Handwritten Photograph

The first thing you do when you sit down at the computer

Let me guess: check the incoming. Check email or traffic stats or messages from your boss. Check the tweets you follow or the FB status of friends.

You’ve just surrendered not only a block of time but your freshest, best chance to start something new.

If you’re a tech company or a marketer, your goal is to be the first thing people do when they start their day. If you’re an artist, a leader or someone seeking to make a difference, the first thing you do should be to lay tracks to accomplish your goals, not to hear how others have reacted/responded/insisted to what happened yesterday.

(Source: sethgodin.typepad.com)

In the blink of an eye

I’m sitting here at a Starbucks in Kansas City, MO.  An elderly gentleman sits a few tables down from me.  He slowly sips his coffee and carefully, yet deliberately, raises his fork to his lips.  The hand is shaky, but firm.  Little by little, the blueberry scone is transferred from the white plate to his mouth.  The man cherishes each bite.  He looks old.  He looks weak.  Each bite is a journey in and of itself.  The light has faded from his eyes and he looks weary.

Yet, he made the effort to drive to Starbucks and enjoy a night out.  I feel a sadness come over me.  I wonder what his story is.  Does he have hope?  His life according to most is over.  He doesn’t have much left to give.  Even this trip to Starbucks, must have been difficult and challenging.  Yet, he’s here.  He’s not at home, he’s not in bed.  Is he alone?  Does he still have a family?  My compassion overwhelms me.  I want to do something…I want to encourage him.  I want to say something kind.  But, what can I say?  I don’t know anything about him?  I don’t know what pain may consume him.  I don’t know what he’s been through.  What can I give?  A smile?

…Now he’s gone.  I lost my opportunity.  I will most likely never see him again.  He may never see the light of another day.  This may have been his last for all I know.

In the blink of an eye, everything we come to know and love will be gone.  So, what do we put our hope in?  What do we worship and love?  What are we thankful for?  How do we spend our time?  I challenge you, I urge you…no I command you to take a few minutes and ponder these questions in light of your own life.

Soon you will be like this old man.  You may be able to count your remaining days on one hand.  Will those final hours be lived out in joy and satisfaction knowing you successfully fulfilled you’re purpose here on earth?  Or, perhaps…will they be hours filled with agony and regret?  Knowing that you wasted the energy you had on selfish ambitions?  Knowing that each opportunity that presented itself to you to love someone, to give…you passed by selfishly saying “no”.

Are you thankful for all you have?  Do you cherish each and every breath you take?  Don’t be a fool.  Don’t take your life for granted.  Open your eyes.  Live each and every moment with thankfulness.

Health, Tech, Community & Love

Chad Anderson, my good friend and pastor, recently shared this short essay with me from Wendell Berry: “Health is Membership”.  It’s not a light read by any means, but I just about wore out my green highlighter.  If you only have a couple free minutes right now, I’d encourage you to bookmark the essay and mark it as a “must read for later” item.  However, if your mind is fresh…and you have the time now, take a seat, get a cup of tea or coffee, and get comfortable.

Still with me?  Okay, I’d like to proceed with several quotes I’ve taken from his essay and give my thoughts/questions accordingly.

Here we go:

The word “health,” in fact, comes from the same Indo-European root as “heal,” “whole,” and “holy.”  To be healthy is literally to be whole; to heal is to make whole.

I’ve never actually considered the root meaning of the word “health” before, and not only does this make sense logically but it gives me a new perspective on our bodies as a temple of the Holy Spirit which lives within us, described in 1 Corinthians 6:19.

I believe that divine love, incarnate and indwelling in the world, summons the world always toward wholeness, which ultimately is reconciliation and atonement with God.

I believe that health is wholeness.

I am moreover a Luddite, in what I take to be the true and appropriate sense.  I am not “against technology” so much as I am for community.  When the choice is between the health of a community and technological innovation, I choose the health of the community.  I would unhesitatingly destroy a machine before I would allow the machine to destroy my community.

