Category: Meanderings
Playing Through
I am happy with my opposable thumbs, just not the keyboards they get to work on. The Evolution of Mobile (via Mashable)
via mashable.com
Learn 4 ways to be positive in the midst of a world gone mad from Tony Swartz (via Fast Company)
If there is anything this nasty, fear-driven, dispiriting political season has demonstrated, it’s that no politician—Democrat, Republican, or otherwise—has any compelling solutions to what ails us. Even as partisan a figure as Jeb Bush is suggesting voters are feeling “disgust with the political class.”
We live in a world that has grown increasingly complex and contradictory, angry and fearful, polarized but utterly interdependent.
How, then, to feel more control over our destiny amid so many daunting challenges and so few clear answers?
Here are four very personal behaviors to consider, offered in a spirit of hopefulness and humility:
1. Practice Realistic Optimism.
There is a powerful principle in psychology called “bad is stronger than good.” We’re quicker to notice threats to our well-being than we are to focus on what’s working well. …
2. Build More Bridges
In an era marked by fractiousness and extremes, what connects us rather than divides us? Where can we find common ground? Certainly, there are universal desires we all share: a safe and secure world, people we can love and who love us, a hopeful future for our children. …
3. Add Value Every Day
After three years of a recession that shows all too few signs of abating, it’s no surprise that people are feeling the full range of negative emotions from terror to rage. But to what end? …
4. Give Yourself a Break
The greater the performance demand, the greater the need for recovery. As the world speeds up, we need to keep a balance between doing and not doing. By building in a true renewal break at least every 90 minutes, you’ll feel better, think more clearly, be less reactive and ultimately you’ll get better, more considered results. …
Reprinted from TonySchwartz.com
via fastcompany.com
Learn 4 ways to be positive in the midst of a world gone mad from Tony Swartz (via Fast Company)
If there is anything this nasty, fear-driven, dispiriting political season has demonstrated, it’s that no politician–Democrat, Republican, or otherwise–has any compelling solutions to what ails us. Even as partisan a figure as Jeb Bush is suggesting voters are feeling “disgust with the political class.”
We live in a world that has grown increasingly complex and contradictory, angry and fearful, polarized but utterly interdependent.
How, then, to feel more control over our destiny amid so many daunting challenges and so few clear answers?
Here are four very personal behaviors to consider, offered in a spirit of hopefulness and humility:
1. Practice Realistic Optimism.
There is a powerful principle in psychology called “bad is stronger than good.” We’re quicker to notice threats to our well-being than we are to focus on what’s working well. …
2. Build More Bridges
In an era marked by fractiousness and extremes, what connects us rather than divides us? Where can we find common ground? Certainly, there are universal desires we all share: a safe and secure world, people we can love and who love us, a hopeful future for our children. …
3. Add Value Every Day
After three years of a recession that shows all too few signs of abating, it’s no surprise that people are feeling the full range of negative emotions from terror to rage. But to what end? …
4. Give Yourself a Break
The greater the performance demand, the greater the need for recovery. As the world speeds up, we need to keep a balance between doing and not doing. By building in a true renewal break at least every 90 minutes, you’ll feel better, think more clearly, be less reactive and ultimately you’ll get better, more considered results. …
They tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat. Sharing a meal as an important dimension to the spiritual life (via On Being).
Ms. Tippett: Where does the body come in to all of this? Where does the body come in to happiness? It can sound like we’re having a discussion about happiness. It’s very cerebral, very mental. You, for example, Bishop Schori, have spoken about running as body meditation. Let’s talk a little bit about our physical selves in this condition of happiness.
