A Million Miles in a Thousand Years

If I have a hope, it's that God sat over the dark nothing and wrote you and me, specifically into the story, and put us in with the sunset and the rainstorm as though to say, Enjoy your place in my story.  The beauty of it means you matter, and you can create within it as I have created you.  p. 59

...most of our greatest fears are relational.  It's all that stuff about forgiveness and risking rejection and learning to love.  We think stories are about getting money and security, but the truth is it all comes down to relationships.

...essentially, humans are alive for the purpose of journey, a kind of three-act structure.  They are born and spend several years discovering themselves and the world, then plod through a long middle in which they are compelled to search for a mate and reproduce and also create stability out of natural instability, and then they find themselves at an ending that seems to be designed for reflection.  At the end, their bodies are slower, they are not as easily distracted, they do less work, and they think and feel about a life lived rather than look forward to a life getting started.  he didn't know what the point of the journey was, but he did believe we were designed to search for and find something.  And he wondered out loud if the point wasn't the search but the transformation the search creates.  p. 69

You can call it God or a conscience, or you can dismiss it as that intuitive knowing we all have as human beings, as living storytellers; but there is a knowing I feel that guides me toward better stories, toward being a better character.  I believe there is a writer outside ourselves, plotting a better story for us, interacting with us, even, and whispering a better story into our consciousness.  p. 86

The real Voice is stiller and smaller and seems to know, without confusion, the difference between right and wrong and the subtle delineation between the beautiful and profane.  It's not an agitated Voice, but ever patient as though it approves a million false starts.  The Voice I am talking about is a deep water of calming wisdom that says, Hold your tongue; don't talk about that person that way; forgive the friend you haven't talked to; don't look at that woman as a possession; I want to show you the sunset; look and see how short life is and how your troubles are not worth worrying about; buy that bottle of wine and call your friend and see if he can get together, because remember, he was supposed to have that conversation with his daughter, and you should ask him about it.
     So as I was writing my novel, and as my characters did what he wanted, I became more and more aware that someone was writing me.  So I started listening to the Voice, or rather, I started calling it the Voice and admitting there was a Writer.  I admitted something other than me was showing a better way.  And when I did this, I realized the Voice, the Writer who was not me, was trying to make a better story, a more meaningful series of experiences that I could live through.
     At first, even though I could feel God writing something different, I'd play the scene the way I wanted.  This never worked.  It would always have been better to obey the Writer, the one who knows the better story.  I'd talk poorly about someone and immediately know I'd done it because I was insecure and I'd know I was a weak character who was jealous and undisciplined.
     So I started obeying a little.  I'd feel God wanting me to hold my tongue, and I would.  It didn't feel natural at first; it felt fake, like I wwas being a character someone else wanted me to be and not who I actually was; but if I held my tongue, the scene would play better, and I always felt better when it was done.  I started feling like a better character, and when you are a better character, your story gets better too.  p. 87-88

If I learned anything from thinking about my father, it's that there is a force in the world that doesn't want us to live good stories.  It doesn't want us to face our issues, to face our fear and bring something beautiful in to the world.  I guess what I'm saying is, I believe God wants us to create beautiful stories, and whatever it is that isn't God wants us to create meaningless stories, teaching people around us that life just isn't worth living.
     I don't know why there are dark forces in the world, but there are.  And I don't know why God allows dark forces to enter into our stories, but he does.  p.116

Advertising does exactly this.  We watch a commercial advertising a new volvo, and suddenly we feel our life isn't as content as it once was.  Our life doesn't have the new volvo in it.  And the commercial convinces us we will only be content if we have a car with forty seven airbags.  And so we begin our story of buying a volvo, only to repeat the story with a new weed eater and then a new home stereo.  And this can go on for a lifetime.  When the credits roll, we wonder what we did with our lives, and what was the meaning.  p. 123

The reward you get from a story is always less than you thought it would be, and the work is harder than you remembered.  The point of a story is never about the ending, remember.  It's about your character getting molded in the hard work of the middle.  p177

Writing a story isn't about making your peaceful fantasies come true.  The whole point of the story is the character arc.  You didn't think joy could change a person, did you?  Joy is what you feel when the conflict is over.  But it's conflict that changes a person.  p. 180

