INSERT INTO `wp_posts` VALUES (8312,204,'2013-01-16 20:23:23','2013-01-17 04:23:23','I have a love-hate relationship with Ayn Rand. Its kind of like the song Willie Nelson and Snoop Dogg sing together, \"Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die.\" One the one hand, I don\'t want to encourage recreational drug use, but on the other, I can\'t help but chuckle at the irony of this song sung by two famous recreational drug users. The song draws me in and then I realize that as much as I like the song, smoking dope would not go over very well with my wife. I get the same feeling when I read Ayn Rand. Effort, she says, is something that I must do on my own and not at the cost of another\'s loss. She draws me in, and then she explains I should not consider others\' interests because life is about me and my interests. My problem with her ethical theory is that I have to coexist with my wife.\r\n\r\nAyn Rand\'s ethical theory is fairly simple: I should only take actions and make decisions by using my natural ability to think rationally. Therefore, I must only act according to my interests, not those of others or those of a group. Rand would not want me to save a stranger from a burning building if it means that I risk loosing my life, or if I have nothing to gain personally by sacrificing myself for a stranger. However, I should save my wife from a burning building because I need her to wash my clothes, bear my children, and cook my dinner (keep in mind Rand is a woman). If an emergency does happen, then I should volunteer to help strangers (after all, you don\'t want to look like a total jerk), while not risking my life and not dedicating the rest of my life to help these strangers. To put it another way, people should help other people not because of notions of obligation or duty (like first responders), but because of notions motivated by reason and personal self-interest (like Bernie Madoff). In Ayn Rand\'s world every man is a king and every woman is a queen. In her world, brotherly and sisterly love are optional. But in the real world, I am a king because my wife lets me, and to love someone else is to see the face of God.\r\n\r\nIn 1916 Einstein presented his general theory of relativity. In it he asserted that space is not three-dimensional and time is not a separate entity—space and time are different aspects of the same something—and all measurements involving space and time are not absolute. Einstein\'s theory of relativity opened the door for scientist to push the boundaries of human imagination. The deterministic world of solid objects in the Newtonian world view came under fresh scrutiny. There came a sense of an alive universe. Instead of being isolated, everything seemed to connect.\r\n\r\nIn 1900 Max Planck delivered a paper that rocked the scientific world. His paper displaced the notion that energy comes only in continuous waves with that of bundles of energy. Planck called these bundles of energy \"quanta\" and was able to show that these bundles could behave both as waves and particles at the same time. The idea that quanta were real was so counter-intuitive that Planck himself could not make this leap of faith. In 1968 scientists smashed electrons into protons and neutrons and discovered \"quarks.\"\r\n\r\nThe early explorers warned us that to try to summarize quantum theory is to risk sounding mystical. Einstein was not willing to accept that quarks could travel faster than the speed of light. Yet, towards the end of his life he admitted that it is impossible to get anywhere in quantum theory without sinning against reason. Observing a quark can instantaneously influence the behavior of another distant quark and appear in two places at the same time—even if no physical force connects the two. The evidence for these intuitions of \"quantum entanglement\" emerged with Bell\'s Theorem in the 1960s. This theory is often described in poetic terms, but one that reflects the true nature of the theory: the flapping of a butterfly\'s wings in New York City can affect the course of a typhoon off the coast of China. In the quantum worldview nothing makes sense while in isolation. There are no boundaries, and influences can emerge from several sources, many probably unknown to the human mind. Reality is bigger that our ability to perceive and since it grows forever in complexity it will probably always outstretch our imaginations and outwit our intelligence.\r\n\r\nStrange, I know, but quantum theory makes more sense to me than Ayn Rand\'s ethical theory. Quantum theory says that there is no end to where our imaginations can take us. Rand\'s theory says that all there is, is me. Rand says that I can experience joy in life through productive work, human relationships, recreation, art and sex as long as I can control my destiny. Quantum theory says there is something beautiful happening just beyond my reach, just outside the space-time continuum. Rand says that it\'s not impossible to know the truth as long as I think rationally. Quantum theory says that I must sin against reason and rationality to get at the truth.\r\n\r\nMaybe this is why Jesus never refers to us as sinners. In his day, and much like ours, the religious élite dictated the conventions of rationality and reason. Jesus sinned against these conventions by turning them upside down and delivering us from the idea that we need to be protected from God.  And if I can find this kind of wholeness I am balanced and I will flourish, as opposed to either mere conformists or mere rebels who just take sides on everything—with no wisdom required.\r\n\r\nNow this changes everything.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nPhoto Courtesy of Cea.','Sinning Against Reason','','inherit','open','open','','8259-revision-50','','','2013-01-16 20:23:23','2013-01-17 04:23:23','',8259,'http://provoketive.com/2013/01/16/8259-revision-50/',0,'revision','',0),(8314,204,'2013-01-16 20:27:09','2013-01-17 04:27:09','I have a love-hate relationship with Ayn Rand. Its kind of like the song Willie Nelson and Snoop Dogg sing together, \"Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die.\" One the one hand, I don\'t want to encourage recreational drug use, but on the other, I can\'t help but chuckle at the irony of this song sung by two famous recreational drug users. The song draws me in and then I realize that as much as I like the song, smoking dope would not go over very well with my wife. I get the same feeling when I read Ayn Rand. Effort, she says, is something that I must do on my own and not at the cost of another\'s loss. She draws me in, and then she explains I should not consider others\' interests because life is about me and my interests. My problem with her ethical theory is that I have to coexist with my wife.\r\n\r\nAyn Rand\'s ethical theory is fairly simple: I should only take actions and make decisions by using my natural ability to think rationally. Therefore, I must only act according to my interests, not those of others or those of a group. Rand would not want me to save a stranger from a burning building if it means that I risk loosing my life, or if I have nothing to gain personally by sacrificing myself for a stranger. However, I should save my wife from a burning building because I need her to wash my clothes, bear my children, and cook my dinner (keep in mind Rand is a woman). If an emergency does happen, then I should volunteer to help strangers (after all, you don\'t want to look like a total jerk), while not risking my life and not dedicating the rest of my life to help these strangers. To put it another way, people should help other people not because of notions of obligation or duty (like first responders), but because of notions motivated by reason and personal self-interest (like Bernie Madoff). In Ayn Rand\'s world every man is a king and every woman is a queen. In her world, brotherly and sisterly love are optional. But in the real world, I am a king because my wife lets me, and to love someone else is to see the face of God.\r\n\r\nIn 1916 Einstein presented his general theory of relativity. In it he asserted that space is not three-dimensional and time is not a separate entity—space and time are different aspects of the same something—and all measurements involving space and time are not absolute. Einstein\'s theory of relativity opened the door for scientist to push the boundaries of human imagination. The deterministic world of solid objects in the Newtonian world view came under fresh scrutiny. There came a sense of an alive universe. Instead of being isolated, everything seemed to connect.\r\n\r\nIn 1900 Max Planck delivered a paper that rocked the scientific world. His paper displaced the notion that energy comes only in continuous waves with that of bundles of energy. Planck called these bundles of energy \"quanta\" and was able to show that these bundles could behave both as waves and particles at the same time. The idea that quanta were real was so counter-intuitive that Planck himself could not make this leap of faith. In 1968 scientists smashed electrons into protons and neutrons and discovered \"quarks.\"\r\n\r\nThe early explorers warned us that to try to summarize quantum theory is to risk sounding mystical. Einstein was not willing to accept that quarks could travel faster than the speed of light. Yet, towards the end of his life he admitted that it is impossible to get anywhere in quantum theory without sinning against reason. Observing a quark can instantaneously influence the behavior of another distant quark and appear in two places at the same time—even if no physical force connects the two. The evidence for these intuitions of \"quantum entanglement\" emerged with Bell\'s Theorem in the 1960s. This theory is often described in poetic terms, but one that reflects the true nature of the theory: the flapping of a butterfly\'s wings in New York City can affect the course of a typhoon off the coast of China. In the quantum worldview nothing makes sense while in isolation. There are no boundaries, and influences can emerge from several sources, many probably unknown to the human mind. Reality is bigger that our ability to perceive and since it grows forever in complexity it will probably always outstretch our imaginations and outwit our intelligence.\r\n\r\nStrange, I know, but quantum theory makes more sense to me than Ayn Rand\'s ethical theory. Quantum theory says that there is no end to where our imaginations can take us. Rand\'s theory says that all there is, is me. Rand says that I can experience joy in life through productive work, human relationships, recreation, art and sex as long as I can control my destiny. Quantum theory says there is something beautiful happening just beyond my reach, just outside the space-time continuum. Rand says that it\'s not impossible to know the truth as long as I think rationally. Quantum theory says that I must sin against reason and rationality to get at the truth.\r\n\r\nMaybe this is why Jesus never refers to us as sinners. In his day, and much like ours, the religious élite dictated the conventions of rationality and reason. Jesus sinned against these conventions by turning them upside down and delivering us from the idea that we need to be protected from God.  And when I find this kind of wholeness I am balanced and I will flourish, as opposed to either mere conformists or mere rebels who just take sides on everything—with no wisdom required.\r\n\r\nNow this changes everything.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nPhoto Courtesy of Cea.','Sinning Against Reason','','inherit','open','open','','8259-revision-52','','','2013-01-16 20:27:09','2013-01-17 04:27:09','',8259,'http://provoketive.com/2013/01/16/8259-revision-52/',0,'revision','',0),(8315,204,'2013-01-16 20:27:28','2013-01-17 04:27:28','I have a love-hate relationship with Ayn Rand. Its kind of like the song Willie Nelson and Snoop Dogg sing together, \"Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die.\" One the one hand, I don\'t want to encourage recreational drug use, but on the other, I can\'t help but chuckle at the irony of this song sung by two famous recreational drug users. The song draws me in and then I realize that as much as I like the song, smoking dope would not go over very well with my wife. I get the same feeling when I read Ayn Rand. Effort, she says, is something that I must do on my own and not at the cost of another\'s loss. She draws me in, and then she explains I should not consider others\' interests because life is about me and my interests. My problem with her ethical theory is that I have to coexist with my wife.\r\n\r\nAyn Rand\'s ethical theory is fairly simple: I should only take actions and make decisions by using my natural ability to think rationally. Therefore, I must only act according to my interests, not those of others or those of a group. Rand would not want me to save a stranger from a burning building if it means that I risk loosing my life, or if I have nothing to gain personally by sacrificing myself for a stranger. However, I should save my wife from a burning building because I need her to wash my clothes, bear my children, and cook my dinner (keep in mind Rand is a woman). If an emergency does happen, then I should volunteer to help strangers (after all, you don\'t want to look like a total jerk), while not risking my life and not dedicating the rest of my life to help these strangers. To put it another way, people should help other people not because of notions of obligation or duty (like first responders), but because of notions motivated by reason and personal self-interest (like Bernie Madoff). In Ayn Rand\'s world every man is a king and every woman is a queen. In her world, brotherly and sisterly love are optional. But in the real world, I am a king because my wife lets me, and to love someone else is to see the face of God.\r\n\r\nIn 1916 Einstein presented his general theory of relativity. In it he asserted that space is not three-dimensional and time is not a separate entity—space and time are different aspects of the same something—and all measurements involving space and time are not absolute. Einstein\'s theory of relativity opened the door for scientist to push the boundaries of human imagination. The deterministic world of solid objects in the Newtonian world view came under fresh scrutiny. There came a sense of an alive universe. Instead of being isolated, everything seemed to connect.\r\n\r\nIn 1900 Max Planck delivered a paper that rocked the scientific world. His paper displaced the notion that energy comes only in continuous waves with that of bundles of energy. Planck called these bundles of energy \"quanta\" and was able to show that these bundles could behave both as waves and particles at the same time. The idea that quanta were real was so counter-intuitive that Planck himself could not make this leap of faith. In 1968 scientists smashed electrons into protons and neutrons and discovered \"quarks.\"\r\n\r\nThe early explorers warned us that to try to summarize quantum theory is to risk sounding mystical. Einstein was not willing to accept that quarks could travel faster than the speed of light. Yet, towards the end of his life he admitted that it is impossible to get anywhere in quantum theory without sinning against reason. Observing a quark can instantaneously influence the behavior of another distant quark and appear in two places at the same time—even if no physical force connects the two. The evidence for these intuitions of \"quantum entanglement\" emerged with Bell\'s Theorem in the 1960s. This theory is often described in poetic terms, but one that reflects the true nature of the theory: the flapping of a butterfly\'s wings in New York City can affect the course of a typhoon off the coast of China. In the quantum worldview nothing makes sense while in isolation. There are no boundaries, and influences can emerge from several sources, many probably unknown to the human mind. Reality is bigger that our ability to perceive and since it grows forever in complexity it will probably always outstretch our imaginations and outwit our intelligence.\r\n\r\nStrange, I know, but quantum theory makes more sense to me than Ayn Rand\'s ethical theory. Quantum theory says that there is no end to where our imaginations can take us. Rand\'s theory says that all there is, is me. Rand says that I can experience joy in life through productive work, human relationships, recreation, art and sex as long as I can control my destiny. Quantum theory says there is something beautiful happening just beyond my reach, just outside the space-time continuum. Rand says that it\'s not impossible to know the truth as long as I think rationally. Quantum theory says that I must sin against reason and rationality to get at the truth.\r\n\r\nMaybe this is why Jesus never refers to us as sinners. In his day, and much like ours, the religious élite dictated the conventions of rationality and reason. Jesus sinned against these conventions by turning them upside down and delivering us from the idea that we need to be protected from God.  And when I find this kind of wholeness I am balanced and I will flourish, as opposed to either mere conformists or mere rebels who just take sides on everything—with no wisdom required.\r\n\r\nNow this changes everything.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nPhoto Courtesy of Cea.','Sinning Against Reason','','inherit','open','open','','8259-revision-53','','','2013-01-16 20:27:28','2013-01-17 04:27:28','',8259,'http://provoketive.com/2013/01/16/8259-revision-53/',0,'revision','',0),(8316,204,'2013-01-16 20:33:01','2013-01-17 04:33:01','I have a love-hate relationship with Ayn Rand. Its kind of like the song Willie Nelson and Snoop Dogg sing together, \"Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die.\" One the one hand, I don\'t want to encourage recreational drug use, but on the other, I can\'t help but chuckle at the irony of this song sung by two famous recreational drug users. The song draws me in and then I realize that as much as I like the song, smoking dope would not go over very well with my wife. I get the same feeling when I read Ayn Rand. Effort, she says, is something that I must do on my own and not at the cost of another\'s loss. She draws me in, and then she explains I should not consider others\' interests because life is about me and my interests. My problem with her ethical theory is that I have to coexist with my wife.\n\nAyn Rand\'s ethical theory is fairly simple: I should only take actions and make decisions by using my natural ability to think rationally. Therefore, I must only act according to my interests, not those of others or those of a group. Rand would not want me to save a stranger from a burning building if it means that I risk loosing my life, or if I have nothing to gain personally by sacrificing myself for a stranger. However, I should save my wife from a burning building because I need her to wash my clothes, bear my children, and cook my dinner (keep in mind Rand is a woman). If an emergency does happen, then I should volunteer to help strangers (after all, you don\'t want to look like a total jerk), while not risking my life and not dedicating the rest of my life to help these strangers. To put it another way, people should help other people not because of notions of obligation or duty (like first responders), but because of notions motivated by reason and personal self-interest (like Bernie Madoff). In Ayn Rand\'s world every man is a king and every woman is a queen. In her world, brotherly and sisterly love are optional. But in the real world, I am a king because my wife lets me, and to love someone else is to see the face of God.\n\nIn 1916 Einstein presented his general theory of relativity. In it he asserted that space is not three-dimensional and time is not a separate entity—space and time are different aspects of the same something—and all measurements involving space and time are not absolute. Einstein\'s theory of relativity opened the door for scientist to push the boundaries of human imagination. The deterministic world of solid objects in the Newtonian world view came under fresh scrutiny. There came a sense of an alive universe. Instead of being isolated, everything seemed to connect.\n\nIn 1900 Max Planck delivered a paper that rocked the scientific world. His paper displaced the notion that energy comes only in continuous waves with that of bundles of energy. Planck called these bundles of energy \"quanta\" and was able to show that these bundles could behave both as waves and particles at the same time. The idea that quanta were real was so counter-intuitive that Planck himself could not make this leap of faith. In 1968 scientists smashed electrons into protons and neutrons and discovered \"quarks.\"  Yet, quarks are never directly observed or found in isolation; only with other particles.\n\nThe early explorers warned us that to try to summarize quantum theory is to risk sounding mystical. Einstein was not willing to accept that quarks could travel faster than the speed of light. Yet, towards the end of his life he admitted that it is impossible to get anywhere in quantum theory without sinning against reason. Observing a quark can instantaneously influence the behavior of another distant quark and appear in two places at the same time—even if no physical force connects the two. The evidence for these intuitions of \"quantum entanglement\" emerged with Bell\'s Theorem in the 1960s. This theory is often described in poetic terms, but one that reflects the true nature of the theory: the flapping of a butterfly\'s wings in New York City can affect the course of a typhoon off the coast of China. In the quantum worldview nothing makes sense while in isolation. There are no boundaries, and influences can emerge from several sources, many probably unknown to the human mind. Reality is bigger that our ability to perceive and since it grows forever in complexity it will probably always outstretch our imaginations and outwit our intelligence.\n\nStrange, I know, but quantum theory makes more sense to me than Ayn Rand\'s ethical theory. Quantum theory says that there is no end to where our imaginations can take us. Rand\'s theory says that all there is, is me. Rand says that I can experience joy in life through productive work, human relationships, recreation, art and sex as long as I can control my destiny. Quantum theory says there is something beautiful happening just beyond my reach, just outside the space-time continuum. Rand says that it\'s not impossible to know the truth as long as I think rationally. Quantum theory says that I must sin against reason and rationality to get at the truth.\n\nMaybe this is why Jesus never refers to us as sinners. In his day, and much like ours, the religious élite dictated the conventions of rationality and reason. Jesus sinned against these conventions by turning them upside down and delivering us from the idea that we need to be protected from God.  And when I find this kind of wholeness I am balanced and I will flourish, as opposed to either mere conformists or mere rebels who just take sides on everything—with no wisdom required. Now this changes everything.   Photo Courtesy of Cea.','Sinning Against Reason','','inherit','open','open','','8259-revision-54','','','2013-01-16 20:33:01','2013-01-17 04:33:01','',8259,'http://provoketive.com/2013/01/16/8259-revision-54/',0,'revision','',0),(8317,204,'2013-01-16 20:33:14','2013-01-17 04:33:14','I have a love-hate relationship with Ayn Rand. Its kind of like the song Willie Nelson and Snoop Dogg sing together, \"Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die.\" One the one hand, I don\'t want to encourage recreational drug use, but on the other, I can\'t help but chuckle at the irony of this song sung by two famous recreational drug users. The song draws me in and then I realize that as much as I like the song, smoking dope would not go over very well with my wife. I get the same feeling when I read Ayn Rand. Effort, she says, is something that I must do on my own and not at the cost of another\'s loss. She draws me in, and then she explains I should not consider others\' interests because life is about me and my interests. My problem with her ethical theory is that I have to coexist with my wife.\r\n\r\nAyn Rand\'s ethical theory is fairly simple: I should only take actions and make decisions by using my natural ability to think rationally. Therefore, I must only act according to my interests, not those of others or those of a group. Rand would not want me to save a stranger from a burning building if it means that I risk loosing my life, or if I have nothing to gain personally by sacrificing myself for a stranger. However, I should save my wife from a burning building because I need her to wash my clothes, bear my children, and cook my dinner (keep in mind Rand is a woman). If an emergency does happen, then I should volunteer to help strangers (after all, you don\'t want to look like a total jerk), while not risking my life and not dedicating the rest of my life to help these strangers. To put it another way, people should help other people not because of notions of obligation or duty (like first responders), but because of notions motivated by reason and personal self-interest (like Bernie Madoff). In Ayn Rand\'s world every man is a king and every woman is a queen. In her world, brotherly and sisterly love are optional. But in the real world, I am a king because my wife lets me, and to love someone else is to see the face of God.\r\n\r\nIn 1916 Einstein presented his general theory of relativity. In it he asserted that space is not three-dimensional and time is not a separate entity—space and time are different aspects of the same something—and all measurements involving space and time are not absolute. Einstein\'s theory of relativity opened the door for scientist to push the boundaries of human imagination. The deterministic world of solid objects in the Newtonian world view came under fresh scrutiny. There came a sense of an alive universe. Instead of being isolated, everything seemed to connect.\r\n\r\nIn 1900 Max Planck delivered a paper that rocked the scientific world. His paper displaced the notion that energy comes only in continuous waves with that of bundles of energy. Planck called these bundles of energy \"quanta\" and was able to show that these bundles could behave both as waves and particles at the same time. The idea that quanta were real was so counter-intuitive that Planck himself could not make this leap of faith. In 1968 scientists smashed electrons into protons and neutrons and discovered \"quarks.\"  Yet, quarks are never directly observed or found in isolation; only with other particles.\r\n\r\nThe early explorers warned us that to try to summarize quantum theory is to risk sounding mystical. Einstein was not willing to accept that quarks could travel faster than the speed of light. Yet, towards the end of his life he admitted that it is impossible to get anywhere in quantum theory without sinning against reason. Observing a quark can instantaneously influence the behavior of another distant quark and appear in two places at the same time—even if no physical force connects the two. The evidence for these intuitions of \"quantum entanglement\" emerged with Bell\'s Theorem in the 1960s. This theory is often described in poetic terms, but one that reflects the true nature of the theory: the flapping of a butterfly\'s wings in New York City can affect the course of a typhoon off the coast of China. In the quantum worldview nothing makes sense while in isolation. There are no boundaries, and influences can emerge from several sources, many probably unknown to the human mind. Reality is bigger that our ability to perceive and since it grows forever in complexity it will probably always outstretch our imaginations and outwit our intelligence.\r\n\r\nStrange, I know, but quantum theory makes more sense to me than Ayn Rand\'s ethical theory. Quantum theory says that there is no end to where our imaginations can take us. Rand\'s theory says that all there is, is me. Rand says that I can experience joy in life through productive work, human relationships, recreation, art and sex as long as I can control my destiny. Quantum theory says there is something beautiful happening just beyond my reach, just outside the space-time continuum. Rand says that it\'s not impossible to know the truth as long as I think rationally. Quantum theory says that I must sin against reason and rationality to get at the truth.\r\n\r\nMaybe this is why Jesus never refers to us as sinners. In his day, and much like ours, the religious élite dictated the conventions of rationality and reason. Jesus sinned against these conventions by turning them upside down and delivering us from the idea that we need to be protected from God.  And when I find this kind of wholeness I am balanced and I will flourish, as opposed to either mere conformists or mere rebels who just take sides on everything—with no wisdom required.\r\n\r\nNow this changes everything.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nPhoto Courtesy of Cea.','Sinning Against Reason','','inherit','open','open','','8259-revision-55','','','2013-01-16 20:33:14','2013-01-17 04:33:14','',8259,'http://provoketive.com/2013/01/16/8259-revision-55/',0,'revision','',0),(8318,204,'2013-01-16 20:33:25','2013-01-17 04:33:25','I have a love-hate relationship with Ayn Rand. Its kind of like the song Willie Nelson and Snoop Dogg sing together, \"Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die.\" One the one hand, I don\'t want to encourage recreational drug use, but on the other, I can\'t help but chuckle at the irony of this song sung by two famous recreational drug users. The song draws me in and then I realize that as much as I like the song, smoking dope would not go over very well with my wife. I get the same feeling when I read Ayn Rand. Effort, she says, is something that I must do on my own and not at the cost of another\'s loss. She draws me in, and then she explains I should not consider others\' interests because life is about me and my interests. My problem with her ethical theory is that I have to coexist with my wife.\r\n\r\nAyn Rand\'s ethical theory is fairly simple: I should only take actions and make decisions by using my natural ability to think rationally. Therefore, I must only act according to my interests, not those of others or those of a group. Rand would not want me to save a stranger from a burning building if it means that I risk loosing my life, or if I have nothing to gain personally by sacrificing myself for a stranger. However, I should save my wife from a burning building because I need her to wash my clothes, bear my children, and cook my dinner (keep in mind Rand is a woman). If an emergency does happen, then I should volunteer to help strangers (after all, you don\'t want to look like a total jerk), while not risking my life and not dedicating the rest of my life to help these strangers. To put it another way, people should help other people not because of notions of obligation or duty (like first responders), but because of notions motivated by reason and personal self-interest (like Bernie Madoff). In Ayn Rand\'s world every man is a king and every woman is a queen. In her world, brotherly and sisterly love are optional. But in the real world, I am a king because my wife lets me, and to love someone else is to see the face of God.\r\n\r\nIn 1916 Einstein presented his general theory of relativity. In it he asserted that space is not three-dimensional and time is not a separate entity—space and time are different aspects of the same something—and all measurements involving space and time are not absolute. Einstein\'s theory of relativity opened the door for scientist to push the boundaries of human imagination. The deterministic world of solid objects in the Newtonian world view came under fresh scrutiny. There came a sense of an alive universe. Instead of being isolated, everything seemed to connect.\r\n\r\nIn 1900 Max Planck delivered a paper that rocked the scientific world. His paper displaced the notion that energy comes only in continuous waves with that of bundles of energy. Planck called these bundles of energy \"quanta\" and was able to show that these bundles could behave both as waves and particles at the same time. The idea that quanta were real was so counter-intuitive that Planck himself could not make this leap of faith. In 1968 scientists smashed electrons into protons and neutrons and discovered \"quarks.\"  Yet, quarks are never directly observed or found in isolation; only with other particles.\r\n\r\nThe early explorers warned us that to try to summarize quantum theory is to risk sounding mystical. Einstein was not willing to accept that quarks could travel faster than the speed of light. Yet, towards the end of his life he admitted that it is impossible to get anywhere in quantum theory without sinning against reason. Observing a quark can instantaneously influence the behavior of another distant quark and appear in two places at the same time—even if no physical force connects the two. The evidence for these intuitions of \"quantum entanglement\" emerged with Bell\'s Theorem in the 1960s. This theory is often described in poetic terms, but one that reflects the true nature of the theory: the flapping of a butterfly\'s wings in New York City can affect the course of a typhoon off the coast of China. In the quantum worldview nothing makes sense while in isolation. There are no boundaries, and influences can emerge from several sources, many probably unknown to the human mind. Reality is bigger that our ability to perceive and since it grows forever in complexity it will probably always outstretch our imaginations and outwit our intelligence.\r\n\r\nStrange, I know, but quantum theory makes more sense to me than Ayn Rand\'s ethical theory. Quantum theory says that there is no end to where our imaginations can take us. Rand\'s theory says that all there is, is me. Rand says that I can experience joy in life through productive work, human relationships, recreation, art and sex as long as I can control my destiny. Quantum theory says there is something beautiful happening just beyond my reach, just outside the space-time continuum. Rand says that it\'s not impossible to know the truth as long as I think rationally. Quantum theory says that I must sin against reason and rationality to get at the truth.\r\n\r\nMaybe this is why Jesus never refers to us as sinners. In his day, and much like ours, the religious élite dictated the conventions of rationality and reason. Jesus sinned against these conventions by turning them upside down and delivering us from the idea that we need to be protected from God.  And when I find this kind of wholeness I am balanced and I will flourish, as opposed to either mere conformists or mere rebels who just take sides on everything—with no wisdom required.\r\n\r\nNow this changes everything.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nPhoto Courtesy of Cea.','Sinning Against Reason','','inherit','open','open','','8259-revision-56','','','2013-01-16 20:33:25','2013-01-17 04:33:25','',8259,'http://provoketive.com/2013/01/16/8259-revision-56/',0,'revision','',0),(8319,204,'2013-01-16 20:35:27','2013-01-17 04:35:27','I have a love-hate relationship with Ayn Rand. Its kind of like the song Willie Nelson and Snoop Dogg sing together, \"Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die.\" One the one hand, I don\'t want to encourage recreational drug use, but on the other, I can\'t help but chuckle at the irony of this song sung by two famous recreational drug users. The song draws me in and then I realize that as much as I like the song, smoking dope would not go over very well with my wife. I get the same feeling when I read Ayn Rand. Effort, she says, is something that I must do on my own and not at the cost of another\'s loss. She draws me in, and then she explains I should not consider others\' interests because life is about me and my interests. My problem with her ethical theory is that I have to coexist with my wife.\r\n\r\nAyn Rand\'s ethical theory is fairly simple: I should only take actions and make decisions by using my natural ability to think rationally. Therefore, I must only act according to my interests, not those of others or those of a group. Rand would not want me to save a stranger from a burning building if it means that I risk loosing my life, or if I have nothing to gain personally by sacrificing myself for a stranger. However, I should save my wife from a burning building because I need her to wash my clothes, bear my children, and cook my dinner (keep in mind Rand is a woman). If an emergency does happen, then I should volunteer to help strangers (after all, you don\'t want to look like a total jerk), while not risking my life and not dedicating the rest of my life to help these strangers. To put it another way, people should help other people not because of notions of obligation or duty (like first responders), but because of notions motivated by reason and personal self-interest (like Bernie Madoff). In Ayn Rand\'s world every man is a king and every woman is a queen. In her world, brotherly and sisterly love are optional. But in the real world, I am a king because my wife lets me, and to love someone else is to see the face of God.\r\n\r\nIn 1916 Einstein presented his general theory of relativity. In it he asserted that space is not three-dimensional and time is not a separate entity—space and time are different aspects of the same something—and all measurements involving space and time are not absolute. Einstein\'s theory of relativity opened the door for scientist to push the boundaries of human imagination. The deterministic world of solid objects in the Newtonian world view came under fresh scrutiny. There came a sense of an alive universe. Instead of being isolated, everything seemed to connect.\r\n\r\nIn 1900 Max Planck delivered a paper that rocked the scientific world. His paper displaced the notion that energy comes only in continuous waves with that of bundles of energy. Planck called these bundles of energy \"quanta\" and was able to show that these bundles could behave both as waves and particles at the same time. The idea that quanta were real was so counter-intuitive that Planck himself could not make this leap of faith. In 1968 scientists smashed electrons into protons and neutrons and discovered \"quarks.\"  Yet, quarks are never directly observed or found in isolation; only with other particles.\r\n\r\nThe early explorers warned us that to try to summarize quantum theory is to risk sounding mystical. Einstein was not willing to accept that quarks could travel faster than the speed of light. Yet, towards the end of his life he admitted that it is impossible to get anywhere in quantum theory without sinning against reason. Observing a quark can instantaneously influence the behavior of another distant quark and appear in two places at the same time—even if no physical force connects the two. The evidence for these intuitions of \"quantum entanglement\" emerged with Bell\'s Theorem in the 1960s. This theory is often described in poetic terms, but one that reflects the true nature of the theory: the flapping of a butterfly\'s wings in New York City can affect the course of a typhoon off the coast of China. In the quantum worldview nothing makes sense while in isolation. There are no boundaries, and influences can emerge from several sources, many probably unknown to the human mind. Reality is bigger that our ability to perceive and since it grows forever in complexity it will probably always outstretch our imaginations and outwit our intelligence.\r\n\r\nStrange, I know, but quantum theory makes more sense to me than Ayn Rand\'s ethical theory. Quantum theory says that there is no end to where our imaginations can take us. Rand\'s theory says that all there is, is me. Rand says that I can experience joy in life through productive work, human relationships, recreation, art and sex as long as I can control my destiny. Quantum theory says there is something beautiful happening just beyond my reach, just outside the space-time continuum. Rand says that it\'s not impossible to know the truth as long as I think rationally. Quantum theory says that I must sin against reason and rationality to get at the truth.\r\n\r\nMaybe this is why Jesus never refers to us as sinners. In his day, and much like ours, the religious élite dictated the conventions of rationality and reason. Jesus sinned against these conventions by turning them upside down and delivering us from the idea that we need to be protected from God.  And when I find this kind of wholeness I am balanced and I will flourish, as opposed to either mere conformists or mere rebels who just take sides on everything—with no wisdom at all.\r\n\r\nNow this changes everything.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nPhoto Courtesy of Cea.','Sinning Against Reason','','inherit','open','open','','8259-revision-57','','','2013-01-16 20:35:27','2013-01-17 04:35:27','',8259,'http://provoketive.com/2013/01/16/8259-revision-57/',0,'revision','',0),(8320,204,'2013-01-16 20:35:41','2013-01-17 04:35:41','I have a love-hate relationship with Ayn Rand. Its kind of like the song Willie Nelson and Snoop Dogg sing together, \"Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die.\" One the one hand, I don\'t want to encourage recreational drug use, but on the other, I can\'t help but chuckle at the irony of this song sung by two famous recreational drug users. The song draws me in and then I realize that as much as I like the song, smoking dope would not go over very well with my wife. I get the same feeling when I read Ayn Rand. Effort, she says, is something that I must do on my own and not at the cost of another\'s loss. She draws me in, and then she explains I should not consider others\' interests because life is about me and my interests. My problem with her ethical theory is that I have to coexist with my wife.\r\n\r\nAyn Rand\'s ethical theory is fairly simple: I should only take actions and make decisions by using my natural ability to think rationally. Therefore, I must only act according to my interests, not those of others or those of a group. Rand would not want me to save a stranger from a burning building if it means that I risk loosing my life, or if I have nothing to gain personally by sacrificing myself for a stranger. However, I should save my wife from a burning building because I need her to wash my clothes, bear my children, and cook my dinner (keep in mind Rand is a woman). If an emergency does happen, then I should volunteer to help strangers (after all, you don\'t want to look like a total jerk), while not risking my life and not dedicating the rest of my life to help these strangers. To put it another way, people should help other people not because of notions of obligation or duty (like first responders), but because of notions motivated by reason and personal self-interest (like Bernie Madoff). In Ayn Rand\'s world every man is a king and every woman is a queen. In her world, brotherly and sisterly love are optional. But in the real world, I am a king because my wife lets me, and to love someone else is to see the face of God.\r\n\r\nIn 1916 Einstein presented his general theory of relativity. In it he asserted that space is not three-dimensional and time is not a separate entity—space and time are different aspects of the same something—and all measurements involving space and time are not absolute. Einstein\'s theory of relativity opened the door for scientist to push the boundaries of human imagination. The deterministic world of solid objects in the Newtonian world view came under fresh scrutiny. There came a sense of an alive universe. Instead of being isolated, everything seemed to connect.\r\n\r\nIn 1900 Max Planck delivered a paper that rocked the scientific world. His paper displaced the notion that energy comes only in continuous waves with that of bundles of energy. Planck called these bundles of energy \"quanta\" and was able to show that these bundles could behave both as waves and particles at the same time. The idea that quanta were real was so counter-intuitive that Planck himself could not make this leap of faith. In 1968 scientists smashed electrons into protons and neutrons and discovered \"quarks.\"  Yet, quarks are never directly observed or found in isolation; only with other particles.\r\n\r\nThe early explorers warned us that to try to summarize quantum theory is to risk sounding mystical. Einstein was not willing to accept that quarks could travel faster than the speed of light. Yet, towards the end of his life he admitted that it is impossible to get anywhere in quantum theory without sinning against reason. Observing a quark can instantaneously influence the behavior of another distant quark and appear in two places at the same time—even if no physical force connects the two. The evidence for these intuitions of \"quantum entanglement\" emerged with Bell\'s Theorem in the 1960s. This theory is often described in poetic terms, but one that reflects the true nature of the theory: the flapping of a butterfly\'s wings in New York City can affect the course of a typhoon off the coast of China. In the quantum worldview nothing makes sense while in isolation. There are no boundaries, and influences can emerge from several sources, many probably unknown to the human mind. Reality is bigger that our ability to perceive and since it grows forever in complexity it will probably always outstretch our imaginations and outwit our intelligence.\r\n\r\nStrange, I know, but quantum theory makes more sense to me than Ayn Rand\'s ethical theory. Quantum theory says that there is no end to where our imaginations can take us. Rand\'s theory says that all there is, is me. Rand says that I can experience joy in life through productive work, human relationships, recreation, art and sex as long as I can control my destiny. Quantum theory says there is something beautiful happening just beyond my reach, just outside the space-time continuum. Rand says that it\'s not impossible to know the truth as long as I think rationally. Quantum theory says that I must sin against reason and rationality to get at the truth.\r\n\r\nMaybe this is why Jesus never refers to us as sinners. In his day, and much like ours, the religious élite dictated the conventions of rationality and reason. Jesus sinned against these conventions by turning them upside down and delivering us from the idea that we need to be protected from God.  And when I find this kind of wholeness I am balanced and I will flourish, as opposed to either mere conformists or mere rebels who just take sides on everything—with no wisdom at all.\r\n\r\nNow this changes everything.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nPhoto Courtesy of Cea.','Sinning Against Reason','','inherit','open','open','','8259-revision-58','','','2013-01-16 20:35:41','2013-01-17 04:35:41','',8259,'http://provoketive.com/2013/01/16/8259-revision-58/',0,'revision','',0),(8321,204,'2013-01-16 20:37:30','2013-01-17 04:37:30','I have a love-hate relationship with Ayn Rand. Its kind of like the song Willie Nelson and Snoop Dogg sing together, \"Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die.\" One the one hand, I don\'t want to encourage recreational drug use, but on the other, I can\'t help but chuckle at the irony of this song sung by two famous recreational drug users. The song draws me in and then I realize that as much as I like the song, smoking dope would not go over very well with my wife. I get the same feeling when I read Ayn Rand. Effort, she says, is something that I must do on my own and not at the cost of another\'s loss. She draws me in, and then she explains I should not consider others\' interests because life is about me and my interests. My problem with her ethical theory is that I have to coexist with my wife.\r\n\r\nAyn Rand\'s ethical theory is fairly simple: I should only take actions and make decisions by using my natural ability to think rationally. Therefore, I must only act according to my interests, not those of others or those of a group. Rand would not want me to save a stranger from a burning building if it means that I risk loosing my life, or if I have nothing to gain personally by sacrificing myself for a stranger. However, I should save my wife from a burning building because I need her to wash my clothes, bear my children, and cook my dinner (keep in mind Rand is a woman). If an emergency does happen, then I should volunteer to help strangers (after all, you don\'t want to look like a total jerk), while not risking my life and not dedicating the rest of my life to help these strangers. To put it another way, people should help other people not because of notions of obligation or duty (like first responders), but because of notions motivated by reason and personal self-interest (like Bernie Madoff). In Ayn Rand\'s world every man is a king and every woman is a queen. In her world, brotherly and sisterly love are optional. But in the real world, I am a king because my wife lets me, and to love someone else is to see the face of God.\r\n\r\nIn 1916 Einstein presented his general theory of relativity. In it he asserted that space is not three-dimensional and time is not a separate entity—space and time are different aspects of the same something—and all measurements involving space and time are not absolute. Einstein\'s theory of relativity opened the door for scientist to push the boundaries of human imagination. The deterministic world of solid objects in the Newtonian world view came under fresh scrutiny. There came a sense of an alive universe. Instead of being isolated, everything seemed to connect.\r\n\r\nIn 1900 Max Planck delivered a paper that rocked the scientific world. His paper displaced the notion that energy comes only in continuous waves with that of bundles of energy. Planck called these bundles of energy \"quanta\" and was able to show that these bundles could behave both as waves and particles at the same time. The idea that quanta were real was so counter-intuitive that Planck himself could not make this leap of faith. In 1968 scientists smashed electrons into protons and neutrons and discovered \"quarks.\"  Yet, quarks are never directly observed or found in isolation; only with other particles.\r\n\r\nThe early explorers warned us that to try to summarize quantum theory is to risk sounding mystical. Einstein was not willing to accept that quarks could travel faster than the speed of light. Yet, towards the end of his life he admitted that it is impossible to get anywhere in quantum theory without sinning against reason. Observing a quark can instantaneously influence the behavior of another distant quark and appear in two places at the same time—even if no physical force connects the two. The evidence for these intuitions of \"quantum entanglement\" emerged with Bell\'s Theorem in the 1960s. This theory is often described in poetic terms, but one that reflects the true nature of the theory: the flapping of a butterfly\'s wings in New York City can affect the course of a typhoon off the coast of China. In the quantum worldview nothing makes sense while in isolation. There are no boundaries, and influences can emerge from several sources, many probably unknown to the human mind. Reality is bigger that our ability to perceive and since it grows forever in complexity it will probably always outstretch our imaginations and outwit our intelligence.\r\n\r\nStrange, I know, but quantum theory makes more sense to me than Ayn Rand\'s ethical theory. Quantum theory says that there is no end to where our imaginations can take us. Rand\'s theory says that all there is, is me. Rand says that I can experience joy in life through productive work, human relationships, recreation, art and sex as long as I can control my destiny. Quantum theory says there is something beautiful happening just beyond my reach, just outside the space-time continuum. Rand says that it\'s not impossible to know the truth as long as I think rationally. Quantum theory says that I must sin against reason and rationality to get at the truth.\r\n\r\nMaybe this is why Jesus never refers to us as sinners. In his day, and much like ours, the religious élite dictated the conventions of rationality and reason. Jesus sinned against these conventions by turning them upside down and delivering us from the idea that we need to be protected from God.  And when I find this kind of wholeness I am balanced and I will flourish, as opposed to either mere conformists or mere rebels who just take sides on everything—with no wisdom at all.\r\n\r\nNow this changes everything.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nPhoto Courtesy of Cea.','Sinning Against Reason','','inherit','open','open','','8259-revision-59','','','2013-01-16 20:37:30','2013-01-17 04:37:30','',8259,'http://provoketive.com/2013/01/16/8259-revision-59/',0,'revision','',0),(8323,204,'2013-01-17 13:49:15','2013-01-17 21:49:15','I have a love-hate relationship with Ayn Rand. Its kind of like the song Willie Nelson and Snoop Dogg sing together, \"Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die.\" One the one hand, I don\'t want to encourage recreational drug use, but on the other, I can\'t help but chuckle at the irony of this song sung by two famous recreational drug users. The song draws me in and then I realize that as much as I like the song, smoking dope would not go over very well with my wife. I get the same feeling when I read Ayn Rand. Effort, she says, is something that I must do on my own and not at the cost of another\'s loss. She draws me in, and then she explains I should not consider others\' interests because life is about me and my interests. My problem with her ethical theory is that I have to coexist with my wife.\r\n\r\nAyn Rand\'s ethical theory is fairly simple: I should only take actions and make decisions by using my natural ability to think rationally. Therefore, I must only act according to my interests, not those of others or those of a group. Rand would not want me to save a stranger from a burning building if it means that I risk loosing my life, or if I have nothing to gain personally by sacrificing myself for a stranger. However, I should save my wife from a burning building because I need her to wash my clothes, bear my children, and cook my dinner (keep in mind Rand is a woman). If an emergency does happen, then I should volunteer to help strangers (after all, you don\'t want to look like a total jerk), while not risking my life and not dedicating the rest of my life to help these strangers. To put it another way, people should help other people not because of notions of obligation or duty (like first responders), but because of notions motivated by reason and personal self-interest (like Bernie Madoff). In Ayn Rand\'s world every man is a king and every woman is a queen. In her world, brotherly and sisterly love are optional. But in the real world, I am a king because my wife lets me, and to love someone else is to see the face of God.\r\n\r\nIn 1916 Einstein presented his general theory of relativity. In it he asserted that space is not three-dimensional and time is not a separate entity—space and time are different aspects of the same something—and all measurements involving space and time are not absolute. Einstein\'s theory of relativity opened the door for scientist to push the boundaries of human imagination. The deterministic world of solid objects in the Newtonian world view came under fresh scrutiny. There came a sense of an alive universe. Instead of being isolated, everything seemed to connect.\r\n\r\nIn 1900 Max Planck delivered a paper that rocked the scientific world. His paper displaced the notion that energy comes only in continuous waves with that of bundles of energy. Planck called these bundles of energy \"quanta\" and was able to show that these bundles could behave both as waves and particles at the same time. The idea that quanta were real was so counter-intuitive that Planck himself could not make this leap of faith. In 1968 scientists smashed electrons into protons and neutrons and discovered \"quarks.\"  Yet, quarks are never directly observed or found in isolation; only with other particles.\r\n\r\nThe early explorers warned us that to try to summarize quantum theory is to risk sounding mystical. Einstein was not willing to accept that quarks could travel faster than the speed of light. Yet, towards the end of his life he admitted that it is impossible to get anywhere in quantum theory without sinning against reason. Observing a quark can instantaneously influence the behavior of another distant quark and appear in two places at the same time—even if no physical force connects the two. The evidence for these intuitions of \"quantum entanglement\" emerged with Bell\'s Theorem in the 1960s. This theory is often described in poetic terms, but one that reflects the true nature of the theory: the flapping of a butterfly\'s wings in New York City can affect the course of a typhoon off the coast of China. In the quantum worldview nothing makes sense while in isolation. There are no boundaries, and influences can emerge from several sources, many probably unknown to the human mind. Reality is bigger that our ability to perceive and since it grows forever in complexity it will probably always outstretch our imaginations and outwit our intelligence.\r\n\r\nStrange, I know, but quantum theory makes more sense to me than Ayn Rand\'s ethical theory. Quantum theory says that there is no end to where our imaginations can take us. Rand\'s theory says that all there is, is me. Rand says that I can experience joy in life through productive work, human relationships, recreation, art and sex as long as I can control my destiny. Quantum theory says there is something beautiful happening just beyond my reach, just outside the space-time continuum. Rand says that it\'s not impossible to know the truth as long as I think rationally. Quantum theory says that I must sin against reason and rationality to get at the truth.\r\n\r\nMaybe this is why Jesus never refers to us as sinners. In his day, and much like ours, the religious élite dictated the conventions of rationality and reason. Jesus sinned against these conventions by turning them upside down and delivering us from the idea that we need to be protected from God.  And when I find this kind of wholeness I am balanced and I will flourish, as opposed to either mere conformists or mere rebels who just take sides on everything—with no wisdom at all.\r\n\r\nNow this changes everything.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nPhoto Courtesy of Cea.','Sinning Against Reason','','inherit','open','open','','8259-revision-61','','','2013-01-17 13:49:15','2013-01-17 21:49:15','',8259,'http://provoketive.com/2013/01/17/8259-revision-61/',0,'revision','',0),(8324,204,'2013-01-17 13:50:54','2013-01-17 21:50:54','I have a love-hate relationship with Ayn Rand. Its kind of like the song Willie Nelson and Snoop Dogg sing together, \"Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die.\" One the one hand, I don\'t want to encourage recreational drug use, but on the other, I can\'t help but chuckle at the irony of this song sung by two famous recreational drug users. The song draws me in and then I realize that as much as I like the song, smoking dope would not go over very well with my wife. I get the same feeling when I read Ayn Rand. Effort, she says, is something that I must do on my own and not at the cost of another\'s loss. She draws me in, and then she explains I should not consider others\' interests because life is about me and my interests. My problem with her ethical theory is that I have to coexist with my wife.\r\n\r\nAyn Rand\'s ethical theory is fairly simple: I should only take actions and make decisions by using my natural ability to think rationally. Therefore, I must only act according to my interests, not those of others or those of a group. Rand would not want me to save a stranger from a burning building if it means that I risk loosing my life, or if I have nothing to gain personally by sacrificing myself for a stranger. However, I should save my wife from a burning building because I need her to wash my clothes, bear my children, and cook my dinner (keep in mind Rand is a woman). If an emergency does happen, then I should volunteer to help strangers (after all, you don\'t want to look like a total jerk), while not risking my life and not dedicating the rest of my life to help these strangers. To put it another way, people should help other people not because of notions of obligation or duty (like first responders), but because of notions motivated by reason and personal self-interest (like Bernie Madoff). In Ayn Rand\'s world every man is a king and every woman is a queen. In her world, brotherly and sisterly love are optional. But in the real world, I am a king because my wife lets me, and to love someone else is to see the face of God.\r\n\r\nIn 1916 Einstein presented his general theory of relativity. In it he asserted that space is not three-dimensional and time is not a separate entity—space and time are different aspects of the same something—and all measurements involving space and time are not absolute. Einstein\'s theory of relativity opened the door for scientist to push the boundaries of human imagination. The deterministic world of solid objects in the Newtonian world view came under fresh scrutiny. There came a sense of an alive universe. Instead of being isolated, everything seemed to connect.\r\n\r\nIn 1900 Max Planck delivered a paper that rocked the scientific world. His paper displaced the notion that energy comes only in continuous waves with that of bundles of energy. Planck called these bundles of energy \"quanta\" and was able to show that these bundles could behave both as waves and particles at the same time. The idea that quanta were real was so counter-intuitive that Planck himself could not make this leap of faith. In 1968 scientists smashed electrons into protons and neutrons and discovered \"quarks.\"  Yet, quarks are never directly observed or found in isolation; only with other particles.\r\n\r\nThe early explorers warned us that to try to summarize quantum theory is to risk sounding mystical. Einstein was not willing to accept that quarks could travel faster than the speed of light. Yet, towards the end of his life he admitted that it is impossible to get anywhere in quantum theory without sinning against reason. Observing a quark can instantaneously influence the behavior of another distant quark and appear in two places at the same time—even if no physical force connects the two. The evidence for these intuitions of \"quantum entanglement\" emerged with Bell\'s Theorem in the 1960s. This theory is often described in poetic terms, but one that reflects the true nature of the theory: the flapping of a butterfly\'s wings in New York City can affect the course of a typhoon off the coast of China. In the quantum worldview nothing makes sense while in isolation. There are no boundaries, and influences can emerge from several sources, many probably unknown to the human mind. Reality is bigger that our ability to perceive and since it grows forever in complexity it will probably always outstretch our imaginations and outwit our intelligence.\r\n\r\nStrange, I know, but quantum theory makes more sense to me than Ayn Rand\'s ethical theory. Quantum theory says that there is no end to where our imaginations can take us. Rand\'s theory says that all there is, is me. Rand says that I can experience joy in life through productive work, human relationships, recreation, art and sex as long as I can control my destiny. Quantum theory says there is something beautiful happening just beyond my reach, just outside the space-time continuum. Rand says that it\'s not impossible to know the truth as long as I think rationally. Quantum theory says that I must sin against reason and rationality to get at the truth.\r\n\r\nMaybe this is why Jesus never refers to us as sinners. In his day, and much like ours, the religious élite dictated the conventions of rationality and reason. Jesus sinned against these conventions by turning them upside down and delivering us from the belief that we need to be protected from God.  And when I find this kind of wholeness I am balanced and I will flourish, as opposed to either mere conformists or mere rebels who just take sides on everything—with no wisdom at all.\r\n\r\nNow this changes everything.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nPhoto Courtesy of Cea.','Sinning Against Reason','','inherit','open','open','','8259-revision-62','','','2013-01-17 13:50:54','2013-01-17 21:50:54','',8259,'http://provoketive.com/2013/01/17/8259-revision-62/',0,'revision','',0),(8325,204,'2013-01-17 13:51:11','2013-01-17 21:51:11','I have a love-hate relationship with Ayn Rand. Its kind of like the song Willie Nelson and Snoop Dogg sing together, \"Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die.