Here and Now

I just called to get my car serviced at a local place.  Every time I call, they answer the phone like this: "It's a great day at NAME OF THE SERVICE CENTER. This is Joe, how can I help you?" Every time.  Now it can't be a great day every time.  I know that, 'cause I've sat in the waiting area for hours while they've worked on my car before - while they've dealt with some really difficult people at the counter, unhappy with something - maybe their fault, maybe not, but in the middle of dealing with those problem people, the phone rings, and, sure enough, "It's a great day at..." So, I called today to make an appointment.  Set it up, no problems, no hassles, no "let me fit you in" but "what time works for you?" Had to call three hours later to change the time (of course  I did, my life is crazy sometimes).  He said, "So what time works best for you that afternoon."  I said, "About 2:00 okay?"...

Quote from an article  here  Here’s publishing’s dirty little secret:  most books are not worth finishing.  Most books could be cut in half and you wouldn’t miss a thing . That's from this guy: Michael Hyatt, Chairman of  Thomas Nelson Publishing  which is like the hugest Christian publisher in the world or something. Which begs the question in my mind...   Why not cut the books in half then? Read the article.  I'm not taking anything out of context here.  He says there are too many great books out there to get bogged down reading merely good good books.  And mostly he's talking about saving time.  Yeah, I get it.  But he's the world's largest Christian book publisher - and he's saying that most books published should only be half as long...so, again, why aren't they? I don't know Michael Hyatt.  This is actually more about the nature of the internet and the need to produce continual content that we too...

...and that's all it has to do, right? I've never read  this book  by John Stossel - truth is, I barely know who he is (he's on, like, TV somewhere, right?).  But I hit on a link to a link to a link to a Fox news article  here  with the great title "Almost Everything We're Taught Is Wrong."***  I mean, how do you pass that  one up? So, anyway, one of the things the article (and presumably, the book) suggests is that while we would all agree that child labor is a bad thing  - bordering on human rights violations - abuse - evil even, maybe...  BUT... well... they suggest that if you pull children out of the sweatshops in the poorest of poor countries...there's a good chance they end up as child prostitutes.  Okay, now I know it's not a one-to-one correlation.  What they say is something like there's a dramatic increase in child prostitution... So, yeah, that actually kind of makes sense, though.  The kids are going to ha...

So (and I just checked the date to make sure) May 31st I sent an email to a customer service account for a webpage with an issue (that had been going on for weeks if not months before that) and they responded right away - which was really cool.  Actually, here's the email exchange, which I've edited to keep them anonymous (ish).... ME:   Message:  So when go to  print  a two page article (click on the  print  friendly button) - I can  print  page one, but at the bottom there's a page 2 which takes me back to the HTML page 2 - when I click on the  print  button, it takes me to the  print  friendly page ONE again...  both Google Chrome and Internet Explorer...   THEM:  Hi William, I see what you mean. The same thing happened to me.  I passed your email along to my manager.   ME:   Thanks for the response.  It's good to know the comments don't just go off in the aether somewhere never t...

There's a whole litany of things that pastors shouldn't hear - and we self select out of a lot of them.  Dirty jokes -  or sexual talk in general - we shouldn't really listen to very negative talk and so on.  But one kind of talk is hard to avoid, because it masks itself so well. Gossip. I hate it.  But it comes at me so fast and so well hidden, that sometimes I'm repeating it before I realize it's gossip. No, really.  Here's what I mean. "Pastor, you really need to pray for Edna***, she's having a really hard time with her husband right now..." and on come the so called details.  And, no I might not repeat the details, but I might pass on that we need to pray for Edna.  Which might be a surprise to some people. Especially Edna. Who is NOT having trouble in her marriage right now, thank you very much, but is now having a problem with her pastor. So, it's easy.  Now, I really try to guard against it.  But it happens (and no, this...

So I've finally  corrected one of those things that I've somehow missed for...well, I don't know how long.  And it was so stinking obvious...anyway, I finally added a link to Seth Godin's blog to the links section.  And the REAL problem is that I don't read Seth's blog as often as I should...  Now I don't have an excuse...  It's linked here on my blog, so I don't have an excuse. Seth is my hero for presentations.  He uses like 100 slides for his 30 minute talks.  Now, I do like 30 minute talks and I use like...10 slides... um... So, yeah, I get it, he does the same talk over and over and I think I would get fired if I did that, but, still - images are engaging - and they engage a VERY different part of the brain than the ears that are hearing words - often to reinforce words - that's why we use images.  Yes, some of the images are kind of throwaway images (and if you see Seth Godin's talks, some of his are kind of throwaway, too) but some o...

