Archive for the ‘work and faith’ Category
Sunday’s Most Dangerous Infection
Hope is a worm working its way into your week
It spreads like a yawn. Involuntary. It taints the way you see everything. Like being in love. Hope is a realization working backward from the future to infect this very moment and infuse it with
Better.
I’ve been reading Jürgen Moltmann’s The Coming of God. Moltmann is an Austrian theologian who writes about eschatology (a look at last things, or end of times). Don’t be put off by the churchy/theological word: Moltmann’s take is not the “let’s read the Book of Revelation as a blueprint for the future” way. That old way often ended by damming up life here and now so as to burst in a final damnation on everything. With believers flying the coop just before. So why worry about this world?
Moltmann’s point is that a future hope has a way of wending its way back into the scrub and din of everyday life. In fact, it is the Christian hope of resurrection that feeds a very different way of looking at life:
Just as death is not only the end, but an event belonging to the whole of life, so the resurrection too must not be reduced to “a life after death.” The resurrection is also an event belonging to the whole of life. It is the reason for a full acceptance of life here without any reservation. (Moltmann, Jürgen. The Coming of God, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996. 66)
To me, that is a meaty stew that feeds my yearning to live fully in the present. And engage with people in the present (as much as my sadly-abstract soul will allow). I’ve been watching this hope work backward into my unscrolling days, changing them one by one.
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Image Credit: DKNG via thisisnthappiness
Start Anywhere Not Over
Starting over, would you do it different?
Today’s project? This job? That relationship? This marriage?
Looking back, we all see some things that would benefit from a shift in approach.
I was recently talking with a new college grad in a job with significant responsibility. He wants to do great work, but the immense pile of work before him and the fast pace environment seem to conspire against ever feeling caught up, letting alone doing the exceptional stuff he did in college. I recognize lots of friends and clients in this same spot. Most of us have been there or perhaps that is our permanent home.
But if you started over, you’d do things differently.
Really?
Some things. Perhaps. But those old patterns are woven deep into the fabric of our approach to any given day. Starting over may not have the cleansing effect we hope for. There are no easy answers to managing your time to do great work. Saying “No” to some work and “Yes” to other work is part of the solution. Learning to focus and keep distractions at bay is another piece. Lots of people have lots of advice for how to deal with this and much of it is quite good. Seth Godin distributes advice like this every day. Free. His “The Dip” is all about when to quit and when not to.
Training Day
Maybe the pressures we face today or this year have everything to do with the direction we need to grow. Maybe the pressures we face are part of how we are to be shaped right now. I’m fond of an old dead poet/king/dancing machine. In this particular ancient text of his, he offered that the troubles we find ourselves in have a disruptive quality designed to help us look again for balance. And balance is found in a deepening alignment with, well, God. Whether in today’s project, this job, that relationship and especially this marriage. This poet had strategies for his pursuit. Those strategies make sense any time we’re wondering whether we should just start over. And his strategies make even more sense if we’re trying to figure out how to pick up just one piece right now. Right in the middle of the pressure—which piece can I start that will unravel this tangled mess?
Before you start over, start anywhere.
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Image Credit: via thisisnthappiness
Risky and Risqué Reading for Christian Copywriting Students
Reading is dangerous. And profitable.
On Tuesday I start teaching Freelance Copywriting (Eng3316) at Northwestern College in Saint Paul, Minnesota. These are junior and seniors largely from the English department, but also from Journalism, Communications and Business. They are generally excellent writers and engaged students—people eager to take their faith into the street. We’ll use a few thought-provoking texts that deal with the business side of copywriting, along with the what to expect as a copywriter and how to get better at producing salable ideas (Bowerman’s The Well-Fed Writer, Iezzi’s The Idea Writers, Young’s A Technique for Producing Ideas). But I’ve become convinced the real-time critiques of working copywriters around the web are just as helpful if not more useful than our texts. It’s just that the language and images used in the critiques often veer outside the lines of nice and polite, though I would argue the critiques follow the line of conversation Jesus the Christ encouraged with regular people like me.
So.
I’ve devised a warning:
Question: Is this overkill? My goal is to help prepare thoughtful writers who fold God’s message of reunion into their communication work and live it out in a world that operates on a very different basis. I think students will understand. I’m not sure the administration will.
What do you think?
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Image Credit: Chris Buzelli via 2headedsnake
Prayer for a Toxic Boss
Give the boss your justice, O God.
May she judge her team with righteousness,
And those with a steep learning curve with hope.
Let the mountains bear prosperity as she credits workers for their work.
May he listen to the wisdom of the poor and experienced on his team
and defend their cause.
May righteousness and honesty flourish under him,
So the team has success and all they touch may progress.
Turn his ignorant bloviating
To intelligent questions.
Set her mind on reaching out with wisdom and skill to others
Rather than hunkering in protective maneuvers.
Free his tongue to utter truth
Rather than reacting with clichés that obscure ignorance.
Separate her ego from the work
So she can direct her team and fix her talents on our larger goals
In her days may the righteous flourish and peace abound, till the moon be no more!
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conversation is an engine 