Five Benefits of Vacation

There are at least five benefits of taking time off and being away. I'm talking about the wonderful deposits we place into our souls when we take a vacation. I’m returning from four weeks off of work. Four weeks might seem like an extravagance that you cannot afford. I understand that. But for me—for us—we simply had to take this time off and had to be away. Here’s why…

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My Copernican Revolution: How Everything Changed

My Copernican revolution began in 1996 when I had the privilege of spending a month with Dallas Willard in a Catholic monastery in California. How I got there is a story I have told. But what happened to me in that monastery is what changed my life forever. Let me explain. 

Nicolaus Copernicus was an astronomer who discovered in the 16th century, that the sun was at the center of the universe, not the Earth. This changed everything and the ripple effect of his discovery continues to this day. It was revolutionary because his discovery changed and impacted the way people saw the world; experienced a shifting in their understanding and radically altered the way people thought about life. My Copernican Revolution began when I heard that I was a soul and that I had an interior life that needed my attention.

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The Dignity of the Soul

We will not care for something if we do not understand it. We will not care for our environment, if we fail to understand and grasp the fragile nature of this world. We will pollute, abuse and create more toxic waste until we understand that significant damage has been done. We will not care for our automobiles unless we understand that some basic maintenance is needed at regular intervals. We learn that we need to change the oil, rotate the tires and check the fluids to keep our cars running. Otherwise, they will breakdown, burn out or fail us—when we need to go somewhere.

Friends, the truth is that most of us will spend more time and money on the care of our cars than we will on the care of our souls. We will not care for our souls until we understand our souls and grasp the importance of the soul. We can drive our bodies to exhaustion; run our lives on empty until we burn out and annihilate our hearts because of busyness—not really knowing the effect on our souls.

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Journey, Wilderness and Comfort: The Movements of the Spiritual Life

“At once, this same Spirit pushed Jesus out into the wild. For forty wilderness days and nights he was tested by Satan. Wild animals were his companions, and angels took care of him.”—Mark 1:12How is it that in one single verse, Mark explains the journey of the spiritual life? It’s fascinating to simply sit with this solitary verse recorded in Mark’s Gospel and to sense the movement, undertaking and activity that Jesus experienced. Friends, in this one, single verse, there is a great movement that needs to be understood. I say “movement” because the spiritual life is a journey from one movement or place in life to the next. We never stay static. We are invited to always to learning; always be growing and always being transformed.First, let’s recall the context of Mark’s powerful singular verse. This verse comes immediately after the wonderful story of Jesus' baptism and being told that Jesus was the “beloved of God.” That moment in the life of Jesus, and in the life of all of us who follow Jesus, is crucial and essential. We all need to hear those same words for ourselves. Each of us needs to know that we, too, are the Beloved of God. I have come to understand that,in this historical event in the life of Jesus—the entire trajectory of his life shifted. Nothing was the same for Jesus when he heard these words—and nothing for us can stay the same when we hear these same words for ourselves. Prior to this, Jesus made furniture. After this event, Jesus made people. He freed people caught up in their own web of religion and offered them freedom. He compelled people to leave their boats, their careers, their people groups and their tribes to enter a new phase—a new place and to have a new understanding of God in their lives. This was his mission. Through his teaching and his life, he offered a different way; a different truth and a different life. This is still true today.The Journey of Discovering Who We Really AreThat’s what happens when any of us hear our true identity from God about who we really are. God told Jesus who he was. Today, that same Voice tells us our true identity—that we, too, are the beloved of God. Until we know this for ourselves, we will live into the lies of life that try to convince of us three lies:

  • I am what I do.
  • I am what I have.
  • I am what other people think of me.

These three lies form a web of sorts, that catches  and snares every person on the spiritual journey of life. By attaching our hearts to just one of those lies means that we will discover the sticky residue that each of those lies manifest in the human heart. Those lies accumulate untruth within us. These lies do great harm to our hearts. We will lean into our doing. We will acquire too much stuff and positions to prove we are really somebody. We will be co-dependent about our reasons of living is for what you will think of  me.God knows that there must be a powerful force to help us get free from such lies. These lies have wedged their way into me. They are in my story and I believe they are in your story as well. This web seems to be able to catch us off guard and in times when we thought we were “done” or “through” with that lesson or insight. For some of us, we keep on returning to re-learn the deeper truths of these same, timeless truths.Rather than beat ourselves up that we feel remedial or stupid or forever broken, we can also learn to be gentle with ourselves.  Being gentle in how we learn lessons in the spiritual life is key. There's been too much harshness imported in our teaching; too many loud voices screaming at us; too much information and too little love.What’s interesting here, is to note that the three temptations that Jesus faced in the wilderness are actually, the three temptations that Satan confronted him with. These temptations were about his identity, power and to do spectacular things in life that would hinge to his mission. But there’s more to this story.Does God push, force and drive us?Mark’s verse here tells us that the same Spirit that rested on the physical body of Jesus was now not resting but actually: “pushing,” “forcing” and “drove” Jesus out into the wilderness.  Read the verse again before you move on. We move too quickly sometimes in reading the Scriptures that we miss important insights that could actually help, free or heal us.   As you read the verse again note that these are the literal translations in the ESV, Message and Amplified versions of this verse. Jesus was pushed. He was forced. He was driven.Jesus was pushed. Jesus was forced and Jesus was driven by God’s Spirit. We may feel initially uneasy about the descriptor words about the power of the Spirit that Mark is offering us. We may prefer a softer, more gentle—way of the Spirit. But Mark uses real, tangible and powerful words to show us how God operates.  When I look at my own story; listen to hundreds of stories of modern day followers and read the ancient accounts of men and women, who through the centuries gave a written witness to their own spiritual journey here’s what I’ve discovered.There are times in our lives when we simply feel compelled, duty-bound, coerced, pressed or even forced to do something. This “feeling” that I want to attempt to describe is a sort of inner mandate that we simply “have to move,” “have to head in a whole other direction, have to step out in faith that somehow we just “know” what we have to do. I “ought” to do something and I know it and I cannot NOT do this thing that I feel so ought-driven to do.We have to simply go. We sense we have to leave. We must make a break.My Own Journey of Being PushedI have experienced several of these kinds of defining moments in my life. Allow me to share five of these times of feeling what Jesus must have felt:

