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Author: mark

  • Blessings of Marriage And Singleness

    Let me start out and say something that I think is obvious but seems to be questioned these days. Marriage is good! For those who believe in the Bible, the argument is pretty easy to make, at least superfluously. God created marriage. God declared marriage good. End of story.  Of course, this can result in a very superficial understanding of marriage.  So lets look a bit deeper.

    The question is: Why is marriage good? There are a host of reasons. There have been numerous talks, papers, and articles in the last few years about the benefits of being married. There is statistical data which indicates married couples are generally happier, healthier, live longer, get more sex, and tend to be more successful economically than their non-married peers. This is just the start of the benefits. These are all good, but I would suggest they are secondary or side effects. Nice, but not the heart of the matter.

    The Bible tells us that marriage was instituted in the earliest days of human history. The most important relationship that we find is a husband and a wife. God didn’t first create a parent & child,  or siblings, He created a couple. As the man and women were given to each other God declared that they would  leave their families to form a new and unique family. They were called to a life long commitment of deep, abiding unity. These instructions were given even though Adam and Eve didn’t have any human parents. God made this statement to set a pattern for the future.

    Marriage is good because we were designed to be in relationship, community with others. We flourish when there is someone who is committed to loving us, and when there is someone for us to love. Abundance through mutual sacrifice. Marriage was designed to provide  a stable and loving environment for growth and nurture, to provide companionship, a primary building block for community. Marriage is intended to change us for the better. All of this is wonderful, but marriage was intended for even more than this. In the book of Ephesians we learn that God intended  marriage to be a living model of what Christ’s relationship is like to those who follow after Him. A picture of new beginnings, of lives transformed and purified by sacrificial love. Marriage is intended to help us understand God’s love for us, and as we understand God’s ways more, so our understanding of marriage grows as well.

    Marriage is something that is good, and it’s appropriate to desire and seek. This doesn’t mean it will be easy. If fact, anything truly valuable  requires work. Want to be a world class runner, you are going to have some painful training. Be a great painter, you are going to spend a lot of time in the studio. Have a great marriage, it’s going to be work.

    Here in the USA the path to marriage can be complex and somewhat convoluted. Typically it starts with that awkward dance of asking someone out, dating, engagement, and finally marriage. For many people, this process has several restarts, often involves painful rejection, dating relationship ending, “broken” and then healed hearts, etc. For some, broken engagements, and hardest of all, divorce after a marriage. There are some people who look at this hard road, read statistics about divorce, and think to themselves “being single isn’t so bad”. I might agree with people who reach this conclusion, but in most cases, I think they are wrong. In my experience, there are four  reasons people consider singleness, one is healthy, three are not.

    Some people have given up on marriage because they expect failure. They have seen how destructive bad marriages can be. Maybe they are a child of a particularly nasty divorce. Maybe they know a number of people who have struggled in their marriages. To these people, I would say “don’t give up”. God created marriage. Marriages can, and do succeed. Don’t let fear control you. Also, the odds aren’t as bad as you might think. The statistic often thrown around is more than 50% of marriages end in divorce. Yet, not everyone has the same risk. There are populations with a much higher risk of divorce:  people married before 21 (issues of maturity), who haven’t finished high school (are likely have a very hard time making it in the world), and the people who have divorced multiple times (life choices and patterns). The divorce rate for reasonably mature adults who enter a marriage for the first time is much lower. Divorce is not inevitable. It’s also worth noting that while many marriages struggle, especially in their early years and through that struggle emerges maturity. There have been a number of surveys that have found the majority of struggling couples that keep at it are significantly happier after five years. They worked through hard things to find a real joy.

    Some people avoid marriage  because they are afraid of losing their freedom, their autonomy, being able to be think only about themselves.  In a sense, they are right. A good marriage requires giving up some of your freedom, to give up seeking your personal fulfillment as your only goal. Marriage will change you. In a world without a loving, caring God, giving these things up might not seem worth it. In the Christian world view, we are called to embrace God, to desire for Him to change us to become more like Jesus, to become people of love and faith. A good marriage will require letting go of selfishness, giving up some freedom, but it will be a force for good, that transforms our lives, makes us more holy.

    Their are some people who would like to be married, but are afraid that they might marry the wrong person, so they have an approach / avoidance dynamic. I won’t spend much time discussion this here, because I will explore this in more detail in a later post. I will just observe this is often because the person has an unrealistic, over idealistic views of marriage. A core truth I will repeatedly touch on in this set of posts  is that marriage is between two sinful people. This is the struggle, and also the heart of growth we all experience in marriage.

    There is a good reason not to seek marriage. That you feel called by God to devote yourself to something else.  Paul taught in I Corinthians 7 that there are advantages to being single. This was a radical idea and very much went against the culture of time which believed that a life wasn’t complete until you were marriage and had children. What are those advantages? That the single person can devote themselves fully to following after God, to a specific task or ministry. Single people have fewer concerns and worries. Often times, this is for just a season of life. For example, when people are very young, it’s likely not a season to consider marriage, or even dating… there is the basic task of growing up, they don’t have the maturity to succeed. Sometimes, people feel called to a specific task or ministry that will be all consuming, for example, a 1-2 year intensive internship just after college or work on a difficult mission field or a ministry that is best faced as a single person. This doesn’t mean marriage should never be pursued, just that it’s not in season.

    Sometimes people are called to singleness for more than a season, for all their life. Paul taught that a single person can be more whole hearted in there following God. I know several people who felt called to stay single. Though single, they didn’t feel a sense of deprivation, and they weren’t alone. They were part of a community which provided the intimacy, companionship, and the shared purpose found in a good marriage. They were involved in people’s lives, and people where involved in their life.

    I loved being married. Until cancer took her, Libby’s and my marriage was a blessing to both of us, and I believe the community we were a part of. I would love to be married again, but in this season of life I have realized that I am called to be single.  I have a teenage daughter who needs my full attention and who needs space to be able to grief the lose of her  mother. For this season, I can’t consider dating much less marriage. I have no idea if this is just for a season or the rest of life, and that is ok. I need to live in the present, and not worry about what might be in the future. What ever comes, I am confident that God will provide what I need. UPDATE: Less than a year after writing this my daughter said to me “Dad, I think you should consider dating.” Shortly after this, Jackie and I started to date, and were married in 2015.

    This post was created as a companion to a series about dating and marriage I helped teach for our church’s young adult fellowship.

    Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.”

    Genesis 2:18

  • Reflections on Dating & Marriage

    The following is a series of posts which contains what I have learned after 27 years of marriage.

