Posts
I love this post from Seth Godin on fear and the abundance of its use in the past couple of years. Let's hope there is more hope being spread than fear in 2010. That, at least, is what I am hoping for.
Showing posts with label Signposts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Signposts. Show all posts
Monday, January 04, 2010
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Need to blame someone?
Looking back on 2009, it was a struggle at times; in fact, it may have held some of the largest trials of the 2000's for myself and my family. I need someone to blame. Fortunately, Steven says that I can blame him.
There were certainly circumstances and other people that helped contribute to some of the issues, and I will place some of the blame on them. But why should I take any of the blame when I can lay it off on someone else, especially someone so willing? Now I don't have to learn lessons or change my behavior or face hard truths; they are such downers. If I can only find someone to take the consequences as well...
Friday, July 24, 2009
Monday, July 20, 2009
Do you really know what is going on?
Oh sure, you have an opinion about how things are going at work/family/religious institute/etc. And it may be going pretty well for you, you are quite happy with it, thank you. But if you are serving in some form of leadership, you desperately need to know how it is going for the people who it is supposed to serve, you being only a small part of it. Check out this quote from Peter Drucker (Managing The Nonprofit Organization, 120):
Force your people, and especially your executives, to be on the outside often enough to know what the institution exists for. There are no results inside an institution. There are only costs. Yet it is easy to become absorbed in the inside and to become insulated from reality. Effective non-profits make sure that their people get out in the field and actually work there again and again.
Who are the real customers for your product or service? Take a look at what bloggers are saying, take a look at customer service records, and actually try to use the service yourself to get a real look. Ask a friend to try it out and see what others think.
You may like it, but how is affecting your family? Are they having to put up with it just for you? Take a look at what they are saying on their social networks. Ask a good friend who isn't afraid to give you the truth, and then don't punish him or her for telling you.
What is the real cost of self assuagement?
We have a tendency to make our surroundings convenient to our own comforts without thinking about the repercussions on the people who also are affected. It is possible to have it work for you and for them. But chances are your real satisfaction will come when you know that customers are satisfied/family members are served/you are making a real difference in the lives of others.
It is so easy to think the world revolves around us. There is only one you, and that is a good thing. But it also means others don't necessarily see what is going on through your eyes.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
The Word Shamus
I would like to examine a new word. Well, it's not really a new word. But I would like to reexamine the word "Yes" because I'm not sure it means what it used to. And also because I really like the word "shamus."
"No," I believe, is still pretty concrete in its meaning. Although we might not like to hear it, I think we still pretty much know what it means when we say it.
Amazingly, there was more than one entry on the definition of "yes" on dictionary.com. I thought "an affirmative reply" would pretty much sum it up, but I should have known that it would need more than one line to let us know what it means. Fortunately for us, wikipedia.org (the fount of all knowledge) gives the additional information that it is the opposite of "no."
So, now that we have that cleared up, why do so many people have such a problem with saying "yes" and really meaning it? As in: "Will you do this?" and the reply: "Yes" ... "I'm getting to it" ... "I really meant to."
If you mean yes, really mean yes. Don't capitulate, don't mean maybe, don't pinky-swear or on your mother's grave. Say "yes" and do it. That might mean you really need to pause before you answer, you might need to think about your schedule or if your pet needs a bath or whatever it is you got going on. And really think about this - don't just say "yes" because you think we really want to hear it. I'd rather here "no, thank you" than "yes" and later be disappointed.
Are there some "yes"'s that you need to get done? Are there some "yes"'s that you've been putting off? Don't just do it for them, do it for you. To be that better you that everyone can count on.
A bold but reassuring synonym for "yes"? "Undoubtedly"
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Nobody Knows Nothing
This may sound strange, but a bad place to be in is when things are easy.
Granted, a bad place to be in is when things are going wrong and when things are breaking, especially if you were the one that is the cause of the break. But if something is going wrong or is breaking, or for example when someone or some group is going through a period of anomie, then something new or something better was needed anyway.
