You Are All Apple Fanboys

Samsung is racing their technical timeline to introduce a 64 bit processor into their flagship phones in 2014. Why? Because the iPhone 5S has one. Microsoft touts their Surface tablet against the iPad (much like the Zune was promoted against the iPod). Windows was introduced as the answer to Apple's graphical user interface OS and the application of the mouse. Does anyone remember WYSIWYG?

My point is simple: You are an Apple fanboy even if you hate the company and culture. Why? Because they make technology work the way you want it to. Then they get on to the next project of making insanely great products. Copycats be sued. Competitors be damned. Still the tech world orbits around the base ideas Apple brings to market. 

Perhaps that is why Nike has kept the FuelBand in the iOS camp rather than branch into the Android sphere. I cannot imagine the chaos programmers endure when faced with the questions of "What version?" "What manufacturer?" "What bloatwear?" only to have the landscape change three or four times a year with Google's upgrade schedule. What a nightmare. Nike likes a winner, one that performs regularly and spectacularly, even if a little pricy. And so do I.

Thug

The sign said "705 killed on Michigan Highways in 2013". This on October 16, 2013. The total should be higher tomorrow. And what was my thought? "I wonder how many murders in Chicago so far in 2013?"

There were 500 in 2012, 204 as of July 4, 2013. 

Mostly black on black, mostly shootings. 

Two smaller communities well known to me have relatively disasterous numbers. Flint, MI has far fewer residents but holds the per captia murder title for 2012: 1 in 1613 residents were murdered. Detroit is close behind: 1 in 1832 residents were murdered.

What is it about "Thou shalt not murder" that is so hard to understand?

I hear words spewed in the popular communication channels for these communities like thug, respect, ho, bling, caish, homie, cracka, and references to self in the third person. Is this a community without the second person in grammar? A generation where even the value of the first person is lost to the third? The individual centered on the first person is selfish, self-centered. The individual centered on the second person may be altruistic or manipulative. But the individual centered on the third person is soulless. The "person" is gone, only the story remains.

I believe that it is this person, who lives in the third person, who is capable of living in a culture of things to be used for personal benefit, including people.

What level of trauma, chemical abuse, neglect and/or training has to happen before this level of mayhem is considered normal for Washington Heights, or Flint, or Detroit? 

Its very similar to the conditioning our troops receive in order to wage war and kill the man in front of you in battle. Only there is no de-conditioning because the "battle" never ends when the grounds are your home. 

I read of a young man in Chicago who left his project home to escape the violence. His intention was to become a cop and help end the rampage of death. He returned to visit friends and family still there. He was murdered before midnight on the same day. 

There is good news for these soulless men and women on the handle end of the pistol: You really can be a person again. You can be "bought back" from the hellish vapor you have become. You can find the respect that matters: first from God then from within. You can have a peaceful night's sleep without the help of an outside substance. You can, if you first respect the person of Jesus Christ and the reason why He was born. 

Thugs. Learn some grammar: Jesus came to save your first person, so you can find true meaning in service of the second person. Let the third person go, it doesn't exist.

Screens

Had a great question last night: Why are screens and information considered our Saviors these days?

Screens flicker and promise. Mesmerized kids merge their brainwaves to the speed of the game or websites they frequent. Homework slows to a crawl as the iMessages, Skype requests, and other "social" media notifications blink on the screen. Is this the best way to educate our kids?

A worksheet is a worksheet on paper and online. One is not "better" than another. However that is being passed along as educational progress in some circles. I'm not sure the research would bear out the assumption that if it's on a screen it's inherently better learned. Nope. 

What I can report is screens have been responsible for lost sleep, lies, deceipt, very low quality homework, and teachers passing off classroom teaching for online videos. Now there is the problem of time: one child is required to use her computer for assignments, even when it takes her three times longer to finish the assignment. 

Each child should be encouraged to learn. Many can learn fine with the aid of the screens. But many others need to hear, touch, and move the material before they learn it. For too many IT stands for Idiot Tech. Schools should adjust their assembly line expectations and get back to the business of learning. 

Am I Lot? Part II

I do not come from a classic "prophetic" heritage in my christianity. My base is the Bible. My growth is through application and teaching others. I've had my ups and downs in the spiritual walk. All in all, it has not been so difficult. Most of my pain has been self inflicted.

The world is changing now. I hear the voices from two and three generations ago sad at the changes they witnessed during their era. I am looking two more generations on from that and compare their world with the world my grandchildren will be living in. What will they say when they too are grandparents? 

Perhaps that is why Lot stirred my soul so greatly.  

Parenting is leadership. What we teach our kids will last. Do we teach Christ for today, or the Christ of yesterday. There was a comment recently that the good old days weren't really so good. Should Christians still be arguing for Prohibition? Or perhaps demonstrating a different life completely?

Jesus wasn't reminiscing about the lost Temple, or the sacrificial system. Instead he showed how a life lived sacrificially was enough, no matter the government or current state of religious affairs.

Others in the Scriptures were in the same situation: often at odds with society and government but true to the revealed Word. Perhaps it would be good to be a little Christ for those in need and asking questions. Perhaps it would be best for our children to demonstrate a faith that doesn't rest on hemlines or physical prowess. Perhaps it would be best to sit at the feet of the Savior and grow mature in the faith before we go on a political rampage. Perhaps...

Lot

Lot's choice to separate from Abraham's family was logical and clear. Green land, cool breezes don't compare with barren rock-land. The good life was just over that mountain. Lot wanted it all. So he gathered his family, friends, servants, flocks and vast wealth to travel to the Jordan Valley.

