I'm in a LA this weekend, Memorial Day weekend. The powers that be, that is, the non-earthly powers that express themselves from time to time through my boss, Brian, opened a door of opportunity for me.
I'm in LA to meet with a new key author our company has just struck a relationship with, Marcus Buckingham. He's an immense guy. The story board of his life is fantastic, following the seemingly insignificant turns and twists of any given life. He moved from England where he went to Oxford--so, definitely not the dullest knife in the drawer--to join a polling and analysis group based out of Nebraska. Talk about following your gut. Would you trade London for Lincoln?
Doors opened for him as a result of his decisions (or, one could conjecture, just waiting for his decisions) and now he's a best-selling author with a message to change the world to boot. (Ps, I don't mean "boot" to indicate the trunk of a car.)
In my own small way, this weekend is a door opening for me, a chance to use my skills in publishing to speak into the life-changing work we partner with our authors to accomplish. Marcus and I will meet tomorrow, briefly, to talk about his next book and chat about ways to hit the market where the greatest clamber is chorusing for a life built on strengths that creates passion and purpose. In the grand scheme of things, his message is a big deal. Not a way to make money or stroke egos but a life-honoring reorientation of a more powerful way to live. Don't you want to join the cause already? I see my hour-long meeting as a door ajar to move forward in my own contribution to our world in need of hope and direction.
The following day, tomorrow, I'll connect with another author, Donald Miller, to do something similar but totally different. I am attending a weekend retreat he's leading that I believe has something to do with a core message he's developed over the previous year or two. And that is, the power of story. The overarching premise of his thought is that everyday folks can apply the proven mechanics of story--the things that Sophocles, Aristotle, Shakespeare, and Stein developed and perfected--to an individual life in such a way that will compose more meaningful living. As Don is brilliant at doing, it's a message where you say, "Well, yeah. Duh." But you could've never thought of it on your own nor expressed it quite the way he does, with vulnerability, insight, humour, and power.
And that's what gifted authors do. They tell you the the belief you've always believed but could never articulate. And this honor is mine: I get to help them, these gifted authors, articulate. This weekend, the open door is one of meaningful arm-hooking with Marcus and Don to find the most powerful articulation of the realities they help others to see. It's amazing to be among such great company charged with such a task.
Each of us comes to a door of opportunity. This door does not lead to a realm of receiving but one of giving. Great communicators with life-changing messages exert their lives giving. And those playing supporting roles--like myself and my colleagues--get to give to them while they give to the world. It's a great economy, this ceaseless giving. And like any act of charity, God designs giving to feel more like receiving where you physically have less but spiritually and relationally have more.
When you come to your door, whether it's Willy-Wonka- or Sistine-Chapel-sized, give everything you can. Both God and the world recognize the goodness of giving ceaselessly and selflessly, unconditionally, powerfully for the benefit of others with no expectation of tangible return except the immeasurable joy and an overwhelming sense of meaning that awaits.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Monday, May 12, 2008
The Viewmaster Life
The Viewmaster: A Brief Thought on Sin Cycles
For me, sinning is like clicking through the images in a Viewmaster with images of Jesus and temptation alternating in the interchangeable ferris wheels. I pick up one and put it in the viewer. In the first image, life seems pretty good. It’s a normal day, I’m showered, I head to work, I talk gently to my wife. Click, next slide. Life goes lagging; I’m tired with too much to do. So, I pick up smoking. Click. Jesus comes, wooing me into his sweet company and life. But like a kid eager to zip through the magazine, I click again. The checking account bounces; I freak out. Click. Jesus comes. Click. Balancing work, marriage, and home ownership requires more than I can give; I drink more. Click. Jesus shows me how much more deeply dependable he is. (Sometimes it feels like I just have sin ferris wheels with no Jesus mixed in for the respite. Except I know that’s not true. He’s there, a faint double exposure.)
I am sitting my friend Matthew on his porch on Douglas, and we’re talking about life. A city bus passes by. I’m telling him about my cyclical medications, my small sociable addictions that find their way into my life. He says to me with a sarcastic lilt, “Oh yeah, Bryan, you’re the only one who does that.” He’s such a jerk, but right, and a good friend for saying it. There’s no sin committed that the world is not accustomed to, and Jesus knows me.
I know my sinfulness is not unique. So far as I’ve read, there’s only one person who gets immunity. But it’s that I can’t kick the habit. Not any one habit, just the habit of coming back to sin like a sad co-dependent relationship, the kind that all your friends know is bad for you, pity you, and love you anyway. When life goes stressful, it’s like I want to outdo it. I want to poor accelerant on the circumstances.
I've concluded that the inability to leave sin is the root of sin. It is the compulsion to lean on earthly things at the expense of our friendship with God. The joy and hope of the Christian life is God’s commitment to help me switch out the sin slides for holy ones more and more, incrementally, over a lifetime.
For me, sinning is like clicking through the images in a Viewmaster with images of Jesus and temptation alternating in the interchangeable ferris wheels. I pick up one and put it in the viewer. In the first image, life seems pretty good. It’s a normal day, I’m showered, I head to work, I talk gently to my wife. Click, next slide. Life goes lagging; I’m tired with too much to do. So, I pick up smoking. Click. Jesus comes, wooing me into his sweet company and life. But like a kid eager to zip through the magazine, I click again. The checking account bounces; I freak out. Click. Jesus comes. Click. Balancing work, marriage, and home ownership requires more than I can give; I drink more. Click. Jesus shows me how much more deeply dependable he is. (Sometimes it feels like I just have sin ferris wheels with no Jesus mixed in for the respite. Except I know that’s not true. He’s there, a faint double exposure.)
