Hello friends. Sorry it’s been so long. My life has been a “crazy town” in the words of Mallory Jones.
I’m a bit intimidated now because I have just learned that my professor and guru, the one and only Tim Herrmann is now a follower of my blog. My blog has always been family friendly, but now I think I am going to be more conscious of my spelling and grammar. From now on expect all blog posts to be in perfect APA*
But anyway, now on to what I was planning on writing.
I went to see Shakespeare behind bars two days ago. What is that you ask? It is a bunch of inmates in a prison who perform Shakespeare. What? Steve attending something to do with Shakespeare? Did the acorns really make you that sick? Well, I initially went against my will but after the entire experience I was glad I went. So though I am not a Shakespeare guy by any stretch of the imagination, don’t be shocked with I speak of this experience in a positive light.
I’m not sure what you are envisioning here but let me start off by telling you that this is not a traveling act of white collar criminals on probation. You have to go to a prison to see this show. These actors (all men) were really, really into it. They sounded like a professional troupe of actors who had really given their lives to Shakespeare. Because in some ways, they have. This program has given them something to live for and a chance to be remembered for something other than their crime. There was a twenty minute Q and A following the performance. You should have heard these men talk about how Shakespeare has transformed their lives.
Some of the actors played the role of women. When asked how they did it so convincingly they explained how this process had taught them empathy. Truly truly taught them empathy. It gave them a greater understanding of their crimes and the way they had treated women before entering prison. I think most about the character whose actions in the play caused his wife to die with grief. In the second act (16 years later) he was so repentant and angry with himself you could see he blamed himself and wished he could change who he had been. That actor murdered his wife in real life and he had been in prison for 16 years.
I think I’m going to need a few posts to really capture what I learned from these inmates. Things were happening on so many levels. If you want to know more about Shakespeare behind bars click here. (Actually, this is not a link to the performance I went to. In 2005 there was a documentary made about SBB and this link is to that documentary.)
But just so you all know, I’m not going to start acting like I like reading Shakespeare now, I’m just glad that something so boring has redemptive qualities.
*Not at all true. APA tells me not to write with footnotes. I tell APA that he needs to get a girlfriend and stop looking over my shoulder to see where I’m putting my commas.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Friday, May 7, 2010
Acorns
Friends, I just ate an Acorn.
I was outside on Huntington's beautiful campus and the ground beneath my feat was littered with acorns, or as I like to call them, "nature's tootsie rolls." I thought to myself "If I was a squirrel, I would be so pumped right now. There is food everywhere!" And then I wondered why squirrels get all the easy breaks. I want copious amounts of free snacks whenever I walk past Beth Hale's apartment, and since I'm a white man in America I am used to getting what I want.
So I put one in my mouth and tried to keep walking all nonchalantly. Because if anyone saw me doing it I wouldn't want to look too chalant. I crack it open with my teeth and go after the "meat" inside. And you know what I learned?
I learned that there is a reason man does not eat acorns. Evolutionary psychology states that if something tastes like a sweaty guy peed in a shell and threw it in the mud, you should not eat that thing (Ohman, Mineka, 2001).
After spitting for a while a resolved that if this "nut" or "devil-spawn" was not poisonous I would master its ways and learn to enjoy it so I could impress my friends and make them jealous as I effortlessly snacked on nature while they stood by watching like hungry cavemen unable to harness the environment to feed themselves.
Turns out they ARE poisonous. The Tome of All Knowledge and Josh Wymore's most commonly visited website told me so. But painstaking and time consuming processes can remove the poison (tannin) from the Acorn to make it an edible food. The Native Americans (or First people) ate them regularly and it was a staple in their diet. It is exactly this kind of ingenuity that allowed them to find America first.
All that to say, I probably wouldn't have been hungry enough to start eating acorns today if I hadn't eaten a stupid SALAD for dinner. I thought eating a salad would be as good as real food, but like a guy taking his cousin to prom, I found out that sometimes you're just lying to yourself.
