http://youtu.be/b2WzocbSd2w

Our Mavidea family has grown once again.

Kim James had her baby girl yesterday.

Cora Suzanne James – weighing in at 8 lbs 15oz.

Congrats to Kim and her husband Bryan.

Make it a great day.

Jake

As I searched yesterday for something meaningful to write in response James’ passing I started with looking for CS Lewis quotes.

CS Lewis is my favorite author and he does a great job of taking difficult concepts like death and grieving and puts them into something I can understand better.

In my search I found a page full of quotes from a book he wrote entitled “A Grief Observed”.

He wrote the book in response to his wife’s death and the grief he felt afterwards.

I was trying to just find one quote but I imagined the different feelings others would have and couldn’t pick one.

So, instead I have cut and paste them below.

Hopefully you find some wisdom and comfort in at least one of them, I know I did.

Make it a great day.

Jake

“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.”

― C.S. Lewis

“I once read the sentence ‘I lay awake all night with a toothache, thinking about the toothache an about lying awake.’ That’s true to life. Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery’s shadow or reflection: the fact that you don’t merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief.”

― C.S. Lewis

“We were promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told, ‘Blessed are they that mourn,’ and I accept it. I’ve got nothing that I hadn’t bargained for. Of curse it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not imagination.”

― C.S. Lewis

“Knock and it shall be opened.’ But does knocking mean hammering and kicking the door like a maniac?”

― C.S. Lewis

“God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn’t. In this trial He makes us occupy the dock, the witness box, and the bench all at once. He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize the fact was to knock it down.”

― C.S. Lewis

“It doesn’t really matter whether you grip the arms of the dentist’s chair or let your hands lie in your lap. The drill drills on.”

― C.S. Lewis

“The death of a beloved is an amputation.”

― C.S. Lewis

“You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth of falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you. It is easy to say you believe a rope to be strong and sound as long as you are merely using it to cord a box. But suppose you had to hang by that rope over a precipice. Wouldn’t you then first discover how much you really trusted it?”

― C.S. Lewis

“For in grief nothing "stays put." One keeps on emerging from a phase, but it always recurs. Round and round. Everything repeats. Am I going in circles, or dare I hope I am on a spiral?

But if a spiral, am I going up or down it?

How often — will it be for always? — how often will the vast emptiness astonish me like a complete novelty and make me say, "I never realized my loss till this moment"? The same leg is cut off time after time.”

― C.S. Lewis

“I thought I could describe a state; make a map of sorrow. Sorrow, hoever, turns out to be not a state but a process.”

― C.S. Lewis

“Feelings, and feelings, and feelings. Let me try thinking instead.”

― C.S. Lewis

“Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. The conclusion I dread is not ‘So there’s no God after all,’ but ‘So this is what God’s really like. Deceive yourself no longer.”

― C.S. Lewis

“Talk to me about the truth of religion and I’ll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I’ll listen submissively. But don’t come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don’t understand.”

― C.S. Lewis

“I see people, as they approach me, trying to make up their minds whether they’ll ‘say something about it’ or not. I hate if they do, and if they don’t.”

― C.S. Lewis

“The time when there is nothing at all in your soul except a cry for help may be just that time when God can’t give it: you are like the drowning man who can’t be helped because he clutches and grabs. Perhaps your own reiterated cries deafen you to the voice you hoped to hear.”

― C.S. Lewis

“We cannot understand. The best is perhaps what we understand least.”

― C.S. Lewis

“Getting over it so soon? But the words are ambiguous. To say the patient is getting over it after an operation for appendicitis is one thing; after he’s had his leg off is quite another. After that operation either the wounded stump heals or the man dies. If it heals, the fierce, continuous pain will stop. Presently he’ll get back his strength and be able to stump about on his wooden leg. He has ‘got over it.’ But he will probably have recurrent pains in the stump all his life, and perhaps pretty bad ones; and he will always be a one-legged man. There will be hardly any moment when he forgets it. Bathing, dressing, sitting down and getting up again, even lying in bed, will all be different. His whole way of life will be changed. All sorts of pleasures and activities that he once took for granted will have to be simply written off. Duties too. At present I am learning to get about on crutches. Perhaps I shall presently be given a wooden leg. But I shall never be a biped again.”

― C.S. Lewis

“It was too perfect to last,’ so I am tempted to say of our marriage. But it can be meant in two ways. It may be grimly pessimistic – as if God no sooner saw two of His creatures happy than He stopped it (‘None of that here!’). As if He were like the Hostess at the sherry-party who separates two guests the moment they show signs of having got into a real conversation. But it could also mean ‘This had reached its proper perfection. This had become what it had in it to be. Therefore of course it would not be prolonged.’ As if God said, ‘Good; you have mastered that exercise. I am very pleased with it. And now you are ready to go on to the next.”

