Donald Miller's Blog, page 85

What I Learned About Justice from a Mom with a Stroller

When I think about someone passing judgment, I get a pit in my stomach. Past pains, failures, and hurt feelings stream through my mind. Coaches passed judgment on my ability to make the team, employers passed judgment on my work, and friends passed judgment on the future of our relationship. Sometimes I have measured up and sometimes I have not… but I have never enjoyed it when people passed judgment on me.

What I have learned is that passing judgment is nothing more than a measurement.  Judgments are just cold static rulers that generate a passing or failing grade. They are impersonal scoreboards that reveal the outcome of a game. Even the most accurate judgment only reveals what has already happened. In many ways it is easy to pass judgment on others. It does not require a relationship or a commitment to the future. When a defendant leaves a courtroom after being judged guilty, the jury is no longer involved. The jury does not go with the convicted person to prison or home with the victim.

• • •

It would be a mistake to suggest that we should never make judgments about people and events. In fact, judgments can provide the candor and truth that drive injustices to be defeated. The truth is that passing judgment is not the opposite of seeking justice – it is necessary, but in itself is not the sufficient end that brings justice. Judgments can require very little of us and can be passed quickly from a pristine perch. They can be posted on social media, whispered as gossip, and pronounced in courts. If our journey stops at the threshold activity of passing judgments, we miss the joy of seeking justice.

Seeking justice is a far nobler endeavor.  It requires personal involvement, time, resources, and energy.  We get mud on our boots and dirt on our hands when we seek justice.  Seeking justice is about far more than announcing something to be right or wrong. Justice is about ending pain, protecting victims, and bringing reconciliation. Justice makes wrong things right.

*Photo by Matt MacGillivray, Creative Commons

A few weeks ago I was jogging in Brooklyn when I saw three middle school boys running into the street dribbling basketballs. They were screaming and taunting as they began to throw the basketballs at a man riding a scooter. They hit him several times, causing him to completely lose control of his bike.  Cars swerved out of the way and I stopped in my tracks, fixed on the scene that had just unfolded.  The boys’ laughter erupted as the man on the scooter looked dazed and confused.

Just then a mother pushing her child in a stroller came near to the scene. She scolded them, shouting, “That is not right! What you boys are doing is not right!” They paid little attention to her, but they collected their basketballs and ran on. It seemed the drama of the moment had ended, but the mother did not just continue on her way. She went to the man on the bike to make sure he was okay.  He was fine and quite grateful for her intervention. The entire scene ended as quickly as it had begun, and all of the parties went their separate ways. I was just a bystander, but that young mother was fantastic. She sought justice and cared for a stranger who was being picked on for no reason.  She passed judgment – she declared what was right and what was wrong – without mincing words. But she did not stop there. She did not have to get involved and interrupt her busy day. She was a justice seeker not merely a judgment passer – she tried to turn a wrong situation right.

Our culture is not in need of more drive-by judgments about the events of our day or peoples’ public failures. It needs justice seekers who cling to truth without losing their compassion. People who seek justice are honest about failure, but do not sentence people to a life defined by their worst acts or the painful things done to them.  Merely passing judgment brings loneliness, fear, anxiety, and self-loathing for those who are judged, and perhaps for those who have passed judgment as well.  Seeking justice restores, heals, and corrects. It brings hope for a better future for everyone involved: the offender, the victim, and the bystander. 

Developing a culture postured to seek justice starts with us choosing not to pass judgment without a willingness to get involved. We must also be an active participant, seeking justice with our lives and being open to interruptions that call us to action. Let us never confuse passing judgment with seeking justice.

What I Learned About Justice from a Mom with a Stroller is a post from: Storyline Blog

Why I Pray to Jesus (Whoever That Is)

I had a startling realization regarding my faith last week while attending a conference. It wasn’t even a Christian conference. It was a conference for business executives, designed to help us streamline our systems and increase productivity and profit.