So next time you are out on a beautiful day like today and you happen across a cache of delicious looking acorns, remember this story and the lesson we've learned. Don't eat salads.
This story is 100% true.
Ohman, A.; Mineka, S. (2001). "Fears, phobias, and preparedness: Toward an evolved module of fear and fear learning" (PDF). Psychological Review 108 (3): 483–522. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.108.3.483. Retrieved 2008-06-16.
I was outside on Huntington's beautiful campus and the ground beneath my feat was littered with acorns, or as I like to call them, "nature's tootsie rolls." I thought to myself "If I was a squirrel, I would be so pumped right now. There is food everywhere!" And then I wondered why squirrels get all the easy breaks. I want copious amounts of free snacks whenever I walk past Beth Hale's apartment, and since I'm a white man in America I am used to getting what I want.
So I put one in my mouth and tried to keep walking all nonchalantly. Because if anyone saw me doing it I wouldn't want to look too chalant. I crack it open with my teeth and go after the "meat" inside. And you know what I learned?
I learned that there is a reason man does not eat acorns. Evolutionary psychology states that if something tastes like a sweaty guy peed in a shell and threw it in the mud, you should not eat that thing (Ohman, Mineka, 2001).
After spitting for a while a resolved that if this "nut" or "devil-spawn" was not poisonous I would master its ways and learn to enjoy it so I could impress my friends and make them jealous as I effortlessly snacked on nature while they stood by watching like hungry cavemen unable to harness the environment to feed themselves.
Turns out they ARE poisonous. The Tome of All Knowledge and Josh Wymore's most commonly visited website told me so. But painstaking and time consuming processes can remove the poison (tannin) from the Acorn to make it an edible food. The Native Americans (or First people) ate them regularly and it was a staple in their diet. It is exactly this kind of ingenuity that allowed them to find America first.
All that to say, I probably wouldn't have been hungry enough to start eating acorns today if I hadn't eaten a stupid SALAD for dinner. I thought eating a salad would be as good as real food, but like a guy taking his cousin to prom, I found out that sometimes you're just lying to yourself.
So next time you are out on a beautiful day like today and you happen across a cache of delicious looking acorns, remember this story and the lesson we've learned. Don't eat salads.
This story is 100% true.
Ohman, A.; Mineka, S. (2001). "Fears, phobias, and preparedness: Toward an evolved module of fear and fear learning" (PDF). Psychological Review 108 (3): 483–522. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.108.3.483. Retrieved 2008-06-16.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
"Called" out
So the other day I'm having a conversation about acsessability in higher education. (The same type of thing all of you readers were probably also talking about the other day.)
The issue, in a nutshell, is that everyone wants higher ed to make degrees more available to everyone. Let's make America a more educated place. Good call, but if you do that, it's going to devalue existing degrees. It's like saying "Hey, people are poor, let's print more money." It's not really a win-win situation. In the short run it's a win-lose, and in the long run...I'm not really sure.
But I was defending my point of view by saying that degree inflation is making it very difficult for even trained people to find a job. For example, I (Steve Conn) have a master's degree in higher ed. and am having difficulty finding entry level positions as a hall director at small Christian schools. That's basically like a D-1 college basketball player getting cut from a church league basketball team becuase for some reason the church league is FULL of D-1 college basketball players and you are no longer as special as you thought.
Then she drops the bomb on me. She says "is it really that you can't find a job or is that you are only looking for jobs in higher education?"
I thought to myself "Well what else WOULD I be looking for? Remember how that's what I've spent two years and $20,000 explicitly training for? But then I realized something. Even in white America there is still a great disparity between socio-ecenomic classes. Most people in this country (let alone the world) are looking for work so they can have money to pay for their needs. I on the other hand am so priviledged that I can delay working for two years AFTER college to go to more school, then look for a specific job in a specific field. Some of my peers even have the audacity to be even MORE selective and be choosey about WHICH small christian school hires them to be a hall director. I actually know some people down-right DISSAPOINTED becuase they have a job at a school that is "so-so but not great."
