Well, 2023, it's you and me. One more day together. I'm not sure what to do with that. You and I had such a mixed relationship. Should I hold onto your leg and beg you to stay, or stand waving at the door as you drive away, pretending I'm going to miss you?
There were times this year when it felt like we were meant to be together forever. Can a year be a soulmate? Most of those times were professional moments, when I was doing work I somehow felt I'd prepared my whole life for. Like the story of my life and my work became one. There's goosebumps and miracle in that. You did feel miraculous at times. I wrote a few articles this year that I know would have been impossible without you. You brought wisdom and intellect and emotions to the table I never saw coming. I never knew I had. You were a wise one, 2023. I have seen my boys smile and laugh this weekend in ways that have brought me a peace that maybe no fathering year has ever ended with. Their peace has such influence on my peace. For you to throw that out here this final weekend - you're begging me to keep you aren't you? You took me to Honduras. I guess you were a little jealous of 2019 for bringing me that opportunity first. But you knew how much I longed to go back and you gifted me that. It's a very special thing to reunite one with something they've missed. Thank you for that. You were thoughtful, 2023. We spent so much time together in the mountains and on the shore. There's something beautiful about spending time looking out from high upon the world, and something deeply reflective about standing where the larger than life world meets larger than life water. I need them both. All year you made me feel seen in your knowing that. But you were by no means a saint, my friend. You reminded me I'm not getting any younger. Yea, I hear you. You continue to blame me for not eating and sleeping and exercising better. But I put a lot of the blame on you. You years do something to us!! I do promise, though, to revisit that whole eating and sleeping and exercising thing with 2024..... You reminded me that some struggles never end, and in fact some years they are harder than others. It seems like you years have that in common, you show up wanting us to hide you from all the pain of the years that came before you. There were many times, 2023, when even though we were hanging out together, life felt quite alone. I don't blame you for that; many of the years that came before you set you up to feel very distant at times. But you did feel very distant at times. There was a time or two that you let me glimpse at dream come true, only to quickly say not now. Were you being cruel or kind? Is it possible you were looking out for a friend of yours, some year to come, setting them up to experience the beauty of your work? I wouldn't put it past you. You seemed to be a year that was pointing me to the future. Of better days to come. You may have done that better than any year has ever done it. Maybe your nickname is hope. So in the end, I'm not going to beg you to stay, or shove you out the door. I'm simply going to say thank you. You years are a lot like the people. None of you stay forever. The key, I suppose, is to cling forever to the beauty that can be found in each of them. Dispatch forever any ugliness. And don't even consider, not for a second, bitterness. 2014 had a song, Let It Go. 2014 was wise like you. In the end, years and people, you are all teachers. That's what you are. Teachers. It is up to us to learn, because that is life, after all. Learning. When we recognize that, it's pretty easy to stand at the door, whether begging to stay or shoving away, and feel grateful. So maybe part of me is happy to see you go. Part of me is indeed sad. But all of me my dear friend - my dear, dear 2023 - all of me is grateful. So thank you. Give my best to all the years gone by. I very much miss a few of them. And please, whatever you do, tell 2024 to treat me well.
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Several years ago, I walked into my boss's office. I had an idea that would significantly change the focus of our work. It was a bit radical relative to our current vision, but when I shared MY vision, she said go get it.
She had no idea what go get it meant. She had no idea how to support me in the go get it other than to say you've got my support. But what she could do, what she DID do, was imagine what I was imagining. That's been life-changing for me this past decade. My life intersecting with people who can imagine what I'm imagining enough to support my dreams. A boss. A dear friend. People who have left me forever pointed toward - seeking - people who can imagine what I am imagining. Not all of us can do that for one another. I am admittedly small minded when it comes to being able to imagine what some other people are imagining. Imaginations aren't created equal. It's why I've come to believe a key to life is finding the people you can safely imagine with. People who are dream fuel and not dream death. This is no small key. Albert Einstein says our imaginations act as a preview of the future. Yet, how many futures get derailed because something comes along and derails all that we are imagining. Too often that is a someone we are imagining with. As we roll into a new year, we often spend time imagining all that will be different in the year ahead. And at the same time, we reflect on the year we're leaving and often see things we imagined for this past year never came to be. It's worth considering, as we approach 2024, maybe we don't need to imagine differently. Maybe we need to imagine with different people. Our imaginations are often the reason we get out of bed in the morning. They are our fuel for life. That makes it pretty important to find people who will be fuel for our imaginations. Imaginations can often be a preview of the future. I'm imagining some beautiful things for 2024. For me and for you. Maybe one of the most authentic things one can say is, "I am healing."
