The Tenderlyrooted Blog

Bacon-Wrapped Sprouted Walnut-Stuffed Dates

Tue, 13 Dec 2022 15:00:01 GMT

Wow a crowd + your taste buds with these easy to make stuffed dates!

Ingredients:

12 Medjool dates,
pitted 12 sprouted walnut halves 4 thin-cut slices of raw bacon, cut into thirds
Optional, a pinch of red chili flakes or smoked salt

Instructions:

Preheat broiler to high
Make a thin slit in each date + wrap the date around a sprouted walnut halve
Optionally, add a pinch of red chili flakes or smoked salt inside of each date
Wrap 1/3 a slice of thin-cut bacon around each walnut-stuffed date
Secure bacon with a toothpick
Place onto a slotted cooling rack on top of a cookie sheet Broil for 8-10 minutes, until bacon is cooked + crispy
Serve immediately + enjoy

Top 10 Middle Grade Fantasy Book List

Mon, 12 Dec 2022 04:35:47 GMT

We've heard your requests -- and Judah came through!

Judah’s top five book series recommendations for the middle grade reader in your life:

Wings of Fire

The Five Realms

Rick Riordan Presents

Riordan got his own imprint under Disney’s Hyperion press to promote new and diverse authors who write with a similar pace and humor as Riordan himself. His label releases the works of other authors, each from a different ethnic folklore. This is the perfect way to discover new books. Most of them are the first book in a series. Judah loves each and every one, and it opened his literary world in so many ways!

Because this imprint is so impactful to Judah, we wanted to list the first five books Judah read (each is the first of its own series). Here are summaries from Wikipedia about each:

The Green Ember

Peter Nimble

Each book, a new world...

As you explore this adventure-filled list, check your local used bookstore first. The more we can support small businesses, the better everyone will be! All the links here go to Amazon, but that is only as a fall back in case there is a time-crunch or something.

Our hope is that these books will fill your home with hope, zest, and a broadening sense of the world.

Once your house has read a book on this list, leave a comment and tell us what you thought of it!

Happy reading,

The Kramers (and Judah most of all)

Sprouted Walnut Chocolate Bundt Cake

Tue, 23 Nov 2021 03:52:58 GMT

Look, ma! First new blog post in two years!

Heading to a holiday gathering and don’t quite know what to bring? Try this delicious cake with sprouted walnuts! The California Walnut Board created the cake recipe, although we’ve modified some of the ingredients — and obviously added sprouted walnuts! Click on the image to get a PDF version that is printer-friendly so you can make this amazing cake year-round!

Tag us when you make it so we can oogle over it all over again!

Your strengths will sink you

Wed, 20 Mar 2019 21:18:36 GMT

Why sticking to our strengths is bad advice

I was taught to lean into my strengths. "You're strengths are you greatest asset," I was told. And I believed it. I was convinced that what I brought to the table was going to change the world.

And boy did I bring some neat stuff to the table! As with many white male Americans, I grew up in a smorgasbord of affirmation of all my strengths, skills, and smarts. What couldn't I do? Who wouldn't want me on their team? The rhetoric of well-intentioned adults became the fuel for blind ego.

I grew up, but not really. I remained convinced, well into adulthood, that my strengths were the bees knees. That leveraging my strengths would save the day. That people would thank me for being me, because being me was so awesome. That I didn't need to think about my weaknesses, because I'd just play to my strengths and that everything would be ok if I did that.

Let's be honest, there is a ton of well meaning business advice that falls square into this category. Some of it is really good advice that my really inflated ego took out of context to mean what I wanted it to mean; some of it shares the same inflated ego and is therefore already misguided (no matter how catchy it is).

So here I was, hearing praises and affirmations that my strengths were God's gift to mankind, receiving job opportunities and promotions because of my strengths, skills, and smarts, and being convinced that my life was made.

Then, suddenly, the shiny affirmation train collided with reality.

In a shocking turn of events (to myself only, others saw it coming) my strengths were no longer the bees knees, they were the weakest link. There was a fateful conversation when we were asked to leave ministry because of my strengths! My strengths were laid out and named as the reason we were being asked to leave.

