Dear Friends,
My blog is moving to brynormous.blogspot.com.
Passion Fruit was established to be a "three-day blog extravaganza" to help me process and share my experience at the 2008 Q Conference in NYC. But I liked it so much I kept going, knowing all along that "normanatq" would need to change. So please head on over to brynormous.blogspot.com to continue reading. I've got a fresh post waiting!
Bryan
brynormous.blogspot.com
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Books Sent to Your Handheld Digital Toys
Popular service DailyLit, which sends free and paid serializations of classic and contemporary books, is extending its service to the twitterverse:
We’re excited to announce that starting on June 16th, DailyLit will be featuring book reading groups or group reads via Twitter. We’ll be starting with three titles: Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow; 100 Ways to Succeed/Make Money by Tom Peters; and Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Readers will be able to follow a particular title each day, with a “tweet” providing the link to that day’s installment. Everyone will receive installments according to the same schedule, and, of course, it’s all free.
We’re excited to announce that starting on June 16th, DailyLit will be featuring book reading groups or group reads via Twitter. We’ll be starting with three titles: Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow; 100 Ways to Succeed/Make Money by Tom Peters; and Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Readers will be able to follow a particular title each day, with a “tweet” providing the link to that day’s installment. Everyone will receive installments according to the same schedule, and, of course, it’s all free.
Setting the Table for Authors and Readers
I just read an insightful comment from an article at economist.com:
"Publishing has only two indispensable participants: authors and readers. As with music, any technology that brings these two groups closer makes the whole industry more efficient—but hurts those who benefit from the distance between them."
A publisher's traditional role has been "gatekeeper"; to survive and succeed in the coming years and and centuries, it seems we need to heed our friends at the Economist and become the "facilitator." Free content, innovative distribution to personal electronic devices, feeds to blogs and facebook accounts . . . all these have the opportunity of making publishers relevant, friendly even.
Take food. The only enterprise needed for sustenance is food and humans. But you'd still rather have a 5-star chef, right? And someone to bring it to you, yes? Publishers can either let readers forage for books or authors forage for readers. Or, we can bring them together like a match-making service that only desires to be a platform for the introduction.
"Publishing has only two indispensable participants: authors and readers. As with music, any technology that brings these two groups closer makes the whole industry more efficient—but hurts those who benefit from the distance between them."
A publisher's traditional role has been "gatekeeper"; to survive and succeed in the coming years and and centuries, it seems we need to heed our friends at the Economist and become the "facilitator." Free content, innovative distribution to personal electronic devices, feeds to blogs and facebook accounts . . . all these have the opportunity of making publishers relevant, friendly even.
Take food. The only enterprise needed for sustenance is food and humans. But you'd still rather have a 5-star chef, right? And someone to bring it to you, yes? Publishers can either let readers forage for books or authors forage for readers. Or, we can bring them together like a match-making service that only desires to be a platform for the introduction.
Monday, July 7, 2008
Lift with your legs, not with your back (leadership principles from Two Men and a Truck)
Recently I spent my entire birthday helping my parents move. It was an immense pleasure lifting heavy boxes, loading crates, and hoisting all-wood furniture while regressing to parent/child roles that made me feel like a thirteen year old caught smoking past curfew. Please don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t upset to work on my birthday. But the day was physically and relationally exhausting, much more than it should’ve been.
Because my dad hurt himself lately, it was just me and another guy doing all the heavy lifting. Somewhere between the armoire and sectional couch, it occurred to me that the root cause for the day’s drain was not a lack of energy or manpower but poor leadership. There were too many people with too many (uninformed) opinions, too many bickerings with not enough teamwork. The end result was ill-used space, disgruntled volunteers, and a day that lasted hours longer than needed.
What follows are some leadership principles I wished had been a part of the day. I’m certain they could’ve saved some heartache and maybe even made it fun.
Know Who’s Leading
Whether it’s kids building a tree house or a business striving to lead the industry, an enterprise needs a leader. It may seem too simple to even state. But let me tell you, when you’ve waited forty-five minutes for three people to figure out where the lawn chair goes, you understand that having a person in charge is far better than wasted time, energy, and enthusiasm, which all inevitably slip away when any operation stalls.
My dad was the heir apparent to the leadership role. It was his stuff, and he had the vested interest in its well being. But rather than leading the team, making sound and succinct decisions and keeping up morale and energy, he resigned his role the first time someone voiced a contrasting opinion. The result was fuzzy leadership-by-committee.
When you see a leadership vacuum, and you sense a tug to bring order to the chaos or direction to the confusion, step up. The most important part of leading is establishing that there’s a leader.
Get Aligned
Once said leader has emerged, everyone involved needs to agree that 1) there is a leader and that 2) the leader knows what he or she is doing and 3) everyone will do what the leader decides, even if it’s not what each individual might’ve done.
When we started loading the PODs, we discovered my parents had never moved an entire house. They didn’t have the right experience to lead. If they wanted the best results, they could have passed the authority to the most capable person. But that never happened. The result was a sporadic, edgy day without well delegated tasks or clear measures of progress.
Keep Balance Between the Ideal and the Realistic
My parents “ideal move” preserves every item like it's the Rosetta stone. Because their expectations were a little unrealistic, you could see anxiety swell as they imagined the banging and clanging grandma’s heirloom pie safe would endure if not ridiculously mummified. Rather than alleviating stress with a better packing strategy, they employed more blankets, towels, and cushions to fill the unused pockets of space.
