted with the world he described. I could not possibly know. And, it really didn’t matter.
The truth is that what he shared had nothing to do with me. All I could do was react: positive or negative. I could choose to take it at face value, see the good in it, and take any lessons from it. Or, I could reject it as false, insincere, and self-aggrandizing. Neither reaction would affect him, his mission, the people who work for and with him, or the people he served. But my reaction might affect me or anyone else with whom I share it.
I could not possibly know that man’s heart, but I can know mine. In that man’s style, I saw the bluster into which I might tip if left unchecked. In his words, I heard the arrogance that I might exude if not careful. In his list of accomplishments, I heard the pride of my own voice. In his shout-outs to team members, I felt the danger of false humility that might overtake me. In the “me’s” and “mines” I heard the cries for recognition that could pour forth from the boy within who will always long to be noticed.
Ours is a culture of rejection, criticism, and crucifixion. When we don’t hear what we want to hear, don’t agree, or worst of all, cast our own dark shadows upon others, we react, often viciously. We figuratively stone them and their irritating ways, canceling them, blotting them out, and rejecting all the falsities they share. But often, we sense the things we dislike the most in ourselves as we watch them rear their ugly heads in what we see in others.
Look around you today at the people who trouble you the most. The annoying things they say or do, the sound of their voice, the places where you vehemently disagree with them, the dark feelings that well up within as you react to them. Is it possible you are seeing shadows of your own reflection?
There are places demanding right judgment. There is objective truth and we must continually discern in our response to others. However, there are also places which our own brokenness takes us, unknowingly. Small, dark, places that reflect the wounds, inadequacies, fears, and resentments, that assail our own hearts. What is yours and what isn’t? Tuning that filter to allow the good to pass through for whatever value it may bring, regardless of the heart of the other, will not only change how we see him or her, it will also change how we see ourself. Still imperfect but, perhaps getting better.
God chooses ordinary men for fatherhood to accomplish his extraordinary plan.
G.K. Chesterton
My dad introduced me to an audience at a recent speaking engagement. Looking at him beam as he spoke, and then at my smiling mom who attended to “see me in action,” affirmed the truism that, no matter how old our children get, they are always our children. I felt the strange mix of my 10-year-old self in a “look at me” moment and my 55-year-old fatherhood/grand fatherhood as I tuned-in to the glowing pride he projected. I had wondered if it would be awkward for me having my parents in the audience and found that, no matter how old I get, I still feel the sonship that was my original vocation.
Driving back to my office after my presentation, I came out of my own thoughts for a moment when I noticed Bono’s voice on the radio:
I know that we don't talk
I'm sick of it all
Can you hear me when I sing?
You're the reason I sing
You're the reason why the opera is in me
This stanza from “Sometimes You Can’t Make It On You’re Own” grabbed me. The original is excellent, but this version was from U2’s newest album, Songs of Surrender, primarily a collection of old songs remade. In the newer version, you can really hear the mature Bono’s heart, and hurt, from the conflict he felt with his father as he tells him “you’re the reason why the opera is in me.” Beautifully complex and profoundly real.
All of us have varying degrees of complexity in our relationships with our fathers and the father-son form possesses its own uniquely masculine dynamics. The push and pull of that dynamic emerges in our necessary struggle for independence and identity, in a growing-up that may never really be complete, and amid the hopes, dreams, and expectations, a father naturally has for his son. Father’s can get a bad rap for this as none of us are perfect, but there is a gritty necessity to the tension that must necessarily appear as our younger selves wrestle out of our cocoon of dependence to become our independent selves.
What do we need and want from our fathers? Central to it all is a longing for approval that never really goes away. Our hearts are hungry for the unconditional love that says “no matter what you do, I’ll still love you.” Our fathers are a point of reference, an absolute measure in a subjective world and we revolve around that point, consciously and unconsciously gauging our progress. As sons, we are perpetually trying to measure up, as daughters, we hunger for the affirmation from our first love, the seed of our lifetime reference point for how we should be loved.
In “Papa Don’t Preach,” Madonna tells the story of a young girl in love and in trouble. I know I messed up. I know you’re going to be upset. Don’t focus on my mistake, please forgive me, please love me. As fathers, we have so much experience to offer. We build a life focused on developing and protecting our children, and then we let them go. It is at once ours and then, necessarily, not ours. As children we say, love me through my mistakes.
Are we the prodigal son, asking for our share of our inheritance, squandering it, then asking to return, forgiven? Or are we the dutiful son? Steady and present through thick and thin, and then indignant at the warm reception for our wayward sibling. But this is the father we want, the one waiting with open arms, no matter our failings, and the one offering patient compassion to the dutiful son who feels injustice has been served. More importantly, it’s the father we’re called to be.
“When you coming home, dad?” “I don’t know when”
But we’ll get together then
You know we’ll have a good time then
Of course, Harry Chapin has something to say about the complexities of fatherhood. That sharp edge we walk between our own ambition, and duty, to climb and provide and produce, while also being present for those who need, and want, us most. Chapin’s “Cat’s in the Cradle” poetically captures the fleeting nature of time and the discoveries of fatherly maturity. What is most important? Eventually we realize that fatherhood, like motherhood, is a vocation of sacrifice. It’s forming is helping us learn that our life is not ours alone and, ultimately, is really not about us.
As a father, I think Paul Simon captures the spirit of fatherhood quite well in “Father and Daughter”:
I believe the light that shines on you
Will shine on you forever (forever)
And though I can’t guarantee
There’s nothing scary hiding under your bed
I’m gonna stand guard
Like a postcard of a Golden Retriever
And never leave ’til I leave you
With a sweet dream in your head
We can’t always leave our children with sweet dreams, and life has plenty of scary things to offer, but the father will always stand guard, no matter how old his babies get. I think of my father and his particular brand of love. Steady. Present. Protective. Fierce. The father really must be lion and lamb. He must be ready to fight for his children and simultaneously ready to sacrifice himself for them. Our duty never goes away.
As fathers, we have to acknowledge the responsibility of our vocation while maintaining a degree of self-compassion. We have to embrace the duty of our fatherhood even as we forgive our own fathers for being human when we expected them to be inhumanly perfect. We also need to continually aim for the higher bar, knowing that our shadow is falling across every corner of the life of our family.
In my life, I watch my sons grow into their own fatherhood, even as they help me mature into my grand-fatherhood. Are they on the right track? As usual, the children offer the best clues as they dote upon their dads. In a world that seems hyper-obsessed with itself, these young men show great self-giving and the necessary restraint for fatherhood. Devotion is a beautiful virtue. Courage may be in short supply in many places, but I see a beautifully masculine, and moral, courage in these young men.
Thinking of my own father, dressed in his suit and tie, holding that microphone, and beaming as he introduced his son, makes me smile. I see a lifetime of moments cascade through my memory and realize that I have been a lucky one. My father has taken his duty seriously, stood guard like a golden retriever, and never told me “not today.” Thanks Dad, I love you too. Happy Father’s Day.
We meet on the common ground of an uncommon age and share out our gifts of dark and light, good and bad, simple joy and not so simple sorrow.
Ray Bradbury
“Ohhh, man, it’s early, you know what I’m sayin’?” So began my 30 minute chat with Sean, the randomly assigned Uber driver who showed up at my doorstep. What is it that brings us together? What is it that pushes us apart? There is a powerful force in our world – a true power – bent on division. The great scatterer lives in, among, and upon us. It wants what it wants, when it wants it, and how it wants it. This force flourishes in chaos, feeds on conflict, and magnifies our most negative energies through our darkest capacities. What’s to stop it?
Walking to my Uber in the dark of 5am Houston, I saw my driver, Sean, leaned back in the driver’s seat, peering out of his window. “Pheel?” I nodded. “Back’s open.” Within seconds he’s verified that I’m his passenger and sized-me-up for any signs of threat – a necessary concern in this massive city that doesn’t sleep. I put my bags in the rear and climbed into the back seat. His tone warming a bit, “Hey Pheel. Good morning.” I look up and he’s got the rearview mirror trained on me. Smiling, he verifies my terminal at Houston Intercontinental and we’re off.
Lost Arts of HumanityCivility often seems a lost art in our culture. At least, that’s what we’re told. Much of our current cultural narrative tells us that our online world and fixation on social media has hampered our socials skills and our manners have suffered. Three Uber drivers later on this trip and my anecdotal experience says that’s not true. Within 60 seconds, Sean has assessed my disposition and relaxed into an easy banter. “Am I your first pickup today?” I ask. “Naaa, man…I’ve been goin’ since 10 last night. I’ll do one more run before I head to the HEB for breakfast…then home.” “Wow, all night!? Are you busy the whole time?” I ask. “Oh yeah, Houston’s a 24 hour city. I just stay away from the women…they can’t hold their liquor. I’ve never had a man throw up in my car.”
What is it that brings us together? Shared experiences. Shared desires. Relationship. We’re hard-wired for it. We are made for communion with others. Sean doesn’t need to talk to me. He’ll never see me again. But for the next 30 minutes, we are in relationship – a shared experience that may or may not matter. But that’s not the point. There is no point but the human need for connection and our willingness, or unwillingness, to participate.
I comment, “Do you like driving for Uber? You seem to have a great disposition for this work.” “You know what? You get what you give,” he replies. Is that the “Golden Rule” I hear? There is such an elegant pragmatism in his statement. If I want you to treat me with respect, I’ll need to treat you with respect. Willing to give it first, this man clearly sees the world through cause and effect. I can’t expect you to treat me better than I’m willing to treat you so I’ll invest myself in it. If true justice is giving one his or her due, what would happen if we all expected to get what we gave?
“Where you from, Pheel?” He draws out the syllables of my name like we’re old friends. I notice it – there is a comfort and familiarity in it. He has sized me up: no threat, easy-going, open to the banter. “Indianapolis,” I respond. ‘Really? I’m from Chicago!” He throws it out there like we’re from the same neighborhood. “I been comin’ to Houston for 30 years, then moved here a few years ago.”
Ties That BindWhat is community? It is common ground. Firm footing for our frame of reference. Our physical existence is framed in the context of our surrounding, the solid foundation on which we exist. Our city, our state, our country – these represent common ground and shared experience. “I use to live in Houston,” I mention. “Mid-90’s.” “Oooooh, man, then you’ve seen it change,” he replies.
Change is central to our shared experience. The physical changes of age and geography are fundamental to our existence. Time and distance are formational and ubiquitous, bringing struggle, joy, and possibility. With time, we gain perspective, with distance we see it acutely. To be human is to exist within the frame of perpetual change. The ebb and flow of these changes forms us and unites our experience in the common fabric of our shared humanity. We see the world, and each other, through our unique lens of change even as the particular of that lens highlights what unites and distinguishes us. Ultimately, we discover that the unifying elements of shared change tend to bridge the distances in our own distinctions.
“Do you have kids, Pheel?” Sensing something kindred in the exchange, Sean took a turn toward the personal. “Yes, I do,” I replied enthusiastically. “I have four, though our baby is now 25.” “Me too!” Sean effused. As powerful as shared experience is, shared values tighten the cords of unity. Core to our being, and reflective of natural law, is our desire to create, participate in, and love the life we’ve created. Loving children is good, true, and beautiful, reflecting the beauty of our own creation and love of our Creator – it is divinizing and powerfully unifying. Loving, protecting, and nurturing, our children is objectively good, we are made for it and sharing it brings us to an absolute understanding – as clear as our own hand waved before our face. I get it. I understand. I know exactly what you’re saying.
A few stories later, I’m smiling to myself. I like this man. He’s real, like rock underfoot, solid. His isn’t an easy life. He’s seen things. He’s lived through struggle. He recognizes it. And, he’s learned from it. I hear the pragmatic in his stories, they have a point. He sees it, accepts it, and moves forward. A bit smarter each time. More human in living it, more man in learning from it. His story is unique but his struggles aren’t. Our conversation drew to a close but the echo of common ground lives on.
Sharing Belief in Something Greater“Pheel, safe travels, brother,” smiled Sean as he looked at me in his mirror. “God bless you.” There it was: belief. Whoever God is to Sean, He represents something good…something worth invoking to my benefit. If there was any distance of fundamental understanding left between us, Sean walked across it, bringing the Divine Author to bear on our brief exchange, and offering Him as a gift of goodwill. I wish you well. I wish goodness for you. My prayer for you is that God will bless you.
St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that love is willing the good of the other as other. It is no casual thing to love another but it is a beautiful expression of our humanity and reminder that we are made for relationship, for communion with our fellow man. In that moment, Sean’s heart was full, he felt something real and true, and in giving it, it returned to him, filling him more completely than any words I could have offered. It also filled me. His gift to me was Good; and True; and Beautiful. He gave love without reserve, not recognizing it as such, but fully realizing that a threshold had been crossed. Somewhere the accuser, the dark scatterer of men, screamed in frustration.
Many claim that our culture has become toxic. That we’ve lost our sense of humanity, shared values, and the national identity that once made us strong. Our cultural institutions are crumbling amid our loss of common ground, shared experience, and shared belief. Perhaps.
However, my 30 minute trip along the streets of Houston reminded me that we still share far more than we realize. The great divider may be working hard to make us think that we’re too different, too disagreeable, too far gone, to ever unify in any meaningful way. There may be many who feel there’s too much money to be made in division and perhaps some who hate what our nation has come to represent. But I think there are plenty of Seans out there, working hard to earn a living, trying to do good in their efforts, learning from their mistakes, loving their families, obeying the law, and seeking to find meaning in the communion of a shared humanity that is ultimately seeking the same things.
Thank you Sean. God bless you brother.
There is a something about the shoreline that is magical. The gritty give of sand and its unique texture against the soles of your feet hints at life’s uncertain flow, one moment solid and the next, shifting mysteriously as you try to stabilize. The infinite line of beach extending to either horizon, suggests possibility in both the glimpse it gives, and the fuzzy unknowns of sights too distant for clarity. The persistent waves speak of hidden movements bringing life to and fro, like a heartbeat, steady, rhythmic, and frightfully beyond our control. The expanse of water, near and far, its size and depth beyond reckoning, contains life so abundantly that even our limitless imagination cannot comprehend its sheer scale.
What a beautiful backdrop for the wandering mind, the wondering heart, and the searching soul. We had a chance to get away to the beach last week, and there was more than jellyfish, shells, and driftwood resting upon the sand. Walk with me for a bit along its endlessly variable steadiness.
The Rewards of Going the DistanceDuring a two hour walk along the beach, one can cover significant distance. Even if the mileage isn’t dramatic, much is still revealed. Early, pre-dawn walking reveals the wildlife: a sole heron hunting along the shoreline, stingrays foraging in shallow pools near the beach, small terns diving into the water to grab fish, and little ghost crabs skimming along the sand and edge of the water grabbing little pieces of whatever they can find. They all prefer the beach when no humans are around. Go figure.
With the sun come the people: fishermen, vacationers claiming beach territory with chairs and umbrellas, shell collectors, casual strollers with coffee cup in hand, runners, and the workers setting up chairs, umbrellas, and other activities for the day. Moving along the beach each day, I passed houses and resorts before moving into a national shoreline park area and its more remote elements. For me, the rewards of such walks lie beyond the places where the people gather. Most never get there.
Watching the patterns of footprints along the beach, one can see where people turn around. Over a few days, individuals and their routines start to become apparent. Most people walk to the edge of the busy areas and then turn back. Footprints diminish quickly at half a mile, and there is almost no one to be seen at 2 miles. For me, that’s where the magic happens. The wildlife is visible, eddy’s form in undisturbed pockets of surf and sand, and the wind speaks truths uninterrupted by human activity. It’s not easy to get there.
Walking on the sand is tiring. However, there is a universal truth in pushing through the discomforts: there is always something interesting in those steps beyond the point where we turn around.
If It Doesn’t Happen, There’s Something ElsePausing along the beach to look out over the ocean, I overheard a man with a southern accent talking on his phone. I say “southern accent” because, along with the curious dynamic of hearing one side of a conversation, there is always a sense of otherness in hearing a specific dialect doling out its own particular wisdom. Our regions all have their own colloquialisms but there are universals that come from a nation that is deeply rooted in the values, work ethic, and reasoning of Judeo-Christian thought. Despite our differences, we still share much of the same heritage.
Within seconds, it was clear that the man was speaking with one of his children. He listened intently, his tone was encouraging, and he had a clear sense of what was needed from him. I only listened for about 60 seconds before I hear him say, “If it doesn’t happen, there’s something else.” Faith. Trust. Hope. They underpin our worldview so subtly that we don’t even notice them. We are all hungry for them, seek them in constructive and destructive ways, and possess them as powerful currency in how we interact with those in our lives. We have the power to promote them and the power to take them away.
Of course, there’s always “something else.” Another job. Another love. Another chance. However, delivering what might be a trite response in a powerfully encouraging way is a special challenge, and gift. Here, we are dealing in encouragement and hope is a powerful salve.
The Fezziwig PrincipleI like to talk about my friend Bill and his beach services business. Twenty three years later, he’s still out on the beach with his ever-changing crew. The young men who work with him each season, work very hard. They provide a “white glove” service to demanding vacationers, keep their beaches spotless, and manage the setup and take down of hundreds of chairs and umbrellas each day. We spoke every morning last week as I started my walks. One can cover a lot of ground in a five minute conversation.
Walking away from him one morning, I was reminded of Fezziwig from Dickens’ Christmas Carol. Remember Fezziwig? He was the joyful proprietor of the business where Scrooge first worked. Hosting a Holiday Party for his employees, he spent lavishly and encouraged revelry among his employees. I’ve never seen Bill dance, spend lavishly, or laugh out loud. However, he possesses a joy, a quiet serenity, that emanates from his person. He is not chasing wealth, an “exit,” power, control, or pleasure in his little business. He is chasing happiness.
The character of Fezziwig was a reflection of happiness. He represented an abiding joy that was not caught up in worldly notions of success, maximizing his wealth, or squeezing the last drop of productivity out of his employees. We get to choose our lifestyle, the way we live, no matter what we are doing, how much we are making, or the status of our particular occupation. There can be vocation and purpose in wherever we are, what we are called to do, and how we choose to respond. I think Fezziwig, and Bill, are on to something.
Do Not Enter Pool if Ill with DiarrheaReturning to our condo one day, I noticed a sign at the pool nearby. “Do Not Enter Pool if Ill with Diarrhea.” For some reason, I thought of Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life. Though I doubt this one will present itself in his next book, it struck me on several levels.
First of all, how sad that we need a sign reminding us to stay out of the public pool when we have diarrhea. There was a moment in time when this sign became necessary and everyone ever since must see it and wonder. Likely, it was a parent trying to keep a child happy and occupied but, come on, can’t we figure this out? Such is the way with so many signs and rules. We keep inviting other people to protect us from our own stupidity.
Beyond the obvious in this sign, rests something more profound. Think about your daily interactions. How often are you taking your illness into someone else’s pool? How often are they bringing their illness into yours? The reality is that we routinely bring our “diarrhea” into the lives of those around us, spilling our illness into the collective pool of our togetherness. Think about it: gossip, grumpiness, complaint, sarcasm, ill-will, indifference, and even sadness, are all part of our personal illness which we present to others.
For many, these things become habits which are very hard to break. They are an illness we often choose, then allow to spill onto others. Sometimes, we can’t help the holes we fall into. That’s life. However, we can help taking our sickness into the pools of others. We truly belong to each other and part of that is showing up for one another when in need. I’m not proposing a stoic, keep-it-all-inside form of living. However, my guess is that we could all be a bit more aware of sharing an excess of our own illness and take more responsibility in buffering a bit when we are in a bad way.
Life’s a BeachThere is something about the shoreline that is magical. The unique combination of surf, sand, and sky, can settle the soul and allow a wandering heart and wondering mind to find firm footing, even amid the shifting sand. The real insight is that we all need a bit of distance from time to time, to re-center, re-orient, and reclaim, perspective on our own lives. Life is the beach, and the biggest insights often come from the least obvious and most mundane aspects of our lives. The beautiful ordinary we so often take for granted holds it all, right in front of us, every day.
It’s good to be home. Bringing some of that beach back to Indiana today, the joy comes with it along with the steady rhythm of those waves still washing upon my shores.
Each poke, each pull, each tear that dripped, I could only smile at him and breathe.
Madison Choiniere, Sickness and Stitches
One of the great gifts, and great challenges, of grandparenthood is watching your own children’s parenthood. The soaring moments of profundity are only equaled by the difficulties that sometimes seem like slow-moving train wrecks happening on life’s moving screen in front of you. Our oldest daughter recently wrote about several weeks of household sickness culminating in an urgent care trip for stitches in her three year old’s chin. You can read her moving reflection here.
As we discussed little Fulton’s special gift of “taking it on the chin,” Sally reminded me of a stitches trip for our Kellen when he busted his knee open. Ironically, an incident involving Fulton’s mother. Curiously, she said little about the injury, number of stitches, or cause. Sally’s memory focused on “the most beautiful tears ever,” as she described the courageous, undramatic, way our son looked at her as they cleaned and stitched his knee. Sitting in the exam room with him, she leaned close, cupped his face, and looked into his eyes as his brave tears formed and dropped from their corners.
“Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted (and you yourself a sword will pierce) so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.” So said Simeon to Mary as she presented Jesus at the Temple, described in Luke Chapter 2. Simeon’s prophecy has particular importance to the Christian faith but is also offers powerful insight into the beautiful vocation of motherhood. A call that will, at times, result in the piercing of every mother’s heart.
Motherhood is a journey of self-sacrifice. From the beautiful moment of conception, her life is no longer just about her. The morning sickness gives way to the outward changing of her body and its accompanying discomforts, then on to the painfully glorious delivery of her baby. And that’s just the ante to the game. Mom is baby’s first love and her life is forever entwined with that human being.
Now 55 years into her motherhood, my mom still tells stories of the exploits of her children. That bike wreck when I was 14? She regales it like it happened yesterday. The time I played with matches? Yep, she’s got a bag full of stories ready to roll. From the soul-crushing defeats to the moments of soaring glory, she recounts the joys and the pains beautifully, sharing them as mine…and as hers. All these years later, the wins can still bring a smile, just as the sword can still pierce.
In 2004’s Shall We Dance, Susan Sarandon’s character describes marriage with this: “you’re promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things… all of it, all of the time, every day. You’re saying ‘Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness’.” As I considered motherhood this morning, her quotation returned to me as a perfect description of the inspiring mothers in my life and the high call of motherhood.
Motherhood does not stop with the raising of our children, it is a lifelong vocation. Mommy turns to Mom, then to Mother, and then to Matriarch. The bandaged knees and tears of childhood turn to the emotional angst of youth, the difficulties of adulting, the transition to parent, and grand-parenthood, all amid life’s persistent joys and sorrows. Motherhood is nurturing, caring, feeding, leading, mentoring, accompanying, listening, and loving. Always loving.
Our mother must hold it all together, as we grow with her and beyond her. She sets our patterns on health and faith and food. Motherhood is active and passive: it is saying and doing, as well as leaving things unsaid and undone, in a way that only the feminine genius of the maternal seems able to master. Mother is justice and mercy, wisdom and patience. She is comfort and conviction, the model for how to love and live in a world that can be so painfully indifferent.
The high call remains until the mother’s final breath. She will always feel our losses acutely, and even in our most thankless moments, love us for who we are. She will follow as witness to our life and believer in our unique specialness…no matter the distance or indifference. Her instinct to self-sacrifice will never end, no matter how many times we ask her to stop. She can’t stop.
Considering the mothers in my own life, I see the beautiful design of the feminine and its unique aptitude for this most special vocation. From where does such capacity to love spring? I can only see it as Divine gift, a charism of spirit and heart that surpasses my understanding. Motherhood is a glorious mystery. From life bearing to love giving, it is an awesome call and a most beautiful vocation.
When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams — this may be madness. Too much sanity may be madness — and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be!
Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote
Trying to make our dinner reservations last night, Sally and I found ourselves in a line of cars waiting for a train. Apparently we had chosen a restaurant near the main depot and clearly on the other side of the tracks. During our thirty minute wait, she shared a story from a novel she recently read in which the female protagonist had lost her husband after a long battle with cancer. Preparing for the funeral, this character made a conscious decision on how she would conduct herself and manage through the experience.
A profoundly interesting aspect of the character’s thought process was a simple question: what do those attending this funeral need from me? She chose to pull herself together, face the awkward comments of well-wishers, fumble through the uncomfortable conversations, and smile encouragingly, even as she felt staggering pain and loss inside. Her conscious decision was one of generosity, and fortitude; a choice to behave not as she was feeling but as she wanted to convey herself, and as a gift to others.
A unique gift separating humanity from animals is our self-awareness. We can place ourselves in the context of our surroundings and choose how we will respond. We can restrain, react, anticipate, run, negotiate, or fold. We have the power of self control and the ability to choose against our instincts of self-preservation. We can think ahead and manage our behaviors based on what we expect to happen. We can allow our passions to govern us or we can exert our will to contain them.
In a culture quick to surrender to its emotions, the heroine of Sally’s book seems positively old-school. Some might view her self-restraint as fake. Acting in a way inconsistent with what you’re feeling might seem like masking the truth. The word fake suggests manipulation: acting in such a way as to hide one’s true feelings with the intent to fool or mislead someone else. To be fake is to be insincere. I don’t think that character was being insincere. In fact, her self control was born of a deep sincerity.
Last night’s dinner was a birthday celebration for our oldest son, Kiefer. I wrote the Don Quixote quotation in his card. For thirty two years, I’ve been working at fatherhood. Sometimes intentionally, often instinctively, and always amid many mistakes. Cervantes quotation elegantly challenges us to not surrender to reality when we can choose to change it. Madness is sitting in the mistakes and accepting them as the final reality.
As he was transitioning to adulthood, the great George Washington worked consciously to comport himself as a stoic and a gentleman. He chose to behave and carry himself as the man he wanted to be. He wasn’t being false or deceptive. His choice was aspirational. Washington saw his life as it was and worked at becoming the man needed for life as he wanted it to be.
So often, we accept things as they are because to change is so very difficult. We surrender to emotions that buffet us in the face of life’s difficulties. We go with the flow of our reality, even if we don’t like it, because it is easier that way. The patterns that dictate our reactions are fixed points on the map, hardwired to reinforce our excuse: “it’s just the way I am.” Or, it’s just the way it is.
But will is one of the most powerful forces in the universe – truly a superpower. We are not owned by instinct and though the wounds that underly much of the fabric of our being are powerful drivers of our emotions and behavior, they are also subject to our choices. We may be constrained by the laws of physics, but the power of our will allows us to change much of everything else within the world around us.
In this frequently lunatic life, we get to choose. We can see it as it is and accept it, or, we can see it as it might be and work toward it. In his gallant quests against imaginary foes, was Don Quixote mad for fighting windmills or sane for not surrendering his dreams? We get to aspire to that which we dream. We get to choose how we show up for our own life. Madness would be to accept it for less than it might be.
Just because you didn’t put a name to something did not mean it wasn’t there.
Jodi Picoult, Handle With Care
Earlier this week, little 18 month old Blair pointed at me, smiled, and said “Pop.” It’s always a magic moment when your children or grandchildren first say your name. The recognition is powerful, reflecting both understanding and association: I know what “pop” is and you are him. I immediately thought of Forrest Gump first encountering his Jenny: “I don’t remember bein’ born. I don’t recall what I got for my first Christmas and I don’t know when I went on my first outdoor picnic. But Ido remember the first time I heard the sweetest voice in the wide world.”
To be called by name elicits a powerful convergence of universal elements. It is to be seen. When we are called, we are known. It is a personal action – an individual summons. An intimate acknowledgment. To be called is also to be affirmed. Here I am…part of something. I belong. Even in the most cursory form, it points to value – my value. I matter enough for someone to call me by name. When the calling comes from one we love or respect, it carries a particular weight. I see you. I know you. You matter.
In his book, What To Do When It’s Your Turn (and it’s always your turn), Seth Godin writes that we spend much of our life waiting to be picked. We all want to matter enough that another will choose us. Picked for teams. Picked to answer a question. Picked for a relationship. Picked for a job. Picked to be a part of something. To be called by name is to be chosen – to be picked. When someone who matters to you picks you, a world of possibility emerges in an explosion of positive energy and joy.
Another aspect of being called by name centers on our notion of identity. What are we called? Mom? Dad? Pop? Our name singles us out, marks our role, and defines our place. It describes us as it assigns us to our proper position in the world. This is why it hurts when we are called derogatory names and why titles matter so much. To be named is to get to the heart of the self – the identity by which we are known and by which we know ourself. “Pop” is a status, a term of endearment. The fact that it is short for “Poppy” and that little Blair is mimicking her older brother only makes it more precious. Not only do I have a named identity, I have a nickname!
Who we are is so tightly intertwined with how we are known. Often, we find ourselves behaving as we are known or labeled. To be called can be convicting as we are marked as something and expected to be that thing. In 1994’s Lion King, Mufasa famously tells the young Simba to “remember who you are.” A great risk, and a great opportunity, is to see ourselves through the eyes of others or as we want them to see us. Identity can be slippery when mixed with the expectations, or desires, of others. And with our own. Underlying Mufasa’s words is a call to more: “remember who you are called to be.”
Curiously, being called by name is only half of this powerful equation. Every call is met by how we receive. To be called by name demands an answer. One of my favorite recurring themes in the Old Testament is the “call.” God shows up, calls Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Samuel, Isaiah, and Ananias. Each responds “Here I am.” How do we answer when we are called by name? When little Blair calls my name, I respond: with a smile, with a hug or kiss, by picking her up, by waving, by asking what she needs. Our name has power, especially when spoken aloud.
Calling someone’s name invokes a response – a reaction. When we say “Here I Am,” we are indicating a readiness to respond. Receiving the call in this way is “showing up” for the other in an active, engaging fashion. “I hear you. I see you. You matter. I will respond.” When we acknowledge the call in this way, we in turn affirm the other. This is why deliberately ignoring someone or even unintentionally missing the call can be hurtful. It is a refusal to meet the “high five” and all of us feel it.
Today, you will be called by name. Will you be attentive enough to hear it? How will you respond? Today, you will call to another. Will you invoke the power of his or her name? I see you. I know you. You matter. These are powerfulwords and choosing them can change the world.
I am the good shepherd.
A good shepherd lays down his life
for the sheep.John 10:11
Recently, we had a “spring cleanup” completed on our yard. The mulch is refreshed, the trees and bushes are trimmed, and green abounds in all corners. Admiring the work completed, our young grandson offered a compliment, “Nanny, I really like your lambscaping.” Oh, what a joy to share in the innocent wonder of the little lamb.
Curiously, today’s Gospel is the parable of the good shepherd and “lambscaping” seems a perfect word to characterize the notion of shepherding, or leading, a flock to fertile fields, life-giving water, and safe pastures. Little Cooper’s word evokes a sense of formation, helping in another’s becoming, whether through direct, hands-on effort, or through indirect example. Lambscaping is a beautifully simple metaphor for our responsibility, and opportunity, to guide, mentor, and participate in such formation.
