pre-text

2012-01-30T08:48:00.002-03:00

The Kingdom is to be in the midst of your enemies. And he who will not suffer this does not want to be of the Kingdom of Christ; he wants to be among friends, to sit among roses and lilies, not with the bad people but the devout people.... If Christ had done what you are doing who would ever have been spared?

Martin Luther.

2012-01-24T11:41:00.000-03:00

Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it.

Soren Kierkegaard quoted by Joan Dempsey in The Art of Facilitation: The “Walk &Talk”

2012-01-23T11:27:00.000-03:00

Hypocrisy is not so much the result of not living what I preach but more of not confessing my inability to fully life up to my own words.

Henri Nowen. SABATICAL JOURNEY.

2012-01-21T00:28:00.001-03:00

Research strongly suggests that people are more creative when they enjoy privacy and freedom from interruption....(Newton was one of the world’s great introverts: William Wordsworth described him as “A mind for ever/ Voyaging through strange seas of Thought, alone.”)

....“Without great solitude, no serious work is possible,” Picasso said.

Susan Cain, author of the forthcoming book “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking.” Opinion: The Rise of the New Groupthink.

2012-01-16T17:32:00.001-03:00

...we are constantly learning to live our life as Jesus would live our life if he were we. The point here is that we are not trying to live his life but our life. In the flesh Jesus' life has already been lived. It is our life that needs the living.

Richard Foster. A Pastoral Letter from Richard Foster: May 2003.

2012-01-15T21:42:00.000-03:00

Discipleship is not limited to what you can comprehend - it must transcend all comprehension. Plunge into the deep waters beyond your own comprehension....Thus Abraham went forth from his father and not knowing whither he went. He trusted himself to my knowledge, and cared not for his own, and thus he took the right road and came to his journey’s end. ....Not to know where you are going is the true knowledge....You cannot find it yourself so you must let me lead you as though you were a bind man.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer. THE COST OF DISCIPLESHIP.

Reasons not to plant a church in 2012

2012-01-11T19:38:00.000-03:00

2. The measurement criteria of the church planting project ... is too narrow, too shallow, unholistic and ignores more vital measurable signs of a transformed society in its various spheres (economic, environmental, social, impact outside the church environment, etc).

5. The challenge for new members to commit to a church meeting rather than be involved in Kingdom mission activities in the world can often lead to a consumer mindset among new members. By not hosting an event for members but rather inviting participants into mission, a different calibre of people is attracted to the ministry.

Andrew Jones. 9 reasons NOT to plant a church in 2012

2012-01-09T00:33:00.002-03:00

Mr. Iyer is a citizen of a world that has the international airport as its symbol.

Allan Massie. Book Review: The Man Within My Head.

2012-01-08T23:40:00.004-03:00

Don't load yourselves up with equipment. Keep it simple; you are the equipment.

Jesus as recorded by Luke in chapter nine verse three. THE MESSAGE.

2011-12-26T23:34:00.005-03:00

The likeness of the thing is received into the intellect according to the mode of the intellect, not according to the mode of the the thing.

St. Thomas Aquinas. SUMMA THEOLOGICA. quoted by Bryan Berry, Henry James and the Heavenly Light.

2011-12-14T22:25:00.003-03:00

Being an artist — living creatively — is not about paintings in a gallery, songs on a soundtrack, or books on the bestseller lists. It is about seeing and hearing and going; it is about saying and making.

The calling is comprehensive, and it calls for observations that become expressions that become innovations, illuminations, improvisations, inspirations...

Kim Thomas. Creativity, Artful Living as Callling.

2011-11-09T17:02:00.002-03:00

The Sales Executive Council ...did a global study of 6000 reps across 100 companies in multiple industries. They discovered that [sales] reps fall into one of five categories: Relationship Builders, Hard Workers, Lone Wolves, Reactive Problem Solvers and Challengers. The surprise in the study was that Challengers* outperform the other four types....
( *Challengers teach their customers, and provide insights and fresh perspectives on a client’s business...)
I have been saying for years that too many salespeople overemphasize the “relationship” factor in selling. Yes, people should like you--and I subscribe to being responsive to other people's preferred working styles ... but, at the end of the day, buyers don’t need more social friends. They need business pros who can keep them from making mistakes, who can get them to see issues from a different perspective, who can solve problems, and who can make them legitimate heroes in their world. Do all that with your customers and the “relationship” that follows will be deeper and longer lasting than anything gained from a series of lunches at expensive restaurants.

Anne Miller. Is Selling About Relationships or Something Else?

2011-11-02T23:25:00.003-03:00

In fact, property is really a nuisance... [It] not merely has duties, but has so many duties that its possession to any large extent is a bore. It involves endless claims upon one, endless attention to business, endless bother. If property had simply pleasures, we could stand it, but its duties make it unbearable.

Oscar Wilde. THE SOUL OF MAN UNDER SOCIALISM.
[an interesting discussion of the work as a whole can be found at The Confused Socialism of Oscar Wilde]

2011-10-26T18:07:00.001-03:00

It's a mystery - you go out and offer whatever it is you have to give with your whole heart, you meet lovely people along the way, you see some unforgettable places, you think, I'm doing what it is I was put on this earth to do. You arrive home feeling like you've accomplished something... You get all the suitcases and guitars back into the house, and drop onto the couch in a state of exhilarated exhaustion. But then sooner or later ... Everything begins to fade to black and a door swings open and doubts walk in like they own the place.

We're failures. This is all a waste of time. What were we thinking? Who are we kidding?

I don't know where the dark clouds in my head come from, but Karin and I have learned not to try to solve the world's problems when we've just returned home. I guess we just need some time for our souls to catch up with our bodies.

Linford Detweiler.

2011-10-26T17:53:00.000-03:00

All that is not rooted in him...all hope or joy that does not turn its face upward, is an idolatry. Our prayers must rise that our thoughts may follow them.

George MacDonald. THE HIGHLANDER'S LAST SONG.