It is our shared truth; we are all healing. All of us were infants born into a moment of distress, and from that moment on we collected and continue to collect layers of distresses and heartbreaks and traumas and trials, leaving us all in a constant state of disrepair. Emotional and physical and mental and spiritual disrepair. And that is OK. Our minds and bodies are designed to assist us with healing. They are on the constant lookout for distresses that might need comfort. They are designed to bring us that comfort. Do you know what stands in the way of our minds and bodies assisting us that way the most, though? It's the illusion of healed. It's the unwillingness to say I am broken while protecting a narrative that says there's nothing wrong here. There may be no greater stressor in the world than protecting the narrative that says there's nothing wrong here. Because it's not true. Everyone always has something wrong here. This need we feel to have it all together, this pressure we place on one another to have it all together, it's killing us. It's filling us with disorders and diseases and distresses that work against that natural current of our lives. The current of healing. I long for a world that can proclaim together, I am broken. Only then will it become possible for the world to work together toward healing. That's important. Because these bodies that long to assist us in finding comfort, they look for it most in one another. The distresses you and I feel are healed in the healthiest ways while in the midst of another's soothing and comfort. Remember that infant born into a moment of distress? It's our design to find healing in partnership with another. I don't know how we got here. This place where our greatest truth - broken - is often seen as the world's greatest taboo. I spent most of my life broken while holed up in the illusion of having it all together. I had guards posted at the door with orders to stop in their tracks anyone daring to challenge that illusion. We are born so authentically broken. So desperately in need of repair. So how do we get to a place where that is not the truth of our being but a dark cloud that hangs over it? We are born beautifully broken. And our lifelong healing journey is a reflection of that beauty, not a scar. If only we would join each other in that beauty, in the natural current of life, how much more beautiful could life be? If we all weren't living in a place of hiding our layers, but instead sharing them with one another, how many more layers of life could be added to life? Added to with years and depth and meaning. We are all stumbling into the new year broken. Oh how beautiful that is. Maybe 2024 can be the year where instead of running off alone to a place called healed, we join with each other in a journey called healing. And maybe we discover that healing is far more beautiful than we ever imagined healed could be. Maybe 2024 is the year we give each other more permission to say, "I am broken." Last Christmas morning was the most challenging morning since my divorce a few years ago. You don't ever expect to wake up in your own version of Home Alone, so there's really no way to prepare for it.
Last Christmas, "peace on earth, good will to men" were nothing more than lyrics sung by those living in peace to people also living in peace. Me, I was neither singing nor hearing. I remember telling myself, Christmas will look different next year. Because in my mind, I was picturing the kind of circumstances that would look and feel more like peace. (Enter stage left: reality.) The reality is I woke up this Christmas morning in pretty much the exact same circumstances I woke up in last year. To my surprise, though, there was peace. Last year I was looking for circumstances that felt like peace. This year I was greeted by a God who felt like peace. (He was there last year, he just didn't look much like my circumstances so I missed him.) Steven Furtick says, "it is impossible to experience peace when you're expecting perfection." It's easy to start defining peace as the circumstances we long for. Which makes it easy to define turmoil by the circumstances we are in. Oh dear Lord, the amount of time I've spent lamenting the circumstances I am in or longing for circumstances better than those. How many of you can relate? But I had friends reach out with timely messages this Christmas. Not with encouragement or not with promises it will all get better, but directly or indirectly reminding me that the God of peace was with me right there and then. My Christmas morning walk on the beach. The God of the sunrise breaking through the cloudy circumstances to remind me, I am here. The God of perfection voluntarily showing up in an imperfect Christmas morning world to assure us that he never needs a perfect place or a perfect situation or perfect people to deliver peace. He simply needs us to look deep inside our circumstances, no matter what they are, and say: I see you God. I accept your peace. Because that is life. Peace is not accepting our circumstances, peace is accepting God in the midst of whatever those circumstances might be. Do I long for different circumstances in the year ahead? In some cases, you bet. Do I need different circumstances in the year ahead to experience peace? Not nearly as much as I did last year. Peace is a journey, and I am headed in the right direction. May we all journey closer to peace in the year ahead, no matter what the year ahead brings. 12/27/2023 0 Comments Your destiny is youI am not one who believes in destiny. At least not the way destiny is often referred to, which is usually a predetermined course of events or an inevitable future.
