Category: personal

This week I listened to the latest episode of the William & Mary Center for Corporate Education’s podcast “Leadership & Business”. It is titled “COVID-19 & Your Mental Health” and it is an interview with Dr. Kelly Crace, William & Mary’s Associate Vice President for Health and Wellness.

Dr. Crace makes seven suggestions for dealing with the anxiety that often happens during times like we are presently going through. I thought they were practical and helpful. You can listen to his full interview in the podcast but I will list his bullet points here, with a brief description beside each:

• Focus on effective versus ineffective fear. There is a response to fear that motivates us to take action and one that paralyzes us. In faith, I would describe this as the difference between conviction and guilt. One pushes you to do better, while the other leads to inaction.
• Become values focused amidst uncertainty. Knowing what is most important to you is a really good thing to know in fearful situations. Knowing your “one thing” gives you the strength to make good choices. That “one thing” is your North Star and you can navigate when you know where your “North Star” is.
• Understand your personal experience and change and loss. Often we need to be able to talk about our fear and worries but that doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone needs to hear our fear and worries. Be observant of who talking about your fears with helps you and them and who it might affect negatively.
• Realize that fear often makes possibility seem like probability. Fear can make the highly unlikely seem suddenly very likely. We need to plan for and react to the probable, rather than allowing any small possibility to control our everyday behavior. It is possible that I snake will make its way through a house’s plumbing and be in the toilet when you sit down, but it isn’t very likely. Realize that when we are scared we often think they near impossible is highly probable.
• Stay informed, not stuck. Knowing the news can be a good thing. Staying informed is good. Yet spending all out time focused on the latest bit of news can send us down a spiral that is destructive. Follow the news but maybe skip the news shows and news entertainment.
• Realize the difference between soothing & self-care. Self-care is helpful. It helps us to go forward and face difficult circumstances. Soothing eases pain but doesn’t necessarily help us to face difficult circumstances. Self-care is healthy. Soothing isn’t necessarily healthy. It can often be destructive.
• Courage training – realize that struggling isn’t bad. Courage is doing the right thing even when you are struggling with fear. It implies struggle. Therefore, struggle isn’t necessarily a bad thing. So if you are struggling don’t think that it is necessarily a bad thing.

I thought these were good and helpful points so I wanted to share them.

Here is the prayer that Elizabeth & Nathan share during today’s video gather. I thought it was pretty awesome and therefore wanted to share it again.

May we who know justice & compassion,
Repent for those who have let the viruses of greed make a difficult situation worse.

May we who are merely inconvenienced,
Remember those whose lives are at stake.

May we who have no risk factors,
Remember those most vulnerable.

May we who have the luxury of working from home,
Remember those who have to choose between preserving their health and making their rent.

May we who have the flexibility to care for our children when their schools close,
Remember those who have no options.

May we who have to cancel our trips,
Remember those who have no safe place to go.

May we who are losing our margin money In the tumult of the economic market,
Remember those who have no margin at all.

May we who settle in for a quarantine at home,
Remember those who have no home.

As fear grips our country help us choose love.

During this time when we cannon physically loop our arms around each other,
Help us find ways to be the loving embrace of God to our neighbors.

Amen

One of the companies that I chaplain for has pretty much gone to all work at home during the COVID-19 crisis. Therefore, I am sending out a weekly thought to keep in contact with them. This week’s is below.

Since more of us than normal at *** are working from home, or at least out of the office, I conversed with ******* concerning sending a weekly chaplain thought to everyone. This week’s thought comes from ***’s “Chew on This” Lunch meeting.

Each week a group of ***ers gets together, usually mixed between in-person and Webex participation (presently all through Webex for obvious reasons), to eat lunch, talk with one another about the things that are important to us, and share insight concerning subjects that one or more members of the group may have some expertise within. If you have the chance I would encourage you to attend, I find them very enlightening and enjoyable.  Today we checked in on each other and discussed some of the changes that COVID-19 has brought about for us all. Bradley shared a wonderful video from Simon Sinek concerning communication in this crisis. The video link is below.