Those are usually the times when our creativity and energy are the highest, when we perform the best. If you don't crack under the pressure.
In the article "Innovative Minds Don't Think Alike," Janet Rae-Dupree speaks of the dangers of actually thinking you know what you are doing, that you've got this one down pat. You enter a state when change becomes difficult because "Why break something that isn't broken?"
The danger is that something that is working pretty well doesn't stay that way for long. But when we are doing something pretty well, we get in this mode of static thinking - it will stay this way forever. Why shouldn't it? Meanwhile, the world moves on without us.
Take for example the horse and cart. There were people who had developed some pretty nice ones. When you've got one this good, why take risks on trying anything new?
But businesses and churches do this all the time. It is hard to move people from comfortable. But you don't grow in the big comfy seat - you become a couch potato.
Andrew S. Grove, the co-founder of Intel, put it well in 2005 when he told an interviewer from Fortune, “When everybody knows that something is so, it means that 'nobody knows nothin’.” In other words, it becomes nearly impossible to look beyond what you know and think outside the box you’ve built around yourself.
This so-called curse of knowledge, a phrase used in a 1989 paper in The Journal of Political Economy, means that once you’ve become an expert in a particular subject, it’s hard to imagine not knowing what you do. Your conversations with others in the field are peppered with catch phrases and jargon that are foreign to the uninitiated. When it’s time to accomplish a task — open a store, build a house, buy new cash registers, sell insurance — those in the know get it done the way it has always been done, stifling innovation as they barrel along the well-worn path.
The groove is on the other side of easy - when you are being challenged to grow and learn again.
Monday, August 04, 2008
Comic Strips Stripped
In Garfield Minus Garfield, the tag line is: Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life?
Man, are they right! Jon is one sad, pathetic character.
Gotta be one of the funniest things on the web.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Review of "Peter and the Starcatchers" by a couple of people
I'll admit this right at the front - there is a lot of good junior fiction out there. And since I have kids that read junior fiction, it is fun to read it with them.
Another confession - Peter Pan is just cool. What young guy out there didn't dream of leading a pack of guys on adventures, flying, fighting pirates, and being adored by all the young women, even if some of them are fairies and mermaids?
And in the book you find out how it all got started. Where did Peter come from? What's the deal with the island? Why is the pirate so angry (not that most pirates are angry, they may be fun-loving people for all I know)? Is Smee always that dumb?
I give it a thumbs up, it was a well written book with constant action and tension. Not all the history was given out, there are still some mysteries to be solved, but of course there are other books in the series...
Honestly, I was a little hesitant at first because Dave Barry, the quirky journalist known for his exaggerated stories of life, is one of the two authors. I was hoping it wouldn't be written with that same style, and it wasn't. I like Dave Barry in doses, but four-hundred-something pages at a time would be a little much.
My daughter and I are now off to Never-land to see what happens in the next story...
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Review of "ScreamFree Parenting" by Hal Edward Runkel
Of course I'm not a scream-er. Maybe the occasional raise-the-voice type, a grab-the-hair frustrated bloke that is working on the toughest job - parenting. Which is what this book is about, rather than, as Hal puts it, "kidding."
I liked the ideas enough that we are bringing out Hal and his pals for a seminar in our area on May 10. Here is the basic gist - the best way to parent is NOT to try and control your kids or make them behave, but by controlling yourself and making YOU behave. It's a concept that is not about tricks that make your kids do the right things, but about being the person you need to be and helping your kids become good decision makers.
It's actually not a very long book. But the concepts are worth thinking about, discussing with friends, and incorporating into your life.
Actually, the idea that you can, or should even try, to control others is something we need to seriously reconsider. Anytime you are generally frustrated with someone, it is because they are not behaving like you want them to. But the only thing you can control is how you respond, or engage, and that is what being human is about.
What other parenting books are recommendable?
