2-D or 3-D?

“What we are looking for in reading the Bible is the ability to turn the two-dimensional words on paper into a three-dimensional encounter with God, so that the text takes on life and meaning and depth and perspective and gives us direction for what to do today.” ― Scot McKnight[1]

We have all heard debates that pivot on the idea that ask the questions, “Do we follow the Bible or do we follow Jesus?” “Are Christians lovers of the book or lovers of the Lord?” These can be challenging questions for many of us. Perhaps McKnight gets closest to the answer by reminding us that the words we read in our Bible are a simplified (2-D) representation of a complex life (3-D). Whether we are reading about Jesus or Noah, the words on the page will never fully represent the intricacies of a life lived with temptations, triumph, and tears. May our hearts reverently approach the word of God with awe and humility, seeking always the truth behind text on a page.

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[1] The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible, Zondervan, 2016.

The Secret of Being Wrong

“The secret of being wrong isn't to avoid being wrong! The secret is being willing to be wrong. The secret is realizing that wrong isn't fatal. The only thing that makes people and organizations great is their willingness to be not great along the way. The desire to fail on the way to reaching a bigger goal is the untold secret of success.” ― Seth Godin

Seth Godin, author, blogger, marketer, and motivational speaker, says that wrong is not fatal and being willing to fail is part of success. His experience suggests that companies that achieve greatness are those that were willing to be “not great.” In fact, he says that people and organizations need to “desire to fail.” I encourage us to think about these words for a few minutes. There are definitely ways in which these words may be true. In Creativity, Inc., Ed Catmull makes a case for failure. He points out that Pixar would never have become as successful as they have become without some of their failures (e.g., the accidental deletion of Toy Story 2). The willingness to take big risks and chase down big dreams has been at the heart of Pixar from day one. So, in this context, Godin’s words have a kernel of truth. They likely make good sense for a number of organizations, churches, companies, and not-for-profit enterprises.

However, there are some places where Seth Godin’s words should give us pause. The desire to fail at marriage as a means to reaching a bigger goal is not a secret to success. Raising children, learning to fly a jet airliner, and defusing bombs also come to mind. There are some enterprises where the risks of failure are simply too high. There are likely a few specific operations within organizations, companies, and not-for-profits that are also too sensitive for failure.

I say this partly to engage our discernment processes. A quote like this one from Seth Godin circulates rapidly and shows up in a variety of contexts and on many different blog sites. It is incredibly enticing and thoroughly plausible. It is hard not to simply run with it. After all, isn’t Godin some sort of expert? Here is where it is good to examine the credentials of the expert to whom we may listen.

I am not suggesting we ignore the words of this quote. As a means of reminding ourselves that we need not fear failure, and as a reminder that failure is often not fatal, these words are helpful. Yet, as I have attempted to show, there are times and places where wisdom will suggest that we forget these words, no matter how expert the author may be. Have a great time driving your car, teaching your kids how to ride a bike, defusing bombs, or wherever else this day may take you.

Detour

I have been reading a preprint of Cam Taylor’s book, Detour: A Roadmap For When Life Gets Rerouted. The book has much to say to anyone who has ever faced adversity (and of course, that is all of us.) It recounts the “detour” his life took following a near-deadly motorcycle crash.  I am part-way through the book and have already found some gems of encouragement. The following quote is certainly one of the strongest statements made by Taylor.

When the world I knew was interrupted by the chaos and mess of the crash, it threw me into a tailspin. When the road ended, my mind avoided the present because it hurt. It was easier to dwell on the past, which looked so good looking back, or to fixate longingly on the future, when things would be “normal” again. I learned quickly, however, that now was the only reality I had. The past was in my memory, and the future was in my imagination. There is a time and a place to reflect on past memories and to dream of future possibilities, but that is only possible when our feet are firmly grounded in now. But I wondered, “How do I get there?” It started when I separated fact from fiction. (Taylor, 2017, p. 27)

It is easy to have a focus on “the past,” “what might have been,” and the “if-onlys” of life. Have you ever caught yourself feeling like you had been born too late? Do we not tend to think that former times were “the good-old-days?” When life throws us a difficult circumstance, our first reaction is likely to be to fixate on how it might have been avoided. Perhaps that is even a normal reaction.  But the insight Taylor brings is that, at a certain point, it is unhealthy to “dwell on the past” or “fixate longingly on the future.” He realized, and I too must realize, that “now” is the only reality we have. “There is a time and a place to reflect on past memories and to dream of future possibilities, but this is only possible when our feet are firmly grounded in now” (emphasis added).

I look forward to further insights from the book and will pass them along to the readers of this blog. Watch Taylor’s blog for the release of Detour. (http://camtaylor.net)

Works Cited:

Taylor, C. (2017). Detour: A Roadmap For When Life Gets Rerouted. Abbotsford: InFocus Publishing.

On the Radio

What will we tell future generations about “the radio”? My grandchildren will have a hard time understanding the extent to which radio stations influenced my childhood and teenage years. We scooped the radio waves out of the air with nothing more than a transistor receiver that ran on a nine-volt battery; or with the large cabinet radio in the living room. We could also listen to radio stations in our cars and we dreamed about the places from which the music came. As a boy I remember using a very fine touch to tune in 1400 CFUN all the way from Vancouver, BC. There were only certain hours, after dark, that this would work and to a kid on a small farm in Central Alberta, Vancouver was one of the most exotic places I could imagine. The radio station played a lot of the band Chilliwack, which suited me fine, and the DJs sounded more sophisticated than those in Red Deer or Calgary. All of the radio stations in a particular area played approximately 40 songs throughout the day. The 40 songs would change from month to month but some stuck around for a while. We learned the lyrics to all 40 so we could sing along any time that they came on. It usually took me about two listens to memorize a song and I still have many of those lyrics locked away in my cranium where they sometimes get in the way of more important pieces of information.

