Top Ten Googled words

Google released their top search words for 2011.  Here are the top ten:


10- iPad 2 (if you are 37+ years old and reading this blog, you have a 64% chance of having one)
9- Steve Jobs (genius)
8- TEPCO (Japan reactor that melted down)
7- Adele (musician)
6- iPhone 5 (have you heard of this phone that Apple has?)
5- Battlefield 3 (video game)
4- Casey Anthony (Florida mother accused of murdering her child)
3- Ryan Dunn (From Jackass who died in a car crash of all things)
2- Google+ (mostly searching for invites or digital migration steps from facebook or "is this another social network I have to learn? Crap."


And of course the number one most Googled term of 2011 as released by Google - 


1- Rebecca Black (had a viral hit video called "Friday") 


I am sure you can catch the irony of people using Google to discover information about Apple (a competitor of Google).


50% of this list are people.  For some reason this made me think of this line credited to Eleanor Roosevelt, "Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people."

Man bites dog...

"Be careful. People like to be told what they already know. Remember that. They get uncomfortable when you tell them new things. New things... well, new things aren't what they expect. They like to know that, say, a dog will bite a man. That is what dogs do. They don't want to know that man bites dog, because the world is not supposed to happen like that. In short, what people think they want is news, but what they really crave is olds . . . Not news but olds, telling people that what they think they already know is true. "


—Terry Pratchett, through the character Lord Vetinari from his "The Truth" a Novel of Disworld.


This might help explain why so many people can become offended by alternate theologies.

Did Gandhi say that?

My friend Adam, passed along to me an article from the NY Times entitled "Falser Words Were Never Spoken."  While I can be mistaken, this article comments on how some quotes of famous people are sometimes not historically stated by the people they are credited to.  


Here is an excerpt towards the end of the article to give you a synopsis:


Thoreau, Gandhi, Mandela — it’s easy to see why their words and ideas have been massaged into gauzy slogans. They were inspirational figures, dreamers of beautiful dreams. But what goes missing in the slogans is that they were also sober, steely men. Each of them knew that thoroughgoing change, whether personal or social, involves humility and sacrifice, and that the effort to change oneself or the world always exacts a price.


Gandhi is credited with a variation of the quote "you must be the change you wish to see in the world."  For those of you who do not know, there is no historical evidence that he stated this line.  


Some might be jaded (perhaps like the author of the Times article sounds to be) that since the line was not actually of the source that it is credited to, it looses a great deal of credibility.  


This is also what many have "against" the words of Jesus in the Bible.  We do not know for certain if Jesus actually stated each and every word that is in red in the Bible.  


Likewise with the apostle Paul who is credited for writing letters he did not pen.  


This line is a wonderful example of the difference in reading for truth (historicity) and reading for Truth (Myth).  


If we were reading for truth, then yes, the quote is not true.  It is not from Gandhi.  It is not true.  


If we are reading for Truth, then yes, the quote if True.  It does not matter if Gandhi stated it or not.  We really much be the change if we want the world to change.  


Gandhi might not have said it.  There might not have been an arc built by Noah. There might not have been an Odysseus tied to mast of a ship.  There might not have been a virgin birth of Jesus.  There might not even be a bodily resurrection of Christ.  That does not make the stories/Myths any less True.  


Truth is more than facts.


Facts do not move people to action (no one supports a child in Africa after hearing the life expectancy of children, which is why they do not use them on the commercials late at night).  


Facts do not transform people (if so then global warming would be a non-issue now).


Facts only support our position and the other person's facts are wrong (which is why MSNBC and FOX each have access to their own set of 'facts' on the government).


Facts do not change the world.


You do. 


Just like Gandhi said.  

Gaining and loosing the gift of prophecy

In Romans 12, Paul writes these words:

"For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching;the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness."

One of the striking phrases to me in this section is the idea of one receives "prophecy, in proportion to faith".  It is striking to me because it is often understood that prophecy is either something you have or you do not have.  Much like brown eyes - you either have them or you do not.  

However, if we are to consider that we are to grow in faith then does that mean that we too can proportionally grow in prophecy?  And if we diminish in faith then do we proportionally diminish in prophecy?  

Recently I completed reading "The Prophetic Imagination" by Walter Brueggemann (which you can find my Kindle notes here).  And in my reading of this book, with the Scriptures as well as what I recall from Seminary, it has awoken an awareness in me that prophecy is something more of a skill that we cultivate than a trait that we possess (or do not possess).


First off let me use Brueggemann's words to clarify what a prophet is:


While the prophets are in a way future-tellers, they are concerned with the future as it impinges upon the present.


The task of prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us


It is the task of the prophet to bring to expression the new realities against the more visible ones of the old order.


As we grow in the faith of Christ and live into the call of God in our lives...
As we understand the message of Jesus and how he rooted his message in a rich tradition of prophets...
As we undertake spiritual disciplines and grow in the fruits of the spirit...
As we mature into the beings God desires us to be...

We grow in the skill of prophecy.

MLK did not just wake up one day and "discover" he was a prophet.  No.  He cultivated a love of Christ for years before he stepped into that role of the prophet.  Even Jesus was 30 years old before he stepped into public ministry!  Becoming a prophet takes time.  And it is clear in the Biblical witness, it is something that we can all grow into.