I was sitting in a conference yesterday listening to national leaders talk about the work I do. There was a lot of talk about numbers and statistics and programs and systems.
And all I wanted to do was leave. A few hours later, I sat in a session where the leaders talked about hurting and healing and compassion and hope. They said, "the language of mental health is compassion." And suddenly, someone was speaking my language. And I couldn't wait to get up and go make a difference. When the things we do in life - and things we long to do - get reduced to a number or an outcome or a dollar figure - I don't know, for me it's hard to generate much personal fire within - much drive and ambition. I like to think the results of what I do can't be neatly packaged on a PowerPoint slide. I get it. I get time crunches with presentations. I get there has to be some end game. Some place where you can point to and claim victory. But sometimes I think we underestimate the value in a touched heart. A healed soul. A quiet mind. We were made to be each other's safety. Each other's listeners. Each other's greatest protection from all things life. How do you put a number on that. What number, really, looks like love? What number looks like a lost smile found? What number looks like tears that drop upon a welcoming shoulder? What number looks like a thank you or a hug or 'I don't know what I would have done without you?' No number can capture any of that. No counting. And no number will ever ignite the kind of fire within that love ignites. We were created to make a difference in each other's lives. We were quite literally assigned no other purpose in our wiring and biology. None. So how would one expect to find fire and drive in a purpose that doesn't point to that assignment? We all like to go into the day longing to feel purpose. Longing to answer the daily question, why am I here? You are here to make beautiful things happen in others as a result of what you will do today. And that doesn't have to be something world changing. It can be something as simple as smile making. You never know when you will smile at someone who hasn't seen a smile in days. Or months. Your purpose doesn't have to be giant - it doesn't have to look jaw dropping in a presentation - it just needs to feel loving in someone else's heart. Go forth with purpose today. Make something beautiful happen for others.
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I heard this quote at our conference today at literally the exact right time. It was divine timing. Some day I'll explain that deeper.
But for now I just want to soak in the truth of the statement and not the timing of it. Whenever Jesus was moved with compassion, someone's life changed. Not sometimes. Not many times. Every time. I am a beneficiary of a life changed because of Jesus' compassion. But when I hear that quote, I don't think of the power of Jesus. I think of the power of compassion. The speaker defined compassion as "suffering together." Lives do change when we suffer together. When we enter into another's suffering with the intent of absorbing a piece of that suffering. Remember me talking and writing about absorbing each other's pain the other day? Today I call that compassion. Suffering together. Because it's true, whenever WE are moved with compassion, someone's life will change. Whenever WE enter into someone's life with a desire to absorb the pain - to suffer with - someone's life will change. Not sometimes. Not many times. Every time. I met my old high school friend Jo for lunch yesterday. It had been nearly four decades since I'd seen her. The last time I was with Jo, I didn't know her as gay.
Yesterday, I did. There was a point in our conversation when she was talking about some of the damaged and broken relationships she's faced along the way because she quit hiding that she is gay. And at one point, she looked at me and said, "it's hard, because I'm a good person, and I have a lot to offer the people in my life." My heart broke. It breaks again as I write that. I thought, how did we get here? Because forty years ago - and yesterday - I've never known Jo to be anything BUT a good person. What can possibly make a genuinely good person suddenly feel like they have to fight to be seen as good? It's a rhetorical question, because I know the answer to that. We do. We make good people feel like they have to fight for their goodness. We do it when we start deciding which parts of someone's character are character flaws. And then further decide which of those flaws make them unworthy of our love and admiration. The Jo I spent two hours with yesterday was the same Jo I knew nearly 40 years ago. She treated me with as much love and respect as she ever