I love technology, and anyone who knows me, knows I can be very passionate about technological innovation.  I am all about forward progression and creativity, however I really appreciate how Wendell takes a step back and considers the health of the community.  Often (or, perhaps always?), we make a trade when embracing innovation and forward progress.  For example, if you invent a new way of communicating with others via technology, say using the telegraph, you remove or replace the need to physically travel to deliver the message with sending the message digitally.  You replace one method or way of doing something (the “bad”) with another (the “good” or “better”) method.  Most of the time, this replacement is positive and beneficial for the community - but not always.  Wendell Berry reminds us to proceed with caution - which I find as a helpful reminder.  Embrace a practice of Think, Do, Think - not Do, Think, Do.

Next thought:

So often we separate the physical from the spiritual.  We label such activities as “spiritual” or “physical” (or perhaps “worldly”).  Example would be: going to church is “spiritual” and socializing in a bar is “worldly”.  I think it’s dangerous to stamp labels on such activities.  I know the logic behind such assumptions - going to church, one hopefully is involved in worship and is therefore participating in activities that are honoring to God.  Likewise, socializing at a bar is often interpreted as one participating in “ungodly” activities.  That is an extreme example of course, but consider this: exercising is a “physical” activity vs. reading the Bible is a “spiritual” activity.  The danger here is associating a particular activity with being “holy” or “wicked” (extreme), or as being “spiritual” or “purposeless” - which invariably results in a separation and eventually places a value scale on each particular activity without considering our overall “health”.  Wendell goes on to explain…their is no separation between the two.  Take a look at this:

What I’m arguing against here is not complexity or mystery but dualism.  I would like to purge my own mind and language of such terms as “spiritual,” “physical,” “metaphysical,” and “transcendental” - all of which imply that the Creation is divided into “levels” that can readily be peeled apart and judged by human beings.  I believe that the Creation is one continuous fabric comprehending simultaneously what we mean by “spirit” and what we mean by “matter.”

Our bodies are involved in the world.  Their needs and desires and pleasures are physical.  Our bodies hunger and thirst, yearn toward other bodies, grow tired and seek rest, rise up rested, eager to exert themselves.  All these desires may be satisfied with honor to the body and its maker, but only if much else besides the individual body is brought into consideration.  We have long known that individual desires must not be made the standard of their own satisfaction.  We must consider the body’s manifold connections to other bodies and to the world.  The body, “fearfully and wonderfully made,” is ultimately mysterious both in itself and in its dependences.  Our bodies live, the Bible says, by spirit and the breath of God, but it does not say how this is so.  We are not going to know about this.

Wow!

Out of the same dualism comes our confusion about the body’s proper involvement in the world.  People seriously interested in health will finally have to question our society’s long-standing goals of convenience and effortlessness.  What is the point of “labor saving” if by making work effortless we make it poor, and if by doing poor work we weaken our bodies and lose conviviality and health.

I had to look up the word “conviviality” which means “a jovial nature”.  In other words, we might invent a slick new way of having a machine fold our laundry, wash our dishes, and steep our tea…but what’s the point if we trade our joy for convenience?  I think we need to consider the purpose of “work”.  Is work something we all do just so we get a paycheck?  Is work only a means to some other end?  I don’t think so.  I’d like to do more research on this or perhaps get some thoughts from you…but I think work is designed as an integral part of our everyday life as a way of fulfilling our purpose to work the land that God has given us and have dominion over the earth as mentioned in Genesis 1 & Psalm 8.  I think work is designed by God as a way for us to feel accomplishment, give us pleasure, and experience joy.  Work is a part of who we are - it’s makes us whole…it’s healthy for us.  Sound familiar?

The body alone is not, properly speaking, a body.  Divided from its sources of air, food, drink, clothing, shelter, and companionship, a body is, properly speaking, a cadaver, whereas a machine by itself, shut down or out of fuel, is still a machine.  Merely as an organism (leaving aside issues of mind and spirit) the body lives and moves and has its being, minute by minute, by an inter-involvement with other bodies and other creatures, living and unliving, that is too complex to diagram or describe.  It is, moreover, under the influence of thought and feeling.  It does not live by “fuel” alone.

So true!  I love how Wendell Berry contrasts the differences between our body and a machine.  He’s setting the stage for what he’s about to unpack as the true definition of “healing”.  We can’t treat our bodies as machines - especially when considering the healing process.

In healing, the body is restored to itself.  It begins to live again by its own powers and instincts, to the extent that it can do so.  To the extent that it can do so, it goes free of drugs and mechanical helps.  Its appetites return.  It relishes food and rest.  The patient is restored to family and friends, home and community and work.

