Stillpoint Family Resources

JoePa's final lesson: The virtue of reason

2012-01-27T16:04:00.000-08:00

"Those who will not reason are bigots, those who cannot are fools, and those who dare not are slaves.”
-Lord Byron

Joe Paterno, beloved Hall of Fame football coach of Penn State University for 46 seasons and a living legend, died Sunday at the age of 85. He now rests in peace, but peace is the last thing those in the community that loved him best are experiencing.

This is odd to be saying about a man who had a remarkable record of success in most every way. “JoePa” was the all-time winningest coach in major college football, graduated an impressively high 78% of his players, and won multiple national championships. More importantly he was a family man (married for just short of fifty years, with five children and 17 grandchildren) and an exceptional mentor. He was also extraordinarily philanthropic, community minded, and a model example of how to run a major football program with integrity.

Which made the horrific revelations about child sexual abuse going on within his staff almost inconceivable.

In 2002, Paterno was told that one of his assistant coaches had allegedly sexually molested a young boy on the campus. At that time Paterno immediately fulfilled his legal duty by reporting what he had been told to his superiors. And then he went back to business as usual and apparently never addressed the issue again.

When the case finally went public three months ago and the university exploded in controversy, the Board of Trustees rightly concluded that Paterno could have, should have, done more. He should have been more assertive in pursuing the truth, in confronting the alleged molester, and in recognizing that protecting the innocent was the best way to protect the football program.

Although the investigation has not implicated him in any personal wrong-doing, Paterno’s disturbingly passive approach to the reported evil that went on behind his back cannot be excused, regardless of his age, his cultural background, or his lack of specific knowledge. He knew enough to have done more, and he admitted as much before his death.

Now the struggle to understand Joe Paterno’s complicated legacy is already stirring heated debate. And with any heated debate you have extremes; “pro-Joe” or “anti-Joe,” with very little in-between.

Enter the virtue of reason.

Reason is the ability to think calmly, deeply, and well; to take an issue and explore it from different angles while avoiding the mistake of drawing premature conclusions.

Reason helps us take our emotions, understand what they’re telling us, and then use them in a greater pursuit of objective truth.

Reason guides us in gathering and sorting through the relevant facts.

Reason is the process that leads to an increasingly complete understanding of the whole story.

Reason is an essential part of being human.

But reason is too often in short supply, particularly during times of great crisis, and pain, and fear, and anger because reason takes mental discipline, and moral courage, and a willingness to seek the middle way of integrity. His remarkable record of success notwithstanding, Joe Paterno failed to practice the virtue of reason when it came to confronting child sexual abuse. He serves as a case study.

But what people do with this coaching icon who in the final three months of his life became a tragic hero will be even more instructive. Some will want to airbrush and deny, while others will want to crucify and dismiss. However those who practice the virtue of reason will resist the temptation to veer toward one extreme or the other. They will choose instead to explore the complexities of the man and his legacy, and begin to draw valuable insights from this moral confusion.

And once more it will be shown that good really can come from anything.

Question for reflection: Do you think deeply and carefully?

Humming along: The virtue of perseverance

2012-01-20T15:37:00.000-08:00

“Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.”
-Samuel Johnson

Dr. Wangari Muta Maathai was a force of nature. In her seventy-one remarkable years she was a champion of women’s rights (especially in her native Kenya), was a notable environmentalist, and even served as a member of parliament and assistant minister for environment and natural resources. Along the way, her husband divorced her because she was “too strong-minded for a woman" and he was thus "unable to control her". My hunch is that she said thank you!

In 2004 Maathai became the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

Wangari Muta Maathai had to fight for virtually everything she had, and suffered many losses. But she was never defeated! Not long before her death, she told a simple story that seemed to capture the spirit of her life, and the essence of perseverance. It goes something like this…

A large forest fire raged out of control, and all the animals were overwhelmed by its power. As it consumed more and more of their home all they could do was watch, frozen by fear and feelings of powerlessness. Only the hummingbird could respond. He was intent on doing something, anything to make a difference. So, with his little wings he quickly flew to the nearest watering hole and filled his tiny beak with water, flew back to the edge of the fire and dropped the water he’d been able to carry. Again and again he flew back and forth. After a little while, the larger animals said to him, “What do you think you can do with your little wings and little beak?” Not stopping to defend himself or his actions he answered as he passed them, “I can do the best I can.”

Could the hummingbird put out the fire by himself? Of course not. But he could do the best he could with what he had, and keep doing it, regardless of what the conventional wisdom had to say, regardless of the overwhelming odds, regardless of the fact that he worked alone. And could any of us hope to do more that that?

The virtue of perseverance is about having meaningful goals, and continuing to strive to achieve those goals in spite of difficulties. What is meaningful? Anything that helps you or others develop good habits...habits that lead to life, habits that lead to happiness, habits that lead to heaven.

Because all virtues are grounded in reality, if the goal I am striving for is not ultimately sustainable or worthy of pursuit, perseverence will reveal this. In other words, at some point the hummingbird probably concluded that the fire could not be stopped and it was time to redirect his energies, but he was the better for having tried. And maybe his fellow forest dwellers learned a thing or two about life from watching him work. Nothing was wasted.

The virtue of perseverance is not based on external success or perfection, but rather on consistency and right motivation.

“I will be the best person I can be by doing what I can consistently.” “I will be the best father I can be by doing what I can consistently.” “I will be the best plumber I can be by doing what I can consistently.” “I will be the best student I can be by doing what I can consistently.”

“Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.” What is great? Don’t give up when things get hard, and you’ll know soon enough!

Question for reflection: Where have you practiced perseverance, and where do you need to?

On bended knee: The virtue of obedience

2012-01-13T17:31:00.000-08:00

“It is for each of us freely to choose whom we shall serve, and find in that obedience our freedom.”
-Mary Richards

As you may know Tim Tebow is presently the starting quarterback for the Denver Broncos of the National Football League. And he has quickly become a figure of controversy because of a particular way he expresses commitment to his deepest convictions.

At crucial moments during the game or just afterwards he will kneel, seemingly oblivious to those watching him. Head bowed and resting against a firmly clinched fist, eyes shut, he prays. And this simple act has become a full-blown phenomenon. “Tebowing” has even been recognized as a word in the English language by the Global Language Monitor as a result of its worldwide usage. It is celebrated by an army of admirers and mocked by more than a few cynics.

What’s going on here? What exactly is the big deal about a football player, even a professional football player on television, kneeling to pray? Why are so many so upset? His critics loudly claim that Tebow has commercialized his religion, that he is a phony, that he is manipulative, and that he is out of line. But the shrill tone of these judgments, and the disproportionate anger aimed at “Tebowing” suggests a much deeper process at work here. And the simple act of kneeling is the trigger.

What does kneeling symbolize? Obedience. And in a world where individualism has become a popular religion, where the “I” answers to no one, kneeling is sacrilegious. With “I” as supreme ruler kneeling is an undignified and immature act at best, and more probably a sign of pathology…of a weak “follower.” Self-actualized adults are supposed to outgrow obedience like footsie pajamas, belief in Santa Claus, and the need for parental approval. Right?

Not if we’re talking about obedience as a virtue. A virtue makes one better, and also makes the world better. So, sad people checking their minds and their dignity at the door, and blindly following some crazy, evil tyrant need not apply.
Obedience as a virtue is about freely, thoughtfully following orders. It may be connected to religious beliefs, but it may not involve religion at all. The virtue of obedience reminds us that we don’t know everything, that we could use a little guidance now and again, and that we must be accountable to something more than our egos. It challenges us to move past self-absorption toward humility and service to others. And in the practice of the virtue of obedience, we find our greatest freedom.

“It is for each of us freely to choose whom we shall serve, and find in that obedience our freedom.”

My hope is that at some point the people criticizing Tim Tebow will stop focusing on his kneeling, and start focusing on his life. Because how he expresses obedience isn’t nearly as important as what this obedience produces.

And maybe these critics will also find some time to ask themselves what brings them to their knees…or should.

Question for reflection: What do you kneel for?

Because of you: The virtue of love

2012-01-06T14:59:00.000-08:00

"If I know what love is, it is because of you."
-Herman Hesse

Love is the greatest of all the virtues. And it is the foundation of everything that is good. Nothing else has been written about more often than love, or studied more closely than love, or longed for more universally than love, or confused more regularly than love.

Love is why human beings were created, and what we should live to be and do. But what is it? After all the philosophizing, and theologizing, and soliloquizing, what is love?

Stop.

There’s a place and a time for defining, and analyzing, and categorizing. But to really get at the breadth and depth of love, and to really understand how to do it, we need to start with a different question.

Because fundamentally love is not a what, love is a who.

I can ask you to define what love is, and you might be able to quote someone. And that warms you about as much as watching a video of a fire in a fireplace. But if I ask you who love is, you come alive. Because love is incarnational, embodied, like no other virtue. Love wears a face.

Love has hugged you. Who is love?

Love has kissed you. Who is love?

Love has held your hand. Who is love?

Love has laughed with you. Who is love?

Love has cried with you. Who is love?

Love has sacrificed for you. Who is love?

Love has fought for you. Who is love?

We love because we have been loved; that’s how we know what love is, and that’s how we know that life is worth living.

Can you even imagine your life without love?

I think of so many who have blessed my life by loving me, and teaching me how to love. But today I'm thinking particularly of my father-in-law, on what would have been his 68th birthday. He’s been dead for fifteen years now…dead, but not gone. Because life in this world ends, but love doesn’t. And that’s everything.

I love you, Mike.

Question for reflection: Who are the faces of love for you?

Being a big elephant: The virtue of protectiveness

2011-12-30T11:47:00.000-08:00

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
-Edmund Burke

I recently heard an expert on bullying, Stu Cabe, address an auditorium full of high school students. He began with a story about elephants. Twenty years ago in Kruger National Park, South Africa’s largest conservation reserve, there was a serious over-population problem; too many elephants. Back then there was no cost effective way of moving the larger animals, so the decision was made to relocate the smaller elephants to another park.

Fine for the elephants, but not so much for their new neighbors, the white rhinos who over time began showing up dead. Turns out the relocated baby elephants had grown into adolescent bullies without the guidance of good role models, and the accountability that naturally follows. In their unchecked aggression, they were ramming the rhinos to death. Concerned about their steadily decreasing rhino population and the negative impact on tourism, the park figured they’d best correct the problem they’d first created years before. They rented special trucks and brought in large bull elephants to return the system to its natural state, establishing a new hierarchy. In a very short amount of time, the bigger bulls had laid down new rules for the younger elephants by modeling appropriate behavior, and physically intervening to stop the aggressive behavior when the modeling wasn’t enough. And surprise, surprise the violence stopped.

This world we live in is not unlike a wild animal reserve. There are hierarchies of power and rules of social engagement. And when proper modeling is lacking and active interventions are slow in coming, the vulnerable invariably get bullied. Why? Because human beings, when separated from a community that protects life, become small; they give in to fear, and selfishness, and violence. It’s “survival of the fittest”, and it’s ugly.

Bullying has now been identified as a major problem in schools. But of course it’s happening in schools because it’s happening everywhere else; at home, on the internet, at the office, and on the television. And finally, people are realizing that bullying doesn’t have to be physical in order to be violent. Far more damage is done with hateful words, mean-spirited alliances, and shaming actions than can ever be adequately measured.

Protectiveness as a virtue compels you to stand up for the underdog, get involved when you don’t have to, care when its not convenient, and live the belief that human rights extend beyond your own nose. And to understand how much is at stake if you don’t.

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Good men, and good women, good boys, and good girls…

Unlike the animal reserve,when it comes to virtue “big-ness” isn’t dependent on the size of your body, but on the size of your heart. Yes adults should naturally lead in protecting life, but the young can and must be empowered to join this struggle as well.

For the sake of the vulnerable, for the sake of humanity, be a big elephant.

Question for reflection: What can you do to become more of a big elephant?

Lighting candles: The virtue of optimism

2011-12-23T13:10:00.000-08:00

“Better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.”
-The Christophers

You know the old saying, “You don’t fully appreciate something until it’s gone”? A few weeks ago in the midst of a fast-moving winter storm, we temporarily lost power in our home. I suddenly remembered again what a gift electricity is…electricity and light.

After some initial grumbling and stumbling around in the dark, the matches and candles were located. And soon the darkness was being pushed back. It still remained in the corners because it was night, and of course candles only have so much power. But there was enough illumination for us to carry on, to move forward.

Lighting candles in the dark is an apt metaphor for the virtue of optimism.

But to better understand what optimism is, let’s first clear up what optimism is not.

Optimism is not whistling in the darkness, pretending that things will change on their own. That is magical thinking.

Optimism is not denying the darkness and carrying on as if nothing had changed. That is delusional.

And optimism is not a desperate sales pitch that the darkness is clearly preferable to light. That is denial.

Pretending that there are no problems, no struggles, and no discomfort is distracting, anxiety-provoking, and potentially dangerous. Because goodness, and healing, and transformation are built on truth not illusion. Denying what is, only sets one up for disappointments, and eventually despair.

Optimism is about believing that there's meaning to be discovered in the midst of challenges, and options for good. And it moves one from problem-focused to solution-focused. Optimism is creative, and life-giving, and firmly grounded in reality. It has no time for falsity; too much is at stake.

“I have cancer, but I will find ways to keep living.” “I’ve lost my job, but I’ll start looking for new opportunities.” “I am unhappy with my life, but I’m going to figure out why, and then do some things differently.”

This season calls for optimism, when the world is short on light and the Spring seems very far away…this season, when so many are hurting, and scared, and confused. The economy continues to sputter, the unemployment rate remains high, people are still losing their homes, and there is no significant turn-around in sight. Cursing the darkness is a tempting option, but then what?

Optimism says light a candle, push back the darkness a bit, and find in the freedom you still have all the good choices you can still make.

And I promise, in this Advent Season, grateful prayers for all of you…especially those searching for matches and candles.

Question for reflection: How well do you seek solutions in the midst of problems?

Swimming against the tide: The virtue of contrariness

2011-12-17T13:22:00.000-08:00

“Comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable.”
-Finley Peter Dunne

I disagreed with Christopher Hitchens on virtually every subject. He routinely attacked with great vigor my God, my Church, and my favorite saint. He was unquestionably brilliant, and equally flawed. He was as polemical and pompous as any hell-fire-and-damnation preacher, and as dogmatic about his Enlightenment-inspired gospel as any fundamentalist “true believer.” So it might come as something of a surprise to hear me state that I was strangely moved by the news of his passing, and will miss him. He was one of my favorite contrarians, and he once more served me as a catalyst for deeper reflection…this time about contrariness as a virtue.

Now, to be clear there is a major difference between a virtue and a personality trait. A virtue makes you, and those around you, better. A personality trait does not. Contrariness as a virtue is prophetic, contrariness as a trait is problematic. Did Hitchens practice contrariness as a virtue or simply a trait? I’ll humbly leave that judgment, and the ultimate judgment about his life’s work, to a merciful and loving God (and yes, that’s me being a bit of a contrarian).

Contrarians attack the status quo, the comfortable, the people and systems that appear to be above challenge, and questioning, and accountability. And to that end, they serve a necessary role in a world that desperately needs checks-and-balances. We may often want to dismiss them as lunatics, radicals, and trouble-makers, but we’d best not.

The virtue of contrariness is rooted in a love for justice and truth, and will courageously attack sacred cows for the sake of the sacred. As a virtue, contrariness protects the vulnerable against abuses of power, and reminds the world that easier doesn’t necessarily mean better, and rightness is not decided by a majority opinion.

Contrarians are disturbers of the peace, but is it a peace that’s well-deserved? Contrarians are outsiders, but truth-tellers often are. Contrarians are atheists (or as Hitchens preferred “anti-theists”), but they can also be deeply religious (see: Christ, Jesus). Contrarians are hard to categorize, but in an extraordinarily complex world isn’t that appropriate?

Most of us don’t like conflict, we don’t like rocking the boat, and we definitely don’t like to be disliked. But the struggle for a better world has never been neat and tidy. And we will never become who we’re meant to be (responsible, decent, loving human beings) if we’re not willing to get outside our comfort zones, ask hard questions, wrestle with the status-quo, confront rigidity…and maybe even on occasion challenge others to do the same.

Question for reflection: How do you challenge hypocrisy, double standards, and injustices in the world and in your home?

Golden: The virtue of fidelity

2011-12-09T23:04:00.000-08:00

“Nothing is more noble, nothing more venerable than fidelity. Faithfulness and truth are the most sacred excellences and endowments of the human mind.”
-Marcus Tullius Cicero

Fidelity is defined as “faithfulness to a person, cause, or belief,” and is stated formally in and through vows. It can be lived out in any calling (personal or professional), but for now I want to focus on what fidelity means in marriage.

This summer my mother and father celebrated their golden wedding anniversary. Fifty years, a half century, “for better or for worse, in sickness and in health…” They’ve honored and kept their vows to each other. This is a remarkable accomplishment, and I do mean accomplishment. My mother was barely twenty when she said “I do” to my father, and he was all of twenty-two when he promised himself to her in return. They were kids, for goodness sake!

There’s no way my parents could have known exactly what those wedding vows would entail, what would be asked of each; the twists and turns of life, children and grandchildren, changes and transitions, triumphs and losses, joys and sorrows. Yet, they have lived the virtue of fidelity.

“I promise…to love, honor, and respect you…to be faithful to you.” Wedding vows are oriented toward the other, and this is understandable. But I believe it also confuses fidelity. Because essentially, fidelity is not about your partner…it’s about you.

Fidelity is not a 50-50 proposition, and it’s not even a 100-100 proposition. Fidelity isn’t conditioned on the other person's behavior at all. “I solemnly promise to be faithful to you…because it is who I’m meant to be, and what I’ve promised to do. I’m all in.”

Fidelity is most personal…it’s covenent, not contract. Nothing wrong with contracts, even necessary in issues of business. But they’re not the way to frame relationships, and they’re certainly not the way to frame fidelity. Quid pro quo, “I’ll do this if you’ll do that,” doesn’t work for fidelity. In fact it guts it.

So, then, fidelity is a straight-jacket, a commitment that locks you into a relationship forever, regardless of circumstances? However bad, painful or even abusive things might get, you’ve got to stay? NO, NO, NO! A virtue would never take you in a direction that asked you to compromise your dignity or your self-worth. Virtues make you and those around you better, not sicker.

What fidelity does challenge you to do is to consciously, courageously, creatively commit to something bigger than you or your partner, something that is worth living for and struggling for…whether your partner does or not. It challenges you to fight against a quitting culture that fails to see how self-sacrifice may actually lead to greater empowerment, greater self-esteem, and greater freedom. And if the relationship does end, fidelity guarantees that it will not be because you compromised yourself.

Fidelity is not just a way of being in marriage, it’s a way of being in life. It also happens to be my parents greatest gift to me. And I am grateful beyond words.

Question for reflection: Where do you practice fidelity, faithfulness to something bigger than you?

Sit down and listen: The virtue of communication

2011-12-03T13:39:00.000-08:00

"Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen."
-Winston Churchill

The consistent gridlock on Capital Hill, the egoizing of the NBA Players Lockout, the frustration of Occupy Wall Street and Elsewhere, the anger of Union strife; the news is full of communication breakdown. Everyone wants to be listened to, but few seem to be just as committed to listening. It’s wearying, truly.

The dissent? No, disagreeing is not the problem. EVERY system needs challenge and confrontation, both from within and from without. Families need it, schools need it, companies need it, churches need it, and governments need it. It keeps us open, and accountable, and vital, and attuned to the heartbeat of what is most true.

So people who are willing to stand up and speak, especially when what they have to say is not going to meet with ready approval are necessary. But communication is about more than speaking.

True communication is about talking AND listening. And if, as the experts say, 70% of communication is non-verbal, are you attending to more than just words in your conversations? What are the “roll of the eyes,” the “check of the watch,” the “shake of the head,” the “quick text”, and the “not-so-subtle yawn” saying to you?

In your own efforts to be seen, to be heard, to be right, what are you not hearing? Because of fear, or pride, or impatience, or all of the above, what are you missing? What do you NEED to hear from your partner, or parent, or child...from friend or "foe"? What are the difficult conversations that need to happen in your world?

Real communication, in the end, is about seeking understanding before agreement. And this can’t be done if you’re not willing to stand up and speak…and then sit down and listen. But as Churchill points out, it takes courage…because you may hear something you don’t want to hear, you may learn something about yourself that needs addressing, you may learn that you don’t know as much as you thought, your comfort zone might get stretched, and you may on occasion even get your head handed to you. O.K., and you might also grow, heal, bond, love, make the world a better place, and even find some peace along the way.

Peace through confrontation? Now you’re talking….and listening!

Question for reflection: How well do you communicate?

Living Thank-You's

2011-11-27T16:13:00.000-08:00

"Gratitude is a sickness suffered by dogs.”
-Joseph Stalin

"A man's indebtedness is not virtue; his repayment is. Virtue begins when he dedicates himself actively to the job of gratitude."
-Ruth Benedict

As a child, Ioseb Jughasvili was routinely beaten by his alcoholic father. At seven years-old he contracted smallpox, which left his face badly scarred. By age 12, he had been in two different horse-drawn carriage accidents which resulted in his left arm being permanently disabled. He somehow found his way to the Orthodox Seminary at age 16, but was eventually dismissed because of unpaid debts to the school. After leaving seminary, he became increasingly political and ended up being sent to prison in Siberia seven times.

What happened to this emotionally, physically, and spiritually scarred man? What did he do with his immense pain, and rage, and shame? He decided that he’d spend his life gathering and keeping power, absolute power. That way, he’d never have to be beholden to anyone, never have to be vulnerable again, and never have to admit weakness or need. He even changed his last name to the Russian word for “steel” (stalin), in case someone missed the point.

So what in the name of everything good does Joseph Stalin have to do with gratitude, the virtue he considered “a sickeness suffered by dogs?” As a cautionary tale, a lot! Remember, we learn about virtues by studying life stories…and not just the happy ones. And the monsterous ways Stalin channeled his pain, hardened his heart, and learned to deny the good in himself and others should speak to all of us.

Of course you don’t need to have anything close to a Stalin-esque childhood to feel beaten up by circumstances beyond your control; betrayals, injustices, illnesses, rejections. And you also don’t have to be responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of people like Stalin in order to do significant harm with your suffering.

Life is difficult, and pain is built in to human existence…always has been, and always will be. No one gets a free pass; read the paper, watch the news, look in the mirror. And this is why gratitude is so essential. It helps us return again and again to the positive, and protects us from being victims of pain, and resentment, and despair….and becoming increasingly inhuman in the process.

Gratitude is an attitude of thankfulness and appreciation for life and those who give to us, and celebrates generosity of spirit. It shares the same word stem as grace, and helps us recognize gifts and blessings in our lives, even in the most difficult times. And as we feel grateful and then act as ones who have been cared for, what we do with pain changes. This is when feeling becomes virtue.

I have been given the gift of life, and I will work to protect life.
I have been given the gift of love, and I will love as many people as I can.
I have been given the gift of talents, and I will use my talents to make the world better.
I have been given the gift of forgiveness, and I will forgive those who hurt me.
I have been given the gift of freedom, and I will use my freedom to set others free.

Gratitude is not just about saying thank you, it’s about living thank you.

Question for reflection: What are you doing with the gifts you’ve been given?

The "wow" factor

2011-11-20T10:18:00.000-08:00

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”
-Albert Einstein

Several years ago I was asked to be the guest on a cable television show with a viewership of several million. Really. The Journey Home is a show on EWTN, a cable television network beamed around the world. So, after picking myself off the ground I agreed to fly to Alabama and talk about my faith journey.

In the weeks leading up to my t.v. debut, I found myself imagining this to be my big break. People would like me, want to buy my books, and invite me to come and speak at their churches, schools, and retreat centers. This was going to be very good for business.

I flew to Alabama, taped the show, felt great about the hour long interview, believed I was engaging and charismatic enough, and came home ready for my career to surge to new heights.

And I waited, and waited, and waited.

True, I sold a few books, got some phone calls from folks who saw the show, and received a complimentary letter from the host and producer of the program thanking me for my effort. But my television experience was hardly a professional game-changer.

I admit, I was disappointed. I thought I knew why I was asked to go, and what would happen because of my going. I assumed, and got locked in to my assumptions. And I almost missed the real grace of the trip.

Assumptions can be very dangerous.

Three weeks after my return, I opened an email from a man I’d met in the studio, right after the taping. He had been part of the audience watching the show that night, and we’d spoken. He and I both had sons with Down syndrome. My son survived two heart surgeries, his son did not. I don’t recall saying anything more than what one father would naturally say to another about losing a child. But in the brief exchange and embrace, he was unlocked. And he wrote a simple, heartfelt message thanking me for that moment.

Surprise.

Life is so much deeper and broader than any of us can ever totally imagine; full of these kind of moments that can open us up…to meaning, and beauty, and revelation. But they are easily missed if we are not able to feel awe…and practice awe.

