Second Drafts

The Sock

I'm afraid my out-of-town absences the past two weekends have negatively affected my girls in some very creative, strange, and violent ways.

Have Biblical Imagination, Will Travel

Off again this weekend, this time to Willowick, OH. Here's a new video with Mike filmed at March's Biblical Imagination conference in Normal, IL, for a peek at what this is all about.

Us (A Poem for Mother's Day)

A lot seems our lot in life these days.
Would you change it if you could?
Could we change us if we should?

I wonder what you think when you wonder what I feel.
Or is it "if" I feel, "if" you think - what's our deal?
And yet somehow we work.

Us.

Did you think it would be this hard?
Could you do it again, or do I not want to know?
Would you say if I asked, or should I just let it go?

I doubt you will say, but then you say, "Without a doubt."
You doubt I believe you, but I believe there is some doubt.
And yet somehow we work.

Us.

But it's not us - at least not only.
Wouldn't we say we work in Him as He works in us?
If both and either ended, we could/would not keep trust.

I sense that you agree and agree that this makes sense.
The "one" of you and me requires the One of Three.
And this is how we work.

Us.

Who Knew I Married Such a Party Girl?

We were a part of history (in more ways than one) at our first-ever 40's-themed Veritas Classical Academy Spring Swing. Our students had a great time, and Megan and I even got into the act (she perhaps more than me, as seen below). Who knew I married such a party girl?

(Thanks to Holly Martin at HJM Images for the great shots! Click here for more.)

Pulled Over & Waiting Here in Tornado Alley

So we're supposed to get major storms and other various and sundry severe weather this weekend, beginning mid-to-late afternoon today and throughout the evening tonight. Always one to completely underestimate the power of nature, I have been pacing around all morning trying to figure out how to speed things up and get there. I've thought about jumping in the old Delta 88 and driving around looking for one, or even standing out in the middle of my cul-de-sac with a sign reading "Do your worst!" directed at any apporaching mesocyclones.

In my brazen ignorance, I've subjected my family to a not-so-bad-B-movie called Tornado Valley (my personal tornado favorite, Twister, is not available for streaming) and an old NOVA documentary on the F5 that hit Moore in 1999. I've downloaded a couple of tornado alert apps on my phone and even thought about chanting some old high school cheers from back in the day (ironically, we were the "Tornadoes" at Griggsville High, but that's as close to seeing any as I've come).

For all you Okies out there, what do you do while you sit around and wait to get blown away? I'd like to start a list to get me through the rest of the day...after which you may never hear from me again. Ideas?

Living and Loving Accordingly

A passage and meditation for you/me on Holy Saturday:

"One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee's house and reclined at the table. And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.” And Jesus answering said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” And he answered, “Say it, Teacher.”

“A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?” Simon answered, “The one, I suppose, for whom he cancelled the larger debt.” And he said to him, “You have judged rightly.” Then turning toward the woman he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.” And he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” Then those who were at table with him began to say among themselves, “Who is this, who even forgives sins?” And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” Luke 7:36-50 (ESV)

When I was younger (though, sadly, not that much so), I remember once reading this passage and thinking to myself, "Great story, but what do those of us without dramatic conversion stories do? How do those of us whose sins are not that many love much when we've not been forgiven that much?" I even thought about writing a book about this "conundrum," for surely, I thought, there are plenty of "good" Christians out there who felt as I did.

Indeed, there were...and are. And that's the problem...with them and with me.

Even as a kid - even before I would say I came to faith - I remember giving serious and significant thought to the idea that, if one were to really put his mind to it, it couldn't be that hard to live perfectly. Of course, much of my consideration at the time had everything to do with mastering outward behavior - a discipline I've been trying to unlearn ever since - but even from a young age, the thought that I might do the impossible - somehow nobly and with pure motives - has always been the sin behind my sin.

Much to my chagrin (not really, but I should probably say that), I've never had a pure motive in my life. Mostly pure behavior, sure (at least as far as you know), but doing the right thing in the right way for the right reason, well, it's never happened, and unlike in baseball, "two-" or even "one-out-of-three-ain't-bad" thinking doesn't cut it with holiness.

