UBERLUMEN

It is NOT about IQ!

Posted on August 6th, 2010 by uberlumen.
Categories: Parenting, Spiritual Growth.

Today’s post is about IQ.  From a very early age, I was taught that all that mattered was how smart you are and how high your IQ is.  I have always struggled with such a notion because there are many happy and successful people that are not geniuses.  It is sad to have such a rigid, narrow, and ignorant perspective.  The people that I have met who claim that IQ is so important tend to be those who are mostly unhappy, lonely, and proud-living in an ivory tower of their own making. It turns out that it is NOT about IQ!

“Over the years, an enormous amount of research has been done in an attempt to determine how a person’s performance on an IQ test…translates to real-life success…The relationship between success and IQ only works up to a point. Once someone has reached an IQ of somewhere around 120, having additional IQ points doesn’t seem to translate into any measurable real-world advantage.”

After listing where the last 25 Nobel Loreates in Chemistry and Medicine gradutate from college, it is clear that you don’t have to go to Harvard to be successful. “To be a Nobel Prize winner, apparently, you have to be smart enough to get into…college…That’s all….”

“In a devastating critique, the sociologist Pitirim Sorokin once showed that if Terman had simply put together a randomly selected group of children from the same kinds of family backgrounds as the Termites–and dispensed with IQs altogether–he would have ended up with a group doing almost as many impressive things as his painstakingly selected group of genisues. ‘By no stretch of the imagination or of standars of genius,’ Sorokin concluded, ‘is the ‘gifted group’ as a whole ‘gifted.’” By the time Terman came out with his fourth volume of Genetic Studies of Genius, the word ‘genius’ had all but vanished. ‘We have seen,’ Terman concluded, with more than a touch of disappointment, ‘that intellect and achievement are far from perfectly correlated.”

“You can have lots of analytical intelligence and very little practical intelligence, or lots of practical intelligence and not much analytical intelligence…so where does something like practical intelligence come from? We know where analytical intelligence comes from. It’s something, at least in part, that’s in your genes…But social savvy is knowledge. It’s a set of skills that have to be learned. It has to come from somewhere, and the place where we seem to get these kinds of attitudes and skills is from our families.”

“What was the difference between the As and the Cs? Terman ran through every conceivable explanation. He looked at their physical and mental health…he compared…what their precise IQ scores were in elementary and high school. In the end, only one thing mattered: family background. The As overwhelmingly came from…homes filled with books…etc…the Cs lacked…a community around them that prepared them properly for the world.”

Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

0 comments.

Unnoticed Wonders

Posted on July 30th, 2010 by uberlumen.
Categories: Evil and Suffering, Parenting, Sermon Notes, Spiritual Growth, Vital Signs of Healing.

A poem written by my daughter-

Unnoticed Wonders

Dedicated to the small things we love, but never pay attention to

A brand new box of sharp, colorful crayons

The way the ocean feels on bare feet

A leaf’s delicate design

The taste of fresh, red apples

A puppy’s velvety ears

The smell of a new book

The wind blowing in your face

Splashing in puddles

The birds’ chirping

Roasting marshmallows

A sense of accomplishment

Laughter

Dessert

The way your hair floats around you when you’re underwater

Riding a roller coaster

Being told that you’re good at something

Catching your first fish

Swinging on a swing

Being with your friends

Dressing up

Getting a present

Doing a fun craft

Sitting by the fire

Watching lightning flash across the sky

Drinking cool lemonade on a hot July day

Imagining what it would feel like to fly

Playing an exciting game

 Staying up late

Watching a movie while eating popcorn

Jumping on the trampoline

Playing tag

1 comment.

Mom’s Euology

Posted on July 22nd, 2010 by uberlumen.
Categories: Apologetics, Evil and Suffering, Parenting, Sermons, Spiritual Growth, Vital Signs of Healing.

My Mom died last week: December 16, 1929-July 12, 2010

I was asked to give her Euology:

believe, love, live

believe.

My Mom was proud of her English degree from Berkley. She would always tell me of the time that she got spit on while she was riding on the San Francisco trolly with her African American girlfriend, and the special privileges she got as an English major. Only the English majors were allowed to read the books in the locked cabinet in the library–catcher In the Rye and Chaucer books.

When it came time for me to decide between Berkley and Stanford the decision was made easy by Mom. “You are going to Stanford!” much to her surprise I came back a changeling as she sometimes would call me.

I believe-I remember exactly where I was standing in our house when I first broached the subject of faith with Mom. She said, “You didn’t become born again did you!” I simply told her that I discovered that there is a God who loves us and is all perfect and all loving who wants to be in relationship with us. It is like taking a test and I have taken a lot of tests. If God is perfect, then He gets 100% on the moral test of life, mother theresa gets on her best day 90%, and well I might get to 50%. The only way to be in an intimate relationship with a perfect, all Holy Being is to ace the moral test which no one can accept God. Solution: God came down in human form as Jesus to take the test for us. All we have to do is accept His gift and say I believe. The following day Mom said, “well, I prayed to accept Jesus into my heart, but nothing happened.” She didn’t like to talk about her faith much or mine for that matter. It was 15 years later when she showed up and sat in the back of the auditorium while I was teaching about the evidence of God from science and philosophy that we spoke again of faith. She said afterwards, “of course I have always known Christianity to be true and I wish that all the kids were here.” she ended a lot of her sentences that way.

