Donald Miller's Blog, page 44

An Incredible Reminder of How Short Life Really Is

I’ve always been fascinated by that verse in the book of James that says our lives pass like a vapor. That’s a realization hard to internalize. I believe life is eternal, but I don’t believe we have a whole lot of time in this phase, the walk around on earth phase. I wish I could spend less time feeling the urgency of things that aren’t actually urgent and more time exchanging meaning with those people and causes that matter.

The Bible also speaks of the wisdom of numbering our days.

I recently attended a beautiful wedding.

What I love about weddings and funerals is they remind us, in very different ways, about how short our lives really are. A funeral teaches us it ends. A wedding teaches us that in order to experience meaning, we have to make decisions. We can’t keep looking at the menu forever, nor can we eat everything on it at once.

I found this video a couple years back that helped me realize how short our lives actually are.

I wanted to share it with you.

It’s a film made by Jeroen Wolf, who took to the streets of Amsterdam and asked people to look into the camera and state their age. It begins with a baby and ends with a woman in her hundredth year.

It’s only two minutes long, but the amazing thing is it feels just like life. It starts slow as though we are going to walk the earth forever, then suddenly at around twenty-seven, the voices change and the faces are suddenly adult.

Then suddenly everybody seems old.

Then they suddenly seem even older, then as though they are in their final years, then it’s over.

The scary thing is life feels very long and by the time you realize it’s short, you’ve lived most of it.

After watching this two-minute clip, I wanted to live a life of deeper meaning.

I wanted to do the work I love.

The work that helps people. I wanted to give more away. I wanted to hold the woman I love. I wanted to read more poems. I wanted to plant something that would grow after I was gone. I didn’t want my name on anything, at least not anything that didn’t represent love.

What would you do if you only had one-hundred years to live?

An Incredible Reminder of How Short Life Really Is is a post from: Storyline Blog

The Difference Between an Artist and an Entertainer

There are, of course, many differences between an artist and an entertainer, and both words invite subjectivity.

Here’s one from my perspective:

An artist is bold, telling, and levels a clear path. Their canvas is the world and the brush with which they paint on the world is their song or their poem or their painting. They are making the world new and different with their work. An artist knows how they want the world to look, or more likely, they feel a new world inside them they’re trying to make into a reality. An artist is like a prophet in that way.

Photo Credit: Mikaela Hamilton

An entertainer, however, is worried about what people think. An entertainer is looking for applause, for something they didn’t get in childhood. An entertainer longs for approval. An entertainer trolls Twitter for mentions and reads reviews as though each were written by their neglectful father.

Some artists are entertaining.

And some entertainers are artists. Both get applause but the applause means different things to each. For the entertainer, the applause is a false reflection of who they are, a balm for their wounded and fleeting sense of worth. This is a sad thing and what might heal an entertainer is to aim their ambition at becoming more of an artist.

From the artist’s perspective, the applause is for the new and better world they helped create and for that reason they can stand aside and clap too.

I see the terms artist and entertainer as poles on either end of a journey. I think all of us would be better for becoming more like an artist.

The Difference Between an Artist and an Entertainer is a post from: Storyline Blog

Love Stands in the Middle

When I finished schooling in Boston, my head was full of ideas. I wanted to do something to help fatherless kids. Fatherlessness was crushing my close friends and my generation. LeBron James just tweeted four times about how he cries when watching Will Smith rant about his dad in Fresh Prince. A lot of people cry over it. Me too.

I wanted to do something.

Something. I researched statistics, obscure studies, and learned mentor strategies. I read every book and article, attended seminars, roundtables, and spoke at conferences. People listened and nodded.

I had the ideas, and not only ideas; I had burning passion and drive. I wanted to do something. Something.

So I started in Los Angeles and worked on it for a year.

Things were starting to happen.

One day, Kari, now my wife, asked me, “Who are you mentoring?”

I had mentored before. I was a youth pastor in a former life. I’d mentored kids in Chicago. Hung out with another group who called themselves Misfits. But I was not mentoring anyone when she asked. Kari secretly prayed I would be. Shortly after, a single mom in our church approached me and asked me to mentor her son.

Before that moment, I was standing on the outside. In anthropology, there are two types of field research: Etic and Emic. Etic researchers make their observations from outside the culture. Emic researchers get up-close to local customs, traditions, and beliefs.

Our temptation is to stay on the outside.

