“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.”

- Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)

My oldest son, Will, is almost six years old and he loves planting seeds. He thought the exercise they did at school where they planted the small seeds in the little cup was very cool. He’s carried that over into planting seeds in our back yard.

I’m not quite sure what age it is when we begin to forget about the seeds and become focused primarily on what is blooming above the surface. But over time, in our fast-food culture and instantaneous world of communication, it’s almost hard to imagine anything taking “that much time.”

So, in the “get things done” spaces in our lives, our longer-term vision gets blurred by the demand for instant results. We often find ourselves racing from place to place, meeting to meeting, deal to deal – seeking instant closure and gratification. We become impatient and look for the quick-fix solutions in our relationships, our careers, and our pursuits. We somehow get tricked into thinking we can bypass the growing process and jump right to the harvest.

However, what if we could ‘Step Back’, slow ourselves down today, and turn our attention from the harvest back to the seeds? What if we could focus intentionally on planting positive seeds in our relationships, our families, and our work? What if we could plant seeds and then shift our attention to nurturing and cultivating those particular seeds?

I’m not nearly the planter Will is, but I can’t help but think that purposeful approach may improve the overall quality of our harvest in the long run. So, what seeds will I choose to plant today along my path? What seeds will you plant along yours?

“I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit – fruit that will last.”

- John 15:16

Travel Gracefully.

Jason Barger, 11-Time Amor leader and creator of the “Step Back from the Baggage Claim” Movement

“What is honored will be cultivated.” – Plato

What’s important to me? Will the time I spend this week reflect what’s important to me? What kind of person do I want to be in this world?

This week, I was fortunate to have a friend pass me a link to a video from 60 minutes. For football fans, it is an amazing story about the small island of American Samoa in the South Pacific, it’s community, and amazingly, the number of NFL players this small island has produced.

But, as you’ll see, this story isn’t about football. It’s not just about good genes and it certainly is not about top of the line training programs. It’s about a community of people that honor determination, discipline, and humility. And in their cultivation of this spirit, they accomplish what seems unimaginable to most.

WATCH THIS:  “60 Minutes – American Samoa”

We can’t duplicate another person’s story, experience, gifts or challenges. We have our own story to live. However, what would it mean for my life to cultivate a spirit of determination, discipline, and humility as I work for my goals? Just imagine what kind of communities, teams, organizations, or churches we can build when we cultivate a collective spirit?

The Amor experience for me has always been a community of people rooted in God’s love – determined to cultivate that spirit in the world. When we honor that spirit and bring it to life in the world, the world is changed.

So, what will I honor today?

Travel Gracefully.

- Jason Barger, 11-time Amor leader, speaker, and author of the book, Step Back from the Baggage Claim:  Change the World, Start at the Airport

My five year-old son, Will, asked me yesterday, “Daddy, how long is it until Christmas?”  A question being asked to parents all around the world at this time of year.

“Two weeks”, I responded.

“But I don’t know how to wait”, he mumbled with the cute/innocent/anxious spirit of a child.

He was right. We often don’t “know how to wait” for Christmas. The season of Advent leading up to Christmas is meant to be a time of expectant waiting (the latin word adventus meaning “coming”). But in our anxiousness and uneasiness with “waiting”, we often fill our time dashing from place to place, checking off our ‘to do lists‘, and sprinting toward December 25th. Our style of “waiting” delivers panting breaths rather than peaceful stillness.

So, the challenge continues again this year – To set intentional moments between now and Christmas to slow down, embrace time with family and friends, give unconditionally, remember those in need, and reflect on our lives through a lens of gratitude. It’s in those intentional moments that our “waiting” dissolves and the true spirit of Christmas arrives.

Let the waiting continue…

“Blessed is the one who listens to me, watching daily at my doors,

waiting at my doorway.” – Proverbs 8:34

Jason Barger, 11-time Amor leader and author of the book, Step Back from the Baggage Claim: Change the World, Start at the Airport

It’s been 10 days and I still find myself thinking about him.

I was asked to deliver the sermon and lead a workshop centered on the message of my book Step Back from the Baggage Claim at David’s United Church of Christ in Canal Winchester, Ohio. I was sitting up behind the pulpit, looking out at the congregation, as the choir was singing a hymn. I was about to be introduced to Aidan.

