4/29/2022 0 Comments Leveraging the power of friendshipThere is "don't worry, you'll figure it out."
And there is "don't worry, I'll figure this out for you." But maybe the most powerful - even if often overlooked - is "don't worry, we'll figure it out together." Last night, I had the opportunity to speak to a group of people working to figure it out together in the Circles Ashland program. The program matches people struggling through poverty with friends who are willing to share their friends and time and personal resources to help them work their way out of it. Circles Ashland leverages the power of friendship. As I was getting ready to speak, I looked around the room at a group of people sharing dinner together. People who are struggling eating with people wanting to help someone work their way through a struggle. Often we talk about certain foods and drinks that pair well together at dinner. But I found myself feeling like the perfect dinner pairing might be the struggling and the helping. Because at this dinner, the smiles made it impossible to distinguish which was which. After dinner, my friend Christie led them through a moment where anyone who wanted to could stand up and share something "good or new" that was happening in their lives. A young man stood up and let everyone know he'd just registered for classes at a local community college. The world made a big deal about some guy who bought Twitter this week. I found myself wishing that the world looking for a big deal could see this kid's face. The title of my talk was "Life is a We Thing." I told the group that title isn't just a feel good slogan that fits well into a community conversation - it's science. But as I was talking to them, I was reminded that sometimes science is something we can feel good about. Sometimes the truth really is a feel good story. WE are meant to WEather life together. It's our design. It's the common plot threaded intimately through all of our stories. When our lives get to feeling void of intimacy - that's the thread we are missing - our WE thread. That's the thread that is broken. The beautiful thing about life - that broken thread isn't a disappearing thread. It's there. It's looking for attachment. It's looking for a room full of the struggling and the helping. It's looking for the connection that makes recognizing the difference between the two impossible. And irrelevant. Because that thread is a bridge we share, not one we cross. That bridge is life. It is love.
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4/28/2022 0 Comments Ours is not a never ending storyBirthdays always seem to come to me with great reflection. As I get older, that intensifies.
The thing is, with each birthday, and another reminder I'm closer to death, it's not MY death I find myself reflecting on. What I find myself reflecting on is the potential death of the things I've not left the world that I know the world is supposed to have. Donald Miller says, "If our stories went on forever, no action would be important because everything could wait till tomorrow. It's the sense of pending death that encourages us to get busy living." I reflected on an image yesterday. It was my funeral. All of you lovely people who sent happy birthday wishes - you were there. It was quite the party 😊🍨. But I didn't show up (which meant more ice cream for you all). I was attending the funeral of all the things I'd intended to contribute to the world but never got around to contributing. Because all of our unfinished business is forever unfinished the day we die. It is forever a dream. A slowly fading wish. As I was looking over all of those wishes and dreams, I realized they'd all been victimized by me. While I was spending a life too often villainizing a world I thought had mistreated me, or on another day hiding from that world - wholly willing to be its victim - when in reality those wishes and dreams were the only true victims. I told someone yesterday that this latest birthday might have been my hardest one to get to. But I did get to it. And the truth is, I hope getting to the next one is even harder. Because living - living IS actually hard. Living in the world and contributing something that doesn't die an unfinished death when you die - that's much harder than attacking the world or hiding from it. Birthdays tell the story of our age. They are a counting tool. But the stories that matter - at least to me - are the stories that remain when the counting is over. The stories that we wrote into the world when we weren't hiding from it or blaming it. That was my wish. No, that was my commitment - as I blew out the candle in my ice cream last night. No more hiding. No more blaming. Just writing. 4/27/2022 0 Comments A Million Little miraclesI was driving home last night. I was reflecting on the news I had heard earlier at work - that another local college student had taken their life.
