I have a buddy who wears his busyness like a Purple Heart. He starts most conversations by telling me how early he started (oh-dark-thirty), how jammed up he is (barely have time for this call) and how late it will be before he finishes his day (almost tomorrow).

We can all fall prey to the lie that busier is better, certainly necessary, in a connected, competitive and consumer-driven world. But is busyness a virtue?

iDonethis COO Janet Choi posits that when we claim we’re “busy”, we are often saying something else. She supplies three possible translations:

I’m busy = I’m important – My worth is directly related to how hard I’m working.

I’m busy = I’m giving you an excuse – My responsibility has been outsourced to my irresponsibility.

I’m busy = I’m afraid – My courage is undermined by my calendar.

The trouble is that when we fill our schedules with appointments, our hands with iPhones and our time with texts, we are seldom truly present with the people and circumstances that matter most.

Try this as a means to beat back your busyness:

LISTEN                        before you                        TALK

THINK                          before you                        READ

WAIT                            before you                        CRITICIZE

FORGIVE                     before you                        PRAY

Listening. Thinking. Waiting. Forgiving.

Tap the brakes to practice these qualities rather than driving full speed through your life today.

DO less, BE more.

2012 is a Leap Year.

Leap years are a means of attempting to synchronize the passage of time with the Gregorian calendar. A year in the Gregorian system lasts exactly 365.2425 days, necessitating the addition of one day every four years—leap day.

To further complicate the matter, the friction of the tides are slowing the earth’s rotation ever so slightly, making an occasional addition of “leap seconds” to the clock necessary in an attempt to bring time in alignment. The next leap seconds will be added in June.

Minneapolis combined leap day this year with a snow day. Given this city’s unfortunate ability to remove snow as quickly as it falls, a snow day is almost as infrequent as a leap day on a school child’s calendar.

So, Wednesday February 29, 2012 was REALLY special in Minneapolis!

One would think those two rare simultaneous occurrences would have been a tailor-made prescription for an entire day devoted to the pursuit of child-like fun.

Rather than exhilarated from a day of recreation and relaxation, however, I went to bed exhausted on leap/snow day 2012. I found myself buried deeper and deeper, not under fresh fallen snow, but rather the burden of work unfinished due to a power outage caused by power lines snapping in our neighborhood.

This caused me to reflect on how challenging it is to impose order on a truly unruly thing—time. Time mocks every attempt to control it. The amount of time we are granted is a gift. It seems to speed up as we get older, yet slow down significantly when the Internet is out!

Given time we can usually make more money. But, given money, we cannot make one additional second—not even a leap second—of time. Despite all of this, time is the most wasted resource on the planet. The illusion that somehow we get to augment time, like an occasional leap day every couple of years, seems prevalent.

My renewed commitment after leap/snow day 2012 is to truly appreciate time for what it is—the most precious and scarce resource on earth. What about you?

DO less. BE more. 

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. 

It’s inexplicable really. If you’ve been there, you know.

I’ve travelled to Africa nine times, to five different countries, in the last decade.

Every time I step off the plane, I feel exactly what is described in the attached picture—home.

Is it the people with faith personified? Is it because Africa is the cradle of civilization? Is it because each trip provides a treasure trove of inspiration and hope? I don’t know.

It’s great to be home in Minnesota. But I also long to go “home” again to Africa.

DO less. BE more.  

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. 

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.

Calling is the powerful intersection of passion and motivated abilities. It elicits powerful emotions and focuses your deepest attention.

John Ortberg describes calling as “the joy I know when my level of challenges reaches the level of my gifts, and I am consumed by neither boredom nor anxiety, but simply grace.” To hear your calling, and more importantly, to respond in courageous, obedient action, is to truly live in grace.

In marketing terms, a brand that is enduring and robust is said to “fully occupy its space.” But, the genesis of that strong brand is a real need in the world to which that brand is the best solution. To be called is to fully occupy your space in the world.

The essential insight is that calling in life and in work is an obedient response, not a self-motivated action.

In both Kenya and Ethiopia, I saw numerous examples of projects and initiatives that were begun by well-intentioned ministries and people that had called themselves to the mission field. The danger is that ultimately, they deliver something that nobody wants or for which there are insufficient people on the ground to follow through. Buildings are vacated, wells are abandoned and orphans are deserted.

Frederick Buechner defines calling as, “the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” Both sides of the equation are crucial—your deep gladness, fueled by passion and equipped by giftedness, and the world’s deep hunger, created by real needs for which there aren’t current solutions.

Are you calling yourself? Or, are you scanning the landscape of your neighborhood, job, family or world, and discerning a real need to which your life is the best answer?

DO less. BE more. 

Every day in Kenya brought an hour-and-a half drive to and from Matongo where we were teaching. The “commute” was an opportunity to discuss a myriad of questions triggered by living for the week in a culture so different from that to which we were all accustomed.

The talk turned one day to the rapid rise of AIDS among the Maasai people in Kenya. Part of the problem traces its way back to a cultural norm of polygamy and adultery. One of our partners in Kenya, Shauen Trump, suggested that anthropologists tell us all cultures are equal. They are correct in the sense that all are fallen.

While easy to point a judgmental finger at the Maasai for not changing rituals among young men that contribute to the AIDS pandemic, it is simple to dismiss the rituals of materialism and sex among our own culture that are every bit as destructive.

