Theology of Nuance; Struggling with God and Man and Overcoming

I have no other reason or excuse for posting these music video clips than I enjoy them.
This is another one I edited myself.

I know that the timing is off on some of this.
I am not sure why, but I don’t want to redo it now.

FYI, my image does appear in this one.
Can you find me?

I may fill in the theme latter, but this chapter seems to draw on some of the others.
The issue of using direct application of energy or indirect, is very close to deception, of which I have already made mention.

I am particularly proud of this video as I edited it together myself. I used to spin this dusty, old gem of a tune on my turntable back in the day. I remember going to see this band once with my roomate who was also my cousin during my freshman year at Oklahoma Christian College. Good times… good times. I think this song stands up to time pretty well. Its simple, direct and potent.

Lyrics:

Change, change, it’s all rearrangin’
Lookin’ around at the situation
Go back, see what you’re doin’
The way you’re takin’ life, you’re goin’
To rack and ruin

I’m turning circles, so stay away
We’ve all got somethin’ wrong to say

Slow down, see where we’re headin’
The way things are goin’ now
Your life it ain’t pleasin’
Had my share of up and down
Don’t spend time, don’t spend time
Rushin’ around

I’m turning circles, so stay away
We’ve all got somethin’ wrong to say

This is a truly great song.

This band was among my faves in the late 80’s and early 90’s. Heck, they still are. I remember feeling just the way this song portrays practically all the time. I sure wish I could re-live those years. They didn’t have to be so hard. Its taken me a lifetime to figure out what life is all about. I wish I had just found a spiritually mature person and asked. I reckon I was usually too wasted to look somebody in the eye and ask the right questions. I had to do it all on my own I thought. I am happy with where I am now spiritually… I just wish I wasn’t middle aged and just now “got it”.

I am a soldier in the army of my God!
The Lord Jesus Christ is my Commanding Officer.
The Holy Bible is my code of conduct.
Faith, Prayer, Love and the Word are the only weapons of warfare I need!
I have been taught by the Holy Spirit, trained by experience,
tried by adversity, and tested by fire.

I am a soldier in the army of my God!
I am a volunteer in this army and I am enlisted for eternity.
I will either retire in this army or die in this army;
But, I will not get out, sell out, be talked out, or pushed out.

I am a soldier in the army of my God!
I am faithful, reliable, capable, and dependable.
If my God needs me, I am there!
I am a soldier!
I am not a baby.
I do not need to be pampered, petted, primed up,
pumped up, picked up, or pepped up.

I am a soldier in the army of my God!
No one has to call me, remind me,
write me, visit me, entice me, or lure me.
I am a soldier!
I am not a wimp.
I am in place, saluting my King,

I am a soldier in the army of my God!
I am ever obeying His orders, praising His name, and building His Kingdom!
No one has to send me flowers, gifts, food, cards, candy, or give me handouts.
I do not need to be cuddled, coddled, cradled, cared for or catered to.
I am committed!

I am a soldier in the army of my God!
I cannot have my feelings hurt bad enough to turn me around!
I cannot be discouraged enough to turn me aside!
I cannot lose enough to cause me to quit!

I am a soldier in the army of my God!
When Jesus called me into this army, I had nothing.
If I end up with nothing, I’ll still come out ahead.
I will win without violence!
My God will supply all my needs.
I am more than a conqueror!
I will always triumph!
I can do all things through Christ.

I am a soldier in the army of my God!
Evil cannot beat me!
People cannot disillusion me!
Weather cannot weary me!
Sickness cannot stop me!
Battles cannot defeat me!
Money cannot buy me!
Governments cannot silence me,
and hell cannot handle me!

I am a soldier in the army of my God!
Even death cannot destroy me!
For when my Commander calls me from this battlefield,
He will promote me even higher.

I am a soldier in the army of my God!
In the army I am ever advancing and claiming victory.
I will not give up!
I will not turn around!

I am a soldier in the army of God, and I’m marching,
claiming victory in every stride.
I will not give up!
I will not turn around!
I am a soldier, marching Heaven bound!

~Author Unknown

What we should learn in school (by G.Kawasaki)

Compare your answers to what you learned after a few years in the workforce. It seems to me that schools often teach the opposite of what’s necessary for the real world. Perhaps in school people have plenty of time and no money, so long papers, emails, and presentations are not a problem. However, people in the real world have plenty of money (or at least more money) and no time. This is a list of what I wished I learned in school before I graduated.