  • When I first met Gwen at a party, I just “knew” that I would marry her. I did marry her. I felt compelled. I felt driven to pursue her with wild abandon. I am so glad I followed that inner sense of “oughtness.”
  • When I came to the realization that I was not a card-carry denominational man. That I had never been comfortable with my roots anchored in a particular way or system that defined me; shaped me and molded my thinking that was truly not me. I left the denomination. There was such a clear, distinct sense of “oughtness” rising up ---that I discovered I could NOT –not do what this sense of being driven to do was telling me. I remember feeling that really, I had no choice in this. I would live a lie unless I left. There are many implications to think through in regard to this in today’s world.
  • When I was preaching a sermon in the church that I led, I had a deep sense of feeling “pushed.” It was in the fourth Sunday worship service in a very large church and I had a sort of private, quick epiphany or panic attack perhaps which rose up with me and informed me saying “This is not you. This is not where you belong at all. I want you to get out.” I got out. I felt as if I was living in a smoke filled room and I could not breathe. I could not find my breath. I felt trapped. I felt like I was imploding or would implode if I did not “get out.” When I left, I began to breathe again and I came alive again—but in a different way than before. I felt really alive—like a sort of new birth.
  • When my first grandchild was born and the subsequent birth of all of my grands, I sensed this same urging rising up with me. “Seize this role, Steve. Rise up and be the spiritual influence this child needs. This is your role. These people are your true legacy.” I was flooded about my real role in life and my real legacy that would define me as a man. IT was powerful and life-altering. Much of my “repositioning” today is a result of the tectonic plates of my inner world shifting. I suspect many of you can identity in some way, shape or form.
  • I am having this same inner "pushing" right now as Gwen and I attempt to "reposition" our life and calling. We agree that we simply "must" do this for reasons we alone know and a deeper sense that this is right for us. We are not being pushed away or out.  It is an inner sense that we are recognizing as an invitation--not a commandment. We could ignore or suppress this. But at this stage of our lives, we feel a sense of "oughtness." We ought to do this and walk into a new chapter waiting on us.. a chapter off the 8-lane freeway of a busy ministry and to live the life we speak about, write about and want to live.

