Perspective

It’s incredible what the human soul can bear. But as life rolls across us, each crashing wave feels like it will drown us completely. Yet, amid the pounding water around us, we remember each wave that came before and how we survived. We become more resilient. In fact, in many cases, it’s the tumble of the waves that polish us into something all the more beautiful. 

This is where we get perspective - in the memory of the waves, in our Faith, in the love of those who support us, and in the stories of triumph we share. I think this, in part, is how we learn to bear more. As time passes and our sorrows grow, we develop greater resilience to hardship and a much deeper appreciation for the wonder that we experience every day. We develop perspective. 

I think this is why people say things like “it’s all about your mindset” or “look on the bright side.” Our choice of what to focus on has a center-stage influence on our perspective. But in a way, it’s like choosing where to shine our spotlight but not understanding what we are seeing. As we become more well-rounded, we can see more and see more fully. Then we can have compassion for ourselves and others in our lives - and we can stand a little taller the next time a wave hits. 

What does it mean to offer that gift to others? To be patient when their corners aren’t as polished as our own? To help them with their sorrows when we’ve already endured? To embrace their triumphs and encourage their Faith? What would it look like if we learned to share our resilience? What could we accomplish together? What challenges could we overcome? 

Hopeful Sadness

There’s something about trying to see the fullness of something that carries with it a strange sadness. It’s not a depression, and “it” is difficult to fully describe. It’s almost as if to know what is, you also end up seeing what isn’t, but also what could be. It’s the moment between the darkness and the dawn, where you almost hold your breath.

What I’ve learned, I suppose, is that there is always so much depth and beauty in the experiences that shape my life, and the moments that seem to pass in a flash.  Behind knowing smiles there is heartbreak and joy. It’s the contrast that gives everything its color, but also carries its cost. The opportunity then is to proceed with compassion. To know sadness and joy, and to realize that things are always just so much… more… than they seem. It should mean that I think before I speak, that I treat others not only with kindness, but also gentleness, and that I hold loosely to my expectations, and enjoy the depth of each moment.

I don’t think it’s a concept I fully comprehend yet, and maybe I never will. What I think is there’s a strange sadness in knowing. This sadness makes things, deeper, more complex, but also fuller and more hopeful. Perhaps it’s a place of peace, and a place for growth. I think in the fullness of things we can find great strength, and great opportunity to know love.

How are you looking at things? Do you seek to see the fullness of what things are? Are you willing to know, be sad, but also be full of hope? How would it change how you approach conflict, others, and conquer your own challenges if you saw with depth? How would you love if your knowing smiles were full of joy, but also knew sadness?

I often run from discomfort and in that I try to make everything simple and controllable which creates a great deal of chaos. Perhaps in hopeful sadness I can also find rest.

What if we understood

We are at a time when information is everywhere. There is little that escapes the attention of the masses. We are also at a time when opinions are everywhere. Yet even with an abundance of opinions and information, understanding is scarce. 

Where is our understanding? Where is the humanity that says, one human to another, I understand? Our problems and opinions are not alien to one another. It is not that we can't understand, but understanding is a choice. 

What would happen if we began to understand each other? To know that what is human is something we can comprehend? What if we didn't care what flag someone waves, who they love, what they worship, look like, smell like, think like, talk like? 

What if on the street corner I said, "I see you." And what if on that street corner you responded, "I am seen." What if I said "I hear you" and you responded "I am heard." What if I said "I know you" and you responded "I am known." What if I said to you, "I get you" and you responded "I am understood." 

What if we took time to hear, to speak, to see, to know, and to understand? We may not like some humans. We certainly may not agree with people that think differently than we do. But what would happen if we sought to understand them, who they are, and what they care about? Would that really be such a bad thing? I think that would make the world a much better place. 

The challenge of tomorrow

When I wake up in the morning, before my feet hit the floor I am strategizing. I begin each day with considerations, concerns, and contingencies. Before I’ve brushed my teeth, taken a shower, and had my breakfast I have spent incredible amounts of energy trying to plan for, and avoid, anything that could go wrong. It is exhausting.

