8/31/2023 0 Comments You matter to meOprah Winfrey estimates she has interviewed over 50,000 people in her career. She says the one thing they all have in common: they all want to know that what they do and what they say and who they are matters.
Oprah says that's what we ALL have in common. I find it interesting. Oprah has interviewed some of the most 'accomplished' people in the world. Famous people who have seen and done it all. And yet, there they are, still wondering if they matter. Maybe they are the best people to help us understand what really does matter. So many people don't get happy answers to the 'do I matter' question in their closest relationships in life, so they begin trying to force happy answers through their accomplishments. They pursue prestige in their careers. They pursue dominance in athletics. They pursue large crowds with their performances. Many people pursue those things and GET them, and yet, there they are, wondering, does what I do and what I say and who I am matter. Last weekend the boys and I threw the ball at a local field. We laughed. We cheered. And you know what, I could tell they knew they mattered. They had nothing to prove. And neither did I. In that moment, I knew I mattered too. The thing is, nothing in the world we do, nothing we accomplish, will answer the question does who I am matter. Only love will do that. Only a love that says I see you, I know who you are, I am cheering for you, I am your biggest fan - only a love that says I believe everything you say and do matters. Only love answers the question we ask the most. Does who I am matter? No collection of trophies, no job title, no bank balance, no paparazzi, none of those things say you are loved. People do. Or people don't. You will interact with people today. Isn't it a beautiful thing to know that what they want most from that interaction is to know the interaction matters, is to know that THEY matter to you. Don't make them try to impress you to matter to you. Let them know what they do will never matter to you more than who they are. The reality is we all have one thing in common - we're all running around trying to figure out if we matter, when we should have something completely opposite in common. We should all be running around with hearts that long to make sure EVERYONE knows they matter. So let someone know they matter today. Let's stop asking ourselves questions and start giving those around us answers.
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I reflect. Constantly.
I believe there are reasons for every moment, for every interaction, for every choice, and to the degree it's possible, I want to explore all of those reasons. Not because I believe I can ultimately know every reason, but because reflecting is my reminder that every story has a back story. My reflections have intensified the last several years as I've connected the story of my past to some of my choices in the present. Too often we think the greatest learning opportunities come with the consequences of one's choices. I've come to believe there's greater opportunity to learn in discovering our present choices are often the consequences of our past. We often continue to choose what we have always chosen, no matter what the consequences. Fear of the future is rarely the change agent that understanding the past can be. I had an interaction with a friend last week. One I didn't feel good about. Or proud of. In the midst of moments like that, you can find yourself blaming. You can find yourself searching for reasons to explain how this has nothing to do with me and everything to do with them. And if you leave an experience like that right there, you will walk away with excuses and not growth. Smack dab in the middle of emotional overload is not a great place to reflect, but it is the perfect environment to create excuses. In the aftermath of that experience, however, I have spent a lot of time reflecting. Not on how we got there. Or how my friend got there. But on how I got there. Because the reality is I didn't act the way I wanted to act. I didn't act in a way I felt good about. And the next time I'm in a situation like that, I want to be different. Making excuses for why that wasn't the case this time does nothing to increase the likelihood of that. Understanding how I got there does. Most of my life I've had a hard time feeling like I was enough. And for most of my life I've dealt with that two ways: I have numbed that feeling. Or - I've attacked the people who left me feeling that way. I have come a long way with that. Most days I know I'm more than enough. Most days I don't hear the words people say as words questioning my worth. But I am not perfect. There are still days, like last week, when I hear someone say something that sounds like they are questioning my worth even when their words are not questioning my worth at all. The thing is, if I walk away from those moments believing that IS what they were doing, I miss a chance to grow. And I carry an excuse into my next interaction. An interaction that will likely resemble the last one. So I reflect. Not to excuse myself, but to grow myself. Life is a learning opportunity, and maybe nothing robs us of that opportunity more than excuses. So reflect. And grow. There are a few areas in my life where I've thought I tried.
