How does a seed give thanks?

To give thanks is to recognize what has come to you.... How does the seed give thanks? It flowers. You take what you have, who you are, and you respond to the gift of that beingness with a course of action that aligns with it. You do what is in your nature.


Source: Patrice Vecchione, Writing and the Spiritual Life


Add your thoughts at inward/outward

Be more curious

At the end of last year I began to ponder and pray about some way to encourage Keith, Alinea & Jacob in the new year. I created an small art piece around each of these and this is the one that I made for Keith. I was reading my friend Mike's blog today Waving or Drowning and he had this video of the inspirational Seth Godin talking about curiosity - it is spectacular. Wanted to link the two here on my blog. Thanks Mike!

'curiosity' from Nic Askew on Vimeo.

Leaning into the fear

I have always wanted to learn how to sail. The excitement of the wind in your hair, the freedom on the water and the romance of the lifestyle the boating crowds I grew up with in my home town of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin spoke of a natural, carefree control.

Watching an accomplished sailor is like watching a talented dancer. Effortless, graceful, knowing the next moves far before they are necessary. I remember whipping across the lake as a child feeling like there was nothing that could hold me back. So natural, so fluid. I know now that sailing is a lot of hard work, reading the wind, instructing your crew, avoiding the other watercraft and years of practice. And it starts with many summers in the Sunflower turtled and paddle kicking it back to the dock because you just can't find the wind. I know it's not all grace and beauty - but when it does work it takes my breath away. I can hear the pinging of the sails on the mast even now if I close my eyes and go back there. As real as the birds outside my window as I type. It is my happy place. The place in my mind I go to when I need calm.

I took this picture last September when Keith and I were celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary on Mt. Desert Island and Bar Harbor. I think it's on Somes Sound and it transported me back to my teen years instantly - watching this sailboat track across the water. It was lightning fast and really playing with the strong wind. This is adventure sailing - not the timid kind I grew up with - our lake was so populated with water craft you could never gain the speed this sailor was flying with. There were times when the sail was nearly sideways. Either he really knew what he was doing or he was just plain lucky he didn't flip. It was a beautiful boat on a gorgeous day. We had to pull over the car just to watch.

I have been frozen lately. Frozen by fear. I shared at our small group on Friday that it's both fear of failing and fear of success that is icing my soul. What if the biggest, best idea I have doesn't have the wheels it needs to even write my thesis, let alone find a publisher. But again, what if it does and changes everything. Both fears loom so large in my mind's eye. I realized that they had crippled me into giving up.

I spoke with my friend Ed the other day about what I had voiced at group and he said these words to me "What if you leaned into the fear?"

The words stopped me short.

Changing perspectives lately has changed everything for me. What if the fear I was feeling wasn't my enemy, but my friend? What if it would provide the energy I need to actually finish what I have started? What if I used that energy the fear creates in me to power me toward doing the work that is in front of me instead of avoiding it. Could it really change everything?

What would leaning into the fear look like? Instantly I saw this sailboat slicing across the waves. The wind filling every inch of it's sails and taking that boat everywhere it needed to go. So today, I am leaning. Resting in the resistance that the fear in me creates. Maybe it is my friend. Maybe I've just been looking at it from the wrong perspective.

Small things with great love

"We can do no great things, only small things with great love." — Mother Teresa

I was reminded yesterday of the website 43 things by a post by Tex and I wracked my brain for my user name and password - finally got in and found that I hadn't been back to the site in 2 years. It was such a blast to see the 32 things I had listed and see what kind of progress I had made. I need to add to my list the extra 11 things and edit and mark finished the ones that I have accomplished. Some even made me smile that they had even made the list - they have faded from memory as to why they were so important to me at the time. Some gave me great joy to see that I have accomplished, even without actively knowing, many of the things on my list, or am making progress in the right direction. Each of them hopefully small things done with great love. RED is for works in progress, ORANGE is for things I have really achieved some success with.