2011-10-13T10:30:00.000-03:00

As a young man wants a regular allowance from his father which he can count on as his own, within which he makes his own plans…so they desired to be on their own, to take care for their own future, to plan for pleasure and for security to have a meum from which, no doubt, they would pay some reasonable tribute to God in the way of time, attention, and love, but which nevertheless, was theirs not His. They wanted to “call their souls their own.” But that means to live a lie, for our souls are not in fact, our own. They wanted some corner in the universe of which they could say to God, “This is our business, not yours.” But there is no such corner. They wanted to be nouns, but they were, and eternally must be, mere adjectives.

C.S.Lewis. THE PROBLEM OF PAIN.

2011-10-09T20:33:00.000-03:00

Love and faithfulness meet together;
righteousness and peace kiss each other.
Faithfulness springs forth from the earth,
and righteousness looks down from heaven.

Psalm 85: 10, 11

2011-09-26T14:46:00.000-03:00

Short is good, and concise is fun, and in a world where we have too many facts, we appreciate a quick picture that synthesizes facts into something meaningful rather than a summary of disjointed facts.

Penelope Trunk. Next Phase of Your Career: Design.

2011-09-13T21:11:00.001-03:00

Pain has an element of blank;
It cannot recollect
When it began, or if there were
A day when it was not.

It has no future but itself,
Its infinite realms contain
Its past, enlightened to perceive
New periods of pain.

Emily Dickinson.

2011-09-13T20:16:00.005-03:00

Reality, looked at steadily, is unbearable.

C.S. Lewis. A GRIEF OBSERVED.

2011-09-12T16:16:00.000-03:00

It was always my hope, in writing novels and stories which asked the question "What is reality?", to someday get an answer. This was the hope of most of my readers, too. Years passed. I wrote over thirty novels and over a hundred stories, and still I could not figure out what was real. One day a girl college student in Canada asked me to define reality for her, for a paper she was writing for her philosophy class. She wanted a one-sentence answer. I thought about it and finally said, "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." That's all I could come up with. That was back in 1972. Since then I haven't been able to define reality any more lucidly.
Philip K. Dick. How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later.

2011-09-10T12:05:00.002-03:00

We all...must find some balance in accepting less than perfection and yet having some beauty.

Francis Schaffer. LETTERS.

2011-09-06T16:25:00.001-03:00

Painting is a mute revealer and yet often speaks more perceptively to the interpreting mind than concept bearing words. For it impresses us with the irrefutable power of immediate intuition.

Paul Tillich. Mass and Personality. ON ART AND ARCHITECTURE.

quoted by Dr Christine Gapes. Severed Connections: Using Theological Imagination to explore Youth’s Response to Violence at Port Arthur.

2011-09-06T15:24:00.004-03:00

If the devil can hinder us from taking the supreme climb and getting rid of wrong traditions about God, he will do so; but if we keep true to God, God will take us through an ordeal which will bring us out into a better knowledge of Himself.

Oswald Chambers. MY UTMOST FOR HIS HIGHEST. The Supreme Climb (meditation on Genesis 22:2).

2011-09-06T13:15:00.000-03:00

The value of college is personal growth, but that value is hard to get to...

Penelope Trunk, summarizing Richard Arum, professor at NYU and author of the book Academically Adrift, in What To Do In College Right Now

2011-08-31T15:06:00.002-03:00

After all, real things are not simple. They look simple but they are not.

C.S. Lewis. MERE CHRISTIANITY.

2011-08-31T12:00:00.000-03:00

"Farewell, King under the Mountain!" he said. "this is a bitter adventure, if it must end so; and not a mountain of gold can amend it. Yet I am glad that I have shared in your perils--that has been more than any Baggins deserves."
"No!" said Thorin. "There is more in you of good than you know...Some courage and some wisdom, blended in measure. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world."

J.R.R. Tolkien. THE HOBBIT.

2011-08-24T17:25:00.000-03:00

[Brother Lawrence] was content doing even the smallest chore if he could do it for the love of God....
Whenever he considered doing some good deed, he always consulted God about it, saying, "Lord, I will never be able to do that if You don't help me." Immediately he would be given more than enough strength.
When he sinned, he confessed it to God with these words: "I can do nothing better without You. Please keep me from falling and correct the mistakes I make."

brother Lawrence. THE PRACTICE OF THE PRESENCE OF GOD.

2011-08-22T23:45:00.000-03:00

A senior manager at Cisco once suggested to me that there are two types of challenges in organizations — capacity problems and complexity problems.
Capacity problems are those that require more, fewer or different resources.
Complexity problems require new thinking and a creative approach.

Ron Ashkenas on the HBR Blog Network.

2011-07-08T10:04:00.000-03:00

The place of both water and blood in our relationship with God are affirmed in the sacraments of baptism and communion while their seemingly opposing natures are united in a masterful transposition that elevates Christianity beyond both philosophy and religion. Jesus first miracle was to change water into wine and once His blood had been poured out, blood loses its place in the cultic practice and is replaced by wine: “Take this, all of you, and drink from it…”
In Christ, the opaque becomes translucent and the transparent becomes colorful. In Christ, the opposite of death isn’t life, but abundant life. Death isn’t only defeated. It is swallowed up by victory.
For centuries the Christian church highlighted the “thick and dark” parts of the faith. As humanity changed its preferences, the Church shifted its emphasis to that which is transparent, simple, and easy to digest. Without diminishing either, may we now recover wine as a rich symbol for the Christian life?

annette gulick. Beyond Duality (again)

2011-07-05T10:58:00.000-03:00

Do not tell what you can ask. Do not ask if you know the answer; tell in dialogue.

Jane Vella. LEARNING TO LISTEN, LEARNING TO TEACH.

