How Is Your Dream Life? Part Two

(Note: You might find it helpful to go back and read the blog from Oct. 13th, 2009. It forms the seminal thinking of this series on which we are about to journey).

Let’s get right to it shall we? Are you a creative person? Have you ever toyed with the idea of an invention or a business or a career change? When asked the mental candy questions: “If time and money were not an issue, what would you be doing with your life right now?” My answer to that question would go something like: 1) Professional waterfall photographer; or, 2) Professional puppy petter. Hey, I dig waterfalls and puppies. They still my soul.

Most of us shut down pretty fast when asked such a question. Why? - Because the responsibilities of life howl at us, not like a sweet puppy, but like a rabid dog. There are bills to pay, yards to mow, snow to shovel, food for which to shop, food to cook, houses to be cleaned, taxes to be prepared, taxes to be paid – and on and on it goes. The list is endless. To entreat our cluttered lives and minds with the “time and money” question seems a pointless exercise, or at best, a mental ride on a carousel that – though a momentary thrill – deposits us unceremoniously right back to where we started. We can almost hear our internal carnival carny shouting at us, “Okay, off you go – the ride’s over.”

I am going to make a strong case this year that an entrepreneurial spirit and the spirit of invention and creativity are God-things. The truths we will examine are going to be rooted deep in creation theology and in the covenantal promises given to the Hebrew people. By the way, those covenantal promises are still in effect today as we shall see in future blogs.

But, let’s go back for a moment to the issue of you and your own creative and entrepreneurial spirit. Do you have one? My guess is that yes, you do. And that is especially so for those who lay claim to a relationship with God – who sometimes goes by the moniker of: “The Creator. “ You may think I am wrong in my guess. My point throughout this year is to prove you wrong and myself right. Doesn’t that sound like fun?

The creative spirit begins with seeing things from a slightly different perspective and allowing that perspective to raise both questions and possibilities. This year we will meet a billionaire who made his fortune by putting women’s hosiery in an egg shaped container and marketing them as “L’eggs.” We will meet some drop-out of society rock-climbers and kayakers, each who founded multi-million dollar outdoor clothing and gear lines. In doing so, we will discover that some ideas are so obvious that we slap ourselves and say, “Why didn’t I think of that?” The short answer will be: “Because you never gave it a thought!”

When we live our lives never “giving it a thought” we are not only living lives of resignation, we are shutting off pathways for God to eventually bless the world. Thus, a subtext to all of what we will be learning together is a greater understanding of the concept of generosity. It is a big deal to God. It is a big deal to eternity. It is a big deal to the poor and helpless and downtrodden of the world. It will all tie together.

Let me wrap up this end of the year blog with a few amusing stories of really smart people who, for a moment in time, resigned themselves to the present realities surrounding them and became blind to different possibilities…

(I quote at length from a Wall Street Journal article written by L. Gordon Crovitz entitled: “Technology Predictions Are Mostly Bunk.”)

“Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further development.” – Julius Sextus, Roman Engineer, 10 A.D.

“Everything that can be invented has already been invented.” - Charles Duell, U.S. Patent Office, 1899

“The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys.” - Sir William Preece, British Post Office, 1878

“Who wants to hear actors talk?” –H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927 (Personal note: I still think that one might be a very good question.)

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” – Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM, 1943

“Television won’t be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.”
– Darryl Zanuck, 20th Century Fox, 1946

“The world potential for copying machines is 5,000 at most.” - IBM Executives to the future founders of Xerox, 1959

“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” – Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

“No one will need more than 637kb of memory for a personal computer.” – Bill Gates, Microsoft, 1981

And, my favorite…

“Next Christmas the i-Pod will be dead, finished, gone, kaput.” – Sir Allen Sugar, British Entrepreneur, 2005

Each quote is an example of a person growing a nasty case of myopia. My prayers for this year is that all who share in this blog and in the Simple Church ministry of Patrick Crossing will be cured of this unnecessary ailment. May 2010 be the best year you have ever experienced…

-CJ
New Year’s Eve, 2009

Merry Christmas 2009

CJ & Jan - 30 years, December 29, 2009

Beloved C.J. Blog Readers,

I have been out of sync for the past few weeks recovering from a back injury - two marvelously herniated discs. I have completed a lot of floor time and have not had quite enough energy, enthusiasm or focus to really put together my normal Christmas letter. My apologies for that. (Although it might have been quite entertaining to see what I would have had to say with the admixture of Holy Spirit, Oydcodone & Valium. Sadly, we will never know). I do have a backload of blogs that I have been sketching out and will begin 2010 trying to coordinate them with what I will be teaching at our Simple Church gatherings. So...stay tuned.

