Wald.

Abraham Wald was a Hungarian mathematician who studied in Austria , emigrated to the U.S. because of Jewish persecution, and eventually found himself working for the The Statistical Research Group during World War II. The SRG was a badass collection of very smart statisticians helping the war effort.

So, here was the problem: American planes were getting shot down. There was some room for heavier armor but not too much room because that makes the planes less maneuverable and fast.

The military came to Wald for the solution.

They also had collected quite a bit of data. They had all the spots where planes had been hit by enemy fire after their return engagements over Europe. It would make sense to fortify those sections of the plane, right? After all, that’s where the majority of enemy fire was going.

Wrong, said Wald.

Those are the planes that have returned. We need to put armor on all the places where we don’t see bullet holes, because it’s those planes that didn’t make it back and thus, it’s those spots that need better armor in order to be able to return.

It really takes a second to think through but makes perfect obvious sense when you do.

There’s an entire article about Wald here but my favorite part was this: “A mathematician is always asking, ‘What assumptions are you making? And are they justified?’”

And that is the crux, isn’t it?

Because, it sure seems that lots of us are spending all kinds of time putting extra armor in the exact spot where we don’t need it. We’re getting heavier and slower and still getting shot down because we’re ignoring the most obvious, yet hidden, truths that require us to ask about our assumptions and their justifications.

sheetrock stories.

I don’t know if you’ve ever had the pleasure of taping and mudding drywall but if you haven’t it goes a little something like this, after you’ve hung the sheetrock on the studs, taped the seams, and filled the big gaps with mud.

Wait for it to dry. Sand it. Add more mud. Wait for it to dry. Sand it with a more fine sander. Add more. Wait. Sand.

You get the idea. It’s a little monotonous and tedious and boring and it reminded me a ton of the final stages of editing a book.

You add, wait, and then remove. Add a little more, wait a little more, remove with a finer filter. Add. You get the idea.

And that all had me thinking of all the similarities of building a wall and building a book.

1. The studs/frame/main idea start everything.

2. The sheetrock/big chunks/acts have to hang on that frame. Often requires some cutting.

3. Filling those gaps and getting it to all flow together requires lots of waiting, and mud (dirt).

4. Editing it all to be smooth really takes a lot more patience and work. Lots of adding and taking.

5. A little texture often hides the perfect work and the work that wasn’t quite perfect.

Which made me want to write down a few things for my next creative endeavor.

1. Frame it right. It’ll save a lot of work later.

2. Don’t stress too much with the big ideas on that frame. There’s lot of time to smooth out the transitions and gaps and holes.

3. But it takes a lot of time and work. Don’t rush this time of the project. It might be the most important.

4. But don’t take too much time on the fine-tuning either. Really good is better than perfect. One exists and the other doesn’t.

5. The texture/perspective/interpretation people bring to the work is going to either frustrate you or free you to not spend time on things that aren’t important. Choose freedom.

they will always be there.

If Trump proves anything these days, he proves that no matter what you will do, you will always have supportive tribe members.

If we know anything from human experience, we can also know that we will always have critics, no matter what we do, or say, or write, or don’t do, or don’t say, or don't write.

So, two things to get out of the way, right away. Critics never mean you’re on the wrong path and supportive tribe members never mean you’re on the right path. They aren’t good gauges for right or wrong.

Two more things to get out of the way: there’s no point in trying to get rid of critics. There’s no point in ever worrying you will be alone with no tribe.

Maybe the two most important things: decide what kind of people you don’t mind being your critics. Decide what kind of people you want to be in a tribe with. Once you’ve got that dialed in - which probably will change, by the way - you’ll at least be able to gauge, to a pretty decent degree, whether you’re living the kind of life you want to live or not.

no one is qualified.

Maybe at one time people were “officially recognized as being trained to perform a particular job; certified” but if that time ever did exist, it doesn’t much anymore.

Who officially recognized Rembrandt? Frank Lloyd Wright (it’s not known if he even graduated High School)? Kylie Jenner? Kylie Jenner, yeah the youngest billionaire on Earth. Who the hell officially recognized her as certified and trained to sell make-up?

