This is a post on minimalism As part of an incremental shift toward sustainability my sister purchased biodegradable forks. It reminded me how to eat an elephant. There is this term in academia called the value-action gap. Its a term for failure to act in ways that align with what one claims to believe. Example: I hear a great talk and say "yes, yes yes. I will save money and get in shape and love all my neighbors." and then I go for lunch (instead of going for my run) and order an extra burger and complain about the time, the crowd, and the lack of pickles. In short, when I know what I want to be but don’t act in line with my value, there is a Strahan sized space between my professed belief and my reality. This gap gives breathing room for things like: guilt, shame, denial, insecurity, self-deprecation, hypocrisy, anger, etc. I stumbled on this phrase after searching Why do people buy things they don't need? I dove in head first. There was a name for my problem and I got excited to come up with the easy fix and three-step method to solving the world’s problems (and subsequently my own problems). Guess what? In the history of the human condition Utopia, the idea of a perfect society, has always failed. We can idealize, but there are always issues with execution. In a shocking turn of events, humans are imperfect. And there is not a three-step method for fixing our imperfections. My research quickly veered into a bottomless pit of opinion. And after hours of research and pages of writing I had nothing good. In desperation I quieted myself and came to the still small voice and heard a perfect metaphor. "In this world you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world."~Jesus "To eat an elephant take one bite at a time." This eureka moment came in a text from my sister about biodegradable forks--a small action in line with her greater value. It was movement in the right direction. When I told her about the eureka moment she sent me a video clip about the book The Principle of the Path by Andy Stanley. With a new sense of direction I again set about to solve my problems (and subsequently the world's). Here is a simple way to, as Andy Stanley said, know that direction, not intention, determines destination. Intention is where I want to go. Direction is what I am doing to get there. Direction is how and what. So here is the not so easy -but concise- way to bridge the value action gap.
For personal reasons I am going to add a list of things to remember in recognition of my own humanity. 1. Do frequent audits: when I was living most closely in line with my values I was consistently journaling my thoughts and my minutes. Accounting for my time, assessing and making adjustments as needed. This is a good thing to do with money, food, content consumption etc. It puts me in tune with reality. 2. Celebrate the victories: Have a celebration, smile, make ceremony, pass out medals and balloons (thanks, Bob Goff). There is joy in the journey and what's rewarded is repeated. 3. Say thank you: Thank you is a posture of submission and humility and consideration. It keeps me going in the direction of gratitude, not arrogance, when I succeed. It is a lighter burden than all the pride of, "going it alone" 4. Find iron: Humans go farther together than they do alone. Humans go farther together than they do alone. Humans go farther together than they do alone. Iron sharpens iron. Stay sharp. Find iron. 5. Keep the faith, stop stopping: Here's the simple gospel. The Kingdom of God is here, Christ died to bridge the gap and provide grace for my weakness, he was raised to life to give me hope and wholeness, and sent the Holy Spirit to be everyday sustenance. This gives me not just a goal, but the courage, hope, warm blood, and gumption to keep going when I fall short or lose sight. I'm not building my own bridge, He built the bridge. I'm following Him over the gap. And now, dear reader, I want to encourage you, don’t let the immensity of your destination stop you from starting your journey. If it is biodegradable forks, 30 minutes of walking, removing white flour and white sugar from your diet, cutting that credit card, deleting that app, avoiding that mall or that restaurant, altering the dynamic of that relationship, make the incremental and sustainable change to step in the right direction. Dive into the process. And explore one of the things down there. They heavily influenced this post. My action step is to start including data in my posts. I am going to get concise, numerical and specific. Journalism can still be prose. I am social media free, which means this blog is sent via email only. If you are not a subscriber click subscribe and enter your email to get a weekly update. A share is always appreciated. SUBSCRIBE
I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them."