Last week, I had the opportunity to present to a room of healthcare leaders on various market trends and the challenges and opportunities therein. Opening my talk, I commented, “Throughout today’s presentation, you’ll notice a theme around power and control. Any person or organization whose decisions affect the health and/or economics of individuals, organizations, and communities, is wielding power. Great power.”
The notion of power is problematic for most of us. As individuals, we frequently feel little power in our day-to-day existence. We are moved along by traffic signs, roads, jobs, laws, weather, and other people, which perpetually remind us how little power, and control, we really have. It’s easy to feel small in this big world. We view those with “power” as faceless, sitting somewhere else, and making decisions that affect us. We cast a suspicious eye on any who claim or exert power over us and resent any blatant application of such authority.
Yet, we exist within this framework of power and control, accepting the necessity of laws to govern us and authority figures to enforce them. Politics and government are comprised of the necessary tension of power and limits, those who direct and manage us in our jobs are necessary cogs in the wheel of structure, and even our social ties fall within some version this pecking order of control as we respond to the pressure of influence and norms. We live under a “power law” that helps define and enforce levels of acceptability in our behaviors – the power structure holds the system together.
As I continued in my presentation to those healthcare leaders, my next statement was, “With great power comes great responsibility.” The more lives our decisions affect, the bigger the responsibility. We see this easily in things like laws that are made and then affect all of us. However, we need not wait for laws to feel the effects of others’ decisions. This is why we tend to pool together in social efforts to mitigate imbalances of power. We do this politically but the organizations to which we belong are also built around the power law – even the smallest company is in a persistent struggle to assert itself, and its interests, in a world constantly pressing upon it.
Great power and great responsibility. But responsibility to whom? Employees? Members? Investors? Communities? With competing interests, the great dance of power centers on living in the tension of it. Here, we find the imperfect place in which those interests find a way to compromise. However, if that balance is not maintained, those of us disadvantaged in the imbalance begin to blame the other. In a complex world, it is not always clear who is on what side of which line.
Enter the scapegoat – the sacrificial target of blame which may or may not be the actual problem or center of disagreement. In a media-driven world, narratives around scapegoats are easy to start and perpetuate. Politicians respond to them, organizations react, and the flock follows right along. Pushed to the edge of such tensions, we can’t help but choose our side and gird our loins for the fight. If we’re lucky enough to not be in the scapegoat camp, perhaps our interests can prevail.
Of course, the good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. That’s one of the preciously counter-intuitive notions of leadership. Sometimes, I have to surrender my desires – ambition, self-interest, fame – for the good of the flock. The responsibility of the shepherd is safeguarding, leading, and ultimately, helping his flock flourish.
How does the good shepherd reconcile power, control, and goodness? By remembering his lambs. When we look at individuals, good stewardship becomes more obvious. Supporting the good of the person, embracing the dignity of the individual is pretty straightforward. Individual lambscaping seems good and right and proper. We seem to get into more trouble when we line up in our flocks.
To those wielding power today, I challenge you to begin with a bit of lambscaping in your flock. Good stewardship is a moral and economic call. The good shepherd thinks first of the well-being of the individuals counting on him. From there, the proper use of power becomes much more clear as it is used in the service of the other rather than for self-benefit.
“Mr. Kennedy likes to hear himself talk.” To wind down our Saturday night, Sally and I put a DVD in and watched an episode of “Little House on the Prairie.” Remember Charles and Carolyn Ingalls? Little Laura, Mary, and Carrie? We’ve recently found renewed interest in the simplicity and wholesomeness of some old TV series. Each episode told a story and shared numerous lessons of life. Little House on the Prairie conveyed a particularly beautiful moral innocence in the context of pretty heavy life struggles.
Last night’s episode centered on an argument among Walnut Grove residents over the addition of a bell to their little country church. As things heated up, the debate turned into a shouting match and created a rift in the community. The example was simple and really captured the essence of the breakdown in such disagreements as emotions escalate and the rational gives way to the hysterical. In Mr. Kennedy’s case, the authoritarian finality of “I’ve made my decision and that’s final” ended all dialogue.
“You sly dog! You got me monologuing!” So says Syndrome in 2004’s The Incredibles, an animated movie about former super-heroes relegated to the ordinary of domestic life suddenly pulled into the machinations of a self-made super villain. In this scene, Mr. Incredible, captured by Syndrome, delays his fate by getting the villain distracted in bragging about his brilliant plan to conquer the world.
We all get caught up in our own form of monologuing from time to time and we’ve got all sorts of idioms to capture its essence: getting on one’s soapbox, blowing hot air, blathering, preaching, pontificating, sermonizing, lecturing…you get the point. The monologue is a one way street with little or no room for listening. I’ve got a message and here it comes. Kind of like a blog post.
There is, of course, a place for delivering a message, making a point, sharing an insight, or spurring thought. I, for one, am very grateful for those who bear with me each week in the pursuit of the profound, or the simply curious.
Looking around, it just feels like we’ve lost something.
Not so long ago, I found myself part of a contentious business conversation in which we were presented with the other party’s conclusions and asked a question. As we started to respond, I realized that the question was actually rhetorical – it was not meant to be answered but was actually an accusation. We were not in a conversation, we were in a negotiation.
A friend of mine likes to use the expression “nonversation” in his writing to describe much of the pointless monologuing happening across the headlines of our news cycles. His point: we’re recycling the same tired messaging and pointless positioning toward no particular end. I might also describe this as “megaphoning” but I think we’ve introduced enough word creations for one post. The point is that there is a lot of nonversation happening: in our headlines, in our meetings, and in our “conversations.”
I was recently approached to be a speaker at an event. Asked about topics, I shared a few ideas. “Looks like you’ve got some good content. However, I can’t tell by your titles what you’re advocating.”
And there is it is: what are you advocating? What’s your point and what’s lying behind it? The massive volume of headlines, posts, Tweets (do we call them X’s now?), videos, and podcasts makes it increasingly difficult to get the point. What are we advocating? We are consuming incredible volumes of content but so much still ends in the nonversation: pointless monologuing to no particular end. Are we intentionally trying to distract or have we lost the ability to articulate a clear thought, a moving argument, novel idea, or a prompt for a discussion?
Am I just monologuing or is there a point? What am I advocating? In our days of hyper-content, hyper-speed, and hyper-agendas, I think there is a message in the pace and simplicity of Little House on the Prairie. We can’t hear when we’re talking and no one is moved in a monologue, at least not for long. Hearts and minds are captured in the interaction. Souls are won in the sincerity. Things are changed through action, and big things are changed together.
Perhaps we can start by stopping. Let’s dial the monologues back and look for real conversation. Let’s shelve the rhetorical question for a bit, pause, and listen for a real answer. Let’s work to care enough that we might seek to understand and then to be understood. Let’s take a break from accusing long enough that we might be convicted of our own part in the disconnect, disagreement, dissatisfaction, disregard, and disrespect.
Here, we might find humility enough to see something other than our own point.
``` The Difference
The difference lies
in the little things.
Quiet moments
away from the lights.
Small movements
leading, seemingly, nowhere.
The measure of our faith
mirrors what we give.
The value of our existence
reflects the difference we make.
```
Randomly opening a journal this morning, I came across the poem above. I wrote it on January 7, 2018. Putting it in this post, on this particular day, available to each of you within a specific set of readers, sets something in motion. Wherever I was and whatever I originally felt and meant in its writing, will meet one of you exactly where he or she is and in the way it is needed today.
I find that fascinating. Maybe even miraculous.
Last night, flipping through an album with photos of last fall’s trip to Italy, my parents were transported back to moments remembered and some forgotten. Was that the Amalfi Coast? Oh yeah, remember Lucia? What was the name of that restaurant in Sorrento? Can you believe we stood among the ruins of Pompeii? Was St. Bonaventure born in Bagnoregio? Their eyes glittered in wonder at the moments past, the shared memories, and those particular recollections that belonged to each of them individually.
The wonder of it all strikes me this morning as I wander in my own sea of moments. There is literally a rooster crowing in the background – so common now, I rarely notice…except occasionally in the silence of the morning. He announces the day with clockwork consistency, his call an invitation to the routine…or the wonder of the moments ahead.
We spend so much time lost in nothing in particular. Moments cascading like a rushing waterfall, sometimes taking us over the edge, often falling over us, only to move on. Always on. A photo is a freeze frame on a moment. Our smartphones enable us to take so many that we hardly consider the magic of those captured moments. Quickly posting them, they are then lost in the eternal river of media pouring forth, and past, lost in the digital graveyard of files we’ll likely never bother with again.
Unless we pick up that photo album together.
Whether that strikes you as sad, curious, or doesn’t strike you at all, is actually quite fascinating. After all, why does it matter?
Beckoned to a child-sized picnic table by my nearly sever year old grandson last night, my rush of preparations for a family dinner were freeze-framed in the imaginative bubble of a little boy’s Lego project. The child’s time is not our time, it is a universe unto itself. Always urgent, it is consumed with the present moment. Have you ever noticed that? Yesterday and tomorrow are never that important to a child. It is this moment that really matters. The innocent seem to intuit that now is our closest point to eternity.
``` Moon Over Lake Michigan
Moonlight upon the lake
Like the glittering glass of God's eyes,
Illuminating the path to eternity
Wisps of cloud, His breath,
Whispering, "Trust."
The waves rolling upon the shore,
His heart's steady drumbeat.
This moment, His silent invitation;
Timeless in the still of the night.
Will you accept your place in My story?
```
Today, sunlight strikes across the dewey, frozen-edged grass, its countenance…fascinating. We so rarely notice such things. Maybe that’s just me.
But I don’t think so.
Looking back at the journal beside me, I flip through its pages, glancing at dates: March 30, 2024, March 31, 2023, May 23, 2020, June 24, 2017. Each day, a collection of words marking a moment. Those days are gone and only the words remain. Fascinating.
We exist within an incomprehensibly amazing universe, surrounded by people sharing moments with us. If one stops long enough, with enough silence, and an open heart, he begins to tap into just how incredible is that thought. The gift is beyond reckoning. The magnitude beyond comprehension. How many moments are we given? How lavish is such a gift? Yesterday would have been enough, but the moments keep coming…cascading upon us. So very fascinating.
The last randomly flipped page in that journal lies open with the date 6-24-2017 written at the top. The opening lines:
```
Suddenly, everything had changed
My baby became a mother
Bringing another human being
Into this world
``` In the race to the next moment, life blurs unrecognizably, spent like an inexhaustible current. But the end comes, finally exhausted. In between is awe and wonder. The cascade is a glittering gift of amazing centered in the now. It is a lavish gift.
May we all keep feeling fascination with that gift. Wherever it meets us.
The power of love is a curious thing
Make a one man weep, make another man sing
Change a hawk to a little white dove
More than a feeling that’s the power of loveHuey Lewis, The Power of Love
In the HBO Series, Game of Thrones, power struggles of biblical proportions are put on full display as various familes vie for control of Westeros amid direct and indirect machinations. A recurring theme in the ongoing struggle to dominate this imaginary world is the notion of “bending a knee,” a sign of one’s loyalty to a particular ruler and his/her “house.” Though varying degrees of faithfulness to these commitments are displayed throughout the series, the “bended knee” remains a central public indication of one’s intentions in a world where intentions mostly remain hidden.
In the movie, Return of the King, the hobbit Pippin pledges loyalty to the Steward of Gondor, Lord Denethor by bending his knee and swearing fealty and service to Gondor. Denethor responds by saying:
“And I shall not forget it. Nor fail to reward that which is given. Fealty with love, valor with honor, disloyalty with vengeance.”
Fealty is defined as intense fidelity or faithfulness and such an intense vow would be highly desirable for a ruler wanting to make sure his or her vassals were “all-in.” Denethor ups the ante by further defining Pippin’s pledge “Fealty with love, valor with honor, disloyalty with vengeance.” Love is a curious addition. He is saying, I don’t just want loyalty, I want something deeper, something more than an intellectual commitment. I want your heart.
For Pippin in Return of the King and the various players of the Game of Thrones, bending the knee is an action of alignment, saying in the most fundamental sense, “I serve something more than just my own interests.” The posture itself is a message of humility and submission.
An interesting paradox of such submission is that it yokes to the purposes of something greater, while simultaneously liberating from what was before. The basic message of the bended knee is the admission that my life is no longer just my own so I am freed to serve something more. Consider the young lover bending his knee to ask for his love’s hand in marriage. He is choosing to give up his former life, and any conflicting pursuits, in honor and service of a new commitment to their shared love. In it’s purest sense, it is submission and freedom.
Today is Easter Sunday, the Holy Day commemorating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. In the Catholic Church, the end of the Lenten Season is marked in a three day celebration called the Triduum (literally, three days) beginning on the evening of Holy Thursday and ending this evening.
Thursday’s ceremony is the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, celebrating Jesus’ Last Supper with his Apostles. A key part of the evening is the “washing of feet,” a re-enactment of Jesus washing the feet of the twelve Apostles. Sitting in a pew on Thursday, I watched as twelve chairs were placed atop the steps to the altar and twelve men took their place in them, each removing his right shoe.
Our Pastor removed his outer vestment and proceeded to bend his knee at the foot of each man, wash his foot, dry it, and then kiss it. I was struck by the humility and reverence in the ceremony. Whatever your place in life, there are likely few things more humbling than kneeling before another human being, washing his or her feet, drying them, and then kissing them. It is an act of humble love. I have bent my knee to you and I serve something greater than myself. “Thus, the last will be first, and the first will be last.” – MT 20:16
The next day was Good Friday and the celebration of the Lord’s Passion: the arrest, condemnation, and crucifixion of Christ. Back in the pew, I watched as our two priests, deacon, and twelve altar servers processed toward the altar. As they approached, they spread out in a line at the foot of the steps to the altar and proceeded to fully prostrate themselves, face-down. The incredibly beautiful display of submission reminded me that kneeling is not the greatest form of humility and there is incredible power in the liberating force of loving something greater than yourself.
Last night, we celebrated the Easter Vigil in the Mass of the Resurrection of the Lord. The Saturday evening ceremony is started after dark, fireside outside of the sanctuary, with a procession into the dark church where scriptures outlining salvation history are read while the congregation holds candles. As we walk from darkness into light, we re-enact the Jewish Exodus from Egypt, alternating kneeling and standing, as we remember through the readings.
A key part of the evening is the Baptism, Confirmation, and First Communion, for those who have elected to enter the Church after many months of preparation to receive the Sacraments. Kneeling, the Elect pledge fealty to Christ and His Church as they are received into full membership, full communion, with His Body. As we renewed our Baptismal vows, I was reminded of the call to something greater than myself and the liberating power of a commitment to living in such a way.
No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
John 15:13
In our boldest, most honorable moments, we might imagine giving our life grandly for love of the other. But few of us will be called to such devotion. The bold, glorious flourish of a self-sacrificial moment is unlikely as our end. For most of us, the test comes in the long game. The relationships that endure, demand that we sacrifice self time and again out of love for the other. Time. And time. And time. And time again. Maybe seventy times seven times. If we’re fortunate, even more.
When it comes to love, most of us are pretty good sprinters – very loving over short, smooth, unobstructed distances. Our speed and endurance begin to fade with time and obstruction. The flourish of the moment gives way to the reality of a thousand moments that feel, sometimes literally, like a lifetime. This is the great steeplechase of life. The marathon that demands sustained effort and an abundance of resets to refocus, re-engage, and renew, the originating energy that sparked our start.
To love is to will the good of the other and to love greatly is to will it over time, will it at cost to self, will it with no self-interest, and will it even when it’s undeserved. Most especially, to will it when we don’t feel like it. Early in life, we learn that choices have consequences. Later in life, we begin to understand that all great choices will cost something. To love greatly, will cost greatly. It has to or it is cheap, low value, meaningless. Love cannot be cheap or it isn’t love.
No greater love? To love greatly is to live as the lion and the lamb. It is to both protect it and submit to it. To respond fiercely at signs of danger, to show up courageously when the other falters, to challenge faithfully when love becomes wayward. Then the lamb, which bleats softly when lost or encouragingly when content. To lay down one’s self in service or deference to the other. To walk softly and humbly, docile to the circumstance and its particular needs.
Each of us has pledged fealty to something. We have all bent a knee in a particular direction, though we may not even recognize it. Is it something greater than ourselves? Is it worth our full devotion? There is great power in that bended knee – it commands our attention, our energy, our resources, and our heart. In our quest to find ourselves, fill the holes within, heal our wounds, or gratify our desires, we often fail to see that we are chasing the wrong things, for the wrong reasons, in all the wrong ways. We don’t see where we bended our knee in what we’ve chosen to serve.
I’d like to close with the words below from one of my favorite twisted mystics, George Michael. May this Easter find you kneeling in the right direction, feeling the liberating consolation of intense fidelity to your own call in this life.
Let me tell you a secret
Put it in your heart and keep it
Something that I want you to know
Do something for me
Listen to my simple story
And maybe we’ll have something to showHow can I help you?
Please let me try to
I can heal the pain
That you’re feeling inside
Whenever you want me
You know that I will be
Waiting for the day
That you say you’ll be mineGeorge Michael, Heal the Pain
And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother,
“Behold, this child is destined
for the fall and rise of many in Israel,
and to be a sign that will be contradicted
—and you yourself a sword will pierce—
so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”Luke 2:34-35
Many years ago, I began to notice that the great movements within my life, the inflection points, were preceded by indicators hinting at the road ahead. I began to see a correlation between these “signs” and the flow of the decisions I made. I found that the more I followed the signs, the better things tended to work out. Often, the “working out” wasn’t how I expected, what I thought I wanted, or even “good” in traditional terms of success. It was more of a flow, a symmetry among movements, that often culminated in the new, the profound, and the unexpected.
If you’ve followed these posts for any period of time, you’ve likely caught many direct and indirect references to “following the signs.” The notion has become one of the four guiding principles of my life and of our company. Following the signs isn’t about looking for “omens,” reading tea leaves, or trying to manipulate events to a desired outcome. Nor is it about surrendering to a preset “destiny.” Ultimately, it is about obedience to who you are called to be and trust in something greater than yourself.
One might argue that things always “work out” to some end. However, there is a huge difference between letting the river take us where it will and choosing to put our paddle in and move with intention. Following the signs is moving intentionally with the flow rather than fighting to get upstream. Sometimes that choice will take us into the rapids. Sometime it will take us to shore. And sometimes, it will take us to that crystal clear lake we never expected. Rarely is it about comfort or success (at least how success might typically be defined), but it is always about growth and forward motion – our own becoming.
Recently, a series of signs led me to a decision that seemed pretty obvious. A process had dragged-on, there was ongoing resistance in a particular direction, and numerous indicators affirmed my sense that we needed to shift directions, or at least bring this particular line of thinking to a close. The decision made, we moved on. However, over the following weeks, a variety of dynamics kept reoccurring, causing me to re-evaluate my original decision. Did I miss something?
From my perspective, nothing had changed. The basis for the original decision was still valid and there was no compelling reason to revisit it. Yet, the signs were there. There was a whisper, a prod, a poke. In a moment of clarity one morning, I finally realized that those on the other side of my decision were following their own signs…a realization that cast my own signs into a completely new light.
The wild thing about the infinite game we’re all playing is that it isn’t our game. Sure, we want to put ourselves at the center of our own little universe and command like kings or queens, but life reminds us time and time again that it’s really not about us. We desperately want it to revolve around us, and even in our most magnanimous moments, we struggle to see ourselves as anything other than the hero of the story. Yes, we have purpose. Yes, we have value. Yes, we are called to greatness.
And so is everyone else around us.
Here we find a great mystery of life. A world in which our special purpose rides parallel, perpendicular, or opposite to the special purposes of those around us. We are all getting our signs, making our own decisions, and being pressed up against one another amid it all. Sometimes, our sign will be contradicted and we will have to navigate those ramifications. Sometimes, our call is the priority and we must push through against resistance. Sometimes it will be clear, and easy to be obedient. And sometimes, we are playing a part in someone else’s story.
We will never see the whole game board. At least not in this life. Our vision will continue to be restricted to momentary glimpses and the signs will come and go, hidden in the fog or highlighted in the sunshine. Our choices will be thrown into the tossed salad of everyone else’s, and life will roll on. Through it all, we will default to the necessities of our self-centric, and self-protective, world views. The signs will always filter first through that lens.
However, we are playing a part in a much greater drama than our individual story. When we pause for a moment, look and listen, we begin to see the signs, the indications that guide or call to our best direction. Beside it all, run the signs of those we encounter. Will we see our part in their story as well?
My sign or yours? His sign or hers? Look again and you just might see it.
Maybe a real hero is the last one to hear about it.
James Stewart as Wylie Burp, An American Tail: Fievel Goes West
Berry gets the ball, two seconds on the clock, the shot flies….he scores! Victory! And so it went in my mind. Basketball. Baseball. Football. A soldier. A knight. A firefighter. An astronaut. How many places did my youthful mind find glory?
I can remember spending hours in imaginary basketball, football, or baseball games. With a bit of quiet, I can almost return to them. In the front-yard or under the basketball goal hanging over the garage. In front of the pitch-and-catch net that would return the baseball to me. Football passes thrown to myself, caught over imaginary defensive backs in the endzone. My imagination had no limits nor self-conscience awkwardness over these flights of fantasy. I didn’t need friends over or an iPad, I could step outside and disappear into another world, lost in the possibility of it all.
A recent conversation reminded me of those days when my heart was full of the call to greatness. The fantasies didn’t stop with sports. Plastic machine guns and a green helmet helped transport me to the battlefront, when war looked like a fantastic opportunity to demonstrate my heroism. A wooden sword took me to the middle ages, called to the chivalric duty of the knight saving his fair damsel. Space? Of course! It was the final frontier. A place in which my courage and wits would best the most devious alien.
Whatever the field or call to duty, the result was the same. Allstar Phil, Sir Phillip, or Captain Berry, would somehow win the day. On my more creative days, I might even create my own nickname like “the gazelle” or “the blue knight” – anything that might make it clear just how great this hero was. No good hero would want people to miss the particular genius of his greatness.
Time goes on and those boyish fantasies fade. The reality of our experience comes to bear and most of us never hit that last second shot or win the Superbowl on an amazing catch. We grow to realize that a battlefield is the last place we want our courage tested and walking on the moon is way beyond our heroic aspirations. In the stark light of reality, we finally recognize those boyhood games for what they were, flights of fantasy within reach of only the few truly great among us or visions turned to nightmares in the cold light of experience.
Curiously, the old fantasies fade but new ones take their place. The big boys (and girls) among us begin to dream of great careers solving impossible problems, making crazy money, building unimaginable towers into the sky, curing insidious diseases, inventing the product that dents the universe…maybe even building the company that fixes a dysfunctional healthcare system. Moving beyond knighthood and sports-based superstardom, we see ourselves at the center of a different sort of greatness. A practical greatness that looks a bit more attainable.
Perhaps some of us lose the dream part of that journey. Maybe those fantasies fade in the face of the realities that make it clear to us that whatever we once dreamed is no cakewalk. The delusions of grandeur disappear before the harsh difficulties of a life that includes setbacks, loss, hurt, self-doubt, distraction, and occasional apathy. We grow up and learn that our fantasies don’t put bread on the table and the struggle to exist doesn’t adhere to the dream plan we once imagined.
For others, the dream comes true…at least in some fashion. However, the last second shot disappears in a fleeting instant of greatness. The world-changing product creates painful unintended consequences or that beautiful building we designed, shooting gloriously skyward, only satisfies for a moment, as the race to stay on top becomes a grinding competitive treadmill. The younger, more creative designer appears, and we find ourself lamenting: I thought I was supposed to be the great one. I was the great one.
“Vanity of vanities! All things are vanity!” We think back to Ecclesiastes, Chapter 1, and wonder about the point of it all. “In the middle of the journey of our life, I came to myself, in a dark wood, where the direct way was lost. It is a hard thing to speak of, how wild, harsh and impenetrable that wood was, so that thinking of it recreates the fear.” Dante, The Divine Comedy.
It seems that our notion of “greatness” like most of the books, dreams, people, and places of our lives, meets us where we are. Greatness to that little boy so many years ago morphs into something else for the middle-aged man seeing the world through a very different set of lenses.
Our sixth grandchild was born yesterday. Alexander Roy enters this life with a blank slate and literally everything before him. With great expectations, we welcome him. With great love we embrace him. I wonder, what will greatness look like to him and how will that change as he encounters the path of his own life?
Wrestling with my other grandchildren last night, I was humbly reminded that my life is not about me. There is a true grounding that occurs amid snotty noses wiped across one’s shirt, the indignities heaped upon one’s person in the midst of a dogpile, and the delightful necessity of losing in order to see the thrill of victory at your expense in a race across the yard. Suddenly, greatness becomes something that is given away and nowhere near the center I once dreamed.
Perhaps the struggles of life aren’t so much a conspiracy to strip that greatness to which we once aspired, but a formation of the selfless humility that inspires greatness in those around us. Perhaps, that’s where we begin to find lasting joy.
Shaking my head, I realized that I had just shtepped into it. Yeah, I knew the risks, but precautions had been taken. I knew the warning signs, I was diligent in keeping my eyes open, and I walked carefully. Despite my best efforts, that fateful shtep occurred.
A by-product of that joy in life we call pets, is the perpetual flow of…by-products. With a 70 pound golden retriever and a 10 pound grand-dog who frequently visits, we get a fair amount of puppy waste dropped onto our yard. Actually, it is an unfair amount. But we’ll save that pile to fertilize a future post.
I work hard to be diligent in cleaning it up. Pooper scoopers, baggies, and grandchild scouters, are all helpful resources for allowing safe passage across this potential no-man’s land. Despite such assiduous efforts, things get missed and someone, usually me, finds the secret pile in a sherendipitous shtep in just the right location. For me, this lottery-ticket-level statistical anomaly across a half acre is managed with oracular consistency and precision. Somehow, I manage to accidentally find the pile that couldn’t be found intentionally. Thus, the casual step, becomes the maddening shtep, and hell follows with it.
For those of us prone to shtepping into it, there are some considerations in the moments to follow such fan hitting experiences. Allow me to shed some light on them:
- Consider your initial reaction carefully. For me, anger and expletives tend to be my first instinct but I’ve found them to be highly ineffective for alleviating the consequences of the pile now attached to my shoe. Yelling at the dog also does little to correct the current situation or prevent future occurrences. The slightest self-reflection reveals the ultimate blame resting solidly on my own person and I quickly realize that the more vibrant my emotional reaction, the more entertaining it is for any who might be witnessing the shtepping incident. One caveat for consideration: giving others the opportunity to laugh at your misfortune can be an excellent diffuser of shtepping tensions though you may find it hard to find solace in the initial mirth of the situation.
- Many may find the new-found pile to be so offensive as to want to immediately cast-off tainted footwear or garments. Stay that impulse. Trying to deny the shtepping by removing contaminants too quickly can result in a repeat shtepping and make matters worse. Face your reality. You shtepped into it, that pile is going to stick, and you need to own the mistake.
- Carefully review your options. How deeply are you into the danger zone? Can you back out safely? Do you need to push through? Are you alone? Sometimes shtepping can be riskier when others are with you. Do nothing that might lead them to shtepping into the same mess you did, or to fall into their own pile. If you were led into the pile by your dog, you’ll have to play it out by allowing Shep to finish his business. Retreating at this point could have other consequences.
- Another instinct might be to stop and try to scrape the poo off your boot. Depending on your position, this can be a risky strategy. Do you have the right tools for such an extraction? Do you have room to move? Often, the piles we step into are too fresh in the moment to cleanly remove. Trying to scrape our shoe on the grass might push the soft matter further into our treads, making it tougher to remove later. Sometimes, we need to give it some time to dry so it is easier to knock-off later.
- If you’ve shtepped into a really big pile, you may need to call for help. Don’t be too proud to admit you’ve over-shtepped your ability to extricate yourself, or your favorite pair of house slippers. Enlisting the aid of a fellow shtepper (we’ve all been there) can be a great way to diffuse your mistake and spread the risk.
- Occasionally, the shtepping is so devastating that there is no recovering that pair of boots. This is a great risk when one of your puppies has been ill. Compound shtepping can occur when something else has been going on that creates a big mess when the final shtep comes. When the risk of a compound incident is high, greater precautions must be taken to avoid a shtep of devastation. Here, one might consider carrying a flashlight or wearing a particularly shtep-resistant pair of boots – something easy to hose off.
I wonder, do you have any shtep-preventing or mitigating advice? What is your favorite move when you’ve shtepped into it?
As time goes on, I’ve begun to realize that shlaughter is probably the best shmedicine. There is really no avoiding the misshteps of life. Shtuff happens and we are prone to shtepping into if from time to time.
That’s it for now. Excuse me while I go clean off my house slippers.
“Poppy is a man of his word.” I paused and looked at Cooper. He was talking to his sister but looking at me. I asked, “What does it mean to be a man of your word?” “It means you do what you say you’re going to do,” he replied. Not bad for a six year old.
Understand, the context for the exchange above centered on me telling our grandchildren “no” to watching a movie until a bit later. He was reminding his sister that Poppy meant “no” for now but would follow through and he was confirming that I was on board. it was subtle, masterful, and completely innocent. It also stopped me in my tracks as I considered how my casual promise was not casual to his little heart and mind.
We tend to be so casual with our words. Both the words we speak and the promises we make. Consider the word “casual.” It suggests easy, convenient, informal. A casual promise could be construed as being halfhearted, not fully intentioned, not full considered, and subject to change. We make them all the time: “I’ll call to set something up.” “I’ll do that when I’ve got time.” “I’ll get back to you.” “Not now, maybe later.”
Of course, the thing about “casual” is that it typically is casual to one party and not the other. Particularly when it comes to children. When a six year old describes you as a “man of your word” it is compliment and conviction. When was I halfhearted with my “word?” When did I tell him I would do something and I didn’t follow through? When did I say something that I really didn’t mean? It is a cautionary reminder of the importance of our words.
Do we mean what we say? To give our “word” is to make a promise. What about when we don’t explicitly “promise?” We tend to allow ourselves latitude for those “words” that we give more casually, justifying our halfheartedness by saying “I didn’t promise” or “I didn’t commit” or “I was just kidding.” This is a “no harm, no foul” policy of hiding in the nuances of language until it isn’t, becoming damaging when we knowingly or unknowingly allow another to believe otherwise.
The words we speak are powerful and creative. The explicit promise of our “word” is a clear commitment, but what about other words we share? If being a “man of your word” equals meaning what you say, how often do we qualify?
Talk is cheap and words are plentiful. In a world jaded by sales pitches, marketing messages, and persistent emotional manipulation, have our words lost their value? Has “giving” our word been rendered meaningless by the insincerity behind the words we use? To a six year old, the words we use are a promise…even if we don’t call them that. To young Cooper, those words are a commitment, an intention to manifest the future. The words are powerful in that they state the fact, the belief, the heart, or the hope, of the matter. They carry weight whether we intend it or not.
