Old College Try: Subzero Edition

I've spent the last 24 hours running from a certain sepulchre of arctic cold.

Yesterday, I drove to work (Menards) in Easter-like temps-- 40 degrees and bare spots showing in the melting parking lot.

Too good to be true.  Five hours pass, and Hurricane Winter arrives.  The parking lot is REAL FROZEN, and my unit (now payroll-restricted to two people-- me and a manager) is ordered to fix it.  

I'm hunched over the steering wheel of a lift truck.  My eyes are stinging.  My body is threatening to go blue and die.  My manager is taking shovelfuls of salt and flinging them on the newly-formed ice glaze.  I'm laughing, because I do enjoy weather terror.  We tossed 600 pounds of salt in an hour or so, him chucking and trying not to slip, and me wondering how much I can laugh before he wonders what's so funny about driving a forklift.

I punch out at 7:22, still covered in salt the wind had beaten into the threads in my corduroys and hoodie.

Now, I'm at Wal-Mart, trying to find Target shoppers who migrated on price to the "other place."  I find one in the camera department.  He has the "look" of an urbane Target shopper. He also has an obsession with the display models.  He holds his security-tethered camera like an artifact, at arms length, determined to decipher its complexities.

As a retailer, any retail news tends to sink in a bit more.

"When the bottom begins to fall, price-point retailers become a haven for penny pinchers."  This is all the retail beatwriters can write anymore, so if you've read the business page once this quarter, you're already sick of it.  Wal-Mart is finally beating Target.  Again.  After four years of the Bullseye Brigade, the recession has put a damper on Target's overachieving. 

Don't worry.  There's always Spam to put Minnesota back on the map.  You may not have heard, but the Minnesota-based Hormel plant has been running overtime shifts for months.  Spam sales follow an inverse relation to the strength of the economy.

After the mini-blizzard, I finally made it home to spend a bit of time with my friend, Ryan.

We enjoy a bit of cinematic malpractice, courtesy of the much-hated director Uwe Boll.  Jason Statham leads as "Farmer" in In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale.  It's a terribly-made movie based on a video game.  It's either the DVD or the production, but the audio is so bad in spots that my buddy thinks I'm farting and not saying anything.  You must see a Uwe Boll before you die.  

On the way back to drop off Ryan at his place, the inside of the windshield ices up, save for 4 "portholes" where the defroster blows.  It reminds me of the Day After Tomorrow.

The drive continues.  Stopped by flashing red lights and crossing arms, I stretch my gloved hand out the window to wave to a train conductor, who I imagine must be a bit lonely.  We are two souls lost in the frost.

Farther west on Main Street, an umbrella-toting madman makes a run for my car.  At first I figured he was suicidal, but then I realized the windblocking umbrella also blocks 100% of his vision.  Genius.  I stop him with my horn and keep driving.

They say it's going to be record-setting cold tonight.  It's just another day for these Minnesotans, of whom I seem to fit with rather well. 

Be smart.  Leave yourself options to stay alive.  Cold like this kills and maims.

It's -6F now.  

Booyakasha, that's low!

 

Decision Speed (When you absolutely must take off)

