More Than We See

I was watching House on TV last night, whose new season premiered last week. It's one of my favourite shows right now, along with Boston Legal and Family Guy. In this episode, a fifteen year old girl from the previous episode returned with a major crush on Dr. House. She kept returning to his hospital with fake maladies and tried to seduce him repeatedly. Despite the hospital's restraining order against her, House got a kick out of it and his ego enjoyed toying with the situation. Crank that he is, he refused to call the cops on her just because it ticked off his boss, the hospital administrator.

[Spoiler Alert: Do not read the following if you care about watching the episode an dhave not done so yet.]

Towards the end of the episode, he was forced to confront her properly and ensure that she never returned. She was a stalker and he had to deal with it. This introduced an amusing sequence in which he quote various classic movies, explaining that "the problems of two people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world." The girl, as you would expect, begins to cry.

At this point, House notices something odd and takes a closer look at her tears, which appear to be somewhat milky in colour. Out of the blue, he asks her if she was in an earthquake recently. Derailed from the point of their discussion, she answers that there was a minor earthquake in California when she was there a month before. Et voila, House pulls another freak diagnosis out of thin air.

Sometimes, earthquakes release certain kinds of spores from the ground into the air. Sometimes, people inhale these spores and it infects their brains. And in rare cases (since all cases are rare on this show), people experience symptoms similar to a mild cold while losing all of their inhibitions. So this girl was not infatuated, she was just sick. House quickly writes out a prescription and, swearing because of his false ego boost, he leaves to solve the other major dilemma of the show.

So the moral here is that all may not be what it appears to be. Sometimes personality disorders and psychological issues are actually biological problems and there are medical treatments available.

In the same way, not all apparent medical problems are biological in nature. We're currently reading the classic book The Bondage Breaker in my cell group. (My "cell group" is a weekly bible study with a small group of friends.) In it, the authors recount their own stories of people that they counseled with issues such as multiple personality disorders that were in fact experiencing demonic attacks. The "voices" they were hearing were real and were not the product of chemical imbalances in their brains.

So while the authors are clear that there are plenty of things that cannot be attributed to spiritual sources, there are some problems that should be. There is more to this life than what we see and we will always need God. Fortunately for us, there is power in the name of Jesus and Christians can rest assured that God can handle anything that Satan tries to throw at us, if we rely on Him.

Ah, nothing like a little television to make me go, "Hmm..."

Priorities

Here is my list of life priorities. The time and resources that I allocate to each one does not necessarily line up exactly with this list and this list is somewhat flexible. Even so, this is generally how I try to direct my daily decisions.

1. Me, Myself and God
I need to take care of my relationship with God. My spiritual and emotional health and growth are the root of everything that I am and that I give. Without this, I will eventually run dry in trying to fulfill all of the other priorities in my life. Without this, I will try to accomplish everything under my own power rather than by God's strength and direction. My usual time to devote to this is in the morning just after I wake up.

2. Family
Besides Jesus, no other relationships matter more. It's easy to take family for granted and it's easy to harbour grudges for past history. It takes a conscious effort to make sure this doesn't happen and very often, that means that I need to swallow some pride and apologize when I'm wrong. My goal has been and is to have meaningful relationships with my parents, my brother and my sister. I like to spend at least a little time every day with each family member, even if it just to ask how the day went. A little daily affection goes a long way.

3. Girlfriend
Well, this is an empty position on my list at the moment and eventually this item will merge with the priority above, of course. A casual dating relationship would not rate this high on my list but that's not what I want to have. A girlfriend that I love and intend to marry would definitely be both a great treasure and a great responsibility for me. In the meantime, I tend to devote this time to ministry. Speaking of which...

4. Ministry
In my case, this usually means either discipleship or worship music. My role as a Big Brother and my role as a percussionist and singer are the two main aspects of this. Evangelism and caring for people would also fall into this section consistantly for me, though simply being a friend is sometimes enough in that regard. And yes, I do consider this to be more important than work or my career. I think that anyone that gets to do their ministry on a professional basis is blessed.

