From internet and media guru Jeff Jarvis (see http://Buzzmachine.com) comes a critically important work. The World Economic Forum in  Davos named Jarvis as one of the 100 worldwide media leaders in 2007 and 2008. Jarvis was formerly the founding editor and creator of Entertainment Weekly. In his spare time (?) he is a faculty member in the Graduate School of Journalism at City University of New York.

This is not the typical chronology and/or biographical approach to Google by someone granted access to either the Company or its inner circle ( See Ken Auletta’s “Googled: The End Of The world As We Know It” for that sort of treatment. My review of Auletta’s book is here. ). In the Acknowledgments and Disclosures section on the final page of Jarvis’ book “WWGD” (p.246) he makes his vantage point very clear when he states plainly:

“I am grateful for Google’s existence, its lessons, and its inspiration – not to mention Marissa Mayer’s quotable advice online. But I want to note that I did not seek access to Google for this book because I wanted to judge it and learn from it at a distance. My admiration of Google, then, does not spring from any relationship with the company but from its incredible example.”

This book is really about Google’s worldview and how they apply (have applied) those beliefs, attitudes and values from the company’s genesis, its development, and the initiatives it has (may have) in its sights in the future. Yet, worldviews don’t reside in the “head” of a company – they inhabit (in varying degrees) the soul, mind and spirit of the founders, managers, engineers – each and every employee and stakeholder invested in this enterprise…and guess what…that includes you as well. As Jarvis succinctly summarizes:

“They see a different world than the rest of us and make different decisions as a result, decisions that make no tense under old rules of old industries that are now blown apart thanks to these new ways and new thinkers.” P.4. “Create and manage abundance rather than control scarcity – as ever, that is the Google worldview.“ P. 163

How? How did Google lead us all to the baptismal fount to become unwitting, duly confirmed disciples of their services. Answer? They didn’t. We did it to each other. Listen to Jarvis:

“It is because the single greatest transformative power of the internet and Google has little to do with technology or media or even business. It’s about people and making new connections among them. It all comes back to relationships.” P.22. Today’s web 2.0 method for growth is to forgo paying for marketing and instead create something so great that users distribute it – it goes viral. Pp.31-32. Google distributes itself. It puts its ads on millions of web pages it does not own, earning billions of dollars for those sites and for itself. It offers scores of widgets-boxes of free, constantly updated content or functionality anyone can add to a web site or desktop: everything from weather to cartoons, chat to calendars, sports scores to photos, recipes to games, quotes to coupons. These widgets are filled with other companies’ content; Google merely created the platform to distribute it. Yahoo, AOL, and other content sites should have created such distribution platforms years ago, Cutting themselves up and offering their wealth of content and functionality to others to distribute and build upon. They didn’t think that way. They didn’t think distributed. They wanted to get us to come to them. pp.36-37.

Yep…we led one another to become disciples of Google, based upon our craving for relationships, connectivity and our penchant for sharing with one another.  As Jeff Jarvis writes: “Learn this lesson from Google, which spends next to nothing on advertising. It became the fastest growing company in the history of the world without marketing. It grew thanks to its friends, not through ads.” P.46

The depth and breadth of Jarvis’ insights regarding the current state and future of organization development/entrpreneurship/innovation are too numerous and valuable to attempt to enumerate here. However, the following are a few of my favorites:

You must realize that your crowd - your users, customers, voters, Students, audience, neighbors – is wise. The next questions should be: How do you capture and act on that wisdom? How do you listen? How do you enable them to share their wisdom with each other and with you? How do you help them make you smarter (and why should they bother)? Do you have the systems in place to hear? Do you have the culture in place to act on what you hear?” p. 88

“But the truth about truth is itself counterintuitive: Corrections do not diminish credibility. Corrections enhance credibility. Standing up and admitting your errors makes you more believable; it gives your audience faith that you will right your future wrongs…Being willing to be wrong is a key to innovation.” P. 91.

