Archive for the ‘Life’ category

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True Success In Life

March 30, 2009

Over the last few weeks I’ve gone through some notebooks that I’ve written in the past. Like every experience and truism we find in life, the next few blog posts have come from a variety of sources in the past. They area series of questions that, if answered honestly, can greatly benefit your life. Some will seem like no-brainers, but despite a desire to skip over and not participate in an exercise, press ahead and asnswer the questions and act on the answers. My hope is that you benefit from the time you spend in honest evaluation of you real wants and desires.

Remember there are no wrong answers.

The first question is:

“What are the 5 things that you value the most in life?”

 Answer in sixty seconds quickly. Put down your gut answers, because those are the most truthful to who you are.

Whatever you wrote out as your five top values can change in the next few months or years, but for now it will give some direction and purpose and help answer some of the “Why?” questions in your life.

Categories: Awareness, Creativity, Influence, Life

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What We See, We Believe

March 25, 2009

“Seeing is Believing” We’ve all heard that quote before, but what does it mean, and how does it impact our own lives. What we spend time looking at has an effect on what we allow into our belief system. What we look at also has an effect on the strength of our current beliefs. I’m not talking about negative aspects. We are familiar with those. What we are not familiar with is the positive influences that can happen because of what we chose to gaze at.

Whether we chose to spend time looking at a sunrise, sunset or a mist rising over a large field in the early morning. These images impact our attitudes during the day and our remembrances of the day in the future. Choosing to look at something that lifts us up inside can have a direct influence on the successes or failures we experience during the day.

Take time and chose to look at something beautiful. See how it effects and changes your perspective and to that end, your life.

Categories: Awareness, Belief, Context, Life

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Be like Water

March 9, 2009

I know that there are several proverbs and sayings from the Far East that concern themselves with water. I’m certain that this paraphrase has been influenced by many of them.

“Be like water – even with heavy rain though the surface is rippled and disturbed, the deep part stays untouched and still. As soon as the rain ceases, the ripples dissipate and the surface is again flat and still.”

The point to this quote is that when the circumstances of life cause ripples, or in many cases waves, on the surface of our lives, it is the stillness of our center that gives us the ability to quickly come back to a peace and “ripple free” life. Focus more time, effort and energy on the place within yourself. When that inner place is tended to, any circumstance will distill away to stillness.

Categories: Awareness, Belief, Life, peace

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Mine to Do

March 4, 2009

Toward the end of his life, St. Francis told his fellow brothers, “I have done what is mine to do; may Christ teach you yours”. This quote has had a profound impact on the direction and fulfillment of my life. Often we find ourselves invested in the lives of others. We are wrapped up, litteraly, in the affairs of others. So much so that we let our own lives cruise along without much personal attention to our own direction.

When we are allowed into the lives of others it is easy to find the pull of “fixing” and “helping” them irressistible. We love projects, and people can be the best projects out there; especially when they step back and let us do the work for them. Many times we can see instant gratification when counsel is taken and is a success.

The problem with this relationship is that it easily evolves into a dependant existence and often results in some sloppy care given to yourself because you are “helping” someone else. It may seem hard, but your life is the only one you can truly control, and the only one you are responsible for. Caring for your own life and path is the greatest thing you can do for yourself and for those who you find yourself connected to.

Categories: Awareness, Belief, Context, Creativity, Influence, Leadership, Life

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The Golden Rule?

February 26, 2009

The scriptures teach us to “do unto others as we would have them do to us”, but often we end up experiencing people doing to us what we expect them to do to us. Depending on our outlook and attitude, we can expect and experience negative things or positive things. Like it or not, we are the authors of our own lives. Many will not want to accept this, mostly this is due to an unwillingness to accept responsibility for our lives. It is much easier to let someone else determine our lives that to do the hard work and direct our own paths.

If some other worldly force is pulling and prodding me in whatever direction it wants to, then  – success or failure – it’s not my fault. The end result is just marked down to as being “supposed to happen”. The truth is that life itself is difficult and requires hard work from us. Our response should be to pu;; ourselves up from our bootstraps and live life to its fullness, not wimp out and let “whatever will be…..be.”

Categories: Awareness, Belief, Creativity, Influence, Life, Rhythm

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Iconoclasts

February 21, 2009

The book, Iconoclast, by Gregory Berns, is an incredible amalgam of information concerning both the brain and the action centers of the individual. Dr. Berns describes an iconoclast as someone who “does something that others say can’t be done”. What follows is a listing of different people who have done just that.

One of the positive aspects to this book is its delivery of technical information in a way that is accessible to anyone. Distilled down into themes we all know such as perception and fear, he makes distinctions about the imagination and mindset that separate the ordinary and the free-thinkers that define the term “Iconoclast”.

