Donald Miller's Blog, page 93

Sunday Morning Sermon – Shane Claiborne on the Problem of Fundamentalism

Shane Claiborne isn’t so much a radical as he is a person who lives out the absurdity of “our” beliefs. What’s remarkable about Shane is his gentle spirit in the face of remarkable resistance. Many fundamentalists have attacked him, but more have remained silent because they simply don’t live out what they believe while he does.

Here’s Shane on the problem of fundamentalism. Good Sunday Morning to you.

Sunday Morning Sermon – Shane Claiborne on the Problem of Fundamentalism is a post from: Storyline Blog

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

The street musician won your vote last week — what a beautiful song! How about this week? Which of these is your favorite? Vote below in the comments.

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

A Simple Example of Redeeming What’s Been Broken

I love music. And I love pianist Nils Fraham.

Recently, Nils broke his thumb. Which is really bad news for a professional pianist.

He had shows to do. Commitments to fulfill. Projects to complete. And now a much needed thumb was broken and in a cast.

So for a few days he felt pathetic. He spent a couple more days of feeling sorry for himself. He had the right to be down in the dumps about this whole situation.

But Nils decided to do something unexpected … he began to write some piano songs. Against his Doctors orders, Nils composed 9 beautiful piano solos with his 9 working fingers. Minus the broken thumb of course. (You can listen to what he created here. It’s awesome!)

The lesson for us all: Take what you got (even if it’s broke) and make something beautiful.

A Simple Example of Redeeming What’s Been Broken is a post from: Storyline Blog

What if the Temptation to Be Impressive is Keeping Us From Connecting?

A novelist I respect named James Scott Bell gave some writing advice I think applies to more than just fiction. In his book Conflict and Suspense he says, “Perfect people are not interesting to us. We need to see flaws in the characters as well as strengths.”

He’s talking about building conflict into a story, of course, but I think there’s something true about this idea in life, too.

In the past I’ve had friends who’ve been incredibly impressive. They accomplish great things, have winsome personalities and nearly everybody who meets them is attracted. There’ve been a few, though, I’ve found it hard to connect with. I remember meeting with the assistant of a dynamic pastor many years ago who told me his boss has no friends. He is rarely vulnerable, always setting an example, will not admit flaws (unless they also make him sound tough or righteous) and surrounds himself by underlings. He goes from the stage to the green room and sits alone till the next service. He said in his years of working with him he rarely, if ever, saw him have a lunch or dinner or even a round of golf with anybody who doesn’t work for him or can’t advance his career.

This, to me, is an uninteresting character. It’s somebody who is difficult to connect with.

But tell me one flaw. I mean quietly over a beer, you know, just admit you cry while watching Oprah or you sometimes struggle with porn or you’re jealous of your boss and suddenly there’s a bit of velcro on your soul and we can connect. I’m not sure why it happens except maybe it helps me believe I’m not alone, that I’m flawed and you’re flawed and we are in this thing together.

*Photo by familymwr, Creative Commons

I’ve found that admitting my flaws does 2 things:

1. It helps me connect with people. I’m wise about who I admit flaws to, of course, but when I do it’s an honest invitation to be close and connected. This isn’t so much strategic as it is organic, of course, but I’m amazed at how much deeper I go with an existing friend when I open up.

2. It weeds out the game players. There are, of course, people who live life as politicians. They will share the right amount of vulnerability when they need to, but ultimately they are climbers, trying to gain attention or money or power or whatever. Being honestly vulnerable with these people makes them uncomfortable and sooner or later they will just go away. They don’t want to connect, they see life as a game and they intend to win.

All in all, connecting with good people and weeding out the game players only makes life better.

I think James Scott Bell’s advice is true: Perfect people aren’t very interesting.

Why put them in your story?

What if the Temptation to Be Impressive is Keeping Us From Connecting? is a post from: Storyline Blog

A Guide to Adequately Address Sin and Suffering

The theological notions of sin and redemption contain a heaviness that stems from the fact that they are mostly used to point out the faults in others, rather than to free us from the traps that prevent us from loving God. In the Gospel of John, when Jesus leaves the synagogue after arguing about right beliefs and old customs, he encounters a blind man who is begging. In this narrative Jesus preaches a radical way to approach sin and redemption in our life of faith. It’s an approach that offers a deeper way of understanding the terms. Instead of being heavy, it lifts our hearts and minds with the lightness of grace. When the disciples of Jesus see the blind man, they ask, “Who sinned, this man or his parents…?” The implication in the question is that if the blind man is a sinner, we don’t have to respond, because the man’s blindness itself is a sign of divine punishment for sin. The only pertinent question for them is “Who is to blame?”

