Friday links

How exactly do you measure maturity? I'm thinking this graph is one way.

The Ten Most Amazing Structures in the world. Would living in one of them make you feel more creative?

Donald Miller shares some good insight on the power of having social goals - Good idea! I wish I would started those years ago!

I've referenced William Bridges book transition so many times in the past five years. Here is Bill Donahue's summary if you haven't read the book. So many of our challenges come from forgetting that change is different than transition but certainly includes it.

Adam McHugh is speaking my language in his article "The Ancient Art of Listening: Spiritual Direction for Evangelicals and Introverts.

How about trading in our mission/vision statements for a passion statement? Some good thoughts here

Quote that has me aligned this week (I like the stream metaphor):

The truth is that nothing in this earth can finally satisfy us. Much can make us content for a time but nothing can fill us to the brim. The reason is that our final joy lies “beyond the walls of this world,” as J.R.R Tolkien put it. Ultimate beauty comes not from a lover or a landscape or a home, but only through them. These earthly things are solid goods, and we naturally relish them. But they are not our final good. They point to what is higher up and further back…Even if we fall deeply in love and marry another human being, we discover that our spiritual and sexual oneness isn’t final. It’s wonderful, but not final. It might even be as good as human oneness can be, but something in us keeps saying “not this” or “still beyond”…What Augustine knew is that human beings want God…God has made us for himself. Our sense of God runs in us like a stream, even though, because of sin, we divert it toward other objects. We human beings want God even when we think that what we really want is a green valley, or a good time from our past, or a loved one. Of course we do want these things and persons, but we also want what’s behind them. Our inconsolable secret, says C.S. Lewis, is that we are full of yearnings, sometimes shy and sometimes passionate, that point us beyond the things of earth to the ultimate reality of God.

- Cornelius Plantinga