Donald Miller's Blog, page 87

Why Are So Many Successful Men Sick Men?

One of my favorite scenes in any book takes place in John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row. If you remember the story, it’s about the citizens of a particular street along the California coast. There’s a man they call Doc who collects all kinds of species of sea animals to sell to colleges and laboratories. And there’s a group of homeless guys who live across the street from Doc’s shop. They live in an old warehouse and one of them lives with his wife in a large, abandoned piece of pipe. His wife has draped curtains over fake windows on the inside of the pipe and the boys all sit on the steps looking out at the street, judging the value of the world as it passes by. The homeless boys are led by a well-meaning man named Mack who wants to throw a party for Doc but just makes a bunch of mayhem trying.

*Photo Credit: Jim Linwood, Creative Commons

One afternoon Doc and a friend are working in his laboratory and the friend happens to look out the window to see the boys drinking their beers and judging the world and he wonders out loud to Doc about whether they’re any good as men. Doc argues they are and says of the boys that in a time when people tear themselves to pieces with ambition and nervousness and covetousness, they are relaxed. All of our so-called successful men are sick men, with bad stomachs and bad souls, but Mack and the boys are healthy and curiously clean.

Doc’s friend won’t hear it. They’re homeless and an eye sore. As Doc and his friend were talking, the whole town was headed down to watch a parade because it was the 4th of July. Doc told his friend to watch the boys and he bet his friend that even as the band marched by and as the princess rode by on the back of a convertible the boys wouldn’t turn and look. He said they were not taken in by glitz and glamour and noise. To the amazement of Doc’s friend, the boys never turned their heads.

And then Doc makes an observation about the world I’ve always thought was profound: The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.

• • •

I’ve always loved that scene. I don’t think a month goes by that I don’t think of it and I read that book for the first time twenty years ago. I don’t know why I like it so much except I want to be the kind of person who isn’t taken in by shiny things, by the big show of personality, of charm.

I’ve noticed something in life. I’ve noticed there are dazzling people who are remarkable and amazing and worth telling stories about and then there are quiet ones who get up each day and go to work like farmers. And I’ve noticed the quiet ones who get up each day and go to work like farmers are usually the ones that, over the long arch of a life, can be counted on the most. They speak a simple truth and prove their values through work. Everything else is a parade, I suppose. Sometimes when I meet somebody who talks slick and there’s a crowd gathering I think about Mack and the boys and I quietly walk the other way.

Why Are So Many Successful Men Sick Men? is a post from: Storyline Blog

If You’re Not Scared, You’re Not Doing It Right

I’ve been scared for the last 3 years…

Scared about the direction of my organization, scared about making sure I can pay the mortgage, scared I’m pigeon-holing my career before my 30th birthday.

When the noise of my own self-doubt becomes unbearable, I have a special spot I like to go in Portland down the street from my office. I sit on a grassy hill, littered with weeds, and lean against a broken light post. My spot isn’t picturesque; it overlooks a truck depot and a freeway on-ramp, but it’s mine.

Some people say God talks to them at length. Full paragraphs and jokes and all. For me, on my grassy knoll, God has been more of a broken record lately. When the world feels like it’s crashing down, all I hear are the same two lines:

1. “If you’re not scared, you’re not doing it right.”

2. “Just. Keep. Going.”

I hate when I’m in the middle of it, but fear is good. The more you love something, the more you’ll fear it, because you know it can hurt you. People don’t quit their jobs because they’re scared of them. People quit their jobs because they’re bored of them. You lose the fear, you lose the love.

If you remember anything, remember this…

Fear is an ally and an indicator of what you have to keep doing in life.

Steven Pressfield sums it up well in his groundbreaking work, The War of Art:

“Self doubt can be an ally. This is because it serves as an indicator of aspiration. It reflects love, love of something we dream of doing, and desire, desire to do it. If you find yourself asking yourself, “Am I really a writer? Am I really an artist?” chances are you are. The Counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death.”

Are you scared to death or wildly self-confident? A true creator or a counterfeit innovator? Evaluate your level of fear. You’ll know what you’re meant to do.

If You’re Not Scared, You’re Not Doing It Right is a post from: Storyline Blog

Why You Should Stop and Remember Your Life

My Jewish friends are in the middle of the High Holy Days. It starts on Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year, and ends ten days later on Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement). During that week they take stock of the previous year and prepare to make an accounting of it. The High Holy Days are also known as the Days of Repentance, or get this: the Days of Awe.

