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5 Friday Faves – Good Friday, Beyond the Guitar’s Rendition of Dune, How to Know a Person, Scruffy Hospitality, and Flowering Trees

March 31, 2024 admindeb 3 Comments

Real fast. 5 Friday Faves.

1) Good Friday – Holy Week 2024 is coming to an end. Every day, I join many around the world reflecting on the events and meaning of each day of that last week of Jesus’ earthly life. Up through the crucifixion and onto Resurrection Sunday. You can read my countdown here.

“It was not nails that held Jesus to that wretched cross; it was his unqualified resolution, out of love for his Father, to do his Father’s will—and it was his love for sinners like me.” – D.A. Carson

And as You speak
A hundred billion failures disappear
Where You lost Your life so I could find it here
If You left the grave behind You so will I
I can see Your heart in everything You’ve done
Every part designed in a work of art called love
If You gladly chose surrender so will I
I can see Your heart
Eight billion different ways
Every precious one
A child You died to save
If You gave Your life to love them so will I

Like You would again a hundred billion times
But what measure could amount to Your desire
You’re the One who never leaves the one behind – Hillsong (So Will I (100 Billion X)

Jesus and Holy Week – Good Friday – His Trial, Crucifixion, & Burial – It’s Friday, but Sunday’s Coming

Don’t leave until you watch and listen to Pastor S. M. Lockridge‘s powerful 3 1/2 minute oration below!

Or listen to Atlas Rhoads song He Cries with scenes from The Savior film.

2) Beyond the Guitar’s Dune – As usual, Nathan Mills of Beyond the Guitar captures the exquisite beauty of Hans Zimmer‘s compositions (this time, from the film Dune Part 2 soundtrack).

Here’s Nathan’s rendition on classical guitar. So moving!

3) How to Know a Person – How to really know a person? David Brooks’ book delves into that so practically. I hadn’t heard of this book until someone I follow on social media described it as a masterpiece. then I caught Brooks’ interview on The Next Big Idea podcast.

So far, I love everything I have heard and read about this book. A few quotes from the book follow:

“The real act of, say, building a friendship or creating a community involves performing a series of small, concrete social actions well: disagreeing without poisoning the relationship; revealing vulnerability at the appropriate pace; being a good listener; knowing how to end a conversation gracefully; knowing how to ask for and offer forgiveness; knowing how to let someone down without breaking their heart; knowing how to sit with someone who is suffering; knowing how to host a gathering where everyone feels embraced; knowing how to see things from another’s point of view.” – David Brooks, How to Know a Person

“The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them,” George Bernard Shaw wrote, “but to be indifferent to them: that’s the essence of inhumanity.” – David Brooks, How to Know a Person

“On social media you can have the illusion of social contact without having to perform the gestures that actually build trust, care, and affection. On social media, stimulation replaces intimacy. There is judgment everywhere and understanding nowhere.” – David Brooks, How to Know a Person

“As the Harvard psychologist Robert Kegan has observed, what the eye sees more deeply the heart tends to love more tenderly.” – David Brooks, How to Know a Person

Brooks offers story after story of human connections, the kind we all long for…and how they happen. With curiosity and care and a measure of intentionality. Get the book!

How to Know a Person by David Brooks – Review, Summary, Analysis & Facts – Mental Branch – excellent review!!

David Brooks: We Change People for the Better by Knowing Them More Fully – Justin Whitmel Earley – also super helpful!

4) Scruffy Hospitality – Hospitality follows along the same thinking as David Brooks’ book on knowing people. When we put out the welcome mat for folks, we gain as much as we give, and it doesn’t have to be perfect.

“Scruffy hospitality means you’re not waiting for everything in your house to be in order before you host and serve friends in your home. Scruffy hospitality means you hunger more for good conversation and serving a simple meal of what you have, not what you don’t have. Scruffy hospitality means you’re more interested in quality conversation than the impression your home or lawn makes. If we only share meals with friends when we’re excellent, we aren’t truly sharing life together.

Don’t allow a to-do list disqualify you from an evening with people you’re called to love in friendship. Scheduling is hard enough in our world. If it’s eating with kind, welcoming people in a less than perfect house versus eating alone, what do you think someone would choose? We tell our guests ‘come as you are,’ perhaps we should tell ourselves ‘host as you are.’” – Jack King

In Praise of ‘Scruffy Hospitality’ – Robin Shreeves

Families are embracing ‘scruffy hospitality’ — should you join the trend? – Rosie Colosi

Scruffy Hospitality – Poems of Lived-In Places – Sarah Ann Winn

What We Gain When We Forget That Scruffy Hospitality – Tara K. E. Brelinsky

I was reminded of this sort of hospitality when a neighbor dropped by recently without notice. I felt a bit embarrassed by the piles of books on my coffee table and the general messiness of the kitchen. I was cooking for a special occasion, and the counters were full of preps in progress. She wasn’t bothered by any of it, and we had a great visit.

Just today after a meal shared with extended family, we were sitting and talked, and I noticed how dusty the floor was in the afternoon sun – the areas that don’t get “swept up” by sock-clad feet. Sigh… Even as we were visiting, I pulled out the dust-mop and tidied up the floor. It didn’t bother our visitors, but it did me, once I saw it. Couldn’t unsee it.

The important thing is to keep inviting folks into your home, into your welcome. The condition of the house is secondary. There are too many folks out there eating alone because we want the comfort of our own homes without the work of making them presentable to others. Since COVID, also, we seem to have gotten out of the sweet habit of gathering, like we once did. Worth re-visiting.

5) Flowering Trees – We’re in Springtime here, and the flowering trees and bushes are giving us quite the show! I remember with great delight the fragrance of flowering Jasmine when we used to live in North Africa. For a brief time, the Viburnum bushes with new blossoms gives that same intoxicating smell. Everywhere you look right now, trees are like watercolor paintings with flowers popping and new leaves unfurling. Spectacular time of the year!

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So much more…but with this being a special week of celebrating the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah…will close here. Thanks for stopping by. It means so much.

Emotions, Finishing Strong, Friday Faves, Guitar, Inspired, Laughter, Leadership, Legacy, Lifelong Learning, Love, Marriage, Music

5 Friday Faves – Beyond the Guitar, Walking Her Home, Post-Traumatic Growth, Breaking Out of Negative Thinking, and Spring

March 8, 2024 admindeb 2 Comments

1) Beyond the Guitar – It’s been awhile since I’ve posted Friday Faves, but rest assured #1 of my weekly round-down hasn’t changed. Nathan at Beyond the Guitar continues to make beautiful music. He also teaches through his arranging academy, practice club, etc.

YouTube Video – This fingerstyle Riff is What Sunshine Sounds Like – Beyond the Guitar

Below you’ll find a couple of his most recent videos as he showcases two different guitars. Beautiful!

His short videos (with film and video game clips attached) are so much fun and emotionally satisfying (why go to TikTok when you can just hang on his channel? Just scroll down his YouTube channel to Shorts).

Something about Nathan you might not know if you don’t follow him on Instagram is that he has also become a personal trainer in the field of health/fitness, mental/spiritual disciplines, and all the stuff of being a guy out there (family, work, habits, and disciplines). For his music, you know where to go. For this sort of inspiration, head over to his Instagram account.

2) Walking Her Home – This has been a super sentimental week for me. Some health issues, family stuff, and friends going through hard times. When I came across the UNC Clef Hangers video (seen many times before), it has hung in the air for me.

The song Walking Her Home recounts the story of a 60-year relationship. From first date until the elderly wife was dying. Whew! So beautiful.

Dave and I have our 40th wedding anniversary later this year, and this sweet lyric brings back such memories of our own life together. All the beautiful not dimmed by the hard. In fact, only made more beautiful by staying and waiting out (praying out) the hard together. Not everyone gets that opportunity, sadly. Just let me share this song…may it encourage you about your own relationships whatever they are.

Photo Credit: Conexus Counseling, Mark Schultz

Taking that song and its life message further, we all have the opportunity to truly see each other…care for each other…and walk each other home.

Walking Each Other Home – Making a Difference in a Beautiful Way – Ramona McKean – don’t miss this.

3) Post-traumatic Growth – We have all heard much spoken and written about post-traumatic stress (PTSD). Just in recent months have I heard the concept of post-traumatic growth. An internet search yields much on this topic. Post-traumatic growth is defined as “the experience of positive change that occurs as a result of the struggle with highly challenging life crises”.

This sort of growth can happen when we recognize that we don’t have to be forever victimized by the trauma we’ve experienced, as children or adults. There is a way forward.

I’m only mentioning it briefly here, but if you have experienced this sort of growth post-trauma, and you feel comfortable to talk about it, please use the Comments section to share some of what happened.

What Are the 5 Stages of Post-Traumatic Growth? How to Get Started? – Kirti Bhati

The Promise of Post-Traumatic Growth – Part 2 – Echo Training

The Complicated Truth About Post-Traumatic Growth – David Robson

Sometimes what stands in opposition to our growth is the person or persons unwilling to let go of the past. Maybe our PTSD relates to being the victim of trauma. Other times, however, we struggle to get out of the past because of harm we ourselves have caused. Even when we have owned our part, asked forgiveness, made whatever restitution we could…the past won’t always go away.

