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The "One Year to Live" Exercise | Regi Campbell

Weekend | Worth Reading

Something I've read.
It made me think, wanted to share it.
I won't always agree.
It's challenging, thought-provoking
Not a wholesale endorsement of an author or their perspective. 
I like to learn from lots of places...FWIW.

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The "One Year to Live" Exercise  | Regi Campbell -- Radical Mentoring

A good friend showed me all the stuff he was involved in. He’s stretched in a hundred directions. Family, multiple business things, church, a couple of charities…more requirements than he has hours to spend.

What stimulated the conversation was two new requests…two additional roles.  It would be an honor to serve in either one. But two more jobs to do?

We all have different capacities and most of us don’t operate anywhere near full. But somehow we have to sort out what to take on and when to pass.

“What would you do if you just had one year to live?” I asked.

As soon as I uttered the words, they flew back and hit me in the face.

As I’ve pondered the question, here’s what I figured out…for me.

1. I want to spend more time with individuals and less with institutions.  Institutions will sustain themselves, with or without me. That is, if they’re supposed to be around years from now. But I have this precious little smidgeon of time to walk on this earth and be with specific individuals. I want to love and be loved. I want to serve those "whom God has given me" and meet their needs. When this life is over, they won’t have any.

2. I want to spend more time with the One who’s going to usher me from this life to the next. He’s familiar with where I’ll be going. He not only knows the way there, He built the place. And He’s the point of it all. I want to know Him, appreciate everything about Him I can pick up on, emulate Him and just plain thank Him….over and over….for adopting me into His family and giving me this God-life, now and from now on.

3. Finally, I want to pursue "my art." Seth Godin talks about doing what you’re good at…what you love. He points us toward our unique abilities and passions and says "That’s your art." I want to figure out my "art" and pursue it. God has given me a passion for a few things. A few abilities. It’s up to me to "selectively neglect" things I do just to get make money, or get affirmation, or feel important. If I don’t, I won’t have time or 'bandwidth' to fulfill the promise of my life…to let my "art" come out.

I go back to the Thoreau quote. We hear half of…     

"Men lead quiet lives of desperation"

[but we miss] the other half….

 "and go to the grave with the song still in them."

What’s your song? If you only had one year to live, what would you do? What would you not do?

What’s your art? Will God get the glory as you sing the song He’s put in you?

Or will you be too busy?

It's Saturday...Take a Nap!

What a great Saturday afternoon topic...NAPS!

Saw this at Michael Hyatt's site. 

Stop fighting it...take a nap!

 

The Joker | James Emery White

All of us are trying to make some sense of a nut-case who would turn a trip to the movies into a national tragedy. I found this blog post by James Emery White helpful. I hope you do too. He really gets at the root of the question many ask in scenarios of mindless evil on the part of a madman...where is God in all of this?

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The Joker

Posted: Monday, July 23, 2012

In the second installment of Christopher Nolan’s “Batman” trilogy, Alfred the butler gives a chilling description of the Joker:

 Perhaps this is a man you don’t fully understand…Some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.

 

The world now knows the name of James Holmes, the loner graduate student who opened fire at a midnight showing of “The Dark Knight Rises” in Aurora, Colorado, killing twelve and wounding dozens more. 

 

He had dyed his hair red, and later told police he was the Joker.

 

In the aftermath of the shooting, the dominant cultural discussion – following shock and horror – has followed two streams. The first is gun control. The idea is that this nightmare, along with others like it, calls for new laws. 

 

The other cultural current is, “How could God allow this?”

 

Both conversations need to wrestle with the same reality, a word that is often airbrushed from our rhetoric.

 

Evil.

 

The medieval Christian philosopher Boethius aptly noted that “evil is not so much an infliction as a deep set infection.” 

 

In 1973, psychiatrist Karl Menninger published a book with the provocative title, Whatever Became of Sin?  His point was that sociology and psychology tend to avoid terms like “evil,” or “immorality,” and “wrongdoing.” Menninger detailed how the theological notion of sin became the legal idea of crime and then slid further from its true meaning when it was relegated to the psychological category of sickness.

 

We need the word back.

 

Why? Because God was not behind what happened in Aurora, much less responsible for it.

 

A person was.

