hard work, personal responsibility and winning

This year's political discourse has drawn a clear distinction between success from individual hard work underwritten by personal responsibility AND government's need to determine how "society's wealth" (wealth does not belong to individuals but to society) is to be shared with those who are not having such success. The candidates in the Presidential campaign are iconic examples of each side - Romney the venture capitalist and Obama, the social justice champion. Each side uses the contrast as their strategy to woo the public to their side.

The recent movie "2016" is an attempt to explain to the public where Obama's social justice world view (mental model) originated. The main theme is how Obama developed an anti-colonialism view from third world countries occupied and "exploited" by wealthy nations of Europe. Obama believes that American colonialism (a form of venture capitalist) uses its wealth to oppress and suppress the unfortunate who are powerless against such aggression (the rich get richer at expense of poor). Thus, Obama is dedicated his life to protecting those who are "victims" of wealth creators. Of course, pro colonialists believe that the result of investment and wealth creation raises the standard of living for all peeps within the community which is the target of the colonialists' (capitalists') investments.

For Christians, this can be an interesting challenge. Polls show a majority of evangelicals favor Romney and conservative views that government is not the provider of work and wealth, but free markets are. These peeps cling to the founding father's view of limited government and Judeo-Christian work ethic.  However, liberals point to the greed and injustice that results from free (unregulated) peeps duking it out in the market. After all, economist Milton Friedman acknowledged that greed is what drives free markets. So, if capitalism is carnally minded, based on social exchange, how is it that the Kingdom mind reconciles itself to the market system.

We know that Scripture tells us that God honors work and its a "good" thing for us to do. But seldom do we stop and consider God's view of work along with the wealth we create through our work. How does God view competition, winning and the material prosperity we desire (seek) that flows from success at work?

It may not be easy to find God's view on His desire for our material prosperity while there are many places Scripture reminds us that God's purpose for us is to live by faith, not by becoming self-sufficient in this world. "Do not store up treasures on earth." Does looking at ourselves from God's view point present to us a dilemma?

Peeps ask, "does God favor Tim Tebow when he competes in football?" and "is God on Chick-fil-a's side?" To what degree is it difficult for evangelicals to defend to liberals that competition and capitalism is Godly when faith, not greed and self sufficiency, is God's call on our lives and God's glory is our ambition?

We find in the Book of Daniel that God provided Daniel and his buds everything they needed to win in their difficult competitive circumstances. God gave them insight and wisdom to impress the King and win his favor. So it's not beyond God to want us to win (sometimes). But we must look further into Daniel and see that he purposed in his own heart to not be contaminated by the godless culture of Babylon. While God desired and enabled Daniel to win, Daniel's focus of winning was not for his own personal benefit but for God's purposes with His people.

So, as evangelicals campaign and vote for personal responsibility and free market opportunities to work and succeed (shouting "we did build it"), we must remember that the material prosperity that comes to us from our work is not the point. God ordained government for protection and civil order,and the church for mercy and compassion. We should see our wealth as God's grace, a gift to freely share with others in need and not to build our own self-sufficiency. Its this message of the evangelicals that liberals are missing. Maybe because we miss it sometimes too!!

Just something to ponder ......

Futility of pursuit, THE human tragedy

Have you ever pursued someone because you wished to give of yourself to them, maybe encourage them, spend time with them, make yourself known to them, and maybe even to give your heart to them? But they would not receive you. How devastating it is!! maybe you have been the one pursued, only to shut the door on the relationship.

I was thinking recently, as I often do as an aging philosopher, that most peeps do not have enough love in their life. While even in a crowded life, many feel alone. Why is it then that peeps too often keep others at arms length, shut the door on those who pursue relationship with them. I am sure there are many reasons, but it seems a tragedy that love gets "left on the street" or "hung out to dry" when there is not enough of love going around. Maybe some peeps don't feel they deserve love or its just to risky to receive love. The carnal mind associates obligation with receiving, maybe that's it??

From a Kingdom perspective the tragedy is even more grave. God pursues peeps. Now we can debate whether He pursues only His elect or every peep, that's not my point here. We know He pursues and we know some peeps shut the door on Him. Deep reformed theology might say that human peeps can't resist God's pursuit. Maybe, maybe not, but we know that we ourselves have resisted at times and we know others who seem to make a life of resisting. Consistent, life long resisting ushers in God's wrath (Romans 1).

God's wrath is not God getting mad at us and hurling fireballs our way. No, its simply God ceasing to pursue us. Maybe He sees His pursuit as futile, as we sometimes eventually do on a human plane. I don't know!! I don't know all of the mind of God. BUT, if and when He ceases to pursuit a peep, that peep is eternally left to a life without God and His pursuit of Grace (that what Hell is).

