Peace Treatments

Those that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength They shall rise up with wings as eagles They shall run and not get weary They shall walk and not grow faint Teach me Lord to wait (Isaiah 40:31) Was on a hike yesterday.  15 kilometers, up and down.  By the time we were a kilometer or two from the parking lot, my knees ached, my hips were screaming and my feet were protesting.   Upon realization on how old and broken down I sometimes feel at the grand ole age of 51, the scripture about waiting on the Lord popped into the head...actually, it was the walking and not fainting part that popped in...and then I started to ponder it. Here's what I got... Have you ever received a promise?  A certainty from God concerning a plan, or destiny, or much hoped for answer to prayer?  I have.  In 1998 God promised me that He had and was preserving my marriage for a purpose and that it was good to wait for the salvation of the Lor...

Western culture values independence. Eastern culture values interdependence.  Western culture raises up children that become adults who hold to a "I'm great, you're great, we're all great" mindset, and if it turns out that someone is not so great as one would like, well, that is attributed to a flaw in their disposition.   And if that flaw in their disposition caused a harm to another, then even the forgiveness the harmed person is asked to extend serves the independent value set.  In other words, in order to keep being great, it's a therapeutic benefit to self,  to forgive.  More importantly, forgiveness itself remains an individual choice in Western culture. Eastern culture on the other hand raises up children that become adults who hold to a "we're in a community, and in order for the community to be great, we each must do our part" mindset.  And if it turns out that someone in the community has not quite done their part and this ca...

For a number of reasons I've been in a very dry place spiritually.  There have been times when all I wanted to do was give up.  Walk away from more than just my life, job and faith.  Temptation is a harsh thing and thank God He delivers us from evil, and leads us not into temptation...we do that all on our own quite well. Long story short...He found me this weekend.  In fact, the prayer and word spoken over me was that "I was lost and now I'm found".  God is good.  So faithful.  So incredibly faithful. Too much happened this weekend to blog it, and besides, it's mine and God's anyway.  Some things are just meant to be pondered in the heart, cherished between Father and daughter.  I will say this though.  We pray - I pray - often, for the wrong things.  Like we pray for faith when we ought to pray for trust or we pray for clarity when we ought to pray for obedience.  Let me put this into perspective... Let's say I'm wa...

Having to make a decision.  Tough work that.  Particularly when the choices are equally attractive for different reasons.  One choice appeals to the head with it's logic and rationality, while the other appeals to the heart, with it's compassion and need to make a difference.  I've been faced with 2 very different choices these past few weeks at school.  Head / heart;  marketplace career / ministry vocation calling.  In the midst of these choices, I've also been faced with the ease of falling back into old patterns of behaviors, because when I'm stressed, those old patterns are useful for distracting me. One option is that which I'm called to, compelled to, while the other is the "set up", the counterfeit, designed to get me out of the game.  But which is which?  Therein lays uncertainty. One thing I do know - it's decision time and I have to pick one and commit to it, 100% no holds barred commitment.  You can't sit on two...

Sometimes my rational, logical and pragmatic mind bids me well. And sometimes I need to ignore it while it attempts to talk me into and out of things,  and simply listen to my heart. This residency at school has convinced me of one thing - I didn't listen to my heart (His whisper) and rationalized myself into something that I now feel just a little silly about. When I first began this journey into the world of conflict resolution, it was always with the future vision of doing post conflict capacity building with a specific focus on traumatization and truth and reconciliation.  You know...forgiveness work that makes conflict transformation sustainable. More specifically, working with women in post conflict zones training and teaching them how to do trauma healing and restorative mediation in their own communities (though the idea of doing problem solving workshops in post conflict also tugs me) So, why did I chose organizational conflict? Because I'm in an o...

I'm sitting in a dorm room at RRU in the 2nd residency of my master's program, taking a break from endless readings and assignment outlines. What a crazy journey this has been, getting from "there to here". The irony is that RRU is in my old neighborhood, where I grew up, where all the things that tried to interrupt or even destroy me, happened.  In fact, I walked up to the old neighborhood today, stood in front of both houses, and felt this really tangible sense of triumph.  If I wasn't so dignified I would have danced a jig and sang  "na na na na boo boo!"  From a violent, abusive past to drug addled high school drop out, to master's level student.  Somewhere in there I  got to find, almost lose, and then salvage a marriage to a wonderful man who, 29 years later, I still love with all my heart;  raise up in a "hit and miss, did the best I could with what I had, but no excuses" sort of way, two absolutely incredible, intelligent...

Baylor University did a study of couples in conflict, and found that spouses stated that they would rather see their significant other give up power than apologize.  And when asked to define what giving up power looked like, spouses reported that they perceived their other as having given up power if they were to accept blame or responsibility, acknowledge harm, and work collaboratively towards solution...in other words, things that don't involve lording it over or typical "I win - you lose" scenarios. It got me thinking...isn't apology really about accepting blame, taking responsibility, acknowledging the effect or harm and then working collaboratively to solution which might be another way of saying making amends or fixing the problem? If apology was what it's supposed to be, then apology is synonymous to giving up power. But apology isn't what it's supposed to be...it's been cheapened and diminished by culture, cop out, and self serving mot...