Lent - What Are You Learning?

If you have any thing that you've learned or been thinking about during this Lenten season, please be an encouragement and add them to the comments.

We are observing Lent this year at our church, and for most of us, we are doing this as a bunch of novices, who grew up in very non-liturgical settings (a few exceptions noted).  We aren't following so much the traditional practices (ash on forehead, fasting on Fridays, etc.), but focusing on the the "inner" reflections that lead us to a deeper appreciation of the cross.

(Sidenote:  I hate to make that inner-outer distinction, but it is a legitimate shortcut to denote certain things.)

At least 32 people from our little community have committed to doing this journey together through daily readings and prayers.  If you have any thing that you've learned or been thinking about during this Lenten season, please be an encouragement to others and add them to the comments...

Blessings.

Seeing Possibilities... in People.

If you have 20 minutes to do anything good for yourself, watch this video.  Heck, just watch the first 5 minutes, and if you don't like it, you can stop, and I will buy you coffee for your troubles.


But if you do like it...  It is a talk given by Ben Zander at a previous TED conference.  I rather not explain it too much, but here is an excerpt.

"Now, I had an amazing experience. I was 45 years old, I'd been conducting for 20 years, and I suddenly had a realization. The conductor of an orchestra doesn't make a sound. My picture appears on the front of the CD -- (Laughter) -- but the conductor doesn't make a sound. He depends for his power on his ability to make other people powerful. And that changed everything for me. It was totally life-changing. People in my orchestra came up to me and said, "Ben, what happened?" That's what happened. I realized my job was to awaken possibility in other people. And of course, I wanted to know whether I was doing that. And you know how you find out? You look at their eyes. If their eyes are shining, you know you're doing it. You could light up a village with this guy's eyes. (Laughter) Right. So if the eyes are shining, you know you're doing it. If the eyes are not shining, you get to ask a question. And this is the question: Who am I being that my players' eyes are not shining? We can do that with our children too. Who am I being that my children's eyes are not shining? That's a totally different world."


Did you catch that? "The conductor doesn't make sound.  He depends for his power on his ability to make other people powerful." Implications abound for what we do as preachers, teachers, doctors, lawyers, artists, businessmen, etc..


Anyways, WATCH THE VIDEO!