...enjoyed the natural high the body creates to trick us into thinking another human being might rescue us...  p. 190

The oldest book of the Bible is supposedly the book of Job.  It is a book about suffering, and it reads as though God is saying to the world, Before we get started, there's this one thing I have to tell you.  Things are going to get bad.
     Job is a good man whom God allows to be destroyed, except for his life.... Job calls out to God, asking why God would let this happen.
     God does not answer Job's question.  It's as though God starts off his message to the world by explaining there are painful realities in this life we cannot and will never understand.  Instead, he appears to Job in a whirlwind and asks if Job knows who stops the waves on the shore or stores the snow in Wichita every winter.  He asks Job who manages the constellations that reel though the night sky.
     And that is essentially all God says to Job.  God doesn't explain pain philosophically or even list its benefits.  God says to Job, Job I know what I am doing, and this whole thing isn't about you.
      Job responds, even before his health and wealth are restored by saying, "All of this is too wonderful for me."  Job found contentment and even joy, outside the context of comfort, health, or stability.  he understood the story was not about him, and he cared more about the story than he did about himself.  p. 197

But regardless how passionate the utopianists are, I simply don't believe we are going to be rescued.  I don't believe an act of man will make things on earth perfect, and I don't believe God will intervene before I die, or for that matter before you die.  I believe, instead, that we will go on longing for a resolution that will not come, not within life as we know it anyway.
     If you think about it, an enormous amount of damage is created by the myth of utopia.  There is an intrinsic feeling in nearly every person that your life could be perfect if you only had such and such a car or such and such a spouse or job.  We believe we will be made whole by our accomplishments, our possessions, or our social status....
     I saw a story on 60 minutes a few months ago about the happiest country in the world.  It was Denmark.  Ruling out financial status, physical health, and even social freedom...the single charasteristic of the Danes that allowed them such contentment was this: they had low expectations.
    I'm not making that up.  There is something in Denmark's culture that allows them to look at life realistically.  They don't expect products to fulfill them or relationships to end all their problems.  p. 201-202

Growing up in church we were taught that Jesus was the answer to all our problems.  We were taught that there was a circle shaped hold in our heart and that we had tried to fill it with the square pegs of sex, drugs, and rock and roll; but only the circle peg of Jesus could fill our hole.  I became a Christian based, in part, on this promise, but the hold never really went away.  To be sure, I like Jesus, and I still follow him, but the idea that Jesus will make everything better is a lie....I think Jesus can make things better, but I don't think he is going to make things perfect.  not here, and not now.
     What I love about the true gospel of Jesus, though, is that it offers hope.  Paul has hope our souls will be made complete...Paul says Jesus is the hope that will not disappoint.  I find that comforting.  That helps me get through the day, to be honest.  It even makes me content somehow.  Maybe that's what Paul meant when he said he'd learned the secret of contentment.  p. 204

...as I continued to see a counselor, I realized that for years I'd thought of love as something that would complete me, make all my troubles go away.  I worshipped at the altar of romantic completion...it's too much pressure to put on a person.  I think that's why so many couples fight, because they want their partners to validate them and affirm them, and if they don't get that, they feel as though they're going to die.  p. 204

....when I think back on those six weeks, what I really remember are the few times we made an extra effort to do something memorable.  We took my dog Lucy for a hike and introduced her to her first waterfall.  We took the kayaks out on the river and strapped them together to have a floating picnic.  When we look back at our lives, what we will remember are the crazy things we did, the times we worked harder to make a day stand out.  p. 209

I like those scenes in the Bible where God stops people and asks them to build an altar.  You'd think He was making them do that for Himself, but I don't think God really gets much from looking at a pile of rocks. Instead, I think God wanted his people to build altars for their sake, something that would help them remember, something they could look back on and remember the time they were rescued, or they were given grace.  p. 214

I hated that it took pain to open the curtain revealing the man's heart, but it did and it does.  We don't know how much we are capable of loving until the people we love are being taken away, until a beautiful story is ending.  p. 223

...She did not want to let on that she was weak or the end was near.  Her friend softly explained the need for a show of strength was over and that she should be fully present in the reality of her story and say good-bye.  p. 224

