Connecting Dots : Google Robot Car, Journey, & Kingdom...

I'm always looking to connect dots.  On Tuesday I read THIS, an article about Google's first ROBOT CAR being licensed in NV.  The technology behind the new Google Robot Car allows for safe navigation to one's destination. 

Once you get past the cool sci-fi images in your head (think The Jetson's, Total Recall, iRobot, Minority Report, etc.), you have a new way to travel: safe and destination-bound.  Its an instant gratifying mode of transportation that eliminates the white-knuckles and attention that's required of driving, right?

But like a lot of technology (and I LOVE innovative technology!) we're working towards instant gratification - in this case destination.

Here's a few other totally random examples (and I'm really trying not to demonize any of these, but rather just point out how we're a culture of "destination.")

Facebook - when you lack true visceral community, it provides a virtual destination

Discovery/Travel Channel - I have actually heard people argue, that they don't really need to travel anymore, because they can just watch Discovery or the Travel Channel

RockBand - when you don't have the motivation, time, or finances to learn to play an instrument or take the lessons, you can simply strap on the 5 color guitar and wail away on your favorite Zepplin tunes!

Pornography - sexual intimacy without the relationship

The common missing factor I see in each of these, is the journey.  Relationships take time, energy, pain(s), and effort.  Travel requires planning, money, learning new languages and cultures, and potential dangers(s).  And intimacy requires a great deal of relationship, trust, and vulnerability.  These are all hazards of the journey.

Now going back to the Google Robot Car, we literally eliminate the journey.  Where I used to dread the night drive in the rain, the white-knuckled journey up a snowy pass in Colorado to get to a music venue in time for sound check, or the navigation it would require to make it through a big city I'd never traveled before, I can now conceivably enter my destination coordinates, sit back, and enjoy a DVD on my iPad, or have a virtual conversation via Facebook.

But I have a feeling that I'll miss the adventure and the attention it requires to participate in the journey.  I believe that it's in the journey that we really grow, and become who we were created to be.

The earth is an amazing place.  I believe that in this earth, the Kingdom of God is breaking-in all around us, and I'd hate to miss it, because I simply phoned in my coordinates.  (Ah-ha, another dot being connected)

The journey is one reason I refuse to sing "I'll Fly Away" anymore.  It's a song about leaving, being gone, hoping for the destination, and not embracing the kingdom-journey, here, now, and today.  There's harm in destination language, without being coupled with the trials of the journey.

And that, my friends is why I enjoy connecting dots.

Peace,
Ross

Some Recent Videos...

Earlier this week I recorded a very stripped-down version of 'How Deep The Father's Love.'  Enjoy!


Here's Cora rockin' some Civil Wars...


Here's Cora again, singing a little original piece of her own...


Peace,
Ross (& Cora)

VISION & FUTURE

If you've been a reader of the blog for a while, you'll know I frequently discuss leadership, vision, creativity, etc.  Today I felt it necessary to discuss 2 vital leadership components: VISION & FUTURE.

Future and vision, I believe, are the 2 most important factors in leadership.  Understanding these and making them the drivers of everything else deemed "leadership," will create an organization, business, etc that is vision focused, rather than management focused.

When a group or organization is driven by vision, it affects everything and is usually looking to create something for the future.  Vision is seldom worried about what happened yesterday, or how your past failures are affecting you today. 

From personal experience, I build vision that attempts to create culture.  By that, I mean if I see something lacking in a given community, I want to create something to fill the void.  When I dream something beautiful, I want to make it an experience for culture, so that the future is brighter by it.  But whatever that "something" is, that is my vision, it's partnered with a future thought of how its moving people, the organization, and/or culture.

Conversely, if you run your business or organization by pure management, you'll find yourself managing a response (both positive and negative).  You'll manage opinions until you're riddled with ulcers, trying to please people.  And being a purely response-driven group or organization doesn't create vision.  It manages expectations, and executes based on the feelings of any given day, survey, or angry/pleased email(s) that hits the in box.  It does get things accomplished - sometimes with laser like precision.  But I'm always more interested in vision.  The future is most interested in vision.

Vision will always drive management.
Management will never drive vision.

So make sure that the vision you're creating is future-thinking, and don't fall into the easy trap of simply managing people, tasks, and ideas.

Peace,
Ross

Weekend in Photographs

It's Monday morning, and I'm tired from a very long and busy weekend.  Last week we found out both of our vehicles were totaled in the last hail storm that came through St. Louis, so I spent a decent time test driving new cars (leaning towards a new Honda Fit).  Saturday was the opening for the Tower Grove Farmers Market, which is one of our family's favorite outings - lots of great farm-fresh foods plus the girls get to play in the fountains. 

I played a Cinco De Mayo music festival from for 4 hours Saturday night.  It was hot and nasty, but a HUGE THANKS to the 2000+ folks that came out for a fun time!  Yesterday after AWAKEN I took a group of guys paintballing - tons 'o fun!  Then to our surprise, our good friends from Maine brought us back 6 live lobsters for a VERY impromptu lobster boil - yum!

Peace,
Ross

Light Up (by Sucre)

Here's the newest installment from Sucre.  It's a beautiful song called, Light Up.  The vocal track was a "1 taker," and they were lucky enough to capture it in the video.  Enjoy!



Peace,
Ross

Bad - 25 Years Later

Pepsi announced today that it's releasing a 25 year anniversary can to remember Michael Jackson's BAD album.  It's hard to believe that was 25 years ago...It still is fresh, groundbreaking, and makes me wish I could dance.  Michael Jackson was (and still is) one of my biggest musical influences.  I can remember my parents taking me to an MJ impersonator when I was 3 or 4.  I owned the shiny vest, the sparkly glove, and could sing most of the songs.  I can remember getting the "making of" VHS for my birthday or Christmas.  I still remember the interviews, rehearsals, and the videos.  Good memories!

Peace,
Ross

The Vitality of Irrational Thought

Last week I was reading a book by Freeman, discussing the psychology of adult learning.  Given the history of adult learning throughout the Western world, one will find that the church was once the hub. It was pushing and leading a systematic approach, viewed as "just as necessary for development of human reason as revelation and grace were necessary for salvation and maturity." 

These assumptions and discoveries have informed adult learning paradigms which are still in practice today.  What I kept seeing as the focus however, was rational thinking.  It has become the teacher's role in helping students to "think rationally."  This however seems to add major hurdles to pursuing a biblical faith.

Let me elaborate...

True grace is not rational. It makes no sense. But yet, God's economy doesn't work like ours. Rational thought and understanding seeks judgement and punishment for offenders, yet God seems to work in other ways. The way of the world seeks redemptive violence, yet God works through restoration and reconciliation. Both of these are difficult and contrary to rational thought and practice. Even stories of miracles and virgin births become suspect when we pursue rational thought. Because God is increasingly mystical, works beyond the limits of understood physics and biology, rational thought becomes a hurdle in faith formation.


Even today, many across the country are celebrating the anniversary of Osama Bin Laden's death.  People are simply acting rational - good overcame evil.  But looking at God's economy and being irrational enough to suppose that my wishes, hopes, and desires are not greater than, or even equal to, God's, gives room to grace, restoration, and love.

So what now? 

As we're increasingly a post-modern culture, certain rational thoughts of the past are suspect. There's room for irrational thought in understanding and learning. And I believe, as teachers to adult learners, we must create environments that accept and produce irrational thinkers, to create new realities, and to move closer to the image we were created, and to tell better stories that include grace, reconciliation, virgin birth, miracles, seas parting, burning bushes, the Holy Spirit, death, and resurrection.

Peace,
Ross