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| Read the Bible at Light Speed! And it came to pass that he opened up the Book of Blogs to see what was written therein. I don’t know about you, but I wish I could read the Bible faster. The average person can read at a clip of 225 words a minute. That means reading the Twenty-third Psalm (the NRSV version is precisely 100 words) is going to take me about 25 seconds. That is, like, so slow. Now, thanks to the Holman Christian Standard Light Speed Bible, I can triple that speed. Their program will help me advance from my current snail’s pace, to a “learning” level which would take me through the Bible in 24 hours, to “landmark” speed (I could read Genesis in 10 minutes or less), to “light speed” — about 4 seconds a page. This is huge. If there is any problem we have in this country it’s that we live at such a doggone slow and un-productive pace. The year of our Lord 2005 is the year that Bible publishers have finally noticed. Last summer, Zondervan re-leased “The 90-Minute Bible” and last month a British outfit gave us “The 100-Minute Bible.” If you like instant rice and potato buds, you’ll love this. And the prospect of reading the Twenty-third Psalm in 3.5 seconds, well, I don’t have the words. “The Lord is my Shep —” Okay, I’m done. [So far: 228 words. Light speed, 5 seconds; landmark, 10 seconds; learning, 13 seconds; who gives a rat’s petu-tie, 60 seconds.] •••• Have you had the experience of listening to a song, but one line or phrase of the lyrics doesn’t make sense? This happens to kids all the time. They’re especially vulnerable since they’re not experienced speakers of the language and can’t contextualize as adults can. That’s why they’re likely to sing “Olive the other reindeer used to laugh and call him names,” or “The ants are my friends, and they’re blowing in the wind.” And we’ve heard about the kid who plowed through The Lord’s Prayer, saying “Forgive our trash baskets as we forgive those who trash basket against us.” True story. Grace is the 6-year-old daughter of parents in my congregation. Her mother, a professor of linguistics was in the potluck line. We were chatting about her daughter, and “What a bright little thing she is,” I said. Mom said they were studying The Lord’s Prayer in Sunday School, but when she said the prayer at home, she began like this: “Our Father who art in heaven, how will I be my name?” There’s a sermon! How will I — indeed — be my name? How will I be Christian? How will I be “follower of Jesus”? How will I be “child of God” today? Chew on that for a while. •••• Someone sent me an e-mail of something Paul Harvey had written. He was musing on things he hoped his grandchildren wouldn’t miss out on — things that would make them better persons, able to add to the store of human kindness. Something that is a sure-fire remedy for greatness, he says, is hand-me-downs. Hand-me-downs are clothes that are “handed down” from the older child to the younger child, or are given by friends to help out. I wore hand-me-downs. Didn’t have an older sibling, but Mom was always getting clothes from a church lady whose boys were older and grown up. It never occurred to me that we were poor, or this was a bad thing. I can remember looking forward to the hand-me-down boxes when they arrived. Some of it was really “neat!” When I read Harvey’s piece, though, it occurred to me that this is the essence of Paul’s discussion with Timothy about “handing down” the faith that had been given to him. We have a “hand-me-down” faith, and whenever we stop handing it down, we’ll go down. But when we get involved in hand-me-down faith, we become “hand-me-up” people. You extend a hand down only to help give someone a hand up. Who would object to getting a few “hand-me-ups”? •••• Okay, one more. I met with David Allen recently in downtown Denver in the lobby of the Tabor Westin Hotel. He’s the author of Getting Things Done and Ready For Anything. He’s traveling the world these days explaining his GTD system, helping people and business communities power up to fulfill their mission. You can read our interview with him in this issue. His work appeals to all of us who live in a lurching boat of chaos and clutter, and the mess can get so bad that we’re about to hurl, or simply succumb to the motion and hope that someday, somehow, we’ll sail into a stretch of motionless water, and just lay there becalmed, able to breathe at last. The trouble is, when a ship is becalmed it’s usually out in the middle of nowhere, nothing in sight and there’s nothing that can be done to effect any motion at all. Allen says that an old skipper he once knew said that if someone’s about to upchuck their Rice Krispies, “give ’em the helm.” Let them drive. I know exactly what he means. I’m prone to carsickness. So if I’m the passenger, and I’m getting sick, I need to get behind the wheel. Problem solved. So there’s chaos in your cosmos? It’s making you sick to your stomach and it’s infecting other processes and projects in your life? Get in motion. As Allen says, it’s easier to move when you’re already in motion. Be the Mover rather than the Moved Upon. Be the Cause rather than the Effect. Be the Bat rather than the Ball. Allen asks: “Have you ever tried to stop a boat from rocking?” Ain’t going to happen. Sooooo, take the helm. Doing so won’t mean there’s less work to do, but it will mean that you’ve taken control, you can now see the horizon much better. “Drive thy business, or it will drive thee.” —Benjamin Franklin.
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