From where Reggie and I sit, here’s our annual ranking of The BEST BOOKS of 2011. (photography by Bill Dahl 2011).

As I have said before, I read approximately 100 books a year. 2011 was an exception for several reasons:

1. I read some MONSTER volumes re: U.S. history – inhabited with microscopic print. Digesting these behemoths takes time.
2. I have experienced an unanticipated, disruptive, enduring health issue.

(In any event..I read dozens and dozens of books in 2011 – I follow a very strict discipline NOT to review books I don’t care for) The result of this annual process was the following ranking (1= BEST)  by Category:

I.                  Faith & Culture Category – Non Fiction

1. Naked Spirituality – A Life With God in 12 Simple Words by Brian McLaren – HarperOne  New York, NY

2. You Lost Me: Why Young Christians Are Leaving Church and Rethinking Faith: – by David Kinnaman – BakerBooks Grand Rapids, MI

3. Practice Resurrection – a conversation on growing up in Christ - by Eugene Peterson (a 2010 publication I didn’t get to until 2011) – Eerdmans Publishing Grand Rapids, Cambridge, U.K.

4. God Without Religion – by Andrew Farley – BakerBooks Grand Rapids, MI

5. Love Wins – by Rob Bell – HarperOne

6. The Sword of the Lord – The Roots of Fundamentalism in an American Family by Andrew Himes – CreateSpace

7. Healing The Heart of Democracy by Parker J. Palmer – Jossey-Bass

8. The Cause Within You – by Matthew Barnett and George Barna – Tyndale/Barna

9.  Stumbling Toward Heaven – On Cancer, Crashes and Questions by Mike Hamel – CreateSpace

10. The New Evangelicals – by Marcia Pally – Eerdmans Publishing

        II.                   Fiction

1. Matterhorn – by Karl Marlantes – Grove Press New York, NY

2. The Ambition – by Lee Strobel – Zondervan

III.    Public Policy/Socio-Cultural Commentary/Investigative Reporting

1. Reckless Endangerment – How Outsized Ambition, Greed, And Corruption Led to Economic Armageddon by Gretchen Morgenson & Joshua Rosner – Times Books

2. The Evolving Self – A Psychology for the Third Millenium by Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi – Harper Perrenial

3. Boomerang – Travels in the New Third World by Michael Lewis – W.W. Norton & Company

4. That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back by Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum – Farrar, Straus and Giroux

5. The Social Animal by David Brooks – Random House

Bill Dahl’s – THE Best Books of 2011

1. Naked Spirituality – A Life With God in 12 Simple Words by Brian McLaren…simply THE BEST BOOK of 2011. A treasure.

2. The Evolving Self – A Psychology for the Third Millenium by Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi – I have a personal discipline – For every 5 books I read, one of those books MUST be at least five years old. This one was published in 1993. READ IT TODAY.

3. You Lost Me: Why Young Christians Are Leaving Church and Rethinking Faith: – by David Kinnaman

4. Reckless Endangerment – How Outsized Ambition, Greed, And Corruption Led to Economic Armageddon by Gretchen Morgenson & Joshua Rosner

5. Practice Resurrection – a conversation on growing up in Christ - by Eugene Peterson (a 2010 publication I didn’t get to until 2011)

6. God Without Religion – by Andrew Farley

7. Love Wins – by Rob Bell

8. That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back by Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum.

9. The Social Animal by David Brooks

10. Matterhorn – by Karl Marlantes

 Honorable Mention in my Top 10 for 2011 — just because it’s so darn good….

CLASSICS – Enduring Contributions to American Literature – Read in 2011. Please consider at least one of the following for your reading in 2012:

In 2012, I hope you will make an intentional choice to read some of the titles I have identified in my Best of 2011 and a “classic” – as identified above.  Please keep me posted on what your insights and recommendations.

 Blessings to you and yours in 2012.

Thank you Brian!

________________________________________________________________

The Qage

“The natural state of ideas is flow and spillover and connection. It is society that keeps them in chains.”[i] Steven Johnson -  Where Good Ideas Come From – The Natural History of Innovation

There are limits in life. Some real – some imagined. Some constructive – some otherwise. Some apparent – some more difficult to recognize. A theologian has suggested that a great deal of what we live by is unseen.[i] In this chapter, we will illuminate some of the obvious and more subtle influences that impair us from realizing our potential as Questians.

What’s holding us back?

I find it fascinating when flying non-stop from the east coast to the west coast in the U.S. – it almost always takes longer than the trip from west to east. Why? Same Boeing 757 – Same airports – Same distance. Ah yes! It’s something they refer to as headwinds or the jet stream that typically flow from west to east across the North American continent. You can’t see them. Can’t smell them – can’t taste them. They’re real. They exist in a realm beyond the individual human sensory ability to account for their existence. This is just a simple example of how the unseen restrains us in life. In this example, it’s an actual physical restraint.

What about unseen meta-physical restraints? What about fear? In Barry Glassner’s The Culture of Fear, he proposes that fear mongers have knocked the optimism out of us by stuffing us full of negative presumptions about our fellow citizens and social institutions.[ii] Do you think you’re an exception? Listen to author and journalist Taylor Clark: “In all walks of life, fear and stress loom on the horizon: they freeze cops in tight situations, paralyze concert performers on stage, and make skydivers’ brains lock up so much that they can forget to pull their parachutes. No one is immune.”[iii] Yes, the human mind is akin to a sponge – soaking up all kinds of stuff – including fears, doubts, attitudes, understandings, values, customs, judgments, beliefs, hopes, expectations – and unwittingly dimming the prospect of possibility – and preventing you from realizing your potential. Questians understand that fear, in its most devious form, inhibit and prevent us from moving toward the possible. Fear, and it’s twin, anxiety, have a voice. It says, “You can’t, not now, maybe later, no time, that’s just not possible, too risky and someday.” Fear may perpetuate our present predicament. It unduly delays the development of the desire to change and/or diminishes the possibility for the same. The friend of fear is avoidance.

According to Clark, fear is physiological and anxiety is cognitive. Yet, there is a curious reciprocity between the two – each can cause the other – they talk to one another. Anxiety is primarily related to worry about the future. Both can cause stress – a condition that can be cumulative and affects us physiologically and psychologically.

Fear is a companion on the journey in life. Questians understand this. However, fear and anxiety have to be kept in their proper perspective, particularly as it relates to the opportunity for each of us to change, and move toward challenges that grow us – acting upon our curiosities, exploring, developing new interests, learning and developing new skills. In this sense, Questians understand that fear and anxiety are part of our make-up. Yet, they can serve to motivate and inspire us. Questians possess the capacity to develop what Clark refers to as nerve:  “to open up to fear, work with it, and do the right thing regardless of how we feel.”[iv] Working with it is not an intellectual process…it’s experiential. Questians move ahead, along with these two companions – and are not inordinately restrained from the pursuit of the possible. Questians work with fear and anxiety by harnessing the energy to explore beyond the artificial boundaries that they may erect.

On the other side of the spectrum of human proclivity, we might consider our desire for security – that sense of safety, predictability, comfort, control, the familiar and certainty. Yet, sometimes we can allow certainty to become our idol – we worship it during our lives and reach for it at our death, clinging to what? The insights of Albert Camus are pertinent here: “Men cling to the world, and by far the majority do not want to abandon it. Far from always wanting to forget it, they suffer, on the contrary, from not being able to possess it completely enough, estranged citizens of the world, exiled from their own country. Except for vivid moments of fulfillment, all reality for them is incomplete.”[v] A yearning to experience life in its fullest can masquerade as contentment with complacency, blind to the possibilities beyond our clinging. Questians understand that the desire for the elements of security can have the same effect as fear and anxiety – they keep us in the same place. They inhibit our natural endowment to change and grow, if not kept in their proper perspective. Questians take actions in life in spite of/in light of this ‘tension’ that is part of the human experience. We possess an ongoing awareness that the unseen is a companion on this journey. This capacity is behavioral, attitudinal and cognitive.

The Qage is a practical reality that accompanies each of us, throughout our lives. Our awareness of this reality and our ability to move through and beyond it is paramount to personal, organizational and cultural growth. Consider the following from French President Nicolas Sarkozy: “The only thing that will save us is unchaining our minds so as to gather the strength to make the necessary changes. The only thing that will save us is unchaining our minds so as to free ourselves from conformism, conservatism, and short-sighted interests.” [vi]

Linguistically, every culture comes up with a myriad of phrases that season our everyday dialog – providing audible evidence of the Qage mentality. How many times have you heard them? How many times have you thought them? How many times have you overheard them? How many times have you spoken them? Phrases like, I don’t think so! or You’re out of your mind!” Other similar phrases I regularly hear include; “No Way! Can’t Happen. He’s nuts! You’re crazy, Not a chance! That’s impossible. Not in a million years. Maybe in another lifetime. She’s half a bubble off! And, of course, “Never!”

