More than ever - I'm convinced my life isn't about getting to the great place where I'm supposed to be, as much as it's about making a great place out of where I am.
My life hasn't gone according to script. It hasn't gone according to my script. Or your script. Or anyone's script, really. And maybe that isn't my biggest problem. Maybe my biggest problem is that I've had a script at all. I don't believe God has scripted my life. I believe he shows up in every scene of every moment and auditions for a leading role. I don't always give him the part. I'm sure he feels left out of more scenes than he gets written into. But still he keeps showing up. In every scene. Believing we can make this moment an award winner. Too often I balk at his belief. I send him away to play a role in someone else's show until I get mine just right. I'm afraid I don't have an award winning role for you God, because I still haven't written an award winning script. And God says, I don't need an award winning script. I'm the master of low-budget films. It's the pilot not the plane. Wait, God - didn't you just quote the high-dollar Top Gun movie? I think scripts can be good. I think every good movie and every good day needs an outline. I think scripts are good if we are looking for direction. Where scripts become awful is if we think we are scripting out joy and happiness. Because then, joy and happiness become about how faithful life is being to our script. And most days, it's not. Life simply refuses to follow my script. That's when life becomes about blaming people who screwed up the script. Personal shame for not following the script. Embarassment for the mess I've made of the script. Loneliness because no one could possibly understand this crazy script of my life story. I think I'm getting it, though. This story has no script. My life will always refuse to follow the script because it just doesn't have one. I think I'm getting it. That the most beautiful stories in my life come from making beauty out of where I've been - and not being the best predictor of where I will go. Because that is all a script is, an attempt to know with certainty where I will go. I'm thankful that it's never too late to get it. It's never too late to start finding beauty in the day - beauty I once missed while frantically re-writing the script. And re-writing the re-written script. This Monday has no script. Accept that. And write a beautiful story with the story that comes your way.
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Many of us will never make the personal changes we'd like to make. Not because we aren't able, but because we aren't willing.
You can blame the brain if you'd like. The neurons that want to connect to form new habits take about 30 days to even think about hanging out together. And they don't connect based on how loud you scream at them to connect today, they connect based on how frequently you show up trying to convince them to connect at all. I'll use my writing as an example. There was a day when sitting down in the morning to write seemed painful to think about - this is not want I want to do this morning. Now, even though it isn't a pleasant task every day, not doing it is much more painful to me than doing it. It's a habit. It's a part of my biology. It's a part of my identity. Not because I wrote a book once, but because I show up to write at least a half hour every day. I'm a writer not because I can write, but because it's something I'm willing to show up to do at least a little of every day. That's the big question about change. Many of us start with asking what do I want to do or be. Wrong question. The right question is what am I willing to show up every day to do? The right question isn't about want, it's about willing. Unlike the movies where super changes happen because of super powers, in real life super changes happen because of super commitment. In real life big changes don't happen by stepping into a phone booth once, they happen when you show up to the keyboard every day. They happen when you run a mile every day, not a marathon one Saturday. They happen when you read a few scriptures in the bible every day. Not when you read a whole chapter once in a while. They happen when you eat a helping of broccoli every day, not when you eat a whole head of it in one sitting at Easter. And that head of broccoli, it doesn't pop up over night. It starts with a seed that needs daily attention. Then it becomes something you eat. It's everywhere in life. The reality that all things that bear fruit don't bear fruit without time. Without a process. Without work and hardship and commitment. No fruit in life shows up because we want fruit. It shows up because we are willing to be fruitful. There is some really good news in there. Most of us quit on our change processes because they seem too big. Too daunting. Well they are, mostly because we see the big change as THE change. But it's not. A big change is actually the result of showing up doing a much smaller thing every day. Something we were once unwilling to do every day. But if you do that, show up, if you're willing to, the day will come when you won't remember how big the change you're currently living out ever seemed or felt. Today, don't think about the big things you want to do. Think about the little things you're willing to do every day. "We only trust God to the degree we've been able to trust another human being in some way, shape or form here on earth."
Maybe some of you read that and took exception to it. I did when I first heard it. It felt like it was reducing our relationship to God to our relationship to one another. Then I remembered, long before I reduced it to that, God reduced it to that. It was God who came to earth, fully human, to demonstrate just how fully another human can be trusted. It was God the human who said, the promises I'm making you about your life here and beyond can be trusted. I'll endure one of the more horrific deaths a human can be asked to endure just to prove that to you. It was God who said what we do unto one another, we have done unto him. It was God who got down in the dirt and crafted the first of us, but then left the rest of human creation up to our interpersonal relationships with one another. Maybe God didn't actually reduce our relationship with him to our relationships with one another. Maybe God was actually elevating our relationships with one another to our relationship with him. I've heard it said often that for some people, we are the only bible they will ever read. I think I would personally be a little more specific about that. I'd say for some people, the only relationship they will ever have with God will look like the one they've had with me or you. Because be mindful, God's ONLY objective in inspiring the written word of the bible is to bring us all into a loving relationship with him. I think sometimes we want to minimize the role our relationships with one another play in that. I think sometimes we want to put our relationships with one another in one box, while putting our relationship with God in another box. I think one day we'll discover God intended us to all be in one box. I think one day we'll discover God wanted us humans to find some very God-like ways to prove to one another that - you can trust me The boys are off on their own adventure this week, so I decided to do something without them yesterday I never would have done with them. I went to see the movie Elvis.
