Habits like Dishes

Creating habits, healthy, fruitful, productive and longstanding habits, this is like doing the dishes.

I use pots and pans, spatulas and spoons and plates and mugs. I make a big ole mess and then I enjoy the fruit of that labor and mess and work. I sit back and enjoy it with family and friends. I'm filled and rewarded.

And behind the scenes, sitting there in the workspace, the kitchen, is the gritty work of setting things right again for the next creation, the next adventure. I have two choices:

1. Leave the mess, burn the kitchen down and avoid the work of starting fresh.

2. Dive in, set things in order with joy for the greater vision of what's next and then rest for the coming day.

If you're the one ignoring the mess until inspiration strikes, well, you may very well miss the boat as you scramble for clarity in action.

On the other hand, if you've done the dishes, if you're creative space, your mind, your heart and your soul have been taken care of and your house is in order... well, when inspiration strikes you can hit the canvas swinging with everything you've got.

How about you? How's your rhythm of inspiration, creation, enjoyment, reset and rest?

Endless: Lexicon

Happy Lexicon Thursday! The first in 2020! Right now I'm preparing for a trip to Green Bay to lead a workshop on life's 8ight Priorities. In honor of discovering and prioritizing, to the best of our abilities a rhythm of life on purpose, here's a taste of Chapter Five of my upcoming book A Lexicon of Awesome.

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/ E /

There’s something a little unsettling about the idea of endless, isn’t there? It’s terrifying in that awesome fear of God sort of way, yet warm and comforting in that Father God is with me in the gutter kind of way. Ongoing, eternal, without end, this whole concept is mindblowing.

The other day I was connecting with a guy twenty years my senior wrestling with the reality of a changing season in life. Not that life hadn’t changed for him up to this point, but this new season, this latest round of whipping winds, was most definitely more profound and personal than others had been.

Winter had become particularly long.

The clouds blowing past him weren’t moving so quickly anymore. Lingering shadows in his dirt had become disorienting in between the sprays of light. He noted how weak he felt in this season, exposed, and it struck me how, regardless of age, abnormalities can upend a relatively calm season of life.

He knew the season would come to an end, of course it would, that’s what seasons do, but in the moment he wasn’t convinced the next would offer more life and liberty and depth of insight. Endless sounds about as enjoyable as a root canal when eternity is clouded by struggle and confusion. Endless resounds divine, however, when the bandera waves high over humble adventure and deepening love.

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Keep an eye out for A Lexicon of Awesome: a journey through words that shape a home in late spring of this new year.

Drop it Like a Sabbath

And then there are times when we have to put the pen, paintbrush or pic down and take a break from the work.

After the first draft. Or when the bridge finally connects those elusive but divine parts of that song idea. Before we begin to clutter up the piece with unnecessary strokes. Drop the gear and take a hike, take a breath, grab a drink and let it be.

Creative habits are like a sabbath, they're intended to make our rhythm of life better, more fruitful for the long haul, bring clarity to the mission and unity with the Creator. They aren't intended to trap and bind and suffocate. Sabbaths are moments of stopping AND refreshing. Sometimes we need a sabbath from our own process and production before it swallows us whole.

Tomorrow's a new year, how are your habits, rhythms, goals and faith carrying your forward? What are you saying right now, at the end of this year, that you swore you wouldn't say again about your creative pursuits or family rhythms?

Looking for a new perspective, a new rhythm of life? Let's talk.