    In the last six months I have found myself spending a great deal of time thinking and talking with friends about the nature of marriage. Part of this was because I was involved in two Bible studies which covers Genesis 2, and Ephesians 5, two of the great passages in the Bible about marriage. Additionally, I have been helping lead a study for young adults which has been looking at what the Bible says about relationships. Beyond these things though,  I have been trying to make sense of life in the face of losing my wife of 27 years to cancer. For though I feel her lost acutely, how much worse would it have been to not had those many years together. Libby was a blessing in my life.

    In the midst of working through my grief, sorrow, and joy, I found myself spending time with a diverse set of people. Young adults who are trying to figure out what the future might hold, older singles wondering if love and marriage was going to pass them by,  married couples who supported and encourage me,  friends going through difficult times in their marriages, and others who had lost their spouses to cancer or divorce. With each of these groups, conversations often turned to relationships, dating and/or marriage.

    Much of what follows started out as notes I made for myself, trying to understand what I was going through, to examine my perspective and try to see things through God’s eyes.  Some of this content started as email to friends who were wrestling with their relationships. Initially I was planning to do a single blog post, but I realized that this is a topic which is too big for a single post, so I have made a number of posts. I am sure this isn’t  complete… think of it as an alpha release. But you have to ship at some point. I figured starting on mother’s day would be appropriate.

    Ironically, now that I have finished writing up my notes, a friend introduced me to a book that captures much of what I would say, with more style and clarity than I will likely bring to the subject.  I would recommend the book The Meaning of Marriage by the Kellers. If you aren’t a book person, there is a video of Tim Keller, The Meaning of Marriage Books@Google talk which is a quick summary of the most important points.

    I would like to revise this content and make it better. You can help me. I would greatly appreciate feedback. Send me mail, post comments, whatever you are comfortable doing.

    Iron sharpens iron, So one man sharpens another. Proverbs 27:17

  • Relational Openness and Delightful Surprises

    Everyone I know want the opportunity to choose their long term relationships, be it coworkers, friends, or spouse. I have notice that this desire extends to the more transitory, day to day interactions. Most of us have a tendency to orient our lives so that our interactions will be pleasant, comforting, encouraging, or inspiring. I wonder though if that is how we should live life.

    I wonder if we are called to interact with, to love all the people who come across our path. Without partiality, without bias, or prejudice. Now some might say “Everyone? How can that work? I have things to do. I have people I have made a commitment to. I can’t interact with anyone who crosses my path.” But this makes me think about the parable of the good Samaritan. What distinguished the good Samaritan from the others in the story? When someone in need was in his path, he stopped and helped. The others in the parable very well might have had important things to attend to… but the circumstances, I would argue God, wanted them to update their plans, and they refused. What sort of help will you be asked to offer? I can’t say, I have confidence though, if you open your heart, God’s Spirit will lead you. I will suggest a good starting point. Ask yourself “If I was in this situation, what would I hope someone would do for me?”

    The Bible is filled with admonitions about how we should love one another, how we should encourage one another. These commands are not optional. They aren’t about people we are comfortable with. They are about how we treat everyone. The people that rub us the wrong way? Love them. People who we are attracted to? Love them. People we don’t understand? Love them. People who have been kind to us? Love them.

    Being open to interact with people cuts both ways. Not only is it about being open to love others, but it is being open to let others speak into our lives. We never know who God will be raising up to speak into our live, or who God will call to love us. We never know how God will get our attention, maybe it will be a talking Ass. In the book Spiritual Leadership, J. Oswald Sanders talked about how we should be prepared to take input, criticism, from anyone, even when they seemed to have bad motives. He would pray “God, show me what I can learn from this interaction”.  He was convinced that even if the issue the person brought to him was off, there was something to be learned from the interaction. I think one of the biggest mistakes we make is wanting to choose how God will speak into our lives, how we will be loved. We want to choose who and when. God wants us to be open to His work.

    Going to church was very hard the first few weeks after Libby died. Just getting to a seat felt like I was walking a gauntlet. So many people seemed to feel compelled to go out of their way to talk with me, to say something. Quite frankly, it seems like a large portion of these people were moved by something, pity, guilt, obligation… whatever it was, it didn’t feel like compassion or love. These were interactions I dreaded and the preponderance of them made it hard to go to church. But there were other interactions, where I felt loved, understand, where there was deep compassion being expressed by the other person. The surprising thing was I couldn’t predict which interactions would be a blessing, and which would be hard. The most comforting interactions were not necessarily the people who knew me best or who were most like me. One of the interactions that touched me the most deeply was a gentleman who is part of our recovery ministry. I don’t know his name, I don’t think we had ever talked before. But as I walked into the church came up to me, put his arm over my shoulder and said “It’s hard. I am praying for you.” That’s it. We stood side by side for a minute, and the moment was complete. I thanked him, and then we went on our way… but my day was infinitely better. In that brief moment I knew he understood my pain and he cared for me. This was a 2 Cor 1 moment, he was comforting me with the comfort he had received. Such a blessing.

    UPDATE 2023: In fact, this brief interaction carried me through several months and was a stark contrast to previously close friends who ghosted me because they didn’t know how to response. I still think about this dear man frequently, and often share how he touched my life. Alas, when I realized what a powerful blessing he has bestowed on me, he had moved out of the city and I wasn’t about to share how much I appreciated his act of compassion. I will have to wait until the Bema seat for him to know.

    Do we make ourselves available to bless or be blessed by others? Recently I have been challenged to be more present in day to day life. To be looking for who God might bring across my path. So I have been trying to keep my eyes wide open. I have been trying a simple “samaritan” experiment. To make eye contact with each person that crosses my path, to smile, and to say a quick prayer for them in my heart, and see what happens. More than half the people I cross paths with outside of church don’t make eye contact. Of those who will make eye contact, less than half are comfortable with more than a glance, and of those remaining, only a fraction are comfortable returning the smile. I wonder what this says about our society. I wonder if this isn’t one way we can make a difference in this world, a small way to be salt and light. Sometimes this brief greeting and pray is all that has happen. Sometimes though, I found the circumstances, the Lord, wanted more. Some people will pause and be willing to talk. I like asking the question “On a scale of 1-10 how’s your day?” People who answer 1,2,3,8,9,10 typically have something they want to share with anyone who is open, curious, and will make the time.  Compared to the good Samaritan, my experiences during this experiment have seemed small. Providing a place for a young man to sleep and get his bearings, escorting several people who were new to our country to a destination they were having trouble finding, encouraging a new friend who is going through a very tough time. The costs haven’t been much. Feeding someone a few meals, getting sunburned arms, delaying a task by a few hours. What sort of impact have these small active had? I have no idea, but I will continue to keep my eyes open, and hold my plans loosely and love the people who cross my path.

    Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it

    Hebrews 13:1-2 

  • transform common regrets into commands for life

    In the last  month or so I have repeatedly seen a list of the 5 most common regrets a hospice nurse has heard people express at the end of their lives. Julie’s 100 year old grandmother had just two items which overlap “spend more time with family” and “listen more”. It’s worth noting that there were two regrets absence from every list “I wish I made more money” and “I wish I spent more time at work”.

