3 words to live by: Read, read, read

  • "Mattis was known to have had a personal library of over 7,000 books, and prompted the study of history for his troops through required reading lists of various history books for his officers before battle."
  • "He noted that his reading, 'doesn’t give me all the answers, but it lights what is often a dark path ahead.'"
  • "Mattis reportedly never owned a television set."

I've experienced some things in reading that may have helped deepen his intellect:
  • Books require you to follow an argument in close detail. A book's length allows it's author to dig into great detail and requires close and sustained attention from readers.
  • Novels allow authors to develop characters over time, requiring readers to navigate subtlety.
  • In this fast media age, books require us to give them time. We won't resolve things in the 30 minutes of a sitcom or the 2 hours of a movie. Instead, we have to display patience as we digest the book.

I have to think that reading discipline gave him an intellectual depth that helped him find his way through dilemmas. We often find ourselves on the horns of dilemmas, confronted by 2 alternatives neither of which lead to favorable outcomes. A deep intellect can help us find a 3rd way. Being able to find ways through dilemmas leads to a good reputation. Some points from the article:
  • "Beyond the bravado, and tough wartime rhetoric, Mattis was known to be an intellectual among the military’s upper ranks, a thoughtful and well-read commander, emphasizing (perhaps in a monkish way) the study of both history and philosophy."
  • "Mattis emphasized that his Marines always take a reasoned approach to the battlefield"
  • "Mattis’ ethics ensure that he has always told politicians and higher-ups his honest views on often thorny political or military issues."
If you build it, will they come?

The National Wood Flooring Association launched an online university to prepare people for certifications in wood flooring. Why did they do that? Apparently, not enough young people are taking up the trades. I don't think that means an industry is dying. It may mean perceptions of the industry by potential skilled workers need to be updated.

Demand and supply factors in the shortage of skilled labor.
  • Demand: Workforce in the trades is aging out.
  • Supply: Young people still want to go to college instead of take up a trade.

The trades are concerned their careers aren't as flashy as others. NWFA University offers digital badges as credentials in response.

Flashiness isn't the cure-all, however. Saying college isn't necessary isn't the solution either. There are benefits from going to college that tradespeople can gain. Rather, there needs to be a way to help people find a balance. What incentives are there, for example, to encourage working tradespeople to take college courses on the side? A degree can be had without going into debt while fixing the labor shortages in the trades.
Hallelujah Chorus etiquette: Stand or sit?

It's that time of year to go to a Messiah concert, and you'll have to make a decision about the Hallelujah chorus: stand or stay seated?

  • The most popular story is that "King George II, attending the London premiere of 'Messiah' in March of 1743, was so moved by the 'Hallelujah’' that he stood up - and if the king stands, everybody stands." The more cynical theorized the king had to go to the bathroom and was waiting for intermission, ready to sprint.
  • People stood for other numbers as well, so the Hallelujah Chorus tradition remains from something that was more common.
  • The sacred nature of the words moved some people to stand on reflex. They may have felt like they were in church listening to hymns.

Here's what some people advise:

There are a couple of solutions:

So what to do if there's no guidance in the program or from the stage? It may be a situational thing.
  • I attended one that was performed in a light way, the choir members dressed in Christmas costumes and flashing signs with the words. The Hallelujah Chorus was merely one selection among other Christmas music, sacred and secular. Not many people stood for that one.
  • Another performance was a more traditional performance of Messiah. Everyone stood for that one.

Either way, the advice to include consideration of other people's enjoyment of the performance is always in season.
The star of Bethlehem. Out for last year's Christmas season, this may be worth your time to read over the coming holidays. Why would it be important for the average Christian? One way to look at it is contextualization. In the spirit of the apostle Paul's becoming all things to all men, this age fancies itself enlightened through science. If so, your friends will be interested in factoids about cometography and the reasonableness of seeing the star as a significant natural phenomenon. Why suggest it was a natural phenomenon? It could be a way to direct conversation to God's control of nature, one element of an apologetic argument.

===========
The Great Christ Comet: Revealing the True Star of Bethlehem by Colin R. Nicholl on Amazon (hardcover | Kindle) on Barnes and Noble (hardcover | Nook)

Is crowdfunding like grant management?

Apparently, Steve Wozniak has stopped participating in crowdfunding projects because he can't see how the money is being spent. Among other things he said in an interview is this: "I’ve actually turned away from self-funding for now. Kickstarter and Indiegogo and those sort of things…You never get to see their accounting. You never get to see how they used your money. It’s not like a real open company."