Here's my 32 things as of 2005:

1. learn to be a storyteller
2. start blogging under my own name
3. embrace my femininity
4. voice my opinions without shame
5. speak the truth in love
6. write every day - since November 21, 2007!!!!!
7. pitch my book idea to publisher
8. take a yoga class
9. start painting again
10. finish one fix up project around the house
11. stop grinding my teeth
12. go out on "date nights" with my spouse on a regular basis
13. practice compassion
14. get off this continent - sadly canceled trip to Ireland this summer... sigh.
15. be more present with my children
16. get a laptop - not as big of a "need" - have found they are finicky and have enough time at home to write - now I want THIS instead...
17. have better posture
18. write a book
19. Find a balance between the things I want to do and the things I need to do
20. make a difference
21. Kiss in the rain
22. remodel my bathroom
23. eat healthier - this is the one that gives me the greatest joy - we're really doing it!
24. Spend less time fooling around on the net and more time actually working
25. Be a better friend
26. learn to sail - this one surprised me - it is still a deep desire, but I had forgotten how long I have wanted to do this.
27. exercise 3X a week
28. practice discardia - I RAWK at this now!
29. play more board games
30. find inner peace - far more peaceful than when I wrote this 2 years ago!
31. Finish what I start
32. Travel to India - this is the BIGGIE - one day!

I'll post my revised 43 things sometime soon. Do you 43 things? Let me know and I'll cheer you on!!

Yappy Hew Near!

From the StoryPeople:

Maybe I don't want a Happy New Year, he said.
Maybe I want an intense New Year
with a lot of growth experiences
& I had to admit I'd never thought of that.

Wishing you an intense year with a lot of growth experiences! :)

i <3 e.e. cummings...

walter used this poem in our celtic worship and his talk on sunday - it is my new favorite:

may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are old

may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
and even if it's sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young

and may myself do nothing usefully
and love yourself so more than truly
there's never been quite such a fool who could fail
pulling all the sky over him with one smile

i <3 e.e. cummings...

Growing churches vs. growing christians

I am so moved by Bill Hybels "mea culpa" in Leadership Journal where he states that the method Willow Creek has been using for years isn't truly helping their members become more like Jesus. We left ministry in this type of church three years ago because we saw the same thing. People, especially those helping the church to function, are so busy and packed with programs they have no time to "be still and know God". We saw that the church itself grew and grew on the backs of these dedicated people, but their own spiritual lives were spent pouring out so much that they had very little time to draw in.

Here's a portion of the post:

Having put all of their eggs into the program-driven church basket you can understand their shock when the research revealed that “Increasing levels of participation in these sets of activities does NOT predict whether someone’s becoming more of a disciple of Christ. It does NOT predict whether they love God more or they love people more.”

Speaking at the Leadership Summit, Hybels summarized the findings this way:

Some of the stuff that we have put millions of dollars into thinking it would really help our people grow and develop spiritually, when the data actually came back it wasn’t helping people that much. Other things that we didn’t put that much money into and didn’t put much staff against is stuff our people are crying out for.

People are so hungry to truly experience God. Programs cannot give people what they really long for. It's bait instead of a banquet.

Hybels confesses:

We made a mistake. What we should have done when people crossed the line of faith and become Christians, we should have started telling people and teaching people that they have to take responsibility to become ‘self feeders.’ We should have gotten people, taught people, how to read their bible between service, how to do the spiritual practices much more aggressively on their own.

I loathe the limited description of spiritual disciplines that CT's Leadership Journal confines themselves to "through the age old spiritual practices of prayer, bible reading, and relationships." - why stop there? Those alone don't work either. Spiritual disciplines are far richer and deeper than those worn out, sad, old three - church history is filled with far deeper and richer experiences than just this Protestant trifecta. I know that Bill Hybels was speaking in much broader terms than LJ narrowed them to - thank God.

Diana Butler Bass addresses this beautifully in The Alban Institute article - Intentionality, Practice, Vitality:

“Congregations that intentionally engage Christian practices are congregations that experience new vitality.”

The sentence combines three components: intentionality, practice, and vitality. Further defining them, I point out that intentionality involves choice and taking responsibility for individual and communal spirituality; that practice is not a program, rather it is a meaningful way of life; and that vitality cannot be measured in terms of numbers as it means spiritual health and maturity. A vital congregation is one where all people—including the pastor—are growing members of an organic community of spiritual practice.