It's heartbreaking to say 'another' with such regularity these days. I was also reflecting on my own birthday - and how much life must truly hurt to get to a place of choosing to no longer have birthdays in your life. My friend and colleague Marrin tried to stop her birthdays when she was just 13 years old. I'm grateful her attempt wasn't successful. I asked her once, what does it feel like when you get to that place? That place of no longer wanting birthdays. She said, there is a pain that comes with such a sense of urgency that you no longer feel like there are options. As I was driving along I heard a song for the first time. It was called a million little miracles. Some of the words went like this: *** All my life I've been carried by grace Don't ask me how 'cause I can't explain It's nothing short of a miracle I'm here I've got some blessings that I don't deserve I've got some scars but that's how you learn It's nothing short of a miracle I'm here I think it over and it doesn't add up I know it comes from above I've got miracles on miracles A million little miracles Yeah, miracles on miracles Count your miracles, 1-2-3-4 I Can't even count 'em all *** I think birthdays are a good time for miracle counting. All million of them. I think the more we count them the more we can see and feel that a birthday is truly a miracle. I think the more we see and feel that - the more we can trust there are more miracles ahead. Because there are. On all but a few mornings since my last birthday, I've been here writing about miracles. And in return, you all have been miracles in my life. I Thank you. Thank you for helping me count out loud. I encourage you to go through life counting miracles. Count them as loudly as you can. Count them so the people around you hear it in your voice and in your faith - a million little miracles. Too many people are living in the kind of hurt that makes one blind to miracles. Because you can indeed become blind to them. They deserve to have us be their sight. We somehow have to become their miracles. I've said it a lot lately. Life is not a you thing, or a me thing. Life is a we thing. The miracle is in the we. A million little miracles. One of the hardest parts about life, at least my life, is my brain almost always talks louder about the things I want than about the things I value.
In fact, maybe that's the greatest stressor in life - the greatest source of sadness - the reality that what we want is often not the same as what we value. Mel Robbins says, "the main reason why most people are unfulfilled is because they aren't living their lives in alignment with what they truly believe and value." How nice would it be if we had computer chips in us. We could program in our values - our wants would then follow that program. Maybe that's the point. Maybe the purpose of the stressors and the sadness of living a life out of alignment isn't to make us stressed and sad, maybe those feelings are to motivate change. Maybe they are to ultimately move us in the direction of a life that wants what it values. I think the divide between what we want and value is centered in comfort. What we want right now is comfort. What we value often comes at a cost - a cost that usually involves giving up short term comfort and pleasure. I love the bible story about the rich young ruler. In Mark, we find the story of a rich young man who is telling Jesus how much he values him. I've kept all the commandments since I was a kid, he tells Jesus. But then Jesus hits him hard in that divide between want and value. Jesus says to him, “One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” The story says the man "was deeply dismayed by these words, and he went away grieving; for he was one who owned much property." The man was deeply dismayed because he suddenly realize how out of alignment his life was with what he claimed to value most. I'm going to tell you - following Jesus is a tough thing to value most in my life. Because at the heart of a value centered on following Jesus is a heart totally consumed with the welfare of others. But my brain - I'm going to tell you - my brain has an awful lot of concern about the welfare of Keith. Maybe your first value isn't following Jesus. But I think you can still understand the struggle. Maybe your first value is health or education or a relationship. My guess is your brain isn't wired to talk you into the things that are most in line with those values. Your brain is always trying to talk you into an easy way around the hard path of living out those values. It's helpful to know that. There is power in knowing what your brain is up to. It affords us the chance to ask the right questions. If I buy this big house I want right now, will it give me more or less ability to help others? If I eat this big bowl of ice cream I want to eat right now, will it make me feel more or less in alignment with the health plan I'm committed to following. If I pick up my phone and scroll Facebook, with my kids sitting right next to me, will it make me more or less in alignment with the always available dad I want to be? I give people the benefit of the doubt in a lot of cases. I believe most people genuinely have somewhere in them good values. They just aren't always good at following them. I know I'm not. That's because we have a brain that's addicted to pleasure. And in the short term, doing the things we value most aren't always the most pleasurable. But they are almost always the only path to meaningful. To fulfillment. That's why getting good at pauses in life can be life changing. The pauses that allow us to ask, is this what I want - or what I value? 4/25/2022 0 Comments "Worth it" is a choiceThe worth of anything doesn't come at the end of the story - it comes from the worth we pour into the story along the way.