Google’s lesson is clear: Make innovation your business. P. 114

I absolutely cherished Jarvis’ comments about education. I would be remiss if I didn’t share my three favorites here. Listen to this:

“I imagine a new educational ecology where students may take courses from anywhere and instructors may select any students, where courses are collaborative and public, where creativity is nurtured as Google nurtures it, where making mistakes well is valued over sameness and safety, where education continues long past age 21, where tests and degrees matter less than one’s own portfolio of work, where the gift economy may turn anyone with knowledge into teachers, where the skills of research and reasoning and skepticism are valued over the skills of memorization and calculation, and where universities teach an abundance of knowledge to those who want it rather than manage a scarcity of seats in a class. Pp.210-211

“Would we be forcing young people to go through 18, 16, or even 12 years of school – trying to get them all to think the same way-before they make things? Instead of the perennial call to subject our youth to mandatory national service – how’s that for a way to squander a precious resource? Shouldn’t we instead be helping them find and feed their muses?” P. 212

“Why are we still teaching students to memorize facts when facts are available through search? Memorization is not as vital a discipline as ulfilling curiosity with research and reasoning when students recognize what they don’t know, form questions, seek answers, and learn how to judge them and their sources.” Pp. 215-216.

What are all the “Google’s Rules” Jarvis discusses throughout the book.?Well, I’ve referred to several here but you’re just going to have to immerse yourself in this work just as I did to garner the spoecifics and appropriate appreciation.

Jeff Jarvis’ ending touches on a critically important subject, that you must not rush over. It’s about creativity. It’s poignant:

The internet doesn’t make us more creative. Instead, it enables what we create to be seen, heard, and used. It enables every creator to find a public, the public he or she merits. That takes creation out of the proprietary ands of the supposed creative class. Internet curmudgeons argue that Google and the internet bring society to ruin because they rob the creative class of its financial support and exclusivity: its pedestal. But internet triumphalists, including me, argue that the internet opens up creativity past one-size-fits-all, mass measurements and priestly definitions of quality and lets us not only find what we like but also find people who like what we do. The internet kills the mass, once and for all. With that comes the death of mass economics and mass media. I don’t lament their passing. Pp.239-240.

“There is  an abundance of talent and a limitless will to create, but they have been tamped down by an  educational system that insists on sameness,  starved by a mass economic system that rewarded only a few giants, and discouraged by a critical system that anointed a closed creative class. These enemies of mass creativity turned abundance into scarcity. Google and the internet reversed that flow. Now talent of many descriptions and levels can express itself and grow. We want to create and we want to be generous with our creations. We will get the attention we deserve. That means crap will be ignored. It just depends on your definition crap.” P. 240.

Jeff Jarvis is a talent and a mind to touch base with regularly. This book, his first, is a superb example of the “abundance of talent and a limitless will to create” that Google has had an invisible hand in creating.

Get this book! Savor it. Discuss Jarvis’ observations and insights with others. Allow the invisible hand to have its way with you. You’ll be delighted you did.

From the Robert and Jane Cizik Professor of Business Administration at The Harvard Business School and author of the NYT bestsellers The Innovator’s Dilemma and The Innovator’s Solution (Clayton Christensen) comes this uniquely important work. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi  has written that “Creative thoughts evolve in this gap filled with tension – holding on to what is known and accepted while tending toward a still ill defined truth that is barely glimpsed on the other side of the chasm.”[i] This book has engineered the architecture to span that chasm.

Along with writer and consultant Curtis Johnson and Executive Director of The Innosight Institute Michael Horn, Christensen and his co-authors demonstrate the sheer beauty of applying the current scholarship we understand about innovation in other domains (business et al) – to a domain that precariously occupies that space in American society that can accurately be characterized as a “gap filled with tension – holding on to what is known and accepted.” The latter domain would be the field of U.S. public education. Why? Why is this cross-disciplinary approach so important? Molecular Biologist Kary Mullis nails it when she writes: “Important inventions almost always cross the lines of disciplines. Moving between fields is the way to be creative.”[ii]

What motivates these authors? In the first half-dozen pages you acquire the distinct impression that these fellows care deeply about improving the U.S. public education system….they’ve studied it…exhaustively – all the excuses, criticisms, rationalizations, performance data and the like.