I was too ambitious. Too quick to counter in a conversation. I shook the boat. I had good ideas and believed that since they came out of my head it made them the best ideas. I wanted too much from the future and wasn't content with life today. I pushed too hard: in goal-setting, in discussions, in achievements.

And, with that, I was out of my dream job. And, out of my dream job, I was spinning.

Was it true? Were the things I considered strengths really failures?

I had considered myself to be a strong person = was it really that I was emotionally stunted and a bully?
I had considered myself passionate = was it really that I was an ambitious egomaniac?
I had considered myself strategic = was it really that I was manipulative and political?
I had considered myself imaginative and future oriented = was it really that I was unable to enjoy the present?

As I stumbled through, looking for footing, I could no longer use the crutch of "leaning into my strengths" to prop me up -- it was the very thing that had caused me to stumble!

I had to find a new path forward in life. A path that didn't anchor onto easy and shallow catchphrases, or ego-inflating -isms.

It took months.

Literal months of feeling split down the middle on the inside: one half saying to abandon the false hope that my strengths were ever anything meaningful and embrace the harsh reality that it's all just a cover for some fatal failures in my humanity; the other half urging me to reject the feedback and instead blame someone else for my predicament, so I could go back to the unruffled status quo of living my life just the way I had been.

Neither option held much promise, and so I remained in the tension. I knew a quick escape from the inner turmoil would only be the shackles of a later bondage. The path to freedom was the tightrope walk balanced between two wrenching tensions, suspended above a pit of self-pity, indignation, and narcissism.

So I stayed there, wobbling on the tightrope, waiting for some third option to materialize.

The third option that did materialize came so far from outside myself that it clearly was not a creation from anything that existed inside myself. This, I believe, is the Christian understanding of experiencing and following Jesus. There exists our internal world and there exists the external world, each with their attendant opinions and preferences. And then there is Jesus, somehow hovering above and deeply involved in both worlds, yet holding out a third way. A new way. A way that leads to life.

And I took it.

I remember clearly the moments of unfolding understanding as this third way became clear to me. It took my little mind a full three days to let it all unfold, but here is the third way:

My strengths are my failure and my strengths are my gift. My gift is my weakness, and my weakness doesn't hold me back. I didn't need to run away from my strengths that had hurt people, and I didn't need to cling to them either. I could simply live with them, acknowledging their implicit shortcomings, and rejoicing in the moments that they bring life.

All the feedback I had gotten about the damage my strengths had done was one-hundred percent accurate. I really had caused damage.
All my strengths are God-given and indeed have the capacity to be world-changing. These two statements are not in conflict, they are in harmony.

My weaknesses, so far avoided, are not traps to dodge but saplings to nurture.
My strengths, when used in my own power and according to my own plans, will always and only cause damage.
My strengths, when placed in better hands (Jesus's), will change lives (starting with my own).

It felt oxymoronic, but it isn't.

I believe that I am ambitious and content. I look expectantly towards a brighter future and work hard to bring it to pass. At the same moment and without a hint of tension, I am also entirely content to do less and be more: to enjoy the gaps of efficiency that are gifts to all people, to relax in the evenings, to care for my body and soul and family without complication or impatience. I hope for the future and enjoy the present.

I believe that I am strong and tender. I can weather the storm and get a lot done quickly, and I can just be in the storm making no effort to hurry through it, listening to the cries of others in the storm, being with them in the quiet moments between the waves.

I believe I am strategic, and when left unchecked, it sours to manipulation.
I believe I am passionate, and when out of balance, becomes pushy and a bit bullying (or at least bull-headed).
I believe I do rock the boat, and when done with more tactful timing and presentation, can be a catalytic lever to help people and organizations become unstuck.

I discovered that each strength held within it the capacity to be a terrible weakness, and all of my weaknesses held the capacity to be profoundly useful. I had to pay attention to the turning points: when my strengths became a weakness, and when my weaknesses could be offered as strengths.