I've never been an Elvis fan. I've never NOT liked Elvis, I guess I was just never introduced to him. Until yesterday. I know all movies about people's lives take a lot of creative liberties when telling their stories. So I didn't take everything I saw as fact. But there was one scene that was so powerful - it had me tearing up - that I had to come home and fact check it. There was a television special Elvis was supposed to be a part of. But he was slated to sing songs he wasn't comfortable singing. At the same time, Elvis was wrestling with the assasination of Martin Luther King, Jr. At one point, he says to the producers, when I don't know what to say, I sing.... So instead of singing the songs he was feeling pressured to sing, Elvis sang "If I Can Dream" in front of a national television audience. You could feel the emotion in his voice. You could feel it in the live audience - he was singing what so many wanted to say. The movie moment moved me as much as a movie moment can. (I'll link the performance in the comments). I think a large part of that was I could 'get' Elvis in that moment. I'm a lot like that some days - I don't know what to say - but instead of singing, I write. At the end of the movie, the movie's protagonist Colonel Parker says, I didn't kill Elvis, love did. In large part, he was referring to his love of singing, especially singing songs like "If I Can Dream" - where he could pour out the love he often kept trapped inside. The movie demonstrated in a clear way that the stage was where Elvis felt most himself - it was where he gave himself permission to most BE himself. And that is where he impacted lives in a way that lives on to this day. For all of us, life really is about finding that place where we can most be ourselves. Where we have permission to. It is where we will make the biggest difference. In ourselves. And in the world around us. I just finished listening to a 4-week sermon series on the reconciling heart of God. At the heart of the series was the idea that God has called Christians to be peacemakers, and that is hard to do if we don't have the peace of God living fully in us.
After listening to the series, I think there are two big things that stand in the way of us who are committed to answering that call. One, I think when it comes to peacemaking, many of us have prioritized internal peace over community peace. There are many things we can do to bring peace to our own lives that do nothing to make peace for others. Being a peacemaker cannot be done without considering the peace of others. It can't be done without considering the brokenness of others. Rich Hansen says, "Peacemakers work for wholeness wherever human lives are broken, including fighting injustice that keeps people from ever becoming whole." I think too often we try to create our own internal peace by turning a blind eye to just how much others are struggling. I don't think that's always with evil intent. We are creatures of comfort. Little makes us more uncomfortable than fulling knowing someone else's pain. I think another thing that stands in the way of being peacemakers is believing it's 'them' who are disturbing the peace and not me. Nothing more stands in the way of God taking up residence in our own hearts - where we need him to truly be peacemakers - than the belief my heart is a better place to live than someone else's heart. It's hard to be a peacemaker while marching through the world charging everyone else with disturbing your peace. There's a great prayer from St. Francis of Assisi that I think beautifully cries out one's desire to be a peacemaker: Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy. O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen I have a lot of friends who are runners. And as it goes with the vast majority of them, that is all I know about them.
I know the races they run. I know what their medals look like. I know how many miles they ran yesterday and I'll likely find out how many they ran today. I don't say any of that being as much critical as I'm being real - as a way of reflecting on something I heard a pastor say this week. He said, when we only know people based on their capabilities, we risk becoming consumptive people. We simply show up - mainly online - and consume what they are putting into the world. And they are in turn showing up to do the same. They are consuming what I put into the world. The great risk there is building a world built on consumptive relationships. We consume and consume, but do we ever connect? I'm going to tell you - in all honesty - there are days it gets exhausting trying to produce enough material to feel known. Whether it's an article or a photo or a meme I share or the check in at Olive Garden so you'll know where I'm about to consume chicken parmigiana. The social media world is so hungry to consume it can be hard for all of us to keep up with our production!! The weary road question is, are we keeping up with consumption or deepening connections? I can't answer that for anyone else. I can only reflect on it as me. I also need to acknowledge - in fairness - the few connections I have, they started in an online world. One is my friend Solomon. He is a fellow runner. And for years we kept up with each other's running adventures - largely online. Then one day I had a whole heap of burdens I needed to share with someone. I asked Solomon the runner to meet me at Olive Garden to talk about life outside of running. Our first Olive Garden chat. That wasn't easy. It's much easier to talk about the life you share with the world than it is to talk about the burdens you hide from it. It's much easier to talk about things you want others to consume than it is to talk about the things that are consuming you. Talking about running just flows from the mouth. It's easy and mostly fun. Talking about burdens requires you to dig deep into your heart and gut and soul and literally drag those things to the surface. The burdens fighting you all the way; or you're fighting them? I don't know. But you drag them knowing full well they won't look, sound or feel as consumptive as the last race you ran. There will be no medal at the end of this one. Nothing to hang on the wall. But there will be connection. You know, when you eat Olive Garden's chicken parmigiana, oh it is good. My friend Solomon has seen me celebrate that 1500 calorie consumption a time or two. Only, by the time you scroll to the next meal, that celebration is over. There's a whole new meal to celebrate, now. Connection doesn't work that way, though. Connection doesn't always taste as good as the meal you connect over. But when you get up from the table the connection goes with you. And something always feels healthier about that than whatever you ate. Consumption gives you jolts of energy. Connection gives you life. I'm not sure I've spent much of my life knowing the difference, but I'm getting there. I'd like to think we all are. I'd like to think we're all not missing the chance to connect while we gorge ourselves with consumption. Because we will never truly have a chance to bring each other life if we don't know each other's lives. We'll never care to. You don't long to make a difference in someone's life based on what you know they are capable of, you do it based on what you know they are made of. And trust me, many of us are made of hurts and struggles and burdens. Just because we don't put them out there for consumption doesn't mean they aren't there. Those things usually only show up in an Olive Garden Chat. |
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 |