11/30/2021 0 Comments There is always more to the storyMany of you who know me know I am a big Notre Dame guy. I especially love Notre Dame football. So when my teenage son texted me last night - suddenly he has more words than 'ok' in a text message 🤷♂️ - and told me their coach Brian Kelly was leaving for LSU, I was momentarily devastated.
The devastation was short-lived - I promise. I didn't lose sleep. It didn't take me long to put this event in perspective against the backdrop of a few other challenging events in my life. But as I read the social media threads last night, and again this morning, a lot of people in the world of college football remain devastated by this - even indignant toward the coach. The most common outrage is 'this guy abandoned the kids to chase the money.' Reports are that LSU is going to pay Kelly at least 3 times what he is making at Notre Dame. So to put that in perspective, it would be like someone paying you to fly to their company this morning for a visit and offering to immediately begin paying you 3 times what you make today. No questions asked. I'm not saying you'd do it, but I am saying it's pretty unfair of a world that spends a great bit of its day chasing money to demonize a guy for chasing the money. I'm reading what an awful guy Kelly is for letting the media break this news to his staff and kids. Yet, it's the same media that lets us know what Brian Kelly is having for lunch before Brian Kelly knows what he's having for lunch. If the media is so put off by a guy not being the first one to tell his team, why not give the guy a chance to tell his team? My favorite is he is betraying Notre Dame - the place that was loyal to him. Brian Kelly is the winningest coach ever at Notre Dame. For the past 6 of his 10 years there, as a Notre Dame fan, I've only had to watch the team lose a handful of times. They don't lose. Sure, they haven't won a national championship, but if your name isn't Alabama or Clemson - neither have you. I've watched this guy totally transform himself from a raging lunatic on the sidelines to a guy his players love to play for. He took a look at himself - identified some character flaws - and addressed them for the good of the people around him. I watched him swallow a whole lot of ego to be loyal to the place that was loyal to him. And here is the thing about leaving. At some point, we all leave something that no one expected us to leave. And none of us outside of that situation have any idea what the real leaving story is. We can sit on the outside and criticize it or judge it, and often, that sadly brings out the worst side of both a fan and a human. I personally don't think Kelly would be leaving Notre Dame if they didn't have the perfect coach in waiting standing on the sideline - a coach I'm sure they will promote before this day is done. I personally don't think Kelly would be leaving if he didn't know what he has built is only going to continue to grow. But I don't know that; none of us do. All I know is Kelly made fall Saturdays a lot more interesting the last decade. It's hard to be upset about that if you keep things in perspective. I wish him nothing but the best at his next stop. From the look of things in my reading this morning, perspective isn't always easy to come by. 😮
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A couple of weeks ago, I ran a marathon. (And here you thought you were done hearing about that 🤷♂️). But after our first mile, I told my friend Tiffany - we only have to do what we just did 25 more times.
Then, after mile 2, I told her, we only have to do what we just did 13 more times. And after mile 3 - only 9 more times. You get the picture. The whole time I was trying to remind her that our problem wasn't as big as it was when we started. Mel Robbins says, "we all make the fundamental mistake of believing that because your problems are too big, the solution must be big." Running has taught me that many of the things we see as big problems in our life are only big because we see them that way. Big is often a mindset. Running a marathon used to be a really big problem in my mind. It seemed impossible. For years I wouldn't even think about running one - a marathon was small enough for a runner to run; it was much too big for me to take on. Then one day I ran a few miles. Then I ran 8. And then I was spending my Saturdays running double digit miles. Sure, I was developing the physical capacity to run a marathon, but more than that, an impossible problem started feeling very solvable. When we take a small step into the impossible, each step makes the impossible feel more doable. I've come to know there were a lot of areas in my life where I was stuck. But here is what I've also come to know; stuck was a way of seeing my life, it wasn't a truth about my life. Getting unstuck in life isn't about seeing the size of your problems shrink, getting unstuck in life is about stepping into your problems with the intention of shrinking them. The magic in that, when you do it, you start to see the size of your problems shrink. What you once had to do 25 more times, now you only have to do one more time. The problem didn't get smaller, you shrunk it. If you have a problem that seems too big today, quit looking at it and take a step into shrinking it. If you have a dream that seems to big today, quit looking at it and take a step into shrinking it. A funny thing happened after I ran my first marathon years ago. I went on to tackle a 37-mile race. When I shrank the size of a marathon in my mind, the size of a lot of other races shrank in my mind. Over the past couple of years, I've taken some steps into some pretty big challenges in my life. Those challenges and others haven't magically disappeared in my life, but I am shrinking them. I still have mighty challenges, but I am marching into them - not staring at them while standing in quicksand. Maybe you have big problems or big dreams in your life - they look impossible. Let me remind you - big problems don't go away and big dreams don't come true while we endlessly reflect on the magnitude of them. They become overcomable and achievable when we shrink them. When we take a step into them. When we tell ourselves I once had to do that 25 more times - now 10 - now 1. Until suddenly - that problem wasn't as big as I thought it was. It just needed me to take a step. It's Monday. It's been a long holiday weekend. The week may feel more overwhelming than usual. Well I'm here to tell you - it's not, you just need to take a step. Take just one step with one confident belief; I'm shrinking this sucker. 11/28/2021 0 Comments WE are called to goodnessI have done some good in my life - I've served and loved other people in ways that I'm proud of.