This makes me think of applying for and managing grants and donations. The funding sources want to see how their money is spent, and they get irritated if money goes to overhead costs rather than direct costs involved in moving the project forward. Many funding sources I've encountered put conditions on use of the funds, including reporting requirements. Excluded items can include overhead costs like marketing and office equipment.

That makes sense, because that kind of spending can become excessive, so funding sources want some kind of accounting. There are some who push back because groups like non-profits that depend on grants can be hindered by not being able to use money where they see the most need.

What have you seen that is a win-win solution, and how can it be applied to crowdfunding?
Pastors, shepherds of minds. Here's a challenging statement: "…all Christians are to be theologians." Your pastor wants to bring out the theologian in you. How does Peter Beck do it for his congregation? Dwell on this: "…my mantra has become “orthodoxy leads to orthopraxy”—right thinking leads to right action."

Don't shy away from the intellectual side of your faith when your pastor brings it up. Take it on!
Is your pastor wondering about developing an academic/scholarly side to his ministry? Here are some points made in an interview about finding that path:
  • "I’ve always loved being very involved in the church and teaching in the academy. I’ve never really drawn a sharp line between the two."
  • "…pastoral ministry may be the best thing I ever did, because nothing has helped me as a professor in the classroom more than being a pastor in a church."
  • "If a student is seeking the Lord with all his heart and longing to please him, and he’s divided between pastoral ministry and an academic career, I would ask which desire is strongest. I trust God is leading and directing him, so which desire is stronger in his heart?"

There are other points in the interview that will help your pastor think about blending the professional and academic dimensions.

The most important statement for me was, "But the Lord also leads by circumstances." Some people might call this the door theory, God opens some doors and closes others. You might consider circumstances the call, and the ensuing journey the pursuit of your calling. I pondered this when I wrote my book, Your Unfinished Business: Find God in Your Circumstances, Serve Others in Theirs. God calls you in your circumstances and guides you toward your calling.

==============
Your calling is your unfinished business. Read Your Unfinished Business: Find God in Your Circumstances, Serve Others in Theirs to start pursuing your unfinished business.

Click one of the links below to buy the book in your favorite format:

Pastors versus scholars

  • Scholars, like pastors, serve the local church.
  • Both pastors and scholars are called and gifted by God for his glory.
  • Both pastors and scholars are lashed to the Word of God.
  • Pastors should strive to be public theologians.
  • Scholars should strive to be committed churchmen.

Hold up your pastor in prayer and be glad for scholarly inclinations.
Pay attention to your mind. Here's an organization dedicated to theological scholarship, the Evangelical Theology Society. Scholars like these generate ideas that filter into the mainstream and shape the thinking of lay people.

While it's important for seminaries to turn out well-grounded pastors, it's also important to turn out well-grounded scholars. In our media-centric age that values knowledge and creativity, the scholars give us intellectual tools for engaging the culture.

=========

Your calling is your unfinished business. Read Your Unfinished Business: Find God in Your Circumstances, Serve Others in Theirs to start pursuing your unfinished business.

Click one of the links below to buy the book in your favorite format:

How to thrive in the age of robots

Via Robotics Industry Association, how collaborative robots are part of the workplace. When compliance in areas like safety becomes a focus, that means the technology has become more established. How can people thrive?

Key point: "As a growing number of collaborative robots inhabit the factory floor, safety continues to be a major concern. Collaborative robotics and safety go hand in hand. You can’t have human-robot collaboration without mitigating the risks for injury."

Points:
  • Specs out: "…technical specifications in the collaborative robotics realm was released in February. ISO/TS 15066:2016 Robots and Robotic Devices – Collaborative Robots provides data-driven guidelines for designers, integrators, and users of human-robot collaborative systems on how to evaluate and mitigate risks."
  • The real story: "…it’s a common misconception that if the robot is 'inherently safe' then the operation is safe. Not true."

Impact on the workforce: "The question is how do you achieve that higher output without adding people? Sometimes it’s very hard to add people because of the space constraints. By adding robots, we were able to achieve higher output with the same number of people, at the lowest cost possible with technology that is low cost and flexible."

So how do we help people who would have otherwise been put into roles now taken by robots?
Progress, decline, and the gospel

Via Arts and Letters Daily, a review of Stephen B. Smith's Modernity and Its Discontents: Making and Unmaking the Bourgeois from Machiavelli to Bellow (hardcover, Kindle) that makes for an interesting read. Does modernity really afflict us and set us up for a dystopic future? Smith thinks so, concluding, "The narrative of progress is no longer sustainable…The regime officially dedicated to the pursuit of happiness [the United States] has found the attainment of happiness an increasingly elusive object of desire." Is that really the case?

