October Review

I've committed to sharing out my progress on three major goals for the 2013 calendar year at the end of every month. Below is my progress for October.

Goal 1: Read 25 books.
I finished two this month, though one I had been working on for awhile. Reading E.B. White with my daughter continues to be a rewarding experience. White's The Trumpet of the Swan and C.S. Lewis' The Magician's Nephew were the "children's" books I completed. Twenty-one down, four more to go.

Goal 2: Write 75 blog posts.
This is post number 6 for the month, keeping me on pace with 64 for the year. I really liked "The Hypocrites in My Church." Six a month for the next two months will seal this one.

Goal 3: Write 25 letters.
Abysmal, epic failure this month. I was shooting for 3. I got done with 1/2 a letter. I need 7 more plus the one I'm in the middle of. I'm hoping that a few more weekends home in the next couple of weeks will help. Failure is not an option.

October Successes:
1. I presented a session at the 2013 Iowa Council of Teachers of English Conference in Des Moines. I was pleased with how the session with, as it's always good to get in front of a room full of peers and talk about what I do. Seeing good people helped as well. My maiden voyage to Zombie Burger the night before the performance may have been the real victory.

2. Chewing up my time in chunks every week is the new course on Biblical Exposition I've begun with a small group of men from the church. It's demanding and difficult, often leaving me frustrated in the midst of struggling with some Old Testament narratives. But it's good. I'm experiencing major growth. The cost in time will produce fruit.

Quotes to Note:

• "Love is not maximum emotion. Love is maximum commitment." - Sinclair Ferguson
• "The church is a school for sinners, not a museum for saints. - Anthony Thiselton
• The Christian life is all about wakefulness. Theology describes what we see when we are awake, and discipleship is about staying awake. The sad truth is many of us are at best only half awake. We think we're engaged with the real world - the world of stock markets, stock car racing, stockpiles of weapons - but in fact, we're living in what Lewis calls the Shadowlands. We're really daydreaming and sleepwalking our way through life, asleep at the wheel of existence." - Kevin Vanhoozer

Some articles of interest from the month:

• Nine Ways to Become a More Boring Writer
• The Origin of "Dude
• What Our Students Need to Hear

Two months left in 2013. Basketball season approaches. Finish strong, finish by producing, and produce with an eye on The Ultimate.

A Matter of Marketing

On Matt Perman's What's Best Next Blog this week, I found this quote about marketing:

Marketing does not exist to make up for inadequacies in a mediocre product. The first job of marketing is to create an excellent product.

In today's create-consume-create culture, the product is often secondary to publicizing the product. I can think of one author in particular who caught my attention a couple of years ago with great content on his blog and a very successful book. I began reading his writing regularly. In a couple of months, however, a distinct shift occurred in his posts: rather than offering content, he began advertising future content. Deep thinking and well-crafted prose disappeared as more and more links to promotional events became prominent. The blog morphed into one loud commercial for himself and his products. In the process, his content died. I found no trouble in dropping that blog.

Most of us, however, are not looking to market and sell any product. The applicability in Perman's statement is in our creation of the one product we offer to the world daily: ourselves.

It may seem weird to think of ourselves as products, but most of us certainly act as if we must market ourselves for mass consumption. Every Facebook update, Tweet, and blog post we're involved in is a personal commercial for our brand. We market mightily, shining a light on the family we've created, the teams we support, the vacations we take, the annoyances bugging us, and the clever thoughts we have that the world needs to hear. What are all of these, if not marketing? Aren't we selling ourselves as clever and quirky, lovable and loving, worthy and confident commanders of our glorious kingdoms?

To take Perman's advice, we would be better served focusing on improving the product. Is it a sin to market ourselves? No, I don't believe so. To claim what we are is to share, to engage in the human experience with others in an authentic, relationship-building way. But don't get caught up in it. If you want people to believe in you, just be excellent rather than claiming excellence. Quality often requires little fanfare.

The Hypocrites in My Church

One of the most common criticisms I hear about churches and church-goers is the number of hypocrites in their midst. In churches are people who are judgmental, narcissistic, fair-weather blowhards who praise on Sunday and sin their way out of the parking lot.