The point is you are as qualified as anyone else. The only people that aren’t qualified are the ones that refuse to do anything because they believe they can’t until they get some kind of approval. Sure, no one is promising us that we will go down as maybe the most famous artist to ever exist, design 532 completed structures, or have 129 million Instagram followers but they are promising this: if you keep waiting for someone out there, some magical “official” individual or system, to recognize you as ready to perform whatever job or skill or passion you keep putting off… well, you’re going to be waiting a long time.

Happy (Insipid) Fall! Pre-Order!!

Happy Autumnal Equinox!

Today marks the time on the calendar when day and night are equal. 12 hours a piece. Perfectly balanced.

Which is a real nice segue into Insipid: my novel launching this November!

Even better news, today marks the first day that the limited edition collector’s edition, signed, personalized hardback supporter-vip launch event ticket-package releases!

Beginning today and ending October 14th, you can pre-order the hardback which will actually ship, signed and personalized to you, before the Black Friday release date. You’ll have it first. You can also add two VIP tickets to the launch event if you want. It’s a screaming deal, not to mention a ton of support! NOTE: The hardback will not be available for purchase beyond October 14th. Nor will VIP tickets.

Check out all the details at insipidbook.com.

I don't think I’ve ever put this much work into any single project over these last 8 years so suffice it to say, I’m excited to get the word, the hype, and this book out!

More to come… of course…

Until then, check out insipidbook.com

Jesus wept.

A friend of mine passed away a couple of weeks ago from leukemia. It’s beyond sad. He leaves two boys behind and an amazing wife and lots of friends.

I’m a seven on the Enneagram which means I hate pain. I like nothing of this story, although, there are these incredible rays of light within it, because my friend was a beyond amazing person who loved so well.

All of it got me thinking about all of the clichés we throw around around death, especially in Christian circles - or at least the ones I grew up in. Some I’ve quoted at memorial services - they aren’t all bad.

It’s better to go to a funeral than a wedding.

Some are terrible.

God has a plan.
God doesn’t give us more than we can handle.

But, there’s one I don’t think is talked about enough: Jesus wept. The short context is that Jesus’ friend had died. Just at it’s base, it’s pretty comforting: the most enlightened human on the planet wept because he was sad at death. It’s so very human, it’s warm to think about. There is nothing enlightened about coming up with clichés to avoid the things we don’t like about life. (Good for me to remember.)

And yet, there is so much more to the story of Lazarus.

Which got me thinking.

But first, the story in a nutshell: Some friends tell Jesus that his friend Lazarus is sick. Jesus doesn’t seem overly concerned and says that it’ll be alright because the sickness won’t end in death. A couple of days later Jesus decides it’s time to head over to the town of Lazarus because Lazarus has “fallen asleep”. The disciples are confused. Jesus says Lazarus has died. Still pretty confusing.

They take the journey and when they get there, they find out Lazarus has been dead for four days. Well, they kinda already knew that. They are grieving. Jesus is told if he had been there, Lazarus wouldn’t have died. He’s told that a couple of times, kinda like “Where the hell have you been?” Jesus responds with more confusing language about never dying and resurrection - which it seems people don’t purely get. Understandably.

Finally, Jesus sees them all mourning and he’s moved. He’s troubled. He weeps. The grief affects him, like it affects all of us. He has them roll away the stone calls Lazarus out - he raises him from the dead.

(If you want the full version you can read John 11)

A few things.

1. We tend to read these stories as literal. That’s fine. At its literal, it’s pretty confusing while also obviously pretty, miraculous.

   1. Jesus wept even though he knew the whole time Lazarus was coming out?

   2. Why again was he weeping then? Why did he play this whole game? Was he acting? Was he moved by others grief that he knew wasn’t deserved? Why didn’t he just end the whole thing faster?

   3. How does this help me? Most people who die (that I’m aware of) don’t come back to life after 4 days.

   4. So, what’s the point?

2. Mythical readings are generally so much richer.

   1. There are all kinds of people metaphorically dead. Yes, they are breathing but they aren’t living.

   2. It’s these kind of people Jesus weeps over. And over. And over.

   3. It’s these kind of people who Jesus calls out of their tombs.

   4. It’s these kind of people I don’t want to be.

   5. Jesus is a bit of this representation of Love/Mystery in the Human. In that sense, he helps us not be those dead (but breathing) people.