As a (barely) recovering legalist, I want Good Friday and Easter to mean something. And they do, mostly by helping me recognize my wanting to reduce them to things that don't because I'm still wrestling to wrap my head (forget about my heart - I don't want to go there) around the data that says I need them to. The schizophrenia of it all feels a lot like what Paul must have felt writing Romans 7:13-20 (ESV):

Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

Truth be told, the older I get, the more I don't want to acknowledge that I needed Jesus to die for my sin. In my pride, I'd rather take a raincheck on being reminded of my need for mercy and grace because, at least from my perspective, my sin is not nearly what it could be, nor hardly what others' might be.

Actually, according to 1 John 1:5-9 (ESV), it's worse - for when I deny my sin, I accuse God of being a liar (among other things):

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

My heart doesn't want to spend time here; my reputation certainly doesn't. But for the sake of both, this is exactly why I need to declare to myself and anyone else who knows me that, to the degree I understand it, I'm grateful for the truth of the Gospel that says I was loved before I was lovable and fully forgiven before I fully understood my need to be so.

God, forgive me for the (many) times I make you a liar and your word is not in me. You have forgiven me much, Jesus. Like the sinful woman, let me live and love accordingly.

When Presbyterians Rock

I always have a good time visiting different churches and meeting some really neat people as part of our Biblical Imagination conferences. This weekend, we're in Normal, IL, and I got a kick out of my fellow Presbyterians' attempt to rock.

(For those not in on the joke, you usually don't put a digital piano up on an x-rack.)

And Now, Melancholy

Every now and then, my melancholy gets the best of me and things go a little gray here on the blog. Maybe it's the rainy weather we're currently experiencing over all of Spring Break (or just the fact that I haven't really been able to take one), but I'm a little down.

No need to feel sorry for me, though (I'm quite capable of doing that on my own). Some things I've heard myself thinking of late (perhaps you can relate and at least know you're not alone):

• I increasingly find myself chained to my laptop. While I love my Mac product(s), I don't like being inseparable from them. True, all it takes is shutting the lid, but so much of what I do requires time on it that it's beginning to lose its luster.
• The amount of time spent thinking about life outside these United States continues to dwindle as I get older. Part of this is has to do with plenty of other thoughts occupying my head; part of it has to do with the fact that there is just no way to afford such travel anyway, so why bother? I want to care more about the world, but I don't.
• Speaking of money, it's wearying watching people throw money at things that don't matter (and I'm not just talking about our federal and state governments), especially when I have so many better ideas of what they could do with it. My heart is living in Psalm 73 these days.
• Our yard is little more than weeds right now, and after the rain of the past 24 hours, the weeds are all submerged in a big swamp. I want to care about property, but when things happen beyond my control, it becomes more of a challenge.
• I'm thinking about lighting my desk on fire so as to gain a fresh start there (it's amazing to me how far I've fallen in this area of organization, particularly when I think of past posts like this one).
• The idea of ever writing a book again is, at best, as or more fleeting as my cluttered attention span. (Sadly, the same could be said for ever reading one again as well.)
• I continue to see my many failures as a husband and father and wonder how our family is really going to turn out when it's all said and done. Being married and parenting is hard and I wish I were better at both.

So there you have it - a collection of (mostly) first world problems that I'm even embarrassed sharing (yet another contributor to my funk of late). Of course, there are deeper issues beneath these scenarios, so pray I can recognize and offer them to God and regain some hope in my fallen perspective.

That is all.

(Melancholy (1891) painting by Edvard Munch)

Please Stop Believing

If we were still in St. Louis, today would have been the official start of "pre-season" for our high school boys baseball teams at my former school, Westminster Christian Academy. While I feel a twinge of baseball longing at the idea (here's why), the video below provides a salve for the pain. For all you Cub fans out there, this one's for you:

Best Angry Email Ever

Just to give you an idea of some of the characters within our Veritas Classical Academy community, I have to share this email that one of our Veritas moms sent me as a joke on the front end of her actual email, which was a very nice thank you note.