To be Etic but not Emic. To attend endless conferences, read endless books, buy endless t-shirts. To dump cold water on our heads, take a selfie and hashtag it. To be about the latest ideas, like those on Mars Hill, to be waiting to see something new, like the newest post or picture online.

Ideas, when used this way, can be very self-indulgent. All the while, we remain outside the issue, and quite possibly, outside of our own story. But the great ideas – love, justice, intimacy, reconciliation – require something of us.

The people I see changing the world are doing it quietly.

They have tenacity.

They have the courage to move to the middle: A mentor-hero named Jill. Brothers Jed and Jacob. A policeman named Cube who serves inner-city youth. Tim and Tyler, who took a burned out, horror-filled building and turned it into a place of healing. Three girls who gave up everything to love and mentor orphans in South Africa.

None are celebrities. They don’t have many social media followers. They don’t brag about it.

They simply live in the risk of the middle.

As Donald Miller writes in Scary Close:

“When the story of earth is told, all that will be remembered is the truth we exchanged. The vulnerable moments. The terrifying risk of love and the care we took to cultivate it.”

Love requires us to take that terrifying risk. To take that first dangerous step into the frigid waters. To move from head to heart and hands. To move from the outside to the inside, from Etic to Emic.

Love requires us to stand in the middle.

Love Stands in the Middle is a post from: Storyline Blog

Why You Need a “Copernicus Moment”

It was my 6th birthday and more than anything I wanted an orange NBA basketball. My parents graciously worked hard to celebrate the anniversary of my birth. Cake, friends, games, and gifts – what else could a six-year-old want?

But when I tore through the wrapping paper, my excitement turned to frustration.

Instead of the orange NBA basketball, I received a red, white, and blue ABA basketball (the ABA league was in decline and would cease to exist within a few years). Lacking wisdom and maturity, I bluntly told my parents that I didn’t want the colorful ABA ball.

I wanted what I wanted.

And I let them know it.

I don’t think my behavior qualified as full-blown brat status…but there wasn’t even a hint of gratitude. All I was thinking about was how I felt. It was as if I was the center of the universe and everyone and everything revolved around me.

My natural egotism reduced my family and friends to mere actors and extras in the production of my life. I was not focused on my parents or all they had done to give me a wonderful party.

What I needed was a “Copernicus Moment.”

In 1543, Nicolaus Copernicus changed the world. He published a theory that challenged the well-accepted belief that all the planets and stars in the universe revolved around earth. Up until that time, it was assumed that we earth dwellers were the center of the cosmos.

Photo Credit: Creative Commons : Lara Eakins

Copernicus cut ties with conventional wisdom. He carefully observed the world and realized that the earth is not the center of the universe. Earth is just one planet of many and it revolves around the sun, not the other way around.

This simple change in perspective is credited as one of the great scientific advancements of all time.

A Copernicus Moment in life ushers in personal growth.

It permits us to retain our individuality and importance while not requiring us to be the center of attention, or of the universe.

This reorientation allows me to see that marriage is not simply here for my personal fulfillment, but that I am here to cherish and serve my spouse. It shows me that my children do not exist to form my identity or provide joy, but that I am here to parent and love them.

The Copernicus Moment ends the sense of entitlement and victimization and replaces it with an understanding of humility and service.

It’s also a relief.

We do not have to be in control or generate a gravitational pull that keeps everything together.

Copernicus Moments occur when we cut ties with the well-accepted belief that life is all about us. We carefully observe the world around us and trade the desire to take with a passion to give.

I think when we look back on our lives we will find that our Copernicus Moments were some of our greatest personal advancements. As we begin to consider others more important than ourselves, we reorient our lives in a way that increases everyone’s value.

As I remember that birthday, I am embarrassed.

As an adult, I would never respond the way I did as a kid. I wish I could go back in time and shower my parents with the gratitude they deserved. Their gift was a symbol of their love for me and I wrongly elevated the specifics of the gift over the reason they gave it to me. The irony is that now I would love to have an actual ABA basketball. They are celebrated icons of American sports history.

Have you had a Copernicus Moment lately? Perhaps one is waiting for you to recognize and embrace.

Why You Need a “Copernicus Moment” is a post from: Storyline Blog

The Benefits of Turning the Other Cheek

Ever wanted to get somebody back? You may have disguised it as seeking justice, or revealing a wrong or whatever, but the truth may be more complicated. We want to hurt those who hurt us.

And it’s a killer.

I had a pastor lie about me a few years ago — a public guy I hardly knew. He threw me under the bus to cover something he did that lacked character.