After the introductory chapter, the authors use vignettes to set the context for the discussion contained in each respective chapter.

The first chapter struggles with the issue of why we are teaching in a standardized approach when we are all “differently-abled” – we learn differently. Chapter two introduces the concept of disruptive innovation, which the authors define as follows: “The disruptive innovation theory explains why organizations struggle with certain kinds of innovation and how organizations can predictably succeed in innovation.” (p.45). “Disruptive innovation is not a breakthrough improvement. { Instead of sustaining the traditional improvement trajectory in the established plane of competition, it disrupts that trajectory by bringing to the market a product or service that actually is. Not as good as what companies historically had been selling.”(p.47). There’s much more to the scholarship that supports the authors thesis regarding disruptive innovation. The charts are also very helpful in conceptualizing the points they are making.

Why haven’t we seen disruptive innovation in the U.S. public education system? Listen to these authors: “People did not create new disruptive business models in public education, however. Why not? Almost all disruptions take root among non consumers.  In education, there was little opportunity to do that. Public education is set up as a public utility, and state laws mandate attendance for virtually  everyone. There was no large, untapped pool of non consumers  that new school models could target.” p.60. Note that one of the central points the authors make is that the targeting on non-consumers is the arena where disruptive innovation takes place, in other domains. (The way Apple targeted listeners of music with the iPod versus the recording industry creating a similar sort of innovation).

The authors go to great lengths to explain why technology has not transformed how we do what we do in public education (and the results derived therefrom) in the following: In the language of disruption, here is what this means: Unless top managers actively manage this process, their organization will shape every disruptive innovation into a sustaining innovation -one that fits the processes, values, and economic model of the existing business – because organizations cannot naturally disrupt themselves. This is a core reason why incumbent firms are at a disadvantage relative to entrant companies when disruptive innovations emerge. And it explains why computers haven’t changed schools. P.75.

The authors go on to detail how to disruptively deploy computers in the classroom and embrace a vastly more student-centric approach to teaching, learning and assessment. They characterize this as an “opportunity” when they state: “Maurice Maeterlinck, the Belgian Nobel Laureate in literature once observed, “ At every crossway on the road that leads to the future each progressive spirit is opposed by a thousand men appointed to guard the past.” ‘Educators, like the rest of us, tend to resist major change. But this shift in the learning platform, if managed correctly – which means disruptively is not a threat. It is an opportunity. Students will be able to work in the way that comes naturally for them. Teachers can be learning leaders with time to pay attention to each student. And school organizations can navigate the impending financial maelstrom without abdicating their mission.” P.112.

Chapters five and six delve into the recommendations of these scholars regarding how disruptive innovation evolves within a highly regulated system akin to public education, using examples from the private sector. The address the importance of the knowledge being derived out of the field of neuroscience as it relates to the importance of language dancing during very early, formative years of infancy. They also advocate for user-generated content, platforms that empower non-technical folks to create powerful learning tools – sharing the same in our connected world. Their treatment of the public education system as a value-chain commercial system is fascinating – a system whose production and distribution of learning materials can and must change, along with disruptive innovations in the current marketing and distribution model.

Chapter 7 legitimately and methodically lampoons the “quality” of social research produced in and around public education – a fact that remains an incredible handicap to the system, teachers, administrators, students, community and country. Chapter 8 is a clarion call for a “common language” in addressing the challenges inherent within the current system. What do the authors mean by “common language?” Consider this excerpt for clarity: “providing a common language is a “mechanism of movement,” in that, when done well, it can shift a group’s location in the matrix to the point that other tools of cooperation can be effective. With a common language and a common framing of the problem, tools like strategic planning, measurement systems, and salesmanship can be effective. An important reason why we have gone to such lengths to identify the root causes of the problems plaguing public schools is our hope that this book might serve this role for our readers. While we may not have gotten all of our diagnoses and solutions correct, we hope that the understanding we have summarized here might – create a common language and a common way to frame these problems so that there is broader agreement on what is needed and how to achieve it.” (pp. 192-193). If that’s the impact of this book, we should all be deeply grateful.