\" One the one hand, I don\'t want to encourage recreational drug use, but on the other, I can\'t help but chuckle at the irony of this song sung by two famous recreational drug users. The song draws me in and then I realize that as much as I like the song, smoking dope would not go over very well with my wife. I get the same feeling when I read Ayn Rand. Effort, she says, is something that I must do on my own and not at the cost of another\'s loss. She draws me in, and then she explains I should not consider others\' interests because life is about me and my interests. My problem with her ethical theory is that I have to coexist with my wife.\r\n\r\nAyn Rand\'s ethical theory is fairly simple: I should only take actions and make decisions by using my natural ability to think rationally. Therefore, I must only act according to my interests, not those of others or those of a group. Rand would not want me to save a stranger from a burning building if it means that I risk loosing my life, or if I have nothing to gain personally by sacrificing myself for a stranger. However, I should save my wife from a burning building because I need her to wash my clothes, bear my children, and cook my dinner (keep in mind Rand is a woman). If an emergency does happen, then I should volunteer to help strangers (after all, you don\'t want to look like a total jerk), while not risking my life and not dedicating the rest of my life to help these strangers. To put it another way, people should help other people not because of notions of obligation or duty (like first responders), but because of notions motivated by reason and personal self-interest (like Bernie Madoff). In Ayn Rand\'s world every man is a king and every woman is a queen. In her world, brotherly and sisterly love are optional. But in the real world, I am a king because my wife lets me, and to love someone else is to see the face of God.\r\n\r\nIn 1916 Einstein presented his general theory of relativity. In it he asserted that space is not three-dimensional and time is not a separate entity—space and time are different aspects of the same something—and all measurements involving space and time are not absolute. Einstein\'s theory of relativity opened the door for scientist to push the boundaries of human imagination. The deterministic world of solid objects in the Newtonian world view came under fresh scrutiny. There came a sense of an alive universe. Instead of being isolated, everything seemed to connect.\r\n\r\nIn 1900 Max Planck delivered a paper that rocked the scientific world. His paper displaced the notion that energy comes only in continuous waves with that of bundles of energy. Planck called these bundles of energy \"quanta\" and was able to show that these bundles could behave both as waves and particles at the same time. The idea that quanta were real was so counter-intuitive that Planck himself could not make this leap of faith. In 1968 scientists smashed electrons into protons and neutrons and discovered \"quarks.\"  Yet, quarks are never directly observed or found in isolation; only with other particles.\r\n\r\nThe early explorers warned us that to try to summarize quantum theory is to risk sounding mystical. Einstein was not willing to accept that quarks could travel faster than the speed of light. Yet, towards the end of his life he admitted that it is impossible to get anywhere in quantum theory without sinning against reason. Observing a quark can instantaneously influence the behavior of another distant quark and appear in two places at the same time—even if no physical force connects the two. The evidence for these intuitions of \"quantum entanglement\" emerged with Bell\'s Theorem in the 1960s. This theory is often described in poetic terms, but one that reflects the true nature of the theory: the flapping of a butterfly\'s wings in New York City can affect the course of a typhoon off the coast of China. In the quantum worldview nothing makes sense while in isolation. There are no boundaries, and influences can emerge from several sources, many probably unknown to the human mind. Reality is bigger that our ability to perceive and since it grows forever in complexity it will probably always outstretch our imaginations and outwit our intelligence.\r\n\r\nStrange, I know, but quantum theory makes more sense to me than Ayn Rand\'s ethical theory. Quantum theory says that there is no end to where our imaginations can take us. Rand\'s theory says that all there is, is me. Rand says that I can experience joy in life through productive work, human relationships, recreation, art and sex as long as I can control my destiny. Quantum theory says there is something beautiful happening just beyond my reach, just outside the space-time continuum. Rand says that it\'s not impossible to know the truth as long as I think rationally. Quantum theory says that I must sin against reason and rationality to get at the truth.\r\n\r\nMaybe this is why Jesus never refers to us as sinners. In his day, and much like ours, the religious élite dictated the conventions of rationality and reason. Jesus sinned against these conventions by turning them upside down and delivering us from the belief that we need to be protected from God.  And when I find this kind of wholeness I am balanced and I will flourish, as opposed to either mere conformists or mere rebels who just take sides on everything—with no wisdom at all.\r\n\r\nNow this changes everything.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nPhoto Courtesy of Cea.','Sinning Against Reason','','inherit','open','open','','8259-revision-63','','','2013-01-17 13:51:11','2013-01-17 21:51:11','',8259,'http://provoketive.com/2013/01/17/8259-revision-63/',0,'revision','',0),(8362,0,'2013-01-21 09:48:08','2013-01-21 17:48:08','While I was writing my book about fallen pastors, I ran into a few pastors who had found a way to restore their ministry. I was dumbfounded. They had, amazingly enough, found a way back into the pastorate.\r\n\r\nI\'m about to share some feelings I\'ve never shared before. Thanks to a counselor I\'ve been seeing, I don\'t think I would have been able to articulate what I felt or am feeling now. Please, fasten your seat belt.\r\n\r\nMy first thought was jealousy. I thought, \"<em>How come those guys get to go back to the pastorate? What makes them so special? I pulled my weight for eight years, had horrible tragedy come on me and then fell. I still have the gifts of a pastor, so why isn\'t God putting me back into it?</em>\"\r\n\r\nI honestly didn\'t understand it. And in the back of my mind were those people who had said, \"<em>Ray, God can still use you in ministry in some way.</em>\"\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/misfit.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8227\" style=\"margin-left: 6px;margin-right: 6px\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/misfit-300x225.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>Listen, I\'d had enough of those people. You remember in Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer when they go to the Land of Misfit Toys? I felt like a misfit toy. Like everyone was saying, \"<em>Ray, you\'re a broken down piece of crud, but you\'re still a pastor. Unfortunately, God will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever use you like that again. Mission over. Maybe He\'ll retire you over to another, less important job somewhere. You know, doing crud work.</em>\" That\'s what I heard them all saying. It made me so mad. I wanted them to stop saying it.\r\n\r\nThe pastors who were getting back into the game were astonishing to me. They found a way back in, past the fear and hurt that I couldn\'t get past. Why was God letting them back in but not me? Deep down, I knew I was bitter, angry, and hurt. But why should that stop a seminary graduate? I had skills!\r\n\r\nTwo people have made a significant impact on me. One is a friend I met early on. He is so close to my heart. I wish to meet him face to face before I die. He is a fallen pastor and has suffered greater than I ever will. He has a chapter in my book. I\'m not quoting him exactly, but we were talking once about churches. He was talking about visiting churches after you\'ve been a pastor and fallen. He said something like, \"It\'s hard to visit a church because it\'s like working as a waiter in a restaurant. You know exactly what goes on in the kitchen.\"\r\n\r\nHe nailed that one. It\'s hard to be a bystander pastor in a church when you\'re trying to recover from a miserable failure. I\'m on my third church membership now. Most of the problems I\'ve faced are my own fault. Listen, when you just visit churches, they know who you are. You\'re the adulterous pastor. Allison and I have been stared out of places. Then, when you join, and they know you have talent, they expect things from  you. Either that, or they are wary of you. It\'s a revolving door of mistrust or expectations that keeps kicking you in the butt.\r\n\r\nHonestly, a lot of it is my fault as well. I still have high expectations of myself that I still need to resolve. Fallen pastors need to find a place to worship and they need a helping hand. <a href=\"http://www.pirministries.org/\">I have a friend who is part of a ministry to help men like me and I encourage you to check it out</a>.\r\n\r\nThe other friend is a Presbyterian minister I met by the providence of God recently. I was hoping to get back into the ministry game and I sat down to talk with him. Instead of talking to me about the ministry, he decided to speak to my soul. I cannot tell you enough how thankful I am for this man and how thankful I am for God placing him in my life at this point.\r\n\r\nThe first day we talked, one of his major points to me was something like this, \"<em>You were miserable in the ministry at the <a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/ministry.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-8229\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/ministry-300x200.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" /></a>end weren\'t you? Why would you want to get back into something that was destroying your soul?</em>\"\r\n\r\nI hate it when people are right about me. I wrote all in my book about how when the ministry is abused, it can destroy a person, a marriage, a church and a family. Strangely enough, here I was talking to this man and he saw right through me and I had failed to apply the lessons of my book to myself.\r\n\r\nBetter yet, he said, \"<em>Since you\'ve been blogging, you\'ve helped countless ministers get back on track. There is your ministry. That is something more powerful than you ever did before.</em>\"\r\n\r\nIt was something I had known all along. Since I\'ve started blogging, I\'ve gotten at least two emails a week from fallen pastors, pastors who are about to commit adultery, wives of fallen pastors, church members hurt by fallen pastors, and children of fallen pastors. I honestly feel overwhelmed most of the time. I don\'t have anything to offer them but words of comfort and honesty.\r\n\r\nMost of the time all I can say is, \"<em>It\'s tough. It\'s going to get worse before it gets better, but know that Christ loves you and is beside you.</em>\" I can tell them what to expect. I can be real with them and honest about what I went through. And each time as soon as I talk to them, I love them like I\'ve been friends with them for years.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/cake.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8230\" style=\"margin-left: 6px;margin-right: 6px\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/cake-300x200.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" /></a>The only analogy I can think of is this: When I was a pastor, I was like cake batter. Who doesn\'t like cake batter? It\'s awesome. It tastes good on the mixer and we want to lick it off before it gets thrown into the dishwasher. But what\'s better than cake batter? Cake. Oh my. Cake. Cake with white buttercream icing. Sprinkles. Mmmmmmm.\r\n\r\nThrough my fall, God took me, a pastor of cake batter and I went through the oven fire. It wasn\'t easy. It was of my own doing. I had to eventually humble myself, allow Him to break me and follow a different path. What did He make of me? Cake. Something better. Something much better, for His purpose and His glory.\r\n\r\nI think back to those people who said, \"<em>You can still minister, Ray.</em>\" Yeah, they were thinking I would never be fit to be in  a pulpit again. I still get a chance to preach and share my testimony. I know what they meant. But I also know that now, God has restored me to ministry in His fashion, exactly the way He wants me.\r\n\r\nDon\'t give up on anyone who sins. Regardless of how far we fall, God still uses those He calls: <em>For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.</em> (Romans 11:29 ESV)\r\n\r\n____________________________\r\n\r\nRay Carroll is author of \"<a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Fallen-Pastor-Finding-Restoration-Broken/dp/0615567096/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1357712337&amp;sr=8-2\">Fallen Pastor: Finding Restoration in a Broken World</a>.\" He blogs at <a href=\"http://www.fallenpastor.com\">www.fallenpastor.com</a>.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','Fallen Pastors Can Be Restored: A Personal Tale, Part 2','','inherit','open','open','','8221-revision-4','','','2013-01-21 09:48:08','2013-01-21 17:48:08','',8221,'http://provoketive.com/2013/01/21/8221-revision-4/',0,'revision','',0),(8327,1,'2013-01-17 13:52:00','2013-01-17 21:52:00','I have a love-hate relationship with Ayn Rand. Its kind of like the song Willie Nelson and Snoop Dogg sing together, \"Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die.\" One the one hand, I don\'t want to encourage recreational drug use, but on the other, I can\'t help but chuckle at the irony of this song sung by two famous recreational drug users. The song draws me in and then I realize that as much as I like the song, smoking dope would not go over very well with my wife. I get the same feeling when I read Ayn Rand. Effort, she says, is something that I must do on my own and not at the cost of another\'s loss. She draws me in, and then she explains I should not consider others\' interests because life is about me and my interests. My problem with her ethical theory is that I have to coexist with my wife.\r\n\r\nAyn Rand\'s ethical theory is fairly simple: I should only take actions and make decisions by using my natural ability to think rationally. Therefore, I must only act according to my interests, not those of others or those of a group. Rand would not want me to save a stranger from a burning building if it means that I risk loosing my life, or if I have nothing to gain personally by sacrificing myself for a stranger. However, I should save my wife from a burning building because I need her to wash my clothes, bear my children, and cook my dinner (keep in mind Rand is a woman). If an emergency does happen, then I should volunteer to help strangers (after all, you don\'t want to look like a total jerk), while not risking my life and not dedicating the rest of my life to help these strangers. To put it another way, people should help other people not because of notions of obligation or duty (like first responders), but because of notions motivated by reason and personal self-interest (like Bernie Madoff). In Ayn Rand\'s world every man is a king and every woman is a queen. In her world, brotherly and sisterly love are optional. But in the real world, I am a king because my wife lets me, and to love someone else is to see the face of God.\r\n\r\nIn 1916 Einstein presented his general theory of relativity. In it he asserted that space is not three-dimensional and time is not a separate entity—space and time are different aspects of the same something—and all measurements involving space and time are not absolute. Einstein\'s theory of relativity opened the door for scientist to push the boundaries of human imagination. The deterministic world of solid objects in the Newtonian world view came under fresh scrutiny. There came a sense of an alive universe. Instead of being isolated, everything seemed to connect.\r\n\r\nIn 1900 Max Planck delivered a paper that rocked the scientific world. His paper displaced the notion that energy comes only in continuous waves with that of bundles of energy. Planck called these bundles of energy \"quanta\" and was able to show that these bundles could behave both as waves and particles at the same time. The idea that quanta were real was so counter-intuitive that Planck himself could not make this leap of faith. In 1968 scientists smashed electrons into protons and neutrons and discovered \"quarks.\"  Yet, quarks are never directly observed or found in isolation; only with other particles.\r\n\r\nThe early explorers warned us that to try to summarize quantum theory is to risk sounding mystical. Einstein was not willing to accept that quarks could travel faster than the speed of light. Yet, towards the end of his life he admitted that it is impossible to get anywhere in quantum theory without sinning against reason. Observing a quark can instantaneously influence the behavior of another distant quark and appear in two places at the same time—even if no physical force connects the two. The evidence for these intuitions of \"quantum entanglement\" emerged with Bell\'s Theorem in the 1960s. This theory is often described in poetic terms, but one that reflects the true nature of the theory: the flapping of a butterfly\'s wings in New York City can affect the course of a typhoon off the coast of China. In the quantum worldview nothing makes sense while in isolation. There are no boundaries, and influences can emerge from several sources, many probably unknown to the human mind. Reality is bigger that our ability to perceive and since it grows forever in complexity it will probably always outstretch our imaginations and outwit our intelligence.\r\n\r\nStrange, I know, but quantum theory makes more sense to me than Ayn Rand\'s ethical theory. Quantum theory says that there is no end to where our imaginations can take us. Rand\'s theory says that all there is, is me. Rand says that I can experience joy in life through productive work, human relationships, recreation, art and sex as long as I can control my destiny. Quantum theory says there is something beautiful happening just beyond my reach, just outside the space-time continuum. Rand says that it\'s not impossible to know the truth as long as I think rationally. Quantum theory says that I must sin against reason and rationality to get at the truth.\r\n\r\nMaybe this is why Jesus never refers to us as sinners. In his day, and much like ours, the religious élite dictated the conventions of rationality and reason. Jesus sinned against these conventions by turning them upside down and delivering us from the belief that we need to be protected from God.  And when I find this kind of wholeness I am balanced and I will flourish, as opposed to either mere conformists or mere rebels who just take sides on everything—with no wisdom at all.\r\n\r\nNow this changes everything.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nPhoto Courtesy of Cea.','Sinning Against Reason','','inherit','open','open','','8259-revision-64','','','2013-01-17 13:52:00','2013-01-17 21:52:00','',8259,'http://provoketive.com/2013/01/17/8259-revision-64/',0,'revision','',0),(8328,204,'2013-01-17 20:26:56','2013-01-18 04:26:56','I have a love-hate relationship with Ayn Rand. Its kind of like the song Willie Nelson and Snoop Dogg sing together, \"Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die.\" One the one hand, I don\'t want to encourage recreational drug use, but on the other, I can\'t help but chuckle at the irony of this song sung by two famous recreational drug users. The song draws me in and then I realize that as much as I like the song, smoking dope would not go over very well with my wife. I get the same feeling when I read Ayn Rand. Effort, she says, is something that I must do on my own and not at the cost of another\'s loss. She draws me in, and then she explains I should not consider others\' interests because life is about me and my interests. My problem with her ethical theory is that I have to coexist with my wife.\r\n\r\nAyn Rand\'s ethical theory is fairly simple: I should only take actions and make decisions by using my natural ability to think rationally. Therefore, I must only act according to my interests, not those of others or those of a group. Rand would not want me to save a stranger from a burning building if it means that I risk loosing my life, or if I have nothing to gain personally by sacrificing myself for a stranger. However, I should save my wife from a burning building because I need her to wash my clothes, bear my children, and cook my dinner (keep in mind Rand is a woman). If an emergency does happen, then I should volunteer to help strangers (after all, you don\'t want to look like a total jerk), while not risking my life and not dedicating the rest of my life to help these strangers. To put it another way, people should help other people not because of notions of obligation or duty (like first responders), but because of notions motivated by reason and personal self-interest (like Bernie Madoff). In Ayn Rand\'s world every man is a king and every woman is a queen. In her world, brotherly and sisterly love are optional. But in the real world, I am a king because my wife lets me, and to love someone else is to see the face of God.\r\n\r\nIn 1916 Einstein presented his general theory of relativity. In it he asserted that space is not three-dimensional and time is not a separate entity—space and time are different aspects of the same something—and all measurements involving space and time are not absolute. Einstein\'s theory of relativity opened the door for scientist to push the boundaries of human imagination. The deterministic world of solid objects in the Newtonian world view came under fresh scrutiny. There came a sense of an alive universe. Instead of being isolated, everything seemed to connect.\r\n\r\nIn 1900 Max Planck delivered a paper that rocked the scientific world. His paper displaced the notion that energy comes only in continuous waves with that of bundles of energy. Planck called these bundles of energy \"quanta\" and was able to show that these bundles could behave both as waves and particles at the same time. The idea that quanta were real was so counter-intuitive that Planck himself could not make this leap of faith. In 1968 scientists smashed electrons into protons and neutrons and discovered \"quarks.\"  Yet, quarks are never directly observed or found in isolation; only with other particles.\r\n\r\nThe early explorers warned us that to try to summarize quantum theory is to risk sounding mystical. Einstein was not willing to accept that quarks could travel faster than the speed of light. Yet, towards the end of his life he admitted that it is impossible to get anywhere in quantum theory without sinning against reason. Observing a quark can instantaneously influence the behavior of another distant quark and appear in two places at the same time—even if no physical force connects the two. The evidence for these intuitions of \"quantum entanglement\" emerged with Bell\'s Theorem in the 1960s. This theory is often described in poetic terms, but one that reflects the true nature of the theory: the flapping of a butterfly\'s wings in New York City can affect the course of a typhoon off the coast of China. In the quantum worldview nothing makes sense while in isolation. There are no boundaries, and influences can emerge from several sources, many probably unknown to the human mind. Reality is bigger that our ability to perceive and since it grows forever in complexity it will probably always outstretch our imaginations and outwit our intelligence.\r\n\r\nStrange, I know, but quantum theory makes more sense to me than Ayn Rand\'s ethical theory. Quantum theory says that there is no end to where our imaginations can take us. Rand\'s theory says that all there is, is me. Rand says that I can experience joy in life through productive work, human relationships, recreation, art and sex as long as I can control my destiny. Quantum theory says there is something beautiful happening just beyond my reach, just outside the space-time continuum. Rand says that it\'s not impossible to know the truth as long as I think rationally. Quantum theory says that I must sin against reason and rationality to get at the truth.\r\n\r\nMaybe this is why Jesus never refers to us as sinners. In his day, and much like ours, the religious élite dictated the conventions of rationality and reason. Jesus sinned against these conventions by turning them upside down and delivering us from the belief that we need to be protected from God.  And when I find this kind of wholeness I am balanced and I will flourish, as opposed to either mere conformists or mere rebels who just take sides on everything—with no wisdom at all.\r\n\r\nNow this changes everything.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nPhoto Courtesy of Cea.','Sinning Against Reason','','inherit','open','open','','8259-autosave','','','2013-01-17 20:26:56','2013-01-18 04:26:56','',8259,'http://provoketive.com/2013/01/17/8259-autosave/',0,'revision','',0),(8330,0,'2013-01-17 17:08:31','2013-01-18 01:08:31','I have a love-hate relationship with Ayn Rand. Its kind of like the song Willie Nelson and Snoop Dogg sing together, \"Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die.\" One the one hand, I don\'t want to encourage recreational drug use, but on the other, I can\'t help but chuckle at the irony of this song sung by two famous recreational drug users. The song draws me in and then I realize that as much as I like the song, smoking dope would not go over very well with my wife. I get the same feeling when I read Ayn Rand. Effort, she says, is something that I must do on my own and not at the cost of another\'s loss. She draws me in, and then she explains I should not consider others\' interests because life is about me and my interests. My problem with her ethical theory is that I have to coexist with my wife.\r\n\r\nAyn Rand\'s ethical theory is fairly simple: I should only take actions and make decisions by using my natural ability to think rationally. Therefore, I must only act according to my interests, not those of others or those of a group. Rand would not want me to save a stranger from a burning building if it means that I risk loosing my life, or if I have nothing to gain personally by sacrificing myself for a stranger. However, I should save my wife from a burning building because I need her to wash my clothes, bear my children, and cook my dinner (keep in mind Rand is a woman). If an emergency does happen, then I should volunteer to help strangers (after all, you don\'t want to look like a total jerk), while not risking my life and not dedicating the rest of my life to help these strangers. To put it another way, people should help other people not because of notions of obligation or duty (like first responders), but because of notions motivated by reason and personal self-interest (like Bernie Madoff). In Ayn Rand\'s world every man is a king and every woman is a queen. In her world, brotherly and sisterly love are optional. But in the real world, I am a king because my wife lets me, and to love someone else is to see the face of God.\r\n\r\nIn 1916 Einstein presented his general theory of relativity. In it he asserted that space is not three-dimensional and time is not a separate entity—space and time are different aspects of the same something—and all measurements involving space and time are not absolute. Einstein\'s theory of relativity opened the door for scientist to push the boundaries of human imagination. The deterministic world of solid objects in the Newtonian world view came under fresh scrutiny. There came a sense of an alive universe. Instead of being isolated, everything seemed to connect.\r\n\r\nIn 1900 Max Planck delivered a paper that rocked the scientific world. His paper displaced the notion that energy comes only in continuous waves with that of bundles of energy. Planck called these bundles of energy \"quanta\" and was able to show that these bundles could behave both as waves and particles at the same time. The idea that quanta were real was so counter-intuitive that Planck himself could not make this leap of faith. In 1968 scientists smashed electrons into protons and neutrons and discovered \"quarks.\"  Yet, quarks are never directly observed or found in isolation; only with other particles.\r\n\r\nThe early explorers warned us that to try to summarize quantum theory is to risk sounding mystical. Einstein was not willing to accept that quarks could travel faster than the speed of light. Yet, towards the end of his life he admitted that it is impossible to get anywhere in quantum theory without sinning against reason. Observing a quark can instantaneously influence the behavior of another distant quark and appear in two places at the same time—even if no physical force connects the two. The evidence for these intuitions of \"quantum entanglement\" emerged with Bell\'s Theorem in the 1960s. This theory is often described in poetic terms, but one that reflects the true nature of the theory: the flapping of a butterfly\'s wings in New York City can affect the course of a typhoon off the coast of China. In the quantum worldview nothing makes sense while in isolation. There are no boundaries, and influences can emerge from several sources, many probably unknown to the human mind. Reality is bigger that our ability to perceive and since it grows forever in complexity it will probably always outstretch our imaginations and outwit our intelligence.\r\n\r\nStrange, I know, but quantum theory makes more sense to me than Ayn Rand\'s ethical theory. Quantum theory says that there is no end to where our imaginations can take us. Rand\'s theory says that all there is, is me. Rand says that I can experience joy in life through productive work, human relationships, recreation, art and sex as long as I can control my destiny. Quantum theory says there is something beautiful happening just beyond my reach, just outside the space-time continuum. Rand says that it\'s not impossible to know the truth as long as I think rationally. Quantum theory says that I must sin against reason and rationality to get at the truth.\r\n\r\nMaybe this is why Jesus never refers to us as sinners. In his day, and much like ours, the religious élite dictated the conventions of rationality and reason. Jesus sinned against these conventions by turning them upside down and delivering us from the belief that we need to be protected from God.  And when I find this kind of wholeness I am balanced and I will flourish, as opposed to either mere conformists or mere rebels who just take sides on everything—with no wisdom at all.\r\n\r\nNow this changes everything.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nPhoto Courtesy of Cea.','Sinning Against Reason','','inherit','open','open','','8259-revision-65','','','2013-01-17 17:08:31','2013-01-18 01:08:31','',8259,'http://provoketive.com/2013/01/17/8259-revision-65/',0,'revision','',0),(8331,1,'2013-01-18 09:51:53','2013-01-18 17:51:53','I remember hearing a story in college about a large church with a young pastor who boldly preached the gospel according to Calvin and Albert Mohler.  The mega-church he led had lost a sizable number of members (though certainly not enough to diminish its mega-church status) and a friend commented that this was because this pastor was “preaching the truth.”  What he meant, which I agree with, is that the truth isn’t always what we want to hear.  What he implied, which I want to question, is that any consequences of bluntly telling the truth are perfectly acceptable.\n\nA friend of mine said to me recently that what we believe determines how we live and treat others.  Whether he meant to or not, he seemed to imply that the primary concern of any spiritual leader must be making sure people believe correctly.  Lifestyle will follow if we just get people’s theology in order.\n\nBut can our quest to enlighten others with “the truth” do more harm than good?\n\nWhat happens when people ask for our advice and we discover that they believe “the wrong thing?”  What happens when revealing to others the theologies or ideologies that we hold dear causes them pain?  What happens when arguing for what we believe causes others to walk away from the faith altogether?\n\nBefore we go any farther with this I need to confess that I am by no means a master of discretion when it comes to delicate situations.  So what follows is not the teachings of an expert but the honest questionings of a fellow journeyer.  If I\'m honest, I must confess that I am guilty of having done (and probably will do again) many things similar to those I am about to describe, so I write this not to criticize others but to bring to light a concern that all of us engaged in conversations about faith need to keep in mind.\n\nWith that confession on the table, let me share three types of situations in which conversations about faith often turn into \"arguments\" which subject the people around us to \"friendly fire\":\n\nThe first happens when we cross lines of theological difference.\n\nI have heard many pastors, bible study leaders, and seminary students, whether they be Calvinist, Wesleyan, or none-of-the-above, describe moments in which someone came to them with a question or a pastoral concern which simultaneously revealed that they held the “wrong theology.”  Not missing a beat, said “teacher” took the opportunity to inform their new, unsuspecting “student” of a more theologically robust and accurate way of conceptualizing the “issue at hand,” with the resulting private lecture in systematics often taking up most of the 30 minute block set aside for their “coffee meeting.”  With a shrug many of these stories end with \"I haven\'t heard anything from them lately...\"\n\nThe second happens when we cross lines of political difference.\n\nA friend told me a couple of years ago about a painful experience involving a mentor and colleague who was leading a local church outreach program.  In the course of meeting to plan activities for this program, they realized that they came down on opposite sides of a very controversial political issue.  My friend humbly asked to continue working with this mentor and colleague despite their disagreement.  In return she was given an ultimatum: until you change your mind about this, we can’t work together.\n\nThe third happens when we cross lines of cultural or experiential difference.\n\nSqueezed into the middle seat on a long Southwest flight to visit family for the holidays, it comes out that we work in ministry or are studying theology.  Or maybe the guy next to us notices the title of the N.T. Wright or Kathryn Tanner book we are reading.  Whatever it was, suddenly and seemingly out of nowhere a host of stereotypes and accusations are flying: the diatribe against organized religion from the woman on our left, the stories of personal pain and hurt caused by church when the fellow on our right was growing up.  My instincts, and I suspect I’m not alone, are to do one of two things:  either dodge the bullet and play the I’m-not-that-kind-of-Christian card, or spend the rest of the flight arguing about why my new \"opponents\" have got Christianity all wrong.\n\nUnderlying all three of these types of situations, I think, is a concern for the advancement of particular commitments and beliefs in the life of the church.  And on one level, these are good, important things.  The church <em>needs</em> to better educate its members about theology.  The church <em>needs</em> people who are serious about arguing for the right application of Christianity to the needs of this world.  The church <em>needs</em> to deal with its historical and cultural baggage and <em>needs</em> to try to change people\'s hearts and minds.  And when we engage in conversations about faith we will often find ourselves on the front lines of all of these concerns.\n\nBut what also <em>needs</em> to be considered is the concrete reality of the other person in each of these situations.  Does the church member across the table from us need a lesson in theology or do they need to be heard out?  Does the colleague with whom we disagree politically need an ultimatum or do they need an outstretched hand?  Do our fellow passengers (or perhaps prisoners?) on a long flight home need the sales pitch for our particular brand of Christianity or do they need someone willing to own the harm done to them and simply say “I’m sorry”?\n\nThese are difficult questions to answer and there are no hard and fast rules for deciding them.  And while I certainly would be the first to say that at times we need to argue for what we believe to be true, I also want to acknowledge that all too often we go into conversations with those with whom we disagree trigger-happy and ready to shoot.  Spoiling for the fight, we don\'t take the time to stop and consider the consequences of our words.\n\nI was pretty astonished today when I watched this \"interview\" of Alex Jones by Piers Morgan:\n\n[youtube]http://youtu.be/Tf-i3Y5iRYo[/youtube]\n\nUnfortunately, many people see Christians this way and a lot of times we Christians act this way toward one another.  Aggressive, argumentative, and even obstinate have become synonyms with \"Christian\" in our society, and we haven\'t done much to help our cause.\n\nToo often we forget, I\'m afraid, that sitting across the table from us is a real person who has real needs and real questions, and that they are looking to us for answers.  There is a time and a place for arguing, but have we forgotten that there is also a time and a place for sitting still and listening to what others have to say?\n\nEven when we <em>know</em> that they are wrong?\n\n&nbsp;\n\n<em>Alexander Marshall is a blogger, writer, teacher, and student at Yale Divinity School.  You can connect with him on <a href=\"http://www.facebook.com/alexanderpmarshall\">Facebook</a>, <a href=\"https://twitter.com/alexp_marshall\">Twitter</a>, or by <a href=\"http://apmarshall.wordpress.com\">visiting his blog</a>.</em>','When is it Time to Stop Arguing?','','inherit','open','open','','8205-autosave','','','2013-01-18 09:51:53','2013-01-18 17:51:53','',8205,'http://provoketive.com/2013/01/18/8205-autosave/',0,'revision','',0),(8332,1,'2013-01-18 09:54:05','2013-01-18 17:54:05','','tugowar','','inherit','open','open','','tugowar','','','2013-01-18 09:54:05','2013-01-18 17:54:05','',8205,'http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/tugowar.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(8333,1,'2013-01-11 09:13:59','2013-01-11 17:13:59','<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/file76912791172721.jpg\"><img class=\"alignnone  wp-image-8214\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/file76912791172721.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"460\" height=\"308\" /></a>\r\n\r\nI remember hearing a story in college about a large church with a young pastor who boldly preached the gospel according to Calvin and Albert Mohler.  The mega-church he led had lost a sizable number of members (though certainly not enough to diminish its mega-church status) and a friend commented that this was because this pastor was “preaching the truth.”  What he meant, which I agree with, is that the truth isn’t always what we want to hear.  What he implied, which I want to question, is that any consequences of bluntly telling the truth are perfectly acceptable.\r\n\r\nA friend of mine said to me recently that what we believe determines how we live and treat others.  Whether he meant to or not, he seemed to imply that the primary concern of any spiritual leader must be making sure people believe correctly.  Lifestyle will follow if we just get people’s theology in order.\r\n\r\nBut can our quest to enlighten others with “the truth” do more harm than good?\r\n\r\nWhat happens when people ask for our advice and we discover that they believe “the wrong thing?”  What happens when revealing to others the theologies or ideologies that we hold dear causes them pain?  What happens when arguing for what we believe causes others to walk away from the faith altogether?\r\n\r\nBefore we go any farther with this I need to confess that I am by no means a master of discretion when it comes to delicate situations.  So what follows is not the teachings of an expert but the honest questionings of a fellow journeyer.  If I\'m honest, I must confess that I am guilty of having done (and probably will do again) many things similar to those I am about to describe, so I write this not to criticize others but to bring to light a concern that all of us engaged in conversations about faith need to keep in mind.\r\n\r\nWith that confession on the table, let me share three types of situations in which conversations about faith often turn into \"arguments\" which subject the people around us to \"friendly fire\":\r\n\r\nThe first happens when we cross lines of theological difference.\r\n\r\nI have heard many pastors, bible study leaders, and seminary students, whether they be Calvinist, Wesleyan, or none-of-the-above, describe moments in which someone came to them with a question or a pastoral concern which simultaneously revealed that they held the “wrong theology.”  Not missing a beat, said “teacher” took the opportunity to inform their new, unsuspecting “student” of a more theologically robust and accurate way of conceptualizing the “issue at hand,” with the resulting private lecture in systematics often taking up most of the 30 minute block set aside for their “coffee meeting.”  With a shrug many of these stories end with \"I haven\'t heard anything from them lately...\"\r\n\r\nThe second happens when we cross lines of political difference.\r\n\r\nA friend told me a couple of years ago about a painful experience involving a mentor and colleague who was leading a local church outreach program.  In the course of meeting to plan activities for this program, they realized that they came down on opposite sides of a very controversial political issue.  My friend humbly asked to continue working with this mentor and colleague despite their disagreement.  In return she was given an ultimatum: until you change your mind about this, we can’t work together.\r\n\r\nThe third happens when we cross lines of cultural or experiential difference.\r\n\r\nSqueezed into the middle seat on a long Southwest flight to visit family for the holidays, it comes out that we work in ministry or are studying theology.  Or maybe the guy next to us notices the title of the N.T. Wright or Kathryn Tanner book we are reading.  Whatever it was, suddenly and seemingly out of nowhere a host of stereotypes and accusations are flying: the diatribe against organized religion from the woman on our left, the stories of personal pain and hurt caused by church when the fellow on our right was growing up.  My instincts, and I suspect I’m not alone, are to do one of two things:  either dodge the bullet and play the I’m-not-that-kind-of-Christian card, or spend the rest of the flight arguing about why my new \"opponents\" have got Christianity all wrong.\r\n\r\nUnderlying all three of these types of situations, I think, is a concern for the advancement of particular commitments and beliefs in the life of the church.  And on one level, these are good, important things.  The church <em>needs</em> to better educate its members about theology.  The church <em>needs</em> people who are serious about arguing for the right application of Christianity to the needs of this world.  The church <em>needs</em> to deal with its historical and cultural baggage and <em>needs</em> to try to change people\'s hearts and minds.  And when we engage in conversations about faith we will often find ourselves on the front lines of all of these concerns.\r\n\r\nBut what also <em>needs</em> to be considered is the concrete reality of the other person in each of these situations.  Does the church member across the table from us need a lesson in theology or do they need to be heard out?  Does the colleague with whom we disagree politically need an ultimatum or do they need an outstretched hand?  Do our fellow passengers (or perhaps prisoners?) on a long flight home need the sales pitch for our particular brand of Christianity or do they need someone willing to own the harm done to them and simply say “I’m sorry”?\r\n\r\nThese are difficult questions to answer and there are no hard and fast rules for deciding them.  And while I certainly would be the first to say that at times we need to argue for what we believe to be true, I also want to acknowledge that all too often we go into conversations with those with whom we disagree trigger-happy and ready to shoot.  Spoiling for the fight, we don\'t take the time to stop and consider the consequences of our words.\r\n\r\nI was pretty astonished today when I watched this \"interview\" of Alex Jones by Piers Morgan:\r\n\r\n[youtube]http://youtu.be/Tf-i3Y5iRYo[/youtube]\r\n\r\nUnfortunately, many people see Christians this way and a lot of times we Christians act this way toward one another.  Aggressive, argumentative, and even obstinate have become synonyms with \"Christian\" in our society, and we haven\'t done much to help our cause.\r\n\r\nToo often we forget, I\'m afraid, that sitting across the table from us is a real person who has real needs and real questions, and that they are looking to us for answers.  There is a time and a place for arguing, but have we forgotten that there is also a time and a place for sitting still and listening to what others have to say?\r\n\r\nEven when we <em>know</em> that they are wrong?\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<em>Alexander Marshall is a blogger, writer, teacher, and student at Yale Divinity School.  You can connect with him on <a href=\"http://www.facebook.com/alexanderpmarshall\">Facebook</a>, <a href=\"https://twitter.com/alexp_marshall\">Twitter</a>, or by <a href=\"http://apmarshall.wordpress.com\">visiting his blog</a>.</em>','When is it Time to Stop Arguing?','','inherit','open','open','','8205-revision-22','','','2013-01-11 09:13:59','2013-01-11 17:13:59','',8205,'http://provoketive.com/2013/01/11/8205-revision-22/',0,'revision','',0),(8335,1,'2013-01-18 09:56:34','2013-01-18 17:56:34','It was just four months after I had committed adultery and fallen from my pastorate. I was showing signs of \"<em>true repentance,</em>\" some thought. I was reaching out for help. What I was really doing was trying not to lose my mind. I didn\'t have a friend in the world. Almost everyone had abandoned me, I was living in a tiny house miles away from my children and I hated myself.\r\n\r\nBut part of me wanted to justify my actions. I wanted to defend myself. I wanted someone just to listen to me. I deserved to be listened to. I had listened to people in church whine and complain for eight years. I had been challenged to a fist fight, heard complaints about the most insignificant things, performed funerals, stood over the dying, done their weddings, held the hands of the sick, and preached the Word. Was a little understanding too much to ask?\r\n\r\nOf course, at that time, I was hardened in my sin. I hadn\'t been humbled yet. I was still lashing out at other people instead of asking God for help. So I started making phone calls. I was asking questions like, <em>\"Why are people still angry with me?\" \"Why can\'t people show the love of Christ toward me?\" \"Why can\'t true Christians show forgiveness?\"</em>\r\n\r\nThese were selfish questions to ask, I later found out. At the time, I felt fully justified in asking them. I had already moved past my sin and I felt alright with God. So why couldn\'t everyone else be okay with me?\r\n\r\nThe one answer I got from people that really chapped my butt was this - \"<em>Well, Ray, God isn\'t done with you. He may not want you to pastor again, but he probably has use for you in the ministry somewhere.</em>\"\r\n\r\nWhen I heard that the first time, I almost threw up. I was a seminary graduate. Don\'t talk to me like that. Don\'t give me <a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/semingrad.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-8224\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/semingrad.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"211\" /></a>some petty answer. I have a Master of Divinity for crying out loud. But I heard that answer again and again. \"<em>God may have some ministry for you down the road, Ray. Don\'t give up.</em>\" \"<em>Jerks</em>,\" I thought.\r\n\r\nLittle did I know, God hadn\'t even begun working on my callous heart. I was in a stage of pride that I hadn\'t even begun to understand.\r\n\r\nI remember a few months after I got caught, I started blogging anonymously. Then, I got involved with <a href=\"http://civitaspress.com/\">Civitas Press</a> in writing an essay for \"<a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/The-Practice-Of-Love-Stories/dp/0615450199/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1357712421&amp;sr=8-3&amp;keywords=the+practice+of+love\"><em>The Practice of Love</em></a>.\" Thanks to editor <a href=\"http://jonathanbrink.com/\">Jonathan Brink</a> and the work of God in my heart, I finally started scraping away at the problems going on in my soul.\r\n\r\nWhile I was blogging anonymously under the name of <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Dimmesdale\">Arthur Dimmesdale</a>, I started getting requests for help from other fallen pastors. I thought, \"<em>Who am I to help these people? I\'m barely out of the woods myself.</em>\" But all I knew to do was bare my heart and soul to them, love them for who they were and give them honest answers.\r\n\r\nWhile I wrote the essay for that book, God showed me something amazing. He still loved me. Christ was by my side. Regardless of the sin I had wrought, I was still His child. There was nothing I could do to make Him hate me. The real problem was this - I hated myself more than anyone at my former church, anyone in my family or anyone in the community hated me. I hated myself for the sin I had committed.\r\n\r\nI loathed myself of a daily basis. I didn\'t think I deserved the love of God, the love of Christ or the love of my new wife. I didn\'t think I ever deserved to show my face in public again. For months, I would go to department stores, grocery stores or in public with my head down, hoping not to make eye contact with anyone. I was unworthy.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/john8.jpeg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8225\" style=\"margin-left: 6px; margin-right: 6px;\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/john8-225x300.jpeg\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" /></a>Finally, I had a breakthrough with <a href=\"http://www.esvbible.org/search/john+8%3A1-11/\">John 8</a>. It was a passage I refused to preach when I was a pastor. It was the woman caught in adultery. In that passage, God showed me that Christ stands behind us when we are at our worst. He is our best friend, even when the odds are stacked against us. That is exactly what He did at Calvary.\r\n\r\nWhile I was writing an essay on that for \"<em>The Practice of Love</em>,\" Jonathan Brink suggested to me that I was now the woman caught in adultery. I was the horrible sinner thrust down into the dirt and facing a crowd of people who demanded justice.\r\n\r\nHe was right. But the person who wanted me to be strung up from the highest tree at that moment was me. My upbringing, my seminary education, my judgmental attitude had brought me to one conclusion - I should be stoned for my sin. That\'s why I could never preach that passage. I would read it and say, \"<em>That woman does, by the Law of Moses, deserve death.</em>\" But at the moment I reread it after I committed adultery, I now stood in her place.\r\n\r\nI looked at her and saw me. I said, \"<em>That\'s me. I deserve death. But the only friend I have in the world is Christ and what does He say?</em>\" Christ looked at the crowd and challenged all of them. He said, \"<em>You without sin, cast the first stone.</em>\" He was telling them to examine their own hearts. They had no right to pass ultimate judgment on this woman. He was the only one who had that right.\r\n\r\nThen He said to her, \"<em>Is anyone left to condemn you? Go and sin no more</em>.\"\r\n\r\nThat gave me a whole new lease on life. Working with Jonathan and Civitas, I wrote a book and used my real name. From that day, I began to get more and more contact with fallen pastors across the country who felt like they had no voice.\r\n\r\nBut more about that next time. And hope for fallen pastors who feel like they cannot be restored . . . because they can.\r\n\r\n____________________________\r\n\r\nRay Carroll is author of \"<a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Fallen-Pastor-Finding-Restoration-Broken/dp/0615567096/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1357712337&amp;sr=8-2\">Fallen Pastor: Finding Restoration in a Broken World</a>.\" He blogs at <a href=\"http://www.fallenpastor.com\">www.fallenpastor.com</a>.','Fallen Pastors Can Be Restored: A Personal Tale, Part 1','','inherit','open','open','','8220-revision-3','','','2013-01-18 09:56:34','2013-01-18 17:56:34','',8220,'http://provoketive.com/2013/01/18/8220-revision-3/',0,'revision','',0),(8336,1,'2013-01-18 09:55:25','2013-01-18 17:55:25','I remember hearing a story in college about a large church with a young pastor who boldly preached the gospel according to Calvin and Albert Mohler.  The mega-church he led had lost a sizable number of members (though certainly not enough to diminish its mega-church status) and a friend commented that this was because this pastor was “preaching the truth.”  What he meant, which I agree with, is that the truth isn’t always what we want to hear.  What he implied, which I want to question, is that any consequences of bluntly telling the truth are perfectly acceptable.\r\n\r\nA friend of mine said to me recently that what we believe determines how we live and treat others.  Whether he meant to or not, he seemed to imply that the primary concern of any spiritual leader must be making sure people believe correctly.  Lifestyle will follow if we just get people’s theology in order.\r\n\r\nBut can our quest to enlighten others with “the truth” do more harm than good?\r\n\r\nWhat happens when people ask for our advice and we discover that they believe “the wrong thing?”  What happens when revealing to others the theologies or ideologies that we hold dear causes them pain?  What happens when arguing for what we believe causes others to walk away from the faith altogether?\r\n\r\nBefore we go any farther with this I need to confess that I am by no means a master of discretion when it comes to delicate situations.  So what follows is not the teachings of an expert but the honest questionings of a fellow journeyer.  If I\'m honest, I must confess that I am guilty of having done (and probably will do again) many things similar to those I am about to describe, so I write this not to criticize others but to bring to light a concern that all of us engaged in conversations about faith need to keep in mind.\r\n\r\nWith that confession on the table, let me share three types of situations in which conversations about faith often turn into \"arguments\" which subject the people around us to \"friendly fire\":\r\n\r\nThe first happens when we cross lines of theological difference.\r\n\r\nI have heard many pastors, bible study leaders, and seminary students, whether they be Calvinist, Wesleyan, or none-of-the-above, describe moments in which someone came to them with a question or a pastoral concern which simultaneously revealed that they held the “wrong theology.”  Not missing a beat, said “teacher” took the opportunity to inform their new, unsuspecting “student” of a more theologically robust and accurate way of conceptualizing the “issue at hand,” with the resulting private lecture in systematics often taking up most of the 30 minute block set aside for their “coffee meeting.”  With a shrug many of these stories end with \"I haven\'t heard anything from them lately...\"\r\n\r\nThe second happens when we cross lines of political difference.\r\n\r\nA friend told me a couple of years ago about a painful experience involving a mentor and colleague who was leading a local church outreach program.  In the course of meeting to plan activities for this program, they realized that they came down on opposite sides of a very controversial political issue.  My friend humbly asked to continue working with this mentor and colleague despite their disagreement.  In return she was given an ultimatum: until you change your mind about this, we can’t work together.\r\n\r\nThe third happens when we cross lines of cultural or experiential difference.\r\n\r\nSqueezed into the middle seat on a long Southwest flight to visit family for the holidays, it comes out that we work in ministry or are studying theology.  Or maybe the guy next to us notices the title of the N.T. Wright or Kathryn Tanner book we are reading.  Whatever it was, suddenly and seemingly out of nowhere a host of stereotypes and accusations are flying: the diatribe against organized religion from the woman on our left, the stories of personal pain and hurt caused by church when the fellow on our right was growing up.  My instincts, and I suspect I’m not alone, are to do one of two things:  either dodge the bullet and play the I’m-not-that-kind-of-Christian card, or spend the rest of the flight arguing about why my new \"opponents\" have got Christianity all wrong.\r\n\r\nUnderlying all three of these types of situations, I think, is a concern for the advancement of particular commitments and beliefs in the life of the church.  And on one level, these are good, important things.  The church <em>needs</em> to better educate its members about theology.  The church <em>needs</em> people who are serious about arguing for the right application of Christianity to the needs of this world.  The church <em>needs</em> to deal with its historical and cultural baggage and <em>needs</em> to try to change people\'s hearts and minds.  And when we engage in conversations about faith we will often find ourselves on the front lines of all of these concerns.\r\n\r\nBut what also <em>needs</em> to be considered is the concrete reality of the other person in each of these situations.  Does the church member across the table from us need a lesson in theology or do they need to be heard out?  Does the colleague with whom we disagree politically need an ultimatum or do they need an outstretched hand?  Do our fellow passengers (or perhaps prisoners?) on a long flight home need the sales pitch for our particular brand of Christianity or do they need someone willing to own the harm done to them and simply say “I’m sorry”?\r\n\r\nThese are difficult questions to answer and there are no hard and fast rules for deciding them.  And while I certainly would be the first to say that at times we need to argue for what we believe to be true, I also want to acknowledge that all too often we go into conversations with those with whom we disagree trigger-happy and ready to shoot.  Spoiling for the fight, we don\'t take the time to stop and consider the consequences of our words.\r\n\r\nI was pretty astonished today when I watched this \"interview\" of Alex Jones by Piers Morgan:\r\n\r\n[youtube]http://youtu.be/Tf-i3Y5iRYo[/youtube]\r\n\r\nUnfortunately, many people see Christians this way and a lot of times we Christians act this way toward one another.  Aggressive, argumentative, and even obstinate have become synonyms with \"Christian\" in our society, and we haven\'t done much to help our cause.\r\n\r\nToo often we forget, I\'m afraid, that sitting across the table from us is a real person who has real needs and real questions, and that they are looking to us for answers.  There is a time and a place for arguing, but have we forgotten that there is also a time and a place for sitting still and listening to what others have to say?\r\n\r\nEven when we <em>know</em> that they are wrong?\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<em>Alexander Marshall is a blogger, writer, teacher, and student at Yale Divinity School.  You can connect with him on <a href=\"http://www.facebook.com/alexanderpmarshall\">Facebook</a>, <a href=\"https://twitter.com/alexp_marshall\">Twitter</a>, or by <a href=\"http://apmarshall.wordpress.com\">visiting his blog</a>.</em>','When is it Time to Stop Arguing?','','inherit','open','open','','8205-revision-23','','','2013-01-18 09:55:25','2013-01-18 17:55:25','',8205,'http://provoketive.com/2013/01/18/8205-revision-23/',0,'revision','',0),(8337,1,'2013-01-08 23:06:59','2013-01-09 07:06:59','While I was writing my book about fallen pastors, I ran into a few pastors who had found a way to restore their ministry. I was dumbfounded. They had, amazingly enough, found a way back into the pastorate.\r\n\r\nI\'m about to share some feelings I\'ve never shared before. Thanks to a counselor I\'ve been seeing, I don\'t think I would have been able to articulate what I felt or am feeling now. Please, fasten your seat belt.\r\n\r\nMy first thought was jealousy. I thought, \"<em>How come those guys get to go back to the pastorate? What makes them so special? I pulled my weight for eight years, had horrible tragedy come on me and then fell. I still have the gifts of a pastor, so why isn\'t God putting me back into it?</em>\"\r\n\r\nI honestly didn\'t understand it. And in the back of my mind were those people who had said, \"<em>Ray, God can still use you in ministry in some way.</em>\"\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/misfit.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8227\" style=\"margin-left: 6px;margin-right: 6px\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/misfit-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>Listen, I\'d had enough of those people. You remember in Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer when they go to the Land of Misfit Toys? I felt like a misfit toy. Like everyone was saying, \"<em>Ray, you\'re a broken down piece of crud, but you\'re still a pastor. Unfortunately, God will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever use you like that again. Mission over. Maybe He\'ll retire you over to another, less important job somewhere. You know, doing crud work.</em>\" That\'s what I heard them all saying. It made me so mad. I wanted them to stop saying it.\r\n\r\nThe pastors who were getting back into the game were astonishing to me. They found a way back in, past the fear and hurt that I couldn\'t get past. Why was God letting them back in but not me? Deep down, I knew I was bitter, angry, and hurt. But why should that stop a seminary graduate? I had skills!\r\n\r\nTwo people have made a significant impact on me. One is a friend I met early on. He is so close to my heart. I wish to meet him face to face before I die. He is a fallen pastor and has suffered greater than I ever will. He has a chapter in my book. I\'m not quoting him exactly, but we were talking once about churches. He was talking about visiting churches after you\'ve been a pastor and fallen. He said something like, \"It\'s hard to visit a church because it\'s like working as a waiter in a restaurant. You know exactly what goes on in the kitchen.\"\r\n\r\nHe nailed that one. It\'s hard to be a bystander pastor in a church when you\'re trying to recover from a miserable failure. I\'m on my third church membership now. Most of the problems I\'ve faced are my own fault. Listen, when you just visit churches, they know who you are. You\'re the adulterous pastor. Allison and I have been stared out of places. Then, when you join, and they know you have talent, they expect things from  you. Either that, or they are wary of you. It\'s a revolving door of mistrust or expectations that keeps kicking you in the butt.\r\n\r\nHonestly, a lot of it is my fault as well. I still have high expectations of myself that I still need to resolve. Fallen pastors need to find a place to worship and they need a helping hand. <a href=\"http://www.pirministries.org/\">I have a friend who is part of a ministry to help men like me and I encourage you to check it out</a>.\r\n\r\nThe other friend is a Presbyterian minister I met by the providence of God recently. I was hoping to get back into the ministry game and I sat down to talk with him. Instead of talking to me about the ministry, he decided to speak to my soul. I cannot tell you enough how thankful I am for this man and how thankful I am for God placing him in my life at this point.