You see, in short, my friend isn’t coming back. I wish to Hell like he was, for his wife and his kids most of all. But, I do know this: my friend lived when he was alive and that’s more than I can say of many people. Sometimes me. He lived big. He lived humanity. He lived impact. He lived love.

And, in a sense, because he was alive, he doesn’t die. You should hear the stories of him and his impact that are just now being planted all over this city - and that will turn into a forest of love at some point - as the stories continue to grow.

Where is Jesus in all of this? Everywhere. It’s Love/Mystery in the Human that calls us zombies out of our tombs. It’s Love/Mystery in the Human that weeps over wasted lives. It’s this Love/Mystery in the Human that offers a life that lives on. Maybe literal. Definitely real.

The story ends with Jesus saying “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.” That’s bad ass right there.
Wait, who has been not letting him go?

What if all those friends and family represent bad culture? Bad spirituality? Interestingly enough, the next sentence is about the religious elite - they don’t like the fact that this guy Lazarus has found life. They tend to keep people in tombstones. In fact, they say “If this guy Jesus goes on doing stuff like this, they’re going to take away our temple and our nation.”

In other words, if people keep waking up like this, we are going to lose our religious power and our national power. So, they prefer people in grave clothes, stuck in tombs. They get to keep their power.

Okay, so all that to say this: I already miss my friend, obviously. But, it’s true, it’s better to go to a funeral than a wedding… why? I’m reminded that there are forces fighting the kind of life my friend lived, and I’m encouraged to resist those forces like he did: to impact the world with the kind of energy he did, and plant the seeds of Love (great song by Tears for Fears) and Mystery that can be found in us Humans… even when we weep.

Weep. Yes.
Take off the grave clothes? Yes, definitely that too.

RIP Joe.

—

Jack Gilbert wrote an amazing poem that I found when my friend was first diagnosed. I’ve been reading it a lot.

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies are not starving someplace, they are starving somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils. But we enjoy our lives because that’s what God wants. Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women at the fountain are laughing together between the suffering they have known and the awfulness in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody in the village is very sick. There is laughter every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta, and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay. If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction, we lessen the importance of their deprivation. We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure, but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world. To make injustice the only measure of our attention is to praise the Devil. If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down, we should give thanks that the end had magnitude. We must admit there will be music despite everything. We stand at the prow again of a small ship anchored late at night in the tiny port looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront is three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning. To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth all the years of sorrow that are to come.

excuses and explanations.

An explanation is not an excuse, but don't let that be a reason to not hear out an explanation.

An excuse is not an explanation, so don’t let that prevent us from thinking through explanations.

More explanations will help. Less excuses will too.

jerry is right.

Apparently, Jerry Seinfeld once said that one of the worst things you can do to a comedian is to put her in charge of a late night show. The idea of having to be “on” every night - to create humor - is a drag and will kill the comedy in anyone.

For the same exact reasons, one of the worst things you can do to a spiritual person is make her a pastor that has to speak a different message every Sunday.

far away.

I was recently with my friend Josh and we were reminiscing about a class on the history of war from back in the day. The gist is this: war used to consist of hand to hand combat. You felt the rock crunch skull, you witnessed the pain, you looked in the eyes of the life you were taking, and you felt the full responsibility of death.

As technology advanced, the combat become further and further away… bows and arrows, guns, eventually leading to an era where a jet at 30,000 feet drops bombs on targets the pilot will never see, or a drone operated in Las Vegas drops a payload on a target in Afghanistan.

This has repercussions.

In a similar vein, and just as important, if you wanted to critique someone you used to have to do it to their face. If we had a problem, we had to utter actual words from our mouth, watch them impact a fellow human and see the pain in their eyes. We then had to listen to their response and come up with one of our own.

Criticism was conversation.

As technology advanced, the criticism and conversations became further and further away… eventually leading to dropping hot topic, defensive, critique bombs on someone we have never met, will never meet, and from the comfort of our own desk.