Chapter 9 addresses suggestions for structuring schools so they are encouraged to innovate. In the conclusion to this work, the authors, once again, emphasize that their recommendations must not be viewed as threats, but as distinct opportunities to be explored.

This review is not intended to be a substitute for reading and discussing this work. On the contrary – It is my hope that it encourages many to do just that.

It is an incredible body of knowledge that contains the engineering know-how (from both a theoretical and practical standpoint) to Span the Current Chasm in U.S. Public Education.

Devour it. Discuss it with friends and colleagues. Then do something disruptively innovative with that discussion. As the authors use of a quote from Einstein clearly illustrates: “The significant problems we have cannot be solved with the same level of thinking we were using when we created them.”

NOTES

[ii] Barron, Frank Montuori, Alfonso & Barron, Anthea Creators on Creating – Awakening and Cultivating the Imaginative Mind, Penguin Group (USA) Inc. New York, NY Copyright © 1997 by Frank Barron, Alfonso Montuori and Anthea Barron – quote by Kary Mullis – p.70 & 73. Chapter entitled The Screwdriver.

This is a superbly crafted work detailing the research conducted by Ellen Langer and her colleagues over the past fifteen years, at Yale, City University of New York, and, for the past twelve years, in the Department of Psychology at Harvard.

The nature of the studies, methodology and focus of the research endeavors are incredibly interesting. For those interested in epistemology, this book is essential reading. The following are some excerpts that I found particularly poignant:

“We experience the world by creating categories and making distinctions among them.” p.11.

The creation of new categories, as we will see throughout this book, is a mindful activity. Mindlessness sets in when we rely too rigidly on categories and distinctions created in the past Once distinctions are created, they take on a life of their own.” P. 11

“The rhythm of the familiar lulls us into mindlessness.” P.21

“The way we first take in information ( that is, mindfully or mindlessly) determines how we will use it later.” P.25

“The future may be as capable of “causing” the present as is the past.” P. 32

“When children start a new activity with an outcome orientation, questions of “Can I?” or “What if I can’t do it?” are likely to predominate, creating an anxious preoccupation with success or failure rather than drawing on the child’s natural, exuberant desire to explore. Instead of enjoying the color of the crayon, the designs on the paper, and a variety of possible shapes along the way, the child sets about writing a “correct” letter A. Throughout our lives, an outcome orientation in social situations can cause mindlessness.” P.34

“Those who can free themselves of old mindsets, who can open themselves to new information and surprise, play with perspective and context, and focus on process rather than outcome are likely to be creative, whether they are scientists, artists, or cooks.” P. 115

“People create uses for objects. A use is not inherent in an object, independent of the people using it. The successful use of an object depends on the context of its use.” P.122

“Will children taught “it depends” grow up to be insecure adults? Or will they be more confident in a world of change than those of us brought up with absolutes?” p.124.

“We pick up rules before we have a chance to question them.” p.125

“The early signs of change are warnings and, to the mindful, opportunities.”

Required reading for the mindful.

“The old ideas don’t work – and they shouldn’t because they are from  the past – and the problems rushing at us are in the present and are coming from the future.” P.41

I enjoyed this work by Bob Ouradnik. It is somewhat of a distinctly biographical journey alongside a self-admitted spiritual explorer. It is definitely a book for the open-minded.