People are starving and some of us are upset becuase they forgot the cherry on our ice cream sunday.
I forgot that I'm not having a difficulty finding a job. I'm having difficulty finding a job that serves my desires, interests, and personal goals. I think allegedly I got an education to be a public servant, but it would appear that me (and most of the people I know) expect that my education is going to provide me with all the stuff I want.
Generally speaking, isn't a job supposed to be an exchange? I give you my time and you give me some money? But I believe that most of the people I spend most of my time with (including me) think that a job must be a "win-win" situation. You give me money, and you also give me a sense of personal fulfillment, and you give me professonal development, and you give me good supervison, and you give me a good balence of challenge and support, and you give me a good community. Then maybe I will consent to giving you my time, as long as it is spent on stuff I kinda enjoy.
No one would have said it that way...but it really describes a lot of people. And if you are getting your master's degree in higher education right now...it might be you.
The issue, in a nutshell, is that everyone wants higher ed to make degrees more available to everyone. Let's make America a more educated place. Good call, but if you do that, it's going to devalue existing degrees. It's like saying "Hey, people are poor, let's print more money." It's not really a win-win situation. In the short run it's a win-lose, and in the long run...I'm not really sure.
But I was defending my point of view by saying that degree inflation is making it very difficult for even trained people to find a job. For example, I (Steve Conn) have a master's degree in higher ed. and am having difficulty finding entry level positions as a hall director at small Christian schools. That's basically like a D-1 college basketball player getting cut from a church league basketball team becuase for some reason the church league is FULL of D-1 college basketball players and you are no longer as special as you thought.
Then she drops the bomb on me. She says "is it really that you can't find a job or is that you are only looking for jobs in higher education?"
I thought to myself "Well what else WOULD I be looking for? Remember how that's what I've spent two years and $20,000 explicitly training for? But then I realized something. Even in white America there is still a great disparity between socio-ecenomic classes. Most people in this country (let alone the world) are looking for work so they can have money to pay for their needs. I on the other hand am so priviledged that I can delay working for two years AFTER college to go to more school, then look for a specific job in a specific field. Some of my peers even have the audacity to be even MORE selective and be choosey about WHICH small christian school hires them to be a hall director. I actually know some people down-right DISSAPOINTED becuase they have a job at a school that is "so-so but not great."
People are starving and some of us are upset becuase they forgot the cherry on our ice cream sunday.
I forgot that I'm not having a difficulty finding a job. I'm having difficulty finding a job that serves my desires, interests, and personal goals. I think allegedly I got an education to be a public servant, but it would appear that me (and most of the people I know) expect that my education is going to provide me with all the stuff I want.
Generally speaking, isn't a job supposed to be an exchange? I give you my time and you give me some money? But I believe that most of the people I spend most of my time with (including me) think that a job must be a "win-win" situation. You give me money, and you also give me a sense of personal fulfillment, and you give me professonal development, and you give me good supervison, and you give me a good balence of challenge and support, and you give me a good community. Then maybe I will consent to giving you my time, as long as it is spent on stuff I kinda enjoy.
No one would have said it that way...but it really describes a lot of people. And if you are getting your master's degree in higher education right now...it might be you.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
I surrender all
Sorry it's been so long since I've blogged. my life has been "a crazy town" as Mallory Jones would say.
So I was in church the other day and I sang these words:
All to Jesus I surrender;
All to Him I freely give;
I will ever love and trust Him,
In His presence daily live.
I surrender all,
I surrender all;
All to Thee, my blessed Savior,
I surrender all.
Then it struck me "good night, that is a frightening thought."
I had to stop singing.
