…is where your success is sown, grown, and reaped.
Hopefully, you’re looking and living where no one else is looking and living.
That’s why they call it your path.
It’s yours.
Ashton.Gustafson
Pause by the orchid. Listen to the bluebird sing. Be love.
Tag Archives: ltmp
Finding The Divine in All Things with Jim Martin, SJ
REV. JAMES MARTIN, SJ, is a Jesuit priest, editor at large of America Magazine, and bestselling author of Jesus: A Pilgrimage, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything, and Between Heaven and Mirth. Father Martin has written for many publications, including the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, and he is a regular commentator in the national and international media. He has appeared on all the major radio and television networks, as well as in venues ranging from NPR’s Fresh Air, FOX’s The O’Reilly Factor, and PBS’s NewsHour to Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report. Before entering the Jesuits in 1988, Father Martin graduated from the Wharton School of Business and worked for General Electric for six years.
In this episode, take note of the joy and delight that Father Martin navigates his days with. His inspirational story of self discovery will provide insight and clues into allowing your passions to pave the path for your story.
You can download or stream this episode and all other episodes of Let The Music Play Podcast in iTunes and at AshtonGustafson.com.
Creating…
…isn’t producing.
Creating is something that occurs through and on the other side of a courageous heart in action.
Creating is concocted by soul.
Creating is what happens at the intersection of serenity and self-emptying strength.
Production is a reflection of you..the resume you.
Creating is your reflection into what is and what we never dreamed could be.
Production has a period.
Creating is always followed by a comma.
How We Connect the Dots (and how I make my notes for podcast/creative ideas)
- Curiosity.
- This requires and open spirit that allows itself availability to come into contact that which it does not know.
- Here questions > answers.
- Interest
- Once interest is perked, one can start to access their vault of experiential knowledge and start to accumulate some dots for connecting with the new subject via form, fashion, feel, etc.
- Understanding
- Here the dots begin to connect.
- Pattern, rhyme, tempo, consistency, and predictability begin to be learned, seen, and noted.
- We now know what was unknown has some knowability for us…and perhaps it could teach or enlarge us.
- Appreciation/Reverence
- Here we start to freely share what we’ve learned.
- Enjoyment, sharing, and participation are all mirroring the awe we’ve been able to line up with these new dots.
- Unity > Uniformity and this reality is celebrated.
- Wonder-filled/Bewildered/Quickened/In Awe
- One now begins to take ownership with their relationship to these dots.
- A gratuitous spirit is now lost in the mystery, but found in the passion of the process, art, and flow these dots provide for them.
- The dots become metaphors across a myriad of life’s offerings.
- The nuance of the dots personally become known and consistently reflected on.
- Holiness/Beauty/Presence
- This is what we all want.
- Time stands still.
- Meaning has arrived.
Original > Another
This can be just another Monday.
A groggy attempt to reclaim weekend highs with a frustrated posture for wherever you may find yourself in spirit, mind, and body.
Or it can be magical, majestic, and pregnant with possibility and hope.
It can be just another ________…
…or it can be an original.
Maybe your children are offering you a song that welcomes you back to your original child-likeness. Remember that ‘you’? That you never had a business card and won’t ever need one either.
Perhaps the sun that will warm your skin today is the same sun humming a tune into the dirt and vines on your block ushering spring into being out of the muck of autumn’s decay. Could the bloom(s) of spring be millions of lovely questions and affirmations bursting specifically for you? If you listen closely, you can hear them exude via color “I’m an original…and so are you!”
Or maybe this monotonous Monday has an agenda that is woven with earth and Heaven? And what if that agenda could use a conduit, a bridge, or a medium to transport something that, end the end, could transform something? What if that conduit was you? What if you were also meant to be in on the transformation?
Call it whatever you need to.
Just don’t call it Monday.
That carries too much baggage.
You’ve been given wings to go somewhere new, eyes to see with possibility, and hands to paint with hope.
Ashton.Gustafson 