No sooner did we have this discussion in the van than I was assaulted with the headline news from America that evening: the performer M.I.A. gave the finger to 100 million viewers during the Super Bowl halftime show that cost over $4 million to produce. Really? If they could even get their arms around it, how do you think Maasai would view our culture?

The late American novelist David Foster Wallace tells the story of two young fish swimming along when an older, wiser fish passes them and inquires, “How’s the water?” The two young fish continue on until one eventually turns to the other and asks, “What the hell is water?”

We are so timid, distracted or complacent that we don’t even recognize the water in which we are swimming. We just believe the lie that “This is the way it is—or has to be.” One of the true values of leaving this culture, even for a short time, is to quickly realize how we are drowning in our own pool of self-manufactured excess.

It’s time to quit wagging a critical finger at any other culture and focus on the destructive patterns of our own. The breakdown of the family, diminishing value placed on life, vacuum of values, precipitous decline of civility and polarized politics have all set us on a path of destruction. We are drowning.

DO less. BE more.  

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. 

“Servant leadership” is a characterization frequently proclaimed but behavior seldom practiced in organizations with which I work.

Robert Greenleaf, who first applied the phrase to business in 1970, defined it as follows: “The servant-leader is servant first. It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead.”

Truth is, this is not a natural feeling. It’s unnatural, very rare and a deeply inspiring behavior when encountered.

When the pastors introduced themselves last week in Kenya, they also introduced their family. The average number of children they have is seven. “But”, they continued, “we also have 3 orphans.” Or four orphans. Or six. They take seriously the directive to care for widows and orphans by taking them fully in to their family when they show up on their doorstep.

Some of the pastors travel by foot or kombi (taxi) to serve as many as ten congregations separated by 70 kilometers. As a result, they spend up to half of their time away from their family. They stay with parishioners while journeying from church to church, comforting the sick and proclaiming the Word.

Because stewardship has not been a focal point of teaching, and the flock they tend is largely rural and poor, pastors are completely God-reliant or draw a maximum wage of $10/month.

It’s easy to rationalize away all of this by adopting the point of view that says, “Well of course. That’s Africa. That’s just not feasible here in the U.S. Our expectations are high and cost of living even higher.”

Maybe, however, our Kenyan brothers and sisters are way ahead of us in actually living Jesus’ teaching to be servant leaders:

“You’ve observed how godless rulers throw their weight around,” He said, “and when people get a little power how quickly it goes to their heads. It’s not going to be that way with you. Whoever wants to be great must become a servant. Whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave. That is what the Son of Man has done: He came to serve, not to be served—and then to give away his life in exchange for many who are held hostage.”

A lot of business people I observe are held captive—by tight schedules, enormous expectations, boring routines, endless meetings, selfish leaders and the pursuit of “more”. They long for a servant even more than for a leader.

Is it time to serve first and lead second?

DO less. BE more. 

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. 

Vignette #1—from the pilot before we pushed back on the initial flight from Minneapolis to Amsterdam:

“We have finished loading the baggage but are waiting to push back as we are taking on a little more potted water for the toilets and coffee service.”

Vignette #2—from the pilot as we sat on the tarmac in Khartoum:

“Please leave your seatbelt unbuckled and the aisles clear as we are taking on a little more fuel for our flight to Addis Ababa. We may need to make a sudden evacuation.”

Sometimes ignorance is bliss!

I would call the first of these a ”learning” as I committed not to drink coffee on the flight to Amsterdam, and the second a “Holy Spirit moment”, as I significantly upped my prayers in Khartoum with the pilot’s inspiration.

DO less. BE more. 

We all shoulder a load.

For some, it is relatively light—an easy burden that allows them to remain nimble on their feet and quick to respond to the tug and calling of the Spirit. This might be by virtue of wise choices or truly a blessing of circumstance.

Others are bowed under the stress of personal, financial, physical, professional or spiritual burdens that threaten to crush their soul or rob them of the joy of daily life. This may be the consequence of poor decisions made over years or an affliction destined to instill patience and perseverance.

I saw this young woman the first day in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Her daily routine is to climb Intoto, a steep mountain on the edge of the city, cut wood, then shoulder her load all the way back down into the city for sale. Her reward for a day’s work is 20 cents and the opportunity to repeat the task the next day.

When you look closely at her, you see a fierce resolve to keep moving forward under a burden unimaginable to most of us accompanied by a deep weariness that belies her young age.

What about you?

Does your load allow you to remain light on your feet and supple to the Spirit’s summoning or are you staggering under its weight?  Do you have a fierce resolve to continue moving forward or has the daily climb up and run down the mountain worn you out?

Look closely. Does the young woman on Intoto remind you of you? She is not blessed with an abundance of options to live differently. You may be.

It might be time to set something down—to unload your energy-sapping worry, fierce independence or self-defeating financial foolishness. Or, it might just be time to unload your job, false religion or physical routine.

What are you carrying?

DO less. BE more. 

I sat next to a soft-spoken woman this morning on my flight from Minneapolis to Amsterdam and then on to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. She was on her way from North Dakota to serve alongside Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta.

My sister sojourner had been building up the courage for her journey for several years. She postponed her trip last year to travel to Florida instead.

She finally committed to her pilgrimage in September, strongly sensing that “serving instead of sunning” was a worthier calling.

I couldn’t agree more. I suspect she is about to be richly blessed as she is a blessing to the poorest of the poor. This is how spiritual calculus works all over the world.

DO less. BE more.