12/20/2021 0 Comments You are a reason for the seasonThis time of the year, I always find myself wondering - why a baby? Why a baby to change the direction of humanity?
And even more, why a baby in a manger? I celebrated my first born's birthday last weekend. Any parent reading this knows that no matter how many moments of their kids' lives they can't quite recall between their birth and their present - they can ALWAYS recall with great clarity the moment of their birth. I remember the love in that moment. I don't know if I said it - or even thought it - but I knew the moment each of my boys were born - I knew they would always be enough. Nothing they would ever do would add to it. Nothing would take away from it. They were already enough. It's never lost on me that God looked upon me at the moment of my birth. It's never lost on me - in that moment - even if God wasn't saying it or thinking it - he was lovingly knowing I would always be enough. A popular saying at Christmas is "Jesus is the reason for the season." Yes, but so are we. We are the reason for this season. We are the reason for the baby in the manger. He came in the humblest of settings to remind us, that in the humblest of our settings, we are enough. Brene Brown says, "let go of who you think you're supposed to be, embrace who you are." So many of us spend our lives trying to be who we think we're supposed to be. Shoot, a whole bunch of us are spending our lives just trying to FIGURE OUT who we're supposed to be. But what if a reason for the season is to remind us - who we are is children of God. From the humblest first seconds of our birth, God has declared we'll never be more than that; we'll never undo that. Who you are is a reason for this season. Don't let this season go by without being reminded of that. Don't waste a second of this season trying to be more than that. It's Monday. And no matter what happens this week, you will still be enough. You always have been.
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The average american will spend $1000 on Christmas presents this year. 25% of Americans will go in debt to pay for them. As a country, we will spend over 700 billion dollars - billions with a B - on the gifts we will all unwrap in the week ahead.
And oh by the way, for what it's worth, 70% of Americans feel Christmas is too focused on money..... So why - why then do we do it? Why do we spend money we don't have on things people don't really want or need? We do it because marketers are good at selling us on the idea their products can fill the voids in our lives many of us are going through life with. They've successfully hijacked the Christmas story to sell us the idea that there is greater value in giving to one another than there is in simply having one another. It's a Christmas story that has sadly become too much of our life story. Last week, I watched the heartbreaking scenes on the news from Kentucky. Entire communities leveled by tornadoes. But there was interview after interview of people standing on the ruins of their homes, people who just kept saying, none of this loss matters - because I still have my kids and my family and my friends. In my work, I get to talk to a lot of counselors. Out of curiosity, I always ask them - what is the greatest theme people come to talk to you about? Invariably, people are coming to talk about issues they are having with the loss of some one in their life, not some thing. Do you know, 20% of Americans say they won't even like their Christmas gifts; a higher percentage than that say a year after receiving them, they won't remember the gifts they got or who they got them from. But lose a someone close to you in life, some people never get over that one. That's because the Christmas story is a we need each other story, not a we need things story. Do you ever wonder why God chose to introduce Jesus as a baby in a manger - a tiny baby dependent on the people around him to keep him healthy and safe and growing - just like the baby story of anyone reading this. I personally think it's because Jesus came to give us a we need each other story. Too often, I think we hijack the Christmas story and make it a 'we need Jesus to keep from going to an eternal hell' story, when the story Jesus often told was a 'we need one another to keep from living in a daily hell' story. Whether it's ignoring the marketers or listening to Jesus - I don't much care - I just think there is some value in spending a little less time this Christmas thinking of and dreaming up all the things that will make life better, things you will likely forget a year or two from now. And maybe spend that time clinging a little closer to the people you already have. If nothing else, it will save you a little money..... I recently listened to Rich Roll interview Tommy Rivers Puzey on his podcast. Puzey - Rivs as he is known in the ultra running community - has been recently battling an aggressive form of cancer. Doctors said he wouldn't live. Then they said he wouldn't live without a ventilator. Then they said he'd never walk. Then they quit making projections.