    Paul Graham smartly turn this into a short list of commands which he keeps at the top of the todo list. It’s rare that I feel  I can improve any article Paul has posted, but this time I would suggest a more active and expansive version of Paul’s commands would be appropriate. 

    Top RegretsPaul’s CommandsMy CommandsReasoning
    I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.Don’t ignore your dreamspursue your callingbecause your calling often goes beyond what you can dream, and true integrity is more valuable than gold
    I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.don’t work too much1. spend your time on what really matters
    2. practice sabbath / always have slack    		because not working is not the same as resting and you want to invest your time in what is most important to you.
    I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.say what you thinkspeak the truth in lovebecause we want our words to be heard and effective
    I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.cultivate friendshipscultivate friendships, but be receptive to all peoplebecause people are more important than things and people can surprise you (in a good way)
    I wish that I had let myself be happier.be happyembrace joy and gratitudewhich is independent of circumstances. Remember happiness = experience – expectations
    n/an/astay fit and take care of your healthyou will have more experiences to share at the end of your life

    All of these commands feeds into the most important command: grow in love

    “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”
    And Jesus said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

    Matthew 22:36-39

  • Recommended Books on Dating

    Seems like I have been talking with a number of folks who are figuring out what “Christian” dating means. This may, or may not be connected to our young adult fellowship being in the middle of a series which is looking at relationships which includes dating :). I thought sharing a few book recommendations whole I finish up my notes about dating and marriage.

    UPDATE 2023: I replaced Larry Crabb’s “The Marriage Builder” with Keller’s “The Meaning of Marriage” covers similar material more effectively and I added Loveology which addresses our current culture.

    The Meaning of Marriage by the Kellers.  This is the single best book I have found on the topic of marriage.  It provides an excellent framework to think about marriage. I believe they make a compelling case for why marriage is good and worth considering. This is a great book for someone who is “grown up”.  It doesn’t spend a lot of time talking about how to date. The readers should come to this book with a decent understand of how relationships work. The Kellers tell several personal stories to illustrate how you need to work to effectively communicate,  how you will bring in unspoken expectations which will be different from your partner which can led to serious miscommunication.

    Loveology by John Mark Comer. An enjoyable read. I think it would be an excellent book for someone born after 1990. In modern idioms explains how romantic / emotionally passionate “love” is inadequate to sustain a relationship, it paint an enticing picture for marriage and why marriage should be for life. It honestly talks about sex and hold out for no sex until marriage… not for arbitrary religious / moral reasons, but because the nature / power of sex. I disagree with his “we leave a part of ourselves” with the person we have sex with, I think it would be more accurate to think of it as an entanglement which is great if you are sticking together, but can trip you, pull you, etc if you separate. The book directly takes to the modern issue of gender identity… starting with a needed apology for how the church has behaved, but then makes the case for a classical biblical take on gender without stigmatize people. I think that Keller’s Meaning of Marriage is a stronger book, but Loveology will be more approachable to people who are younger.

    Dating and Waiting by William Risk. This book was written while Bill was attending to PBC Palo Alto. Anyone who knows Bill will hear his voice and immediately recognize his wit. I found this to be the most gracious book I have read on the topic of dating. Unlike many books on dating which focus on the mechanics or rules for dating, this book asks the reader to consider what God is doing in their heart. Each chapter ends with a short list of questions which are appropriate for both people in a dating relationship and those who are single. I appreciated the gentle way the book encouraged the reader to evaluate their values and priorities in dating, as well as the strong emphasis that what we seek can only be found in God. There are several chapters which explore how being single, and that “waiting” can be rich times that God uses to grow and change us.

    Spiritual Love: How to Build Deep Relationships and Marriages under God by McCallum & Delashmutt. This book is written by two of the founding pastor / elders of the church Libby and I attended when we lived in Columbus. This book captures much of what guided Libby and I as we dating. I believe the guidance was sound, and what we learn during this time in our lives provided a framework that enabled our marriage to thrive in the midst of difficulty. This is not a book to make you feel warm and fuzzy about dating or marriage. Rather, it a practical book that will challenge you to grow in your ability to love others, and by doing that, become prepared to have a successful marriage. The first chapter is a critique of modern society’s infatuation with “romantic love” which is pleasant but unable to sustain a relationship in the long run. The authors suggest that the only force sufficient to produce lasting relationships is unconditional, agape love. The key to a successful marriage? “… is not to find the right person, but to become the right person: a person who has learned to practice Christian love at the most intimate level”. A simple framework is provided to think about how one builds relationship: shared experience, understanding the person’s inner workings, and emotional sharing. Building strong same-sex friendships develops skills that are critical to lasting marriages. It is often easier to gauge growth in these friendship rather than romantic relationships, because when romance is involved, things often seem better, deeper, more intimate than they actually are. The next section of the book discusses how important it is for both people in a relationship to be equally yoked (sharing the same spiritual beliefs and commitments), and that both parties are vitally involved in the life of people in church, serving others both as individuals and as a couple. The book next moves into what is the appropriate perspective on sexual love suggesting appropriate boundaries are about attitude. The book concludes with several chapters that discuss how to deal with baggage from past relationship and life choices. I believe this is a very valuable book, but it can be applied in a  external fashion, can be somewhat mechanistic, falls short in conveying how God’s at the center of things in a very personal way, and doesn’t convey the beauty of a God centered marriage. The above book counter-balance / fill in these deficits.

    Other Materials?

    While not ready for prime time, if you are looking for other books about relationships, you might want to look the books I have tagged relationships on goodreads. Two books I would strongly recommend avoiding are Boy Meets Girl: Say Hello to Courtship by Joshua Harris and When God Writes Your Love Story by Eric Ludy. These books are by authors that had too little life experience to write on this topic ad advocate some deeply flawed ideas. UPDATE: Harris apologized for how his book hurt some people.

  • Myers Briggs Useful, But Love Rules

    I was first introduced to Myers Briggs in 1981 when I read the book Please Understand Me. I did the sorter and found myself classified as an ENFJ. The rest of this posting assumes you know something about Myers-Briggs. If you don’t, I would recommend giving the type sorter a try, and read a bit about what the letters I/E, S/N, T/F, J/P mean, and how these attributes break into four personality types which are nicely summarized on a wikipedia page about Keirsey Types. Actually, the description and sorter above is Keirsey’s which is very similar to Myers Briggs, but differs in emphasis which is nicely explained on the wikipedia page.

