Archive of "Questions" Category
What we say, what we believe?
Reading posts on Facebook reminds me of looking at pop magazines in a grocery store check out line. Most often when I pull my cart up to the line I think about how quickly I want to get through check out, but then I am distracted by the attractive picture of a star. It draws me in and I want more from it, like validation of my interest in the person who is famous.
Lately, I have felt this way when viewing Facebook. I have close to 2,000 people in my network online and it has become a valuable connection point for many relationships. However, the status updates have become a grocery store check out line experience. And I am the guy who pretends not to look at the attractive model in the magazine or the hollywood gossip. Yes, I have thought about ending my facebook acount recently, and to be honest the thought is exciting.
What I believe about Social Media:
1. Social Media is culture.
And just like any other cultural medium before it, the user gets to influence it through their own particular values and identity. Lately, I have been wondering if this is true. Is it possible to influence a culture being created by 700,000 million people. More importantly, do I have the bandwidth to exercise my social strength?
NOPE!
I have is enough energy to write this post and hope that one or two people read it and share how they feel about social products like facebook.
1. How are you benefiting from using it, or not?
2. How can social communication help us reach our goals?
3. What can we learn about human desire/behavior?
Facebook is an amazing product, but I think the day is coming when more people will close their account then log onto Facebook. It does not have the power to change the world. People do, they always have, and they always will.
Responsability for Personality
My personality is like this quote from Joe E. Lewis, “you only live once, but if you work it right, once is enough…”
Responsibility denotes ones own ability to accept, absorb and learn from their decisions. This often takes place when a person finds themselves at a “crossroads” in life. A traumatic incident may have taken place, for example, a death of a loved one or loss of job. These incidents evoke a stress response in the neurological system, causing systemic results in the mind, body and spirit. As the person goes through the transformational process of full acceptance of ones own behavior or situation in life, they become responsible for their personality. (This could take years, decades, a life time or never at all.)
Here is my perspective:
People in western Society don’t like reality. The acceptance of who they are, because we are really good at developing extensions of ourselves. Ie, business, blogging, inventions etc. Our extensions allow us to analyse and distract us from the core of who we are. The real problem facing the world today. We can be all connected virtually at any moment, and yet we have digressed in our own understanding of our responsibilities. We can live in alternative realities of what it means to be human, male, female, black, white, successful, etc.
We tend to accept the illusion that we are above culture, that somehow our understanding of ourself comes from a higher power. As someone who’s worldview and belief system is shaped by my identity in a Anabaptist/Mennonite faith tradition. I do believe in a higher power (God), however, in my work with Christians, I am finding an unwillingness to accept our own limitations, as well as possibilities for greatness. (The word greatness needs work, I am not able to go into for this blog post.)
For example: I have notice this from my own personal development and work with organizations and individuals. There is a tendency to slip into the comfortable understanding of self as just made up from the values of our culture. This is just one small example: Our culture values what we buy, because our broader society values the consumptions of goods and services. Therefor, my identity becomes shaped by where I shop, who I support financially etc. This is not wrong, but it does not make up the some of all our parts a citizens of the world, in our own particular tribe, family and business. This can be found in where we live, the church we go to, the places we shop, and the name on our bank account.
My suggestion is we all take small steps toward responsibility for our personality. We must stop thinking we can change the world and start believing we can be apart of the greatest transformation to ever happen in human civilization. I am talking about the illumination of all mankind. That we are all connected and who I am, what I do actually matters. It does, just look at your neighbor, or the person who washes the dishes at the restaurant you frequent.
Over time, a long period of time, individually and collectively we can have a reorientation of character. We can be transformed by the renewing of our minds – scripture.
Here is the question:
How are you oriented right now and what are small steps you can take to reorient toward responsibility today?
According to wikipedia‘s definition of Character Orientation:
Receptive Orientation: People who are passive.
What are you asking from someone that you can be responsible for?
What can you do right now to become responsible?
Hoarding Orientation: People collect and keep stuff they don’t need
What are things you do not use you can get rid of this week?
Marketing Orientation: Who are you trying to sell?
To take a step today, I would suggest asking the question:
What/Who am I investing in?
This blog was inspired by my investment in my own personal understanding and responsibility for decisions and outcomes I find less desirable. We all have a shadow mine tends to be narcissistic, impulsive, unfocused, rebellious, undisciplined, possessive, manic, self destructive, and restless. This is true, just ask my wife or colleges over the past 10 years. However, with that said I have a radical belief that we are living in and out of a story. My story is not over, but it has meant taking responsibility for my personality. Understanding my strengths, my unique contribution to my wife, daughter, family, friends, colleges, partners, congregation, community and world.
Breaking Free From the “Cages”
I am listening to ELLUL as I write this. I invite you to listen to the song “Cages” as you read this post.
Passing notes to the devil
Fear masked in barbell denials
Taping our hands to reduce the strain
Passing notes over ashes
Bury memory in the bright lights
Tape my eyes to mask the shame (Lyrics from Cages by Ellul)
We are in transition as a society and this is having an effect on our lives. Some of us are feeling this more than others: possibly in our inability to find work that pays us “what we are worth” or in finding any work at all. This economic crisis has allowed for great possibility of transformation, revealing the lie we have believed for the past decade. This begs the question: how will we live the possibility of what’s to come for the next decade?
A new way of thinking, believing, and bahaving in this world we no longer belong too.
We can no longer belong to the kingdom of God and keep the system alive. WE HAVE BELIEVED THE LIE and now we have to go through a time of transition.
This past weekend I spoke with some young people about how we follow stories from our society or social spaces. I was asking them what stories do they want to tell? It is in the following and telling of stories we create reality.