As you read my own accounts here, though brief and succinct, I wonder what may rise up with in you about having a similar sense of being “pushed” out to a whole new terrain—a brand new landscape that had your name on it and you did what we all have to do when this comes, we get up and enter this new place---that we don’t even know the real name of yet.The Wilderness We All Must Enter in LifeThis brings me to Mark’s words again of this place where Jesus was pushed to go. It’s called—wilderness. I once heard Eugene Peterson, Dallas Willard and Richard Foster state in unison and with one voice that “wilderness” is the predominate metaphor of the spiritual life. I remember a visceral reaction when what these three spiritual magnates were really telling me. I didn't like this lesson and what's more I resented them saying such a thing. But in time, I have come to agree. I believe what they shared is really true. I, along with each one of you, would need to embrace the idea and concept of wilderness to understand the spiritual journey. We would need to go into wilderness and let wilderness do what wilderness does to the soul.In wilderness, we are stripped down. We have to face our illusions that we may have long held to be true and right. We have to let the long days and lonely nights of wilderness begin to de-construct belief systems, rigid box like thinking and false narratives that we have clung to—thinking them to be really true—only to have our boxes fall apart. Things fall apart in the wilderness. Perhaps this is their God intended purpose.. We let go of things, hard-held beliefs and even convictions handed down to us by parents, political parties and denominations. We are stripped. We have to come to terms with a whole other reality that we discover and are, in fact, discovered by in wilderness times.Ask someone what they learned after their spouse died and a wilderness happened? Ask a corporate woman what they experienced after being fired from a highly esteemed job—a wilderness. Ask anyone who has failed at something they really wanted to accomplish in life. Ask anyone who has divorced a spouse having clung for so long that divorce would never be an option. Ask anyone who has lost a child. Ask anyone who as trekked into a wilderness uninvited, unwelcomed and unwanted. Ask anyone who has transitioned to another country and had to endure that long, lonely season of having no friend, no family; no church, no community and who has left all the food, people and place that comfort gives. We don't have to look far around or far within to find that wilderness is actually everywhere. As Paul says, we are always carrying the death of Jesus within us--even while we are living. Strange isn't it?  Not really.  Let me explain a bit more.Jesus was driven into a wilderness. And from this verse if we say we want to be followers of Jesus, we must embrace our own sense of being driven into wilderness times where we give up security, all that we know to be true and enter a deep, dark time of testing. It is the way of God for such times. Jesus could avoid it and never can we. We can’t go around a wilderness. WE can’t go over a wilderness. We can’t go under a wilderness. We all, just like Jesus, have to go through a wilderness.The movement of the spiritual life is moving and living; then moving into a wilderness--then emerging into a sort of "promised land".  This is the classical understanding of the spiritual life and it is really hinted at, if not explained here by Mark.Facing the Wild Animals WithinMark reminds us that the first things to show up in Jesus’ wilderness times were the wild animals. I recently read a study showing that in 1st century Israel there really were no really “wild” animals. There were no loose and wild lions seeking to devour people. There were no bears. So what kind of “wild”animals was Mark referring to that confronted Jesus? A wild dog? Maybe. A herd of wild boars? Maybe. I’m not sure actually.But what I know is this. The wild animals that always seem to assault me are the inner ones. Voices of shame. Lamenting voices speaking about my failures. Wild voices that are self-condemning and always self-critiquing. They are always trying to literally pull me apart from the inside. It is these voices that always seem to show up for the hundreds of people I listen to when they are alone, hungry, afraid and tired from the journey of life. These wild voices seem to fall into one of three categories jeering us about what we have done; what we really want in life; and what will really satisfy us in life. Right here, in one of these three wild voices, we will be confronted with what we truly believe and about what is really true.It’s in these dark wilderness times that we make inner resolves about how we will stand in the face of such wild voices. This is what Jesus did. He resolved in each jeering taunt the truth that he knew and the truth that would compel him forward and out of the wilderness.In the contemplative life, we are offered a beautiful lesson. Those who want to live a life marked by inner peace and a sense of shalom are not immediately granted the fruits. It takes time---and I read this week a year of learning to transition is not too long to think about when we are leaving one place on our journey and entering a new one.  I can tell you that in my own journey and understanding, I have had to embrace the fact that my journey is taking a whole lot longer than I thought and even wanted. I must simply walk through some wildernesses to understand some of the fruit of the life I am hoping to cultivate. It takes time.Finally, Mark reminds us that after—and only after, he had gone into the wilderness and faced the wild beasts and even Satan himself—that Jesus would find comfort.  Comfort comes--that  is the good news for us. But it is in the wilderness that we find the comfort we actually want.Friends, these are important words that can encourage us right now in whatever desert we are living in or through. There is comfort. Mark tells us that the “angels attended him.” Other translations tell us that Jesus was cared for. Jesus was "ministered to"…that the angels "continually ministered to Jesus."  Think about this.  Comfort came and does come to us as well.As we move through our own wilderness times, there comes a sense that we are not alone; that we are not forsaken; that we are not in this by ourselves. We get to experience—and yes, the word I’m saying here is “experience” the loving comfort of the love of God. Perhaps this is what Paul had in mind when he says he literally “prayed” that we would experience a sense deep within us of God’s love. This kind of comfort, Paul explains “surpasses our understanding” (Ephesians 3:19). This is the kind of individual and personal ministry that God is about. This kind of beautiful, specific and unique comfort is what really defines the heart of God. It is the kind of love that we, my dear brothers and sisters are invited to taste as the beloved children of God. This is the kind of love and experience that actually defines the kind of God we love and serve today.At Potter’s Inn, Gwen and I have walked with many people who come to us in their defined time of wilderness. They are tired, worn out and beaten up by many things in life—including religion. But what we are witnesses to, is this: As they walk through their wilderness times---wilderness of their own vocational journey; wilderness times of feeling like mis-fits in church; wilderness times of being so worn down that they feel ‘dead on arrival’—that comfort comes. Peace is fostered. Inner contentment is realized. It’s uncanny and it’s true.I hope that this may encourage you in what ever circumstance you find yourselves in and that when you feel that are you are being ushered out and into a wilderness that you may remember Mark’s powerful, singular verse and may this one verse bring great hope to us all in a time of political, relational, ecclesiastical, vocational, or physical wilderness that we will have to walk through.If you’re in a wilderness defined by disease or diagnosis: take heed.If you are in a vocational wilderness and are living in the land of in-between, take heed.If you are a liminal space—a space of wilderness defined by geography, emotion or relationship, or even a spiritual wilderness-- take heed.There is movement. Trust the movement. Trust that comfort is on His way!

Re-Thinking Our Capacity

 endofropeThere is an ever growing thinness to the souls of people I encounter.  Besides the fact that we are busy, over-committed and manage rivaling priorities, is this fitting diagnosis:  we’re tired, worn out; teeter tottering on burn out; always recovering from some one, some thing or some event. There’s never enough margin to make like work as we secretly think it should. We have resigned our lives to attempting to survive successfully—whatever that means. To survive successfully seems to be enough admist the ever present voices that we will all have to do more to barely survive and we can forget about thriving. The word, "thriving" can go the way of the dinosaur, VHS tape and family dinners.Underneath our malaise is a gnawing sense of never feeling as if we have enough capacity. We are made to feel in most situations we find ourselves—be it church, work, community involvement, raising children, caring for aging parents and in marriage that we need to be doing more.So from an early age until this very moment we find ourselves on a hunt for more and doing more while neglecting a deeper, more soulful discussion about our understanding of capacity.Organizations, business, churches and non-profits seem to categorize us into silos where we are rated according to our abilities, performance and aptitude. Some of us are told we are “high capacity” leaders. While others are “mid-level.” Some have given us colors, symbols or animals to understand our place in the order of things. We are the color: orange, assigned a number like “5” to help us aspire to become a 7 or another number we are told is better than the one we are at present. We could be a roaring lion or an playful otter. But it doesn’t matter what color you are or what animal others perceive you to be if you’re always left with a suspicion that to move up; we must always be doing more. To do more and be more becomes the stressful cadence of how we do our everyday lives. And in the living of our over-committed lives, our humanity leaks from us as air from a red ballon with a  slow, steady leak. One of the reasons that we leak so much is that we have not understood our capacity.When we begin to re-think our capacity, we find a new and life-giving platform upon which we can stand; build our lives and live with a sense of inner satisfaction marked by words such as peace, joy and well-being.Re-thinking our capacity involves several aspects of re-thinking our lives and how we see other people. It's not just about how much MORE work can we do? It's about being human and keeping our humanity in tact so we do not morph into working machines giving off fumes of burned out oil in the already polluted world we are living in at this moment.

