I just returned from 2 weeks in Ethiopia and Kenya. The next several blog entries are observations, learning and Holy Spirit moments from my time there. 

At the conclusion of our time in Kenya, Archbishop Obare asked us to stay with them for dinner, “and then”, he said, “you may take your stick.” In other words, we were free to pick up our walking stick and leave. Their blessings would accompany us on our journey home.

When people come to us or leave us, they can feel loved or neglected. It all depends on how we receive them and how we send them on their way.

We were both received and sent with love by our brothers and sisters in Ethiopia and Kenya.

What a blessing—one to pay forward back home.

DO less. BE more. 

Sunday’s two NFL playoff games provided several ESPN Sports Center-worthy big hits resulting in players getting carted off the field.

The most popular sport in America is becoming its most dangerous as well. Not surprisingly, the TV ratings are surging. The NFL now tops Hollywood in viewership. Savagery sells.

I asked my friend Keith, a veteran of fourteen NFL seasons, what he thought could be done to help reduce the epidemic of concussions suffered by players. His belief is that player size and speed certainly contribute to the plague of injuries. He went on to say, however, that better equipment is actually intensifying the problem.

Players lead with their heads as they block and tackle since they believe the new helmet technology will protect them from head trauma. Evidence suggests the opposite. Up to 15% of football players now suffer mild traumatic brain injury each season. The problem is getting worse, not better.

This paradox of technology shows up everywhere. Do four-wheel drive and antilock brakes result in increased safety? Data suggests they do but they also allow us to drive faster and brake later resulting in increased recklessness.

The more important questions concern the behavioral conclusions we reach regarding work, parenting and faith. Is networking technology that allows us to virtually connect anywhere with anyone accelerating efficiency or actually reducing real relationships and teamwork to IMs and webcasts?

Are smart phone apps that track our children’s whereabouts at all times keeping them safer or actually encouraging us to avoid difficult conversations?

Are podcast sermons allowing us to feed our soul at our convenience or just promoting that we skip being in messy community with other broken sojourners?

Keith’s solution to player’s head injuries is to go back to wearing leather helmets.

Perhaps the same reasoning should be applied to work and life. I’m not arguing for a return to the “good old days.” Once examined, the good old days are often not nearly as good as reported.

But perhaps a safer way to live, parent and work is to be a little afraid. Fear often leads to caution. And caution might cause us all to be more tuned in to the dangers of over work, under parenting and convenient faith. Going back to family dinners, real conversations with colleagues and faith in community—notions as quaint as leather helmets—might serve to mitigate the risk of permanent injury.

DO less. BE more.

All New Year’s resolutions involve change. Weight (lose some), money (get some), smoking (stop), prayer (start), job (get one), boy friend (lose one), etc…

It’s already half way through the first month of the New Year. If you set any resolutions, how are you doing?

Statistics don’t favor you. Look at fitness, for example. Of 100 people who join a health club for the New Year, seven never go at all. Twenty-five percent quit going in the first month. Seventy-five percent quit in the first three months. So, of the original 100, only 17 remain after just three months. The best time to join a health club is probably April. No one is waiting in line – at least not to get in!

Several weeks ago, Bret Stephens, commenting on the Arab Spring wrote, “Hope and change are two words best kept far apart.” [1] Hope is not a plan. Plans do not bring about change. In war, no plans survive the first contact intact. Most resolutions don’t survive the first month unscathed.

Making substantive change takes more than hope, a plan or a resolution—it takes tireless commitment and tenacious partners.

Stephens concluded his column, “Freedom can’t succeed without a tutor’s strong and guiding hand. Or, to put it another way, to expect change to succeed without experience is the triumph of hope over experience.”

If you’re struggling already mid-month with change, get an experienced partner. Find a mentor, spiritual director, friend, family member, wise elder or teacher that will hold your toes to the coals of your commitments—not just your hopes.

The good news is that people who make resolutions are ten times more likely to attain their goals than people who explicitly don’t make resolutions. But it takes more than hope to bring about change.

DO less. BE more.

It was a glorious evening at The Upper Room Community Sunday night.

Katie preached her first sermon since being licensed as a minister. She has the gift of revealing God’s wisdom through her own life and faith journey in a powerful way.

Kurt told another hilarious story of his misguided youth. He’s “Exhibit A” of grace.

The music was powerful and inspiring. In short, the Spirit was active.

But what has carried me into this week was Joe’s one-minute closing insight. He contrasted two opposing views of playing hide-and-seek.