    When I read the description of the ENFJ I found myself surprised and delighted. Surprised that it seemed to be such an accurate description of my inner life which I thought no one understood, and delighted because I generally liked the description. My pleasure with the description of the ENFJ would often produce annoyance in Libby. She would say to me “You know, not all of the things that are in that description are good?  You understand this, right?” My words might have been “Yes”, but in my heart I had a very hard time seeing where there might be problems. If anything, the problem was that I was not fully embracing my ENFJ-ness. Reading the book was good in that it helped me understand people who were quite different from me.

    A few years ago my copy of the Please Understand Me fell apart, so I picked up the current version of the book, appropriately called Please Understand Me II. As Libby and I were talking about the material, our daughter Helen asked if she could take the test. She was young, maybe  eight, we weren’t sure how accurate the test would be, but we said sure. She tested out as a INFJ, the introvert version of me. This seemed to match what I had observed in Helen’s life. For the next several years, assuming Helen was an INFJ colored how I interpreted her actions and words.

    In the last few months I pulled Please Understand Me II out. I am thinking through what I want to do in the second half of my life. I figured reviewing my core personality type would likely help me navigate this season of change. As I read through my description this time I found myself asking questions I don’t think I have asked before. For each personality feature described I asked two questions:

    1. Does this describe wholeness as God has intended, a life of love and impact, or is this something that is broken or corrupted, that falls short of what God would desire?
    2. How does fully embracing this aspect of my personality effect life? Does it result in something good, does it result in being more loving, or is it likely to bring problems? I was careful to think through the full consequences, because while the immediate results could be good, several things could easily become idols that would result in an unhealthy life. 

    Libby would have been happy. For maybe the first time I could honestly say “Yes, I realize that everything here isn’t good.” Doing this exercise has been very helpful. Over the next couple of weeks I found myself thinking about the people I was interacting with and asking the question, what type are they? How are they looking at life differently from me. As Helen and I talked about Myers Briggs, she wanted to do the test again, wondering if she had changed. She still sorted as an INFJ. As Helen read the description of the INFJ she often said “Yes, I do this”, but something didn’t seem quite right. Helen’s F was just slightly higher than the T score, so I suggested Helen read the description of the INTJ. The number of times she said “Yes, I do this” was about the same, but her countenance was completely different. When she said “Yes, I do this” she would have a huge grin. It wasn’t just a recognition of the description, but a pleasure in the description. Clearly the sorter is fallible.

    Over the next week Helen and I ended up talking about Myers-Briggs quite a bit and developed a theory about why the sorter misclassified her. We decided we were seeing a nature/nurture dynamic.  Helen’s core nature likely had a very strong “T” component, but that she was raised by parents who were very strongly “F”. We encouraged her to develop a strong sense of empathy, to cherish compassion, even if justice (fairness) might suffer. In her younger life, Helen was a compliant child. She trying to act as instructed, she tried to please her parents, so she looked like she was strongly “F”. Helen’s no longer a young child. She is a young women who has really found her own voice. Yes, she continues to value many of the things she learned from Libby and me, but she is her own person. She believes compassion is important, but for her, telling things as they are… even if that might hurt someone, and caring deeply about justice has taken on an increased importance.

    Realizing that Helen is fundamentally different from me has been such a relief, and been so helpful. In the last few years I would sometimes hear  Helen say things that would shock me. My reaction was “How can she be so ruthless, so brutal?” I found myself being concerned about her heart. You see, if I said some of those things it wouldn’t be truth speaking. The only way I could say some of those things would be if I was bitter and really angry. But Helen is different from me. Saying these things isn’t an indication of a heart problem, it’s just telling it as it is. As I reflect on this more, I realize that Helen continued to practice compassion, to treat people well, it was just the way she talked about issues that seemed brutal. All sorts of things have become clear. We have been talking a bit about future plans, college majors, careers. I had been surprised by her preferences and tried to steer her more toward areas that I know would be good for someone with a personality like me. The thing is, Helen has a different personality. The majors / professions Helen has expressed an interest in make sense realizing she is an NT (Rationalist) rather than an NF (Idealist). It’s  been funny to see how our differences work out in all sorts of ways.  For example, she loves characters in books and movies who are extreme caricatures of rationalists like Sherlock Holmes and House. I have mixed feelings about these characters. On the one hand I find them challenging / simulating, one the other, they drive me crazy.

    Of course, personality is only one piece of the puzzle when it comes to career or life choices. When I look at recommended careers for an ENFJ, many are variations of either teacher or therapist, careers that focus on personal interaction and soft skills. The recommended short list does not include engineering or other fields that focus on analytics skills because they are not something that are nature strengths for my Idealists. Yet I have found myself not only in a field which tends toward analytics, but deeply involved in projects that specialize in collecting and analyzing hard data. When working in the physics department, I was regularly mistaken for a physics postdoc. I lead numerous initiatives related to developing hard metrics or applying statistical analysis to a complex problem set. Two of my favorite phrases when looking at problems are “Objectivity is your friend” and “If you can’t measure it, it not real”. This sort of scientific approach spills into personal life. Over the years we have purchase highly sensitive thermal probes, scales, sound spectrum analyzers, etc so we could get real data to make decisions.

    So what’s going on? Like Helen, it’s a nurture thing. My dad was a scientist and engineer. When I was growing up, I wanted to be just like him. Even when it was clear I wasn’t exactly like him, I still desired to follow as closely in his shoes as I could because I very much respected him and liked his values and approach to life. Math and science didn’t come easily to me in school the way things like political science and sociology did, but I was willing to fight to learn the material.

    What am I doing with this? I am working to appreciate these personality fueled differences. People are different. This is something to cherish and embrace.  I am finding identifying how people are different makes it easier to be gracious with them as well as to recognize their strengths. I think it’s helping me to be encouraging rather than critical.  In essence, it makes it easier to love people. And yet, while these differences have significant consequences, they all pale when compared to mature love which all personality types are capable… and that should be our goal. Not to become more ENFJ, or whatever personality type someone is, but to learn to love and serve others. In the book of Corinthians, Paul wrote about how people were given different gifts, and how it was good to have the diversity.  But he concludes in the following way:

    And I show you a still more excellent way. If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.
    I Cor 12:31-13:13

  • The Value of Vulnerability

    Recently, a number of people have expressed appreciation for my willingness to be “real” about life, to be vulnerable. I have had had two reactions to this feedback. On the one hand, I want to say “Of course, there is no other rational way to live”. On the other hand, I want to say “Really? I am doing that? That’s great!” I didn’t used to live this way, but I guess it’s become a habit that I don’t think about.

