Shotgun Start: A Poem About Progress

When was the shotgun start
Who started the rat race
Where are we headed
When will it stop?

Observation.

Here at the
Tip of the spear
I question this faster ideal

Wheel to the hyperloop
Race to fill every niche
Tripping steam engines
With a side of quiche

Ingenuity fuel, or a
Desire to run away
Somewhere not here
Do not be still, I pray

Lean startup A/B test
Productivity or regress
Polyphasic sleep rest
UBI for all but the best

Matriculation downstream
Chasing that USA dream
I’ve been to their mecca
It’s not what it seems

Digital global infection
Tech company affection
Never been more dejection
Can’t discern text inflection

Corrupt system election
Home is now abroad
Hacking social webs
Subvert flows and ebbs

Modern stories we tell
Time lapse traffic b-roll
Crosswalk people scurry
That chopper rap flurry

News cycles spinning
Not sure who’s winning
Fact check for integrity
They are dead to me

Friends in the hundreds
Nobody here now though
Geospatial analysis
How am I missed?

Stomach this FB feed
A toxic baby formula
Science diet suicide
Bitten apple of pride

To go far go together
Go fast go alone
How are we so far from
That naked start in a garden

30,000 foot view here
Next time you jet set
See cities touch the sky
Wonder with me why
Babel didn’t fly?

My Concern w/ the Vanity of Christian Bloggers, Pastors, Spokespeople, aka Myself

When I felt God nudging me to share stories about what He was doing in my life, I thought, "does the world really need another Christian blogger?"

God changed my heart to realize that, yes, it does; in fact, there should be many more. However, something about the rise of Christians stepping out with an online presence has troubled me.

And it looks like this: blog posts, email newsletters, and special alerts that, for the most part, bear the picture of the person doing the writing.

Like, what you see is primarily pictures of them.

This happens a lot, and, over time I wonder how the person can both do this and keep the emphasis more on the Creator than the created, and not grow a (sometimes unconscious) sense of pride.

Surely it's a fine line--one I've danced close to myself. 11 out of 30 posts on my homepage right now bear my face as the thumbnail image. And more than one Silicon Valley tech tycoon has remarked that our social networking is powerfully driven by deadly sins. 

Here are 5 ways I keep the story more about about God, and less about me:

1. I look at post history, is it a lot of pictures of me, or other stuff too? Point blank, I don't think it should always be me, not even 50% of the time, so I go out of my way to find other images.
2. I ask someone who will be honest with me. Usually its my wife, Whitney, or another guy in my life I pick for their brutal honesty. I ask if what I'm posting is done in the right spirit.
3. I consider the tone of the message. In 2 Corinthians 12:9 the Apostle Paul wrote that he boasts in his weakness, because when he is weak, Christ is strong. Am I writing about how great I am, or God? I try to do only the latter. 
4. I do a Strategy Check. Is my online approach centered more on what the world says is necessary to be effective, or what I'm hearing from God in the Word and in prayer? 
5. I pray. Often before a post that feels more "out there" for one reason or another, I'll pray and sometimes fast for a few days (or even months) before posting it. God has a way of using the Holy Spirit to self-correct. 

In closing, what's been very telling to me is that, consistently over the past few years, the posts that get the most interest and have the greatest spiritual fruits, by far, are those where I'm either making a fool of myself for Christ, or where I'm focused completely on someone or something other than me.