In the middle of the choir’s melodious notes, small six year old footsteps began making their way down the center aisle. His cockeyed glasses, oversized acolyte robe and tennis shoes were a cute combination. He made his way all the way down the aisle, up the alter steps, and began bobbing and weaving in and out of the choir. He was looking for his mom and calling her out by name. The choir just kept singing beautifully.

Aidan located Rev. David Long-Higgins, co-Pastor of the church who also sings in the choir, and made his way over to him. David calmly bent down in the midst of the song and lovingly put his hands on his shoulders.

I later learned that Aidan has neurofibromatosis, a disease in which nerve tissue grows tumors that may be harmless or may cause serious damage by compressing nerves and other tissues in his body.

From my vantage point up near the pulpit, I had the perfect view of Aidan’s journey down the aisle and the looks on the faces of every single member of the congregation sitting in the pews. I watched as person after person had a smile stretched ear to ear as they gazed at Aidan with such joy. This was no interruption to their worship service.  This was a divine celebration rooted in gratitude and compassion.

As Reverend Long-Higgins shared with me, “He (Aidan) is the presence of God for me.  Unpredictable and filled with grace.”

I am still thinking about the warmth of that community as they embraced each of Aidan’s steps. May the unpredictability of your world this week be filled with grace.

Travel Gracefully.

Jason Barger, 11-time Amor leader and author of the book, Step Back from the Baggage Claim:  Change the World, Start at the Airport

I’ll never forget the moment Ricardo approached me on that dirt road in Tijuana, Mexico.  I was busy working with the rest of our 15 person team during one of our many trips to build houses for those in need in Mexico. He walked right up to me and, in between my swings of the hammer, called me by name.

It caught me off guard because I didn’t think I knew this man. As we stood their face to face and looked into each other’s eyes, a smile crept across both our faces. We hugged and laughed. It now was clear.

Ricardo was the husband of a family that we had built a house for more than 3 years earlier. It was a sacred moment standing there with Ricardo. Somehow we both knew the feeling we were experiencing was way deeper than even the dramatic gift of a house. There was a connection between two human beings.

Years later, Abraham Heschel’s words from his book The Sabbath reminded me of this encounter.

“The higher goal of spiritual living is not to amass a wealth of information, but to face sacred moments…[I]t is not a thing that lends significance to a moment; it is a moment that lends significance to things.”

Stepping Back from the Baggage Claim in every day life is about pausing in between swings of the hammer, slowing down in the hectic spaces in our world, and embracing the sacred moments. Today, in the midst of ‘to do’ lists and crowded calendars, how can we face the sacred moments in our lives?

Jason Barger, 11-time Amor leader and author of the book, Step Back from the Baggage Claim:  Change the World, Start at the Airport

During a recent trip to the airport, the famous lines from the Serenity Prayer came to mind:

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.”

The airport environment is just one great example from our every day lives where we need the serenity to accept the things we cannot change and the courage to change the things we can. For the hurried traveler, encountering the TSA Security Lines can be a spot where things feel out of control.

It reminds me of childhood days of waking up and fighting with your parents about not wanting to go to school. Some of you may be having those very same arguments with your kids right now! Without fail, the daily dialogue always ended with a phrase that went something like this, “You don’t get to choose whether you go to school, it’s the law.”

Even for the child who enjoyed going to school, the notion that you had NO choice in the matter was confusing and frustrating.

As I watch the Security Lines in our airports, I wonder whether we are approaching them with the same youthful confusion and frustration. Are we spending too much mental energy on “why do we have to do this”?

We know the experience from our end, but do we ever appreciate the view from the other side? Recently I spent 5 minutes chatting with a TSA worker about the experience from their perspective. This is what was shared with me (by a very nice woman):

• “It gets frustrating because people don’t seem to understand or respect that we have a job to do and that we don’t make the rules.”

• “90% of the people coming through the lines are actually pretty good, but the 10% that are bad, they are REALLY, REALLY not very nice.”

• “It’s interesting to watch people move through the process because they often just follow the person in front of them – without thinking very much.”

Perhaps it would do us all some good if we were able to release the need to fight the system with those that don’t create the structure. If the person behind us is going to follow what we do, maybe we should start with gratitude and compassion. That we can control.

