Big planet. Small world.

Friday funny: Minus

2012-01-13T13:24:00.001-08:00

One of my favorite sites to visit is Garfield Minus Garfield. It's a brilliant, minimalist art project

dedicated to removing Garfield from the Garfield comic strips in order to reveal the existential angst of a certain young Mr. Jon Arbuckle. It is a journey deep into the mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness and depression in a quiet American suburb.

Does it succeed? Well, you be the judge. Take this as an example.

Garfield (Jim Davis, 1/6/2012)

From Garfield Minus Garfield, January 12, 2012

Apparently, Jim Davis is an encouraging fan of the site. I find that telling.

Anyway, I wonder if this shouldn't be a genre. For your viewing pleasure, I present to you my two submissions for consideration.

From this...

Luann

...to this:

Luann Minus Luann
(with possible apologies to Greg Evans)

...and from this:

Calvin and Hobbes

...to this:

Calvin and Hobbes Minus Calvin
(with no apologies whatsoever to Bill Watterson)

Discuss: What would your favorite comic strip, movie, book, or TV show look like without the primary character?

An elegy for books

2012-01-12T14:28:00.000-08:00

"Books of the Past"
(CC2.0: Lin Pernille Photography)

I'm attempting to take a walk through my adolescence, but it's gone. The store I remember as A Clean Well-Lighted Place for Books isn't here. It's vanished. I find that I'm more than five years too late, and there's not so much as a plaque to stand as a monument. Clean, Well-Lighted has been replaced by a 24 Hour Fitness center. Rather, I would have a 24 hour bookstore.

I weep silently, wondering if the jocks have finally beaten the bookworms, unwilling to mature past their juvenile competition, extrapolating it to a violent and unnecessary end.

Soon, we won't remember books. We won't know what books were. Those ancient bulwarks of imagination will all be gone, replaced by soulless machines. They'll be theorized and discussed by archaeologists and paleontologists, debated, pondered and wondered about. What were they like? Did they work? Did normal people know how to turn them on and download their knowledge? The students of those archaeologists will laugh when they hear these ancient artifacts lacked on switches, wondering how their ancestors survived our race's backward infancy. (We will laugh at them when they look at us funny after we threaten them with the "nose-in-the-book penalty.")

I weep for the loss of books, the symbols of hope that we would not face extinction. "We wouldn't be human without books," says Laurent Ferri, assistant curator of rare books and manuscripts at Cornell University. But books became extinct before we did. Our printed knowledge could not outlive us.

I wonder, just for a moment, if my predecessors wept at the demise of clay tablets when the Egyptians started using papyrus. But I dismiss the thought after a moment as ludicrous at worst, irrelevant at best. I'm biased like that.

There will still be some of us who remember that books were tactile, sensual, not just for the eyes and the mind, but for the fingers to feel the paper, the binding, the stitching, for the ears to hear the real turning of pages, for the smell. You could tell the difference between a new book and an old book by the smell. But books were also for the heart, for the spirit, for those intangible qualities that make us who we are. Those musty old books commanded an aire of respect because they had lasted. Like old wise men, they were cherished, celebrated as important. The only way you can tell the difference between an old and new ebook is by the dead batteries. Will museum curators work very hard to restore depleted batteries? Will the first ebook (what was it, anyway?) be on display like Gutenberg's Bible, like the Dead Sea Scrolls, like illuminated masterpieces?

For that matter, will we remember libraries? Or will those ancient monasteries of human exploration be razed and replaced with something more compelling, more electronic, more in keeping with the new order being established by our welcome robot overlords? What will become of the librarians?

Can books be converted into a fuel source?

I hope so. I'd like to drive somewhere far away where they still have books.

The impossibility of Christmas

2011-12-31T15:28:00.000-08:00

Used with permission (CC: Fr. Ted Bobosh)

The Christmas season is upon us, that 3-4% of the year when we consider that God stepped out of eternity and into time. That's heavy. It should make us scratch our heads a bit. Either that which was eternal is eternal no more, or we who are temporal have been dragged into the impossible presence and activity of eternity.

Some part of God, somewhere between 0% and 100% (non-inclusive) has joined itself to creation. It is not 0%. To say it is 0% is Arianism. It is not 100%. To say it is 100% is modalism. And it is not 33%. To say it is 33% is to grossly oversimplify Trinity.

But He who has eternally been the son of God is now the son of a woman. Something incomprehensible has happened, and cannot be undone. That which constructed creation, and has up until now been separate from it, is now contained within it, circumscribed. Yes, this is impossible. And yet, it is true.

We should not be afraid of joining with the atheist in saying that our belief is unbelievable. It is unbelievable! Anyone who claims this belief is rational and sensible has a shallow belief.

It is impossible for something infinite to be bounded by margins. And yet it has actually happened.

It is impossible for that which is outside time to be affected by time. And yet it has actually happened.

It is impossible for a virgin to bear a child. And yet she has.

It is impossible for the intellect to apprehend the ineffable. And yet it has been handed to us.

It is impossible for God to become something other than God without ceasing to be God. And yet it has actually happened.

Our faith is impossible, irrational, incredible, uncredible, incomprehensible, and unbelievable.

And yet we believe it, because it is true. It has actually happened.

Christ is born. Glorify him!

How I became a Web 1.0 Internet sensation

2011-08-31T14:11:00.000-07:00

Used with permission, CC2.0: KayVee.INC

This year is the 15th anniversary of when I became an internet sensation. I thought you should learn how I did it so you can try it for yourself. It's hard for me to prove that I did it. But if you’re generally predisposed to being a trusting type, you can just take my word for it.

I created IHABICNRWTSF. No, really, it’s true. And you know how popular that is!

Wait, you haven’t been using this abbreviation in everyday speech? (It’s easy. You pronounce it “eye habbik nerwit siff.”) It means “I hate acronyms because I can never remember what they stand for.”

Google it. There are over a thousand references to it online. Sadly, I’m rather proud of that fact. It caught on after I spontaneously posted it on the de facto Internet Abbreviation List in 1996. This was in the days before there was such a thing as Web 2.0, when popularity was measured in hundreds of hits. The site is now defunct, but it was expanding rapidly in the late nineties, and its entire contents have since spilled all over the Internet and multiplied in perhaps one of the earliest cases of viral social media. I never noticed until around 2005 when I went to find out if anyone had noticed.

Apparently, they love me in Poland and Italy. I feel kinda like Jerry Lewis.

Anyway, if you, too, want to become a sensation in the Web 1.0 environment, here are three easy steps to get you there:

Be random.

Be anonymous.

Sit back and wait ten years before you check in.

Now if you actually want to make money and/or receive recognition for doing something, I recommend you work intentionally, take credit, and drive conversation.

But that’s another post.

Why isn't Web 1.0 interesting? Find out in
What's the big deal about Web 2.0?

Three surprises on Rapture Saturday?

2011-05-21T08:29:00.000-07:00

Used with permission (CC: midiman)

So, today's the Rapture. Theoretically.

I'm not entirely sure it's gonna happen, but if it does, I'm wondering if we won't discover a few surprises.

Like...

Resounding trumpets?

I have this theory that the Second Coming of Christ will be announced by vuvuzela. Be listening for them, just in case.

More bars, more places

AT&T reception kinda sucks down here on Earth. I'm expecting to have seven bars in the New Jerusalem. Or maybe twelve.

In any case, you should still be able to read my blogposts, Tweets, and Facebook status updates. No worries.

Fun, fun, fun, fun

I know it's Saturday, but I have a hunch we're going to find out that Jesus really loves Rebecca Black. Don't be surprised if everybody's favorite song is on repeat play.

For eternity.

Question: What are your unusual Rapture Saturday expectations?

Should I get an iPad?

2011-05-06T09:12:00.000-07:00

Used with permission, CC BY-SA 2.0, Henri Bergius

A reader has asked:

Thanks to a dropped laptop and a growing patch of dead pixels, I am in the market for a newish, inexpensive portable something. Could you provide some insight on the limitations and advantages of the iPad.

I respond:

The facts that I am Apple's fourth biggest fanboy (after David Pogue, Michael Hyatt, and Guy Kawasaki) and generally use my iPad almost as frequently as, say, daily hygiene products, actually bias this response less than you might think.

What do you need it for? If all you do is surf the web, watch movies/TV/YouTube, and check email, it's probably a fine little machine. The iPad has an amazing battery, fantastic clarity, instantaneous on, etc.

How badly do you need Flash? It's lacking in iOS devices, which is a problem for certain web pages that display video clips that way. You can get around this by paying a few bucks for CloudBrowse, but you'll still find yourself going through a few steps to copy-paste links back and forth between CloudBrowse and Safari.

Productivity! It's not a laptop computer. It's more like a PDA. If you're trying to get work done like document creation, editing, presentations, papers, organization, spreadsheets, printing, probably better to go with a netbook. You can DO those on an iPad (sorta), but you'll still want to finish things up on a more capable, full-featured desktop or laptop.

If you're going to do them on an iPad, you'll probably want to look at investing a little under $20 in a snazzy little program called Documents To Go, and probably setting yourself up an account with Dropbox.

If you're really keen on Apple, like I am, and you can afford an iPad (3G or otherwise), I'd say splurge the little bit extra and go for the low-end MacBook Air. Otherwise, might want to watch TigerDirect or Buy.com for the latest deal on a cheapo PC netbook. Not the most stable thing around, but it should do the trick.

If it were me in your shoes, with my pro-Apple bias, I'd probably rank those choices:

Suck up the budget a bit and splurge for the MacBook Air for about $1K.

Get the low-end WiFi-only iPad for ~$500.

Pick up an Asus (or other) netbook for $350 or so and wish I'd gotten an iPad.

See these two posts:

Why I Love/Hate My iPad (slightly outdated, but still informational).

Using CloudBrowse to View Flash on an iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch

Responding to Rob Bell's heresy

2011-03-16T23:23:00.000-07:00

Michael Servetus, used with permission

Let's talk about heresy.

The word heresy has been in the news the past few days. It's been used to describe pretty much any opinion Rob Bell has to share. And it's not a charge to be taken lightly. Certain modern cultures still quickly levy execution against blasphemers. And even the occasionally celebrated Geneva Consistory might have to be exhumed to apologize for their capital discipline against Servetus, despite the apparent legitimacy of the charge.

But we don't live in the Middle East. And we don't live in 1500s Geneva. Most of us live in contemporary Western culture, enlightened by the Enlightenment, jaded by moral relativism, and easily distracted by advertising, corporate interests, and the office March Madness bracket. And we like to think that we're cautious. And fair. And kind. And that we don't have prejudices.

But we know better, don't we.

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past few weeks, you probably heard that Rob Bell has a new book out. It came out Tuesday. It was #8 at Amazon before it came out (#3 now as this is being written). Go figure.

And unless you've actually read it, you probably think that it's full of blasphemy. Because you've heard that it is. (To be fair, actually, you may think that it's full of blasphemy after you read it, too. I wouldn't know. I haven't yet.) And you've heard that Bell is a universalist, which is apparently an unpardonable sin (ironically?), so you think that's true, too. (A universalist is a Christian who believes that every human being will be welcomed into eternity with God regardless of their decision for or against Christ in their lifetime.)

So, assuming that you're comfortable with forming an opinion about something before you know what you're talking about, let's just go ahead and list all the possible prejudicial statements you might be able to make:

Rob Bell is completely off the mark and never says anything legitimate or worthwhile.

Rob Bell is right on the money and everything he says is gospel.

Rob Bell understates his case. He's light on substance and doesn't really say anything new.

Rob Bell goes a bit too far at times, but is otherwise reasonably palatable.

Now, since we all know that we contemporary Christians are supposed to be proud that God didn't make us like that heretical blasphemer, Rob Bell, let's rise above making extreme statements and toss out the first two because of their unqualified adjectives. That leaves us with the last two to choose from.

And I don't think we can really choose between them, mostly because both of those remaining statements should remind us of us.

Here's the problem: Christian theology is a living organism, an ongoing, constant conversation, an unanswered question posed to the panel for discussion (and we're all in the symposium), a milieu of opinion that responds to dogma and actualizes it into something full of meaning and relevance and usefulness to a particular culture. It moves. At its best, it moves in the influence of the wind of God. At its worst, it is as corrupted as we are. We corrupt it.

We and Bell are in the same boat, hoping that we've got it right, trying to make sense of ideas that we don't own, that have been around a lot longer than we have, that will outlast us, and that, frankly, are beyond our comprehension. We are incapable of circumscribing the mind of God. (If you don't believe me, consider what happened to Job when he thought he was entitled to give it a try.)

That being said, we're probably behaving well when we temper our ounce of judgment with an ounce of margin to hear retellings of details and opinions that we've been slow to listen to.

Here's the thing. Bell's been accused of espousing universalism, a charge which he denies. He says our response to Christ is important. He doesn't deny that hell exists. He does apparently question whether hell is a place God assigns certain people to, or a reality they create for themselves by denying him, but this isn't anything C. S. Lewis didn't say before him. Lewis was hardly a universalist, nor even a theological liberal. Madeline L'Engle was a universalist. She's the one who wrote, "All will be redeemed in God's fullness of time, all, not just the small portion of the population who have been given the grace to know and accept Christ. All the strayed and stolen sheep. All the little lost ones."

A lot of people are very uncomfortable with that idea. Bell's never said that. Quite the contrary, he's apparently uncomfortable with that, too.

We live in a culture that's quick to judgment, that responds to perceived injustice with war, that confronts political adversaries with insults, that wants to deprive undesirables of basic human rights, and that's inexcusably fond of accusing everyone but ourselves for the systemic problems that we have to overcome. In short, we love to convince everyone that our understanding of things is right, and we hate it when anyone has a problem with us because they think ours is wrong.

And then we have a problem with someone coming along and saying that God offers us an infinite love as a correction to our mutually exclusive, unqualified certainties? We don't want to hear that? We don't want to find out that the central message of God's word is love?

No, probably not. We want to hear that he saves us, but that he doesn't save the other guy, the guy who ticked us off.

Bell's book is a submission to the conversation. He's a pastor. He works with confused people who have distorted views of love and salvation and hope and joy, and they need a handle. (They're people a lot like us.) He's not interested in giving definitive answers, so we shouldn't be so upset if he doesn't. He's interested in throwing a bunch of pasta at the wall and letting the rest of us see what sticks.

What should our response be?

I don't know. I haven't read the book.

But I know that it should:

Include discernment. We're to test the spirits, not dismiss them before we listen to them.

Be deep. We reach a point where it's time to move past the milk, and ponder spiritual meat, some new ideas that would have left our heads spinning when we started out. We'll never get a chance to hear those ideas if we're unwilling to listen to things that, at first glance, we disagree with.

Be intentional. We are supposed to make every effort to watch our life and doctrine closely. If life and doctrine are supposed to mesh, then maybe we should get some information before we form the sorts of opinions that lead us to make character accusations on our fellows.

The real heresy is not listening. God gave us brains and hearts. Let's use them.

Watch the Rob Bell interview with Lisa Miller on the eve of the book release
on lovewins at livestream.com

This guy doesn't listen very well

The death of classical music?

2011-03-13T12:12:00.000-07:00

Used with permission, CC3.0: Yngvie Bakken Nilsen

For years, I have celebrated the classical radio station, KDFC. I would direct others to it, telling them that no east coast station came near it in quality and dignity, and only Seattle's KING FM might have a shot at the west coast. (KING's staff, tho committed to the genre, is far too predictable and hardly as innovative or creative as KDFC's.)

I grew up in KDFC's backyard, felt its influence as I came to embrace music, returned home to it after college. I rejoiced when it was one of the first radio stations to experiment with online broadcasting. (A classical station?? Technologically progressive?? Oh, yes!)

And then, on January 24, something unexpected--and, to me at least, unforeseen--happened. KDFC effectively ceased to exist.

Sort of.

Apparently, KDFC was the last of its kind, a dying breed of commercial classical radio station that has now joined the buffalo on the list of extinctions brought about by American expansion. Granted that KDFC's sponsors were of a type inaccessible to the average American at any time, much less during a recession--Rolex, Mercedes. But they were sponsored. And the sponsors saw a legitimate audience.

A few Mondays ago, suddenly, KDFC's normal signal ceased to exist. It was replaced by a handful of low-power repeaters, and an email announcing that they had switched to a listener supported model.

While this idea is not unheard of in the world of classical music, that is precisely the point: KDFC was the last remaining commercial classical station.

I loved KDFC especially because it held fast to the idea that classical music was mainstream. Now that is gone.

At least I can still love it for the music.

Want to listen to KDFC yourself? They have one of the finest iPhone apps available for a radio station. It should be a flagship for any radio station's attempt at an app. (It has a background mode for us iPhone 3G diehards!)

Also, you can listen to their live feed 24 hours a day on the web at KDFC.com.

It's not quite dead yet.

Everybody needs a vacation sometimes

2011-03-11T08:46:00.000-08:00

Used with permission, CC: Christopher Thomas

Sometime today, I will be taking jeffholton.com down. It’ll only last for about an hour…hopefully! During the downtime, if you’re visiting this blog directly, you’ll be able to read the text on this page just fine, but you’ll see timeouts when loading images (like the one above).

The website has been trucking along 24x7 for over five years on a machine that has never seen any downtime except for neighborhood-wide power failures. The reason for today's outage is that we’re moving some furniture around, so I have to unplug the machine where jeffholton.com lives.

So, my apologies if you were hoping to receive the full effect of your visit here. If you’re dissatisfied with your experience, I promise you a full refund.

Really. Ha, ha.

Speaking of images, you'll still be able to view these, since they're on a different site.

If you're reading this as email or in a reader and having trouble viewing these, try visiting the site directly.

Friday funny: Christmas, part 2

2010-12-24T15:26:00.000-08:00

Jesus is a liberal democrat

The 12 Days of Christmas, the way it should have been in the first place

Perspective: What would your final words be?

2010-12-17T09:58:00.000-08:00

Ed White, the first spacewalker. He let go. He came back. Some don't.
(All NASA images are in the public domain, with some rights reserved. NASA [image S65-30431]).

I know of a man who is in surgery for his brain, right now as I write this post. His name is Brent. They do not know if he will make it out of surgery. They are removing a mass and they do not know the extent of the problem. I do not know this man personally, but I know of him. I am thinking of him. You should be, too.

A few hours ago, with complete mental acuity, he wrote this to his young sons:

It is very early (4AM) and God is at work! I wanted to just take a few moments to let you know how much I love each one of you! You have each made me the happiest dad in the entire world. I am reminded in (Mark 1:11) when Jesus was baptized out of obedience and respect for HIS Father and an audible voice was heard from the heavens when he came up out of the water. "This is my son, in whom I am well pleased."

This morning I now realize the amount of love that a father can have for his sons and all of their accomplishments, victories and yes even defeats. Therefore, I too echo those words from the mountain top - "YOU ARE MY SONS, IN WHOM I AM WELL PLEASED!"

We were never called to walk a faithless simple life but a life full of abundance and grace that only God can give. This morning, dad will leave for the hospital without any fear of the unknown, and expect miracles to happen. NO MATTER the outcome of the procedure or the diagnosis, GOD IS IN CONTROL and HE will be Praised!

Do me a favor, the next few days will be very difficult for your mom. Pray for her. Love her. Hug her. Obey her. She is truly the love of my life! We will all need each other over the coming days, but she will need you even more over the next few days.

Below is one of my favorite verses is this:

Hebrews: 8:38-39
[sic. Romans 8:38-39.]

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

No Fear, Jesus Never Fails,

Dad

Consider also

Death and taxes and faithfulness

Lisa Telford: A eulogy

The strength of being broken

Question: If you had to write your final words right now, what would they be?

About Big Planet Small World

2010-12-12T16:50:00.000-08:00

Used with permission, CC2.0: Jeff Kubina

Ideas get us talking to one another. Dialog develops new ideas.

We live on a big planet, but the world is shrinking more and more every day. Usually, when this colloquialism about the shrinking world is invoked, it's a complaint. But why should it be? Are contemporary technology and our increasingly social online culture inherently contributing to our increasing separation from one another, or are we just abusing technology in an ongoing effort to hide?

This blog will cover a variety of subjects, but they will all have a single, unifying theme: the things that get us talking to one another. Unfortunately, the things that bring us together are often the very things that threaten to tear us apart: discussions on religion and spirituality and favorite sports teams and computing platforms, opinions about art, sexuality, technology and science, politics, entertainment, music, books, movies, television, food, work and business, companies and industries and gifted individuals, product reviews (the relevant and the unusual), current events and history, family relationships, friends, irritants, humor...

What is funny and what isn't, for example? I have a dry, British wit. Do you? I don't require you to, or expect you to be just like me. I will be sharing my opinions because they're the only ones I have! That sure doesn't mean I'm uninterested in yours.

We'll occasionally include an interview with an established celebrity or expert in their field. We'll throw in the infrequent instructional commentary or video on a technical or other relevant subject. We'll welcome guest posts. We'll solicit and expect your feedback and thoughts on each issue, and we'll look forward to reading them.

The main purpose of every post will always be the same, to invite you into a discussion in which you will meet others, perhaps kindred spirits, perhaps lifelong aggravators. But you will speak with each other. You will interact, both on the blog and off. Most posts will end with a question, an opportunity for you to interact. You are so very welcome to do so. I use IntenseDebate for comments, since they sort and thread for me. You are encouraged--but not required--to create an account with them to better organize your conversations, and also benefit from the "ranking" that can be provided by others who find your ideas useful and/or well stated.

If you're reading this on the website, you can see two lists of my most popular posts to the left. You might find something to enjoy or spark thought or conversation in there.

I post irregularly, theoretically a couple times a week, though you may occasionally find bursts of creativity followed by doldrums of silence. (Such is the nature of a full-time Instructional Designer with two children under the age of ten!) I encourage you to click here to subscribe by email since this is the easiest way to engage with the latest content. Comments, however, are always welcome. Although I reserve the right to moderate them, I would like to think you would give me no reason to. The extrovert in me craves your interaction, and I look forward to responding in civil conversation with you.

The new technological world gives us a chance to be civil to one another in new ways. We can share ideas and disagree without hostility. We can discuss openly. Through disagreeing, we can ponder, change, and grow. Through agreeing, we can connect. There is room enough for both here. The planet is big enough for us to disagree, and we may be surprised to find unexpected allies that make our world just a bit smaller, and likely more enjoyable.

Friday funny: Christmas

2010-12-10T10:11:00.000-08:00

When social media and the Bible collide.

It might be lacking Kirk and Spock and Roger Waters and the Bee Gees, but it's still pretty awesome

This may not precisely qualify as humor, but it sure is clever

Question: Can you point us to your favorite Christmas funny stuff? Thanks!

Google eBooks, an initial response

2010-12-08T10:14:00.000-08:00

Used with permission, CC 2.0: Stewart Butterfield

Google eBooks opened up with some fanfare several days ago. In an effort to corner a piece of yet another huge, emerging market, the Google eBooks store fired off a first round in competition with Amazon's Kindle store, B&N's Nook, and Apple's iBooks.

In our opinion, this first round is a dud.

Did you forget the user?

The news caused a stir. Within minutes, I'd downloaded Google's free book reader app onto all the devices I could find at arm's reach [read: my iPad, a few Macs, and my iPhone 3G].

Now, I'll admit that I'm all about free books. I want established wisdom from the public domain delivered to me on-demand. Project Gutenberg is my friend. And Google's bookstore (which is accessed through their website, just like you would with a computer-based or mobile-based Kindle or Nook application) doesn't disappoint. Within a few minutes I had five or six interesting free titles waiting for me in my Google reader, on whatever device I wanted.