2011-07-01T11:28:00.000-03:00

Convenience combined with low cost-per-unit of production has robbed us, I think, of the proper mindset that goes into the making something new. The general rule of thumb is that it takes more time to produce something than it does to enjoy it....As someone who has been constantly moving from the consumer mindset to the producer mindset, I’m discovering the difficulties of changing my expectations with regards to time. It’s like looking into the wrong end of the telescope: what should be NOW and IMMEDIATE looks so far away. ...Distilling the stuff of raw experience into something that stands out is supposed to take a long time. There’s no getting around it. You might get lucky and find some great shortcuts, or stumble upon something that can serve as the vehicle for your grand idea, but when it comes to making your own, special, unique part of it…it’s going to take a while. A long while.

David Seah. Time to Greatness.

2011-06-26T10:19:00.000-03:00

Worship is the submission of all our nature to God.
It is the quickening of conscience by His holiness;
the nourishment of mind with His truth;
the purifying of imagination by His beauty;
the opening of the heart to His love;
the surrender of will to His purpose--
and of all this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless
emotion of which our nature is capable.

William Temple. Readings in St. John's Gospel
cited by Kenneth Bailey in Jesus through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels.

2011-06-11T19:11:00.000-03:00

The Pareto principle (also known as the 80-20 rule, the law of the vital few, and the principle of factor sparsity) states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.

Wikipedia. PARETO PRINCIPLE.

2011-06-11T19:05:00.001-03:00

A sailor must know two things before he can chart a course: his current location and the location of where he wants to go. Picking a destination may be easy – the Bahamas perhaps – but determining the precise distance and direction the ship must travel to get to the tropical paradise requires a skipper know his exact location at the time of his departure.
During his journey a navigator also must constantly measure his progress. Unexpected weather conditions, changes in ocean currents and breakdowns in equipment all conspire to throw him off course. To reach his destination safely and successfully requires an accurate assessment of the ship’s progress compared to where it started from and where it needs to go.

Kevin Craine. Where are you now? Where are you going?

2011-06-08T15:52:00.002-03:00

Recognizing these four postures of life helps us make sense of the church's work. Much of the church's activity is spent trying to move people from one of these four postures to another.

Skye Jethani. WITH.

2011-06-01T09:41:00.001-03:00

There is a strange paradox I have observed: the more structure, the greater chance of spontaneity.

It was vital for me, not to understand everything, but to have the right questions.

Jane Vella. LEARNING TO LISTEN, LEARNING TO TEACH.

2011-05-31T15:55:00.000-03:00

...there seems to be only one business at hand: that of finding workable compromises between the sublimity of our ideas and the absurdity of the fact of us.

Annie Dillard. An Expedition to the Pole.

2011-05-31T10:49:00.001-03:00

[Witness] is a modest word saying what is there, honestly testifying to exactly what we see, what we hear. But when we enlist in a cause, it is almost impossible to do it right: we embellish, we fill in the blanks, we varnish the dull passages, we gild the lily just a little to hold the attention of our auditors... Important things are at stake -- God, salvation -- and we want so much to involve outsiders in these awesome realities that we leave the humble ground of witness and use our words to influence and motivate, to advertise and publicize. Then we are no longer witnesses, but lawyers arguing the case, not always with scrupulous attention to detail.

Eugene Peterson. THE CONTEMPLATIVE PASTOR: RETURNING TO THE ART OF SPIRITUAL DIRECTION.

2011-05-24T15:35:00.000-03:00

What type of writing do you best like to do? Do you prefer books, poetry or magazine articles?
Each has distinct mojo -- pitfalls and rewards. I say, work at all three to develop writing muscle. Books allow for sustained expression on a theme, symphonic development, thrilling discovery along the way. Poetry offers the hard-won joy of distillation. Articles, with their demand for relevance, immediacy, and appeal, keep the writer's feet on the ground. Ease of publication can affect our writing preferences, but fiction -- hardest in that respect -- stirs my soul in those old irresistible ways.

A Few Words with Arthur Plotnik in POWER WRITING by Daphne Gray-Grant

2011-05-23T17:31:00.001-03:00

The world of the things that come into being as a result of action, materializes through thinking.... Human action in the outside world materializes only through thinking about the order of things since things are based upon each other.

Ibn Khaldūn. The Muqaddimah, an introduction to history.

2011-05-10T14:13:00.000-03:00

For me it is easiest of all to work, and to work poorly, honoring neither the time it takes to do work well, nor the extracurricular effort that goes into maintaining the infrastructure upon which the work relies. ...I’m finally getting that the crux of the system is the questioning: What’s the next action? Where does this go? What does “done” look like? And that the questions themselves must be asked every single time—slowly and painstakingly before swiftly and organically. Organization doesn’t come from occasional actions any more than health comes from popping an occasional vitamin. Truly taking care of myself means living in truth all of the time, not just when it is convenient.

Communicatrix. What taking care of yourself looks like in real time.

2011-05-10T11:47:00.000-03:00

Principle 6: Respect for Learners
....Don't ever do what the learner can do; don't ever decide what the learner can decide. ... the learning is in the doing and the deciding. Teachers must be careful not to steal that learning opportunity from the adult learner.

Principle 10: Teamwork
...Our task is not to make a perfect team but to perfect ourselves in the effort to make our team work effectively.

Jane Vella. LEARNING TO LISTEN, LEARNING TO TEACH: The power of Dialogue in Educating Adults.

2011-04-29T13:51:00.001-03:00

We do not know the ultimate purpose of God; in the most we can do here is to see and to now “in part” (1 Corinthians xiii. 9, A.V.). But we can see the out-working in time and space of a vast plan whose roots are in eternity. It is something far greater, more far-reaching, more noble, more generous than most of our forefathers could imagine. We cannot shut our eyes to the breadth and depth of that purpose. The highest, the best and the most satisfying thing that we can do is to ask to be allowed to co-operate with God’s infinite patience in making men whole.

J.B. Phillips. MAKING MEN WHOLE.