\r\n\r\nThe first day we talked, one of his major points to me was something like this, \"<em>You were miserable in the ministry at the <a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/ministry.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-8229\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/ministry-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" /></a>end weren\'t you? Why would you want to get back into something that was destroying your soul?</em>\"\r\n\r\nI hate it when people are right about me. I wrote all in my book about how when the ministry is abused, it can destroy a person, a marriage, a church and a family. Strangely enough, here I was talking to this man and he saw right through me and I had failed to apply the lessons of my book to myself.\r\n\r\nBetter yet, he said, \"<em>Since you\'ve been blogging, you\'ve helped countless ministers get back on track. There is your ministry. That is something more powerful than you ever did before.</em>\"\r\n\r\nIt was something I had known all along. Since I\'ve started blogging, I\'ve gotten at least two emails a week from fallen pastors, pastors who are about to commit adultery, wives of fallen pastors, church members hurt by fallen pastors, and children of fallen pastors. I honestly feel overwhelmed most of the time. I don\'t have anything to offer them but words of comfort and honesty.\r\n\r\nMost of the time all I can say is, \"<em>It\'s tough. It\'s going to get worse before it gets better, but know that Christ loves you and is beside you.</em>\" I can tell them what to expect. I can be real with them and honest about what I went through. And each time as soon as I talk to them, I love them like I\'ve been friends with them for years.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/cake.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8230\" style=\"margin-left: 6px;margin-right: 6px\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/cake-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" /></a>The only analogy I can think of is this: When I was a pastor, I was like cake batter. Who doesn\'t like cake batter? It\'s awesome. It tastes good on the mixer and we want to lick it off before it gets thrown into the dishwasher. But what\'s better than cake batter? Cake. Oh my. Cake. Cake with white buttercream icing. Sprinkles. Mmmmmmm.\r\n\r\nThrough my fall, God took me, a pastor of cake batter and I went through the oven fire. It wasn\'t easy. It was of my own doing. I had to eventually humble myself, allow Him to break me and follow a different path. What did He make of me? Cake. Something better. Something much better, for His purpose and His glory.\r\n\r\nI think back to those people who said, \"<em>You can still minister, Ray.</em>\" Yeah, they were thinking I would never be fit to be in  a pulpit again. I still get a chance to preach and share my testimony. I know what they meant. But I also know that now, God has restored me to ministry in His fashion, exactly the way He wants me.\r\n\r\nDon\'t give up on anyone who sins. Regardless of how far we fall, God still uses those He calls: <em>For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.</em> (Romans 11:29 ESV)\r\n\r\n____________________________\r\n\r\nRay Carroll is author of \"<a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Fallen-Pastor-Finding-Restoration-Broken/dp/0615567096/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1357712337&amp;sr=8-2\">Fallen Pastor: Finding Restoration in a Broken World</a>.\" He blogs at <a href=\"http://www.fallenpastor.com\">www.fallenpastor.com</a>.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','Fallen Pastors Can Be Restored: A Personal Tale, Part 2','','inherit','open','open','','8221-revision-2','','','2013-01-08 23:06:59','2013-01-09 07:06:59','',8221,'http://provoketive.com/2013/01/08/8221-revision-2/',0,'revision','',0),(8338,1,'2013-01-18 09:57:58','2013-01-18 17:57:58','I remember hearing a story in college about a large church with a young pastor who boldly preached the gospel according to Calvin and Albert Mohler.  The mega-church he led had lost a sizable number of members (though certainly not enough to diminish its mega-church status) and a friend commented that this was because this pastor was “preaching the truth.”  What he meant, which I agree with, is that the truth isn’t always what we want to hear.  What he implied, which I want to question, is that any consequences of bluntly telling the truth are perfectly acceptable.\r\n\r\nA friend of mine said to me recently that what we believe determines how we live and treat others.  Whether he meant to or not, he seemed to imply that the primary concern of any spiritual leader must be making sure people believe correctly.  Lifestyle will follow if we just get people’s theology in order.\r\n\r\nBut can our quest to enlighten others with “the truth” do more harm than good?\r\n\r\nWhat happens when people ask for our advice and we discover that they believe “the wrong thing?”  What happens when revealing to others the theologies or ideologies that we hold dear causes them pain?  What happens when arguing for what we believe causes others to walk away from the faith altogether?\r\n\r\nBefore we go any farther with this I need to confess that I am by no means a master of discretion when it comes to delicate situations.  So what follows is not the teachings of an expert but the honest questionings of a fellow journeyer.  If I\'m honest, I must confess that I am guilty of having done (and probably will do again) many things similar to those I am about to describe, so I write this not to criticize others but to bring to light a concern that all of us engaged in conversations about faith need to keep in mind.\r\n\r\nWith that confession on the table, let me share three types of situations in which conversations about faith often turn into \"arguments\" which subject the people around us to \"friendly fire\":\r\n\r\nThe first happens when we cross lines of theological difference.\r\n\r\nI have heard many pastors, bible study leaders, and seminary students, whether they be Calvinist, Wesleyan, or none-of-the-above, describe moments in which someone came to them with a question or a pastoral concern which simultaneously revealed that they held the “wrong theology.”  Not missing a beat, said “teacher” took the opportunity to inform their new, unsuspecting “student” of a more theologically robust and accurate way of conceptualizing the “issue at hand,” with the resulting private lecture in systematics often taking up most of the 30 minute block set aside for their “coffee meeting.”  With a shrug many of these stories end with \"I haven\'t heard anything from them lately...\"\r\n\r\nThe second happens when we cross lines of political difference.\r\n\r\nA friend told me a couple of years ago about a painful experience involving a mentor and colleague who was leading a local church outreach program.  In the course of meeting to plan activities for this program, they realized that they came down on opposite sides of a very controversial political issue.  My friend humbly asked to continue working with this mentor and colleague despite their disagreement.  In return she was given an ultimatum: until you change your mind about this, we can’t work together.\r\n\r\nThe third happens when we cross lines of cultural or experiential difference.\r\n\r\nSqueezed into the middle seat on a long Southwest flight to visit family for the holidays, it comes out that we work in ministry or are studying theology.  Or maybe the guy next to us notices the title of the N.T. Wright or Kathryn Tanner book we are reading.  Whatever it was, suddenly and seemingly out of nowhere a host of stereotypes and accusations are flying: the diatribe against organized religion from the woman on our left, the stories of personal pain and hurt caused by church when the fellow on our right was growing up.  My instincts, and I suspect I’m not alone, are to do one of two things:  either dodge the bullet and play the I’m-not-that-kind-of-Christian card, or spend the rest of the flight arguing about why my new \"opponents\" have got Christianity all wrong.\r\n\r\nUnderlying all three of these types of situations, I think, is a concern for the advancement of particular commitments and beliefs in the life of the church.  And on one level, these are good, important things.  The church <em>needs</em> to better educate its members about theology.  The church <em>needs</em> people who are serious about arguing for the right application of Christianity to the needs of this world.  The church <em>needs</em> to deal with its historical and cultural baggage and <em>needs</em> to try to change people\'s hearts and minds.  And when we engage in conversations about faith we will often find ourselves on the front lines of all of these concerns.\r\n\r\nBut what also <em>needs</em> to be considered is the concrete reality of the other person in each of these situations.  Does the church member across the table from us need a lesson in theology or do they need to be heard out?  Does the colleague with whom we disagree politically need an ultimatum or do they need an outstretched hand?  Do our fellow passengers (or perhaps prisoners?) on a long flight home need the sales pitch for our particular brand of Christianity or do they need someone willing to own the harm done to them and simply say “I’m sorry”?\r\n\r\nThese are difficult questions to answer and there are no hard and fast rules for deciding them.  And while I certainly would be the first to say that at times we need to argue for what we believe to be true, I also want to acknowledge that all too often we go into conversations with those with whom we disagree trigger-happy and ready to shoot.  Spoiling for the fight, we don\'t take the time to stop and consider the consequences of our words.\r\n\r\nI was pretty astonished today when I watched this \"interview\" of Alex Jones by Piers Morgan:\r\n\r\n[youtube]http://youtu.be/Tf-i3Y5iRYo[/youtube]\r\n\r\nUnfortunately, many people see Christians this way and a lot of times we Christians act this way toward one another.  Aggressive, argumentative, and even obstinate have become synonyms with \"Christian\" in our society, and we haven\'t done much to help our cause.\r\n\r\nToo often we forget, I\'m afraid, that sitting across the table from us is a real person who has real needs and real questions, and that they are looking to us for answers.  There is a time and a place for arguing, but have we forgotten that there is also a time and a place for sitting still and listening to what others have to say?\r\n\r\nEven when we <em>know</em> that they are wrong?\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<em>Alexander Marshall is a blogger, writer, teacher, and student at Yale Divinity School.  You can connect with him on <a href=\"http://www.facebook.com/alexanderpmarshall\">Facebook</a>, <a href=\"https://twitter.com/alexp_marshall\">Twitter</a>, or by <a href=\"http://apmarshall.wordpress.com\">visiting his blog</a>.</em>','When is it Time to Stop Arguing?','','inherit','open','open','','8205-revision-24','','','2013-01-18 09:57:58','2013-01-18 17:57:58','',8205,'http://provoketive.com/2013/01/18/8205-revision-24/',0,'revision','',0),(8340,0,'2013-01-18 11:14:22','2013-01-18 19:14:22','Hi,\r\n\r\nMy name is Alexa and I came across your site after searching for people that have referenced college classes and performance. I am part of a team of designers and researchers that put together an infographic highlighting how many high schools are setting students up for failure by having them go on to college unprepared. I thought you might be interested, so I wanted to reach out.\r\n\r\nIf this is the correct email and you\'re interested in using our content, I\'d be happy to share it with you. :)\r\n\r\nThank you,\r\n\r\nAlexandra Campbell\n<!--more-->\nAUTHOR: Alexandra Campbell\nAUTHOR EMAIL: alexandracampbell820@gmail.com\nAUTHOR URL: \nSUBJECT: [Provoketive Magazine] Contact Us\nIP: 121.96.61.130\nArray\n(\n    [Name] =&gt; Alexandra Campbell\n    [Email] =&gt; alexandracampbell820@gmail.com\n    [Comment] =&gt; Hi,\r\n\r\nMy name is Alexa and I came across your site after searching for people that have referenced college classes and performance. I am part of a team of designers and researchers that put together an infographic highlighting how many high schools are setting students up for failure by having them go on to college unprepared. I thought you might be interested, so I wanted to reach out.\r\n\r\nIf this is the correct email and you\'re interested in using our content, I\'d be happy to share it with you. :)\r\n\r\nThank you,\r\n\r\nAlexandra Campbell\r\n\n)\n','Alexandra Campbell - 2013-01-18 11:14:22','','publish','open','open','','b96a37be1661e46168ad8d982bf0a791','','','2013-01-18 11:14:22','2013-01-18 19:14:22','',16,'http://provoketive.com/?post_type=feedback&p=8340',0,'feedback','',0),(8436,204,'2013-02-10 20:41:23','2013-02-11 04:41:23','Is life an explosion of youth, then you reach your peak relevance, importance, and connectivity, and from there things taper off and then you get older and then you die?\n\nI\'ve been thinking about this a lot lately.\n\nI love Thai food and every week after yoga practice I eat dinner at a favorite Thai restaurant. All the servers know me, but there is one server that I enjoy seeing the most. I think she likes me too, not just because I tip her well, but I think she also enjoys the conversation. I recently learned that she plays in a band. She creates original material, but she also loves to interpret old songs in her own unique style.\n\nThere is a sense where something can be new in relation to time, but still be stale. And there is also a sense where something can be old in relation to time and still be new—like old songs sung in a new way.\n\nBut it seems in our society that if something is new it is relevant, but if it is old it is irrelevant.\n\nThe line goes something like this: You are young. Then you do something, hopefully something unique. You reach your peak, and then you taper off. For a moment, it seems, you have your glory, and then at some point it\'s over and then you die. You die because there is something new that has replaced what was once new—there is a new way to go, a new style, a new theory—the next new thing.\n\nThere are reasons why older does not necessarily mean wiser, however. I think George Packer\'s <a href=\"http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/02/youth-age-music-news.html?mobify=0\">comments</a> in the New Yorker are spot on:\n<blockquote>Something unusual stopped me in these sentences from a Times article about a state-by-state study of flaws in the American electoral system: “A main goal of the exercise, which grew out of Professor Gerken’s 2009 book, ‘The Democracy Index,’ was to shame poor performers into doing better, she said. ‘Peer pressure produces horrible things like Britney Spears and Justin Bieber and tongue rings,’ Professor Gerken said. ‘But it also produces professional peer pressure.’” It almost took my breath away: Professor Heather Gerken, who is in her early forties, felt free to tell a reporter that Britney Spears and Justin Bieber, not to mention tongue rings, are horrible. Gerken broke one of the unwritten rules of being middle-aged: don’t go after the young and what they love. Not in print, anyway. Don’t open yourself up to the charge of curmudgeonliness, because the inevitable retort—“You just don’t get it, Professor! You sound like your parents!”—is probably accurate, certainly unanswerable, and absolutely devastating. Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.</blockquote>\nIf there is an unwritten rule not to go after the young and what they love, there is also an implicit question that asks, \"I am old, what do I have to say to the young?\" The answer, paradoxically, is that when you have the most amount of time, the most amount of wisdom, and sometimes the most amount of resources, you go to a place that guarantees you will not have influence on future generations—you retire.\n\nYou leave us.\n\nAnd this is the problem:  you can\'t leave us when we need you the most.\n\nIn 1978, Soviet geologists discovered a <a href=\"http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/For-40-Years-This-Russian-Family-Was-Cut-Off-From-Human-Contact-Unaware-of-World-War-II-188843001.html?device=iphone&amp;device=ipad\">family</a> of six lost in the Siberian taiga. Cut off from all human contact for 40 years, this Russian family lived on the side of a mountain 150 miles from the nearest settlement. It was an astonishing discovery because the Soviets had no records of anyone living in this area. Karp Lykov was an Old Believer, a member of a fundamentalist Russian Orthodox sect whose worship style has not changed since the 17th century. During Stalin\'s Great Purge of the 1930\'s, the Soviets killed Lykov\'s brother, and in 1936, Lykov fled to Siberia escaping religious persecution, retreating further from civilization deep in the Siberian taiga. Living in isolation from the rest of the world, Lykov and his family were unaware of World War II and lived on the edge of famine making survival next to impossible. Two of his children had never seen a human being that was not a member of their family. Perhaps the saddest aspect of the Lykovs\' strange story was the rapidity with which the family went into decline after they re-established contact with the outside world. Only Lykov\'s daughter, Agafia remains, and she will not leave her home in the Siberian taiga.\n\nMost people believe they are on the inevitable slide into irrelevance. I can see why: art, movies, culture, and even business reinforce this idea. When am I going to lose it? Can I keep up? There is some wisdom that you only get through having lived it and through years. There is an authority that comes from being older, but there is also a potential newness that is fresh as ever—a sifting and sorting of all I have experienced—creating a non-anxious, non-judgemental presence because I am older, and my roots run deep and I have seen it all.\n\nWe live the <a href=\"http://storylineblog.com/2013/01/28/when-you-fail-to-live-a-great-story/\">stories</a> we keep telling ourselves, and telling meaningful stories overlaps with living a meaningful life.\n\nThere was a time when humans intuitively grappled with aging rooted in the divine redemptive activity of God. But unfortunately we are telling a different story—a story about how religion has skewed our perception of aging.\n\nReligion is new to humanity. It\'s been around about 5% of humanity\'s spiritual journey, which, on a conservative timescale, began to unfold about seventy thousand years ago. Yet most of us have grown up with a religious legacy. Unfortunately, these religious legacies have nurtured the belief that when one group checks out, the other says, \"we don’t need you,\" and everything falls apart. In many cultures, and in Scripture,  you find the older need the idealism, energy and enthusiasm of the youth and the youth need the wisdom of the older.\n\nAnd when we embrace <em>this</em>, that\'s when the adventure begins.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n\n*photo by bokkels\n\n&nbsp;','When Does The Adventure Begin?','','inherit','open','open','','8398-revision-32','','','2013-02-10 20:41:23','2013-02-11 04:41:23','',8398,'http://provoketive.com/2013/02/10/8398-revision-32/',0,'revision','',0),(8378,1,'2013-01-31 11:48:13','2013-01-31 19:48:13','<img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-8375\" alt=\"gay unions\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Gay-Marriage-300x222.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"222\" />I do not think C. S. Lewis ever directly said anything about gay and lesbian unions. But he did write about whether or not the federal government might be involved in defining what exactly is marriage and what exactly is not.\r\n\r\nIn his timeless book, <em><a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061350214/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0061350214&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=tiheco-20\">Mere Christianity</a></em>, C. S. Lewis penned something which directly links with the topic in our courts and places of worship at this time about defining marriage. Lewis was discussing marriage between divorced couples, but the approach can equally be relevant to marriage between two gay people.\r\n\r\nHere\'s what he wrote:\r\n<blockquote>Before leaving the question of divorce, I should like to distinguish two things which are very often confused. The Christian conception of marriage is one: the other is quite the different question-how far Christians, if they are voters or Members of Parliament, ought to try to force their views of marriage on the rest of the community by embodying them in the divorce laws. A great many people seem to think that if you are a Christian yourself you should try to make divorce difficult for every one. I do not think that. At least I know I should be very angry if the Mohammedans tried to prevent the rest of us from drinking wine.\r\n\r\nMy own view is that the Churches should frankly recognize that the majority of the British people are not Christian and, therefore, cannot be expected to live Christian lives. There ought to be two distinct kinds of marriage: one governed by the State with rules enforced on all citizens, the other governed by the church with rules enforced by her on her own members. The distinction ought to be quite sharp, so that a man knows which couples are married in a Christian sense and which are not.</blockquote>\r\nIt is time for Christ-followers to realize the fact that the United States Government (or any human government for that matter) is not the enforcer of scriptural guidance and laws. Governments create their own laws and regulations which they feel might help bring peace, safety, and stability inside their own lands, nevertheless these laws can sometimes be at odds with the directions and directions of Scripture.\r\n\r\nAlthough the state makes something “legal,” this does not mean that it is now appropriate for Christians, for we must carry out both the laws of God and also the rules of our government, with the laws of our King taking precedent in our individual behavior over the laws of our land. And we must be cautious about seeking to get our lawmakers to put in force Scriptural rules on all the people in the country, for if it can be enforced with “Christian” guidelines, it can also be done at a later time with “Muslim” guidelines, or “Mormon” laws, or whatever religion happens to be “control” at the time. C. S. Lewis gives the example of Muslims and their restrictions on drinking alcohol. Nobody would want this, but in a number of ways, this is exactly what Christians are hoping to do on culture when we try to pressure our community to adopt biblical laws about the gay lifestyle.\r\n\r\nIn some locations Muslims are making national laws to impose their Sharia law upon everyone in that country, much like here in the USA some Christians are attempting to impose some of our laws on all the people in our land. If anything may be gleaned from history, we understand that it is damaging to everybody when any <a title=\"Religion Takes Up the Sword\" href=\"www.tillhecomes.org/liberty-to-kill-in-the-name-of-jesus/\">religion takes up the sword</a> of government and attempts to put in force religious guidelines on others.','Homosexual Marriage and CS Lewis','','inherit','open','open','','8374-revision-2','','','2013-01-31 11:48:13','2013-01-31 19:48:13','',8374,'http://provoketive.com/2013/01/31/8374-revision-2/',0,'revision','',0),(8385,0,'2013-02-03 10:56:24','2013-02-03 18:56:24','I do not think C. S. Lewis ever directly said anything about gay and lesbian unions. But he did write about whether or not the federal government might be involved in defining what exactly is marriage and what exactly is not.\r\n\r\nIn his timeless book, <em><a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061350214/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0061350214&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=tiheco-20\">Mere Christianity</a></em>, C. S. Lewis penned something which directly links with the topic in our courts and places of worship at this time about defining marriage. Lewis was discussing marriage between divorced couples, but the approach can equally be relevant to marriage between two gay people.\r\n\r\nHere\'s what he wrote:\r\n<blockquote>Before leaving the question of divorce, I should like to distinguish two things which are very often confused. The Christian conception of marriage is one: the other is quite the different question-how far Christians, if they are voters or Members of Parliament, ought to try to force their views of marriage on the rest of the community by embodying them in the divorce laws. A great many people seem to think that if you are a Christian yourself you should try to make divorce difficult for every one. I do not think that. At least I know I should be very angry if the Mohammedans tried to prevent the rest of us from drinking wine.\r\n\r\nMy own view is that the Churches should frankly recognize that the majority of the British people are not Christian and, therefore, cannot be expected to live Christian lives. There ought to be two distinct kinds of marriage: one governed by the State with rules enforced on all citizens, the other governed by the church with rules enforced by her on her own members. The distinction ought to be quite sharp, so that a man knows which couples are married in a Christian sense and which are not.</blockquote>\r\nIt is time for Christ-followers to realize the fact that the United States Government (or any human government for that matter) is not the enforcer of scriptural guidance and laws. Governments create their own laws and regulations which they feel might help bring peace, safety, and stability inside their own lands, nevertheless these laws can sometimes be at odds with the directions and directions of Scripture.\r\n\r\nAlthough the state makes something “legal,” this does not mean that it is now appropriate for Christians, for we must carry out both the laws of God and also the rules of our government, with the laws of our King taking precedent in our individual behavior over the laws of our land. And we must be cautious about seeking to get our lawmakers to put in force Scriptural rules on all the people in the country, for if it can be enforced with “Christian” guidelines, it can also be done at a later time with “Muslim” guidelines, or “Mormon” laws, or whatever religion happens to be “control” at the time. C. S. Lewis gives the example of Muslims and their restrictions on drinking alcohol. Nobody would want this, but in a number of ways, this is exactly what Christians are hoping to do on culture when we try to pressure our community to adopt biblical laws about the gay lifestyle.\r\n\r\nIn some locations Muslims are making national laws to impose their Sharia law upon everyone in that country, much like here in the USA some Christians are attempting to impose some of our laws on all the people in our land. If anything may be gleaned from history, we understand that it is damaging to everybody when any <a title=\"Religion Takes Up the Sword\" href=\"www.tillhecomes.org/liberty-to-kill-in-the-name-of-jesus/\">religion takes up the sword</a> of government and attempts to put in force religious guidelines on others.','Homosexual Marriage and CS Lewis','','inherit','open','open','','8374-revision-3','','','2013-02-03 10:56:24','2013-02-03 18:56:24','',8374,'http://provoketive.com/2013/02/03/8374-revision-3/',0,'revision','',0),(8346,176,'2013-01-09 23:02:38','2013-01-10 07:02:38','Every time I see the words “CNN is Against Child Labour” or watch some celebrity on TV waving the physical or vocal “Abolish Child Labour” flag, I want to get up and smash something—probably the screen.\n\nAnd sometimes aloud I will ask the empty room, “And then what?” Has anybody thought further than that? What happens to the children then? What happens to the families then?\n\nBefore we speak or take any action, we should consider the severe ramifications of abolishing a source of both income and labour that is not only prevalent, but has been part of the third world culture since time immemorial. Does anyone realize the importance of differentiating between “child slavery” and “child labour?” That the former is, in the majority of cases, a probable result of no access to the latter?\n\nDuring my years in both Africa and Asia, I spent a lot of time in villages talking to the village chiefs. I also spent time visiting factories where children were working, speaking not only to the owners, but also to the families of the children and the children themselves.\n\nI worked in the so-called “child care” industry for a number of years and have been part of not only the rescue, but also the caring and education operation—not in a detached way—in a hands on daily living way.\n\nIn Asia I have stood on street corners with prostitutes waiting for another family member to bring me their child or sibling—made quite an interesting sight, the <em>falang</em>(foreign) woman standing next to the local lady of the night; after a phone call from the village chief, I travelled hundreds of kilometres on the back of a motorbike to try and rescue two children from their aunt and uncle; I have stopped beggars in the middle of the road using drugged children as a lure to empty pockets and tried to convince them to let me take the children; I have visited brick-making factories where children worked next to their parents; I have searched for children stolen from the grounds of a temple the night before I was to take them to a place of care—by a relative to be sold (they were found a month later and are now in good care); I have been hit by drugged up little children begging from cars stopped at traffic lights, their mother sitting on a nearby corner watching carefully.\n\nYes, I have done these things and I can tell you a very different story—the one that ends with the immediate family and the child starving when the child is removed from the labour force. Or there’s the one that ends with a close relative stealing the child to take him or her to work in the next village or sold; or there is also the one with the family, now destitute, selling the child into sex trafficking or to factory owners or labour traffickers or, if young enough, to village witchdoctors for the making of medicine.\n\nA lot of noise—the same noise that’s been going on for more than 10 years—is currently being made about the children trafficked to work in the cocoa industry in the Ivory Coast and the instant “quick-fix” is to stop buying Nestlé chocolate, or any other chocolate or cocoa product for that matter. And yes, some of these children—not all—have been trafficked. The cocoa industry—and the worldwide trade in sweets and chocolates that it supplies—has long had to contend with a growing reputation for child exploitation. In the Ivory Coast, which accounts for 40 per cent of the world’s cocoa production, the U.S. state department estimates that more than 100,000 children work in the cocoa industry, and many are victims of human trafficking and slavery.\n\nThe 2010 documentary <a href=\"http://www.thedarksideofchocolate.org/\"><em>The Dark Side of Chocolate</em></a> alleges that Nestlé purchases cocoa beans from Ivory Coast plantations that use child slave labour. The children are usually 12 to 15 years old, and some are trafficked from nearby countries—“some” not all.\n\nBut let us look closely at the definition of human trafficking according to <a href=\"http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-trafficking/what-is-human-trafficking.html#What_is_Human_Trafficking\">UNODC</a> (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime):\n<h2><strong>What is Human Trafficking?</strong></h2>\nArticle 3, paragraph (a) of the <a href=\"http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/treaties/CTOC/index.html\">Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons</a> defines Trafficking in Persons as:\n<blockquote>the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of<strong>the giving or</strong> <strong>receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person</strong>, <strong>for the purpose of exploitation.</strong>Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.</blockquote>\nAnd “at a minimum” is translated in <a href=\"http://www.ilo.org/declaration/principles/abolitionofchildlabour/lang--en/index.htm\">The ILO</a>—International Labour Organization—in one of their charter documents <em>Effective Abolition of Child Labour</em> <a href=\"http://www.ilo.org/ilolex/cgi-lex/convde.pl?R190\">Supplemented: R190 Worst Forms of Child Labour Recommendation, 1999</a> as:\n<blockquote>12. Members should provide that the following worst forms of child labour are criminal offences:\n\n(a) all forms of slavery or practices similar to slavery, such as the sale and trafficking of children, debt bondage and serfdom and forced or compulsory labour, including forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed conflict;\n\n(b) the use, procuring or offering of a child for prostitution, for the production of pornography or for pornographic performances; and\n\n(c) the use, procuring or offering of a child for illicit activities, in particular for the production and trafficking of drugs as defined in the relevant international treaties, or for activities which involve the unlawful carrying or use of firearms or other weapons.</blockquote>\nVictims of human trafficking are not permitted to leave upon arrival at their destination. They are held against their will through acts of coercion and forced to work or provide services to the trafficker or others. The work or services may include anything from bonded or forced labour to commercialized sexual exploitation. The arrangement may be structured as a work contract, but with no or low payment or on terms which are highly exploitative. Sometimes the arrangement is structured as debt bondage, with the victim not being permitted or able to pay off the debt.\n\nHowever, remember, the majority of the children trafficked have been sold <strong><em>“</em></strong><strong><em>by a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.”</em></strong> In worlds where the attitude is, it’s the next, or the next few meals that count, or the debt collector has to be appeased, selling children into slavery is the easy way out.\n<h2><strong>Now let us look at child labour</strong></h2>\nAccording to the <a href=\"http://www.unicef.org/crc/index_30177.html\">UN Convention On The Rights Of The Child</a>—Protection Rights: Keeping Safe from Harm Article 32 (Child labour):<strong></strong>\n<blockquote><strong></strong>The government should protect children from work that is dangerous or might harm their health or their education. While the Convention protects children from harmful and exploitative work, there is nothing in it that prohibits parents from expecting their children to help out at home in ways that are safe and appropriate to their age. If children help out in a family farm or business, the tasks they do be safe and suited to their level of development and comply with national labour laws. Children’s work should not jeopardize any of their other rights, including the right to education, or the right to relaxation and play.</blockquote>\n<a href=\"http://www.ilo.org/declaration/principles/abolitionofchildlabour/lang--en/index.htm\">The ILO</a>—International Labour Organization—in one of their charter documents<em>Effective Abolition of Child Labour</em> states:\n<blockquote>The principle of the effective abolition of child labour means ensuring that every girl and boy has the opportunity to develop physically and mentally to her or his full potential. Its aim is to stop all work by children that jeopardizes their education and development. This does not mean stopping all work performed by children. International labour standards allow the distinction to be made between what constitutes acceptable and unacceptable forms of work for children at different ages and stages of development… The general minimum age for admission to employment should not be less than the age of completion of compulsory schooling and never be less than 15 years. But developing countries may make certain exceptions to this, and a minimum age of 14 years may be applied where the economy and educational facilities are insufficiently developed. Sometimes, light work may be performed by children two years younger than the general minimum age.</blockquote>\nAlmost every section of both the above statements could be torn apart. Child labour accounts for 22 per cent of the workforce in <a href=\"http://www.themindfulword.org/2011/feel-beggar-care-smile/\">Asia</a>, 32 per cent in <a href=\"http://www.themindfulword.org/2011/sana-musasama-ceramic-artist/\">Africa</a> and 17 per cent in Latin America. In third world countries where the teachers are themselves not being paid and have to extract money from the children before even giving them their exam results, who is going to pay for this education that the child has a right to and, while the child is being educated, who is going to help feed the starving family?\n\n“The completion of compulsory schooling” is laughable. Go speak to the parents, find out what this “compulsory schooling” costs—especially at supposedly “free” government schools.\n\nGAP is screamed at for using factories that employ child labour; Nike was accused of using child labour in Pakistan to manufacture its soccer balls; Levi Strauss &amp; Co. are accused of using cotton from Uzbekistan harvested by enforced child labour. And again, the uninformed scream “Stop buying these products!”\n\nThen what? What happens to the children then? Now there is NO work and I can assure you, manufacturing soccer balls, making bricks, sitting behind sewing machines, working in the fields and picking cotton are preferable to some of the alternatives. At least these children get the chance to go home and be with their families.\n\nWe in the western world created this monster and now we cannot live with the consequences of our actions. Maybe it is time to think of the effect our so-called “developed world” has on the—again so-called—“developing world” before we want more of what we don’t need.\n\nNo, we should not stop buying the products from companies that knowingly or unwittingly make use of child labour to manufacture either a portion of or the completed article we purchase.\n\nWhat we should be doing is telling them to pay the labour a proper living wage and monitor the factory to ensure that this is actually being done. This is still a pittance in countries where families are expected to survive on $30 per month.\n\nWe should be telling the companies who use child labour to downsize their profit margins—let go of some greed. Money earned by the workers for the manufacture of a soccer ball in Pakistan? In the region of $0.50 per ball and what do Nike soccer balls cost? Go figure.\n\nWe should not stop buying cocoa or chocolate products. As Nestlé chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe recently told the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, removing child labour from the African cocoa harvest is “almost impossible,” citing the difficulty faced by small-time farmers in rural areas managing a harvest without the help of their children. He announced that, rather than eliminating child labour, his company instead wanted to invest in education for those children who worked in the cocoa fields—a concept he referred to as “creating shared value.” “If they have the access to good schooling, then the child labour as such is helping the fathers in the field and helping with the harvesting, I don’t think this is a problem,” he said. “The problem is when you use the children only for that and don’t allow them to go to school.”\n\nWhat we should be doing is agitating for the companies who supply us our addictions via the trafficking route to go one step further; go look for the traffickers, go find the children and buy them back, allow them access to their families, give them education opportunities.\n\nWe should be going to the factories and negotiating for space somewhere on the premises to teach the child when it is not working—I did this at brick making factories and was given space and permission on only one condition, that I teach the adults too!\n\nWe should be telling those organizations and activists who believe it is better to remove the child from the workplace to go ahead, but then pay the family the money the child would have earned AND pay to educate this child. And be fully aware of the consequences of any action they take.\n\nYes, children are precious and we must protect them. But we must be extremely careful how we do this in third world countries where children are commodities used to feed those who can no longer feed themselves, and the only way to truly protect them is to ensure that the rest of the family is cared for too. Abolishing child labour will lead to them being trafficked—that is a fact.\n\nTo slightly adapt the words of a Roger Waters song “What God Wants God gets, God help us all”—what developed man wants, developed man gets, developed man help us all. And think carefully—exactly how far are you prepared to go to undo what you have done and are still doing? Are you prepared to buy a life to save a life?\n\n&nbsp;\n<div><em>Jane Olivier writes for and edits <a href=\"http://www.themindfulword.org\">The Mindful Word</a> journal of engaged living.</em></div>','Abolishing Child Labor Leads to Slavery','','inherit','open','open','','8243-revision-2','','','2013-01-09 23:02:38','2013-01-10 07:02:38','',8243,'http://provoketive.com/2013/01/09/8243-revision-2/',0,'revision','',0),(8347,176,'2013-01-09 23:10:55','2013-01-10 07:10:55','What is the truth? This question has captivated and perplexed humankind since the beginning of recorded history. Why? Because it’s a question unlike any other. Unlike asking about the political situation in the Middle East or how to pursue a better life, it’s a deep yearning for knowledge, not information. Information that is gained can just as easily be lost. The truth is not about gaining something, but realizing what is already known.\r\n\r\nAt our core is an intent to truly know the Self. Rather than an end goal to strive for, it’s a process of revealing the truth that we are something greater than our limited, material selves. This intent towards liberation is unavoidable because it is our very essence.\r\n\r\nOn the bumpy road of truth discovery, we have to get lost once in a while to really know where we’re going. Many seekers strive for instant gratification or the easy route to happiness—to find something, anything, to satisfy this deep inner urge. Though the path of liberation requires a strong will to set it into motion and to continue on the path, it’s a gradual process that takes time. When there’s no rush, letting replaces getting since there isn’t the same kind of attachment to attain something—the kind of attachment that causes many to wander off the path or avoid the truth altogether because it’s too difficult to bear.\r\n<h2>Avoidance</h2>\r\nIn our world of stuff-attainment, it’s sensible to avoid seeking the truth. It’s not like the path of truth discovery benefits us in any material sense. Quite the opposite in fact. Many truly committed truth-seekers choose to live in voluntary simplicity or live a monastic life of complete renunciation after finding that material comforts serve no purpose in realizing the truth. When realizing this many seekers hit a red light. Do we follow the green, moving forward along this path that will likely cause us to toss our desires out the window or do we pull a U-turn and hightail  it back so we can cling to the same comforts in familiar surroundings?\r\n\r\nMany resist their will and suppress the urge. Others wait until having “time on the schedule.” But if that means putting it off for many years, the inevitable crap that comes up from questioning a lifetime’s worth of conditioning gives the ego a major edge. It’s just too great a mental burden for most to bear. But even if committing ourselves to the truth, the ego still sets clever traps on the most subtle levels to catch and confuse us along the way.\r\n<h2>Doubt</h2>\r\nDoubt is the most insidious <a href=\"http://www.themindfulword.org/2011/equanimity-higher-state-happiness/\">ego trap</a>. It has a way of overwhelming and knocking us out, in some cases for an entire lifetime. Paradoxically, the same doubt that pulls us from the truth can also push us back to it as a way of saying “Nope. This isn’t good enough either”—back to being discontent with material comforts and questioning life again. It’s the ego’s way of remaining king so it can continue imposing a constant state of unease in its empire.\r\n\r\nWhat is it about doubt? Just when the sand castle starts to take shape, the universe flings out a wave to knock it over. The truth is elusive. It cannot be found simply because we already <em>are</em> the truth. It’s just a process of revealing. And through the process of revealing, deeper and deeper layers of our Self get exposed until ever subtler bits rise to the surface. And the more knowledge we gain, the more ignorant we become because we realize just how little we actually know. Frustrating at times, and a big reason why doubt walks onto the scene so often.\r\n\r\nDoubt has a way of creeping up without warning, whenever and wherever. But doubt, like anything else, is impermanent. As real as it may seem, and it does have ways of appearing really real, it too will pass.\r\n\r\nBut doubt, however, is far from bad. “Our difficulty is we are so heavily conditioned that we never look, never ask, never question, never doubt. We are all followers, we are all yes-sayers,” says J. Krishnamurti. Without doubt we’d never question what the truth is in the first place. And when the swarm of desires and aversions come knocking on the door to distract us, without doubt we’d avoid the truth until a major life event happens. And if not this lifetime, the next.\r\n<h2>Courage and surrender</h2>\r\nA wanderer was walking aimlessly through a park, eyes fixed on the ground with a dejected countenance. A wise sage sitting under a banyan tree saw her and offered a smile. The seeker accepted the welcoming smile as an invitation to talk.\r\n\r\n“Why do I keep on walking in circles in this park?” the wanderer asked.\r\n\r\n“Ask who is doing the walking and you will know,” the sage replied.\r\n\r\nThe seeker went off to contemplate the question and returned the next day with an even greater desperation bred from utter hopeless confusion—the desperation of someone who cares greatly about something, but despite being stuck, resolves with incredible will to push forward. In the depths of this misery, she returned to see the sage sitting under the same tree.\r\n\r\n“I do not know who I am, where I came from, how or when I came to be. I know nothing.”\r\n\r\n“Good. You accept not knowing with surrender. Now you will know.”\r\n\r\nImmediately a calm came over the wanderer. A feeling of Being-ness unlike anything she had ever experienced. At that point she knew. Though it was a temporary hint of knowing that quickly escaped, the potent jolt was sufficient—she knew what before she was trying to figure out.\r\n\r\nThe wanderer possessed the much-needed virtue of courage to face her difficulties until she could overcome them. Without courage there’s no chance to know the truth because there are too many distractions, too many reasons to give up, go elsewhere, do something else or get sucked into the “easy” life at some point on the long road.\r\n\r\nThe sage acknowledged the wanderer’s strong will, yet her mind was getting in the way, trying to figure out what could not be figured out. She was at a point that Karl Krumins in “Purification of Intent” refers to as the beginning of transformation. “Really understanding that ‘you can’t <em>do</em> what you think you can’ is the beginning of transformation. It’s the beginning of self-honesty.” Her mind was running mental laps until she exhausted herself. The great wealth of information she had stored in her head frustrated her because she couldn’t absorb any meaning from it.\r\n\r\nA dose of the truth came to her as an experience, facilitated by the teacher’s presence. In the ancient Indian science of Vedanta, it’s believed that awareness of Self is unexperienceable. All experiences are temporary, but the Self, being everything there is, is limitless and eternal and cannot be experienced. It is knowledge that has to be developed.\r\n<h2>The spiritual high</h2>\r\nThe wanderer experienced a breakthrough moment that gave her the necessary nudge to break free of her mental bondage. But despite its potency, it evaporated. Why is it that perfection can be experienced then so easily lost? Quite simply, because whatever can be gained can also be lost. That’s the impermanence of duality.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://www.themindfulword.org/2012/self-inquiry-vedanta-james-swartz/\">Non-duality</a> is that which cannot be divided. There’s no good or bad, come or go, one or another. Everything just is. There’s no separation in the Self. According to Vedanta teacher James Swartz, “The Self is whole and complete actionless awareness.” Different spiritual traditions speak about this reality of the truth in different ways, but the underlying essence is the same.\r\n\r\nTo minds clouded with conditioning, the veil of ignorance needs to be lifted before seeing the truth. Though even when that veil of ignorance gets lifted, the momentum of our conditioning covers our eyes time and again. We can derive benefit from the highs just as the wanderer used her experience to get jolted out of stasis, but the ecstasy needs to be paired with the realization that those experiences are impermanent.\r\n\r\nUnlike experiences that come and go, the inner urge for truth is permanent. There’s no point fighting it. It drives us in the background, compelling us to experience love or connect to nature. Just as we go through the motions of the day to satisfy our physical needs, our Being subtly drives home the truth. So to stifle the search is to stifle life itself, manifesting in depression, addictions or a subtle feeling of discontent, a constant want to satisfy the hungry ghost that just cannot be satisfied.\r\n\r\nWhen approaching the intersection of truth we have apparent choices. Stop at a red. Show caution during a yellow. Proceed through a green. Fundamentally, we cannot choose to avoid the truth because it already is us. Like watching a pot of boiling water, the longer we sit at a red light, staring at it in a trance, the longer we hang out in<em>samsara</em> from one lifetime to the next. In the end, every red eventually turns green.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<em>Kiva Bottero writes for and edits <a href=\"http://www.themindfulword.org\">The Mindful Word</a> journal of engaged living, <a href=\"http://greenbuildingcanada.ca\">Green Building Canada</a> and <a href=\"http://www.greenhomegnome.com\">Green Home Gnome</a>.</em>','Experiences Come and Go, but the Intent Towards Liberation is Inescapable','','inherit','open','open','','8247-revision-2','','','2013-01-09 23:10:55','2013-01-10 07:10:55','',8247,'http://provoketive.com/2013/01/09/8247-revision-2/',0,'revision','',0),(8348,176,'2013-01-09 23:06:55','2013-01-10 07:06:55','How do we writers feel when something we thought was perfect is changed—even slightly—or commented on, or sometimes deleted? Do we become “all sensitive” and refuse to accept that maybe someone actually liked our work,  wants to make us sound erudite and really wants to get our message across? In fact, someone felt strongly enough about it to want to use it in the first place?\n\nDo we resent any suggestions and rather than accept changes, pull the piece from publishing and silence our voice?\n\nA while ago, I edited a piece written by a woman whose native language was not English and her English, while good, had some paranormal errors. It was a lovely message—full of joy and hope—but it was also scattered and sometimes made no sense. I wrote to her asking if I could use it—spread her joy, so to speak. She agreed. I pulled it together, keeping her obvious excitement with her new project, keeping her voice while tidying her thoughts.\n\n<a href=\"http://www.themindfulword.org/2013/write-acceptance-edit-compassion/only-words-critique/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-11763\"><img class=\"alignright\" src=\"http://www.themindfulword.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/only-words-critique-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"IT’S NOT “ONLY WORDS”: Write with acceptance, edit with compassion.\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" /></a>She went ballistic—said her words were to be published exactly as she had written them or they were not to be published. I wrote to her and tried to “talk” to her, saying that in future, if she wanted to be published in English, she would find this happening to her often—all serious writers did—and if she felt her message needed to get out there, she would have to accept being edited. I was told in no uncertain terms that her words were always to be published by anyone exactly as she had written them, or not at all. Harsher language was used…\n\n<em>Hello, <a href=\"http://www.themindfulword.org/2012/dear-ego-goodbye/\">Ego </a>my old friend,</em>\n<em>you’ve come to cripple me again.</em>\n<em>Because an edit gently given,</em>\n<em>was rejected without thinking.</em>\n<em>And the message that was planted in my brain</em>\n<em>still remains</em>\n<em>inside my brain… and silenced.</em>\n\n(Thanks, Paul Simon, hope you like it!)\n<h2><strong>Writer, desensitize thyself!</strong></h2>\nI know how I felt the first time someone edited my words. It was a poem.\n\nA POEM!!\n\nYou NEVER edit a poem!\n\nPoems are inviolate!\n\nPoems are a piece of the poet’s soul!\n\nSouls are untouchable!\n\nAt least that’s what I thought. But it had an important message and I had sent it to a journal I respected. The editor came back with some suggestions to do with tenses, explaining her thought process.\n\nGut-kicked I was and wanted to tell her to “get lost.” But I didn’t. I sat and thought about what I was trying to do here. Getting “precious” and burying the poem in some poetry jewellery box to be gazed at only by the owner or published “<em>in memorium</em>” was wasting words.\n\nI read the comments, looked at the poem again. I realized this editor actually cared enough about what I had written that she wanted to publish it if I could accept some suggestions. Some changes I made, some I balked at and told her why. It was published.\n\n<a href=\"http://www.themindfulword.org/2013/write-acceptance-edit-compassion/only-words-writer/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-11767\"><img class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http://www.themindfulword.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/only-words-writer.jpg\" alt=\"IT’S NOT “ONLY WORDS”: Write with acceptance, edit with compassion.\" width=\"221\" height=\"228\" /></a>It is difficult to edit your own writing. You’ve put hours of passionate work into the message and it reads fabulously. Right?\n\nHa! That’s what the mind is telling you anyway. The mind is so powerful it often sees only what was meant to be written and looks past sometimes an abyss in composition.\n\nThe other day, after copious research, it took me four hours to write and edit a piece I felt was important. I put it away. I went back to it probably six or seven times and still found things—a comma missing, a letter, a word—that, while not changing the meaning or “grabbiness” would stop the more pedantic readers dead in their tracks, losing them. But, I didn’t see them the first time around, or the third or fourth.\n\nI can be awfully vague sometimes. My head is so busy with the pithy phrase, the poetic line, I can (and do) get lost in words. In my mind it’s as clear as a bell. To the reader, it’s some <em>hazy shade of winter </em>and they don’t get it. That’s not what I want.\n\nI sent it to an editor I have come to trust. He corrected the obvious, made some suggestions, told me what he was not understanding and why. We “argued” back and forth for a few emails until we had reached consensus—and that means, we BOTH understood what BOTH of us were saying and I could put it into the correct words so others could understand them.\n\nWe are, more often than not, blind to our own writing errors and, when they’re pointed out to us, we take umbrage. Rather than allow our powerful messages to go out in an acceptable format thus making them even more powerful, we withdraw them… silence them.\n<h2><strong>Hey, editor! Lose the attitude! Get over yourself.</strong></h2>\n<a href=\"http://www.themindfulword.org/2013/write-acceptance-edit-compassion/only-words-change-copy/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-11764\"><img class=\"alignright\" src=\"http://www.themindfulword.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/only-words-change-copy.gif\" alt=\"IT’S NOT “ONLY WORDS”: Write with acceptance, edit with compassion.\" width=\"432\" height=\"293\" /></a>\n\nAnyone who believes editing is easy, has no heart and should never become an editor. In fact, anyone who hasn’t themselves written and been edited, shouldn’t be an editor.\n\nStrong words? Maybe. And tough.\n\nAnd that’s what editing with heart is… tough!\n\n“Editors are frustrated writers,” it is so often said. And I have come across some gorilla mechanics who whip out any parts they feel shouldn’t be there, or spray their editorial urine like an alpha male demarcating territory. A bass singing a soprano’s aria.\n\nDelete! Rewrite! Doesn’t make sense! Irrelevant! Waffling!\n\nI’ve seen this done to others many, many times and it makes me want to hurl… the pages back at these butchers.\n\nA writer, who has with great trepidation sent their work to be published, is committing an act of immense bravery and one of trust, and the writing should be treated with not only respect, but compassion.\n\nI received a poem from a first time poet. The tenses were mixed, but the imagery and power were tangible. I read the bio carefully, again read the cover email and again the bio and again the poem—getting into the poet’s head, feeling his soul.\n\nI wrote, telling him the poem was great and asked if he would mind some suggestions to make it even better. He responded that he would love any suggestions, as long as I don’t take away his voice. I sat, absorbing the poem for a bit—feeling his sense of wonder, his confusion, his awe, and his thought processing.\n\nI first corrected the spelling and punctuation, looking up words that I had never seen before. Then I set about using spaces, removing capital letters at the beginning of lines, removing punctuation completely instead using a new line as the punctuation, putting a thought in between two blank spaces as a standalone phrase. I sent it back to him telling him exactly why I had done what I had done, and asked for his comments.\n\nI heard nothing for two weeks and thought I’d offended him. Then I received an email from him saying, he LOVED (his caps) the changes and thank you.\n\n<a href=\"http://www.themindfulword.org/2013/write-acceptance-edit-compassion/only-words-copyeditor/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-11769\"><img class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http://www.themindfulword.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/only-words-copyeditor.jpg\" alt=\"IT’S NOT “ONLY WORDS”: Write with acceptance, edit with compassion.\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" /></a>The message should always be more important than the messenger, but this doesn’t mean shooting the messenger, or drowning his voice.\n\nEditors, if you cannot <a href=\"http://www.themindfulword.org/2012/radical-awakening-life/\">accept</a> that there are others out there who write just as wonderfully or perhaps more so than you do or can or will—don’t edit.\n\nWriters, if you cannot accept that it’s your words that matter—and that it’s the only way you have of getting your message out there, so it needs to be easy to read and understand—don’t write.\n\nEgo. It’s all about letting ego go.\n\nI have written this and edited and re-edited many, many times… cutting, pasting, rewriting, deleting. My “spell-checker” is defunct because I make up words and write in a mixture of all the Englishes (see what I mean?). And then there’s my own, of course. You may still find some small errors, and maybe some glaring ones. It would be good  if you didn’t. But if you did, that’s good too. It means the message was important enough to catch your attention, and the errors didn’t fry your brain.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n<em>Jane Olivier writes for and edits <a href=\"http://www.themindfulword.org\">The Mindful Word</a> journal of engaged living.</em>','Write with acceptance, edit with compassion','','inherit','open','open','','8245-revision-2','','','2013-01-09 23:06:55','2013-01-10 07:06:55','',8245,'http://provoketive.com/2013/01/09/8245-revision-2/',0,'revision','',0),(8349,0,'2013-01-19 00:23:28','2013-01-19 08:23:28','Hello, \r\n \r\n\r\nWe are in the process of promoting a website about drug and alcohol dependence. Would you be open to the idea of placing a text link ad on this page: http://provoketive.com/2012/08/24/lance-armstrong-when-to-cut-a-hero-loose/?  \r\n\r\nWe hope to hear from you soon, so we can discuss rates and other pertinent details.  \r\n\r\nThanks.   \r\n\r\nValerie Elden\r\nhttp://sellyourwebsiteads.com/ \r\nToll Free: 1-800-208-6257\n<!--more-->\nAUTHOR: Valerie Elden\nAUTHOR EMAIL: valerie@sellyourwebsiteads.com\nAUTHOR URL: \nSUBJECT: [Provoketive Magazine] Contact Us\nIP: 121.96.67.27\nArray\n(\n    [Name] =&gt; Valerie Elden\n    [Email] =&gt; valerie@sellyourwebsiteads.com\n    [Comment] =&gt; Hello, \r\n \r\n\r\nWe are in the process of promoting a website about drug and alcohol dependence. Would you be open to the idea of placing a text link ad on this page: http://provoketive.com/2012/08/24/lance-armstrong-when-to-cut-a-hero-loose/?  \r\n\r\nWe hope to hear from you soon, so we can discuss rates and other pertinent details.  \r\n\r\nThanks.   \r\n\r\nValerie Elden\r\nhttp://sellyourwebsiteads.com/ \r\nToll Free: 1-800-208-6257\n)\n','Valerie Elden - 2013-01-19 00:23:28','','publish','open','open','','02376e6279c1718e459491ab12723d01','','','2013-01-19 00:23:28','2013-01-19 08:23:28','',16,'http://provoketive.com/?post_type=feedback&p=8349',0,'feedback','',0),(8354,1,'2013-01-21 09:46:25','2013-01-21 17:46:25','','child labor','','inherit','open','open','','child-labor','','','2013-01-21 09:46:25','2013-01-21 17:46:25','',8243,'http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/child-labor.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(8355,1,'2013-01-18 19:35:14','2013-01-19 03:35:14','Every time I see the words “CNN is Against Child Labour” or watch some celebrity on TV waving the physical or vocal “Abolish Child Labour” flag, I want to get up and smash something—probably the screen.\r\n\r\nAnd sometimes aloud I will ask the empty room, “And then what?” Has anybody thought further than that? What happens to the children then? What happens to the families then?\r\n\r\nBefore we speak or take any action, we should consider the severe ramifications of abolishing a source of both income and labour that is not only prevalent, but has been part of the third world culture since time immemorial. Does anyone realize the importance of differentiating between “child slavery” and “child labour?” That the former is, in the majority of cases, a probable result of no access to the latter?\r\n\r\nDuring my years in both Africa and Asia, I spent a lot of time in villages talking to the village chiefs. I also spent time visiting factories where children were working, speaking not only to the owners, but also to the families of the children and the children themselves.\r\n\r\nI worked in the so-called “child care” industry for a number of years and have been part of not only the rescue, but also the caring and education operation—not in a detached way—in a hands on daily living way.\r\n\r\nIn Asia I have stood on street corners with prostitutes waiting for another family member to bring me their child or sibling—made quite an interesting sight, the <em>falang</em>(foreign) woman standing next to the local lady of the night; after a phone call from the village chief, I travelled hundreds of kilometres on the back of a motorbike to try and rescue two children from their aunt and uncle; I have stopped beggars in the middle of the road using drugged children as a lure to empty pockets and tried to convince them to let me take the children; I have visited brick-making factories where children worked next to their parents; I have searched for children stolen from the grounds of a temple the night before I was to take them to a place of care—by a relative to be sold (they were found a month later and are now in good care); I have been hit by drugged up little children begging from cars stopped at traffic lights, their mother sitting on a nearby corner watching carefully.