Still, part of the assignments we were given had us analyzing our private lives, and a big chunk of my private life involves my relationship with Jesus.

And yet, sitting on the edge of a golf course, thinking about my faith, I came to a startling realization: Jesus bores me.

It was a hard thing to admit. Every bit of me felt guilty, but it was true. I’d love to follow Him, but if all He’s doing is building the Republican party (I’m a Republican, by the way) and franchising church worship music, I’m quite frankly bored.

But then I realized something. I’d been following (or watching from a distance) some ridiculous construction of a Jesus created by strong cultural influences, both media driven, politically motivated and shaped by the increasing influence of franchised churches, all sharing best practices (and most effective brand strategies for this multi-billion dollar Taylor-Swift like personality called Jesus)

And I began to wonder…who is the real Jesus? I had no answer. I truly didn’t know. Stripped of all the trappings, He’s some foreign figure dead and buried and resurrected thousands of years ago, gone to Heaven, promising to come back, creator of the universe, poetic, fearful and courageous, obedient to His father and entirely lost in terms of culture and tradition. I realized that pastors and scholars can tell us very little about Him because so much has been lost or has changed or has been misinterpreted by tribal absurdities.

And for once, I became excited. I thought to myself, “What If I began my prayers this way: Jesus, whoever you are, whatever mystery you are, whatever fearful power you yield, whatever wild heart you embody, can you hear me?”

Wouldn’t that change everything?

What if we know Jesus, but hardly know Him at all? What if most of your pre-conceived ideas about Him are wrong? What if He is dangerous, gentle, unpredictable, non-American, eternal, death-defying and non-human? What would that do to your faith? What if you couldn’t control Him at all but could talk to Him all the same? Would you follow?

This Jesus excites me, not because I know all about Him, but because I don’t.

Why I Pray to Jesus (Whoever That Is) is a post from: Storyline Blog

A Sermon on Turning the Other Cheek, By Conan O’Brien

A couple years ago you’ll remember Conan O’Brien got the boot from NBC. The way they treated him was unfortunate and arguably unfair. Conan, of course, was hurt. Devastated, in fact. We all knew he was raging.

And yet, when it came time to say his farewell, he stepped to the microphone and gave one of the most remarkable speeches in pop-culture history. In an age of Kanye West casting insults after being insulted, and Miley Cyrus pontificating about how she could care less what people think, O’Brien models remarkable wisdom, if not counter-intuitive integrity.

This week, we revisit the speech using some typography that came from a project out of Oklahoma State University. Great stuff.

A Sermon on Turning the Other Cheek, By Conan O’Brien is a post from: Storyline Blog

The Best Viral Videos We Found This Week

Our winner last week was the “seeing her for the first time” video. What about this week? Vote for your favorite below in the comments.

The Best Viral Videos We Found This Week is a post from: Storyline Blog

How To Improve Your Confidence In One Easy Step

I’ll confess: I struggle with my confidence. Perhaps you can relate.

As someone leading an organization with a large vision, being confident in the way I share our story and raise support is a crucial piece to my work. But after all these years, it’s still a daily battle.

I believe confidence is an important step toward professional success and emotional well-being. So how do you build more confidence? And how do you do it when your confidence levels are depleted?

Here’s a quick tip I just learned that I really like. Ready for it?

Fake confidence by making small talk with people who are paid to be nice to you.

That’s it? No, seriously – that’s it. Stay with me here.

Cashiers, deli workers, bank tellers, baristas, waiters, auto mechanics, and more. These people are paid to be nice to you. No matter what you say, they will smile, engage, laugh, banter, and go along with all your bad jokes.

People who are paid to be nice to you offer you a handful of incredible opportunities every day to practice being confident.

In fact, when you break out of your shell to small talk with a bank teller about how their day is going, a biochemical reaction takes place in your brain. With every social success, your body releases tiny amounts of endorphins, dopamine, and testosterone that help to reinforce confident behavior.