Mr. Dunham,

I would like to meet with you discussing restructuring the curriculum at Veritas. In my vast motherhood experience I feel I know much more what is best from an academic standpoint. I would like you to cancel all your meetings tomorrow as I have a 78-page Power Point presentation to present to you, along with visual aids and child participation for examples.

I also contacted a food distributor as I have decided to campaign for fried school lunches as part of the North campus. In addition, I plan to bring in many professors of different religions to help shape worldview. After that, I plan to let public high schoolers come in and teach electives, as, after all, they know more about our culture then we do.

And lastly, I have rounded up a posse of very angry mothers who would also like some face time.

Get back to me yesterday,

A Veritas Mom

When a parent feels comfortable enough to joke around like this, that's a really healthy thing in my book.

Fun people, our parents. Fun people.

(Note: Identity has been kept anonymous to protect the guilty.)

A Dispatch from January

I have over 150 "have-to-answer" emails in my inbox, so it would seem a good time to work on the blog. (I'll just think of this as a warm-up rather than a put-off. Note: If you're waiting on an email from me, it will come today). Some items of late to mark the days:

I just finished two books, both with a financial theme: The Price of Everything, a parable of economic emergent order, by Russell Roberts, and The Third Conversion, a "novelette" by R. Scott Rodin about fundraising as ministry and not just money. The first book is a very readable text that our seniors are reading in Economics; the second is a more semi-hokey series of conversations between a seasoned fundraiser and his up-and-coming protege.

While recovering from my first kidney stone surgery, I found myself with some time to actually watch a few things on Netflix via the iPad. I'd heard of Joss Whedon's Firefly series (only one season of 15 episodes, capped off for resolution by the movie, Serenity) and enjoyed this "space western" well enough. I also had time for a few Shakespeare films (Kenneth Branaugh's Henry V and Patrick Stewart in Macbeth were excellent), which were fun and novel to watch.

There's been a lot of "launching" going on this January. A week ago, City Pres got off the ground with our first official worship service (I helped serve the Lord's Supper) and our Tuesday night CityGroup started back up; this past week, we kicked off our Veritas capital campaign and website, which we hope will come to first fruition in early March; and I've  enjoyed getting back in the classroom twice a week teaching the second semester of our senior American History course (two very different but engaging texts: A Patriot's History of the United States by Larry Schwiekart and Michaell Allen and A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn).

Other highlights so far this month: 70-degree weather, my four capitalist daughters selling three (and counting) enormous boxes worth of chocolate for their homeschool band program, Megan clearing off and cleaning my desk (she loves me), NFL football playoffs (which is really the only time I'm interested enough to watch), the daily newspaper in my driveway, cold milk on hand, and people who call me "friend".

Okay. Guess it's time to deal with email, to which I say (in my best British accent): "Do your worst!" Thanks for reading.

So I'm Having a Little Surgery Tomorrow...

I had a bit of a scare earlier this week by way of a doctor's appointment in which the word "cancer" randomly found its way into the list of possible pain diagnoses. Thankfully, I actually have two "significant" kidney stones (9 millimeters and 7 millimeters; one in each kidney) and am scheduled for an outpatient procedure early Monday morning to have them lasered. (All prayers appreciated for this procedure tomorrow; for the menfolk out there, this is where you cross your legs in empathy).

With the exception of one day, I haven't been in any kind of major pain; however, the doctor was concerned when I described to him the pain I had felt being in both sides of my back. He said it was rare to have "synced" kidney stones in each kidney and thought the odds were a little against that. When I asked him what else might account for the dispersed pain, that was when the briefest of cancer discussions began.

In general, I'm not one to freak out at things like this, and I didn't; odds or not, the pain was similar to the only other time I've had kidney stones, so I was pretty sure that's what I was dealing with here. But the doctor had me get a CT scan later that day so we would know what the problem was, and in the 36-hour period of waiting for the results, I experienced a few emotions at the possibility of having cancer that I'm not sure I had felt up to this point in my life.