Lord Sacks: Well, obviously, Judaism has a certain approach to the physical dimension of the spiritual life. It’s called food. [laugh] In fact, somebody once said, you know, if you want a crash course in understanding all the Jewish festivals, they can all be summed up in three sentences: They tried to kill us. We survived. Let’s eat. [laugh] But I think that is part of our faith that God is to be found down here in this world that God created and seven times pronounced good. And I find one of the most striking sentences in Judaism — it is in the Jerusalem Talmud — is the statement of Rav that in the world to come, a person will have to give an account of every legitimate pleasure he or she deprived themselves of in this life. Because God gave us this world to enjoy.
I must say that quite apart — and I mean, absolutely, Judaism has taken — I think we share this, but Judaism has said there are three approaches to physical pleasure. Number one is hedonism, the worship of pleasure. The number two is asceticism, the denial of pleasure. And number three is the biblical way for sanctification of pleasure. And that, I think, is important and very profound. And I must say that, you know, sometimes the best kind of interfaith gatherance — I mean, theology is extremely wonderful. It’s very cognitive. That is a very polite English way of saying boring. [laugh] And sometimes the best form of interfaith is you just sit together, you eat together, you drink together, you share one another’s songs. You listen to one another’s stories and just enjoy the pleasures of this world with people of another faith. That is beautiful.
I would add just one other thing. If there is one thing I find beautiful beyond measures — there in my own tradition in what we call hakhnasat orhim, hospitality, very real element of Christianity and Islam and Buddhism — it’s a super element in Sikhism, what’s called langar. You know, it’s not just my physical pleasures. It’s giving physical pleasure to those who have all too little. One very great Hasidic teacher once said, “Somebody else’s material needs are my spiritual duties.” And that, I think, is where we join in sharing our pleasures with others.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks talks with Krista Tippett on not letting go of the struggle until one finds the blessing (via On Being)
Ms. Tippett: … I wonder — and I pose this to you, Rabbi Sacks, it seems to me that the Hebrew Bible, let’s say the Psalms, really wallow in sadness and suffering and anger as a way through those human experiences. So I wonder how do you respond to this idea [pursuing happiness] and how might you see it differently or what might you add to that approach to sadness? And, Rabbi Sacks, I know that you have just finished sitting shiva at the death of your mother. So you’ve been in a period of grief and mourning, which is very much lived and embodied.
Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks: Yeah. It is true that if you read the Jewish literature and you read Jewish history, happiness is not the first word that comes to mind [laugh]. We do degrees in misery, post-graduate angst, and advanced guilt, and we do all this stuff, you know. And yet somehow or other when all of that is at an end, we get together and we celebrate. And where I love what His Holiness has just said, how he himself has lived a story that I resonate with, the story of suffering and exile, and yet he has come through it still smiling. And that to me is how I have always defined my faith as a Jew. The definition of a Jew, Israel is at it says in Genesis 34, one who struggles, wrestles, with God and with humanity and prevails. And Jacob says something very profound to the angel. He says, “I will not let you go until you bless me.” And that I feel about suffering. When something bad happens, I will not let go of that bad thing until I have discovered the blessing that lies within it.
When my late father died — now I’m in mourning for my late mother — that sense of grief and bereavement suddenly taught me that so many things that I thought were important, externals, etc., all of that is irrelevant. You lose a parent, you suddenly realize what a slender thing life is, how easily you can lose those you love. Then out of that comes a new simplicity and that is why sometimes all the pain and the tears lift you to a much higher and deeper joy when you say to the bad times, “I will not let you go until you bless me.”
Several untold stories from Doris Taylor’s stem cell research shared with Krista Tippett (via On Being)
Stem Cells, Untold Stories
September 30, 2010
Using stem cells, Doris Taylor brought the heart of a dead animal back to life and might one day revolutionize human organ transplantation. She takes us beyond lightning rod issues and into an unfolding frontier where science is learning how stem cells work reparatively in every body at every age.