Not that I think it's bad to surrender all to Jesus, but rather, it has frightening implications. George McDonald once said that asking Jesus to fix something in your heart was dangerous because as soon as He was in He would start fixing all kinds of things you didn't ask for. And soon he'd be tearing down walls and building additions and doing any number of things you're uncomfortable with. For those of you who loved the 90's imagine inviting Tim Taylor from Home Improvement to remodel your bathroom.
Anyway, it is easy to surrender stuff to God when it’s the stuff you expect to surrender. You are ready to make hard sacrifices as long as they are the sacrifices you expect. For example, as Christians we are probably on board with the fact that money should not be our ultimate priority and God might “call” us to a career that doesn’t make a lot of money. Ok, done. But what if God wanted you to surrender something surprising?
For example, I think of myself as a pretty intelligent guy, and I’m finishing up my masters degree. So you could say I am willing to surrender all and use my intelligence and my degree for the Lord any way He sees fit…As long as that means I actually get to feel like I’m using my intelligence and my education.
What if, (horror of horrors) God “calls” me somewhere where I don’t get to make use of my brain? Henri Nowen decided to leave his position as a regarded priest and scholar to work at a mental institution where patients neither understood nor appreciated his words, his experience, or his education. It was hard and humbling. But he CHOSE that. What if that just kind of “happens” to me? What if God wants me to surrender many of my skills and passions not by using them for Him, but by not using them at all?
“Oh no Steve, that could never happen,” I can hear you say. “God does not work that way.” Oh really? God’s ways are beyond my ways. Maybe to him me “wasting” my talents isn’t a waste at all. Maybe that’s His way of making me humble, and to Him that is a great use of my talents.
It freaked me out. Because I realized that God could actually ask me to surrender anything, and according to the song I was singing, I’m just going to go along with it.
And I will, (I hope) but sit back and think about it. Could you surrender your health? Your friendships? The best years of your life? I think that my whole life I’ve really been singing
“I surrender all, as long as I think it’s a good thing to surrender.”
Now I am not suggesting that God is going to make me "surrender" by committing crazy sins and doing things that are inconsistent with God's character but I think that as a 21st century American evangelical I am tempted to imagine that God's character is pretty convenient for me.
So I was in church the other day and I sang these words:
All to Jesus I surrender;
All to Him I freely give;
I will ever love and trust Him,
In His presence daily live.
I surrender all,
I surrender all;
All to Thee, my blessed Savior,
I surrender all.
Then it struck me "good night, that is a frightening thought."
I had to stop singing.
Not that I think it's bad to surrender all to Jesus, but rather, it has frightening implications. George McDonald once said that asking Jesus to fix something in your heart was dangerous because as soon as He was in He would start fixing all kinds of things you didn't ask for. And soon he'd be tearing down walls and building additions and doing any number of things you're uncomfortable with. For those of you who loved the 90's imagine inviting Tim Taylor from Home Improvement to remodel your bathroom.
Anyway, it is easy to surrender stuff to God when it’s the stuff you expect to surrender. You are ready to make hard sacrifices as long as they are the sacrifices you expect. For example, as Christians we are probably on board with the fact that money should not be our ultimate priority and God might “call” us to a career that doesn’t make a lot of money. Ok, done. But what if God wanted you to surrender something surprising?
For example, I think of myself as a pretty intelligent guy, and I’m finishing up my masters degree. So you could say I am willing to surrender all and use my intelligence and my degree for the Lord any way He sees fit…As long as that means I actually get to feel like I’m using my intelligence and my education.
What if, (horror of horrors) God “calls” me somewhere where I don’t get to make use of my brain? Henri Nowen decided to leave his position as a regarded priest and scholar to work at a mental institution where patients neither understood nor appreciated his words, his experience, or his education. It was hard and humbling. But he CHOSE that. What if that just kind of “happens” to me? What if God wants me to surrender many of my skills and passions not by using them for Him, but by not using them at all?
