A Christian Worldview from Silicon Valley

“You Have Arrived”

How do you know when you get there?

That sounds like a simple enough question to answer, assuming you know the destination. And that isn’t always obvious.

Take my adventures during this past week, for instance. My wife and I, along with her mother and her brother and his wife, all planned on going on vacation together in Hawaii. You will note there are two destinations in that statement, and we only arrived at one of them.

The good news is, the one we failed to reach was the least important. We tried for two days to find adequate space on one of United Airlines‘ flights to Kauai, even traveling to Los Angeles in hopes of getting on a plane there. But we didn’t have any success, and the odds did not look good for the next day, either.

Realizing that our real destination was vacation, and not Hawaii, we selected a different geographical location — one that could be reached by car — and the next day found ourselves enjoying the beauty and relaxation of California’s Gold Country. (We might have headed east sooner, but our luggage did make it to Hawaii, so we made one more trip to San Francisco International Airport to retrieve it before leaving. That was the closest we came to the Islands, with the possible exception of using some Hawaiian Tropic sunscreen one day.)

As we headed for the hills, my brother-in-law put the address where we were staying into his GPS unit, and as we pulled up in front of the house the unit announced, “You have arrived.”

“Good to know,” I remarked. And I silently wondered if one day I would hear similar words from God.

But there are destinations to be reached before the ultimate destination, and one of those, the destination of spiritual maturity, is spoken of in Hebrews 5 and 6, especially in 6.1 which says, “Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity….”

Will you know when you get there? Will it be the place you thought you were going?

The five last bastions of thinking are the car, the john, the shower, the church or synagogue, and the gym.

So says Joey Reiman, a “top” innovation consultant and CEO of BrightHouse (Inc. Magazine, June 2008, 102-03). On a page devoted to the topic, “how the creative stay creative,” the ideas included recommendations for organizations to:

• provide reflection-conducive space and time to think
• seek out diverse constituents
• reach across disciplines by inviting “luminaries” to speak and hang out
• publish inspiring thoughts, pictures, and articles for consumption by the group and beyond
• encourage flexibility by mixing up who does what on temporary teams to accomplish projects
• reward good ideas

and suggestions for individuals to:

• do something new, never before attempted
• be open to critique, ready for constructive interchange rather than defensive monologue

The notion that the church is a place to THINK is not commonly understood in our culture, but it’s spot-on. Far from being the “opiate of the masses,” the church community challenges participants to grapple with ideas of life-changing and world-impacting scope, to interpret scripture and bring it to bear on the given scenario of our complicated lives.

But how does the church score on displaying and encouraging creativity? This seems to vary a whole lot more from congregation to congregation, but in general we could do much better in this area.

In the beginning, God created…

Did anybody else notice that the PACC blog now has a Page Rank of 2? That and $5 will get you breakfast at Peet’s. But, PR2 is better than PR0 and closer to PR4 or 5.

Page Rank is a valuation that Google places on a blog that takes into account content originality, longevity of the blog and consistency in posting as well as frequency of comments and their quality as well. Of course, Google is apt to have more variables in its algorithm for determining PR, but these are the basics.

There are debates in the blogosphere about how to please Google, how to climb the PR ladder, how to please the Landlord, John would say.

PR is important to some. The better the PR the more apt a writer is to be heard/read/found by the multitudes when they write about current events. The more a writer is read, the better the PR, the more they are read…this kind of thing.

It’s interesting that the first two letters in Google are the same as the first two letters in the name of the the one we want to please…God. Though, make no mistake about it, the similarities stop there as far as I am concerned. (more…)

Matthew 25.31-45 is a powerful and challenging section of scripture. A question asked there is, “When did we see you a stanger and invite you in, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick, or in prison, and come to you?”And Jesus’ reply is this: “Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of mine, even the least of them, you did it to me.”

Here’s how you can do exactly that. (more…)

So, I’m hanging out at a friend’s house while I am in Vegas. I’d tell you who but what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Anyway, this friend is moving out and told me I could pick and choose from the pile of books that was on the floor. Thinking, I’ll need something to read on the plane on my way home, I pick up The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell.

As many of the PACC folk know about me, most of my thoughts, (Okay all of them) are things I think, conclusions I have come to after much thinking and not something I picked up in a book, unless it were the Good Book. So, I am often hesitant to say “I read in a book…” But, I’ll give it a try here. In the first chapter I came across some thoughts by Colin Powell that I thought might be worth mulling over given that PACC is in the process of choosing who will be her leaders.

(more…)

The old quote from Mark Twain, “It ain’t the parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand,” is both humorous and true for many of us. One of the explicit statements in that quote is that there are, in fact, parts of the Bible that we cannot — or at least do not — understand.

Some of that is quite, well, understandable, because even God tells us, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55.8-9, NASB)

But sometimes our failure to understand the Bible is our own failure. We don’t dig, we don’t work, we don’t ponder, we don’t observe, we don’t practice, we don’t ask for help — from people or from God — and we move on too quickly. The result is that we become “dull of hearing” and we fail to progress, or perhaps even go backwards, in our ability to understand what God has to teach us (see Hebrews 5.11-14).

I was reminded of that just this morning when I received (more…)

As an adult, I’ve learned to extract a lot more fun out of life than I ever did as a (boring) child. At almost every minute of the day, there is entertainment to be had, no matter whether a person is working, eating, talking, walking, or whatever. Don’t you agree?