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Review of a book
What do you think of when you see this line:
He refuses to accept their will over his own. He refuses to live by rules set up by others, rules which condemn him to a defeated life. But his ultimate aim is to enter that society with a certain power since society doesn't really protect its members who do not have their own individual power. In the meantime he operates on a code of ethics he considers far superior to the legal structures of society.
Did you really first think of The Godfather, by Mario Puzo?
It was a long book, but it was great. Few books can totally wrap you up into their world such as this one. I'll have to admit that is has been about twenty years since I last saw the movie, so when a friend saw that I was reading the book we are looking forward to watching it on his home theater.
And the idea of "cosa nostra," Italian for our concerns, our world, has me sitting back and really digging it. Don't we all live in some world in which the rules of engagement are set and we try to succeed within its parameters? And we do choose which world it is that we join. This world may impact, may bend, and may envelope and overlap other worlds, but we live and die in this world, and how we view even our own worth depends on which world we see ourselves living in. This also has a huge impact on how I view expectations of how others should behave.
I am certainly no Don - just ask my wife and kids. My kingdom does not reach out very far. But there is a kingdom that I long to be a part of, that is even now reaching out. How I live as a Christ-follower shows my view of this kingdom.
I also was fascinated with the picture of loyalty and treachery, of favors and honor. All of these are still in effect today, but in such different ways in a different world.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Review of "No Country For Old Men" by Cormac McCarthy
You might have been expecting a movie about people chasing each other. There was some of that in there. You might have been expecting a movie about good guys and bad guys. There were definitely bad guys; but "good guys"? I don't know. Reckon it might depend on what kind of low standard you have for good. Everybody was supporting cast, except one - Death.
My brother and I watched the movie recently, expecting something good from the Coen brothers, who know a good story (beyond the two scripts that make up most of what is produced these days). Loved it. Shots were great, pacing was great, and it deserved the awards it received. Javier Bardem was one amazing psychopath.
Here is what I think is the best tagline from the movie: You can't stop what's coming.
I liked it so much I got the book it was based on and just finished it; wanted to get more into the story. The movie is about as close as most get to the actual book, beyond some depth. Some of my favorite lines that give the flavor of what's coming:Where did you get that?
From the gettin' place.You all dont be makin light of the dead thataway, Bell said.
Wendell nodded. Yessir, he said. You're right. I might be one myself one day.[Speaking of people on death row] Quite a few people didnt believe in it. Even them that worked on the row. You'd be surprised. Some of em I think had at one time. You see somebody ever day sometimes for years and then one day you walk that man down the hallway and put him to death. Well. That'll take some of the cackle out of just about anybody. I dont care who it is. And of course some of them boys was not very bright. Chaplain Pickett told me about one he ministered to and he ate his last meal and he'd ordered this dessert, ever what it was. And it come time to go and Pickett he asked him didnt he want his dessert and the old boy told him he was savin it for when he come back. I dont know what to say about that. Pickett didnt neither.
She got her cigarettes out and lit one and turned her face and blew the smoke out into the room. Bell watched her. How do you think this is goin to end? he said.
I dont know. I dont know how nothin is goin to end. Do you?
I know how it aint.Here a year or two back me and Loretta went to a conference in Corpus Christi and I got set next to this woman, she was the wife of somebody or other. And she kept talkin about the right wing this and the right wing that. I aint even sure what she meant by it. The people I know are mostly just common people. Common as dirt, as the sayin goes. I told her that and she looked at me funny. She thought I was sayin somethin bad about em, but of course that's a high compliment in my part of the world. She kept on, kept on. Finally told me, said: I dont like the way this country is headed. I want my granddaughter to be able to have an abortion. And I said well mam I dont think you got any worries about the way the country is headed. The way I see it goin I dont have much doubt but what she'll be able to have an abortion. I'm goin to say that not only will she be able to have an abortion, she'll be able to have you put to sleep. Which pretty much ended the conversation.