Sinek’s point reminded me of a lecture I heard from a communication theorist years ago. I don’t remember his name, nor can I find my notes from 10 years ago to help me remember his name, but his point has stuck with me and changed much of my behavior in daily communication. 

This theorist stated that in his opinion advancements in communication usually lead to easier and faster, but not better communication. He walked everyone through a timeline to describe his point. 

We went from communication through a stationary phone “land-line” with a short line that you had to sit down beside (usually in the house’s foyer or living room), to a phone with a 20’ line (usually in the kitchen) that allowed you to do other things. You could now talk with someone while making your meal but the center of your focus was no longer on the person with whom you were talking. You divided your focus because you didn’t want to chop off your thumb while you were talking on the phone and making dinner. Then we went from the 20’ lines to wireless phones, and then cell phones. Each improvement allowed us to communicate easier and faster but not necessarily better. Now we talk with people while walking and driving rather than waiting to get back to the office or home. We communicate with others while we walk our dogs, rake our yards, grocery shop, and do everything else that is a part of our daily lives, but the price is that we are distracted from both the conversation and the task at hand. It is easier than ever before to get a message to someone, and more difficult than ever before to get a good message across. Texting, chatting, and messaging have each made our communication faster still, but definitely not better. We “talk” all the time without ever actually communicating much of anything. 

When we really want to communicate what is important we need to focus and give of ourselves. In my own faith tradition when God wanted to communicate His truth, He sent the Son, His very own self, to convey His message. His message was Himself, so only His very person could communicate that message. We communicate best when we give of ourselves.

I believe this is especially important when we are in isolation, such as the present moment in our history. Through the many gifts of technology, we have some amazingly fast methods of communication in front of us, that are helpful when we need speed over quality. I am very thankful for texting when someone cancels a meeting and texts me to inform me. Yet in our present social isolation, we need to give of ourselves more than anything else. So maybe use the forms of communication that force us to sit and focus on who we are talking with, rather than just the ones that are expedient at the moment. Webex the person you are talking with and force yourself to focus, or sit down and do nothing else while you talk with someone, maybe even write them a letter (but please don’t lick your envelope). Just communicate with your whole being, rather than communicating while you do something else. We need each other right now.

Please remember if you need someone to talk with about what is important to you I am always there for you and we can communicate in whatever fashion is best for you.

One of the companies that I chaplain for has pretty much gone to all work at home during the COVID-19 crisis. Therefore, I am sending out a weekly thought to keep in contact with them. This week’s is below.

Since more of us than normal at *** are going to work from home, or at least out of the office, I asked *********** if I could send a weekly chaplain thought to everyone. I hope you find them encouraging. This week’s thought comes from one of my favorite movies from the 90s, City Slickers.

If you aren’t familiar with “City Slickers” it is about Mitch Robbins (played by Billy Crystal) and some of his friends who go to a dude ranch to learn to be cowboys, and along the way learn who they are too. Mitch begins an initially terrifying friendship with the rough ridden lead cowboy Curly (played by the classic cowboy actor Jack Palance). In the conversation that changes the direction of the movie and Mitch’s life, Curly gives Mitch some advice. 

Curly says to Mitch:

Curly: Do you know what the secret of life is?

[holds up one finger]

Curly: This.

Mitch: Your finger?

Curly: One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and the rest don’t mean anything (my edit).

Mitch: But, what is the “one thing?”

Curly: [smiles] That’s what *you* have to find out.

Curly probably doesn’t know it but he is paraphrasing the famous Danish Philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, who wrote: “Purity of heart is to will one thing.”

Kierkegaard’s point was that when you know what is most important in your life it enables you to not be pulled aside by less important things. Basically, when you know what you have said “Yes” to, and thus declared for yourself “this is most important”, it makes it easier to say “No” to all the things that aren’t as important. These may be good things you are saying “no” to, but they aren’t your “One Thing” and therefore they have to come second in order, and sometimes not at all. This is true in our use of time (as Jackie talked about today in the company “Chew On This” Lunch Conversation), our use of our resources, and most importantly what shapes the focus of our lives. Knowing our “One Thing” helps us to make choices in line with who we want to be.