She believed in Christ and she believed in all of us. When we were discouraged she would always be there to lift us up. When I had no friends and felt like the world was ending in 7th grade she said, “you have always been a good swimmer. Why don’t you join a swim team.” her belief in me and many of us changed the course of our lives.

She was an avid reader and she loved Langston Hughes poetry. She shared her favorite one with each of her kids….a poem of inspiration and of believing in us…

Well…I’ll tell you:
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare.
But all the time
I’se been a-climbin’ on,
And reachin’ landin’s,
And turnin’ corners,
And sometimes goin’ in the dark
Where there ain’t been no light.
So…don’t you turn back.
Don’t you set down on the steps.
‘Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.
Don’t you fall now—
For I’se still goin’, honey,
I’se still climbin’,
And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

love.

Prodigal son-there is an ancient story modernized by Brennan Manning…there was a bright young man….this is the love of God…unconditional, outrageous, crazy

Mom didn’t speak of her faith but she showed it through her unconditional love of me and my kids…an amazing and rare gift to give to all of our kids and those around us…

live on.

Grandma is so lucky! The night mom died I was trying to think of something to say when I tucked my oldest son in for bed…but before I could say anything..he said, “Grandma is SO lucky!”   We have been so lucky, so blessed to love her. But we must remember that she is the lucky one.

We think we live in disneyland let me tell u this is not disneyland…a friend of mine has told me the story of his sons first trip to Disneyland. They went through the gate and he saw all the flowers and just knew that he had made it into Disneyland, and when his dad tried to tell him that this wasn’t Disneyland he refused to budge. We think we r in Disneyland when in reality we r only at the entrance.

“follow the balloons”-when my sister was visiting with Mom in the hospital, and she told Mom that she was going to go down stairs to the cafeteria to get something to drink. Mom said, “just follow the balloons..” This is a time to celebrate because Grandma, Mom has followed the balloons pass the entrance and through the gates to the real Disneyland and she lives on…and she is SO lucky…and we will see her again…it is not good bye but see u later…release the balloon to know that mom is now finally at Disneyland…

Let us release these balloons, and remember the lessons she taught all of us…to believe and to love….

3 comments.

Teaching ‘Right’

Posted on June 14th, 2010 by uberlumen.
Categories: Book Reviews, Parenting.

In today’s excerpt – teaching. Through many years of systematic observation of some of the very best teachers, teacher Doug Lemov has identified forty-nine key techniques that separate the very best teachers from merely good ones. One of these forty-nine techniques he has labeled “Right is Right”:

” ‘Right Is Right’ is about the difference between partially right and all-the-way
right – between pretty good and 100 percent. The job of the teacher is to set a
high standard for correctness: 100 percent. The likelihood is strong that students will stop striving when they hear the word right (or yes or some other proxy), so there’s a real risk to naming as right that which is not truly and completely right. When you sign off and tell a student she is right, she must not be betrayed into thinking she can do something that she cannot.

“Many teachers respond to almost-correct answers their students give in class
by rounding up. That is they’ll affirm the student’s answer and repeat it, adding some detail of their own to make it fully correct even though the student didn’t provide (and may not recognize) the differentiating factor. Imagine a student who’s asked at the beginning of Romeo and Juliet how the Capulets and Montagues get along. ‘They don’t like each other,’ the student might say, in an answer that most teachers would, I hope, want some elaboration on before they called it fully correct. ‘Right,’ the teacher might reply. ‘They don’t like each other, and they have been feuding for generations.’ But of course the student hadn’t included the additional detail. That’s the ’rounding up.’ Sometimes the teacher will even give the student credit for the rounding up as if the student said what he did not and what she merely wished he’d said, as in, ‘Right, what Kiley said was that they don’t like each other and have been feuding. Good work, Kiley.’ Either way, the teacher has set a low standard for correctness and explicitly told the class that they can be right even when they are not. Just as important, she has crowded out students’ own thinking, doing cognitive work that students could do themselves (e.g., ‘So, is this a recent thing? A temporary thing? Who can build on Kiley’s answer?’).

“When answers are almost correct, it’s important to tell students that they’re
almost there, that you like what they’ve done so far, that they’re closing in on
the right answer, that they’ve done some good work or made a great start. You
can repeat a student’s answer back to him so he can listen for what’s missing
and further correct – for example, ‘You said the Capulets and the Montagues
didn’t get along.’ Or you can wait or prod or encourage or cajole in other ways
to tell students what still needs doing, ask who can help get the class all the
way there until you get students all the way to a version of right that’s rigorous
enough to be college prep: ‘Kiley, you said the Capulets and the Montagues
didn’t get along. Does that really capture their relationship? Does that sound like what they’d say about each other?’

“In holding out for right, you set the expectation that the questions you ask and their answers truly matter. You show that you believe your students are capable of getting answers as right as students anywhere else. You show the difference between the facile and the scholarly. This faith in the quality of a right answersends a powerful message to your students that will guide them long after they have left your classroom.