Hello! You have found the second chapter in a unique note series on slaying apathy in the world. Decision Speed is a concept I'm beginning to execute after several months of intense soul searching-- not fun, but it was worth it. I invite you to come along with me as I write my magnum opus after too many years of university training (Tommy Boy territory- eek! but the end is nearing) and respond to God's pressing call on my heart to find others who feel likewise and strategize for the future. I've chosen Facebook as my medium, because everyone is here. As for me, I'm a journo major and a thinker. I read way too much and occasionally pop outside my cave for a good dose of outdoors. Basically, Decision Speed is what I was made to write. Don't care? Then, the first blog is for you. MY PROMISE: Like an antique show in Tokyo, I'll blend the old and the new, the historical and the futuristic. I won't lie-- these are blogs about social change. Even if you hate change, if you have even the loosest affiliation with Jesus or church, I believe you'll want to hear what I have to say. I am no stranger to the art of publishing-- I just hope I can keep your interest long enough to get to the good stuff. I have little desire to publish or to be heard online-- in fact, I prefer coffee shop discussions with good friends. Although I've written a few blogs, I haven't organized my ideas around a central concept like Decision Speed. In fact, it is the dire situation that has brought me into the court of Internet opinion. If you didn't know, decision speed is the predetermined airspeed which a pilot knows he must pull on the yoke and put his plane in the air. Below decision, you stay on the runway and slam on the brakes. Above decision, you must fly. I am writing this series because I have reached the point in my life where I can no longer slam on the brakes. I know many are arriving here as well. We are go for takeoff. I have a burning desire to tell the truth-- and once chance to do it. Quickly, I'd like to say thanks for browsing. I love to hear from people who agree, disagree, or who just enjoy writing things in boxes. It's best to start with The Gate, which serves as a precursor to this series. If you've interacted with that note, you've seen how caring is daring and have begun to consider your own life. Many of us are pushed to the limit with family, work and a myriad of social commitments. We are busy. We guard our time! Yet, you read on, cautiously, because you're waiting for the slaying I promised. You're waiting for something decisive to come and blast the stupid out of this messed-up world. Get ready for football metaphors. You're waiting for a touchdown or a turnover. But it's HALFTIME. Welcome to Decision Speed. In Decision Speed, I'll tell the score (hint: a few field goals won't get us back in this one) and why our game plan absolutely must change for the second half of the game. After this chapter, I promise I'm done with football metaphors. Go [insert your favorite playoff team here]! Your faithful culture wonk, Andrew

Critical Mass

Where have all the cheerleaders gone
Men and women of yesterday’s dawn?
Who slaved and bled to make us great
Who believed in something not fashionable of late

Hope

They are dead
Or they fled
Or they just let it all run out, like an astronaut who lost his tether, 
Floating gently in the black expanse

Today,
Everyone’s a critic
Everyone’s a sharp
Nitpick

Finding fault in others’ work
Lamenting always
And comforted only by the sounds of their own
Crying, complaining and carrying on

I’ll sign your petition
After I hit you in the mouth
Look away, you reformer
Of nothing. That’s what I always do

Seasoned liars, we are
Always looking for,
And finding comfortable ways
To evade our true greatness

Belief is positively
The only way to go forward
To seize the day
And pave the way

And now we are floating
In a big melting pot
Of fantastically unique
Little people

And the sum of our parts
Stands a chance to reckon
For a moment in time
The audacity of Hope

Apathy Slayer 101 (Must select Awareness Lab)

World seems smaller, these days.  It's shrinking every year.  

1, 2, 3-- it's smaller than 1993.  

4, 5, 6-- it's smaller than 1996.  

7, 8, 9-- I know what you ate for dinner last night, Facebook updater extraordinaire.  

Ever wonder what all this connectivity means?  

The lightning storm of modern-day media has changed how I think about responsibility.  The level of connectivity and ease of access require, at minimum, a new level of awareness, if not action.  The belief: "It doesn't affect me" doesn't work anymore, because in a global economy, everything affects everyone.  

I'll break that down, because I hate to recycle Tom Friedman or the sustainability creed.

My college newspaper polled five students for a "man-on-the-street" interview.  We asked them to talk about a long transit strike that had taken the busses of the streets for weeks. Responses were mixed, until we found one girl who didn't know about the bus strike.  We printed that.

Everything affects everyone, whether you know about it or not.  Google "chaos theory" and try to wrap your mind around the mathematical model more commonly known as the "Butterfly Effect."

Remember the "least of these," even though he lives 5,000 miles away, because you just saw his picture online.  He looks hungry.  And sick.

This isn't a guilt trip, friends.  It's an encouragement to live every day on purpose, to enjoy every moment, and to care.  

We have all been granted, at minimum, the currency of time.  Mindful of the value of your time, I keep my blogs short!

Spend wisely.  The future is constructed by gazillions of tiny choices made by people just like you.  

-Andrew

Day two

Hello again.  I enter Day Two of my daily writing exercise.  The result may be as disjointed as a Chinese contortionist, but you'd watch that contortionist anyways, right?  Let's catch up.

BLACK IS BACK.  As of last summer, I have started thinking again.  About the same time that I restarted reading and thinking, I also started copywriting.  

So my sentences got shorter.  For necessity.  It's your fault!  It's your short attention span!  And mine, too . . .

 

Moreover, I started reading every retail zoomer, direct mailer, Internet banner, church bulletin, nonprofit flyer, newspaper circular, mail-order catalog, DVD box, corporate tagline, fast food bag, blog, light rail side panel, V-log, dog collar, etc . . . I could find.  I must etcetera because every day the marketers manage to cover another inch of our viewing space with messages.  Their latest invention is airline tray table ads.  I can't wait to finish Skymall and start on my tray!

I read Claude C. Hopkins, who is to copywriting what Freud is to psychology, and I found a terse and confident writer, unafraid to sell but entirely wary of making a mess with someone else's money.

Seth Godin is another favorite of mine.  He is a marketing guru who every day will deliver an insightful blog to your inbox.  It's no wonder he's Top 25 in the blogosphere (#14).  Yeah, he wrote Purple Cow.  You might know that one. 

I read Jesus.  Like every good itinerant preacher, he knew his theology, but he told stories instead.  People love stories!  We're wired for stories.  We're hard-wired to appreciate God's meta-narrative.  It's a BIG STORY, and we're part of it!

I don't know if I'll succeed in copywriting, but I like it.  I have always loved the short piece, the one that punches you in the gut.  Whereas many wish to write the great American novel, I want to write round after round of meaningful copy that will engage the imaginations of my readers.

I love people.  I love writing for people.  I like when writing can bring people together.  I don't need an audience, but thinking about my readers makes me want to suck less.  That matters.

"You can't bat .300 in this league." -A sage creative director I met a few weeks ago

That's all for today.  This took me 45 minutes to write, 15 minutes to edit and many hours to ponder.  I'm publishing on Day 3, because unless I can find an editor on demand, I leave a day between "comp" and "pub"!

-Andrew

 

Back on solid ground

Hello, friends and friends-to-be.  I have decided I will publish more frequently.  I am not sure what shape my writings will take, but I know that writing must become a daily discipline. Without the guidance of the muse, I must rely on whatever I can muster at the moment.  I don't believe in muses, anyway.  Hard work is what makes any good writer.  I don't want to be good as much as I want to keep it real.  You know, REAL GOOD.  

So, this morning I was doing my exercises in the Cashman book Leadership from the Inside Out, and I discovered I have some very limiting beliefs.  I've known for a long time things needed to change (inside me).  After an intense and scary journaling session, I found myself feeling more happy and free. 

It's like a little glow inside.  It's congruency.

That's all I've got for today.  I hope you stick with me; I might come up with something good.  In the meantime, may your presence be a gift to all those around you.  That's Cashman again :-)

-Andrew

God man or touch of divine?

Often, we view earthly Jesus as a sort of God-man hybrid, and indeed he was both fully human and fully divine. But how God was he, and how man was he? We believe he was fully God and fully man, so that seems to indicate 100 percent of each, for a total of 200 percent.

Yet, there is only one God, and he is infinite. So, when we think of how much God it would take to make Jesus, we must think of the smallest possible quantity, if divinity could ever be quantified, and even that is too much. Jesus was as he always will be: perfect.

Flashbulbs

There are places in the world where the cameras never cease to pop and crackle, where every moment is recorded with precision and artful glamour.  I don't need to tell you such places are rare.

There are many more places where good deeds and bad deeds alike go entirely unrecorded.  The clock is ticking, but no one's watching.  Worse yet, no one seems to care.  