    This past week I have been reflecting on how I came to choose to be vulnerable… and yes, it’s a choice. Early in my marriage with my late wife Libby we had some big problems. At the time I was sure 99% of our marital problems, ok, maybe 90% of our problems were due to Libby. Of course this wasn’t the case. We started marriage counseling with Louie Basso. At the time, Libby was struggling with severe clinical depression. Louie referred Libby to a physician for anti-depressants which made a huge difference in her life, but Louie knew that Libby’s depression wasn’t the sole issue in our marital struggles. It didn’t take him long to get “my number” which was scary. I thought was pretty good at keeping people at a safe distance and keeping my weaknesses hidden. I most likely was, but Louie was very good a cutting through that sort of crap. I was the opposite of someone who was vulnerable. I lived a very controlled, self protected life. I could never show weakness. I could never fail to accomplish something. I always needed to be the best, or at least in the top 5%. Louie challenged me to be honest and open. I still remember when his words started to penetrate.  He said:

    You are pretending to be stronger than you are, thinking that is what people want.
    When you do this, you are lying. You are hurting yourself and those you love.
    The people who love you will not be driven away by your weakness.
    In fact, being authentic, showing your weaknesses is attractive.

    In my heart, I knew he was right, but that didn’t mean change was easy. Louie’s continued encouragement / counsel, Libby and several of my closest friends showed me love, acceptance, and tried to help me stay aware of my tendency to hide my weaknesses, to pretend like I had infinite resources to handle anything. They would call me “Super Mark”. They would ask if I was wearing my costume with the giant “S” under my flannel shirt. Sometimes they would joke about phone booths.

    As I  reflected on the topic of vulnerability this past week a pair of TED talks given by Brene Brown came up in my podcast queue. I would highly recommend these videos, well worth the 35 minutes it would take to watch them. [While I normally don’t refer to someone I don’t know by their first name, that seems overly familiar, I will in the rest of this post for brevity.] Brene’s first talk was call the Power of Vulnerability. I found myself laughing through the whole talk… that nervous sort of laugh when you realize that someone might as well be talking about you. I saw so much of my past self in her talk. Her second talk, Listening to Shame continues her story… how she had to deal the consequences of 4 million people having watched the first TED talk in which she talked very openly about her struggles to be vulnerable.

    In Brene’s first TED talk she shared that one of the most important things for people is to have a sense of connection with others, and that when she examined thousands of data points she had collected, she realized that the people who experienced connection with others were whole hearted. People who had the courage to be vulnerable. They knew they were imperfect, but they could deal with themselves and others with compassion. They embraced vulnerability, and that made them beautiful. They didn’t see vulnerability as something awful or something wonderful, it was just something that is necessary. They understand that there are no guarantees, that sometimes being vulnerable would result in pain,  hurt, lose, but it was worth the risk because they believed that in spite of their imperfections, they were worthy of connection. Brene went on to describe how this research brought her to the point of a breakdown, or more euphemistically, a spiritual awakening. She spend a year working with a counselor wrestling with the implication of her research. She described how she lost the battle against vulnerability but in the process won her life back.

    My process of learning to be vulnerable was not as quick. I wish I could say it was weeks or months. I would be happy if it was just the year that Brene described in her TED talk. It took me several years to make significant progress, with constant encouragement from those who loved me. I guess I was more willing than Brene to continue to fight against vulnerability, even though it was a foolish fight. Eventually though, I came to understand that without vulnerability, there couldn’t be deep joy, belonging, or authentic love. I came to realize that I was living my life in constant fear. I was sure that if people really knew me, that they would reject me. This fear created as much separation and alienation as real rejection.

    Brene describes this fear as shame. Shame is the voice that tells us that it is too risky to be vulnerable. It started by saying “you aren’t good enough”, and if that fails, it tries “who do you think you are”. Ironically, this sense of shame, this fear, produces as much separation as real rejection. In fact, it’s maybe worse because when you choose to be vulnerable, and you are rejected, there is an opportunity to learn, to change, to grow, and try again. If you don’t expose yourself, you will never know. There is no chance for it to get better. When I came to understand that I had nothing to lose, and a lot to possibly gain, I started to slowly, carefully, reveal the person I truly was. I started to practice vulnerability. I thought, worst case, I would learn that my fears were accurate. At least then I would know for certain what I was dealing with. At best, Louie was right, I would find that people accepted my imperfections, and I would know they authentically care for me, that I would experience true community, connection.

    I started to lower my guard. I started to be willing to show my weaknesses. The reactions from people was mixed. There were some people who judged me. There were people who moved away from me, clearly troubled or threatened. But there were many more people, especially Libby and my closest friends who showed me the most amazing acceptance and love. I found that rather than being repelled by my weakness, they drew in closer. They stood by me, offered help, support, companionship.  I experienced a life that was much more connected. Life got 1000% better.

    A couple of years later we moved to a new city and found ourselves in a new church. We joined a small group and started to build new friendships. After a few months Libby and I noticed a pattern in what couples we were attracted to, and were starting to develop a closeness with. Their lives were messy. We could see that they were struggling with a host of issues. They weren’t always positive… we would hear about pain, heartache, struggles. You know what? It was attractive. We knew who they were. They didn’t live in a self protective bubble that kept everything at a safe distance. We realized that the lessons we had learned before moving were critically important. We didn’t want to forget them, to slip into a pattern of self protection. Together we made a commitment to live as openly and honestly, vulnerably as we knew how.

    The first test of this resolve came a few months after we had moved. Libby’s mother passed away. We flew back to Columbus for the funeral. When we came back Libby was struggling with unresolved feelings related to her mom. We decided to talk with Lynne, one of our pastors who specialized in counseling. The first meeting with her was SCARY. It seemed like she saw right into our hearts. Not only did she ask questions about the things we presented and expected to talk about, but she asked questions that touched on things that we weren’t comfortable thinking about, much less letting anyone else know about. We could have decided that she was too scary, too perceptive, too discerning. Instead, we realized that she was a women who loved people, who wanted to come along side and help. We also realized that she was commitment to living honestly, to be vulnerable. Rather than fear exposure,  we decided that we would seek it out, and who better than someone who seemed to see things we weren’t even aware of. After the immediate counseling issue was resolved we continued to seek this dear women out as a friend. Over the years Lynne became one of our most cherished friends. We found her insight liberating, and her vulnerability refreshing.

    In Brene’s second talk, “Listening to Shame”, she suggests that shame is focused on self. Shame said “I am bad”. She contracts shame to guilt. Guilt said “I did something bad”, a focus on behavior. Brene went on to say that shame said “I am a mistake” where guilt says “I made a mistake”. Shame destroys the opportunity for connectedness where guilt lets us compare what with did against what we want which is adaptable. While I think she makes a very good point, I think she doesn’t go far enough. Shame is indeed extremely destructive, but guilt can also be quite corrosive. Even the briefest examination of the topic of guilt would more than double this post, so I won’t. I will suggest the most excellent book called  No Condemnation by S. Bruce Narramore which has the subtitle Rethinking Guilt Motivation. The people who taught me the most about vulnerability and wholehearted living, Lynne and Louie, recommended this book to me and often assigned reading from it when they taught classes.

