"I'm suffering from constipation."

I have a case of writer's block. I'm clogged, cramped and uncomfortable.

Sure, you might say that moving to write this column entry is evidence to the contrary, however hear me out. I have not posted an entry since August 7, when I had just returned from a weekend of silence at the Abby of Gesthemani in Kentucky (see previous entry). To confirm my suspicion, I sought the bastion of all knowledge: the Wizard of Wiki:

For other uses, see Writer's block (disambiguation).

"Writer's block is a condition, associated with writing as a profession, in which an author loses the ability to produce new work. The condition varies widely in intensity. It can be trivial, a temporary difficulty in dealing with the task at hand. At the other extreme, some "blocked" writers have been unable to work for years on end, and some have even abandoned their careers. It can manifest as the affected writer viewing their work as inferior or unsuitable, when in fact it could be the opposite."

No question; I have it. The cause? Hard to diagnose, since the last months have been filled with fodder for inklings, including:
- My son and his wife are having a second child in April;
- I visited Oregon to celebrate my grandson Utah's first birthday;
- I am working to raise awareness and funding for Rocketown, the remarkable Nashville youth center started in 1994 by the renown contemporary Christian music artist Michael W. Smith - www.rocketown.com ;
- I finished writing my book about innovative leadership and high impact success, Get Out of Your Own Way;
- I committed the rest of my life to Lynn, an amazing woman with whom I exchanged marriage vows while standing in the Sea of Galilee during our 10-day biblical study a month ago in Israel.
- Lynn and I were busted for attempting to smuggle a contraband salami at the Newark airport customs upon our return trip from Israel (story to follow soon!).

There's plenty to write about, but I just can't seem to get unstuck. The pipes are jammed tight with scraps of discontent, doubt, indecision and even a bit of, "Oh crap, I'll be sixty years old in April and I'm still wondering what I'll be when I grow up." A lot of ambiguities. But, this morning something happened that stirred some internal movement; the first signs of an impending disambiguation (great word, disambiguation, meaning "to remove ambiguities").

I was moved while sitting on the...chair in my study. I was reading a wonderful book, Live Like You Mean It, written by my dear friend and mentor T.J. Addington. I met T.J. during a most tumultuous time in my life, when I was close to separatiing from my former wife, Valerie, and the "doom loop" spiral in which I was caught emotionally, professionally and spiritually. He was a client, the leader of the international mission for a Christian movement of 1400 churches and over 500 missionaries throughout the world. I helped him successfully re-craft the story of what became ReachGlobal. The bonus for me has been 1) the chance to travel the world to experience firsthand what we came to refer as GodSightings: evidence of the hand of God and His love at work through people throughout the world in some of its darkest corners, 2) working alongside healthy leaders building healthy environments and 3) to call him a colleague, mentor and one of my most treasured friends.

On December 4, 2007 T.J. checked into the St. Paul Hospital emergency room, having awaken early that morning unable to breathe. That began a forty-two-day stay, thirty-two of them spent in ICU and eighteen days in coma. Diagnosed with MRSA pneumonia, there were countless physical traumas when the doctors were almost certain he would not survive. T.J. is today as busy as ever traveling the world to serve God's call to develop, empower and release healthy leaders that will multiply in building healthy churches. He also finds time to write books, fly fish and spend time with his family. His life is testimony to the power of prayer (hundreds of people worldwide prayed for him during his journey "there and back again")...and what I have come to realize is the power of "if you feel it, do it, now!" One of my favorite passages from this book on this subject (the book's a must read for anyone needing a kick start) reads:

"As individuals, we often live life without much of a target. We respond to the demands of the moment, the job, the expectations of others, and the overwhelming busyness of life. But too many people get to the finish line with a long list of regrets.

We realize we didn't invest enough time in our children or marriage. We're sorry we did not have more time for deep relationships. We wish there had been more time for reflection and thinking. Now there is too little time for those things that suddenly are more important than the salary we pulled down or the ladder we climbed."

So what? I just returned yesterday from a weekend of silence during my second visit to the Abbey of Gesthemani. I guess you might say I was there because I woke up early one morning and couldn't breathe. In the sanctuary of chanting monks, steeple chimes and the snow-icing covered hills of Kentucky I checked out of the ICU: I Can Un-Constipate.

