Life...to the max!

...remembering...important to do.......

Friday...13 April '12...at the conclusion of the DC QConference I spent two additional days seeing people friends from years back, and visiting selected sights, which have almost also become like old friends.  The friend who had attended Q with me, and I, made a mad dash for the last public changing of the guard at Arlington Cemetry...at sunset...what an amazing time to be there in the hush of that vast place...remembering.

Watching the precision of these men, who guard the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and bring dignity to all who have given their lives for the sake of the US of A, I wept at the honor being given...especially watching others in the gathered crowd who had obviously been in the service at some time in their own lives...tears sliding down their weathered and time-worn faces...with volumns of stories registering behind their eyes.......

...when we were leaving to return to our car, all these silent markers of honor greeted our pending departure from Arlington.  I walked among these, alone, for a few minutes, all politics aside, and prayed for the men and women who are yet in the line of fire that day, even this day...Monday, 28 May '12.  Which family, somewhere in America will be next to see two soldiers walking up to their front door with the first words, "We are sorry to inform you......."

This past Saturday, upon awakening, I opened our front door to be greeted by a lone flag punched into the edge of our front lawn.  A local realtor had placed a flag in front of every home in our neighborhood. My orginal intent was to simply go out and get the morning paper.  The new and larger intent was to look up and down the street, and the images that came to mind from this simple display of care took me back to the recent visit to Arlington Cemetry.

It's easier, though a bit overwhelming (if you've ever been to a national cemetry...especially on this day), to be caught up in remembering with the vastness of the white tombstones there.  Coming back into that day, even looking out my office window at that flag, this day of our lives, it's easier to somewhat put behind us the remembering, as we tackle the "stuff" of our lives.

However...this flag...this day...remains in front of our home...as one does in front of most of the homes in our neighborhood.  This day...I remember...from a heart of gratitude...and pray, not only for those from our own country, but for those of other countries who yearn to live in freedom...indeed, may freedom be the cry of all our hearts...freedom to live the life our God intended that all should live...free to be all the Triune God has created them, and us, to be...and do.

Freedom...

...in too many places still a novel thought.

...Pry Me Off Dead Center.......

O persistent God,

deliver me from assuming your mercy is gentle.

Pressure me that I may grow more human,

        not through the lessening of my struggles,

        but through an expansion of them

        that will undamn me

        and unbury my gifts.

Deepen my hurt

        until I learn to share it

        and myself

        openly,

        and my needs honestly.

Sharpen my fears

        until I name them

        and release the power I have locked in them

        and they in me.

Accentuate my confusion

        until I shed those grandiose expectations

        that divert me from the small, glad gifts

        of the now and the here and the me.

Expose my shame where is shivers,

        crouched behind the curtains of propriety,

        until I can laugh at last

        through my common frailties and failures,

        laugh my way toward becoming whole.

Deliver me

        from just going through the motions

        and wasting everything I have

        which is today,

                a chance,

                        a choice,

                                my creativity,

                                        your call.

O persistent God,

let how much it all matters

pry me off dead center

so that if I am moved inside

        to tears

                or sighs

                        or screams

                                or smiles

                                        or dreams,

they will be real

and I will be in touch with who I am

and who you are

and who my sisters and brothers are.

...from Guerrillas of Grace: Prayers for the Battle

...by Ted Loder

...who is not just "close" to the truth.......

...who is actually telling the truth these days?

...in this world, this life, this political cycle?

...between each sunrise and sunset?

 

...between each sunset and sunrise?

...found these words today on Inward/Outward:

 

The True Prophet

How do we tell the false prophet from the true prophet? The true prophet seldom predicts the future. The true prophet warns us of our present hardness of heart, our prideful presuming to know God's mind. And the final test of the true prophet is love. God came to us as Jesus because of love....

We must be careful in our right and proper protests...that we are protesting truly, that we are not being false prophets fearing only for our own selves, our own families, our own country. Our concern must be for everybody, for our entire fragile planet, and everybody on it.... Indeed, we must protest with loving concern for the entire universe. A mark of the true prophet in any age is humility, self-emptying so there is room for God's Word.