Last month, he completed the New York City Marathon. Puzey said something that stuck with me. He said, "I think about how often you waste energy by wishing things were a certain way and they aren't. And how gratitude is realizing you do have control over certain things." I love how he used the word energy. Because it's true. We all have a certain amount of energy as we enter this new day. The question is, what will we do with it. Will we use it to wish certain things were different? Or will we pour it into the things we actually have control over? One will lead to feeling empty and without - the other to gratitude. As I listened to him say, "I think about how often YOU waste energy..." - I felt like he was talking directly to me. Because I know I've been prone to let my energies go there - to wishing lately - and to coming up empty. He is right, though. Because I have gotten better at how I use my energies. When I feel my energies going off to wishful thinking land, I pull myself back in by telling myself to focus on the moment in front of me. The moment I actually have some control over. I guess I've thought of that in the moment place as a place of less anger or sadness than wishful thinking. But Puzel reminded me that place can actually be a place of gratitude. It can be a moment we don't have to wish for, but already have - and we can give thanks for it. While Puzel was in the ICU at the hospital battling his cancer, his wife would get phone calls from his nurses. They told her that her husband “was doing push-ups beside the bed and situps in bed,” she said. “They’d be like, ‘Dude, you can’t get out of bed and do push-ups in the I.C.U.’” He never stopped pouring his energies into the moment he had control over. If you're reading this, you have energy this morning. The question is, where will you pour it. Into wishful thinking, or into something you have control over? 12/17/2021 0 Comments our youth need us now more than everAs part of my job, I help monitor federal funding that goes out to Virginia communities for substance abuse prevention and mental health wellness efforts - with a special focus on our youth.
Once a year, I conduct a monitoring visit of these communities. I've been conducting the 2021 virtual visits the last two months. One theme has come from them that isn't new, but the trend of the theme is alarming. Especially because I have youth I call my sons. I disconnected from more than one of those calls with tears in my eyes and in my heart. Because this is clear, our young people - like adults - are choosing to end their own lives at unprecedented rates. In my own little community here in Virginia, it's happened more than once already this school year. And as I talked to several communities across the state, I'm saddened by how very normal youth suicide has become. Last week, the Surgeon General of the United States sounded an alarm with his advisory: Protecting Youth Mental Health. (Linked in the comments). In it, you'll read statistics like the following: *In 2019, one in three high school students and half of female students reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, an overall increase of 40% from 2009. Read that again - and picture - one third of the kids in your local high school walking around feeling sad and hopeless - half of the girls. And the trend is NOT toward hopeful. Those numbers are PRE pandemic. One frightening number the report gives since the pandemic began: *In early 2021, emergency department visits in the United States for suspected suicide attempts were 51% higher for adolescent girls and 4% higher for adolescent boys compared to the same time period in early 2019. (If you wonder about the discrepancy in the numbers for girls and boys - two things - girls are more likely to seek help, and boys often use more deadly means when attempting suicide). I have a young college student who works for me. She went to the same high school my oldest son goes to. Years ago, she survived one of those youth suicide attempts. She was one of those numbers. I was talking to her about this yesterday. We were talking about these numbers and trends. She said I just feel a heaviness; I feel desperate. I could see that in her eyes. Somehow, we ALL need to get there. We ALL need to get to feeling heavy and desperate. Somehow, we ALL need to get to a point of seeing this as not another crisis, but as an epidemic of our kids hurting: persistently sad and hopeless. Somehow, we ALL need to get to a point of seeing this as not a crisis, but as a growing agreement among our kids. Before they even finish high school, our kids are collectively coming to believe life isn't worth living. You know, as a culture, I believe more and more every day that we know how to be emotional. But we have no idea how to manage those emotions. We know how to stir them up in one another, but very few of us have any idea what to do with them once they are stirred up. Mainly, because too many of us have built relationships geared to hide from the hard emotions, not navigate them together. And so here are our kids - with all of these emotions - and with brains, because of where they are in their development, living in a land of far more emotions than logic - having no idea what to do with any of it. All our kids want - whether they know it or not - is just some way to manage it all. More and more, they are turning to people who have no answers. As adults, too few of us have people we can comfortably turn to and say, "I am sad" - "I am hurting" - "I am scared" - "I am thinking about taking my life." So we've unknowingly - and sometimes knowingly - put up walls to protect ourselves from having those conversations at all. On the outside of those walls, dying because they can't find a way in - are our kids. I encourage you to read the Surgeon General's report linked in the comments below. The majority of the report focuses on what we can all do. I think it starts with us being more open to exploring other people's emotions and less committed to dictating the terms of them. I think it starts with us being more open to exploring our OWN emotions, and finding the circles in our lives who are lovingly willing to help us navigate them. And also, maybe more so, invite our kids into those circles. Because they need us now more than ever.... 12/16/2021 0 Comments Blame is a stall tacticThe way I see it, we are all waking up in circumstances this morning. Every one of us. I figure some of us are waking up feeling good about our circumstances. And some of us - well, maybe we're not.