I don't believe in predetermined. I don't believe in inevitable. I believe we are all given gifts and passions and callings and a holy guidance. Beyond that, I believe we are given a lot of freedom to make something out of those God-given ingredients. I think when we get to believing there is someplace I am supposed to be right now, or someplace I've been scripted to ultimately land, that is a recipe for feeling less than. For feeling imperfect. Because the truth is, when we believe there is a predetermined course of events in our life, and we get to measuring our progress, we usually aren't measuring ourselves against where God predetermined us to be, we are measuring ourselves against where we think other people think we should be. And sometimes, even worse, we are measuring ourselves against who and where other people already are. Too often, we believe God has predetermined our course. Yet, we measure our imperfections against the people around us, not against any plan God might have set for us. I am one who used to measure life that way. I am one who was often burdened by the weight of those imperfections. But today, where I am IS my destiny. And where I am is on a path shaped by my own actions and choices. There are actions and choices along that path I'm not proud of, and some I proudly wouldn't change for anything in the world. But all of those choices, they are mine. My destiny, it is mine. Life can get to feeling very defeating if you think you're supposed to be at some point in a script. Whether that script is someone else's script for your life or God's script, it's a script that leaves you living inside a box you never feel quite worthy of living in. It's quite different to believe that where I am today is not where I could be. It's quite different to believe that where I am could be making better use of my gifts and passions and callings and a holy guidance. It's quite different to believe I COULD be doing better and not that I SHOULD be doing better. Could suggests a destiny I can create. Should suggests a destiny I'll never be able to fulfill. As we point ourselves to the new year, and maybe we are thinking about our 2024 destiny, commit to having an absolutely imperfect year. But be sure to measure those imperfections against who you could be, and not who you should be. Be sure to measure those imperfections against where you are and not some idea of where you have been scripted to be. And know every single day that where you are is your destiny. If your destiny feels like it's less than it could be, change it. Because you can. Your destiny is you. I called my boys last night. I asked them what they got for Christmas. They rattled off their list. They seemed really happy and grateful.
And with that, Christmas was over. That's how it can feel today. After all the shopping and gift exchanges and cookie swaps and cooking and cleaning, today can feel like a hangover. It can feel like Christmas is over. But for Jesus, the one for whom this all took place, for him, today is let's get this party started. Because for Jesus, the Christmas party is never about celebration to begin with, it is about transformation. Baby Jesus didn't come to the manger to be celebrated, he came to be a change agent. And change rarely shows up in the stable where the party takes place; it shows up where people take it once they leave the stable behind. It's kind of like church. What's the point of showing up to sing with one another on Sunday if we're going to be screaming at each other on Monday? The baby in a manger, the Christmas story, is the delivering of the gifts of kindness, compassion, forgiveness, and love towards others. But if we're too exhausted from giving our gifts to one another, who is left to deliver these gifts that Jesus gave to us? If we are all drained in the Christmas after party, who is left to carry on the good tidings of great joy the angels announced were awaiting us in the stable? Jesus didn't show up to invite us into Christmas. Jesus showed up to invite us to take Christmas into the world. This morning is a great morning to ask, not what did I get for Christmas, but what is different about who I am BECAUSE OF Christmas. Today is a great day to ask, did Christmas leave me better at making the world a better place for all? Because that's what Jesus came to make us better at, not throwing lavish Christmas parties. I'm not here trying to poo poo on anyone's Christmas season or Christmas parties. If we've all been through this Christmas season and we're all feeling like today is the perfect day to start delivering those good tidings of joy to the world, well there's no party too big to celebrate that. But if we're not feeling that way, if we don't have enough left in the tank for that, it's possible we went to the wrong party. Or at least forgot what we were there to celebrate. We have our gifts now. Jesus brought them. Kindness and compassion and forgiveness and love for all others. Jesus has challenged us to load up our sleighs and start delivering today. Maybe Jesus does believe in Santa? For Christmas is not over, at least not in Jesus' eyes. In his eyes, Christmas has only begun. 12/25/2023 0 Comments Behold, the world has so much to sayAnd the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.
