I’ve been reading more poetry lately, mostly because it slides me into ‘Ah, there it is: right side up’ faster than I can blink.

Or think.

And I’m up for as many of those kinds of slides as I can get.

Just like this one.

What’s In The Temple?

In the quiet spaces of my mind a thought lies still, but ready to spring.

It begs me to open the door so it can walk about.

The poets speak in obscure terms pointing madly at the unsayable.

The sages say nothing, but walk ahead patting their thigh calling for us to follow.

The monk sits pen in hand poised to explain the cloud of unknowing.

The seeker seeks, just around the corner from the truth.

If she stands still it will catch up with her.

Pause with us here a while.

Put your ear to the wall of your heart.

Listen for the whisper of knowing there.

Love will touch you if you are very still.

If I say the word God, people run away.

They’ve been frightened–sat on ’till the spirit cried “uncle.”

Now they play hide and seek with somebody they can’t name.

They know he’s out there looking for them, and they want to be found,

But there is all this stuff in the way.

I can’t talk about God and make any sense,

And I can’t not talk about God and make any sense.

So we talk about the weather, and we are talking about God.

I miss the old temples where you could hang out with God.

Still, we have pet pounds where you can feel love draped in warm fur,

And sense the whole tragedy of life and death.

You see there the consequences of carelessness,

And you feel there the yapping urgency of life that wants to be lived.

The only things lacking are the frankincense and myrrh.

We don’t build many temples anymore.

Maybe we learned that the sacred can’t be contained.

Or maybe it can’t be sustained inside a building.

Buildings crumble.

It’s the spirit that lives on.

If you had a temple in the secret spaces of your heart,

What would you worship there?

What would you bring to sacrifice?

What would be behind the curtain in the holy of holies?

Go there now.

Tom Barrett

Here’s a stellar piece from Joshua Porter at Bokardo.com that contains a couple of delicious pieces of evidence that confirm it really is true: serve first, serve well (in the innovative, one-of-a-kind way only you can) and serve genuinely, and the money will follow…

Sometimes, with far more than you’ll ever need (if that’s your karma).

“Apple’s goal isn’t to make money. Our goal is to design and develop and bring to market good products…We trust as a consequence of that, people will like them, and as another consequence, we’ll make some money. But we’re really clear about what our goals are.”
Jonathan Ive of Apple

Josh’s original post is really worth the 2-minute read.

P.S. Ain’t it funny how, as serving first takes first place in your life, the money thing kinda stops being all that important, beyond the basics…  Fred Kofman of Axialent calls this ‘Success Beyond Success’

Wanna join us in nourishing the ‘growing body’? Feel free to post whatever great pieces of evidence you’ve run across lately here.

Think Einstein, once told he was stupid and ‘without a head’ for math.

Oprah, once told she was too emotional to make it in television.

Branson, once told he was so learning-disabled and undisciplined he’d never be good for ‘much more than a trade’  (or he’d simply self-destruct.)

