The Paradox of Thanksgiving

November 23, 2011 By 8 Comments

by Stephen W. Smith

Thanksgiving and actually every holiday, stirs the soul and brings up the dark as well as the light.

I asked Gwen what single word would sum up the year 2011, without any hesitation, she said, “Pain!” In that single word few companions or acquaintances could ever realize the hidden pain she has carried. Her back pain. The surgery. The tumor. The 4 month long recuperation that will morph to 12 months before she’s done and actually “better.”

Do you have one word that might describe 2011? Think of one and don’t be too shallow, smaltzy or simple! Find a word that you might offer as a word to give insight to your very soul.

Here’s what true for me in this past year that I need to keep in mind as I look for my word:

In 2011:

I had to re-write my entire book that I spent two years writing.
I had to do this in three months.
I had to cancel plans for a summer of fun for a long, hard journey into my heart to try–again to understand what the abundant life was really about.
I have to realize that in the empty nest, we find ourselves alone more than we really want to be and deeply miss our kids.
I have to realize that the realization of a dream long fought for and hard-pressed to realize has ushered me into a new feeling that goes something like this: “Now, what?”
I am coming to realize that my closest friends are really never going to live in one place and for any extended period of time.
That the finishing of the Inn–the big red barn is really only the sobering beginning of ministry using it.

Life is expensive. We gain in life–but the truth is really this–we also lose in life. Abundance in life is not about amassing everything that is good. But abundance is coming to the understanding that we are merely clay and life is not up to us and never was.

So, while packing our car to drive up to the retreat to enjoy the thanksgiving feast with a few friends who have become for us family, we are sobered by the paradox of thanksgiving. To celebrate thanksgiving is to relinquish the feeling of simply being happy to being profoundly aware that without Jesus Christ, life would not be worth it.

In every paradox is the lens through with to see truth as it really is and that this truth is really the only thing that will set us free in the end.

Here’s to all who have lost their love in death this past year who will need to be thankful for a life now alone.
Here’s to all who have lost their job and have no future for a new one who will need to be thankful at the prospect of a meager year ahead.
Here’s to all who have received bad news from the doctor and will need to be thankful.
Here’s to politicians that continue to over promise and under deliver in this great nation of ours that seems so broken this year!
Here’s to all have been betrayed by a friend, stabbed in the back by someone you never felt could or would do it and be thankful.
Here’s to all who have lost so much only to find that they have everything in Jesus Christ.
Here’s to all who will walk with a limp but who will still walk.
Here’s to all who have sought refuge in the church only to feel even more alone.
Here’s to all who have tried to live more simply but only to discover the complexities of the soul’s longings.
Here’s to all who seek the serenity of the Quiet One only to discover the shouting within and around us.

Paradox is sometimes the very best word one can use to discuss our life which goes sometimes like this: “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times….we had everything before us. We had nothing before us. It was the spring of our hope. It is the winter of our discontent. Yes, we live here in the middle of these realities and to deny that we do is a symptom of our shallow lives and empty hearts. If the Psalmist could express both love and fear; worship and defeat; victory with lament in his poems, why then, can’t we?

I”m mindful of you this Thanksgiving. I’m so very thankful for your honest questions. Your determination to not give up or give in. I’m grateful to soldiers who will eat alone so that we may feast together.

I am most thankful for David, Rebekah who are my team in life and work now. I am thankful for Paul, Chad and Tiffiny who make our life, retreat and work better than what it would be if I were alone.

I am profoundly thankful for my true companion in life who seeks what I want; who longs for what I long for; who will not settle for anything less of what the paradox of thanksgiving stirs.

My word for 2011 is paradox. Some good, some bad. Some hard. Some easy. Some wonderful. Some awful. Some brutal. Some beautiful.

Yes, paradox.

Blessings at Thanksgiving!

OK. Now in the “reply” box, type in your one word–perhaps with some elaboration and let us compare notes on the journey towards having grateful hearts!

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The Power of Belonging

November 18, 2011 By 6 Comments

by Stephen W. Smith

Last night I watched the Denver Broncos play football. It was a thrilling game but as the cameras panned the sold out stadium, what I saw was the power of belonging—most fans were wearing the orange and blue colors of the Broncos! Dressed alike there was solidarity in the cheering and victory.