Awe is a recognition of, wonder about, and appreciation for mystery. And in that sense of awe, one is stirred to see and act differently.

Awe helps us explore mystery, not as a problem that needs to be solved, but a blessing that needs to be embraced. It confirms that truth and knowledge are found in “Wow” as well as “Why”, and helps us avoid letting assumptions about how things should be block the miracle of how things are…

And that is awe-some.

Question for reflection: What inspires awe in you?

A Work of Art

2011-11-13T10:39:00.000-08:00

“Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.”
-Confucius

Dr. Iain Hutchison is a renowned maxillo-facial surgeon operating on the faces of people who have suffered significant deformities as a result of surgeries, accidents, and attacks. And he understands well that beauty is more than skin deep. This of course is not always an easy message to sell, especially to those whose appearances often draw gawking stares, rude comments, and worse. So out of his own pocket, Hutchison commissioned portrait artist Mark Gilbert to paint the faces of his patients before, after surgery, and in some cases even during surgery. And the “Saving Faces” art project was born. The original goal was to show physical transformation, but soon Hutchison and Gilbert saw that something much more profound was happening.

As Gilbert would begin painting, the patients would become subjects; worthy of time, and attention, and care. They felt special, and as the art continued they began to talk about themselves, and what they thought and felt. Gilbert listened, and painted, and asked questions, and painted, and listened some more. And these human beings felt deeply and lovingly seen…perhaps for the first time in a very long time.

“Everything has beauty but not everyone sees it.”

Mirroring is a term first coined by psychologist Hans Kohut. It refers to the intimate experience one has of being “seen” in the reflection of another’s face. The classic example is a mother-infant interaction where baby and momma make eye contact, and baby coos and momma coos back, and a verbal and non-verbal “conversation” develops into psychological and spiritual nourishing.

Of course mirroring is not limited to infancy narratives. We all continue to need mirroring experiences throughout life, to “see” in the face of another that we matter. Our subjectivity, our uniqueness, our humanity is accepted as precious. That we are beautiful in ways that will outlast the ravages of time, and will not pass away.

It’s not easy to find someone who practices the virtue of mirroring consistently because it takes quality time, psychological presence, the desire to seek understanding over agreement, and the willingness to give without expectation of return. “I want to know you, I want to hear you, I want to see you…in order to celebrate you.”

So, then, how does this miracle happen? How can this miracle happen? One hurting person, one gentle smile, one caring question, one sincere affirmation, one blessed moment at a time. Start small and build. Trust that beauty exists in everyone, beauty that lasts…and then seek it, see it, and share it with the one who is the work of art.

It is nothing less than reconstructive surgery for the soul.

Question for reflection: Who has mirrored for you what is most beautiful about you?

Telling a thousand stories

2011-11-05T18:18:00.000-07:00

“Grief ends when a thousand stories are told.”
-Native American saying

Jenni and I arrived in the small town of Bayeux on a late afternoon in June. And because we were still a couple of hours away from dinner time, we decided to dump the suitcases in our room and set out on a walk. Almost immediately, we came upon a sign pointing toward the British war cemetary on the outskirts of town, and we decided to pay our respects. There, just under 4,000 British soldiers are buried, having paid the ultimate price for freedom in the historic invasion of Normandy.

Making our way slowly and reverentially through the rows of tombstones we noticed a still-fresh bouquet of flowers lying on the grave of a twenty year old British soldier who had died the day of the invasion, June 6, 1944. And as we drew closer, I saw a notecard peeking out from beneath the flowers, with the slightly smudged “17 June” visible. The visitor had been there just a day before we arrived. Who would be leaving a handwritten message on a marker that was 64 years-old? My curiosity got the best of me and I gently lifted the bouquet to read the rest of the message.

“Sweetheart, I love you and always will.”

Even now as I type these words I catch my breath; the message was so simple, and so profound. Of course there is much we don’t know about this love. But we do know what matters most…that it endured. Across the years and tears, the love endured. But how?

How much time could these sweethearts have even had together? He was dead, tragically taken, before his twenty-first birthday. Yet, sixty-four years later she returned; still feeling, remembering, and sharing what they had.

Reality is so much more powerful than anything Hollywood could dream up.

Here was a remarkable witness to love…and the roll of grief well done. Love and loss are intimately connected because we live in a world that has endings unavoidably built in. But the virtue that can develop in and through the heartache allows one to experience both, and live on with grace. That’s how she could return.

Grieving is about facing the loss of someone or something precious, and growing through it by finding the love that remains, purified. We can rise above the grip of death when we rest in that which does not die.

Fine philosophy, good theology, but how does one actually, practically grieve? How does one move through sadness, and depression, and the temptation to despair…and find life in what remains?

“Grieving ends when a thousand stories are told.”

I believe grief is done best through story telling. Stop and think of all the wakes, memorial services, and funerals you’ve gone to. What, in the end, is the point? To honor the dead? Sure. But funerals, like cemetaries, are for the living much more than the dead. There, people are actually encouraged to tell stories about the one who has died; funny stories, poignant stories, stories that affirm that this person mattered, and that life matters, and that love doesn’t die. Stories communicate what is most true in ways that are most embraceable.

And they remind the living that the story goes on…as does love.

Question for reflection: Do you tell stories that affirm the lives of those you have loved and lost?

Hunting Zombies

2011-10-30T10:36:00.000-07:00

"Whatever you bury before it is dead will come back to haunt you.”
-Anonymous

With Halloween fast approaching, I thought a reflection on zombies would be in order. Zombies, as you know, are those scary monster-persons that somehow come back from the grave in order to destroy the living. They are the un-dead…not fully alive, and not fully dead.

Zombies, of course, do not exist in real life. But they are powerful symbols of something very real; the terrifying parts of our lives that are “un-dead.” We all have painful, ugly experiences we’ve not fully faced, understood, worked through, and then put to rest forever. And there can be good reasons for this.

If the painful experience is overwhelming, we may need to put it off for a while, or make sense of it a little at a time….it’s just too big to do all at once. For instance, it took me years to work through all the fear I felt about my first born son’s fragile early years, where he almost died three different times. There was so much.

And even with disturbing experiences that aren’t life-or-death, the bracketing of these memories can be essential to moving forward. If we sat with all that has gone wrong, or could go wrong in life…all the possible scenarios where we could be injured in mind, body, or spirit…all the ways we have been and still are vulnerable, we’d literally have trouble getting out of bed each morning.

So, this “compartmentalizing” of psychological pain is protective and can even be adaptive to a point, giving us time to “get ready”; to build up psychological resources and relational support.

But in time, whatever we bury before it is dead will come back to haunt us.

Authenticity is fundamentally about truth. It seeks truth, loves truth, explores truth, and works at removing anything that might keep someone from living in truth. And it is especially good at exposing and disposing of “zombies”, those buried parts of our lives that are still haunting us. As zombie hunters have special ways of searching for zombies, those who practice authenticity do as well….beginning with key questions:

Which periods of my life do I not remember well? What social situations do I feel especially anxious in? What are the big losses I’ve had, and what did I do with the feelings connected to them? What emotions do I feel most uncomfortable with now?

Zombies are scary, but not nearly as frightening as a life spent hiding from them.

Question for reflection: Where do you think your zombies are hiding?

An uplifting experience

2011-10-21T22:02:00.000-07:00

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it." -Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

This summer, while enjoying an amazing philosophy workshop on the good life according to Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Aquinas, I also got a lesson in virtue from teachers who didn’t even know they were at work.

The college where my group was meeting was also holding a “come and see” weekend retreat for prospective students. So for a week, at breakfast, lunch and dinner us middle-aged men shared a dining room with high school seniors. Over the first couple of days, in the sea of animated teenagers enjoying their experience on a college campus, I found myself observing a young man in a wheelchair. And throughout the week I kept returning to him, watching him, wondering about him and his story. So young to be wheel-chair bound; what had happened, when did it happen, and how was he coping with it? To walk onto a college campus is daunting enough; what must it be like to have to roll on to one?

I was moved by his witness to courage, and desire, and engagement, and perseverance. I prayed for him. I was sympathetic. And I remained at a distance.

The last morning of my retreat, as I prepared to go down to breakfast, I heard loud chatter in the quad where the students were all gathering to go on a hike. All? My mind wondered about the young man in the chair. I walked outside so I could survey the whole group. And in a corner of the lawn where the students were congregating, I saw a most remarkable scene unfolding.

There, seated in a big wing-back chair was the young man, watching with a huge smile on his face as six of his confreres excitedly altered his wheelchair. They’d found two large wooden poles from God-knows-where, and had carefully placed them under the chair. Then they’d attached these poles to the chair with rope for stability. And finally they placed the young man into his “new” wheelchair, gently secured him, firmly grasped the poles, and slowly lifted.

“Let’s go,” they yelled, re-joining the larger group. And together everyone set off down the trail, the young man being carried along right smack in the middle of the pack.

No one was left behind.

For a week I had watched and cared for this young man from a distance….that’s sympathy. His peers had watched, and then cared for him up close…that’s empathy. I wondered about this young man and his plight, they got to know him and his life. I hoped he would not be left behind, they made sure of it. Sympathy is good. Empathy is better.

Empathy asks you to step into someone else’s shoes, walk around in them for awhile, and then step back out and do something meaningful for that person with the knowledge you’ve gathered. It’s the stuff of saints…who happen to be, on occasion, philosophers too.

Studying Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas for a week was valuable. But just one moment watching a young man, and the human soul, being elevated by the virtue of empathy was priceless.

Question for reflection: What prevents you from stepping into the shoes of others, seeing things from their perspective, and then doing something meaningful for them with the information gathered?

Friday Night Lights

2011-10-15T15:01:00.000-07:00

“Mercy is the compassion in our hearts for another person’s misery, a compassion which drives us to do what we can to help him.”-St. Thomas Aquinas

Gainsville State School, located just north of Dallas, is the kind of place where dreams go to die. It is a maximum security juvenile correctional facility for teen-aged boys. There is so much that is not typical; cells instead of cell phones, a dress code stricter than any private school, and a new meaning for after-school detention. There is no escape….except for football.

If you have good behavior and good grades, you can try out for the team. Every game is a road game, of course (not much interest from neighboring schools to voluntarily go to prison), and there’s not much winning. But if you play for the Tornadoes, you get to go out on a Friday night, even if only for a few hours. And feel free.

Many would see this as justice. These boys broke the law, and they should pay for their crimes; it’s only fair…as concrete as the walls that surround Gainsville State School. But a special few understand that justice is completed in mercy, and mercy makes life (and people) a whole lot bigger.

When powerhouse Faith Christian football coach Kris Hogan saw that his team was scheduled to host Gainsville State, he did something remarkable; he emailed the Faith Christian faithful and asked that some of them cheer for the Tornadoes
----and not just once, at the start, to be polite. He asked them to do so for the entire game.

Think about this, you son’s football coach asks you to move to the other side of the stadium and cheer for a bunch of criminals who just happen to be playing against your boy. I know it’s a Christian school, but really?

Hogan’s message was simple: these boys will have no one cheering for them, and probably never have, except for a few of the school’s faculty members and the guards that usher them on and off the field. Largely forgotten, abandoned, given up on by society…at seventeen.

"Mercy is the compassion in our hearts for another person’s misery, a compassion which drives us to do what we can to help him.”

So, many of the parents and friends of the Faith Christian team followed Coach Hogan’s suggestion. They formed a “spirit line” for the Tornadoes to run through before the game, and then stayed on the Tornado side of the stadium, cheering throughout for the visitors. At the end, the scoreboard read Faith Christian Lions 33, Gainsville State Tornadoes 14. But you wouldn’t have guessed it by the scene at mid-field, as the Tornadoes playfully doused their coach with water, hugged each other, and prayed with the Lions.

One of the Gainsville players said he felt like he was finally home, and that there were angels on the sidelines.

Compassion in action, mercy; it is a little bit of heaven on earth. And more than that, a confirmation that humans can be noble…and life can be better than fair.

Question for reflection: How often do you practice mercy?

Living history

2011-10-08T11:36:00.000-07:00

“History is not was, it is.”
-Arthur Schlessinger

Our little one, Annie, is a Girl Scout. And on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, her troop was asked to participate in a memorial service at the local elementary school. It struck me as important, really important, that she was being asked to remember this event. But I wasn’t at all sure she felt the same way. In fact, I was pretty sure she didn’t.

So, before she left for the event, I asked what 9/11 meant to her. She hesitated for a moment and then answered, “People died on that day.” Yes, very true. As I gathered my thoughts to delve deeper, she blurted out, “Dad, can we go get slurpees after?” Completely understandable response from a nine year-old who didn’t understand exactly what she was supposed to be remembering, from a day she wasn’t even alive for. “Yes, slurpees afterwards…and maybe we can talk some more about 9/11?”

Teaching moments and learning moments can happen at anytime, anywhere, to anyone. But in our rushing around, we sometimes lose track of the larger world and the more eternally significant issues. So we are given the gift of “remembrance” days, where we are reminded that something life-changing, world-shaping happened. And whether we were alive or not doesn’t change the fact that what occurred on that day is important enough to stop and think about.

Some of these days are civil days of remembrance, like the 4th of July, Thanksgiving, D-Day, and Memorial Day. Some are religious days of remembrance, like Easter, Christmas, Rosh Hashanah, and Yom Kippur. And some remembrance days are so personal they will matter to only a select few; a wedding anniversary, a birthday, or a death date.

On these days, we are invited to remember that which is (or could be) significant to us; what deserves reflection, mourning, and/or celebration. And with the invitation to remember comes the opportunity to practice the virtue of remembrance. Practice.

If remembrance is just about recalling an event from the past, it’s a history lesson but not a virtue. Something, that happened somewhere, to someone else…

Remembrance is a virtue, a good habit that makes us better people, because it trains us to recall what is significant about life, and then apply these lessons to our own lives. Remembrance must become personal, and it must be lived.

“History is not was, it is.”

As we drove home from the 7/11 store, I asked Annie about the service. “Oh Dad, we sang The Star Spangled banner, and there were firemen there, and we all made handprints on a wall, and talked about the brave people, and why we can’t take our freedom for granted…and how we can be better because of that day.”

How we can be better because of that day; lesson learned.

Question for reflection: What are the days of remembrance that you honor, or should honor?

Home Run

2011-10-01T13:40:00.000-07:00

“…And the greatest of these is love.”
-St. Paul of Tarsus

Central Washington University was squaring off against Western Oregon University in a battle for the Great Northwest Athletic Conference women’s softball championship. Not exactly the Yankees vs. the Red Sox. But what transpired in that game would be nearly impossible to match in New York, or Boston, or Timbuktu for that matter.

Sara Tucholsky, the scrappy 5’2” Western Oregon reserve right-fielder, hit a three run home run in the second inning. Because this was the very first one of her collegiate career, she was shocked at the improbable blast. And perhaps this was the reason she missed stepping on first as she joyfully headed around the bases. Turning to go back and touch the bag, Sara tore her ACL and crumpled to the ground in agony. As she lay at first base, her coach called out to the umpire for some guidance. What now? Sara obviously couldn’t finish her homerun trot. She couldn’t even walk. The umpire explained that Sara had to touch all four bases, or else settle for a single. Further, her teammates were not allowed to aid her in any way. It appeared she was on her own.

It was then that Central Washington’s first baseman, Mallory Holtman (who just happened to be the all-time conference home run leader) asked if her team could help Sara. The umpire was understandably dumbfounded. According to the rules, however, the opposing team was in fact allowed to help an opposing player on the bases. So, permission was granted. With that, Mallory asked Sara if she needed a lift.

You just can’t make this stuff up.

Holtman and another infielder picked up Tucholsky and literally carried her to second base, where she gingerly stepped on the bag, then on to third, and finally home plate. As the three athletes made their way around the bases, the crowd rose in a standing ovation. "Touch ‘em all" has never been a more accurate description of a home run.

And Shakespeare himself couldn’t have expressed the virtue of love any more beautifully.

Love is the greatest of all the virtues. It is why human beings were created, and what we should live to be and do. But what is it? After all the philosophizing and soliloquizing, what is love?

Aristotle said that love is, quite simply, wanting someone’s good and acting accordingly. It is essentially about the will, not about strong emotions or deep thoughts. Feelings and thoughts may follow love, but they are not love. You see what should be done, you get outside of yourself for a brief moment, and you freely and generously choose to act for the good of another…without any expectation of payback or acclaim.

Not too complicated…but profound beyond words.

And in an increasingly angry, hurting, confused world, those who seem to be opponents, competitors, and rivals, can suddenly find themselves on the same team.

And for a brief, shining moment everyone wins.

Question for reflection: Who is the greatest example of love for you?

Life in the fast lane

2011-09-19T11:17:00.000-07:00

"There is more to life than increasing its speed."
-Mahatma Gandhi

I begin this blog with a confession: Patience is a virtue I do not have a natural predisposition toward. At the market I seek the Express line, and then find myself counting the number of items in the carts of people in front of me. I struggle to reject the belief that going less than 65 MPH in the fast lane of the freeway borders on mortal sin. I never go out to dinner between the hours of 6:00 and 8:00 without a reservation.

I dislike waiting in any way, shape, or form. Problem is, I know how vital patience is to a mature life. And waiting is intimately connected to patience.

Sooner or later, we will run into a situation where there is no short cut, no way to manipulate, no way to force change. And the lesson in patience begins.

Most of us humans operate under the adolescent illusion that we have (and should have) much more control over people and circumstances than we actually do. Some of this illusion can be helpful; it wards off anxiety about the big, dangerous world we must venture forth into, and how vulnerable we actually are in it. But like any illusion, control needs to get checked from time to time so that we don’t totally separate from objective reality.

And that’s why the man in the Express line with twelve items and not ten, and the little old lady going 60 in the fast lane when she could be going 70, and the crowded restaurant where you are invited to take a seat until your name is called can all be tremendously helpful. They make us wait. And in that waiting, we can learn.

Practicing patience develops a pace of life that ensures a care-fullness with self and others, and thus supports balance and perspective.

I am not the only person who has feelings, and needs, and a schedule. I am not the only person who wants to be seen, and heard, and respected. I am surrounded by other people who do not exist to serve me. And as I practice patience, I realize that I don’t have the ability, or the right, to control them anyway.

On the days I can remember to take a deep breath, smile, accept what I receive instead of what I want, and acknowledge that there is more to life than increasing its speed, I am one step closer to growing up.

Question for reflection: When are you most impatient, and what do these times tell you about your “unfinished business”?

Should I blush?

2011-09-14T19:51:00.000-07:00

“Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.”
-Mark Twain

My perspective on behavior, especially questionable behavior, changed radically when I came to the same conclusion wiser people had reached long before; that in everything there is a longing, a striving for the good…it might be well buried, but it is there somewhere.

Remembering this truth was helpful when my wife and I walked past a group of teens the other night congregating outside a movie theater. To sum up the scene, it was all about being seen…and heard. Body parts and underwear boldly on display, loud (and I mean loud) conversations peppered with “sentence enhancers” one wouldn’t hear in church, and a general unconsciousness about the larger world around them. And although it was dark, I’m guessing there wasn’t much blushing going on.

How did Whitman put it? “I sound my barbaric YAWP over the roofs of the world.” Indeed! Everyone wants to be seen. Everyone wants to be heard. This is healthy, and human, and good. But in our efforts to be seen and heard…to be recognized as existing and mattering…do we lose our dignity? Do we become less than who we are meant to be?

The great irony is that in a culture where more and more is revealed (in dress and in speech), alienation and isolation grow. Contact passes for intimacy, freedom is confused with license, and “can” hijacks “should.” What is rightfully seen as off-limits, private, and sacred nowadays? How much is too much? When does decent become indecent? Insights and answers will come as we practice the virtue of modesty.

Modesty is poorly understood and seriously under-valued because it is so often associated exclusively with rules about proper attire at schools, country clubs, and convents. But this is far too superficial an understanding. How one dresses does matter, but what’s going on below the surface matters more.

Modesty guides the sharing of one’s self with others, and safeguards dignity.

For modesty to truly make sense, though, we need to remember that we’re always communicating; sometimes with words sometimes without. How different would we look or sound if we stayed conscious of this?

In our sharing of ourselves, modesty helps us figure out healthy limits and boundaries; what is appropriate, when, and with whom? It also helps us discern what we value about ourselves, and what we truly want affirmed.

“Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.” Modesty tells us this isn’t a bad thing. All people need an occasional reminder of the call to be humans and not merely creatures…and that sometimes less is more.

Question for reflection: What does modesty look like to you?

First things first

2011-09-06T19:53:00.000-07:00

Genius always gives its best at first; prudence, at last.
-Seneca

Welles Crowther worked for Sandler O’Neill Partners on the 104th floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center. And that’s exactly where he was on the morning of September 11, 2001 when the plane hit. Undaunted, Crowther, with a red bandanna covering his mouth and nose to protect him from the smoke, sprang into action. Witnesses report that he worked with a combination of intensity and calm to rescue people, re-entering the building three times. He is directly responsible for saving the lives of at least 18 people.

The fact that he made it out of the inferno three times when so many didn’t make it out at all is remarkable enough. But that he went back three times to help others is the epitome of heroism. Six months after the South Tower collapsed, the body of this hero was finally recovered in what had been the lobby, along with members of the New York Fire Department with whom he had joined forces. They were trying to go back up once more with a “jaws of life” tool to free victims trapped under rubble.

Courage? Crowther was the very embodiment of it. But I want to focus on another virtue he displayed that day: prudence.

Prudence is about putting “first things first”; it is the virtue that guides sound judgment. Some might quietly and respectfully question the “sound judgment” of a man who would go back into a collapsing sky scraper three times. Back up the stairs as people rushed out. Back into the smoke, and fire, and horror, and death.

Three times.

But prudence isn’t about playing it safe. We’re talking about virtue here, not the basic rules of accounting. Welles Crowther went back again, and again, and again because it was who he had become.

Crises don’t make or break people, they reveal people. And long before September 11, 2001 became synonymous with both evil and heroism, Crowther was figuring out what it meant to make good decisions, judgments that were based on more than just emotion, and ease, and self. In the home and in the classroom, on the athletic field and with friends, as a boy scout and eventually an investment banker and a volunteer firefighter…in a thousand little ways, he learned to put first things first. He learned to focus and stay focused on what was most important, most essential at any given moment.

“Genius always gives its best at first; prudence, at last.”

In the last hour of his life, Welles Crowther made the sound judgment that saving lives was what he was supposed to do…first things first. Not because he had to, but because he could.

And the demons shuddered, and the angels bowed.

Question for reflection: Do you put “first things first”?

Getting it right

2011-08-31T14:21:00.000-07:00

"The moral arc of the universe bends at the elbow of justice."
-Martin Luther King, Jr.

Do you know the name James Blake? Neither did I before writing this blog. But we all should, and be grateful for his contribution to society. Because without James Blake, Alabama bus driver and strict adherent to the racial segregation codes of the day, the world would never have met Rosa Parks. Mr. Blake, you see, was the man who ordered Mrs. Parks to give up her seat on his bus so that a white man might sit, and thus gave justice a chance to shine.

December 1, 1955 was a cold day in Montgomery, and Parks was tired from a long day of ironing and stitching shirts for a department store. And in her exhaustion and dignity she uttered that very dangerous word, “No.” Blake threatened to have her arrested, but it made no difference to her. She’d paid for her ticket, she was seated in the section of the bus where blacks were told to sit, and she’d had enough.

Later, when asked why she didn’t just give up her seat, she explained, “I would have to know for once and for all what rights I had as a human being and a citizen." What does it mean to be human and to be a citizen? This Civil Rights movement hero, this American hero, asked the fundamental question that frames the virtue of justice.

Justice is about giving to others what is their due. It is the virtue that uniquely establishes the relationship between self and others. Justice points to the “inalienable rights” all human beings carry with them; rights that are hopefully supported by the laws of the land, but are ultimately deeper and more authoritative than anything that could be legislated. Because they are grounded in Natural Law.

A sense of justice is part of the very essence of human beings, and as a virtue it guides the legitimate search for fairness, equality, and best use of power. Justice is about what’s right, not just what’s accepted. Justice safeguards human dignity. In fact to violate it is to do soul-damage to one’s self. Socrates wrote that those who are unjust should be “pitied.”

It is unnatural to be unjust, thus unjust acts make both practitioners and societies sick.

Although he acted within the law, and was supported by the law, James Blake violated the virtue of justice…what was essentially due Parks as a human being; deeper than any human law, deeper than any cultural context or societal norm, deeper than a political position.

I wonder if James Blake was changed by his encounter with justice on that December day in 1955, and his invitation to become more fully human. He worked for 19 more years as a bus driver, and lived until 2002. That’s a lot of time to reflect. When asked about the incident his standard reply remained, “I wasn't trying to do anything to that Parks woman except do my job…I had my orders.”

Justice demands more than that.

Question for reflection: Where do you see inequalities, double standards, and power plays in your home, your friendships, and your workplace?

