3/19/2021 0 Comments God doesn't miss the markThis week, I've been working on a presentation I'm doing for a sorority Sunday evening as part of my part-time job at a local college. I'll be talking to them about problem drinking.
As part of the presentation, I've included the criteria one would have to meet to be diagnosed with the medical condition Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD). There are eleven individual criteria. The more of them one meets - the more severe the AUD diagnosis would be. I long ago quit wrestling with the question "did I have a drinking problem?" There came a point in time when I looked back on the trail of destruction I'd left in my life, and although the destruction looked different depending on the year the trail was weaving through, one thing remained the same about that trail. There were cans and bottles of alcohol scattered all along it. Recognizing and accepting that common denominator was the beginning of a different trail for me. But this week was the first time I'd ever taken a serious look at those eleven criteria. Oh, I talked a time or two to counselors over the years about my drinking, but never seriously enough to pay attention to them when they started throwing the signs of a "problem" at me. I don't know why this week - I don't know why I found those criteria speaking TO ME instead of PREPARING ME to speak to students. This morning, though, I feel like it was God's way of reminding me that he doesn't miss the mark. Because those eleven criteria - I had at one time met all eleven of them. There wasn't one of them I had to wrestle with and debate, does that one really apply to me? In fact, they not only all applied, I could have weaved those eleven criteria into a short story and called it a memoire. One thing would be missing, though, if the story simply focused on those criteria - and the problem. Missing would be the number of times I battled with God - actually ACCUSED God of missing the mark with my life. Missing would be the number of times I wondered in anger how God could possibly leave a guy who was mostly good and smart and caring wandering a road of destruction and not helping him build roads to prosperity. So many times, when I was wondering these things, wrestling with them, it was through the lens of my dart board in life and not God's. So many times I was so off the mark when I accused God of having pour aim because I had no way of seeing what God was actually aiming at. Maybe that was because I was more interested in where I wanted to go and not where God was going. But Sunday night, when I share this presentation, I won't be a man talking to young ladies about lifeless and meaningless bullet points on a PowerPoint presentation. I won't be reading words to an audience. I will be sharing the story of a trail with people whom, with all my heart, I want to avoid that trail in life. I won't be educating people as much as I will be sharing life with them. And when I'm doing it, there is no doubt in my mind I will be reminded that God doesn't miss the mark. He just doesn't. Today is a powerful force in our lives. Many days today doesn't look and feel like the today we want in our lives. And often that can leave us feeling like God is missing the mark. Sometimes, it's helpful to reflect. Reflect on yesterday and today and tomorrow. Be awed by how often it looked like God was completely without aim, only to reveal he is weaving them together with perfect aim. Allow that to deepen your faith that as sure as it seems today that God isn't going to come through - well that's just not the case. God is going to hit that bullseye. Maybe not as quickly as we want. But God is hitting it.
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3/18/2021 0 Comments Our Minds take the best picturesI'm certain you see this image, and read those words, and wonder what on earth is he going to write about here. Is he getting ready to rail on cigarette smoking? Well join the club. I'm not sure what I'm going to write about here. But be sure it's not an anti-smoking campaign.
I'm reading the book "Bravey" by Alexi Pappas - the distance running Olympian from Greece. I never read books without a pen and a notecard nearby to write down words that speak to me. I have exactly 4 bowls and 4 glasses in my home, and approximately 4,000 notecards laying around. 🤷♂️ For some reason yesterday, I found myself writing down the words you read below. Each time I looked at that notecard, I found myself wondering, why those words? I think the answer is somehow found in the question - it's words. It's seeing and reading and feeling the power of words in our lives. Pappas was 4 years old when her mom took her life by suicide. These words are a reflection she shares as one of four vivid memories she has of her mother. As I was reading Pappas write about a childhood memory, I was suddenly a 4 year old girl, staring at my mom, realizing she had never held me or kissed me. In an instant, I could literally sit inside Pappas' memory. I could feel it and hurt for and with her. How can mere words do that...? There is something powerfully and a bit miraculously sad about that, really. I think I was also taken and maybe shaken by the power of the human mind. How it can hold on to images with such vivid detail. It's like our minds had smart phones in them long before smart phones and 4K and HD were ever things. Is technology in a race to catch up with something the mind perfected long ago? And it was a reminder, I suppose, as I pulled out that notecard and read it while Ian was practicing lacrosse last night. He walked over during a break and I handed him his water bottle he'd forgotten in the car. I wondered if his mind was taking pictures. Pappas' words were a reminder that people are always taking pictures of our interactions with them. Maybe some of them go immediately into the deleted folder. And maybe some of them don't. Many days life is very complicated and complex. But in many ways we are constantly breaking it down into pictures and words. Pictures and words that help us make sense of our own stories, pictures and words that help us share those stories with others. I suppose there's some sadness that our minds aren't as good at editing photos as they are at taking them. But then again, maybe that's the point. Maybe it's designed that way, so that we ultimately lean into the hope that comes with the true gift of the mind. The gift that says today is a new day, a new day for creating new words, and new photos.... Last night, I had dinner with my friend Solomon MOrris Whitfield. These every other week or so dinners at Olive Garden have become affectionately known as our "Olive Garden Chats" - as much as others might see them as our breadstick eating contests🤷♂️
