Thoughts and reflections about this journey called life
Give more fishing poles, please.
“Give a man a fish...”. Oh, you know this.
It seems like there’s way more fish than fishing poles being given out in the church these days. And the Christian mind is atrophying instead of being transformed to live in a new land. It seems cruel to give poles to people who are lazily addicted to fish. You hear the cries: “We want fish!” Followers seem to always want already filleted and cooked answers; they don’t like to fish for them. It’s human nature.
However, pastors, parents, and leaders can’t always give out fish or you create dependency, a diminished mind that can’t wade through the deep waters of cultural issues. There are way too many disciples who don’t know how to string their own line, tie their own hooks, or put the bait on the hooks in order to reel in their own answers. It’s too much work.
We have to continue to give out fishing poles and teach people how to fish even as the cries for “more fish” ring in our ears. That is what love is… doing what best not what’s the most expedient or that which garners the most in attendance.
Ask more questions. Pose more conundrums. Foster deeper conversations. Encourage more wonder. And do it all in love. Real discipleship isn’t having fish that just hop in the boat. Real discipleship creates the environments where disciples learn how to catch the answers for themselves. And in so doing, we will be developing deep Christian minds who can critically think instead of impersonating fishermen.
21 Ways to Structure Online Discussions (by Annie Prud Homme-Genereux)
I am always looking for creative ways to engage my students in my on-campus, face-to-face settings. However, teaching the NET classes requires even more creative engagement than face-to-face students and simply having students do the same 3-2-1 responses each week is not engaging. Here is a fantastic series from the Faculty Focus folks in providing 21 great ideas (which may spark more creative ideas in your mind) to enhance your online instruction. Test some of them out.
Click on each of the five parts below (e.g. Part One) that Dr. Annie Prud’homme-Genereux has compiled. A list of activities in each part and brief descriptions are provided below each link.
Part One (click on link)
Hashtag that Photo Safari - “In this activity, learners are asked to go on a field trip—to their kitchen, their backyard, their neighborhood, or their local mall—and to find examples of a concept they have studied in the course. They report their findings by posting a photo and an analysis of how their real-world example illustrates the concept.”
Virtual Scavenger Hunt - “In a virtual scavenger hunt discussion, learners peruse the internet and search for, recognize, collect, and share good examples of a concept. They then collaborate to infer the common elements across all good examples. In reviewing their peers’ posts, learners enrich their understanding of the concept by evaluating the boundaries of the concept and its applications.”
Guessing Game - “This discussion structure can take on many forms, but all forms have in common that learners create a post where they describe a concept (or examples of a concept), and others use that information to guess the concept being described. It’s a detective game, motivating peers to join in the conversation.” Variations below:
Word Cloud Creator (Free) - “Learners select a concept and from it, create either a word cloud or a concept map. They post their graphic to the discussion forum and others try to guess the original concept and explain the reasoning for their answer.”
WiseMapping (Free) - see Word Cloud description
Fake Text Messaging (Free) - “Learners create a text message exchange between two characters that represent concepts (or influential figures) studied in class.”
Realtor Tour - “This variation is appropriate when learners study different environments or locations (e.g., ecology, geology, urban planning, etc.). Each learner develops a short description of the features of the location as though they were a realtor presenting a property.”
The Price is Right - “In a course where learners are expected to learn to assign numerical values to concepts, each learner could showcase an example and take “bids” from others trying to estimate how much the item is worth.”
Forced Analogy - “Comparing a concept to a well-known object or system can help learners wrap their head around that concept, its components, their function, and relationships.”
Flawed Design - “Learners design an example that is purposefully “broken” and defies the concept learned in class. Then, peers look at the posts and play a game of “cat and mouse,” trying to find as many flaws as possible.” Variations below:
Shark Tank - Using a Shark Tank format … entrepreneurs (students) “present their design to a panel of potential investors. Each learner presents their design, which may or may not be flawed (each learner chooses whether to add a purposeful flaw) to their peers. Then the “investors” analyze the design and write a product review, concluding in whether they would invest in it (whether the design is flawed or not).”
Two Truths and a Lie -In the icebreaker version of this activity, each person makes three statements about themselves: two of them true and one a lie. Everyone then asks questions to try to guess which is false. In the discussion version, each learner comes up with three examples or applications of a concept, two of them accurate and one of them not an exemplar of the concept in subtle ways.
Part Two (click on link)
Sticky Note Party - “Sometimes called affinity mapping, this favorite activity of design thinking practitioners is an effective way to harness a team’s brainstorming capacity. This discussion requires the use of a virtual collaborative pinboard” (examples offered). Variations below:
Build a Checklist. “In this activity, the group uses the power of brainstorming to create a checklist for doing a particular task (for example, they could create a checklist of the steps required to build a website for a client, or for DNA polymerase to replicate genetic material). A checklist is a useful exercise because it forces the team to bring to the surface and discuss each component of the larger task, their order, and their importance.”
Force Field Analysis. “This type of brainstorm aims to identify the forces acting upon “something” to cause it to change. Teammates first brainstorm all the forces acting upon the object that causes change. Then they repeat the exercise brainstorming factors that are preventing change.”
SWOT Analysis. This well-known business tool asks the group to brainstorm ideas about the strengths (S) of an organization (or a concept), its weaknesses (W), opportunities (O) for its future, and threats (T) to its survival.
Fishbone Analysis - “In a Fishbone Analysis, teams brainstorm the causes of a situation or problem. They organize them into six main fishbones that stem off the fish’s backbone. Each fishbone can be further developed into sub-causes which represent minor causes.”
Wisdom of Crowds - “This type of discussion starts like the Sticky Note Party, where each participant generates at least one idea in response to a prompt. Then, each member of the team examines the range of responses and ranks them.”
