Stop conversing and start doing.

(Bringing in more people to converse is not doing. Generating more ideas is not doing. Creating proposals is not doing.)

At the end of the day, you will still remain shifted from center in the work you “do.” Recognize it and move on.

“Give a person a fish, that person will eat for a day.” Teach a person to fish without first giving them a fish, they’ll spend the entire time fishing with a growling stomach and you won’t have succeeded in accomplishing anything because the person will resent you for not doing what is appropriate for the situation — which is to end their current hunger.

The Wisconsin Legislature endorsed online, virtual academies in a draft measure that would provide state funding and keep their keyboards open in the fall, overruling an earlier circuit court decision to shutter the institutions. Teachers unions are crying foul, but for everyone else this is a win-win. The academies win in being allowed to stay open, the students win in being afforded more choice in their educational path, the public wins in being assured of unified standards just as any other public educational institution, and society gets to keep fighting over whether or not online schools are really schools.

OK so that last part is just like anything else.

The last episode of Frontline on PBS dealt with the rise in social media and social networking on the Internet and its affects on the high school class of 2007. I want to preface this with something: it was the first time I have ever watched an after-school special about the Internet that didn’t make me want to pull my hair out through the whole thing. The alarmist tone was muted, and while other generations may not understand the coming-of-age generation’s use of the Internet and think that it replaces important social values, it was extremely useful and well done. You can watch the full episode from PBS’ website, but do know it is 60 minutes.

Change is good. Change means we are human. (Change for the sake of change is annoying, but…) It means we are alive. Our instinct is to explore and discover, and part of that means that we need to evolve. Whether one dislikes the ongoing development of technology or loves it, ultimately it is irrelevant. The world won’t stop because you long for an earlier time — like when students learned in rows of desks, looked at a chalkboard and chanted off multiplication tables with their instructor.

This is by far the most bizarre story of the day year.

I don’t know why I’ve gotten hung up in the news about the NASA MESSENGER program. Its Macworld week — and visions of MacBook Airs should be floating in my head, but instead its space.

Once they said space was the final frontier, and indeed it still is. After colonizing the world, taming the West (and leaving it to grow wild again), the only thing we have left to explore is space.

Exploration is good. It proves we are alive. Our intelligence is what sets us apart from the rest of the creatures of the world, so it is only appropriate that we continue to push the limits.

I don’t know much about Mercury. Don’t let that fool you — I don’t know much about the rest of the planets, either, and that includes our own. My father is the space and science nerd. He grew up watching the first space trips, and even today I know he’s probably watching NASA TV at home in the family room, much to the displeasure of anyone else wanting a crack at the television. Space travel was something for his domain; I didn’t want anything to do with it.

Yet today, when so many other things in the news could be taking up space in my mind (like the primary in Michigan, or video rentals on iTunes), I keep tuning in only for reports about the MESSENGER mission. I zone out until the moment NASA officials come on and clap and cheer for the radio connection that takes 80 minutes to travel to Earth at the speed of light.

I’m reminded of an episode of The West Wing, when Galileo V is lost in space. President Bartlet goes out on the portico and waits for the sky to “speak to us.” He spent most of the episode harassing C.J. about her lack of enthusiasm, only for her to discover an intrigue, a curiosity about all it is we don’t know. I feel like C.J. today. And now I can’t wait until we know more.

One of the features in January’s National Geographic is titled “The Emptied Prairie” and explores the increasing number of ghost towns in North Dakota. (If you don’t want to take time to read the story — which I encourage you to do — at least take a look at the stunning photography.)

I’ll admit it up front: I’ve always had a strange affinity toward North Dakota. When you grow up in Minnesota’s Northland, you know the enemies are Wisconsin and Iowa. South Dakota is a bit odd, conversations about South Dakotans would inevitably lead to accusations of inbreeding. North Dakota, though, gets a sort of free ticket, similar to Canada. Sure, they exist, but they don’t really bother a person, so let everyone get along just so long as no one says anything to another. (Plus I knew a lot of North Dakotans, growing up in the Lutheran Brethren church.) One of my favorite sweatshirts is my NDSU hoodie, and many friends have taken advantage of their comparatively outstanding higher education system.