I have done some bad in my life - I've abused and taken advantage of people in ways that I'm ashamed of. I am a living example that people have the potential to do good OR bad. In fact, we all are. I've never met someone who seemed capable of doing only all good or all bad. The question I hear sometimes is - which were were created to do? What kind of people were we created to be - good or bad? Early in the Christian story, God created humans. After he did, he looked upon them and said - this is good. If you read this story in Genesis, you can almost feel the emotions of a God overwhelmed with a sense of goodness as he witnessed the perfect harmony of his creation. You could almost hear God saying, this has the potential to be a really good story. Then in that same Genesis story, Adam and Eve made a mistake. They became the first two people to demonstrate that no one is capable of doing all good. For some of us, this is where creation changed the story we tell ourselves about the creator. For some of us, this became the story of an angry God somehow caught off guard by the capacity of his creation to fall out of harmony. It became the story of an angry God demanding that we spend the rest of our lives trying to get right with him. It's a narrative we've adopted about God, and one we've too often adopted as a model for our relationships with one another. We've adopted it to respond to our kids in anger when they make mistakes. We've adopted it to demand repentance from everyone we feel has ever done us wrong. We've adopted it to embrace revenge over forgiveness, punshiment over rehabilitation, division over unity. We've adopted this narrative of God as permission to at times play that angry version of God - God's who demand compliance from one another - or else. Well I am here to tell you, I personally don't adopt that narrative of God. Not anymore. You know, when Jesus was pressed to identify the two most important 'rules' in the Christian faith, he responded that those rules were to love God and love one another - even our enemies - we are to love them too. In fact, you get the sense Jesus wanted us to love them the most. If God was so angrily certain we are people bent toward evil, how on earth does he think we are capable of the kind of goodness it takes to love an enemy? How could a God so angry at us for our mistakes ask us to love our mistake riddle enemies? I was sitting the other day playing a game with my boys. There came a point in the game when all three of us were laughing so hard there were tears. In that moment, I felt overwhelmed by love. Not love from my boys, but love from God. The God that for far too many years I lived in fear of, I felt incredibly loved by. How could someone who has made his fair share of bad choices be blessed with even a moment filled with so much goodness? Well, I want to tell you that your calling is goodness. When you screw up, that calling doesn't get cancelled, nor does it undo what God declared over you long ago - this is good. I am sitting here writing this right now out of love and out of a sense of answering that call to goodness. Not to make things right with God or with anyone else, but out of honoring my potential for goodness. Before the day is done - there's a good chance I'll also honor my potential for making a mistake. Maybe human nature will be to punish me for that mistake, God's nature will be to love me through it. God's nature will continue to see my potential for goodness, just the same as he sees your potential. Because God is always calling us back to that creation story, the story he created, the story he looked down upon and said - this is good. Our potential is goodness - God said so - and he has never stopped calling us to it. I got up early yesterday morning and headed west. It was too dark to imagine a sunrise, but I knew the sunrise was what I was chasing. When it's Thanksgiving, and you're struggling with gratitude, there's no better place to find it than in a sunrise.