Dotmocracy. “When conducted in a face-to-face context, dotmocracy starts with each idea written on a sheet of paper posted on the walls around the room. Then, participants are given a set of colored sticker dots – red, yellow, and green. Participants go around the room, read the statement on each sheet of paper, and add a dot – green if they support the idea, yellow if they are lukewarm, red if they oppose the idea.”
Lotus Diagram - “A Lotus Diagram is a collaborative concept mapping activity. It is useful when the goal is to make evident all concepts related to a central one.”
Mash-Up - “This activity, also a favorite of design thinkers, is used for creative problem-solving. It involves taking the insights and solutions developed in one context and adapting and adopting it in another context where a similar problem needs solving.”
Part Three (click on link)
Report on Live Discussion - “This format addresses learner concerns about the challenges of reading emotional cues in a text-based discussion. It starts in small groups where learners meet virtually for a live discussion.”
Give One, Take One - “This format is helpful when the goal is for learners to explore their understanding of a topic or their values. (Variation below)
Card Sort. “In this activity, learners are given a list of statements, diagrams, names of concepts, problem sets, or questions (i.e., the “cards”) and are asked to categorize them. They are not told the categories—they must define them.”
Role Play - “In this type of discussion, each learner is assigned, or proposes and then takes on, the role of a stakeholder in a scenario. Learners research the person’s motives, values, goals, the impact of different choices, position, arguments, and respond to the prompt in that voice.” (Variations below)
Debate. “A debate is a form of role-play where there are two main roles: a group of individuals in favor of something and a group of individuals opposed to it.”
Six Thinking Hats. “Based on a well-known business book, the six thinking hats is a method of investigating a situation from different perspectives. In this discussion, learners are grouped in teams of six, and are each person is assigned a “thinking hat.” This is the persona or perspective they will take on in analyzing the scenario.”
Blue Hat (Leader). “This person is the leader of the group and must take into consideration all perspectives to come to a decision.
White Hat (Thinking). This is the role of the person who is analyzing the problem from a rational or intellectual perspective. Think: “What would Spock, of Star Trek, say or do?”
Red Hat (Feeling). This person must present the emotional perspective on the problem. What are some of the fears or passions that people are likely to experience in this situation?
Green Hat (Creativity). This person is tasked with coming up with innovative ways to tackle the situation.
Yellow Hat (Positivity). This person is a Pollyanna, always focusing on the benefits and merits of ideas suggested by others.
Black Hat (Cautious). The role of this person is to identify the potential drawbacks or challenges of proceeding with a course of action or decision.”
Hot Seat. “In this variation, learners take turns adopting the persona of a famous person studied in class and answering questions posted by their peers from that person’s perspective.”
Superheroes. “This method requires learners to take on the persona of a well-known hero or villain and apply that lens in responding to the prompt (e.g., what would Iron Man think of this proposal and what sort of memo would he send to the Avengers?)”
Love Letters / Break Up letters. “A twist on the debate, this format asks learners to write a love letter to a concept they embrace or a break-up letter to a concept they oppose.”
Jigsaw - “A jigsaw is an effective way to structure teamwork because it gives each learner distinctive expertise that is needed by a team to solve a problem. The activity begins by assigning learners to groups that are tasked with becoming “experts” in a specific aspect of the problem.” (Variation below)
Library Roulette - Instead of everyone researching the same topic, try this. “To breathe a bit of variety in the conversation, and to practice research literacy and critical thinking skills, learners can be tasked with finding resources to research a topic and then bring that information to the discussion (rather than assigning the same readings to everyone).”
Case Study - “Case studies are narratives about challenges encountered in the real world that learners tackle and attempt to solve.”
Round Robin - “This is a collaborative activity to be done in small groups. Learners take turns moving the discussion along but never provide a complete response. Rather, each member of the group provides a part of the response, leaving the next learner to continue.”
3CQ Model - “The 3CQ Model of discussion (Compliment-Connect-Comment-Question) was developed by Jennifer Stewart-Mitchell, a high school teacher who sought to train her students in effective communication in an online discussion forum. The model provides a structure by which learners may respond to peer posts.:
Compliment. “To acknowledge the contributions of others, … start by praising a specific aspect of the post.”
Connect. This step is also about building community and connection. It’s about relating, on a personal level, to what the person said. For example, the learner might write, “I had the same thing happen to me when…” or “I read a similar story in X which…”
Comment. The next step adds to what was said in the post by providing a response to it. It may be a statement of agreement or disagreement. The response may begin with, “What I would add to your post is that…” or “I might come to a different conclusion because…”
Question. The last step is about keeping the conversation going by asking a specific question about the topic under discussion. Ways to state this is to write, “I wonder why…” or “What effect might X have on…”
Part Four (click on link)
Fishbowl - “In a fishbowl exercise, some learners are invited to participate in the discussion, and others are instructed to stand back and observe. Then, at the end of the activity, the people who observed provide commentaries on what took place.” (Variations below)
Spiderweb - “This visual mapping activity, developed by Shai Klima and shared by Minero (August 21, 2020), tasks a learner (or the instructor) to create a visual map of the participation and interactions in the discussion. In it, each learner’s name is written around a circle, and the observer links two people whenever one person responds to another’s posts.”
Rant. This variant takes place in pairs and helps learners develop the ability for deep and empathic listening. Learners begin in pairs, either live or in a private asynchronous discussion board. They are given a prompt to which learners are likely to have strong feelings, strong opinions, or strong responses. Each person is allowed space to “rant” about it–to express their feelings, unfiltered. There is a time or word limit for the complaint, usually 60 seconds or one paragraph. The other learner must read or listen to the rant and infer what the person cares about, what is important to them, and what they value.
