Wow. Slow news day I guess. I’m sorry if you live in Cambodia and like yummy rats. I really am. But this headline sounds like it came straight out of a Mad Libs book!
Price of _________________ (an animal)
__________________________ (a multiplier)
in ________________________ (a foreign country)
due to ____________________ (a negative event).
You might end just as easily have ended up with:
Price of hamsters doubles in Canada due to power shortage.
or
Price of rubber duckies in Botswana triples due to flooding.
What do we desire the Christian community to be? What do we believe Jesus wanted it to be? A vibrant community where the people care for each other with their time and money. Nobody is left hungry. Pregnant mothers are not alone. Sinners are accepted but also challenged by accountability and propelled by forward momentum. Everyone is also fed and strengthened with solid teaching and friendship. Sounds nice, eh? Make’s being a Christian pretty easy too. Maybe too easy… What about when it doesn’t work out that way? What if it’s a disaster or a circus where you’re at? Where do you turn?
We must certainly know how to take care of ourselves and make use of first aid in our own spiritual life. And when we are unable to be carried along by the stream of a fervent simply observance that is completely ordered according to the best and most living tradition, then we must know how to help ourselves. When the stream is dry, we must know how to leave our boat and walk. The fact remains that it is simpler, easier, more secure, and ultimately more perfect if a monk can live purely according to the spirit of his vocation, interested in his monastic conversation more than in his own interior reactions, and more concerned with te love of God and his brethren than with the incessant quest for signs of virtue in his own conduct.
Thomas Merton on meeting modernism and the secular culture with the Gospel, not something else:
The important thing, therefore, is not for Christians to be found ready, once again, with a glib religious answer for another modern question, but for us to reaffirm, in terms at once contemporary and deeply serious, the Christian message to man’s liberty. We must reemphasize the call of the Gospel to healing and to hope, not merely reaffirm that everything is going to be all right because man is smart and will meet the challenge of evil with the best possible solutions.
And on Christians in politics. That is, not off-loading the work of the church to the feds:
…any claim that this or that policy or strategy deserves a “Christian” sanction and the blessing of the Church must be examined in the light of the principles we have seen. If in actual fact it amounts to the support of the abstract organization, granting or blessing a destructive power to coerce the individual conscience, it is to be rejected as fraudulent, as incompatible with Christian truth, and as disobedience to the Gospel commandment of love. In one word, the Church must not implicitly betray man into the power of their responsible and anonymous “public.” If it does so, it will destroy itself in destroying true freedom and authentic human community. We must certainly recognize the danger of individualism, but we must also be fully aware of where this danger really lies. (Emphasis mine)
(Thomas Merton, Mystics and Zen Master’s, p. 273, 274)
The fox knows many things; the hedgehog one big thing.
- Archilochus (Greek Poet ~640 BC)
The fox is clever and multi-skilled. A jack of all trades.
The hedgehog is a master of one discipline.
A frustration I see in a lot of people, places, and also in myself is the tension between these. Life demands that we be excellent (or at least decent) at a long list of things: parenting, computer skills, car mechanics, lawn care, cooking, reading, socializing, and so on. But it seems nearly all the great people that have gone before us were hedgehogs. They did one thing super well. They made a real difference in the world because they poured their life into one passion and discipline. We KNOW deep down that we could do something just as great, if only we were “allowed” to specialize.
Beethoven was brilliant, but he wouldn’t have written those piano concerto’s if he was busy painting his house. Einstien probably would have never published his works on physics if his job demanded he figure out how to format his data in Excel 2007 and attend that faculty meeting. Itzack Pearlman can play violin like no other because he was still practicing when his fellow violinists were working out at the gym, walking their dog, or what have you. A lot of these “greats” have horrible track records with relationships. They were often lousy husbands, wives, and parents. But if they HAD put the effort in to be a good parents, you and I would not even know they existed. They likely wouldn’t have ever made it to their magnum opus. Your 8-year old daughter inspired by watching the Olympic gymnasts on TV last week? Sorry. She should have started training 5 years ago for it to be anything more than a hobby.
People hoping for a career in high academia especially feel the heat of this. But Rene Girard chuckled when other philosophers scorned him for diving into too many subjects:
People will accuse us of playing at being Pico della Mirandola - the Renaissance Man - certainly a temptation to be resisted today, if we wish to be seen in a favorable light.
(Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World, p. 141)
My thinking has been all wrong on this though. Comparing ourselves to others does not bring glory to the Lord. It is a wellspring of despair. Instead, I think we CAN be foxes and still make a difference in this world. We must open our eyes wider. Go kick it hard at work today then come home and fix the mini-van, play with your kids, and do something special for your wife.
