planning Archives - Page 3 of 4 - Lisa Colón DeLay

Getting back to nature and rest and Falling Water (literally)

The blitz of writing, designing, and promoting the book is pushing me too hard and I weary of it. (It’s only my own fault.)

Plus, just a few hours ago, when formatting for Kindle it started choking and gasping on all the photos. This indicates that I’ll have many, many hours of reformatting to do. But it will have to wait!

I’m taking a little trip (it’s been planned for months) to visit this wondrous place of beauty and art and creativity. It was designed in 1935 by Frank Lloyd Wright…talk about visionary!

I have posts ready for other days this week, so please come back soon. There will be something to read.

…but I’ll be less available for the next two weeks finishing things up and Summer is waning. I shan’t want miss too much more than necessary.

Yes, I said “shan’t”. I was being funny. Who says “shan’t” who isn’t trying to prove something?

(Click the photo to learn about this National Landmark and consider planning a trip to see it in-person.)

ONE MORE THING!

This is a beautiful short review by a talented writer of many things. Enjoy Erin’s excellent blog here.

Open Diary: On Expectations Outside Yourself

Inspired by the open heart of Henri Nouwen, I am including my own thoughts openly. In some ways prayers too. Though these are notes I am writing to myself, some of them may have resonance with you. I hope so.

Open Diary

You’ve been deciding so much based on what you suppose other people want, or want of you. But, you really can’t know what they want. If you can, you can’t let it decide the most important things, like who or what gets the most or best of your time. That is reserved for you children, your spouse, your best friends. When it’s all over–and it seems that will happen sooner than you think–you will just just wonder where the time went, but wonder why things were more important than people to you. Not that they were, but you acted that way sometimes.

Instead of being paralyzed by something outside yourself, look hard within and feel the presence of God calling you to live your truest self. It is the voice of Love calling you to love others better then you do now from a power that is not yours alone. It is the power that set the world to light. It is out of the abundance of Love that you were made, not just by your parents, but by the Source of all Love and Goodness: God.

When you decide things do it because the people closest to you will benefit, not for those who want to use you for their intensions and gains. Put up boundaries on your time for your family but also for yourself.

Only do what God expects of you. That is simple: Love God and love others. The other things can sort out in many ways, but they shouldn’t overshadow the first truth.

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Open Diary: Living Past the Moment

Open Diary

You’ve been good at anticipating and predicting. By nature you use your intuition to navigate and decide. By nurture you’ve had to use your skill to survive in your world. You’ve tried to keep out of harm’s way by doing this. You’ve tried to thrive.

But there is a price. It is that you get yanked out of the moment that you are in. You’ve living elsewhere. Life is happening but your mind is in the future planning or figuring things out. You are cheating yourself out of the richness of the now. The present.

Just as you notice a smile from your child or the beauty outdoors your mind races ahead outside of the moment. Settle yourself. Find yourself where you are. Right now.

Keep coming back to the place where you really are. Literally, come to your senses.

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Being a Follower: Leonard Sweet

I’m reading Leonard Sweet’s book “I am a Follower”.

It turns leadership on its head, which feels a bit ironical to have it as a textbook this 9 weeks in my Master of Arts in Christian Leadership course. But, then again, I didn’t expect to learn leadership ordinarily. We’re working from the ground up here. We aren’t learning to be bosses, we’re learning to be like Jesus, and influence others in the fashion of God’s Kingdom, not man’s (courtesy of the Sermon on the Mount, I might add)
It’s a challenging message for us.

Here are some noteworthy bits I’ve gleaned:

1. Jesus wasn’t looking for leaders…he was looking for followers. Instead of worrying about finding and keeping followers, we follow him.

2. The seduction to apply a secular business model has infected churches but has been a remarkable failure. Spiritual depth doesn’t come from this model. (Willow Creek’s self-assessment is an honest but damning example.)

3. God’s strength is made perfect in human weakness, and this will be illogical in a worldly model. God’s power is how we do well.

4. God will prune us, for our own good, so we may be more fruitful and glorify him more.

5. Strategy and planning common in many church models today can superseded the focus on the work of the Holy Spirit.

6. There is a going myth the technology and innovation are answers to our leadership and church problems.

7. God calls us to do something bigger than ourselves.

8. The Church’s obsession with leadership reflects our cultures values which usually center in ego and self-interest.

I will follow up with more from this intriguing and entertaining book. The man does not shy away from plays on word.

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More Creative & More Productive in 2 Days

Photo Credit: Rennett Stowe via Compfight

Try this experiment with me.

I did it, and I got much more done. My Creative Muse seemed to appreciate it too. I wonder if it’ll help you.

BE WARNED. Everything in you will itch at first, but stay with it.

Here it is: Postpone checking your email or going online until noon, for 2 weekdays in a row.

First Create: Get your most creative work done first. (Maybe after a cup of coffee.) Do stuff like idea generation, constructing a mission plan for your project, and the sorts of things that take more lateral thinking (vs. vertical analytical thinking…drill downward at one spot problem solving.)

Second Do: Get your 10 min “must do” stuff out of the way. You know the little things that pile up at work or home that take 10 minutes or less.

(If some of these must do things include going online or emailing…put it off until 10 or 11 a.m.)

Then, please report back.

I’m excited to hear what happened. It’ll be interesting to compare notes.