5. Employment
As a computer programmer, I love what I do for a living. I've been in this career for almost seven years now and while I never thought I would be doing this kind of thing for so long, I'm glad that I have. Even better, my experience at work has taught me a lot of valuable lessons about life in general. That being said, I make a point of leaving work at 5:00 pm every weekday. I do work some overtime once in a while these days because of my responsibilities as manager but I make sure that I take corresponding time off to make up for it.

For me, one of the principles that I follow is that my job and my ministry should never be more important to me than my relationships. Even doing something for God rings hollow if it takes away from the ones we love. It's far too easy to let work and ministry take precedance and I don't just walk away from that danger - I run. Very few things scare and disgust me as much as this idea.

6. Friends
There's nothing like the give and take of a close friend, that regular flow of trust of someone to confide in. Much of the time, this conveniantly accomodates my lesser priority of entertainment but I see this as more of a weekly or semi-weekly activity. As an introvert, it's actually a pleasure for me to hide out from the world and enjoy being by myself. Boredom is never a real concern for me when I'm solo but I recognize that I need to make sure that I don't seclude myself. My friends can always brighten my day.

So what does your list of priorities look like?

CD Release: Now and Then

GTA Praise Band

NOW AND THEN

(Link)

Today is the official release date of the new worship CD that I recorded with my band from church throughout this past June. This album includes four old hymns, a few popular songs from the past two decades and a few brand new songs. All of them are done in our own unique way, so expect plenty of drums and electric guitars (though we did sneak in a men's choir at one point).

I played percussion and/or sang backup vocals for all of the tracks. I used a variety of shakers, the congas and a few other percussive instruments. And any time you hear a tambourine behind the main set of drums, that's me. I sang backup tenor for most of the songs and I sang bass for one song as well. My thanks to Tim for his technical wizardry on percussion, since I basically redid all of the songs in one evening in his home studio.

I'm picking up a bunch of copies for myself this weekend at my church. This CD will also receive Canada-wide distribution, which is really cool. The CD will be available soon in Christian book and music stores all over the place, including the two Upper Room Bookstore locations here in London. Apparently it will also be available on iTunes, though it's not there yet.

I would gladly buy a copy for my friends and co-workers but at $20.00 for each one, that's not really an option. So if you would like to get a copy then ask me to pick one up for you and pay me back later, or go to the Upper Room and buy it there. All profits (if there are any) go to the church so I'm not making anything off of this. My only reward is a free CD and seeing my name in the credits of the liner notes for each song. Pride in a job well done and the glory goes to my God and my Saviour.

Acknowledgements:
Thanks to my brother, who is the main reason that I play percussion in the first place. Without his talent as my inspiration and the drums that he brought from around the world, I would never have learned how to play. Thanks to Ma, who innately taught me a love for singing. Thanks to GTA for the chance to record this CD and, more importantly, the chance to minister to people and to God with worship music. Most importantly, thanks to my saviour Jesus for His love and forgiveness, for the passion and gifts that I have for worship ministry and for being a real friend to me.

Old Kids & Young Kids

Congratulations to Richard and Tara! It's their 4th anniversary today. So what is that, the Lego anniversary with an onion ring?

Here's a true urban legend. It's a story of how one student came to class late one day and copied down the homework questions for math from the blackboard. Two of the questions seemed to be harder than usual but the teacher confirmed that this homework was required. The student returned a few days later with the answers, apologizing for his tardiness. Several weeks later, the teacher came back to him with astounding news. The two difficult questions had not been part of the regular homework - they had been written down during class as examples of unproved theorems that remained unresolved. The moral of this story? We can accomplish amazing things if we get rid of these presumed limitations.