Role Swap - “Learners will take ownership of one aspect of the discussion’s progress since it is uniquely assigned to them. Possible roles include Facilitator (someone who monitors each person’s contribution to the discussion, encourages submissions, and moderates), Fact Checker (who comments on the accuracy or strengths of others’ posts), Skeptic (who plays devil’s advocate), Runner (the “go-between” who reports on their small group discussion to the whole-class; or who finds links between the posts of different small groups; or finds relevant posts in previous discussion threads for the group to consider), or Summarizer (whose task is to write a summary of the discussion at the end, giving them an incentive to follow the discussion closely).”
Muddiest Point - “An online discussion generally starts with an instructor prompt. But, it could just as easily begin by asking learners to think about the content they learned and generate questions about issues that remain unclear (“muddiest points”).”
Karma Points - “Learners expressed the desire for flexible means of participation in a discussion, reproducing the options they experience in a live classroom discussion (e.g., showing support by cheering or nodding, raising a hand to add to a peer’s comments, or being the first to comment on the prompt), depending on the extent to which a topic inspires them.”
Mood Board - “Mood boards are commonly used in the creative arts but are underused in other fields. It consists of a collage of images, words and quotes, fonts, colors, textures, and visual metaphors, usually taken from clipping from magazines, that captures a person’s emotional connection or feelings (i.e., “mood”) about the topic. Online learners can create multimedia mood boards (including sound and video to capture the mood) using a virtual pinboard such as Padlet, Prezi, Wakelet, or Canva.”
Part Five (click on link)
ONLINE DISCUSSION IDEAS - Ideas for creative discussion forum responses (click on the Part Five link to see all the great ideas. Here is a summary.
Text - The normal ways to have students respond, but the author does provide some creative ways to use it.
Try out some of the polling tools such as Poll Everywhere, and Kahoot
Graphics - have students create a concept map demonstrating their understanding of the teaching topic.
Audio/Voicdeboard - Why not have your students create a short podcast or another format to express their ideas auditorily.
Video - Video is the ideal way to capture the tone of voice, facial expression, and mindset. There are tons of great ideas about this format.
Dr. Annie Prud’homme-Généreux is the director of continuing studies at Capilano University. She is a past recipient of the National Association of Biology Teachers’ Four-Year College/University Teaching Innovation Award. She has been teaching in a blended format for over 15 years and is currently completing a master of education in open, digital and distance education.
Congrats NASA!!! The Wright Bros Would Be Proud!
Ingenuity, the little Mars Helicopter, took its first test flight, a “simple” up, hover, and down-to-land maneuver, marking an incredible historic event.
MiMi Aung, #MarsHelicopter Project Manager, following the delayed images and video being sent to earth enthusiastically said, "We've been talking for so long about our Wright brothers moment. And here it is.”
The shadow of Ingenuity is cast on the Mars surface below it’s first test flight.
“The solar-powered helicopter first became airborne at 3:34 a.m. EDT (12:34 a.m. PDT) – 12:33 Local Mean Solar Time (Mars time) – a time the Ingenuity team determined would have optimal energy and flight conditions. Altimeter data indicate Ingenuity climbed to its prescribed maximum altitude of 10 feet (3 meters) and maintained a stable hover for 30 seconds. It then descended, touching back down on the surface of Mars after logging a total of 39.1 seconds of flight.”
“NASA Associate Administrator for Science Thomas Zurbuchen [note a previous blog entry] announced the name for the Martian airfield on which the flight took place.
“‘Now, 117 years after the Wright brothers succeeded in making the first flight on our planet, NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter has succeeded in performing this amazing feat on another world,” Zurbuchen said. “While these two iconic moments in aviation history may be separated by time and 173 million miles of space, they now will forever be linked. As an homage to the two innovative bicycle makers from Dayton, this first of many airfields on other worlds will now be known as Wright Brothers Field, in recognition of the ingenuity and innovation that continue to propel exploration’” (NASA release).
What an incredible feat.
“Jack of all trades,” but wait… Hogwash.
I have always hated that “Jack of all trades, master of none” quip. It has always made me feel less than. It describes me to a T. I don’t have ONE area of interest or ONE hobby or ONE skill or ONE talent. I dabble in a bunch of stuff. Conventional wisdom seems to say that you need to focus on one sport if you want to be great or that you need to focus on one area of teaching if you want to make an impact. You can’t get distracted by a bunch of interests; you need ONE interest so that you can really get good at it.
I guess I have FOMO when it comes to focusing. I have a myriad of interests. I love tons of different topics. I dabble in a bunch of hobbies. Sure I don’t finish a lot or go really deep like some people do who all they do is live and breath that ONE thing. But I get bored…. out of my gourd. I just like everything. I can hear the naysayers: “Well then you don’t like anything.” Hogwash.
The rest of that little saying says, “… though often better than master of one.” Yes. Yes. Yes. Where have you been all of my life?
I think there are drawbacks to being a master of one. In addition to producing boredom for some, what I learn in one field of study (psychology or physics) informs other areas of knowledge (theology or servant leadership). Being a specialist is cool for some, don’t get me wrong. I just don’t think it should be a universal saying that causes High School kids to play baseball or softball all year long instead of using other muscles and learning different disciplines that could help one be a better player on the field.
So If you use that little adage, please add the last part on it too. I can finally feel good about having so many interests instead of feeling like I need to be a one-trick pony.
A Masterclass in astrophysics, decisions, and so much more.
