Thrive!

Unnamed

Posted: May 27, 2014 in wonders
Tags: randy hasper, the unnamed, the wonder of unnamed realities, things we don't have words for, we don't see what we don't name

Most of reality is unnamed.

Consider the lack of names for various and odd spaces. A balbis is an H shaped thing, but what is a simple, one-word name for an empty space between a bed and a dresser? We see such a space often, but we have no name for it. A squircle is a combined square and circle, the shape of iPhone apps, but what do we call the space between two tree trunks?

Some languages do better than others at getting at unnamed stuff. In German, the excess weight gained due to emotional overeating is called kummerspeck, literally, “grief bacon.” But what do we call the last bite of a delicious food that tempts us to have one more bite?

The Japanese note a difference between what one must claim to think and feel in order to fit in with society, and what one privately thinks and feels. They call this tatemae and honne. But what do we call the thoughts we borrow from others and then mingle with our own tangential thoughts to produce something neither ours nor theirs?

The Scotts call the moment of panic when you are introducing someone and realise you’ve forgotten their name a tartle. But what do we call that moment of panic when we call them by their name and then realize we have gotten it wrong?

It may be argued that the realities we don’t name we don’t discriminate from other realities. Generalizations gloss over nuances and leave them hidden. Space is an inadequate word for the area between our fingers, and because we don’t have a common name for this, and because we don’t talk about this space much, we may actually see it without really seeing it.

Life is filled with this kind of seeing what we don’t see, seeing background, seeing empty space between objects, seeing pieces of things not noted by the name we have for their whole.

What is the word for the space inside the fold of a fabric? This is such a beautiful space, so common, so lovely in a Vermeer, so delicate on a sleeve, so gorgeous in a curtain in a breeze-blown window.

I love the unnamed spaces of life with a love that I can’t name or define. The space under an umbrella — it has a safe, fun, social, protected feel to it. The space within a cat’s fur — it has a soft, dense, silky, warm feel. The space between two people when they are having a good talk — it has a close, combined, focused, secure feel.

Perhaps, to be less bored, to be more aware, to see more beauty, we should go looking for what’s unnamed.

What’s in a nameless thing? A nameless flower by no name still smells as sweet,or does it?

Everyday, in every moment, there is a possible adventure, the essence of so many unnamed realities waiting to be discovered, both spiritual and physical, emotional and social waiting to be noticed, waiting for us to softly and reverently enter in to — and name.

Warm Affection!

Posted: May 25, 2014 in friends
Tags: generous love, how to grow a church, randy hasper, reverent wonder, warm affection, what makes a good leadeship team

Today I munched tasty Greek food with my leadership team and staff, fifteen of us overlooking the beautiful Pacific Ocean in La Jolla, California.

It’s a gorgeous spot — sculpted sand cliffs, beautiful sand beaches, peak breaks, a lovely little cove, sleeping seals, snorklers, divers, surfers and tourists from all over the world.

We talked about all the cool innovations we had initiated at the church this year, and all the new stuff we had in mind for the second half of the year. It is crazy fun how much we have done, and how much we have planned for the near future.

1 Peter 1:5 speaks of building on “reverent wonder, warm friendliness, and generous love.” In our team, we have all this and more.

When all is said and done in an organization like ours, it isn’t all about the innovation and change, although innovation is fun, and necessary and very, very healthy, to keep things moving forward in a God-honoring way. But it is really all about the reverent wonder, for God and each other.

It is a reverent wonder to work with such amazing people. They are beautiful, and they make these some of the best years of our lives.

Warm affection — I have that for each one of them.

With several of them I ventured to Nicaragua. With one I share a love of art, with another a passion for ideas, with another a fun, laughing, teasing warmth, to several I am an empowering mentor. One of them is one of the safest people I have ever known, another one of the most loyal, another is one of the kindest most empathetic persons possible. Another I have known since she was a child, another was the best man in my wedding, another is a financial guru of my ilk — responsible.

We must not overlook the value of such relationships. Perhaps we don’t see how good such relationships are, until we lose them. Several members of our team will move next year. That’s the kind of world we live in, transient, mobile, changing, metamorphic. We shed people; I don’t want to.