  • Understanding our limits. If we adopt the idea that our calendars do not need to dictate our capacity we will then begin to understand our limits and our capacity. To live well means that we need space between our meetings, conferences, presentations and sessions to reflect, ponder and gain the meaning we can for ourselves. We are not helping machines. But we can become shaped to feel as if we are a mere cog in the wheel when we do not learn to schedule space between our meetings, intense conversations and crammed schedules. I blogged about understanding our limits earlier and discussed it in my book, INSIDE JOB.
  • Be present with who are you are present with. When we are emotionally distant and vacant, we may have left the building and the room in which we are meeting someone--perhaps someone very important to us. Our body is there but are hearts are somewhere else.  I explored having a father who was emotionally distant from me at breakfast in my childhood in THE LAZARUS LIFE. We shared cereal together but not much else. I coined the phrase, "the cereal stare" to give words to that terrible gap between our chairs at the table and our hearts inside. Capacity means having the ability to be present—to be engage—to be focused with one’s heart and attention. When we are over our capacity, we see people like things and conversations like work. We can work, live and make love in a trance while missing out on the real, live encounter with the person who is sitting across from us or lying next to us in bed. To be present means being available—all of us being available to the person we are working with, engaged in a meaningful relationship or caring for in some degree.
  • Being Aware. When I book meetings close together; when I meet back-to-back to make “more happen” than it probably should, I lose my awareness of what I’m doing in the meeting and lose my perspective on who it is I’m actually talking with. Being aware requires taking a few moments to breath; to think and pray, “God let me be aware of what is about to happen. Keep me in sync with my own heart, reactions, gifts and ability to love this person.” To lose sight of who it is we are with is to lose the capacity to be real, authentic and to be fully human. We lose our humanity when we try to do more and more with less and less time. Our losing our humanity begins with losing our own awareness of ourselves and the dignity each human being offers us in any kind of meeting or situation we find ourselves. In short, our availability does not equal our capacity. We may give someone the time they are asking for but we are not really there with them. Our body may be present but our mind is off in a distant, far off land and we are offering them a shell of ourselves. We all have old ways, patterns and addictions about the nicks, wounds and bruises of sharing life with someone who was not present or aware. But there is recovery for all of us and all recover begins with this first step: being aware of my real condition and the real people around me.
  • Extending Hospitality. Extending hospitality is as simple as taking the time to really see they person coming to you for what they really are: a seeker; a person trying to make life work as we are as well; and that every person who we meet with is really the invitation to experience the Presence of God in them. Years ago, I went to meet a famous monk who I had gotten to know through his writings. I was so intent on meeting him and what I would say, that when I went to the monastery, I didn’t even realize it was the monk who I wanted to meet that actually opened the door for me to enter the monastery. He greeted me so warmly; embraced me and offered me a refreshment. All the while I was wondering how it could be that I would meet the famous Monk—Richard Rohr. When I asked in the bookstore if I could meet him, another brother- monk smiled and said, “You already met him. That was Father Rohr who greeted you at the door.” I was embarrassed and ashamed. When we are so intent on doing our work; accomplishing our tasks and checking off our lists, we can miss Someone in everyone. Extending hospitality is one of pillars of some businesses and ministries; while others are consumed with services, events and the next thing. We think of hospitality in the wrong way when we think of dinner parties and entertaining. Extending the incarnational love of God through our own presence and reactions to others is true care and true love.

 Our capacity is more than what we can ascertain in books and seminars about doing more and moving from being good to great. Our capacity is learning what it means to be human; to recover our humanity in a rat-race world marked with moving ladders of success and accomplishment.Our capacity is found in re-thinking what kind of people we have become and reclaiming a notion of the kind of people we want to become.