Here is the take away for you, dear reader:

Your strengths will propel you and drown you.

The key to finding yourself propelled more often than drowning is to know yourself like the back of your hand. Know when and where your talents toggle from a strength to a weakness, and choose that which gives life.

I realize now that my strengths aren't God's gift to the world (duh). My weaknesses aren't embarrassments to hide (duh).

Instead, God is God's gift to the world, and when my strengths and weaknesses are embraced by him for his good intentions, all of my strengths, skills, and smarts (and even my weaknesses, inability, and ignorance) is a gift and blessing to those around me.

It took a long time to know myself well enough to be able to get my eyes off myself and see just how insignificant my strengths and weaknesses are to the world, and how catastrophic they can be to my own life under my control.

God doesn't need my strengths, he invites my surrender. In a place of contented relinquishing of my own efforts to change the world, God unfurls a vision of redemption that both eclipses and includes my whole self: strengths and weaknesses, together and unhidden, joining with his vision of a healed future.

Have you found yourself on the short end of your own strengths? Have you wondered how to experience more positive contribution from your weaknesses? We have a whole guide to the four secrets we've discovered and which no one taught us that help to provide some practical tools to begin moving forward. Click on the button below to go straight to it (the button called "How we leverage setbacks like a catapult").

We love to journey WITH -- and so we'd love to hear your story and have a two way dialogue with you. Send us a message!

What was lost now is found #insaneinsomnia

Thu, 28 Feb 2019 21:26:38 GMT

Originally posted 9/2017

Eisley has only slept through the night maybe a handful of times since we were discharged from the hospital in late January (2017). Prior to the hospital, she slept in her bed in her room every night. During the hospital stay, the medicine regimen stopped working overnight and she hasn’t slept in her room a whole night since. Insomnia is no joke and something in her brain snapped from being hospitalized. Getting Eisley good sleep is the highest priority for us right now. I wrote in another blog about the lengths we’ve gone to as a family to try and meet this need (for all of our sake).

This past Monday we had an appointment scheduled and UCSF. The evening before, our good friends were having a meaningful celebration in Stockton so I decided to brave the rough night’s sleep in order to celebrate with them and make the early morning trek into San Francisco shorter. My parents recently moved to Tower Park Marina, 5 miles west of Lodi, so it was an easy place to crash for Sunday night.

Sunday, Eisley missed her nap because I headed down to Stockton after church which was out of her normal routine and well, because insomnia sucks. That night, post party, she fell asleep rather quickly after her regular meds. About 8:30pm she woke up sobbing and saying that she wanted to “go home my house.” I explained to her that we were having a sleepover at Grandma’s house so we could hang out with grandma more the next day. After quite a bit of consoling, she fell back asleep on the blanket pallet next to the guest bed where I was sleeping.

I hit the sack because I was exhausted and we had an early morning looming. She woke up a few times between nine and midnight like usual and I laid her back down and drifted back off to sleep. The next thing I remember is my mom waking me up frantically saying she couldn’t find Eisley anywhere in the house . I was certain she was laying on the floor next to me, but she was not .

My mom had woken up just before 2am to get a drink of water and she realized that her backdoor, which had been dead bolted shut at bedtime, was wide open. She had closed the door and headed back to bed when she remembered we were there and decided to check on us girls--and that's when she first realized Eisley was not in my room.

My mom turned every light on and we tore their house apart. My mom kept telling me that when she got up she found the back door wide open but I just couldn’t believe it. It was 3:03am the first time I looked at the clock .

My dad, mom and I all got shoes on and flashlights and started searching outside. Eisley was on heavy meds for her insomnia and I was convinced she had wandered outside (somethings she’s never done before) and must have laid down to sleep somewhere nearby (we frequently find her sleeping somewhere random on our tiles floors and not in the bed). After a blur of time of tromping through the neighbor’s yards, I drove up and down the main rode yelling for her, but it quickly became evident that Eisley was in fact gone.

