Self-Fitting Custom Frames

“Letting go of self is an essential precondition to real seeing”.

- Freeman Patterson

When we hold onto self, our seeing is blurred by all of our baggage, treasures, fears, joys, failures, victories, successes and insecurities.  Life is viewed as either an idealistic possibility that can be reached via self-achievement or as a dead-end road that is ever-constricting until it finds its abrupt end.

From a self-seeing perspective people and creation become just another commodity (objects to our own end; something for us to engulf) or the competitor (afraid they will detract or “take-away” from us we look to destroy).  In either case this vantage point is neither life-giving or creative.

Through our hyper-individualized perspective we lose sight of the big picture.  As a result, we become enthralled with our own achievement and wrecked by our own failure.  This myopic grid, in which we view the world around us, says “it is about you”; about your success, about your joy, about your failure, about your sadness.

But it is not.

It never has been and never will be.

To really see, the myopic grid, the glasses of “self” need to be taken off.  Yet here in lies the problem; we believe we can remove our own glasses.  This, however, is the old self talking. The truth is we cannot remove the self-fitting-custom-frames on our own.

They must be taken off for us.

Like Jesus’ interaction with the blind man, grace must meet us in the most unpredictable of ways and in the most peculiar of forms.  Saliva-made-mud is an unlikely ointment (the antithesis to seeing would be "mud in your eye").  It could be in the form of rejection, a diagnosis, or a heartbreak, but grace will come to you.

In being placed upon you, your likely reaction to the paradox will be, "how is this going to make me see?!?!?".  But the seeing doesn't happen when grace comes (as if our "seeing" could be forced or coerced).  Our seeing comes when, like the blind man, we respond to being sent.

"Having said this, he spit on the ground, made mud with the saliva, and put it on the man's eyes.  'Go,' he told him, 'wash in the Pool of Siloam' (this word means 'Sent').  So the man went and washed, and came home seeing."

May you, when grace comes, stop clinging to your old glasses wishing they could bring the fullness of life into focus.  May you in courage, "Go", "Wash" and be given a vision big enough to take in all you were meant to behold.

The Hero Path

We have only to follow the thread of the hero path.  Where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outwards, we shall come to the center of our own existence; were we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world.

- Joseph Campbell, The Hero With A Thousand Faces

Proof-Reading

I trust the Author of Creation to pen the story of my life,

it's just that…

I need to look over his shoulder to make sure he is dotting his “i’s” and crossing his “t’s”.

He probably gets annoyed with my hovering,

however…

He doesn’t know how lucky he is to have me as a tutor.

Creative Incarceration

I hope you’re not waiting for permission or approval for your creative expression.  If so, pull up a chair and get comfortable.  If the artist within you is waiting for someone else to let them out then the only thing you can count on is a life-sentence of creative incarceration.

You can blame the creative hold-up on other people’s bureaucracy and “lack of vision”, but really, it’s just your fear that’s keeping you back.

The Disappointment Myth

I’m not sure what it was that opened you up to the world of disappointment.  Perhaps your first taste came when you realized Santa didn’t always bring everything you asked for.  Or maybe it was when you realized there was no man in a red suit and it was your parents all along.  Worse, maybe it came when your Santa-playing-parents told you they were splitting up.

Over the years I’m sure your disappointment has taken on all shapes and sizes.  Some disappointments are very small, like the pickles placed on your “plain” cheeseburger.  Others are incredibly large, like the hole in your heart when a loved one left you.

Regardless, each time disappointment breaks in we feel as though something has been taken from us; a robbery of the worst kind.  It steals our innocence, kidnaps our truest self, and holds for ransom our best assumptions of others and this world. 

Once we are introduced to the world of disappointment many of us never leave.  It becomes our permanent place of residence.  We live in a state of perpetual disappointment for fear that something might capture our heart and affection only to have it swiped from us yet again.  Our instincts for self-preservation kick in and we decide no longer to attach ourselves to hopes, desires, and aspirations.

After all, if dreams are just a lure for the snare of disappointment, then skepticism might just keep us alive.

But that is the myth.

Skepticism may feel like a blanket of security, but it only suffocates the potential for new life to breath.  The strange reality is that the only true way to move out of the world of disappointment is to put yourself back out there; to aspire and hope again, and…

to run the risk of further disappointment.

