Mightier Than the Pen

“Pray on every occasion, before every post, before every tweet, and before every click to send. Really.”

That was a tweet by @BurkParsons retweeted by my pastor last week.

I saw it and decided if I was really interested in eliminating flippant communication, this was a good place to start. So I mentally assented.

What I didn’t realize was how much praying that would involve. Personal, work, and school email plus Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and blogging adds up to an approximate average of 3,628 prayers a day. That kind of overwhelmed me. However, there were several times this week that I was able to stop and pray before a post and it kept me from doing something stupid.

But this weekend I got impulsive with online communication and inadvertently caused confusion and hurt. It was only after the fact that I remembered I should have prayed first.

Pray before every form of online communication? That sounds pretty radical. Although not quite as radical as praying without stopping. That was the apostle’s Paul’s admonition to the Thessalonians in God’s Word. 

Say what? Don’t we have other things to do, too? This section of scripture isn’t saying we should never do anything but pray. It’s referring to a constant attitude of prayer, needed now as much as ever with all of the forms of communication we have today. And sometimes, even often, that attitude does require us to drop what we’re doing and ask God for guidance.

The pen is mightier than the sword, and the web supplies the pen with more speed and scope than ever. We need Divine strength when wielding a weapon with that kind of power.

Eighty Day Layover

Living in a tiny dorm room with three other girls (“you’re hogging the mirror!” “don’t TOUCH my stuff!”)* has conditioned me to see the positive in a variety of living situations.

However, I’ve never contemplated living in an airport. But this guy did it. At least that’s what the headline says. Actually he slept in the airport hotel, but “man lives at airport” does sound cooler. 


In any case, he definitely used every opportunity to make it an interesting experience. By the tone of the article he has the entire Vancouver airport charmed.

What do you think? Living in an airport isn’t ideal, and maybe your living situation isn’t either. Are you willing to make the best of it?

*Disclaimer: My roommates never really said any of those things, but Fox News inspired me to exaggerate to make things more dramatic.

Conflict--->Change

Have you ever read one of those excessively happy books? You know, the ones that give you the same feeling you have after you eat both the cotton candy and the funnel cake at the state fair? The plot in this story is a series of happy events. The conflict is a choice between two equally happy events. It’s riveting, right?

Wrong. Apart from being humorous in its unrealistic absurdity, it’s pointless because nothing happens. What the story lacks is real conflict. Conflict produces change.

This is true in our life stories too. The Author of Life wants to see us change. He doesn’t want us to ignore hardships and pressures and tragedies; He wants to integrate them into our stories. He uses them to point us and others to the theme: redemption. Conflict in this life, a result of the sin of humanity, points to our need for freedom from that sin's bondage. The resolution to this conflict is Jesus Christ. His plan of redemption is offered to all who will take hold of it. Conflict produces change.

For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. Phillipians 1:6

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. Ephesians 1:7-10

And Sunday Comes Afterwards

Today is Friday. Tomorrow is Saturday. Yes.

My college Saturday routine has metamorphisized. Freshman year it meant sleeping until noon and hanging out with friends the rest of the day. This didn’t work as well sophomore year as my schedule stacked up, so I slept in and split the friend time with study time. But this year insomnia, which often invades my nights, decided to invade my mornings too. A few weeks ago, I decided to get out of bed at 7:30 after trying to go back to sleep for an hour. It was awesome. I went for a run, stopped at my friend’s apartment, showered, studied, and wrote a paper. All before noon.

As I was running through one of the neighborhoods near campus, everything was so quiet and peaceful that I could actually hear myself think. I realized that Saturday mornings might be college’s best kept secret.

Of course I can’t underestimate the importance of rest. For some people, Saturdays are the only time they can catch up on Zs.

What’s your Saturday morning routine? Do you catch up on sleep or your to-do list?

Jack Takes Flack

Yes, I rhymed my title. Sorry.

I must begin by establishing my authority as an Ohio native. Eighteen years, born and raised in the state that claims to have “so much to discover.” Growing up, I thought we were still awaiting discovery because nothing interesting ever happens in Ohio.

Until now. Now our day has come. Media coverage around the world.

Why? Because some crazy guy didn’t shut a gate. A gate that enclosed 56 exotic animals, including lions and tigers and bears.

Oh my.

Schools closed, people locked themselves in their houses. Authorities began the roundup with ineffective tranquilizers, and (after being charged by a “tranquilized” tiger) ended up killing 49.

"We all love our animal world. And we love the people world, too. People's safety is first, and then we have animals to protect," said Jack Hanna, who apparently still values human life over animal.

But animal rights activists lunged at him like a bunch of tranquilized tigers.

