Brilliant piece by Alan Jacobs (HT: John Fea)
HOW CHANGE HAPPENS
Leave a reply
Category Archives: Wisdom
WISDOM ON TECHNOLOGY
“Social media was not invented to make you better. It was invented to make the companies money.”
Seth Godin
HT: Tim Ferriss blog
AGING
Reflections from one of my journals:
Aging is a secret society to your younger self. You enter into it much quicker than you ever imagined. The dues which you must pay are very steep!
POOPING ELEPHANTS, MOWING WEEDS
Perhaps you have noticed that the book icon for Pooping Elephants, Mowing Weeds: What Business Gurus Failed to Tell You does not take you to Amazon. Well, that shall soon be remedied. Pooping Elephants, Mowing Weeds…will be released this March in ebook format for less than two bucks.
This was a fun and gratifying ebook to write. Like many ebooks, it is short at about 7,500 words. I believe it offers some needed perspective, especially for those who are in the business community.
Stay tuned!
SPECULATION AND OTHER ASININE ACTIVITIES
My dear friend, John Freeman, sent me the idiotic reflections of someone commenting on a recent tragedy. The following words quickly congealed in my mind:
We presume, assume, and finally consume our pathetic speculations.
DIDEROT EFFECT
“Sometimes it’s nice to learn that a psychological phenomenon has a name, if only so I no longer have to think of it as Me Being Uniquely Irrational And Self-Defeating. So it is with the Diderot effect – which, I learned recently (via Lifehacker), is the term for when you buy something new, but then it makes your other possessions look timeworn by comparison, so you end up replacing them, too. The inspiration here is Denis Diderot’s 1769 essay Regrets For My Old Dressing Gown, in which he recounts being given a luxurious replacement. “My old robe was one with the other rags that surrounded me,” Diderot laments. But “all is now discordant”. Before long, he’s obliged to replace his furniture and paintings as well: “I was the absolute master of my old robe. I have become the slave of the new one.”
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/oct/02/shopping-diderot-effect-oliver-burkeman
BRILLIANT PASTORAL INSIGHTS
SPURGEON’S SORROWS
My interview with the author of Spurgeon’s Sorrows:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2015/02/21/spurgeons-sorrows-by-zack-eswine/
LITERATURE’S POWER
“I think the best psychologists are actually fiction writers,” Konnikova said. “Their understanding of the human mind is so far beyond where we’ve been able to get with psychology as a science.”
The narrow focus required by scientific research can miss the big picture, Konnikova said; researchers often tinker around the edges of wisdom elucidated by novelists a hundred years ago. “You need the careful experimentation, but you also need to take a step back and realize that fiction writers are seeing a broader vista and are capable of providing you with insights or even ideas for studies.”
The rest is here: http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/33945/title/It-s-Elementary/
GROWING OLD WITH INTENTION AND JOY
While on campus I finally got around to reading the Hays Festschrift.
My favorite chapter was the last one, written by Richard himself along with his wife of over 40 years. It’s called “The Christian Practice of Growing Old: The Witness of Scripture.” The chapter makes several excellent points:
1) Older characters in Scripture are often mentioned for their special wisdom or insight.
2) New Testament elders are worthy of honor and respect if not also special care and attention.
3) Aging “was never seen as a problem by the earliest Christians.”
4) The elderly bear a special responsibility to be models of faithfulness, temperance, and endurance.
5) The New Testament predicts unusual fruitfulness in old age (think Elizabeth and Zechariah).
6) Nowhere in the New Testament are the old said to be pitied or treated with condescension.
7) Like Jesus, we should seek the will of God no matter how old we are or at what age we die. “Consequently, as we grow old, we should seek to discern how to give our lives for others” (p. 660).
8) T. S. Elliot: “Old men ought to be explorers.”
9) “The special responsibility of older Christians is to lead, to teach, to counsel, as their gifts allow and as opportunities arise” (p. 664).
Amen to that! Folks, I realize that aging is not without its mysteries. But when older people choose to serve rather than be served, bless rather than curse, love their enemies rather than fight, truly the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Those who know that they are not much longer for this old world have a heavenly-mindedness that has plenty of earthly good! So — let those of us who are older imitate Jesus. Let’s develop a radical vision of the kingdom. Maybe we could even become out-of-the-box thinkers, given the kind of radical God we serve. Talk about a good reason to grow old! Nothing could be more rewarding than surrendering your gray hair and arthritis to Christ. There’s a choice to made about life, and it is simply this: Will we sacrifice ourselves for others, with whatever resources the Lord has given us? I don’t know about you, but this 62-year old geezer — *creak, creak* — can’t wait to do just that.
HT: David Black