I like to find them, and keep them. Good luck with that. We won’t keep them all, and yet, nothing is lost from what has been found. Each one completes us, each one adds to us, each one is a wonder, each one a treasure, given by God, for the time we have them.

Warm affection — you can’t beat it, even if it is just for now.

Generous love — nothing is better!

I can’t wait to see what and who is next!

Jacaranda

Posted: May 11, 2014 in self
Tags: being who we are, on not comparing, randy hasper, the essence of being, the jacaranda of the self, to be or not to be ourselves

The jacaranda trees are showing off again in Southern California, being themselves, being gorgeous, taking compliments, blushing not-so-shyly in the canopy.

Their flowers are the thing, standouts, showoffs, conspicuousities — large proud panicles of purple or blue, fine five-lobed corollas.

This is just what the jacaranda do each spring, show off the essence of their essential essence, parade their blue-purple — be — exist as they are, with aspirations to be very precisely themselves. They carpet the areas under themselves in their color, mirroring their splendor on the ground. One is not enough, of their exact selves.

We might do well to follow suit in precisely their fashion. Some of us aspire too much to other than what we are. We are purple; we long for red. We are blue; we want green.

There is much to be said for being what we are, fully, unreservedly, not shyly, not longingly, no eye cast jealously toward colors below, above, to the side — simply, breath-takingly us!

What are you? Normal, boring, no standout, a plodder, a wall flower, an average citizen, a good joe, an average Jane — not blue ribbon?

No, you are more than that.

The self-possessed average-ordinary — always casting the ubiquitous dumb-blind-stare of stupid inferiority within the canopy of their ever-present shadow of insane insecurity — they are more than they know.

The inveterately comparative — those ever casting the elusive and wistful glance of they-seem-more-educated, she-is-more beautiful, he-is-taller-and-stronger — these know not who they are.

Each self is a jacaranda of a different color, a gorgeous conspicuousity, a standout in the canopy, casting its own color on the ground below, existing as nothing less than what it is, particularly purple, yellow or green, nothing less, nothing more, nothing else needed — to be beautiful.

I Like Me — Gracious

Posted: May 6, 2014 in mistakes
Tags: graciousness in vogue, how to deal with mistakes, i like myself gracious, on thriving, randy hasper

Yesterday I was in line at Sprouts with my broccoli and double dipped chocolate peanuts.

The food in front of me, on the conveyor, had no customer connected with it. What to do?

For a second the checker and I looked at each other, bemused, and then suddenly a woman with a child in a cart blew by me, crowding me in a bit and saying, “Those are mine; I have just a couple more items.” She proceeded to empty her cart of another twenty or so things.

It was odd. How did she get some items on the conveyor, and have so many still in her cart. Actually, I didn’t come up with an explanation until later. She must have partially unloaded her cart and then have gone back into the shopping area to get something she had forgotten. She didn’t just leave her cart there, because she needed to take the baby with her.

Her order took some time to process. There was some problem with the card or payment method or something.

The checker was visibly upset, and she apologized to me when it was finally my turn. She said, “People shouldn’t get in line until they have finished shopping.”

Normally, I would have been irritated too. Normally, I’m in a bit of a rush, pushing it, as I like to do, keeping the accelerator down. I like going fast.

But it wasn’t normally. I was on vacation, nothing to get to next that had a time stamp on it, and I found myself to be unphased by the wait.

“It’s not a problem,” I told the clerk. She thought it was. She apologized twice. I was gracious.

I like the feeling of being gracious. It’s a calm feeling, a lack of stress, a lack of judgment. I like not correcting people. I like myself when I am not correcting people who have done something odd or different than I would do, or wrong. I like understanding what is going on.

I like me — gracious.

It’s interesting. Gracious may be coming back in vogue. Maybe not.

Some thinking young people today seem to me to be more interested in understanding behavior than in judging, criticizing and condemning it. Young people in particular seemed to me to be sick of the judgmentalism of their parents, judgements concerning sexual behavior, political orientation, religion.

Some of this may simply be simply their lack of morality or formulated politics or faith. But really, some of this might be a more human desire for freedom, from the control of others, and for freedom, to be imperfect.

Life has its moments, when we have forgotten something we came to the store for, and in which we choose — in a flurry — to go back for. Life has its omissions. Life has its waits.

