5 Friday Faves – On Studying Your Spouse, Aging, Taking Criticism, Daily Routines, & Black History Month

Blog - Friday Faves

Hello, Friday. I don’t know about you but this has been a week of highs and lows in this world of mine. Hard news in some situations washed over by exquisite answers to prayer in other situations. As happens often with God, in the quiet of this morning, a favorite, heart-lifting passage in the Bible came up in my reading.

“You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.”Isaiah 26:3-4

Even the Bible verses atop my facing journal pages this morning were like an anthem from God that all will be well. “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give you.”John 14:27 and “My times are in Your hands, Lord.”Psalm 31:15

With that intro to welcoming Friday this week, here are five of my favorite finds – all from the internet this week, although I did have a lot of sweetness in the real, as well.

1) Studying Your Spouse – Michael Hyatt welcomed Jackie Bledsoe as guest blogger on his website this week. Bledsoe writes very winsomely about how he learned to study his wife. He talks about how we, too often, think we know enough (relating to any field of study and work, ministry, marriage and family). Regarding his marriage, he observed: “We were both growing, just not together. My interests were changing and my wife, Stephana, didn’t always notice. Stephana’s needs were changing, but I was oblivious to them. Finally, we reached a point where we felt we didn’t really know each other. That was a scary discovery, one that you may be able to relate to. You may know the ins and outs of your business or ministry like nobody else. But maybe you don’t know the ins and outs of your spouse like nobody else. It may be time for you to enroll in the continuing education about your spouse.” Bledsoe lists 3 ways to get an advanced degree in your spouse: 1) Do new things together; 2) Take notes: and 3) Use your calendar. Read more here.Blog - Friday Faves - Marriage - DaddyshangoutPhoto Credit: Daddy’s Hangout

2) Aging – a Video – I came across a video this week that really got me thinking about how I view aging. It is entitled The Wall. It is the work of Aroha Philanthropies, an organization “devoted to the transformative power of the arts and creativity, inspiring vitality in those over 55, joy in children and youth, and humanity in adults with mental illness”. Blog - Aging - ioagingPhoto Credit: IoAging.org

The video begins with two elderly persons looking at the imposing face of a wall filled with the words that terrify most of us about getting older. Then as the video progresses, the images change to  more engaging and lovely words that depict what can be part of our experience moving from youth to mid-life to older life. Through creativity and the arts from childhood throughout our years, we might see a very different future, with growing older being our “encore years”. Something to think about for all of us…and especially for our young creatives – to see these “old ones” as valuable peers…just a bit farther down the same road.

3) Taking Criticism – Dan Cumberland, writer and photographer in Seattle, Washington, writes about responding to a scathing comment he received once on one of his blogs. Complete with foul offensive language. In his article This Guy Really Hates Me (How to Take Criticism). In his post, he lists 5 guidelines of how to handle criticism:

1) Is there truth in it?; 2) Is it affirmed by others?; 3) Is the source credible?; 4) What are the source’s motives?; and 5) What can I learn here? Then Dan talked about how he dealt with his critic.

We all receive criticism and also, if we’re honest, dole it out ourselves. Hear Dan’s counsel: “When you receive criticism and negative feedback there’s a needed balance. Don’t write it off, but also be careful not to let it bring you down too much. Work to find the truth. When you don’t understand, ask for clarification.”

When we are offered criticism, take it – as a gift. Do with it what is helpful. Don’t fall into the trap of returning harm for what you perceived as harmful. You want to be better than that.Blog - Taking Criticism - Feedback - quotesgramPhoto Credit: Quotesgram

4) Daily Routines Maria Popova, of Brain Pickings, wrote a fascinating post on Mozart’s Daily Routine – How a day is composed in the hours between sleep o’clock and symphony o’clock. Routines are a great help for me to organize life and truly accomplish what I hope to accomplish. I’ve written on routines, habit change, and productivity previously. Popova’s article (and others she linked in her post) offers a glimpse into the daily life of greatness. It was inspiring and refreshing. Early in Mozart’s life, he went without employment but maintained deep discipline in his composing of music. Later, as his popularity rose, he compromised his sleep in order to continue writing. Mozart’s life was legend for unhealthy choices, and he struggled at times with deep depression. The lesson for us is in a daily routine that helped him, whether poor or privileged, to produce magnificent music that continues timeless in its beauty.