Here is a movie that makes the point about what type of messages we send and how they reveal our motives:
If you have not seen The Green Zone and you like conspiracy war movies. I highly recommend it…
In this story as the unfolding of a lie is revealed to the main character and truth emerges. That truth cuts to the core of this characters purpose in being a soldier and belonging to the U.S Military. In this story the reality the media and systems of power create has massive consequences.
If your anything like me, it is not hard to look at your own life and see how telling stories or living certain ways has created a mess of chaos and confusion. Recently, I have returned to a faith community(Mennonite Church) as well as a world view where there is an overarching story of belonging to God’s Mission through Reconciliation represented in the life, death resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is in the telling and retelling of this great story of judgment, sacrifice and love that I find hope.
Here is a video from a song I shared this weekend: Mumford and Sons
As you listen to this song maybe you want to ask yourself:
What stories am I following that are no longer bringing life?
What stories am I telling myself or others that are lies?
Maybe naming the fear, judgment, cynicism and regret we begin the process of transformation…
Building a brand
This is not an easy task…
Lately I have spent most of my time telling the story of one village coffee and sampling to people who have yet to tasted the brew.
Here is what I have found:
People want to support something more than a product. The people who use their spending power to buy One Village are doing it out of a desire to build a community of change.
When I was a youth pastor I was trying to build a brand of my own image, I now find myself working inside a market around the idea of using commerce to solve social problems. The problem we are directly involved with is that of poverty.
The question that pleagues people much smarter than me: Why does Capitalism not work in underdeveloped countries?
I have my beliefs which are limited to my experience an understanding, coming from a white middle class perspective. Although my struggles have mostly been interpersonal or pyschological, I have had the luxury of such a challenge, when most of the world is looking for food.
Now a large majority of Americans are looking for work.
The tension I feel in building a brand that represents social change + value given to poor communities. Life valued as human dignity and value quantitatively given outside the realm of the traditional bottom line.
This is the tension of building a brand like One Village Coffee. A brand that needs others to believe in outside of myself. People who purchase the coffee and tell the story is a desire. The role I play in our collective, is becoming increasingly important and here are the questions I have:
Who are the people who want to do this with us?
Where are the channels of networks that will help to grow this cause across our country?
How do I mobolize, those who are involved and want to be involved in a greater way?
Random thoughts for the way home
I drive three to five days out of the week for my job. I go anywhere from Lehigh, Princeton, Philly, and Wilmington.
I see a lot of changes when drive…
Today I noticed several business’s closing. One of them was a theater, the other was a furniture store. (Why do furniture stores always go out of business?)
My answer is, IKEA.
Recently I furnished my living room with the gift from George Bush for all of those who support the war or pay taxes. Actually I do not know why we got money, but like a consumer I went and spent it.
This is the first time in my life my wife, Andrea and I furnished a room in one of our space with stuff we like. In the past we would fill it with stuff we thought we should buy, like a good married couple. Tonight one of my friends was over and he said, “your apartment does not feel like a married couple lives here. It feels like one of you are single.” I later commented that I am not sure if he meant that is a positive or negative. I guess we no longer fill our space with “married” peoples stuff.
Space matters, and if I am going to live in it, I would like to enjoy where I live. (hey look I am even blogging because of the space I am in right now)
Let the “No” define you and the “Yes” inspire…
I can not stop thinking about how good it felt after a sales meeting when a president of a local grocery store said, “I can not go with your coffee because It would be like shooting myself in the head.” What he was saying in my perspective is: you do not represent what I want.
Stop for just one min and contemplate that:
“Your product is not what I want.”
This is a phrase communicated though out the day in the economy of people. We are communicating all the time about what we want and what we do not want.
“Let the No define you and the Yes inspire you…” rang in my ear as I walked out that meeting late one night.
What people want defines who they are. When we cloud what we want with words from another vocabulary we miscommunicate to people. When we do not say what we mean we miscommunicate and confuse others. Then we become frustrated by the no, the passive aggressive no.
The metaphor of product as people is a bit controversial, and I enjoy entering in the conversation of consumerism a “buzz” word that interests me.
Here is what I hear when I listen to people talking about consumerism as bad.
I hear:
“you must watch what you buy”
“scrutinize every purchase”
“become a conservationist”
“don’t buy certain things”
I hear a generalization of the natural order of society, which is production and consumption.
I am a producer and people I sell to are consumers or customers. In order to make a transaction I need to connect to the basic need of that person, to consume what I produce.
What I am saying is this, most people are extremely picky about what they buy or do not buy, and in doing so, put people in catagories intentionally or unintentionally by what they buy. The conversation I have been apart of is more about categorizing people than it is about responsibility.
Here are some questions:
Is it more sustainable or socially responsible for a low income family to shop at Walmart?
Can the only middle and upper class families shop green?
A reflection on communion as talked about in the gospels/acts.
Jesus used the consumption language in communion and it dumbfounds me to this day.
Are we suppose to consume relationships?
Are we missing the point of relationships by categorizing people by what they consume?
For example:
Do we love overweight people less? (they consume a lot of food, right?)
Do we judge someone who wares a t-shirt that represents something we resent.
Have our judgments become resentments leading to categories for people? Affect they way we treat others.
Here is what I have observed.
People are starting to judge others and make cases against others,
The question being asked is who is in and out of their community.
Who is lost and does not get it?
Are they worth talking to and listening to what they say?
Is what they represent not what you are looking for and therefor like shooting yourself in the head?
Here is what I know:
Jesus brought those outside of the religious community in, and he even consumed or took part in unholly things, like wine and healing on the sabbath. I like how confusing Jesus becomes when we put him in our context and I like how simple the gospel becomes when we look at the gospel story literally.
Side note: I hope this was as fun to read as it was to write