had. Her smile was as big as ever. Her enthusiasm for life still giant. Her laugh could still fill a room - or restaurant 😊. Yet, you could see how the fight had hurt her. How we had hurt her. I won't pretend to know how deep that hurt is. But I have had a taste of it the last few years. Coming out as divorced doesn't come with near the judgment as coming out as gay does. But in some circles it sure does. In some circles, divorced means people who at one time couldn't wait to talk to you now pass you by in a hallway like you're invisible. People who used to smile and shake your hand when you walked into their church now let you find a quiet corner to sit in to be with God by yourself. Maybe believing you need the extra alone time with him? That is backwards to me. Absolutely and hurtfully backwards. Because it was the people that other people judged as flawed characters that Jesus flocked to. Flocked to so he could be the first to tell them, I don't care what THEY think your flaws are, I'm here to tell you I still see your goodness. I still deeply love who you are. One of the ugliest Christian sayings is "hate the sin, love the sinner." It's ugly first, because it's a lie. People don't love the sinner once they decide they hate their idea of someone's sin. They don't. And second, it's not even Christian. Jesus didn't die on the cross because he hated sin but loved the sinner. He died on the cross because he loved the sinner. That's all. No balancing the hate and love. Just ALL IN on loving the sinner. Which by the way, included every single human being on earth but him. Jesus is the only human ever to declare, you know what - you're all flawed. But I love you all just the same. It was us who started ranking flaws. It was us who started ordering them by lovable and unlovable. It was us who started decided good or not good. I am sorry for my friend. I am sorry that somewhere along the way people lost sight of her goodness because of who she loves. Before we left yesterday, my friend Jo assured me that one day I will find the kind of love she has experienced with her wife Linda. And you know what, I unashamedly find beauty and hope in that. I find goodness in that. I was reminded yesterday that a lot of people have lost touch with their own goodness. There are a lot of us running around suddenly feeling like we have to prove our goodness, convince people we have a lot to offer to a relationship. Maybe we could help with that. Maybe we could peel back the curtains of these flaws we have hung over the characters of the people around us, peek inside, and remind the character within that they are loved. That we see their goodness. If you feel like you have a calling put on your mind or in your heart, and you don't feel like there are any challenges between you and reaching that calling, I encourage you to abandon that calling.
Because it's not a calling. Chances are good it's just a distraction from the calling you've decided is too difficult to pursue. I've come to believe this about callings: a calling is much more about what you are called to go through than what you are actually called to. Because when you finally reach that calling, because of the battle you will do with resistance along the way, you will be a different person upon arrival. The person your calling was calling you to be. Many of us aren't ready for our calling because we aren't battle tested. And many of us won't arrive at our calling because we abandon it at the first sign of a battle. Do you know what that first battle often is - that first sign of resistance? It's you. It's you doubting yourself. It's you convincing yourself you aren't skilled enough. It's you convincing yourself you aren't ready. Here's the thing. All of that is true. You aren't skilled enough. You aren't ready. And so you should absolutely doubt yourself. And then you should immediately recognize that doubt as the surest sign you are being asked to get yourself ready. You are being called. We live in a world today where there are an endless supply of opportunities to learn something new, to pursue a new path - so many tools with which to battle the resistance on the way to your calling. Maybe you believe that's not true. And so you won't go the way of your calling. Someone else likely thought the same thing once, but recognized that as the very reason to go the way of their calling. And now they are well on their way there. Battling the resistance along the way, and becoming exactly who that calling wanted them to become. One of the cruelest aspects of trauma is it damages the system we most need for healing. Much more than trauma impacts the internal systems of an individual, it damages the systems an individual uses to attach to others.