Behold. Did you know the word behold is used, when factoring in countless translations, over 1500 times in the bible. And it is almost always used to signal that something very noteworthy is ahead. It almost always introduces a revelation or something significant. Like, behold, unto you is born this day, Christ the Lord. The bible tells us over and over to behold, but so does our world. As I walked onto the beach this morning, I could hear the sunrise calling me; behold. Pastor David Dwight says that behold is always an introduction to something bigger. Behold is rarely an invitation to stop and see, but an invitation to see and then to keep seeing more. Like we do with the beholds in the bible, maybe too often we don't pay enough attention to the beholds in our world. This morning, the sunrise stopped me and reminded me: peace. This morning, the sunrise stopped me and reminded me: there are days when it's easy to focus on all that is missing, but so much is always here. Like the sunrise. This morning, the sunrise stopped me and reminded me: some days are hard, but behold, they are always preparing us for a day yet to come. This morning, the sunrise stopped me and reminded me: the sun rises over us all. It skips none of us. Today a child is born, a child who so deeply longs to skip none of us. And like the sunrise, and that child, we too are to skip none of us. Merry Christmas to all of you. May you behold all that the world is holding for you in the days and weeks and year ahead. This world is calling you, behold. Don't miss it. Dear Jesus,
It’s the fourth Sunday of Advent. A season of joy. A season when we reflect on your arrival in the nativity scene, and all that your arrival will mean and has meant to the world. I’ve borrowed a song from Maverick City Music to help with my own personal reflections this month. They have a song, maybe you’ve heard of it 😊 - it’s called Fear is Not My Future. In the song, the writers make four proclamations: Fear is not my future, you are. Sickness is not my story, you are. Heartbreak’s not my home, you are. Death is not the end, you are. This morning, I want to reflect on the fourth proclamation; death is not the end, you are. We are finally here, Jesus. After a month of anticipating your arrival, your birth, tomorrow we will celebrate just that. But the reality is, it's not YOUR birth you'd wish for us to celebrate. It's ours. It is our new birth, found in you, into a new life, that unlike the one we too often embrace, has no end. For the Christmas story is not about birth, it's about death. It's about reshaping our narrative of death so that it is no longer the end of life, but simply a stage we go through to experience everlasting life. For what is life if it has an end? If the grand results of all that we have purposed and experienced is disappearance, what is the point of it all? And if there is an end to it all, how can all that we purpose not be interrupted by the constant fear of our own disappearance? Of our own death? You heard our wranglings. You sensed our fears. And so you sent a baby in a manger, you BECAME a baby in a manger, to begin the journey of assuring us that death is not the end. Death is a calling. Like the shepherds were called to see face to face that precious child in the manger, your birth and the way you lived your life and your death and your resurrection, they are a calling to us as well. A calling to celebrate OUR birth in that manger. OUR birth into a new life where death will never be an end, but rather a door, that like the shepherds we will walk though, and see, face to face, the creator of our life without end. Oh, how I long for that door, Jesus. Not because I am weary of this life, but because like those shepherds, and Mary and Joseph, and all who experienced your first moments, I too long to hold the baby in a manger. Not for a moment, but for eternity. Because after all, that is the promise of Christmas. The promise that death is not the end. You are Jesus. Sweet, precious, baby Jesus. You are. When I shared this image a few days ago, a friend reached out and said she didn't know why, but the image stirred something in her that made her tear up.
It did me as well. And her message led me to reflecting deeper on the reason for my own stirring. I ultimately think it's because when I originally took the photo, I saw it as a metaphor for loneliness. The loneliness I have often felt. The loneliness I have heard many others describe to me. A loneliness that is sometimes quite simply found in being alone. Like a shell on an endless beach; no other shells around. But other times, and maybe most often the place where loneliness shows up, is feeling so small in the grandness of this big world that I could not possibly be noticed. I could not possibly be known or of worth. Yet. for the shell, and for you and me, the sunrise shows up every morning. The waves rush to the shore to greet us. The sands, in their countless grains, invite us to join them. Why? That's the question that trips us up. Maybe deceives us. Because many times, we will choose to answer that question negatively. We let the answer be a reminder that we are relatively nothing in the grand scheme of things. But what if the answer is that the grand scheme of things is nothing without us? What if the beautiful sunrise scene becomes not much of a scene at all without the shell? What if the sunrise and the waves and the sands lose all of their meaning if it's not for me and for you being there to experience them? What if the sunrise and the waves and the sands know of those days when we feel alone, and small, and they show up to remind us that together there is nothing small about us at all? In the end, I don't picture this image as a metaphor for loneliness at all. I see it as a metaphor for comfort. The comfort found when we allow the grandness of this world to serve as a reminder of the grandness created in each and every one of us. Even the shell. 12/22/2023 0 Comments Sometimes It's OK To simply have a dayI will likely always share this post when it pops up this time of the year. I desperately needed these words once. I still do at times. So maybe you need to hear them as well.
But years ago a friend sent me the words quoted below. She said she sent them not to assume sadness, but to recognize that with holidays there can come hard days. She is right. There are hard days. And what a gift it is to have someone in your life who will predict it, see it coming, and say it; I know there are hard days. And what sweet relief, right? To be granted permission to not have a great day or to not knock it out of the park today or to even be a constant smile. What a blessing to hear: "I advise you to simply have a day." Some days our days are hard because we can't live up to the expectations a day places on us. Expectations are heavier during the Christmas season. But my friend has reminded me that not all days are made to be life changers. Some days are made to just be life. And there is nothing small about the gift of life. My friend also said this, "I could see you make this into a beautiful post that reaches so many more people." I think that was her heart wanting more people to know, it's OK to simply have a day. So for her, and from me, I don't want to assume sadness. Because you don't have to be sad to be having a hard day. And you also don't have to be over the moon happy to have a worthwhile day. Some days it's quite OK to just have a day. If you are reading this, you are having a day, and you are a gift to this day. You are a reason that makes this a day so worth having. If it's a hard day, I feel you. All I can say is feed yourself well, wear some comfortable clothes, and don't give up on yourself just yet. It'll get better. Until then, hey, let's you and me, let's simply have a day. |
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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