Busyness is bad for you. Over-consumption is toxic. No amount of activity can replace precious moments of prayer and meditation that provide the spiritual oxygen for your soul. You’ve probably heard the design mantra “less is more”; well this is most true when talking about lifestyle and spirituality. In his book Afluenza Oliver James describes how the English speaking world suffers from an “obsessive, envious, keeping-up-with-the-Joneses - that has resulted in huge increases in depression and anxiety among millions”. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to the next installment of my ‘Life design’ blog. To move forward in achieving my goal of seeding ideas and debate that will allow us to explore what it means to live well and do life design, I’d like to outlay a framework for thinking about life design.

Design thinking refers to a certain way of coming up with solutions to problems. Read about it at wikipedia and watch this video:

One of the keys to good design is understanding the problem deeply, trying to view it from different perspectives and angles. Rather than deducing the ‘right’ answer, possible solutions are explored; design is often referred to as a ‘game’ and designers play with ideas. They come up with multiple solutions and see what works. It is in this spirit that I approach this blog - and invite you to as well.

In loosely following the 7 steps of design thinking (define, research, ideate, prototype, choose, implement and learn), I’d like to suggest a design problem and then explore ways of solving it - the more left-field the better! This is where the fun starts - how do you prototype life design ideas? Live them! See what works and what doesn’t, feed it back to us and adjust accordingly. As a community we can develop new and exciting ways of integrating spirituality into our everyday lives that make a huge and tangible difference to the quality of our lives and relationships.

There are no ‘right’ solutions so lets generate as many ideas and examples of implementation as possible - but the way that you choose to design something into your lifestyle may look very different to mine. As designers we each have our unique styles.

In my next entry I’d like to start with something fundamental to 21st century life - time. No one seems to have enough. People are working longer and longer hours. Terms like ‘time-starved’ are being coined to describe the busy and rushed people around us - how should a 21st century pilgrim think about time? What does a deep, meaningful use of time look like? Stay tuned…

There have been many times in the past few months where I’ve wanted to jump on and update my last post but for some reason I had a feeling I was being premature.  It has taken almost eight months but now the time is right.

 We were so excited last July that my daughter’s house was under contract and we were amazed at how everything seemed to be falling into place for the sale of theirs and the purchase of another to move to.  That contract fell through as did many others in these past months. 

 It has been a hugely stressful time.  The only thing I can liken it to is a roller coaster ride and with just about the same adrenalin output!  The difference?  A roller coaster ride would have been quicker! 

This week that house sold and a new one was purchased.  Settlement is a done deal.  Moving in and unpacking is now in progress.   I think we are finally finished with that roller coaster.

There were some valuable lessons in it all, including some things which had to be sorted out in the spiritual realm.  Once the ‘wolves in sheep’s clothing’ had been identified and dealt with things improved.  Sometimes on our journey we are involved with people who we regard as being of like mind and spirit so we share openly our hopes and dreams with them.  We allow them to speak into our lives, however not all are ‘God’s agents’ and before we know it (or don’t know it) we come under the influence of a power that works in opposition to God.  In this instance, it took months for the ‘link’ to be exposed and then for everything else to fall into place. 

Often our journey with God is not a smooth, straight path.  Sometimes we have to engage in spiritual warfare on spiritual battlefields.  Often we do not understand the nature of the powers that we are up against - but we have evidence of them in the turmoil and anguish they cause.  Warfare is hard work but we do not fight alone.  Pressing in to God and claiming the victory in the battle for him, in his name, will crush the opposition.  Then there’s the clean up after the battle - asking forgiveness for unwittingly allowing these forces to gain access to our lives and circumstances.  From there, move on in humility, obedience and trust in God. 

Just this week, with the final act in this scene being played out, I have had cause to ponder these words in Psalm 143 - “Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you.  Show me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul.  Rescue me from my enemies, O Lord, for I hide myself in you.  Teach me to do your will, for you are my God; may your good Spirit lead me on level ground.” 

Way to go!!

Design has enjoyed a significant rise to prominence in the last few years - both as a concept and a profession. People want well-designed objects that are enjoyable and intuitive to use. Architecturally-designed houses that make great use of space and facilitate quality lifestyles are growing in demand. These qualities are even becoming fundamental to software and websites! People are rediscovering that our objects and spaces actually help to shape us spiritually - and vice-versa.

While this is all good - I can’t help but notice the contrast between the quality of design that people demand from their objects/houses/cars/clothes/kitchen appliances while at the same time living lives that are so poorly designed that they don’t even satisfy basic needs for happiness or spiritual growth.

As both a designer and a pilgrim, I would love to see a ‘life design’ movement emerge where the design process becomes a metaphor for us really thinking about what it is to live well - and then DESIGNING AND LIVING a life that makes it possible. Although the fundamental things that we need to achieve are the same, my life design may look very different to yours. Each designer has their own style and brings their own unique perspective.

I’m hoping that this entry will seed some ideas and debate that will allow us to explore what it means to live well and what it is to do life design. As this blog is about ‘integrating spirituality into everyday life’, I would love to take this entry to the next level and really flesh out some tangible ideas for what life design might look like.

In the meantime take a look at Len Sweet’s paradigm-shifting book SoulSalsa which he describes as a “lifeware design package”.

This is a coffee I made a little while ago at home. It was a completely random pour of the coffee that resulted in something that I think resembles Edvard Munch’s The Scream. Isn’t it amazing that even in a cup of coffee there can be art. It may not last long but it certainly encourages us to stop, take a moment and appreciate some of the finer details of life.

MORE?  But wait, there’s more! 

How often do we ‘take off’ that commercial that keeps telling us that there’s ‘more’ and ‘more again’ on top of the original offer? 