Leaders should allow the room for failure. Great plans will never yield flawless results. For my parents, had they allowed the possibility that some of their stuff may get damaged—and been genuinely at peace with it—they could have overlaid the move with a sense of calm and confidence. Instead we got anxiety and a general sense that our every step was a potential threat to the stuff.
A good leader knows how to set realistic goals and understands that the collective abilities the team have a greater chance at getting good results than one person alone. Even more, a good leader knows that the end result is only great if it lifts the people striving for it. That day, it was only furniture that got lifted.
Love Well
Hours of heavy lifting on a hot June day won’t yield happy, lighthearted humans. Nerves will be short, words sharp. When the going gets tough, you have to decide to love the people around you. It’s likely you’ll say things you don’t mean and do things that you shouldn’t. During trials and challenges, having a big heart full of patience and perspective will keep you at bay when want to “accidentally” drop the Bowflex on someone’s toe.
Practice Humble Self-Awareness
Are you edgy? Sarcastic? Judgmental? Self-absorbed? Is there something about you that you know is less-than-perfect? (There is about me, for sure.) When the going gets tough, that less savory part of you is likely the first thing to rear its nasty head. Understand the triggers and symptoms that let you know your Dr. Jekyll has arrived. Then do what you can to neutralize it. Confess to others you’re frustrated. Admit and acknowledge your weaknesses. Take a break. Pray. Performance and morale will last longer if you’re able to identify your inner monsters and keep them at bay.
Lastly, Lift with Your Legs, Not Your Back
This isn’t leadership advice, just a tip for anyone moving. If you throw out your back you won’t be able to lift your relatives’ stuff for hours and hours. And you’ll miss the opportunity to plod through a leaderless haze laced with frustration. If you’re not in tip-top condition, you might also miss your opportunity to fill a leadership gap.
Because my dad hurt himself lately, it was just me and another guy doing all the heavy lifting. Somewhere between the armoire and sectional couch, it occurred to me that the root cause for the day’s drain was not a lack of energy or manpower but poor leadership. There were too many people with too many (uninformed) opinions, too many bickerings with not enough teamwork. The end result was ill-used space, disgruntled volunteers, and a day that lasted hours longer than needed.
What follows are some leadership principles I wished had been a part of the day. I’m certain they could’ve saved some heartache and maybe even made it fun.
Know Who’s Leading
Whether it’s kids building a tree house or a business striving to lead the industry, an enterprise needs a leader. It may seem too simple to even state. But let me tell you, when you’ve waited forty-five minutes for three people to figure out where the lawn chair goes, you understand that having a person in charge is far better than wasted time, energy, and enthusiasm, which all inevitably slip away when any operation stalls.
My dad was the heir apparent to the leadership role. It was his stuff, and he had the vested interest in its well being. But rather than leading the team, making sound and succinct decisions and keeping up morale and energy, he resigned his role the first time someone voiced a contrasting opinion. The result was fuzzy leadership-by-committee.
When you see a leadership vacuum, and you sense a tug to bring order to the chaos or direction to the confusion, step up. The most important part of leading is establishing that there’s a leader.
Get Aligned
Once said leader has emerged, everyone involved needs to agree that 1) there is a leader and that 2) the leader knows what he or she is doing and 3) everyone will do what the leader decides, even if it’s not what each individual might’ve done.
When we started loading the PODs, we discovered my parents had never moved an entire house. They didn’t have the right experience to lead. If they wanted the best results, they could have passed the authority to the most capable person. But that never happened. The result was a sporadic, edgy day without well delegated tasks or clear measures of progress.
Keep Balance Between the Ideal and the Realistic
My parents “ideal move” preserves every item like it's the Rosetta stone. Because their expectations were a little unrealistic, you could see anxiety swell as they imagined the banging and clanging grandma’s heirloom pie safe would endure if not ridiculously mummified. Rather than alleviating stress with a better packing strategy, they employed more blankets, towels, and cushions to fill the unused pockets of space.
Leaders should allow the room for failure. Great plans will never yield flawless results. For my parents, had they allowed the possibility that some of their stuff may get damaged—and been genuinely at peace with it—they could have overlaid the move with a sense of calm and confidence. Instead we got anxiety and a general sense that our every step was a potential threat to the stuff.
A good leader knows how to set realistic goals and understands that the collective abilities the team have a greater chance at getting good results than one person alone. Even more, a good leader knows that the end result is only great if it lifts the people striving for it. That day, it was only furniture that got lifted.
Love Well
Hours of heavy lifting on a hot June day won’t yield happy, lighthearted humans. Nerves will be short, words sharp. When the going gets tough, you have to decide to love the people around you. It’s likely you’ll say things you don’t mean and do things that you shouldn’t. During trials and challenges, having a big heart full of patience and perspective will keep you at bay when want to “accidentally” drop the Bowflex on someone’s toe.
Practice Humble Self-Awareness
Are you edgy? Sarcastic? Judgmental? Self-absorbed? Is there something about you that you know is less-than-perfect? (There is about me, for sure.) When the going gets tough, that less savory part of you is likely the first thing to rear its nasty head. Understand the triggers and symptoms that let you know your Dr. Jekyll has arrived. Then do what you can to neutralize it. Confess to others you’re frustrated. Admit and acknowledge your weaknesses. Take a break. Pray. Performance and morale will last longer if you’re able to identify your inner monsters and keep them at bay.