Oh.my.goodness!!! What an incredible 1:19:00 of learning from Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen, the associate administrator for the science mission directorate at NASA. It is a master class in leadership, decision making, team empowerment, asking the best questions, accepting responsibility, space challenges, what NASA is focusing on in the next decade, and how they are working with commercial companies. So fascinating. I could listen to this guy for hours. It took me forever to finish because he kept sparking ideas and questions in my mind that I had to Google or explore understanding elsewhere. What a joy of learning is has been. And, listen to Shane Parish’s questions. Learn from how he interviews people. So good at teasing out the details that are often mentioned in passing.
This is from Shane’s post outlining the talk: Path to Astrophysics, Life Beyond Earth, What Have We Learned On the International Space Station?, How Are Experiments Conducted on the ISS?, Lessons on Sleep and Immunity From Space, Earth’s Magnetic Field, Decommissioned Satellites and Space Clutter, Top Challenges In Space, How Is Space Governed?, Managing Regulations of Space, Humanity’s First Round Trip to Mars, Will Humans Ever live On Mars?, The Race for Resources on Mars, The Method of Extraction on an Asteroid, Managing The World’s Largest Science Budget, Decision Making Process, Examples of Failed Decisions, How Do You Disseminate What You Learn?, Listen to What’s Not Being Said, Create an Environment for Constant Improvement, Effects of Presidential Leadership on Space Programs, Space Community Embracing Private Sector, How Do you Foster Competition in Space Development.
To be continued…
It’s been two days: two days since being declared Dr. Ramsey. (I will walk in LCU’s graduation ceremony in May.)
Having received a doctorate of ministry (Dmin) simply means that I met the demands and requirements of a program that gives out degrees. (I am so appreciative of my LCU Dmin experience and encourage all to pursue formal educational learning.) I learned how to dig deeper into an area of focus or topic, identify a problem, propose and implement a solution, and then test to see if my hypothesis was correct (according to the standards that I set up). I then had to analyze and evaluate the whole experience. (I also learned that I am a horrible researcher who has to dive down deep into the minutia-for that is where the real discovery resides.) The experience taught me much-needed discipline (which I don’t naturally come by when it comes to dedicated study. I’m more relational.) Throughput all of my schooling (including the completion of my terminal degree) and my personal learning, I have learned how to learn, and for this, I am very grateful. It has been amazing.
However, I still feel that same way. Nothing has actually changed. With the title of Dr. in front of my name, I still don’t have THE corner on truth or the answers for a myriad of topics; and for some, no most, questions, absolutely no answers. There is still so much about life I haven’t a clue about. I certainly don’t have more certainty; I may even have less. (The more one knows the more one realizes the less he knows.) I must now guard against me thinking, and others assuming, that I know something or that my voice has more weight in a discussion because I have a recognized title. Nonsense.
I love what Paul writes that could apply here: “Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ” (Gal 1:10).
I follow Jesus who wore no titles but simply served, loved, and gave himself as a sacrifice. Sounds like a great model to continue to adopt. I am still a learner who has so much to learn, so much to unlearn, and so much room to grow as an apprentice of Jesus, fellow human, and a curious “wonderer” of this incredible world in which we all get to live. May the learning… to be continued...
Finally…After 10 years. It is finished!
About 2:30 pm on Wednesday, April 14, after an hour or more of questioning for my oral exam, I returned to the Google Meet screen, following their deliberation, to hear Drs. Neal Windham and Barney Wells greet me with these words: “Congratulations, Dr. Ramsey.”
Wow. Finally… after 10 years… it is finished. I started the long journey of my Doctor of Ministry studies at Lincoln Christian University in January of 2011. Just after my classwork started, during the fall of 2011, we knocked down the back of our house, and over the next four years, rebuilt the addition (53 weeks without a kitchen!). Exhausting years. Following my classwork, I was stuck. I had an impossible time choosing a topic/issue and the right ministry context (the vehicle) to study, address, and execute a practical ministry project that would not only meet my requirements but be beneficial to me and the Church. I didn’t want to dismantle any of the classes that I was teaching because they were structured the way I wanted them. I looked for other issues and contexts but to no avail.
Finally, an opportunity came about that I could dive in and finish this long journey. My great friend and colleague of 30 years (at both Central Church of Christ in Streator, IL and at LCU), Bob Monts, retired. With an already overloaded schedule, I begged the Dean to let me teach Bob’s old class, Evangelism, Discipleship, and Faith Development, so that I could complete my degree. Time was running out! Using the Discipleship and Faith Development portion of the course for the scope of my project, I asked the 22 Christian Ministry students for their consent to participate as my “guinea pigs” to be participants in my study. They all agreed. We learned a lot.
The Dmin is a practical ministry setting doctoral degree so I developed 26 sessions that would serve as the focus on my research. I gave them a pretest on the first day of class and then compared their answers to the posttest, their Discipleship Strategy assignment at the end of the curriculum. The rest was up to me to analyze, evaluate, and synthesize my learning to determine how effective the curriculum I developed was in preparing Christian ministry students to craft a Discipleship Strategy for the future churches in which they would serve. The primary focus of the curriculum was to aid 21st-century disciples to grow from a certainty, fixed, rigid, and often rented faith to a confident, flexible, anti-fragile personally owned faith. [You can read it HERE. Just note that it often reads like a recipe or a phone book!]
And it passed. I passed. Finally. Whew.
This also marks my 20th year of teaching at LCU. I never dreamed that when I reluctantly agreed to come to teach here that I would, first of all, love it as much as I do, and secondly, I would have stayed as long as I have. But I have loved every bit of it. It is because of the incredible community that LCU is as well as the incredible students that I have had the honor of teaching (and really learning with). With that said, here is the last paragraph in the Acknowledgments section of my 200-page project paper:
“Thank you to the twenty-two students of CM315 at Lincoln Christian University who walked through this journey of learning about Discipleship and Faith Development with me (and are the subjects of this project) during the Fall 2020 semester, as well as to all the students for the last twenty years who I have learned with, as they helped shape my thinking, interpreted the crazy drawings on the whiteboards, and served as a sounding board through discussions that forged the ideas for the curriculum that was ultimately developed for this project. It has been an absolute honor to be a very short part of your long journeys with Jesus. Thanks for being a part of mine.”