One might argue that part of “growing up” is learning to deal with half-truths, insincerity, and the fantasy, sitting behind the words of so many. Fair enough. We all need to be prepared for the reality of humanity and the hidden drivers of the words falling upon us. Reader/listener beware. But Cooper, your sister, your co-worker, your client, or your friend at church, aren’t concerned with the broad swath of human insincerity when they are listening to the words you share. Your word matters. Your words matter.
This week, spend some time thinking about the words floating around in your life. Look first at yourself. Are you a man or woman of your word? Are you doing what you said you would do? Are you showing up, keeping promises, and living up to the words you’ve put into the world? Then look around. Who is doing what they said they would do? Who isn’t?
Our words are incredibly valuable. Be a person of your word.
“I’ll just go where insurance tells me to go.” So ended a recent conversation with my 84-year-old mother-in-law as she told us about her effort to get a brace prescribed for her by her physician and the requirement that she drive an hour to the correct point of access for the product she needed. One might think it was a special order item or something with limited access or simply a factor of her living remotely. It was not a special item or limited in availability, and she had already driven an hour into the city for the medical appointment. She drove another hour past a dozen other access points because Medicare dictated it.
On the surface, it’s a little thing. After all, we’re all used to running around to take care of our healthcare needs. The mind-blowing thing to observe in this small snapshot of our system is that every step along her journey has been the same experience. Once she entered the system to try to address the onset of a debilitating source of pain, the blocking, herding, denying, delaying, and confusing began. Fortunately for her, the care has been good but the gyrations to address the physical pain create an almost equal amount of pain in frustration and uncertainty.
Nobody reading this needs me to convince them that there are myriad problems with our current system of healthcare in the United States. Stories abound and a quick search will produce far more and far worse stories. The first part of the title for this post is actually misleading as American healthcare has a very specific center – it’s just not the patient. What’s at our healthcare center? “Insurance.”
When my mother-in-law says “insurance,” she’s talking about the massive bureaucracies administering our healthcare system. For most of our country, this means the federal government or the handful of health plans that dominate our healthcare landscape – including being the largest employers of physicians in the country. These aren’t your local hospitals, a group frequently demonized for high prices or price obfuscation. No, it’s the BUCAH industrial complex that controls the networks, sets the prices, and herds all of us through the byzantine maze of hoops, hurdles, pits, and corrals that surround and encompass our healthcare system.
Not sure what “BUCAH” means? Do a quick Google search and you’ll see. They are the center of our American healthcare universe and they are the ones dictating the care you receive and don’t receive, where and how you receive it, as well as how much you pay for it. We live in a mass production healthcare universe that isn’t made to produce health but instead made to administer, throttle, and capture value, from transactional healthcare. In this world, the patient is far from the center, as he or she sits in his or her own personal orbit around the cold, faceless, titanic, center we call “insurance.”
This post isn’t the place to recount how we got here and none of us needs another collection of frustrating healthcare stories. My mother-in-law’s anecdote is annoyingly basic, however, there are plenty of life and death versions to stoke more serious flames of angst. Unless you work within the industrial BUCAH complex or reap their rewards as an investor, you likely recognize and freely admit where the center of gravity sits in the U.S. healthcare system as well as its problems. It is working as it’s designed and is actually pretty effective at herding us and capturing value for itself.
This post is concerned with two questions: Is it too late to re-center it? And, if not, how do we do it?
In a few weeks, I’ll be speaking to a room of health system executives on ideas to “reduce the footprint of Goliath.” Wait, aren’t health systems part of the problem? Hospitals have taken a beating over pricing and their part in our healthcare mess but we need to recognize that they are orbiting the same center. Health systems are as beholden to the health plan industrial complex as we are as individuals. The plan sets the price. The plan dictates care through prior authorizations, cost-sharing, steerage, contract gag clauses, rebate manipulation, lobbying, setting below cost reimbursements, and a variety of other practices that make things difficult for providers and patients alike.
My message to my audience? We need to put the patient back at the center. We need to focus on the total healthcare experience: access, cost, and complexity. Where does this begin? It begins with the lowest common denominator: the human being. It begins in that person’s community. It begins with that person’s employer. It begins with where and how that person accesses and pays for healthcare as well as how he/she experiences it. It begins with an obsessive focus on what creates individual human flourishing.
We’ve gotten so consumed with pulling the big levers, moving the big herds, and administering the huge populations, that we’ve lost sight of the individual we’re trying to serve. Who can change this? The employer, the union, and the local healthcare providers. How? By deconstructing the entrenched systems that fix us into our current orbit. We have to shrink Goliath’s footprint, and stranglehold, on our $4.5 trillion dollar healthcare economy. We have to move them from the center.
Does it sound too big? Does it seem impossible? It’s already happening. Ice is melting at the edges. There is no silver bullet fix, nor is there a “fast pass” to a better future. It is going to take time, focus, discipline, fortitude, and significant energy. It starts with a vision for something better and innovative thinking on how to bridge to it in a world so beholden to its current center. It is not about government regulation but a free market that moves thing by moral and economic force. Re-centering on the patient is pragmatic, morally appropriate, and necessary. It will begin with self-funded employers and unions, working with local health systems, and leveraging competitive market forces.
Curiously, once we start re-centering on the individual, we’ll find that it pulls the healthcare provider and the commercial payer into that center because all three win when the healthcare universe begins to orbit its new center of gravity. In this universe, “insurance” is no longer the dictator of care and cost but simply one more piece of a collection of services ordered toward a new priority. There is a roadmap to a new “healthverse” and it is quietly reforming around its proper center.
Stay tuned. Lots more to come.
Strong is such a curious, multi-faceted word. A strong structure can weather the storm, withstand attack, or endure earthquakes. Strong people can also endure, withstand, or weather. Strength can be physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual. We speak of strength of character in facing struggles or temptation. One might be strong in her faith or strong enough to lift her three children simultaneously.
A team must be strong to win and a country must be strong to endure the tests of time. High performing companies post strong earnings and a strong economy suggests prosperity. We often find strength in numbers and strong polling indicates a message that is being well received. In a tough, brutal world, we may believe that only the strong survive. Getting tough things done requires a strong resolve, especially with strong headwinds. We always prefer to see our horse make a strong showing.
With the Superbowl now behind us and basketball tournaments on their way, much of our nation is primed for his or her team. How strong will they be down the stretch? Do they have the strength to go the distance? For those of us leading our own teams, we wonder how to strengthen them individually and the collectively. For those of us leading or supporting families, we may also be wondering how to strengthen the family unit. For those of us in healthcare, we may be trying to figure out how to strengthen the health of those under our care. Getting stronger seems to be important in so many facets of our lives.
Curiously, my original title for this post was “How do we help each other flourish?” but the AI title judge determined that it wouldn’t resonate very strongly with readers. I guess the notion of “strength” is a big deal for us.
Looking a bit more closely, it makes complete sense. Human flourishing demands balanced strength in the critical facets of our lives. The golden mean of a joyful existence might be defined as the beautiful place of equilibrium that often eludes our physical, spiritual, mental, and emotional selves. A place where our strength holds our center intact in the face of all that disrupts the balance. Striving for that golden, joyful, mean is the journey, and the adventure, of a lifetime.
Our hyper self-obsessed culture offers plenty of guides promising to get you there…wherever there might truly be. The better you. The tougher you. The ideal you. The stronger you. Go ahead and work on the “you” you want to be. Strive to be better. Work to get stronger. The problem with most approaches to such self-improvement is that they are akin to the latest diet fad which fixates on one set of bad foods or bad behaviors that make us unhealthy. We ultimately find that fixating on any one area only creates imbalance in others. It’s not bad to want to improve oneself, to make yourself stronger. But first ask, “Stronger for what?”
Therein lies the challenge. The answer tends to be “for myself.” I want to be the best me, for myself. I want to be a better ______, for myself. I want to be stronger…so that I can be happier, more prosperous, more attractive, more funny, more, more, more. Me, me, me.
If we were to ask ourselves the question, “How can I be stronger for others?” Our answer might begin with another question, “How do I make others stronger?” Think about it for a moment. If we changed our focus from our self and on to the other for a few minutes, what might happen? I’m not talking about “fixing” the other. That is a dead end. What are things we can do to strengthen another person?
- Limitations – what? Yes, limitations. Clear boundaries, discipline, resistance, and positively challenging the other will strengthen them. No one can thrive in absolute freedom – our own wills crumble without some help staying within healthy swim lanes. Discipline for children is a strengthening gift, laws for adults are necessary for a strong foundation.
- Expectations – accountability is a powerful strengthening agent. Expecting something from someone is a gift. It says “you are capable, you have the ability, you are strong enough.” It also says “I think highly enough of you and your gifts to actually expect something from you.”
- Empowerment – providing the tools and resources to do what needs to be done also bolster strength. Whether you are working to strengthen a child, an employee, or a love, helping them along with the proper physical, mental, spiritual, or emotional, resources is powerful.
- Opportunity – there is nothing like possibility to strengthen another human being. Motivation is sends strength coursing through limbs and will, reinforcing foundational character and helping point ones eyes out from to self to a larger something else.
- Encouragement – like a direct injection of hope, encouragement may be the most powerful lever we have for helping someone else flourish. There are so many pathways to encourage another: physically by giving a hand, emotionally by listening, mentally by asking the question, and spiritually by demonstrating.
But what about me? Yeah, it’s tough not to ask that question. Even with the best intentions, we still come back to ourselves. That’s ok, strengthening the other in the self-giving that occurs in the list above will make you stronger. Way stronger. Every effort yields more for self through the very act of self-giving. In limiting, we create our own sense of discipline. In expecting, we grow to hold ourselves accountable. In empowering, we gift ourself with the satisfaction of another’s flourishing which in turn helps us to flourish. In offering opportunity or pointing out possibility, we are opening our own eyes to the wondrous world around us. In encouraging, we rekindle hope into a fire that ignites all the full flames in our own life.
Still feel the need to focus on your self to get stronger? A friend shared the list below and I believe it is a powerful way to strengthen others outwardly while strengthening oneself inwardly:
- Mortify your will through the practice of obedience. Cheerful service is a great strengthener of humility.
- Attend especially to the tasks you don’t like doing. Doing stuff you don’t like to do fortifies self-discipline.
- Embrace annoyances. My friend likes to say “you spot it, you got.” That sounds like a great place for self-reflection.
- Impose a strict watch on your tongue. Yeah, I know.
- Check impulsive actions. Asking “Do I really need to do this?” is a great place to start.
In 1931, William Danforth wrote: “Our most valuable possessions are those which can be shared without lessening-those which, when shared, multiply. Our least valuable possessions, on the other hand, are those which, when divided, are diminished.” We truly do increase our strength when we help someone else get stronger. It’s a strong point made stronger by not pointing it at ourself.
“Is this heaven?” asked John. Ray paused and answered, “It’s Iowa.” “Iowa?” responded John as he started to walk away. “I could have sworn it was heaven,” “Is there a heaven?” asked Ray.”Oh yeah,” responded John. “It’s the place where dreams come true.” Pausing and looking around, Ray said, “Maybe this is heaven.”
So went the powerful scene between Ray Kinsella and the ghost of a young version of his father, John, in the 1989 hit Field of Dreams, starring Kevin Costner. Such a classic moment. Check it out here.
Sitting under the lights of Victory Field in Indianapolis last night, I couldn’t help but think of that movie and John Kinsella’s question, Is this heaven? Surrounded by my own family and our extended Northwind family, my face hurt from smiling so broadly for such an extended time. “I love that sound,” came the voice next to me. Tuning back in to the moment, I gave him a questioning look. “The snap of the ball hitting the glove,” he responded, smiling and pointing toward the pitcher warming up mere feet from our baseline seats.
Earlier this week, I asked a friend about a loved one who I knew was suffering from Stage IV cancer. “She is feeling well enough to attend the wedding in a few weeks,” she responded. “What a miracle,”‘ I said, knowing that the circumstances are very fluid and each additional moment is a gift – a small glimpse of heaven.
We’ve entered September 2023, the season is showing signs of change, and our move toward the next is beginning. The year has delivered plenty of loss in the form of friends, loved ones, colleagues, and celebrities who have passed out of our lives; and loss in the form of struggle, suffering, and heartbreak. We move toward yearend knowing that more will come.
And yet, it has delivered plenty of gain as well. New life. New friends. New starts. New deals. New hope. The beat goes on.
Watching my grandchildren run up and down the steps of the stadium last night, waving their miniature bats, laughing and talking to complete strangers as they made their way, I was reminded of the glimpses of heaven we get through it all. My face hurt from smiling as I watched them, and I recognized the gift in the moment. The glimpse was easy with a cold beer, a perfect temperature, and not a single worry other than the persistent tripping on steps by the 2 year old. Each crack of the bat marked the moments with an emphatic call to focus on the brief glimpse.
There was no voice telling me to build it and they will come or to go the distance, but I did hear a reminder to savor this moment.
Such moments are easy to savor when we pause long enough to recognize them. We can almost step out of our own heads and see it for what it is, a real glimpse of heaven. A place where the stress and the strain fade, lost in the effortlessness of awe and wonder, of simply being present in the moment and letting it be. A window of time in which the waters of our life are moving us in just the right direction, at just the right speed, and it is joyfully easy.
What about the moments that are not so joyful or effortless? Talking to some who have gone through recent job loss, i’m struck by glimpses of heaven found in the work of moving one. Relief. Hope. New life. The loss is pretty much always a gift – a push to something different, something new, something more.
Even death, the sad ending to what was, in such a way as to overwhelm us in the what we can’t know and the where we don’t want to go, brings its own glimpse. In What Sara Said, Death Cab for Cutie sing that “love is watching someone die.” Being present at the end, at the moment of transition, is its own excruciating gift…to all involved. To feel so deeply is to glimpse heaven through a depth of love that brings us near selflessness even as we feel the piercing hurt of complete abandonment. Such a moment is an acute transition for everyone involved.
Ease his pain says the voice to Ray Kinsella as he laments his own struggles. Whose pain he wonders? Following the signs, Kinsella finds that turning his heart and soul toward that bigger mission ultimately eases his own pain as he surrenders to something beyond himself. Beyond his understanding. Beyond what he thinks his life about.
Watching the messiness, suffering, struggle, and then moments of joy within my own life and the lives of those with whom I share this journey, I finally see it. Like those distant stars high in our nighttime skies, we realize that there are some that we’ll never see by looking at them directly – we need the right lens, circumstance, point of view, and prompting to notice. That is the gift. That is Grace. That is a glimpse of heaven.
Stepping up to the free throw line, I set up my shot and knew the second I released the ball that it was an airball. Retrieving the ball quickly, I turned to shoot an easy layup off the backboard and found myself throwing the ball past the square above the basket. Three attempts later, I finally put the ball in the basket. Looking back to the free throw line, I flushed at the display I had just given the twenty-five other men playing this game at a church gathering.
Of course, no one else was as concerned as I was about my performance, especially since the game was about “knocking” the guy in front of you out of the game and I was making it easy. For me, a guy who probably didn’t go a day without shooting a basketball for over 30 years in a game or practice, and then coached it for another dozen years, the experience was quite humbling.
Actually, the experience verged on being humiliating, a place we take ourselves when our performance falls so far short of our expectation as to embarrass us. A few days later, after a nearly ten year hiatus, I found myself in a similar place on a golf course. Thank God I had a patient foursome and we were in a scramble. Apparently, neither my basketball nor my golf skills are like riding a bicycle. What you don’t you use, you lose.
At one point during the golf outing, I made a comment about the experience being humbling. Curiously, my game actually improved after I said it out loud. Sorry, no Happy Gilmore comebacks here – it was only a marginal improvement. However, in humility, my expectations were lowered. I relaxed a bit and accepted things as they were. There was no “man-handling” this situation. All I could do was try to relax and enjoy it as it was.
Humility is defined as a freedom from pride or arrogance. We frequently associate it with a modest disposition. A “humble beginning” suggests a start with minimal expectations for great achievement. “Humble” circumstances imply a simple or basic existence. The humble person does not brag or draw attention.
In today’s society, we may be more familiar with “false humility.” The state of claiming low pride or acting modest when we may actually feel quite superior. We are “humbled” in the receipt of awards, honor, and glory for our great acts of charity and magnanimity. Sometimes, we even claim “humility” in the face of great achievement – a truly difficult place to find true humility.
As a society, we are all about achievement. A recent headline contrasted two competing politicians by describing one as “self-made.” That’s the ultimate, right? The self-made man or woman who achieved wealth, power, or fame by the merits of their own moxy, intelligence, and effort. We love to celebrate the go-getter with the “golden touch” or the ability to “make things happen.”
Achievement in our society is often centered on “keeping score.” We learn early in school that high grades are a good thing and that the team who scores more points wins. Life’s scoreboards progress from there: bank accounts, an address, a title, a headline, votes “won,” an award, an “exit,” our name on a building. In the end, success is clearly identified by the correct quantification, tallied and displayed for affirmation.
None of those versions of success are bad in themselves. Achievement is a reflection of the good stewardship of talents, gifts, and opportunities presented to us throughout our lives. The golfers in my foursome this week were quite good and it was clear they had worked to get there. The person with the title or the one who makes a big donation or the athlete for whom we cheer every Sunday, have all made sacrifices and put in much work to be where they are. In many ways, they’ve earned it.
The problem for all of us in our achievements and our attachments to them, is that we are living on a constantly changing continuum of competence, opportunity, and calamity. There are some things we control and far more that we do not. We can work to master our skills and inclinations but life is happening all around us – sometimes to our benefit and sometimes to our detriment.
The reality is that we are only partially “self made.” We play a big part in our successes and our failures, but not the only part. We can do many things to increase our odds of high achievement but many things will come along to derail our efforts. We can also enjoy our moments in the sun but the weather will soon change. We want to claim responsibility for our “destiny” but it is not ours alone to claim.
In a world where we want so desperately to control our own fate even as it persistently reminds us that we are not in fact in control, humility becomes one of our greatest allies. When we’re riding high, humility helps us remember when things were much more difficult. When we’ve got everything under control, humility reminds us that there are greater forces moving around us that we cannot control. When we feel “bullet proof,” humility reminds us of our own mortality.
Unlike our putting skills, how we study for a test, or our speaking abilities, humility is not really a skill to be developed. Sure, we can work to be modest and self-effacing. We can say the right things when asked, share the credit, and point to a higher power for all of the great things happening in our lives. However, we’re always fighting the thing we cannot ever fully escape: our own pride. There is no arrival to humility, it is a constant battle.
We’re not humbled by recognition, honor, awards, or “achievement.” The more we get, the more we think we’ve got it. The more we think it’s by our hand alone. We’re humbled by loss, imperfection, struggle, incompetence, and the realization that it is NOT all by our own hand. Humility must be given to us, we cannot claim it is our own doing any more than we can claim that we created our intelligence, speed, good looks, or the fact that we were born in the United States. Some of these things we can work to improve, but at their core, they were gifts.
Why is humility important? Humility opens us up to gratitude. Humility frees us from the burden of carrying it all alone. Humility allows us to listen better, learn better, and love better. Humility helps us see the truth of our situation, accept the reality of our circumstances, and open ourselves to the possibility of answers beyond our own limitations. Humility reminds us that we are passing, things are ever-changing, and that it is not all about us.
As we age, everything gets a bit more stiff and inflexible. The patterns of our lives start to become more rigid. We tolerate change far less and begin to avoid the things that are uncomfortable. Some of those things are physical, some are mental, and some are spiritual. Our humility “muscle” can start to become brittle and harden into the pride of needing to be right and to have it our way. We want to avoid the places that push us and sit comfortably in the warm armchair of our own knowing.
This is a dangerous place as it causes us to turn more and more inward, slowly closing us from the joy, peace, and potential of the world around us. Like the stiff fingers that could once make 20 free throws in a row, now shooting airballs, we wake up realizing the touch we once had has slipped away. Stepping into that zone of incompetence humbles us into remembering that the effort must still be exerted, that we cannot take the moment for granted, and that we must be always alert for the hardening of our own pride.
This week, find a few places that might humble you. Put yourself out there just enough to remember its tempering edge. With time, we work harder and harder to avoid places where we might find it, and in so doing, we miss the chance to receive the gift of humility.
A stubbornly persistent problem in our modern era has centered on the dichotomy between our increasing standard of living: wealth, comfort, technology, culture, leisure, etc. and our decreasing quality of life as measured in overall health and well-being. Headline after headline seems to affirm the struggle as we battle obesity, smoking, opioid addiction, depression, and […]
And I think if you look at the present state of the world it’s pretty plain that humanity has been making some big mistakes. We’re on the wrong road. And if that is so we must go back. Going back is the quickest way on. C.S. Lewis, The Case for Christianity “Sometimes we have to […]
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” From the United States’ Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776. So began our country’s separation from England and our perpetual […]
We’ve been in Ann Arbor, Michigan, since last Thursday. Like most college towns, it has its own vibe…a wildly curious mix of the youthful search for identity and purpose with the eclectic collection of humanity drawn to the many elements surrounding the coming-to-adulthood process of the university setting. From the mass of humanity converging on […]
But some seed fell on rich soil, and produced fruit, a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold. Matthew 13:8 Our Many Gardens Every spring, Sally plants various gardens around our house and on a corner of a large field not too far from us. Each garden is a unique combination of flowers, vegetables, and other plants. […]
Who is the most successful person you know? Yeah, it’s kind of a trick question. The question begs another question: how do you define success? I suspect that most reading this would tend to answer questions about success in terms of a moral ideal. Success is leading a good and moral life. Doing the right […]
The Devastating Truth of Dishonesty So let us not talk falsely nowThe hour is getting late Bob Dylan, All Along the Watchtower I recently experienced direct, in-my-face, deception. This was not one of my grandchildren trying to hide a mistake, someone’s exaggerated fishing story, or an insincere compliment. When I finally recognized it, it took […]
A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Yesterday, I came across a woman selling roses in […]
Sometimes our best wins the race and sometimes it’s not enough. Sometimes our best gets us what we want and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes, our best is just showing up and surviving to fight another day. Perhaps you have an absolute measure of your best; a moment in which you reached some peak of performance. […]
Cliche. Platitude. Bromide. Nuggets of wisdom that have been used so often that they have become meaningless. Some phrases that Google classifies as “platitudes” include:
- Thoughts and prayers.
- It doesn’t matter who scores, as long as the team wins.
- Sacrifice today for a better tomorrow.
- Nobody’s perfect.
- Good things come to those who wait.
- Life is a mystery.
- That’s just my personal opinion.
- I wish I knew then what I know now.
We’ve got many, many versions of these phrases. They are often used as “fillers,” expressions to be inserted into moments in which we really don’t have anything to offer or don’t want to get into a more lengthy discussion. For example, we often greet others by saying “How are you today?” and hear the response “Fine” or “Good.” In most cases, there is no appetite for the more complex truth: “I’m really having a terrible day and here are the 10 reasons why.”
The platitude might emerge if someone actually decides to give us the details of their bad day: “Life is a mystery.” The response is a verbal shrug saying that “I really have no response.” There may be deeper wisdom behind “life is a mystery” but its effectively meaningless because there is no intent to dig deeper and its vague broadness makes it a perfect barrier for additional conversation.
Beyond the SurfaceWe often do a similar thing with stereotypes. It’s easier to just label a group or situation as “typical” in behavior or reaction than to deconstruct the specifics and look beyond the surface. Growing up, I remember cartoons and sitcoms that were relentless in their use of stereotypes and cliches as part of their effort to get a laugh out of the audience.
One particular set of stereotypes I remember was that of the “nagging wife” and “foolish husband.” From the “Honeymooners” to “I Love Lucy” to “Tom & Jerry” and on and on. There were numerous bits making fun of the wife who was seemingly never pleased, easily annoyed, or working to limit the “fun” of her husband. Conversely, we had plenty of laughs at the “dumb” husband who persistently made choices that frustrated, irritated, or disappointed his wife, who of course, was never going to be happy with him.
Exaggerating normal and abnormal behaviors is an old recipe for comedy, but there are always elements of truth in the greatest exaggerations. There are also nuggets of wisdom that get lost as the routines become stereotypes, effectively platitudes that become meaningless caricatures of whatever they’re trying to reflect – the image is vaguely familiar but too generic to be useful other than as a “filler” for a lack of interest in digging deeper.
Consider for a moment some of the things those sitcom wives were “nagging” about: husbands out late with their friends, buying things without discussing first, not finishing home projects, or letting the kids do something when mom had already said “no.” These are all situations which present opportunities for humor but reflect serious break points for relationships.
The cartoon or sitcom pokes fun at the wife, or husband, in these situations but they reflect a bigger issue around disappointment and conflict in relationships. The man considers the wife a “nag” because she is pressing him on some behavior that is problematic or to fulfill a commitment he has failed to fulfill. Oh how we hate to be called out on our behavior, choices, or unfulfilled commitments.
Moving on from the stereotype above, insert anyone into the role of the “nag.” The reality is that we don’t like anyone telling us no, correcting us, calling us out, holding us back, or demanding more from us. The contrarian in us rails against accountability and limits. Rules are made to be broken right? If you have any doubt about this, just spend a few moments at a youth sporting event and watch how parents treat referees and each other. The right call is always the call that I wanted made and your failure to see that makes you wrong.
Despite our preference to always be right and to always get what we want, in moments of honesty we recognize the need for rules, limits, structure, encouragement, and standards of measure, to restrain our darker tendencies. We know that such strictures are necessary for a properly functioning society, particularly for all of the others around us who would be even worse barriers to our desires without such limits.
The Self-Made MythEven though we push back on the constraints and resent correction, we recognize their necessity. The reality for us as imperfect human beings is that we need to be restrained in many ways and pushed in many other ways in order for us to become the best versions of ourselves. No one “does it alone” and their is no such thing as “self-made.” Everyone we consider “successful” was taught, mentored, corrected, punished, limited, and pushed to whatever degree of attainment they have reached.
We don’t “create” ourselves, we are the products of lengthy formation within the limits of our environment. Sure, we react, make decisions, and choose, but we cannot get “there” on our own – at least not any “there” to which we truly aspire. We need a universe of factors and people to move forward in our lives to become the best, or at least moderately functioning, person we can possibly be. The self-made myth is its own stereotype, exaggerated, demonized, lionized, and fantasized throughout our culture.
Knowing how much we hate constraints and corrections, that we need them to become our best, and that we cannot do “it” all on our own, we begin to recognize the critical nature of the relationships around us and the particular pressures put upon them. The humorous stereotype of the “nagging wife” emerges into a different light as we consider its underlying truth. In those moments in which we feel a person “nagging” us, he or she may be absolutely necessary for us to become our best self.
Loving ParadoxParadoxically, relationships often break down when others don’t give us what we want. We don’t like to be told “no” or corrected or called to more. As parents, we like to say “yes” to our children because we want to see them happy. However, if we are all “yes,” then we overly indulge our children and they (and the world) suffer for their selfishly entitled personalities. Children have little choice but to endure the corrections. Things shift dramatically for us as adults.
But true love is having the will to say “no” when it is best for them. It is correcting their error or behavior in order to help them learn. It is preparing them for the long game of life so they might stand in their own when you cannot stand with them. It is calling them to more because less is always easier…and we almost always default to easier.
Who do we want around us? We prefer those who give us the right attention, agree with us, validate our genius, and frequently tell us “yes.” This means that anything else causes risk. When we don’t agree, don’t validate, don’t say “yes,” we risk disappointing the other which might cause them to reject us. When others treat us this way, we may decide they are not worth the effort.
The risks involved with telling someone “no,” correcting them, or pushing them to more are high. Very high. This means that it takes a lot of courage to say “no.” It requires great strength of will to disagree. It is an act of bravery to disappoint another. And, it demands great love to call the other to more.
Look Around Look around you. Who loves you enough to tell you “no”? Who care enough to disagree with you? Not just to argue or to be a jerk, but to elevate the discussion or help you by correcting an error? Who loves you enough to call you to more?
There is clearly an art to loving this way. We are all prideful. No one likes to be wrong, corrected, or called out. But oh how we need it from time to time. Who has the courage to push you when you need it? Stay close to that person because he or she really loves you.
Now, look at yourself. How do you receive such love? Do you have the courage to humbly accept the fierce love of being called to more? The risks are great. To love like this is to risk vulnerability. To love this way and accept love this way is to trust at an incredibly high level. It is also the path to relationships that make life worth living and a depth of character that will lead to a life well-lived.
This Memorial Day week-end seems like an appropriate time for a brief reflection on fear as we remember those who “gave the last full measure of devotion.” Anyone spending a few honest moments at one of our war memorials cannot help but feel the frightening awe and gravity of the “ultimate sacrifice.” Because of such sacrifices, most of us will never know the fear and doubt of the final moments of those who experienced them.
However, ours is an existence marked by fear and doubt and we will know it in many forms before our own end. Fear of what might or might not be. Fear of what others think. Fear of failing. Fear of suffering. Fear of being humiliated. Fear of not mattering. Fear of fading. Fear of loss. And yes, fear of our own death.
The Merits of Naked Ice CreamWalking our dog earlier this week, Sally and were passing the home of our daughter and son-in-law when their front door burst open and our two oldest grandchildren (almost 6 and 4) ran into the yard to greet us. The sun was setting and the kids were winding down for bed with a little ice cream snack as we pulled up to greet their exuberance. One glory of grand-parenthood is our illusion of being as important as royalty in such moments.
After a few seconds of high-energy updates on the day and excitement over their ice cream, number three threw the front door open and emerged, naked and equally enthusiastic about his day, his ice cream, and his Nanny and Poppy. Children are forces of nature in all of their forms but there is a certain kind of freedom and energy that accompanies a two year old…particularly a naked one.
Watching Fulton run circles around us, his siblings, and our dog, I was struck by how exuberantly unencumbered he was. He possessed not even the smallest iota of self-consciousness, doubt, hesitancy, or fear as he laughed, gibbered-on in his partial words and sentences, and danced about like he was celebrating the most exciting moment in his life. Clearly, I have not tried the naked ice cream experience frequently enough to understand the true extent of its merits.
Grabbing the leash of Edie, he decided he needed to walk her around the yard a bit though it was unclear who was walking who. He was completely free, completely joyful, and completely innocent. His nakedness was completely appropriate to his state of mind and struck me in its purity. No spot or blemish. No shame or doubt. No concern with what any of us, or anyone else in the neighborhood, would think.
Naked and AfraidConsider for a moment the notion of running forth from your front porch, buck-naked, to greet friends. What first comes to mind? Propriety aside, your mind likely goes to the red-faced humiliation of your own nakedness. Maybe your mind’s eye sees the imperfections in your naked form. Perhaps you imagine how you look to your friends or what might run through their minds. Likely, you can tune-in to the absolute vulnerability of being so blatantly exposed.
Even the most self-confident of us likely squirms at the thought of such exposure. We have been conditioned to associate nakedness with vulnerability – physical and emotional. I’m not suggesting this is silly or priggish, our physical forms need to be covered for safety and survival, and that covering helps provide emotional protection as well. Nakedness is risky for us and we completely understand the fears that come along with it. There are real reasons for that fear.
