My home team has been going through the book of Ecclesiastes and for me, there is not a more timely study to undertake at this stage in my life. I'm finding that having the mindset of living for today with a view towards Christ's Lordship in my life is as difficult as it is exhilarating. I'm really starting to identify with Solomon and his conclusions.
Follow the jump to read how.
Now that the prospect of my returning to work has reared its ugly head, I think it is past time to reflect on the last seven months because this was the sabbatical that I had desired for quite some time. I have now been on both sides of the fence, to see if the grass really is greener on that other side and I have found what most anyone with any life experience already knows - the grass is the same shade of brown no matter which side of the fence you're on.
The issue of profanity in the speech of a Christian has come up several times this week from various directions, and I figured that it was high time that I express my views on the subject. My aim is not to convince you that your views on swearing, whatever they may be, are wrong; my only aim here is to expose my thought process and how I arrived at my personal decisions, and then hopefully give you something to think about the next time you're confronted with the issue of "to cuss or not to cuss"...because I really think that Christians today are making too much of a big deal about this and losing focus upon the root issues that are so much more important.
If you'd like to read up on one of the articles that spawned this essay, check out a posting from Relevant Magazine about why you should watch your mouth. Make sure to read through a good portion of the comments just to see the back and forth that is generated by the commenters.
Once you've done that - or if you decided to skip it and read it later - follow the jump to the meat of my article.
"So....got any big plans this weekend?"
Such a loaded question is usually bandied about so innocently in the guise of small talk to replace the passe' question about the current state of the weather. The question can be answered with a yes or no, but usually there is some expectation of an explanation which will lead to the start of a conversation and a lack of "dead air".
I call it a loaded question, though, because I've begun to notice that a negative response is usually perceived to be a sad or bad thing - unless, of course, the person with no plans spends a lot of time trying to convince the listener that the reason that there are no plans is because of overwork and that they just need time to decompress and de-stress. But why is it so important to have plans for the weekend? What is so special about the weekend?
For the record, I'm posting this because I believe that Palm (and perhaps Sprint) are doing things all wrong and are hobbling the Pre due to dragging their feet on getting a plethora of apps available in Palm's App Store. Apple's "there's an app for that" has already become ubiquitous and for the Pre to succeed (in spite of Sprint's continued hemorrhaging of customers due to terrible service), Palm needs to quit trying to promote quality over quantity when it comes to available applications and allow people to post apps. Palm's current catalog sits at 34 official apps, whereas the homebrew app community - applications that have not been officially sanctioned (and are therefore free) - sits at somewhere around 137!
Granted, a lot of those apps range from the very useful to the downright silly which I just won't use. But being beholden to Palm while they put a stranglehold on the app community and just dole out new apps in a trickle doesn't work for me. I believe that this kind of activity will only serve to confirm the Pre as an also-ran when it's two main competitors (the iPhone and the G1/G2) already have dozens if not hundreds of apps available - whether they're useful or not.
To tantalize any Pre owners out there as to why they might want to do this, let me ask one question: do you wish you could have a different sound for system alerts, or change the sound for the calendar alerts? Right now, Palm doesn't offer you a way to do that, but the homebrew community does. Both precentral.net and pimpmypre.com have applications that will allow you to do this. Within the homebrew community you can find ports of old favorite apps as well as new apps that are done specifically for the new WebOS.
So, if you want to know how to open up your Pre and allow installation of homebrew apps in 15 minutes or less, hit the jump and see the procedure I followed.
This is just so absurd that I had to post it. I can't believe that this exists. How....in the WORLD...can you bring a simple tool like an internet browser into a race-specific context?
Blackbird: a browser for black people
Whitebird: a browser for white people
If you need a browser made specifically for your race (no matter what that race is), you also need to stay in your house, stop talking to anyone, just keep to yourself, and don't interact with anyone ever again. This is probably the most inane thing I've ever heard of, and the one thing that keeps running through my head is a statement from an old episode of Law & Order where Ben Stone says to Shambala Green:
"By infantilizing your own people you are virtually guaranteeing that it will happen again! You want to know who the cause of racism is these days? Take a good look in the mirror."
Couldn't have said it better myself, and a race-specific browser is just about as good a picture of infantalization as I can imagine. Please hear me - I don't use the above quote to say that the cause of racism these days is a specific race but rather those who would inject racism where it need not exist and promote tools to keep this mindset in the forefront of a society inundated by victimization...in this case, those who believe that an internet browser somehow helps any community by being race-specific.