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A post on sustainability I’ve been reflecting on love. It’s a bucket word for desire, adoration, compassion, control, connection, commitment, congeniality, familiarity. It’s something we have and something we do and something we are. I’ve been coming back to this phrase. The Apostle Paul, with his extra feathery pen and the scented scroll he used when he wrote prose, said the words you’ve heard at a wedding at some point in your life. “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.” Love is this piece that turns a house into a home. Love makes service compassion not control. Love makes sacrifice genuine instead of martyrdom. Love makes your advice wise counsel instead of pompous preaching. Love makes your praise pure rather than forced finesse. Love is everything. Baseball is my barometer. It helps me measure things, explain things, understand things. And baseball and love are the tandem that make the game poetry for me. You see, in baseball you can’t just love the action or the thrill, you have to love the game—the sounds and the smells and the people, and the culture and the language. You have to love playing flips and two ball and categories and first name last name and saying, “hum now” and swapping stories and doing dances. You’ve got to love the eccentricities. You’ve got to love wearing a bullpen jacket over a hoodie over a jersey over long sleeves over short sleeves and still feeling the sting of your toes going numb. You’ve got to love 4-hour bus rides and taking your turn doing bucket and sitting for 8 hours in the bullpen. You’ve got to love tough love and mind games and the frustration of losing “the feel” and throwing 8 straight balls when your team desperately needs an out. You’ve got to love even when it doesn’t love you back. You’ve got to love even when you hate it. It’s what the game gives you. Something deep to connect with and hold onto, and when it’s time, walk away and allow the relationship to change. It gives the opportunity to suffer, to watch your team slipping out of the wild card spot and be helpless, but still in love. The deep, loyal, faithful, poetic, romantic love of warriors and poets and prophets. That’s what the game gave me. And I’ll never give it back. The seams of the baseball seeped their way in. It’s primal now. It’s in my blood and sweat and in my eyes. It’s not love for the action or the thrill. It’s just love. And that doesn’t go away. There are a lot of well-researched things about love in a more practical and less romantic sense. You should investigate the resources below. For now here's the big thing I am stamping on my own forehead to remember when I look in the mirror. Love, real love, has the capability to persist through difficulties, because love goes beyond the edge of our understanding and into something we can’t explain. It makes the change that needs to happen. Love is not an enabler, and in its great capacity love makes forgiveness possible. Love is a practical compassion that esteems others and brings them respect and dignity. Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, And men below, and saints above; For love is heaven, and heaven is love. ~Sir Walter Scott Dear reader, go and love with action. Even when it is difficult. Go and love with resolve. Resources: 7 Habits of Highly Effective People The Four Loves Better Lovers: eclife.org/watch Everybody Always I am still social media free, which means this blog will be sent out only via email. If you are not already subscribing you can click on the word subscribe below and enter your email to get a weekly update. If you think, “Wow! More people should hear this” and you want to share that would be pretty neat. SUBSCRIBE
A post on minimalismHenry David Thoreau was not a recluse, and he wasn't like the unabomber. He probably had more visitors than you do. I'm two weeks into my withdrawal from social media, and this is the main thought coursing through my brain "humans are made for connection." Walden is a favorite of mine. It's a social experiment conducted by an author and philosopher who takes to the woods because "he wished to live deliberately". He builds himself a small cabin on Walden pond and starts to journal about life and nature and economics and society and government. It's an iconic piece in American literature and thought. While summarizing (poorly) the book for a friend he remarked "sounds like the unabomber". This reference, too recent to be in my history lessons and too far away for me to remember it, went over my head until I did some research. While there were some similarities like a, "return to wild nature" and a desire to be against the grain, there was one glaring difference. Thoreau wasn't a recluse. In fact, an entire portion of Walden is titled "Vsitors", and in this section he states he had as many as "twenty-five or thirty souls, with their bodies, at once beneath my roof. . .". Truthfully, Thoreau's wilderness existence occurred about a mile outside of town. This distance put him exactly where he wanted to be--out of the fray just enough to avoid being swept up into the main street current. From this distance Thoreau had the solitude and the interaction to assess things