As a teacher, I spend a lot of time talking about responsibility. It is something we want the kids to learn. Our first reading unit’s theme is risks & consequences, it really leads into responsibility. I am frustrated by responsibility. Why is it something we want kids to learn, but can’t expect from their associated adults? And instead pass that responsibility to others, who are not given the authority to take it?
It’s Halloween. Sitting in my cubicle, working — or rather writing this post — you would never know it. There is no candy, no decorations and no costumes. It is business as usual. I guess you can say that it is any “anti-Halloween celebrating” persons dream.
Bethie and I have both talked about this day and we both sort of agree on why celebrating it traditionally is sort of “evil” in a way, even although I am usually inclined to give in to the cultural aspect of the celebrations, Bethie on the other hand is determined to not. We are however not completely opposed to celebrating “Dia de los Muertos”, and why? well perhaps because it sounds more culturally meaningful than Halloween, or because we both know little about it. So I decided to do a little bit of research and compare the two holidays. I doubt that my findings will do anything in terms of persuading us to view either one of these holidays any different than we do now.
Halloween:
Dia de los Muertos:
As you can see both of these holidays are very much rooted in paganism if you want to be technical, but if you want to be really technical so is our beloved Christmas holiday, the celebration of birthdays, Valentines Day, The Easter Rabbit etc…
So what’s the point in celebrating any holiday at all?
A friend and I were chatting and talking about getting rid of things that stand between us and God (burning them, actually). I laughed, saying my computer would be first to go. He said he’d have to throw himself into the fire, which opens up a whole other conversation on loving wrath, but basically, we agree that the problems in our lives are not always the actual problem.
I’ve thought about this a lot lately, that my computer is usually the reason I neglect my time with God. My excuse is usually something to the effect of “there’s something I need to do on the computer” and it sucks. Unfortunately, getting rid of the computer would be for me the same as my friend tossing out his tools. It just so happens that the same “tool” which brings us income is the same “toy” that gets in the way of my relationship with God.
I’ve decided the problem isn’t with the computer, but me. I’m a human being, made in God’s image, which gives me an incredible super power allowing me to control my own behavior. It’s amazing, this thing called “will power”, that let’s me decide all by myself what to do with my time. I just need a little practice, exercise, and discipline and I’ll be a super hero in charge of my own life!
My mom left my dad when I was five. She had thought of every possible excuse she would think of for us to stay, and had thought of a way out of each one. She packed all of our clothes in boxes and had them shipped to my Aunt in Ensenada a few days before we left. She then packed wood and a few rocks in boxes and left them in the closet as to give my dad the impression that we were coming back. She had put up with enough abuse from him and was ready to leave. At the bus station not much was said between them, yet by the way they stared at each other I knew they had so much more to say, but there was only silence. My dad walked me to the small food stand a few steps away and it was then that I realized that somehow he knew we weren’t coming back. He knelt beside me and kissed me on my cheek. I remember the prickly feeling of his mustache against my face, and the strong smell of cigar. He held my tiny hands in his and quietly said
“I am going to follow the bus for as long as I can, so look for me ok.?
I thought that maybe he had gone through the boxes in the closet and figured out mom’s scheme to not come back, but I now believe that it was that insight that parents seem to have about their kids, a peculiar insight that lets parents know “things? (sometimes all things) about their kids.
Those were the last words he said to me, that was his good-bye.
My mom didn’t speak much once we were on the bus and my sister who was older probably understood a little more what was going on and was crying quietly. I turned to my mom who was holding my hand to ask her when we could come back, but just before I did I noticed tears in her eyes and that scared me. What could possibly be so bad to make my mom cry? As the bus started on the highway I looked for dad’s blue El Camino with the distinctive white camper. I saw his car cut in front of the bus. It gave me comfort and I stared out the window, afraid to look away lest I might loose him out of sight.
I wanted him to know that I saw him, that I saw his car and that I loved him, but the bus kept moving and didn’t stop. A few blocks further my dad made a right turn and our bus kept driving straight. I was five and I was confused. Tears were now streaming down my moms face and my sister’s crying wasn’t quiet anymore. I wanted to cry because I was hurting but I didn’t understand what hurt or where. I wanted to be held by my dad the way he had held me earlier, but he had made a right turn and the bus kept driving straight.
In all the jobs that I have had and with everyone that I have worked with, there comes a moment when the folks who make the important decisions and who ultimately sign my paycheck ask themselves a variation of the same question, “How does this fit within our brand strategy?”. It doesn’t matter what it is they’re talking about; it could be a new brochure, an internal newsletter or something less tangible like a new service. The answer to that question usually leads to frustrating conversations about how many times a logo needs to appear on one brochure or that “the logo needs to be bigger”.
What makes these conversations so frustrating for me are not the decisions that are being made, but the fact that these decisions are being made on the inaccurate idea that a brand or branding begins and ends with a logo or a color scheme.
So for the record, branding is not your logo; it is not your color scheme or your tagline. Branding is the idea of who you are in the minds of those you come in contact with, and so, a brand is made up of every experience and interaction that others have with you or your service.