So what is your “One Thing”?

I think times of crisis like we are going through right now are a good time for us to make sure that our “One Thing” is something worth living our lives for. Does your “One Thing” direct all your other choices? Is your “One Thing” worth living for? Does your “One Thing” lead to healthy choices or has it led to destructive choices?

I also believe that knowing what our “One Thing” is gives us hope in the midst of crisis. Everything else can fall away, but this “One Thing” is what I am focused on. It is what matters. As long as it stands you’re good.

I hope you know what you “One Thing” is, and that it is a good “One Thing” that is life-giving rather than destructive. Mine is my faith and it leads me in wonderful directions.

Please know that I am always available for any conversations you would like to have concerning your “One Thing”.

Stay safe, wash your hands, and use your time in a manner that honors your “One Thing”.

Robert Terrell
Senior Certified Chaplain
Corporate Chaplains of America
1-877-322-CHAP ext. 4311
rterrell@chaplain.org

Mark G, my friend and past-thread now living in Madison, posted the following wonderful article from The Onion “Nation Demands More Slow-Motion Footage Of Running Basset Hounds“. I know The Onion is satire but I feel like in these there is a great deal of truth in this article. Right now our nation NEEDS more slow-motion footage of running basset hounds.

As you probably know Clive is a giver and when he saw this article he wanted to help. So here you go folks.

Do you know the famous quote from Fred Rogers concerning emergencies? This one:

There was something else my mother did that I’ve always remembered: “Always look for the helpers,” she’d tell me. “There’s always someone who is trying to help.” 

Well, folks, this is what Clive running to help looks like. He’s one of the helpers (ht Pamela). Clive is here for y’all.

Here’s the letter that I just published on the church website:

Tapestry & COVID-19 – Update 3/18/2020

You may have heard the old joke about how to make God laugh. You tell Him your plans. I don’t think God is actually laughing about any of this, the God of scripture cries over the pain of His people, but the last few days have been a reminder of how quickly plans can change.

First, the Leadership Team has been working out how Tapestry will gather to worship over the next few weeks. The CDC’s guidelines for gatherings keep changing. It has gone from less than 50 people, when we made out least plans, to less than 10. Therefore, as a church, we will no longer work toward meeting in smaller groups in houses and instead do video gatherings, similar to this past week’s, for at least the next three weeks. These video gatherings will be done via Facebook Live (which you can access without having a Facebook account) and Youtube. We hope and pray that by Resurrection Sunday (Easter) there will be some way for us to have some type of in-person meeting. We will broach that subject in the next few weeks. Thee will continue to be lots of changes. We will respond to those changes together.

On these videos, we will once again try to involve as many people as possible in each week’s video. We are going to focus on a theme that came out of last week’s video – Ebenezer. “Thus far has God helped us” and therefore we can trust that He will continue to help us. If you would be interested helps my making a video with your phone of 

• You praying, 
• You reading a Psalm, 
• You sharing a story of when God has helped you during a rough time.

PLEASE NOTE – we are not looking for you to be smooth and polished in these videos. We are looking for you to be you. We are going to lean into who we are and we are gritty. So let your grittiness shine through and don’t worry about it being professional.

If you would like to do any of these, or something else, please contact Robert (robert.terrell@gmail.com). Share your Ebenezer and let’s together remind each other that God is trustworthy.

Secondly, we are recommending that our small groups find alternate methods of staying connected over the next few weeks. Google Hangouts, Skype, or Facebook Video Chat are some available technologies for doing this. We are all self-isolating to protect each other but we also need to fight against the emotional and spiritual isolation that can come with this self-isolation. Please reach out to the people around you. Please reach out to people inside and outside of the church. We have wonderful technology that is so often used to separate and divide people. We can use it so that others do not feel alone.

Thirdly, if you become sick or need to be quarantined we want to be there for you. Specifically, if you become sick and need someone to get supplies for you or pick up groceries please call someone on the Leadership Team and we will arrange to bring them to you. Cory (920-585-2630), Ellyn (715- 851-6504), or Robert (715-572-2198).

If you develop symptoms or are sick HERE are the CDC’s recommendations.