Points:
  • Modernity defined: "…a handful of core convictions: the value of freedom and equality; the importance of being able to think for oneself; the real possibility of universal enlightenment."
  • Modernity born: "…in the past two centuries those who have moved to a city and entered into ever more cosmopolitan social relationships have experienced accelerating change."
  • Modernity resisted: "…new forms of fearful rural populism and religious fundamentalism have arisen, furiously resisting the main currents of social change."
  • Modernity rationalized, according to the reviewer: "…we can, and should, acknowledge improvement when we see it. Our discontents are real, but so is our uneven progress in the past 200 years in reducing poverty, spreading literacy and lengthening the life span for ordinary people around the world."

Book reviews are useful to read. The reviewers don't just summarize the book, they also bring up points the author may not have considered or considered and disregarded. A review also gives us food for thought. In this case, we have to deal with a dilemma, the grim future in Smith's book and the reviewer's assertion that progress is still possible.

Christians have a third way, a way off the horns of that dilemma. The gospel is good news because it's about an intervention from outside, the Word made flesh. The incarnation happened at the height of the Roman Empire, a response to the dilemma of a oppression by the dominant empire and the good news the Emperor Augustus proclaimed.

So you're presented with 2 alternatives from the same source, the world shows you a dark trend but promises a bright future if you only believe it's message. The gospel of Christ punches a hole in that, giving you a 3rd way, a world that's outside of this one and not subject to the contradiction of decline and progress.




Are we already in the Matrix?


Focus: "Just as divine authority was legitimised by religious mythologies, and human authority was legitimised by humanist ideologies, so high-tech gurus and Silicon Valley prophets are creating a new universal narrative that legitimises the authority of algorithms and Big Data."

Points:
  • Big trend: "…given enough biometric data and computing power, this all-encompassing system could understand humans much better than we understand ourselves. Once that happens, humans will lose their authority, and humanist practices such as democratic elections will become as obsolete as rain dances and flint knives."
  • Big threat: "…humanism is now facing an existential challenge and the idea of “free will” is under threat. Scientific insights into the way our brains and bodies work suggest that our feelings are not some uniquely human spiritual quality. Rather, they are biochemical mechanisms that all mammals and birds use in order to make decisions by quickly calculating probabilities of survival and reproduction."
  • Big fear: "…we are now at the confluence of two scientific tidal waves. On the one hand, biologists are deciphering the mysteries of the human body and, in particular, of the brain and of human feelings. At the same time, computer scientists are giving us unprecedented data-processing power. When you put the two together, you get external systems that can monitor and understand my feelings much better than I can. Once Big Data systems know me better than I know myself, authority will shift from humans to algorithms. Big Data could then empower Big Brother."
  • Big takeover: "…eventually people may give algorithms the authority to make the most important decisions in their lives, such as who to marry."

Are you indeed the sum total of data collected about you? Are you willing to hand your life over to the cloud? Since the computing power that crunches all that data about you resides in the cloud, I'm reminded of the Michaelangelo fresco in the Sistine Chapel, The Creation of Adam. God, dwelling in the clouds, is reaching to Adam to give the spark of life. Will that be us, gaining the spark from algorithms instead of God?


Pragmatic spirit, critical mind

From Your Unfinished Business: Find God in Your Circumstances, Serve Others in Theirs (paperback, Kindle) We want to be able to discern pragmatically, so let's mimic the mind of the centurion in the New Testament who sought help for his ailing servant from Jesus Christ. This man, responsible for one hundred Roman soldiers, certainly worked long hours, paying his soldiers on time, training them well in their profession, and properly equipping them for missions given them by the Empire. In his years of campaigning, he probably developed a pragmatic and critical attitude. He was certainly pragmatic, the Biblical account crediting him with building a synagogue for the Jews in his geographic area of responsibility. This act suggested at the very least a practical sensitivity to the local culture and the need for occupying forces to be on good terms with the inhabitants.

He could think critically. Having seen different cultures and encountered diverse philosophies and religions, he would certainly probe for authenticity, closely examining truth claims by others. So when he sent representatives to Jesus, seeking Jesus’s help in healing an ailing servant, it’s not surprising he told Jesus, “Just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man placed under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, ‘Go!’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come!’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this!’ and he does it” (Luke 7:7–8). He understood if Jesus were the real thing, there would be no need for the incantations and rituals he saw in the other cultures and religions he encountered.

Such incantations and rituals were designed to call down supernatural power, but if this Jesus were whom He claimed to be, He could heal the servant with a word. By giving such a command, Jesus, far from calling down supernatural power, would prove to be supernatural power itself. That centurion’s background, therefore, prepared him to understand the significance of Jesus’ claims and act on that knowledge.

