With all of these vivid memories, my question is, when did a dandelion stop being a flower and become a weed? Now I look with disdain in the spring when I wake up one morning to find a blanket of yellow on my lawn.

And more importantly, what does that say about us? Is there a greater meaning, here? Is pure beauty socialized out of us over the course of time? In the search for what is real, what is good, what is true – do we miss the wild, unruly wonder of creation?

I spent the better part of the last day “weeding” my planters. The problem was I didn’t know exactly which were flowers and which were weeds. In fact, some of the “weeds’ I pulled were quite pretty. I loved the civil disobedience of single dandelion growing in the midst of hostas.

As I struggled with the question, “What happens when the weeds are prettier than the flowers?” with some Facebook friends, one comment stood out. “You have then made weeds a less negative word.”

We spend so much time in our lives categorizing and creating absolutes. This is good. That is bad. This is healthy. That is unhealthy. This is right. That is wrong. Whether it’s botany, lifestyles or people – we have grown to marginalize everything to make our lives seem better, more normal, safer.

Not sure how I feel about it. Could it be that the edge of creativity, expression and potential genius is lost so we can live in the center?

I know, it’s only a weed, right? Here’s hoping that you can find the unruly wonder of creation when you see a single dandelion in your garden, the kid with purple hair, or two women baptizing their baby on Sunday morning.

From June 4, 2011

At least I thought it was diesel powered. As a bus driver, you need to be sure all your mirrors are set, the air brakes are pressurized, the gauges are working; oh yeah and to make sure you have the right kind of gas.

Today, most buses run on unleaded gas – but twenty years ago, you could either be driving a diesel fueled bus or a regular gas fueled bus.

On the way out of Bismarck, I realized you can make do without your mirrors checked. You can even operated the bus with the gauges on the fritz. BUT if you put diesel fuel in a bus designed for unleaded fuel; then you have to literally coast a quarter of a mile through Bismarck to make your way back to the service station. Thank goodness Bismarck is hilly.

The lesson I learned is what fuels you makes a difference. It’s the difference between your engine working or not working.

Last week the United States killed Osama bin Laden. There was a spectrum of reaction from relief to jingoistic celebration. There was a heated discourse on the concept of justice. Was it served? Or was it an act of vengence?

Anyone who has suffered personal tragedy will tell you that living a life FUELED by fear, anger, resentment or revenge – is ultimately not life giving. The engine that makes you work (heart and soul) cannot live well on that kind of fuel. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr, says it this way:

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.Through violence you may murder a murderer, but you can’t murder murder.”

Osama bin Laden is dead, and I wonder if the world is a better place.

The journey to run the world with life-giving fuel starts with you and me. Can I live in love, humility, compassion and mercy? If I can’t (and you can’t) then the world won’t.

I don’t feel too badly for Rob Bell. The furor over purported “universalism” will sell a pantload of books.

I feel badly for the growing population of people who already find the church irrelevant. Any one authentically interested in engaging people in their faith journey spends most of their time helping people live TODAY in God’s promise by living a life modeled by Jesus. This is the same Jesus who lived, died on the cross and rose from the grave to live in freedom. Not freedom FROM anything, but freedom TO LOVE. It’s not an obligation but an opportunity. It’s a gift of grace with no strings attached. That is anything but irrelevant.

People crave impact, purpose, meaning, abundance. The concept of Hell – Sheol in Hebrew and Hades in Greek – shares root with the words grave and pit. It’s this concept that keeps people from realizing the fullness of freedom to live purposefully. This concept of eternal damnation keeps people from being real and vulnerable because they fear how it will affect their spiritual resume with God’s gatekeepers (Pastors).

How many of you act differently, speak differently or think differently in the presence of your pastor? Of course you do. If pastors are interpreters or gatekeepers of how you view your salvation of course you want to seem “worthy.” Is it possible that we are holding ourselves hostage with the weapon of God’s grace? I know it’s no strings attached but REALLY?

The good news for today is that it REALLY is about the joy of the journey NOT the fear of the destination. Jesus gives us the map. We will have plenty of time to be dead when we’re dead. In the meantime, live today and when you get up tomorrow, live today. But live in peace and promise not fear of damnation. God is good.

