President using Biblical quotes... for once not out of context!

Well Said Amen

1,096 days

It has been three years today that Mom passed away. I still miss her dearly.

Walking the path of an Eagle

I'm not sure how many of you have heard about this or not but I found it too fascinating to pass by. The Grand Canyon Skywalk has been in construction since March of 2004 and is scheduled to be completed by the end of March this year. It's a Glass Bridge that extends 70 feet out of the canyon top and the Colorado River flows 4,000 feet below it!

The man who envisioned it is a member of the Hualapai tribe and the money goes to supporting the Hualapai nation. His intent was to be able to recreate what it was like for an eagle to fly over the Grand Canyon... only for us.

My family has talked about going to the Grand Canyon this spring or summer and I would love to just lie on the glass on my stomach and look down 4,000 feet and imagine that I am an eagle soaring!

Belonging

The aborigines of Australia say that for each person there is one place in the natural world where he most belongs, a place that is a part of him and where he is part of that place. In finding that place, he also finds his true self.

I'm still looking for that place. Have you found yours? If so, reflect on your belonging to that place and the message it continues to speak to you.

Horizons

Another poem by David Whyte. Think of these words as being spoken by a wise and caring elder to a frightened initiate.

Sweet Darkness

When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.

There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your womb tonight.

The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.

You must learn one thing:
the world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

~ David Whyte ~

(House of Belonging)

Falling toward the center of our longing

In one of the book's I'm currently reading, I came across this poem by David Whyte. I believe it captures the spirit of what our life journey is and should be about.

Self Portrait

It doesn't interest me if there is one God
Or many gods.
I want to know if you belong -- or feel abandoned;
If you know despair
Or can see it in others.
I want to know
If you are prepared to live in the world
With its harsh need to change you;
If you can look back with firm eyes
Saying "this is where I stand."
I want to know if you know how to melt
Into that fierce heat of living
Falling toward the center of your longing.
I want to know if you are willing
To live day by day
With the consequence of love
And the bitter unwanted passion
Of your sure defeat.
I have been told
In that fierce embrace
Even the gods
Speak of God.

~ David Whyte ~

(Fire in the Earth)

5 different looks

Goatee (Second most common look)

Clean shaven (I look like I'm 14)

Brethren Beard (My most common look)

Full Beard (Mr. Counterculture!)

Mountain Man Goatee (Name says it all)

I was having some fun with different styles of facial hair! Gotta favorite?

What matters most

The message today at church was particularly challenging in light of an all too familiar passage of scripture that has been used probably throughout all Christianity in order to convert to the faith. It got me thinking about our “aliveness”. When we read the passage, we must not forget that it was written not to unbelievers but to a church that had become lukewarm.

I agree with the message about how it is easier to work with someone who is spiritually “cold”, because they care enough to disagree; versus someone who is a “lukewarm”, apathetic, quasi-Christian. Even more so is the fact that God prefers us to be either hot or cold.

There is an affirmation response that we used at the A Place Apart retreat last year that really captured the kind of aliveness that God seeks for our lives:

This is what matters most now
To know the one who died and came to life
To walk in the way that he walked
To love in the way that he loved
To come alive
To be alive
Now and forever*

Last May, I posted a series of reflections on the heels and after the A Place Apart weekend about our atrophied spirits and what it means to be alive. I was so moved by the experience that I ended up renaming my blog from Liminal Space to Quest for Life. I believe I am really starting to uncover in my own life the ways that my spirit has become atrophied. My quest for life has been shared with you about the places that I fell most alive. I hope that we can all benefit from such a quest rather than our persistent state of narcolepsy.

Reread the Revelation text and sit with the imagery of what it means to have passion in your life and who may be drawing that passion out of your present “mummified” state.

Hot?
Cold?
Lukewarm?

Your life?
The church?
America?

Where are you and where are we going?

*From the A Place Apart Training Manual, pg. 82

Eight Intelligences

One of the many interesting points made in the Louv's book, Last Child in the Woods, dealt with the Theory of Multiple Intelligences.

This is a small summary from that chapter in the book:

Howard Gardner, a professor of education at Harvard, developed his influential theory of multiple intelligences in 1983. (He) argued that the traditional notion of intelligence, based on the I.Q. testing, was far too limited; he instead proposed seven types of intelligences to account for a broader range of human potential in children and adults. These included: linguistic ("word smart"); logical-mathematical ("number/reasoning smart"); spatial ("picture smart"); bodily-kinesthetic ("body smart"); musical ("music smart"); interpersonal ("people smart"); intrapersonal ("self smart"). More recently, he added an eighth intelligence: naturalist ("nature smart").

I can think of two strong intelligences that I claim as my own with bits of other ones as well. Whether you agree with Gardner or not, the author was challenging the reader not to overlook each child's (or your own) possible intelligence and how they may best be able to learn.

I can only imagine if I had more training in the naturalist intelligence of how much more knowledgeable I'd be. Many children today are lacking a nature education form of training to heighten their own nature intelligence.

- Quote from page 71 in the book.