*pictured above: my friend Reggie who was over-the-moon happy to come help get the church ready for our Sunday services.
Some powerful thoughts from Dorothy Day…
The final word is love.
The older I get, the more I meet people, the more convinced I am that we must only work on ourselves, to grow in grace.
The only thing we can do about people is to love them.
I only love God as much as I love the person I love the least.
We cannot love God unless we… Read More
*pictured above: some of my favorite ladies at church hanging out and catching up with each other
Today’s word from Jean Vanier…
True unity cannot be achieved in a family or community which denies difference, and behaves as if everyone should be the same and think in the same way.
Unity is achieved when each member of the body is different and contributes a different gift, but all are united around the same goal by mutual love.
There are schools and institutions which develop our minds, but communities and families are the schools of… Read More
picture above: Ashah, myself, and my dad – with my grandmother who has dementia.
From Jean Vanier…
A leader of one of our communities told me about his mother who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease. But the person this man wanted to talk to me about was not his mother but his father. He had been a strong, efficient, hard working man, more concerned with success than with people. But when his wife fell ill, he did not want to put her in hospital. He kept her at home and it was he who cared for her. It was he who helped her to eat and who brushed her teeth.
“And now,” the man told me, “my father is completely transformed. He has become a man of… Read More
When the world seems particularly chaotic, crazy, paranoid, hateful, fearful, or just too noisy, I need the gentle voice of a great-great-grandfather-type. My go-to in these times is Jean Vanier.
In his book Community & Growth, Vanier says…
We have to remind ourselves constantly that we are not saviors.
We are simply a tiny sign, among thousands of others, that love is possible, that the world is not condemned to a struggle between oppressors and oppressed, that class and racial warfare is not inevitable.
We are a sign that there is hope, because we… Read More
I remember years ago hearing leadership guru John Maxwell talking about “Putting a ’10′ on everyone’s head.” He was encouraging us to see people as valuable, worthy of our time and attention.
Then yesterday, I watched the first episode of the newly released Black Mirror (season 3) on Netflix. Black Mirror is often described as a modern day Twilight Zone – giving us creepy glimpses of how technology might lead us down a wrong path. This new episode features Lacie—who appears to be a nice, but too sugary-sweet, fake, an annoyingly earnest woman who seems to be doing everything she can to climb the social-standing ladder.
Quickly, you notice Lacie giving and receiving star-ratings on her smart phone with every in-person human interaction. At first, you assume it’s an app that everyone is using… like Facebook or Instagram or Twitter. But then you begin to realize it’s the actual person who is receiving a score: 0 to 5 based on observation or interaction.
Then you discover the power of these ratings. The lease is up on Lacie’s apartment – so she is looking for a new place to stay. When she finds the perfect place, it is just beyond her reach financially… but the agent tells her there is a discount for people with a 4.5 rating. She asks Lacie what her rating is. Lacie is a 4.2, which is respectable, but not quite upper level. The agent encourages Lacie to work on increasing her rating.
Lacie is focused. She’s handing out 5-star ratings left-and-right to everyone she encounters – hoping they will return the favor. But not everyone does, and her score still hoovers below the upper level. Then, when her flight is cancelled and she can’t make it to an important event (with a bunch of 4.5′s and higher), Lacie cracks. She swears at the desk clerk at the airport. Security comes and docks her rating a full point as punishment for her behavior.
Her world is spiraling down along with her score… her worth, value, opportunity, and social standing.
For a more complete review of this Black Mirror episode, check out this article from The Verge.
With Halloween right around the corner, I’ve been thinking about all the little characters who will show up on our doorsteps. We open our doors, and survey the group of trick-or-treaters… “And what do we have here?” we ask. “Oh, I see the Hulk. And a scary monster! Is that a police man? And the princess from Frozen… what’s her name?”
We pay attention. We recognize the costumes and affirm the children. “Beautiful. I love it! Wow.” And then we bless them (give them candy).
This kind of attentiveness, or beholding, is powerful.
We are taking the time to see the image they are projecting, the costume they are wearing, and we accept them—as they are. I believe this shouldn’t happen only on October 31. And I believe it shouldn’t only happen with… Read More
My daughter recently had an assignment at school: to write a paper about her family of origin, her culture, and/or traditions that have shaped who she is. I’d like to share a small section from her paper:
Another tradition from both my mom and dad’s childhood is going to church every Sunday; this has been part of my growing up experience as well.