...I wondered how much it costs to be rich in friends and how many years and stories and scenes it takes to make a rich life happen.  You' can't build an end scene as beautiful as this by sitting on a couch, I thought to myself.  p. 228

It wasn't necessary to win for the story to be great, it was only necessary to sacrifice everything.  p. 231

It's interesting that in the Bible, in the book of Ecclesiastes, the only practical advice given about living a meaningful life is to find a joy you like, enjoy your marriage, and obey God.  It's as though God is saying, Write a good story, take somebody with you, and let me help.  p. 246

One Thousand Gifts

p 110 now

To name a thing is to manifest the meaning and value God gave it...to know it comes from God...

If you think of this world as a place intended simply for our happiness, you find it quite intolerable: think of it as a place of training and correction and it's not so bad."  CS Lewis

It takes a full twenty minutes after your stomach is full for your brain to register satiation.  How long does it take your soul to realize that your life is full?  The slower the living, teh greater the sense of fullness and satisfaction.

That initial discipline, the daily game to count, keeping counting to one thousand, it was God's necessary tool to reshape me, remake me, rename me...  p. 84

All that God makes is good.  Can it be that, that which seems to oppose the will of God actually is used of Him to accomplish the will of God?  That which seems evil only seems so because of perspective, the way eyes see the shadows.  Above the clouds, light never stops shining.  p. 88

"See that I am God.  see that I am in everything.  See that I do everything.  See that I have never stopped ordering my works, no ever shall, eternally.  See that I lead everything on to the conclusion I ordained for it before time began, by the same power, wisdom and love with which I made it.  How can anything be amiss?"  Julian of Norwich.

I know eucharisteo and the miracle.  But I am not a woman who ever lives the full knowing.  I am a wandering Israelite who sees the flame in the sky above, the pillar, the smoke from the mountain, the earth open up and give way, and still I forget.  I am beset by chronic soul amnesia.  I am empty of truth and need the refilling.  I need to come again every day...for who can gather the manna but once, hoarding, and store away sustenance in the mild for all of the living?  p. 107

While I may not always feel joy, God asks me to give thanks in all things, because He knows that the feeling of joy begins in the action of thanksgiving.  p. 176

True saints know that the place where all the joy comes from is far deeper than that of feelings; joy comes from the place of the very presence of God.  Joy is God and God is joy and joy doesn't negate all other emotions--joy transcends all other emotions.  p. 176

Joy is a flame that glimmers only in the palm of the open and humble hand.  In an open and humble palm, released and surrendered to receive, light dances, flickers happy.  The moment the hand is clenched tight, fingers all pointing toward self and rights and demands, joy is snuffed out.  Anger is the lid that suffocates joy until she lies limp and lifeless.  The demanding of my own will is the singular force that smothers out joy--nothing else.  p. 177

And what do I really deserve?  Thankfully, God never gives whwat is deserved, but instead, God graciously, passionately offers gifts, our bodies, our time, our very lives.  p. 178

...dying to self demands that I might gratefully and humbly receive the better, the only things that a good God gives.  p. 179

This time, I know healing.  Eucharisteo makes the knees the vantage point of a life and I bend and the body, it says it quiet: "Thy will be done."  This is the way a body and a mouth say thank you: Thy will be done.  This is the way the self dies, falls into the arms of Love.  p .180

No one who ever said to God, 'Thy will be done,' and meant it with his heart, ever failed to find joy--not just in heaven, or even down the road in the future of this world, but in this world at that very moment, asserts Peter Kreeft.  p. 180

Dorothy Sayers: Whenever man is made the centre of things, he becomes the storm-centre of trouble.  The moment you think of serving people, you begin to have a notion that other people owe you something for your pains...  But when Christ is at the center, when dishes, laundry, work is my song of thanks to Him, joy rains....the work becomes worship, a liturgy of thankfulness.  p. 194

It is by the very function of our being, not our doing, that we are the beloved of God.  p. 199

The way through the pain is to reach out to others in theirs.  p. 199

He sings love over me?
What else can all these gifts mean?
Crazy, I know, but until eucharisteo had me write the graces on paper, in my own handwriting, until it alerted my mind to see the graces in the details of my very own life, I hadn't really known.  p. 204

Why doubt the dare to fully live?  Now and right here.  Why not let all of life be penetrated by grace, gratitude, joy?  This is the only way to welcome the Kingdom of God.  p. 223

I still don't know why He took her.  I don't know why my parents' hearts were left to weep.  Though I cry, this I know: God is always good and I am always loved and eucharisteo has made me my truest self.  p. 225

Positivity by Barbara Fredrickson

Positivity Self Test  www.PositivityRatio.com
watch to see if score/ration increases

Joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration, awe, and love.