With all of that said, I have always hated titles in the Church and among learners in a community. We are one in Christ. I will not be using that title but prefer to be simple called Rondel. But boy it does feel good to have that checked off my list!
The synchronization of science
The synchronization of science. A fantastic 20-minute video that explores order in chaos from nature. Gotta love the wonder of our world. Thumbprints of our Creator everywhere.
Help! Taking on a new, difficult challenge
I was asked by a former student for some wisdom concerning moving into a new, but very difficult, role. And the organization is a mess.
Here is what I said:
I would read anything by Lencioni (The Advantage), reread 7 habits by Covey, and anything Simon Sinek. Then…
Define Reality. Ask hard questions with other leaders. Do a SWOT analysis (INNER: Strengths and Weaknesses. OUTER: Opportunities and Threats)
Clarify a Vision. Where does the organization need to be in 3 years, 1 year, and 3 months. (After the 1st months, adjust the 3 year and 1 year perspective based on what you learned in this initial initiative.
Develop an Execution Plan. Identify 6-8 key areas that will help you to get from reality to the preferred vision.
Eat an Elephant. Take one bite at a time.
Guard Your Heart. Work hard but guard your heart, time, and family. Don’t get sucked into the vortex to make this happen on your own.
This is what I would tell anyone for any challenge that must be faced. And pray for wisdom.
It Seems that … Everything is Interpretation
Everything, EVERYTHING, is interpretation. Eyes only detect light. Brains only detect nerve electrical impulses. We, as babies, learned via testing to make a theory out of those sparks to construct a theory in our brains that seem to correspond to others' theories. It's a theory.
That theory gets stronger when we add what we hear, and then we taste it, and then touch it, and then smell it, and then confer with others and we make a pretty compelling case for a FACT. But it is still our theory. Because there is no way for the US in our brain to actually experience anything outside of our brain, so we have to rely on saying, "It seems to be..."
We don't start out that way of course. Instead, we start out with, "It IS..." Until we are "proven" wrong by another "It IS-er!" And then we adjust.
It might be good to live life a bit more humbly. "It seems to be..." needs to be used in politics, pandemic discussions, theology discussion, marriage advice, parenting insights, any topic you want to choose. Most of us have constructed a set of facts that we deem are absolutely correct and beyond refute. When that is the case, we sentence ourselves to never learning anything beyond what we currently KNOW to be absolutely true right now.
"It seems that ..." we have to have the intellectual curiosity and humility to ask questions and always be willing to update the mental maps of the reality that exists just outside our skulls.
This means that my position may not be 100% accurate. My mental map may need some updating. But that map will never be updated when I view the totality of the topic as absolutely true and that I can’t be right, and the person(s) who hold contrary positions are wrong. When arguments to defend our positions fail, we often opt for character assignation. Our integrity is on the line. I must defend at all cost. Buttons down the hatches to keep out all other information that may sway my facts. And go on the attack. Welcome to social media in 2020.
But I don't know for sure. It's just what I have concluded so far.
What implications does this have for you?
To what degree are you even aware of this?
How difficult is it for you to admit that you might be wrong on a particular point of your position?
How would you ever know that you might be wrong? (What counter-arguments do you allow into the echo-chamber of your reality creator/brain that could serve as “fact” checker)?
Stuck, with absolutely no options
How many of us throw up our hands, pout off to our corner, or sit and cry out of complete exhaustion and frustration when we find ourselves stuck.
Being stuck could be as simple as not being able to decide which restaurant to at for your birthday dinner when grandpa is buying!. You have just too many. Stuck could be trying to decide whether to marry him/her or not or to keep dating a bit more hope there will be a change. Stuck could also be smack dab in the middle of a spirit killing job that is draining the life out of you but there are absolutely no options for the needed change.
Stuck can be a whole host of situations where we find ourselves with absolutely no options…. or so we think. Stuck isn’t always, really stuck. It’s just stuck so far, right before we have that breakthrough, that aha moment, that spark of imagination, that flicker of light through the crushing crags of our suffocating rock enforced situation.
Now don’t get me wrong. There are times when there are absolutely no options to our being stuck. However, those times are fewer than you might think.
Yes, it may take extra energy, sacrifice beyond what one could imagine, painful loss of our current reality that we have accepted as our only option. But it rarely is. So, what can we do when we truly feel stuck, with absolutely no options.
I love how the Heath brothers, in their book, Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work., offer a plan for getting unstuck.
We must WRAP our imagination around the possibility of getting unstuck. And that is really the first action before we work through their acrostic plan,: we have to have a vision for wanting to get unstuck. We have to tap into the inner resources that can help to use to the unthinkable to get unstuck. We have to capture or paint a vision of a different reality that we currently are in.
That is what Aron Ralston had to do when we found himself literally stuck, between a rock and hard place in the Bluejohn Canyon in Utah, with absolutely no options. During a solo hiking venture a boulder shifted, “pinning his right wrist to the side of the canyon wall.” He had no options. However, he did. But it wasn’t one that he wanted to take. It would be too painful. It would be completely unimaginable. If anyone was stuck, with absolutely no options, it was Aron. However, it was not. The option he chose was to use his dull pocketknife to amputate his arm and free him from his stuck situation where he would have surely died. And that is what he chose. But it took the willingness to see a different future that can often start by answering the questions: If I woke up tomorrow and.my situation was completely different but was exactly like I want it to be, what would that look like? Yes, it may be too grandiose. It takes big ideas to get humans unstuck in our own minds first before we can ever entertain possible options of actually getting existentially unstuck.