So if the real conflict in the story is not that somebody took some money and others want to have it (which by the end of the book you are saying in west Texas lingo: That boy must be dumber'n dirt; you don't spit in the wind), then what is the real conflict? It is the fight against destiny, the fight against the end of the journey, and believin that somehow, someway, that this myth expressed in the following conversation will come true:We dont have problems. When we have problems we fix em.
Here is what you do know: you might grow old in this country, but it won't last long...
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Review of "Saving Fish From Drowning" by Amy Tan
Anonymous - A pious man explained to his followers: "It is evil to take lives and noble to save them. Each day I pledge to save a hundred lives. I drop my net in the lake and scoop out a hundred fishes. I place the fishes on the bank, where they flop and twirl. "Don't be scare," I tell those fishes. "I am saving you from drowning." Soon enough, the fishes grow calm and lie still. Yet, sad to say, I am always too late. The fishes expire. And because it is evil to waste anything, I take those dead fishes to market and I sell them for a good price. With the money I receive, I buy more nets so I can save more fishes."
When I saw a book by Amy Tan, a master storyteller, I was already intrigued but the title totally sold me. This may have been one of the strangest stories that I have read in a while: based on a true story of a tourist group that gets lost, it is narrated by the ghost of the woman who was supposed to have led the tour but was murdered and who was also an intriguing woman in her own right. The characters are all wonderful and real, and clash along the way to getting lost. For anyone who has gone on long trips in close quarters, you feel as if you are on that bus ride - irritated, quietly laughing at others, snickering at the inside jokes, and suffering with the setbacks.
The story grips you because you know you are heading for certain tragedy and keeps plunging toward that destination, dragging you along with it. I had one of the strangest feelings I have ever had reading this book: I didn't want to finish it because of what I thought might happen, yet I couldn't stop.
The Albert Camus quote at the front lays out the theme for the story, and for our lives: "The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding." Unfortunately, we rarely, truly understand each other.
Monday, April 30, 2007
The Treasure (From "Tales of the Hasidim")
Rabbi Bunam used to tell young men who came to him for the first time the story of Rabbi Eisik, son of Rabbi Yekel in Cracow. After many years of great poverty which had never shaken his faith in God, he dreamed someone bade him look for a treasure in Prague, under the bridge which leads to the king's palace. When the dream recurred a third time, Rabbi Eisik prepared for the journey and set out for Prague. But the bridge was guarded day and night and he did not dare to start digging. Nevertheless he went to the bridge every morning and kept walking around it until evening.
Finally the captain of the guards, who had been watching him, asked in a kindly way whether he was looking for something or waiting for somebody. Rabbi Eisik told him of the dream which had brought him here from a faraway country. The captain laughed: "And so to please the dream, you poor fellow wore out your shoes to come here! As for having faith in dreams, if I had had it, I should have had to get going when a dream once told me to go to Cracow and dig for treasure under the stove in the room of a Jew - Eisik, son of Yekel, that was the name! Eisik, son of Yekel! I can just imagine what it would be like, how I should have to try every house over there, where one half of the Jews are named Eisik, and the other Yekel!" And he laughed again. Rabbi Eisik bowed, traveled home, dug up the treasure from under the stove, and built the House of Prayer which is called "Reb Eisik's Shul."
"Take this story to heart," Rabbi Bunam used to add, "and make what it says your own: There is something you cannot find anywhere in the world, not even at the zaddik's, and there is, nevertheless, a place where you can find it."
Friday, April 20, 2007
Review of "Who Needs God" by Harold Kushner
What I like about this book is that it is not apologetic in the most Evangelical sense of the word. There are no lectures on "hard" proofs or attempts to make you look foolish if you do not believe. It feels more like a conversation you struck up with someone while waiting for your favorite beverage from the barista. We tell stories of how we got to where we are, we laugh at the way laugh sometimes works out, and we ponder striking moments.
Why do we need God? Basically, because the totally independent human is a myth. We have weaknesses, we need support, and we need companionship from people and from God. So we discuss what it means to live, and to live well.
