Tag Archives: Change

July 14, 2010 · 5:58 am

Impossible Dreams?

"Man of La Mancha" at Taproot Theatre

So last week Taproot Theatre opened Man of La Mancha.   I get the privilege of singing “The Quest” or as it’s more popularly known, “The Impossible Dream.”   While thrilled to have the opportunity to take on the role of Don Quixote, there is also something daunting about singing such a classic song.   Fortunately, the song has a power all its own, and again, it’s an honor to get to ride inside that power for a bit.

But what about the truth of it?  The age old argument is this: how should we see life?  The character known as the Duke challenges Cervantes, declaring that men must come to terms with life–or to see it– “as it is.”  Cervantes makes the argument for the idealist perspective, that we are better off when we see life “as it ought to be.”

Realism vs. Idealism.  It is a classic face-off between rose-colored glasses and clear eyed trifocals.   Isn’t the very notion of “impossible” dreams enough to tell you it’s just not smart to chase them?   Doesn’t Proverbs 12:11 say “He who works his land will have abundant food, but he who chases fantasies lacks judgment?”

But if you look at the song a little more closely, one thing becomes apparent:  the impossible dream is not the American Dream.  Bigger houses, cars, and careers is not what Quixote is referring to.   In our culture, the dreams we chase are dreams for ourselves.  We dream of this achievement, that accomplishment, this lifestyle, that notoriety, most of them variations on a rags to riches story in which fame, power, and money are the unreachable stars we’re chasing.   But of course, this is not what Don Quixote has in mind at all.   For him, vanity, selfishness, self-protection, personal goal-setting…all of that is nothing.   For the mad knight, the unreachable star is a world where the great wrongs are righted, where unbeatable foes can be beaten, where love is not perverse, brutal, and self-serving, but honorable, chaste (one of the more un-American words), and pure.   The unreachable star is a way of being in the world, a way of serving and fighting evil, one that might even go “wherever the road may lead,”  even if it leads into “hell, for a heavenly cause.”

There are thousands of variations on the theme of these kinds of impossible dreams.  How many injustices can we name?  How many poverties of body and spirit?  How many distortions of God’s intent must be pushed back against, windmills or not?  What a temptation to ride blithely past each of them, saying they are too big, too much, too entrenched, too powerful.   But there is a strategic move that Quixote makes that makes a lot of sense; he simply takes on the next thing.   The injustice he sees, he confronts.   Reminds of me a bit of the day-to-day strategy of Jesus.   “The enchanter may confuse the outcome, but the effort remains sublime.”

To which a brutalized Aldonza, replies, understandably, “Lies, all lies.”

Are we dreaming these kinds of impossible dreams today?  Will we confront one before the day is over?  Or do we functionally exist as if to do such chasing is madness?   In a variation of one of my facebook friends status lines, do unbeatable foes and unrightable wrongs dread you waking up today?

The common, the epic…

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April 19, 2010 · 5:55 am

“Transformation is Possible”

My coaching assignment from three weeks ago was to reflect on what I’d like people to say about me when I die.

My report on that reflection is due today, and frankly, though I’ve put a good bit of time into thinking about it, I don’t have it done.  It’s a funny question, more troublesome than I anticipated.

My reflection goes in several directions.  Someone in my family said of my father when he died, “He was the best man I ever knew.”  I’d take that one, if someone wanted to say it, no matter how untrue it might be.  My uncle meant it when he said it, and I think it was true.  My father was a good man, a servant, a simple man.   He was a student of the Bible, a man who wanted to get it right when it came to following God.  These are good things to be said about you when you die.   So yes, I’d take all those.

Last night, I watched This Is It, the film documenting Michael Jackson’s preparation for the tour he never got to do.  I think of all the things people say about him.  A superstar who just wanted to be loved, the things said about him at his death are endless, most likely (I haven’t researched this) trending toward his gifts as a performer and pop artist, as well toward the tragic pain he experienced most of his life.  Wonder and sadness, a strange lost light burning intensely for the enjoyment of us all.

We all die, the common and the famous, the tragic and the greats.  I’ll die, far closer to common, and people will gather and talked in hushed tones, I suppose.  That’s what you do at these moments.  What do I want them to say?

How would you answer it for yourself?

Ultimately, I hope they reflect on themselves, and perhaps a moment of connection between us.   A moment of personal connection, or professional, where we encountered each other in either family, friendship, or art-making and receiving, and as a result of that encounter and connection, whether it was for a moment or a long time, they somehow came to understand something different about themselves, their lives, and the love, presence, and beauty of God.   The title of this post came to me as I pulled up to the coffee shop; I  hope someone will say that Jeff always wondered about what it meant to be transformed at the deepest levels of the heart.   That he asked and answered the question, “Is change really possible?”   Perhaps they’ll reflect on the imperfect progress I made on my own personal journey of heart transformation, but it would be really cool, and of far greater importance, if they observed that in Jeff’s life and work, he created spaces and experiences where possibility, hope, and transformation grew tangible, no longer questions but invitations that stand eternally open.