Writer/speaker Ashley Alford writes about this poignantly. Below you’ll find a bit of her take on it:

Kicking ash is what they’re doing.

Standing in the middle of the ashy remainder of what you once did.

The soot of who you once were.

The smoke of who you used to be.

They’re standing in the middle of an old story…one they don’t like to let go of.

One that still tries to burn with reminders of the licking flames of your shame.

They kick the mess around you hoping to stir up the old accusations…

Hoping to reignite the sparks of something that God himself put out…

They can run the ashes of that fire through their fingers all they want…

But they’ll never know the pain it took for you to heal from those burns.

They’ll never know the raw ache of fresh wounds straight from hell.

Not like Jesus does.

They weren’t there when He bandaged you at that altar.

They weren’t there when he breathed life back into you again on that closet floor.

So let them kick ash and stir up the soot of that life and lie you used to host.

And remember when they mock you…They’re mocking the Holy Ghost.

Because they can tell tales of the fire that almost consumed you and they can backstab and stare…

But it would do them good to remember that just like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego…

You weren’t alone in there.

“Kicking Ash Is What They’re Doing” – Honestly, Ashley – Facebook

4) Breaking Out of Negative Thinking – I first wrote about negative thinking five years ago (that blog linked below). Since then we have come through COVID 2020, great racial unrest and social upheaval, contentious election cycles, ongoing wars, and a downturn in our economy. Lots to think negatively about with good reason, but if we’re not careful we will begin gearing our thinking in that direction to the detriment of our mental and relational health.

Monday Morning Moment – Rewiring Your Brain Toward Thinking in the Positive – Deb Mills

The team at Daily Health Post focused on complaining as a culprit that can actually cause our brains to default to anxiety and depression. From experience, I know this is true. Check out the article below:

How Complaining Physically Rewires Your Brain to Be Anxious and Depressed

Why Your Brain is Wired for Pessimism—and What You Can Do to Fix It – Clay Skipper

Before leaving this topic, I want to point to the article below which champions negative emotions as a sometime benefit. We learn from regrets, and sadness is telling us something about what matters to us. Negative emotions have value, but it’s the weight we allow them and the headspace they will consume that we must question and resist.

Don’t Insist on Being Positive—Allowing Negative Emotions Has Much to Teach Us – Whitney Goodman

5) Spring – ‘Nuff said really. Days getting longer and warmer. Flowers. Short sleeves. Strawberries. Fishing.

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That’s my 5 faves for this week. Gleaned from a much longer list of finds that I didn’t write about over the last several weeks (including my beloved “Best of” Christmas Ad videos). Thanks for stopping by. Talk to us in the Comments if you have the time. Blessings always.

Bonuses:

6 Ways to Tap Into Nostalgia – And What You Should – Mental Health Benefits

Can’t Stop the Feeling – still love this song and its covers (especially the one HomeFree does):

[One of my favorite collaborations Nathan has done. Sweet memory.]

[Start at 3:54 for a stadium sing of “You’ll Never Walk Alone” in tribute of Liverpool F.C. – Goosebumps!]

Aging, All Good Gifts, Anxiety, Attending or Focus, Books, Community, Courage, Critical Thinking, Cross-Cultural, Decluttering, Displaced Peoples, Finishing Strong, Food & Drink, Friday Faves, Grief and Loss, Guitar, Hospitality, Kindness of Strangers, Laughter, Loneliness, Love Your Neighbor, Memories, Music, Trauma

5 Friday Faves – Beyond the Guitar & Oppenheimer, Solitude, “Til You’re Home”, Two Phenomenal Reads, and International Food Festivals

September 10, 2023 admindeb Leave a comment

1) Beyond the Guitar & Oppenheimer – When Nathan Mills of Beyond the Guitar takes a brilliant orchestral work and arranges it for a single guitar, magic happens all over again. He accomplished this most recently in his arrangement of Ludwig Göransson‘s Can You Hear the Music? from the film Oppenheimer.

Heartbreakingly beautiful!

Sidebar: One exchange between Robert Oppenheimer and Niels Bohr has stood out and intrigued the audience. It was an encounter between two of the most brilliant minds the world has ever known. But one of the most puzzling aspects of their meeting is Bohr’s cryptic comment to Oppenheimer. What exactly did Bohr mean by:

“Algebra is more than just reading. You have to hear the music.”

“Can you hear the music?”

Niels Bohr’s words, in essence, capture the very spirit of scientific inquiry. His comparison of algebra to music wasn’t merely a poetic expression but a profound insight into the nature of mathematics and, by extension, the nature of scientific discovery. Bohr was trying to convey that, much like how music is not just about reading notes but about feeling and understanding the melody, algebra, too, is not just about reading equations but about comprehending the underlying patterns and principles. – Pooja Mishra

2) Solitude – [Adapted from an earlier blog of mine] – During my angsty teenage years, I would sometimes slip away from my house full of brothers and sit by the lake nearby. It was there that I wrestled with the “what if’s” of life, along with the “what was’s”. Alone, but not truly. Within my thoughts, quietened in those moments, was also the presence of God. In that solitude, anxieties would get reigned in and perspective returned. The walk home was always so much better than the walk down.

Writer, philosopher Zat Rana caught my eye with his article The Most Important Skill Nobody Taught You. Turns out his view of that most important untaught skill is solitude. That ability to just enjoy being alone. Sitting or walking alone. Lost in your own thoughts. Except for a self-portrait for a photography class, you won’t see many signs in my life that solitude comes easy.

Life is peopled. As an extrovert and helper by nature, I have long thrived in the company of others. However, getting older, alone time has become more my experience than in previous years. Is that its own springboard to flourishing?

“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” – Blaise Pascal

The Most Important Skill Nobody Taught You – Zat Rana

According to Pascal, we fear the silence of existence, we dread boredom and instead choose aimless distraction, and we can’t help but run from the problems of our emotions into the false comforts of the mind.

The issue at the root, essentially, is that we never learn the art of solitude. – Zat Rana

My husband, the consummate introvert thinker, often sits by himself at dawn and dusk to recharge. For him, solitude is something that has come naturally. He has been a model for me in practicing solitude.

Rana also talks about how technology has connected us in a myriad of ways but the connectedness is more virtual than real. – “We now live in a world where we’re connected to everything except ourselves.”

“Our aversion to solitude is really an aversion to boredom…we dread the nothingness of nothing. We can’t imagine just being rather than doing. And therefore, we look for entertainment, we seek company, and if those fail, we chase even higher highs. We ignore the fact that never facing this nothingness is the same as never facing ourselves. And never facing ourselves is why we feel lonely and anxious in spite of being so intimately connected to everything else around us.” – Zat Rana

Everything I Have Learned in 500 Words – Zat Rana

8 Ways to Embrace Solitude – Virginia Thomas – practical helps in embracing solitude

The Joy of Solitude: Loneliness as a Subjective State of Mind – Neel Burton – excellent resource on solitude as a prevention against loneliness

5 Must-See Monasteries in Virginia, USA

3) “Til You’re Home” – If you’ve ever lost someone dear to you, the song “Til You’re Home” will resonate to your core. Actress, producer, singer/songwriter Rita Wilson brings this song to the screen in the beautiful film “A Man Called Otto”. Wilson wrote the lyrics with David Hodges and performed it with singer Sebastián Yatra.

In the articles below, Wilson is interviewed about the inspiration for this song. My main takeaway was how she was comforted by a friend, after her father’s death. He told her, “The conversation continues.” I so experience that. After the death of my mom, in particular, but also many others, including my older brother with whom I had a prickly relationship but one that sweetened before he died and continues to do so…in ways this song communicates.

I watched the film above while on a flight. Crying doesn’t come easy for me, and the tears flowed.

Watch the movie and enjoy the song and think about the richness of our relationships both in the present and in the between times (from past to forever).

Rita Wilson Talks Singing and Writing Original Song for Tom Hanks’ ‘A Man Called Otto’: Listen (EXCLUSIVE) – Clayton Davis

Rita Wilson Found Her Voice (Literally) Through Songwriting – Hilton Dresden

Worship Wednesday – Go Rest High on That Mountain – Vince Gill – Deb Mills

4) Two Phenomenal Reads – Phenomenal? Well, I’m counting on it. These are my next two reads. Just got them both and honestly may have to read them together. The authors are two of my absolute favorites: Karen Swallow Prior and Curt Thompson MD.

To get started – while I was waiting for launch day on both of these books, I’ve been listening to podcasts and reading reviews. Until your books come, you can also have a read or listen below.

“I hope readers are better able to participate in the necessary, ongoing process of distinguishing the principles of the Christian faith that are eternal and unchanging from the cultural stories, metaphors, and images that embody these principles in varying degrees of fidelity. Don’t misunderstand me: this entanglement with cultural narratives and ideas isn’t unique to evangelicals, nor is being creatures of culture necessarily a bad thing. In fact, living within the cultures of this world is God’s plan. It is part of being human. I think, however, that because evangelicalism from its beginnings in the western world has been so tied to political power, it has been easier for us to overlook the entanglement that is inherent to being part of any human culture. Yet, our task is no different from Christians within any Christian movement, sect, time, place, or culture.” – Karen Swallow Prior, an interview with Andrea L. Turpin

Repairing the Evangelical House Means Renewing the Evangelical Imagination – Carolyn Weber

Holy Unhappiness Podcast with Amanda Held Opelt – Sanctification with Karen Swallow Prior

Curt Thompson Goes to the Deepest Place

Norsworthy Podcast – Curt Thompson: The Deepest Place

5) International Food Festivals – Ethnic foods are a favorite in our family…maybe every family. I’m talking from Afghan boulani (flatbread) to Southern biscuits and gravy.