As crazy as it sounds, the more you practice being confident, the more it starts to filter into your real life.

I learned this tip from a marketing blogger named Derek Halpern. He goes into more detail on his post and video titled “How To Be Confident” which I recommend checking out.

So what do you think of this? Do you believe me? Give it a try and then in the comment section below, tell me how it went.

How To Improve Your Confidence In One Easy Step is a post from: Storyline Blog

What Do You Want to Know About Writing?

Each week I get no less than three manuscripts in my email inbox. They are mostly sent by friends or people I’ve met at various speaking engagements. I confess I feel the weight of them, knowing when somebody sends me a book they’re sending me a piece of their heart. They’re sending me a thousand hours of dreaming and tinkering and probably no shortage of fidgeting and pacing and even crying head down on their desk.

And yet it’s simply impossible to read them anymore.

Even though people really do want personal feedback, it’s no longer possible. I need to create a lengthy PDF covering everything anybody might want to know about writing and publishing.

I assure you, this PDF will not be received well. When somebody hands you their heart they hope for a little bit of your heart in return, not a PDF. But I have to send something.

*Credit: 77 Photography, Creative Commons

So I need some help.

In a robust PDF about writing, what would you want to know? What kind of document would people read and say to themselves, “Well, he was too much of a jerk to read my manuscript but at least this advice is pretty good.” Honestly, I think that’s the best response I can hope to get!

I need to cover writing tips, publishing questions, questions about agents and likely questions about promoting your book. Anything goes.

Any questions you think I should answer? Any areas that I should cover? Any tips and tricks? What would you want to be in this PDF if I created it?

I can’t thank you enough.

P.S. My team asked me to tell you I can’t read any more manuscripts. I hate saying that, but it’s true. Until I get through the ones I’ve been sent, I’ll hold off and create this pdf.

What Do You Want to Know About Writing? is a post from: Storyline Blog

Why You Should Accept a Life Less Predictable

I grew up on the water, spending all my summers on a tiny lakeshore town in Michigan. From morning till night, we ran the beaches, soaked up the sun, picked blueberries till our fingers were stained. We shucked ears of sweet corn on the porch before dinner and caught crayfish with bubblegum and safety pins and string, and sold them for ten cents each to the bait shop.

This is what we did on regular days. But if there was wind, we sailed. We dropped everything, changed our plans. The corn could wait, dinner could wait. My mom would pack up a huge canvas tote with drinks and snacks and sweatshirts and towels, and we’d race down the marina—wind! There’s wind!

Both my grandfathers had sailboats in that little marina, and later my dad and brother, too. All our friends in that little town are sailors, equally happy to drop it all if it’s blowing. There’s a vernacular unique to sailors, a shorthand or code language that I’ve been hearing all my life. The phone rings: “Dad, Jim wants to know what the lake is doing.” “Tell him it’s blowing 8 to 10 offshore.” “Tell him it’s screaming out of the north.” My favorite: when it’s really windy, they call it DOC—blowing so hard it could blow ‘dogs off chains.’ “It’s DOC out of the NW. Get down here, dude.”

The wind dictated everything, all summer long. It still does. Our kids are totally accustomed to naptime on the boat, mealtime on the boat, running down to the boat with a moment’s notice, another generation chasing the wind.

Sailors are crazy when it comes to wind because the whole venture depends on it. If you’re a power boater, the wind means almost nothing to you. It might make things wavier than you’d like. It might make your guests spill their drinks. But for a sailor, the wind is everything, the most important thing, the center. If you want certainty, you don’t sail. If you want to be in control of what’s happening, you don’t sail. If you want certainty, you get a powerboat, and you stick to engines instead of wind.

