10/31/2021 0 Comments It's more than walking in someone's shoes; It's also knowing where those shoes have been.There's an old saying - 'the more you know the more you grow.'
Often, that saying focuses on intelligence and book learning and the importance of growing our brains. It assumes filling brains with more of the 'right' stuff will make it more likely one will make more of the 'right' choices. But yesterday, I saw the Parker Palmer quote below and I wondered - is it not equally important to grow our hearts? I wondered, are our hearts and our brains supposed to be as disconnected as they sometimes appear to be. I think of the things we exhaustively research: The stocks or cars or houses we buy. The foods we eat. The fitness or self-help plans we adopt. We'll spend a year researching the one-week vacation we will take next year. We'll start our days memorizing the scriptures in our bibles. But how much time do we spend getting to better know the stories of the people we dismiss? How many people do we look at - we see the cover of their book - and decide that's enough? I'll read no more of that book. I wonder - at times - if we've become so good at memorizing the world that we've lost touch with what the world feels like. I wonder if we've gotten so good at making the smartest decisions in our lives that we've lost sight of what the most loving ones looks like. Part of walking a mile in someone's shoes is getting to know where those shoes have been. It's getting to know what has tattered and warn the soles clean through to the feet on those shoes. It's getting to know what those shoes have run from and what those shoes long to run to. It's that kind of knowing that connects the brain with the heart. It's that kind of knowing that grows the heart. It's that kind of knowing that connects the heart to the heart. Mine - to yours....
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At the last minute last night, I decided to go to our high school football game. My boys were both busy, so I knew I'd be making the long drive to the other side of Richmond alone.
But something kept nudging me to go. Our kids were huge underdogs. They were playing certainly one of the best teams in the area - they were undefeated - if not one of the better teams in the state. As I was driving there in the dark and the rain and in the Friday evening Richmond rush hour traffic, I kept telling myself to turn around. What are you doing; this is silly. Go sit in your dry and quiet apartment and watch game 3 of the World Series. But something wouldn't let me turn around. Something challenged me to keep plowing through the night. And then there I was. Standing by the fence as our kids rushed into the lockeroom at halftime. And they were winning. I heard one of the kids say, everyone thought we'd be getting blown out by now. He seemed incredulous and bitter at just the thought of it. (Uhm, I apologize kid. One of the things I told myself when convincing myself to come watch you was that you'd be getting blown out by halftime and I could head home early and still catch most of game 3 of the World Series....🤷♂️). There's this often used line in sports - 'refuse to lose.' I decided last night that sometimes refuse to lose looks a lot like 'insist on winning.' Because that is what our kids did last night. They insisted on winning. Unless I missed it, they didn't throw a single pass all night. In fact, they only ran 3 or 4 different plays the entire night. They just kept running and forcing their way down the field. Every play, I knew what was coming. So surely the defense did as well. But even when you know what's coming at you, if what's coming at you comes with an insistence that refuses to be stopped, what you know becomes far less useful. There is nothing like an underdog celebration. As I walked along the edge of the field to my car after the game last night, I kept looking back at our kids celebrating. I was grateful for the memory they will carry with them every day of their life. It will be an every day reminder for them that the best way to remove the underdog status from your life is deciding you're not going to be one anymore. It will be an every day reminder that when the whole world believes you'll be blown out by halftime - sometimes it's way more than enough to be the only one who knows you won't be. As I got in my car and drove away and looked back at these kids, still celebrating, I knew why life insisted I show up for this game. Because I needed a reminder or two myself. Thanks kids. You're right. Sometimes underdog is far more mindset than reality. In his sermon last Sunday, Steven Furtick said, "the process of discipleship is not God changing you into something else, it's him revealing who you've been all along."
