Daily Psalms Calendar

While spirituality is important to me, my times of pausing and reflecting on God are frequently overtaken by the events of the day. If I pick up my phone too soon, I get stuck in email and events for the rest of the day. So I decided to put that moment into said phone.


I created a Google calendar to ping myself with a Psalm every morning for the next 150 days. Its set to ping each morning at 7am. The entire text of the day's Psalm is in the event description. You can subscribe to it pretty easily thru Google.

Being Honest Without Being Mean

Last week I finished Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott. Tonight, I heard a prospective political candidate talk.

Religion and politics can be divisive: the things we believe can be bricks in walls that separate us from other people. D vs. R, red vs. blue, free will vs. predestination, theism vs. atheism. Some of these labels, and the thoughts they represent, can be very helpful. They are often used to create mean-spirited division.

I'm a conservative; economically, I'm almost a libertarian. (I thoroughly enjoyed reading Atlas Shrugged.) But espousing these ideas can often be really mean. Republicans are rightly accused of sounding uncaring towards the poor, elderly, and otherwise unfortunate. The candidate I met tonight sounded like this stereotype: rich, white, selfish, angry. While tonight's room agreed with him, but he wouldn't win a majority of the voting public--which is, after all, the goal of campaigning.

I'm a Christian and I'm theologically orthodox. Talking about my faith can be an exercise in line drawing: I'm not Catholic, not baptist, not Pentecostal, etc. I can talk about my beliefs in a way that pushes away everyone that doesn't agree with me. But that's not the purpose of faith.

Enter Anne Lamott. She writes about faith attractively. Instead of detailing how her tenets differ from everyone else's (though, doubtless, they do), she writes about how her faith enables her to live.

This kind of honesty would benefit the aspiring politician. Instead of telling me how your politics are different from everyone else's, tell me how do your ideals enable our lives. It is possible to explain your qualifications without outlining everyone else's failures.

Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott

My rating: 5 of 5 stars Lamott writes about a faith lived first, then believed. This organic approach to religion makes her different from most Christian authors and offensive to some. To me, her honesty and authenticity are refreshing. We should make room for people who are honest and entertaining. They make us reflect on more important things. View all my reviews

Trouble with the Internet

Intro: Clients from Hell

Recently I subscribed to Clients from Hell, a popular blog for graphic designers. Humorous to a point, the blog pokes fun at the people that hire designers. Clients can be really humorous, asking absurd things. To folks familiar with graphic design, the ignorant things clients say are funny.

I don't always laugh. Miscommunication between clients and creative types causes frustration, mismanaged projects, and lost sales. Making fun of this illustrates a problem with the internet: instead of laughing at stupid clients, a community of designers could be figuring out ways of communicating with clients more clearly. Instead of laughing at client stupidity, designers could be talking about ways of efficiently educating them.


The Internet Fosters Inaction

The internet fosters insular, inactive communities. Mocking the people that pay you is one example. Most online political forums are another. People endlessly talk, mock, and flame instead of creating something better. People keep themselves in boxes instead of building meaningful connections.


Seek Authentic Action and Conversation

The solution is belonging to online communities that represent real relationships and inspire real activity. I like Twitter because I can follow people I know in real life. In the past, people have held me accountable for saying mean things. It takes courage for us to ignore cheap laughs and build something meaningful. For me, it is worth the effort.

We work better when our online activity is connected to real-world actions; we communicate better when our online conversations are connected to real-world conversations.

Take Action

• Join online networks and conversations with real people you know doing real things you care about. Find people willing to censor your bad moves.
• Disengage from networks and conversations marked by inactivity and endless arguments. Challenge the people you care about to censor themselves and act on what they talk about.