Here are a few tidbit excerpts that I truly appreciated:

Ouradnik, Robert Growing Spiritually – Without Getting Bogged Down in Religion, Booksurge Copyright © 2009 by Robert Ouradnik

Perhaps the first step to prevent getting bogged down in religion is to give up the belief, that only I have the right way. P.7

Life requires us to dance, to dance between the order that we are sure of and the chaos that we are not, between the known and the mysterious. It is impossible to live without the fiction of order: It is impossible to live if the fiction of order is absolutized into a belief that this is all there is. P. 14

Our lives became richer, fuller, more exciting – perhaps more meaningful because of an experience to which the most appropriate response was to remain speechless and in awe of some – thing beyond our complete understanding and for which we could only feel gratitude. We had become aware of the Beyond that was in the midst of everything. P. 25

Awareness of the Beyond is not an attribute possessed by one religion and denied to another.  p. 26

Religion is the box we build in our hope that we can ship the gift onto someone  else. P.49.

Yearning for someone else who could just stand beside me in Awe and-gratitude before an event too large to comprehend. P. 58

Every aspect of spirituality is life created. Every aspect of religion IS a product of human reflection. P. 62

myths told in the right way at the right time can be powerful. P. 64

It is important  not to become so bogged down in the righteousness of our own religion that we no longer can be grateful for the transforming power of someone else’s. p.89

The absence of openness, the presence of close-mindedness, narrows the possibility that we will receive the gifts of deep insight, intuition, and lasting Truth, p.100.

To see the old as the only way that life should be seen is to” become bogged down in the past. The temptation is to commit only to the old. That lone option should be avoided. P. 105.

But the situation keeps changing. Life has a way of waking us up to new ways of seeing its meaning and its purpose. This perception is why I have tried to not get bogged down in dogmatic commitments that cannot flow with life. P. 109.

Truth is not reducible to an intellectual concept. P. 110

New commandments burned into stone tablets probably won’t ever be available to direct us in stem cell research, environmental preservation, and international justice and peace. We’re  going to have to come up with answers from within ourselves. P. 174

It (this book) was written in the hope that those who describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious” might know they have a friend.  p. 174.

Truly enjoyable. Thanks Bob!

Unequivocally – One of the most important books most folks will NEVER read….I am VERY glad I did. Although published a few years ago (and now superseded by Florida’s new book entitled “The Great Reset: How New Ways of Living and Working Drive Post-Crash Prosperity“), this work will endure for years to come.

The following are some of the more important excerpts that I took away from the reading:

We live in a time of great promise. We have evolved economic and social systems that tap human creativity and make use of it as never before. This In turn creates an unparalleled opportunity to raise our living standards, build a more humane and sustainable economy, and make our lives more complete. But there is no guarantee that this promise will come to fruition-it can just as easily go unfulfilled. Right now in the United States, that’s exactly what’s happening. The transformation we have given rise to stands incomplete. The great dilemma of our time is that having generated such incredible creative potential, we lack the broader social and economic system to fully harness it and put it to use. No one is going do to this for us. It’s up to us – all of us – to complete the transformation to a society that taps and rewards our full creative potential.” P.xiii

The wealth generated by the creative sector is astounding. It accounts for nearly half all wage and salary income in the United States, $ 1.7 trillion dollars, as much as the manufacturing and service sectors combined. P. xiv

But by the turn of the new century, the Creative Class included nearly a third of the workforce. This is true not just in the United States. The ranks of the Creative Class have reached 25 to 30 percent of the workforces across the advanced European countries, according to research. P.xiv

Great economic shifts like the one we are going through with them bring massive tensions and disruptions. P. xiv

While there is no magic bullet here, sooner or later some place will figure out how to more fully tap the creative talents of much broader segments of its people-and it will get a huge competitive edge as a result.p. xvii.

The most successful regions welcome all kinds of people. And they offer a range of living choices, from nice suburbs with single-family housing to hip urban districts for the unattached. They have to. Only 23.5 percent of Americans now live in the standard nuclear family with two parents and children at home. Like it or not, more young people are delaying marriage and childbirth. Many are separating or divorcing. Many live in some sort of alternative arrangement. Appealing only to traditional families and excluding or denigrating everyone else may be good propaganda for the culture wars, but as a development strategy, it’s a disaster. p.xviii

This book argues that place is the key economic and social organizing unit of our time. P.xix

Places provide the ecosystems that harness human creativity and turn it into economic value. P. xix.

