Receiving the Day

My wife and I just returned from a relaxing vacation to Kennebunkport, Maine and while there I read an insightful book titled Receiving the Day: Christian Practices for Opening the Gift of Time. My reading of it comes on the heels of another thoughtful book I read this month called Sabbath Keeping: Finding Freedom in the Rhythms of Rest. Both books served to reinforce the convictions of my wife and I concerning the need to throttle the speed at which we live our personal and professional lives.

Retreating to an idyllic setting as we did helps to slow the pace of living but our journey toward “the unforced rhythms of grace,” as Eugene Peterson calls it in The Message, has been some time in the making. And it has been satisfying for us the last couple of months to experience the pleasure of sharing our philosophy of life with several others through a presentation we call “Sense and Simplicity: Relax, Refresh and Renew.” One good nugget of advice: slow down long enough to read a good book.

Taming Technology

I finally joined the twenty-first century and upgraded from dial-up to high-speed Internet. It has gone relatively smoothly, with a couple of kinks yet to be ironed out. But it has left me thinking anew about the place of technology in my life. For example, in exchange for all the extra speed I gained with the upgrade, I also spent considerable time contacting tech support personnel for assistance with the process.

In the long run, the transaction will be well worth it, I am convinced. Yet I can’t help but wonder how much longer I could have made do with the old-fashioned technology. I am no Luddite: one who is averse to all types of technology, no matter the convenience it offers. It’s just that I rather like living simply, particularly when it comes to taming the tentacles of technology. For I’ve realized that it may make life easier, but not necessarily simpler.

Technology has afforded me the luxury of being able to do the work I enjoy virtually anywhere in the world, as long as I am connected via phone and computer. And with the growth of wireless services, I am greatly anticipating the time I will be freed from the tangle of wires that encumber me. But even as the day approaches, I plan to keep the number for tech support handy in case of emergency.

A Tale of Two Cities

Together with the rest of the world, I have been witnessing the havoc wreaked by Hurricane Katrina, particularly in the beautiful, historic city of New Orleans. As I’ve watched, I’ve been reminded of the immortal words of Charles Dickens in A Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

That phrase summarizes for me the good and bad aspects of human nature that have been on display the last couple of days. “The best of times” has been represented by the heroic rescue efforts of the brave emergency personnel in New Orleans. Yet “the worst of times” also has been on display, namely through the brazen acts of thievery perpetrated by desperate city residents.

During a visit to New Orleans for a convention, I found the city charming, but for the notable exception of Bourbon Street. So it is with sadness that I see its downtown district awash in waves of water. But it is the human story that I find most disheartening. I can’t help but recall the quote I read of a tourist as she observed the rampant looting of the French Quarter: “I thought this was a sophisticated city, but I guess not.” A tale of two cities indeed.

As I try to make sense of the situation that continues to unfold, I also am reminded of the timeless words of Jesus found in Matthew 6:19-20: “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

The Art of Creative Living

I read the latest book by famed “Painter of Light” Thomas Kinkade, called The Art of Creative Living: Making Every Day a Radiant Masterpiece. The book is the sequel to his bestselling title Lightposts for Living: The Art of Choosing a Joyful Life, a personalized copy of which I proudly own. I must admit Kinkade’s romantic vision of the simple life resonates with me personally and it is one that I seek to experience daily. Both of the artist’s books spoke to me on a deep level, but the riches of the latest one are most freshly on my mind.

In an effort to capture the essence of the book, I enclose here a brief excerpt from Kinkade’s luminous writing: “I have come to believe that in an expansive sense, creativity is God’s highest calling. The call to creativity isn’t complicated. It could be a life’s work or a ministry for the moment. Whatever your occupation or daily responsibilities, once you discover your special creative calling and begin to fill in life’s canvas, you’ll be on the way…to an experience of creative living that is your own work of art…a masterpiece.”