I can't speak for other churches, but I know that's true in my church. The flawed faithful fill the building for Bible classes and services, for AWANA and youth group and prayer team meetings, steeped in their own sin.

I know this because I am there. My wife is there. Our children are there. Our friends and their children and their friends and neighbors are all there, and we are all far less than we believe we should be, far less than we are called to be, far less than the example set by a God we say we revere. We are hypocrites, all of us. And I am glad I'm there every time I enter the building.

Here's the thing: The broken souls in the church are not a representation of Christ, but a representation of how badly we need Christ. The warts in humanity that you see in churches shouldn't be a deterrent, but an encouragement: "I belong! There are other people who can't get life figured out; who get a whole lot wrong; who make mistakes, often very public ones, and know that something is missing." Writes Anthony Thiselton, "The church is a school for sinners, not a museum for saints."

The hypocrites in my church volunteer their time to put my children on their lap and read to them, or give them a bag of candy the week before Halloween, or put together one more craft project that they can't wait to tell me about. The hypocrites in my church make coffee and clean toilets and stack chairs so that I can be comfortable on Sunday mornings. They ask me about my week, and they wait long enough for me to respond without interrupting about theirs. They give up time during the week to practice so that I can sing on Sunday, and they find ways to challenge me to be better. They know about my family, my failures, and my fears, and they don't use them to their own advantage. They play softball and basketball and invite me to as well.

Sometimes they sin. It's something we share. We hypocrites. There's always room for one more.

The Problem With Blogs Like Mine

The problem with blogs like mine is that if you don't read closely enough, or I don't write clearly enough, it appears as if it's about self-improvement. I write about writing better and reading better and loving better and living better. I write about being a better husband and father, a better friend, and a better employee. I write about finding more happiness and joy and about improved relationships and decision-making and success. If you don't read closely enough or I don't write closely enough, it all stops hopelessly there. And to stop there is indeed an empty endeavor.

Self-improvement for the sake of self-improvement will not make me happy. It will not fulfill me, nor will I ever be good enough to be satisfied. Most importantly, it certainly won't save my soul. I cannot work hard enough and perfect myself well enough to be worthy of anything. No, if my goal in living and relating better is anything other than God glorified, it is a fruitless road full of useless sacrifice.

The same danger exists in reading the Old Testament. I've started a (very challenging) course this week called The Simeon Trust, which provides instruction on Biblical exposition. The first unit is on Old Testament narrative, and the number one message to come out of week one is that the purpose of the Old Testament is to point to Christ. To read and teach and preach for any other goal than to proclaim the Messiah is to misuse the text. Every time we read it looking for moral lessons from the characters that we can apply to our own lives for better living, we ignore the intentions of the text.

Two quotes from the reading this week really stood out to me. From William Willimon: "Unable to preach Christ and Him crucified, we preach humanity and it improved." To read and live in that way is to look for ourselves in every sentence of a book that is actually about Someone Else. It's ignoring the poetry for the sake of the footnote. And we do it because it seems easier. Working harder at personal greatness seems easier than complete and total dependence and awe.

The other quote from Jeffrey Arthurs perfectly portrays how I feel when I attempt personal betterment as the goal in and of itself: "It is hardly incidental that lifting up Christ and the glory of his Father is the best way to change behavior. Moralistic preaching without theological grounding feels like nagging with its never ending 'do more, do better.'" 

If you regularly read this blog, I thank you. If you read it with an eye for Christ, I beg you to hold me and my words accountable. And if you read it looking only for a better you, I warn you. A better me and a better you for the sake of only me and you will fall far short of excellence, joy, and goodness every time.

Just a Little Nudge

I'm currently at a conference for English teachers in Des Moines, and at a session yesterday a random statement by one of the presenters stood out to me. He was talking about providing feedback on student writing assignments, and he said that he no longer takes it upon himself to "save" the paper for students. He understands that there's no way he's going to transform any student into a perfect writer overnight. Instead, he tries to give them a nudge in the right direction. Enough nudges, and eventually they'll get where they need to be in their writing.

I see profound implications in this for all of us, teachers and non-teachers alike. In a world that attempts to provide us with exactly what we want when we want it, the one thing we can't immediately have is change in those in our sphere of influence.