    Brene talked about what happens when you put shame in a petrie dish. She observed that if you dose the dish with empathy, shame stands no chance. It can’t grow. If you want to shame to grow, just add secrecy, silence, and judgement. I am committed to a life of vulnerability… to fight against shame, and encourage others to choose to be honest, vulnerable, courage. It is tempting to think “when I get things together, when I am sure things will work, when I am sure I will succeed, then I will let people in, then I will let people see the real me”. There are two problems with this. First, it’s unlikely to ever happen. Second, that’s not what  people want to see. What they want to see is honesty, they want to see people who dare greatly, who take risks. I would encourage everyone to choose to live with authenticity. Live in the light.  My deepest regrets are the times I don’t do this.

    This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful. But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation from God.

    1 Corinthians 4:1-5 ESV

    Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.

    Philippians 3:12-16 ESV

  • 27+ Years of Blessing

    Twenty seven years ago Libby and I were married in a school’s multi-purpose room with our friends and family looking on. It was a stressful but happy day. The morning was spent moving Libby’s belongings from the room she had been sharing with a friend to what was to be our new home…  someone needed to move into Libby’s old room ASAP. The afternoon was filled with all sorts of last minute errands to prepare for the wedding. We were one of the first couples in our peer group to get married. We didn’t have friends who would tell us the words we now repeat:

    Do you know then best thing about the wedding?  When it’s done, you are married!! That’s all that matters. All the things that go wrong during the wedding will become favorite memories that you will laugh about five years from now.

    A couple of hours before the wedding Libby returned to the house she had been living in to get cleaned up and get dressed. At the time she lived with 10-12 other women. The house had one good bathroom. Libby was so worried that with everyone getting ready for the wedding she wouldn’t get to take a shower. I assured her that her housemates would make sure she would be prepared in time for the wedding, and that included getting to take a shower. Libby did get to take a shower before the wedding.

    That night we were married, and started a grand adventure together. We were married pretty young… Libby was 21 and still working on her undergrad degree, I was just 22. Libby was fond of saying we were married young, maybe too young, but we choose well.

    In the first few years of our marriage were hard.  Most marriages to go through a difficult patch in the first few years  as the romantic dreams runs headlong into the realities of life together. There were a number of issues in our personal lives, and in life circumstances that seemed overwhelming. There were times when some of these issues seemed like they might crush us and I became resentful, even bitter. In time, God’s mercy became evident, and healing in both our lives took place. I was once again able to see Libby clearly, to understand how precious she was, and how blessed I was to have her in my life. I was delighted to discover that Libby cherish me more than I could imagine. Sara Groves described coming through such a time in her song A Different Kind of Happy. As time has passed, I have come to cherish Libby all the more.

    Five months ago I had to write something for Libby’s memorial program. How do you fit 30+ years of shared life and observations into a couple of paragraphs. How can you possibility figure out what is most important. Maybe someone who is a more gifted writer, who thinks more deeply that me could distill a life into a few paragraphs, but I sure couldn’t. When my dad passed ten years ago I wrote up a short tribute which I called lessons from dad. I wanted to write something like this for Libby because the memorial service program seemed to fall so short of capturing who Libby was… but I was unable to write anything. Today writing something down is coming a bit easier. This entry is my start to do justice to Libby’s memories. To start to pull together something that truly honors the women Libby was. I am sure there is much more to write.  The following are a few of Libby’s characteristics that I believe deserve to be mentioned with a few observations of how I was blessed by Libby.

    This evening a friend wished me “happy anniversary”. These two simple words helped me realize that I had spent the day thinking of Libby… but it wasn’t a weepy sad day, but rather a day where I found myself marveling at how much of a blessing Libby was.  It was a happy anniversary.

    Loyal & Sacrificial Love:

    During high school I  heard Carole King sing “You’ve Got a Friend“. I thought this was my anthem, though I am not sure I actually lived up to all the lyrics. Libby wasn’t particularly fond of the song, but it described her life well. No one could be a finer friend than Libby. She was deeply devoted to all her friends. No effort, no cost, no sacrifice was too large. She did not give up on people, nor would she be driven away, even if you gave her crap in return for the love.  I can think of a number of people that Libby continued to love, support, confront, comfort, even when they responded very badly. Over time she might become fatigued,  her words could take on an edge, she could become prickly, but she wouldn’t give up. Libby was fond of saying “I am on your team.” This statement often preceded statements which could be taken as an attack, but never were. Rather, Libby was willing to enter conflict, something she HATED, if it would help a friend. She was on your team. She would do anything if it would mean that you would be helped.

    I am fond of saying that I married up. No, not in the typical way of marrying someone with more money, education, status, or influence. I mean marrying someone who was better than me, more noble. Libby cherished me. To be honest, this still amazes me, and I am so thankful for her agreeing to marry me. Even when I hurt her deeply, she continue to love me, cherish me. She treated my heart is if it was the most precious object. Careful not to break it, yet willing to be be an attending nurse when painful surgery was required.

    My most vivid memory of this was a conversation we had over twenty years ago. I can still remember exactly where were we sitting. I wanted to make some life changes. She told me that she was sure I was about to make a huge mistake, I was running from things I should turn and face… but she would support me, love me, be at my side even if I continued to make stupid choices. As she expressed her commitment to love me, to stick by my side, it became clear to me what a cost she would pay to support me in a bad decision. I don’t know that I have ever felt so loved. Her love gave me the courage to turn and face the things I was running from. In the ultimate irony, her willingness to sacrifice herself, saved her from experiencing that suffering because her love turned my heart.

    Courage:

    Libby did not shy away from hard things. She was prepared to face them head on.  She might be scared, feel overwhelmed, but if she thought something needed to be done or faced, she would lean into the discomfort. On the surface she had remarkable courage, but her heart was even more courageous. Libby had a very deep negative streak.  She had a remarkable ability to identify anything that could possibly go wrong and some things that couldn’t but she could imagine them breaking as well. Yet in spite of these terrible, worse case possible outcomes, she would find the courage to take a risk and step out to do what she felt she was called to do.

    We would joke about what a good team we made. I am someone who typically assumes everything will work out, so I will sign up to take a risk without counting the cost. I would approach Libby and say “Lets give XYZ a try.” She would wrestle through all her fears and say “Ok.  Let’s do it.”.  I would be fine up until the the hard commitment was requirement, the preverbal “jump off the cliff moment” at which point I found myself saying “Oh my God, what have I gotten us into”. Libby would hold my hand, remind me why it was worth taking the risk and share with me all the issues she had to wrestle through. I would always find my spirit lighted as I laughed at some of the outrageous worse case scenarios she came up with. It was always easier to take a risk when you knew someone who loved you would be at your side.