While I was running yesterday afternoon, I found myself wondering - what if life isn't as much about changing as it is about discovering. What if this pursuit I'm on to become who I'm made to be is standing in the way of me discovrering the beauty in who I already am. It's funny, I say it about my boys all the time. I say I have no picture at all of who I want them to become - because I truly don't - I just want them to discover the gifts God's planted inside them. I think me pushing them toward something that's in my mind stands in the way of them discovering something that might already be in theirs. The process of me discipling my kids isn't me pointing them toward something OUT there, it's me helping to bring out of them what God's already put IN there. I had this conversation with a friend yesterday about peace. I asked, have you ever felt peace? I asked it because I had. I remember where I was. I remember the trail. In that moment I was overwhelmed by this feeling that I was free to be me. Free to think and say and be all things that were truly me. Things I think I'd thought I had to block if I was ever going to be who I thought I was supposed to be. I remember saying - in that freedom - this is peace. Maybe that is what peace is. Finally discovering who we have been all along - because God didn't create us for turmoil. Maybe turmoil comes in chasing down this person we think we're supposed to be at the expense of resting in the person we already are. Maybe turmoil comes when it's impossible to rest in who we already are because we dislike that person. We dislike that person so much so that we can't give up on the idea we are surely supposed to be someone else. Maybe we get too busy writing the story of the world we think we're supposed to see instead of sitting down and writing the story of the world that lives in us. The world out there - it pressures you to write a story about the world. It pressures you to believe the world is the leading role in that story; you are just a supporting actor or actress. The world constantly challenges you to re-write your character description in a way that makes you deserving of a role in the story. Sometimes we simply need to quit re-writing. The story is you. You are already in a leading role. The secret is removing the world from your story long enough to get to know the beautiful character you already are. You don't need to re-write your character description. You just need to discover the description that was written long ago. You are a beautiful story. Take time to read it. Yesterday, I had a chance to guest lecture for a local college developmental psychology class. The professor in the class is a friend. Because of the pandemic, it was the first time we'd seen each other in nearly two years.
I knew my friend had been battling cancer. So one of the first things I asked him was 'how are you?' He told me he was doing great - the prognosis is good. But then he went on to tell me - with excitement - the thing that has impacted him most in his battle. He said he could have never imagined the number of people who have showed up to support him and his family. "I've always had good friends," he told me. "I was just caught completely off guard by how many of them were willing to help us out." It made all the difference, he said. It's funny how things work out. I didn't plan to have this conversation with my friend about the importance of connections before I talked with his class about the importance of connections. But I did. And in an instant, the story he told me became the story I told. Because I was there to tell his class that when it comes to substance abuse - or any addiction really - the greatest protective factor we have in life is our connections. The more emersed we are in meaningful relationships with people, the less likely it is we become dependent on relationships with substances. In the words of my friend - it makes all the difference. The message spoke to these kids. I could see it in their eyes. There was an intensity you don't see when you give the old 'this is your brain on drugs' talk. The sad part to me, I could tell it wasn't an uplifting message for them. I recognized the looks in their eyes - many of them were longing for the kind of connections my friend was talking about. I wasn't suprised by that. I've worked part-time out of the counseling center at this local college for many years now. Every year I've been there, more students have come in for counseling than the year before. Lori Gotlieb, a therapist and author, says this about people she has seen in therapy. "No matter the circumstances, there seemed to be this common element of loneliness, a craving for but a lack of a strong sense of human connection. A want. They rarely expressed it that way, but the more I learned about their lives, the more I could sense it." When you hear that - it makes it less surprising that when it came to his fight with cancer, my friend couldn't wait to talk about the connections he had. When you hear that - it makes it's easier to understand why a group of students looked more fearful than hopeful when I told them the greatest preventative health measure they have in their lives is the connections they have with other humans. We are a heavily medicated culture. I'm not here to debate the merits of that. But I am here to wonder out loud if in the midst of prescribing healing medications, doctors are missing out on the one that heals the most. Connections. I am here to wonder out loud if we non-doctors are all missing the chance to offer one another the cheapest and most effective healing of all. Connections. I wonder if we are all missing the chance to offer our friends and family the chance to say - with excitement - yes, I've been going through a battle, but let me tell you about all the people who have shown up for me.... It's made all the difference. 10/27/2021 0 Comments there is only this momentMy friend Stacy shared these words recently:
your lungs are the perfect place for you there is no yesterday in your lungs there is no tomorrow there either there is only now there is only inhale there is only exhale there is only this moment Beautiful, really. They are words that describe my personal running journey. When I took up running, I think it brought me peace because it was my way to run from yesterday. When you struggle with a past, nothing makes you feel like you're getting away from it more than running. The physical act of running, of moving forward, makes you feel - if for only a moment - like your past will never be fast enough to keep up with you. I have finally shaken that pesky past, you think. But there comes a point in running when you start doing things you never thought you'd be able to do. And then you start wondering what else you can do. When you have struggled believing in a future, nothing makes you feel like you're getting closer to it than running. The physical act of running, of moving forward, makes you feel - if for only a moment - like your best days are right there in front of you. I can finally touch my dreams come true, you think. Yesterday was a challenging day. At the end of it I went for a run. I went without music. I went without anything but me and my breath. Because that's what running is today. For me, running today is about TODAY. My breath - and it gets heavy and loud at times out there - is a reminder that I AM still breathing. And what a beautiful piece of symbolism we have in each breath, right? As the words of Roedel beautifully paint - each breath is pure. It's not tainted by yesterday or tomorrow - it is simply and purely right now. I've spent too many of my breaths disregarding their beauty because I was running from yesterday or dashing toward tomorrow. But right now - how beautiful IS right now? How many beautiful 'right now' opportunities have I missed in life because I failed to see the beauty in right now. If you are an average human, you will take 23,000 breaths today. I challenge you to listen to one of them. Be grateful that breath comes with no yesterday. With no tomorrow. It's just one sweet and beautiful gift to remind you that you are still YOU. That your superpower in life is the ability to embrace the right now. To pick one breath out of 23,000 and say I hear you. I hear you and thank you. I'm reminded of the lyrics from one of my favorite Downhere songs - Don't Miss Now Open your eyes Your prize is right before you somehow Whatever you do, just don't miss now Your prize is right before you somehow. Don't miss it. Don't miss now. Inhale. Exhale. Listen. There is only this moment.... In the creation story, one day at a time God creates bits and pieces of nature: the sky, the planets, the oceans, the birds and trees and grasses and sands. All of it. And at the end of each day, God looks back on that day's creation and calls it 'good.'
On the final day of his project - he creates humans. And as he looks down on the whole scene - humans and nature together - admiring his work like an artist who's just painted the very scene she imagined, he doesn't say this is good. He says this is 'very good.' As the Christian story goes on from there, we encounter a couple - Adam and Eve - who make a mistake. It's the first mistake recorded in human history. For the very first time, good people do something that isn't good. It's there that the struggle begins. The struggle to answer the question - am I good or bad. The struggle to answer the question - are you good or bad. To be clear, that is OUR struggle. Not God's. God never took back what he said about us. In fact, as a reminder of the goodness he still sees in us, he sent his son to die on a cross. No, it is you and it is I who say, "I am not VERY good." It's you and I who look at one another and judge, "they are not very good." We sometimes interpret the story of Adam and Eve as a story of a human race that inherited evil. Actually, what we inheritied was their capacity to make mistakes. We inherited their inclination to believe the people God created weren't good enough as created, which led them to seek a greater goodness. I know sometimes people wonder, why would a God who created such goodness allow for people to go on such a search? I don't know, but I have a theory. It's a theory based on my own life. I have been prone to make mistakes my entire life. Most of them because I've struggled to see myself as goodness, so I've been on a lifelong search to find my goodness. Along the way, the search has often left me feeling worse than ever. It's left me feeling down and exhausted and ultimately scrambling back to one single place for respite and comfort - every time. That place is in the quiet reminder that goodness isn't OUT there, it's IN here. Goodness is in the quiet reminder that I made you good, you can not undo that, and you can not find a replacement for it. The promise IS your sole source of goodness. It's only then, it's only when we adopt that promise as our sole source of goodness that we can truly begin to grasp the goodness in others. It's only when we come to know that our goodness is not defined by our mistakes or the lack of them - but by the One who made us - that we can come to see others not by their mistakes, but by the One who made them. Yes, Adam and Eve committed the orginal sin, they made the first mistake. But God created the original goodness. The day he looked down at me and you smack dab in the middle of his nature scene - and he said this is 'very good' - God defined goodness. He never took it back. In fact, he sent his Son to say I still believe. I still believe you are very good. Sometimes WE don't believe that. But the answer isn't a search. The answer is to sit quietly and hear the reminder. Our mistakes aren't intended to derail us, they are intended to send us back to the reminder. 10/25/2021 0 Comments Live a life that makes you look upI often hear 'our kids spend too much time staring at their screens.' I won't argue that. But many times when I hear that, it comes across as blaming those awful screens - or those lazy kids - and the hard truth is, neither of them are to blame.