To be fair, Lot had grown up in the shadow of his Uncle Abram. Lot's father died early and Abram took him in. When Abram left for the promised land Lot had a slim chance to choose to stay in the hometown. Lot lived with Abram's decisions. He saw Abram make poor decisions only to come out stronger on the other end. 

Genesis 13 retells the classic moment when Abram gives Lot the right of first choice. Both were rich. Both were in the same business with scant resources. Families were bickering. Something had to give. Do you want the east or the west, Lot, you may choose. 

The Lord God was not consulted by Lot at anytime in this process. Abram was a careful Uncle, but his example would not be enough for a God inspired decision. By sight, by self, the decision for the Jordan Valley was easy.

Lot was beseiged soon after his entrance to the valley. His riches and business had attracted the unsavory. Abram had to save Lot's life by force. Not much longer after that Lot's friends are picked off by the sodomites and adulterers into lives of sin filled ease. 

Genesis 18 and 19 detail Lot's end. And what do we find? Lot's riches are gone. Lot's business is gone. Lot has no servants, no extended family, his daughters aren't even married yet. Lot has no influence, instead he is forced to live unprotected outside the city walls. His habit is to linger by the gates of the city to turn people away from the danger within those walls. It is all he has left of his heritage.

Odd visitors arrive to counsel Lot and his family to leave their post to flee from the coming wrath. Lot hesitates, why? 

The visitors force Lot into action. The destruction begins to descend on the city. Lot's wife turns to view the horror. She is turned into a pillar of salt, a reflection of her stony soul. Lot's daughters stay with him through the small town of Zoar where Lot fails his prophetic opportunity to flee to the Jordanian mountains. 

A small cave houses the three in their depressive isolation. The daughters choose as the father did throughout his life: the seen over the unseen, the selfish over the godly, the flesh over the spirit. Lot is enticed by them to drink heavily, is used by his daughters to impregnate themselves, and inadvertantly spawns the nations of Moab and Ammon. 

Lot is described in 2 Peter 2:7 as a righteous man distressed by the "filthy lives of lawless men". However, Peter is concentrating on the lawless men. The concern of this review is with those of us who are called to make decisions about our family, work and friends. 

Let us not become so like our degrading society that we are not different for safety's sake. Let us choose to pray, wait and listen for the truth of God to be pressed into our soul. Let us choose paths of blessing, even through the rough rocky results of that decision. Let us also stand firm for our family, build an altar of remembrance, and seek to influence our neighbors to trust Christ for their direction in life. So Part I ends.

Return

I blinked and four years+ have passed since I opened this blog. Amazing.

So here's the update: I'm a grandfather five times over, with two more on the way. The 13 year old is quickly heading for that 18th birthday we talked about on the couch. He still has some of those same "bents" but he's becoming a pretty capable young man.

I have seen God surrounding this family as it extends to different states and then returns. He has been faithful through the years in ways that reveal themselves only in retrospect. I'm still promoting the same drug as I did then. I'm in my tenth year now... and the end is in sight. God will be at that end. There will be a direction, pray that I walk in it.

Dreams are elusive things, wisps of ideas that form and dissipate.

We are attending a different church than we did in 2009. Outreach is exciting, but discipleship is forever. The second is what this little band of Christians needed for a while. That and a closer fellowship.

Responsibilities have been pared away to the bare minimum, which is a surprise. How did that happen?

I read a study today that highlighted the reality that upwards of 75% of seminary graduates are not pastoring after five years in office. Some denominations have a much higher dropout rate. I am not alone. That is not comforting.

One key issue brought out in the comment section of the review was prayer specifically for and with the pastor. Someone believed in the power of prayer enough to spend time with the flock leader for the purpose of spiritual encouragement and fortification. That was a sense, an urge, I had during the mid-2000's. Permission was given at that time to set appointments to do just that as I traveled around the state.

I sense a wisp, do you?

A Revolt of the "Good" Kids

The nerds, geeks and wallflowers have found their voice.

Seriously.

We are witnessing the revolt of the "good" kids in today's political debates. It's heartening, timely and oh so needed.

The 1960's are billed as the era of revolution: drugs sex and rock n roll. And the good kids were made fun of as out of it and irrelevant. So the Boomer revolution took on a monolithic status of liberal lifestyles combined with compassion (as long as it was funded by someone else). This was epitomized by the rise to power of Bill Clinton: one of the few free-loving respectable hippies to get elected. His worldview was/is pure Boomer stereotype.

Something happened to the generation labeled Boomer during his presidency: the "Good" kids of that generation got upset. They realized that they could no longer protect their kids, life and country by homeschooling, hiding behind the veil of religious conviction, and congregating with the like minded. Clinton's mandate was to hunt the good kids down and begin to make them conform to his worldview. The good kids realized that the USA was no longer going to be good if they left it alone.

We floated with the Bush years. (I am identifying with the "Good" kids of the Boomers and Busters) He was tolerable and there was a crisis going on. But even the so-called War in Iraq grew tiresome. (Let's win the damn thing and move on!)

And then, doing the "good" thing, many of us helped to elect the first black president. Many did it quietly and would never admit to voting for him. Many were just voting against McCain, believing that the system would absorb the most heinous of the Obama goals. But never did the "good" kids believe that we would be going down the sewer of forced sameness.

I do not want to live like the hippies, druggies and loud braggarts of the Boomer generation. At least for a time, the "Good" kids are coming out of their shells to protest the excesses of their peers. We are witnessing the revolt of the "Good" kids.

This is the culture war that must be fought.