Most of us don’t have as much control over war as we do our conversations. Resist the further away stuff. Move in a little closer… it’ll do wonders for the humanity in all of us as well as the power of our opinions.

the economy.

This should be obvious but it seems like it isn’t.

I just bought two new cars! I just bought a brand new house in Maui! I also just renovated my old house and was able to put in a swimming pool at the same time.

I’m doing well, right?

I’m also $750,000 in debt and will not be able to make my payments soon.

Does that matter?

Yep, the economy is doing great!

I do agree.

margarita mix

In the winter, we sometimes leave stuff outside - like most people. It’s a big refrigerator. Well, we’ve had a bottle of margarita mix on our deck for about four months.

The funny thing is that as spring has come on the scene, and we’ve cleaned up the deck, brought out furniture, bbq’d… I stopped seeing the bottle.

I walked by it probably a hundred times and when my wife brought it inside last night, it really rattled me. My brain stopped registering its existence. I didn't see it and didn’t believe that it was still there.

Which brings up an important point. Repetition, ritual, comfort, and consistency obviously has its place but it can also lead to blindness if we’re not careful.

I think this is probably why most of the great wisdom teachers ask us to make sure we don’t get too complacent with anything in life, even amidst discipline and ritual.

Shake it up. It keeps us seeing.

turn your back on god...

Christians sometimes have a tendency to throw this phrase around: “Be careful, lest you turn your back on god….” (they don’t really say “lest” but it’s usually spoken like a dire warning from a medieval wizard so I went with it.)

Since I have had it served my way a few times, I’d like to take a moment to throw it back.

If we want to talk about turning our back on God, we should probably talk more about these kinds of things:

1. Turning our back on the LGBT community.

2. Turning our back on refugees and immigrants.

3. Turning our back on the largest prison population in the world (the U.S.)

4. Turning our back on Palestine and the greater Muslim community (for Israel).

5. Turning our back on the Earth and the species being systematically destroyed.

6. BONUS: Turning our back on mystery for the sake of knowledge and answers.

It’s curious to me that, generally speaking, the Christians most afraid of “turning their back” - and who love to hand out the warning the most - have no problem turning their back on the people that Jesus most equated with himself, the “enemies” the prophets warned of treating as enemies, and the planet and animals that they love to speak of as “God’s creation” while murdering it. BONUS: A point of that creation story was if you’re so desperate for knowledge that you forsake mystery, well, be careful, everything starts to go to shit from there.

Reasons #…. well…. I’ve lost count at this point… that I’m not a Christian.

Reasons #…. I’m humbled and challenged to keep on seeing, living, and loving as best I can.

super pod

It’s Super Bowl Sunday! What better day to launch a podcast with my wife? Actually it was one year ago that I officially ended my days as a pastor. What better anniversary to launch a podcast with my wife?

It’s called Lights Like Us. The website is here. The iTunes podcast is here.

FOR THE

WORLD CHANGERS,
LIFE IS MORE THAN THIS-ERS,
RISK TAKERS,
ONE LIFE TO LIVE-ERS,
BREAKERS OF BOXES,
EVOLVERS,
LIBERATORS,
FIERCE,
BAD ASSES
EQUALIZERS, SYMPATHIZERS, AND MYSTICIZERS, FIGHTING FEAR WITH LOVE...

LIGHTS. LIKE US.

LET'S

SHINE
ILLUMINATE
REVEAL
STIMULATE
BRIGHTEN
INVITE
WARM
CREATE
ENERGIZE
SPREAD

TOGETHER.

(ALSO, LET’S NOT TAKE OURSELVES TOO SERIOUSLY.)

We have lots of ideas. It’s going to be fun.

poor Cayetano

A lamppost? Yes, but not any lamppost. A lamppost was put in Valencia after the last martyr of the Spanish Inquisition in 1826. It replaced the gallows that were there - made of stone because they were used so often - that hung Cayetano Ripoll. The church wanted to burn him, but at that point things were a little too messy for burning (the secular authorities doing the church’s dirty work wouldn’t do it) so they hung him in the city square and put his body in a barrel with painted flames around it instead. Nice. 