That is THE human tragedy.

we peeps must learn to receive from one another and foremost we MUST let go and receive God's pursuit of us!! maybe these are somehow connected??

Just saying .....

Faith is getting past the arrogance of legalism

"Our worries and concerns are expressions of our inability to leave unresolved questions unresolved and open-ended situations open-ended."  Henri Nouwen, "Reaching Out"


Recently I posted insights from Taleb's book "Black Swan" on the arrogance associated with "know what" knowledge that gives us an illusion we can link cause and effect and predict the future. While I admitted I do not know  Taleb's view of God, he simply restated what James told the early Christians. In Chapter 4 James says "come now, you who say, 'today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell and make a profit,' whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow.... now you boast in your arrogance and all such boasting is evil."

Now these verses are placed within the context of James' expose on faith and how it works. Immediately after these verses James says, "therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin." Often Christian peeps take this last verse as a stand alone marching order to "doing good." For many this verse gets a behavioral focus of sin and a prescription for legalism. But for anyone to apply this verse to the "goodness" of what we do implies we have a circumstantial "know what" of the actions that produce "good". This "know what" knowledge is the target of James preceding notion of our arrogance in thinking we know what God is up to.

My small group was studying this Scripture yesterday and it caused great discussion and pondering. How was this last verse related to the immediately preceding ones? So, word nerd that I am, I did my word study last night and found some interesting insights I would like to share with you.


I was particularly interested in the Greek word for "know" - it is not episteme (cognitive awareness) or gnosis (intimate relationship), but eido (perceive or understand).

I then went to word for "good", there are 3 Greek words in this family of the word used here, first there is elegant or polite, then there is beauty but not at highest form and then there is the highest form of "beauty" translated as "harmonious completeness" and that's the word translated "good" here.

Then there is the word "to do". In most of James the word used simply means action taken or deed. The word used here means the result or accomplishment of our actions.

The word for sin is the bigger notion of missing the mark, not the more micro notion of behavioral transgression. "Missing the mark" refers to dominance of the carnal mind and living beneath the privileges and provisions of the Heavenlies.

So we might see just from the literal meaning of the Greek words this verse may best be translated as
"to him that understands what it is to be in complete harmony (Kingdom minded), and does not, misses the mark."

If we put all of this together, we see that James is telling followers of Christ that being right with God is living in the faith that God is doing something in and around us that we do not know. Thus, its a form of arrogance to believe we can be in harmony with the Heavenlies (righteous) by living an illusion that we are in control of our righteousness by what we do (legalism).

So, instead of obsessing over moral codes of conduct (nothing wrong with these except its carnal minded - missing the mark), we should seek a sense-making not based in our own knowledge and understanding of the circumstances, but a Kingdom mind that claims a deep trust that God is in control, accomplishing His purposes, and loves us beyond our imagination. As David Platt says about Radical, "work then becomes the fruit of faith."

One application might be that we are in harmony with the Heavenlies (Kingdom minded) AS we trust God with the outcomes of the Presidential election or our personal finances, not when we are trying to "do good things" today. In other words, trying to be "a good person" while worrying profusely about the future or getting our feelings hurt is arrogant and sinful. That's when Kingdom mindedness is radical!!

just something to ponder ......

the discovery of the blessings of cheese toast

I blogged recently about discovery and how it comes from dealing well with uncertainty as opposed to moving forth from knowledge in purposeful rational inquiry. One example is the story of how Pop's cheese toast progressed to where its now the favorite request of my grand kids when they visit.

A number of years ago we were in Amsterdam keeping Doug's kids while they were on a trip to Italy. One of Pop's main duties is cooking b'fast. I knew Sloan really liked cheese toast so I wanted to make it for her one morning. My skills at cheese toast was to take slices of bread, put pre-sliced cheese on top and toast it in the oven with the broiler on.

For those of you that know me well know that mechanical things are not my forte. As usual, I could not figure out how to turn the oven on, must less the broiler (it was Amsterdam after all). I generally become frustrated when I can't figure things out but I was more mature then than most of my earlier years. I was not to be defeated. I knew how to turn the gas burners on the stove top so why now make the toast in a skillet. There was some olive oil sitting out (random) so I dabbled a bit in the skillet not knowing exactly what it would do. I had no problem toasting the bread side but how would I melt the cheese? Without any rational inquiry, I just flipped the bread over to where the cheese was face down in the skillet. I left it there for a minute and flipped it back over. BooYah, melted cheese and toasted bread - CHEESE TOAST!!

Sloan loved it, she says it was her favorite now.

When I got home, I bought a griddle. The next time the grand kids came, I spread some olive oil, some butter and sprinkled some cheese on the griddle. I then sliced some cheddar from a block and put some it on top of the bread (a multi-grain I just randomly picked up at Publix). I placed the bread side on the sizzling butter, oil and cheese and left it for a few minutes. I then flipped the bread over to singe the cheese on top. BooYah, an even better version of the cheese toast.