Sometimes I wish there were a Lutheran version of the High Holy Days. I wish we were directed to remember the past year: the good and bad that have that happened; the things you did well and poorly; the good things you failed to do… Not because if you don’t, God won’t forgive you, but because you won’t grow or learn or appreciate life. Because you won’t remember your life as it slips through your fingers.

• • •

A friend posted memories of her father-in-law who’d passed away. I didn’t know the man, but her account of him made me cry. She’d had sat down to remember him.

It’s fall, isn’t it? The calendar says we have ten more days, but I know it’s over. We must reach a point in the orbit where the earth makes a swift turn and we lose more light per minute than any other time of the dying summer. I feel it in the light in the sky – that aching, poignant fading light, like the last act of some tear-jerker movie. It must be God’s way of of telling us to stop and remember.

A friend posted this on Rosh Hashana:

I love the text inscribed.

Blessed are you,

Lord our God,

King of the Universe!

Who has granted us life,

sustained us and

brought us to this season.

The High Holy Days arrive just as farmers are bringing in the harvest. I don’t know which came first, the chicken or the egg: the physical harvest, or the soul’s need to take an inventory of one’s spiritual harvest. But this is the time to do it – before your attention is stolen by school or work or the tyranny of the urgent.

Remember your life before it slips through your fingers.

Why You Should Stop and Remember Your Life is a post from: Storyline Blog

The Great Stumbling Block of the Creative Mind

The great stumbling block of the creative mind is the awareness of self from the perspective of others. Self awareness isn’t the enemy, because we are in fact masterworks of God, but rather the overemphasis regarding what others think of us. When we think too much about the opinions of others, we are letting them edit a book God has written.

In his introduction to C.S. Lewis’ sermon The Weight of Glory, Walter Hooper says Lewis was not capable of writing a great work until he converted to Christianity, not because only Christians create great work (obviously) but because his conversion marked an inner change in which he ceased to take much interest in himself.

*Photo Credit: M-n-M, Creative Commons

In an age in which we can project an image and score that image based on immediate Facebook and Twitter feedback, thus making a video game of life and a false-reality composed of lies, what gets lost is a joyful obsession with the work we create from the purest of motives, a sheer joy in the act of creation itself that causes us to lose ourselves in something else, and in a way die to ourselves over the absolute love of a thing we are breathing into life.

(this is a repost from the archives)

The Great Stumbling Block of the Creative Mind is a post from: Storyline Blog

Jia Jiang Teaches Us How to Love Rejection

I recently spoke at the World Domination Summit in Portland and loved all the other speakers. I had a blast sitting in the massive, giggly audience watching grand slam after grand slam pass across the stage. One of the best audience responses, though, came from my new friend Jia Jiang. Jia is a Chinese American who has been running an amazing experiment in which he is trying to overcome his fear of rejection by being rejected 100 times.

And the stories he’s collecting are amazing. He asked a policeman if he could drive his car. He asked a pilot if he could fly the plane. He asked the people at Krispy Kreme to make him a donut shaped like the Olympic rings.

And guess what happened? He never got rejected once.

What Jia (pronounced Ja) discovered was most of us are missing out on life because we fear being rejected when, actually, people are much more accepting of our crazy ideas than we could ever dream.

I liked Jia so much I asked if we could represent him within the Storyline Speakers Bureau and Jia has since come on. If you have a team you’d like to be inspired to try harder and take more risks, inquire here. Otherwise, enjoy Jia. He got a standing ovation and World Domination. And it’ll be obvious by the time you finish hearing his talk why people are falling in love with him.

Jia Jiang Teaches Us How to Love Rejection is a post from: Storyline Blog

The Best Viral Videos We Found This Week

Last week, Kevin Lee’s Wish won the vote. But which video is your favorite this week? Vote below in the comments.

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

How Living an Ordinary Life Becomes Extraordinary

I walked to work last week and passed a spider web. It was stunning as it shimmered in the dewy morning light. I noticed it hung between two trees by only four slender threads. I studied this Charlotte-like web as if it might have a message for me. But as I noticed the sleeping spider, I remembered this was just an ordinary web and nothing more than a day’s work for a spider.

*Photo Credit: tallkev, Creative Commons

Also this week a reporter came to do a story about the community of Thistle Farms for a national news program. He said these were his favorite features to film, “Ordinary people doing extraordinary things.” The image of the spider web flashed through my mind as I thought, “He got it wrong. We are just ordinary people doing the most ordinary thing, loving one another without judgement.” We get it backwards because in this world with airwaves packed with war, sensationalism and meaningless celebrity news, it looks extraordinary. I think all of us from time to time wonder if we are just ordinary people doing ordinary things. This week I feel like we can thankfully answer yes.

