Vertebrae

Jesus commanded Peter, “Put your sword away! Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?” John 18:11   Jesus is being arrested. It’s finally happening. After countless ruffling of the religious elite, calling Pharisees a “brood of vipers”, and constantly disrupting societal norms... They’ve had enough. They’re going to put an end to it.    In the middle of the night. With lots of manpower.    John 18:3 says that Judas guided a “detachment of soldiers” into the garden. Scholars estimate that a “detachment” was somewhere between 200–600 men. They’re coming to arrest a teacher and his eleven friends. And they're carrying torches, lanterns and weapons.    Jesus confronts them immediately. “Who is it you want?”    “Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied.   “I am he,” Jesus said.   When the soldiers step forward to arrest Jesus, Peter draws his sword and in a moment of equal parts “lightning-fast speed” and “complete unfamiliarity with how to use a sword” he cuts off one of the accuser’s ears. It’s violent and emo

To learn more about the Enneagram: https://www.enneagraminstitute.com To buy Richard Rohr's book that some of these thoughts came from: https://amzn.to/2li1ruP 

Over the course of my life thus far, I’ve been faced with a number of difficult decisions… From simpler ones like which sport to play in high school, or which college to attend—to more complex ones like who to marry, and which profession to pursue… How many kids do you have? When do you invest your money and when do you take risks with new adventures? When your daughter has Type 1 Diabetes, which healthcare do you choose? How do we want to structure our business? Employees or contractors? LLC or S-Corp…    I have a “GoDaddy graveyard” ofGREAT IDEAS!!! that didn’t turn out to be great ideas at all. I’ve started down paths to pursue starting clothing companies, learning environments, online courses, co-working spaces, art galleries… All ideas. All on the cutting-room floor.    We’re faced with thousands of decisions every day. In fact, if you do some research you’ll realize that we make somewhere around 35,000 semi-conscious decisions per day. Nearly 300 just on food alone, according to researchers at Cornell. 

When my wife and I first met, and we were dating, it became very clear, early on, that we handled conflict differently. What would pique my interest and get me excited for a hard conversation would get her blood pressure up and have her running for the hills. I would want to engage, she would want to escape. I would want to investigate, she would want to ignore at all costs.    After meeting her family, I recognized that we had very different upbringings. My father was famous for stopping a conversation in the middle of dinner to pull me aside and correct what I had just done or said inappropriately. It was awkward for 5 minutes, but it addressed the issue and we moved forward not carrying anything with us.    Elyse was more comfortable with skirting the conversation, trying to brush it under the rug and get out of the dinner unscathed. That’s what she would consider “success.”    She was a peace-keeper (just wanting to keep the peace) and I was a peace-maker, (just wanting to do anything in my power to fix i

While you're at it, go check out Andrew Peterson's song: "Be Kind to Yourself." You'll be glad you did.

Richard Rohr's "Immortal Diamond": https://amzn.to/2kLABuL

It’s hard to stomach how powerless we are over certain things. Racism; poverty; intolerance; inequality… And honestly, even the smallest things can be just as frustrating. Our children’s behavior; our personal finances; hell, even the laundry.  We are confronted (daily) with our inability to control significant parts of our lives. As a pastor, I spend time with people at all different stages of their lives. Some are older and more spiritually/emotionally mature, while some are older and substantially less mature. And the same is true for people younger than me. Some people develop personal discipline and rhythms that benefit them greatly, while some people lack basic boundaries that inevitably spread themselves too thin to do anything of significance. But most all of us carry one thing in common: We want to see change. We want to see change in ourselves, in our families, in our church communities, and in our world. But how?  How do we become prophets that stand up and speak out against the injustices? How c

“Remain in me, and I will remain in you! The branch can’t bear fruit by itself, but only if it remains in the vine. In the same way, you can’t bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. People who remain in me, and I in them, are the ones who bear plenty of fruit. Without me, you see, you can’t do anything. — John 15:4-5 Remain. It’s one of the hardest things to do… Remaining faithful. Staying engaged. Participating wholeheartedly.  When it’s new, it’s natural to be excited. The sheer thrill of “new” envelopes us. We soak everything in and allow this new part of us to blossom. Faith is beautiful at first. A recognition of our helplessness; an admission of inadequacy met with an extended hand of grace. It changes how we see the world, and how we see our own lives… Everything suddenly has a deeper layer to it. A footnote clarifying what was really going on when that thing was going on. (e.g. Something mindless and devastating happens, but suddenly you begin to recognize the i

Every time I start a new journal, I open it to the first page and scribble all over it. Why? It disarms the pressure of a brand new journal… These sacred, white pages… waiting for profound thoughts and notes to fill them. So where do you start? You scribble. Immediately make it imperfect. Not in some sort of sadistic way, but in a freeing way. How do you fight the fear of a blank page? You just start writing a few words. Even if you go back and disregard them later, they broke the seal. They got the wheels turning. And that’s exactly what this is.  Introduction and background. Been wanting to do this for a while but had never found a thread (through line) to connect it all. The vertebrae in my life felt like they were out of alignment.  Helping grow fruit on other people’s trees.  I’m constantly ingesting (and hopefully digesting) teaching from around the world. Leaders in faith, in marketing, in emerging industries, in family, in leadership… There’s not really anything that ties them together in my life,