One potentially amusing activity people naturally do with folks they like is called “mirroring.” As a way of establishing rapport, we imitate each other or respond in kind to a given statement or action. When I say, “Well, hello, Mr. B!” Bill, if he feels like playing along, will respond, “Well, hi, Mrs. M!” (We don’t imitate each other too exactly because that looks and feels like mockery, an expression of disdain.)

Sometimes people don’t want to engage in this verbal and behavioral play. Maybe they don’t like us, don’t get it, or can’t be bothered. When I visited Paris, France, several years ago, I would get radically different responses from waiters and shop clerks depending on whether I first engaged in light pleasantries (“Ca va?” “Ca va bien.” “Bien.”), or cut to the chase in my efficient American way (“Two baguettes, please.”) In the former scenario, whoever I dealt with would be warm and friendly for the rest of the interaction. In the latter, they would turn cold and taciturn, even brusque and rude.

God engages in this kind of play with us, where the initial kickoff occurred “in the beginning” when he created us “in his image.” He placed us in the best arena ever conceived, and explained the one rule of the game: “don’t eat from that tree.” It wasn’t long, though, before the beautiful symmetry was broken. By chapter 3 of the story, we had eaten from it, felt fear, sewn clothes, and hidden. Most of the rest of Scripture is devoted to showing how God tries over and over again to reestablish that early relationship of naked trust and delight. His all-hands-in appeal is made when he joins us in the physical form of Jesus, a form we recognize and relate to.

It’s a long, slow dance from where he started in making us like him to the incarnation when he made himself like us. But it’s all mirroring and all for the purpose of drawing us to him for life, for play, for fun and joy.

The question is do we have the will, wit, stamina, and spiritual discipline to respond in kind? How can we deliberately mirror God?

When Keith and I were first married, I read several books on what it would take to make our marriage strong and resilient. One of the comments that struck me was along the lines of “Love keeps no record of wrongs” (1 Corinthians 13:5), the idea to not hold grudges, to let bygones be bygones. Our code phrase for this kind of negative memory was “file cabinets.” For the most part, Keith and I have done pretty well at not dredging up old history in order to shore up today’s arguments.

Recently I was reading a book that took this concept to new heights, under the heading, “Don’t Let Yesterday Hijack Your Attention.”

A retentive memory may be a good thing, but the ability to forget is the true token of greatness. Successful people forget. They know the past is irrevocable. They’re running a race. They can’t afford to look behind. Their eye is on the finish line. Magnanimous people forget. They’re too big to let little things disturb them. They forget easily. If anyone does them wrong, they consider the source and keep cool. It’s only the small people who cherish revenge. Be a good forgetter. Business dictates it, and success demands it. (Elbert Hubbard, as quoted in John Maxwell’s Talent is Never Enough workbook, p. 46.)

It takes energy to nurture memories of the past, especially painful memories. Besides distracting from what you would prefer to focus on, those kinds of thoughts can also cause a reluctance to try certain actions again. “Once bitten, twice shy” refers to a learned distrust of people, but will it benefit you more in the long run to “forgive and forget”?

History is a powerful teacher, sometimes too powerful. When is it best to remember, and when is it best to forget?

I think a lot about thinking. Or at least I think I do, although in thinking about that I know that my perspective may be just a little bit skewed. Part of the reason I think about thinking is that God has blessed me with a good mind, and on the journey of life I have discovered that having a good mind can overcome many other weaknesses — with which I have also been blessed.

I suppose that most any strength can do the same, so I don’t mean to elevate one gift over another, but I do want to share some things about thinking that may surprise you.

Many of us have heard stories of people with cancer, or some other potentially terminal illness, who “thought themselves well.” While such instances are rare, they have been documented. The “thinking healing” that always amazed me, though, was not life threatening at all — it was a cavity. The professional volleyball player who had the cavity was so shocked that she told her dentist he must be wrong. He responded by showing her the X-ray. She came back a week later to have the cavity repaired, but it was already gone. A new X-ray showed no signs of decay.

Athletes, actors, extraordinary business leaders, great wives (great husbands, too), and the very best Christians I know all practice the principles of positive thinking.

Conversely, the very reason many people don’t succeed in Christianity, in marriage, in sports, in business, and in life in general is that they think primarily in negative terms — what could go wrong?, who could be hurt?, how could I fail?, I’ll never be that good.

This is not some psycho-babble or pop-psychology, it is how we are made. The Bible says (Proverbs 23.7, KJV) “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” That is true for individuals, and it is also true for a church.

I’m positive.

P.S. The Bible also says, “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind…” (Romans 12.2). Imagine all of us doing that together!

I’m having one of those rare weekends alone. My daughter is making new friends at a camp for happy teenagers, while my husband and son are scout camping at a black sand beach in Northern California. I enjoy these moments almost too much, burrowing into my home and tuning out the world with loud music and escapist fiction.

Email is one channel that breaks through my isolation. After following the stories on Sarah Palin, John McCain’s VP candidate, I was intrigued by a forwarded email: “25 things you might not know about McCain.” Written by the Associated Press, it was published in multiple news outlets August 28ff, 2008. Most of the insights are silly trivia, but one line grabbed me: “10. He talks to fellow prisoners of war, those with whom he shared a cell in Vietnam, almost daily.”

I like to stay in touch with friends and family, but the number of people I deliberately interact with daily is quite small. What would make a man chat with his cellmates at this frequency, so many years after they were all released? I found some clues in McCain’s 1973 description of the POW years and in this interview of McCain’s cellmate, George “Bud” Day. (more…)