Becoming a great soul

2011-08-24T14:18:00.000-07:00

“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls. The most massive characters are seared with scars.” -Kahlil Gibran

This past month I’ve watched with great sadness the burning and looting of London. The combustible mix of poverty, unemployment, and the perception that the government couldn’t care less has once again erupted into rioting. It is a horrible thing to watch people give in to their pain and anger and behave like crazed animals. Actually, now I’m not being fair to animals.

Almost as disturbing as the flames and violence, though, was the analysis of the commentator trying to make sense of the chaos. “Anyone would respond this way if put in similar straits.”

Anyone? How pathetic. How wrong.

But what do you do when you’ve been injured, when you suffer? How do you respond?

Anger will kick in almost immediately, often mixed with a shot of fear. And then an internal sense of justice cries out for a response. “That’s not fair.” “I didn’t deserve that.” “This can’t happen again.” And then what? This is where things typically get ugly. Payback.

But what if injury and suffering could lead to learning, healing, and wisdom?

Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to introduce you to the finest virtue you’ve never heard of: magnanimity.

Magnanimity, literally translated as “greatness of soul”, is the virtue that transforms hurt into gift. Gift? How is this possible? Because like nothing else, hurt reveals the poverty and potential of humanity. And in this hurt and subsequent anger, magnanimity helps one to choose the exceptional instead of the typical; to respond in a way that witnesses to both truth and love.

Of course one does not become magnanimous, a great soul like Aristotle, Lincoln, Gandhi, or Mother Teresa, all of a sudden and by accident. It takes a lot of practice with anger. Anger is the proverbial fork in the road; where one veers toward magnanimity or pettiness. What one does with anger makes all the difference.

Magnanimity is rare, but opportunities to practice it are not. They will find you in the everyday world: the driver who cuts you off on the freeway; the annoying neighbor who plays his music too loudly; the co-worker who backstabs you; the economic downturn that guts your retirement account; the illness that steals the health of a loved one. All are injuries, big and small; all are opportunities to become a great soul.

The magnanimous see the potential for good in suffering and injury; recognizing both what we are and what we can become. They transform hurt into health, and in the process go from good to great.

Question for reflection: How could you use hurt feelings to grow in magnanimity?

Even Flies?

2011-08-17T17:19:00.000-07:00

"All the efforts of the human mind cannot exhaust the essence of a single fly."
-St. Thomas Aquinas

Labels can be very helpful when shopping for a car, or a computer, or a pair of shoes. They help us organize information and make efficient and generally informed decisions. I know if I buy a Volvo, I’ll get a safe car; a Mac, and I’ll have a trustworthy computer; Cole-Haan, a quality pair of loafers.

But how meaningful are labels when applied to human beings: white, black, believers, non-believers, liberals, conservatives, rich, poor? Is this enough information to really know the individual person you’re trying to cubbyhole? White people are racists. Christians are anti-intellectual. Liberals are atheists. Poor people are lazy. To the reasonable person, these too-broad generalizations, stereotypes, are quickly seen as both ridiculous and unkind.

Yet, we’ve all felt pre-judged, categorized, and rejected based on superficial information that reduces us to demographic categories. And few things hurt more. This doesn’t stop us, however, from being tempted to do the same thing to others. There really is some truth to the adage that we abuse the way we’ve been abused.

Labeling people serves a kind of protective function, which is why it’s done so regularly. We want to know who’s safe and who’s not, who’s reliable and who’s not, who’s good, and who’s not. And we want to know quickly, and we really don’t want there to be any gray area, any room for process and discovery, any mystery. Too much risk and up-front investment.

This is fundamentally fear-based and un-natural. Understandable, but unnatural…because it is not grounded in Love.

“All the efforts of the human mind cannot exhaust the essence of a single fly.” This from St. Thomas Aquinas, arguably the greatest genius of the last millennium. If anyone understood the powers and limits of the human mind, it was the Angelic Doctor. So, if we can’t figure out the essence of a fly, what do you think the chances are that we’ll be able to fully plumb the mystery of a human being made in the Image of God?

Should we, then, stop trying to think, stop trying to reason, stop trying to figure things out? Of course not. Heaven knows this world could use a little more rationality, and a little less hysteria.

But it does mean that as we live our lives, and try (more days than not) to get along with those around us, we'd do well to respect the dimension of mystery in others, and to practice reason with a good measure of humility and awe!

Question for reflection: How often do you avoid loving by labeling?

Making beautiful music

2011-08-10T12:30:00.001-07:00

“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters in the end.”
-Ursula K. LeGuin

If you’ve ever gone to hear an orchestra play, you know that the performance doesn’t begin until the musicians first tune their instruments. The oboe sounds the note “A”, and players make sure their instruments match the pitch. It’s the “warm-up” if you will. Many balmy summer evenings I’ve sat in the amphitheater at the Hollywood Bowl as the sun sank below the hills, and listened to the orchestra slowly but surely get in tune. This delights me in ways I can’t fully explain.

Thus, I could thoroughly relate when a friend told me about his son’s response to the same experience. The young man was attending the Bowl for the first time, and his parents got him there in time to soak in the atmosphere of the place, and watch the orchestra tuning up; kind of preparation for the “real show.” After the concert, on the way home, they excitedly asked the boy which part of the performance he liked best. “Oh,” he replied, “The beginning, just before the guy with the stick came out.”

The process of orchestral tuning is fascinating! The musicians come on stage as individuals, playing various melodies and rhythms. There are moments of discordant sound, and of back and forth between the sections when it’s hard to imagine anything like beautiful music is possible. It’s more a cacophony of noise than a symphony of sound!

Then the “guy with the stick” (aka the conductor!) enters, and with a wave of the arm the many blend into one cohesive unit. The different sections, the string and woodwind, brass and percussion complement each other, and communicate the full message that is too deep for words.

And that lasts 24 hours.

The very next evening the orchestra will begin the process all over again. These world-class musicians will each come back on stage as individual parts, play, stop and listen, play some more, and make adjustments until they finally find unity. Orchestral tuning is a good metaphor for life.

There will be times when your world is in perfect pitch; everything has come together, you feel wonderful, you think lofty thoughts, and beautiful music is made. Then there will be periods when you feel splintered, your emotions are at war, and you think that snapping your conductor’s baton in two and storming off the stage might be the best plan of all.

But most of the time you’ll be somewhere in-between; happiness and sadness, joy and sorrow, peace and anger. There will be this strange mix of thoughts and feelings that you get to somehow make sense of. This is pretty normal. Growth and healing is a 24-hour miracle…one day at a time. Don’t be surprised by the process; and maybe even get to the point where you accept it.

Because in the end, life is much more about the tuning and the adjusting then it is about the concert.

Question for reflection: What are your expectations about life?

One man’s trash…

2011-08-02T16:36:00.000-07:00

“Ring the bells that still can ring,
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That’s how the light gets in.” -Leonard Cohen

Antique stores are hopeful places, places that believe in second chances. They accept what others have thrown away, given up on, discarded as un-useable, because they see the potential that remains. Recently, I found myself in a dusty and well-stocked one named “One Man’s Trash…”, an homage to the saying, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”

This store had a little of everything, from automobile parts, to farming and gardening equipment, to knick-knacks and artwork found in households. I struck up a conversation with the older gentleman who owned the store, wondering what he enjoyed most about the antiques business. “I believe that everything can be used again, and nothing needs to be wasted,” he said with a contented smile. “I love that notion.”

Everything is useful, and nothing needs to be wasted.

But shame tells us something different. Shame tells us that there’s something so fundamentally wrong with us, so unforgiveable and ugly that if anyone really knew us fully, they’d be repulsed. And we’ve accepted this version of the story to one degree or another. So we feel we must hide those parts of ourselves, and pray no one ever finds out.

Maybe the shame is connected to things you’ve done; choices you regret so deeply that you’ve mistaken who you are for what you did. And no good can come from this.

Maybe the shame is about something that was done to you; and the trauma has left you feeling like you’re too broken to ever be whole again. And no good can come from this.

Unchecked and unexamined, shame feeds on isolation and secrets. Its power grows in the dark.

But did you ever stop to think that only humans feel shame? Animals don’t feel shame. Fish and plants don’t feel shame. Bugs don’t feel shame.

What if we could do something different with shame; to understand it’s presence as a confirmation of our inherent worth and our potential for transformation? Stay with me here.

Shame confirms two truths: that we are not living as we should, and that we are meant for more. Yes, we’re wounded, but we can heal. Yes, we’re imperfect, but we can learn. Yes we’re human, but we’re human…made in the Image of God.

The truth is that if we really were worthless, and so horribly flawed that we could not heal or be loved, we wouldn’t feel shame. We’d feel right at home in our garbage. Our negative self-concept would be congruent with who we truly were, and who we were capable of being. But we don’t…and shame tells us we shouldn’t.

Feelings of shame tell us that we’re stuck in a reality that isn’t fit for us. We are built for freedom, for dignity, for joy, and anything less is not going to feel natural. Everything is useful, and nothing should be wasted.

It’s the ultimate recycling plan.

Question for reflection: What have you felt ashamed of in your life, and what have you done about it?

A dangerous fish

2011-07-26T21:23:00.000-07:00

“Action expresses priorities.”
-Mohandas Gandhi

I feel the need to offer a disclaimer at the outset of this reflection: I am not against thinking deeply or feeling deeply. I’d hope that my career choices, and the twenty-three years I spent in school would support this position. And I might add that as a melancholic temperament, I naturally appreciate interiority and reflection. But there can be too much of a good thing.

Do you know the expression “following a red herring”? It comes from a medieval technique used by dog owners to train young scent hounds. A fish, typically a herring, would be soaked in brine or well-smoked and then dragged along a trail by the trainer until the puppy learned to follow the scent. But the goal was not to have the dog follow the strongest scent, but rather the original scent…the one identified as crucial to the search. So the trainer would introduce other scents, and eventually use the red herring to try and confuse the dog. Thus, a “red herring” has come to be known as something that diverts one away from tracking and locating the identified target.

Thinking deeply and feeling deeply by themselves do not lead to change. In fact, they can lead away from it. Self-obsession, isolation, stuckness? Quite possibly. But not change. I believe this is a major reason why counseling fails, even when clients show up, and keep showing up; all the talking and all the feeling doesn’t get translated into a meaningful plan of action that is moved on.

People change for the good, and for good, by living differently; by reflecting on their thoughts and feelings and then putting them into action.

And action expresses priorities.

Assume that a stranger was observing your life, day in and day out, for several months without you actually knowing it. At the conclusion of the study, would he or she have an accurate picture of what you say you value most, based solely on your actions?

“I love her.” What are you going to do about it? “I hate my job.” What are you going to do about it? “I regret my relationship with my mom.” What are you going to do about it? “I need to break that habit.” What are you going to do about it?

Don’t let thinking deeply and feeling deeply become red herrings. Use them to better track the real target, which is right action.

Question for reflection: Where do you need to take action?

Socks and shoes

2011-07-19T17:25:00.000-07:00

“The devil is in the details.”
Anonymous

Growing up, I had the amazing experience of going to John Wooden basketball camp for five straight years. For those of you who aren’t hoops enthusiasts, let me explain why this was so special.

John Wooden was, is, and always will be considered the greatest college basketball coach of all time. While at U.C.L.A., his teams collected ten NCAA national championships in a 12-year period — seven in a row— an unprecedented achievement.

Within this period, his teams won a record 88 consecutive games. He was named national coach of the year six times. The athlete voted the most outstanding college basketball player in America each year is given the John R. Wooden award. The man is an icon.

From ages eight to twelve I got to spend a week each summer with this Hall of Famer, this legend, this master teacher…me and about two hundred other campers.

And what do I remember most clearly about my experiences with the master thirty some odd years later? How to properly put on my socks and shoes.

The first day of camp, the gym was buzzing with excitement. And then John Wooden walked in, the Wizard of Westwood. We all stood and cheered wildly, and he humbly nodded and waved. And then the lessons began. He asked us to take our sneakers and socks off, and spent the next fifteen minutes showing us how to properly put them back on, and why this all mattered.

The first time it happened, I admit I was a little underwhelmed. I figured we’d immediately start playing: running, shooting, and rebounding. Mom had already taught me how to dress myself…I wanted a bit more from Coach. And if I felt that way at eight, how do you think some of the greatest collegiate players of all time felt when he started practice the same way with them?

But John Wooden was a life-coach, not just a basketball coach. He understood that “the devil is in the details.” If you don’t pay attention to the little things, the seemingly meaningless details as you rush toward action, there will be serious consequences down the road; injuries and failures. I understand now.

Success is built on thoughtful planning, and respect for the fundamentals, and about taking care of first things first. Yes, action must happen, but carefully and with clear purpose.

Movement is not the same thing as progress.

I’m still that eight year-old far more often then I care to admit, hurrying to get ahead in the game of life and running the risk of overlooking key details; the clues to what matters most. I act as if I can’t afford to slow down; too much to get done. Can you relate?

Maybe it’s time to take the socks and shoes off, and start again?

Question for reflection: What are some of the details of your life you need to pay closer attention to?

A thing of beauty

2011-07-08T12:06:00.000-07:00

“Earth is crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God…” E.B. Browning

It was definitely not my finest hour. I can make excuses; we were both in graduate school, we were both working multiple jobs, we were both stressed, money was tight. But I was still a knucklehead. Jenni and I had been back from our honeymoon all of one week, and I came home one evening to find my sweet wife joyfully arranging flowers in a crystal vase.

My parents had sent us twenty dollars in a “welcome home” card, and she’d gone out and bought a bright, beautiful bouquet with it. I immediately questioned my new bride’s judgment, stating quite rationally that the $20 could have paid for five or six dinners (at that time we were on an “all-pasta/all-the-time” meal plan). It could have paid for a month of electricity. It could have paid for a month of cable. “And besides,” I concluded, “the flowers will be dead in three days.” (Blank Stare).

After Jenni paused for a moment, she calmly explained that life wasn’t just about paying bills.

Wife: 1, Husband: O

Beauty matters. It matters because it awakens the senses, celebrates life, and elevates the spirit. And if it did nothing but this, it would matter a lot. Can you even imagine a day without beautiful colors, or music, or shapes, or smells? But beauty does something more, and the clue is in its passing nature.

Beauty is always passing away. By nature, it’s transitory. Flowers wilt, sunsets set, blue skies get smoggy or gray, rainbows vanish, scents dissipate, smiles disappear, and even physical beauty diminishes with time. And this is good, because if beauty never faded, we’d worship it. We’d stay fixated on the material, and not see the eternal purpose it ultimately serves. Beauty points to the One Who Created it, the One Who is eternal, the One Who is calling us to a beauty that doesn’t end.

Love beauty, and through it love the One Who thinks you are beautiful.

Question for reflection: What is beautiful to you?

Working it out

2011-07-02T20:56:00.000-07:00

“It’s not the job you do, it’s how you do the job.”
-Anonymous

I awoke at 6 A.M. this morning with my newly attached crown suddenly detached, and rattling around in my mouth like a little piece of hard candy. Normally I’d have the self-restraint to wait until a decent hour to call about this, but nerve pain has a way of blowtorching certain social niceties.

I vaguely recalled my dentist encouraging me to contact his colleague who would be standing in for him over this holiday weekend if any problems arose.

So, I called Dr. Howard Gottlieb’s emergency number, expecting to get his answering service. The man himself picked up. Now remember, its Saturday morning, he’s not my dentist, and did I mention that it was 6 A.M. on a holiday weekend? “No problem, I’m on the job. Now let’s get you in and fixed up.”

I wasn’t on pain medication, so I know for sure that he actually said these words.

Honestly, if I listed all the virtues, the good habits, that make the world a better place, professionalism would not be in my top twenty…maybe not even in my top fifty. But it should be. Consider the powerfully positive impact doing your job with a spirit of excellence 40-50 hours a week, fifty some odd weeks a year, can have on the world around you.

Professionalism is not the job you do, it’s how you do the job.

It includes competency, but it’s much more than just competency. One who practices professionalism sees human beings and not just tasks, seizes opportunities to care and not just profit, and attends at least as much to what can’t be tallied on a spread sheet as what can.

That’s why professionalism is a virtue; it makes you a better person, not just a successful person.

So, in due time I arrived at the office and the good doctor was waiting for me. He was pleasant, prompt, and proficient, and in 45 minutes had me on my way. “How much do I owe you” I asked? “Nothing,” he answered. “Dr. Ford would do the same for me if I was on vacation.”

As I left I thanked him once more, and told him how very grateful I was for his professionalism. He smiled and shook his head. “Hey, this is what I do.”

Well, that’s true…and then some!

Question for reflection: How hard do you work at professionalism?

The potato field

2011-06-27T11:22:00.000-07:00

“Integrity is what you do when no one is watching.”
-Tony Dungy

There they stand in the middle of an empty field at dusk. Husband and wife, peasant potato farmers with their tools, wheelbarrow, sacks, and basket surrounding them, their heads are bowed in reverence. The church steeple in the distance along with the title of the painting, The Angelus, tells us why. The man and woman have heard the bells calling them to prayer and they’ve obeyed. They don’t have to. God knows they’re exhausted from a full day of backbreaking work. Their clothes are dirty, and their expressions sober. Who would blame them for continuing to work in order to more quickly wrap things up for the evening, and maybe cut a few corners? Would it even qualify as cutting corners? For this couple it would be, and they’d know it; that settles sit. So they stop.

Jean-Francois Millet’s iconic painting is a profound statement about integrity.

Integrity is about what you do when no one’s watching. It’s about knowing and behaving as you should; not because you must, or because you’re afraid, or because you are going to somehow be compensated with acclaim, or a promotion, or a bonus. This moral discipline is the fruit of repetition, of practice...lots of practice.

Aristotle wrote that excellence is a habit, not an act. Being generous on occasion, being merciful when it’s convenient, being sacrificial when you know there’s a pay-off, being faithful in most ways, loving people who love you…this might pass in today’s world as character, but it’s still not integrity.

Integrity comes from the word that means “whole” or “complete”, and it’s about living in ways that make you whole, complete. It’s about your walk and your talk being congruent; about consistency, trustworthiness, and truthfulness. Integrity does not ask you to be perfect, but it does demand an ever-deepening, lived commitment to good habits; habits that lead to real happiness.

What are the “potato fields” of your life? The places where you are not immediately accountable? Where can you “cut corners” morally and probably get away with it: your work, your finances, your interaction with others, the internet, the movies and television shows you watch?

If you’re anything like the rest of humankind, you’ll have good days and bad days; days you’re proud of and days you’d just as soon forget. Work at seeing integrity as a process you begin anew each morning, and evaluate each evening.

And see integrity as a reward in itself; something you strive for because you can.

Question for reflection: Who is your model for integrity?

Favorite Things

2011-06-21T11:18:00.000-07:00

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive."
-Howard Thurman

What makes you come alive? Sounds like an unnecessary question for serious-minded people, intent on making the world a better place. Or worse, distracting…after all, life’s too short to waste time on “ice-breaker”, touchy-feely exercises, right? Let’s just focus on responsibility, duty, sacrifice, and leave psycho-babble tripe to encounter groups and high school student-exchange programs.

I’ve been there, and thought that. So, let me put it differently: When you stand before your Creator someday, will God ask you why you weren’t more like Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, or Abraham Lincoln…or why you weren’t more like the person YOU were meant to be? (Hint: It’s going to be about you).

“Coming alive” is a challenge that’s a good deal more important than one might understand at first; far more than having and maintaining a pulse, and checking the boxes on your daily to-do list. It’s fundamentally about becoming the vital, creative person you were meant to be; it’s about coming alive.

O.K., so how does this happen? How does one come alive?

The most popular response is to change something about your life, shake things up, have a new experience: a memorable vacation, a new hobby, a job change, a new home, a new relationship, bungee jumping. This can help you “come alive” if the new experience can somehow impact you deeply enough to change old patterns. But these experiences are too often like the defibrillator machine and paddles a hospital might use to save someone in cardiac arrest. A quick blast of electricity, and then…

There is another way; one that takes more reflection and time. But it’s also more reliable because it taps into something already deep inside you. Rodgers and Hammerstein provide a clue (now there’s a sentence I never thought I’d write!).

Recall in The Sound of Music, when Julie Andrews sings “My Favorite Things”? She recites a litany of things that help her feel better: raindrops, kittens, kettles, and mittens. But it’s a good deal more than a simple list she’s racing through; these things have memories and life-giving associations attached to them…as well as instructions.

When I recite a list of just a few of my “favorites” (Jenni, my children, the beach at sunset, lavender, Santa Barbara, Gregorian chant, the Lakers, sycamore trees, pecan pie, Springsteen, Eliot), I come alive, I’m energized, and I’m reminded of what I already know.

Memories are so much more than snapshots of people, places, and things from long ago. They help us learn from the past, process new information, and point the way forward; re-presenting what has worked, what we’ve cherished, and what we could still embrace. We are reminded of how we’ve come alive before, and that we don’t need to search outside ourselves to really come alive again…for good.

We just need to remember.

Question for reflection: What are your favorite things, and what do they tell you about coming alive?

Knock, knock, knock

2011-06-15T15:10:00.000-07:00

Let everything happen to you; beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final."
-Rainer Maria Rilke

I heard it again today in a counseling session. In fact, if I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard this sentence in my practice, I’d already be able to afford my beach house.

“I know I shouldn’t feel this way.”

You shouldn’t feel what way? Angry, sad, anxious, sexual, bored, skeptical, scared, happy, hopeless? Hmmm….

Few issues are more complicated, less understood, and more routinely mis-used than feelings, emotions. And what I find fascinating is how often they are still seen as threats to stability and general well-being, as intruders to be guarded against.

Feelings move us, stir us, and remind us that our inner worlds hold immense power we are only partially conscious of. Memories and experiences are stored up in the attics of our minds like boxed up books and toys from long ago; dusty and hidden from the light. But then something is said, or done, and in a flash the past is suddenly very present…uninvited. And feelings can leave us vulnerable.

So in an effort to protect and control, feelings are repressed, dismissed, or flat-out denied. “I’m fine.” It’s no big deal.” “It doesn’t matter.” “This is stupid.” “I don’t feel anything.”

This is psychologically equivalent to hearing the knock, knock, knock of the UPS man at the front door with a special delivery for you, and responding by running into the other room, turning up the stereo, and humming loudly until the knocking stops. However, unlike the UPS man, feelings won’t go away for long. And your attempts to avoid emotional pain and discomfort will only cause you greater distress.

Feelings are not good or bad. They are value-neutral. What you do with feelings can be good or bad, healthy or unhealthy, constructive or destructive. But feelings are simply messengers trying to deliver important information to you about your life. What do you need to explore and heal? What do you need to change? What do you need to continue doing?

No feeling is final. But the damage done by not heeding messages from your interior world can be.

Question for reflection: What feelings are you most uncomfortable with?

Accounting 101

2011-06-09T17:27:00.000-07:00

“Accountability breeds response-ability."
-Stephen R. Covey

Talk about your wake-up call! Dr. Alfred Nobel, whose name has become synonymous with peace, was confronted one morning with his own obituary after a newspaper confused him with his recently deceased brother. “The merchant of death is dead!” the headline shouted. “Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever, died yesterday.”

Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, was deeply disturbed that he would be remembered this way. And because of this experience he ended up designating the bulk of his massive estate for the establishment of the Nobel Prizes.

Accountability comes in many forms, even obituaries. And we will all have the chance to answer its call, sooner or later….answer for our actions, or inactions. “Accountability breeds response-ability,” because the challenge to live in truth comes from outside of us, reveals to us our psychological and spiritual blind spots, and stretches us beyond where we’d go if left to our own devices.

But what do you get when you answer to no one? And even worse, that in your isolation and denial your discernment is lacking? What you get is an increasingly large segment of American culture.

A significant amount of research suggests that Americans don’t understand the true nature of accountability, and are increasingly likely to fall prey to the phenomenon known as the “self-serving bias.” What does that mean? People will show a reliable tendency to interpret events in ways that are most favorable to them, or show them in the best possible light, even when objective facts don’t justify these judgments.

If I get the job it’s because I’m wonderful, if I don’t it’s because I was discriminated against. If I stay with my wife, it’s because I’m wonderful, if I leave it’s because she wasn’t meeting my needs. If my son excels in school it’s because he’s my son, and I’m wonderful, if he rebels it’s because of the school.

This is consistent with what Paul Vitz has called “selfism”, and what Christopher Lasch has called “the culture of narcissism.”

I can decide that I want to drive to San Francisco. I can have a high-performance car, a confident attitude, and even know what I want to do when I get there. But if I go south instead of north, and then east instead of west, I’m not going to end up in San Francisco. And all of my positive self-talk and ego-strength won’t change the fact that I’m headed in the wrong direction. In fact, the longer I go without a clue, the more lost I’ll get.

We routinely seek out and follow trustworthy information about diets, movies, restaurants, clothes, fitness regimens, electronic devices, and finances. Should we not do at least as much for the direction of our lives, and our eternal souls?