There are a few where I currently think I am trying. But am I? There's a story in the bible in the book of Luke. The story goes like this: Some men came carrying a paralyzed man on a mat and TRIED to take him into the house to lay him before Jesus. When they could not find a way to do this BECAUSE OF the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him on his mat through the tiles into the middle of the crowd, right in front of Jesus. I'm reflecting this morning on some areas in my life where I tried until "because of" and then I quit trying. Sometimes "because of" is absolutely a reason to quit trying. But sometimes "because of" is absolutely a reason to try something different. Often when we try and it doesn't work, we think we need to try harder. When sometimes it means we simply need to try something different. Try it from a different place. Try it surrounded by different people. Try it with a different attitude. I know a challenging 'try' in my life the last few years has been being a dad. I am trying to be a good dad. And if I'm honest, there are days I tell myself I'm trying to be a good dad, but BECAUSE I don't live with them anymore, BECAUSE I don't sit at the dinner table with them, BECAUSE I don't get to give them a hug or slap them a high five every day, BECAUSE of what other people think of me the dad, BECAUSE of all of that, I can't be a good dad. There are days I grow weary trying to fight an impossible fight. But the fight gets to feeling impossible because I try to fight it through the lens of what culture and many people other than my sons consider to be a good dad. The men helping the paralyzed man tried to go through the doors of the church because that's where people thought you had to go to find Jesus. When they couldn't get in, they could have turned around and went home and said we tried everything. We tried to get to Jesus the way you get to Jesus and it didn't work. But these men cared about their friend too much to settle for the idea that there is only one way to get to Jesus. They cared too much about meeting a man's need who needed them. So they climbed up on the roof and lowered him to a place many thought the paralyzed man didn't belong. The friends tried something not many friends would be willing to try. (And without offering a spoiler alert, I'll let you know they got to Jesus and Jesus accepted and healed the man.) We live in a world that sometimes equates our failings with not trying hard enough. Yet sometimes we're trying plenty hard enough, even too hard, when we actually need to be trying something different. If you have areas like that in your life, where you feel like you've tried everything, where you're feeling exhausted from all of the trying, consider the possibility that you need to try something different. Consider walking away from the door and climbing up on the roof. The reality is, we can see things a lot clearer from up on the roof. 🤷♂️ I want you to do an experiment today.
On a piece of paper, write down three things you are grateful for. Then, stick the piece of paper in your pocket, and at any point today when you feel yourself begin to feel anxious, pull that piece of paper out. Read it and remind yourself of those things for which you felt gratitude in the morning, and feel gratitude for them once again. Why? Because our brains train us to be on the lookout for danger. For problems. This isn't hard to believe because as this day starts, most of us are more inclined to imagine all that could go wrong today than we are all that will go right. This starts out as a good thing. Our brain is responsible for identifying threats to our life to keep us safe. But if we aren't careful, if we don't assume some control over our brain, it will begin to anticipate ALL of life is a threat. When we begin to anticipate all of life as dangerous, we will begin to feel forever anxious. Which at some point isn't healthy for us. Here's the thing, the reason for the experiment, the same part of our brain that processes anxiety also processes gratitude. And, although our brain is good and powerful and efficient, it cannot process anxiety and gratitude at the same time. In other words, our brains can't worry about all that will go wrong at the same time it is remembering things that have gone right. My brain can't worry about all that will go wrong when I'm reading a piece of paper that says: I am thankful for my boys. I am thankful for the work I am able to do. I am thankful for the wisdom that's come from my difficulties in life. Sometimes not practicing gratitude is not because we aren't grateful people. Sometimes it's because our brains have overwhelmed us with a false sense of danger on the horizon. But we don't have to be overwhelmed. Write three things to be grateful for on a piece of paper. And when you begin to feel that overwhelming, pull the paper out, read those three things, and remind your brain that you refuse to be overwhelmed. The brain can train us to be anxious, or we can train the brain to be grateful. We do have a say in the matter. 8/25/2023 0 Comments Hiding in the strong towerI have bad days. When I do, it's usually because I get caught up in a whirlwind of my own emotions.
You ever watch one of those dust devils form on a playground? Or in an open field? There is this slightest swirl of wind. But the longer the swirl goes on, the more the leaves and dirt and debris from the ground get sucked into it. A once small and invisible swirl becomes a highly visible mess. For me, on the other side of the mess, I almost always conclude that the wind didn't suck my debris into the swirl, I threw it in there. I threw it in there fighting a battle that wasn't mine, trying to apply might where my might could only make matters worse. I follow a God who says in Matthew chapter 11, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” I believe that about God. I believe it, that is, until I am burdened. When I am burdened, it too often seems, I come to me and not to God. When I am burdened, that is when I too often lean on my own understanding and dismiss the possibility that there is something here to learn from God. When I am burdened, I too often lean on my own power and not God's gentleness, on my own might and not God's humility. And a burden becomes a dust devil. I am still not great at God. At seeing him as a fortress, a refuge - a strong tower. I am still not good at resisting the temptation to run straight into those dust devils, flinging my stuff into the air, instead of hiding in the strong tower. I am still not great at taking his yoke. I am better today though than yesterday. There is nothing like a dust devil to make more inviting what may be life's sweetest invitation: rest for my soul. In the ocean, when you are caught in a rip current they tell you to swim lateral out of the current and back into the open water. Maybe the strategy is similar for dust devils. Maybe the strategy is to walk gently and humbling sideways, away from the devil, and into the tower. Into the tower where burdens suddenly become light. If my boys one day come to me and tell me they are getting married, or entering into any sort of permanent committed relationship, I know what I will say to them.