Now, on every visit I buy loafs of Public Multi-grain bread, pounds of cheddar cheese, a bottle of olive oil and make cheese toast for everyone - EVERY MORNING. What a way to bless my family and oh how it blesses me.

I never could have discovered this way to make cheese toast without a series of unplanned, serendipitous events. While I may have desired to make Sloan cheese toast, making a plan to do "what I know" was not the factor that led to the final outcome and its benefit in our lives, lasting memories of Pop for the kids!! Blessings flowed from a series of random events.

just saying ...

visit it often

"I come to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses ...... and He walks with me and He talks with me and He tells me I am His own"


The Manor House, Nantucket


Where do you go to have the moment with God where He assures you that you are one of His own? It might not be a physical location like a garden (methaphor in this song), it may be where you go in your pyschi to receive the joy of being adored by Him. But wherever it might be, VISIT IT OFTEN!!
Take it from a crazy old man, no one will lay down at the end of his/her life and regret they went there TOO often.

Just something to ponder ..... 

"its not what we know that counts, its ..."

In my first day of a graduate Mathematics class the professor said, "Math is NOT about what we know, but what we can find out from what we know." This was my first conscious introduction to the value of discovery versus the value of accumulation of knowledge. Taleb writes a lot about discovery in his book "Black Swan" as a beneficial outcome of uncertainty vs the calculated by-product of rational inquiry.

The problem with rational inquiry is it's limited by our nature. We tend to extrapolate linearly, it's what our mind does. We are constrained by confirmation bias so that we tend to draw conclusions from data that justifies what we already believe, and so on.

Taleb suggests most scientists and engineers "develop tools for the pleasure of developing tools, not to induce nature to reveal it's secrets." This is especially true when dealing with social implications of technology. It's the impact from application of previous inventions that transforms society more so than the intention associated with the invention itself. Sir Francis Bacon posited that the most important advances are the least predictable ones, those lying "out of the path of the imagination."

Watson invented the computer with no idea of "googling", social networks, or data mining. He actually PREDICTED there would be no need for more than a handful of computers. Penicillium was discovered by accident. Charles Townes invented the laser just to satisfy his desire to split light beams, that's all. He admitted at the end of his life he never had retinas in his mind, given the value of the laser to do surgical stitching on detached retinas is significant to society.

Then there is the story of Viagra. Pfizer was developing a drug to increase blood flow for hypertension, but research found that the rats were having erections. Thus, the beginning of ED treatment for millions of aging men. I have a friend who is a retired cardiologists. He was at the conference where this research finding was presented in the 80's. He immediately bought a great deal of Pfizer stock, which provided much of his wealth for retirement. All serendipitous events - totally unpredictable and seemingly random events.

While planning is usually helpful in 'know how' events like building a house, its "know what" situations like discovery where planning is problemnatic. The most defining principle of discovery is that we search for what we know (India) and find something we didn't know was there (America). This suggests that we should possibly spend more of our attention on awareness of unexpected events and making sense of these Black Swans than planning, which depends on extending our current knowledge via limited abilities to predict.

Of course this is foreign to our nature or we would already be practicing discovery.

Something worth pondering ......

stuck in a "run down" condition

I walk by this house every time I walk to the beach at Nantucket. For over 10 years this house has looked the same, run down. Today a thought came to me that just needed blogging, this house is stuck in a run down condition. I not sure why, but obviously the owner has no aspiration for the house. Paint on the windows is peeling and plants are growing up around the house. I wonder if the house "feels" hopeless.

I then thought about peeps I know and have known who have been stuck in a "run down" condition (maybe even myself at times). I don't think it is a function of age. I have seen students stuck and I watched my father-in-law age to 93 who never seemed stuck short of the last few weeks of his life, even in the midst of circumstances (health) that was not going to change. I saw him motivated to get a dog at 91, he wanted to buy a new gun and a horse just a month before he died. While the things he had enjoyed to do in his life were no longer available to him, he still loved to take "road trips", to go places and see things. He continued to aspire to something and never got stuck.

So maybe the answer is in the way peeps manage their aspirations. Hopelessness (being stuck in a run down condition) need not be a result of circumstances. Its a matter of whether one's spirit can continue to reach out, to keep moving and growing, to stay interested in something. These are like a paint job for the soul, like weeding the flower beds and cutting the grass. Peeps who continue to scratch the itches of their soul will never be stuck.

Somehow this run down house (some would now call a shack) reminded me of all the things I can still aspire to, even as my possibilities diminish with age. Maybe this house can inspire U 2??

just saying .......