And in those cases, as in so many, graciousness is good.

I hope someone is gracious with me, the next time I make a mistake.

I Love Being Human

Posted: May 5, 2014 in food
Tags: a proper relationship with food, food isnt eviil, how to eat like a Christian, I love being human, randy hasper

I can turn it on
Be a good machine
I can hold the weight of worlds
If that’s what you need
Be your everything

But I’m only human …

Christina Perri

We aren’t machines; we can’t hold the weight of the world. We’re human, we feel and cry and care — it’s good!

The old Gnostic heresy that bodies are evil was wrong. Bodies are good. Bodies are a gift.

Psalm 139, “We are marvelously made by God.”

Human? Good; human emotion, good; human reason, good; eating, very good.

Mark Twain once quipped something like, “Success is eating what you like and letting the food fight it out inside you.”

I particularly like the fight inside between vanilla bean ice cream and Hersey dark chocolate sauce. The chocolate jumps on the vanilla.

I love food. I love to think about food. I love to thing about God and food. He made it.

Where do we find food in the Bible? Where don’t we?

Food came with the creation of plants, and Genesis records that God “saw that it was good.” Food is proof that God loves us!

God fed his people in the wilderness. In the OT, God gave the Jews, dietary laws, for discipline, in some cases perhaps for health, certainly to teach them to set themselves apart as a special, holy people. Food was given great value, when commanded as sacrifices and offerings.p

In the NT, Jesus turned water to wine. He fed his followers fish and bread when they were hungry. He declared the bread and wine to be sacraments. He defined himself as the bread of life.

Later Peter’s vision for a diverse church declared all foods clean.

The consistent narrative of the Bible is that food is love. Food is good. Food is a gift.

Food isn’t evil. Food is fun.

Of course of us at times have struggled with food. Some of us have developed unhealthy relationships with food and it is to us an area of weakness and even shame.

We’ve eaten too much, or too little, or unhealthily, and felt shame and guilt about eating. We’ve had other people force food on us, or perhaps criticize us for eating.

For some of us food has at times become an addiction, or a weapon to punish ourselves with, or a substitute for relationships, or even a form of protection.

Food issues are very deep and complicated. Eating disorders are very serious and people need help to recover from them. Professional help is needed.

I am certainly not perfect in this area of food choices.

Last Monday for snacks I had the following: Pinkberry yogurt, two bowls of cold cereal, three popsicles, some blueberries, two premium fudge bars and some double dipped chocolate peanuts. They are recorded on MyFitnessPal app on my phone

It’s a confession. Forgive me Father for I have sinned …

I have over indulged in the edible creation, the confectionary creation, the delectable, mouthable, tooth-worthy creation!

We can all identify. We all have our healthy and unhealthy choices.

We all have our healthy and unhealthy choices; we all have our bacon and our kale. I usually eat mostly fish, chicken, veggies and fruit. But I have my moments of food food too. I let the cheese and sausage fight it out.

But remember, food was given to us by God, in love, and eating it was meant to be act of freedom.

1 Corinthians 10:25, “Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience, for, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.”

Frappuccinos are the Lords, and everything in them.

All of us eat at times unhealthy food or in unhealthy ways to relieve stress, to sooth our emotions, as a response to being traumatized.

But the salient, significant, interesting question arises:

What is a proper relationship with food? How does this effect spirituality?

We find a good model in Daniel.

Daniel was among the Israelites taken captive from Jerusalem when King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon besieged it.

In the book of Daniel, chapter one, verse 11 we find his story:

“Daniel then said to the guard whom the chief official had appointed over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, 12 “Please test your servants for ten days: Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink. 13 Then compare our appearance with that of the young men who eat the royal food, and treat your servants in accordance with what you see.” 14 So he agreed to this and tested them for ten days.

15 At the end of the ten days they looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food. 16 So the guard took away their choice food and the wine they were to drink and gave them vegetables instead.”

Daniel and the other men didn’t starve themselves. They didn’t stop eating. They simply made better, healthier choices. There is something important here to comment on.

They stopped eating somethings and choose better things. They had four things: a strong internal motivation, a higher calling, a purpose and a strategy.