It hinders their capacity to have meaningful relationships. And by meaningful, I mean healing. Before I go any further, let me say, when I'm talking about trauma, I'm talking about anything that happens to someone that becomes too overwhelming for them to handle on their own. Because whatever that is, if it causes one to live in a prolonged state of overwhelmed, that's when the whatever that is becomes toxic and unhealthy. And for many people, they are carrying around more than one 'whatever that is.' Too often we decide that what someone else has experienced should not have been experienced as traumatic. But our definitions of traumatic do nothing to temper what feels overwhelming to the person whose experience we are judging. What makes an experience go from hard to traumatic is when an individual doesn't have someone in their life buffering them from the experience itself, and absorbing some of the harsh impacts of that experience in the aftermath. So an individual carries that experience forward in isolation. It's important to know, today you will see plenty of people, young and old and of all colors, surrounded by people, maybe they will be smiling and laughing and skipping about, yet - they are living in isolation. They may have a few thousand Facebook followers, yet - they are living in isolation. When you are using all of your energy to hold something in that is longing to get out, you have no energy left to attach to the people who might possibly receive what you are holding. You have no energy left to present to the healers. It takes far less energy to smile and laugh and skip about than it does to hand over a burden to a healer. The smile is often the greatest tool we have to protect us from having to hand over that burden. That's not because we don't want to hand it over; inside we all long to be healed. But the attachment system we use to connect to one another in healing has long been broken and compounded by prolonged isolation. Those who have an easy time of handing their burdens over to another have no idea how impossible that feels to someone who has never experienced the handing over of a burden. So we begin to blame the burden holder for their unwillingness to heal, when in reality their system to heal has been long broken. Or in many cases, never created at all. Often times, trying to teach someone how to hand over a burden - how to be vulnerable - is like trying to teach someone a language who has never had a voice. More and more, I cross paths with the voiceless. And it breaks my heart. Mainly, because no one has to remain voiceless. They just don't. First, we can all begin to create safe places for one another to share our burdens. We can stop judging one another's burdens, we can stop deciding for one another whether or not one should feel overwhelmed by their experiences - both past and present - and just accept overwhelmed. Accept it with an ear and with love. And keep in mind, often the overwhelmed aren't coming to you. Their system that hands over burdens is broken. Vulnerability is an invitation we offer, a peace and safety we roll out like a carpet in front of another. It is not a skill we teach. Sometimes we simply need to offer, "you look overwhelmed, friend. I get it. I'm here if you'd like to share some of it." I am here to absorb some of the impacts of your experience for you. And for the burdened. Burdens are hard. But burdens grow like a fire on gasoline when stored in isolation. I know in many ways isolation isn't your choice, but deciding I no longer want to feel isolated is. "No one will understand" is a lie your burden is telling you. I get it, not everyone WILL understand. Not everyone wants to. But someone does. I promise you. Begin the search for that someone. Maybe it's a counselor. A pastor. A friend. Not everyone understands that your system for finding a healer is broken. Not everyone feels your isolation, and many who do will blame you for it. But your life is worth the search for the one who will feel it without judgment. So search. Please search. Because when people ask me today - and even when they don't ask me - I will say, our greatest collective threat is our isolation. It's such a lethal combination - the damage our isolation does to us as individuals and to our greater togetherness and unity - AND - layered on top of that - the reality that we are better than ever at hiding the degree to which we experience isolation. Oh, how we need a revival. A meeting in the middle of people who are willing to ask, "are you ok" - and the people who are bravely walking toward them with a willingness to hand over "I am not ok." Our world is not ok. Our attachment systems are broken. But they can be healed. They can be - if we will meet in the middle. The hurting and the healers, just meeting in the middle. Years ago, I read the book 'Undaunted Courage'. It's the biography of Meriweather Lewis of the Lewis and Clark expedition.
