So it wasn’t a big poll (37 people), but it was interesting.
Last week I posted a poll asking about your plans for 2016. And here’s what you said…
38% are planning to learn something new
32% are planning a special vacation
16% are are starting a new habit
(the rest of you fell into the other category)
That’s pretty cool, and thanks to all who participated.
Look for more to come in 2016.
T
Sharing a meal together is not a new idea. People do it in their homes, with family and friends, with neighbors. Communities do it as well. In fact, food often brings people together and creates a sense of community.
Yet food can also divide us. One of those divides is for those who can pay, and those you can’t. But what if we could create a business/social service agency that could bring two often separate groups of people together? Someone in Florida has.
A woman in Florida was really thinking outside of the box when she designed this local eating establishment. Pay what you can or volunteer. Really? Too good to be true? And only have a few employees. Rely on volunteers for the rest. Really?
Yes, Mosaics it is about a meal, but it’s also about getting to other people and creating community. The owner says, “Amazing things happen at the table when people start breaking bread together. They start getting to know each other. We are so busy being busy, we don’t even know our neighbors.”
When I saw this clip last night I started to wonder, isn’t that the gift we have in the bread and wine offered us all in Holy Communion? What if this meal that centered our worship could be extended to center our community life?
A challenge and an opportunity for reflection!
Waiting for Immanuel.
I, like some of you perhaps, came home from work and turned on the evening news. At the end of the broadcast was an interesting story. “A classical music house call”
“There’s a modern twist on a centuries old art form: classical music.
After a busy day at work, Eileen Trilli and her family tidied up their Brooklyn, New York home before guests — friends and strangers — arrived for a private show. It’s called Groupmuse, and they offer a chance for music lovers to experience classical chamber music in an intimate setting. Creator Sam Bodkin says it’s the way composers intended their music to be heard.
‘You show up, you socialize for an hour, you sit down on the floor, and you listen intently for 25 minutes to three movements of a tremendous masterwork,’ said Bodkin. ‘It’s not quite a concert and it’s not quite a party.’
Anyone who wants to host a concert can connect with performers and guests who want to sign up on the Groupmuse website. There’s no cover charge, but the hat is passed for musicians just starting out.” (For more see: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/groupmuse-a-classical-music-house-call/)
Hearing this story got me thinking. Having house concerts doesn’t replace formal concerts. And house concerts are not the same as playing on the street. House concerts are a semi-planned events in an informal setting where people come together in community to engage music and others. What does this mean for church today? What does it mean for fostering and nurturing faith in a post-Christian age? And what does it mean to combine “really good musicians” with people curious about or who appreciate music?And how important is the hospitality someone extends in their home?
Pondering these things today.
To learn more of this story, watch watch the video here.
“I was inspired by Mako Fujimura’s blog entry entitled A Fragile Emanation in which he talks about the space a contemplative, or an artist, occupies in a world of pragmatism and utility. Reflection, sabbath, creativity, these things can feel unproductive and ‘extra’.” – Sara Groves
Today’s class was on the Holy Spirit. How does one teach about the Holy Spirit? About the power, impact, and importance of the Holy Spirit?
I had a few ideas, and a great article by my colleague Lois Malcolm. But then I saw this video by Sara Groves, one of my favorite Christian songwriters and singer.
And suddenly my planning went in another direction. What if I gave us – busy leadership, students, parents, friends, family members, employees – space, even an hour of class to be creative? What if we spent time dwelling in a text (Acts 2:38-47) and let our imaginations go…perhaps sketching with colored pencils or painting on canvas or assembling a mobile or writing a parable.
And guess what…we did. Some students were creative outside in the afternoon sun, some of us created in the classroom near the art supplies, some students engaged with others while creating, some enjoyed the silence. And then we shared our impromptu art with one another. No names, no judgment, just expressions of a community open to and centered around the Holy Spirit. And it was good.
Thanks class for being open to crazy ideas, to multiple ways of expressing ideas, and to journeying together in learning about God, the church, and our call to love our neighbor.
What is you could focus on one thing that would transform the patterns of your leadership? Great question, right?!
This past summer I read the book, The Power of Habits, and got thinking about how the science of habits could help leaders think about their leadership. If working on our habits can help people lose weight, train for marathons, and embed values into a work environment, perhaps they can help leaders think about their leadership.
Charles Duhigg’s “framework for understanding how habits work” offers “a guide to experimenting with how we might change.” The framework has to do with identifying the routine of a habit, experimenting with rewards, isolating cues, and having a plan. Knowing how habits work help us understand more about how to create and/or change habits. And understanding how habits form patterns and how patterns create reality helps the invisible become visible. (For more on For more on the Power of Habits so to Charles Duhigg’s website.) One of Duhigg’s important discoveries is that not all habits are the same. Keystone habits are super habits, habits that when changed loosen other habits and open up the possibility of new patterns to emerge. What if we could reflect about our keystone habits and the impact they have in our lives and our leadership? And what if working with some basics ideas around habits could allow us to change some of our patterns and/or live into new possibilities?
I have partnered with leadership coach, Dawn Trautman, to create a series of videos and exercises to introduce and apply some of the ideas from The Power of Habits in order to leaders own experiences and situation. If you are interested, we’d love for you to join us. Check out more on bigpicturebigpurpose.com
Habits matter and working on our habits can help us live into a new future.