2011-04-28T09:27:00.000-03:00

There are those who ... [think] that the novel is somehow less "real" than a more didactic book. The reality of fiction, however, lies on a deeper plane than mere "factness." Reality is a function of truth. And truth--however conveyed is real....
"Do good to your neighbor" was not a teaching that originated with Jesus; it had been set forth by hundreds of great men before. But it was Jesus who penetrated clearly and incisively to the very heart of the matter with his parables of the Good Samaritan, immortalizing the truth as no one before or since has ever done... Through the nonfactual, but highly real, genre of the parable--of fiction--Jesus brought spiritual principles to life.

Michael Phillips. Introduction to KNOWING THE HEART OF GOD by George MacDonald.

2011-04-20T16:42:00.001-03:00

...the chief work actuating man's whole life is not done by his hands, his feet, or his back, but by his consciousness. Before a man can do anything with his feet or hands, a certain alteration has first to take place in his consciousness...these alterations are always minute and almost imperceptible.

Bryullóv one day corrected a pupil's study. The pupil, having glanced at the altered drawing, exclaimed: “Why, you only touched it a tiny bit, but it is quite another thing.” Bryullóv replied: “Art begins where the tiny bit begins.”
That saying is strikingly true not only of art but of all life.... True life is not lived where great external changes take place...it is lived only where these tiny, tiny, infinitesimally small changes occur.

Leo Tolstoy. WHY DO MEN STUPEFY THEMSELVES.

2011-04-15T16:48:00.000-03:00

A man who has lived in many place is not likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village; the scholar has lived in may times and is therefore in some degree immune from the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and the microphone of his own age.

C.S. Lewis. LEARNING IN WARTIME.

2011-03-14T14:59:00.000-03:00

Part of the astonishing humility of the love of God lies, not only in His human level approach in coming down to where we are, but in His perfect readiness to use ordinary people like ourselves as channels and instruments in our day and generation in the vast sweep of His unchanging purpose ....we have not properly grasped the generosity of his purpose....Such a high calling must simultaneously make us swell with pride and fall on our knees in humility.

J.B. Phillips. MAKING MEN WHOLE.

2011-03-11T20:01:00.000-03:00

In these days when power and size and speed are almost universally admired, it seems to me particularly important to study afresh the "weakness," the "smallness of entry" and the "slowness" of God as He began His vast work of reconstructing His disordered world. We are all tempted to take short cuts, to work for quick results and to evade painful sacrifice. It is therefore essential that we should look again at love incarnate in a human being, to see God himself at work within the limitations of human personality, and to base our methods on what we see Him do.

J.B. Phillips. MAKING MEN WHOLE.

2011-03-06T18:12:00.002-03:00

Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason....The poet asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits. /
La imaginacion no provoca la locura. Para ser exacto, lo que fomenta la locura es la razon.... el poeta solo pretende entrar su cabeza en el cielo. El logico es el que pretende hacer entrar el cielo en su cabeza. Y es su cabeza la que revienta.

The one created thing which we cannot look at is the one thing in the light of which we look at everything. /
La unica cosa creada que no podemos ver, es la unica cosa a cuya luz podemos verlo todo.

G.K. Chesterton. ORTHODOXY. ORTODOXIA.

2011-03-04T17:42:00.000-03:00

it all began not by looking for interesting pictures, but by standing still, opening my eyes, and seeing what had been there all along.

Sean Kernan.

2011-03-03T10:30:00.000-03:00

When I’m scoping out a new project with a client, I start by asking three questions:
What is your intention; what is it that you want to make / have made?
What is your motivation; what is the reason you are doing this right now, as opposed to later?
What is your expectation; what do you think will happen after you have what you’re asking me to do?
I find that these questions, when posed in real-time over the phone or over coffee, will give me almost everything I need to know.

David Seah. Making Clarity.

2011-02-25T15:38:00.000-03:00

Theology Matters - Dug Down Deep - Joshua Harris from waterbrook multnomah on Vimeo.

2011-02-14T14:10:00.000-03:00

Apparently Aristotle was impressed by the improvisation of the craftsmen that he was watching on the island of Lesbos. They were building rounded columns for which rigid rulers were useless. The craftsmen improvised with a ruler that bends – which we call a tape measure...

And this is the nature of the equitable, a correction of law where it is defective owing to its universality. ... For when the thing is indefinite the rule also is indefinite, like the leaden rule used in making the Lesbian moulding; the rule adapts itself to the shape of the stone and is not rigid, and so too the decree is adapted to the facts.

Aristotle. "Nicomachean Ethics" quoted by David Herbert in Rigid Rules

2011-02-09T12:50:00.000-03:00

For attractive lips,
Speak words of kindness.
For lovely eyes,
Seek out the good in people.
For a slim figure,
Share your food with the hungry.
For beautiful hair,
Let a child run his/her fingers through it once a day.
For poise,
Walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone.
People, even more than things,
Have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed,
And redeemed; never throw out anyone.

Audrey Hepburn quoted on The Ins And Outs Of Looking Attractive, Outside And Inside, In Photos And Out

2011-02-05T20:52:00.000-03:00

...in the Old Testament, it was more one of worship and awe, a vertical relationship. The New Testament, on the other hand, we look across at Jesus who looks familiar, horizontal. The combination is what makes the Cross.

Bono in conversation with Michka Assayas.

2011-02-03T20:44:00.000-03:00

John Birch. ABSO Jesus

2010-12-30T21:11:00.004-03:00

Increasingly I believe that after we are saved we have only one calling, and that is to show forth the existence and the character of God. Since God is love and God is holy, it is our calling to ... be and act in such a way as to show forth His love and His holiness simultaneously.... Of course on one's own strength it is only possible to show forth either love or holiness. But to show forth the holiness and love of God simultaneously requires much more. It requires the moment by moment work of the Holy Spirit in a very practical way.

Francis Shaeffer. LETTERS OF FRANCIS SHAEFFER. p. 71, 71.

