Nostalgic Doses

This morning, I discovered a new singer that I’m super interested in getting into; her name is Melody Gardot, and she has one of the smoothest voices I’ve heard in a long time. It’s a nostalgic sounds that’ll take you back to the mid-century crooners your grandparents used to listen to - perfect for making a cup of coffee to, while you get ready for the day.

I’m not sure why, but nostalgia always feels best in the mornings and the evenings. It a feeling that you can chase or that can catch you off guard, like it did me this morning. Either way, it’s always a feeling that leaves me with longing, but a longing that isn’t always great. A longing for the past. A longing for older times and memories. A small escape from the now.

But the now is where we’re at, and the future is where we’re going. I’m just happy there are little pieces from the past that we can not only take with us, but that inspire us for future art, future change and future growth as a people, a nation and a world.

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: Nostalgia: Take one does in the morning and one dose in the evening, if needed. We recommend not exceeding the recommended dosage in a 24-hour period.

Beautiful Things

This month, my wife, Sarah, is keeping a journal full of the things that other people find beautiful throughout their day.

That in itself is a beautiful thing, but it’s also one of the most intentional ways I’ve ever seen an individual pursue friendship. Not only taking the time to reach out to friends daily to gather their thoughts, feelings and insights into their world, but also way it makes others think.

The first day she asked me what my beautiful thing was, it was a Monday that I had spent entirely in my office from 6:30a - 5p. That required me to really think about it. What did I actually see that was beautiful around my cubicle? Aside from my beachside computer background. Was it the cleaning women saying hello to me? Was it the way the fog was settling in over the city? Was it how technology allowed me to take an elevator instead of 5 flights of stairs?

Beauty comes to us in so many ways, and it doesn’t have to be a grand mountain scene or an ocean-front property. Sometimes, I think we can all get a little spoiled by beauty and cease to recognize its presence in everyday life. Similar to a reason I’ve heard people say they would never want to live by the mountains; they would be afraid the daily routine of seeing them would make us lose majesty.

Sarah walked in right before I started to write this entry this morning, looking beautiful (She made a rule that my beautiful thing for the day can’t be seeing her, sigh). I stopped, looked at her and said, “You’ve distracted me,” (in a good way of course"). But now I realize something, she didn’t distract me - she inspired me. And I hope she inspires you today today with the question: What’s something beautiful you saw today?

Cliff

-Sarah’s Note: Notice the beautiful things, big or small.

Journals and the Movies they Make

I started keeping a journal my junior year of high school, each of them since then all looking a little different, both in appearance and format, but all in all, I have completed nearly 15 fully bounded books to this point. The process has been somewhat inconsistent over the years, but there’s at least a few months of entries from each year of my life since I was 17.

The process of writing in journals is something that i’ve never reflected on much until the past couple of days. The (nearly) everyday ritual of taking the thoughts in one’s head that you may know or may not know exist and transferring those down to a piece of paper.

I’m sure everyone is different, but I’ve never actually done anything with those processed moments. The words sit on the pages, the pages sit in the journals, and the journals sit on shelves; I never actually go back and read any of the entries, and frankly, it’s a bit terrifying and possibly embarrassing to know what I’d find, especially inside the ones from high school.

It’s not until now that I’ve started reflected on journaling because up until this point in life, I’ve never needed to recall much from my past; however that’s changing. And the process is what I’d anticipated: terrifying and slightly embarrassing - both in what i’ve read from old entires and in how i’ve never gone back to read them. I think it points to a fear I’ve got that’s never been addressed.

I’ll let you place what that fear is and ask you, Do you have the same one?

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: Reading old thoughts is kind of like watching old home movies, except they’re movies of your mind that you yourself recorded and have let no one else see.

Words on Words on a Hometown

There’s something really, really difficult about writing about your hometown, especially when that hometown is a small town. The words just don’t want to come out.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m assuming here because it’s just personally hard to write about my own hometown, but there’s just something about the process that seems unfair.