The Qage mentality we acquire subtly restrains our minds with artificial limits that we may or may not be aware of. I am not ignoring the fact that the human mind also acquires all kinds of constructive and essential protective apparatus as well. However, in times of ongoing economic uncertainty and widespread anxiety – an awareness of and encouragement to use our innate ability to move beyond the Qage mentality is pre-eminently important. Columbia University’s Nobel Prize winning economist, Joseph E. Stiglitz, observes; When the world economy went into freefall in 2008, so too did our beliefs. Long-standing views about economics, about America, and about our heroes have also been in freefall.[vii] Bloomberg’s John Wasik says, “The loss of some $7 trillion in household wealth is an albatross around the neck of the economy. This dour effect is clipping a robust recovery. Millions who have little or negative home equity are shackled to houses they can’t sell and a debt burden that keeps them from moving ahead. They can’t save, either, although they desperately need to boost their cash reserves.”[viii] The point is, socio-economic conditions in the U.S. are distinctly different that they were a few years ago. In fact, the same can be said for the global economy. Shiller and Akerlof refer to the importance of “the thought patterns that animate people’s ideas and feelings” as animal spirits, a term originated by John Maynard Keynes.[ix] The unseen impacts out behavior. You cannot actually see the vaporization of 23% of the average American family’s household net worth.[x] However, it’s as real as losing a quarter of the water boiling in a pan on your kitchen stove.

This new reality impacts people – negatively. You can hear it in the terms used in daily discourse, and those used in the national media: “hunkered down, keeping a low profile, just trying to keep our heads above water, anemic recovery, trying to make ends meet, hanging in there, just treading water,  surviving at the moment.” Let there be no question that there is tangible suffering going on in this world, as evidenced by the phrases above. There is also a degree of unspoken shame that accompanies this reality, along with a sense that people have somehow withdrawn, become unsettled, uncertain, recoiled or have assumed a different posture.

Our behavior is negatively affected when we inordinately succumb to the Qage mentality. At a time in history when the world desperately needs innovation and creativity, the Qage mentality and its survival oriented posture toward life arise – unnecessarily imperiling the potential of our individual and collective prospects. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi writes: “But the fact is that there are real limits to how many things a person can attend to at the same time, and when survival needs require all of one’s attention, none is left over for being  creative.”[xi]

It’s at times like these when I latch onto an old book, John Steinbeck’s East of Eden, and immerse myself in the essence of the following passage:

At such a time it seems natural and good to me to ask myself these questions. What do I believe in? What must I fight for and what must I fight against?

Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of a man. Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man.

And now the forces marshaled around the concept of the group have declared a war of extermination on that preciousness, the mind of man. By disparagement, by starvation, by repressions, forced direction, and the stunning hammer blows of conditioning, the free, roving mind is being pursued, roped, blunted, and drugged. It is a sad suicidal course our species seems to have taken.

And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this 1 would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about. I can understand why a system built on a pattern must try to destroy the free mind, for that is one thing which can by inspection destroy such a system. Surely I can understand this, and I hate it and I will fight against it to preserve the one thing that separates us from the uncreative beasts. If the glory can be killed, we are lost.[xii]

I honestly don’t recall when I first reached for something. Most likely, it was when I was reaching for something that my parents didn’t want me to grasp hold of. I’m a reacher. Always have been, always will be. I’ve always had this innate sense of curiosity that has translated into behavior that explores the apparent limits or boundaries in life.

I remember lying on my back, waking up in that cage in my bedroom as an infant (aka my crib). My eyes wandered to the bars that rose up around me, to the walls of the bedroom, the ceiling and the door to my room. Then, I noticed it – the window.

Outside my room, robins and sparrows flittered in the branches of the apple tree. I was amazed – astonished – I started to laugh at their curious, playful flitting around. I rose in my crib, placing my hands on the top railing, focused on the aviary circus performing outside my window. I started bouncing up and down, shrieking encouragement to the birds. I reached toward the window, lost my balance, fell back on my butt and whacked the back of my head on the bars of my cage. Once again, I lost it – screaming with fright at the pain that ricocheted through my noggin.

The bedroom door exploded inward, my mom reaching down into the cage, lifting me out and cradling me against her chest. “The typical “Shhhh…shhhhh…shhhh” followed by several motherly, “It’s OK, It’s alright, I’m here’s,” as we swayed back in forth. As I calmed down, swaying on my mom’s shoulder, I opened my teary eyes facing the window. I pushed back from mom’s shoulder where I had my weepy head buried and shouted something unintelligible, pointing at the birds outside the window. Mom whirled around and broke into a huge smile, exclaiming “Birdie! Yes, those are Birdies.” According to my mom, I mimicked her utterance (who knows if what your parents tell you in adulthood about what you did during your infancy is true or not) – exclaiming “Booey!” It was the first time (again, according to my mom) I had actually verbalized an utterance that was remotely close to what my mother had just spoken. Mom was ecstatic. She floated with me in her arms out into the living room and dialed my grandmother on the phone. Mom said “Birdie” and I responded with “Booey.” Mom said “Billy” and I said “Booey.” She said Dahl and I said “Dow.” (To this day my wife and kids throw out an infrequent reference to me as “Booey Dow”).

My new found fascination with windows continued. As I crawled, scooted and soon began to walk, my enhanced mobility provided me with ever increasing opportunities to explore the vistas that windows provided. Truth be told, I began to develop the urge to get out – to move beyond the confines of the walls, doors and windows of my enclosure.

My mom began to take me by the hand and walk barefoot in the lawn in the backyard. I was ecstatic – uttering all kinds of new sounds and making profoundly unintelligible audible exclamations to my mom, based upon all the new stuff I was observing in the backyard, outside the four walls of that house. Then it happened.

I had wandered away from my mom and was laser focused on a low hanging, bright red blossom of a large Rhododendron about six feet in front of me. I chugged toward my target, reached out and grabbed the red prize. I was ecstatic! The red bloom broke off in my hand and it seemed to me that it was a good idea to stuff it in my mouth. It was like, automatic.

Seemingly instantaneously, I heard my mother screaming “NO! NO! NO!” She grabbed me off the lawn and in one motion plunged the fingers of her right hand deep into my mouth. I gagged and puked all over her chest. She sat down on the lawn with me in her lap in front of that Rhodie, pointing at it and excitedly shouting “NO! NO! NO!” I looked up at her scrunched up face and pointed in the same direction, militantly shouting “NO! NO! NO!” Mom followed my utterance with “YES! YES! YES! – that’s right Billy”, as a smile erased the scrunch of disgust on her face. Of course, I smiled, chuckled and exclaimed “YA! YA!” jabbing my fist toward the innocent garden plant I had just disfigured. Mom lifted the red petals she had disgorged from my mouth up toward my face. Shaking the clump as she deliberately shouted “NO! NO! NO!” Needless to say, I was so utterly befuddled at this stage, I exploded in another tearful outburst commensurate with the confusion that reigned at the moment. Mom picked up my wildly whimpering carcass and we returned to the house. She plopped me on the carpet as she went to the kitchen sink where she grabbed a wet cloth and began dabbing the puke off her chest.

We made our way into the bathroom where mom drew me a bath. She washed me up and dressed me in some clean clothes. She changed her blouse and shot some smelly stuff on her neck. She lifted me to her shoulder – the same one she had her purse slung over – when she reached down and grabbed this strange contraption and declared inquisitively “Go for a ride?”

Mom shoveled me onto the back seat of the car. I grabbed for a handhold and rose to gander about me. As I was looking around, mom was busy muttering frustration as she attempted to wrestle this new device into place in the back seat of the car. Mom opened the other back seat car door and extracted me from the backseat. We walked around the rear of the car, and ducked through the open door into the back seat area. That’s when it happened.

Mom plopped me into the midst of this contraption and pulled belts down across both my shoulders, buckling them between my legs. She then grabbed a longer belt from the back seat and pulled that one across me and the contraption horizontally. I heard a metallic click when mom simultaneously declared “there,” like we had really accomplished something together. She shut the back door and piled into the driver’s seat. The 56 Dodge fired up and we began to move forward. As mom began shifting through the three-on-the-tree manual transmission she began talking to me while looking ahead. Then I saw it – my mom’s eyes were staring at me from a piece of shiny glass hanging from the ceiling in the front seat – between her and the passenger seat. No mouth. No nose. No ears. No face. No mom – Just mom’s eyes. One eye – sometimes two. They seemed to look at me, then look away, floating eerily – glaring at me encased in this three by six shiny piece of glass. I detonated.

As I screamed and yelled at the horrific vision of my mom’s eyes having been removed from her face, mom began to attempt to shout those soothing motherly reassurances from the driver’s seat. I was having none of that. My next realization was that I was a hostage to the ominous eye monster that loomed before me. I wrestled mightily against the restraints of the contraption I had been belted into. Why had mom placed me in these restraints? Whose idea was the eye monster? This car had walls, restraints and was inhabited by strange things I didn’t understand. I wanted out! Now!

As my personal story illustrates, from an early age, we learn to mimic one another. We have begun to develop the sense that there is something more beyond the confines of our current reality. Our consciousness is developing. We become curious, observant, and mobile. We begin to express ourselves, typically through mimicking the words of those most intimate to us. We become confused, as part of the process. We stuff foreign objects in our mouths. We wander and joyously explore our environment – sometimes grabbing onto things we shouldn’t. We begin to experience restraints in life – audible, physical and emotional. We learn that falling backward in our crib and banging our head on the rail behind us creates pain. We begin to experience surprise and the unexpected. Occurrences of fear become part of our existence. We are developing an appreciation for the reality that our existence has limits – and that we have much to learn, and a desire to grow into more.

