orthodoxy & me & the great big ‘WHY?’

I know not everyone is totally familiar with the Myers-Briggs personality typing system but, for those who are, you may understand me when I tell you that I am a great big NF. This is me to-a-T: “Idealists tend to come by their best ideas through a combination of intuition and feeling, so they may have difficulty explaining how they reached their conclusions

Being straightforward and concise are not my strong points (I have, in fact, edited and re-edited this post down to about 1/10th of its original length). As Hannah said recently, “Sometimes it feels like everyone else uses words and I am the only one who draws.”

I can’t tell you how often someone asks me ‘Why Orthodoxy?’ – or lately, ‘Why Austin?’ – and I don’t really know what to say, or how to say it. I could tell them about Orthodoxy, but that’s not what they’re asking. What they really want to know is ‘WHY?’  Why did the Protestant chick cross the road?

And what I really want to tell them is a story: my story. Because the answer, I think, is somewhere in there…

(to be continued)

Wordy McWord with a side of WORD*

Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech

(excerpt)

And now here I am in a world guided by fear, a world suppressing the uniqueness that lies inside each of us, a world where we can either acquiesce to the inhuman nonsense of corporatism and materialism or insist on change. We are not enlivened by an educational system that clandestinely sets us up for jobs that could be automated, for work that need not be done, for enslavement without fervency for meaningful achievement. We have no choices in life when money is our motivational force. Our motivational force ought to be passion, but this is lost from the moment we step into a system that trains us, rather than inspires us.

We are more than robotic bookshelves, conditioned to blurt out facts we were taught in school. We are all very special, every human on this planet is so special, so aren’t we all deserving of something better, of using our minds for innovation, rather than memorization, for creativity, rather than futile activity, for rumination rather than stagnation? We are not here to get a degree, to then get a job, so we can consume industry-approved placation after placation. There is more, and more still.

http://blog.swiftkickonline.com/2010/07/valedictorian-speaks-out-against-schooling-in-graduation-speech.html


*and that right there is just the kind of eloquence you develop when you have a college degree

on spiritual formation

(author unknown)


If, as Herod

We fill our lives with things,

And again with things;

If we consider ourselves

So unimportant that we must fill

Every moment of our lives

With action,

When will we have the time to make

The long, slow journey across the desert

As did the Magi?

Or sit and watch the stars

As did the shepherds?

Or brood over the coming of the Child

As did Mary?

For each of us,

There is a desert to travel.

A star to discover.

And a being within ourselves to bring to life.

if it weren’t for dad…

This might be another post about babies or bubbles.

dad

Dad likes to send me informative and interesting articles that he finds while cruising around online. See all of those tabs across my browser window? That’s just what was in my inbox this morning.

When Entrepreneurs Should Ignore Advice

Square launches credit-card reading for iPhone and Android | VentureBeat

Even The Babysitter Takes Credit Cards With Square

Facebook’s Gone Rogue; It’s Time for an Open Alternative | Epicenter | Wired.com

Haunted Berwick playhouse: Paranormal group says Hackmatack home to ghosts – Fosters

The War On Drugs Has Failed, So Tax And Regulate Marijuana – CNBC

Gray Whale Spotted on Wrong Side of World : Discovery News

Op-Ed Columnist – What It Takes – NYTimes.com