Before you head out into your weekend [Oh, who is kidding, no one in Kentucky is heading out this weekend! The image on this post says it all.], here are three things that I’ve read and been thinking about this week. Hope they are as helpful and challenging for you as they have been for me.
Have a great weekend!
#1
“There are no shortcuts in growing up. The path to maturity is long and arduous. Hurry is no virtue. There is no secret formula squirreled away that will make it easier or quicker.
Resurrection by Eugene Peterson
There are no shortcuts to maturity. There is no assurance that aging brings it about either. So what are we left with? Savoring each day, relationship, situation as a gift. I’ve come to realize that the more I focus on ‘growing’ for growth sake the less it happens. But the more I focus on remaining present and teachable it is then that I discover growth taking place by leaps and bounds. Never in a straight line however. Always fits and starts.
#2
The bishop is a simple, faithful man, sound in faith and life, who rightly discharges his duties to the Church. His authority lies in the exercise of his ministry. In the man himself there is nothing to admire.
Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
One of my all-time favorite books. Please excuse the masculine language. The book applies to everyone for sure!
What kind of person do I want to be and am becoming? That question, even at age 56, consumes me at times.
Simple. Faithful. Sound.
My authority not found in a title but in a servant’s heart. Trusted not because of position or words alone but years of actions that align with words and honoring the position I occupy. Disappearing into the background with great contentment. Not swayed by the lights but instead inspired by the one who is the light. He must increase and who cares what happens with me.
I long for that to be my heart’s only desire.
#3
And it dawned on me that I might have to change my inner thought patterns…that I would have to start believing in possibilities that I wouldn’t have allowed before, that I had been closing my creativity down to a very narrow, controllable scale…that things had become too familiar and I might have to disorient myself.
Bob Dylan
The major pattern found in the book of Psalms is this: orientation – disorientation – reorientation. What Dylan is sensing in his life is not a private discovery from within but a personal discovery of a pattern as old as time when it comes to change. Only as much as we are willing to live in the discomfort of disorientation to we have any chance at changing. Comfort is not our friend as much as we love it.
todd nelson 