“Oh no Steve, that could never happen,” I can hear you say. “God does not work that way.” Oh really? God’s ways are beyond my ways. Maybe to him me “wasting” my talents isn’t a waste at all. Maybe that’s His way of making me humble, and to Him that is a great use of my talents.
It freaked me out. Because I realized that God could actually ask me to surrender anything, and according to the song I was singing, I’m just going to go along with it.
And I will, (I hope) but sit back and think about it. Could you surrender your health? Your friendships? The best years of your life? I think that my whole life I’ve really been singing
“I surrender all, as long as I think it’s a good thing to surrender.”
Now I am not suggesting that God is going to make me "surrender" by committing crazy sins and doing things that are inconsistent with God's character but I think that as a 21st century American evangelical I am tempted to imagine that God's character is pretty convenient for me.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
The privilege of calling
The title of this post was suggested by the one and only Ben Taylor, who’s first album, entitled fist full of nothing should be released this coming summer.
But earlier I went on a rant about how we are doing ourselves a disservice by looking so hard for a vocational “calling” that it becomes a source of guilt and stress. Since I know both of my readers have already seen that post I don’t need to reference it any more.
But now I would like to offer an alternative. Did you know that the Apostle Paul made tents for a living while he was doing his ministry?* Paul probably went home every day feeling like a loser because when he went to work he made tents and that is SO unfulfilling and insignificant. I think we would all agree that Paul the tent-maker wasted his life. So sad. Too bad he couldn’t find a calling.
Paul had other things he wanted to do in life. Things that he valued. So he took a job that paid him money (gasp). But we don’t call him Paul the tent-maker; we call him the Apostle Paul, because we know that his job wasn’t his identity.
Now some of us can get excited and feel satisfied about our jobs. That’s honestly great. It really is. I hope I fit into that category some day soon.** But for others lets consider a few things.
Who are you while you’re at work? Can you be a witness or a loving, caring person?
Can you honor God with your money? If so, work can provide you with resources to honor God
Can you envision your work as an act of service?
Who are you after work?
Do you honor God where you are?
* Of course you did Ben. Why don’t you stop reading my blog and start working on your album?
**I actually really like the job I have now but I am getting kicked out of Huntington after graduation
But earlier I went on a rant about how we are doing ourselves a disservice by looking so hard for a vocational “calling” that it becomes a source of guilt and stress. Since I know both of my readers have already seen that post I don’t need to reference it any more.
But now I would like to offer an alternative. Did you know that the Apostle Paul made tents for a living while he was doing his ministry?* Paul probably went home every day feeling like a loser because when he went to work he made tents and that is SO unfulfilling and insignificant. I think we would all agree that Paul the tent-maker wasted his life. So sad. Too bad he couldn’t find a calling.
Paul had other things he wanted to do in life. Things that he valued. So he took a job that paid him money (gasp). But we don’t call him Paul the tent-maker; we call him the Apostle Paul, because we know that his job wasn’t his identity.
Now some of us can get excited and feel satisfied about our jobs. That’s honestly great. It really is. I hope I fit into that category some day soon.** But for others lets consider a few things.
Who are you while you’re at work? Can you be a witness or a loving, caring person?
Can you honor God with your money? If so, work can provide you with resources to honor God
Can you envision your work as an act of service?
Who are you after work?
Do you honor God where you are?
* Of course you did Ben. Why don’t you stop reading my blog and start working on your album?
**I actually really like the job I have now but I am getting kicked out of Huntington after graduation
Monday, April 12, 2010
Coaching
Hey everyone. Sorry I've been gone for a while. It has been a crazy few weeks. Last Wednesday I set the record for being in the HUB at Huntington for 12 hours. Literally. It has a bathroom and it serves food. I didn't leave. But now that I have a spare moment I thought that I should share it with all of you.
So you know what "they" say about coaches yelling at players? It's ok when they yell at you. In fact it's a good thing. The time that you really have to worry is when they stop yelling. That means that they've given up on you.
