Best Website

Forget Google, Yahoo and all the others. If I only had one website to access this would probably be it... Bubblewrap for the internet.

How Not to Talk to Your Kids

I linked this in a previous post but didn't emphasize it. I think this is an interesting article. It's kinda long but there's some fascinating stuff in "How Not to Talk to Your Kids".

Crowds

I struggle with the reality that though men and women have the capacity for great acts of kindness, beauty, intelligence and sacrifice our actions often fall dramatically short of our potential. How does one explain the holocaust? The crusades? The flying of civilian planes into buildings full of innocent people? Are men and women inherently intelligent or not?

On a lesser scale how does one explain a host of decisions by political parties, educational and judicial systems or even denominations? Obviously something sinister is involved here. Scriptures call it sin. But how does sin and stupidity get such a stronghold?

I’ve read a little bit of James Surowiecki’s book, The Wisdom of Crowds. It’s a fascinating read. While at first I thought it might be contradicting to my opinions I think especially after reading some of the Q&A with the Surowiecki that in the end it’s congruent with the only conclusion I’ve been able to make:

In crowds the opportunity for stupidity is heightened.

The more we identify with a group the more we tend to forfeit our right to think critically. We become lazy. We worry about what others in the crowd think. We elect people to make decisions for us and we don’t bother to check out the facts. We all know this and yet, we fall for it time and again. So it’s worth repeating: Just because a crowd is for a particular answer doesn’t make that answer intelligent, right or honest.

On the contrary, maybe it’s more accurate to say wherever you find the crowd, intelligence and integrity decrease. (Eugene Peterson applies this little observation: Which promise is most likely to be kept? The one between the politician and thousands of people or the one exchanged between two friends?)

Kierkegaard said, “The crowd is untruth.”

Jesus said, “Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.”

What do you think? Do you agree or disagree? When are crowds appropriate or positive or honest?

Giving

One of my favorite authors, Eugene Peterson writes in his book Run with the Horses,

"Giving is what we do best. It is the air into which we were born. It is the action that was designed into us before our birth. Giving is the way the world is. God gives himself. He for any of us. We are given away to our families, to our neighbors, to our friends, to our enemies - to the nations. Our life is for others. That is the way creation works. Some of us try desperately to hold on to ourselves, to live for ourselves. We look so bedraggled and pathetic doing it, hanging on the dead branch of a bank account for dear life, afraid to risk ourselves on the untried wings of giving. We don't think we can live generously because we have never tried. But the sooner we start the better, for we are going to have to give up our lives finally, and the longer we wait the less time we have for the soaring and swooping life of grace."

And in a seperate but related issue... world hunger crisis

Uncertainty is an Asset

I’m enjoying reading a little book entitled Art and Fear, Observations on the Perils and Rewards of Artmaking. One of the authors tells of an interchange he had with his piano teacher where in frustration he said, “But I can hear the music so much better in my head than what comes out of my fingers.” The instructor replied, “What makes you think that ever changes?” The teacher raised an expression of self-doubt to a simple observation of reality and as he did uncertainty became an asset.

And you say, “I had the idea of this job looking so much better in my mind than it is actually turning out.” Or “My vision of this marriage was so much more fulfilling than it is revealing itself to be.” Or “I see the spiritual victories more clearly and victoriously happening in my mind’s eye than what is actually happening.” Or any number of things along those lines. Yet, if it works out exactly each time just as you’ve guessed that it will there would be no uncertainty.

And there would be no reason for faith.

Uncertainty is your asset. The knowledge that this whole thing (i.e. job, marriage, dream, vision, hope, etc…) could fall a part if you’re not careful is what keeps you praying, hoping, and persevering. Virginia Stem Owens says, “To spy out the reality hidden in appearances takes perseverance.” The appearance is that the distance between your vision and the actual execution is too great. The reality is this tension keeps you focused.

Unless you quit.

The Original Note

What you say is an echo of something deep inside of you.

Emerson is famous for saying, “Nature is emblematic of the spiritual.” The truth is everything we do is emblematic of something else… something that’s inside of us, something that’s ringing, sounding the “original note”.

When the suffering comes will it strike a chord of complaint or an intentional gratefulness?
When the accolades come will the reply be egotistical or deferential?
When the criticism comes, constructive or not, will it amplify bitterness or thoughtfulness?

What’s that note? What is it sounding? Whatever it sounds will reverberate throughout your life. Jesus said, (paraphrased) “It’s not the outside stuff that makes you unclean, it’s what comes from the inside.”

We deal too often with the echoes. We’re so focused on them. It’s understandable to a degree. We need to see, touch, taste, smell and hear. God chose to clothe us in the physical. But Jesus was always moving people from the physical to the spiritual. (i.e. healing the paralytic and then forgiving his sins, alluding to the rebuilding of the temple and its connection with Jesus being resurrected, cursing of the fig tree, its subsequent withering and the religious system dying, etc...) God is always moving us deeper, turning our hearts inward to the source. What or 'Who' is your source? Life will never be ‘in tune’ if the source is you. The echoes will be confusing and noisy. But if you’re quiet… If you’re aware… If you choose… God will sound the “original note” and then what you say and do and live will become beautiful harmonics reverberating in endless praise.

This Guy Likes to Have Fun

Animator vs Animation

Love the creativity. This guy likes to have fun.

The Great Recycler

God is the original Recycler. Look at Nature. Nothing is exhausted in Natures’ original use. The leaves falling from the tree become the mulch from which plants grow to create more leaves. The fire clears out the old and overgrown and paves the way for new growth. Everything is connected and beauty is in the seasonal.

The world’s trash is a reminder that we are the anti-recycler. A product is created for a specific function. Once the function is consumed the product becomes a liability. Can the discarded plastic container give life back to the soil? Can the old computer monitor breathe oxygen back into the air?

We shine in our creating, in our startups, in our short-term solutions. We don’t do so great with our end of use, post-consumption ideas, with our view of death.

Think about it… you don’t like to think of the end of your ideas. You don't deal well with the concept of finality. And when you do, you seldom imagine the benefits of the end.

Jesus said, “Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you'll have it forever, real and eternal.” John 12

Your hope will whither.
Your dream will die.
You will be broken.

It all reads so morbid so you’re off to find a blog that’s considerably more positive and you miss it again.

The Recycler says, “To win you must lose. To live you must die.”