Then came the problem. Google's been spending the past few years scanning in page after page after page of existing text. No OCR. Just pictures of the pages. They own the content of hundreds of thousands of volumes, a rich and diverse collection of knowledge. Unfortunately, what you can't do is reformat (at least easily), share, highlight, zoom, stretch, pinch, or rotate. In short, the content is all there on the screen, somewhere, but the pixels are pretty much undreadable.

I expected a superior user experience over the Kindle, Nook, and iBooks. Why enter the fight now if you don't have something brilliant to offer?

Quantity over quality

I'll grant Google the early winner in the content category. They boast 3 million volumes available today, some of which are actually interesting to read. The Barnes & Noble Nook store claims 2 million, Amazon's Kindle store not even half that. If you're looking for a book, it might make sense to try Google first. Maybe. Sort of. (They may have scanned in a gajillion books, but are they good ones?)

Until the reader is viable (read: richly-featured), I'll stick with iBooks (and, on occasion, Nook and Kindle) when I need it. Google can call me when they're ready to try again.

See also:

Burning books is bad, mmkay?

Question: What are your thoughts on the emerging eBook market? Is the printed page dead yet?

Where did Big Planet Small World come from?

2010-12-06T23:39:00.000-08:00

From the door of my local Starbucks, an invitation
to what's supposed to happen in a coffehouse

This post might look for a moment like a praise to an individual. But that's not what it is. It's a celebration of a class of relationships, a general homage to how friendships are created.

This blog received its name as a sort of unintentional gift from Gail Hyatt. I consider Gail to be a remarkable and wise woman. She successfully raised five daughters, has traveled richly, changed her mind with consideration and intent on a variety of important issues, maintains a meaningful marriage to a corporate CEO and part-time clergyman (same guy, not two different guys), apparently keeps a warm, hospitable environment in her home where she welcomes guests frequently, and still, by some miracle, keeps her sanity. At least, I think she keeps her sanity.

A year ago, Gail was a new "virtual friend," discovered because I heard her husband on the radio, liked what he had to say (or more to the point, the simple but confident way in which he said it), investigated how to interact with him through social media channels, found out that many of his "associates are people of good character," and built connections with them for their likemindedness as well, ultimately leading to a number of longstanding and meaningful relationships, both online and off. At one point, I discovered that a particular individual was someone I had already met through entirely different channels. Remarking to Gail on the pleasant surprise of this, I wrote to her, "It's a big planet, but it's a small world."

She responded, "That would make a great tagline," and Big Planet, Small World was born.

In general, this is how connections are made. This is how lives are enriched and saved. We become stronger when we strengthen and encourage and support each other. The synergy of intertwining our stories is glorious. The point of Big Planet, Small World is to invite you to join all of us who are already here in that activity, interacting with each other, and loving every minute of it!

Question: Whom [thanks, Magda] have you subtly influenced this week? Who inadvertently influenced you?

Friday funny: Ke$ha's Tik Tok Trek

2010-12-03T11:08:00.000-08:00

My aversion to pop music is probably running at an all-time high. There's some that slips through the blockade once in a while, but right now I have a firewall that violently repels any attempts to infiltrate my senses with the intellectual complexities of contemporary philosophers and spokespeople like Katy Perry, Justin Timberlake, or Ke$ha.

Except this one. As one commenter says on the page where it's posted, "I used to hate this song." Somehow, Trek legitimizes it a bit.

Although I've never been one for the K/S phenomenon, I am once again forced to accept that there are some very clever and creative editors running around out there. I hope they keep running.

Question: What's your favorite parody mashup?

Twitter follow limit prompts new social media strategy

2010-11-30T11:08:00.000-08:00

Retreating Serbs, 1915. Photo is in the public domain.

For all the right reasons, Twitter places a number of restrictions on adding new followers.

Twitter outlines these rules at their support site here and here.

They include:

following or unfollowing hundreds of users in a single day.

using tools to automatically follow or unfollow users.

following more than 2,000 users unless your ratio of following to followers is at least 9 to 10.

The latter point became a source of contention for me over the past few days as I neared the limit without clear awareness of the restriction. It turned out to present a significant problem.

Casual versus power users

Twitter caters to a variety of user categories, from corporate marketers to social and casual users, corporate marketers, social media elitists, and celebrities.

The latter three share a common privilege in their ability to bring a preexisting set of followers or fans to a new account very quickly. The rest of us have to build to maximize the benefit of involvement, interaction, and reputation development.

Until now, I've applied a simple set of twenty-seven rules (ahem) to manage my followers, generally adding folks indiscriminately in the hopes of catching their attention and inspiring a reciprocal follow-back. Turns out that a full 40% of them weren't bothering, something I confirmed by using the FriendOrFollow tool. (You can also try ManageFlitter.) What this meant is that I could only grow my follow list consistently until I hit 2,001 follows. Since I only had about 1,450 people following me, I wasn't even close to the 9 to 10 ratio required to continue adding new follows at will.

As soon as I was unable to reciprocate new adds, my list of people following me started dropping like someone had pulled the plug. This forced an unfortunate catch-22: with 2,001 follows and a dropping follow-to-follower ratio, the situation was becoming ever worse with no chance of improving.

Two steps back, three steps forward

"America, if she attains to greatness, must creep to it," wrote Alexander Hamilton to his friend Theodore Sedgwick. "Will it be so? Slow and sure is no bad maxim. Snails are a wise generation."

The solution to my problem was to begin dropping the 40% of unreciprocated follows. Within hours of removing 10% of my follows, I had regained 1% of my followers (through new, and now reciprocated, followers).

Follows vs. followings graph generated at Twitter Grader

So am I changing my rules? Not really. I'm just adding two:

Monitor existing follows for asymmetry.

Unfollow unreciprocated folks (after giving them a week or so to respond), and move them to a list if I want to keep watching their Tweets.

I won't miss out, and I'll be able to keep growing. This strategy might work for you, too.

Question: What modifications have you made in your social media strategy as your situation has changed?

Friday funny: When Teshes attack

2010-11-05T03:01:00.000-07:00

I wonder if maybe there is some truth to this.

Friday funny: Ukuleles, Nirvana, and the Kaiser Chiefs

2010-10-29T18:26:00.000-07:00

These people are awesome.

I first heard of them years ago when I saw this.

Then, this week, I found this.

Question: What creative zaniness has gotten your attention?

Previous friday funny
A clever OK Go video

Happy Halloween: Pandemic books from the archives

2010-10-21T09:17:00.001-07:00

Stephen King's The Stand and Richard Preston's The Hot Zone take center stage in this videopost from my archives.

Have a terrifying read!

Questions: What books both scare you and captivate you enough that you'd still read them again?

Using Cloud Browse to view Flash on an iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch

2010-10-20T14:31:00.000-07:00

One of the consistent, monotonous complaints about the Apple mobile platform has been the inability of the iOS devices to run and display Flash applications.

Although there is little reason to believe this policy will ever change--much less in the near future--there is something helpful at which iOS devices excel. The iPad makes a fantastic remote display, as evidenced by a variety of VNC-inspired free and more feature-rich applications.

Cloud Browse is a free application that provides just such an environment. A generous benefactor somewhere in Asia (judging from the timestamps) runs an instance of Firefox on a *nix server, and the CloudB rowse application provides a window to view it. Considering the obvious geographical separation I had while testing it, I found latencies minimal. The external machine has no problems whatsoever loading and displaying Flash-based apps, so the iPad has no problem displaying them. (The app can also run on the iPhone.)

Firefox is not actually running on the iPad. Essentially, the user is looking at a "picture" of Firefox running somewhere else. There are certain limitations:

Because of hardware and network limitations, the application runs on a timer. When your session is up (apparently after about ten minutes), your instance is cancelled and the resource is allocated to someone else.

You may occasionally receive a message when starting the application that all instances are in use and you should wait a while.

Since the app is a picture of a browser running somewhere else, normal copy/paste functions will not work between other iPad apps and the Firefox browser running in CloudBroswe. A notable exception is made for pasting URLs and search text by clicking the "Web" button at the top of the interface.

The keyboard is controlled manually instead of automatically. Use the keyboard button at the top of the interface to display it, and the keyboard close button at the bottom right of the keyboard to hide it.

Since the Firefox instance is running externally to the ipad, there's no history or ability to save bookmarks or work in progress. The latter can be especially frustrating if the user is in the middle of a project.

The bottom line is that, for a free app, it's very very useful. You can find it at the app store by searching for Cloud Browse.

Questions: How important is Flash to you? Have you found any other app (free or otherwise) that does a better job than Cloud Browse?

Get Cloud Browse at the US App Store

There is no condemnation

2010-10-19T00:11:00.000-07:00

Used by permission, Angus McDiarmid

She took some small comfort in the irony that the infidels who occupied her land trumped her own law. Capital punishment for moral infractions? Hardly, when Emperors had represented the epitome of moral infraction themselves. Tacit cultural approval through complicity would do fine under the immediate circumstances. If the government did it, it must be okay.

Though she could be ashamed for what she was about to do, she knew there would otherwise be little consequence. So she accepted instantaneous pleasures in exchange for turpitude.

But her infraction was discovered, and she found herself shocked by the unanimity of the townsmen, a monolithic hatred and unrestrained assignment of blame, including from the one she had given herself to. She was branded a whore, a harlot, a subversive of ill-repute, a seductress. Her category of evil was deemed too dangerous for the community. It was decided in seconds that she would be eradicated quickly, before the Imperial authorities would even notice.

Save for the wails of terror, she was silent as she was led to her execution. Anything she could say in her defense would require her to simultaneously admit to her involvement, would force her to publicly admit her flaw, expose her shame, forever brand her an outcast, not that "forever" would last more than a few more minutes. She prayed not for a painless death--she knew it would be painful--but for a swift one. She did not want pain.

She was paraded before the community, forced to feel the burning gaze of those who were about to silence her permanently. She stared back in arrogance, not averting her gaze in shame, but enraged by the community's hypocrisy. For each one whose visage filled with violence and excitement that they finally had someone to make an example of, she peered back into the soul of one whom she knew--by rumor or reputation--had committed the same infraction she had, gloating at the only difference, that they got away with it.

Except one. One unfamiliar man. The blood drained from her face when she locked eyes with him. Who was he? Why was he here? She read in his glance not one looking at her, but one looking in her. Like all the others, he knew what she had done, and yet she saw in his staid expression that he knew who she was, had known her whole life who she was, why she had done it, how ashamed and guilty and spirited and proud and responsible and terrified she was. Mostly, she was less afraid to die than she was to keep looking into his eyes. If he wanted her, it was with a passion she had never experienced before, and it was far more dangerous than any terror she could face from the rocks that would be projected at her in a moment.

It was then that she realized the difference between him and the others. He was holding no rock. His eyes bored through her soul deeper than any rock could ever cut anyway; what did he need a rock for?

And then she saw something even more horrifying than any of the horrifying moral leaps she had taken to get herself into this situation to start with. The gaze of the people was no longer on her. It was on the man. In a flash, she realized this wasn't even about her. It was about him. She was being used. She was going to die and she didn't even really have anything to do with it. It wasn't about her guilt. It was about their pride. She was a convenient pawn.

They turned to him as if to a leader they wanted to get rid of. And why not, with that gaze, that boring, piercing glance that penetrated their motivations? They told the man the accusation against her (as if he hadn't read it in her already). They reminded him of their law (as if he hadn't written it). They knew what they should do, but they asked him anyway. If he spoke mercy, he would be rejected as an enemy of the culture, an approver of licentiousness, a deviant. If he spoke wrath, he would be condemned by the occupiers for inciting an act of murder, and they would be rid of him.

He began to write. Something. Some near him could see it. Most could not. Some strained to see what it was. He knew them. He knew what they needed to see.

And knowing the Law, he invited them to carry out their capital act of silencing the sinner. To her horror, he actually invited them. Sort of. He said that whoever was not guilty of the same behavior was qualified to begin her execution.

And he kept writing. He knew them. Each one. He looked into their souls with the same look he had given her. One at a time, they dropped their rocks and walked away, until only two remained.

He could have asked her what she had done. She knew she would have told him. Every detail. Every thought that had gone through her head. Every touch and every feeling and every fear of what consequence would come upon her. Or upon her lover. Or upon his family, or hers. She would have told him everything. But he didn't ask.

She shuddered when he finally finished writing and looked up at her, then around at the empty square, then back at her.

"Where did they all go? No one faults you?"

He wasn't asking for his own edification. She was mysteriously aware that he knew everything, had already anticipated everything before it began transpiring. She knew he was asking if she understood why the square had been vacated.

"They...left." They didn't have the stomach for it. He had saved her with cleverness, with their own trick, but at what cost? At the cost of everyone knowing both accusation and mercy, exposure and forgiveness, completely. Totally. Overwhelmingly. Consumingly.

That look again. Love and wrath together. His disappointment in her behavior was palpable. So was his love for the person she was when she was not sinning. She wanted him, and hated him, and loved him, and loved him for not letting her want him or hate him for too long. That love. It was deeper than anything she had ever seen. It was not the look of a man who loved. It was Love. Love was standing before her.

Love spoke to her. "I don't condemn you either."

But she knew that he knew she was guilty. There must be more? How could such purity allow such impurity? She felt she would be annihilated any second anyway, automatically ceasing to exist, in the presence of such perfection. He still had that look. Serious, penetrating, knowing who she was and what heinousness she was capable of, and what great acts of tenderness and compassion, too. What a confused mess of impulses she was, but in a word, she knew he could sort them out.

And then Love spoke to her once more. This time with a command. She knew a command was coming. If Love had told her to fly, she would have. "Don't do this again."

And she obeyed.

This post is part of Bridget Chumbley's One Word at a Time blog carnival on Condemnation.

Previous carnival entries have focused on lust, love, church, peace, patience, kindness, grief, faithfulness, gentleness, and brokenness.

The Carnival is open to anyone who would like to participate. It is designed to encourage dialogue, cooperation, and personal growth.

What's wrong with the new Twitter?

2010-10-18T09:18:00.000-07:00

Used with permission, Buzz Bishop

Twitter announced universal availability of their new layout. Immediate user response was about as receptive as public opinion on the new Gap logo. It's bad. It's really bad.

The problem with the new Twitter site is easy to identify. The company that has given so many of us an opportunity to establish and protect our personal or corporate brand is now losing sight of its own. Twitter's strength has always been in its elegant simplicity: 140 characters, maybe a link or a photo, maybe a hashtag. Now, in response to a broad spectrum of user perspectives and an increasing need to generate capital, it risks pandering to the loudest corporate influences and thereby losing the very things that make it distinctive, alienating the large majority of individual users who appreciate the "text messaging on steroids" interface.

Old Twitter vs. New Twitter
(click on either image to enlarge)

In short, the new Twitter is unnecessarily complicated. In the old Twitter, the left column was for reading and writing, and the right column was for everything else, like settings. In the new Twitter:

The right column changes depending on what I select or click in the left column.

User information automatically pops up in a small window when I hover or click, which is especially annoying and unhelpful in a mouse less, mobile environment such as an iPad.

The left column is now for reading, writing, and a random assortment of other things, like saved searches, but notoriously not direct messages.

The left column now scrolls infinitely, loading more data automatically as you scroll down, which is also a thoroughly annoying behavior when attempting to navigate quickly with a scrollbar.

I spend most of my time trying to scroll to the right place, moving my eye about the screen chaotically, wondering where I am, instead of reading and clicking on what I want.

The busy-ness of the new interface causes me to become unnecessarily manic, borderline psychotic. I find myself clicking on things so much to make them appear or disappear that I forget where (or who?) I was before. The old Twitter leveraged a remarkable little device for such things: the browser's "back" button. Has Twitter forgotten that it lives on the Web?

I can't find the list of common follows when researching a potential new follow. Is it there? Can anyone else find it?

The background behind the reading pane is irrelevant. This is preposterous for those who applied a significant amount of effort to designing a brand-enhancing background.

The most popular social media sites each offer unique characteristics. Twitter is message-centric. Facebook is a photo, event, and content repository with live, interactive conversation. MySpace is a dark fearful gravitational singularity for tweens and fledgling musical acts. Corporations that have grasped social media by the horns have strategically made a presence for themselves in all three of these, recognizing that each offers them not necessarily a different audience (although perhaps that, too), but a different vehicle for reaching that audience.

The new Twitter blurs those lines to the point of irrelevance. But in so doing, they expose a weakness, not a strength. Twitter does not need to become Facebook or MySpace in order to survive. Quite the contrary, it needs to continue being Twitter.

Question: What do you think of the new Twitter? What should Twitter do next?

Does anyone remember the marketing disaster of the New Coke? Fortunately, Coke was able to erase that mistake with little permanent damage to their brand.

Malcolm Gladwell's Blink has an excellent chapter on what went wrong with the release of New Coke. Have the Twitter execs and designers read it?

My review of Blink can be found here.

Permission to Speak Freely, by Anne Jackson

2010-10-15T05:27:00.000-07:00

Anne Jackson's latest is an important book. Part sensational tell-all, part prophetic accusation, and part public confessional, it poses a necessary set of questions to the entire church.

How would our church look if we actually obeyed the Pauline imperative to bear one another's burdens? [See Gal. 6:2.]

How safe would I feel in a place where I could actually and honestly tell others what I had done, what I was going through, and what calamities had fallen upon my psyche?

How would I comfort others when I come forward about the medications I am on, or about the therapies I am receiving, or about the triumphs I have achieved from overcoming sins I otherwise wish had never seen the light of day?

How would it benefit the community if I give them an opportunity to learn how to comfort me?

Jackson previously gave us Mad Church Diesase, and continues to deliver the popular blog, Flowerdust.net. Part of a camp of well-known young adults (perhaps including Donald Miller and Matthew Paul Turner), she expresses her criticisms of the church not because she is critical of Christianity, but because she is critical of how poorly the church is embodying it. This makes her both controversial and prophetic.

At the risk of sounding overly idealistic, I'd like to say that for those of us who believe the church should be one of the safest and most grace-giving places a person can experience here on earth, it's time to reclaim what our faith stands for.

It's time for us to politely but passionately disagree with those who make church a "safe" place by removing all the messiness.

The first half of the book is an autobiographical descent into everything that can go wrong with a young person's involvement in western Christianity. And oh, does it go wrong! If this were a novel, we would hardly be surprised with a tragic ending of a disillusioned heroine abandoning her faith after such a series of betrayals (both as innocent victim and culpable miscreant). She intersperses the text with a sort of Christian version of Post Secret, except perhaps not so secret, which is quite the point.

But it does not end there. The second half continues with an ongoing story of healing in progress, not yet in triumph. As the healing and continuing struggle emerges, it brings the other characters--and the reader, too--along for the ride for the mutual benefit of the impromptu, virtual community. We share in the struggles. We fail together. We learn and grow and heal together. It models what the church is supposed to be doing.

In essence, the entire book is calling for contemporary Christianity not to politely dismiss the complex psychologies that complicate our faith, because in so doing, we further erode what's left of our relevance. Instead it invites us to embrace and publicly declare that these radical complications are part of who we are and part of the diversity that God is using to shape his kingdom.

If this is revolutionary, it shouldn't be.

Other book reviews:

Thin Places, by Mary DeMuth

Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell

Liked this post? You can subscribe to this blog for free and receive new posts in your inbox.

Why I'm going to Women of Faith in Sacramento

2010-10-11T15:25:00.000-07:00

Used with permission (Thomas Nelson, Inc.)

It's no secret that the Women of Faith posse is rolling through Northern California in a few weeks. The WoF touring conference could perhaps be seen as the estrogen-enriched latent cousin to the Promise Keepers men’s rallies of the late 1990s. It's an opportunity for women (especially Christian women, and especially evangelical Christian women, perhaps) to gather together in a concentrated two days of hearing from some of the most gifted speakers and encouragers in the English-speaking world.

And I'm going.

So why am I crashing the ladies event? No, it's not to hold them accountable. Four reasons come to mind:

Interaction. There will be Christians here from all sorts of groups. I'm down with that. Now, don’t get me wrong. I'm not an ecumenist, but I am ecumenical. The former would like to pretend that we have no differences and declare complete unity a present reality, which results in the detrimentally unfortunate inability to present our distinctives for the benefit of others. The latter says that we have nothing to lose--and much to gain--by meeting and dialoguing with each other.

Actually, assuming my sister has her baby on time, I'll be bringing my mom with me to the event. That's an ecumenical gathering right there.

Enrichment. Color me selfish. I learn from great people. Doesn't matter if they're male or female. I want to soak in all the awesomeness that comes from the teaching there. There are some fantastic women who will be speaking!

Actually, for the record, I think they’re letting Andy Andrews at the podium this time, too. So there'll be at least one other guy there. Phew!

Personal invitation. No, I don't mean salvifically (not directly, at least). I was invited to the event by one of the speakers. This is an act of kindness and friendship. And I'm all about cultivating the future of the Church through the establishment and maintenance of meaningful personal relationships. This is one opportunity I really wouldn't want to pass up.

Growth. I love women. No, really, I do. And by that I mean that I love interacting with them for a couple reasons. One is their inherent emotional sensitivity that directs me to articulate issues that would otherwise lie dormant and unaddressed perhaps forever. Another is that they inspire me to think new thoughts. I've had the fortune of being influenced by a number of amazing women. My mother. My wife. My younger sister. Teachers, leaders, authors, artists, colleagues, friends. I owe it to them to keep soaking it in, filtering it, and repackaging it for others to absorb. I've been shaped, and I'm not done being shaped. There's an ongoing dynamic.

Want to go to the conference?

I think you should, especially if you're in one of the following three categories:

Women who have been have been going through hell for the past months or years and need a reminder that there is a reality that promises them hope and a future, but also present blessings;

Women who need a jump-start and a reminder of how powerful and empowering and transformative their relationship with God can be;

Women who have it all together (or at least think they do) and are looking for an avenue to pass on that joy to other women.

I guess that covers just about everyone, really.

Except the guys.

Click here to register for a Women of Faith event for the 2010-2011 season, or to learn more.

Question: Have you attended a Women of Faith event in the past? How did it enrich you? What are you looking forward to for the upcoming conference?

Liked this post? You can subscribe to this blog and receive new posts in your inbox.

Why I love/hate my iPad

2010-09-29T14:00:00.000-07:00

Some guy (not me) using his iPad.
Used with permission, CC 2.0: Matt Buchanan

I've owned my iPad for about a month now. I got the 16GB, WiFi-only model because I figured it would be a good way to get my toes wet without breaking the bank.

I intended for it to become my primary interface at home for email, browsing, and light document development. How has it performed? Fabulously! It's done all that and more.

Things I love about my iPad

The interface rocks the caspah. It's simple. You press a button and it starts up. It's flat. It stays cool; It doesn't burn my legs like my MacBook Pro. It doesn't weigh much. The screen is crystal clear (my photos look like they were taken by a professional!), and I can lock the rotation with the switch above (or to the left of) the volume control.

The battery lasts forever, at least compared to the now useless one in my portable, and the pad's smaller cousin, the iPhone.

The apps give me what I need. I can surf the web; write blogposts; organize, compose, and respond to emails; watch television and movies in HD; review PDFs, videos, documents, and images for work or personal use; download, read, and interact with ebooks using iBooks, Kindle, Nook, etc.; maintain ongoing dialoge in various social media applications. I have yet to pay for an application (though I will soon).

Things I don't like about my iPad

Why is the volume button mounted on the upper right? If I'm holding my iPad in portrait mode (with the Home button at the bottom), the volume control works predictibly. "Up" raises the volume and "down" lowers it. But if I rotate the pad to landscape mode, suddenly "left" is raising the volume and "right" is lowering it.

