Leaders of 1776

Just recently I finished the book 1776 by David McCullough and was astonished by the level of leadership principles found in that book.

George Washington, a man without any military experience took on the role of Commander and Chief of the Continental Army and attempted a siege upon Boston. I admired that he saw a cause and need and charged forth without hesitation. He leaped before looking and after some serious hiccups, he came out the end of the Revolutionary war a hero. There comes a time in anybody's life where one has to charge forward despite inadequacies, leave the fear and doubts at the door, and place one's self at the cusp of chaos, destruction and destitute.

George Washington was superb at also being a duck (on the surface he's calm and resolute, but underneath the surface he fluttered frantically). Despite if one feels afraid, scared or hopeless, a leader cannot show that to the people under him. It is amazing to think that even George Washington had his moments of extreme agony and worry (as expressed in his letters to friends and loved ones), but his men always saw him a strong and confident leader whom, despite the insurmountably odds stacked against him and his army, still remained confident. Never loosing his temper, never panic stricken in the heat of a battle and stoic in the midst of a frenzy. If a leader bears to all his or her inner soul, the subordinates loose confidence and becomes infected with the very plague that burdens the leader.

I also learned that failures happen, yet victory is still possible. George Washington's men were dying rapidly from sickness. Men were deserting their posts and more men were being captured and killed in one failing battle after another. Despite these setbacks George Washington kept leading, never giving up, even when he was pushed way back from New York to Pennsylvania in the winter of 1776. This all may have crushed his spirits but didn't crush his desire to continue the fight. Life is hard, but we cannot let the fights with our significant other destroy our relationship. We cannot let the dying parent hinder us from doing our work. We cannot let a layoff tear a family apart. As we fight the hardships in life, we must preserve the true and noble causes in our lives.

1776 wasn't an easy year for Americans. But then again, what year was ever really easy for anybody? Within each of us our own revolutionary war rages on, and all we can do is keep fighting, and keep passionate.

Collecting Dust

The Rule: Awards Matter

In Newsong's cold white vault sits all the church's awards for its large church growth during the beginning of the decade. No one looks at it and is amazed by it. For someone who works for the church, I am not really proud of the achievements and quite frankly I don't care about them.

This makes me think about my own creative endeavours. Am I doing it to gain some kind of an award, may it be on paper or by means of a complement or acceptance? Eventually all the glory I could ever get will eventually collect dust and be a faint memory. All our energy, all our efforts, all our stress will find a home under a table. I have said this many times before in previous blogs, but I say it again to remind myself: what we do in our creative expression must be for the process not the end result. Of course I will not be writing this story for the rest of my life. It is not worth it. And I can still dream big, but I don't write to be rich or well known. I write to enjoy the creative process.

As for a church, size doesn't matter. All that a church would ever get from being large is an award and strangers throughout the nation saying, "Boy [insert church name here] is really big. It's crazy." and that is all.

When you think about it, greatness only breeds wealth, compliments and people talking about the greatness over steak or ice cream. I don't know if it is really worth it.

Is it?

The New Outcast

The Rule: You have to be dirty, dying or diseased to be an outcast.

In the District shopping center, I observed something. A timeshare mall sales man was trying to course a couple into purchasing some timeshare, but the couple kept walking past him, saying no thanks and coming up with excuses why they can't stay and talk to the guy and even purchase some sweet property.

I realized something. People don't avoid the homeless, the vagabonds, the orphans and widows, the dirty, dying and diseased because they are repulsive. The bystanders avoid the destitute because they feel something is going to be taken from them, may it be money, time or even pride. I notice, I don't feel the timeshare salesmen anxiety when I am with the homeless or sick when I posture my heart to give. Look at it this way, we cringe and dislike salesmen when our hearts are postured to not want to purchase something, but when we have a desire to buy something we seek out the salesmen with much gusto. In fact, I get frustrated when I can't find a salesman and I want to make a purchase. I have even been flustered when I wanted to give to the homeless and yet I couldn't even find them. You see, it's just a matter of intentionality. If I designate my time, and my resources to the poor before I engage them, I don't have that anxiety.

Maybe what we need to do is always keep our hearts, resources and time postured to give, and then when we get caught blindsided by that homeless person by the freeway we can show Christ's love. Heck, we can even show some love to the poor salesman at the District. He might not need food, but maybe some respect.

Write Away from your Desk

The rule: Writers write alone.