It’s a joy to be invited to the home of friends who bring their gracious hospitality and yummy food to our part of the world. Just recently, I had the pleasure of sitting down to lunch with an Afghan family.

I’ve learned so much from our Afghan friends who came here in the Fall of 2021. Not the least of which has been how to set a bountiful table without great resources.

Our town has a host of ethnic restaurants with a few exceptions. Armenian and Egyptian are two types of food for which I’ve not found a restaurant locally. Once a year, we have the treat of international food festivals featuring these cuisines. So good!!

Next weekend, it’s the Fourth Annual Egyptian Festival. How about you? Any foodies out there? Comment below what some of your international favorites are and if you cook them at home or have the joy of a local restaurant or festival.

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That’s the latest 5 Faves. Hope you have a restful weekend and energetic start to the coming week!

Bonuses:

My Son, Superhero in Training – Rachel Friedman

This is the way. https://t.co/pWlnjUSLzG
— Karen Swallow Prior (Notorious KSP at The Priory) (@KSPrior) September 8, 2023

I think there’s another word for this. Not sure but think it starts with a p. https://t.co/VLlphWO80E
— Drew (@drewdyck) September 10, 2023

Secularization Begins at Home – Lyman Stone

All Good Gifts, America, Arts, Attending or Focus, Bookmarked Summer, Books, Character, Communication, Community, Conversations, Critical Thinking, Decision-making, Emotions, Family

5 Friday Faves – Beyond the Guitar, “Thrive by Five” Parenting, Unexpected Wisdom, Confessional Communities, and Funerals

July 8, 2023 admindeb Leave a comment

Happy Friday! Welcome weekend. Rapid fire Friday Faves.

1) Beyond the Guitar – While Nathan’s “saddest song” arrangement on YouTube moves toward a million views, he continues to teach, arrange, and compose.

YouTube Video – This Scene from The Office Changed My Life #Shorts – Beyond the Guitar

2) “Thrive by Five” Parenting – Have you seen the TED Talk below? Start here…fascinating the impact of attuned parents on their babies.

YouTube Video – Molly Wright: How Every Child Can Thrive by Five – TED Talk – “Serve & return. Early & often.”

Photo Credit: YouTube, TED Talk, Thrive by Five

I so appreciate the work of psychiatrists/therapists Curt Thompson MD, Adam Young, Matthias Barker, Dan Siegel MD, and others.

Foster mom Jamie Finn posted on the first year of a baby’s life and how vital it is to build that foundation of secure attachment:

“Baby has a need, baby cries, attuned caregiver meets need, baby learns to trust. This is the basic foundation of the attachment cycle.

And it’s the foundation for every relationship and interaction a person has with the surrounding world from that point forward. Secure attachment teaches the child’s brain & body & beliefs: I am safe, people are trustworthy, the world makes sense.

The first year of life is the most developmentally significant, formative time of a child’s life.

The moments of motherhood that make up the first few months of a baby’s life go far beyond the present and profoundly impact the future of that little person. Every cry that’s responded to, need that’s met, and discomfort that’s soothed actually changes the brain’s chemistry and structure, the body’s ability to regulate and feel safe—the complete trajectory of a child’s life.

I don’t know how long this little one will be with me, and I don’t know if he’ll have memories of me. But I know that his brain and body will remember my nurturing care, and it will change his life forever.” – Jamie Finn

The 4 S’s of Secure Attachment and How They Impact Adult Relationships – Hope Gillette

Integrating Science, Culture and Anthropology: A New Journal Article Discusses Thrive by Five International’s Novel Scientific Framework

Thrive by Five – Ideas Hub

Thrive by Five – Minderoo

Facebook – Foster the Family – Jamie Finn – First year of life is the foundation for attachment.

Instagram – Foster the Family Blog – Jamie Finn

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=770770747740992&set=a.548292643322138

3) Unexpected Wisdom – We have a subscription to The Richmond Forum. It’s a lecture series with world-renowned speakers. Some are politicians, some actors, some writers, some private and public sector leaders, and all influencers. Two of my favorite speakers this year were actor and arts education advocate John Lithgow and a dialog between Dr. Cornel West and Thomas Chatterton Williams. The West and Williams dialog centered on “the absolute condemnation of no one”. Brilliant and redemptive!

Below are samples of their work including a longer version of the West/Williams conversation on another platform. Don’t miss it.

Photo Credit: John Lithgow, Richmond Forum

Never Play Music Right Next to the Zoo

YouTube Video – John Lithgow Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters

YouTube Video – Carnival of the Animals – John Lithgow

4) Confessional Communities – My absolute favorite podcast is Dr. Curt Thompson‘s Being Known. I’ve been listening (watching on YouTube) ever since Dr. Curt Thompson’s books changed my understanding of the mind/brain and community.

This season’s podcast focuses on confessional communities and if you only listen to one before you will want to listen to them all, here‘s the one.

Being Known Podcast – Dr. Curt Thompson & Pepper Sweeney

“We need others to bear witness to our deepest longings, our greatest joys, our most painful shame, and all the rest in order to have any sense at all of ourselves.” — Curt Thompson, MD

Confessional communities are not therapeutic groups as we have traditionally known as group therapy. However, they are also more than a Bible-study oriented small group, the kind we might experience as part of a church curriculum. Confessional communities require commitment of a deeper nature from participants who are willing to explore attachment, attunement, presence, and vulnerability – extending welcome and experiencing welcome, all seeking to be known and truly know and affirm each other.

Read Thompson’s books and listen/watch his podcasts for an excellent introduction to this process. I would love to be part of a confessional community…it will happen.

5) Funerals – Why a fave? Well…it comes after watching a British series involving an undertaker (the show had a great story-line but very adult-themed so will leave it at that). The funeral conversations, preparation, and executions were both poignant, sometimes oddly funny, and beautiful.

I was reminded of the funerals of people close to me – young nephew, parents, brother, father-in-law, uncles, aunts, friends and colleagues. It was a privilege to be present for many of these. Some we had to watch via live-stream which itself was a blessing…a perk that came out of the COVID era.

Photo Credit: Air Force, Defense Department

Looking back at images from our mom’s funeral and then our dad’s some 15 years later, memories washed over me. How honored they were by those officiating, how healing the conversations with family and friends (some whom we hadn’t seen in too many years). The care given to detail. The time given to both grieve their passing and celebrate their lives. Such a mix of emotions. Completely thankful for the gathering and strengthening of community that funerals facilitate.

Cremation is replacing burial more these days. We are rethinking our own choices on this. However, having a funeral is something I want for our children and grandchildren, in particular. Not for my sake but for theirs. They may not want this, and I get it, but my hope is they have helps to reflect, remember, and reorient. A funeral, or celebration of life, or memorial service – whatever it’s called makes a difference.

Doing Death Differently: Today’s Funerals Are Not Like They Used to Be – Elle Hunt

Should We Celebrate Funerals? – Kenneth J. Doka Ph.D.

Americans Avoiding Funerals and Not Leaving Their Mark

The Importance of Flags and Horses in American Military Funerals – Suzette Sherman

Well…it’s been a minute since I’ve pulled together a Friday Faves. Hope it was fun to read. Thanks for stopping by…it’s means more than you know. Have a restful weekend.

Bonuses

The Trait that “Super Friends” Have in Common – Marisa G. Franco

A phrase I would like retired from our cultural lexicon: “without further ado”
I just hate it, especially when someone really fancies up the “ado” (i.e. ad-you)
What’s a term or phrase you would like to see put to rest?
— Keith Foskey (@YourCalvinist) May 16, 2023

Harsh truths I know at 32 I wish I knew at 22.

1. Most of your friends aren’t really your friends.

(a visual thread) pic.twitter.com/CBhcloXG2R
— Sahil Bloom (@SahilBloom) May 20, 2023

Overthinking is the biggest cause of UNHAPPINESS.

It took me 9 years to beat OVERTHINKING.

Here are 8 ways you can beat OVERTHINKING: pic.twitter.com/IPeJx33WRe
— Mindset & Wealth Conqueror (@Mindsetconquer) May 20, 2023

Tim Keller – a Reflection and a Very Short Prayer – Scotty Smith – Facebook

[Here’s the full quote found in his forthcoming book, “All God’s Children” “Everyone is welcome” is drastically different from “we built this with you in mind.” People don’t want to go where they are merely tolerated, they want to go where they are included.”]