Poor Jack. I learned stuff from him. I remember watching him on Saturday morning telivision and hoping to catch a glimpse of him when my family visited the Columbus Zoo (we were gold members, of course.) He’s basically famous because he loves animals. Now he’s criticized because he loves people, too.

Take that, Achilles

In Greek mythology, heels were considered a weakness; in modern times, they are power. Marilyn Monroe once said “Give a girl the right shoes and she can conquer the world.”

It’s true. High heels contain superhero powers. Here are four powers at your disposal when you don yours this week. (Bonus: all solve issues our country is facing today. Superhero patriotism!)

SuperStrength

I kind of stole my own thunder for this one with the intro. You know, potential for world domination and all that.

SuperHealing

“What becomes of the brokenhearted? They buy shoes.”--Mimi Pond.

Good for the economy and more sustainable than tissues.

SuperIntelligence

“When I wear high heels I have a great vocabulary and I speak in paragraphs. I'm more eloquent. I plan to wear them more often.”—Meg Ryan This certainly solves a lot of the education issues facing us today. Increase your vocab without picking up a book! Wordsworth would be proud.

SuperMorphing

“You put high heels on and you change.”--Manolo Blahnik
 

Maybe Obama should wear them…




Addendum
Here is an article about guys in heels. My personal advice to guys: play up the strength in your biceps and let us handle the heels.

Finding the Lost and Found

Today I went to the lost and found, which is located in our campus bookstore. As the clerk was taking me back to the lost and found area, she asked me, “did you find everything you needed okay?” After a little awkward silence I told her that I hoped I would. Finally the light bulb switched on. “Oops, wrong question,” she said. I told her it was fine. Because I do the same thing at my job.

Would you like whipped cream? is the standard question at the campus coffee shop where I work. They buy a latte, I ask. They purchase a gift card, I ask. They file a complaint, I ask. Then after I ask them, I repeat the process twice because I wasn’t listening the first time.

Mechanical responses are common and even sometimes expected on the job, but they happen in real life, too. For instance, how many of us really want to know how someone is doing when we ask? And we say thank you all the time, but are we grateful, really?

Let people know that you mean what you say. Flippant comments and questions steal integrity from communication. 

Just a Man

Steve Jobs was a great man, she wrote, thus fulfilling her civic duty.

Steve died on October 5, 2011. Other men also died on October 5, 2011.

Each was just a man. Just a mechanic, a teacher, a doctor. Just a dad, a husband, a friend. Each death didn’t generate worldwide buzz. Just a small circle of family and friends sharing memories outside a funeral home.

She didn’t write about them. She wrote about the great man.

And to be sure, he was great. An innovative genius with immeasurable impact.

And to be sure, he a man. Finite. And now face to face with eternity.

Affordable Luxury

My mom didn’t drink coffee at all when I was young. She didn't like it. Then she tried Starbucks.

Now, kids, there was a time when the stars still outnumbered the Starbucks. To get her beloved beans, mom would pile us all in the minivan and drive to a city 45 minutes away. Then we would arrive at Barnes and Noble, a place that still exists today (unlike its inferior cousin, Borders.) At this place you could buy books—books printed on paper. You could also buy coffee.

But that was when Starbucks was just coffee—before it exploded into a status symbol and morphed into “an affordable luxury,” according to CEO Howard Schultz.

Even in the midst of a declining economy and rising coffee prices, Starbucks is having the most profitable year ever. And the metamorphosis isn’t complete. This article reveals that the company plans to expand locations internationally (because, really, where else can they go in the US?) Another big change is the company’s plans to shift from simply a coffee shop to . . . a grocery store? Yep, the company is going to continue develop their brand to break into one of the basically recession-proof markets.

A stellar example of not only embracing potentially negative change, but capitalizing on it.

Can I get a grande bravo?

Compiling Compelling Content

Since I started this blog I’ve been unsettled.  My first idea, to approach different topics in light of generation y, soon proved to be undoable. The time and research that topic requires made me realize that I was just putting too much pressure on myself to write about something I know little about. Sure, I have familiarity with the echo generation, but it’s limited to my own experience.

One day this week, I read an article regarding Vanderbilt University that I felt compelled to write about. It became a blog post. Three other times this week I was compelled to write about things I encountered, which I also wrote. But I didn’t post those things because they didn’t go with the “angle” of my blog (which wasn’t really panning out anyway.)

Then I realized what really makes good writing: it comes from a place where the writer simply feels the need to write about it, for whatever reason. The motivation might be as big as urging readers to protect First Amendment rights or as small as reminding them to notice the flowers in the sidewalk cracks. I could choose the most interesting topic in the world, but it means nothing if it’s superficial. Readers want to read writing with integrity. Groping for a topic to fulfill a requirement will always result in substandard writing. Writing without purpose is nothing more than putting words on a page.Those words must be there for a reason.