Donald Miller's Blog, page 89

Angelina Jolie’s Breasts and the Bravery of Letting Go

I heard the news of Angelina Jolie’s mastectomy on NPR last Tuesday as I was driving to work. Several co-workers stopped by my office that morning to ask what I thought about her decision to remove both her breasts to prevent her from getting breast cancer.

“I think she’s brave,” I said. “I think she’s very brave.”

Angelina Jolie’s mom had died of ovarian cancer in her 50s, and genetic testing showed that Angelina was positive for the BRCA-1 gene mutation, which not only raised her risk of ovarian cancer, but also meant she had an 87 percent chance of developing breast cancer in her life.

*Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore, Creative Commons

I tried to concentrate on work that morning, but my mind kept drifting to my own experience with breast cancer. I was diagnosed with it when I was 27, and went through a bilateral mastectomy, four more surgeries, chemo, and radiation. And now I’m on medicine for the next decade to keep it from coming back.

On Tuesday afternoon, I went for a walk and I remembered. I remembered waking up from the mastectomy with bandages wrapped around my chest to cover the massive incisions that marked the place my breasts used to be. I remembered my hair falling out in clumps when I was going through chemo, until I was completely bald. I remembered losing so much weight during chemo that my clothes hung from my thin frame.

And I remembered standing in front of the mirror for hours, staring at myself, trying to find even a glimpse of the girl I used to be, but I couldn’t find her anywhere. I had lost the hair and breasts and curves that had identified me as a woman.

“I look like a 12-year-old boy,” I cried to my mom one afternoon. As I laid in bed that night I cried some more, thinking that I was not only unrecognizable, but unlovable. What man in his right mind would love a woman with no breasts and no hair? I felt like I’d had to sacrifice my femininity in order to save my life.

In the fallout of Angelina’s announcement, there was lots of praise, some criticism, and a fair amount of fear from women about why someone would undergo such a drastic, disfiguring surgery. Mastectomies make many women uncomfortable because the procedure threatens one of our most identifiable female features. It calls our ideas of sexual attraction into question. It becomes tempting to believe that if we lose our breasts, we lose the ability to attract male attention, and we lose our sexual power.

A mastectomy also insinuates that our breasts are disposable. And we don’t want anything about us to be disposable. We want our breasts, and ourselves, to matter.

This, I think, taps into a deeper issue that many women struggle with. It exposes the fact that many of us identify ourselves – and judge other women – based on external appearances. We often find not only our identities, but also our worth, in the size of our jeans, the length of our hair, the label on our handbag, or the cup size of our bra. Most of us are unwilling to shed these external things to discover who we really are.

• • •

The night I heard of Angelina’s surgery, I was talking to a friend, and somehow we ended up discussing fairy tales. I told my friend that what irks me most about fairy tales is that instead of the damsel in distress rescuing herself, she always waits for a man to come, which makes her helpless and puts her in even more danger.

“Here’s the thing,” I said. “These women were waiting to be rescued, but all the while they had the means to rescue themselves. For instance, Rapunzel could’ve cut off her long hair, braided a rope and repelled herself down from the tower. And Cinderella could’ve run away from her evil stepmother if only she’d kicked off her fragile glass shoes.”

“Do you know what else those women had in common?” my friend asked. “The things they were holding onto were things that made them attractive. They couldn’t sacrifice their hair or their ball gown or their delicate shoes without losing a significant amount of their femininity. The ‘girly’ things they valued turned into a trap.”

As I drove home that night, I realized the real reason I had told my co-workers I thought Angelina was brave was not because she’d had the courage to undergo a major surgery, but because she’d had the courage to get herself out of danger, even if it meant sacrificing something that made her attractive and feminine. Instead of staying trapped in the tower by superficial standards of beauty, she had been brave enough to let go.

And now I’m left with these lingering questions.

What if all of us women had the courage to shed the external things we’ve used to define ourselves and accept ourselves and each other for who we are instead of what we look like?

What if we partnered with each other in this pursuit rather than excluding or judging each other?

What if we based our worth not on our appearances, but on who God says we are?

And what would happen if we began to pray for the confidence, and the grace, to let go?

Angelina Jolie’s Breasts and the Bravery of Letting Go is a post from: Storyline Blog

Is Control the Opposite of Love?

I love that short scene from Bruce Almighty in which Bruce tries to use his God-like powers to cause his girlfriend to love him. It’s a funny scene but the fact it doesn’t work speaks so terrifically to the way God has designed our lives. Love is a choice that nobody can take away from us. God Himself gives us free will to walk away, otherwise He is not loving, He is controlling.