In the morning before my eyes have fully opened I have already started running. I’ll run from sadness, pain, disappointment, and discomfort. The intention, is that if I can avoid those things, then I will experience joy, laughter, excitement, and fulfillment. That’s not how it works. Progress is the only treatment for entropy. It is only when we stop looking behind us and start looking in front of us that we will ever get to where we are going.

Someone told me one time, “you know Caleb, there are people that get out of bed every day, get ready, and go about their business, without trying to control any of it?” I didn't understand how that was possible before, but tonight I watched Disney’s “Tomorrowland” and while I’m not sure the film itself is transformative, I certainly believe its message is. The movie is, in short, a story of what is and what could be. The core of what I came to understand the film to say was this; “Running from something will never get you anywhere, running to something will get you everywhere.

Running from something will never get you anywhere, running to something will get you everywhere.

The challenge with this idea, is that while hindsight might be 20/20, it is arguably the most common activity within the human experience. If we accept that there is not point, then what is the point? Entropy is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we limit ourselves to what we can see with perfect vision, then we will only see what has been, or what can go wrong. Then the things that we are focused on will become our reality, we will bring about our own death by accepting it's inevitability. However if we look at what can be, then we can move forward towards hope and what can be. What is more, if we broaden our perspective, then not only will we see what can be for ourselves, but also for the people around us. 

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said this; “An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.”

The world needs dreamers, and dreamers need each other. 

The world needs dreamers and dreamers need each other. The world needs people who are willing to rise above the confines of their today, and even their tomorrow. When you survey the state of affairs that we live in, you have a choice. On one hand, you can see death and destruction, on the other, you can see promise and possibility. The choice is not about focusing on one, and avoiding the other; ignorance only breeds foolishness. The choice is about seeing what is, and deciding how to respond.

I spent so much time each morning trying to control and plan because I was convinced that my failure was inevitable, and so I needed to minimize my pain any way I could. I was wrong. Inevitability is the birthplace of desolation, but it is an easy place to be, because what is inevitable only exists tomorrow, it doesn’t ask anything of you today.  

If you survey the world, you will see death, but you will also see hope. That is the choice I am going to make, to see both and to do whatever I can, however I can. I’ve realized I’m tired of waiting for someone else to do it for me. I will leave you with this quote from the film...

“Have you ever wondered what would happen if that smartest, most creative people in the world actually decided to change it?” 

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*NOTE: While I would love to take credit for all of these thoughts and ideas on my own, I can't. I have wonderful people around me that are much smarter than I am. While the impact, and realizations are my own, it wouldn't be without their help, love, support, and brilliant ideas that I would have ever come to any conclusions. They know who they are, and I cannot repay or thank them enough for their support. Seriously, they are some of the best people anyone could ever know. 

*NOTE: Pairing the MLK Jr. Quote with the concepts in Tomorrowland wasn't my idea either, again I'm surrounded by people that are brilliant. 

Bold compromise

I have a friend that used to always ask me, "What's good?" The question was designed to tilt my perspective, and evaluate my thoughts and circumstances critically. Lately I've had to consider the notion that critical thought is more than intense attention to a topic, rather it is intense attention to the antithesis of a topic. 

I believe that it is this idea that defines most clearly what it means to compromise. That compromise isn't a disregard of your opinion, but rather a regard for the opposing viewpoint. When I consider the moments in my life where I have seen the greatest accomplishment, the most victory, it is frequently after a long fought and bitter debate. When I have had the sweetest moments, or remember the times when my relationships were refined into something stronger, it is the times when each side has finally been able to see the other's perspective. 

Far too often compromise is viewed as giving up, and the goal of debate is to avoid giving in. What if compromise was instead the result of a culmination of the best of an idea, and debate intended to challenge, refine, and strengthen its opponents point of view? Listening isn't about understanding the context or comprehending someone's meaning. Listening is about incarnating with their story, beliefs, and conclusions and realizing that their viewpoint is valuable. Considering that not only can an opposing view be helpful but that often those that propose such an ideal do so with the best intentions, and information available to them, and that their intentions and information are good and complete. If such considerations were allowed, wouldn't the resulting conversation promote peace, understanding, and advancement? 