    A Devotion to God:

    People operate on multiple levels and sometimes all those levels are synchronized well, sometimes things don’t work quite as your would expect.  On many levels, Libby was more devoted to following the Lord than anyone I knew. She desired to build her life around God, around Jesus. She continuously sought for ways to serve and to proclaim Him. Life was ministry.  She wanted to know the Lord intimately. The last ten years of her life she really benefits from the contemplative traditions she learned through Wellspring. She was devoted to practicing listening prayer. She longed to see the Lord clearly, to follow Him, to dance in His presence. Along side of this, Libby has a life long struggle with depression which often made it hard for her to find the joy in her Lord that she desired. One of the great comforts I had when she passed was that she is now seeing the Lord face to face, freed from the effects of sin, able to joyously worship her maker, to dance in His presence.

    Libby’s love for me made me want to cherish her. If I was married to nearly anyone else, they would have become an idol to me. Someone that was more important than anything, including following God. I have seen how that can go so badly wrong in other people’s lives. Thankfully Libby was more devoted to the Lord than to me. When my focus shifted, she pointed me right back to  God. To please her, I needed to please the Lord. Libby was such a perfect provision for me. It was through Libby’s example that I found myself drawn to God. It was through her going to Heaven that I found my heart drawn to God in a new and deeper way.

    I deeply miss Libby and find myself sometimes struggling with loneliness. It would be tempting to try and fill this longing with another person… but I am thankful that hasn’t happened. These last few months without Libby has helped me see more clearly God’s love, and provided me with a growing appreciating of how He cherishes me, how He cherishes all of us, and why Libby was so devoted. I am embarrassed to admit, in the past I might have traded closeness with God for a person who would cherish me as Libby did. I couldn’t do that now. The thrill of seeing God work, the comfort He has provided my heart has been so great. I couldn’t give that up. If there was any chance that a human relationship would take that away, I wouldn’t be interested. For a bit I feared this meant I would never again have a relationship that was as intimate as what I had with Libby. But I know this doesn’t have to be the case. I have Libby’s example. With prayer, with grace, with daily seeking the Lord, it’s possible to love someone dearly, to have them love you, and at the same time be deeply in love with our God. There is a lot I don’t know about the future, but one thing I know, that the Lord is slowly growing my heart, drawing me closer, I am growing more devoted to Him. I find that I am a bit more like Libby each day which makes my heart glad.

    Last vacation before cancer returned. Grand Tetons

  • Being Uncomfortable, Student and Teacher

    I would notice The Courage to Teach by Parker Palmer every time I visited my favorite bookstore. I didn’t picked it up… I am not a teacher. In my mind, teachers are those brave souls who stands in front of students in a school, or in front of the congregation of a church and present a well structured, well scripted stream of information that enlightens and enlivens the audience. I have periodically found myself in a situation where I was called on to formally teach, but only because there was no one else available, not because I am particularly gifted or felt a great desire.
    I don’t remember what ultimately led me to pick up The Courage to Teach, but I am glad I did. Rarely has a book so resonated with me. As I read Palmer’s book, I realized that teaching isn’t restricted to something done in front of a crowd of people. Teaching can also be a collaborative activity in a small group, or even one to one. I realized I aspire to be a teacher in improvisational settings: talking with a coworker about a hard problem they can’t solve by themselves, with my daughter exploring a life choice, or in the aisle of REI discussing the effectiveness of various insect repellents based on scientific data.

    Some teaching is light and easy, little more than passing on information. While this can be enjoyable, I love teaching that can be transformative, that has significance. There is a section of The Courage to Teach which talked about how deep truths that bring about transformation are often paradoxes. Hard to understand, and uncomfortable to sit within. Palmer starts this section saying:

    Holding the tension of paradox so that our students can learn at deeper levels is among the most difficult demands of good teaching… understand that the tension that comes when I try to hold a paradox together is not hell-bent on tearing me apart. Instead, it is a power that wants to pull my heart open to something larger than myself.

    I find myself reflecting on this process, and find that today, I am more a student than a teacher. I am an impatience man. I don’t like paradoxes. I don’t like unanswered questions. I don’t like a multitude of opportunities. I like the definite: decisions, direction, in a word, closure. The more important the issue, the closer an issue is to my heart, the more quickly I want resolution. Resolution rarely come as quickly as I wish. If we are blessed, this movement of the heart might be accomplished in a few hours, but often it’s days, months, years, sometimes even decades.

    Over the last several years, I have hoped to make a vocational change. To find a way to spend more time focused on people, and less on products and technology, to be a teacher in a small setting. This transition has seemingly been blocked. I wonder if this was because I was not ready to be a teacher, rather I needed to first learn to be a good student. Through the lose of Libby God has been teaching me how to be quiet, how to listen, how to be patient, to be a student of life. I still have much to learn, but at least in my own life, I am learning not to rush through things too quickly, even when it’s uncomfortable.

    I hope to be a good teacher some day, but I know I have a long way to go. A good teacher is willing to suffer along side the student as the learning process unfolds. In fact, a good teacher often needs to help the student by helping them stay in an uncomfortable place. While I have become more willing to sit in these hard places in my own life, I struggle greatly when people I care about are suffering. I want to “fix the problem”. I will tend to rush them because I am uncomfortable, not because it is what will be the best for them. I pray that I learn to sit with others in those difficult places, to listen in silence while those hard paradoxes opens hearts, to support them in love while their hearts struggle and then finds true healing.

    Last Monday I would have said that I am making progress, that maybe I am starting to learn what it takes to be a good teacher. That afternoon I chatted with a good friend and found that I still have so much to learn. I had a expectation that I would be helping my friend. Instead I didn’t listen, and said things that were completely unhelpful, exposing how off I was. The critique “Waiting your turn to speak is not the same thing as listening” strikes very close to home. After the conversion I found myself wondering if there was any hope, would I ever learn to listen? Could I help others? Thankful, I believe there is hope.

    First came a question the next day. “When you speak before listening is that the end of it, or do you recognize your mistake and step back?” The previous day I had thought myself to be ready to teach and share something useful, but I completely missed what was happening in my friend’s life. Yet, the story didn’t end there. I was able to recognize I was missing something. I was able to recognize that rather than being a teacher in that moment, I was a student being taught through my friend’s life and words. In the end, I believe I was able to offer some encouragement and help while I was learning from them.