“Over the years I’ve witnessed teachers struggle to defend right answers.
In one visit to a fifth-grade classroom, a teacher asked her students to define
peninsula. One student raised his hand and offered this definition: ‘It’s like, where the water indents into the land.’ ‘Right,’ his teacher replied, trying to reinforce participation since so few hands had gone up. Then she added, ‘Well, except that a peninsula is where land indents into water, which is a little different.’ Her reward to the student for his effort was to provide him with misinformation. A peninsula, he heard, is pretty much ‘where the water indents into the land’ but different on some arcane point he need not really recall. Meanwhile, it’s a safe bet that the students with whom he will compete for a seat in college are not learning to conflate bays and peninsulas.”

Author: Doug Lemov
Title: Teach Like a Champion
Publisher: Jossey-Bass, A Wiley Imprint
Date: Copyright 2010 by John Wiley & Sons
Page: 35-37

0 comments.

What is PRAYER?

Posted on May 7th, 2010 by uberlumen.
Categories: Bible Study, Evil and Suffering, Parenting, Prayer List, Spiritual Growth, Vital Signs of Healing, marriage.

0 comments.

So you are planning a trip to the Battlegrounds at Gettysburg

Posted on April 25th, 2010 by uberlumen.
Categories: Evil and Suffering, Parenting, Spiritual Growth.

So you want to take your kids to see Gettysburg?  Here is my advise based on my experience taking my kids:

• Read up on the topic before the trip–kids learn by example (if dad is into it, they will be….): #1. Killer Angels–this will get you pumped to see Gettysburg.  It is a GREAT read. #2. Battle of Gettysburg at Wikipedia–this is a short clear summary.
• Listen on the way–This is the best audiobook on Gettysburg(you can get it at amazon or download it to your ipod at audiobooks in itunes); The kids could only take this 2 hr book on tape in 15 minute intervals, but it is important for you to get through it before the trip to get the kids pumped about the history.
• Gettysburg Museum–FIRST STOP–we went to the Gettysburg Museum first.  It gave the kids a great summary and got them excited to see the battlegrounds (there may be better museums? This one had a hokey pseudo-disneyland re-inactment, but it was good enough.  Remember to get their free brochure of their audio tour (it has a very simple map of the battles–we did not do the audio tour–it was at least 2 hrs long)
• Touring the battlefields–#1. Union Line–Go to the Pennsylvania monument first (you can climb to the top and get a great overview and at the top they have pointers to show you where everything occurred) #2. Go to little round top–this was a KEY defensive position and holding this hill on day #2 of the battle was key to victory–there are some great plaques that teach about some key people–Strong Vincent etc. #3. Devil’s Den–my kids were into the idea of snipers shooting at the Union line from this key rock formation. #4. Confederate line–we ran low on time so we just went to the very high tower at the center of the confederate line–great view of battlefield.
• Patience–my kids must have asked me at least 2 dozen times: “Now who were the Rebels, who were the guys in blue, who were the Confederates, which side was Robert E. Lee on again….” It was all worth it when my son did a speech on Strong Vincent for school….They really do listen.
• Summary of the battles–Day #1. The push–The confederates AGAIN had a significant victory on the first day which made them too confident for the following days.  Day#2. The flank–Lee decided to go with tactics that worked for him in the past despite very poor positioning.  Meade fell back to excellent defensive position, and Lee couldn’t breakthrough at Meade’s flanks.  Day#3. The charge–The most famous part of the battle(s) is one of the most brutal and some would say courageous or crazy ideas.
• Lessons learned–Pride before the fall–age old adage–Lee’s over confidence appears to be his undoing; superior weapons save lives–The Union had rifles that had superior technology to the Confederates which helped them to fire more rapidly; a powerful military is important–although I am not big on guns etc. studying military history has helped me to understand that a high tech/powerful military is important to keep the peace (I recently heard a commentator say that we need to get out of all these other countries that we are in (save A LOT of money), but maintain our military edge…so if there is a problem, we can keep the peace…); location, location, location–the view from little round top was a powerful reminder that the high ground is always key…

0 comments.

Patience, Perseverance, Passion, Hard Work, and “wait for it”

Posted on April 15th, 2010 by uberlumen.
Categories: Evil and Suffering, Movie Reviews, Parenting, Spiritual Growth, Vital Signs of Healing.

Rob is an amazing person who has a great career and a wonderful family.  Rob was my closest friend from age 3-13.  We still see each other once a year.  This is not really a story about Rob and me.  I am quite certain that Rob doesn’t even know the angst that I went through trying to keep up with him. 

Rob and I were swimmers, and he ALWAYS beat me in the stroke that we both did best (breaststroke).  He may not even remember all those swim meets where he would beat me handily, and he certainly (I hope) doesn’t  know about the emotional pain of never being able to beat his best friend… until maybe later…

Rob was a grade behind me in school so our paths began to separate.  He got into baseball, and I remained in swimming.  In high school, we both chose to play water polo and that meant that we would both be swimming together again.  We were the 2 main breaststrokers on the team so we found ourselves swimming against each other again.  This time, however, I was always in the lead.