Lastly, Lift with Your Legs, Not Your Back
This isn’t leadership advice, just a tip for anyone moving. If you throw out your back you won’t be able to lift your relatives’ stuff for hours and hours. And you’ll miss the opportunity to plod through a leaderless haze laced with frustration. If you’re not in tip-top condition, you might also miss your opportunity to fill a leadership gap.
Friday, June 6, 2008
Why My Evil Sister Is Responsible for My Good Life
A few weeks ago, a friend of mine asked me to tell about how I became a Christian. As with all things, no good story is worth breezing through unless you can build the right tensions and climaxes. Before I barely got the first word out, we were interrupted, which has turned into a blessing. It occurred to me that 1) I haven't reflected on the momentous improbability of my salvation in a while and 2) I've never processed all the details fully myself. It was a perfect opportunity to write, and write I did. (The following is nearly 2500 words, totally inappropriate for a blog post, I know. But it was worth it for me to write, and I hope it's worth it for you to read.)
It could be compared to a water slide: the twists and turns feel at once wild and unpredictable but tame and designed to make you feel caught up in the safe chaos of the thing, exhilaration to be had without losing the sense of complete security.
I had been a younger brother all my life at the time this story takes place. A younger brother to an older sister. Now is not the time to recount how an older sister can so stunt and hinder a young boy’s quest to manhood, as she is so cruel and standoffish and will not let you flirt with her friends, who, she reminds you often, are much cooler than you’ll ever be and you better not even look at them.
My family had just moved from the mid western city of St. Louis to the southern hub of Memphis. I was ten then. The day we left I sat cross-legged on my bedroom floor, expansive without the bed, desk, or dresser, throwing cheese balls into the air and trying to catch them in my mouth. I couldn’t force myself to eat the ones that I missed, a decision I now interpret as intentional distancing with the room whose floor was once perfectly fine to eat my junk food off of.
It was a tough day for all of us; we had lived in St. Louis our whole lives. And my sister took the difficulty out on me in spades during the ride to Memphis. Her teasing was especially cruel; her only form of healing was transference. But like a callous formed from so many years of rubbing, I was accustomed to her sisterliness and got on with my life, my Gameboy, my great solace in the shared, small backseat for hundreds of miles.
We had seen our new house before and liked it quite well. Arriving lacked a certain tension and anticipation. Still, though, we were excited to be out of the car and noticed immediately that people noticed us with our big moving truck. A car passed by and a teenage girl with wiry brown hair stared at me a full 180 degrees of a swiveling head as the car drove past. I held her stair for as long as I cared to and followed the family into our new reality. Three years later we would kiss, and I wouldn’t know any good technique. In the house, the rooms were roomy, the backyard full of trees, the street full of neighbors, and the side yard—the one that wrapped around our corner lot—would become the platte of land where I would set my all-time soccer juggling record. It was a normal sort of place, so normal that you’re not even triggered to think of how normal it is.
These were the new hallways, this the kitchen, that the porch, and this the bathroom where my sister would find new environs through which to abuse my young, developing self. And the same goes for school, which was a particularly luscious bed for her because it involved the delicious multiplier of on-looking peers. Ignoring me at school and (I’ve always suspected but could never confirm) spreading rumors about me were her two most practiced weapons. People would snicker and point while I stealthily hugged the lockers during my brisk walks from class to class.
This went on for some time, my sister exploring her new territory and the natural resources available to belittle me, when an interesting twist happened. A new friend of hers, someone who seemed benign enough and would prove to actually be so, was a Christian. (Looking back I wonder if this friendship wasn’t some evangelistic crusade initiated by the friend via the local Girl Scout chapter to reclaim evil older sisters for the Kingdom of God.) This new friend convinced my sister of the merits of church, dangling the benefit of older boys in front of her, the perfect tactic, recruiters were told, to entice new membership in the youth group. My sister attended church from that point on, every Wednesday, religiously.
Maybe it was osmosis, associating with people who were genuinely nice and caring, that my sister began treating me a smidge better. Not enough, mind you, to be called a transformation but enough to give me some relief in my irrecoverable “social life” at Junior High.
Perhaps the lessened attack at school emboldened my sister to think herself in good standing with me and started inviting me to church using the same selling tools that were familiar to her, the promise of cute girls beyond my wildest imagination and friends, lots of friends, and the ability to dunk a basketball, which I desperately wanted to do. She was the devil showing me the extent of my prepubescent kingdom—if I would but attend church.
I imagine it could be compared to orbiting the earth in a space suit. You feel like you’re floating somewhat not at all though you’re moving, technically, at thousand of miles per hour. You glance at the earth and know the immutable properties of physics will keep you safely in orbit. You actually scientifically believe that you could float here in this same track, uninterrupted, until the end of all things unless, of course, you’re struck by a meteor. But you look around at the expanse, the lack of firmament, and can’t stop the instinctual switch from sending fear-triggered adrenaline.
For a year and a half her church invitations continued. It’s hard to express how annoying my sister was, how desperately I wanted her to disappear and stop asking me to come to church. Every week—every week—for seventy-eight weeks this conversation or some variation occurred:
“Hey Bryan, wanna go to church this week?”
“Nah,” I blandly grunt, playing Nintendo.
“There are gonna be girls and you can meet my friends,” she pitches with an inflection ascending through the appeal as if, by the end of it, her offer would be beyond refusal.
I sit silently, concentrating on Mario Brothers.
She stands there, falsely cherubic, until she realizes I don’t give a rat’s you-know-what and her demeanor changes in a way that even surprises me with its complete grimacing metamorphosis. She storms off, the Doppler effect coming to my aid as her litanies of my younger brother stupidities trail off in the distance. There were seventy-eight weeks of this. Seventy-eight. It’s annoying to recall even now.