If you teach, coach, preach, or lead anywhere, you know where you want those whom you influence to go. And you know they're not there. You also know that you'll beat your head against a myriad of walls if you expect that change to come today, right now, immediately. Most of my students do not love literature. Some couldn't find a thesis statement if it tweeted itself to them. As much as I want to shake some sense into them some days, screaming about how good and rich and pure and necessary literacy skills are, it just doesn't work that way. Instead, I have 180 days to nudge them, gently, without them knowing it.

This is applicable for every relationship you are in. Your spouse is not going to magically change today. I don't care what wonderland of a marriage you have, there is likely something you are dying to change about your spouse. It will not change today. Quit expecting it. If it matters - if the change truly will add value to your relationship and a lack of change will limit your bliss - then try to nudge. Do this with your co-workers, your siblings, your parents, and your neighbors. Wherever you hope for something better, wherever improvement in a relationship can occur, slowly, winsomely, nudge.

Lest we forget, we also need a push in the right direction ourselves. Most of us know this and want better from ourselves and for ourselves. Much of this blog is about self-improvement. But here's what we've got to understand: we also aren't going to change overnight. No book or study or conference is going to change our lives immediately. Neither is any toy. We will not wake up tomorrow and be the person we want to be simply by wanting it or by being aware of our flaws. Patience, therefore, must be a virtue we allow for ourselves as well. That patience, though, must be coupled with purposeful pushes. We must choose wisely what will nudge us.

We cannot choose whether or not to be nudged. We are being nudged every minute of every day, in one direction or another. I'm attempting to nudge you right now. That decision is out of our hands. The question is, what are we allowing to do the nudging? Are we controlling the direction? Are we even aware of the direction?

I get 180 days with my students. You get a lifetime for you. Go get nudged.

Success for the 21st Century

When discussing Arthur Miller's play Death of a Salesman in AP Lit today, we covered the fact that the three primary male characters in Act I have a success problem: they don't have it because they can't define it. They are lost, gripping flawed assumptions, unclear about what they want or how to get it. In a writing activity, I asked students to write about someone who they view as successful, explain the criteria for success that they were using, and choose characteristics that they wished to emulate as they chase their own dream of success throughout lifetime.

I enjoyed hearing my students' answers (all except the one who wrote about Oprah). Though the definitions of success varied, we did seem to agree on one thing: defining success is a somewhat difficult process.

Then came the question: "Mr. Dykstra, what's your definition of success?"

My response was profound: "Umm. My definition? Of success? It's . . . well . . . Sorry. We're out of time for discussion today. Maybe we'll talk about it tomorrow." A difficult question indeed.

Then I remembered a Jonathan Edwards sermon I recently read. The sermon was actually a message for a funeral Edwards was conducting for John Stoddard, his uncle. Stoddard had been a  major figure in the community, and Edwards clearly thought a lot about him. Reading my notes from the sermon, I see that Edwards' descriptors for Stoddard are as good a definition of living a successful life as any I've encountered.

Consider these qualities and quotes from the sermon:

• Knowledge through focus and dedication: "And as his natural capacity was great, so was the knowledge that he had acquired, his understanding being greatly improved by his close application of mind to those things he was called to be concerned in, and by a very exact observation of them and long experience in them."
• Patient and humble in learning. Steadfast in truth: "He was not wavering and unsteady in his opinion: his manner was never to pass judgment rashly, but was wont first thoroughly to deliberate and weigh an affair; and in this, notwithstanding his great abilities, he was glad to improve by the help of conversation and discourse with others, and often spake of the great advantage he found by it; but when, on mature consideration, he had settled his judgment, he was not easily turned from it by false colors and plausible pretences and appearances."
• "And how immovably steadfast was he to exact truth!"
• Respected by others, focused on God: But though he was one that was great among men, exalted above others in abilities and greatness of mind and in place of rule, and feared not the faces of men, yet he feared God.
• Revered by hist most important audience: The calmness and steadiness of his behavior in private, particularly in his family, appeared remarkable and exemplary to those who had most opportunity to observe it.
• Reverent and capable of awe: He abhorred profaneness, and was a person of a serious and decent spirit, and ever treated sacred things with reverence.

May this be said of me at my end, three hundred years later. For this is a life well-lived in all times.