One word describes everyone’s 2020

by admin | Jan 1, 2021 | Purpose

Do you ever pick a word for your year? A theme for a season? No matter what you might have picked, this year’s realities probably surpassed what you anticipated or expected. 2020 was full of… surprises, to say the least. Sitting here in yoga leggings and a sparkly sweater, feeling grateful to be with my family while feeling a little like something’s missing, I consider these dichotomies. It would seem that there’s one word that kind of sums up everything. (And no, it’s not a cuss word.) If 2020 was anything, it has got to be the year of “and”.

Struggle and blessing. Disappointment and joy. Frustration and breakthrough. Open eyes and hurting hearts. It was year of hugging the ones around you closer and tighter while missing those too far away, or worse, having gone and left an unfillable hole. It was a year of tremendous growth and some real pain. A year where you feel blessed to be home and yet miss going out. Year of losing of some things, while gaining some more of what matters most. Figuring some things out and understanding there’s so much that you never will.

2020 was, or felt like, one of the biggest mixed bags of blessing and trial. It has even seemed to hold onto its job until the very final moments, the last gasps. If you to find yourself ringing in the new year with some mix of emotions- maybe even yoga pants on the bottom and a sparkly sweater on top, too- then you my friend, might have found your word to sum up 2020. Your year might have been an “AND” year, too.

The crazy thing about “and” though, is that it holds a whole lot of space for grace. Where two things coexists that are seemingly impossible at the same time, Grace is a bridge between them. Grace is where God comes. It’s the bridge between what was, and what could have been. Between joy and grief, between love and learning more. Between here and the now, yesterday and today. Between heaven and earth. Grace is a meeting place.

As we stand facing 2021 and a whole new year yet to discover, I hope that you can meet up with Grace upon the bridge. And there, meeting His Love, you can walk across the bridge together.

It’s a good idea, too, to leave behind what you’re able to leave behind. It help you recognize grace when you stumble upon it. Help you really embrace it when you find it. Leave the things like bitterness, anger, and pain behind as soon as you can, and whatever else is heavy, unbecoming, loathsome, cumbersome .

For whatever you may have lost, I pray you carry with you only the salvageable things forward. Keeping what it taught you and what you learned. (Sometimes it came at a very high price.) The things that remain (like faith, Hope, and love.) Things that don’t weigh you down. Without carrying the extra heavy stuff. Regret, worry, disappointment. Because it’s important to not get weighed down.

“Letting go of what is behind pressing on for what is ahead.”

Cheers to 2020. Thankful for what has brought you here and determined to leave behind anything but the best. Cheers to holding onto the blessings, the beauty, the important things. Letting go of what you can’t control. Acknowledging what we’ve lost, what’s been painful, and choosing to not carry what we don’t need any further.

Standing at the edge of a new year. Rejoicing over it- what has brought us here, what’s behind, and what is yet ahead.
Trusting that whatever it is is going to be brighter. That we’re more ready. Ready to move ahead, into a great new unknown.
With more strength AND gratitude than we knew last year.

Thanks 2020. It’s been real.
AND we’re glad we’ve made it over to the other side.

You don’t just vote every four years

by admin | Nov 3, 2020 | Purpose

It’s Election Day and this year especially, EVERY person, company, actor, musician, grandma, grandpa, and dog is telling you to get out and vote. And they’re right!! I’ve voted in every election since I earned the privilege at age 18. (Even the little ones that no one cares about, local races with less fanfare or impressiveness.) That’s a lot of votes. So I’m kind of surprised that sooo many people don’t vote every year, or even every four years. Then again, I guess I’m not.

Because, truthfully, every day you can vote for the life that you want, and every day these votes are thrown away carelessly.

Friends, please don’t just vote every four years.

Vote well, every day. What do I mean, exactly? Cast ballots for the life that you want to see for yourself, for your family, your community, your nation, and your world. You vote with your actions, your words, your gestures. You vote with your prayers and your complaining, your kindness and your selfishness. Your criticisms or your encouragement. Your blaming or your graciousness. In conversations and with your creations.

Too often we overlook these ballots. We downgrade their importance. We abdicate the throne of power. Cast wise ballots that are not merely judgements towards another, but ballots of change that can happen through you.

You are infinitely, incredibly capable of creating lasting, beautiful change, exactly where you are.