Question for reflection: Who do you answer to?

It's not JUST about you!

2011-06-04T15:00:00.000-07:00

"We live our lives like chips in a kaleidoscope, always parts of patterns that are larger than ourselves and somehow more than the sum of their parts."
-Salvador Minuchin

Here’s a commencement address I’d love to hear spoken gently, lovingly, and with real conviction to all graduates, at all graduations around the world: at high schools, colleges, and graduate schools:

"It’s about you, but it’s not just about you.”

I believe this message would be good for those in the audience to hear as well.

You matter. You are special. You are unique. And so are the other 6.92 billion human beings you need to learn how to share this planet with.

One needs to be careful at times of great celebration not to get preachy. Actually there’s no great time to get preachy. But a commencement ceremony is a particularly strategic place to point out the wonderfully complex, inter-relatedness of life, and then to challenge any folks who might still be listening to try to think at least as much about others as they do about themselves.

We are, as Minuchin points out, like chips in a kaleidoscope…part of a pattern much bigger than we can even imagine. We don’t get smaller with this realization, but our understanding of the world can get a whole lot bigger. And this is a good start.

In truth, there is no such thing as an “independent” person, a self-made person, a lone-ranger. You did not create yourself, you did not create the talents you’ve been blessed with, and you did not create the natural world you live in. Yes, you have the opportunity and responsibility to develop the life and talents you were given, and embrace the world around you, but this doesn’t happen in isolation either. You stand on the shoulders of others; others who have sacrificed, struggled, and persevered in making your world better.

This is a ridiculously obvious insight, but insight has never guaranteed change. And in a culture that is increasingly privatized, and thus increasingly splintered and alienated, it’s best not to assume about anything that's important.

So what do we do with this insight? We recognize the gift, we recognize the giver, and then we start saying thank you; thoughtfully, sincerely, and continuously. Life is a gift, health is a gift, love and friendship are gifts, freedom is a gift, truth is a gift, beauty is a gift, work is a gift, play is a gift, triumphs are a gift, struggles are a gift. And the opportunity to make a difference for the Good with all you’ve been given is perhaps the greatest gift of all.

Gratitude opens us up to all that is good, and to a deeper knowing that our world is not accidental, but Providential.

It’s about you, but it’s not just about you. And you should be grateful!

The Last Time

2011-05-30T17:10:00.000-07:00

“Do you love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.”
-Benjamin Franklin

In December 1973, the hauntingly beautiful “Time in a Bottle” shot to #1 on the pop charts. Jim Croce had been inspired to write the ballad by and for his infant son. The refrain, “But there never seems to be enough time to do the things you want to do once you find them,” expresses a longing that is at once personal and universal. We can all relate, deeply.

And adding to the poignancy of the message was the fact that just three months prior to the song reaching #1, Croce died in an airplane crash. He was thirty, and his son was two.

Time is precious. But it can’t be bottled, captured, controlled, and stored up. And it cannot be reclaimed. It is always slipping away, and with it the opportunities we have left to do something meaningful with it. And there never seems to be enough time…

“Do you love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.”

I think we squander time because we think we can get away with it…that there will always be more. Sort of like a twelve year-old who’s just learned how to use dad’s ATM card.

How different would our lives be, though, if we approached every situation with the simple question, “What if this is the last time?”

What if this is the last time I kiss my beloved?
What if this is the last time I kneel in prayer?
What if this is the last time I shoot baskets with my son, or belt out a Springsteen song, or dance with my little girl?
What if this is the last time I watch a sunset?

Talk about carpe diem…of suddenly, powerfully living in the moment!

At the end of life, the passage of time is not what’s regretted…it’s what we’ve not done with the time we were given that will haunt us.

“What if this is the last time?” Someday it will be…and that will be o.k. if you’ve lived well.

Too Much Reality

2011-05-25T08:42:00.000-07:00

Humankind cannot stand too much reality.” -T.S. Eliot, Burnt Norton

I have not been asked to give a speech at Rutgers University. I suspect I never will be either. Not too surprising.

What might be considered surprising, however, is the person who recently was asked.

There is so much that disturbs me about Rutgers University’s decision to pay Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi of “Jersey Shore” reality television fame $32,000 to speak to the student body about her “GTL lifestyle” (that would be Gym-Tanning-Laundry for the uninitiated). I begin with the judgement that she was someone worth bringing on campus at all (the major takeaway from her talk: “Study hard, but party harder”); and that she was paid with money from a mandatory student activity fee; and that her appearance fee was more than the fee paid to Nobel Prize winning author Toni Morrison for giving the commencement address at the very same school one month later. I could go on.

My first instinct was to go on the offensive; attack the messenger. “Snooki” is so easy for sensible people to dislike, to blame, to vilify for her part in this cultural drift toward banality and worse. But after a good old fashioned, self-righteous rant, I realized that I was doing some classic scapegoating. This character is a creation, not a creator. She is a symptom of the illness, not the illness. Even before her fifteen minutes of fame end, there will be (and already is) another loud, crude, exhibitionistic “Snooki”, or Brody, or Sheen, or take-your-pick Kardashian, or Paris ready to squat in the role of “reality star” for the next fifteen minutes.

My second instinct was defensive; dismiss the message because of the messenger. “Snooki” is a bad joke, and the Rutgers decision to invite her is just an aberration. I’d never ask Snooki to speak, pay her to speak, or listen to her speak. This isn’t my reality. And the vast majority of the world is with me on this one, no doubt. “Distracted from distraction by distraction…filled with fancies and empty of meaning.” All the noise, and toys, and hysteria, and fighting, and booze, and vomit, and sex, and plastic surgery…

But if this is true, then why am I so worked up? Why, if this person and this decision are so pathetic and irregular, am I so angry about it? This isn’t about me, right? Not my reality? Not connecting with my story at all?

Here’s a crazy thought. What if reality television was not primarily inexpensive programming material intended to numb America into a moral stupor, but rather a sophisticated series of commentaries hidden in the guise of trash, meant to graphically expose humankind’s frailty…both poignant and horrible at the same time?

Maybe I shouldn’t pretend to be so surprised about Snooki, and Rutgers?

The recently beatified Mother Teresa of Calcutta was once asked why she did what she did. Her answer: “Because I have a Hitler inside me.” She is a saint. I can’t get there yet (mostly because I don’t consistently want to get there yet). But what I can admit to today is that I have a “Snooki” inside me.

Like “Snooki”, and the folks at Rutgers and elsewhere who find her fascinating, I have a fallen nature; a fundamental fault line which reminds me in little and big ways as life rocks and rolls that often my reality does not conform with Reality. Like “reality television”, my life is still too filled with staged encounters, and drama, and sensationalism, and youtube-worthy moments of puff and emptiness.

Too much Reality for my reality.

To use Eliot’s words once more, I too seek to be “distracted from distraction by distraction”, in order to not rest too long at the “still point of the turning world.” And all the while the God Who Uses Everything whispers that I am very much like those people…the Jersey Shore, Real Housewives, Kardashian, The Hills, Celebrity Rehab people. I would still too often prefer to talk about myself, to observe others (taking particular interest in their mistakes), to bask in the illusion of control, to pretend to have all the answers, and to subtly feel superior in an acceptably “Christian” way.

And maybe you can relate? Just a little? So now what?

I’d like to turn to the solution, to quickly switch the focus to what we can all do to put the reality television dimension of our own lives in the rear view mirror. I’d really like to do this. Because humankind cannot stand too much reality.

The "If" Word

2011-05-21T19:06:00.000-07:00

“A stiff apology is a second insult.... The injured party does not want to be compensated because he has been wronged; he wants to be healed because he has been hurt.”
-G.K. Chesterton

Last week I read of another public figure who began his feeble attempt at an apology for bad behavior with the phrase, “If I offended anyone…” This is what Chesterton would call a “stiff apology.” I would call it insincere.

I could simply explain this as another narcissistic famous person being too full of himself to spontaneously practice humility. He drew some heat for his poor choice of words, and was apologizing because his manager or publicist told him to. I think my analysis is probably true, but there’s more to it than this…the issue goes deeper. Because the struggle to offer a real apology is not a famous person issue, it is a human being issue; mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, husbands and wives, friends and foes.

“If I offended anyone…”, “If my words hurt you…”, “If you took it that way…”

When it comes to apologizing, the “if” word is a really bad word.

A sincere apology is a rare thing indeed; no “ifs”, no “ands”, and no “buts”. Why is this? I think the answer involves several issues, including immaturity, fear, pride, and indifference. But I’m most interested in what it says about how one sees relationships.

Transactional. Conditional. Quid pro quo. “This for that”; I’ll give you an apology because the consequence might cost me something. You might get angry with me, you might try and hurt me back, you might hassle me with more of your boring feelings.

So, I’ll offer something that sounds polite and hopefully that will cover the “damages.” Yes, it is very general, and it needs to be. Specifics challenge me to reflect on what I’ve done, and what I need to take responsibility for. And I’m as disinterested in exploring my motives as I am in empathizing with your feelings.

“Why” takes time. “Why” takes energy. “Why” asks me to be vulnerable.

A lousy apology, one that comes from the head and not the heart and is grounded in pride and not humility, does nothing to help heal the wound my words or deeds have caused. In fact, it makes matters worse. My lack of genuine care and interest in the relationship is made even more obvious. In the end (and probably in the beginning and middle, too) it is still about me and my feelings, not you and yours.

Everyone makes mistakes. This is human, and understandable. But I can’t be forgiven if I don’t really think I need to be, and don’t really ask to be. And I can’t be trusted either.

Real success

2011-05-14T18:11:00.000-07:00

“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”
-Winston Churchill

Benedict Joseph Labre lived in pre-revolution France. He struggled with mental illness virtually his entire life, failed each of the eleven times he tried to enter religious life, lost touch with his family, lived as a homeless person for his adult years, had no profession, subsisted on what he could collect as a beggar, and died of malnutrition at 35 years-old.

Success? Only if you consider sainthood a worthwhile accomplishment.

What is success to you? What does it look like? Honestly. Comfort, professional excellence, the respect of peers, some money, and a solid core of good friends? Yes, a good list. And I wouldn’t argue with any of these markers.

Yet St. Benedict Joseph Labre had none of these things. His life reads like a tragic story of failure that makes you want to cry. If he was living today, he’d be the dirty, anonymous, slightly scary-looking man at the bottom of the freeway offramp you try not to make eye contact with as you idle at the red light. Or the shivering corpse in the shadows, bundled up in rags and blankets, you hurry past as you make your way to your car on a cold night.

His life was not exactly the stuff of comic book heroes, or feel-good movies, or popular television.

But that’s not ultimately what success is. We can easily lose sight of this in a culture that is so externally oriented, so hell-bent on looking good and feeling superior.

“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”

Benedict shared with everyone he met on the pilgrimage routes of Europe; a kind word to the weary, a message of hope to the forlorn, even the food and clothes he’d been given to those who seemed hungrier and colder than he. And when he was attacked and beaten, which happened often, he gave forgiveness.

Success is not about what we collect, what we can count, and what we control. Success is about what we give. It is about the virtue of generosity. And that’s what makes Benedict significant. Why he’s remembered and revered more than those of his time who had so much. This man gave everything he could, materially and spiritually.

Generosity comes from the Latin root that means “to give birth.” And people who practice generosity...giving their time, their talent, and their treasure…”give birth.”

And what is born of generosity? Your legacy…your gift to future generations; that which will live on after you; what you will be remembered best for; what will frame your eternity. If you want to be relevant, if you want your life to matter, give.

Because it’s only generosity that will move you from merely "successful" to truly significant.

Mothering Day

2011-05-07T17:11:00.000-07:00

"The mother's heart is the child's school-room."
-Henry Ward Beecher

Mother's Day is a holy day indeed, a blessed day, a precious day. It is a day we should all celebrate if for no other reason...and there is not a more fundamental reason...than that our mothers chose life. We can and should be forever grateful for this. There is no greater gift.

But on Mother's Day I believe we should also celebrate ALL women who mother, for motherhood is certainly more than a physical act. We miss the true essence of motherhood if we reduce this sacred role to something wholly explained by obstetrics.

Those who mother bear hope.

Those who mother invest in the future.

Those who mother protect innocence.

Those who mother guide the vulnerable.

Those who mother teach about all that is essential.

Those who mother sacrifice for the Good.

Those who mother love and let go...and still love.

Happy Mother's Day, Happy Mothering Day, to all women who carry life, birth life, and nurture life in every way. "Thank you" is a good starting point, but not nearly enough!

Getting to Santa Barbara

2011-05-06T18:19:00.000-07:00

“Know thyself.”
-Socrates

Santa Barbara is my favorite city in the whole world. It has nearly perfect weather, beautiful beaches, culture and history, great dining, a spirit of play, and a wonderfully diverse mix of people. I don’t live there full-time yet, but that’s the goal; the ideal. I get up there as often as possible, and when I leave I miss it all the more.

But how deep would my love for Santa Barbara be if I’d never been anywhere else. If my whole life I’d never seen another city, experienced another city, lived in another city? Sounds great at first, but there’s no way I’d have the same level of appreciation and clarity about the Mission, State Street, the Paseo Nuevo, the Museum of Art, Stearns Wharf, the El Encanto, and the countless other treasures my ideal city holds?

Thankfully I have visited and lived in other places, places that were not as good a fit for me, as wonderful, beautiful, or natural. Being able to contrast these places with my ideal place brings greater knowledge and understanding about what works for me, and where I want to end up. And my longing grows. This is a grace.

Your favorite city can serve as a metapahor for your true self. Both are beautiful places you want to live in more and more. The true self is you at your very best, the person you are meant to be: most free, alive, relational, authentic, joyful, and creative. Like your ideal city, your true self is what you ultimately want to make your “home.”

"Know thyself."

You become a true self by knowing yourself, and then doing something meaningful with the information you gather.

You must become a student of your own life, studying, exploring, and understanding the good, the bad, and the ugly; what has worked for you, and what has not worked for you. Looking at the “good” is helpful; the beautiful, interesting, exciting, gratifying experiences.

But it’s the “bad” and the "ugly” that will give you the most useful information.

It takes great courage and humility to do this, to study and learn from your pain. No one likes to reflect on mistakes and failures, rejection and abandonment, the times people hurt you and the times you hurt yourself. But knowing where you want to go, where you’re meant to go, is intimately connected to knowing where you’ve been.

You must go back before you can finally go forward.

John Paul, Osama, and the virtue of religion

2011-05-02T11:47:00.000-07:00

“I never knew how to worship until I knew how to love.”
-Henry Ward Beecher

What a day of contrasts; John Paul the Great beatified in the morning and Osama bin Laden the Not-Great dying in a hail of gunfire in the evening…both receiving their just rewards on the same day. What bookends.

Both men claimed to be religious, claimed to worship God, claimed to want transformation. No question that both men changed the world with their passion and convictions…all in the Name of God.

And a single news day will probably never give the world such a stark lesson in the virtue of religion.

I want to be clear; I am not writing here about one religion being better than another, about a superior worldview or doctrine. I am writing here about virtue…the practice of good habits, and the fruit that is produced by a life well-lived. Religion, if done well, can be a virtue.

And how do we know if religion is done well? A label? A set of rules? A growing number of members? It’s a lot more basic than this. It’s about love.

Love is what ultimately defines religion when it is practiced well, or not. And love was the fundamental difference between John Paul II and Osama bin Laden. One loved and one didn’t. One was humbled by love, and one wasn’t. One was moved by love to seek reconciliation with his neighbors and one wasn’t. One was compelled by love to seek social justice and honor the dignity of human life, and one wasn’t.

Religion can be a virtue, but like anything powerful it can also be a vice, used to hide from truth, oppress and terrorize others, and destroy goodness. There are valid reasons why so many nowadays are skeptical of "religion" and might scoff at the idea that it can make one better. There has been far too little love.

Our world is too complicated, too fragile, too dangerous to simply go by labels, and to dismiss or accept the notion of religion as a virtue based on a superficial read. Too much is at stake, and this world of ours needs all the help it can get.

So look at actions. Actions have always spoken louder than words. And no action speaks louder than love.

People from all religions celebrated the life of John Paul II yesterday because he loved. People from all religions celebrated the death of Osama bin Laden last night because he didn’t.

Love is the most radical concept ever created. It is the greatest, most transformative force the world has ever seen. And religion, when practiced as a virtue, produces love. It can make individuals better, marriages better, families better; challenging us to reach and stretch beyond ourselves and our privatized beliefs. And it can make the world better.

Just remember that when you think about religion, and whether it is a virtue, to look at the lives, and not simply the labels. And perhaps the two bookends of
May 1, 2011.

If you're going through hell...

2011-04-29T23:19:00.000-07:00

“If you're going through hell, keep going.”
-Winston Churchill

Recently, I found myself lost while driving in a part of town I was not familiar with. I’d like to blame Mapquest for faulty information, but the truth is that I left the directions at home. I’m usually pretty good at navigating, and had a general sense of where I needed to go, so I decided to journey forth anyway. But as I neared my destination, I took the wrong off-ramp, and then several wrong turns. After several minutes of wandering into one dead-end after another, I had to admit that I was officially lost.

The bigger issue, however, was that I'd also somehow managed to find my way into the most unsafe neighborhood I’d ever been in, complete with broken street lights, drug deals, and gangbangers congregating on street corners. I was confused about my surroundings, but clear that to stop moving, to park and sit, to curse my lot and quit trying to find my way out would be unhealthy in more ways than one. I was not in hell, but it was close enough.

“If you find yourself in hell, keep going.”

I gathered myself and began again to look for street signs and landmarks that would point me in the right direction and re-orient me. Carefully, I exited this dark labyrinth and eventually entered a safer neighborhood where I could pull over and ask for help.

Life will sometimes feel like one dead-end after another, in a dangerous neighborhood, without a way out. Regardless of who you are, you will on occasion find yourself in hell. You can set out with a fair amount of confidence that where you’re intending to go is where you’re going to end up. You may even have your directions right there with you. But unexpected twists and turns will leave you confused and unsettled; lost. And the pain that accompanies the experience of being “lost” can feel like hell; overwhelming, terrifying, hopeless.

Perhaps it is an addiction, or a heartbreaking marriage, or an out-of-control child. Maybe you’ve lost your job, or your health? “Will the disappointment ever end?” “Will I ever get a break?” “Will these hard times pass?”

Yes…but only if you keep going.

See the “signs”, the “landmarks”, and the “maps” of your life. What has worked for you in the past and what hasn’t? What gives you peace and what doesn’t? What affirms life, and what doesn’t.

And KEEP GOING: toward people who are trustworthy, wise, and generous; toward sources of wisdom that communicate eternal truth to you; toward a future that allows you to live your giftedness with joy.

And hell will soon enough be in your rear view mirror.

Just the facts?

2011-04-23T13:48:00.001-07:00

It’s Springtime, so allow me to recall my greatest personal baseball achievement. I hit an RBI single off a major league pitcher, in an all-star game, before a packed, standing-room only stadium. I’m serious. It was a letter-high fast ball. The pitcher was Bret Saberhagen, two-time Cy Young award winner and MVP of the 1985 World Series. He was to end up with 167 wins in his career, and pitch in three Major League all-star games.

Everything about this story is true. And it’s not enough. Because facts need to be placed in the larger context of life, of the larger story, in order for understanding to happen…

Bret and I were 12 years-old. The all-star game was Tarzana vs. Reseda. The packed stadium was the Encino-Tarzana Little League field. Oh, and he also struck me out two times that day. Bret would go on to achieve baseball greatness, and I would not.

People can present facts and still not tell the whole story. Facts can clarify, but they can also confuse. And if understanding isn’t sought and found, relationships will suffer and even end.

“All I said was ‘The Jones’ are going to Hawaii this summer’.” But what was your intent?

“I have to work these long hours in order to support this family.” But what about your other commitments?

“I’ve told my son a hundred times not to do that.” But have you heard what he’s been trying to tell you?

In times of conflict, the list of facts presented are all too often strategically chosen, carefully airbrushed, and part of a self-centered agenda; like an attorney trying to win a case in court. Understanding is lost in the battle to be “right.” And “right” can leave one feeling very alone.

What do you want out of relationships? Do you want to find love and happiness? Do you want to grow, and help others grow as well? Do you want to find real peace? Then you’d do well to seek more than just facts. Seek to understand and to be understood.

“What‘s your take on this?” “Tell me what your thoughts are.” “Help me understand where you’re coming from.” “What am I not hearing?”

What’s the story…the whole story?

Bulls-eye!

2011-04-17T15:27:00.000-07:00

“Being popular is a dangerous thing.”
-Anonymous

Honestly, I’ve always found it curious and more than a little disturbing that Christians celebrate so hardily Jesus’ “triumphal” entry into Jerusalem. As if we didn’t know how hollow, how fleeting, how painfully ironic this reception was.

We wave our palm fronds in the air as the service begins, and then continue fiddling with them as the Gospel message is read. Like we don't know what's coming. Or maybe it’s that we do know what’s coming, and it’s too uncomfortable to sit with.

Five days after being hailed as a King, the Rebel with a Cause would be betrayed and abandoned by his own, scorned, beaten, and prosecuted by the religious and political leaders of his region, and finally nailed to a cross for His efforts. The royal treatment indeed!

Popularity is a dangerous thing. It’s dangerous because it sets you up for envy. And hell hath no fury like people who are envious; people who hate you because of who you are and who they are. Popularity places a big bulls-eye right in the middle of your back. But this is not what you should spend time worrying about. Because the greatest damage is not caused by others, but by onesself.

Forget for a moment being hated for no good reason. What about being "loved" for no good reason?

In my practice I have worked with addictions of every kind, and I promise you nothing has the addictive, seductive power of popularity. How much of a hook is popularity for you? What have you compromised in order to be accepted and liked? What are you still willing to compromise? If pushed, everyone would deep down like to be popular. But at what cost?

In the end, we cannot control what people feel or think about us. However, we can control our addiction to what people feel or think about us, remaining focused on who we are and what we are called to do. And this starts by knowing what really matters, and what really doesn't.

Don't spend too much time looking at the crowd. They may love you today, and want to crucify you tomorrow. Keep your eyes on the real prize. That's the lesson of Palm Sunday.

Don't give up

2011-04-11T11:38:00.000-07:00

I want to start with one of my favorite statements of faith.

"Anyway"

People are often unreasonable, illogical and self centered;
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you've got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and your God;
It was never between you and them anyway.

-Bd. Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Detachment is a virtue that in the 21st century is misunderstood and seriously undervalued. The word itself is problematic, sounding too much like “detached”….checked-out, bored, impersonal, distant. But the virtue of detachment is anything but.

Detachment helps us get at the “why” question. Why do good? Why persevere? Why hope? Why love? And detachment purifies intentions as well, helping us see our own unfinished business: pride, dependency on the approval of others, control, and unrealistic expectations about how life and people SHOULD be.

Easier said then done! From an early age we are taught about the importance of justice, of fairness. And in a JUST world, things would be fair. People would be nice to you when you were nice to them. People would be generous with you when you were generous with them. People would be truthful with you when you were truthful with them. But of course life isn’t fair. People are not always nice, generous, truthful. We know this, and yet the fantasy is so hard to give up. If I just try harder, people will do the right thing. Sometimes. Just enough to keep you hooked into the false belief that your effort at goodness is enough to make everything fair.

It’s not. And that’s o.k. In fact it’s better than o.k., it's necessary. Because as Blessed Teresa of Calcutta reminds us IT ISN’T ABOUT YOU AND THEM in the end. It’s about you and your Creator. It’s about you becoming the person you were meant to be. It’s about you growing up.

Let go, detach….NOT from people, but from illusions about people, NOT from this world, but from illusions about this world, and NOT from the struggle to be good, but from illusions about the magical power of goodness.

Your daily efforts to make the world a better place, however big or small, matter more than you know. Humans being human doesn’t change this truth one iota. Detach from all that needs to be given up, but don’t give up.

The Need for Heroes

2011-04-01T10:42:00.000-07:00

"As you get older it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of necessary."

-Ernest Hemingway

Yes, it is harder to have heroes as we grow older. We hear, read, and see things we are (thankfully) sheltered from in childhood. And we are hurt. And then we get a little bit harder.

Of course no one is perfect. No one comes through every time, for everyone, in all situations (for the purpose of this discussion, Jesus does not count). But this is how we define "hero" when we are children...sort of a mix between Superman and God.

We discover one day that heroes are human. And in this inevitable loss of innocence, we tend to turn toward doubt. And here lies the problem. In our anger, our disappointment, our disillusionment, we accept the notion that one cannot have heroes. It's protective, usually, and not even a fully conscious choice...but we don't want to feel let down again, betrayed. And many of us never turn back.

Yet we must have heroes, and not just as children. It is, as Hemingway wrote, necessary. Necessary? Like water and oxygen are necessary to sustain life? No. But necessary in order to sustain emotional and spiritual growth. We will always need examples, inspirations, models, for how to live. We need to see the Good (even if it is not presented in its wholeness) if we are to combat the crushing, dehumanizing, killing effect of doubt.