I'll be honest, I've been in the maybe not group many mornings the last couple of years. And because I have, I've had the chance to learn a lot about being in circumstances I don't feel good about. The biggest thing I've learned is when we are in circumstances we don't like, there are three roads we follow. We do things to make our circumstances better. We do things to make our circumstances worse. Or we go about trying to make new circumstances for ourselves. I'm going to tell you what has most stood in the way of me making my circumstances better - or in the way of me creating new circumstances for myself - acknowledging those two often look like the same thing. What has most stood in my way is me blaming other people for the circumstances that haven't feel good to me. I imagine that happens a lot in broken marriages. This need to blame someone for what is broke. I suppose that happens in a lot of relationships that break. I suppose it happens in job situations that break. Or financial situations that break. Shoot, it even happens when our favorite football team loses. There's an instinct to blame. I think that instinct comes from a few places. One, if we can get someone to agree this is 'their' fault, then I'm relieved of having to own any of this is 'my' fault. I think here is also this desire to be innocent in the court of public opinion. We can find ourselves sitting around and wondering, whose fault do people think this is? I bet their blaming me. Blame can become our way of trying to control that public opinion. And I think there is this. We have a seemingly insatiable thirst for accountability. Listen, I believe holding ourselves accountable is a healthy trait. I've just rarely - or ever - seen blaming someone or something being the best road to getting there. But we can get to believing, if I just blame a little louder and more aggressively, accountability will follow. I've come to know there is a big difference between wanting our circumstances to be better and doing something to actually make them better or new. Blame is a great bad circumstances stall tactic. It allows us to spend more time WANTING things to be better and delaying the often hard work or tough choices that actually MAKE things better. You know, early on, when I'd have my time with my boys, I spent some of that time blaming other people and other circumstances because I 'only' got to have the boys for a couple of days - or a couple of hours. You know what I finally figured out? Whether it was all my fault - all someone else's fault - a mix of both - none of that mattered. The whole stinking world could have stood up and said, I'm sorry, this is ALL my fault, and it would have had ZERO influence on the opportunity I had to create new circucmstances with my boys. I realized my boys don't have time for me to figure out whose fault this all is. I'm not the only one. I walk through a world many days that is caught up in a blame game. I wonder where that is getting us. I wonder where it gets us when so many people are forfeiting their opportunity to create better and new circumstances while spending time blaming someone or something else for the circumstances they are in. I've had some beautiful experiences with my boys the last several months. A lot of that came when I stopped blaming other people for the circumstances I was in, and started embracing the chance to make something brand new. I've I stopped stalling with blame, and started doing the work that they - and I - deserve. On the way to work yesterday morning, I noticed a display in a local church yard. I really couldn't make out what it was, I just knew it wasn't the typical nativity scene.
On the way home last night, in the dark, as I neared the church, I remembered the display from the morning. I pulled into a parking lot to take a closer look. Turns out, it wasn't a nativity scene at all. It was the three wise men - or Magi - or '🎵 We Three Kings of Orient Are 🎵' - depending on how you've heard the story over the years. They are often overlooked characters in the Christmas story. Little is written about them outside of their brief appearance in the second chapter of Matthew. What we know is, these travelers believed the words of a prophet who wrote that Jesus would be born in Bethlehem, and they began following a star they believed would lead them to him. There are historians who believe they followed that star for up to two years. On foot. I got out of my car and walked among the characters in the scene. As I stood their taking a picture of them, I was reminded that the real lesson in the part the wise men played in the Jesus story - and in that moment in MY story - wasn't that they came bearing gifts - it wasn't their wisdom - it wasn't even how far or how long they traveled. No, the lesson in their story - for me - was they believed if they kept going, if they kept following the star, they would find what they believed was waiting for them on the other end of their journey. Standing there, I was reminded that, yes, Jesus is the star of the Christmas show. But sometimes we have to believe in the star enough to keep following it. Following it when life gets hard. Following it even when some nights that star is hard to pick out of a dark and cloudy sky. Standing there, I heard God telling me that as much as I long to be standing in the middle of the nativity scene - as much as I want to be standing in that big moment when it all makes sense - that's not always - or even often - how life works. Often, life is about believing in that moment enough to keep going. It's about believing strongly enough in a beautiful ending that you can't help but believe there is somehow beauty in following the star. No matter how long or how far you have to follow it... This Christmas, treasure the manger scene. Treasure it for all the beauty it offers. But don't forget the wise men. Don't forget that finding our treasures often requires us to believe in them enough to keep going. And then keep going. 12/14/2021 0 Comments Schedule your successIf I ask you, what will make this a successful day? What will your answer be?
