Welcome!

I thought I would create a space to share some of my life thoughts as well as some my life's adventures and misadventures. I am not sure what is in store for this Blog. I love God, I love my wife, I enjoy reading, kayaking, cooking, thinking about ways to sustainably help the world's poor, and leaving a smaller carbon footprint on this planet—Steve G’s Eclectic World. As life is both an experiment and a journey so is this blog. I hope that you will take what you like and leave the rest.



Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Soul Print: Discovering Your Divine Destiny by Mark Batterson--A book Review

I found this really awesome deal with the WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group Link hereI provide them with reviews of their books on my blog and they provide me with free books.  How cool is that?  WaterBrook Multnomah happens to be the current publishing company for my pastor Mark Batterson.  Mark recently had his fourth book published and I thought it would be a great place to start.


It would not be fair if I did not first come out and state that I am a parishioner of National Community Church and hence a big fan of Mark.  He is incredibly motivational and generous.  So generous he gave everyone who attended church on January 16, 2011 a free copy of his latest Soul Print, which is how I obtained my copy.
In Soul Print Mark argues that each person has six to twelve experiences in their life that have a profound impact on who they become.  Moreover, it is not just the experiences themselves but how we look to and respond to those experiences that shape and mold us.  Mark uses a common paradigm for devotional books these days: juxtapose stories from the bible with stories from your own life.  I generally believe this paradigm is somewhat cliché and overused today.  However, I did not feel that way with Soul Print.  Most of the books that I have read using this paradigm have really clunky transitions between the biblical and personal transitions.  Mark however, transitions seamlessly between six defining moments in the life of David to his own defining moments, making the book flow beautifully.  The conclusion brings everything from the book together and stands as a good read by itself. 
On page 131 Mark writes, “At the end of our lives, we’ll have lost respect for those who simply said what we wanted to hear.”  This, I believe, allows me to make the one criticism I found with Soul Print.  It is quite ironic that my one criticism comes from the chapter entitled “The Devils Workshop”.  In this chapter Mark discusses mirrors.  That is, the different things we use to obtain pictures of ourselves.  Our thoughts and our friends are two examples of mirrors that Mark is talking about here.  According to Mark the best mirror “that gives us the truest reflection of ourselves, is scripture”.  Respectfully, I disagree.
Regarding scripture, Brian McLaren discusses two ways to read the Bible in his A New Kind of Christianity.  The first way is to read the Bible as a constitution.  The second is to read the Bible as a library.  Reading Mark’s statement regarding what is the best mirror I cannot help but feel that he sees the Bible more from a constitutional perspective.  The constitutional perspective focuses more on rules.  While the Bible certainly includes rules, viewing the Bible with the perspective of it being a library puts those rules in context. 
The Bible is a complicated and diverse book and for the average lay-person to sit down and read it is a challenge to say the least.  How can it be a mirror if we lack understanding of the time period:  Who were the Jewish people?  Who were their neighbors?  What was their social and religious life like? Where did they live?  How did they get to where they lived?  How did they view their neighbors?  There are so many of these questions that we can ask.  Answering as many of these questions as we can gives a better understanding of the Bible. However, we could easily spend all of our time on such things.  Not until 1517 when Luther nailed his theses to the Wittenberg door was there even the opportunity for the layperson to be able to read the Bible.  Moreover, we were centuries away from anyone, save the aristocracy, being literate.  Given this, I think a good question to ask is: What was the best mirror for the majority in pre-modern times? It may still be the best mirror today.  I believe what Mark would consider the second best mirror would be my number one; a Godly friend who has the permission to point out my shortcomings and who is not afraid to do just that.
 I have spent three paragraphs criticizing a book while only giving it one paragraph of praise.  Please do not let this lack of balance dissuade you from reading Mark’s Soul Print.  I criticized one part of one chapter.  However, I could easily write numerous paragraphs on everything that I loved about this book.  If you want to learn more about yourself and gain a better understanding of your destiny, the destiny God has planned for your life, you should get a copy today!

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

See the Forest Instead of the Trees

“You can’t see the forest for the trees” is somewhat cliché and perhaps, even, an overused metaphor.  Now that we have gotten that out of the way, I can’t think of a better metaphor to describe what I want to share with this blog entry.  Besides, I am really only original in the kitchen.
Several months ago my wife had a great idea--come the first of the year escape the cold of DC for two weeks and go visit her brother in the mild climate of Guatemala.  So that is exactly what we did.  The trip was fantastic and culminated with us taking her brother out to dinner for his birthday on our last night in Guatemala.  I am not one that aspires to live vicariously through the lives of others so I will spare you further details of the trip…at least for now.  Perhaps there are those out there that do like to live life vicariously at times and I am guessing that sometime in the future there may be an entry or two that will allow for some vicarious living.  This future entry will also give you the opportunity to leave a comment about how I am a hypocrite in this respect.  Right now though, I would like to share a personal epiphany that I experienced on our Guatemalan adventure.
As the first decade of the twenty first century was coming to a close, my wife and I were gaining excitement about our upcoming trip--excitement that we shared with friends and family.  While my wife had a positive experience sharing with her friends about going to Guatemala, I had a pretty negative one.  Over and over I heard horror stories of robberies and on two occasions of rape and dare I say terrorist attacks as well.  Needless to say, this put me on edge and on guard as we left for our trip.  And sadly, it gave me a negative view of the people of Guatemala before I even set foot on Central American soil.
I would be remiss if I didn’t say that the stories I heard before our trip did not have merit.  However, what is sad, not just sad, but in all honestly really wrong, is that I let the actions of a few determine my overall view of the people in Guatemala.  That is, I let a few trees block my view of the beautiful forest!  If the people of Guatemala were not so friendly, trusting, courteous, considerate and genuine I am very doubtful I would have been able to make this observation at all.  Thankfully, the warmth I felt coming from nearly everyone I met in Guatemala was in stark contrast with the so-called warnings I’d received from friends and family before leaving, and it led me to realize that I had let a few people wrongly influence my thinking about the population of an entire country.
Once I realized this I started thinking of other areas where I can’t see the forest for the trees.  My list is longer than I care to share, but I will share two that I believe most white Americans share with me.
First, I am suspicious of most Middle Eastern people I see.  Did you know that Muslim terrorist attacks on the US rank next to last for extremist groups just ahead of communist ones? Link

I call myself a Christian.  There is no difference between the Muslim example  and someone calling me a terrorist by associating me with Terry Jones and his Dove World Outreach Center.  Instead of being suspicious of people from the Middle East I need to start accepting them and relating to them on a personal level, rather than relating to them based what I perceive to be their religious beliefs.
Second, we hear over and over in our society about the importance of first impressions.  In light of my Guatemalan epiphany I believe first impressions are incredibly overrated.  A first impression is merely a tree blocking your view of the forest.  We tell ourselves we can know a person or even worse what type of person they are by what clothes they wear, how they walk, what they do for a living, what kind of facial expression or God forbid facial piercing they have at a given moment.  Not seeing the forest for the trees takes much less effort than getting to know the forest.  That is, making an assumption about someone with one or two pieces of data is easier than taking the time to get to know them.  Far too often we take this easy way out--far too often I have taken this way out.  I am ready to start seeing the entire forest!  Are you?