Wednesday, July 8, 2009

How I Use Facebook and Twitter

I'm no expert on Facebook and Twitter, but I thought I'd pass on some thoughts on how I use Facebook and Twitter without spending all day wading through stuff...

I check FB early in the morning after I do devotions and send out GraceNotes.

I check FB in the evening if I'm watching some TV or before I go to bed if we've been out for the evening.

I only post to FB using my Twitter account. This keeps the posts short. I sometimes post links to my GraceNotes page on the Resource Ministries web site using Twitter and a URL shortener.

When I'm skimming through FB I always skip the quizzes and games and flair and other time sponges.
  • I look for short, meaningful posts.
  • I look for newsy posts.
  • I look for heart cries that prompt me to pray for the person.
  • I look for photos.
  • I look for links that seem like they'll be interesting.
  • I write quick, short comments for posts that catch my eye or my heart.

I use TweetDeck for Twitter. It's easy, it's intuitive, it's free, it saves me time and work.

I post to Twitter from TweetDeck or from my phone.

I have tweets from a few key Twitter peeps sent as text messages to my phone. Just a few.

I like FB and Twitter a lot. I think FB has a lot of static, but with discipline and a plan I can skim through it quickly and get to the good stuff.

I've reconnected with friends and family all over the world on FB.

Recommendation: Decide how much time you can invest in social networking, make a plan for how and how much you'll use it. Keep your eyes and ears open for new tools that make it quicker and better.

This is just a quick off-the-top-of-my-head note. If I think of some other stuff, I'll send it along another time.

What ideas and suggestions do you have to share with the peeps?

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Great Fourth Of July Quote

"You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism." Erma Bombeck

Saturday, June 27, 2009

My Apologies For This Mathematics Pun

An Indian chief had three wives, each of whom was pregnant. The first gave birth to a boy. The chief was so elated he built her a teepee made of deer hide.

A few days later, the second gave birth, also to a boy. The chief was very happy. He built her a teepee made of antelope hide.

The third wife gave birth a few days later, but the chief kept the details a secret. He built this one a two story teepee, made out of a hippopotamus hide. The chief then challenged the tribe to guess what had occurred. Many tried, unsuccessfully. Finally, one young brave declared that the third wife had given birth to twin boys. "Correct," said the chief. "How did you figure it out?"

The warrior answered, "It's elementary. The value of the squaw of the hippopotamus is equal to the sons of the squaws of the other two hides."

The Bellringers

There was a monastery in France at the edge of a cliff overlooking a beautiful valley, and because its bells could be heard over such a wide area, it developed a reputation for attracting only the finest bellringers in the country.

There was always a bit of dread when a bellringer passed on or retired, and one year, when they spread the word of their need for a new master, there was a dearth of qualified candidates. They would have been good enough for any other monastery, but not this one. Better to have silent bells than anything less than the best.

As they were despairing at the quality of candidates, a man with no arms paid a visit to apply for the position. The monks were amazed and protested that this was no time for joking. But the man insisted, said he was from a family of famous bellringers, and he would show them what he could do. He drew back, lowered his head, and charged full speed at the bell. The monks was horrified, but could not stop him. And the sound -- oh my, you should have been there! It was indeed a sound worthy of that monastery. It rang thruout the valley, and people everywhere stopped in their tracks and nodded to each other that at last a worthy bellringer had been found.

But alas, it was not to be. For the impact so stunned the poor armless man that he stumbled dizzily and fell over the cliff. The head monk ran down the steps to where a crowd had gathered, and a policeman spoke to him. "Do you know this man?" The monk sighed, "No, but his face rings a bell."

The search continued. One day not long after, another armless man showed up and presented himself as the previous man's brother. He was there to uphold the family honor, and would show them what a good bellringer could do. The monks protested, but too late -- he also drew back and charged full speed into the bell. And once again, the most beautiful sound pealed out over the valley, such that even the birds circled around to see what was happening. And once again, he was so stunned that he too fell over the cliff in a daze.

Once again the head monk scrambled down the stairs to meet the crowd and a policeman. Again he was asked if he knew the deceased. "No, but he's a dead ringer for his brother."

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

No One Laughs At God

I saw this on soulpancake today. Thought provoking?

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Fifty-Five Years

This afternoon Jean, Buddy, and I drove to the top of Mt Hebo on the Oregon Coast. I remember going there on a school field trip when I was in grade school and there was a Cold War Radar Station on Mt Hebo to warn us of Russian Nuclear attacks. Which didn’t happen, actually.

Sometime between then and now, the Radar Installation with its domes and barracks and fences and high security was demolished and removed. Nothing left but some massive concrete foundations and the scarred mountain top. Off to one side, the mountain has sprouted communications towers and microwave dishes and the buildings and fences that accompany modern communications. But the top of Mt Hebo is bald and mostly flat, not unlike the top of my head.

Jean and I walked (Buddy ran – sniffing a buffet of smells) around the rim of the mountain top and once again marveled at the almost limitless view. Mt Hood 100 miles to the east, floating on a sea of haze. Mt Adams to the Northeast across the Columbia River, Mt St Helens next.

Then Tillamook in a broad green valley north and a little west, then glimpses of surf and mountains and surf again. Just a little south of west, Haystack Rock (the other one) and the beach of Cape Kiwanda at Pacific City where we’re staying this week.

To the south the mountains stand in ranks like platoons of soldiers, each rank a little bluer than the one in front of it.

Just below us to the northwest is a green valley with white dairy buildings, houses, and lots of white roofs.

I love it.

We drove slowly down the winding road past five acre Hebo Lake with its campsites quickly filling up for a warm Memorial Day weekend. At the bottom of the mountain we drove past Hebo Elementary School where Mrs. Darby did her best to put some education into my eleven-year-old brain. I’m afraid her efforts must have brought her considerable frustration as my brain was way more interested in fishing in the Nestucca River that ran at the bottom of our pasture, in tractor driving, bike riding, and bravely going where no kid had gone before up and down Highway 101 picking up pop and beer bottles to redeem for a penny each. Our farm was a mile north of Hebo and the Cemetery a mile south right on 101.

Hebo Cemetery was blossoming with flowers and flags for this weekend’s Memorial Day Celebration, so we drove in and walked among the graves and flowers and flags. I very clearly remembered a summer day in my eleventh year (Fifty-five years ago) when my friend Tony and I, tired of riding our bikes along the shoulder of Highway 101 dodging log trucks, climbed the Cemetery Hill and sat on a grave in the sun and watched the traffic on the highway below and talked about the things that eleven-year-olds talk about. I can’t remember what those things are, but I know that’s what we did.

Higher up the hill are the new graves, the graves of people who died after that 1954 summer afternoon, so Jean and I went about half way down toward the road where the graves are older, the headstones weathered, and the dates of death pre-1950’s. That’s where Tony and I sat. This afternoon I sat there, probably on the same gravestone, and wondered what ever happened to eleven-year-old Jimmy Stephens and his friend Tony.

Eleven-year-old Jimmy could not possible have guessed that he would be married at twenty, a father at twenty-three, spend his twenty-fourth year in Vietnam, become a businessman, a preacher, a pastor, a missionary, and live outside the US for nearly two decades.

He wouldn’t have the capacity to imagine that fifty-five years later a man much older than his thirty-five year old father, a man old enough to be his grandfather, named Jim Stephens, would sit on that same gravestone in the afternoon sun and think these thoughts.

Eleven-year-old Jimmy contained the man who would fifty-five years later sit in the sunshine on the same gravestone. Jim Stephens, sitting on the gravestone this afternoon in 2009 contains eleven-year-old Jimmy. But the sad thing (and I do feel a sadness about it as I think about Jimmy) is that they can never meet. He couldn’t have imagined what it would be like to be me. I can’t remember what it was like to be him. But I miss him and think that all-in-all he must have been a pretty good kid!

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Scottish Field Hospital

The new commander in Iraq hears that a Scottish regiment has a specialized field hospital that's doing fantastic things with the troops. He wants to know what is so special about the place, so he arranges a tour.

When he gets to the ward, it's full of patients with no obvious sign of injury or illness. He's perplexed, so goes up to the first bed and greets the soldier there.

The patient replies:

"Fair fa your honest sonsie face,
Great chieftain o the puddin race,
Aboon them a ye take yer place,
Painch, tripe or thairm,
As langs my airm."

The general is confused, so he just grins and moves on to the next patient.

That soldier responds:

"Some hae meat an canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it,
But we hae meat an we can eat,
So let the Lord be thankit."

Even more confused, and his grin now rictus-like, the commander moves on to the next patient, who immediately begins to chant:

"Wee sleekit, cowerin, timorous beasty,
O the panic in thy breasty,
Thou needna start awa sae hastie,
Wi bickering brattle."

Now seriously troubled, the general turns to the accompanying doctor and asks, "Is this a psychiatric ward?"



Wait for it...


"No, not at all," replies the doctor. "This is the Serious Burns unit."