Christians: Define Your Brand

I have always loved the saying: "YOU are the only Bible most people read." Most people don't accept or reject Christianity due to what they've read--they accept or reject Christianity based on the day-to-day behavior of people who openly profess to be Christians. The apostle Paul repeatedly exhorted the Christians of his day to distinguish themselves from their non-Christian neighbors by their actions, not just their words.

Pastor Steven Furtick puts a modern spin on the concept by asking Christians to think of themselves as a brand:

When people think of you, a certain image or connotation comes to mind.

That’s your brand.

And whether you accept it or reject it, you are building your brand every day…

with every encounter, every decision, every contribution.

Compassionate is brand. Generous is a brand. So is unreliable. So is sloppy.

If you want to define your brand, start with this exercise:

List 10 or 20 of the adjectives that you hope people identify with your life/ministry.

Then (without showing them your list) ask some of the people closest to you to what words or phrases they most closely associate with their interaction with you. (They won’t be completely honest, but you’ll get some good ideas.)

After you’ve compared the two lists, you’ll notice the disparity between what you want to be known for and what you’re actually known for.

This is called a brand violation, and it must be corrected.

I've always been puzzled by people who look to spread their Christian faith by word rather than deed. They seek to justify how they can continue to engage in gossip, jealousy, and sometimes, downright hatefulness. If the behavior matches up with the rest of the world is doing, non-Christians think: what's the point?

My greatest challenge is when I am being treated with hatefulness or disrespect by other people. My greatest failing is when I "violate my brand" and don't respond in the peaceful, loving way for which I hope I am known. Remember: the most radical thing that Jesus said wasn't "love your friends." It was "love your enemies."

Housekeeping issues: Set your DVRs for Monday night!

Because watching Dancing With the Stars without the ability to fast-forward is a drag.

Oh, and don't forget to move your clocks ahead one hour on Saturday night and check your smoke detector batteries!

Surviving Beatles say: Om mani padme hum... and are you ready to ROCK?

The Beatles "Rock Band" will be released in September:

The move also marks the first foray into the digital world for the Beatles. The band has so far kept its songs away from digital distribution channels such as iTunes, though talks are said to be on-going. The two surviving members of the band, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr - as well as John Lennon's widow Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison, the widow of George Harrison - have all been involved in conceiving the music game project.

Meanwhile, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr are working to promote meditation among children:

Former Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr will reunite on stage next month to raise money to teach transcendental meditation to children around the world to "help provide them a quiet haven in a not-so-quiet world," McCartney said.

Uh, maybe you can cancel that Rock Band thing, then, guys?

Inaugural prayers: an analysis...and a big Supreme Court case on religious expression

I have blogged before about Liberty Magazine, which arrives in our mail from time to time. This month's issue has two pieces I would like to share.

First, Lincoln Steed (seriously great name!), the magazine's editor, discusses the prayers that were offered at President Obama's inauguration. Here's his analysis of the controversial Rick Warren prayer:

It was almost an anticlimax to hear the actual prayer at the January event. To be sure the possibility of it giving offence was diminished greatly by the chuckles at Chief Justice Roberts fumbling in the administration of the oath. But it was a secularly sacred moment and all turned out well—even the public prayer.

If there was a problem with the prayer it was its very broadness, not any narrow religious viewpoint that some had feared. The good pastor presaged the new President’s inclusiveness by early on throwing a theological bone to Islam by saying of God, “You are the compassionate and merciful One.” True: and expressed in the familiar terminology of the Koran. At the end, before reciting the Lord’s Prayer from the New Testament, Rick Warren identified “the One who changed my life” as “Yeshua, Isa, Jesus, Jesus (hay-SOOS).” Most religions covered there, including the Republicanism of the past eight years!

It was a very formal prayer that invoked the Creator, the uniqueness of the United States (avoiding direct claims of Divine privilege that have intrude into past pronouncements), and looked to God for help in the difficult days ahead. Its only theological gaffe, based on my reading of the Bible, was the assumption that Dr. King and others were watching from heaven. After all the Bible says that “the dead know not anything” (Proverbs 21:4 ) and Paul looked forward to the return of Jesus at the end of days when “the dead will be raised.” (1 Corinthians 15:52 ) However, it is a common enough assumption and we should not hold it against the prayer-giver’s good will. What it does, though, is illustrate the hazards of a public prayer, either endorsed by the state or, as is likely here, given under the smile of the ruler and tending to legitimize a particular religious viewpoint—or, worse, none at all, other than a broadly acceptable syncretistic model of faith.