Controlling people can make others respect them, fear them, obey them and even serve them, but the one thing they will never do is make people love them. I know a guy who is a shock-jock pastor and has created quite an empire. I know many people who work for him, who depend on him for their incomes, who associate themselves with him to feel strong, but I’ve never heard anybody say they love him. This is true for nearly every controlling person. It’s not that they aren’t loved, because some people see through it and love them anyway, it’s that they can’t trust anybody to love them. They have to force everything.

• • •

What I love about God is He is more interested in exchanging love than exchanging anything else. And He’s tough. Truly tough. He lets you walk away and He stands there.

The sad reality is we all try to do exactly what Jim Carrey does in this movie more often than we’d like to admit. We are all, to some degree, controlling. Some more directly than others. It’s almost impossible not to. I only bring that up because it’s one of the things that reminds me of just how powerful God really is. He woos but he does not force, He hurts but He doesn’t numb the pain, He gives whether or not He receives.

C.S. Lewis said “I talk of love as a scholars parrot talks Greek” and I think it’s true.

To love is to risk. To control is to fear.

That’s a mantra I repeat to myself in a number of my relationships. In greater percentages, as the years go by, I want to run the kind of risk that gets me closer and closer to real love.

What do you think? Is control an opposite of love (I say opposite for sake of conversation, not because I think love actually has an opposite)…But can love and control go together, or is risk necessary?

Here’s the scene I referenced earlier.

Is Control the Opposite of Love? is a post from: Storyline Blog

The Key To Happiness? Love Something To The Point Of Ridicule

A while ago I stumbled upon an amazing video of a guy in New York seeing a limited edition train for the first time.

May sound irrelevant to you and me, but this guy is absolutely obsessed with trains and it makes for one of funniest videos I’d seen in a long time.

Enjoy this wonderful 4.5 minutes.

After sharing the video on Facebook, a friend pointed out one of the youtube comments that read:

“Wow. I wish I cared this much about anything.”

We can laugh at this guy for getting fired up about something most of us know nothing about. But the truth is, very few people can honestly say they care this much about anything.

And then it dawned on me: Loving something like this guy loves trains is the secret to happiness. It’s also the secret to humanness.

I believe we were created to build, strategize, love, scheme, obsess, and innovate. For this guy, limited edition trains probably keep him awake at night. In a world where so many can’t even name one positive thing they are passionate about, there is something beautifully human in this guy losing his mind over a train.

Excited train guy from New York gives us a small glimpse into the great capacity for joy and excitement we as humans have the ability to experience.

Furthermore, loving something to the point of ridicule is extremely important. Especially if it’s something of value or purpose. I knew I was on to something when a few years back people started poking fun about my work with These Numbers Have Faces.

A good friend once told me he was in the process of starting a similar organization called “These Braces Have Faces,” whose mission is to provide counseling for kids who had undergone embarrassing dental work. We got a good laugh out of that.

People poking fun at your passions is a very good sign. It means they care enough to notice what you’re doing and are most likely a little bit envious.

So what is it for you? What’s the thing you’d film a video of yourself doing, knowing full well that people might make fun of you?

Don’t know? I encourage you to figure it out. Take a tip from the excited train guy in New York.

The Key To Happiness? Love Something To The Point Of Ridicule is a post from: Storyline Blog

Where Are the Real Heroes?

I keep hearing about how we live in a culture where there are few heroes or good role models. People cite the painful failures of politicians, the doping scandals in major league sports, and the booking photos of starlets. To many it seems that heroes do not exist in a 24-hour cable news culture and streaming Internet. The assumption that underlies this lament is that heroes must be famous: those whom are not elevated by the media club must not have much value. I don’t think this is true.

There are plenty of heroes today. A few months ago, I was on vacation with my family and saw a hero. We never met, but I watched this man from an appropriate distance in a dining room. The man must have been in his 80s or 90s and he was with his wife. Weathered wedding bands adorned their fingers. She was severely disabled and confined to a wheelchair … one with the head supports. For some reason this couple caught my eye. I watched how he spoke to her with confidence and patience as he cut each bite of food for his life’s love. She struggled to chew and he wiped her chin and then playfully kissed her cheek. A half smile crossed her face and she flashed him a grateful glance. Her body was obviously no longer what it was when I imagine they skipped down the aisle or hosted joy filled dinner parties … but there was no sense of sadness. She may no longer have control of her body in the manner she did when they were young, but she still mattered and her husband knew it. Movies should be made about this kind of love. As I watched the scene unfold, I wished everyone could have my seat for this reality show. That elderly man did not need a cape or a following to be a hero; he had a napkin and a smile. I want to be like that guy!