Placing the 911 call was a total out-of-body experience. Even as the words came out of my mouth to the dispatcher describing the circumstances, I could not believe it. I was in shock in the truest sense of the word. The questions I was answering (and would continue to answer throughout the morning) were things I had only seen and heard in movies. After I called 911, I had to call Kaben to let him know that his little girl was missing. It was awful (and that’s an understatement).

My dad and I meticulously started walking up and own every little row of manufactured homes, through each carport and on both sides of the greenbelts dividing each row of homes and my mom starting calling her prayer chain. Tower Park is bordered on one side by Highway 12 , on another by levee holding back the river delta and on the others by open marshes and agriculture.

For a barefoot 3-year-old wandering in the middle of the night, this was the perfect death trap.

First came the San Joaquin Sheriff and then the local PD. Time kept ticking on and she was nowhere to be found. My dad had woken up some residents who had called in other neighbors to help us search. I called Kaben back and told him that this was for real and that it was time for he and Judah to come down. I still really thought she was going to be just around the corner.

Every time another agency showed up I had to explain that she was 3 ½ years old and medically fragile and on heavy medications, and developmentally delayed, and BAREFOOT, by herself in the dark, in a retirement community with hardly any street lights, and hour and a half from home. Next came the CHP, then the K9 units to search the river and levee, and then the Woodbridge Fire Department. Next thing I knew, the police were telling me that “the levee road was frequented by unsavory people” who used it to access the river for fishing.

That's when they dispatched the CHP Search Helicopter.

The tenor definitely changed as the time went by and they started talking about how an innocent runaway situation may possibly have turned into an abduction or worse. Between the searchlights of the helicopter and the sounds of the canine units searching the waterways, the energy of the scene was definitely escalated.

I found myself righteously angry at the thought of an “unsavory” person anywhere near my precious daughter and unwilling to think that she could have been run over or fallen into the many open waterways nearby. I continued to run up and down streets and through the grass and bushes in my jammies and church shoes calling for her to wake up-- but she was not there. I called Kaben back and asked him to pray for me because I did not know what else to do. The phrase he kept asking Jesus was “for us to have eyes to see her.”

One of the neighbors had the idea to go just outside the community and start flagging down of the cars going by on the levee/frontage road to let them know a little girl was missing and that if they saw her to bring her into the community to the police. About 4am, off duty police officers began showing up in their personal cars and I knew that could not be good .

We were desperate and felt helpless. At 4:15am, nearly two hours after the nightmare began to unfold, I heard through an officer's radio the first hint at something that could become good news:

She "had been located.”

I didn’t know what that meant and it seemed like an eternity before I heard that she was alive. Eisley was located in perfect condition and was back in my arms at 4:25am. Oh, the tears and the relief but also the sorrow and shock of what had just happened.

She had black bare feet and not a scratch on her. Two men, who had been flagged down by that kind neighbor, found her on the eastbound frontage road of Highway 12. Highway 12 is such a dangerous road that in recent years the government reconstructed the road so that the highway is elevated and the exit and entrance to Tower Park go under or parallel rather than crossing traffic. As you come from Lodi (going west) you exit to the right and wrap under Highway 12 to enter the community to the south side. As you go east, there is a frontage road that merges directly onto the east bound side of the highway. Eisley was walking up the frontage road to the highway. When asked where she was going, she said to “go home my house."

If she walked in the most direct route (doubtful) she walked 0.9 miles barefoot. Each little street is a cul de sac which borders ag land. We will never know how long she was gone before grandma found she was missing.

GOD SPARED OUR LITTLE EISLEY’S LIFE.

So many small elements of the story point to God watching over Eisley:

When my mom woke up before 3am to get a drink, she had a whole glass of water next to her bed and yet for "some reason" she decided to go to the kitchen to get a fresh glass of water anyways. The motion sensor light just “happened” to be on so she noticed the door was open. She just “happened” to think to check on Eisley.

Eisley was approached by a dog and in her fierce little spirit, she yelled at it “to go home right now,” and it did, leaving her untouched.

