Every moment is a mosaic of will, inviting us to embrace or disconnect from remembering (faith), dreaming (hope), and moving forward into engagement despite the potential for suffering (love); with our past, present, and future, all ever at hand.
“Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become the next moment. By the same token, every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.” – Frankl
What we believe, what we choose to think about, and what we say to others is all semi-autobiography.
“My story is important not because it is mine… but because if I tell it anything like right, the chances are you will recognize that in many ways it is also yours.”- Beuchner
Pain, joy, hunger, hope, longing, depth, relentless, wild, love, hate, unsafe, emotional imagination… image-bearer.
“Let people feel the weight of who you are and let them deal with it.”- Eldridge
Just like the Devil to Jesus in the desert, the world is set up to convince you that it can offer something that you already have.
“The point then is to help break the false distinction between the idea that there are those who are whole and those who have a lack. For the true distinction is between those who hide their lack under the fiction of wholeness and those who are able to embrace it.” -Rollins
We want to change in order to make ourselves happy, but the bigger risk would be to notice how we are already surviving the changes that have occurred outside of our will, in order to make ourselves whole.
“We are here essentially, to risk ourselves in the world, we are a form of invitation to others and to otherness; we seem meant to hazard ourselves for the right thing…against all the odds.” -Whyte
Our “problems” are less our problems than the intensity at which we hold our problems.
“Why so serious?”- The Joker
The mysterious and purposeful dance of masculinity and femininity, identity and narrative.
“The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.” – Jung
We are not responsible for what has happened to us but for our response to what has happened. The survival strategies we needed as children are the same strategies that will keep us from growing as adults.
“I woke up one day to realize that my standard of living somehow got stuck on survive.” – Jewel
Control is the opposite of risk. It is taking mystery and turning it into magic; making it manipulatable.
“I Am.” – God
We believe there is a difference between the essence of Truth and the process of Honesty. The first seeks to be affirmed by facts and information, the last by courage and vulnerability.
“If you lived honestly, your life would heal itself.” – Viscott
We need to intentionally expand the space in between stimulus and response, quieting the soul in order to live out our truest selves.
“We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow…” -Silverstein
Being okay with not knowing while trying to balance the seen with the unseen; learning to dwell in the space between everything you have known, and everything you have yet to learn.
“Remember, mystery isn’t something that you cannot understand—it is something that you can endlessly understand! There is no point at which you can say, “I’ve got it.” Always and forever, mystery gets you!”– Rohr
Everything is created out of the benevolent communal relational flow of God.
“… Something is poured out of one into the other that has the power to heal the soul of its deepest wounds and restore it to health” – Crabb
Tension- Learning to wrestle with the way things are versus the way they should be. We live in the already and the not yet. Can we weep without despair? Can we tremble without fear? Both/And, not Either/Or.
“And in despair I bowed my head; ‘There is no peace on earth,’ I said; ‘For hate is strong, And mocks the song, Of peace on earth, good-will to men!’
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: ‘God is not dead, nor doth he sleep!
The Wrong shall fail, the Right prevail, With peace on earth, good-will to men!’”- Longfellow
Standing firm requires sacrifice, giving something up for the sake of love (self or others) in order to make it holy.
“The place where you made a stand never mattered, only that you were there, and still on your feet.” – King
There is the outcome of the battle or the outcome of who you are. Losing battles are still worth fighting for.
“There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in”- Cohen
Jesus cried out in the garden because it was an important and passionate longing in his heart that intentionally needed to be named out loud; He didn’t need his cries to change anything about the outcome.
“Learn to discover a self-compassionate perspective” – Wile
There is a deep loneliness to the human condition that requires reflective acceptance.
“I hold this to be the highest task of a bond between two people: that each should stand guard over the solitude of the other.” – Rilke
There is no single moment of revelation, everything is process.
“Are you ready to become what you were made to be?”- Tolkien
Created in Eden and now living outside of it, we are limited in our ability to love and to receive love; choosing to love and be loved can hurt deeply.
“She addressed her world honestly, searching for something deserving of the volumes of love she knew she had within her.”- Foer
When we share our stories with another, we share them with ourselves and we’re reminded of who we are and who we are becoming.
“I went out into the desert not to find out who I am, but to remember who I was”- Miller