What would our schools sound like if the thunder of lively debate and complex thought could be heard echoing in the halls? What would our boardrooms look like if participants were engaged and vocal about their ideas? What would our churches feel like if congregants discussed complex beliefs and evaluated each moment? What would our political system accomplish if parties could learn from each other instead of spending their time destroying one another? 

I think it's time we start taking more boldly, and listening more intently. I think it's time compromise didn't mean the same thing as concession. I think it's time people were valued for their ideas, not by their ideas. I think it's time we engage. 

1+1=3?!?

Since when did 1+1=3? 

Over the past few months, I keep encountering situations where people are hoping against hope that if they will it strongly enough they can add 1 and 1 together and get a different result. That somehow, even though 1+1=2, if we try hard enough, believe strongly enough, and just think it's the right thing badly enough 1+1 will equal 3. 

Is this ideal a new human phenomenon? Or have we always believed that we could do the impossible? I am all for challenging yourself, I support perseverance, and I am not a fan of giving up. But 1+1 isn't 99% "3", it's 100% "2" - and it always will be. What is it that makes us believe the impossible and illogical? Is it our culture? Our humanism? Our faith? 

What makes us think we can keep doing the same thing and expect a different result?

What makes us believe that we can be anything more than who we are? That we can be smarter or dumber or prettier than the genes in our DNA dictate?

Where did we get the notion that people aren't typically selfish and proud? 

I'm really tired of playing games with people where they expect an impossible outcome, and I'm tired of playing them with myself. I know that I have unreasonable expectations, but how do we revisit our math and realize where we are trying to solve a problem that isn't solvable or get an answer that will never be true? 

How do we move forward when all we have is 1+1 and all we need is 3? 

Love

"They say it's better to have loved and lost.

But under what delusion could the cost of loosing be worth it?

Especially while never having loved at all won't cause you to fall on your face in sorrow. 

Love is not borrowed and returned, it's not a book with pages you can turn, and it isn't a treat to consume. 

Love is a cost. It's a price that you pay, it's a choice to say that they're worth your everything. 

Love is laying your chest bare, sharpening the blade and handing someone the hilt, and with guilt asking "please don't   kill me." 

Love is messy. Our philosophy and poetry makes us think it's a novel token, yet our culture has broken our expectations and warped our consideration of the crushing cost of our affections. 

Casually spoken, I love you, has turned us inward on ourselves, as a statement of status instead of surrender. 

Spoken in truth, I love you, turns outward and it turns us inside out, spilling the doubt in our words and revealing the intensity of our victorious defeat.  

Love goes first, it runs into the fire, not because love doesn't let you get burned, but because you yearn for the one behind the flames. 

Love lays down. Not without a fight but only to win, because it's goal is not supremacy, but intimate, vulnerability. 

Love lasts. Not because of an eternal flame or efforts to maintain a spark, but because love looks into the dark and makes the choice to push forward. Because true love is just as much a choice as it is a voice reassuring your decision. 

Love hurts. Always. Because there is always cost, so lost love never goes away, and the burn stays as a reminder of what you've given, what you've promised, and how you've risen to heights above only to lay yourself down below their blade. Even when no longer threatened, you can still feel the weapon you handed over pointing at your heart, because no measure of apartness can ever win it back. 

Never loving at all always lets you stand tall - proud, and you can proclaim that your whole. 

But unless you've loved, you won't ever know loss, and without loss you will never know the cost of their heart and the joyous pain of your own, reminding you that it's still beating. "

Copyright 2014 - all rights reserved

Scars

Lately I've been rather... Pensive. I have found myself, to an extent against my will, locked in thought about the whys of the world. What's been the most surprising is the memories that I didn't realize I had locked away. Daily I'm confronted with a memory that I had caused myself to forget. Some of these memories have been painful, others frustrating, and others have brought on a joy and sadness of a time lost. 

