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Toward Wholeness Blog

May 23, 2018
3 min

The Collapse of Everything, and Why it’s a Source of Hope

Plunge your pole, hard, into the place you anticipate placing your foot. Look carefully. Step quickly. Go! They’ve collapsed under my weight more than once during spring hiking, but thankfully I’ve never been seriously injured by it. Not everyone is so lucky. There are lots of ways to mitigate this risk, but I’m using snow bridges as a metaphor today to remind you that every bridge in your life will collapse someday. If a bridge is what we depend on in our lives for sec

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Richard Dahlstrom

Dec 2, 2017
12 min

The Disco Ball of Success, and What to do when You’re Blinded by it

Here’s a free chapter for all those folks you know in your lives who have walked the road of success for a bit of distance and are both gratified and weary, cherishing what’s happened so far, but unclear as to what should happen next. If you know such people, please share this chapter with them on your social media. For me, sharing this isn’t about promoting my new book of which this is a part – it’s about helping people navigate the waters of career, creativity, family, an

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Richard Dahlstrom

Nov 25, 2017
4 min

Sustainable Faith requires Practices

On Sunday November 25th I’ll be speaking at all our Bethany locations on the very important subject of how to turn spiritual disciplines into regular practices in your life so that you’re able to grow in joy, confidence, wisdom, mercy, strength, love, and freedom. I hope you’ll make every effort to attend, and if you can’t I hope you’ll attend online, because this is what ties everything we’ve been discussing this fall together. I believe it’s one of the most important serm

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Richard Dahlstrom

Sep 4, 2017
3 min

38 thoughts on Marriage after 38 years.

My wife and I celebrated 38 years of married life yesterday. Here are 38 thoughts on what’s contributed to our marriage not just surviving, but thriving. Enjoy, and please feel free to add your own thoughts in the comments section. Thanks to all of you who’ve walked with us over various sections of our path! still smiling after 38 years of journeying together 1. we had specific reasons for marrying each other, and through times of difficulty, it’s helped to remember those

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Richard Dahlstrom

Jul 29, 2017
4 min

Steal, Kill, and Destroy – Stealing Time

I tell you not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. Matthew 6:29 It’s wildflower season in the mountains, and they’re everywhere. Mountain daisies made their first appearance down in the coastal foothills in late May. They’re long gone down below, and up here, after a few weeks of full glory, it’s clear that their glory days are already past. The pattern is evident: Absent. Present. Full flowering glory. Weariness. Death. Absence again. The Bibl

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“Steal, Kill, and Destroy” – Your Time’s Been Stolen!

Richard Dahlstrom

Jul 13, 2017
4 min

“Steal, Kill, and Destroy” – Your Time’s Been Stolen!

You’ve been ripped off I mean to live this year as if it were my last, and will hate every time I fall below that standard and fritter seconds, minutes, or hours away in foolishness, resentment, weakness, or any of the seven deadly ones. I have been full of good intentions. Watch and see what happens when action takes the place of intention. – Royal Robbins 1935-2017 The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy. I have come that they might have life, and have it abund

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Richard Dahlstrom

Dec 24, 2016
4 min

The Gifts of Christmas #5 – Shepherd, Provider, Gift Giver

Over 37 years, two stockings have become ten. JOY! It was in the late summer of 1976 when I first made my way north to Seattle, Washington. I was headed to a new college, having changed my major from architecture to music. I drove up from California and every mile north of Sacramento was new territory for me. I’ll never forget seeing downtown for the first time and being overwhelmed by it’s beauty. It’s proximity to the the water, it’s view of the mountains, the relativel

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Richard Dahlstrom

Sep 9, 2016
6 min

Marriage: 37 Lessons from 37 Years of Experience

still smiling after 37 years of journeying together Thirty seven years is a long time, and yesterday my wife and I were able to celebrate that time marker as the length of marriage. This is something that brings us both pride and gratitude, but more gratitude than pride. We realize that we’ve been largely healthy, and at least one of has been employed, the whole time. We have much cause for thanks, because of the lives we’ve been given. Still, 37 years is a big deal and

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While you were living…the unconscious nature of transformation

Richard Dahlstrom

Jul 6, 2015
6 min

While you were living…the unconscious nature of transformation

Schladming for a little bit of rest before I head up to England for a week of speaking at Capernwray Hall. The week is a break in the midst of what has been a very busy time, both at home and on the road. Because I’m here without obligations or responsibilities, I hadn’t anticipated that the Spring Bible School students would still be here, but as it turns out, today is their last day. What this means is that they’ll spend their morning worshiping, praying, and sharing tog

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Setting Your Sights Higher: Why “Right Intentions” Matter so much

Richard Dahlstrom

Mar 3, 2015
4 min

Setting Your Sights Higher: Why “Right Intentions” Matter so much

“Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu and seventy of the elders of Israel, and you shall worship at a distance. Moses alone, however, shall come near to the Lord, but they shall not come near, nor shall the people come up with him.” Exodus 24:1,2 The climbers are in the mix with the masses, but not for long. They get their permit from a little office, use the bathroom, maybe grab one last taste of actual food for a few days, and that’s it, they’re gone, head

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Richard Dahlstrom

Feb 14, 2015
4 min

Three Ways Sabbath practice will help you become whole.