North Dakota was a flatter, less populated Minnesota. And it is the eastern most “real” western state. I remember the first time I went to North Dakota and looked out at the vast expanse of land. There isn’t a need for things like trees there, just land. Trees end up getting in the way of the view. I was used to looking at lakes dropping off at the horizon, but when its just empty land I still think the horizon is further off than on water.

Those who know me well enough will know that this article prompted a new travel and exploration idea. And I encourage everyone to do the same. North Dakota doesn’t get much tourism. Let’s face it: its flat, windy and it snows a lot. There’s no way around it, and not much market for that combination. But I guarantee you if you have the opportunity to trek up there, you’ll feel more connected with our nation’s explorers of old. You’ll be captured by the excitement and mysticism of the American west. And I’m sure that in these towns, you’ll feel more connected to this piece of America than you ever could by reading a high school history book.

Last week, Penelope Trunk (of the Boston Globe) posted one of the most interesting blogs I’ve read in a while related to generational differences in today’s society and workplace. An excerpt:

The victories of Generation Y will not look like the Boston Tea Party or Kent State. They will look like this Iowa caucus: Gen Y, playing by the rules, and winning.

My friend Alicia had forwarded the posting on to me, and it was so strange that it came following a long conversation just a day earlier I had with a colleague about generational differences particularly in the area of racism and systemic change. In fact, it was that colleague who had the best summation of today’s change:

Many baby boomers have been ‘fighting’ for so long we don’t know how to stop and assess the ‘victories’ and ‘changes’ that have already occurred in our society.

I see it at work. I see it with my friends. I’ve seen it growing up — my mother’s best friend likes to poke fun at me for a remark I made when I still required others to wipe me: “Does it matter?”

Of course it matters, but that gets followed up by another question: “So what?” And there’s the root of the friction between the generations. The outgoing Boomers think the so what means a fight. The Gen Xers think the so what means proving themselves on the backs of others. And the incoming Millennials think the so what is working together with what is, imagining what can be from it, without spending a dizzying amount of time decrying what it isn’t. In the words of Trunk, GenY is seeking its mandate to “do things differently, within the established structures of power.”

A few weeks ago, I discovered one of the greatest things I missed from my former church. The list of things I would change — both about the ELCA and the UCC, and my individual churches previous — are myriad, and the rituals I thought I would miss from the Lutheran church are not always the same as what I have found I miss the most.

It is the stained glass window at Trinity.

When I first started attending Trinity my freshman year at Carthage, something simply clicked between me and the congregation that I still can’t explain. It wasn’t the high church liturgy that I love. It was void of many of the spiritual practices that I yearn for in my own life. Surely there wasn’t anything spectacular about the congregation’s mission. And don’t get me started on the music! But what Trinity lacked in all these things, it more than made up for in the worship environment.

The worship space at Trinity “looks” like a church, with beautiful stained glass windows and traditional neo-Gothic styling. The deep blues of the windows contrast with the gray and white of the walls, which complement the rich wood of the beams and ceiling. The blond wood of the pews give a 1960’s retro feel to the room.

Centered above the communion table and altar at the front of the room is the window that has become so iconic in my worship life. As we would speak in unison the words of the historic creeds, I could follow through Christ’s life in that window, taking me from birth to baptism, crucifixion to burial, ascension to the sure promise of his return. Every time I speak the creed, I have the image of the stained glass window burned in my mind.

The window

Our beautiful snow is gone. Glad I took this picture this morning on my way to work since what was here is even gone now.

I have to move my car all day Wednesday.
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Ugh. Will someone else clean it for me?
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