Such is the tension that inhabits the human existence throughout our lifetimes. The ying and yang that exists within the possibility of becoming all we might be or settling smugly for what we are. One author proposes, “The rhythm of the familiar lulls us into mindlessness.”[xiii] Yet, the crib somehow becomes a cage and windows become vistas to a reality beyond our bedroom walls yearning to be explored. Environments and devices that were intended to be for our own protection and safety, become barriers and/or restraints for our desire to freely discover the amazing reality around us.

Sociologist Philip Slater captures the essence of this tension when he writes, “Unfortunately, there’s no way to insulate yourself from the bad things around you that doesn’t at the same time insulate you from the good things around you. A wall protects but also imprisons. Every fortress is also a jail.”[xiv]

I’ll never forget the day when my mom and I rolled up in front of this place called school. (Today, it still looks like a foreboding two-story, red brick penitentiary). It was my first day of kindergarten. Then it happened – after we got into the room with all those other weird looking kids my age – I turned around and she was gone – disappeared. As I ran toward the closed door to our classroom, I was whisked off my feet by an over dressed woman in her early fifties with bright red lips, smelly (really smelly) perfume, and a head full of jet black hair that obviously wasn’t natural. I wrestled in her arms a few minutes screaming and crying “Momma! Momma!” – then surrendered. I’d been abandoned. No, “Goodbye Billy” – nothing. My mom just vanished. I looked out over the shoulder of my teacher who was cradling me to see about eighteen other kids my age, running all around the room. Most we laughing and shouting. A few were curled up in the fetal position bawling their brains out as I had been. Come to find out, their mother’s had abandoned them too. I resigned myself to the fact that I was going to grow up in this room, with these other kids, and this weird looking, distinctly smelly woman with fake hair. She let me down and I ran off chasing some other little hellions.

This is the place, where over the next eight months I was introduced to my first 12 step program. Here are the steps they taught me in Kindergarten:

1.      Raise your hand if you need help.

2.      Wait your turn.

3.      Mind your manners.

4.      Share.

5.      Don’t pee your pants.

6.      Take a nap – when we say so – even if you’re not tired.

7.      Listen – Follow directions – Do as you’re told.

8.      Conformity is good.

9.      Ask permission for everything.

10.    Don’t ask questions unless we ask you to.

11.    Put your stuff away.

12.    Don’t question anything the teacher says.

Sound familiar? Sure it does. For most of us, it’s our first experience being exposed to the forces of institutional bureaucracy. No wonder the first day of kindergarten is so traumatic for kids! This place they call school is going to be your primary environment outside of your family for your next twelve to sixteen years (No wonder they don’t tell you that during the first day in kindergarten or all the kids would become uncontrollably despondent – “Twelve to sixteen years? Here? With them? With you? No joke? Holy crap – how do I get out of here?”)

Kindergarten began my first official involuntary servitude to the established, institutional, socialization process. (“It’s for your own good” – remember that one!). Unbeknownst to me at this juncture, I would be involved in school for the next 18 years.

That was fifty years ago. Guess what? The world has changed. The Qage mentality I acquired throughout this process may have prepared me for the existing needs of that American reality – but it did not prepare me for how I must approach my world today. Like I said, things change in fifty years. Questians understand this. Not just intellectually, but behaviorally. As theologian and activist Brian McLaren says, “It‘s fruitless to argue being versus doing: you can’t do what you won’t be.”[xv] The results of the research completed during the last decade are empowering us to move beyond the limitations of the Qage mentality. Journalist and author David Brooks characterizes it this way: “We are living in the middle of a revolution in consciousness. Over the past few years, geneticists, neuroscientists, psychologists, sociologists, economists, anthropologists, and others have made great strides in understanding the building blocks of human flourishing.” [xvi]

The Qage mentality impacts our expectations of self, others and our world. Expectations are really a form of predictions. They inform our hopes, dreams and beliefs. They inhabit and shape the possible. They can act as the bars on the cell of our life, or provide the key to the cell door. The expectations that form the framework of the Qage mentality attempt to make our world predictable, provide us with a sense of control, and soothe us with certainty – providing us with a fundamental capacity to derive meaning and understanding from our existence. Yet, what happens when we embrace this framework too tightly? Can a framework be transformed into bars to a cell? Can we become captives to routines, inmates confined within what we think we know? Can we somehow imprison the possible for self, others and our world? What are the implications of a Qage mentality posture? The following from Dr. Todd Kashdan contains some insights: “Our ‘mispredictions’ have tangible repercussions. If we believe that understanding everything, being able to confidently predict the future, and being in control are necessary, then we are going to drift toward stagnation. Doing things that are only mildly pleasurable, we will underestimate two profound sources of happiness and meaning in life: novelty and uncertainty.” [xvii]

The purpose of this chapter has been to illuminate the Qage mentality – the fundamental human tendency to experience fears and anxieties, the desire for predictability, control, certainty and the comfort we garner from knowing what we think we know. Yet, there are consequences for embracing this framework too tightly. This framework can become an impediment to innovation, creativity, learning and growth – diminishing the potential for exploring novelty and uncertainty to lead us toward the possibility of a more profound experience of happiness and meaning in life. It is a reminder that “our ideas can enslave or liberate us.”[xviii]

The predominant thought that occupies the minds of an inmate can be reduced to one question: “What am I going to do when I get out?” Seated on the bunks of our cells, too many of us gaze at the bars of our lives that the Qage mentality has erected before us. A wall protects but also imprisons. Every fortress is also a jail.”[xix] Such is the tension that inhabits the gap within human existence – that space between what you think your life is – and what it might become – when I get out. For far too many of us, the Qage mentality is an operative illusion, limiting us to passively accepting the conditions of our current confinement. That’s no way to live. Questians understand “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.”[xx]

I’m not naïve enough to suggest that simply tossing off restraints is the sole solution. Yet it’s an important part of the Qage mentality that we must be aware of and become willing to act upon. It’s part of the process of creating the space essential for our Questian potential to arise. I distinctly appreciate how the NYU’s Clay Shirky characterizes this reality when he writes: “Throwing off old constraints won’t lead us to a world of no constraints. All worlds, past, present and future, have constraints; throwing off the old ones just creates a space for new ones to emerge.”[xxi] (emphasis is mine).

The Qage mentality need not incarcerate the possibilities for your life, the lives of others, or the potential positive prospects for our world. It’s time to become creatively intentional – with a reinvigorated awareness of the Qage mentality – and a desire to pursue the possibilities beyond it.

Click HERE to read the Questian Confession.

NOTES – Chapter 3 – The Qage

[ii] Glassner, Barry The Culture of Fear – Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things, Basic Books – A Member of The Perseus Books Group, New York, NY Coyright © 1999 by Barry Glassner, p. 210.

[iii] Clark, Taylor – NERVE – Poise Under Pressure, Serenity Under Stress, And The Brave New Science Of Fear and Cool, Little, Brown and Company – Hachette Book Group, New York, NY Copyright © 2011 by Taylor Clark. p. 10.

[iv] Ibid – p. 282.

[v] Camus, Albert The Rebel – An Essay on Man in Revolt, Vintage Books – a division of Random House New York, NY Vintage International Edition, November 1991 Copyright © 1984 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. p.260.

[vi] In Stiglitz, Joseph E., Sen, Amartya, Fitoussi, Jean-Paul – MIS-Measuring Our Lives – Why GDP Doesn’t Add Up – The Report By The Commission On The Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, The New Press, New York, NY Copyright © 2010 by The New Press, Foreword Copyright © 2009 by Nicolas Sarkozy, Preface Copyright © 2010 by Stiglitz, Sen & Fitoussi, p. xv.

[vii] Stiglitz, Joseph E. Freefall – America, Free Markets, And The Sinking of The World Economy, W.W. Norton & Company New York, NY Copyright 2010 by Joseph E. Stiglitz, p. xvi.

[viii] Bloomberg – Wasik, John – September 2, 2009 – Housing’s ‘Poverty Effect’ Fouls Up U.S. Rebound: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2009-09-01/housing-s-poverty-effect-fouls-up-u-s-rebound-john-f-wasik.html

[ix] Akerlof, George A. & Shiller, Robert J. – Animal Spirits – How Human Psychology Drives The Economy And Why It Matters For Global Capitalism, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ Copyright © 2009 by Princeton University Press, p. 1.

[x] March 24, 2011 CNN Money – Household Wealth Down 23% – Fed, http://money.cnn.com/2011/03/24/pf/financial_crisis_outcome/index.htm?hpt=T2

[xi] Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly Creativity – Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention, Harper Perrenial, HarperCollinsPublishers, New York, New York Copyright © 1996 by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi p. 345.

[xii] Steinbeck, John East of Eden Penguin Books New York, NY Copyright © 1952 by John Steinbeck, p. 132.

[xiii] Langer, Ellen J. MINDFULNESS, Da Capo Press – A Member of the Perseus Books Group, Cambridge, MA Copyright © 1989 by Ellen J. Langer, Ph.D. p. 21.

[xiv] Slater, Philip The Chrysalis Effect – The Metamorphosis of Global Culture, SUSSEX ACADEMIC PRESS, Eastbourne, U.K. and Portland, Oregon Copyright © 2009 by Philip Slater, p. 117.