However much a president or politician can create policies that we might fear will harm or help us, the truth is, no one needs to help you fulfill your purpose of greatness except you.

Vote every day for the world that you want to live in.

See injustice? Try casting a ballot for reconciliation, not shame, by speak words of healing. See rudeness? Smother it with kindness, like a wet blanket putting out a fire. See lack or need? Don’t just talk about what should be done or who should help— step up and do it yourself, however you’re able.

So even if today is a big day (and whenever we get end up getting the results will be too), know that EVER DAY is a big day. Whether your “guy” wins or looses, that doesn’t have to determine if YOU do.

 How are you casting your votes, EVERY DAY?

Offer your own life to do the good which you seek. No change starts too small. Because when we say small we often mean one person to one person. That’s where any real change happens, anyway. Person to person, heart to heart. So no, no “vote” or act is too small.

You have incredible influence, right where you are tonight, and tomorrow, and the next day. On repeat. You are capable of creating the world that you want to live in. Don’t waste your ballots.

Do NOT concede defeat or abdicate the responsibility that you have to any policy or politician. 🌟Don’t surrender the power that you have; use it for good.🌟

Imagine if the millions and millions of voters all took THOSE votes more seriously. Every day, on repeat. Maybe we wouldn’t need to make such a big deal about these elections if we all did our part more thoughtfully, if we all used our talents relentlessly well, for the good of each other and our neighbors.

So yes, vote. But then vote again on repeat. Vote for love and life and freedom and joy. Go out and BE the change, BE the love. SPEAK, SHARE and bring JOY to the life and the people around you. That is the change that sticks. God has given you a voice, a vote. Use it every day. Vote for God’s kind of change. Vote for His Love and Truth. Vote for Brighter days. They are ahead if you let them be.

The Importance of Disagreeing

by admin | Oct 26, 2020 | Purpose

I think it’s safe to say that there’s no shortage of disagreements these days. It’s especially easy with something like an election to think, “Well, clearly, about half of us are getting it wrong.”
We’re pretty sure that we are right. It’s enough to make us want to simultaneously wield a sword in debate, and also run and hide. (How’s that for fight or flight?) What’s a person to do? It’s important that we don’t forget the art, the importance of disagreeing. The way that we do it is of utmost importance.

It can be baffling as to why others don’t see things as we see it. I know extremely good, intelligent, kind people on both sides, and you probably do too. How come we can look at the same thing and see it so differently?? It’s not supposed to be all about ‘being’ right or wrong. Because no one person ever is, all right, all wrong.

We’re all walking circles around the truth. Trying to find it, discuss it, decipher it. It’s too big for any of us to hold all of it. While is exactly why we need to keep talking about it.

Have you ever been driving down the road with someone, kids especially. You see something that they might find interesting, you point it out, then only to be bombarded with “where”s, or “I don’t see it”. Then ensues a maddening conversation about what it was, where it was, and frustrations on both side. You wonder how they don’t see it, you question that they did. It is so frustrating. You then have a couple of choices. 1) Keep arguing (though yelling “THERE, Idiot!” , in frustration rarely works), 2)try again, hopefully more successfully, by pulling over, circling back, and/ or using better descriptions, or 3) let it go.

We can’t force our vision on each other, nor really should we. We’re not supposed to agree about everything ( two humans can), nor do we have to in order to live together. With our own defenses, we’re too quick to put one another or ourselves in certain categories (Blue/Red, Left/Right/Center. All words and ideas that define, and often ultimately divide us. It is then far too easy to disregard the human being behind the label. To forget as well, the importance of disagreeing itself. The key then is to be able to agree to disagree about some things and not let disagreement turn to hatred.

We shouldn’t give in to the temptation to discredit one another personally just because we see things differently. We should be able to, are supposed to be able to, talk about the things, attempt to see them from a different angle or experience, and remember that on the other side of that line, there lies a real, true fellow human being. Not disregarding one another, but remembering our shared humanity. We too, must let go of the outcome of these discussions.

Humans will never agree about everything, and those moments of disagreement make us want to fight or flight. It’s uncomfortable. But growth IS always uncomfortable. Growing your perspective and your thoughts, learning to see things through the eyes of your fellow human beings is some of the most important work of all.