All Good Gifts, Attending or Focus, Attitude, Books, Cancer, Character, Community, Conversations, Courage, Critical Thinking

5 Friday Faves – Beyond the Guitar’s Latest, St. Patrick’s Day, 14-year-olds & Adulting, Soundtracks of Our Lives, and Wonder

March 19, 2023 admindeb 3 Comments

1) Beyond the Guitar’s Latest – If you’ve been on here before, you know classical guitarist Nathan Mills (Beyond the Guitar on YouTube). With nothing more needed, here are his latest videos.

YouTube Video – The Last of Us (HBO) Main Theme – Atmospheric Guitar Cover

YouTube Video – OCTOPATH TRAVELER 2 Main Theme – Classical Guitar Cover

2) St. Patrick’s Day – Big day around here although I’m not sure our town is so very Irish. Richmond is big on craft beer so maybe that’s a thing with St. Patty’s Day. I love celebrating because of the patron saint Patrick, all the green decor against the gray of winter, and corned beef and cabbage.

Does being Scottish make a difference in how much I love this holiday?

Worship Wednesday – St. Patrick’s Day – Be Thou My Vision – Deb Mills

3) 14-year-olds & Adulting – When do we begin preparing our children for adulthood? Is it middle school or earlier? Definitely waiting until high school will keep us to often in catch-up mode. Still it is never too late hopefully. My favorite book on this topic is Escaping the Endless Adolescence by Joseph Allen and Claudia Worrell Allen.

Instead of asking: “What will keep our teens out of trouble?” “What will make them happy?” or “What will get them into college?”, we need to switch our focus to a different set of queries: “How can we introduce realistic elements of adulthood into their worlds?” What activities best provide real feedback about their effort and skill?” and “Which other adults can we recruit to help pass our values on to them?” In short, we need to switch our focus from activities that reflect living happily as a teenager to activities that let our young people actually use their energy, connect with adults, and make choices that matter in order to begin moving successfully into adulthood. – Allen & Allen

In their helps for parents of teens (and younger children), the Allen’s coach how to guide kids to become contributing members of the family, how to give genuine, real-world feedback toward maturity, how to connect their kids with role model adults (including the parents themselves), and how to positively stretch their kids toward skill- and confidence-building.

Monday Morning Moment – Raising Adults – Part 1 – Responsibility Is Two Words – Deb Mills

Monday Morning Moment – Raising Adults – Part 2 – Creating a Culture of Serving – Deb Mills

This topic has really pressed in on me working with refugee families in the US. These children are in a world of change, trying to pick up language, school content, and American culture. No wonder they try to escape into their after-school screen lives. Chores exist but not much opportunity to engage with a larger community…especially where it really counts for them to show up and help.

Photo Credit: Caring For Our Generations

What do kids need to be successful heading into high school, besides the grades and understanding of school culture? Are there responsibilities (“response abilities”) which all young people need as part of their skill set?

Ellen Sturm Niz’s 12 Basic Life Skills Every Kid Should Know by High School warns against doing too much for our children, preventing them from learning how to do for themselves (AND others). She shares a list of basic life skills from How to Raise an Adult by Julie Lythcott-Haims. Any you would add?

Make a meal.
Wake themselves up on time.
Do laundry.
Pump gas.
Pitch in.
Advocate for themselves.
Pack their own bag.
Order at restaurants.
Talk to strangers.
Go grocery shopping.
Plan an outing.
Take public transportation.

14-Year-Old Child Development Milestones – Sherrie Gordon

Your Son at 14: Milestones

Stuck in Endless Adolescence – CBS Video – Interview with authors Joseph Allen and Claudia Worrell Allen, discussing a Pew Research Center study that 70 percent of people under 30 live with their parents.

4) Soundtracks of Our Lives – Our kids recently gave me the Jon Acuff book Soundtracks: The Surprising Solution to Overthinking. Such a surprising and encouraging read. One cool thing about Acuff’s writing is how he gives practical counsel from the first chapter. He doesn’t make you wait. Acuff defines soundtracks as “repetitive thoughts” – those memories and reactions that keep playing on repeat in our minds that cause us to choose a direction in life, often to avoid rather than embrace life and relationship. Overthinking too often communicates our fears back to ourselves, as if they are true and justified. Instead of ruminating on those moments of perceived rejection, felt failure, or self-doubt, we change up the soundtracks playing in the background of our lives. In moving away from broken soundtracks to new healing and helpful soundtracks, Acuff tells us to consider, “What do I want to be true?”

One of my broken soundtracks has been “I don’t finish well.” Too fuzzy-boundaried, distractible, interruptible. What if I flipped those parts of my personality? What if they became super-powers? What we tell ourselves about ourselves (and others, also) powerfully impacts the decisions we make and the directions we take. What if “finishing well” in my mind included compassion for others, curiosity, and wonder? Instead of beating myself up over what are perceived weaknesses, what if I disciplined them to be strengths?

For you, a broken soundtrack could be a hurtful memory that feels so real and ugly that you can’t imagine it could ever be healed. So you build walls around your heart to keep from thinking about it or the person who perpetrated that harm? Is it possible that your memory of that event has been made uglier by years of mulling it over and over in your mind? [Please do NOT hear me discount trauma. I do not.] What you can consider, as Acuff writes, is that memory can be re-visited such that it doesn’t determine your direction today. New possibilities are available to you, even in re-thinking the memory. Healing is possible.

4 Soundtracks to Survive the Holidays – Jon Acuff Podcast – great advice for any time of the year; any family gathering or work retreat, for instance.

5) Wonder – Wonder is my word for this year. It is defined as “a splendid or conspicuous work, a miracle, a marvel”. We are surrounded by wonderful, beautiful, tangible objects, processes, and people. And wonders beyond our reach that cause us to pause and…wonder.

Our short-sightedness at such things can be an effect of where we settle our gaze, or hearing, or thoughts. Screens can either point us to wondrous things beyond our experience or shrink our worlds to the size of a phone, tablet, or computer/TV.

Look up. Get close. Be quiet a moment and listen.

Let’s never lose the wonder of the beauty that surrounds us. The beauty we experience…even in hard places. Even in suffering.

Kara Tippetts and family. In the moment. Before she went to her heavenly Home.

My beautiful amazing Mom – Now 20 years in Heaven.

My dad’s hands. Sleeping. Peaceful. Hospice at home with family.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

That’s it for this week. So many faves to choose from. Any you want to share? Comment below. Until next time. Thanks for stopping by.

Bonuses:

Photo Credit: Twitter, Dr. Amy Cooper Hakim

Money Hours – Steve Keating

Photo Credit: Quote Fancy, Jon Acuff Quotes

Top 70 Jon Acuff Quotes

All Good Gifts, Books, Christmas, Community, Conversations, Courage, Decision-making, Finishing Strong, fresh start, Friday Faves

5 Friday Faves – New Year’s Resolutions, Habit Planner, Year-End Review, Word for the Year, and the Last Days of 2022

January 1, 2023 admindeb 2 Comments

[Adapted from the Archives]

2022 is rapidly winding down. Whew! to finish out the year, these Friday Faves can help us get ready for the new year…hopefully a joyful one!

1) New Year’s Resolutions – 2022…the end is in sight. What do we do with this new year ahead? Do we revisit those habits we thought about changing up in this year? Maybe so. Or maybe we didn’t alter course so much for good reason. Let’s give pause a moment and consider…

I take New Year’s resolutions seriously. They have served me well through the years in shaking up troublesome habits as well as galvanizing better ones. New (or restored) habits that nurture the body, the spirit….and, when possible, family and community.

New Year’s resolutions are not always exercises in futility. They can be excellent pathways to a strong start into the next year. Some of my family and friends treat resolutions with disdain…they never work; they never last. Oh, but not always!

They can be super energizing. Whether we meet our goals or not, there is great promise within the resolution for resetting our thinking. A keen sense of self, or self-awareness, aids in our understanding of habits and true habit change.

Without knowing it, I have actually used a practice of habit change that Ken Sande writes about on his blog, Relational Wisdom 360. He first influenced my life years ago with his work on conflict resolution through his Peacemaker Ministries. He is a gentle guide in many of the issues that complicate our lives.

His article on Seven Principles of Habit Change came at a great time. Sande talks quite kindly about how we develop habits and what it takes to change them. His first principle of habit change gives us a look at the cycle of habits – the cue, the routine (or response), and the reward. I have actually followed Ken Sande’s principles below (without knowing the wisdom of it).

Every habit has three parts: a cue, a routine, and a reward.
You can change an undesirable habit by keeping the cue and reward but learning a new routine.
The best way to overcome the temptation to revert to old routines is to have a detailed action plan.
Habit change builds momentum if you can change a single “keystone habit” and then continue to build on consecutive “small wins”.
Will power is like a muscle: it can be strengthened and yet needs to be exerted strategically.
Faith is an essential part of changing habits.
Habit change is more likely to occur within a community (even if it’s just two people). – Ken Sande

Self-awareness is a huge factor relating to habit change. I can see that more now having come through seasons of looking at my own habits.

