Lisa notes

A Real Presence – Pope Francis’s TED Talk

By LisaNotes April 27, 2017 Community 18 Comments

One of my childhood neighbors died this week. Faye was only 47 years old. She had been battling a brain tumor for the past three years.

I don’t like these things.

Why does one person get cancer and another doesn’t?
Why is one person born into wealth and another into poverty?
Why does a car accident destroy one life but another person walks away?

I wish bad things didn’t happen to anybody.

I listened yesterday to Pope Francis’s TED Talk (yes, Pope Francis did a TED talk!). He addresses the “why them and not me” question.

“As I meet, or lend an ear to those who are sick, to the migrants who face terrible hardships in search of a brighter future, to prison inmates who carry a hell of pain inside their hearts, and to those, many of them young, who cannot find a job, I often find myself wondering: ‘Why them and not me?’

I, myself, was born in a family of migrants; my father, my grandparents, like many other Italians, left for Argentina and met the fate of those who are left with nothing. I could have very well ended up among today’s “discarded” people.

And that’s why I always ask myself, deep in my heart: “Why them and not me?”

He says these questions remind us that we all need other people. No one goes alone. Everything is connected.

Each person matters.

“Let us help each other, all together, to remember that the other is not a statistic or a number. The other has a face. The ‘you’ is always a real presence, a person to take care of.”

Despite sickness and heartaches and disasters, our presence in each other’s lives gives us reason to hope and move forward.

Faye was a real presence. Her light will be missed, especially by her son and her parents and her sister and her nieces.

But Faye will never be forgotten.

“Each and every one of us is irreplaceable in the eyes of God. Through the darkness of today’s conflicts, each and every one of us can become a bright candle, a reminder that light will overcome darkness, and never the other way around.”

Watch Pope Francis’s TED talk here. Or read the transcript.

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Update:
Last week I told you about Joe. Yesterday I was shocked to hear that Joe had been taken to the hospital, fighting for his life. Please pray.

Please share your thoughts here.

7 Books I Recommend – April 2017

By LisaNotes April 25, 2017 Books I Recommend 42 Comments

Here are seven books I recommend from what I finished reading in April. Each month we share what we’ve been reading at Jennifer’s.

7 Books I Recommend

1. Deep Work
Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World
by Cal Newport

Can you focus for long periods of time without getting distracted? If not, Deep Work might be a book for you. The author stresses that we’re losing our prolonged abilities to concentrate, and the world is suffering by that lack.

It’s not the most ground-breaking book I’ve read, but because it gives many tips and steps, it’s worth reading.

2. Grace Behind Bars
An Unexpected Path to True Freedom
by Dudley Mitchell

An inspiring real life story. This excellently-told narrative is by Bo Mitchell, businessman and chaplain for the Denver Nuggets, who ends up in federal prison for a white collar crime he was unaware he committed. His wife, Gari, also shares her perspective sprinkled throughout the book.

The book will encourage you in your Christian faith, and also make you more appreciative of your freedom. I first heard Bo and Gary on a Focus on the Family podcast here. I recommend both the book and the podcast, in either order.

My review here of Grace Behind Bars

3. Democracy in Black
How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul
by Eddie S. Glaude Jr.

This book will enlighten you on both the history and the present of black lives and politics in America. Author Eddie Glaude made me think of things I hadn’t considered, and challenged me to go forward in more productive ways.

My review here of Democracy in Black

4. Invisible Influence
The Hidden Forces that Shape Behavior
by Jonah Berger

A very intriguing and well-written book. If we think we make only rational, independent decisions about our lives, we’re wrong.

We’re influenced by more factors than we’re conscious of (and it’s more than just which news channel we watch). This book reveals many of these influences. Awareness is powerful.

5. Disrupted
My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble
by Dan Lyons

I started this book because it was funny. I laughed out loud over and over at this true story. Dan Lyons was a top writer in his early fifties when he was suddenly laid off from Newsweek. The next job he can get is at the tech start-up, HubSpot. (If you saw The Intern with Robert De Niro, you realize how funny this scenario can be, an older man working with all younger people.) Except this time it’s not fiction.

As the story progresses, it turns a little dark. But it provides interesting insights on both age discrimination and young companies.

6. Practicing the Power
Welcoming the Gifts of the Holy Spirit in Your Life
by Sam Storms

Are the gifts of the Spirit still active today? Sam Storms says yes. He uses this book to show how the Spirit can work in a church and other settings. Another thought-provoking book. And one to pray about for action.