From that point on, I wanted vengeance.

But I found it did me little good. It affected my writing and my life. Do I like the guy? No. But God will bring all things to justice and my hope is both he and I will be forgiven — me for seeking vengeance, him for lying.

Ever watched an NFL game in which a player jabbed at another player, but the referee called a foul on the reaction rather than the instigation?

In the world of you and me, this happens all the time. If somebody jabs you and you jab back, you better believe the person who jabbed you in the first place is going to frame it so you get all the heat.

They won’t mention the instigation.

Instead, they’ll just tell everybody what you said and did and pretend they never lifted a finger. If a person has so little integrity that they jab you, you better believe they’re gonna win in the slop.

But here’s what Jesus says to do: Turn the other cheek. Insane, isn’t it? Jesus says to take the hit and walk on.

Photo Credit: Mikaela Hamilton

It stinks, I know. And it’s not like it’s a tactic that helps you win in the end. It doesn’t. But it’s great damage control, it’s humbling, and it’s saying to the world you don’t think you’re God.

By turning the other cheek, we avoid the pig slop.

There are some exceptions, though.

If you’re being abused physically or in danger, call the cops. You can turn the other cheek and forgive once the person is behind bars or if there is a restraining order. If somebody lies about you and they’re part of a church body, you can bring the complaint before the elders. Just don’t do it out of vengeance; do it to make the lying stop. And try to be forgiving all the same.

People tend to lie about and pick on others they see as more powerful than themselves. Try to use your power kindly.

In all, though, I see no benefit to seeking vengeance. It doesn’t right a wrong, it doesn’t make things better, and it doesn’t create sustained peace. If we want those things, we’re going to have to take our blows.

The Benefits of Turning the Other Cheek is a post from: Storyline Blog

You Don’t Have to Be Defined By Your Worst Day

Now and then I’ve had the privilege of going on a caper with Bob Goff. That’s what he calls it when we do something a bit out of the ordinary. (Note: Most everything Bob does is a caper!) I’ve been with him to a meeting with 90 witchdoctors, inside the largest prison in Uganda, and way too close to some wild baboons.

This time, our caper took us to visit some guys in two jails, one in Michigan and one in Indiana.

We went as chaplains.

Part of capers is the art of disguise.

The first man we were to visit would most likely be sentenced to fifty years in prison within a few days of our arrival. Coming face to face with him made me nervous at first.

When we met him in the visiting room, he was dressed in an orange jumpsuit and wore Crocs of the same color. A short, thick chain linked the shackles around his ankles. His eyes were brimming with tears, moved that he had visitors. He had a look of quiet shock as he was facing not only the reality of what he had done, but also the fact that he would spend the rest of his life in prison.

He was polite, somber, and resigned.

Tears flowed as he spoke in whispers of his regret and his fear.

His eyes now said what his former actions did not.

He had indeed done awful things and should have been in jail, but our hearts went out to him. We were able to talk and pray with him, trying to offer what comfort we could. It was sad to leave.

From there we drove an hour to a prison in Indiana where forty inmates were in a book group studying Love Does. They’d written Bob to invite him to come for a visit, and he’d taken them up on the invitation.

We walked into a room.

And there they were waiting—the men jumped up and cheered. (I felt like I was with Bono, only Bob doesn’t wear red-tinted sunglasses.) The white board in the front of the room was decorated with their signatures and a big LOVE DOES in the middle.

We both spoke to the guys, underscoring the fact that they were NOT what they did, but who they could become.

As I looked around, I saw the glistening eyes from almost every man in the room. We talked with them and afterward took a group photo. Before we left, everyone wanted and received a hug.

On the drive to Chicago that afternoon, we thought about those men from the two prisons. When you meet people face to face, no matter who they are or what they’ve done, your perspective changes.

They become real.

Later that night, I checked into my hotel room. After I unpacked, I walked by a mirror. Peering into it, I saw myself in a prison uniform. And as I looked into my own eyes, I realized that what was true about the men in prison was true about me.

They were lonely and needed company. They wanted someone to look into their eyes and see them. They didn’t want to be defined by their worst day. They wanted a second chance.

But most of all, they all just wanted to go home.

You Don’t Have to Be Defined By Your Worst Day is a post from: Storyline Blog

How to Get Along with an Introvert

A couple years back, I read Susan Cain’s book Quiet, for which I am thankful. Cain is a terrific writer, and her book has gotten wonderful acclaim for explaining to about 60% of the world how the other 40% live. That is, Cain explains to extroverts what these quiet, I don’t want to go out tonight introverts are really thinking.