My first emotion - starting in the doctor's office - had to do with the challenge of the prospect: I felt myself hoping it was cancer so I could take my best shot at beating it. Perhaps a form of denial or just prideful presumption, I remember thinking through how I could "use" this to inspire others through my battle and come out on top in the end. I know: sick. But that was my first emotion, self-serving and naive as it was.

My second emotion - once I moved past the idiotic hope of wanting cancer - had everything to do with Megan and the girls. I began thinking through all the details I needed to figure out (and fast) so as to make whatever time I had left with them the best that I could. I also spent a lot of mental energy trying to figure out when and how to break the news, as their disassociative abilities are not as fully developed (read: non-existent) as mine are in terms of dealing with bad news and not immediately personalizing it.

My final emotion - and the one that was strangest to deal with - was my first real visceral sense that, in my humanity, I am indeed mortal and vulnerable to death. Though I've made peace with this reality from the philosophical and theological perspectives, this was the first true emotional consideration of the fact that I am not always going to be a living, breathing person. I felt fear, sadness, and disappointment creep in at the possibility that I might be dead prematurely (at least by my watch), and I emotionally winced at the Bible's teaching that, "...you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes." (James 4:14) I prefer not to be a poster child for this truth (though I - and all of us - are).

Thankfully, I DON'T have cancer, the kidney stones will be taken care of in an outpatient surgery tomorrow, and I fully intend on making a quick and complete recovery and getting back to what God has called me to do. In fact, as I processed all of the above this week, one thing that did encourage me was that, if indeed I had limited time to live, I had no desire to do anything other than what I'm doing - no end-of-life trips or job-quitting plans required. This is reassuring and has brought new focus to the tasks at hand this week.

I'm glad for that 36-hour period in which I didn't know for sure what the future held; if anything, it was a good and practical opportunity to hold on tight with open hands to my life and check how much I do or don't trust God with it. In not knowing, I felt relief that, by His grace, I seemed able to trust Him for whatever would come, as several times Job's words were my own: "Though he slay me, I will hope in him; yet I will argue my ways to his face." (Job 13:15 ESV)

Not doing much arguing of ways these days...just grateful to God to get to have one more.

Booklist 2011

It was a pretty personally disappointing year of reading, both in terms of quantity (didn’t even average two/month) and quality (the least amount of theology and classics reading I've done in the past five years). In conducting the autopsy here, I realize that I simply tried to read too many books at once; as a result, I lost interest in several and found it hard to pick back up when and where I left off with a few.

New year, new rule: no more than three books (preferably of different genres) at a time.

Those qualifiers out of the way, it’s with great shame that I post my annual booklist, complete with notes and rankings (10 is highest) for each. In light of the thin offerings, perhaps a look through my previous years' lists (2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006) will aid in your search for a good book. Hope to do better in 2012 (please add your recs below).

January – June (0)

• Started Atlas Shrugged and about a dozen other books during this six-month period, but we moved/started a new life in Oklahoma, which is my only semi-legitimate excuse.
  

July (3)

• Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand – Absolutely dumbfounded by the fiscal prophecy of the first third of the book; the 1,000 pages dragged in the middle but still good. (7)
• The Case for Classical Christian Education by Douglas Wilson – A primer for anyone involved in classical Christian education; could do without some of the attitude, but okay. (7)
• The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs by Carmine Gallo – Interesting read about Jobs and his role as innovator (not inventor) at Apple; some helpful strategy observations. (6)

August (4)

• Repairing the Ruins edited by Douglas Wilson – Another of Wilson’s contributions, this one reads a little more moderately in terms of tone; good content. (8)
• Histories (volumes 1 & 2) by Herodotus – First two books I read on the iPad. Skimmed much of it, but parts made it a fascinating look into the ancient world. (6)
• Teacher by Mark Edmundson – Took 50 pages to get into memoir of Edmundson’s favorite teacher, but worth sticking it out; never get enough of these. (6)

September (2)