After a discussion of the other prayers offered at the time of the Inauguration, and a detour back to the time of the founding fathers, Steed concludes:

We had better pray that the prayers paid for and organized on our behalf reflect our views and not the government’s. Come to think of it, that is precisely the problem. No government can possibly accurately represent all the religious views of its citizens without watering all down to meaninglessness or excluding others.

The other article that caught my attention is entitled "Final Summum," and is an overview of a case that was recently argued before the United States Supreme Court:

In November the Supreme Court of the United States heard a case that presents an interesting twist on the persistent constitutional problem of religious displays on government property. Typically, the question is whether a particular display, such as a depiction of the Ten Commandments or a Nativity scene, violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment.

Pleasant Grove City, Utah v. Summum involves a dispute over a religious display that defied the usual order of events. Instead of challenging a religious display on city property as unconstitutional, a small religious group claimed they had a right to display a monument reflecting their beliefs, as well.

Check it out!

Tip O'Neill Is Still Right

A Wall Street Journal/NBC poll confirms that Barack Obama is still enjoying the same "cognitive dissonance" as President as he did as a candidate: people really like him...but not his policies. While enjoying strong approval ratings, respondents also believe that the "stimulus" bill won't do much stimulating and taxpayers don't support raising taxes for health care.

While the media tries to nationalize the upcoming elections by discussing Rush Limbaugh ad nauseum, it's important to note that it is Congressional elections that are next on the docket in 2010. Tip O'Neill's assertion that "all politics is local" remains correct.

The Democratic strategy of connecting Limbaugh with national GOP leaders does have these positive impacts for Washington Democrats: it fires up the base, it brings in dollars, and it forces Republicans to talk "Rush" rather than about Obama's unpopular policies.

But there's no lasting impact on federal and state legislative races in competitive districts. That's why Evan Bayh and other moderate-to-conservative Democrats are concerned about how Obama's liberalism may sting them in the next election.

And even as national GOP leaders are still finding the bottom, Iowa GOP chair Matt Strawn is quoted in this article that he's "bullish" on Republican politics in the Hawkeye State. I listened to Strawn speak this week on messaging and building the apparatus to win elections in advance of recruitment--things that take place literally on a precinct-by-precinct basis.

Two random final thoughts: as a former radio announcer, I can confidently assert that the big winner in the Rush Limbaugh brouhaha is: Rush Limbaugh. He gets more listeners, who listen more frequently and for longer periods of time, resulting in more advertising revenue, resulting in more income....

AND: If Obama continues to remain personally popular while his policies do not, when do we get to start calling him the "Teflon President"?

Just sayin'.

Internet sensation at age 93: Great Depression cooking with Clara

Trent at the excellent personal finance blog The Simple Dollar shared a link to some wonderful YouTube cooking videos yesterday. I was instantly captivated by "Depression Cooking with Clara." Clara's 93 and shares stories from the Great Depression, along with simple and inexpensive recipes.

Every day, Jeff and I sit at the wooden kitchen table that belonged to my great-grandmother, Alice Margaret Smith Kimball Dillmann. She was born in 1892 and died in the late 1970s. When I was a child, I used to sit at that table and eat her wonderful old-fashioned meals of beef stew and rice pudding (which I absolutely adore even today). As you watch Clara cook, I suspect that you'll also be transported back into the kitchen of a grandma or great-grandma.

Here's the rice pudding that I cook. The recipe is fancier than my great-grandma's (I'm sure she wouldn't have dreamed of adding white chocolate):

2/3 cup sugar
2/3 cup long-grain rice
4 1/4 cups milk
1 tsp vanilla

Mix the above in a saucepan and simmer over low heat until thick, stirring often (this will take almost an hour--don't try to rush it).

2 egg yolks
3 tbsp heavy cream

Mix the yolks and cream in a small bowl with about a half-cup of the thickened rice mixture, then add to saucepan and mix and heat for about a minute.

Add 3 oz white chocolate, along with cardamom and orange peel to taste. It's wonderful warm or chilled.

Sure could use a little good news...

So here you go:

1. Rita the manatee has been released from Sea World back into the wild after 27 years in captivity. She's being monitored to ensure that she will do well on her own. I love manatees; they are my favorite animals.

2. President Obama and the First Lady have installed a swingset for Sasha and Malia on the White House grounds.

Cuckoo For Cocoa Puffs: The T-Shirt

Target and General Mills are kickin' it old school with t-shirts featuring retro cereal box designs. Cerealwear.com will send you a free shirt in exchange for five cereal box codes.