Write on.

Embraced in the brackets - (b)

"Quiet, please. Monks the word."

"Quiet, please. Monks the word."

I just returned from a weekend of silence among the Trappist monks at the monastery of Abbey at Gesthemani in Trappist, Kentucky. It was an item on my ‘bucket list.’ The unfamiliar path that opened before me, as Robert Frost so aptly stated, has made all the difference. It began even before I arrived, having found the card Lynn had hidden with the following:


“I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them.” Isaiah 42:16

It felt intrusive injecting myself into the personal silence and stories of those who walked these holy grounds before me. Still, I leaned into the anticipation of whispers I might discern through reading, reflection and prayer; the melodies of the solitary. I offer two quotes, some images of my walk in solitude and my heartfelt wish for you to take the time…to find the time…to visit the silence…to surrender into its arms.

"Have you ever tried to spend a whole hour doing nothing but listening to the voice that dwells deep in your heart? When there is no radio to listen to, no TV to watch, no book to read, no person to talk to, no project to finish, no phone call to make, how does that make you feel? Often it does no more than make us so aware of how much there still is to do that we haven't yet done that we decide to leave the fearful silence and go back to work! It is not easy to enter into the silence and reach beyond the many boisterous and demanding voices of our world and to discover the small intimate voice saying: 'You are my Beloved Child, on you my favor rests.' Still, if we dare to embrace our solitude and befriend our silence, we will come to know that voice. I do not want to suggest to you that one day you will hear that voice with your bodily ears. I am not speaking about a hallucinatory voice, but about a voice that can be heard by the ear of faith, the ear of the inner heart." Life of the Beloved, Henri Nouwen

How can I hear with different ears and see with different eyes?

"A man knows when he has found his vocation when he stops thinking about how to live and begins to live. Thus, if one is called to be a solitary, he will stop wondering how he is to live and start living peacefully only when he is in solitude. But if one is not called to a solitary life, the more he is alone the more will he worry about living and forget to live. When we are not living up to our true vocation, thought deadens our life, or substitutes itself for life, or gives in to life so that our life drowns out our thinking and stifles the voice of conscience. When we find our vocation - thought and life are one." Thoughts in Silence, Thomas Merton

The more I discover my own face, I discover the face of God. That's God's original plan. There's no way to DO IT because you already ARE IT. Humans do not know what they are doing; every other creature is just doing what they are.

There’s a lot to be said about nothing.

In the embrace of the brackets - (b)

“Put your life where your mouth is;
add a shmear of better.”

• DO THINGS BETTER
• DO BETTER THINGS
• BETTER DO THINGS

Three words. Three sentences. Three meanings.

• Three Men: I moved back to Nashville last October and in the last twenty-four hours reconnected with two men I have known, and who know each other, for almost twenty years and with whom I had lost connection for almost ten years. Facebook made it possible. -- DO THINGS BETTER.

• Three Strands: In just a few moments of texting and exchanged "wassup" inquiries it became clear that each of them had recently become separated from their respective spouses and were going the process of redefining their lives. Knowing that I had also gone through the deserts of separation and divorce, I felt that this “coincidence” was an invitation to weave our (strung out) lives together and share our stories. Besides, “…a chord of three strands is not quickly broken.”Ecclesiastes 4:12 -- DO BETTER THINGS.

• Three Chances: There’s something pretty cool about “threes.” There’s the Three Bears, Three Amigos, Three Wise Men, 3 Dog Night (yes, I am dating myself), Three Tenors, Three Musketeers and those timeless sages, the Three Stooges. Feeling mostly related to the latter of the list, I know that if I hold off and wait till I have some spare time to gather the three of us together, the Stooges will have become the wise men, the Dogs will have been spayed and the Musketeers’ blades will be dull. I will have to create the margin for a part time commitment, if it really matters enough. – BETTER DO THINGS

TAKEAWAY:

1. There are more ways than ever to reach out and touch someone.
2. We are not alone in our blunders, pain and resolve to be better versions of ourselves.
3. Reassembling the broken pieces of our lives is a team sport.
4. Time is never given; it must be taken.
5. There is strength in threes. Remember Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? What about the Trinity?
6. From between the brackets.

From between the brackets -
(b)