Yesterday in my sermon I talked briefly about the last speeding ticket I got - I was talking about taking responsibility for our actions and the consequence of sin (yep, I WAS indeed going 54 in that 35 MPH zone - lots of "reasons" for it, but...I did it).  So, anyway, that's not what I want to talk about here.  It just reminded me of it. A couple weeks ago I got a parking ticket (did you know I was such a law breaker?).  Now, parking tickets aren't like speeding tickets.  Speeding is related to reckless driving.  When was the last time you heard of reckless parking?  In fact, I think it's even called a non-moving violation (which sounds kinda bad in its own right, doesn't it?). But.  I'll take a hundred of these parking tickets.  Here's the deal.  I met a guy for coffee in Tidioute, the community down the road that is working with us in ministry and I was so...eager to start the conversation that I didn't even see that there were parking...

So I ran across this post this morning: http://www.blogher.com/why-our-parents-put-us-shame And she says that our parents were better for lots of reasons - our parents' generation cooked real meals, and disciplined kids (generally), and knew the value of money and weren't parenting philosophy zealots and made us play outside (until after dark) and didn't throw Hollywood birthday parties. And I get it. And she's right. But she's also so, so wrong. 'Cause this ain't 1978 anymore.  And I've checked the Megan's Law website and the pedophile DOES live down the street (sometimes...they move around a lot it seems) and I don't know why we don't always have time to cook a "real" dinner...but we don't.  And I remember the lady who spanked her kid at the mall getting "caught on tape" and being national news for a couple weeks and...  well, it's not 1978 anymore... And while most of what the woman said in the art...

Next week there's a new tablet breaking.  The hype (which I have apparently missed up til now...but I'm out of the loop on everything) has been buzzing for a while.  Probably won't live up to it.  They hype that is.  Few things do, you know... The link

It is not what we do, but also what we do not do, for which we are accountable.  -Moliere, actor and playwright (1622-1673)  

It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English -- up to fifty words used in correct context -- no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese. -Carl Sagan, astronomer and writer (1934-1996)   I've always found this curious too.  

When you want to fool the world, tell the truth.  Otto von Bismarck, statesman (1815-1898) Jesus said,  "I n fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me."  (John 18:37) Several years ago I was running really late for a meeting.  I was new pastor, this was my second time on this committee which was made up of lots of pastors who had lots of years of experience - I was the new guy - and I was late.  So I'm doing everything I can to shave seconds off the trip and focused on what I have to do when I get there and when I walk I and sit down everyone is staring at me expectantly. Crap.  I forgot to make up an excuse.  Think quick.  Come on, you can do this. "I'm sorry I'm late everyone... I... forgot about the meeting."  WHAT?! The truth?  Idiot... But...Everybody laughed and then someone said the most curio...

So we play games at our house. A lot of Uno. Sometimes Parcheesi or Trouble (Star Wars Trouble with the beeping R2D2... yeah, we're THAT family - we have talking Battleship, too - neener, neener) and whatever else the girls want to play. Anyway, we taught them a card game called Hand and Foot. Actually, we taught them a variation of a variation of the game that we were taught by someone who probably didn't fully have a grasp on the rules. But it's how we play it.*** At some point during a game the Beatty trash talk starts. Someone (usually Lori or I) will realize they are losing and look to see who is winning and say, "You're winning because you're a cheater." Or, like last night in Hand and Foot, I said to Lori, "Of course you're winning, you're keeping score and whoever keeps score always wins. Cheater." Now, you can't hear tone on a blog post, I get that. No one ever walks away from the table in tears. It's just pa...

So, today there's a  link to an article  in my inbox (which is normal, I get a bunch of email newsletters and the like with links to articles).  Today's was a link to Sermon Central, as good website for the most part, with an article by Perry Noble, who usually has some pretty insightful things to say about ministry and leadership. But today...well, somebody dropped the ball...