It won't be congratulations. In fact, it won't be a statement at all. It will be a question: "how will you fix it when things go wrong?" That's influenced, for sure, by my own relationship history. For the longest time I've said I'm not good at relationships. The reality is what I've never been good at is REPAIRING relationships. So maybe I wish someone would have asked me that question before I got married. How will you fix it when things go wrong? Maybe it would have helped me discover that I had a lot of experience with relationships in my life, yet almost zero experience with repairing them when they became challenging. Relationships become challenging when feelings and emotions become challenging. Feelings and emotions become challenging when we have no idea what to do with them. Or often times even what the heck they are. If you don't have a history of naming and working through challenging emotions with other people, if you have not witnessed it, if you have not practiced it, because relationships ARE a skill, you will end up doing one of two things. You will run, retreat. Or you will attack, villainize. Most of my life I made up for my lack of relational repair skills by retreating. If not literally running from the relationship, escaping into relationships with something else to distract me from the challenging emotions of a failing relationship. I will also own that I've done a fair amount of villainizing. When you can convince yourself that my challenging emotions are a result of someone else's choices or behaviors, villainizing really just becomes a more complex way to escape. Often times a more hurtful one. I will ask my boys that question before they commit because repairing relationships early in the disrepair is important. Because eventually disrepair becomes disconnected. And once the connection is gone, so with it is a lot of the longing and desire that is the heart and soul and fuel for a repair. I believe we live in a world that is better than ever at connecting. We are a world of mass networking. But what we are failing miserably at is repairing broken connection. No amount of networking can heal the hurt and the damage left in the carnage of mass broken connections. We spend an awful lot of time focused on growing our connections. Maybe it's a good time to shift some of the focus from collecting connections to repairing the ones we have while we still have them. Maybe there is no bigger challenge, because the reality is, "most of us aren't good at repairing relationships." My guess is the repairs start with owning just that. I was talking to a friend about the ocean. She said something beautiful that has become even more beautiful as I've reflected on it this week. She said, "what I love about the ocean is that she'll flow to you like she's listening to you."
It's true. If you stand and stare at the waves as they approach, it can begin to feel like they are coming to you. Just you. And it feels like they WANT to come to you. And listen. I stood at the top of a high-rise bridge earlier this week. I stood there waiting on the sun. And as it rose, in magnificence, it felt like it was coming for me. It felt indeed like it wanted to come to me. And listen. I wonder if these natural moments, these movements toward us, are letters from God. Reminders, maybe. I want to come to you and listen. When we don't feel like God is listening, is it because we aren't often enough noticing his arrival? I met two friends yesterday for coffee and for dinner. I was the first one there in both cases. I sat and waited on them. And when they walked in, like the waves and the sun, they both looked like they were happy to be there. Like they were anxious to listen. I don't think people are always as reliable as the waves and the sun to show up and listen to us. It might be the rhythm of people far more than the rhythm of nature that leaves us doubting God's arrival. God's desire for us. I know it's not always easy to find our waves and sun people. I just know that when we do, we need to be thankful for the rhythm they bring to our lives. The reassurance they bring that we are seen and heard. We need to love that about them, like the ocean. And be reminded of the importance of being the waves and the sun in other people's lives. Of showing up like this is exactly where I want to be, longing to hear all that you have to say. Because I have witnessed it; I have felt it, that when we lose hope in the rhythms of people, we begin to lose hope in the rhythms of the waves. And the sun. And God. What I really love about the ocean is that she'll flow to you like she's listening to you. Maybe there is nothing we all really love more. I have been prone at times to fall into a trap of believing I have to have my life in some kind of meaningful order before I can do or create anything meaningful. But that is putting limits on creating and doing that aren't inherently limits of creating and doing.
I try to think of it in terms of my writing. I've come to appreciate that I can type out stories and articles on a keyboard. It's my preference. But if that ideal preference wasn't available, I'd use a pencil and paper. Or crayons. Shoot I might jab my finger and write with my own blood if I had to. That's how much I value writing. I'm not as adaptable, I'm afraid, in other areas of my life. When it comes to living out the stories that I am passionate about writing, I can feel a little more confined. I can feel like all the messes in my life have to be cleaned up before I can even think of tackling something new in life. I can feel like the messes of past relationships have to be cleaned up before tackling a new one. I can feel like the messes of finances have to be cleaned up before I take any new financial risks in life. I can feel like I have to have all of my past fatherhood messes cleaned up before I can begin being a good current father. In writing, I would never let not having things in perfect order stop me from writing. And there's no doubt in my mind that if I had to use crayons, I'd write something as meaningful as I do on this keyboard. (If I had to use blood it would probably still be good, but much shorter 😊). Maybe writing in crayon would actually add something to an article that a keyboard can't. Maybe colors would bring beauty and meaning to a piece that a keyboard isn't cut out to provide. We can look at our messes that way. Maybe they are colors. Maybe they allow us to go forward in life with new meaning and new intentions and new wisdom. Maybe our messes are far more reason to go forward than they are to stop and lean on a broom and wonder, how will this ever get cleaned up? I don't think everything needs to be cleaned up. Or even left behind. Some messes go forward with us. They help us write the next story. Maybe forgiving ourselves for our messes is the first step to seeing the colors in them. The first step to creating and doing. Because creating and doing is the only path to the future. It is the only path to meaning and beauty. The older I get one thing becomes more clear. Many answers I discovered along the way weren't answers at all. Many truths I sought and found weren't truths at all.
