disclaimer

{alright, I really don't want this to turn into a place where I am only posting youtube videos, thus contributing to the slippery slope that destroys the rare actual conversation and ruins social situations...I digress, but I feel like I need to share this one. Probably not the last one, but just bear with me. That is all}

I have a crush on Keith Richards.

After a very reflective weekend and a fairly lazy Monday, I kind of feel like the first 14 seconds of this song right now.

Hope that makes sense.

ps: just a tip, ignore the shaky video and just listen to the guitar solo instead.

R & R

Been looking forward to this weekend all month. Headed out on a Fellows Sabbath retreat with this on the front of my mind...

Solitude is the place where we can reach the profound bond that is deeper than the emergency bonds of fear and anger. Although fear and anger can indeed drive us together, they cannot give rise to a common witness. In solitude we can come to the realization that we are not driven together but brought together.

In solitude we come to know our fellow human beings not as partners who can satisfy our deepest needs, but as brothers and sisters with whom we are called to give visibility to God's all-embracing love. In solitude we discover that community is not a common ideology, but a response to a common call. In solitude we indeed realize that community is not made but given.

Solitude, then, is not private time in contrast to time together, nor a time to restore our tired minds. Solitude is very different from a time-out from community life.

Solitude is the ground from which community grows. When we pray alone, study, read, write, or simply spend quiet time away from the places where we interact with each other directly, we enter into a deeper intimacy with each other. It is a fallacy to think that we grow closer to each other only when we talk, play, or work together. Much growth certainly occurs in such human interactions, but these interactions derive their fruit from solitude, because in solitude our intimacy with each other is deepened. 

 nouwen, clowning in rome

sweet heavenly day

I can't remember which Pandora station played this for me today, but I think it changed my life. Yes. I am confident in saying it changed my life. Mercy.

a lot of shifting going on

There were more than a few times last week at work that I just wanted to cry. Or yell. Or sit in my car and blast 90s music, heavy on the Wallflowers, until my blood pressure returned to normal human levels. Maybe I did all three...

I hated that each day left me feeling like I had survived, but not much else. It really bothered me that I was letting work affect me as much as it was, and so I decided to squash that nonsense before it got out of hand.

It's amazing what a restful weekend, family time and getting enough sleep and exercise can do for a major attitude shift. Today was like I had a new job or something. It was a great day; full of getting things done, some quiet alone time at lunch, a long run by the river and a free cupcake at dinner, win!

These 2 pieces of Jeremiah have been with me all day today, reminding me to continue seeking rest in the mundane parts of life.

You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.
-jeremiah 29:11

For I will satisfy the weary soul, and every languishing soul I will replenish.
-jeremiah 31:25

built for this.

built for this.
ben sollee

hang your worries on my thin Kentucky frame
lay your fears on my chest
place a reach on my careless fingertip
and chase the morning light

we were built for this
we were built for this

rest your troubles on my unforgiving back
lift your pain upon my death
rub your hands with your faith and trust their path
and trace the morning light

we were built for this
we were built for this

speak with words that you gathered from the ground
hold a light up to the sky
give the dove just one more chance to sing
and replace the morning light

facing your fears to live your dreams

 facing your fears to live your dreams, donald miller
july 2011
text here

We don’t normally face our fears willingly. Usually, God has to woo us into the desert. We are either chasing love or some other desire, and we find ourselves in the midst of a situation in which we have very little control. And when we lose control, we go into a mild form of trauma. But the good news is the greatest stories are lived in the desert. The great lives are lived in the places we most fear. If we fear being rejected, the great story has us standing at the door with flowers in our hands, if we fear losing love, the great stories have us letting that person go rather than clinging to them. If we fear taking a chance on a dream, the great stories have us quitting our jobs.

My friend Jeremy Cowart moved from Nashville to LA recently but decided to tell a better story with his move. Rather than packing up the family and making a long, boring drive, he called Jamie Tworkowski from To Write Love on her Arms and made a Fears Vs Dreams tour out of the move. They’d pull the moving van into a town, set up a table, and ask people to write down their fears and dreams on a piece of paper. The result was magical. Andy Davis joined in for a while and soon enough it was a mini-caravan of folks who were no longer interested in running from their fears, but willing to face them in order to live a better story.

So, what is your greatest fear? And don’t you know, the life you want involves taking that huge risk. It’s scary I know, because the truth is it might end in tragedy. But then again, half of Shakespeare’s plays are tragedies, and nobody thinks of him as a fool. He was brilliant.

May half your stories be tragedies too. And may the other half be comedies that work out great. And may they all be beautiful.

fears v. dreams