Un. Be. Lievable.
The utopian society portrayed in shows like Star Trek will never happen.
That thought process went something like this, at a high level: thinking that the Pre is a great device, that it is pretty close to the Hitchhiker's Guide device that I want, what the universe would be like if everyone had access to all the information all the time (as in the aforementioned Guide), and then whether it is possible to level the playing field sufficiently so that the ultra-harmonious societies depicted in utopian-style sci-fi would be possible. I came to the conclusion that it would not be realistic to think that a peaceful world-wide society could exist - at least not for the human race, anyway.
Most of the utopian societal concepts are based on the premise that humanity is basically, intrinsically good. I submit, however, that it is just the opposite: humanity is basically, intrinsically evil and there are too few selfless people in the world and too many selfish people to completely quell the desire for power which a utopian society requires. Human beings are self-centered by nature and utopia calls for everyone to be other-centered in order for things to work. As soon as one person decides to do things for self, the utopia unravels and without everyone playing by the rules, utopia degenerates into anarchy. Personally, this is why I feel that communism and socialism (at least in their current forms as I understand them) can never really work for the long term.
Star Trek is interesting insofar as while the human race has reportedly found a conflict-free society on earth, the star ships that go exploring constantly meet conflict in other races. How would they go about reconciling that conflict with the ideals and naivete about people who only resolve conflict with violence? I wonder how utopian people can be encouraged to be individuals and strive for excellence and yet still be expected to abide by the tenets of a utopian society which, for all intents and purposes, would become a "lowest common denominator" type of society that could not allow commensurate compensation for excellent output? This would only work if one believes that a human being is intrinsically good and cares less about themselves than they do about others and would always be willing to give up their own ambition to compensate for the least among their group.
But, as I said, if you believe that humanity is incapable of that level of goodness from the get-go, then sci-fi tales of conflictless societies become exactly that - science fiction. Much of Jesus' teaching was what I would say were the ground rules for a utopian society - love your neighbor as yourself, love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, etc. If that was intrinsically part of our DNA, I don't think Jesus would have had to come and tell us these things over and over again (nor would Buddha, Muhammad, Ghandi, or any other notable peaceful or religious figures). Furthermore, they probably wouldn't have been met with opposition if it resonated with a basically good collective soul of humankind, and just about every religion in the world has either caused conflict or endured it at one time or another in its history. Even Jesus himself said that he didn't come to keep peace, he came to make it and that sometimes making peace involves engaging in conflict.
I don't think that we should ever stop making shows like Star Trek, or Fifth Element, or Logan's Run, or any other idealized take on future society; I believe that we should strive to make peace wherever we can and strive to get as much of humanity as will accept it going in the direction of an overall peaceful society. I just don't think that it can or will truly happen until the Prince of Peace comes back and the world is set right again like it was in the beginning before we messed it up. As we've seen time and time again from history repeating, the human vision of peace is something that is tenuous at best and cannot last for any real length of time. It's nice to hope for a perpetually peaceful society, but unrealistic and perhaps detrimental to pine or yearn for something that cannot ever come to pass. We have to get over ourselves and admit that we're broken people, not gods in waiting. I have to admit that I won't ever become basically good while on this earth, but can follow the One who is coming to make things truly, innately good once again and get a ticket for that time when utopia can finally come to pass because the ugliness that is human hubris will have gone away forever. I think our continual desires for this perfect society are just one more way that our subconscious cries out for a relationship with our Creator, oftentimes without us even knowing it or recognizing what is really going on.
Kind of an amazing thought process to get here from the humble seed of thinking about how much I like my Pre, huh? This is just the way my mind works, kids. Now you know.
It's been a long time coming, but I think that it is finally the hour to commit to print my reasons for being one of the five people on this planet that is not on Facebook. Seeing as Mondays are complete crap for television now that 24 and even Heroes are on hiatus, let me just sit back and fill you in on my thought process while Mr. John Fogerty and Creedence Clearwater Revival provide the background music. I scored a copy of "The Long Road Home - the Ultimate John Fogerty/Creedence Collection" from Amazon for $2.99 the other day, so I'm feeling mellow and groovin' right along to the solid sounds of the bayou.