I've said that it is our experiences that shape us. Yet more and more I'm bewildered at how true that seems to be. I think about pain and frustration that I've had to endure, and it seems that it will never go away. That's what scars are though, aren't they? Scars are a reminder of what we love, the things that have caused us to bleed. I think about good things too, joy that I'm familiar with, but had forgotten how to find. It's the joy of being free, the joy of letting your heart stand vulnerable. The joy of loving and being loved. 

That's what we all want, to be loved. We all desire the feeling you get when you stand exposed, your scars on display, and have someone else still love you. We all want someone to make us feel like we matter, we want someone to soothe our pain, and kiss the scars away. Our pain shapes us, and it teaches us what we really value. 

Love is expensive. It costs us ourselves. It binds us to the will of others, and shackles our emotions to things we cannot control. Love is the most expensive free resource we have. We always seem to be able to make more of it. Truly loving others makes our hearts catch flame and start beating again, it makes us feel alive. 

I know my story. I know my pain, and my scars, I know my joys and my laughter. Yet sometimes I don't know me, I don't know what I look like without scars. Maybe that's the point. Maybe that's why we need other people, because they can look past the scars that we can't help but see. Sometimes all I can see of myself is what's broken, but people that love me see what can make me whole. Maybe other people allow us to cry, to dance, and to sing; because we can kiss their scars, and they can kiss ours. 

Common Unity

"Community" 

​What a strange word. It's a word that elicits images of Church on Sunday morning, Friday night at the bar, Thanksgiving Dinner, a romantic walk on the beach, water cooler chats at the office, and a sitcom about college by the same name. Each image is completely different from the others but each shares a common thread, in community you are not alone. In community loneliness flees. 

Perhaps that's why people crave community so much. Maybe it's the pain that loneliness brings that drives us to community. Loneliness and being by yourself are very different things, the latter is a choice, the former an emotion. 

Community needs to be more than an escape from loneliness. Escaping loneliness is good, but often when the time for community ends the pain of being alone can feel so much worse. "It is better to have loved and lost," does not always apply. Community is fueled when there is a goal. Even if the goal is to invest in others, community needs a mission. 

There, as always, is a catch. The mission can very quickly overtake the people, and the goal of the community can destroy the "common" that support it. The only thing worse than being lonely by yourself, is being lonely while you are surrounded by others.  I think that's what's started happening to us. 

We are so ready to not be alone, that we pick up a banner and start waving in hopes that people come join us. Our loneliness is sated only briefly and so we keep chanting louder, trying to rally others to our cry. Like an addict and a drug we dance with this idea of community, this lie that we are loved by the people shouting with us. Eventually the high fades, but our addiction to the cause only swells, because after all - it's all we know. 

Sooner than later the cause eclipses the community and our passion the people. Our tea parties, sidewalk prophets, extremists, legalists, conspiracy theorists, vigilantes, and protesters rise out of the ashes, the people forgotten, and the charge their new drug. 

When did we become so addicted the sound of our own voices? When did our hunger for relationships dovetail into a hunger for "rightness"? 

We have to redeem community. It's not going to come from an organized weekly meeting, or even a common goal. Community will come back if we start paying attention to each other and ignore our tenants and decrees. If we put aside our piety and politics, then we can be whole again. Then we can stop being so terribly alone. 

Religious Persecution

Religious guilt. More and more I'm reading news articles and seeing stories about how people's lives have been flipped on their head due to self imposed quasi-religious morality. It's really starting to become a wide spread tragedy. 

Ten minutes ago I read an article about a woman who was a virgin until her honeymoon but because she had worked so hard at not "being bad" and having sex or sexual thoughts that for the next two years she hated having sex with her husband. Something that she should have found incredible enjoyment in was agonizing and full of guilt and shame.

Let me be clear: I am not making any sort of judgement call on virginity or the lack thereof. I am hardly qualified to pass judgement on such things. This woman's story is just a single example of how Americanized Extreme Evangelicalism and "religiousness" is really screwing up people's lives. 