Having grown-up viewing what SEEMED to be a continuous loop of Count Chocula and Frankenberry commercials, I was disappointed to see that those sugary monsters don't appear on one of the shirts. You can, however, get Boo Berry. Can Fruit Brute be far behind?

How many friends do you have?

Anyone who hangs out on Facebook knows that there's a little box on the left side of each profile with a total number of friends for that person. Some people have a few friends, others dozens, and others hundreds or thousands.

But how many friends does the typical person have in real life? I thought about this question when attending the funeral of a friend recently. The funeral was very well-attended, and many of the people there would have described themselves as "friends" of the person who had passed away. She seemed to have been a "collector" of friends, and was obviously a treasured friend to many of the people who came to pay tribute to her life.

Facebook friends and "real life" friends are probably quite different. But even among real life friends, each of us has different categories of friendships. This piece from the BBC News Magazine explains:

The average number is about 150, says leading anthropologist Robin Dunbar.

It may sound like a lot, but think of your Christmas card list - 50 cards to 50 couples = 100 friends.

"It's the number of people that you know as persons and you know how they fit into your social world and they know how you fit into theirs. They are a group of people to which you have an obligation of friendship."

They usually consist of an inner circle of five "core" people and an additional layer of 10, he says. That makes 15 people - some will probably be family members - who are your central group and then outside that, there's another 35 in the next circle and another 100 on the outside. And that's one person's social world.

Click through; it's good stuff.

Bailing out the biggies

From Open Left - Front Page by David Sirota:
"This Denver Post comic is pretty damn funny...



Nothing is too big to fail - and if it is, it shouldn't be private."

Not that anyone cares anymore...

but maybe that baby is actually John Edwards's child.

It makes me sad to even think about that family. I hope that they are doing everything they can to protect their little ones from these stories.

I'm sorry, Rush Limbaugh!

If you think that you may have offended the de facto head of the Republican party, Rush Limbaugh the Great (and really, folks, who hasn't?), you can make amends here.

[Update: This Rush Limbaugh thing is still irritating me. How that man can say that he's rooting for President Obama to fail, when working-class Americans with bills and mortgages and job worries are terrified about our current economic crisis, is just beyond me. It's the worst kind of sour grapes..."my guy didn't win, so I hope yours fails, and by the way, I don't care that failure for Obama would also mean another Great Depression." Rush is putting his conservative ideals and his animosity toward Obama ahead of American progress and prosperity. What a vicious man.]

USAir flight 1549 recreation video

Even though we know how it turns out, this is terrifying. The professionalism of the crew and FAA folks is astounding, though. I want Sully Sullenberger to be my personal pilot from now on.

Houseguest helper

Who hasn't wished for one of these set-ups when housesitting? This is a GREAT idea!

Red v. blue: putting Americans to work

When it comes to creating jobs, Democratic administrations (since WWII) far outpace Republican ones. Analysis is here.

Two-year-old Aelita Andre has her own art show in Australian gallery

The abstract paintings of emerging artist Aelita Andre have people in Australia's art world talking. Aelita is two (the works were painted when she was even younger). Here's what happened:

In October, Mark Jamieson, the director of Brunswick Street Gallery in Melbourne's Fitzroy, was asked by a Russian-born photographer whose work he represented to consider the work of another artist.

Nikka Kalashnikova showed Jamieson some abstract paintings by an artist named Aelita Andre; Jamieson liked what he saw and agreed to include it in a group show, alongside work by Kalashnikova and Julia Palenov at his gallery later this month.

Jamieson then started to promote the show, printing glossy invitations and placing ads in the magazines Art Almanac and Art Collector, featuring the abstract work. Only then did he discover a crucial fact about the new artist: Aelita Andre is Kalashnikova's daughter, and then she was just 22 months old. She turns two tomorrow.

"I was shocked and, to be honest, a little embarrassed," Jamieson said, but he decided to proceed with the exhibition.

This has me looking at my daughter's 2nd-grade crayon-resist homage to Joan Miró (which is framed and hangs above my desk at work) in an entirely new light.

Annie Leibovitz does it again.

I think the bodysuits were a good call, Annie (and yes, that's adorable Paul Rudd in the Tom Ford pose). Here's the original:

Are Wii fit? Wii will try to be!

