Crystal Clear

I value speaking simply and plainly, and with honesty. It is hard to do in practice.

I find it harder, and yet feel it is even more important as I interact with (sometimes) competing voices in my work. We all really do have the same goals, yet since our sub goals may differ, we get to the same bigger goals on different paths.

So, sometimes we compete.

And our choice is to on the surface pretend to work together, which I would call being diplomatic, or to do the harder work of speaking simply and plainly, and to find ways to really work together.

I want to not feel like a diplomat.

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It is always a tricky thing to start discussing whether some directive in the Bible is still relevant. On the one hand, by saying that anything is no longer relevant opens up the possibility that anything can be called into question. Yet the foundation of our faith are some pretty absolute claims. What is hard to discern are the actual absolutes.

I found this quotation helpful to assist in sorting out what might be universal and what may not:

“The closer the situation in any given portion of our contemporary world corresponds to the features of the world behind any given biblical instruction, the more straightforwardly one can transfer the principles of those texts to our modern age. The less the correspondence, the higher one has to move up the ‘ladder of abstraction’, to look for broader principles that may transform the uniqueness of specific situations.” -Craig L. Blomberg, Neither Poverty nor Riches (1996), p. 30

This reminds me again that is it vitally important to know and understand the context of the Bible passages we read, and to guard against using a small verse or two to ‘prove’ an idea or practice.

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So now that I’m living in close quarters with two other people (lovely people), adjustments need to be made.

I have to be careful of my expectations. They’ve needed to be adjusted many times and sometimes I’ve had a hard time with it, but not necessarily knowing that’s why I’m upset. I’ve hoped (expected) to move to our permanent room earlier than later, and that hasn’t happened yet. So, I have to tell myself it’s okay, and to change my expectation.

The more problematic expectations are those we have for others, without telling that person, or conversely, the expectations people think another person have for them. It is vitally important to communicate and dialogue about these expectations.

At the same time, if something is not said, it is important to not project what might be thought. It’s a hard rule to live by, but if someone hasn’t told me there is a problem, I need to carry on as if things are okay. Which means that if I have a problem with someone, I need to find a way to talk about it with them.

That’s hard, but so necessary for the common life to function the way it should.

Look out – bumps ahead! But the joy and growth possible! Visit commonlife.ca for more information and our framework document.

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Marketing is changing and becoming much more subtle.

Product placement is not a new concept – but how many of us are conscious of it? Did you notice in the last movie or TV show you watched what kind of computer they used, what pop they drank, etc. Where they brand names? Did it strike you that the company probably paid large sums of money to have their product featured? You can be sure that it did not just ‘happen’ to get caught on film.

Marketing isn’t just advertising anymore.

Here is new one: stealth marketing. Have you ever read book reviews on Amazon? How about consumer reviews on electronic sites? Do you think any of those are done by people being paid to state a positive or negative opinion? How would you know? You can read the confessions here of one such person: The Escapist. He talks about infiltrating online community forums, with multiple accounts, and after gaining respect in the community begins to hype a product. Others of his personas concur, and it looks like many agree – even though it is only one person doing it all! Would you be fooled?

Then there is this new on that turns my stomach: Funding ‘research institutes’ to a corporation’s advantage. Tabacco companies for years have denied that smokes was a health hazard, and are still working hard to convince people that second hand smoke or passive smoking is not a health hazard. They cannot directly point to studies in their favour, so they work by funding other organizations to say the information. Since there is lots of scientific research that shows smoke is harmful to all who breath it, they decided to attempt to discredit the results and scientists in general. If there is a lack of consensus among scientists regarding the danger of smoke, then people may become confused.

And hey, they seem to have hit on a brilliant idea. If they can show that in general, scientists have a hard time coming to a consensus, then they have an easier time to call into question any scientific study that is not in their favour. So it turns out that a major tabacco company is a major backer of ‘research institutes’ that continue to point to a lack of consensus on climate change.

The oil companies also fund these same kinds institutes. But in their press releases, which journalists dutifully quote to show a ‘balanced view’, no mention is made of their supporters.

This article fleshes this out much more fully: The Denial Industry

Do you trust marketing? Do you recognized when you are being marketed to?

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I don’t think I’ve ever been explicitly told this, but I’ve assumed it to be true by what else is said: when God created the world and humans, it was perfect, and there was no death. That only happened after humans sinned that first time.

I was struck that this is probably not the case since after humans took the apple and sinned, God says: “He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” (Genesis 4:5) God wouldn’t have had to say this if humans already lived forever, therefore there must have been death before this point.

It’s funny how we get used to understanding something, not because of what we read from the original source, but because of other things people say or have written. Like the three wise men: the Bible never mentions how many there are. We only know there were three gifts, and there was more than one, but after that, we can hardly make any suggestions.

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We don’t generate a lot of garbage. Ever since our city started compost pick up, our garbage is very little. Most things are recyclable where we live as well. We also do consider this issue when we buy items.
But there are those items I can’t recycle and I’ve wondered what to do about them. I’ve never thought of this though:

21. Stuff you just can’t recycle: When practical, send such items back to the manufacturer and tell them they need to manufacture products that close the waste loop responsibly. (see http://www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/28729 for the 20 other categories for ideas about hard to recycle items)

I think I’m going to try this for some items that I buy and see what happens.

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