Do not fear mistakes; fear the wasting of a life.

"The really important thing in life is not the avoidance of mistakes, but the obedience of faith. By obedience, the man is led step by step to accept and then correct his errors, whereas nothing will ever happen to him if he doesn't open up and get going."

-- Paul Tournier

We have learned from God, life, and nature, that "mistakes" are required to learn and grow. The more you make the faster and stronger you grow. These lessons are everywhere, but only when we search for them; they are not "thrust upon us" by man, where we learn from imperfect parents, imperfect schools, imperfect bosses, companies, jobs, etc. that mistakes are bad and to be avoided. And then we live out of that fear. Why? Only because so many do - it's so visible all around us. We see it, and therefore we believe. So, I will take from my good buddy, S.C., and offer his favorite Bible verse to consider (that he just asked me to include in his Life Plan), to those of you who are struggling to act and live out of what you truly believe, vs. what you think (or fear) is "expected" of you:

"Because you have seen, you have believed;
blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."
John 20:29

A loving tribute to a very special Dad

I did a Life Plan with an old friend and current client a little while ago, and one of his self-designed "assignments" in his work as a "son" in life was to do something special - something that would give him an experience of being fully present in his relationship with his father, whom he really admires - for his Dad's upcoming 91st birthday. Well, he did exactly what he said he was going to do during a recent visit to his parents' home, and he pulled it off in spectacular fashion. He did so well, in fact, that when he read it to me, I cried. He wrote a beautiful tribute to his Dad, printed it on handsome, custom-printed paper, and presented it to him in a beautiful hinged picture frame. I asked him if I could share the writing with all of you, and at first he felt very uncomfortable, as you can see below.

"Here is the tribute I wrote for my Dad. He turns 91 this Friday, May 9, and he still has that 'hum and smile.' Please use as you see fit. It is very personal, and I've certainly hesitated to send it to you. But on the chance that it might serve others in some way, I offer it up."

Well, the thing he said to me that put our conversation about this "over the top" was that his father put "service to others" first, before himself, so I suggested to my friend that sharing this tribute would serve other men, especially those who seek to gain some degree of closure with their Dads, in a profound way. So, if you are as moved by this as I was, and if you want to thank Dave for putting his Dad and you first with this sharing, before his own hesitancy, please let him know with your response.

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Eldon
Your Son says, "A Job Well Done!"



And He is Very Proud to be Your Son!



Purpose:



This Award is to pay tribute to Eldon for A Job Well Done as a Father and a Family Leader.



Accomplishments:



Through your family leadership, and your blood and sweat, Eldon, you took on tremendous extended family responsibilities and conquered every obstacle in building a wonderful life for your family.



· You left school after the 8th grade to help take care of your family.

· You saw to it that your parents and Elizabeth's parents were taken care of.

· You joined the Catholic Church so your family could attend church together.

· You continue, as always, to take loving care of Elizabeth.

· You built a business out of ashes, and became a well-respected businessman in your community.

· You served as a city councilman and as mayor of your city.

· You saw to it that your children had everything that they needed to prepare themselves for their own lives.

· You always keep your mind busy, and always demonstrate great creativity and a very positive attitude.

· You always hum a song and have a smile for everyone!



As a Father, you helped your son, David, make the transition to manhood.



· You taught David manly things like hunting and fishing.

· You taught David how to serve people by letting him work in the family business.

· You taught David how to treat customers and employees, and people in general.

· You demonstrated your confidence in David by arranging David's first management job in running the local swimming pool.

· You honored David by attending the ceremony where David received his Navy Pilot Wings.

· You have loved and supported David through good times and bad, just as you have done for your daughter, Ruth Ann.

· You taught David patience.

· You taught David how to take care of a family.

· You taught David how to focus on doing the right things and doing things right.

· You gave David a strong value foundation for dealing with what the future might hold.

· By your example, you taught David how to hum a little song and have a smile for everyone.



What a great role model you, Eldon, have been for David, and now David is drawing on that model as he begins helping his sons make the transition to manhood.



"Thank You" for being you, Dad! I hope I can do as good a job as you have!



Your Son,



David



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Happy Birthday, Eldon. I want to add my own congratulations to the message above, because if Dave and his wonderful family are a reflection of you, then you are surely a fine man, a loving husband, and a fantastic father and granddad. There is no greater compliment I could possibly bestow.

In honor of K. & R.T.

