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If you or I agreed with everything Peter Rollins says, then probably we hadn’t been listening long or closely enough. Yet he’s a man who often says things that resonate, they may actually shatter glass in some quarters. I love this short interview and wouldn’t mind having a transcript to underline and reference.

Normally, I would quote a teaser or two. I just don’t know where to begin. There’s the story about Hitler serving milk and  cookies (okay, something like that), or the part about how he would be a liar if he claimed to believe in Jesus Christ.  His message is disturbing for anyone inside the box of traditional Christianity, but it’s a breath of fresh air for those who are ditching the box or at least thinking about it.

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This is the gecko that was living in my room last time I time I was in Cambodia. He normally stays behind the dresser where you can see him during the daytime if you look. At night, when the lights are out, he comes out to eat.  I turned the lights out and waited, then I turned them on and took this shot (just after he ate a bug, but I blew that shot).

By the way, geckos come in different varieties. When traveling in Southeast Asia it’s very common to see small “geckos” running around on the walls. Most people don’t realize there are much larger geckos as well living inside most homes and rooms. The large varieties make a very loud “uh-oh” sound (kind of like “guh koh” from which they get their name).  They can grow quite large. This one is about 12 inches long, but he’s not a “big” one.

I’m not posting much recently. We’re in transition, so I’m not particularly inspired with new things to say. Today Hitomi is meeting with a few members of our Project Friends volunteer team to put the finishing touches on key processes. They will be working hard after we leave. One is handling the accounting. Another is processing applications (actually, we’ll pay her a bit for that). Another is organizing events for past and potential participants. Then there are others who will help coordinate and assist. I’m amazed at their willingness to serve.

Last night I taped together eight boxes that we’ll take to Cambodia (double width cardboard specially purchased). Today I hope to finish packing them and clean up most of our mess from my in-laws’ house. The kids will go with their grandmother to see the latest Doraimon movie.

Spotting a bug

Eating the bug (I didn’t focus on time)

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I skim quite a few blogs using Google Reader, but I can count on one hand those that I read carefully. Seth Godin’s blog is on my shortlist (and I know I’m not alone). He consistently has insights that cut through my senses and call me to attention. Today he struck twice.

First, in typical Godin style, he reminds me to dare. One large “success” outweighs dozens of failures. I use quote marks, because we all have different ideas of success. Still, the principle holds. As Godin writes,

If you spend your days avoiding failure by doing not much worth criticizing, you’ll never have a shot at success. Avoiding the thing that’s easy to survive keeps you from encountering the very thing you’re after.

Simple, right? Well, I need reminders like this almost every day. That’s about how often I find myself tempted toward doing things I can’t fail at.

But it gets better. His next post speaks directly to something I’ve long believed. The best choices in life are not always the rational ones. Love, faith, art…such things don’t require rational explanations. In fact, something vital is lost when forcing such realities into rationality. We can celebrate the irrationality of something without sacrificing its truth.

Godin asks, “Are you rational?”

Yeah, sometimes, but I’m probably less overtly rational than the average person. Yet I’m pretty intense about why I do things and about what is true (even if I don’t see truth clearly but from a distance).

What I appreciated was Godin’s closing thought:

There’s room for both rational and irrational decision making, and I think we do best when we choose our path in advance instead of pretending to do one when we’re actually doing the other. The worst thing we can do is force one when we actually need the other.

This is both reasonable and encouraging for someone like me. There are times for both rational and irrational decision making, and it’s best to discern and acknowledge which mode I’m in and have the tenacity and/or courage to follow through.

Fortunately, failure is not the worst case scenario. If it was,  I suppose the world would be led by rational decision makers alone, and it would be quite a bit less interesting.

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Are you acting in compassion on behalf of the poor? Imagine if the roles were reversed? What is so ridiculous about what you see in this video? What could this teach us about authentic acts of compassion?

Hat tip to Aid Thoughts via Chris Blattman (via IPA).

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I’ve been living abroad for years, and now I naturally simplify my spoken English to accomodate whoever may be listening. I filter out complex grammatical structures and choose simple words. Sometimes when I want to say something too complicated to express in simplified language, I stop as if lacking the language. Or I switch to Japanese. The same thing  happens in writing if I know the audience are not native English speakers. The difference is more pronounced in Cambodia. The language of Cambodia, Khmer, doesn’t have verb tenses. When speaking to shopkeepers and tuk-tuk drivers, they understand better if I keep all verbs in the present tense. This naturally spills out in more and more conversations in Cambodia.

On my last trip, I discovered it took a conscious effort to speak like a native English speaker. Rather, simplified English is becoming my default.

Now I have a word for what I do: globish (global English). Do you speak it?

Globish is a “decaffeinated English” that is increasingly becoming a widely used international language. (h/t Kottke)

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