When you think about the message of discipleship, it is a call to the stunningly beautiful and common tasks sharing what have, offering hospitality to all and forgiving one another. And when we witness these ordinary ways of living, they are as stunning as an ordinary spider web, a sunset, or a new baby.

• • •

The church sets aside a holy season called Ordinary Time as sacred. The title for the office of a bishop that heads a diocese is called the Ordinary. The Ordinary is part of the religious tradition of being ordered in our daily lives so that we can always be in the presence of the holy.

Imagine for a minute an ordinary meal; imagine cooking all the food from the basic ingredients you have. Then imagine inviting everyone you need to forgive, and everyone who has forgiven you, and anyone you have been separated from either by pride, fear, or omission to share your meal. Imagine around this table all the people you have loved and those in whom you have forgotten to see Christ. They are all there with you. Sharing a meal that is no longer about the food or types of players, but overflowing with mercy and love you that pours out like a sated cup as you weep for joy. A simple meal becomes a heavenly banquet before our eyes.

When we let nothing draw our eyes and hearts and hands away from the word love, the most ordinary becomes blessedly extraordinary. We can hear our Lord say share a meal, consider a flower, and be like a grain of salt. It is then that we know we are being invited into a sacred kingdom. Is there a tatted pattern more beautiful than a web? Is there a more fulfilling meal than a bite of bread or a sip of wine? Is there anything more ordinary than that we should love each other?

How Living an Ordinary Life Becomes Extraordinary is a post from: Storyline Blog

Three Paradigm Shifts About Relationships That Are Setting Me Free

Here are three “What if” questions I’ve been kicking around lately. And they’re changing the way I do relationships. Thought I’d share them with you:

1. What if the whole idea we were in competition with the people around us was a lie? What if we were just supposed to connect with people and enjoy?

By this I mean what if all the comparing could be replaced with connecting? There’s something hidden, unspoken and even a little confusing within me that compares myself to others. I’d like for that to go away and I’m working on that. It’s been helpful and enjoyable to simply realize my life has been blessed, I deserve none of what I’ve been given, and there will always be people with more than me and people with less.

*Photo Credit: smoorenburg, Creative Commons

2. What if relationships were meant to be enjoyed, not fixed?

This question is so freeing. What if when I’m with a friend the only thing I’m supposed to do is enjoy the relationship. I’m a builder by nature. I want to change everything and make it better. But the problem is, other people don’t belong to me. I don’t get to change them. I can inspire them or encourage them and even rebuke them but it’s not my responsibility to change them. And, in fact, people have been given to us by God for our enjoyment. There are, of course, unsafe people, but I’m talking about those people we enjoy as friends and family. I want to start replacing my “fix” response with an “enjoy” response and just let people be themselves.

3. What if I were a gift to people the way they were a gift to me?

I tend to think most of my friends are more amazing than I am. They are more kind, more giving, more talented and seem to offer me more than I offer them. But what if this isn’t true? What if I was just as encouraging to my friends as they were to me? What if I believed that and lived into it and owned it and allowed for that reality to encourage me and make me an even more gracious and kind gift to the people around me? What If I believed God had me on the planet to give as well as to receive?

Three great questions I’ve been asking. What about you? What questions have you been asking about relationships?

Three Paradigm Shifts About Relationships That Are Setting Me Free is a post from: Storyline Blog

Does Your Stuff Define You?

If I were to tell you I measure success in my life by the quality and amount of stuff I own, I’m guessing one of two things would happen. Either you would stop reading and write me off as sad and shallow. Or, you would keep reading, but feel a great deal of sympathy for me (or maybe anger toward me) for being so sad and shallow.

You might even take the time to write an angry or corrective comment below, so I could see the error of my ways.

But here’s what’s funny: I actually do believe this. (Keep reading).

Sometimes we believe things we don’t realize we believe. You know what I mean? Sometimes we’re just going along, enjoying our life, making decisions that feel best in the moment, without realizing the choices we’re making are adding up to something significant, maybe even something we don’t even like. And before we know it, we are living like we believe something we don’t actually believe.

This is what happened to me when it came to my possessions. A few years ago I looked around my life and realized:

I believe my stuff defines me.

*Photo Credit: Jeremy Bronson, Creative Commons

It wasn’t like I sat around my house, thinking to myself: You know, if I could just get nicer stuff — a cooler car, a better house, a prettier couch — then I would think my life really mattered for something. It didn’t have conversations with friends where I shared, “I’m just really hoping someday I’ll have a more stylish wardrobe, so I’ll feel accepted and important.”