“Self-awareness is defined as conscious knowledge of oneself; it’s a stepping stone to reinventing oneself, learning to make wiser decisions, and helps you tune into your thoughts and feelings. So often we place blame on externalities because it’s the easiest excuse, when in fact we should be thinking about our thinking, reflecting, trying on different perspectives, and learning from our mistakes.” – Paul Jun

It is possible to affect true habit change if we are willing to take a studied look at ourselves – our awareness and our engagement with making choices/decisions, singularly and within relationship. I used to think that self-awareness was morally charged, i.e., it drove us to become more self-centered. That doesn’t have to be the case. When we take time to really examine where our minds go, through the day, we can train our thinking toward what matters most – related to people, resources, and life purpose.

New Year’s Resolutions and Reality Checks – Wally Bock

When we are willing to do that, New Year’s resolutions can become much more transformative than just a few weeks of good intentions. These habit change principles can apply to anger issues, pornography, other addictions, and pretty much any habitual process that negatively affects your work, relationships or general peace of mind.

Five years back, our pastor Cliff at Movement Church challenged us to commit to some resolutions to the Lord…together [podcast of 12/31/2017 here]. That was such a pivotal exercise that I have kept the resolutions made that day in a visible place, to be reminded of the good change in life, and the struggle… Still in view…five years out. Still relevant to now. For 2023, on it again.

Jonathan Edwards, the great 18th century preacher and theologian, definitely understood the importance of praying through and writing out resolutions that would inform his daily life. Over the course of several months, he composed seventy resolutions for life. You can read them here. The five resolutions I made during church on a New Year’s Eve are weighty enough for me…can’t imagine 70! Edwards just gives an example of a man who, even as deeply devoted as he already was, did not want to miss God in a busy life of ministry. Nor did he want to miss the people God placed in his life.

Resolutions help us to keep the main thing the main thing. Sure, we may struggle to keep our bodies and houses in order. Those are temporary situations. Where we hope most to be successful is in keeping our hearts tuned to what matters most. Going deep with God and others. Even with the continuing threat of COVID...if we are ruthless and wise, and don’t give in to another year of listlessness and waiting.

Resolved – The Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards

Do You Want to Change Your Habits? – Relational Wisdom – Ken Sande

Habit Change is a Team Project – Ken Sande

Seven Principles of Habit Change – Relational Wisdom – Ken Sande

Make Habits, Not Resolutions – Justin Whitmel Earley

Why Self-Awareness Is the Secret Weapon for Habit Change– Paul Jun

RW Acrostics in Action– Relational Wisdom – Ken Sande

Ten Questions for a New Year – Don Whitney – Desiring God

Need Help With Your New Year’s Resolutions? – David Lose

New Year’s Resolutions After a Year as Lousy as 2020? There’s One I think We Need More Than Ever – Heidi Stevens – This is a great read about being stone-catchers – protecting the most vulnerable from the stones thrown at them.

2) Habit Planner –Anyone who knows the writing of Justin Whitmel Earley knows his commitment to a life well-lived. He is determined to live intentionally, not leaving the substance of his life to outside powers or sloppy habits.

“Unlike resolutions, we actually become our habits. There are no changed lives outside of changed habits. And if we want to actually change, we need to take a sober look at where our habits are leading us.” – Justin Whitmel Earley

“Habits are the little things we do over and over without thinking about them. And the tiny and subconscious nature of habits makes them powerful. Why? Because they create our “normal.” Normal life is what stays with you from January through December. Normal life is what shapes your kids, your body, your schedule, and your heart.” – Justin Whitmel Earley

His two books – The Common Rule and Habits of the Household – lay out a simple path for examining our current lives and then setting strategy for habit change. So accessible and engaging whatever our preferences for methods are. If spreadsheets help, he has one for you. If you need a more fuzzy-boundaried approach (that would be me), you can glean from his wisdom, and alter course accordingly.

Below are his own examples of the habit planner. I appreciate his heart so much. He helps us all he can (in his books and free resources):

Photo Credit: Justin Whitmel Earley, Screenshots

Habits of the Household – Habit Planner – pdf – Justin Whitmel Earley

Make Habits, Not Resolutions – Justin Whitmel Earley

Unlock the Power of Family Habits in 2022 – Justin Whitmel Earley

3) Year-End Review – Business writer Stephen Jones shares author Tim Ferriss’ practice of doing a quick past year review. Ferriss prefers this over new year’s resolutions, and Jones gives a quick snapshot of his 5 steps.

Below is Tim Ferriss’ guide for a past year review from his own blog (and podcast):

Grab a notepad and create two columns: POSITIVE and NEGATIVE.
Go through your calendar from the last year, looking at every week.
For each week, jot down on the pad any people or activities or commitments that triggered peak positive or negative emotions for that month. Put them in their respective columns.
Once you’ve gone through the past year, look at your notepad list and ask, “What 20% of each column produced the most reliable or powerful peaks?”
Based on the answers, take your “positive” leaders and schedule more of them in the new year. Get them on the calendar now! Book things with friends and prepay for activities/events/commitments that you know work. It’s not real until it’s in the calendar. That’s step one. Step two is to take your “negative” leaders, put “NOT-TO-DO LIST” at the top, and put them somewhere you can see them each morning for the first few weeks of 2022. These are the people and things you *know* make you miserable, so don’t put them on your calendar out of obligation, guilt, FOMO, or other nonsense.

We do a year-end review but not in order to plan out the next year. Mostly to celebrate the year rapidly coming to an end and to reflect on how we might reorder the course of the next year (re the negatives).

4) Word for the Year –Two years ago, I read Debbie Macomber‘s book One Perfect Word. She tells fascinating stories of persons’ choosing a word to guide their year. Finishing her book and praying a bit, the word compassion became my focus. 2021 was a good year for that as we dealt with so many divisions over COVID, race, politics, etc. Compassion for all on both sides of each issue.

At first I wasn’t going to do “a word” for 2022, and then a rapid series of “coincidences” drew me to the word: joy. As 2021 ended, I had become negative and even a bit cynical. Still having faith in God but not so much in humans, including myself. Even after a year of compassion!!

It dawned on me that I hadn’t been “counting it all joy”. Or remembering that “the joy of the Lord is my strength”. My heart was resolved to be set on joy in 2022…no matter what.

Lord, help us to be people of joy,

to notice joy in this day and to hope for joy in days to come,

to look for light and share it with others this Advent season,

to see beauty in creation and the people we encounter,

to laugh heartily with childlike glee,

to feel true joy in your presence. Amen.

Now looking at 2023…what word? For awhile, I thought the word would be persevere. Dave and I both agreed that perseverance is essential but did I want to make it my word of the year? Prayed that one down. Then in the last several days, the Lord keeps bringing the word wonder to mind.

In the start of 2023, I’m studying Tyler Staton‘s book Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools: An Invitation to the Wonder and Mystery of Prayer. During this Christmas season, the song I Wonder as I Wander stayed with me for days.

I’m thinking God is preparing me for a year full of wonder…with eyes fixed on Him.

5) The Last Days of 2022 – What a year! Losses and gains as most years bring. The losses feel more lonely, and the gains more glorious. Maybe it’s my age, but as this year ends, I’m just incredibly grateful for God, for life, for loves in this life…and for opportunity…welcoming 2023 holding onto God and those around us…with joy and wonder.

Now on to 2023!! Thanks for stopping by. It means a lot.

Bonuses:

Resolve in 2013 to mend fences, repair broken bridges, build appropriate gates, and tear down unnecessary walls. — Burk Parsons @burkparsons

Christmas Ads 2022 – YouTube Playlist – 100 different commercials in lots of languages and traditions!

How to Stop All Procrastination: Dear You Trying to Do that Hard Thing in the New Year – Ann Voskamp (great piece on procrastination and perfectionism – both keeping us from presenting the gifts God’s given us)

Vimeo Video by Rodrigo Souza – Heart – with Nathan Mills, Beyond the Guitar

52 Week Bible Reading Plan – Michael Coley

Photo Credit: Facebook

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5 Friday Faves – Beyond the Guitar – Magic on a Cheap Guitar, the Most Repeated Command in the Bible, the Evercrisp Apple, (Dis)Comfort Zone, and Old Friends

November 8, 2022 admindeb Leave a comment

Friday Faves – coming in hot! Days later. Life races on, doesn’t it?!

1) Beyond the Guitar – Magic on a Cheap Guitar – Sweet original composition by classical guitarist Nathan Mills at Beyond the Guitar. Showcasing two very different guitars…or rather what the difference – pretty much, it’s the guitarist, not the guitar. [Not to say the beautiful David J. Pace guitar isn’t his go-to instrument for all his guitar work/performances…but to emphasize it is the one playing it, whatever the guitar is, that makes the music.] Photo Credit: Beyond the Guitar

YouTube Video – Beyond the Guitar – #100 Mini Guitar vs. $10,000 Guitar

Beyond the Guitar – Fingerstyle Journey – 90 Days to Beautiful Playing

2) The Most Repeated Command in the Bible – Even more than “Love the Lord your God” or “Love your neighbor as yourself. The most repeated command is “Do not be afraid”.

Something to think about because we are surrounded to fearsome situations…yet, we are not to fear. How do we keep from it?

By practicing remembering. Remembering the provision of God in times past. Remembering the goodness of God in all we have in life right now – people who love us, work and other resources, health and/or helps toward restoring health, time, meaning, forgiveness, and beauty surrounding us.