Why? Details are a little hard to find but Cayetano Ripoll had converted from a Catholic theist to a deist. Which might sound like a big deal but, in essence, means, as our tour guide put it: he was a teacher who told his students that God existed everywhere - not just inside the church. 

So if you’re down today remember to be thankful you live in 2019, a time when the church judges its own in a more subtle fashion and only figuratively hangs its “heretics” instead of literally, in a town square, like poor Cayetano Ripoll.

Because that means today’s heretics get to keep talking... and we get to keep learning from them.

likewise

Not too long ago I had an idea for an ap: similar to Instagram but instead of promoting ourselves in one way or another we would promote others. So the idea was a feed of books, movies, podcasts, etc… that you could recommend and then follow people who you would like to see what they recommend. A feed of recommendations. A feed of entertainment, education, and evolution.

I was telling a friend about it not too long ago and he did some research and sent me Likewise. Turns out Bill Gates and a friend had a similar idea and launched the ap a few months ago. It’s also got restaurants and places to visit. (It’s missing music but they want recommendations.)

I’m all in.

But it needs people, like all good social media aps, to get it going and even better. So go sign up. Send us out some recs. Look me up: rsjm.

And no I don’t have any monetary stake in this thing - but I still do love the idea and hope it works!

failure and success.

You can’t choose to see a failure or success without choosing to mark a point in time as some kind of judgment or finish line - even though time always keeps moving.

In other words, you might be a failure today but not tomorrow. Or that might look like a success today but not in 100 million years.

In other words, failure and success are both incredibly arbitrary markers and maybe the most subjective and opinionated words in our language - and some of the most fluid ideas in our language as well - and yet we tend to base so much of life, of perception, of decision making, of relationships, of self-confidence, of everything… off of both of them.

We have to try not to.

how much change?

If an orange is genetically modified to have a green skin and soft green flesh that is a little sour, is it still an orange? How are there so many fruits defined as orange, even though some are sweet and some are bitter? Some are big and some are small?

How much can something change and still be the thing? 

There’s a great story of a monk who was trying to pray and kept being bothered by a cat. So he tied the cat to a nearby tree so he could pray. He ended up doing that every day.

Eventually the monk died, but his protegé also tied to the cat up to pray. Eventually the cat died, so he started tying another cat up to a tree. Eventually generations of cats died, generations of monks died, but they always found a cat to tie up to a tree.

Eventually the tree died, and they planted a new tree to tie a new cat up to, before praying. One day, someone asked, why do we tie a cat to a tree before we pray?

Well it’s what we do. It’s what we’ve always done.

But why?

How much can a ritual change and still be meaningful?
How hard can we hold on to a ritual and suffocate it of all of its meaning?

a bad review.

A woman recently gave us some negative feedback on on our sites. She said a coupon code didn’t work.

I reached out to her and asked her for details.

After some back and forth emails, she told me that she went to a third party site that promised her a coupon code that had not been in affect for over a year - and she was mad she had never received it.

Here’s the thing. Sometimes when someone gives us negative feedback, there’s something true about it. And other times, the negative feedback has absolutely nothing to do with us, except we provided an opportunity to hear from them.

It’s always worth listening to, but it’s helpful to remember that some of the criticism out there has more to do with a third party coupon site than anything we can control.

offensive...

If you haven’t listened to Dax Shephard’s podcast - it’s definitely my favorite right now. And this episode is a good one - especially for anyone on a college campus.

For those with no time to listen to either, here’s my personal summary which challenges me on multiple levels:

1. Be less offensive. To everyone.

2. Be less offended. By everyone.

vulnerability is not...

I’m a huge fan of vulnerability - thank you Brené Brown for educating me on its importance.

But three things:

1. We can’t be vulnerable behind a screen.

2. We can’t be vulnerable to thousands of people at once.

3. Rarely does vulnerability begin with “I’m going to be vulnerable right now”.

In other words we can’t use vulnerability to try and build ourselves up: that’s more like control and ego disguised as vulnerability and that might be why we feel like it doesn’t work so often.