• • •

I can feel that tension in myself right now: the tension to trust the wind or control with my own engine. I want to be a sailor. I want to trust the invisible power that’s moving all the time even though I can’t see it. I want to be patient, grounded, faith-filled. But in my fearful moments, I can feel the impulse to fire up an engine and create some motion, to pick a spot and head there fast, to burn some fuel instead of waiting around for the wind to do its powerful but invisible work.

I’m a firstborn, a planner. I’m a saver, a list-maker, and I already have a running scrawl of restaurants I want to try on an upcoming trip to London. In 2014.

Planning and preparation are my jam. Except for one little thing. Except for the fact that I’ve decided for the rest of 2013 to be guided by prayer and listening, instead of planning and preparation. I’ve decided to learn my way into the future instead of planning my way there. In this season I want to live by the power of the wind and not the engine.

• • •

For many years, I’ve had a clear path, an engine. When I was twenty-nine, I signed a book contract. The same week I found out I was pregnant. Now, seven years later, I’ve written three books and given birth to two lovely, funny boys.

During these last seven years I was often tired and a little overwhelmed by the amount of things that had to get done in a day, a week, a month. But I didn’t find myself asking those fundamental question: “What am I here for? What am I made to do?” I knew, at least temporarily, the answers. I had a path. And I powered along the path, and it kept me temporarily safe from those questions.

But now for the first time in a long time, I don’t have that path. I don’t have that certainty. I’m intentionally choosing to not know what’s next. I know it’s the right thing for me in this season. It feels a lot like going back to my childhood, being willing to drop everything for the wind. For the last several years, I was too focused on working out the details of my plan to drop everything for the wind. I was a power boater. I liked the safety and predictability of it.

*Photo by Tim Green, Creative Commons

But I miss the rush, the freedom, the feeling of letting the wind take you wherever it will. I’m ready to drop everything for the wind again, to leave a mess, to walk away from the plan for the day—for the year, for my life, maybe, in order to feel the wind again.

This is what I know, both on the water and in my life: the wind is where it’s at. If you’ve never sliced through the water on a boat powered only by wind, you can’t even believe how oddly quiet it is—the only sounds are hull slicing through water, wind humming in the shrouds. You have a sense of getting away with something, almost, like creating something from nothing. It’s exciting and calm at the very same moment, which I find is true in our lives as well.

When you trust the wind instead of pushing through with an engine, when you wait for life to lead and unfold in its own timing instead of shouting out your answer, when you create space for uncertainty instead of pushing for a plan, the feeling is the same: exciting and calm in the very same moment, one of the best feelings in the world.

And this is what I know: you can trust the wind. The wind takes us places we’ve never imagined, and it often knows us better than we know ourselves. It brings us to futures we longed for but couldn’t even say out loud. I believe God is that wind in my life, that he’s working all the time, and that he’s good and loving. I know that spiritual journeys are circuitous and personal, and that God’s presence can look all sorts of different ways in all sorts of different lives.

I also know how scary it can be to give ourselves over to that beautiful terrifying wind, how hard it can be to trust the journey, but I also believe that it’s worth it, that when you do, you’ll feel alive and free and you’ll want that feeling over and over for the rest of your life, like a drug, like falling in love.

When people ask me what’s next these days, as they often do, I tell them it’s all about the wind and not the engine. I tell them I’m practicing not having a plan. I tell them I’m trying to re-learn how to not know, how to wait for the wind, how to trust the silence. It’s awkward, and it’s great. For me, these days, it’s all about the wind.

Why You Should Accept a Life Less Predictable is a post from: Storyline Blog

How Portland and the Book of Acts Changed Me

I love Portland. Small Batch Coffee. Powells Books. Community Gardens. Crisp air. Bikes everywhere. Timbers Army. Everyone has a front porch.

And in the mild summers, when the rain takes a break and goes on vacation, everyone lives on their front porch. I love the posture of this. It’s welcoming. Open. It’s the way of the older neighborhoods, designed by craftsmen and architects who built houses for relationship and communal living.