Photo Credit: Heartlight

We have circumstances that tempt us to fear, but we also have God’s promises to bring us through those circumstances. Fear itself robs us from sound thinking. Photo Credit: Flickr

The tricky thing about fear is that we can’t necessarily stop it from happening. It comes over us. However, we can keep it from overwhelming us…determining to live in the freedom and light of what is true, instead of what could happen. God is there for that as well.

When fear messes with our relationships or makes us timid to enter new ones, we can take courage in the command “Do not be afraid”. This week in our church, in The Art of Neighboring, we studied about fear in neighboring relationships. 1 Peter 3:14 (quoting from Isaiah 8:12) Do we allow fear of rejection or fear of our differences keep us from leaning into each other? What if we leave fear out of the equation in caring for one another? That’s the better path.

“Do not be afraid.”

The Art of Neighboring

Photo Credit: Heartlight

3) The Evercrisp Apple – One of the best parts of this time of year is the Fall apple harvest. Honeycrisp, Pink Lady, and Cosmic Crisp apples have been our favorite in recent years…until this Fall, when we discovered the Evercrisp apple. Wow!

We discovered this apple on a recent trip across Virginia toward the Appalachian Mountains. The Apple Shed delivers on several types of apples and introduced us to this one.

Once back in Richmond, we were thrilled to find it sold locally from the Saunders Brothers Orchards. Woohoo!!

A small delight in life but, for this season, a huge one. What’s your favorite apple?

4) (Dis)Comfort Zone – Is the phrase “comfort zone” a first world experience? I don’t think so. It is a universal idea – a place where we feel safe and soothed. A bad thing? Not necessarily except for how it insulates us from the rest of life. What if developing our capacity for discomfort helps us to live more fully, more in community?

Jason Seib, a health and selfcare coach, has actually built his whole platform on embracing a (dis)comfort zone. He teaches how we can maneuver around our uncomfortable moments in healthy ways.

If you go to his website, his home page currently seems all about his workshop (which I haven’t taken although it is reasonable cost-wise). However, hang in there. He also extends solid content to non-subscribers through his podcasts and social media pages. I think that speaks to his integrity as someone who actually cares about people wherever we are in our comfort zones.

The main message for us in his coaching is that we reach for food, alcohol, or other addictive substances or activities when faced with discomfort. Our temptation is to do whatever we can to restore comfort. Jason Seib points to developing skills in sharpening our awareness of discomfort when it happens and respond in ways that don’t harm us.

Jason Seib Facebook

Jason Seib Podcasts

Jason Seib reminds me of counselor Brad Hambrick whose webinar on “Growing in Negative Emotion Tolerance” was extremely helpful for me. Seib and Hambrick both talk about the importance of us recognizing that negative emotions are not necessarily bad [they are actually informative] but how we respond to them matters.

Photo Credit: SermonLab, Brad Hambrick

Counselor Brad Hambrick

5) Old Friends – This week has been one of celebrating old friends – visits both here and states away with people who have stayed the course with me through years and years.

I don’t know about you, but loneliness is a real time experience for me. So many moves and changes for us. A different season – children grown with their own lives, me now in retirement sorta kinda, and most of my closest friends living far from where we now live.

It gives pause to reflect on friendship and revisiting the kind of friend I am and hope to be. A key to having old friends in our every day life is continuing to reach out and nurture those relationships. I’m working on it…and trying to show up for these friends who have shown up for me. They, and others like them, point the way.

Old friends, even while not on the daily or even the regular, have the rare quality of history. Memory. Understanding. Loving anyway, through seasons of neglect, distraction, and loss. Old friends remain.

So grateful for forever friends – people who know us well and love us anyway. Singer, songwriter Michael W. Smith‘s song says it all:

Bonuses:

I Raised 2 Successful CEOs and a Doctor. Here’s the ‘Unpopular’ Parenting Rule I Always Used on My Kids – Esther Wojcicki

Photo Credit: Facebook

Photo Credit: Mark Allan – Mark’s Musings: God, the Proud Father

The Many Paths to Better Mental Health – a List of Excellent Resources

Shame vs. Guilt Infographic

Photo Credit: nicabm

Photo Credit: TobyMac, Facebook

“Come deeper. The waves won’t knock you down back here!”

Deeper in the Word
Deeper in Prayer
Deeper in Worship
Deeper in love with Jesus

Yes, the waves will still come, regular and strong.
But in the deep…
We will have peace,
We will be comforted,
We will have healing,
We will have restoration,
We will have joy,
Because we will be moving with The One who controls the winds and waves.

Go on, my sweet friends…go deeper.
HE is waiting. – Kristin Crawford Kerley, Facebook

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5 Friday Faves – A Lullaby by Beyond the Guitar, the Art of Neighboring, the Beauty of Fall, Ethnic Foods, and Telling Our Stories

September 25, 2022 admindeb 1 Comment

Friday Faves. Here we go!

1) A Lullaby by Beyond the Guitar – Nathan Mills has been on hiatus from his public YouTube channel as he worked through the summer creating course content for his other channels. Big news: he’s back!!

Photo Credit: YouTube, Beyond the Guitar

Talking through and then performing his treatment of the Game of Thrones theme (his previous arrangements of this can be found here). He takes Ramin Djawadi‘s epic piece and makes it into an ethereal lullaby. Just plain gorgeous.

2) The Art of Neighboring – Several years ago, my husband and I landed in an incredible neighborhood. With great neighbors. As happens, our neighborhood has changed significantly with elderly neighbors downsizing and moving away and new families coming in. The tight-knit feeling we had toward each other has changed…not lost but changed.

This Fall, our community group at church is studying “The Art of Neighboring”. This aligns closely with my deep dive, over the last several months, into our need for being known.

Being Known Podcast with Curt Thompson MD

Photo Credit: Art of Neighboring

There is neighboring where we might know someone by sight or even name, but little else. Then there is neighboring which leans in, where we know each other in ways that honors, enjoys, and serves.

It’s an art and it adds to our quality of lives and that of each other in immeasurable ways.Photo Credit: Grace Fellowship, The Art of Neighboring

The Art of Neighboring – Website, Book, Resources – Jay Pathak & Dave Runyon

3) The Beauty of Fall – Just a quick salute to the end of summer and beginning of Fall. Cooler weather prompting pulling out our hoodies and cozying up to fire pits. The harvest continues. The flowers, many going to seed, still have a glory that moves artists to paint. And pumpkins!

Photo Credit: Karen Burnette Garner, Facebook

4) Ethnic Foods – Our family has had the rich experience of living in several countries and enjoying the yummy “home cooking” of local friends. Some of that food is also sold by street vendors or in tiny restaurants for such a cheap price you wonder how they can afford to sell it, except for the volume of customers.

We search out those authentic food opportunities here, and various food festivals help fill the bill. Recently, we attended Armenian and Egyptian food festivals. So good! Visiting friends took us on the hunt of discovering new restaurants serving up foods so good they could have been cooked in mama’s homes.

In America, ethnic foods are not cheap. Part of that, I’m sure, is the cost of ingredients and labor. I couldn’t imagine paying the equivalent of $12 for a falafel sandwich when we lived overseas. Here, I’m just glad for the opportunity.

What Is ‘Ethnic’ Food? – Aaron Hutcherson

In the Hutcherson piece linked above, the phrase “ethnic food” may even be offensive in today’s cancel culture. Of me, it’s the best of home cooking served outside the home. America is such a cultural “melting pot” that we may come to the place where international foods become a part of the American food culture. Blended in. Beautifully.

“American food is the mixture of all food brought by our immigrants. Perhaps the recipes have been tweaked a little here, but they originate from past cultures, from identities new and old, and from our ethnic nation. Ethnic food is American food.”

This encouraging American ideal explains why Americans long to assimilate almost every food culture into their diets. It is socially encouraged to be more and more inclusive. The main way people try to find common ground is through food.

Ethnic food can best be described as a classification for types of food favored by cultural groups of people. This is different from authentic, which is a word used to describe food as something genuine or real. American cuisine may be classified as being only ethnic food because of the rich cultural diversity of its population. – DevTome

Still…I think we foodies will still look for the dining experiences that take us back to our mom’s table…or that table of friends in far-away places. Sweet memories.

Here in Virginia, we have an ethnic equivalent of food that’s hard to find anywhere but here and it’s Ukrop’s – a family-owned bakery, deli, and grocery business that’s been around since 1937. Their baked goods are very American. I say this because we have been told, by our international friends, that American sweets are “too sweet” for them. Maybe this is one American food that is uniquely American. I don’t know…but it’s good! No one does buttercream frosting like Ukrop’s.

4) Telling Our Stories – Storytelling is in our very DNA. We appreciate the stories that draw us in – whether through books or film – or in the telling of our own lives.

Memory tends to embellish. A detail is added or emphasized beyond what really happened.

“Well, all good stories deserve embellishment.” – J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

The Link Between Memory and Stories – Shawn Callahan

Embellishment entertains but what if our memory of an event or conversation stays the same even as we have grown into a person who has changed.

I think of childhood trauma or an incident that changed the course of our relationship with a person or organization. Sometimes all it takes is one circumstance.

Something may come to mind right now.

Is that a something that you want to affect your story forever?