I am sorry to say that on the seventy-ninth week my spirit broke. I don’t know why I’m sorry. I think it’s because I never wanted my sister to think her attempts to ruin my life had any affect on me. My annoyance at her offer was peaking, and I struck a deal with her.
“Hey Bryan, wanna go to church?”
I’m playing Nintendo and fuming. The usual long pause takes place after the offer is given, and as soon as her weekly pshaw of dismissal was about to fly, I speak up.
“I’ll go . . .” I murmur, my chin in my chest as if dejection and defeat were weighing me down, my eyes staring just under my eyebrows to show that wild beast in me that, if pushed one more time, will go absolutely lord of the flies, and I continue “under one condition. If I go tonight, you can never, ever ask me to go again.” I’m staring her straight in the eyes. “Deal?”
“Deal.”
A thin smile breaks over her face and she about faces.
You would think after seventy-eight weeks of build-up that I would have some anticipation for the first time I went to church “willingly.” But there wasn’t. I was most eager to get it over with and move on with my life.
Going to church was sorely disappointing. The harem I had been promised and the popularity were especially underwhelming. My sister had oversold and under delivered. The “girls” was really just one girl who I had known from school (who I would also kiss three years later). And the “friends” were my sister’s friends who accomplished the amazing feat of annoying me more than my sister did. Going to church that night felt like an amplified continuation of my torturous junior high life. Factions, cliques, the searing and unspoken judgment that inevitably comes when you don’t dress right . . . church had it all. And part of me was glad. I was getting great ammunition for my argument to never return.
The Wednesday night youth group, like most youth groups I’ve ever attended, began with contemporary Christian songs that had the potential to make kids sing (rather than the Sunday morning ones that were targeting adult Christians, the ones you needed the hymnal to sing because the old-school tunes had way too many notes peppering the clef). I remember everyone else singing “Our God Is an Awesome God.” But I had never heard that or any other youth group song before. So when we were all directed to stand and sing—and at times perform mild choreography—I just stood there, awkward.
Following the songs comes “the talk.” You have to call it a “talk” to rhetorically differentiate it from a “sermon,” which all teenagers are gifted at ignoring. The youth minister’s talk was forgettable, which I know experientially because I can’t remember a thing. Listening to him was like sitting in a class whose subject held no interest. The only redeeming feature of the man was his full mustache and wavy hair that made him look like Keith Hernandez, the New York ball player, but only if he were less famous and a tad more bohemian. Keith finished his forgettable talk. And it was just after when the trajectory of my life completely changed.
Just after his talk, Keith undertook what I now know is a very common Baptist recap of the gospel of Jesus Christ—the “when we were sinners, Christ died for us” bit that follows every sermon and talk. It lasted two to three minutes and ended with a call to action, to “accept Christ into your heart and if you have, please pray this prayer with me.” You could almost say it was an afterthought of the evening, a perfunctory obligation a highly evangelizing denomination feels compelled to do. The led prayer began, “Dear Jesus, I invite you into my heart and life now” followed with some platitudes of promised obedience, etc, etc.
But what is so hard to capture is how arrested I was in the two to three minutes that Keith’s suburban doppelganger explained who Jesus was, what he did for the world, and how that relates to me. It reminds me of how the kids in the Narnia books get swept away to the other world from the real one. It’s unexpected, unstoppable, and complete. The difficulty in the language to capture a moment like when you encounter Christ is similar to Shelley's challenge of capturing the instant her creation is brought to life. Listening to the Gospel, I found myself in a river of truth when, for the evening, I had been wading ankle-deep in the weak stream of social Christianity. When I heard the gospel story, something in my heart leapt and belted “Yes!” It was equal parts of God’s love for me, my acknowledged need of him, and the stunningly unconditional and proactive love of Jesus to do for me what I could not do for myself. In those two to three minutes, tectonic shifts were happening in the way I was willing to understand the world and myself. It took me completely by surprise.
As a social reject with no prospect of upward mobility, you live inside your own head quite a lot. And when something strikes you, whether it’s a cute girl, a good movie, your favorite video game, or a spiritual proposition, you take it to your familiar, internal, reclusive place. You extend it a personal invitation because it meets the criteria that the majority of your life doesn’t. It’s beautiful, affirming, enlivening, strengthening, engaging, challenging.
During the explanation of the Gospel, my heart and mind immediately recognized the goodness of the Christian story and invited it in. I wanted it, not as a consumer wants a gadget but as a human wants connection that taps into the great capacity for beauty, truth, and love. It was a very significant snippet of time where I felt, believed, and acknowledged that I had somehow encountered the God being described to me. And in a rash boldness, I accepted the offer of accepting Jesus into my heart and life. The acceptance was not a tentative you-have-to-prove-yourself beginning. No, the facts of the Gospel coupled with the actual encounter with God had sealed the deal. I was simply giving voice to what had happened, like closing on the house you already bought and know without hesitation that you want it. In that moment, I became Christian.
Becoming a Christian is a rather uneventful event. It’s almost confusing how normal things remained in that moment. I don’t know what I was expecting. Visions maybe, or superhero powers as a “sign-up” gift like the pen you get when you open a new checking account. But nothing happened (though later I learned I did receive the Holy Spirit, which is most like a superhero power). If the evening prior to this moment had been any indication, I was still going to be me and I would still be largely invisible to those whose criteria for acceptance I fell laughably short. Though, I know inside I was a different me. And I was right.