― C.S. Lewis

“It is hard to have patience with people who say, ‘There is no death’ or ‘Death doesn’t matter.’ There is death. And whatever is matters. And whatever happens has consequences, and it and they are irrevocable and irreversible. You might as wel say that birth doesn’t matter.”

― C.S. Lewis

“Nothing will shake a man-or at any rate a man like me-out of his merely verbal thinking and his merely notional beliefs. He has to be knocked silly before he comes to his senses. Only torture will bring out the truth. Only under torture does he discover it himself.”

― C.S. Lewis

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. – Abraham Lincoln from the Gettysburg Address

Yesterday we got the news that a fellow Mavidean, James Justice, had passed away.

Death is shocking to many of us because of the finality of it all. There is no more time to be spent with the deceased, no more jokes to be laughed at, no more meals to be had.

We see ourselves, our lives, our choices from this lens and are faced with the finality in our own lives.

All of our yesterdays are past, they are no more. Tomorrow is not promised to us. But in the finality of our yesterdays and the uncertainty of tomorrow lies our hope for today. We have each day to do our best, to become our best and give others our best.

And by embracing this time we have and giving it our all we honor those that have gone before us.

It may not be fair that we get to have today and James (and others) did not.

It isn’t about fair. It is about making the most of the time we have and giving of ourselves in love for others.

I sent out this part of the Gettysburg Address because I believe that Abraham Lincoln makes the point better than I ever could.

It is for us to be dedicated to the great task before us. To honor the deceased by living in a way they would be proud of.

Make it a great day.

Jake

That some achieve great success, is proof to all that others can achieve it as well. – Abraham Lincoln

In honor of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday I thought I would share quotes from him for the rest of the week.

This quote is a great reminder to all of us that great success is within our grasp.

I think it is especially fitting giving Lincoln’s humble beginnings. If he can rise to greatness in his situation, how much more is possible for us?

One of my personal goals this year is to read a few more biographies and autobiographies. There is so much to be learned from the lives of others.

Spend a moment today thinking about someone who has been successful in an area you are working on. Think about how they would make choices. Think about how they would handle situations.

Make it a great day.

Jake

Bonus quote: If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one? – Abraham Lincoln

Do for one as you wish you could do for all. – Andy Stanley

In a recent podcast Andy Stanley talked about the subject of how we can help. He was talking about the more difficult problems that we face.

Poverty.

Disease.

War.

The world has some pretty big problems. And it is overwhelming to think about the size of these problems.

Andy suggests that we do for one what we wish we could for all.

We chose a problem or a problem area and focus on one person to help.

He suggests that we take a long term approach and go deep with that one individual. He tells the story of how he and his wife worked with a woman that was a homeless drug addict when they first met, but after 20+ years this woman is on her own and taking care of herself.

What problem are you passionate about?

What could you do to find just one person to help?

Make it a great day.

Jake

JD – I went to sleep and dreamed that life is joy, I awoke and saw that life is service, I served and learned that service is joy.

JW – If the work out doesn’t suck at some point it’s not worth doing or talking about. If it’s a beautiful sunny 60 degree day and you go for a walk, where’s the adventure? If it’s cold, windy, rainy, and you get lost… now that’s an adventure!- The Godins, North Grafton, Mass.

JM – My voice is my passport – verify me.

EB – The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team. – Phil Jackson

Hope everybody has a great weekend.

Jake

http://youtu.be/pEQAie8ABLE

As we finish up the series of quotes on service I thought I would send out a song that reminds me of service to others.

We all must look in the mirror and make the changes necessary to be of service to our fellow man.

Challenge yourself to look for those positive changes you can make for yourself and for others.

Make it a great day.

Jake

"Whoever renders service to many puts himself in line for greatness– great wealth, great return, great satisfaction, great reputation, and great joy."

“Service is the measure of greatness; it always has been true; it is true today, and it always will be true, that he is greatest who does the most of good. Nearly all of our controversies and combats grow out of the fact that we are trying to get something from each other–there will be peace when our aim is to do something for each other. The human measure of a human life is its income; the divine measure of a life is its outgo, its overflow–its contribution to the welfare of all.” ~ William Jennings Bryan

My favorite line from this quote: the divine measure of a life is its outgo.

What a powerful thought.

The ultimate measure of our lives is the service we have rendered for others.

Make it a great day.

Jake

All of us are born for a reason, but all of us don’t discover why. Success in life has nothing to do with what you gain in life or accomplish for yourself. It’s what you do for others. ~ Danny Thomas

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. ~ Mohandas K. Gandhi

He who has the desire to keep his life will have it taken from him, and he who gives up his life because of me will have it given back to him. Matthew 10:39

Continuing on with the theme of service today.

Today’s quotes are a reminder of one of the great paradoxes of life. Only by giving up our own desires in service to others we are able to find that which we desire.

In serving others we find out what we are really made for.

When we serve others we are able to see what is really important and can then order and prioritize our lives differently.

Make it a great day of service.

Jake