 

Philip Yancey, a writer who has invested much of his life exploring these issues, was contacted by a television producer after the death of Princess Diana to appear on a show and explain how God could have possibly allowed such a tragic accident. 

 

“Could it have had something to do with a drunk driver going ninety miles an hour in a narrow tunnel?,” he asked the producer. “How, exactly, was God involved?” 

 

From this, Yancey reflected on the pervasive nature of the mindset that our actions are actually an indictment of God. 

 

Such as when boxer Ray “boom boom” Mancini killed a Korean boxer in a match, the athlete said in a press conference, “Sometimes I wonder why God does the things he does.” 

 

In a letter to a Christian family therapist, a young woman told of dating a man and becoming pregnant. She wanted to know why God allowed that to happen to her. 

 

In her official confession, when South Carolina mother Susan Smith pushed her two sons into a lake to drown, she said that as she did it, she went running after the car as it sped down the ramp screaming, “Oh God! Oh God, no!...Why did you let this happen!” 

 

Yancey raises the decisive question by asking,

 

“What exactly was the role God played in a boxer pummeling his opponent, a teenager abandoning her virtue, or a mother drowning her children?” 

 

God let us choose, and we did, and our choices have brought continual pain and heartache and destruction. 

 

The recuperating victims, the families of the deceased, and all who were traumatized by that night in Aurora deserve our prayers and anything else we can offer to serve.

 

But make no mistake.

 

Holmes was, indeed, the Joker. And no gun law, much less God, has anything to do with his evil.

 

James Emery White

 

 

Sources    

 

James Emery White, Wrestling with God (InterVarsity Press).

 

Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy.

 

Karl Menninger, Whatever Became of Sin?

 

Philip Yancey, Reaching for the Invisible God.

When Leaders Lose Their Souls

Weekend | Worth Reading

Sunday mornings I post a clipping I read during the week that I found challenging, thought-provoking and potentially life-changing. It's worth reading. A post is not my wholesale endorsement of an author or their perspective. Sometimes I'll agree, but I like to learn from a variety of sources, not just the ones that reinforce my thinking.

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When Leaders Lose Their Souls

Ruth Haley Barton | eReflections

“For what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul?”
Matthew 16:26 (NLT)

I want to talk to you about the soul—your soul, my soul, and the soul of our leadership.

When I refer to the soul, I am not talking about some ill-defined, amorphous, soft-around- the- edges sort of thing. I am talking about the part of you that is most real—the very essence of you that God knew before he brought you forth in physical form, the part that will exist after your body goes into the ground. This is the “you” that exists beyond any role that you play, any job that you perform, any relationship that seems to define you, or any notoriety or success you may have achieved. It is the part of you that longs for more of God than you have right now and that may, even now, be aware of “missing” God amid the challenges of life in ministry.

Jesus indicates that it is possible to gain the whole world but lose your own soul. If He were talking to us as Christian leaders today, He might point out that it is possible to gain the whole world—including the world of ministry success—and lose your own soul in the midst of it all. He might remind us that it is possible to find your soul, after so much seeking, only to lose it again.

He might also point out that when leaders lose their souls, so do the churches and organizations they lead. “Soul slips way easily from a church or an institution,” Gordon Cosby, founding pastor of Church of the Savior in Washington D.C., observes. “You may go to any of these places and find that the Spirit has departed and the Shekinah is gone…When a local church loses its soul it begins to slip into mediocrity and is unable to give life. The average person doesn’t even know when a church begins to lose its soul. It takes unusual deeper wisdom to see it, and then when we see it, it is costly beyond words to retrieve it.”

A Loss too Great

Losing your soul is sort of like losing a credit card. You think it’s in your wallet so you don’t give it much thought until one day you reach for it and you can’t find it. The minute you realize it’s gone, you start scrambling to find it, trying to remember when you last used it or at least had it in your possession. No matter what is going on in your life, you have to stop and look for it because otherwise there could be major damage done. Oh, that we would feel the same sense of urgency when we become aware that we have lost our souls!

In her book, Leaving Church, parish priest and award-winning preacher, Barbara Taylor Brown, described what it was like to feel her soul slipping away. She says:

Many of the things that were happening inside of me seemed too shameful to talk about out loud. Laid low by what was happening at Grace-Calvary, I did not have the energy to put a positive spin on anything…beyond my luminous images of Sunday mornings I saw the committee meetings, the numbing routines, and the chronically difficult people who took up a large part of my time. Behind my heroic image of myself I saw my tiresome perfectionism, my resentment of those who did not try as hard as I did, and my huge appetite for approval. I saw the forgiving faces of my family, left behind every holiday for the last fifteen years, while I went to conduct services for other people and their families.