If this is true with companies is it also true with individuals? I suggest, yes! We all have our own personal brand and it is not just the labels that we wear in public (Artist, Musician, Christian, Muslim… etc.). These are labels that describe our character the way we see our character, but our personal brand like that of a company is not so much about who we think we are, but who others think we are, and it too is made up of every experience and interaction with us. It is not the label we use to describe our character; it is our character itself that makes up our personal brand.
I couldn’t help but think of several companies that have redone their “brand” in the past several months, some have been successful at it, others only time will tell, but like all of these should we examine if our personal brand needs a facelift?
What is your brand about?
Every week or so I have to teach my students new words and discuss how they are spelled, suffixes, etc. I also practice reading sentences with the students for increased fluency. The sentences I am given are blah. So, I started making up poems to use instead. Here are some that I will use to start the year:
The bird, I’m afraid, was caught in the rope.
The cat, I’m afraid, stalked full of hope.
The bird, it is said, was crazily squawking
while the kind little mouse was franticly gnawing.
The first day I was feeling nervous,
some of the kids looked somewhat treacherous.
And the teacher, was she dangerous?
but thankfully, it all turned out marvelous.
I have to use certain words, so the subjects of the poems are very random. It has been kinda fun to be creative though.
So can you tell the difference in these two pictures? Well, we are dressed differently, we are groomed differently, and if you said “beth is wearing an engagement ring” you guessed it. YUP! I asked Beth to marry me on Wednsday night and she said yes.
Beth and I have been dating on-and-off for about seven years and during that time we have had many opportunities to practice patience, trust, talking, listening, caring, being upset, laughing, smiling, being quiet and listening to God. We are almost avarage at some of them. We are good at others, and we need a lot of help on some. Still we are very excited to spend our lives together.
So now the engagement stats:
So as we get ready to join the ranks of married couples we realize how new we are at this and so we welcome the advice and prayers from all our married friends and family (if you are not married we welcome your advice and prayers too).
I just got back from spending 5 days in San Jose with my family. My sister, Becky, is going to have a baby in a few weeks and my mom was going on a retreat, so I went up, just in case. The first day I was there, we went to dinner at my brother’s new house. It was just us kids, me, peter, his wife Stephanie, Becky and my nieces. (Stephanie should get a medal; she has an almost-3 year old, and an infant, along with most of their stuff still in boxes and no running water in the kitchen. And she still made a great dinner for all of us.) A couple days later, they all came over to mom’s house and I made dinner. I was thinking that it was cool that just us kids get together. I remembered another time when we all got together for dinner.
Once in college we had Thanksgiving dinner together when my parents went to my grandmother’s funeral in Wisconsin. Peter and Becky made everything: turkey, stuffing, potatoes, etc. (Peter stuffed the turkey the night before, and then had to un-stuff it so we didn’t get sick.) They were so excited that it was the earliest dinner we’ve ever had. And it was really good.
I feel really blessed and happy to have a family that likes to be around each other, even when mom didn’t say we had to be. I love them a lot, and I know that they love me too.
I saw ‘World Trade Center‘ a couple of days ago and thought that Stone did a pretty good job considering the eggshells of controversy he had to walk on to film it.
My only fear going into it was that it was going to be another ‘Flag waving God Bless America good old boy gung ho tearjerker of a movie’ and was pleased to see that it wasn’t any of that. There were no political undertones, no conspiracy theories, and no sensationalism; there is even a brief montage of world citizenry glued to television sets displaying looks of concern as they watch on the reports of the attacks on CNN. Stone knows full well — he pointed it out during the famous Alice Tully Hall panel in October 2001 — which a large swath of humanity, from Greece to Gaza, erupted into a spontaneous dance party upon hearing the news of the hit on America, yet Stone omitted these scenes.
The movie took me back to the morning of September 11. I walked to work and even after hearing about the planes crashing into the towers, I went about my normal tasks. I didn’t feel very affected by the crash or the crumbling of the buildings; everything seemed so far away from me. I don’t aim at downplaying the horror of the event, and the pain that went far beyond lives that were lost that day, but it was the stories of individuals who should have been in the towers, but were not that really resonated with me.
The story of a woman who felt devastated after being fired from her job in the 64th floor of tower 1 the day before the attacks, the man who was never late to work and on this day for the firs time his alarm didn’t wake him. There were dozens of barely-missed saved by chance stories, and I have heard some people say that these folks were very lucky. I happen to disagree with them, see I look at luck in the same way an atheist looks at God. I believe that these people were not saved by luck, but by the stealthy workings of God. I can already hear the cynical ask “does this mean God decided not to save those who died?” I can’t really tell you for sure what God was doing or not doing in the lives of all those who tragically died. However, I can tell you from witnessing lives touched and transformed as a missionary and from events like these, that God sometimes does intervene in peoples lives in dramatic ways, other times in subtle ways, and sometimes what we see as misfortune is really a blessing — as cliché as that may sound.
I have to reflect on how many times I have felt like life handed me the short end of the stick after whacking me around with it a while and how many times I have cried out “Woe is me”, not realizing that my misfortune was a way of God keeping me from danger, either spiritual or physical. I suspect that someday we will know how much God intervened in our lives, I also suspect that we will feel humbled to know how much God was involved in much of what we attribute to “luck” or “misfortune” and how blessed we are to have a God who loves us in spite of us.