If you find yourself trying to do good, yet lacking motivation, remember that there is One greater.  ALL wrongs will be made right, and ALL rights will not go unrewarded.  In fact, this life isn't all there is.  For those who choose God's way, they will receive eternal life and a reward greater than money or power.

The reward is Him.  Can't see it yet?  Don't believe it's really worth it?  

Keep PRAYING; keep SEEKING.  You'll see it.  History lies beneath the headlines, and despite what you feel, God is planning an "after party" to quash all rumors of injustice or mediocrity and make every paparazzo within a million light years of Earth drool like a Labrador in a sweaty meat market.

It's worth it.  Don't give up. 

Credits:

• James 1:12
  
• This poem
  
• Everyone ever, who did the right thing, Jesus the first and the last.  We stand on their shoulders.
  

Pama Lama Ding Dong

In the field I'm trying to get into, a generic cover letter is worth zilch.  Thus, I find myself writing customized covers that draw connections between myself and my potential employer.  This is good.  The problem is that I'm writing on the spot, sometimes in text boxes on an online application, and first drafts are scary.  I'm okay with quality control, but I find myself attempting (and failing) at humor.  Due to a disgustingly buggy Chrome beta, my first two apps went into the Great Oblivion.  My good fortune!  I had to rewrite my cover letters, and the second time, all the great jokes seemed a bit . . . insane?  In the end, I feel just like Michael Scott when he answers the phone, and Pam gives him a second try at professionalism.  I'm too tired to explain further; I guess this is for Office fans only.  

GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM!  

The great cost of Continued Indifference in the face of Tremendous Opportunity: a message for believers

You've had it for a while, that feeling that the cracks are starting to show.  I'm here to confirm your suspicions:  TODAY, ALL IS NOT WELL WITH THE WORLD.

Today, the economic reality is grim.  Questions abound.  What does the future hold? Who's really in charge? If the almost $3/4 of a trillion dollar bailout package cannot save us, what will?

I have to ask a tough question: are we so naive as to believe that civil order is permanent, that human government is homogenously beneficent or that the kingdoms of this world will last forever? Shall any eagle on a pole, Roman or American, outlast the Word of the Living God?  A different way to say the same thing: when the bottom falls out, what do we land on?

Rise and shine, Johnny!  It's time to take your pill.  Let's check your chart.  Oh, you're U.S. American.  Yep, we've got what you need.  Here's a healthy dose of election coverage to take your eyes off your true Commander-In-Chief.  Take that twice a day, morning and night. Media of any sort will do; you can get this stuff over-the-counter.  It's just that these candidates can be oh-so-tantalizingly like the Messiah who already came about two millenia ago.  A great generic alternative, wouldn't you say?  If your lucidity persists, just get busy! You don't need to do anything in particular; just do something to take your mind off that nagging feeling that ALL IS NOT WELL WITH THE WORLD.

I had originally written a different blog, but I knew I had to write this one.  I don't want to be the one to say it, but someone has to.  Things cannot stay the same anymore. God is asking us if we are willing to pay the price in prayer, and so far, the answer has been a resounding, "No."

You can ignore this message.  You can write it off as another doom-and-gloomer out to get his negativity fix for the day.  Too much network news, maybe.  You can compartmentalize it so neatly, so perfectly, that in a few seconds it will all be out of your mind.  But the cracks are starting to show.  

If you've chosen to read this far, chances are you find yourself in a similar predicament, or you're just curious to see why one more person in the world thinks telling you to pray more will make a lick of difference.  I'll answer that question: I'm stirred; I'm broken; I'm absolutely desperate, and I strongly believe that a new wave of individual and corporate prayer is the answer.   

When the volume of our rhetoric expands beyond the mass of our convictions, prayer keeps us grounded on the Rock.

When our heart gives itself to idols, prayer reminds us of our One True Love.