They didn’t wait until they had health issues to discipline themselves. It is hard to learn healthy eating from a heart attack

And note that the text doesn’t say they never, ever ate meat again. We don’t know their food habits through the rest of life. But we do see from observation of people that monk, the flagellant, the extreme dieter, often just can’t keep it up.

Too many rules in any area of our Christianity, too much strickness, extreme asceticism, extreme self-denial … it tends to backfire!

Wisdom does not lie in food absolutes (I can never eat pizza again) but in a calling to a high purpose, in strategy, in self control, in moderation.

Daniel and his men ate out of of positive, not a negative motive, out of love for themselves, for their potential. The motivation wasn’t shame. It wasn’t guilt. It wasn’t from someone else telling them what to do.

It doesn’t work well to correct and criticize others about food choices. “Do you really want to eat that?” The answer is “Yes!” They do

Success comes when we eat with a purpose; to make ourselves the best we can be — useful to God and the king.

This matters. If you take inspiration from these ideas it could save your life! Jesus saves, but he may not save you from a heart attack if you consume too much fat and lethargy.

The desire to make good food choices is best to come from within, not comparisons, but from God, because we are excited about a higher purpose, being the best in the court, being men and women of wisdom and knowledge.

God honored Daniel’s discipline. Daniel 1:17 reports, “To these four young men God gave knowledge and understanding of all kinds of literature and learning.

When the king examined them, he found them ten times wiser than his own magicians and “… they entered the kings service.”

We can do the same. We can make healthy choices. We can eat to present ourselves to the one true king, as ones healthy and ready to be of use to him. We can enter our bodies into the kings service.

I’ve sometimes felt I couldn’t control. But I was wrong. I do have the power. I am not helpless.

We can eat to keep ourselves alive, to makes us happy, out of thankfulness of the gift from God, and to fuel our ability to love, to worship and to serve.

1 Corinthians 6:12 Some of you say, “We can do anything we want to. But I tell you that not everything is good for us. So I refuse to let anything have power over me.”

God loves you? Food is not evil. Your desire for food is not evil..

It’s okay to feel okay about you.

It takes time, but the goal is to get to a positive place with yourself and to be okay with your food choices — and to have them be mostly healthy.

This is a very positive place, “God, I am eating well, out of love for myself and so that I might be as much use to you as possible.”

Eat, drink and be useful! For this is the will of God in Christ concerning you.

Human — It’s Spiritual!

Posted: April 28, 2014 in restoration
Tags: human is spiritual, human. human is good, randy hasper, the beauty of being human

Christina Perri in her song “Human” expresses a universal sentiment; we can pretend to be perfect, but we are — human.

We break down. We cry. We doubt. We get overwhelmed. This is what we do. We don’t need to pretend we don’t.

The truth is, human, is attractive.

Most of us don’t like people who pretend to be perfect, who act overly spiritual. We like spiritual people who are comfortable in their own skin. We like godly people who are comfortable with their own imperfections.

I was walking on a sidewalk recently and stepped just off, half my foot on the walk, half on the grass, boom! Down. I laughed. We are top heavy: it is amazing we stay upright so much.

When we were finishing our oak floors last year, I came to the room and kicked over a whole gallon of polyurethane. We laughed. And had fun spreading it around. It gave us a quicker way to do the floors.

We spill, we fall, we get tired. Hungry. Sleepy. These things aren’t bad; they are just — human.

All the Bible heroes were human, weak and fallen.

Noah got drunk. Abraham said his wife was his sister. Jacob schemed. Moses was afraid. Jonah ran away. King David didn’t. He should have. Jeremiah raved. Peter was impulsive. Paul bragged.

Let’s face it. We humans aren’t perfect.

How should we Christians think about our bodies?

1Corinthians 6:19-20 says, “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.”

Bodies are good; bodies house God. God values bodies. He paid a great price for then. He created them as precious containers for the glory of God.

Last week I fed my body talapia, summer squash, yams, spinach, steel cut oats, almond milk. I gave it about eight hours of sleep each night. I worked out at the gym three times with weights and an elliptical machine. These activities were to me, deeply spiritual. I was honoring the house of God.

Last night I ate dark chocolate. I was deeply honoring my taste buds.