In keeping with the conversational tone of meeting someone new and interesting, Rabbi Kushner does not insist in being Jewish as the only way to learn to live but offers help and insight that he has learned from the Hebrew bible and those who have studied it.
How does religion help us?Religion is not primarily a set of beliefs, a collection of prayers, or a series of rituals. Religion is first and foremost a way of seeing. It can't change the facts about the world we live in, but it can change the way we see those facts, and that in itself can often make a real difference. (p. 28)
This isn't a book describing a world in which getting everything you really want is what you really need and within your power (see previous review of "The Secret"), it is telling us that what we need to be human is already there if we can just see it.Organized religion deals with our epidemic of loneliness not by telling us that if we pray properly, God will send us a lover, and not by giving us one more spare-time activity through which we can keep busy and make friends. Rather, it offers us a vision of a world where people no longer condemn themselves to loneliness by seeing all other people as rivals. It offers us a place to which we can bring our whole selves, not just that part of ourselves that we bring to our jobs and our hobbies, and to encounter the whole selves of our neighbors in a way we cannot meet them anywhere else. (p. 113)
As it turns out, and I hope this isn't a shock for you, we are rather limited in our ability to make sense of the "why did this happen" or "what is really going on" in this world. By viewing life through the stories of the scriptures, we can connect to not only the community of the past but with the stories and people we find ourselves in right now. How you fit into these stories will determine how you see your purpose in this world.
While there were times I would have liked to have delved deeper, or ask disturbing questions, those are more likely another conversation (see some of his other books) or use this as starter material and bring it up with your friends over your evening drink.
If you are like me, it doesn't sit well for someone who may not know you as well as they think try to force you into some mold. Rabbi Kushner weaves you into the stories and asks you to experience them for yourself.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Review of "The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne
If you have been having some negative thoughts, then you've hit the right place; at least, according to The Secret's Rhonda Byrne. Let me be up-front about this review - I did not finish the book. I'll explain later.
I wanted to check and see what all the hub-bub was about, so I looked for it at the public library and found out there was a wait. Not surprising, since I had heard that it was all the rage lately and that it had been featured on several shows. Well, I got a copy about a week ago and it was pretty much what I thought - health and wealth gospel in quasi-religious language, except that you are the god that is making it happen.
You want a great parking spot? Just concentrate on getting a great parking spot. You want a million dollars? Just think happy thoughts about getting a million dollars. It is apparently as easy as that. Now, if doesn't work, you must be thinking something wrong, like having subconscious negative thoughts or you just don't believe it strong enough.
How does this happen? In the health & wealth gospel, God wants you to be happy and if you just believe that, he will make it so. In this version, your thoughts manipulate the universe and "attract" (Byrne's word) whatever it is you are thinking, whether it is negative or positive.
This can include natural disasters and diseases. I had to put down the book when I read that. According to the book, the hurricane Katrina and its aftermath is the result of people along the coastline all thinking negative thoughts.When people first hear this part of the Secret they recall events in history where masses of lives were lost, and they find it incomprehensible that so many people could have attracted themselves to the event. By the law of attraction, they had to be on the same frequency as the event. It doesn't necessarily mean they thought of that exact event, but the frequency of their thoughts matched the frequency of the event. If people believe they can be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and they have no control over outside circumstances, those thoughts of fear, separation, and powerlessness, if persistent, can attract them to being in the wrong place at the wrong time. (p. 28)
So, when a good friend lost a young child, it was his or the child's fault? All those people that suffered during these catastrophic events were just asking for it?
By the claims of this book, Yes. I had to put the book down at that point because it made me angry (more negative vibes). I just picked it up today, several days later, and decided to just read through the chapter summaries.
The book asks an important question:You have a choice right now. Do you want to believe that it's just the luck of the draw and bad things can happen to you at any time? Do you want to believe that you can be in the wrong place at the wrong time? That you have no control over circumstances? (p. 28)
No, I don't want to believe that, but I do believe that sometimes we are at the wrong place at the wrong time. I believe that there are many things in this world that are beyond my control, that my thoughts can't control. Apparently I'm in trouble. At least I'm in good company - as far as I know, none of these proponents of the secret has lived forever.