My night at church ended with a confession to some adults in the room that I had accepted Christ. They grilled me with a few questions to confirm my experience was legit—I mean, you can’t up your church’s salvation stats without due diligence—and I rode home in silence. Upon my arrival, I approached my channel-surfing mom and casually announced “Mom, I became a Christian tonight.” She replied in the fatigue following a day’s work, “That’s nice, honey.” A Murphy Brown re-run was on.
The day after my conversion and many days after, all days after, I began working out my salvation with diligence and a deep desire to know what I had gotten myself into. That process is a different story altogether that’s even more uneventful than this one. But like a long novel whose overall story will bring you tears and elation both, each sentence along the way strikes you as somewhat unimportant. Except, like every story worth reading, my encounter with Jesus were riveting opening lines. The moment God found me was not only the beginning of my story but the moment I was edited in as a new character into His ongoing story.
Why My Evil Sister Is Responsible for My Good Life
It could be compared to a water slide: the twists and turns feel at once wild and unpredictable but tame and designed to make you feel caught up in the safe chaos of the thing, exhilaration to be had without losing the sense of complete security.
***
I had been a younger brother all my life at the time this story takes place. A younger brother to an older sister. Now is not the time to recount how an older sister can so stunt and hinder a young boy’s quest to manhood, as she is so cruel and standoffish and will not let you flirt with her friends, who, she reminds you often, are much cooler than you’ll ever be and you better not even look at them.
My family had just moved from the mid western city of St. Louis to the southern hub of Memphis. I was ten then. The day we left I sat cross-legged on my bedroom floor, expansive without the bed, desk, or dresser, throwing cheese balls into the air and trying to catch them in my mouth. I couldn’t force myself to eat the ones that I missed, a decision I now interpret as intentional distancing with the room whose floor was once perfectly fine to eat my junk food off of.
It was a tough day for all of us; we had lived in St. Louis our whole lives. And my sister took the difficulty out on me in spades during the ride to Memphis. Her teasing was especially cruel; her only form of healing was transference. But like a callous formed from so many years of rubbing, I was accustomed to her sisterliness and got on with my life, my Gameboy, my great solace in the shared, small backseat for hundreds of miles.
We had seen our new house before and liked it quite well. Arriving lacked a certain tension and anticipation. Still, though, we were excited to be out of the car and noticed immediately that people noticed us with our big moving truck. A car passed by and a teenage girl with wiry brown hair stared at me a full 180 degrees of a swiveling head as the car drove past. I held her stair for as long as I cared to and followed the family into our new reality. Three years later we would kiss, and I wouldn’t know any good technique. In the house, the rooms were roomy, the backyard full of trees, the street full of neighbors, and the side yard—the one that wrapped around our corner lot—would become the platte of land where I would set my all-time soccer juggling record. It was a normal sort of place, so normal that you’re not even triggered to think of how normal it is.
These were the new hallways, this the kitchen, that the porch, and this the bathroom where my sister would find new environs through which to abuse my young, developing self. And the same goes for school, which was a particularly luscious bed for her because it involved the delicious multiplier of on-looking peers. Ignoring me at school and (I’ve always suspected but could never confirm) spreading rumors about me were her two most practiced weapons. People would snicker and point while I stealthily hugged the lockers during my brisk walks from class to class.
This went on for some time, my sister exploring her new territory and the natural resources available to belittle me, when an interesting twist happened. A new friend of hers, someone who seemed benign enough and would prove to actually be so, was a Christian. (Looking back I wonder if this friendship wasn’t some evangelistic crusade initiated by the friend via the local Girl Scout chapter to reclaim evil older sisters for the Kingdom of God.) This new friend convinced my sister of the merits of church, dangling the benefit of older boys in front of her, the perfect tactic, recruiters were told, to entice new membership in the youth group. My sister attended church from that point on, every Wednesday, religiously.
Maybe it was osmosis, associating with people who were genuinely nice and caring, that my sister began treating me a smidge better. Not enough, mind you, to be called a transformation but enough to give me some relief in my irrecoverable “social life” at Junior High.
Perhaps the lessened attack at school emboldened my sister to think herself in good standing with me and started inviting me to church using the same selling tools that were familiar to her, the promise of cute girls beyond my wildest imagination and friends, lots of friends, and the ability to dunk a basketball, which I desperately wanted to do. She was the devil showing me the extent of my prepubescent kingdom—if I would but attend church.
***
I imagine it could be compared to orbiting the earth in a space suit. You feel like you’re floating somewhat not at all though you’re moving, technically, at thousand of miles per hour. You glance at the earth and know the immutable properties of physics will keep you safely in orbit. You actually scientifically believe that you could float here in this same track, uninterrupted, until the end of all things unless, of course, you’re struck by a meteor. But you look around at the expanse, the lack of firmament, and can’t stop the instinctual switch from sending fear-triggered adrenaline.
***
For a year and a half her church invitations continued. It’s hard to express how annoying my sister was, how desperately I wanted her to disappear and stop asking me to come to church. Every week—every week—for seventy-eight weeks this conversation or some variation occurred:
“Hey Bryan, wanna go to church this week?”
“Nah,” I blandly grunt, playing Nintendo.
“There are gonna be girls and you can meet my friends,” she pitches with an inflection ascending through the appeal as if, by the end of it, her offer would be beyond refusal.
I sit silently, concentrating on Mario Brothers.