For a right-handed world, if the volume control was placed on the top edge, it would function consistently. Or, Apple should reverse the control when the device is rotated. I get self conscious when I'm trying to lower the volume on a YouTube video, like I'm having a dream that I'm driving in Great Britain but everyone else is on the right.

Where's the filesystem? Yes, there are apps I can use to transfer files, carry files around, access Dropbox and Google Docs, display files, but... Can't we just have a native filesystem accessible via the cable or, preferably, the wireless interface? I can't upload pictures to Facebook through Safari? 'Scuse me?

The mobile operating system, iOS. One of the reasons it took me so long to adopt the iPad was because I agreed with the general criticism that it's an "oversized iPhone." I wanted a keyboardless Mac Air. I still do. I have plenty of desktop productivity apps I'd love to load onto my iPad, but I can't. Sure, Documents To Go does a pretty good job of emulating Microsoft Office editing capabilities. But it's still doing it on a mobile app. I feel like a Pop Warner football player on an NFL field.

USB? C'mon, Apple. You really have to milk another $30 out of me just so I can plug a peripheral into this? I suppose this goes hand-in-hand with the previous item, but I'd have quite a compelling device with wide support for USB peripherals on a desktop-like machine.

All this being said, the iPad is a very capable device. At about a quarter of the cost of a powerful, top-of-the-line portable, I have the vast majority of the functionality I need for productivty and authoring. It's not for everyone, but it sure works well for me.

Questions: What do you think of your iPad? What would you change? Are you tempted by any of the competitive devices starting to emerge, like RIM's PlayBook or Cisco's Cius?

 Jailbreaking vs. unlocking
 Don't throw away that old iPhone 3G yet
 How Steve Jobs and Apple keep me coming back for more
 Gordon Moore's apple
 AT&T's new rate plans benefit most iPhone users

Friday funny: plagiarism and whimsy

2010-09-24T15:44:00.000-07:00

OK Go in concert. Used with permission, CC 3.0: Corentin Lamy

I don't know a lot about the band OK Go. I just know that my father-in-law showed me this video a few months ago and I got hooked. I think you will too.

This video is a perfect spoof of the concluding video way at the bottom of this post.

The strength of being broken

2010-09-21T11:35:00.000-07:00

Used by permission, CC 2.0: Felipe Alonso.

"Let my heart be broken with the things that break the heart of God."

Bob Pierce wrote those words inside the front cover of his Bible in the late 1940s. Three years later, motivated by that mindset, he went on to found World Vision, a hunger relief organization. Undoubtedly, World Vision has influenced the establishment of at least one successful copycat. (See Tyler Braun's "World Vision Vs. Compassion International" smackdown.)

How many more individuals--human beings--would starve to death today without Bob Pierce's epiphany? Bob Pierce never recovered from his brokenness. Rather, he needed it. It drove him, motivated him. Acclaimed minister Richard Halverson said of him, "Bob Pierce functioned from a broken heart" [emphasis mine].

The standard business acumen that defines capitalist progress is "See a need, fill a need." This is probably a wise statement, but can justify a wide variety of noble and disdainful creative outlets. Couple it with a healthy awareness of human despair and indignity, and it becomes a force, contradicting injustice and societal decay with tangible, effective action.

But on a smaller, less systemic, more individual scale, aren't we all better suited for caring for the needs of others when they're hurting in familiar ways? We recognize. We respond. We comfort. We triumph cooperatively.

The broken person is far more of a useful tool in the arsenal of God than the prideful person who is sure he is whole. The broken person can be sent into places and situations that would shatter the man of pride. The broken person can dole out justice and kindness until it is not merely received, but it is multiplied, recreated, until it initiates a chain reaction of self-perpetuation.

We run from brokenness. We fear brokenness. Perhaps self-preservation requires this. After all, brokenness hurts.

Sure it does, but it also empowers. Anne Jackson talks in her Permission to Speak Freely about "giving the gift of going second."

When you confess, there's somebody on the other side of that confession who could very well be keeping a secret too. So when you go first, you're opening up this amazing opportunity for trust. You're saying, "I'm broken." That trust carries so much power with it. It can give people the courage to go second.

Without that trust, they might never go at all, forever burdened unnecessarily by shame or inadequacy or self-abasement.

Saint Paul writes that we should "rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character, and character, hope" (Rom 5:3-4). He continues, "And hope does not disappoint us" (Rom 5:5).

Saint Paul was both broken and wildly effective. Maybe he knew what he was talking about.

This post is part of Bridget Chumbley's One Word at a Time blog carnival on Brokenness.

Previous carnival entries have focused on lust, love, church, peace, patience, kindness, grief, faithfulness, and gentleness.

The Carnival is open to anyone who would like to participate. It is designed to encourage dialogue, cooperation, and personal growth.

Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell (a review)

2010-09-21T10:37:00.000-07:00

Are you going to finish reading this post?

I happen to know that you've already decided. You decided during the first sentence. (You also may or may not know that I can tell from Google Analytics if you actually follow through with your decision.)

I know this because Malcolm Gladwell explained in Blink that the value of knee-jerk decisions made by experts is about the same as deeply researched and well thought out decisions made by most anyone.

But there's a catch. Turns out that "Snap judgments and rapid cognition take place behind a closed door" (51). In other words, we can make reasonably informed decisions in an instant, but we're not so good at explaining why they're good decisions.

The issue is further complicated by our poor decisions. This has everything to do with racial prejudices, marketing and shopping, choosing a mate, understanding the enemy in a battle, and deciding whether or not to shoot an intruder in the dark who may turn out to be your son stopping by to surprise you with a visit.

The good news is this: we can train ourselves to make wise decisions. We can precondition our physical and emotional surroundings to help us and others control our environments and make the automatic, background thinking work in our favor.

Gladwell is not without his critics. But at its worst, this is an idea that would be a really good one if it were true. So how do you make assumptions work in your favor? Read the book and find out.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."

Friday funny: Two auto-descriptive videos

2010-09-17T11:20:00.000-07:00

Meta data is the new thing, right?

So, why provide any content at all, if the browsers are just looking at the metadata for optimizing search?

Here are two "framework" videos that have no content whatsoever, but are nonetheless done brilliantly.

A preview trailer for every movie, ever

How to create a contemporary "megachurch" worship service.

See also: There's something funny about humor.

Question: Is there a video that's made you laugh recently? Share a link here, please. (Grab the "embed" code from the YouTube page to insert the video directly in the comments.)

Jailbreaking vs. unlocking

2010-09-15T17:06:00.000-07:00

This image is in the public domain.

There is a difference between "jailbreaking" and "unlocking" your iPhone.

The terms have been used interchangeably, even in the Press. This is incorrect. Jailbreaking and unlocking are quite different things.

The difference between jailbreaking and unlocking

Jailbreaking your phone lets you install applications that you don't get through the Apple App Store. This would include applications that Apple hasn't approved yet, or has rejected for competitive reasons, or has rejected out of agreement with carriers (e.g., an app to allow you to use your iPhone as a 3G modem for your computer).

Unlocking your iPhone allows American owners to use the phone on GSM networks other than AT&T (e.g., T-Mobile, Sprint).

The legality of jailbreaking and unlocking

Are either of these activities legal? Originally, Apple wanted you to think not. They made sure everyone was aware that both were violations of the service agreement and "might be" illegal. The US judicial system rightly concluded that a service agreement does not carry the same weight as a business contract, and that consumers who own a tool are allowed to use that tool in any legal manner they see fit to.

Apple's response was a nonchalant, "Yeah. We figured that. But it's still a violation of the service agreement."

In other words, if Apple finds out you did either activity, your warranty is voided and you won't be able to make claims on your phone for repair or replacement.

How would Apple find out? Well, they probably won't. It serves no business purpose whatsoever for them to monitor data in order to cancel service agreements. And, in theory, if you jailbreak your phone, you can "unjailbreak" it in a way that leaves no traces. Presumably, since unlocking is accomplished through a third party application on a jailbroken phone, you can un-unlock it, too.

In theory.

Given those caveats, although you may forfeit your warranty, you are breaking no laws if you jailbreak or unlock your iPhone.

Finding beauty in Alviso, California

2010-09-15T09:20:00.001-07:00

If it's true that global ocean levels are rising--and I'm not sure I'm one to disbelieve it--the edges of the San Francisco Bay don't seem to have received the memo. For a century or more they've been defying the trend.

I took the train to work for the first time this week. Part of the route takes me through Alviso. Alviso has the distinction of rising up from new land being dredged from the southernmost tip of the San Francisco Bay.

By reputation (brand?), Alviso is not exactly a den of excitement around here. Judging by the exterior, it looks as if the representative Italian Restaurant and Cocktail Lounge opened in the 1950s and never noticed that the calendar moved on to the 60s. It's perceived as a bit of a swampy shantytown that folks in less moist parts of the Bay Area are surprised still supports a population. It's thought of as a disaster waiting to happen as sea levels rise this century.

But that's not entirely the Alviso I saw. I didn't see a slum on the verge of becoming a ghost town. I saw a habitat. I saw a community of stubborn, intrepid stalwarts who are more full of pride and compassion than they are of shame and embarrassment. I saw a refuge for wildlife, scores of sandpipers safe in man-made lagoons, gulls in flocks, egrets undisturbed and able to fish without fear of being run off. It's a protected area, actually.

Sure, not all is right. Just east of the heart of Alviso is an identity crisis. The area is ambivalent, schizophrenic, unsure if it should be ocean or land, a ribbon of confusion that was once deep water, then boat jetties, now marsh, perhaps one day to be high-rise office plazas or airports. It is changing, and rapidly. Even the controlled environment of the train can't hide the rising stench of rot as the stagnant pools evaporate, as life gives way to death, which gives way to nutrient-rich ground, which gives way to life again.

The marshland doesn't hide everything. There are pools of rancid, ruddy water where there had been Bay a century ago. Or a year. Who knows? Puddles and dead spots where the puddles have just dried, leaving behind contour lines of salt and brine. And, approaching Fremont, there are great plains of arid white lifelessness, some thick and sparkling with crystal, intentional mines for the rich minerals the sea has to offer once it dries up and goes away. Old gates framed in wood and placed in the middle of berms that looked like they were designed randomly instead of bulldozed by a corporate engineer, gates screwed down tight, perhaps forever, to keep out the tide and reshape the edge of the Bay.

As the land dries up, the water in it leeches away, leaving barren, ethereal, otherworldly terrain at first. Then the salt deposits give way to reeds that sprout despite the salinity of the soil. They collect new moisture and begin replenishing the habitat. But they arrive at a price: they change things. They change everything. They move the ground and put it someplace else, somewhere lower and very soggy. As the groundwater evaporates away and the level sinks even more, ancient shacks disappear into the mud and reeds. The cynic says these are abandoned failures. I say they are the last remaining reminders of a romantic past, like the wreck of the Sir Walter Scott sinking into the Mississippi. Those reeds keep putting down their roots after the shacks crumble, and they remain, stubborn, determined, committed. Eighty years ago, the path my train takes would have been a bridge. Today, the vegetation proclaims it dry land.

Is anything a failure? Those settlers of Alviso created a community at the edge of an industry that shaped what would one day become the greatest locus of technological development in the world. Their disappearance facilitates the ongoing transformation of nations. Did they fail, or did they struggle to hold fast until reinforcements arrived?

I wonder: how much do my failures fertilize the ingenuity of those who show up in my wake?

It kinda makes me wish I was failing a little more.

Question: Where have you seen life rise up from decay?

Read more about Alviso.

On the burning of books

2010-09-14T02:06:00.000-07:00

Berlin, July, 2000.

I went to Berlin in 2000.

Our tour group was scheduled to stay in East Berlin the first night. I grew up during the Cold War, so thoughts of East Berlin conjured up mental images of Stazi and cold faces, unkindness and brutality, forty-five years of mandated, preserved, systemic guilt.

Turned out my hotel was gorgeous. First surprise. So was the surrounding area.

I took a walk down a busy street, having no idea where I was but knowing I could turn around and go back from where I came.

After less than half a mile, I found myself at a book fair. I love books. Granted, they were all in German, but it was still a wonderful emotional rush to be in the presence of all that printed word. Books are the unyielding guardians of dormant ideas, waiting for a human eye and brain to cooperate in analyzing them, actualizing them, and transforming them into something amazing.

It was weeks later, after I returned home, that it dawned on me where I had been standing.

It was the Berlin Operahaus, in what is now known as the Bebelplatz.

Seriously. There I was, surrounded by books. All kinds of books, by all kinds of people. All sorts of ideas waiting to be processed. It didn't mean that every idea was legitimate, but it did mean that we had the freedom to choose which ideas were and which ideas weren't, instead of letting someone else choose for us. It meant that we were free to accept ideas and find out later that we were wrong, that we could learn from our mistakes. (Learning from a mistake is normally far more beneficial than learning from a good decision. The eventual end of constant good decisions is a complacent smugness, and usually a sign that we're not challenging ourselves enough.)

Sixty-seven years earlier, Joseph Goebbels had stood in that same plaza and inaugurated his celebrated end to Jewish intellectualism through the destruction of knowledge. It didn't work. The echo of the world's collective outrage still hasn't quite gone silent. But recently, some dangerously misguided reactionaries apparently want to be at it again, destroying books filled with ideas they both fear and know nothing about.

Berlin, May, 1933.
This image is in the public domain.

Burning books because you disagree with them never invites popular goodwill. All it does is galvanize support around your adversaries.

A book is an invitation to dialogue. Take it. Don't burn up the chance.

Living by a Liturgical Calendar

2010-09-10T12:03:00.000-07:00

This image is in the public domain.

A while back, a friend asked me what I think of attending a church that has a prescribed calendar.

I'm pretty sure she asked because she saw that there might actually be something useful to it, which is more than I did in my early twenties. I didn't grow up with much of a regimented calendar, with prescribed daily readings and observances and such. And Paul seems to be direct about the danger of getting caught up in the hype:

when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods. But now that you know God—or rather are known by God—how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again? You are observing special days and months and seasons and years! I fear for you, that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you.
--Galatians 4:8-11 (NIV)

So what's up?

Truth is, we can't really escape the calendar. I don't think Paul was suggesting that farmers should stop caring about when to plant crops, or fishermen should ignore when the salmon are spawning. We live with cycles. We have lots of them. They repeat for good reasons. We have days, and weeks, and years. We go to bed after Letterman and get up with Matt Lauer. (Well, maybe not literally.) We see seasons. We see corresponding constellations. We have heartbeats, respiration, regular hormonal repetitions, metabolisms. We change the Brita filter on schedule in three months. We do Spring cleaning, oil changes every 5,000 miles, and Yoga on Tuesday mornings.

And we carry around smartphones that ring alarms to remind us. Why? We forget things.

I'm glad

There's the beginning of the liturgical year to let me know that we have a chance to start over, because I forget that sometimes.
That there's a remembrance of the Pharisee and the Publican a couple weeks before Lent to remind me that I need to be humble, because I forget that sometimes.
That we remember Saint Mary of Egypt (twice) to recall that bad people can change, because I forget that sometimes.
We remember the prodigal son, because sometimes I forget to forgive.
We bless the waters once a year to recall that the same power that hovered over them at Creation empowers them to continue creating what it begins in Baptism. Same water. I forget that sometimes.
We have Christmas to remind us that the Incarnation redefines the capability of humanity, because I forget that sometimes.
We have Easter to remind us that death is not the greatest force, because I forget that sometimes.
We have Good Friday to remind us that love is the greatest force, because I forget that sometimes.

We view time as the unidirectional motion of a series of instants. But God is eternal. God is unconstrained by the limitations of time. He exists outside of them. The most important message of the calendar is that we are not the lords of time. And time is not an accident. We are accountable to the Creator of Time. A liturgical calendar places us in a context (instead of arbitrarily fabricating a context for us, on our terms), a community, a set of behaviors. It exhorts us to capitulate to a meaning greater than ourselves. On certain days, we are constrained to ponder reminders, behave in particular ways, interact differently, grow in specific aspects of our Faith.

Sometimes I worry that without a calendar, I'm guessing, hoping that God meets me on my terms. Will he? I'm not so sure. I think he wants me to be in eternity. And that's on his terms. He's got some wild ideas on how time should be organized, and he calls me into an "eternal now." There's some sense to putting his meeting requests on my calendar before I say that it's too busy and full with my own agenda.

I need to go set my clock before I miss something.

Find the readings and commemorations for the day on the
Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America web site.

Don't Be a Fundamentalist Anti-Fundamentalist

2010-09-01T02:14:00.000-07:00

My younger sister started listening to "alternative" music in the 1990s.

She'll be quick to point out that she discovered it before the vast majority did, too. She likes making sure that everyone knows that.

The allure was obvious. Alternative music as a genre was pioneered by musicians who--for entirely creative reasons--recognized that capitulating to a majority-driven enterprise machine would never allow them to achieve their artistic potential. They'd be continuously compensated for achieving mediocrity. They didn't want that. Who would?

It's hard to blame them. So a post-60s anti-establishment was born, and the criticism against the establishment was palpable. By rejecting the direction of mainline producers, the quality of music became hit-or-miss. But when it hit, it was out of the park. And the best of them then became producers themselves, influencers and decorated leaders who claimed not to be leaders, the unwitting presidents of the anarchists. Which of course helped produce even more really good alternative music.

There was an unexpected problem: it worked. By the mid-90s, the "alternative" that was trying to rebel against popularity was more popular than pop. This left its adherents with a bit of an identity crisis. The rebels against the establishment had established themselves as a new establishment. There's precious little for a trained revolutionary to do when the revolution is over, except perhaps to rebel against their success. Until that works.

Do we do the same thing in our Western churches? A lot of us seem to rather enjoy caricaturing the "radical religious right" (and with good reason!). But once we've seen the self-destructive contradiction in the "our way (of humility?) is the only way" mentality, do we become a bit too manic in our anti-fundamentalist campaign?

It reminds me a bit of the "to hell with freedom of expression" sign that I saw a protester carrying after the Muhammad cartoon travesty in Belgium a few years ago.

When we reach the point where we're fighting to make sure that everyone agrees with our strong opinion that those with strong opinions should be ridiculed, might it be that we're swallowing salt water to quench our thirst? We'll die trying to eradicate fundamentalism with a fundamentalist fervor.

Maybe, just maybe, we have to make room for a little bit of fundamentalism in a non-fundamentalist world.

Otherwise, we might become fundamentalist or something.

Geez, this is confusing.

"That's alternative to alternative"
--Todd Snider, "Talkin' Seattle Grunge Rock Blues"

Audrey Assad made me cry

2010-07-19T11:14:00.000-07:00

I know I'm late to the game, that Audrey's new album already came out, that the video I'm attaching here is already three years old.

But I finally listened to an Audrey Assad song. And she made me cry.

I think it's because I almost was that guy. Or maybe that I could be that guy. Or I am that guy. Or my greatest fear is to become that guy. Or I can only hope to be that good someday if I make it that far. Or something.

Yeah, I guess it's kinda complicated.

But I think this is one of those stories that belongs to all of us at one point or another.

Listen to Audrey Assad's "Honest" and watch the video here.

So yeah, thanks Audrey. I'm kinda scared to listen to more, because I'm worried you're going to do it again.

Thanks, @skofti!

You can buy Audrey's albums on iTunes. No, she isn't paying me to advertise for her. I doubt she knows me from Adam. Not that I know Adam, really...

Don't throw away that old iPhone 3G yet

2010-07-01T03:15:00.000-07:00

Some parts of image from AreaCellPhone.com.

iPhone 3G and 3GS owners who aren't mesmerized by the new iPhone 4 still have some steam left in their existing hardware. iOS4 breathes a little more life into them.

iOS4 is the latest operating system designed for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch lines. It introduces a few refreshing features that will keep me loyal to my iPhone 3G for several months yet.

A week after installing, I am appreciating these in particular.

Updated interface. My iPhone may be two years old, but it's trying to pretend that it has a Retina display with these smooth transitions and snazzy new icons.

Integrated inbox. You no longer have to toggle back and forth between all your inboxes, trying to guess which one had just received a new message. Now it's easy. Everything comes into one screen.

Email grouping by thread. This feature may have already been implemented, but I didn't notice it until updating to iOS4. It was switched off by default. As soon as I turned it on, I could quickly review the entire thread of conversations in my integrated inbox. I'll be leaving that one on.

Folders. Until last week, I had five screens of unsorted free apps to sift through just to find what I wanted. Now they're organized into a single screen, grouped by action verbs.

Improved auto-correct. Tired of your iPhone automatically changing Whitehouse to whorehouse, especially when you just sent a text message to your mom telling her how excited you are to be there? Maybe it won't do that anymore.

Integrated spellchecker. This might be my favorite feature. The auto-correct (mentioned above) can only guess based on the number of letters you typed. The spellchecker actually lets you click to select from a number of likely possibilities. It takes missed keystrokes into consideration.

New iPod interface. Music sorting and playing is a little easier with new track list styles and controls placement.

And a few extras... Apple finally added a cent sign to the keyboard! That makes ¢s! You can access it behind the dollar sign by holding it down. They also now support holding down the international keyboard button to select from a list, instead of cycling through. (Again, they may have implemented that earlier, but I didn't notice until iOS4.)

iPhone 3G, I'm not finished with you yet.

Question:

Are you keeping your old iPhone for a while longer? If so, why?

Gordon Moore's apple

2010-06-25T10:02:00.000-07:00

The Apple Tree, by Klimt
Used with permission, CC: www.awesome-art.biz

Gordon Moore is in the news again today, this time for his philanthropy.

You know Gordon Moore. He's the founder of Intel Corp. And he's also the famous 1965 oracle of the self-fulfilling prophecy that computing capability will "double every two years until at least 1975."

That famous prediction came to be known as "Moore's Law." Debate continues as to whether he was a visionary who foresaw the future, or merely a legendary leader whose authority is so compelling that scientists feel obligated not to prove him wrong.

In any case, he's important.

I have a personal connection with Gordon Moore. Granted, he doesn't know it, but today's as good a day as any for me to celebrate it.

On October 11, 2006 (a short time after Apple announced it was switching to Intel processors), my younger sister arrived at my house for dinner. With her, she had a bag of fresh apples.

Me eating a new Intel core. Well, sorta.
October 11, 2006.

I bit into one. It was the crispest, juiciest, most flavorful apple I'd ever tasted, clearly the work of a master grower. I thought all the best apples came from Washington, China, and Iran.

I asked her where it was from, and she told me that a friend of hers works for a non-profit environmental preservation organization. Invited for an afternoon to a major benefactor's home, her group was welcomed to pick some apples to take back with them.

My sister added that his name was "Something-or-other Moore."

"GORDON Moore?" I asked.

"Yeah, that was it."

I predict that every two years I will be twice as amazed as I was in 2006 that I ate fresh apples from Gordon Moore's yard.

If everything you try succeeds,
then you are not trying hard enough.
Gordon Moore

Read: Top 10 Billionaires Saving the Planet

Question: What indirect brushes with fame have you had?

DragonDictate frees your hands to drive while you write

2010-06-23T13:39:00.000-07:00

DragonDictate is my new best friend. All I do is talk, and it types for me. As a blogger, I'm always looking for new ways to blog effectively. I'm using this application in hands free mode, and making a post as I drive.

I'm not sure how we ever blogged without it. What could be easier? Sure I may sound like an idiot talking stilted to my iPhone. But I'm alone, and it gets the point across, and you get to read the post.

DragonDictate is a free application available from Apple's app store. You can download it and be up and running in a few seconds.

I'm using my Apple earbuds. That seems to give me the best quality, easily eliminating the background noise of driving, and effectively identifying my words.

With only a few small edits this entire post was constructed in DragonDictate.