The bungalows and neighborhoods of Portland were built outward-facing. People live that way, too, for community. People share. They invite you into their homes. Sharing is just a way of life for Portlanders. And I think we can learn from Portland, even with all its oddities and weirdness.

*Photo Credit: Lara604, Creative Commons

From our front porch, we talked to Phyllis about her flowers. She’s the widow next door, who let me use her deceased husband’s tools. The Jewish couple brought us warm Challah bread. Sometimes we ate Killer Burger with them. Our daughters shared the same Hebrew name. The atheist couple next door had us over for dinner and wine. Mike let me borrow his wheelbarrow to move compost. The homosexual man across the street brought us champagne when our twins were born. The old, cussing man liked to give me gardening tips.

Neighbors.

A much-needed idea. To me, Portland is picture of the early church. It embraces hospitality, each other and the world. It lives with open-hands, facing and sharing its wheelbarrows with the world.

But today, we build our homes, our churches and our lives without porches. We have lost our front-porch orientation. We drive home from work or the gym, and then go directly into our garage. We hit a button and close the garage door before we even leave the car. We live closed.

This feels less like the book of Acts and more like fear. It feels more like the loud-talking guy on the news who manufactures drama, selling fear for ratings. But when we live in fear, we cannot love our neighbor, as Jesus implores. And if we don’t even know our neighbor, there can be no “love for neighbor” at all.

Portland and the Book of Acts challenge me: Do I live openly on the front porch? Or am I closed off, locked in the garage? Do I know the names of my neighbors? Do I share my wheelbarrow and my tools, my life and my bread with them?

How Portland and the Book of Acts Changed Me is a post from: Storyline Blog

Why People Will or Won’t Remember You

I heard this story about Bill Murray once. Apparently he was alone in an elevator at a hotel when a guy got on and recognized him. The man stood uncomfortably quiet as the elevator made its way down to the lobby. Finally, the man looked over at Bill Murray and said he was a fan and it was a pleasure to meet him. Bill just nodded and smiled and then continued to look forward. The fan looked rather apologetic and when the doors opened in the lobby walked sheepishly out of the elevator. The two of them walked out of the hotel, the fan one way and Bill Murray the other. Then, suddenly, Bill Murray turned and ran toward the man, tackling him into the flower bed. Murray sat up, pointed at the man and said You will never, ever forget this and then got up and ran away.

*Photo Credit: djp3000, Creative Commons

I love that story. It got me thinking, though, what really makes a great first impression? I mean what kind of people are truly memorable?

The best answer I came up with was this: I remember people best when they, somehow, make me feel good about myself. I’m not talking about flattery, because that leads to distrust. And I’m not talking about compliments, either, because they are so often (though not always) given in exchange for something, like will you read my book?

People who make me feel good about myself are the ones who tend to value people not because of what they’ve done or what they offer, but simply because I’m a human being. I think, in a way, they tap into a part of us that longs for God, who will not care what we’ve accomplished.

How do they value me as a human? They listen. They ask questions. They do not want anything in exchange. They express how good it was to get to know me.

What’s even better about meeting people like this is it makes me want to be one of them. Memorable, indeed.

Why People Will or Won’t Remember You is a post from: Storyline Blog

Olympian Scott Hamilton Ponders Why He Survived Cancer

A couple months ago I spent a few days with Olympic skater Scott Hamilton. It’s rare to meet such an accomplished person who isn’t only humble, but is deeply convinced life is not about winning, about himself or about glory. Scott has found contentment in the service of others, both in remarkable ways through his effort to help others battle cancer and as an entertainer, believing in the importance of dazzling an audience. Were it not for a frightening, painful experience, he might have been lost. So driven. So kind and an incredible inspiration. He’s a pretty good skater, but he’s a much better husband, father and friend of God. Grateful to know him. This Sunday, a sermon from an unlikely source. Thanks, Scott.

Olympian Scott Hamilton Ponders Why He Survived Cancer is a post from: Storyline Blog