For the longest time, I was vague with my answers to that question. That didn't make me unsuccessful. Success can be subjective. But when you start attaching specific results to success, success is easier to see - and feel - and it gets a lot more likely. Yesterday was Monday. I could have said 'I want to start the week getting a little exercise in.' But I know me. If I'm not specific, 'little' can become almost nothing; 'exercise' can become a trip to the dumpster. Both clearly would have been better than nothing. But both would have made it harder for me to see and feel successful. So, before the day started yesterday, I wrote on my calendar a trip around the block in the morning. And then I wrote another one in for after work. Each trip is 1.6 miles. Here's the thing about those trips. I didn't write walk or run. I didn't write a target speed. I just wrote two trips. Mondays are busy; I know squeezing exercise in is a chore. But I also knew if I DID squeeze it in I'd feel more enthusiastic about my Monday. And if I was specific about it, I'd feel successful. I got both of those trips in. After a long day of work, I felt like pushing that evening trip - so I made a hard run out of it. And on that second trip, I added an extra half mile to it when I ran to the mailbox and back. Eating dinner last night, I felt successful. Not because of how fast or far I went, but because I did what I said I needed to do to be successful yesterday - at least when it came to exercise. I'm not a big list guy, but I am a big calendar guy. I look at a blank calendar page as an opportunity. An opportunity to fill those blocks with things that will make me see and feel success. When I write 'one trip around the block' on the same page as work meetings I risk being disciplined for if I don't show up - it adds a little importance to that trip around the block. If I write a meeting on a calendar that will help my employer be successful, why wouldn't I write one on there that is going to help me be successful? I'm not saying you have to schedule your success, I just know it's helped me. I'm not even saying you have to write anything down. But I am saying this. If I ask you what will make this a successful day, and you have a specific answer to that question, chances are more likely that you will indeed see and feel success at the end of this day. And frankly, I'm in favor of us all feeling a little successful when this day ends... 12/13/2021 0 Comments You were made for joy, not happinessI listened to a hard hitting sermon yesterday morning. It hit me hard because I'm a Christ follower - and sometimes this Christ follower finds himself complaining more than I'd like to.
The sermon helped spell out the difference between joy and happiness. Happiness, pastor Brad Hoffmann said, is something we pursue. It's the new house or truck or video game or phone upgrade. It's the worldly things that bring fleeting pleasure. Anyone have things in their life they once couldn't wait to own - just certain those things would make them happy - and now days or months or years can go by without you even thinking of those things? 🙋♂️ On the other hand, he said, joy is found in our relationship with God. And since we never lose access to that relationship, we always have the opportunity to choose joy. Joy is never fleeting. In fact, the pastor said - "joy takes up residence in us." He made me think of God - and joy - like a neighbor. Just because I choose not to visit them doesn't mean they don't live there. Just because my life gets too busy outside my neighborhood to pay attention to the neighbor, doesn't mean the neighbor has quit paying attention to me. The reality is, the world is unreliable. If we get to depending on the things we order on Amazon to make us happy, well those things can be stuck on a ship in the pacific ocean for months. If we get to relying on perfect health to make us happy, well hello COVID. If we get to depending on a political party to make us happy, along comes an election. If we get to relying on people in our lives to make us happy, sometimes people disappear. God doesn't disappear. God doesn't get unelected. We may not choose him, but he is still choosing us. I know not everyone has this relationship with God. I know not everyone buys into the belief that God has taken up residence in them. God can be a tough neighbor to get to know. Especially if we get to valuing happiness more than we do joy. I spent a lot of my life pursuing happiness. The result was a lot of unhappiness that led me to seek out more things - often more destructive things - to cope with my unhappiness. But as the pastor pointed out yesterday, "you weren't made for happiness, you were made for joy." It's the perfect reminder this Christmas season. That baby in a manger, he wasn't a gift - he IS a relationship. That baby in a manger, he wasn't sent to create a happily ever after - he was sent to be a source of eternal joy. A friend sent me a text message yesterday. It said, how are you? I responded, I'm not happy, but I'm choosing joy. I'm making a commitment this week. If I find myself tempted to complain about something, I'm going to hear that as a reminder to choose joy. If I find myself tempted to complain this week, I'm going to hear that as a reminder that I'm relying on things to make me happy that can't be relied on. I'm going to hear it as a reminder to go home - go home where Joy has taken up residence. 12/11/2021 0 Comments Being Awed Beats Being EntertainedI went to see the movie Westside Story yesterday. It's not like I'd been counting the minutes until the movie came out or anything. It was a dreary Friday afternoon. I'd grown tired of working and sitting around in a home office. So I decided to go see a movie.