I tell this story to my kids periodically.  I want so much for my kids to know that only time will tell the eventual outcomes.  They suffer, much like there dad has, when their friends beat them (and especially if their siblings do).  It is after these defeats that I turn to the “Rob story” in hopes of reminding them that with patience, perseverance, hard work, these circumstances can change.  Todays winners can be tomorrows losers in ANY race that you might find yourself in.

In the movie Minority Report, the main character (Tom Cruse) is being chased while he is helping to rescue a woman who has the power to see the future.  As they are being chased through a busy shopping mall, she is whispering in his ear directions to follow so they won’t be caught.  At one point she quietly chants, “wait for it…” over and over so that the main character will trust her advise and stand still in one place.  The place she advises them to stand is right in the middle of the mall in plain sight of everyone to see.  Unknown to the main character, a man with a large bundle of balloons is going to walk across their path blocking them from view at just the right moment when a group of police chasing them is trying to spot them. 

We don’t know the future.  We must stay on the right course.  If we are gifted and passionate about a sport or a career (for example), patience, perseverance, hard work, and just ‘waiting for it’ may, in time, allow us to finish better than we ever imagined that we could.

Life is filled with trust.  We must trust in God’s plan even when we want to trust in our plan.  We have to trust that our current state of affairs, our current losses, our current struggles, may, in the end, bring wins, success, and maybe even joy especially when we “run with perseverance the race marked out for us [by God].”

“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize?  run in such a way as to get the prize.”-1 Corinthians 9:24 (NIV)

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”-Hebrews 12:1 (NIV)

1 comment.

The Psychology of Choice & Character

Posted on April 1st, 2010 by uberlumen.
Categories: Evil and Suffering, Love, Men on the Path, Parenting, Spiritual Growth, Virtue, Vital Signs of Healing, marriage.

Please enjoy this brief audio discussion regarding the psychology of choice in which I discuss several examples of the influence of the subconscious and of time on our choices.

Example #1: Volunteers were given scrambled sentences and one group was given a group of scrambled sentences that were about rudeness and the other group was given a group of scrambled sentences about being patient.  The group that had just found the words relating to rudeness were much more likely to interrupt the interviewer’s phone conversation.  Very interesting.

Example #2: The other example they did is they had again 2 groups but this time one group got scrambled sentences with words to be found about being old and the other group had random words.  These two groups of participants were then timed from when they left the office, where the testing was done till they reach the elevator and they found that there is a significant slower pace to the group of people that were finding the words that were related to being old elderly.

Example #3: One group was asked to think of a very smart person and then answer trivial pursuit type questions vs. another group that was asked to think of a very stupid person and then answer the same trivial pursuit type questions.  The group thinking of the smart person did better at answering the trivial pursuit questions!

Example #4:  Finally the last example is from the tipping point by Malcolm Gladwell and in this book he discusses a very interesting story regarding the good Samaritan.   Princeton University psychologist met with a group of seminarians people studying to become a pastor’s and they were trying to answer the question who would stop and help a person who is slumped in the alley head down, eyes closed coughing and groaning.  One group was told that they were late to the class that they were going to teach and they are expected in only a few minutes so they better get moving quickly.  The other group were told that they have enough time to get over to the classroom.  What they found was that on several occasions the seminary students going to give their lecture which was actually on the parable of the good Samaritan literally stepped over the mock victim as he hurried on his way.  What they say is of the group that was in a rush 10% stopped to help, but of the group that was not in a rush that had some time to spare 63% stopped and helped.  This study suggests that the convictions of your heart and the actual contents of your thoughts are less important in the end in guiding one’s actions than the immediate context of your behavior.

All of these studies suggest that we as individuals must be very cognizant of the world around us and to influence it in a positive way, to show a good character,  we must be aware of our surroundings and slow down.  Those with truly great character do the right thing no matter if they are late for a meeting nor are they influenced in a negative way by their surroundings.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

0 comments.

God’s Love: The Story of the Prodigal Son

Posted on March 9th, 2010 by uberlumen.
Categories: Apologetics, Bible Study, Evil and Suffering, Love, Men on the Path, Parenting, Sermons, Spiritual Growth, Vital Signs of Healing, marriage.

Mike Erre gives us a special glimpse into what the parable of the prodigal son truly meant to a 1st century audience.  It was an incredible picture of God’s outrageous love for us.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

0 comments.

Don’t Worry #3: Accept the Worst Case Scenario

Posted on March 4th, 2010 by uberlumen.
Categories: Book Reviews, Evil and Suffering, Parenting, Spiritual Growth.

In this 3rd segment regarding how to stop worrying, I pull some key points from “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living” by Dale Carnegie.  The 3rd key is simple: Accept the worst case scenario.

“Step 1. I analyzed the situation fearlessly and honestly and figured out what was the worst that could possibly happen as a result of this failure.”

“Step 2. After figuring out what was the worst that could possibly happen, I reconciled myself to accepting it, if necessary…After discovering the worst that could possibly happen and reconciling myself to accepting it, if necessary, an extremely important thing happened: I immediately relaxed and felt a sense of peace that I hadn’t experienced in days. ”

“Step 3. From that time on, I calmly devoted my time and energy to trying to improve upon the worst which I had already accepted mentally.”
“I probably would never have been able to do this if I had kept on worrying, because one of the worst features about worrying is that it destroys our ability to concentrate. When we worry, our minds jump here and there and everywhere, and we lose all power of decision. However, when we force ourselves to face the worst and accept it mentally, we then eliminate all those vague imaginings and put ourselves in a position in which we are able to concentrate on our problem.”