A New Year and Another New Beginning

stevegwenwagonA New Year means a new beginning! We get many opportunities to get things right in life. The timeless truth of the ancient image of the potter at work on the wheel reveals an all important truth for us! The potter’s wheel turns many, many times giving the potter time after time to get the pot right. We never just have one chance; one opportunity when we think of our new year this important way. The beginning of a new year gives us all the choice to get something right that has been, well…not right, for perhaps a long, long time. When we think this way, it is really grace for us. We give up the weight of having to try and to try harder. We simply begin and we learn to begin again.Here are five suggestions that I hope will give you some perspective to think through about your life and your future. Each of these suggestions will take practice; beginning again and again to get it right and this one most especially: grace---please choose to extend grace to yourself as you begin again. Think these through. Print this out and consider reading it with a friend over a meal or with your family. See what other ideas along with my ideas will spark in your and in your conversation. Here are my five suggestions for our new year ahead:1. Work smarter, not harder. Learning to work smarter takes into account:a.Your capacity—It’s not just how much can you do but how much SHOULD you do? Our true capacity is not really a measurement of if we are “high capacity people” or not. It is more sacred than that very corporate way of measuring people. It is about learning to keep our humanity in tact. That means giving up the myth that we “should” and “have to” always be doing more. To preserve our humanity and healthy relationships, we may need to learn to do less-but to actually do what we do better.b.Your margin—We need to think in terms of this focused question—Is my life—at the rate I am currently living—sustainable? When we include having margin in our life, it means not giving all we have; all the time to everyone around us. It means reserving time, energy and space—our every hearts for those we love and truly care for in this life right now—not later.c.Your boundaries—Are you saying “Yes” to the wrong people in your life? What would it mean to learn to say “Yes” to yourself and “No” to others? Sometimes, we have to learn to say “No”to others in order that we can say “Yes” to those we love—which includes ourselves and my friends, this is NEVER a selfish act. Never!2.Right size your life! We’ve all heard the expression “down size.” Companies down size. But sometimes, there is resistance to thinking of down-sizing when it comes to our personal life or church or a ministry. Let's learn to think of things with a new term: RIGHT SIZING! What would your life look like if you live this next year “right sizing your life?” What would you need to stop doing? What do you want to start doing? This is an expression that Gwen and I are embracing as we contemplate the future of our own work and our short time left to do this work. We want to give up illusions of expanding and rather, embrace living life that feels right, is right and treats us right as well as other people!3. Live with the End in mind. Most of us live with an illusion that we will outlive death—perhaps even escape it. But living wisely means to live each day with your own end in mind and that does not mean retirement. It means the end of your physical life on this planet. Benedictine Spirituality, which has greatly impacted our life and work says, “Keep death always in front of you.” If we do this, we will not live with regrets. We will grow in our appreciation of people—not things and embrace an eternal perspective in life not just focused on the here; the immediate and the urgent. I sit with a person each month who is a Benedictine Monk. As I sit and process where I am on my own journey, I see behind them--hung on the wall--a picture, an iconic image of my own spiritual director lying on the floor with a funeral pall draped over their entire body. It is a sobering reminder for me each month as I sit talking about my life to live with my own end in mind. It's a humbling yet healthy realization to embrace in our Facebook lives where we offer illusions of happiness, fun and out of proportion pictures which tell us that we are missing out; we better hurry up and do what they are doing to really live. When I processed this picture with my spiritual director, I am reminded that the Benedictines make a vow to "live every day with death in mind." It's a vow that helps keep them grounded and humble. What would it be like if in our marriages, friendships and work, we did the same to remember how fragile, brief and fleeting life is?4. Live this next year in a sustainable rhythm. How can you show mercy to yourself after a stressful day? By far, the #1 violation of people’s lives is simply this: We are living too fast; doing too much and have stripped the gears of our soul where there is nothing left but 5th gear and reverse. A sustainable rhythm has it’s foundations in the very heart and work of God. God worked six days but left one whole and complete day for rest. By embracing a cadence of life where we learn to rest and give up the illusion and false notion that says: Our life is up to us. Our work is up to us. The well being of other people is up to us. These are all fabricated lies that attach themselves to our hearts and literally squeeze the life out of us—robbing us of true life itself. In our work with thousands of leaders in the marketplace and ministry, the violation of living in a sustainable rhythm is rampant, destruction and dangerous. It is why there is so much exhaustion in people’s lives, marriages, relationships and souls.5. Live with your Soul in mind this next year! When we learn to live with our soul in mind, we will embrace the notion of caring for our souls. We are not machines. We are an integrated, cohesive and unified creation. We are wonderfully and fearfully made. So when we live with the soul in mind, we understand that stress, busyness and living in the fast lane will not only make us tired. It will make us sick. It will suck the life out from us. When we live with the soul in mind, we will live whole and holy lives—experiencing a deep sense of satisfaction, contentment and happiness. These are things that we cannot buy—cannot manufacture and cannot barter for. Contentment is an inside job which involves careful attention, nourishment and cultivation. When the Apostle Paul said, “I have learned the secret of being content…” he wrote those words while chained to a wall of a prison. What Paul learned, we can learn.Friends, a New Year provides the opportunity for us to give attention to our very lives. I trust these five suggestions will give you fodder for the fire of transformation this next year and throughout our lives.--------------------------------------------------------------If you've not yet been able to give an important Year End gift to help sustain the work and ministry of Potter's Inn, please consider doing so. A deep thanks for those of you who have already done so!If you'd like to begin the really important work of partnering with us by a much needed monthly gift, then here is the link to set up your one time or monthly gift in an easy, safe and secure manner.Here's the link: < Donate To Potter's Inn for One Time Year End or Monthly