Buried in this marvelous interview is the following conversation:
Dr. Taylor: Finally, our knowledge has caught up with — or is catching up with biology. We don’t understand it all yet. We don’t understand what makes them decrease but we know we can begin to move people backwards. And can I tell you some cool stuff? We believe that things that decrease stress actually increase the number of stem cells that you have in your body and in your blood. And we know that men and women have different numbers and different kinds of stem cells. And so for the first time, we think we can begin to understand why it is that men develop heart disease earlier than women — because they lose their stem cells faster.
So wouldn’t it be fabulous if we could say, “Wait a minute. We can move you backwards on that continuum of disease.” And I think that’s the future. The future is really using nature’s tools to promote our body’s ability to heal itself, whether we do that with traditional medical approaches, giving you cells, giving you molecules that increase the number of stem cells in a controlled way, or whether it’s about teaching you tools that let your body do that.
Ms. Tippett: Right.
Dr. Taylor: Meditation, whatever.
Ms. Tippett: Yeah. And in that context — so here’s a paradox that strikes me in your work when I read a description of your laboratory where you have a number of hearts beating, right? So there’s something about this idea of disembodied hearts that then starts to make me worry about then how we define what we are.
Dr. Taylor: Absolutely.
Ms. Tippett: Right? But then the irony is that one of the things you’re discovering is that one of the ways our whole organism has to increase this capacity, this efficiency of stem cells, are through what I call these spiritual technologies like meditation. So, in fact, you take the things apart and then see how they fit together again.
Dr. Taylor: You know, it’s interesting because when we were first doing the guys in the lab would sleep in the lab to check on these hearts every half-hour or hour and a half. And when one of my folks who’s in my lab now came into the lab and was learning this process, Thomas — who was in the lab before — said, “You’ve just got to love it enough to keep it going.”
Ms. Tippett: Was he talking about the hearts?
Dr. Taylor: He was talking about the hearts …
Ms. Tippett: Right.
Dr. Taylor: … that we were growing in a dish. And, you know, we joke about that but at the same time, I think part of what we’re doing is learning about regenerating heart at a lot of different levels. And I think as we learn more about transplanting these hearts, what makes what we’re doing a little bit different than what exists out there already is we would — if we wanted to build you a heart, we would take a cadaver scaffold from a pig or from a human that couldn’t otherwise be used as a transplant. But we would take your stem cells, and we would use your cells to grow that heart. So it’s really about putting your body’s ability to heal you back in place.
Ms. Tippett: And then the way I understand it is you also see part of what you would want me to learn in terms of nurturing …
Dr. Taylor: Right.
Ms. Tippett: … that repair forward would also — there would also be a spiritual component to that.
Dr. Taylor: I mean, I personally have to believe that there’s a spiritual component to all of this. What we think impacts who we are. We know that. We know that, whether it’s what we think makes us grumpy or what we think makes us happy. And we’re learning that those have an impact on our physical body. Stress ages your stem cells. There’s science out there from some of the best laboratories in the world showing that the way a cell knows how old it is, is it has a little piece of DNA, chromosome, right? On the end of that chromosome is a little piece of DNA called a telomere. And every time your cell divides, that gets shorter. And when it reaches a certain point, it says, “Oops. I’m old. Time to die.” Well, stress makes that piece of DNA get shorter. So stress literally ages your stem cells. If you believe that’s true, and it is, it also ought to be possible to reverse stress and make your cells younger.
Xavier Le Pichon talks with Krista Tippett about fragility and the evolution of humanity (via On Being)
Fragility and the Evolution of Our Humanity
October 7, 2010Xavier Le Pichon is one of the world’s leading geophysicists, and his pioneering research on plate tectonics revolutionized our understanding of how the Earth works. He has also spent decades living in community with people and families facing disability and has emerged with a rare perspective on the meaning of humanity — a perspective equally informed by his scientific and personal encounters with fragility as a fundament of vital, evolving systems.
From Le Pichon conversations we should pay attention to the how materials closer to the core of the earth deform and slide along each other easily. On the other hand, material at the crust is cooler and often only move violently. This is a great metaphor for talking about organizational change. When we are close to the core (vision and mission) change is made easier by our warmth of purpose. When systems become cooler (and the way we have always done it) then the change may be violent and revolutionary.