You'll need a network connection while using DragonDictate. It sends the recorded file out for analysis, freeing up your phone's processor for other tasks. It has the result back typically in a few seconds. I found it occasionally timed out in weak network areas, unfortunately losing whatever I'd just spoken. I'm otherwise astounded by how accurate it is (most of the time).

When you try it out, keep in mind that you can say things like:

comma

period

new paragraph

exclamation point

question mark

Questions: Are you already using Dragon Dictate on your mobile device? What do you think of it? How can Dragon Dictate help you?

Read another review from phonedog.com here.

It is not necessary to sin

2010-06-21T13:04:00.000-07:00

Practically perfect in every way
Image used with permission, CC frangipani photograph

I have another guestpost out today. It's here on Jason Stasyszen's blog.

It follows some others that I've written.

Today's is about sin. If you're not of a theist or spiritual sort of ilk, feel free to call that "making mistakes." The idea still applies.

The question on the table is simple: is it inherently necessary that we sin? The short answer is no. There may have been some point at which the identity of every human was "sinner" by requirement, but this time, if it ever existed, has passed. We are empowered not to sin. The identity may still be there. The requirement is not.

Here's the gist:

We make mistakes because we make the wrong decisions before we act.

We wouldn't have made the mistakes if we'd made the right decision.

We're allowed to make right decisions.

We have an example of a human being who always made the right decisions (as well as many others who learned to, to varying degrees). We can follow these examples and take them as role models.

We don't have to make wrong decisions.

In short, it's our responsibility to make right decisions, and to accept the consequence for wrong ones. It's a convenient (and wrong) cop-out to blame our failures on the weaknesses of humanity. It's an individual issue, not a corporate issue.

The good news: Humans can improve. Whether this is with outside intervention or of our own initiative is an issue for moral and social philosophies to debate.

Happy World Humanist Day.

Read Becoming Who You Are
on Jason Stasyszen's blog.

Human-computer interfaces ready for next level

2010-06-08T11:43:00.000-07:00

Used with permission, CC Hongchang Lin

I repackage knowledge to adjust the way people interact with their environment and perform their tasks. That's what Instructional Designers do. It's my job to change the way you do your work. I'm supposed to help you improve.

So, who helps me?

Inventors like John Underkoffler dream how we should be gathering and organizing knowledge in the first place. Easily. Seamlessly. Immediately.

This video represents the next fundamental leap in how people like me will be able to perform our craft. And that, obviously, means that the next small baby step about three minutes after that is to show all of the rest of you how to do it, too.

In five years, this is how we will browse the web, sort thru email (tossing junk mail right into the recycle bin just like we did twenty years ago!), program our DVRs, choose books and music to put on our iPad, pass a document to a colleague, Google what to use in place of the buttermilk when the sauce is already cooking, make reservations for Friday's date (and perhaps even start the date if we're running late at the office), check on the status of our car repair with the mechanic, and schedule the lights, sprinklers, appliances, and heating/air-conditioning that we forgot to turn off before we left for northern Kamchatka a couple hours ago.

Any of you who've ever used Cover Flow in Apple's iTunes, Safari, or Finder probably saw this coming. The mouse could have died with the 20th century. I want this interface today. I want it for PowerPoint, Google Calendar, and iPhoto. I would use it now. Generously.

Question:

What would you use it for?

How to see if you can get your iPhone upgraded

2010-06-07T12:13:00.000-07:00

So you broke out in a sweat a few minutes ago when Steve Jobs announced the features of the iPhone 4, right?

Sure you did. If you didn't, you weren't paying attention and you need to go back and think about it again. Go do it. Hurry back.

So NOW that you broke out in a sweat, you want to know the status of your AT&T contract to see if you can upgrade yet, right?

Yeah. Oh yeah, you do.

Turns out it's real easy.

Go to your phone app and dial *639#.

You'll immediately get a pleasant message on your screen.

And it doesn't take too long for them to respond.

(Actually, if you pay close attention, notice that the text message arrived before they told me they were sending me a text message. Yeah, lame, but polite.)

Not sure what the $18 upgrade fee covers, but there I am. I'll do that for $18!

AT&T's new rate plans offer most iPhone users a consumer benefit

2010-06-02T20:02:00.000-07:00

Used with permission. CC DerkT.

AT&T announced new data plans today. The new plans do not include their former unlimited data plan.

Fists began flying as irate users claimed AT&T was trying to squeeze more dollars out of consumers for overages.

I consider myself a higher-than-average user of data. I use a few social media networks, watch the occasional YouTube video, do plenty of web surfing and maps/navigation, and listen to a bit of online radio over 3G. Apparently, AT&T considers me a higher-than-average user, too. Nonetheless, the company claimed they were providing new, discounted plans that would benefit 98% of their users. They proposed that the remaining 2% of the users (likely jailbroken tetherers) are stressing their maxed-out network, saturating it, and ruining the experience for the rest of us.

After briefly reviewing the details, I am forced to concede. AT&T appears to be doing us a favor. Take a look at our usage trends for the past six months:

My wife and I currently pay $30 each, per month, for unlimited data. But the most either of us has ever used in a month is around 0.5GB. We're well within the 98% of users. AT&T's new plan would provide up to 2GB per month, per line, for $25.

If I'm reading this correctly, that means we can switch from the unlimited plan to the 2GB/mo. plan, save $120 a year on the family budget, and still watch our data usage increase by almost 4x before we have to rethink things.

There's also an even more-discounted, "ala carte," 200MB/mo. plan for $15. They say this will cover 65% of users. I can believe that. You'll pay an additional $15 for each 200MB you go over that, but for 65% of users, they're only getting dinged by AT&T if they don't take advantage of the deal.

If you are a current AT&T unlimited data user, and you disagree with this post, you are still "grandfathered" in to your unlimited data plan if you so choose. AT&T currently has no roadmap to eliminate this plan for existing unlimited users.

And that's good news.

Want to see your data usage for the past six months?

Go to Usage & Recent Activity.

Look for a link that says View Past Data Usage and click on it.

More news on the same thing:

Cautious: AT&T Drops Unlimited Data Plan, Impacts iPhone Owners, from Tom Kaneshige at CIO.com

Indifferent to Negative: AT&T phases out unlimited data plans, from Ben Patterson at Yahoo! News

Positive...ish: New AT&T data plans milk data gluttons, lower costs for most, from Ars Technica

Questions:

Are you an iPhone user who will benefit from the new plans?

Are you upset by the announcement?

How Steve Jobs and Apple keep me coming back for more

2010-05-16T22:01:00.000-07:00

Used with permission. CC 2.0: the tartanpodcast.

Wanna know why I keep drinking the Apple Kool-Aid? Here's why.

My MacBook Pro died on Friday. One moment it was working fine. The next it presented me with a black, unpowered screen, and that was that. No amount of CPR, religious ceremony, or offers of inappropriate favors would wake it back up.

That happens. So I made an appointment for the next morning with my local Genius Bar at the Stoneridge Mall in Pleasanton, CA.

When I walked in, a cordial, efficient, knowledgeable, friendly, sorta granola-looking fellow named Ben called my name, punctual to the second. Ben let me know that their database system was down, so he couldn't look up any customer information or open a repair ticket, but he'd help me anyway. I found that confidence reassuring.

I had my kids in tow, and sat them down at an available machine right by the Genius Bar, where they could play Lego Batman to their hearts' content. The Apple Store is a Feng Shui paradise of form, function, and elegant simplicity, much like the products they build. Generous lighting, products on display, maximum staff, and minimal distraction. Even the bags are hidden out of view. (I was once quite surprised by the magic trick when one appeared for my purchase, materializing from under a table. Witchcraft, I tell you!)

Ben ran a quick test (amazing, given that I thought my system was D.O.A.) and confirmed the worst: it wasn't a known NVIDIA problem (which would be covered under a recall even if my system was out of its service contract). It was something more sinister. Alas, said I, I'm not sure I'm still covered under AppleCare.

No matter, he reassured. They'd get back to me on Monday with an assessment of the issue and a confirmation of whether or not I would have to bear the cost of the repair.

This evening, I found my paperwork. Turns out that AppleCare policies are sold in 3-year increments. I'm covered until next summer! I don't even need to wait for the phone call tomorrow.

Whether I'm right or wrong, you know what I think I'd get if this were a PC? I think I'd get a runaround. I think I'd be treated like one of several million problems that they hope will go away. I don't want to be treated like that!

Here's what you need to do to make a loyal customer out of Jeff Holton:

Offer superior quality product.

I don't shop for the lowest cost. And I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one. Line up three products for me and the first thing I'll do is focus my attention on the middle-priced one. I figure the lowest-priced one has substandard workmanship and the highest-priced one is trying to pull a fast one on me.

But I trust Apple. They're all confident. Not cocky. Confident. They build a product that works. They seem as surprised as everyone else at how great it is.

Present sincere customer support.

Be honest. Ben didn't say, "I'll get back to you today and it'll be done tomorrow." He said the system was down and he'd help me. I was given realistic expectations.

He also acted like he wanted to get my problem solved, like it was his problem too. He took it personally.

Exist for the convenience of the customer.

Have you ever been helped by someone who was so full of themselves that you felt like a third wheel when there were only the two of you in the room? I don't ask for help so I can be impressed by someone. I ask for help because I need help.

If your primary motivating factor can be shifted away from trying to impress everyone with your brilliance to trying to meet a need, then you've got a successful business plan in your pocket.

Putting workstations for the children right by the counter when the parents are irate and the kids are bored isn't primarily about generating sales, although it may certainly have that added effect. It's about maintaining the sanity of customers who are already on edge, because they wouldn't be standing there unless they'd lost data or were dissatisfied with their purchase.

Know your stuff.

Yes, confidence can be faked (which would violate the second point), but without it, you're not going to give any warm and happy feelings to your customer. If you can't reassure them with good news, at least be able to let them know you have a good plan!

These genius folks know what to look for, how to get it, and how make sure they look like they know what they're doing.

Do they sweat? Not that I noticed.

You think I'll buy another Apple product one of these days? Oh, heck yeah. You would too if you'd received the same consistently excellent customer support that I have.

Read a related post on good branding
How Dyson sucked me in.

See also
Gordon Moore's Apple.

How social media changed the world

2010-05-15T18:24:00.000-07:00

Used with permission. CC: David Reece.

Once upon a time, word of mouth was the only way to get a message out.

Then advertisers and marketers and psychologists and lawyers and weasels and sharks and snake oil medicine show charlatan con-artist peddlers figured out how to use print and broadcast media to manipulate us en-masse.

We fell for it.

Recently, we took it back.

Here you go:

By the way, they're going to start doing it again. Are you ready?

Be totally sure that you're not sure if you're sure

2010-05-13T00:23:00.000-07:00

Used with permission. CC: JMaz Photo.

Certainty: is it a good thing?

There's a wide gulf between an arrogance that alienates us from others and a pathetic lack of self-confidence.

Somewhere in the middle lies a balance point in which we can be pretty confident about our opinions on popular subjects while still being open-minded enough to admit that we might have more to learn.

That's what I'm getting at in a guest post I wrote for my friend Brian Russell today.

Brian's on vacation, so he asked me and a few others to share some words. You can read that post on his blog.

See "When certainty reaches its limit" here.

He's even got a post on making connections, which is what my blog is all about, of course. And he's got lots of other fantastic posts about all sorts of stuff, plus a few zany and insightful web comics. You can also follow him on Twitter.

Guestposting

Guestposting is a fantastic way to interact with a variety of people, to share ideas and start conversations. It's a great opportunity to get outside your own ideas and broaden your understandings.

This follows two other guest posts I've written:

Another Allegory, a short and rather unusual "fourth wall" story that Kathy Richards published for me.

Everything I need to know about life I learned watching LOST, which Tammy Hodge was kind enough to share in March, 2010.

Questions:

Have you been a guest on someone's blog? (Share a link in the comments so we can visit it!)

Who would you want to guestpost on your blog?

Would you like to guestpost here sometime?

Share your answers or comments below.

How babies learn: implications for how we tell our story

2010-05-11T16:53:00.000-07:00

Used with permission. CC: EraPhernalia

A 2004 study traced the verbal development in 27- and 39-month old boys and girls as a measure of how well they could recall a past event. The researchers found that if the children didn't know the words to describe the event when it happened, they couldn't describe it later after learning the appropriate words [source: Simcock and Hayne].

I found the above quote in an article.

The implications for our work are obvious. Writing, educating, and teaching are instruments of change. If someone can't remember what you said, it can't change them permanently. And even as adults, if the learner can't understand the message, he can't possibly remember the message.

So, do these things:

Talk light. Use a common, small vocabulary.

Talk simple. The old adage about not writing above a 6th grade level may be on to something. Don't use the word adage.

Teach words first. Start with a glossary or primer for anything new or unusual.

Question: What do you do to make sure you can reach your audience?

5 great YouTube distractions

2010-05-03T11:36:00.000-07:00

© Maurice Pullin.
Licensed for reuse under Creative Commons License

I love watching stuff on YouTube. You probably do, too. If you do,
you've noticed that there's a lot of stuff. You can waste years of
your life wandering there.

Let me make your life easy. Here are my five favorite things I've ever
seen on YouTube.

40 inspirational speeches in 2 minutes

Great films about great leaders feature great speeches, powerful and
inspiring words, words that arouse in the main characters and the
viewers alike a primal urge to triumph over our adversaries and all
the evils they represent.

Patton. William Wallace. Mr. Smith (in Washington, not in the Matrix).
And Fozzie Bear. They're all in here, along with a bunch of others.

And in only two minutes, which makes this the only Cliffs Notes you'll
ever need when you're looking for some positive reinforcement.

G4TV's flagship Star Trek commercial

Trust me. Anything with Eddie Murphy's brother as Spock is worth
watching. Also features some Daddy Yankee prior to his endorsement of John McCain.

Steam Trek

Sometimes, a filmmaker's genius makes me very sad that the US
Constitution forbids titles of nobility. This person derserves
American knighthood. In an awkward case of Harold Lloyd meets Gene
Roddenberry, Sisterson and Levy prove that you can be an unknown in a red shirt
even in black and white.

[Ed.: After writing this, I find to my mild amusement that the two writer/directors ARE British. Forget what I said about knighthood. "We recouped the production costs (about £100) by selling VHS copies of the film."]

Carl Sagan, "A Glorious Dawn," ft. Stephen Hawking

Sagan's curiously hybridized sort of "agnostic pseudo-spirituality"
has enthralled "billions and billions" of adherents. Ok, perhaps I
exaggerate. But the use of footage from "Cosmos" in this talented piece
of electronica is brilliant. Features a cameo by Stephen Hawking.
Really. Honest.

LOST, seasons 1-5 in ~8:15

I love the TV show LOST. And I very rarely say that I *love* a TV
show. (It hasn't happened since "Northern Exposure.")

When I encourage a non-enthusiast to give the show a try, they often
justifiably counter with "It's too complicated. I'd need to go back
and watch it from the beginning."

Well, no. Not really. Here's the whole first five seasons in just over
8 minutes.

Incidentally, the "Reduced Shakespeare Company" tried to do this too,
live in London. It was quite good, really, especially for the opening commentary with Lindelof and Cuse. Find that here.

Question: What are your favorite YouTube distractions?

11 reasons to be active in social media

2010-04-29T09:22:00.000-07:00

Geek and Poke, August 22, 2007.
Used with permission. CC 2.0 DE.

Why should you dive in to social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, SlideShare, IntenseDebate, and Posterous? Is it worth the time and effort to understand the tools and what each is for?

Discussions about the benefits and challenges of social media services continue. Productivity tool? Time suck? Network developer? Spam factory? One thing is rarely argued: longevity. We dont hear many claiming it's a passing fad anymore. The services are here to stay.

The discussion is a hot one because the Web is young. Fifteen years ago it was barely emerging from dark server rooms where geeks still wore pocket protectors. It's no wonder that the rapidly shifting landscape is still met with suspicion and hesitancy.

But compare this to the emergence of the telephone. How did consumers receive it when it was first invented? Does the telephone aid or hinder productivity?

Yes, it does aid or hinder productivity. It depends on who's using it, and how.

I happen to be one of those people who doesn't like the telephone. I think it's inefficient, annoying, and archaic, both technologically and socially. But there are plenty to disagree with me. And they'll add that fax machines and DSL still run over the hundred-year old copper wire system the telephone (and its ugly cousin, the telegraph) created. They have a point.

(I've even seen a demo of DSL running over rusty Soviet barbed wire. I'm not kidding. That copper infrastructure still has some life left in it.)

So what's the buzz in social media? It's a potpourri of spam congestion, egocentric inanity, triviality, and substance. Just like what we hear on the telephone!

You ever get asked in an interview if you know how to use a telephone? Didn't think so. People just assume that one. But employers now are divided in three camps on social media tools: they're indifferent to them, they really want you to use them, or they really want you NOT to use them.

This post doesn't necessarily apply to anyone working for a company in the latter group. If that's you, I don't recommend that you circumvent your employer's Internet controls. Following HR rules is a good method for maintaining job security.

But if you're in one of the first two categories, here are some reasons why you SHOULD be a pathfinder, a trendsetter, and a resource to your company or group.

Social networking increases your knowledge and awareness. You find out what's going on, faster than news services. You can respond faster to emerging trends and activity.

Social networking increases collaboration. What began thirty years ago with an eletist amateur intelligensia dialing a few 1200 baud modems into homebrew Bulletin Board Systems is now a transparent, open forum full of global interactivity and altruistic intentions.

Social networking generates new business and personal relationships. Our value grows when people need us. It also grows when people need us to know who we need.

Social networking shares openly and freely.

Social networking gets your message out to your existing friends, family, and business network fast. Your call for help or your offer of help, your good news or your bad, your influence and your openness to influence are all public faster than messages used to travel on airwaves.

Social networking (done right) promotes your reputation and gives you a chance to promote the reputation of others. You scratch a lot of backs. And grateful people return favors.

Social networking gets you noticed. Fast.

Social networking blurs lines between opportunism and leadership. What's the difference between "selling" and "talking to your friends about what you do" anymore? Social networking gets your friends aware of your career, and your customers and managers interested in your personality.

Social networking openly shares new ideas. Because of the conversation it inherently generates, it openly identifies bad ones, too.

Social networking increases your value to your current and subsequent employers. (That's good for your instant gratification based ego, too.)

Social networking reveals fascinating connections between seemingly unrelated ideas, people, and movements.

The final reason is purely pragmatic. Social networking is being used by others to create contacts, to share knowledge, to build relationships with human beings. Anyone who is coasting through progress and avoiding new tools and technologies while their competitors grow AND use these tools to their benefit is about to face a rude awakening.

Free tools are available, and capitalizing on "free" is always wise.

Questions:

Why do you use social media? How has it benefitted you?

Which services have you found most useful? Which ones do you think should disappear?

Or, why are you holding back from engaging in social media? What are your concerns?

There's something funny about humor

2010-04-23T08:32:00.000-07:00

Oliver Widder. Used with permission, CC 2.0 Germany.

I take humor very seriously.

That's not to say I don't use it. I use it all over the place. Too much, maybe. But I try to use it strategically. It's a tool. It's for eradicating stress, nullifying hostility, and breaking logjam. It's for revealing possibilities and inspiring creativity.

It's good for a laugh.

Granted, there are appropriate times to be careful not to use humor. Nobody likes a joker at a funeral. The presence of a charismatic leader who's more serious than you is probably a good indicator that it's time to keep the Tom Swifties in the bag. And humor is hell on translating technical documents.

That being said, if I err (even on technical documents), I err on the side David Pogue recommended. We need more humor. Life is uninteresting and sterile enough. Laugh a little, dammit!

C'mon, seriously. I'm not joking.

Questions

How have you used humor in your office?

Can you share a time it helped? Or one that it didn't?

See David Pogue's "A Product Manual Actually Worth Reading".

Note comments on "Humor Deficiency Syndrome" near the end. They're funny.

Lisa Telford: A Eulogy

2010-04-20T10:14:00.000-07:00

Lisa Telford, 1973-2010

Some lives are supposed to last forever. Lisa Telford's is one of those.

I actually don't have many memories of Lisa Telford. We went to high school together. She graduated two years behind me. She was on the drill team. I was in the marching band. If either of us had been asked to describe the other, I suspect we would have both given a fairly nondescript response, "He/she's...nice."

So I've known Lisa Telford for 22 years. But for 19 of those years, we had no contact whatsoever. The loss is entirely mine.

Lisa and I reconnected just a few weeks over a year ago. It wouldnt have happened without the modern development of social media tools. I was using Facebook to organize a reunion barbecue that only a handful of folks ultimately showed up for. Lisa was one of them. She heard about the shindig from a friend of a friend, and I was more than pleased that she wanted to be there.

She's a touchy-feely person, working on her second master's degree, in psychology. In her presence, you could get the impression that she was reading your soul, but there was no discomfort of invasion or threat that she was stealing private secrets. She's one of those people who rests her hand on your arm while you're talking to her, violating expectations of personal space and making you slightly uncomfortable for just a second. Until you look away from her hand and into her eyes. What I saw there is love. Not the kind of love that would threaten my spouse, but a pure, platonic love and a sincere interest in any old lame, mundane thing that I might have bothered to say. The unexpected hand on the arm instantly lost its awkwardness. And there was a transparency there: she might be reading the dark secrets of your soul, but not without allowing herself to be equally vulnerable, in the name of fairness.

I only chatted with Lisa one more time in the past year, again thanks to the connections that Facebook facilitates. It was a brief chat a few months ago while she was stuck at home, so sick she said she couldn't even crawl out the door to go to the supermarket for saltines she wouldn't have been able to keep down anyway. Still, she had an optimism and a humor that had us squeezing hours worth of laughter into minutes worth of chat. She's like that.

I really have no idea what Lisa's views on religion were. We never reached the point where it was time to discuss them. Religion is such a personal and deeply entrenched subject, too often saved for a later time when feelings won't be wounded by disagreement. I imagine that I would have found with Lisa the same thing I've found with everyone else I've ever met. We would have some ideas in common, and some ideas in disconnect.

But even if I can't tell you about Lisa's religion, I'm pretty sure I can say that I saw her spirit. And that doesn't happen very often. She's special. She achieved that universal and too-often unreached goal to which even those with little or no religious sentiment aspire to attain: Lisa Telford was a good person, one of the few.

In general, a eulogy isn't the right place to promote one's particular religious views. I'm not going to violate that. It would be wrong to co-opt my friend's death as an opportunity to promote the particular terminology I use to describe things beyond our comprehension. I just want to explain how constructs from my own faith tradition are helping me cope with Lisa's untimely departure.

In my group, the unique phrase we use plentifully in memorial services is "memory eternal." It's a reference to the plea of one of the criminals executed next to Jesus, who asks Jesus to "remember me when you come into your kingdom." To be a thought in the mind of the God who creates out of nothing is to at least have an inkling of a chance at something everlasting. If the standing-room-only crowd at Lisa's memorial service Saturday is any indication, Lisa's eternity is already being demonstrated by a legacy of lives that she's touched. Apparently, my arm wasn't the only one. We remember Lisa. How could we forget?

Lisa Telford would have been 37 yesterday. Unfortunately, she never got the chance. Lisa will remain 36 for eternity. As usual, Lisa has the last laugh. Or infectious giggle, in her case.

But that's okay. She deserves it. Memory eternal, sweet Lisa. Godspeed to your spirit.

Tiger Woods and good SEO

2010-04-14T16:17:00.000-07:00

Used with permission (Keith Allison), CC

Tiger Woods is the best thing to ever happen to SEO. No, really, it's true.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process by which you and marketers and broadcasters choose words that are going to get the most attention from readers, viewers, and listeners. Generally, this is measured in terms of number of web hits, or visits to your page or article, or clicks on your ad. Secondarily, it is measured by how close to the top you are when someone searches for a phrase. Google "fast food." Quick, what restaurant are you going to see first? Sure enough, it's McDonald's. But Google Burger and Burger King gets top billing, with In-N-Out and Red Robin listed long before McDonald's ever even has a chance.

