Faith Venture

It’s Monday morning.

Do you know what your most important tasks of the week / day are?

Are there leftover projects from the weekend that you never got around to it?

Do you have co-workers who owe you information or follow up and they just didn’t get around to it?

Here’s help. A gift for you. And you can forward to friends and co-workers who just can’t seem to get things done.

Voila–a Round Tuit.

You’re welcome.

Oh, the crunch enhancer? Yeah, it’s a non-nutritive cereal varnish. It’s semi-permeable. It’s non-osmotic. What it does is it coats and seals the flake, prevents the milk from penetrating it. Clark Griswold in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation

Technology is for the benefit of humans. It has been ever since some human figured out a better way to trap a gazelle or plow a field.

Except for my wife, who hates soggy cereal, how much benefit is there in cereal varnish?

Or the product manager at Facebook working with engineers and psychologists figuring out ways to keep attention fixed on the app so that an additional few ads can be served up?

Or the engineers doing some fantastic work on digital voice recognition which could do great good for disabled people or help in dangerous situations instead figuring out how Alexa can spy on people 24 hours a day to accumulate data on when people are home to be sold to telemarketers or to governments to find terrorists or political opponents?

Ethics at work concerns developing things for the benefit of people and society. But weapons developed for defense could also be used offensively. Something good could be used to corrupt us. Or undermine us.

Ethics is both what we do and what we fail to do.

Mostly ethics should be in our awareness. At the end of the day one question we can ask ourselves, “What did I do for the good today? Where did I fail to act where I could have made a difference for the good?”

There are three types of worship as I see it.

There is formal worship conducted with a sense of awe, reverence, connection with the divine.

Protestant worship has evolved into what has been called a “rock concert with a TED Talk.” The music and prayer part is designed to create energy in the room. Depending upon the speaker, the talk is more or less “teaching” rather than “preaching”.

Then there is a “traditional” worship that my grandparents and great-grandparents would feel right at home with. 19th Century hymns, some liturgy, and before it starts a great social time like when the farmer families would gather for the one time a week when you’d see other people.

Then, there are two types of worship, or rather, worshippers.

Those who attend whether they need it or not.

Those who seek a regular connection with God.

These are all preferences of personality or upbringing. As we read in the Gospel, “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Like prayer, like service, like study–it’s all about our attitude. This is what matters.

Tim Ferriss always asks guests on his popular podcast, “If you could put a message on a billboard seen by millions of people, what would it say?”

Catherina Fake, tech entrepreneur and investor, said on a recent show, “Be Kind.”

What a succinct statement of the need of our time.

All over the world there are people and leaders stirring up the most base emotions and instincts rather than leading us with the example of Jesus toward a society of grace and peace.

Humans exhibit some amazing traits. They can be kind to a neighbor who looks like themselves and simultaneously speak with such hate and disparagement toward others.

That Be Kind thing? Perhaps we need to learn to make it an intimate part of our own lives. Be Kind to ourselves. Then expand in ever widening circles until it encompasses the multitudes of the Earth.

Be Kind.

No matter the pace, running a 5K (for me) or a marathon requires putting one foot in front of the other for some period of time plays with my mind.

I prefer sprinting with the forwards in a soccer match to even just the 25-30 minutes or whatever that it would take me to run 5K.

Life is not like that.

How many people we know who have sprinted out of the gate only to run out of energy and falter?

They were quick in school. Rushed through. Played the game. Got the M. Div. or MBA or master of whatever. Then grew no more. They think, “Here I am 26 years old and still not CEO of the company; I’m a failure.”

Sat down and began meditation. Did not reach enlightenment that first week. Quit.

Maybe physically we shun the idea of running 26 miles plus.

But spiritual life, like life in general, is not a sprint. You are in it for the long haul.

It is practicing day after day after day. Putting in the time and effort. Rewards that come too quickly are corrupting. The wise person, the superior CEO, the enlightened monk, they all put in the daily time and effort over a long period until one day came the realization.

OK, so it’s a holiday weekend. I watched some European soccer on TV yesterday afternoon, and then a couple of episodes from Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives while awaiting dinner.

The old reality show Restaurant Impossible has been renewed. Someone writes the producers and asks for help. Chef Robert and his team swoop into town and evaluate the problem.

They revise and simplify the menu;

Organize the kitchen;

Organize and motivate the servers;

Clean and beautify the physical interior;

Install good business practices such as cost control;

And work with the owner/manager–especially on attitude change and people skills.

The crew packs up leaving behind happy and motivated people with a formula that should make a profit for some time.

Six months later, many of those recipients of Chef Robert’s grace have reverted back to their old ways and gone out of business.

Sometimes people change; sometimes they don’t.

Same in spiritual matters. Sometimes people listen to the preacher and are baptized into a changed life. Six months later, they’re the same old person they used to be.