She stands there, falsely cherubic, until she realizes I don’t give a rat’s you-know-what and her demeanor changes in a way that even surprises me with its complete grimacing metamorphosis. She storms off, the Doppler effect coming to my aid as her litanies of my younger brother stupidities trail off in the distance. There were seventy-eight weeks of this. Seventy-eight. It’s annoying to recall even now.
I am sorry to say that on the seventy-ninth week my spirit broke. I don’t know why I’m sorry. I think it’s because I never wanted my sister to think her attempts to ruin my life had any affect on me. My annoyance at her offer was peaking, and I struck a deal with her.
“Hey Bryan, wanna go to church?”
I’m playing Nintendo and fuming. The usual long pause takes place after the offer is given, and as soon as her weekly pshaw of dismissal was about to fly, I speak up.
“I’ll go . . .” I murmur, my chin in my chest as if dejection and defeat were weighing me down, my eyes staring just under my eyebrows to show that wild beast in me that, if pushed one more time, will go absolutely lord of the flies, and I continue “under one condition. If I go tonight, you can never, ever ask me to go again.” I’m staring her straight in the eyes. “Deal?”
“Deal.”
A thin smile breaks over her face and she about faces.
***
For the longest time I was deeply convinced that my true name was Felix. My birth name is Bryan, but I don’t think it says much about me. Felix, however, means “happy” in Latin, which I could translate quite fluidly long ago but can’t now. I really liked the thought of having a name that meant “happy,” that by virtue of having an adjective as a name I could somehow get a directly tapped into the power of the word. Encountering God is like learning your true name. Except when you mention this “true name” to people they won’t tell you that it’s the name of a famous cat.***
You would think after seventy-eight weeks of build-up that I would have some anticipation for the first time I went to church “willingly.” But there wasn’t. I was most eager to get it over with and move on with my life.
Going to church was sorely disappointing. The harem I had been promised and the popularity were especially underwhelming. My sister had oversold and under delivered. The “girls” was really just one girl who I had known from school (who I would also kiss three years later). And the “friends” were my sister’s friends who accomplished the amazing feat of annoying me more than my sister did. Going to church that night felt like an amplified continuation of my torturous junior high life. Factions, cliques, the searing and unspoken judgment that inevitably comes when you don’t dress right . . . church had it all. And part of me was glad. I was getting great ammunition for my argument to never return.
The Wednesday night youth group, like most youth groups I’ve ever attended, began with contemporary Christian songs that had the potential to make kids sing (rather than the Sunday morning ones that were targeting adult Christians, the ones you needed the hymnal to sing because the old-school tunes had way too many notes peppering the clef). I remember everyone else singing “Our God Is an Awesome God.” But I had never heard that or any other youth group song before. So when we were all directed to stand and sing—and at times perform mild choreography—I just stood there, awkward.
Following the songs comes “the talk.” You have to call it a “talk” to rhetorically differentiate it from a “sermon,” which all teenagers are gifted at ignoring. The youth minister’s talk was forgettable, which I know experientially because I can’t remember a thing. Listening to him was like sitting in a class whose subject held no interest. The only redeeming feature of the man was his full mustache and wavy hair that made him look like Keith Hernandez, the New York ball player, but only if he were less famous and a tad more bohemian. Keith finished his forgettable talk. And it was just after when the trajectory of my life completely changed.
Just after his talk, Keith undertook what I now know is a very common Baptist recap of the gospel of Jesus Christ—the “when we were sinners, Christ died for us” bit that follows every sermon and talk. It lasted two to three minutes and ended with a call to action, to “accept Christ into your heart and if you have, please pray this prayer with me.” You could almost say it was an afterthought of the evening, a perfunctory obligation a highly evangelizing denomination feels compelled to do. The led prayer began, “Dear Jesus, I invite you into my heart and life now” followed with some platitudes of promised obedience, etc, etc.
But what is so hard to capture is how arrested I was in the two to three minutes that Keith’s suburban doppelganger explained who Jesus was, what he did for the world, and how that relates to me. It reminds me of how the kids in the Narnia books get swept away to the other world from the real one. It’s unexpected, unstoppable, and complete. The difficulty in the language to capture a moment like when you encounter Christ is similar to Shelley's challenge of capturing the instant her creation is brought to life. Listening to the Gospel, I found myself in a river of truth when, for the evening, I had been wading ankle-deep in the weak stream of social Christianity. When I heard the gospel story, something in my heart leapt and belted “Yes!” It was equal parts of God’s love for me, my acknowledged need of him, and the stunningly unconditional and proactive love of Jesus to do for me what I could not do for myself. In those two to three minutes, tectonic shifts were happening in the way I was willing to understand the world and myself. It took me completely by surprise.
As a social reject with no prospect of upward mobility, you live inside your own head quite a lot. And when something strikes you, whether it’s a cute girl, a good movie, your favorite video game, or a spiritual proposition, you take it to your familiar, internal, reclusive place. You extend it a personal invitation because it meets the criteria that the majority of your life doesn’t. It’s beautiful, affirming, enlivening, strengthening, engaging, challenging.
During the explanation of the Gospel, my heart and mind immediately recognized the goodness of the Christian story and invited it in. I wanted it, not as a consumer wants a gadget but as a human wants connection that taps into the great capacity for beauty, truth, and love. It was a very significant snippet of time where I felt, believed, and acknowledged that I had somehow encountered the God being described to me. And in a rash boldness, I accepted the offer of accepting Jesus into my heart and life. The acceptance was not a tentative you-have-to-prove-yourself beginning. No, the facts of the Gospel coupled with the actual encounter with God had sealed the deal. I was simply giving voice to what had happened, like closing on the house you already bought and know without hesitation that you want it. In that moment, I became Christian.