Above all, I saw that my desire to draw as near to God as I could had backfired on me somehow. Drawn to care for hurt things, I had ended up with compassion fatigue. Drawn to a life of servant hood, I had ended up a service provider. Drawn to marry the Divine Presence, I had ended up estranged…Like the bluebirds that sat on my windowsills, pecking at the reflections they saw in the glass, I could not reach the greenness for which my soul longed. For years I had believed that if I just kept at it, the glass would finally disappear. Now for the first time, I wondered if I had devoted myself to an illusion.

Sometimes our sense that all is not well at the soul level is more subtle—like it was for this young pastor who came for spiritual direction. With keen self-awareness he observed, “I find [leadership] conferences to be very exciting on one level but there is something darker that happens as well. Sometimes they leave me feeling competitive towards other churches and what they are accomplishing. I leave the conference feeling dissatisfied with my own situation—my own staff, my own resources, my own gifts and abilities. My ego gets ramped up to do bigger and better things and then I go home and drive everyone crazy. Three months later, the conference notebook is on a bookshelf somewhere and I have returned to life as usual with a vague feeling of uneasiness about my effectiveness as leader, never quite sure if I am measuring up.”

This was not a critique of any particular conference; rather, he was courageously naming in God’s presence and in the presence of another person what was taking place inside his soul in the context of his leadership. His desire was to hear from God in that place. He knew that in order for his soul to be well, he could not afford to live his life driven blindly by unexamined inner dynamics.

How Is It With Your Soul?

Some of us know that we are losing bits and pieces of our souls every day and we are scared to death that we might be very close to going over an edge. Others of us are still hanging in there fairly well but we are not sure how long we will last. All of us have watched ministry friends and colleagues endure heartbreak, failure or betrayal that was so profound that they left ministry and are now selling real estate.

Those of us who have been in ministry for any length of time at all are under no illusion that we are exempt from such outcomes. Even the young ones know better these days. One emerging leader wrote, “I feel the call of God to move deeper and deeper into service through preaching and leadership. At the same time I am keenly aware of what ministry is doing to the personal spiritual lives of almost everyone I know on staff or in key volunteer positions in the church. I am increasingly unsure about how one is supposed to navigate the time commitments of ministry and one’s personal journey towards growth and wholeness. I find myself wondering if the two aren’t mutually exclusive.”

Paying attention to such uncomfortable admissions requires a certain kind of courage because we never know where such honest reflections will take us. However, if we are willing to listen to our uneasiness, it might lead us to important questions that are lurking under the surface of our Christian busyness. “How does spiritual leadership differ from other models for leadership?” we might find ourselves wondering, “And how can I be strengthened at the soul level to provide such leadership? What would it look like for me to lead more consistently from my soul—the place of my own encounter with God— rather than leading primarily from my head, my unbridled activism, or my performance oriented driven-ness. What would it be like to find God in the context of my leadership rather than miss God in the context of my leadership?”

Practice

When the Wesleyan bands of Christ-followers got together for their small group meetings, their first question to each other was “How is it with your soul?” This is the best possible question for us as Christian leaders in light of Jesus’ warning and in light of what we witness in and around us.

So, how is it with your soul? Take a few moments in quiet to listen to this question in God’ presence and see what comes. If it is helpful, allow the following prayer to lead you into an honest moment of speaking with God about the condition of your soul these days.

O God of such truth as sweeps away all lies,
of such grace as shrivels all excuses,
come now to find us
for we have lost ourselves
in a shuffle of disguises
and in the rattle of empty words.

Let your Spirit move mercifully
To recreate us from
The chaos of our lives.

We have been careless of our days
our loves our gifts
our chances…

Our prayer is to change, O God,
not out of despair of self
but for love of you,
and the selves we long to become
before we simply waste away.

Let your mercy move in and through us now…

Amen.

 

Participation Without Involvement Breeds Cynicism

Not too long ago I freshened up the list of blogs I follow. I needed some fresh thinking.

