Pare It Down: Cut Away the Extraneous to Leave the Awesome

Need to practice some of this ..

A few things to consider when paring it down:

• Spend a few minutes thinking about what is really essential. What is it that you really want above all else? What is it about your product or service that the customer really wants? What is it you are really trying to communicate? If you had to pick one thing about whatever you’re doing, what would it be?
• Be bold. Don’t be afraid to throw stuff out. You can always add stuff back in later – remember that less is better as long as you’re leaving in the essentials.
• What is blocking the essentials? Sometimes the awesome in something is being blocked by other things – can you remove those things to show the awesome and let it shine? Remove the noise to let the music be heard.
• Come back to it. Sometimes you can’t see the extraneous the first time you start paring down. So do your best, and then come back later and try again. You might be able to pare down even more this time. Keep coming back as long as you can – the more you pare, the better in most cases.

There’s probably no God

Jason is spot on as usual . “genuine open dialogue” is rare these days . “straw man arguments about” . some times “mud slinging” . we end up with less ground and lots of straw all over the place 🙂

We deserve something better than this, we all do, whether agnostics, atheists, theists, polytheists and consumer apatheists. Some genuine open dialogue and interaction with all religions, including the religious fundamentalism of Dawkins atheism would be most welcome, at least by me.

Tribes, Seth Godin, and the Church

I’m listening to Seth Godin’s book and it’s pretty good. I like the idea of leading and not pushing . more thought on this today.

God and mystery… There is comfort in NOT knowing everything!

Another thought on mystery, faith, and certainty…

Dion shares some gems here .

. As a thinking with that strange mix of the empirical (science) and the phenomenological (faith) I frequently find that one has to critique and enrich the other.  So, when I found this quote below it encouraged me to realise that sometimes it is OK not to have everything ‘buttoned up’… God is ultimately God, and I am only human! 

We are talking about God. What wonder is it that you do not understand? If you do understand, then it is not God.

– St. Augustine

Indeed, if one is able to fully understand God, then God would be contained within one’s mind – then God would be limited by the size and capacity of one’s intellect.  So, there is comfort in knowing that God is bigger than my limited mind and understanding!

. Our foundation is not reason, nor is it, knowledge or even a secure system.  Rather, it is faith in a transcendent God who carefully shapes us, and courageously trusts us to get some things right, and other things wrong – but in the end the faithful and loving person is close to God than the ‘informed’ knowledgeable, and certain!

The opposite of faith is not doubt… It is certainty!

At the end of the day we can point towards truth, work towards it, and strive to make it real and tangible, but there will always be a sense of mystery in which we meet an all powerful and ever loving God.  In the end, however, we can look back and we have ‘fruit’ to show, lives that have been changed, systems that have been restored and changed for good.