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Tag Archives: poetry

Leadership: Doing What is Required

“Sometimes our best is not enough. We have to do what is required.” Winston Churchill Bob Biehl quoted these words to me after listening to my complaint about the detailed, administrative, technical chores that were before me as a leader. I wanted to write, create, preach and train. Hadn’t I been doing these things for the last 26 years? James March, a former professor on international management at Stanford University, says there are two essential dimensions of leadership: plumbing and poetry. Plumbing refers to the management, i.e. things like fixing the faucet in the bathroom, that are repetitive and often unpleasant. Poetry is the imagination and innovation, the art that most people call ‘leadership.’ “No organizations work if the toilets don’t work,” March argues. Yes, we want to be faithful to our God-given life. At the same time, leadership is servanthood. There are no exemptions from that. “Sometimes our best is not enough. We. Read more.

Summer, Our "Rule of Life," and God

I want to encourage you this summer to approach your vacations as mini-sabbaticals in which you build into your time away the same principles of weekly Sabbaths (Stop, Rest, Delight, Contemplate). Instead, then, of being time when you might drift from Him and return home tired, you actually renew your communion with Jesus and yourself. My vacations and summers were revolutionized a number of years ago when I began to do this. It takes planning, forethought, and prayer, especially when you are taking children into account! But it is well worth it! Ask yourself: STOP – What do I need to do to really cease from all my work? REST – What kind of things will enable me to rest this vacation? DELIGHT – What will replenish my soil and fill me with energy, and to delight in God’s gifts? CONTEMPLATE- How can I build in time with God during this extended time? What. Read more.

The Wisdom of the Deer and Your True Self

Poetry has a wonderful way to draw out of us our true self before God.  Read the following poem slowly, prayerfully. Listen to what God might be saying to you today about His will for you. The Wisdom of the Deer …a deer standing before me shamelessly   telling me by his presence   through his very manner of being there what I did   was   all I could do  what I did  was truly  all I could do.  the deer didn’t move  for what seemed like the longest time  kept standing there  unflinching  regal  as if the fallen leaves  adorning his great hall      were lush earthen carpet  and I had been grated a brief audience  with a nobility  whose lineage was pure and undefiled  and then I understood  the wisdom of the deer  the secret to my own dignity  all I have ever been  is all I will ever need  I must look back  And. Read more.