Finishing a marathon isn't worth it because I cross a finish line. It's worth it because I built worth into that finish line during the months of training leading up to it. Writing a book isn't worth it because someone buys the book. It's worth it because I spent spent years writing before the book ever went on sale. Whenever I find myself hoping this will all be worth it, I'm reminded - the end of the story isn't in charge of the worth - I am. When someone tells me I hope it's worth it, whatever that 'it' is, I take comfort in knowing worth isn't about hope - it's about a choice. The moment you go from building worth to hoping 'it' will be worth it, you greatly lessen the chances that it will EVER be worth it. You are now leaning on fate and not your own direction. You are now leaning on fantasy and not your own determination. It's Monday. You get to decide today what is worth it. You don't have to wait. Quit hoping this will all be worth it. Make it so. Failure is real. Maybe it's not an actual place or thing, but it's a real feeling.
We all have visions of who and where we think we should be in life. Many of us don't feel like we are that person; we don't feel like we're where that person should be. We feel like we are coming up short. We feel like a failure. Failure may not be a real place or thing, but it is indeed a real feeling. I walked for a few hours yesterday morning. In quiet time, those feelings of failure can come over me. In quiet time, who I want to be can take over my thoughts, along with the reality of just how far from being that person I really am. I don't think those feelings of failure in and of themselves are unhealthy. But how I interpret them can be. When I start letting those feelings dictate whether I see myself as good or bad, that's when failure becomes unhealthy. Because eventually you can truly start to believe you're a bad person simply because you are not who or where you want to be. And eventually, a bad person gives up on working toward that person and place. Yesterday, I was reminded that when we start asking ourselves - am I good or bad - we are asking a question that has already been answered. When God reached his own hands into the dirt and crafted the first human, he stood back and said - ah, this is good. You ever wonder why it feels so good to build something with your own hands when you stand back and stare at it? And before I ever came into this world, before I was even in the womb, God said - ah, this is good. And God has made it clear over and over - I don't have a feeling of failure in me that can make him take that back. He is stuck on me. When he looks at me, he is stuck on - ah, this is good. I don't think God is totally against our feelings of failure, however. I do think he's against us using them to call him a liar. He said we are good. How do we get to question him about that? I think, though, God is for a different question in those feelings of failure. I think God is in those feelings of failure challenging us to ask ourselves - what do I need to change in my life? Who and where I want to be aren't always unreasonable ideals. In fact - they are often the ideals that bring to life in us the areas where we do need to change. But when I use them to determine whether I am good or bad instead of whether or not the things I'm doing are getting me where I need to be - that's where the damage begins. And yesterday, I was reminded that more often than not, the reason I stay stuck in places that aren't who and where I want to be, is because I'm busy scolding me for not being there instead of trusting the God who is always beside me saying, I'm ready when you are. I'm ready to show you the way once you're done deciding whether or not your good enough to go there. We all have failure stories. But the reality is, those stories aren't trying to shame us, those stories are trying to change us. Those stories aren't trying to imprison us, they are trying to set us free. Our failure stories aren't for beating ourselves up, they are for God to show just how high he can lift us up. God told me long ago that I am good. He's simply asking me to use my quiet time to trust that, and to allow him to show me just how good he truly believes I can be. I talk to a lot of people who are unhappy or unsatisfied or unfulfilled with their lives. Lots of 'uns.' They have different reasons. But I find a common denominator is a lot of people want to transform their lives without living stories that require them to transform.