1. How to talk to your boss. In college, you’re supposed to bring problems to your teachers during office hours, and you share the experience of coming up with a solution. In the real world, you’re supposed to bring solutions to your boss in an email, in the hall, or in a five-minute conversation. Typically, your boss either already knows about the problem or doesn’t want to know about it. Your role is to provide answers, not questions. Believe it or not, but in the real world, those who can do, do. Those who can’t do, share with others who can’t do.

2. How to survive a meeting that’s poorly run. Unfortunately, it could be a while before you run meetings. Until then, you’ll be a hapless victim of them, so adopt these three practices to survive. First, assume that most of what you’ll hear is pure, petty, ass-covering bull shiitake, and it’s part of the game. This will prevent you from going crazy. Second, focus on what you want to accomplish in the meeting and ignore everything else. Once you get what you want, take yourself “out of your body,” sit back, and enjoy the show. Third, vow to yourself that someday you’ll start a company, and your meetings won’t work like this.

3. How to run a meeting. Hopefully, you’ll be running meetings soon. Then you need to understand that the primary purpose of a business meeting is to make a decision. It is not to share experiences or feel warm and fuzzy. With that in mind, here are five key points to learn about running a meeting: (1) Start on time even if everyone isn’t there because they will be next time; (2) Invite the fewest people possible to the meeting; (3) Set an agenda for exactly what’s going to happen at the meeting; (4) End on time so that everyone focuses on the pertinent issues; (5) Send an email to all participants that confirms decisions reviews action items. There are more power tips for running good meetings, but if you do these five, you’re ahead of 90% of the world.

4. How to figure out anything on your own. Armed with Google, PDFs of manuals, and self-reliance, force yourself to learn how to figure out just about anything on your own. There are no office hours, no teaching assistants, and study groups in the real world. Actually, the real world is one long, often lonely independent study, so get with it. Here’s a question to test your research prowess. How do you update the calendar in a Motorola Q phone with appointments stored in Now-Up-To-Date?

5. How to negotiate. Don’t believe what you see in reality television shows about negotiation and teamwork. They’re all bull shiitake. The only method that works in the real world involves five steps: (1) Prepare for the negotiation by knowing your facts; (2) Figure out what you really want; (3) Figure out what you don’t care about; (4) Figure out what the other party really wants (per Kai); and (5) Create a win-win outcome to ensure that everyone is happy. You’ll be a negotiating maven if you do this.

6. How to have a conversation. Generally, “Whassup?” doesn’t work in the real world. Generally, “What do you do?” unleashes a response that leads to a good conversation (hence the recommendation below). Generally, if you listen more than you talk, you will (ironically) be considered not only a good conversationalist but also smart. Yes, life is mysterious sometimes.

7. How to explain something in thirty seconds. Unfortunately, many schools don’t have elevators or else students would know how to explain things in a thirty-second elevator pitch. Think mantra (three words), not mission statements (sixty words). Think time, not money, is the most important commodity. Think ahead, not on your feet. At the end of your thirty-second spiel, there should be an obvious answer to the question, “ So what?” If you can’t explain enough in thirty seconds to incite interest, you’re going to have a long, boring career.

8. How to write a one-page report. I remember struggling to meet the minimum page requirements of reports in college. Double spacing and 14 point Selectric typewriter balls saved me. Then I went out into the real world, and encountered bosses who wanted a one-page report. What the heck??? The best reports in the real world are one page or less. (The same thing is true of resumes, but that’s another, more controversial topic for unemployed people who want to list all the .Net classes that they took.)

9. How to write a five-sentence email. Young people have an advantage over older people in this area because older people (like me) were taught to write letters that were printed on paper, signed, stuck in an envelope, and mailed. Writing a short email was a new experience for them. Young people, by contrast are used to IMing and chatting. If anything, they’re too skilled on brevity, but it’s easier to teach someone how to write a long message than a short one. Whether UR young or old, the point is that the optimal length of an email message is five sentences. All you should do is explain who you are, what you want, why you should get it, and when you need it by.

10. How to get along with co-workers. Success in school is mostly determined by individual accomplishments: grades, test scores, projects, whatever. Few activities are group efforts. Then you go out in the real world the higher you rise in an organization, the less important your individual accomplishments are. What becomes more and more important is the ability to work with/through/besides and sometimes around others. The most important lesson to learn: Share the credit with others because a rising tide floats all boats.
What about freeloaders? (Those scum of the earth that don’t do anything for the group.) In school you can let them know how you truly feel. You can’t in the real world because bozos have a way of rising to the top of many organizations, and bozos seek revenge. The best solution is to bite your tongue, tolerate them, and try to never have them on the team again, but there’s little upside in criticizing them.