What does that mean? It means if you work for McDonald's PR and you want to compete with Burger King, you start using the word BURGER. A LOT!! Everywhere. All over the place, until people find YOU when they Google on burger. And it means that you use the phrase fast food. A LOT. So that people continue associating it with you, because they're already finding you that way. It's a popularity contest of words, and you wanna win. (So bad you can taste it!)

Now here's the beef. Tiger Woods didn't win the Masters last week. Some guy (not Tiger Woods) named Mickelson did, someone who didn't have a major news event in recent memory (like Tiger Woods did) of a car accident involving his upset wife and multiple infidelities (like Tiger Woods had), who probably didn't go to some sexual addiction clinic (like Tiger Woods did), and whose wife and mother are both undergoing treatment for... Well, that's not important at the moment. The point is that if you're not a golf fan, all you know is that it wasn't Tiger Woods. It was some not-Tiger-Woods guy.

What does this have to do with SEO?

Everything. Tiger Woods is popular because everyone's Googling his name, and everyone's Googling Tiger Woods' name because he's popular. You want to get your stuff noticed? You pepper it generously with terminology that will (Tiger Woods!) get searched on.

Here's a comparison of the terms Tiger Woods, Barack Obama, and Iraq in search engines for the 30 days preceding this post. Notice what people care about?

The more times you Tiger Woods mention it, the more attention your stuff will get.

Yes, there Tiger Woods probably is a law of diminishing returns. But I have high expectations that this post will go viral.

I'll let you know, Tiger. We're not out of the Woods yet.

Like this post? Check out

Seven reasons why you should be blogging

Leadership lessons learned from my father-in-law

What's the big deal about Web 2.0?

Gentle breeze, rushing wind, times of refreshing

2010-04-05T23:32:00.000-07:00

Image by Eric Hart, used with permission (CC 3.0)

Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord...
--Acts 3:19

It's far too common that we fear change, and even moreso that we refuse to admit--or, even, to notice--our faults.

Some who face that verse in Acts will puzzle over it for a moment. Refreshing? Repentance is an instant of self-defeat. Cathartic, perhaps, but it's self-defeat. It's raw and psychologically injurious.

But there's a difference between repentance and confession. Confession is saying, "I did the wrong thing." That doesn't require a change of action. It just makes me look like an idiot if I don't change. Repentance is saying, "I actively refuse to participate in my past tendencies." It takes effort, self-control, restraint, intention, replacement. Something like that.

But this verse says that the result is refreshment, the state of being refreshed. There is joy in this, in a new outlook, a reframed reason for living, a definitive focus.

It makes me think of the image of the three "youths" (?) in Nebuchadnezzar's furnace. After Azariah's prayer of repentance, God "made the inside of the furnace as though a dew-laden breeze were blowing through it" (Daniel 3).

Keith Green, addressing the Holy Spirit as "Ruach," sang, "Rushing wind blow through this temple." I've a hunch that this rushing wind arrived more like the still, small voice that convicted Elijah.

Gentle. Powerful. Transformative. Devastating to evil. Comforting.

I like that brand of Gentle. It's not weak, but it is nice.

This post is part of Bridget Chumbley's Blog Carnival on Gentleness.

Previous carnival entries have focused on lust, love, church, peace, patience, kindness, grief, and faithfulness.

The Carnival is open to anyone who would like to participate. It is designed to encourage dialogue, cooperation, and personal growth.

2010 Q1 review

2010-04-01T15:09:00.000-07:00

Image by MoBikeFed, used with permission under Creative Commons license

Most popular in January

A spiritual look at lust

Peace and love

Do we know ourselves?

Your brand needs to be simple: Dyson

The KIT LIST pay-it-forward power wave

Most popular in February

Why should you blog?

A little kindness goes a long way

Six things to do while you’re unemployed

Thin Places is a phat book

A day late and a dollar short: Patience

Most popular in March

Why should you blog?

Six things to do while you’re unemployed

Good grief

A moratorium on moratoria: Share the story!

Your brand needs to be simple: Dyson

Most popular Q1 overall

Why should you blog?

Six things to do while you’re unemployed

A little kindness goes a long way

A spiritual look at lust

Thin Places is a phat book

Most popular (life of blog)

Why should you blog?

Six things to do while you’re unemployed

A little kindness goes a long way

Love

What is Church about?

My personal favorites

Lazy wind: A memoir

Leadership lessons

Love

How to make friends and be influenced

The Internet is not your delivery boy

Guest posts in Q1

Everything I needed to know about life I learned watching LOST

Another Allegory

…and a bit of late traffic on my news blog, pertaining to the vandalism attack on an Orthodox cathedral.

A moratorium on moratoria: Share the story!

2010-03-31T13:38:00.000-07:00

Image used with permission (CreativeCommons)

I'm a bit perplexed by the number of Christians (a group which includes me) who choose this Holy Week each year to unplug from their online connections so they can "focus on what really matters."

Is this our message? I'm pretty sure this might be received by others as a subtle "you don't matter." Doesn't this contradict our mission? I thought we were supposed to be at constant readiness to present the story.

Here we have a perfect opportunity, at this most important time of the year, to demonstrate the power of the Incarnation in our own tangibility, to connect with others in an intentional participation in humanity, and we consciously reject the chance. Given the choice, maybe we should only come online during Holy Week, to "focus on what really matters."

Social media has been dropped in our laps as one of the great revolutions in communication. Just as the printing press brought the vernacular scriptures to the people for their understanding and the deepening of their faith, and just as an Empire-wide use of Greek facilitated the easy propagation of the truths of the message that has so profoundly called us to action, perhaps we should get on board with this new revolution and take this opportunity God gives us to communicate once more with a world hungry to hear that there are things stronger than death and destruction.

Our hesitancy might marginalize us and make it appear that we are more interested in anti-social media. Let's not do that.

See
Oakland Cathedral attack officially ruled hate crime
with special attention to the analysis near the end of how the community can respond.

Death and taxes and faithfulness

2010-03-26T14:23:00.000-07:00

Used with permission: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0

Benjamin Franklin etched into Western thought this pessimism: we can be sure of nothing save death and taxes.

He has a point. Even Old Faithful isn't so reliable anymore, but we all know we're going to die. On the other hand, pretty soon after you die, you don't have to pay taxes anymore.

But then, back to the first hand, you don't have to die anymore either.

This is faithfulness in a nutshell: a character of integrity that makes expectation a reliable indicator. It's not necessarily good. If I'm a career criminal (which I'm not, by the way), you can reliably expect that I'm going to get away with something immoral at some point soon. It's what I do. It's who I am. It's my character.

It's the character of life to have death and taxes.

But let's ponder a shorter definition of faithfulness. Trust. We can trust that life will dish us death. Taxes? I think those got added on somewhere along the line. We can weasel our way out of some of those, at least.

But Death...? Death is faithful. It's reliable. We can expect it.

It's part of a promise from long ago, a promise whose fulfillment is made very clear in an event we commemorate tomorrow morning. Some theologians even argue that it was an act of mercy from a God who was aware that the creativity and consequence of human evil would only increase if we were allowed to live forever. Death was a blessing, and God promised to the people that he would undo the impossible situation their selfish greed had created.

But that's not the end of the story. God was faithful to the rest of his promise. He decided to give this death thing a try himself. This created a bit of a problem: either God needed to ungodify himself and cease to exist, or death needed to be redefined.

Hint: take door number two. End of problem. Death reframed as celebration, an act of power, an episode in everyone's personal narrative of eternity.

Here's the problem with my initial premise: Franklin was wrong. Taxes are political, a function of our geography and political boundaries. And death is transient, a power that only lasts so long. To those who argue that religion is a fairytale developed by sad simpletons who wish there was some hope beyond the grave, I can only encourage them to ponder that our faith is a response, not a cause. Reality has already been written. We're not trying to fix it. It's faithful.

This post is part of Bridget Chumbley's Blog Carnival on Faithfulness.

Previous carnival entries have focused on lust, love, church, peace, patience, kindness, and grief.

The Carnival is open to anyone who would like to participate. It is designed to encourage dialogue, cooperation, and personal growth.

Good grief

2010-03-12T17:26:00.000-08:00

Used with permission under the Creative Commons License

Charlie Brown is famous for his frustrated "Good grief!"

He repeated it often enough that others have discussed if there is such a thing. Is there? Why would grief be good? Shouldn't we avoid it? Isn't the experience of grief a sign of our weakness?

No, not exactly. Perhaps we could cope with challenges more effectively if we accept a new old idea: Grief is good if it leads to positive change.

Grief does something similar to pain. It calls our consciousness to accept what the subconscious clues are trying to tell us: Something is wrong and should be addressed.

Pain is caused by all sorts of things, but grief is almost always a function of unresolved expectations in human relationships. (This is true even for the grief of loss. Something was left unfinished.)

How much suffering could be averted if we identified, articulated, and addressed misbehaviors early? How many arguments and fights and wars could be avoided if we said "I'm sorry" more often? How much more joy would there be if a nearly immediate recognition of grief rapidly translated to a response of love, which replaced the grief with mutual elation for both parties involved?

Lent culminates in a triumph of goodness, a manifestation of power, a victory of all that is good, a certification that Life is--as it should be--stronger than death.

But Lent also calls us to two actions. Granted, the first action is internal and invisible to others, but it is still action, the action of introspection. But the second is more apparent, the demonstration of new behavior. Lent demands an examination of practices and habits, thoughts an desires and passions. Lent calls us to behave constructively, consistent with the dignity inherent in our humanity.

Some members of churches with a developed monastic tradition refer to a "baptism of tears" as a sign that internal change is taking place. The religious word "repentance" could be substituted here. The point is that we reach a state where we recognize our mistreatment of others and consciously desire to undo it.

We can't, of course. But we can behave differently from there on out.

A dose of good grief would be good for all of us.

This post is a submission to
Bridget Chumbley's One Word at a Time Blog Carnival
on the subject of "goodness."

Other submissions have covered
lust, love, church, peace, patience, and kindness.

A metaphor for Another Allegory

2010-02-25T17:29:00.000-08:00

©Copyright Geoff Gill and licensed for reuse
under this Creative Commons Licence

A very old short story of mine was prominently displayed on a friend's blog yesterday. I'm grateful for the unsolicited shout-out.

It's a humbling experience to be a guest-blogger on the site of someone for whom you have a lot of respect. But that's a bit of the point of the social media community. We're not barnacles on the side of a ship, every mollusk for itself. We're redwoods, roots intertwined, sharing resources with each other and growing tall and strong as a group.

Gracious sharing is a big deal in the kindness I was talking about in my last post. And Kathy is a great example to follow for gracious sharing. Now the ball's in my court to figure out the reciprocation part.

As far as the content she posted itself, I haven't really attempted fiction since the mid-90s. I still can't decide if this is prime for the pump and I need to do more, or that was my peak and I should break the mold and stick to technical manuals.

Your input is, as always, welcome.

Read Another Allegory
on Kathy Richards' blog

A little kindness goes a long way

2010-02-23T01:46:00.000-08:00

Used with permission
Creative Commons, Maria Dolores Torres

People hurt.

It's about the most basic of constants that define who we are. We start out hurting. Most of us end up hurting. It's unavoidable. It's not morally bad. It's just the unfortunate way it is.

Others hurt us intentionally. We hurt others back on purpose. We hurt and get hurt by accident. We hurt ourselves in a million different ways. We play the victim and we play the perpetrator. Some of us hide the hurt deep inside because we're ashamed, or we think it's our fault, or we're sure people will like us a whole lot less if they find out, or treat us like worthless bargain merchandise on the clearance rack. We hurt to impress and we hurt or get hurt to get attention and then we just hurt because it hurts so bad that we don't know how not to hurt.

We try painkillers (literal or metaphoric). This post isn't to say that there's not a right time for those when an exceptional medical situation requires, but they don't make the hurt stop. They make us think the hurt stopped. It's still there, whispering agony.

And when we don't identify, name, address, and rectify the hurts, we hold on to them and pass them on. We perpetuate them. If this wasn't sick already, it is now.

I'm no trained psychologist, mind you. Nor am I a diagnosed neurotic (yet, at least, but there's still plenty of time!). I'm just going off common sense here.

And sometimes we heal. Some of us figure out how to break this cycle.

The most lovely people I've ever met are the broken people who perform great acts of love, mercy, and kindness for others. It's not out of a sense of guilt. It's not codependence. It's legitimate, sincere, aching (hurting!) longing to see another be able to avoid some of the hurt. And these people are the most sincere. They know the blackness. They know the despair. They've been there, and they want to help someone else out of it.

Kindness spreads like hurt spreads. It's similarly powerful and quite nearly opposite. It's the antidote to the disease. A random and senseless act of kindness on our behalf releases and frees us to be kind to another.

But it comes at a cost: work. "Fixing is hard," says Hap in Mary DeMuth's novel Daisy Chain. "It takes more effort to fix than to make. A lot more." But when the effort is made, the result reshapes the universe and points it in a new direction, back more towards the guideline it was supposed to be following in the first place.

Here are a few ideas how any of us can be kind:

Be kind, rewind

No, seriously. Don't do it because you get penalized if you don't. Do it because the fact that it takes you an extra few minutes saves someone else a few minutes. Do it because it's the right thing to do. You have no idea whose life you'll save tonight because someone else didn't get anonymously frustrated with you. Don't park in the nearest spot to the door. Don't expect the right-of-way. Don't take the last cookie.

Pay the toll for the person behind you

It's unexpected. You can try it with coffee, too. Or whatever. A corollary to this is leaving the toilet seat up, or down, or whatever it is he or she says irritates him or her when you don't. Or capping the toothpaste. But it's really great when it's anonymous and you have no idea who the recipient is.

Drive away fast. Don't break the law. Just don't let them make eye contact. This isn't about recognition.

Pay it forward

Yes, I just went all Haley Joel Osment on you. Deal. Once in a while, do something drastically and dramatically outrageous and absurd. This is the pinnacle of random and senseless. Will it come back to you? Wicca says yes. Ecclesiastes says maybe not, but do it anyway. The Gospels say it's a major investment in something beyond the "this." Take your pick.

Can we end hurt? Not today, but if we don't make the effort, then we're inadvertently perpetuating it.

I don't need that on my conscience.

This post is part of
Bridget Chumbley's One Word at a Time Blog Carnival.
Previous carnival entries have focused on
lust, love, church, peace, and patience.

Seven reasons why you (yes, you!) should have a blog

2010-02-20T09:28:00.000-08:00

Used with permission, Creative Commons: Annie Mole

Unless you've been living under the permafrost in the martian tropics for the past few years, you might have noticed that everybody but you has a blog.

There are a whole lot of good reasons why you should start one, too. Here are some of them:

Enhance your reputation

On the one hand, unless you're Seth Godin or Michael Hyatt, there are probably things you can do to increase the number of people who think of you when they're in a conversation about your area of expertise.

On the other hand, Seth Godin and Michael Hyatt have blogs. Hmmm. I wonder why.

Meet likeminded people

If you're writing about a particular topic, social media is the easiest way to develop a network.

Get help. Give help.

Reciprocity drives the world. Since most of the content on blogs is free, what's the incentive for posting? Mutual learning and collaborative problem solving! Post a story of how you overcame a challenge, and read someone else's narrative so you can avoid a mistake.

Improve your writing

You can only go as far as your communication skills will carry you. Want to go farther? Get better at articulating why. The more you write in public, the more constructive feedback you'll receive about how you should write in public.

Legacy: Pass on what you're doing

Pardon me in advance for lecturing in ethics, but if you have any capability whatsoever--a skill, knowledge, or a talent--and you are not actively passing it on, then you are actively contributing to its demise. The responsible and altruist course of action would be to freely share your knowledge with others using the most effective and resource-efficient means possible.

Guess what. Yeah, blog.

Create new relationships

The new Web world (see What's the big deal about Web 2.0?) is interactive. It's active. It's dynamic. It facilitates conversation.

If you get involved in it, you will make friends. Real friends. There are human beings at the other end of these wires. They're ready to hear from you.

Sanity

If you can't get out much, you're going to go batty without an outlet. Take an opportunity to investigate some of the great, free tools that let you start calling the shots an interacting with others.

Figuring out what to post and how to post it are technicalities. Dig in and go for it! You'll be thrilled with the benefits.

Question:
Have you started a blog?
Post the link here so we all can read it.

Six things to do while you're unemployed

2010-02-18T05:07:00.000-08:00

Used with permission, Creative Commons: foreversouls

After 27 months of searching, and after responding to postings of almost 300 jobs, my unemployment ended yesterday.

The lessons I've learned during the time off may be varied in their practicality. But if you're out of work, I have some ideas for how you can fill up the time so you can avoid going stark raving mad.

Spend time with your family

My daughter is 39 months old. My son is just over 6 years old. I've been home with her for 2/3 of her life, and about 1/3 of his. I wouldn't trade that for anything. Including a stable income.

Read a few good books

Learning something expands our horizons. Fiction. Non-fiction. Cookbooks. Whatever. Learn something new and think in a more-developed and creative way.

Pick up a new skill or hobby, or further develop an existing one

You might not get a Grammy, but you can learn how to use some music software and put together a few jingles you can be proud of.

Get some exercise

Go to the gym. Get on the bike. Chase the dog through the mud. Play Wii tennis. Something!

Don't lose heart

It's hard being unemployed. Surround yourself with positive people, folks who know you and can remind you of what you do well. Use networking and social media for your job search AND for maintaining your mood. And offer the same to others.

Blog

Blogging lets you articulate what you do well, establishing you as a contributor and leader in your field. It develops an interactive community of like-minded folks for mutual support and development. And it lets you keep your sanity.

These might not help you get a job. You should be trying to do that too. But they are decent ways to maintain your identity in case the wait is long.

Questions: What are you doing to pass the time? How are you feeling while you search?

Mary DeMuth's Thin Places is a phat book

2010-02-13T16:16:00.000-08:00

This post is about two things. First, it's about the power of social media to form and enhance quality relationships. Second, it's about an amazing book.

I'll always remember where I was when I met Mary DeMuth. In late June, 2009, while I was outside the Cheesecake Factory in Pleasanton, CA, Michael Hyatt introduced a number of us to Mary as a published author and a good person to know. I jumped at the opportunity to meet someone endorsed by Mr. Hyatt, a man whose reputation and experience make him worthy of trust.

That's not an interesting story, so far. What's interesting is that none of the three of us were in the same place. Hyatt was in Tennessee. DeMuth was in Texas. Technology has eradicated geographic barriers to meeting good people.

DeMuth didn't know me from Adam eight months ago. And why should she? A fledgling blogger who's lucky to get a few dozen readers on a new post isn't exactly in the same league with an award winning author of seven books published by Zondervan. But social media allowed us to interact gradually and lightheartedly, enjoying each other's offerings and influence.

DeMuth released her eighth book this week. She established herself as a fiction author, but this time she poured herself into a memoir, raw and hopeful. Readers will be captivated by the gripping, overpowering reassurance of cosmic joy in the midst of great tragedies.

To be honest, I didn't want to read it. I really wasn't interested in reading someone's chronicle of rape, abuse, abandonment, death, loss, grief, nudity, adolescent angst, pornography, young adult frustration, marriage strain... I told her I'd read it. I was cornered by my own promise.

And I'm so glad I was. This is not an easy book to read, but DeMuth makes it easier. Her story invites you into a deeper understanding of your own story. This book isn't about disaster. It's about finding meaning in the midst of or the aftermath of disaster. DeMuth doesn't lose her faith when bad things happen. She finds it. Her story begs us to examine our own lives with the same instrument, highlighting a number of assorted places where God meets us in the damage done to us and the damage we cause to ourselves and others.

Will I still be a narcissist when I'm eighty? Will I circle the wagons of my heart so much that I can no longer grow in love?

I hope not.

Truth is, I don't like me when I'm all about me, pining for the world to throw me unending surprise parties...

I was worried that this was going to be a "girly book," only understood by a gender that can comprehend particular horrors about which I know nothing. I was worried that it would be a book that whispered "woe is me, shower me with sympathy" and/or "men are scum." But this is a book for men and women to find the peace that passes understanding in the midst of their own messy experience, and we all have messy experiences. This book is about us.

I am guilty of many things in my life, but it never occurs to me that perhaps the greatest regret I have is staying stuck in bully memories. Today I am no longer standing in the crib [where DeMuth recalls being ignored]. I am in Jesus' arms, joyfully anticipating the future.

A "thin place" is a place where the dividing line between the here and now and the eternal always is has been breached. I've recognized thin places in physical locations—Fort Ross, California, and Iona, Scotland—where the profound, still silence couldn't hide a wild activity I somehow sensed behind it. But DeMuth offers her life as a thin place, an intentionally disjointed set of events that reveal where eternity stirs and develops us.

I believe He sends signs... I believe God performs miracles. I believe He is bigger than our perception of Him. But I also know He's a loving Father who doesn't spoil His children. Sometimes He's necessarily near. To teach us faith, sometimes He's far. Sometimes He allows bad things to happen... I don't really like that part, but it's not up to me. God is the epitome of mystery and cannot be manipulated or managed, though I try my darnedest to do both.

It's what I love about God—He's that wild Aslan lion, good but not safe. The God who lights the minutiae on our path one moment and sends us darkness the next. Signs and their lack are both thin places, one to confirm Himself, the other to confirm our faith. Most days I want it all spelled out; but if I live life that way, I will never grow.

We are all thin places. Our human flesh is the nexus of the tangible and divine, and we reveal good and evil.

Thin Places is available now on Amazon in paperback and Kindle editions.

Find out more about Mary DeMuth on her website and blog
or on Twitter.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

A day late and a dollar short: becoming patient

2010-02-11T00:12:00.000-08:00

Used with permission, CC: ToniVC

This post is a failure. It's on the subject of patience, and I was assigned to complete it yesterday. Why is it late? Because I confused patience with laziness.

But let's ponder for a moment what the digital age has done to those of us who have honestly considered ourselves patient people.

Those of us who are 30-somethings (give or take a decade or two) have no problem recalling a now-bygone era in which we had a specific procedure for contacting a faraway friend:

Write postcard

Place stamp on postcard

Drop postcard in mailbox

Wait three weeks for reply

We had a name for this. We called it "normal."

How have we improved in thirty years? Today we fire off an email that took us all of fifteen seconds to write. If we don't have a response back in a few minutes, we're irate.

What happened?

Time is money

We seem to have been poisoned by a couple thoughts:

My money is more important than your obstacles to getting me my money.

If time is money, and you're making me wait, then you're using up my money.

This argument looks sensible. But it has a fatal flaw: it turns us all into greedy slavemasters of other people's minutes and seconds, and justifies the transformation in the name of progress. We expect immediate responses, and others expect immediate responses from us. The problem, of course, is that we've conditioned ourselves to assume that each of us is the most important person in the world (when, in actuality, of course, only I am the most important person in the world).

The flip side of patience

Some people say they don't have a problem being patient.

It's easy to say that when you want to hide either that you lack the courage to take action, or you simply don't care. Even though they can have an identical appearance at face value, there's a wide and consequential difference between patience and fear, and a similar difference between patience and apathy.

We should be careful not to be too impressed with those who claim great patience when it is really just a spurious cover for their vanity and pride. We should be even more careful to expose and eradicate such falsity in ourselves.

All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
--Sergei Bondarchuk

When we use patience as an excuse for inaction, we preserve evil's grip for a while longer.

Deeper thoughts...