I love being human. I love my body. But I’ve never heard anyone say that in church. In church we talk a lot about the value of our spirituality. We don’t talk enough about the value of our humanity.

In fact, historically, Christians have too often had a negative and neglectful attitude toward their bodies. One of the early heresies of Christianity was Gnosticism.

To the Gnostic Christians God was transcendent, high, far removed from his creation. They did not believe a perfect God could create the imperfect material universe.

So they invented the idea that the material world was created by an evil, lesser God, sometimes called a “demiurge”.

The Gnostics put forward the idea that matter, whether it be the physical universe or the humanly body, was evil and the spirit was good. That is an error. This is the error of dualism.

Some even claimed you could sin in the body and it wouldn’t effect the spirit

The Bible doesn’t support this view. True Christianity rejected Gnosticism.

Bodies are not evil. God, the one, true God made bodies, took on a body, and will give us new bodies in the new creation.

The idea of a disembodied spirit, a ghost, is actually very spooky to us. It is unnatural. It is false.

But we moderns repeat the Gnostic error when we hate our bodies. We repeat this error when we neglect our bodies. We repeat this error again when we separate spirituality from our bodies.

Everyday I take a hot shower. This is part of my morning devotions. It ministers to the ache in my neck. Yesterday I ate a Popsicle in the shower.

Hot and cold — at the same time — it is the epitome of holy, sacred, devoted spirituality. This truly honors my God-given senses!

Bodies are good. They are made for honoring. Never hate your body. Feed it, Popsicles.

Jesus had a body.

John 1:14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory.

Look closely at this verse. When God became flesh, then we saw his glory. the glory of God was revealed in the flesh of Jesus.

The creed upholds this: Jesus was fully man, fully God!

I love the humanity of Christ. He cried. He hugged children. He got mad. He allowed his followers to eat on the Sabbath.

True wisdom is gentle with human.

A Christian friend told me recently that the church leaders she grew up with were very “aloof, cold, inhuman. You wouldn’t want to talk to them; they were always wagging a finger and telling people what they were doing wrong.”

They weren’t very human.

Being overly-spiritual is the same sin as being overly-physical. Both are an “overly.” Coldness does the same damage as lust. Both abuse.

Jesus wasn’t like that. He identified with weakness. He would talk to anyone. The only people he judged were the super-spiritual leaders who acted better than ordinary people.

To the Christian who told me the leaders in her church were cold, I told her, “As a leader yourself, do the opposite of what you grew up with — be approachable, friendly, non-judgmental — and then you’ll be a good leader .”

There is so much to value, to cherish, to love about being human.

In Psalm 139 David gushes, “Body and soul, I am marvelously made!”

Bodies are a great gift. Bodies are marvelous!

Our noses can remember 50,000 different scents.

There are 100,000 miles of blood vessels in our bodies

If uncoiled, the DNA in all the cells in your body would stretch 10 billion miles, from here to Pluto and back.

Our bodies contains approximately 100 trillion cells.

We are freakishly complex! God did this. He gave us this.

Did you know that most of us have tiny mites living in our eye lashes. We are never alone.

We have more bacteria in our mouths than there are people in the world!

We are cities. We are thrilling. We are frighteningly marvelous!

1 Corinthians 9:24-27-25 (The Message) gets it right, “You’ve all been to the stadium and seen the athletes race. Everyone runs; one wins. Run to win. All good athletes train hard. They do it for a gold medal that tarnishes and fades. You’re after one that’s gold eternally.

I don’t know about you, but I’m running hard for the finish line. I’m giving it everything I’ve got. No sloppy living for me! I’m staying alert and in top condition. I’m not going to get caught napping, telling everyone else all about it and then missing out myself.”

Paul is the model of the fully awake and alive human who takes spiritual responsibility for his body.

Being human doesn’t mean doing whatever feels good. What separates us from the animals is the power to rise above our instincts, our cravings, and to make good choices.

Paul is no animal; he is a fully focused, empowered, self-controlled human being. As such:

He runs to win.

He trains hard.

He avoids sloppy living.

He stays in top condition, for God, for Christ, to honor Christ in his body.

To care for our bodies, to love them, train them, control them, push them, discipline them — this is part of true spirituality.

What if you want to change in this area?

