Rejection

Hindsight is for Idiots

by Andy Wood on January 21, 2010

in Five LV Laws, Insight, Life Currency, LV Cycle, Principle of Legacy, Protecting Your Investment, Tense Truths

Tense Truth:  Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.  But we are virtually helpless to reinterpret history for ourselves.  We need a Source of truth that isn’t subject to the distortions we bring to hindsight.

+++++++++++++++++++

Ms. Past, she’s such a wicked lady,

Ms. Past, she’s always there a waiting,

She’s the Devil’s favorite tool,

She’ll play you like a fool,

She’ll try until she rules.

-Michael and Stormie Omartian

Whoever said hindsight is 20/20 needs new glasses.

Hindsight is blind as a bat. 

It’s a house of mirrors.

You can get more accuracy from a weekend weatherman about a 10-day forecast than you can from looking at life in the mirror.

If hindsight is 20/20, why do historians always argue?

If hindsight is 20/20, why do two people in conflict always tell two completely different stories?  (And tell two more a week later?)

If hindsight is 20/20, why does the same event speak to you completely differently from the perspective of a day, a week, a month, a year, or a generation?

If hindsight is 20/20, why does God repeatedly have to remind the children of Israel about their rescue from Egypt and the whole Red Sea episode?  I’ll tell you why.  [click to continue…]

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Send in the Clowns

by Andy Wood on November 7, 2009

in Insight, Life Currency, LV Alter-egos, Pleasers, Tense Truths

rodeo clown 3“It seems plausible that folly and fools, like religion and magic, meet some deeply rooted needs in human society.”  -Peter Berger, Redeeming Laughter

At a convention, filled with pastors and other very religious people, I was sitting on a shuttle bus going from the parking lot to the convention center.  The bus made a stop, and on hopped Dennis Swanberg – comedian, and then-pastor.  I recognized him, because we’d recently had him as a guest in our church.  Somebody else recognized him too.  A good ol’ boy hollered from the back of the bus, “Hey!  Aren’t you Dennis Swanberg?  Say sumpthin’ funny!”

Dennis smiled good-naturedly, but the look in his eye said it all:  Seriously?

I joked with him about the cluelessness of the request.  “Yeah,” he said.  “It’s sorta like saying to a doctor in public, ‘Cure something,’”

One Planet, Two Kingdoms

Isn’t it rich?
Are we a pair?
Me here at last on the ground,
You in mid-air.
Where are the clowns? [click to continue…]

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

The Reach

by Andy Wood on August 31, 2009

in 100 Words, Esteem, Life Currency

Reaching babyEvery baby enters this world reaching out or up. 

Instinctively, we crave knowing that if we reach, somebody will come to pick us up.

Babies grow up, but this desire never leaves.

We learn to mask it, but the question remains.

Many of us learn to be the ones who pick up and hold.  But inevitably, even for pastors and nurses, parents and life-nannies, life takes us back to that First Question:  If I hold up my arms, will somebody – ANYBODY – pick me up?

Be the “yes” to somebody’s First Question.  Tomorrow, it may be you who’s doing the reaching.

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Next Entries →