    Next came an essay at the end of the book Spiritual Formation which discussed Henri Nouwen’s view of spiritual formation. Nouwen saw spiritual life is a journey, as a series of spiritual movements from this quality to that, from things that enslave and destroy to liberation and life. Nouwen’s books often articulate these movements and highlight that the transformation is brought about by the Spirit. This suggests that just recognizing the immediate movement and responding to it is sufficient. I found this comforting, because it’s more about being in the moment that building of one thing on top of another. The following was the description of how Nouwen’s approach to spiritual formation changed:

    In his early years as a priest who offered spiritual direction and supervision to seminarians and members of religious orders, Nouwen counseled others to follow the classical disciplines in order to climb the ladder of divine ascent in progressive stages of unification. Climbing Jacob’s ladder, step by step, toward spiritual perfection is a common image and motif in classical stage theory. Nouwen had read John of the Ladder, the sixth-century ascetic who sought perfection in the desert, and Nouwen despaired of ever reaching the top. By the time he arrived at Notre Dame as a professor of pastoral psychology, he had turned the ladder of ascent on its side and taught spiritual formation as a series of horizontal movements of the heart, back and forth, that require daily devotion and discipline, with the goal of human wholeness rather than divine perfection.

    The third encouragement came the following day from a TED video by Brian Goldman entitled Doctors make mistakes. Can we talk about that?. Goldman is calling for a radical change in the medical community: to acknowledge that being perfect, that never making mistakes is not possible. That the community should embrace mistakes and learn from them, and find better ways for people to work together as a team. Goldman’s talk made me think of a conversation with a dear friend who is an extremely gifted counselor. In talking about the counseling process she said “It’s not a set of skills, techniques or formal education. More important that any skill is to love the person in front of you, and to listen with an expectation that God is speaking into the situation.” She often tells the people she is not concerned about being right, rather she is concerned that together, they can find what is true. She has great confidence that this can happen, because God is in the room, providing light and love.

    Finally, as I was driving home I found myself listening to the song A Different Kind of Happy by Sara Groves which speaks about how good it is to look honestly at life with someone else, how sharing together transforms lives and relationships. When I listen to this song, the first thing that comes to mind is Libby and how much I appreciated sharing life with her. Libby is gone from this earth, but I still experience the sharing of life. The Bible talked about how all who follow Jesus are part of the “Body of Christ”. That a hallmark of true faith is loving one another. I am so grateful to have experienced this profoundly in the last few months. Much of the love and support has come from people who are part of my local church, people who live in the bay area. But there are people who live more distantly that have helped me experience that different kind of happy. Dear friends who called / visited from Columbus, Phoenix, Boston, DC, and Anaheim. Timely words from friends spread across the world. A text message, Skype or email that came when I most needed help. Words from Russia, China, Taiwan, Singapore, India, and Thailand.

    My take away? There is hope. It’s possible or be a student, a learner, a teacher, because God is good. He cares for us and will lead us to truth and wholeness if we humbly turn our eyes to Him.

    But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God. — James 1:19-20

  • Expanding Music Listening Options – Spotify Cool

    Earlier I wrote a bit about how I am being a bit more intentional in what I am listening to… but I still like variety. I discover new music the old fashion way: recommendations from friends or reviews in magazines like Paste. When I learn of a new artist I might be interested in, I search YouTube for samples to listen to. If I like the music, I order a physical CD. When the CD arrives, I rip it using a lossless codecs, and then play it through our stereo or one of our Apple i-devices.

    I have known about Spotify for awhile as well as other music stream services. The idea of a HUGE library of music which is immediately accessible for no money is very attractive, but I am fairly picky about audio quality. I knew the audio quality from all the streaming services wouldn’t be as good as my personal collection, so I didn’t really give any of them a try. This weekend I was feeling rather nostalgic… I wanted to listen to some music I hadn’t listened to in years. Some of that music is on records or CDs owned by friends who live thousands of miles away, some of it is on records that I haven’t been able to play for many years. I decided to give Spotify a try since I had a number of friends who seem to love it. Spotify didn’t have all the music I was looking for, but they had a lot of it. It’s very convenient to use, just type into the search box what you are look for, and the results are grouped by song title, artists and album. Select an artist and you get a list of their most popular tracks on Spotify and a list of albums with tabs for a brief bio and a list of “Related Artists” which could use some work but is a good start. The audio quality wasn’t as good as the CDs I had ripped lossless, but it was good enough that I could enjoy listening to the music that I wouldn’t otherwise have had. I would recommend checking it out if you haven’t yet.

    Spotify has a bunch of “social” features. It’s pretty easy to make information about what you are listening to available to other Spotify users, or to the larger community via Facebook or Twitter. I like the idea of being able to see what my friends are listening to as a way to discover new music, but I am not sure I am comfortable broadcasting my playlists. For the time being I have turned off automatic sharing on the preferences panel. Maybe I will be a bit more comfortable when more people share their playlists.

    What’s truly cool, is this can all be done using their free service.  The ads are a bit annoy, seems like 30 seconds every 15-60 minutes. So hard the ads have been only about music and one ad for Mini Cooper. For people who are happy listening to music through computer speakers go ahead and stop reading now.

    Besides the free service level, Spotify offers an unlimited level which frees you from the ads, and premium. Premium is $10/month and offers higher audio quality, supports streaming to Sonos, Squeezebox, Boxee, and the Spotify app that runs on numerous smartphones and tablets. I started with with free service, and then signed up for the free 30 day trial of the premium service.

    There is a fairly complete article about how to stream spotify wirelessly to your stereo. They are missing two variant/options: use Airplay ready stereo equipment rather than an Apple device, and using a smart phone or tablet rather than a computer to provide the audio stream. I am already using an Apple Airport Express WiFi device to enable iTunes to stream music to our stereo, so a slight modification of “Option A” from the above article was the obvious winner. My modification is that rather than feeding the stereo directly from the audio jack on the Airport Express which has fairly marginal audio quality, we are using the optical output which feeds a DAC with bit-perfect music. So long as the DAC has a good anti-jitter circuitry, the audio quality is hugely better through the external DAC with both lossy and lossless sources.

    Airfoil is a nicely done piece of software. It lets any audio on the computer to be sent to any Airplay device. This is something Apple should have built into the OS. Oh well. The free Airfoil client for i-Devices not only lets you listen to the audio stream, but gives you some basic controls (pause/start, skip forward, skip back)  with both iTunes and Spotify. A nice touch.

    A few words about the Spotify software for smart phones and tablets. The app is a bit clunky, but it works. There is something kind of cool about having access to a huge (>13M tracks) library from a pocket size iPhone. I tried using my iPhone plugged into the Tivoli PAL which produces a portable system which can play tunes for hours anywhere that has a network connection. Way different from the days of records which some members of the younger generation hasn’t seen (funny video)?! Then I realized that the Spotify iPhone app can send its audio via Airplay, and since everything is living in the digital domain, this will be the same audio quality as using the computer to drive the stereo in our living room. Better yet, using the iPhone means that the Spotify controls can be in my hand, rather than on the screen of a computer which is in a different room. Now the dilemma… is the convenient, no ads,  and better (but not ideal) audio quality worth the premium service fee. In past years, the answer would have said yes… but right now I am working to keep my burn rate down, so I am not completely sure.