\r\n\r\nYes, I have done these things and I can tell you a very different story—the one that ends with the immediate family and the child starving when the child is removed from the labour force. Or there’s the one that ends with a close relative stealing the child to take him or her to work in the next village or sold; or there is also the one with the family, now destitute, selling the child into sex trafficking or to factory owners or labour traffickers or, if young enough, to village witchdoctors for the making of medicine.\r\n\r\nA lot of noise—the same noise that’s been going on for more than 10 years—is currently being made about the children trafficked to work in the cocoa industry in the Ivory Coast and the instant “quick-fix” is to stop buying Nestlé chocolate, or any other chocolate or cocoa product for that matter. And yes, some of these children—not all—have been trafficked. The cocoa industry—and the worldwide trade in sweets and chocolates that it supplies—has long had to contend with a growing reputation for child exploitation. In the Ivory Coast, which accounts for 40 per cent of the world’s cocoa production, the U.S. state department estimates that more than 100,000 children work in the cocoa industry, and many are victims of human trafficking and slavery.\r\n\r\nThe 2010 documentary <a href=\"http://www.thedarksideofchocolate.org/\"><em>The Dark Side of Chocolate</em></a> alleges that Nestlé purchases cocoa beans from Ivory Coast plantations that use child slave labour. The children are usually 12 to 15 years old, and some are trafficked from nearby countries—“some” not all.\r\n\r\nBut let us look closely at the definition of human trafficking according to <a href=\"http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-trafficking/what-is-human-trafficking.html#What_is_Human_Trafficking\">UNODC</a> (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime):\r\n<h2><strong>What is Human Trafficking?</strong></h2>\r\nArticle 3, paragraph (a) of the <a href=\"http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/treaties/CTOC/index.html\">Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons</a> defines Trafficking in Persons as:\r\n<blockquote>the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of<strong>the giving or</strong> <strong>receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person</strong>, <strong>for the purpose of exploitation.</strong>Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.</blockquote>\r\nAnd “at a minimum” is translated in <a href=\"http://www.ilo.org/declaration/principles/abolitionofchildlabour/lang--en/index.htm\">The ILO</a>—International Labour Organization—in one of their charter documents <em>Effective Abolition of Child Labour</em> <a href=\"http://www.ilo.org/ilolex/cgi-lex/convde.pl?R190\">Supplemented: R190 Worst Forms of Child Labour Recommendation, 1999</a> as:\r\n<blockquote>12. Members should provide that the following worst forms of child labour are criminal offences:\r\n\r\n(a) all forms of slavery or practices similar to slavery, such as the sale and trafficking of children, debt bondage and serfdom and forced or compulsory labour, including forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed conflict;\r\n\r\n(b) the use, procuring or offering of a child for prostitution, for the production of pornography or for pornographic performances; and\r\n\r\n(c) the use, procuring or offering of a child for illicit activities, in particular for the production and trafficking of drugs as defined in the relevant international treaties, or for activities which involve the unlawful carrying or use of firearms or other weapons.</blockquote>\r\nVictims of human trafficking are not permitted to leave upon arrival at their destination. They are held against their will through acts of coercion and forced to work or provide services to the trafficker or others. The work or services may include anything from bonded or forced labour to commercialized sexual exploitation. The arrangement may be structured as a work contract, but with no or low payment or on terms which are highly exploitative. Sometimes the arrangement is structured as debt bondage, with the victim not being permitted or able to pay off the debt.\r\n\r\nHowever, remember, the majority of the children trafficked have been sold <strong><em>“</em></strong><strong><em>by a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.”</em></strong> In worlds where the attitude is, it’s the next, or the next few meals that count, or the debt collector has to be appeased, selling children into slavery is the easy way out.\r\n<h2><strong>Now let us look at child labour</strong></h2>\r\nAccording to the <a href=\"http://www.unicef.org/crc/index_30177.html\">UN Convention On The Rights Of The Child</a>—Protection Rights: Keeping Safe from Harm Article 32 (Child labour):\r\n<blockquote>The government should protect children from work that is dangerous or might harm their health or their education. While the Convention protects children from harmful and exploitative work, there is nothing in it that prohibits parents from expecting their children to help out at home in ways that are safe and appropriate to their age. If children help out in a family farm or business, the tasks they do be safe and suited to their level of development and comply with national labour laws. Children’s work should not jeopardize any of their other rights, including the right to education, or the right to relaxation and play.</blockquote>\r\n<a href=\"http://www.ilo.org/declaration/principles/abolitionofchildlabour/lang--en/index.htm\">The ILO</a>—International Labour Organization—in one of their charter documents<em>Effective Abolition of Child Labour</em> states:\r\n<blockquote>The principle of the effective abolition of child labour means ensuring that every girl and boy has the opportunity to develop physically and mentally to her or his full potential. Its aim is to stop all work by children that jeopardizes their education and development. This does not mean stopping all work performed by children. International labour standards allow the distinction to be made between what constitutes acceptable and unacceptable forms of work for children at different ages and stages of development… The general minimum age for admission to employment should not be less than the age of completion of compulsory schooling and never be less than 15 years. But developing countries may make certain exceptions to this, and a minimum age of 14 years may be applied where the economy and educational facilities are insufficiently developed. Sometimes, light work may be performed by children two years younger than the general minimum age.</blockquote>\r\nAlmost every section of both the above statements could be torn apart. Child labour accounts for 22 per cent of the workforce in <a href=\"http://www.themindfulword.org/2011/feel-beggar-care-smile/\">Asia</a>, 32 per cent in <a href=\"http://www.themindfulword.org/2011/sana-musasama-ceramic-artist/\">Africa</a> and 17 per cent in Latin America. In third world countries where the teachers are themselves not being paid and have to extract money from the children before even giving them their exam results, who is going to pay for this education that the child has a right to and, while the child is being educated, who is going to help feed the starving family?\r\n\r\n“The completion of compulsory schooling” is laughable. Go speak to the parents, find out what this “compulsory schooling” costs—especially at supposedly “free” government schools.\r\n\r\nGAP is screamed at for using factories that employ child labour; Nike was accused of using child labour in Pakistan to manufacture its soccer balls; Levi Strauss &amp; Co. are accused of using cotton from Uzbekistan harvested by enforced child labour. And again, the uninformed scream “Stop buying these products!”\r\n\r\nThen what? What happens to the children then? Now there is NO work and I can assure you, manufacturing soccer balls, making bricks, sitting behind sewing machines, working in the fields and picking cotton are preferable to some of the alternatives. At least these children get the chance to go home and be with their families.\r\n\r\nWe in the western world created this monster and now we cannot live with the consequences of our actions. Maybe it is time to think of the effect our so-called “developed world” has on the—again so-called—“developing world” before we want more of what we don’t need.\r\n\r\nNo, we should not stop buying the products from companies that knowingly or unwittingly make use of child labour to manufacture either a portion of or the completed article we purchase.\r\n\r\nWhat we should be doing is telling them to pay the labour a proper living wage and monitor the factory to ensure that this is actually being done. This is still a pittance in countries where families are expected to survive on $30 per month.\r\n\r\nWe should be telling the companies who use child labour to downsize their profit margins—let go of some greed. Money earned by the workers for the manufacture of a soccer ball in Pakistan? In the region of $0.50 per ball and what do Nike soccer balls cost? Go figure.\r\n\r\nWe should not stop buying cocoa or chocolate products. As Nestlé chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe recently told the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, removing child labour from the African cocoa harvest is “almost impossible,” citing the difficulty faced by small-time farmers in rural areas managing a harvest without the help of their children. He announced that, rather than eliminating child labour, his company instead wanted to invest in education for those children who worked in the cocoa fields—a concept he referred to as “creating shared value.” “If they have the access to good schooling, then the child labour as such is helping the fathers in the field and helping with the harvesting, I don’t think this is a problem,” he said. “The problem is when you use the children only for that and don’t allow them to go to school.”\r\n\r\nWhat we should be doing is agitating for the companies who supply us our addictions via the trafficking route to go one step further; go look for the traffickers, go find the children and buy them back, allow them access to their families, give them education opportunities.\r\n\r\nWe should be going to the factories and negotiating for space somewhere on the premises to teach the child when it is not working—I did this at brick making factories and was given space and permission on only one condition, that I teach the adults too!\r\n\r\nWe should be telling those organizations and activists who believe it is better to remove the child from the workplace to go ahead, but then pay the family the money the child would have earned AND pay to educate this child. And be fully aware of the consequences of any action they take.\r\n\r\nYes, children are precious and we must protect them. But we must be extremely careful how we do this in third world countries where children are commodities used to feed those who can no longer feed themselves, and the only way to truly protect them is to ensure that the rest of the family is cared for too. Abolishing child labour will lead to them being trafficked—that is a fact.\r\n\r\nTo slightly adapt the words of a Roger Waters song “What God Wants God gets, God help us all”—what developed man wants, developed man gets, developed man help us all. And think carefully—exactly how far are you prepared to go to undo what you have done and are still doing? Are you prepared to buy a life to save a life?\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n<div><em>Jane Olivier writes for and edits <a href=\"http://www.themindfulword.org\">The Mindful Word</a> journal of engaged living.</em></div>','Abolishing Child Labor Leads to Slavery','','inherit','open','open','','8243-revision-3','','','2013-01-18 19:35:14','2013-01-19 03:35:14','',8243,'http://provoketive.com/2013/01/18/8243-revision-3/',0,'revision','',0),(8356,1,'2013-01-18 09:58:57','2013-01-18 17:58:57','While I was writing my book about fallen pastors, I ran into a few pastors who had found a way to restore their ministry. I was dumbfounded. They had, amazingly enough, found a way back into the pastorate.\r\n\r\nI\'m about to share some feelings I\'ve never shared before. Thanks to a counselor I\'ve been seeing, I don\'t think I would have been able to articulate what I felt or am feeling now. Please, fasten your seat belt.\r\n\r\nMy first thought was jealousy. I thought, \"<em>How come those guys get to go back to the pastorate? What makes them so special? I pulled my weight for eight years, had horrible tragedy come on me and then fell. I still have the gifts of a pastor, so why isn\'t God putting me back into it?</em>\"\r\n\r\nI honestly didn\'t understand it. And in the back of my mind were those people who had said, \"<em>Ray, God can still use you in ministry in some way.</em>\"\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/misfit.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8227\" style=\"margin-left: 6px; margin-right: 6px;\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/misfit-300x225.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>Listen, I\'d had enough of those people. You remember in Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer when they go to the Land of Misfit Toys? I felt like a misfit toy. Like everyone was saying, \"<em>Ray, you\'re a broken down piece of crud, but you\'re still a pastor. Unfortunately, God will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever use you like that again. Mission over. Maybe He\'ll retire you over to another, less important job somewhere. You know, doing crud work.</em>\" That\'s what I heard them all saying. It made me so mad. I wanted them to stop saying it.\r\n\r\nThe pastors who were getting back into the game were astonishing to me. They found a way back in, past the fear and hurt that I couldn\'t get past. Why was God letting them back in but not me? Deep down, I knew I was bitter, angry, and hurt. But why should that stop a seminary graduate? I had skills!\r\n\r\nTwo people have made a significant impact on me. One is a friend I met early on. He is so close to my heart. I wish to meet him face to face before I die. He is a fallen pastor and has suffered greater than I ever will. He has a chapter in my book. I\'m not quoting him exactly, but we were talking once about churches. He was talking about visiting churches after you\'ve been a pastor and fallen. He said something like, \"It\'s hard to visit a church because it\'s like working as a waiter in a restaurant. You know exactly what goes on in the kitchen.\"\r\n\r\nHe nailed that one. It\'s hard to be a bystander pastor in a church when you\'re trying to recover from a miserable failure. I\'m on my third church membership now. Most of the problems I\'ve faced are my own fault. Listen, when you just visit churches, they know who you are. You\'re the adulterous pastor. Allison and I have been stared out of places. Then, when you join, and they know you have talent, they expect things from  you. Either that, or they are wary of you. It\'s a revolving door of mistrust or expectations that keeps kicking you in the butt.\r\n\r\nHonestly, a lot of it is my fault as well. I still have high expectations of myself that I still need to resolve. Fallen pastors need to find a place to worship and they need a helping hand. <a href=\"http://www.pirministries.org/\">I have a friend who is part of a ministry to help men like me and I encourage you to check it out</a>.\r\n\r\nThe other friend is a Presbyterian minister I met by the providence of God recently. I was hoping to get back into the ministry game and I sat down to talk with him. Instead of talking to me about the ministry, he decided to speak to my soul. I cannot tell you enough how thankful I am for this man and how thankful I am for God placing him in my life at this point.\r\n\r\nThe first day we talked, one of his major points to me was something like this, \"<em>You were miserable in the ministry at the <a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/ministry.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-8229\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/ministry-300x200.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" /></a>end weren\'t you? Why would you want to get back into something that was destroying your soul?</em>\"\r\n\r\nI hate it when people are right about me. I wrote all in my book about how when the ministry is abused, it can destroy a person, a marriage, a church and a family. Strangely enough, here I was talking to this man and he saw right through me and I had failed to apply the lessons of my book to myself.\r\n\r\nBetter yet, he said, \"<em>Since you\'ve been blogging, you\'ve helped countless ministers get back on track. There is your ministry. That is something more powerful than you ever did before.</em>\"\r\n\r\nIt was something I had known all along. Since I\'ve started blogging, I\'ve gotten at least two emails a week from fallen pastors, pastors who are about to commit adultery, wives of fallen pastors, church members hurt by fallen pastors, and children of fallen pastors. I honestly feel overwhelmed most of the time. I don\'t have anything to offer them but words of comfort and honesty.\r\n\r\nMost of the time all I can say is, \"<em>It\'s tough. It\'s going to get worse before it gets better, but know that Christ loves you and is beside you.</em>\" I can tell them what to expect. I can be real with them and honest about what I went through. And each time as soon as I talk to them, I love them like I\'ve been friends with them for years.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/cake.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8230\" style=\"margin-left: 6px; margin-right: 6px;\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/cake-300x200.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" /></a>The only analogy I can think of is this: When I was a pastor, I was like cake batter. Who doesn\'t like cake batter? It\'s awesome. It tastes good on the mixer and we want to lick it off before it gets thrown into the dishwasher. But what\'s better than cake batter? Cake. Oh my. Cake. Cake with white buttercream icing. Sprinkles. Mmmmmmm.\r\n\r\nThrough my fall, God took me, a pastor of cake batter and I went through the oven fire. It wasn\'t easy. It was of my own doing. I had to eventually humble myself, allow Him to break me and follow a different path. What did He make of me? Cake. Something better. Something much better, for His purpose and His glory.\r\n\r\nI think back to those people who said, \"<em>You can still minister, Ray.</em>\" Yeah, they were thinking I would never be fit to be in  a pulpit again. I still get a chance to preach and share my testimony. I know what they meant. But I also know that now, God has restored me to ministry in His fashion, exactly the way He wants me.\r\n\r\nDon\'t give up on anyone who sins. Regardless of how far we fall, God still uses those He calls: <em>For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.</em> (Romans 11:29 ESV)\r\n\r\n____________________________\r\n\r\nRay Carroll is author of \"<a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Fallen-Pastor-Finding-Restoration-Broken/dp/0615567096/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1357712337&amp;sr=8-2\">Fallen Pastor: Finding Restoration in a Broken World</a>.\" He blogs at <a href=\"http://www.fallenpastor.com\">www.fallenpastor.com</a>.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','Fallen Pastors Can Be Restored: A Personal Tale, Part 2','','inherit','open','open','','8221-revision-3','','','2013-01-18 09:58:57','2013-01-18 17:58:57','',8221,'http://provoketive.com/2013/01/18/8221-revision-3/',0,'revision','',0),(8357,1,'2013-01-18 09:57:29','2013-01-18 17:57:29','It was just four months after I had committed adultery and fallen from my pastorate. I was showing signs of \"<em>true repentance,</em>\" some thought. I was reaching out for help. What I was really doing was trying not to lose my mind. I didn\'t have a friend in the world. Almost everyone had abandoned me, I was living in a tiny house miles away from my children and I hated myself.\r\n\r\nBut part of me wanted to justify my actions. I wanted to defend myself. I wanted someone just to listen to me. I deserved to be listened to. I had listened to people in church whine and complain for eight years. I had been challenged to a fist fight, heard complaints about the most insignificant things, performed funerals, stood over the dying, done their weddings, held the hands of the sick, and preached the Word. Was a little understanding too much to ask?\r\n\r\nOf course, at that time, I was hardened in my sin. I hadn\'t been humbled yet. I was still lashing out at other people instead of asking God for help. So I started making phone calls. I was asking questions like, <em>\"Why are people still angry with me?\" \"Why can\'t people show the love of Christ toward me?\" \"Why can\'t true Christians show forgiveness?\"</em>\r\n\r\nThese were selfish questions to ask, I later found out. At the time, I felt fully justified in asking them. I had already moved past my sin and I felt alright with God. So why couldn\'t everyone else be okay with me?\r\n\r\nThe one answer I got from people that really chapped my butt was this - \"<em>Well, Ray, God isn\'t done with you. He may not want you to pastor again, but he probably has use for you in the ministry somewhere.</em>\"\r\n\r\nWhen I heard that the first time, I almost threw up. I was a seminary graduate. Don\'t talk to me like that. Don\'t give me <a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/semingrad.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-8224\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/semingrad.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"211\" /></a>some petty answer. I have a Master of Divinity for crying out loud. But I heard that answer again and again. \"<em>God may have some ministry for you down the road, Ray. Don\'t give up.</em>\" \"<em>Jerks</em>,\" I thought.\r\n\r\nLittle did I know, God hadn\'t even begun working on my callous heart. I was in a stage of pride that I hadn\'t even begun to understand.\r\n\r\nI remember a few months after I got caught, I started blogging anonymously. Then, I got involved with <a href=\"http://civitaspress.com/\">Civitas Press</a> in writing an essay for \"<a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/The-Practice-Of-Love-Stories/dp/0615450199/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1357712421&amp;sr=8-3&amp;keywords=the+practice+of+love\"><em>The Practice of Love</em></a>.\" Thanks to editor <a href=\"http://jonathanbrink.com/\">Jonathan Brink</a> and the work of God in my heart, I finally started scraping away at the problems going on in my soul.\r\n\r\nWhile I was blogging anonymously under the name of <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Dimmesdale\">Arthur Dimmesdale</a>, I started getting requests for help from other fallen pastors. I thought, \"<em>Who am I to help these people? I\'m barely out of the woods myself.</em>\" But all I knew to do was bare my heart and soul to them, love them for who they were and give them honest answers.\r\n\r\nWhile I wrote the essay for that book, God showed me something amazing. He still loved me. Christ was by my side. Regardless of the sin I had wrought, I was still His child. There was nothing I could do to make Him hate me. The real problem was this - I hated myself more than anyone at my former church, anyone in my family or anyone in the community hated me. I hated myself for the sin I had committed.\r\n\r\nI loathed myself of a daily basis. I didn\'t think I deserved the love of God, the love of Christ or the love of my new wife. I didn\'t think I ever deserved to show my face in public again. For months, I would go to department stores, grocery stores or in public with my head down, hoping not to make eye contact with anyone. I was unworthy.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/john8.jpeg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8225\" style=\"margin-left: 6px; margin-right: 6px;\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/john8-225x300.jpeg\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" /></a>Finally, I had a breakthrough with <a href=\"http://www.esvbible.org/search/john+8%3A1-11/\">John 8</a>. It was a passage I refused to preach when I was a pastor. It was the woman caught in adultery. In that passage, God showed me that Christ stands behind us when we are at our worst. He is our best friend, even when the odds are stacked against us. That is exactly what He did at Calvary.\r\n\r\nWhile I was writing an essay on that for \"<em>The Practice of Love</em>,\" Jonathan Brink suggested to me that I was now the woman caught in adultery. I was the horrible sinner thrust down into the dirt and facing a crowd of people who demanded justice.\r\n\r\nHe was right. But the person who wanted me to be strung up from the highest tree at that moment was me. My upbringing, my seminary education, my judgmental attitude had brought me to one conclusion - I should be stoned for my sin. That\'s why I could never preach that passage. I would read it and say, \"<em>That woman does, by the Law of Moses, deserve death.</em>\" But at the moment I reread it after I committed adultery, I now stood in her place.\r\n\r\nI looked at her and saw me. I said, \"<em>That\'s me. I deserve death. But the only friend I have in the world is Christ and what does He say?</em>\" Christ looked at the crowd and challenged all of them. He said, \"<em>You without sin, cast the first stone.</em>\" He was telling them to examine their own hearts. They had no right to pass ultimate judgment on this woman. He was the only one who had that right.\r\n\r\nThen He said to her, \"<em>Is anyone left to condemn you? Go and sin no more</em>.\"\r\n\r\nThat gave me a whole new lease on life. Working with Jonathan and Civitas, I wrote a book and used my real name. From that day, I began to get more and more contact with fallen pastors across the country who felt like they had no voice.\r\n\r\nBut more about that next time. And hope for fallen pastors who feel like they cannot be restored . . . because they can.\r\n\r\n____________________________\r\n\r\nRay Carroll is author of \"<a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Fallen-Pastor-Finding-Restoration-Broken/dp/0615567096/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1357712337&amp;sr=8-2\">Fallen Pastor: Finding Restoration in a Broken World</a>.\" He blogs at <a href=\"http://www.fallenpastor.com\">www.fallenpastor.com</a>.','Fallen Pastors Can Be Restored: A Personal Tale, Part 1','','inherit','open','open','','8220-revision-4','','','2013-01-18 09:57:29','2013-01-18 17:57:29','',8220,'http://provoketive.com/2013/01/18/8220-revision-4/',0,'revision','',0),(8360,0,'2013-01-21 09:48:10','2013-01-21 17:48:10','It was just four months after I had committed adultery and fallen from my pastorate. I was showing signs of \"<em>true repentance,</em>\" some thought. I was reaching out for help. What I was really doing was trying not to lose my mind. I didn\'t have a friend in the world. Almost everyone had abandoned me, I was living in a tiny house miles away from my children and I hated myself.\r\n\r\nBut part of me wanted to justify my actions. I wanted to defend myself. I wanted someone just to listen to me. I deserved to be listened to. I had listened to people in church whine and complain for eight years. I had been challenged to a fist fight, heard complaints about the most insignificant things, performed funerals, stood over the dying, done their weddings, held the hands of the sick, and preached the Word. Was a little understanding too much to ask?\r\n\r\nOf course, at that time, I was hardened in my sin. I hadn\'t been humbled yet. I was still lashing out at other people instead of asking God for help. So I started making phone calls. I was asking questions like, <em>\"Why are people still angry with me?\" \"Why can\'t people show the love of Christ toward me?\" \"Why can\'t true Christians show forgiveness?\"</em>\r\n\r\nThese were selfish questions to ask, I later found out. At the time, I felt fully justified in asking them. I had already moved past my sin and I felt alright with God. So why couldn\'t everyone else be okay with me?\r\n\r\nThe one answer I got from people that really chapped my butt was this - \"<em>Well, Ray, God isn\'t done with you. He may not want you to pastor again, but he probably has use for you in the ministry somewhere.</em>\"\r\n\r\nWhen I heard that the first time, I almost threw up. I was a seminary graduate. Don\'t talk to me like that. Don\'t give me <a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/semingrad.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-8224\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/semingrad.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"211\" /></a>some petty answer. I have a Master of Divinity for crying out loud. But I heard that answer again and again. \"<em>God may have some ministry for you down the road, Ray. Don\'t give up.</em>\" \"<em>Jerks</em>,\" I thought.\r\n\r\nLittle did I know, God hadn\'t even begun working on my callous heart. I was in a stage of pride that I hadn\'t even begun to understand.\r\n\r\nI remember a few months after I got caught, I started blogging anonymously. Then, I got involved with <a href=\"http://civitaspress.com/\">Civitas Press</a> in writing an essay for \"<a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/The-Practice-Of-Love-Stories/dp/0615450199/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1357712421&amp;sr=8-3&amp;keywords=the+practice+of+love\"><em>The Practice of Love</em></a>.\" Thanks to editor <a href=\"http://jonathanbrink.com/\">Jonathan Brink</a> and the work of God in my heart, I finally started scraping away at the problems going on in my soul.\r\n\r\nWhile I was blogging anonymously under the name of <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Dimmesdale\">Arthur Dimmesdale</a>, I started getting requests for help from other fallen pastors. I thought, \"<em>Who am I to help these people? I\'m barely out of the woods myself.</em>\" But all I knew to do was bare my heart and soul to them, love them for who they were and give them honest answers.\r\n\r\nWhile I wrote the essay for that book, God showed me something amazing. He still loved me. Christ was by my side. Regardless of the sin I had wrought, I was still His child. There was nothing I could do to make Him hate me. The real problem was this - I hated myself more than anyone at my former church, anyone in my family or anyone in the community hated me. I hated myself for the sin I had committed.\r\n\r\nI loathed myself of a daily basis. I didn\'t think I deserved the love of God, the love of Christ or the love of my new wife. I didn\'t think I ever deserved to show my face in public again. For months, I would go to department stores, grocery stores or in public with my head down, hoping not to make eye contact with anyone. I was unworthy.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/john8.jpeg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8225\" style=\"margin-left: 6px;margin-right: 6px\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/john8-225x300.jpeg\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" /></a>Finally, I had a breakthrough with <a href=\"http://www.esvbible.org/search/john+8%3A1-11/\">John 8</a>. It was a passage I refused to preach when I was a pastor. It was the woman caught in adultery. In that passage, God showed me that Christ stands behind us when we are at our worst. He is our best friend, even when the odds are stacked against us. That is exactly what He did at Calvary.\r\n\r\nWhile I was writing an essay on that for \"<em>The Practice of Love</em>,\" Jonathan Brink suggested to me that I was now the woman caught in adultery. I was the horrible sinner thrust down into the dirt and facing a crowd of people who demanded justice.\r\n\r\nHe was right. But the person who wanted me to be strung up from the highest tree at that moment was me. My upbringing, my seminary education, my judgmental attitude had brought me to one conclusion - I should be stoned for my sin. That\'s why I could never preach that passage. I would read it and say, \"<em>That woman does, by the Law of Moses, deserve death.</em>\" But at the moment I reread it after I committed adultery, I now stood in her place.\r\n\r\nI looked at her and saw me. I said, \"<em>That\'s me. I deserve death. But the only friend I have in the world is Christ and what does He say?</em>\" Christ looked at the crowd and challenged all of them. He said, \"<em>You without sin, cast the first stone.</em>\" He was telling them to examine their own hearts. They had no right to pass ultimate judgment on this woman. He was the only one who had that right.\r\n\r\nThen He said to her, \"<em>Is anyone left to condemn you? Go and sin no more</em>.\"\r\n\r\nThat gave me a whole new lease on life. Working with Jonathan and Civitas, I wrote a book and used my real name. From that day, I began to get more and more contact with fallen pastors across the country who felt like they had no voice.\r\n\r\nBut more about that next time. And hope for fallen pastors who feel like they cannot be restored . . . because they can.\r\n\r\n____________________________\r\n\r\nRay Carroll is author of \"<a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Fallen-Pastor-Finding-Restoration-Broken/dp/0615567096/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1357712337&amp;sr=8-2\">Fallen Pastor: Finding Restoration in a Broken World</a>.\" He blogs at <a href=\"http://www.fallenpastor.com\">www.fallenpastor.com</a>.','Fallen Pastors Can Be Restored: A Personal Tale, Part 1','','inherit','open','open','','8220-revision-5','','','2013-01-21 09:48:10','2013-01-21 17:48:10','',8220,'http://provoketive.com/2013/01/21/8220-revision-5/',0,'revision','',0),(8361,0,'2013-01-23 10:14:57','2013-01-23 18:14:57','You might be interested in a new music video on Oscar Romero done by UMC deacon, Michael Glen Bell.  See it at TheMartyrsProject.com.  Feel free to review, blog, embed or get back to us with any questions. Follow us on Twitter @martyrsproject.\n<!--more-->\nAUTHOR: Duane Arnold\nAUTHOR EMAIL: dwha1863@aol.com\nAUTHOR URL: \nSUBJECT: [Provoketive Magazine] Contact Us\nIP: 99.130.191.15\nArray\n(\n    [Name] =&gt; Duane Arnold\n    [Email] =&gt; dwha1863@aol.com\n    [Comment] =&gt; You might be interested in a new music video on Oscar Romero done by UMC deacon, Michael Glen Bell.  See it at TheMartyrsProject.com.  Feel free to review, blog, embed or get back to us with any questions. Follow us on Twitter @martyrsproject.\n)\n','Duane Arnold - 2013-01-23 10:14:57','','publish','open','open','','b431c24d95600e23fbdc0b5de8f2289b','','','2013-01-23 10:14:57','2013-01-23 18:14:57','',16,'http://provoketive.com/?post_type=feedback&p=8361',0,'feedback','',0),(8363,0,'2013-01-26 01:59:57','2013-01-26 09:59:57','Hi!\r\n                   I must say that your website “http://provoketive.com ” is quite instructive. I am interested in placing my “Text Links” on your website. I assure you that the links do not contain any pornographic material and are spam free. I will pay you a good amount $30 if you approve to have a business relationship with me. If you agree then I will send you my detailed proposal for your consideration.\r\nIf you can review our sample article, Here is: http://www.tech99.us/sales-specialist-meetingplace-cisco-certification-exams/\r\nWaiting for your response,\r\nRegards,\r\nAnna\n<!--more-->\nAUTHOR: Anna Thomas\nAUTHOR EMAIL: annathomas@hushmail.com\nAUTHOR URL: \nSUBJECT: [Provoketive Magazine] Contact Us\nIP: 182.189.71.2\nArray\n(\n    [Name] =&gt; Anna Thomas\n    [Email] =&gt; annathomas@hushmail.com\n    [Comment] =&gt; Hi!\r\n                   I must say that your website “http://provoketive.com ” is quite instructive. I am interested in placing my “Text Links” on your website. I assure you that the links do not contain any pornographic material and are spam free. I will pay you a good amount $30 if you approve to have a business relationship with me. If you agree then I will send you my detailed proposal for your consideration.\r\nIf you can review our sample article, Here is: http://www.tech99.us/sales-specialist-meetingplace-cisco-certification-exams/\r\nWaiting for your response,\r\nRegards,\r\nAnna\r\n\n)\n','Anna Thomas - 2013-01-26 01:59:57','','publish','open','open','','1c02acdf5023271baf7bf38da55f9d4c','','','2013-01-26 01:59:57','2013-01-26 09:59:57','',16,'http://provoketive.com/?post_type=feedback&p=8363',0,'feedback','',0),(8382,1,'2013-02-03 11:09:42','2013-02-03 19:09:42','How do we writers feel when something we thought was perfect is changed—even slightly—or commented on, or sometimes deleted? Do we become “all sensitive” and refuse to accept that maybe someone actually liked our work,  wants to make us sound erudite and really wants to get our message across? In fact, someone felt strongly enough about it to want to use it in the first place?\n\nDo we resent any suggestions and rather than accept changes, pull the piece from publishing and silence our voice?\n\nA while ago, I edited a piece written by a woman whose native language was not English and her English, while good, had some paranormal errors. It was a lovely message—full of joy and hope—but it was also scattered and sometimes made no sense. I wrote to her asking if I could use it—spread her joy, so to speak. She agreed. I pulled it together, keeping her obvious excitement with her new project, keeping her voice while tidying her thoughts.\n\n<a href=\"http://www.themindfulword.org/2013/write-acceptance-edit-compassion/only-words-critique/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-11763\"><img class=\"alignright\" alt=\"IT’S NOT “ONLY WORDS”: Write with acceptance, edit with compassion.\" src=\"http://www.themindfulword.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/only-words-critique-300x300.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" /></a>She went ballistic—said her words were to be published exactly as she had written them or they were not to be published. I wrote to her and tried to “talk” to her, saying that in future, if she wanted to be published in English, she would find this happening to her often—all serious writers did—and if she felt her message needed to get out there, she would have to accept being edited. I was told in no uncertain terms that her words were always to be published by anyone exactly as she had written them, or not at all. Harsher language was used…\n\n<em>Hello, <a href=\"http://www.themindfulword.org/2012/dear-ego-goodbye/\">Ego </a>my old friend,</em>\n<em>you’ve come to cripple me again.</em>\n<em>Because an edit gently given,</em>\n<em>was rejected without thinking.</em>\n<em>And the message that was planted in my brain</em>\n<em>still remains</em>\n<em>inside my brain… and silenced.</em>\n\n(Thanks, Paul Simon, hope you like it!)\n<h2><strong>Writer, desensitize thyself!</strong></h2>\nI know how I felt the first time someone edited my words. It was a poem.\n\nA POEM!!\n\nYou NEVER edit a poem!\n\nPoems are inviolate!\n\nPoems are a piece of the poet’s soul!\n\nSouls are untouchable!\n\nAt least that’s what I thought. But it had an important message and I had sent it to a journal I respected. The editor came back with some suggestions to do with tenses, explaining her thought process.\n\nGut-kicked I was and wanted to tell her to “get lost.” But I didn’t. I sat and thought about what I was trying to do here. Getting “precious” and burying the poem in some poetry jewellery box to be gazed at only by the owner or published “<em>in memorium</em>” was wasting words.\n\nI read the comments, looked at the poem again. I realized this editor actually cared enough about what I had written that she wanted to publish it if I could accept some suggestions. Some changes I made, some I balked at and told her why. It was published.\n\n<a href=\"http://www.themindfulword.org/2013/write-acceptance-edit-compassion/only-words-writer/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-11767\"><img class=\"alignleft\" alt=\"IT’S NOT “ONLY WORDS”: Write with acceptance, edit with compassion.\" src=\"http://www.themindfulword.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/only-words-writer.jpg\" width=\"221\" height=\"228\" /></a>It is difficult to edit your own writing. You’ve put hours of passionate work into the message and it reads fabulously. Right?\n\nHa! That’s what the mind is telling you anyway. The mind is so powerful it often sees only what was meant to be written and looks past sometimes an abyss in composition.\n\nThe other day, after copious research, it took me four hours to write and edit a piece I felt was important. I put it away. I went back to it probably six or seven times and still found things—a comma missing, a letter, a word—that, while not changing the meaning or “grabbiness” would stop the more pedantic readers dead in their tracks, losing them. But, I didn’t see them the first time around, or the third or fourth.\n\nI can be awfully vague sometimes. My head is so busy with the pithy phrase, the poetic line, I can (and do) get lost in words. In my mind it’s as clear as a bell. To the reader, it’s some <em>hazy shade of winter </em>and they don’t get it. That’s not what I want.\n\nI sent it to an editor I have come to trust. He corrected the obvious, made some suggestions, told me what he was not understanding and why. We “argued” back and forth for a few emails until we had reached consensus—and that means, we BOTH understood what BOTH of us were saying and I could put it into the correct words so others could understand them.\n\nWe are, more often than not, blind to our own writing errors and, when they’re pointed out to us, we take umbrage. Rather than allow our powerful messages to go out in an acceptable format thus making them even more powerful, we withdraw them… silence them.\n<h2><strong>Hey, editor! Lose the attitude! Get over yourself.</strong></h2>\n<a href=\"http://www.themindfulword.org/2013/write-acceptance-edit-compassion/only-words-change-copy/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-11764\"><img class=\"alignright\" alt=\"IT’S NOT “ONLY WORDS”: Write with acceptance, edit with compassion.\" src=\"http://www.themindfulword.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/only-words-change-copy.gif\" width=\"432\" height=\"293\" /></a>\n\nAnyone who believes editing is easy, has no heart and should never become an editor. In fact, anyone who hasn’t themselves written and been edited, shouldn’t be an editor.\n\nStrong words? Maybe. And tough.\n\nAnd that’s what editing with heart is… tough!\n\n“Editors are frustrated writers,” it is so often said. And I have come across some gorilla mechanics who whip out any parts they feel shouldn’t be there, or spray their editorial urine like an alpha male demarcating territory. A bass singing a soprano’s aria.\n\nDelete! Rewrite! Doesn’t make sense! Irrelevant! Waffling!\n\nI’ve seen this done to others many, many times and it makes me want to hurl… the pages back at these butchers.\n\nA writer, who has with great trepidation sent their work to be published, is committing an act of immense bravery and one of trust, and the writing should be treated with not only respect, but compassion.\n\nI received a poem from a first time poet. The tenses were mixed, but the imagery and power were tangible. I read the bio carefully, again read the cover email and again the bio and again the poem—getting into the poet’s head, feeling his soul.\n\nI wrote, telling him the poem was great and asked if he would mind some suggestions to make it even better. He responded that he would love any suggestions, as long as I don’t take away his voice. I sat, absorbing the poem for a bit—feeling his sense of wonder, his confusion, his awe, and his thought processing.\n\nI first corrected the spelling and punctuation, looking up words that I had never seen before. Then I set about using spaces, removing capital letters at the beginning of lines, removing punctuation completely instead using a new line as the punctuation, putting a thought in between two blank spaces as a standalone phrase. I sent it back to him telling him exactly why I had done what I had done, and asked for his comments.\n\nI heard nothing for two weeks and thought I’d offended him. Then I received an email from him saying, he LOVED (his caps) the changes and thank you.\n\n<a href=\"http://www.themindfulword.org/2013/write-acceptance-edit-compassion/only-words-copyeditor/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-11769\"><img class=\"alignleft\" alt=\"IT’S NOT “ONLY WORDS”: Write with acceptance, edit with compassion.\" src=\"http://www.themindfulword.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/only-words-copyeditor.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" /></a>The message should always be more important than the messenger, but this doesn’t mean shooting the messenger, or drowning his voice.\n\nEditors, if you cannot <a href=\"http://www.themindfulword.org/2012/radical-awakening-life/\">accept</a> that there are others out there who write just as wonderfully or perhaps more so than you do or can or will—don’t edit.\n\nWriters, if you cannot accept that it’s your words that matter—and that it’s the only way you have of getting your message out there, so it needs to be easy to read and understand—don’t write.\n\nEgo. It’s all about letting ego go.\n\nI have written this and edited and re-edited many, many times… cutting, pasting, rewriting, deleting. My “spell-checker” is defunct because I make up words and write in a mixture of all the Englishes (see what I mean?). And then there’s my own, of course. You may still find some small errors, and maybe some glaring ones. It would be good  if you didn’t. But if you did, that’s good too. It means the message was important enough to catch your attention, and the errors didn’t fry your brain.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n<em>Jane Olivier writes for and edits <a href=\"http://www.themindfulword.org\">The Mindful Word</a> journal of engaged living.</em>','Write With Acceptance, Edit With Compassion','','inherit','open','open','','8245-autosave','','','2013-02-03 11:09:42','2013-02-03 19:09:42','',8245,'http://provoketive.com/2013/02/03/8245-autosave/',0,'revision','',0),(8383,1,'2013-02-03 11:11:23','2013-02-03 19:11:23','','typewriter','','inherit','open','open','','typewriter','','','2013-02-03 11:11:23','2013-02-03 19:11:23','',8245,'http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/typewriter.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(8384,1,'2013-01-18 19:58:11','2013-01-19 03:58:11','How do we writers feel when something we thought was perfect is changed—even slightly—or commented on, or sometimes deleted? Do we become “all sensitive” and refuse to accept that maybe someone actually liked our work,  wants to make us sound erudite and really wants to get our message across? In fact, someone felt strongly enough about it to want to use it in the first place?\n\nDo we resent any suggestions and rather than accept changes, pull the piece from publishing and silence our voice?\n\nA while ago, I edited a piece written by a woman whose native language was not English and her English, while good, had some paranormal errors. It was a lovely message—full of joy and hope—but it was also scattered and sometimes made no sense. I wrote to her asking if I could use it—spread her joy, so to speak. She agreed. I pulled it together, keeping her obvious excitement with her new project, keeping her voice while tidying her thoughts.\n\n<a href=\"http://www.themindfulword.org/2013/write-acceptance-edit-compassion/only-words-critique/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-11763\"><img class=\"alignright\" src=\"http://www.themindfulword.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/only-words-critique-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"IT’S NOT “ONLY WORDS”: Write with acceptance, edit with compassion.\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" /></a>She went ballistic—said her words were to be published exactly as she had written them or they were not to be published. I wrote to her and tried to “talk” to her, saying that in future, if she wanted to be published in English, she would find this happening to her often—all serious writers did—and if she felt her message needed to get out there, she would have to accept being edited. I was told in no uncertain terms that her words were always to be published by anyone exactly as she had written them, or not at all. Harsher language was used…\n\n<em>Hello, <a href=\"http://www.themindfulword.org/2012/dear-ego-goodbye/\">Ego </a>my old friend,</em>\n<em>you’ve come to cripple me again.</em>\n<em>Because an edit gently given,</em>\n<em>was rejected without thinking.</em>\n<em>And the message that was planted in my brain</em>\n<em>still remains</em>\n<em>inside my brain… and silenced.</em>\n\n(Thanks, Paul Simon, hope you like it!)\n<h2><strong>Writer, desensitize thyself!</strong></h2>\nI know how I felt the first time someone edited my words. It was a poem.\n\nA POEM!!\n\nYou NEVER edit a poem!\n\nPoems are inviolate!\n\nPoems are a piece of the poet’s soul!\n\nSouls are untouchable!\n\nAt least that’s what I thought. But it had an important message and I had sent it to a journal I respected. The editor came back with some suggestions to do with tenses, explaining her thought process.\n\nGut-kicked I was and wanted to tell her to “get lost.” But I didn’t. I sat and thought about what I was trying to do here. Getting “precious” and burying the poem in some poetry jewellery box to be gazed at only by the owner or published “<em>in memorium</em>” was wasting words.\n\nI read the comments, looked at the poem again. I realized this editor actually cared enough about what I had written that she wanted to publish it if I could accept some suggestions. Some changes I made, some I balked at and told her why. It was published.\n\n<a href=\"http://www.themindfulword.org/2013/write-acceptance-edit-compassion/only-words-writer/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-11767\"><img class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http://www.themindfulword.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/only-words-writer.jpg\" alt=\"IT’S NOT “ONLY WORDS”: Write with acceptance, edit with compassion.\" width=\"221\" height=\"228\" /></a>It is difficult to edit your own writing. You’ve put hours of passionate work into the message and it reads fabulously. Right?\n\nHa! That’s what the mind is telling you anyway. The mind is so powerful it often sees only what was meant to be written and looks past sometimes an abyss in composition.\n\nThe other day, after copious research, it took me four hours to write and edit a piece I felt was important. I put it away. I went back to it probably six or seven times and still found things—a comma missing, a letter, a word—that, while not changing the meaning or “grabbiness” would stop the more pedantic readers dead in their tracks, losing them. But, I didn’t see them the first time around, or the third or fourth.\n\nI can be awfully vague sometimes. My head is so busy with the pithy phrase, the poetic line, I can (and do) get lost in words. In my mind it’s as clear as a bell. To the reader, it’s some <em>hazy shade of winter </em>and they don’t get it. That’s not what I want.\n\nI sent it to an editor I have come to trust. He corrected the obvious, made some suggestions, told me what he was not understanding and why. We “argued” back and forth for a few emails until we had reached consensus—and that means, we BOTH understood what BOTH of us were saying and I could put it into the correct words so others could understand them.\n\nWe are, more often than not, blind to our own writing errors and, when they’re pointed out to us, we take umbrage. Rather than allow our powerful messages to go out in an acceptable format thus making them even more powerful, we withdraw them… silence them.\n<h2><strong>Hey, editor! Lose the attitude! Get over yourself.</strong></h2>\n<a href=\"http://www.themindfulword.org/2013/write-acceptance-edit-compassion/only-words-change-copy/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-11764\"><img class=\"alignright\" src=\"http://www.themindfulword.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/only-words-change-copy.gif\" alt=\"IT’S NOT “ONLY WORDS”: Write with acceptance, edit with compassion.\" width=\"432\" height=\"293\" /></a>\n\nAnyone who believes editing is easy, has no heart and should never become an editor. In fact, anyone who hasn’t themselves written and been edited, shouldn’t be an editor.\n\nStrong words? Maybe. And tough.\n\nAnd that’s what editing with heart is… tough!\n\n“Editors are frustrated writers,” it is so often said. And I have come across some gorilla mechanics who whip out any parts they feel shouldn’t be there, or spray their editorial urine like an alpha male demarcating territory. A bass singing a soprano’s aria.\n\nDelete! Rewrite! Doesn’t make sense! Irrelevant! Waffling!\n\nI’ve seen this done to others many, many times and it makes me want to hurl… the pages back at these butchers.\n\nA writer, who has with great trepidation sent their work to be published, is committing an act of immense bravery and one of trust, and the writing should be treated with not only respect, but compassion.\n\nI received a poem from a first time poet. The tenses were mixed, but the imagery and power were tangible. I read the bio carefully, again read the cover email and again the bio and again the poem—getting into the poet’s head, feeling his soul.\n\nI wrote, telling him the poem was great and asked if he would mind some suggestions to make it even better. He responded that he would love any suggestions, as long as I don’t take away his voice. I sat, absorbing the poem for a bit—feeling his sense of wonder, his confusion, his awe, and his thought processing.\n\nI first corrected the spelling and punctuation, looking up words that I had never seen before. Then I set about using spaces, removing capital letters at the beginning of lines, removing punctuation completely instead using a new line as the punctuation, putting a thought in between two blank spaces as a standalone phrase. I sent it back to him telling him exactly why I had done what I had done, and asked for his comments.\n\nI heard nothing for two weeks and thought I’d offended him. Then I received an email from him saying, he LOVED (his caps) the changes and thank you.\n\n<a href=\"http://www.themindfulword.org/2013/write-acceptance-edit-compassion/only-words-copyeditor/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-11769\"><img class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http://www.themindfulword.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/only-words-copyeditor.jpg\" alt=\"IT’S NOT “ONLY WORDS”: Write with acceptance, edit with compassion.\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" /></a>The message should always be more important than the messenger, but this doesn’t mean shooting the messenger, or drowning his voice.\n\nEditors, if you cannot <a href=\"http://www.themindfulword.org/2012/radical-awakening-life/\">accept</a> that there are others out there who write just as wonderfully or perhaps more so than you do or can or will—don’t edit.\n\nWriters, if you cannot accept that it’s your words that matter—and that it’s the only way you have of getting your message out there, so it needs to be easy to read and understand—don’t write.\n\nEgo. It’s all about letting ego go.\n\nI have written this and edited and re-edited many, many times… cutting, pasting, rewriting, deleting. My “spell-checker” is defunct because I make up words and write in a mixture of all the Englishes (see what I mean?). And then there’s my own, of course. You may still find some small errors, and maybe some glaring ones. It would be good  if you didn’t. But if you did, that’s good too. It means the message was important enough to catch your attention, and the errors didn’t fry your brain.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n<em>Jane Olivier writes for and edits <a href=\"http://www.themindfulword.org\">The Mindful Word</a> journal of engaged living.</em>','Write with acceptance, edit with compassion','','inherit','open','open','','8245-revision-3','','','2013-01-18 19:58:11','2013-01-19 03:58:11','',8245,'http://provoketive.com/2013/01/18/8245-revision-3/',0,'revision','',0),(8370,0,'2013-01-29 07:56:02','2013-01-29 15:56:02','Hi there,\r\n\r\nI was checking out your site earlier and realized you might be interested in a short video that our production team just released. The video analyzes a few critical points as to why women make better business leaders.\r\n\r\nhttp://www.onlinemba.com/blog/why-women-make-better-business-leaders\r\n\r\nIf you think you could use the video, feel free to share it with your audience. Would love any feedback we could receive.\r\n\r\nThanks!\r\n- Emily S.\n<!--more-->\nAUTHOR: Emily Stewart\nAUTHOR EMAIL: Emily.Stewart83@gmail.com\nAUTHOR URL: \nSUBJECT: [Provoketive Magazine] Contact Us\nIP: 121.96.61.130\nArray\n(\n    [Name] =&gt; Emily Stewart\n    [Email] =&gt; Emily.Stewart83@gmail.com\n    [Comment] =&gt; Hi there,\r\n\r\nI was checking out your site earlier and realized you might be interested in a short video that our production team just released. The video analyzes a few critical points as to why women make better business leaders.\r\n\r\nhttp://www.onlinemba.com/blog/why-women-make-better-business-leaders\r\n\r\nIf you think you could use the video, feel free to share it with your audience. Would love any feedback we could receive.\r\n\r\nThanks!\r\n- Emily S.\n)\n','Emily Stewart - 2013-01-29 07:56:02','','publish','open','open','','e5f2470826fd773eb3f7d1a7b4e2b27a','','','2013-01-29 07:56:02','2013-01-29 15:56:02','',16,'http://provoketive.com/?post_type=feedback&p=8370',0,'feedback','',0),(8465,204,'2013-02-11 08:45:50','2013-02-11 16:45:50','Is life an explosion of youth, then you reach your peak relevance, importance, and connectivity, and from there things taper off and then you get older and then you die?\n\nI\'ve been thinking about this a lot lately.\n\nI love Thai food and every week after yoga practice I eat dinner at a favorite Thai restaurant. All the servers know me, but there is one server that I enjoy seeing the most. I think she likes me too, not just because I tip her well, but I think she also enjoys the conversation. I recently learned that she plays in a band. She creates original material, but she also loves to interpret old songs in her own unique style.\n\nThere is a sense where something can be new in relation to time, but still be stale. And there is also a sense where something can be old in relation to time and still be new—like old songs sung in a new way.\n\nBut it seems in our society that if something is new it is relevant, but if it is old it is irrelevant.\n\nThe line goes something like this: You are young. Then you do something, hopefully something unique. You reach your peak, and then you taper off. For a moment, it seems, you have your glory, and then at some point it\'s over and then you die. You die because there is something new that has replaced what was once new—there is a new way to go, a new style, a new theory—the next new thing.\n\nThere are reasons why older does not necessarily mean wiser, however. I think George Packer\'s <a href=\"http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/02/youth-age-music-news.html?mobify=0\">comments</a> in the New Yorker are spot on:\n<blockquote>Something unusual stopped me in these sentences from a Times article about a state-by-state study of flaws in the American electoral system: “A main goal of the exercise, which grew out of Professor Gerken’s 2009 book, ‘The Democracy Index,’ was to shame poor performers into doing better, she said. ‘Peer pressure produces horrible things like Britney Spears and Justin Bieber and tongue rings,’ Professor Gerken said. ‘But it also produces professional peer pressure.’” It almost took my breath away: Professor Heather Gerken, who is in her early forties, felt free to tell a reporter that Britney Spears and Justin Bieber, not to mention tongue rings, are horrible. Gerken broke one of the unwritten rules of being middle-aged: don’t go after the young and what they love. Not in print, anyway. Don’t open yourself up to the charge of curmudgeonliness, because the inevitable retort—“You just don’t get it, Professor! You sound like your parents!”—is probably accurate, certainly unanswerable, and absolutely devastating. Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.</blockquote>\nIf there is an unwritten rule not to go after the young and what they love, there is also an implicit question that asks, \"I am old, what do I have to say to the young?\" The answer, paradoxically, is that when you have the most amount of time, the most amount of wisdom, and sometimes the most amount of resources, you go to a place that guarantees you will not have influence on future generations—you retire.\n\nYou leave us.\n\nAnd this is the problem:  you can\'t leave us when we need you the most.\n\nIn 1978, Soviet geologists discovered a <a href=\"http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/For-40-Years-This-Russian-Family-Was-Cut-Off-From-Human-Contact-Unaware-of-World-War-II-188843001.html?device=iphone&amp;device=ipad\">family</a> of six lost in the Siberian taiga. Cut off from all human contact for 40 years, this Russian family lived on the side of a mountain 150 miles from the nearest settlement. It was an astonishing discovery because the Soviets had no records of anyone living in this area. Karp Lykov was an Old Believer, a member of a fundamentalist Russian Orthodox sect whose worship style has not changed since the 17th century. During Stalin\'s Great Purge of the 1930\'s, the Soviets killed Lykov\'s brother, and in 1936, Lykov fled to Siberia escaping religious persecution, retreating further from civilization deep in the Siberian taiga. Living in isolation from the rest of the world, Lykov and his family were unaware of World War II and lived on the edge of famine making survival next to impossible. Two of his children had never seen a human being that was not a member of their family. Perhaps the saddest aspect of the Lykovs\' strange story was the rapidity with which the family went into decline after they re-established contact with the outside world. Only Lykov\'s daughter, Agafia remains, and she will not leave her home in the Siberian taiga.\n\nMost people believe they are on the inevitable slide into irrelevance. I can see why: art, movies, culture, and even business reinforce this idea. When am I going to lose it? Can I keep up? There is some wisdom that you only get through having lived it and through years. There is an authority that comes from being older, but there is also a potential newness that is fresh as ever—a sifting and sorting of all I have experienced—creating a non-anxious, non-judgemental presence because I am older, and my roots run deep and I have seen it all.\n\nWe live the <a href=\"http://storylineblog.com/2013/01/28/when-you-fail-to-live-a-great-story/\">stories</a> we keep telling ourselves, and telling meaningful stories overlaps with living a meaningful life.\n\nThere was a time when humans intuitively grappled with aging rooted in the divine redemptive activity of God. But unfortunately we are telling a different story—a story about how religion has skewed our perception of aging.\n\nReligion is new to humanity. It\'s been around about 5% of humanity\'s spiritual journey, which, on a conservative timescale, began to unfold about seventy thousand years ago. Yet most of us have grown up with a religious legacy. Unfortunately, these religious legacies have nurtured the belief that when one group checks out, the other says, \"we don’t need you,\" and everything falls apart. In many cultures, and in Scripture,  you find the older need the idealism, energy and enthusiasm of the youth and the youth need the wisdom of the older.\n\nAnd when we embrace <em>this</em>, that\'s when the adventure begins.