I was walking down Spadina Rd. last week when some kind of cool car wipped past me. I immediately turned my head and commented to the friend I was with how nice I thought the car was. He said to me "oh, you must be a car guy". It made me stop and think because actually I've never considered myself to be a car guy. In some ways though, I guess he's right.

I mean, I like the look of high end cars. I like the details - how the leather is trimmed, what the dash is decorated with, how much chrome is on the car. I even like some of the manly things about cars - how they small and how they sound. I have this fantasy of finding a place where I can test drive several high end cars for an hour or two on a closed track at high speeds. I guess I am kind of a car guy...just revving the engine gets my blood boiling!

I was thinking today though how silly that is. You know what the reality is? I HATE driving. Ask my wife. Any time we get in the car I get annoyed. It's not just the traffic of the GTA either...I kind of always have hated driving. Some people like the travel time on trips - I hate it. Something about being an achiever and a futurist keeps me from enjoying the pointless moments of travel - I just want to be there. NOW. So why, in heavens name, should I be interested in ANY car? I don't like being in them, I don't drive THAT much; it's totally impractical for me to want such a car. I've come to believe that when I'm lusting after nice cars it's only the excitement of owning said car that I want, not what the car will actually do for me. If I allowed the sexiness of those cars to overcome me I could waste a lot of energy trying to get the money to buy one of those cars and I can gaurantee that for me I would wind up dissapointed 'cause I had wasted so much time and resources.

I think sometimes people and organizations get like this too. Not about cars but about certain acheivements. They're attracted to the excitement of achievement, the roar of the engine so to speak, and don't stop to think whether that achievement is actually what they need to be pursuing. I think one of the great hazards of being a leader is how easy it can be to be lured into pursuing the excitement of building something bigger rather than building something better and more beneficial to the world we live in.

The roar of the engine in my 2001 Ford Escape is the only roar I want. With it, I get to focus my attention on what really matters. That sound is far more exciting to me these days.

Last night I had the privilege of hanging out with Jared - activist and founder of Pocket Change Apparel. You can see their main website here. 

 So yesterday I was on my way to someplace quiet to prepare for the first Vox Toronto Staff meeting which, btw, was awesome! I'm so excited for what a small group of people can and might do here in Toronto. Anyhow, I was on my way to do some work for this not-for-profit organization we're trying to bring to Toronto - one that's inviting people to care enough to make a difference in our city - and while I was walking I got asked if I wanted to buy a paper.

Now, you must understand, getting approached on the street here in Toronto to buy something is not unique. What WAS unique is that I was approached by a homeless person who was actually selling something to try and get some money. With my head in a zone I muttered something under my breath like "not today", put my head down and kept walking...

...at least for 20 feet. Suddenly the irony of what I'd done hit me and I lifted my head, slowed my pace and turned around. I then met Olga, a kind lady, willing to talk and tell me why she was selling the paper, how much they were and where she got them. It was very pleasant. I gave her a toonie and she shook my hand. 

It occurred to me in that moment that caring is very easy to claim to do until you're asked to act on it. In other words talk can be cheap. Here I am, claiming to be someone who wants the world to become a bit more human and trying to get people to join me in doing something that moves Toronto in that direction and yet I'm just burying my head and walking past people like Olga as though they don't matter - as if she's not human.

I guess that questions I'm asking here is what does it mean to care? Is lip service enough? How far does one have to be willing to go before we really know that they care? 

I'm interested in your thoughts.

It's here! The first day of the rest of our life in Toronto. It has been a busy day (not over yet) but Mel took a few moments of silence this morning and wrote this from our juliet balcony which overlooks Spadina Rd.

This morning I'm sitting on a lawn chair surround by paint cans and a few boxes and I just want to pinch myself! Here we are in the Annex right on Spadina Road. After almost 2 years planning we are here and now the work begins. 
I love our new place! And it'll be our for the next 3 years or more. Can't wait for the stories that will come out of this apartment. All the ways that we'll see relationships formed and a start in working along side some great people in seeing the city of Toronto become better city. 
Honestly everyone is invited over! Maybe not all at once but we would love to have you here!
I'm off to paint and clean!
Much, MUCH Love
Melissa

A couple of years ago I ran across this concept in a book by Dan Kimball called "They Like Jesus, but they don't like the church". The concept was simple, that we as followers of Christ need to be known more by what we're for and less for what we're against. Sadly, the greater majority of the time when the church gets media exposure it's for things like boycotting Harry Potter or Marylin Manson or Target. Sadly all of the good things that the church does like helping fight AIDS in Africa, being the first line of response at Katrina and Haiti and a myriad of other things seems to get drowned out by negative press.

I thought about this again today as I read a post by Anne Jackson regarding some people in the church wanting to boycott Craigslist because of prostitution adds on it's site. 

 The problem is one that should be dealt with for sure and yet I think Anne's suggestions are much more helpful than another boycott and statement of what we're against. 

Read her post and let me know what you think? Is she on to something?

Let me give you a short education on guitars. There are two major companies always competing to be "the best". Fender vs. Gibson. Everyone else is a second rate guitar company - from a world branding standpoint. These are the big two. It's an interesting battle when you get to know what's going on because the two have such fundamentally different veiws of how to make a great guitar. 

At Fender every part is replaceable. And I mean EVERY part. No two parts are so joined that we can't swap one out for another. To make my point, the neck is affixed to the body in such a way that if the neck breaks who cares! We just pick up another one, replace it, and start again. How the body and neck are connected is less important to Fender than the quality of the connection. Nothing is indispensable. 