What if…

~~~

Monet Refuses the Operation

Doctor, you say that there are no haloes
around the streetlights in Paris
and what I see is an aberration
caused by old age, an affliction.
I tell you it has taken me all my life
to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels,
to soften and blur and finally banish
the edges you regret I don’t see,
to learn that the line I called the horizon
does not exist and sky and water,
so long apart, are the same state of being.
Fifty-four years before I could see
Rouen cathedral is built
of parallel shafts of sun,
and now you want to restore
my youthful errors: fixed
notions of top and bottom,
the illusion of three-dimensional space,
wisteria separate
from the bridge it covers.
What can I say to convince you
the Houses of Parliament dissolve
night after night to become
the fluid dream of the Thames?
I will not return to a universe
of objects that don’t know each other,
as if islands were not the lost children
of one great continent. The world
is flux, and light becomes what it touches,
becomes water, lilies on water,
above and below water,
becomes lilac and mauve and yellow
and white and cerulean lamps,
small fists passing sunlight
so quickly to one another
that it would take long, streaming hair
inside my brush to catch it.
To paint the speed of light!
Our weighted shapes, these verticals,
burn to mix with air
and changes our bones, skin, clothes
to gases. Doctor,
if only you could see
how heaven pulls earth into its arms
and how infinitely the heart expands
to claim this world, blue vapor without end.

~ Lisel Mueller ~

(Sixty Years of American Poetry, The Academy of American Poets)

*** Many thanks to Pam Nelson and the good people at Panhala.

And you never know exactly how it’ll all work.

All of which drives most of us round the bend till we start to get our groove on with the whole ‘letting go’ thing (and even then it can still be a tug-o-war sometimes)…

But one thing you can always count on is the perfect timeliness of every calling.

And ‘timely’ perfectly describes the latest calling of Michael Katz, Chief Penguin at www.BluePenquinDevelopment.com (an esteemed member of our True Callings Associate Faculty team).

Last fall during one of our monthly faculty calls, Michael mentioned feeling something was up, but what he couldn’t yet say.

All he could say was that it had him a little on edge, seemed to have something to do with money, and with making a difference philanthropically somehow.

Earlier this month a couple of very intriguing opportunities and ideas came his way.

And as a guy who gets the value of playful and creative experimentation as well as letting go, Michael’s giving the ideas that most excite him their due, just to see where they might lead.

One in particular is a simple but sassy pay-it-forward-with-a-twist kinda thing Buddhists would call ‘enlightened self-interest’ - an idea that’s quietly building buzz and word-of-mouth participation: www.spendtwentydollars.com

In this quick audio clip Michael explains how this calling came to him (and one of primary reasons it intrigues him…)

And here’s what a member of the True Callings Tribe had to say after checking it out and jumping on board:

Thanks for the “heads up” on the twenty dollar deal. I signed up and enjoyed treating my son’s girlfriend and I to a new restaurant haunt (very healthy options). By the way, I really like Michael Katz. Adjectives that come to mind are innovative, creative, authentic, warm and kind! It’s easy to see why you two are peers!

www.spendtwentydollars.com Kooky, or just kooky-cool enough to take off?

~~~

P.S. If you’d like to hear Michael actively explore and get a more solid feel for WHY this has him so jazzed (great learning!), send us an e-mail and we’ll send you the entire 6+ minute MP3 audio free.

Be the change you wish to see in the world.

Mahatma Gandhi

Despite our culture’s thrall for big ‘n bold, it’s from mostly small and seemingly ordinary moves that a life’s talkin’ goes to a consistent daily walkin’…

It’s also where authentic change we can count on comes from (not very sexy, but there ya go).

Which means making thoughtful small moves is a pretty big deal, especially during times of ‘fierce urgency’…

‘It’s the little things that count.’

And when a leader during such times gets that who they are and how they live matters as much or more than their job function because they’re persons of influence, then their living often becomes a reflection of what matters in each moment, not just when they’re on stage.

They understand the importance of consistency in their actions, which is then displayed as small moves and meaningful gestures, fueled by thoughtful contemplation, authenticity, intentionality and sustainable commitment.

When that all starts whirring together, palpable, hyperbole-free trustworthy starts showing up.

It’s also where True Callings get lived more consciously.

Which is why we were excited to see this on the White House blog about the vegetable garden the Obama’s are planting on their lawn, and intending to tend together as a family…

Bringing fresh food from the farm to the plate for a healthy dinner isn’t easy at the end of a busy day, but the Obama family has a plan. Foodies and environmentalists are thrilled about the Obamas’ plans to break ground on a new White House vegetable garden in their yard. A garden like this is one of those small gestures that is powerfully symbolic.” Michael Pollan, author of “Omnivores Dilemma” and vocal advocate for agricultural reform, told ABC News.

Now, if folks who’re living (arguably) the world’s most time-pressed, demanding and fish-bowl life - during some of the most challenging times in history - have time to shift how they live and answer a call (to plant, tend and eat their own, locally grown food)…

It just kinda makes ya go, ‘huh’, doesn’t it?

I dreamt of balloon rides and champagne at sunrise (turns out its freakin’ cold up there, BTW).

Trips to Paris wandering hand in hand along the Seine.

Breakfasts in gilded beds strewn with rose petals …

I know. Cheese-o-ra-ma, right?

Thing is, I sincerely thought my love life had to be littered with ‘grand’ gestures for me to be happy and fulfilled.

Till I met Randy, that is.

He’s not your typical grand gesture kinda guy. They just aren’t his style. Neither (as it turns out) are they mine. At least, not in the way I once thought …

See, about a month after we met, Randy’s wife of 19 years, Lynda, died suddenly and tragically of a brain aneurism (read the whole story here).

The grandest gesture he could offer - as a single-parenting widower with two teen daughters, a job, a mortgage and a reeling heart - was daring to love again.