But still, these silent and pervasive thoughts were driving the way I lived my life. They dictated the clothes I bought, the car I drove, the people I spent time with, if I bought or rented, the career path I chose, and the anxiety I felt if I couldn’t get the things I wanted. Can you believe that? I was allowing my entire life to be infiltrated and dictated by a belief system I didn’t even want.

The worst part of all was I was miserable. Totally and completely miserable.

So I sold everything.

I’ve told the story here before, and wrote a book about the experience called Packing Light that is available on Amazon starting today, so I won’t bore you with all of the gory details. But basically, I wanted to see what would happen if I gave up everything I was using as a measure of success in my life that was leading me in the wrong direction. I wanted to see if God would show me how he wanted me to measure success.

I wanted to see if I could experience the Kingdom of Heaven.

You know the story of the Rich Young Ruler from the Gospels? If you grew up in church, like I did, you’ve heard it at least a dozen times before (if you haven’t, you can find it in Luke 18:18). Even with as many times as I had heard this story, I never really made much of it. Honestly, I thought it was a story for rich people — and I never really thought of myself as rich. But a few years ago, when I read this story, it felt like I was reading it for the first time.

Suddenly I identified with the young man completely.

I felt like I had been coming to Jesus saying, “Okay, I’ve done all the stuff I was supposed to do. I went to college. I’ve been responsible. I paid my bills. Now where is the life you promised? Where is Heaven?”

And it felt like God was saying, “Let it all go.”

• • •

I know I’m not the only one who is living my life with the deeply held belief that success in life is defined by stuff. I meet too many people with too many stories similar to mine. I look around at the debt we’re in, the anxiety we feel, the desperation and the restlessness and the sense that, while none of this matters, we’re all making a very big deal out of it, and we can’t seem to stop.

We would never turn to a friend and say, “Mostly, I’m just trying to own a lot of nice stuff in my lifetime. That would make me feel like I had really made it.” But we’re living our life as if we believe that’s how it works, aren’t we?

What if we were willing to wake up to the deeply rooted beliefs that are driving our lives? What if we had the courage to change them?

Would we experience heaven, right now?

I believe we would. I don’t think it would happen right away. In fact, I think at first, it would feel a little unnatural and uncomfortable. We might feel exposed and vulnerable. This happens anytime we give up the baggage we’ve been carrying. In a sense, there is a freedom and a weightlessness to it. And in another sense, there is a nakedness. The act of letting go also exposes how much we relied on what we were carrying.

But I think as we re-built our new belief structure from the ground up — as we put our hands and hearts to it — we would feel life rush in.

What do think? Does your stuff define you?

Does Your Stuff Define You? is a post from: Storyline Blog

Why Don’t Christians Take Risks That Matter?

In the movie What About Bob, Bill Murray plays a neurotic patient named Bob who goes to see a psychiatrist played by Richard Dreyfuss. Halfway through their session, Bob clutches his chest, gasps for air, falls to the floor, flops around for a while making guttural noises, and then lies there silently.

Unfazed, the psychiatrists leans over and asks him if he’s finished. Bob climbs back into his chair and the psychiatrist asks him why he’s just faked a heart attack.

“Because if I fake it, I don’t have it,” Bob replies.

I don’t have a TV, but I was loosely aware of Nik Wallenda, who walked over the Grand Canyon this summer. I read reports of how he prayed while he was walking across. How Joel Osteen was on hand to cheer him on. How Christians around the country praised him for being “brave.”

*Photo Credit: lwpkommunikacio, Creative Commons

And it made me sick to my stomach. “It would be great if Christians took risks that actually mattered,” I said to my friend. (Ok, I didn’t really say it to my friend. I tweeted it. But that’s kind of the same thing.)

And then I started wondering why a lot of Christians don’t take risks — not real risks, anyway. Not for the sake of the Gospel.

Why we claim that we’re being “persecuted” when we get backlash for stiffing a server her tip and leaving a tract instead, for using company time to “witness” to a coworker, for spewing hate speech at people that God loves.

Why we claim to do “brave” but completely inane things for God, like walking a tightrope or sinking a game-winning shot or changing our college major. (While all of these things can and should be done for God’s glory, let’s not call them brave, okay?)

It leads me back to my question — why don’t Christians take risks that matter? Because, like Bob faking his heart attack, maybe if we take fake risks, we won’t have to take the real ones.

Why Don’t Christians Take Risks That Matter? is a post from: Storyline Blog