Glorious Lightness of BeingNow, consider where nakedness feels normal or joyful? First and foremost to enjoy nakedness, we must feel safe. Safe in our surroundings. Safe in the presence of others. Safe physically. Safe emotionally. Considering Fulton’s joyful romp around the yard, there is no question that he felt completely safe. He could not imagine anything in the world hurting him. Moving past the fear, that nakedness starts to feel normal. From there, it can begin to feel joyful. Perhaps even innocent.
We put clothes on to cover our nakedness, adding layers to help protect us. Some of those layers are necessary to reduce our exposure to dangerous elements like cold or heat. Protection. Always protection.
What about the other layers? What else are we putting on to protect ourselves? We go to great lengths to cover our vulnerabilities. Sometimes we put on airs. Occasionally we put on a brave face. Often, we put on a mask in the hope that some blemish or weakness may remain unseen. Each layer brings its own weight, turning the lightness of our nakedness to something heavier, something burdensome.
Honest and Dangerous“Your dangerous, ‘cos your honest” opens the U2 song, “Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses.” When is honesty dangerous? As I watched Fulton run around his yard, free, unburdened, and fearless, I recognized his innocence. It was pure. It was honest. It was powerful. Such nakedness, such honesty, is dangerous.
Dangerous? Yes. Imagine for a moment what you might do if you were fearless. What choices might you make if you knew without a doubt that everything was going be ok? Who might you be if you knew that you could be naked and unafraid? You would be a force to be reckoned with. You would be dangerous. You might find yourself fully alive in a way that only a 2 year old can understand.
Aspiring to MoreThere is a profound freedom in nakedness. An unencumbered liberty to be something more emerges when we stop fearing what we’re not, how we might be seen, or our worst-case scenario. There is a limitlessness that lies beyond the naked fear of our own doubt, within the comfort of a faith that says everything is going to be alright. Not a false optimism or blind ignorance to reality. Just the honest nakedness of knowing you don’t have all the answers, don’t need to be perfect, and will be just fine.
This week-end we remember those who gave their last full measure of devotion. In that remembering, we have the opportunity to face our own fears and strive to ensure that their sacrifices are made more meaningful through our full measure of living. Fully naked and unafraid.
Not One of MineDriving to my office the other day, I was behind a driver who was struggling to focus. I could see lots of activity in her car, and most of it was not directly related to the priority of driving. Getting more and more frustrated, I thought to myself, “I hope it’s not one of mine.” As soon as the thought entered my mind, I laughed out loud as I asked myself: “One of my what?” Employees? Children? Parents? Siblings? Friends? Clients? Business partners? Fellow parishioners? Patients?
Though I was thinking that I hoped it wasn’t one of my employees, I realized it could have been any of the above, or…it could have been me. How would I have reacted if I knew it was “one of mine” driving that car in front of me? Would I have been more patient? Would I have given more grace? Of course I would. Knowing the human being in that car or recognizing that we shared some connection would have completely changed my reaction to the situation.
All One of MineWe all exist within our little communities. We relate to one another through those communities and treat each other accordingly. We may not always be as nice, patient, or generous, as we should be, but we do take our common ground into consideration when determining how we react. In general, we’re going to work a bit harder to be patient and grant grace when we see the other person as “one of ours.”
Pause for a moment and consider how far the “one of mine” logic can go. Closest to us are our families. Then friends and maybe co-workers. From there we have neighbor, those in our clubs or social circles, other parents at school, our church, and maybe our country club. We might find common ground with people who like the same sports teams we like, play the same games we play, or maybe even drive the same cars. Some of us unite under shared causes, political affiliations, cities or regions, and ultimately nationalities.
National unity? Some reading this may remember the sense of unity we all felt immediately following the 9/11 attacks in 2001. I’m guessing that Ukrainians today feel a very strong bond with their fellow citizens fighting under that flag. A few years later, the movie War of the Worlds evoked worldwide unity in depicting our planet fighting for survival against an alien enemy bent on destroying humanity. Under the right circumstances, they’re all one of mine.
Not a Good ManDuring the week of my “one of mine” moment, I found myself in conversations in which two separate CEOs in my industry were described as “not good men.” The assessments were subjective and centered on observed behaviors relating to integrity. Though none of us can ever fully know the heart of another, we make these assessments all the time based on what we see and hear. In this case, I have met and talked to the two men in question but have not observed specific “good” or “bad” behaviors on their part. I cannot speak to their moral compass.
Perhaps they were observed as “bad” because they were a competitor. We often associate our opponents with “bad” because they are working against our objectives – they oppose us. It is possible these men have broken promises, lied, or made questionable decisions in the pursuit of their aims. Depending on the scope of the lens, it is likely that all of us have failed similarly. I wonder if the assessment would change if the two men in question lined up on the same side of the game field with their accusers.
What would others in my industry say of me? Am I a “good” or a “bad” man? Perhaps I’m “mostly” good or “infrequently” bad. It is likely that much of my reputation is strongly associated with my “alignments” and more than a bit of hearsay. Such is the way of reputations, though frequent smokiness may indicate fire, it seems that seeing another as “one of mine” also influences how we judge his or her “good” or “badness.”
This is UsThis is us. All of us. Today, who is describing me as “not a good man”? Was it something I did or is it something I have not done, yet? Who are we seeing as “not good”? Not good in their driving. Not good in their choices. Not good in their appearance. Not good in their station in life. No one is lost to goodness and no one is good to completeness. We are all on the same continuum waffling between good and bad, right and wrong, hero and villain. it’s just that some days we do better than others.
I hope it’s not one of mine. One of my bad decisions. One of my mistakes. One of my lapses in judgment. One of my shortfalls in charity. St. Teresa of Calcutta said: “Saints are only sinners who keep trying.” G.K. Chesterton offered his own version: “There are saints indeed in my religion; but a saint only means a man who knows he is a sinner.” This is us on the road. This is us in the office. This is us at home. This is us in our relationships.
This is us, in all of our gloriously flawed and imperfect, selves. But it is not a pass and remains a poor excuse. Our call is to keep trying. Keep trying to give grace to those who are “not one of mine” as well as to those who are . Keep trying to do better, be better, avoid the same mistakes, and aim for the “good” in all we do. To keep trying, day-in, and day-out, realizing that we will fall, get back up, and fall again.
I hope it’s not one of mine, and if not, I realize that just means, not yet. Perhaps that’s a good place to start with the next “bad” driver blocking the way.
Two years ago, i wrote of the Feminine Genius of Motherhood in honor of Mother’s Day. The post centered on Pope St. John Paul II’s concept of “feminine genius” and how motherhood captures it:
Motherhood is one gloriously distinct way we encounter the feminine genius and today we celebrate our mothers. For most of us, our first experience of feminine genius came from the sacrificial love of our mother. Though it would take us years to recognize it, our mother’s selfless, nurturing love in our infancy formed the foundation for everything that followed. Moving toward our first memories, our mother’s presence is likely one of the first and, if we focus just a bit, we might be able to tune-in to the warm, safe sensation of her in those early days.
Waking this morning to Mother’s Day, the expression “sacrificial love” has continued to roll around in my mind. Having just returned from a week-long vacation with four of my grandchildren (ages 5 to 8 months) and their parents, images of sacrificial love cascade across my mind. As a high school and collegiate basketball player, Madison was a fierce competitor. I never imagined that her ferocity could apply to acts of pure, sustained, selflessness. Though “fierce” does’t seem to apply well to love or sacrifice, I would argue that it powerfully captures the intention, will, and perseverance necessary for the sacrificial love of motherhood.
During out week together, I watched as she stayed behind during pool or beach trips due to tired, hungry, or napping babies. I watched as she patiently loved through the pains of skinned toes, the disappointments when it was time to leave the pool, the sleepless nights, the early mornings, the food preferences, the dirty diapers, not to mention the incessant demands for food, comfort, and whatever else was wanted or needed in any particular moment. From the food on her plate to her time to her own preferences, and on to anything else necessary to the occasion, it was all laid down on behalf of her children.
And the kids were fantastic all week. That is motherhood and, no matter how much help is provided, there are many, many, things that only mom is good enough to do, be, or offer. It is sacrificial love.
I realize that I’ve seen it before. Her mother modeled it before her, and her grandmother and nana before that. I stand in awe before the sacrificial call of motherhood. From infancy, we are completely dependent upon our mother: food, protection, nurturing. She is our first love, our protector – our ever-present anchor amid the uncertainty of a big, unknown, world. No matter the hour, the weariness, or the particular need, she shows up again and again and again. Silently. Patiently. Lovingly. Sacrificially.
Even as we move from complete dependency to full independence, the sacrificial love of motherhood never goes away. Mom never stops loving, caring, hoping, or fearing, for her children. I watch as Sally continues to live such sacrifice lovingly, patiently, willingly, and even fiercely. I watch as my mom does the same and her mom does the same. Motherhood is a vocation that never ends and the importance of its example goes on as well.
Some may think, yeah, yeah, yeah – of course motherhood is about sacrifice. It is worth admiring. It is necessary. Many do it. So what?
For one thing, we need to pause, acknowledge, and celebrate it. So often, it disappears into the chaos of living and becomes grossly under-appreciated. Day’s like today are great reasons to take a moment to remember and intentionally celebrate it.
But our world forgets the importance of sacrificial love. We might say the right things about it but so often our lives reflect something different. Our lives become about ourselves. I become my center. We become focused on what we want, what we have, and what we like. We avoid the things that take away from our own desires or remove us from the center. Why delay getting married or having children? I have things I want to do. I have places I want to go. I don’t want to be tied down. I, I, I, I.
We need to look at our powerful models of self-sacrifice: our mothers. We need to remember that they made a choice to bring us into the world. We need to see that we were not made to simply serve self, but to give ourselves fully to others. The power IS in the self-sacrifice because it detaches us from the chains of our own desires and brings us fully alive through what we give and who we become in the giving.
Motherhood is an act of self-sacrifice and a powerful model for how we’re called to live. It is not easy. It is tiring. It is humbling. It is also fulfilling, beautiful, miraculous, and divine. We cannot all be mothers but we can recognize the sacrifice of our own mothers and see it as an example for our own calling in this world.
For those of us past the days when it was just a blur of necessity, the thought of going back is more than a bit overwhelming. We can’t imagine how we did it and may even wonder what we were thinking when we jumped-in. Today, I watch the young mothers all around me and live in awe of their strength, courage, and commitment. But mostly, I admire their love – a selfless, self-giving, pure, complete, and glorious love. The love we are meant to live no matter where we find ourselves or what our vocation may be.
And, I hear my own call to emulate their sacrificial love. No matter how comfortable I might be in my own little bubble.
Today, I wish all the brave, selfless, loving, mother’s of this world a Happy Mother’s Day! Thank you for your powerfully beautiful example of sacrificial love and the feminine genius you share with all of us.
My original plan was to write about leadership this week. However, I came across a draft I started on December 31, 2022 and felt compelled to complete, and update it. Wherever you find yourself today, I hope it meets you where needed. Let’s walk back four months and take a moment to look forward…
December 31, 2022Standing on the eve of another new year, the questions return: where did the last 12 months go? what is waiting for me in the next 12? Some of us are plotting a strong start to 2023, while others may feel like they’re limping across an imaginary finish line. Are you exhausted or exhilarated as we flip to the next number?
One of the beauties of the new year is the accompanying sense of beginning again. We wake up today and we see the final day of December and the final day of 2022, knowing that tomorrow will begin with a one – the first day of the next 12 months. Of course, every day is the first day of the next 12 months, but our temporal nature heightens our sense of change at the calendar’s inflection points. We exist in time and acutely feel its progression; particularly when we can see it written on a calendar.
Some reading this post may be walking in joyful expectation. Perhaps 2022 has been a banner year. Maybe the blessings are piling up and you feel the contented peace of the Holidays, and the hopeful possibility of the coming year.
Others may be feeling a more complex mix of emotions at the close of 2022. Many are facing loss. Loss of a job. Loss of a loved one. Maybe even loss of hope. All of us continue to face an ongoing loss of innocence as we wrestle with a frequently dark world and mankind’s seemingly infinite capacity for cruelty. A few minutes with any day’s headlines will be more than enough to confirm the validity of your darkest dreams.
Missing Pieces – Missing PeaceWhere did the joy go? Where does peace hide? Amid the broad sweep of the macro struggles, our little worlds face their own resistance. The negative energy assaults from all sides with those voices repeating the discouraging litany of you can’t, you didn’t, or you won’t. Why do so many feel hopeless? What’s missing? Money? Fame? Success? Just being heard? All the external things for which we hunger and allow to disappoint when we don’t get our fix.
Soon enough, we can’t get enough to fill the hole. We are left with an deepening need for consolation in a world bent upon desolation.
There is still awe and wonder, still astonishment, hidden in each new day. Can you see it? All the things that were once new, now lost amid the endless backdrop of a canvas we can no longer see.
Where did the smile go? Where is the laugh? The melancholy of time and regret turns into frustration. Why isn’t it getting easier? Why is it so hard? Disappointment begets despair when felt frequently enough. Where are the wins? Do we know what a win is anymore? The long slog leaves little room for the moments of celebration and soon those happy moments are poor defense against the long slog.
Crisis of HopeWe get lost in all of it. We call it a mental health crisis, but it’s really a crisis of hope. A despair born of lost, or forgotten, hopes and dreams. When did we stop dreaming?
The feelings overwhelm us because we’re centered on things that once felt good and don’t anymore. We keep looking externally for something to fill that hole, to make us feel good. We’ve become so accustomed to the instant hit that we can hardly tolerate the trough. The low ebb of life’s peaks and valleys. As the frequency increases, we feel the bottoms more acutely. Often getting stuck in them.
Those around us become impatient. Why is he always depressed, angry, sullen? He needs help. We used to have friends or family or mentors or priests or pastors. Now, we have therapists who give us names for our disordered lows. Soon, we become our diagnosis. Finally, a reason to explain my melancholy. Systems, models, techniques, and perhaps medications follow. Maybe if we numb the lows, life will be better? Of course, we lose the highs as well.
It is easy to lose sight of all that’s right. The buzz of what’s good in your life wears off, just as the fire in your romance dims, or the new car smell fades, or the new furniture gets old, or the great job is no longer so great. If you feel like things are pretty good, don’t worry, the world will soon come by to tell you how bad, boring, or unsatisfying they are. LinkedIn headlines are loaded with reminders that people don’t leave companies or jobs, they leave bad bosses. You aren’t unhappy with your performance, focus, or effort: it is your lame boss that is the root of your angst. Just leave, there are so many better options somewhere else.
That message gets played out a hundred times a day across every aspect of your life. Clearly my life should be perfect each and every day so when it’s not, something must be broken – whether it’s me or everything around me.
A Time When All was NewCan you remember a time when everything felt new? An edge where the world seemed to stretch before you in wondrous possibility? How about a moment when you felt the fervor of belief? In anything. A place, project, person, or moment, where you were fully engaged: all-in.
The crazy thing is that everything that looks stale, common, or faded, in your life once had the shine of possibility on it. The rough day you are in likely started with oxygen and daylight – two miraculous elements that we allow to become stale. The magic is still there, you just don’t see it anymore. The wonder is hiding in plain sight, camouflaged by all the things you’d like to have, and the struggles that eventually make things worth having.
Here we are, heading into May, 2023. The New Year’s Resolutions have faded and we are 1/3 of the way through the year. Where are you today? What are the struggles holding you back? What is stealing your joy or peace? In eight months, we’ll be standing at the edge of 2024. Where will you be?
Four months later, the loss, struggle, fear, doubt, and frustration, likely remain…at least in some form. But, if you are reading this, the sunrises still come, the oxygen still flows, and you have another day in front of you. Why? Why is any of it here? Why do we bother?
Because it is all staggeringly beautiful. Life, that is. Life is incredibly, mysteriously, incomprehensibly, beautiful. There is no low that cannot be met by something higher. There is no loss that cannot be countered with a greater win. There is no uncertainty that cannot be overcome with a deeper hope. The places we lose ourselves are rarely as bad as they feel and the glimmer of possibility on the horizon is almost always enough to help us take that next step.
Our year is in full swing and all of its glorious possibilities remain. There is time enough for new resolutions. Time enough to jumpstart any goal with which we started, or pivot to a new one. Time enough to count our blessings and revel in the gift that is life. New and old friendships lie before us. Loves that deserve our full attention and gardens that need our love.
Time to TryThe weight of suffering may be heavy, the uncertainty of tomorrow may paralyze, and the frustration of today’s resistance may threaten to derail our hope and momentum. But we are still in the fight. We are still running the race. We still have strength in our arm, thoughts in our head, and love in our heart. There is time. Time to course correct. Time to pivot. Time to refocus. Time to try.
Wherever you find yourself today, take time to try. Try to love. Try to forgive. Try to believe that you are loved, have value, and are made for a purpose – known or unknown. Try to remember that there is work to be completed, hearts to be touched, hurts to be healed, good to be done, and life to be lived. Then do it. All of it. And keep doing it knowing that the trough will return, the frustration will re-emerge, and the doubt will assail. That is life. And, the gift of it.
A few weeks ago, Northwind Pharmaceuticals turned 15 years old. There were no ticker tape parades, no tv interviews, no speeches, and no magazine covers. The sun rose in the morning and set in the evening. Our team showed up, did their work, and went home, leaving the world better than they found it. Just as they did the day before and the day after. All exactly as it should be.
Though there is more than a book’s worth of words that could be shared on the Northwind adventure over the last 15 years, this post will mark the milestone with a few concise observations on the journey to this point. The story is still unfolding and may yet be worthy of deeper exploration.
May the Odds Be Ever in Your FavorForgive the use of statistics, but they serve as a good reference point as we map this journey. Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that approximately 20% of new businesses fail during the first two years of being open, 45% during the first five years, and 65% during the first 10 years. Only 25% of new businesses make it to 15 years or more. Another interesting statistic is that fewer than 5% of all businesses in the U.S. grow to $1 million in revenue and fewer than 1% make it to the $10 million revenue mark.
Apparently, the odds are not in our favor. The U.S. Census Bureau says that over 5 million businesses were started last year. By 2037, 3.7 million of them will no longer exist. And yet, the dream of owning a business continues to draw millions despite the statistics. Building a business remains a cornerstone of the American Dream and our ethos as builders and visionaries. I dreamed that dream for many years and it still captures my imagination.
Dancing, Art, and the Universe“Wow, fifteen years is a lifetime,” I mused out loud. “How would you summarize your experience of our journey as business builders?” Sally paused and considered the out-of-the-blue, wildly open-ended question. “I’ve been surprised by how non-linear it’s been,” she replied after some time. “In the beginning, I expected it to be more planned and structured, while it has actually been more like a dance – fluid, evolving, reacting, surprising.” What a great metaphor: a dance. My suspicion is that one watching from the outside would likely see more break-dance than waltz in the herky jerky movements of our business evolution.
A few minutes later, she added, “I like the art of it. There is certainly some science, but it has been a lot like creating a painting. We started with an outline, a sketch, and over time, we’ve added layers of color, shape, and structure. There was a bit of structure created by outside forces – regulatory etc, but also a lot of white space. As the picture came together, things changed and it had to be reworked. There is no taking layers off, the rework had to happen in the next layer. Never going back, only forward. Never perfect, but always an emerging vision.”
Art and dancing. Moves and counter-moves. Collections of points that often looked more like constellations than destinations on a map. We’ve been living in an evolving galaxy of stars shifting in a broader universe acting around and upon our little solar system. Of course, such descriptions of art, dancing, and constellations are far easier to muster when the stars seem steady in the night sky than when they are experiencing the explosive uncertainty. We can see it all much more easily in the rear view mirror.
Business, Stones, and RiversWe may be tempted to see the entrepreneurial journey in terms of the “business” of it. The decisions, hires, financial moves, products, sales, competition, pricing, compliance, and myriad other things that comprise the world of business. We could break it all down in results and what-ifs, analyzing each particular component to trace the path to this point. There might even be an interesting case study which we could compare to other businesses that survived or didn’t survive. Perhaps we might find some “why’s” in our analysis.
Those are the stones across the river. The points along the journey where the moves and counter moves took us past the raging rivers threatening to sweep it all away. Each successful jump onto the next stone affirming a “right” decision or lucky break. Sometimes, the next leap needing to be to a stone that we weren’t quite sure was there in the midst of the rushing waters – a leap of faith. With perspective, some themes emerge:
- Humility – it is not about you. It is not due to you. It is not yours.
- Faith – believing it is going to be ok, no matter what. There is purpose to the suffering, and to the success.
- Endurance – ability to take the hits, to live with the seasons of dryness and remain faithful.
- Persistence – the will to keep going. to keep showing up in the joyless moments.
- Hope – there are always options. There is still great possibility.
- Courage – to persist in it all even when it all looks incredibly frightening or hopeless.
Curiously, intelligence, cleverness, boldness, financial acumen, or even experience didn’t make this list. When it comes to crossing the river, those are just the ante to the game. Strength and skill will ultimately fail us without the deeper gifts above necessary to carry us across.
A Love StoryFor me, the essence of the Northwind story over the last 15 years is actually a love story. More specifically, three love stories. My best business decisions have been choices of love and commitments to love. My greatest discovery has been learning to love…and realizing how far I am from mastering it.
The greatest single business decision I have ever made was to marry Sally Michele Watson. Sure, I can claim her as my “muse,” inspiring me to leaps of creativity and insights which would normally elude me. Yes, she has been faithful, supportive, caring, loving, devoted, and ever-present. Certainly, her successful career as a nurse made the early days of building our business possible as she worked nights and week-ends to support all of us as mom, wife, and provider. Of course she has provided input on major decisions, anticipated high risk situations, and been present in the good times and the bad. Sure, she has believed, cheered, commiserated, co-conspired, co-piloted, and co-parented throughout this crazy journey.
These have all been absolutely critical to our Northwind journey but it has been her guidance and accompaniment on my journey of Faith that has been the biggest game changer. This brings me to the second love story. Sally has helped me fall in love with Jesus Christ. I’ve always believed in God and followed his son, Jesus. But learning to love Him and opening myself to His Holy Spirit, and His Mercy for my failings, has changed everything. What does this have to do with building a business? For me, everything. With the right center, everything else falls into place, even when it falls apart. With rightly ordered desires, ambitions, hopes, and dreams, the pitfalls of their disordered versions become more visible and avoidable. By seeing the hand of God in the purpose and people of Northwind, everything begins to make sense – even the struggles.
This brings me to the third love story and the only practical advice I will share in this post. The Northwind journey has been a marathon built on sprints. It has been an endless collection of ups and downs, ebbs and flows, war and peace, struggle and steadiness, steps forward and steps backward. Along the way, I have encountered betrayal, lies, anger, frustration, disappointment as well as tremendous joy, satisfaction, and gratitude. Throughout it all, I have had to fall in love with Northwind again and again and again.
I have learned to see it all again for the first time and find the awe and wonder within its mission, its products, its people, its possibilities, and in all of those who count on it. Seeing the new in the old and the beauty in the familiar has brought me to love it all again and again and again. Seeing this, I realize that Northwind is only a vessel, a container; however, its contents are precious and it brings that preciousness to the world in its own small way. Falling in love with this mission field over and over again has been a 15 year journey of discovery and gratification.
The Story Goes OnToday, the story goes on. New opportunities. New struggles. New announcements. New people. And the familiar remains. The many friends, clients, partners, team members, and communities that have accompanied us remain part of our story as we are part of theirs. The mission to make a difference also remains as our passion to be good stewards, show up, and leave it all better than we found it drives daily choices. We’ll keep following the signs and looking to be the best version we can be. Northwind remains a mission born of love. We do not know what the next 15 years will bring but we do know there will be lots of love, discovery, and goodness. And that’s enough.
Almost exactly four years ago, I wrote a post entitled The Shadows We Cast, exploring the consequences, noticed and unnoticed, of our passing through the world. The post came back to me recently in a conversation with one of my nephews, now an adolescent and exploring the edges of his own creative energies.
As we were getting ready to leave a family gathering, he asked, “When are you going to publish another book of poetry?” I laughed and quipped, “I don’t think the world is ready for another book of my poetry.” Finishing hugging my rather extensive family in the form of an extended “Midwest goodbye,” I turned to walk out the door and heard his voice, barely audible amid the din of our group, “I am. I think it’s beautiful.”
Be still my beating heart. His words have rolled around in my head numerous times since then and have had me looking over my shoulder repeatedly asking, “Have I behaved in such a way as to deserve such words?” Trying to remember what my teenage self read, valued, or was even able to articulate, I struggle to recall anything so deeply heartfelt, or nearly so sincerely engaging.
What is it in anything we see, read, or hear that touches us? When has it been enough to prompt us to share it or, (gasp), mention it to the one who touched us?
Years ago, a close friend gave me William Danforth’s book, I Dare You, a short but compelling call to live a “four square life.” I’ve quoted Danforth numerous times in my posts, particularly his conclusion that “Our most valuable possessions are those which can be shared without lessening; those which when shared multiply. Our least valuable possessions are those which when divided are diminished.”
What are the things that multiply when we give them away? Here are some examples:
- Faith
- Compassion
- Empathy
- Love
- Time
- Forgiveness
- Mercy
- Knowledge
- Wisdom
- Commitment
- Understanding
- Safety
- Hope
Reading over the list above, I cannot think of any item that lessens in its giving. Curiously, when we share the treasures above, it often happens with little thought or intention. Certainly we can be intentional, but more often, they come about in the shadows we are casting through how we live – through who we are as human beings. We may only see them through a glance back along the path we’ve come, probably due to someone else reminding us.
One interesting reality of a shadow, is that it cannot be cast without a source of light. Our shadow shows the outline of who we are relative to that light source and marks our impression upon the world around us. Standing in the light, we are actually blocking its direct impact upon whatever lies in our shadow.
The inverse of creating a shadow, blocking the light, is reflecting the light. Where the shadow shows our indirect passing, the reflection shows our being more directly. But what is the light? The light is the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. It is the moral center, the absolute good, the ultimate reality, built upon objective values that do not sway with fashion or passion. In the light of the good, the true, and the beautiful, the virtuous, and not-so-virtuous aspects, of our being are reflected directly or shadowed indirectly upon the world around us.
Whether direct reflection or indirect shadow, the truly humbling reality is that we are creating both whether we know it or not. There are a cast of characters in your life at this very moment who are receiving, on many wavelengths, exactly what you are reflecting, or refracting. Most will never say anything. Many may not even recognize it. They exist in the obvious places within your life, along the edges you seldom notice, and around the corners you may choose not to turn. All along the way, you are giving, you are receiving, and you are taking.
Wherever you are today, pause and consider those in your life and which reflections and shadows they are receiving from you. Look closely at the quick glance, the slight smile, the subtle frown, the strained laugh, or the soft sigh. Listen carefully for the barely audible voice reaching for you amid the noise of the world. Someone is looking at you this very moment, and you have the most valuable possession to give.
For the Christian, The Resurrection is serious business and a serious cause for celebration. For all celebrating this sacred Holy Day, may the peace and joy of Jesus Christ be present in your worship, your time with loved ones, and in your heart.
Regardless of your disposition toward The Resurrection, the concept of “resurrection” is worthy of reflection as we make our way through our own trials and tribulations. In its most literal sense, resurrection is coming back to life but we also use it to describe revival or renewal. However, before a person or thing can be resurrected, it must first die.
Death is the absence of life. In death, physical existence ends. But we also use it as a metaphor to describe a variety of human experiences ranging from embarrassment to fear to pain. In this way, death is inflicted upon our heart or our soul. Here we find hurt, suffering, and ultimately, loss.
For the living, death is really about loss. Loss of life or the loss of something dear to us like time, innocence, youth, hope, or self. Death is something we don’t want to experience though we will all experience it in these, and possibly other, forms in our own lives. Death is inescapable.
Deaths of the HeartIn some dramatic cases, we might tell someone they are “dead to us” to suggest that something they’ve done is so horrific or hurtful as to be unforgivable. The hurt runs so deep that we choose to relegate that person to non-existence, banishing them from our life…from our heart. Though this theme is a popular trope for dramatic novels, and difficult to imagine as a literal expression in our modern era, its application is very much alive in word and deed. In one way or another, all of us have experienced this form of death in our own lives.
Many find themselves on the outside of relationships due to a falling out. Blood may be thicker than water but it is often less of a tie that binds than we might hope. Sibling, friend, co-worker, spouse, parent, child…no relationship is too important to be thrown on the altar of betrayal, deception, or some other “unforgivable” mistake. The piercing of our heart is a living death and, like our physical demise, none of us will escape it.
Deaths of the SoulDeaths of the soul come from our mistakes, perceived failings, and our sense of place in this world. Here, we find another altar on which to throw ourselves, sacrificing love, or respect, of self through loss of integrity, courage, faith, hope, prudence, or temperance. Each its own little death, often leading to greater loss. Failings here are self-inflicted and these crosses of death are also unavoidable.
Moving through life, we carry a collection of these hurts, each its own little death. Compiled, they can add to great loss. Some of us are crushed under their weight. Some of us are restrained from true joy. Some of us find paths to thriving. All of us struggle.
A Price to be PaidHow do we move from death to life? There is always a price to be paid. Atonement. Redemption comes through humility and the choices we make after these deaths. Redemption is a powerful word. The origin of the word means “to buy back.” To be redeemed is to be liberated. Deaths of the heart tend to center on stubborn pride – the conviction that I AM RIGHT. Here, real and imagined hurts are dealt and received. Many feel fatal but hope remains.
What is the price to be paid? Can we pay it? Will we pay it? Remember, redemption is liberation. Forgiveness of the other is the pathway. Humility is the price that must be paid. Humbling self. Letting go of being right or righteous. What I want. What I need. What I demand. What I deserve. Here, redemption only occurs in the humbling of self enough to ask for forgiveness AND to give it. How do we find humility? Space enough through time. Perspective enough by seeing the long game of a lifetime. Love enough to will the good of the other…despite our own selfish motives.
For death of the soul, a similar formula applies. Here, redemption comes in the form of self-forgiveness. Time, perspective, and love. The errors of our ways, the mistakes in our choices, and the self-centeredness of our inclinations must be humbly acknowledged…and then released. There is still a price to be paid, but here, we set the bar on our own redemption. Atonement is making a choice to pay the price and being able to accept when it’s been paid.
Some may see redemption through the eyes of their faith while others may choose to walk a different path. Wherever you find yourself, freedom, redemption, happens when we recognize, and choose to pay, the price for our mistakes, and then accept forgiveness. Sometimes, offering forgiveness is the price.
New LifeDeath is serious business. Death is loss and pain and struggle. Death is part of life. What is life? To live is to breath and think and be. But mere existence is just the ante to the game. Each of us is given life and we are meant to LIVE it fully. We are also given great latitude in determining what “fully” means. It will take most of us a lifetime to figure that out…if we’re lucky. That’s ok, there is great joy in that journey.