I actually had that happen to me. My Senior year of football I was going to start on the 0-line but then this other guy walked onto the team and he was probably the best natural athlete in my highschool. Three weeks into the season it became abundantly clear that Steve Conn wasn't going to see much playing time that year, and since he was graduating, he really had no future with the team. So why not just let him slide.
I never got called on to play special teams, I never had to demonstrate drills, and I never got yelled at. The only time my name ever got mentioned was in a positive way. It was pretty awesome. Although, I never got to play, and everyone on the team realized that I wasn't really a part of the team in a real sense. I had been put out to pasture.
When I'm thinking about how I want to grow in humility, I remember incidents that humiliated me and I think of some of the "hard knocks" my ego has to take from time to time (for example, I belive I am going to be unemployed in the near future). But it makes me happy that God hasn't given up on me yet. These humiliating experiences that I so hate are really coaching moments. And thank goodness God hasn't put me out to pasture. The fact that god keeps humbling me is evidence that I'm still "on the team."
So you know what "they" say about coaches yelling at players? It's ok when they yell at you. In fact it's a good thing. The time that you really have to worry is when they stop yelling. That means that they've given up on you.
I actually had that happen to me. My Senior year of football I was going to start on the 0-line but then this other guy walked onto the team and he was probably the best natural athlete in my highschool. Three weeks into the season it became abundantly clear that Steve Conn wasn't going to see much playing time that year, and since he was graduating, he really had no future with the team. So why not just let him slide.
I never got called on to play special teams, I never had to demonstrate drills, and I never got yelled at. The only time my name ever got mentioned was in a positive way. It was pretty awesome. Although, I never got to play, and everyone on the team realized that I wasn't really a part of the team in a real sense. I had been put out to pasture.
When I'm thinking about how I want to grow in humility, I remember incidents that humiliated me and I think of some of the "hard knocks" my ego has to take from time to time (for example, I belive I am going to be unemployed in the near future). But it makes me happy that God hasn't given up on me yet. These humiliating experiences that I so hate are really coaching moments. And thank goodness God hasn't put me out to pasture. The fact that god keeps humbling me is evidence that I'm still "on the team."
Monday, April 5, 2010
Tonight's Ramblings
I'm sitting here watching the NCAA finals and realizing that I don't like basketball as much as the rest of the people in the room. But we all agree that that white dude should shave his crappy little mustache.
Some conclusions I've reached this weekend.
I like "courier" font because it looks like a typewriter
I like McCafe Mocha frappichinos and you should too
I wish APA sixth edition was a person so i could punch him in the mouth
I like shag carpet better than "burbor"
Pirates get a worse wrap than they deserve (I read a book)
I had a lot of deeper thoughts last week but I was working really hard on my thesis and I kind of forgot most of them. But I wrote a few down so don't you fret.
Remember, if you aren't actually watching the game do what I usually do and look up the score Tuesday morning so you can talk about it with such phrases that make you sound like you know what's going on like
"Oh yeah I know"
"Could you believe that"
"That was such a close one"
"That reminds me of an unrelated sporting anecdote that I DO know about and makes me look like a competent contributer to this conversation."
Some conclusions I've reached this weekend.
I like "courier" font because it looks like a typewriter
I like McCafe Mocha frappichinos and you should too
I wish APA sixth edition was a person so i could punch him in the mouth
I like shag carpet better than "burbor"
Pirates get a worse wrap than they deserve (I read a book)
I had a lot of deeper thoughts last week but I was working really hard on my thesis and I kind of forgot most of them. But I wrote a few down so don't you fret.
Remember, if you aren't actually watching the game do what I usually do and look up the score Tuesday morning so you can talk about it with such phrases that make you sound like you know what's going on like
"Oh yeah I know"
"Could you believe that"
"That was such a close one"
"That reminds me of an unrelated sporting anecdote that I DO know about and makes me look like a competent contributer to this conversation."
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