But enough stalling. Without further ado, here's why (in no particular order) I do not have a Facebook account, nor will I unless forced to do so under penalty of death or as a requirement for a job paying a minimum of six figures.
So there you have it. Those are probably the most prevalent reasons for my aversion to facebook. I debated whether or not to enable comments on this post, specifically because I don't really want to deal with all the facebook zealots trying to convert me or tell me why my perceptions of certain points are wrong or errant. I've heard it all before and unless you can prove to me that I will get a million dollars the moment I sign up for a FB account, your missives will go unheeded. In fact, if you get too lippy, you can be sure that your comments will just fade into the ether. There goes that control thing again...but that's why I have my own blog. On the 'Drain, the Drew giveth and the Drew taketh away.
I'll leave facebook to all those of you people who love it and have time for it while I repair to the top of Curmudgeon Crag and blithely post my thoughts for whoever will listen to the crazy old hermit who only comes into town a few times a month to yell at small children and haggle over the price of fruit at the market.
I am continually amazed at my own propensity to fill up my life with all sorts of distractions and yet complain that I cannot hear God's voice and receive His direction. This became especially clear to me as I began to read Walking With God by John Eldredge. He related a story early on about how he had gone up to a cabin on a vacation, with many big plans on what to do, only to be stopped by a rainstorm that kept him on the porch. As he fumed about it, he came to the realization that the rain was the only thing that God could use to stop him in his tracks such that he would take time to listen to God and actually rest. His proclivities are like mine - the instant that "free time" presents itself, we think of how best to "maximize the value density" (to borrow a corporate term) of that time so that we get the most done in the most efficient manner.
But when that happens, there is no rest. When I was working, I used to live for the weekends because I wouldn't have a schedule and could do whatever I wanted...but oftentimes I would fill it up with so much stuff that by 8pm on Sunday night, I wasn't rested and was facing another week of work and no rest. I'm noticing that now that I'm not working, I'm still filling up my time with stuff (even inane stuff like television) and am not listening to God or, alternatively, I'm not doing anything at all and feeling like I've wasted the time. I may be physically rested, but my spirit is still restless and weary.
Learning to hear God's voice takes time and practice. In this instant-gratification society, a lot of times I get jazzed by some new method that I've read about in a book (that worked for somebody else) and when it doesn't immediately work for me, I discard it. When I don't hear God's voice, I start to panic and take matters into my own hands - in this case evidenced by the freakout I mentioned in a previous post in regards to my "running out of money" (which I'm not). I just realized that in this time of rest, this time of rejuvenation, I constantly have to hold back the beast of distraction and worry that would destroy that rest and relaxation. I can think of nothing worse than to get to the end of this time of rest and still be unable to hear God's voice and realize that I ended this season prematurely due to my own inability to sit still and be quiet.
So that's my challenge in the days ahead - to engage in this process of learning to hear God's voice and training myself to follow him rather than going off on blazing my own trail and then asking him to follow me and clean up my mess. Above all, I need to learn how to give more control to him and have a more conversational relationship with him such that I can see where he's leading me rather than just taking a blind guess and hoping that I'm going the right way. Quite the challenge, but one I'm very interested to undertake starting today.
It's going on two and a half months now since IBM and I parted ways officially. I've surely enjoyed this time of not having a job - I have been able to realize some personal dreams (being a real rock star at SXSW), my stress level is at an all-time low, and I'm probably the most well-rested that I have been in years. I've also started working out on a regular basis and that probably wouldn't have happened if I had not had this time to get myself motivated to do it. I've also been able to spend some time studying and preparing to teach our Young Singles group on Sundays, which has also been good for me as it forces me to do some reading and praying that I might not otherwise do.
But I've also noticed some downsides to not having demands on one's time after "being my own man" for awhile. When I first got laid off, there were a ton of things that I was going to do with my newfound freedom - I was thinking about trying to write a book, I wanted to catch up on scads of reading (which I have done), I wanted to practice my drums religiously for 6+ hours a day, hang out at coffee shops, blog incessantly, etc., etc., etc. And, as I look back on my time so far, I find that I've really done none of that with the exception of preparing for the SXSW show and the reading that I mentioned. More often than not, I sleep ridiculously late, spend too much time in front of the television, and also just waste a lot of time online IMing or surfing (either at home or at a cofee shop). I get to the end of the day and wonder where the day went and wonder why I keep wasting time and not doing what I said I wanted to do.
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