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No new year’s resolutions this year. No “one word to capture what I want this year to be about.” I’m committing myself to one thing: s-l-o-w-i-n-g.

S-l-o-w-i-n-g. I think I first learned the term about ten years ago in a chapter by the same name in one of John Ortberg’s books. I’ve always liked the concept and every once in a while I remember it, but these days something magnetic about the idea pulls me into it’s orbit. Maybe that idea of “orbit” and “gravity” is the real issue. The world I so regularly create and commit myself to has such gravitational pull that it holds me in a very close orbit. The closer the orbit, the faster we must move to get around it. Consider this:

Time it takes pluto to orbit the sun: 248 years
Time it takes the earth to orbit the sun: 365 days
Time it takes the moon to orbit the earth: 28 days
Time it takes the International Space Station to orbit the earth: 91 minutes

The closer the orbit the faster we must move. The faster we move the less we see. The less we see the more limited our perspective. The more limited our perspective the shallower our wisdom. The shallower our wisdom the more anemic our life.

I’m slowing. Practically speaking it means I will drive at least 5 miles under the speed limit, especially around town. I will work in focused segments of time, at least 20 minutes in length, doing only one thing. This necessitates not checking email, facebooking, twittering, texting, or answering my phone out of turn. Whenever I have the chance to walk somewhere I will walk. I will “behold” other people when together. I will read one poem a day. I will gaze at artwork every time I am near it. I will put away my iPhone between the hours of 6pm and 6am. I will take my time when I wash dishes or fold clothes or brush my youngest’s teeth. I will keep Sabbath weekly. I’m s-l-o-w-i-n-g.

In his book, The Contemplative Patstor: Returning to the Art of Spiritual Direction, Gene Peterson writes, “It is far more biblical to learn quietness and attentiveness before God than to be overtaken by what John Oman named the twin perils of ministry, ‘flurry and worry.’ For flurry dissipates energy, and worry constipates it.”

If this strikes a chord in you, please join me. I’d love to see your every day practical ideas as to how “slowing” can happen. Jot down your ideas in a comment below.

I posted my Christmas 2011 poem here. Check it out.

Today I saw this headline in my notifications from Mashable.

Apple set to be the #1 seller of PC’s next year.

Thoughts of Wow! And Finally! And “They said it would never happen!” all flashed across the screen of my mind.

And then it hit me. Apple doesn’t sell PC’s. Wasn’t that Steve Jobs’ whole point?

“Think Different?”

It would be akin to the headline, “Pepsi set to be the #1 seller of Coke next year.”

If ever there were the blaspheming of a brand, this is it.

Could this signal the beginning of the end for the brand Jobs’ built? He must be turning over in his grave.

My take: Apple didn’t set out to win the “computer” war. Jobs created an entirely different game; one in which they were the only player. That, in large part, explains why apple owns the tablet market. There is no competition. This can’t be summed up as a blue ocean red ocean issue. It’s more like apples and oranges isn’t it.

How might you develop this kind of strategy in your business or on your blog? What about your church or non profit? How many churches operate with the mentality of competing with other churches. I work in higher education, an industry that constantly talks about “comparator” schools. Someone is going to completely reinvent the game soon, leaving the rest of us holding the proverbial bag.

My question: what would it look like to create a new game; one where you owned the playing field–because you were the only player? It takes a lot more imagination and ingenuity to do this. But it must be a whole lot more fun. I

Anyone got any analysis on this?

While on a recent visit to the Apple Store I had a sudden realization. As I looked carefully around the store at all the signs on the walls and all the iPads and iPhones buzzing and computer monitors and even the big inset televisions on the back wall at the Genius bar I discovered that not one time and in no visible place was written the word Apple. Yet everything in the place, from floor to ceiling to every able bodied blue shirt wearing devotee all screamed Apple.

How does that happen? It’s their symbol.

Sure, we can chalk it all up to the science of brilliant branding and so forth I think there’s something much deeper at work.

Symbols, in saying nothing, say more than words ever could. The word “Apple” is quite limited in what it can do. Go into a room of strangers and simply speak the word, “Apple” and people will not know if you are referring to fruit or a computer or pie or sauce or. . . .

With that same group, say nothing but simply brandish the symbol and you’ve spoken volumes.

Not all symbols do this. When a symbol gains the power to convey an entire world of meaning that can be shared among many without words it has moved into the rarified air of “sign” status. To one degree or another it becomes iconic. In a powerful but ultimately limited way, Apple has done this.

It’s interesting that the alternate world of computers has gone in the opposite direction. Not only is there no iconic sign, there isn’t even a word. They have allowed themselves to be reduced to a couple of letters: PC.

There is an intense analogy here with respect to words and signs and the way God works in and through Jesus Christ. I’d love it if you would “flesh” that out with me.

Ok, so if you’ve clicked on to this post you may have already fallen into a the third trap– the trap of thinking you are a smart person. ;0)

The truth is, you probably are.

In all seriousness– here are the two traps:

1. To forget what it’s like not to know what you know. (i.e. to be unaware of your intelligence)

2. To not know what you don’t know. (i.e. to be unaware of your ignorance)

The former is negligence. The latter is recklessness. Both run the risk of arrogance.

The antidote to the former is attentiveness; for the latter it’s restraint.

Anybody out there go to Catalyst 2011 in Atlanta? If so, I would love to hear what happened there and what you took away.

Scott Lees, Executive Pastor at Christ Church in Memphis, Tennessee, agreed to send me his take. It follows:

Why would a 39 year old Executive Pastor from a 50 year old United Methodist Church attend a conference designed for a bunch of urban progressives who are planting new churches in city centers? That’s the question I kept asking myself as I made my way from the hotel to the conference center for Catalyst 2011 in Atlanta, Ga. Since I wasn’t sporting a messenger bad, skinny jeans or a faux-hawk why in the world did I choose to participate in this leadership experience?