She walked barefoot for over 0.6 miles to get out of the community and then another ¼ mile over a paved levee and onto the rough frontage road filled with potholes and broken glass with not a single cut on her.

She turned right on the levee toward the highway instead of left into the river. This frontage road was separated from the open highway by a narrow strip of weeds on one side and flanked with a reed-filled marsh on the other. And she was kept in this small band of relative "safety" - she did not drown or walk onto the busy highway.

She traversed over culverts with open ditches and she did not fall in.

She was not attacked by a wild animal.

Two “unsavory” men, who were at least a few beers in after fishing all night, slowed down enough to “have eyes to see her” and then chose to return her safely when they found her. She was laughing and chatty at her return. The very people I was infuriated by the thought of even being near my daughter were the very people Jesus chose to bring her back to us.

Every LEO (law enforcement officer) agency was gone just minutes before Kaben and Judah arrived so that Judah was completely shielded from this horrific event.

THE MIRACLES ARE NOT LOST ON US! GOD WAS SO, SO GRACIOUS TO US.

As the Sheriff was handing me his card with our case number on it at the very end, I asked him what more he needed from me.

He said, “nothing.” Followed by, “You caught your lucky break this time.”

I was immediately overwhelmed by the fact that all of these people and resources were poured into finding our little wildflower and that once she was located that they were filled with joy and expected nothing from us. Talk about service. Talk about grace. Go hug a cop. Or a fireman.

As Kaben drove Eisley home Monday morning, she recounted for him what she had done and seen and experienced as Kaben passed through the neighborhood. She has continued to talk about it as she heads into her “dream world” talk. It’s overwhelming to hear it from her perspective and but so beautiful to hear how she experienced her rescue by these nice ("unsavory") people who told her she “had to ho home” and brought her straight back to mama’s arms.

In the days since Eisley’s grand adventure, Kaben and I have been unpacking the different events, thoughts, and prayers. We both separately prayed over and over that, while we have accepted that we will probably outlive sweet Eisley because of her health, this was just not the way she was supposed to die. There have been so many miracles we’ve recognized in hindsight. Just minutes before I called Kaben to tell him she had been located, he had a vision with three very specific things. These prayers that were not logical but his heart couldn’t help but utter them. All three of them were answered poignantly.

Clearly Jesus was not done with Eisley's life on earth. He allowed her to walk out that back door and chose in His mercy to put angels around her. We don't know why He chose to spare her - again- but He did.

You can continue to pray for us as processing this trauma is a journey all its own and we still don’t have a solution for her insomnia. I can tell you this much, she’s going to be sleeping at home for the foreseeable future.

WE LIVED THROUGH OUR WORST NIGHTMARE BUT WITH THE BEST POSSIBLE ENDING. THANK YOU JESUS!

Fourth place is first place (yes it is)

Fri, 15 Feb 2019 22:53:31 GMT

Career diversity is the new normal

My whole life I've wrestled with being torn between multiple interests. When I was a kid and adults would ask what I wanted to be when I grew up, like most, I would give several answers:

"I want to be a fireman, or policeman, or astronaut," most kids would say. Except, unlike other kids, I wouldn't say "or."

I'd say "and."

"I want to be a fireman and a policeman and an astronaut." Adults would chuckle a good laugh and pat me condescendingly. The message was clear: you can only pick one, kid. But my inner compass wouldn't sit still.

For a long time I shrugged it off as childishness that would go away as I matured. I knew just enough as a kid to know I didn't know enough. Then I found myself in my thirties -- mostly matured, a family of my own, and still the inner compass would doggedly race from one end of the horizon to the other.

Perhaps I just haven't found my home yet. That would be conventional wisdom: I just hadn't found that one special thing I'm meant to become an expert in, a life-long devotee to, or a proverbial Ace.

This season has opened doors to reexamine life, and we've been digging deep, unearthing whole cities in our souls that had been buried in the hustle of life. In that space I've found myself thinking lately,

"What if my compass isn't broken?"