Then what about ‘immeasurably more’? 

That’s what we have in God-sized proportions!  More than we could ever ask or imagine.

Now that’s a WOW-factor in anybody’s estimations.  And that’s exactly what has happened to my family just this past week…

My daughter and son-in-law have been struggling with ’space’ issues in their home.  Basically, they had outgrown it given the very limited storage available and two young children added to the equation.  Not only that, they are planning an extension to their family when they receive their adopted child/children from overseas.  They had looked at every conceivable angle in order to come up with a solution to the problem.  Finally, they decided the best thing would be to sell their house and move to something larger. 

 To cut the long story shorter, they prepared their house to sell and two weeks ago advertised their first open house.  They had a good response.  They advertised again the next week and had their second open house.  They believed that the house would sell that day - and it did - that is, they accepted an offer.  Awesome!!  A fantastic price as well. 

Then they decided to put in a further offer on a brand new house that they had their sights set on but seemed out of reach.  Previous offers had been rejected as being too low.  Now they found the house was still available and the builder had dropped his price.  This new offer came back again as ‘too low’.  They then decided to offer $1000.00 less than the builder’s absolute bottom line.  He accepted! 

On Friday the contract was signed for the sale of their house.

On Saturday the contract was signed for the purchase of their new house. 

They have saved heaps of money because they did not sell through an agent and they will not have to set up a new loan.  They are selling for a price far above what they initially thought they would get for their house - and the new house has come down $21,000.00 from the original asking price.  All up, it is just wonderfully amazing and such an answer to prayer - in fact, God has given them IMMEASURABLY MORE than they asked or thought possible.  Amazing but true.  Our God is an awesome God.

“Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, to Him be glory for ever and ever!”  Ephesians 3: 20-21

My scrapbooking layout using this verse is here:

www.scrapbook-elements.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=33067&cat=551

Recently we’ve experienced some difficulty with the blog engine we were using. This caused an extended period of downtime for the blog. For this we are greatly apologetic. We were finding that the blog engine was a little bit bloated, it had too much of what we didn’t need, making updates, and upgrades somewhat difficult. As such there is a time when every pilgrim needs to determine how to keep moving forward. In our circumstances we decided to try something new, something a little lighter, more nimble and more widely supported.

Often we can find ourselves, burdened down by the former decisions we have made. It is only when we finally decide to take action and do something different, that we can move forward again and progress further on our pilgrimage.

Lets make some change and keep moving forward.

Today I completed my first digital layout for the "Gotta Have Faith" challenge on a website I found recently. I love to do digital scrapbooking but this is the first time I have scrapped something with direct relevance to my faith journey. Most of my scrapbooking has been of family, family history and my overseas travel adventures.

When I saw this challenge, I knew I just had to participate. The challenge is to create a layout using a Bible verse that you consider to be a ‘life verse’ - one that is always with you. There are a few verses that stand out for me, but for this I chose Lamentations 3: 22,23 because it is a constant reminder to me of God’s unfailing goodness and grace.

You can find my layout here: http://www.elementalscraps.com/photopost/showgallery.php?cat=641

What is your ‘life verse’? How about sharing it along with the reason you consider it your ‘life verse’?

Ever had a spiritual experience on the treadmill? You should.

Our reductionist thinking tries to create artificial boundaries between body, mind and spirit like they are three unrelated things. I’ve seen this illustrated before as three compartments, but I think that the relationship between them is more like a venn diagram with a large common area in the middle.

This is probably why scripture describes the body as being the temple of the Holy Spirit. The astounding effect that our mind has on our body is well accepted - but what about the effect that our body has on our spirit? I’ve certainly never considered it before now.

In the spirit of the ancient Rabbis who would invoke the adage "an hour of study is as an hour of prayer in the eyes of God", I propose a new adage for the 21st century pilgrim: an hour on the treadmill is as an hour of prayer in the eyes of God.

Mind, body and spirit are linked in such a way that if one is in bad shape - all suffer. What does this mean for a society in which obesity tripled in children and adolescents and doubled for adults between 1980 - 2002?!?

Check out About.com’s exercise for beginners section.

They say that when it rains it pours. It’s funny that during days like that all we want to do is curl up under the duvet and never come out. But thank goodness not all days have us reaching for the aspirin…And that some days can actually make us feel on top of the world! It seems as though all we need to do is to click our fingers and have what we have been working so hard for. Those are the days! What a shame that for the most part most days lie somewhere in the middle – pretty mediocre really. Same shows on TV, same politics at work, bumper to bumper traffic and a family that still drives us up the wall.

And the funny thing is that when you look into the eyes of the people you know – many seem fundamentally unhappy. I can’t help thinking that they are under the illusion that life means each day being amazing, fun and fulfilling. But is it realistic for us all to be happy and fulfilled all of the time? I very much doubt it!! If the bell curve is anything to go by, only between 1 and 5% of us can only be blissfully happy at the one time. So why does it seem like we’re all striving to do something else or be someone else.

When it comes down to it – all we’ve really got is today (even if it is a dull and boring one that looks like many others). The people we know and love and our attitudes towards them are the most important thing. A friend of mine lost her mother today. Her grief was very real and poignant and brought tears to my eyes. How my day was going seemed unimportant all of a sudden. It didn’t really matter in the grand scheme of life.

Relationships we have invested in are the thing that can make the everyday – even the mediocre ones - worthwhile and extraordinary. Relationships are fundamental to human experience and if we invest some more time into them instead of the day-to-day rat race, we may indeed find true contentment and fulfillment. Jesus came that we may have life to the full. Maybe if we took time to get to know the people in our world a little better, we’ll find our happy days.