It’s like when you work on something around the house. Your efforts are solid. Yet never quite good enough. Each venture merely uncovers more projects and issues that need to be tended to.  It reminds me of when the previous owner of our house handed over the keys to us, the newlyweds. “Feels like I’ve been working all of this time and just now, when I’ve gotten everything situated, we’re leaving.” 

True, wasn’t much that needed to be done right then. Just a little paint in the kitchen, get rid of the purple and green curtains, too. But over time, of course there was more to do. Our perfect yellow needed changing, then the next thing, then the next. If the previous owner had stayed, he’d probably have found more work to do, too.
The reality is, the work is never done. 
Until we’re done.
So then I guess the question is do I want to be done? Or do I want to keep becoming, do I want my community to keep becoming something better?
If so, what will it take?

Do I set down the hammer and nail ?
Or do I swing and hit more nails?

It depends, most of all, on what you’re busy hammering. Are you crucifying people with those words, those nails. Or are you trying to building bridges between yourselves?

When we use words and emotion to attack one another, we drive ourselves apart further. Red, blue. Black, white. When we use our words, emotions, and intellect to lay planks of understanding between another, we build bridges.

All of the best intentions sometimes are mere shadows of what it might take to build better bridges. We must keep trying.

I’ve gotten pulled into conversations lately, and it’s not always comfortable. Okay, most them I stepped into willingly, something burning in my heart, seeking to do no harm. But often times, I’m left wondering. Wrestling. Some started with a tie dip. Some where more bold steps into the shallow, or even downright deep end. Some felt, by the end, like I’d stepped into a pile of proverbial horse manure.  Some of which make me wish that they never happened.

Because we humans can be frustrating, frighteningly cool, even downright volatile.
After engaging as open minded, level headed, heart centered and calm- natured as I can be, I most often feel like I am none of those things enough at all.

I walk away bothered. By judgement calls, misunderstanding. Presuppositions. And I’m counting the troubling words, at the same time that I’m wiping the blade clean from the mess mine may have made.
Correction. Most probably have made.

The righteousness indignation is strong in that one. Even when she thinks it not.

Sometimes, the very thing we find and what troubles us is actually what we find out about ourselves. These conversations hold up a mirror for ourselves. But sometimes (often?) we cant realize or accept what it is showing us about ourselves. That perhaps is what often brings the most discomfort. And also why it is most important.

Maybe that’s one of the best things that can happen from disagreement. These conversations give us the chance to look in the mirror. The hold up the mirror for ourselves to remember our own flaws. Then we have also the chance to look for more goodness – goodness that exists outside of ourselves, with our neighbors, instead of just looking within us.

I think that those who say “You won’t change anyone’s mind on Facebook” are most definitely true. But maybe that’s not really the point anyway. Maybe we don’t need to talk about things because we will ever convince someone “otherwise”. But because we need to keep trying to find the truth ourselves.

For that very reason, I think we need to keep having the conversations, especially when you can do so respectfully. Don’t be afraid or limited to being fully right or wrong.
Keep listening, and talking, inquiring, and most of all, not injuring with your words as much as possible. Agreeing when you can, without feeling you must blend completely in to anyone’s worldview. Disagreeing, yet continuing at times to discuss because we want to collectively find truth, and what it looks like here on this broken earth.

As for Truth— none of us are standing firmly on top of it all, holding court for the whole, a victor. (I do believe that only One is, the Maker of the stars.) The rest of us are merely trying to sort things out here on earth as best we can.

Weighing and measuring our earthly troubles and problems. The ones which are both immeasurably important and infinitely small compared with the whole, both what has been and what will be.

Use your knowledge and intellect, heart and soul, to build bridges of understanding and hope. Even when we don’t understand (yet) or even slightly agree.

Better days will be coming, already are on the way. Don’t shut your mind or your heart out from trying to find truth. Grapple with it. Wrestle with it. Let it overtake you. But don’t wrestle with each other. We’re together, in this same arena. Circling the same stories, trying to find what’s true.

Keep looking for Truth. Looking for it, talking about it, trying to figure it out. Don’t forget that disagreeing does not have to mean division. Be okay living in the tension of not fully understanding.If you’re heated, maybe take a breathe, step back. But don’be afraid to try again. Common ground is only found in proximity. Conversations are connection.
Aim to build bridges not walls.

We all still have so much to learn, so much to build. I guess that’s why we’re still here. ❤️

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