After reading the book, I took several trips out west. All of them left me in awe of Lewis and the courage it must have taken to venture into the complete unknown. I imagined what it must have been like to cross a river larger than you'd ever seen. Scale mountains taller than you'd ever imagined. Fight off animals larger and more ferocious than you'd ever crossed paths with. Endure blizzards the likes of which no one was remotely prepared to endure. And I imagined what it was like, each morning, for a year and a half, to get up and tackle yet again - the unknown. I woke up yesterday morning and wanted to tackle a light walk. I thought, I'll do the mile and a half loop around the block. It's been a dauting week, really, and I deserve a bit of a rest. That short walk will suffice. Then I thought, no - I did an eight mile trek a couple of weekends ago. I really need to press into that kind of effort today. I need the mental and physical distraction. That's when it occurred to me what I really needed wasn't rest or distraction, what I needed was courage. More. Courage. I've spent a lot of my life evading courage. That's what unknowingly happens when you create a life full of as many knowns as possible. The known becomes your idea of peace; the unknown your greatest threat to that peace. Until one day you find yourself in the unknown. And you tackle it. And come out the other side realizing you never knew anything about peace at all. Or anything about yourself. You come to know that the known was a lie and the unknown the source of your greatest truth. So I got out of bed and tackled not the short walk or the walk I did a couple of weekends ago - I tackled the 10 mile walk I'd been telling myself I was going to do for months but kept finding reasons not to. Most of them reasons found in the known.... It's not the first time I've tackled the distance. It wasn't a complete unknown. But yesterday it felt unknown enough - and scary enough - to know it was just the kind of push and reminder I needed. The reminder that courage isn't born in knowing everything will be okay. Courage is born in the willingness to repeatedly go where you have no idea if it will be. We all have western frontiers in our lives. Western frontiers no longer scare me as much as the thought of what I might miss if I don't explore them. I have discovered many spaces and places within my own heart and mind and soul the last several years that I had no idea existed. Places I found venturing into the unknown. Places that have come to be the most beautiful parts of my identity. Places that have redefined the unknown in my life. It is no longer a threat; it is only opportunity. An opportunity the known will always try to talk us out of pursuing. But we must go there. Repeatedly. If we are to be our most courageous selves. At a work meeting the other day, my friend and colleague Colleen was reflecting on how long she had been at her job. I joked that I'm sure glad she got that job, because her getting that job changed my life.
The more I thought about it, though - I wasn't joking. Back in 2015, I was leading a grant project that was about to end. I was a few months away from being unemployed. The question had begun: how on earth am I going to provide for my family? I took the grant job knowing it would ultimately end. I took it believing that God would provide a way if I would take on the important work of that grant with very little security. But here I was now, on the verge of zero security. What now, God? I know you didn't agree, but didn't we agree?!?! Then my friend Colleen sent me an email telling me about an open position in the department she worked in. A position I eventually got. There are times we say 'thank you God' without a clue as to what we are truly thanking him for. I believed God was using that job to keep me gainfully employed. Maybe I have never more underestimated the depth and the plot of the story God was trying to write in my life. That job has unfurled me in ways I could have never seen coming. It's exposed me to winds and waves in this life that have carried me places I could have never seen myself going. Places I never WOULD have gone. Places I so desperately NEEDED to go. Both in the world and within myself. I thought I was getting a job that was going to hold me together, when in many ways I got a job that has broken me wide open. Almost every area of my life has taken on a new direction the last seven years. As I write that, I feel myself correcting myself; I find myself wanting to say the job has given me direction. And where there is direction there is often passion. You don't fully understand how incredibly painful the lack of direction and passion in life are until you wake up one day suddenly possessing both. Maybe there is no greater source of despair than traveling through life without them? Our God is a God of direction. His ultimate desire is that all of us are traveling toward him. God understands much better than us that we can all look very very different - behave very very different - yet be traveling in the same direction. Which is why sometimes it feels like God is answering a prayer when in reality he is putting the prayers on our heart we were never going to pray. And he uses our friends and colleagues and email to deliver them. To in ways unite our direction We sometimes miss God's presence when we think he looks like a job, when in reality he looks like new direction - or, a first taste of direction at all. I want to encourage you, some days it feels like we are sending a friend an email. Be open to the possibility God is weaving you into a story much more significant than that. We have no small experiences in this life. And I also want to encourage you. Your story today, there's a really good chance it is not God's story. There's a really good chance God isn't as interested in answering your prayers as he is in planting prayers within you. Not because he doesn't love you, but simply because he is better at direction than you are. And than I am. I know that today - in ways more powerful than I could have ever imagined. I know it because of a friend and because of an email. I know it because today I can see God in a story where I once could only see a job. Oh what sweet and passionate direction comes with that. And promise. It's the perfect memory for today.
