Life...to the max!

Mentoring Mondays...#16

         As I used to say up in western Oregon, way back in the last century, in my youth, when feeding some of those pesky farm animals.......hooey!  Some never seemed to conform to what I needed/wanted them to do.  The week, past, was one of those weeks where every emotion known to this olde man has been experienced...just like trying to corral those pesky animals, back in the day.

        What’s the week, just past, been like for you?

One of the highlights of last week took place on Tuesday evening.  Judy and I were extra humbled to have in our home two exceptional men from Uganda.  One man, Jacob Kitonsa, I’ve been mentoring for almost three years.  But...an extra delight was having his second important mentor in his life with him.  His Ugandan mentor has been visiting for a few days.  Jacob's first crucial mentor was his grandfather.

...a psalm for Easter:

...from Psalms of My Life

...by Joseph Bayly

Let's celebrate Easter

with the rite

of laughter.

Christ died and rose

and lives.

Laugh like a woman

who holds her first baby.

Our enemy death

will soon be destroyed.

Laugh like a man

who finds he doesn't have cancer

or he does but now there's a cure.

Christ opened wide

the door of heaven.

Laugh like children

at Disneyland's gates.

This world is owned by God

and He'll return to rule.

Laugh like a man

who walks away uninjured

from a wreck

in which his car was totaled.

Laugh

as if all the people in the whole world

were invited to a picnic

and then invite them.

 

...a question, as we await the dawn of our lives:

 

What is the stone

that needs to be rolled away

from your heart

so that what has happened

to Jesus

can be seen?

 

...Black Saturday:

 

In the ancient church, this day was often referred to as Black Saturday.  Even today, as we wait between the events of Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday...we wait with those disciples of old...wondering.......what is to come?

        This is a day of liminal space...a threshold...to chose to move across...or not move and stay the same.  To move across...and not return.  We wait...from our souls out...for a new word...and a new day...new days...new life.

This moving YouTube offering quietly, powerfully, reminds us of the useful power of the best words well chosen...

This poem reminds us to live in the silence...and wait carefully...then to choose life...a future you can believe in...and live into...on this day...the day before the light dawns within the souls of all who choose well:

Ready for Silence
...by Madeleine L'Engle

Then hear now the silence
He comes in the silence
in silence he enters
the womb of the bearer
in silence he goes to
the realm of the shadows
redeeming and shriving
in silence he moves from
the grave cloths, the dark tomb
in silence he rises
ascends to the glory
leaving his promise
leaving his comfort
leaving his silence

So come now, Lord Jesus
Come in your silence
breaking our noising
laughter of panic
breaking this earth's time
breaking us breaking us
quickly Lord Jesus
make no long tarrying

When will you come
and how will you come
and will we be ready
for silence

your silence

How good do you look on wood?

 

"If you're going to follow Jesus,

you better get ready to look good on wood."

...Joe Cole, owner of the Glenside Irish Pub in Glenside, PA

 

...thank you, Ryan:

 

...as Thursday merges with this Friday

...read this

...and ponder well

 

Mentoring Mondays...#15

        Several weeks back now we had the deep privilege of having a couple here for three days...in fact I mentioned him in the previous Mentoring Mondays...#14.  20+ years ago this man and his brother invited me walk with them in the processing, dreaming and the developing of the passions that were burning in their souls for their community...and now...way, wAy beyond as their influence and care reaches around our world.

        One element of our sincerely powerful time together was his bringing to mind questions and comments and suggestions...all wrapped up as early mentoring...that had formed and empowered him right up to today.  Frankly...I was both a bit stunned and yet sincerely encouraged.  My heart was full of thanks for what has taken place in their lives and life-work.

        We, thee and me, never know what can happen with a well timed word...question...encouragement.  The daring to listen well, first...then speaking into a life...for their benefit...not ours...well...........it can be like a seed falling on fertile ground that is just waiting for the right seed and consistent, intentional, compassionate nurture for the future.

...meet my friend: Scott Dewey

        For years now, one man, Scott Dewey, has been one of my sincere and serious heroes.  He will protest this...but that's OK...for others will support that statement.

        Finally (...thank you Scott...!) he is writing a blog that I've been waiting to see show up for a long time.  It will, I'm confident, be one of the blogs I look forward to reading with every courageous post Scott puts down.

        Scott, has sometimes introduced me as one of his mentors...but I count him also as one of mine...a peer mentor who has taught me so much with regard to the marginalized in our world.  Here in Denver, overseas in Romania, once upon a time in Thailand, and influencing profoundly others who day to follow Jesus into the margins fo society throughout our world, Scott has thoughts, words, actions, challenges we all need to pay attention to.

        Here is Scott's first post on his new blog Seeing From Below...click on that name. Sign on.  Be ready to take a ride into places you need to go within your own soul...and within our world.  Scott is one brave, brilliant, genuine, "read-deal," man.  I thank God we are friends.

 

...speaking of I.D-C.W-L.T.M.

         Those initials...I.D-C.W-L.T.M....along with the numbers 8  5  3  1...create a flexible grid,  a series of portals of thought that help me define what the best of mentoring is about.  The "T" stands for transformation.

        In today's daily meditation from Richard Rohr, who resides down in Albuquerque, New Mexico, he writes about... 

TRUE TRANSFORMATION

        Early-stage religion is more about belonging and believing than about transformation.  When belonging and believing are the primary concerns, people don’t see their need for growth, healing, or basic spiritual curiosity.  Once we let the group substitute for an inner life or our own faith journey, all we need to do is “attend.”  For several centuries, church has been more a matter of attendance at a service than an observably different lifestyle.  Membership requirements and penalties predominated, not the change-your-life message that Jesus so clearly preached.

        Membership questions lead to endless arguments about who is in and who is out, who is right and who is wrong, who is worthy of our God, and who is not.  Such distinctions appeal to our ego and its need to feel worthy and superior and to be part of a group that defines itself by exclusion.  The church ends up a gated country club, giving people a false sense of superiority.  This is why Jesus walks to those on the edges: the handicapped, the sinners, the excluded ones.

From Rohr's excellent writings in: 

On the Threshold of Transformation: Daily Meditations for Men, p. 276, day 267

Used with permission of Loyola Press.

 

 

...what can one small round ball truly do?

 

OK...

...ready to be thoroughly amazed?

...click here...

...to hear and watch the classical piece of music,

Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring,

as you have never heard or seen it before...

...thanks to our friend John in Southern California...