Blog - Daily Routines Photo Credit: Tito Goldstein

5) Black History Month – Phillip Holmes wrote a great piece, on Black History Month, for Desiring God. It is entitled More Tough Skin and Tender Hearts – How to Prepare for Conversations on Ethnic Harmony. He talks in a frank and loving manner about evangelicalism and ethnic harmony. Holmes urges us to have real conversations across races and ideologies, rather than white-with-white (or black-with-black) discussion with those already in agreement with us. If we wrestle with the struggle, across racial, religious, and political lines, we might actually come to a place of true reconciliation.

I want to have the kinds of conversations he encourages: “As we engage in complicated conversations about racism, be sober-minded rather than drunk with hatred, frustration, and annoyance. Embrace humility and love those you disagree with. But continue to pursue truth and justice as these two are defined in the Holy Scriptures. The Bible must remain the basis for why we believe what we believe and a careful study of it reveals that it has much to say about ethnicity and injustice…These conversations are complex but necessary and we need men and women who can sit down and have hard conversations considering the other more significant.”

Read his full post. I do want to quote one more vital point Holmes covered beautifully: “As a church, whether we as individuals are white, black, brown, red, or yellow, Christians have to constantly remind ourselves of our primary allegiance. If you are a child of the king, adopted into the household of faith, you are Christian first. I am one million times more Christian than I am black. My brown skin may be what you first notice about me, but by God’s grace, my Christian faith is what you will remember… I count it a privilege to be physically dressed by my creator in such a beautiful skin tone…but I will forever check others and myself when I notice our ethnicity is taking precedent over our heavenly citizenship.”

Also read Kimberly Davis’ Black History Month and the Common Language of Christ.

Vector Illustration for black history month including names, time periods and what each person did. See others in this series. Makes a great poster large print.

Photo Credit: Teach Hub

What were some of your finds or favorite things of this week? I would love to hear about them. Have a safe and joyful weekend!

Worship Wednesday – You Are Beautiful, God…and We Are Made in Your Image

Blog - Beauty of God - desertsendPhoto Credit: Desert’s End

One thing I have asked from the LORD, that I shall seek: That I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the LORD and to meditate in His temple.Psalm 27:4

Before coffee this morning, I stretched myself awake. No note-to-self was perched on my keyboard. No song to highlight on today’s blog had come to mind. In the dark of this morning, this moment, quiet in my bed, the thought “You are beautiful” came to mind. Oh God! You are so beautiful!

We are surrounded by beauty in this life of ours. The glories of nature that stop us in our tracks to take it in. The faces of those we love who incredibly love us. The great satisfactions of pay for our labor, work that can make a difference, and rest when we’re weary. So much beauty in life – even in the midst of suffering. In fact, it is sometimes in the midst of suffering that the beauty of God is most evident – as we discover His presence in the resilience of the human spirit, the community that rallies, and the reach of outstretched hands.

How beautiful the works of God, but more beautiful God Himself. Mercy and justice perfectly blended. Love beyond anything of our understanding. Complete in the unity of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Impossible for me to grasp and yet more real than anything else in this life.

Wednesday morning often includes a walk around my neighborhood, but not today. Without my notice, the rain came to wash away the rest of the snow. Stepping out of the house, and seeing the rain, I made a quick retreat back in…but not without taking in the sky and capturing a shaky panorama of that dense gray. Blog - Rainy Day - panoramaIf you click on the image, you notice a bird sitting atop a branch of one of those sturdy oaks. Like that bird, we are so small taking in the vastness of this beautiful world God has made for us. This created beautiful thing we call home for now. How much more beautiful is the One who created all this vastness – yet a tiny marble in His universe.

He is beautiful. You are beautiful, God…and You call us beautiful simply made in Your image and as we radiate Your glory.