Many of you may never have seen the 1981 British sports film Chariots of Fire. If you haven’t I highly recommend it. It gives an account of the Olympic Games of 1924. In particular, two runners, who compete against each other, are the focus. Two runners with very different stories.

Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell.

These two athletes had two very different stories…very different motivations and goals for life. In the film, some of their story may be fictionalized, but there are lessons for us here. Check out the film clips linked below.

“10 lonely seconds [will] justify my whole existence.” – Abrahams

“When I run, I feel His pleasure.” – Eric Liddell

[An extra: In the film, Eric was pushed off the track during an Olympic race, falling to the ground. He got back on his feet and got back on the track. In the crowd, a man was asked if Eric could do (recover the time lost), and he said, “his head’s not back yet”. Eric would put his head back as he felt the pleasure of God on him. And where did the power come from? Another clip.]

YouTube Video – He Who Honors God – Chariots of Fire – don’t miss this scene.

What is your story? Whether you know it or not, you’re telling a story? Is it the one you want to be remembered for? Or is there a healing, a reconciliation, a resolve you want to leave behind as part of your legacy?

Something to consider.

___________________________________________________________________________

That’s it for this week. Hope you have a delightful weekend. Thanks for stopping by.

Bonuses:

8 Rules to Do Everything Better – Brad Stulberg

What To Do When You Feel Like You Don’t Fit in at Work – Lisa Evans

How to Say the Unsayable – 10 Ways to Approach a Sensitive Daunting Conversation – Kathryn Mannix

Photo Credit: Facebook, Marjolein Bastin

Aging, All Good Gifts, Attending or Focus, Beauty of God's Creation, Bookmarked Summer, Books, Character, Community, Conversations, Family, Finishing Strong, Friday Faves, Friends, Friendship, Grace, Growing up, Guitar, Hospitality, Leadership, Legacy, Lessons Learned, Loneliness, Love Your Neighbor, Marginalized People, Marriage, Memories, Mom and Dad, Music, Neighbors, Parenting, Purpose, Relationships, Remembering, Social Media, Technology, Transformational

5 Friday Faves – Beyond the Guitar Medleys, Life Online, Late Summer, the Older Generation, and Friendship

September 4, 2022 admindeb 2 Comments

Friday Faves…here we go!

1) Beyond the Guitar Medleys – Music themes can fill us with such emotion – deep nostalgia about a shared experience, a memorable adventure, or a sweet story. Really great soundtracks often have several themes that draw us in and take us back. Nathan Mills, at Beyond the Guitar, has arranged and performed some lovely medleys from such music scores. Here are some of them (5 faves for Friday) and the rest are at the bottom of today’s blog:

2) Life Online – Obviously, if you’re reading this, then you’re online. The thing is, our lives have been greatly enhanced by the benefits of technology. We do, from time to time, need to revisit our habits which might include time spent online and for what purposes.

So much has been written already about the downside of screen-time and the prevalence of smartphone addiction. The distractions, mental laziness, shallow thinking, almost communication.

My husband got his first smartphone for work around 2005 or after. The rest of our family slowly moved in that direction.

I personally spend way too much time online. Sometimes for positive outcomes, sometime just because it has become knee-jerk…a time-filler. It’s what I do now unfortunately. When I used to carry a book around in my purse.

It could be addiction, and that’s got to change.

Photo Credit: Science Info

“The same chemicals are released in your brain when you get a text message as when you drink an alcoholic beverage, smoke a cigarette or gamble. What in essence is happening is we’re allowing children from 6 to 10 years of age access to our liquor cabinet when we give them a smartphone. They’re constantly texting so they’re continually getting high.” – John Gatica

Our Brains on Smartphones

John Gatica is an educator, and his observations regarding children and neuroscience are sobering. Now not all texts are happy for adults, but the addiction phenomenon still holds true.

“Life online is a whiplash between deep sorrow, unexpected joy, cheap laughs, profound thoughts, and dumb memes.” – Tony Reinke

12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You – Tony Reinke – Quotes – Book is here.

Our phones give the illusion of presence…and good. We are doing “good” with a text to a friend or family member – a text taking the place of a full-on “showing up”. Social media have grown a forest over our sleepy selves where we become lazy and reactive (mildly or harshly depending on the subject matter).

Now I’ll take a text over no contact. What the concern here is more what is happening to us when our online life is more real to us than our actual face-to-face, with skin-on, encounters with people… What’s going on in our brains long-term? Something to think about.

For more than a few seconds.

The Effects of Smartphones on Your Brain – Kendra Cherry

Is Social Media Making us Stupid? – Alex Kantrowitz

3) Late Summer – My sweet husband’s garden is all a tangle now. The vegetables are finishing up, and the flowers, though still beautiful, are winding down. As the feel of Fall teases us in the early mornings, I wanted to capture, once again, for your enjoyment and my own, some of this not-to-be-undone late summer garden of ours. Please post some of your own beauties below.

4) Older Generation – Just want to give a quick shout-out to the older generation – our parents and others who have graced our lives with wisdom, beauty, humor and Godly values.

When our children gather around our table, I realize we are fast becoming the older generation. We have one precious mom left this side of Heaven and hopefully she will be with us for many years more. I am thankful for her – and all I’ve learned from her over the years… Hopefully our own adult children and the grands will take every opportunity to lean in to her wisdom and love. We are a bit of an “old soul” family and I’m thankful for each one in this family.

“But I know people who as children had their grandparents’ memories in their memories, so that in a sense, as young people
they had old minds. They had a kind of seasoning.” Wendell Berry, 1973 [Source undetermined]

So here’s just a bit of gratitude for the older generations…those who give us a glimpse into the future which can seem too dark at times, and yet with faith in a good God and a love that holds us together, we take hope. Thankful for three sweet parents who have gone on ahead…and for MomMom still very much with us, encouraging us always.

Do you have the pleasure and great good of the company of “olders”?

YouTube Video – Mother – (Love Bigger Than the Ocean Is What You’ve Given to Me)

5) Friendship – Friendships have always come easy for me and I’m thankful. A few years back, I read Scott Sauls‘ book Befriend. It was both affirming and convicting as the realization that friendship, like marriage, takes nurturing…more than maybe I was giving. Then 2020 happened and the Coronavirus wreaked havoc on relationships, isolating us from one another.

Fast forward to 2022, and I find myself very much needing Jennie Allen‘s latest book Find Your People. Oddly, her online study (shades of COVID Zoom calls) drew me to the book. Finishing the study this coming week, I now want to take her counsel in finding my people.

Allen talks about how we can quite accidentally just stop investing in relationships. Our post-COVID culture has pushed us into even more independence and self-reliance than we had before. We isolate without even thinking about it and our days move quietly on.

Maybe that isn’t your experience…so hang in there with me.

Allen reflects back on how life through the ages flourishes within community. More a village experience than whatever it is we have today. People know each other and they are invested in each other. She lists out the realities necessary for healthy community:

Proximity
Transparency
Accountability (real connection)
Shared Mission
Consistency

It’s out of this realm that true friendship grows. Spending time together. Being our real selves. Allowing others to speak into our lives. Teaming together for a greater good. Showing up again and again.

These are the basic elements of community…and friendship.

If you are experiencing the loneliness of untended friendships, Allen’s book will help. If you just can’t put another book in your queue right now, at least consider what’s going on in your friendships. I’m not talking about acquaintanceships either. Deep, beautiful, lasting friendships.

Let’s get back out there and find our people.Photo Credit: Find Your People, Jennie Allen

[The liturgy below doesn’t really focus on friendship, but it speaks to hospitality which also took a hit with COVID. A beautiful prayer.]Photo Credit: Tiffany Holden, Facebook, Rabbit Room Chinwag

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Thanks for stopping by. It means a lot. Hope you have a weekend full of your people…with quiet in between.

Bonuses:

Even Tolkien Felt Like a Failure – Scott Sauls

An incredibly helpful Twitter thread on marriage:

Four years ago we were in an awful marriage.

Our HOUSE wasn’t a HOME,
it was a war zone.

•We said the D word.
•We didn’t speak days at a time.
•My kids could’ve not had a dad.

Here’s the steps we took to fix us & how it’s now better than the honeymoon!!

— Tyler Todt (@tyromper) September 3, 2022

[Trip to Cracker Barrel]

3 Simple Habits that Can Protect Your Brain From Cognitive Decline – Tara Swart

Photo Credit: AZ Quotes, C. S. Lewis

Photo Credit: Facebook, Rabbit Room Chinwag

*The rest of Beyond the Guitar’s medleys (so far):

Adoption, Aging, All Good Gifts, Attitude, Babies & Children, Bookmarked Summer, Books, Character, Communication, Community, Contentment, Conversations, Daughters and Sons, Family, Finishing Strong, Food & Drink, Friday Faves, God, Grace, Growing up, Guitar, Habits, Healing, Home, Kindness, Leadership, Legacy, Lessons Learned, Life Skills, Love, Love Your Neighbor, Music, Parenting, Purpose in Life, Redeeming & Restoring, Relationships, Remembering, Resilience, Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving or Gratefulness

5 Friday Faves – Beyond the Guitar Nostalgia, Parents & Adult Children, Welcome to Holland, Food Fit for Memory-Making, and Boundaries that Define Us

August 7, 2022 admindeb Leave a comment

This week’s Friday Faves – GO!