Writing about my hometown makes me question a lot of things: Am I being too judgmental? Are old wounds amplifying the point i’m trying to communicate? Am I painting people and places in an unfair light in spite of my own pain?

It also brings up all that pain. Reliving it. Revisiting it, sometimes from a 30,000 foot view. Sometimes from a first-person view. Both of which bring their challenges.

It’s unfair to assume everyone had the same experience I had, both on good and bad spectrums, and it’s unfair to not leave facts as facts and let them speak for themselves.

Hometowns can be funny places to each of us individually as we all grow and see those towns change from what they were to what they are, just as we change. And it’s probably fair to be patient with the places we grew up in as they do change, just as they were patient with us when we did the same.

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: Try not too be too critical (or too in love) with your hometown; it’s changing every day, just like us.

Boycotting Snow Shovels

Oklahoma is currently in the middle of its first snow storm in nearly a decade, with temperatures ranging from -6 - 3 degrees F from dawn to dusk. It’s cold, things are slow., and there is lots of light, white powder all over the ground, which has led me to a problem: I have no way to remove it.

One thing I’ve learned that Oklahoma lacks is a place that sells a good snow shovel. I suppose in a normal year, there just isn’t much use for it, but this year, it would’ve been helpful to be able to trek on down to Lowe’s and pick one up for this sort of occasion, but alas, i’m snow shovel-less in a snowed-in world.

“Good thing my neighbors are from Colorado.”

Or so I thought.

But I was wrong. Upon texting them to ask if I could borrow their snow shovel, assuming they had one, I was shocked to hear that they don’t have a snow shovel, much less ever intend on buying one again, and not just because they live in Oklahoma now.

Tom, my neighbor, says he has fully converted to using a piece of particleboard instead of any sort of shovel.

“I just get behind it like a snow plow and go to work. It’s way more efficient, plus it’s easier on my back,” he says.

I couldn’t believe it, and initially, I was a little peeved at my reliance on ‘neighbors from Colorado’ to come through during a snow storm; however, after I tried it, the particleboard that it, all pre-peevedness melted away.

Tom was right, and he’ll forever go down as a legend in my book for his substitution of a normally useless piece of wood for one of man’s most modern inventions, and honest engine, I don’t think i’ll ever by a snow shovel myself now. It’s particleboard or bust and a realization that sometimes you can best fix life’s problems with something that looks just like a scrap piece of lumber.

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: Know your neighbors, trust their wisdom and boycott snow shovels.

Cosmos Control

It’s cold outside today in Oklahoma, frigid. The high is 3 degrees F, which happens to be a lower temperature than the state’s record low for the day.

We’re turning to our furnace, covering up all of our windows, burying ourselves in blankets and dressing in layers to keep us warm. Running to things we know and things we’ve heard of. We’re dripping our faucets, keeping our cabinet doors open, and we’re doing everything we can to make sure the pipes don’t burst.

But in the end, all we can do is take precautions. The result is out of our control. The pipes may burst, our heat source may run out, and we may wind up extremely cold. And all of that is kind of scary.

Trying to control what you can’t control. Hoping for things to be ‘okay’ and not break.

But that’s kind of life isn’t it? Hoping. Controlling what you can. And leaving the rest up to the cosmos.

That’s a hard truth to sit it, and that’s what kept me up most of the night, rather than the cool bedroom air, but it’s something that i’m trying to be more okay with - being out of control.

-Cliff

-Cliff’s Notes: Out of control is in control of stress.

The Grueling Pursuit of Passion

This morning, I was reflecting on one of the best feelings a person can have. The feeling when you’re doing what you know you’re supposed to be doing.