Change begins with knowledge, and awareness, and desire to honor God in the physical areas as well as the spiritual.

And change begins with the Holy Spirit’s conviction and help.

If we have been overly spiritual, perhaps even religiously addicted, then our challenge is to again embrace our human side. Lets not cover up human with religious.

If we have neglected our bodies we must begin to love them again. When our bodies tell us they are tired, we should put them to bed. The most recent research on sleep indicates that getting less than eight hours of sleep per night, may shorten your life.

When our bodies are hungry we should feed them. Veggies and whole grains — not french fries and sodas — power us best to honor God.

When our bodies are inactive we should exercise them

When broken we should have them fixed.

What if we have abused are bodies and are paying for it now? What if in the past, we overate, we over-drank, we smoked, we used illegal drugs? What if we still do?

Then we should do this. We should forgive ourselves, get help, fight for health, and move on. We can, with God’s help, honor what is left.

To some degree our influence on others, the amount of good we will do, the number of people we might point toward God, the creativity we may offer the world … all this may depend in part on how well we take care of our bodies.

Human — it’s spiritual!

/iː/ is fun!

Posted: April 23, 2014 in clarity
Tags: fun with phonemes, phonemes, proverbs about phonemes, randy hasper, the good of small, the value of what's small

“The smaller the mind the greater the conceit.”
Aesop

Small has taken a traditional beating on the great world stage. Diminutive people are mocked, small-mindedness is scorned, ants and bacteria shunned. Small creatures are overlooked, small features ridiculed, small amounts and small accounts ill-regarded.

But small can be very good! Think poppy seeds. Consider rain drops. The truth is also fine in small doses, especially the truth about myself.

Small thoughts are powerful; we all love a proverb. I particularly like the miniaturization of meaning. I adore phonemes.

A phoneme is the smallest contrastive, meaning-laden linguistic scrap that carries us through each day. /oʊ/ as in the great “No!” is one of the most powerful phonemes; greater yet is /e/.

Consider the phonemes /s/ and /l/: they alone carry the significant difference between the the words “kill” and “kiss.” I am particularly fond of that difference.

One of the world’s most common phonemes is /i:/. /i:/ is so fun!

“Look at me,” shouts super /iː/ “Whoopee! I’m beep, receipt, feat and belief; I’m ‘Oh, baby!’, superb ‘Very!’, I am the sound of happy /iː/!”

/ i:/ is such a showoff!

I urge you, my great friends, think small, observe minuscule differences, think at the microscopic, subatomic, super-phonemic level. You’ll be entertained — more.

For more of my thoughts on the fun and wonder found in phonemes, visit my modern proverbs blog at http://www.modernproverbs.net where I have written a set of proverbs about phonemes.

Proofs

Posted: April 16, 2014 in nature
Tags: a fable about the sun, modern fables, Proofs, proofs of God, randy hasper, the sun falls on all alike, the sun shows off God's love, the universe is fair

It’s spring. It’s almost Easter.

Every morning now I wake up hopeful.

Reality seems good to me. I accept what is.

I accept the the proofs that God is good. I am not offended.

One of the most compelling proofs for me is sunlight, another starlight, another shadow, another color.

I am astonished by these simple realities. Everyday among the miracles of reality I find a renewal; every second alive I happen again upon my own resurrection from the dead, from the death found in unawareness.

I’ve taken to writing fables, about what is true. Here are is one for you.

The Sun

Looking south, the sun cast one arm over the Amazon basin.

Looking north, it put the other, covered with golden bracelets, lightly on the Sierra Nevada. It draped itself upon the earth.

Sliding through the jungle and slipping off the peaks it withdrew to the rumpled Pacific, and pausing there, and reaching its hands down to the west coast beaches, it ran its fingers through the tidal pools. They turned pure gold.

“And there, and there and also there,” the sun said softly, and it laid tender fingers of light across the stirring sand.

We are the best,” said the mountains, always first and last to warm and be warmed.“

Then the palms and pines along the western beaches whispered, running their fingers through their lovely hair.

“What about us? What about us?” they called out.

The sun flipped its fingers playfully and splashed sunlight up into all of the leafy trees lining the beaches, and seeing this they rose up on their pointy root toes, grabbed pieces of the light and fixed it in their hair.