Source: A Stone for a Pillow by Madeleine L'Engle

...just put this on my FaceBook page:

        It's been amazing how many people from past days have been in touch recently...so encouraging to know of their journeys forward...stunned by what a sentence will do when offered to carve new paths for others wondering what might be next.

        Tonight, an overnight guest in our home, one very good man in his early 40s, asked, "Do you remember what you said when you called me 12 years ago?" Of course I didn't...but...then he said, "If you had not called right when you did, we would not be talking today, and I would not be doing what I do. That brief phone call changed my life direction. You heard me and responded...even when I didn't think you would."

        Whew!

        How many times have I not spoken when urged to do so?

        How many times have I ignored the promptings within?

        How many times have I said too much...or not enough?

        How many times have I not followed through on a promise to call someone?

        How many times have I followed through?

        How many times have I not listened deeply enough...long enough?

        How many times have I waited, trusting the silence to be doing its work in the good soul of another, so that when a word is spoken it does, finally, it's life-giving work?

        How may times have I been grateful, to the max, for the sacred privilege of getting to do what I do?...seeing people set free into their futures and their dreams and their relationships...making differences in our world...some of those differences known to many...some known only to God, and a handful of others.

        Most blessed am I...! How many times?

        Can't even begin to count 'em.................................all I know is that the greatest means of impacting the future is to build into another person's life. This IS called intentional, whole-life, deep-change, transformational mentoring.

        I go to sleep tonight with a grateful heart.

        Good night.

.................................33

        The first year out of grad school was, at the core, amazing, sincerely.  Not often in one's life do you have a completely clean board to draw on and create what has not been done before within a fast growing and energetic organization.

        Faith Presbyterian Church took a gamble on me.  I'm grateful.

        Back in that day the words "Christian"' and "counseling" were a bit new to the religious scene to say in the same breath...especially for more conservative places.  Counseling of any variety was held suspect.  Shoot, one was just supposed to pray and everything would be OK.  Well.......not always.

        However, taking the offices off site, creating an intentional, honest sense of care for anyone, no matter the issue, things began to flourish.  Trust in the processes increased.  We soon had to add good staff.  A lay-counselor program was instituted that I still hear talked about today from those who participated in that training.  Lives were changing...by design...as intended from the beginning of time...by God.

        For most churches this was...whoa, ho!!!...way out there.  The status quo and the same-old-same-old has never wood me in.  Deeply changed lives was the hope/goal.  It began to happen.

        At home our beautiful daughter began to crawl all over including walls (Spider woman in the making?)...up, over, down, under, around...curious about everything.  First steps were wondrous to behold.  Watching this vibrant child begin to develop, my heart/our hearts kept getting stolen with every new advancement.

...look at those big eyes on that little girl...!

        Experiencing her growing up one evening, it hit me that organizations are a lot like we people.  Watching our own daughter grow, develop, explore, discover, began to inform me of the creative care that is crucial for healthy organizational growth and development.

        Jesus' words about not getting where we were supposed to be headed, unless we become like little children, began to take new meaning.  This little people was informing us on how to live.

        How does that translate to organizational design?  Well, that's a conversation for another time.  Just like a child will test and try things...so I began to test and try all kinds of ideas with regard to leadership development...and personal design. 

        Stating the obvious, organizations are made up of people.  People were once children.  What stops children from remaining creative?  Same things that stop most organizations from taking risks.  Looking back, the time at Faith Pres became a laboratory, of sorts, for trying ideas which have informed what I'm about today.

        Seeds were planted.  Some did not grow.  Others did.

        Most grateful.  Within the next year, important risks were taken.

 

(.....................to be continued.....................)

 

..................................34

        Who knew?