After we can mentally come to terms what it may take to get unstuck, like Aron had to, we then can walk through the WRAP acrostic offered by Chip and Dan Heath.
WIDEN YOUR OPTIONS
This is where we brainstorm all possible options, the crazy, the outlandish, the ridiculous, the ones that may cost more money than we possibly could imagine. They need to be big, hairy, and audacious as Jim Collins and Jerry Porras would coin in Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies.” Get writing. Anything and everything. Most of the ideas will never, ever be a possibility. But that doesn’t matter right now We are trying to get unstuck from the paradigms that bind us our current reality. We are trying to get our brains moving. It’s like when your car is stuck in the snow. You may want to go right but at this point we just have to get unstuck first AND then we can steer in a different direction. Sweep the cobwebs out of your imagination. Write them all down.
REALITY TEST YOUR ASSUMPTIONS
Next, we are going to test each of the options that we brainstormed, and evaluate them the most realistic or even remotely possible options.
This is important here. We have to keep our imaginations on high creative alert because some of the big, hairy, and audacious ideas would completely out of the picture but they can act as a catalyst to other possible options that were overlooked in the first round of brainstorming. These would be secondary options: ones that you would have NEVER considered in your previous stuck situation. They are the options on the other side of the ridge that can’t be seen from being stuck. However, once you start rattling off all of these options en route toward a new reality, secondary options come into the focus of possibility.
We have to look at each of the options square in the eye and begin choosing the ones that have a slight possibility of being realistic options. We can’t go with 100% realistic; that is what often gets us stuck in the first place. The good is often sacrificed on the altar of the perfect and we remain stuck. So inventory your options for possibilities. And then begin to choose the ones you can reality test. This takes doing your homework, going on a fact-finding mission to see which ones, with a little work, might actually have some potential.
It’s also important to choose the ones that could tap into your intrinsic motivation (your deepest wants) providing you with the fortitude and energy to push through some natural obstacles, hopefully not like cutting off your arm, but possibly, metaphorically similar.
ATTAIN DISTANCE BEFORE DECIDING
Once we have narrowed down the most realistic options (keeping the ones we have scrapped for later imaginative sparks), we need to take a step back. Sometimes, our eagerness for the short-term relief of being unstuck can blind us to the long-term negatives that we may need to consider. In Aron’s situation, there really wasn’t time for this stage. He faced death or death. Not much of an option. We often have more time. The Heath brothers suggest asking what we might tell a best friend to do if they were in a similar situation. We may simply sleep on it. However, we must be careful, our unconscious stuck self, unwilling to do what is seemingly too difficult may quietly whisper sabotaging messages intent on blowing up our newly brainstormed options.
PREPARE TO BE WRONG
Finally, we have narrow down options, again brainstorming ALL possible strategies that we could use to carry out and implement this newly discovered option. We have to formulate and be prepared to execute our plan, always choosing the steps that would provide the biggest bang for the buck, or in this case, be motivationally satisfying that we are actually starting to get unstuck.
But we must be prepared to be wrong. This may seems like a momentum stopper.. It could be but it is actually helping us develop the ability to face reality. That is what Aron had to do. This may be a wrong option. Help could just be around the corner. And yet I must face reality and proceed with eyes wide open.
One suggestion that Dan and Chip offer is conducting a premortem. The premortem is when you visualize that the option you chose was actually the wrong one and it completely failed. But by going through this mental exercise you are learning what could go wrong which would inadvertently derail any forward progress you would be making. To get unstuck, one must face the reality of a difficult road ahead or else you would have been unstuck long ago.. Easy options were spent up a long time ago.
As you begin working this new plan, as difficult as it may be at first and even throughout the grueling process, your motivation starts to increase as you see a small dim light at the end of the long tunnel you have been stuck in for so long. You couldn’t have seen it before because you so strongly believed that you were so stuck, with absolutely no options.
In addition to preparing being wrong, you must prepare for parts of the plain to fail or need to be adjusted. Practice what you might say or do if part of the plan collapses on the road out of being stuck.
Here is the reality. We often find ourselves in stuck situations., but we are only stuck there by the prison guard of our own brains. The rut we find ourselves in seems more comforting because we know what it is than the unknown, scary possibilities that are out there. And so we sit, stuck, with no options.
But that just isn’t the case.
To put a fine point on this post, I encourage you to watch an absolutely brilliant sudoku-puzzle-solving video by Simon Anthony who felt stuck in his online puzzle because he was given crazy rules and just two numbers on the sudoku board. Watching him work through his situation where he found himself stuck, with absolutely no options is a joy to watch.
And it will be a joy to watch you get unstuck, as you begin working on your own life puzzle as you break out from your stuck situation.
Blessings.
Rondel
Thanks, Dr. Bob Monts, A Creative Maestro of Learning
Congrats Dr. Bob Monts on retirement.
May 31, 2020, will officially mark the day that you retire as a full-time professor at Lincoln Christian University. Although you will still be teaching at LCU as an adjunct professor, and we are excited about that, it is a sad day for me. We have worked together, created incredible learning experiences for teens and adults alike together, and have gotten in trouble together just having fun and enjoying life. You will be missed by our campus. I will miss you a ton.
You are not only a friend, but you have been a mentor, a teacher to me (as well as countless other learners), and have shaped the way that I innovatively create learning environments and experiences for students by igniting imaginations, equipping, and unleashing them to maturity. When students thank me for a creative class, I quickly say that I learned everything from you!
