On Doing Too Much...

“Beware of anything that competes with your loyalty to Jesus Christ.  The greatest competitor of true devotion to Jesus is the service we do for Him.  It is easier to serve than to pour out our lives completely for Him.  The goal of the call of God is His satisfaction, not simply that we should do something for Him.  We are not sent to do battle for God, but to be used by God in His battles.  Are we more devoted to service than we are to Jesus Christ Himself?” - Oswald Chambers (My Utmost For His Highest, Jan 18)

The great artists steal?

"Good artists copy.  Great artists steal." - Picasso

"If you steal from one person it's plagiarism.  If you steal from five it's research.  If you steal from ten or more, it's sheer creativity.  And, I am a very creative person." - Rick Warren

Musicals and Songs - Sermons and Illustrations

On a documentary-ish video on the Disney Beauty and the Beast DVD (technically BluRay...sorry to be one-of-those-people)...the makers talk about how in a musical when you can't clearly express yourself through the dialog, then, it's time to express yourself through a song. 

And, applied to my job...in a sermon, when you can't clearly express yourself through explanation, then, it's time to express yourself through an illustration.  I'm sure there is overlap to this principle in many different fields. 

Empathy

A while back I read a blog post by someone that described exactly how I felt.  But, they didn't give any good advice on how to fix anything.  But, strangely, just knowing that someone else in the world had felt the same way made me feel better.  I think empathy is key.  And, I think articulating clearly is key as well.

"Abba! Father!" = Daddy???

Here's a quote that sharpens up something that I've heard more than once...

"...we oversentimentalize this word [Abba] when we refer to it as mere baby talk and translate it into English as 'daddy.'  The word Abba appears in certain legal texts of the Mishna as a designation used by grown children in claiming the inheritance of their deceased father.  As a word of address Abba is not so much associated with infancy as it is with intimacy." - Timothy George (Galations, 307)

 And, here's alot more information on the same topic: "FactChecker: Does 'Abba' Mean 'Daddy'?"
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For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”
(Romans 8:15 ESV)

And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”
(Galatians 4:6 ESV)

Laughing

I think that the same nerve endings that offend people can also make them laugh. 

...For good or bad...but, many times for good.

This implies that many times you're walking a tight rope when humor is involved. 

Shackleton Ad Apocryphal???

Shackleton Ad never existed?

"Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in event of success."

 http://www.antarctic-circle.org/advert.htm

The only time in the history of the universe

I think it's important to make moments that feel like they are the only time in the universe that they will ever occur. 

My thoughts on Thom Zimny thoughts

Here are some Thom Zimny thoughts I came across that I think I wrote down after watching a interview (YouTube video? or the Backstreets magazine interview that I mentioned yesterday).  I think these are paraphrases, I put them in quotes, though:

1.  "Know all the ways your crowd is going to be effected by what you are doing.  Then, do your best to make these things quality.  If they are quality, then the one thing you want people to focus on will be clear."

In a situation with an audience, I like the freedom of not worrying about the unknowns.  Just worry about the "knowns".  And, I like that there is always (should always?) only be one main thing you are trying to get people to focus on at once, everything else is contributing to that one thing.

2.On Springsteen's London Calling concert, he comments that "the stairs become a character in the video".  ...which is correct if you've seen the concert.

And, again, I like what he's saying...it's good to always be looking for the uniqueness of the moment to make the situation unique/special.  For example, find the most dumb or unfortunate thing about your situation and make that your signpost for what will become most memorable moment in the situation.

3. "The live experience is not perfect...embrace that." 

Good documentaries - narrators & cuts

I think that a good documentary doesn't need a narrator. 

I also think that they have should straight cuts...not fading (a thought influenced by Mr. Thom Zimny in a Backstreets interview).

I probably have other thoughts on this topics.  Also, they may be inconsistent when actually compared to the documentaries that I like the most.

"Who Am I?" by Deitrich Bonhoeffer

Am I who others think I am?  Am I who I think I am?  Or, is my identity somewhere else?

Who Am I?
Deitrich Bonhoeffer

Who am I? They often tell me
I stepped from my cell’s confinement
Calmly, cheerfully, firmly,
Like a Squire from his country house.

Who am I? They often tell me
I used to speak to my warders
Freely and friendly and clearly,
As thought it were mine to command.

Who am I? They also tell me
I bore the days of misfortune
Equably, smilingly, proudly,
like one accustomed to win.