        Back in the day a popular survey called the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale was used as a type of predictor for what could happen if one did not own and recognize the pile up of life happenings that may not, in the long haul be good for a person.  Moving into and through my 35th year...like about half a lifetime ago...much was new, and piling up.  :-)

        New daughter.

        Newly graduated.

        New job.

        New home.

        New responsibilities

        New privileges and opportunities.

        New hope!

        Heading for church on Mother's Day in 1976 I had one heck of a toothache.  We had no dentist, yet, in Denver.  We had, in our nine years of marriage been to Judy's dentist in Phoenix, when visiting her family.  But...whoa!  I needed a dentist.

        So...in the meet and greet time that was part of the church service, the couple behind us was oohing and ahhhing over our beautiful baby daughter, Shannon, when I asked the man what he did?  He said, "I'm a dentist...have my practice over on Hampden Avenue."  I almost hugged him...but restrained myself.

        He asked what I did, and I told him I was graduating from Denver Seminary.  Then I asked what did it take to get an appointment with him.  He asked why I was asking...and he almost did an exam right there...but restrained himself.

        L   o     n     g story short, I was in his dental chair the next morning, thanks to his generosity...and he remained our dentist for the next 25 years of his practice.  He and his wife became special friends.  My tooth got fixed, and so did the next six and a half years of our lives.

        We've often laughed at the fact that he kept asking me questions about my future hopes and dreams, while keeping my mouth wide open and doing his good work.  Easy for him.  Hard to do for me.  But...enough information got through so that he went and asked his father to meet us for lunch, because his dad was on the church board and they were looking for additional staff for their fast gowing congregation.

        So there I was at lunch with two Dr. Petersons (the son was taking over the practice from his father), hearing about what the church board was looking for.  What I had shared with the younger Dr. Peterson, via my wide open mouth, was exactly what his Dad said they were looking for.  They were not looking for the usual theolog...but for someone who would be creatively thinking way outside the box with regard to counseling, spiritual formation, and leadership development.

        That is the only time I thanked God for a toothache.  Some other places and kinds of work were exploring the possibility of me...but in places we were was not fond of thinking about moving.  Thank God we've been blessed to stay in Colorado...39 years this coming Labor Day Weekend in September.

...that is not what I wore to church on that Sunday, but I hold in that pic the most precious bundle of love any mom or dad could hold...oh my, what a new miracle in our lives, for sure!  She still is!!!

(.....................to be continued.....................)

 

...................................35

        It's been said a picture, at least some pictures, are worth a thousand words.  There are not enough words to describe this pic from 1976.

        We graduated from being just us to being a family of three when our amazing daughter was born late in April.  This bundle of joy came to us, newly born, through the miracle of adoption.  An amazing story here.

        The second miracle of the year was that I graduated from Denver Seminary in May.  Though some of my growing theological perspectives were not quite "right" for some, they allowed me to exit, gracefully.  I moved through this year with growing vision for the future that includes today.

 

(.....................to be continued.....................)

 

....................................36

Sincerely...my apologies for not keeping up with the series.

It's been a bit of a wild ride...and continues to be.

But...now the countdown continues...again.  :-)

*          *          *          *          *          *          *

        The year was 1975.  The middle of grad school.  A major transition was taking place within my thinking and pondering, as it began to dawn on me that the thought of us living a first half and a second half of life might not be the best way to look at life...though it was a familiar way to look at life back in that day.  Was there another way (stay tuned, as there is, it turns out...)?

        This was the year that President Ford, having taken over for his old boss, declared the Viet Nam war "finished."  Not won.  Done.  Frankly, he did bring some dignity and strength back to the office of President of the United States of America.  I read recently that he lived longer than any other U.S. president, 93 years and 165 days.

        The tumult of the times was just beginning.

        Some may disagree, but red lights were going off all over our society.  The pendulum of life, as we knew it back then was shifting...again.  Thirty-five years later a fairly well researched tome called The Fourth Turning brought some intriguing, controversial historical sense to what we all experienced back then in one way or another.  Life was no longer (as if it ever was) as simple as red, yellow, green light...and a time when everyone would correctly follow all the rules.......because.