From the first day I met you until today, I always walk away with new insights, inspirations, and a firm assurance of your friendship and love. I will miss our friendly debates about theology or class pedagogy. I will miss the times that we sat in each other’s classes, played devil’s advocate and learned from each other. I will miss the practical jokes (that I usually played on you. Ha.)!!!
I love listening and learning from you, Bob. You are a master. A maestro of learning. I have stolen thousands of ideas from you over the years (most, I give credit to you, but probably some I don’t!). You make me better as a person, professor, and curious learner. I love every conversation with you. The clever insights you share, in class or in the hallway, are always fresh, intelligent, and catalytic. You have always stimulated my thinking, sparked my creativity, and challenged my assumptions; you have helped me grow as a Christian leader. I am always blessed and will be forever grateful.
I remember the first time I met you in Putnam, IL. Several areas ministers gathered at your house to put together a week of 8-9th grade camp. Little did I know that my initiation into the crazy world of Bob 33 years ago would have such a profound impact on me creatively, professionally, theologically, pedagogically, philosophically, epistemologically (and probably a bunch of other hundred dollar “oligical” words)!!! That first camp season, we didn’t just pull out last year’s camp template. You pulled out a blank slate and we started with what we wanted the students to discover instead of what we wanted to teach. And we crafted one of the most creative weeks of summer camp I had been a part. This set the standard for how I did and do camps, retreats, leadership conferences, preaching, teaching, or even having conversations at McDs. That standard was to not teach material to passive listeners but to engage them with paradigmatic altering questions, silence, conundrums, learning experiences, and aha moment discoveries. You taught me that students must discover the lessons and insights we want them to learn, not just tell them pre-packaged information we want them to remember and regurgitate on an exam. And I did discover it by watching and teaching (creating discovery experiences) right along with you at Rock River Christian Camp in Polo, IL, serving together for a decade at Central Church of Christ in Streator, IL, and then after a taking a break from working together for a couple of years, teaching together at Lincoln Christian University for the last 18 years.
I am thankful for all of those collaborative ministry experiences we had together at Central (along with Tim Hughes, our faithful leader) designing learning experiences for the great folks in Streator, whether that be teacher training weekends, family nights, leadership development experiences, Sunday school classes, and of course, camp. When you left, I was bummed.
But the fun continued as I followed you to LCU a few years later to teach youth and family ministry. I was so excited to learn with other LCU students from you. Students love your classes and are always engaged because they do not passively sit and receive information lectured from a podium (what is a podium??) but learn through creative discovery learning experiences. I was always impressed with the learning environments in your classes as demonstrated by the hip hop music blasting out of the room, dancing a crazy jig, Friday Kahoot days (which I would almost always hop in on even though I would get 17th out of the class!), greeting your students as they enter the room in fun ways, engaging in thought-provoking discussions and challenging questions, the laughter, and the freedom to explore and challenge ideas appropriately.
And yes, I will miss walking past your room turning off the lights and running out of sight to you yelling my name as if you would be able to catch me.
You exemplify the kind of servant leader Lincoln Christian University aims to develop, those who present Christ in the church and the world.
Lincoln Christian University has been blessed to have you teach, mentor, and model life as a servant leader professor for the last many years. And happily, you will still be teaching intensives and online, but I won’t be able to shut the lights off when you are teaching online. So it is an end of an era. One that I am again bummed about, but excited for you to be a full-time husband, dad, and grandpa.
I guess I just want to say, thanks a ton. My life would not be what it is if I hadn’t crossed paths with you in Putnam. I am filled with joy because of you.
Love you, Bob. Well done. And oh yeah, Jesus love you!
“I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” Phil 1:3-6.
Anxiety and Confidence
““Avoiding fear creates anxiety. At the heart of every chronic anxiety issue is a simple process: When you try to eliminate or run away from fear, you teach your brain to be afraid of fear itself. In the long-run, this makes you chronically anxious. If you immediately “attack” or “flee” from your fear anytime it comes up, your brain is understandably going to start thinking of fear itself as a threat and danger. This means it’s going to be increasingly on guard and hypervigilant to anything that might make you anxious or afraid. And if it finds something, it’s going to make you even more anxious!””
I read Nick Wignall’s “4 Habits of Highly Confident People” article in Medium and despite the rest of the really well-written article on confidence, the above quote just jumped out at me about anxiety. (Read the entire article to help build confidence!)
It is so important.
The article actually starts this way:
“When most people think of the word confidence, they associate it with a lack of fear or self-doubt. They look on in wonder, for example, at that confident coworker who seems to just speak their mind without a care in the world for what other people think. And while it’s true that confident people often feel less anxious than the rest of us, there’s more to the story of highly confident people: Confidence isn’t the absence of fear. It’s the belief that you’ll be okay despite your fear. In other words, confident people haven’t figured out how to eliminate fear — they’ve changed their relationship to it.”
Anxiety has taken over the mental attics of people’s lives. I often half “jokingly” say that I am going to start keeping a list of people who don’t have anxiety than ones who do. What is going on? I have some hunches but the jury is still out on. I think what Nick writes has a lot of merit. From my study on the topic, the brain has to be trained or taught to overcome the overwhelming power of anxiety. Now don’t get me wrong; I am not again medicines. In fact, I am in favor of medicine to help alleviate the incapacity that anxiety creates. However, not just medicine alone. Medicine can buy some time while a person spend the time and makes the effort to train the brain not to allow an amygdala highjacking whenever it so wants to.
One of my favorite books that helped me better understand the power of the workings of the brain is Dr. Jeffery Swartz’s You Are Not Your Brain. Swartz provides the insights needed to better understand what is going inside our 3 pound center of our universe and to better shape how it responds to the highjackings it often seeks.
In Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard, the Heath brothers use the imagery of an elephant, the rider, and the path. (Here is a great, short video explaining it) The elephant is like our emotions (I am adding where that fight or flight feeling starts from the amygdala). The rider is like our mind or our thinking, rational self (that know that the the feeling is just a feeling but just can’t stop the panic attack). And the path is how you shape your environment so that the rider can actually control the elephant, which without a path there would be no way to stop a huge elephant from running amuck.
(I recently watched a TikTok video of a guy explaining the same principle using a car when talking about how to help young children grow up. He said that the emotions are like the gas pedal. Kids are born with that but not steering wheel or brakes. Child rearing is helping kids and teenagers learn how to drive their lives, controlling the powerful emotions (which are good but can cause one to crash and burn OR throw a temper tantrum), by developing the skills to steer (rational thinking, directions, goals, etc) and to brake. I really like that. When a two year throws a fit, it’s just that she doesn’t have a steering wheel or any brakes yet to stop the emotional car from going out of control. We have to have patience with toddlers and with teens and adults as we all learn how to control the powerful elephants deep inside our brains. We are not the sum total of what the messages from our inner brains tell us. We have to learn how to use our brakes and steering wheels to stay on the road (path) we before us.
It is not a quick fix. It is a lot of work. It takes a lot of time, maybe years or even a lifetime (It may just be how some humans are wired) It may require seeking professional help and medicine, along with spiritual practices that can aid in shaping the path toward a better future.
One step at a time! We can do it.
Future or Present Self
You should always ask if what you are doing is for Future self or Present self. It's deceptive.
Present Self is only a tick in time and then it immediately turns into Past Self, locked in history. It's so short-sighted.
Doing for Future self is always an investment.
It's living.
Check out Matthew McConoughey's 2014 Oscar's Best Actor Speech (the last minute)
Just why is there something instead of nothing?
One of the best questions of all time: why is there something instead of nothing? I love thinking about it often. It makes me feel small, insignificant, vulnerable.
Philosophically speaking. What’s nothing like before something? And what prompted God (for theists) to do (bang, there was energy) something, really?
And for atheists, before all the unlikely lucky encounters, before the primordial soup and the right zap of energy that sparked the Big Bang, where did those ingredients come from? Before the spark? Theists and atheists alike can only but guess, imagine, ponder, extrapolate, tell a narrative that unfolds into a story of faith. Challenge each and they’ll both retort with a claim that their storyline is absolute certainty.
Data is data, and none of it comes with its own integrated interpretative key that can settle the conflict.
If you say “the Bible says” or “science says,” either way, you’re developing an interpretation, based on a story you hold to be absolutely true. But in the end, it is a story of faith, that helps us make sense of reality. For me, I make sense of this crazy little thing called life through a theistic lens, with all of its difficulties.. I can understand the reasons that some have chosen another lens through which to draw conclusions of the wonder of this universe.
It would help if we all just openly confessed our biases (we all have ‘em) and our utilization of faith.
However, without picking sides for a moment, can’t we agree to simply ask why is there something instead of nothing and marvel at how incredible, beautiful, intriguing, and captivating it all is and that we even have the brain power to even contemplate such a monstrously deep question?
One Strange Rock
I’m mesmerized by the BBC’s Planet Earth series, One and Two.
I absolutely love Steven Johnson’s How We Got To Now: The book AND the Documentary on Amazon Prime.
(I was alerted that I need to watch Night on Earth on Netflix… that is next!)
I just finished Darren Aronofsky & Nat Geographic’s One Strange Rock, & I was brought to tears at its beauty, cinematography, the 8 astronaut’s perspective wonder of our world! It’s a little freaky, and a bit disconcerting, because it pulls back the curtains and lifts up the covers on what really goes on throughout the earth, and what could happen! It’s so well done.
It’s completely from a naturalistic perspective, such as there are no answers for how the primordial soup and energy got there to start all the wonder!!! To me, it screams Creator, but I’m okay with it all. It’s beautiful. It’s illuminating. It’s imaginatively inspiring.
It’s available to you on your Disney+ app!!!
As the 10th and final episode was concluding, I had tears in my eyes listening to the reflections of the astronauts tell their love for their home… earth. Wow. Just wow!
Hackney Church, London, Easter Services
I really like the production quality of this service, via the social distancing world. I wanted to post it so I could keep a memory of the creativity.
Too Many Daves: A bedtime story
A bedtime story of Dr. Suess's "Too Many Daves," one of my favorites
The Zax: A bedtime story
I thought I would get in on the trend to read a bedtime story for the kiddos out there. Enjoy.
I don’t know what I don’t know
What we don’t understand we often dismiss, while emboldening that which we’re confidently certain of. However, no measure of our certainty makes that what we don’t understand untrue or irrelevant. It’s just that we have no knowledge or comprehension of it. It’s beyond the schema that I have built up until this point. Feynman said, “The more you know, the more you know what you don’t know.” And, the less you know the less you know that you don’t know. It feels like I’m at that point of learning and understanding of my world, our world, the universe right now. Too much reading, watching, thinking about quantum physics, cosmology, epistemology, etc. So much more of what I didn’t know (and discovering) confronts what I do know with confidence. I normally enjoy this ride.
Although this time, it feels a bit disconcerting, very humbling, and is definitely creating in me a new wonder of what else will I discover that initiate paradigm shifts in my mind. (It gets harder to ride experiences these updates- I figured I should have most things figured out by now. Not even close. It’s happened multiple times in my life and will again in the future. And every time it happens with such degree makes me feel small, insignificant, not wanting to open my mouth to share my insights and yet more curious to again update my knowledge and understanding frameworks of reality.
So here we go again.