What if it's possible for a human being to yearn for -- and excel at -- multiple careers over one lifetime? Was that just the musings of unchecked ambition? Perhaps. Was this the fancy of a lost soul looking for home? Possible, but not probable.

I felt I was on to something, some hidden treasure deep inside this archaeological dig of the soul. Then it struck me: there almost isn't a game in the world where I would trade four Jacks for one Ace. My whole life I'd been directly and indirectly instructed to trade in a hand full of Jacks in hopes of drawing one elusive Ace. And it just never made sense to me. Being called a "Jack of all trades" is a huge compliment!

Same hand, new game

Decades ago, mainstream financial investment thinking (and really the only commonly available option) was to put all your investments into one company. This was a mark of loyalty, honor, trust. Those who invested in lots of things were shifty and untrustworthy.

Fast forward to today and the investing world is just the opposite: you'd be a fool to invest all-in with one company! Especially since there are so many avenues for diversification and so much emphasis in the industry on it.

Just like you shouldn't trust a financial advisor who tells you to put all your eggs in one basket, don't trust career advice that tells you the same thing.

Until recently, mainstream career planning (and really the only option) was to be all-in with one company for your entire career. It was the path to expertise, stability, and promotion. Yet the world is an ever-changing place; what was conventional thinking yesteryear is passe this year. More importantly, what was vitally important before could now be a virtual death-wish.

We were once told, "Lean into your strengths; avoid your weaknesses." But we were really only given one (or maybe two) strengths which counselors, bosses, and influencers would make any effort to cultivate. The truth is, we each have more than one or two strengths! Chances are, there is anywhere from six to twelve things you LOVE to do and are reasonably good at (as an amateur). Get to know yourself -- name all your strengths and invest in all of them as time and energy allows. Don't settle. (and you may surprise yourself when you invest in your weaknesses - they may not be all that weak!)

A future-proof investment strategy

In a world of fluctuating governments, global pressures, and climate adjustments, there is no telling who or what will be around in 30 years. Pitching all-in with one company for an entire career is improbable, and perhaps impossible. The best investment in my career is diversification: holding posts in multiple fields and multiple industries as readily as possible. This is tantamount to insurance against an unstable future: learning how to jump from one float of ice to another helps the tepid adventurer survive the stormy seas. In a world of toppling icebergs, institutions, and Aces, it is the Jack who thrives.

More than my own future, it is a pattern that will be entirely expected of my children's future. We all want to give our kids a good future and we all invest our finances to do that. The greatest money-making investment I can make on behalf of my kids is this: cultivating their raw talent through life experiences to become useful trades. That is an investment which will never run dry.

As we get to know our kids, we shy away from superlatives. It's not that our son is the "outgoing one" or our daughter is the "kind one." That is too one-dimensional. Our son as an example: as influencers in his life, we would limit his capacity if we only highlight one or two of his strengths. So we are beginning to name LOTS of strengths: tenderness, rambunctiousness, intelligence, brute strength, balance, zest for life... the list goes on and on! When we open up our view of his capacities to include all of these wide ranging strengths, we give him more and more opportunities to develop each raw talent into a useful trade.

He's one step closer to being a fourth-place winner -- a Jack of all trades.

Finding footing in a freefall

Fri, 15 Feb 2019 22:35:10 GMT

What felt like a dead end is becoming an on ramp to better things

In June 2013 we moved to a new town to engage in our second full-time ministry role. We poured our heart and soul into the work we were doing -- and it seemed to be having a meaningful and positive impact on the 400+ people we worked with around the world. In fact, things were going so well that we were in regular conversations with leadership about eventually running the organization. We were thrilled! Surely we were in our sweet spot - the place we'd spend the next 30 years of joyful service.

Then, surprisingly, on December 5th, 2017, we were asked “to look for something different” by the leaders. There was no clear reason - they just didn't feel like we were going the direction they wanted to go, and instead of inviting into the new direction, they felt it'd be better if we left completely. Our world shattered in one fateful afternoon. Three days later, they asked us to stop coming to the office and stop communicating with our people around the world. They told our team that we were "taking a sabbatical" to reflect on "what God might be calling us to". We felt dejected; tossed out like yesterday's trash.