        Back then, I probably would not have called it a spiritual renewal that was forming in my own soul.  Such language was left to more mystical elements in known Christianity.  The conservative circles of Christianity were into revival.  I always wondered if that meant someone was "vived" in the first place for a "re" to be attached to the word.

        Soul nudges that had begun in the earlier 70s in Southern California were subtly taking form deep within.  The seminary training was challenging me to not accept the traditional Christian status quo.  Questions I brought from the west coast were enlarging...not diminishing.

        Soulishly I was being quietly "forced" to think in new ways.  Though precipitious, the journey was beginning to get a bit exciting.  Welcome.  Conversations with Rex, Gary, Les, Stan, among others, were permitting more questions than answers.  Drs. Grounds, Keiper, Lewis, Burdick, Alden were being used to strengthen the foundations of my soul.  Just a tad challenging and kind of fun, were these unfolding moments...more questions than answers.  I found myself liking that.  Dr. Grounds, especially, encouraged that.

        Relieved.  Renewed.  Released.  Reformed.  Refreshed.  Refocused.  Reality.  These words began to reposition themselves in my soul and work their way into my thinking.  Seeds were sown that are still bearing fruit in what I'm doing with and through my life today.

        I began, maybe for the first time, to believe in grace.

 

(.....................to be continued.....................)

 

 

...maybe...what?

...maybe it's the impression left on my heart and mind from various places as the school year wraps up here in the US of A, and elsewhere

...maybe it's being concerned for our brilliant, young, energetic 13yo neighbor who suffered a fairly serious concussion this past week playing his heart out for his baseball team, and losing (hopefully not for long) some congnition, and vital energy, but the clunk to his brain has slowed him down

...maybe it's because our wonderful daughter (another brilliant soul) is now working for an organization that is helping to increase student's capacities to learn...so very proud of her!!!

...maybe it's because of what I heard/learned at a White House briefing on the future of education in early April at the end of the Q Conference, which I will eagerly attend next April in LA...and Q Denver, here, this September...as well as TEDxMileHigh on June 2...all needed/wanted stimulation for both mind and soul and encouraging one's purpose for being alive

...maybe it's because my 70yo mind is more curious than ever to learn, explore, discover, create, innovate, design, experience, release and cheer on those I mentor around the globe

...maybe it's because circumstance/happenings, even a few of my own miscues, have seemed to try to stop me from being all of who I am, all of who the Triune God is making of me, and yet releasing me to be...and do

...maybe it's because I'm more convinced than ever that the mentoring model that has evolved via my life and work, watching it consistently change lives within multiple cultures, is of more value than even I have dared to dream

...maybe it's because I'm finally needing to further own the fact that sometimes I see what others don't...but some do...in what needs to shift in how we learn...how we teach...how we listen...how we ask questions...how we release and let go...how we cheer and guide others into their own God-ordained design and destiny (even if they don't believe in any god or God...I am one who believes that we each bear the image of God's grace in every breath, and every cell of our bodies...thus there is a mixture of delight and care and concern for each human I see and interact with and get to know...)

...maybe it 's because it's the unexpected email I got at the end of yesterday from a man I've mentored for the past five years...rocked my soul in a way it needed to be rocked!

...maybe it's because I know where I've honestly failed others, still am failing some, yet...also know that the intent of my heart is to pour into others, and not deplete them, to see them fully released into all they were designed to be.......and do (those are not glib words...but words of daily intent)...living redemptively, which is part of our original design

...maybe it's because at the end of this week my precious wife and I will be in SoCal with college friends of 45+ years laying to rest the body of a dear and close friend who succumbed to pancreatic cancer last week...celebrating his life and wife and family...and thus celebrating our own lives.  Several who know of this have asked, "Was he one of the Desert Fathers?"  Yes, he was, one of the founders of our motly group who has met every January for 30+ years.  That is a large story for another post.