• The Well-Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer - Skimmed through this once before, but had to read about/revisit more carefully the education I never received. (8)
• The Great Expectations School by Dan Brown – File under “Everything you’ve heard about urban public schools is true.” Sad take from a first-year teacher. (8)

October (3)

• The Secret of Terror Castle (The Three Investigators #1) by Robert Arthur – Revisited (with my second daughter) my youth w/ Alfred Hitchcock-involved series; Investigators better than the Hardys. (7)
• Cardboard Gods by Josh Wilker – Nostalgic walk through 1970’s baseball cards with plenty of narcissism along the way; good idea, but could have been more. (4)
• Enchantment by Guy Kawasaki – Simple (but not simplistic) book that gets so much right about how people are motivated and enchanted; highlight of the fall. (9)

November (2)

• Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson – One of the saddest books I’ve read in terms of leadership and legacy. Jobs was a hero, but not for nearly as much as I thought. (8)
• Wisdom and Eloquence by Robert Littlejohn and Charles T. Evans – Lucid expression of classical Christian education from two long-time practitioners; well-written pedagogical gold. (9) 

December (2)

• Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places by Eugene Peterson – Read it too disjointedly, but this “conversation in spiritual theology” also seemed to wander a fair amount; still, some insights/moments. (7)
• Pastor by Eugene Peterson – Listened to this one and loved it. Peterson is both accurate and articulate in his description of his craft; best of the year for me. (10)

Josh Spears Dance Party

A few weeks ago, one of our teachers, Josh Spears, played a pretty good joke on our Veritas families and me, giving them the idea that I was the vocalist behind this.

"'Vengeance is mine,' says the Lord." And I just want to be about the Lord's business.

What We Learn from Tacky Christmas Sweaters

As I led RISE (our morning assembly) today, I looked out upon an outbreak (the word is appropriate) of tacky Christmas sweaters worn by our Veritas students. This was not a show of anti-dress code solidarity; we just thought it'd be fun for kids to show off the worst in their parents' closets. We were not disappointed.

After we snapped a few pictures and laughed together at the cheery awfulness of the attire, I told our students that Christmas is not the only time some of us wear tacky sweaters. In fact, all of us tend to wear tacky sweaters more than we think; in Bible times, these were called filthy rags of righteousness (Isaiah 64:6).

I suggested to our students that we often forget about the righteous robes God provided when we repented of sin and received Christ's atonement for our sins. Instead of resting in these robes of righteousness, we throw on our tacky sweaters of works and self-righteousness, somehow convincing ourselves that this is what God really wants to see instead.

How many of us, I asked, think that reading the Bible (more) or praying (more) or passing Bible class with an A (or hiding the fact that we only have a C) directly impacts how much more or less God loves us? Nothing is further from the truth, and yet we keep valuing those (and plenty of other) tacky sweaters as important to how we look to God.

The prophet Isaiah wrote:

"I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels." (Isaiah 61:10)

And the Apostle Paul encourages us in this way:

"Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith." (Philippians 3:8-9)

This holiday season, we can go ahead and wear our tacky Christmas sweaters of wool and yarn if they (somehow) help us celebrate Christ's birth. But let's leave our tacky sweaters of works and self-righteousness in the closet of Christ's crucifixion, as they just don't match our new creation attire.

(Photo courtesy of Holly Martin)

New Kevin Durant Commercial Filmed in OKC

Pretty cool ad from Nike featuring OKC as the backdrop for Thunder superstar Kevin Durant. Thank you, KD, for being classy enough for Sam Cooke's "Good Times" tune.

Weight, Weight, Don't Tell Me

Now that we're on the backside of Thanksgiving but still have Christmas and New Year's up ahead, I'm toying with an idea/practice that I hope will stick. It's new, fresh, and possibly life-changing.

Yes, though I hate it, I'm thinking of exercising...in the evening...at home...a couple times a month...maybe even a few times a week.

I first took notice of my weight (at least enough to write about it) around my mid-thirties when I began to toe the (gasp) 200-pound line. Now twenty pounds beyond that, it's probably time to revisit the topic.