Growing up, I always loved seeing my friends get a long, especially when I happened to be the one to introduce those friends to one another. I always got a lot of joy watching a mate from one friend group enter into the circle of another friend group, only to have the two friend groups mesh together and create a massive, new friend group. I wouldn’t have called it this one I was 12, but it was a passion, and when you’re a teenager and you start to grow up, you begin to wonder how you can translate your passions into jobs and your jobs into careers, but my passion, obviously, was pretty unique.

What was I going to do with this weird passion I had of convening people and watching them form friendships out of those introductions? I certainly wasn’t going to pursue a career in match-making, but surely there had to be something out there ‘where my greatest joy met the world’s greatest need,’ as the great Frederick Buechner said. After all, I highly doubted the world needed another match-maker (although Bumble and Tender turned out to be pretty successful), but surely, the world needed something that fit what I loved to do.

And it did, and it still does. It just always looks a little different for each season of life, as the world changes and as I change. But really, there’s no feeling quite like the first time life hits the nail on the head for you and you get a phone call that says, “Yes, we’ve got a job that fits exactly what you’re describing.”

Whatever that may be for you as you pursue finding that passion and purpose, I pray that you sit in that, ‘Aha!’ feeling of finding that illusive happiness. And it may be a lifelong pursuit, but don’t stop. It’s worth every second.

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: The pursuit of finding your passion is never a wasted journey, no matter its length.

On Purpose

I’ve always struggled with not feeling ‘called to ministry,’ in a traditional sense anyway. When I was 18, I would have bet $1 Million that I would be a youth pastor or a community pastor by now because I believe, and still do to this day, that my Creator spoke to me at a specific moment one summer’s night in 2010 and said, “You have a purpose.”

Ever since then, I’ve been in a constant tug-of-war with life about what that purpose is and what qualifies as following God’s ‘purpose’ and feeling this “called to ministry” language that Christians tie to said feeling.

This morning, however, I read a piece in a book called ‘Exodus’ about a man named Bezalel. This is another guy that God said, “You have a purpose,” too, but also in a very non-traditional sense. According to the book, this is what God told him:

“I have called you by name, and I have filled you with the Spirit of God with the ability of knowledge, intelligence and craftsmanship to devise artistic designs and the ability to make all that I have commanded of you.”

That’s somewhat paraphrased, but what I took away from that was that Diving ‘calling’ and ‘purpose’ are not uniformed to what culture dictates. ‘Calling’ and ‘purpose’ are dictated by God to us, and sometimes we don’t even know what they mean, much less the culture around us; it’s that tug-of-war game of listening, following and being where you’re at with where you feel your own purpose, and I feel like we usually have a pretty good internal compass of when we’re in and out of that calling.

There’s a lot of comfort in knowing life’s calling for each of us all look different, but that those callings are never ‘less than’ another persons, even when they may look more divine or higher than our own. There is purpose in putting pen to paper, calling in creating calendar invites and divinity in driving to another meeting and that’s what I’m choosing to believe in today.

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: God is in the gut.

Building A Kitchen Table

In my wife, Sarah, and I’s kitchen, we have a table that can sit six people comfortably and seven people if we really want to squeeze in tight. We haven’t tried it yet, but that’s how many physical seats we have ready to have warm bodies sitting in them.

It’s with these seats that we want to host people. We want to have people over for dinner to sit in them, to have people over to play games to sit in them, or just to have people over to sit in them to talk when they need to have someone to listen. Bottom-line, we don’t have seven seats just to have seven cold seats in our home; we have seven seats for seven people to warm them up and feel welcome.

But that’s the question - when people come into our home, are we creating space for them to feel welcome? Literally, we know there are seats at the table for everyone, but are we creating a home and a space where there’s actually room for everyone at the table? Where no one is excluded for their looks, thoughts or lives.

A table is more than the seats around it and more than the physical materials it was built with. A table is also built with respect, with openness and with a readiness to listen to all of those who happen to sit around it.

I’ve got the seats and the structure in tact, now it’s time to work on building the intangibles.

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: A table was not meant to have cold seats, but a warm welcoming that you can feel as soon as one walks through the door.

