Trials and tribulations of the flip flop tribe

Posted by admin in culture on Jul 19th, 2005 | 3 comments

I am of the flip flop tribe. I value the air flowing freely over my feet as the flip and flop of my onomatopoeiaic footwear carry me to wherever I am appointed to go.

I do, however, wonder if the girls of Northwestern’s championship lacrosse team used proper White House edicate by wearing flip flops when they visited the President. I love my flip flops as much as anyone in my tribe, but there’s just something about meeting the President of the United States in flip flops that awkwardly straddles the gap between fashion edge and White House edicate.

I am torn. What would I do? If I were asked to visit the White House and meet the President as part of a delegation of next generation pastors, would I revert to the suit, tie, and dress shoes of another life? Or, would I wear a nice shirt, khakis, and dress flip flops from ALDO? Instead of flip flops I think I might splurge and spring for a nice pair of slip-ons.

Nonetheless, I don’t fault the girls for being who they are. Worse fashion and edicate crimes have been committed. The people that are hurt the most are the girls’ mothers.

Click here for the AP story on the flip flop flap at the White House.

Share and Enjoy:

You have to admire Tom Cruise’s passion

Posted by admin in spirituality on Jul 1st, 2005 | 0 comments

You have to admire Tom Cruise’s passion about life and his religion, even if you don’t agree with his religion or like the way he verbally threw up on Matt Lauer. I’ve been a Tom Cruise fan since Top Gun. The Mission Impossible projects were cool and I really enjoyed watching The Last Samurai on vacation this week. All very passionate movies. I wouldn’t expect less from Tom Cruise. In his interview with Lauer he was quoted as saying that he’s passionate about life. I would agree. He is one passionate dude.

Mr. Cruise is also passionate about the Church of Scientology. In fact, that’s why he really blew up at Mr. Lauer. He went ballistic, pun intended, about his religion. I didn’t get to see the interview, but when I read about it I thought it a bit unusual coming from a Hollywood type. I mean, after all, Hollywood types are passionate about a lot of things…usually weird things…but not about religion. When I read about how he went off about how the mental sciences were essentially a hoax I was taken back a bit. Don’t get me wrong. If there ever was a “suck it up and tough it out” kind of person, it would be me. But, I think that we overdiagnose and overprescribe meds way too much in emotional and behavioral situations that are even slightly out of the norm. However, I don’t totally dismiss drugs or therapy. If you’re in the ministry (at least in the majority of ministry environments) for very long you get mentally down. More people in the ministry than want to admit it get depressed. It happened to me. While drugs and counseling aren’t the only answer to chemical imbalances they sure can help. I digress…

Even though I admire Mr. Cruise’s passion, I find his commitment to his religion suspect. I knew enough about Scientology to get me into trouble so I went to a source that I felt was trustworthy…a minister of Scientology that’s also a chaplain in the U.S. Navy. I respect the view of a U.S. Navy chaplain primarily because my experience with Navy personnel has been one that exudes precision. Anyway, back to the suspect thing. To become a minister in the Church of Scientology you have to start out “auditing” other people. Specifically auditing is “a unique form of personal counseling intended to help an individual look at his own existence and improve their ability to confront what and where they are. It is a precise, thoroughly codified activity with exact procedures” (emphasis mine). The auditor keeps a close watch on the counselee by using an E-Meter. The E-Meter continuously measures the electrical resistance of the person’s body and helps the auditor correctly diagnose the person and make necessary adjustments in the person’s treatment. The E-Meter ain’t exactly an EKG. Read an interesting article on the E-Meter here.

When an auditor establishes their…umm…integrity, they are given the title of minister and wear clerical clothing and everything. The genesis of my cynicism is that Mr. Cruise sounds a lot like a KJV fundie when he starts bashing the “pseudo sciences” of psychology and psychiatry and comes off as a self-professed expert on behavior modification drugs that are readily available on the street. Here’s what I really don’t get…Why doesn’t Tom Cruise think that “auditing” functions, at least on the base level, just like psychiatry or psychology? The intent of any counseling session is the modification of behavior. There’s no difference. Except that in psychiatry they actually use EKGs, MRIs, and CT scans.

Another thing I don’t get is that Mr. Cruise is a smart guy, but he seems to overlook the fact that Scientology looks curiously like a mixture of Mormonism, Hinduism, and Universalism with a healthy dose of good old fashioned gnosticism mixed in. Then Mr. Hubbard adds a bit of deism to make it look more legit.

One more thing I don’t get is how a religion is given so much credibility when it’s based on one person’s sole writings and teachings with verbosity being the benchmark of truth. Can we get a second opinion from another auditor or something? I even get a second opinion when I ask if a movie is worth seeing. Maybe the reason I like the Bible so much is that it has at least 31 human authors that claim to be inspired by the Holy Spirit of God. I figure if over 3o people can come up with the same things about God something has to be right about it.

Wow, that felt better than a discharge of harmful energy…I think. I had a bad muscle spasm one time and the doctor hooked me up to a Medco Sonolator and it made my muscle twitch a lot and then I felt better. Was that like a reverse discharge of harmful energy? Did I dabble in Scientology? They didn’t talk to me while they were doing it so I don’t think I was “audited”. I think I’m OK.

Oh well, you still have to admire Tom Cruise’s passion. You have to admit he’s a good actor. He’s creative. He’s intelligent. I also think he’s misled. Just my opinion, of course. But what do Matt Lauer and I know about anything anyway?

Share and Enjoy:

An incredible book I’m just now discovering…

Posted by admin in culture on Jan 28th, 2005 | 2 comments

OK, this book is four years old and all the really sharp and well informed people I know have heard about this book and many have read it. I must admit that I’ve been a bit behind the leadership learning curve the last couple of years. I seemed to have slacked off since I changed church cultures. Church plants don’t have too many stumps to plow around (And all of God’s people said, “Cool.”) I got lazy and in the meantime could have been a better leader. Thanks to my good friend Tony McCollum for getting me into a loop that is challenging me to be a better learner and leader…

No big review here, except that this is the best book on leadership I’ve read. I’m a big John Maxwell fan, but frankly this book is the best because it’s academically sound and built on empirical data. If seminaries don’t begin teaching tracks on leadership they’re going to keep churning out pastors that are preaching idiots.

Other books in the learning pipeline waiting to be read…The Tipping Point, The Five Temptations of a CEO, FOCUS; The future of your company depends on it, and The E Myth Revisited.

Share and Enjoy: