A Budding Young Expert

Radical, but David Platt.  I found this book from Amazon, where I took a chance on their creepy accurate recommendation.  I’m enjoying it immensely, and though I had low/no expectations, I’m thankful that he’s following a theological path that I can get behind. 

There’s a quote that just tickled me, and though it’s not the essence of the book, I feel it’s a great comment on an argument that is so often thrown around in disagreement with God/Heaven/Christian Religious Views.  The argument is, “What about the person who has never heard the Gospel in his life?” and subsequent belief that he/she should automatically get to Heaven because they “weren’t given a fair chance.”  Platt says:

If people will go to heaven precisely because they never had the opportunity to hear about Jesus, then the worst thing we could do for their eternal state woudl be to go to them and tell the about Jesus.  That would only increase their chances of going to hell?  Before we got there, they were going to heaven; now that we’ve told them about Jesus, the might go to hell.  Thanks a lot!

Well put!  That cuts me to the quick.

I’m almost finished reading Twyla Tharp’s The Creative Habit.  I’ve enjoyed the format of the book very much- it’s almost a square when closed, and fits nicely in the hands.  It has nicely sized text with key points highlighted in larger type and/or accented with red.  There’s tons of contrast in the chapter title pages, and lots of space for the eyes to dance throughout the book.  It’s memorable.  It’s very creative, feels fresh, and with a name like the “The Creative Habit” it pretty much has to be this way, right?  It’s like another of my favorites, Reimagine by Tom Peters.  These books are creatively formatted, and in turn make/inspire the reader feel creative.

Practice without purpose, however, is nothing more than exercise.  (p. 167)

A quote that strikes near and dear to my heart.  After spending a fairly substantial part of my life as a musician, and half of that at a professional or collegiate level, I can clearly see the difference in practicing with purpose and without it.  She also clarifies another proverb in the same chapter: “You’ve heard the phrase ‘Practice makes perfect’? Not true. Perfect practice makes perfect.” (p.163) 

The question that I would like to propose is:  How sure can one be that they are practicing perfectly having purpose?

I finally gave Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” a read earlier this year, and cannot express how impressed I was with it.  The morality that she dealt with in her representation of a creator/creature relationship haunts me still. Go buy a copy.

I took a passage from the first chapter and used a displacement filter in Photoshop to shape it to a picture of the smoking skull that frequents my fireplace mantle.

A great read, recommended and given to me by my father-in-law.  Anyone who knows me has probably heard me refer to Francis Schaeffer’s “True Spirituality” as one of the most influentially practical books that I’ve read.  “The Rest of the Gospel” by Dan Stone and David Gregory is quickly matching these sentiments.

In discussing our emotional state, I found their example of comparing us to swing to be very helpful, though not entirely original.  I’m sure we’re all aware of swinging back and forth on a constant basis between opposite extremes of emotion and thinking.  

Their originality and truth comes when they say that attempting to nail the swing to the “good” side of it’s path to prevent it from swaying back is where we make our great blunder.  I quickly forget that we were created to be swings, and to try and force one way or another in our own strength leads to frustration and isn’t helpful in building faith.

 Fun, fun, fun.  Authors Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson really wrote a compelling book here.  It is cheeky, quick, easily digestible, and completely relevant to the current way business is being conducted.  I highly recommend it.

They write about Takedowns, Progress, Productivity, Competitors, Evolution, Promotion, Hiring, Damage Control, and Culture in easy to read but hard hitting 1 and 2 page chapters. The advice they give is very authentic, and stresses doing small things extremely well, being original and learning to say “No.”

I’m reading Michael Masterson’s book, Ready, Fire, Aim and learning about his four stages of business growth.  Of course, having never started a business, I’m having trouble even fathoming the $1million up to $100million in sales that companies are capable of producing.

Having worked for a few small entrepreneurial ventures, a start-up comedy theater in particular, I see the huge error that I’m all-to-often prone to make.  Masterson describes it in the first stage of a company, and it’s the tendency to not focus on sales.  He says that sales should account for 80% of your time as a small business start-up.

When I came onboard at the theater I mentioned above, I was one of three employees.  I was thrilled to be a part of a small venture where I was able to call some of the shots.  What were the first things I did? Well, I spent a ton of time fantasizing about what we could/would do when business was booming: Food & Drink menu, arcade games, patio, and bowling alley (?!).

More sinister time wasters were the countless redesigning of business cards and flyers that seemed productive, as well as thoroughly cleaning the theater and beginning “remodelling” projects on the exterior of the building we had rented. These weren’t quite as important as getting out there selling the theater.  I probably actually went out one afternoon per week to sell/promote.

I think the heart of the issue is that selling (at least for me) is terrifying. To have to set myself up for potential rejection, or at least to have my convictions about my product and motives for allying myself with it challenged.  So these will be the hurdles that I’ll have to overcome again if I want to make something happen in the entrepreneurial realms. 

I’ve finished Thomas Cahill’s “The Gift of the Jews” and really feel the better for having read it.  His contextual supplements to the stories that I’ve been raised with in the Bible is extremely beneficial, and gives me such a greater appreciation for the life and times of the Israelites, the Jews, and their struggles. 

Though I do think he has great points, his inconsistencies are too much to be overlooked at times.  In one place he quotes Augustine: “We are talking about God.  Which wonder to you think you understand? If you understand, it is not God” p. 159). But then he goes on to say that he doesn’t understand that God commanded the Israelites to put all Canaanites to death and flat out says that he considers these acts to be “unworthy” of God. (p. 245) Thomas, if you understand, it is not God, right?  I will give him more credit than that though, because in the very same chapter, he does give much credit to the unknown movements and workings of God, he just has an impossible time swallowing carnage, and who doesn’t? 
 
The same is true of the most miracles that he touches upon from the Bible.  He is quick to talk down or give a scientific reasoning of miracles, for instance: “Mahn-hu, or “whaddayacallit,” which most English Bibles transliterate as “manna” (and is traditionally thought of as “the bread of heaven”)  was probably white edible insect secretion to be found on the branches of some rare Sinai plants” (p.133). But then he describes and quotes the passages of the burning bush that was not consumed, or, for example, where “a mighty hurricane split the mountain and shattered the rocks before YHWH. But YHWH was not in the hurricane. And after the hurricane, an earthquake. But YHWH was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake, fire. But YHWH was not in the fire.” (p. 211).  Is it really that hard to imagine bread coming from heaven when you’re imagining a mountain being torn apart by hurricane, earthquake and fire?

I’m taking Hugh Hewett’s suggested reading list in “In, But not Of” and seeing what it amounts to.  He encourages the learning of where we (in the West) came from to be an essential component in obtaining influence, and lays out a list of 12 books to form an outline of this history.  It begins with the Jews, so here I am. 

So far, it’s been great to read with more detail the times and culture surrounding Abraham and what it actually looked like for him to “go forth” and to see his developing relationship with God unfold with more context than the stories learned from the Bible.