I wrote before (here) about the beauty of God, focusing on the song You’re Beautiful by Phil Wickham. Another song that comes to mind, thinking of the beauty of God is MercyMe’s Beautiful. This song actually focuses on our beauty. How hard it can be to focus on the beauty of God when we feel so broken ourselves! He has made us beautiful… I wish we could hold up a mirror to each other, struggling in whatever our hard places are today, such that we could see ourselves as God sees us. MercyMe has done that in the song Beautiful.

Mark Altrogge wrote the song, I Stand In Awe of You, almost 30 years ago. I remember singing it during our years of living in Cairo, Egypt. We worshipped with other believers and seekers, foreigners and Egyptians together, (at Heliopolis Community Church). Blog - Heliopolis Community Church

Photo Credit: HCC Cairo

Hearing this song in various accents would remind me afresh of what it will be one day when we see God in Heaven, When our eyes of faith will be made sight…and we see Him as He is…”beautiful beyond description”.

Worship with me:

You are beautiful beyond description
Too marvelous for words
Too wonderful for comprehension
Like nothing ever seen or heard
Who can grasp Your infinite wisdom?
Who can fathom the depth of Your love?
You are beautiful beyond description
Majesty enthroned above

And I stand, I stand in awe of You
I stand, I stand in awe of You
Holy God to Whom all praise is due
I stand in awe of You*

How have you experienced the beauty of God? Are there moments when you have had a glimpse of His beauty in your circumstances…or when He’s given you eyes to see how beautiful He’s made you? I would love to hear your stories (Comment below).

*Lyrics to I Stand In Awe of You by Mark Altrogge – as sung by Annie Herring

I Stand In Awe – Mark Altrogge, 1987 – at and Spiritual Songs

Story Behind the Song I Stand In Awe of You by Mark AltroggeBlog - The Beauty of God - the6cPhoto Credit: The6C

Monday Morning Moment – Notes on Chris Bailey’s Life of Productivity

Blog - Productivity - Chris bailey - by Lewis HowesPhoto Credit: Lewis Howes, The School of Greatness

Where does the time go? How do I get so tired before the day is done? I just can’t stay focused…too distracted, I guess. You know what I’m talking about. Then there are the reactions of those friends and family. The ones (who treat us with kindness) tell us sympathetically “You are just so busy”. Then others, more in our faces, say, “The things you want to do, you do. You just don’t want time with me enough.” I get the logic of those statements, but I’ve been perplexed as to how to improve my life choices, such that I get more accomplished…more of the important things.

Until recently…when I experienced the convergence of making New Year’s resolutions, having a big birthday, and hearing Chris Bailey talk productivity.

Blog - Chris Bailey - ProductivityPhoto Credit: Unmistakable Creative

Chris Bailey is the age of my children. Although he had job offers, he took the year after graduating university to go deep into a study of productivity.  During that year, he wrote about his experiments in his blog – A Life of Productivity. Then, he designed a roadmap of 25 tactics to greater productivity in his book The Productivity Project: Accomplishing More by Managing Your Time, Attention, and Energy .

You may be tempted to yawn at another book on productivity, but this is clearly one not like the others. I listened to a couple of podcasts on Unmistakable Creative where host Srini Rao talks with Chris Bailey. They pour over what Chris discovered about productivity during that year of experiments. [Disclaimer: I haven’t read the book yet but plan to. My takeaways are from these podcasts and the other sources linked below. Can’t wait to read his roadmap on productivity.]

As Chris talks with Srini (and we get to listen in – love these podcast opportunities), he talks about what he’s learned from others regarding productivity. His tipping point was reading David Allen’s book Getting Things Done. Srini also refers to Cal Newport’s writing on deep work (you can listen to him on Unmistakable Creative here and here). They also mentioned Charles Duhigg’s book The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. Chris Bailey’s year of productivity experiments included studying what was already in the literature – a big help to us less-read hopefuls.

Chris defines productivity not as getting more things done but getting more accomplished. The difference is huge. It’s not just the “to-do list” but the view toward the “done list”. “Productivity is time, energy, and attention, and where the three meet in the middle is where you are in being productive. It is achieving what you intend to accomplish. It’s not about doing more things faster, but doing the right things deliberately and with intention.”