But the night before last, I witnessed one of the most powerful sights of belonging that I have seen in years. A modern monastic order came together—men and women—married and single to welcome three new members into their community. I was invited to witness the event but my witnessing of what happened deeply moved me to tears, sober realizations and soulful longings.

Every human being longs to belong. This is why standing in a circle or sitting a table in a few days at Thanksgiving will be so good for our souls. There at the table, we will sit or stand in a circle; perhaps we will hold hands and bow our heads but one other, very important thing is happening. We are moving in that time from the “me” to the “we.” We are brought together to share together; to experience together; to taste together the goodness of our Thanksgiving meal.

This modern monastic order had worked with three individuals to teach them their ways, expectations and values. The three very ordinary, novitiates, who longed to belong stood ready to be accepted. One after one was called to the center where they stated their intent to belong to something greater than merely belonging to the me. They wanted to belong to the “we.” They desired community. They wanted to live out their lives with a few other like-minded men and women and experience church in their midst.

The drama increased for me as each novitiate was recognized, blessed and celebrated. A novitiate is anyone who is a beginner at something that wants to get better at something. Aren’t we really all novitiates in life? I know I am. Then, a beautiful yet simple cross was placed around their neck. It was the symbol that everyone in the room wore but me. I had no cross but I sure had the desire. Everyone moved to hug and embrace the new members of the “we”. They now belonged.

My desire was not so much to be given a cross as it was the amazing realization that I, too, wanted—no– needed to belong. I wanted to stand with a few people who wanted the same things I wanted; who would die for the same cause I would lay my life down for. We see such marvels at belonging in our military, sports, clubs and family events. My wish these days is for this power of belonging to draw the church into more of a “we” than just a gathering of “me’s.”

This Thanksgiving, we will perhaps sense this urge that swelled up within me. The power of belonging will rise up within us. Gather with what friends and family you may. Form the circle at the blessing or around the table. What will be more important than the feast before us, will be the feast of our lives—the power of belonging to one another! The power of “we.” For me, only one of my sons will travel 1,000 miles and leave the “me” to become the “we.” But though not all together, we will pause with a circle smaller than what I’d like and bow our heads to the One who lets us be both “me” and “we.”

Take a moment here and use the “reply” piece here to express your Thanksgiving for the people you belong to and then forward this to your “we.”

(This theme is explore more indepth in one of the Eight Ways in my new book, The Jesus Life: Eight Ways to Re-discover Authentic Christianity. But this blog is new and does not appear in the book’s content). Copyright: Stephen W. Smith, 2011. You have permission to forward, print and use.

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Living the Life we WANT to live!

October 11, 2011 By 4 Comments

Gwen is wanting me to quit using this picture of us. When I asked her why she said, “It’s 8 years old and we are more beat up now then when the picture was taken.” We laughed…. but inside we knew the truth of her joke. Perhaps, like many of our pictures–they are memories of a more innocent time–a time before big things happened that altered our life forever.

You know what I mean. The death of a parent. Losing your job. Erosion in your 401K. Life was more simple back then. The smiles were perhaps—well–deeper.

Life has a way of beating us up sometimes. When we closed our CaringBridge Blog, I could not help but notice that all but one of my friends who ever did a Caring Bridge blog had all died. I guess you can say that they were beat up by their cancer, their tumors, their illnesses and their disease–created dis-ease in their lives and every thing changed. The Cancer eventually did them in. This might sound crass but let me ask you a question:

Are you living the life you want to live before you die?

It’s a simple question and don’t read on before you pause with my quesition for a moment. One of my favorite authors and literary mentors is David Whyte. He wrote words I’ll never forget and I quote them often. He said, “Sometimes we have to unmake a living before we can live the life we really want to live.”

Gwen’s back surgery now seven weeks ago has unmade us. We’ve been forced to think and rethink much of our lives. Recovery is going slower than we both anticipated. She’s still not able to lift more than a gallon of milk and is now beginning her pool therapy which will help her recover the numbness in her leg. She’s making good progress you’ll be glad to know. This is a picture of her and me along with our friend, Dr. Curt Thompson (author of The Anatomy of the Soul, which we highly and strongly recommend).