Culture's Newest Catchphrase

For a long time, I felt like I was the only person with the word ‘unity’ in their common vocabulary - the only person even thinking about it; however, now, on February 9, 2021, the word has become one that I see every day on the news and on my Twitter feed and hear dropped as casually as the weather. And as someone who is passionate about unity, i’m not totally sure how I feel about it.

What do i do now that the word unity is top of mind? That the nation’s leaders and thinkers are using it to market their campaigns and move their image forward? These should be good things. I want people to hear the word unity and find the hope and reconciliation that it contains.

But right now, it doesn’t seem like the word unity contains much of anything - because right now, it’s being used as just a word.

Unity isn’t meant to be a marketing buzzword to grow your product or your persona. It’s not meant to be used in such a way that it isn’t backed up by any action. It’s not meant to be a drop in an empty bucket.

Unity is mean to be strong, to be a foundation - A foundation for community and opportunity.

And right now, as someone hell bent on learning about unity, writing about it and trying to live it out, it’s hard to watch a passion became a product to use and wield without regard to the deconstructing its doing to such a powerful word. As David Dark puts it, “Unity without reckoning is marketing.”

May unity grow, thrive and increase in our world, not only in its vocabulary, but also in its actions.

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: Don’t just be a marketer.

Awe

It’s a foggy morning in Oklahoma City. The Devon Tower, OKC’s tallest skyscraper, is nearly 3/4 hidden, as are the other city’s other major skyline buildings. The cloud cover has taken over, at least for the time being, and in that take over, I typically find a lot of peace.

There’s just something about the way that fog makes the everyday world around us disappear. It brings a slowness to a day that wouldn’t normally be there, and I feel like that’s why I usually just want to sit in a bed with a good book and a bottomless cup of coffee on days like today. The fog tends to hide the anxieties and stresses that the city can bring with it just by looking at it.

A concept I often think about is how humans build tall buildings to make us feel small because I think we all like the feeling of standing in awe of something greater than ourselves. I think that’s why we love mountains and oceans - they’re big, beautiful and things we can just stand at the foot of and feel the awe.

Today, fog feels like one of those things too. The way it takes over and impresses itself upon us all, and for that, we can be grateful… especially until Oklahoma grows more mountains or somehow gets access to an ocean (would not be great for Texas).

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: Standing up and feeling small is where the awe comes into place.

Who Cares About the Details?

I don’t often write much about Faith on this blog, not specifically anyway. It’s hidden in the trees if you look for it, but often times, I want to write in a way that gives the reader the opportunity to interpret what the words mean and feel to themselves, rather than try to always put a certain spin on things.

With that, I cannot say want I am feeling this morning without first saying that I operate from a Christian belief and perspective, so take that as you will as you read.

Today, as there is everyday, there is peace in the world, even when it doesn’t feel like it. There is peace in the hope that one day, we’ll be in God’s perfect House - a House set at the perfect temperature, with the best views and where nothing breaks. A House where there’s no striving to fix things, be anywhere else or do anything. A House that’s, essentially, just being in God’s presence all the time, which relieves guilt and anxieties and replaces them with assurance and rest.

God’s House is going to be the best House because God is in the details, and God cares about the details. Ever since He communicated how to build an Alter and a Tabernacle, with all of the acute measurements and materials, He has cared about the small things, and I can only imagine how legit His house is going to be when I get to step inside it because I know he cared about every inch of its construction process. And like this, I hope I can remember He cares about the small things in my own life and in your life, even when life’s problems feel anything but small. The God who created everything cares.

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: Is there really anything considered ‘too small’ for a God that is so big?

Thanks, Obama

It’s hard to think about the leaders in my life that changed it without me even being aware that it was being changed.

It makes me feel indebted, like I owe them something - something big, because after all, they changed my life.

This was something that I was reflecting on this morning. Specifically, the leadership a global figure that gave me purpose, passion and direction without me even knowing it. It was 2008, and the leader is Barack Obama.