Love is patient...
--1 Corinthians 13:4 (NIV)

...the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
--Galatians 5:22-23 (NIV)

...Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength...
--Isaiah 40:31 (NKJV)

There is a time for everything...
--Ecclesiastes 1ff. (NIV)

Nowhere in these passages is it suggested that patience is a weakness. Meekness and humility may be hallmarks of the individual who embodies all of the above characteristics, but patience is apparently part of a set of characteristics that demonstrates acts of power. The fruit of the Spirit is the fruit of that which created the cosmos ex nihilo.

Patience here is waiting for the right moment to achieve maximum benefit. It is proactive and strategic and intentional. It is the ninja who hides in the shadows for three days, barely breathing. It is the comedian who inserts a dramatic pause at just the right moment before the punchline arrives. It is the God who is there waiting in the midst of the situation before we need him.

"Be holy," God says, "because I am holy" (1 Peter 1:16; cf. Leviticus 11:44, 19:2). If we are to assume that our own holiness is an intentional attempt to mimic the qualities of God, then our benchmark for patience is the dynamic Spirit whose patience is as limitless as is his power.

Wait for it, wait for it. Give it some time.
--Howard Jones, "Everlasting Love"

This post is part of
Bridget Chumbley's One Word at a Time Blog Carnival.
Previous carnival entries have focused on lust, love, church, and peace.

Work for peace and you will find love and mercy

2010-01-26T00:14:00.000-08:00

Photo Courtesy of U.S. Army

Peace is elusive. It is futile. And yet we are still responsible for seeking it, creating it, and not supporting anything that would hinder it.

This shouldn't upset us. The Christian life is full of paradox. We can be glad for them. They remind us that this life is complex enough to keep us from reaching any cut-and-dry, declarative conclusions on subjects that are not meant to be ours to control. Anything simpler would be a hobby.

This paradox gets juicier: Can we ever be truly at peace with any peace that we find?

The famous Micah 6:8 exhortation lists the three simple expectations placed on us:

Act justly

Love mercy

Walk humbly with your God

What are the implications for peace? If you do those three, peace will be a byproduct. If you achieve peace, you will have realized those three as well.

So, that's easy enough, right?

Sort of. You know that Megadeth album? Peace Sells, But Who's Buying? It doesn't take a genius to figure out that achieving peace takes a lot more effort, ingenuity, genius, and work than managing war.

But that's not quite what we're discussing here.

Who needs peace? Victims of violent inequities: abuse, economics, genetics, guilt.

The now-adult woman who was repeatedly brutalized as a child and remained silent because she assumed no one would believe her. She is plagued by nightmares and haunted by feelings of worthlessness, unable to be comfortable with any good thing because of the conviction that it will dissolve in an imminent instant. She needs us to reassure her, nobly, kindly, tenderly.

The out-of-work husband and father who can't find hope in the midst of a rising horde of militant creditors. He needs us to hire him.

The third-world family who needs to travel by foot two hours each way just to get enough nominally clean water to survive every day. When the water hole dries up, or becomes contaminated, they will die. They need us to build infrastructure in their community, and show them how to use and maintain it.

The young urbanite who has concluded that the best course of action for safety and growth is to join a gang that will validate his involvement in something important, but only in exchange for his involvement in rape, theft, extortion, and murder. He needs us to show him security beyond violence.

The manic-depressive who left her manic phase behind months ago and plans this week to be her last. She needs therapy and medication, and she needs us not to judge her for that.

The junior high school student who is ridiculed and humiliated, on the verge of doing something drastic and final to himself or herself, or to others. They need those of us who have survived it to come alongside and remind that ridicule and humiliation are not the antithesis of self-worth (and, indeed, may actually be signs of jealousy).

The veteran who wakes up screaming, overwhelmed by images of atrocities witnessed, or perpetrated by him. At the risk of great peril, is it our right to expect someone else to show him that his hands were made to do the work of something better than destruction?

Do you notice a connection here between peace and love? A life of peace will love others. A life not of peace will withhold love from others.

Peace happens on an individual basis, mano a mano. It's one of the few things we can give to someone else without losing it ourselves. Give it out liberally.

Now let's get to work.

This post is part of
Bridget Chumbley's One Word at a Time Blog Carnival.
Previous carnival entries have focused on lust, love, and church.

Lazy wind

2010-01-24T01:37:00.000-08:00

Used with permission: CC msmyzr

Our memories come to us in present tense. When something triggers them, it's not an I was; it's a briefly disassociated I am. We are in that moment, that place again. The line between reality and imagination is blurred when memory reactivates and we travel, for a brief instant, into the past, viscerally. We taste, we sense, we smell, we feel again, rushing back, often unwittingly, an overwhelming reminder that we are not allowed to escape the consequences of what has already transpired. We are products of the sum of our decisions and all the things that happen to us. We are accidents of mathematics.

In this sense, we don't have formative years. We have formative moments, instants of deep transformation, often noticed, sometimes not until later. We experience many of these instants during adolescence, but they're by no means confined there. It is unbearable to imagine that they should be, that we should cease having chances to take a new direction. We are in constant flux, and we are ever subject to the reminder of these formative instants, powerful catharses, unimaginable terrors, silent and beautiful calms at the eyes of storms. We have one foot in the here and now, and one foot in the before, never quite completely at home in either one by itself. We are hybrids, circus freaks, and half-breeds, part unwitting journeymen with a longing to lay anchor, part prisoners of the now with a yearning for what was.

And so we are all time travelers. It's best of course to travel intentionally towards the present, that elusive moment that we always overconfidently think we have in our grasp just as it slips away again, into that fog of memory. It's best to be the Captain, to have a course laid out, to navigate ourselves safely around the rocks and shoals and sandbars, from port to port, gaining or leaving cargo here and there. It would be nice to always be one of those mythical people who have it all together.

But sometimes we can't be in the present. Sometimes the map has an error, or circumstance has another idea, or we take the wrong turn at Albuquerque. Sometimes we're yanked from our sure footing to another time, unavoidably, a reminder that we are not always the captains of our own collections of moments.

We are transported without being asked for permission.

I am in Aberdeen, on the beach. The wind is cold and brisk, unsympathetic, and I am full of dreams and hopes, thoughts and hormones, ideas and wishes and hopes, holy and unholy. The North Sea strikes against the shore with its relentless warning, Don't mess with me, sukka. Some have tried. You think you can do better? It's summer, but as an American who's not used to such things, who would know?

A local friend comes up next to me. He's wearing a light sweater--jumper, they would say. I'm wishing I brought a down parka with a fleece liner. Scotland in July can be like that. He tells me, "We call this a lazy wind."

Lazy? There doesn't seem to be anything lazy about this wind. This is a savage wind, heading west over Scotland to become a terrifying banshee on the Irish moors in a few hours. If it were anthropomorphized, it would be lifting me up and slamming my head repeatedly against the rocky and sandy dune, grabbing me by my unfortunately nonexistent down parka collar and shaking me until my brain was jellied, beating the living tar out of me, and then setting me back on my feet and dusting me off with an apology, because lazy Scottish winds are polite like that.

"Lazy?" I ask, fighting to be heard over the rush of salty air.

"Yeah. We call it a lazy wind because instead of taking the time to go around you [I hear "aroond yoo"], it goes right through you."

And so it does. The rest of my life is to be filled with an assorted collection of lazy winds, thoughts, ideas, unavoidable episodes, setbacks and opportunities, challenges and triumphs, deplorable decisions and unanticipated victories. Sometimes, the lazy wind blows everything away indiscriminately, not bothering to sift out the good from the bad, uprooting the wheat and the tares.

Sometimes it goes still and drops heaven at your feet.

I'm eating a baked potato while a diamond ring burns a hole in my pocket. I've accidentally put too much secret-recipe hot sauce on the potato, so I'm getting a matching hole in my stomach lining. I've flown 3,000 miles to propose to my girlfriend of two years that evening after she's done with work, but she invited me to have lunch with her near her workplace. It's an unusual treat.

Or a trick. My fork is midway between my potato and my mouth when she informs me that she would like to have nothing to do with me for an indefinite period of time.

A decade and a half later, that indefinite period is more or less still in effect (by her will or mine? it's irrelevant at this point). And the fork is still there, suspended. I can freeze that moment, but I cannot rewind it. I hate that instant--the lazy wind almost annihilates me and there's nothing the hot sauce can do to provide triage--but without it, I would not be here, now, writing this paragraph while a beloved wife-who-is-not-baked-potato-bar-girl sleeps nearby and two children rest peacefully in their upstairs bedrooms.

That instant will always be that instant. But I have more instants.

I'm having coffee with a man of the cloth, years later. In some ways, I'm still not quite healed from the baked potato. Any utensil--fork or spoon, or occasionally even a coffee cup--making its journey from the table to my lips elicits the automatic, primal notion that I should recoil for the announcement of something disastrous, although, mercifully, by this year I occasionally forget why.

There's something burning a hole in my pocket again. It's two sheets of paper, neatly folded, a list of issues I have with him and his associates, grievances perhaps, stumbling points, ideas that don't resonate well with the way I've understood the world up until this point.

He shares his story with me. Our stories have very similar beginnings, but his meandered somewhere along the way. I've been trying to tell myself for several years that his lazy wind blew him way off course, but he doesn't give a defense. He gives me his heart. Inside his heart is his story. It's not the story of a man who's been pushed somewhere he doesn't want to go. It's the story of a man who's been gratefully brought to something far more wonderful than he could ever possibly have imagined.

I want in that story. I want it to be my story. I want to forget about the baked potatoes and the lazy winds and the bad decisions.

The note stays in my pocket.

I take a sip of coffee, and the lazy wind stops blowing.

I drop anchor. I'm home.

Leadership lessons learned from my father-in-law

2010-01-19T16:52:00.000-08:00

Used with permission: CC (Wim Mulder)

My wife's father has history. No, I don't mean he has a history. I mean that he's one of those people who's far more interesting than the average.

You can't live someone else's life, of course, but maybe you can hope to embody and actualize some of the great characteristics of people you admire. Here are a few from him:

Make plans. I've never seen him undertake something without notes. I get a secret, giddy euphoria when I see him with a pen and a blank sheet of paper, because I know that something amazing is about to be brought into existence. I love seeing an idea become a plan, a plan become an action, actions become results, and positive results become success. He seems to have a secret for making that machine run.

Involve people. I honestly don't know if he's an extrovert. I think perhaps not. But he is a leader. He doesn't take the notes on that formerly blank sheet of paper and do all the work himself. He builds a team. A team gets to enjoy each other's company, to solve problems collectively from enough different perspectives that disaster can be averted quickly, and to celebrate victories together.

Give affirmations liberally. People achieve beyond their own awareness of their capabilities when you inform them that they can. I've never seen anyone on a team with him (myself included) who didn't come out a better person on the other side when the project was over. He doesn't assign work to break you down. He manages tasks to make you shine. And he lets you know when you do. (I finally realized that he knew you would anyway.)

I could list a thousand interesting facts about him, but taken individually, each one wouldn't be very interesting. Put them together, though, and you get a story.

Maybe that's what we all are: a story that's a collection of all the interesting things about us. By themselves, each of the facts are pretty boring. But add them together and the sum is fascinating, a person, pulsing and living, thinking, dreaming and growing, with interrelating ideas and actions that form some sort of identity.

Connect ideas to yourself and you'll find that you've become who you are. Now how the heck did that happen?

But while you're at it, invest in people. Watch the investment increase. It's an amazing thing to see a person blossom into their potential. Nothing else matters, really.

Question
What quality of leadership have you admired in someone else?

Haiti aid providers call for caution, cash

2010-01-15T17:51:00.000-08:00

Used with permission, CC: shrff14

Parts of this article borrowed from my post at Examiner.com

When disaster strikes, we want to help. It's a natural human response. This blog is about connecting people, and there's nothing like a good disaster to bring us together.

The Haiti quake this past week has created a firestorm of volunteerism. Leaders of aid organizations are collectively calling for sober consideration of best response.

"The greatest immediate need is cash," says World Vision CEO, Richard Stearns.

Stearns spoke today on a conference call, along with fellow evangelical leaders Bill Hybels and Max Lucado. I was fortunate enough to participate in this call. The facilitators explained and justified the call for cash donations as the best way to respond to the immediate necessities for health, water, shelter, and nutrition.

Stearns, Lucado, and Hybels all cautioned against heartfelt and well-intentioned individuals or teams traveling to Port-au-Prince with a sincere but ill-informed intent "to help out as needed."

Haiti's health ministry reported today that there could be more than 750,000 displaced, upwards of 250,000 wounded, and approximately 50,000 deaths estimated. (The Haitian secretary of state for public safety has placed the estimated death toll as high as 140,000.) The pressure on the already broken local industry to support several thousand unexpected visitors would create more of a demand on the system than their work there would justify.

The first phase of recovery, Stearns explained, must allow in those who are invited medical, search-and-rescue, or disaster recovery professionals who are trained to provide the most rapid and effective response in crisis. Infrastructure repair and social provision will take place in a later phase, and there will be a place for these.

"This is a teaching opportunity," said Hybels. "We need to do well at doing good. We need to stay out of the way when it's time to stay out of the way."

Hybels also encouraged pastors looking for inspiration for their congregations: "Don't shrink back." The conference call was not intended to be a request for inaction and passivity, but a reminder for vigilance and preparation, for teams to be ready to mobilize when the rebuilding phase activates.

Do we know ourselves?

2010-01-14T23:00:00.000-08:00

Used with permission: CC, paurian

Who am I?

For that matter, why am I asking you? Really, I didn't mean it rhetorically. Shouldn't I be able to answer the question better than you can?

In an introductory post (see Why do I blog?), I said this blog would be about three types of connections: people to people, people to ideas, and ideas to ideas.

Did I miss one? I think I might have. How many of us are well-connected to ourselves?

The older I get, the less I know who I am, pulled in more directions, increasingly disconnected from who I was.

We are ever on a journey to become ourselves. The question is: do we ever get there?

Watch this video that introduces us to someone who knew exactly who she was:

Can I say with that sort of certainty that I know who I am? Can I tell you, "I'm Jeff?" I think I'm more stuck between "I was Jeff" and "I will be Jeff."

It's the curse of complexity.

In City Slickers, the character Curly taught us that integrity and identity are found in simplicity: Focus on one thing.

What's your one thing? Who are you?

I'm Jeff. At least, I'm pretty sure I'm Jeff.

Stay tuned in case anything changes.

My beloved is mine and I am his: a spiritual look at lust

2010-01-11T22:56:00.000-08:00

Used with permission (CC: rverspirit)

This is part two of a series on love. The first is here.

Both are entries in Bridget Chumbley's One Word at a Time Blog Carnival.

I get a little confused when I hear those nine references in the Hebrew scriptures that remind us that God gets jealous. God gets jealous...

Ponder that for a second. I thought jealousy was a bad thing. Love is not jealous, says St. Paul. God is love, says St. John. There's a paradox in here somewhere, but then, God is complex enough to defy comprehension on our terms, so we'll let this one slide.

Here's the point: God wants us so much that if we put anything in the way of the two of us, he gets seriously pissed off. Pissed off enough to destroy it. And "collateral damage" doesn't count. Now that's some seriously powerful desire.

Does it seem so odd that someone who loves us that passionately might expect the same in return from us.

We're made to be passionate. We're supposed to be passionate. We're good at it. We like it. God gives us the capability to be passionate, but leaves it to us to direct it properly (and learn from the consequences when we don't).

We enjoy being consumed by our passion to the exclusion of all else. Sports fans understand fixation and obsession. They're consumed. They think about their team constantly. They ponder what plays will be run this weekend. They fantasize that they're the coach, or the quarterback, or the star receiver. You ask them a question about the stats and they flinch like you're reading their mind and just caught them daydreaming again. They think about their team when they want to, when they don't realize they're thinking about it, and when they're thinking about something else at the same time. They're excited. It's their favorite subject. It's their love.

Now try going to a church that's structured around a detailed calendar, that has a setup where every week, day, hour, and moment has an appointed purpose, an activity to be taking place having something to do with a designated act of worship. Obsessive? Oh, yeah. Just about as obsessive as God is about us.

If... If we actually took part in every single one of those activities (that is to say, if we lived saintly lives), we might be scratching the surface of understanding how consumed God is by his own love for us (so much that he might, say, be willing to destroy himself in the process?). Every second, every heartbeat, would be lived with the conscious awareness of what aspect of devotion was the focus of the moment. Oh, we CAN. The schedule's there on paper. And some do, or at least claim to. The rest of us (like me) make concessions and exceptions and exclusions and excuses. We show up when we can, when it's convenient. We call Sunday "the Lord's day" as if the other six are ours.

So how do we get where we need to go?

Filters on. There's that verse that says to take every thought captive for Christ (2 Cor 10:5). Do that. He's not kidding.

Direct lust. Don't be so prideful as to think you've overcome it. Even God is consumed, which maybe says it's okay to be consumed. Take all your capability for passion and obsession and point it at the right goal. Need it. Go ahead, hunger. Take it. The kingdom of God suffers violence, and the violent take it by force (Mt 11:12).

Be consumed. He won't relent until he has it all. Desire the beloved as he desires you. You won't have room for any lusts that are contrary to God. Be full of devotion to him and you will be empty of devotion to anything else.

Lust is destructive. It consumes and erodes. Be sure you are consuming and being consumed by the holy.

I hope you will put up with a little of my foolishness; but you are already doing that. I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him (2 Cor 11:1-2).

ADDENDUM:

Shall I apologize for this post going on too long? Don't make me, please.

Does God accepts us as we are? If so, it's dangerously easy to use that fact as an excuse to remain as we are.

Now listen to this song. It's the same theme, but the character reaches realizations that won't allow her to ever be the same.

She is the woman at the well. She is the Magdalen healed of demons. She is the harlot who comes with oil to annoint. She is Everywoman. She is us, you and me. I dare you to listen to this without crying. Go ahead. Try. She is you. This is your song.

You are now released from your lusts. You are no longer required to continue expressing them.

Go, and sin no more.

Your brand needs to be simple, or, How Dyson sucked me in

2010-01-08T08:44:00.000-08:00

How does something get our attention? It pops. It wows. It has that ooooh, cooooooool factor to it.

Take vacuums. Vacuums didn't change much through the 20th century. Kirby and Hoover all worked pretty much the same. Then along came some new kid.

In case you've been living under a rock for the past few years, the Dyson is a revolutionary new vacuum. It's completely shifted the paradigm for how a vacuum is supposed to work, basically turning the technology inside out. It's energy efficient. It's effective. And unlike the preexisting technology, it doesn't weaken over time. It costs quite a bit more than the average bag-based cleaner, but it's supposed to make up for that difference (and a lot more) because of the electricity it'll save over the life of the unit. It's mechanically simple, doesn't require a lot of cleaning and maintenance, and even if it does, is manufactured by a company with a good reputation for service and support.

How do I know all this? Because of their advertising campaign. That's what sucked me in, if you'll pardon the expression. I fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. And there's no reason I shouldn't have. I'm not here to sell the Dyson. I'm here to sell the way the Dyson sells.

This commercial isn't like other commercials, but the vacuum quickly became the highest-grossing line in the US market. Why?

Simple. The commercial doesn't have a lot of graphics, great music, special effects, high-technology. It's just one guy letting you know that he made a vacuum. Wow. You don't need to make a big deal out of a big deal. It can do that all on its own.

Average guy. Never mind that Sir James Dyson's estimated net worth is £1.1B. You can't tell that by watching the commercials. You can't tell if Dyson is a huge manufacturing organization with 5000 employees in a sweatshop in southeast Asia, or if it's just that one guy in his garage. He reaches you personally and tells you his short story. You relate to his frustration. You feel it. You want to benefit from his solution.

Check out Carmine Gallo's The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs for a great look at someone else who's known for the same style.

The product is green. Say what you will, but green is in. People are finally starting to realize that conservation isn't a costly gimmick, but a means to resource optimization, waste reduction, and cost-cutting. Some people go with the flow. Some people go against the flow. Dyson decided to go with the cultural flow while he was going against the technological flow. Genius!

You win. I'm not a cynic; everyone else is! People have a "what's in it for me" mentality. The Dyson will save you money. It doesn't lose suction over time. There are no bags. And, the aforementioned greenness mean that you won't use nearly as much electricity over the life of the unit.

The Dyson commercial campaign reminds me a little of that Honda commercial from a few years ago. Remember that one that has a single line at the end spoken by someone who sounds a bit like Garrison Keillor? "Isn't it nice when things just...work?"

The beauty of that commercial is that it has precisely zero special effects. None. Zip. Don't take my word for it. Go watch it again. And it was done in a single take. One. No edits. No special effects. No animation. Just a camera and a great idea and one little push on a gear at the beginning. Yeah, it took them seven months and over 600 takes, but when they finally got it right (the genius of patience and design) they made a point: Honda does all the hard work for you so you get simple elegance and precision machinery.

Keep it simple.

Stupid.

Question:
How do you need to change the way you're branding yourself?

Connelly calls for Pay It Forward Power Wave

2010-01-06T09:00:00.000-08:00

I just got this message from Sue Connelly.

Hello Everyone,

For five days, starting this Monday, January 11, I need your help to do something important.

Now is the time to harness the power of the incredible people of our KIT List community to make a radical difference in the job market.

After hearing reports of 12.5% unemployment in California, and not much better for the rest of the country, I had an idea…let’s use the power of friends helping friends to create a tremendous wave of focused effort to get people back to work!

The Idea:

For five days, every person on the KIT List does just ONE thing each day for a friend to help with his or her job search. The first day will be Monday, 1/11/10.

You can help a different friend, family member or colleague each day or help the same person for multiple days.

With over 64,000 people on the KIT List, doing one thing for each of the five days, we’ll generate over 320,000 actions that will create an incredible wave of results!

Pass The Word:

This is not limited to the KIT List, please email this idea to other friends, share it on blogs, Twitter and Facebook so we can multiply this effort and get more people back to work quickly.

I’ll also launch this on our blog at www.KITlist.wordpress.com and through KIT List emails, giving ideas each day for what you can do to help a friend find a job. People can share their ideas and results via the comments section, too.

Let’s make a huge difference together with this Pay It Forward Power Wave!

Sue

Sue Connelly
Founder KITlist.org

Three-hundred and twenty THOUSAND positive actions should help.

I'm in. You in?

ADDENDUM:

I have just discovered the @JobAngels account on Twitter. Seems fitting with the theme. (Thanks to Mashable for the reference.)

Love

2009-12-22T10:34:00.000-08:00

Me and my son
(August 13, 2004, Uralsk, Kazakhstan)
Photo by my wife

You wanna destroy the world? Do something loving.

No, really.

The world as it was up until that point will cease to exist. It will be replaced with something entirely new and amazing.

I loved someone once (among other times). He didn't like me very much the first day, but I was actually prepared for that. The photo you see above was taken the second day, when the two of us finally made eye contact and more or less agreed to put up with each other for the duration.

The result five years down the road is a dynamic, constant, mutual exchange of devotion and growth, frustration and resolution, communication and joy. I'm not sure which one of us has been transformed by it more. Fatherhood is a fascinating beast. Sure, Alex is not the little boy he was when we adopted him. But then again, I'm not the man I was when I landed in Kazakhstan to meet him. The world I knew ceased to exist that day.

Love changes everything. It is a radical, transforming, impenetrable, monolithic, violent, dangerous, unpredictable, radioactive fire of a billion suns. You get a choice: either learn to direct it well as it destroys what is wrong, or you will unintentionally destroy others by it, or you will be destroyed by it.

This Christmas, how will your love destroy the old world? I wonder what the new one that replaces it will look like.

You have your assignment. Go!