If we are to develop as human beings, we cannot let doubt reign in our hearts. It feeds selfishness, and fear, and cynicism. It's the psychological equivalent of a black hole.

Most heroes will have a particular gift or two that they live out with great brilliance; the virtue of courage, or generosity, or creativity, or perseverance. And their light will inspire others to be more, and do more. And the world becomes a little brighter. These men and women will not be perfect, but that's not what heroes are.

I believe that we can be well-grounded in reality and still celebrate the ideal when we see it. Hero-worship must pass with the naivete of childhood, but emulation of those who live out particular virtues in heroic ways cannot, must not.

The world needs more hope, and less despair, more faith and less fear. Find what you admire, what you want to become, what is truly beautiful and good. And then see that these qualities reside in a human being.

Celebrate the heroic, re-consider having a hero or two, and maybe in this process become one yourself!

.

Anger Management

2011-03-28T13:25:00.000-07:00

“It is wise to direct your anger towards problems -- not people; to focus your energies on answers -- not excuses.”

-William Arthur Ward

Can you name one person in your life who is a healthy model for anger? I'm sure you can picture plenty of people…probably too many people… who rage or repress, get passive-aggressive or isolate with their anger. And after the fact make excuses for their bad behavior.

But do you have a healthy model for how to do anger well?

Anger is an emotion denied by many and feared by most because of its potential to harm. “Anger hurts people.” "I don't trust myself when I'm angry." “Anger is a sin.”

Yes, anger can be used to hurt people. Yes, if I don’t know how to work with my anger I probably should be unsure of myself with it. And yes, anger can lead to evil.

But anger can also lead to healing, self-control, and goodness. And most of all it can lead to intimacy. And it's the issue of intimacy I want to focus on here.

Much time in counseling and spiritual direction is spent helping one process through anger; identify the grievance, feel the wound, and develop a plan to confront the other. And this can all be fruitful. But if the process never goes beyond this, a critical step is missing.

In your anger with another, how are you angry with yourself? In your anger with another, how have you hurt yourself? In your anger with another, how have you compromised your goodness, your truth, and your dignity? Ask care-fully and thoughtfully.

Use your anger to explore how you need to be more gentle, more peaceful, more joyful, and more mindful of all that truly matters.

When you return to your “side of the street”, focus on yourself and your own unfinished business, the deeper process of responsibility-taking can really begin. Then the unpleasant experience of anger (giving and/or receiving) becomes an opportunity to learn and grow, and your more authentic understanding of self will certainly be a blessing for those around you.

In the end, the battle is not about the other, it’s about you.

What IS your duty?

2011-03-23T20:14:00.000-07:00

"Let's have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it."
-Abraham Lincoln

Do you believe this is true? That right makes might? That living a life dedicated to doing the right thing can actually make a difference in this tired, weary world? If you do, then knowing WHAT your duty is becomes that much more crucial.

Duty. What does that word mean anymore? It is not commonly used nowadays, save for commercials about the military. And most assuredly the brave men and women who serve in our military do their duty in particular and sacrificial ways. But of course the great Mr. Lincoln's challenge to "dare to do our duty" extends beyond military service.

What do you understand to be YOUR duty? As a husband or wife, as a mother or father, as a friend or co-worker, as a neighbor? How do you begin to understand this key to TRUE power?

I believe your duty, my duty, humankind's duty, is to "dare to do good."

Start with the acknowledgement that you can make a difference. YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE. If you truly, deeply, passionately believe this, then the daring will naturally follow...the daring to take the extra step, to care just a bit more, and to put love into action in a thousand little ways. You don't need to find a cure for cancer, or win the Nobel peace prize, or be the greatest president in our nation's history. You simply need to believe that right makes might...and then do the right thing, more often then not.

You know what the good is, what the right thing is. It's what you learned in kindergarten, and what your heart tells you is true when you are still. Be kind, be honest, share what you have, and play well with others.

And remember that truly good people don't get that way by doing one thing 100% better. They become truly good by doing one hundred things 1% better. Because goodness is contagious.

Right makes might; live like this is true, and watch it become so.

Understanding Happiness

2011-03-16T22:35:00.000-07:00

"Happiness is secured through virtue; it is a good attained by man's own will."
Thomas Aquinas

"I just want to be happy." "I just want my partner to be happy." "I just want my kids to be happy."

In therapy and outside of therapy, happiness is the goal I hear more people talk about than any other. And there's nothing wrong with this goal. In fact, I think it's an excellent goal to strive for!

The problem isn't the goal, the problem is in how people try and achieve the goal.

We live in a world that consistently misunderstands what makes one happy. We will be happy, or so our reality T.V. culture tells us, when we have more money, or popularity, or plastic surgery, or power, or alcohol, or sex, or experiences.

Being able to better control things and people around us would help a lot too, right?

"Winning", I guess.

The lie is that happiness can somehow be found apart from good behavior; that it can be bought, or manufactured, or manipulated with enough "fun."

Fun will sustain happiness about as well as cotton candy sustains a starving person. Fun is great, but it is not the source of happiness.

St. Thomas reminds us that happiness cannot be separated from virtue...good habits. And happiness is the product of good living, plain and simple; no short cuts.

We will never be happier then when we are using our freedom to do good and be good. It sounds too easy, and perhaps too boring, to lead to happiness.

And if you judge happiness by one night, or one weekend, or one month, the connection between goodness and happiness may not be clear.

But study the people you know who are truly, deeply, securely happy, and you will find lives marked by generosity, kindness, peace, balance, love, and courage; virtue.

Happiness, in the end, is not a great mystery. Do good, surround yourself with good people, and don’t give in to cynicism.

You’ll change your world, and you’ll change THE world. And yes, you'll have a lot of fun, too.

The Season of Yes!

2011-03-09T15:29:00.000-08:00

Quick...what's the first word that comes to your mind when you hear "Lent"?

I bet it wasn't "Yes".

The 40 days that precede Easter have typically been known as the Season of "No"; "no chocolate", "no meat", "no coffee", "no television", "no Facebook" (yes, I actually know several people who have given up Facebook for Lent). And saying "no" to things that distract one from responsibilities, that numb one to feelings, that sap life is certainly part of this season. Saying "no" can help us detach from bad habits.

But if all we're doing is saying "no", we're only half way home. Because the "no" won't lead to joy, peace, and growth that lasts.

"No", by itself, stops being sufficient by about age three!

We are meaning-seeking people. We need to have a purpose in mind for why we do what we do, whatever it is. "What is the point of giving up coffee, dessert, meat, or the internet?" "Why am I doing this?" "Am I just following rules to follow rules?" God help us.

This is where the "yes" comes in.

Happiness, true happiness, is not just about being free FROM something, it is also about being free FOR something...something more beautiful, more healthy, more loving. "YES."

So the next time you find yourself saying "no", find the "yes" that is attached...and celebrate the good which you are moving toward!

Blessed Lent!

2011-03-08T21:42:00.000-08:00

"So teach us to number our days, God, that we may apply our hearts to wisdom." (Psalm 90:12)

A blessed Lenten Season to all our friends!

The R word

2011-03-06T12:03:00.000-08:00

I wonder why it is that in a world where there is increasing sensitivity to certain words (words that put down people because of race, religion, nationality, or sexual orientation) that the "R" word continues to be acceptable to use? "Retard;" one hears it on T.V., on the radio, and in casual conversation to describe questionable judgements or just plain stupid behavior.

So why not use "stupid" to describe stupid behavior? Why not use "dumb" to describe dumb choices? Why use a clinical term that is not even commonly used in professional circles anymore because it is too broad, and doesn't properly reflect the giftedness of human beings who are intelligent in ways that don't necessarily show up on a standard I.Q. test?

Am I sensitive to the word "retarded" because I have a son with Down syndrome? Yes. I readily admit that I am more conscious, more aware, and more sensitive to this put-down word. I'd also add that I'm more sensitive to all put-down words thanks to my specially gifted son. Thank God there is a growing awareness that words matter!

But back to the issue of the "R"word? Why does its usage continue to be so widely acceptable? Is it because special needs persons don't form a huge voting block? Don't have a powerful lobby in Washington? Don't produce movies or television shows in Hollywood? Yes.

More fundamentally, though, it has to do with the way our culture continues to overvalue certain achievements and undervalue others.

What school you graduate from, how many degrees you collect, how high you climb on the company ladder, how much money you make, how many toys you can collect, and how good you look doing all this "succeeding" matters more than being a kind person, a loving person, and generous person, a joyful person.

Balance, people, balance...who we are matters at least as much as what we do. And in the end the two can't be separated.

"Retard" is more than just a put-down word. It carries a dangerous bias with it, a bias that feeds ignorance, and callousness, and divisiveness; a bias that limits ALL of us.

Find another word.

Afflicting and comforting...

2011-03-01T18:42:00.000-08:00

"Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable."
-Finley Peter Dunne

Oh, its so easy to get outside ourselves, and point to all those who are "comfortable", and who need serious "afflicting." Your list is probably pretty long, if you're anything like me. Hypocrites, narcissists, materialists, nihilists, self-centered....wow, the labels are flowing wonderfully!

Here's the point...while we're getting after these folks who need a nudge toward goodness and consciousness (and this is not a bad thing...do it!), let's not forget ourselves in this process. "How am I too comfortable?" "How do I cut corners?" "How do I turn a blind eye, and let things slide in my own life."

And as we hunt down those who need afflicting, are we spending at least as much time finding folks who need comforting?

Lent is coming. But regardless, this is the best way to live....never separating truth and love, practicing humility and moral courage, and actually caring for those who hurt all around us.

This will change the world....one comfortable person at a time!

Lessons from Libya

2011-02-26T21:08:00.000-08:00

Freedom cannot be separated from responsibility. This is an eternal truth that transcends culture, race, geo-politics, and religion.

I understood this once again as I watched the crisis unfolding in Libya; from the protesters risking their lives in the streets of Tripoli, to the Libyan pilots refusing to follow orders to bomb their own people, to the Libyan Ambassador to the United Nations denouncing the madman who has held Libya captive for far too long.

To be fully human, to choose life, we must recognize that we are free. And that in our freedom we must be able to respond well....to respond in ways that support the dignity and worth of self and others.

The protesters, the pilots, and the ambassador are heroic examples, no doubt. I am inspired by them, I celebrate them, and I pray for them. But the greatest revolutions, the most profound battles, are not captured on television.

The virtuous life, the life grounded in freedom and responsibility, is won or lost in a thousand little "wars" every day. In the home and at work, in the classroom and on the playground, in emails and in texts; we are free to choose truth or lies, kindness or callousness, generosity or selfishness...peace or violence. And our consciences tell us that we must answer, sooner or later, for the choices we make.

God help those who struggle tonight in the Middle East, and God help the rest of us as well.

.

In Memoriam: Dr. Bernard Nathanson

2011-02-21T22:43:00.000-08:00

Dr. Bernard Nathanson passed away today at the age of 84 after a long battle with cancer. His life was an amazing story of mercy and redemption.

Nathanson headed the largest abortion clinic in New York City, and admitted that he was personally responsible for over 70,000 abortions (including one on his wife). However,enough encounters of photo-images of abortions eventually led to a dramatic conversion to the pro-life movement, while still an atheist.

The rest of his life Dr. Nathanson worked tirelessly to inform people of what they were actually choosing with abortion, writing and speaking extensively, as well as producing The Silent Scream and later The Eclipse of Reason. In 1995, he became a Catholic-Christian.

Requiescat in pace, Dr. Nathanson.

Men being men

2011-02-19T18:39:00.000-08:00

"The crisis of the Modern age is the crisis of fatherhood."
-Benedict XVI

All men are called to be fathers. For some, this will include a biological process, but the virtue of fatherhood is so much more than that. All men are called to be fathers. Oh, would this world be a better place if that truth was understood.

Being a father is not simply a state one finds one's self in...at least it shouldn't be for long. Fatherhood is a way of being in the world; a personal and existential commitment to the future. It is about being generous with one's time and experience, and teaching with words, but also by example. Fatherhood asks one to sacrifice for the good, to protect innocence, to respond proactively to the emotional and spiritual needs of others, and to care deeply about life.

Fatherhood is essential to becoming a real man.

Today I had the opportunity to speak on the topic of Fatherhood at a men's conference. The participants were there not because it was court-ordered, or work-ordered. There was no immediate gratification or external benefit, and on a cold, rainy Saturday it wasn't even convenient.

These men were there because they wanted to be better men, plain and simple. They wanted to be better equipped to love, and guide, and encourage others...and they understood deeply that the young are our hope, and that every child matters.

I think these men are heroes.

What is love?

2011-02-13T17:27:00.000-08:00

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails..."
-St. Paul, 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Happy Valentine's Day to you all!

In the beginning....

2011-02-09T21:13:00.000-08:00

"If you would understand anything, observe its beginning and its development."
-Aristotle

I didn't think the assignment was going to be very difficult. "Tell me about your family history. Where were your ancestors from, where did they settle when they first arrived in America, and what did they do for a living." Basic information, straightforward, easily shared, right? Wrong.

A disturbing number of students couldn't even tell me much about their grandparents' pasts, let alone foremothers and forefathers from three or four generations back. "We don't really talk about the past." "How would I know?" "What does that have to do with me?"

It got me wondering how many of today’s teenagers are a-historical: unaware and/or unconcerned about their roots, their family histories. And what the cost is.

“If you would understand anything, observe its beginning and its development.”

We cannot know ourselves, understand ourselves, simply by looking at ourselves. This is simplistic at best, and runs the real risk of feeding a culture that is already startlingly shallow and narcissistic.

Knowing the stories of those who came before us…appreciating the sacrifice, the courage, and the perseverance of our ancestors…is a crucial part of knowing our own stories. A generation that is not meaningfully rooted in its history, and grateful for a foundation to build on, cannot grow to full maturity.

Sit down and listen!

2011-02-03T18:44:00.000-08:00

"Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen."
-Winston Churchill

In our own efforts to be seen, to be heard, to be right, what are we not hearing?Because of fear, or pride, or impatience, or all of the above, what are we missing? What do we NEED to hear from our spouse, our parent, or our child...from our friend or our "foe"?

True communication is about talking AND listening, and it is the key to intimacy.

And if, as the experts say, 75% of communication is non-verbal, are we attending to more than just words?

Have the courage to sit down, to be still, and to seek understanding before agreement.

More than flies?

2011-01-29T16:36:00.000-08:00

St. Thomas Aquinas once wrote that, "All the efforts of the human mind cannot exhaust the essence of a single fly." This from agruably the greatest genius of the last thousand years. If anyone understood the power...and limitations...of the intellect it was the Angelic Doctor.

All the efforts of the human mind cannot exhaust the essence of a single fly? And if this is true for flies, how much MORE true is it for human beings, made in the very Image of God?!

Should we, then, stop trying to think, stop trying to reason, stop trying to figure things out? Of course not. Heaven knows this world could use a little more rationality, and a little less hysteria.

But it does mean that as we live our lives, and try (more days than not) to get along with those around us, we'd do well to respect the dimension of mystery in others, and to practice reason with a good measure of faith and humility!

Rock Pile?

2011-01-23T14:55:00.000-08:00

"A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral."
-Antoine de Saint-Exupery

All around us is embedded meaning, beauty, truth. This is because of Who God is. And He has created us to wonder, to discover, to engage His creation with the gifts we've been given. He'll give us the grace and inspiration for this journey. But we are free to choose, so He won't do the work for us.

Do you see rock piles in your life, or potential cathedrals? It all starts with vision, and hope. Let yourself dream, love, pray, and don't put off what you feel in your heart is essential.

Attaching the card to the gift

2010-12-23T20:37:00.000-08:00

Words matter, especially when it comes to loving: there is no getting around this fact. Love is just too powerful and too important to leave mute. In the midst of one memorable marriage therapy session, I had a husband actually say to me, in front of his wife: “I said I loved her on our wedding day, and if that ever changes, I’ll let her know.” Now, before you judge this man to be a complete jerk, let me say that he is actually a good man…verbally challenged, but a good man. He did many things that communicated love to his spouse and his kids, but these acts of charity were often lost in the busyness of everyday life. Working 50 hours a week in order to provide financial stability for her, responsibly putting away money for their retirement years, and remaining faithful to his wedding vows in mind and body were all ways he believed he was communicating love. And this was true. However, relationships are strengthened when words accompany deeds.

Words clarify intentions, and don’t leave too much open to interpretation (or mis-interpretation). When you give people gifts at Christmas time, you attach a card, right? You let them know who gave them the present by signing your name. Why? Probably because you want them to know you were thinking of them, caring about them, confirming that they matter to you. You don’t typically leave a package outside the doors to their rooms or their houses and silently slip away. The gift is nice, but what matters more (and lasts longer) is that the people receiving the gifts feel loved. Don’t leave them guessing. Say the words that affirm, “I love you,” and make sure your gift is received in the spirit it was given.

Consider your family members, starting with your spouse. How does your husband or wife know you’ve loved him or her today? “I fixed dinner, “I came straight home from work instead of going out with my co-workers,” “I washed the car,” “I did the grocery shopping”: attach an “I love you” to these deeds, and clarify what they meant to you, and what your partner means to you!

“My kids know I love them.” Really, how? Because you are planning for their futures, or paying for their piano lessons, or praying for them at night after they’ve gone to bed? These can all be statements of love, true, but your kids can’t read your mind. They don’t always see the world the way you do. Their feelings are not your feelings. Don’t assume; “sign the card”.

I wish each of you a blessed Season of Miracles, and encourage you to make sure you “attach the card to the gift”…all year long!

For Miriam

2010-11-30T17:43:00.000-08:00

The Holiday Season is now officially upon us, and in the next several weeks we will have built-in opportunities to practice the virtue of generosity. Quick, what comes to mind? If gift-giving was your first thought, you are not alone. And there is certainly nothing wrong with exchanging presents. But an exclusively material understanding of this virtue is to miss the essence of generosity. In fact, some of the most giving and charitable people I know have very little in the way of things. Generosity is first and last a gift of the heart.

In my clinical practice, I have had the opportunity to work with many special people who were outstanding in one way or another. But one stands out as truly memorable when I think about the virtue of generosity...I'll call her Miriam. I met her soon after she was diagnosed with cancer. Miriam told me that the doctors gave her less than a year to live, and she didn’t want that to get in the way of her life. In the weeks that followed, Miriam and I talked a lot about spirituality, and how to bring meaning out of her terminal condition. She decided that the focus for the remainder of her time on earth needed to be service to others. Although she had always been involved in one charity or another, it had been on the side. Now, she wanted her volunteerism to be front and center. A local soup kitchen in need of helpers welcomed her with open arms, and in no time her grace and selflessness began to impact everyone around her. The homeless people would find out when she was going to be working so they could come by to visit with her, and the staff began calling her “mom”.

She gave tirelessly, whether ladling soup, washing dishes, encouraging diners, or counseling other volunteers about relationships. As time passed, Miriam began to grow weaker, but she insisted that she wanted to continue. So the organization arranged for her to be picked up at her apartment, and placed several recliner chairs around the facility so that she had a place to rest wherever she was in the building. I was told by several of her co-workers that Miriam never stopped smiling, never stopped asking others about their lives, and never stopped talking about how fortunate she had been in her life.

What the staff didn’t know was that Miriam was the survivor of a violent childhood and a horribly abusive marriage, and had fewer material possessions than most of the homeless people she fed and cared for. Her generosity elevated Miriam to a level of goodness, of greatness, most could never have dreamed of before meeting her.

And I have no doubt that when she did at last walk through the gates of Heaven on that bright December afternoon, nearly ten years ago now, the angels bowed in admiration.

I wish all of you a blessed Holiday Season, a season full of generosity that begins and ends in the heart.

Sharing the Rough Draft

2010-11-07T16:17:00.000-08:00

In marriage, we are constantly having internal dialogues about our spouses and our marriage. “I think my wife is mad at me because I didn’t ask her about her day?” “I feel my husband is bored with me because I see him yawn all the time.” “I wonder if our marriage is as strong as the Jones’?” Our thoughts and our feelings give us an initial “read” on a given situation, something like a rough draft, but these assumptions are often untested. Is this absolute fact, or is it just something I think or feel to be true?

Too often this “rough draft” bounces around in our heads and hearts, but doesn’t get voiced until we’re often pretty far down the road toward a conclusion. Maybe we don’t share because we’re too busy, maybe it’s because we’re afraid of what’s really going on, and maybe we keep our internal dialogues to ourselves because we’re insecure about possibly needing anything. Whatever the reason, it’s dangerous. We’re practicing emotionally isolating behavior that slowly kills intimacy. Fears creep in, and we become increasingly likely to behave toward our spouses as if our assumptions are actual realities. And guess what, our spouses are going to be pretty confused!

Even if the assumptions we carry about our marriages or our beloveds are positive ones, we still need to be bringing our spouses into the “conversation” because anything good should be shared and celebrated.

So often therapy is about getting clients to relate to one other instead of untested, false assumptions about each other. Over time these false assumptions have been left to harden over the months and even years like concrete. Thus, it takes much work to chisel away the layers of defensiveness and get to the truth. So much pain and loneliness could have been avoided if the rough drafts had been “read” out loud, brought into the light. “I feel like you don’t care about me as much as you do the kids.” “I believe you only want to spend time with me if you think we’re going to have sex.” “You’re disappointed in me because I don’t make more money, right?” “I think you come home late because you prefer to be at work.” Say it!

Your thoughts and feelings are very important. They give you meaningful information about who you are and where you’ve been, but they are not always an accurate read on life going on around you. Your thoughts and feelings are not infallible….even when it comes to your spouse and your marriage. You may believe that because you’ve known your partner for a long time, your intuition is bound to be accurate. Maybe it is, but test it first! Share what’s in your head, share what’s in your heart…early and often. “Let me read my rough draft to you.” “How does it sound so far?” “Am I on track, or is my conclusion faulty?”

But don’t just stop at reading the rough draft of your thoughts and feelings out loud to your spouse; edit, revise, re-write! The final draft is yours, but it should include plenty of feedback from you partner.

Patriotism

2010-10-20T11:17:00.000-07:00

The Virtue of Patriotism

Like millions of others I watched with joy as the miracle rescue of the Chilean miners unfolded last week. For 69 days these men were trapped under 2,000 feet of rock. And they survived. And a nation rejoiced…and the world rejoiced right along with them.

So many stirring images, so much courage, and faith, and love, and will to live. Funny how these fundamental virtues can unite so many. But the virtue that was perhaps missed in all the celebrating was the virtue of Patriotism.

Patriotism is a virtue? Indeed! St. Thomas Aquinas considered it “a duty one owes” to country, recognizing the good provided by, and the universal ideals supported through, a nation…always worth sacrificing for.

What a moment, listening to President Sebastian Pinera tell the miners, “You are not the same, and the country is not the same after this,” and then spontaneously leading the crowd in the singing of the Chilean national anthem. This was Patriotism in its purest form. Everyone, rich and poor, educated and uneducated, respectful of individual differences, and focused on the celebrating of what is best about one’s country, and what is best about humankind. Pride isn’t always a deadly sin!

Patriotism is too often confused with ultra-nationalism, which starts with a condescending “we’re better than you” attitude, and ends up dividing and alienating. Patriotism as a virtue rises above politics, and superficial slogans, and 15 second sound bites, and honors what is best, what is good and true, what is worth living and dying for, and what is worthy of emulation in one’s country.

What is worthy of emulation? Virtue. Heroic efforts at being good, courageous, generous, kind, patient. You’ll know an act is truly patriotic, virtuous, and not just political, when both the person and his or her country is made better by it. And when people and countries do good, the world becomes a better place.

I think I became Chilean for a brief time last week, watching those beautiful people singing their national anthem, celebrating life and all the ways their country supported life. And I’m a better American for it.

Who are you listening to?

2010-10-09T15:33:00.000-07:00

Lucille Ball was dismissed from a drama class, with the penetrating insight: “She’s wasting her time here. She’s too shy to put her best foot forward.”

A brand new band calling themselves The Beatles was rejected by the first recording company they approached. The reasons given? “We don’t like their sound. And besides, guitar music is on the way out.”

Abraham Lincoln had two failed businesses, suffered a nervous breakdown, experienced the death of his fiancé, and lost eight elections.

Michael Jordan was cut from his Freshman high school basketball team.

Thomas Edison was told by a teacher that he was “too stupid to learn anything.”

Walt Disney was fired from a newspaper job because, as the termination report read, “He lacks imagination and has no original ideas.”

The longer I live, the more I realize that people who succeed in life are people who are courageous enough to risk failure and loss, and are able to pick themselves up and get back in the race when they inevitably do get knocked down; they persevere.

And a critical part of risking failure and persevering in our efforts, of persisting in the face of obstacles and creating something beautiful with the gifts we’ve been given is who we choose to listen to. Which voices do we filter out, and which voices do we let in?