As a boy, Joe took pride in playing the game with such skill as to never be found. His crowning achievement was dressing from head to toe in all black and hiding in a stack of garbage bags. To his great joy, no one could find him.

Last week Joe watched a three year old. When playing hide-and-seek, she was silent until Joe announced, “Ready or not, here I come”. What immediately followed was giggling from the next room. Joe found her sitting on the sofa in plain sight. She delighted not in hiding, but in being found.

The best leaders with whom I work, delight not in hiding, but in being found. They are appropriately transparent, letting the people they lead into their own life. The same truth applies to the most engaging people of faith. Their pleasure is in being found by rather than hiding from God.

I’ve seen many leaders fail to engage others because they lead compartmentalized lives that wall off faith, family, and personal life from their business persona. They have more than sufficient skill and intellect, but their lack of transparency creates a scarcity of trust. Followers wonder, “I wonder what or who she/he is really like.”

Erwin Rafael McManus observed that, “Many of us live our lives making sure we are not seen. We choose the cloak of invisibility. We choose to remain uninvolved, and our love for personal privacy disguises both our indifference and our isolation.” [1]

What about you? Do you delight in hiding or in being found? Let God and others into your life this week. It’s more fun than hiding in the garbage bags!

DO less. BE more.

Former NFL coach Tony Dungy commented in last Friday’s USA Today that, “There’s no substitute for a full-time dad. Dads who are fully engaged with their kids overwhelmingly tend to produce children who believe in themselves and live full lives. And when dads are involved, we see direct correlations to decreases in gang activity, substance abuse and incarcerations.”

One in three children today live apart from their biological fathers. That’s a lot of disengaged dads.

Just the day before, the Barna Group released a new study that revealed nearly three out of five young people disconnected from their churches after the age of 15. That’s a lot of disengaged young people.

Part of the solution in both cases is to establish REAL intergenerational relationships—to connect authentically with other generations and be mentored by each other.

I had the privilege of speaking at Texas Lutheran University last week on Fully Engaged: How to DO less and BE more. Before and after the presentations, I was able to connect with students and hear their hopes, dreams and questions about life, faith and business. They pressed me hard and would not tolerate any trite answers or inauthentic conversation. They had real questions and wanted real answers.

As is always the case, I walked away having gained much more than I gave. I was fully engaged for the day and as a result, was engaging of others.

Get engaged today—preferably with someone younger than you. It will be a blessing to them and an engagement trigger for you.

DO less. BE more. 

I often continue to reflect after I post up about various subjects on the blog. Some of this is prompted by your comments. Keep them coming. I’m learning from all of you in this process as well.

In last Friday’s blog (http://www.dolessandbemore.com/trust-me-in-this/), I suggested that trust is at the heart of every Fully Engaged relationship. Trust is the glue that holds great relationships together.

But, how you trust differs in each of the four relationships mentioned—teams, parenting, marriage and faith.

Teams

Trust—but get regular feedback. Commitments to “have each others’ backs—no matter what” made at the beginning of long projects, for example, may get frayed as the task wears on or timelines and tempers get short.

When I climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro in 2000, it was easy to commit to my eleven fellow climbers and our guide in the cozy confines of base camp that we would all stick together for the 6-day climb. We covenanted to all summit together, or none of us would summit. Four days later, we were separated by four hours.

Our guide Elias gave us the necessary and difficult feedback that if we continued on as we were climbing at that point, some of us were not going to reach the summit.

Check for feedback regularly—Are you still all in it together?

More on parenting tomorrow.

DO less. BE more. 

Bill Hybels, Senior Pastor at Willow Creek Community Church says that every major strategic step or decision he has made was inspired and encouraged by someone three feet away from him and not in a crowd of a thousand people.

If you want to have an impact on or be impacted by others, you need to get in REAL close.

I experienced this power of proximity yesterday. Following a lunch meeting, I stood on the sidewalk for a few minutes with two friends for whom I have a great deal of respect. We were commiserating on how we had just come through some significant health issues the last month.

Jay offered that he was less focused on “finishing well, and more on living well, as it was increasing clear that we don’t know when we are going to be finished!”

What a great insight—wisdom accompanied by scar tissue.

That simple thought carried me through the rest of the day yesterday, and influenced my first actions this morning. I woke up thinking, “What do I need to do to live well today?”

When I described that 10-minute conversation to Carol during our nightly walk, I observed that both Jay and Steve were authentically interested and fully engaged—the hallmarks of mature people and leaders.

And, the whole conversation happened within three feet.

Who do you need to get REAL close to today? The result of that proximity may be a conversation that inspires them…and you for days to come.