She looks great doesn’t she? But behind every picture there is an inner story. Both of us were profoundly impacted by Curt Thompson’s book and the weekend retreat he led for us at our Inn in Colorado. We were so impacted that we’re beginnging now to make even more adjustments in our thinking about—well, about nearly everything. Curt’s a follower of Jesus who is also a psychiatrist. We spent hours together talking and sharing some of our lives with Curt. It was so helpful to get great insight and feedback–resulting in us vowing to ourselves, “We really do want to live the life we WANT to live—not just HAVE to live.” There’s a difference you know and perhaps Jesus came to offer us this difference—this Jesus Life, not an ordinary life.

So, in these fall days, we’re beginning to re-think much of our lives, whether or not we WANT to remain in our home or sell it and move to the retreat. How we want to be more involved in the lives of those we love and less involved with people and things that take the life out of us. As we begin to blog together, you’ll be able to hear from both us— watch our struggles to come to grips with some deep regrets that we both have our seeking the courage to set out to live and experience the life we really do want to live.

We were reminded….The Kingdom of God is actually here and now…not just ours through death. How’s your kingdom life going?

Steve and Gwen Smith
Colorado Springs, CO
Potter’s Inn

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Welcome to the new blog

September 28, 2011 By Leave a Comment


by Stephen W. and Gwen Harding Smith

Hello Friends, welcome to our new blog where we’ll be sharing our lives with you, step by step. We thought on this first look into the new blog we’d share the outline of what we’re going to be doing here.

First, we’re going to give you a paragraph each entry from Steve’s new book: The Jesus Life: Eight Ways to Re-Discover Authentic Christianity and then we’re just going to unpack the paragraph, give you our personal insight and reactions to how we’re living this out. If you sit with the title of the book you can see that both of us, after 31 years of marriage and 57 years of life have come to the conclusion that some thing is deeply wrong with how we are going about living the Christian life out. Deeply wrong.

When I ask people to give me five words that would be to describe their life right now, to date, no one has EVER given me the word “abundant.” Yet, this descriptor is precisely what so many of us are longing for and desperately thirsty for.

Here’s the outline we’re going to follow in the blog–giving you our honest, heartfelt and sometimes raw reactions to the challenge Jesus left us with—to live a life that is “Abundant” in the midst of a life and world that is so filled with disappointment, suffering, depression, economic challenge–that is unparalleled in history.

We look forward to unpacking this step by step. Here is some of what we’ll be discussing and some of where we’re headed here on the blog:

Part One: Losing Our Way
1. Recovering our life
We’ve lost the way that leads to life.

Part Two: Walking In the Way
2. The Rhythm of Jesus
Living a life that sustains
3. The Way Jesus “did” his life
Exploring a model for our own.

Part Three: Finding The Way

4. The Way of Dailiness
Living The Jesus Life Everyday
5. The Way of Hiddeness
Choosing obscurity to cultivate life
6. The Way of Family
Living the life with our family
7. The Way of Companionship
Cultivating friendships in reality and truth
8. The Way of the Table
Savoring a sacred mystery
9. The Way of Doing Good
Extending life to others
10. The Way of Ritual
Creating signposts as we journey through life
11. The Way of Suffering
Understanding the role of pain and suffering

Part Four: Living The Life

12. A Good Life
Learning to wear the easy yoke of Jesus

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The Integrated Life

September 22, 2011 By Leave a Comment

by Stephen W. Smith

Today in Colorado–well it’s stunning and mesmerizing. It’s why I chose to live in such staggering beauty. I took a long drive today into the foothills and my road took me up and down, swaggering by hills and through green pastures. Beauty that is intoxicating. I stopped at a favorite tea house where I ordered French Press Coffee, Carrot Cake and ice water and just basked in the sunshine.

Glory! Why is it, that carrot cakes seems to help almost everything and everyone?

Then I reached for my journal and began to write a page about how deeply I am longing to live what I am going to call “the integrated life.” A life that I will begin to share with you here. I came up with ten descriptions of the integrated life I want to live. In post after post, Gwen and I will begin to share our hearts, soul’s longings and deep stirrings with you. Perhaps our thoughts will stir you to think more deeply; more contemplatively; more reflectively about the life that you are living and whether you are happy with the life you are living.

Here’s how the dictionary defines the word “integrate:”

in·te·grate
   [in-ti-greyt] Show IPA verb, -grat·ed, -grat·ing.
verb (used with object)
1.to bring together or incorporate (parts) into a whole.
2.to make up, combine, or complete to produce a whole or a larger unit, as parts do.
3.to unite or combine.
4.to give or cause to give equal opportunity and consideration to (a racial, religious, or ethnic group or a member of such a group): to integrate minority groups in the school system.
5.to combine (educational facilities, classes, and the like, previously segregated by race) into one unified system; desegregate.

