iGod

Life Version 2.0

(My article reproduced from Community News)

I have a love-hate relationship with technology. I love it when it makes my life easier, but absolutely hate it when it interferes with my routine and it becomes the master, not the servant.

Quite unabashed, I have been an Apple Mac user ever since my second year at ‘vicar factory’ back in the early 90s. Before then I kindly borrowed someone’s Toshiba Portable MS DOS computer, which in truth wasn’t that portable. Not only was it heavy and left dents in my knees, but the battery life was shorter than a queue to the Crazy Paving Appreciation Society’s Annual Lecture.

Nowadays, alongside my lighter laptop, I also have my mobile or should I say ‘smart phone’, but as I discovered recently this has not been without its problems.

I attempted to upgrade my phone software to the latest whizzy-whiz, faster, better-than-ever-before version. Also known as iOS 5. In truth, I was not unhappy with how things were before, but the thought of something better and free, well…it was simply an offer I couldn’t refuse.

So on a quiet weeknight I hit the download button to let technology do its best. Unfortunately it decided to do its worst. With a big gasp I watched my entire set of emails, calendars and contacts disappear before my eyes. (And, no, my emails weren’t backed up!) If ever there was a time to find a grown man crying in a corner it was then. The promise of a better-connected life had let me down.

It has made me think how we can often put a lot of blind faith in things that are not necessarily proven, but given enough hype can accept anything as truth. We want to believe that something will make our lives better.

It is natural to want to upgrade the standard of our lives. We can look at the current version and think, “This just sucks! Maybe something has to stopped functioning in our life or we see something in someone else’s and want what they have.

The late Steve Jobs, founder of Apple said famously in a university plenary speech:

"No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.”

The immensely successful and talented Steve Jobs recognised his products were not ultimately enough in them self. That is quite something, isn’t it?

Life has a spiritual profundity that modern science still struggles with any integrity to make redundant. There remains this longing in us all to be known, loved and accepted for who we are, not for what we have achieved. Many Christian commentators have called this a God-shaped hole wanting to be filled by himself through his Son Jesus Christ.

If the promises of God are true and Jesus is who he says he is, it requires a full upgrade to a new way of seeing and experiencing life. The old version will never do.

St Augustine, the early church father said rather wryly:

“I have read in Plato and Cicero sayings that are wise and very beautiful; but I have never read in either of them: ‘Come to me all you that labour and are heavy burdened.’” [quoting Jesus]

Is God’s Life Version any better than the modern alternatives around?

I give the last word to Paul the low-tec Apostle who said this about the great iPriest, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!"

ASD

Small Wins versus Big Wins

In the light of last weekend's debacle in South Africa, Seth Godin gives us a timely lesson in the pertinence of winning.

"A toddler wants what she wants, now. That's a win.

A little later, when we're more mature, we might define winning as getting what we want at the expense of someone else. I win when you lose. And yes, winning still means now, not later.

A demagogue cares so much about winning that he'd rather wreck the system itself than lose. It's okay, he believes, to root for the failure of the republic or to destroy civility or democracy if it leads to something that could be called a win.

What happens when you define a win as getting closer to someone who wants the same thing? Or when you define it as improvement over time? Or in creating trust?"

Often I have found myself saying to someone, "Are you winning?" It is a light throwaway comment, but I guess I am asking is: are you making progress, are things changing, do you see things moving on?

Of course, one of the key emotional benefits of winning is feeling satisfied and fulfilled, but I do wonder how many of us feel like that.

In the advertising business world, of which I have been apart of for the last 25 odd years, winning accounts is everything, It is a tough world to survive in for sure.

But when you win business it feels great because often so many 'man hours' and effort have gone into it. Staff may get rewarded with pay rises, bonuses, industry awards, but I want to suggest these are not the best wins you can have.

For me, the best wins are in the small, everyday, barely noticed stuff.

It is grabbing a deep and meaningful twenty minute conversation with one of my daughters. It is having a chance meeting with someone in Caffe Nero and finding out we have so much in common.  It is finally seeing signs of new grass seed growing over a stubborn bald patch of grass in the back garden. It is seeing someone unexpectedly smiling through their adversity.

Jesus said, "Don't worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow will worry about itself." (Matthew 6:34)

We need to dismiss that mindset that tells us something ahead is always going to be bigger and better than today. It may, but equally it may not.

As a result, we will end up missing the small stuff in life. Therefore, cherish the small things today, because one day you may you look back and see that they were actually the big things.

ASD

BP boss's public humiliation - a tough cross to bear

The unfolding drama of Lord Browne, the chief executive of BP, one of the UK's most successful gobal companies has been a painful one to watch.

This great captain of industry was caught lying under oath about his love affair with a Canadian male escort.  Rather than meeting him by chance in a park, as he had told the court, he picked him out on a torrid website.

Apparently his sexual orientation was an open secret by those around him,but it was his lying under oath that was his real undoing.

I guess the shame of having to admit that he had been showering lavish gifts on a 'rent boy' he had fallen in love would be too much of a humiliation of a man in his powerful position. I find the the whole thing tragic from start to end.

So who better to write about his perjury than the disgraced ex-MP Jonathan Aitkin who lost his libel case against the Guardian:

"I have been where Lord Browne is now. I know what a grim experience it will be for him, as he struggles to come to terms with a career imploding in disgrace accompanied by tabloid headlines demanding his prosecution for perjury. The only sane way to handle it is to face each day with wintry realism, accepting that the storm may be longer and more painful than expected."

Jesus himself, though living the perfect life and guilty of no crime, found himself on Roman trial after the devious machinations of the jealous religious rulers of the day.  This led to his own public humilation of being flogged.  Yet, much like the media's appetite for more news, a public flogging was not enough, he had to be executed using one of the most feared of all Roman instruments of torture: the cross.

But the story of Jesus is a story of redemption.  This public act meant that this was not the end of hope of humankind, but a new beginning. Through Jesus we can be forgiven, have the slate wiped clean and start life afresh. Which is why, by the way, I can never understand people who say they have a "quiet private faith" when Jesus did such a public thing in a secular surrounding.

Jonathan Atkin again:

"Next month it will be 10 years since my misguided libel case against the Guardian imploded. The initial period of that decade was agony. Defeat, disgrace, divorce, bankruptcy and jail seemed to be an even worse royal flush of crises than the hand now dealt to the ex-BP chief executive. But gradually I came through my crises with what I call my three Fs - Faith, Family and Friends."

What is surprising about Jonathan Atkin's article is that he chose to write it in the paper whom he took to court, The Guardian.

From humilation to humilty.  There is hope for us all, even BP bosses.

To read the full article by Jonathan Atkin, click here.

ASD