How do we do this discerning? Start with a simple rule of thumb: spend more and more time with life-giving people, and less and less time with life-taking people. Too simple? I’m amazed at how many people don’t follow this advice. There is confusion about responsibility (“I must spend time with this person, respect this person, take care of this person”), or history (“It’s not always bad”), or even what it means to be a good person (“I shouldn’t be angry, sad, tired, happy”). Crazy? No, just fear-based. The people you surround yourself with, and let in, can absolutely make you or break you. Choose life!

You’ll know the life-giving people because they will foster hope, see potential, and celebrate you as you are. They will work diligently to not separate truth and love. They will not project their fears onto you. They will not project their pain onto you. And they will not project their dreams onto you. And life-giving people are interested in mutual, respectful, joyful friendships. Beware of people who have no joy…they will resent yours.

Who do you listen to? Whose opinions do you hear…and take in? Are they encouraging, engaging, and elevating to the spirit? Choose well, listen well, and then follow your inspiration…you’ll change the world!

2010-09-22T16:05:00.000-07:00

Peacemakers are not blessed because they are other-worldly, avoid confrontations, spend all day in church praying, and never get angrythey are blessed because they are finally at rest in God. St. Augustine put it simply: “God, You have created us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” The meek are able to be peacemakers because they are first at peace with God; peace with self and others follows. This peace is the fruit of cooperating on ever deeper levels with God’s will and remaining open to His healing grace. Peacemakers echo the words of St. Paul: “I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through Him who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:12-13). Paul did not write these words from some ivory tower, safe and comfortable as a professor at some small liberal arts college. He wrote about the contentment of being at peace with God from a dark, dank prison cell in Rome while awaiting execution. In his life, he suffered much for the Kingdom of God: stonings, beatings, shipwrecks, physical ailments, murderous plots, and eventually martyrdom. But this is the power of meekness, withstanding all the world can dish out while allowing God’s supernatural healing to be unleashed in and through your life. It truly does surpass human understanding, and it can be yours as it was Paul’s, but only with Christ’s help. The story of Corrie Ten Boom, told in The Hiding Place, demonstrates this well.

As a young woman in Holland, she and her family used their home to hide Jews from the Nazi occupiers. When finally discovered, the Ten Booms were sent to Concentration camps, Corrie and her sister Betsie specifically to Ravensbruck. Corrie would survive the hell but her sister would not. Years later, as an internationally-renowned speaker, Corrie traveled far and wide speaking about the love of God and Christ’s ability to transform even the greatest of sinners. But her ability to be a peacemaker, to practice meekness in the face of anger, was put to the test one Sunday after she spoke at a church in Germany. One of the Nazis who had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing room at Ravensbruck approached her smiling and reaching out his hand toward her. “How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein; to think that as you say He has washed my sins away.” The horror of the camp, the taunting of the men, the pain and fear all came rushing back in an instant. Corrie tried to respond with charity, but anger paralyzed her. Silently she breathed a prayer: “Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me Your forgiveness” (p. 238). Ten Boom explained that in an instant she was given the grace to see that healing was not contingent on human ability to forgive or love, but on God’s ability to forgive and love. She took the former Nazi’s hand and gave him her blessing. God will give us what we need, if we cry out to Him for assistance. He tells us to love our enemies, and then gives us the love to do it.

The meek shall inherit the earth and the peacemakers shall be called the children of God because they rest in the Prince of Peace. And they bring His message of reconciliation to an angry and hurting world, whatever the cost.

What can you do today to be a peacemaker: in your home, at your work place, and in your heart? Simple acts of kindness, gentleness, goodness; think small, get started, and ask God to bless and mutiply. You'll be changed, and so will the world.

Growing Up: The Virtue of Being Family

2010-08-31T18:18:00.000-07:00

The family is the heart of our society, of civilization itself. This has always been the case in every culture and every country throughout history. Nothing has a greater influence over an individual than the family unit...not school, not profession, not even church or synagogue. The family of origin, that is the family we are born into, gives us our blueprint for how to see and interact with self, others, life, and God. Family is our first teacher. This is not to say we need to be controlled by our pasts. Certainly healing and growth can happen at any stage of life, but as long as we live we will be interacting with our original families, if not face-to-face at least in our hearts and minds.

Being a family is so much more than simple genetics, or living together under one roof, or eating a certain amount of meals together, or sharing a common history, or even sharing a last name. Being family does not happen accidentally, it must be chosen...multiple times a day. We choose to be family when we make concrete decisions, big and small, with what we say or don't say, do or don't do, think or don't think, feel or don't feel.

We choose to be family when we love each other in word and deed
We choose to be family when we teach our children right and wrong, and hold ourselves to the same objective standard
We choose to be family when we listen to each other at least as much as we speak to each other
We choose to be family when we reach outside of ourselves and serve others
We choose to be family when we celebrate the uniqueness of each individual family member
We choose to be family when we play together, laugh together, and celebrate Sabbath together

Being family is a process that must become habitual...that's why I'm calling it a virtue. And good habits take time to form. Practice, practice, practice...with little and big acts, growing in consistency, intentional and freely given. It's not always easy, and it's not always fun. A healthy family recognizes this, and chooses to make the investment of time, energy, and spirit anyway.

There is nothing more important on a natural level than truly practicing the virtue of being family, and as we ask God into this process, to bless and guide our efforts, the results become sacramental. Get started (or re-started) tonight. You'll be glad a thousand years from now that you did!

The Virtue Project

2010-08-18T21:51:00.000-07:00

Stillpoint Family Resources is very excited to announce that The Virtue Project, in development for over a year, is ready to "take on the road." There are five modules to this practical, engaging, and empowering Character Formation program that integrates psychology with theology and philosophy: 1) The Believer, 2) The Couple, 3) The Family, 4) The Parent, 5) The Teen.

Please pray for this work, for the speaking engagements we're already booking, and for future opportunities! And let us know if you'd like more information!

To What End....

2010-08-14T20:49:00.000-07:00

St. Maximillian Kolbe, a Franciscan priest, died 69 years ago this day in a starvation bunker at Auschwitz. His is a remarkable story of courage and love.

Because he was a Catholic priest confronting evil, the Nazis arrested him and sent him to the concentration camp. In July 1941, a man from Kolbe's barracks vanished, prompting the deputy camp commander to pick 10 men from the same barracks to be starved to death in order to deter further escape attempts. One of the selected men, Franciszek Gajowniczek, cried out, "My wife, my children!" It was then that Kolbe volunteered to take his place. No greater love....

After three weeks, all the men in the starvation bunker had died except for Father Kolbe. Finally losing patience with the process, the guards gave him a lethal shot of carbolic acid to finish the job....as if death could silence such a life. Roughly 40 years later, at the canonization ceremony for St. Maximillian, Gajowniczek (the man Kolbe had volunteered to die for) was present and spoke.

Maximillian Kolbe is an obvious example of what we would call a martyr. But as I sat in church this morning, I began reflecting on what he'd say if he was preaching the homily. My serious hunch is that he'd focus on what the word martyr means..."witness."

What does your life witness to? What does it say about your beliefs and values? How much time do you spend reflecting on your actions, your choices, your relationships, and where you're headed in life? And to what end? What's the point? Intentionality is crucial in the practice of virtue....like a compass is to a ship on the open sea.

Kolbe certainly knew what his purpose was, and he lived with a razor sharp focus. "Only love creates..." And if he were here today, I believe he'd challenge each of us to be creative in this way; to get outside ourselves and serve. To love in action. And as a Franciscan, he'd also tell us to do it in simple and small ways. Choose to do 1,000 things 1% better...

This is the way of transformation. This is where true and lasting joy will be found, where action meets purpose....and where peace and salvation wait.

"One Man's Trash...."

2010-08-01T14:43:00.000-07:00

Antique stores are hopeful places; places that believe in second chances. They accept what others have thrown away, given up on, discarded as un-useable, because they see the potential that remains. Recently, I found myself in a dusty and well-stocked one named "One Man's Trash...", an hommage to the saying, "One man's trash is another man's treasure." This store had a little of everything, from automobile parts, to farming and gardening equipment, to knick-knacks and artwork found in everyday households. I struck up a conversation with the older gentleman who owned the store, wondering what he enjoyed most about the antiques business. "I believe that everything can be used again, and nothing needs to be wasted," he said with a contented smile. "I love that notion." Me too.

Everything can be useful, and nothing need be wasted; sounds a little like St. Paul's counsel to the Church at Rome. How much healthier we, and our relationships, would be if this philosphy were truly embraced in mind and heart, and lived out daily? And most particularly in relationship with an inexhaustibly merciful God?!

God can and does use everything to help us grow up emotionally and spiritually, if you'll invite Him into your own personal "antique store," where there are many things that can be re-purposed, renewed, and restored with the right amount of care and attention.

The parts of our lives we're tempted to bury or hide out of shame and guilt are precisely the parts God wants to use to keep us focused on Him, and the path that leads to Life. And He is never put off or scandalized by our imperfections. Does He care if we lie, cheat, steal, gossip, abuse substances, and rebel in any number of other ways? Of course He does, because He loves us and wants the best for us. But through it all, He never stops loving us and calling us back to what is most essential, to what is true.

In all things God works for good, and He loves unconditionally. If He didn't, the manger in Bethlehem and the Cross at Golgotha would never have happened. Through our mistakes, and heartfelt acknowledgement of those mistakes, He promises to teach, to empower, and to inspire us to virtue, and to lasting peace and joy. However, all too often this reclamation project of turning "trash into treasure" is blocked by us, stalling growth and trust in self and others.

And when you're thinking of blocks to healthy and holy living, start with pride. Pride is the Queen of the Deadly Sins for a reason. It was the original sin, and all sins grow from it. It has infected humankind ever since Eden. Pride convinces us that we can do it alone, that we don't need others, that perhaps we're even better than others. Pride also tells us that how we look to others is more important than who we are. So, the great cover up begins in earnest.

Isolation is the fruit of pride. And isolation kills.

Brokenness is an essential part of our inheritance as fallen human beings, but it does not need to be our destiny. God uses everything, but we must first choose to invite Him into the mess, the chaos, the "trash." Give everything to Him: your regrets and fears, your envy and resentments, all those mistakes you feel are too terrible to admit to. Ask for help, and then move on the resources He'll send: emotional, relational, and spiritual. Do this today...and again tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, and so on....because the antique store of your soul must remain open for business, and you need to show up for work every day!

"Trash to treasure"...the ultimate recycling plan!

Controlled Burn

2010-07-20T19:25:00.000-07:00

A few years ago I had the opportunity to hike in the beautiful, emerald forests surrounding Lake Tahoe for the first time, but midway through I was surprised to wander upon dozens and dozens of what appeared to be funeral pyres dotting the hillsides; dry brush and splintered tree limbs gathered together and neatly stacked in piles, waiting to be set ablaze in controlled burns the forestry service systematically conducts every autumn. These stacks of debris were, in some cases, only a few yards away from 100 foot pines and I couldn’t help but reflect on the control the firefighters have to have over these fires they intentionally set, to keep the burns from becoming an infernal nightmare. It is well known that to not clear space and remove excess flammable material would be to limit the sustained growth of the forest, and set the region up for a major disaster. The inherent risk of controlled burns is essential for long-term safety. To lower this risk, of course, the forestry service is very careful to choose what they burn, where they burn, and when they burn.

Anger is something like fire, burning white-hot with intensity and power. It can be used for illumination and warmth, and to clear away the emotional and spiritual debris getting in the way of healthy growth in a marriage. Or, it can be permitted to burn out of control, destroying anything and everything in its path and leaving a trail of death in its wake. As a clinical psychologist, I’m actually concerned when I hear a couple say that they never fight, and never get angry with each other. This isn’t real, and is sure evidence that at least one person in the relationship is hiding. Human beings step on toes while dancing, and occasionally stomping, through life. Even when we’re not trying to be hurtful, it’s just a matter of time, and when the hurt comes the burn of anger is soon to follow. Fine, as long as these burns are “controlled.” Like the forestry service preparing for life-sustaining burns in the mountains, time and place is critical.

Fighting in front of others, in public view, is the emotional and spiritual equivalent of the forestry firemen randomly setting anything they see that’s brown on fire, and choosing the windiest, driest day to do the burn. I’m not talking about the moments where disagreements spring up in the course of conversation. A husband and wife might disagree about any number of different issues ranging in importance, and still “contain the burn” in public by staying sensitive to tone of voice, level of anger and hurt, amount of time the disagreement is allowed to run, and the reactions of those around them. Before too long, a neutral statement like, “Let’s talk more about this later”, or “I guess we can agree to disagree” is offered and accepted. No, I’m talking here about the fighting that doesn’t have boundaries.

Think of the last time you were at a family gathering, or double dating, or just sitting in a public space, and you observed two people fighting. It may have had a loud and emotionally violent quality to it, it may have been cutting and sarcastic, and it may have been chillingly quiet, but you felt the toxicity in the air and probably wanted to head in the opposite direction as quickly as possible. It’s incredibly uncomfortable to be around. Fighting in public is rude and selfish, with the implied message being, “Our problem is more important than your peace.” It chokes community and friendship. Specific to your marriage, when you fight in public you disrespect yourself, your spouse, and the very marriage vows you made.

You won’t always like the person you’re married to, and sometimes that dislike may even tempt you to hurt the one you love publicly, but don’t let that push you beyond appropriate social limits. If you do give in, trust in yourself and your partner will erode, and the cancer of disdain grows. Fight, but be careful to choose where, when, and how. Otherwise, you could be setting a forest fire in your marriage that does irreparable damage.

How are you looking?

2010-06-18T19:09:00.000-07:00

When we first bought our house several years ago, there was a great deck in our backyard. From a distance it looked attractive, sturdy, functional. But as one got closer, it was clear that the deck was sagging in places. And standing on it confirmed that it was structurally unsound and needed to be torn down. I think of that old deck when I think of the deadly sin of envy.

“Envy rots the bones,” says the author of Proverbs. What an image! Of all the deadly sins it is the most pathetic, and arguably the most common. St. Thomas Aquinas defined it as “sorrow at another’s good.” Pathetic. Envy is the only deadly sin without even a moment of gratification. And it typically begins very early in life, as one feels an increasing sense of inecurity and competition with those around him or her: for love, for attention, for acceptance. Life for the soul struggling with envy is a series of competitions, and the envious always feels one-down....and is in fact collapsing at a foundational level, emotionally and spiritually.

But as deadly as envy is, it can be helpful in letting us know what we value most and this awareness can be the beginning of healing. Envying another’s good looks may tell us that we put too much importance on physical beauty. Envying a house, a boat, or a car, may be an indication that we base too much of our self-worth on material objects. Envying someone’s popularity may be a clue that we have not been good friends to others, or even to ourselves. Envy can help us take stock of our lives, and re-prioritize our values. The word envy comes from the Latin "invidere", which means "to look askance." Thus, it is in how we look at others, their talents, material possessions, and/or moral virtues that must be carefully considered. Envy focuses one’s vision on the negative aspects of life. The envious, with eyes narrowed, look for faults in others and opportunities to minimize their virtues and successes. This bitter disposition will eventually consume the envious person’s entire world if not challenged. This is why Spenser presents Envy riding atop a ravenous wolf in his pageant of the deadly sins, with venom dripping from its mouth. “For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice” (James 3:16).

Recently, I heard about an inspiring incident that occurred at a Special Olympics track meet. A group of mentally and physically challenged children lined up for the 100-yard dash, and when the starter’s gun sounded they were off toward the finish line, running for the gold medal. About ten yards into the race, one little boy tripped and fell. As he lay in the dust crying one of his competitors, a little girl with Down syndrome, heard him. She slowed, stopped, and then turned and went back to see how he was. One by one every runner in the race joined her, encircling the fallen athlete. The little boy was kissed, consoled, and encouraged to get up and rejoin the race. Then, as the stunned crowd looked on, all ten runners spontaneously grasped hands and ran the race together, crossing the finish line at the same time.

Charity, like envy, has everything to do with how one sees the race, the competition, and the prize.

Thank you, Coach....

2010-06-04T20:47:00.000-07:00

Funny the things that come to mind when you hear that someone you knew has died.

I knew John Wooden in passing. He was friends with my father, and he was gracious enough to accept the Humanitas Award at our second Stillpoint Family Resources Gala. A week before the event, I had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meet with him at his home in Encino. He graciously autographed a basketball for our auction, and then chatted with me for about thirty minutes. I left knowing that I had been in the presence of greatness.

He'd spoken about basketball, but also about poetry, philosophy, and faith. The man was profound, and I was transfixed. Toward the end of our meeting, I was able to mumble that I'd had the privilege of attending four of his summer basketball camps, and how much I'd enjoyed them. He smiled and asked me if I remembered the drills. I did, actually. But what I remembered more had nothing to do with basketball.

I remember how Coach was with his wife. As a boy of eight, I noticed how he responded when he'd see her arrive at the camp. He seemed to explode with joy. This sports immortal, the "Wizard of Westwood", greatest coach in the history of college basketball (and maybe all of basketball), totally and unabashedly joyful about his wife. She'd enter the cafeteria and he'd get up, go to her, embrace her, and usher her to his table where they seemed to have a date...at least that's what it felt like. In the middle of a noisy cafeteria, at a basketball camp for kids, they were alone. I was eight and I noticed. What does that tell you about the power of their love?

John Wooden wasn't a great man because he won a lot of basketball games. He was great because he loved. He loved God, he loved learning, he loved people, he loved basketball, and he especially loved his wife. I smile to think that John and Nellie are finally together again tonight, forever.

Requiescat in pace, Coach. Thank you for teaching about what matters most.

In the beginning....

2010-05-30T16:04:00.000-07:00

“Whatever did not fit in with my plan did lie within the plan of God.”
-St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

I remember the call like it was yesterday. It woke me from this wonderful dream about my beautiful wife and my brand new, perfectly healthy son. "We need you to come back to the hospital. We believe your son has some genetic issues we need to discuss with you and your wife." The pediatrician sounded like she was a million miles away. Of course she was already distancing herself emotionally...what news to have to give to a first-time father who six hours earlier was sent home with the promise that everything was fine.

The doctor gave the phone to Jenni, without telling her anything about "genetic issues". "Ross, what's going on?" All I could mumble was, "I’ll be there in twenty minutes and we'll figure it all out." I hung up the phone and collapsed into a chair. Figure it all out? The doctor was talking about Down syndrome. I don’t know how I knew, but I didn't even have to ask. My head started to swim, and my breathing suddenly became very shallow. I tried to tell myself that the doctors could be wrong, and that there was no way two healthy young parents could have a child with Down syndrome. Besides, throughout the entire pregnancy none of the screens or ultrasounds had picked up any sign of problems. This couldn’t be.

But as I sat there in our kitchen, looking out at the start of a bright sunny day, I knew that the doctors were not wrong, and that two healthy young parents could have a Down’s baby, and that not all screenings and ultrasounds pick up irregularities in a pregnancy. Most of all, I was overwhelmed by the realization that my life had just taken a sharp turn and that nothing would ever be the same again. John Michael Porter, miracle, mystery, perfect gift of God was born with strawberry-blonde hair, blue eyes, and 47 chromosomes. In addition, he had two major heart malformations and needed his first heart procedure at three days old to save his life. Over the next two years, he would have pneumonia and two more open-heart surgeries. If John Michael had been born twenty years earlier, he would not have survived one week. The technology that saved his life had not yet been developed.

I know without a doubt that I would be a very different person if I had lost my baby boy. I would still believe deep down that giftedness was best defined by I.Q. tests, and the formula for success was a good education coupled with a high paying job, and that “retarded” people couldn’t be teachers. I’ve found that this is the worldview of most people in our society…especially if they haven’t experienced the beauty of a special needs person face-to-face, and heart to heart. People who carry this bias are not bad, they’re just mistaken…like I was mistaken for the first thirty years of my life.

Some lessons can only be taught in the context of a relationship.

Tomorrow, May 31st, the Feast Day of the Visitation, our John Michael turns 16 years-old. The little boy Jenni and I had baptized at 16 hours old, because we thought it would be the last thing we could do for him before he returned to God, is about to turn 16. Amazing. My heart is so full of gratitude for the gift of his life, and for the gifts all our special needs children are. But my heart is also heavy, knowing how frighteningly few of these precious children are even given the chance to live, to love, and to change the world around them with their smiles, and hugs, and innocence.

Please join me in praying for those who are, or will become, pregnant with special needs children; that they are able to see with eyes of faith the gift they've been given, and that they will receive the support they need to embrace life. Because if they choose life, they will be changed forever...and the world will be a better place.

And thank you John Michael for being my hidden grace, my greatest teacher, my heart. You're daddy loves you beyond words.

A thing of the heart

2010-05-14T17:18:00.000-07:00

When one speaks of courage, images that jump to mind are of heroic action: the first responders on 9/11, a teen-aged St. Joan of Arc leading the army of France into battle, the soldiers who stormed the beaches at Normandy. Certainly these are all outstanding examples, but can also lead people to believe that courage only happens on the largest of stages, with lives in the balance. We miss the full beauty of this virtue if we don't recognize that courage is just as fully presented in the "little things"...victories that can't be quantified. Victories that can only be measured by the heart.

In fact, the word Courage comes from the Latin for "Heart". Courage takes the "thought" to do good, and puts it into action. To resist giving in to obstacles, and to take positive action...that's courage.

And there was plenty of courage, heart, on display yesterday at the Chaminade College Preparatory baseball diamond.

My dear friend and colleague Joe Sikorra was there with his son John. John is blind, and struggling with the devastating effects of Batten disease, a neurodegenerative disorder. But his dream has always been to play high school baseball. He's been on the team as a "coach" this year, but that wasn't enough. He wanted to hit, and he wanted to run, and he wanted to score.

So, yesterday at the start of the game, the manager chose John to be the leadoff hitter. The visiting team took the field, honoring the moment with their cooperation. A ball tee was placed at home plate, and Joe led John to it...and then stood back and let him swing for the fences. And did he ever! As John, led by his father, rounded the bases the crowd rose and cheered, a boy's dream was realized, and this weary world seemed just a bit brighter.

Courage. It's the virtue of battlefields and burning buildings. But yesterday it was also the virtue of a high school baseball diamond, when a beautiful young man running short on time and his proud father grabbed hands and together charged past fear, and indifference, and passivity and into an immortal moment that all of Heaven cheered...along with a couple of hundred people on earth.

The Tiger You Know...

2010-04-23T17:57:00.000-07:00

Are you familiar with the saying, “The tiger you know is better than the tiger you don’t know?” It originated in India, with townspeople that lived on the edge of jungles inhabited by tigers. Inevitably, a tiger would wander out of the jungle and through the town, looking for food. This was certainly an immediate danger, but over time the town got to know the tiger’s habits, his routines, and when he would come calling. They chose not to kill the tiger, because they knew that another would soon replace it, and bring new habits they were unfamiliar with. This new tiger would be more dangerous than the old because the new one would be unpredictable.

This “settling mentality” may be the right strategy for Indian towns dealing with tiger problems, but it is a slow death for marriages, a quitting that is just as final as a divorce.

Marriages get into ruts, and stay in ruts for many reasons, but at the core is a fear of change. We are always free to make changes, adaptations in our marriages, big and small. True, our freedom is not unlimited but there are always choices…always. However, there will invariably arise a serious temptation to deny this personal freedom, and give excuses for why we must remain stuck.

Anxiety comes with all change, because change brings us face to face with possibility, with the great unknown, with new challenges and responsibilities. And anxiety is an uncomfortable feeling to say the least. It may sound crazy but many marriages stall, and remain stalled, because relative dissatisfaction is seen as preferable to all that potential healing and growth would bring. “True, I’m not wonderfully happy, but it could be worse.” The tiger you know…

Spring is the season of new beginnings. See if now isn't the right time to re-discover why you first chose each other. What first drew you to each other, and what you origninally fell in love about....and begin that wonderful process of falling in love all over again!

Facing Pain

2010-03-31T14:02:00.000-07:00

"There is no coming to consciousness without pain." -Carl Jung

Jung is right, of course. There is no coming to consciousness, no "waking up to reality" if you will without pain. Whether it arrives physically, emotionally, or spiritually, pain will come knocking. C.S. Lewis once said, "God whispers to us in our pleasure and shouts to us in our pain." This is reality, this is life on planet earth. Lots of wonderful, beautiful, fun, loving experiences, but always with a pinch of pain tossed into the mix here and there (and sometimes even more than just here and there). This is not Heaven.

The point of this life is to learn how to love and grow up, to help others learn to love and grow up, and to prepare for eternity. This doesn't happen without pain. Sure wish it did, but it doesn't.

But as someone who feels pain, as someone who works with people in pain all the time, and as someone who (like millions of others around the world) is trying to embrace all that is Holy Week, simply feeling pain is not enough.

People in pain can be quite dangerous, destructive, crazed...like wounded animals. They have not come to "consciousness," to awareness and mindfulness. Or maybe they have, and concluded that objective reality is not what they're willing or able to embrace.