Suddenly, each wore a sparkling tiara.

“Oh,” the trees murmured softly. “Give us more!”

But there was too much for them to hold.

Big pieces of the sun broke free and sailed toward the east.

The great sun slid along, pulling a shade across the Pacific ocean. It rans fast now towards Asia and Australia, crying out for Europe, calling out for Africa.

It ran, singing out for the Himalayas, the Tien Shan, the Urals, laying itself down upon the Tibetan Plateau and the West Siberian Plain.

“I’m coming now,” it whispered softly to Lake Baikal, to the Bay of Bengal and to the great Sundarbans.

“We are waiting,” they called back, “for you.”

Jealous, the great peninsulas of Europe, the Iberian, Italian, and Balkan, beckoned to the light. “But us, but us, but what about all of us!”

“Fall on our peaks too!” called the Alps, Pyrenees, Apennines, Dinaric Alps, Balkans, and Carpathians,

And the sun, with a total, complete and utter equanimity, sang out softly to the glowing earth, “But you know so well my precious ones from all my time with you, that I … I have no favorites.”

And then it fell with a laughing, loyal, lasting love upon the whole of the great Serengeti.

You can find more fables like this at one of my blogs, http://www.antifables.com

Did You Think You Weren’t Supposed to Be Strong?

Posted: April 7, 2014 in thriving
Tags: grow in confidence, how to be strong, how to be successful, how to build confidence, how to thrive, mastery experiences, randy hasper, Success

I woke up this morning with a choice. We all do — ambivalent or focused, bifurcated or fired up for a kind of single-minded success.

I chose, just what I wanted to, and not what I didn’t. I finished the book of Proverbs along with my chai tea latte and steel cut oatmeal. Super-cool wise stuff is found in Proverbs, like, “The wise prevail through great power, and those who have knowledge muster their strength.” Proverbs 24:4-5

Kathy Korman Frey, Harvard MBA, a kind of confidence guardian, has posited that successful women benefit from their experiences of mastery, choosing to find things they do well that build confidence to do other things well.

Tea, oats, proverbs — it’s is smart to choose to grow in power. The use of power, the mustering of strength — this is not merely the heady stuff of tyrants and despots but also the way of the godly wise. The godly wise proceed with things that build up their strength; they move forward in ways that build up their confidence.

After my reading, I went out back to my lily pond and mucked it out. I threw my aluminum ladder across the pond, crawled out on it, lay down and began pulling the last year’s cattails out.

The long webbed, fleshy roots came out with a sucking sound. The water was cold, but the day was hot and under the gaze of a gorgeous Santa Anna wind and a cornflower blue sky I mucked and tucked and chucked out my pond. Monet-like, I gently lifted my lily pads, gave them space to thrive, flipped them back upright, left just enough cattails to grace the water with height again this spring.

Then I set on the papyrus growing at both ends, cutting back the dead brown stalks, leaving the bright green new shoots to poke out of the water like exclamation points with fireworks at the ends.

Then, there, thus — I set back and soaked in, my pond, lake, sea; my strength, my chosen yard of life, my several meters of canvass to paint, my long, limned, lovely, lined, lipped, lopped confidence.

And thus it is so that this and that and those like these will lead to more and more and more of that — power! Exploding! Like papyrus in the Nile, and lily pads in my backyard pond.

I know this about myself: it makes me strong to fix things, and it really fires me up when I create beauty — a backyard pond, a school in Southeast San Diego, a school in Tijuana, a community center in Nicaragua, a church in South Africa, a church in Brazil, a church in Chula Vista.

This afternoon I write on my iPad, under the same sun that I labored under this morning, the same sun the pharaohs built the pyramids under, the sun filtered through the shade in the window at a Starbucks near my house.

I’m here because ponds and pages and the music and the smell of coffee just do it perfectly for me. Mucking out lily ponds and jungles and schools and writing blog posts — these are my mastery experiences. So too are my sermons, and my modern proverbs, my fables and modern soliloquies too.

This is what builds up my confidence — what about you?

I suggest you do things that fill you up inside.

Go grow — in strength!

By doing things!

That build mastery!

Things that decrease ambivalence.

Things that increase confidence.

Did you think that you weren’t supposed to be strong?

Thrive!

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