I'm enjoying the posts by Regi Campbell at Radical Menoring. The blog is consistently thought-provoking. This particular post really hits home.

It's easy to manage the game from the cheap seats...it's another thing to grab the bat and step up to the plate!

To watch this principle in action, go to any homeowners association meeting. Whether you like them or not….whether you agree with them or not…those people involved in leadership who put in all the time and really care about the neighborhood…they will rarely be cynical. It’s those who just show up for the meetings but do little else that are the cynics.

I first discovered this truth in church-world. We had been involved in our church for years, but little by little, we’d moved on from this ministry and rotated off that committee. We found ourselves being cynical about the very things we used to be involved with. When we were involved, when we had a stake in the decision making, it was all good. But as we slid into passive participation, our hearts were lost and we became cynical. We found a new church.

The principle comes from Scripture, where the Lord said (in Matthew 6:21) “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Our treasure is our energy, our caring, and concern for our church, business or organization. When we invest the “treasure” of our  energy, our hearts follow. Whatever we invest time and energy into, we will care about. When we stop investing and become participants, we’ll care less and become more cynical over time.

Involvement says “I’m in.” “This is partly my deal.  I care about this.  I’m not just doing the minimum…I’m going above and beyond.  I have pride of ownership.” Participation says “I’ll probably be there.  I hope it’s good, but if it’s not, so what?  I don’t have a dog in this fight.”

When you’re involved, it’s “we”…it’s “my church”, “our company”. When you hear yourself start saying “they”, you’ve probably moved from involvement to participation.

Let’s bring this home. If you lock your wife out of your family finances, she’s going to become cynical about the way you manage the money. If she’s involved, she’s going to feel more supportive of the decisions and more committed to making them work.

If you announce that you’re playing golf on Saturdays, was she involved in that decision or was it just announced to her? Is your wife cynical about your love for golf? There might be a clue here.

The next time you find yourself sour and cynical about something, check your level of involvement. It might be that putting in a little more of your “treasure” will bring a change in your heart!

Charles Colson Found Freedom in Prison

Last weekend heaven gained one of our faith heros. I'm just old enough to remember Watergate. I didn't really understand it, but I knew it was bad enough that it cost a man the presidency. A man emerged from that national scandal with a new identity and passion. I have no doubt many people initially doubted his sincerity. When Charles Colson emerged from prison as a follower of Christ and a prison reformer, I suspect most people thought it was simply a prison makeover, an image redo.

In 1993, Colson said, “I shudder to think of what I’d been if I had not gone to prison. Lying on the rotten floor of a cell, you know it’s not prosperity or pleasure that’s important, but the maturing of the soul.’’

For three and a half decades we were able to watch a man who was genuinely converted, changed though and through. He contributed a depth of thought and action to the Evangelical church that was much needed. His reputation post-Watergate was unblemished. Before our eyes, we were able to witness what a group of early Christians experienced with a former tormentor of the church named Saul. 

I've been reading some of the reviews of Colson's life. This one is compelling, by Michael Gerson in the Washington Post.

Charles W. Colson — who spent seven months in prison for Watergate-era offenses and became one of the most influential social reformers of the 20th century — was the most thoroughly converted person I’ve ever known.

Following Chuck’s recent death, the news media — with short attention spans but long memories — have focused on the Watergate portion of his career. They preserve the image of a public figure at the moment when the public glare was harshest — a picture taken when the flash bulbs popped in 1974.

But I first met Chuck more than a decade after he left the gates of Alabama’s Maxwell prison. I was a job-seeking college senior, in whom Chuck detected some well-hidden potential as a research assistant. In him, I found my greatest example of the transforming power of grace. I had read many of the Watergate books, in which Chuck appears as a character with few virtues apart from loyalty. I knew a different man. The surface was recognizable — the Marine’s intensity, the lawyer’s restless intellect. The essence, however, had changed. He was a patient and generous mentor. And he was consumed — utterly consumed — by his calling to serve prisoners, ex-prisoners and their families.

Many wondered at Chuck’s sudden conversion to Christianity. He seemed to wonder at it himself. He spent each day that followed, for nearly 40 years, dazzled by his own implausible redemption. It is the reason he never hedged or hesitated in describing his relationship with Jesus Christ. Chuck was possessed, not by some cause, but by someone.