These chats have deepened our friendship. A friendship I look forward to spending time inside more than I look forward to the pasta - which is saying a lot for this carb addict. These chats - this deepening friendship - if they have a theme, I believe it's two guys trying to become their best selves. Solomon has helped me come to believe that if we are ever going to become our best selves, we need someone in our lives - in our corner - as committed to us becoming that best someone as we are. Maybe even more committed. That's because there are powerful forces in life working against our desire to be better. As Seth Godin says this morning, we all have habits in our lives, and we are telling ourselves stories based on those habits - and those stories and habits - they are always working to convince us this is the REAL you. Solomon gave up drinking over four months ago. He had come to believe the stories that the alcohol and his alcohol habit were telling him - which, simply put, was that he and life weren't much good without the drinking. This past weekend, Solomon ran a hundred mile race in West Virginia. He not only ran it, but he ran it well. He finished second place among a group of good runners who've spent a lot of time running long distances. Eating last night, he told me that was as good as he's felt as a runner in one of those endurance events. Don't confuse that with it was "easy" - but mentally and physically he just felt stronger. You know, Godin says in his article this morning that "we organize our lives to maintain the pressures and boundaries we’re used to. We’d like to pretend we’re just going to bear with it until we get through this urgency, but we’re usually lying to ourselves." When I think about our chats - and how we've leaned on each other - and at times pushed each other - I think the hours of conversations boil down to one long-winded encouragement for both of us to quit lying to ourselves. We've encouraged each other to quit believing "when the right time comes" we'll organize our lives in a healthier way - we'll quit listening to the old habits and stories and start forming new ones that tell a better story. I think the reason Solomon felt so strong this weekend was because life was telling him out there - unconditionally - you are a runner. There were no competing stories or habits telling him you're a drunk - you're not cut out to run with this group. Solomon was out there running with the right habits and the right stories pacing him. What pressures and boundaries have you been enduring in your life - telling yourself just a little more time - I can endure this just a little longer and then it will all change? And how long have you been telling yourself that? Our habits and stories are always fighting to be right in our lives. So it's up to us to decide which habits and which stories get to have the loudest voices. It's up to us to grow tired of "someday" and decide "this is the day." Because this CAN be the day.... For a long time, I think I unknowingly saw my evolution as a Christian rooted in this idea:
I need to use my religion to clean up my life so I'll be more credible and effective at helping other people clean up their lives. Then one day it hit me - our lives are never cleaned up. They are always messy. It hit me that I can spend my whole life sweeping my kitchen floor - and hand you a few brooms along the way to clean up your floors - and still, my floor and your floors are always going to have yesterdays cheerios or coffee grounds on them. (Welcome to my kitchen floor...🙂🤷♂️). Somewhere along the way, my evolution as a Christian became rooted in the discovery that my religion is found IN the mess, not in cleaning it up. More and more, I find myself drawn to people's messes. And not because I'm interested in selling them a cheap broom, but because I've discovered there is something beautiful that happens when you start sharing messes with one another instead of arguing about who needs the biggest broom. It's when we share our messes that we can wake up to the reality that religion, at it's best, is a shared compassion, a shared love, found at the intersection of our shared struggles, and not at the intersection of our tangled and often combating brooms. You know, one of the greatest mysteries of my personal faith is this idea of three persons in one - the father and the son and the holy spirit. The trinity. Most days I don't get the whole idea of ME - just this one me - let alone trying to imagine THREE of me in me!! Richard Rohr says this about that trinity relationship: "The names of the three “persons” of the Trinity are not as important as the relationship between them. That’s where all the power is—in the 'in between'!" From the very beginning, like long before the first human relationship ever formed, God was living this idea that religion is what happens between us, and not how effective we are at cleaning up what is all around us. God didn't need a son and God didn't need a holy spirit - but God wrote them into the story of life so we'd know relationship IS life. And religion is relationship. We miss that when we make religion about cleaning up our lives. We miss that when we use religion as a way to demand that someone else cleans up their lives. I like to picture God and Jesus and The Holy Spirit having morning coffee. They are strategizing their days. I think I used to think those huddles looked like three people figuring out the best way to go clean up Keith today. But this morning, I picture them talking about how they can go love Keith today in the middle of his messy kitchen floor. And I think that's what they want me to think about this morning with my coffee. They want me thinking about how I can go love someone else in the middle of their cheerios and their coffee grounds. Because today I see my religion as a chance to wake up to the love that is found in sharing messes, not cleaning them up. This past weekend, I enjoyed morning coffee with two different friends on consecutive days. In each of those mornings, there was laughter, there were tears, there was frustration and celebration - there was peace.