...coming full circle with this morning's thoughts (I need to get over to Fitness19 and work out), maybe it's because I was stirred anew by this article from Co-Exist...a website that often is one of those that gets my creative, design-filled brain molecules moving

...maybe it's because, right now, one of the grad students I mentor is heading out of town with 15 others to experience and explore "third world" conditions in our own country about 9 hours from here.  We had dinner together last evening, celebrating his first year of grad school.  Me?...found myself celebrating the distinct hope this remarkable young man brings to our world as his leadership develops.  He well represents all those whom I get the sacred privilege to see grow and soar into their futures.

 ...maybe it's because there is more life to live this day than I can even imagine and get my head and heart around...so much yet to accomplish through others

...therefore, enough pondering and pontificating.  Time to get moving into this day to experience, influence, explore, discover, reflect, learn from all that will ultimately show up...this day.

...what a time to be alive.  Amen.  ...and amen!!!

 

 

.....................................37

        ...oops!  Big time.......oops!!!

        I failed Hebrew, the language, not the Bible book, though, at times I've also not followed the wisdom in those sacred writings.  It became quickly evident that the “joy” of reading right to left and trying to make sense out of an odd alphabet was quickly not even close to something I could do.  I was discouraged.

        Though signing up to accomplish a Ministry of Divinity (MDiv) degree, doing the ancient languages of the Bible (requirement for such a degree) became a chore of magnitude.  Reading Hebrew backwards, required to "getting" the messages in those ancient stories, was just not for this country boy.  What to do?

        In the six+ years of my sojourn as a youth pastor in the SoCal church, and because of the pastor of that church was on the Board of Directors of the seminary, I had the extreme privilege of getting acquainted with some of the profs, and especially the president, Dr. Vernon Grounds.  If ever there was a sainted Christian statesman in the last century...he was it!

        He spoke at various student gatherings I put together in SoCal.  I spent as many moments with him as possible when he was in our neck of the woods.  Thus, in the midst of my language discouragement I went to talk with Dr. Grounds.

        During an early morning donut and coffee time he grilled me about my reasons for being at the seminary.  He listened deeply to my frustration at not "getting" Hebrew.  He invited me to share my life story with him over the next weeks.  One more time I shared all of it with a trusted mentor.  What a gift he was in those days.

        The outcome was that I eased into a brand new master’s program in counseling.  I had arrived at DenSem with some extra credits from some schools in SoCal.  All this shift and change allowed me to graduate, on schedule (mine) in three years in the first graduating class of this degree.

        This work, reading from left to right, began to stoke the fires of my soul in the areas of developing leaders, helping women and men accomplish their dreams of helping others to live life to the fullest.

        The three couples mentioned above became extra close...the finest of friends, to date.  We left SoCal thinking we would never make close friends again.  :-)  We were flat wrong.

        Rex and I were study partners on some counseling projects that would help us both talk about his pending death not too many years later.  He, too, during our seminary sojourn became one more who knew all there was to know about me...and I him.

        Gary and Jorie asked us to become godparents to whomever she was carrying.  Little did we know where that sacred privilege would take us over two decades later...even to the ends of the earth.

        I studied hard and made the best grades of my life.  I was surprised...and very thankful.  Former profs in college and at the sem were really surprised.  Dr. Grounds calling out the “more” in me was quietly relentless...to be believed in, even when one knows the worst and best, upsides and downsides, hard times and good times, sins and successes...releases one into who they were designed to be and would continue to become.  Such was Dr. Grounds for me...and only the good Lord knows how many others in his lifetime.

        He lived and offered grace like few others I will ever know in my own lifetime.  In part, his care of others, such as I, is some of what I model today in the mentoring I do.  He dared me to see dreaming as a sacred exercise that only the brave, courageous and just a little bit crazy could do.

        I dared.  I did.  I’ve not stopped.

        I’ve been way slowed down by some circumstances...even recently.  By far, not all dreams have come true.  But the ones which have?

        ...oh, wow.....................!

(.....................to be continued.....................)