He stood in a long line of celebrated converts, beginning with the Apostle Paul on the Damascus road, and including figures such as John Newton, G.K. Chesterton and Malcolm Muggeridge. They were often received with skepticism, even contempt. Conversion is a form of confession — a public admission of sin, failure and weakness. It brings out the scoffers. This means little to the converted, who have experienced something more powerful than derision. In his poem, “The Convert,” Chesterton concludes: “And all these things are less than dust to me/ Because my name is Lazarus and I live.”

Prison often figures large in conversion stories. Pride is the enemy of grace, and prison is the enemy of pride. “How else but through a broken heart,” wrote Oscar Wilde after leaving Reading Gaol, “may Lord Christ enter in?” It is the central paradox of Christianity that fulfillment starts in emptiness, that streams emerge in the desert, that freedom can be found in a prison cell. Chuck’s swift journey from the White House to a penitentiary ended a life of accomplishment — only to begin a life of significance. The two are not always the same. The destruction of Chuck’s career freed up his skills for a calling he would not have chosen, providing fulfillment beyond his ambitions. I often heard him quote Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and mean it: “Bless you, prison, for having been in my life.”

Chuck was a powerful preacher, an influential cultural critic and a pioneer of the dialogue between evangelicals and Catholics. But he was always drawn back to the scene of his disgrace and his deliverance. The ministry he founded, Prison Fellowship, is the largest compassionate outreach to prisoners and their families in the world, with activities in more than 100 countries. It also plays a morally clarifying role. It is easier to serve the sympathetic. Prisoners call the bluff of our belief in human dignity. If everyone matters and counts, then criminals do as well. Chuck led a movement of volunteers attempting to love some of their least lovable neighbors. This inversion of social priorities — putting the last first — is the best evidence of a faith that is more than crutch, opiate or self-help program. It is the hallmark of authentic religion — and it is the vast, humane contribution of Chuck Colson.

It is a strange feeling to lose a mentor — a sensation of being old and small and exposed outside his shade. Chuck’s irrational confidence in my 21-year-old self felt a little like grace itself. The scale of his life — a broad arc from politics to prison to humanitarian achievement — is also the scale of his absence. But no one was better prepared for death. No one more confident in the resurrection — having experienced it once already. So my grief at Chuck’s passing comes tempered — because he was Lazarus, and he lives.

I Deserve!

I've followed this blog for a long time. Today's post was too good to not repost:

A Leader’s Most Dangerous Thought

“I deserve.” 

Leadership is demanding. It takes a personal toll and if we are not careful, we can begin to make it about us. It’s not a difficult position to rationalize. 

The problem with “I deserve” is that it changes our perspective. We see our contribution as more important than anyone else’s contribution. It creates a lack of proportion. 

It leads to a wrong motivation for leadership: leadership as a means to better get what we want. We see this all the time—the hypocrisy of leadership—seeking positions of power while denying the real nature of leadership. Service. And it is why we have seen far too many leaders derail. 

“I deserve” thinking threatens our ability to lead. It diminishes our influence because it takes us out of the community; out of the narrative. We no longer lead for the cause but only as a means to serve ourselves. Side effects include distrust, cynicism, the wrong kind competition and isolated thinking. Good leadership creates connections and avoids points of disconnect. 

The opposite of “I deserve” isn’t denying ourselves. We must take care of our needs in the same way we take of the needs of others or we will not be able to properly serve others. 

The antidote is remembering that leadership is not a position but a role. It’s a gift and it is temporary. It’s channeling all that we are for the benefit of others. 

Leadership is something we live, for others.

Necessary Endings.

My friend Ben Mott recommended a book to me recently that he clipped though on a vacation. It is by Henry Cloud entitled, "Necessary Endings." I actually already owned the book. It's been on my reading list for a while.

Today, Michael Hyatt offered a summary on his blog (a daily must read for me).

Here's his post:

THE PRIMARY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE WISE AND FOOLISH

Afew weeks ago, a business acquaintance called to discuss a challenge he was facing at work. As usual, I began with a few questions, trying to understand the context and the issues involved.

It quickly became apparent that he didn’t want to change. In fact, the entire conversation was about why he couldn’t change, why he didn’t need to change, and why he wasn’t responsible for the results he was getting.

Ten minutes into the discussion, I realized I was dealing with a fool. There was no point in continuing the conversation. More talk would not change anything.