Driving people with programs strips them of the time they deeply need to develop individual and community spiritual disciplines that will help them "self-feed" as Hybel's terms it. I don't like the individuality that term brings - as "communal feeding" is truly what will build strength and vitality and Christ-likeness into the soul. Disengaging from the system and shutting down the programs that are facilitating church growth instead of Christian growth is crucial to allow those, especially in leadership, to draw in so that when they are required to pour out they have that wellspring that comes from being still and knowing God. Living a life of being drawn and not driven.

My Unique Brokenness

This is beautiful:

Our brokenness reveals something about who we are. Our sufferings and pains are not simply bothersome interruptions of our lives; rather, they touch us in our uniqueness and our most intimate individuality. The way I am broken tells you something unique about me. The way you are broken tells me something unique about you. That is the reason for my feeling very privileged when you freely share some of your deep pain with me, and that is why it is an expression of my trust in you when I disclose to you something of my vulnerable side. Our brokenness is always lived and experienced as highly personal, intimate and unique. I am deeply convinced that each human being suffers in a way no other human being suffers... In fact, I am more grateful for a person who can acknowledge that I am very alone in my pain than for someone who tries to tell me that there are many others who have a similar or a worse pain.

Henri J. M. Nouwen, Life of the Beloved

via inward/outward

What have you done?

Amy at Amy Loves Books just posted this list, and I fell in love with it - it puts changing a baby's diaper on the level of climbing all of the stairs in the Tower of Pisa - it brought back so many memories of things I've done - I'd love to read yours too!

What have you done? (things I've done are in bold)

01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink
02. Swam with wild dolphins
03. Climbed a mountain
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive (well, it was my boss's Maserati)
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
08. Said “I love you” and meant it
09. Hugged a tree
10. Bungee jumped
11. Visited Paris
12. Watched a lightning storm at sea
13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
14. Seen the Northern Lights
15. Gone to a huge sports game (and survived the crush afterwards)
16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
18. Touched an iceberg
19. Slept under the stars
20. Changed a baby’s diaper
21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
22. Watched a meteor shower
23. Gotten drunk on champagne
24. Given more than you can afford to charity
25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
27. Had a food fight
28. Bet on a winning horse
29. Asked out a stranger
30. Had a snowball fight
31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
32. Held a lamb
33. Seen a total eclipse
34. Ridden a roller coaster
35. Hit a home run
36. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking
37. Adopted an accent for an entire day
38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
39. Had two hard drives for your computer
40. Visited all 50 states
41. Taken care of someone who was drunk.
42. Had amazing friends
43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
44. Watched wild whales
45. Stolen a sign
46. Backpacked in Europe.
47. Taken a road-trip
48. Gone rock climbing
49. Midnight walk on the beach
50. Gone sky diving
51. Visited Ireland
52. Been heartbroken longer than you were actually in love
53. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table and had a meal with them
54. Visited Japan
55. Milked a cow
56. Alphabetized your CDs
57. Pretended to be a superhero
58. Sung karaoke
59. Lounged around in bed all day
60. Played touch football
61. Gone scuba diving
62. Kissed in the rain
63. Played in the mud
64. Played in the rain
65. Gone to a drive-in theater
66. Visited the Great Wall of China
67. Started a business
68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken
69. Toured ancient sites
70. Taken a martial arts class
71. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight
72. Gotten married
73. Been in a movie
74. Crashed a party
75. Gotten divorced
76. Gone without food for 5 days
77. Made cookies from scratch
78. Won first prize in a costume contest
79. Ridden a gondola in Venice
80. Gotten a tattoo
81. Rafted the Snake River
82. Been on television news programs as an “expert”
83. Got flowers for no reason
84. Performed on stage
85. Been to Las Vegas
86. Recorded music
87. Eaten shark
88. Kissed on the first date
89. Gone to Thailand
90. Bought a house
91. Been in a combat zone
92. Buried one/both of your parents
93. Been on a cruise ship
94. Spoken more than one language fluently
95. Performed in Rocky Horror
96. Raised children
97. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
99. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
100. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over
101. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
102. Sang loudly in the car, and didn’t stop when you knew someone was looking
103. Had plastic surgery
104. Survived an accident that you shouldn’t have survived
105. Wrote articles for a large publication
106. Lost over 100 pounds
107. Held someone while they were having a flashback
108. Piloted an airplane
109. Touched a stingray
110. Broken someone’s heart
111. Helped an animal give birth
112. Won money on a T.V. game show
113. Broken a bone
114. Gone on an African photo safari
115. Had a facial part pierced other than your ears
116. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol
117. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
118. Ridden a horse
119. Had major surgery
120. Had a snake as a pet
121. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
122. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours
123. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states
124. Visited all 7 continents
125. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
126. Eaten kangaroo meat
127. Eaten sushi
128. Had your picture in the newspaper
129. Changed someone’s mind about something you care deeply about
130. Gone back to school
131. Parasailed
132. Touched a cockroach
133. Eaten fried green tomatoes
134. Read The Iliad - and the Odyssey
135. Selected one “important” author who you missed in school, and read
136. Killed and prepared an animal for eating - never killed - but prepared... ick!
137. Skipped all your school reunions
138. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
139. Been elected to public office
140. Written your own computer language
141. Thought to yourself that you’re living your dream
142. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
143. Built your own PC from parts
144. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn’t know you
145. Had a booth at a street fair
146. Dyed your hair
147. Been a DJ
148. Shaved your head
149. Caused a car accident
150. Saved someone’s life - tried, but he drown...

