Haiti Trip Response: Recalibrations – Stream of Consciousness List

Here's my list (of ten 49!!)...(and, chances are, I'll probably add to it tomorrow!!)...

1. When taking a shower, turn off the hot water while lathering up your body or washing your hair.
2. Go out of your way to be the first to greet another—be it a friend or a total stranger.  Be the first to smile and say "hello."
3. Greet people properly.  Smile, look them in the eye, and speak clearly and genuinely.
4. Spend some time every day working on your business contacts—Ummm...not your website, Dave; your contacts.  :o)
5. Redo your budget during the first part of May, put together a revised financial plan, and then live by it.
6. Step up your purchasing from Goodwill of the things you need, and donate back at least as much as you buy.
7. Pursue up-to-date news about Haiti and Kenya.  KNOW what’s going on in both of those countries.
8. Open yourself up to those around you—almost to a point that’s pretty much unheard of in our culture.  But do so in a manner that's sensitive to others.  Be open, but in a kindly manner.
9. Speak the truth (or what you know or believe to be the truth) in kindness with everyone (even yourself), all the time, in every situation, and without hesitation.
10. Reinvigorate your inventiveness.  (It’s been a while, Dave.  It’s time to create stuff again, dude.)
11. Develop an exercise routine that can be practiced effectively overseas.
12. Devote considerable time to the personal (meaning, in-person) cultivation of missional partnerships.
13. Write with all your heart and mind, and let what’s inside you come out.  Share who you are with as many people as possible.
14. Complete your tax returns on-time, Dave.  THEY OWE you money.  What are you waiting for?  Go get it, dude.
15. Be faithful in your Sunday morning and Monday night Missional Houses of Prayer.
16. Pay all your bills on-time.
17. Ask for prayer. Plead with those you know to pray for you.
18. Tell those you love how much you love them and what they’ve meant to you in your life.
19. Be super-expressively grateful.
20. Cease all complaints, all blame, all criticism, all gossip.  All of it, Dave.
21. Confront misbehavior lovingly, but firmly—in yourself and in others.
22. Reduce your wine consumption.  I know you love it, Dave, but it can easily begin to hate you.  Enjoy it in moderation.  Remember this:  A second glass never tastes as good as the first.
23. Fast, on occasion, the watching of movies by yourself.  Do so for a day, a week, or, even, a month at a time.
24. Build deep and abiding friendships with your work colleagues.
25. Create missional culture by living it and inviting those you love to practice such things with you.
26. Pursue Acts 2 community living within the newhope community.
27. Pray for people on the spot.
28. Go to bed earlier.
29. Get up earlier.
30. Keep your kitchen sink clean and your dishwasher empty.
31. Wash only full loads of laundry and dishes.
32. Forgive quicker.  Decide beforehand that everyone around you is automatically forgiven—long before they irritate or hurt you.
33. Stop thinking about what you’re going to say while someone else is talking.  Take the time to really listen and absorb what another is saying to you.  Then, after that person feels that he or she has been heard, think about what you might like to say.
34. Let go of your attachment to specific outcomes in your life.  Do you really HAVE to have x y z to be happy?  Ummm...the correct answer would be NO, Dave.
35. Submit—completely—to those in authority over you.  Submit also—and do so completely—to your brothers and sisters around you.
36. Stop caring so much about what others think of you.
37. Take the time to really prepare at least one meal a day, and then give yourself permission to actually taste it, okay?  Dine, Dave, dine…and have fun eating, because having fun is at least half the point!  These are all novel concepts, I know!
38. Dine on your conversations with others, too.  Sip—don’t gulp-their soul’s wine.  It will change your life, dude.  And theirs, too!
39. Take care of your paper work.
40. Always respond to others with an almost overwhelming kindness, respect, dignity, and compassion.
41. Smile before you answer the phone or before someone even says “hello” to you.
42. Go out of your way to acknowledge the person waiting on you in a restaurant or in the check-out line at the grocery store.  Learn—and remember—his or her name.
43. When someone comes in to your office, stop what you’re doing—immediately (unless you’re on the phone)—and give that person your full time and attention.
44. Live in the moment, Dave.  Yesterday no longer is, and tomorrow doesn't exist.  All you have is right now.
45. Invite God to be an integral part of every though, feeling, word, and action.
46. Be happy...all the time...without a reason in the world.
47. Enjoy your friends.
48. Be prompt in returning phone calls.
49. Engage in language training (especially Haitian Creole, Dave!) weekly. 

Ummm...Lord, I am, it would appear, in need of significant recalibration.  I lay all of this at Your Feet.  My eyes are on You, Jesus.  Show me the things in this list that You Embody that You wish for me to imitate.  Oh Glory!!  Bless me, Lord...'cause it seems quite obvious that I need it!!