Whether it's fascination, laughter, or love, your moments of heartfelt positivity don't last long.  Good feelings come and go, much like perfect weather.  It's the way we humans were designed.  Positivity fades.  If it didn't, you'd have a hard time reacting to change.   If positivity were permanent, you wouldn't notice the difference between good news and bad news, or between an invitation and an insult.  p. 16

Positivity opens us.  The first core truth about positive emotions is that they open our hearts and our minds, making us more receptive and more creative.  p. 21

All people yearn to be happy, but many of us have been coaxed into looking for our happiness in all the wrong places.  We look for happiness in higher salaries, more possessions, or higher achievements.  Or we fixate on the future, holding out that "one day" our dreams will come true and make us happy.  p. 29

Whereas the old story leaves people feeling guilty when they "take time" for something that makes them feel good, the new story can give people the courage to cultivate, protect, and cherish moments that touch and open their hearts.  p. 30

You may have noticed that the term happiness is not in my top ten.  I avoid this term because I feel it's murky and overused.  Although sometimes we use the word happy to refer to heartfelt positivity (as in "seeing you smile makes me happy"), that same feeling is often better described by another, more-specific term, like joy, gratitude, or love,  depending on the circumstances.  p. 37

It turns out that unexplained positivity lasts longer than positivity we analyze until we fully understand it.  p. 50

Simply asking yourself "What's going right for me right now?" can unlock so much...you prepare the soil for positivity to take root.  p. 51

As gratitude opens your heart, it creates the urge to do something kind for the person who was kind to you.  Scientists have carefully studied the downstream effects of expressing heartfelt gratitude.  The evidence shows that when we share our gratitude--whether in words, kindnesses, or gifts--we fertilize our relationships, helping them grow stronger and closer.  p. 92-93

...studies show that shared moments of laughter and joviality between partners deepen their relationship, making it more satisfying to both.  Other studies show that couples who express high levels of positivity to each other build up important reserves that help them weather the inevitable hardships they will face.  p. 93

Although any single hug--or moment of positivity--is unlikely to change your life, the slow and steady accumulation of hugs--or positivity--makes a huge difference.  So find a way to increase your daily dose of genuine, heart to heart, ahng on tight hugs.  You will not only give and receive good feelings, but over time, you'll give and receive good health.  p. 95

Whether we seek it or not, negativity has a way of finding us.  Even when we jump our higest, we most often find ourselves closer to the floor than to the ceiling in the gymnasium of life.
     As is true in many relams of life, more is not always better.  Problems may well occur with too much positivity.  Yet I see a more usuful lesson hidden in the upper limit to flourishing: negativity is also a necessary ingredient in the recipe for a flourishing life.  Go figure...
     ...knowing that positivity is life-giving doesn't mean that negativity needs to be forever banished.  It can't be.  Life gives us plenty of reasons to be afraid, angry, sad, and then some.  Without negativity you become Polyanna, with a forced clown smile painted on your faic.  you lose touch with reality.  you're not genuine.   p. 136

I've come to see the ration of positivity to negativity as the uncanny balance between levity and gravity.  Levity is that unseen force that lifts you skyward, whereas gravity is the opposing force that pulls you earthward.  Unchecked levity leaves you flighty, ungrounded, and unreal.  Unchecked gravity leaves you collapsed in a heap of misery.  yet when properly combined, these two opposing forces leave you buoyant, dynamic, realistic...  Appropriate negativity delivers the promise of gravity.  It grounds you in reality.  Heartfelt positivity, by contrast, provides the lift that makes you buoyant and ready to flourish. p. 137

