Reflection

One Word: Willing

1 month ago

by Lundie in One Word 365, Reflection

In the whirlwind of the holidays, I haven’t had much time to stop and reflect. Or at least, I haven’t taken the time. This year, our New Years’ ended up being a quiet evening at home, a couple of movies, a couple of bottles of champagne. J4 and I had a light conversation about what things we’d like to be different in 2012.

I’m not one for a long list of resolutions, quickly forgotten. I did blog-drift around a bit this morning and came across a site that sounded more like my kind of thing. OneWord365.com.

All you need to do is choose “one word that sums up who you want to be or how you want to live or what you want to achieve by the end of 2012.”

I know that many of my dreams, wishes, goals, you name it. are not coming to be simply because I have not become willing to do what it takes to accomplish (and in some cases, even pursue) them. I am a stubborn gal. One of my most remembered and repeated childhood quotes is “I can’t want to.”

So, after some brainstorming today, and some reflecting, I kept coming back to the idea of being willing. Underlying my failure to accomplish so much in my life is an unwillingness to let go of the things that hold me back. This willingness is what I am going to pray for this year. There is a lot of life I have been missing, and I pray that I become willing to partake in it!

The “war” on Christmas

2 months ago

by Lundie in Reflection

I’m just going to vent a little bit here. If you are offended by what I post, I do apologize, and would like to discuss it further…Please partake of the comment section below!

I’m a Christian. Perhaps not in the standard American sense that may come to mind, but I do believe in and love Jesus Christ. I also say “Happy Holidays!” to people who say “Happy Holidays” to me. If someone wishes me a “Merry Christmas!”, I will return the greeting in kind.

I have been dismayed at the number of people I know…people who I like, respect, and thought were reasonable…that have bought into the idea that there is a “war on Christmas”. Bill O’Reilly and others have created this straw man so that people could be united in hate against this invisible enemy. Unity = good. Straw man = bad.

Yes, stores have changed their terminology. Why? Because they want your money. Their whole purpose is to get you to spend your hard-earned money at their over-decorated stores. So…if a store owner believes they may alienate Jewish people wishing to celebrate Hanukkah by only decorating their store in traditional Christmas decor, it’s probably in their best interest to change to a multi-cultural “Happy Holidays”! This way they can get more “bang” for their marketing “buck”.

Am I in denial that there aren’t Christmas haters out there? No. But I would honestly rather hear from them, and have a discussion. Because, guess who I hear doing all of the hating? Over and over and over? My Christian “friends” on Facebook. I’m getting so tired of people who purportedly disciple themselves after Jesus Christ himself, going on rampages of hateful defiance towards imaginary attackers of their beloved holiday greeting terminology.

WHAT A BUNCH OF CRAZINESS….. We can’t say “Merry Christmas” now ? We have to say “Happy Holidays”. We can’t call it a Christmas tree, it’s now called a Holiday tree? Because it might offend someone. If you don’t like our “Customs” and it offends you so much….. then LEAVE… I will help you pack. They are called customs, and we have our traditions ! If you… agree with this…please post this as your status!!… MERRY CHRISTMAS….

And then, there are the ones who, albeit genuinely, complain about the over commercialization of Christmas IN ALL CAPS.

I DO NOT CARE IF THIS DOES OFFEND SOMEONE…THIS IS WHAT I BELIEVE…I AM SICK AND TIRED OF EVERY YEAR WHEN CHRISTMAS COMES AROUND; THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO WANT TO TAKE CHRIST OUT OF CHRISTMAS BECAUSE IT MIGHT OFFEND SOMEONE…WELL, HOW ABOUT ALL OF THE CHRISTIANS?…WHAT ABOUT OFFENDING US BECAUSE YOU ARE TAKING OUR CHRIST OUT OF CHRISTMAS?…CHRIST IS CHRISTMAS!…IF YOU AREN’T CELEBRATING CHRIST THEN WHY ARE YOU CELEBRATING?…CHRISTMAS IS ABOUT THE BIRTH OF OUR SAVIOR!…CHRISTMAS IS ONE OF A FEW HOLIDAYS LEFT THAT CELEBRATE “MY” CHRIST!…LEAVE “MY” HOLIDAY ALONE!…AND TELL EVERYONE MERRY CHRISTMAS, NOT HAPPY HOLIDAYS!…RE-POST IF YOU’RE NOT ASHAMED!!!