I'm getting older too...

This time of year makes me very nostalgic. Fall has a way of slowing me down inside, pondering, reflecting and watching. It's also a time of celebration. Thanksgivings - both of them, Canadian & American bring tucking in times with family and friends. It's also the season I grow up. This birthday is bringing much emotion and internalization this year. 41. Wow. 41.

40 didn't phase really me - I looked at it like I was beginning something new - and that is still here, but this feels different somehow. It's not the age or getting old part of this I feel, this just that 41 feels so real somehow. 41.

My mother Bobbie died at 43, so much of life left unlived somehow. 2 years. I can't imagine what that would mean to me to only have two years left. To struggle with sickness, facing death and separation from Keith and my children. Two years? I know that's not reality, but most children who's parents die young face this benchmark with a bit of fear and loathing. There is still so much left I long to do.

My father didn't think he'd live past his father's age when he died. The celebration that marked that year he did was great. I know that pretending I don't feel it at all doesn't make it go away. So being present to the emotion it brings up within me is something I can learn from, something that can bring life, instead of death.

October 13th is my birthday, but I also celebrate the 14th as it marks an anniversary of my abstinence and recovery. It has been 7 years of one day at a time linked together to bring me to where I am today. For that I am truly grateful and hopeful and filled with wonder.

Seven years ago today my life was at it's lowest place possible. It seems like two lifetimes ago. It really was somehow.

One of the gifts that I've been given this past week is the lyrics to a song that was important to me long ago. I was searching iTunes for Songbird, by Fleetwood Mac and remembered Landslide - I'm sorry, but the Dixie Chicks version was nice, but not nearly as moving as the original. While looking I saw that Stevie released a later acoustic version on AOL Sessions in 2003 and her voice is gritty and aged and it's richer and deeper and speaks to the journey I have been on too since that song originally touched my heart.

The imagery in the lyrics means so much more now - the child within, the ocean tides, the seasons of my life. Each of those speaks to where I have come the farthest on this 40 year journey called my life. What a gift. As I cooked turkey and chopped potatos this weekend I just kept listening to a short playlist I had put together, tears streaming down my face. Feeling the deep emotion that this season of my life is brining up within me. Yes, I'm getting older too.


Landslide, Stevie Nicks

I took my love, I took it down
Climbed a mountain and I turned around
I saw my reflection in the snow covered hills
till the landslide brought me down

Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love
Can the child within my heart rise above
Can I sail thru the changing ocean tides
Can I handle the seasons of my life

Well, I've been afraid of changing
cause I've built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Children get older
I'm getting older too

Oh, take my love, take it down
Climb a mountain and turn around
If you see my reflection in the snow covered hills
Well the landslide will bring it down

If you see my reflection in the snow covered hills
Well maybe the landslide will bring it down