The real question to me is, How will you respond to events and relationships that don't go your way? That is the real test of character and growth.
What also upsets me is that they characterize the New Testament as another source of this great secret. More quoting small portions of scripture that hopefully supports your position, if you just ignore the rest of it. Somehow, when they say that Jesus said "just ask and it shall be given," it did not compute to them that he was tortured and crucified in a painful death as a common criminal. This man who purportedly knew "the secret" must have had some major bad vibes at the end of his life.
Now I do believe in the power of the mind to help control emotions and thoughts, and thus behavior. I also believe that our imagination is largely untapped as a powerful part of our lives. We can focus on positive aspects and have amazing success as a result of that. There is a placebo affect as our body chemistry responds to our thoughts. But blaming Katrina on negative vibes? You might as well believe that this "life" and "reality" are just a big dream that you haven't woken up from.
At least I can feel good about knowing that if you did not like this review, it's your own fault.
Monday, April 02, 2007
Review of "Then We Came To The End" by Joshua Ferris
One of my favorite novels is Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Heller is incredibly funny and poignant at the same time in what I thought was a completely original and unreproducible style - until now. If someone had told me that Joshua Ferris had written in Heller's style, I would not have picked up the book. But he catches that hilarious and yet dark spirit and does so with the same quest into the human condition but in a completely different battlezone - cubicle land.
The story follows some wonderful (I'm just gushing with adjectives today) characters in an ad agency through its good times and bad times, all of it a struggle. If you have ever worked in an office, you will be caught up in the descriptions of office chatter and politics, the thoughts and emotions of people spending the heart of their lives together and wondering why.
The following paragraphs from the story give a flavor of the asides that are so Heller-like in their description and yet very true:
We told him to get on with it. We liked wasting time, but almost nothing was more annoying than having our wasted time wasted on something not worth wasting it on.
- - - - -
"I don't know," said Joe.
But he did know. He knew just as we knew that she was in surgery that day and would be in recovery when the concepts were due - the difference being that he probably got his information straight from Lynn [the boss], whereas we had to get ours from other sources. We never disliked Joe more than when he had information that we had, too, which he then refused to tell us.
The stories in the book are our stories, and we wonder where our lives are going as we follow the characters to the end. Sometimes our stories are funny, sometimes they are filled with sadness or questions, and they are always filled with tension and struggle.
This book is one of my favorites from the last five years, along with Life of Pi. I'll leave you with one last quote from the book that gives you another picture of the heart of the book:
Just before stepping out of the car, right as she should have been kissing Carl good-bye, Marilynn's cell phone rang. She was an oncologist and always felt obligated to answer the phone in case of emergency. "Hello?" she said. "Go ahead, Susan, I can hear you just fine."
Carl was immediately annoyed. Benny told us that Carl hated the way his wife always reassured people that she could hear them just fine. He hated how she plugged her finger in the opposite ear, effectively shutting out all other noise. And he hated that her other obligations always preempted him. They were just about to say good-bye, for chrissake. Didn't it matter, wasn't it important, their kiss good-bye? The thing he really hated, which he would never admit to her, was how he felt the lesser of the two of them for having no obligation that could compare with hers, which he might use to preempt her. She had people calling about patients who were dying. Let's face it, there was zero chance one of us would call Carl with a question of mortal urgency. Whatever question we might have for Carl, it could wait until we ran into him in the hall the next day. That made Carl feel that his wife's job was more meaningful than his own; and, because of his particular way of thinking at the time, that she was therefore more meaningful. Carl's thoughts were dark, man. It didn't make for an easy marriage. If only you heard the fragments of phone conversations we sometimes overheard when passing Carl's office.
Friday, March 23, 2007
Confession
To do this, I have to review a blog that is reviewing a book. You get a first-hand response to a second-hand observation.