After all, we can still have nap time on the plane.

Jason Barger, 11-time Amor leader and author of the book, Step Back from the Baggage Claim:  Change the World, Start at the Airport

A few years back, I was introduced to the book The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. He offers these sacred agreements as a way for us to bring our best into the world on a daily basis:

Read more…

“What we see depends mainly on what we look for.” – John Lubbock

When we turn on the television today, open a newspaper, or view the homepage of a national news source, all we hear about is a struggling economy, a perpetual war, pirates that  are attacking our boats, steroids, and a mysterious swine flu. Wherever we turn, the view we continue to receive of our world is one of doom and gloom.

Right now, our nation and our world is experiencing a Step Back from the Baggage Claim. In the midst of the chaos of every day life, so many people are going different directions with different agendas and all are trying to “claim” what is “theirs” from the passing conveyer belt. We all are being challenged in our personal lives and businesses to  see things differently.

We’re stepping back and realizing that everything we thought we knew isn’t exactly working anymore. We’re stepping back to gain a different perspective about how our actions and modes of operation fit into a changing world. We’re being challenged to step back, make room for other people, and create space in our lives so hopefully a greater spirit can emerge.

As we Step Back from the Baggage Claim in our lives and businesses, we realize that opportunity, joy, and gratitude still very much exist despite the doom and gloom we’re surrounded by. When we are able to bypass the fear of what is out of our control and the fixation on what we believe to be “ours”, we are liberated to see the world through new eyes. We see the freedom of our individual actions. We experience the power of our own creativity. We realize that much good can still be actualized everyday in our lives and in the world. We realize we still control the spirit we choose to bring to the obstacles in our lives.

We all share in the creation of today. It just depends on what we choose to look for. Today, what do you want to look for and create in our world?

- Jason Barger, 11-time Amor leader and author of the book, Step Back from the Baggage Claim:  Change the World, Start at the Airport.

Her sweet Tennessee accent sliced through the falling snow flurries and background sounds of hustling cars eager to get home on a cold Columbus evening.  Our group stood on the side of the road, shivering together, and handing warmly packed meals and blankets to our friends.  Her name was Vicky.  She was originally from Nashville and this winter was my first time meeting her.

Vicky explained that she and her husband had fallen on rough times.  The loss of jobs and other unfortunate happenings had left them on the streets as winter drew closer each day.  The search to secure new jobs became an even bigger challenge with limited transportation and their newly homeless status.  After weeks living on the streets, her husband has now secured a part-time job; providing just enough funds to afford them a nightly motel and temporary space to call home.  100% of their income was going toward this immediate shelter need, hence Vicky huddling on the streets to receive a meal.

As the steam from each cold breath hovered between us, Vicky giggled with such innocence as she shared with me, “My husband and I feel so lucky because we know there are a lot more people out here in worse situations than us.  We’re very fortunate.”  Her words were immersed in gratitude.

That night, as I pulled my cozy comforter overtop of me in my warm bed, Vicky’s words had me listing all of the things I have to be thankful for right now in life.  Thanksgiving had arrived a week early.  I wondered, what would it mean for the other 364 days of the year if we could begin each day with that same Thanksgiving gratitude?  I look forward to trying.

Thank you, Vicky.

“I have come so you may have life, and have it abundantly.” – John: 10:10

Jason Barger is an 11-time Amor Mission Trip leader who has connected over 1700 people to build 120 houses in Mexico. As the former Director of Camp Akita in Ohio, he designed and implemented programs for over 1900 kids a summer centered on faith, love, service and leadership. Jason’s experience with servant-leadership led him to the creation of First Community Church’s Streets Mission Project to serve the homeless of Columbus, Ohio as well as mission trips to the Casa Hogar Sion Orphanage in Tijuana and the Village Mountain Mission project in the Dominican Republic. Jason is the author of the book Step Back from the Baggage Claim: Change the World, Start at the Airport and spends most of his time today serving, writing, speaking and consulting for organizations looking to bring about positive change. Jason, his wonderful wife, Amy, and their two sons, Will and Benton, currently live in Columbus, Ohio. To connect with Jason, please visit www.stepbackfromthebaggageclaim.com