I took the boys for a hike Saturday. I told them up front, this is a challenging climb. It's only a mile, but the mile is nothing but up! Here's a promise, though - I said - when we get up there, you'll be glad you made the climb. There were times in that climb when I was needing someone to remind ME I'd be glad I was making the climb. It was a little more 'up' than I'd remembered. But up we went. There was a moment at the top I think I'll always remember. We stepped out on the rocks that overlook the Shenandoah Valley. The colors were showing off. The mountains in the distance were gleefully layering shadows over the scene. The clouds looked like they'd been painted perfectly in place. Just for our moment. Without me having to say look at that boys, I looked over and the boys were looking at that. We all were. Before I knew it, we all had our phones pointed at the valley and not at our faces. We were standing their taking pictures of our memories, not looking in a screen at someone else's. Author Richard Louv says that screens give us a “know-it-all state of mind,” where having any piece of information at our fingertips has made the world too “small and known.” He says this robs our children of the chance to grow their imaginations. I agree with him. I would only argue that isn't just a kid issue. I think kids spend too much time in screens because too many adults have lost their own senses of imagination. I think too many adults have sadly determined all they need to know about the world is found in a screen and not discovered in the world. This summer I spent some time helping my friends Meg and Celia on their Appalachian Trail adventure. I got to see some views of the world I'd never seen before. The spot I took the boys to Saturday was a spot I discovered on my own after my own sense of wonder was sparked while hanging out with Meg and Celia. I didn't make the boys put down their screens and go for a hike. I sold them, with unbridled excitement, on the possibilities of a world they'd discover outside of their screens. 'Limiting screen time' is not the answer to keeping our kids out of their screens. Selling them on the world outside of it is. Nagging our kids about what they won't find in a screen isn't the answer to keeping our kids out of their screens. Showing them a world that takes their breath away outside of it is. Our kids haven't been sucked into a world of technology because they believe the world of technology is more beautiful and exciting than the natural world. For many of them, it's simply the only world anyone has ever shown them. If our kids are spending too much time looking down at their screens, the answer isn't telling them to look up. The answer is showing them a world that makes them WANT to look up. We owe it to our kids to take them to that world. We owe it to ourselves..... 10/22/2021 0 Comments love has a defintionI did a presentation yesterday about 'the help that helps.' Basically, the presentation says this:
Research shows that people who have experienced tons of crap in their lives, yet have people in their lives who care for them - these people - health-wise - are actually mentally and physically better off than people who have lived relatively crapless lives but have no one they can depend on. In summary, at least MY summary, this says love is the great equalizer. When people know they have someone who is going to show up and hold them for who they are - no matter where they are - where they've been and what they've been through becomes less burdensome. More and more this makes sense to me. Because more and more, when I talk to people, I come to believe what we are all looking for at our core is to have our burdens eased. At some level I think we all pursue this every day. It's how ALL of our journeys began. We emerged from the womb into a chaotic world and immediately began looking to have our burdens eased. And where did we look? We looked toward SOMEBODY. We looked for some ONE to show up and hold us right where we were. I think our burdens in life begin to become more burdensome when we start looking for some THING to ease those burdens and not some one. I believe we start looking for some THING when we no longer know who our some ONE is. Too often I think we believe love doesn't have a definition. We believe that love isn't learned. But love does have a definition - in the earliest seconds of our life love gets defined as someone showing up and meeting us where we are, no matter how distressed we are. Love is learned - if someone shows up for us - we feel loved. If someone doesn't show up for us - we don't feel loved. In many cases, we go on to love the way we've been loved. Not only does my biology support the idea that love is someone showing up and loving me just where I am for just who I am, my faith supports it too. In the book of Matthew, Jesus is talking about welcoming people into heaven. He's telling them about the beautiful inheritence they are about to receive because of all the times they showed up to feed him when he was hungry, gave him clothes when he didn't have any, invited him to hang out with them when he felt friendless- they even visited him in prison. Someone says, well Jesus, I never even met you - how did I even do any of those things for you? And Jesus said, basically - any time you eased the burdens of someone else, you eased my burdens. Our biology and my faith are in alignment. We come into this world wired to need love to ease our burdens. The God who created us says we have no greater mandate on this earth than to ease one another's burdens. I think we miss that some days. I think we go against our biology - maybe some of us are going against our faith - when we look to some THING in life instead of some ONE to ease our burdens. I think we miss that some days - when we walk by the burdened - when we walk by opportunities to love and we don't love. Because love does have a definition - it was defined for us in the earliest seconds of our lives. It's seeing someone for who they are and holding them in that place. Love is the great equalizer. It has a definition. It's just looking for a world more committed to leaning on it to ease one another's burdens. Back in 2015, I met Harvey Lewis. He was a pacer at the Run the Bluegrass Half Marathon in Lexington, Kentucky. Little did I know at the time, I was meeting a man who'd years later run the equivalent of 27 half marathons in just 3 1/2 days...