Hmm, interesting.  Would you say this is an accurate depiction of the way our institutionalized hospital system approaches the art of healing today?

Can our present medical industry produce an adequate definition of health?  My own guess is that it cannot do so.  Like industrial agriculture, industrial medicine has depended increasingly on specialist methodology, mechanical technology, and chemicals thus, its point of reference has become more and more its own technical prowess and less and less the health of creatures and habits.

Unfortunately, having an inaccurate perspective on what healing actually is, is only the beginning.  The inevitable methods that follow suite are just as broken and misguided.

We are now pretty clearly involved in a crisis of health, one of the wonders of which is its immense profitability both to those who cause it and to those who propose to cure it. That the illness may prove incurable, except by catastrophe, is suggested by our economic dependence on it. Think, for example, of how readily our solutions become problems and our cures pollutants. To cure one disease, we need another. The causes, of course, are numerous and complicated, but all of them, I think, can be traced back to the old idea that our bodies are not very important except when they give us pleasure (usually, now, to somebody’s profit) or when they hurt (now, almost invariably, to somebody’s profit).

Invariably, all hope is lost and we’re doomed.  Unless of course we consider love.  Our body is designed by love and for love.  Healing can’t happen apart from love.

A body, love insists, is neither a spirit nor a machine; it is not a picture, a diagram, a chart, a graph, an anatomy; it is not an explanation; it is not a law. It is precisely and uniquely what it is. It belongs to the world of love, which is a world of living creatures, natural orders and cycles, many small, fragile lights in the dark.

Machines can be helpful, but have major limitations.  For one, they don’t share emotion or feeling with us and they can’t make judgments based on unfamiliar data.  But most of all they can’t express love.

A machine makes breaths as a machine makes buttons, all the same, but every breath of a creature is itself a creature, like no other, inestimably precious.

In other words we have life - we’re a living and breathing creation made in the image of God.  Machines are merely objects, without life, and without soul.

Machines are all about being efficient, and the world of love has nothing in common with the world of efficiency.

Logically, in plenitude some things ought to be expendable. Industrial economics has always believed this: abundance justifies waste. This is one of the dominant superstitions of American history-and of the history of colonialism everywhere. Expendability is also an assumption of the world of efficiency, which is why that world deals so compulsively in percentages of efficacy and safety.

But this sort of logic is absolutely alien to the world of love. To the claim that a certain drug or procedure would save 99 percent of all cancer patients or that a certain pollutant would be safe for 99 percent of a population, love, unembarrassed, would respond, “What about the one percent?”

I love this!  Love cannot be explained logically or rationally.  Love is mysterious.

My mind is swirling with all sorts of questions, thoughts, and anger.  This world needs healing, it needs love.  We do have hope, we have a Savior (Jesus Christ)…will we allow him to save us and make us whole again?  Or will we rely on our efficiency and craftiness?

Where is your hope?  Who or what is your heart attached to?  Everything that you have, every breath that you take is a gift.  Are you wasting that energy and love on something or someone that can’t satisfy?  Don’t be a fool.  Live, be healthy, and embrace love with open arms.  Walk by faith and not by sight.  Forget efficiency, choose Love!

• wendell berry
• love
• health
• technology
• health is membership

Formality

Heart-religion is too holy to be popular.  It will not leave natural man alone.  It interferes with his worldliness and his sins.  It requires of him things that he loathes and abominates, - conversation, faith, repentance, spiritual-mindedness, Bible-reading, prayer.  It bids him give up many things that he loves and clings to, and connot make up his mind to lay aside.  It would be strange indeed if he liked it.  It crosses his path as a kill-joy and a mar-plot, and it is absurd to expect that he will be pleased.

Heart-religion isn’t popular because it takes the focus off man and what we’re capable of doing - whether good or bad.  We are no longer the god of our lives, we are no longer our own savior, we are helpless and desperately in need of grace.  That doesn’t sit well with us.  We want to be in control, we want to call the shots, we want to think we’re perfect…or, even if we screw up, we want to fix the problem ourselves - not surrender our lives and give up everything we have to follow Christ.