1) Beyond the Guitar Nostalgia – How about all the feels from musical themes of favorite old movies? That’s what happens for us when Nathan arranges and performs themes from films we love.

While he takes a brief hiatus from his usual YouTube channel to focus on other work, only we Patreon subscribers get to hear the latest (subscribe). He is creating some new instructional content which makes me want to learn classical guitar. In this bit of time in the interim, I decided to highlight some of his arrangements already appreciated by 500k-plus YouTube subscribers. Enjoy. Oh, and comment below a favorite song of yours that he arranges/performs.

YouTube Video – The Last of the Mohicans: Promentory – Classical Guitar Cover

YouTube Video – How to Train Your Dragon – Romantic Flight (Classical Guitar Cover)

YouTube Video – Pure Imagination (Willy Wonka) – Classical Guitar Cover

YouTube Video – The Lion King Main Theme (“This Land”) on Guitar

YouTube Video – Amazing Grace Meets Classical Guitar (Epic Version) – this one Nathan did as a request from his mom and dad. So beautiful. Thanks again, Nae.

2) Parents & Adult Children – If we have grandchildren, then we have adult children. Loving them both in ways they understand is a crucial part of our life journey. This week I came across 3 excellent and empowering articles by author, counselor Dennis Rainey. If you want to parent adult children well, these articles have wise and applicable counsel for you. You adult children might enjoy them as well. The articles are linked below along with a couple of others that are also treasures.

Sometimes, we can be hard on our adult children. Too many demands or expectations. I’m sure I’m not alone with bringing my own vision into the present of what our family would look like, all grown-up with little ones. To be honest, they can also be hard on us (without even realizing it). However, what’s more important? The people in these relationships! Full-stop. Our kids have their own sharp learning curves of life without pressure from mom and dad to bend in our direction. It’s enough to see them when we can and cheer them on in their own new life configurations. If they make choices we would not make…it doesn’t change the love. Remember they also deal with the choices we make.

Read the articles. You’ll be glad you did.

“Life is a pilgrimage of learning, a voyage of discovery, in which our mistaken views are corrected, our distorted notions adjusted, our shallow opinions deepened and some of our vast ignorances diminished.” – John Stott

Right-sizing Relationships with Your Adult Children; 9 Tips for Communicating Love to Your Adult Children; and Showing “Grown-up Love” to Your Adult Children – Dennis Rainey
Deb Wolf‘s How to Love Your Adult Children Really Well is pure wisdom and worth your read.
Alison Wright‘s The Death of the Family Gathering – We’re in a season when extended family gatherings are rare, happening over a funeral or wedding. My birth family never did reunions but they always looked so fun. We would, from time to time, gather at grandparents at the same time, but it was never planned. Wright’s article touched my heart. We work to make family dinners happen once a month and a family vacation each year. Worth the battle with busy schedules.

3) Welcome to Holland – This goes out to you who are parents, siblings, extended family or friends of children/adults with special needs or medical complexities. A friend introduced me this week to “Welcome to Holland”, a beautiful essay by Emily Perl Kingsley. My friend has a medically complex child, and so did I.

“Did” only because he is grown now. When he was little, he had major struggles and still has some of the aftermath of those struggles and always will.

When Dan came home to us through adoption, we knew he would have his challenges, but you’re never prepared for the twists and turns of that through childhood and into adulthood. With all the trips to doctors and therapists, meetings with teachers, and one-on-one times with him as the topic, there was still his joy that kept us marveling at this wonder.

He was an incredibly exuberant kid and seemed far less bothered by his struggles than we were.

A friend, years ago, asked us, regarding Dan, “What’s it like to have a ticker tape parade thrown for you, every time he sees you?”

It was something very special.

So…welcome to Holland.

Welcome To Holland

by Emily Perl Kingsley

Reprinted by permission of the author.

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability – to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It’s like this……

When you’re going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip – to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It’s all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The flight attendant comes in and says, “Welcome to Holland.”

“Holland?!?” you say. “What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I’m supposed to be in Italy. All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy.”

But there’s been a change in the flight plan. They’ve landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven’t taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It’s just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It’s just a different place. It’s slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you’ve been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around…. and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills….and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

Pin on Windmills Photo Credit: Pinterest

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy… and they’re all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say “Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go. That’s what I had planned.”

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away… because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But… if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things … about Holland.

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Love you, Dan.

4) Food Fit for Memory-Making – Writing for the last two weeks has been on the back burner. We’ve been traveling, seeing friends, and enjoying great food as part of those experiences. Now that we’re back home, eating to live more than living to eat will have to be restored to the daily.

However, can I just celebrate great food for a moment. The images below take us back, just the last two weeks, to food shared with friends in beautiful spaces. An anniversary was celebrated and Dave got his Butterfinger Blizzard – a twice-a-year indulgence which never disappoints.

My mom’s cooking has settled deep in my memories since she’s been in Heaven for 20 years now. Nothing like her biscuits and gravy, Thanksgiving dinners, and vegetable soup and cornbread. Sweet memories of her and the food she prepared. Memories imprinted by food shared together.

The memories we’ve made recently, accompanied by food, will suffice for now. Bon appétit .

Shyndigz – a local desserterie. Their fresh fruit cake has always been my favorite UNTIL they’ve recently introduced a Tres Leches cake. Once a month it will tempt me for sure…so amazingly good!

5) Boundaries that Define Us – All my adult life, I have struggled with (and been known by) being fuzzy-boundaried. Easy-going, fairly amicable, not very demanding. Then recently, on more than one occasion, friends have asked me about my preferences and desires in life. What do you like to do? What do you want to accomplish these days? How do you fill your day? What are your goals? Hopes? Dreams?

I stuttered…trying to answer. It seems much of my life has been spent bending toward helping, serving, pleasing others…That is NOT a bad thing, but to not be able to come up with answers to the above questions really got me puzzling about my own self-awareness.

Henry Cloud Quote: "That is why success and fruitfulness depend as much ... Photo Credit: Quote Fancy, Dr. Henry Cloud

Presently I’m reading a book that may very well help me get to those answers. It is Dr. Henry Cloud‘s Changes That Heal. His chapter on Boundaries has me stopped in my tracks.

“Boundaries, in a broad sense, are lines or things that mark a limit, or border. In a psychological sense, boundaries are the realization of our own person apart from others. This sense of separateness forms the basis of personal identity. It says what we are and what we are not, what we will choose and what we will not choose, what we will endure and what we will not, what we feel and what we will not feel, what we like and what we do not like, and what we want and what we do not want. Boundaries, in short, define us.”

Being a fuzzy-boundaried sort, I’m not really sure about some of these things, but now I’m on a mission of determining who I am and who I’m not. This may seem a strange venture for someone as old as I am. Hear me out.

Dr. Cloud talks about the various boundaries that make up our identity: physical appearance/body; attitudes; feelings; behavior; thoughts; abilities; desires; choices; limits; and, lastly, negative assertions (who/what we are NOT).

If we don’t know these things about ourselves, then we are bound to bump into, step over, or be drawn into the boundaries of others.

Here’s an example of this: I AM a reconciler, and I AM NOT a grudge-holder. So when my extended family is struggling with a family rift, it’s somewhat confusing for me, and really hard personally. How boundaries come to play in this is that I can’t make this rift go away…my own limits, attitudes, feelings, and desires (among other things) keep me from crossing others’ boundaries…This leaves me feeling hopeless, and sometimes helpless. My alternatives (and they are good ones) are to love my family, encourage those also reeling from this, and praying for all of us.

I can NOT fix it. If my fuzzy-boundaried self insisted on somehow making things better, it would leave me worse for the wear…and the rift still unchanged. We all have boundaries at play in our relationships.

In fact, some boundaries we set up voluntarily by our attitudes and thoughts. When we feel harmed by someone, we impose boundaries to prevent getting hurt again. Are these actual or imagined? It seems the pain continues in the trauma of unforgiveness. I just don’t know. One thing I do know is that this sort of boundary is something I AM NOT willing to do…especially with family. Where does that leave us who disagree on this?

So…forgive all verbal processing on this. Just trying to figure some of this out, and I’m only beginning. Unless you know yourself well, Dr. Cloud’s lesson on boundaries might be an excellent one to consider. One very beautiful extra thought on this: although we are made in God’s image, this is one place we differ from Him. He is infinite, and we are finite. As we get to know ourselves better, we can appreciate Him all the more and depend on Him even more readily for what we need both inside and outside our boundaries.

[This same Dr. Cloud also wrote Necessary Endings and Boundaries.]

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That’s all for this week. Any comments or thoughts you have, please share below. Blessings on you and thanks for stopping by.

Bonuses:

Road to Wholeness Podcast – Redeeming Heartache

How Do You Move Through Past Trauma? – Interview with Jerry Sittser – Podcast – Adam Young Counseling

Photo Credit: Laugh It’s Free Facebook page

Books on my Summer Reading List

Your Home Affects Your Longevity – Here’s How the Longest-Living People Outfit Their Spaces – Erica Sloan