Talking Notes

I’m going to brag about my friends (and my dad) in this episode. It has been a balm to my soul to see the friends that I have come through for my mom and I in a multitude of ways. And I continue to process the legacy of love that my father has left for me.

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The learning continues…I learned a new term, and navigate a different sense of time…

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On March 14, 2023 my dad went home to Heaven. The past days and weeks have been life altering in a way that nothing before could have been. Here I attempt to describe what the time has been like.

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Coming out of my burnout in 2019, I had many helpful conversations. Each one helped me attempt to reconstitute my life. One in particular was with a friend, David. We had had conversations before. He knew me, and I trusted him. As I shared my experience, what had happened, and the pain I was walking through, he was compassionate and helpful. Towards the end of conversation, he said something I didn’t expect. “You will likely feel this way again.” It wasn’t what I wanted to hear. It definitely wasn’t encouraging. I remember chuckling through my tears at the time. Why? I could tell it was honest – even prophetic.

And here we are, feeling that way again.

Related Links

* A tour in Vancouver

* Dam Short Film Festival

* Idaho High School Theater Awards

* Dive deeper with Asking the Questions

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There is a lot of conversation around artificial intelligence these days. It was once thought that art making or creativity in general was something that AI could not emulate, something uniquely human. Sure, it could solve technical problems with speed, but a drawing or music? That was the domain of the creative human. However, the work coming from projects like DALL•E and others begs to differ. Even robots have the ability to dance. With the amount of innovation (a lot) and the rate of it (very quick), we are finding ourselves in a new world. Notably not on the precipice of, but in. The technology is here, available for use, and people are using it.

How might we think about our role in all of this?

Related links

* DALL•E

* Robots dancing

* The 2002 movie Minority Report

* The Butterfly effect

* The old idea that we should love our neighbor as ourselves

* Curt Thompson’s recent book, Anatomy of the Soul

* Some people lead more isolated lives

* The documentary, The Social Dilemma

* A death to the old ways

* Paul’s letter to a group of Corinthians

* Deeper dives at Asking the Questions

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I thought I’d take this week to make some space to breathe. To take in, again, all that has been explored around the beatitudes so far. To sit in contemplation of the journey – what mine has been like, what I’m currently working through, and what I may look forward to – all with God. I would encourage you to do the same.

Related Links

* Poverty (read or listen)

* Mourning (read or listen)

* The Meek (read or listen)

* Hungry and Thirsty (read or listen)

* Mercy (read or listen)

* Pure In Heart (read or listen)

* Peacemakers (read or listen)

* Very real costs that can come with following Jesus.

* A Journey Through the Beatitudes – Live Presentation

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I’m telling my fourth joke of the night. They have all been puns. I’ve been on a roll, but this one is a swing and a miss. I chuckled to myself and said to the audience, “I guess I am my father’s son.” My dad loves to play with words. So much so that it’s a sport to keep up with him. He’s got three solid languages under his belt, too. Imagine conversations sprinkled with multilingual puns and dad jokes. I’ve been immersed in this world for much of my life. Add to this my own predisposition for unearthing unique relationships, and enjoying a good laugh, and it is no wonder that I would become the kind of performer who enjoys sharing word play as good humor. Yup, I am my father’s son.

Now what about the children of God?

Related Links:

* a previous note about the two wars

* our last position in the beatitude

* Go deeper with Asking the Questions

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I’m listening to the radio when this song comes on. The lyric in the chorus catches my attention.

If I traded it all // If I gave it all away // For one thing // Wouldn’t that be something

My heart resonates with the singleminded intention. It reminds me of the focus of pursuit that great artists and athletes endure to reach the heights of their craft. It reflects the discipline I’ve seen in people of integrity – even successful people in business and life. As an improvisational tap dancer, a lot of my time is spent discovering possible choices, and then training for the selection of the choices that I would be happy with. For any given piece of music, a tap dancer could dance through it in a near infinite number of ways. Yet, in any given performance of a particular piece, the dancer gets to say yes to one way. A single set of choices. One choice per moment. One yes, so many no’s. There is a loss of all the other possibilities. For everything we say yes to, there are a multitude of no’s that are implicit in the choice.

This got me thinking about what it means to be pure in heart…

Related Links

* Good trees can only bear good fruit

* The Journey so far:

* poverty

* mourning

* meekness

* hunger and thirst

* show mercy

* Shifting from ourselves to God

* Love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength…Mark 12:30

* Seeking of the Kingdom of God

* Go deeper with Asking the Questions

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Years ago (some may say many years ago) there was a common stereotype of the self-righteous individual. It was the cigarette smoker who had just quit. This person, for whom the habit had been a mainstay, upon quitting becomes the most outspoken, imposing, and sometimes outright oppressive proponent of the evils of cigarette smoking and the virtues of quitting. Their policy is not in question. Their rigid approach in relationship to sharing said policy with others is what made the stereotype pervasive. Have you encountered such a person? Someone so sure that they are right about something, that they are willing to overrun another individual for the sake of their rightness? I fear that such dispositions are so commonplace, we won’t even realize it when it happens. It doesn’t matter whether we are getting run over or doing the running. One of the larger risks to the character of a person whose hunger and thirst for righteousness has been filled is developing a spirit of condemnation. So self-confident are they in their position that they become outspoken about all the evils they see (and are naturally free of), and condemn those less enlightened. But then, there is mercy…

Related Links

* The definition of righteous

* The definition of judgement

* The definition of discerning

* What happens before we are able to act in new ways by nature

* Accounting for every word

* The perfection of loving our enemies

* Go deeper with guided questions

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Welcome to the hard road. We’ve faced poverty, mourning, and the challenge of gentleness together so far, and it doesn’t get any easier. Transformation is difficult, for all the reasons we’ve mentioned before. The cross as presented by Jesus, as a vision for the necessary (even willing) death of our person, in order to be born again, formed again, into a new kind of person is realistic – it’s not melodramatic. While the giving up of everything at one time is a common experience, I’ve have noticed God work in a more focused way with me as well. This week we continue to take the turn from how the experience of the Kingdom the Heaven transforms our experiences to how the Kingdom of Heaven transforms our person.

Related Links

* Poverty (read/listen)

* Mourning (read/listen)

* The challenge of gentleness (read/listen)

* Moving up Maslow’s triangle

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