Sowing and Reaping

I recently perused a book in my library called Blur: The Speed of Change in the Connected Economy by Stan Davis and Christopher Meyer and a statement leapt off the page at me: “Remember, knowledge, a main currency of the BLUR economy, has a unique property: You’ve got it, you sell it—you’ve still got it! So, don’t hoard your knowledge. Spread it, get credit for having known it early, become known as the source of interesting ideas, whether they’re original or secondhand. If you don’t, your friends will hear it from someone else. Velocity of knowledge is crucial to your success. The more you give away, the more you’ll get back.” Sounds like sowing and reaping to me.

The Reading Life

I finished reading The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life by Steve Leveen, founder of Levenger, the purveyor of “Tools for Serious Readers,” and loved it. Subtitled “How to get more books in your life and more life from your books,” the book recalls the simple pleasures of the reading life. For more about the book, visit the author's site at www.levenger.com/wellreadlife.

Chronicling the Blogosphere

I read Hugh Hewitt’s latest tome, a chronicle of the blogosphere titled Blog: Understanding the Information Reformation That’s Changing Your World. For the uninitiated, Hewitt is the unofficial historian of the blogging movement, with one of the highest traffic sites in the blogosphere, located at http://www.hughhewitt.com/.

As it states on the book’s cover, Hewitt articulates “why you must know how the blogosphere is smashing the old media monopoly and giving individuals power in the marketplace of ideas.” To that end, he does an artful job of explaining how Web logs are in the process of replacing mainstream media as the most influential, if not powerful, force in media today.

Hewitt cites the incredible growth of the blogosphere—which boasts nearly 5 million blogs in existence and is expected to double within the year—as indicative of a communications breakthrough comparable to the revolutionary printing press.

Archiving the Internet

I was channel surfing the other day and stumbled upon an intriguing program on one of the few stations that make television worth watching: C-SPAN. The program featured Brewster Kahle speaking at the John Kluge Center at the Library of Congress about his ambitious dream of cataloging the Internet.

Kahle sold his company, Alexa Internet Corp., which is the chief chronicler of Web traffic, to Amazon.com in June 1999, and is now hard at work on the Internet Archive, a project that is designed to save and sort the world’s collective knowledge. For more info, visit its site at http://www.archive.org/.

“The Internet has the potential to be the greatest library in the history of mankind—a repository of memory, thought, culture, and scholarship; a record of what it means to be human. But without an archive, it’s nothing more than a catalog of the perpetually changing now,” said Kahle.

I jotted down some of the more fascinating statistics that Kahle shared in the process of outlining the daunting task he faces. According to Kahle, there are about 28 million books in existence today, 2 to 3 million music recordings, 100,000 to 200,000 moving pictures, 50,000 software programs, 50 million Web sites and 40 billion Web pages.

Apparently unfazed by the job ahead, Kahle blithely stated that as big as the challenge is, it is nonetheless doable in our lifetime. As an example, he said that the equivalent of the entire collection of the Library of Congress could be archived at a cost of 200 million to 300 million dollars, a fraction of its current operating budget.

Watching for Trends

I subscribe to an insightful newsletter from Trendwatching.com and this month’s featured consumer trend is what is called Nouveau Niche. Here is an excerpt from the latest issue: “BusinessWeek called it ‘The Vanishing Mass Market.’ Others talk about Niche Mania, Stuck in the Middle, or Commoditization Chaos. We at Trendwatching.com dubbed it Nouveau Niche: the new riches will come from servicing the new niches! To continue thinking of niche as unprofitable or even worse, unpopular, may equal commercial suicide.” For more information or to subscribe visit www.trendwatching.com.

Blinking Without Thinking

I finished reading Malcolm Gladwell’s insightful new book titled Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking the other day. I got tons of new insights from it, but for the time being I’ll simply include an excerpt from the book’s cover copy and a link to Malcolm Gladwell’s site for further reading: www.gladwell.com.

“Blink is a book about how we think without thinking, about choices that seem to made in an instant—in the blink of an eye—that actually aren’t as simple as they seem. Blink reveals that great decision makers aren’t those who process the most information or spend the most time deliberating, but those who have perfected the art of ‘thin-slicing’—filtering the very few factors that matter from an overwhelming number of variables.”

Speaking of Conversation

I am preparing to ring in the New Year the way I usually do: watching my all-time favorite movie, It’s a Wonderful Life, together with my wife here at home. And as much as I enjoy doing so, I also harbor the notion of hosting a gathering some year, where others are invited to join us in our conversation about issues like the meaning of life.