In each of those mornings, I re-disovered what I've been figuring out a lot lately. Peace doesn't get added to your life. It gets uncovered with subraction. We live our lives on the edge of addition - always anticipating that next add. We are waiting to add that new iPhone or car or house or job or relationship. We live our lives with unbreakable gazes out into the world, gazes guided by this belief that I'm about to add this next thing - THE thing - that will bring me peace and contentment. Then you find yourself sitting at a table with nothing but a couple of cups of coffee - (okay, and maybe a little Cracker Barrel). But outside of that, all you have in that moment is human interaction. There is human story and human life and human emotions. In that moment, so much of what we've come to believe is the happy in life is noticeably missing - and all that remains - is living. Living that is both beautiful and complicated, happy and sad, easy and hard - yet, it's all so real. It has nothing to do at all with what is next - and everything to do with what is there. Right. There. More and more, I wonder about the Garden of Eden. Paradise, it's called. I wonder if the paradise in that paradise was found more in what was missing from the garden and not all that was there. In that garden, it was just two people, sharing conversation and sharing God, and that was it. I do wonder how peaceful that felt. How peaceful was life when it was a couple of people and God and just plain old talking. Peaceful, that is, until along came a serpent - and sold them on this idea of what they could add to their lives. Come along, he said, let me show you a tree. It will make all the difference in your lives. From that visit to the tree on, humans have been focused on next. What can we add to our lives? What is this next thing that will finally make me happy, will finally deliver on the peace that life and serpents love to sell us on? I wonder if that is all backwards. I wonder if we aren't supposed to be making our way back to the garden. Peeling away every single thing until it's just you and me and God, chatting about life, the struggles and the celebrations. Living life and not having our peace subtracted by it. I wonder, sitting enjoying a cup of coffee, experiencing peace, if that peace was a voice declaring that I and maybe we have been doing the math all wrong. Maybe peace is found in subtraction (-) and not addition (+). Maybe this week, when you get to feeling like you need to add something to your life, maybe take that as a cue to think about a thing or two that might need to go. Maybe this is the week to take a step back toward the garden - not away from it. Many days, running for me becomes the best way to "pass time in (my) waiting." Because it does always feel like I'm in some sort of pattern of waiting.
Running is often my way of escaping the noise I create in my head when I grow weary of that waiting. Waiting for struggles to disappear. Waiting for hope to arrive. Friday, I spent some time running through a beautiful park in North Carolina. There was a paved path that ran through the middle of the woods. At one point, the path came out of the woods onto a sidewalk that tracked along a busy street. I decided to run on the sidewalk for a bit to add some miles to my run. I hadn't gone too far when I looked back down into the woods through an opening that appeared. That's when I noticed some things. I noticed the green leaves starting to bud on the trees. I noticed the stream that had been winding in and out of my path when I'd been running in the woods. I noticed the rocks. I noticed the warn down dirt path along the stream where folks had clearly abandoned the pavement for something more adventurous. I noticed a lot of things that, while I'd been running along passing time in the woods, had been wanting to make me aware of God's presence. I noticed a lot of things that, while running to silence the voice in my head that was insisting to me God wasn't coming through quick enough, were God saying I'm right here and I'm right on time. It was a reminder that we can go through life believing God shows up periodically - or that God is always there. We can go through life believing God's presence is defined by his response to us, or that it's defined by our response to him. The first one involves a lot of waiting for God to knock at our door. The second requires us to run through life with our antennae up. The first involves a lot of wishing and hoping. The second requires seeing and hearing and smelling and touching - and believing. I guess that's it, we're either wishing or believing. And maybe that largely comes down to an antennae up or down.... I'm a Dunkin Donuts guy, not a VEGAN donuts guy. But my friend Jess Reilly and her partner in life, Mark, recently opened a plant based bakery in North Carolina. I was headed to North Carolina yesterday and figured I needed to stop and check it out.