This past weekend, Harvey lined up with some of the best athletes in the world at Big Dogs Back Yard Ultra Marathon. The format for the race is this: Every hour, every runner in the race comes to the starting line. Then, every runner attempts to run 4.1 miles over the course of the next hour. Those who finish in time get to come to the starting line again at the top of the next hour. Those who don't - they lose. This process repeats until everyone is a loser but the last man or woman standing. When it was all said and done, Harvey set a world record after lining up 85 consecutive hours and completing those 4.1 miles. From this past Saturday morning until Tuesday evening, every hour on the hour, Harvey lined up and completed 4.1 miles until he had run 354 miles. I wasn't surprised by the result. I've watched Harvey over the last several years take down one incredible endurance event after another. I'm not sure there's an athlete in the world in better condition than Harvey is at this moment in time. I'm hardly an expert on that, but his resume the last two years is pretty compelling evidence. Now, I'm not here to name drop Harvey Lewis. We're hardly best friends. But that's the point, really. From the moment I met Harvey years ago, from a distance, I've followed his journey in awe. In doing so, I've never once thought, 'I want to do what Harvey does.' But by following Harvey, many times I HAVE thought, 'I want to see how much more I can do.' I told someone the other day, Harvey is one of the nicest guys I've ever met. He is a model of kindness. Kindness, that is, when it comes to how he interacts with other people. When it comes to how Harvey treats Harvey - he is ruthless. He is ruthless with his expectations. He is ruthless with what he demands of the talents and gifts he's been blessed with in life. He is ruthless with the number of times he's willing to tell himself you WILL be the last man standing. He has somehow willed his mind and body to tremble at the sound of that command. Harvey was recently featured in Sports Illustrated magazine in the Faces In The Crowd section. This section highlights athletes who don't rise to the 'star' status of athletes traditionally featured in the magazine, but who are nonetheless stars. I thought that was an appropriate place for Harvey. It's true, on the grand stage of world class athletes, I guess Harvey IS just a face in the crowd. But for many of us, it's a face that's had a huge impact. Many of us have been picking that face out of a crowd for years as a way of training our own bodies and minds to quiver when we say, you WILL be the last man or woman standing. Many days, Harvey has had a huge influence on my will to keep standing. It's also a reminder of this: there are people picking YOUR face out of a crowd today. People who would hardly call you their best friend, but who are watching your every move as if you are. People who are not watching and saying they want to do what you do, but people who are inspired by you to do all that THEY can do. You are more than a face in the crowd. Every one of you. Every single one of you is in life's FACES IN THE CROWD feature section. Your kids are picking you out. Your partner is picking you out. People you work with are picking you out. Complete strangers are picking you out of the crowd as they battle to be the last person standing. Keep that in mind today. Be someone's reason to be the last one standing. Because I assure you, it's because of people like Harvey, and people like many of you, I WILL be the last man standing. I WILL grow more ruthless of what I demand of me every single day. And just like you, I will be more than a face in the crowd. A few friends have reached out to me this week and asked, 'have you seen the moon?' I smile knowing I have friends who know how much I appreciate the moon.
You know, in just the second verse of the entire bible it reads, 'now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep.' It's occurred to me this week that without the darkness of the night, the moon would go unnoticed. Not a single friend would be able to message me and say, 'have you seen the moon?' From the very beginning, God has used darkeness to show off the beauty of the night lights. There are days when our lives can feel formless and empty. It can feel like darkness is hovering over us. I have felt that in my life; maybe you have to. But you know what I've been thinking about the last couple of days. I have a lot of moons in my life. I have a lot of gifts and opportunitines in my life that never would have come my way if it weren't for the darkness. My writing is informed by the wisdom I've found as my darkness inevitably hands the stage over to my moons. My life's passion is helping people understand that it won't be long before they too are messaging their friends and saying, 'hey, have you seen the moon in my life?' Because it's true. In the middle of your darkness, a moon is always wanting to shine through. It's a good reminder, isn't it, that we'd never see the moon if the dark didn't come first. It's a good reminder as you go for a night walk this fall. Gaze and marvel at the beautiful order of it all. It's a good reminder today as you go through your life walk. If life feels formless and empty, maybe gaze upward. Maybe look for your moon. |
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
CategoriesAll Faith Fatherhood Life Mental Health Perserverance Running |