Letting Go: Why it's hard and Why we all have to learn to do it

dandelionEver since we were born, we knew we had to grab, hold and cling. From our mother’s breast; to clinching our toys that we enjoyed, we all learned to hold on to what mattered to us. We all learned to hold on to what we thought would give us life--what did give us life.  As we grew and matured, our sense of holding, clutching, and grabbing did not seem to develop. It seems to be something we all do to survive—or at least we are shaped to think we must cling to live.We held on to our positions.   We clutched possessions. We did not let go of unhealthy relationships. We hoarded experiences. We amassed a lot of stuff. Yes, we’ve got the holding on to thing quite down.Through life and in life, we learn that-- [tweetthis]The key lesson all of us will learn is this: We will all learn that we have to let go.[/tweetthis]Parents let go of their first grade child feeling that life has somehow shifted when school began. The memory of me taking my first born son to university and dropping him off is forever etched in my memory bank. I vividly remember holding back my tears as we made trip after trip to the car taking what he was holding on to—what he felt was necessary to clutch as a freshman. When the last load was delivered the deathly sense of dread overwhelmed me. I said to my son, “Blake, I need to get out of here. Let’s make this quick.” We hugged. I kissed his forehead and we waved. That was it—until I closed the door of my car to drive off. Then the tears came. Not just a tear mind you but deep waves of rolling emotion that I had so far successfully manged to keep down, deep inside. I let go of my son and to be honest in that moment of letting go—nothing has been the same. That rite of passage became a season of transformation that changed him and changed me.We let go of our health. An accident might take a limb. A disease my take a lung. A cancer cell my have lodged in a vital organ. A hip or some other piece of us might break and need to be laid aside.Every letting go is a letting go of some part of us that is necessary to let go of in light of the next step on the journey.I’ve seen people hold on to their status and position and use every principle available to tightly grip what seems to have given them significance in their life. I’ve seen pastors hold on too long. I’ve seen CEO’s hold on too long. It takes a lot of inner work for someone to let a position go that has defined them; shaped others and provided for them in life. Some of us may hold on too long. We can’t let go. I’ve seen this played out with powerful executives who try to retire and then put their power at work in Home Owner’s Association. It happens all the time. I’ve sat with women who have lost their possessions in a fire or learning that all their possessions were lost at sea due to storage unit falling off a tanker in the Atlantic Ocean. What seems devastating to us at the time of such a loss helps us realize what is really important in this life and the next. We learn this if we are curious, open and as we learn to hold lightly what needs to be held lightly and to hold tightly what needs to really be held on to in life.If we live long enough, life reveals to us that we can’t take anything with us as we pass through the doorway into the Kingdom that awaits us. At that door—the door of death—we lay down everything—even and including our final breath. The Hebrew word for breath is “ruah.” It is the breath God gives to us when our butts are smacked by a doctor to make us cry—to breath. In the end---and for some of us, our end seems far, far too abrupt and sudden—our breath is laid down. It is given back.When I turned 60, I was struck like a slap in my face that my time was going to be short on this planet. Before that particular birthday, I never gave much thought to my life line. But somehow that day marked much of my thinking now about how I need to live my life now; what I need to let go of and how to live lightly and freely for the time I have remaining on this planet.I am learning at 62 that evey act of letting go is really this---it is practice for me to learn to let go of everything until eventually I will have to—need to and want to—lay down and give back to God the “ruah” he gave me in the first place. For me to learn this lesson, I’ve had deep spiritual conversations with a wise, sage 10 years my senior, whom I go to for monthly conversations about what I’m really thinking and what is really consuming my head these days. Those conversations are now like cairns which are marking my trail and the trail behind me of how to lay down much in life as I continue my long obedience in the same direction. I have had to lay down this big thought: I can’t do this by myself. I am not wise enough. I need help. By laying down my independence, I am finding a new freedom that I simply am enjoying.I have had to practice this letting go thing recently with a possession I valued so incredibly much. I lost my journal. I kept my journal in a gray backpack and took it everywhere. In that journal, I recorded my thoughts—my inner world markings that were etched on my soul. I wrote about my grandson’s death. I wrote about my marriage with Gwen and the biggest fight we ever had two years ago. I wrote the outline for a book that I felt God had given me a new message to write about. It was lost. I felt lost. I had to let go.It’s interesting that I as I was lamenting over this most recent loss and my efforts to let go of it and to lay it down, my journal showed up. The story of how it showed up is another story. But suffice it to say, I remain happy and thrilled to have back what I thought was so important to me. Sometimes, this happens. We seem to get back or to be given what seemed lost. This happened to the father in Jesus story of the prodigal son. The father got back one son---yet in some ways he lost the son that had been sort of with him all along.There are many levels of letting go. Letting go is probably rooted in each of us at a cellular level. Attachments form early in our life and for some of us we never really quite seem to work through being hooked by what doesn’t really matter at all in life. This letting go thing is deeply rooted in the Christian faith. God let go of his only son. The son let’s go of his closest associates and friends. All of life, when properly understood is deeply grounded in this birth, death and resurrection—this life, laying down and finding what really matters through life revelations.Here are some practices that might help you let go and begin and continue to let go in life. 

  1. Hold every thing lightly in life. Things are things and all things can be replaced. When things grip our hearts, we find we have too much clutter but inside and outside.
  2. Hold the people you love and value tightly. When people die, no one ever asks to hold an antique; an heirloom; a book or checkbook. When we pass into our next home, we want someone’s hand. We all want to be held at life’s most defining moments. That hug, embrace, kiss seems to mark those times as sacred because people are sacred—things are not.
  3. Become curious about your attachments. What would you grab in case of a fire and run out into the streets with so thankful you saved this thing from loss or destruction. Who are the six people that will carry your casket to the final resting place? Who matters most in life to you and why?
  4. Embrace letting go as a new spiritual discipline. The new book Essentialism has helped me think this through though a Bible verse or Jesus is never mentioned in the pages, it is filled with a challenge our generation needs to hear. Some of us need to let go of the boxes of our faith to experiences in life that is beyond our  boxes, we have constructed doctrinal statements we have written and more.
  5. Mark times of letting go with words, rituals and ceremonies. Find songs, poems, pictures and rituals that help you know—without words—what is really happening inside of you---inside of “us.”