I had the most amazing opportunity yesterday to meet with two people who inspire me, both individually and as a couple. They are devoutly Christian, deeply committed to each other and to a life of service to others, and just very capable, intelligent, and warm, wonderful human beings. In our very interesting conversations together we landed on a few very meaty subjects - vision, sin, and prayer. Then these quotes showed up - miraculously, as usual - and I wanted to share them in honor of these two great souls. I will offer comments with each:

"For I seek not to understand in order that I may believe, but rather I believe in order that I may understand, for I believe for this reason: that unless I believe, I cannot understand." (Anselm of Canterbury)

This reinforces a comment I made to K. regarding the importance of "acting" out of one's vision (belief) before "understanding" is strong, and that that action will produce evidence that reinforces understanding, creating experience that has actions consistent with vision become more free-flowing and natural.

"When God is about to do something great, He starts with a great difficulty. When He is about to do something truly magnificent, He starts with an impossibility." (Armin Gesswein)

Ah, yes, I love to hear someone, in the midst of their dreaming of how life could be, say, "now that's just impossible." That's when I see God smile. So, we are listening for "inspiring impossibility."

"Not only does sin hinder prayer; prayer hinders sin. The two are always opposed. The more careless we are about sin, the less we will pray. The more we pray, the less careless we will be about sin. Both sin and prayer are powerful forces. Which one is moving you now?" (Dr. Alvin Vander Griend)

This one came from my conversation with R., in which he said that the best thing that can happen to you is "to have your sins found out." Once they become "public" vs. "our secret," then we get to work on them, which includes prayer. When we're not praying, we get careless and lazy, then we go blind and conceal ourselves, then (if we're lucky) we get found out, which bring us back to prayer - ah, life's learning cycle again.

"Accustom yourself gradually to carry prayer into all your daily occupation -- speak, act, work in peace, as if you were in prayer, as indeed you ought to be." (François Fénelon)

This one is consistent with an assignment to K. which is to "schedule" prayer time in the middle of her day, to get her used to it being integrated into daily activities, and it reminds me of my friends, R.L., D.M., D.M., and K.S., who are gracefully teaching me how to do this on a "just-in-time" basis throughout the day.

"Our Adversary majors in three things: noise, hurry, and crowds. If he can keep us engaged in 'muchness,' 'manyness,' and 'frenzy,' he will rest satisfied." (Richard J. Foster)

"Slow down" to look into the eyes of children and to see the face of God. It will actually "speed up" the experience of one's highest vision.

Making amends to money (and other things)

I have a friend who's in a 12-Step Program for "under-earning," and he's on Step 9, which is described in the program as follows:




STEP 9: "Make direct amends whenever possible, except when to do so would injure others."
OUR PURPOSE FOR THIS STEP : “At the moment, we are trying to put our lives in order. Our real purpose is to be of maximum service to God and the people about us.” p.77 AA

So, as part of this process, this friend chose to make amends to money, given his previously dysfunctional relationship with it as a tool, and when he read out loud over the phone what he had written in his amends letter, it touched me deeply, and it felt so common to so many of us that I asked if I could share it, and he said yes, so here is the first part of it:



"February 4, 2003



Dear Money



I want to make an amends to you.



I have so much in my life made you my God—I have been so dependent on you that I have hurt myself and so many others.

I would steal you, sneak you, work hard for you.

I have tried to make only just enough of you that I have stopped your flowing in my life because I believed that the only way I could get you was to lie, cheat, gamble - or be smart, shrewd.



I have spent so much of my life obsessing about you—that I have isolated myself so much that it was killing me.



I think that I have done work to get you that I did not like—it wasn’t fun.



I hated you so much because you made me feel so small without you.



I also would use you to make me feel important by using you to control others.



I never thought I would ever get enough of you.



I would hold onto you to protect me against something that might happen years from now.

I really believed that I must have you to take care of me when I am old—because that meant I was going to be sick—that I must have a lot of you.



I never liked to save you—see you as giving me choices and possibilities.

I usually was so afraid of what would happen to me without you that I never had a lot of you.

There was never enough.



So I have made you into my God.

My God that without you I will die.

So I would also not want to pay others to help me.

I have had such great projects, but I never gave you the importance of needing enough of you to get the right help.



I also have found out that if I have a great idea - and work on my passion, dreams, vision, with a deep belief in me - then God does bring you somehow.



So I want to ask your forgiveness Money for seeing you in this way."



