Relentless Time

I can't believe the year is gone. That series of moments labeled 2005 that was my life is done. Is done being labeled 2005, at least. Time's relentless march forward need not be a merciless one. Failures redeemed, milestones achieved, difficulties transcended, the mundane newly appreciated. Richness upon richness. The story continues to be told and enacted, complete with new twists in the plot, unexpected heroes and villians, and no shortage of tears, inspirations, and disappointments. Today marks an ending of sorts. Tomorrow a beginning.

Thankful

That's twice now. Two significant needs tossed up at that Jesus guy. Two over-the-top outcomes, for which I'm having a hell of a time dissociating from his probable involvement. I receive so much spiritual energy from wrestling and battling with God, that it almost comes as a let down to feel so blessed.
It's a thrill, actually. Like having one's sails filled with wind. I was foundering. Still a lot of navigating to do and quite a bit of distance to cover, but, oh what a difference the wind makes.

Non Sense

It never ceases to amaze my jaded sensibilities how such understated exaggerations of blatant subtlety find a way to position themselves with suspiciously audacious humility at the center of attention. I must not see clearly for the perspectives that swirl with unfocused clarity cloud the certainties with fresh insights that teach me that I do not know. Adolescent outrageousness and conviction-void tolerance entrench themselves as the new orthodoxy, from which no deviance will be tolerated and all transgressions will be punished. Be careful to be yourself unless you're not like me then be yourself like I would if I were you. Let me tell you that, whatever you do, don't let anyone else tell you what to do. I'm beginning to see now, as long I as don't insist on realizing anything that is less than an authentic expression of myself and by which no one else would ever find offense. I am free. I am empty. I am alone.

Lower Center of Gravity

Maybe just a metaphor for maturity. I can feel the difference, though. When I do all the work in my head—make sense of complex dynamics, maintain my self-esteem, justify, rationalize, defend, plan, summon courage, discipline will, focus efforts, be sensitive to others, assert myself, etc. etc.—I'm literally and figuratively top heavy. All my energy has to go toward simply not tipping over.
As I've matured through the years, I have either intentionally or circumstantially become more at home with much of life's perplexities and my own peculiarities. The freeing and refreshing outcome of which I experience as a lower center of gravity. A poise born out of inner strength, depth, richness, and soundness, rather than a persona sustained by constant vigilance, effort, juggling, and performance.
I've come a long ways. I have a long ways yet to go. Feeling the steadiness, flexibility and peace of a lower center of gravity I am emboldened to embrace the journey.

Enjoying Christmas

Three intense days and it was over. Usually we spread our Christmas events over two weekends. This year we found a way to make sure that our three family events took place on consecutive days. Go figure.
I got smart (after how many years now?) and insisted we travel across town in the morning instead of the afternoon. A light movie to fill the hours we had on our hands, and Christmas event number one wasn't colored (or canceled) by maddening traffic jams.
Other than the intensity of the schedule, I found myself enjoying Christmas this year. A nice change of pace. I showed up as myself and didn't bother getting bothered by the crazier family patterns, while indulging in the warmth and humor and connection. As long as we don't try to have all three events on the same day, I think I could do this again.

Reliance Unaware

Amazing how we count on certain things. This morning it is the telephone that has gone from invisible amenity to focal nuisance. Static loud enough to drown out all but the faintest inkling of what might be a human voice at the other end. We sit around the answering machine and take wild stabs at recognizing the identity of the caller. The content of the message we don't even bother with. We answer the phone as if we were an answering machine, mechanically notifying each caller that we are going to hang up on them and call back on a different phone.
Fortunately the phone company agrees that the situation is intolerable (a refreshing contrast to software companies) and will be out tomorrow to repair the lines. Which brings me back to the observation, that we count on certain things. Functioning phones being one of them. We have incorporated into our way of being the assumption that we can make contact and be contacted when and where we need. A reliable benefit that far outweighs the risk of occasional isolation. What I find so interesting is how off guard I'm caught when that on which I relied fails. It's not the failure that surprises, but the invisibility of that which I have taken for granted.
It's freeing to have things like phones move off the radar screen because of their reliability. But what about people? Or God? Have the reliable and faithful in my life become invisible? I'd hate to think that the only way to get my attention was to fail me.

Christmas Grows Up

Christmas morning and only one of my kids is awake. My how times change. The enthusiasm hasn't lessened, but it sure has taken new forms. The gifts they make are more clever and more beautiful. Their contributions to the holiday banter are growing in sophistication and wit. Christmas, with all our family traditions, is the same every year. But more subtly, no two Christmases are ever the same. Growing kids make sure of that.