Here are the takeaways from my first-look into Chris Bailey’s “life of productivity”.

  • Take a step back from your life and ask the questions: What do I care about? What motivates me? When was I most inspired, driven, or felt the most meaning or passion for what I was doing?
  • The three commodities we all bring to the table are time, energy, and attention. It’s not just about time management, but also increasing our capacity for work (energy) and focus (attention).
  • Start every day with intentionality. Make your to-do lists to manage the minutia of life, but then do something more. Take a step back. Execute what he calls the Rule of 3. At the start of the day, mentally fast-forward to the end of the day and ask: “When the day is done, what three main things do I want to accomplish?” From this you form your intentions on what you want to accomplish.
  • Being busy, even in ticking off the things on your to-do list, doesn’t mean you’re being productive. This gives an illusion to productivity, but only when you step back do you discover whether you have accomplished what you thought you did in the busy-ness.
  • Start small in working toward productivity. Real change takes time and intentionality. “Write down everything in your job and personal life that you’re responsible for. Then ask, if I can only do one of these things every day, which adds value/meaning to my life (I would add or to that of another who matters deeply to me)? Ask again of the remaining tasks. And a third time.”
  • We all have limitations and constraints in our life. Bear those in mind as you plan and execute and evaluate. Being hard on ourselves won’t get us to greater productivity. Small, incremental steps toward change should be celebrated.
  • Work on one thing at a time. Single-tasking. Working mindfully.  “Multi-tasking holds people back from accomplishing more over the course of the day. It stimulates your mind; it’s like being busy. However, it actually makes you less productive, increases your errors, decreases your memory,  and takes longer to do everything” [in reality]. “You can only focus on one thing at one time. You then dedicate 100% of your time, energy, and attention to one thing – it will yield the highest productivity.” Counter-intuitive, I know, but I’m beginning to believe the wisdom of this.
  • Procrastination involves 7 triggers that cause your mind to resist certain tasks: when they are boring, frustrating, difficult, ambiguous, unstructured, lacking intrinsic reward or personal meaning. We put off doing those types of tasks (which often are ones we actually need to attack to be truly productive) and instead while away our time on social media or marathoning Netflix. Chris Bailey gives a way out: “Once you step back from the task, noticing you’re procrastinating, trick the triggers – reward yourself, set time limits, structure it, etc.”
  • Mindfulness is continually bringing your attention back to the work that’s in front of you. Chris Bailey uses meditation to build “attentional muscle”. Taking mental breaks (however you do) is important to make attentional space which we need for creativity. Our mind goes back and forth from “the essential executive mode (constantly thinking of something, like when on a smartphone), and the mind-wandering mode (like when you’re in the shower). You often have those brilliant ideas while in the shower.” Make space for building attention and creativity. Take breaks and disconnect a bit from the internet or Netflix (you knew that was coming, right?).

I am so encouraged by the possibilities of building capacity in my time, energy, and attention. Chris gets us started with his 100 Time, Energy, and Attention Hacks to Be More Productive. Remember, he urges us to start small. Change one thing, maybe, in each area. It’s a process but one we can master toward gaining a life of greater meaning and capacity, accomplishing what we have hoped for…not just waiting for the future self to do it. We can be more that person beginning today.

Blog - Chris Bailey - Productivity Experiment

Photo Credit: Amazon.com

Chris Bailey – A Life of Productivity – Website

The Productivity Project: Accomplishing More by Managing Your Time, Attention, and Energy by Chris Bailey

Unmistakably Creative – Podcast with Chris Bailey – Bridging the Gaps in Our Productivity

The Top 10 Lessons I Learned From a Year of Productivity by Chris Bailey

100 Time, Energy, and Attention Hacks to Be More Productive by Chris Bailey

YouTube Video – The Path to Meaningful Work: Chris Bailey at TEDxGatineau

Five Habits that Help Chris Bailey Stay Productive

From 90-hour Work Week to Rising Before Dawn, Author Experiments with Productivity – CTV News

Chris Bailey on Twitter