Wow, there sure seems to be a whole new future possible for my friend in the aftermath of this amends letter (and for so many of us if we listen and heed its message). Thank you, my friend, for speaking the plain truth in your life and for inspiring so many of us to follow your lead. And isn't it interesting about money, that it was created as a tool to extend or enhance our experience of abundance and choice, but it actually severely limits us when "it owns us." And doesn't that also apply to certain other physical tools or experiences that are designed for giving us access to something positive, but can quickly turn negative under certain circumstances. For example, let's take language - a physical expression created to enhance our ability to communicate with each other, but which can actually constrict us in many ways when we lose our perspective about it and give it too much power. And how about rank, that distinction designed to reflect relative power in or between groups of people, but that often only gives us a weak, artificial illusion of power that is often very destructive, when it is simply the feeling of turning our best intentions into reality that we hunger for? And how about sex, that physical gateway to intimacy that often turns into our worst nightmare when we focus on getting "it" vs. the true human (and deeply spiritual) intimacy that we seek through it. And what about religion, our chosen personal access to God that can often lead us to abandon everything we know of God in its promotion or defense in interactions with others? I'm seeing some very interesting parallels here between all of these things, the consistent theme being the importance of staying focused on the beauty and purity of our ultimate visions - in other words, to live those visions in our actions - vs. getting caught up and lost in the rabid pursuit of those physical devices, distinctions, or tools that we think might give us access to them.

Personal Inventory

"I don't want my tombstone to read, 'He did tolerable stuff for tolerable people because they paid him well'."

-- David Maister

This is a typical example of the "motivation" that hits us right before we choose to surrender to a bigger calling in life, either right in the place where we are, or in some other place. We start to think about our funerals, and our tombstones, and what our families and friends might be saying about us if our lives were to stay on the current track. So, why not ask yourself right now, instead of later when it could be out of hopeless regret, "Am I doing work that inspires me, that feels like it was designed for me and no one else? Do I feel alive in my work? Is it a reflection of who I am? Or do I go to work each day and hang my dreams and my spirit on a hanger and then do my best to muddle through for the 8 - 10 hours I'm there? Is this what I'm meant to be doing with my life, or is there more?" Compelling questions, these, and so worthy to take the time with them right now, when you have the time and the energy to make a difference in what gets written about you.

Honor yourself; know your value.

"It is in our quiet solitude that we discover that being is more important than doing or having, and that we are infinitely more valuable than our efforts or their results."

-- Henri Nouwen

It is in our feverish pursuit of feeling valuable or valued, usually from a past of painfully not feeling that way, that we often diminish or abandon ourselves in our actions toward others. We can be our own worst enemies in this way, and it is in our feeling small and helpless that we remain trapped there, shrinking to stay safe or becoming over-blown to compensate. When we become aware of who we are, and of our Creator's design for our lives, we are liberated to produce experiences of feeling tremendously valued by others and of a world that celebrates our being here, being exactly who we are. Isn't that right, P.B.? In my eyes, you are proving this as we speak.

Premium, high-octane fuel (and a Happy Anniversary to my wife)

"A car is made to run on gasoline, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other."

-- C.S. Lewis

And a perfect book-end piece was just sent to me by my good buddy, BMS. He read it to me over the phone yesterday, and I asked him to email it along so that I could share it with all of you, and it fits perfectly with the C.S. Lewis quote above. This is exactly what I've learned about starting each day in quiet prayer. It is the greatest fuel and makes the biggest "difference."

The Difference



I got up early one morning, and rushed right into the day.

I had so much to accomplish that I didn’t have time to pray.



Problems just tumbled about me and heavier came each task.

“Why doesn’t God help me?”, I wondered. God said, “But you didn’t ask.”



I wanted to see joy and beauty, but the day toiled on gray and bleak.

I wondered why God didn’t show me. God said, “But you didn’t seek.”



I tried to come into God’s presence. I used all the keys on the lock.

God gently and lovingly chided, “My Child, you didn’t knock.”



I woke up early this morning, and paused before entering the day,

I had so much to accomplish that I had to take time to pray.



Author Unknown




My prayer today, you might ask: a prayer of thanks for my mariage to Anne, and for who she is in my life. We are happily celebrating our 7-year wedding anniversary today. I love you so much, my beautiful wife and partner. You are my best friend, my best coach, the greatest Mom to our little boy and our new unborn child, and the most beautiful, honest, and true woman I've ever known. It is a privilege to be your man and to share life with you. And thank you, God, for this wonderful blessing.