Characteristically, Jesus uses the question as an opportunity to teach them that culpability — establishing guilt or responsibility for sin — is the not the issue we need to address in the suffering we encounter in our world. Jesus through his action and words reminds us all that the issue of morality and culpability lies in our response to suffering and in our ability to love with compassion, not judgment. Then Jesus, with nothing but spit and dirt, makes a healing and soothing mud for the man. This beautiful, simple, earthy action reminds us that redemption is always possible, even when we feel incapable to adequately address the sin and suffering we meet along the way.

The whole story breathes life into the old theologies of blame and exclusion written in stone. It gives us a path to walk where sin and redemption become matters of freeing ourselves, not condemning others. For the blind man, like all of us, sin and redemption were terms others used that alienated and condemn him. For Jesus, sin and redemption become the absolution that frees us to live in gratitude for a loving and merciful God. 

A couple years ago, NPR aired four separate features on the women who live in the residential community of Magdalene and its social enterprise, Thistle Farms. The women of Magdalene, who have survived lives of addiction and prostitution, are offered sanctuary for two years to find the path of freedom for themselves. Maybe no other group in our culture has been more maligned and assigned the term “sinner”.

One of the women featured on the series was Penny Hall, a forty-eight year old woman who has been clean and off the streets for four years. Penny was raised in a beer hall in Nashville, Tennessee and spent six years under a bridge prostituting and using crack. Today, she runs the manufacturing department at Thistle Farms that produces healing oils and thistle paper. After harvesting thistles, turning them into beautiful paper, then folding that paper into boxes, Penny fills them with bottles that hold a mixture of oils, really balms. She sends these lovely boxes around the country for people to use in healing — for themselves and others. To see her today is to witness the very incarnation of redemption and hope. Penny describes her own transformation with, “I used to have black eyes, now I have cucumber eyes.”

It took me a long time to understand what she meant, until finally one day I understood that she meant it literally. She used to have black eyes — eyes that were bruised and beaten. Her prayer was that when she slept, she wouldn’t be raped or robbed. She lived in fear and isolation, with the reality that thrives in sick communities that feed on each other. She lived in communities that rationalize that it’s her fault, so it’s not our issue.  The truth is, though, that Penny didn’t get to the streets by herself; it took all kinds of people and a broken community to get her there. And so it takes a community to help her come home.

Penny describes her eyes now as ”cucumber.” She feels like she has felt the richness of the fruit placed on the eyes to heal and soothe them. Those are eyes that are comforted and consoled, that are seen as worthy. It is a powerful analogy for sin and redemption, signaling the healing nature that lies on the path between the two.

On our journey, the one we all take, when we are graced with feeling the movement from sin to redemption, we can feel our own eyes move from black to cucumber. When we see how we have crossed that path with all the grace and mud and cucumbers people have given us along the way, we can use the words sin and redemption for our own lives, feel the freedom they offer, and then live in gratitude, hoping for the chance to love others the way we have been loved, lavishly, without judgment, without guilt or blame. Jesus calls us to love the whole world, one person at a time. Love in the Gospel is always preached in action and along the spiritual path of sin and redemption. It is what we are given. It is what we give. We are called to offer our best, whether it is cucumbers or mud, for the sake of soothing and healing.

A Guide to Adequately Address Sin and Suffering is a post from: Storyline Blog

Saying “No” to Girls Gone Wild

My best friend Annette and I laid on our towels until we realized that someone was standing in our sun. We squinted up at a big man with a big camera wearing a Girls Gone Wild hat.

He told us that if we went out in the water and kissed and took off our bikini tops, he’d give us each a hat. We stared up at him. Where to start, really?

We sputtered out unrelated phrases like, “Um, those are our husbands, right there in the water…” and, “You know, that’s not really our deal…” and, “Uh, we’re like a lot older than you think we are…” Finally, we gave up explaining and said, “No, thank you. No. No, thank you.”

He shuffled away, and a few minutes later, there were lots of girls in the water, kissing and taking their tops off.

Huh. Questions abound. Our first question: “Wait—did he really think we were that young?” But then our second question: “Wait—​did he really think we were that stupid?” We were dumbfounded, and then a little angry. Just for conversation’s sake, where am I going to wear that hat? On a job interview? To my grandma’s house?