Once known as salons during the Renaissance, typical gatherings were places where great ideas were debated among leaders of the day. One such get-together during more contemporary times is an annual meeting called Renaissance Weekend, usually held over New Year’s weekend. For more information about it, visit www.renaissanceweekend.org.

Inquiring minds love good books and a classic title I read on the timeless art of conversation is one by Theodore Zeldin called Conversation: How Talk Can Change Our Lives. Speaking of conversation, it was Admiral Hyman Rickover who succinctly said: “Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.”

And as a fellow blogger has stated, “To converse is human…to salon is divine. Salons are informal gatherings where people talk big talk, talk meant to be listened to and perhaps passionately acted upon. Salons are incubators where ideas are conceived, gestated, and hatched.”

We creative types, us writers and artists, are drawn to diverse gatherings that provide a place to share the life of the mind. Bringing people together generates an energy that goes beyond the sum of the individuals. People get creative when they’re with each other. It’s about creating a community where there’s an exchange of ideas. Maybe next year…

Taking Care of Busyness

Contrary to popular opinion, busyness is not next to godliness. Indeed, if there is one affliction that ails us all it is that of busyness. And it is perhaps never more so than during the holiday season that is upon us. As for me and mine, we are determined to not allow it to rob us of the peace that presents cannot give. Included here are some thoughts on taking care of busyness.

As James Gleick, the author of Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything, writes, “Our computers, our movies, our sex lives, our prayers—they all run faster now than ever before. And the more we fill our lives with time-saving devices and time-saving strategies, the more rushed we feel.”

Sue Monk Kidd echoes much the same sentiment in her writing: “We live in an age of acceleration, in an era so seduced by the instantaneous that we’re in grave danger of losing our ability to wait.” Or in the words of author and speaker Timothy Jones, “We are addicted to quickness.”

Sociologists have coined a word for such a lifestyle: hurrysickness. This condition is the result of living in constant overdrive. We cram each moment so full of tasks that we have no time to experience these events in any meaningful way. “The press of busyness is like a charm,” the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard wrote.

Yet, the celebrated thinker and author Henry David Thoreau has one simple question for those of us left queasy from hurrysickness: “Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises?” In the end, we dilute the antidote when we hunger for success, yet starve our souls. As Archibald D. Hart said, “If history teaches us anything...it is that spiritual formation and hurriedness are not compatible companions.”

Tuning Into Synchronicity

I recall from my younger days a tune by Sting called “Synchronicity.” I forget the words from it but I do remember how I liked the sound of the word, and what it means. Webster defines synchronicity as “the coincidental occurrence of events that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality.”

Julia Cameron, in her book The Artist’s Way defines synchronicity as answered prayers. “Is it any wonder we discount answered prayers? We call it coincidence. We call it luck. We call it anything but what it is — the hand of God, activated by our own hand when we act in behalf of our truest dreams, when we commit to our own soul.”

I also like the description of synchronicity by Heather Blakey: “Synchronicity is when you’re thinking strongly about something and a friend you haven’t seen in a while gives you a book on the exact same subject. It’s when you’re contemplating making a change and you happen to talk to precisely the right person to help you get started. Now I have to be up front and admit that while I don’t believe in luck, chance, or anything like that, I do believe in synchronicity.” Amen.

Leaving a Legacy

My wife and I are heading to our second funeral in a week. A family member died last week and a friend died just the other day. In between funerals, I came across a book/CD called Live Like You Were Dying, named after the song popularized by country crooner Tim McGraw.

One of the more inspiring passages of the book reads: “May we live like we were dying. With passion and purpose and mission and meaning…and with a little wild abandon. May we die like we were living. We can’t control the length of our life. Just the depth.”

As I’ve been reflecting lately upon the meaning of life and death and the value of leaving a legacy, I’ve come across a couple of my favorite quotes about it and pray they’ll stoke the fires of your heart as they have mine. It was Oliver Wendell Holmes who said, “Don’t die with the music still in you,” and James Dean said, “Dream as if you’ll live forever. Live as if you’ll die today.”