I am sitting my friend Matthew on his porch on Douglas, and we’re talking about life. A city bus passes by. I’m telling him about my cyclical medications, my small sociable addictions that find their way into my life. He says to me with a sarcastic lilt, “Oh yeah, Bryan, you’re the only one who does that.” He’s such a jerk, but right, and a good friend for saying it. There’s no sin committed that the world is not accustomed to, and Jesus knows me.
I know my sinfulness is not unique. So far as I’ve read, there’s only one person who gets immunity. But it’s that I can’t kick the habit. Not any one habit, just the habit of coming back to sin like a sad co-dependent relationship, the kind that all your friends know is bad for you, pity you, and love you anyway. When life goes stressful, it’s like I want to outdo it. I want to poor accelerant on the circumstances.
I've concluded that the inability to leave sin is the root of sin. It is the compulsion to lean on earthly things at the expense of our friendship with God. The joy and hope of the Christian life is God’s commitment to help me switch out the sin slides for holy ones more and more, incrementally, over a lifetime.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Layoffs, etc.
Last week my company laid off several people in its workforce. The number was comparatively low, less than 10 percent of the total. But for those let go, the percentage was much higher, 100.
I've concluded that there is no way that such a large body of humans can sync up their recovery process from such an event. Some teams were hard hit, losing half of their players, others were not impacted at all (like mine). Varying degrees of pain on the front end equal varying rates of healing on the back end.
Or do they? This morning while reading Anne LaMott's Traveling Mercies, I found myself thinking intently on the layoffs and the pain they caused. The challenge, I think, is becoming a bit more porous to life, internalizing the experience in a way that authenticates the human experience. It's so easy to place the perpetrator of pain far from yourself in order to deal with it safely. And in this case, those perpetrators are things like "the economy," "the state of the industry," and "myself."
When pain hits, it's a bit like deep-sea diving except totally unexpected. You're humming along with the rhythmic thwump all boats have and the surface tension of the water breaks, physics goes haywire, and you're forced to go under. Pain is what happens when life won't let you gloss over a thing. And there's something noble and beautiful about going under, even finding the ocean floor. Me, I have a primal fear of the water. If I were sitting in a dingy on the open water, I'd be more concerned about the statistical probability that something murderous lurks within killing distance--and is hungry--than the beauty of a horizon or the sound of schwapping waves. When life forces you to go under, you're instantly put in a place of factual crisis.
But it's what you do with the crisis, the descending, and hopefully the ascension that shapes you. Some people are excellent, perhaps too good, at the deep dive. In fact, they seem to have continual reasons for staying underwater, not the least of which is their new found friendship with the crabs. Than there are others, and I am of this group, who see the briny deep, the darkness, the unknown, and decide to stay where the sunlight still penetrates close to the surface.
The layoffs caused considerable sadness at our company. It's been revealing to see how people process an experience like this. Some head so fast for the ocean floor you would have thought they performed a pencil dive from an orbiting satellite. Others up the throttle on the boat to keep moving toward a distant and seemingly imaginary shore, unwilling to get wet. It seems to me that a middle way is best, taking my cue from my rudimentary knowledge of deep-sea diving. You have to descend slowly and ascend slowly so as to not get the bends.
I've concluded that there is no way that such a large body of humans can sync up their recovery process from such an event. Some teams were hard hit, losing half of their players, others were not impacted at all (like mine). Varying degrees of pain on the front end equal varying rates of healing on the back end.
Or do they? This morning while reading Anne LaMott's Traveling Mercies, I found myself thinking intently on the layoffs and the pain they caused. The challenge, I think, is becoming a bit more porous to life, internalizing the experience in a way that authenticates the human experience. It's so easy to place the perpetrator of pain far from yourself in order to deal with it safely. And in this case, those perpetrators are things like "the economy," "the state of the industry," and "myself."
When pain hits, it's a bit like deep-sea diving except totally unexpected. You're humming along with the rhythmic thwump all boats have and the surface tension of the water breaks, physics goes haywire, and you're forced to go under. Pain is what happens when life won't let you gloss over a thing. And there's something noble and beautiful about going under, even finding the ocean floor. Me, I have a primal fear of the water. If I were sitting in a dingy on the open water, I'd be more concerned about the statistical probability that something murderous lurks within killing distance--and is hungry--than the beauty of a horizon or the sound of schwapping waves. When life forces you to go under, you're instantly put in a place of factual crisis.
But it's what you do with the crisis, the descending, and hopefully the ascension that shapes you. Some people are excellent, perhaps too good, at the deep dive. In fact, they seem to have continual reasons for staying underwater, not the least of which is their new found friendship with the crabs. Than there are others, and I am of this group, who see the briny deep, the darkness, the unknown, and decide to stay where the sunlight still penetrates close to the surface.
The layoffs caused considerable sadness at our company. It's been revealing to see how people process an experience like this. Some head so fast for the ocean floor you would have thought they performed a pencil dive from an orbiting satellite. Others up the throttle on the boat to keep moving toward a distant and seemingly imaginary shore, unwilling to get wet. It seems to me that a middle way is best, taking my cue from my rudimentary knowledge of deep-sea diving. You have to descend slowly and ascend slowly so as to not get the bends.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)