Mapping is now non-linear. It’s more like “a spider spinning a web,” says Brian Shannon of the Corps of Engineers. “You’re moving back and forth building something one line at a time until you have a complex network that captures a place.” … Even for you personally to update redrawn maps becomes worthless when the very principles of mapping have changed. What leaders need to pilot the church on God’s terms are navigational skills that can get them from problem to solution.

Leonard Sweet. AQUACHURCH.

Servanthood is not simply doing what one is assigned. Nor is it doing one's rightful duty. It means you will do what no one else would possibly choose to do!

Think of how much of Christian leadership is not labor or work of the menial type but rather traffics in information only. It is centered on conferences and congresses and colloquiums and committees and communication. But rarely is it focused on doing the work of a slave.

Joe Novenson. Draped in a Servant’s Towel Rather Than a Master’s Robes.

I think every poet, or any artist, has a sense of the Muse. It’s unpredictable; no matter how much personal discipline you have, you can’t just sit down and write a poem when you want to. You have to wait for the images and the ideas to be presented and then be alert enough to catch them when they come, and record them….And you have to pay attention; you can’t just say, “Later, later.” You really have to pay attention at that moment. Because it’s so central—there’s a sense that this is what my life is really all about and the other things become more peripheral.

Lucy Shaw. Interview in Mars Hill Review. May 1995.

If I had a spell of magic
I would make this enchantment for you
A burgundy heart-shaped medallion
With a window that you could look through
So that when all the mirrors are angry
With your faults and all you must do
You could peek through that heart-shaped medallion
And see you from my point of view

David Wilcox. BURGANDY HEART-SHAPED MEDALLION.

Annette

If she were a book,
the cover would be tea leaves.
Ideas to steep.

Upon turing it,
sweetened knowledge, cream of thought -
warmed by the reading.

Dan Haase. (Thank you Dan for the birthday Haiku)

But in the spiritual life, the word discipline means "the effort to create some space in which God can act." Discipline means to prevent everything in your life from being filled up. Discipline means that somewhere you're not occupied, and certainly not preoccupied. In the spiritual life, discipline means to create that space in which something can happen to you that you hadn't planed or counted on.

Henri Nouwen. Moving from Solitude to Community to Ministry.