*Photo Credit: hill.josh, Creative Commons

When I imagine that couple’s relationship, I am sure there were fights, arguments, and morning breath. They are human and therefore not perfect. If investigative reporters picked apart their lives, I am sure they could unpack failure. None of our heroes have ever been perfect. They all have weaknesses. Thomas Jefferson owned slaves; Gandhi was estranged from his children; Superman suffered in the presence of kryptonite.

There is no need to idealize caricatures or icons. Do we really want to look up to impersonal fictions or to real people who have overcome failure to accomplish something meaningful? Do we want superstars or authentic people to serve as our role models? Let’s strive to see the quiet heroes in our everyday lives who faithfully serve, work, and care for others. Capes, perfection, and fame should be shelved as measures for role models and replaced with authenticity, courage, and consistent love.

Where Are the Real Heroes? is a post from: Storyline Blog

Finding the Good in a Bad Situation Has Kept The Bitterness Away

I rented a cabin for the month of August in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Just me and my dog. I’m going into the most busy season of my adult life in the next few months so I thought I’d get away and edit the new book, finish some business curriculum and write for my life.

The place I rented has a pond, which is perfect for me. My dog Lucy loves to swim and a significant part of my writing routine involves taking breaks along the edge of a river, throwing a tennis ball and waiting for the next paragraph to come to me. Normally, this means an hour or two break in the middle of the day, loading the dog in the car and heading to a river. So this place was perfect. I could literally throw a ball off the front deck and into the water. I’d gain an hour of writing per day not having to drive.

I was told the pond had sat there for twenty years, crystal clear, great for fishing and swimming. But a week before I came a flood washed out the drain. I arrived to find an empty crater of mud. It was too late to find a different cabin. My deadlines meant I couldn’t spend any time searching. So, I settled in.

For two weeks I watched the mud hole. I realize it’s silly to complain about something so dumb, but the truth is I cursed my fate. Twenty years? And the week before I came it empties out? It was enough to make me play the victim. And I did, to some degree.

But after a while playing the victim just gets toxic. So I sat there looking at the mud crater, trying to figure out how it was actually a blessing. Here is what I came up with:

1. While it may not be a blessing to me, I’m a blessing to the very kind man who rented me the place. He’s getting a month’s rent when a family of five could easily have rented the place and had a ruined vacation. So there’s that.

2. The empty pond created a longing that, once fulfilled will serve me well. They came and fixed the pond and it will take two weeks to fill. But at the end of the two weeks, when I’ve only one or two days left in the cabin, I’ll be able to swim in that pond. That may be the most wonderful swim ever, simply because I waited so long and watched the thing fill up.

3. There’s something about being uncomfortable that makes me work harder. I don’t know what it is, but I could never write in a truly nice place. I’d want to play golf or swim or go on hikes. Because this place felt more like a construction site than a cabin in the woods, I got to work. And I’ve been incredibly productive.

Did this perspective cure my victim mindset? Well, mostly. I still pout, occasionally. But in the end it’s a mixed bag. I’m getting a lot of work done. I’m blessing somebody else. I’m surfing that sense of longing and it’s working out.

Beats getting depressed, that’s for sure.

• • •

Curious about what unfortunate situation you’re dealing with that could be similarly redeemed?

Finding the Good in a Bad Situation Has Kept The Bitterness Away is a post from: Storyline Blog

Sunday Morning Sermon: Anthony Hopkins as C.S. Lewis

I like this scene in the C.S. Lewis biopic, Shadowlands in which Lewis reflects on the trouble with “staying in” a painful moment. He’s lived in his mind his entire life and dissected it, to some degree, rather than living within it. But this treatment of life is affecting his relationship, and it’s hurting his wife.

I love it when she says “that’s the deal” about life. That’s the trade. “The pain now is the happiness then” and it’s true. Lewis’ longing for heaven is, in part, his inability to accept life as it is in the moment. It’s a rough paradox, but for those of us who can dissect life as a way of escaping its rough edges, this might be meaningful. I watched this and wondered what hard things, scary things, relational things I was running from.