I want all of this in my life. I’m tired of managing silos of work, health, family and faith. I don’t believe in silo thinking any more. I don’t believe in the balanced life any more. I believe the balanced life is a myth and lie that someone invented to sell books and fill seminars. I’ve tried to find balance. Now I am liking two words, far, far better than balanced! They are the words integrated and rhythm. I’ll explain more in the blogs to follow.

I met today with some social marketing geeks who are going to help us revamp our blog, give a face lift to our old look and capture the message we will begin to share with you.

OK blog readers. I invite you to comment. What do you think an integrated life looks like? Do you want one? What can we do to live the life we want?

Copyright 2011. Stephen W. Smith

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Morphing the Blog

September 15, 2011 By 1 Comment

Gwen and I have decided, together, to morph this blog. We’re going to be doing some significant changes in upcoming days and weeks. And the most important is that we’re going to enter entries together. Both of us will be writing on this blog and the focus of our writing and musings will be our own interaction with the topic and themes in my new book, The Jesus Life: Eight Ways to Re-discover Authentic Christianity.”

Why are we doing this? We’re doing this for three main reasons. Both of us want to desperately live–The Jesus Life. We’re tired of the church life, the busy life, the American life and more. In the book I explore how to return to the life Jesus described and offered–the abundant life. That’s the life we want. Second, Gwen’s gotten so much favorable feedback from her writing on her Caringbridge.org site, (her recovery from major back surgery) that we felt this would be a great outlet and spiritual practice to just write, share our thoughts and encourage our on-line village of friends and companions to journey with us into The Jesus Life. Third, we’re doing this because we want to invite you into the life we are leaning into. We want to discuss, dialogue and divulge our heart with you as we interact with the most important and some of the most neglected themes of our times. In The Jesus Life, we’re going to explore some of the content of the book; give you excerpts BEFORE the book is published and ideas on how to integrate what is shared. It will be personal. It will be real. It will be heart-felt. And it will be from both of our perspectives–male and female; husband and wife, father and mother, son and daughter of God and fellow pilgrims on this long arduous journey home.

So, after some significant changes to our blog in the new week, we’ll be up and running. I hope you’ll spread the word!

We hope you’ll “subscribe” to the blog and share this with your friends. We hope you’ll consider journeying with us together as we embark on this new chapter of our life, marriage, work and family!

Blessings,

Steve

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The Oxbow Reality in the Spiritual Life

June 23, 2011 By 1 Comment

It’s called an “oxbow.” Notice the shape of the river flowing through this beautiful scene that I saw yesterday and blogged about. See the meandering of the river, creating what is called, an oxbow effect. It’s named that due to the river carving out a shape similar to that of the curves of an oxen yoke.

I texted this picture to a friend of mine back east and he immediately saw it and said, “An Oxbow. Amazing how you can travel so far on a river only to wind up just a few hundred yards downstream by foot.”

Isn’t that true in life. We can travel so very far through the years, yet make so little progress it seems. After all we go through in life, only to find we’re just a few feet from where we started.

I can easily imagine the oxbow effect on the early disciples who tried to follow Jesus wholeheartedly, yet kept stumbling back through the same issues of pride, power struggles and not really getting Jesus’ intent at all after multiple times of hearing him and watching him. Aren’t we really like those early followers—people who just can’t seem to get what Jesus is up to in our life and we keep coming back to learn, re-learn and learn again the most basic principles of the spiritual life: I am the Beloved. Trust God. Lean on him not my own understanding and so much more.

Stephen W. Smith
Potter’s Inn

Are you in an Oxbow place in your life? How can you move on through to greater and deeper realities of the spiritual life

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Beauty Helps!

June 22, 2011 By 1 Comment

I saw this with my own eyes today. It’s found in a place 30 minutes from the retreat near Tarryall, CO and called, the Lost Wilderness.

I felt lost so going to a place called the Lost Wilderness was for me, like being pulled there by the Puller of My Soul. We got bad news twice yesterday. One kick in the gut for me about having to re-write most, if not all of my book I’ve been working on now for two years. Gwen’s kick is for her to tell but both blows have made me seek some solace today.