[xv] McLaren, Brian Naked Spirituality – A Life With God in 12 Simple Words HarperOne – an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers New York, NY. Copyright © 2011 by Brian D. McLaren, p.237.

[xvi] Brooks, David THE SOCIAL ANIMAL – The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement, Random House – an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc. New York, NY Copyright © 2011 by David Brooks. p.x.

[xvii] Kashdan, Todd, Ph.D Curious? – Discover the Missing Ingredients to a Fulfilling Life, William Morrow – an Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, New York, NY Copyright © 2009 by Todd Kashdan. P. 23.

[xviii] Robinson, Ken Out of Our Minds – Learning To Be Creative, Capstone Publishing Ltd. (A Wiley Company), 2011 Edition – Copyright © 2001 & 2011 by Sir Ken Robinson, p.106.

[xix] Slater, Philip The Chrysalis Effect – The Metamorphosis of Global Culture, SUSSEX ACADEMIC PRESS, Eastbourne, U.K. and Portland, Oregon Copyright © 2009 by Philip Slater, p. 117.

[xx] Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly Creativity – Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention, Harper Perrenial, HarperCollinsPublishers, New York, New York Copyright © 1996 by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, p.103.

[xxi] Shirky, Clay Cognitive Surplus – Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age, The Penguin Press, New York, NY Copyright 2010 by Clay Shirky. Pp. 162-163.

by Bill Dahl – All Rights Reserved 2011

The act of imagination is the opening of the system so that it shows new connections. Every act of imagination is the discovery of likenesses between two things which were thought unlike.[i] Jacob Bronowski – The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination

We live in a world that is obsessed with celebrating differences, distinctions and diversity. We agree that we should (and do) rejoice in the tremendous progress that has been made in championing causes to provide equality within societies and between peoples, where differences were formerly the basis for excluding and/or diminishing the universal dignity of others.

Yet, when one examine homo sapiens, it’s rather remarkable how similar we are. From a purely external perspective, the vast majority of us possess one head, two eyes, two ears, one nose, one mouth, eight fingers, two thumbs, ten toes, two feet, two legs and two arms. Diving beneath the skin, we find one heart, two lungs, two kidneys, one liver etc. — you get the picture. It’s when we plunge further into the human concoction that our certainty about what we claim to know becomes much murkier. They have even come up with a word (that most folks can’t even spell) to describe the study of how we know what we claim to know. It’s called epistemology.

When I examine the writings and research in the field of epistemology, it becomes rather obvious that one of the primary problems with the data is who we’re asking or observing; primarily children who can’t speak, and adults.  It has been said that “very little is scientifically known about the phenomenology of the infant mind; about what it’s like to be a baby.”[i] So, that’s where I’ve decided to start; with recollections from my infancy.

For me, it all began at birth. According to my mom, I came into this world screaming my lungs out! Although nobody could understand what I was shrieking, here’s what was going through my newborn mind: Where am I? Where did all these bright lights come from? Who are these creatures? They’re squealing! Why is this being wiping me with a towel? What have I done wrong? Why do these creatures have masks on? What are they trying to hide? Are they going to hurt me? What’s that creature in the bed crying for? Who’s the guy at the end of the bed with his arms extended toward me who hasn’t shaved and has a cigar in his breast pocket? What kind of welcome into a new reality is this? Is this permanent?

From the moment we arrive in life, we possess the ability to question. In my case, (I have the feeling you may have had a similar experience), my mom and dad started making funny sounds in my face, grabbing my toes and fingers, and doing other weird stuff that adults do to infants that led me to smile and laugh — until somebody hoisted a device that caused a sunburst in my eyes, scaring the literal crap out of me, and caused to me to, once again, start screaming at the top of my lungs; “What the heck did you do that for? Was that supposed to be funny? Whose idea was that? Could you at least give me some warning the next time you might decide to do something that frightening? Do you realize I’ve only been here with you people less than thirty minutes? Once again, all questions.

I heard these creatures ask stuff like; “Isn’t he adorable? Is he healthy? What will we name him? Can I hold him? Doesn’t he look just like you?” (At this juncture, I was wondering if my name was he-him-you — What does that mean? Do I have a choice in this name thing? Can I change it if I don’t like it?). From the very first moments of my conscious existence, I heard questions from other people.

Within a few days, these people took me home. They laid me on a mattress in what appeared to be a wooden cage with vertical bars three feet high, spaced three inches apart, on all four sides – designed intentionally to contain tiny beings my size. (This certainly made me feel welcome). They covered me with a strange smelling, multi-colored blanket, and made more weird sounds and faces at me. Then, the guy reached up and spun this weird contraption attached to the ceiling above me. My bladder exploded (again) due to the magnitude of the shock and awe that ricocheted through my body. And yes, I erupted in a rage of screams and tears at the sight of those weird figurines attached to threads clanking and chaotically bouncing around above me. My “momma,” as she incessantly referred to herself, clearly unnerved, began excitedly asking the beer breath guy, “What does he want? Is he hungry? Should I pick him up? What do you think? (I started wailing even more violently as I was becoming even more certain about the fact that these two had actually named me he-him-you).

The guy – who still hadn’t shaved (now wearing some wretched scent he had splashed on his cheeks and neck) turned to his left and reached for something. The next thing I knew, a small black bear was being waved above my face, with the strange looking guy making all these really stupid cooing sounds. I went nuts! I was so terrified I lost my voice. My mouth was wide open, tear ducts had been completely drained, my heart was pounding as though it might break through my chest cavity, my face was purple — and no sound was coming out of me. I was so shocked I guess I regained my composure and passed out. I fell sound asleep from the exhaustion of it all.

Upon awakening (always a process for me), my first sensation was my right hand was clutching some curious, furry thing. It was quiet. I smelled something new. I felt thirst. My mouth tasted funny. Then, my stomach growled (first time). The stomach rumble startled my eyes to open at seemingly that exact, same instant, and there it was; a freaking black bear staring me right in the face! You can imagine the ensuing hysteria that accompanied my primal reaction…

We homo sapiens are a curious bunch. Our initial experiences at birth are just the beginning of it all. Beyond the obvious external similarities and a common internal plumbing arrangement, that appears to be where the diversity among us really begins. According to Wikipedia, the Latin translation for homo sapiens refers to a wise or knowing man.[ii]

What we say we know about our species versus other forms of life is that we possess “a highly developed brain, capable of abstract reasoning, language, introspection, and problem solving.”[iii]

Have you ever wondered why we were designed with all five senses located around the same area as your brain? I have. Our senses ask questions and send signals to our brain. Does this look safe, taste good, sound right, feel good, smell appetizing? Imagine waking up one morning and you have lost the ability to question. You would be incapable of any of the following:

Where am I?

What time is it?

What day is it?

What am I going to do today?

Where’s the coffee?

What am I going to wear today?

Where’s the bathroom?

Where are my car keys?

Try it. Put a note next to your bed that says “no questions.” When you wake up tomorrow, let’s see how long can you go without either asking yourself or another person a question? This would be both audibly and mentally. This exercise includes hearing one from someone else, as well as reading a question in the morning paper, a billboard you pass on the way to work or one posed on the internet. You’ll be awakened to how central questions are to our daily existence. We’re wired to question.

Born Questians

The human brain seems to play a central role in this inescapable capacity. That when I stumbled onto a guy named John Medina and his book entitled Brain Rules – 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home and School. John is a developmental molecular biologist and research consultant (I have no clue what that actually means other than he’s a lot smarter than I am). He’s also an affiliate Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Washington School of Medicine. In his spare time, (the guy doesn’t have really any does he?), John is the Director of the Brain Center for Applied Learning Research at Seattle Pacific University. (Makes my brain ache just thinking about all of the above). I waded into John’s Brain Rules book, wondering if his research could shed any light on our thesis that we’re born to question, as my experience at birth suggests above. According to Medina, we humans are powerful and natural explorers.[iv] Regarding infants, John writes; “Babies may not have a whole lot of understanding about their world, but they know a whole lot about how to get it.”[v] He goes on to illuminate the experience I had, in the moments and days I’ve shared above. Listen closely to the following: “Let’s look under the hood of an infant’s mind at the engine that drives its thinking processes and the motivating fuel that keeps its intellect running. This fuel consists of a clear, high–octane, unquenchable need to know. Babies are born with a deep desire to understand the world          around them and an incessant curiosity that compels them to aggressively explore it. This need for explanation is so powerfully stitched into their experience that some scientists describe it as a drive, just as hunger and thirst and sex are drives.”[vi] (emphasis is mine).

There’s a real sense of freedom that comes over me as I read the above. It’s refreshing to realize that what seemed so diabolically odd to me at birth, turns out to be normal, healthy and a universal human experience. I have a very personal confession to make to you: We are born Questians.

The Discovery of The  ‘Q’ Gene

I readily admit that I was born with a deep desire to understand. Medina refers to this as a drive. I possess a seemingly innate need for explanation. I’m an ordinary guy who celebrates his unquenchable need to know. I rejoice in our capacity for curiosity. I’m an explorer. I am humbled by the gift of being equipped to develop both understanding and meaning.