In Chapter 7 of his book, Necessary Endings, Dr. Henry Cloud deals with the difference between wise people and fools. It has given me clarity about something I have struggled with for years.

The difference between a wise person and a fool is not about:

• Position. Plenty of business leaders, pastors, and politicians are fools. Conversely, I have met wise executive assistants, gardeners, and even one shoe shine man.
• Intelligence. I know fools with masters degrees and Ph.Ds. Some of them teach in universities and have written books. Conversely, I know wise people who never graduated from high school and a few who can’t read.
• Talent. I know fools who are successful entrepreneurs, worship leaders, and television pundits. I know wise people with average talent and modest income.

According to King Solomon, there is one major thing that differentiates a wise person from a fool: how he or she receives instruction and correction. (See, for example, Proverbs 1:5; 9:8–9; 10:8; 12:15; 15:12; 17:10; and 19:20.)

A wise person:

1. Listens without being defensive.
2. Accepts responsibility without blame.
3. Changes without delay.

If you are dealing with a wise person, talking is helpful. They soak up feedback and use it to adjust their lives for the better. Your input can truly make a difference.

If you are dealing with a fool, however, talking is a waste of your time. They resist change. The problem is never “in the room.” It’s always out there somewhere—something you can neither access nor address.

I have always wondered why some conversations never seem to go any where. Instead, I am left confused and frustrated. Now I know. This inevitably happens when you are talking with a fool.

By the way, this doesn’t mean that you have to write fools off. Instead, you have to change strategies. More talk won’t help a fool. Instead, you must:

1. Stop talking.
2. Provide limits.
3. Give consequences.

If this topic interests you, I recommend you read Necessary Endings. Honestly, it is one of the best books I have read in the last year. Thanks to my friend, Robert Smith, for recommending it.

Practicing Lent: Invitation to Return to God by Ruth Haley Barton

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“Yet even now, says the Lord, repent and return to me with all your heart.” –Joel 2:13

Today is Ash Wednesday—the beginning of the Church’s observance of the Lenten season. Ash Wednesday ushers us into a space in time in which we engage very intentionally into the disciplines of prayer, self-examination and repentance.  But these disciplines—as significant as they are—are not ends in themselves.  They are a means to an end and that end is that we would return to God with all our hearts.

What are You Giving Up for Lent?

Unfortunately, the practice of entering into the Lenten season has often been reduced to the question: “What are you giving up for Lent?”  This is a fine question, but it only takes us so far.  The real question of the Lenten season is: How will I repent and return to God with all my heart? This begs an even deeper question: Where in my life have I gotten away from God and what are the disciplines that will enable me to find my way back? (emphasis mine).

How many and how subtle are the ways we “leave” God and the true spiritual journey in favor of other pursuits—even those that seem very noble and even necessary.  The cares and concerns of life in this world and even the dreams and visions that God has given us can become distractions from the relationship itself. One day we wake up and realize that we have tolerated that which is intolerable and compromised that which is of greatest value.  Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart.

What a poignant and compelling invitation!

Our Messy House

Returning to God with all our hearts begins with repentance. In her book Amazing Grace,Kathleen Norris tells the story of working as an artist-in-residence at a parochial school, teaching children how to write poetry using the psalms as a model. One little boy wrote a poem entitled “The Monster Who Was Sorry.”  He began by admitting that he hates it when his father yells at him; his response (in the poem) is to throw his sister down the stairs, then to wreck his room, and finally to wreck the whole town.  The poem concludes: “Then I sit in my messy house and say to myself, ‘I shouldn’t have done all that.’”

“My messy house” says it all, Norris observes.  “With more honesty than most adults could have mustered, the boy made a metaphor for himself that admitted the depth of his rage and also gave him a way out…he was well on the way toward repentance, not such a monster after all, but only human.  If the house is messy, why not clean it up, why not make it into a place where God might wish to dwell?”

This kind of truth-telling is the essence of repentance.  It is truth in that deepest down place, the secret heart that is so hard for us to listen to and open to the light of God’s presence. And yet, this is the kind of truth-telling God’s desires—honest admissions about those deeply-patterned, self-protective responses that shape our decisions every day and have nothing to do with true faith.  We have a hard time naming and acknowledging these subtle dynamics, but they “wreck our house” nonetheless.