Places that are open and tolerant have an edge in attracting different kinds bf people and generating new ideas. P.xix

The key is to “squelch the squelchers”-the controlling leaders, micro managers,  and broader structures of social! Control and vertical power-that quash and derail that energy. P. xxiii

Any country that doesn’t keep building its creative strengths-with broad support for creative activities, and with policies that bring more citizens into the creative sector rather than under-employing them-will fall behind. P. xxvi

The next “Silicon Somewhere” p. xxvii

In a curious reversal, instead of people moving to jobs, I was finding that companies were moving to or forming in places that had the skilled people. P. xxvii

History shows that enduring social change occurs not during economic boom times, like the 1920’s or 1990’s, but in periods of crisis and questioning such as the 1930s – and today. The task before us is to build new forms of social cohesion appropriate to the new Creative Age-the old forms don’t work, because they no longer fit the people we’ve become-and from there, to pursue a collective vision of a better and more prosperous future for all. P.xxx

The creative impulse-the attribute that distinguishes us, as humans, from other species-is now being let loose on an unprecedented scale. P.4

“.creativity-“the ability to create meaningful new forms, as Webster’s dictionary puts it-is now the decisive source of competitive advantage. P.5

“The economic need for creativity has registered itself in the rise of a new :Iass, which I call the Creative Class. Some 38 million Americans, 30 percent of all employed people, belong to this new class. I define the core of the Creative Class to include people in science and engineering, architecture and design, education, arts, music and entertainment, whose economic function is to create new ideas, new technology and/or new creative content. Around the core, the Creative Class also includes a broader group of creative professionals in business and finance, law, health care and related fields. These people engage in complex problem solving that involves a great deal of independent judgment and requires high levels of education or human capital. In addition, all members of the Creative Class whether they are artists or engineers, musicians or computer scientists, writers or entrepreneurs-share a common creative ethos that values creativity, individuality, difference and merit. P. 8.

The Creative Class is the  norm-setting class of our time. But its norms are very different: individuality, self-expression and openness to difference are favored over the homogeneity, conformity and “fitting in” that defined the organizational age.’  P.9

They are fleeing the older working-class strongholds and in many cases avoiding newer but  conservative Sun belt  cities-increasingly opting out of places where tradition is more valued and where the social norms of the organizational age still prevail. In fact, many of these places are being almost entirely abandoned by the Creative Class. P.11

The geographic trends I will describe in this book do not favor the tightly knit old-style communities that are so often celebrated in our songs, stories and sentimental TV commercials. Pp. 11-12

as people of all ages continue to seek new outlets for their creative capacities. P. 14

This transformation is the shift to an economic and social system based on human creativity. Most people would never suppose that changes in our tastes for work, lifestyle and community might be driven by such basic economic changes. I argue that they are. P.15

After reading scores of books and countless articles on today’s  social changes, I have come to the conclusion that much of the time we are locked in a misleading and fruitless debate. The two sides in this debate amount to little more than flip sides of the same coin, opposing mythologies steeped in outdated ideologies, equally short-sighted and misleading. P. 15

Human creativity is multifaceted and multidimensional. It is not limited to technological innovation or new business models. It is not something that can be kept in a box and trotted out when one arrives at the office. Creativity involves distinct kinds of thinking and habits that must be cultivated both in the individual and in the surrounding society. Thus the creative ethos pervades everything from our workplace culture to our values and communities, reshaping the way we see ourselves as economic and social actors-our very identities. P. 22

Yet creativity is not the province of a few select geniuses who can I? away with breaking the mold because they possess superhuman talents. It is a capacity inherent to varying degrees in virtually all people. P. 32