Along the way, we will encounter death. Death of loved ones. Death of youth and innocence. Death of dreams. Death of hope. Death of relationships. We will also encounter resurrection – new life brought back after our encounter with death. Another chance. Another shot. Another opportunity to try again. Our hearts will be pierced. Our souls will falter. Each time, we will have to find our way to redemption. Each time, we will have to accept the price in forgiving or being forgiven. Each time we will have to trust in our own resurrection to the new life waiting on the other side.
Over my last 20 years or so working in and around healthcare, I have frequently heard the question “why?” as it relates to the choices people make about their health. Much of the chronic disease present in our population is the result of choices we make in what we eat, how we do or don’t exercise, how we do or don’t access care, and how we are or aren’t compliant with the counsel we’re given on how to improve our health or manage our disease.
Why would anyone choose to keep doing something they know is hurting their health or possibly even killing them? Perhaps they don’t get it. Maybe they don’t understand the complexities and available options. It’s possible they don’t agree with the data or the studies or their physician. The end result is we often keep on keepin’ on with the same behaviors.
This happens in all areas of our lives. In business, we see the tendency to keep doing many of the same things or to play it safe with incremental changes when we know greater action is needed. In government, the gravitational pull of the status quo is nearly impossible to escape. In our relationships, we keep repeating destructive patterns knowing something has got to change.
Why?
Today is Palm Sunday. This is a big day for Christians as we enter Holy Week and celebrate Jesus Christ’s entry into Jerusalem, leading to his eventual crucifixion and resurrection. In his day, a group of people believed his teachings, his miracles, his claim to be the son of God, and his resurrection; they came to be known as Christians. Others did not believe.
Why would anyone believe or not believe? Was it the data? Was it his message? Was it his messianic complex? Was it his humility or lack thereof? Was it that they didn’t see it for themselves?
Some came to know him through relationship. Some came to know him through the proof of his miracles. Some came to know him through their religious beliefs and how this man’s words, timing, and actions fit into the hope of their faith. Some needed all of the above. Still, many remained unconvinced.
Why?
Across pretty much all aspects of our lives, when it comes to our decisions not to change, our typical reason is that the cost is too high. In some cases, the financial cost is literally too high but that is most likely a rationalization. We frequently line the numbers up to fit within the framework to support the decisions we want to make.
The real cost barrier is the personal cost of change. The effort, sacrifice, struggle, time, pain, or doubt; the physical and emotional costs associated with whatever I’m being asked to change are the real barriers. The ultimate “why” is that we don’t want to pay the price of change that is being asked of us.
If I come to believe that something is true, am I willing to pay the price to act upon it? One simple way to avoid such a decision is to avoid seeking the truth or, chosing to believe that there is no truth. Obfuscation of facts is a great place to hide and complexity is its greatest ally. There is lots of room to disappear within the massive universes we create to hide truths. Government. Healthcare. Geopolitics. Environment. Culture. All are big, wonderfully broad, open-horizoned, oceans with seemingly infinite depths to wander within.
However, if I seek the truth and find an answer, I am faced with a choice that will have a cost. Am I willing to see it, to accept it, and to face that choice? Faced with such a truth, am I willing to pay its price?
The glimpses come every day. Solutions to problems we have appear to us in so many forms. Sometimes they are problems we didn’t know could be solved. Sometimes they are problems we didn’t realize we had. Sometimes they are calls to change so foreign to our current way of thinking, seeing, and being, that we can barely comprehend the possibility of such a choice.
All great progress has a cost. All profound discoveries demand a price. You may look at the struggle, resistance, sacrifice, pain, and uncertainty of such a choice as not worth its potential consequences. Or, you may find the very thing necessary hidden within the cost itself. Either way, the choice is going to cost you. You just have to decide which one you’re going to pay.
Click the arrow above to listen to this post“What is truth?” asked Pontius Pilate shortly before sentencing Jesus the Nazorean to death. Pilate’s rhetorical question was a cynical reflection on the nature of truth in a culture that made its own reality through argument or force. To Pilate and his contemporaries, “truth” was subjective and relative; Jesus’ fellow Jews effectively manifested his guilt through their own form of power.
Some things never change. We’ve been manifesting our own “truths” from the beginning and continue to argue “my truth” versus “your truth” in all degrees.
Despite the rhetorical, or power-based manifestations of truth, there are in fact, absolute truths. Things are said and done. Things happen and things don’t happen. For example, death happens. It is an absolute truth. No amount of sophistry will change the reality of the end of life.
We celebrated the life of our friend, Steve, yesterday. For those of you who follow my posts, I referenced him last week, and was very happy to gather with his family and friends to remember him, and encourage his wife, Ronda. The truth of death is not pleasant in what it takes away from us. However, the truth of love is a beautiful counterpoint, and death’s reality magnifies it for those who gather in its spirit. Reflecting his simple, unassuming, nature, there was no pomp or fuss – just people, food, stories, some tears, and lots of laughter.
The truth of Love is a beautiful counterpoint.
The expression “memento mori” is Latin for “remember death.” A famous Albrecht Durer engraving of St. Jerome depicts the theologian in his study with a skull sitting on a window ledge – symbolism present to remind him of the truth of this life and his own belief in the Resurrection. I’m reminded of a line from the Russell Crowe movie, Gladiator: “What you do in this life echoes in eternity.” The truth of the end is inevitable, the choices we make are not.
I was recently reintroduced to the expression “memento mori” when purchasing tickets for Depeche Mode’s new concert tour entitled “Memento Mori.” Now, more than 40 years from when they started making music, this group has traveled great distance through life, experiencing the full spectrum of celebrity success, excess, and loss; in particular, the loss of the third member of the trio last year.
The last time we saw the group perform was just over 20 years ago, and I was struck by a sense of time’s passing as we sat amongst the throng of middle-aged fans enjoying the aging musicians very dynamic performance. Forty years of music flashed before our ears, and the arc of experience revealed itself in subject, tone, and lyric. They played a few songs from their new album, the first of which references soul, shrines, and cosmos. The second song, references “the ride” and “angels” – the musings of twisted mystics who have walked the path to maturity.
The photo for this post is a bit of a memento mori in that the skull is on our piano next to a collection of photos of our deceased grandparents. The photos are of them as couples, late in life but still smiling, full of mature joy, in moments before their own ends. The truth remains: if we are lucky enough to live that long, the end of this life will still come.
In his book, From Strength to Strength, author Arthur C. Brooks opens with a story of a famous man, now in his old age, who he encounters on a flight as he overhears the man’s wife say “It’s not true that no one needs you anymore.” He goes on to observe that this individual, who was widely known and had seemingly lived a wildly successful life, was feeling worthless and no longer relevant. The author wonders, “why?” The book is about Brooks quest to answer that question.
The central point to the book is that we begin to decline physically, and even professionally, far earlier than we realize. Brooks points out our inevitable decline as a truth. There is no escaping it. However, he goes on to argue that the trick isn’t fighting it, raging at it, or denying it, but acknowledging it and anticipating it. Along the way, we learn that amid the various stages of life we move through, the issue is less about what we are losing as we age and more about how we measure the value, or success, of our life.
Brooks argues that it is our ultimate fear of death that fuels much of our angst about our own decline as well as our society’s obsession with avoiding it, covering it up, or pretending it isn’t happening. Our culture struggles to value old age and we struggle to see the beauty and possibility of what it offers. The truth is that it is happening. The truth is also that we are not helpless bystanders in how we respond to it. Along the way, he gives us some thoughts on navigating the decline and maximizing our shift into old age – moving from strength to strength.
What is truth? Personally, I cannot contemplate death or decline outside of my Christian faith. For me, that is the way and the truth and the life. However, regardless of your beliefs, the end is inevitable and memento mori is as relevant today as ever. The truth is that life will be more fulfilling in seeing the end for what it is and approaching the “now” with that clarity. Not in fear and trembling, but in clear-eyed hope that, whatever state you find yourself in, there is value in your life, and in your capacity to do something meaningful with it.
No matter where we find ourselves, faith, hope, and love, can be our truths. The people in our lives. The strength in our limbs. The clarity in our minds. The beauty and value of our experience. The living example that is our existence – from beginning to end. The gifts of all the above that can be shared…to whatever extent possible. Those are the truths. And, the opportunities that remain.
Click the arrow above to listen to this post.“Let me look into your eyes.” Cupping his face, Sally looked deeply into the sparkling depths of those little blue orbs staring back at her. Simultaneously cupping her face, Cooper returned her gaze and smiled. Connection. Reagan and Fulton followed, though at 2 years old, a Fulton cup and stare runs the risk of a head butt. There is nothing that says “I see you and am fully present to you” like staring into the eyes of another human being.
The Latin origin of the word “reconcile” means “eyelash to eyelash.” It is a removing of distance. If we are close enough to be eyelash to eyelash, there is nothing standing between us. Such focus is restorative and bonding.
What do we see in such moments? In little children, it is likely awe and wonder. In those depths swirl endless curiosity and a breezy innocence so complete that our world-weary selves may find our breath taken away. In others we may be surprised or affirmed in the sweep of pain, fear, hope, and joy.
To be seen is such a powerful sensation. It is a first step to being known or affirmed. When we bring ourselves close and look deeply into another human being, we affirm that they matter…that we truly see them.
Breaking this down a bit further, we find two compelling elements in such connection. The is focus. A quick Google search suggests that we are bombarded with 6000-10,000 ads per day. Imagine how much we look at every day and the difficulty in bringing our focus onto any single thing in the face of so much intake.
When we focus, we train the full firepower of our mind upon one thing. Focus is the ultimate weapon in our battle to be fully present in each moment. It is also relational currency of exponential value. To focus is to invest by choosing to forego some other possible focus for the one before us.
We all want to be seen and heard and understood. Our distracted world leaves many feeling unnoticed, unseen. There is great loneliness in the desert of indifference, and many of us find ourselves wandering there from time to time. Did he hear me? Did she see me? Did anyone notice? We get lost in the mass of humanity, and feel invisible in a world of so many other things clamoring to be seen.
Our company holds monthly town hall meetings. One of my favorite moments in these meetings is when we ask team members for “shout outs” acknowledging others in the company. Suddenly, the room is abuzz with all sorts of “seeing.” “Thank you for helping solve a problem.” “Thank you for showing up.” “I noticed your effort.” “I saw you make a difference.” “I’m grateful for your generosity.” It all says: you matter. Sometimes we see the heart and soul of another from a distance in what they do or how they do it. Often, they had no idea we noticed.
From focus, we move to the second compelling element of such connection: the gift of self. Not only do we see the other through the power of our focus, we gift a part of ourself through what they see in us. In this way, it is an exchange, an exposing moment of sharing that reveals something more of each. Through the eyes, we show understanding, concern, doubt, pain, or love. I see you and I bring this part of me in the seeing.
Here I am, I see you. Here I am, I care. Here I am, I too am vulnerable. Windows give two-way visibility. The way we care says as much about us as it does the other. Investing self in this way cements the connection. We’re in it together. I see you and, you see me.
There are windows all around us. Are we looking? Do we want to see within? Or, are we passing them daily, just glancing at our own reflection? So much is missed in those deep pools. So much is lost when we settle for the passing glance, absorbed with a thousand other distractions. The paradox of looking for the treasures hidden in another’s depths is that it often reveals our own.
Today, someone will turn their eyes to you. Pause for a moment, then, look deeply. Perhaps you’ll see their soul, and in the seeing, your own.
Click the arrow above to listen to this post. Oh, take your time, don’t live too fast
Troubles will come and they will pass
You’ll find a woman, yeah, and you’ll find love
And don’t forget son there is someone up above
And be a simple kind of man
Oh, be something you love and understand
Baby, be a simple kind of man
Oh, won’t you do this for me son, if you can?
Lynyrd Skynyrd released their song Simple Man in 1973. It appeared on a random playlist this week-end and I’ve returned to it repeatedly over the last few days. What is it with the artist that enables them to capture their story, experience, or insight, and share it so magnetically? They manage to meet us where we are and, whatever the original intent or source of their work, allow us to make it our own in a way that makes sense for us in that moment. Such a powerful gift.
I started listening to a book last week, it will remain unnamed as I have not completed it and my incomplete observations run the risk of being unjust. The book is written for “strivers” who now face (or will soon face) the unavoidable decline that comes with age. The author uses various examples (including his own) of high achievers who did their “greatest work” early in their careers and then struggled later in life as they were unable to repeat their success.
Part of his case is built upon studies following various professions and the points at which individuals “peak” and then decline. The core of his argument centers on two types of thinking, a fast-processing form that we are better at when we’re young and the other, more fact and experience-based, which evolves as we age. Curiously, the second form of thinking favors work done in teaching or passing along wisdom, a place in which the author, an academic and researcher, now finds himself.
Amid all of the data, referenced studies, and personal research the author presents, I found myself arguing with him and many of his conclusions. My disagreement was not necessarily with his basic conclusions around the decline of our physical and mental faculties, though I would argue that the variability of timing and form is significant enough to undermine many of his other arguments. I believe the true flaw in his case stemmed from his failure to address the “why” and “purpose” questions of his “striver” class.
A major driver of the book was the author’s interviews with high achievers who found themselves dissatisfied later in life – in some cases even feeling that their lives represented a failure. His conclusion: we have to pivot as we decline and focus on where our capacities are evolving. Great point and worthwhile to consider. However, I’d like to return to Lynyrd Skynyrd:
Forget your lust for the rich man’s gold
All that you need is in your soul
And you can do this, oh, baby, if you try
All that I want for you, my son, is to be satisfied
And be a simple kind of man
Oh, be something you love and understand
Baby, be a simple kind of man
Oh, won’t you do this for me son, if you can?
Oh, yes, I will
Think back to the “why’s” of your early career. Coming out of the gate, motivation for striving is pretty darn high. Money. Recognition. Power. Do we still use the term “Type A?” You had something to prove, didn’t you? Anyone who considered themselves a “high achiever” was getting after it. Career, project, and effort, decisions were built around climbing. Why? Because that’s what we believed it meant to be successful.
More was the mantra. Faster was the goal. The societal “why” of achievement was (and still is) geared around status and accumulation. For those who hit it early, the struggle came in sustaining it. The author’s point here is that disappointment and frustration set-in as we are no longer able to sustain the pace it takes to maintain or increase our achievement. We end up with a dissatisfied memory of our own “glory days” and the sense that they have passed us by for good.
Aside from changes in physical or mental capacities, something else happens as we age: our priorities shift. The things that once meant so much frequently lose their luster. We begin to value people, energy, and time differently than we did when we were younger. The real issue comes when we find that what we now value is not valued the same by the world we find ourselves within. Here, we try to play a game we are no longer motivated to play, in an effort to stay relevant in a system that does not share our “why.”
Boy, don’t you worry, you’ll find yourself
Follow your heart and nothing else
And you can do this, oh, baby, if you try
All that I want for you, my son, is to be satisfied
And be a simple kind of man
Oh, be something you love and understand
Baby, be a simple kind of man
Oh, won’t you do this for me son, if you can?
Watching my grandchildren at dinner last night, I was struck by how present they were in that moment. Nothing else mattered. There was no thought given to yesterday nor worry for tomorrow. The moment right now was enough.
Ours is not a simple life and we are complex individuals. Hopes, dreams, fears, and frustrations all lie within. We’ll ebb and then flow as our life moves on and what was once easy will become more difficult or even impossible. However, our real problem isn’t age, capacities, or even hopes and dreams. Neither is it the fast thinking of our youth as contrasted with the enormous library of experience in our maturity, or that our ship of opportunity has sailed.
The real struggle is with enough, our capacity to be satisfied right here, right now. We often confuse “simple” or “child-like” with simplistic or infantile. That is unfortunate because their real power reflects the ability to find peace and joy in being satisfied. The simple man knows that, ultimately, this moment is enough and each one after is a gift.
Please, keep striving. Make your plans and move toward them boldly. Just know that they will not fill the hole and can never be your final “why.” Whatever “form of thinking” you find yourself within or stage of career or status by the measure of the world, recognize that the “simple” satisfaction of enough will outweigh all of the gold you could ever accumulate.
Click the arrow above to listen to this postYesterday was a glorious day in Indianapolis. Though still a bit cold, the sun shone brightly across clear skies and it seemed that the entire city found itself caught in the gravitational pull of a day calling us forth to our streets, porches, yards, malls, shops, restaurants, and any of a myriad places to be outside of our own living rooms. I know this because I was one of them, literally finding myself moving about in all of the above throughout the day.
During a drive on one five mile stretch of roadway, I noticed a sporty little Audi weaving in and out of traffic with much urgency. He would have left us far behind except for the fact that the traffic and stop lights conspired to slow his advance, allowing us the opportunity to reconnect with him about seven times before he finally disappeared into the horizon, thanks to three beautifully constructed traffic circles enabling his ultimate escape.
Sally and I laughed a bit about it as we caught up to him at each successive light. Me: “Despite all that horsepower and effort, he’s barely advancing.” Sally (the far wittier of the two us): “Nope, he’s just dancing!” Clever repartee aside, I wondered about the frustration he must have been feeling as he strained against the resistance, longing to turn all those horses loose on this golden day in the pursuit of….what? The mall? The gas station? A date? Perhaps an emergency?
Regardless of his end in mind, our little Mario likely viewed the steady stream of obstacles as an affront, a cruel joke of the universe, determined to impede his progress and prevent his ultimate arrival 2.25 minutes ahead of the slow moving sheep barring his way. Hey, I get it. Give me four wheels and a bit of a roar from the tailpipe, and I’m happy to see if I can carve a few milliseconds off of my best light to light time. So many places to be, so many things to do.
Sitting at another stop light later in our day, we watched as our light turned green and our delayed move into the intersection was rewarded with a near-miss, as a shiny minivan burst into the intersection running the red light at break-neck speed. Turning in the same direction, we found her at the next light not even 1/4 of a mile away, busily checking her phone and passing food back to what I can only imagine were young children – all with wind-blown hair plastered toward the rear of the van by the sheer physics of forward velocity.
Where are all of us racing in such hurries? Growing up, I can remember how I couldn’t wait to learn to ride a bike. Then, how great it would be when I got to go to school with the big kids. Later, I looked forward to changing schools, that will be better right? Then I felt it would be so cool to be in high school. When I finally get to drive, the world will be mine! Once I graduate from college, I can finally start my life. Marriage will finally mark my arrival as a real adult, right? I can’t wait to be a dad!
At 30, I’ll finally be a legitimate professional. With that bump in salary, we will finally live how we want. That bigger house will really show that we’ve arrived. If I only had that cool Audi, I could really tear through this traffic! Someday I’ll own my own business. When will we finally be done with tuition? Once the kids are out, we can finally _______. If we could just land that deal, then we’re set. We’re almost there, another year and we’ll have enough to retire. I sure wish the kids were closer. When will I see my grandchildren? Want to spend the morning picking up seashells along the beach? What do we do tomorrow?
More. Onward. Faster. Faster. Faster. Every obstacle, frustrating. Every delay, maddening. Every setback, disheartening. Every failure, crushing. When will we finally get there?
One day, we realize: we were driving that zippy little Audi. The sheep in the road were those we needed to love. Those lights were trying to slow us down enough to see what was happening along the way, and avoid running others over. The obstacles in the road prepared us for the next ones we would face. The signs warned us of the dangers and reminded us of where we were going. The road kept us from hitting the ditches as it directed us forward. Until, we finally reached its end.
“For the present is the point at which time touches eternity,” wrote C.S. Lewis in The Screwtape Letters. We miss the real gifts of now when we race to the desires we hope to grasp down the road.
And for my friend in the shiny Audi, Billy Joel says it better than I ever could:
Slow down, you crazy child
You’re so ambitious for a juvenile
But then if you’re so smart, well, tell me
Why are you still so afraid? Mm
Where’s the fire, what’s the hurry about?
You’d better cool it off before you burn it out
You’ve got so much to do
And only so many hours in a day
Today is a glorious day. May the road rise to meet you…where you are…in this moment.
Click the arrow above to listen to this postA friend paid me a visit at my office last week. Now in her mid-80’s, she made the long drive into Indianapolis, navigating construction, arguing with Google, and working to avoid the often bizarrely unexpected from other drivers. As she unpacked the picnic lunch she had brought, complete with placemats, plates, and silverware, she told me of some of her projects, her busy schedule, and her efforts to help the “old people” living in her retirement community.
If one looked up “golden years” in the dictionary, her photo and CV might appear. Though I’ve only known her for about 15 years of her long life, I suspect that “golden” is more a reflection of her overall approach to life rather than a summation of a window of time. Some are just radiant that way.
Amid the soup, sandwich, and dessert, we caught up on much, and I found myself smiling at her energy and curiosity. A beautiful conversation is one that moves along effortlessly, lifting all along the way, and forcing itself to no place in particular, all while taking you somewhere else. Ours was a lovely conversation.
One topic we covered was her effort to help those in her community through a cookbook project and a guidebook on interacting with those suffering from dementia. She described the general retreat she saw in many who were older, oftentimes a retreat to comfort, or from fear. As she spoke, I thought to myself, “retreat of this type doesn’t just happen in a retirement community.”
Gravitational PullThe late Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI wrote of the “gravitational pull of the vegetative life,” describing our tendency to get comfortable with less struggle and less resistance, ultimately resulting in less effort on our part. His quotation reminded me of Vivian’s call to “lay like broccoli” in the 1990 film, Pretty Woman, as she tried to get businessman Edward to slow down and take some time off. Where does our need to chill and replenish begin to turn toward the the vegetative life of comfort, status quo, and less effort?
Curious, I opened one of my journals and went back a year, then two, then three. Amid the various undulations of life that reveal themselves in such writing, I noticed periodic entries focused on a bit of cheerleading…for myself. Moments when I had caught myself in comfort, or more alarmingly, in laziness. Places in which I didn’t “feel like it” or “needed to get myself in gear.” Funny, I never thought of myself as lacking motivation, but there it was in my own scrawl – moments when I began to coast, retreat, or found myself stuck in frustration. Moments that were easy to forget until I could trace their arc through times of my life.
Feeling convicted, and perhaps a bit soft in comfort, I did a workout that I haven’t tried in about 5 years. Huffing, puffing, tired, and hurting, I pulled up a few minutes short of finishing. Out of breath, and with a poke of sharpness in my hamstring, I thought: “how quickly and completely it goes.” I hadn’t stopped working out, but I had lessened the intensity. After a few days of aches and tenderness, I’m reminded of how much easier it is to leave such effort behind.
Less Effort, More ComfortAs time goes on, our belly gets full, our seats get more comfortable, our beds beckon us, the shiny things glitter distractingly, and the siren’s call lures us to the numbing comfort of a place with less struggle. A place where we might lay like broccoli in the vegetative cruise control of less effort, and its reflection, less discomfort.
Lest we think this is simply age or prosperity induced, it shows itself in our jobs and relationships as well as in our personal growth and development. The status quo is a siren’s call for organizations as is the mirage of a stable, steady, career for anyone thinking they’ve arrived professionally. Nothing is static, and the slow death of too much comfort is as dangerous as the sharp rocks of too much change. We can find the “gravitational pull of the vegetative life” in all facets of our existence.
The Pope Benedict quotation above comes from a piece he wrote talking about letting ourselves be carried along in our lives, and our need to remember that “it takes effort to see beyond what is right in front of us and free ourselves from the tyranny of what immediately presses upon us.” Often, the tyranny of what is immediately pressing upon us holds us back from living fully as it locks us into the comfort of the status quo, and the fear of exertion that might offer a fresh form of freedom.
Real and ImaginedI’m not suggesting that we all return to the overdrive moments of our lives when we burned our candle at both ends, pulled muscles lifting too much weight, or exhausted ourselves in the constant pursuit of more. However, there is a cautionary tale to be told at both ends of the spectrum of too little and too much. There is a danger in the pull toward sloth that comes when we settle into the real comforts of the known and the imagined safety of the status quo.
What’s the answer? Awareness. Recognition. Intentionality. Most of the best things in life are found beyond the narrow gate of too little and too much. The times of feasting must be balanced with the times of fasting lest we falter too far in either direction. Moderation? Sure, that is a good place to start. Just remember that our natural state will tend toward retreat to the comfort of less effort, and that, no matter how good that position may feel, the bedsores appear when we’ve laid in one place for too long.
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No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
John 15:13
Today we celebrate love in our highly visible and commercialized “Valentine’s Day.” Beyond the flowers, chocolates, and jewelry, there is a deep, underlying, beauty in the idea of celebrating love and relationship. This special day gets its name from St. Valentine of Rome, a Christian priest martyred by Emperor Claudius II in 269.
There are numerous stories about St. Valentine, from the healing of a blind girl (to whom he wrote a letter signed “Your Valentine”), to ministering to Christians persecuted in prison, to marrying couples in secret in the Roman catacombs. He became associated with “courtly love” in the middle ages and this February feast day for him possibly grew out of an earlier Roman holiday. What is generally agreed is that his loving acts as a Christian resulted in his beheading and burial on the Via Flaminia in Rome.
Meanings of LoveLove has become a word of many meanings in our current culture. We use it to indicate enjoyment: I loved that movie! Affection: I really love my dog. Desire: I love to spend time with her. And we use it to identify those we love: I love my children and my wife and my mom and my dad. Generally speaking, we intuit the various forms of love and act upon them accordingly. Love is frequently described as a feeling and therefore subject to passing: I no longer love ________, which of course means I don’t feel love anymore.
However, when we talk of love in terms of laying down our own life, we get an entirely different picture and the feeling of love gets real in a very profound way. To choose to love to such an extent as to give up your own life is loving in a very intense and sacrificial way. To love this way is to say: I love you so much, I will your good to such an extent, that I’m willing to give up everything for it.
Most of us will never be called to sacrifice our life for someone we love, thereby leaving the notion of such a gift in the realm of romantic speculation. I love you sweetie, of course I would give it all up for you! However, such sacrifice is so revered that we still honor those who made it thousands of years ago. We can imagine no greater measure of love.
The Opportunities We’re GivenThough you may not be given the opportunity to lay your life down for your love to the point of death, you will be given many opportunities to lay your self down out of love for another. What does that mean? To lay down one’s self for another is to surrender the need to be right, to win, or to receive the justice that is deserved. It is to step into another’s shoes with empathy and compassion, to admit you can understand, and to relinquish the self-regard that comes from needing to be right. To sacrifice these things is to lay down one’s self, one’s own life, out of love.
Wait a minute! Are you saying that love of this form is making myself a footstool for other people? Do you mean that to really love is to humble myself to a point of nothingness and endure the abuse sure to heaped upon my pathetic self?
No I’m not. We have many opportunities to lay our self down for others but it shouldn’t be in a sad, weak, losing, poor me, kind-of-way. Powerful sacrificial love is choosing to be courageous, empathetic, compassionate, and humble because you love another human being to the point of not having to be right and to the point of truly wanting their good. Owning such sacrificial love is letting go of our own wants and desires, killing the pride of self, and offering it up in a healing gift for the benefit of another human being. Such self-sacrifice is Divine, one of our greatest powers, and the greatest gift we can possibly give over and over again.
Our world tells us to get “ours,” “take care of #1,” “kill or be killed,” and “oh no you didn’t.” We are bombarded with the “winner takes all” message and a steady stream of media reminding us of all that we deserve and the constant need to “treat “yo’self” as much and as often as we possibly can. We need to be right. We need to get our way. We deserve to be happy, to have it all, to get our due.
A Different Kind of LoveAnd here, right now, this very day, so many are lonely, miserable, angry, sad, and lost. We may associate Valentine’s Day with flowers and romance, but St. Valentine was not about a box of chocolates, his message was one of sacrificial and redemptive love. Sacrificial in giving it not for your benefit and redemptive in its power as a selfless gift. The wounds we carry won’t be healed in the forced taking of our self or in self-deprecation begrudgingly given. However, in gifting our self, laying down our own desires joyfully, we see the fruits of healing come back in something fuller, more complete.
The essence of true love is to do this over and over and over again. Long lasting, loving, successful, marriages are built on the ability of the spouses to surrender self time and time again. Paradoxically, by letting go, by releasing self, you exert your greatest control, because you are choosing to give, you are choosing to rise above the small things that encumber you as you give them away. In this way, we play a long game of a different sort and it is for keeps.
The call to selfless love is not easy or obvious. However, when we stand before the mirror of the imperfections of those we love, we see ours in glorious detail. We begin to recognize that we need the same loving patience for our own selfish shortcomings. Here, we finally start to realize that in laying down our self for the other, we open the way for our own salvation. In this way, our most selfless acts ultimately become our greatest gift to self.
Click the Arrow Above to Listen to this Post“He reminds me of a character from a TV show.” So began a conversation with Sally as we watched a fellow traveler leave the elevator on our way back to our room. Staying on a glitzy stretch of Ocean Drive in Miami Beach, amid the Art Deco hotels, the Atlantic Coastline, perfect weather, an energetic night life, the Lamborghinis, the Ferraris, an area called “Muscle Beach,” and an equally exotic cast of characters, we found ourselves repeating that opening line repeatedly.
Exaggerated FeaturesEverything was exaggerated. Exaggerated wealth. Exaggerated self-expression. Exaggerated physiques. Exaggerated glitz. Exaggerated costs. Exaggerated art, design, culture, and entertainment. What an interesting place to visit! The vibe was uptempo and the vibrant mix of Latino foundations with lots of international influences gave the area a very unique flavor but, entertaining as it was, I couldn’t get away from the sense of exaggerated proportions.
A curious thing about exaggeration is how it makes some things easier to see. It magnifies. Many of our exaggerated behaviors are merely magnified reflections of things within us. Some of them are things we see, some of them are things we would like to see, and some may remain unseen. A place like Miami Beach concentrates the dramatic in ways that create caricatures of smaller features, many of which might go unnoticed in other places.
The Miami Beaches of the world are magnetic. They draw us in with a tantalizing sense of the extreme in an almost “anything goes” kind of ethos. That is part of the beauty of travel, getting to places that are beautiful, exotic, and different from what we know in our everyday existence. They create their own center of gravity, pulling us in with excitement and curiosity, perhaps even a bit of danger in their unknowns. They are intoxicating in their otherworldliness.
Lost in Self-RegardOf course, we don’t live in such places. Well, most of us don’t. For every glitzy stretch of road, there is the real world behind it, supporting it, working in it, and keeping it alive with the hard work necessary to sustain such mirages. Watching the many characters gracing the scene of this place, I was struck by one common theme: self-regard. On the streets. In the restaurants. Along the beach. At the exercise equipment permanently stationed in the middle of the park by the beach. All of it screamed: LOOK AT ME!
Beautiful people. Beautiful beaches. Beautiful cars, hotels, and landscaping. The feast for the eyes went on and on. This is why we go, right? We want to experience the fantasy of such a place. But it is a reflection of something more, something deeper. The mirrored surface hides much of what is broken within us as individuals and within our society. The darker side remains present, reflected in the less glitzy characters who slept on side streets, in the park areas, or who came out after dark begging or peddling.