The Les Paul Guitar is the epitome of Gibson's line. When they set out to design and make this guitar they had a fundamentally different approach. They believed that at certain junctures of the guitars assembly, the neck in particular, the joint must function as much like a solid piece of wood as possible. The result, many people would say, is a better feeling, more resonant instrument. Here's the catch though - if you break the neck it's not replaceable. That joint is indispensable. That joint, on a Gibson guitar, is the lynchpin. Without a solid connection there the instrument losses it's advantage. It becomes less than it could be. It losses what makes it really beautiful.

Seth Godin's new book Lynchpin is awesome! Here's the basic premise: you have been conditioned to believe that you belong in a system. A system where everyone has a part to play but nobody is needed or indispensable. It's the factory mentality. It's the same premise on which Fender guitars were built, on which the auto industry and many others work, and on which our schooling is based. Godin says that we're teaching people how to fall in line rather than teaching them how to become remarkable artists and leaders, self-sufficient in their work, ready to tackle real problems with real creativity. 

Godin suggests that there is something else and something more than what we've been offered. I WHOLEHEARTEDLY AGREE!

I think this resonates with me so much because it's one of the dreams we have for Montage. That every person would become a Lynchpin in their home, work, and community. That in Christ there is so much more to be had than simply living lives that others create for us. Those of us who follow Jesus NEED to become the recognizable lynchpins in our community. What kind of opportunities would we create for the gospel if we sought to become the indispensable components of community that, much like that solid neck joint, bring a sense of more complete connection between people and an increase in the beauty people experience in life?

Right about now people might be thinking "here he goes again - dreaming about these weird and unattainable things". The problem is that when I open the scriptures I find Jesus telling us to ask for and expect weird and seemingly unattainable things. Consider this:

He replied, "Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." Matt 17:20

Do you think moving mountains is unattainable? Yeah, me too. But there it is. Seemingly impossible things are supposed to be possible for those who live life connected to Jesus. 

As I work my way through Lynchpin I'll post occasionally on things I read there. Why? I think it's an idea that needs to be spread. I think Seth Godin is doing a wonderful thing by trying to encourage us all to become indispensable - to become more creative, more integrated and more beautifully connected to one another and to humanity. My goal will be to encourage you away from the Fender mentality and towards the wonder and beauty of the Les Paul....or something like that ;-)

is my friend and life-coach (an inside joke) Craig McGlassion. Craig is the pastor of Paradox Church in Warren, MI. We spent 6 months with them last year getting to know them and learning about their journey to start a faith community. Craig is not a rock-star pastor but his speaking chops are up there with some of the best I've had the joy of hearing. 

Take a few minutes to browse the list of podcasts they have on their site and pick one to listen to. I doubt you'll be dissapointed.

I heard this lyric in a Derek Trucks Band song this morning and it resonated with me. Things that are beautiful are often crazy.

Consider the following list of people who all either are known for creating beauty or are indeed beautiful themselves and on one level or another are what some would call "crazy":

Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf, Leo Tolstoy, John Keats, Sylvia Plath, and Tennessee Williams,  Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Wilkie Collins, Edgar Allan Poe, Francis Ford Coppola, Patty Duke, Marilyn Monroe,  Mozart, Schubert, Rossini, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, James Taylor, Kurt Cobain and on and on and on I could go.

(I'll toss Tyra Banks in here....she's got to be completely crazy!)

Is it possible that in a society and culture that craves and seeks to produce safe, secure, mundane "individuals" that we've lost so much of what it takes to be interesting and beautiful? 

We don't even have to talk about people who are clinically defined as mentally imbalanced to see a certain crazy quality about the people credited with do the most beautiful things.

Was Gandhi somewhat crazy to leave India in a revolt through peace, allowing thousands to be abused in the process and urging them never to fight back through physical violence?

I've heard people say many times that Jesus must be the Son of God or be stark raving mad. There's no middle ground with this beauty creator.

How about Mother Theresa? Do sane people give up their whole lives to live amongst the poorest of the poor or must one be just a bit crazy to produce this level of beauty?

What about the guy from the Tiananmen square? You know, the one on this video:

Am I suggesting that we should all hope that we can get a mental disease so that beauty can flourish? No. What I've been wondering for sometime though is whether or not balance and safety are over-rated. Is that really the kind of life that makes a difference or is that a life that we've been made to believe is best?

If being a bit out of balance, even crazy, allows me the create even a fraction of the beauty that many of these people have gifted the world with, count me in. I'm willing to lose my security and balance, even my life, to find a life more beautiful and capable or creating beauty.

I haven’t had much motivation to write since early February. Since Izaak came and went. I don’t really know why…I just know that I haven’t.

I’ve thought about writing a fair amount though. Why should I write? What do I want to write about? Does my writing add anything of value to the world or does it just make me feel better and like someone is listening to me?

Honestly I think that sometimes my writing is mostly for that last reason.

Confession: I can be a narcissist.

I think I’m ready to get over myself – at least in part.

This blog is going to take on a new face and a new purpose. Maybe it’s just going to get around to what it should have always been about – love.

Jesus of Nazareth said that “Greater Love has no one than this, that they lay down their life…”. Maybe in modern terms we would say that we should lay down our blog. That’s what I’m feeling anyhow.

I don’t want to spend so much time promoting myself. I want to promote others. I want to promote the best of Toronto. I want to promote ideas that would help you become all that your unlimited potential offers you.

So from now I hope you’ll find less of me and more of others. Come on by to see what some incredible people are doing, how the world is being changed for the better and maybe pick up an idea or two that you could benefit from.

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