First, Catalyst was more than a conference. It was a runway for new ideas and initiatives. How many times do we as leaders get stuck listening to the same people, reading the same authors and executing the same ideas? Sometimes Jesus needs to step into our comfortable temple courts and turnover the table of old paradigms. Listening to leading edge leaders forces me to see the world from a different perspective and the result is a broader imagination for the church that encourages more people to bring their sacrifice of praise to our King.

Next, if Methodists do not engage this next generation of leaders we will miss our own party. Over-and-over again, speakers and musicians articulated the message of social justice as a natural response to personal holiness. You could hear our founder John Wesley’s influence when he said, “you cannot have personal holiness without social holiness and you cannot have social holiness without personal holiness.” Speakers like Blake Mykoskie, founder of TOMS Shoes, reminded the audience that we have a responsibility to serve under-resourced in the world because eternally that’s more important then making a profit. Sound familiar? If the Methodist Church does not participate in the conversation, and prepare leaders to reach this urban progressive culture, we will give up our seat at the banquet table to another neo-Calvinist or, worst yet, fail to invite post-Christians to the table who are hungry for the message.

Finally, pastoral leaders need to be reminded of the gospel. We preach it. We teach it. We live it. Sometimes we need to sit and be present so we can simply hear it. Catalyst, and really any Christian conference worth the investment, provides space where we are reminded that we are sinners saved by grace. We are not defined by the numerical growth of our churches, the creativity of our programs or the effectiveness of our leadership. Our righteousness is in Christ and we are successful because we are adopted children of God, period. Nothing we do can add to, or take away from, our true identity in Christ and I was reminded of that truth throughout the week. And I needed to be. You do too.

So next year, consider Catalyst for leadership training. You don’t have to own a pair of skinny jeans to register.

Before you push send on your next email, tweet your next tweet, update your Facebook status, Instagram your next photo, Recommend your next Linked In friend, upload your next video, tag your next picture, Foursquare your next location, post your next blog entry, publish your next opinion, text your next ex, flickr your next find, publish your next angry manifesto, dump drivel on someone’s wall, repost your next Tumblr, comment on your next blog post, like the next entry on your Facebook newsfeed, share the next inappropriate youtube video, (and add what I’m missing in the comments). . . . . .  REMEMBER THESE 3 WORDS:*

INSTANTANEOUS

EVERYWHERE

FOREVER

Perhaps the best wisdom for our online lives is this: when in doubt, don’t.

*The idea of destroying anything online is a mythical pipe dream.

/>The life hid with Christ in God is all at once much harder than we realize yet much easier than we might think. It’s easier in this: we don’t have to be a devout “religious” person in order to “get” God to be with us. This is not a duty to be devoted we are after. It is so easy to fall into what I call the “if-then” trap. “If” I study my Bible and pray and fast and devote myself to spiritual disciplines and . . . . “then” I will experience God’s presence, love, power and grace in my life. The corollary also holds true in our thinking. “If” I don’t do all these things properly, “then” I will not experience God’s presence, love, power and grace in my life. This “functional” approach serves quite well to create a “yoke” of slavery. This approach can lead to a legalistic choke-hold as well as charismatic craziness. (see the New Testament Pharisees for the former and the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel for the latter. (1 Kings 18 I think).

So how is the life hid with Christ in God harder than we think? I think it is harder because it calls for a totalizing kind of attentiveness and because a life of distractedness comes quite naturally to us. (And I think I’m suggesting that the very things we do to try and cultivate this totalizing attentiveness can all to often become the distraction.)

Back in High School four friends and I went on a whirl wind trip to Europe with one of our teachers. (We never actually saw her again after New York Kennedy Airport, but that’s another story.) I remember our visit to the Louvre, arguably the most famous art gallery in the solar system. For whatever reason, all we cared about was the celebrated “Mona Lisa,” painted by Leonardo da Vinci. We passed up the tour guide and began our search. We ran up and down hallways and through galleries never so much as glancing at any of the priceless art adorning the walls. Finally, we arrived at the treasured shrine. Gasping for breath, we beheld the picture in the way only a 15 year old can do. I’m not sure what we were expecting, but Mona didn’t actually provide the kind of ecstatic experience we must have imagined she would.

Despite our underwhelm-ment, I think this quest gets at what the life hid with Christ in God looks like. It’s all at once the journey of relentless pursuit and intermittant finding that inspires more pursuit. It is strenuous but not tiring, disciplined but not dutiful. It’s running past every other shiny prize in the quest to find the only thing worth finding. The pursuit of God is not like the daily chore of taking out the trash. No, it’s ripping open the trash bag and feverishly searching through every piece of discarded waste in pursuit of the lost engagement ring.

And before I mix in another metaphor– I’ll stop. ;0)

Can you relate this Mona Lisa story to your own life?

I read today about Steve Jobs upcoming Biography done by Walter Isaacson. It promises to be a page turner and I’m sure I’ll read it. I learned today about his reason for allowing the book to be written. When it became apparent that he was not going to recover from his cancer he decided to do it. He said he did the book because he wanted his children to know him. He wanted them to know why he did what he did and why he was so absent from their lives.

For all he gave to the world and all the fortune he amassed I wonder how he felt at the end with his family gathered around. There is a deep sadness in this. I wonder if, to him, it was worth it. I wonder if his kids will read the book.

I wonder what you are thinking about this.

Will you read the book?

It launches October 24.