That Extra Touch

Folding the rough edge under and stretching the paper tight, I can't believe how much trouble I'm going through to make this gift look nice when in a few hours it is going to be ferociously ripped open without so much as a glance at the wrap job. But no, I've tried avoiding a ribbon or bow in the past, and such efficiencies only draw attention to themselves in all their pathetic plainness. Best to give over an entire morning to the holiday task and make a full blown, no-holds-barred contribution to the decorative festivities. The most important, of course, being to wrap my brother's gift in duct tape.

Expecting What?

Doing some internal review. Wondering in this season of expectation, whether I do much expecting anymore. Of God, that is. Where and when do I watch for the mysterious, unpredictable, power-saturated, love-permeating creator, sustainer and redeemer to show up? Hmm. I think I simply do my thing and let him do his thing. I'm glad I have confidence that he will never hesitate to be himself. But expect? Keep an eye out for? Hmm.

Negative Space

Moving. Moving. Keeping the pace just frenetic enough to block out conflicting data. Every once in a while, though, an unexpected pause shows up, and, in the negative space, an image takes form. An insight, a perspective, a nuance. The beauty that we normally would have rushed past; the quiet voice typically drowned out by all the noise; the nourishing tidbit that we do not savor because we scarf so much junk.
Since the gift comes from elsewhere, we cannot control it or request it on demand. We can only create space or crowd out the space for it to appear when it will. Moving. Pausing. Moving.

Being Present Today

In all the plans and preparations for our tomorrows, we can only live our today. We each live our todays at across a wide spectrum of intentionality, awareness and appreciation. Even as we make current sacrifices for the sake of what is yet to emerge, no day consists merely of the absence of what we would have preferred. The mistake some of us make is when we allow our sacrifice for the sake of the future absorb so much of our attention that we do not see, experience, or enter into the presence of what our today does in fact consist. "When I finish this degee, then..." "When I am making X number of dollars, then..." We miss the today that we have in hand dwelling on the tomorrow that is just out of reach.

Want It Enough

If the route to what one wants go through territory filled with much that one does not want, what then?

Holiday Focus

Holiday focus. How's that for an oxymoron?!
Kids off school, I've got lots of work on my plate. Making time to enjoy each other. Keeping on task in my unstructured world. Expectations all around. Resisting the tendency to make other people's happiness my responsibility. Trying to enjoy the both/and (an uneasy tension) without slipping into either/or (a simplistic resolution.) Smiles and stress, chores and parties, joy and obligations. It all becomes a blur. It's a good blur this year. In coming to terms with the "reason for the season," it's nice to be free from the need to pretend like we're focusing on the reason for the season. I'm planning on enjoying Christmas in all it's unfocused messiness!

Center of Attention

Maybe it's just that I like to be the center of attention. So content for so many years with understandings of generosity and humility that didn't include room for me, it's awkward to comes to terms with my delight with the limelight. Not that I'm awash with limelight. Hardly. But inside. Part of me is wanting to move front and center. It's time. Not at anyone else's expense. It's simply time to step onto the court and get into the game with an intensity that I have not yet.

Wedding Bells

Nothing quite like an outdoor December wedding overlooking the marina. Goose bumps magnified by the compound effects of the ocean chill and the moving ceremony. Cheering friends and teary-eyed relatives convene in solidarity around the promises that have consistently both inspired and defied the human imagination. Yummy cake and raucous dancing provide the flavor and texture to a milestone and a sacrament. I do.

In the Company of Others

People day. Morning, noon and night. I love it. Reminds me why I work with people. Even in the mind-numbing exhaustion at the end of the day when the lights are finally turned off and the pillow catches my head, I am happy and richer because of the contact. I think better, feel more, laugh harder, am more productive, creative and sharp in the company of others.

Too Cold For Me

The brisk chill buffets one's sensibilities. Granted the predicament is exasperated by my own habit of throwing on a light jacket on my way out the door. I can feel the marrow in my bones fight turning to ice with spasmodic shudders, while those with roots from elsewhere gallivant around in shorts. The sun rises impotently, providing light without warmth. Consciousness is a but a faint memory as all energy focuses on sustaining an upright position. Don't the high property prices warrant an expectation of a year-round temperate climate? The dash from house to car to office to car to coffee house is probably the only thing that protects others from the unfortunate experience of coming across my stiff, frozen body lying with arms tragically outstretched—as if the hot cup of coffee whose reviving warmth between my hands was just out of reach. Such are the winter traumas of a Southern Californian.