As I got closer to my destination, I could see the light starting to appear back east in my rear view mirror. I began to worry that I might not beat the sunrise to the overlook where I was headed. I pulled into the overlook and looked due east. I could see hints of orange and yellow starting to appear. I was just in time. In a matter of moments, it looked like a fiery explosion lighting up the sky from which I'd just come. It wasn't lost on me that I'd driven an hour and a half to have a good view of the sky that I live under. As the sun slowly rose, and I took in each new color combination, I found myself saying, this was worth the chase. I was overwhelmed with gratitude at the beauty of it all, at the promise that no matter what feels destroyed in us, beauty will always find a way to rise above it. Rise above us. I could sense an echo of sorts from the mountains in the distance - from the blazing colors just beyond them. The more I proclaimed you were worth the chase, the louder I heard, you were worth the chase. I began to wonder, was I chasing the sunrise, or was the sunrise chasing me? I felt reminded by God - I could hear him - I never stop chasing you. You quit on yourselves and each other, but I never quit on you. You hide from yourselves and from each other, but I never hide from you. I never - EVER - stop chasing you. I'm glad I went to the mountains. It was the perfect place to be at the perfect moment in time. But I could clearly hear God telling me that chasing gratitude is sometimes as easy as pausing and knowing and feeling gratitude chasing me. We sometimes have to work hard, we have to take a firm hold of our minds, to truly feel and see the good in life. All the while, God's nature is to in every moment see the good in us. Sometimes while we're frantically chasing the good, God is chasing us - begging us to stop - to simply tell us, I've already found it. I encourage you - if you're struggling to find the good in life - the good in YOU - look in the rear view mirror. Be reminded there is a God chasing you, bright lights and all, asking you to pull over. Pull over and be reminded that the gratitude you're looking for in the world, God already feels it for you. 11/25/2021 0 Comments Shining a light on gratitudeDr. Amishi Jha says we miss 50% of our lives because our minds wander. Even when we try to focus on the life in front of us, she says, our minds will eventually be pulled toward something outside of our present situation.
Reading a book, for example. She says we often get to the end of a page before we realize we weren’t paying attention to what we were reading. We began wondering about the text message we might be missing. Wondering about dinner. Wondering about the noise down the hall. The page runs out of words; this becomes our signal to re-focus. But what if that page – and life – don’t come through with signals to re-focus? One of the major problems with that, Dr Jha says, is that our minds often roam toward things we might be worried about – or anxious about – or sad about. When we let our minds wander, they often roam towards fear and anxiety, not peace. She talks about this roaming mind as a broad, big picture spot-light focus. Our minds have evolved to always be looking out for things that might harm us. Looking right and left and up and down. Constant. But if we let our minds always look out for the things that might harm us, we never get to focus on the things that are blessing us. Bringing that focus back in, and intentionally redirecting it toward a healthier focus – Dr. Jha calls this a flashlight focus. I got to thinking about this in terms of Thanksgiving. How if we let our minds wander, they often don’t wander toward things we are thankful for. Often, giving thanks, requires us to pull out our flashlights. It requires us to walk through the woods of life and point that light at the beauty hiding in the thickets. Because sometimes the things we have to be thankful for aren't hiding in plain sight. It’s a timely message for me. There are many things that will be challenging about Thanksgiving this year. If I let my mind wander, it will wander towards things I might be missing out on, it will wander toward things that make me bitter and not thankful, it will wander towards all the obstacles in front of me and not all of them that I’ve overcome. So tomorrow morning, I will get up bright and early with my flashlight. I will drive to a mountaintop and watch the sun rise out of the darkness. I wil plant myself in the place that brings me peace and dare my mind to wander off to places that rob me of it. On that mountain, I’ll be reminded that our minds don’t have to wander. We don’t have to live in fear and sadness and anxiety. I’ll be reminded that sometimes we need to turn off the spotlight and whip out our flashlight - and point it.. In wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving, let me also encourage you to arm yourselves with a flashlight tomorrow. If life starts feeling heavy – if you find your mind wandering away from peace – pull out that flashlight. Point it at the things in life you are grateful for. And at the end of that light, I pray you find peace. A very Happy Thanksgiving all. 11/23/2021 0 Comments Shine onMarianne Williamson says, "as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fears, our presence automatically liberates others."
If you have ever had someone come into your life who had no agenda other than to shine, you know Williamson's words are true. If you've ever had someone put aside all fear of the bad that lives in the world, while pouring into you the good that lives in them, you've experienced Williamson's words. If you've experienced them, you didn't find yourself saying, "I want to be more like that person." Instead, you woke up one day and realized - without much thought - that you'd become more like that person. That's encouraging to me. This idea that if I want to make the world a brighter place I don't have to figure out how to turn a thousand lights on. I simply need to embrace the freedom I have to keep mine on. Maybe Super 8 was on to something: we'll leave the light on for you. There is hope in the idea that although we are all different light bulbs, we illuminate many bulbs when we live out the illumination of our own. I wonder what stands in our way of that somedays - the world running around like a bunch of blazing white 250 watt light bulbs. I think the biggest thing is we can get to believing our light will never be enough. It doesn't have enough watts. What difference will it make in the world? I'll go back to what I wrote yesterday - and Steven Furtick's quote: "when we ask desert questions, we get dead end answers." The question isn't what difference will it make in the world. The better question is what difference will it make in me. You see, I believe we all have a light living in us. We all have our own unique lights that are craving the chance to contribute to the greater light of the world. When we keep those lights buried within us, we live with angst - depression - feeling less than. When for whatever reason we keep our lights buried within, WE feel buried within. But when someone gives us permission to shine - we come alive. When someone comes into our life shining their light, they ignite ours. When we live alive, we add fuel to life. It's a beautiful circle to imagine, isn't it? This circle of infectious lights. Let's start the circle today. You all have beautiful lights within you. I don't need to know you to know it's true; we ALL have them. Let them shine today. When you walk out the door into the world this morning, don't turn the lights out - turn them on. Turn them on and then watch the miracle - the miracle that happens when the people around you start feeling the permission to turn theirs on too. A year ago, I was sitting on an interview panel at work. We were interviewing for an open position on our team. It was one of those interviews we had to do. We already knew who we wanted to hire - it was someone who'd done this job on our team before - but policies required us to interview several people.
