Talking Notes

One of the first responsibilities that you encounter within an oral tradition is the idea that you have to remember stuff. I mean, really remember. There's no guarantee that you can come back to what you are learning. The sources are people, and one person might move, your access to another person might change, and you don't know when those changes might occur. You also don’t know if that person has told anybody else what they've told you. So, there is a very high level of responsibility for whatever you have been given. The assumption in my experience has always been this:

This is yours, assume no one else has it, and do what you’ve been taught is right with it.

That’s a thing – a thing worth thinking about.

Related Links

* Tap Legacy Foundation

* Asking the Questions

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Over the past two weeks I’ve explored the idea of giving, even generosity beyond the measure of oneself. In reality, the act of giving is always an act of loss. Whenever we say, “Yes,” to one thing, a multitude of things are receiving from us an automatic, “no.” Their possibility has been sacrificed. On account of our inherently limited nature, and contrary to much of what seems to be a more common aspiration, we can’t do everything, all the time, everywhere. It is literally impossible. We can however to some things, some of the time, in a few places, and hopefully do those things well. While some choices might hurt more than others, if we look at the nature of choice in light our limitations, and our formation for that matter, a built-in part of the process is loss, and that for a particular sake…

Related Links

* The original Snake Eyes figure

* My friend and mentor Gregory Hines

* The remission of sins

* Calling people to himself

* The joy set before Jesus

* The life that Jesus would have after the cross

Go deeper with Asking the Questions.

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I wasn’t expecting this, but this week it looks like I’m doubling down on the generosity idea, or more specifically giving. The next few weeks I’ll be working through a series of questions that start with the word, “what.” I don’t normally like “What?” questions, or series for that matter, but we go where the good spirit leads.

Related Links:

* Thinking about generosity

* The how of giving

* Iron sharpening iron

* Living sacrifice

* God giving

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Spoiler alert! This week’s note centers around a seen in the 1990 film Awakenings.

In the 1990 film Awakenings, Robert de Niro plays Leonard Lowe, a character we meet in a catatonic state. As the movie progresses, a drug is discovered that has the power to awaken Leonard, and some of his fellow patients, from their state of stillness. It is a miracle – an awakening of not only one, but many people ensued. But it was not to last. Soon the effects of the drug would wear off. Leonard would go through periods of being awake, and then, in dramatic fashion, the darkness would come for him. While he fought, he would be overcome by it.

What Lowe did in the meantime got me thinking.

Related Links:

* Awakenings

* Bonus: The Real Life “Awakenings” (ABC)

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I saw a statement a few days ago that got me thinking about language. We live in a time in which the underlying trust which allows language to function as a productive form of communication has been taken for granted (at the least) or outright dismantled (at the worst). The statement was on twitter – a platform of statements. Here, I purposely follow people from many different traditions of belief, thought, and action. As I was scrolling, an image caught my attention. It had the words, “The first right is the right to life,” on it. Now that got me thinking.

Related Links

* A note about deep joy even in hard times

* Being set before the face of God

* God is love

* A companion newsletter for those who want to go deeper – Asking the Questions

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I’m in Tacoma, Washington, at the inaugural Zion International Film Festival. Identity: The Andrew Nemr Story is an official selection, and I’ve made the trip to support the film, meet some people, and make myself available to whatever else might happen (one never knows). In a scene from the film, I’m driving in my car pontificating on the nature of my relationship to my dancing. I say, “The way my dancing is now, it’s more about the joy of dancing in the presence of my Lord, than working anything out.” In one of the post-screening Q&A sessions, I received the following question, “How did you get from your dancing as an expression of working something out, to it being an expression of joy in the presence of your Lord?”

Now that is a good question.

Related LINKS

* Zion International Film Festival

* Identity: The Andrew Nemr Story

* Guided listening journeys

Go deeper with Asking the Questions, questions designed by Andrew to guide you deeper into the topic of the Note.

Share this note with someone who you think might enjoy it…

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Breathe in peace. Breathe out rest.

At different points in my life, I have taken on specific pursuits for the sake of understanding. I spent three years trying to define the word love (LINK), after failing to define it in a very important moment. In the past three years I've been trying to cultivate an understanding of my own life that leads to the kind of rest (LINK) that cannot be separated from who I am. Wouldn’t it be a thing if one of the ways I was recognized was as a person who rested.

This is what I’ve come to know about rest so far…

* Defining the word love

* A different kind of rest

* “I will give you rest.”

* Jesus’s knowing and revealing God to us

* Jesus having all power in Heaven and in Earth

* Jesus loving us

* Go deeper with Asking the Questions

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In March 2020 everything around me stopped. The pandemic, with all of its challenges, pain, and ongoing fallout (to this very day), served as an interruption to all the habits of thought and action I had developed. I couldn’t work as fast or hard or travel as much. I couldn’t count on what had been regular. My entire environment changed. I had the opportunity to change, too. Peace would be central to what happened next…

Related Links

* Cats Paying Dues

* Listening journeys - by Goldenwood

* Set your mind on the things above

* Being caught resting

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I’m 17 years old, fresh out of high school and in my freshman year of college, when I receive my first formal teaching gig. The offer is to teach the most advanced tap dancers of a local private dance school in New Jersey. These dancers are teenagers who are used to competing and presenting their dances at an annual recital. In addition to teaching technique, I am required to create two pieces – one for competition and one for the recital. I freak out. Who was I to be teaching? My teachers had always been years older than I was in age, and had magnitudes more experience than me. They all taught from a position of authority. It wasn’t just theory, or experimentation. They really knew what they were talking about and sharing with me. Here I was, 17, and would be teaching 13-16 year-olds. How was this even right?

Related Links

* Being the Interruptor

* Being the Trusted Friend

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I’ll go first. I sent an email out to three new friends with a proposition. I wanted to bring them closer to the center of my life. These new friends were the first friends I had had that didn’t come from or had the opportunity to lead to work since I was in high school. We met in a larger group that had committed to meeting regularly to study the Bible. Within a few months we realized that we actually liked each other and found ourselves developing friendships beyond the commitment to study. We would visit with each other, celebrate and mourn together, and offer to help each other when we could. With this foundation, and some encouragement I decided to take a step further. So, I sent an email. I went first.

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