Changing requires a set of practices (habits) that we can follow intentionally until they are instilled deep within and we’ve left that old person behind.

Chef Robert can only stay a week. That’s not long enough to help the owner begin to work those practices into their lives.

Same with churches. Sometimes they don’t stick with the new person long enough to instill practices that truly change lives.

See how much this observation applies to your church, or a church that you know:

You are fond of contention and full of zeal about things which do not pertain to salvation.

Change a word, and the observation applies to the marketplace as well:

You are fond of contention and full of zeal about things which do not pertain to success.

How often have I witnessed this very thing.

Small churches have divided in acrimony over some issue that should never have been a point of contention. They forgot the goal–“go into all the world and make disciples”. The goal instead became about doctrinal points that are often akin to the splitting of hairs. Or about pride and ego. Or simply a contentious personality.

I once hired a guy despite several red flags in his past who immediately set out to divide the company and remove me so that he could become manager. He succeeded in the small thing. I, meanwhile, had seen the imminent demise of the company. Our product was old in electronics years and the anticipated market did not develop. I was moving on anyway. But still, I could have done without the drama.

That observation?

It is from Clement of Rome. He was with the Apostle Paul at Philippi. He wrote this about the very early church in the first century.

The human condition has been with us a very long time. However, recognizing the problem is the first step to correcting it and returning to the goal.

What has gotten you off target?

I am currently reading from Ante-Nicene Fathers. Letters and documents dating from the time of the Apostles to the second century.

Check out this description of Christ-followers at about the time of Paul written by someone called Mathetes to someone called Diognetus–thought to be the tutor to Emperor Marcus Aurelius the noted Stoic philosopher.

How many observers would say this about present-day Christians?

To sum up all in one word—what the soul is in the body, that are Christians in the world. The soul is dispersed through all the members of the body, and Christians are scattered through all the cities of the world. The soul dwells in the body, yet is not of the body; and Christians dwell in the world, yet are not of the world.

In the earlier chapter, Mathetes says:

For the Christians are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe. For they neither inhabit cities of their own, nor employ a peculiar form of speech, nor lead a life which is marked out by any singularity. The course of conduct which they follow has not been devised by any speculation or deliberation of inquisitive men; nor do they, like some, proclaim themselves the advocates of any merely human doctrines.

But, inhabiting Greek as well as barbarian cities, according as the lot of each of them has determined, and following the customs of the natives in respect to clothing, food, and the rest of their ordinary conduct, they display to us their wonderful and confessedly striking method of life. They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers. They marry, as do all [others]; they beget children; but they do not destroy their offspring. They have a common table, but not a common bed. They are in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven.

They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives. They love all men, and are persecuted by all. They are unknown and condemned; they are put to death, and restored to life. They are poor, yet make many rich; they are in lack of all things, and yet abound in all; they are dishonoured, and yet in their very dishonour are glorified. They are evil spoken of, and yet are justified; they are reviled, and bless; they are insulted, and repay the insult with honour; they do good, yet are punished as evil-doers. When punished, they rejoice as if quickened into life; they are assailed by the Jews as foreigners, and are persecuted by the Greeks; yet those who hate them are unable to assign any reason for their hatred.

They obey the laws and yet surpass the laws by their lives.

We read in the Acts that the Christian movement grew mostly because of the way they lived their daily lives. People around them wanted what they had. Today too often we just try to talk others into believing exactly what we believe and then pile up rules.

These people? They quietly lived out their faith.

You may have heard of “back of the napkin” thinking where some people are talking at a diner. One pulls out a (hopefully paper) napkin and draws something to explain a point.

Supposedly according to myth, President Reagan’s economic policy known as the Laffer Curve or “Trickle Down Economics” was drawn on the back of a napkin and to this day explains the economic theory of some.

Drawing out thoughts helps us think through a problem. Maybe we won’t set government policy, but maybe we will understand something better or help our organization solve a problem or raise funds.

This book has been around for a while. I’ve heard the author interviewed on several podcasts. I’ve read a little in the past. I recommend this book. Written with wit and insight, it will help you think.

I also use a form of drawing when I take notes during presentations or interviews (like I’ll be doing this afternoon about an Internet of Things survey). I’ll jot down a thought and then use lines or circles to connect thoughts.

By the way, I use pen and a notebook. I love the Uniball Signo Micro 207 pen. It is inexpensive and writes first time, every time with a smooth line. Studies show people writing by hand have better retention than those taking notes on a computer. Plus, it’s hard to draw connecting lines on a computer.

I also recommend learning to use mind maps. Better than traditional outlining for organizing a longer paper.

Saw this while browsing LinkedIn. I like these little reminders to keep me on the right path. There is something in here for everyone.

Peace.