Balance

2010-12-29T13:26:00.005-03:00

- a state of equilibrium
equilibrium - a stable situation in which forces cancel one another
tension - a balance between and interplay of opposing elements or tendencies

- harmonious arrangement or relation of parts or elements within a whole (as in a design); "in all perfectly beautiful objects there is found the opposition of one part to another and a reciprocal balance"- John Ruskin

- (mathematics) an attribute of a shape or relation; exact reflection of form on opposite sides of a dividing line or plane. symmetricalness, symmetry, correspondence

- a weight that balances another weight. counterbalance, counterpoise, counterweight, equalizer, equalizer

- make complete or perfect; supply what is wanting or form the complement to

- make correspond or harmonize; "Match my sweater"

- counterbalance, even off, even out, even up, compensate, correct, make up, adjust for; "engineers will work to correct the effects or air resistance"

Balance

2010-12-23T20:29:00.001-03:00

....What does this mean to me? I am not sure, except that it brings me increasingly to my knees--to ask that the Holy Spirit may have His way in my life....

Francis Schaeffer. LETTERS OF FRANCIS A. SCHAEFFER.

2010-12-18T17:40:00.000-03:00

Language is one of the best data-compression mechanisms we have. The information contained in literature or even email, encodes our identity as human beings. The entire literary canon may be smaller than what comes out of particle accelerators or models of the human brain, but the meaning coded into words can't be measured in bytes. It's deeply compressed. Twelve words from Voltaire can hold a lifetime of experience.

Martin Wattenberg, mathematician and computer scientist at IBM's Watson Research Center quoted in Visualizing Big Data. WIRED. July 2008.

2010-12-18T10:37:00.002-03:00

Once you become aware of these concepts ["fixed" vs "growth" mindset], you start to spot the fixed mindset everywhere. Look at the way we praise our children: "You're so smart!" "You are so good at basketball." That's fuel for the fixed mindset. A growth mindset compliment praises effort rather than natural skill: "I'm proud of how hard you worked on that project!" "I could tell you listened to your coach's comments--you really had your elbow under those jump shots today."

Carol Dweck. MINDSET: THE NEW PSYCHOLOGY OF SUCCESS referenced by Chip & Dan Heath in SWITCH: HOW TO CHANGE THINGS WHEN CHANGE IS HARD.

2010-12-14T00:12:00.002-03:00

Martha Graham famously said, “Because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost.”
...
If you obey Martha Graham’s direction, you must produce your work. Publishing your work, sending it out as letters, or posting it to your blog is not a selfish act; rather, it is a selfless act.

You are not feeding your ego by publishing; you are giving the gift of your perspective and your writing to another unique person who longs to hear something fresh, something inventive, something intriguing, or something motivating.

Do not deny the gift of your writing to an audience that is waiting to receive it.

Alice Bass. The Gift of Your Writing.

the solar-oven fallacy

2010-12-01T10:15:00.002-03:00

The solar oven is a simple idea that has actually been around for a few hundred years. It is sometimes touted as a panacea for problems ranging from women's rights to global warming... On the surface, the idea seems like a good one: Use the sun to cook food. Free heat. No wood chopping or carrying. And yet, the solar cooker has, ironically, not set the developing world on fire.
"Solar ovens are not that complicated," said Paul Polak, author of Out of Poverty..."What is complicated is learning the cultural patterns of people in Africa with food and how they might interact with that technology."
Some of the problems with solar ovens: They take several hours to cook food; they don't function in the rainy season; wind can knock them over; they simply won't work for people who are up before dawn or need to cook after dark. So while it may seem like a good idea to someone sitting in an office in Washington, D.C., or Brussels, to a woman in a wattle house in Zambia, the benefits might be less clear.
"You've got to design for the market," Polak said, "not because you're a tinkerer who is fascinated with a technical problem."
"There are just too many prescriptive approaches to what is needed," said Emeka Okafor, a Nigerian entrepreneur based in New York City. "That is one of the biggest flaws of development. You have people running around with prescriptions for what they think works, because they have a simplistic understanding of what the problem is.

Frank Bures. Can you Hear us Now?

2010-11-28T20:32:00.003-03:00

Paganism declared that virtue was in a balance; Christianity declared it was in a conflict: the collision of two passions apparently opposite. Of course they were not really inconsistent; but they were such that it was hard to hold simultaneously.... in short, Christianity got over the difficulty of combining furious opposites, by keeping them both, and keeping them both furious. The church was positive on both points....

The more I considered Christianity, the more I found that while it had established a rule and order, the chief aim of that order was to give room for good things to run wild....

This was the big fact about Christian ethics; the discovery of the new balance. Paganism had been like a pillar of marble, upright because proportioned with symmetry. Christianity was like a huge and ragged and romantic rock, which, though it sways on its pedestal at a touch, yet, because its exaggerated excrescences exactly balance each other, is enthroned there for a thousand years. In a Gothic cathedral the columns were all different, but they were all necessary.

G.K. Chesterton. ORTHODOXY. The Paradoxes of Christianity.

2010-11-23T10:33:00.003-03:00

Jessica Hagy. STRETCHING IS GOOD STUFF. Indexed.

2010-11-08T10:59:00.002-03:00

The care that is filling your mind at this moment, or but waiting till you lay the book aside to leap upon you--that need which is no need, is a demon sucking at the spring of your life. "No; mine is a reasonable care--an unavoidable care, indeed." Is it something you have to do this very moment? "No." Then you are allowing it to usurp the place of something that is required of you this moment. "There is nothing required of me at this moment." Nay but there is--the greatest thing that can be required of man. ""Pray, what is it?" Trust in the living God....

George MacDonald. AN ANTHOLOGY: 365 READINGS, EDITED BY C.S. LEWIS.

2010-10-26T11:34:00.002-03:00

We so want to “do something” now. Yet the great lesson of discipleship is to learn to allow something to be done for us and to us and in us and through us.

JD Walt. FARMStrong. Why just doing something is not the answer...

2010-10-24T14:11:00.002-03:00

I hope you have been well. I hope your rambles have been sweet and your reveries spacious...