One of the candidates we interviewed who was NOT the chosen one impressed me. And it wasn't her answers to the interview questions that impressed me - it was the questions she asked us when our questions were all over. She asked the panel what we liked most about working with each other on our team. She asked what the most rewarding experience each of us had had in our roles. She asked how we incorporated certain understandings of behavioral health in to the work we do. As I've grown older and wiser, the questions people ask impress me far more than the answers they give. Having great answers in life is a great place to get stuck; we can begin to believe we know all we need to know. Asking the right questions - that's always a key to continually getting to a better place. That's why after that interview, I reached out and asked this young lady to interview for a job I had open working for me. And at least once a week now, often more frequently, she asks questions that make me better at giving the community better answers. In his sermon yesterday, Steven Furtick suggested that if we want more meaningful answers in life we should ask better questions. I've learned this one with my boys. If I ask Ian, how was school today, he will give me a one word answer: "school." Basically saying, if you've seen one day of school you've seen them all. Me asking him that question thinking I'm going to get a better answer is not wise on my part. But if I ask Ian, what was the nicest thing you did for someone at school today - I'm more likely to get a more meaningful answer. If I ask Elliott, was was the biggest challenge you had at school today - I'm more likely to get a more meaningful answer. You know, I've been asking God a lot of the wrong questions lately. God, why am I going through this? God, when are you going to deliver the answer I'm asking you for? Those are desert questions. They come with dead end answers. A better question for me to ask: God, every time I've asked 'why' in my life you've led me to an answer better than I could have ever imagined. Where are you leading me God? What do I need to do to help us get there? A better question for me to ask: God, every time I've asked when in my life, you've shown me your calendar works a lot better than mine. God, what do I need to be doing to have myself prepared for the day you've marked on your calendar to show me the miracle you have planned for my life? It's Monday. Think about the questions you are asking yourself and others and maybe even God this week. Ask questions that are curious and hopeful about tomorrow, and not questions that leave you stuck in the past. Ask questions that ponder the possibility of tomorrow, not questions that rehash the challenges of today. We all have better answers in front of us; I think they start with better questions. 11/19/2021 0 Comments showing up anywaysIf you type 'you got this' on a Facebook post - the color of the font changes to purple and staircases of thumbs-up symbols start dancing up and down the screen. I guess Facebook has figured out we like to use their platform to say 'you got this' to one another.
I've come to realize that 'you got this' is more invitation than encouragement. It's an invitation to keep showing up when showing up doesn't feel, sound or look easy. "You got this' is a recognition that life is sometimes more of a fight than a party - but either way - you don't win a fight or have fun at the party if you don't show up. We get each new breath for a reason. Is there any more tangible sign in life than the breath of life to remind us to keep going? Whether you believe that breath was created, or it just showed up - it showed up for a reason. It shows up to say, 'you got this.' Our willingness to keep going is the best thank you note we can write to each breath we get. At times, I think we have a hard time honoring the invitation to believe 'you got this' because life doesn't always look like I've got this. It's hard to carry on like I've got this when life looks a lot like nobody's got this. I have this pattern in my life. It's not a feel-good pattern, but it's a pattern I'm thankful for. It's a pattern of life often feeling like nobody's got this, but me showing up anyways. It's a pattern that's made me wonder if 'having it all together' is just an illusion; a pattern that's made me wonder if it's important to even know if it is or not. Because really, the secret to life isn't getting it all together, it's showing up no matter what. At the starting line of my marathon Saturday morning, I told my friend Tiffany, if it were anyone else, I likely wouldn't have showed up. For a lot of reasons, nothing felt right about the morning. But my pattern has taught me something in life. Whether I feel like getting out of bed or not is irrelevant. Whether I feel like showing up for a marathon or not is irrelevant. Whether the next step in life looks put together or not is irrelevant. Showing up is what is relevant. I've joked a lot this week about 'over celebrating' marathon number 6. The reality is, I can't over celebrate it. I can't over remind myself of the value in showing up. Because when your pattern in life is life feeling nobody's got this, and you showing up anyways - you need all the reminders you can get that pattern has a happy ending. You need all the reminders you can get happy isn't often life coming together just right - it's your willingness to believe 'you got this' when it doesn't feel right at all. Happy Friday you all. And you got this. 11/18/2021 0 Comments Love never endsWho are you, Keith?