But, this is where the nature of disappointment is revealed.  Disappointment is not the enemy or adversary.  Instead, disappointment is a gauge…

a barometer of our hope.

Disappointment is the proof that we are a people who take risks; that we are a people who dream.  Proof that we are a people, who in a broken world, believe healing is possible.

May you never be lost in the world of disappointment again.  May your disappointment reveal to you and others that you are someone who believes in the possible.  And may your disappointment be engulfed by the courage to dream again.

...With A Dragon On Top

2 Scoops Of Mint Chocolate Chip With A Dragon On Top

This was my doodle of the day...what is yours?

If you haven't doodled yet...what's keeping you?

When God Decided To Invent

When God decided to invent

everything he took one

breath bigger than a circus tent

and everything began

When man determined to destroy

himself he picked the was

of shall and finding only why

smashed it into because

- E. E. Cummings

It is our nature to want a reason for everything.  We want to know the cause, we want to know the purpose and we want to know where it is all going.  We want to know the “Why?”

And so we search.

We do not handle the “because I said so” of a parent very well; we seek the hidden meaning in each of life’s circumstances and look to crack the code of purpose when life’s movements leave us baffled.

In our frantic pursuit of the "because" we find only Anxious Thoughts and Sleepless Nights.

Yet some things are just as they are; no moralizing needed, no hidden meaning and nothing to decode.  Simply:

Is & Shall

This is the space where exhilarating wonder and breath-holding terror collide.  This is the space where we learn to swim in the deep end of life and are buoyed by the mystery of God.  This is the place where we are most alive.

It's Not My Fault

“It’s not my fault!”

Congratulations, but what I really want to know is…

“How are we going to fix the situation?”

Making excuses will not help you or those you are in relationship with.  Excuses and shifting responsibility is easy (making it attractive) but terrible uncreative (rendering it unhelpful).

A true professional, whether it is a Pro-Athlete, Pro-Politician, Pro-Office Manager, Pro-Student, or Pro-Spouse is less concerned with who is at fault and more concerned with being a part of the plan to bring remedy.

Proven

“Jesus, Jesus how I trust him!  How I proved him o’er and o’er”.

What does it mean to prove Jesus?

Does it mean that we need to brush up on our apologetics so we can systematically uphold the tenants of the faith?  I don’t think so.  Maybe the hymn is a charge to the faithful to evangelize their neighbor with the four spiritual laws?  I’m not so convinced.

Proof distilled in these terms is static, cold, and without need of relationship…this kind of “proof” is lifeless.

Proving Jesus is not about what we know or what we can convince others of.  Instead, the proof is found in a dynamic, living, relationship in which we act in faith and he responds in promise. The Israelites proved YHWH when, in faith, they found themselves between the Red Sea and Pharaoh’s army.  David proved his King when he stepped on the battle field to face a giant.  Mary proved her Father when she birthed Salvation.

Proving Jesus means we create the space and God shows up to the dance.

And when he does?

Those who have the privilege to watch…can’t help but marvel. 

May you muster all you can to step out into the thin places of life with the inkling that he just might show up.  And, when he does…may you experience the thrill of proving Jesus over and over again.

Giving Up On the Game

“How are you, young man?  No doubt you’re expecting a lecture, but I promise that’s the last thing I intend.  Your decision to leave medical school is your own entirely.  I can even understand and sympathize.  Around the third year, when exhaustion and nausea have taken up permanent residence in your bones, the healing profession seems less like a calling and more like and exercise in expedience and venality.  I understand that brand of despair better than I wish.  But it’s a different decision you’ve made that troubles me more deeply.

I mean your choice to give up golf.”                        - The Legend of Bagger Vance

Idealism, promise, expectation, hope.  These are all good things.  These elements do more than get us out of bed in the morning; they propel us into each day with the anticipation that something remarkable and worth while will take place.

We are a burst of energy in which no obstacle is too big.  Exhaustion never even gets a chance to yawn because we are awakened to a mission bigger than ourselves.  We embody the change we want to bring to the world and we believe we can do anything.

Then…

Challenge flanks us in a manner totally unexpected; completely blind-sided.  We see a side to the Opposition that we never saw before and we are left disarmed, disrobed, and disheartened.  The ideal, once fuel for life, offers nothing but the bitter taste of “what could have been”.