Hmmm. Wasn't expecting that a pragmatic spirit and critical mind would lead to faith.

We’re like that Roman centurion. Whether student, professional, homemaker, or tradesperson, we’re faced with the same daily challenge of integrating faith with daily life. Like that centurion, we don’t spend time pondering theory in an ivory tower or avoiding the world on a desert island. Instead, our circumstances daily call us to examine whether faith is truly showing up in daily living, and our backgrounds cause us to look for those answers with the same pragmatic and critical mind as that centurion.
Moral injury

Via Military Missions Network on Facebook: "Moral injury is not classified as a mental disorder such as the more familiar post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. By definition, moral injury can develop when a veteran experiences or witnesses acts during war that violate deeply held moral beliefs. It may stem from the act of killing or witnessing death and may leave veterans struggling with their faith and experiencing inner conflict."

Other points:
  • "Moral injury also may present itself as the spiritual struggle experienced by veterans who feel they’ve violated their moral code during war or betrayed God."
  • "As a result of moral injury, some veterans may experience shame or guilt and many veterans are seeking forgiveness from a moral authority…It may be God, peers, family or friends."
  • "Even if a person is not very religious, those concepts come from a spiritual part of who they are"


I wonder if other professions can be subject to moral injury. For example, could someone told to prepare a false report suffer a form of moral injury?

Transition to trades

Via Military Missions Network on Facebook: "Millennials (those born after 1980) face an uncertain, scary future: Student loan debts, healthcare costs, and living expenses are higher than ever, while the postrecession labor market continues to slog. At a time when even some postgraduates from respectable schools are foaming latte milk at minimum wage while under mountains of debt, many millennials are choosing alternative paths such as trade schools that provide job-specific skills in fields as varied as manufacturing, automotive mechanics, and plumbing."

Other points in the article"
  • "But some now realize that trade schools can offer advantages that colleges don’t. Lower cost is one."
  • "The demand for middle-skill jobs—jobs that require a high-school diploma but not a university degree—is swelling."
  • "…middle-skill jobs in manufacturing and the auto industry employ millions of Americans, but employers are finding it increasingly difficult to find good workers who want to do manual labor."


This is supposed to also protect one's livelihood against automation. However, we should keep growing in awareness and understanding so we can figure out the direction of change this world goes through.
Leading a small group discussion?

Here are some elements to help you organize your discussion questions taken from my Your Unfinished Business (available as paperback and Kindle) study guides. They give you different ways to help participants tackle the discussion topic.
  • Consider: A warm-up period to help the group start thinking about the discussion topic.
  • Understand: Discussion of the key verse and related Bible verses to help the group learn spiritual truths related to the discussion topic.
  • Apply: A quotation from the book and related questions to challenge the group to apply what they’ve learned.
Leading a small group Bible or book study?

Here are some tips from my Your Unfinished Business (available as paperback and Kindle) study guides.
  • What’s said in the small group stays in the small group. Sharing personal thoughts can be an experience in vulnerability, so help each other by keeping confidences (within legal boundaries of course).
  • Not everyone will say much. Sometimes, someone may want to listen more than speak, so don’t create expectations that everyone has to speak all the time.
  • But don’t monopolize the discussion either. At times silence can be a useful time for people to think things through.
Print versus digital: Which is better?

This looks like a topic that will keep pundits employed for quite a while. Via Education Advisory Board, report concluded digital may be fine for short, to the point material, but print was better for longer, more complex material. One question not answered is whether those characteristics of digital and print were inherent in the medium or whether writers could  adjust their writing styles to take advantage of digital media.

Let's assume a couple of points:
The report's conclusions are correct for now.

Points in the report:
  • "…students said print is aesthetically more pleasing, that it gives them a sense of place in the text, strains their eyes less, and doesn't encourage multitasking as much as digital texts do."
  • "…they enjoyed digital reading because it's easier to read in the dark, saves paper, allows them to multitask, and makes it easier to find 'quick information.'"

My experience:
  • I didn't sense  difference between print and digital for materials with a strong narrative flow. Novels and biographies come to mind.
  • I have found printed materials more useful for having a feel for the scope of the piece. Non-fiction like professional and academic books come to mind. It's much easier to flip back to the table contents and other locations to have a feel where the particular section fits in the overall item.
  • So far, print has it over digital for marginalia. While digital books like Amazon's Kindle format make it possible to highlight, digital books don't allow for marginalia. Some people like to sketch diagrams of what they read. I like to mark up the page so it looks more like an outline that helps me keep everything in context.
  • Unrelated to the topic at hand but important to writers: print makes it possible for authors and readers to interact in a personal way. For example, authors are happy to autograph books for their readers.