I am God's love. If someone asked you who you are - depending on what day it is - your answer might look different. Life circumstances sometimes leave us having no idea who we are. Believe me, I get that one. But one thing never changes about who I am - it is the only constant in my identity - it IS my identity - I am God's love. Someone might be reading this and thinking, well Keith, you don't always look like God's love. To that I will say, amen. I don't. That's because the love God pours into me doesn't always look like the love that pours out of me. But my identity isn't who or how I love, it's BY whom and how I am loved. My identity was defined by the one who created me. My identity is defined by WHY the one who created me created me. God created me to love me. He created me to love me with a love so powerful that once I fully embrace it, it's impossible to not love him back. That's hard to understand - or believe - I get that. It's hard to understand because in human relationships, people stop loving one another. In human relationships, we can do things to one another that interfere with or stop the love that pours in. In human relationships, love can look so wildly different from day to day that some days it's hard to even define what love is. But we aren't the definition of love, God is. One of the most beautiful definitions of love ever written is found in 1 Corinthians. It reads: "Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends." Love never ends. No matter how I see myself today - no matter how you see me today - God's love never ends. No matter how unloved I might feel today, love never ends. No matter how unloved you might feel today, love never ends. No matter what you think your identity is today - your identity - and my identity - is love never ends. You know, I believe it's God's hope that one day we will quit wrestling with our identities and embrace the common identity of 'I am God's love.' It's in the natural celebration of that identity that the love that pours out of us starts to look a lot more like the love that never stops pouring into us. When we come to embrace an identity that feels like love never ends, we can't help but want the people around us to feel like love never ends. When we come to feel like love never ends, we can't help but look like love never ends. That's just our identity. A lot of dreams don't come true NOT because they aren't achievable, but because we let someone else convince us they aren't.
We were at a pre-marathon breakfast Friday morning. My friend Rosalyn, who was chasing a Boston Marathon qualifying time the next morning, said this: "It's like a test. I've studied for it, so it would be stupid for me to not show up after doing all the studying." Now, I had some fun with that comment. I suggested that she was calling ME stupid because I was actually showing up for the test WITHOUT studying. I might still be having fun at her expense for that pre-race attack on my (lack of) training plan.... 😄 🤷♂️ But while I'm twisting her words, here's another way I can twist them. She decided a long time ago this was a dream worth chasing. She believed in herself enough to put the work in to achieve it. No way was she letting anyone say or do anything that would stop her from showing up to chase it down. She did chase it down. She ran the Richmond Marathon in 3:20 - 15 minutes faster than the qualifying time; 10 minutes faster than she'd ever run a marathon. Several hours later, my friend Tiffany finished her marathon too. Her dream was to simply finish - to forever be able to call herself a marathoner. She too had studied. She too had many opportunities for life and the people around her to convince her it wasn't possible. But today, she is forever a marathoner. Rosalyn and Tiffany obviously ran their races chasing two different dreams. But they had one very important thing in common. They both created their dreams, so they both kept control over who got the last word when it came to deciding whether it was worth chasing those dreams or not. Too often, we have a dream. Then comes criticism or doubt or a lack of support or a whole host of outside and inside voices that don't sound like cheerleaders. And suddenly, we are handing the dream we hatched over to someone else to kill. Well I am here to tell you today, if you have a dream, keep it. Own the daggone thing. It's yours. If you have a dream, YOU decide whether it's worth chasing or not. And if it is, study for it and show up. And if it doesn't come true, well at least it's about your truth and not someone else's lie. I know a lot of dreams were born this weekend while watching all of my friends bring dreams alive. My hope is that the people who gave birth to those dreams will be the people who keep ownership of those dreams. I hope those people will study for them and then be wise enough to show up for the test. And who knows, maybe the dream they decided was worth chasing will be the dream they see come true. Dreams come true when we decide they are worth chasing, not when someone else convinces us they aren't. |
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
CategoriesAll Faith Fatherhood Life Mental Health Perserverance Running |