What do we do with pain when it comes? This is the key question. Do we pretend like we don't feel it? Do we get busy, compulsive, frantic with activity? Do we isolate? Do we go to war against real or perceived enemies (anger is a popular hiding place for those attempting to manage pain)?

Or do we feel, and bring the pain into relationship with trusted others (asking for accountability, guidance, support, and love). Feel, and work to place the pain in a larger context of meaning and purpose (what can be learned about the world, human nature, and all that I have to be grateful for?). Feel, and choose to let the pain educate us about where we need to grow up (immaturity, entitlements, and illusions). Feel, and choose to purify, mortify the parts of us that need to die (pride, sloth, greed...shoot, just choose your own favorite deadly sin and insert here)?

Life is difficult. Pain is inevitable. No use denying. So let's learn what we can, seize the opportunity for transformation, face reality as head-on as possible, stay connected to life-giving people and institutions, and recognize that the pain we feel (however debilitating, terrifying, crushing, or maddening) is only part of the much larger reality of our lives. Let's not hide... for our sakes, for the sakes of our loved ones, and for the sake of this hurting world. Because if we can summon enough courage to live in truth, pain will not have the final word. And resurrection will become much more than a theory.

World Down Syndrome Day

2010-03-21T12:38:00.000-07:00

HAPPY WORLD DOWN SYNDROME DAY TODAY - 3/21 is World Down Syndrome Day. The date was chosen because it points to the third chromosome that attaches to the 21st, causing Trisomy 21, or Down syndrome.

Why do we celebrate this day? Because it is a chance to recognize the giftedness and beauty of our Down syndrome children, and the eternally significant lessons they teach with their very beings. In a larger, deeper sense, though, we should also be celebrating this day because it makes a statement about the inherent value of human life...every human life.

Thank you God for our John Michael, the inspiration for so much including Stillpoint Family Resources. And thank you God for all special needs persons. Our world is a kinder, gentler place because of them.

Attaching the card to the gift

2010-03-14T17:27:00.000-07:00

Words matter, especially when it comes to loving: there is no getting around this fact. Love is just too powerful and too important to leave mute. In the midst of one memorable marriage therapy session, I had a husband actually say to me, in front of his wife: “I said I loved her on our wedding day, and if that ever changes, I’ll let her know.” Now, before you judge this man to be a complete jerk, let me say that he is actually a good man…verbally challenged, but a good man. He did many things that communicated love to his spouse and his kids, but these acts of charity were often lost in the busyness of everyday life. Working 50 hours a week in order to provide financial stability for her, responsibly putting away money for their retirement years, and remaining faithful to his wedding vows in mind and body were all ways he believed he was communicating love. And this was true. However, relationships are strengthened when words accompany deeds.

Words clarify intentions, and don’t leave too much open to interpretation (or mis-interpretation). When you give people gifts during the Holidays, you attach a card, right? You let them know who gave them the present by signing your name. Why? Probably because you want them to know you were thinking of them, caring about them, confirming that they matter to you. You don’t typically leave a package outside the doors to their rooms or their houses and silently slip away. The gift is nice, but what matters more (and lasts longer) is that the people receiving the gifts feel loved. Don’t leave them guessing. Say the words that affirm, “I love you,” and make sure your gift is received in the spirit it was given.

Consider your family members, starting with your spouse. How does your husband or wife know you’ve loved him or her today? “I fixed dinner, “I came straight home from work instead of going out with my co-workers,” “I washed the car,” “I did the grocery shopping”: attach an “I love you” to these deeds, and clarify what they meant to you, and what your partner means to you!

“My kids know I love them.” Really, how? Because you are planning for their futures, or paying for their piano lessons, or praying for them at night after they’ve gone to bed? These can all be statements of love, true, but your kids can’t read your mind. And even if they could, there is still something deeply formative about hearing you affirm their preciousness. They don’t always see the world the way you do. Their feelings are not your feelings. Don’t assume; “sign the card”.

The Fruit of Love

2010-02-10T10:52:00.000-08:00

Love is dynamic: it is always in motion, always impacting, always expanding. It cannot be contained! A sure sign that a family is loving in word and deed is that they don’t just love each other: they reach outside of their home and love those around them. Mother Teresa of Calcutta put it this way, “The fruit of love is service.” This service to God’s family will necessarily take you beyond your comfort zone, beyond where you’d travel if it was just about you and yours. Service, empowered by love, will be inclusive, because God’s love is inclusive and it is He Who is ultimately loving through us.

I recall that a tradition of my family growing up was to adopt a family at Christmas time through our Church. My mother would always organize this event, and I admit that at the time I didn’t grasp the full significance of this annual ritual. Frankly, at 46 years-old I’m still processing the meaning: love, and the fruit it bears, is a great mystery. The first few years, I mostly experienced our adopt-a-family project as a disruption to my weekend plans. After all, this process took a little time, asked me to get outside myself for a few hours, and didn’t seem to provide any tangible benefits…not terribly compelling for a typical teenager. We’d all go shopping for food and toys as a family, and then deliver the goods to our church where someone else would drive the gifts to the adopted family. But one December my mother, God bless her, decided we were going to deliver this taste of Christmas in person…as a family. I remembered feeling uneasy as we drove up to a dimly lit apartment building, in a neighborhood I had never ventured anywhere close to. A cheerful mother answered the door and invited us in. Before the rest of us could think of an excuse, my mother was saying thank you and moving through the threshold. There were at least ten people in this little two-bedroom apartment, a mix of children and adults: three generations of family sharing a new start in a foreign land. I couldn’t believe how crowded it all seemed, and how happy these beautiful souls appeared.
When I arrived back home that night, I sat in my room reflecting on the life that surrounded me…all the goodness and blessing…and it looked a little different. Like tectonic plates moving miles below the surface of the earth, slowly reverberating up until an earthquake is eventually experienced at ground level, the impact of that evening took time to consciously reach me, but I still feel the impact today some twenty-five years later. Antoine de Saint-Exupery said, “Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking together in the same direction.” That direction needs to eventually be outward.

We need to be of service to those outside our own families. We need to learn to give to those less fortunate then we are, not because of their poverty but because of ours. God understands perfectly our tendencies to become too self-involved, too insulated from the larger family of humankind, too self-congratulatory in our private realities. This society we are a part of has become alarmingly divided, splintered, alienated: we have too often forgotten who we are and who we are meant to be. This is why He calls us to action.

The family that truly loves will follow the lead of Love right out the front door of the home, and into the big wide world. It will love in the spirit of the Good Samaritan, who sacrificed for his neighbor even when his neighbor was supposedly a sworn enemy. It will love in the spirit of the religious family of the Sisters of Charity around the world, who like their little Albanian foundress find people of all religions and races in muddy gutters, and dark alleys, and all kinds of wretched squalor, and joyfully care for them. And it will love in the spirit of my mother, who challenged her family time and again to move beyond the limits of comfort toward greater meaning and purpose.

Happy Valentine's Day....let's try to live the spirit of the day in word and deed all year round!

Reverie and rosemary bread....

2010-01-29T22:14:00.000-08:00

“Earth is crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God…” -E.B. Browning

For the Porter family, Friday nights have become synonymous with dining at Nicola’s Kitchen, a friendly little neighborhood restaurant that our kids love. They love being recognized by the waitresses, they love the familiar surroundings, and they love the bread. Nicola’s makes this warm rosemary bread, and serves it as a wonderful appetizer. John Michael, in particular, likes it and for him it is the dinner. On one occasion, a family friend joined us for this Friday night meal and was soon enthralled with the way John- John was eating his bread; gently, lovingly, and with great joy. “Look at how into the bread he is; it’s like a religious experience for him.”

If we had only observed John Michael in this state of reverie while eating at Nicola’s we could easily explain it as him enjoying his favorite food, end of story. But we see John Michael enraptured by simple things all the time, certainly enough to say that this is one of his gifts. He has a remarkable ability to live fully in the moment, a moment most of us miss in our rush to get on with the "important" issues of life. And in these given moments, filled with simple things, he is able to identify and accept the gifts God offers there. This all occurs in the course of everyday activities because God wants us to see, and hear, and understand in a certain way.

He wants us to value what the powers of this world have deemed insignificant and small. These blessed moments carry glimpses into eternity…of peace, love, communion, and everlasting happiness…and remind us of how close Heaven is to us all the time. They appear in many different contexts because God likes variety. Time of day or night is irrelevant because they come from outside time. Location is inconsequential as well because all of His created world is sacred. God is always reaching out to us, calling to us, showing us His reality. We are all sent these moments, kairos moments, moments that are not measured chronologically because they cannot be measured at all. How can one quantify things of the Spirit? These moments, and what they bring, ultimately escape words. One can talk about the felt experience, but descriptions fall short in the end. Mystics and poets would agree.

In a world that lives too often for the moment, with a grabbing-and-hoarding orientation, John Michael’s gift of receptivity in the moment stands out. Heaven has begun on earth for him. Antoine de Saint-Exupery, in The Little Prince, wrote, “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” While those of us who are not special needs (in medical terms, anyway) see with our eyes, John Michael sees with his heart. He has an intuitive knowing about what is essential in life, and is not distracted by the things that God has not deemed truly important.

Recently, a friend was sharing with me his deep concerns about whether his son would be accepted at his alma mater Yale University. As I listened, I found myself thinking about all the issues I’m anxious about: ‘Is this person upset with me?’ ‘Did the audience truly like my speech or were they just being polite?’ ‘How will I afford college tuitions for my children?’ ‘Will the Stock market rebound?’ These concerns matter on some level, but are they really worth the amount of time and energy I give them? It can be easy to shrug off what others might consider anxiety provoking, but consider for a moment what the anxieties are in your life…the concerns that jerk you out of the present moment and either throw you back into the past, or catapult you into the future? Jesus promised that God would care for all the needs of His children. How much do we believe this? How differently would we live if we really believed it deep down in the depths of our souls? And I wonder about John Michael, who will not be applying to Yale University, does not worry about whether someone is saying nice things about him, will not need to pay for his children’s college tuitions, and doesn’t even know what the Stock Market is. What, if anything, is he anxious about? He doesn’t have the vocabulary to tell me explicitly, but his behavior tells me that anxiety is not a burden for him.

True, his medical diagnosis places him in a different category than you and me. But if we believe what our faith tells us, we don’t have to be Down syndrome to live as freely as my son does. John John’s secret lies in his commitment to living in the moment, and enjoying the simple things God gives him there. I can almost hear the echo of St. Paul writing to the Church at Philippi from his dark, dank prison cell in Rome, while he waited for his certain execution: “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances…”

John Michael enjoys ecstatic moments over more than bread; a gentle breeze caressing his face, bright lights on a Christmas tree, a grape flavored popsicle, dappled sunlight kissing him through a canopy of trees, a prayer being recited in church, and raindrops dancing around him in the garden. His eyes may widen or close, he may sit silently and motionless, head titled slightly back, or jump up and down in place, giggling and waving his hands in joy. He has many more facial expressions than words, but during these times he’ll occasionally say, “God power,” or “beautiful”, or “church people.” I so wish I could see what he sees, know what he knows. My son seems to be taken into a world of wonder, through a portal I can’t recognize until he’s through it. I feel like I’m a step behind him because I’m moving too fast. He’s with me, but not. Then, he’s back and the moment is gone. There is no short-cut technique that could force open the door; his entry ticket is his way of being. He just is…and these moments come with remarkable regularity for him. I wonder if they come for all of us and we just aren’t paying enough attention? How different would our lives be if we lived with sensitivity, and openness, and respect for the simple things? What if we weren’t so busy; busy being productive but not fruitful; important but not meaningful; pious but not holy; successful but not faithful; knowledgeable but not wise. Would heart attacks and cancer be such epidemics? Would we constantly be on the brink of war, as individuals and as a nation? Would people still be dying of starvation in our own cities? Would the earth be so polluted? There is so much to attend to, but how much of it is eternally significant…and how much do we miss? I think the holy often wears the ordinary as a disguise.

God comes to us in and through the natural world. He is the God that guides with a pillar of cloud by day, and a column of fire by night. He is the God of the burning bush and the rushing wind. He leaves His fingerprints on sunrises and sunsets, points the way with a star, chooses birth in a stable, baptizes with water, heals with mud, and gives Himself to us in bread and wine. Why, then, should it come as any surprise that He would use a Down syndrome boy who experiences a taste of Paradise in rosemary bread to teach a seminary graduate about the deeper issues of faith…and life?

Building a culture of care

2010-01-16T17:39:00.000-08:00

Alfred Adler defined empathy as “seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another, and feeling with the heart of another.” To build empathy, one must invest time in the relationship: quality time to explore the mystery of the other. One must also try to be humble and patient, and be more interested in understanding and true reconciliation than in being “right” and in control. In other words, empathy is a rare and beautiful virtue. At its core, empathy is the ability to step out of your shoes and into those of the person you’re interacting with: to experience the world from his or her perspective, and broaden your worldview in the process.

My friend and colleague Joe provided a great example of this when he rolled up to a staff meeting one day in a convertible Jeep Wrangler he’d just purchased. I asked him about the change, wondering to myself (in a rather un-empathic spirit) if this wasn’t a midlife impulse buy. Joe simply explained that he wanted his boys to have more of an experience of driving as they entered their teen years, and a bouncy, loud, roofless jeep would provide this much more than a typical sedan. How is this empathy? Joe’s two sons are both blind. Empathy is the stuff of saints.

When individuals feel cared for and respected, the home becomes a sanctuary, and relationships and souls are safeguarded. I may be nervous about something I’ve done, or unsure of a direction to take, but in a family working toward health and wholeness I don’t have to worry about being shamed, ridiculed, manipulated, or rejected. This doesn’t mean there will be total agreement amongst family members. There won’t be, but that’s not the ultimate goal anyway. We’re talking about a family here, not a cult!

If I know there’s someone who will really work at hearing me, seeing me, and loving me as I share, then I will risk, and heal, and grow….and so will my family!

Who do you need to practice more empathy with? Get started now, and keep trying in little and big ways each day….asking, listening, and then acting in generosity.

Think Small

2009-12-31T10:36:00.000-08:00

Mother Teresa, the saint of Calcutta, was fond of saying, "We can do no great things, only small things with great love." Mother, no doubt, had a bit of the trickster in her...for she knew better than most that when you do something with great love, it ceases to be small. Love is eternal, and it infuses everything it touches with Eternity. Can't get much bigger than that.

Her challenge, historically known as the "little way," is a great one for all of us as we face the New Year. I believe that people too often think that anything less than finding a cure for cancer, or solving the economic crisis, or donating a ton of money to some well-deserving non-profit organization is not significant enough to tilt the world. But the reality is that when you love another, you move yourself and that person toward Heaven. BIG tilt. Honest to God.

Start with yourself and those closest to you, and work your way outward from the center. What little things can you do today, right now: offer a smile? an affirming word? a quick prayer? a menial task done without being asked? a "love letter" on a post-it? some minor sacrifice for another that stretches you a bit?

Resist the temptation to think that "little acts of love" don't matter, and strive for consistency. Resist the temptation to get perfectionistic about your actions, and move in freedom. Resist the temptation to need someone/anyone/everyone to notice how loving you're being. This plan is good for you, naturally and supernaturally. And the fact that God notices and is pleased is a pretty good reason to be at peace also!

Everyday, make a decision to do little things with great love...or as much love as you can muster up. And the world will become a better place. Happy New Year...think small!

Careful Where You Dig

2009-12-12T15:38:00.000-08:00

A couple of summers ago King Tutankhamen visited our city again. It had been over twenty years since the boy king, who died in 1339 B.C., was on tour along with artifacts from his tomb. As impressive as the exhibit was, though, I found the story of his discovery as interesting as the treasures that lay inside his almost perfectly in tact final resting place. Howard Carter, the English archaeologist who found Tut’s tomb, had searched carefully, persistently, purposefully for ten years in the blazing Egyptian desert. And when he finally found the entrance to the tomb, almost accidentally, the work was still not finished. Locating a treasure is not worth very much if you destroy it in the unearthing process. So, Carter and his team ever so gently, almost reverently, explored the interior of the tomb, and the person that lay within, foot by foot, observing, studying, learning with great respect. After ten years of searching, you can imagine how much Carter might have been tempted to rush, to hurry, to take control of his find and exploit it for personal gain. But he maintained a remarkably unhurried and cautious pace, not wanting to damage in any way such a precious find. The process was more important to him than any individual agenda. Howard Carter’s approach to King Tut and his world serves as an apt analogy for how spouses should explore their partners’ respective pasts. In relationships, we must be careful when digging…archaeology with a heart!
Wanting to explore the mystery of your beloved, spiritually, emotionally, and physically, is an essential part of intimacy. If you’re not curious about how your partner has become the person he or she is, there’s a problem. After all, how else can you learn how to love him or her more and more fully. In order to make discoveries, we must do some digging into the past; not everything lies on the surface. There are great treasures that lie buried in history, but we must proceed with great care and gentleness.
A few guidelines for this “archaeological process” are sure to help your “dig” remain helpful and not harmful.
First, be clear about your motivation. Why are you asking the questions you’re asking? Is it to know your partner more fully so that you can love him or her more completely? Is it that you want your spouse to feel cared for, attended to, celebrated? Or, is your agenda less about love and more about control? Are you attempting to gain the upper hand in an argument, shame or guilt your partner into a subordinate role, make yourself feel significant.
Second, keep in mind that prior relationships, prior choices (both good and bad), prior experiences must be understood within the contexts they happened. A huge mistake would be to judge your spouse for something that happened years ago, with no respect for time, place, or culture. This would be a little like Howard Carter criticizing King Tut for his burial attire, or the way his tomb was organized. Reality check: ask yourself if you and your world have changed at all since you were in high school or early adulthood. Have you learned anything new about life and love, responsibility and freedom since you were 18 or 21 years old...or even since last year? My hopeful guess is that you have.
Finally, there must be freedom to share what one is comfortable sharing…and permission to say “I’m not ready to go there” or “not now” if the questions begin to feel uncomfortable, or the tone of the discussion begins to feel less like intimacy and more like an inquisition. If this occurs, put the breaks on and figure out what the emotional discomfort is about. It might be related to the here-and-now, the style or tone of the conversation, but it may also be linked to pain from the past that has not been fully healed. If the latter is the case, consider red-flagging the issue and revisiting it individually and/or as a couple with a trained third party (i.e. a counselor). Remember, discovering a treasure is wasted if, in the handling, we destroy it.

Holy Days

2009-11-27T18:00:00.000-08:00

Holidays. What are some of the words that immediately come to mind? Vacation? Family? Shopping? Food? How about holiness? Honestly, holiness would not have been the first word that came to my mind either. Yet, essentially, that is what the holidays are about.
The word holiday comes from the Old English halig daeg, or holy day. Holy Days have traditionally been days in which children of God, whatever their religious tradition might be, are asked to be particularly aware of God's universal call to be holy. Holiness is a journey toward the good, toward transformation, toward Heaven, and in both the Hebrew and Greek language, holiness has two aspects to it: separation and union.
First, we are called to be separate from the world of darkness, where one lives a selfish, confused, ultimately directionless life, apart from God. Then, we are called to an ever-deepening relationship with the God of Love, His will for our lives, and His hope for the world He loves beyond words.
Unfortunately, holiness has not appeared to be a very attractive calling. Holiness has mistakenly been associated with words like judgemental, condescending, and escapist. "Holy rollers" and "holier than thou" attitudes give many the sense that "holiness" is about rules, perfectionism, and a lack of concern for those who are "outsiders." No wonder so many have trouble with the word holy.
Holiness is so much easier to recognize than it is to describe.
While I was in seminary, Jenni and I lived next door to a Chinese-American family. Our first week as neighbors, the Yens invited us over for dinner and when "Grandma" found out that I was a seminarian she asked me privately, in her best English, if I might do her a favor. Would I read her favorite Bible verses into her tape recorder so that she could listen to them in her free time?
Why did this 80 year-old woman make such a request? Was she practicing her English? No. Was she trying to look more "Biblical" in the eyes of her family and friends? No. Did she appear unbalanced, rigid, compulsive? Hardly. Her mind was sharp, her manner was joyful, and her eyes were filled with charity. I told her I would gladly do this for her, but awkwardly asked her why. She explained that she didn't speak or read English well, and her church was Chinese-speaking. She wanted to listen to her favorite verses in English because it was not nearly as familiar to her as her native Mandarin. Thus, she would have to listen "very closely."
Oh how different this world would be if more people listened “very closely” to the gentle urging of God…to be loving, truthful, gentle, kind, generous, and self-sacrificing.
Grandma gave me a wonderful example of what holiness really is, and I remember her in a special way this holiday season; this season of holy days. She now hears God's voice most clearly, and sings with the choirs of Heaven. May we hear those choirs of saints and angels during this season of miracles, and recognize in a new way how close God is to us throughout the year.
Let’s remember what this season of holiness is really all about….new beginnings, transformation, and hope! Let’s take inspiration and put it into action, re-commit ourselves to personal growth and healing, and bring light to our hurting world.

The Season of Hope

2009-11-15T14:17:00.000-08:00

The Holiday Season is upon us, an “official” time of celebration of things foundational and eternal, but also a time of waiting! I think of this as the Season of Hope. Hope, the little sister of Faith and Love, is such a beautiful virtue, so essential to healing and wholeness...and of course at the very heart of our Stillpoint mission.
Symbols of this “thing with feathers” (as Emily Dickinson put it), Hope, are embedded throughout Sacred Scripture: the birth of Israel, manna in the wilderness, The Cloud by day and the Pillar of Fire at night, the Promised Land of Canaan, a Baby in a manger, an empty tomb, Bread and Wine, the New Jerusalem, and the perseverance of the saints just to name a few. And what we know deep in our hearts is that Hope is like a torch, chasing away the darkness and enabling us to see what lies ahead: Providence….God’s care. Because He wants us to grow in faith and dependence on Him, though, God doesn’t usually show us the details of the future. Don’t you wish He did? But then we wouldn’t ever grow up, and we need to grow up in order to love and change the world. However, God does send consolations to help us hang in there and trust that good is coming, and often these consolations take human form.
My first year of graduate school I worked three different jobs, one of which was selling programs at Dodger Stadium. Nothing wrong with this job, except that it was the same one I had when I was sixteen. And now at twenty-four I wanted something more “professional.” But the money was surprisingly good, and the work fit with my schedule, so I suited up and showed up. My stand was directly facing the skyscrapers of downtown, and occasionally people I knew from high school or college would pass me on the way in to the game, dressed in business attire and looking very successful. The surprised expressions on their faces told me they weren’t exactly sure what I was doing with myself, and I usually didn’t have the opportunity to explain. I felt like I was a lifetime away from my dream. One night, as the crowds streamed in, and I was busily trying to look busy, I heard someone yell, “Hey, Doctor Porter.” Without thinking about the fact that I was still six years away from earning that title, I turned to see a teacher from my high school coming toward me with a big grin on his face. I was in the middle of Finals and was exhausted, so the emotions surfaced quickly. All I could get out was a quiet, “Thank you.” He gave me a hug and added, “I thought maybe you needed to hear that.” Blessed are the messengers of hope.
In this Season of Hope, I want to thank you on behalf of Stillpoint Family Resources for being a messenger of hope, by helping us extend hope to those in need: to the person fighting a drug addiction, a couple struggling to stay married, a suicidal teen, or the single mom who has just heard the news that she’s carrying a special needs child. Because of all the ways you give to Stillpoint, through prayer, through service, and through financial support, we are able to serve as messengers of hope to over 150 families in nine different locations throughout Ventura, Los Angeles, and Orange Counties every week. We thank you for standing with us, and we humbly ask that you continue to help us in any way you can.
I wish you a blessed Season of Hope, and a New Year full of meaning and purpose!

November 2nd (All Soul's Day)

2009-10-30T21:18:00.000-07:00

As sycamore leaves fall,
and roses start their final bloom,
we make our yearly pilgrimage
to this most human garden,
careful steps, questioning hearts.
The air is crisp, and puffs of smoke accompany the prayers we sow
like incense at the altar.
A hundred marble altars and more
beckon us draw near and fall;
petitioners we are
now on our knees the grass, dull brown,
resisting,
testing our resolve
in this harvest season.

What harvest this?
This garden gives by taking, purifying
intention and memory,
parsing what was and might have been.
Look for color, consolation, cure.
The cornucopia waits at home,
near the warm hearth and the crackling fire,
but is not here.
Leave expectation and desire at the iron gate, and wait.
The liquidambars on the hill aflame, red orange glow
like candles in a sanctuary holding back the night,
but the light
is for illumination,
not for heat.

Why are we here? What do we fear?
We walk among the rows,
processing in a clerical style and nodding
to each other reverentially
as if we know.
We read the litany of names as the angelus rings
and a nightingale sings.
Why are we here? What do we hear?
Late it is, but not too late.
This place is for the living not the dead.