And in that gesture was openness and courage. The willingness to face grief and fear, and ask some really, really challenging questions. The strength to defy social taboos, dig deep and find his own way. The audacity to risk, when it would have been much, much easier not to.

Not bad as grand gestures go, wouldn’t you say?

21 months later, when we married, he made another grand gesture when he entrusted me with the care and joint-upbringing of his much-loved, still grieving kids.

In that gesture was enormous faith and trust, and the willingness to co-parent with someone who’d never parented anyone or anything before – to give me the space, freedom and opportunity to demonstrate that his belief in my ability to love and guide his girls well was well-founded.

How’s that for a ‘grand’ gesture?

A couple of years after that, he took my breath away with his answer to the question, ‘What’s your most meaningful possession?’ …

“My wedding ring! Every time I look at or feel it on my hand it reminds me of the woman I love and the amazing life we share together, how we found each other, what it took to be together and that, against the odds, we said yes to each other and to love.”

*sniffle*

These are just a few of what I call our ‘better than roses’ moments, the kind filled with gifts no currency in the world can buy, but every heart understands.

The kind that can’t wither when the water hasn’t been changed…

… or be messed with if it rains, runs out of gas or gets rescheduled

… or get lost if you have an absentminded blonde moment

… or burn up if the house catches fire

… or get stolen if someone decides to make off with ‘it’.

The kind we really yearn for, but confuse (like cheese-o-ra-ma me) with bright paper and colourful bows, sparkly bubbles and big public flourishes, calendar holidays and hefty price tags.

Know what I mean?

This post was inspired by friends Lois Kelly of Bloghound and Rosey Dow at PainlessPennyPinching.com, as well as Patti Digh at 37days.com and The Box of Nothing post on TheStoryOfMyLife.com. It’s been a week of lovely – and very synchronistic – gifts of self. Thank you.

Most folks don’t know our story: how we met, got our start, how we came to do what we do with what can, at times, seem like cock-eyed optimistic enthusiasm and conviction.

Frankly, it had always felt a little too ‘forest for the trees’ to re-tell ourselves well, if you know what we mean.

Which is why, when we received our advance copy of a cool new e-book, ‘Running Down A Dream’ (written by good friend and client, Shawn Shepheard) it felt a little out-of-body.

There it was in black and white - our beginnings - a chapter in his book.

It brought back a flood of memories, and kinda stunned us too: if it hadn’t happened to us, it’d seem a bit surreal. Even a little Hollywood.

But Hollywood it was not.

They were ‘the best of times and the worst of times’, filled with wild, unpredictable and uncontrollable ups and downs: hope and despair, love and loss, joy and heartbreak, endings and beginnings, confusion and (stunning) clarity, faith and terror, tragedy and opportunity.

One moment we’d be laughing and loving, amazed by what we’d found in each other. The next…

Well, you name it: we felt it. Some days, despite the love, we cried ourselves to sleep and woke up to cry some more. Other’s we drifted off with our hearts so full of gladness we felt a little crazy sometimes.

Thing is, it was during that time we learned – up close and really personal - what every single successfully callings-led person comes to live by: the one thing that separates those who are sustainably successful from those who are not, is the decision to learn how to find, focus on and creatively use the opportunity in every crisis.

Now, we ‘knew’ this at the time but didn’t really believe it. Just like we ‘knew’ everything happens for a reason – that there’s a much larger process at work ‘behind the scenes’ guiding and directing us…

But we hadn’t really bought it.  Not all the way.  At least, not yet.

But looking back on it now, its easy to see that that time served to show us where we thought we believed when we actually didn’t believe: that that time paved the way to now.

Yesterday existed so today could become.

Learning how to find and focus on the right opportune future for you, takes real practice and discernment, and the only way to get really good at both is on the ground in real, raw life.

Boxers have to get in the ring. Cyclists on the bike.  Swimmers in the pool. Runners on the track.

How could it be any different for us?

Now, that doesn’t mean there won’t be times you’ll curse crisis. Hate it. Whine about it. Try and squirm out of it.

We sure did. And sometimes still do (remind Lissa to tell the missing key story sometime).

And so at times do those boxers, cyclists, swimmers and runners.

But as hard as it may feel to be living what’s in front of you right now, whatever’s there is there to help you grow your way into your best tomorrow.

Provided you decide to learn how to live it that way today.