Practicing Repentance

During Lent we sit in our messy house and get a little more honest about the fact that we are in disarray. We acknowledge what got us into the mess we are in, we feel our remorse and admit, “I wish I hadn’t done that.” This is the kind of truth that Jesus is talking about when he says You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.

Lenten disciplines help us to abstain from the daily distractions that prevent us from seeing and naming reality correctly. As we allow some of the external trappings of our lives to be stripped away, we can return to a truer sense of ourselves and a deeper pursuit of God. We acknowledge the subtle temptations to which we are prone rather than pretending that we are beyond temptation.

The disciplines of fasting and other kinds of abstinence help us to abstain from that which distracts us and numbs our awareness so that we can become more finely attuned to what is going on in our lives spiritually-speaking. We allow ourselves to experience the necessary grief that leads to repentance and we ask God to lead us in a new and everlasting way.

Entering In

Today many of us will receive the symbolic gesture of the imposition of ashes on our foreheads as a way of acknowledging our human finiteness and mortality. No matter who we think we are, the traditions of Ash Wednesday remind us that “you are dust and to dust you will return.” (Genesis 3:19)  This is not meant to be morbid, it is just meant to limit our grandiosity and help us to stay in touch with the real human condition that we all share.  This is a wonderful discipline for us as leaders who are so prone to getting lost in the fog of illusions created by believing our own press.

The ashes marking our foreheads carry the same meaning contained in the Old Testament practice of covering oneself with ashes.  They are an outward sign of an inward repentance and the mourning we experience as we become aware of our sin.  This is good for us because we live in so much denial. Facing our sin in the shadow of Christ’s cross and impending resurrection is the healthiest way to deal with the knowledge of our sin.

As sobering as the Lenten season is, it is also strangely hopeful. There is a path for returning to God no matter how distracted I have been. Even now, God says, no matter how far away you have gotten…Even now I am inviting you to look for the path of returning and to walk it with all your heart.

 A Prayer for Entering into Lent

“O God of peace, who hast taught us that in returning and rest

we shall be saved, in quietness and in confidence shall be our strength:

by the might of thy Spirit lift us, we pray thee, to thy presence,

where we may be still and know that you are God,

through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Book of Common Prayer, page 832

Resolution or Resolve?

I recently started following a blog on writing by Jeff Goins.

While the post focuses on writing, the general principle is a great concept as we enter a new year.

Why You Shouldn’t Bother with Writing Resolutions this New Year

Don’t waste your time with writing resolutions this New Year. Instead, focus on something else: resolve.

While the words are similar, the difference in meaning is significant. A resolution is something you make. Resolve is something you have.

The latter is far more important than the former. Without resolve, you have no hope of accomplishing your resolutions.

So in other words, you need to commit. To choose into an intentional process that will make you better. Not a set of audacious goals you’ll never meet.

Why are goals pointless? Because they aren’t sustainable. They tell you where you want to go, not how you’re going to get there. What you need are new habits — a new way of living that will bring different results.

It’s time to commit to being the type of writer you’ve always dreamed of being. And that begins with creating some new disciplines. Here are three important ones worth mastering:

1. Set aside a time to write. Be it early morning, during lunch, or late at night, it’s important to have a special time to spend with the craft. Although I at first hated it, I’ve now grown quite fond of my 5am writing times. There’s something peaceful about the solitude of working while the rest of the world is asleep.
   
   
2. Show up. When I say I’m going to write, I often procrastinate and run out of time. I give excuses and justifications and end up creating nothing. I hate this. So I have refused to allow myself an “out” any longer. I must write every day, no matter what. Even if for only 15 minutes. The crazy thing is this is where some of my best writing comes from — concentrated blocks of forced writing.
   
   
3. Give yourself grace. This goes hand-in-hand with the last one. A natural byproduct of discipline is dread. When you start showing up to do the work, you may grow fearful of the desk. I know I have struggled with this. At times like these, remember to be playful, to have fun. Remind yourself of why you go through the painful parts — that there is joy waiting for you at the finish line.

I could tell you more than these three, like how to set a daily word count or creating a creative environment for writing, but the truth is these three are enough. Most days, if we can remember to set aside time to write, actually show up to do it, and give ourselves tons of grace, then we are doing just fine.