Think about your life for a minute. Can you recall moments or periods in your life where you felt a drive or deep desire to understand? Does the need to know continue to inhabit your life experience? Are you curious about things? Has your experience in life been inhabited by the ongoing development of your understanding of the world around, and within you? If you’re honest, your answer is “of course.” What might this mean for your own identity, your interaction with others, your worldview and your future? What are the implications for how this awareness might impact or refresh your perception of other folks who inhabit this planet?

Here’s the point: I hereby announce the discovery of the ‘Q’ gene to the world! This strand of nucleic acid inhabits each and every homo sapien that is birthed into this world — that would include you! Yep, you’ve got it too. We all do. That includes your friends, relatives, neighbors, co-workers – anyone you can think of. We’re all infected with this genetic propensity.

Congratulations! You’ve just been provided with a discovery that will help you recognize this fundamental and essential aspect of your composition as both a unique individual and as a member of the human species. Say it out loud as you read this self-affirming declaration: I’m a Questian! Say it again- – louder this time. How do you feel realizing that you are one who was birthed with a deep desire to understand? One who possesses an innate need for explanation; a creation engineered with an unquenchable need to know; an explorer; one who is composed with the capacity for curiosity, and gifted with the propensity to embrace the ongoing challenge of developing both understanding and meaning – for yourself and others – throughout your lifetime? If you’re anything like the vast majority of people I have had the opportunity to discuss this discovery with, it’s a cause for celebration.

Unconvinced? Imagine that you were incapable of being curious, interested, exploring and searching for meaning and understanding. Translation: Life would be vastly less lively than what you’ve experienced up to this point. Frankly, life would be terribly boring and you wouldn’t even be capable of understanding the meaning of it.

I‘ve also heard people say: “Yeah, I get it. But I wish I would have had this realization ten or twenty years ago. It’s too late for me. I’m a slave to routine. I don’t even have time to think!” Listen to what the experts say: “Researchers have shown that some regions of the adult brain stay as malleable as a baby’s brain, so we can grow new connections, strengthen existing connections, and even create new neurons, allowing all of us to be lifelong learners.”[vii]

From infancy to childhood, adolescence to adulthood, middle-age to senior citizen status, we carry the vast potential of the ‘Q’ gene – each and every one of us. There are no exceptions. How we do and what we do with this reality has profound implications for you, your life, and the cultures/societies in which we live, work, play, learn, grow and contribute. It involves a quest to reconsider how we presently understand the way meaning is made, and how we know what we think we know. You should be aware that this quest is risky business – it possesses the distinct potential to change you. Listen to the results of the research:

“The dynamic interaction between learning and development concerns the fundamental change in how meaning is made or how we know what we think we know….In-form-ative learning simply adds to the form as it is, whereas trans-form-ative learning “puts the form itself at risk of change.”[viii]

We will explore this subject later in this writing where we illuminate how Questian propensities can be nurtured and enhanced.

Let’s simply agree that we can all recognize two drives that inhabit the human species today. The first is a biological drive – the one that produces the yearning to eat, drink etc. The second drive is external and comes to us typically in the form of capturing rewards and avoiding punishments. If you refrain from driving too fast – you won’t get a speeding ticket. Work hard, achieve your performance objectives and you will earn a bonus. Yet, there is what has been referred to as a third drive [ix] – that is pertinent to activating the ‘Q’ gene within us. This third drive is laced with the human need for gratification and joy. The ‘Q’ gene is composed of a uniquely human drive that is activated by doing what we choose to do for (primarily) the joy of it.  Becoming aware of and acting upon the privilege of triggering your ‘Q’ gene improves your health. It also improves the groups we humans tend to form like friendships, businesses, schools, neighborhoods, cities and the like.

Before we get ahead of ourselves here, in the next chapter we’re going to explore what we call “The vaQuum” – a growing body of evidence that recognizes the unavoidable facts that support both the rising need and value of Questians in society today.

I realize that at this juncture, you may be asking yourself, is this possible? Before you turn the page, ponder the plausibility of the following:

“Once barriers — which consist in a sense only in man’s ignorance of the possible — are torn down, they are not easily set up again.”[x]

Stay with me. Click HERE to begin reading Chapter Two of The Questians.

NOTES – Chapter 1 – The ‘Q’ Gene – Chapter Header Quote

[i] Bronowski, Jacob – The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination, Yale University Press, Copyright © 1978 by Yale University. P. 109.

NOTES – Chapter 1 – The ‘Q’ Gene

[i] McGinn, Colin Mindsight – Image, Dream, Meaning Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Copyright © 2004 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College, p. 121

[ii] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human

[iii] Ibid

[iv] Medina, John Brain Rules – 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home and School, Pear Press Seattle, WA Copyright © 2008 by John J. Medina, p. 3.

[v] Ibid – p. 269

[vi] Ibid pp. 264-265

[vii] Ibid pp.271.

[viii] Taylor, Kathleen, Marienau, Catherine and Fidler, Morris Developing Adult Learners – Strategies for Teachers and Trainers, Published by Jossey-Bass, A Wiley Imprint San Francisco, CA Copyright © 2000 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. p. 13.

[ix] Pink, Daniel H. DRIVE – The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Riverhead Books, A Member of the Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Copyright © 2009 by Daniel H. Pink, pp. 2-3 – citing the work of Harry F. Harlow, Professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin.

[x] Cooper Ramo, Joshua The Age of the Unthinkable – Why The New World Disorder Constantly Surprises Us and What We Can Do About It Copyright © 2009 by Joshua Cooper Ramo – Little, Brown and Company New York, NY). P. 96.

]]> http://www.billdahl.net/articles/the-questians-chapter-1-the-q-gene/feed/ 0 http://www.billdahl.net/book-reviews/naked-spirituality-a-life-with-god-in-12-simple-words-by-brian-mclaren/ http://www.billdahl.net/book-reviews/naked-spirituality-a-life-with-god-in-12-simple-words-by-brian-mclaren/#comments Thu, 31 Mar 2011 20:15:47 +0000 bill http://www.billdahl.net/?p=2707

McLaren, Brian Naked Spirituality – A Life With God in 12 Simple Words HarperOne – an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers New York, NY. Copyright © 2011 by Brian D. McLaren.

By Bill Dahl

Beyond Beautiful – or – It’s Wednesday – But Sunday’s A Comin’

Theologian Stanley Hauerwas has said, “Theology is not best understood as a system — narrative might have something to do with theology.”[i] Narrative is fine Stanley – but I’d like some tools that have practical application to my life, and those around me, as a person of faith. I’d also like some boots on the ground authenticity from the real life experiences of a fellow sojourner.

Enter Brian McLaren – Naked Spirituality – A Life With God in 12 Simple Words. Here’s the honest truth about the impact this book had on my life:

I had just finished Chapter 20 “Why – When You Have Come to Zero.” My wife arrived home from work. She began to prepare dinner and I wandered into the kitchen to catch up together on the day’s events – an uneventful Wednesday.

As we stood there chatting, the phone rang. It was our daughter Liz calling from her home in Utah. Liz and her fiancée Aaron had buried Aaron’s mother on Monday – just two days ago. They had just received a phone call – Aaron’s father had been killed in a car crash.

We concluded the tearful call with our daughter. I went into another room and sat silently – questions, remorse, sorrow, anger, dismay, confusion – ricocheting throughout my being. We ate half our dinner and adjourned to a couch. Jacki looked at me – sorrow and befuddled are two words that were embossed on her facial expression. We were both at zero – in shock – wounded – naked and fully exposed to the unconscionable in life. I leaned forward, grabbed my reading glasses and Brian’s book. I turned to the first page of Chapter 20 and read the chapter aloud to my wife.

I looked up and closed the book. “Beautiful?” I remarked, gazing at my wife. – “Beyond Beautiful,” she replied – as restorative waves of soothing, healing truth rolled through our souls.

In Naked Spirituality – A Life With God in 12 Simple Words Brian McLaren gets real with God, with life, the seasons inherent within human existence – sharing his boots on the ground experience as a fellow sojourner. Another formulaic, step-by-step, overly simplistic, bogus promise-laden landmine from an over-caffeinated evangelical Christian? Not Hardly.

At this stage in life, I need to learn from the experience of others…others who live in my world…the real world – the world of faith that Brian McLaren lives in. I’m worn out on opinions, perspectives and narrative nonsense of people trying to sell books – suggesting that “if you do this, you’ll be fine.”

In this book, Brian shares his own personal life lessons that are raw, real and uncut. McLaren’s dance with language provides hues of color that I had overlooked in the life of. He provides vistas and vantage points where the reader can stand side-by-side with him gazing beyond what we are presently able to visualize. There’s no artificial ingredients in the flavors McLaren serves up.

Take a seat with Brian McLaren – at his table – The table of life with the living God. Enjoy the feast that Naked Spirituality provides – one course at a time. Savor the tender, succulent, mysterious seasonings contained in each course: Here, Thanks, O, Sorry, Help, Please, When, No, Why, Behold, Yes and Silence.