When life is intense, prayer is our shelter.

When life is easy, prayer is our safeguard.

When the best option seems the easy road, prayer reminds us the narrow road is the way.

When all is not well with the world, prayer is the best way to make things right.  You're only as alone as you perceive to be, so take courage: Jesus is praying for you.  

Sources/Additional Reading Material:  Put everything in context.  Emphases mine.

A VISION OF THE FUTURE (Rev 8:1-3): 

1When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.

 2And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and to them were given seven trumpets.

 3Another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of all the saints, on the golden altar before the throne. 4The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of the saints, went up before God from the angel's hand. 5Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it on the earth; and there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning and an earthquake.

A MESSAGE FROM THE PAST (JOEL 1:14): 

14 Declare a holy fast; 
       call a sacred assembly. 
       Summon the elders 
       and all who live in the land 
       to the house of the LORD your God, 
       and cry out to the LORD.

THE NEXT STEP (MATT 5:5-13):

5"And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 6But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.7And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

 9"This, then, is how you should pray: 
   " 'Our Father in heaven, 
   hallowed be your name, 
 10your kingdom come, 
   your will be done 
      on earth as it is in heaven. 
 11Give us today our daily bread. 
 12Forgive us our debts, 
      as we also have forgiven our debtors. 
 13And lead us not into temptation, 
   but deliver us from the evil one.

FINAL ENCOURAGEMENT (MATT 11:12-15):

12From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it. 13For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John. 14And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come. 15He who has ears, let him hear. -Jesus

Unplugged (Naked Faith)

These are my thoughts about my seven-day media fast.

I gave up: television, movies, music, websites, email, newspapers, magazines, text messages and, eventually, the idea that life without these things would be no life at all. In the silence of the morning, in the stillness of the afternoon, in the quiet of the night, I found something strange. Life wasn't in those things. They were empty.

Life was somewhere else, somewhere old and somewhere very young. It has been there from the beginning. Life just was, even as it is, and as it forever shall be. All my days ran in this strange continuity of the rising and the setting of the sun. Time seemed to stop.

I think I wasn't necessarily close to God as much I was close to heaven. There was no pressure evolve to the newer, better version of myself; there was only me being me. I boiled oatmeal in the morning and ate in silence, sitting stoop-shouldered on the couch and staring into space. In the afternoon I scanned the sky for traces of a storm; I wondered if the clouds would go away. I hiked long zig-zags in the forest and made snowballs, which I ate because I was thirsty from walking in zig-zags. Sometimes, I went to work and did other things. When I couldn't think of anything else to do, I just laid in bed. I prayed a lot. I read my Bible some, too.

It's easy to put all our money on the disciplines, because they look the best and make us feel the best after we do them. I suppose we need them. Without the regular practice of prayer and Scripture study, how could we tame this mortal animal? How could we? But what happens when we stop using the disciplines as a steering wheel, as a way to preserve autonomy? What happens when we let go?

I'm not crazy, not yet at least. You may think I lost my train of thought and started talking about the Big Two (what you do to get close to God, even though that's impossible, because you can't move an inch within space and time unless he wants you to), when this started as a story about a media fast.

This is a story about anything that comes between us and the quiet pleasure of being with our Creator, our Lord and, when the time is right, our Best Friend and the Lover of our souls. They keep telling you, "Do this. Do that," but what happens when you stop trying and say, "Forget this! I want my God, right now, and I don't need anything but a hope and a prayer." Is that even a Christian expression?

It is naked faith.

It is scary.

It is good.

It is righteousness. Luther might be right. We can stop trying and start believing. Sometime along the way we lost our way and started to try again.

There's no need for that. Let us fall into the arms of love, and not be so afraid. Let our insides match our outside, and let us stop lying to ourselves. Lies are so ugly; God is so beautiful. The truth: he's okay with us, and the only reason we'll evolve is to be more like our Lover.

What if there isn't anything to do in heaven? Would our Lover still want us around?