Personally I have spent my whole life trying to "be good." I've done the right things, said "yes ma'am", and minded the speed limit. It hasn't been until recently however that I've realized how much weight I've carried around. My religious, moral or social obligations have made me absolutely miserable. I've strived to do "what's good" and yet instead of climbing Jacob's ladder I've buried myself in self righteous guilt and obligation. 

This isn't about Christianity itself, this is about the mountain of guilt Christians and other hyper religious people bury themselves and the people around them under. Enough is enough. It's not sufficent to say "it's not a religion, it's a relationship" or some other "shoot Christians say" catch phrase. That isn't the point. The point is that until we, as people, as #firstworldproblem Americans, and as a collective group (insert your church here) stop holding everyone else to our self imposed righteousness. Notice I said self imposed - not divinely ordained or democratically enacted. 

Casting Crowns is a contemporary-Christian band and in one of their songs they say "Are we just shiny plastic people, under shiny plastic steeples, with walls to hide our weakness, and smiles to hide our shame? Well if the invitations open, to everyone that has been broken, maybe then we'll close the curtain on this stained glass masquerade." The problem is that we pretend to do that all the time. Gospel tracs on the Roman's road have turned into Papyrus font laden stories of "finding Jesus." We've replaced forgiveness of a scarlet letter with a tattoo covered worship leader, and we've exchanged our suit clad sidewalk prophets with graphic-t's and rectangular wire-frame glasses. 

We don't allow people to be real with their lives today, we only let them confess yesterday. If their today doesn't meet our expectations we have a litany of programs, books, and seminars to help them conform by tomorrow. It has to stop. We need to stop fixing each other, and fixing ourselves, and trying for all manner of moral elitism; and we need to just breathe. 

The world would be a drastically better place if we just left well enough alone. What if we allowed people to love each other because they genuinely care about each other, not because they are that month's community service project? What if we went to church, or "fellowship group" because we liked the people there and wanted to be with them, not because we liked (or thought we were expected to like) the people there and didn't want them to think less of us for not showing up? 

What if we let people show their spots realizing that some spots never change, and many are never supposed to? What if we stopped declaring whatever made us the most comfortable and conformed as "absolute truth" and started to just listen to the truth of people's hearts and lives? What if we put down our venom to keep Santa out of christmas, evolution out of science class, and gay people out of government/church/ect? What would happen if we saw ourselves for who we really were, and then could take the people around us at face value? 

I don't know about you but it sounds pretty good to me. I think we would find that the world, our faith, and our families were much more like we wanted them to be in the first place. 

Strike point

What is it about the strike points in life that mean so much?The point where the hammer hits the nail, the rubber hits the road, or one life seems to strike another? I've always said it's people's experiences that shape who they are - but I don't think that's completely true. It's not people's general experiences, but rather a very specific set of moments that somehow rise above normal human activities and seem to mean so much more. 

Lately I've been challenged to think about the moments that seem to transcend the rest of the day. It doesn't seem to matter if they are moments that leave me out of breath from my laughter or tears, they all seem to strike a cord with who I am and what I believe in. The hard part is ordering my life in such a way that I encounter these strike points more frequently. 

I have a few friends that are really good at finding these moments. They seem to focus all their attention on the people around them, and the things they believe matter. They're inspiring in their integrity, commitment to fight for what they believe in, and drive to make the people they encounter feel valued. This commitment, passion, and excitement for the people in their lives creates an addicting energy that seems to leave a litany of these strike points in its wake. 

Maybe it's those things that make the difference. If we're willing to invest in our community. If we're willing to stand up and be counted for who we are, and if we're committed to affording the people around us the same opportunity, maybe then we're able to tap into those moments that shape our tomorrow. Maybe then we can see ourselves for who we really are. 

Blogging take....? I lost count

So this is me... blogging... again. 

Maybe it's some obligation to my "millennial" classification, but every six to twelve months I have this strange desire to start a blog. Within 30 days the desire has vanished, and generally so has my blog. 

At any rate - each time I give blogging a go I make some statement about how I'm really going to stick with it this time. If my repeated attempts have taught me one thing, it's that there is a 90-95% chance that this will be my only post...ever. With that in mind, welcome to my blog, I hope you enjoy!