No, this is not another fast-food systematic theology or another bland narrative. For us, Naked Spirituality is a unique and nutritious innovation from Brian McLaren – as he continues to evolve his craft in delivering fare for the faithful. There’s one thing that separates Brian from the rest of the authors in faith and culture – he has eaten his own stuff before he allows anybody else to sample it in print. He readily identifies the faith dishes he has dined on, admits the tastes he has worn out, the spices that have turned out to be bland, the sinew of life he has choked on – the wards of people he has encountered, hospitalized after being poisoned with the fare of faith served up with a seal of God attached to it.

“Beautiful?” – “Yes – Beyond Beautiful.”

For us, this book was, and shall be, both a timely and enduring blessing. For us, it was It’s Wednesday – But Sunday’s a Comin’.

Forgive me Tony – Thank you Brian!

Please pray for our daughter Liz, son-in-law Aaron and their daughter Rebekka.

This book is precious – so is life – so is the privilege of relationship with the living God – here – today – in any and all circumstances – even when you’re at zero….or not.

NOTES

Liz and her fiancee Aaron buried Aaron’s mother on Monday.

Earlier today, Aaron’s father was killed in a car crash….

Please pray for Aaron, Liz and their daughter Rebekka.

Had just finished reading Brian McLaren’s Naked Spirituality  — the chapter on exasperation, desperation — — shaking your fist at God…..screaming NO! and WHY!

*$#@ – I DON’T GET IT GOD!!!!  —

Speechless………..unspeakable………..un…..

This is Bill Dahl (above)

George Barna once wrote to me and said, “too many books to read, too many books to write – and not enough time to do either.” George is right about several things (as usual):

a.       Learning takes time. We must make time for it.

b.      Learning is intentional. It’s a choice.

Author Steven Johnson writes: “Reading remains an unsurpassed vehicle for the transmission of interesting new ideas and perspectives.”[i]

I’m an admitted lifelong learner. I love to read. I love to write. I adore ideas. I can’t live without the atmosphere wherein the collision of ideas is an indispensable component of daily life. Do I have enough time to read and write about everything that comes my way – of course not.

Yet, I am faced with making choices – my own choices (oftentimes informed by the viewpoints and suggestions of others – or the simple mystery of pursuing the curiosities that arise as I read the thoughts of others).

As I have said before, I read approximately 100 books a year. Yes, I also have a real job and family etc. During December of 2009 I engaged in a process of evaluating the issues I was interested in truly learning about during 2010 that would guide my time and energy for reading. The result of this process was the following:

a.       I would NOT read every book sent to me for review by an author, publisher, publicist or literary PR firm out of a misguided sense of gratitude or over-developed sense of responsibility – unless I requested the opportunity for the review or had committed via previous communication with the source that I would do so.

b.      I would focus my reading energies during 2010 on three areas:

i.                    Garnering a better understanding of the U.S. financial crisis.

ii.                  Exploring the realm of creativity, innovation, thinking and learning about  learning.

iii.                Maintaining an active eye on the faith and culture dialog.

Choice is just that – subjective – it’s personal. The context for what I read in 2010 is disclosed above. The other thing you might want to be aware of is that I do NOT write reviews on books I don’t care for (with one exception that comes to mind). As I have said before, “literature is like ice cream – some people have a preference for chocolate while others enjoy pecan nut.” I hold a sacred respect for thinkers, authors, publishers, copy editors, journalists, publicists and literary PR firms and made a conscious decision a long time ago to refrain from injuring others by virtue of my review commentary.

So, before I launch into my rankings for The Best Books of 2010 (I read every page of every book – cover to cover – including the jackets -  I’m NOT a skimmer) – (My Reviews are hyperlinked within each title) let me make a few personal, honest, forthright observations:

Photography by Bill Dahl 2010

1. The faith & culture literary genre during 2010 (works published during 2010) was, in my opinion, an abysmal disappointment. It was like “is anybody home out there?” Furthermore, the content that typically arises from various sources I frequent on the internet from both known and new creative thinkers and voices in this genre dwindled measurably. The only thing I can chalk that up to is the fact that many folks are suffering terribly during this ongoing economic travail and are more focused on the welfare of others, their loved ones and themselves. Survival and change have a tendency to impact us all in this manner.

The sole selection in the faith & culture genre that was published in 2010 that made my Top 10 is Brian McLaren’s A New Kind of Christianity – Ten Questions That Are Transforming The Faith. (Published February 2010 – by HarperOne – An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers – San Francisco, CA).

2. In the realm of books regarding creativity, innovation, thinking and learning about learning — is absolutely fascinating and abundant for me. Here are my favorites that I enjoyed the most in 2010:

Photography by Bill Dahl 2010

i.                    Where Good Ideas Come From – The Natural History of Innovation by Steven Johnson. This was my choice for The BEST BOOK  of 2010. If you haven’t read Johnson’s The Invention of Air or The Ghost Map — select all 3 books for your 2011 reading list – trust me. The Penguin Group New York, NY.

ii.                  Clay Shirky’s Cognitive Surplus – Creativity and Generosity In A Connected Age – The Penguin Press, New York, NY

iii.                What Would Google Do? By Jeff Jarvis – HarperCollins Publishers New York, NY

iv.                Gregory Berns – Iconoclast – A Neuroscientist Reveals How To Think Differently, - Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation.

v.                  On Being Certain – Believing You Are Right Even When You’re Not by Robert A. Burton, M.D. – St. Martins Press, New York, NY

vi.    Disrupting Class – How Disruptive Innovation Will Change The Way The World Learns by Christenson, Johnson and Horn – McGraw-Hill New York, NY

vii.  The Global Achievement Gap by Tony Wagner – Basic Books – A Member of the Perseus Group – New York, NY

viii.The Genius In All of Us by David Shenk – DoubleDay – a Division of Random House, Inc. New York, NY

ix.    Mindfulness by Ellen Langer – the Perseus Group – New York, NY

x.      Reiman, Joey Thinking For A Living – Creating Ideas That Revolutionize Your Business, Career and Life, Longstreet Press

xi.    What Technology Wants – by Kevin Kelly – Viking – The Penguin Group – NY, NY

xii.  I Live In The Future and Here’s How It Works by Nick Bilton – Crown Business – New York, NY

1. My foray into garnering a better understanding of the U.S. financial crisis and economics was an incredibly rich journey…let’s all remember that economics is a social science just like philosophy, theology, psychology, sociology and the like. Admittedly, I was absolutely amazed at the quality of the writers and investigative journalism that this field is populated with. Here’s my top 10 (ALL published in 2010 (except one from 2009) – in order of my favorites):

Photography by Bill Dahl 2010

i.                    The End of Wall Street by Roger Lowenstein – The Penguin Press, New York, NY

ii.                  The Big Short by Michael Lewis – W.W. Norton – New York, NY

iii. Greg Farrell’s Crash of the Titans – Greed, Hubris, The Fall of Merrill Lynch, and the Near-Collapse of Bank of America – Crown Business, New York, NY

iv. Scott Patterson’s – The Quants – How a New Breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street and Nearly Destroyed It. - Crown Business, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc. New York, NY

v.                  All The Devils Are Here – The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis by Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera – The Penguin Group New York, NY

vi.                Simon Johnson & James Kwak’s 13 Bankers – The Wall Street Takeover and The Next Financial Crisis – Pantheon Books – A Division of Random House, Inc., New York, NY

vii.              Suzanne McGee’s – Chasing Goldman Sachs – Crown Business New York, NY

viii.            Joseph Stiglitz – Freefall – America, Free Markets and the Sinking of the World Economy – W.W. Norton & Company New York, NY

ix.                Duff McDonald’s – Last Man Standing – The Ascent of Jamie Dimon and JP Morgan Chase – Simon & Schuster (actually a 2009 publication – October 2009).

x.                  More Money Than God – by Sebastian Mallaby – The Penguin Press, New York, NY

My Top 10 for 2010:

Photography by Bill Dahl

So, from the above, if I had to rank The Ten Best Books I Read During 2010 – they would have to be as follows:

1. Where Good Ideas Come From – The Natural History of Innovation by Steven Johnson. This was my choice for The BEST BOOK  of 2010 - The Penguin Group New York, NY.

2. The End of Wall Street by Roger Lowenstein – The Penguin Press, New York, NY

3. Clay Shirky’s Cognitive Surplus – Creativity and Generosity In A Connected Age – The Penguin Press, New York, NY

4. The Big Short by Michael Lewis – W.W. Norton – New York, NY

5. What Would Google Do? By Jeff Jarvis – HarperCollins Publishers New York, NY

6. Greg Farrell’s Crash of the Titans – Greed, Hubris, The Fall of Merrill Lynch, and the Near-Collapse of Bank of America – Crown Business, New York, NY

7. Gregory Berns –  Iconoclast – A Neuroscientist Reveals How To Think Differently, Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation.

8. On Being Certain – Believing You Are Right Even When You’re Not by Robert A. Burton, M.D. St. Martins Press, New York, NY

9. Disrupting Class – How Disruptive Innovation Will Change The Way The World Learns by Christensen, Johnson and Horn. McGraw-Hill New York, NY

10. Brian McLaren’s A New Kind of Christianity – Ten Questions That Are Transforming The Faith. – HarperOne – An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers – San Francisco, CA

In 2011, I hope you will make an intentional choice to read some of the titles I have identified in My Best of 2010.  Please keep me posted on what you learn.

Best,

Bill

Bill Dahl

NOTES:

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.