I’m an introvert. I can spend a month alone in a cabin (and have, many times) and never even dream of getting lonely.

In fact, I recharge by being alone.

That said, being alone for long periods of time isn’t healthy for me and when I do it I get a little strange. When I reenter civilization I have trouble engaging in conversations without beginning to daydream and it takes practice to get my mind to cooperate with the unspoken rules of society.

Photo Credit: Mikaela Hamilton

Cain offers her own advice for interacting with introverts but I’d like to chime in, too. I hope this helps in your understanding of yourself or your interactions with the introverts in your life.

When interacting with an introvert:

Choose one-on one over large groups. While I love speaking in front of thousands, mingling isn’t my thing. If I’m at a party, I’ll typically speak with one or two people for a longer period of time. If you’re interacting with an introvert, just know they don’t want to “work the room.”
Let them recharge. Introverts don’t want to do several social events in one day. They can survive, and even thrive, on just one or two per week. If you’re dealing with an introvert and you’re lining up meeting after meeting or coffee followed by lunch followed by a “get together” then happy hour and dinner and then drinks after with yet another group, it’s going to be torture. Introverts are like that cell phone you’ve got that needs to be recharged several times per day. In their minds, they’re running a lot of applications.
Go deep or go home. Mostly, introverts live in their minds and they think about why things happen or they daydream or whatever. Shallow conversations about the weather, at least for me, are painful. I just don’t want to have them. It’s not that I want to talk about politics or theology. I don’t, but I don’t want to have conversations that aren’t going somewhere. I want to talk about your passions, your fears, your musings about why you think life is the way it is. The cool thing is, once I know we can go there, I can talk to that person about anything shallow, including the weather. I just have to know we can go to the deep end when we feel like it.
Give them some space. My old roommate, Mike, once said to me, “Don, you know I’ve figured you out a little bit. You need about ten minutes of space when you come home before you engage in a conversation.” His observation was profound. I hadn’t realized it myself, but he was dead on. Introverts don’t want to be mobbed when they get to their place of security, or for that matter, anywhere else. They want to transition and get comfortable and then engage. When an introvert comes home and is charged with some social responsibility immediately, it’s tough. Give him or her ten minutes to transition and it’ll pay you back a thousand fold.
Work with them to compromise. Forcing an introvert to go out all the time will backfire. They don’t want to be around people that much. But if you’re in a relationship with an introvert, you obviously can’t capitulate to every need. So strike some compromises. Usually, if you give an introvert some down time, they’re good for a few social events each week.

• • •

And of course there is much more. But I’m curious about you introverts out there. What are tips extroverts can use to enjoy their relationships with you even more?

How to Get Along with an Introvert is a post from: Storyline Blog

What to Expect When You’re Least Expecting

There are few phrases that irritate me more than the attempted pat on the back of “It’ll happen when you least expect it.”

When I was single, well-meaning, happily married or disgustingly-in-love couples would rub each other’s shoulders, listen to my bad dating stories, and wave away my doubt and misgivings by buying me a ticket to the land of “least expect it.”

So when I grocery shopped, at the mall, in the library, at the obligatory single mingle event, I tried my best to least expect it. Meanwhile, my bad dating stories continued to outweigh the good ones.

And the phrase has stuck around.

Now, as a married woman who doesn’t have any children yet, “least expect it” shows up at baby showers and friend’s kids’ birthdays. “Don’t worry,” they say, “You’ll have kids when you least expect it.” It’s like going to buy a t-shirt, and discovering they don’t have small, medium, and large. All they have is “least expect it” and it just isn’t my size. It turns out there is no such size, in t-shirts or in life.

Sometimes we pray, debate, bang fists, do everything we can think of to get what we want. Despite all the well-meaning advice we’ve dispensed and taken, least expecting it is not the central variable to getting what you want out of life or God.

The truth is this:

There is no magic fairy dust to getting what you want. Self-help books, karma and the law of attraction can give you a couple of tips but no guarantees. We are all forced to learn the same lessons our parents tried to impress on us when we were three years old: you don’t always get what you want and you have to learn to deal with that.

Maybe being grateful for what you have is one way you can deal. Maybe spending more time just enjoying the present instead of “least expecting” for the future, is another way. One thing I’m learning is to accept when life may or may not turn out the way I expected.

I love to plan.