Tonight, I stared at a wood frame that covers a gap in the basement stairs. The goal was to paint this frame to match the basement walls. The first thought that entered my brain was, ” I should really sand the wood.” As quickly as the thought entered my brain, it was attacked by another, more antagonistic thought. “Just paint already. You have to do more than one coat anyway. MORE paint would cure the need to sand.”

After the first coat, I realized the wood wasn’t taking the paint. After the second coat, I realized I needed…a third coat. That’s when I decided to clean my roller and brushes.

Tomorrow, I will sand the frame and paint another coat.

Doing anything; changing or altering anything has a cost. You pay NOW or you pay LATER. I could have spent more time at the start of my project sanding and prepping. The frame would have soaked in the paint better.  I would not be working on it tomorrow. That’s me paying later.

Change implementation is all about speed. Generally organizations are about fast results, productivity NOW; the change: a swift blow of the hammer. What gets overlooked is the prep work: assessing readiness, understanding the capacity for change, defining success, communicating the case for change. Predictably, a year down the road, the change didn’t TAKE. That’s when work has to be redone to get the results they really want. Pay now or pay later. Do it right, cry once.

The most important part of any process happens at the beginning. Honor the process and the results get more predictable.

In the meantime, I am becoming more aware of the frustration people feel with the phrase, “watching paint dry.”

It’s funny. I remember her mother teaching Sunday School for years. She was a parent who attended leader training events. Her sister was a missionary on a mission trip to Mexico. Her brothers are in confirmation. YET, her story is one of a spiritual orphan.

Maybe the power of the faith journey is not about the ensuring institutional milestones, it’s about creating time and space for courageous conversations.

Whenever I spend time with my family – specifically my aunts and uncles, the most special time for me is connecting dots about my family’s history. I spent many days last summer reading a book my Uncle Cecil put together about how my mother’s family settled in northern Minnesota. I valued knowing how I connected to the history of MY history.

A lot of time is spent in the scope and sequence of faith; sacramental training and catechectical instruction. But so many young people don’t know their history. If you don’t know the depth or nature of your roots, how do you know your potential to grow?

Sad evidence of this was seen in the political demonstrations recently in Cairo when 3000 year old Egyptian artifacts were vandalized or destroyed. How do you destroy something that links you to your history? I wonder if it’s a generational symptom that young people and adults don’t fully grasp how they connect to their faithful heritage. It’s easier to destroy something if you don’t know you own it. If you see how you’re a part of it, you value you it differently.

Upstairs in my house right now (11:20PM), my 12-year old is dreaming the dreams of adolescence. My hope is she’s sleeping in the comfort of knowing who she is, whose she is, and how she is connected to a faithful history and future. I think I have some work to do.

Starbucks just introduced a new size of beverage called Trenta; 31 ounces of cold beverage (iced tea or coffee). That’s right – the volume of a 7-11 slurpee in a hipster environment. Not sure what the demographic is for this campaign.

Even NBC is running a new bigger and better Thursday night campaign in which they use a donut hole compared to a larger donut to talk about how bigger and thusly better the funny will be in primetime.

Is bigger really better?  I think the church buys into that. We measure by worship attendance and pledge cards. We want bigger screens and speakers. We want bigger buildings and more meeting space. We use terms like MEGA Church.

My theory is that bigger and louder is safer, less vulnerable. If we really clear away the furniture and turn down the noise, we are left standing face-to-face with our imperfections; the song of our lives being played back without effects so each note can be dissected and criticized. Who wants that?

Mike Yaconelli, one of more influential theological minds in the last fifty years, talks about getting smaller not bigger. He urges us to live this journey more simply and more together. This quote says it all for me: “It is time for us to reclaim the glory of the common, the power of the plain, the authority of the unpretentious. It is time for us to reclaim the radical consequence of the Gospel—which is that the weak, the broken, the fragmented, the suffering, and the non-experts are the authorities of the Church.”