DO less. BE more.  

Channel surfing a few nights ago, I stumbled onto the last ten minutes of the ABC show Combat Hospital. The setting is a trauma hospital set somewhere near the front in one of the Middle East wars. My first impression was that it seems like a modern day M*A*S*H without the humor—much darker, grittier.

The episode that I entered right near the end went something like this:

A soldier was horribly wounded. One of the brilliant combat surgeons knit his spine back together so he would eventually regain sufficient use of his arms and be able, as a result, to hold his baby girl back home.

The soldier was ungrateful, and spat out that the surgeon just should have let him die. This caused the surgeon to simmer with anger and eventually dump all of his vitriol on the base chaplain, dismissing her with, “I pity you for your utter uselessness” because all she does is “be there” for other people who are hurting.

After seething with rage a while longer, however, the surgeon seeks out the chaplain and asks her to walk with him.

The closing scene shows the two of them setting out slowly, with him saying, “ I don’t know where to begin.” Her discerning reply: “You already have.”

Exactly.

There were two key insights in that moving scene for me:

First, when I am lost or hurting, many times my last response is to reach out. It often seems easier to pull back, hunker down, gut it out. Except that we are created to be in community—especially when we are in pain.

I’m not talking pity party here. But when we set down the façade of lives lived in apparent harmony and complete calm, and begin to share the truth—the good, the bad and the ugly–about our relationships, work, faith and health, we are beginning to truly live a Fully Engaged life.

And second, as the brilliant surgeon learned, just being there is often more precious than doing anything.

If you’re hurting today—reach out. If not—be available.

DO less. BE more. 

In a moment of perfect synchronicity yesterday, these two news stories hit my radar back-to-back:

“Spending your days in front of the television may contribute to a shortened lifespan, a new study suggests. Researchers in Australia found that people who averaged six hours a day of TV lived, on average, nearly five years less than people who watched no TV.

For every hour of television watched after age 25, lifespan fell by 22 minutes, according to research led by Dr. J. Lennert Veerman of the University of Queensland.” [1]

The formula turns even bleaker if you watch NFL football on TV. For every 3-½ hour game, the actual amount of football action averages 11 minutes. So, if you spend 3-½ hours, you might see 11 minutes of live football (less if you’re a Vikings fan) and shorten your lifespan by over an hour. This is a doom loop!

OK, I’m thinking. I’m done with TV. Especially football! But what am I going to do with all my reclaimed time?

Right on cue, The Wall Street Journal shows up with my answer.

“Several recent studies have found that digital communications can lead to more or better friendships online and off, greater honesty, faster intimacy in relationships and an increased sense of belonging, in addition to practical social benefits like an expanded circle of networks.

Plus, the more time college students spent on Facebook, the more empathy they expressed online and in real life.” [2]

Perfect! I’ll turn off the tube, pull up a stool and spend long hours on Facebook. I’ll live longer and be a nicer person.

Or, I might go out and actually engage a friend face-to-face.

What a concept. I love research! If you torture the numbers long enough, they’ll confess to almost anything.

DO less. BE more.

“I was around when they invented flight”, announced the man sitting next to me on my plane trip from Portland yesterday. He wasn’t kidding! Barry is 97 years old and was on his way home from visiting family in Oregon for a week.

His ear-to-ear smile as we took off said it all. If any one on Delta Flight #2200 could say, “I’ve seen it all before” it would be Barry. His great-great grand children build airplanes for Boeing. He’s been flying for over 60 years. But he gleefully snapped picture after picture of the mountains as we ascended out of the Portland airport. “Took 490 pictures on this trip” he said. He added another 20 to his collection on the ride home.

I fly over 100,000 miles per year for business and haven’t ever snapped a picture out of the window. If we allow it to, the scenery all begins to meld together into a colorless, shapeless mass of “been there—done that.” Portland kind of looks like Denver, which isn’t all that much different from Salt Lake or Seattle.

Having a fresh set of eyes undimmed by the passage of time and pace of events is crucial to living a fully engaged life. Helen Keller observed, “The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight but has no vision.” Too often we get caught up in the tyranny of the urgent or the drudgery of the day-to-day and end up sleep walking through life. As a result, we end up not only sleep-deprived but also dream-deprived.

Barry was wide-awake and fully engaged yesterday. After all, he said, “Eventually we get old.” He would know. He visited his friend Sally a few weeks ago. She’s 108, stopped driving in her 90’s but still takes pictures herself. He was looking forward to comparing the last few weeks’ snaps when he got home!

DO less. BE more.