A Child's Joy

I figure I've been to more school holiday programs over the years than any other single cultural event. I'm not sure who beams brighter, me or the kids. Today was my last one at the elementary school. The kindergarteners looked so tiny. I can't believe parents let their kids go to school when they are still so small nowadays. (I am sure we never did.)
Gleaming eyes and fidgety feet bouncing to the rhythms of Christmas. A few distractions too interesting to avoid, most of the kids held their ground and sang their hearts out. Something about a child's joy that is infectious and hope infusing. I'm going to miss the holiday programs. I wonder if anyone would notice if I turned up again next year?

Permission Granted

What do I do when authenticity and relationship feel at odds with each other? It's a weighty question in these days of determination to bring my full self to the table everywhere I go and in everything I do. A determination necessitated by so many years of diminishing or compromising selfhood in order to sustain relationship.
I feel an opposite tug in these middle years. Relationships be damned. I will be me, and if who I am is so unattractive that relationships begin to drop away, so be it. I give myself permission, whatever the cost, to be myself. A permission only I withheld from me.
I heard a stranger say, "When we are in our twenties, we are concerned with what everyone else thinks about us. When we are in our forties, we don't give a damn what anyone else thinks about us. And when we are in our sixties, we realize that no one else has been thinking about us."
I've got a long ways to go before I reach my sixties.

Diving In

Catapulting new ideas over the barriers of fear, resistance and tunnel vision. Experiments in otherness. Assuming frameworks that do not yet exist. Testing the waters, not by sticking a toe in, but by diving in. Commentary and demands be damned.
Not a very sensitive course of action, but sensitivity is not one of my main concerns these days. I'm already too sensitive if anything. Time to forge ahead with more purpose, intention and aggressiveness. In the inseparable tension between reflection and action, I'm ramping up the action.

I Dreamt I Dreamt

No time for dreams. I fall into the category of those who don't know what they want. It's more a matter of believing that I am not entitled, because of life responsibilities or deeper issues, to have what I want. Therefore it is not an emotional or theoretical space I permit myself to occupy, even just to dream.
I can do the "should" dreams. I should dream of a world of justice and peace. I should dream of health and well-being and salvation for all. Nice, but pathetic. I can do the heroic fantasy dreams. Saving the day. Rescuing the children. Standing in the gap.
It's an area for growth. Dreams fuel the soul and affirm the inner suspicions that we are capable of great things. My dream is to become more of a dreamer.

Christmas is Coming

Scattered pine needles announce the Christmas preparations within. Friends quickly tire of my annually hilarious acknowledgment of my wife's first marriage to Santa. Lights and decorations and aromas fill the pauses and spaces that line the contours of five eager imaginations.
All in anticipation of celebrating the most significant miracle in human history. The magnificiently threatening reality that God cares and, in his infinite power, has chosen the intimate powerlessness of incarnation to reestablish his heart as the axis around and out of which all life will thrive.
Merry Christmas.

The Culprit That Isn't Me

Who is the culprit? If only I could get a face and a name. Blame. Blame. Blame. Fingers pointing every which direction.
I pointed out a problem the other day and all the fingers came back pointing at me. How dare I point out a problem? What sort of trouble maker am I? Have I no grace or forgiveness in my heart? It didn't take five minutes in the context of one problem for most to agree that another more serious problem had arisen.
Fortunately for me, this is my business, so I am familiar with the dynamic. But for many it comes as a shock to find the loyalty and courage that would risk addressing a negative situation twisted before their eyes into an accusation of betrayal or self-promotion.
Responsibility and accountability are not punishing words. To be held to one's word is not a personal affront or an assault on one's character, but an assumption of integrity and an expectation of consistency. We explore the cause of problems in order to learn what doesn't work, not to assign blame.

Road to Nowhere

The road of least resistance may be easy, but it is not always effective. Forget all the promised character building benefits of taking the more difficult route. We miss the point if the intent becomes to make our decision-making criteria finding the most impassable path of all just to prove that we value inner strengthening.
The focus needs to be on outcomes. Which course of action will result in the desired or necessary outcomes? If the desired outcome is safety, then dangerous or harmful behaviors need to be confronted, no matter how unpleasant or difficult. A failure to do so would suggest that one may desire a different outcome, like harmony, for example in this instance.
The focus on achieving outcomes shifts attention to the effectiveness of one's efforts, instead of, however inadvertently, on trying to make one's life easier. Avoiding an unpleasant experience is actually harder to do (and never quite finished) than accomplishing a specific outcome, however difficult. A hard road anywhere is better than an easy road nowhere.