***
Becoming a Christian is a rather uneventful event. It’s almost confusing how normal things remained in that moment. I don’t know what I was expecting. Visions maybe, or superhero powers as a “sign-up” gift like the pen you get when you open a new checking account. But nothing happened (though later I learned I did receive the Holy Spirit, which is most like a superhero power). If the evening prior to this moment had been any indication, I was still going to be me and I would still be largely invisible to those whose criteria for acceptance I fell laughably short. Though, I know inside I was a different me. And I was right.
My night at church ended with a confession to some adults in the room that I had accepted Christ. They grilled me with a few questions to confirm my experience was legit—I mean, you can’t up your church’s salvation stats without due diligence—and I rode home in silence. Upon my arrival, I approached my channel-surfing mom and casually announced “Mom, I became a Christian tonight.” She replied in the fatigue following a day’s work, “That’s nice, honey.” A Murphy Brown re-run was on.
The day after my conversion and many days after, all days after, I began working out my salvation with diligence and a deep desire to know what I had gotten myself into. That process is a different story altogether that’s even more uneventful than this one. But like a long novel whose overall story will bring you tears and elation both, each sentence along the way strikes you as somewhat unimportant. Except, like every story worth reading, my encounter with Jesus were riveting opening lines. The moment God found me was not only the beginning of my story but the moment I was edited in as a new character into His ongoing story.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
The Opportunity Door
I'm in a LA this weekend, Memorial Day weekend. The powers that be, that is, the non-earthly powers that express themselves from time to time through my boss, Brian, opened a door of opportunity for me.
I'm in LA to meet with a new key author our company has just struck a relationship with, Marcus Buckingham. He's an immense guy. The story board of his life is fantastic, following the seemingly insignificant turns and twists of any given life. He moved from England where he went to Oxford--so, definitely not the dullest knife in the drawer--to join a polling and analysis group based out of Nebraska. Talk about following your gut. Would you trade London for Lincoln?
Doors opened for him as a result of his decisions (or, one could conjecture, just waiting for his decisions) and now he's a best-selling author with a message to change the world to boot. (Ps, I don't mean "boot" to indicate the trunk of a car.)
In my own small way, this weekend is a door opening for me, a chance to use my skills in publishing to speak into the life-changing work we partner with our authors to accomplish. Marcus and I will meet tomorrow, briefly, to talk about his next book and chat about ways to hit the market where the greatest clamber is chorusing for a life built on strengths that creates passion and purpose. In the grand scheme of things, his message is a big deal. Not a way to make money or stroke egos but a life-honoring reorientation of a more powerful way to live. Don't you want to join the cause already? I see my hour-long meeting as a door ajar to move forward in my own contribution to our world in need of hope and direction.
The following day, tomorrow, I'll connect with another author, Donald Miller, to do something similar but totally different. I am attending a weekend retreat he's leading that I believe has something to do with a core message he's developed over the previous year or two. And that is, the power of story. The overarching premise of his thought is that everyday folks can apply the proven mechanics of story--the things that Sophocles, Aristotle, Shakespeare, and Stein developed and perfected--to an individual life in such a way that will compose more meaningful living. As Don is brilliant at doing, it's a message where you say, "Well, yeah. Duh." But you could've never thought of it on your own nor expressed it quite the way he does, with vulnerability, insight, humour, and power.
And that's what gifted authors do. They tell you the the belief you've always believed but could never articulate. And this honor is mine: I get to help them, these gifted authors, articulate. This weekend, the open door is one of meaningful arm-hooking with Marcus and Don to find the most powerful articulation of the realities they help others to see. It's amazing to be among such great company charged with such a task.
Each of us comes to a door of opportunity. This door does not lead to a realm of receiving but one of giving. Great communicators with life-changing messages exert their lives giving. And those playing supporting roles--like myself and my colleagues--get to give to them while they give to the world. It's a great economy, this ceaseless giving. And like any act of charity, God designs giving to feel more like receiving where you physically have less but spiritually and relationally have more.
When you come to your door, whether it's Willy-Wonka- or Sistine-Chapel-sized, give everything you can. Both God and the world recognize the goodness of giving ceaselessly and selflessly, unconditionally, powerfully for the benefit of others with no expectation of tangible return except the immeasurable joy and an overwhelming sense of meaning that awaits.
I'm in LA to meet with a new key author our company has just struck a relationship with, Marcus Buckingham. He's an immense guy. The story board of his life is fantastic, following the seemingly insignificant turns and twists of any given life. He moved from England where he went to Oxford--so, definitely not the dullest knife in the drawer--to join a polling and analysis group based out of Nebraska. Talk about following your gut. Would you trade London for Lincoln?
Doors opened for him as a result of his decisions (or, one could conjecture, just waiting for his decisions) and now he's a best-selling author with a message to change the world to boot. (Ps, I don't mean "boot" to indicate the trunk of a car.)
In my own small way, this weekend is a door opening for me, a chance to use my skills in publishing to speak into the life-changing work we partner with our authors to accomplish. Marcus and I will meet tomorrow, briefly, to talk about his next book and chat about ways to hit the market where the greatest clamber is chorusing for a life built on strengths that creates passion and purpose. In the grand scheme of things, his message is a big deal. Not a way to make money or stroke egos but a life-honoring reorientation of a more powerful way to live. Don't you want to join the cause already? I see my hour-long meeting as a door ajar to move forward in my own contribution to our world in need of hope and direction.