Sunday Morning Sermon: Anthony Hopkins as C.S. Lewis is a post from: Storyline Blog

Saturday Morning Cereal: The Best Viral Videos We Found This Week

There were several votes for all 3 videos last week, but the Seahawks won and I’m sure Don is pumped about that. How about this week? Which is your favorite? Leave a comment below with your vote.

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

How I Learned to Stay Focused and How You Can Too

To put it simply, I guess I lost my focus.

I was already a little anxious when the day began. A few of us were in British Columbia at a friend’s house, doing stuff that I figured should be in Outside Magazine, or maybe a deodorant or adult beverage commercial. One day we were in rubberized suits, with fins on our feet, fly fishing in a mountain lake, pulling out trout by the dozen. An otter swam next to me with its own catch of the day. Then we were boating and hiking through areas that looked like they were backdrops for a National Geographic special. Another day we were on mountain bicycles. In the rain.

On this day, though, we were headed up some abandoned logging paths on trail bikes, which are motorcycles designed to tackle steep inclines and rugged terrain. My friend Doug had a hoist that could swing the bikes from the dock to the boat. We motored through some spectacular lakes for about an hour and came to a dock that looked like it had not been visited in decades. We swung the bikes onto that dock. I looked up at the mountain in front of me.

It had been a long time since I had been on a motorcycle. I rode my friend’s enormous Harley in Kansas near his house in the country a few years ago. Those roads were straight and flat. I got a few bugs in my face, but that was all the damage. These trail bikes were for sprints, for evasive action around boulders and landslides and fallen trees and piles of fresh bear scat, which we saw. They had to be fast enough to cross deep, glacier-fed rivers and powerful enough to then climb the bank out of the river. In football parlance, the Harley was a lineman, and the trail bike was a free safety.

Doug gave us some advice as we were putting on our elbow, knee and head armor. The first bit seemed counter-intuitive.

“When you’re headed downhill toward a river, speed up, don’t slow down,” he said. “You have to have enough momentum to get through the water and back up the other side.” When I thought about it, it made sense. The water was coming from snow and ice, just a little ways up the mountain. Cold. You didn’t want to fall backward into that.

It was his other advice that I should have heeded more closely.

“When you have to avoid something, or go through something, or have to turn quickly, or have a narrow path between the mountain and one side, and the cliff on the other, don’t look at where you are – look at where you want to go,” he said. “If you focus on the things that can make you crash, then you will crash. I’ll be on up ahead of you. Keep your eyes on me.”

• • •

The first half-hour or so was great. Trails weren’t too rough. We had to squeeze the bikes between a couple of boulders that had come down and blocked most of the path. Some of the climbs were steep, even causing an occasional wheelie, but do-able. And then I hit some loose dirt and the back wheel went out from under me. I must have hit the front brake instead of the rear, and the bike spun in a hard circle, launching me several feet into the rocks. My friend Dee came up the trail behind me. He retrieved my shoes and helped me get back on the bike. It wasn’t as if you could just leave it there and quit.

I crashed three more times that day, all of them painful, and here’s what I learned: Doug was right. If I focused on where I was, on how dangerous my situation was in that moment, on all of the things that could go wrong, on that fact that a similar condition caused me trouble before, I wiped out. I lost my nerve. I had no confidence. I was afraid.

When I kept my eyes on Doug, even just a glimpse of his back, I stayed on course. At one particularly perilous point, he had me get on the back of his motorcycle with him, leaving my bike behind. I felt a little foolish, but mostly grateful. Later in the day we circled back to the same trail, where I stiffly got back on my own bike. I crashed just one more time on the way to the boat.

And speaking of counter-intuitive, I noticed that when I focused on where I wanted to be, rather than on where I was, it made where I was in that moment even better. Keeping an eye ahead of me increased my pleasure of the present. It was my Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance moment.

The swelling is down and my confidence is returning. I’m not ready to get back on the trail yet, but when I am, I’ll at least know where to look.

How I Learned to Stay Focused and How You Can Too is a post from: Storyline Blog

People Aren’t Following You Because You Aren’t Being Clear

I learned a valuable lesson about leadership from a poet.

Recently I attended a poetry reading from America’s former poet laureate, Billy Collins. Billy teaches poetry at Lehman College at City University of New York and during the interview portion of the program he was asked what one thing he emphasised to his students the most. Collins answered confidently: clarity. He said many of his students naively felt it was beneath them to be clear, as though their poem would be perceived as more sophisticated if its meaning was elusive. He jokingly asked his interviewer what he thought his poem Fishing on The Susquehanna in July was about, and the interviewer shrugged his shoulders as though he didn’t know. It’s about fishing on the Susquehanna in July, Collins laughed.