I remember signing up for my first ultramarathon. A radical decision at the time. Looking back, without knowing it, I was committing to a story of transformation that was impossible to write if I didn't actually live out transformation. I failed to finish that first ultramarathon. But I continued living out a story of transformation until I finally did. And when I did - over two years later - a completely different person crossed the finish line of that race than the person who'd signed up for it. I signed up for a story of transformation; I transformed. That experience helped me begin to recognize some things. The biggest - I guess - was just how long I'd been living a life longing for transformation, while continuing to write and live out stories of comfort and familiarity. I'm not alone there. Many of us like our comfort and familiarity. I get that, but if you are someone longing for transformation, comfort and familiarity are your enemies. Comfort and familiarity are always whispering to us, "where you are is good enough. It's easy. Where you want to go will be hard; really hard." I've come to believe those words might be the greatest predictor of transformation; "it's going to be really hard." I've come to believe those words might be our greatest invitation and not our biggest threat; 'it's going to be really hard." Because no tranformation ever came on the heels of 'well, that was easy.' If you think about it, we are all different people than we were ten years ago. That's the nature of life. We are creatures that evolve and change. The question then becomes, am I IN the story or am I WRITING the story? Am I going with the flow of the life I know - a tourist waiting to see where the tour guide of life leads me - or am I signing up for an ultra? Am I waiting to get to the end of life to see what life made of me, or am I writing stories along the way about all that I insist on making of life? Floating along the stream of life can be nice. It's smooth and relaxing. Ah, the peace of it all..... But maybe try writing a few class five rapids into your stream. Sure, it can be risky. Dangerous. It can even leave you wondering some days if you are going to make it out alive. The thing is - if you do make it out alive - you might find yourself feeling more alive than ever. You might find yourself feeling transformed. 4/21/2022 0 Comments Don't Miss NowThe first words I read this morning were in a Facebook post written by my friend Danielle. I met Danielle a couple of years ago through work. She's become a colleague I admire and a friend I deeply treasure and trust.
She wrote this morning about her fertility journey. She and her husband Chance have been trying to have a baby the last couple of years. To their suprise, in January, trying became reality. They are going to have a baby. Their excitement had a challenge thrown into it when testing revealed there is an 86% chance their baby will be born with Downs Syndrome. They will have testing done in May to confirm the diagnosis for sure. In Danielle's words, they are having that testing done "because we want to be the most prepared in order to give this child the BEST life possible." Danielle described the emotional swings she's been on with each revelation of the tests. She expressed gratitude for all the family and friends who have been there and who have been praying for her and Chance. But then she said something about the additional prayers they are seeking that stopped me in my early morning tracks. She said: "While we appreciate ALL prayers for a healthy baby, what we would like to refrain from is "praying the diagnosis away" or "praying for a miracle." We don't share this for pity or attention or so that you feel sorry for us. It's not that we don't have faith in the miraculous but we feel as though God has answered our prayers for a child as HE intended too. HE is showing us his goodness and HE is strengthening us for this something hard journey but also opening our eyes for something beautiful. HE is building our faith DAILY." I read those words. I read them and I so admired the love my friend has for God. Because her words - that kind of trust - that kind of gratitude - that is love. And her words made me take a look at myself. And MY love for God. Her words made me ask, just how often am I'm praying for God to deliver a different diagnosis of my life - a different situation - at the expense of not seeing that God is "opening my eyes for something beautiful" right now. I found myself asking, how often am I waiting for something to be grateful for at the expense of being grateful for all that I have right in front of me right now? I found myself asking, how often am I missing the miracle in the life I'm living while I'm praying for the miracle I want to live? Sometimes the miracles in our lives haven't occurred yet, not because they haven't occurred, but simply because we haven't noticed them. Danielle - thank you friend for pointing me toward my miracles. Not the ones out there somewhere; but the ones right here right now. And my friend, as much as I've admired you before, never have I admired you more. Yes - certainly your faith is part of that admiration. But more - I am suddenly seeing you as a new mama. A mama whose heart is full of love for the miracle that is living in you right now. I am happy for you and Chance. I am REALLY happy for your miracle. Your baby will have for a mama one of the most kind and loving people I know. Congratulations sweet friend. In his blog this morning, Seth Godin basically asks, what would happen if we were each other's cheerleaders?