The following day, tomorrow, I'll connect with another author, Donald Miller, to do something similar but totally different. I am attending a weekend retreat he's leading that I believe has something to do with a core message he's developed over the previous year or two. And that is, the power of story. The overarching premise of his thought is that everyday folks can apply the proven mechanics of story--the things that Sophocles, Aristotle, Shakespeare, and Stein developed and perfected--to an individual life in such a way that will compose more meaningful living. As Don is brilliant at doing, it's a message where you say, "Well, yeah. Duh." But you could've never thought of it on your own nor expressed it quite the way he does, with vulnerability, insight, humour, and power.
And that's what gifted authors do. They tell you the the belief you've always believed but could never articulate. And this honor is mine: I get to help them, these gifted authors, articulate. This weekend, the open door is one of meaningful arm-hooking with Marcus and Don to find the most powerful articulation of the realities they help others to see. It's amazing to be among such great company charged with such a task.
Each of us comes to a door of opportunity. This door does not lead to a realm of receiving but one of giving. Great communicators with life-changing messages exert their lives giving. And those playing supporting roles--like myself and my colleagues--get to give to them while they give to the world. It's a great economy, this ceaseless giving. And like any act of charity, God designs giving to feel more like receiving where you physically have less but spiritually and relationally have more.
When you come to your door, whether it's Willy-Wonka- or Sistine-Chapel-sized, give everything you can. Both God and the world recognize the goodness of giving ceaselessly and selflessly, unconditionally, powerfully for the benefit of others with no expectation of tangible return except the immeasurable joy and an overwhelming sense of meaning that awaits.
Monday, May 12, 2008
The Viewmaster Life
The Viewmaster: A Brief Thought on Sin Cycles
For me, sinning is like clicking through the images in a Viewmaster with images of Jesus and temptation alternating in the interchangeable ferris wheels. I pick up one and put it in the viewer. In the first image, life seems pretty good. It’s a normal day, I’m showered, I head to work, I talk gently to my wife. Click, next slide. Life goes lagging; I’m tired with too much to do. So, I pick up smoking. Click. Jesus comes, wooing me into his sweet company and life. But like a kid eager to zip through the magazine, I click again. The checking account bounces; I freak out. Click. Jesus comes. Click. Balancing work, marriage, and home ownership requires more than I can give; I drink more. Click. Jesus shows me how much more deeply dependable he is. (Sometimes it feels like I just have sin ferris wheels with no Jesus mixed in for the respite. Except I know that’s not true. He’s there, a faint double exposure.)
I am sitting my friend Matthew on his porch on Douglas, and we’re talking about life. A city bus passes by. I’m telling him about my cyclical medications, my small sociable addictions that find their way into my life. He says to me with a sarcastic lilt, “Oh yeah, Bryan, you’re the only one who does that.” He’s such a jerk, but right, and a good friend for saying it. There’s no sin committed that the world is not accustomed to, and Jesus knows me.
I know my sinfulness is not unique. So far as I’ve read, there’s only one person who gets immunity. But it’s that I can’t kick the habit. Not any one habit, just the habit of coming back to sin like a sad co-dependent relationship, the kind that all your friends know is bad for you, pity you, and love you anyway. When life goes stressful, it’s like I want to outdo it. I want to poor accelerant on the circumstances.
I've concluded that the inability to leave sin is the root of sin. It is the compulsion to lean on earthly things at the expense of our friendship with God. The joy and hope of the Christian life is God’s commitment to help me switch out the sin slides for holy ones more and more, incrementally, over a lifetime.
For me, sinning is like clicking through the images in a Viewmaster with images of Jesus and temptation alternating in the interchangeable ferris wheels. I pick up one and put it in the viewer. In the first image, life seems pretty good. It’s a normal day, I’m showered, I head to work, I talk gently to my wife. Click, next slide. Life goes lagging; I’m tired with too much to do. So, I pick up smoking. Click. Jesus comes, wooing me into his sweet company and life. But like a kid eager to zip through the magazine, I click again. The checking account bounces; I freak out. Click. Jesus comes. Click. Balancing work, marriage, and home ownership requires more than I can give; I drink more. Click. Jesus shows me how much more deeply dependable he is. (Sometimes it feels like I just have sin ferris wheels with no Jesus mixed in for the respite. Except I know that’s not true. He’s there, a faint double exposure.)
I am sitting my friend Matthew on his porch on Douglas, and we’re talking about life. A city bus passes by. I’m telling him about my cyclical medications, my small sociable addictions that find their way into my life. He says to me with a sarcastic lilt, “Oh yeah, Bryan, you’re the only one who does that.” He’s such a jerk, but right, and a good friend for saying it. There’s no sin committed that the world is not accustomed to, and Jesus knows me.
I know my sinfulness is not unique. So far as I’ve read, there’s only one person who gets immunity. But it’s that I can’t kick the habit. Not any one habit, just the habit of coming back to sin like a sad co-dependent relationship, the kind that all your friends know is bad for you, pity you, and love you anyway. When life goes stressful, it’s like I want to outdo it. I want to poor accelerant on the circumstances.
I've concluded that the inability to leave sin is the root of sin. It is the compulsion to lean on earthly things at the expense of our friendship with God. The joy and hope of the Christian life is God’s commitment to help me switch out the sin slides for holy ones more and more, incrementally, over a lifetime.
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