In spite of it all, I have been making the switch to digital reading.
  • I have moved a lot, and all those book boxes are heavy.
  • Print requires much more shelf space. I've gotten rid of many, many books because I've had no room.
  • I like having my library with me at all times. For example, I'll read at the airport while waiting for my plane and also during the flight, and I can switch to another book easily if I want to.

How to replicate marginalia with digital books? When reading on a desktop computer or tablet, I open Microsoft OneNote and use it to outline, doodle, etc. OneNote has great organizing features that allow me to track with chapters and sections. If I'm reading a print book, I can even take a photo of an interesting page and save it in OneNote.
Calling and intuition

Via Business Insider, intuition can be a help in making decisions quickly. How can you develop your intuition? One way to do it is to have a strong sense of calling.  Let's talk about calling first.

In Conversations About Calling (hardcover, paperback, Kindle), Valerie Myers defined calling as a "transcendent and generative ethical system that seeks to produce 'good work' - ethical and increasingly excellent results." In other works, your calling drives you to accomplish great and noble things. That means calling integrates the different dimensions of your life under a common theme.

Calling as a system that produces good work means you have framework for decision-making. The system part means you have a worldview that helps you make sense of what you experience and what the world should look like when you produce that good work. When you have a framework, decision-making becomes more intuitive because you already have some boundaries and criteria that have become an automatic part of thinking.  
The old value-add?

Back in the day, I always heard the term "value-add," as the kind of extra a seller threw in to show the product or service was worth the price being asked. An article argues those small extras appeal to Millennials, especially in the beauty markets. Other popular spending categories included cell phones and Uber rides.

Points:
  • A proxy for the Fountain of Youth? "...American consumers are transfixed on youth (something makeup can provide)."
  • Small things give a big feeling? "...spending money on makeup can feel like a 'small indulgence.'"
  • Goliath beaten by a bunch of Davids? "...while department stores used to be a key destination for beauty many of the mainstream players have been outsmarted by specialists."
  • All about the experience? "...they [specialty stores] sell experiences - something millennials love."

Enthusiasts will say Millennials have transcended material desires, so little things will suffice. Cynics may say Millennials go for this because they can't afford larger luxuries due to overly high expectations collide with student debt and underemployment.


I'm not sure either one is the only reason.  Called engagement marketing, the approach of getting consumers to participate with the brand has been spreading among sellers. Agencies specialize in creating experiences that lead to buyer engagement. Maybe the observation about Millennials is one manifestation of that approach.
Validating people

Via Business Insider, this little video is about what to give fathers on Fathers Day. The psychologist challenges viewers to not give gifts. Instead, give validation. For example, thank Dad for being there when you needed him.

Come to think of it, this could apply to what we can do for other people. We can validate our colleagues at work, our other family members at home, and our neighbors in the community.

What does it take besides saying something nice? It takes understanding of what the person does to have an impact in order to find the right words to say. For example, at work, we can say, "Thank you for stepping up and doing that particular task. There was no else to do it, and it got us through this particular part of the project." Notice how the thanks is tied to a specific act.

We can also validate people for what they've done over time. A friend told a story about an old Little League coach of his who was impressed when my friend's father thanked the coach for taking the time to spend with the boys on that team. The coach said most parents complained, but my friend's father was one of the few who recognized the value of what the coach was doing.

Happy Father's Day.
Thriving in an automated workplace

Via McKinsey, a core workplace issue is how to thrive in an automated workplace. It's pretty optimistic. Some background the article provided:
  • Occupations won't be automated out of existence in the near term. But up to 45% of activities will become fully automated, leading to job redefinition.
  • Benefits of automating activities is 3-10 times the cost.
  • Fewer than 5% of occupations will be fully automated by current technology, but 60% of occupations can automate at least 30% of activities.
  • Paradoxically, activities in high-wage occupations (e.g., 20% of a CEO's activities) can also be automated, but certain lower-wage occupations can't be easily automated, e.g., home health aides, landscapers, maintenance workers.
  • What sets humans apart, so they say, is creativity and emotional intelligence. However, only 4% of activities require creativity, and 29% require emotional intelligence.

What does this mean for the future?
  • Jobs need to be redefined to absorb automation of activities.
  • New job forms can engage people in more creative and innovative activities.


Other thoughts: Christians in the workplace have an additional opportunity. Determining and pursuing God's calling can't be automated. A calling creates a vision of an end state, and reaching that end state requires creativity, innovation, and integration. Those areas are still the province of humans.
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)