Decrease Negativity
     Bear in mind that the goal is to reduce your negativity, not eliminate it.  At times, negative emotions are appropriate and useful.  It is proper and helpful, for instance, to mourn after a loss, to resonate on your anger to figut an injustice, or to be frightened by things that could cause harm...
     Your best goal is to reduce inappropriate or gratuitous negativity.  Whereas some of your negativity is corrective and energizing, not all of it is.  Gratuitous negativity is neither helpful nor healthy.  At times your entrenched emotional habits can intensify or prolong your bad feelings far beyond their usefulness.  Your negativity become corrosive and smothering.  Like an out-of-control week, gratuitous negativity grows fast and crowds out positivity's more tender shoots.  p. 158-159

• Dispute negative thinking; examine facts, compare them to the negative thinking
• Break the grip of rumination: Our minds are often high traffic places--it's easy to go to a bad place over and over again in your mind.  You examine negative thoughts from every angle, question them, and don't get anywhere.  You are stuck in a rut of endless questions.  Break this cycle by being aware, distract yourself, find a way to lift your mood.
• Become more mindful: Negative thoughts inevitably arise.  Attempting to block out negative thoughts and emotions backfires.  Instead, pay attention to your own inner experience with full awareness and without judgement.  Accept a thought as just a thought--simply an occurrence in your mind that arises, takes shape, and passes, then soon dissipates.  
• Defuse your negativity landmines: Reflect on typical daily routine and ask which circumstances usher in the most negativity.  Ask--is this necessary?  Is it gratuitous?  Is it both?  Necessary negativity faces facts and moves us forward.  Gratuitous negativity doesn't lead anywhere good.  It is identified by it's sheer size relative to the circumstances at hand.  It's excessive, redundant, ugly--blown up all out of proportion.  If you can't avoid a situation that brings you needless negativity, you have at least three options for curbing it:  you can modify the situation, you can attend to different aspects of the situation, or you can change it's meaning. 
• Assess your Media Diet
• Find substitutes for gossip and sarcasm: if gossip or sarcastic humor is habitual for you, consider whether you are needlessly shackling your own positivity ration and also bringing those around you down.  If this is you, challenge yourself to find substitutes.  When you talk about others, highlight their positive qualities and good fortunes, not their weaknesses and mishaps.  When you want to poke fun, poke fun lightly.  Hurl puns, not barbs.  Avoid hidden forms of verbal aggression...

Increase Positivity:
     Heartfelt: To truly feel positivity in your heart requires that you slow donw.  The pace of modern life is often so relentless that it keeps you focused outward, away from your inner core.  Over time, this stance numbs your heart.  To increase your positivity you'll need to "un-numb" your heart.  Let it feel.  Let it be open.  Slow yourself down enough that you can see and hear and sense with your heart, not just with your eyes, ears and mind.  Let yourself breathe in and fully absorb the goodness that surrounds you.  Connect to that goodness.  Revel in it.  p. 180

• Find positive meaning: how do you interpret the circumstances?  What about big meaning?  How about the meaning of life itself?  What sense do you make of your life as a whole?  What story do you tell yourself about why your life has gone the way it has?  Does the story energize you or hold you down?
• Savor goodness: Think about goodness in a way that pumps it up--before it think "it's going to be fabulous", during think "I just want to drink this all in," after it replay in your mind.  This is NOT analysis, and requires a light mental touch.  Dissecting deflates positivity.  Do things to pay more attention to positive experiences.  
• Count your blessings: Count only a few days out of the week rather than every day.
• Kindness counts: be intentionally kind to others--preferably several large acts of kindness on a single day rather than spread out.
• Follow your passions
• Dream about your future
• Apply your strengths: the boost in positivity that comes from learning your strengths is significant but temporary.  By contrast, the boost in positivity that comes from finding new ways to apply your strengths is significant and lasting.
• Connect with others: Connect with others, every day, and no matter what.  And even if you're not a naturally outgoing person, act like you are.  Scientific experiements document that if you simply pretend to be extroverted when you're with others--if you act bold, talkative, energetic, active, assertive, and adventerous--no matter what your natural inclinations are, you'll extract more positivity from those exhanges.  My own open heart study suggests that you don't particularly need to be or act outgoing; cultivating loving concern for others seems to be enough.  People who made regular efforts to cultivate such tenderness and compassion pulled more positivity out of their ordinary exchanges with others than those that didn't.  I encourage you to experiment with putting on extroversion or loving concern for others.  See what new sources of positivity spring forth.  My prediction is that when you're with others you'll smile more, laugh more, enjoy greater positivity, and all the while build deeper and more satisfying connections...
• Connect with nature: increases positivity and memory, but only in spring and early summer
• Open your mind--practice mindfulness, be open to goodness, practice acceptance not analysis of the good that comes your way.
• Open your heart--loving kindness meditation--find warm and tender feelings, direct them towards yourself then to a widening circle of others.