Self-regard of the Miami Beach flavor might be confused with simple vanity. To be sure, vanity is present but, much like the glossy surface of many beautiful things, it is really only skin deep. The more dangerous self-regard runs to the deeper depths of pride, and reflects our attempts to fill our own empty places with more self. On the surface, we want to be seen, to be heard, to be known. But the deeper reality is that we want to be relevant. We want to matter. It is here that we come face to face with our own sense of meaning.
You Don’t MatterAmid another week of headlines highlighting layoffs, the message continues to be “You Don’t Matter.” Consider the steady stream of layoffs we’ve seen over the last few months. Thousands of people at a time. Thousands. There is no clearer way to say “you don’t matter” than to herd a bunch of people together and serve them their walking papers amid the faceless bureaucratic-speak of financial necessity and expressions like “your job has been eliminated.” Could it be more impersonal?
Without even the effort of arguing that you didn’t perform, aren’t a cultural fit, don’t seem to be engaged, or anything that might suggest some personal connection to anything remotely human – we watch these organizations pull massive levers kicking thousands to the employment curb. Execs own it by saying “I made a bad decision” or “I’ll eliminate my salary for a year” as if those feeble expressions of responsibility do anything to assuage the moral failure demonstrated in these decisions. These aren’t organization in dire financial straits or facing existential crises; we’re talking about the human politics of shareholders, power, and wealth.
Such events in our lives, elicit a crisis of meaning. And, there are many such events. We attach meaning to our jobs, our roles, our relationships, and our association with anything creating a sense of purpose or belonging. Along the way, we lose all of the above in some way or another…often feeling like it was taken from us. Here come the empty places. Those parts of us that used to hold meaning.
You Do Matter, but Your Life is Not About YouIn the face of loss of meaning, we grasp for something solid to attach ourselves too. Often, our grip falls on what we feel we can control. The more things swirl around us, the more we try to stabilize ourselves with our self. This is why we frequently fill the empty places with stuff, habits, and entertainment. We have figured out how to numb emptiness quite well. At least for a time. Here, our self-regard becomes very dangerous. Those things that helped to fill our emptiness for a time turn into addictions. The world tells us we don’t matter, and soon, we begin to believe it. In the worst cases, we cease to matter to ourselves.
In the movie “Rise of the Guardians,” a philosophical North asks a lost and wandering Jack Frost, “What is your center?” Where we place our center makes all of the difference. As human beings, we are endowed with a worth, a dignity, by virtue of our humanity. We matter. However, when we put ourselves at the center, we fall into the trap of self-regard, the pride of thinking our life is all about us. Here, meaning slips away amid the unfulfilling experience of a self-serving existence. We do matter, but our life is not about us.
Love, Hope, and MeaningParenthood has been one of the greatest gifts of my life. It has also been one of the greatest challenges. Most of the best things I’ve experienced can be described in the same way. The gifts seem to hide amid the struggles. The lessons of the long game come through the peaks and the valleys. Marriage. Career. Faith. Over time, each of these journeys reinforces the basic notion: your life is not ultimately about you. Children help us realize that we are not the center. Jobs remind us. Marriages, successfully navigated, demand that we remove ourselves from the center, frequently. Almost all faiths, fully lived, will push us from our own self-regard in the acknowledgment of something more.
Last night, my family surrounded me to celebrate my 54th birthday. Watching my children and grandchildren through the evening, reminded me that it was my birthday, but it wasn’t about me. This life that is ours together. These moments that we share. The love that we give and accept from one another. We all exist as individuals within a great universe of togetherness. Yes, we all have self-interest. Yes, we all struggle in our own ways, sometimes together, and sometimes alone. However, the meaning in all of it hides within the surrender of self. A surrender with which we will often fail, but beyond which lies the meaning we crave.
All of us are given opportunities to put our self outside of the center in service of greater purpose. Family and children provide obvious and demanding opportunities to do so but are only one of many paths. Meaning hides in the call to selflessness. Freedom lies in surrender to that which is greater than self while the self-regard that plagues much of our society is a mirage of joy, a trap in the narrow confines of the small, cramped, space where we turn inwardly upon ourselves.
What is your center? Things? Pleasure? Self? Spend some time this week imagining what your life might look like with your self a bit outside of center. There is great hope in purpose, and the meaning of your life might be far greater than you ever imagined.
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I wrote this post just over four years ago. It returned to me today as I considered the many parts of our lives that draw us into half-heartedness. Now a full month into 2023, where is your heart and your mind? The energy of the leap into the new year has started to sputter. Perhaps those goals were too ambitious? Maybe your priorities have shifted. It’s possible the excuses have begun to appear. I’m busy. I’m tired. I’m bored. Let’s revisit them through a “fierce” lens and see how we feel. Stay tuned for more perspective on the dangers of the lukewarm in future posts.
December 16, 2018
Give me something to pursue, a dream to chase. Open me to the possibility of hope in the impossible. There, I might live fiercely, beyond the shadow of all that has been and amid the light of all that might be.
Have you ever noticed how certain words seem to resonate with you differently at different times in your life? Like a melody, a smell, or a place, words attach themselves to memories and often come to symbolize not just that moment, but reflect a deeper sense of self attached to it. I’ve long held a strong fascination with the word “fierce” – an attraction I believe stems from its self-contained dualism encompassing ferocious aggressiveness as well as heartfelt intensity.My interest in the word “fierce” emerged early in my oldest daughter’s basketball career when I noticed that her preferred Powerade flavor was called “Fierce Berry.” I remember smiling broadly as I considered how deliciously those words captured her play and personality on the court. Further attaching that word to her, I recall a specific conversation we had while she was in high school when dealing with the normal challenges of teenage life and relationships as I encouraged her by calling her a “fierce friend.” At the time, it seemed to make sense to her.
With the framing of the word and a bit more experience, I recognized similar traits in my other children and among others. What, on the surface, appeared to be a description of behavior considered aggressive and perhaps overbearing, could also capture an intense and heartfelt passion for anything in life. The dichotomy of the two meanings resonated with my own contrarian tendencies while also giving form to the reality of our existence in this world. Our complexity as human beings is seldom captured in the absolute – in many ways, we are built on contradictions.
From this dichotomy, a model for living emerges that reflects our calling to pursue the best version of ourself. A version that wrestles with the frequently negative energies of self-absorption and pride while also recognizing the passionately sincere focus that flows from the same reservoir. A focus that possesses a massive capacity for good works, self-development, and broad impact on the world around us.
In this context, to live fiercely is to apply that intense focus on yourself and those around you in positive, world-changing ways. Consider it in a few categories:
- Fierce Love – To love fiercely is to will the good of the other for its own sake; even when unpopular or unwarranted. When we love fiercely, we accept the risks that come with trusting someone else while focusing on behaving in ways that foster their trust in us. To love fiercely is to care enough to be honest when it counts most and faithful when it is least felt.
- Fierce Friendship – To be a fierce friend reflects a fierce love as described above. Fierce friendship is built on loyalty and defends the honor of the relationship in the face of worldly assault. Fierce friends use words that reflect faithfulness and accountability to the other person while behaving with integrity even when they are not around. Like fierce love, fierce friendship is not a relative state of being but an absolute way of living.
- Fierce Focus – To focus fiercely is to embrace the fire for an objective. It is to focus in the right ways on the right things and accept accountability. Focusing fiercely is to show up every day for the benefit of yourself and those around you – always prepared to bring your best. To focus fiercely is to live your devotion beyond what the average person might accept.
- Seeking Fiercely – To seek fiercely is to ask the right questions when answers seem elusive. It is to aspire to more and invest yourself as needed to achieve that elevation. To seek fiercely is to live the example of self-improvement and continually reach when comfort has found us or there seems little left to pursue.
Living fiercely is pursing an “all-in” life. There are no half-measures. All-in effort. All-in accountability. All-in loyalty. All-in integrity. To live fiercely is to choose goodness and pursue it intensely. To live fiercely is to feel acutely what most don’t; to engage fully where most won’t.
When you wake up feeling that the days have left you wanting, emptied of something that once held you together, or mourning the loss of a time when everything was still before you, shake yourself from the fog and think fiercely. Double-down on yourself and focus in the direction of meaning – embrace the purpose of self-improvement and live it fiercely. There can be no compromise in a world that is throwing its full weight against you. Live fiercely, taking no prisoners as you embrace the responsibility of leaving this world better than you found it.
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Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Matthew 5:4
My friend Nathan died this past week. He was 67 years old. I was close enough to know a little of him, but removed enough to see some of the broader arc of his life from my mostly outsider vantage point. Though it is impossible for me to do the story of his life any justice in just a few words, there are words enough to share some of the man I experienced and, along the way, gift some of what he gave me to you who may read this.
On the morning of January 25, I was sitting in a church pew a little after 8am looking at the coffin of a man I did not know, as the bells began to ring. I had no idea that my friend Nathan had likely already passed. As I sat there, John Donne’s poem came to mind:
No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
I found out later that night that Nathan had passed. Do you believe in signs? I do. Knowing Nathan as I did, it seemed completely Providential. The minute I heard the news that evening, I felt diminished. For whom does the bell toll? Today, it tolls for all of us who knew him.
Gentle. Unassuming. Quiet. Faithful. Honest. Sincere. Humble. Calm and measured. Affable. I just liked him. Reading over the many, many comments on his obituary page, others used many of the same words. He was a man who had touched many people over many years in many ways. Lesson one from this man: your legacy is built one person, one moment, and one choice at a time. It seems that Nathan invested well in many people, many moments, and many choices.
I first met him eight or nine years ago but knew of him long before, as we both played in the same professional space within healthcare. Our first encounter was in a presentation in which I was working to earn business from the company in which he worked. The meeting was fine, he and his team were courteous, and we were unable to win the day.
Later that week, Nathan took the time to share his feedback. “You need to focus,” he said. I was struck by the fact that this man cared enough to be honest. He reminded me that I was playing the long game. Though anyone trying to build a business often feels that there is an ongoing conspiracy to restrain, deter, block, or undermine all of our good work, the process is necessary to make us stronger and help us improve our game. It was counsel Nathan conveyed without having to say it explicitly. I was always grateful for his gentle delivery of the tough messages.
Over time, I learned that Nathan and my professional journeys had paralleled and crossed in numerous places. Just a few examples: a Butler professor of mine who I discovered was a close friend of Nathan and Susan, one of my aunts who knew Nathan well and had worked with him at a consulting company, a client and friend of mine who was also close to Nathan. These were all reminders of the many threads that connect us that often remain unseen. He was well known and so very well respected.
Some of my favorite conversations with Nathan were over breakfast at Another Broken Egg, located across from his office on Meridian Street here in Indianapolis. I imagine many who read this will have met him at this cafe over the years. I discovered that Nathan was a devout Christian and we enjoyed some great discussions on this topic. As I consider his passing John 14 comes to mind:
1 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me.2 In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?"
Nathan was fascinated by Sally and my decision to walk the Camino de Santiago. We talked of it before Sally and I left in October of 2019. We talked of Luke’s story of Jesus’ appearance on the road to Emmaus and a sense of accompaniment and ongoing conversion. When we returned, I was happy to learn that Nathan had followed along via blog posts I shared along the way. I remember the conversation like it was yesterday. He asked me what I discovered on the journey. I told him that I went seeking to be closer to God and discovered that it was He who found me along the way. I still see Nathan’s smile and the deep faith in his eyes in that moment we shared.
I was also blessed to know Nathan long enough to encounter disagreement with him, as well as the gift of moving past it. As gentle and affable as he was, Nathan was responsible for a big business, many employees, and numerous strategic client relationships. Nathan could make a decision, own it, and still look you in the eye with sincerity, acknowledging that it wasn’t in your favor, and maintain the conviction that it was the right decision for those who counted on him. That is true leadership and I still respect him for it.
Nathan was a smart and nuanced leader. He was a student of people and situations, deft in his anticipation and reaction to rapidly changing circumstances, and able to see the entire board as he acted within and upon it. He frequently counseled me on movements in our industry and was always willing to share his wisdom. Nathan didn’t have to, he didn’t owe me anything or need me to do something for him. He just cared. That is such a beautiful form of love, willing the goodness of someone else for no reason other than you want good things for them. I am so very grateful for those moments.
I knew enough of Nathan to know that he loved his family intensely and watching his joy at becoming a grandfather was heartwarming. He loved his kids and he adored his grandchildren. Showing up for breakfast one day, he told me that he and Susan had impulsively bought a lake house; laughing out loud, he talked of it like a guilty pleasure. Of course, I’m certain there was nothing impulsive in it and saw the loving logic in other conversations as he told me of anticipating upcoming moments at that house with his family or of returning from a week-end of good times sharing it together. His eyes lit up like a little boy when he spoke of his grand daughter and grandson. It was pure joy.
Nathan was my friend and I am a better man for having known him. Should Susan, Adam, Anna, or Abigail read this, I suspect it’s a bit surreal to see the perspective of someone they have never met share stories they have likely never heard of the man they loved so much. Or, maybe they’ve grown to understand the deep way in which their Nathan engaged with the world, impacting others effortlessly along the way. Hopefully, the many stories they hear over these days of loss will help assuage some of the hurt, and bring more smiles at the gift of him in their lives.
And now, we move on. The loss is real, but so is the gratitude. The tears are a gift and a tribute. To be touched by such a loss, to truly feel it, is so very special. Tears and smiles. May we all be remembered in such a way.
To weep is to make less the depth of grief.
Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part III
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And behold, the star that they had seen at its rising preceded them, until it came and stopped over the place where the child was.
Matthew 2:9
“If you build it, they will come.” So began Ray Kinsella’s journey in the 1989 movie, Field of Dreams. If you are reading this, you likely saw that movie when it came out and possibly even followed the arc of that famous line through the business world as it became a mocking reference to any ill-planned venture that failed to find customers. The voice from the cornfield calling Ray Kinsella to a cryptic mission of faith, madness, and redemption, inspired and cautioned many an aspiring leader, reminding us that, just because you build it, does not mean they will come.
We live in a world of signs. Signs that tell us where to go and where not to go. Signs that tell us the names of things or mark locations of events. Signs that tell us about our health and signs that tell us about the people around us. Some signs are clearly posted and some cleverly hidden. Some signs are foisted upon us and some require that we look for them. The concept of a sign is a powerful metaphor for direction and destination.
Against all rational thinking, Ray Kinsella listened to the voice from his cornfield and it gave us an entertaining and inspiring movie. That’s how fiction works, right? And yet, there is a part of it we believe. Even if we’ve never heard a voice calling us explicitly to some mysterious mission, we’ve all heard a call, felt a tug, or had an inclination. We intuit much and choose to respond, or not, depending on our situation. To some degree, we all follow the signs.
However, the way we do, or don’t, follow them makes all the difference. Ray Kinsella’s bold trust in something he could not see, and a voice no one else could hear, led him on the adventure of a lifetime. For students of such entertainment and signs of our own, perhaps there is a playbook for following them more effectively.
Looking for SignsThink of the signs of our lives as radio signals. They are flowing all around us and we just need to be ready, and able, to receive them. We must be attentive to the signals, the indicators, offering guidance through the opportunities and challenges of our lives. Few of us will see a burning bush that gives explicit direction, but we might hear a voice whispering in a moment of stillness. Rarely will we be given a carefully written set of instructions, but we may see a billboard.
To see the signs, we must be looking. We have to have our eyes open. The deals, people, asks, opportunities, and roadblocks of our lives are often accompanied by their own set of, mostly hidden, directions. The tiny indicators are there telling us where to turn, how to push forward, or what to expect. Sometimes we pick up parts of them, get a glimpse, or feel the nudge. But often, we are too busy feeling our way through things to see the signs clearly. The fogginess of emotion, doubt, or isolation, can keep us from seeing clearly.
Mine is not a call to go off the deep-end trying to see meaning in every snowflake or overanalyzing words or intonations. With the right bit of obsessiveness, looking for signs can tip into superstition. There are plenty of indicators without chasing the tarot cards of the world. We can’t always see what’s around the corner, but it often casts some kind of shadow. The place to start is to be rationally attentive.
Prepare YourselfOnce we’ve tuned ourselves to the signals, we have to make sure we’re ready to receive. Think of it this way, being attentive is acknowledging that the signs are there. Now that we have our eyes, and ears, open to the indicators, we must be prepared for what they offer, suggest, or demand.
The good news for us is that each stage of life provides ongoing preparation for the next stage. Moving from child to adolescent, to adult, then on through the phases of life through which we pass, we grow into a person able to navigate what comes our way. The bad news is that the user manual has many gaps and the wisdom of others is not always ideal or available when we need it most.
The only way to be prepared to see and receive the signs is to be a perpetual student. We cannot be passive. Our quest is an imperfect one but it must be intentional and ongoing. We must look for opportunities to grow, work diligently on specific skills, and see the wins and losses as lessons to be remembered. Ongoing preparation positions us to respond when the signs become clear to us. Preparation also enables us to see some signs that we would not have recognized with less education, fewer skills, or narrower perspective.
If you feel that your life is an ongoing conspiracy of misfortune or missed opportunities, spend a few minutes contemplating the last line above.
Discerning Your SignsHow did Ray Kinsella know he really needed to do what the voice from the cornfield was telling him? How do we discern the signal from the noise to determine if it is a sign, a distraction, or a dead end? Fortunately, the signs we receive rarely come in isolation and are often part of an ongoing revelation that unfolds along the path. Think of the signs we receive in terms of possibility that evolves rather a single right or wrong answer.
Many of us begin the discernment of any decision with a gut check. Does it feel right? This is one of the reasons that outside counsel can be problematic as it is, by its nature, outside of us. Though we all have similar experiences, none of us can truly stand in the shoes of another. The sum of our preparation, personality, and priorities makes our lives unique. Despite this, outside perspective is important because it is part of our ongoing preparation. Every input, good and bad, contributes to our becoming and we should seek it.
Any signs we see should be framed in the context of how we see our own readiness. Are we ready? Do we have the skills? Do we have the resources? Do we have the resolve, persistence, courage, and character, to act upon an opportunity or cope with a challenge? Is the time right? Part of what helps us determine the “right” time is assessing the difficulty of the call relative to our preparedness. There are stretch moments and there are bridges too far. There are things that line-up in almost miraculous ways and there are barriers that pop up along the path telling us we’ve taken a wrong turn.
Flow and ResistanceThere is a certain kind of fluidity when we’re aligned with our signs. A flow that helps move it forward in ways that seem almost effortless. However, that doesn’t mean that it will be easy or that there won’t be resistance. Will and persistence will remain critical but we need to assess the nature of the resistance we encounter.
There are two types of resistance (the barriers), we encounter as we follow our signs: resistance that causes injury and resistance that makes us stronger. When we’re in the zone, the flow, the alignment of our energies seems to make things happen and there is a peace and joy that follows. Here, the barriers we face are worthy struggles that strengthen and embolden us. They teach us about our self and our journey. They help us in our preparation.
Resistance that does damage indicates misalignment. I am referring to the choices we make on the paths we choose. Injury is a sign that we need to pivot from our current course. We may need to muster courage and will to take the hit before we change direction. More signs. We want to embrace the resistance that helps us grow though we may need to endure the resistance that hurts us.
Way of LifeIn the case of Ray Kinsella, he listened, started down the path, and received affirmations at key points on his journey. He had to stay attentive and be prepared at each step along the way. Like preparation, discernment never ends. For Ray, trust in the voice, the sign he was receiving, was paramount to his courage and his resolve. Without that faith, there was no way he would go the distance.
Now we’re in it. We’ve seen the sign and discerned our path forward. Now we’re beginning to really see it. Signs of the times. Signs of life. The signals will keep coming, you’ll keep looking, discerning, and adjusting. Following the signs is not a one time or two time event. It is a way of life.
The new year is here. What signs do you see? What signs might you be missing? If they’re not obvious yet, keep looking and keep preparing. You are being called to something for which you are already prepared. Look closely, it may be hiding in plain sight.
Click the arrow above to listen to this post.Here we are again. Congratulations! Another turn through the calendar. Another edge to cross over. Another chance to do it better this time. Waking up today is a gift and each of us has the opportunity to accept this gift and do something with it. Such is the joy and responsibility of each new day, however, the changing of the year holds such special significance and gives us the chance to feel it in a more epic way. Epic in scope as well as story, for it is our epic, and today, it continues.
First, a blessing to you and yours for 2023:
The Lord bless you and keep you!
The Lord let his face shine upon you, and be gracious to you!
The Lord look upon you kindly and give you peace!Numbers 6:24-26
First Words, Part OneAs we were beginning our celebration yesterday evening, Sally noticed that she had missed a phone call from one of our nephews. We don’t hear from him often and were concerned that something was wrong. She walked into the other room to return his call. In between bursts of music, the voices of children, and the sounds of preparation in the kitchen, I could faintly hear her voice as she checked on our nephew. Suddenly, over everything, I heard her laugh.
In that moment, I thought to myself, wow! Sally really has a great laugh. Relieved that everything was fine, I went about my business and she reappeared a few minutes later, still chuckling. Regaling us with her story, she shared that something she had ordered for her mom was accidentally shipped to our nephew’s house and he wanted to let her know. Puzzled, I asked, “What was so funny?” She said, “I asked him if he needed for us to pick up the items and deliver them. He said ‘no, I just wanted to hear you laugh.’ It really tickled me!.”
May we all receive a call sometime this year from someone just wanting to hear us laugh! Earlier this week, I had written a note to myself asking “Where did the laughter go?” I’m not sure what prompted it but it was part of some self-reflection on struggle and adversity. You know, the melancholy introspection that sometimes accompanies birthdays, holidays, and the changing of the calendar year. Thinking back over the year, I wonder “Did I laugh enough?”
Mirth. Lightheartedness. Fun. Good humor. The world can be so deadly serious. We “play for keeps” knowing that, often, “the winner takes all.” Aside from hearing the beautiful tones of Sally’s laugh, my heart felt deep joy at the simple innocence of my nephew (a man in his 30’s) wanting to share the silly nothingness of the shipping mistake, knowing it would elicit her lightheartedness. Where did our innocent joy go?
Billy Joel once told us that “He’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints.” I’m not sure how persuasive his argument was for Virginia relative to her own concern for her soul, but he does strike a chord for those of us prone to responsibility and seriousness. The odds are pretty high that, sin or no, we aren’t laughing enough. There is a deep well of joy within each of us, just waiting to be tapped. We all know laughter to be great medicine – this year is a great place to apply it more liberally.
First Words, Part TwoAn annual tradition that Sally and our daughters started a few years ago, was to participate in a “Saint of the Year” and “Word of the Year” activity. The saint and word are randomly generated through a website and the goal is to use them both as a focal point for self-reflection throughout the year. I often hear them discussing their discoveries as they learn more about the their own saint and contemplate their word. This year, I decided to participate.
My word was “Overcome.” Google tells us:
o·ver·come
/ˌōvərˈkəm/
verb
- succeed in dealing with (a problem or difficulty).
“she worked hard to overcome her paralyzing shyness”
Similar:
- defeat (an opponent); prevail.
“without firing a shot they overcame the guards”
- (of an emotion) overpower or overwhelm.
“she was obviously overcome with excitement”
Considering this word, I realize that I don’t use it very often but the more I think about it, the better I like it. The fact that we can both overcome a particular challenge and be overcome with a particular emotion give this word some very useful depth for those of us contemplating our hopes and our dreams for 2023. For the new year, let’s resolve to overcome…
- the fear, uncertainty, and doubt holding us back from the bold moves that might move us forward.
- the preconceived notions of those who disagree with us. Perhaps they are not the fools or enemies it is so easy to to see them as.
- the resentment we feel toward others for what they’ve done to us.
- the resistance we face in the pursuit of our hopes and dreams.
- the voices in our own heads telling us we’re not strong, smart, attractive, worthy, or loved enough.
- the ignorance that lives within us and around us.
- the attachments to habits and vices that hold us back from being our best self.
- the acceptance of the status quo when there is something better waiting to be discovered, envisioned, and implemented.
- the tendency to be so darn serious about everything when there is great power in innocent mirth.
- the patterns of behavior in our relationships that do little to lift or be lifted.
Thinking on it some more, perhaps there is another side of the word that may hold even more promise as we allow ourselves to be overcome by…
- gratitude for each and every day, recognizing the gift of life for what it is.
- the joy of laughter in the small, the silly, and the innocent.
- the love of others over ourselves.
- the majesty of a sunrise or sunset, the crash of a wave, or the scale of a mountain.
- the emotion of the moment, fearing nothing of the past or of the future.
- the awe and wonder of children.
- the connection of a relationship.
- the beauty of a painting, a song, or a poem.
- the forgiveness offered by another.
- the self-release of forgiving another.
- the timelessness of being fully alive in a moment.
Looking over the short list above, I realize that it is by no means exhaustive. What would you add to it?
Rolling Into 2023Here we go again. The new year, and all of its possibility, is upon us. These first words are just a beginning – a reference point as we look toward the horizon. But let’s not look too far, for both words are meant for this moment. Right here, right now. Where is the laughter? Where is the smile? Find it now. Find it today. Let yourself feel the joy from laughter’s awe and wonder. Allow the elemental innocence of mirth to fall upon you and those you love.
Then, be prepared to overcome. Step up to this moment and the next with your best self. Muster the determination to push beyond the resistance, the noise, the doubt, the fear, and all of their real and imagined barriers that hold you back from living your best life. Show up for yourself and those you love, ready to do battle with the internal and external struggles that define our moments, and our lives beyond them.
Finally, allow yourself to be overcome by the immense, beauty, joy, and possibility of a world so big, so broad, and so powerful that our minds can barely comprehend it and our hearts scarcely contain it. There is so much good to be done, love to be given, things to learn, and gifts to be shared, that it takes a lifetime to scratch the surface. Today is a great time to start. Let’s start with laugh and overcome, then see where it goes from there.
Click the arrow above to play this post.I find it impossible to write today’s post without first considering the day itself: Christmas. A feast day. A day of celebration. Foundational to my Christian faith and pivotal to the seasons of change that mark our ongoing spiritual growth and renewal, the day is also a day of gratitude. The Advent Season comes to a close and our waiting turns to the appreciation of the many gifts of our life, and the blessings of hope in days better than today.
Hope frames how we see and move into the future, whether that future is our next moment, the moment seven months from now, or the moment seven years from now. The hope we hold liberates us to believe, just as the hope we lack shackles us with fear.
May your day be filled with gratitude and hope.
Advent is a season of anticipation and preparation. The waiting is not passive but an engagement of our active faculty of hope, anticipating something more, something better, something worth celebrating. A few weeks ago, I wrote of patience and preparation as a season, and within it, our need to recognize when we need to let things happen versus trying to make them happen. There are times when we must be patient, allowing things to unfold, however, such a season does not mean we are not preparing for what may unfold.
What about those things that happen for which we are unprepared? A friend recently lost his father. Even when we are intellectually prepared for the inevitable, it still puts us on our heels, leaving us feeling completely unprepared. Within a few hours of sharing his father’s final moments, my friend was making the return trip to attend a very important board meeting. I could hear the knot in his voice. Though the pragmatic details of preparing for his meeting seemed to distract him from the immediacy of his grief, his heart was broken, and the important next steps demanded of him seemed small despite their magnitude in this particular moment.
So often, the biggest moments we face are the ones for which we feel we are unprepared. Life has a way of pushing us to the edge of our own capacities and the knot of such moments seems to fill, and overwhelm, our gut trying to contain it. The butterflies turn into screaming banshees as we look into an abyss which seems to have no end. We know that such a step will engulf us and the unknown on the other side of that abyss freezes our limbs into a primal hesitation. Nothing could have prepared us for this.
Or could it?
Listening to my friend on a morning that must have felt like it was moving him rapidly into that massive abyss, I saw something else, something beyond that frightening black unknown. Amid the chattering details and gyrations of preparation and anticipation for the board meeting, then looking beyond to a funeral and a life which was no longer occupied by his father, I saw the arc of a different narrative. His narrative.
If we are able to step back far enough, and allow ourselves the grace to sit still long enough, we begin to see the bigger picture, the longer arc of our own story. The reality is that my friend was actually prepared for the moment facing him. Not necessarily with spreadsheets, data, strategy, or specific skills – though he had plenty of all of those. The truth of the matter was that his entire life had brought him, and prepared him, for this exact moment.
The small losses of childhood. The little struggles of youth. The growing battles of adolescence and skirmishes of new adulthood. The pushing against resistance of time and place and people along a long road of setbacks into middle age. And, the victories in between the struggles that provided hope enough to push on. All of these made him the man he is; the man able to endure and continue to hope.
The sum total of his experiences has been forming him for a long time. Whether the actions and choices of his own person or the world acting upon him, the arc of his story has been one long preparation for today. And tomorrow.
Ours are seasons of transitions. We are always moving from here to there. We are always presented with the impossible, the improbable, and the overwhelming. We are also given the opportunity to endure, to learn, and to grow through all of it. We are forged by the resistance of life, strengthened into beings capable of facing what comes. Sure, such things will break us from time to time. We will falter, get knocked down, and even make our own poor choices. We will also get back up and try again.
You are more prepared than you think. You are stronger than you realize. Those struggles have not been for nothing. The losses are not meaningless…unless we allow them to be so. We can fold. We can retreat. We can give up. There are many examples. The overwhelm can seem bigger than us and, given enough time, we will all face it repeatedly. But every single moment bringing you to this very place, standing at this very edge, and looking into the darkness at this very moment, has prepared you for it. Every. Single. Moment.
Our season of waiting has shifted. But that is how seasons work: they pass. Winter is upon us. With a bit of patience, spring will soon appear. The sun will rise and the winds will change. And yes, the sun will set as well, and the darkness will come. All along the way, no matter how unprepared we may feel, we will be prepared for it.
Click the arrow above to listen to this post. Our fifth grandchild was born yesterday. He came to the world in the usual way, but there were planes to catch, and bills to pay….forgive me while I channel some melancholic Harry Chapin. We met our third grandson, Arthur Thomas, in the aftermath of a robust labor. Our son and daughter-in-law were in that blissful state of exhaustive satisfaction from massive exertion brought to its close. At least the close of round one.
Looking at this big boy (9 lbs 3oz), I was struck by the unlikely fact that he was born on his Nanny’s birthday. Then I thought, how did he end up with the name “Arthur”? Here he is in Indianapolis, Indiana, a state within the United States, born with a winding genealogy that includes English, German, Mexican, Japanese, and who knows what other curious combination of nationality, geography, or genetic material.
This morning, I wonder about the story ahead for Arthur…and his parents. What great things might he do? What adventures might he have? Who will he encounter? Who will he become? Where will this little family makes its mark on the world? I suspect it will be a great story. I suspect that much of it will be wondrously unlikely.
A friend recently wrote me a note telling me that he had just finished Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen and considered it “the perfect novel.” Elizabeth Bennett’s unlikely encounters, budding love affair, and ultimate “happy-ever-after” with the wealthy, dashing, and occasionally awkward Mr. Darcy makes for a great story. Of course, the great stories are always unlikely – at least while they’re happening.