I’m not a big fan of change, and many times I just wish God would do exactly what I think He should do, when I think He should do it. This also means most times I’ve surmised in my head the right way I think things should go, leaving no room in my expectations for the fact that God already has a plan that I don’t have to least expect.

“Least expecting” is the counterfeit version of what is really necessary: surrender.

Surrender is the place where all of hearts must build an altar, a place to take our wants, frustrations, hurts, and “least expecting” to God who is not a genie or a wishing well, but a Father who loves us, whose plans are better for us than any plans we could make for ourselves.

What to Expect When You’re Least Expecting is a post from: Storyline Blog

When Things Don’t Seem to Be Working Out for You

Some of you are going to think I’m just an idiot. If you already thought that, well, this is just confirmation.

I had a couple of ceiling fans installed in my house three years ago. The guy who installed them is a local contractor, a neighbor, and a friend. He knows more than me and has experience in these things. The problem was that only one of the fans worked properly.

In one room the fan was superb.

I could sit in a chair on a hot day and have the fan push air down at any speed I wanted. It even had a remote control so I could adjust it without having to stand up.

The other one was in my bedroom, and it only appeared to work properly. It spun just fine, and with the remote I could adjust the speed from a prone position. It just didn’t cool anything. I would lay in my bed, look at the meaningless motion of those blades, think to myself, “I should get that fixed…” then fall asleep. I wouldn’t think of it again until the next warm night when I needed it to work and it didn’t.

It was my own personal Groundhog Day movie. Did I mention that this went on for three years?

That was until recently.

I was lying in bed doing some serious pondering about why it didn’t work right. Duh! Of course, the angle of the blades was opposite of what it should be to push any air down. I tested my theory by getting out of bed and looking at the other fan. Sure enough, the way the good fan was working had the blades turned so that air headed downward. The way the bad fan was working had the blades turned so that the air headed upward. In other words, it had been cooling my bedroom ceiling all this time.

Photo Credit: Steve Johnson, Creative Commons

I tried turning the blades so that they would be angled properly, but they were anchored into the hub. Which left me with the obvious conclusion: The fan was defective! What a relief! I figured it out! I had bought a bad fan!

So I called the contractor.

I asked him to remove the fan so I could take it back to the store.

“Are you looking at the fan now?” he asked.

“Yup,” I said, bouncing on my feet with anticipation.

“See if there is a small switch on the main part of the fan.”

“I see it.”

“Just move it from one side to the other.”

“Got it.”

“Now turn it on.”

O. M. Gosh.

It worked perfectly.

The fan spun in the opposite direction from before. The room became instantly cooler.

Maybe I would have eventually figured this out. But it had already been three years. In my self-diagnosis, I was ready to tear it apart and send it to the junk heap. What it took was a call to a friend who saw things a little differently. Someone who could ask just a few well-placed questions, without judgment or condemnation.

It isn’t just with ceiling fans where I need some help. Left on my own, I can come up with all sorts of plausible theories of why things aren’t working right. Sometimes I need someone who can gently say, “Do you see this? Maybe try it a different way.”

Who’s that person in your life? What’s going on in your life that you might need them to speak into today?

When Things Don’t Seem to Be Working Out for You is a post from: Storyline Blog

Who I Picture as a Reader When I Write

I heard some advice for writers once saying we should picture a reader as we write. Some writers have even gone so far as to put a picture of their spouse or their grandmother atop their computers.

I picture God as I write.

And here’s why:

I am convinced He’s perfectly fine with my senseless ramblings. Of course He gets mad when I cuss or become selfish, but other than that He likes hearing my stories and my opinions and He loves who I am. After all, He had an integral part of bringing me into the world, and an integral part of giving me a mind and a mouth and fingers to tap a keyboard.

Ultimately, God is a much more gracious critic than most anybody else. He’s sentimental and He leans toward grace. You and I can critique each other’s work with objective sophistication, but God hasn’t the luxury.

He’s intimately involved.

He’s our maker. We are His kids.

It’s been a long time since I’ve left the fundamentalist, “God hates you but loves you” church and the fear of being myself around Him is gone. I like God now. It took a while, but I like Him a great deal.

And the writing is going better than ever.

Do you feel comfortable being yourself around God? Can you accept His unmerited favor? Can you accept His disapproval of your selfish ways without associating it with your sense of worth?

I think God is a big fan of my simple work. And of yours, too.

Who I Picture as a Reader When I Write is a post from: Storyline Blog