So I'll get this out of the way first. I ate the donuts. They were quite possibly the best tasting baked goods to ever pass through the picky borders of my mouth. Like, how does someone do that without "real" milk and butter and all things animal that you NEED to make things taste good? I don't know - but a miracle is happening in the Plant Cakes Bake Shop. A miracle I tell you. More meaningful to me than the baked goods that I walked away with yesterday, is the hat I bought. The hat that has Jess and Mark's store logo on it. Because to me, that hat will forever say: dreams can come true. I met Jess about 7 years ago through the running family I belong to. When I met Jess - and she'd be the first to tell you this - Jess was a mess. I think that's why I liked Jess from day one. Since then, I've watched her go on this beautiful life journey of rediscovering faith and confidence and love. When I walked into her bakery yesterday, and saw the smiling faces of all the customers, and saw Jess proudly serving them, I knew I was staring at a transformation. A sweet and beautiful transformation. My trip to North Carolina was somewhat random, really. But standing there with Jess, I knew there wasn't really anything random about it at all. Because the truth is, my life is a mess these days. Chances are - if you're reading this - yours is too. Because most days that's what I'm writing about here - messy living. But yesterday, standing there watching Jess, I felt less messy than I've felt in awhile. One, there is something beautiful watching someone you admire experience a dream come true. There's something uplifting about being a spectator to someone winning at life whom you've been rooting for all along. Everything in me wanted to hand her a big life trophy or something. A crown or a parade. But her face told me she didn't need one.... And two - there's something encouraging that happens when a dreamer witnesses someone else's dream come true. There's something that screams possible when you stand staring at a mess turned store owner. And there is hope. There is hope when you're in line with so many people receiving life from someone who was once unsure where she was ever going to get life from again. I'm proud of you Jess Reilly. You are one strong woman. You're an incredible human. You're working miracles in that bake shop. I received one yesterday. And as a bonus - I ate some of the most delicious baked goods ever. I've spent some time this morning reading about the people of Israel and their 40 years wandering in the wilderness with Moses.
I was struck, really, how often these folks, who had endured hundreds of years of slavery in Egypt, continued being slaves to themselves through their lack of faith and their lack of willingness to take on the day to day struggles in front of them on the way to freedom. As I thought about that - I thought about me. How I've spent so much of my life being a slave to myself through my lack of faith and lack of willingness to take on the day to day struggles in front of me on the way to freedom. What does a "lack of willingness to take on the day to day struggles in front of me" look like? It looks like wishing struggles away. It looks like whining about struggles. It looks like talking about struggles instead of doing something about them. This year, my word is rocket. I borrowed the word from the song Say I Won't. In that song there are these words: Today It all begins I'm seeing my life for the very first time Through a different lens Yesterday I didn't understand Driving 35 with the rocket inside Didn't know what I had While I've been waiting to live My life's been waiting on me This morning, it occurs to me, that while life is up ahead waiting on me, life is also getting aggravated with me. Life is listening to me wish and whine and talk, and life is saying - maybe life is even screaming - would you JUST walk already. Would you just shut up and start walking toward your freedom? This year, I made a commitment that when I feel myself settling into places of wishing, when I get mired in whining, or when I find myself talking about moving ahead instead of actually moving ahead, I start walking. Many days, that looks like a very literal walk. And you know what, some days it actually feels like I'm getting somewhere. Some days, it actually feels like I'm riding a rocket instead of roaming around the same city block I've been roaming around for far too long - never going more than 35 mph. The Israelites finally caught the rocket that took them into the promised land. It didn't happen on their timeline. It didn't come as easy as they had wished it would. But it came. But only after they started walking and stopped talking. You can wake up one day and realize you've spent a lifetime talking. Then you take a step, and realize one step actually gets your further than decades of talking. That's freedom. I was having a conversation with a dear friend last weekend. In that conversation, she told me she was feeling "gladder" about something - and quickly followed that up with - I'm not even sure "gladder" is a word.