Actually, I need to do more than revisit it; I need to do something about it. So, I'm starting a month earlier than the normal New Year's resolution crowd by exercising three times a week on a treadmill at night.

Why at night? 1) To keep me from falling asleep at 9 p.m. and get more than a page of a book read before bed, and 2) because the morning and afternoon have never worked for me in the past. In other words, this is my last shot. After this, I'm out of ideas.

Exercise always goes better with better eating habits, but I'll let the former lead me into the latter if it so chooses. Regardless, getting the blood pumping (and a few pounds dropping) would be a good thing going into 2012.

As the beer commercials say, "Here we go!"

Black Friday Haiku

Black Friday masses
Discounted idol worship
Redeemed by retail?

Review: Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

"He was an enlightened being who was cruel.
That's a strange combination."
Chrisann Brennan (Steve Jobs's first girlfriend
and mother of his first child, Lisa)

At last count, the Dunham family has accumulated 10 Apple products: 1 iMac desktop, 2 laptops (Pro and PowerBook G4), 1 iPad, 2 iPhones, 1 iTouch, and 3 iPods (2 Nanos and 1 Shuffle). One could say we've drunk the Apple Kool-Aid to the dregs: we love the products, have little to no trouble with them (other than sharing), and are big Apple advocates/evangelists (as of this Thanksgiving, we'll have convinced and equipped both sets of grandparents to go Mac).

Indeed, we meet the criteria for membership in the so-called Apple Cult, but this didn't make reading Walter Isaacson's painfully honest 600-page biography of Apple's founder, Steve Jobs, any easier. Even as I write this (on my MacBook Pro), I wonder to what degree my own desire for digital enlightement supported the cruelty that produced it.

Though the first 50 pages of Isaacson's book seem clunky (especially when compared with his other biographical works like Benjamin Franklin and Einstein), part of this had to do with the fact that I was reading a completed biography of a man who had just died two months previous (Jobs had asked Isaacson several years earlier to start work on his biography when he was diganosed with pancreatic cancer). For this reason - combined with the fact that forty years of my life had overlapped with much of Jobs's work during his 56 years - it was a different experience than reading about more historical personalities who lived and died 200, 100, or even 50 years previous.

But examples of Jobs's harsh leadership style didn't help, either:

"(Jobs) was flying high, but this did not serve to make him more mellow. Indeed there was a memorable dispaly of his brutal honesty when he stood in front of the combined Lisa and Macintosh teams to describe how they would be merged. His Macitosh group leaders would get all of the top positions, he said, and a quarter of the Lisa staff would be laid off. 'You guys failed,' he said, looking directly at those who had worked on the Lisa. 'You're a B team. B players. Too many people here are B or C players, so today we are releasing some of you to have the opportunity to work at our sister companies here in the valley.'

Bill Atkinson, who had worked on both teams, thought it was not only callous, but unfair. 'These people had worked really hard and were brilliant engineers,' he said. But Jobs had latched onto what he believed was a key management lesson from his Macintosh experience. You have to be ruthless if you want to build a team of A players. 'It's too easy, as a team grows, to put up with a few B players, and they then attract a few more B players, and soon you will even have some C players,' he recalled. 'The Macintosh experience taught me that A players like to work only with other A players, which means you can't indulge B players.'" (p. 181)

Here's another recollection - same song, different verse:

"Right after he came back from his operation, he didn't do the humilation bit as much,' (chief software engineer Avadis 'Avie') Tevanian recalled. 'If he was displeased, he might scream and get hopping mad and use expletives, but he wouldn't do it in a way that would totally destory the person he was talking to. It was just his way to get the person to do a better job.' Tevananian reflected for a moment as he said this, then added a caveat: 'Unless he thought someone was really bad and had to go, which happened every once in a while.' Eventually, however, the rough edges returned." (p. 461)

It was interesting how Jobs's Zen Buddhist beliefs informed (or didn't) his life. Isaacson records Jobs' estranged daughter, Lisa (for whom his first computer was named), asking Jobs why he was so preoccupied with creating great material products when Buddhism does not recognize material things as being real or mattering? Jobs was quiet and never answered the question, but one could tell the inconsistency bothered him.

