In Silencio Dei

Right now I'm reading Malcom Gladwell's book Outliers: The Story of Success.  It studies the best and brightest folks and attempts to answer the question - what makes them different? Malcom proposes in addition to raw natural talent and individual ability there is an entire ecosystem of culture, backstory and fortuitous opportunity that helps bring about success. I'm halfway through the book and recommend it to anyone interested in learning about success. In one chapter Malcom studies Korean Air and an unfortunate number of plane crashes the company experienced, over seventeen times more than any American airline. He concludes that Korean culture accounted for this huge discrepancy. Basically Koreans are taught to respect authority without question and this carried over into the cockpit. Flight crews were reluctant to call out mistakes to the captain for fear of being disrespectful. In other cultures - especially American culture - this fear does not exist. Malcom names t...

At church this week our pastor related a story from Max Lucado. You can read Max's post here  but this is the gist of the story: his daughter wanted him to stop being a pastor and instead sell snow cones because she thought the happiest people in the world were snow cone vendors. He didn't listen to her request because he "knew more about life than she did." The moral behind this story is that God doesn't always answer our requests because He knows more than we do and has better plans for us. While this is very true and any parent would agree that saying no to a child's request is sometimes the most loving thing to do, the story hit me in a slightly different way. If I had an opportunity to sit down with Max, I would ask him what exactly he meant by knowing more about life. What exactly does he have against the idea of selling snow cones as an occupation? Is it because he probably wouldn't make a lot of money? Is it because he already had a occupation ...

God has been encouraging me to take time to look for the subtle beauty of His character in everyday life. I believe God speaks to us in very personal ways - we just need to take time to pause and pay attention. I felt one of those insights today during this fourth of July. My wife Melissa and I participated in the Folsom Firecracker 5K/10K ( http://www.folsomfirecracker.com/ ). It's been a while since I've run a race and surprisingly it was a very enjoyable experience. There was a large group of diverse people in attendance... or depending on where you were, a diverse group of large people. Athletes, couch potatoes, families with kids, couples, single runners, young, old - it was a slice of humanity all gathered to join in this sweaty, exhausting celebration of freedom. During the hour or so of running I had time to observe my fellow sojourners and just listen to the random thoughts that flashed across my mind: That old dude is in so much better shape than I am. Crap! Her...