I am doing much, much better. Through this ordeal, I have gained a new found compassion for people who are suffering from chronic pain. The Scriptures teach that faith operates through love and I believe that compassion and love are synonymous. Many times, as a set-up for Jesus healing a person of a particular affliction, the Scripture begins with this phrase: "And, moved with compassion, He..." You know the rest. He healed them. Hopefully my prayers for people in 2010 will be of a better quality as I am now stripped of the base alloy of feigned compassion. I get it now.

So...Merry Christmas! It is a big deal - this God stepping out of eternity into time and entering our atmosphere through the portal of a Palestinian shed. God became a man and dwelt among us - so says the gospel writer, John. It is mind-bending. How could God be here and still be "there?" That question - actually that reality - was demonstrated by physics in the famous "Bucky-ball" experiment in Germany. Scientists witnessed for the first time a single electron appearing in two dimensions at the same moment in time. It was, and is, freakish. But, Scripture pre-dated that experiment by 2,000 years. God became a man and dwelt among us. I can't quite get my mind around that and I can't quite get over it. A brief meditation on the wonder of that event still moves me at the deepest level...

...And even more so because we humans are so puny and so transient. In our galaxy, the largest star known to exist goes by the name of VY Canis Majoris (Big Dog). It is referred to as a Red Hyper-Giant. There is some debate about its size, but some estimates say that the circumference of this star is over 5 billion miles. It would take an object traveling at light speed, 8 hours + to navigate the circumference. For our own sun, the light speed trip would take only 14.8 seconds. 7 quadrillion of our earths would be necessary to fill up the Big Dog. And that is just one star in the 100 plus billion stars in our galaxy. And...there are at least 100 billion galaxies in the universe. I read somewhere that there are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on the earth. Crazy - ridiculous - awesome - amazing and....humbling.

Christmas humbles me because I believe that God created the whole thing. I really do. And, it seems that He did His creating with extravagant excess. Even on this earth, the variety of trees, fruits, plants, dogs, people, insects, climates, fish, etc. boggles the mind. Why? Why so much variety? Why such a big universe? When I measure it all against the advent of the Christ-child - this special intervention from heaven for this mere speck in the universe overloads my emotions. Why this planet? Why are we so special? One errant asteroid could remove this headache of a planet peopled with a maddened human race set on its own destruction. But no - God decided to insert Himself onto the scene as "one of us." He got to experience for the very first time what it was like to see, smell, hear, taste, sweat, be thirsty, be tempted and to suffer - just like all of us "blokes down under." This planet - this one grain of sand in the vast wilderness of the universe gained the affection of the Creator.

But more mind-bending than that is the fact that He didn’t live and then die for mankind, as such…He lived and died and rose again for individuals – for people with real names, real birthdates, and with unique finger-prints. He died for me. He died for you. The Creator of all this excessive majesty came to this earth to establish contact with one person at a time.

If there wasn’t something truthful and real surrounding this event 2,000 years ago – it would have long ago dissipated from the memory of man. But, somehow, this child has repeated this “Bethlehem” – this great invasion - time and time again throughout these many centuries - being born anew into the willing hearts of men, women and children. He who was born, who lived, who suffered on the cross for our sins, and who rose again – lives on in believers from the inside out. A couple of billion people today who claim this mysterious relationship will pause and remember this great truth, that: “God became a man and dwelt among us…” The story never grows old because the story continues to skip from heart to heart and from generation to generation in its marvelous, organic iridescence. Wherever there is a needy heart that humbly cries out for help; for deliverance; for salvation; a Bethlehem occurs.

Be well blessed,

CJ

Christmas Day, 2009 A.D.