more clearly. Two weeks into my social media abstinence I'm noticing more apparently when I feel the pang inside my brain to "numb or distract" (credit to a wise person for the perfect verbiage) with my phone. It is a quick cure for boredom, loneliness, guilt, despair, anxiety. At best it's apathetic. At worst it's avoidant. This sort of medicating does little to change my reality. It shortchanges it. It quells the words “I miss you.” with the partial satisfaction of a low-value input from someone else. It is a reality—a virtual connection. I am sharing photos, taking in photos, sharing lives, sharing stories, sharing information. I am spreading awareness, delivering news, providing humor. But I can never be tricked into believing it is an adequate substitution for swallowing whole the feeling of longing to see, speak with, hold, or interact with another person and the satisfaction of being present when that occurs. Leaving social media leaves me with no medication or pretending, just the reality of being alone when I am alone or bored when I am bored, and the burning question "what are you going to do about it?" And the response. I will say I love you. I will plan a visit. I will write a note with real paper. I will make a call. I will embrace a person when I see them next. I will say the encouraging word with my eyes and my mouth and not just my fingers. I won’t let low-value inputs shortchange the wonderful feeling of longing to see a friend. I won't let a thumbs up replace an “I love you.” I won’t let knowing what a person's up to stop me from saying “let’s get dinner,” or “I’m coming to see your baby.” I won't let scrolling through the Prime Library replace the smell of old paper, the crisp feel of words in my hands, the crushing weight of millions of books. “1-100 of 1,500,675” does not carry the same gravity as standing among rows on rows of human thought,, keenly aware my mind could never contain the knowledge and experience of billions of humans over thousands of years. Yet, standing small in a garden of words I feel a commonality, a thirst for understanding and connection. It is with this light weight of being among what is real that I sally forth into existence, believing fully the light of the world may live in the person driving in the other lane, the person sitting behind me, the girl waking sleepily next to me, stretching, warm and lovely, her mouth opening slowly like a gate to a beautiful city, uttering gently three words that ignite my soul. “Good morning, handsome.” My dear reader, take hold of what is real and eternal. The beautiful, natural, every day wonder existing in us, around us, next to us. It is your noble duty today to be. Know technology for what it is, value added, not value replaced; a gateway to connection, not an excuse to withdraw. And maybe check out my list of 50 things to do in 5 minutes (besides check Instagram). Life is real, life is earnest and the grave is not it’s goal Dust thou art to dust returnest was not spoken of the soul ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow I am still social media free, which means this blog will be sent out only via email. If you are not already subscribing you can click on the word subscribe below and enter your email to get a weekly update. If you think, “Wow! More people should hear this” and you want to share that would be pretty neat. SUBSCRIBE A great share from Grace Mitchell
A post on joySometimes, when I am feeling vulnerable, I collect items. Tangible items make me feel (for a minute) like my life is tangibly good or like my striving is all worth while because I own more than so and so. Unfortunately, this isn't the type of joy I am looking for, and it results in a lot of anxiety from trying to maintain, protect, compete, and sort. Like Andy Stanley informed me in a podcast on contentment, "There is no win in comparison." Gratitude, not materialism, is my antidote when I venture into the unknown or uncomfortable. To prevent my imagination running amok and bypassing reality for a fake and glossy vision, or believing reality is the negativity I feel in a bad season or a bad moment, I take inventory. This gives me a sharper perspective of what's real, and it helps me systematically counteract my negativity bias. Here is an inventory of good things.
This list is not exhaustive, just a quick exercise. I am sure you know, dear reader, what I will encourage you to do this week. Make a list. It will help you see your life for what it really is. Life is no hollow imitation. It is real, and it is beautiful. Lay your hands on it. Listen to its heart beat. I am still social media free, which means this blog will be sent out only via email. If you are not already subscribing you can click on the word subscribe below and enter your email to get a weekly update. If you think, “Wow! More people should hear this” and you want to share that would be pretty neat. SUBSCRIBE
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I'm a Hoosier. I like the outdoors. Taxes are my job. I write for a living. This Blog
Writing my way to an adult life of minimalism, sustainability, and joy rooted in Truth. I'm learning, unlearning, and relearning.
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