A powerful voice for the discovery of true beauty
and a good reminder that we are all disfigured.

How freeing to hear someone comfortable with their truth -
may we be freed by his example.

‘the second glance’ from Nic Askew on Vimeo.

For more videos like this, visit www.soulbiographies.com.

As a friend described this, “there is something moving and magical here.” I think it comes in hearing the authentic voice of people singing what they know and what they have lived - that kind of passion and truth is what we need more of in our world.

What truth is waiting to be spoken in your voice? In your life?

For more information about the organization putting this together and their work: www.playingforchange.com.

Can you imagine holding another person this gently in your hand?

Try it with someone you love.

Then try it with a stranger.

Then try it with an enemy.

Now try it with yourself.

At the core of every person lies a spark of the divine,
that fire of passion that knows no limitation.
To see that reality and assist it -
to see the beauty of another person’s spirit waiting
and trying to blossom and flourish
and to create a space that welcomes it -
this may be the greatest gift we can give another.

Who might you do it for today - simply by paying attention?

We have elected a new president in this country. We spoke out with our time, our money, our energy, and our hope. We demanded change, and the headlines tell us it has come.

We focused our eyes on one man, Barack Obama, as the symbol of our desire - the symbol of our hope. We came to believe that he is capable of carrying such symbolism and the weight of our dreams - a burden that we, who so willingly place it upon his shoulders, do not fully understand, for a symbol is only as strong as that which it represents. As it always has, Obama’s strength continues to rest upon our shoulders.

If we elected Obama to be our voice, so that we can go back to being quiet, we have made a mistake - for we must continue to speak. If we elected Obama to carry us, so that we can go back to our seats, we have made a mistake - for we must continue to carry him. If we elected Obama to change our country, so that we do not need to, we have made a mistake - for the change lives in us.

We ask, “Is Obama strong enough?” but we should ask, “Are we strong enough?” We ask, “Can Obama make the tough decisions?”, but we should ask, “Can we make the tough decisions?” We ask, “Will Obama be honest about the sacrifices we need to make?”, but we should ask, “Will we be honest about the sacrifices we need to make?”

While we wait to see what Obama will do next, what decisions he will make, and who he will choose to help him, let us remember that the focus should more truly be on us. As Obama himself has said many times, it is we who have carried him to this place and we cannot stop carrying him now.

We are tempted already to turn the page and close the book on the power of a campaign of the people. Our headlines can’t stop telling us about what Obama says and does, which is good and inspiring in many ways, but let us, at the same time, continue to find inspiration among those who made it possible and will continue to make it possible.

Let us continue to celebrate the two young people who flew  to New Hampshire - from France - to volunteer their time and energy for the campaign. Let us continue to feed our desire, our passion, and our imagination. Let us continue to challenge ourselves to be changed and transformed. How strong is our desire?

Right here and  right now, whoever and wherever you are - how will you change? What will you say today that you have never had the courage to say before? What will you do today that you have never had the courage to do? Who will you lift up today that you have not had the courage to lift up?

It started with our desire. It will only continue with our action. It has only just begun.
We have called for a new voice, let it be our own.

Can we do it?
Yes we can.

As I watched the images from Grant Park on election night and listened to reports of spontaneous gatherings around the world, I sensed that something new was happening - something we had not seen before. But I couldn’t put my finger on it.

The next day, talking with colleagues from across the country, it finally struck me: Never before have we seen people spontaneously gathering for hope - for hope in transformation.

We all remember the spontaneous outpourings of prayer and sympathy in the aftermath of 9/11 as people around the world gathered for candlelight vigils. But it seemed, then, that we were gathered because of our fear, our sorrow, and our despair in the face of the utter darkness we felt surrounding us.

But on November 4, 2008, we gathered in celebration, in celebration, in hope, and in openess to the dawning of a new light.

Let us treasure this new light - and may it burn bright.

What will you do today to make this new light brighter?

It is hard sometimes to find our direction, especially when we thought we had it but now feel lost. Sometimes, the life within us becomes clouded by layers and layers of the life outside us, and we stumble and fall, searching frantically as the clouds become thicker and the light becomes dim. At other times, we sense our call deeply but have never put it into words, so we forget easily when we bump up against confusion - and the words we seek fall out of order.