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n\n*photo by bokkels\n\n&nbsp;','When Does The Adventure Begin?','','inherit','open','open','','8398-revision-33','','','2013-02-11 08:45:50','2013-02-11 16:45:50','',8398,'http://provoketive.com/2013/02/11/8398-revision-33/',0,'revision','',0),(8396,0,'2013-02-08 14:09:34','2013-02-08 22:09:34','Henry writes about subjects that I\'d like to read about: The journey of faith.  \"Is your pastor holding your church back?\" or related areas. Which way is the church going (at least in the west)? Should it die to be re-born and rejoice in the process? Or does life support lead to health? What is church health? How is it different than what we see today?\r\n\r\nLet me know if you need any more info! I\'d like to see what Henry has to offer!\r\n\r\nThanks!\r\nDaisy Rain\n<!--more-->\nAUTHOR: Daisy Rain Martin\nAUTHOR EMAIL: daisydaisychick@yahoo.com\nAUTHOR URL: http://henry@henrystewart.org\nSUBJECT: Nominating A Writer For Provoketive\nIP: 24.117.96.172\nArray\n(\n    [Your Name] =&gt; Daisy Rain Martin\n    [Your Email] =&gt; daisydaisychick@yahoo.com\n    [The Writer\'s Name] =&gt; Henry Stewart\n    [The Writer\'s Website or Post] =&gt; henry@henrystewart.org\n    [The Writer\'s Email] =&gt; henrys29@cox.net\n    [Why You Think They Should Write For Provoketive?] =&gt; Henry writes about subjects that I\'d like to read about: The journey of faith.  \"Is your pastor holding your church back?\" or related areas. Which way is the church going (at least in the west)? Should it die to be re-born and rejoice in the process? Or does life support lead to health? What is church health? How is it different than what we see today?\r\n\r\nLet me know if you need any more info! I\'d like to see what Henry has to offer!\r\n\r\nThanks!\r\nDaisy Rain\n)\n','Daisy Rain Martin - 2013-02-08 14:09:34','','publish','open','open','','a9911962a4de10266e733edb6dda07d0','','','2013-02-08 14:09:34','2013-02-08 22:09:34','',1537,'http://provoketive.com/?post_type=feedback&p=8396',0,'feedback','',0),(8374,34,'2013-02-04 08:00:30','2013-02-04 16:00:30','I do not think C. S. Lewis ever directly said anything about gay and lesbian unions. But he did write about whether or not the federal government might be involved in defining what exactly is marriage and what exactly is not.\r\n\r\nIn his timeless book, <em><a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061350214/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0061350214&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=tiheco-20\">Mere Christianity</a></em>, C. S. Lewis penned something which directly links with the topic in our courts and places of worship at this time about defining marriage. Lewis was discussing marriage between divorced couples, but the approach can equally be relevant to marriage between two gay people.\r\n\r\nHere\'s what he wrote:\r\n<blockquote>Before leaving the question of divorce, I should like to distinguish two things which are very often confused. The Christian conception of marriage is one: the other is quite the different question-how far Christians, if they are voters or Members of Parliament, ought to try to force their views of marriage on the rest of the community by embodying them in the divorce laws. A great many people seem to think that if you are a Christian yourself you should try to make divorce difficult for every one. I do not think that. At least I know I should be very angry if the Mohammedans tried to prevent the rest of us from drinking wine.\r\n\r\nMy own view is that the Churches should frankly recognize that the majority of the British people are not Christian and, therefore, cannot be expected to live Christian lives. There ought to be two distinct kinds of marriage: one governed by the State with rules enforced on all citizens, the other governed by the church with rules enforced by her on her own members. The distinction ought to be quite sharp, so that a man knows which couples are married in a Christian sense and which are not.</blockquote>\r\nIt is time for Christ-followers to realize the fact that the United States Government (or any human government for that matter) is not the enforcer of scriptural guidance and laws. Governments create their own laws and regulations which they feel might help bring peace, safety, and stability inside their own lands, nevertheless these laws can sometimes be at odds with the directions and directions of Scripture.\r\n\r\nAlthough the state makes something “legal,” this does not mean that it is now appropriate for Christians, for we must carry out both the laws of God and also the rules of our government, with the laws of our King taking precedent in our individual behavior over the laws of our land. And we must be cautious about seeking to get our lawmakers to put in force Scriptural rules on all the people in the country, for if it can be enforced with “Christian” guidelines, it can also be done at a later time with “Muslim” guidelines, or “Mormon” laws, or whatever religion happens to be “control” at the time. C. S. Lewis gives the example of Muslims and their restrictions on drinking alcohol. Nobody would want this, but in a number of ways, this is exactly what Christians are hoping to do on culture when we try to pressure our community to adopt biblical laws about the gay lifestyle.\r\n\r\nIn some locations Muslims are making national laws to impose their Sharia law upon everyone in that country, much like here in the USA some Christians are attempting to impose some of our laws on all the people in our land. If anything may be gleaned from history, we understand that it is damaging to everybody when any <a title=\"Religion Takes Up the Sword\" href=\"www.tillhecomes.org/liberty-to-kill-in-the-name-of-jesus/\">religion takes up the sword</a> of government and attempts to put in force religious guidelines on others.','Homosexual Marriage and CS Lewis','','publish','open','open','','homosexual-marriage-and-cs-lewis','','','2013-02-04 08:01:33','2013-02-04 16:01:33','',0,'http://provoketive.com/?p=8374',0,'post','',0),(8375,34,'2013-01-31 11:46:22','2013-01-31 19:46:22','','Gay-Marriage','','inherit','open','open','','gay-marriage','','','2013-01-31 11:46:22','2013-01-31 19:46:22','',8374,'http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Gay-Marriage.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(8379,176,'2013-02-16 02:31:22','2013-02-16 10:31:22','What is the truth? This question has captivated and perplexed humankind since the beginning of recorded history. Why? Because it’s a question unlike any other. Unlike asking about the political situation in the Middle East or how to pursue a better life, it’s a deep yearning for knowledge, not information. Information that is gained can just as easily be lost. The truth is not about gaining something, but realizing what is already known.\n\nAt our core is an intent to truly know the Self. Rather than an end goal to strive for, it’s a process of revealing the truth that we are something greater than our limited, material selves. This intent towards liberation is unavoidable because it is our very essence.\n\nOn the bumpy road of truth discovery, we have to get lost once in a while to really know where we’re going. Many seekers strive for instant gratification or the easy route to happiness—to find something, anything, to satisfy this deep inner urge. Though the path of liberation requires a strong will to set it into motion and to continue on the path, it’s a gradual process that takes time. When there’s no rush, letting replaces getting since there isn’t the same kind of attachment to attain something—the kind of attachment that causes many to wander off the path or avoid the truth altogether because it’s too difficult to bear.\n<h2>Avoidance</h2>\nIn our world of stuff-attainment, it’s sensible to avoid seeking the truth. It’s not like the path of truth discovery benefits us in any material sense. Quite the opposite in fact. Many truly committed truth-seekers choose to live in voluntary simplicity or live a monastic life of complete renunciation after finding that material comforts serve no purpose in realizing the truth. When realizing this many seekers hit a red light. Do we follow the green, moving forward along this path that will likely cause us to toss our desires out the window or do we pull a U-turn and hightail  it back so we can cling to the same comforts in familiar surroundings?\n\nMany resist their will and suppress the urge. Others wait until having “time on the schedule.” But if that means putting it off for many years, the inevitable crap that comes up from questioning a lifetime’s worth of conditioning gives the ego a major edge. It’s just too great a mental burden for most to bear. But even if committing ourselves to the truth, the ego still sets clever traps on the most subtle levels to catch and confuse us along the way.\n<h2>Doubt</h2>\nDoubt is the most insidious <a href=\"http://www.themindfulword.org/2011/equanimity-higher-state-happiness/\">ego trap</a>. It has a way of overwhelming and knocking us out, in some cases for an entire lifetime. Paradoxically, the same doubt that pulls us from the truth can also push us back to it as a way of saying “Nope. This isn’t good enough either”—back to being discontent with material comforts and questioning life again. It’s the ego’s way of remaining king so it can continue imposing a constant state of unease in its empire.\n\nWhat is it about doubt? Just when the sand castle starts to take shape, the universe flings out a wave to knock it over. The truth is elusive. It cannot be found simply because we already <em>are</em> the truth. It’s just a process of revealing. And through the process of revealing, deeper and deeper layers of our Self get exposed until ever subtler bits rise to the surface. And the more knowledge we gain, the more ignorant we become because we realize just how little we actually know. Frustrating at times, and a big reason why doubt walks onto the scene so often.\n\nDoubt has a way of creeping up without warning, whenever and wherever. But doubt, like anything else, is impermanent. As real as it may seem, and it does have ways of appearing really real, it too will pass.\n\nBut doubt, however, is far from bad. “Our difficulty is we are so heavily conditioned that we never look, never ask, never question, never doubt. We are all followers, we are all yes-sayers,” says J. Krishnamurti. Without doubt we’d never question what the truth is in the first place. And when the swarm of desires and aversions come knocking on the door to distract us, without doubt we’d avoid the truth until a major life event happens. And if not this lifetime, the next.\n<h2>Courage and surrender</h2>\nA wanderer was walking aimlessly through a park, eyes fixed on the ground with a dejected countenance. A wise sage sitting under a banyan tree saw her and offered a smile. The seeker accepted the welcoming smile as an invitation to talk.\n\n“Why do I keep on walking in circles in this park?” the wanderer asked.\n\n“Ask who is doing the walking and you will know,” the sage replied.\n\nThe seeker went off to contemplate the question and returned the next day with an even greater desperation bred from utter hopeless confusion—the desperation of someone who cares greatly about something, but despite being stuck, resolves with incredible will to push forward. In the depths of this misery, she returned to see the sage sitting under the same tree.\n\n“I do not know who I am, where I came from, how or when I came to be. I know nothing.”\n\n“Good. You accept not knowing with surrender. Now you will know.”\n\nImmediately a calm came over the wanderer. A feeling of Being-ness unlike anything she had ever experienced. At that point she knew. Though it was a temporary hint of knowing that quickly escaped, the potent jolt was sufficient—she knew what before she was trying to figure out.\n\nThe wanderer possessed the much-needed virtue of courage to face her difficulties until she could overcome them. Without courage there’s no chance to know the truth because there are too many distractions, too many reasons to give up, go elsewhere, do something else or get sucked into the “easy” life at some point on the long road.\n\nThe sage acknowledged the wanderer’s strong will, yet her mind was getting in the way, trying to figure out what could not be figured out. She was at a point that Karl Krumins in “Purification of Intent” refers to as the beginning of transformation. “Really understanding that ‘you can’t <em>do</em> what you think you can’ is the beginning of transformation. It’s the beginning of self-honesty.” Her mind was running mental laps until she exhausted herself. The great wealth of information she had stored in her head frustrated her because she couldn’t absorb any meaning from it.\n\nA dose of the truth came to her as an experience, facilitated by the teacher’s presence. In the ancient Indian science of Vedanta, it’s believed that awareness of Self is unexperienceable. All experiences are temporary, but the Self, being everything there is, is limitless and eternal and cannot be experienced. It is knowledge that has to be developed.\n<h2>The spiritual high</h2>\nThe wanderer experienced a breakthrough moment that gave her the necessary nudge to break free of her mental bondage. But despite its potency, it evaporated. Why is it that perfection can be experienced then so easily lost? Quite simply, because whatever can be gained can also be lost. That’s the impermanence of duality.\n\n<a href=\"http://www.themindfulword.org/2012/self-inquiry-vedanta-james-swartz/\">Non-duality</a> is that which cannot be divided. There’s no good or bad, come or go, one or another. Everything just is. There’s no separation in the Self. According to Vedanta teacher James Swartz, “The Self is whole and complete actionless awareness.” Different spiritual traditions speak about this reality of the truth in different ways, but the underlying essence is the same.\n\nTo minds clouded with conditioning, the veil of ignorance needs to be lifted before seeing the truth. Though even when that veil of ignorance gets lifted, the momentum of our conditioning covers our eyes time and again. We can derive benefit from the highs just as the wanderer used her experience to get jolted out of stasis, but the ecstasy needs to be paired with the realization that those experiences are impermanent.\n\nUnlike experiences that come and go, the inner urge for truth is permanent. There’s no point fighting it. It drives us in the background, compelling us to experience love or connect to nature. Just as we go through the motions of the day to satisfy our physical needs, our Being subtly drives home the truth. So to stifle the search is to stifle life itself, manifesting in depression, addictions or a subtle feeling of discontent, a constant want to satisfy the hungry ghost that just cannot be satisfied.\n\nWhen approaching the intersection of truth we have apparent choices. Stop at a red. Show caution during a yellow. Proceed through a green. Fundamentally, we cannot choose to avoid the truth because it already is us. Like watching a pot of boiling water, the longer we sit at a red light, staring at it in a trance, the longer we hang out in<em>samsara</em> from one lifetime to the next. In the end, every red eventually turns green.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n<em><a href=\"https://plus.google.com/101556749885182449997\">Kiva Bottero</a> writes for and edits <a href=\"http://www.themindfulword.org\">The Mindful Word</a> journal of engaged living.</em>','Liberation is Inescapable','','inherit','open','open','','8247-autosave','','','2013-02-16 02:31:22','2013-02-16 10:31:22','',8247,'http://provoketive.com/2013/02/03/8247-autosave/',0,'revision','',0),(8376,34,'2013-01-31 11:48:09','2013-01-31 19:48:09','<img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-8375\" alt=\"gay unions\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Gay-Marriage-300x222.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"222\" />I do not think C. S. Lewis ever directly said anything about gay and lesbian unions. But he did write about whether or not the federal government might be involved in defining what exactly is marriage and what exactly is not.\n\nIn his timeless book, <em><a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061350214/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0061350214&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=tiheco-20\">Mere Christianity</a></em>, C. S. Lewis penned something which directly links with the topic in our courts and places of worship at this time about defining marriage. Lewis was discussing marriage between divorced couples, but the approach can equally be relevant to marriage between two gay people.\n\nHere\'s what he wrote:\n<blockquote>Before leaving the question of divorce, I should like to distinguish two things which are very often confused. The Christian conception of marriage is one: the other is quite the different question-how far Christians, if they are voters or Members of Parliament, ought to try to force their views of marriage on the rest of the community by embodying them in the divorce laws. A great many people seem to think that if you are a Christian yourself you should try to make divorce difficult for every one. I do not think that. At least I know I should be very angry if the Mohammedans tried to prevent the rest of us from drinking wine.\n\nMy own view is that the Churches should frankly recognize that the majority of the British people are not Christian and, therefore, cannot be expected to live Christian lives. There ought to be two distinct kinds of marriage: one governed by the State with rules enforced on all citizens, the other governed by the church with rules enforced by her on her own members. The distinction ought to be quite sharp, so that a man knows which couples are married in a Christian sense and which are not.</blockquote>\nIt is time for Christ-followers to realize the fact that the United States Government (or any human government for that matter) is not the enforcer of scriptural guidance and laws. Governments create their own laws and regulations which they feel might help bring peace, safety, and stability inside their own lands, nevertheless these laws can sometimes be at odds with the directions and directions of Scripture.\n\nAlthough the state makes something “legal,” this does not mean that it is now appropriate for Christians, for we must carry out both the laws of God and also the rules of our government, with the laws of our King taking precedent in our individual behavior over the laws of our land. And we must be cautious about seeking to get our lawmakers to put in force Scriptural rules on all the people in the country, for if it can be enforced with “Christian” guidelines, it can also be done at a later time with “Muslim” guidelines, or “Mormon” laws, or whatever religion happens to be “control” at the time. C. S. Lewis gives the example of Muslims and their restrictions on drinking alcohol. Nobody would want this, but in a number of ways, this is exactly what Christians are hoping to do on culture when we try to pressure our community to adopt biblical laws about the gay lifestyle.\n\nIn some locations Muslims are making national laws to impose their Sharia law upon everyone in that country, much like here in the USA some Christians are attempting to impose some of our laws on all the people in our land. If anything may be gleaned from history, we understand that it is damaging to everybody when any <a title=\"Religion Takes Up the Sword\" href=\"www.tillhecomes.org/liberty-to-kill-in-the-name-of-jesus/\">religion takes up the sword</a> of government and attempts to put in force religious guidelines on others.','Homosexual Marriage and CS Lewis','','inherit','open','open','','8374-revision','','','2013-01-31 11:48:09','2013-01-31 19:48:09','',8374,'http://provoketive.com/2013/01/31/8374-revision/',0,'revision','',0),(8467,176,'2013-02-03 11:07:12','2013-02-03 19:07:12','What is the truth? This question has captivated and perplexed humankind since the beginning of recorded history. Why? Because it’s a question unlike any other. Unlike asking about the political situation in the Middle East or how to pursue a better life, it’s a deep yearning for knowledge, not information. Information that is gained can just as easily be lost. The truth is not about gaining something, but realizing what is already known.\r\n\r\nAt our core is an intent to truly know the Self. Rather than an end goal to strive for, it’s a process of revealing the truth that we are something greater than our limited, material selves. This intent towards liberation is unavoidable because it is our very essence.\r\n\r\nOn the bumpy road of truth discovery, we have to get lost once in a while to really know where we’re going. Many seekers strive for instant gratification or the easy route to happiness—to find something, anything, to satisfy this deep inner urge. Though the path of liberation requires a strong will to set it into motion and to continue on the path, it’s a gradual process that takes time. When there’s no rush, letting replaces getting since there isn’t the same kind of attachment to attain something—the kind of attachment that causes many to wander off the path or avoid the truth altogether because it’s too difficult to bear.\r\n<h2>Avoidance</h2>\r\nIn our world of stuff-attainment, it’s sensible to avoid seeking the truth. It’s not like the path of truth discovery benefits us in any material sense. Quite the opposite in fact. Many truly committed truth-seekers choose to live in voluntary simplicity or live a monastic life of complete renunciation after finding that material comforts serve no purpose in realizing the truth. When realizing this many seekers hit a red light. Do we follow the green, moving forward along this path that will likely cause us to toss our desires out the window or do we pull a U-turn and hightail  it back so we can cling to the same comforts in familiar surroundings?\r\n\r\nMany resist their will and suppress the urge. Others wait until having “time on the schedule.” But if that means putting it off for many years, the inevitable crap that comes up from questioning a lifetime’s worth of conditioning gives the ego a major edge. It’s just too great a mental burden for most to bear. But even if committing ourselves to the truth, the ego still sets clever traps on the most subtle levels to catch and confuse us along the way.\r\n<h2>Doubt</h2>\r\nDoubt is the most insidious <a href=\"http://www.themindfulword.org/2011/equanimity-higher-state-happiness/\">ego trap</a>. It has a way of overwhelming and knocking us out, in some cases for an entire lifetime. Paradoxically, the same doubt that pulls us from the truth can also push us back to it as a way of saying “Nope. This isn’t good enough either”—back to being discontent with material comforts and questioning life again. It’s the ego’s way of remaining king so it can continue imposing a constant state of unease in its empire.\r\n\r\nWhat is it about doubt? Just when the sand castle starts to take shape, the universe flings out a wave to knock it over. The truth is elusive. It cannot be found simply because we already <em>are</em> the truth. It’s just a process of revealing. And through the process of revealing, deeper and deeper layers of our Self get exposed until ever subtler bits rise to the surface. And the more knowledge we gain, the more ignorant we become because we realize just how little we actually know. Frustrating at times, and a big reason why doubt walks onto the scene so often.\r\n\r\nDoubt has a way of creeping up without warning, whenever and wherever. But doubt, like anything else, is impermanent. As real as it may seem, and it does have ways of appearing really real, it too will pass.\r\n\r\nBut doubt, however, is far from bad. “Our difficulty is we are so heavily conditioned that we never look, never ask, never question, never doubt. We are all followers, we are all yes-sayers,” says J. Krishnamurti. Without doubt we’d never question what the truth is in the first place. And when the swarm of desires and aversions come knocking on the door to distract us, without doubt we’d avoid the truth until a major life event happens. And if not this lifetime, the next.\r\n<h2>Courage and surrender</h2>\r\nA wanderer was walking aimlessly through a park, eyes fixed on the ground with a dejected countenance. A wise sage sitting under a banyan tree saw her and offered a smile. The seeker accepted the welcoming smile as an invitation to talk.\r\n\r\n“Why do I keep on walking in circles in this park?” the wanderer asked.\r\n\r\n“Ask who is doing the walking and you will know,” the sage replied.\r\n\r\nThe seeker went off to contemplate the question and returned the next day with an even greater desperation bred from utter hopeless confusion—the desperation of someone who cares greatly about something, but despite being stuck, resolves with incredible will to push forward. In the depths of this misery, she returned to see the sage sitting under the same tree.\r\n\r\n“I do not know who I am, where I came from, how or when I came to be. I know nothing.”\r\n\r\n“Good. You accept not knowing with surrender. Now you will know.”\r\n\r\nImmediately a calm came over the wanderer. A feeling of Being-ness unlike anything she had ever experienced. At that point she knew. Though it was a temporary hint of knowing that quickly escaped, the potent jolt was sufficient—she knew what before she was trying to figure out.\r\n\r\nThe wanderer possessed the much-needed virtue of courage to face her difficulties until she could overcome them. Without courage there’s no chance to know the truth because there are too many distractions, too many reasons to give up, go elsewhere, do something else or get sucked into the “easy” life at some point on the long road.\r\n\r\nThe sage acknowledged the wanderer’s strong will, yet her mind was getting in the way, trying to figure out what could not be figured out. She was at a point that Karl Krumins in “Purification of Intent” refers to as the beginning of transformation. “Really understanding that ‘you can’t <em>do</em> what you think you can’ is the beginning of transformation. It’s the beginning of self-honesty.” Her mind was running mental laps until she exhausted herself. The great wealth of information she had stored in her head frustrated her because she couldn’t absorb any meaning from it.\r\n\r\nA dose of the truth came to her as an experience, facilitated by the teacher’s presence. In the ancient Indian science of Vedanta, it’s believed that awareness of Self is unexperienceable. All experiences are temporary, but the Self, being everything there is, is limitless and eternal and cannot be experienced. It is knowledge that has to be developed.\r\n<h2>The spiritual high</h2>\r\nThe wanderer experienced a breakthrough moment that gave her the necessary nudge to break free of her mental bondage. But despite its potency, it evaporated. Why is it that perfection can be experienced then so easily lost? Quite simply, because whatever can be gained can also be lost. That’s the impermanence of duality.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://www.themindfulword.org/2012/self-inquiry-vedanta-james-swartz/\">Non-duality</a> is that which cannot be divided. There’s no good or bad, come or go, one or another. Everything just is. There’s no separation in the Self. According to Vedanta teacher James Swartz, “The Self is whole and complete actionless awareness.” Different spiritual traditions speak about this reality of the truth in different ways, but the underlying essence is the same.\r\n\r\nTo minds clouded with conditioning, the veil of ignorance needs to be lifted before seeing the truth. Though even when that veil of ignorance gets lifted, the momentum of our conditioning covers our eyes time and again. We can derive benefit from the highs just as the wanderer used her experience to get jolted out of stasis, but the ecstasy needs to be paired with the realization that those experiences are impermanent.\r\n\r\nUnlike experiences that come and go, the inner urge for truth is permanent. There’s no point fighting it. It drives us in the background, compelling us to experience love or connect to nature. Just as we go through the motions of the day to satisfy our physical needs, our Being subtly drives home the truth. So to stifle the search is to stifle life itself, manifesting in depression, addictions or a subtle feeling of discontent, a constant want to satisfy the hungry ghost that just cannot be satisfied.\r\n\r\nWhen approaching the intersection of truth we have apparent choices. Stop at a red. Show caution during a yellow. Proceed through a green. Fundamentally, we cannot choose to avoid the truth because it already is us. Like watching a pot of boiling water, the longer we sit at a red light, staring at it in a trance, the longer we hang out in<em>samsara</em> from one lifetime to the next. In the end, every red eventually turns green.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<em>Kiva Bottero writes for and edits <a href=\"http://www.themindfulword.org\">The Mindful Word</a> journal of engaged living, <a href=\"http://greenbuildingcanada.ca\">Green Building Canada</a> and <a href=\"http://www.greenhomegnome.com\">Green Home Gnome</a>.</em>','Liberation is Inescapable','','inherit','open','open','','8247-revision-4','','','2013-02-03 11:07:12','2013-02-03 19:07:12','',8247,'http://provoketive.com/2013/02/03/8247-revision-4/',0,'revision','',0),(8380,1,'2013-02-03 11:06:40','2013-02-03 19:06:40','','reflection','','inherit','open','open','','reflection','','','2013-02-03 11:06:40','2013-02-03 19:06:40','',8247,'http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/reflection.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(8381,1,'2013-01-18 19:58:02','2013-01-19 03:58:02','What is the truth? This question has captivated and perplexed humankind since the beginning of recorded history. Why? Because it’s a question unlike any other. Unlike asking about the political situation in the Middle East or how to pursue a better life, it’s a deep yearning for knowledge, not information. Information that is gained can just as easily be lost. The truth is not about gaining something, but realizing what is already known.\r\n\r\nAt our core is an intent to truly know the Self. Rather than an end goal to strive for, it’s a process of revealing the truth that we are something greater than our limited, material selves. This intent towards liberation is unavoidable because it is our very essence.\r\n\r\nOn the bumpy road of truth discovery, we have to get lost once in a while to really know where we’re going. Many seekers strive for instant gratification or the easy route to happiness—to find something, anything, to satisfy this deep inner urge. Though the path of liberation requires a strong will to set it into motion and to continue on the path, it’s a gradual process that takes time. When there’s no rush, letting replaces getting since there isn’t the same kind of attachment to attain something—the kind of attachment that causes many to wander off the path or avoid the truth altogether because it’s too difficult to bear.\r\n<h2>Avoidance</h2>\r\nIn our world of stuff-attainment, it’s sensible to avoid seeking the truth. It’s not like the path of truth discovery benefits us in any material sense. Quite the opposite in fact. Many truly committed truth-seekers choose to live in voluntary simplicity or live a monastic life of complete renunciation after finding that material comforts serve no purpose in realizing the truth. When realizing this many seekers hit a red light. Do we follow the green, moving forward along this path that will likely cause us to toss our desires out the window or do we pull a U-turn and hightail  it back so we can cling to the same comforts in familiar surroundings?\r\n\r\nMany resist their will and suppress the urge. Others wait until having “time on the schedule.” But if that means putting it off for many years, the inevitable crap that comes up from questioning a lifetime’s worth of conditioning gives the ego a major edge. It’s just too great a mental burden for most to bear. But even if committing ourselves to the truth, the ego still sets clever traps on the most subtle levels to catch and confuse us along the way.\r\n<h2>Doubt</h2>\r\nDoubt is the most insidious <a href=\"http://www.themindfulword.org/2011/equanimity-higher-state-happiness/\">ego trap</a>. It has a way of overwhelming and knocking us out, in some cases for an entire lifetime. Paradoxically, the same doubt that pulls us from the truth can also push us back to it as a way of saying “Nope. This isn’t good enough either”—back to being discontent with material comforts and questioning life again. It’s the ego’s way of remaining king so it can continue imposing a constant state of unease in its empire.\r\n\r\nWhat is it about doubt? Just when the sand castle starts to take shape, the universe flings out a wave to knock it over. The truth is elusive. It cannot be found simply because we already <em>are</em> the truth. It’s just a process of revealing. And through the process of revealing, deeper and deeper layers of our Self get exposed until ever subtler bits rise to the surface. And the more knowledge we gain, the more ignorant we become because we realize just how little we actually know. Frustrating at times, and a big reason why doubt walks onto the scene so often.\r\n\r\nDoubt has a way of creeping up without warning, whenever and wherever. But doubt, like anything else, is impermanent. As real as it may seem, and it does have ways of appearing really real, it too will pass.\r\n\r\nBut doubt, however, is far from bad. “Our difficulty is we are so heavily conditioned that we never look, never ask, never question, never doubt. We are all followers, we are all yes-sayers,” says J. Krishnamurti. Without doubt we’d never question what the truth is in the first place. And when the swarm of desires and aversions come knocking on the door to distract us, without doubt we’d avoid the truth until a major life event happens. And if not this lifetime, the next.\r\n<h2>Courage and surrender</h2>\r\nA wanderer was walking aimlessly through a park, eyes fixed on the ground with a dejected countenance. A wise sage sitting under a banyan tree saw her and offered a smile. The seeker accepted the welcoming smile as an invitation to talk.\r\n\r\n“Why do I keep on walking in circles in this park?” the wanderer asked.\r\n\r\n“Ask who is doing the walking and you will know,” the sage replied.\r\n\r\nThe seeker went off to contemplate the question and returned the next day with an even greater desperation bred from utter hopeless confusion—the desperation of someone who cares greatly about something, but despite being stuck, resolves with incredible will to push forward. In the depths of this misery, she returned to see the sage sitting under the same tree.\r\n\r\n“I do not know who I am, where I came from, how or when I came to be. I know nothing.”\r\n\r\n“Good. You accept not knowing with surrender. Now you will know.”\r\n\r\nImmediately a calm came over the wanderer. A feeling of Being-ness unlike anything she had ever experienced. At that point she knew. Though it was a temporary hint of knowing that quickly escaped, the potent jolt was sufficient—she knew what before she was trying to figure out.\r\n\r\nThe wanderer possessed the much-needed virtue of courage to face her difficulties until she could overcome them. Without courage there’s no chance to know the truth because there are too many distractions, too many reasons to give up, go elsewhere, do something else or get sucked into the “easy” life at some point on the long road.\r\n\r\nThe sage acknowledged the wanderer’s strong will, yet her mind was getting in the way, trying to figure out what could not be figured out. She was at a point that Karl Krumins in “Purification of Intent” refers to as the beginning of transformation. “Really understanding that ‘you can’t <em>do</em> what you think you can’ is the beginning of transformation. It’s the beginning of self-honesty.” Her mind was running mental laps until she exhausted herself. The great wealth of information she had stored in her head frustrated her because she couldn’t absorb any meaning from it.\r\n\r\nA dose of the truth came to her as an experience, facilitated by the teacher’s presence. In the ancient Indian science of Vedanta, it’s believed that awareness of Self is unexperienceable. All experiences are temporary, but the Self, being everything there is, is limitless and eternal and cannot be experienced. It is knowledge that has to be developed.\r\n<h2>The spiritual high</h2>\r\nThe wanderer experienced a breakthrough moment that gave her the necessary nudge to break free of her mental bondage. But despite its potency, it evaporated. Why is it that perfection can be experienced then so easily lost? Quite simply, because whatever can be gained can also be lost. That’s the impermanence of duality.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://www.themindfulword.org/2012/self-inquiry-vedanta-james-swartz/\">Non-duality</a> is that which cannot be divided. There’s no good or bad, come or go, one or another. Everything just is. There’s no separation in the Self. According to Vedanta teacher James Swartz, “The Self is whole and complete actionless awareness.” Different spiritual traditions speak about this reality of the truth in different ways, but the underlying essence is the same.\r\n\r\nTo minds clouded with conditioning, the veil of ignorance needs to be lifted before seeing the truth. Though even when that veil of ignorance gets lifted, the momentum of our conditioning covers our eyes time and again. We can derive benefit from the highs just as the wanderer used her experience to get jolted out of stasis, but the ecstasy needs to be paired with the realization that those experiences are impermanent.\r\n\r\nUnlike experiences that come and go, the inner urge for truth is permanent. There’s no point fighting it. It drives us in the background, compelling us to experience love or connect to nature. Just as we go through the motions of the day to satisfy our physical needs, our Being subtly drives home the truth. So to stifle the search is to stifle life itself, manifesting in depression, addictions or a subtle feeling of discontent, a constant want to satisfy the hungry ghost that just cannot be satisfied.\r\n\r\nWhen approaching the intersection of truth we have apparent choices. Stop at a red. Show caution during a yellow. Proceed through a green. Fundamentally, we cannot choose to avoid the truth because it already is us. Like watching a pot of boiling water, the longer we sit at a red light, staring at it in a trance, the longer we hang out in<em>samsara</em> from one lifetime to the next. In the end, every red eventually turns green.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<em>Kiva Bottero writes for and edits <a href=\"http://www.themindfulword.org\">The Mindful Word</a> journal of engaged living, <a href=\"http://greenbuildingcanada.ca\">Green Building Canada</a> and <a href=\"http://www.greenhomegnome.com\">Green Home Gnome</a>.</em>','Experiences Come and Go, but the Intent Towards Liberation is Inescapable','','inherit','open','open','','8247-revision-3','','','2013-01-18 19:58:02','2013-01-19 03:58:02','',8247,'http://provoketive.com/2013/01/18/8247-revision-3/',0,'revision','',0),(8444,12,'2013-03-01 08:00:01','2013-03-01 16:00:01','<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/?attachment_id=8452\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-8452\"><img class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-8452\" alt=\"fbfridge\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/fbfridge.jpg\" width=\"331\" height=\"162\" /></a>I enjoy living in rural Kentucky most of the time. Good people who are willing to jump at the chance to take care of you when you have a problem. People who care about one another. They smile and say \"hello\" at you, even if they don\'t know you. They take pride in themselves and their work. It\'s a lot like the town I grew up in Arkansas. I love small towns, people who love life and love their neighbors.\r\n\r\nRecently, there seems to be a growing outrage at the Obama administration and the direction it is headed in. Before the election, there seemed to be hope among people I knew that a new president would be elected and that would \"<em>fix</em>\" everything. That didn\'t happen.\r\n\r\nI have to admit, I\'m not the greatest fan of Facebook. But on my Facebook front page, there are an alarming number of posts on terrible things that appear to be happening.\r\n\r\nI thought I\'d just ignore writing about it until now, but today, I couldn\'t take it anymore. Let me state first that I\'m not a Republican or Democrat. I\'m a Libertarian. Moreover, I tend to care very less about the political things that are occurring than the people around me.\r\n\r\nIn recent days and months, I\'ve seen a large number of people accusing the government of coming after their guns. The <a href=\"http://provoketive.com/?attachment_id=8446\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-8446\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-8446\" alt=\"usagun\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/usagun-300x250.jpg\" width=\"236\" height=\"196\" /></a>Facebook posts read like this: \"<em>You can come after my guns if you want, Obama, but you\'ll have to get through me first</em>.\" The arguments stem from the idea that countries under dictator rule, like the Philippines, started with a gun nab from the general public.\r\n\r\nOver the past few months, I\'ve seen all kinds of maps, statistics, propaganda and statements made by gun owners. I understand the frustration, I really do. If I owned a large number of firearms and believed the hype of people thrown at me, I would probably believe the government was coming to get them.\r\n\r\nWorse, I\'ve seen some pretty horrible things lately. During the Sandy Hook massacre, some people rose up and said it was a farce. It was a conspiracy. Some said the government made it all up and staged it. There were no dead children. There was no \"real\" shooting. It was all staged so that the government could make a play on assault rifles and to impose gun control on the American people. <a href=\"http://www.cbsatlanta.com/story/20640094/sandy-hook-conspiracy-shares-elements-with-others\">It seemed almost counter-intuitive to even argue against such stupidity, but people did</a>.\r\n\r\nThere\'s a new one popping up - Obama wants to put microchips in us and it\'s even in the Obamacare Act. Microchipping is nothing new. Rapture enthusiasts have been looking for the \"Mark of the Beast\" before 1988 when Jesus was supposed to return then. Now, Facebook posts are coming in telling us that we will all have microchips installed thanks to the president. Really? Not so fast, my friend. According to people who actually read things: \"<a href=\"http://people.howstuffworks.com/obamacare-microchips.htm\">there is no language in the public law stating -- or suggesting -- that all Americans will be implanted with microchips.</a>\"\r\n\r\nBut in our Facebook, Twitter, fast-paced society of believe it first before you research it, we pass it along before we do the first Google search. We believe the worst conspiracy theory before we do the mildest bit of research.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/?attachment_id=8447\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-8447\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8447\" style=\"margin-left: 6px;margin-right: 6px\" alt=\"conspiracy\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/conspiracy-300x300.jpg\" width=\"207\" height=\"207\" /></a>If you\'re really hard up for a conspiracy theory, check out one of the most popular conspiracy sites on the Internet: <a href=\"abovetopsecret.com\">Above Top Secret</a>. It\'s one of my guilty pleasures and has been since 2009. Every week, you\'ll find someone on there telling you that the end of the world is <em>this week</em>. The aliens are coming for us <em>this month</em>. The government is gathering people in secret prisons <em>as we speak</em>. Holy cow, we are all in for it and there\'s nothing we can do about it except write on a message board!\r\n\r\nIf we calm ourselves down and think about it does it make sense that Obama is going to mobilize all the federal resources at his call and come after our guns? Well, think about it. Since Obama took office, <a href=\"http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2987775/posts\">over 65 million firearms have been purchased by Americans</a>. Does it seem rational that he\'s going to come after every single gun in the United States? Take a deep breath and answer that question. If you still aren\'t convinced, think about all the gun lobbies who have his ear and the ears of every legislator in the country. Really.\r\n\r\nAnd after that do we really think the government is going to line us up for microchipping? No of course not. They\'re going to administer it in our children\'s vaccines. Or in our booster shots. Or in other nefarious ways. That\'s how. Deep breath. There you go.\r\n\r\nYou may not like the way the economy is or the recent tax hikes. Lord knows I don\'t. You may not like the rising gas prices. I sure don\'t. But we have to control our emotions at some point. You know what a lot of the problem is? The people who vote. <a href=\"http://www.opensecrets.org/bigpicture/reelect.php\">Check out this chart that tells us how often we reelect the incumbents</a>.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/?attachment_id=8448\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-8448\"><img class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-8448\" alt=\"tippi\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/tippi.jpg\" width=\"260\" height=\"260\" /></a>In the past year, I\'ve become aware that people I know are \"<a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivalism\"><em>preppers</em></a>.\" People who are preparing for the end of the world. They are building fallout shelters in their backyard, stockpiling water, food and supplies. Listen to a lot of right wing radio shows or conspiracy radio shows and you\'ll hear companies that specialize in food products that are \"<em>apocalypse ready</em>.\" Hey, more power to these people. I have a Barbie collection. So what? I\'m an all-American male that likes to have a Tippi Hedren Barbie from \"<em>The Birds</em>\" that has said birds attacking her. So what?\r\n\r\nMy dear, departed mother was a sweet mother, but she was an anxious woman. I loved her with all my heart and soul. Yet, I get my terrible anxiety from her. After my father died, she moved near me and lived alone. She didn\'t have a lot to do except take care of her cat, blog and watch CNN Headline News and The Weather Channel. All day long.\r\n\r\nAfter about six months of this, I noticed her getting very anxious about national events. She\'d say, \"<em>Did you notice the thing about terrorism</em>?\" or \"<em>Do you think that the government is going to cut Social Security benefits?</em>\" or \"<em>Do you think we\'re going to war in such and such a country</em>?\" I finally said, \"<em>Mom, I love you very much. You have a wonderful life and family. Do me a favor and please, please stop watching the news. As a favor to me</em>.\"\r\n\r\nBegrudgingly, she did. But after a few weeks, much of her anxiety subsided and <strong><em>she wasn\'t so nervous about the things in the world she had absolutely no control over.</em></strong>\r\n\r\nI watched \"<a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_for_Columbine\"><em>Bowling for Columbine</em></a>\" recently by Michael Moore. I\'m not a Moore fan and I thought about 95% of it was overdone and sensationalized. However, the one thing I did take away from it was that Americans live in fear. He went to Canada to compare how Americans live in a whole lot more fear than Canadians do. Our media shares much of the blame for that. We buy into that fear and it effects our hearts, souls and minds.\r\n\r\nWhat can any of us do? Stop worrying. Relax! Don\'t buy into those tacky Facebook messages when we see them. Don\'t <a href=\"http://provoketive.com/?attachment_id=8449\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-8449\"><img class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-8449\" alt=\"lax\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/lax.jpg\" width=\"183\" height=\"135\" /></a>believe anything we read on social media before we check it out from a real, critical source. Don\'t spend too much time watching the news. Be informed on social issues, but don\'t get too worked up. Live in the now with your family, your friends. If you do have a social issue that has an impact on you, call a congressman. Then take a deep breath and move on.\r\n\r\nWe need informed citizens. We need informed citizens who vote. What we don\'t need is fanaticism, misinformation, lies and anger based on fear.\r\n\r\nMy advice? Relax. Enjoy your life. Don\'t wait for an impending doom when there are smiles and memories all around you waiting for you.','Oh, Obama! Microchips! Gun Control! Is The End Near?','','publish','open','open','','oh-obama-microchips-gun-control-is-the-end-near','','','2013-02-28 18:58:20','2013-03-01 02:58:20','',0,'http://provoketive.com/?p=8444',0,'post','',2),(8496,67,'2013-02-20 10:00:16','2013-02-20 18:00:16','<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/02/20/a-review-of-tragedy-to-truth-a-story-of-faith-and-transformation-by-casey-cease/t2t_bookcover_1024x1024/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-8501\"><img class=\"alignleft  wp-image-8501\" alt=\"t2t_bookcover_1024x1024\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/t2t_bookcover_1024x1024-200x300.jpg\" width=\"130\" height=\"195\" /></a>I met <em><a title=\"Casey Cease\" href=\"http://caseycease.com/\">Casey Cease</a> </em>while we were both making our way through seminary. Our paths crossed from time to time as we shared a couple of classes together, but we didn\'t know each other very well past the superficial acquaintance. Other than the occasional greeting in the hallways while waiting for classes to begin, I don\'t think we shared more than a few words during those four years at Southwestern. This often happens as we journey through life. Our fast-paced culture drives us in different directions, with our field of vision focused directly in front of us. People pass on the left and right, quietly in our blind spots as we push the speed limit, hoping to \"get there\" without being bothered. Unfortunately, and much to our disadvantage, we often realize that we’ve missed scenery along the way that would have blessed our souls and made the journey all the more brighter. Casey was that scenery that I missed on my journey, and now knowing more of his story though his book <a title=\"Tragedy to Truth\" href=\"http://tragedytotruth.com/\"><em>Tragedy to Truth</em></a>, I wish that I would have slowed down just a bit and glanced through my side windows.\r\n\r\nCasey and I are also both writers who have been able to incorporate writing into our ministries. One of the most important elements of good writing is the ability to tell a story. In fact, I would go so far as to say that this is the most important aspect of communicating through the written word. Casey has the ability to tell a story, and reveals that fact very clearly in <em><a title=\"Tragedy to Truth\" href=\"http://tragedytotruth.com/\">Tragedy to Truth</a></em>. As I began to read the first few pages, I was given the opportunity to be an observer and was transported into a story of which I felt I was part.\r\n\r\nCasey and I have also both battled anxiety through much of our lives. As the book begins, I read of a sensitive boy that is dealing with childhood anxiety and I share his fear. Through his vivid description of his early years of life, I remembered with sadness similar scenarios in my own life. As we walked together in the story through junior high, I began to get to know Casey. I remembered the similar experiences of awkwardness during these years of life and the struggles that most of us face in trying to fit in while developing an identity of our own. As Casey shared his first encounters with the opposite sex, I remembered that familiar feeling of indescribable joy in the pit of my stomach, and felt the pain that assuredly always accompanies it. Junior high is a tough time for many kids, and Casey does an incredible job of painting that picture with vivid imagery. He takes you back in time, puts his arm around you and confesses, “I was just like you.” You feel it. You hear it. You smell it. You’re there.\r\n\r\nThings inevitably change in high school, and Casey paints a picture of striking and contrasting ups and downs that make his story unique. I felt as if I was more of an observer at this point of his journey, but none the less felt captivated by the story. It becomes obvious that the path of his journey is becoming darker and I began to read with nervous anticipation of what was to come. Bad decisions, creating false personas, feelings of isolation and self-destruction become elements of Casey\'s story. The warning signs begin to appear in on the road. Yield. Proceed With Caution. Rough Road. Reduce Speed Now. Road Narrows. And although I could not relate to all of the particulars of his journey, I could feel the intense pain. I shared the fear, anger and frustration and was saddened by the turn of events that culminate in the \"Tragedy\" of this story.\r\n\r\nDeath has a feel to it when encountered face to face. I could feel death as I began to read of the life changing event that is the pivot upon which this story turns. The eerie cloud of unexpected death covered me as Casey shares this dark part of his life. Feeling as though I was standing at the scene of the accident, I could smell the gasoline, oil and engine fluids mixed with blood that must have been pouring on the street. I could feel the chill in the air as well as the chill upon Casey\'s soul as he became conscious of what had happened. I could hear the screams and panic in voices as others reacted to their surroundings. I could hear the distant whine of police cars and emergency vehicles and felt the fear that must have overwhelmed him at the exact moment that reality joined the unconscious. I felt as if I were the one sitting in a crashed vehicle, covered in glass and blood. I imagined the feeling of not knowing exactly what had happened, but knowing something tragic had occurred and that life as Casey knew it was about to be drastically altered. Casey\'s life was altered forever, and this is this is the point when truth begins to be ushered into his life.\r\n\r\nCasey earns the right to share his faith with you. By building trust in sharing his story, the reader senses that trust has been built and I found myself eagerly wanting to hear him out. I will admit that even though I work in ministry as well, I’m not a big fan of traditional evangelism. The “in your face” techniques never worked with me before I found Christ, and they don’t appeal to me now. I believe in building relationships and sharing my faith through my life, actions and love. From all practical perspectives, I could have tuned out during the second half of Casey’s book. But there is one element that kept me reading, engaged and connected with his story: Love.\r\n\r\nAs Casey shares the details of how he found Christ, you sense nothing but love for the reader; not just “readers” in general, but “reader”, because he\'s talking to you. As I read of Casey’s faith, I felt as we were sitting at a table in Starbucks. He clearly reveals how his story is intractably connected to his faith in Christ and this kept me listening and wanting to know more. I found myself wanting to continue reading because I felt that Casey cared about me. If I were not a follower of Jesus Christ, I may not be convinced, but I would have quite a bit of thinking to do about Christianity. I would dig deeper. I would read more. And had I not already been conversing with the God of the universe, I would definitely consider initiating a conversation.\r\n\r\nAs Casey shares his faith in Christ, I imagined the Apostle Paul, standing on Mars Hill while debating with the Epicureans and Stoics in ancient Greece. As he pleads his case with love and compassion, revealing the identity of the UNKNOWN GOD, the philosophers of the day listen with interest, fascination and anticipation of a new possible truth being revealed. In <em><a title=\"Acts 17:22-31\" href=\"http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts+17%3A22-31&amp;version=NIV\">Acts 17:22-31</a></em>, the words pour from Paul’s heart because the truths that he speaks of are intertwined with the truths of his own life. The facts are presented, his heart is poured out, his case is made. And as he ties everything together in the truth of the Resurrection, some walked away unconvinced, but some opened the door for further discussion: “We shall hear you again concerning this.”\r\n\r\nIn reading <em>Tragedy to Truth</em>, some may walk away unconvinced. But many will close its pages, reflect on Casey’s story and resolve in their hearts, “I will hear you again concerning this.” Casey will be there; the pastor as well as the accomplished writer.','A Review of Tragedy to Truth: A Story of faith and Transformation  by Casey Cease','','publish','open','open','','a-review-of-tragedy-to-truth-a-story-of-faith-and-transformation-by-casey-cease','','','2013-02-20 10:00:16','2013-02-20 18:00:16','',0,'http://provoketive.com/?p=8496',0,'post','',0),(8387,125,'2013-02-07 08:00:04','2013-02-07 16:00:04','There is a reason that I typically don’t write about current events. First of all, the truths we can learn from the events occurring in our world are truths that have been openly touted for centuries. “There is nothing new under the sun,” as the writer of Ecclesiastes tells us. The human condition is such that we can take the lessons learned, often the hard way, by the nation of Israel in the Old Testament and apply it to the nation of America right now.\r\n\r\nThe second reason I tend to shy from writing on these things is that it can sometimes result in a biased approach that may or may not be the same perspective held later on simply because the news is so fresh in our minds.\r\n\r\nBut, going against my better judgment, I wanted to speak a little on an interview shown prior to the Super Bowl yesterday between Shannon Sharpe and Ray Lewis.\r\n\r\nIf you don’t already know (and I am sure most of you do based on the bottleneck of tweets and Facebook posts about him), Ray Lewis is being talked about. He is being talked about in part because of his talent as a defensive lineman.\r\n\r\nAnd he is a great player. Last night was his final game.\r\n\r\nBut, mostly, he is talked about because of his past. He was involved in a situation outside a club following a Super Bowl XXXIV party in Atlanta back in 2000. Two people were stabbed and killed, Ray Lewis was taken into custody.\r\n\r\nFast forward a few years and a plea arrangement…and the case is still unsolved.\r\n\r\nAs far as those events go, that’s all I need to say. It isn’t up to me, especially in a blog post, to attempt to solve this part of the situation. I bring it up, however, to point back to the interview yesterday. Shannon Sharpe is talking to Lewis about his past, and he asks him this question:\r\n\r\n“A couple of weeks ago, the family of the incident in 2000, and I’m paraphrasing, but it goes something like this: While Ray Lewis is being celebrated by millions, two men tragically and brutally died in Atlanta. Ray Lewis knows more than Ray Lewis ever shared. What would you like to say to the family?”\r\n\r\nWe reach a pivotal point in this moment. Ray Lewis has been quite outspoken of late about his faith and belief in God. That being said, if he is hoping to respond in a way that reflects the faith he professes, he really only has two possible options.\r\n\r\nBecause we live in a world with only two possibilities: Ray Lewis committed the murder, or he didn’t.\r\n\r\nAnd with those two possibilities, he can respond by either giving God the glory for His forgiveness, or giving God the glory for His protection.\r\n\r\nInstead, however, he pulls an audible. This is his response:\r\n\r\n“It’s simple. God has never made a mistake. That’s just who he is. You see? And if our system, this is the sad thing about our system — if our system took the time to really investigate what happened 13 years ago, maybe they would have got to the bottom line truth.\r\n\r\nBut the saddest thing ever is a man looked me in my face and told me, ‘we know you didn’t do this. but you going down for it anyway.’To the family, if you knew — if you really knew — the way God works, he don’t use people who commits anything like that for his good. No way. It’s the total opposite.”\r\n\r\nHis statement basically starts with some form of an assumption that because God is perfect then the court system should be as well…or if the system were perfect like God then it would prove his innocence completely…or something like that. It’s tough to decipher.\r\n\r\nBut then he goes on to say that God does not use people that have criminal backgrounds to do His work.\r\n\r\nBut what about Moses and the Egyptian?\r\n\r\nHe answered, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid, and thought, “Surely the thing is known.” (Exodus 2:14)\r\n\r\nOr David after sleeping with another man’s wife?\r\n\r\nIn the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah.In the letter he wrote, “Set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him, that he may be struck down, and die.” (2 Samuel 11:14-15)\r\n\r\nOr the apostle Paul before encountering Jesus?\r\n\r\nFor you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. (Galatians 1:13)\r\n\r\nThese men were unabashed about their pasts not because they were glorifying it, but because they recognized how much bigger God is in the simple fact that He can use us if we are willing. His forgiveness is bigger than our debt. His grace covers anything about our past that muddies us.\r\n\r\nBut we have to be willing to own it. We have to be willing to face our shortcomings, declare them in their full strength, and allow God’s redemption to do its full work.\r\n\r\nLet’s say we live in the version of our universe where Ray Lewis is guilty. Last night’s interview would be a perfect chance for him to declare to the world that he sinned. He fell short. He did something wrong.\r\n\r\nAnd then he could take that ownership and show how the faith he now has in God is built around it. How the same God that looked to the thief on the cross beside Him and told him they would be in Paradise together that day can use an NFL middle linebacker to share a story of grace in action.\r\n\r\nOr, let’s say we live in the version of our universe where Ray Lewis is innocent. Last night’s interview would be a perfect chance for another reason.\r\n\r\nIt would give him a chance to empathize with the victims’ families, to commiserate with the horrific incident that occurred and praise God for protecting him and his integrity during the process. He could give God glory for an opportunity to play in a game he loves after living through a situation that could have gone in an all-together different way.\r\n\r\nEither way, God gets the glory. Either way, the truth is spoken. Either way, God isn’t put into a human-sized box that attempts to dictate when and through whom God can work.\r\n\r\n“For the righteous falls seven times and rises again.” (Proverbs 24:16)\r\n\r\nWe aren’t righteous because we fall. We are righteous because we rise up again. We are righteous because God is in us, doing His work and redeeming our gross bits.\r\n\r\nWhichever universe we live in, I worry that Ray Lewis may have missed a great opportunity last night. Because the God I serve is amazing in His grace, with ways far beyond our understanding…using people far under-qualified for the work he has for them to do.','The Misguided Theology of Ray Lewis','','publish','open','open','','the-misguided-theology-of-ray-lewis','','','2013-02-07 08:02:54','2013-02-07 16:02:54','',0,'http://provoketive.com/?p=8387',0,'post','',0),(8390,1,'2013-02-06 19:56:56','2013-02-07 03:56:56','There is a reason that I typically don’t write about current events. First of all, the truths we can learn from the events occurring in our world are truths that have been openly touted for centuries. “There is nothing new under the sun,” as the writer of Ecclesiastes tells us. The human condition is such that we can take the lessons learned, often the hard way, by the nation of Israel in the Old Testament and apply it to the nation of America right now.\n\nThe second reason I tend to shy from writing on these things is that it can sometimes result in a biased approach that may or may not be the same perspective held later on simply because the news is so fresh in our minds.