“all who are thirsty…” Yesterday I spent some time in what is slowly becoming a sabbath routine for this season of life. My wife and I packed a small lunch and some extra clothes in our backpacks and took off for a day of hiking. In a normal year it would be a ski day, but this is not a normal year. All the snow is over in Boston, and here where we normally get over 400 inches a year, the ski hills are brown brush; so we hike. As we hike, we talk about life. It’s become m

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Richard Dahlstrom

Jan 5, 2015
7 min

The gains that come from loss

As the cemetery comes into view on this spectacular January afternoon, I feel as if I’m being transported back in time, because this little piece of geography is so ripe with memories that all the feelings attending those memories flood to the surface, unbidden. I see the canopy where the graveside service will take place, but we’re early; early enough that we’ve time for a little drive. I head out, a bit further from the center of Kingsburg, to the land my grandpa farmed,

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After Failure – The next steps matter most. What to avoid and what to do.

Richard Dahlstrom

Oct 18, 2014
5 min

After Failure – The next steps matter most. What to avoid and what to do.

Failure isn’t really the main problem in this world. There are remedies for failures, and often clear steps to take so that in the wake of failure our lives can be stronger, richer, more compassionate, and more honest than they ever might have been without failing at all. So failure’s not the biggest problem any of us face. The critical moments are the steps we take immediately after though. It’s those steps that will become the main determinants of our future. So here’s

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Richard Dahlstrom

Sep 19, 2014
2 min

Last Journey’s the Best

It’s our last hike, the end of our forty days trekking through the Alps together. I’ll begin teaching next week and thinking about re-entry to life in Seattle, while my wife will spend the weekend with friends, retrieving sheep from the high Alps in anticipation of upcoming snows. Our final trek will take us to Guttenberghaus, significant for its beauty, and its proximity to the Torchbearer Bible school where I teach because I can see this hut, perched high in the Dachstein

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Richard Dahlstrom

Aug 25, 2014
4 min

The Wind of the Spirit – blowing plans away day by day

Our view of guidance is important, because unless we believe God can still direct our lives, orchestrating encounters, moving us to certain places, then the bottom line is that we’ll go where we damn well please. If we’re tired of the heat, we’ll move north. If we’re tired of poverty, we’ll get another degree. We’ll marry or not, move or not, based on our own motives, goals, internal drives. But to the extent that we let the wind of the spirit blow, filing the halls of our so

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Richard Dahlstrom

Jul 14, 2014
5 min

“A different plan” – Three Postures you need when Change Comes Knocking

It was supposed to be the Cascades… I spoke with a couple last week who lost their child to cancer at the age of six. As we talked of loss, change and challenge, she reminded me that about 85% of the marriages where a child suffers a disability end in divorce. This, I presume, is because of the tremendous gap between how we thought life would unfold, and how it actually unfolds. Where’s your gap? Job change, or joblessness? Health challenges? A relationship evaporating b

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Richard Dahlstrom

Jun 3, 2014
4 min

Postcard from Fresno…

I process by writing… and I’m here in Fresno because my mom’s resting, and ready to go home and be with Jesus. Here’s what I’m thinking while she sleeps. I’m sitting in the dining hall at the retirement center in Fresno, needing to study for Sunday, but finding it hard to do so. Instead I’m thinking about the inevitability of loss, the profound joy of life, and how any attempts to separate the one from the other will always have the affect of making us hollow, shallow caric

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Achilles Heal: Lessons for life and leadership learned from a tendon

Richard Dahlstrom

May 27, 2014
5 min

Achilles Heal: Lessons for life and leadership learned from a tendon

The Achilles story is appropriate because this tendon seems the bane of countless athletes. Anatomy for Runners tells the story of a high school cross country student who injures the Achilles, takes the summer off, feels fine, and then returns in the fall only to immediately re-injure himself there. Rest. Repeat. Rest. Repeat again, getting injured yet again, and then swear. “Why is this not healing?” Of course, in the grand scheme of things happening in Nigeria, Santa

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Richard Dahlstrom

May 9, 2014
7 min

Success, Sabbaticals, Loss, and Heading to the Alps

If success is a mountain, I’m an accidental climber. Has it ever happened to you? You’ve been working hard for goals you believe in for a long time. You’ve sacrificed and said no to trinkets so that you could focus on the gold of your goal. It didn’t happen overnight, but it happened. You took initial step into the unknown of a new job, or that visionary idea into a deeper realm of committing to it and the universe rewarded with you success. The business grew. You were

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Richard Dahlstrom

May 8, 2014
2 min

Life is a Journey: Step by Step

There’s a hearing. It comes to us in dreams, or songs, or after a conversation in the corner booth of a Tuesday night with the one we love, or maybe at a graveside or in a hospital, or in the wake of infidelity. However it comes to us, we hear the voice calling, beckoning. There’s a wrestling with what we’ve heard. Was it the wine, or divinity? The weakness that I’m easily dissatisfied, or the strength that I’m willing to risk it all, to shoot the moon, in pursuit of a be

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