“The same idea was expressed by Lin Yutang in his widely read book, The Importance of Living. “True peace of mind,” said this Chinese philosopher, “comes from accepting the worst. Psychologically, I think, it means a release of energy.” That’s it, exactly! Psychologically, it means a new release of energy! When we have accepted the worst, we have nothing more to lose. And that automatically means we have everything to gain!”

“If you have a worry problem, apply the magic formula of Willis H. Carrier by doing these three things: 1. Ask yourself,’ ‘What is the worst that can possibly happen?” 2. Prepare to accept it if you have to. 3. Then calmly proceed to improve on the worst.”

1 comment.

Don’t Worry #2

Posted on February 6th, 2010 by uberlumen.
Categories: Book Reviews, Evil and Suffering, Parenting, Spiritual Growth, Vital Signs of Healing.

As I pointed out in Don’t Worry #1, living in the ‘now here’ is a powerful way to combat worry. In Dale Carnegie’s book: How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, his first point is: Live today! Don’t worry/focus on yesterday or tomorrow.

“…twenty-one words from Thomas Carlyle that helped him lead a life free from worry: “Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.”"

“What I urge is that you so learn to control the machinery as to live with ‘day-tight compartments’ as the most certain way to ensure safety on the voyage. Get on the bridge, and see that at least the great bulkheads are in working order. Touch a button and hear, at every level of your life, the iron doors shutting out the Past the dead yesterdays. Touch another and shut off, with a metal curtain, the Future the unborn tomorrows. Then you are safe, safe for today! Shut off the past! Let the dead past bury its dead. Shut out the yesterdays which have lighted fools the way to dusty death. The load of tomorrow, added to that of yesterday, carried today, makes the strongest falter. Shut off the future as tightly as the past. The future is today. There is no tomorrow. The day of man’s salvation is now. Waste of energy, mental distress, nervous worries dog the steps of a man who is anxious about the future. Shut close, then the great fore and aft bulkheads, and prepare to cultivate the habit of life of ‘day-tight compartments.’ ”

“Tomorrow, do thy worst, for I have lived today.”-Roman poet Horace.

“life ‘is in the living, in the tissue of every day and hour.’”

“This speech contains twenty-six words that have gone ringing down across the centuries: “Take therefore no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” (Matthew 6: 34)

1 comment.

Johnny the Bagger

Posted on December 21st, 2009 by uberlumen.
Categories: Book Reviews, Love, Parenting, Spiritual Growth, Vital Signs of Healing.

We CAN make a difference every moment, every day.  God help us to stop and listen for those moments in every day life that we can love and encourage those around us.

Johnny is a grocery store bagger who has Down syndrome. He heard from one of the grocery store people about how people can make a difference but he thought he couldn’t do anything special for the customers because he was just a bagger. But then he had an idea: ‘he decided that every night when he came home from work, he would find a ‘thought for the day’ for his next shift. It would be something positive, some reminder of how good it was to be alive, or how much people matter, or how many gifts we are surrounded by. If he couldn’tfind one, he would make one up. Every night his dad would help him enter the saying six times on a page on the computer; then Johnny would print fifty pages. He would take out a pair of scissors and carefully cut three hundred copies and sign every one. Johnny put the stack of pages next to him while he worked. Each time he finished bagging someone’s groceries, he would put his saying on top of the last bag. Then he would stop what he was doing, look the person straight in the eye, and say, ‘I’ve put a great saying in your bag. I hope it helps you have a good day. Thanks for coming here.’ A month later, the store manager found that the line at Johnny’s checkout was three times longer than anyone else’s. It went all the way down the frozen food aisle. The manager got on the loudspeaker to get more checkout lines open, but he couldn’t get any of the customers to move. They said, ‘That’s okay. We’ll wait. We want to be in Johnny’s line.’ One woman came up to him and grabbed his hand, saying, ‘I used to shop in your store once a week. Now I come in every time I go by–I want to get Johnny’s thought for the day.’ Johnny is doing more than filling bags with groceries; he is filling lives with hope.-excerpt from ‘When the game is over it all goes back in the box’ by John Ortberg

0 comments.

Covetousness, Jealousy, Gratitude

Posted on December 15th, 2009 by uberlumen.
Categories: Bible Study, Evil and Suffering, Healing, Parenting, Sermons, Spiritual Growth, Vital Signs of Healing, marriage.

Jeff Pries does a beautiful job teaching us in this sermon on covetousness.

• The 10 commandments are for our benefit.  God wants us to know as Christians the path that will benefit us.
• Coveting leads to jealousy which is a painful dead end
• Life is unfair sometimes
• Be grateful for what you have
• YOU are enough!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

0 comments.

Don’t Worry #1

Posted on December 10th, 2009 by uberlumen.
Categories: Evil and Suffering, Healing, Parenting, Spiritual Growth, Vital Signs of Healing, marriage.

My kids are worry warts.  They are sometimes paralyzed by what if’s and worry about future school assignments etc.  How can we educate and comfort our kids AND ourselves?  This is the 1st of (I hope) many posts on the topic of worry.

Chapter 11 of Ruthless Trust by Brennan Manning is a life changing concept and chapter.  The chapter is titled: The Geography of Nowhere.  The concept is simple.  If we are NOT NOW HERE then we are NO WHERE!  So lesson #1 is to live in the NOW.  Don’t worry about the future or the past.  Live in the Now Here.

 “The music of what is happening,” said great Fionn, “that is the finest music in the world.” …The music of what is happening can be heard only in the present moment, right now, right here.  Now/here spells now-here.  To be fully present to whoever or whatever is immediately before us is to pitch a tent in the wilderness of Now-here.  It is an act of radical trust-trust that God can be encountered at no other time and in no other place in the present moment.  Being fully present in the now is perhaps the premier skill of the spiritual life.”-Chapter 11, Ruthless Trust by Manning

1 comment.

The Power of Forgiveness: Matthew 18

Posted on December 1st, 2009 by uberlumen.
Categories: Bible Study, Book Reviews, Evil and Suffering, Healing, Men on the Path, Parenting, Sermons, Spiritual Growth, Uncategorized, Vital Signs of Healing, marriage.

I know that I am getting a nudge to post when I am reading a chapter about forgiveness and I also happen to start listening to a podcast on forgiveness. These notes are a summary of a chapter on forgiveness in “You Were Born for This” by Bruce Wilkinson (Chapter 12: The Forgiveness Key), and the podcast is a sermon done by Mike Erre.  As always, share your thoughts with us.

Forgiveness is VERY important to God and for us to embrace.

There is only ONE thing that we are called to do in the entire Lord’s Prayer:  ”Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors…”-Matthew 6:12

God, as represented by the King in Matthew 18, gets angry with those He has forgiven of an payable debt refuse to forgive others of a very small debt:

“…so My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trepasses…”-Matthew 18:35 (see also Matthew 6:14-15)

What will God do to us if we don’t forgive?  He will ‘hand us over to the torturers’ (Matt 18:34).  What?! What does this mean?!  It means that God turns His people who refuse to forgive others over to the painful consequences of their own unforgiveness until the person, from their heart, forgives others their trespasses (debts).  We will torment OURSELVES until we open our hearts and forgive.

3 key points to remember:

• Jesus: “Jesus forgave you.  You can choose to forgive others.”
• Justice: “Vengeance belongs to God, not to you or me.”
• Jailer: “You are your own jailer.  Your torment won’t end until you forgive.  Then it will end immediately.  You will be free. And that is what God wants for you.”

2 gifts occur when we forgive:

• “The person who brought injury has been forgiven…”
• “and a person who offended God by not forgiving has also been forgiven…” (see this post for a powerful story about this interchange)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

0 comments.

To Quell or not to Quell your Emotions?

Posted on November 24th, 2009 by uberlumen.
Categories: Evil and Suffering, Healing, Men on the Path, Parenting, Sermon Notes, Spiritual Growth, Vital Signs of Healing, marriage.

In reply to the post on emotions, we got a posted comment asking: How to quell your emotions?  Here are some thoughts….

To quell or not to quell?

To Quell:  YES! Join the crowd of men with distant non-emotive fathers from a family of origin of quellers.  This is me.  I am a queller.  I have been well trained in the art.  I even get a small whiff of emotion and I run for cover.  The problem: Quelling leads to men (and women) who don’t know what to do with their emotions.  We try to stuff them down deep, hide them, pretend they don’t exist, cover them with logic and hard work, but they are there in a very powerful way.  We hide them only to realize that they direct so many of our actions.  Even worse, the queller is prone to incredible outbursts of emotions often acting shocked, “Where did those come from?!”  Under extreme stress emotions boil over into rage and angry explosions.

The queller has been trained in the art of disconnect.  We are the superhero’s that are calm powerhouses of intellect and logic within our families of origin that are unraveling by alcohol and dysfunction.  Robotic, we move through life seemingly unphased.  Our war cry (sorry whisper):  “I don’t need people! I don’t need emotional connection!”

When in reality that is what life is ALL about: Connectedness, relationship.  Only when I was dropped to my knees by catastrophic circumstances in my own life was I finally forced to lean on my wife and others.  And it was extremely painful for me to reach out to others.

Not to Quell:

“…listening to your emotions ushers you into reality and reality is where you meet God”-Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality

This is the way of true life:  Knowing and embracing the reality of our emotions.  The key is to be aware of what I am feeling, being aware of my emotions because otherwise we let our emotions fester and smolder and control us.

How do we listen to our emotions?  How do we embrace and welcome our emotions as the window to reality?

We need to learn to get into a rhythm with our emotions.  A few ‘tricks’ can be used.  The first is called ‘tagging’.  Recognize when anger, frustration, and other emotions are starting to boil and ‘tag’ then to discuss and retrieve them at a later time.  Develop a pattern or rhythm of checking in with your spouse or close friend to discuss these ‘tagged’ emotions.  The other ‘trick’ is to recognize your emotions before they overtake you.  Recognize the situations and times when you can start to feel your emotions bubbling over and intervene at that moment.  Recognize and analyze why the situation is giving you that emotional response.  In time, this approach will allow you to acknowledge your emotions and address them in healthier ways rather than waiting until they sneak up and explode on you and those around you.