And That's Final

Interrogating the carpet because eye contact is too dangerous, he insists his decision is final. There will be no discussion. What he doesn't realize is that there isn't anyone there with whom to have a discussion. He has evaporated into a positional persona. Jawing an endless series of platitudes and certitudes and justifications and conclusions. Fragile is the authority that must assert itself so vigorously. That must avoid so many vestiges of the human drama. We can protect ourselves from only so many of the unknowns that emerge in all human encounters before we have protected ourselves from having any human encounter. Talk about final!

Frustrated Expectations or Expectant Hope?

What is it with the expectation that life should be smooth, comfortable, and pleasing? More than fallacious thinking, we are failing ourselves and each other by refusing to come to terms with the pervasively broken, pain-filled and complex journey we share with both the suffering poor and the suffering differently wealthy, the marginally good and the delightfully evil, the heros who sin spectacularly and the corrupt who give so generously, the petty bureaucrat who will not hand you the next form to save his life, but in a crisis will put himself in harm's way to save your life.
It makes no sense at all while we are clinging to the myth of the frictionless ideal. But in the cold, dark, defiled wreckage of a creation at war with itself, the power, activity and intention of someone good can be glimpsed. Instead of the sullied norm, it becomes the glimmer of hope. Rather than the righteous cause which we battle to protect, it is our last chance, our only remaining foothold, the keystone without which all would crumble.
Thank God it all hasn't crumbled.

Poise and Tension

Poised for more than I can currently handle. Mounting tensions begging to be resolved. The future, though, cannot unfold trying to resolve what is by nature complex. In fact, the capacity to hold conflicting dynamics in tension, however painful, emerges as the training from which my poise can mature. I become a listener before a reactor. One who acts out of the poise of the balanced martial artist, both cautious observer and aggressive participant. Poise finds its strength in the midst of tension and dissipates in its absence. I come alive and live most fully in the midst of life's complexities, not in the resolution of them.

Trying Silence

There was a space in the silence
I stepped into
Though I had avoided it until now.

Strange voices speak with familiarity.
I stood my ground.
It may be quiet, but there is no peace.

I weep at the insights
Shudder at the lies
Honestly uncertain which frightens me more.

A home awaits me in the silence
Where the broken and the pure
Share tea and chores and bless each other.

Not sensing a place to rest, I pace
Sorting rumors of death and life
Beckoning from within this new place.

A good-natured laugh breaks in
Reminding me I am not alone in the silence.
I will remain, relax, change.

God's Litter

Human treasures scattered everywhere, overlooked, unrecognized, mistaken for scraps. God's litter.
Vast amounts of time and energy focused on debating moral boundaries, while vast and horrific problems remain inexplicably unaddressed. The evangelical obsession with homosexuality versus its malaise regarding African destitution, corruption and pending implosion is my favorite contrast of absurdity.
Human treasures everywhere precious, of infinite worth, of inestimable potential, lumped together into faceless categories, statistics, and diagnoses. Individual stories of hope and grief, achievement and tragedy, blessing and crime... lost. Treasures. Buried. Buried treasure.
There's a homeless gentleman who is a regular (like me) at one of my favorite cafes. I need to meet him.

More Real Reality

I have a sense that today is beautiful beyond its visual characteristics. Maybe holy is a better word. Other. More than. Deeper. Richer. Stronger. Sounder.
A heightened awareness that what I have is not my own. That there is more going on than any imagination could ever conjure. That my joy is limited only by my capacity to step into this more substantial reality and live out of this more expansive holiness.
I have a sense that I belong to this day more than it belongs to me. For all the annoying hyper-confident blather so many spout about God and faith and religion, I have a sense that I believe. That the day is not something that happens to my life, but someone with whom I make a life. Maybe holy is a better word.

Old Friends

I had dinner with old friends last night. We seldom see each other any more. Live on different sides of the planet, both literally and figuratively. But for all the distance of one sort, there is a proximity of another that permits almost instant access to connection, warmth and intimacy. Almost as if we had seen each other just the week before and were picking up right where we left off.
It's a delightful phenomenon. I love my old friends. And it's wonderful to discover in the ebb and flow of life's rhythms, that the impact of time and distance are quite different than I had once imagined.