“We are not used to thinking of ideas as economic goods,” writes Romer, “but they are surely the most significant ones that we produce. The only way for us to produce more economic value-and thereby generate economic growth-is to find ever more valuable ways to make use of the objects available to us. P. 36

In the long run, we cannot forget what the fundamental cornerstone of our wealth is. Though useful knowledge may reside in programs or formulas, it does not originate there. It originates with people. The ultimate intellectual property-the one that really replaces land, labor and capital as the most valuable economic resource – is the human creative faculty.  P. 37

Two places that were home to scads of venture capital-New York City and Chicago-had very little venture capital-financed innovation. Rather, investment went to companies in  locations like Silicon Valley or Boston’s Route 128 corridor. The reason for this pattern was that venture capital, by itself, did not produce home-grown innovation. It flowed to places that had other elements of a well-developed “social structure of innovation. P.51

Major new systems for harnessing creativity generally evolve from existing ones. The new systems do not necessarily replace or triumph over the old, but they always expand and alter the playing field. They tend to arise when the existing order has begun to reach certain limits-and as they emerge, they of course produce periods of great advance combined with great turbulence. For it is well established that major new economic systems lead to profound changes in work, social organization and geography. P. 56.

Their property-which stems from their creative capacity-is an intangible because it is literally in their heads. P. 68.

Bottom line: As creativity becomes more valued, the Creative Class grows. P. 71

In contrast to the many techno-futurists who say the wired and wireless information age has made location and community irrelevant, the creative workers I talk with say they are vitally important. These people insist they need to live in places that offer stimulating, creative environments. P. 95

The open source model reflects two other core values of the Creative Economy: openness to new ideas and meritocracy. P. 138.

“the ability to leverage the community mind” p. 138.

Truly a book you simply MUST read…based upon its pertinence to the persistence of the present predicament the U.S. and the world finds itself in.

Photography by Bill Dahl - ALL Rights Reserved 2010

In these unprecedented economic times , what might faith mean?  Theologian Brian McLaren suggests:

“Faith involves admitting with humility and boldness that we need to change, to go against the flow, to be different, to face and shine the light on our cherished illusions and prejudices, and to discover new truths that can be liberating even though they may be difficult for the ego, painful to the pride.” (1)

From the above, we can see that the faith required to reimagine creating tomorrow today involves a multi-dimensional approach. Let me explain:

(1) It requires admission – a confession, if you will.

(2) The nature of this admission is twofold: it must be humble and bold.

In terms of the humility dimension of this matter, the following from Rabbi Harold Kushner speaks to the heart of the matter:

“being human is such a complicated challenge that all of us will make mistakes in the process of learning how to do it right, then we can come to see our mistakes not as emblems of our unworthiness but as experiences we can learn from. We will be brave enough to try something new without being afraid of getting it wrong. Our sense of shame will be the result of our humility, our learning our limits, rather than our wanting to hide from scrutiny because we have done badly.” (2)

The boldness dimension of the admission is characterized concisely by Senator John McCain. He refers to it as courage:

“Courage (emphasis is mine) is that rare moment of unity between conscience, fear, and action, when something deep within us strikes the flint of love, of honor, of duty, to make the spark that fires our resolve.” (3)

3) In terms of speaking about illuminating our  illusions, most folks can get pretty riled up. Why? Because it causes us to truly examine and evaluate the truthfulness  and practical application of what we have been assuming, thinking and doing. Consider the following from Daniel Levinson:

“As he attempts to reappraise his life, a man discovers how much it has been based on illusions, and he is faced with the task of de-illusionment. By this expression I mean a reduction of illusions, a recognition that long held assumptions and beliefs about self and world are not true. This process merits special attention because illusions play so vital a role in our lives throughout the life cycle.”(4)

(4) Residing comfortably within many of our illusions rest our prejudices. As Dr. King once said:

“There is little hope for us until we become tough-minded enough to break loose from the shackles of prejudice, half-truths and downright ignorance.” (5)

