Cause to Pause

I’m not making light of a tragic situation, but in case you are not aware, C.S. Lewis lived his life a confirmed bachelor. That was until he met his wife Joy late in life. 
Shortly after they were married she was succumbed to cancer and passed away. So great was Lewis’ sorrow that he could not express it. His only respite was to keep a notepad on a table. Everytime a thought entered his head he would jot it down. And then move on. This chronology became the book “A Grief Observed.” The progression of emotions is real and plainly evident. It is impossible to read this book without emotionally walking the path with the author.
Were he alive today, Lewis might have tweeted those short thoughts. Those observations of grief.

Twitter can be inane- “Went to the bathroom. Out of toilet paper again.”
Twitter can be an incredible time sink- “I need to know what each of the 237 people I am following are doing. Every three minutes.”
But, if you consider your audience, and take stock in your life-at this moment right now- you might find something that is of value to others.

Lewis put his grief out there, but he was willing to do that only because he lived it and it was real.
Live life. REALLY live life…only then will you have something to tweet about.

Yes, I know. It’s supposed to be Shameless Plug Friday.

1. Jason Powelland CITRT. Monday night I was in a Communications Committee meeting and one of the goals was to explore the idea of having the meetings via web conference. There are a lot of reasons to do this- less trips by car (greener), volunteers can save probably an hour by time they drive to church, drive back and the associated getting ready to go, etc. The next day I posted a tweet looking for “free or dirt cheap” solutions. Jason retweeted and later put a page up on the CITRT.org site. Thus demonstrating the power of community.
I could spend several weeks searching for different solutions, trying them out, etc. Or I could just check into the wiki page every so often and let the discussion hash it out. Hmmm….
2. My buddies Scott S. and Kevin A. who keep noodling me to get back on the bike. The spirit is willing, but the time clock is weak. Gotta find time for that. (you can and should follow @kevinabbate on twitter. You’ll feel like a fat, lazy, out of shape, middle aged tree slug, but Kevin is a great guy, so it’s all good. He’s definitely a motivator when it comes to being in shape.)
3. Michael Hyatt. CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers. I just added him to my blog roll. His blog consistently has great information on time management, staying connected via technology, leadership, etc. There is a good one here about twitter and another good one hereabout managing email. Great resource and certainly worth following.

Ever get a volunteer, give ‘em some direction, then when an “oops” happens the volunteer blames themself for messing up and you blame yourself for not training them right?
Yeah. Me neither.
But the real question comes in “What was the goal?”
Ok, for just a minute, get down off the “Ten Leadership Principles of Successful Team Development Through Personal Excellence” train and remember that the most important word is “personal”. The only thing that really matters is people. We are all just dealing with people. Shoot, some of even are people!
If you have read this blog for any length of time (and I thank the both of you), you know I have a slant toward expectations. Giving and getting. But sometimes, maybe, just sometimes it isn’t about fulfilling expectations. Maybe sometimes it is just about “being”.

For the last six weeks my small group and I have been wading through the book of Galatians. The whole book is about grace verses law. Living a life led by the Spirit verses living one of fulfilling expectations that are beyond reach. This letter is unlike any of Paul’s other ones. This isn’t Paul the “hang in there guys, I believe in you, me and my buddies all say ‘Hi’, let’s have lunch, buh-bye”.
This Paul the Angry Blogger.
What is he so honked off about? Somebody has been trying to get the Galatians to start worrying about fulfilling expectations that they have no business even thinking about. And once they got on the “expectation fulfillment train”, there was no stopping it. Their focus shifted from one of gratitude and “glad that is over” to one of…well…..OUCH!

I don’t have any great axiom to close this post out and tie those two points up with a bow. It all seems incongruous on the surface.
But I will say that you know how you really didn’t care about that little “oops” I mentioned? Your volunteer probably didn’t care about being undertrained either. Probably never entered their mind.
But if either one of you lets the other start down the “should have done…” road, you are both in trouble. You are BOTH putting yourself under a burden that really doesn’t exist. That’s a line of thinking that certainly won’t end at ” love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control”.