My mom and dad are both pastors, so I was born into this culture of praying and going to church, and it is something I am very passionate about.
I essentially grew up in the church. Some might say church is a restrictive and limiting environment, but I have discovered… Read More
My shout-out today goes to Sarah Bessey and her fantastic post about Rice Krispies and holy work. Here’s a quick sample…
* * * *
Now I don’t know if you’ve ever had the misfortune to have to clean up wet Rice Krispies but if not, I’ll offer this piece of advice: you cannot sweep them up, you cannot vacuum them up, you cannot wipe them up. No, Rice Krispies turn to a gluey substance which adheres to whatever surface it finds and instead of cleaning them up by those attempts, you only smear them. Ask me how I know. No, no, instead, you must pick them up one at a time, bit by bit, and only then can you wash the floor properly. Unless you want your feet to stick to the floor or you wish to burn the house down (which I considered for a moment), you must pick up every single Rice Krispie individually and only then wash the floor.
I began to get angry as I picked up those Rice Krispies. Oh, properly angry! Not at the tinies who created the mess – those messes can’t be helped when one is tiny, they’re part of the deal – but rather at the fact that this was my life. This was just one more daily indignity to the joyous and difficult and yet sometimes monotonous unending routine of caring for small children.
I muttered to myself under that kitchen table about how I was too smart for this. Oh, I did: I was too special for this! Surely someone else could do this work, someone else should be doing this work! After all, I was creative and capable! I was well educated! I used to manage budgets of $14 million dollars! I used to wear high heels and create marketing campaigns! Then my repressed struggling artist side entered the dialogue and ranted quietly about how I was meant to be writing! I was meant to have creative space to, well, create! Who could create anything or write anything while in the middle of diapers and bath times and housework? I am too creative for this! I am meant to be a writer not a maid!
I bet C.S. Lewis never had to clean up cereal.
And then that little evangelical hero complex in me joined the chorus: I was meant to change the world! I was meant to be someone! To lead! To be set apart! To tell people about Jesus, right? To be a hero in the kingdom of God! And instead here I was doing menial work that was contributing nothing to the world.
It would be funny if I hadn’t actually believed the… Read More
Good questions outrank easy answers. —Paul Samuelson
We did something new today. Our core team met – not for business or administrative reasons – but to give some time and space for us to open up together. I wrote a list of 9 questions. I shared those questions with our team and asked them to each pick one to answer in our meeting.
It was a breath of fresh air for me. There were honest answers. There were tears. And we spent some time praying for each other.
Here are the 9 questions…
What made you… Read More
Humans long for unconditional love, but market a false self to get unconditional love. Hence, our true selves are neither known or loved. —Bruxy Cavey
I wear fake glasses. Let me explain…
About 18 years ago, I had LASIK surgery on my eyes. Since that time, I’ve pretty much had 20-20 vision. I don’t need glasses – not for reading, not for distance, not for vision.
But I started wearing fake glasses a while ago. They seemed like a nice decoration for my head (I’m bald, so there isn’t much else happening on my head). Glasses also frame in my eyes nicely—hiding the fact that I don’t really have eyebrows. And one more thing… glasses can make you look smarter.
So I wear fake glasses. Not all the time. I wear them on Sundays at church. I wear them when I’m dressed up and going out. Basically, I wear them once or twice a week. And the rest of the time there are no decorations on my head.
The funny thing about my fake glasses is: people who mostly only see me on Sunday don’t recognize me when they run into me and I’m NOT wearing my fake glasses. It’s almost as if they only know the “decorated” me, not the undecorated real me.
In a small way, this demonstrates the trap of marketing a false self. People see the image you project while failing to discover the real you.
And when people love, respect, or admire the projected you, the real you is… Read More
In two months, two high-profile megachurch celebrity pastors have resigned from their churches. What’s going on? Well, it’s easy to become unbalanced and unhealthy. It’s easy to overextend and heap way too much significance on the shoulders of one individual.
It’s easy to mix mission (what God is calling us to do) with ambition (what I feel like I need to do in order to be significant, someone, enough).
“Because then I would be enough.”
These are the words of Jim Carrey – presenting at the Golden Globes – making fun of himself and the whole spectacle that is celebrity award shows…
He said… Read More