With Shawn’s permission, we’re posting that excerpt about our beginnings from his book here - to fill in the ‘here’s why’ blanks, and to let anyone who’s been shaken to the core by recent loss, betrayal or sudden reversals of fortune know…

It really is true. It’s not just a pretty saying.

Everything does happen for a reason. You just have to learn you’ve got good reason to really believe it – just like we did.  And still are.

***

Challenging Beliefs: Miracles of Connection

This story is about connection - an immensely strong connection between two people, and their immensely strong connection with a greater power.

When Lissa and Randy first met, Randy was married and Lissa had never been (and had no plans to be). She shook hands at an event she never expected to be at, and realized she’d met someone who was going to change her life. She was shocked, terrified, and had never been more sure of anything in her life.

It was a study group for the book Conversations with God, by Neale Donald Walsch. Randy had joined the group looking for a community of like-minded people. Other than a brother who was on a similar path, but out of town, the people in his day-to-day life couldn’t relate to his new quest for growth, awareness and understanding.

Lissa was feeling a similar call, and joined the group just a few weeks after.

Randy felt something too, when he met Lissa, but he was married and didn’t want to acknowledge the feeling. Things at home were already rocky. His wife, Lynda, was scared of the changes she was seeing in him, and saw the study group as some sort of cult.

Randy was frightened of his immediate sense of connection with Lissa, of how he felt more at home with his study group than with his family. When his wife gave him an ultimatum and demanded that he quit the group, he knew he couldn’t, that this was something he had to do for himself. She asked him to leave the house, to give her space to think.

3 days later, Lynda collapsed from a brain aneurysm. 24 hours later, she was gone.

At precisely the same moments of Lynda’s collapse and her death, Lissa was overcome with two shocking and seemingly inexplicable waves of emotions. She walked through both days hollow and numb, and cried herself to sleep both nights.

At noon the second day she heard from the host of the study group, who emailed everyone with the news. Lissa felt immediate relief, because now she understood the context of her feelings. And then came “Oh, my God panic, because of this strong connection she was now a part of.

It scared the hell out of her. She couldn’t explain it, but somehow it was also reassuring and affirming. Part of her wanted to move closer and part of her wanted to go away.

Randy and Lynda had two teenage daughters, aged 14 and 17. There had been a gulf between them and their dad, because they’d needed to side with their mom. Randy’d been on the outside looking in, and now he was all they had. In the midst of this tragedy, he knew they couldn’t help but wish it were the other way around, that he was gone and their mom was there to look after them.

In the next few weeks, Randy slowly started to reconnect with the study group again. He wanted things to settle down, but something kept pulling him towards Lissa. Eventually they opened the door to talk to each other, and realized they’d both been going through the same thing – the pull, the resistance, the surrender.

A few months later, they made the decision to start seeing each other. Randy’s daughters were very unhappy about it. He had to decide that his happiness was as important as his role as a father, and that his connection with Lissa was something he couldn’t deny or pass up.

Randy and Lissa both felt they were being called together for a purpose, that there was work for them to do together, and that everything was happening for a good reason. Over the year they became closer and closer and began to see their future unfolding, and the things they were going to do together that would make a difference.

Lissa and Randy were married 21 months after Lynda died. From building a strong, loving bond with Randy’s two daughters, transitioning out of corporate careers into a joint life coaching practice (both were laid-off), to manifesting their dream home on a lake in the country, every step of the way’s been guided by their connection, and their connection to a sense of calling and purpose. Just like the earliest days of their relationship.

Every step of the way, they had to open themselves to new possibilities they didn’t understand and couldn’t have planned, challenging what they knew to be true and thought they wanted.

In Lissa and Randy’s own words:

“We’re great, the kids are great, and we do work we love from a place we love. A life of soul-deep fulfillment isn’t one you can plan, but one you find by answering calls even when they feel crazy. Even when times are hard. The challenge is to look squarely at your deepest fears, like what people will think, or what you’re afraid you might loose. Believe, keep your sights set on what’s possible, on what you love, and stay focused on what’s calling you and WHY.”

We have enormous respect for funny people.

A really good comic can slice through all kinds of social mores and get right down to the wacky truth of things with a well-worded joke, exceptional timing and canny observation (a la Seinfeld).

Before you know it, they have you busting a gut laughing at something you might simply accept as the status quo and otherwise defend to the death or feel powerless in the face of.