I am called to be free
from fear for love
from doing for being
from control for trust
from captivity for freedom
from competition for community
from anger for compassion
from scarcity for abundance
from safety for life on the edge
from indifference for presence
from paralysis for possibility
from knowledge for wisdom
from apathy for action
from answers for mystery
from isolation for connection
from chaos for integration
from confusion for vision
from skimming for depth
from depression for joy
from self for service
from death for new life.

For when I am free,
my true goodness,
my overflowing holiness,
and my radiant beauty
will transform the world.

May we be open to our God’s freeing love.
And may we free others.

Peace,
Dave

I will get enough sleep! I will exercise more! I will pray more! I will chase my passion! I will live my dream!

We seem to have the power to change the way we think in the shortest of moments: a new idea opens our mind, powerful words open our heart, a photograph opens our eyes, a stranger opens our life, or a new vision energizes our company, and we step into a whole new world within our own minds.

Then, a day or a week or a month or a year or a decade later, we wonder what happened to that great new way of living that now seems just a dream - a whisper of what might have been or what should have been.

And, this, is when the real work and the real change begins.

The great gift and power of the mind that allows our thinking to be utterly transformed in an instant must be integrated with the knowledge that we can only move forward from where we are standing right now. What is the one next step that I can take? Where will I find the courage and commitment to make the intentional and consistent change in my daily behavior and reactions? How will I live into the future that I now know is possible?

We need both: the great vision and the small steps. Transformed thinking without the concrete and incremental steps does not get us anywhere, and incremental behavioral changes without a deeper vision may lead us to places just as confused and lost as where we already find ourselves.

What is your great vision?
What is your next step?

O Spirit, help us to trust in your slow work within us.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We would like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to
something unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability -
and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with us
our ideas mature gradually - help us to
let them grow, let them shape themselves,
without undue haste.
Help us try not to force ourselves forward,
as though we could be today
what time, grace and circumstances,
acting with our own good will
will make of us tomorrow.

Only you could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within us will be.
We trust and believe that your hand is leading us -
help us to accept the anxiety of feeling
in suspense and incomplete.

Amen.

adapted from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ

When we were lost and could not find the way to you, you loved us more than ever.

For the past few weeks, my siblings and parents have been engaged in an ongoing conversation about our family’s past and its effects on our lives in the present. Some of our stories have been filled with laughter and love, while others are tinged with hurt and anger set aside and hidden away over the past 30 years - and, in some cases, still lingering from previous generations.

In the midst of our conversation, one of was trying to apologize for some past words and attitudes when she said, “I am not perfect. I will always be unworthy. Human beings will never be worthy of God’s Love.”

I was and am still so struck by this one simple line, because I believe that it holds the most damaging and life-altering distortion of the truth of God, as the One Divine Being whose Spirit lies at the heart of all that we call Creation: the equating of perfection with worthiness. And I believe that this distortion lies at the heart of all of our struggles - those of my own family and those of our wider culture which listens to and preaches this distortion.

How blunt can I be here? It is a lie. Worthiness has nothing at all to do with perfection, with the absence of sin, with the absence of painful memories, with the living of a perfect life, or with being nice. Really, could anything be more preposterousthan the idea that we are not worthy of our Creator’s love- that the One who created us out of pure Love could somehow find us to be unworthy of that love?

Added to this central distortion and lie is the phenomenon that we, as humans, tend to relate to others in the same way we relate to God or our image of God. And where does this leave us? With generations of individuals trying to be worthy by being perfect, by having the perfect marriage, by having the perfect family, by having the perfect image, by having the perfect past, etc. And the fear of not being worthy is so strong, that any imperfections in ourselves - or in the mirror of others - incur our wrath which is then directed at ourselves, or at others, or sometimes indiscriminately at the world.

And, in the end, we hold others to the same distorted standard of worthiness, so we demand that others earn or “be worthy” of our own love - which we hold on to and give out as a reward.

Ah, how sad.

What a grotesque distortion of the Love that is here and all around us - being given by our God constantly, deeply, and freely every moment. It is the Breath of Life that we breathe every second. If we were not worthy of love, and indeed loved fully at this very moment with all of our imperfections great and small, the Breath of Life & Love would not be here for us to breathe. And we would not exist.

A prayer from the Christian tradition says it well:
Time and time again we broke your covenant, but you did not abandon us.
Instead, you bound yourself to us even more closely, by a bond that can never be broken.
When we were lost and could not find the way to you, you loved us more than ever.

How is love trying to work within you, in the midst of your imperfections?
What do you need to let it work more deeply?

Ask for it.

Welcome to one man’s reflections on the journey.

Peace, Dave