Finally, what can I do when my emotions (anger, frustration, etc) start to boil over?  Here is the challenge as Teresa Avila said, “…learn to sit in the weeds (of your emotions)…”  What is God trying to say to me through this emotion?  Why am I feeling this emotion in this situation?  What is the emotion saying about me?  Emotions are simply a guide.  Take a ‘time out’ to listen to God’s whisper, and remember that He is ALWAYS whispering to YOU that He loves and adores and DELIGHTS in YOU!

0 comments.

Emotions

Posted on November 18th, 2009 by uberlumen.
Categories: Book Reviews, Healing, Men on the Path, Parenting, Spiritual Growth, Vital Signs of Healing, marriage, medicine.

“Emotions are the window to reality.”  Really? I have not bought into that.  Why? Probably because I was raised to be out of touch with my emotions.  I strive at being non-emotive.   But it turns out that emotions and their physiological effects play a key part in our decision making.

Why do police departments generally do not allow their officers to participate in high speed chases?  What is the cause of most medical errors? Answer: Emotions.  Really? Yes.

In Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink,  Gladwell points out that there is a physiological response to stress/fear/anger/ie our emotions.  One of the findings reported by a police officer who has studied police shooting incidents has found that when we are stressed and our heart rate goes about 145 beats per minute we start to lose our ability to reason, think clearly, etc.  There is a sweet spot to stress when our heart rate is between 110-145 our body responds by making our ability to think clearly sharper in this heart rate range.  Some police departments have banned high speed car chases for this very reason.  They have found that the police in a high speed chase are so stressed that they will often respond by being overly aggressive at the time of arrest.

Dr. Groopman in How Doctors Think points out that most medical errors are related to our emotions…

“But what I and my colleagues rarely recognized, and what physicians still rarely discussed as medical students, interns, residents, and indeed throughout their professional lives, is how other emotions influence a doctor’s perceptions and judgments, his actions and reactions. I long believed that the errors we made in medicine were largely technical ones—prescribing the wrong dose of a drug, transfusing a unit of blood matched for another person, mislabeling an x-ray of an arm as “right” instead of “left.” But as a growing body of research shows, technical errors account for only a small fraction of our incorrect diagnoses and treatments. Most errors are mistakes in thinking. And part of what causes these cognitive errors is our inner feelings, feelings we do not readily admit to and often don’t even recognize.”

2 comments.

Life Principle #2: Give Honest, Sincere Appreciation

Posted on November 4th, 2009 by uberlumen.
Categories: Book Reviews, Evil and Suffering, Healing, Love, Parenting, Spiritual Growth, Value, Vital Signs of Healing, marriage.

I have been struck by the power of affirmation and appreciation.  I have also been struck by the destructive power of criticism.

Recently I tried to encourage someone to always find the good, always look for the opportunity to compliment and appreciate, and never complain or criticize.  Their response was, “But if you only knew that person, if you only knew how difficult they can be, and how much criticism they deserve.”

This response misses the point completely!  It was only when I dropped the contempt and criticisms did I start to see the gifts in the other person.  It is only when you look for the appreciation will the critical spirit in YOU fade away.

It is NOT about the other person; it is about YOU.  It is about healing YOUR image of yourself, the world around you, and others.

Our marriages and relationships would truly be transformed if we followed Carnegie’s first 2 principles always leading with this one.

“I consider my ability to arouse enthusiasm among my people…the greatest asset I possess, and the way to develop the best that is in a person is by appreciation and encouragement.  There is nothing else that so kills the ambitions of a person as criticisms from superiors.  I never criticize anyone.  I believe in giving a person incentive to work.  So I am anxious to praise but loathe to find fault.  If I like anything, I am hearty in my approbation and lavish in my praise… in my wide association in life, meeting with many and great people in various parts of the world… I have yet to find a person, however great or exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than he would ever do under a spirit of criticism.”-Charles Schwab

“Every man I meet is my superior in some way.  In that, I learned from him.”-Emerson

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Carnegie:

• “That is what Schwab did.  What do average people do?  The exact opposite.  If they don’t like to think, they ball out their  subordinates; if they do like it, they say nothing.  As the old couplet says: “once I did bad and that I heard ever/twice I did good, but that I heard never.”-pg 38
• “I once succumbed to the Fad of fasting and went for six days and nights without eating… I was less hungry at the end of the sixth day than I was at the end of the second.  Yet I know, as you know, people who think they had committed a crime if they let their families or employees go for six days without food; but they will let them go for six days,  six weeks, and sometimes 60 years without giving them the hearty appreciation that they crave almost as much as they crave food.”-pg 40
• ” When Alfred Lunt, one of the great actors of his time, played the leading role in Reunion in Vienna, he said, “there is nothing I need so much as nourishment for my self-esteem.”  We nurish the bodies of our children and friends and employees but how seldom do we nurish their self-esteem?  We provide them with roast beef and potatoes to build energy, but we neglect to give them kind words of appreciation that would sing in their memories for years like the music of the morning stars.”-pg 40 one
• “When we are not engaged in thinking about some definite problem, we usually spend about 95% of our time thinking about ourselves.  Now [just imagine], if we [ could] stop thinking about ourselves for awhile and begin to think of the other person’s good points…”-pg 41
• “Try leaving a friendly trail of little sparks of gratitude on your daily trips.  You’ll be surprised how they will set small flames of friendship that will be rose beacons on your next visit.”-pg 42
• “Pamela Dunham of  a New Fairfield, Connecticut, had among her responsibilities on her job the supervision of a janitor who was doing a very poor job.  The other employees would jeer at him and litter the hallways to show him what a bad job he is doing.  It was so bad, productive time was being lost in the shop.  Without success, Pam tried various ways to motivate this person.  She noticed that occasionally he did a particularly good piece of work.  She made a point to praise him for it in front of the other people.  Each day the job he did all around got better, and pretty soon he started doing all his work efficiently.  Now he does an excellent job and other people give them appreciation and recognition.  Honest appreciation got results where criticism and ridicule failed.”-pg 42
• “Hurting people not only does not change them, it is never called for.  There is an old saying that I’ve cut out and pasted on my mirror where I cannot help but see it every day: ‘I shall pass this way but once; any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now.  Let me not deferring or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.’”-pg 42
• “Let’s cease thinking of our accomplishments, our wants.  Let’s try to figure out the other person’s good points.”-pg 43

0 comments.

Men on the Path, November 4, 2009: True Success

Posted on November 4th, 2009 by uberlumen.
Categories: Bible Study, Book Reviews, Evil and Suffering, Men on the Path, Parenting, Sermon Notes, Spiritual Growth, marriage.

We were in session #3 from a quiet strength a men’s Bible study by Tony Dungy and our question for today is: How is God’s definition of success different from how most people define it?
We looked at five key verses: Psalm 1:1-3; one Samuel 16:7; Micah 6: 6-8; Matthew 22:34-40; acts 1:8; Philippians 1: 21

God’s definition of success is “to live is Christ to die is gain” only when we can die to ourselves can we truly be successful. J. C. Ryle in his book titled Holiness points out what it costs to be a true Christian (to gain true success).

“For one thing, it will cost us our self righteousness. We must cast away all pride and high thoughts and conceit of our own goodness… for another thing it will cost us our sins. We must be willing to give up every habit and practice which is wrong in God’s sight. We and our sin must quarrel, if we and God are to be friends….For another thing, it will cost us our love of ease…we secretly wish we could have a vicarious Christianity, and could be good by proxy, and have everything done for us. Anything that requires exertion and labor is entirely against the grain of our hearts… in the last place, it will cost us the favor of the world… surely a Christian should be willing to give up anything which stands between him and heaven…A religion that costs nothing is worth nothing! A cheap Christianity, without a cross, will prove in the end a useless Christianity, without a crown…”-pg 82-86

“We must seek to have personal intimacy with the Lord Jesus, and to deal with him as a man deals with a loving friend. We must realize what it is to turn to him first in every need, to talk to him about every difficulty, to consult him about every step, to spread before him all our sorrows, to get him to share in our all our joys, to do all as in his site, and to go through every day leaning on and looking to him.”-pg 113

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

0 comments.

Life Principle #1: Don’t Criticize, Condemn, Complain

Posted on October 27th, 2009 by uberlumen.
Categories: Book Reviews, Love, Parenting, Spiritual Growth, Value, Vital Signs of Healing, marriage.

I continue to revisit a book and audio book that I wish that I had memorized when I was younger: How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.

Time and time again  I have found myself using (or trying to use) his principles in my marriage, parenting, and other relationships.

Recently I have had conversations about affirming and its counter–criticizing your spouse.  I have seen and heard about a wife or husband who continually criticizes their spouse.  I have been a master at this myself.  For the most part, I have made a major effort to STOP completely this process.  It is a waste of time, and it turns out to do the opposite of what you want it to.  We seem to think that by giving ‘constructive criticism’ the other person will improve, but they don’t.  In fact, they seem to do MORE of the actions that we want them to change!

2 things:  1. The more you affirm and not criticize; the MORE likely their behavior will change!   2. Don’t try and change your spouse; just love them the way they are!

Principle #1: Don’t Criticize, Condemn, Complain

• “If you want to gather honey, don’t kick over the beehive.”
• “Criticism is futile because it puts a person on the defensive and usually makes him strive to justify himself.  Criticism is dangerous, because it wounds a person’s precious pride, hurts his sense of importance, and arouses resentment….B.F. Skinner, the world-famous psychologist, proved through his experiments that an animal rewarded for good behavior will learn much more rapidly and retain what it learns far more effectively than an animal punished for bad behavior.”
• “Lincoln…had learned by bitter experience that sharp criticisms and rebukes almost invariably end in futility.”
• “The secret of…Ben Franklin’s…success? ‘I will speak ill of no man…and speak all the good I know of everybody.”
• “Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain–and most fools do.  But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.”
• “As Dr. Johnson said: ‘God himself, sir, does not propose to judge man until the end of his days.’  Why should you and I?”

1 comment.

Older » Next Page »