Living the Life

I recently read a description of authentic happiness by Martin Seligman, a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. According to Seligman, there are three paths to happiness: the pleasant life, the good life and the meaningful life.

The pleasant life is what most people think of when considering whether they are happy or not. Some seek short cuts to the pleasant life through artificial means but sooner or later most people look in the mirror and ask themselves if that is all there is.

The good life comes through deep engagement in work, family life or other activities. In my case it is writing, spending time with my wife and playing golf, but it could be any activity that one finds challenging and rewarding.

Finally, the meaningful life means devoting oneself to an institution or cause greater than oneself. New York Times best-selling author Rick Warren captures this thought with the opening words to his hugely successful book, The Purpose-Driven Life: “It’s not about you. You were made by God and for God—and until you understand that, life will never make sense.”

Another best-selling author, Max Lucado, has written a book that echoes much the same sentiment. It is titled It’s Not About Me and it is subtitled “Rescue From the Life We Thought Would Make Us Happy.” As the Scriptures remind us, we are to “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these other things will be added.” While I am experiencing the pleasant life and enjoying the good life, I am also endeavoring to live the meaningful life.

Hearing the Music

Lately I’ve been thinking of music as a metaphor for life. Literature contains a symphony of musical references and the score music plays in the sacramental life. For example, in his moving book titled Morning Sun on a White Piano, Robin R. Myers melodically writes, “The next time you go to hear live music, consider that time before the concert, when the musicians are tuning up, to be very much like the work of the soul. It is all noisy, cranky cacophony until joined in the service of harmony.”

It was John Ruskin who so eloquently stated, “Not without design does God write the music of our lives. Be it ours to learn the time and not be discouraged at the rests. They are not to be omitted, not to destroy the melody, not to change the keynote. If we look up, God Himself will beat the time for us. With the eye on Him, we shall strike the next note full and clear, because we rested. There is no music in a ‘rest,’ but there is the making of music in it. People are always missing that part of the life melody.”

Timothy Jones also chimes in with his own note on the metaphor of music: “Music is beautiful not only for its notes but also its pauses; percussion gives rhythm only with the alternation of sound and silence. So with our days.”

And it was Oliver Wendell Holmes who challenged, “Don’t die with the music still in you.” From my perspective, part of the trouble with living in modern times is that often we allow the busyness of life to choke out our dreams and destinies, not to mention the sanctity and sacredness of daily living. Sadly, many of us settle for being an echo of someone else instead of the unique voice that God created us to be.

I am reminded of the wisdom of Phillips Brooks, who once wrote, “The great danger facing all of us is…that some day we may wake up and find that always we have been busy with the…trappings of life—and have really missed life itself.” As we play our parts in the orchestra of life, let us each strive to make the concert a sublime one.

Redeeming the Time

I am fond of a quote attributed to William Penn that describes the time trap we fall prey to often: “Time is what we want most, but what, alas, we use worst, and for which God will certainly reckon with us when time is no more.” It reminds me of the Scripture that admonishes us to “redeem the time, for the days are evil.”

For us to redeem our time, we need to allocate it so that we don’t succumb to the urgent, but less important, demands of life. For example, we sometimes need to decline extraneous commitments in order to develop meaningful relationships instead. If there’s one creed for us to heed it is that people matter more than programs.

In the words of Nancy Reagan, we must learn to “just say no.” Someone’s need does not necessarily mean we are called to do it. We need to discern the difference between something that is good and something that is right. And saying no to a good idea or need doesn’t always mean never. It may mean not right now.

The ultimate example of pacing oneself through life was Jesus. He knew he only had a limited time here on earth during which to accomplish his mission, yet he daily resisted the temptation to yield to the tyranny of the urgent. If he could lay aside peripheral activities for the sake of his personal agenda, surely we can do so ourselves.

As for me, I want to make the days count rather than simply count the days. And I am learning to do that by negotiating the level of commitment I am prepared to make to outside ventures and then communicating my boundaries to others. For as Dr. Phil teaches, “you train people how to treat you.”