Considering great stories a bit further, it seems that the random events that comprise these lives we live are all pretty unlikely. How exactly did I come to be sitting in front of this keyboard this morning? Ok, maybe this moment doesn’t merit “great story” status but it does support the argument: we are all massive collections of unlikeliness. The unique timing and collision of our singular person with the world around us is miraculously unlikely. It is only in the tracing of it back along its many byways that there is any hope of making sense of it – process that will do little to lessen the unlikely miracle of it all.
So what? We’re talking about “great stories,” right? Yes. Consider Beowulf and his heroic battle with Grendel in the defense of King Hrothgar’s Danish kingdom. Epic. How about Odysseus? Or Achilles? Or Frodo Baggins? Or Elizabeth Bennet? The great stories don’t stop there. It is not only in the imaginative world of epic poems and fictional novels that we find them. Alexander the Great had a pretty interesting story. What about Joan of Arc? Some people find the story of the founding of the United States quite compelling.
These were all great stories. And, they were all very unlikely.
We come to discover that life in all its forms is always a great, and unlikely, story. Arthur’s story is only beginning to unfold. His parents will write the first few lines but he will soon seize the reins of his own adventures. His choices will dictate much of how it evolves but there is plenty of room for twists and turns. He will encounter the monsters of the world as well as the heroes. He will be given some easy paths to meander along and he will also have to battle intense climbs. Much of it will be pretty unlikely.
Looking around today, take a moment to consider the miraculously unlikeliness of your own story. Where you sit this very moment is the result of a wildly winding road through place, time, and people. A compilation of success, failure, effort, luck, and so many different forces acting upon you as well as on your behalf. Yours is a unique story, highly unlikely, and, dare I say it? Great.
Yes it is. Reading the lines of your book, we’d find it all: loss, love, joy, struggle, hurt, healing, discovery, wins, and countless moments moving between. We’d see wise decisions and foolish choices. We’d find some angels and some devils moving within your narrative. We’d laugh. We’d cry. We’d cringe. But all along the way, we’d have to acknowledge the greatness, and great unlikelihood of most of it. It would be one-of-a-kind. The great stories always are.
Today, our family is adding a new chapter to its story. Arthur will undoubtedly add many unlikely lines to the great novel of our lives as he finds his way toward his own unique place in the world. I smile knowing that in all of its glorious unpredictability, it will be great. May we always be able to see the beautiful unlikeliness of our own stories no matter how the world judges them.
Click the arrow above to listen to this postLast week, I wrote of patience and the seasons we find ourselves in. This week, I’ll continue that thread by exploring some of the side effects of impatience and the feelings it can foster.
Bad DaysDo you ever have “bad” days? Of course you do, we all do. I had one the other day. There was nothing specific, I just struggled. Struggled to get motivated. Struggled to feel upbeat. From my drive to the office, to any obstacle in my day, I saw the downside of every situation. In parallel, I felt it acutely.
Why? Who knows? Sometimes we call it waking up on the wrong side of the bed. Perhaps it was that stain on the shirt I wanted to wear or my dog tracking mud into the house or having a restless night and waking up a little tired. Maybe its the “mean reds,” Holly Golightly’s characterization of “suddenly being afraid, and you don’t know what you’re afraid of.” Perhaps you know something is coming or see a risk and feel the “fear” which can accompany such possibilities.
Maybe I just believed there was nothing specific for my “bad day.” We carry all sorts of things that manifest themselves in really annoying ways. The result tends to be the same: feeling “down” and blah about this moment and generally discouraged about prospects for the moments to follow.
Holidays are notorious for fostering such moments. The rush of the season. The pressure of events, gifts, and expectations layered onto the entire month of December. The self-reflection of another 12 month turn and what we did or didn’t do with the time given to us. The imposing sense of time and passing that occurs as we move toward the changing of the year. The season may also mark real loss; ready or not, illness and death still shadow our steps. Some of us are walking there now.
Though there is real loss happening, much of the “blues” we tend to feel come from less specific places. The “brain cloud” of a bad day tends to appear like that arbitrary storm on the horizon, imposing and uninvited. Regardless of the source of our blues, it is no place to stay. When we are there, momentum stops, the magnetism of optimism disappears, and our formerly attractive personality can turn into a repellant. Repelling all good that might normally be drawn to us.
Feelings, Perception, and RealityCuriously, the feelings in those moments are very real but, often, our perception is an imposter. The world around us doesn’t suddenly turn into a conspiracy to get in our way, slow us down, or crush our soul. We see all of that through the lens of attitude fed by our feelings. That is not to say that negative things aren’t really happening – they may be. However, the way we see and react to them is a direct reflection of our mood and that can often cloud reality in its own way.
What to do? The first thing to remember is that, though we feel like we’re reacting to external factors, the cloud is really about us. We’ve turned-in on ourselves and gotten stuck in our own reflection. You know, kind of like seeing yourself in a dressing room mirror with bad lighting, thinking: when did this place install funhouse mirrors? Every blemish is magnified, every bump protruding, every imperfection highlighted. The self-talk begins and we spin ourselves into a ditch. I’m this or that – I’m not or I never. When the absolutes come forth, we’re rarely seeing reality as it really is.
The other side of this is a reflection of how we want things to be. Our preferences may be reasonable or unreasonable, but, either way, the result of them not being met is disappointment and the dark feelings that follow. This isn’t what I expected. This isn’t what I signed up for. This isn’t fair. In particular, the more painful realities of life and suffering bump up against our own desires in the most aggressive ways. At its heart, our deepest sadness reflects our deepest disappointment. I want it to be some other way: my way.
The second thing to remember is that it is rarely as bad as it seems. When the feelings set-in, we go to the extremes. Extreme perceptions and extreme reactions. Like rear tires spinning in the mud, we get stuck in the muck of our own echo chamber parroting every conceivable failure, fault, and foible of our person. If you have any doubt about the state of your situation, pause for a moment and count the consecutive number of negative thoughts pouring through your head. Five, ten, fifteen…rationality demands a reality check. Is it really that bad? Such is the nature of dark feelings, they feel pretty bad. Once you can see them as extreme lies, at least logically, you can begin to use reason to pick them apart. The more pervasive and extreme, the more likely they are not a fair reflection of reality.
For those who are in a moment that is as bad as it seems (or perhaps worse than it seems), the only answer is to just keep walking. Yours is a path of survival, one moment, one step, at a time. There is no going around, you will have to go through. There are losses that break us but there is always hope. There are always choices. Always.
The third thing to remind yourself is that all is passing. Life and all of the feelings that it brings is moving along. You’ve had them before, they will go away, and you will run into them again. The moments feel like forever. The moods seem to “always” appear and “never” get better. But you know they do. No matter how twisted that timeline gets in your head, the moment will pass. Your feelings always change. Part of their deception is the creeping of time and the suffering of such a mood feels like forever. And, like the joys you once appreciated, it appears as a momentary blip in your rear view mirror
Ironically, we all know this. We know how it works. We’ve been there and done that. But for some reason, every single time is like the first time. We get lost in it.
Taking InventoryKnowing we have turned-in upon ourself, knowing it isn’t as bad as it seems, and knowing that it is passing, how can we shift our gears and pull ourselves out? Take an inventory.
Actually, take three inventories. First, count your blessings. No, don’t just count them, list them. Write them down. Every one that you can possibly think of. Look externally first.
Thinking of them is good but physically writing them out is a cathartic purge. Start with the basics: air to breath, a heartbeat, your basic senses. Then move to the next level: food, shelter, running water. Then people: family, friends, teachers, doctors, inspiring speakers, saints, historical figures, human beings. Then think about having a job, an income, something to do, an opportunity. Hobbies, trees, salt air, mountains, exercise, faith, and on and on. Once you get going, the list will grow fast, distract you, require your brain, and force a different perspective. Gratitude for the gifts of your life is a powerful salve.
Then, take a personal inventory. This time, turn inward with the gratitude mindset you just engaged for your external blessings. What are your personal gifts and strengths? Again, start with the basics: walking, talking, thinking. Move on from there. What do you know? What can you do physically? Are you creative or artsy? Can you write or code? Can you teach or heal? What have been your successes? Why do others like you? Are you kind and generous? Do you volunteer? Do you care for children or aging parents? What sacrifices have you made? What do you consider your greatest accomplishments? Can you cook or build or repair? Can you plan or lead or coordinate or inspire? Write it all down.
Feeling better yet? The final list to write comprises your hopes, dreams, and plans. What do you see in front of you? Places you want to go? Things you want to do? New milestones in a life that has already been graced in so many ways. Look forward. What might you do? Learn a language? Build a treehouse? Visit Rome? Start a company? Read a book or a hundred books? Solve a big problem? Solve a bunch of smaller problems? Make a pilgrimage? Maybe your dream is to just keep showing up for all those people on the blessings inventory you just created. Big or small, the future you see for your life holds promise. The promise of possibility and the promise of purpose.
This Passing SeasonImpatience is about what we want, how we want it, and when we want it. Our food. The service we experience. How we are treated. Our successes. Our failures. Recognition. Even the suffering that is foisted upon us. We all want life to happen according to our desires and our darkest moments come when those expectations are not met. We get impatient. Why this? Why not that? She didn’t treat me properly. He didn’t see my potential. Life is not fair.
We know it is all passing and that only fuels our impatience. We think: time is running out, it’s now or never. Impatience is not trusting that it is going to be ok. Impatience is losing faith: in yourself, in those around you, in the God in whom you believe. Impatience is feeling like the best is behind you.
This too shall pass. Whether it’s the “blues” or the “mean reds,” we must remember that this season is passing and our call is to find the promise and possibility in the place we are and muster the patience for what might be.
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Patience is power. Patience is not an absence of action; rather it is “timing,” it waits on the right time to act, for the right principles, and in the right way.
Fulton Sheen
A Quest for ActionWe spend so much time in action. As leaders, managers, and working professionals, we are measured in what we produce. Our effectiveness is tied to our productivity. This fuels our need for action: make it happen, get it done, keep moving. All of that productivity produces an obsession with the kinetic, the real or imagined sense of clear progress.
But work and life move in seasons. And, there is a time for all of them. A time to sow and a time to reap. A time to tear down and a time to build. A time to weep and a time to laugh. A time to be silent and a time to speak. A time to make things happen and a time for patience. Even the off-season has its season. Every now and then, we need to create space for a time to wait and to let things unfold. We need a season of patience.
In a season of patience, we need to nurture. It is a time to feed and water our crops, our herds, our projects, ourselves. It is a break from the big, sweeping efforts of championships, planting, and harvest, and a move to the seemingly slow interior work that seems to move nothing.
However, the season of patience isn’t passive, merely relegating us to waiting for something to happen. Patience demands a different kind of output…and a different kind of input. It has its own rhythm. A cadence slowed to a resting heartbeat, but still moving life along.
A Time for PreparationThis is the season of preparation. The season of reflection. The season of waiting with intention. It demands that we don’t tweak the seeds we’ve planted or overwork tired muscles. It allows for replenishment, restocking, restoring, and rejuvenation.
We feel the natural flow of such seasons as they follow their own patterns. Patterns that don’t always align with quarterly expectations, deadlines, or quotas. They will vary with the calendar, our chosen profession, and the cycle of life in which we find ourself, our role, or our organization.
Patience can be incredibly difficult as it calls us to engage in a counter-intuitive way. It is not retreat but it also is not invasion. We want to launch our assault and force the issue but the timing may not be right – the season has not yet come. In waiting, we struggle with what to DO. We struggle with “non-productivity” and the sense that we are not making something happen. Forward motion must be active, right?
The season of patience demands different skills. It needs the branch that bends with the wind. It needs the boat that rolls with the tide. It needs the wings that rest upon the airstream, allowing momentum to generate lift. It needs the hands that occupy themselves in other ways, while the heart and mind move in the flow of this particular moment of time.
For the drivers of the world, this can be maddening. We want to see movement. We want action. We want dramatic results. We want to see the seed turn into the rose and bloom quickly. We want it all on our schedule. We want to throw gas on the fire.
Know Your SeasonsSo what do we do? Know thyself. Know your seasons. With time and perspective, it all makes much more sense. Of course you want it when you want it. Wall Street will not change. Investors will not care about your seasons. Our society does not want to wait for anything. Your own internal clock will still alarm loudly with other expectations.
Step back. See the bigger picture. Look back along the road you’ve traveled. Count the distance. Recall the start, the journey, and its other seasons. Take an inventory. Look at the scoreboard. Our go, go, go, standard of living warps time, causing us to lose track of progress and all those miles you’ve covered get lost in the rush to push forward. You’ve come a long way, baby.
Then, look at the open field on which you’re currently standing. Look where the seeds are planted. Remember the barns and tractors and hands, all in place, ready for the harvest. Recall the preparations, the sowing you’ve done. It all needs time to unfold and nothing you do will make it move faster.
Now, look ahead. The road to the horizon. The other fields lining that road. Imagine rows of beautiful crops waiting around the corner. The sounds of the reaping that promise to fulfill your desire for action. The horizon that whispers possibility in the harvest and new dirt to be turned just the over the hill. If you don’t connect with the farming metaphor, imagine any project with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Whether you’re building a house, a company, or a movement, they each move with their own seasons.
This SeasonIn what season do you find yourself right now? December is here and the Holiday Season brings its own rhythm. Perhaps you’re in the season of patience right now. Maybe the quiet and the stillness and the shortage of tasks is exactly what it’s supposed to be. Maybe your time has not come. Maybe that’s ok.
We spend so much time and energy wrestling with the seasons. We resist. We complain. We argue and pout. But, like the weather, the season still comes…and it still goes. This is a place for waiting. There is a place for patience. See it for what it offers and, for what it requires: planning, preparation, rest, renewal, nurturing. This season is not passive and its demands will push you. Be patient, winter, then spring, is coming and you must be prepared when the time for harvest arrives.
What constitutes a wonderful life? I find myself contemplating this question today as I think of my friend who was put into hospice care yesterday. The wonder of life takes on new dimensions when considered against the sharp edge of life’s end. Of course, hospice is not the end, but it is acknowledgement of the […]
This day we share, in the warmth of our home, Together we pray, as our hearts lightly roam; Toward the grateful, the plenty, the smells, and the cheer, Across the miles we’ve walked, making our way here. Beyond the sullen, the empty, the broken, the lost; Traveled we have, knowing sacrifice and cost. For the […]
Focus on everything better todayAll that I needed I never could sayHold on to people, they’re slipping awayHold on to this while it’s slipping away Moby, Slipping Away The cold has arrived and, with it, that quiet introspection which always seems to accompany the gray moodiness of a blustery winter storm. For those who appreciate […]
Shilo, when I was youngI used to call your nameWhen no one else would comeShilo, you always cameAnd we’d play Neil Diamond Toward the end of a recent breakfast meeting, I glanced at my phone and noticed numerous missed calls and texts from Sally. Uh oh. It seems that her morning had been interrupted by […]
The home is not the one tame place in a world of adventure; it is the one wild place in a world of rules and set tasks. G.K. Chesterton A few weeks ago, Sally shared the quotation above with me. Before I was even able to contemplate the wisdom of Chesterton’s thinking, I was struck […]
One of the beautifully profound aspects of the arrival of a new baby, is the event’s effect on baby’s siblings. Now adjusting to the myriad impacts of grandchild number four, I’ve been blessed to watch the evolving reactions of her brothers and sister. The natural fascination of children comes fully alive when intersecting with the […]
The search for a scapegoat is the easiest of all hunting expeditions. Dwight D. Eisenhower “Come on, Pop, read us a book!” said Cooper as he patted the seat beside him on the couch. There are some voices, requests, and moments to which there is no denial. Taking the seat offered, I was immediately compressed […]
A few years ago, Sally and I took a trip to Los Angeles. The City of Angels. A friend played tour guide and showed us around the city. One of our stops was in Griffith Park, home of the famous H O L L Y W O O D sign that we so often see […]
And give me something to believe inIf there’s a Lord aboveAnd give me something to believe inOh, Lord arise Poison, Something to Believe In Like most organizations, ours has a Powerpoint presentation that we use to introduce our company and its products/services to potential partners and clients. A few years ago, I created a slide […]
The world offers you comfort. But you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness. Pope Benedict XVI In 1979, I won the Boston Marathon. I was 10 years old. Nevermind the fact that the race was held in Boston, Indiana and totaled just over 600 yards. In that moment, jockeying among those […]
‘What is this I hear about you? Prepare a full account of your stewardship, because you can no longer be my steward.’ Luke 16:2 The Face of Ruthlessness The bottom line. The end result. The point of it all. The truth of the matter. At the end of the day. Ultimately. When we net it […]
“Nobody does amazing anymore,” he said as we stood talking. Conference attendees milled about, grabbing coffee and chatting with exhibitors and peers. The scene could have been cut from this conference space and pasted into a thousand other conference spaces seamlessly. The booths. The continental breakfast. The vendors. The carpet. The scene was so familiar […]
The line it is drawnThe curse it is castThe slow one nowWill later be fastAs the present nowWill later be pastThe order is rapidly fadin’And the first one nowWill later be lastFor the times they are a-changin’ Bob Dylan, The Times They Are A-Changin’ Driving home this week, I noticed a single leaf floating down […]
I absolutely love the quotation above. It captures the essence of any project worth doing and has been particularly applicable in my own entrepreneurial journey. It is the edge. That place we stand, facing the possible and experiencing the discomfort of the risk in leaping toward it. Age and experience don’t matter – there is an edge […]
Can you remember the last time you awoke to something new and different? A time and place where the old routines disappeared and all your expectations and habits retreated into the hazy memory reserved for all that was long ago? What about a moment when all that was to happen next was unknown and you […]
During a recent walk, Sally and I were sharing highlights from our day. As I was describing a conversation during a recent meeting, I found myself saying in conclusion: ”I really like him. He’s one of the good guys.” She said in response, ”I could tell by the way you described your conversation.” Something in […]
For years, my wife and I hosted an annual Christmas party. We would invite friends and family into our home for an evening of celebration. For many of those who participated, this event was the only time during the year that we were able to see each other. Though it was a lot of work […]
In two weeks, Sally and I will begin a journey that will take us from Indianapolis, Indiana to what was once considered the end of the earth: Finisterre, Spain. Our goal? To walk the 500 mile Camino de Santiago de Compostela.
“Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.” Luke 10:41-42 Life is incredibly complex but it is we who mostly complicate it. When we are faced with difficulties, we often complicate the […]
As long as human beings are imperfect, there will always be arguments for extending the power of government to deal with these imperfections. The only logical stopping place is totalitarianism — unless we realize that tolerating imperfections is the price of freedom. Thomas Sowell We had a chance to see Top Gun: Maverick the other […]
America is the only nation in the world founded on a creed. G. K. Chesterton Happy Birthday America! Two hundred and forty six years later, your amber waves of grain, purple mountain majesties, and fruited plains continue to enthrall us while your social, cultural, and political upheavals persist in frustrating those of us living through […]
A version of this post was first shared in 2014, then expanded upon in my first book, Stones Across the River: The Path to Your Best Work in Your Peak Years. Whether considering customer deals, real estate purchases, investments, or investors, the notion is as relevant as ever. One might apply some of the concepts […]
My daddy, he was somewhere between God and John Wayne. Hank Williams, Jr. A few years ago, one of our team members approached me to tell me she had met a person over the week-end who knew me. As we were connecting the dots, she smiled and told me that when they identified me as […]
If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son! Rudyard Kipling, If As time passes on, and I become more acquainted with death, I’m struck by the spectacle of its disruption. […]
Not so long ago, I was regaling Sally with a story from my day. Somewhere during this discourse, I described a word or action in the context of “my heart for it,” meaning that whatever I had said or did was born from good intentions. She smiled and gently reminded me that my good intentions […]
Happy Mother’s Day! How about a different take today as we celebrate this wonderful holiday and the amazing moms in our lives? A favorite movie of the women in my family is the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice, starring Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Bennett. (Full confession: I like it as well.) At the very […]
Does anyone go to the movies anymore? For some reason, Sally and I have been experiencing a bit of a movie renaissance, or at least a rebirth of our interest in attending them. When we were younger, we went weekly as it was one of our primary entertainments. Judging by the number and age of […]
We are obsessed with the extraordinary. Extraordinary accomplishments. Extraordinary intelligence. Extraordinary experiences. Extraordinary wealth. Extraordinary beauty. Extraordinary danger. Extraordinary behavior. Extraordinary pleasure. Extraordinary evil. We can’t get enough of the extremes. If one looks at headlines, magazine and book titles, or the movies we watch, it would seem that no one is interested in the […]
As I write this post, the moon is full, illuminating the night with its reflection of the day to come. Soon, the sun will announce its appearance with the first glow on the horizon. Today is Easter, the Christian celebration of Jesus Christ’s Resurrection. It seems a good time to talk about hope. But first, […]
Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed. G.K. Chesterton Sally and I recently took the time to listen to a fairy tale entitled The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald. Why? Perhaps it was a twitch on […]
I recently had the opportunity to watch the 2018 version of A Star is Born featuring Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga. I was first introduced to the story with the 1976 version starring Barbara Streisand and Kris Kristofferson and must confess to being fascinated by the plot and these movies. The 2018 version of the […]
I wrote the post below 12 months ago and was recently reminded of it as I listened to the song Never Enough from The Greatest Showman. When one can have anything he or she wants with the click of a mouse, what constitutes “enough?” Whether it’s food, drink, money, security, recognition, attention, things, or even […]
We’re a nation of fighters. From our very founding, we’ve fought for independence, individual rights, safety, influence, control, selfish interests, altruistic interests, religious freedom, and self determination. Our brawling political system remains as antagonistic as ever and our society has evolved incredibly effective tools to enable us to confront each other at pretty much every […]
Our most valuable possessions are those which can be shared without lessening: those which, when shared, multiply. Our least valuable possessions are those which, when divided, are diminished. William Danforth, I Dare You! A Lesson in Ukraine As we watch events unfolding in the Ukraine with increasing disgust, we struggle to understand “why?” Greed? Power? […]
It would take me years of reading, thought, and experience to learn again that in this world limits are not only inescapable but indispensable. Wendell Berry We actually went to a movie theater this week-end. Remember those? Though we love the convenience of our instant access world, there is still something magical about watching a […]
There are only two ways to influence human behavior: you can manipulate it or you can inspire it.
Simon Sinek
I just re-read Simon Sinek’s book, Start With Why, originally published in 2009. Good books are always able to meet you where you are and bring fresh perspective where and when you need them. Sinek has since converted the early success of his book and thinking into a business centered on inspiring people to inspire others. From TED talks to classes, speaking, and consulting, his message clearly found its audience and continues to resonate 13 years later.
The Central Theme The central theme of Sinek’s book is that, in order to build long-term loyalty, we need to start with WHY. What is WHY? “WHY is our purpose, cause, or belief.” Most companies focus on WHAT they do rather than the WHY behind it. The book proceeds to make its case by using examples of famous brands like Apple who have built cult-like followings by remaining true to their WHY. When our WHAT and HOW reflect our WHY, trust is built and loyalty follows.
A key component of Sinek’s argument centers on the biology of how we make decisions. In short: as much as we’d like to think we are making decisions based on rational analysis, Sinek argues that most decisions are made on “gut feelings” which happen in the limbic portion of our brain; that part of the brain where feelings, like trust and loyalty, originate. In contrast, the neocortex controls our rational thought and language – this is where we evaluate the WHAT’s of the world.
Because there is no language in the limbic brain, we have difficulty putting words to feelings, making it difficult to explain our decisions: “It felt right.” The bottom line: even though we rationalize decisions with facts and data, those decisions were actually made in the feeling limbic brain – the place where we connect with WHY.
So What? Curiously, when I picked up Sinek’s book, now over ten years later, I really didn’t remember his central points and remembered it more as call to figure out your WHY. Of course our “why” is important, right? The book spends a lot of time contrasting how most companies work to influence customer behavior through incentives or fear, practices Sinek buckets as “manipulations.” Though these tactics are often effective in the near-term, they eventually break-down, failing to build loyalty. Why? Because loyalty comes from trust and trust can only be built and maintained when our HOW and our WHAT align with our WHY.
Sinek’s points are interesting from a customer perspective but also have significant implications for any of our relationships. The same principles hold true for the people we hire, the partners with whom we work, and even the relationships we build outside of our work environment. How so? Because trust and loyalty stem from shared beliefs. Others must buy-in to our WHY before they can trust us and trust can’t happen until we’ve shown them that we live according to our WHY.
Our Data-Driven World Throughout the pandemic, “follow the science” has been a rallying cry for any number of fact or data-driven calls to action. The expression is profound because it reflects our embrace of fact-based argument. We seek to convince others with logic and data which we use as proof of a correct answer. Proving the rightness of our decision, position, or conclusion has become a full-time job for many of us whether we’re in healthcare, politics, academia, research, or even religion. Unless we’re poets or artists, we almost always lead with the rational argument. Even when we can’t demonstrate something conclusively, we make our case as strongly as possible using cold, clear, irrefutable, logic.
And yet, people behave “irrationally” all the time. A person refuses to get the COVID vaccine so we conclude they don’t have the facts and double-down on our logical argument. Someone is looking to buy a car and the salesperson presents his product’s better gas mileage, maintenance costs, and price, still we buy a different vehicle. Start looking around at decisions that are being made and Sinek’s argument starts to make sense. We are going with our “gut” far more often than not. Yeah, we want to see the specs, know the numbers, get the facts, but perhaps these are often more useful to us in supporting a decision we’ve already made.
The Implications The subtitle to “Start With Why” is “How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action.” Sinek’s counter to the “manipulation” that many lead with in their efforts to to build their business is “inspiration.” How do we inspire? We inspire by aligning our WHAT and our HOW with our WHY. When others buy-in to our WHY and see us living it in what we do and say, the conditions are right for inspiration.
Considering Sinek’s point on inspiration, I was reminded of a call I received in December. During the Christmas Season, we sent out some gift packages to clients. They included a few items, branded and non-branded, as well as a card explaining how each item related to our guiding principles, our WHY. On the phone was a client who had received the package. “Thank you,” she said, “The gift box was sooo Northwind.”
I’ve thought often of that phone call – it’s the kind we all love to get. However, it wasn’t until finishing Sinek’s book that it clicked for me. Most of us who offer products and services to any kind of customer likely believe that people are buying because of the incredible value we are providing. When asked why someone buys, we’ll point to the money we help save, the results of our programs, our amazing project management, our great customer service, and any of a long list of strong value points in our product or service. These are all important things and likely a part of any buying decision. But in a world of limitless options, where almost everyone is making the same claims, why chose one over the other? That client of ours may deeply appreciate the value we bring, but she chooses us because she buys-into our WHY.
What if people are choosing you, or not choosing you, because of your WHY or lack of one? As we consider how we sell, hire, retain, lead, develop, interview, persuade, and generally engage with the human beings around us, what might be the implications of how we are living or not living our own WHY?
What Do You Believe? “Start With Why” offers a philosophy, approach, and examples but stops short of trying to help you frame your own WHY. The unwritten message: you already know. As an individual or an organization, you are living it, intentionally or not. You are communicating it, intentionally or not. Our gut reads on people and situations come from our own WHY and how we see the WHY of the other. Every day, we are choosing and not choosing based on what we see, hear, and feel in our interactions, in the messaging we receive, and in the behavior we observe.
Take a moment this week and try to capture the essence of your WHY by writing it down. You’ll likely experience the difficulty of finding the words to describe it. That’s ok, work at it a bit. Then, think of some of the brands you prefer or people who move you and see if you can capture some of their WHY, asking yourself, why do I prefer them? What about some that you don’t prefer? Why not?
What do you believe? What is your WHY? Perhaps some of our choices are less logical than we thought.
click the arrow above to listen to this poem.
The thread glinted,
caught in the light
and then gone
The strand, silky and ephemeral.
As mysterious
as the cardinal’s call.
Framing this moment,
there is a tear
edging from my eye –
holding on,
glistening, not ready to fall;
as temporary as that web,
lost in the sunshine.
It is all passing
in the prevailing seconds,
marching to another edge –
a threshold to the next.
No return, just passing.
These are the moments,
Not to be held,
Only experienced.
Do we see them?
From Traveler: A Poetic Journey
©Cross Stone Press and Phillip Berry 2021
Click the arrow above to listen to this post. I heard it long before I saw it. The blades of its propellers pounded the air as it moved slowly across the afternoon sky. Sitting atop Mount Fortuna at the north east edge of San Diego, I watched the V-22 Osprey come into view and fly directly overhead. This particular aircraft is a VTOL, meaning it has the capability to tilt its wing propellers to allow for vertical take off and landing. Like a little boy, I watched with awe and wonder.
We had the opportunity to spend the last week in San Diego, whose multiple naval bases and deep sea ports presented a beehive of U.S. military activity. Sailors, Airmen, and Marines were present all around the city, with groups of them even staying in our hotel. Watching these young men and women gathering every morning, I was struck by their youth, their unity, and the energy they had for their missions.
Seeing these soldiers move together with timing and a sense of urgency made it clear that they had a sense of purpose. They were all clear on their mission and they were all in it together. Regardless of the tediousness, the challenge, or the joy of the day’s tasks, they were moving forward.
We all struggle with purpose and direction at various points in our lives. Most of those soldiers gathering before me in that hotel lobby likely enlisted to find their own sense of purpose and direction. Many likely felt called to that life and savored the structure and clarity of it. The structure and hierarchy of the military make day-to-day purpose easy to see. Today, this is your mission, these are your tasks. The wide open plain of the civilian world frequently leaves gaps in our broader sense of mission.
For all of us, purpose needs to be discovered. Occasionally it is obvious. More frequently, it takes work. Sometimes our mission is hiding in plain sight and sometimes it has to be unearthed with intention and effort. Often, our mission, our purpose, shifts through the various phases of our life. As we evolve, as we grow and mature, our purpose also evolves. Change is truly the name of the game.
For those who follow my posts, you’ll know that I refer to the process of discerning purpose and direction as “Following the Signs.” But what does that really mean? First of all, discernment is only the beginning. There is a process and, though we must be somewhat reactionary to much of it, the good news is that many of the choices remain ours. The process involves four steps: 1) Hear the call, 2) Accept the mission, 3) Prepare for the journey, and 4) Walk the path.
Hear the Call Something brought every one of those young soldiers to that hotel lobby in San Diego. in each case, they heard a call or felt something tugging them toward a life, or at least the start of a life, in the military. These calls come to all of us throughout our lives. They are the signs, the twitches upon the thread, that draw us toward a particular path. Many of them go unnoticed. Many of them are ignored. A few of them capture our attention or maybe even our heart.
In order to discern our call, we must be tuned-in to potential indicators. We’ve got to see or hear the signs. They are frequently subtle, just a whisper. They might appear on a billboard or pop-up in a conversation. The nudge could come from a family member, a friend, or a situation. They may appear as an opportunity but are just as likely to show up as a calamity. The signs will always involve a choice, rarely be clear on first inspection, and likely demand a sacrifice. This leads us to the second step in the process.