Collins challenged the audience to dare to be clear. I’ll never forget it. He wasn’t just giving advice about writing poetry, he was giving advice about life.

Dare to be clear.

*Photo Credit: Petrov Escarião, Creative Commons

How can any of us get what we want in life if we don’t communicate what we want clearly? Billy Collins might as well have been echoing the words of Jesus: Ask and it will be given to you.

Amateurs are vague but professionals communicate clearly. Everybody kind of knows what they want, but few people have taken the time to reflect so they can communicate in such a way people understand. Most leaders kind of know where they want to take people but revolutionary leaders say it clearly.

This is especially important for leaders.

The reality of leadership is this: The world is standing before you, curious, asking where you’d like to take them. If you kind of have an answer, they’ll follow somebody else. If you want to be a leader, communicate clearly because that’s the only way anybody can know whether or not they want to join you.

In my own life, when I’ve not communicated clearly where I’ve wanted to take people it’s because of one of two reasons — either I didn’t know myself, or I was too afraid to risk rejection. Either reason disqualifies me from leadership.

Know where you want to take people and ask them to come with you. Then, confidently take them there.

People Aren’t Following You Because You Aren’t Being Clear is a post from: Storyline Blog

Why You Should Stop Waiting for Life to Be Perfect

What we have is time. And what we do is waste it, waiting for those big spectacular moments. We think that something’s about to happen — something enormous and news-worthy — but for most of us, it isn’t. This is what I know: the big moments are the tiny moments. The breakthroughs are often silent, and they happen in the most unassuming of spaces.

Weddings are momentous, as are births, especially for moms. Beyond those two, though, most of the really significant and shaping moments of my life would be unrecognizable to anyone but me. That’s how it is.

What I’m tempted to do right now is run you through story after story of how life can change in an instant — an accident, a disease undetected, violence. We know these stories. We hear them all the time. But if you’re like me, sometimes you intentionally don’t hear them. You absently stroke your kids’ heads, you murmur a prayer, less a devout show of faith and more a whimper — not us. Not us.

And then you shake it off, square your shoulders, fasten your mind firmly elsewhere — details of the day: library books to return, oil to change and diapers, too.

You comfort yourself with the mindlessness of it, protecting yourself from the reality that your life is actually happening and you might not be there. It’s scary to be there — present, invested, right there on the front line of your life. It’s easier to numb yourself with details and daily doings, waiting around for things to feel spectacular.

But this is it: this is as spectacular as it gets, and you have a choice, to be there or not.

*Photo Credit: Hash Milhan, Creative Commons

I sat with an old friend today. She and her husband have endured unimaginable loss throughout the course of their lives, and another very fresh loss in these last months.

We sat in the golden fading light of a Chicago spring. Our kids ran around and around the screen porch, and the grass was impossibly green, almost glowing. And in the midst of all that wild and lush beauty, we sat facing one another, and she told me the particulars of that most recent loss. What I heard in her voice stunned me, moved me, instructed me.

She was present to it, unafraid. She told me about it unflinchingly, and what I realized is that she decided a long time ago that she wasn’t waiting for perfect and she wasn’t numbing herself against the worst case scenario. She had seen the worst case scenario, more times over than any of us should have to.

What I saw in her was a vision for how I want to live: in the midst of one her darkest seasons, twisted with uncertainty, bruised by the words of former friends, she sat with me, present and unarmed by busy-ness. She looked in my eyes and told me they’d be fine. She told me funny and sweet things about her kids, asked me about myself.

She wasn’t waiting for the good part. She knows that these are the good parts, even while they’re the bad parts. She wasn’t shut down, going through the motions. She wasn’t holding tight till this season passed. She was right there with me, right there with her kids, right in all the glory and pain and mess and beauty of a spring night in between everything.

That’s how I want to be. That’s who I want to be: deeply present in the present, in the mess, in the waiting, in the entirely imperfect right now.

But what my friend knows is that there are no throwaway moments — not when it’s easy, not when it’s hard, not when it’s boring, not when you’re waiting for something to happen. Throw those moments away at your own peril.

Throw those moments away and you will look back someday, bereft at what you missed, because it’s the good stuff, the best stuff. It’s all there is.

Why You Should Stop Waiting for Life to Be Perfect is a post from: Storyline Blog