It does make me wonder, is there such thing as truth? Real truth? Are there such thing as answers? Real answers? Everyone seems to have them, truth and answers. But none of them sound the same. Yours and mine, our truths are likely quite different. And if you're like me, your truths today won't even be your truths next year. I'm not suggesting we live in a world with no truths. I have some personal truths that have stood the test of time and experience. I am suggesting, though, that there are a lot of personal and cultural challenges that arise out of our dependency on needing to know the answers and hold the truth. Answers and truth, after all, are often just friendlier words for power and control. If I know exactly what time the storms will roll through today, I have the power to make better outdoor plans. If I know exactly where my son is going and who he will be with and what time he'll be home, I have control over my worry. If I know exactly what he or she will feel and say when I share a hard truth, I have the power to exercise comfort in a challenging conversation. But in all of those scenarios there is no truth or answer, only illusions of them. I'm saying all of this because I've made a drastic shift in my life the last several years. I am much more fascinated with exploring the questions in life than I am demanding of the answers. There is a peace in knowing I will wake up today facing far more questions than I will be given answers. There is a peace in knowing that almost every answer only leads to a new question. So why not avoid some of the prison walls that come with needing to know the answers and embrace the adventure that comes with diving into the questions. Dependence on answers is dependence on control. And since answers are so elusive that dependence almost always comes with some form of anxiety. Embracing the questions is accepting that life may not give me the answers. Embracing the questions is life's way of saying that life is far more about searching for answers than finding them. Finding answers suggests a search is over. Searching for answers reminds us that the search is NEVER over. Maybe life is more about the learning than learned. Maybe life is more about possibilities than truths. Possibilities we quit looking for once we think we have all the answers. My friend Brenda has miniature horses. For as long as I've known her I've never quite understood it. Why would someone have miniature horses when they could have the giant version?
To be fair, she does have giant horses. But she never talks about them with the same affection she does her smaller friends. She rattles off their names to me like a proud parent rattles off the names of their kids. She shared a story this morning, though, that has me thinking I may have been overlooking the giantness in her mini friends. Brenda hosts camps for young people at her family's farm. Yesterday, as part of a culminating camp activity, Brenda and her campers loaded up the minis and took them to visit residents of a local nursing home. The young people learned how to transport the miniature horses from farm to nursing home. Brenda worked with the young people on how to talk to strangers about their horses. I couldn't help but imagine it, though. The hearts of these folks in the nursing home. Many of them rarely seeing visitors. But here come visitors, and they have these tiny little horses walking right beside them. Maybe many of them have never seen visitors quite so unique? I've come to believe loneliness is our greatest shared affliction. It's hard to overstate the healing these tiny horses and tiny humans likely brought to many people yesterday. It's also hard to overstate just how much Brenda is doing in these young people's lives to prevent their own future loneliness. Many of us are lonely because we have relationship patterns that make it difficult to connect with other people. What a gift she is giving to these young people, shaping relationship patterns that see the beauty in other people. And horses. No matter how big or small or young or old. In a world that is often obsessed with knowing the true beauty of all we do - beauty somehow has to be counted and measured and in an official report somewhere for the beauty to be called beautiful - it's nice to simply imagine the depth of beauty. It's nice to imagine the memories the folks in the nursing home have now. It's nice to imagine the stories they'll tell each other and their friends and families about those kids and those mini horses (maybe they'll even remember their names like Brenda does 😊). It's nice to imagine the impact on those young people. How many will want minis of their own someday? How many have a grander interest in visiting nursing homes or people in general? How many of them no longer see a a couple of weeks at camp as an adventure, but as a way to make the world better? It's nice to imagine the impact on my friend Brenda, who has never fully seen the depth of the good she does for the world. Her and those undersized horses of hers... It's nice to imagine the impact on you. Maybe you have some miniature idea in your heart that is just waiting to make a giant impact on the world. It's simply waiting for you to feel the giantness in it. I encourage you, don't leave it in your heart! It becomes giant in the sharing. Load it up and take it to the world. I don't know what kind of beauty will come from it. I don't need to know. And neither do you. You simply need to be able to imagine it. And then load up and go. |
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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