My review here of Practicing the Power

7. The Naked Now
Learning to See as the Mystics See
by Richard Rohr

I already know I need to read this again. It’s too much to get in one reading. Rohr explores what it means to live in the present and to let go of dualistic thinking.

2 Novels I Don’t Recommend

The Good Father
by Noah Hawley

The premise is good: a father’s son is accused of assassinating a presidential candidate, and the father goes on a quest to acquit him. But it didn’t progress enough for me. It’s okay, but I like Hawley’s novel Before the Fall much better.

Thirteen Reasons Why
by Jay Asher

The topic of teen suicide definitely needs to be talked about. But I didn’t like the “let’s-blame-everybody-else” approach that the main character uses in this book, especially blaming other teenagers who are struggling, too. The tone of the book just rubbed me wrong. I’ll skip the Netflix series since I didn’t like the book (and since I don’t have Netflix).

Reading Now

A More Beautiful Question
The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas
by Warren Berger
When Everything Changed
The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present
by Gail Collins
The New Jim Crow
Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
by Michelle Alexander
The Versions of Us
by Laura Barnett

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What good book have you read lately? Please share here.

My books on Goodreads
Previous reading lists

Democracy in Black – Is Race Enslaving Our Souls?

By LisaNotes April 21, 2017 Book reviews, Discrimination 8 Comments

None of us think we’re racist.

We don’t use the n-word.
We have friends of all races and colors.
We don’t sell our house if someone different moves in the neighborhood.

And as students at Auburn University proved this week when Richard Spencer, an alt-right leader, rented a space to speak, students of all races joined together as #AuburnUnites. With one voice they spoke out to disapprove of racism of any kind.

Author and Princeton professor Eddie S. Glaude puts it like this,

“Overly racist acts [like calling an innocent child a n*****] are increasingly rare in this country; after all, it is decidedly out of fashion these days to be a racist.”

Maybe things are better. But we’re not there yet.

Just because racism may be more subtle in some ways (while in other ways, it’s still blatant), it still exists.

And just become some may tire of hearing it, racism won’t go away just because we don’t want to talk about it.

Or just as bad: if we refuse to believe it even exists.

“Our segregated lives and our deep fears keep the problems of black folk from coming into full view. And even while hidden, the devastation spreads like cancer. This is the way we deal with race matters in this country: willful blindness. Any other approach threatens our national sense of morality.”

How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul is the subtitle of Glaude’s new book, Democracy in Black.

It’s a hard-hitter. It’s not a feel-good book. But it’s an important book if we’re serious about wanting to change.

Are whites valued more than blacks? Glaude proposes that this “value gap” still exists in America, saying that our racial habits reveal a belief that white people are valued more than others.

“Inequality comes from the habits we exercise daily—habits that aren’t revealed in racial slurs or blatant acts of discrimination, but in the choices we make and the lives we live, even when those choices and lives seem to have little to do with race.”

And even if not overtly, these soul-shattering habits still operate, often from leftover systems still in place from 50 or more years ago.

“These assumptions about black people and homeownership, about black folk and work, about crime, sex, education, health, and politics, are all rooted in an ugly racist history that we like to believe we’ve put behind us.”

What can we do about it?

Changes need to occur at broad levels: governments and institutions and businesses and schools.

But while we work on that, we can do things right where we are, in our own communities.

“Some issue, concrete and right in front of us, should be our focus.”

As always, listening is a great place to start. Have face-to-face conversations. Read widely from those outside our circles. Work for change in our local districts. Suspend our current beliefs to open up to more accurate ones.

And stop fearing young black men. One statistic quoted from Daily Kos contradicts the idea that white people are in danger from black people:

“The odds of a black person killing a white person are about 0.0000212. With those numbers, ‘[y]ou really have far more reason to be scared of say, getting on a ladder, than you do of getting murdered by the hoodie wearing teenager you see on the street. The fear is irrational.’”

As Glaude says, “White fear is the danger. Not black people.”

White people not only can change how they see black people (which, too often, is as failing). But white people can also change how they see white people, too.

All our souls are at stake.

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Please share your thoughts here.

My thanks to Blogging for Books
for the review copy of this book.

Encounter Another Human Being

By LisaNotes April 19, 2017 Community, Encouragement, One Word 2017: Story 36 Comments

I hope it goes both ways when I call Joe my friend. He is one of the residents in the apartments where Kay and I deliver meals on Wednesday.