As an observation that I made this week, there's a big difference between liking kids and being a good leader for kids. Me, I happen to hang out quite a bit with kids. I can easily relate to video games, comics, TV, action figures and imaginary games. That's all great fun for me and I take it as seriously as any kid does, as my sister can attest. However, caring for and leading a group of kids is another thing altogether. Positive discipline, maintaining focus, organizing activities, teaching a subject...that's tricky for me. I have nothing but respect for the teachers and children's ministry people that I know. Such talent, such instincts. Not to say I'm useless in this regard but it's like I have a G1 license whilst others have been driving around for years.

Speaking of kids, here's a picture of the five boys that we have at my house this year from South Korea. Along with my Little, who is not pictured here for privacy's sake, I took them to Laser Quest in downtown London a couple of weeks ago. We played three games and sweated up a storm. And yes, I kicked butt and had the top score two out of three games while we played with another fifteen people.

All Of Us

"None of us is as smart as all of us."

This is a quote that is on the bulletin board in the kitchen at Unit 10 at my company. Apparently this saying is based on a Japanese proverb. It's intended to emphasize that teamwork and co-operation can accomplish a lot of things that we cannot do individually.

Sure, I'll go along with this principle. Two heads are better than one. I often use other people as sounding boards to test my ideas. I make an intentional effort to assume that my decisions and designs may be flawed and I specifically get advice from others. Compromise happens to be a word that I love in this regard.

That being said, I briefly had my own response on this same bulletin board:

"None of us is as smart as all of us."

"Unless 'all of us' is a committee."

It's a long-standing precept in the software development industry that "design by committee" is a bad thing. Yes, two heads are better than one but many heads are not better than two heads. At some point, committees become either a tool of the most powerful person in the room or they introduce a series of endless compromises.

The best ideas - the most risky ideas, the most challenging ideas, the most creative ideas - are filtered out. Only the mediocre and generally palatable ideas are accepted. Instead of implementing a unique and powerful vision, that one voice of the future becomes a gaggle of people talking. At the end, no one can take credit or responsibility for a singular idea and the original passion of the work is lost.

I'm not against committees per se. I happen to be involved in several different weekly meetings at work and they function very well. For certain tasks, though, committees suck...the life out of the project.

I have an idea that you should let geniuses do what they do best. A genius will still get input and ask advice from everyone because they're smart enough to know that they don't live in a bubble and they do not hold the keys to all information. However, their efforts are not diluted, either.

It's often like trying to do a painting. If a bunch of people jump in together, the final image is either a gloppy mess or it's so highly regimented that it may as well have been paint-by-numbers. That being said, comics are often done by a person that does the initial art in pencil, followed by a second person that does inking and finally the colourist does their overlay. Sometimes, the sum result is worse than the individual efforts but when you get a great team, each level only improves and accentuates the last.

Servanthood

I've been at my current job for almost seven years now. About two years into it, Bert and Helen decided that we had grown enough to warrant some kind of project management. None of us really knew what we wanted from this new role and while I began to study this field quite a bit, it still took almost two more years to make the role useful.

At the beginning, Bert and Helen tried to impress upon me the importance of being a good leader. They advised me that I could not lead by mere authority. Just because I was the Project Manager, that didn't give me the right to boss anyone around or make flippant decisions. I would never be given respect, I had to earn it. I could not dictate decisions, I had to earn consensus.

In response, I suggested that a good leader should go even further than this. In my words at the time, I said that a good leader should be a servant. A good leader should strive to make things easier for everyone else and should be willing to do the jobs that no one else wants to do. In retrospect, my words were more than a little naive.

My explanation that a leader must be a servant was straight from Jesus' example in the Bible in John 13. And while I still think that the principle is correct, my words certainly didn't translate well into the business world. Funny enough, I remember both Bert and Helen looking at me quizzically when I said the "servant" bit and only later did I understand how strange my words must have sounded.

Over the past five years, I think that I have learned what it takes to be an effective manager. The largest part of that actually came from my time as leader of the youth worship team at Faith Congregational, in addition to my professional experience. I've been studying statistics and essays from a variety of Project Managers in the software industry since the time that this role was first offered to me and I've grown a lot since then.