There have been too many to count emails from readers of the interview who want further clarification on the “Friend of Questians” symbol I asked Brian about in the interview – Question # 10.

Yes, you can post this on your site, blog, phone etc. (with attribution somehow to Bill & Jacki Dahl – the symbol’s creators)…Just don’t try to make money with it in any way OK? That’s not what this authorization for use is for — OK? OK.

Below is an excerpt of the interview question where I raised the Questian “symbol” issue’s relevance to Brian — and Brian’s response. Beneath that is an excerpt of an exchange of correspondence about the symbol I provided to my buddy Ron Cole. If it resonates with you, please feel free to use it for the purpose identified above. Here we go:

Question # 10 for Brian McLaren. Symbols speak to us. Is this one pertinent to your book? McLaren: “It’s so relevant, Bill, because as you know, the book is based on a simple observation: Statements create debate that can lead us to a new state (and sometimes create, as a byproduct, hate), while questions create conversations that can lead us on a new quest. So this book is very much about the power of questions, and about seeing our faith less as a tradition we inherited from our ancestors, and more as a quest which both they and we are on … the quest for truth, the quest for beauty and goodness and love, the quest for God … the quest for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

From Bill Dahl: I see this symbol, Brian’s book, Brian’s remark above, what you have written and what I have penned as a framework for inviting people of the quest (Questians) to a place where we can celebrate this dimension of the reality of our lives together. It is an invitation, rather than an label. It is a celebration of “coming out” and a “coming together.” Rather than a characteristic, it is a way of living, serving, worshiping,  and embracing the other. It provides the courage and curiosity to move beyond man-made boundaries and provides the inertia for innovation. It is a symbol of permission. It is an expression of acceptance, adoration and gratitude for this precious privilege and responsibility that inhabits our daily breath.  It is a tangible symbol of realization of who we are and what we can become – together. It is a symbol of the freedom learning to become God’s living love — today.

Any Questians?

If you aren’t familiar with Brian, you can read his bio here or read an excerpt below:

Brian D. McLaren is an author, speaker, pastor, and networker among innovative Christian leaders, thinkers, and activists. He is a frequent guest on television, radio, and news media programs. He has appeared on many broadcasts including Larry King Live, PBS’s Religion and Ethics Newsweekly, and ABC News Nightline. His work has also been covered in Time (where he was listed as one of American’s 25 most influential evangelicals), Christianity Today, Christian Century, the Washington Post, and many other print media. He is Chairman of the Board of Sojourners. He is the author of/contributor to a few dozen books.

His most recent book is entitled, A New Kind of Christianity – Ten Questions That Are Transforming The Faith. My review of this book is here. The book is Available on February 9th 2010.

I always enjoy the opportunity (privilege) to pose questions to Brian on a wide range of issues. His most recent book covers ten questions, so I decided to pose him ten of my own. In my opinion, He is one of the most gifted thinkers of our time – and – a really wonderful person. So, here’s a very special interview with a very special man — Brian McLaren…. Enjoy!

Question # 1 - First, how are you, your wife and your family?

McLaren — Grace and I are at a really fun season in life. Our kids are grown which gives us new freedom and a chance to simply enjoy each other’s company in a fresh way after 30 years of marriage and about 29 years of raising kids. On top of that, we’re expecting our first grandchild in June, which is really hard to believe. We leave in a few days for Israel, where we’ll be meeting with people who are working for peace there.

Question # 2 – Throughout the history of religion, even in our contemporary epoch, we hear pundits extolling the onset of the death of religion. I read your forthcoming book back-to-back with The Future of Faith by Harvard’s Harvey Cox. Harvey writes: A religion based on subscribing to mandatory beliefs is no longer viable” (221).  “The wind of the Spirit is blowing. One indication is the upheaval that is shaking and renewing Christianity. Faith, rather than beliefs, is once again becoming its defining quality.” You write in A New Kind of Christianity, “I sense the wind of the Spirit of God in these questions, and in them I feel a powerful summons to faith, hope and love.” It seems that you and Harvey are observing the same sort of future. If that’s true, what are three essential changes that we, the people who claim the name of Christ, must adopt to make the realization of this vision a reality?

McLaren – With that quote in mind, the first change that comes to mind would have to be a reappraisal of faith. What I mean by faith is almost impossible to understand for people who are secure and happy in their current beliefs-focused ecclesial setting, at least I know that I would have struggled to see this before my personal struggles back in the 90′s. But there really is a difference between beliefs and faith, and it’s more significant, more profound, and more important than many people realize. There’s a difference between having confidence in a system of beliefs about God and in having naked and direct personal confidence in God. Obviously, there are a million connections and overlaps between the two … which people who are primarily identified with a belief system are quick to point out. So I’m not against beliefs, obviously! This isn’t an either/or kind of thing. But there is a kind of spiritual transformation that occurs when you begin to discover what this deeper more experiential dimension of faith means. My friend Richard Rohr would say that we can probably only see it when we have been opened up either by great pain or great love. And that was the case with me. However it occurs, if we don’t experience a shift from being loyal to a rigid and detailed system of beliefs about God to experiencing, through faith, God’s expansive and profound faithfulness to us … I don’t think we’ll get to far in this quest.

Second, we need to be reoriented around hope. Many of us have been taught a system of belief that includes an eschatology of despair. History is going down, down, down … so in that system you’re poised to feel unfaithful to God and the Bible if you have hope! I believe we need to rediscover what the resurrection teaches us about hope, and to face our lives, our world, and the changes and challenges we face with resurrection-inspired hope.

And finally, there’s love, without which, Paul said, we’re nothing. It’s interesting in 1 Corinthians 13, Paul lists love last, after faith and hope, but then says it’s first in importance. The syntax of that sentence is brilliantly designed, I think, to remind us that love quickly gets taken for granted, but it’s at the center of everything. We keep forgetting that and have to reorient our priorities. Again, many of us are taught to circumscribe our love and limit it to those who share our beliefs, but that, I think, is one of the assumptions (whether it’s stated overtly or felt covertly) that we need to overcome.

There are a lot of other triads that can replace faith, hope, and love. There’s correctness, conformity, and co-belligerence, for example. There’s guilt, fear, and competition. We’re always at risk of losing our grip on these three core treasures. But I find that to the degree they are primary, things change. Things flow. Things grow.

Question # 3 – Ron Cole recently wrote on his blog, a post entitled “Stop it!” In the same vein, you write in your new book (p.87), “It’s amazing what people have cooked up to do to others in the name of God.” How do you stay healthy based upon all the criticism, cynicism and cruelty that is thrown at you by those who claim the name of Jesus?

McLaren — Well, for starters, I try to avoid the blogs and radio broadcasts that are characterized by attack and inquisition. There’s a kind of morbid attraction that they hold, but I find it’s bad for the soul. It seems to feed self-righteousness whether you agree or disagree with what’s being said. But speaking personally, I’d have to say that the positive feedback I receive is something like 100 to 1 over the negative feedback. Take last week, for example. Someone I know said some things about me that, frankly, hurt pretty deep. But then the same day someone told me that if it weren’t for a book I wrote, he wouldn’t be in the pastorate today, and might not even identify as a Christian. So I try not to obsess on the former kind of comment to the exclusion of the latter. It’s easy to dismiss the positive and focus on the negative, you know? That’s wrapped up with all kinds of immaturity about needing to be liked, needing to be perfect – or at least thought perfect!

That doesn’t mean I deny or avoid the criticism, of course. I need to feel the pain, bring it to God, and share it with a close friend or two as well. So much that’s unhealthy about us comes from our reaction to pain – we run from it, get revenge for it, pretend it doesn’t really hurt, whatever. So I think it’s an important part of our spiritual lives to learn – and the cross of Christ images this for us – to let our pain be a point of connection with God. I love what Parker Palmer says. Broken hearts are inevitable to anyone with a heart. The question is how will our hearts break? Will they break into pieces which are projected out like shrapnel to wound those who wounded us – a kind of emotional suicide bombing, if you will? Or will they break open – increasing our humility, our compassion, our empathy, our Christ-likeness?

I always tell people that there’s a prayer that has helped me immensely. People can find it on my website if they search under “prayer for enemies.” That prayer has done my soul immense good, and helped me deal with being called all kinds of names by brothers and sisters in Christ.

Question # 4 – There seems to be some culture folklore that sounds like this from people in North America who are 50 + years old: “It’s time to leave those things to the younger generation.” As it relates to the conversations you identify in your book as the one’s we are having and must have, the questions we must ask — do you believe that 50+ year-old people of faith have a place in initiating those sorts of conversations and providing the courage and leadership amidst faith communities who are avoiding them?

McLaren — What a mess we’re in regarding youth and age. There are so many dimensions to this problem. I think it helps to start by saying that growing older is not optional, but growing wiser is. So we have a lot of people who are 65 but who haven’t matured much – emotionally, intellectually, and so on – since they were 35 or 45. But others go through a transition – an underrated transition, by the way, in terms of its emotional intensity – from being adults to being elders, from being parents to being grandparents. As parents, we need to be in control and I suppose we try to be heroes, and this is appropriate in many ways, although like everything, it can go sour too. Later on, we’ll either try to hold on to parental power and becoming a controlling older adult, or we’ll “graduate” to a different role, the more gentle power of influence, which is what elders display, I think.