I generally live my life thinking “go big or go home.” Maybe it’s time for me to change to “get small and get real.” Won’t you join me?

If you read Facebook posts or MySpace updates from teenagers today, they are filled with messages of being overscheduled, overworked and overextended. 9th graders are taking college prep courses and ACT tests because that’s what you do to keep up.

Graduate standards and the escalating cost of a college education are driving young people to take more advance placement classes, be more involved in clubs and activities and make decisions solely based on how they will be positioned for life after high school.

Young people are aging faster than we can imagine. They jump right from junior high to adult hood while their brain is still being wired. And it’s taking a toll on their emotional health.

I can’t help but think it’s a systemic issue. Careers are being planned long before purpose and giftedness is discovered. There is a generation of young people who have set out on an arduous journey without a map, a guide or the provisions needed to keep them healthy. At best, it’s burning kids out. At worst, kids are dying from the pressure.

Tonight a mother is taking a sad inventory of the last 17 years of her son’s life, praying that her “diamond in the rough” will live until the morning. The priceless gift that was created out of the pressure needs more time. As a chinese proverb says, better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without.

May God rest the souls of the weary and heavy-laden tonight and give them peace.

It is humbling as a father of a adolescent daughter who has spent the last twenty years working with adolescents, who comes in with a plan, who knows the stories and curriculum – to realize I am NOT in control. I am merely enjoying this sweet tempest in a teapot.

One of the really helpful books that has kept me grounded and equipped as I move the proverbial furniture away and watch these girls wrestle with life and faith is called “Yardsticks.” The author’s name is (wait for it) Chip Wood. Hold your ironic laugther.

This book, designed for educators, is a resource I have used with small group leaders as another arrow in their quiver. “Yardsticks’ provides a guide to where kids are developmentally from 4-14 years old. Each age level begins with a description of kids at that age followed by descriptions of physical, emotional, social, language and cognitive guide posts for that age. It’s good stuff.

You can buy the book on Amazon for about $10. That’s a lot of value for ten bones.

Until you read it – keep your weight back, your ski tips up and enjoy the ride.

He said he’s been parenting continually for 24 years. Having known his daughters most of their lives, I marveled and asked him the secret. He said, “live today.” I asked him to say more.

He said we live in a world where we document everything on tape, film or hard drive. We spend so much time looking at the world of the past, we forget to live today. The danger, he waxed, is the more we long for the past, wishing for a time long gone – we wake up and find that all the todays quickly turn to tomorrows and we’ve missed living life. I felt pretty convicted.

Maybe it’s regret of the past. Maybe it’s a fear of an unknown future. Maybe it’s the intimate vulnerability of being in relationship today.

I am a documentor. I want my daughter to know her story. I want to grow ritual and tradition in her life and that comes over the course of a life of yesterdays. That’s important to all of us as people of a storied tradition.

BUT today I refocus on TODAY. Living in each moment, being grateful for not just the significant milestones that fill the pages of photo albums. But be grateful for insignificant moments that fuel our todays and sustain our tomorrows.

It’s a swirling vortex of MORE. More candy; more trick-or-treaters; more money for the political war chest, more votes, more seats, more viewers, more power.

When we us the word “more,”  it may seem like we are living in a world of abundance, but somehow I feel like it’s a world scarcity.

What if:

- Instead of leading with why someone is unqualified, talk about why you’re qualified.

- Instead of serving the interest of a party, you serve the interest of the people – ALL people

- Instead of referring to us versus them, talk about we

- Instead of focusing on colors (red/blue), focus on character (honesty, integrity)

Abundance is not based in fear; fear of losing, fear of failing, fear of another’s ideology, fear of change. Abundance is being real, vulnerable. Abundance is about emptying yourself to be filled. More – unless it’s more compassion, more mercy, more tolerance – generally doesn’t work.

One of my favorite artists, David Wilcox, says it this way, “A poppy flower is beautiful, a thousand poppies is dangerous.”

My prayer for this day (other than the strength to stay away from Kit Kats) is to think more about we than I, to think more about doing what’s right rather than what’s safe and to live abundantly without wanting MORE.