Surrendering to Serendipity
 
It has long fascinated me that there are actually two types of time. Chronos is the Greek word from which we get the English word chronology. It specifically refers to the type of time that can be measured by a clock. Kairos also is a Greek word and it stands for purposeful time, the type that is filled with meaning and cannot be conveniently measured.
 
Whether we use Daytimers or Palm Pilots to schedule our “chronos” time, it is helpful for us to allow sufficient space for some “kairos” time, or in other words, surrender to serendipity. Webster defines serendipity as “the faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for.”
 
The word serendipity was originally coined by the eighteenth-century British writer Horace Walpole, who defined it as “that quality of mind which, through awareness, sagacity, and good fortune, allows one to frequently discover something good while seeking something else.”
 
Serendipity can enhance our lives by enabling us to balance spontaneity and structure and allow us to leverage time, not simply log it. If our relationship to time is always one of racing the clock, then perhaps we need to unplug ourselves from manmade chronometers and practice living according to the rhythm of life for a change.

We enhance the quality of our life when we properly discern its times and tides, its ebbs and flows, its rhymes and rhythms. It was Henry David Thoreau who wisely noted: “I love a broad margin to my life.” And lifestyle maven Alexandra Stoddard echoes the same sentiment: “All of us are orbiting like stars in the universe. We can’t have our dance card filled for the rest of our lives, because we need spaces to allow for serendipity.”

Returning to Simplicity

For some time, I have been studying a trend that has come to be known as “voluntary simplicity.” It is a growing movement toward a simpler, more meaningful life. Born out of people’s disenchantment with the frantic, harried pace of modern life, it is a trend whose time has come.

In a society that has embraced the philosophy that “busier is better,” spawning scores of methods for doing more and getting more, people are finally realizing that there is life beyond tag sales and to-do lists. Simply stated, more and more people are awakening to the reality that there is a vast difference between living life and making a living, and that busy-ness is not necessarily profitable.

“You are not here merely to make a living,” said former president Woodrow Wilson. “You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.” It is a sentiment echoed by the philosopher Henry David Thoreau. “There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living,” he suggested.

As the Bible itself states in Ecclesiastes 4:6, “better is a handful with quietness, than both hands full with travail and vexation of spirit.” And it is Thoreau who queries us, “Shall we always study to obtain more of these things, and not sometimes to be content with less?”

As the founding father of voluntary simplicity, Thoreau captured the essence of it when he stated: “Simplify. Simplify. For as one gradually simplifies his life, even the laws of the universe will appear less complex.” Taking his suggestion to heart, there are many who are quitting the rat race and instead of caving in to peer pressure are returning to the simplicity of living more by making do with less.

Spreading the News

In the book The Anatomy of Buzz: How to Create Word of Mouth Marketing, author Emanuel Rosen points out that it’s not necessarily expensive advertising, marketing or public relations that get people to select certain products or services over others—instead it is word of mouth among consumers.

According to a May 2001 McKinsey & Co. study, 67% of U.S. consumer sales are influenced by word of mouth. And personal experience products such as books, music and movies are especially susceptible to the powers of personal persuasion. No doubt all of us can think of incidents in which we have shared buzz about products with business associates, close friends and family members.

“Word of mouth has superseded any form of paid advertising, in terms of influence,” says Marian Salzman, author of Buzz: Harness the Power of Influence and Create Demand. In our world of round-the-clock media bombarding us with an average of 10,000 images daily, personal recommendations carry much more weight than conventional hype from professional spinmeisters. “Go to the trend spreaders and plant yourself intelligently on their radar,” suggests Salzman.

Perhaps the best example of a trend spreader is Oprah Winfrey. It is not unusual for sales of her latest book club selection to skyrocket into the millions of copies, many times thrusting them from the shadows of obscurity into the limelight of newfound fame. Note to trend spreader wannabes: the secret to her success is the uncanny connection she has with her audience created over years of bonding with them.

In its simplest form, the creation of buzz is about one person sharing their experience using a product or service with someone else, usually someone with whom they have an existing relationship. While trend spreading may come more naturally to some people, buzz creation is an activity that anyone can practice with positive results. Pass it on!