Ms. Tippett: I think that also you draw analogies between how a whole community works, which is incorporating that fragility as part of its living being and even what you know about how the earth works.
Mr. Le Pichon: Yeah. It’s true that I was very, very impressed by one of these things, which is the way earthquakes are fabricated, which is in the lower layer of the earth where the temperature is high. Then the defaults that are within the rocks are activated, and the rocks are able to deform without fracture, become what we call ductile. You know, they flow.
Ms. Tippett: Right.
Mr. Le Pichon: But when the temperature is low and cold — it’s cold like in the upper few miles of the earth — then they are rigid. These weaknesses cannot be expressed, and as a result the rocks are much resistant, much more rigid, and they react by reaching their limit of resistance and suddenly, bing, you have a major commotion and an earthquake.
Ms. Tippett: Right.
Mr. Le Pichon: And so the difference is that in one case, the defaults play a role in putting weakness in that and making things much more smooth, you know?
Ms. Tippett: Mm-hmm.
Mr. Le Pichon: And in the other case, it’s very rigid. And I find in the society it’s very often the same thing in the community. Communities which are very strong, very rigid, that do not take into account the weak points of the community, the people who are in difficulty and so on, tends to be communities that do not evolve. And when they evolve, it’s generally by a very strong commotion, a revolution, I would call them in French.
Richard Mouw discusses political civility from an evangelical perspective with Krista Tippett (via On Being)
I especially appreciate Mouw’s invitation to see other people as an exercise in art appreciation.
Ms. Tippett: So here’s another statement from you about just an essential Christian truth, which is, “In affirming the stranger, we are honoring the image of God.”
Mr. Mouw: Yeah, yeah. That’s right. I mean, going back to that Aristotle idea that, you know, we all understand kinship and then we understand friendship, but then there’s this person who is neither kin nor friend, but we have encountered them. And what is it that links me to them if it isn’t just a lot of good feelings that I have about people like that? What the Bible teaches is that every human being is created in a divine image. And this means that every human being is — you know, this is where I’ve been thinking more about this lately — is a work of art.
Seeing other people is a kind of exercise in art appreciation. I find that very powerful. I come across a person who isn’t just a stranger, but maybe represents a strangeness to me that initially I might feel very alienated from that person, and then to think this is a work of art by the God whom I worship, that God created that person. And it doesn’t come easy. I’m kind of aesthetically deprived, so I have to work at it, but it’s a very important exercise to engage in.
Restoring Political Civility: An Evangelical View
October 14, 2010
Richard Mouw challenges his fellow conservative Christians to civility in public discourse. He offers historical as well as spiritual perspective on American Evangelicals’ navigation of disagreement, fear, and truth.
Ed Stetzer reminds Christians that the world does not need our moral arrogance. The world needs Jesus.
Eric Bryant recently wrote Not Like Me and Ed Stetzer contributed the insights below. Learning humility before the world and engaging unbelievers as people in relationship and not objects to be won is our work.
The past few decades have seen American Christians going in two different directions. One group in the church regularly pits scorched-earth, “come out and be separate” teaching against another group proposing the “love your neighbor as yourself” command of Jesus as paramount. Some what to save America, while others want to save Americans. Many believers have been taught that we should shun nonbelievers, since any friendship with them might cause us to stumble and fall into sin ourselves. The response is to construct a protective boundary that keeps us at a safe distance from those “living in sin.” It results in a subculture of churched people who are the equivalent of evangelical Amish.
While it is important for Christians to have and proclaim the moral standards as we have received them in God’s Word, our challenge is to avoid arrogance. Becoming prideful of our standards can have the inadvertent side-effect of us thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought to think.
via edstetzer.com
Front Porch Reflections 
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