\n\nBut, going against my better judgment, I wanted to speak a little on an interview shown prior to the Super Bowl yesterday between Shannon Sharpe and Ray Lewis.\n\nIf you don’t already know (and I am sure most of you do based on the bottleneck of tweets and Facebook posts about him), Ray Lewis is being talked about. He is being talked about in part because of his talent as a defensive lineman.\n\nAnd he is a great player. Last night was his final game.\n\nBut, mostly, he is talked about because of his past. He was involved in a situation outside a club following a Super Bowl XXXIV party in Atlanta back in 2000. Two people were stabbed and killed, Ray Lewis was taken into custody.\n\nFast forward a few years and a plea arrangement…and the case is still unsolved.\n\nAs far as those events go, that’s all I need to say. It isn’t up to me, especially in a blog post, to attempt to solve this part of the situation. I bring it up, however, to point back to the interview yesterday. Shannon Sharpe is talking to Lewis about his past, and he asks him this question:\n\n“A couple of weeks ago, the family of the incident in 2000, and I’m paraphrasing, but it goes something like this: While Ray Lewis is being celebrated by millions, two men tragically and brutally died in Atlanta. Ray Lewis knows more than Ray Lewis ever shared. What would you like to say to the family?”\n\nWe reach a pivotal point in this moment. Ray Lewis has been quite outspoken of late about his faith and belief in God. That being said, if he is hoping to respond in a way that reflects the faith he professes, he really only has two possible options.\n\nBecause we live in a world with only two possibilities: Ray Lewis committed the murder, or he didn’t.\n\nAnd with those two possibilities, he can respond by either giving God the glory for His forgiveness, or giving God the glory for His protection.\n\nInstead, however, he pulls an audible. This is his response:\n\n“It’s simple. God has never made a mistake. That’s just who he is. You see? And if our system, this is the sad thing about our system — if our system took the time to really investigate what happened 13 years ago, maybe they would have got to the bottom line truth.\n\nBut the saddest thing ever is a man looked me in my face and told me, ‘we know you didn’t do this. but you going down for it anyway.’To the family, if you knew — if you really knew — the way God works, he don’t use people who commits anything like that for his good. No way. It’s the total opposite.”\n\nHis statement basically starts with some form of an assumption that because God is perfect then the court system should be as well…or if the system were perfect like God then it would prove his innocence completely…or something like that. It’s tough to decipher.\n\nBut then he goes on to say that God does not use people that have criminal backgrounds to do His work.\n\nBut what about Moses and the Egyptian?\n\nHe answered, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid, and thought, “Surely the thing is known.” (Exodus 2:14)\n\nOr David after sleeping with another man’s wife?\n\nIn the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah.In the letter he wrote, “Set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him, that he may be struck down, and die.” (2 Samuel 11:14-15)\n\nOr the apostle Paul before encountering Jesus?\n\nFor you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. (Galatians 1:13)\n\nThese men were unabashed about their pasts not because they were glorifying it, but because they recognized how much bigger God is in the simple fact that He can use us if we are willing. His forgiveness is bigger than our debt. His grace covers anything about our past that muddies us.\n\nBut we have to be willing to own it. We have to be willing to face our shortcomings, declare them in their full strength, and allow God’s redemption to do its full work.\n\nLet’s say we live in the version of our universe where Ray Lewis is guilty. Last night’s interview would be a perfect chance for him to declare to the world that he sinned. He fell short. He did something wrong.\n\nAnd then he could take that ownership and show how the faith he now has in God is built around it. How the same God that looked to the thief on the cross beside Him and told him they would be in Paradise together that day can use an NFL middle linebacker to share a story of grace in action.\n\nOr, let’s say we live in the version of our universe where Ray Lewis is innocent. Last night’s interview would be a perfect chance for another reason.\n\nIt would give him a chance to empathize with the victims’ families, to commiserate with the horrific incident that occurred and praise God for protecting him and his integrity during the process. He could give God glory for an opportunity to play in a game he loves after living through a situation that could have gone in an all-together different way.\n\nEither way, God gets the glory. Either way, the truth is spoken. Either way, God isn’t put into a human-sized box that attempts to dictate when and through whom God can work.\n\n“For the righteous falls seven times and rises again.” (Proverbs 24:16)\n\nWe aren’t righteous because we fall. We are righteous because we rise up again. We are righteous because God is in us, doing His work and redeeming our gross bits.\n\nWhichever universe we live in, I worry that Ray Lewis may have missed a great opportunity last night. Because the God I serve is amazing in His grace, with ways far beyond our understanding…using people far under-qualified for the work he has for them to do.','The Misguided Theology of Ray Lewis','','inherit','open','open','','8387-autosave','','','2013-02-06 19:56:56','2013-02-07 03:56:56','',8387,'http://provoketive.com/2013/02/06/8387-autosave/',0,'revision','',0),(8391,1,'2013-02-06 19:54:59','2013-02-07 03:54:59','','ray lewis','','inherit','open','open','','ray-lewis','','','2013-02-06 19:54:59','2013-02-07 03:54:59','',8387,'http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/ray-lewis.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(8392,1,'2013-02-04 10:19:49','2013-02-04 18:19:49','There is a  reason that I typically don’t write about current events. First of all, the truths we can learn from the events occurring in our world are truths that have been openly touted for centuries. “There is nothing new under the sun,” as the writer of Ecclesiastes tells us. The human condition is such that we can take the lessons learned, often the hard way, by the nation of Israel in the Old Testament and apply it to the nation of America right now.\r\n\r\nThe second reason I tend to shy from writing on these things is that it can sometimes result in a biased approach that may or may not be the same perspective held later on simply because the news is so fresh in our minds.\r\n\r\nBut, going against my better judgment, I wanted to speak a little on an interview shown prior to the Super Bowl yesterday between Shannon Sharpe and Ray Lewis.\r\n\r\nIf you don’t already know (and I am sure most of you do based on the bottleneck of tweets and Facebook posts about him), Ray Lewis is being talked about. He is being talked about in part because of his talent as a defensive lineman.\r\n\r\nAnd he is a great player. Last night was his final game.\r\n\r\nBut, mostly, he is talked about because of his past. He was involved in a situation outside a club following a Super Bowl XXXIV party in Atlanta back in 2000. Two people were stabbed and killed, Ray Lewis was taken into custody.\r\n\r\nFast forward a few years and a plea arrangement…and the case is still unsolved.\r\n\r\nAs far as those events go, that’s all I need to say. It isn’t up to me, especially in a blog post, to attempt to solve this part of the situation. I bring it up, however, to point back to the interview yesterday. Shannon Sharpe is talking to Lewis about his past, and he asks him this question:\r\n\r\n“A couple of weeks ago, the family of the incident in 2000, and I’m paraphrasing, but it goes something like this: While Ray Lewis is being celebrated by millions, two men tragically and brutally died in Atlanta. Ray Lewis knows more than Ray Lewis ever shared. What would you like to say to the family?”\r\n\r\nWe reach a pivotal point in this moment. Ray Lewis has been quite outspoken of late about his faith and belief in God. That being said, if he is hoping to respond in a way that reflects the faith he professes, he really only has two possible options.\r\n\r\nBecause we live in a world with only two possibilities: Ray Lewis committed the murder, or he didn’t.\r\n\r\nAnd with those two possibilities, he can respond by either giving God the glory for His forgiveness, or giving God the glory for His protection.\r\n\r\nInstead, however, he pulls an audible. This is his response:\r\n\r\n“It’s simple. God has never made a mistake. That’s just who he is. You see? And if our system, this is the sad thing about our system — if our system took the time to really investigate what happened 13 years ago, maybe they would have got to the bottom line truth.\r\n\r\nBut the saddest thing ever is a man looked me in my face and told me, ‘we know you didn’t do this. but you going down for it anyway.’To the family, if you knew — if you really knew — the way God works, he don’t use people who commits anything like that for his good. No way. It’s the total opposite.”\r\n\r\nHis statement basically starts with some form of an assumption that because God is perfect then the court system should be as well…or if the system were perfect like God then it would prove his innocence completely…or something like that. It’s tough to decipher.\r\n\r\nBut then he goes on to say that God does not use people that have criminal backgrounds to do His work.\r\n\r\nBut what about Moses and the Egyptian?\r\n\r\nHe answered, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid, and thought, “Surely the thing is known.” (Exodus 2:14)\r\n\r\nOr David after sleeping with another man’s wife?\r\n\r\nIn the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah.In the letter he wrote, “Set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him, that he may be struck down, and die.” (2 Samuel 11:14-15)\r\n\r\nOr the apostle Paul before encountering Jesus?\r\n\r\nFor you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. (Galatians 1:13)\r\n\r\nThese men were unabashed about their pasts not because they were glorifying it, but because they recognized how much bigger God is in the simple fact that He can use us if we are willing. His forgiveness is bigger than our debt. His grace covers anything about our past that muddies us.\r\n\r\nBut we have to be willing to own it. We have to be willing to face our shortcomings, declare them in their full strength, and allow God’s redemption to do its full work.\r\n\r\nLet’s say we live in the version of our universe where Ray Lewis is guilty. Last night’s interview would be a perfect chance for him to declare to the world that he sinned. He fell short. He did something wrong.\r\n\r\nAnd then he could take that ownership and show how the faith he now has in God is built around it. How the same God that looked to the thief on the cross beside Him and told him they would be in Paradise together that day can use an NFL middle linebacker to share a story of grace in action.\r\n\r\nOr, let’s say we live in the version of our universe where Ray Lewis is innocent. Last night’s interview would be a perfect chance for another reason.\r\n\r\nIt would give him a chance to empathize with the victims’ families, to commiserate with the horrific incident that occurred and praise God for protecting him and his integrity during the process. He could give God glory for an opportunity to play in a game he loves after living through a situation that could have gone in an all-together different way.\r\n\r\nEither way, God gets the glory. Either way, the truth is spoken. Either way, God isn’t put into a human-sized box that attempts to dictate when and through whom God can work.\r\n\r\n“For the righteous falls seven times and rises again.” (Proverbs 24:16)\r\n\r\nWe aren’t righteous because we fall. We are righteous because we rise up again. We are righteous because God is in us, doing His work and redeeming our gross bits.\r\n\r\nWhichever universe we live in, I worry that Ray Lewis may have missed a great opportunity last night. Because the God I serve is amazing in His grace, with ways far beyond our understanding…using people far under-qualified for the work he has for them to do.','The Misguided Theology of Ray Lewis','','inherit','open','open','','8387-revision','','','2013-02-04 10:19:49','2013-02-04 18:19:49','',8387,'http://provoketive.com/2013/02/04/8387-revision/',0,'revision','',0),(8394,0,'2013-02-06 19:55:43','2013-02-07 03:55:43','There is a reason that I typically don’t write about current events. First of all, the truths we can learn from the events occurring in our world are truths that have been openly touted for centuries. “There is nothing new under the sun,” as the writer of Ecclesiastes tells us. The human condition is such that we can take the lessons learned, often the hard way, by the nation of Israel in the Old Testament and apply it to the nation of America right now.\r\n\r\nThe second reason I tend to shy from writing on these things is that it can sometimes result in a biased approach that may or may not be the same perspective held later on simply because the news is so fresh in our minds.\r\n\r\nBut, going against my better judgment, I wanted to speak a little on an interview shown prior to the Super Bowl yesterday between Shannon Sharpe and Ray Lewis.\r\n\r\nIf you don’t already know (and I am sure most of you do based on the bottleneck of tweets and Facebook posts about him), Ray Lewis is being talked about. He is being talked about in part because of his talent as a defensive lineman.\r\n\r\nAnd he is a great player. Last night was his final game.\r\n\r\nBut, mostly, he is talked about because of his past. He was involved in a situation outside a club following a Super Bowl XXXIV party in Atlanta back in 2000. Two people were stabbed and killed, Ray Lewis was taken into custody.\r\n\r\nFast forward a few years and a plea arrangement…and the case is still unsolved.\r\n\r\nAs far as those events go, that’s all I need to say. It isn’t up to me, especially in a blog post, to attempt to solve this part of the situation. I bring it up, however, to point back to the interview yesterday. Shannon Sharpe is talking to Lewis about his past, and he asks him this question:\r\n\r\n“A couple of weeks ago, the family of the incident in 2000, and I’m paraphrasing, but it goes something like this: While Ray Lewis is being celebrated by millions, two men tragically and brutally died in Atlanta. Ray Lewis knows more than Ray Lewis ever shared. What would you like to say to the family?”\r\n\r\nWe reach a pivotal point in this moment. Ray Lewis has been quite outspoken of late about his faith and belief in God. That being said, if he is hoping to respond in a way that reflects the faith he professes, he really only has two possible options.\r\n\r\nBecause we live in a world with only two possibilities: Ray Lewis committed the murder, or he didn’t.\r\n\r\nAnd with those two possibilities, he can respond by either giving God the glory for His forgiveness, or giving God the glory for His protection.\r\n\r\nInstead, however, he pulls an audible. This is his response:\r\n\r\n“It’s simple. God has never made a mistake. That’s just who he is. You see? And if our system, this is the sad thing about our system — if our system took the time to really investigate what happened 13 years ago, maybe they would have got to the bottom line truth.\r\n\r\nBut the saddest thing ever is a man looked me in my face and told me, ‘we know you didn’t do this. but you going down for it anyway.’To the family, if you knew — if you really knew — the way God works, he don’t use people who commits anything like that for his good. No way. It’s the total opposite.”\r\n\r\nHis statement basically starts with some form of an assumption that because God is perfect then the court system should be as well…or if the system were perfect like God then it would prove his innocence completely…or something like that. It’s tough to decipher.\r\n\r\nBut then he goes on to say that God does not use people that have criminal backgrounds to do His work.\r\n\r\nBut what about Moses and the Egyptian?\r\n\r\nHe answered, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid, and thought, “Surely the thing is known.” (Exodus 2:14)\r\n\r\nOr David after sleeping with another man’s wife?\r\n\r\nIn the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah.In the letter he wrote, “Set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him, that he may be struck down, and die.” (2 Samuel 11:14-15)\r\n\r\nOr the apostle Paul before encountering Jesus?\r\n\r\nFor you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. (Galatians 1:13)\r\n\r\nThese men were unabashed about their pasts not because they were glorifying it, but because they recognized how much bigger God is in the simple fact that He can use us if we are willing. His forgiveness is bigger than our debt. His grace covers anything about our past that muddies us.\r\n\r\nBut we have to be willing to own it. We have to be willing to face our shortcomings, declare them in their full strength, and allow God’s redemption to do its full work.\r\n\r\nLet’s say we live in the version of our universe where Ray Lewis is guilty. Last night’s interview would be a perfect chance for him to declare to the world that he sinned. He fell short. He did something wrong.\r\n\r\nAnd then he could take that ownership and show how the faith he now has in God is built around it. How the same God that looked to the thief on the cross beside Him and told him they would be in Paradise together that day can use an NFL middle linebacker to share a story of grace in action.\r\n\r\nOr, let’s say we live in the version of our universe where Ray Lewis is innocent. Last night’s interview would be a perfect chance for another reason.\r\n\r\nIt would give him a chance to empathize with the victims’ families, to commiserate with the horrific incident that occurred and praise God for protecting him and his integrity during the process. He could give God glory for an opportunity to play in a game he loves after living through a situation that could have gone in an all-together different way.\r\n\r\nEither way, God gets the glory. Either way, the truth is spoken. Either way, God isn’t put into a human-sized box that attempts to dictate when and through whom God can work.\r\n\r\n“For the righteous falls seven times and rises again.” (Proverbs 24:16)\r\n\r\nWe aren’t righteous because we fall. We are righteous because we rise up again. We are righteous because God is in us, doing His work and redeeming our gross bits.\r\n\r\nWhichever universe we live in, I worry that Ray Lewis may have missed a great opportunity last night. Because the God I serve is amazing in His grace, with ways far beyond our understanding…using people far under-qualified for the work he has for them to do.','The Misguided Theology of Ray Lewis','','inherit','open','open','','8387-revision-2','','','2013-02-06 19:55:43','2013-02-07 03:55:43','',8387,'http://provoketive.com/2013/02/06/8387-revision-2/',0,'revision','',0),(8547,0,'2013-03-12 13:00:20','2013-03-12 20:00:20','Hey,\r\nMy name is Nathan, I work with Moody Collective (a team at Moody Publishers). I am wondering if you would be willing to begin a conversation with me with the goal of monthly collaboration where I could submit content from our writers for your magazine. Some of our current authors are Jeff Goins, Matt Appling, Allison Vesterfelt, and Scott McClellan - however we release a new book each month, The content seems to be in line with what I have read on Provoketive and I think we could arrange a partnership that would be beneficial.\r\nI\'d love to talk! moodycollective.com is our website if it helps you see our vision to serve this generation better!\r\nThanks so much\r\nNathan\n<!--more-->\nAUTHOR: Nathan Little\nAUTHOR EMAIL: nathan.little@moody.edu\nAUTHOR URL: \nSUBJECT: [Provoketive Magazine] Contact Us\nIP: 66.185.252.253\nArray\n(\n    [Name] =&gt; Nathan Little\n    [Email] =&gt; nathan.little@moody.edu\n    [Comment] =&gt; Hey,\r\nMy name is Nathan, I work with Moody Collective (a team at Moody Publishers). I am wondering if you would be willing to begin a conversation with me with the goal of monthly collaboration where I could submit content from our writers for your magazine. Some of our current authors are Jeff Goins, Matt Appling, Allison Vesterfelt, and Scott McClellan - however we release a new book each month, The content seems to be in line with what I have read on Provoketive and I think we could arrange a partnership that would be beneficial.\r\nI\'d love to talk! moodycollective.com is our website if it helps you see our vision to serve this generation better!\r\nThanks so much\r\nNathan \n)\n','Nathan Little - 2013-03-12 13:00:20','','publish','open','open','','ff55a514afd0e4bb35a282c602aaca16','','','2013-03-12 13:00:20','2013-03-12 20:00:20','',16,'http://provoketive.com/?post_type=feedback&p=8547',0,'feedback','',0),(8516,1,'2013-02-15 14:59:15','2013-02-15 22:59:15','Dear Megan and Grace,\r\n\r\nI understand, in I’m sure a merely limited way, you have left Westboro Baptist Church behind. I also understand that this means, for both of you, that you have left your family behind.\r\n\r\nI want to first and foremost commend you both for the courage it took to take that step. Not only did you step away from a church that will now actively seek to distance itself from you, to preach your damnation, to make you doubt your choice at every turn…\r\n\r\n…you stepped into a world, out from under that same church’s umbrella, that has been the target of attack from a body of people, into a world that holds the two of you among that body’s representatives.\r\n\r\nThere will need to be healing on both sides. You both will need time to heal from the deep wounds of a life represented by hate and bigotry. The world will need time to heal from the misunderstanding of Jesus and His truths that you so vocally preached.\r\n\r\nBut God is in the business of healing.\r\n\r\nYou have both chosen to love. You have both chosen, taken a stand, to remove yourselves from a system that preached a warped version of the book I believe in.\r\n\r\nAnd love is bigger.\r\n\r\nLove is big enough to heal you both, and love is big enough to use you both. Love is big enough to heal Westboro Baptist Church, and love is big enough to use Westboro Baptist Church.\r\n\r\nYou were the first two to respond to that call to love…and I honestly hope there will be many more.\r\n\r\nDon’t take your time at WBC for granted. Just as the apostle Paul looked back on his time as a persecutor of Christians, you can look back on your time spent at WBC…to learn, as we all learn, how to grow from mistakes…\r\n\r\n…and to learn how much stronger God is than we are.\r\n\r\nAlso, don’t allow yourselves to live lives dictated by guilt or shame. What is done is done. Repentance means recognizing our mistakes, and turning from them…not making up for them. You are on the road of love now. Don’t let yourselves swerve back into the oncoming traffic of hate.\r\n\r\nUnderstand that taking up that banner of love requires much of us. No one, Christians specifically, should ever say we are better or worse than either of you. We are all equal, all equally in need of forgiveness, and all equally capable of hypocrisy and hatred and resentment and judgment. The step you have taken requires you to lean even more deeply into the understanding of God, into what He has for you.\r\n\r\nThere is a reason that Jesus reserved His most abrupt and angriest language for the Pharisees. It is because they knew better. They had spent their lives nitpicking the minute details of the law in order to work their way forward in the ranks of heaven.\r\n\r\nThey knew better.\r\n\r\nAnd you know better.\r\n\r\nYou know what it looks like to read the Bible the way you want to read it. Now you need to read it the way God wants you to read it. You know what it looks like to judge people based on a system that even you cannot perfectly uphold. Now you need to live a life in gratitude that God does what we cannot.\r\n\r\nI thank you personally, for what you both did. You reminded me that zealotry is a dangerous temptation for even the most devout of followers. But, moreso, you reminded me that God has really long arms. He has a really wide hug and is waiting in just as much expectation for even the most seemingly unlikely of Prodigal children to return.\r\n\r\nWelcome home, says your Father. Now it is time to get to work.\r\n\r\nSincerely,\r\n\r\nJeremy Stephens','An open letter to Grace and Megan Phelps-Roper','','inherit','open','open','','8461-revision','','','2013-02-15 14:59:15','2013-02-15 22:59:15','',8461,'http://provoketive.com/2013/02/15/8461-revision/',0,'revision','',0),(8398,204,'2013-02-11 08:00:40','2013-02-11 16:00:40','Is life an explosion of youth, then you reach your peak relevance, importance, and connectivity, and from there things taper off and then you get older and then you die?\r\n\r\nI\'ve been thinking about this a lot lately.\r\n\r\nI love Thai food and every week after yoga practice I eat dinner at a favorite Thai restaurant. All the servers know me, but there is one server that I enjoy seeing the most. I think she likes me too, not just because I tip her well, but I think she also enjoys the conversation. I recently learned that she plays in a band. She creates original material, but she also loves to interpret old songs in her own unique style.\r\n\r\nThere is a sense where something can be new in relation to time, but still be stale. And there is also a sense where something can be old in relation to time and<a href=\"http://on.wsj.com/M2CTjj\"> still be new</a>—like old songs performed in a new way.\r\n\r\nBut it seems in our society that if something is new it is relevant, but if it is old it is irrelevant.\r\n\r\nThe line goes something like this: You are young. Then you do something, hopefully something unique. You reach your peak, and then you taper off. For a moment, it seems, you have your glory, and then at some point it\'s over and then you die. You die because there is something new that has replaced what was once new—there is a new way to go, a new style, a new theory—the next new thing.\r\n\r\nThere are reasons why older does not necessarily mean wiser, however. I think George Packer\'s <a href=\"http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/02/youth-age-music-news.html?mobify=0\">comments</a> in the New Yorker are spot on:\r\n<blockquote>Something unusual stopped me in these sentences from a Times article about a state-by-state study of flaws in the American electoral system: “A main goal of the exercise, which grew out of Professor Gerken’s 2009 book, ‘The Democracy Index,’ was to shame poor performers into doing better, she said. ‘Peer pressure produces horrible things like Britney Spears and Justin Bieber and tongue rings,’ Professor Gerken said. ‘But it also produces professional peer pressure.’” It almost took my breath away: Professor Heather Gerken, who is in her early forties, felt free to tell a reporter that Britney Spears and Justin Bieber, not to mention tongue rings, are horrible. Gerken broke one of the unwritten rules of being middle-aged: don’t go after the young and what they love. Not in print, anyway. Don’t open yourself up to the charge of curmudgeonliness, because the inevitable retort—“You just don’t get it, Professor! You sound like your parents!”—is probably accurate, certainly unanswerable, and absolutely devastating. Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.</blockquote>\r\nIf there is an unwritten rule not to go after the young and what they love, there is also an implicit question that asks, \"I am old, what do I have to say to the young?\" The answer, paradoxically, is that when you have the most amount of time, the most amount of wisdom, and sometimes the most amount of resources, you go to a place that guarantees you will not have influence on future generations—you retire.\r\n\r\nYou leave us.\r\n\r\nAnd this is the problem:  you can\'t leave us when we need you the most.\r\n\r\nIn 1978, Soviet geologists discovered a <a href=\"http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/For-40-Years-This-Russian-Family-Was-Cut-Off-From-Human-Contact-Unaware-of-World-War-II-188843001.html?device=iphone&amp;device=ipad\">family</a> of six lost in the Siberian taiga. Cut off from all human contact for 40 years, this Russian family lived on the side of a mountain 150 miles from the nearest settlement. It was an astonishing discovery because the Soviets had no records of anyone living in this area. Karp Lykov was an Old Believer, a member of a fundamentalist Russian Orthodox sect whose worship style has not changed since the 17th century. During Stalin\'s Great Purge of the 1930\'s, the Soviets killed Lykov\'s brother, and in 1936, Lykov fled to Siberia escaping religious persecution, retreating further from civilization deep in the Siberian taiga. Living in isolation from the rest of the world, Lykov and his family were unaware of World War II and lived on the edge of famine making survival next to impossible. Two of his children had never seen a human being that was not a member of their family. Perhaps the saddest aspect of the Lykovs\' strange story was the rapidity with which the family went into decline after they re-established contact with the outside world. Only Lykov\'s daughter, Agafia remains, and she will not leave her home in the Siberian taiga.\r\n\r\nMost people believe they are on the inevitable slide into irrelevance. I can see why: art, movies, culture, and even business reinforce this idea. When am I going to lose it? Can I keep up? There is some wisdom that you only get through having lived it and through years. There is an authority that comes from being older, but there is also a potential newness that is fresh as ever—a sifting and sorting of all I have experienced—creating a non-anxious, non-judgemental presence because I am older, and my roots run deep and I have seen it all.\r\n\r\nWe live the <a href=\"http://storylineblog.com/2013/01/28/when-you-fail-to-live-a-great-story/\">stories</a> we keep telling ourselves, and telling meaningful stories overlaps with living a meaningful life.\r\n\r\nThere was a time when humans intuitively grappled with aging rooted in the divine redemptive activity of God. But unfortunately we are telling a different story—a story about how religion has skewed our perception of aging.\r\n\r\nReligion is new to humanity. It\'s been around about 5% of humanity\'s spiritual journey, which, on a conservative timescale, began to unfold about seventy thousand years ago. Yet most of us have grown up with a religious legacy. Unfortunately, these religious legacies have nurtured the belief that when one group checks out, the other says, \"we don’t need you,\" and everything falls apart. In many cultures, and in Scripture,  you find the older need the idealism, energy and enthusiasm of the youth and the youth need the wisdom of the older.\r\n\r\nAnd when we embrace <em>this</em>, that\'s when the adventure begins.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n*photo by bokkels\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','When Does The Adventure Begin?','','publish','open','open','','when-does-the-adventure-begin','','','2013-03-19 11:29:00','2013-03-19 18:29:00','',0,'http://provoketive.com/?p=8398',0,'post','',0),(8400,204,'2013-02-10 11:50:49','2013-02-10 19:50:49','\"Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.\"\n\nIs life an explosion of youth, then you reach your peak relevance, importance, and connectivity, and from there things taper off and then you get older and then you die?\n\nI\'ve been thinking about this a lot lately.\n\nI love Thai food and every week after yoga practice I eat dinner at a favorite Thai restaurant. All the servers know me, but there is one server that I enjoy seeing the most. I think she likes me too, not just because I tip her well, but I think she also enjoys the conversation. I recently learned that she plays in a band. She creates original material, but she also loves to interpret old songs in her own unique style.\n\nThere is a sense where something can be new in relation to time, but still be stale. And there is also a sense where something can be old in relation to time and still be new—like old songs sung in a new way. But it seems in our society that if something is new it is relevant, but if it is old it is irrelevant.\n\nThe line goes something like this: You are young. Then you do something, hopefully something unique. You reach your peak, and then you taper off. For a moment, it seems, you have your glory, and then at some point it\'s over and then you die. You die because there is something new that has replaced what was once new—there is a new way to go, a new style, a new theory—the next new thing.\n\nThere are reasons why older does not necessarily mean wiser, however. I think George Packer\'s comments in the New Yorker are spot on:\n<blockquote>Something unusual stopped me in these sentences from a Times article about a state-by-state study of flaws in the American electoral system: “A main goal of the exercise, which grew out of Professor Gerken’s 2009 book, ‘The Democracy Index,’ was to shame poor performers into doing better, she said. ‘Peer pressure produces horrible things like Britney Spears and Justin Bieber and tongue rings,’ Professor Gerken said. ‘But it also produces professional peer pressure.’” It almost took my breath away: Professor Heather Gerken, who is in her early forties, felt free to tell a reporter that Britney Spears and Justin Bieber, not to mention tongue rings, are horrible. Gerken broke one of the unwritten rules of being middle-aged: don’t go after the young and what they love. Not in print, anyway. Don’t open yourself up to the charge of curmudgeonliness, because the inevitable retort—“You just don’t get it, Professor! You sound like your parents!”—is probably accurate, certainly unanswerable, and absolutely devastating. Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.</blockquote>\nIf there is an unwritten rule not to go after the young and what they love, there is also an implicit question that asks, \"I am old, what do I have to say to the young?\" The answer, paradoxically, is that when you have the most amount of time, the most amount of wisdom, and sometimes the most amount of resources, you go to a place that guarantees you will not have influence on future generations—you retire. You leave us. And this is the problem: you can\'t leave us when we need you the most.\n\nIn 1978, Soviet geologists discovered a family of six lost in the Siberian taiga. Cut off from all human contact for 40 years, this Russian family lived on the side of a mountain 150 miles from the nearest settlement. It was an astonishing discovery because the Soviets had no records of anyone living in this area. Karp Lykov was an Old Believer, a member of a fundamentalist Russian Orthodox sect whose worship style has not changed since the 17th century. During Stalin\'s Great Purge of the 1930\'s, the Soviets killed Lykov\'s brother, and in 1936, Lykov fled to Siberia escaping religious persecution, retreating further from civilization deep in the Siberian taiga. Living in isolation from the rest of the world, Lykov and his family were unaware of World War II and lived on the edge of famine making survival next to impossible. Two of his children had never seen a human being that was not a member of their family. Perhaps the saddest aspect of the Lykovs\' strange story was the rapidity with which the family went into decline after they re-established contact with the outside world. Only Lykov\'s daughter, Agafia remains, and she will not leave her home in the Siberian taiga.\n\nMost people believe they are on the inevitable slide into irrelevance. I can see why: art, movies, culture, and even business reinforce this idea. When am I going to lose it? Can I keep up? There is some wisdom that you only get through having lived it and through years. There is an authority that comes from being older, but there is also a potential newness that is fresh as ever—a sifting and sorting of all I have experienced—creating a non-anxious, non-judgemental presence because I am older, and my roots run deep and I have seen it all.\n\nWe live the stories we keep telling ourselves, and telling meaningful stories overlaps with living a meaningful life. There was a time when humans intuitively grappled with aging rooted in the divine redemptive activity of God. But unfortunately we are telling a different story—a story about how religion has skewed our perception of aging.\n\nReligion is new to humanity. It\'s been around about 5% of humanity\'s spiritual journey, which, on a conservative timescale, began to unfold about seventy thousand years ago. Yet most of us have grown up with a religious legacy. Unfortunately, these religious legacies have nurtured the belief that when one group checks out, the other says, \"we don’t need you,\" and everything falls apart. In many cultures you find the older need the idealism, energy and enthusiasm of the youth and the youth need the wisdom of the older.\n\nAnd when we embrace this, that\'s when the adventure begins.\n\n&nbsp;','When Does The Adventure Begin?','','inherit','open','open','','8398-revision','','','2013-02-10 11:50:49','2013-02-10 19:50:49','',8398,'http://provoketive.com/2013/02/10/8398-revision/',0,'revision','',0),(8401,204,'2013-02-10 11:50:59','2013-02-10 19:50:59','\"Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.\"\r\n\r\nIs life an explosion of youth, then you reach your peak relevance, importance, and connectivity, and from there things taper off and then you get older and then you die?\r\n\r\nI\'ve been thinking about this a lot lately.\r\n\r\nI love Thai food and every week after yoga practice I eat dinner at a favorite Thai restaurant. All the servers know me, but there is one server that I enjoy seeing the most. I think she likes me too, not just because I tip her well, but I think she also enjoys the conversation. I recently learned that she plays in a band. She creates original material, but she also loves to interpret old songs in her own unique style.\r\n\r\nThere is a sense where something can be new in relation to time, but still be stale. And there is also a sense where something can be old in relation to time and still be new—like old songs sung in a new way. But it seems in our society that if something is new it is relevant, but if it is old it is irrelevant.\r\n\r\nThe line goes something like this: You are young. Then you do something, hopefully something unique. You reach your peak, and then you taper off. For a moment, it seems, you have your glory, and then at some point it\'s over and then you die. You die because there is something new that has replaced what was once new—there is a new way to go, a new style, a new theory—the next new thing.\r\n\r\nThere are reasons why older does not necessarily mean wiser, however. I think George Packer\'s comments in the New Yorker are spot on:\r\n<blockquote>Something unusual stopped me in these sentences from a Times article about a state-by-state study of flaws in the American electoral system: “A main goal of the exercise, which grew out of Professor Gerken’s 2009 book, ‘The Democracy Index,’ was to shame poor performers into doing better, she said. ‘Peer pressure produces horrible things like Britney Spears and Justin Bieber and tongue rings,’ Professor Gerken said. ‘But it also produces professional peer pressure.’” It almost took my breath away: Professor Heather Gerken, who is in her early forties, felt free to tell a reporter that Britney Spears and Justin Bieber, not to mention tongue rings, are horrible. Gerken broke one of the unwritten rules of being middle-aged: don’t go after the young and what they love. Not in print, anyway. Don’t open yourself up to the charge of curmudgeonliness, because the inevitable retort—“You just don’t get it, Professor! You sound like your parents!”—is probably accurate, certainly unanswerable, and absolutely devastating. Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.</blockquote>\r\nIf there is an unwritten rule not to go after the young and what they love, there is also an implicit question that asks, \"I am old, what do I have to say to the young?\" The answer, paradoxically, is that when you have the most amount of time, the most amount of wisdom, and sometimes the most amount of resources, you go to a place that guarantees you will not have influence on future generations—you retire. You leave us. And this is the problem: you can\'t leave us when we need you the most.\r\n\r\nIn 1978, Soviet geologists discovered a family of six lost in the Siberian taiga. Cut off from all human contact for 40 years, this Russian family lived on the side of a mountain 150 miles from the nearest settlement. It was an astonishing discovery because the Soviets had no records of anyone living in this area. Karp Lykov was an Old Believer, a member of a fundamentalist Russian Orthodox sect whose worship style has not changed since the 17th century. During Stalin\'s Great Purge of the 1930\'s, the Soviets killed Lykov\'s brother, and in 1936, Lykov fled to Siberia escaping religious persecution, retreating further from civilization deep in the Siberian taiga. Living in isolation from the rest of the world, Lykov and his family were unaware of World War II and lived on the edge of famine making survival next to impossible. Two of his children had never seen a human being that was not a member of their family. Perhaps the saddest aspect of the Lykovs\' strange story was the rapidity with which the family went into decline after they re-established contact with the outside world. Only Lykov\'s daughter, Agafia remains, and she will not leave her home in the Siberian taiga.\r\n\r\nMost people believe they are on the inevitable slide into irrelevance. I can see why: art, movies, culture, and even business reinforce this idea. When am I going to lose it? Can I keep up? There is some wisdom that you only get through having lived it and through years. There is an authority that comes from being older, but there is also a potential newness that is fresh as ever—a sifting and sorting of all I have experienced—creating a non-anxious, non-judgemental presence because I am older, and my roots run deep and I have seen it all.\r\n\r\nWe live the stories we keep telling ourselves, and telling meaningful stories overlaps with living a meaningful life. There was a time when humans intuitively grappled with aging rooted in the divine redemptive activity of God. But unfortunately we are telling a different story—a story about how religion has skewed our perception of aging.\r\n\r\nReligion is new to humanity. It\'s been around about 5% of humanity\'s spiritual journey, which, on a conservative timescale, began to unfold about seventy thousand years ago. Yet most of us have grown up with a religious legacy. Unfortunately, these religious legacies have nurtured the belief that when one group checks out, the other says, \"we don’t need you,\" and everything falls apart. In many cultures you find the older need the idealism, energy and enthusiasm of the youth and the youth need the wisdom of the older.\r\n\r\nAnd when we embrace this, that\'s when the adventure begins.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','When Does The Adventure Begin?','','inherit','open','open','','8398-revision-2','','','2013-02-10 11:50:59','2013-02-10 19:50:59','',8398,'http://provoketive.com/2013/02/10/8398-revision-2/',0,'revision','',0),(8402,204,'2013-02-10 11:57:38','2013-02-10 19:57:38','\"Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.\"\n\nIs life an explosion of youth, then you reach your peak relevance, importance, and connectivity, and from there things taper off and then you get older and then you die?\n\nI\'ve been thinking about this a lot lately.\n\nI love Thai food and every week after yoga practice I eat dinner at a favorite Thai restaurant. All the servers know me, but there is one server that I enjoy seeing the most. I think she likes me too, not just because I tip her well, but I think she also enjoys the conversation. I recently learned that she plays in a band. She creates original material, but she also loves to interpret old songs in her own unique style.\n\nThere is a sense where something can be new in relation to time, but still be stale. And there is also a sense where something can be old in relation to time and still be new—like old songs sung in a new way. But it seems in our society that if something is new it is relevant, but if it is old it is irrelevant.\n\nThe line goes something like this: You are young. Then you do something, hopefully something unique. You reach your peak, and then you taper off. For a moment, it seems, you have your glory, and then at some point it\'s over and then you die. You die because there is something new that has replaced what was once new—there is a new way to go, a new style, a new theory—the next new thing.\n\nThere are reasons why older does not necessarily mean wiser, however. I think George Packer\'s <a href=\"http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/02/youth-age-music-news.html?mobify=0\">comments</a> in the New Yorker are spot on:\n<blockquote>Something unusual stopped me in these sentences from a Times article about a state-by-state study of flaws in the American electoral system: “A main goal of the exercise, which grew out of Professor Gerken’s 2009 book, ‘The Democracy Index,’ was to shame poor performers into doing better, she said. ‘Peer pressure produces horrible things like Britney Spears and Justin Bieber and tongue rings,’ Professor Gerken said. ‘But it also produces professional peer pressure.’” It almost took my breath away: Professor Heather Gerken, who is in her early forties, felt free to tell a reporter that Britney Spears and Justin Bieber, not to mention tongue rings, are horrible. Gerken broke one of the unwritten rules of being middle-aged: don’t go after the young and what they love. Not in print, anyway. Don’t open yourself up to the charge of curmudgeonliness, because the inevitable retort—“You just don’t get it, Professor! You sound like your parents!”—is probably accurate, certainly unanswerable, and absolutely devastating. Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.</blockquote>\nIf there is an unwritten rule not to go after the young and what they love, there is also an implicit question that asks, \"I am old, what do I have to say to the young?\" The answer, paradoxically, is that when you have the most amount of time, the most amount of wisdom, and sometimes the most amount of resources, you go to a place that guarantees you will not have influence on future generations—you retire. You leave us. And this is the problem: you can\'t leave us when we need you the most.\n\nIn 1978, Soviet geologists discovered a <a href=\"http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/For-40-Years-This-Russian-Family-Was-Cut-Off-From-Human-Contact-Unaware-of-World-War-II-188843001.html?device=iphone&amp;device=ipad\">family</a> of six lost in the Siberian taiga. Cut off from all human contact for 40 years, this Russian family lived on the side of a mountain 150 miles from the nearest settlement. It was an astonishing discovery because the Soviets had no records of anyone living in this area. Karp Lykov was an Old Believer, a member of a fundamentalist Russian Orthodox sect whose worship style has not changed since the 17th century. During Stalin\'s Great Purge of the 1930\'s, the Soviets killed Lykov\'s brother, and in 1936, Lykov fled to Siberia escaping religious persecution, retreating further from civilization deep in the Siberian taiga. Living in isolation from the rest of the world, Lykov and his family were unaware of World War II and lived on the edge of famine making survival next to impossible. Two of his children had never seen a human being that was not a member of their family. Perhaps the saddest aspect of the Lykovs\' strange story was the rapidity with which the family went into decline after they re-established contact with the outside world. Only Lykov\'s daughter, Agafia remains, and she will not leave her home in the Siberian taiga.\n\nMost people believe they are on the inevitable slide into irrelevance. I can see why: art, movies, culture, and even business reinforce this idea. When am I going to lose it? Can I keep up? There is some wisdom that you only get through having lived it and through years. There is an authority that comes from being older, but there is also a potential newness that is fresh as ever—a sifting and sorting of all I have experienced—creating a non-anxious, non-judgemental presence because I am older, and my roots run deep and I have seen it all.\n\nWe live the <a href=\"http://storylineblog.com/2013/01/28/when-you-fail-to-live-a-great-story/\">stories</a> we keep telling ourselves, and telling meaningful stories overlaps with living a meaningful life. There was a time when humans intuitively grappled with aging rooted in the divine redemptive activity of God. But unfortunately we are telling a different story—a story about how religion has skewed our perception of aging.\n\nReligion is new to humanity. It\'s been around about 5% of humanity\'s spiritual journey, which, on a conservative timescale, began to unfold about seventy thousand years ago. Yet most of us have grown up with a religious legacy. Unfortunately, these religious legacies have nurtured the belief that when one group checks out, the other says, \"we don’t need you,\" and everything falls apart. In many cultures you find the older need the idealism, energy and enthusiasm of the youth and the youth need the wisdom of the older.\n\nAnd when we embrace this, that\'s when the adventure begins.\n\n&nbsp;','When Does The Adventure Begin?','','inherit','open','open','','8398-revision-3','','','2013-02-10 11:57:38','2013-02-10 19:57:38','',8398,'http://provoketive.com/2013/02/10/8398-revision-3/',0,'revision','',0),(8405,204,'2013-02-10 12:06:10','2013-02-10 20:06:10','\"Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.\"\n\nIs life an explosion of youth, then you reach your peak relevance, importance, and connectivity, and from there things taper off and then you get older and then you die?\n\nI\'ve been thinking about this a lot lately.\n\nI love Thai food and every week after yoga practice I eat dinner at a favorite Thai restaurant. All the servers know me, but there is one server that I enjoy seeing the most. I think she likes me too, not just because I tip her well, but I think she also enjoys the conversation. I recently learned that she plays in a band. She creates original material, but she also loves to interpret old songs in her own unique style.\n\nThere is a sense where something can be new in relation to time, but still be stale. And there is also a sense where something can be old in relation to time and still be new—like old songs sung in a new way. But it seems in our society that if something is new it is relevant, but if it is old it is irrelevant.\n\nThe line goes something like this: You are young. Then you do something, hopefully something unique. You reach your peak, and then you taper off. For a moment, it seems, you have your glory, and then at some point it\'s over and then you die. You die because there is something new that has replaced what was once new—there is a new way to go, a new style, a new theory—the next new thing.\n\nThere are reasons why older does not necessarily mean wiser, however. I think George Packer\'s <a href=\"http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/02/youth-age-music-news.html?mobify=0\">comments</a> in the New Yorker are spot on:\n<blockquote>Something unusual stopped me in these sentences from a Times article about a state-by-state study of flaws in the American electoral system: “A main goal of the exercise, which grew out of Professor Gerken’s 2009 book, ‘The Democracy Index,’ was to shame poor performers into doing better, she said. ‘Peer pressure produces horrible things like Britney Spears and Justin Bieber and tongue rings,’ Professor Gerken said. ‘But it also produces professional peer pressure.’” It almost took my breath away: Professor Heather Gerken, who is in her early forties, felt free to tell a reporter that Britney Spears and Justin Bieber, not to mention tongue rings, are horrible. Gerken broke one of the unwritten rules of being middle-aged: don’t go after the young and what they love. Not in print, anyway. Don’t open yourself up to the charge of curmudgeonliness, because the inevitable retort—“You just don’t get it, Professor! You sound like your parents!”—is probably accurate, certainly unanswerable, and absolutely devastating. Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.</blockquote>\nIf there is an unwritten rule not to go after the young and what they love, there is also an implicit question that asks, \"I am old, what do I have to say to the young?\" The answer, paradoxically, is that when you have the most amount of time, the most amount of wisdom, and sometimes the most amount of resources, you go to a place that guarantees you will not have influence on future generations—you retire. You leave us. And this is the problem: you can\'t leave us when we need you the most.\n\nIn 1978, Soviet geologists discovered a <a href=\"http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/For-40-Years-This-Russian-Family-Was-Cut-Off-From-Human-Contact-Unaware-of-World-War-II-188843001.html?device=iphone&amp;device=ipad\">family</a> of six lost in the Siberian taiga. Cut off from all human contact for 40 years, this Russian family lived on the side of a mountain 150 miles from the nearest settlement. It was an astonishing discovery because the Soviets had no records of anyone living in this area. Karp Lykov was an Old Believer, a member of a fundamentalist Russian Orthodox sect whose worship style has not changed since the 17th century. During Stalin\'s Great Purge of the 1930\'s, the Soviets killed Lykov\'s brother, and in 1936, Lykov fled to Siberia escaping religious persecution, retreating further from civilization deep in the Siberian taiga. Living in isolation from the rest of the world, Lykov and his family were unaware of World War II and lived on the edge of famine making survival next to impossible. Two of his children had never seen a human being that was not a member of their family. Perhaps the saddest aspect of the Lykovs\' strange story was the rapidity with which the family went into decline after they re-established contact with the outside world. Only Lykov\'s daughter, Agafia remains, and she will not leave her home in the Siberian taiga.\n\nMost people believe they are on the inevitable slide into irrelevance. I can see why: art, movies, culture, and even business reinforce this idea. When am I going to lose it? Can I keep up? There is some wisdom that you only get through having lived it and through years. There is an authority that comes from being older, but there is also a potential newness that is fresh as ever—a sifting and sorting of all I have experienced—creating a non-anxious, non-judgemental presence because I am older, and my roots run deep and I have seen it all.\n\nWe live the <a href=\"http://storylineblog.com/2013/01/28/when-you-fail-to-live-a-great-story/\">stories</a> we keep telling ourselves, and telling meaningful stories overlaps with living a meaningful life. There was a time when humans intuitively grappled with aging rooted in the divine redemptive activity of God. But unfortunately we are telling a different story—a story about how religion has skewed our perception of aging.\n\nReligion is new to humanity. It\'s been around about 5% of humanity\'s spiritual journey, which, on a conservative timescale, began to unfold about seventy thousand years ago. Yet most of us have grown up with a religious legacy. Unfortunately, these religious legacies have nurtured the belief that when one group checks out, the other says, \"we don’t need you,\" and everything falls apart. In many cultures you find the older need the idealism, energy and enthusiasm of the youth and the youth need the wisdom of the older.\n\nAnd when we embrace this, that\'s when the adventure begins.\n\n&nbsp;','When Does The Adventure Begin?','','inherit','open','open','','8398-revision-5','','','2013-02-10 12:06:10','2013-02-10 20:06:10','',8398,'http://provoketive.com/2013/02/10/8398-revision-5/',0,'revision','',0),(8403,204,'2013-02-10 11:57:44','2013-02-10 19:57:44','\"Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.\"\r\n\r\nIs life an explosion of youth, then you reach your peak relevance, importance, and connectivity, and from there things taper off and then you get older and then you die?\r\n\r\nI\'ve been thinking about this a lot lately.\r\n\r\nI love Thai food and every week after yoga practice I eat dinner at a favorite Thai restaurant. All the servers know me, but there is one server that I enjoy seeing the most. I think she likes me too, not just because I tip her well, but I think she also enjoys the conversation. I recently learned that she plays in a band. She creates original material, but she also loves to interpret old songs in her own unique style.\r\n\r\nThere is a sense where something can be new in relation to time, but still be stale. And there is also a sense where something can be old in relation to time and still be new—like old songs sung in a new way. But it seems in our society that if something is new it is relevant, but if it is old it is irrelevant.\r\n\r\nThe line goes something like this: You are young. Then you do something, hopefully something unique. You reach your peak, and then you taper off. For a moment, it seems, you have your glory, and then at some point it\'s over and then you die. You die because there is something new that has replaced what was once new—there is a new way to go, a new style, a new theory—the next new thing.\r\n\r\nThere are reasons why older does not necessarily mean wiser, however. I think George Packer\'s <a href=\"http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/02/youth-age-music-news.html?mobify=0\">comments</a> in the New Yorker are spot on:\r\n<blockquote>Something unusual stopped me in these sentences from a Times article about a state-by-state study of flaws in the American electoral system: “A main goal of the exercise, which grew out of Professor Gerken’s 2009 book, ‘The Democracy Index,’ was to shame poor performers into doing better, she said. ‘Peer pressure produces horrible things like Britney Spears and Justin Bieber and tongue rings,’ Professor Gerken said. ‘But it also produces professional peer pressure.’” It almost took my breath away: Professor Heather Gerken, who is in her early forties, felt free to tell a reporter that Britney Spears and Justin Bieber, not to mention tongue rings, are horrible. Gerken broke one of the unwritten rules of being middle-aged: don’t go after the young and what they love. Not in print, anyway. Don’t open yourself up to the charge of curmudgeonliness, because the inevitable retort—“You just don’t get it, Professor! You sound like your parents!”—is probably accurate, certainly unanswerable, and absolutely devastating. Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.</blockquote>\r\nIf there is an unwritten rule not to go after the young and what they love, there is also an implicit question that asks, \"I am old, what do I have to say to the young?\" The answer, paradoxically, is that when you have the most amount of time, the most amount of wisdom, and sometimes the most amount of resources, you go to a place that guarantees you will not have influence on future generations—you retire. You leave us. And this is the problem: you can\'t leave us when we need you the most.\r\n\r\nIn 1978, Soviet geologists discovered a <a href=\"http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/For-40-Years-This-Russian-Family-Was-Cut-Off-From-Human-Contact-Unaware-of-World-War-II-188843001.html?device=iphone&amp;device=ipad\">family</a> of six lost in the Siberian taiga. Cut off from all human contact for 40 years, this Russian family lived on the side of a mountain 150 miles from the nearest settlement. It was an astonishing discovery because the Soviets had no records of anyone living in this area. Karp Lykov was an Old Believer, a member of a fundamentalist Russian Orthodox sect whose worship style has not changed since the 17th century. During Stalin\'s Great Purge of the 1930\'s, the Soviets killed Lykov\'s brother, and in 1936, Lykov fled to Siberia escaping religious persecution, retreating further from civilization deep in the Siberian taiga. Living in isolation from the rest of the world, Lykov and his family were unaware of World War II and lived on the edge of famine making survival next to impossible. Two of his children had never seen a human being that was not a member of their family. Perhaps the saddest aspect of the Lykovs\' strange story was the rapidity with which the family went into decline after they re-established contact with the outside world. Only Lykov\'s daughter, Agafia remains, and she will not leave her home in the Siberian taiga.\r\n\r\nMost people believe they are on the inevitable slide into irrelevance. I can see why: art, movies, culture, and even business reinforce this idea. When am I going to lose it? Can I keep up? There is some wisdom that you only get through having lived it and through years. There is an authority that comes from being older, but there is also a potential newness that is fresh as ever—a sifting and sorting of all I have experienced—creating a non-anxious, non-judgemental presence because I am older, and my roots run deep and I have seen it all.\r\n\r\nWe live the <a href=\"http://storylineblog.com/2013/01/28/when-you-fail-to-live-a-great-story/\">stories</a> we keep telling ourselves, and telling meaningful stories overlaps with living a meaningful life. There was a time when humans intuitively grappled with aging rooted in the divine redemptive activity of God. But unfortunately we are telling a different story—a story about how religion has skewed our perception of aging.\r\n\r\nReligion is new to humanity. It\'s been around about 5% of humanity\'s spiritual journey, which, on a conservative timescale, began to unfold about seventy thousand years ago. Yet most of us have grown up with a religious legacy. Unfortunately, these religious legacies have nurtured the belief that when one group checks out, the other says, \"we don’t need you,\" and everything falls apart. In many cultures you find the older need the idealism, energy and enthusiasm of the youth and the youth need the wisdom of the older.\r\n\r\nAnd when we embrace this, that\'s when the adventure begins.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','When Does The Adventure Begin?','','inherit','open','open','','8398-revision-4','','','2013-02-10 11:57:44','2013-02-10 19:57:44','',8398,'http://provoketive.com/2013/02/10/8398-revision-4/',0,'revision','',0),(8404,204,'2013-02-10 12:04:28','2013-02-10 20:04:28','','1f7ff8d66afb60fe4fd0f149c04647d2','','inherit','open','open','','1f7ff8d66afb60fe4fd0f149c04647d2','','','2013-02-10 12:04:28','2013-02-10 20:04:28','',8398,'http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/1f7ff8d66afb60fe4fd0f149c04647d2.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(8407,204,'2013-02-10 12:08:34','2013-02-10 20:08:34','\"Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.\"\n\nIs life an explosion of youth, then you reach your peak relevance, importance, and connectivity, and from there things taper off and then you get older and then you die?\n\nI\'ve been thinking about this a lot lately.\n\nI love Thai food and every week after yoga practice I eat dinner at a favorite Thai restaurant. All the servers know me, but there is one server that I enjoy seeing the most. I think she likes me too, not just because I tip her well, but I think she also enjoys the conversation. I recently learned that she plays in a band. She creates original material, but she also loves to interpret old songs in her own unique style.\n\nThere is a sense where something can be new in relation to time, but still be stale. And there is also a sense where something can be old in relation to time and still be new—like old songs sung in a new way. But it seems in our society that if something is new it is relevant, but if it is old it is irrelevant.\n\nThe line goes something like this: You are young. Then you do something, hopefully something unique. You reach your peak, and then you taper off. For a moment, it seems, you have your glory, and then at some point it\'s over and then you die. You die because there is something new that has replaced what was once new—there is a new way to go, a new style, a new theory—the next new thing.