Finally, there’s that issue about what to do with faith. As McLaren defines it, faith is certainly not something the human species is imbued with whose sole purpose is some form of peace of mind, resting comfortably on a couch. No, faith is designed to move us from spectating to participation. The following from Paul Rogat-Loeb sums it up quite nicely:

“Whatever our passions and commitments may be, we all face similar questions about how to cross the threshold from passivity to participation, to make our voices heard and make our actions count, and reawaken and sustain our faith in the future.” (6)

So, what’s your response? Once again, the words of Dr. King echo a truth with a poignant, present day application:

“To be honest is to confront the truth. However unpleasant and inconvenient the truth may be, I believe we must expose and face it if we are to achieve a better quality of American life.” (7)

May this writing be one element of inspiration that provides you with the courage to act on your faith to improve the community/nation/world you reside in….it begins with each of us….today.

Reflect on this.

NOTES:

(1) McLaren, Brian Finding Faith, Copyright © 1999 by Brian McLaren, Zondervan Grand Rapids, MI pp.13-14.

(2) Kushner, Harold S. How Good Do We Have To Be – A New Understanding of Guilt and Forgiveness, Little, Brown and Company Boston, MA Copyright © 1996 by Harold S. Kushner, p. 39.

(3) McCain, John In Search of Courage, Fast Company Magazine, Issue Number 86, September 2004, Copyright © 2004 by Gruner + Jahr USA Publishing p.54-56.

(4) Levinson, Daniel J., The Seasons Of A Man’s Life, New York: Ballantine Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, Copyright © 1978, p.192

(5) Scott King, Coretta The Words of Martin Luther King Jr., Newmarket Press, NY, NY Copyright © 1983 by Coretta Scott King and Newmarket Press, p. 30.

(6) Rogat Loeb, Paul. Soul of a Citizen-Living with Conviction in a Cynical Time, St. Martin’s Griffin, NY  Copyright © 1999 by Paul Rogat Loeb, p.11.

(7) Scott King, Coretta The Words of Martin Luther King Jr., Newmarket Press, NY, NY Copyright © 1983 by Coretta Scott King and Newmarket Press, p. 89.

“innovate our way to new possibilities that right now seem unimaginable. The longer we wait to set out on such a strategic path though, the deeper the pail out of which we will have to climb.” (1)

Think about it…

Directions

(1) Friedman, Thomas L. Hot, Flat & Crowded- Why We Need a Green Revolution and How It Can Renew America, Copyright © 2008 Farrar, Straus & Giroux New York, NY p. 49.

“There is a moment that ahs happened over and over again, in every place children have ever slept, on every dark night for the past ten thousand years, that almost everyone who was once a child will forever remember. It happens when you are being tucked into bed, on a dark and frightening night when the sounds of the nighttime outside are being drowned out only by the far more frightening sounds in your head. You have already gone to bed, have tried to go to bed, but because of whatever sounds you hear in your head you have failed to go to bed, and someone much older than you, someone so old that you cannot even imagine yourself ever becoming that old, has come to sit beside you and make sure you fall asleep. But the moment that everyone who was once a child will remember is not the story the unfathomable old person tells you, or the lullaby he sings for you, but the moment right after the story or song has ended. You are lying there with your eyes closed, not sleeping just yet, but noticing that the sounds inside your head seem to have vanished, and you know, through closed eyes, that the person beside you thinks you are asleep and is simply watching you. In that fraction of an instant between when that persaon stops singing and when that person decides to rise from the bed and disappear — a tiny rehearsal, though you do not yet know it, of what will eventually happen for good — time holds still, and you can feel, through your closed eyes, how that person, watching your still, small face in the darkness, has suddenly realized that you are the reason his life matters.” p. 118.

Very interesting.

The most fantastic, engaging book you will ever read regarding the life of a dog, and the impact that life has on man. Unequivocally an adventure of the heart and the mind. Get it at the local bookstore. Trust us….you’ll be very glad you did.