To the degree I’m transitioning from a parent/adult into an elder role as a fifty-something, I find that there are things I can and will say to younger people that their parents won’t. And there are things I won’t say that their parents will. And younger people, I think, need both parents and grandparents, adults and elders. So, Bill, I hope that people like you and me can graciously and constructively model this other way of leading, moving from adults to elders. People like yourself, Phyllis Tickle, Wes Roberts, Wes Granberg-Michaelson, Peggy and Tony Campolo, and Pat Kiefert model this eldership for me, along with some personal mentors in my life, and really, my own parents too.

Question # 5 – Regarding President Obama’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech where he put forth the moral argument for war and armed conflict, as well as his recent decision to deploy more troops to Afghanistan —- How do you respond to these actions based upon what you say in your chapter entitled, Is God Violent?

Mclaren -- I wrote two lengthy blog posts on this, which are available on my site. (The first is here - http://www.brianmclaren.net/archives/blog/afghanistan-surge-disappointed-b.html). I try to avoid getting into ideological arguments about pacifism and just war theory; I think the answer lies beyond that polarizations which frequently freeze into non-communication among ideological purists. On the positive side, President Obama rejected the idea of holy war. Thank God for that. It was a little hard to tell whether he was brushing Dr. King’s nobel acceptance speech aside, or implying that it is an ideal he’s moving toward.

The question of the violence of God is, I think, terribly important. If we believe that Jesus images and embodies the fulness of God, and if we don’t neutralize the four gospels by a terrible reading of Revelation 19 (which I address at some length in the book), then I think we have to see God’s character reflected, not in a crusading warrior, but in a crucified savior, a God who works not by the love of power but by the power of love. I hope the book opens more of us up to this important question, because if we see God as violent, then our being violent can be defended – even promoted – as godly.

Question # 6 – The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life recently came out with a remarkable observation in a recent study they conducted about faith in America. The study basically pointed out: “The religious beliefs and practices of Americans do not fit neatly into conventional categories.” In George Barna’s recent book, The Seven Faith Tribes,  The Barna Group research reveals that; “Every person we have interviewed on these matters has held a hybrid worldview — that is, a perspective that combines pieces of two or more worldviews into something that makes sense to that person.” Harvey Cox wrote: “We stand on the beautiful threshold of a new chapter in the Christian story – Christians on five continents are shaking off the residues of the second phase (the Age of Belief) and negotiating a bumpy transition into a fresh era for which a name has not yet been coined. I would like to call it the Age of the Spirit.” — In your opinion, what is the “state of the biblical worldview?”

McLaren — First, very frankly, I don’t think there is such a thing. The Bible was written over many centuries and within a few different cultural systems, and so you can find several different worldviews in the Bible. As a result, what many people actually mean when they say “biblical worldview” – and most are hardly aware of this – is “the Calvinist worldview,” or “the worldview of American civil religion,” or “a Euro-American colonial worldview,” or “an Enlightenment Rationalist/Western White Male Christendom worldview” or “a neoconservative Republican worldview,” or whatever. In other words, there is an enormous amount of unacknowledged interpretation in anything that’s labeled “THE biblical worldview.”

Of course, on a simpler level, what some people mean is “a worldview where we should do right and not wrong.” They’re trying to help people see that there is a secular or hedonistic or nihilistic worldview that needs to be resisted – which is what Paul meant, I think, when he said “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Obviously, I’m all for that! The trick comes when we assume we’ve got that figured out. For too many people espousing a “biblical worldview,” doing right and not wrong includes fearing Muslims, exploiting the environment, putting women in an subordinate position, refusing to listen to the real experiences of gay folks and their loved ones, blaming the poor for being poor, being pro-big-military and pro-big-corporations but against regulating either, and so on.

One of the things I try to propose in the book is that we would be wiser to focus on a dynamic quest rather than on a static system. And the Bible provides us, not with material to write a timeless legal constitution, but priceless resources for the quest. So, I wonder what would happen if we talked about “the biblical quest” instead of “the biblical world view.” The latter implies something we have in hand, and the other, something we’re reaching toward.

Question # 7 – Former President Bill Clinton wrote (in the introduction to former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s book), in The Mighty and The Almighty – Reflections on America, God and World Affairs) the following: “Once people acknowledge their common humanity, it becomes more difficult for them to demonize and destroy each other. It is far easier to find principled compromise with one of “us” than one of “them.” Our religious convictions can help us erase the age-old dividing line.” In terms   of Part IX in your new book, The Pluralism Question, how has what you’ve suggested provide additional ballast to the quote above?

McLaren – President Clinton’s quote reminds me of a sign I saw at a genocide site in Rwanda. A young girl had said, “If you know me, you will not kill me.” Our religious communities – Christian, Jewish, Muslim, atheist, whatever – can teach us to dehumanize the other, to turn the other into a faceless example of a category — one of the infidels, the lost, the superstitious, the unclean, the unsaved, the demonic, whatever. But they can do the opposite too, thank God. I think of the Old Testament … a nonJew named Melchizedek is honored, a nonJew named Rahab, a nonJew named Ruth or Uriah. Each one has a story, a name, and is humanized by the Bible. The same happens with Jesus in the parable of the Good Samaritan. A faceless “other” – part of the “them” that is rejected by “us” – is turned into the hero of a story. And in real life, Jesus responds to a Samaritan woman, a Syrophonecian woman, a Roman centurian, and a Pharisee as a fellow human being. The other isn’t demonized, but rather humanized. When our faith communities teach people to humanize the other – the poor or rich other, the fundamentalist or liberal other, the GED other or the PhD other, the Muslim other or the gay other, the red-state or blue-state other – we are teaching people the first step in being peacemakers.

Question # 8. Harvey Cox shared the following in the Future of Faith: “Faith is resurgent, while dogma is dying. Faith is about deep-seated confidence – vital for the way we live – it is primordial – hope and assurance that translates into the way we live our lives, Belief, according to Cox, is more like opinion – We can believe something to be true without it making much difference to us. Madeleine Albright has written that we have fostered a culture in the U.S. whereby “dogmatic belief is deemed a virtue and open-mindedness a weakness.” How do these two quotes speak toward a few points you are making in Part X entitled, The What Do We Do Now Question?

McLaren - First, I need to say that I’m very sympathetic to the people who will hate this book. Their responses will, no doubt, be completely consistent with their assumptions, including the assumption that we live in a bipolar world, and they’re firmly on the right side of the divide. So there’s Communism and the Free World – two poles. There’s Those With The Terrorists and Those With Us. There’s liberals and conservatives, the good guys and the bad guys, and so on. One of my problems is that I can’t see the world in those simple black-and-white terms like I used to. For example, I actually agree with conservatives that there are real dangers in what is called liberalism. The problem is that I see equal and sometimes greater dangers in conservatism. It goes back to the famous quote from Solzhenitzyn, that the line between good and evil doesn’t run between nations or religions or cultures, but through them all, and through each of us as individuals too.

But here’s where it gets tricky. We can see the problems with dualistic thinking and then create a new dualistic category – those who think dualistically and those who don’t! We can be very black and white about not being black and white. So we need a new approach, a higher or deeper approach, that transcends some of the old ways of thinking without excluding those who think in those ways – and without excluding the good and valuable things that are preserved among them. So we have three options – don’t transcend, transcend and exclude, and transcend and include, and it’s that third option that I’m trying to explore in the book.

Question # 9 – Tom Friedman has written in his most recent book, Hot, Flat and Crowded: “And that is the real energy shortage in America today; a shortage of the energy we need to get serious about a big goal” (p.404). In terms of what you have written, and what you are thinking, in terms of the global communities of faith, what is the “big goal we need to collectively and energetically get serious about?

McLaren — If I were to put it in a word, it would be “love.” I remember Jane Goodall saying something like this: you thought the Age of Reason was good? Imagine what could happen in the Age of Love! If I were to put it in a sentence, it would be: For us as Christians to let Christianity continue to grow and mature. Thinking in terms of all our religions, we could say: to help our traditions repent of their failures and sincerely turn toward God for guidance as to where to go from here.

Question # 10. Symbols speak to us. Is this one pertinent to your book?

McLaren — It’s so relevant, Bill, because as you know, the book is based on a simple observation: Statements create debate that can lead us to a new state (and sometimes create, as a byproduct, hate), while questions create conversations that can lead us on a new quest. So this book is very much about the power of questions, and about seeing our faith less as a tradition we inherited from our ancestors, and more as a quest which both they and we are on … the quest for truth, the quest for beauty and goodness and love, the quest for God … the quest for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.

From Bill Dahl – May God Bless you and yours Brian, guide you, inspire you, protect you, grow you — and may he continue to evidence more of himself to you, provide you with the courage to speak the words he deems to be spoken to all those you encounter. We will pray for you throughout 2010, as, in my opinion, this book will take you farther, faster and wider, that your travels ever have before.

Thank you Brian,

P.S. Feel free to copy the “Friend of Questians” symbol above and place it on your blog, site, phone, Facebook, My Space, Linked In page or whatever. Just make sure that you attribute the symbol to its creators - Bill and Jacki Dahl. Try to make money with it? — and you’ll hear from us