Author / Michael

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Posts by Michael

I am a husband, father, minister, and writer.
by Michael

My Blog: Things You Don’t See

One of the earliest things I learned when I started working as a chaplain is that things I don’t see can sicken me, take away my strength, and cause me harm. There are more pathogens in the world than I’ll ever see.

On one hand, that’s enough to send a non-medical person nuts. Everywhere you look and everywhere you touch, you’re wondering, “What’s on this?” You change your habits. You watch your six-year-old and test him by secretly counting how long he washes his hands. You do this to everyone in the bathroom, too. Until the results depress you.

On the other hand, this unseen presence makes the human body that much more remarkable. We walk around well, and that’s miraculous! And we also need to care for ourselves as much as possible in appreciation for ourselves. How will you appreciate yourself today, amazing sustained miracle that you are!

by Michael

Prayer for the Week

Enable us to see the blank page, the full schedule, and the unseen day as gifts and friends.

Whether blue, white, gray, or yellow or some other color, brighten that background ahead until it becomes a wide invitation from You, our Creator of the best lives and the Maker of the most enduring truths about humanity.

See the page as we see it. See the day as we see it. Grant that we may see the hours ahead clearly.

Notice our fears, most of which we keep to ourselves. Give us grace.

by Michael

Action, Reflection, Action

What we believe to be real comes through are words, but the better communication of our deepest understandings is our behavior. We live our beliefs more than we profess them.

I think there’s something good about saying what we believe. I’m a person who decides what I think by saying it and, in some cases, writing it. But when I want to know where the truth settles in me, I reflect on what I’ve done, what I’ve left undone, and how I’ve proceeded in life. I think most people are this way. We live into and out of life.

CPE calls this Action/Reflection, and I add another Action at the end because I do; then I reflect on what I’ve done; and then I do again. After all those moves, belief emerges clearly.

by Michael

Expectations

Someone has an expectation of you that you will not meet. It could be a supervisor. It may be a friend or a relative. There are a host of expectations piling up or slowly collecting with your name on it. You will not meet many of them. In other words, you will fail somebody today.

Make the simple acknowledgement to yourself that this is true. It’s already in the future of this day. Accept that and turn toward what else the day has for you. You will fail somebody. What else is there?

by Michael

Dr. Carla Hayden’s Swearing In

This happened last month, and there are so many things I love about this. To see Dr. Carla Hayden in this beautiful space, to imagine her walking through the long underground passageway, to know that she’ll be inspiring and leading us to read… This is a tad long but you need to see Dr. Hayden’s video explaining her vision even while you hear the words of every other person in the ceremony. Paul Ryan even discusses Jefferson’s way of cataloging his library, which is a treat to visit in the LOC if you can visit.

by Michael

The Ripples

by-gabe-rodriguez

Every decision we make changes things. The people we befriend, the examples we set, the problems we solve…

Sometimes, if we’re lucky, we get to glimpse those ripples as we stand at the crossroads. Instead of merely addressing the urgency of now, we can take a moment to focus on how a quiet insight, overlooked volunteer work or a particularly welcome helping hand moves so many people forward. For generations.

How did you get to where you are? Who is going to go even further because of you?

Thank you for passing it forward.

From Seth Godin whose words you should read.

by Michael

National Museum of African American History & Culture

Also, see a related interview by Anita Little at Religious Dispatch on Religion and Resistance. She speaks with the DC curator of the Center for the Study of African American Religion, Rev. Yolanda Pierce. That new center is housed in the NMAAHC. My favorite part of the interview is here–all this lovely stuff about the ancestors and symbolism–when Rev. Pierce discusses President Obama’s part in ringing a 500-pound church bell. This is fascinating to see this wonderful treasure open:

As a gesture, as a symbol, it is so powerful. The bell is tangible, it’s this huge thing that’s traveled to the seat of power, Washington, D.C. It came from this community of enslaved people who could have never imagined in their lifetime an African American president or an African American museum in our nation’s capital. It’s no small thing, we are at the evening of President Obama’s presidency.

A lot of the people coming on opening day are coming partially to say goodbye to President Obama in what will be one of his last public acts as president.

For me personally, it makes me think of the spirits of the ancestors, all the men and women who never lived to see this moment, all of our ancestors who died en route to the United States and whose bones now litter the Atlantic Ocean. The resounding clang of that bell as it reaches the heavens will remind me of those who could not be present.

The RD piece is here.

by Michael

Social Media Authenticity

Dawn is over here doing her thing, blogging with a collective of mothers, thinking through and reflecting upon the mixed and wonderful life that is theirs and ours. Here’s her latest post, emerging out of both our stubborn insistence to learn how to see.

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“If people are going to see me on social media, I want people to see my real life, the good, bad, and ugly of it all because human perfection is not beautiful, it’s a lie.”

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I gotta give it to Alicia Keys.  It takes character to decide to ditch make up in an industry as shallow as the music and television industry.  Keys has essentially kicked off another wave of media authenticity with the #NoMakeUpMovement (Jamie Lee Curtis shook the industry with her exposition of photoshopping among celebrity images).  Now that another form of natural beauty is trending these days with  Alicia Keys, Sanaa Lathan,  Kendall Jenner, and others  who have committed to natural looks in their public lives, it will be interesting to see if the movement will go beyond trend and revolutionize how we understand beauty as a culture.

Many of us were already on…

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