After finally getting a Wii Fit, daughter Lauren and I unpacked and set it up last night. She's played with it before, and promptly set her character up and started the balance game where you have to lunge toward hurtling soccer balls while dodging panda heads and flying shoes (yes, George W. Bush, I think of you). I gave it a try too, having fallen in love with the game the moment it declared my "Wii Fit Age" to be 6 years younger than I am about to be on the Ides of March. I am BAD at the soccer ball game, somehow managing to get clobbered by EVERY flying panda head and shoe while ducking out of the way of the soccer balls I am supposed to hit. Yoga turned out to be my activity...on my first try at one pose, I was labeled a "yoga master"! Wow!

Tonight...more flying panda heads and imaginary ski jumps. I am not sure it will replace a "real workout," but on a cold night, those cute flying panda heads are just what I need.

Who Is Buying Britney Spears Tickets In A Recession?

Perez Hilton continues to hawk the Britney Spears tour that begins tomorrow because he has a cameo in the show (an ingenious move by the Spears camp to end the bad publicity that Hilton can spew on his website). However, Hilton may be the ONLY one excited.

When I heard Spears was kicking off her tour in New Orleans, my first thought was...don't the people of New Orleans have many other things to do with their money right now? Then I expanded the thought: doesn't everyone?

Yep. Ironically, "Pop Crunch" calls the "Circus" tour "eagerly-awaited" IN THE SAME SENTENCE revealing that Spears is set to face "lots of empty seats."

A New Idea To Cut The Federal Deficit

If all of President Obama's nominees pay their back taxes, we can cut the deficit in half by 2012! Ron Kirk is the latest.

How You End Up Paying For "Free" Health Care

1. President Obama proposes an expansive new health care program and announces higher taxes on wealthy individuals as well as businesses. His office estimates how much these higher taxes will yield.

2. Wealthy individuals and businesses figure out ways to cut their income as well as their tax burden.

3. The estimated increase from the tax hikes comes up woefully short of funding the program.

4. We all get hit with a tax increase.

Why am I sure of item 2? Due to my talks with family and friends. I believe there is a current backlash by taxpayers who are weary of working hard to earn money--only to have the government take their hard-earned dollars and give it to irresponsible people, whether they be bankers, octomoms, people who bought big houses on tiny incomes....

Wall Street Gives Obama A "No Confidence" Vote

As the Dow continues to plunge, even Wall Street supporters of President Obama are beginning to have buyer's remorse. Charlie Gasparino reports that his supporters were tired of the mediocrity of George Bush and unwillingly to vote for the "erratic" McCain and the "novice" Sarah Palin.

But campaigns end, and governing begins. And Obama supporters are being reminded that elections are about voting FOR a candidate's policies rather than simply being about voting AGAINST "the other guy."

Meanwhile, the poor mainstream media is in a state of shock. They had hoped to spend months recreating Camelot with stories of Michelle's amazing style or Barack's unwavering coolness. It's tough for them to fairly report the criticism of the new President's economic approach.

Even Christopher Buckley is (tentatively) having doubts.

Paul Harvey, RIP

I am facing one of those blog posts where I know whatever I say will be inadequate to express how I feel. Broadcast legend Paul Harvey is dead at the age of 90.

There are broadcasters, entertainers, and musicians who weave themselves, inextricably, into the series of experiences that constitute a life. When they pass, I feel a deep sadness--a hole in the fabric of life experiences that will simply remain. The echo of voices and music in my head periodically creates a longing for me to go back to a certain time in order to fully enjoy the moment. That's why I try to truly appreciate the moments that occur in the here-and-now.

I long to go back to hear Jack Buck broadcast a Cardinals game, to see a new Bob Hope Christmas special, to know that Johnny Carson will open "The Tonight Show" with a monologue, or to sample a new song from John Lennon.

And now Paul Harvey won't be on the radio.

As a kid who wanted to be a radio announcer from the age of 12, I had the good fortune of growing up and attending a broadcasting school in St. Louis. I learned from the legends that populated the St. Louis airwaves how to write and deliver quality news and talk.

And I learned from Paul Harvey. The hardest task for the novice announcer is to undo trying to affect an "announcer voice"--a booming, overstated parody of a Top 40 jock. That's the style for which students believe they should strive. In fact, accomplished broadcasters communicate in a warm and winning one-on-one conversational style.

Paul Harvey represented a personality who talked with us, stood amazed with us, cried with us, and warmly related the stories of our friends and neighbors. Radio has changed dramatically with the advent of the "morning zoo" and "shock jock." I am sure that it has not changed for the better.