Though Jobs did not necessarily create anything completely "new" in the digital world (author Malcolm Gladwell asserts as much in the New Yorker a few weeks ago in his article, "The Tweaker: The Real Genius of Steve Jobs"), Jobs did redesign average products and redesign entire industries with his drive. In the last chapter of the book, Isaacson lists Jobs's contribution over three decades (some of his descriptions below could be given somewhat to hyperbole):

• The Apple II, which took (Steve) Wozniak's circuit board and turned it into the first personal computer that was not just for hobbyists.
• The Macintosh, which begat the home computer revolution and popularized graphical user interfaces.
• Toy Story and other Pixar blockbusters which opened up the miracles of digital animation.
• Apple stores, which reinvented the role of a store in defining a brand.
• The iPod, which changed the way we consume music.
• The iTunes Store, which saved the music industry.
• The iPhone, which turned mobile phones into music, photography, video, email, and web devices.
• The App Store, which spanwed a new content-creation industry.
• The iPad, which launched tablet computing and offered a platform for digital newspapers, magazines, books, and videos.
• iCloud, which demoted the computer from its central role in managing our content and let all of our devices sync seamlessly.
• And Apple itself, which Jobs considered his greatest creation, a place where imagination was nurtured, applied, and executed in ways so creative that it became the most valuable company on earth.

To Isaacson's (and Jobs's) credit, the book is as honest as one might hope for in a biography. Isaacson does a good job drawing out the themes that play through Jobs's life: his life-long insecurity at having been given up for adoption as a newborn; his passion for minimalist, beautiful design; his philosophy that closed platforms make for ultimately better user experiences than open ones (Microsoft); and his belief that people don't know what they want until they see it (or in Jobs's mind, until he shows it to them).

While I've always thought of Jobs as the last of a dying breed of innovative entrepreneuers (as so wonderfully - if a bit expletively - captured in this brilliant news clip in The Onion), I see with new eyes what the price of progress actually was at Apple. Was it worth it? Many of those interviewed seemed to believe so, but more than a few of these same people also seemed relieved that Steve Jobs was gone.

iSad.

Gone in 60 Minutes

Much to my delight, Daylight Saving Time ends at 2 a.m. on Sunday, which means we "fall back" one hour and return to "standard" time. Perhaps you share my same thought: it will really be nice to get up with daylight.

Lewis Mumford, in his 1934 book, Technics and Civilization, argued that the most impacting invention of the past 800 years was not the printing press or electricity, but the clock (created in the 1300s). Mumford explained that the Israelites were "time keepers" who evaluated their days by seasonal watches, the Romans were "time savers" who broke their days up into hours, but we Americans are "time servers," fragmenting our days into minutes and even seconds (and driving ourselves crazy in the process).

Former New York University professor, Neil Postman, quoting Mumford's theory in Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death, summarized our preoccupation this way:

“We learned irreverence toward the sun and seasons, for in a world made up of seconds and minutes, the authority of nature is superseded. The clock introduced a new form of conversation between man and God, in which God appears to have been the loser. Perhaps Moses should have included another commandment: Thou shalt not make mechanical representations of time."

I'm guessing we're all glad for the extra 60 minutes in our weekend, but how do we plan to use them? Perhaps the best use of that extra hour would be confessing our sin of worshipping the clock instead of the Creator. For most of us, eternity is going to come as a shock in terms of time-keeping (i.e. there won't be any), so why not - even for an hour - attempt a sneak preview this weekend? Perhaps we can pray anew the prayer of the psalmist when he wrote:

"So teach us to number our days
that we may get a heart of wisdom."
Psalm 90:12

In light of the extra hour, why not call a family meeting this weekend, evaluate your calendars, and talk about these things with your kids? Let's bring them into this important conversation and talk honestly about our need to resist serving time in order to serve the God who transcends time instead.

Have a good and long(er) weekend.