Open your eyes to kindness and gratitude.  Savor goodness when you see it.  Visualize your best possible future.  Be more social.  Go outside.  These are the small changes you can make to elevate your positivity any time you want...Other approaches require more effort.  Redesign your job or your daily life to better utilize your strengths.  Learn to meditate, with mindfulness & loving-kindness.   Make finding positive meaning your default mental habit. 

Positivity Toolkit

1. Be open--experiment with mindful awareness, temporarily rid your mind of expectations and judgments.  Give yourself permission and time to experience the richness of the present moment.  Being open means cultivating curiosity about and acceptance of whatever you're experiencing.  Dont' try to suppress any thoughts or feelings, just acknowledge and allow them to pass.  It is what it is.
2. Create High Quality Connections--even where none existed before using one or more of these ways: Be present, attentive, and affirming, Support what the other person is doing, Trust and let it show, Play.
3. Cultivate Kindness: Give yourself the goal of performing 5 new acts of kindness on a single day, something that makes a difference and comes at some cost.  Try once a week or once a month.
4. Develop Distractions--which are important tools for breaking the grip of rumination and curb needless negativity.  Effective distractions demand full attention.  Make 2 lists--healthy distractions, unhealthy distractions.  For each unhealthy distraction come up with a healthy alternative.  Figure out resources necessary for healthy distractions.
5. Dispute negative thinking:  Write down common negative thoughts, shuffle and dispute each one loudly and with conviction.  Add new gratuitous negativities to deck of thoughts.
6. Find nearby nature
7. Learn and apply your strengths---online survey @ AuthenticHappiness.com, Reflect on which truly resonate and halp you come alive.  These are signature strengths.  Google Reflected Best Self Exercise.  Once you've learned your strengths, redesign life to use them every day.  
8. Meditate Mindfully--see if you begin to see thoughts arising, describe them neutrally.  Observe why it is alluring.  Try to stay in the present.  No need to suppress thoughts, just start again.
9. Loving-kindness meditation: May I/he be safe.  May I be happy. May I be healthy.  May I live with ease.
10.  Ritualize Gratitude--notice the gifts that surround you.  Record in journal, silently offer thanks for parts of daily routine.
11. Savor positivity--past, present, or future.  Really think about it in a away that cherishes the event.  
12. Visualize your future.

Hunt & Gather:  Make a portfolio/collection of some kind for each  aspect of positivity. Joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration, awe, and love.  Don't scrutinize the feeling, use light touch of recognition in identifying new momentos instead of intellectual dissection.  Savor the process.

Portfolios--let them evolve, update them, rotate them, only keep one on "display."  Engage with each item deeply but with a light touch.

Tune in to kindness--your own and that of others.  Seek out and savor all manner of goodness, beauty, and excellence.  Treasure these moments and you'll unlock recurrent waves of gratitude, awe, inspiration, and more.  Become like a plant and turn toward the light, in all its spiritual, earthly, and human forms.  Feed on it.  The more you train your eye, mind, and heart to the positivity in your life, the more of it you'll find.  Remember that the intensity of your positivity matters far less than its relative frequency.  This means that even more positivity, experienced often, can lead you to your higher ground. 

Happiness is a Choice by Barry Kaufman

(Not a book that did a great job of explaining why/how happiness is a choice.)

1.  make happiness THE priority
2.  personal authenticity
     -sharing ourselves without masks or filters
     -freedom to be me
3.  let go of judgements
      -about people and limits
     we really don't know
4.  Be present
     know that pain won't last much longer
5.  Be grateful