Much of the hope we've found has been the result of finding our footing, even in such a long freefall. Our vision to help people reconnect with what matters most surfaced during that first critical year of recovery; the "expertise" of recovering from surprising and devastating setbacks was an un-sought-out silver lining. To keep you along with our journey...

Here is what we wrote on the one year anniversary:

It's been one year. One year since we had three days to say goodbye to the life we thought was our forever.

In many ways, a year is a long time. I have worked in full time ministry, a fintech start-up, and now in agriculture – three totally unrelated industries. We have sold our home, said goodbye to friends, moved to a new place (that was altogether unfamiliar and totally familiar at the same time) to do something we’ve never done before but have always participated in, even so distantly in the peripheral.

One year gives lots of time for growth. Eisley and Judah have made new friends, started a new school, found new rhythms and ways to play that are a delight every day. They get to see grandma and grandpa almost everyday, have space to run, and are so much more integrated into the process of being a family – not just kids who are carted along, but co-journeyers with us.

In one year, so much life happens! We have gone on vacations to the beach and to the mountains; we have gotten completely out of debt then back into debt again in a totally new way; we have left a church we love and are exploring a church plant that we already love; we moved from a “divide and conquer” parenting style to a “always together” parenting style. Together we have found such a depth of bonding: we spend evenings with our kids in tears, lamenting all that was lost, not hiding them from the pain but entering in to their pain as broken people, together at the feet of Jesus. We spend evenings in laughter, learning new games or reading old books, snuggled up on the couch under blankets. Somehow those always become tickle wars!

And yet, and year is such a short time as well. Was it just a year ago? It feels like yesterday. At least it does in my mind’s eye that wanders back to those fateful conversations multiple times each and every day of these past 365 days. To be honest, those wandering thoughts often have a way of forming their own weather, and it’s usually dark and stormy clouds. One year is barely enough time for the soul to catch itself from freefall, even as the mechanical mind continues to keep breath in lungs and food on tables.

Was it just one year ago? We had our legs cut out from under us and a load lifted off our chests. We have entered into a feast of emotions so different from the lives we lived before – gone are the days when one event was experienced with just one or two emotions. These days, our emotional landscape is a delicious cornucopia of joy, pain, laughter, bitterness, hope, tears, anger, delight, heaviness, confusion, healing, lightness, clarity, peace. All of those things make sense together, like chicken & waffles or oil & vinegar. Somehow, they belong together; the meal is complete because of it.

And so we remember: one year is a full year of lifes and deaths and seasons and sunsets and mud puddles and laughter and crackling fires and tender cuddles under blankets.

The theology of our “good good Father” (as we so often love to sing about in orderly rows in soft lighting and plush chairs) has come crashing through, like an alien UFO smashing through the vaulted ceilings of tidy American Christianity, and has welcomed us into a profoundly new experience of God being a good, GOOD Father. We have felt furthest from God and closest to God all at once. We are meeting God in new ways – we are meeting a bigger God: one unshackled from the bottled up on-time services and monthly outreach projects and one so deeply interested in our transformation, our healing, our freedom, our giving up of our selves.

We have discovered a God profoundly interested in our messiness. Uniquely, and so different that I had ever known, his interest in our mess isn’t merely to clean it up, but to build something beautiful from it. He’s less interested in removing the mess and more interested in sculpting it: God is more a tattooed artist with paint-stained hands in a Brooklyn basement than he is a rigid country club janitor who turns his nose at the sight of dirt.

In one year we have left our Egypt and found ourselves wandering in the desert. Gone are the comforts of walled in religion; now are the days of desperately needing daily manna. To our delight, our God of deliverance and discovery is there in the desert with us, providing his manna each and every day.

The drama of our first anniversary jumble of words belies the truth that we are still very much in grief (all four of us!). I’m confident that, looking back in years to come, we will shake our heads kindly and chuckle: “Ah, the things we couldn’t see!”