Beauty helps. Simone Weil wisely tells us, “There are only two things that pierce the soul. One is pain. The other is beauty.” When you stop and think about it, how true that statement really is for us mere humans on this planet and who find themselves on the long, arduous journey to heaven. Pain shatters us–drops us to our knees and makes us cry out to anyone or anything in the Cosmos that might even remotely hear us. Beauty helps. Beauty draws us to humble amazement and we wonder as we wander through it and soon we find that beauty has helped. Beauty assuages the deep grief of the soul and heart.

I’m going back to this place tomorrow. I’m glad it’s close to where I’m doing my re-write of the book. I’m going to walk into that beauty with my bride. I texted her today and said, “You have to come up here tomorrow and walk into this epic scene of beauty. It will help you. It will help me. It will help us.”

Stephen W. Smith
Potter’s Inn

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Sitting in the Potter’s Inn: My need for Transformation!

June 2, 2011 By 1 Comment

by Stephen W. Smith at Potter’s Inn
As we began moving furniture into the brand new Inn, I sat alone in the Great Room for some moments to let what what happening sink into my soul. As I sat in a chair we had thought would look good in the Great Room and the thought came to me, how ironic to be sitting here alone in this place of transformation.

I well remember in 2003 when Gwen and I started the venture of establishing an actual place for transformation to happen that it would be me, the first one called to sit upon the Potter’s wheel and hear the Potter’s wheel being spun around and around. If transformation is going to happen, then it has to happen with me first. That was my thinking….and that is what has been happening. As we have called others into the journey of spiritual transformation, we have always been mindful of our need for the Potter’s hands to pinch here; squeeze there and impress hard here.

As I sat yesterday in the Great Room, that same feeling came over me. If anyone needs transformation, then I must be willing to yield to the same process that we are calling others to embrace.

So I sat. Sat some more. Prayed and asked the Potter to be so ever gentle with me for I have been feeling fragile.

This is a sculpture that God gave me a vision for in 2004 showing the two shaping hands of the Divine Potter. One is ever so gentle and one is digging in hard. Transformation requires both! I had the vision for this but could not actually sculpt it so I asked Clay Enoch, a renowuned sculpter in Colorado Springs, to help me. “Forming Hands” was the result and our ministry sold 2,500 of these sculptures which greatly aided in funding the early days of Potter’s Inn ministry. Currently we are sold out and have no plans at the moment to resurrect this limited sculpture.

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The Place of Transformation

June 1, 2011 By 1 Comment

Transformation does not happen in a vacuum. A key ingredient in the transformation process is place. We are not Halloween ghosts floating through time and space. The soul’s address is a physical body and every soul needs a place to experience change. Think about it with me. Remember back on some life-changing experiences that you’ve shared. Where were you? At the beach, in the mountains, attending church, with a friend, driving down some road, hiking a winding trail?

When and if we really change, we always change in a place. A wonderful author, Robert Hamma has named these places, “sacred spaces”. He calls them sacred because these are thin spaces–thin because you can see the sacred through them.

Eleven years ago, my work changed. I left the place of church and entered the place of retreats. I came to the realization that for me, change was happening in me and in most of the people I worked with in places where they could focus, get a way from the buzz of life and cocoon in a place where they could think, feel and experience God’s love in major and new ways. I am not saying that change does not happen in church–because it does. But when you think about it, Jesus never attended church like you and I do today. He used the thin places of forested Olive trees to disclose his deepest truths. He used the natural world of vineyards, lakes and mountain tops to reveal the deepest truth about himself and about those he loved. It always involved places.

In these eleven years of focusing on this insight, we have set out to participate in the construction of a retreat—a cocoon for the soul. It’s the retreat now known as Potter’s Inn at Aspen Ridge, a 35 acre place–thin place near Divide, Colorado. I actually like the fact that our address is “Divide.” At our dividing place many new, life giving decisions have been made that have resulted in transformed lives and changed hearts. Each heart has required a sort of spiritual cocoon to morph into something that they could not do on their own. They needed a place. They needed space. They needed a retreat.

Where are the places God has used to change you?

What special places to you call “thin” or sacred?

What role have retreats–at any length impacted your life?

What room in your home feels thin? What places do you long to go and experience?

Fodder for the fire of this discussion on the role of “place” in our spiritual formation!

Steve
Potter’s Inn
www.pottersinn.com

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