I get my fill of 'invaders from another world' movies with the boys, and since I didn't have them with me, I seized the opportunity to take in something a little more 'this' world. Before I go on, I'll tell you this isn't a movie review. All I'll say is I forked out twenty bucks to watch this on the IMAX screen. It's the best twenty bucks I've spent in a long time. Including the six gallons of gas I bought yesterday morning 🤷♂️. Here is what I am going to say, though. I think I went into the movie thinking I was just going to sit in the dark and not have to think about anything, but the reality is my mind never stopped racing. That can happen when you go in expecting to be entertained, and you end up being awed. Westside Story is a musical. This movie is 2 1/2 hours of beginning to end singing and dancing. Now, I can't sing. And I can't dance. So I'm sure that fed my awe of people doing both in ways that were as other worldly as any of the marvel movies I watch with the boys. So I know there is that. But I found myself looking into the eyes of the women spinning in and out of dance moves I would have thought impossible to navigate. I listened for the hearts in the men hitting notes as they sang I'm not sure I've heard hit in songs before. I found myself thinking - they were born to do this. I found myself thinking about the person who was born to teach them to sing. Teach them to dance. I thought about the person who was born to write the opportunity for them to showcase it all. I thought about the person who was born to put the music with the dancing, the dancers with the dancers, and all of it with the story. As I allowed my mind to trace the history and the web of the talent on that screen - I was awed. Of course, you can't sit and watch a production full of people doing what they were born to do without wondering - what am I born to do. And am I doing it? Towards the end of the movie, one of the characters is in a particularly moving scene singing the song, Somewhere. Tears started rolling down her cheeks as she sang the words: Someday, somewhere We'll find a new way of living We'll find a way of forgiving Somewhere It was in those tears that I saw someone who wasn't an actress, but someone who was doing what she was born to do - someone who had found her somewhere. It was in those tears at the end of the movie when I started to think about the idea that knowing if we're doing what we're born to do isn't answered by the thing we're doing - it's answered by the tears - or the laughter - or the heart. No thing will ever tell us, this is what I was born to do. But our hearts will. Our hearts will tell us when we've found our thing - our somewhere. I encourage you - if you go see this one - look in the eyes of the singers and the dancers. Explore their hearts. And maybe for a minute, you'll find yourself exploring your own. I was catching up with a friend yesterday. She was talking to me about some frustrating things she's been facing lately. But then she told me about a conversation she had with her son that made all the difference. Her son told her he's been challenging himself to be fascinated by the the things that once frustrated him.
To understand the magnitude of that shift in mindset, I looked up both words this morning. Frustrated = feeling discouraged or annoyed by something or someone Fascinated = enchanted with or captivated by something or someone So, is it really possible to become enchanted with something that previously annoyed us just by changing the way we look at it? I mean, if that's true, then people in life and events in life and circumstances in life aren't frustrating - the way our minds engage with them is. My friend's son has started a new job. It's a highly technical job with a sharp learning curve. He told her, though, instead of being frustrated by what he doesn't know, he's fascinated by all he is about to learn. Think about that. One person in the world is frustrated by all that comes with a new job, another is fascinated by it. Same circumstances - different ways of looking at it - completely different result for the human mind and the human spirit. I think about this in my trail running experiences. On my worst days, I'm focused on how much further I have to go and how bad each step hurts. That is frustrating. On my best days, I'm fascinated by all of my surroundings no matter how much further I have to go. The distance doesn't change - the surroundings don't change - my mindset does. One of those mindsets allows me to approach life with hope - with enchantment. The other leaves me feeling defeated and discouraged. My MINDSET dictates the terms of those feelings - not the event itself. I think about how that mindset comes in to play when it comes to our human interactions. How if we're not careful, we can leave people feeling like we are annoyed with them, when it's probably more helpful - loving - if they feel like we are captivated by them. I met with a student yesterday who had made a mistake and had to visit me for a discussion about it. I always start those conversations by asking them to tell me a little bit about themselves. Where are you from? How did you choose this college? What do you dream of doing when you leave here? I always like starting those conversations by letting the students know I'm more fascinated by who they are than I am annoyed with what they've done. I love watching how quickly that shapes their mindset about our meeting. People are always pleasantly surprised to discover someone they thought might be frustrated with them is actually fascinated by their story. I confess, I've not always been good at that. I have not always been more fascinated than frustrated in and with life. But today, I'm sure if there are people who are AS fascinated by people and life as I am, there is no one who is MORE fascinated. That change in me isn't because my life has become less frustrating and more fascinating. Hardly. No, that change has come as I've changed the way I look at life. We can all do that today. We all have the power to feel frustrated with something or someone, but then challenge ourselves - how can I be more fascinated by this? I know that's not always an easy shift. But even if we get rid of just a little frustration in our lives, how much better will life be - for ourselves and for the people who fascinate us? |
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 |