\n\nThere are reasons why older does not necessarily mean wiser, however. I think George Packer\'s <a href=\"http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/02/youth-age-music-news.html?mobify=0\">comments</a> in the New Yorker are spot on:\n<blockquote>Something unusual stopped me in these sentences from a Times article about a state-by-state study of flaws in the American electoral system: “A main goal of the exercise, which grew out of Professor Gerken’s 2009 book, ‘The Democracy Index,’ was to shame poor performers into doing better, she said. ‘Peer pressure produces horrible things like Britney Spears and Justin Bieber and tongue rings,’ Professor Gerken said. ‘But it also produces professional peer pressure.’” It almost took my breath away: Professor Heather Gerken, who is in her early forties, felt free to tell a reporter that Britney Spears and Justin Bieber, not to mention tongue rings, are horrible. Gerken broke one of the unwritten rules of being middle-aged: don’t go after the young and what they love. Not in print, anyway. Don’t open yourself up to the charge of curmudgeonliness, because the inevitable retort—“You just don’t get it, Professor! You sound like your parents!”—is probably accurate, certainly unanswerable, and absolutely devastating. Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.</blockquote>\nIf there is an unwritten rule not to go after the young and what they love, there is also an implicit question that asks, \"I am old, what do I have to say to the young?\" The answer, paradoxically, is that when you have the most amount of time, the most amount of wisdom, and sometimes the most amount of resources, you go to a place that guarantees you will not have influence on future generations—you retire. You leave us. And this is the problem: you can\'t leave us when we need you the most.\n\nIn 1978, Soviet geologists discovered a <a href=\"http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/For-40-Years-This-Russian-Family-Was-Cut-Off-From-Human-Contact-Unaware-of-World-War-II-188843001.html?device=iphone&amp;device=ipad\">family</a> of six lost in the Siberian taiga. Cut off from all human contact for 40 years, this Russian family lived on the side of a mountain 150 miles from the nearest settlement. It was an astonishing discovery because the Soviets had no records of anyone living in this area. Karp Lykov was an Old Believer, a member of a fundamentalist Russian Orthodox sect whose worship style has not changed since the 17th century. During Stalin\'s Great Purge of the 1930\'s, the Soviets killed Lykov\'s brother, and in 1936, Lykov fled to Siberia escaping religious persecution, retreating further from civilization deep in the Siberian taiga. Living in isolation from the rest of the world, Lykov and his family were unaware of World War II and lived on the edge of famine making survival next to impossible. Two of his children had never seen a human being that was not a member of their family. Perhaps the saddest aspect of the Lykovs\' strange story was the rapidity with which the family went into decline after they re-established contact with the outside world. Only Lykov\'s daughter, Agafia remains, and she will not leave her home in the Siberian taiga.\n\nMost people believe they are on the inevitable slide into irrelevance. I can see why: art, movies, culture, and even business reinforce this idea. When am I going to lose it? Can I keep up? There is some wisdom that you only get through having lived it and through years. There is an authority that comes from being older, but there is also a potential newness that is fresh as ever—a sifting and sorting of all I have experienced—creating a non-anxious, non-judgemental presence because I am older, and my roots run deep and I have seen it all.\n\nWe live the <a href=\"http://storylineblog.com/2013/01/28/when-you-fail-to-live-a-great-story/\">stories</a> we keep telling ourselves, and telling meaningful stories overlaps with living a meaningful life. There was a time when humans intuitively grappled with aging rooted in the divine redemptive activity of God. But unfortunately we are telling a different story—a story about how religion has skewed our perception of aging.\n\nReligion is new to humanity. It\'s been around about 5% of humanity\'s spiritual journey, which, on a conservative timescale, began to unfold about seventy thousand years ago. Yet most of us have grown up with a religious legacy. Unfortunately, these religious legacies have nurtured the belief that when one group checks out, the other says, \"we don’t need you,\" and everything falls apart. In many cultures you find the older need the idealism, energy and enthusiasm of the youth and the youth need the wisdom of the older.\n\nAnd when we embrace this, that\'s when the adventure begins.\n\n&nbsp;','When Does The Adventure Begin?','','inherit','open','open','','8398-revision-6','','','2013-02-10 12:08:34','2013-02-10 20:08:34','',8398,'http://provoketive.com/2013/02/10/8398-revision-6/',0,'revision','',0),(8406,204,'2013-02-10 12:08:32','2013-02-10 20:08:32','','2f22e93a36c6f8fc774e11a33e6b783a','','inherit','open','open','','2f22e93a36c6f8fc774e11a33e6b783a','','','2013-02-10 12:08:32','2013-02-10 20:08:32','',8398,'http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/2f22e93a36c6f8fc774e11a33e6b783a.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(8408,204,'2013-02-10 12:09:40','2013-02-10 20:09:40','\"Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.\"\r\n\r\nIs life an explosion of youth, then you reach your peak relevance, importance, and connectivity, and from there things taper off and then you get older and then you die?\r\n\r\nI\'ve been thinking about this a lot lately.\r\n\r\nI love Thai food and every week after yoga practice I eat dinner at a favorite Thai restaurant. All the servers know me, but there is one server that I enjoy seeing the most. I think she likes me too, not just because I tip her well, but I think she also enjoys the conversation. I recently learned that she plays in a band. She creates original material, but she also loves to interpret old songs in her own unique style.\r\n\r\nThere is a sense where something can be new in relation to time, but still be stale. And there is also a sense where something can be old in relation to time and still be new—like old songs sung in a new way. But it seems in our society that if something is new it is relevant, but if it is old it is irrelevant.\r\n\r\nThe line goes something like this: You are young. Then you do something, hopefully something unique. You reach your peak, and then you taper off. For a moment, it seems, you have your glory, and then at some point it\'s over and then you die. You die because there is something new that has replaced what was once new—there is a new way to go, a new style, a new theory—the next new thing.\r\n\r\nThere are reasons why older does not necessarily mean wiser, however. I think George Packer\'s <a href=\"http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/02/youth-age-music-news.html?mobify=0\">comments</a> in the New Yorker are spot on:\r\n<blockquote>Something unusual stopped me in these sentences from a Times article about a state-by-state study of flaws in the American electoral system: “A main goal of the exercise, which grew out of Professor Gerken’s 2009 book, ‘The Democracy Index,’ was to shame poor performers into doing better, she said. ‘Peer pressure produces horrible things like Britney Spears and Justin Bieber and tongue rings,’ Professor Gerken said. ‘But it also produces professional peer pressure.’” It almost took my breath away: Professor Heather Gerken, who is in her early forties, felt free to tell a reporter that Britney Spears and Justin Bieber, not to mention tongue rings, are horrible. Gerken broke one of the unwritten rules of being middle-aged: don’t go after the young and what they love. Not in print, anyway. Don’t open yourself up to the charge of curmudgeonliness, because the inevitable retort—“You just don’t get it, Professor! You sound like your parents!”—is probably accurate, certainly unanswerable, and absolutely devastating. Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.</blockquote>\r\nIf there is an unwritten rule not to go after the young and what they love, there is also an implicit question that asks, \"I am old, what do I have to say to the young?\" The answer, paradoxically, is that when you have the most amount of time, the most amount of wisdom, and sometimes the most amount of resources, you go to a place that guarantees you will not have influence on future generations—you retire. You leave us. And this is the problem: you can\'t leave us when we need you the most.\r\n\r\nIn 1978, Soviet geologists discovered a <a href=\"http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/For-40-Years-This-Russian-Family-Was-Cut-Off-From-Human-Contact-Unaware-of-World-War-II-188843001.html?device=iphone&amp;device=ipad\">family</a> of six lost in the Siberian taiga. Cut off from all human contact for 40 years, this Russian family lived on the side of a mountain 150 miles from the nearest settlement. It was an astonishing discovery because the Soviets had no records of anyone living in this area. Karp Lykov was an Old Believer, a member of a fundamentalist Russian Orthodox sect whose worship style has not changed since the 17th century. During Stalin\'s Great Purge of the 1930\'s, the Soviets killed Lykov\'s brother, and in 1936, Lykov fled to Siberia escaping religious persecution, retreating further from civilization deep in the Siberian taiga. Living in isolation from the rest of the world, Lykov and his family were unaware of World War II and lived on the edge of famine making survival next to impossible. Two of his children had never seen a human being that was not a member of their family. Perhaps the saddest aspect of the Lykovs\' strange story was the rapidity with which the family went into decline after they re-established contact with the outside world. Only Lykov\'s daughter, Agafia remains, and she will not leave her home in the Siberian taiga.\r\n\r\nMost people believe they are on the inevitable slide into irrelevance. I can see why: art, movies, culture, and even business reinforce this idea. When am I going to lose it? Can I keep up? There is some wisdom that you only get through having lived it and through years. There is an authority that comes from being older, but there is also a potential newness that is fresh as ever—a sifting and sorting of all I have experienced—creating a non-anxious, non-judgemental presence because I am older, and my roots run deep and I have seen it all.\r\n\r\nWe live the <a href=\"http://storylineblog.com/2013/01/28/when-you-fail-to-live-a-great-story/\">stories</a> we keep telling ourselves, and telling meaningful stories overlaps with living a meaningful life. There was a time when humans intuitively grappled with aging rooted in the divine redemptive activity of God. But unfortunately we are telling a different story—a story about how religion has skewed our perception of aging.\r\n\r\nReligion is new to humanity. It\'s been around about 5% of humanity\'s spiritual journey, which, on a conservative timescale, began to unfold about seventy thousand years ago. Yet most of us have grown up with a religious legacy. Unfortunately, these religious legacies have nurtured the belief that when one group checks out, the other says, \"we don’t need you,\" and everything falls apart. In many cultures you find the older need the idealism, energy and enthusiasm of the youth and the youth need the wisdom of the older.\r\n\r\nAnd when we embrace this, that\'s when the adventure begins.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','When Does The Adventure Begin?','','inherit','open','open','','8398-revision-7','','','2013-02-10 12:09:40','2013-02-10 20:09:40','',8398,'http://provoketive.com/2013/02/10/8398-revision-7/',0,'revision','',0),(8409,204,'2013-02-10 12:10:11','2013-02-10 20:10:11','\"Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.\"\r\n\r\nIs life an explosion of youth, then you reach your peak relevance, importance, and connectivity, and from there things taper off and then you get older and then you die?\r\n\r\nI\'ve been thinking about this a lot lately.\r\n\r\nI love Thai food and every week after yoga practice I eat dinner at a favorite Thai restaurant. All the servers know me, but there is one server that I enjoy seeing the most. I think she likes me too, not just because I tip her well, but I think she also enjoys the conversation. I recently learned that she plays in a band. She creates original material, but she also loves to interpret old songs in her own unique style.\r\n\r\nThere is a sense where something can be new in relation to time, but still be stale. And there is also a sense where something can be old in relation to time and still be new—like old songs sung in a new way. But it seems in our society that if something is new it is relevant, but if it is old it is irrelevant.\r\n\r\nThe line goes something like this: You are young. Then you do something, hopefully something unique. You reach your peak, and then you taper off. For a moment, it seems, you have your glory, and then at some point it\'s over and then you die. You die because there is something new that has replaced what was once new—there is a new way to go, a new style, a new theory—the next new thing.\r\n\r\nThere are reasons why older does not necessarily mean wiser, however. I think George Packer\'s <a href=\"http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/02/youth-age-music-news.html?mobify=0\">comments</a> in the New Yorker are spot on:\r\n<blockquote>Something unusual stopped me in these sentences from a Times article about a state-by-state study of flaws in the American electoral system: “A main goal of the exercise, which grew out of Professor Gerken’s 2009 book, ‘The Democracy Index,’ was to shame poor performers into doing better, she said. ‘Peer pressure produces horrible things like Britney Spears and Justin Bieber and tongue rings,’ Professor Gerken said. ‘But it also produces professional peer pressure.’” It almost took my breath away: Professor Heather Gerken, who is in her early forties, felt free to tell a reporter that Britney Spears and Justin Bieber, not to mention tongue rings, are horrible. Gerken broke one of the unwritten rules of being middle-aged: don’t go after the young and what they love. Not in print, anyway. Don’t open yourself up to the charge of curmudgeonliness, because the inevitable retort—“You just don’t get it, Professor! You sound like your parents!”—is probably accurate, certainly unanswerable, and absolutely devastating. Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.</blockquote>\r\nIf there is an unwritten rule not to go after the young and what they love, there is also an implicit question that asks, \"I am old, what do I have to say to the young?\" The answer, paradoxically, is that when you have the most amount of time, the most amount of wisdom, and sometimes the most amount of resources, you go to a place that guarantees you will not have influence on future generations—you retire. You leave us. And this is the problem: you can\'t leave us when we need you the most.\r\n\r\nIn 1978, Soviet geologists discovered a <a href=\"http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/For-40-Years-This-Russian-Family-Was-Cut-Off-From-Human-Contact-Unaware-of-World-War-II-188843001.html?device=iphone&amp;device=ipad\">family</a> of six lost in the Siberian taiga. Cut off from all human contact for 40 years, this Russian family lived on the side of a mountain 150 miles from the nearest settlement. It was an astonishing discovery because the Soviets had no records of anyone living in this area. Karp Lykov was an Old Believer, a member of a fundamentalist Russian Orthodox sect whose worship style has not changed since the 17th century. During Stalin\'s Great Purge of the 1930\'s, the Soviets killed Lykov\'s brother, and in 1936, Lykov fled to Siberia escaping religious persecution, retreating further from civilization deep in the Siberian taiga. Living in isolation from the rest of the world, Lykov and his family were unaware of World War II and lived on the edge of famine making survival next to impossible. Two of his children had never seen a human being that was not a member of their family. Perhaps the saddest aspect of the Lykovs\' strange story was the rapidity with which the family went into decline after they re-established contact with the outside world. Only Lykov\'s daughter, Agafia remains, and she will not leave her home in the Siberian taiga.\r\n\r\nMost people believe they are on the inevitable slide into irrelevance. I can see why: art, movies, culture, and even business reinforce this idea. When am I going to lose it? Can I keep up? There is some wisdom that you only get through having lived it and through years. There is an authority that comes from being older, but there is also a potential newness that is fresh as ever—a sifting and sorting of all I have experienced—creating a non-anxious, non-judgemental presence because I am older, and my roots run deep and I have seen it all.\r\n\r\nWe live the <a href=\"http://storylineblog.com/2013/01/28/when-you-fail-to-live-a-great-story/\">stories</a> we keep telling ourselves, and telling meaningful stories overlaps with living a meaningful life. There was a time when humans intuitively grappled with aging rooted in the divine redemptive activity of God. But unfortunately we are telling a different story—a story about how religion has skewed our perception of aging.\r\n\r\nReligion is new to humanity. It\'s been around about 5% of humanity\'s spiritual journey, which, on a conservative timescale, began to unfold about seventy thousand years ago. Yet most of us have grown up with a religious legacy. Unfortunately, these religious legacies have nurtured the belief that when one group checks out, the other says, \"we don’t need you,\" and everything falls apart. In many cultures you find the older need the idealism, energy and enthusiasm of the youth and the youth need the wisdom of the older.\r\n\r\nAnd when we embrace this, that\'s when the adventure begins.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','When Does The Adventure Begin?','','inherit','open','open','','8398-revision-8','','','2013-02-10 12:10:11','2013-02-10 20:10:11','',8398,'http://provoketive.com/2013/02/10/8398-revision-8/',0,'revision','',0),(8410,204,'2013-02-10 12:10:41','2013-02-10 20:10:41','\"Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.\"\r\n\r\nIs life an explosion of youth, then you reach your peak relevance, importance, and connectivity, and from there things taper off and then you get older and then you die?\r\n\r\nI\'ve been thinking about this a lot lately.\r\n\r\nI love Thai food and every week after yoga practice I eat dinner at a favorite Thai restaurant. All the servers know me, but there is one server that I enjoy seeing the most. I think she likes me too, not just because I tip her well, but I think she also enjoys the conversation. I recently learned that she plays in a band. She creates original material, but she also loves to interpret old songs in her own unique style.\r\n\r\nThere is a sense where something can be new in relation to time, but still be stale. And there is also a sense where something can be old in relation to time and still be new—like old songs sung in a new way. But it seems in our society that if something is new it is relevant, but if it is old it is irrelevant.\r\n\r\nThe line goes something like this: You are young. Then you do something, hopefully something unique. You reach your peak, and then you taper off. For a moment, it seems, you have your glory, and then at some point it\'s over and then you die. You die because there is something new that has replaced what was once new—there is a new way to go, a new style, a new theory—the next new thing.\r\n\r\nThere are reasons why older does not necessarily mean wiser, however. I think George Packer\'s <a href=\"http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/02/youth-age-music-news.html?mobify=0\">comments</a> in the New Yorker are spot on:\r\n<blockquote>Something unusual stopped me in these sentences from a Times article about a state-by-state study of flaws in the American electoral system: “A main goal of the exercise, which grew out of Professor Gerken’s 2009 book, ‘The Democracy Index,’ was to shame poor performers into doing better, she said. ‘Peer pressure produces horrible things like Britney Spears and Justin Bieber and tongue rings,’ Professor Gerken said. ‘But it also produces professional peer pressure.’” It almost took my breath away: Professor Heather Gerken, who is in her early forties, felt free to tell a reporter that Britney Spears and Justin Bieber, not to mention tongue rings, are horrible. Gerken broke one of the unwritten rules of being middle-aged: don’t go after the young and what they love. Not in print, anyway. Don’t open yourself up to the charge of curmudgeonliness, because the inevitable retort—“You just don’t get it, Professor! You sound like your parents!”—is probably accurate, certainly unanswerable, and absolutely devastating. Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.</blockquote>\r\nIf there is an unwritten rule not to go after the young and what they love, there is also an implicit question that asks, \"I am old, what do I have to say to the young?\" The answer, paradoxically, is that when you have the most amount of time, the most amount of wisdom, and sometimes the most amount of resources, you go to a place that guarantees you will not have influence on future generations—you retire. You leave us. And this is the problem: you can\'t leave us when we need you the most.\r\n\r\nIn 1978, Soviet geologists discovered a <a href=\"http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/For-40-Years-This-Russian-Family-Was-Cut-Off-From-Human-Contact-Unaware-of-World-War-II-188843001.html?device=iphone&amp;device=ipad\">family</a> of six lost in the Siberian taiga. Cut off from all human contact for 40 years, this Russian family lived on the side of a mountain 150 miles from the nearest settlement. It was an astonishing discovery because the Soviets had no records of anyone living in this area. Karp Lykov was an Old Believer, a member of a fundamentalist Russian Orthodox sect whose worship style has not changed since the 17th century. During Stalin\'s Great Purge of the 1930\'s, the Soviets killed Lykov\'s brother, and in 1936, Lykov fled to Siberia escaping religious persecution, retreating further from civilization deep in the Siberian taiga. Living in isolation from the rest of the world, Lykov and his family were unaware of World War II and lived on the edge of famine making survival next to impossible. Two of his children had never seen a human being that was not a member of their family. Perhaps the saddest aspect of the Lykovs\' strange story was the rapidity with which the family went into decline after they re-established contact with the outside world. Only Lykov\'s daughter, Agafia remains, and she will not leave her home in the Siberian taiga.\r\n\r\nMost people believe they are on the inevitable slide into irrelevance. I can see why: art, movies, culture, and even business reinforce this idea. When am I going to lose it? Can I keep up? There is some wisdom that you only get through having lived it and through years. There is an authority that comes from being older, but there is also a potential newness that is fresh as ever—a sifting and sorting of all I have experienced—creating a non-anxious, non-judgemental presence because I am older, and my roots run deep and I have seen it all.\r\n\r\nWe live the <a href=\"http://storylineblog.com/2013/01/28/when-you-fail-to-live-a-great-story/\">stories</a> we keep telling ourselves, and telling meaningful stories overlaps with living a meaningful life. There was a time when humans intuitively grappled with aging rooted in the divine redemptive activity of God. But unfortunately we are telling a different story—a story about how religion has skewed our perception of aging.\r\n\r\nReligion is new to humanity. It\'s been around about 5% of humanity\'s spiritual journey, which, on a conservative timescale, began to unfold about seventy thousand years ago. Yet most of us have grown up with a religious legacy. Unfortunately, these religious legacies have nurtured the belief that when one group checks out, the other says, \"we don’t need you,\" and everything falls apart. In many cultures you find the older need the idealism, energy and enthusiasm of the youth and the youth need the wisdom of the older.\r\n\r\nAnd when we embrace this, that\'s when the adventure begins.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','When Does The Adventure Begin?','','inherit','open','open','','8398-revision-9','','','2013-02-10 12:10:41','2013-02-10 20:10:41','',8398,'http://provoketive.com/2013/02/10/8398-revision-9/',0,'revision','',0),(8411,204,'2013-02-10 12:12:46','2013-02-10 20:12:46','\"Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.\"\r\n\r\nIs life an explosion of youth, then you reach your peak relevance, importance, and connectivity, and from there things taper off and then you get older and then you die?\r\n\r\nI\'ve been thinking about this a lot lately.\r\n\r\nI love Thai food and every week after yoga practice I eat dinner at a favorite Thai restaurant. All the servers know me, but there is one server that I enjoy seeing the most. I think she likes me too, not just because I tip her well, but I think she also enjoys the conversation. I recently learned that she plays in a band. She creates original material, but she also loves to interpret old songs in her own unique style.\r\n\r\nThere is a sense where something can be new in relation to time, but still be stale. And there is also a sense where something can be old in relation to time and still be new—like old songs sung in a new way. But it seems in our society that if something is new it is relevant, but if it is old it is irrelevant.\r\n\r\nThe line goes something like this: You are young. Then you do something, hopefully something unique. You reach your peak, and then you taper off. For a moment, it seems, you have your glory, and then at some point it\'s over and then you die. You die because there is something new that has replaced what was once new—there is a new way to go, a new style, a new theory—the next new thing.\r\n\r\nThere are reasons why older does not necessarily mean wiser, however. I think George Packer\'s <a href=\"http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/02/youth-age-music-news.html?mobify=0\">comments</a> in the New Yorker are spot on:\r\n<blockquote>Something unusual stopped me in these sentences from a Times article about a state-by-state study of flaws in the American electoral system: “A main goal of the exercise, which grew out of Professor Gerken’s 2009 book, ‘The Democracy Index,’ was to shame poor performers into doing better, she said. ‘Peer pressure produces horrible things like Britney Spears and Justin Bieber and tongue rings,’ Professor Gerken said. ‘But it also produces professional peer pressure.’” It almost took my breath away: Professor Heather Gerken, who is in her early forties, felt free to tell a reporter that Britney Spears and Justin Bieber, not to mention tongue rings, are horrible. Gerken broke one of the unwritten rules of being middle-aged: don’t go after the young and what they love. Not in print, anyway. Don’t open yourself up to the charge of curmudgeonliness, because the inevitable retort—“You just don’t get it, Professor! You sound like your parents!”—is probably accurate, certainly unanswerable, and absolutely devastating. Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.</blockquote>\r\nIf there is an unwritten rule not to go after the young and what they love, there is also an implicit question that asks, \"I am old, what do I have to say to the young?\" The answer, paradoxically, is that when you have the most amount of time, the most amount of wisdom, and sometimes the most amount of resources, you go to a place that guarantees you will not have influence on future generations—you retire. You leave us. And this is the problem: you can\'t leave us when we need you the most.\r\n\r\nIn 1978, Soviet geologists discovered a <a href=\"http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/For-40-Years-This-Russian-Family-Was-Cut-Off-From-Human-Contact-Unaware-of-World-War-II-188843001.html?device=iphone&amp;device=ipad\">family</a> of six lost in the Siberian taiga. Cut off from all human contact for 40 years, this Russian family lived on the side of a mountain 150 miles from the nearest settlement. It was an astonishing discovery because the Soviets had no records of anyone living in this area. Karp Lykov was an Old Believer, a member of a fundamentalist Russian Orthodox sect whose worship style has not changed since the 17th century. During Stalin\'s Great Purge of the 1930\'s, the Soviets killed Lykov\'s brother, and in 1936, Lykov fled to Siberia escaping religious persecution, retreating further from civilization deep in the Siberian taiga. Living in isolation from the rest of the world, Lykov and his family were unaware of World War II and lived on the edge of famine making survival next to impossible. Two of his children had never seen a human being that was not a member of their family. Perhaps the saddest aspect of the Lykovs\' strange story was the rapidity with which the family went into decline after they re-established contact with the outside world. Only Lykov\'s daughter, Agafia remains, and she will not leave her home in the Siberian taiga.\r\n\r\nMost people believe they are on the inevitable slide into irrelevance. I can see why: art, movies, culture, and even business reinforce this idea. When am I going to lose it? Can I keep up? There is some wisdom that you only get through having lived it and through years. There is an authority that comes from being older, but there is also a potential newness that is fresh as ever—a sifting and sorting of all I have experienced—creating a non-anxious, non-judgemental presence because I am older, and my roots run deep and I have seen it all.\r\n\r\nWe live the <a href=\"http://storylineblog.com/2013/01/28/when-you-fail-to-live-a-great-story/\">stories</a> we keep telling ourselves, and telling meaningful stories overlaps with living a meaningful life. There was a time when humans intuitively grappled with aging rooted in the divine redemptive activity of God. But unfortunately we are telling a different story—a story about how religion has skewed our perception of aging.\r\n\r\nReligion is new to humanity. It\'s been around about 5% of humanity\'s spiritual journey, which, on a conservative timescale, began to unfold about seventy thousand years ago. Yet most of us have grown up with a religious legacy. Unfortunately, these religious legacies have nurtured the belief that when one group checks out, the other says, \"we don’t need you,\" and everything falls apart. In many cultures you find the older need the idealism, energy and enthusiasm of the youth and the youth need the wisdom of the older.\r\n\r\nAnd when we embrace this, that\'s when the adventure begins.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','When Does The Adventure Begin?','','inherit','open','open','','8398-revision-10','','','2013-02-10 12:12:46','2013-02-10 20:12:46','',8398,'http://provoketive.com/2013/02/10/8398-revision-10/',0,'revision','',0),(8417,204,'2013-02-10 15:16:37','2013-02-10 23:16:37','\"Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.\"\r\n\r\nIs life an explosion of youth, then you reach your peak relevance, importance, and connectivity, and from there things taper off and then you get older and then you die?\r\n\r\nI\'ve been thinking about this a lot lately.\r\n\r\nI love Thai food and every week after yoga practice I eat dinner at a favorite Thai restaurant. All the servers know me, but there is one server that I enjoy seeing the most. I think she likes me too, not just because I tip her well, but I think she also enjoys the conversation. I recently learned that she plays in a band. She creates original material, but she also loves to interpret old songs in her own unique style.\r\n\r\nThere is a sense where something can be new in relation to time, but still be stale. And there is also a sense where something can be old in relation to time and still be new—like old songs sung in a new way. But it seems in our society that if something is new it is relevant, but if it is old it is irrelevant.\r\n\r\nThe line goes something like this: You are young. Then you do something, hopefully something unique. You reach your peak, and then you taper off. For a moment, it seems, you have your glory, and then at some point it\'s over and then you die. You die because there is something new that has replaced what was once new—there is a new way to go, a new style, a new theory—the next new thing.\r\n\r\nThere are reasons why older does not necessarily mean wiser, however. I think George Packer\'s <a href=\"http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/02/youth-age-music-news.html?mobify=0\">comments</a> in the New Yorker are spot on:\r\n<blockquote>Something unusual stopped me in these sentences from a Times article about a state-by-state study of flaws in the American electoral system: “A main goal of the exercise, which grew out of Professor Gerken’s 2009 book, ‘The Democracy Index,’ was to shame poor performers into doing better, she said. ‘Peer pressure produces horrible things like Britney Spears and Justin Bieber and tongue rings,’ Professor Gerken said. ‘But it also produces professional peer pressure.’” It almost took my breath away: Professor Heather Gerken, who is in her early forties, felt free to tell a reporter that Britney Spears and Justin Bieber, not to mention tongue rings, are horrible. Gerken broke one of the unwritten rules of being middle-aged: don’t go after the young and what they love. Not in print, anyway. Don’t open yourself up to the charge of curmudgeonliness, because the inevitable retort—“You just don’t get it, Professor! You sound like your parents!”—is probably accurate, certainly unanswerable, and absolutely devastating. Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.</blockquote>\r\nIf there is an unwritten rule not to go after the young and what they love, there is also an implicit question that asks, \"I am old, what do I have to say to the young?\" The answer, paradoxically, is that when you have the most amount of time, the most amount of wisdom, and sometimes the most amount of resources, you go to a place that guarantees you will not have influence on future generations—you retire. You leave us. And this is the problem: you can\'t leave us when we need you the most.\r\n\r\nIn 1978, Soviet geologists discovered a <a href=\"http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/For-40-Years-This-Russian-Family-Was-Cut-Off-From-Human-Contact-Unaware-of-World-War-II-188843001.html?device=iphone&amp;device=ipad\">family</a> of six lost in the Siberian taiga. Cut off from all human contact for 40 years, this Russian family lived on the side of a mountain 150 miles from the nearest settlement. It was an astonishing discovery because the Soviets had no records of anyone living in this area. Karp Lykov was an Old Believer, a member of a fundamentalist Russian Orthodox sect whose worship style has not changed since the 17th century. During Stalin\'s Great Purge of the 1930\'s, the Soviets killed Lykov\'s brother, and in 1936, Lykov fled to Siberia escaping religious persecution, retreating further from civilization deep in the Siberian taiga. Living in isolation from the rest of the world, Lykov and his family were unaware of World War II and lived on the edge of famine making survival next to impossible. Two of his children had never seen a human being that was not a member of their family. Perhaps the saddest aspect of the Lykovs\' strange story was the rapidity with which the family went into decline after they re-established contact with the outside world. Only Lykov\'s daughter, Agafia remains, and she will not leave her home in the Siberian taiga.\r\n\r\nMost people believe they are on the inevitable slide into irrelevance. I can see why: art, movies, culture, and even business reinforce this idea. When am I going to lose it? Can I keep up? There is some wisdom that you only get through having lived it and through years. There is an authority that comes from being older, but there is also a potential newness that is fresh as ever—a sifting and sorting of all I have experienced—creating a non-anxious, non-judgemental presence because I am older, and my roots run deep and I have seen it all.\r\n\r\nWe live the <a href=\"http://storylineblog.com/2013/01/28/when-you-fail-to-live-a-great-story/\">stories</a> we keep telling ourselves, and telling meaningful stories overlaps with living a meaningful life. There was a time when humans intuitively grappled with aging rooted in the divine redemptive activity of God. But unfortunately we are telling a different story—a story about how religion has skewed our perception of aging.\r\n\r\nReligion is new to humanity. It\'s been around about 5% of humanity\'s spiritual journey, which, on a conservative timescale, began to unfold about seventy thousand years ago. Yet most of us have grown up with a religious legacy. Unfortunately, these religious legacies have nurtured the belief that when one group checks out, the other says, \"we don’t need you,\" and everything falls apart. In many cultures you find the older need the idealism, energy and enthusiasm of the youth and the youth need the wisdom of the older.\r\n\r\nAnd when we embrace this, that\'s when the adventure begins.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nPhoto by gugusba\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','When Does The Adventure Begin?','','inherit','open','open','','8398-revision-15','','','2013-02-10 15:16:37','2013-02-10 23:16:37','',8398,'http://provoketive.com/2013/02/10/8398-revision-15/',0,'revision','',0),(8413,204,'2013-02-10 15:00:00','2013-02-10 23:00:00','\"Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.\"\r\n\r\nIs life an explosion of youth, then you reach your peak relevance, importance, and connectivity, and from there things taper off and then you get older and then you die?\r\n\r\nI\'ve been thinking about this a lot lately.\r\n\r\nI love Thai food and every week after yoga practice I eat dinner at a favorite Thai restaurant. All the servers know me, but there is one server that I enjoy seeing the most. I think she likes me too, not just because I tip her well, but I think she also enjoys the conversation. I recently learned that she plays in a band. She creates original material, but she also loves to interpret old songs in her own unique style.\r\n\r\nThere is a sense where something can be new in relation to time, but still be stale. And there is also a sense where something can be old in relation to time and still be new—like old songs sung in a new way. But it seems in our society that if something is new it is relevant, but if it is old it is irrelevant.\r\n\r\nThe line goes something like this: You are young. Then you do something, hopefully something unique. You reach your peak, and then you taper off. For a moment, it seems, you have your glory, and then at some point it\'s over and then you die. You die because there is something new that has replaced what was once new—there is a new way to go, a new style, a new theory—the next new thing.\r\n\r\nThere are reasons why older does not necessarily mean wiser, however. I think George Packer\'s <a href=\"http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/02/youth-age-music-news.html?mobify=0\">comments</a> in the New Yorker are spot on:\r\n<blockquote>Something unusual stopped me in these sentences from a Times article about a state-by-state study of flaws in the American electoral system: “A main goal of the exercise, which grew out of Professor Gerken’s 2009 book, ‘The Democracy Index,’ was to shame poor performers into doing better, she said. ‘Peer pressure produces horrible things like Britney Spears and Justin Bieber and tongue rings,’ Professor Gerken said. ‘But it also produces professional peer pressure.’” It almost took my breath away: Professor Heather Gerken, who is in her early forties, felt free to tell a reporter that Britney Spears and Justin Bieber, not to mention tongue rings, are horrible. Gerken broke one of the unwritten rules of being middle-aged: don’t go after the young and what they love. Not in print, anyway. Don’t open yourself up to the charge of curmudgeonliness, because the inevitable retort—“You just don’t get it, Professor! You sound like your parents!”—is probably accurate, certainly unanswerable, and absolutely devastating. Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.</blockquote>\r\nIf there is an unwritten rule not to go after the young and what they love, there is also an implicit question that asks, \"I am old, what do I have to say to the young?\" The answer, paradoxically, is that when you have the most amount of time, the most amount of wisdom, and sometimes the most amount of resources, you go to a place that guarantees you will not have influence on future generations—you retire. You leave us. And this is the problem: you can\'t leave us when we need you the most.\r\n\r\nIn 1978, Soviet geologists discovered a <a href=\"http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/For-40-Years-This-Russian-Family-Was-Cut-Off-From-Human-Contact-Unaware-of-World-War-II-188843001.html?device=iphone&amp;device=ipad\">family</a> of six lost in the Siberian taiga. Cut off from all human contact for 40 years, this Russian family lived on the side of a mountain 150 miles from the nearest settlement. It was an astonishing discovery because the Soviets had no records of anyone living in this area. Karp Lykov was an Old Believer, a member of a fundamentalist Russian Orthodox sect whose worship style has not changed since the 17th century. During Stalin\'s Great Purge of the 1930\'s, the Soviets killed Lykov\'s brother, and in 1936, Lykov fled to Siberia escaping religious persecution, retreating further from civilization deep in the Siberian taiga. Living in isolation from the rest of the world, Lykov and his family were unaware of World War II and lived on the edge of famine making survival next to impossible. Two of his children had never seen a human being that was not a member of their family. Perhaps the saddest aspect of the Lykovs\' strange story was the rapidity with which the family went into decline after they re-established contact with the outside world. Only Lykov\'s daughter, Agafia remains, and she will not leave her home in the Siberian taiga.\r\n\r\nMost people believe they are on the inevitable slide into irrelevance. I can see why: art, movies, culture, and even business reinforce this idea. When am I going to lose it? Can I keep up? There is some wisdom that you only get through having lived it and through years. There is an authority that comes from being older, but there is also a potential newness that is fresh as ever—a sifting and sorting of all I have experienced—creating a non-anxious, non-judgemental presence because I am older, and my roots run deep and I have seen it all.\r\n\r\nWe live the <a href=\"http://storylineblog.com/2013/01/28/when-you-fail-to-live-a-great-story/\">stories</a> we keep telling ourselves, and telling meaningful stories overlaps with living a meaningful life. There was a time when humans intuitively grappled with aging rooted in the divine redemptive activity of God. But unfortunately we are telling a different story—a story about how religion has skewed our perception of aging.\r\n\r\nReligion is new to humanity. It\'s been around about 5% of humanity\'s spiritual journey, which, on a conservative timescale, began to unfold about seventy thousand years ago. Yet most of us have grown up with a religious legacy. Unfortunately, these religious legacies have nurtured the belief that when one group checks out, the other says, \"we don’t need you,\" and everything falls apart. In many cultures you find the older need the idealism, energy and enthusiasm of the youth and the youth need the wisdom of the older.\r\n\r\nAnd when we embrace this, that\'s when the adventure begins.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','When Does The Adventure Begin?','','inherit','open','open','','8398-revision-11','','','2013-02-10 15:00:00','2013-02-10 23:00:00','',8398,'http://provoketive.com/2013/02/10/8398-revision-11/',0,'revision','',0),(8414,204,'2013-02-10 15:12:27','2013-02-10 23:12:27','\"Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.\"\r\n\r\nIs life an explosion of youth, then you reach your peak relevance, importance, and connectivity, and from there things taper off and then you get older and then you die?\r\n\r\nI\'ve been thinking about this a lot lately.\r\n\r\nI love Thai food and every week after yoga practice I eat dinner at a favorite Thai restaurant. All the servers know me, but there is one server that I enjoy seeing the most. I think she likes me too, not just because I tip her well, but I think she also enjoys the conversation. I recently learned that she plays in a band. She creates original material, but she also loves to interpret old songs in her own unique style.\r\n\r\nThere is a sense where something can be new in relation to time, but still be stale. And there is also a sense where something can be old in relation to time and still be new—like old songs sung in a new way. But it seems in our society that if something is new it is relevant, but if it is old it is irrelevant.\r\n\r\nThe line goes something like this: You are young. Then you do something, hopefully something unique. You reach your peak, and then you taper off. For a moment, it seems, you have your glory, and then at some point it\'s over and then you die. You die because there is something new that has replaced what was once new—there is a new way to go, a new style, a new theory—the next new thing.\r\n\r\nThere are reasons why older does not necessarily mean wiser, however. I think George Packer\'s <a href=\"http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/02/youth-age-music-news.html?mobify=0\">comments</a> in the New Yorker are spot on:\r\n<blockquote>Something unusual stopped me in these sentences from a Times article about a state-by-state study of flaws in the American electoral system: “A main goal of the exercise, which grew out of Professor Gerken’s 2009 book, ‘The Democracy Index,’ was to shame poor performers into doing better, she said. ‘Peer pressure produces horrible things like Britney Spears and Justin Bieber and tongue rings,’ Professor Gerken said. ‘But it also produces professional peer pressure.’” It almost took my breath away: Professor Heather Gerken, who is in her early forties, felt free to tell a reporter that Britney Spears and Justin Bieber, not to mention tongue rings, are horrible. Gerken broke one of the unwritten rules of being middle-aged: don’t go after the young and what they love. Not in print, anyway. Don’t open yourself up to the charge of curmudgeonliness, because the inevitable retort—“You just don’t get it, Professor! You sound like your parents!”—is probably accurate, certainly unanswerable, and absolutely devastating. Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.</blockquote>\r\nIf there is an unwritten rule not to go after the young and what they love, there is also an implicit question that asks, \"I am old, what do I have to say to the young?\" The answer, paradoxically, is that when you have the most amount of time, the most amount of wisdom, and sometimes the most amount of resources, you go to a place that guarantees you will not have influence on future generations—you retire. You leave us. And this is the problem: you can\'t leave us when we need you the most.\r\n\r\nIn 1978, Soviet geologists discovered a <a href=\"http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/For-40-Years-This-Russian-Family-Was-Cut-Off-From-Human-Contact-Unaware-of-World-War-II-188843001.html?device=iphone&amp;device=ipad\">family</a> of six lost in the Siberian taiga. Cut off from all human contact for 40 years, this Russian family lived on the side of a mountain 150 miles from the nearest settlement. It was an astonishing discovery because the Soviets had no records of anyone living in this area. Karp Lykov was an Old Believer, a member of a fundamentalist Russian Orthodox sect whose worship style has not changed since the 17th century. During Stalin\'s Great Purge of the 1930\'s, the Soviets killed Lykov\'s brother, and in 1936, Lykov fled to Siberia escaping religious persecution, retreating further from civilization deep in the Siberian taiga. Living in isolation from the rest of the world, Lykov and his family were unaware of World War II and lived on the edge of famine making survival next to impossible. Two of his children had never seen a human being that was not a member of their family. Perhaps the saddest aspect of the Lykovs\' strange story was the rapidity with which the family went into decline after they re-established contact with the outside world. Only Lykov\'s daughter, Agafia remains, and she will not leave her home in the Siberian taiga.\r\n\r\nMost people believe they are on the inevitable slide into irrelevance. I can see why: art, movies, culture, and even business reinforce this idea. When am I going to lose it? Can I keep up? There is some wisdom that you only get through having lived it and through years. There is an authority that comes from being older, but there is also a potential newness that is fresh as ever—a sifting and sorting of all I have experienced—creating a non-anxious, non-judgemental presence because I am older, and my roots run deep and I have seen it all.\r\n\r\nWe live the <a href=\"http://storylineblog.com/2013/01/28/when-you-fail-to-live-a-great-story/\">stories</a> we keep telling ourselves, and telling meaningful stories overlaps with living a meaningful life. There was a time when humans intuitively grappled with aging rooted in the divine redemptive activity of God. But unfortunately we are telling a different story—a story about how religion has skewed our perception of aging.\r\n\r\nReligion is new to humanity. It\'s been around about 5% of humanity\'s spiritual journey, which, on a conservative timescale, began to unfold about seventy thousand years ago. Yet most of us have grown up with a religious legacy. Unfortunately, these religious legacies have nurtured the belief that when one group checks out, the other says, \"we don’t need you,\" and everything falls apart. In many cultures you find the older need the idealism, energy and enthusiasm of the youth and the youth need the wisdom of the older.\r\n\r\nAnd when we embrace this, that\'s when the adventure begins.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','When Does The Adventure Begin?','','inherit','open','open','','8398-revision-12','','','2013-02-10 15:12:27','2013-02-10 23:12:27','',8398,'http://provoketive.com/2013/02/10/8398-revision-12/',0,'revision','',0),(8415,204,'2013-02-10 15:13:27','2013-02-10 23:13:27','\"Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.\"\r\n\r\nIs life an explosion of youth, then you reach your peak relevance, importance, and connectivity, and from there things taper off and then you get older and then you die?\r\n\r\nI\'ve been thinking about this a lot lately.\r\n\r\nI love Thai food and every week after yoga practice I eat dinner at a favorite Thai restaurant. All the servers know me, but there is one server that I enjoy seeing the most. I think she likes me too, not just because I tip her well, but I think she also enjoys the conversation. I recently learned that she plays in a band. She creates original material, but she also loves to interpret old songs in her own unique style.\r\n\r\nThere is a sense where something can be new in relation to time, but still be stale. And there is also a sense where something can be old in relation to time and still be new—like old songs sung in a new way. But it seems in our society that if something is new it is relevant, but if it is old it is irrelevant.\r\n\r\nThe line goes something like this: You are young. Then you do something, hopefully something unique. You reach your peak, and then you taper off. For a moment, it seems, you have your glory, and then at some point it\'s over and then you die. You die because there is something new that has replaced what was once new—there is a new way to go, a new style, a new theory—the next new thing.\r\n\r\nThere are reasons why older does not necessarily mean wiser, however. I think George Packer\'s <a href=\"http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/02/youth-age-music-news.html?mobify=0\">comments</a> in the New Yorker are spot on:\r\n<blockquote>Something unusual stopped me in these sentences from a Times article about a state-by-state study of flaws in the American electoral system: “A main goal of the exercise, which grew out of Professor Gerken’s 2009 book, ‘The Democracy Index,’ was to shame poor performers into doing better, she said. ‘Peer pressure produces horrible things like Britney Spears and Justin Bieber and tongue rings,’ Professor Gerken said. ‘But it also produces professional peer pressure.’” It almost took my breath away: Professor Heather Gerken, who is in her early forties, felt free to tell a reporter that Britney Spears and Justin Bieber, not to mention tongue rings, are horrible. Gerken broke one of the unwritten rules of being middle-aged: don’t go after the young and what they love. Not in print, anyway. Don’t open yourself up to the charge of curmudgeonliness, because the inevitable retort—“You just don’t get it, Professor! You sound like your parents!”—is probably accurate, certainly unanswerable, and absolutely devastating. Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.</blockquote>\r\nIf there is an unwritten rule not to go after the young and what they love, there is also an implicit question that asks, \"I am old, what do I have to say to the young?\" The answer, paradoxically, is that when you have the most amount of time, the most amount of wisdom, and sometimes the most amount of resources, you go to a place that guarantees you will not have influence on future generations—you retire. You leave us. And this is the problem: you can\'t leave us when we need you the most.\r\n\r\nIn 1978, Soviet geologists discovered a <a href=\"http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/For-40-Years-This-Russian-Family-Was-Cut-Off-From-Human-Contact-Unaware-of-World-War-II-188843001.html?device=iphone&amp;device=ipad\">family</a> of six lost in the Siberian taiga. Cut off from all human contact for 40 years, this Russian family lived on the side of a mountain 150 miles from the nearest settlement. It was an astonishing discovery because the Soviets had no records of anyone living in this area. Karp Lykov was an Old Believer, a member of a fundamentalist Russian Orthodox sect whose worship style has not changed since the 17th century. During Stalin\'s Great Purge of the 1930\'s, the Soviets killed Lykov\'s brother, and in 1936, Lykov fled to Siberia escaping religious persecution, retreating further from civilization deep in the Siberian taiga. Living in isolation from the rest of the world, Lykov and his family were unaware of World War II and lived on the edge of famine making survival next to impossible. Two of his children had never seen a human being that was not a member of their family. Perhaps the saddest aspect of the Lykovs\' strange story was the rapidity with which the family went into decline after they re-established contact with the outside world. Only Lykov\'s daughter, Agafia remains, and she will not leave her home in the Siberian taiga.\r\n\r\nMost people believe they are on the inevitable slide into irrelevance. I can see why: art, movies, culture, and even business reinforce this idea. When am I going to lose it? Can I keep up? There is some wisdom that you only get through having lived it and through years. There is an authority that comes from being older, but there is also a potential newness that is fresh as ever—a sifting and sorting of all I have experienced—creating a non-anxious, non-judgemental presence because I am older, and my roots run deep and I have seen it all.\r\n\r\nWe live the <a href=\"http://storylineblog.com/2013/01/28/when-you-fail-to-live-a-great-story/\">stories</a> we keep telling ourselves, and telling meaningful stories overlaps with living a meaningful life. There was a time when humans intuitively grappled with aging rooted in the divine redemptive activity of God. But unfortunately we are telling a different story—a story about how religion has skewed our perception of aging.\r\n\r\nReligion is new to humanity. It\'s been around about 5% of humanity\'s spiritual journey, which, on a conservative timescale, began to unfold about seventy thousand years ago. Yet most of us have grown up with a religious legacy. Unfortunately, these religious legacies have nurtured the belief that when one group checks out, the other says, \"we don’t need you,\" and everything falls apart. In many cultures you find the older need the idealism, energy and enthusiasm of the youth and the youth need the wisdom of the older.\r\n\r\nAnd when we embrace this, that\'s when the adventure begins.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nPhoto by gugusba\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','When Does The Adventure Begin?','','inherit','open','open','','8398-revision-13','','','2013-02-10 15:13:27','2013-02-10 23:13:27','',8398,'http://provoketive.com/2013/02/10/8398-revision-13/',0,'revision','',0),(8416,204,'2013-02-10 15:13:38','2013-02-10 23:13:38','\"Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.\"\r\n\r\nIs life an explosion of youth, then you reach your peak relevance, importance, and connectivity, and from there things taper off and then you get older and then you die?\r\n\r\nI\'ve been thinking about this a lot lately.\r\n\r\nI love Thai food and every week after yoga practice I eat dinner at a favorite Thai restaurant. All the servers know me, but there is one server that I enjoy seeing the most. I think she likes me too, not just because I tip her well, but I think she also enjoys the conversation. I recently learned that she plays in a band. She creates original material, but she also loves to interpret old songs in her own unique style.\r\n\r\nThere is a sense where something can be new in relation to time, but still be stale. And there is also a sense where something can be old in relation to time and still be new—like old songs sung in a new way. But it seems in our society that if something is new it is relevant, but if it is old it is irrelevant.\r\n\r\nThe line goes something like this: You are young. Then you do something, hopefully something unique. You reach your peak, and then you taper off. For a moment, it seems, you have your glory, and then at some point it\'s over and then you die. You die because there is something new that has replaced what was once new—there is a new way to go, a new style, a new theory—the next new thing.\r\n\r\nThere are reasons why older does not necessarily mean wiser, however. I think George Packer\'s <a href=\"http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/02/youth-age-music-news.html?mobify=0\">comments</a> in the New Yorker are spot on:\r\n<blockquote>Something unusual stopped me in these sentences from a Times article about a state-by-state study of flaws in the American electoral system: “A main goal of the exercise, which grew out of Professor Gerken’s 2009 book, ‘The Democracy Index,’ was to shame poor performers into doing better, she said. ‘Peer pressure produces horrible things like Britney Spears and Justin Bieber and tongue rings,’ Professor Gerken said. ‘But it also produces professional peer pressure.’” It almost took my breath away: Professor Heather Gerken, who is in her early forties, felt free to tell a reporter that Britney Spears and Justin Bieber, not to mention tongue rings, are horrible. Gerken broke one of the unwritten rules of being middle-aged: don’t go after the young and what they love. Not in print, anyway. Don’t open yourself up to the charge of curmudgeonliness, because the inevitable retort—“You just don’t get it, Professor! You sound like your parents!”—is probably accurate, certainly unanswerable, and absolutely devastating. Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.</blockquote>\r\nIf there is an unwritten rule not to go after the young and what they love, there is also an implicit question that asks, \"I am old, what do I have to say to the young?\" The answer, paradoxically, is that when you have the most amount of time, the most amount of wisdom, and sometimes the most amount of resources, you go to a place that guarantees you will not have influence on future generations—you retire. You leave us. And this is the problem: you can\'t leave us when we need you the most.\r\n\r\nIn 1978, Soviet geologists discovered a <a href=\"http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/For-40-Years-This-Russian-Family-Was-Cut-Off-From-Human-Contact-Unaware-of-World-War-II-188843001.html?device=iphone&amp;device=ipad\">family</a> of six lost in the Siberian taiga. Cut off from all human contact for 40 years, this Russian family lived on the side of a mountain 150 miles from the nearest settlement. It was an astonishing discovery because the Soviets had no records of anyone living in this area. Karp Lykov was an Old Believer, a member of a fundamentalist Russian Orthodox sect whose worship style has not changed since the 17th century. During Stalin\'s Great Purge of the 1930\'s, the Soviets killed Lykov\'s brother, and in 1936, Lykov fled to Siberia escaping religious persecution, retreating further from civilization deep in the Siberian taiga. Living in isolation from the rest of the world, Lykov and his family were unaware of World War II and lived on the edge of famine making survival next to impossible. Two of his children had never seen a human being that was not a member of their family. Perhaps the saddest aspect of the Lykovs\' strange story was the rapidity with which the family went into decline after they re-established contact with the outside world. Only Lykov\'s daughter, Agafia remains, and she will not leave her home in the Siberian taiga.\r\n\r\nMost people believe they are on the inevitable slide into irrelevance. I can see why: art, movies, culture, and even business reinforce this idea. When am I going to lose it? Can I keep up? There is some wisdom that you only get through having lived it and through years. There is an authority that comes from being older, but there is also a potential newness that is fresh as ever—a sifting and sorting of all I have experienced—creating a non-anxious, non-judgemental presence because I am older, and my roots run deep and I have seen it all.\r\n\r\nWe live the <a href=\"http://storylineblog.com/2013/01/28/when-you-fail-to-live-a-great-story/\">stories</a> we keep telling ourselves, and telling meaningful stories overlaps with living a meaningful life. There was a time when humans intuitively grappled with aging rooted in the divine redemptive activity of God. But unfortunately we are telling a different story—a story about how religion has skewed our perception of aging.\r\n\r\nReligion is new to humanity. It\'s been around about 5% of humanity\'s spiritual journey, which, on a conservative timescale, began to unfold about seventy thousand years ago. Yet most of us have grown up with a religious legacy. Unfortunately, these religious legacies have nurtured the belief that when one group checks out, the other says, \"we don’t need you,\" and everything falls apart. In many cultures you find the older need the idealism, energy and enthusiasm of the youth and the youth need the wisdom of the older.\r\n\r\nAnd when we embrace this, that\'s when the adventure begins.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nPhoto by gugusba\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','When Does The Adventure Begin?','','inherit','open','open','','8398-revision-14','','','2013-02-10 15:13:38','2013-02-10 23:13:38','',8398,'http://provoketive.com/2013/02/10/8398-revision-14/',0,'revision','',0),(8418,204,'2013-02-10 15:19:49','2013-02-10 23:19:49','\"Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.\"\r\n\r\nIs life an explosion of youth, then you reach your peak relevance, importance, and connectivity, and from there things taper off and then you get older and then you die?\r\n\r\nI\'ve been thinking about this a lot lately.