11. How to use PowerPoint. I’ve seen the PowerPoint slides of professors—it’s no wonder that most people can’t use PowerPoint to sell hybrid cars when gas is $10/gallon. Maybe professors are thinking: “This is a one-hour class, I can cover one slide per minute, so I need sixty slides. Oh, and I’ve written all this text already in my textbook, so I’ll just copy and paste my twelve-point manuscript into the presentation.” Perhaps the tenure system causes this kind of problem. In the real world, this is no tenure so you need to limit yourself to ten slides, twenty minutes, and a thirty-point font—assuming that you want to get what you want.

12. How to leave a voicemail. Very few people of any age leave good voicemails. The purpose of a voicemail is to make progress towards along a continuum whose end is getting what you want. A long voicemail isn’t going to zip you along to the end point of this decision. A good model is to think of a voicemail as an oral version of a compelling five-sentence email; the optimal length of a voicemail is fifteen seconds. Two power tips: First, slowly say your telephone number once at the beginning of your message and again at the end. You don’t want to make people playback your message to get your phone number, and if either of you are using Cingular, you may not hear all the digits. Second (and this applies to email too), always make progress. Never leave a voicemail or send an email that says, “Call me back, and I’ll tell you what time we can meet.” Just say, “Tuesday, 10:00 am, at your office.”

One last thing: the purpose of going to school is not to prepare for working but to prepare for living. Working is a part of living, and it requires these kinds of skills no matter what career you pursue. However, there is much more to life than work, so study what you love.

Click the small arrow in the corner to stay on this page while watching.

Here, Mark Driscoll describes precisely the reason why I post some of the music and other items that I do on this blog.

Lyrics:

I don’t care about the state of my hair
I got something out of nothing
That just wasn’t there
And your kiss kiss kiss
Is never gonna blow me away
Dreams of escape keep me awake
I’m never gonna get out or make it away
I’m a stone dead tripper
Dying in a fantasy
Like a cracked open sky
it helps you to die
Don’t split it scrape it
You’re screaming automatic pain
Your’re too young kid you’re gonna get hit
Looks like your never gonna make it
Off the government list
I don’t mind about the state of my mind
But you know it’s good for nothing
And I left you behind
It’s a sick sick city
But it’s never gonna make me insane
If you’re talking for real
Then go cut a deal
You’re facing up to living out
The way that you feel
And you shake shake shake
‘Cause you know you’ll never make it away
Well I guess that’s why I’ve always
Got the blues

My message is simple really. To Cristians: Use discernment. Be the Church. Be at Peace. Recognize the World for what it is and realize the distinction between the World and the Church. Stand up for the Jesus Christ of the Gospels and the Beatitudes. Think eternally. Act spiritually. Speak the truth, Expose untruth even if it make people uncomfortable. Be slow to anger. Love. Do not hate. Trust God.

I have been suffering and struggling for the last few days with some of my own private tortures. I had dinner tonight with my father and had a wonderful and relevant conversation. I was just driving home from dinner and my mind began to unravel a bit with the things I have been wrestling with. I felt on the edge. I was cruising through the radio stations looking for something to distract me or else give me a bit of hope or encouragement … something to dull the pain… I caught the very beginning of this song… a song I had never heard before. After a few bars I began to cry… I cried in mixed joy and sweet pain. I nearly had to pull over. It was a powerful, cleansing cry. I needed that. What an awesome tune. It was just what I needed. It brought me peace. I am grateful.

It’s the song of the redeemed
Rising from the African plain
It’s the song of the forgiven
Drowning out the Amazon rain
The song of Asian believers
Filled with God’s holy fire
It’s every tribe, every tongue, every nation
A love song born of a grateful choir

It’s all God’s children singing
Glory, glory, hallelujah
He reigns, He reigns
It’s all God’s children singing
Glory, glory, hallelujah
He reigns, He reigns

Let it rise above the four winds
Caught up in the heavenly sound
Let praises echo from the towers of cathedrals
To the faithful gathered underground
Of all the songs sung from the dawn of creation
Some were meant to persist
Of all the bells rung from a thousand steeples
None rings truer than this

It’s all God’s children singing
Glory, glory, hallelujah
He reigns, He reigns
It’s all God’s children singing
Glory, glory, hallelujah
He reigns, He reigns
It’s all God’s children singing
Glory, glory, hallelujah
He reigns, He reigns
It’s all God’s children singing
Glory, glory, hallelujah
He reigns, He reigns

And all the powers of darkness
Tremble at what they’ve just heard
‘Cause all the powers of darkness
Can’t drown out a single word

When all God’s children sing out
Glory, glory, hallelujah
He reigns, He reigns
All God’s people singing
Glory, glory, hallelujah
He reigns, He reigns