Where I come from, he was questioned, criticized and accused, and his election was the first time time in my lifetime that I can recall leadership of any kind being denounced by the people around me.

Regardless of political views and opinions, and what mine are and were at the time, he changed my life because he broke barriers and shook the world around me so much, that I saw the brokenness of it all for the first time. And that is what gives one purpose and an opportunity to ‘take one’s greatest joy and help meet the world’s greatest needs.’

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: Thanks, Obama.

Good Different

There’s something extremely refreshing about being in the company of individuals who are different than you. Each time, it’s like a crash-course in, “Things I Missed in ______.”

Last night, I met up with a friend at a local pub to share a few pints, and we talked about literally everything: drinks, movies, work, jobs, girls, racial inequality, social justice, religion, sports, EVERYTHING. And with each topic, it felt like I was getting so much background that I had never had before because this person saw things I could never see, experience things I could never experience and know things I could never know. And that, my friend, is refreshing.

It’s peace to know that your thoughts and beliefs aren’t the only thoughts and beliefs because we all know, all of our thoughts and beliefs, no matter how strong they are, have holes in them. It’s peace to know that seeking to understand, rather than to be understood, is a position of love that we can all pursue. And it’s peace to know that the backgrounds that define who we are today will continue to teach us tomorrow, as we create new backgrounds through learning from those who are not like ourselves.

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: Seek the goodness in not always being right and hearing the stories of those who prove you wrong.

Is Unity a Moron?

This morning, I was thinking about how unity is a moron - an oxymoron.

Unity feels like an ambiguous term, in that it’s an immeasurable word with a moving target. Your definition of what unity looks like is probably going to be different than what my definition of unity looks like, based on whatever situation we happen to be in. There’s no clear definition to it, other “Let’s all just get along,” which isn’t really a definition that solves many problems at all.

For this reason, it feels like unity is ambiguous, and that saying that unity is ambiguous is an oxymoron, or a figure of speech in which contradictory terms appear in conjunction.

Unity - joined together as one
Ambiguity - the quality of being open to more than one interpretation

Maybe that’s why striving for unity is so hard - everyone’s version of it looks different, so there’s no set benchmark, and just as there’s no set benchmark, there’s never any easy answers. The chase for unity is foggy and never quite in focus until it’s right in your face.

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: “Let’s all just get along” doesn’t cut it anymore.

Melting by a Window

Today, when the music hits just right and the sun shines through the window panes to warm up my legs under the table I write on, I smile. Because it’s days like today when the world feels right and feels easy, and on hard days, it’s hard to remember that days like today exist.

Some days suck the life and the rest out of you.
The stress builds up from your career, from relationships and from the rest of the world.
Sleep avoids you, just like you avoid the work that needs to be done.
And it’s hard - life, that is.

But the sun sets, life resets, and that same sun rises again.
But this time, when it rises, it warms your legs,
and it melts the stress away.

-Cliff

Cliff’s Notes: Enjoy the good days, and let the sun set on the bad ones.

Small Steps

Today, unity feels like reaching out to a friend who’s different than me, who doesn’t hear from me very often and asking how they are, what they’re doing and when I can see them again.

Today, that friend may or may not answer my call, but as the rising and the setting of the sun can only control today, I can only control what’s in my hands. God has given me tools for communication, a heart that longs to know my friends and ears to listen to those friends, so today, I will take what God has given me.

What does unity feel like today for you?

- Cliff

Cliff’s Note: Unity is small steps. We must crawl before we can walk and walk before we can run.

Writers

We are writers - all we do is write.

We are creators - all we do is create.

We write our texts.
We write our emails.

We create our photos.
We created content for the world.

We don’t stop. We don’t rest.
We perform all the day long -
on every communication channel
with the chance to be judged
as our work hangs in front of the critics -
the world.