God approves and honours heart-religion in the life that now is.  He looks down from heaven, and reads the hearts of all the children of men.  Wherever He sees heart-repentance for sin, - heart-faith in Christ, - heart-holiness of life, - heart-love to His Son, His law, His will, and His Word, - wherever God sees these things He is well pleased.  He writes a book of remembrance for that man, however poor and unlearned he may be.  He gives His angels special charge over Him.  He maintains in him the work of grace, and gives Him daily supplies of peace, hope, and strength.  He regards him as a member of His own dear Son, as one who is witnessing for the truth, as His Son did.  Weak as the man’s heart may seem to himself, it is the living sacrifice which God loves, and the heart which He has solemnly declared He will not despise.  Such praise is worth more than the praise of man!

Incredible - to think that God of the universe actually takes notice of us and Loves us.  Not for who we are, but because of what Christ has done on our behalf.

Look forward, finally, and hope for the coming of the Lord.  Your best things are yet to come.  The second coming of Christ will soon be here.  The time of temptation will soon be past and gone.  The judgment and reward of the saints shall soon make amends for all.  Rest in the hope of that day.  Work, watch, and look forward. - One thing, at any rate, that day will make abundantly clear.  It will show that there was never an hour in our lives in which we gave our hearts too thoroughly to Christ.

I love this.  “Work, watch, and look forward”.  I often find myself day-dreaming throughout the day and week looking for “that next thing” - something to satisfy.  Yes, Christ is with us here and now, He has conquered death, but the bad taste of sin still resides in our mouths.  How I long for a renewed heaven and earth.  How I long to be in His presence - for Him to be my light.  I feel young in heart…but already feel exhausted in spirit.

(Source: jesusiscreator.org)

• heart
• religion
• formality

The Facts

A statement of fact is insufficient and often not even necessary to persuade someone of your point of view.

[I was going to end the post just like that, but then I realized that I was merely telling you a fact, one that might not resonate. Here’s the riff:

Politicians, non-profits and most of all, amateur marketers believe that all they need to do to win the day is to recite a fact. You’re playing Monopoly and you say, “I’ll trade you Illinois for Connecticut.” The other person refuses, which is absurd. I mean, Illinois costs WAY more than Connecticut. It’s a fact. There’s no room for discussion here. You are right and they are wrong.

But they still have the property you want, and you lose. Because all you had was a fact.

On the other hand, the story wins the day every time. When the youngest son, losing the game, offers to trade his mom Baltic for Boardwalk, she says yes in a heartbeat. Because it feels right, not because it is right.

Your position on just about everything, including, yes, your salary, your stock options, your credit card debt and your mortgage are almost certainly based on the story you tell yourself, not some universal fact from the universal fact database.

Not just you, everyone.

Work with that.]

This is, in my opinion, the single biggest problem with marketing today.  Or with any other situation where one is trying to teach/sell an idea or a way of thinking with someone else.  It’s all about the story not the facts.  Nobody cares about the facts because we can’t personally relate to a statement of fact.  We’re humans with feelings.  If we choose to change or adapt our focus, or direction, it’s because we were moved and felt like doing so.

(Source: sethgodin.typepad.com)

• Seth Godin
• story
• facts

Third Place

I’ve been thinking a lot about the “Third Place” lately.  For those unfamiliar, here’s a snippet from Wikipedia:

The third place is a term used in the concept of community building to refer to social surroundings separate from the two usual social environments of home and the workplace. (via Wikipedia: Link)

The story goes something like this:

The first place is your home, where you spend the majority of your time.  It’s your haven, your fortress, and your primary living space.

The second place is your workplace, where you engage in the daily grind, build stuff, and provide something of value to others.

The third place in my opinion, should be your default social outlet.  It’s where you go to hang out with friends, meet new people, and have conversations.

The third place could be a local bar, coffee shop, or more recently (for some people) Facebook or [insert social network of choice here].  I think especially in our society we’ve overlooked the importance of the third place and it’s role in our lives and even our health.

I’d like to help fix this.  I live in Kearney, NE - we have a few spots that could be classified as a “third place”…but I think we need more options.

I’d like to start a bakery/coffee house and call it “Third Place”.  You may remember one of my previous posts “Building Stuff + My Crazy Dream“…well this vision is directly related to that dream.

There are still several unknowns (building? finances? talent? etc.) but I’m fairly confident it’s going to all come together - it’s just a matter of time.