“From glory to glory” scripture says, and at my core, I know that life is dense with glory and possibility beyond our wildest dreams.   The mystery is how it all happens, and the fits and starts we take as we travel.   And at the end, I hope someone says he traveled in risky faith, constantly leaning against his essential brokenness (shared with the world), and found his way to that elusive grace called the compassion of the Christ, and created in life and art images–incarnations–of possibility, of real change, and of love.   Say that he treasured his family, his friends, and his work, and the God whose grace made every moment possible, and that he worked hard to attune himself to the deep beauty of the world.

But after all that, I have to also confess that I don’t really care what people say when I die.   The only voice that will matter will be that of my Father.   How amazing to perhaps have Him say something like what my character in Brooklyn Boy heard at the end of the play.     My character’s father told him, “It was a good book you wrote, Ricky.”

“It was a good life you lived, Jeff.  I liked it.”

If my Father said something like that, that would be enough…

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December 30, 2009 · 6:57 am

A Year of Going Deep

It’s an oft-cited complaint: American Christianity is three-thousand miles wide and litte more than an inch deep.  So they say.

The four of us, Anjie, Amy, and Daniel and I sat over dinner last night and re-upped on an old family tradition.  Well, that may be overselling it a bit…we did this particular activity several years running when the kids were little.   It wanted to be a tradition, and we got side-tracked somewhere along the way.  Anyway, last night, we sat and gave it another whirl.

We set goals for 2010.

It will be a busy year, a year of transition for Amy and I.   She’s off to pursue the acting career in New York after she finishes at Cincinnati, and I’m moving back toward the free-lance work that defined my life from 1996-2007.   How will it all shake out?   None of us know, but we’ve got lots of work to do, and most of it exciting and hopeful.

But I suggested a theme for the year, and I’m not sure what they’ll all do with it, but for me, it’s a thought that’s been nagging at me.

Going deep.

My new iPhone is the first piece of technology I’ve picked up since the whole computer craze began well over two decades ago  that I’ve both craved and dreaded.    It’s cool and useful, but it’s a gadget and distracting.  Colors and apps and calls and tweets and games and general megabytes of cool come racing out of that little screen, and life is play all over again.   Which is fine.  But as the choices of buttons to push proliferates, I am just stunned to think of the speed of the choices that must be made.   I turned 50 this year, and for better or worse, the clock of my life is ticking.  Nothing new, but my earthen life is not infinite, and there remain good things to do.  But I have to ask, “Which ones?”  And that perhaps can only be discovered by asking the question that precedes the “doing” inquiry.

Who am I going to be?

I know, at 50, I should have the answer to this down pat.  But if life is a journey, which we all say it is, then there is new terrain up ahead.   My sense is that if God knows me, and knows this being named Jeff He is trying to mold and shape, then I have not yet fully embraced all of His vision, and I still work far too hard on my own.   There is “being” work to be done, and it has to be done in the deep places of soul, prayer, thought, service, and love.

Perhaps the verb for the year should be “to plumb.”   But how to do it?  What does a “deep” day look like?   Is it a particular sort of action, or a particular way of doing a thing?  Is it not “doing” at all?

Just wondering…what would you tell someone who wanted to go deep in 2010?

How about something like…”to will one thing.”

Nothing new in the world…

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August 24, 2009 · 7:00 am

Letting Go: What I Meant to Say

Letting go is a ruthlessly practical matter.

Actors get bound up by inhibitions, fear, and wasted muscular tension.  Relationships go south because wrongs committed become posts to wrap fists around.   New careers go unborn because persistent, outdated self-perceptions just won’t fade.

At this juncture in my life–one more sermon to preach, a new play rehearsal period beginning tonight, projects stretching in front of me that are as yet undefined–I’m wondering out loud what needs to be released in order for what’s coming to get a fair chance.

Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?

One day, a young man who had probably heard Jesus speak, had perhaps seen a miracle or two, and at the very least had been rocked by the tales of this man from Nazareth, chased the ragged band of transients down and knelt at the feet of the leader.   Catching his breath, he asked, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  There’s an exchange about just who is good, and a commandment or two, then Mark’s gospel gives us the small detail “Jesus loved him.”  Then Jesus gives him a simple answer to a simple question.  “Go, sell everything you own and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in Heaven.  Then, come follow me.”  The rich young man, terribly disappointed, turned and leaves, and the Christ explains to his followers it’s just hard to get into the Kingdom of Heaven, especially if you’ve got lots of money.

Yesterday, in my sermon, I framed this story by freezing on the moment in time in which the young man heard Jesus’ answer.  He faced, and made, a decision.  Would he let go of what he had in order to gain the treasure he had found?   Then I proposed that we, both personally and as a church, are this young man, splayed at Jesus’ feet, asking, “How do we find the kind of life that will last?  How do we beat death?  How do we live the way you do?  What does Kingdom living look like, the kind of living that has God and love written all over it?”