My belief still stands: A leader should be a servant. As director and manager at my company, it's my job to give my co-workers the projects, tools and answers they need and then give them the space and time to do their work. Our programmers, QA people and tech writers should not have to randomly ask people for advice or direction. They should get what they need when they need it without being forced to sit in endless meetings and without dealing with politics and red tape. It's my job to make that happen. It's my job to help them, it's not their job to help me.

As for earning respect, that's the only option that I even had for most of those years. To quote myself, "I trade in favours." I scratch your back and you scratch mine. If I need you to do something for me, I probably volunteered to do something for you already. I'm like the Godfather in that way.

At this point, in the my role as Director and as one of the most experienced programmers at my company, I could probably use my position and authority to get the job done. More to the point, I have seen new employees at both my company and at other places attempt to do just that. We so often think that a strong hand will get the job done and while we may see some short term results from this approach, we need to understand that we're eroding people every time we do this and it costs us all in the long run.

We're not supposed to break people down, we're supposed to build them up. We're trying to help people grow and let them look forward to coming into work in the morning, we're not just trying to get today's deadline done. We need to see that every negative reaction we have and every extra rule that we implement takes away from people. And if we don't invest in people then we haven't invested in anything.

We're Not Co-Workers, We're Co-People

Trevor Speirs was a consultant that worked with my company for a few months, helping us re-organize our staff departments and internal processes. I previously wrote about his positive influence on me here. He's moved on to something else now but at least I can stay updated with his blog, which is now part of my blog links.

Speaking of blog links, I've updated my links on the right there to group the more frequently updated ones together. I have also added my co-worker Scott's blog. Do any of my other co-workers have blogs that I need to know about? And speaking of former co-workers, here's a shout out to Lorrie E. It's interesting to hear about the people that visit my blog without me knowing. Heh.

In recent news, congratulations to Joel and his new gf. If you want more details, you'll have to ask him about the new girl in his life.

Welcome back, Mike. He just returned this past Monday after working for a year as an English teacher in South Korea. I went to see The Wicker Man with him this past Friday and I got a chance to catch up on his experiences this past year. Good to have him back.

As for the movie, it wasn't all that good. I despise thrillers and scary movies but I went to see this one just to hang out with Mike. Fortunately for me, it wasn't scary at all. Unfortunately for anyone else that watches this movie, it wasn't scary at all. I blame the director for some of his poor choices in thematic devices that denied any possible tension that could have been built.

Speaking of movies, I also caught Invincible with my sister on Saturday evening and then Crank on Sunday evening with my brother. I don't recommend the latter to anyone. Besides the poor content, it also had very few good action stunts and it was just a psychadelic movie with all kinds of insane situations thrown in. Invincible, on the other hand, was fantastic. Great period piece with an interesting set of characters and the true story aspect was exactly what you expected. I recommend this movie to anyone. And my sister enjoyed it as well, despite being only a minor sports fan.

And yes, that does make three movies in three straight evenings. I would have made it four in a row later this evening but Idiocracy isn't playing in London. I didn't have anything planned for this long weekend and I even skipped out on church since I wasn't scheduled to be on the worship team. A blank weekend to catch up on my reading and watch movies is perfect. Although, I did hit LaserQuest with my Little and the five new South Korean boys that have joined my house.

To finish off, I have a couple of recent pictures to share. This next one is from the bonfire that my parents hosted last weekend on August 27th. My Little and his family were also in this pic but I removed them for the sake of privacy. Don't Rhea and Alma look sweet?

This next pic is me playing a game of Scrabble with my distant cousin Chris. He's a relative from Quebec that was visiting my family for the month of August, partially in an effort to strengthen his English. I schooled him in Scrabble, in one game coming with four points of breaking the 400 point barrier. Heh. We played combination games of both French and English and the only game I lost to him was the first one that we did in French only. Unfortunately for me, my French vocabulary is not nearly as extensive as my English one. Scrabble is definitely my favourite board game.