6 Ways of Coping with Sadness

I found it disturbing that when I "googled" for an image of tears, there is not one image of a man crying.There’s nothing wrong with feeling sad. Sadness can become a real barometer to help us cope with the harsh realities of life. When we pay attention to our own sadness, we can find issues that are below the waterline that will help us; inform us; teach us and comfort us. Sadness is really a necessary place we humans must experience. To attempt to avoid sadness is to avoid the full dimension of being human. Pills can medicate us; drugs can calm us but the real feelings of sadness mark us as normal people in a "amped up" culture. To deny sadness, is to believe the lie that happiness can be lived out all of the time by all of the people.  The truth is this: there are many things that happen in life that should make us sad and need to make us sad.  Suffering. Tragedy. Loss. Failure. Moral collapse and many more realities all contribute to some ones emotional and spiritual equilibrium.The Christian culture in particular is often in-ept to help people cope with sadness.  Churches can "whoop it up for Jesus" in worship and never equip people to actually know how to lament--and to know there is an entire book of the Bible named, "Lamentations". True worship needs both dimensions of the human experience.  True spiritual health embraces sadness and I hope we can better equip the folks within the church to learn better how to cope. In my thinking, this is true discipleship--as much as memorizing Scripture or studying Romans.When you read the Psalms, you do not find that the Psalmist every avoided or denied his own feeling of being sad sometimes. The sad Psalms are juxtaposed to the bright and happy God poems. Both are important. Both are vital to our human experience. Both are necessary.When we examine the life of Jesus, we also see someone who embraces sadness as normal. He cried when his dear friend, Lazarus died. He felt lonely. He experienced rejection. He went through disappointment. He was not the eternal optimist. He spoke of dark endings and tribulations. He held the sad with the courageous feelings in his own heart.In my work with people who work in the marketplace and ministry, I hear many sad stories. Marriage woes. Vocational wilderness. Prodigal children. Failure both morally and professionally. Sin. Entrapment. The death of dreams and more.  Gwen and I are coached in our work by those more trained and seasoned than we are. One of our mentors, a Christian psychiatrist told us, a few years back, “You two have grossly underestimated the residual effect of listening to so many sad stories.” He went on to explain that the soul is like a sponge that can absorb the emotions the soul sits in. He helped us develop a plan to deal with the sadness we hear and the sadness we experience in our own life.As we began to deal with our own sad hearts, we've found some helpful things we try to practice on a daily basis. I’m thinking these will encourage you as well.Here are 6 ways of working with sadness:

  1. Walk every day. Danish theologian, Soren Kiekrkegarrd wrote, “Above all, do not lose you desire to walk. Every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it.” I’ve found this to be absolutely true. In our modern world, we move fast and quick. Walking steps every single day is medicinal. But walking is a very basic form of coping with  sadness that forms a rhythm and cadence for the body and brain. Step by step, we walk away from issues and in that cadence we find ourselves greatly helped. It’s beneficial physically, spiritually and emotionally. These days, I’m trying to walk 10,000 steps each day and it’s helping me in every way imaginable. My doctor agrees and so does my blood pressure. I unpack this more in Embracing Soul Care in a chapter called, "Walking with God."

 

  1. Use the ancient practice of the Daily Examen. This is a simple and brief exercise done each day where you think back on your day to examine where you saw the fingerprint of God in our day and encounter. You ask yourself two basic questions: Where in my day did I experience the beautiful? This question causes you to evaluate your encounters with people and events to trace some form of consolation, comfort and Divine in your day. The second question is the opposite. Ask yourself, “Where did you experience the brutal?” The brutal is those places of desolation, darkness and discomfort. Don’t unpack them. Just acknowledge your feelings and impressions. Gwen and I do this every single night. It’s our way of connecting; sharing with each other our inner world impressions and really trying to practice what we call “deep listening” with each other. Ignatius said if a person practiced the Daily Examen for three months—their life would be changed forever. I agree. It makes us more sensitive to the movements of God in our life and our reaction, reflection and acknowledgement of our own feelings. Do this as a family—no matter what age your kids are. Do this in our marriage or with friends. I explain the Daily Examen more in The Jesus Life.

 

  1. Read the Psalms. I remember the day Dallas Willard told me, “We need to read the Psalms every day because the Psalms were the prayer book of Jesus—the only prayer book he ever had.” The Psalms document the wide range of human feelings, divine encounters and our human dilemma. They do not deny the normal, everyday feelings that a human being will experience in the journey of life. They give words to the unutterable feelings we have inside and we find in reading them that we are not alone. I use the Daily Office as a way to read the Psalms. This way, I do not have to choose what to read. The Psalms are chosen for me and in reading them, I am connecting my own life to the long lineage of men and women across time spans and countries that are also practicing reading what I am reading. I am connected. I am not alone. It helps. It simply helps.

 

  1. Share the Sadness. Community is the place where we walk with those who weep or at least try to listen empathetically. Community is not the place where we tell the good and deny the hard. It is a place where we sit and share the realities of this life. We do not try to fix someone’s sadness. We refrain from giving advice. We do not attempt to teach them the way out of their black hole. The number one reason that so much community is pseudo is this: We do not know how to really listen. We are already forming our response as someone else is unpacking their dark night of the soul. Being a companion literally means to enter into the begging posture with someone else. I try to give an honest assessment of the difficulty of being in and living with community in The Jesus Life in a whole chapter and also in Soul Custody.