Godin says: Perhaps positive thinking is contagious. Perhaps egging on the other person will help them explore the edges. And perhaps it will help them overcome their fear and share the very best version of what they have in mind. You can always say ‘no’ later. In this moment, your confidence and enthusiasm exist to make the idea better. No harm in that. For either of you. *** You know, I've discovered in my life there is no harm at all in allowing someone to dream. When we encourage someone to dream a dream that we think is impossible - maybe one that IS impossible - there is no harm in allowing a dreamer to discover that. I believe that because I believe the capacity to wake up in the morning and chase dreams is a greater gift than waking up tackling only the things we know we can do. It's my experience that chasing dreams that don't come true is often where you find the dreams that can and do come true. Dream chasing isn't just a road; it's a road with a whole lot of side roads. So there really is no harm in being a dreamer's cheerleader. There is, on the other hand, a lot of harm in shooting a dreamer down before the dreamer starts chasing. Sometimes, when a dreamer tells us their dream, they aren't looking for an endorsement - they are simply looking for a pom pom. We don't always have to be someone's reality check. Let dreamers discover reality on their own. Let them discover a cheerleader in you. Some dreamers can shake off the naysayers. Many dreamers walk away from naysayers hesitant to ever dream again. So would it be such a bad idea to simply be each other's cheerleaders? A world full of people chasing dreams seems a whole lot better than a world full of people who think what's the use. Cheer someone on today. There's no harm in that. Not for you. And surely not for the dreamer. I've experienced a fair amount of pain in my life. I'd say I'm better with pain today than I've ever been. Not because I like it more. Or I'm more insensitive to it. I've just come to see it differently.
Pain used to confuse me. I'd find myself asking, why did that have to happen? Through wisdom, though, I've discovered I was asking the wrong question. Pain isn't a WHY question, it's a WHAT question. Donald Miller says pain can serve a purpose if we cause it to. He says, "we can choose to take unfair or undue pain and cause it to serve our own story so that we transform." So I'm sure Miller would tell me the right question about pain isn't why are you here, but what am I going to do with you. For years, when I was asking pain why are you here, I'd actually answer for pain. My answers were - because I deserve it - or because life is unfair. Or sometimes I'd answer more nobly, like at least no one else will have to carry this pain; I'm carrying it for them. The result of those answers was me living with the pain. Me accepting it as some kind of punishment. It was me saying, pain - you win. Have your way. Those aren't my answers today, because today I don't ask why. I ask what. What am I going to do with this pain? What am I going to make with it. Because pain, like happiness, is an ingredient of our lives. We have an easier time making something out of happiness because we aren't sitting around asking happiness why are you here. We don't wrestle with do I deserve this or not. We just act on it. Pain requires us to stop and think. It requires us to purposely decide to take captive the WHY question and make it a WHAT question. When we make THAT transformation - WE transform. To be clear, when we cause our pain to make a difference in our lives, or a difference in the world - when we use it as fuel to tell a story or build a business or go on a mission trip or volunteer at a local shelter - when we use our pain to transform ourselves and the world - the pain doesn't just disappear. But pain does feel different when we decide to be in charge of it. Pain does feel different when we stop - we look pain in the eyes and say, hmmm - what shall I make of you? I know it's not as easy as I make it sound. Pain never is. But with pain, we will always be invited to ask a question. Every time. So why not get in the habit of asking what and not why. It's Monday. There will be a challenge coming your way this week. Look at it. Stare it in the eyes and ask, what shall I make of you.....? |
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
November 2024
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