It is hard to comprehend, and harder still to explain, what a profound influence these songs had upon the children of the sixties, seventies, and eighties. We would sing a single line and everyone in the room could fill in the next words of the song. The attitudes and consciousness expressed in the radio hits were absorbed into our psyches and we were changed without even knowing we were being influenced. My first memories of life, when my infant consciousness was awakening, are forever connected to songs that I heard played on the radio. My uncle’s car radio playing “Ring of Fire,” by Johnny Cash, is etched eternally on my mind and I can still see Uncle Ray standing there with the hood up, tinkering with the carburetor. I have been forever influenced by the Radio.

Steep Canyon Rangers, a bluegrass band from Asheville, North Carolina has recorded, “Radio,”  a song that captures the way in which the radio has influenced generations of singers, musicians, and writers. Written by banjoist, Graham Sharp, the song is the first single and the inspiration for the album title produced by Jerry Douglas of Union Station.

Radio

(Listen while you read the lyrics)

I really dug your double-tape deck

Pressing dead flowers

For hours with you

Up in your bedroom

Beneath that Waterloo sunset so fine

Riding home from Sunday School

Casey Kasem told me

I'd find her one day

I believed, I believed

In every word he said

Cause I was born to the rhythm

Rocked in the bosom

Raised on the sound of the Radio

And when I want to get back

I turn it up loud and I'm ready to go

We never had to look around, look around

The sound was everywhere

And you'd call me on the phone

Saying look what I found

The skeleton key made just for you

Songs were the dark sunglasses

And the telescopes we were looking through

And the open door that we stumbled through

And we crawled, and we ran

And we just, we just flew

Cause I was born to the rhythm

Rocked in the bosom

Raised on the sound of the Radio

And when I want to get back

I turn it up loud and I'm ready to go

On the radio (on the radio)

On the radio (on the radio)

On the radio (on the radio)

On the radio (I'm on the radio)

Cause I was born to the rhythm

Rocked in the bosom

Raised on the sound of the Radio

And when I want to get back

I get back 

Cause I was born to the rhythm

Rocked in the bosom

Raised on the sound of the Radio

And when I want to get back

I turn it up loud and I'm ready to go

On the radio

On the radio

Running With Horses

“If racing against mere men makes you tired,
    how will you race against horses?
If you stumble and fall on open ground,
    what will you do in the thickets near the Jordan? – Jeremiah 12:5 (NLT)

This quote from Jeremiah, an Old Testament prophet, is a challenge statement. He called out the people of Judah and forced them to face their circumstances. God was calling them to be leaders among all the people of the earth. He wanted them to run races against horses; but they were struggling to run against mere men. God wanted them to blaze a trail through the bush; but they had stumbled and fallen in the open fields. The people of Judah wanted the benefits of being the people of God; but they did not want to face up to the leadership challenges of being trailblazers, pioneers, and ones who set records for great leadership. God had spoken to Abraham long before this and had said to him that his descendants would be a great people. They would be God’s special people and they would be greatly blessed by the God who created the universe (Genesis 12:1-3). God told them that they were to be a people after God’s own heart (1Samuel 13:14). Then as God blessed them, they were to be a blessing to the people of the earth (Genesis 12:3). He told them he would send them a Messiah, a Saviour, a Christ, to empower God’s people and rescue them from their enemies. He made it clear that just as God was sending a Messiah to save them, the Messiah would send the people into the world to continue the mission of God and bless all the people of the earth and not just Judah (John 20:20-23).

Today we stand at the nexus point that describes the intersection of these statements. God has blessed, God has sent and been sent, God has rescued, God has pioneered, and God has set the course. He now calls on his people everywhere to bless others, to be sent and to send, to rescue, to pioneer, and to run the course marked out for horses. We are not to settle for running with men. We are not to wish for smooth fields and clear paths. Life is hard; it requires some bush-whacking. We must run the race set out before us and look for new goals to achieve. Eugene Peterson, a man who was not afraid to set high standards for himself, has this to say about the people who have inherited the blessing.

“The Puzzle is why so many people live so badly. Not so wickedly, but so inanely. Not so cruelly, but so stupidly. There is little to admire and less to imitate in the people who are prominent in our culture. We have celebrities but not saints. Famous entertainers amuse a nation of bored insomniacs. Infamous criminals act out the aggressions of timid conformists. Petulant and spoiled athletes play games vicariously for lazy and apathetic spectators. People, aimless and bored, amuse themselves with trivia and trash. Neither the adventure of goodness nor the pursuit of righteousness gets headlines.”[1]

Yes, granted, it is easier to go along with the conformists and the lazy. No one will notice if you stay in the middle of the herd. You can be a spectator all of your life and still have the blessings of this world. It is easier; but not more significant. So what do we want? A life of ease or a life of significance? Will we settle for running in the middle, or even toward the front, of the apathetic crowd; or, will we run with the horses?

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[1] Run with the Horses: The Quest for Life at Its Best, By Eugene H. Peterson, Page 11.