Cynicism encroaches as we question the work, the calling.  “What’s the point?”, “Why bother?” “Where’s the meaning?” become just a few of the rhetorical questions we feast on.  We come to a grinding halt.

We give up.  We are sidelined.  We are beaten.  Something within us dies.

And we are left with a choice:

Fade away until nothing is left.

or…

Keep playing.

May you, in your moment of defeat, your season of disillusionment, be filled with just enough promise to believe that giving up on the game is never an option.  And may you have the courage to keep showing up to the life no one else has been gifted to live.

Tiny Little gods

The little gods of this world make demands.  They tell us what we should be doing, how we should be behaving, who we should vote for, and why we should believe what we believe.  These little gods bark commands with a puffed up chests and give orders that relish in compliance.

Politics, religion, family dynamics, and our inner thoughts all give a platform to these little gods.  We are attracted to little gods because they claim to have each answer carefully packaged…no need to wrestle, chew, and digest.  They are remarkable little creatures and so getting lured in by tiny gods is easy.

They speak with a cadence of confidence and mask their delusions with authority. 

When we bend our ear to the little gods we give them power to speak into our life and alter who we really are.  They feed on our insecurities, grow in our conformity and devour our identity.

But the secret?  These tiny gods are afraid.

Afraid that you will see them for what they are…trivial, small, insignificant.  Afraid you will awaken from their spell and no longer pay attention to them.  Afraid the home they constructed, fit only for a straw man, will blow away.

Be skeptical of the pat answers that leave no lasting satisfaction.  Be cautious when your allegiance is expected, and be leery of the little gods that make demands…

That you might be open to the one God that gives invitations.

Living Icons

“We seldom celebrate enough the fact that healingness and newness are inborn in the human person, and we can release them into the world in creative and redemptive ways.  We are perhaps too frozen in the notion that we are faithful if we are obedient.  We are moral if we play it safe.  We are virtuous if we ask God to do stuff for us.  Slowly and not often enough do we learn that God is not one who bails us out, or one who nags and supervises what is entrusted to us.  The good news is a glorious but demanding affirmation that we are trusted by God to live a new kind of life.”      - Walter Brueggemann

You are one of God’s icons; designed to reflect his very nature.

Goodness.

Mercy.

Justice.

Love.    

Do not wait for God…he is waiting for you.  You have been trusted to act, to move in ways that promote wholeness, restoration and peace.

Today, and each moment within its confines, you have opportunity to live out what has been hard wired into you.  Do not listen to the voice that says, “not good enough”, “forgotten”, “washed up”, “unqualified”, “fool”.  Instead listen as the Author of All sends you forward with new words:

“Chosen”, “Esteemed”, “Friend”, “Daughter”, “Son”...

"Image bearer".

Don't Wait to Create

Get moving.  Put something on paper.  Anything.

Grab a brush and splash some color or take a pen and fashion some words.  Don’t think, just do.

The color doesn’t have to be brilliant to shine and the words don’t have to make a sentence to make sense…just get going.

Writer’s block?  What to create?  What if it’s no good?

No time for excuses, no critic can fully critique those who create.

Go!



Last Of The American Girls

She puts her makeup on like graffiti on the walls of the heartlandShe's got her little book of conspiracies right in her handShe is paranoid like endangered species headed into extinctionShe is one of a kind, well, she's the last of the American girls
She wears her overcoat for the coming of the nuclear winterShe is riding her bike like a fugitive of critical massShe's on a hunger strike for the ones who won't make it for dinnerShe makes enough to survive for a holiday of the working class
She's a runaway of the establishment incorporatedShe won't cooperate, well, she's the last of the American girls
She plays her vinyl records singing songs on the eve of destructionShe's a sucker for all the criminals breaking the lawsShe will come in first for the end of Western civilizationShe's an endless war, she's a hero for the lost cause
Like a hurricane in the heart of the devastationShe's a natural disaster, she's the last of the American girls


We've made it to the class of 13...looking forward to many more.

Enjoy

Today is the Sabbath.

It was created for you.

Ride a bike, paint a picture, milk a cow, play catch with a child…

Rest.

Rest in the fact that you are not a number or a cog in a wheel.

Rest your worries for tomorrow.

Rest in knowing that “it” is not up to you.

You were created to enjoy all of this.

Today is a gift.