Am I then really that which other men tell of?
Or am I only what I myself know of myself?
Restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,
Struggling for breath, as though hands were compressing my throat,
Yearning for colors, for flowers, for the voices of birds,
Thirsting for words of kindness, for neighborliness,
Tossing in expectations of great events,
Powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,
Weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,
Faint, and ready to say farewell to it all.

Who am I? This or the Other?
Am I one person today and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,
And before myself a contemptible woebegone weakling?
Or is something within me still like a beaten army
Fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?

Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am thine!

http://www.dbonhoeffer.org/who-was-db2.htm

The Grace of Seeking Happiness - ...More Os Guinness

“All human beings are alike in seeking happiness.  Where they differ is in the objects from which they seek it and the strength they have to reach the objects they desire.” (Os Guinness, The Call, 13)

Objects – From what “objects” are we seeking happiness?  Can they handle the weight that we are putting on them? Is there a never-ending desire here that can only be filled by a never-ending God?

Strength – If words such as “never-ending” and “infinite” are in the equation, then, are we able in our own power to reach any sort-of long-lasting happiness?  Or, does this require an infinite reach?

 
“We cannot find God without God…If the chasm is to be bridged, God must bridge it.  If we are to desire the highest good, the highest good must come down and draw us so that it may become a reality we desire.  From this perspective there is no merit in either seeking or finding.  All is grace.  The secret of seeking is not in our human ascent to God, but in God’s descent to us.”  (Os Guinness, The Call, 13)

"All is grace"...those are nice words to read.

"Steal Like An Artist" - Good Book

If you want to spend 1 hour of your life well.  Really well.  Then, read the book Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon.  You will like it.

Negotiating Change - Os Guinness

"Negotiating the changes feels longer and worse than the changes themselves because transition challenges our sense of personal meaning." - Os Guinness (The Call, 2-3)

When we switch from one trajectory to another, it messes with us.  It feels overwhelming.  A bigger picture (bigger purpose) might make it feel less overwhelming.  With a bigger picture the transition seems like an essential part of the bigger project as opposed to a disruption.

"The final aim of life is placed beyond life." - Alexis de Tocqueville (Guinness - The Call, 2-3)

Multiply Your Powers by 10...is it worth it?

Is it easier to go off and sacrifice your life (immediate)...or, spend 6 years investing your life in something difficult (...perhaps "study"...perhaps something else)...?  We always seem to want the quickest and the easiest...but, 10-fold power sounds nice.

"...these young men unhappily fail to understand that the sacrifice of life is, in many cases, the easiest of all sacrifices, and that to sacrifice, for instance, five or six years of their seething youth to hard and tedious study, if only to multiply ten-fold their powers of serving the truth and the case they have set before them as their goal--such a sacrifice is utterly beyond the strength of many of them." (Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov)

Steve Martin - Comedian, Actor, Musician, Philosopher of love...

I like this.  It's Steve Martin talking about his new album, Love Has Come For You.  (Check out the 2:00 mark of the video below.)

“I hear the line ‘love has come for you’.  I think that is such an unusual way to phrase something, because usually someone would say ‘love has come to you’.  ‘Love has come for you’ is this double entendre…meaning it has come for you as a blessing or it has come for…to take you…it has come to get you.” – Steve Martin

As a blessing      Come to get you

My situation: Conditioned vs. Claimed

"Believers are conditioned but not claimed by their particular circumstances." - Victor Paul Furnish (The Theology of the First Letter to the Corinthians, 62)

My circumstances will shape me.  That's great.  But, my circumstances don't own me, fully control me, or give me my ultimate identity. 

Music Preferences from Douglas Wilson

"...if we reject a form of music out of hand because it is not the form of music we prefer, then we are trying to kick against the variegated world that the triune God created. And if we are doing this in a spirit of musical snobbery, we are demonstrating that, however adept we are in the form we prefer, when it comes to music at large, we don't really know what its for."

http://www.dougwils.com/Musical-Exhortation/mozart-and-vince-gill.html

10 Best Movies I watched in 2011

Here are the 10 best movies I watched in 2011 for the first time...for those interested in such things.  I was a stuck a little more in the past than in previous years.  The most user-friendly in the list is The King of Kong, which I've recommended to almost everyone this year.

        

 
   
  

The Tobolowsky Files

My buddy Brett has provided a greatest hits list of one of my favorite podcasts - The Tobolowsky Files.

Here is the link:
http://brettwendle.blogspot.com/2011/09/tobolowsky-files-beginners-guide.html

He's listened to more of them than I have, but I would add this one to the list as well:
The Metamorphic Man