This post is now part of Bridget Chumbley's
One Word at a Time Blog Carnival: Love
December 28, 2009

It is continued in part two...

How to make friends and be influenced by the right people

2009-12-18T16:59:00.001-08:00

Rights granted under Creative Commons license

How do you find a mentor?

Before you win friends and influence people, it helps to know how to win friends and be influenced by people. By observing others, you'll identify qualities you wish you had. Then you can write down some goals for personal improvement.

If you want to become like someone else, you need to spend time with someone else. That's pretty obvious. We don't grow well in a vacuum. It doesn't really matter if you're an introvert or an extrovert. If you want to learn something and have it truly change you, you need to seek out advice from someone else who's done something like it. The best way is to interact directly. You'll find out not just the information, but the motivation behind the information. Instead of becoming an encyclopedia, you'll become a more aware human being.

If you're like most of the human race, starting this kind of conversation is awkward and difficult. Yes, you actually need to try to get someone's attention. The dividing line between being a pupil and being an annoyance can get pretty thin sometimes.

Vying for attention is the first step to communication.
Tweet from @vocalexpert

So how do you do it?

Be proactive. Go do it.

People are generally impressed with those who recognize that something needs to be done and then take initiative. Be that kind of person. If it takes courage to do something, it takes a lot more to do nothing and expect things to change anyway. (Minimize courage?)

If you want something, go get it!
Stop wanting, and start having!
Tweet from @ScottWilliams (Read more from Scott at his blog.)

Be nice. "You can catch more flies with honey," said my great-grandmother, "than you can with vinegar."

Actually, I have no idea if my great-grandmother said that. I never met her. But she probably would have said something like that. If you want to establish a relationship with someone, be friendly. Yes, that requires some work on your part. If you never get to this foundational step, you'll have a hard time.

Say hello. Start a conversation. They probably don't bite.

Want someones attention??? Be kind...People dont care how much u know, until they know how much u care...
Tweet from @RevRunWisdom

Be relevant. You don't have to be an expert on the subject that you're trying to become an expert on, but at least be on subject, please.

Offer something. Or parrot back something interesting (or controversial!) you heard from someone else. It stimulates conversation.

Stay on target!
Gold Five, Star Wars: A New Hope

Be lighthearted. It's been said that one should avoid humor, but not avoid humor entirely. See here for maven David Pogue's take on when humor shows up in tech. Consider also the advice of Oscar Wilde: "Seriousness is the last refuge of the shallow."

Don't take yourself so seriously that you hurt something. This doesn't mean that you need to be the comedian all the time, but it does help to be flexible enough to inject levity in an otherwise tense situation. People will come to appreciate your skill in this.

You don't need to be absurd, but you can be relevant without being dry.

People will never forget how you made them feel.
Maya Angelou

Be sincere. If people don't think you mean it, you probably don't stand a chance.

But that's not the point. Don't make them THINK you mean it. Just mean it! If you don't mean it, please, don't waste time. Do something that matters to you.

Growth can happen fast or slow, sometimes in our control, and sometimes not. But the alternative to growth is not stagnation. It's regression by proportion. If you're not growing while progress is taking place around you, you're falling behind rapidly. It's time for you to get up and move.

Speaking of which...

Church: a community for itself, or something else?

2009-12-14T23:34:00.000-08:00

Creative Commons: http://www.egyptmyway.com/photo/holy_family2_2.html

This post is part of Peter Pollock and Bridget Chumbley's Blog Carnival.

Is the Church about itself? Or is it about everybody else in the world outside it?

Or is it about something else entirely?

Those are probably the only three choices. You have to pick one of these:

Church is about the people who show up. It's a social, community-oriented structure. All the rest is details. It's just about God's people learning to work together as a team and enjoy each other's company. God's new society is made up of potlucks and Bible studies, coffee hour and field trips.

Church is about God. It's one or more people worshipping. Nothing else matters. Everything should be done with absolute dignity and solemnity, and there is no room for human sentiment or opinion of any kind whatsoever.

Church is about reaching the world. The whole purpose of the Church is mission. Everything else should take second-seat to the task-at-hand. The "seeker-service" should be the norm. Mature Christians who are trying to grow can go to seminars if they want to.

The criticisms against each of these models are worth reviewing. If the Church is about people, have we so removed God from the equation of the potlucks and committee meetings that there's no room for God anymore, and no difference between the Church and a rather smug country club? On the other hand, if the Church is only about God, then aren't the people irrelevant? Can't we just stay home? God is God regardless, right? And on the third hand, if the Church is strictly about the mission to the world, then there is nothing in the Church for those of us who are already there.

We have a remarkable tendency to criticize those who disagree with us on this question. I admit, I struggle with this one. Once upon a time, I confess that I left a church because I began to fear it was too much about itself to legitimately be about God anymore. I may have judged that one too quickly and too harshly.

Because maybe the whole discussion isn't even necessary. Maybe it's all three. Can you separate God from the mission of God? If God's intentions are always realized, then His intentions *are* his character. Can you separate the mission of God from the servants He's empowered with the task of carrying out that mission? Can you imagine the community attempting to actualize that mission without taking part in worship?

The Church is a community of like-minded and mutually-supportive individuals in agreement on these general principles:

There is a God.

This God desires and deserves our devotion and affection.

This God listens to what we have to present to Him.

This God calls us to be involved in His plan to revitalize and perfect Creation.

That's all three models wrapped up into one single package.

Questions:
Which of the three models have you been giving the least emphasis to?
How would the expression of your Faith improve if you cranked up your implementation of that model?

What's the big deal about Web 2.0?

2009-12-10T22:56:00.000-08:00

http://www.flickr.com/photos/neal263/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Let's take a look at what Web 2.0 is and what it is not. We'll start with the world's shortest history lesson.

Web 1.0

I wrote my first web page in 1996. When the WorldWide Web was implemented, the initial key features were these:

Present content. Offer users information that they want at the click of a button.

Relate content. Connect things. Link words to other related locations. Create relationships between documents and ideas.

This is what the HT in HTML means. "Hypertext" is text that connects to other text, in this case through links.

Right here, right now. Make information (including personal emails!) available at any computer you sit down at.

Now your data is no longer tied to your home location. It's out there in "the cloud" and you can get at it any time you need it, no matter where you are.

Hello, new security models and implications! Gotta remember those passwords now.

Images (and media). Provide pictures, video, and sound. Compress to the smallest size possible or you'll lose your viewers to the annoyingly long transfer times. Adapt industries to new needs for storage space both centrally, and on the user's terminal.

Develop new revenue models. Offering content online shifts the way people look for emerging facts. Newspapers are challenged to keep up with this trend and rapidly shift to web presentation. Advertising techniques adapt, especially with the creation of the now-ubiquitous "banner ad."

But all of this was still directed at how to present static content to an enduser, and direct an enduser to the content a provider wanted them to request.

Fast forward 13 years later and it's a revolutionary world all over again.

Web 2.0

The Web was first a repository for permanent content. It's now a place to interact. Today, everyone makes his or her own content. It's dynamic. It doesn't expect the user to come looking for content, but it adapts to the addition of new content by the user.

Keys to this new world are:

Access. You get to manage who has access to your data.

Individuality. The content you want is delivered to you in a way that suits you. RSS feeds, user preferences, and "skins" make your experience of reading someone else's content as unique as you are.

Easy media. You get to create and share pictures, sounds, and movies.

The Web initially allowed you to find someone else's movies. Now, anyone with a reasonably recent cell phone can be a movie producer, a songwriter/musician, or a photographer. There are all sorts of places and ways to store, access, share, and control your media files. Basic tools for creating and editing are generally free.

Collaborative environments. Once upon a time, great columnists received fan mail (or hate mail), and occasionally responded. Now, all blog platforms incorporate tools for interacting with readers in nearly real-time.
- Wikipedia was built by (mostly) altruists who started with zero content and the hopes that people would pour their knowledge into an open forum. (It worked.)
- Social networking sites have become the dominant force on the Internet, making interaction king.
- YouTube encourages video responses to postings, resulting in a sort of ongoing video conversation.
- Google Docs and the new Google Wave extend this trend exponentially, allowing teams of users to interactively contribute to the development of a project.

Ubiquitous metrics. It used to be that you had to have a marketing degree to know who visited your site and why. Now various applications open this to anyone and everyone. You can view your own site statistics in real time and then tailor your content as you see fit.

Working together

The Web may have initially brought the impersonalization of technology to the masses. But if so, the masses have adjusted the technology to inject personality back into it.

What's Web 2.0 about? It's about me and you working together.

So, what do you have to say about that?

Question: How have online tools changed how you interact with people you know?

The Internet is not your delivery boy

2009-12-07T16:58:00.000-08:00

A few years back, a CEO interviewing me for a job in his company asked me, "How do you learn?"

I never really gave a convincing answer. But I think I came a little closer when I discovered this blog:

http://www.churchmarketingsucks.com/archives/2009/11/the_internet_is.html

The most important line in here is something I've thought for years, but something that's becoming increasingly clear from the advent of "Web 2.0" and related terminology, social networking, community-building:

The Internet isn't powerful because it connects you to information,
but because it connects you to other people.

Knowledge sitting there and flapping in the breeze is passè.

Knowledge acquired through interacting with someone that you sought out because you knew they possess it...? That's cool!

Since I know you're wondering, my attempt in that interview was enough to please the CEO. Although I thought the subject deserved a book or two, I went home and wrote a three-page manifesto on how I acquire knowledge. But one of his underlings threw a wrench in the decision, and I didn't get the offer. I was grateful for his question all the same. It's stuck with me for several years now.

We learn because we seek out people who pass on knowledge. We use the best method available to do that.

Originally posted on LiveJournal.

Question: What expertise are you passing on? To whom?

Why do I blog?

2009-12-05T18:03:00.000-08:00

It's about people. Like you.

This whole blog might occasionally look like a potpourri of topics, but in reality it's about connections. When we make a connection, our world expands a little bit. We learn something. We grow. We have an opportunity to develop something meaningful and deep and quite possibly lasting.

When we make a connection, we have an opportunity to be of use. If we sequester this new knowledge like it's top-secret, we render it inert and useless. If we openly share it, then we have value.

Growth is an endless cycle of making connections, seeking connections, and offering connections.

This blog is about three kinds of connections.

Connecting people with people. What else can possibly play a larger role in our progress? Think about the people who mean the most to you. With the possible exception of your mother (if she's on the list), there was a moment for all of them at which you did not know them yet. Something happened. A connection was made. Your life was enriched, and you enriched the life of another.

It makes me sad to meet others who aren't interested in making more connections with people. This isn't simple introversion. There are introverts and extroverts in this crowd. It's more like low self-esteem. It's an active refusal to recognize self-value and admit that others might actually like to find out more about you.

At this holiday season, make an effort to reach out to three new people. These could become the most significant friends of the remainder of your life!

Connecting people with ideas. New knowledge allows us to make more responsible decisions, and to relate better to the world around us. We learn, we grow, we test, we fail, we learn some more, we master, and then we teach.

Our responsibility is to maintain minds open enough to recognize new good ideas, and to internalize and then actualize the best of them so others can benefit from it. Once a good idea has been connected with us, we should then connect it with other people.

Connecting ideas with other ideas. Knowledge builds. And insights come from knowledge on lots of subjects. You can be an expert on math, or on religion, or on science, or on history. But you'll be a better expert on history if you have some understanding of math and religion and science.

So you'll see posts here that make connections between seemingly unrelated issues.

The biggie will be how to use technology to connect other knowledge to people. That's what we instructional designers do.

What seemingly unrelated thoughts crossed your mind as you were reading this post?

Personal principles for instructional design

2009-12-02T13:09:00.000-08:00

Every Instructional Designer needs to know certain basic things, like

the ADDIE model

Kirkpatrick's scale of assessment

general adult learning principles

Bloom's Taxonomy

how to develop relationships with SMEs

how to complete a task analysis

But I also have a few general principles that I apply to my work. This list is constantly undergoing revision.

I hate most CBTs (Computer-Based Training). They're so easy to tune out.

I write CBTs. I don't want to write something that I'd hate to take. Therefore...

Be interesting, but don't be so interesting that the learner is more enamored with your personality than with the material.
Course material is for the purpose of transferring knowledge to the learner, not for impressing the learner or the Instructional Designer's manager with your intelligence, capabilities, knowledge, or tech savvy. You want the learner to remember the material, not you.

Don't be boring.

Few words. Type a little. Speak what must be said, no more.

Borrow existing material as much as possible. Shorten development time.

This is the hardest for me to apply for a few reasons. First, it's immoral to plagiarize. Second, my own sense of personal responsibility says I shouldn't write about something I can't comprehend. Third, I think it's cool to become a SME.

But the bottom line is...well...the bottom line. Corporate responsibility calls me to efficiency in the construction of materials. If the wheel already exists, do not reinvent it.

DO! That is, create an exercise for the learner. But remember that interactivity is a tool to reinforce knowledge acquisition, not distract from it.

Likewise, avoid technical gadgets unless they enhance the presentation of knowledge. Simple text transitions that synchronize with audio are encouraged. Complex text transitions only make us think, "Gee, isn't PowerPoint neat!" That's pathetic. We're not trying to sell PowerPoint.

Avoid humor. But do not avoid humor entirely. Consider this blog post from maven-guru David Pogue.

Always, always, always have a knowledge check at the end. People need to be held accountable. No matter how simple the training is, trust that the learner CAN be responsible to apply knowledge to real-world situations. Prove it.

This was originally posted on my old blog

8 amusing Twitter juxtapositions

2009-11-30T23:53:00.000-08:00

Ever notice how two tweets in a row occasionally look like they're talking to each other?

The mobile program I use to follow Twitter presents all my incoming tweets in a single stream. Now that I'm following just over 600 souls, it occasionally presents some rather amusing combinations.

Here are just a few that I collected yesterday, brought to you by the most excellent and unexpectedly paired @BrianClavyville, @chuckallen, @GuyKawasaki, @iameddie, @istologio2, @Leadership501, @mikeglenn, @ResaMichelle, @TimTerpening, @triciagoyer, @SheilaWalsh, and @susanwrites, with honorable mention from @soverpeck.

@triciagoyer & @susanwrites

Two writers muddling together in the middle.

@SheilaWalsh & @Leadership501

Leadership lessons learned from lhasas. Who's right?

@iameddie & @BrianClavyville

Watch out for the Clayville diet, Eddie!
To Mr. Clayville's credit, you kinda had to be there.
Blame @soverpeck

@mikeglenn & @ResaMichelle

Well, if you were Jesus, wouldn't YOU want
to come back for this complete breakfast?

@chuckallen & @SheilaWalsh (again)

Sheila Walsh makes an encore appearance calling for
the National Guard to intervene on Chuck Allen.
I can't blame her.

@istologio2 (again) & @TimTerpening

The aggregator istologio reminds on someone's behalf that indecision
behind you could be just as bad as indecision in front of you.
...Or could it?

And finally, my favorite one...

@GuyKawasaki & @istologio2

The answer at the bottom reads: "Andrew the First-Called."
It is today, November 30, that we
commemorate Saint Andrew,
the first disciple of Jesus.

Who better to promote your brand?!

Question: Have you found any amusing, awkward, or unfortunate tweets-in-a-row?

Changed addresses, but still here

2009-04-20T20:40:00.000-07:00

I've changed content hosting to Examiner.com, but I'm still alive and kicking.

I may switch back here one of these days.

The conclusion of the Great Fast

2008-04-28T01:23:00.000-07:00

[Crossposted to LiveJournal]

I began Great Lent with a post on the Fast as an opportunity to challenge the danger of selfishness.

I end it with the same theme.

I also spent Friday leading a retreat for Jr and Sr High students on the subject of the Crucifixion as an act of love. I shared that love will transform us regardless of how we use it. But how we use it is precisely the point. We can either allow it to work through us, assenting our wills and choices and decisions to holiness, and find that the transformation turns us into a sacrificial, irrefutable, and contagious force for good. Or we can put our own unguarded wishes and desires and hopes and dreams and thoughts at the forefront, our selfishness, and risk distorting love into a maelstrom that consumes and controls and captivates those around us with hurt and wounds so deep that it ultimately (at its worst) destroys them and swallows us right into the dark gravitational well with it.

And it all got me to thinking.

The hours concluding Saturday evening and Sunday morning afforded me the opportunity to take part in two Sacraments, which are Confession and Communion. But before we delve too deeply into either (which is, actually, not the subject of this post), we need a common understanding of just what a "sacrament" is, really.

I actually just learned in the past few days that it is somewhat of an inaccuracy to claim that the Orthodox Church has a certain set of Sacraments. In actuality, any event or action is sacramental if God's power works in, on, or through it, and offers to us the presence of transforming Grace. The Sacraments are those things or actions or events in which God is present. (In truth, it is never the thing itself, but the *use* of the thing, the active verb, in which the dynamic presence is made manifest.) Let's ponder one of the ones that always makes the list, recognized by the Church.

Marriage.

Marriage is the crucible in which those of us who are married are afforded the opportunity to find sanctification, or reach damnation. Grace is poured out in the activity of marriage. We learn to set aside our own wills for the sake of loving another, unabashedly, unashamedly, unselfishly. We are refined and melted down and reworked into something new, beautiful, regenerated, restored. Or, if we are acting on our own terms, without concern for God's activity, we love with a distorted love, twisted, deranged, and one which ultimately destroys us and the relationship.

One of the priests who married my wife and me made the point in his sermonette that marriage is a bit like cenobitic monasticism. The partners in marriage support each other in Christian growth, encouraging and supporting, rejoicing and intervening where appropriate, ever increasing in godliness. This is indeed sacramental.

Marriage unites two souls mystically together in a symbolic mimicry of the intimacy of the Trinity, a mystery we can never fully understand because of its impossible complexity, but one which by marriage we can nonetheless partly experience. Marriage is also unique in that it is an ongoing sacrament. The Eucharist is a repeated event. Baptism and Ordination (and, we expect, a funeral) are one-time events. Grace in marriage is in a state of constant outpouring, in both the activities that bring happiness and the ones that bring stress and disillusionment. Both serve sacramental purpose. All in the milieu work to bring the Christian growth, in hope, through love, towards a better understanding of God's love, towards perfection.

In the act of sacrificing the unholy "I want" for the sake of my wife, I find that I am renewed, restored to my purpose, reoriented back on the path to sanctification, to restoration to the original intent of the human being (that is, saintliness). Regardless of the current state of the relationship, grace is outpoured, and the two of us together are brought closer to the presence of God, closer to ideal love.

When I can learn to love even when, because of my distortions, I do not feel like loving, then I am getting closer to acting as God does. Until then, I remain in the training ground, trying and failing, sometimes succeeding, and trying again.

It's good to be married. It's challenging, to be sure. But it's good. The Great Fast is over, but the quest for humility and holiness continues.

Amen.

Some thoughts on Great Lent

2008-03-16T03:21:00.000-07:00

[Crossposted to LiveJournal.]

Used with permission, Creative Commons: treviño

On this day last year (according to the Church calendar) I left some words on the subject of the Triumph of Orthodoxy.

I thought perhaps I should explain why we Orthodox are so obsessed with this whole Lent thing, that is, the forty days preparing for Easter, the celebration of the Resurrection. We take it so seriously. Whereas some choose something to give up (others nothing at all), we follow a prescribed regimen of preparation, abstaining from certain things every year in a remarkably non-arbitrary fashion.

But that's the point. It's not arbitrary. It's not about what I want to give up. It IS about submitting. It IS about obedience. It's about the replacement of my selfish will with the Will of the One who wants me. It is about rejecting that sentiment that got us human beings into trouble in the first place, the constant repetition of that age-old, infernal, insipid, ludicrous, pathetic, droning mantra...

I want, I want, I want.

We rephrase it sometimes. I'm entitled. I deserve it. I earned it. It's my right. I should have this. This should be mine. My life will be better when I have this!

What's the danger, the damage in this attitude? Why is it that we Christians get accused of being killjoys, of being against fun in any form? It is not because joy is something unfamiliar to us. It is because this quest for fulfillment through hedonism is akin to quenching thirst by gulping gallons of ocean water. The danger is in the consequence.

Receiving what is wanted is satisfying, surely. It is at times (perhaps even often!) to be considered godly. (Consider, e.g., "If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him." [Mt 7:11].) But when my wants conflict with the wants of another, chaos ensues. When the receipt of my desire results in the jealousy of the one close to me, the damage can be irreparable. When my gain necessitates another's loss, I have failed in my charge to bear one another's burden, to love my neighbor as myself, and to seek first the Kingdom of God.

And so we have this season once again, a reminder, a chance to renew, reclaim our purpose to love one another, regain lost ground, a reminder that we CAN be renewed, no matter how foolishly and destructively pathetic we have been in the past year, a reminder that flesh can be restored to its purpose, to dignity, to hope, to the path to perfection once again.

Lent also places us in community. We aren't doing this alone. We have the support of entire congregations.

The Resurrection is upon us, and it is a microcosm of the resurrection we will all experience.

Amen.

Some late thoughts on the Saturday of Lazarus and Palm Sunday

2007-04-03T16:41:00.000-07:00

[Crossposted to LiveJournal.]

Everybody seems to know what Palm Sunday is, even if they don't have much exposure to church. It's the day that Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey.

Why a donkey? Because that's what kings rode on. It was a symbol of authority. (If you can get a donkey to go, you MUST be a King!)

Anyone else see anything sardonically ironic about the fact that Palm Sunday was on April Fool's Day this year? "Yeah! Jesus is here! C'mon in, buddy. Sure! Be our King! It's sooo good to see you. Uhm...PSYCH! Just kidding! Hold still while we nail you."

Anyway, the people went ballistic. They went nutso berzerk. They threw tickertape all over the place like it was John Glenn himself back from orbiting the earth before the Russians did.

Ok, it wasn't tickertape. It was palm branches. But still. You know.

Palm Sunday isn't the big deal, folks. All the fanfare is on the entrance into the city, but the big deal was the previous afternoon. It's mere mob mentality that drove the people ballistic, but it's the power and authority of God that established what the theme of the week would be about.

Jesus establishes his mission and his final stand on Saturday, the day before the entrance. He makes certain that the disciples think he's nuts, but proves that they're willing to follow him even when they can't see how he makes sense. He weeps in solidarity with those whose hearts are breaking. He speaks to the dead man and commands him, "Come forth!" and the dead man obeys. He drives his foot into the ground as if to say, "Here, upon death itself, I make my final stand!"

The announcement of the resurrection happens over a full week before his own. Any victory the enemy can accomplish during this week is Pyrrhic at best, ultimately futile. The end of Death is certified, or at least announced and prefigured. Its reign is short-lived. No obstacle can stop him now, and any obstacle that tries will shortly be eradicated.

Yet a week, and Death will be made a doorway, the mode by which reunification with God is made possible. As everything King Midas touched turns to gold, so everything which God experiences is made holy. Thus, because of his own death, God will convert death into an act of life.

The process begins with a powerful whisper, "Lazarus, come forth!" in which I imagine one could have heard a pin drop amongst the astonished onlookers, or at least the collective thud of their jaws hitting the Bethany sand. It continues the next day with the crescendo of a mob which has no clue what it is saying. It develops into a final challenge against hypocrisy and politicized religion, culminating in an act of misguided betrayal. And it will end with the loudest quiet the world has ever heard, in which an empty tomb will explode with silence, the only message Death can any longer give.

Death will be vanquished, for us and because of us, for us because it is a gift to restore us to God's presence, because of us since it is our own misbehavior which prompted the necessity of this act. Our response is therefore two-fold: absolute rejoicing, and absolute humility. We are both the mob AND Lazarus, both poised to be raised, and poised to act zealously without forethought.