Emily Dickinson. The Letters.

2010-10-22T14:49:00.001-03:00

A playbook is not the same as a journal. Journals evolve into playbooks. Playbooks are tried and true and have victory and loss to back up each play. Tried. And TRUE. And we all wanna peek at THAT

Danielle Laporte. Whitehot Truth. Transparency. when it works and when it bombs.

2010-09-23T11:18:00.002-03:00

There's a wonderful phrase that's been attributed to various writers over the years (most obscurely to Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, which means he's probably the true provenance) calling for the artist—the writer, in this case—to "murder your darlings."

As someone who writes notoriously long essays, emails and articles (not to mention comes from a long line of packrats), I have a passing familiarity with the predilection for hanging onto useless stuff. My year-long jettisoning of physical stuff has started making me aware of all the other, non-physical stuff that's also better-off purged.

The first three paragraphs of this newsletter, for example: sure, they were all brilliant words of inspiration, but they were not to the point; they helped get me to the point. And once I arrived, I let them go.

I've found that reasoning to be really helpful when trashing perfectly good stuff I've worked hard to create: like the energy people spent in the olden days priming a pump, efforts aren't wasted if they get you where you want to be.

Coleen Wainwright Killing your Darlings

2010-09-14T21:03:00.001-03:00

Restlessness is not a reliable indicator that more is required. Becoming addicted to hard work is not always in our best interest, nor will it ensure that our goals and dreams are realized.

Kristen Armstrong. Turning towards Taper on her blog Mile Markers.

2010-08-26T14:37:00.001-03:00

“Almost certainly, downtime lets the brain go over experiences it’s had, solidify them and turn them into permanent long-term memories,” said Loren Frank, assistant professor in the department of physiology at the university, where he specializes in learning and memory. He said he believed that when the brain was constantly stimulated, “you prevent this learning process.”

At the University of Michigan, a study found that people learned significantly better after a walk in nature than after a walk in a dense urban environment, suggesting that processing a barrage of information leaves people fatigued.

Digital Devices Deprive Brain of Needed Downtime

2010-08-03T13:00:00.000-03:00

...in an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes... the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention...

Herbert Simon quoted by Chris Anderson. FREE: THE FUTURE OF A RADICAL PRICE.

2010-07-13T00:11:00.001-03:00

How did you structure the sessions?
... there’s the “law of mobility” — it’s the only “law” in the room and it’s pretty simple: If you’re not giving, contributing or learning where you are, you need to get up and go to another circle.

Were there any surprises along the way?
We do seminars and conferences and think that our attendees are putting all these great ideas into practice. But when we got into circles to discuss their issues, it became clear that the speed of learning and adoption is slower than the dissemination of ideas. Sometimes the content just doesn’t penetrate. We were blown away by how many people in the circles were struggling with things that had been out there for so long.

Now that you’ve gone through the whole process, what are your thoughts about Open Space as a meeting process?
In certain communities, when we have ideas and practices we need to share, this can be the most effective way to get that done. There can be such a big gap between the experts, who often don’t do anything in the field any more, and the people out in the field doing things — and those things are changing so fast. Open Space revealed the true speed of change in a way that other processes can’t. It also allowed us to go deeper into the true nature of issues than a general session would have been able to address. If you want to put something together that’s in the moment and addresses what’s on attendees’ minds right now, there is nothing else that can accomplish that like Open Space.

The Un-Convention

2010-07-04T18:55:00.002-03:00

...the reason the have a point and defend it method is not effective is because you are guiding your audience through a justification of your point, not a realization of your point. In other words, we come to believe an idea through a series of experiences, some of them quite mystical, like hearing a song or meeting a kid or reading a book and then watching a movie. And then the light bulb went on, and we realized we should all engage fatherless kids. So when we had to give a speech about it, we jumped on wickepedia and gave some justifications for why people should engage fatherless kids. But justifications are only good after you realize an idea, not before. Justification is not how the human brain actually comes to understand an idea at all. By the end of your talk, the only people who are going to agree with you are the people who agreed with you going into it, most likely. Instead, I try to shape a talk around the way a human brain actually comes to a realization. In other words, I mimic those experiences the brain needs to encounter in order to have that “aha” moment.

Donald Miller. How I Prepare a Speech, or How to Guide Somebody Toward an Epiphany

2010-07-02T11:39:00.001-03:00

In every age it will be apparent to accurate thinkers that scientific theories, being arrived at in the way I have described, are never statements of fact. That stars appear to move in such and such ways, or that substances behaved thus and thus in the laboratory--these are statements of fact. The astronomical or chemical theory can never be more than provisional....In our age I think it would be fair to say that the ease with which a scientific theory assumes the dignity and rigidity of fact varies inversely with the individual's scientific education. In discussion with wholly uneducated audiences I have sometimes found matter which real scientists would regard as highly speculative more firmly believed than many things within our real knowledge....The mass media which have in our time created a popular scientism, a caricature of the true sciences, did not then exist [in the Middle Ages].

C.S. Lewis. THE DISCARDED IMAGE: AN INTRODUCTION TO MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE LITERATURE.

2010-06-27T11:43:00.002-03:00

If you wait until the wind and the weather are just right, you will never plant anything, and never harvest anything.

Ecclesiastes 11:4. Today's English Version.

2010-06-25T19:32:00.002-03:00

...behavior is motivation filtered through opportunity. So if you see people behaving in new ways, like with Wikipedia and what not, it's very unlikely that their motivations have changed, because human nature doesn't change that quickly. It's likely that the opportunities have changed.

Clay Shirky. The Great Cognitive Surplus.

2010-06-21T14:18:00.002-03:00

I know the way you can get
When you have not had a drink of Love:

You might rip apart
Every sentence your friends and teachers say,
Looking for hidden clauses.

You might weigh every word on a scale
Like a dead fish.

You might pull out a ruler to measure
From every angle in your darkness
The beautiful dimensions of a heart you once
Trusted

I know the way you can get
If you have not had a drink from Love's
Hands.

