Those are some questions that provoked me while reading the words of William Deresiewicz in this article from The Chronicle. Here is the article and the excerpts that screamed at me. Do they provoke you? How?

Faux Friendship

Yet what, in our brave new mediated world, is friendship becoming? The Facebook phenomenon, so sudden and forceful a distortion of social space, needs little elaboration. Having been relegated to our screens, are our friendships now anything more than a form of distraction? When they’ve shrunk to the size of a wall post, do they retain any content? If we have 768 “friends,” in what sense do we have any? Facebook isn’t the whole of contemporary friendship, but it sure looks a lot like its future. Yet Facebook—and MySpace, and Twitter, and whatever we’re stampeding for next—are just the latest stages of a long attenuation. They’ve accelerated the fragmentation of consciousness, but they didn’t initiate it. They have reified the idea of universal friendship, but they didn’t invent it. In retrospect, it seems inevitable that once we decided to become friends with everyone, we would forget how to be friends with anyone. We may pride ourselves today on our aptitude for friendship—friends, after all, are the only people we have left—but it’s not clear that we still even know what it means.

Friendship is devolving, in other words, from a relationship to a feeling—from something people share to something each of us hugs privately to ourselves in the loneliness of our electronic caves, rearranging the tokens of connection like a lonely child playing with dolls. The same path was long ago trodden by community. As the traditional face-to-face community disappeared, we held on to what we had lost—the closeness, the rootedness—by clinging to the word, no matter how much we had to water down its meaning

on community

The other day, one of the blogs I peruse for business content had a rather unusual post and image with the caption of “If Health Insurance Companies were Jesus”. The image showed the traditional American Jesus figure standing over a person reaching out for his healing. When I saw this image, I did “get” the message BusinessPundit was trying to convey, but I got so much more. Although the message might have been a bit less abrasive without the “LOL”, that also make it more poignant. Yes,  it does drive home the often heartlessness of health insurance companies at recognizing those in the deepest of need. It also made me start thinking about what other groups of people could replace that “insurance-company-Jesus” and the person in pain.

My mind transposed the “insurance-company Jesus” with the common perception of Christians and/or the church. Then it struck me… sadly, I have to say that many of the modern Christians and Christian churches have the same response to people reaching out to their God for a relationship… we look at them with disdain, dismiss them, and even laugh at what we consider a ”prexisting condition”.

Far too often it has become acceptable (even expected) that the church and its Christians say to the poor, gay, drunk, promiscuous, Islam, basically anyone different-than-us 

“sorry, your pre-existing condition excludes you. Get that fixed on your own then come back”.

How screwed up is that!?!?

Shouldn’t pre-existing conditions be what compels us to help those in pain? Often pain we ourselves have created?

Isn’t that the example the real Jesus set?

When and why did we decide to adopt this arrogance and mandate that people be like us before we would even allow them to be introduced to our God?

PROPHETS OF A FUTURE NOT OUR OWN

It helps now and then to step back and take a long view.
The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of
saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession
brings perfection, no pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives include everything.

This is what we are about. We plant the seeds that one
day will grow. We water the seeds already planted
knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects
far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of
liberation in realizing this.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning,
a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s
grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the
difference between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not
messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.

– Archbishop Oscar Romero (martyred on March 24th 1980)

Whoever fall, feels.

Simple questions that come to mind from reading this:

• When was the last time I fell and noticed how I felt?
• When was the last time I saw someone else fall and thought about how they felt?
• How often do I turn away when someone falls?
• When was the last time I felt for someone who fell?
• How much more often should I be expressing my feelings when I see someone fall?
• What kind of difference would it make if I allowed others to see and respond to my falls?

Falling hurts, but good can come out of the interactions and thought applied toward the feelings that result. We just need to be more willing to sharing our falls and come alongside someone else who falls.

What does this make you think about when you read it?

Do you have other aphorisms or proverbs that make you more thoughtful about life?

(source: James Geary via Michael Castro)

So, I click on the video eagerly anticipating some epiphany that will give me a piece of the secret for “the simple life”… something that will help me make that romantic vision in my head a reality.  Then I see a very ordinary couple, the Thompsons of South Carolina, sit down beside each other on a couch - as if that is the only way you sit on a couch - and give us a peek at their lives.

Watch it here: Simpler Times  (via Ode blog and an interesting documentary called TheRecessEnds)

As I watch, two things jump out at me about their very ordinary and simple life… patience and work.

Patience with each other – How many times have they fought and made up? How many times have they sat and waited for the other to come home late?

Patience with their world – Hours hovering over gardens to plant seeds, weed and harvest, stuff jars, sweat over a pressure cooker. I look for the shortcut or just buy it.

Building life is hard work - Busy days filled by doing menial tasks that the rest of us just “run to the store” or “grab some takeout” to fulfill on the cheap. They aren’t in a hurry. They take the time to do the work because that is just part of life, part of slowly building the happiness that defines them. They have no doubt mellowed over the years to realize that life doesn’t need to hurry.

Being content is hard work - I would guess they have had points in their lives when they were tempted to take the easy route and perhaps they did for a season. But they tell me that life is about far more… it is about doing the work and being content with the life you are creating.

And then, the video comes to an end with the most profound statement muttered almost in passing… a statement that IS that epiphany… a statement that defines “simple life”…

“… but our happiness is right here.”

Contentment. No deep discussion about the steps they took to get here, no tips or tricks on how we can shortcut the system, no reminiscing the cool “things” they gave up to live like this, not even any mention about their attempt to live a “different life” while the rest of societybuzzed around them… just simply “this is our happiness”.

After the film crew left their house; they probably shrugged, looked at each other with a “whatever that was all about” look, and went about their day… .

May I fill my life with patience and love experienced through hard work and contentment… and in so doing discover happiness is right here.

Where is your happiness?

“If you get ready for bed now (when I ask you the first time), I will read you two bedtime stories.

If you do not, we will not read a bedtime story… those are your choices and their consequences”

or

“If you choose to finish all of your food, you will get a dessert.

But if you choose not to finish all of your food, you will not get dessert with the rest of us who did… those are your choices and consequences”

As you would expect, being put in a position that forces a decision is often quite an emotional undertaking for a preschooler. However, making choices are important.

Life is full of choices… and full of consequences.

On Choices

[NOTE: this is an incomplete, rambling thought; so don't expect to find all of the answers... I don't have them :)]

In our affluent world today, we are flooded with options. At the grocery store, we have literally hundreds of thousands of choices for what we are going to eat. When we purchase a car, we have scores of dealerships, cars, models, and features we can choose from. We even have inordinate amount of options when we look for jobs or seek opportunities for education. On top of that, The internet, counselors, and libraries are full of information that can provide support or contradictions to our prevailing choices. We even have drugs that will soothe the stress we experience when we have to make or deal with choices. Having options is not a problem… Making a choice IS a problem.

Handling a choice is a problem. Often we develop decision paralysis – or worse, waste ridiculous amounts of time accumulating data and information in an effort to put off the inevitable decision we might not want to make. And even worse, we far too often afford ourselves the luxury of backing out of a decision and making a new one withouth any consideration of the risks or consequences of those decisions… because those are often dismissed as we move forward with our new choice. I’m not sure which is worse: paralysis, treading water, or careless responsibility for your decisions.

Regardless of how we mishandle choices, they  DO have results.

In a world where we often live with a mindset of “wanting it all”, we need to come to terms with the reality that you can’t have it all! Choices end with results and results by nature eliminate other options. I’m realizing that I can easily spend my life trying to accumulate “it all” – information, relationships, stuff – but in the end the choices I make determine what my “all” will be. Being willing to make choices and realizing their consequences is the only way I can enjoy the results. But with the sheer volume of options we are surrounded with, making decisions is more complex, fraught with doubt, and far too often leaves us wondering “what if”.

I don’t think this is healthy. As a society we teach our children that they can “have it all” when in fact they cannot. We build megastores that give us every possible option and then combinations of options to choose from so that we can get exactly what we want. We customize the culture around us to surround ourselves with people just like us. We create exit strategies and legal institutions to help us gracefully back our of a decision if we don’t like it. We even create virtualized worlds where we can choose to be someone we are not and have the flexibility of erasng that identity and creating a new one. We do all of these things to gain choices in our constant pursuit of “having it all”. In the end, the fact remains…

• We must make choices
• Choices have consequences
• Our lives are altered by these consequences
• Making choices is hard
• Our happiness depends on how we handle all of the above…

Our daughters are learning this at an early age, but as we all know, the rest of their lives will be filled with these decisions. How they handle those decisions, how they learn to realize that consequences matter, and how much they choose to enjoy the life those choices create for them

In the end, we cannot have it all but we will most assuredly have something and if we choose to make that our “all” and be content with those choices that will probably be enough. I have to wonder… 

Would life be happier with fewer choices?

What are we missing out on in life by filling our lives with so many choices in our pursuit of “it all”?

Yes, this is an incomplete thought and there is much more to express, but hey… it’s my brain you chose to splash around in, so share your thoughts while you are here!

Here’s a thought- provoking Pop!Tech video to feed the topic of choices…
Barry Schwartz on choices, happiness, and getting it all

I clicked on the “next” tab to read more context on the article I had just completed (I don’t remember what the topic was). A Google map is all that appears on this page, but it is titled “Good News Maps”. OK… that’s interesting…

On the left was a list of pins with intriguing titles like “Gave baby a free flower” or “Sat on cement wall with friend, enjoying the sun”. Now, I’m hooked… must dive deeper.

I have been increasingly interested in the notion of being a better observer of the world around you in a spiritual context… after being introduced to Mustard Seed’s Mapping the Divine Week.  So of course I couldn’t resist the urge to zoom in on the map that contained these nuggets of interesting-ness to see how someone else is mapping their observations.

As the pins come into focus on the map, I decide to click on a random pin located in Capitol Hill, Seattle. This is what I see:

5/16/08 - Asked politely for a prayer: At 16th Ave # & E Harrison, a vulnerable-looking woman, shaking like a leaf, said she was nervous and would I please pray for her. I did!

Wow! The first things that pops in my mind:

Am I approachable enough that someone would feel comfortable walking up to me and asking for prayer?

How would I react in this situation? Would I stop and take the time to pray for her?

When was the last time I had an encounter like this?

Then I started to think about how much more communal (and awkward…and abrupt…and disarming) life becomes when you take the time to walk and notice the people around you. How much more you are able to help, talk to, engage, and even pray for those around you. How much more you are able to see the baby and give the flower or sit on the wall and enjoy the sun with a friend. How much the people around you can make you a better person…

How much of that life I miss out on every day by sitting in my car, or not noticing the people around me, or even spending too much time reading blogs . So many more thoughts come to mind… all worth more thought… and definitely worth more action.

and now, the “rest of the story”

Of course I couldn’t help myself and had to find out more about “Justin C”  (the map’s creator)…

Clicking on his Google profile link, I discovered his name was Justin Carder. Justin is the creator and owner of what is probably Seattle’s most successful neighborhood blog: http://blog.capitolhillseattle.com. He also runs Neighborlogs - a site designed to encourage more hyperlocal news sources. Now for those of you who don’t know about Capitol Hill, it’s essentially the core of Seattle’s counter-culture (which is a pretty big statement for a city that prides itself in counter-cultures). It’s not suprising to anyone in Seattle that this would happen in Cap Hill, but I have to wonder why it doesn’t happen more everywhere else…

So, I feel this post deserves a “shout-out” to Justin for creating this map, caring about his neighborhood (even though it’s his job), and enabling interesting and thought-provoking content for curious people like me to stumble across.

That’s how a blog post titled “Generation M Manifesto“ begins to explain a social shift to the leader of the G8 that many of us already realize is underway. Umair Haque penned this provocative post on the Harvard Business Review blog last week and I”ve gone back to re-read it a few times since. After you read this post, go read the full Manifesto post… there is more in there than I cover.

What is “Generation M”? Haque moves it out of the marketing demographic terminology that defines it as youth born since 1990 and explains it like this:

What do the “M”s in Generation M stand for? The first is for a movement. It’s a little bit about age — but mostly about a growing number of people who are acting very differently. They are doing meaningful stuff that matters the most. Those are the second, third, and fourth “M”s.

Gen M is about passion, responsibility, authenticity, and challenging yesterday’s way of everything. Everywhere I look, I see an explosion of Gen M businesses, NGOs, open-source communities, local initiatives, government. Who’s Gen M? Obama, kind of. Larry and Sergey. The Threadless, Etsy, and Flickr guys. Ev, Biz and the Twitter crew. Tehran 2.0. The folks at Kiva, Talking Points Memo, and FindtheFarmer. Shigeru Miyamoto, Steve Jobs, Muhammad Yunus, and Jeff Sachs are like the grandpas of Gen M. There are tons where these innovators came from.

Haque does a great job concisely extracting the key differences between the traditional institutions and the emerging social movement. Among my favorites…

You turned politics into a dirty word. We want authentic, deep democracy — everywhere.

You wanted growth — faster. We want to slow down — so we can become better.

You didn’t care which communities were capsized, or which lives were sunk. We want a rising tide that lifts all boats.

You wanted to biggie size life: McMansions, Hummers, and McFood. We want to humanize life.

You wanted exurbs, sprawl, and gated anti-communities. We want a society built on authentic community.

You wanted more money, credit and leverage — to consume ravenously. We want to be great at doing stuff that matters.

You sacrificed the meaningful for the material: you sold out the very things that made us great for trivial gewgaws, trinkets, and gadgets. We’re not for sale: we’re learning to once again do what is meaningful.

As much as the discussion of new communities and the denunciation of consumerism struck strong cords with my own values and goals, that last statement was the home-run statement for me… We’re not for sale: we’re learning to once again do what is meaningful. What is meaningful? What is needed? What should we REALLY be focusing on?

Call me an idealist, call me a dreamer, tell me I’m aiming too high, but I have to agree with Umair on this one… I am part of this Generation M and I hope to make my children part of it too. Something like this isn’t about age, market segmentation, or “the new movement”…

Here’s what it looks like to me: every generation has a challenge, and this, I think, is ours: to foot the bill for yesterday’s profligacy — and to create, instead, an authentically, sustainably shared prosperity.

Anyone — young or old — can answer it. Generation M is more about what you do and who you are than when you were born.

I think I am going to have this in my head for a while, so expect some more directly or indirectly related posts as I splash around in this little brainpuddle.

• What about this “Generation M” idea resonates with you?
• What would you add to the differentiators?
• What do you agree or disagree with?

Let me set the scene:

Lastnight my wife and I went to hear Coldplay at the beautiful Gorge Amphitheatre in George, WA. By about 10PM, the sun had set and the concert was well underway. There, among a crush of people, the loud music, smells (odors) of sunscreen and  alcohol, as well as distant whiffs of someone’s illegal joint… I was struck by something divine…

I had just settled back on our blanket to look up at a sky full of stars you can only see in the middle of nowhere. As I laid there, I noticed that the longer I looked, the more my eyes became accustomed to seeing stars… and I was able to see more stars. At that moment, the thought popped into my head

God is like that… The more you look for him, the more your eyes adjust to what he looks like, and the more of him you see.

Just as that thought crossed my mind, Coldplay started playing their song Politik. Now I’m not going to assert that this is a particularly spiritual song; but as the song started, the lyrics jumped out at me brought me out of my star-gazing and back to my feed to watch the band…

Look at earth from outer space
Everyone must find a place
Give me time and give me space
Give me real, don’t give me fake

Give me strength, reserve control
Give me heart and give me soul…

 Just as I get to my feet, about 50 pulsing strobe lights turned on the crowd and start pounding the words of the chorus into my senses…

And open up your eyes
Open up your eyes
Open up your eyes
Open up your eyes

With those words, another thought crossed my mind… and kept getting  pounding this into my head each time they hit that chorus as if God was trying to expand on what I saw in the stars.

I’m all around you, trying to pound my presence into your head like those strobe lights… trying to make you aware of me surrounding you… you just need to open up your eyes!

Now I’m not trying to assert that Coldplay wrote this song to convey this message, but I do believe that God can show himself to you in some unexpected places. Although I’ve been trying to open myself up to experiencing God in real ways in my daily life, this one took me by suprise. I didn’t expect those words to come to me so clearly and poignantly at a concert. Yes, the show was amazing and they are an incredibly talented band. Yes, we had a great time watching a few thousand people suffer 97 degree temperatures with us and act riduculous, and yes we heard some great music. In the end though, that message to “open up my eyes” will stick with me for a long time.