…In particular, and related especially to the part of the world where I now live - Great Britain - the last generation has seen a sudden upsurge of interest in all things Celtic. Indeed, the very word “Celtic” is enough, when attached to music, prayers, buildings, jewelry, T-shirts, and anything else that comes to hand, to win the attention, and often enough the money, of people in today’s Western culture. It seems to speak of a haunting possibility of another world, a world in which God (whoever he may be) is more directly present, a world in which humans get along better with their natural environment, a world with roots far deeper, and a hidden music far richer, than the shrill and shallow world of modern technology, soap operas, and football managers. The world of the ancient Celts - Northumbria, Wales, Cornwall, Brittany, Ireland, and Scotland - seems a million miles from modern-day Christianity. That is, no doubt, why it is so attractive to people bored or even angry with official religion in Western churches.
But the real center of Celtic Christianity - the monastic life, with great stress on extreme bodily asceticism and energetic evangelism - is hardly what people are looking for today.
-N.T. Wright, Simply Christian, p. 23
Wrights hits the nail on the head here. I find it attractive for these very same reasons. It’s still Jesus, but it’s a thousand light-years away from suburbia. I’ve been praying the office of the Northumbria community for a while (on and off). It’s simple daily liturgy and scripture reading schedule. From the comfort of your chair and laptop. No need for a cell at Skellig.
I’ve been thinking about jealousy quite a bit lately. Along those lines, here is one more piece by Billy Collins before I have to return the library book.
The Rival Poet
The column of your book titles,
always introducing your latest one,
looms over me like Roman architecture.
It is longer than the name of an Italian countess, longer
than this poem will probably be.
Etched on the head of a pin,
my own production would leave room for
The lord’s Prayer and many dancing angels.
No matter.
In my revenge dream I am the one
poised on the marble staircase
high above the crowded ballroom.
A retainer in livery announces me
and the Contessa Maria Teresa Isabella
Veronica Multalire Eleganza de Bella Ferrari.
You are the one below
fidgeting in your rented tux
with some local Cindy hanging all over you.
A long or medium term plan for your brand or your blog or your career or your project?
You can have grand visions for remodeling your house or getting in shape, but if there’s a fire in the kitchen, you drop everything and put it out. What choice do you have? The problem, of course, is that most organizations are on fire, most of the time.
I gave a talk the other day, all about the unstoppable slow decline of interruption (traditional) media and the opportunities for rethinking how we communicate with people. At the end of the talk, someone came up and had very nice things to say about what he’d learned. The he leaned over and asked me to help him brainstorm about his brand’s upcoming ad campaign, because it was due to his boss on Friday.
Add up enough urgencies and you don’t get a fire, you get a career. A career putting out fires never leads to the goal you had in mind all along.
I guess the trick is to make the long term items even more urgent than today’s emergencies. Break them into steps and give them deadlines. Measure your people on what they did today in support of where you need to be next month.
If you work in an urgent-only culture, the only solution is to make the right things urgent.
I’m thinking about how we are approaching our moving houses and putting things away. Urgent things, one box at a time. I think it’s working well. That’s a medium-length goal of a few weeks though.
What I really want to figure out is how to apply this to taking my wife on a real honeymoon to Ireland someday, actually learning the music I really want to play on guitar, to teaching my kids how to read and play violin, to paying for their schooling, to saving up for stuff down the road. I have these long-term goals, but somehow I must convert them into a little something to do NOW to pull them off. Saving money toward something is one of the hardest to actually do, but at least it’s straight-forward. As for the other things, they needs some thought. And more immediate will.
OK, so it’s been many years since I’ve followed pop radio, but last year I discovered The Weepies after hearing an interview on NPR. They are pop/folk duo with remarkable songwriting skills and melodies. Most of their songs and arrangements are very simple and straight-forward but oh-so-good. I mean, when is the last time you heard an album where every song was good? One after another!
Their latest album Hideaway (recorded in the their house) just came out and I was a sucker to get it. I’ve only listened through it a couple times and can’t say it is as good as their previous effort Say I Am You, but it looks to still have a lot of gems on it.
Here is the lyrics and a 30-sec clip from the opening track “Can’t Go Back Now”.
Listen
Yesterday, when you were young,
Everything you needed done was done for you.
Now you do it on your own
But you find you’re all alone,
What can you do?
You and me walk on
Cause you can’t go back now.
You know there will be days when you’re so tired that you can’t take another step,
The night will have no stars and you’ll think you’ve gone as far as you will ever get
But you and me walk on
Cause you can’t go back now
And yeah, yeah, go where you want to go
Be what you want to be,
If you ever turn around, you’ll see me.
I can’t really say why everybody wishes they were somewhere else
But in the end, the only steps that matter are the ones you take all by yourself
And you and me walk on
Yeah you and me walk on
Cause you can’t go back now
Walk on, walk on, walk on
You can’t go back now
Don’t keep trying the same thing over and over again. If it’s not working, try something else. Don’t keep bashing your head into the wall over and over just to prove you’re not giving up. Maybe you can go around it, or over it. I’m just talking to myself here.
go to work, send your kids to school
follow fashion, act normal
walk on the pavement, watch T.V.
save for your old age, obey the law
Repeat after me: I am free
I’m not sure if this if the writer meant this to be cynical or an appeal to be content.
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