Monthly Director's Update: August 2014

With two weeks until our Fellows arrive I was recalling a quote from Teddy Roosevelt’s speech “Citizenship in a Republic” in which he said:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. 

And is that not the desire and mission behind this beautiful journey we call the Nashville Fellows Program. Not to simply observe life like the critic, but to engage our entire being in the process of the redemption of all things through discovering our part in God’s larger story. That, my friends, is truly the story of a life well lived and not simply observed.

As the days are counting down I am reminded that this is 

God’s work we are engaging with Him in. We are learning o engage ourselves in the Gospel of His Kingdom. It is in and for this Sacred Romance that He has called each of us, no matter our vocation or calling, to truly discover who we are in His stunning and unshakeable love.

As we are putting the final pieces in place to begin the process of entering into the arena of life.

Dare greatly, my friends.