\r\n\r\nI love Thai food and every week after yoga practice I eat dinner at a favorite Thai restaurant. All the servers know me, but there is one server that I enjoy seeing the most. I think she likes me too, not just because I tip her well, but I think she also enjoys the conversation. I recently learned that she plays in a band. She creates original material, but she also loves to interpret old songs in her own unique style.\r\n\r\nThere is a sense where something can be new in relation to time, but still be stale. And there is also a sense where something can be old in relation to time and still be new—like old songs sung in a new way. But it seems in our society that if something is new it is relevant, but if it is old it is irrelevant.\r\n\r\nThe line goes something like this: You are young. Then you do something, hopefully something unique. You reach your peak, and then you taper off. For a moment, it seems, you have your glory, and then at some point it\'s over and then you die. You die because there is something new that has replaced what was once new—there is a new way to go, a new style, a new theory—the next new thing.\r\n\r\nThere are reasons why older does not necessarily mean wiser, however. I think George Packer\'s <a href=\"http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/02/youth-age-music-news.html?mobify=0\">comments</a> in the New Yorker are spot on:\r\n<blockquote>Something unusual stopped me in these sentences from a Times article about a state-by-state study of flaws in the American electoral system: “A main goal of the exercise, which grew out of Professor Gerken’s 2009 book, ‘The Democracy Index,’ was to shame poor performers into doing better, she said. ‘Peer pressure produces horrible things like Britney Spears and Justin Bieber and tongue rings,’ Professor Gerken said. ‘But it also produces professional peer pressure.’” It almost took my breath away: Professor Heather Gerken, who is in her early forties, felt free to tell a reporter that Britney Spears and Justin Bieber, not to mention tongue rings, are horrible. Gerken broke one of the unwritten rules of being middle-aged: don’t go after the young and what they love. Not in print, anyway. Don’t open yourself up to the charge of curmudgeonliness, because the inevitable retort—“You just don’t get it, Professor! You sound like your parents!”—is probably accurate, certainly unanswerable, and absolutely devastating. Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.</blockquote>\r\nIf there is an unwritten rule not to go after the young and what they love, there is also an implicit question that asks, \"I am old, what do I have to say to the young?\" The answer, paradoxically, is that when you have the most amount of time, the most amount of wisdom, and sometimes the most amount of resources, you go to a place that guarantees you will not have influence on future generations—you retire. You leave us. And this is the problem: you can\'t leave us when we need you the most.\r\n\r\nIn 1978, Soviet geologists discovered a <a href=\"http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/For-40-Years-This-Russian-Family-Was-Cut-Off-From-Human-Contact-Unaware-of-World-War-II-188843001.html?device=iphone&amp;device=ipad\">family</a> of six lost in the Siberian taiga. Cut off from all human contact for 40 years, this Russian family lived on the side of a mountain 150 miles from the nearest settlement. It was an astonishing discovery because the Soviets had no records of anyone living in this area. Karp Lykov was an Old Believer, a member of a fundamentalist Russian Orthodox sect whose worship style has not changed since the 17th century. During Stalin\'s Great Purge of the 1930\'s, the Soviets killed Lykov\'s brother, and in 1936, Lykov fled to Siberia escaping religious persecution, retreating further from civilization deep in the Siberian taiga. Living in isolation from the rest of the world, Lykov and his family were unaware of World War II and lived on the edge of famine making survival next to impossible. Two of his children had never seen a human being that was not a member of their family. Perhaps the saddest aspect of the Lykovs\' strange story was the rapidity with which the family went into decline after they re-established contact with the outside world. Only Lykov\'s daughter, Agafia remains, and she will not leave her home in the Siberian taiga.\r\n\r\nMost people believe they are on the inevitable slide into irrelevance. I can see why: art, movies, culture, and even business reinforce this idea. When am I going to lose it? Can I keep up? There is some wisdom that you only get through having lived it and through years. There is an authority that comes from being older, but there is also a potential newness that is fresh as ever—a sifting and sorting of all I have experienced—creating a non-anxious, non-judgemental presence because I am older, and my roots run deep and I have seen it all.\r\n\r\nWe live the <a href=\"http://storylineblog.com/2013/01/28/when-you-fail-to-live-a-great-story/\">stories</a> we keep telling ourselves, and telling meaningful stories overlaps with living a meaningful life. There was a time when humans intuitively grappled with aging rooted in the divine redemptive activity of God. But unfortunately we are telling a different story—a story about how religion has skewed our perception of aging.\r\n\r\nReligion is new to humanity. It\'s been around about 5% of humanity\'s spiritual journey, which, on a conservative timescale, began to unfold about seventy thousand years ago. Yet most of us have grown up with a religious legacy. Unfortunately, these religious legacies have nurtured the belief that when one group checks out, the other says, \"we don’t need you,\" and everything falls apart. In many cultures you find the older need the idealism, energy and enthusiasm of the youth and the youth need the wisdom of the older.\r\n\r\nAnd when we embrace this, that\'s when the adventure begins.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nPhoto by gugusba\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','When Does The Adventure Begin?','','inherit','open','open','','8398-revision-16','','','2013-02-10 15:19:49','2013-02-10 23:19:49','',8398,'http://provoketive.com/2013/02/10/8398-revision-16/',0,'revision','',0),(8422,204,'2013-02-10 16:38:32','2013-02-11 00:38:32','\"Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.\"\r\n\r\nIs life an explosion of youth, then you reach your peak relevance, importance, and connectivity, and from there things taper off and then you get older and then you die?\r\n\r\nI\'ve been thinking about this a lot lately.\r\n\r\nI love Thai food and every week after yoga practice I eat dinner at a favorite Thai restaurant. All the servers know me, but there is one server that I enjoy seeing the most. I think she likes me too, not just because I tip her well, but I think she also enjoys the conversation. I recently learned that she plays in a band. She creates original material, but she also loves to interpret old songs in her own unique style.\r\n\r\nThere is a sense where something can be new in relation to time, but still be stale. And there is also a sense where something can be old in relation to time and still be new—like old songs sung in a new way. But it seems in our society that if something is new it is relevant, but if it is old it is irrelevant.\r\n\r\nThe line goes something like this: You are young. Then you do something, hopefully something unique. You reach your peak, and then you taper off. For a moment, it seems, you have your glory, and then at some point it\'s over and then you die. You die because there is something new that has replaced what was once new—there is a new way to go, a new style, a new theory—the next new thing.\r\n\r\nThere are reasons why older does not necessarily mean wiser, however. I think George Packer\'s <a href=\"http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/02/youth-age-music-news.html?mobify=0\">comments</a> in the New Yorker are spot on:\r\n<blockquote>Something unusual stopped me in these sentences from a Times article about a state-by-state study of flaws in the American electoral system: “A main goal of the exercise, which grew out of Professor Gerken’s 2009 book, ‘The Democracy Index,’ was to shame poor performers into doing better, she said. ‘Peer pressure produces horrible things like Britney Spears and Justin Bieber and tongue rings,’ Professor Gerken said. ‘But it also produces professional peer pressure.’” It almost took my breath away: Professor Heather Gerken, who is in her early forties, felt free to tell a reporter that Britney Spears and Justin Bieber, not to mention tongue rings, are horrible. Gerken broke one of the unwritten rules of being middle-aged: don’t go after the young and what they love. Not in print, anyway. Don’t open yourself up to the charge of curmudgeonliness, because the inevitable retort—“You just don’t get it, Professor! You sound like your parents!”—is probably accurate, certainly unanswerable, and absolutely devastating. Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.</blockquote>\r\nIf there is an unwritten rule not to go after the young and what they love, there is also an implicit question that asks, \"I am old, what do I have to say to the young?\" The answer, paradoxically, is that when you have the most amount of time, the most amount of wisdom, and sometimes the most amount of resources, you go to a place that guarantees you will not have influence on future generations—you retire. You leave us. And this is the problem: you can\'t leave us when we need you the most.\r\n\r\nIn 1978, Soviet geologists discovered a <a href=\"http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/For-40-Years-This-Russian-Family-Was-Cut-Off-From-Human-Contact-Unaware-of-World-War-II-188843001.html?device=iphone&amp;device=ipad\">family</a> of six lost in the Siberian taiga. Cut off from all human contact for 40 years, this Russian family lived on the side of a mountain 150 miles from the nearest settlement. It was an astonishing discovery because the Soviets had no records of anyone living in this area. Karp Lykov was an Old Believer, a member of a fundamentalist Russian Orthodox sect whose worship style has not changed since the 17th century. During Stalin\'s Great Purge of the 1930\'s, the Soviets killed Lykov\'s brother, and in 1936, Lykov fled to Siberia escaping religious persecution, retreating further from civilization deep in the Siberian taiga. Living in isolation from the rest of the world, Lykov and his family were unaware of World War II and lived on the edge of famine making survival next to impossible. Two of his children had never seen a human being that was not a member of their family. Perhaps the saddest aspect of the Lykovs\' strange story was the rapidity with which the family went into decline after they re-established contact with the outside world. Only Lykov\'s daughter, Agafia remains, and she will not leave her home in the Siberian taiga.\r\n\r\nMost people believe they are on the inevitable slide into irrelevance. I can see why: art, movies, culture, and even business reinforce this idea. When am I going to lose it? Can I keep up? There is some wisdom that you only get through having lived it and through years. There is an authority that comes from being older, but there is also a potential newness that is fresh as ever—a sifting and sorting of all I have experienced—creating a non-anxious, non-judgemental presence because I am older, and my roots run deep and I have seen it all.\r\n\r\nWe live the <a href=\"http://storylineblog.com/2013/01/28/when-you-fail-to-live-a-great-story/\">stories</a> we keep telling ourselves, and telling meaningful stories overlaps with living a meaningful life. There was a time when humans intuitively grappled with aging rooted in the divine redemptive activity of God. But unfortunately we are telling a different story—a story about how religion has skewed our perception of aging.\r\n\r\nReligion is new to humanity. It\'s been around about 5% of humanity\'s spiritual journey, which, on a conservative timescale, began to unfold about seventy thousand years ago. Yet most of us have grown up with a religious legacy. Unfortunately, these religious legacies have nurtured the belief that when one group checks out, the other says, \"we don’t need you,\" and everything falls apart. In many cultures you find the older need the idealism, energy and enthusiasm of the youth and the youth need the wisdom of the older.\r\n\r\nAnd when we embrace this, that\'s when the adventure begins.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','When Does The Adventure Begin?','','inherit','open','open','','8398-revision-19','','','2013-02-10 16:38:32','2013-02-11 00:38:32','',8398,'http://provoketive.com/2013/02/10/8398-revision-19/',0,'revision','',0),(8424,204,'2013-02-10 20:14:29','2013-02-11 04:14:29','\"Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.\"\n\nIs life an explosion of youth, then you reach your peak relevance, importance, and connectivity, and from there things taper off and then you get older and then you die?\n\nI\'ve been thinking about this a lot lately.\n\nI love Thai food and every week after yoga practice I eat dinner at a favorite Thai restaurant. All the servers know me, but there is one server that I enjoy seeing the most. I think she likes me too, not just because I tip her well, but I think she also enjoys the conversation. I recently learned that she plays in a band. She creates original material, but she also loves to interpret old songs in her own unique style.\n\nThere is a sense where something can be new in relation to time, but still be stale. And there is also a sense where something can be old in relation to time and still be new—like old songs sung in a new way. But it seems in our society that if something is new it is relevant, but if it is old it is irrelevant.\n\nThe line goes something like this: You are young. Then you do something, hopefully something unique. You reach your peak, and then you taper off. For a moment, it seems, you have your glory, and then at some point it\'s over and then you die. You die because there is something new that has replaced what was once new—there is a new way to go, a new style, a new theory—the next new thing.\n\nThere are reasons why older does not necessarily mean wiser, however. I think George Packer\'s <a href=\"http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/02/youth-age-music-news.html?mobify=0\">comments</a> in the New Yorker are spot on:\n<blockquote>Something unusual stopped me in these sentences from a Times article about a state-by-state study of flaws in the American electoral system: “A main goal of the exercise, which grew out of Professor Gerken’s 2009 book, ‘The Democracy Index,’ was to shame poor performers into doing better, she said. ‘Peer pressure produces horrible things like Britney Spears and Justin Bieber and tongue rings,’ Professor Gerken said. ‘But it also produces professional peer pressure.’” It almost took my breath away: Professor Heather Gerken, who is in her early forties, felt free to tell a reporter that Britney Spears and Justin Bieber, not to mention tongue rings, are horrible. Gerken broke one of the unwritten rules of being middle-aged: don’t go after the young and what they love. Not in print, anyway. Don’t open yourself up to the charge of curmudgeonliness, because the inevitable retort—“You just don’t get it, Professor! You sound like your parents!”—is probably accurate, certainly unanswerable, and absolutely devastating. Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.</blockquote>\nIf there is an unwritten rule not to go after the young and what they love, there is also an implicit question that asks, \"I am old, what do I have to say to the young?\" The answer, paradoxically, is that when you have the most amount of time, the most amount of wisdom, and sometimes the most amount of resources, you go to a place that guarantees you will not have influence on future generations—you retire. You leave us. And this is the problem: you can\'t leave us when we need you the most.\n\nIn 1978, Soviet geologists discovered a <a href=\"http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/For-40-Years-This-Russian-Family-Was-Cut-Off-From-Human-Contact-Unaware-of-World-War-II-188843001.html?device=iphone&amp;device=ipad\">family</a> of six lost in the Siberian taiga. Cut off from all human contact for 40 years, this Russian family lived on the side of a mountain 150 miles from the nearest settlement. It was an astonishing discovery because the Soviets had no records of anyone living in this area. Karp Lykov was an Old Believer, a member of a fundamentalist Russian Orthodox sect whose worship style has not changed since the 17th century. During Stalin\'s Great Purge of the 1930\'s, the Soviets killed Lykov\'s brother, and in 1936, Lykov fled to Siberia escaping religious persecution, retreating further from civilization deep in the Siberian taiga. Living in isolation from the rest of the world, Lykov and his family were unaware of World War II and lived on the edge of famine making survival next to impossible. Two of his children had never seen a human being that was not a member of their family. Perhaps the saddest aspect of the Lykovs\' strange story was the rapidity with which the family went into decline after they re-established contact with the outside world. Only Lykov\'s daughter, Agafia remains, and she will not leave her home in the Siberian taiga.\n\nMost people believe they are on the inevitable slide into irrelevance. I can see why: art, movies, culture, and even business reinforce this idea. When am I going to lose it? Can I keep up? There is some wisdom that you only get through having lived it and through years. There is an authority that comes from being older, but there is also a potential newness that is fresh as ever—a sifting and sorting of all I have experienced—creating a non-anxious, non-judgemental presence because I am older, and my roots run deep and I have seen it all.\n\nWe live the <a href=\"http://storylineblog.com/2013/01/28/when-you-fail-to-live-a-great-story/\">stories</a> we keep telling ourselves, and telling meaningful stories overlaps with living a meaningful life. There was a time when humans intuitively grappled with aging rooted in the divine redemptive activity of God. But unfortunately we are telling a different story—a story about how religion has skewed our perception of aging.\n\nReligion is new to humanity. It\'s been around about 5% of humanity\'s spiritual journey, which, on a conservative timescale, began to unfold about seventy thousand years ago. Yet most of us have grown up with a religious legacy. Unfortunately, these religious legacies have nurtured the belief that when one group checks out, the other says, \"we don’t need you,\" and everything falls apart. In many cultures you find the older need the idealism, energy and enthusiasm of the youth and the youth need the wisdom of the older.\n\nAnd when we embrace this, that\'s when the adventure begins.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;','When Does The Adventure Begin?','','inherit','open','open','','8398-revision-20','','','2013-02-10 20:14:29','2013-02-11 04:14:29','',8398,'http://provoketive.com/2013/02/10/8398-revision-20/',0,'revision','',0),(8425,204,'2013-02-10 20:15:30','2013-02-11 04:15:30','\"Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.\"\n\n&nbsp;\n\nIs life an explosion of youth, then you reach your peak relevance, importance, and connectivity, and from there things taper off and then you get older and then you die?\n\nI\'ve been thinking about this a lot lately.\n\nI love Thai food and every week after yoga practice I eat dinner at a favorite Thai restaurant. All the servers know me, but there is one server that I enjoy seeing the most. I think she likes me too, not just because I tip her well, but I think she also enjoys the conversation. I recently learned that she plays in a band. She creates original material, but she also loves to interpret old songs in her own unique style.\n\nThere is a sense where something can be new in relation to time, but still be stale. And there is also a sense where something can be old in relation to time and still be new—like old songs sung in a new way. But it seems in our society that if something is new it is relevant, but if it is old it is irrelevant.\n\nThe line goes something like this: You are young. Then you do something, hopefully something unique. You reach your peak, and then you taper off. For a moment, it seems, you have your glory, and then at some point it\'s over and then you die. You die because there is something new that has replaced what was once new—there is a new way to go, a new style, a new theory—the next new thing.\n\nThere are reasons why older does not necessarily mean wiser, however. I think George Packer\'s <a href=\"http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/02/youth-age-music-news.html?mobify=0\">comments</a> in the New Yorker are spot on:\n<blockquote>Something unusual stopped me in these sentences from a Times article about a state-by-state study of flaws in the American electoral system: “A main goal of the exercise, which grew out of Professor Gerken’s 2009 book, ‘The Democracy Index,’ was to shame poor performers into doing better, she said. ‘Peer pressure produces horrible things like Britney Spears and Justin Bieber and tongue rings,’ Professor Gerken said. ‘But it also produces professional peer pressure.’” It almost took my breath away: Professor Heather Gerken, who is in her early forties, felt free to tell a reporter that Britney Spears and Justin Bieber, not to mention tongue rings, are horrible. Gerken broke one of the unwritten rules of being middle-aged: don’t go after the young and what they love. Not in print, anyway. Don’t open yourself up to the charge of curmudgeonliness, because the inevitable retort—“You just don’t get it, Professor! You sound like your parents!”—is probably accurate, certainly unanswerable, and absolutely devastating. Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.</blockquote>\nIf there is an unwritten rule not to go after the young and what they love, there is also an implicit question that asks, \"I am old, what do I have to say to the young?\" The answer, paradoxically, is that when you have the most amount of time, the most amount of wisdom, and sometimes the most amount of resources, you go to a place that guarantees you will not have influence on future generations—you retire. You leave us. And this is the problem: you can\'t leave us when we need you the most.\n\nIn 1978, Soviet geologists discovered a <a href=\"http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/For-40-Years-This-Russian-Family-Was-Cut-Off-From-Human-Contact-Unaware-of-World-War-II-188843001.html?device=iphone&amp;device=ipad\">family</a> of six lost in the Siberian taiga. Cut off from all human contact for 40 years, this Russian family lived on the side of a mountain 150 miles from the nearest settlement. It was an astonishing discovery because the Soviets had no records of anyone living in this area. Karp Lykov was an Old Believer, a member of a fundamentalist Russian Orthodox sect whose worship style has not changed since the 17th century. During Stalin\'s Great Purge of the 1930\'s, the Soviets killed Lykov\'s brother, and in 1936, Lykov fled to Siberia escaping religious persecution, retreating further from civilization deep in the Siberian taiga. Living in isolation from the rest of the world, Lykov and his family were unaware of World War II and lived on the edge of famine making survival next to impossible. Two of his children had never seen a human being that was not a member of their family. Perhaps the saddest aspect of the Lykovs\' strange story was the rapidity with which the family went into decline after they re-established contact with the outside world. Only Lykov\'s daughter, Agafia remains, and she will not leave her home in the Siberian taiga.\n\nMost people believe they are on the inevitable slide into irrelevance. I can see why: art, movies, culture, and even business reinforce this idea. When am I going to lose it? Can I keep up? There is some wisdom that you only get through having lived it and through years. There is an authority that comes from being older, but there is also a potential newness that is fresh as ever—a sifting and sorting of all I have experienced—creating a non-anxious, non-judgemental presence because I am older, and my roots run deep and I have seen it all.\n\nWe live the <a href=\"http://storylineblog.com/2013/01/28/when-you-fail-to-live-a-great-story/\">stories</a> we keep telling ourselves, and telling meaningful stories overlaps with living a meaningful life. There was a time when humans intuitively grappled with aging rooted in the divine redemptive activity of God. But unfortunately we are telling a different story—a story about how religion has skewed our perception of aging.\n\nReligion is new to humanity. It\'s been around about 5% of humanity\'s spiritual journey, which, on a conservative timescale, began to unfold about seventy thousand years ago. Yet most of us have grown up with a religious legacy. Unfortunately, these religious legacies have nurtured the belief that when one group checks out, the other says, \"we don’t need you,\" and everything falls apart. In many cultures you find the older need the idealism, energy and enthusiasm of the youth and the youth need the wisdom of the older.\n\nAnd when we embrace this, that\'s when the adventure begins.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;','When Does The Adventure Begin?','','inherit','open','open','','8398-revision-21','','','2013-02-10 20:15:30','2013-02-11 04:15:30','',8398,'http://provoketive.com/2013/02/10/8398-revision-21/',0,'revision','',0),(8427,204,'2013-02-10 20:16:29','2013-02-11 04:16:29','Is life an explosion of youth, then you reach your peak relevance, importance, and connectivity, and from there things taper off and then you get older and then you die?\r\n\r\nI\'ve been thinking about this a lot lately.\r\n\r\nI love Thai food and every week after yoga practice I eat dinner at a favorite Thai restaurant. All the servers know me, but there is one server that I enjoy seeing the most. I think she likes me too, not just because I tip her well, but I think she also enjoys the conversation. I recently learned that she plays in a band. She creates original material, but she also loves to interpret old songs in her own unique style.\r\n\r\nThere is a sense where something can be new in relation to time, but still be stale. And there is also a sense where something can be old in relation to time and still be new—like old songs sung in a new way. But it seems in our society that if something is new it is relevant, but if it is old it is irrelevant.\r\n\r\nThe line goes something like this: You are young. Then you do something, hopefully something unique. You reach your peak, and then you taper off. For a moment, it seems, you have your glory, and then at some point it\'s over and then you die. You die because there is something new that has replaced what was once new—there is a new way to go, a new style, a new theory—the next new thing.\r\n\r\nThere are reasons why older does not necessarily mean wiser, however. I think George Packer\'s <a href=\"http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/02/youth-age-music-news.html?mobify=0\">comments</a> in the New Yorker are spot on:\r\n<blockquote>Something unusual stopped me in these sentences from a Times article about a state-by-state study of flaws in the American electoral system: “A main goal of the exercise, which grew out of Professor Gerken’s 2009 book, ‘The Democracy Index,’ was to shame poor performers into doing better, she said. ‘Peer pressure produces horrible things like Britney Spears and Justin Bieber and tongue rings,’ Professor Gerken said. ‘But it also produces professional peer pressure.’” It almost took my breath away: Professor Heather Gerken, who is in her early forties, felt free to tell a reporter that Britney Spears and Justin Bieber, not to mention tongue rings, are horrible. Gerken broke one of the unwritten rules of being middle-aged: don’t go after the young and what they love. Not in print, anyway. Don’t open yourself up to the charge of curmudgeonliness, because the inevitable retort—“You just don’t get it, Professor! You sound like your parents!”—is probably accurate, certainly unanswerable, and absolutely devastating. Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.</blockquote>\r\nIf there is an unwritten rule not to go after the young and what they love, there is also an implicit question that asks, \"I am old, what do I have to say to the young?\" The answer, paradoxically, is that when you have the most amount of time, the most amount of wisdom, and sometimes the most amount of resources, you go to a place that guarantees you will not have influence on future generations—you retire. You leave us. And this is the problem: you can\'t leave us when we need you the most.\r\n\r\nIn 1978, Soviet geologists discovered a <a href=\"http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/For-40-Years-This-Russian-Family-Was-Cut-Off-From-Human-Contact-Unaware-of-World-War-II-188843001.html?device=iphone&amp;device=ipad\">family</a> of six lost in the Siberian taiga. Cut off from all human contact for 40 years, this Russian family lived on the side of a mountain 150 miles from the nearest settlement. It was an astonishing discovery because the Soviets had no records of anyone living in this area. Karp Lykov was an Old Believer, a member of a fundamentalist Russian Orthodox sect whose worship style has not changed since the 17th century. During Stalin\'s Great Purge of the 1930\'s, the Soviets killed Lykov\'s brother, and in 1936, Lykov fled to Siberia escaping religious persecution, retreating further from civilization deep in the Siberian taiga. Living in isolation from the rest of the world, Lykov and his family were unaware of World War II and lived on the edge of famine making survival next to impossible. Two of his children had never seen a human being that was not a member of their family. Perhaps the saddest aspect of the Lykovs\' strange story was the rapidity with which the family went into decline after they re-established contact with the outside world. Only Lykov\'s daughter, Agafia remains, and she will not leave her home in the Siberian taiga.\r\n\r\nMost people believe they are on the inevitable slide into irrelevance. I can see why: art, movies, culture, and even business reinforce this idea. When am I going to lose it? Can I keep up? There is some wisdom that you only get through having lived it and through years. There is an authority that comes from being older, but there is also a potential newness that is fresh as ever—a sifting and sorting of all I have experienced—creating a non-anxious, non-judgemental presence because I am older, and my roots run deep and I have seen it all.\r\n\r\nWe live the <a href=\"http://storylineblog.com/2013/01/28/when-you-fail-to-live-a-great-story/\">stories</a> we keep telling ourselves, and telling meaningful stories overlaps with living a meaningful life. There was a time when humans intuitively grappled with aging rooted in the divine redemptive activity of God. But unfortunately we are telling a different story—a story about how religion has skewed our perception of aging.\r\n\r\nReligion is new to humanity. It\'s been around about 5% of humanity\'s spiritual journey, which, on a conservative timescale, began to unfold about seventy thousand years ago. Yet most of us have grown up with a religious legacy. Unfortunately, these religious legacies have nurtured the belief that when one group checks out, the other says, \"we don’t need you,\" and everything falls apart. In many cultures you find the older need the idealism, energy and enthusiasm of the youth and the youth need the wisdom of the older.\r\n\r\nAnd when we embrace this, that\'s when the adventure begins.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','When Does The Adventure Begin?','','inherit','open','open','','8398-revision-23','','','2013-02-10 20:16:29','2013-02-11 04:16:29','',8398,'http://provoketive.com/2013/02/10/8398-revision-23/',0,'revision','',0),(8426,204,'2013-02-10 20:15:40','2013-02-11 04:15:40','\"Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.\"\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nIs life an explosion of youth, then you reach your peak relevance, importance, and connectivity, and from there things taper off and then you get older and then you die?\r\n\r\nI\'ve been thinking about this a lot lately.\r\n\r\nI love Thai food and every week after yoga practice I eat dinner at a favorite Thai restaurant. All the servers know me, but there is one server that I enjoy seeing the most. I think she likes me too, not just because I tip her well, but I think she also enjoys the conversation. I recently learned that she plays in a band. She creates original material, but she also loves to interpret old songs in her own unique style.\r\n\r\nThere is a sense where something can be new in relation to time, but still be stale. And there is also a sense where something can be old in relation to time and still be new—like old songs sung in a new way. But it seems in our society that if something is new it is relevant, but if it is old it is irrelevant.\r\n\r\nThe line goes something like this: You are young. Then you do something, hopefully something unique. You reach your peak, and then you taper off. For a moment, it seems, you have your glory, and then at some point it\'s over and then you die. You die because there is something new that has replaced what was once new—there is a new way to go, a new style, a new theory—the next new thing.\r\n\r\nThere are reasons why older does not necessarily mean wiser, however. I think George Packer\'s <a href=\"http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/02/youth-age-music-news.html?mobify=0\">comments</a> in the New Yorker are spot on:\r\n<blockquote>Something unusual stopped me in these sentences from a Times article about a state-by-state study of flaws in the American electoral system: “A main goal of the exercise, which grew out of Professor Gerken’s 2009 book, ‘The Democracy Index,’ was to shame poor performers into doing better, she said. ‘Peer pressure produces horrible things like Britney Spears and Justin Bieber and tongue rings,’ Professor Gerken said. ‘But it also produces professional peer pressure.’” It almost took my breath away: Professor Heather Gerken, who is in her early forties, felt free to tell a reporter that Britney Spears and Justin Bieber, not to mention tongue rings, are horrible. Gerken broke one of the unwritten rules of being middle-aged: don’t go after the young and what they love. Not in print, anyway. Don’t open yourself up to the charge of curmudgeonliness, because the inevitable retort—“You just don’t get it, Professor! You sound like your parents!”—is probably accurate, certainly unanswerable, and absolutely devastating. Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.</blockquote>\r\nIf there is an unwritten rule not to go after the young and what they love, there is also an implicit question that asks, \"I am old, what do I have to say to the young?\" The answer, paradoxically, is that when you have the most amount of time, the most amount of wisdom, and sometimes the most amount of resources, you go to a place that guarantees you will not have influence on future generations—you retire. You leave us. And this is the problem: you can\'t leave us when we need you the most.\r\n\r\nIn 1978, Soviet geologists discovered a <a href=\"http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/For-40-Years-This-Russian-Family-Was-Cut-Off-From-Human-Contact-Unaware-of-World-War-II-188843001.html?device=iphone&amp;device=ipad\">family</a> of six lost in the Siberian taiga. Cut off from all human contact for 40 years, this Russian family lived on the side of a mountain 150 miles from the nearest settlement. It was an astonishing discovery because the Soviets had no records of anyone living in this area. Karp Lykov was an Old Believer, a member of a fundamentalist Russian Orthodox sect whose worship style has not changed since the 17th century. During Stalin\'s Great Purge of the 1930\'s, the Soviets killed Lykov\'s brother, and in 1936, Lykov fled to Siberia escaping religious persecution, retreating further from civilization deep in the Siberian taiga. Living in isolation from the rest of the world, Lykov and his family were unaware of World War II and lived on the edge of famine making survival next to impossible. Two of his children had never seen a human being that was not a member of their family. Perhaps the saddest aspect of the Lykovs\' strange story was the rapidity with which the family went into decline after they re-established contact with the outside world. Only Lykov\'s daughter, Agafia remains, and she will not leave her home in the Siberian taiga.\r\n\r\nMost people believe they are on the inevitable slide into irrelevance. I can see why: art, movies, culture, and even business reinforce this idea. When am I going to lose it? Can I keep up? There is some wisdom that you only get through having lived it and through years. There is an authority that comes from being older, but there is also a potential newness that is fresh as ever—a sifting and sorting of all I have experienced—creating a non-anxious, non-judgemental presence because I am older, and my roots run deep and I have seen it all.\r\n\r\nWe live the <a href=\"http://storylineblog.com/2013/01/28/when-you-fail-to-live-a-great-story/\">stories</a> we keep telling ourselves, and telling meaningful stories overlaps with living a meaningful life. There was a time when humans intuitively grappled with aging rooted in the divine redemptive activity of God. But unfortunately we are telling a different story—a story about how religion has skewed our perception of aging.\r\n\r\nReligion is new to humanity. It\'s been around about 5% of humanity\'s spiritual journey, which, on a conservative timescale, began to unfold about seventy thousand years ago. Yet most of us have grown up with a religious legacy. Unfortunately, these religious legacies have nurtured the belief that when one group checks out, the other says, \"we don’t need you,\" and everything falls apart. In many cultures you find the older need the idealism, energy and enthusiasm of the youth and the youth need the wisdom of the older.\r\n\r\nAnd when we embrace this, that\'s when the adventure begins.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','When Does The Adventure Begin?','','inherit','open','open','','8398-revision-22','','','2013-02-10 20:15:40','2013-02-11 04:15:40','',8398,'http://provoketive.com/2013/02/10/8398-revision-22/',0,'revision','',0),(8428,204,'2013-02-10 20:16:44','2013-02-11 04:16:44','Is life an explosion of youth, then you reach your peak relevance, importance, and connectivity, and from there things taper off and then you get older and then you die?\r\n\r\nI\'ve been thinking about this a lot lately.\r\n\r\nI love Thai food and every week after yoga practice I eat dinner at a favorite Thai restaurant. All the servers know me, but there is one server that I enjoy seeing the most. I think she likes me too, not just because I tip her well, but I think she also enjoys the conversation. I recently learned that she plays in a band. She creates original material, but she also loves to interpret old songs in her own unique style.\r\n\r\nThere is a sense where something can be new in relation to time, but still be stale. And there is also a sense where something can be old in relation to time and still be new—like old songs sung in a new way. But it seems in our society that if something is new it is relevant, but if it is old it is irrelevant.\r\n\r\nThe line goes something like this: You are young. Then you do something, hopefully something unique. You reach your peak, and then you taper off. For a moment, it seems, you have your glory, and then at some point it\'s over and then you die. You die because there is something new that has replaced what was once new—there is a new way to go, a new style, a new theory—the next new thing.\r\n\r\nThere are reasons why older does not necessarily mean wiser, however. I think George Packer\'s <a href=\"http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/02/youth-age-music-news.html?mobify=0\">comments</a> in the New Yorker are spot on:\r\n<blockquote>Something unusual stopped me in these sentences from a Times article about a state-by-state study of flaws in the American electoral system: “A main goal of the exercise, which grew out of Professor Gerken’s 2009 book, ‘The Democracy Index,’ was to shame poor performers into doing better, she said. ‘Peer pressure produces horrible things like Britney Spears and Justin Bieber and tongue rings,’ Professor Gerken said. ‘But it also produces professional peer pressure.’” It almost took my breath away: Professor Heather Gerken, who is in her early forties, felt free to tell a reporter that Britney Spears and Justin Bieber, not to mention tongue rings, are horrible. Gerken broke one of the unwritten rules of being middle-aged: don’t go after the young and what they love. Not in print, anyway. Don’t open yourself up to the charge of curmudgeonliness, because the inevitable retort—“You just don’t get it, Professor! You sound like your parents!”—is probably accurate, certainly unanswerable, and absolutely devastating. Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.</blockquote>\r\nIf there is an unwritten rule not to go after the young and what they love, there is also an implicit question that asks, \"I am old, what do I have to say to the young?\" The answer, paradoxically, is that when you have the most amount of time, the most amount of wisdom, and sometimes the most amount of resources, you go to a place that guarantees you will not have influence on future generations—you retire. You leave us. And this is the problem: you can\'t leave us when we need you the most.\r\n\r\nIn 1978, Soviet geologists discovered a <a href=\"http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/For-40-Years-This-Russian-Family-Was-Cut-Off-From-Human-Contact-Unaware-of-World-War-II-188843001.html?device=iphone&amp;device=ipad\">family</a> of six lost in the Siberian taiga. Cut off from all human contact for 40 years, this Russian family lived on the side of a mountain 150 miles from the nearest settlement. It was an astonishing discovery because the Soviets had no records of anyone living in this area. Karp Lykov was an Old Believer, a member of a fundamentalist Russian Orthodox sect whose worship style has not changed since the 17th century. During Stalin\'s Great Purge of the 1930\'s, the Soviets killed Lykov\'s brother, and in 1936, Lykov fled to Siberia escaping religious persecution, retreating further from civilization deep in the Siberian taiga. Living in isolation from the rest of the world, Lykov and his family were unaware of World War II and lived on the edge of famine making survival next to impossible. Two of his children had never seen a human being that was not a member of their family. Perhaps the saddest aspect of the Lykovs\' strange story was the rapidity with which the family went into decline after they re-established contact with the outside world. Only Lykov\'s daughter, Agafia remains, and she will not leave her home in the Siberian taiga.\r\n\r\nMost people believe they are on the inevitable slide into irrelevance. I can see why: art, movies, culture, and even business reinforce this idea. When am I going to lose it? Can I keep up? There is some wisdom that you only get through having lived it and through years. There is an authority that comes from being older, but there is also a potential newness that is fresh as ever—a sifting and sorting of all I have experienced—creating a non-anxious, non-judgemental presence because I am older, and my roots run deep and I have seen it all.\r\n\r\nWe live the <a href=\"http://storylineblog.com/2013/01/28/when-you-fail-to-live-a-great-story/\">stories</a> we keep telling ourselves, and telling meaningful stories overlaps with living a meaningful life. There was a time when humans intuitively grappled with aging rooted in the divine redemptive activity of God. But unfortunately we are telling a different story—a story about how religion has skewed our perception of aging.\r\n\r\nReligion is new to humanity. It\'s been around about 5% of humanity\'s spiritual journey, which, on a conservative timescale, began to unfold about seventy thousand years ago. Yet most of us have grown up with a religious legacy. Unfortunately, these religious legacies have nurtured the belief that when one group checks out, the other says, \"we don’t need you,\" and everything falls apart. In many cultures you find the older need the idealism, energy and enthusiasm of the youth and the youth need the wisdom of the older.\r\n\r\nAnd when we embrace this, that\'s when the adventure begins.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','When Does The Adventure Begin?','','inherit','open','open','','8398-revision-24','','','2013-02-10 20:16:44','2013-02-11 04:16:44','',8398,'http://provoketive.com/2013/02/10/8398-revision-24/',0,'revision','',0),(8429,204,'2013-02-10 20:20:08','2013-02-11 04:20:08','Is life an explosion of youth, then you reach your peak relevance, importance, and connectivity, and from there things taper off and then you get older and then you die?\r\n\r\nI\'ve been thinking about this a lot lately.\r\n\r\nI love Thai food and every week after yoga practice I eat dinner at a favorite Thai restaurant. All the servers know me, but there is one server that I enjoy seeing the most. I think she likes me too, not just because I tip her well, but I think she also enjoys the conversation. I recently learned that she plays in a band. She creates original material, but she also loves to interpret old songs in her own unique style.\r\n\r\nThere is a sense where something can be new in relation to time, but still be stale. And there is also a sense where something can be old in relation to time and still be new—like old songs sung in a new way. But it seems in our society that if something is new it is relevant, but if it is old it is irrelevant.\r\n\r\nThe line goes something like this: You are young. Then you do something, hopefully something unique. You reach your peak, and then you taper off. For a moment, it seems, you have your glory, and then at some point it\'s over and then you die. You die because there is something new that has replaced what was once new—there is a new way to go, a new style, a new theory—the next new thing.\r\n\r\nThere are reasons why older does not necessarily mean wiser, however. I think George Packer\'s <a href=\"http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/02/youth-age-music-news.html?mobify=0\">comments</a> in the New Yorker are spot on:\r\n<blockquote>Something unusual stopped me in these sentences from a Times article about a state-by-state study of flaws in the American electoral system: “A main goal of the exercise, which grew out of Professor Gerken’s 2009 book, ‘The Democracy Index,’ was to shame poor performers into doing better, she said. ‘Peer pressure produces horrible things like Britney Spears and Justin Bieber and tongue rings,’ Professor Gerken said. ‘But it also produces professional peer pressure.’” It almost took my breath away: Professor Heather Gerken, who is in her early forties, felt free to tell a reporter that Britney Spears and Justin Bieber, not to mention tongue rings, are horrible. Gerken broke one of the unwritten rules of being middle-aged: don’t go after the young and what they love. Not in print, anyway. Don’t open yourself up to the charge of curmudgeonliness, because the inevitable retort—“You just don’t get it, Professor! You sound like your parents!”—is probably accurate, certainly unanswerable, and absolutely devastating. Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.</blockquote>\r\nIf there is an unwritten rule not to go after the young and what they love, there is also an implicit question that asks, \"I am old, what do I have to say to the young?\" The answer, paradoxically, is that when you have the most amount of time, the most amount of wisdom, and sometimes the most amount of resources, you go to a place that guarantees you will not have influence on future generations—you retire.\r\n\r\nYou leave us.\r\n\r\nAnd this is the problem: you can\'t leave us when we need you the most.\r\n\r\nIn 1978, Soviet geologists discovered a <a href=\"http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/For-40-Years-This-Russian-Family-Was-Cut-Off-From-Human-Contact-Unaware-of-World-War-II-188843001.html?device=iphone&amp;device=ipad\">family</a> of six lost in the Siberian taiga. Cut off from all human contact for 40 years, this Russian family lived on the side of a mountain 150 miles from the nearest settlement. It was an astonishing discovery because the Soviets had no records of anyone living in this area. Karp Lykov was an Old Believer, a member of a fundamentalist Russian Orthodox sect whose worship style has not changed since the 17th century. During Stalin\'s Great Purge of the 1930\'s, the Soviets killed Lykov\'s brother, and in 1936, Lykov fled to Siberia escaping religious persecution, retreating further from civilization deep in the Siberian taiga. Living in isolation from the rest of the world, Lykov and his family were unaware of World War II and lived on the edge of famine making survival next to impossible. Two of his children had never seen a human being that was not a member of their family. Perhaps the saddest aspect of the Lykovs\' strange story was the rapidity with which the family went into decline after they re-established contact with the outside world. Only Lykov\'s daughter, Agafia remains, and she will not leave her home in the Siberian taiga.\r\n\r\nMost people believe they are on the inevitable slide into irrelevance. I can see why: art, movies, culture, and even business reinforce this idea. When am I going to lose it? Can I keep up? There is some wisdom that you only get through having lived it and through years. There is an authority that comes from being older, but there is also a potential newness that is fresh as ever—a sifting and sorting of all I have experienced—creating a non-anxious, non-judgemental presence because I am older, and my roots run deep and I have seen it all.\r\n\r\nWe live the <a href=\"http://storylineblog.com/2013/01/28/when-you-fail-to-live-a-great-story/\">stories</a> we keep telling ourselves, and telling meaningful stories overlaps with living a meaningful life. There was a time when humans intuitively grappled with aging rooted in the divine redemptive activity of God. But unfortunately we are telling a different story—a story about how religion has skewed our perception of aging.\r\n\r\nReligion is new to humanity. It\'s been around about 5% of humanity\'s spiritual journey, which, on a conservative timescale, began to unfold about seventy thousand years ago. Yet most of us have grown up with a religious legacy. Unfortunately, these religious legacies have nurtured the belief that when one group checks out, the other says, \"we don’t need you,\" and everything falls apart. In many cultures you find the older need the idealism, energy and enthusiasm of the youth and the youth need the wisdom of the older.\r\n\r\nAnd when we embrace this, that\'s when the adventure begins.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n*photo by bokkels\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','When Does The Adventure Begin?','','inherit','open','open','','8398-revision-25','','','2013-02-10 20:20:08','2013-02-11 04:20:08','',8398,'http://provoketive.com/2013/02/10/8398-revision-25/',0,'revision','',0),(8430,204,'2013-02-10 20:20:54','2013-02-11 04:20:54','Is life an explosion of youth, then you reach your peak relevance, importance, and connectivity, and from there things taper off and then you get older and then you die?\r\n\r\nI\'ve been thinking about this a lot lately.\r\n\r\nI love Thai food and every week after yoga practice I eat dinner at a favorite Thai restaurant. All the servers know me, but there is one server that I enjoy seeing the most. I think she likes me too, not just because I tip her well, but I think she also enjoys the conversation. I recently learned that she plays in a band. She creates original material, but she also loves to interpret old songs in her own unique style.\r\n\r\nThere is a sense where something can be new in relation to time, but still be stale. And there is also a sense where something can be old in relation to time and still be new—like old songs sung in a new way. But it seems in our society that if something is new it is relevant, but if it is old it is irrelevant.\r\n\r\nThe line goes something like this: You are young. Then you do something, hopefully something unique. You reach your peak, and then you taper off. For a moment, it seems, you have your glory, and then at some point it\'s over and then you die. You die because there is something new that has replaced what was once new—there is a new way to go, a new style, a new theory—the next new thing.\r\n\r\nThere are reasons why older does not necessarily mean wiser, however. I think George Packer\'s <a href=\"http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/02/youth-age-music-news.html?mobify=0\">comments</a> in the New Yorker are spot on:\r\n<blockquote>Something unusual stopped me in these sentences from a Times article about a state-by-state study of flaws in the American electoral system: “A main goal of the exercise, which grew out of Professor Gerken’s 2009 book, ‘The Democracy Index,’ was to shame poor performers into doing better, she said. ‘Peer pressure produces horrible things like Britney Spears and Justin Bieber and tongue rings,’ Professor Gerken said. ‘But it also produces professional peer pressure.’” It almost took my breath away: Professor Heather Gerken, who is in her early forties, felt free to tell a reporter that Britney Spears and Justin Bieber, not to mention tongue rings, are horrible. Gerken broke one of the unwritten rules of being middle-aged: don’t go after the young and what they love. Not in print, anyway. Don’t open yourself up to the charge of curmudgeonliness, because the inevitable retort—“You just don’t get it, Professor! You sound like your parents!”—is probably accurate, certainly unanswerable, and absolutely devastating. Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.</blockquote>\r\nIf there is an unwritten rule not to go after the young and what they love, there is also an implicit question that asks, \"I am old, what do I have to say to the young?\" The answer, paradoxically, is that when you have the most amount of time, the most amount of wisdom, and sometimes the most amount of resources, you go to a place that guarantees you will not have influence on future generations—you retire.\r\n\r\nYou leave us.\r\n\r\nAnd this is the problem:  you can\'t leave us when we need you the most.\r\n\r\nIn 1978, Soviet geologists discovered a <a href=\"http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/For-40-Years-This-Russian-Family-Was-Cut-Off-From-Human-Contact-Unaware-of-World-War-II-188843001.html?device=iphone&amp;device=ipad\">family</a> of six lost in the Siberian taiga. Cut off from all human contact for 40 years, this Russian family lived on the side of a mountain 150 miles from the nearest settlement. It was an astonishing discovery because the Soviets had no records of anyone living in this area. Karp Lykov was an Old Believer, a member of a fundamentalist Russian Orthodox sect whose worship style has not changed since the 17th century. During Stalin\'s Great Purge of the 1930\'s, the Soviets killed Lykov\'s brother, and in 1936, Lykov fled to Siberia escaping religious persecution, retreating further from civilization deep in the Siberian taiga. Living in isolation from the rest of the world, Lykov and his family were unaware of World War II and lived on the edge of famine making survival next to impossible. Two of his children had never seen a human being that was not a member of their family. Perhaps the saddest aspect of the Lykovs\' strange story was the rapidity with which the family went into decline after they re-established contact with the outside world. Only Lykov\'s daughter, Agafia remains, and she will not leave her home in the Siberian taiga.\r\n\r\nMost people believe they are on the inevitable slide into irrelevance. I can see why: art, movies, culture, and even business reinforce this idea. When am I going to lose it? Can I keep up? There is some wisdom that you only get through having lived it and through years. There is an authority that comes from being older, but there is also a potential newness that is fresh as ever—a sifting and sorting of all I have experienced—creating a non-anxious, non-judgemental presence because I am older, and my roots run deep and I have seen it all.\r\n\r\nWe live the <a href=\"http://storylineblog.com/2013/01/28/when-you-fail-to-live-a-great-story/\">stories</a> we keep telling ourselves, and telling meaningful stories overlaps with living a meaningful life. There was a time when humans intuitively grappled with aging rooted in the divine redemptive activity of God. But unfortunately we are telling a different story—a story about how religion has skewed our perception of aging.\r\n\r\nReligion is new to humanity. It\'s been around about 5% of humanity\'s spiritual journey, which, on a conservative timescale, began to unfold about seventy thousand years ago. Yet most of us have grown up with a religious legacy. Unfortunately, these religious legacies have nurtured the belief that when one group checks out, the other says, \"we don’t need you,\" and everything falls apart. In many cultures you find the older need the idealism, energy and enthusiasm of the youth and the youth need the wisdom of the older.\r\n\r\nAnd when we embrace this, that\'s when the adventure begins.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n*photo by bokkels\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','When Does The Adventure Begin?','','inherit','open','open','','8398-revision-26','','','2013-02-10 20:20:54','2013-02-11 04:20:54','',8398,'http://provoketive.com/2013/02/10/8398-revision-26/',0,'revision','',0),(8431,204,'2013-02-10 20:21:04','2013-02-11 04:21:04','Is life an explosion of youth, then you reach your peak relevance, importance, and connectivity, and from there things taper off and then you get older and then you die?\r\n\r\nI\'ve been thinking about this a lot lately.\r\n\r\nI love Thai food and every week after yoga practice I eat dinner at a favorite Thai restaurant. All the servers know me, but there is one server that I enjoy seeing the most. I think she likes me too, not just because I tip her well, but I think she also enjoys the conversation. I recently learned that she plays in a band. She creates original material, but she also loves to interpret old songs in her own unique style.\r\n\r\nThere is a sense where something can be new in relation to time, but still be stale. And there is also a sense where something can be old in relation to time and still be new—like old songs sung in a new way. But it seems in our society that if something is new it is relevant, but if it is old it is irrelevant.\r\n\r\nThe line goes something like this: You are young. Then you do something, hopefully something unique. You reach your peak, and then you taper off. For a moment, it seems, you have your glory, and then at some point it\'s over and then you die. You die because there is something new that has replaced what was once new—there is a new way to go, a new style, a new theory—the next new thing.\r\n\r\nThere are reasons why older does not necessarily mean wiser, however. I think George Packer\'s <a href=\"http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/02/youth-age-music-news.html?mobify=0\">comments</a> in the New Yorker are spot on:\r\n<blockquote>Something unusual stopped me in these sentences from a Times article about a state-by-state study of flaws in the American electoral system: “A main goal of the exercise, which grew out of Professor Gerken’s 2009 book, ‘The Democracy Index,’ was to shame poor performers into doing better, she said. ‘Peer pressure produces horrible things like Britney Spears and Justin Bieber and tongue rings,’ Professor Gerken said. ‘But it also produces professional peer pressure.’” It almost took my breath away: Professor Heather Gerken, who is in her early forties, felt free to tell a reporter that Britney Spears and Justin Bieber, not to mention tongue rings, are horrible. Gerken broke one of the unwritten rules of being middle-aged: don’t go after the young and what they love. Not in print, anyway. Don’t open yourself up to the charge of curmudgeonliness, because the inevitable retort—“You just don’t get it, Professor! You sound like your parents!”—is probably accurate, certainly unanswerable, and absolutely devastating. Few things in America are less forgivable than getting older.</blockquote>\r\nIf there is an unwritten rule not to go after the young and what they love, there is also an implicit question that asks, \"I am old, what do I have to say to the young?\" The answer, paradoxically, is that when you have the most amount of time, the most amount of wisdom, and sometimes the most amount of resources, you go to a place that guarantees you will not have influence on future generations—you retire.\r\n\r\nYou leave us.\r\n\r\nAnd this is the problem:  you can\'t leave us when we need you the most.\r\n\r\nIn 1978, Soviet geologists discovered a <a href=\"http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/For-40-Years-This-Russian-Family-Was-Cut-Off-From-Human-Contact-Unaware-of-World-War-II-188843001.html?device=iphone&amp;device=ipad\">family</a> of six lost in the Siberian taiga. Cut off from all human contact for 40 years, this Russian family lived on the side of a mountain 150 miles from the nearest settlement. It was an astonishing discovery because the Soviets had no records of anyone living in this area. Karp Lykov was an Old Believer, a member of a fundamentalist Russian Orthodox sect whose worship style has not changed since the 17th century. During Stalin\'s Great Purge of the 1930\'s, the Soviets killed Lykov\'s brother, and in 1936, Lykov fled to Siberia escaping religious persecution, retreating further from civilization deep in the Siberian taiga. Living in isolation from the rest of the world, Lykov and his family were unaware of World War II and lived on the edge of famine making survival next to impossible. Two of his children had never seen a human being that was not a member of their family. Perhaps the saddest aspect of the Lykovs\' strange story was the rapidity with which the family went into decline after they re-established contact with the outside world. Only Lykov\'s daughter, Agafia remains, and she will not leave her home in the Siberian taiga.\r\n\r\nMost people believe they are on the inevitable slide into irrelevance. I can see why: art, movies, culture, and even business reinforce this idea. When am I going to lose it? Can I keep up? There is some wisdom that you only get through having lived it and through years. There is an authority that comes from being older, but there is also a potential newness that is fresh as ever—a sifting and sorting of all I have experienced—creating a non-anxious, non-judgemental presence because I am older, and my roots run deep and I have seen it all.\r\n\r\nWe live the <a href=\"http://storylineblog.com/2013/01/28/when-you-fail-to-live-a-great-story/\">stories</a> we keep telling ourselves, and telling meaningful stories overlaps with living a meaningful life. There was a time when humans intuitively grappled with aging rooted in the divine redemptive activity of God. But unfortunately we are telling a different story—a story about how religion has skewed our perception of aging.\r\n\r\nReligion is new to humanity. It\'s been around about 5% of humanity\'s spiritual journey, which, on a conservative timescale, began to unfold about seventy thousand years ago. Yet most of us have grown up with a religious legacy. Unfortunately, these religious legacies have nurtured the belief that when one group checks out, the other says, \"we don’t need you,\" and everything falls apart. In many cultures you find the older need the idealism, energy and enthusiasm of the youth and the youth need the wisdom of the older.\r\n\r\nAnd when we embrace this, that\'s when the adventure begins.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n*photo by bokkels\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','When Does The Adventure Begin?','','inherit','open','open','','8398-revision-27','','','2013-02-10 20:21:04','2013-02-11 04:21:04','',8398,'http://provoketive.com/2013/02/10/8398-revision-27/',0,'revision','',0),