Truth is, few things are better than really good humor for cutting through cock-eyed or catastrophic thinking!

Which is why we love this bit from comedian Louis CK.

While on Conan O’Brien recently he let fly comedically about how the economic downturn might actually be something we need, ‘because everything’s actually amazing right now, but nobody’s happy’.

If you have 4 minutes, give this a watch.

And prepare to snort, chortle and think differently.

P.S. The last 20 seconds of this are a teeny bit crude, so buckle your virtual seat belt…

I’ve come to the realization that it’s actually impossible to plan an authentic life - it’s only possible to be authentic and watch as your authentic life manifests around you.

Susan Piver
from The Hard Questions for an Authentic Life

We had ourselves a very quiet New Years this year.  I’m two days past one of the wildest intestinal bugs I’ve ever had, and Randy’s smack dab in the middle of the bug boogaloo right now.

Despite the quivering, quaking queazies, we managed to watch WALL-E (great flick) while cuddling on the couch grateful simply to be together.

Ah well: so much for all those plans for a chipper 8^th Wedding Anniversary/New Years Eve…

Now, if that sounded like it might have been cranky or resentful, it wasn’t.  Really.  Because when I say, ‘so much for our plans’ I’m wearing a bit of a Mona Lisa smile.

See, the last 8-odd years have taught us that goals, objectives and plans - even when they do work out - don’t necessarily turn out to be all (we thought) they’d crack up to be.

Nor does holding to our way of doing things guarantee the results we’re most looking for (Jon Swanson’s brief but brilliant Nice or Necessary post says this best).

But the stuff that ‘just happens’ - that we simply couldn’t conceive, envision or anticipate on our own - when we’re just being us always works out WAY better.

And often a lot quieter, softer and sweeter too (including getting the flu over the holidays).

When you think about it, who really needs flash and fantasy when the solid truth of love and deep friendship (not to mention the anticipation of another new year’s promise) is - all on its own - so much more?

Which kinda begs the question: just what is it we’re after when we’re busy trying to make a moment great instead of just letting ourselves experience and enjoy all the nuances of greatness in the moment itself?

Really. What do you think it is?

P.S. The sweetest of Auld Lang Syne’s to you and yours!

His name is Melvin Alexander Boles and last May he celebrated his 91^st birthday.

He was only one when the 1^st World War ended. In his early twenties when the world plunged into war again in September of ‘39.

And like so many others of his time, he answered a deeply felt call to serve, leaving home and family to become a Radio Officer, first in the Merchant Marine, where he survived U-boat attacks on his convoy in the North Atlantic, and then in the Air Force Transport Command, flying through German held territory to deliver bombers to the allies on the front in North Africa.

And as he served he saw and experienced things most of us can’t imagine, living through a period many thought might be the end of times…

When the war was finally over he returned forever changed to a home not quite the same either, and without a word of complaint, ill-will or grudge he set about building a life with his Bahamian bride (Amy) and their first-born (Randy).

To support his family, Poppa needed to retrain: there just wasn’t much call for radio officers in peace time.

So without much fuss that’s exactly what he did, and then went about the business of training as a baker. Together with Amy, his wife of over 60 years, he raised what became a family of three sons, eight grandchildren, and three great grandchildren (with two more due to arrive soon).

But you know, the truth is our Poppa’s always been a man who just gets on with getting on, making the most and best of whatever’s in front of him with good humor, grace, optimism and fortitude.

Steadily. Quietly. Without a lot of fanfare or hoopla.

You might say his model for living is ‘The Good Samaritan’.

When illness struck this past August it looked like we might lose him. So much so, in fact, the doctors suggested it was probably time to put things in order.

But Poppa did what he’s always done: reach inside himself for whatever it is of his spirit that decides to makes the most of a difficult situation, because he rallied and focused on the positive, while all around him men less than half his age with far more gas in their tanks and strength in their bodies succumbed to dark and hopeless thoughts and the road those thoughts pave.

Melvin Alexander Boles - our much loved Poppa - and many just like him, were the backbone of our nation, our stalwart guardians, and the builders of the foundation on which our todays rest.

And when this day of thoughtful remembrance comes and its time to pay homage to those who’ve served and sacrificed so much for our sake, we think of him.

It makes what was given – and is still being given today - up close and very personal. And the gratitude we feel much more real.

Do you have a Veteran story of calling and caring to share? Cause we’d love to hear them…