Accept the Mission Not only are the indicators of purpose and mission often difficult to see, they almost always demand something that we may not be prepared to give. Have you ever come across an opportunity that scared the hell out of you? Yeah, there was a sign in there. No, fear is not a surefire indicator of the right path but it can be. The same is true of the “non-opportunities,” situations that look like dead-ends, disasters, or points of desperation. Sometimes it is that feeling of not having a choice that is the sign.
But we always have a choice. If we’ve seen a glimpse or felt a tug, we might be on the path to discerning a proper course of action or choice. However, purpose rarely forces itself upon you. The mission must be accepted. Our consent is necessary in any calling. The call can’t be ours until we accept it and choose to own it. Oddly, consent applies equally to the opportunity as well as the tragedy. Our acceptance can take us to the heights of purpose or the depths of despair. Our mission may be hidden within either. It is our choice that determines our direction. It is our consent that allows us to move forward.
Prepare for the Journey Before any of those soldiers showed up in San Diego, they had to prepare for the journey. Though they didn’t know it, each of them had been preparing for it for their entire life. Before we can undertake a mission, we must be prepared for it. Before we can even see a potential path or purpose, we must have the right kind of preparation. Our entire life is a training ground to see the next mission. Every stage along the way prepares us for the next. In this sense, we limit our potential mission and our purpose by how we prepare.
Our approach to our education. The chances we take. The failures and the successes. The tasks, roles, projects, and responsibilities all add up to our preparation. They also add up as mission-enabling or purpose-restraining elements. Then, after we’ve discerned a direction, we must prepare with even more intention for that specialized calling.
Every one of those Sailors, Airmen, or Marines had a certain level of preparation walking onto that base but that was only the beginning. Once the mission was accepted, they needed to equip themselves for the days ahead. We work the same way. We are always preparing for the next mission. We cannot fulfill our purpose without proper preparation.
Walk the Path You’ve seen it. You’ve accepted it. You’ve prepared for it. Now, you must act. Oddly, our greatest point of failure normally lies in our failure to act. We see it all the time. The challenge, opportunity, project, or pathway drops in our lap. The choice falls to us. We run. We refuse. We hide. We say “not now.” We don’t accept. We don’t prepare. We don’t walk forward. We don’t show up.
Why? Fear. Sloth. Confusion. Delusion. The list is endless. We procrastinate. We get distracted. We change our mind. We hesitate. Sometimes, we get lazy. One of the dangers of the bureaucracies in which many of us work is that they allow us to hide. We can bury the signs. We can distract ourselves in meetings. We can take the easier, less demanding path.
For every one of those solders I saw in that lobby, there were another 10 or 100 or 1000 who might have had similar callings. For every entrepreneur, doctor, teacher, parent, or priest, the same ratio holds true. Why do some see it and some do not? Why do some accept and some do not? Why do some prepare and some do not? Why do we fail to act when our time has come?
Not choosing is a choice. Choosing to avoid is picking a path. Choosing inaction is to deny its opposing action. There are a million reasons we do or don’t do. Of course, that is the trick. However, once we’ve walked to the edge by seeing, accepting, and preparing, failing to act is a travesty. And still, we do it. I mean, we don’t do it.
Failure to execute is the biggest barrier to our mission. Failure to act is what ultimately keeps us from fulfilling our purpose.
Choosing Purpose Purpose built aircraft. Purpose built ships. Purpose built Airmen, Sailors, and Marines. We have the same opportunity for a purpose built life. Every day, we are presented with indicators of a possible path ahead. Every day we are given signs for the right way for us. Every day, we are given the opportunity to accept our mission and walk toward our purpose. It will rarely be obvious. It will rarely be easy. There will rarely be any kind of guarantee. However, it will always be yours, if you choose it.
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To say you have no choice is to relieve yourself of responsibility.
Patrick Ness, Monsters of Men
The Realities of Control Control. Oh, how we want it. We want to know what to do to create specific results. We want to know the path to getting what we want. We want to know what it takes to keep ourselves safe. We want to know what we need to do to get you to do what we want. We want equations, formulas, dials, buttons, and levers which give us a certain result at a certain time in a certain way. We want a course of study that produces the job, career, vocation, or standard of living we desire; then we want that path to produce as expected. Oh yes, we want control.
Control is defined as the “the power to influence or direct people’s behavior or the course of events.” Control is ultimately about the power to get what we want.
Of course we want control. Why wouldn’t we? We all want what we want when we want it. We are motivated at our most basic level to pursue self-interest. Control gives us the power to satisfy our needs and our wants. The problem with control, with power, is that we struggle to throttle it. In the absence of external limitations, we struggle to wield it with wisdom and restraint. Our basic needs can quickly evolve to selfish desires at the expense of others.
Fortunately, we are blessed with a world that happily restrains us. Our control ends where someone else’s begins or where nature exerts her immutable laws. We frequently rail against our limits, wailing and gnashing our teeth as we suffer the impotence of one pressed up against life’s restraints. We exist along the edges of what we want and what the world, or others, are willing to allow, always searching for a point where we might press our advantage.
Our desire for control isn’t always nefarious. We do possess good intentions and spend most of our lives living between what we control and what we don’t control, trying to do the best we can for ourselves and often for others. Alas, even with our best intentions, we discover that we usually have far less control than we’d like. For better and worse, this is our reality.
We control far less than we think, far less than we want, and far less than we need. Most of us feel fear in the face of this reality as it centers on an uncertainty we do not want to face or admit. What we think is control is more often the mirage of control – a place where we fool ourselves into thinking we have more power and influence than we actually have.
When We Don’t Have Control The question we need to answer is: what do we do when we don’t have control? First of all, we need to acknowledge the reality of our level of control. We often confuse control with authority. With authority, we feel that we can make things happen by virtue of our title or position. Authority does give us a level of influence through assigned duties and responsibilities. However, this only goes so far.
One may have control over signing a contract, hiring a person, firing a person, or approving a check but the power in those duties is matched by the opposing set of choices on the other side of each point of control. Someone else has the power to act with or against whatever we choose to do. Authority also has limits on its control.
Now we cross over into a trickier relationship with control. Knowing we want control and yet are ultimately limited in our ability to manage the world to the outcomes we desire, what do we do? The danger for us is that we tend to surrender responsibility in the absence of control. This is where our authority/control delusion takes hold: if I don’t have control, it’s not my responsibility.
Why is it easy to surrender responsibility when we don’t have control? Because we tell ourselves we can’t do anything about it and can now blame someone else for the results. If I can’t control it, I don’t own it, and it therefore must be someone else’s problem.
Taking Responsibility If the outcome is not ours to control, do we still have responsibility? Yes, we do. We are always responsible for our choices. Responsibility is what we need to hold tightly even as we release the outcome that is not ours to own.
What happens when we take this kind of radical responsibility? We show up differently. We see others, and their imperfections, differently. Not as means to an end but as human beings with innate dignity and value as well as their own path. We see ourselves differently because we invest fully and own our actions fully even though we can’t control the ultimate result. We try anyway.
In this fashion, we allow our effort to multiply because we give all of what we have even as we know it might not be enough. This radical ownership of ourselves rather than grasping at everything that is not ours liberates us, detaches us, from what we do not control and gives us a path to peace knowing we emptied ourselves. Win or lose, we become more in the process.
Focusing on our responsibility rather than our lack of control frees and empowers us independently of the result we desperately want. We begin to realize that we always have choices, that struggle is necessary, and that even when we lose, we may still be winning as our stewardship of our effort leads us to the unexpected.
A Hedge Against Uncertainty The answer to uncertainty? The inoculation against doubt? Responsibility. Own your choices, reactions, effort, and courage in a new way. Release the myth of control over the world around you and own the one thing over which you truly do have control: your choices. Then, own them fully and trust that when the dust has settled, you will have done, thought, and chosen to engage every possible corner of your being in the battle knowing that you might lose but that you will have become greater in the doing.
Click the arrow above to listen to this post. The New Year is here. Moving into January 2022, we acutely feel the many changes of the last 24 months. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed much and tested us: as individuals, as organizations, as a society, as a nation, and as a world. We’re still here. We still get up every day, get dressed, and roll into our day with many of the same demands, hopes, dreams, barriers, and possibilities. Yes, much has changed, but much remains the same.
Some of the macro difficulties of the pandemic are starting to fade as we realize that some variant of COVID is here to stay and that life goes on. Life must go on. The drama of it all is losing its punch as we go about the work of living our lives amid the normal struggles of an existence that makes no promises. We can only sustain our heightened sense of danger for so long and, pandemic or not, we must eventually find some kind of equilibrium with the world’s dangers, imperfections, and opportunities.
Amid all of this, we step into another calendar year, uncertainty and all, to take another shot at living our best life. The new year is such a natural break, here we take a breath to reflect on the previous 12 months, consider our victories and our losses, then work to recalibrate ourselves with a new attitude and new energy for the year to come. Was it a good year? What did I do well? Where do I need improvement?
This period of self-reflection and our corresponding vision for improvement is traditionally captured in a collection of resolutions that many start and then abandon when the energy departs, barriers re-emerge, or priorities change in the coming weeks. We often center our efforts on diet and exercise, two major areas of struggle for a wealthy society that can have anything at anytime.
Sometimes our resolutions focus on achievement. Perhaps we want to make changes in our career, go back to school, or get a promotion. Maybe we have financial goals such as earning more money, reducing debt, or saving more of income. Some of us set goals for specific experiences we want to have: vacations, exotic trips, mission trips, hunting excursions, or sky-diving for our special birthday.
These are all good things to contemplate. Now is a great time to consider them all. Today is a perfect day to take stock and look forward with a mind toward change.
Looking back over my 2021, I see a bit of it all. There was loss. There were wins. There was success and a bit of failure. There were opportunities taken and opportunities missed. There were goals achieved, goals abandoned, and goals unmet. There were good decisions and bad decisions. There were many good moments, a few bad moments, a few sad moments, and numerous lost moments. There were things I did and things I failed to do. I was predictably imperfect, mostly happy, generally fulfilled, sometimes sad, and frequently grateful.
However, as I consider what I want for 2022, my mind wanders to my lesser moments in 2021. Not the moments when I didn’t reach a business goal, close a deal, develop a brilliant idea, say something insightful, write something meaningful, or take the trip of a lifetime. My heart isn’t troubled by missing some workouts, eating one too many desserts, or not getting 8 hours of sleep every night. Though, those are all opportunities for improvement and worthy for refocused goal setting.
No, my biggest failures in 2021 weren’t about achievement, health, or loss, even though my record was not perfect in any of them. When I consider where I failed, it was more subtle, didn’t show up on a dashboard or scale, and possibly went (mostly) unnoticed. My biggest shortcomings were not about business decisions, showing up, making a difference, or even effort. However, they were about self.
What was it? Pride. I’m not talking about the kind of pride that shows up in obvious arrogance, though there may have been some of that too. I’m referring to the pride of needing to be right. The pride of it needing to be about me. The pride of desire for my own ends. The pride of treating some relationships as transactional. The pride of talking more than listening. The pride of judgment.
Our greatest strengths always have the capacity to become our greatest weaknesses and they are a terribly demanding responsibility. We are called to be good stewards of all of our gifts, and yet, we are also called to restrain them when they take us toward the edge of our worst self. That grasping, impatient, place where we want what we want when we want it and how we want it. That place where others become a means to our end or a barrier to our desires so we demonize, ignore, or bully them.
Pride grips us all. Pride holds us back. Pride impedes our best self. Pride isn’t always obvious, gets rationalized through a thousand different disguises, and insidiously inserts itself into the fabric of everything we do if we aren’t alert. Pride whispers to us constantly.
For this year’s resolutions, how about a bit more humility? How about seeking first to understand, then to be understood? How about approaching every conversation as if the other person knows something I don’t? How about seeing the dignity and value in every human being? How about approaching potential transactions with the intention to give value first? How about looking for win/win opportunities? How about not being afraid to admit a mistake or to forgive those of others?
We can do better. I can do better.
Want to make 2022 an amazing year? Then make resolutions that matter. Yes, eat better, exercise, and read more. Stop smoking, drink less, and sleep more. Please take care of yourself. However, don’t forget church, prayer, or honest self-reflection. Then, focus outward. Love more. Give more. Show up more. Start at home and then take it to the office, hospital, school, or factory. Be better for other people. Treat then as you want to be treated. Don’t use, manipulate, ignore, belittle, bully, or slander anyone. Resolve to be better. Resolve to be good.
Also, resolve to forgive yourself, and others, when you fail, stumble, slide, or disappoint. Own it. If it was the other, own your part in it. Offer restitution for your failings. Offer mercy to those who fail you. Then, move forward.
2022 is here. Let’s do it differently. Let’s do it better. Let’s start with ourselves, let’s start today. And when the inevitable happens, let’s pick ourselves, or those we love, up and start again. We can do this. We need to do this.
Thank you for another year of walking with me. Thank you for the chance to share. Thank you for forgiving the oversights, misspellings, flaws in logic, missed opportunities, and the pride when it’s reared its ugly head. Most of all, thanks for caring enough to show up anyway.
May the Lord bless you and keep you! May the Lord let his face shine upon you, and be gracious to you! May the Lord look upon you kindly and give you peace! May the Lord protect and guide you through 2022.
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Because you’re lonely in your nightmare let me in
Duran Duran
Consider for a moment all of the people you know. Friends. Family. Neighbors. Co-workers. Passing acquaintances. What do you know about them? Do you know their hopes? Do you know their loves? Do you know their struggles? Do you know their fears? How deep does your knowledge go?
A loved one of mine, now gone, once said “Nobody knows who I truly am.” Isn’t that the truth? When we fall to our darkest places, it becomes easy to believe the lies of isolation. The struggles are only mine. The loss is only mine. The fears are only mine. The darkness is only mine. No one else could possibly know these depths.
In the midst of our battles, we tend to retreat to our own lowest common denominator: me against the world. We own that space as the last corner of the universe that we might occupy. That tiny fragment of our existence then becomes universal, covering an expanse greater than all the goodness we could ever imagine. Expanding, it even consumes time, blotting out any happy trace of something better, a moment when hope still came calling.
What do we know of the struggles of others? It is likely that someone you know is there, right this minute. Lost in the isolation of loneliness. Cornered in that small space with the shadows encroaching and no sign of light anywhere. Convinced that no one could possibly understand, care, or see the hurt or doubt or loss. Certain that it is theirs alone.
How many people do you know who are literally alone, having lost a spouse? Or alone in the loss of a child or parent? With time, we will know more and more. If not yet, we will eventually know it ourselves.
Alas, it doesn’t require such loss to transport us to loneliness. Many of us can find it quite effectively on our own. What about loss of self? Loss of motivation? Loss of interest? Loss of purpose or direction? Life’s normal setbacks are more than equal to the task of casting us into darkness. Banished, our feelings conspire to chain us to hopelessness or affirm our own unworthiness. Here, we race to the bottom of our own value, losing strength that once sustained and perhaps even the energy to find it again.
Holidays seem to exacerbate our own manic tendency toward loneliness, whether or not we are truly alone. For that is the lie. In a world of nearly 8 billion people, we need never be alone. But all who live in that place know that physical presence alone does little to assuage the isolation. Our minds can find it in the most crowded of rooms.
“I love you. That’s it. I just wanted you to know.” So read a recent text from a friend of mine. We don’t see each other often but our affection doesn’t seem to fade. His text was timely. Such a text is always timely. There was no prompt for it. No call or signal. For those of us who are Catholic, we will likely see the Holy Spirit’s hand in it. I don’t think I was feeling lonely that day, but his text chased any potential clouds away.
Whether we live alone or in a crowded house. Whether we work in an office environment or remotely. Whether we live under a bridge or in a comfortable suburban neighborhood, we all exist with the risk of loneliness. We can find it at the top or bottom socioeconomically. We find it at the pinnacle of achievement or the deepest depth of loss. It finds us in the beginning, across the middle, and towards the end. Loneliness does not discriminate in any way; it will assault all of us given any opportunity.
There is no shame in it. Irrational or not. Real or imagined. The clawing, grasping, reaching, whisper of loneliness chases everyone from time to time. The hustle bustle busyness of our lives often hides it or wraps it in the thin facade of fullness, but it still exists. All must face it and yours is never yours alone. We all are in it together – even when we don’t recognize it, feel it, or want it. As Scrooge was admonished by Marley, “Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business.”
I love you. That’s it. I just wanted you to know. I will your good. I wish you peace and joy. I wish you worthy struggles and the satisfaction of moving beyond them. I wish you the opportunity to serve others in their isolation and loneliness – a wish granted daily. May we all remember those we see outside who are suffering such isolation. May we all see those near us who might also be suffering loneliness. A loneliness we often fail to recognize.
Click the arrow above to listen to this post Does anyone remember when the Rubik’s Cube became a big thing in the early 80’s? The world went wild with the challenge of solving the 3 dimensional puzzle. Well, at least it seemed like it to me. At first, it was all about solving one side. Then, the problem turned two sides and so on. Finally, if you were able to figure out how to get all sides, the challenge of the puzzle evolved to how quickly you could solve it.
Recently, our household was assaulted by the old nemesis we call the “stomach flu” – that quaint little illness that causes your stomach and intestinal tract to react violently. Though it has left me alone for many years, I recognized it immediately upon its return and prepared for what I knew was going to be a rough ride. The symptoms were intense for about 7 hours and then slowly began to subside.
As I became increasingly uncomfortable, I tried numerous things to alleviate my pain and discomfort: a heating pad, hot showers, warm baths, various remedies to alleviate muscle cramping from dehydration, different positions to try and avoid more painful reactions. At one point along the way, I remember thinking about all of the different things I might try to fix the situation. Suddenly, it occurred to me that there was no “fixing” it, I just had to let it run its course. All I could do was endure.
We approach so many things in life in the same way. The curve balls thrown our way, the issues dropped in our laps, the complex equations of our most challenging situations, all get thrown into our bucket of problems to be solved; collections of brokenness to be fixed. We’ve convinced ourselves that anything painful, not easy, risky, or even moderately uncomfortable is unacceptable and must be fixed.
Often, we get impatient with the barriers to our progress or with the ongoing discomfort and demand rapid resolution. Our brains turn to the short cut, quick fix, or pill that will alleviate the symptoms – or more ideally, remove the issue altogether. What happens when we don’t get the fast fix? Often, we become frustrated, disappointed, depressed, melancholy, or hopeless.
I totally get it. Who wants to endure suffering when they can avoid it with a fix? Nobody does. Suffering and struggle are difficult and unpleasant. Alas, much of what we face through our lives does not have a “fix,” it must be endured.
Of course, the challenges go beyond our health. I was recently doing some planning for 2022 and was considering strategy options within our company. As I considered several pathways, the question came to my mind: do we have a problem with an approach or do we need to give it more time and continue walking the path? The challenge becomes more acute as we frequently realize that there is likely no “right” answer. As much as I want to fix it, make it right, remove the grit, or find perfection, I have to realize that time, effort, and perseverance are probably as close I’ll ever get to a “right” answer.
We really need to change our relationship with difficulty and struggle. I’m not talking about some kind of masochistic stoicism but surrender of a different sort. We need to recognize that we are being formed through the struggle and discomfort. Whether it’s learning something new, working to solve a problem, coping with sickness or loss, or willing ourself to be patient and endure as something runs its course. Accepting the suffering as necessary and transitory are foundational to finding hope and the strength needed to push through.
Perseverance is really the choice to believe that you will move beyond the all-consuming struggle of this moment. Resilience is doing it again and again and again.
How do we discern a problem to be solved versus a path to be walked? First, remember that we’re always walking the path. Our lives are a series of journeys to various destinations. All require perseverance and patience. All present struggle and opportunity. All also hold problems to be solved in addition to discomforts to be endured. No matter where we are, we’re always going to try to solve the challenges we face and alleviate the pain wherever we can. The choice we face is in how we hope and what happens to us when we realize that we will not fix the issue but must push past it. Possibly at great cost.
The Rubik’s Cube puzzle in all of this is how you choose to hope when the difficulties eventually come. How can you find hope in the darkest hour? What do you choose to believe about yourself and this world when you find yourself laid low? What do you truly control when you’ve hit bottom or face an intractable problem?
Curiously, fixing the issues comes down to control and we really only control ourselves and the choices we make. Where we choose to focus. What we choose to believe. How we choose to live. Who we choose to be. In the end, the biggest puzzle we have to solve is the one of our own mind. The stomach flu will eventually find us and it will occasionally resolve with the right medicine. The rest will depend on how we resolve to endure to the brighter side that always awaits.
Click the arrow above to listen to this podcast Today begins Advent, the season of preparation and waiting in anticipation of Christmas. Thanksgiving has passed and Black Friday promotions have formally initiated the retail sprint to the finish of 2021. The next few weeks will zip by as we lose ourselves to shopping, parties, and the dangling participles of all we’ve left undone for this calendar year. Some have started thinking about next year from a planning perspective, and though it looms, it seems farther than it is as we face the mountain of activity stretching before us in the foot race through December.
In the midst of all before you, please allow me to add one more to-do: self-reflection. I suppose it isn’t so much a “to-do” as it is a reminder that December is a perfect time to pause, catch your breath, and invest some time contemplating the year gone by, as well as what might be for the next 12 months. This season of preparation and waiting presents an ideal opportunity to consider the priorities of your life and resist the urge to surrender to the torrent of consumption, activity, and distraction that traditionally burdens this time of year.
Perusing my bookshelf recently, I came across an old book entitled The Book of Virtues by William J. Bennett. We bought this version circa 1993 in what I believe was its first printing. The book is an anthology of poems, essays, fables, letters, speeches, and short stories collected from human history. It has been a delight getting reacquainted with these great works and they have reminded me of the importance of the fundamentals in our own development; fundamentals that are easy to lose to distraction and complication along the ways of our lives. I will revisit this book in some future posts and heartily recommend it for anyone looking for some grounding.
My reference to Bennett’s anthology stems from its reminder that we need to continually recenter ourself through what we’re reading, how we’re thinking, and the questions we are asking, of the world and of ourself. As much as we’ve read and considered over the course of our life, we must continually revisit much of it as we change so that it can meet us where we are, in new and more meaningful ways. The virtues are always worth revisiting as we consider who we are and who we want to become.
As we roll toward the end of 2021 and aim for more in 2022, we need to ask ourselves some hard questions. However, before we begin quantifying our productivity, assessing our progress, assigning a grade to our performance, or creating a list of resolutions, we should start with some fundamentals. We need some basic reference points to force us to think about how we think. The virtues are a great reference point as they are timeless, unchanging amid the relativism so rampant in our own time. However, this post is brief and the power of Bennett’s book is in the slow, savoring of the stories and poems.
In the spirit of efficiency and provocation of thought, we’ll use a more contemporary resource to inspire contemplation and leverage the beautiful simplicity of a list. Canadian psychologist and author, Jordan Peterson, recently published Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life as a follow up to his massively popular 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. Both books are truly excellent and offer an intellectual journey through psychology, philosophy, literature, and pragmatic approaches to navigating life’s struggles and living fully. For purposes of this post, they also offer a great list to use as a reference as we begin our self-reflection and look toward 2022.
Fortunately, we don’t need to read the books to get ourselves started, the rules are specific enough to prompt solid self-reflection. Let’s start with Peterson’s first 12 Rules:
- Stand up straight with your shoulders back.
- Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping.
- Make friends with people who want the best for you.
- Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today.
- Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them.
- Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world.
- Pursue what is meaningful, not what is expedient.
- Tell the truth – or, at least don’t lie.
- Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don’t.
- Be precise in your speech.
- Don’t bother children when they are skateboarding.
- Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street.
The last two are a bit abstract but make sense with a bit of context. I’ll let you sort them out. One of the most compelling things about Peterson’s list is that it is not purely academic; much of what he writes comes from his years as a clinical psychologist. The rules are written in application form which makes them very pragmatic, however, my suggestion is that we start by using them self-reflectively as we frame the tough questions. Where are we relative to these rules? What is our default state?
The first set of rules are framed as a means of coping with the chaos of the world and beginning the path toward order in our own lives. In his second set of rules, Peterson takes us beyond order to give us approaches to some of our biggest hang-ups and to managing the complex burdens accumulated over our lifetimes. Here they are:
- Do not carelessly denigrate social institutions or creative achievement.
- Imagine who you could be, and then aim single-mindedly at that.
- Do not hide unwanted things in the fog.
- Notice that opportunity lurks where responsibility is abdicated.
- Do not do what you hate.
- Abandon ideology.
- Work as hard as you possibly can on at least one thing and see what happens.
- Try to make one room in your house as beautiful as possible.
- If old memories still upset you, write them down carefully and completely.
- Plan and work diligently to maintain the romance in your relationship.
- Do not allow yourself to become resentful, deceitful, or arrogant.
- Be grateful in spite of your suffering.
So often, we assess the time passing in our lives on the basis of what we’ve accomplished or completed. Then, we look forward and apply the same lens. Of course, such an approach is natural and necessary as we plan and prepare for the things we want to get done. in this season, may I suggest that we complement the traditional process with a deeper look at our fundamentals? The tough questions, and the tough work, relate to our own foibles, habits, choices, and biases. We are quirky, set in our ways, and stubborn. We are also creative, strong, and smart. Our capacity for more is virtually limitless; particularly as it relates to thought, effort, generosity, and love.
Aiming for better things in 2022? Start with yourself. Aim for a better you. When you ask yourself what you did well in 2021 and what you did poorly, start with your behaviors rather than your accomplishments. Were you kind? Were you generous? Were you considerate? Were you a good friend, spouse, son, daughter, father, mother, employee? Were you forgiving? Were you honest? Were you trustworthy? Were you consistent? Were you persistent? When you consider your choices, did you choose the right people? The right path? The right answer? The right food? The right thing to do with your time? Did you dwell on the right thoughts?
We are likely to walk into the new year expecting more. More income. More health. More joy. More success. More progress. More hope. Let’s start by expecting more of ourselves, then focus on the right things. Get the fundamentals right. Put the virtues at our center. My suspicion is that, when we’ve done that, more of the better things will come our way. And, if they don’t or they’re delayed, we’ll find that we’re more able to cope, manage, respond, and thrive despite the struggle and the disappointment. Here, we’ll find more life, more fulfillment, and more satisfaction – all better things.
And ultimately, we’ll find more of ourself. At least the version we want to be.
Click the arrow above to listen to this post In the early days of one of our operations, I asked an employee about the status of some backorders. “All good,” he replied without hesitation. “They’re on their way.” A few days later, I got a call asking about the orders. When I inquired again, he told me that they had not yet shipped, and that he was sorry for not being honest.
Trust is a fragile thing.
Our world is so very desperate for trust. We hunger for it. We need it. Without it, everything begins to break down. And yet, it seems really, really hard to find and even harder to maintain. We don’t trust our politicians. We don’t trust our lawyers. We don’t trust our lobbyists. We don’t trust our media. We don’t trust our corporations. We don’t trust those selling to us. Perhaps those are bad examples. We don’t trust our scientists. We don’t trust our churches. We don’t trust our advisors. We don’t trust our employers. More and more, we don’t trust our friends. Many of us don’t trust our families. And, many stopped trusting their ex-spouse long ago.
When was the last time you drove along a gravel road? Remember the feel of the rocks shifting under your tires? How about the dust? Gravel roads require us to drive more slowly, steer more carefully, and watch more closely. A quick turn-of-the-wheel or hard press on the accelerator might put us in the ditch. Such roads take us longer to navigate to any destination and often leave us tired and dirty. They demand careful attention as we might find ourselves losing control at any point along the way.
Such is the path of trust. Slow and steady gets us there but it takes time. Sudden, dramatic, moves can cause us to slide and if we get off the road, it can be hard, or even impossible, to get back on. Even after we’ve mastered the careful attention needed to maintain our course, we are still at risk of making a wrong move – even the most experienced slip from time to time. Sometimes we get lucky and the road is a bit more forgiving. But often, our own repeated mistakes make the road difficult to navigate and we ultimately find, there is no final arrival on this roadway – it goes on and on, in its own winding, shifting way.
Why on why is it so difficult? We know the answers: do what you say you’re going to do, be honest, show up, be sincere, do to others as you would have them do to you. But trust is also won and lost along the edges. Consider the subtleties involved in trust as it is built along the edges. We appreciate confident people until their confidence become haughtiness. We want to be on the side of the assertive until that assertiveness begins to bully us. We love enthusiasm until it turns to fanaticism. We want our leaders to be bold until their boldness turns to folly.
Trust is easy to understand in the obviousness of lying and betrayal. However, we spend most of our time trusting, and distrusting, along the edges of the virtues to which we are drawn until they become the vices that cause dislike and distrust. Here we find the limited traction of the gravel road as we slip along those edges, swerving in the dust, until we find the right speed, right rut, or right break in the cloud. Trust can be lost just as quickly in our indirect behaviors as it is in a direct betrayal or failure to show up.
How do we get anything done as we’re all cruising along on the shifting gravel trying to see through each other’s dust? Time is the two edged sword as it builds our confidence while creating a greater cliff along the edge of the road. There can be no trust without vulnerability. We navigate life by accepting degrees of risk and mitigating our exposure across differing levels of vulnerability: we aggregate our trust in a few places and invest ourselves accordingly. Yes, we are desperate for trust even as we battle the fears of our own vulnerability and potential for betrayal. It is the long gravel road.
And here lies the great opportunity. In a world of lies, deceptions, betrayals, and broken promises, each of us has the opportunity to stand apart. Our honesty. Our steadfastness. Our sincerity. Our fidelity. Our consistency. Our showing up. These are incredible gifts available for the giving. The truly amazing thing about each of them is that they multiply when they are given away, and, we have no shortage of them in our inventory.
We can also direct our other virtues in the same way by restraining them from their opposing vices. Our confidence inspires confidence. And trust. Our enthusiasm infects others with enthusiasm. And trust. Our boldness builds boldness in others. And trust. Yes, we’re still driving on the gravel but trust is also built along these edges with indirect subtlety. When others see that you can restrain, focus, and appropriately apply your strengths, they begin to trust. They begin to believe that they can count on you.
Alas, from time to time, we and those around us, will slip along the gravel road. Sometimes it’s just a little fish-tail. Other times, they or we, end up in the ditch. In all of our glorious intellect, social progress, and good intentions, we will still fail. We are made imperfectly. We are prone to brokenness and all of our virtues will tip to vices at one point or another. We will let each other down. When that happens, all we can do is say “I’m sorry” and try to make it right…or, move on. Perhaps we will never again drive along that same gravel road. Perhaps we will be allowed to begin the slow, faltering, acceleration along those shifting stones. Either way, hopefully we learn and do better the next time.
And we will also find ourselves sitting at the head of that endless gravel road to our own trust, choosing what we can and can’t forgive. Enduring the slights, the failures, and the betrayals, along with the beautiful gifts given in parallel. You will have to dispense justice and mercy as it makes sense to you. Just remember that you too are sliding along on your own gravel roads. You will not be able to abide every slide into the ditch but you should give mercy where you can. And if you can’t give mercy, at least offer forgiveness. Not everything can be forgotten, but it can be left behind.
As for the betrayal of trust described at the beginning of this post, I chose mercy. At least that time.