 

  1. Fix your mind on a greater perspective every single day. The apostle Paul, shared with us to do this exercise.  Warning: do not read this fast. Sit with each phrase and see what speaks to you.

 

“ Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life. Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies" Philippians 4:6-9 MSG.

Paul says to fill our minds with thoughts that help counter all the hard things we have heard and experienced in life each day. When we read Paul’s encouragement, we must remember he wrote these very words while chained to a wall in a Roman prison house. He knew this helped him. He knew it would help us. 6.  Keep your work your work.  By establishing a high boundary, I'm finding that I can keep my work at work and then live my life without bringing the sad stories home.  When we are home, our challenge is this: we work together and live together, so a high, high boundary has been absolutely essential to help us keep our work our work and not dwell in our work or with our work when we are home.  However, when our friends are in peril or our kids--then we find ourselves in peril with them. I think that is normal and keeping the high boundary becomes a very real challenge. In the end, we turn our friends and family over to the hands of God---we cannot hold them as God does. As we come to realize this, we lessen our grasp on the problems and seek to be held in the very hands of God we have come to trust. To feel sad it to feel more like Jesus than to deny our God-given feelings. We honor our heart when we give ourselves permission to be human.

The Prescription for our Dis-ease

prescriptionIn today’s fast moving world, there is a “dis-ease” within us: hurry sickness, being always on and always available; competing demands and being over-committed. We’re tired, worn out and burned out on religion. We struggle to care for others and while abandoning our own health.[tweetthis]The antidote to our “dis-ease”—is soul care. We are not without hope—no matter how fragile the ice is that we are dancing upon at the present moment.[/tweetthis] Learning to care for our soul is not only our cure but it is our hope. The English word, “care” gets its meaning from the Latin word “cura” which means—cure. As we care for our souls, we find the cure—the healing, balm and salve our souls so need. The pressure we live under; the cult of speed, our busyness and inability to really know how to rest all converge in a crisis that is now rampant both in the church and outside the walls of the church in the marketplace.  To realize that there is hope--is to realize that each of us have an opportunity to re-do our lives and to live the soul in mind.Soul Care requires a paradigm shift of how we look at life; what we believe really matters in life; and how to care for what really matters. Earlier in our lives, many of us were intoxicated with the belief that what mattered in this life was: power, position, significance and success. This dangerous cocktail became the drink of choice for many—including myself. We lived in a stupor trying to make sense of a life marked by striving, fast-paced living and busyness. When I look back upon my 30’s and early 40’s, I see I was intoxicated—drunk on this way of looking at life. We raise our children; do our lives in a culture shaped by a shallow way of life. The ripple effect of living in a stupor is huge! But in my case and in the case of so many others, God has a way of waking us up through some sort of crisis—some form of the rug being pulled out from under us: health crisis; being fired, a child in crisis, marriage woes, an affair or sweating at 3am and not knowing what our inner panic is all about. We awake from our stupor and the find that the tectonic plates of our world have shifted.What begins to matter is our soul…our meaning of life—our purpose—our well-being.  In addition to our own wake up and soul care challenge, we begin to really WANT this for those around us. This awakening is a growing awareness that our souls really do matter. The soul of our marriage; the soul of our children; the soul of our friends begins to take on new meaning. This, my friends is a Divine Invitation to begin to care for what really matters in life—to care for our souls. As we begin to care for our souls, we begin to live the healing. Read that sentence again: As we begin to care for our souls, we begin to live the healing. That’s right—we live our own healing. We begin to participate in our own transformation.We live the healing and cure our “dis-ease” when we embrace our souls and understand our souls. I was late to this realization. Earlier in my work, life was about my work; accomplishments, growth and so much more. Now, I am asking myself: Where did all that inner drive really come from? From a good place—or an unhealthy place? In my case, much of my drive was unharnessed—unredeemed—full out unbridled passion which resulted in way too much space in my marriage; what too much disconnect in my body—because I drove my body rather than cared for the physical address of my soul—which is what our bodies actually are.Soul Care begins with what I call a “dip stick” test. When you check the oil levels in your car, we pull out the dip stick and that stick actually reveals what is happening inside. My problem, like so many of you may be, that I never really knew I could do a “dip-stick” test on my soul. I had to learn to ask this one question: How am I doing WITH WHAT I am doing? I could quickly tell people what I was up to, but I did not have the self awareness to reflect on what was happening inside of me as I was going about my 90 mile an hour life. Soul Care begins with this question. Ask yourself, “How am I doing with what I am doing?” and you’ll find yourself slowing waking from a sleepy existence—an intoxication—that many of us have to go through some form or de-tox in order to re-gain what we have lost—our souls.I hope you'll consider joining Gwen and I in a way to care for our souls. We've just completed a brand neFB Ad-Promo Soul Care 101w way to learn about soul care. It's called: Soul Care 101. It's a series of 8 conversations that we filmed at our retreat in Colorado.  We're providing the notes to our talks and a study guide where you can dig in and learn more about what we call the great themes of caring for your soul.  Soul Care 101 will be available in three exciting ways: 1) DVD's where you can watch as you can; when you can, wherever you are and learn.  2) Streaming from the Web--from anywhere in the world  3) An online class which will be limited to 25 people beginning in September 2016.  Stay tuned for more information and the actual release of this new and exciting way to learn.