As I struggle to think of new things to write about on my blog on a daily basis, I think how can I get new thoughts, new ideas new ways of looking at things. I can tell you this, it doesn't happen beyond the keyboard, with pen and pencil. It happens by laughing, and crying at the world and what the world throws at me. It is by stepping out into the open catching the sunrise on the pier when normally one hates mornings, or diving into jazz clubs when one only listens to death meddle. Going to night clubs when a good books is all you need to cure one's loneliness and maybe see some romance.

These are things we need to do to create an imaginative world. We stock our imagination with what is outside of our lives that yearn to be explored. Where would Hemingway be if not for his adventures in Africa and Spain? Where would Cervantes be if not for his military history? Mark Twain without traveling abroad and being a riverboat captain?

Many of the greatest writers live their lives boldly, breaking free from their writing studios and treading in different territories.

So let's write down our stories before we even sit down to our keyboard and see what comes out in the open air.

Who Said A Quickie isn't a Good Thing

The Rule: Best Decisions are Made With Much Thought

The only light I have is is my desk lamp in my office. It's warm and giving me a headache. Beyond my transparent curtains I see a haze of buildings with only the white and red light penetrating into my office. It is 10:00pm, I am tired and want to go home, yet in a blog that tries to shatter the rules of life, I created the rule of writing something everyday. Ironic isn't it? Maybe I shouldn't have made the rule of writing in it everyday out of a whimsy, or should I have?

Why do we create rules out of randomly generated thoughts, like I did about my blog? The biggest decisions are made with the smallest of time. For me I see this in several ways: usually if I decide to fast, it just strikes me in a moment. I could be digging for boogers in the shower and decide to give up solid food for a week. Or maybe, while I am checking out the mole on my scalp, I decided I will go on that camping trip for my entire Thanksgiving break.

For me, I create rules not out of deep pain, deep thoughts and mind blowing epiphanies, but out of randomness. Sometimes it generates into something rather amazing, sometimes it is a complete flop. When these conclusions come from the mundane, I seriously doubt decisions.

Is making big decisions on the fly, during random moments without the slightest deep reflection actually beneficial? It might actually be, because I am acting out on the primal desire when I come up with an idea. Though it may not be the best, it certainly is what I want. So the real trick is training my subconscious to know what is best.

I feel Yuck.

The Rule: Leftovers are the wisest meal options for intense writing action.

I am currently rocking in my church's nursing room (this is because no one can bother here and I get to appease my need to move in the rocking chair), where mothers come and nurse their babies on Sunday mornings. Well, the only thing I am nursing right now is a small head ache and an upset stomach. Maybe its the rocking chair I'm moving quite swiftly and I know this because I am finding my chair sliding all throughout the room. Or maybe it could be the lack of natural light in the room. But I do know that my left over BBQ ribs from Sunday night is a huge culprit to my icky feeling.

Cheap, free food is not always the best options for creativity. It just might cause us to only create vomit drafts. When it comes to our artistic craft we have to take care of our bodies and mind. Because if we don't, then our art will suffer. Like this blog post. It probably would have something insightful, but due to my nasty feeling, I'm going to be terse.

The Rule: We need our hands held in everything in our lives.

When in the history of humanity did we need a "Sex for Dummies" handbook? When did the joy of exploration and figuring stuff out on our own become second rate to just having someone tell us something in a book?

If the cliche statement that "Life is a Journey" is true, than there are way too many maps pointing in many different directions. Sadly, we as journeyman, rely too heavy on these books to get to where we are going. Humans want to be happy, but they don't want to take their own risk to be happy in case the journey leads them to unhappiness. So instead of taking a risk, they follow someone else's plan. This is religion in its purest form. Self Help Books are religions, and the author's their gods- flawless, all knowing and powerful.

But the catch is, our way is not always the best way. I have failed many times over doing something I think is right and turns out to be a failure. The way I see self-help books is as a gold mine. A lot of useless rock, but good nuggets here and there.

Literature is just a journey in of itself that we allow to take our hearts and captivate our attention to inspire us to live out our own daily journeys and create journeys for ourselves.

But maybe we go to those "Sex for Dummies" type of books because that is just a pit stop in our lives, where the stupid and mundane can take on new light when seen through the eyes of another. And that is what books really are, just a series of observations from someone else perceptive on a journey we are all taking.

Nothing new, but really a reminder. Don't use books to be your only guide. Live your life, don't let your life be lived in between the pages. And for goodness sake, if you are a dummy, please don't procreate. That journey is not meant for you.