My friends Brannon and Chris have a little girl named Emme, and before she was born, Brannon and Chris declared their house a princess-free zone. There could be pink, there could be dresses and lace and babies galore, but no tiaras, no wands, and no princes coming to rescue any little princesses.

I love this. I think maybe we should all live in a princess-free zone. I think the current cultural messaging that tells women it’s attractive to play dumb and fragile and hope that they’re saved by their beauty is incredibly destructive.

*Photo by edenpictures, Creative Commons

I’m not anti-feminine. I operate, in many ways, within squarely traditional gender roles. I love to cook, I hate to drive, and I’m terrible with technology of all kinds. I fit squarely within the stereotypes, and then also not, largely because I was raised by a strong leader who recognized aspects of himself in me. I wasn’t raised to play dumb, or play cute, or play princess. I learned to work hard, to develop my skills, to contribute on a team and in society, and it drives me bonkers when women depend instead on their sexuality or their fragility. I think there’s a better way.

If you’re a woman, and you get what you want by batting your eyelashes or faking fragility, and then you wonder why you’re not taken seriously in your career or given responsibility in your church, I think you may have believed the reigning cultural lie about what makes us attractive. And if you’re a man, and you celebrate femininity only as it presents itself in beauty and tenderness, please consider widening your view of what it means to value women. Consider strength, intelligence, passion, and compassion.

I want businesses and government systems and certainly churches to be led more and more often by women. I believe that men and women would both benefit from it in dozens of ways. But if that’s going to happen, I think we have to declare a princess-free zone. No tiaras, no Girls Gone Wild, no pretending we can’t carry things. No fairytales, no waiting around to be rescued, and absolutely no playing dumb.

• • •

*Excerpted from Bittersweet

*this is a re-post from the archives

Saying “No” to Girls Gone Wild is a post from: Storyline Blog

How I Defeat the Fear of Trying

The hours before I write in the morning are often filled with dread. Will the words show up today? Do I still have what it takes?

This is, of course, an irrational fear. On most days, the words will be there. On some days, they won’t. The point is, of course, to sit down and try. To do your daily duty and to fling your words onto a page to see if something sticks.

There’s no greater feeling than losing yourself in a manuscript. On some days you don’t have it, on other days you can get it done, and then on a very few days you go into a trance and the words fling off your fingerprints and stick on the blank page like a Jackson Pollock masterpiece. Or at least that’s how it feels.

What stinks is when you go looking for that feeling every morning and you wrongly define this kind of day as a productive day and every other as a waste.

If that’s how I am going to define a productive day, I might as well quit.

Here’s what I tell myself these days to calm myself down: I won’t know until I sit down and write.

The fear I feel of sitting down is all about not knowing whether it’s going to be there today. But what good is that fear? I’m afraid of something that hasn’t happened. Why not sit down and see if it all works out?

The truth is, by not sitting down I’m daily decreasing the chances of having that magical day.

I won’t know until I sit down to write. I won’t know until I sit down to write. I won’t know until I sit down to write.

*Photo by Averain, Creative Commons

I’ve a friend who is a landscape photographer. We once hiked deep into the woods to get a picture of sunset. When we got there, we set up the camera and waited for the light to fade. As it did, the sunset was magical. But my friend didn’t take the picture. I asked why and he told me, “Because I’ve got a better shot from this same spot. There’s no reason to waste a 4×5 piece of film on this one.”

He made sense, of course. He shoots for a living and that shot would never have been used. But I asked him another question and I’ll never forget his answer. I asked how he stayed motivated to keep shooting, to travel and hike and sleep in a tent, never knowing if the shot is going to be there.

His answer: Because sometimes it is. And I’m in it for the sometimes.

I like that answer. It reminds me of my mantra: I won’t know until I sit down to write.

How I Defeat the Fear of Trying is a post from: Storyline Blog

Sunday Morning Sermon – Jay Z on the Paranoia of Not Being a Good Dad

So the sermon this morning is pretty short. And it’s also an advertisement. But what I love about this short clip is that Jay Z is opening up about three things:

1. Not having a father around

2. Being worried he doesn’t know how to treat a woman and

3. He won’t be a good father.

My guess is this vulnerability and honesty alone is 90% of the battle. But what a freaking incredible thing for him to talk about in an ad. I’ll get the album for sure.

On this Sunday morning, though, I’m wondering if culture isn’t moving away from the tough guy “take a stand” nonsense that has created an army of fake men and we aren’t being led by true seekers into something more real and true, and in my opinion, a clearer path to Jesus, who is accessed through vulnerability and a heart willing to be honest.

