The 00′s came to a close, so I decided to make a media decade in review list. Here we go with the TV shows of the decade list. This is my weakest of all of the categories, as I don’t care about television all that much. Shows that I’ve heard I should be watching but I don’t include: Curb Your Enthusiasm, Mad Men, The Wire, Dexter and The Sopranos. So maybe those could have made this list. My least favorites would have to include: American Idol and Dancing with the Stars. I apologize to all you that I just offended with that last sentence. On to the best television of the last decade.

10–The Office UK
9–Planet Earth
8–Pardon The Interruption
7–The Colbert Report
6–30 Rock
5–Lost
4–House
3–Survivor
2–The Office
1–Arrested Development

I don’t know about you, but growing up I heard the words “Just Try Harder” often from coaches, teachers, and my parents. You see I was the average kid that was OK at a lot of things but not necessarily a stud at anything. Therefore, instead of batting 2nd or 3rd in the line-up I batted 8th or 9th. You see I could play but not at the level I or others wanted. Therefore, I was sent on a mission to “Try Harder”. I spent hours at the batting cage, watched my all-time favorite player Ozzie Smith over and over, I would listen to coaches and my dad, but it never really clicked. One day the baseball coach from our local high school came and watched my team practice and caught eye of me getting frustrated in hitting the ball. He watched, observed, then approached me and simply took my front foot and moved it out more opening up my stance. This way I could see the ball with both eyes instead one. (Who knew a few months later I would be fitted for glasses?) First pitch? It went sailing..

Seth Godin, one of my favorite authors wrote this about “Trying Harder”:

“The usual mantra is to ‘try harder’. Trying harder is impossible when you’re already trying as hard as you can.

But you can always try different.

Years ago, I was creating trivia questions for a product we built for Prodigy. We had a 99% accuracy rate in doing the questions. Which was great, except there were 1800 questions in a batch, which meant 18 wrong each time, which was totally and completely unacceptable. These were honest mistakes, made by smart people working as hard as they could.

No matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t do better than 99%. So we switched our system completely and did it in a totally different way. Same number of people, same number of hours, 100% accuracy.

If it’s not working, harder might not be the answer.”  

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/03/try-different.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+typepad/sethsmainblog+(Seth’s+Blog)

I just wonder if this might be true of us and our desire to follow Christ? I know even in my own spirituality I have been counseled to just try harder. Our churches have tried harder to be relevant and reach more people using contemporary services, meeting in coffee shops, creating movements and more. But what if trying harder doesn’t work? Maybe it is time to try something different!

Any suggestions?

I’ve recently had to study the art of Michelangelo Caravaggio, and to those of you that don’t know art this is NOT the same Michelangelo that painted the Sisteen Chapel or the one that is named after the Ninja Turtle.  This Michelangelo more known just as Caravaggio is the dark, tortured, tainted, and flawed follower of Christ with an amazing skill at painting.  He lived from about 1571-1610 and was known as a brilliant artist that painted dark and controversial paintings.  He was a bit of an indulgent, he gambled, and drank often and spent his time with what people now a days would call “low lives.”  Back in the day artists would mostly paint religious pieces commissioned by a church or some sort of  insanely rich ruler, Caravaggio painted for freedom, and for the church because he had been convicted of murdering a man and used his skills of painting to get him out of trouble (which if you study more about Caravaggio he has done this multiple time in his life.)  One of his last pieces he painted was of David and Goliath, the reason why I am speaking of this and why it stands out to me is because it is very dark (like most of his pieces) and very graphic.  If you take a look at the painting on the left you will see David holding the head of Goliath, but the interesting thing about Goliath is, Goliath is a self portrait of Caravaggio.  Caravaggio put himself in as the head of Goliath.  Some people say it’s because he was looking for Atonement from the church for his sins.  I see it more as symbolism, that we are all in some way like Goliath and we are all capable of serious evil.  Caravaggio did indeed do some evil stuff, but he was a man who feared God, just not man.  God LOVES to use flawed men, it’s something that he does often in the Bible.  The beautiful thing about God is that he is forgiving, but we are still responsible for our wrong doings.  The beautiful thing about being a christian is, that we get to try to be like Jesus, which is hard but something I love to try to do, with my strengths and with my flaws.  Do you think that this art is good or bad?  Do you feel as though we even as God fearing christians can do and sometimes will do things that are evil or are against God’s will?  What do you think Caravaggio could have been saying?  What does this mean to you?  I think I am capable of anything, especially when I am thinking of God first and striving to be more like Jesus.  Do you think Caravaggio was fully concerned during some of his darkest times, of being more like Jesus?  Just some things to thing about, and some exploration of old world art.  Look up some more Caravaggio it’s brilliant stuff, some of my favorites are:  The Doubting of Thomas, and The Calling of Matthew.

“My back hurts.”

We had just spent a night on the floor of a basketball court during an in town missions trip.  One of the guys I was with chimed in again, “My back really hurts.  But why do I feel more connected to Jesus because my back hurts from sleeping on the hardwood last night?  Like I am suffering for Jesus or something.”  This was a fascinating question.  Why did a tweaked back make him (us) feel more connected to Jesus?

During this trip, we had been serving the homeless at a downtown shelter run by the beautiful folks at Trinity Episcopal Church.  People would come in off of the streets for a hot meal, and we had the privilege to hang out with them and serve them breakfast.  I believe that my friend having an ailing back connected him (us) to Jesus by helping him to identify with the homeless people that we were serving.  Sleeping on the hardwood floors somehow helped him (us) to understand and be able to relate to those who had to sleep on the pavement the night before.  In a very small way, we could identify with the pain of being homeless, and that helped us to connect with the folks we were serving.  In do so, it also connected us with the person of Jesus.

I once heard Tony Campolo say, “We can’t just look at the Bible through middle-class American eyes, and try to fit it into our lives.  We have to identify with the poor in order to understand the message of the Bible.”

We need to identify and relate with the poor and the hurting.  We need to begin to put a face to pain–a face to suffering–a face to a statistic.  In doing so, does it also help us to better understand the gospel message of Jesus Christ?

“Compassion grows with the inner recognition that your neighbor shares your humanity with you.  This partnership cuts through all walls, which might have kept you separate.  Across all barriers of land and language, wealth and poverty, knowledge and ignorance, we are one, created from the same dust, subject to the same laws, and destined for the same end.  With this compassion you can say, ‘In the face of the oppressed I recognized my own face and in the hands of the oppressor I recognize my own hand.  Their flesh is my flesh, their blood is my blood, their pain is my pain, and their smile is my smile.  Their ability to torture is in me, too; their capacity to forgive I find also in myself.  There is nothing in me that does not belong to them too; nothing in them that does not belong to me’…In the depths of my being, I meet my fellow humans with whom I share love and have life and death.”  Henri Nouwen; With Open Hands

“In the silence of the morning

I am alive to the new day’s light,

alert to the early stirrings of the wind

and the first sounds of the creatures.

In the silence of my heart

I hear the yearnings that are in me and the fears,

the hopes that rise from within

and the doubts that trouble my soul.

In the beginnings of this day, O God,

before the night’s stillness is lost to the day’s busyness,

open to me the treasure of my inner being

that in the midst of this day’s busyness I may draw on wisdom.

Assure me again of my origins in you,

assure me again that my true depths are of you.”

-from A Celtic Psalter, by J. Philip Newell