We look forward to celebrating powerfully in quiet at midnight on Saturday, before the chorus of rejoicing erupts. This week, we recognize Lazarus' resurrection, anticipate Christ's, and long for our own.

--------------------------------------
More on the tradition of St. Lazarus can be found in the form of some notes by Fr. Demetrios Serfes at http://www.serfes.org/lives/stlazarus.htm. I really had no idea that my father spent a year or two living this close to the relics of this saint. He never mentioned it to me.

On Intellect and Faith

2007-03-21T11:04:00.000-07:00

[Crossposted to LiveJournal.]

A quote from an interview with Johnnie Cowie, a british convert to Orthodoxy from atheism:

One of the unique things about being Orthodox in Oxford is that there is a Greek parish and a Russian parish, and over half of the services are either in Slavonic or in Greek. For me that has been a good thing, because it means that although half the time I can understand every word of the service in English and relate to what’s going on intellectually, at other times I am completely unable to, which means that I have to attend more to the intuitive, the visual, the bodily.

(From http://www.pravmir.com/article_6.html)

Mystery. Mystery is the key to Orthodoxy, and to deepening ones faith in Christ.

A rational and intelligible and manageable faith places me at the center, as the director, with me in charge. "I am the captain of my soul," one might say in such a situation. Thus was the tradition in which I was raised. Certainly we were supposed to be devoted to God. Certainly we were supposed to grow in our faith. Certainly we were supposed to be wise to our own sins and submit ourselves as "living sacrifices" as it were (Rom. 12:2). We were on our own to figure out how! We were taught--rightly--to honor God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength. It was that third category which drew me in. To not think more deeply each day was to dishonor God! God took hold of the heart by invitation, and then I brought my mind along for the ride. And so I read. And studied. I swallowed up anything I could that was in print. I listened to sermons from every wise pastor on KFAX. (Oh, how I relished the teachings of John MacArthur and Jack Hayford! ...And why is it that all the good preachers are in California? ...and post-denominational?) I filtered out the heresies of the Tübingens from the refreshing water of the neo-orthodoxers (why is it that most of both were German?). I could defend Augustine from Pelagius--as if he still needed the help. My mind was attuned to God, and my faith made sense. It was internally consistent. It was rational. It was based on a God who was believable. I unlocked God's truth one verse at a time (borrowing from the website of the church of the aforementioned John MacArthur), as if the Scriptures had been dropped in our laps and it was left to our devices to figure out how to build a church around them. My mind was aflame.

And it stopped.

There was an ending point. Or, at least, there would have been an ending point if I'd reached it. The ending point was the limits of my own rational capabilities. There was no way past this if my faith was rational, if I was the director of my growth. I was my own limit. Whatever I could imagine and attain...wasn't infinity. It was subject to the limits of human capacity. Stagnation was the ultimate end, a festering, putrid pool of mental uselessness that could regurgitate much, but ponder nothing new. My mind was set. God said it, I believed it, that settled it. I was saved because I prayed a prayer and prayed it sincerely (and I did!), and Charles Stanley patted me on the back through my radio and said I'd be okay. My mind was becoming the Dead Sea, a place for recreational health spas and Israeli gunboats.

I was disturbed by those around me who had little to offer in the way of encouragement. "I'm happy in my faith," they'd say. "I read my Bible and pray and go to church and I only listen to DC Talk and Steven Curtis Chapman and..." I could close my eyes and picture them saying it with a plastic smile and all the sincerity of Simon Cowell asserting, "...and I like puppies." *They* actually believed it was enough. They actually believed that intellectual stimulation and growth was unnecessary in the Christian life, that stagnation was okay, that so long as you weren't poisoning your mind with disgusting books by Stephen King and homophilic music by Melissa Ethridge, you were plenty okay! You had arrived. Your salvation was complete. What more did you need?

I was defeated. It was not exactly a crisis of faith. My belief hadn't changed. Why would it? My mind was set! But I had no home. So I went with the flow. I went to church and read my Bible and listened to DC Talk and Steven Curtis Chapman. And I felt okay. Very...mediocrely...okay.

I tried Orthodoxy, but that was just completely unintelligible. "How?" I asked myself. "How could these superstitious dimwits actually believe that mechanical repetition of the same script every week might CHANGE you, might help you GROW nearer to God?? It's just the same thing over and over!" It was preposterous. Not only that, but they said you had to work on your salvation (not that Saints Paul and Peter and John hadn't said the same thing, mind you), and that the elements really *were* the Body and Blood of Christ (not that Jesus hadn't said the same thing as recorded by his friend Saint John the Apostle, nor that Saint Paul wrote to the Corinthians with the same level of immeasurable respect for the bread and wine, mind you), and that *things* could be holy (not that this wasn't clear especially from the Old Testament, where God inhabited a Temple, but also in the New, where Saint Paul sent his hankies about to heal folks, mind you). Things??!? I was as incredulous about that as the Muslims were that God could corrupt Himself by taking on something so despicable as human flesh, and I didn't have a problem explaining that one, of course. But God wouldn't bother with an inanimate object anymore! God was LIFE!

See? Orthodoxy HAD to be wrong because I SAID SO. And why not? I was in charge. My mind knew best. It was being directed by the Holy Spirit in my heart.

Right?

...I think.

But then again, who was I to tell the Holy Spirit in my heart how He could lead me?

I made a mistake, a slight miscalculation. I started asking people about their experiences in the Orthodox parish I was attending. I expected them unanimously to complain and whine about how their faith had no meaning, which would afford me a fantastic evangelistic opportunity to lead them to deeper study of the Scriptures and acceptance of the developments that had taken place in the church for the 1,800 or so years they'd been ignoring it.

Wow, was I wrong. My intellect blew it. I picked up my jaw off the floor the first few times that folks shared with me what God was doing in their lives. These people were believers. These people were CHRISTIANS! Something dynamic was going on in them, and constantly! Suddenly, I was on the defensive! I wasn't the one in the superior position. Those same "superstitious dimwits" were explaining faith to me without necessarily having cracked open their Bibles all that much. Something else was informing them, and in Truth, too! What was more, about a third of them I talked to had chosen this Orthodoxy! And the priest was one of them! (I should have noticed that "Dumont" isn't exactly a Greek name, duh.) But I didn't get it. Why would a legitimate Christian CHOOSE the easy path of repetition, a faith in which you don't have to think anything at all, if...

...If...

Then it hit me. They were out-thinking me. These untrained, undereducated, superstitious dimwits were thinking and articulating and sharing thoughts that were a hundred-thousand times deeper than anything I'd ever tried, and it was BECAUSE they were Orthodox. And they weren't even proud of it. They were naturally humble about it. They didn't speak of it regularly because they simply didn't notice it was anything of interest. It was NORMAL. Their hearts AND minds were alive, on fire for God, they were taking the plunge, and they hadn't found the bottom yet. I had been transforming me, but God was transforming them. The impetus to work on their salvation was driving them nearer and nearer to the bosom of Christ, to trust and intimacy, to seek refuge in the Lover of our Souls, the only hope they had of accomplishing much of anything of significance. But I had no such impetus, because I was already at the pinnacle of what I thought my Faith could attain. And the holy things? A sign: If God could transform an object, how much more could he transform a human being? And Communion? A holy, transformed thing itself, AND a transformed human being simultaneously, a created object with divine significance, the Flesh and Blood of an eternal human being, according to the pattern human beings were always supposed to have, a small dose (as if one needed more) repeated regularly to affect the same sort of renewal in us.

I found myself thinking of Jacques Cousteau, and I imagined... What if a young Cousteau had gone to the beach his first time on a gray, misty, windless day and been uninspired. "That's it?" he could have said, irked at the person who brought him there and wasted his time. "Just gray as far as the eye can see?" He would have dismissed it with a shrug and never come back. But we know this is not what happened. Cousteau dove. He went deeper. He found he could never get to the bottom. Under the surface, it was alive! "They say the sea is cold, but the sea contains the hottest blood of all, and the wildest, the most urgent," penned the poet D.H. Lawrence. There was always someplace more to go, something new to discover. Lawrence continues, "...all this happiness in the sea, in the salt where God is also love, but without words..."

And so in awed but cautious silence the complacent one dusted off the old equipment and went back to being an explorer.

I discovered a depth I couldn't fathom, a help I never knew was there, a life far richer than anything I'd ever known. I found people who chuckled at and then dispatched with theodicy as if it were a child's game (and I'd been looking for those folks for a while, admittedly). I approached the icons there and venerated them, imploring, begging the Saints depicted therein for their help and prayers before the throne of God (that my intellect had told me previously I could--and should--approach just fine on my own...but why not ask for help if it's there?). I was touched, and I can't explain how. I found myself with the opposite cry, in anguish: "Why!? WHY did we throw this all away and assume the church was ours to meddle with and decide how it should look and what it would feel like? How did we forget that *God* made this Church at Pentecost and preserved it so we could draw near to Him and keep growing?" I was deep in the Mystery. I couldn't solve it, wouldn't ever be able to solve it, didn't want to solve it, because it wasn't in my power and wasn't my place to solve it. It wasn't my purpose to solve it. This was the comfort I needed, the reassurance that God was (as Karl Barth had assured us all in the 20th century) "wholly other" (or, as VeggieTales had said, "bigger than the bogeyman").

But I was hungry, and I still couldn't have Communion. Why are the Orthodox so adamant about keeping the Chalice closed? Would you allow your most prized and valuable possession to be borrowed by someone you did not KNOW for SURE would use it properly? The Orthodox are justifiably a bit suspicious of the spiritual intentions of those who are spiritual descendants of people who turned their backs on Orthodoxy. Even western Protestantism has sprung from western Catholicism. ("What?" you say? "My forebears LEFT the Catholic Church so they could return to the 'TRUE' faith?" Oh really? Then why did they have to put together a committee to create something new, decide how it should function, subject to quarterly review and annual votes by the national administration?) Part of the mystery of the Church is that its unity is preserved by God. If you are not seeking to unify it--and unity comes through the assent of the will of the individual--perhaps then you accept and encourage the status quo of its continuing fragmentation? "I deserve Communion. Because I'm good enough! Because I SAY SO!" There's that intellect in charge again.

Humility. I stuck around in my previous tradition for a while longer because I could be noticed. I wanted to be a great speaker, a great leader, a great author, a great singer (ha!). But Jesus said, "If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all." I'm still not quite comfy with that, but I have to learn to put up with it because I'm not in charge anymore. At least, I'm not supposed to be. I'm learning every day a little bit more. I'm growing again. "I will not give you a kiss as did Judas," says the prayer repeated immediately before Communion, "but as the thief I confess to you, Lord, remember me, a sinner." A man who's put in his place is a valuable tool in the hand of God. Through the door of humility there is great capability. It does not make sense. It is paradox. It is mystery.

And so, if you can't beat them, join them. When the oil of chrism was finally placed upon me and I was made part of the Church, I hoped and seriously expected to see a vision of a ladder at the altar in the front of the church, with angels ascending and descending to minister to us. I saw no such vision, but I knew it was there all the same. I've spent about a quarter of my active, intentional, committed Christian life now in Orthodoxy. I still don't understand the Liturgy. Oh, I'm getting better with the Greek! But, as Johnny said above, when I can't understand what's going on, there's always something else to attune to, some other level of activity swirling around me, Saints praying for us, movement, people doing prostrations, crossing themselves (a "physical prayer," flesh in the process of transformation doing an inherently Christian action), watching to see where the Gospel or the Chalices (each representations of the presence of God) are being carried, kneeling in fear because a miracle is about to take place (a miracle so powerful that the special effects in the first Indiana Jones film seem pretty lame to me now). The Liturgy is alive. It may be repetition, but it is alive. And wild. And urgent. I don't understand it, but it sure is full of dignity and awe and reverence.

And the repetition isn't so bad anymore. In fact, here's something I get out of it: "Let us commit ourselves and one another and our whole lives unto Christ our God." I'm not on my own anymore. I'm responsible for the guy in the pew next to me. And he's responsible for me. I bring him to God, and he brings me to God, and when one of us stumbles, we call around for help. We have a community. We have holy things--things that God has touched--around to help us. We have people who are further along the path--even, in many cases, over the threshold of the other side of life--praying for us. And we're getting there, slowly.

How is it happening? I don't have a clue. And I like that, because my God is bigger than me now, and always will be.

Christ, the Bread of Life

If Communion gives us life,
how could he NOT be present in it?

Thoughts on the 40 Martyrs of Sebaste

2007-03-08T12:12:00.000-08:00

[Crossposted from LiveJournal.]

It was brought to my attention Tuesday night that tomorrow, Friday, is the day on which we Orthodox commemorate the memory of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste. This is particularly interesting to me because they had been on my mind on and off all day long.

The reason has to do with the new treadmill I mentioned assembling in the garage a couple weeks ago. After running a couple miles on it for the first time and noticing a convenient blank spot on the wall in front of me, I quickly decided I would do well to fill the spot with an icon. (There he goes again. Always about the icons!)

I purposed to place there an icon of the Theotokos, Mary, the Mother of God, as a reminder that flesh and God met in the person of Christ, a certification (as I've mentioned before) that God seeks to transform every part of us, not just our souls, into something magnificent. Why do we (I occasionally wonder) seek to limit God by offering Him only our souls and not our bodies, as if the exercise we do is selfishly only for ourselves, for our own health, or even for our own vanity, and not to His glory?

Well, in a hurry to rush down the stairs and get a late five-mile run started about a week ago, I grabbed the first interesting icon I could find that was small enough to put in the spot. Unable to find a "convenient" icon of Saint Mary, I grabbed one of the Forty Martyrs, popped it up on the wall, and started my run.

Of interesting personal note to me is that amongst these forty was a Theophilus. This is the name I selected at the time of my entrance into the Orthodox Church, a rather acceptable "greekization" of my given name. This is not the particular Theophilus whom I consider to be my patron, and, granted, with forty folks in there, the chances of your name NOT being represented in one form or another is rather slim, but I always do wonder which one in the crowd there is him. It gives me something worthwhile to ponder.

Let me give some background on these men. They were Roman soldiers in the early 300s. Recall that there had already been one Christian emperor by this point, but it was still five or ten years before Emperor Constantine would issue the Edict of Milan and legitimize Christianity. So, at this point, persecution was renewed and open season was announced once again on the people of the Church. Having a whopping half of a centuria of Roman soldiers confessing Christ at a time when the Emperor was actively seeking to eradicate such folks proved somewhat problematic for the local military officials, and so the commander of the group ordered them to recant or be discharged dishonorably. One of the forty suggested that the commander remove not only their commission, but their very lives, saying, "Nothing is dearer or of greater honor to us than Christ our God."

After some torture, they were eventually placed in a freezing lake in the winter. Those soldiers who were overseeing the final torture lit warm fires and taunted and tempted the martyrs to come join them in the warmth of the fire if only they would deny Christ. One eventually did so, but on seeing the devotion of the remaining thirty-nine and being moved by it, one of the torturers shed his clothing and joined the remaining soldiers, bringing the total back to forty, and thus identifying himself with the Christians as opposed to the sadists as the final act of his earthly journey.

All forty of course perished as the temperature overcame them, choosing devotion to Christ over lust for personal comfort.

...Which brings me to the treadmill.

When I'm in the middle of a five-mile run and I'm huffing and puffing and thinking of pressing the STOP button and calling it a night, whining, "This aches!" or, "I'm tired and sweaty," I look up for a moment and then immediately think to myself, "Shut up, Jeff." They accepted death in the elements and I can't handle five miles of effort? Oh, please.

Shut up, Jeff, indeed. For the sake of these forty, may their lives speak for themselves as they continue to pray for our growth and renewal in and for God's glory.

The Sunday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy

2007-02-25T02:34:00.000-08:00

[Crossposted to LiveJournal]

Sunday, the 25th of February, 2007, is known amongst us Eastern Christians as the Sunday of the "Triumph of Orthodoxy." This remembrance, always commemorated on the first Sunday of Lent, calls to mind the re-establishment of the use of icons in both personal and corporate worship. The West must consider it at best an oddity that we refer to the reintegration of icons into the public life of the Church as the defining moment in our history, that instant at which our longevity was confirmed as inevitable, and, had the opposite occurred, would have surely meant our Church's ultimate and soon-realized doom.

So why the big deal? Why is it that we Orthodox place so much emphasis on the pictures we hang on our walls? Why do we venerate and kiss and bow before them? Why is the icon so important? For the very reason that it eradicates any opportunity within us to embrace dualism as a valid philosophical viewpoint. The rejection of icons promotes a view of reality which places the spiritual realm in a position superior to the physical. Icons force us rather to accept this truth first revealed in Genesis: God created matter, and God is pleased with this creation.

One would do well to understand the historical aspects of this day. We accept that there was a time when the icons were absent from corporate worship. A longstanding iconoclasm--not just a passive, intellectual, somewhat ambivalent rejection of the icons, but a violent effort to eradicate them--at the highest levels of the Byzantine empire's government resulted in an enforced acquiescence of the Church to the imperial whims. Yet still there were those who privately kept collections of the images for veneration and remembrance.

The reasons for the iconoclasm were two-fold. From the political standpoint, the impending military advance of Islam forced the cultures surrounding the Ottomans to recognize the Muslim's insistence that depictions of God were a repulsive attempt to manifest that which was impossible even to imagine, much less to realize. On the other hand, the movement saw itself as spiritually purifying: the Second Commandment prohibited any graven images. (It is an intriguing historical oddity that remarkably similar attitudes would lead to an eventual similarly violent repudiation of art in Zurich and Geneva.) Thus, the iconoclasts saw themselves as justified in removing the images, and in persecuting--even unto death--those who disagreed with them.

The soul, so said the iconoclasts, was the ground in which God accomplished his work. The flesh was something not merely to be denied and repressed, but something to be marginalized and categorized as uninteresting to God. A classical duality after the father of duality, Plato, was being reestablished. Platonism was replacing the view the Church had always had, that the incarnation was a defining moment in understanding God's desire to reorder the physical reality.

On the opposite extreme, the iconodules--those who supported the images--saw themselves as preservationists. The adoration to the icons was never an act of worship to the object, but to its Creator. It was an admission that God created matter, and that God said in Genesis that matter was good. God was pleased with creation. In time, after the Fall, it was not just the abstract created order, but the very matter itself that needed to be redeemed, reshaped, and refashioned back into the originally-intended pattern. "God so loved the κοσμον..." the created "stuff."

Let us make one thing here perfectly and absolutely clear, and I hope everyone reading this can agree: adherence to the Ten Commandments has never meant altering the practice of the Faith that goes along with it, the Faith handed down to us by God at Pentecost. Distort the Decalogue, and our Faith mutates. Allow the Faith to deform, and the Law becomes an archaic and lifeless memory lacking in authority. Belief and practice have always gone hand-in-hand for the Church. We are neither a moral force lacking in spiritual component, nor an ephemeral and esoteric mere personal philosophy lacking in responsibility to the needs of our neighbors. We are both, and the preservation of both is essential if we are to carry out the work of God on earth.

Iconoclasm predominated for the better part of two centuries, an on-again/off-again lover of a confused, fickle Church. Exiles, heroes, saints and villains were made as the ecclesiastical ping-pong ensued and lingered. Eventually, the Emperor Theophilus made the last attempt to fasten iconoclasm as the norm, ordering the final eradication of the image of Christ from the Hagia Sophia on the grounds that the Moslem would never be brought to Christianity so long as Christians insisted on the presence of images. Thus it was that a politician--ignoring the warning given by the example of King Saul--made a decision to adjust the ancient and established practice of the Church in an unsuccessful bid to hope for the offchance that an infidel might wander in. (No wonder it is, one realizes looking at our history, that we Orthodox have such a keen adherence to the separation of Church and State and a tuned eye to the rise of fundamentalism.)

In due time, then Empress Theodora--the iconodule wife of an iconoclast emperor--found herself with the opportunity to rule as regent after the passing of Emperor Theophilus. Theophilus had actively sought the demise of those who promoted the re-establishment of the use of icons without ever suspecting his wife to be one of them. History records for us that she would have her servants inform him that she was playing with her jewelry when he called for her, and furthermore records that her hidden icons were easily disguised as jewelry boxes.

Theodora was adamant--albeit in secret--about the use of the icons because she understood the implications to the theology of the Church of how we recognize the interaction between God and creation. "I do not worship matter," wrote Saint John the Damascene. "I worship the God of matter, who became matter for my sake, and deigned to inhabit matter, who worked out my salvation through matter. I will not cease from honouring that matter which works my salvation." The icon certified that we would always remember that Christ accomplished the very act of salvation not merely as God, but also as matter, as flesh, as Man. Matter could change the universe. Matter mattered, to God, and to us.

Thus it was that, on February 19, 843, the ruling Empress delivered in the Hagia Sophia the edict that restored the icon to its proper place. Once again, and forevermore, the icon of Christ was established to be venerated. Orthodoxy was triumphant because the icon was triumphant, and therefore we could be triumphant. From that moment on, we were sure that God accomplished his work by intervening in the physical realm.

Any argument that God cannot be depicted is in any case silenced by the fact of the Incarnation itself. Our Creed reiterates time and time again (that is, as often as we repeat it) that God depicts Himself by the very act of taking on flesh, not merely appearing to be flesh, and neither diminishing Himself in the process, but actually becoming flesh. God proves that flesh can be transformed by Him, for the very reason that flesh did not transform Him into something less than Himself. By His taking on of flesh--iconifying Himself--we have hope. Christ is our certification that flesh can be godly!

Without the icon our identity as Orthodox is lost. We forget who we are and become merely flesh and spirit striving against one another until one or the other prevails. If the flesh cannot be transformed, then it must be excised and rejected, tossed away. Or it must be satiated, given ultimate control at the expense of the spirit; hedonism must be allowed to rule. We cannot have it both ways. But the icon reassures us that the created matter is a vessel for the spirit, and the spirit works a transformation in it as in the pattern of the transformed Christ on Mount Tabor. The icon is a depiction of the capability of God to work transformation on His creation.

It is for this very reason that one particular moment in the liturgy I at first found disturbing I now consider to be one of the most profoundly joyful, overwhelmingly undeserved blessings I ever experience. And I get this one every week!

It is one thing to witness the priest censing the icons, reverently and seriously. The visitor may observe this activity with wonder, curiosity, and bewilderment, and perhaps even a degree of latent iconoclastic confusion, revulsion, contempt. But it is quite another thing entirely when the leap is made and one can internalize that moment immediately afterwards when the same priest turns and, just as seriously and reverently, censes us, the congregants. Deserved or not, we receive the same treatment as the icons.

In this moment, we realize that we too--we, who are made of stuff--are icons of God, images of the Creator and the Redeemer, called to embody some of God's very characteristics and actualize them in ourselves. God desires that we be like Him, and we know He is saddened that we are not. He wishes, implores and beckons us to be like Him, and He empowers us to be like Him. The hope unrealized and the joy present are mixed in one moment, and we both realize with humility and grief just how far we have to go, how unworthy we are to receive this honor, and also receive with joy the news of who we are. We are icons of the Christ, censed and respected with honor and dignity just as are the depictions of our predecessors on the walls around us, worthy vehicles for containing the presence of God, fingers to touch the world with love. Our transformation is in process to be sure, a slow explosion working itself from the inside out, due any moment to erupt in a euphoric euphony of Godly agape, but it is in process. We are the people of God. Amen. So may it be.

An introduction of sorts

2005-06-28T10:19:00.000-07:00

Greetings, gentle readers. I have created this blog initially for the purpose of responding to a comment on a journal that does not allow anonymous comments.

You can probably find my actual, semi-regular journal at http://jeffholton.livejournal.com/

...Although, I happen to find this interface peachy keen, so I may start using it at some point. We shall see.