I’d hoped to hold “Love” and “Letting go” in tension, implying a relationship between the two, especially as it relates to the felt experience of receiving love.  In the end, the young man missed the fact that the most astonishing love was creating a world in which it was perfectly safe to let go of his former treasure.  He didn’t notice this organic compassion, the move of Jesus’ heart toward him.  Blinded by the threat of having to give up what he knew, what he’d fought for, perhaps the only thing in life that was really his, he missed the experience of love.  By clutching the past, he missed the treasure he was really looking for.  The life of the Christ moved on, and the text gives us no indication of what happened to this young man, but the implication is that he never lived out the answer to his question, never found the life that beats death.

Thinking back over the sermon, I’m not sure I said what I meant to say.   What I meant say was this:  the act of “letting go” is a key to the love of Christ becoming an experience of felt reality. Like actors, we have “blocks,” mental, emotional, and physical states of being that inhibit our ability to receive and respond fully to what’s happening around us.  Mental and muscular tension tie actors up in literal knots, and as we grip our riches, our guilt, our ambitions, our pride, our pasts–whatever, our muscles are tied up, and we are unable to receive the new life of love the Spirit is incessantly pouring into those of us who believe.  For actors, untying those knots is critical.  Release through training and discipline allows creativity, nuance, and full-hearted freedom to inform the acting moments, and until the blocks are dealt with and released, the power of their full imagination and humanity will not come pouring in.

Sounds like the old metaphors…empty the cup to fill it, open the hand to receive, die to live.  The practice of letting go daily sounds a lot like cross-carrying.

If the rich young man had given up his riches, not only would he have found life, he would have experienced, in his heart and bones, the love of God.

What must a church give up to allow the experience to pour through it into the lives of the its surrounding community?

What must I let go of in order to experience that fullness of the love of the Christ that Paul was talking about?

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.  Ephesians 3:17-19

Maybe that’s closer to what I meant…

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August 12, 2009 · 7:14 am

Ruts and Horizons: The Demand for Change – Gary Hamel at the Summit

Gary Hamel

Gary Hamel

How fast is your organization changing? And are they willing to change fast enough and dramatically enough to keep up with a world that is changing with exponential speed?

“Are you changing as fast as the world is changing?” – Gary Hamel

This was the essential question Gary Hamel (one of the most influential business minds of our time, according to the Wall Street Journal and Forbes Magazine) put to the leaders at the Willow Creek Leadership Summit last Thursday morning.   It’s a daunting question.  There’s a knee-jerk push-back that says something like, “God is the same now and forever and we should be too,”  but Hamel makes a strong distinction between core principles of doctrine and faith and the organizational systems and strategies employed to support those principles.  He said quite simply and emphatically that if we are not changing as rapidly as the culture around us, nimbly adapting, the church will continue to lose ground in North America, just as it has over the past several decades.

“The longer you’re in the trenches the easier it is to mistake the edge of your rut for the horizon.” – Gary Hamel

Inertia is the problem, Hamel told us.  If we’re not moving forward, we’re not standing still, we’re moving backwards.   He challenged us to “change the way we change,” calling us to “cultivate a climate of unflinching truth.”   We can battle entropy by refusing to “take refuge in denial”, dismissing and rationalizing facts and the clear pictures they paint.   “Confront yourself,” he said, and question your beliefs about how things get done around your church.  “Humility is a survival strategy” is one of the best quotes of the conference.   Listen to what others are doing, respect them, and welcome needed change.

He then encouraged us to develop more strategy options, to not take the first idea that comes along, to not come to closure too soon.  Citing Dell’s “Ideastorms”, Hamel said change must be exciting, more exciting than the standing pat, and that brainstorms and ideastorms need to be encouraged as a central part of our “search strategy.”

Finally, Hamel challenged us to “deconstruct” our system “orthodoxies,” reminding us to not mistake the edge of our ruts for the horizon.  Why not put your staff reviews on-line, he wondered.  (Was that a collective gulp I heard all around?)  It’s about decentralization, mobilizing and connecting, creating a community of communities, turning tasks into causes.  He wondered why churches, when they are so spiritually powerful, have to be so “institutionally weak.”

Hamel was a powerhouse.  No wonder he’s one of the most sought after business speakers on the circuit.   The end result of that session was one of opening possibility, as well as a legitimate unease because of the seeming enormity of the challenge.  The people in the pews of American churches weren’t at the Summit, and I wondered how ready they are for the changes that are here.   But that’s the role of leadership, to paint those visions of what’s possible, and Gary Hamel certainly painted the vision for us.   No doubt each leader at the conference will take up the challenge differently, and that’s part of the point.  The great creativity of God continues to call to us, asking us a hard question:

Why do we innovate with such dynamism in order to sell a product and make a buck, but stick with status quo ways and means of reaching out with the gospel?

Hamel finished with this: if Jesus is the hope of the world, the church is Jesus’ hope to reach that world.

That means us.   The Holy Spirit for sure, but it’s our flesh and bones and hearts and minds he’s going to use.

Change-mongers, gear up…

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