Walls

Brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.

Randy Pausch

True Friendship

If friends relate to you only on their terms or see you as only a means to an end (trying to turn you into little versions of themselves) then they have created a barrier to true friendship. The irreligious honor God more than professing believers when they accept others for who they are. This does not mean you don't try to help friends grow and learn and move into truth. It means you start by acknowledging they are made in the image of God and worthwhile and valuable just for being themselves (Psalm 139:13).

Stephen Goforth

The Color of Virtue

Blushing is the color of virtue.
Diogenes

Finding the "Right One"

Don't just look for someone who will encourage you to "be yourself." Look for someone who will help the process of more clearly defining you. This is not just giving you "space" or room to "do your own thing." There should be a chemistry, a back-and-forth, a give-and-take that produces something you couldn't have come up with by yourself. And it works the other way around as well. You should spur the others growth as a person. The two of you should be able to look at the apple seed and visualize the fully formed tasty fruit that could emerge.

Stephen Goforth

Talking Your Way out of Problems

Can’t figure out a complicated problem? Talk about it out loud or doodle on some paper. Psychologists in Spain say their tests show processing information verbally or visually is more effective than remaining silent and still. They put students in separate rooms and gave them the same problems to solve. The students who talked to themselves or drew pictures to map out solutions finished first and scored higher. Psychologist Jose Luis Villegas Castellanos says he isn’t sure why it works this way but believes verbal and visual problems-solving creates greater opportunities to discover the right answers.

Stephen Goforth

Settling

The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little.

Thomas Merton

Taking the Abuse

When someone stays in an abusive situation, there must be a measure comfort in the identity. The abused, in effect, says, "I know what to do when playing this role." To be anything different means acknowledging there is a choice and with it comes the uncomfortable recognition of responsibility. “In the ongoing abusive situation,” the victim tells themselves, “at least I KNOW the old pain and its ways." Fear of the unknown freezes them into no decision - which is a decision to keep things the same. It suits some aspect of who they are. To choose not to be abused means redefining their identity. In the end, they'd prefer to keep the old familiar one rather than enter the suffering that comes with building a new one.

Stephen Goforth

Box People

You probably know someone who's one of the "box people." They’re concern is identifying which box you belong inside just as soon as possible. Otherwise, they may have to relate to you as a person as opposed to a prepackaged echo of a personality. There's also the possibility you are living outside the box, which would go against their belief that this is not possible. At that time, your very existence is a challenge to their comfortable life. By their actions they demand you, "Get back in the box!"

Stephen Goforth

Inbetween

Between yesterday’s regrets and tomorrow’s dreams are today’s opportunities.

So Much Straw

It is said that on 6 December 1273, while he was celebrating mass, a great change came over Thomas Aquinas. At the age of 49, his Summa Theologica ("Summary of Theology" – nearly 1300 pages) unfinished, he stopped writing. To his faithful secretary and companion Reginald of Pipersno, he said, ‘Reginald, I can do no more; such things have been revealed to me that all that I have written seems to me as so much straw. Now, I await the end of my life of my works.’ Aquinas died three months later.

All our talk about God is halting, partial, hopelessly inadequate. This does not mean show should not hold firm beliefs about God or do the best job we can as philosophers and theologians. It simply means that no matter how much skill or effort we bring to the job, God always remains in part a mystery. The gap between God and our ideas about God was, we believe, salvifically narrowed by God’s revelatory initiative, but not closed.

Like Aquinas, all Christians can see that human talk about God ultimately comes to an end. It’s best efforts are like straw.

Stephen T. Davis
Logic and the Nature of God

Giving Without Losing

The beauty of empowering others is that your own power is not diminished in the process.

Barbara Colorose

Here are the Rules

When someone gives you rules for your relationship (“we can only talk about these subjects” or “we will only go to these places” or “Only contact me this way”) you have to decide whether this is born out of a legitimate concern to keep the relationship in healthy territory or whether its an attempt to control prompted by insecurity and fear. A request that you become a co-conspirator in that person’s attempt to hide from painful truths about themselves.

Stephen Goforth

Disillusioned?

Disenchantment, whether it is a minor disappointment or a major shock, is the signal that things are moving into transition. At such times, we need to consider whether the old view or belief may not have been an enchantment cast on us in the past to keep us from seeing deeper into ourselves and others than we were ready to. For the whole idea of disenchantment is that reality has many layers, none “wrong” but each appropriate to a particular phase of intellectual and spiritual development. The disenchantment experience is the signal that they time has come to look below the surface of what has been thought to be so. It is the sign that you are ready to see and understand more now.

Lacking that perspective on such experiences, however, we often miss the point and simply become” disillusioned.” The disenchanted person recognized the old view as sufficient in its time, but insufficient now.

On the other hand, the disillusioned person simply rejects the embodiment of the earlier view; she finds a new husband or he gets a new boss, but both leave unchanged the old enchanted view of relationships. The disenchanted person moves on, but the disillusioned person stop and goes through the play again with new actors. Such a person is on a perpetual quest for a real friend, a true mate, and a trustworthy leader. The quest only goes around in circles, and treal movement and real development are arrested.

William Bridges
Transitions

Dr's Orders

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.

Dr. Seuss

Joy in the Journey

This little story has been around a while, but still worth remembering...

Two brothers decided to dig a deep hole behind their house. As they were working, a couple of older boys stopped by to watch.

"What are you doing?" asked one of the visitors.

"We plan to dig a hole all the way through the earth!" one of the brothers volunteered excitedly.

The older boys began to laugh, telling the younger ones that digging a hole all the way through the earth was impossible.

After a long silence, one of the diggers picked up a jar full of spiders, worms and a wide assortment of insects. He removed the lid and showed the wonderful contents to the scoffing visitors.

Then he said quietly and confidently, "Even if we don't dig all the way through the earth, look what we found along the way!"

Their goal was far too ambitious, but it did cause them to dig. And that is what a goal is for -- to cause us to move in the direction we have chosen; in other words, to set us to digging!

But not every goal will be fully achieved. Not every job will end successfully. Not every relationship will endure. Not every hope will come to pass. Not every love will last. Not every endeavor will be completed. Not every dream will be realized.

But when you fall short of your aim, you can say, "Yes, but look at what I found along the way! Look at the wonderful things which have come into my life because I tried to do something!"

It is in the digging that life is lived. And I believe it is joy in the journey, in the end, that truly matters.