Scot McKnight is reviewing Daryl Tippen's (from Pepperdine U.) book Pilgrim Heart, which discusses confession as a discipline. Since I recently wrote about this, it is one of those lingering electrical sparks that has been zipping back and forth between lobes of my brain.
Check out these three claims:
“the Christian community’s demand for respectability often increases the dishonesty” of not confessing
and
“A Christian who is not confessional is in peril”
and
“An unconfessed Christian is an oxymoron” (100)
I like it when somebody lays the smackdown like that. I hope that you can take these phrases to your version of the Christian watercooler and while you are standing there, you say to the next person that walks by, "Hey, guess what I heard today: _______. Can you believe someone said that? What do you think about that?" Or even take it to the secular watercooler; they might be just as fascinated with someone taking it strong to Christians.
At least I hope one or more of those phrases gets under your skin.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Review of "Cultivating A Life For God" by Neil Cole, part 2 of 2
The real topic of Neil Cole's book - confession, rather than discipleship - is something I believe many people are longing for but are scared to death of. I believe that you can see this in the popularity of places such as PostSecret, where people create postcards that are indicative of the secrets that they anonymously mail in.
The PostSecret website picturing the postcards is fascinating. The creator eventually puts enough of the confessional postcards into a book and then goes to signings, where you look around and wonder who wrote what.
Reading the postcards is a surreal experience. You know real, next-door people (maybe even yourself) think those thoughts and have gone through those experiences, but we just don't talk about them. Period. Not in polite company, not in rough company, and especially not to people we are close to. Rather, perfect strangers are preferred in an anonymous setting.
Are confessions really necessary? Can't we get by without them? I suppose so, since millions probably do. But are we truly a community that loves each other if we can't share our problems? That seems more like a community that is friendly as long as I don't have to really expend much energy or compassion.
Here is a confession: there are times when I'd rather see your fake smile than really know what is going on. I think my biggest fear isn't that I'd have to take time off from watching TV to help you (Survivor really isn't that great), it's that I would feel the need to reciprocate and tell you my own problems.
But the healing that could happen! How wonderful it would be to be able to tell people of my struggles, of my broken past, and know that they would love me fully! The monkey removed, the struggle is shared, and real growth could happen.
Where has the church been? Why aren't people making these same confessions in the context of the body of Christ, where forgiveness is supposed to be complete?
Gossip. Condemnation. Feeling like you are a zoo animal.
So, instead, we have anonymous boxes hiding our identity to Catholic priests, we have websites such as mysecret.tv which is basically the same as PostSecret but endorsed by a church.
I appreciate Lifechurch.tv for at least making an effort, just don't quote the verse from James when you allow anonymous confessions. In real community, you confess your sins and problems and cares to each other, not to an electronic priest. Otherwise you may feel good for a few minutes, but you miss out on the purpose - community and growth. James says the purpose of the confession to each other, not privately to God, not privately to the internet, is so that we can take care of each other, pray for the other person, and help us to get over and through it.
Thus comes Cole's book, saying let's do it, people are craving it. He suggests groups the size of two or three people. I would add "who you can trust or build a trust" but he doesn't seem to necessarily think that is necessary. He has examples of adding people in within weeks, and in one scenario he talks about people being added to the group and multiple groups forming within one setting. I have to wonder if trust and confession isn't being trampled on at that point.
I love the idea of the groups and I think they are for everyone who has ever sinned. I love his advice about having it spread as a grassroots movement rather than as a program. My own inclination would be to focus the purpose; Cole seems to stress the groups more as a Bible study and evangelism tool than as a confession and healing tool. But here is another confession: I haven't started one yet, but I plan on it. Maybe then I'll have a little better perspective.
You lucked out - I won't post my confessions on this blog.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Review of "Cultivating A Life For God" by Neil Cole, part 1 of 2
The subject of this book has been on my mind for a while, so I was excited to dive into this book once I knew more of what it was about. This may be one of those Christian practices that is somehow overlooked yet is instrumental for transformation and depth.