That is why all the Great Ones speak of
The vital need
To keep Remembering God....

Renderings of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky. I HEARD GOD LAUGHING: POEMS OF HOPE AND JOY.

2010-06-17T16:18:00.001-03:00

Communication, both formal and informal, is the most important leadership practice. Many of the problems that occur in an organization are the direct result of people failing to communicate in ways that truly enhance understanding.

David Livermore. LEADING WITH CULTURAL INTELLIGENCE: THE NEW SECRET TO SUCCESS.

2010-06-02T08:54:00.001-03:00

“Dream first, set targets later.” I like that approach to planning. We should include a time for dreaming before getting down to process and rigid goal-setting. Leadership IQ wrote an article called, “Are SMART Goals Dumb?” in which they challenged the traditional view of goal-setting: to create goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely. The data shows that there’s a better way to create goals that will be implemented. Make sure they’re HARD:
Heartfelt – My goals will enrich the lives of someone besides me — customers, the community, etc.
Animated – I can vividly picture how great it will feel when I accomplish my goals.
Required – My goals are absolutely necessary to help this company.
Difficult – I will have to learn new skills and leave my comfort zone to achieve my assigned goals for this year.

Picture the end. How great it will feel. Leave my comfort zone. Not the traditional way we approach goals, but the territory of dreamers. Start with a vision of the future and then set targets toward making it reality.

The Back Row Leader. EFFICENCY VS. LEARNING

2010-05-21T09:38:00.002-03:00

Some dreams are far too small to hold the soul
Like "My life, my land, my money, my family, my country."

Justin McRoberts. America and the Soul.

2010-05-19T09:04:00.002-03:00

Let my soul rejoice in Thy mysterious greatness. Let me take refuge in the thought that Thou art utterly beyond me, beyond the sweep of my imagination, beyond the comprehension of my mind, Thy judgments being unsearchable and They ways past finding out.

John Baillie. A DIARY OF PRIVATE PRAYER. Seventeenth day. Morning.

2010-05-18T11:00:00.002-03:00

The purpose of the blue note in jazz is to give voice to pain. There are three blue notes: flatted 3rd, flatted 5th and flatted 7th. Bluest of the blue notes is the flatted 5th. Miles Davis perfected it. It is the note that when heard on its own creates dissonance. It resists resolve and in doing so it also awakens us to our own shattered hopes and dreams. This is part of its charm. It disorients and sometimes irritates, but when blended with the larger score, it gives voice to the longing for healing that is associated with pain. Kathleen O' Connor said, "The first condition for healing is to bring the pain and suffering into view."

Of course, the first condition of healing is not the final condition of healing. To give voice to pain is to run the risk of getting stuck there. We can easily become defined by our own wounds and go about the business of wounding ourselves and others accordingly. However, to deny the blue note is to suffer the same fate. Denial of pain is a dangerous as getting stuck in it. Both lead to violence. The Gospel assures us that there is a way forward but it is always the way of the wound.

Kris Rocke. Center for Transforming Mission.

2010-05-16T16:45:00.002-03:00

... I think life is staggering and we're just used to it. We all are like spoiled children no longer impressed with the gifts we're given...

Donald Miller. A MILLION MILES IN A THOUSAND YEARS: WHAT I LEARNED WHILE EDITING MY LIFE.

2010-05-16T16:42:00.001-03:00

Idolatry is marked by the will to use God for our purposes.

Dallas Willard. THE GREAT OMISSION: RECLAIMING JESUS'S ESSENTIAL TEACHINGS ON DISCIPLESHIP.

2010-05-13T15:52:00.002-03:00

Self-efficacy is the perception we have of our ability to reach a goal. It's our confidence regarding whether we can succeed at a particular task. A great deal of research supports the premise that a leader's level of confidence in accomplishing what he or she sets out to do will critically determine the outcome.... Without a strong sense of self-efficacy, a leader will avoid challenges and give up easily when confronted with setbacks.

David Livermore. LEADING WITH CULTURAL INTELLIGENCE: THE NEW SECRET TO SUCCESS.

2010-05-13T15:14:00.002-03:00

As simple as it may sound, both work and rest are commanded by God, and to do one to the exclusion of the other takes us into the realm of sin. We must do both and do both faithfully or we are not truly obeying our King. Second, in order to love His Bride, our Lord Jesus Christ left His glory, His dwelling in heaven, His place of utter perfection and delight in union with His Father and the Spirit. Therefore, in order to love my wife as Christ loves the Church, I must discern what is to me “glory” and leave it regularly in order to love [my wife]. Frankly, ministry is my glory. Third, Jesus left His glory not for that which was attractive within us to Him. Rather, He left His glory for that which was repulsive in us to Him. My wife should sense that I am willingly leaving the most glorious portions of life for me for her in her deepest weakness, most frightening struggle with what she suspects is repulsive to me.

In terms of ministry, we have learned that when we give out of resources that we do not have, then it is not sacrifice but lack of wisdom, if not actual folly. [We] have often pushed ourselves beyond the limits of health because of the demands of ministry and have gone to the margins of well-being and beyond. This actually becomes a kind of dishonesty, for inside we are feeling a sense of emptiness and disquiet as we meet with individuals who are deeply hurting, and at times actually fight resentment and distraction within while we are sitting with them without, and are dishonest about how embattled and empty we are feeling.

A Pastor reflecting on what he is learning after decades in ministry

2010-03-21T21:41:00.002-03:00

He who receives ideas from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine receives light without darkening me.

Thomas Jefferson quoted by Chris Anderson in FREE: THE FUTURE OF A RADICAL PRICE.

2010-03-21T19:04:00.004-03:00

You may be sure the Landlord has brought you the shortest way: though I confess it would look an odd journey on a map.

C.S. Lewis. THE PILGRIM'S REGRESS.

2010-03-21T18:46:00.002-03:00

It all happened not of necessity, not inevitably, but gratuitously, freely, hilariously....

