Narcissistic spirituality is back

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Our good friend Steve tweeted yesterday’s Catch, and for some reason, my email brought up an older Catch from last February instead, “Are we guilty of narcissistic spirituality?”. It turns out to be a divine mistake because the February 17 Catch is exactly what I need right now, and I have a hunch you do too.

Steve is the perfect one to comment on yesterday’s Catch since he used to work for (and with) Marti in marketing. They made an awesome team, and Steve will undoubtedly get the good nature ribbing in yesterday’s Catch. In rereading what I wrote yesterday, I realize I might have made Marti out to look like a big pain. That’s not the case. It’s just her people-oriented work ethic rubbing against my narcissistic procrastination. Thus, the appropriate nature of bringing back February’s Catch. (Some of these Catches really do need to go around again because we are so slow to get it.) But before I go to that, there are two things of importance I need to make clear.

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Saving the Princess of Power and Control

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In some circles and most certainly in our family, my wife, Marti, is known as the Princess of Power and Control. She even has a pseudo-business card with that title printed on it. I’m not sure when this moniker was first applied to her, but I can guess that it came from her years as an executive in the business world, and it most likely came from those who had to work for her. She is a hard driver who expects the impossible out of people. This is not because she is a particularly mean-spirited person. It’s because she drives herself extremely hard and cannot fathom, for the life of her, why everyone around her does not operate with the same intensity as she does. Marti will throw her whole being into something and wonder why everyone is standing around watching her.

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Can’t stay in Laramie forever

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A big thanks to so many of you who have offered Chandler and us congratulations over what we (and especially Chandler) have accomplished through the sometimes scary aspects of his treatment over the past ten months. It has indeed been a difficult journey, and we are so grateful for so many of your prayers. As a Christian leader, there have been things that have been hard to admit, but the encouragement and prayer support we have received have outweighed all that. Besides, the only thing really lost by living this story openly in front of all of you has been my ego. Ha! Good riddance.

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How embracing failure can guarantee the greatest success

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One of the unique things about the Catch, and we think worthy of your support, is that we are not afraid to reveal our own processes. No one is perfect, and leadership does not consist in the absence of failure, but in the ability to identify with failure and grow thereby.

Along these lines, my wife, Marti, pointed out something she felt was missing in my report of our son Chandler’s awards banquet last week (see Friday’s Catch). It’s probably something you wouldn’t have caught unless I revealed it to you, which is what I am going to do right now.

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The treatment center’s Most Improved Resident

Chandler and his good friend, Jalen.

Chandler and his good friend, Jalen.

“Congratulations and good luck when you go home.” That is how the speech introducing the Most Improved Resident award at Chandler’s treatment center ended at a very special Awards Banquet last night.

The banquet hall of the nicest hotel in town was packed, with everyone, including the kids, dressed to the nines. Besides the students, the audience was made up of staff, former staff, alumni of the program, major donors, and the Board of Directors of the 35-year-old treatment center.

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Time to join up with the Musketeers!

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Similar to the summer blockbuster movies we have become familiar with, the original novel, The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas is the 19th Century version of a buddy movie. It first appeared one chapter at a time in the Parisian newspaper Le Siècle from March 14, 1844 to July 1, 1844. It was a serial novel, guaranteeing newspaper sales, with each chapter ending with a real cliffhanger, so you had to find out what happened the next day. It was full of the ribald, swashbuckling, high-living humor that most of the 34 film versions in our modern era have captured. In other words, the humor, camaraderie, rivalry and naughtiness of later versions were not adaptations; they were built into the original story.

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‘With friends like this, who needs enemies?’

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Chandler picked out a restaurant and a movie for us to celebrate my birthday last night, and it was an awesome time. After a dinner of spicy chicken wings (his choice) we went and saw the new Captain America: Civil War movie. This is the second superhero movie where good fighting evil has given way to good fighting good. (Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice being the other.) Apparently we are growing tired of superheroes fighting evil and want to see them fight each other for a change.

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1,263 miles to Little America

Little America, early 1960s

Little America, early 1960s

One winter around the turn of the twentieth century, young Robert Earl Holding was taking care of a herd of sheep in the desolate desert of western Wyoming when he got caught in a terrible blizzard with 50 mile an hour winds and 40 below temperatures. Merely longing for a warm fire, something hot to eat, and a blanket, he thought about what a blessing it would be if someone would build a shelter for travelers in that God-forsaken place with a crackling fire, a warm bed and good food. Years later, in the 1930s, inspired by Admiral Richard Byrd’s 1929 base camp in Antarctica which he named “Little America,” Mr. Holding decided to make good on his dream and call it just that: “Little America.” Holding, died on April 19, 2013, with a personal net worth of over $3 billion and a Little America in six different locations.

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Living on the edge of Death … Valley

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The town of Baker, California, calls itself the Gateway to Death Valley. To highlight this important identity, the town built a huge thermometer in the middle of it that stands exactly 134 feet high. That number is not arbitrary. It is in honor of the 134-degree record temperature that was set in nearby Death Valley on July 10, 1913. Large red LED lights can be read from Interstate 15 that runs nearby and carries all the traffic that constantly flows from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, Nevada, and back again. The thermometer’s high mark is — you guessed it — 134 degrees. I guess they are banking on global warming not affecting the record for a long time to come. When Chandler and I passed it yesterday, the thermometer read 95 degrees — an average day in Baker, California, Gateway to Death … Valley.

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Did you know that you are a Super Hero?

To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. (Colossians 1:27)

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Super Heroes save people, and you can do that because Christ is in you and He is the savior of the world. (Colossians 1:27)

Super Heroes knock out the bad guy, and you can do that because “greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.” (1 John 4:4)

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