Our Credo

Fri, 15 Feb 2019 22:12:20 GMT

Shoot for the moon! If you miss, you'll land among the stars.

If our Tenderly Rooted brand is us shooting for the moon, then this is our star chart. This is our far-reaching goal, our outlying aspirations, the orbit we'd love be gravitationally locked into.

Perhaps morbidly, these are the topics we'd love to hear mentioned at our funerals. And we know we can't just hope people would associate us with these ideas, we are to lean into them now and until our funerals.

Starting over a year ago, when we first penned this Credo, it became a filter, frame, and line-of-sight for assessing each and every decisions, whether big or small. Our remodel? Held to this credo. Our posts? Held to this credo. Our lifestyle, career, and parenting style? Held to this credo.

To know us, look at what we're doing through this lens.

Here is our credo as it stands today:

Aspirational behaviors

We want...

an exodus from a life defined by provision, pride, and power; we want to move into a life defined by Presence. We seek to grow in spiritual rhythms, disciplines, and discernment so as to relish the presence of God, his presence with others (inside and outside the church), and our ability to join him and others in presence together.
to be able to discover where God is at work and brave enough to join him there - no matter where “there” is.
our lifestyle to be framed by restorative patterns, and away from a constrained schedule of obligations. The harried rush from one event to another is exhausting. It is killing us, it is killing our kids, it is killing our church, and it is killing society. We seek to discover ancient rhythms of sabbath, jubilee, and cities of refuge to enter more fully into life-giving patterns centered around Jesus and community.
abundance in less; we want to flourish, not by sequestering resources but by depending on God and co-depending on our tribe.

We seek...

to increase both in our activism and in our contemplation. We seek to engage in prophetic joy - a joy that calls into being a future reality that is only realized in Jesus. We seek also to tend to our souls in the quiet of solitude, prayer, and knowing ourselves in the presence of the Consuming Fire and Shelter from the storm.
to rest well in the finished work of Jesus. We are not defined by the sum of our failures, nor by the sum of our successes; our worth is in Jesus. We hope to develop ease of access to rhythms of rest - silence, solitude, contemplation.
to engage the full breadth of God-designed diversity, both inside and outside the church.
to disciple toward Jesus in the context of ministry as a whole family - kids and all. We are first and foremost children of God, disciples in the way of Jesus. Our kids share this same primary identity. Therefore, our goal is not to control them or parent them, but to co-disciple with them toward the heart of Jesus.

We aspire toward...

promiscuous generosity. In our opinions, attitudes, and behaviors towards others we seek to go so far beyond the status quo that heads turn and questions are asked. We want to give away more than is proper, even to the extent it may appear we are taken advantage of.
radical hospitality. Our heart is to be hospitable to people, ideas, and customs that the church may find difficult to embrace. In our home, in others’ homes, and in public spaces we seek to be hospitable to that which is far from the Kingdom in such a way that they are a bit nearer to the Kingdom.
We never want a “final draft” of this Credo - we seek to continue to be transformed by the work of the Holy Spirit throughout our entire lives.

And there are some beliefs that underpin some of these aspirations. Knowing them may help place us in context:

Foundational beliefs

Sola Scriptura
Everything we do is a result of the finished work of Jesus as revealed in the Bible. He did it then, he does it now, and he will do it forever.
We agree with a general protestant evangelical proclamation of the tenets of faith.
We believe Jesus is in the business of making all things new, and we want to join him in it.

On Power & Winning:
We believe that in the Kingdom, up is down. Retributive justice sequesters power, restorative justice releases power; mercy elevates the powerless to a place of value. We gain the whole world when we forfeit our lives.
We believe that in the Kingdom, power is gained through self-sacrifice and not gained by violence or self-protection; love wins in death.
We believe the Kingdom is discovered and shared, not built and controlled. Jesus is the hero of the story, and Jesus builds his church. As we discover the great treasure of the Kingdom in digging in the fields of our neighborhood, school, job, and church, we lay hold of it by laying down everything else.