I've crossed a bunch of finish lines in my running life. Few mean more than this one. Five years ago today, I crossed the finish line of the Houston marathon. That - after just the year before - getting pulled from the course at mile 18 for failure to maintain the speed limit... In this finish line moment, it was reinforced in me the value of finishing unfinished business. Some business is best left unfinished. It's true. But some business settles into our minds and upon our hearts and we know from there only two possibilities exist: It forever eats you, or you once and for all eat it. AGENCY: the capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting power. That 2018 Houston Marathon non-finish ate at me for a year. But I had agency over that monster eating at me, and four years ago today I exerted the power I had to eat it. Once and for all. This morning I'm reminded that I have agency, and so do you. We all wake up this morning with some level of unfinished business in our lives. Unfinished business that lives in us as two possibilities. It eats us, or we once and for all eat it. Our choice. Our agency. 1/19/2023 0 Comments Plant your ebenezersThere are songs that come along in my life that get instantly put on repeat. They come along just when I need them and become a reminder - an Ebenezer of sorts.
Chris Renzema and Ellie Holcomb open 'Just as Good' by singing: I've been here before, my heart feels so weak Got this weight upon my chest, and I can't stop forgetting My God, that You've never left, You're right here with me Still I'm convinced You're hiding Oh God, would You remind me? I have felt weights lately. I've talked to friends and various people in my travels who are feeling their own weights. I confess, under the weight, I get to wondering - where are you God? Why are you so willing to hide while we are all carrying weights? There's a story in the bible in 1 Samuel 7. The people of Israel were experiencing a revival under the leadership of Samuel. The people were once again pointing their eyes toward God. They could once again feel his presence. It was during this time that the Philistines came to attack Samuel and his people. The people were afraid and begged Samuel to cry out for them. And he did. When the Philistines arrived, God sent down a mighty thunder that threw the Philistines into confusion and they were routed by the Israeli troops. After defeating them, Samuel took a stone and set it up where the battle had occurred. He named the stone Ebenezer, which means - stone of help. It would serve forever as a reminder that God was there with them. He always had been. Sometimes, when we feel the weight of the world, that added weight can feel like God's disappearance. A feeling that can lead us to actually believe that God is gone. And soon, we will be left feeling like we are bearing that weight alone. That weight can lead us to quit crying out to God. I am reminded this week, through the constant repeat of this song, that when I am doubting, God's love still surrounds me. God's absence is NEVER about his unavailability; it is ALWAYS about my doubting. I have spent some time this week planting Ebenezers in my life. I've gone back to battles where God roared down thunder and confused the enemies in my life - thunder that allowed me to walk away victorious. I have planted an Ebenezer in those dark days when I didn't want to be here any more. Yet here I am. I have planted an Ebenezer in the addictions and compulsions that felt like Philistines in my life. Only to see the Philistines retreat. I have planted an Ebenezer next to my boys who for many reason almost never came into existence. Yet today, they are the heartbeat of mine. I have planted an Ebenezer next to a divorce, where much of the world continues to shout broken while God keeps whispering healed. I want to encourage us all to plant Ebenezers in our lives. Plant reminders that we can turn to when the weight gets heavy and it feels like God is gone. Because God doesn't show back up after taking a respite from our lives. God shows back up when we remind ourselves he never left. And I will build an altar Stack it stone by stone 'Cause every Ebenezer says I've never been alone My faith will surely falter But that don't change what You've done 'Cause every Ebenezer points to where my help comes from I encourage you friends. Set your stones. Plant your Ebenezers. 1/17/2023 0 Comments Peace is an inside out jobMany of us are trying to build peace in our lives with a process that is upside down.
It's like building a house, and trying to put the roof on before we build the basement. That's a pretty big construction flaw. It's a blueprint for disaster. Much like the disaster many of us face when seeking peace. Many of us live exhausting lives as we battle to create peace around us with hopes it will soothe the turmoil within. When if we spent more time creating peace within, the world around us wouldn't feel so much like turmoil. My peace is a quiet walk in the woods. It's where I discover me. The world we are often trying to make peace out of is often taking the peace out of us. So we retreat into our retreat. And emerge having made a deal with ourselves - and with the world - that if the peace on my outside doesn't look like the peace on my inside, then it must stay on the outside. Because peace is an inside out process. Too often we let the world become the measure our peace. But the world is not where we will find it. We will find it in the woods. We will find it inside. |
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
February 2025
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