The book says that it is about discipling, and I applaud Cole for getting practical about what he calls our "prime directive" - the Great Commission to make disciples. Cole lays out a plan for groups comprised of two to three people that meet in order to confess and read scripture. Once a fourth person is added to the group, within a couple of weeks the group should then split into two groups of two people to keep it small. Cole's belief is that these types of groups will continue to expand out.
In another Cole book that I have read, I haven't found him to be the deepest theologian around (and he is admittedly a more practical focused person), but I thought he did a better job in this book and was especially interested in his exegesis of the blind man in the gospel of John. But the heart of the book is the functional plan and resources for starting these groups.
A couple of critiques and then we'll hit my discipline of recent fascination: I think discipling is more than mutual accountability. Discipling to me seems to imply more of a role-model intimacy, or mentoring/coaching to use more modern lingo, where one person in the relationship is living life in a certain way that the other person wants to learn, and does so through following and questioning. That doesn't seem to be what Cole is advocating.
A different criticism is that it seems through the overall language and implications is that the goal of these groups is multiplication of these groups, which will bring into them people outside of the faith; i.e., these accountability groups are for the main purpose of evangelism. I think that you can do these groups with the purpose of healing and mutual growth without stressing the evangelism aspect. This is just my opinion, but I think when your main point is evangelism a ticking clock forms in your head as to why these groups aren't working if new groups are not springing out all the time. Cole even mentions an example near the back of the book of a young man who had started a group and was disappointed when new groups had not sprung up within a month. What if the group just focused on healing, and invited new people when it seemed natural? Cole probably means this, but he is obviously a gifted evangelist and has a hard time not focusing in that direction.
That said, I love the idea of these groups and think they may be a key to our mile wide and inch deep problem within the church. I agree with Cole that these groups are challenging to where we hold the bar for accountability, yet people want - need? - a place to be free of their sin and baggage.
I would love to go on, but this particular blog is turning into a book. I'll talk more about that and some interesting places found in the secular world that feeds people's longing to be free.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Review of "Revelation And Violence: A Study In Contextualization" by Walter Brueggemann
I was very excited when I found this book because, one, the history of violence in the Hebrew Scriptures is disturbing and, two, I love Brueggemann. My favorite Christian book is Prophetic Imagination by the same (so far, he hasn't paid me to say that).
This conversation about the use of sanctioned violence by YHWH is especially pertinent for our day and age. Christians on both sides, and any other sides that can be found, of the political spectrum are talking about it through the context of the war in Iraq, as well as discussing the argument of "just war" and "non-violent resistance".
The book begins with a consideration of methods of interpretation, a synopsis that makes the book worth the read for that alone. For those not well-read on the ever changing art of hermeneutics, Brueggemann provides a window into the act of interpretation that seeks deep understanding: "Thus scripture as revelation is not a flat, obvious offer of a conclusion, but it is an ongoing conversation which evokes, invites, and offers" (6).
Brueggemann does not offer conclusive evidence of the will of God for the use of violence in this book. The express purpose is to discover "revelation in context" (7), which he does using the text of Joshua 11, coming at the question of divinely sanctioned violence sideways. Using this method, Brueggemann provides the seed of an answer and you now have a window to search the rest of scripture yourself.
So does God sanction or endorse violence under some circumstances? You will have to read the book yourself to get the answer (you didn't think I was going to give it away, did you?).
Without giving up the book, it does reaffirm that God is the god of the oppressed and marginalized, and encourages legitimate action of behalf of those seeking His alternative society - God wants us to be free! Brueggemann points to the source of the powers and authorities that seek domination and they are closer than you think. No, it is not your most hated politician (at least, by name). Surplus and Accumulation are the antecedents of the wrong kind of power, and they are knocking on everyone of our doors.
Can we overcome? How much do we need to conquer these enemies? YHWH is enough (43).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)