Much to talk about in this 45 seconds.

Also, who’s the bearded dude? How can I get his job? Isn’t the patient supposed to lay on the couch? Freaking dream job. I’ll listen to you, Jay Z. And I shave!

Sunday Morning Sermon – Jay Z on the Paranoia of Not Being a Good Dad is a post from: Storyline Blog

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

I can’t express how happy I am that the golf video won last week. We have another good batch this week. I hope you like them! Vote for your favorite below in the comments.

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

How to Find Forgiveness When It Seems Impossible

From the time I was four until I was seven-years-old I was sexually abused on a consistent basis by someone I trusted.

So before I was even old enough to understand what forgiveness was, I had already decided I didn’t want anything to do with it. I wasn’t trying to be mean-spirited (I was seven). It was just my very natural coping mechanism. I would hide what happened and twist it and lie about it if I needed to, but I wasn’t going to tell anyone. And I wasn’t going to forgive. I would grow into it over time, I assumed, this burden I was carrying.

I would grow strong enough to carry it.

And like a lead security blanket, I took it everywhere I went.

As I grew older, I tried to forget. It worked, for the most part. When you carry a burden long enough, it doesn’t feel like a burden anymore. It just feels like life. I thought about it rarely. When I did think about it, I prayed it would evaporate into thin air, and that maybe I would evaporate with it.

In some ways, I did evaporate. In many ways I did forget.

But the longer I went on with my burden, the more I allowed history to repeat itself. It’s funny how that happens. When you’re the girl with the burden, or the secret, people start to treat you like the girl with the burden or the secret, even if they aren’t sure why or what it is. That’s even how you treat yourself, if only because you don’t know anything different.

Day after day my burden would grow heavier, and I would be reminded of it again — my need for forgiveness.

I hated the way we talked about forgiveness in church. We talked about it as obligation, as a way to avoid sinning by avoiding a grudge, as if it were the only natural and reasonable and Christian response to harm. But nothing about forgiveness seemed natural to me. In fact, it seemed very unnatural and confusing.

If forgiveness was the “Christian” thing to do, maybe I wasn’t a Christian after all. Maybe I wasn’t one of God’s “chosen.”

For all the why’s behind forgiveness, I rarely heard anyone talk about how to do it.

I heard this phrase from someone once, not in church, but it’s the only thing that has helped me learn to forgive. It’s become a mantra of mine, something I repeat to myself when my wounds seem most fresh and raw and I want to hold onto bitterness again, like that lead safety blanket, that heavy reminder of what happened to me so I would never let it happen again. The phrase goes like this:

Most people, most of the time, are just doing the best they can.

It makes me think of myself, as a little girl, lying to keep my secret from the people who loved me most, who could have helped me if I would have let them. It makes me think of myself as a teenager, so desperate to find love I looked in all the wrong places. I think of the people I hurt and all the damage I inflicted in the process, and then I take a deep breath and think:

For the most part, I was doing the best I could.

And suddenly, like a raging river of tears and regret and grace and love I’m not sure I deserve, I feel forgiveness rush in.

It doesn’t make it okay what I did, but it makes me forgiven.

It makes me think of my college boyfriend, who lied to me so many times I could have filled a semi with his untruth before, years later, I finally closed the door on that relationship. I think about all the stories he made up about where he was going, what he was doing, who he was with and I can’t help but wonder how much shame he must have felt to make up stories like that.

Slowly but surely, I feel it happen, like a release valve on a too-tight container. It doesn’t make it okay what he did, but it makes him forgiven.

And that feels good.

Of course, the hardest thing to do is to think back to the place where this all started, the person who made me do things I didn’t want to do, forced me to concede my childhood long before it was time. The hardest thing to do, the thing that seems most impossible, is to find forgiveness there. But strangely forgiveness seems to come in that place as I practice it in the rest of my life.

Not all at once, but it comes in phases and waves each time I forgive the man who cuts me off in traffic, or the woman called me a name because I didn’t do what she wanted, or the friend who misunderstands and gossips behind my back.

I take a few deep breaths and whisper to myself:

Most people, most of the time, are doing the best they can.

• • •

NOTE: If you or someone you know has been sexually abused or assaulted, please report it to the proper authorities or tell someone you trust. If you are seeking healing from childhood sexual abuse, I recommend The Wounded Heart by Dr. Dan Allender

How to Find Forgiveness When It Seems Impossible is a post from: Storyline Blog