The tragic is the inevitable. The comic is the unforeseeable...

Is it possible, I wonder, to say that it is only when you hear the Gospel as a wild and marvelous joke that you really hear it at all?

Blessed is he who is not offended that no man receives what he deserves but vastly more. Blessed is he who gets that joke, who sees that miracle.

Frederick Buechner. TELLING THE TRUTH: THE GOSPEL AS TRAGEDY, COMEDY & FAIRY TALE.

2010-03-19T19:44:00.002-03:00

The book of Ecclesiastes is a conclusion, not a possible point of departure....

The sayings of the wise are a goad: the goad enters the hide of the ox and makes it advance; the word of the wise makes us advance, and does not merely stir up vain and brilliant ideas....

It is vanity to publish a book amidst the present Niagra of paper, not to mention ten thousand times more "information" coming from ten other media. What could be the point?.... I have no explanation or justification.... I do have available the exhortation of another part of Ecclesiastes: "All your hands find to do with the strength you have, do it" (9:10 JE).

Jacques Ellul. THE REASON FOR BEING: A MEDITATION ON ECCLESIASTES.

A Soldier's Prayer (U.S. Civil War)

2010-03-07T23:23:00.003-03:00

I asked God for strength, that I might achieve,
I was made weak, that I might learn humbly to obey.
I asked for health, that I might do greater things,
I was given infirmity, that I might do better things.
I asked for riches, that I might be happy,
I was given poverty, that I might be wise.
I asked for power, that I might have the praise of men,
I was given weakness, that I might feel the need of God.
I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life,
I was given life, that I might enjoy all things.
I got nothing I asked for --
but everything I had hoped for.

Almost, in spite of myself, my unspoken prayers were answered.
I am, among all men, most richly blessed."

2010-02-17T11:55:00.003-03:00

Sternin's strategy [to address malnutrition in Vietnam] was to search the community for bright spots. If some kids were healthy despite their disadvantages, then that meant something important: Malnourishment was not inevitable. The mere Existence of healthy kids provided hope for a practical, short-term solution....
Sternin refused to make a formal announcement. He knew that telling the mothers about nutrition wouldn't change their behavior... "Knowledge does not change behavior...We have all encountered crazy shrinks and obese doctors and divorced marriage counselors." The mothers would have to practice it. They'd have to act differently until the different started to feel normal.
....
In tough times, we'll see problems everywhere, and "analysis paralysis" will often kick in. That's why, to make progress on a change, we need to provide crystal-clear direction -- show people where to go, how to act, what destination to pursue. And that's why bright spots are so essential: They provide the road map.....anytime you have a bright spot, your mission is to clone it.

Dan & Chip Heath. SWITCH: DON'T SOLVE PROBLEMS--COPY SUCCESS.

2010-01-27T12:58:00.002-03:00

Design thinking is a mindset and a methodology to approach challenges. It’s a process of approaching a problem from multiple perspectives and using trial and error to get to the right solution. It’s about drawing inspiration from a variety of sources and applying them to your particular challenge, resulting in innovation....

If you give a designer a blank sheet of paper and tell him to make something that looks nice, he will be paralyzed. At the minimum, he needs a topic, a message and an audience. But he needs more than that; great design comes from a seemingly impossible contradiction. Perhaps the impossibility is budget-related. Or the combination of two impossible desires that cannot possibly co-exist. For instance, a financial services client who hates the color green.... A designer needs a contrast to create a spark. In other words, designers cannot operate in abundance; designers need restrictions!

Design Thinking on The Back Row Leader.

2010-01-27T12:22:00.000-03:00

I’m learning that good leaders want to provide answers while exceptional leaders want to provide tools for people to find their own answers.

The first is easier and feeds the ego. The second takes time, patience and builds successful organizations.
The first develops dependency, the second develops respect.

Golden Eggs and Other Gems.

2009-12-01T21:49:00.003-03:00

What if....we only got to practice at simulated versions of our jobs? Lawyers only got to argue mock cases, for years and years. Plumbers only got to fix fake leaks in classrooms. Teachers only got to teach to videocameras, endlessly rehearsing for some far off future. Book writers like me never saw our work put out to the public – our novels sat in drawers. Scientists never got to do original experiments; they only got to recreate scientific experiments of yesteryear. And so on.
Rather quickly, all meaning would vanish from our work. Even if we enjoyed the activity of our job, intrinsically, it would rapidly lose depth and relevance. It’d lose purpose. We’d become bored, lethargic, and disengaged.
In other words, we’d turn into teenagers. ....
By insulating them from adult-like work, adult social relationships, and adult consequences, we have only delayed their development. We have made it harder for them to grow up.

Po Bronson Why Teenagers Are Growing Up So Slowly Today

2009-11-21T19:26:00.002-03:00

... would-be leaders must now become anthropologists. The as-good-as-dead Industrial Age cultural paradigm is being replaced by a new culture that requires the fieldwork skills of an anthropologist, the dedication of a missionary, the patience of a saint, the learning curve of a child, the cunning of a spy, the stamina of an athlete and the resolve of a Coast Guard sailor.

Leonard Sweet. AQUACHURCH: ESSENTIAL LEADERSHIP ARTS FOR PILOTING YOUR CHURCH IN TODAY'S FLUID CULTURE.

2009-11-10T15:12:00.003-03:00

Lewis conveys objectivist values in a futher sense. Just as Spirit must incarnate itself in creation, so the artist necessarily incarnates himself in using the materils of his craft, the moralist in beneficent action...More completely than elsewhere, in the "Summa" he condems also what Alexander calls the "dangerous practice of introspection.*" At our most spiritual, we look outward and seek to incarnate ourselves in what we discover, make or do.

Lionel Adey. C.S.LEWIS: WRITER, DREAMER & MENTOR.

*"The mind which broods over itself in dangerous practial introspection abandons itself to the enjoyment of itself."

Samuel Alexander. SPACE, TIME AND DEITY.