A Litany for the World
One: Where ignorance, self-love and insensitivity have fractured life in community,
Many: give your light, O God of love.
One: Where injustice and oppression have broken the spirit of peoples,
Many: give your light, O God who frees.
One: Where hunger and poverty, illness and death have made life an unbearable burden,
Many: give your light, O God of grace.
One: Where suspicion and hatred, conflict and fear have challenged your goodness,
Many: give your light, O God of peace.
One: Eternal God, open the eyes of the nations and peoples so that they may walk in the light of love: remove the ignorance and stubbornness of nations and peoples so that they may drink from the fountains of your goodness.
All: Amen.
Copyright © WGRG, Iona Community, Glasgow, G2 3DH, Scotland. Reproduced by permission. wgrg@iona.org.uk; http://www.wildgoose.scot
Today in chapel we prayed for the world, for world leaders, for those in need, for all of us to join together for making God’s world a more just and thriving world.
Join us in praying. Watch the video or read the transcript. #prayerforeveryone #globalgoals
What if… you received a call from someone in the future asking you to make a difference on their behalf – today? What if … you had a friend, or colleague or family members, who lived across the globe and they needed your help? What if … your children asked you to use your resources, your networks, your influence, to change some aspect of the world so their future looked brighter? Would you?
Today marks the first of seven days leaders from around the world are joining together to do two things.
First we are invited to pray as the United Nations gathers for their Sustainable Development Summit (September 25-27).
Second, we are invited to pick one of the 17 goals from the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and act on it.
According to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon,
“These projections on the sustainable development goals are a beacon to the world carrying an historic message from the United Nations — that the nations of the world are committed to ensuring lives of dignity for all people and a healthy planet for future generations. The global goals provide a unique opportunity to end poverty, reduce inequality, build peaceful societies and fix climate change. All nations and all citizens have a role to play to achieve these global goals.”
Having committed to three Millennium Development goals in 2000, this work extends and expands those goals. And this work doesn’t happen without everyday people, and religious leaders, joining in. And this work starts today!
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon added,
“We hope that the message of the goals will reach everyone on the planet this week.”
Thanks UN leaders for this work. On an ideological level, I’m totally with you. But, honestly, it’s too big for me, too massive for me to make a difference, right?
Wrong. And it all started with a text and a phone call – from me daughter. This mattered to her, so I listened.
Then I went to work and walked around the campus where I teach. And as I did I saw the faces of people from around the world and heard their stories. Stories of struggle and strife. Stories of inequality and poor education. Stories of hope and the desire for leaders who care.
And then these words from Scripture echoed in my head…
“Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?” (Matthew 25:44)
and I was reminded of my call to serve my neighbor, those I can see and those I cannot. These words are both a command and a promise.
And I got to thinking. This work, these global goals need people advocating in Washington AND people packing meals at Feed My Starving Children. Change happens when leaders partner with one another AND educate one woman, one child, one community leader. Communities become sustainable when leaders think about the future, not just the present AND when I commit to sustainable practices in my home.
So today, and in the seven days ahead, will you…
Many of us are living in the transition from summer mode to school mode. For me that means preparing lessons for new courses. For you it might be supporting people going through this transition or preparing yourself for this transition. No matter your place in this transition, this transition is in the air and we can sense it almost like shifts in the sky before a rain storm.
In my preparation, I’m thinking deeply about how the ways we learn are different today than the ways we learned thirty years ago. These changes impact young people, for sure, but they also are impacting me, both as a teacher and learner. Teaching and learning use to be delegated to a particular realm of my life – formal education environments. As a lifelong learner that meant I spent many hours (and dollars) engaged in learning in academic institutions. (SCHOOLS!) Now my teaching and learning is more integrated in all aspects of my life. Like when I get a new piece of technology, I go into learning mode and seek out teachers. Some teachers I pay (Geek Squad, for example) and some are people within my regular networks (my kids, colleagues at work, friends, neighbors, etc). Sometimes I’m clearly the student and someone is clearly the teacher. In other cases, I can be both teacher and learner. Like as a knitter, I sometimes ask others to teach me something, a new stitch, and as they do they may ask something that I know and I shift into teacher mode. When I step back and look at my life today, teaching and learning, learning and teaching is a regular, normal part of all areas of my life. Sometimes my teachers are people and sometimes my teachers are videos of teachers or posts of interesting articles. With all the digital tools we have today, I have access to so many more places and ways to learn then ever before.
As a lifelong learner, I’m wired to learn and I will seek out learning opportunities. Given the flattening of learning and access to learning tools, learning is so much more integrated into life. This reality means formal learning (the school-like learning environments) have to revisit the ways they engage people in learning. Sir Ken Robinson has been studying learning and education for some time and has some great insights into the shifts taking place in learning and what it means for education. Here’s a great video on his discoveries. Watch, learn, and perhaps let it ignite your rethinking of learning.
This RSA Animate was adapted from a talk given at the RSA by Sir Ken Robinson, world-renowned education and creativity expert and recipient of the RSA’s Benjamin Franklin award. (If you want some other videos on teaching and learning go to the video section of my website and see the teaching and learning tab.)
Intersections by Terri Elton 