Categories: Awareness, Belief, Context, Creativity, Cultural Ideas, Influence, Life

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Tribes – Take the Follow

February 16, 2009

I wrote a post on this topic previously and deleted it, thinking it was the right thing to do. I folded to a skewed opinion of another person and shouldn’t have.  I now know that it was a mistake to delete it. The key in leadership – both individual and corporate – is not to make decisions rashly and based on emotion. The basic concept in this section from the incredible book from Seth Godin, Tribes, is that there comes a time in leadership when, if your vision becomes cloudy, you must step aside and let those who are assured of direction lead.

When a leader is unwilling to let go of the reins of leading when their own direction is in doubt, a flag should go up and be acted upon by those within the organization. Not acting will only serve to cripple the organization. Without solid leadership, the leader only serves to move the organization more quickly in a direction neither he nor the ones he leads are aware of.

Great leaders know when to move on within the organization. Great leaders also know when they have reached the boundary of ability and can no longer adequately lead and move on outside the organization. When a great leader cannot let go, that leader sinks in both further ablilty and continued influence.

Categories: Awareness, Creativity, Influence, Leadership, Life

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Systems vs. Sytematic Theology

February 11, 2009

One of the greatest changes that I see in the future of the church is a shift from a systematic approach to theology to a more inclusive holistic Systems approach. The integration of so many differing systems into our daily environments will eventually warrant a change in the direction of the theological approach of most churches. Whereas in the past we have been somewhat satisfied with compartmentalizing differing aspects of theological interest.

We have been content to “zero in” on faith, grace, salvation, righteousness, etc. exclusively. Now there will be decidedly all-encompassing approach that will examine how these all are related to one another and dependant on each other. As the strings that connect shift, so does the related change in the tension between each area. What is exciting about all of this is that it brings a new dynamic to the conversation(s) concerning every issue that was previously looked at in exclusivity.

Systems Theology will seek to bring more of a solid foundation to much of the weaker present offering of “new church”. I’m reading a book now about the changes and shifts in cultures as different paradigms take shape. This is a key concept as we look both where we’ve come from and where we’re going.

Categories: Awareness, Belief, Books I'm Reading, Context, Creativity, Cultural Ideas, Life, religion

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ReJesus

January 22, 2009

rejesus

Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost have a new book out called ReJesus. It is one of the most compelling reads as to how we can never get outside of our own distinct cultures to a pure Jesus. In every age Christians are compelled to again struggle with the meaning of Jesus again. Neibuhr wrote in Christ and Culture that we always are reshaping Jesus out of our cultural imaginations. Jesus is the center of the religion of Christianity, and yet, as Jacques Ellul, the French theologian questions, “How has it come about that the development of Christianity and the church has given birth to a society, a civilization, a culture that are completely opposite to what we read in the Bible, to what is indisputably the text of the law, the prophets, Jesus and Paul?”

To follow Jesus requires not simply believing in belief, but to encounter Jesus on an ongoing basis. This is true spiritual transformation. It becomes more than knowing about him. It must become about experiencing redemption, following his way, becoming like him and taking up his cause all the while in the current Western context.

We all know that Jesus is like God, fewer are aware that God is like Jesus, ans fewer still would admit that Jesus shows us the perfect example of what Human is – AND that we should seek to be like that perfect example. Roman 8:29 speaks of us being conformed into the likeness of his Son. It speaks of us being like Jesus.

What would our world look like if we became more like Jesus who was like God? Would we not wake to a better world? Instead of worshipping Jesus, what if we followed Him. What if we used the mysterious Christ as an example to what our own lives could be?

Too often we have relegated Christ as a figure to be looked at or revered – separated from us. We learn at an early age “how” to worship, but Jesus came to show us how to live. It is in the living that we learn to know him and experience that abundant life He spoke about.

Categories: Awareness, Belief, Books I'm Reading, Context, Creativity, Cultural Ideas, Life, religion
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Barack Obama – 44th President

January 20, 2009

One of the most brilliant moments from the festivities of today was the poem recited by Elizabeth Alexander.

“Praise Song For the Day”

Each day we go about our business,
walking past each other, catching each other’s
eyes or not, about to speak or speaking.

All about us is noise. All about us is
noise and bramble, thorn and din, each
one of our ancestors on our tongues.

Someone is stitching up a hem, darning
a hole in a uniform, patching a tire,
repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere,
with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum,
with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.
A farmer considers the changing sky.
A teacher says, Take out your pencils. Begin.

We encounter each other in words, words
spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed,
words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark
the will of some one and then others, who said
I need to see what’s on the other side.

I know there’s something better down the road.
We need to find a place where we are safe.
We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain: that many have died for this day.
Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,
who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges,

picked the cotton and the lettuce, built
brick by brick the glittering edifices
they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day.
Praise song for every hand-lettered sign,
the figuring-it-out at kitchen tables.

Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself,
others by first do no harm or take no more
than you need. What if the mightiest word is love?

Love beyond marital, filial, national,
love that casts a widening pool of light,
love with no need to pre-empt grievance.

In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air,
any thing can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp,

praise song for walking forward in that light.

Categories: Awareness, Belief, Cultural Ideas, Life, People
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