Generational Healing

2009-10-23T07:54:00.000-07:00

This growth I’ve been writing of is not just a process of healing for our families and for us in the here-and-now. The work we do with God, the hoping, struggling, trusting, and waiting, will bless generations that will come after us. Our grandchildren will be less fearful and more free because of our efforts, anointed by God. They will build on our growth, just as we’ve benefited from those who have gone before us. As I reflect on this truth, I think of my grandfather Wesley Hugh Gates, who grew up on a poor, little farm in Oklahoma.

Early one morning when he was about five years old, hammering in his home awakened him. So, my grandfather took his little brother by the hand, and together they walked into the kitchen to find their father building a coffin. My grandfather’s fifteen year-old sister had died in the middle of the night. She had been sick with the measles, and in her weakened condition an infection slipped in and claimed her body: this was the explanation my grandfather would hear years later from her doctor. But not from his family: he heard silence from them. His parents decided that the best way to deal with the tremendous loss was to not talk about it. And they never did. The young woman was buried in an unmarked grave, and that was that.

Of course, my grandfather never stopped feeling the loss of his sister. And through his grief, he chose to live differently. In his twenties, he even returned to look for her grave, somehow found it by sorting through cemetery records, and gave her a tombstone. As a father, he taught my mother that sadness didn’t have to be buried, and talking about feelings was healthy and good. Over the years, a pattern of hiding was dismantled, and in its place healing grew. And here I am, a clinical psychologist who helps others grieve and mourn daily: just two generations removed from that little farm in Oklahoma, and that dusty graveyard where a fifteen year old girl was quietly laid to rest in an unmarked grave.

Healing across generations is moving beyond words, and I have the honor of witnessing it daily in my work: clients who are deciding to live differently, facing great pain with even greater truth and love, and blessing future generations in the process. I see “Dan”, who sought and found sobriety from alcohol and drugs, and in the process broke an addiction cycle of violence and chaos that goes back at least five generations. I see “Joan”, who courageously faced the traumas of physical and sexual abuse from her childhood, and is now practicing intimacy differently with her family members. And I see “Jack”, who can be a spiritual father to dozens of young men because he was able to come to terms with the woundedness of his own father, and forgive him.

Healing and growth in the here-and-now blesses future generations, always has and always will. Brokenness does not have to have the final say. If we cooperate with Him in truth and love, God will redeem the lost years in miraculous ways. Where do you want healing to happen in your family, and what can you do today to start that process?

Lessons from the Waiting Room: The Gift of Presence

2009-10-10T13:11:00.000-07:00

Pain, whether emotional or physical in form, has an insidious way of separating us from our support systems, from the core relationships in our lives who give us hope and stability. Like a boat cut away from its moorings, we are apt to drift in our pain, away from the safe harbor of community, away from those who help us bear our burdens, away from a sense of the familiar and normal.

People in pain are not easy to be around, and so our drifting…our isolating…can often be compounded by the reality that some will not want to be around us when we are hurting. Our hurting reminds them that they too hurt, or will hurt…and that’s too much reality for some. But the core relationships in our lives are core precisely because they love us in our pain. They are not afraid of our woundedness, our weakness, our unhappiness, our humanness.

Jen and I spent a lot of days and nights in waiting rooms over the first two years of John-John’s life, waiting to hear news from a doctor or a surgical nurse about the progress or outcome of a surgery or a procedure: “Your son is being prepped right now”, “John Michael’s vitals look good”, “he did just fine”, “we were able to accomplish most of what we’d hoped to do.” The updates were usually very brief, as were the post surgery narratives. Doctors and nurses realize that parents can only take in so much information at times like this, so they keep things very simple.

But waiting for news….often, it felt like days passed before any update would trickle out to the waiting room. And it was during these times that our loved ones would prove invaluable.

During those long days and nights in West Hills/Humana and Cedars-Sinai Hospitals, how did our loved ones most effectively care for us? By being with us. Yes, they did things for us also….cooking us meals, running errands for us, returning phone calls for us, and this was all appreciated. But in the end what mattered most was how they were present to us, particularly in the waiting room.

I think of this when people tell me that they couldn’t visit a friend who was depressed, or who had just suffered a loss, or was struggling with a health issue because they didn't know what to say. Words can be overrated. Showing up, bracketing your anxiety, and being present to one in pain says everything that needs to be said.

I can remember very few words that were spoken to encourage and inspire us during John Michael’s surgeries and recoveries, although many were offered. However, I will never forget snapshots from the waiting room of people being with us: my father reading his newspaper, my sisters and mother drinking coffee, my friend Wendy reading her novel, and my friend Paul praying his rosary. Simple pictures, dozens of them, that comfort me even today. Nothing earth shattering, nothing out of the ordinary; activities that could have been done anywhere in the city, and people wouldn’t have looked twice. But that’s the point. They were doing these common activities while being with us, attuned to us, ready to serve if called upon but not feeling the need to force activity and words on us. It was enough to know they were there; we didn’t need them to do anything else. It was such a personal time, so private and filled with emotion that more would have been less.

Our loved ones were not going to let us drift in our pain. They were not going to allow us to isolate. They kept guard like sentinels, reminding us that we were protected and not alone…we had not been abandoned and forsaken in our hour of great need. They formed the face of God for Jenni and me. Looking back, I see that the waiting room had gently and mystically been transformed into a sanctuary…a safe place for the weary and frightened to rest and find God.
Having others with me in my pain and anxiety didn’t lessen the suffering, but their presence did place my suffering in the larger context of Love, and remind me again that He always provides a harbor in the midst of the storm.

Who in your life needs this gift of presence…your presence? Don’t worry about finding the right words. Your willingness to “suit up and show up” will say enough.

Redefining Disability

2009-09-25T19:58:00.000-07:00

“Come, my friends,
’tis not too late to seek a newer world.”
-Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Most special needs children will eventually reach major developmental milestones, they just reach them later than typically developing children. Our son John Michael has proven to be no exception. He crawled later, walked later, talked later, and potty-trained later. I have learned to accept the fact that there is no developmental schedule for John Michael, and celebrate his achievements whenever they come. However, this was much more difficult for me in the first few years of his life.

When John Michael was about 20 months old, Jen and I took him to our Godson’s second birthday party. There, we found ourselves surrounded by “normal” children, who took little or no notice of our little boy. These children were running after each other, playing tag, kicking a rubber ball around, and climbing on play equipment. Jenni had put John-John down in a corner of the yard that wasn’t too busy with activity, near a table of parents, so that he could practice his crawling without getting hurt. As I watched my son smiling in the bright January sunlight, oblivious to the fact that he couldn’t do what the other kids were doing, I became aware that two mothers were watching John-John. As I debated whether or not to go over and introduce myself, I overheard one ask the other, “Is he the retarded one?” I was hurt, and confused about what to do or say, so I just went over and picked John-John up and carried him inside. The woman obviously didn’t realize I was John Michael’s father when she asked the question, and I’m sure she didn’t mean to be cruel. The reality is that Down Syndrome children do stand out. They look different, and behave differently. Their motor skills are not as developed and they process information more slowly than the average child. To one who has not gotten close to a child like John Michael, it is easy to categorize him as “retarded” or “disabled.”

We as a culture all too often define giftedness and intelligence in very narrow terms. What is his I.Q.? What are her grades? How well did he do on his SAT’s? Which colleges was she accepted to? We reduce human beings to isolated functions, and loose humanity in the process. Think of the teaching moments that are squandered, the celebrations missed, the number of children that grow up feeling “stupid”, and the parents that can’t see their children’s God-given abilities because of a set of test scores or a cumulative G.P.A.

In my doctoral studies in clinical psychology, I had neither been offered nor had I sought out any classes on special education. Why bother? I wanted to work with people who could understand, and grow, and change, and lead productive lives. I was glad there were good souls who dedicated their lives to serving mentally handicapped people, but I saw them more as babysitters than anything else. Then John Michael arrived.

An acquaintance who had heard that my son had been born with Down Syndrome introduced me to the work of Dr. Howard Gardner, a professor at Harvard University and the father of Multiple Intelligence theory. Gardner’s thesis is that society in general asks how smart is the child, when it should be asking how is the child smart. The difference is subtle but profound. Gardner goes on to suggest that there are at least eight ways a person can be smart, and that all of us are smart in several ways to greater or lesser extents. His categories of intelligence include: interpersonal, intrapersonal, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, spatial, mathematical, verbal, and naturalist.

Of course, now I don’t need a theory of intelligence to tell me my son is gifted and has a great deal to offer the world, after fifteen years of learning about him and from him. Today, if I had the opportunity to speak with the woman from the party, I would share with her why “retarded” doesn’t describe John Michael; his ability to relate to others with unconditional love, his sense of humor, his goodness, his joyful approach to life, and his willingness to forgive others before they ask for his forgiveness. Or better yet, I’d invite her to sit on the grass with him and let him give her butterfly kisses, or let him take her by the hand and show her the best hiding places in the garden, or just have her hold him in her lap and bask in his warmth. John-John has a way of communicating that is very persuasive.

“Is he the retarded one?” I actually smile now when I hear the question asked in my mind. My son lives in a perpetual state of grace, and enjoys more peace and happiness in any given week than most adults have experienced in a lifetime. Retarded? Only if you understand giftedness, and people, and life in very restricted ways.

For Mike...

2009-09-17T22:06:00.000-07:00

Twelve years ago this coming Sunday the world lost a truly good man, and I lost one of my dearest friends. My father-in-law Mike Somdal died of a heart attack. He was 53 years-old. I still think of him often; his sharp mind, his goofy sense of humor, his (well, let’s say bold) sense of style, and his huge spirit. He serves as a model for what I mean when I talk about Virtue Therapy: growing and healing by doing little acts of goodness again, and again, and again.

Aristotle put it this way: “Excellence is a habit, not an act.” People can talk and feel until they’re blue in the face, but if it doesn’t translate into purposeful action, if people don’t MOVE on their insights and self-knowledge, no lasting change is going to happen. Mike got this. He took advantage of the host of opportunities that present themselves daily to all of us, and did the little things…with great love, great attention to detail, and great humility. Mike had many admirable qualities, but here I want to focus on his generosity….and a particular evening I’ll never forget.

It was his birthday party, and Mike adored his birthday. He loved the chance to be the self-appointed director of fun and laughter, as it was officially his day. His family had gathered around him to celebrate, and although Mike and I shared the same birthday month I never imagined being in the evening’s spotlight with him. I had just begun dating Jenni and was just glad to be included. However, when his birthday cake was brought out, it read “Happy Birthday Mike and Ross.” Grinning from ear to ear, he also insisted that everyone sing “Happy Birthday” to the both of us. Not that big a deal? Put yourself in his shoes for a moment. Some young kid comes into your only daughter’s life and after only a few months displaces you as her most significant man. No twinge of jealousy? No concern that maybe things were moving faster than they should? No temptation to subtly remind the young man that his place was one notch down in the pecking order? Mike could have felt any of those emotions and it would have been perfectly normal, but if he did he kept them completely hidden. I believe the thought never even crossed his mind, because my father-in-law had already been practicing generosity for years. In little and big ways he had been giving with joy, and not counting the cost. It had become second nature to him, and he was genuinely pleased to be able to welcome me into his family, even if it meant that he had to move to the side just a little. For Mike, this was just one more little opportunity to be generous. Yet, I’m still feeling blessed by it nearly twenty-two years later.

It helps to have an example of the virtue you wish to acquire, to picture and emulate as you work toward the goal. When I think of generosity, I think of my father-in-law. His grave marker reads: “His was a rare and brilliant life.” Truer words have never been spoken. I love you Mike.

"What Map am I looking at?"

2009-09-10T17:39:00.000-07:00

“What map am I looking at?”

Is this Los Angeles?
Have you ever seen an old map of a place you’re familiar with? The other day I looked at downtown Los Angeles from the perspective of a map made in 1909. The mapmaker, a gentleman named Worthington Gates, had done a beautiful job charting out the streets, and I’m sure he was quite accurate in his calculations and identifications. But how helpful would this map be for me today, if I wanted to get from the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels to the 5 Freeway, or figure out the fastest route from my lunch meeting on Grand Avenue to a 1:00 appointment on 6th Street? Obviously, not too helpful; Worthington Gates’ Los Angeles has grown some. The San Gabriel Mountains still stand in the distance, and the Pacific Ocean shimmers to the west, but roads have been erased, broadened, or renamed. Freeways have been built, sky-scrapers erected, and millions of people have moved in. I need a recently updated Thomas Brothers Guide or a print out from Mapquest.com to find the directions that will help me get from one part of town to another. O.K. fine, but what does this have to do with marriage?
Have you ever found yourself in a conversation with your spouse, and had things take an unexpected turn? You’ve found yourself on either the giving or the receiving end of an emotional meltdown, and found yourself wondering what just happened. A seemingly innocuous discussion about where to go on vacation, or how much money to spend on a car, or what color to paint the kitchen devolves into tears, or shouting, or an icy stare. The feelings are disproportionate, much stronger than the given context would normally call for. You can almost imagine yourself saying, “This territory is vaguely familiar, but I think we made a wrong turn somewhere?”
Home is where one starts from, and by home I mean much more than the physical structure you grew up in. The home you were born into, your family-of-origin, was your first experience of community. This has influenced you in ways you may not fully recognize, and still does. Your family, starting with your mother and father, created a psychological map for you that showed you how to navigate your way through relationships. With this map you learned how to love and like, hope and dream, fear and fight. You watched your family interact, and you experienced the ways they related to you, and the learning went deep. When you entered into your marriage, you brought with you this map of relating, and it will re-appear from time to time seemingly out of nowhere, bringing with it the old ways and the old pain. Tone of voice, certain physical characteristics, particular subjects, and personality traits can all be triggers that summon the past and link it powerfully to the present.
A woman whose father cheated on her mother may be overly suspicious of her own husband, when he innocently visits with an attractive female at a party. A man who had a controlling mother may bristle whenever his wife asks him to go a little out of his way to do something for her. A couple that came from emotionally violent families fears conflict, and chooses instead to hide anger behind chronic over-activity. Confusion reigns, and opportunities for bonding and growing as both individuals and as partners are missed. The process of leaving mother and father (and your original family), and being joined to your spouse in marriage is much more complicated than simply changing addresses!

Same feelings, different family
At one time, the map your family-of-origin gave you might have worked reasonably well. But, the terrain has changed, you have changed, and your role has changed. You are no longer a child of six, or ten, or fourteen. You no longer need to get your mother’s permission to stay out late, or hide feelings your father wasn’t comfortable with, or worry about being punished if conflict breaks out. You are an adult, with much more freedom to choose now, and you are a spouse who is part of the core of a new family. Becoming “one” with your partner demands that together, you figure out ways of being in relationship that fit for you now. You may choose to adopt some of what worked in your original family, and decide to reject other parts. This is not your parents’ marriage, and it’s not your parents’ home. But choice is seldom an unpolluted, simple process, and we don’t always act like free adults. In times of stress, conflict, and anxiety, we can get confused about whom we’re relating to, and what home we’re living in, and what our role is. And just like trying to find your way around present day Los Angeles with a map from 1909, you can get very lost.
We marry the person who can potentially help us complete the emotional work we began with our family of origin. We don’t fully grasp this potential at the time of marriage because we don’t typically know our selves or our spouses well enough, but this doesn’t change the fact that the gift of healing was there from the start. I say potentially because you and your spouse still need to cooperate with God’s plan in order to finish growing up, and this is by no means an easy task. Trusting another and being vulnerable takes time in even the best of circumstances, and distinguishing between childhood maps and current ones is much harder than it sounds. To further complicate matters, as years go by and the marriage takes hits, it can be more and more difficult to be open, and stay open, to your partner. Naturally, when pain begins to build, the human instinct is to revert back to what you knew best, and what you knew first…your original map for relationships. The heart can become hardened, and the directions for compatibility confused.
However, this map does not have to control you. Just like the mapmaker Worthington Gates would do if he were asked to design a map of downtown Los Angeles today, you can make changes to your map and update the information. Here are 5 practical suggestions that can help:

1) Play time: Set aside quality time each week to spend together, nurturing your friendship, having fun, and exploring the mystery of the other

2) Tracking device: Check in with each other throughout the day, to simply communicate care, concern, and interest

3) Empathy: Seek understanding before agreement (if one feels truly heard, seen, and respected good typically follows!)

4) Fighting fair: Avoid threats and hurtful words, be clear with each other about what the issue is, own your share of the problem, and seek a compromise that honors the relationship

5) Know your limits: Be open to strategic counsel from a therapist, a minister, or a rabbi if problems persist

The goal is not to avoid the past, an impossible task, but rather to minimize the confusion and pain, and maximize the learning.

Choosing Life in a Culture of Death

2009-09-05T22:40:00.000-07:00

There are people in your position: Choosing life in a culture of death

“The most beautiful credo is the one we pronounce in our hour of darkness.”-St. Padre Pio

The day before John Michael’s valveoplasty procedure, Jen and I met with the cardiologist who would be overseeing the operation. He explained how the surgeons planned to run a balloon through John John’s three day-old heart, his mitral valve specifically, in the hope of opening it up and allowing oxygen to flow freely. The hole that also existed in our son’s heart could wait until later to be dealt with, but not the valve. The doctor told us that without this procedure our son would slowly but surely die, maybe a month, maybe a year. Then he said something we were unprepared for; “There are people in your position who would elect not to go through with this procedure.” I want to believe he was saying this because we live in a society that sues doctors. I want to believe he was thinking about informed consent, that parents must be apprised of all their options before making a life or death decision about their child. He must have noticed the shock in our faces, because he quickly added, “I know what your answer is going to be, but I needed to say that.” Our response was brief, “Save our baby.”
I’ve had 15 years to reflect on that exchange, 15 years to think of all the parents who hear similar words from doctors and in their fear see a quick out, 15 years to think about all the doctors who can’t or won’t uphold the first rule of the Hippocratic oath, “Do no harm.” And I have had 15 years to consider the society we live in…where the sanctity of life is slowly being eclipsed by a culture of death.
All of human life is sacred. There is no statistical table to help one compute whose life is valuable and whose is not in Christendom. Maybe one could find such a thing in the health insurance industry, but not within the bounds of an authentically Christian worldview. There is no need. Our Creator has spoken very clearly about this. Health, age, nationality, socio-economic status, race, religion, education, and I.Q. are not even considered factors in God’s eyes in determining sacredness. The imprint of the Image of God on our eternal souls (Genesis 1:27) and the love and delight He has for his children are what bestow us with dignity and value beyond calculation. “Truly, you have formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother’s womb. I give you thanks, O God, that I am fearfully and wonderfully made; wonderful are your works. My soul also knew you full well” (Psalm 139: 13-14). And if God’s loving us and relating to us before we were even born is not enough to demonstrate our intrinsic worth, His Son’s willingness to live among us, and die for us, adds the final exclamation point to this issue. God didn’t make a mistake with John Michael, a mistake that needed to be corrected or erased by science. He doesn’t make mistakes with any babies. He knows exactly what He is doing, always. Carl Sandburg once wrote, “A baby is God’s opinion that the world should go on.” Babies represent new beginnings, and holy innocence, and precious hope; I shudder to think of a world void of these elements. We desperately need to be reminded by babies, especially babies like John Michael, that the sacred is not skin deep.
There have always been those who preferred death to life; defiled the sacred and attacked the Good. But the 20th century, on a scale never before seen, overwhelmed our collective senses with its unique combination of unrelenting violence and technological brilliance. This was the century that gave us Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, the atomic bomb and biological warfare. It is the century that introduced the word terrorism into our everyday vocabulary, and gave us legalized abortion and euthanasia. And it is the century that invented the radio and the telephone, television and the Internet. It has provided us with enough unfiltered information and visual images to last us ten lifetimes. In an effort to survive this assault on the human psyche, I think many have chosen to numb themselves to core issues of life and death…but at such a cost. We live in a global community that, paradoxically, has never been farther apart. Data is too often confused with wisdom, and contact with intimacy. So much upheaval, and change, and innovation, but have we really progressed all that far? Einstein put it this way: “We have perfected the means, but confused the ends.” The ultimate end is to love God, neighbor, and self more and more completely…and as a human race, I am doubtful that we are moving in this direction. I believe that the exchange Jenni and I had with the cardiologist 15 years ago is even more likely to happen today.
Babies like John Michael are more expendable than ever before. Special needs children are simply not easy, and productive, and cost effective in immediately quantifiable ways…not in a culture that is being blanketed more and more by the shroud of death. Dozens of people have shared with us that they don’t think they would have, or could have, given the cardiologist the go-ahead to perform the valveoplasty. They would have let their child die. Almost always, their reasons revolve around their own fears about being strong enough to rear a special needs child. The mistake made by people who could not see themselves rising to the occasion, or more accurately accepting the gift God gives them, is that they are not factoring grace into the equation. They are only seeing how far their will power can take them in a world that can be quite overwhelming in the amount of pain and unhappiness it dishes out. People who live outside of God’s grace, try to go it alone, should be afraid. They’re going to get pummeled.
Even with grace, life is difficult! There are days where I am beyond fatigued, and very unsure that I have what it takes to be an adequate father for any of my children, not just for John Michael. Parenting is a very humbling endeavor. I am tempted to run off and hide somewhere, to chuck my responsibilities, to let others take over. I have heard many excellent parents admit similar moments of weakness. This is residue of our creatureliness, our falleness, our brokenness, but not cause for despair. St. Augustine saw these moments where our true poverty breaks through as blessed because of what they clarify for us about our nature, and God’s. “Felix culpa”, the “blessed fault” that is original sin, is blessed because it reminds us that we cannot live life on our own terms and be successful in a meaningful way…and we’re not supposed to. Living in grace, and not fear, begins with an honest admission of need. “Lord, help me, hear my cry, save me from death in all its forms…”
There are people who choose death over life every day…with babies, with work, with alcohol and drugs, with violence; sometimes they are conscious of what they are choosing, sometimes they are not. “This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to His voice, and hold fast to Him” (Deuteronomy 30:19-20).
We’ve never needed special needs babies, special needs children, and special needs adults more…they are our wake-up calls, and our consciences, reminding us of what life and blessings really look like.

Who we are

2009-09-04T22:46:00.000-07:00

The same month Jenni and I founded Stillpoint Resources, I planted an apple tree in our backyard; two living organisms, small and fragile but full of potential. That was eleven years ago. Just last week as I was admiring our now sprawling tree, it dawned on me how the growth pattern of Stillpoint has mirrored my now fully developed apple tree: a deep root structure, a wider reach of the branches, and an increasing bounty of good fruit.

Roots:
Stillpoint was born out of a love for special needs children and their families, and this commitment to the most vulnerable members of our society will always remain a precious part of our mission. But as we have developed our concept of special needs has grown to include more than those with medical needs: a splintering marriage brings special needs, poverty brings special needs, depression and the threat of suicide bring special needs, substance abuse and domestic violence brings special needs. And in order to birth the greatest change, the most lasting change, the goal must not be individual healing alone, but family healing. Thus, special needs families have naturally become our focus. And because we have clinicians who specialize in counseling children, teens, adults, couples, and entire families, we are uniquely prepared to offer healing and hope at every level of the system.

Reach:
Eleven years ago we had one office in Woodland Hills, but as the demands for our services grew we strategically placed satellite offices in Ojai, Thousand Oaks, Pacoima, San Marino, Westchester, Hawaiian Gardens, Costa Mesa, and at Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles. Even more importantly, we have eleven wonderfully gifted clinicians counseling at these sites so that people in great need from all around Southern California can access excellent care. And to assure that our reach is truly inclusive we have maintained our commitment to offering 70% of our clinical hours at sliding scale rates so that money is not the deciding factor in whether people in great need receive the help they are so desperate for. No one should be left behind.

Fruit:
We are making a significant difference for the good through our counseling efforts, working with over 150 families every week. And we cannot mention counseling without addressing our training program. We are very proud of the fact that our trainees and interns (currently at eight) are not just being supervised, they’re being mentored and cared for. Becoming an outstanding clinician is about so much more than simply learning a skill set…its about formation: formation of minds, and formation of hearts. Our goal is to not simply impact our clients, but to impact the culture they live in, and the psychological world that holds so much sway.
Our educational outreach through our Speakers’ Bureau offers dozens of community workshops every year on topics like parenting, marriage, self-care, and grief. Additionally, we have established a publishing arm, where articles are written, and to date three books have been produced. And now this blog, which will offer entries aimed at teaching and encouraging readers, psychologically and spiritually.
Our four-pronged approach to healing and hope (counseling, training, educating, and publishing) gives us the opportunity to impact hundreds of people every month. And this impact will surely grow in the years to come, based on the trajectory of our first eleven years.
I am honored to be part of this profoundly meaningful work that literally changes lives, and I’m most grateful to all those who help us do this work through generous donations of time, talent, and treasure. But as we grow the need for greater community support grows as well. Please consider us when you pray, when you think about trustworthy counselors to refer a friend or family member to, and when you make a contribution to a non-profit charity.
I thank you for your interest, and hope this blog will prove helpful and encouraging to you in the weeks, months, and years to come.