John Fischer The Catch

Setting the soul free

Posted on March 27, 2017 by jwfisch

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Naphtali is a doe set free; he gives beautiful words. Genesis 49:21

“Then Jacob called for his sons and said: ‘Gather around so I can tell you what will befall you in days to come’” (Genesis 49:1). These words, uttered to Naphtali on the occasion of Jacob’s final prophetic blessing concerning each of his twelve sons, capture three important elements that characterize a life artfully lived unto the Lord: freedom, beauty and truth. “Naphtali is a doe set free; he gives beautiful words.”

Freedom is a prerequisite to finding an artful life. Creativity and freedom have always been tied together. Creativity does not spring from a heart in bondage; it comes from a heart set free, and in this image it is pictured by the free, unbounded graceful leaping of a doe that has just been let loose.

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged creativity, freedom | 3 Comments

“Ugg,” is what I have to say about that.

Posted on March 24, 2017 by jwfisch

It’s a crisis of at least national, if not international, scope. I’m expecting my phone to go on Amber Alert any moment now to secure the support of all cell phone users in southern California in finding what has been lost, or worse yet, abducted. I woke up this morning and so far have been unable to locate an essential part of my morning ritual, my Ugg boots. Now I know this sounds like overkill, but I’m sure you have some trivial item that has become such a necessary part of your life, that to miss it would throw an imbalance into your emotional make-up like a washing machine knocking on its spin cycle.

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged the lost | 6 Comments

Halfway to God? I don’t think so.

Posted on March 23, 2017 by jwfisch

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There is no halfway to love. Love goes all the way. Halfway leaves you dangling on a bridge to nowhere, waiting for the other person to come to you, and that may be something they may not be able or willing to do.

Imagine if God required us to meet Him halfway. How far do you think that would be? Do you think you could get halfway to God? Do you think anybody could? Halfway to God? Halfway to heaven? I wonder how far that would be? Farther than any of us could imagine, I’m sure.

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged building bridges, grace, unconditional love | 3 Comments

Less is more

Posted on March 22, 2017 by jwfisch

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Because I have so much to learn in this area, I am relying on one of our Catch members today for advice on raising kids — in this case, highly opinionated kids who happen to be his sons.

This discussion on building bridges has been an eye-opener for me in that it has shown me how much I have failed in relation to building a relationship with my son, Chandler. So I am going to pass on some of Peter’s advice to you, since I’m between the answers on this, as I wrote about yesterday. I hope you will find it as helpful as I have, and not just for kids, but for all our relationships, because we’re talking today about listening.

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged music | 5 Comments

Life between the answers with certainty

Posted on March 21, 2017 by jwfisch

My Catch is late today because I’ve been caught in the middle. It’s a familiar place. I commonly vacillate between wanting to give you the answers with certainty (that makes me look good), and wanting to capture what it is to live between the answers (that makes me look vulnerable), because in reality, that’s where we all are most of the time.

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged questioning, uncertainty | 1 Comment

What do we have in common?

Posted on March 20, 2017 by jwfisch

Continuing our deeper discussion on bridge-building is discussing the concept Look for what you have in common. This is pretty self-explanatory, but it’s harder than it looks. It relies, as all parts of bridge-building do, on the last concept about being eager to listen. It’s only as you get the other person to talk that you can find out what you might have in common.

Bridge-building is all about connecting and you can’t connect over what you don’t know, so you have to get good at questions and at getting someone to talk. Show an interest in what they want to talk about even if you aren’t interested. This is where faking it may be required — at least in the beginning.

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged building bridges, common ground | 1 Comment

I’m right; You’re wrong; So what?

Posted on March 17, 2017 by jwfisch

Like we said on Tuesday of this week, being right is overrated.

I wonder how many relationships have been sacrificed at the altar of being right. What is it that makes us do this? Is it our natural competitiveness — (we just can’t resist a good fight?) Is it a diversion away from a more important issue that remains unsettled? Is it an issue of pride? Whatever it is it can be harmful. And if being right is harmful, admitting you are wrong can heal a relationship because of — you guessed it: its vulnerability.

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged building bridges, relationships | 1 Comment

Living with confrontation

Posted on March 16, 2017 by jwfisch

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I need to build a bridge to my son. He’s over there somewhere; I’m over here somewhere, and there is a wall between us. I built the wall, brick by brick, by avoidance. I’m the one who can remove it — or maybe together, we could build a bridge over it.

Chandler is confronting by nature, and I mean that in a good way. He says what he thinks and expects you to do the same. If you don’t, he doesn’t have time for you. I don’t always say what I think, and he knows it, so he doesn’t have time for me. I am not confronting by nature. I avoid confrontation at all costs — and the cost is high — it’s the cost of a relationship. Did I just say I would sacrifice a relationship to avoid confrontation? That’s how bad my isolation is.

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged building bridges, Conflict resolution, vulnerability | 9 Comments

Out of my shell

Posted on March 15, 2017 by jwfisch

Be vulnerable.

Be open-minded

Look for what you have in common.

Empathize.

Cross over.

Be willing to admit you were wrong.

Be more eager to listen than to talk.

Yesterday’s Catch was about building bridges. It listed 7 different things we could do to help build bridges with people instead of walls. Marti thought it was a brilliant Catch. Then she challenged me to pick them off, one by one, and write about how I’m really doing with each one of these suggestions.

Wait a minute. That’s a violation of the cardinal rule of teaching, which is: The teacher is exempt from having to apply what he/she is teaching to him/herself. If you came up with it, you are obviously doing it. Not.

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged building bridges, vulnerability | 7 Comments

Building bridges in a season of walls

Posted on March 14, 2017 by jwfisch

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Jesus gave us one command before he left. It was the last thing He told us. He told us to go. Go into all the world. Go into all the world and make disciples. Go into all the world and make disciples of all nations. That is a massive undertaking and it is entirely inconsistent with current cultural trends toward separation and isolation. How can you go anywhere with walls around you, and no bridges to get there? “Going” in a season of walls will take some serious bridge-building or you can’t even get there. We will have to buck the trend. What will help us do that?

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