So in closing I’ll just share a verse from the Bible for us to reflect on. Luke 6:27-30, in which Jesus says, “If you hear a rumor that someone was offended about something someone said to them that is just like something you say to other people, you should become enraged, throw caution to the wind and do what you must to stand up and declare your rights to say things in an increasingly offensive and all-capitalized manner to everyone you know and like instead of to the rumored offended offender!”

‎[Positive emotion] [Current Holiday] [Exclamatory punctuation],
Lundie

What would @chrisbrogan do??

4 months ago

by Lundie in Reflection

Recently Chris Brogan stopped following everyone on Twitter. His original philosophy was to follow back everyone who followed him. He had hundreds of thousands of followers. After some spam DMs, he decided to start with a clean slate.

Today he sent this tweet:

And it got me thinking…. As a Christian, do I “follow” Jesus Christ in my heart and mind in the same way that I “follow” Chris Brogan on Twitter?

Let’s see what being a @chrisbrogan-follower looks like —

His voice, along with about 300 others are in my Twitter stream
I occasionally interact with him – sending an @ reply to something that strikes me as interesting, but I know full well that my voice is not likely to be heard
And in my stream, he too gets drowned out by other more chattery, needy, demanding to be heard twitterers

So, while I am technically a @chrisbrogan-follower, do you think he and I have a relationship? Is there any indication that we interact at all? Nope! None.

Sometimes I think that being a “Christ-follower” or “Christian” can mean roughly the same in terms of relationship with Christ as I, as a @chrisbrogan-follower, have a relationship with the actual person, Chris. You know, like I’m always open to hearing what Jesus has to say, but it’s more probable that He’ll end up drowned out by the hundreds of other voices in my life.

So, like @chrisbrogan, I think I’m going to do some pruning of my “following” list, but not on Twitter. In my internal thought-life. My #1 desire is to live out the tenet “Jesus is Lord”. That means that He’s at the very top (and almost the entirety) of my list of “input”. It’s time to un-follow all of those other distracting voices that serve no purpose other than to numb me to real, present living.

And how about you? Who are you “following”? Do you have any noise in your life that you really need to let go of?

Listening

5 months ago

by Lundie in Reflection

I’ve had this blog for a long time, but lately I have not had many words to write. I hope someday that will change. I know that I have a lot of words in me to share. Not that I have anything significant to say. Not that I have anything superior to the many brilliant blogs out there. But I have the love of the language and I have something stirring deep in my heart. These two things together mean some kind of writing, somewhere.

For now, though, I’m listening. There are some blogs that are just the right thing at the right time. Like elora nicole’s post, resistant heart.

So for now, I’ll be satisfied with sharing tidbits of things that grab my focus strongly enough for me to want to share.

Peace.

What is the next action?

1 year ago

by Lundie in Reflection

Just finishing up listening to the audiobook by David Allen, “Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity”. I had already read the book, but somehow taking the audiobook along with me in the car (via my phone) made real impact. I noticed that it’s laid out with the action steps up front, and then the reasoning behind the actions at the back.

I am sure I’m late in the game, but Mr. Allen is really on to something. If you, at this moment, are feeling overwhelmed, and over burdened by stuff in your head, then you could stand to give this book a read (or listen!) In fact, if I were to share this book with you, and I knew you weren’t sure if it would work for you, I would probably have you start with Chapter 11. That chapter is more about the “Why” that this system works, not the “How”.

(Or, if you’re searching for something to get you organized, and you’re itching to get started, just dig in at Chapter 1.)

This blog post wasn’t meant to be a book review, though I may convert it into my standard format later. This post is actually me realizing that the thought that came into my head “Hey! I should blog about this!” and my use of the “Can an action item be done in 2 minutes?” criteria for action, I am recklessly(? Ha!) throwing a post out there without formatting or perfectionism kicking in.

I think this book rocks. I think it could help a lot of people. I wanted to tell you about it. So, there it is!