There was a day when it would have been pretty important for me to settle that one. Do not pass go and do not collect $200 until we are certain gladder is a word. Because if it's not, I'm in the middle of a conversation that is violating all English language laws, which makes it not really a conversation at all. In this conversation, that wasn't important to me. What was important is I knew exactly what she was feeling about her situation. I knew gladder was the perfect word for the story that moment was trying to tell me. Maybe it was indeed a new word. In his blog yesterday, Seth Godin said, "New words give us new ways to understand the world, because new words come with stories attached." Today, I'm still not 100% sure whether gladder is a word or not. But it will be forever attached to a story - to a place and a time and a moment. The word gladder will always leave me feeling gladder about things... One of the things I love doing more and more when I'm reading my bible, is tracing back the origins of the words bible characters used. I love tracing them back to the stories that brought them to life. A lot of times we get hung up memorizing the words in the bible so we are poised to quickly quote them to ourselves or others. But more and more, I'm most interested in memorizing the moments - the stories that gave birth to the quotes. Where were these people when they shared these quotes? Were they happy or sad or mad? Were they sitting next to each other or writing each other in a letter? Was it late at night - like the last supper - when words were spoken in exhaustion. Or was it early morning, when the words were as new and fresh as that first cup of black coffee? Clearly words are at the heart of our relationships. Whether we speak them or write them or sign them to one another - words matter. But they only matter because they tell a story - and sometimes, in the very coolest of moments, words are invented right there, on the spot, just to make sure that story is told just right. Have you ever invented a word? Do you have any words that are placeholders for a story? I hope so. Feel free to share them. It would make me gladder if you did. 😊🤷♂️ 3/10/2021 0 Comments the secret to life is depthIf the secret to life is indeed tied to depth, and I've come to believe more and more it is, it explains a lot about some of the struggles in my life.
This week, I listened to a fantasy come to life podcast interview. Rich Roll, who wrote "Finding Ultra" - the book that inspired my desire to see how far I could push my body - interviewed Steven Pressfield, who wrote one of - if not THE most - meaningful books I've ever read. His "The War of Art" poured fuel on the fire of my love for writing. Listening to these two guys talk about overcoming the very real and intimidating resistance forces in each of our lives - was powerful. Pressfield said depth is the key to creativity. Acknowledging that Roll is an accomplished endurance athlete, he said the same is true of ultra-fitness - the key is depth. Pressfield went on to say that anything we do for an hour - the experience in that thing is much different after an hour than it is after ten minutes. I think the challenge with that is that we live in a ten minutes world. There's very little we want to invest an hour in if we can get away with doing it for ten minutes. I think of my ultra-running experiences. Pressfield is right. I think of running the Georgia Jewel last September. I was out there for 13 1/2 hours to cover 37 miles. The most beautiful hour of that experience, the hour where I learned the most about myself and about life - it was hour 13. It was deep into the running. I think about my writing. How some days I get here and after five minutes I'd like to just stop. But as I keep typing away, thoughts and life and memories just come to me and then to you. Writing starts coming from my heart and not my mind. Writing gets deep. I think about my work, how my joy in my job doesn't come from crossing off the superficial tasks on my to-do list, but in learning and sharing a deeper understanding of trauma and substance abuse and the mental health challenges people face. My joy in my job comes from digging into the deeper parts of my work. I think about relationships. And I wonder if the secret to a life-giving relationship is not found here - in a world of quick and endless loves and likes - but face to face, sharing with someone the hardest and deepest moments and conversations. Sharing tears and exchanging laughter. I wonder if the joy in life comes through relationships found far beneath the surface of the ocean, not floating on top of it. And I do wonder if my most meaningful connection to God isn't found in reading the first chapter in my bible reading plan this morning, but at the end of that prayer where I've let God in on my deepest struggles - my hurts and my regrets. I wonder if my connection to God is strongest deep beneath the commandments and the laws and the memorization; I wonder if it's deep in my soul, where God feels far less intimidating and far more loving and compassionate. I wonder if Pressfield is right. Right about creativity and ultra-fitness, for sure, but right about life. That the secret to life is deep. And I wonder if like me, many are and have missed out on that secret. We've missed out by hanging out on the surface of life. Maybe we all need to resist a little more the temptation to embrace ten minute lives, when life is so much more meaningful after an hour. |
Robert "Keith" CartwrightI am a friend of God, a dad, a runner who never wins, but is always searching for beauty in the race. Archives
May 2024
CategoriesAll Faith Fatherhood Life Mental Health Perserverance Running |