If we stopped,
Would we be better writers?
Could we be better communicators?

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: Focus in. Slow down. Be honest. Write. Create.

Not Worth Reading But Worth Relating To

Here’s an average day summed up in fifteen minutes.

Ready, go.

Waking up was a delight. 5:30a came in hot, and the gym got even hotter with a killer workout. After finishing that up, I had a brekkie of yogurt, toast and fruit. How about them apples?

Just kidding. I didn’t have apples.

Following that up, I spent nine hours at work by myself in a jail cell of a room and talked to a total of two people throughout that entire time. I was productive, but also not that productive. I ate healthy. I did some work. I broke my phone. Ya’ win some, ya’ lose some. Ya’ know?

I also had a major God-check moment tonight while I was driving home… But I can’t for the life of me remember what it was right now. But trust me, it was good.

And in spite of all of that, tomorrow will certainly come, and there’s nothing you or I can do about it. For better or for worse, the sun will come up, with or without us. And that somehow makes me feel better about all of today, even whilst this post sounds mostly like a diary entry.

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: There’s bound to be average in the above average.

Chasing a Hero

As I sit here trying to calm down, relighting the incense, and feeling the burn of a mostly-finished glass of bourbon in my throat, I think to myself, “Why didn’t you click save when you wrote this post the first time?”

And also, “Is this really what you thought life would be like?”

Right now, I’m flustered, sitting up here in my garage apartment alone, trying to re-write thoughts I’ve already written, watching the incense burn down once again, and the thoughts aren’t the same. The flow is gone. The words have changed. The passion absorbed by frustration, and the desire clouded by “I should probably just go to bed.”

But I’ll write.

Yuh see, when I moved into this apartment, I was chasing one of my heroes, so I thought. Donald Miller is his name; Blue Like Jazz is his fame. I moved here with goals and dreams, wanting to be just like this hero of mine. I wanted to live above where cars slept, work a day job that allowed me to save my creative juices for writing sessions in the morning and at night. I wanted to become a published author by the age of 28. That’s what Don did, breaking into the New York Times Best Seller list at a super ripe age. He could do it, why couldn’t I? After all, Don and I are similar guys. We’ve practically lived the same sort of life, both intentionally on my part, and unintentionally.

I too moved away from my Bible-belt buckle of a hometown to the great Pacific Northwest to get as far away from the culture I grew up in as I could. I too left with questions about Faith, what the world looked like around me and why a Coors Light was enough reason to be sent to the Place They Don’t Serve Breakfast In (that’s a Newsboys reference for you kids at home). I too was a player, having gone through my fair share of relationships and leaving a trail of destruction in my wake. I too was a writer, a storyteller and a guy who tried not to take life too seriously. Aren’t we the same, Don and I?

Except I got a day job that allowed me to save my creative juices for writing sessions in the morning and at night, but I haven’t been very good at using those juices. Except I’m not a published author, and I’m definitely not anywhere close to selling anything in New York. Come to think of it, I’m not even sure I still have the same sort of boldness for adventure I once had that would take me to New York on a whim of Faith that I once learned from my hero.

It feels funny to write (and rewrite) these words at a table that I’ve written thousands of other words at. Words that have always been full of hope, honesty, transparency and aspiration, but are now outnumbered by thoughts that are full of doubt, fear and uncertainty. Is what I really wanted only going to amount to that? I’d like to think not.

These days are the days when it feels like I’m becoming less of a person I’ve been chasing and more like someone I’ve been running from. Finances are tight, words are few and winter is on its way, dragging a looming number 29 right behind it. But I’m writing.

Writing.

And while the incense is nearly gone and the bourbon long gone, the words are not. They will someday turn into a page, and hopefully, that page will turn . . . into something I’ve been chasing for a long, long time.

Cheers to the heroes.

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: Chase a hero, you might not catch em’. Heroes are fast; that’s why they’re heroes, and that’s why they’re worth chasin’.