I don’t know much of Joe’s back story. Maybe one day we’ll talk it out.

But I do know that Joe cares about his neighbors.

And in the past two weeks, neighbors on both sides of him have died: Walter (you met him here; he taught me so much) and Amy.

Both Walter and Amy were precious to me, too. Walter loved singing about God more than anyone I knew (hear him here, 30 seconds). And Amy is one of the residents who would ask how she could be praying for me. I can’t imagine not seeing either of them here again.

We often think we don’t have time to know our neighbors. Jeff and I rarely see ours. We think our lives are too scattered, too busy, too full as it is.

But Joe knew his neighbors.

Joe tells us each week if someone in the hospital. He often has an extra dog he’s keeping while another neighbor is in rehab. He keeps his hands and heart open for those around him.

Joe is living out a purpose.

And that purpose is loving people.

When we forget that life is all about people instead of projects, when we see others as distractions to our calling instead of the calling itself, when we think we lack the time or resources or confidence to touch others, we’re robbing both ourselves and others.

God plants a piece of himself in each person. When we see other people, we’re seeing another side of Christ.

People are what brings us joy.
People got us here.
And people will always be with us until we’re gone.

When we honor the piece of God in others, we are honoring the God of all of us.

I don’t know who the people are in your season and circle of life right now. But I know they are there for a reason. Just like the people in my life are.

We each are strategically and uniquely placed where we are and with the people we need to be with for a God-reason.

May we each reach deeper into our circles this week. Listen to each closer. Linger with each longer.

If we hear a need we can fill, let’s fill it.
If we see a heart we can touch, let’s touch it.
If we meet a friend to pray with, let’s pray with them.

I thank God that Walter and Amy had Joe in their lives while they were here.

And I thank God that I have Joe in my life right now.

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Do you know your neighbors? Is there a Joe in your life? Please share in the comments.

Who Do You Quote?

By LisaNotes April 17, 2017 Bible, Memorization 29 Comments

Last week Jeff and I listened to Richard Rohr interviewed by Krista Tippett on the On Being podcast.

We noticed how he often quoted lofty authors like Thomas Merton or Latin poets or foreign phrases like “Sub specie aeternitatis” (“in the light of eternity”).

How do people do that?

Well, we all can quote things. It depends on what we put in.

What goes in is what we quote out.

Jeff and I can quote all the words to . . .

Gilligan’s Island theme song (“If not for the courage of the fearless crew, the Minnow would be lost, the Minnow would be lost”),
famous sayings of Fred Sanford (“This is the big one, Elizabeth. I’m coming to join you, Honey”),
and lots of lyrics from rock classics of the ’70s (“On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair”).

Maybe Richard Rohr can also quote Sheldon Cooper’s “Bazinga!” and fill in this blank from Forrest Gump, “My mama always said, ‘Life was like a box of _____; you never know what you’re gonna get.’”

Likely he can. I don’t know.

This is what I do know: years ago when I heard an “ordinary” lady at church spill God-truths out of her mouth like I could sing song lyrics, it moved me.

Granted, I knew my memory verses growing up. Bible Bowls and sword drills? Bring on the competition.

But I wanted something different. I wanted line after line of God’s beauty and love. Words I could say in my mind, over and over.

Words I could quote when I needed to think better thoughts and believe bigger truths.

So with a group of friends in 2004, we committed to memorizing Colossians 3 together.

And now, 13 years later, I’m going to renew those words in my mind with the memorizing community of Hide His Word with Do Not Depart.

And those 13 years in between? I learned that memorizing chapters of the Bible wasn’t as impossible as I had once thought. [See “10 Tips to Memorizing a Bible Chapter” ]

And the benefits have been life-changing.

How many times have I been awake at night and recited a chapter over and over to help me return to peaceful sleep? Or said the words in my mind while undergoing a medical procedure? Or prayed the words to myself or for a friend when other words seemed to fail?

“Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the LORD GOD is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.”
Isaiah 12:2
“I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living!”
Psalm 27:13
“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”
Matthew 6:34
“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.”
James 1:5

I’m thankful that I don’t remember all the words I’ve learned in my past. There are many that I didn’t need to hear to begin with.

But the words from Jesus’s mouth or words about God’s everlasting love are words that I want to remember.

Time spent memorizing isn’t time wasted, but time invested..

I may never be able to quote things as well as Richard Rohr. But when I do quote, I want it to be good.

¹⁴And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. ¹⁵And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.
Colossians 3

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