Story is King

12-2-17

#myDecemberGoal

Story is King

            Last night, I watched the movie Coco. It’s Pixar’s newest original movie and I’d recommend going to see it. I’ve always liked Pixar movies. As a matter of fact, Bug’s Life was my first ever movie that I saw in theaters. However, I became a big Pixar fan during the summer of 2016. I was a unit coordinator at Camp Tecumseh and during our pre-summer training the directors explained what the theme would be for the summer. My fellow coordinators and I were all sitting in the basement of the leadership center (TLC) when the directors played a youtube video for us about how Pixar approaches its storytelling. Here’s that video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTM-AdrIpaE

After watching it, the directors told us that the summer’s theme would be “Story is King.” As a camp counselor, I learned to apply storytelling both to how I approached getting to know my campers and teaching them life lessons. It’s easy to judge kids behavior on silly things like sugar rushes and wanting to fit in. However, when I took the time to hear my campers’ stories and what they’d been through, I began to understand why they behaved the way they did. By listening to their stories and sharing my own, we gained each other’s respect. And that made me a better counselor.

I think hearing people’s stories is a good approach to building any relationship, whether it’s with our friends, family, or random strangers. When we decide to judge people quickly, whether it's because they have disabilities like Nemo or are an angry old man like Carl from Up, we’ll never be able to truly understand them. And when we don’t understand them, we won’t be able to treat them the way they deserve.

To conclude, I could write an even longer post about why I love Pixar, but I promised to keep these short. I’ll attach below my list of favorite Pixar movies and when each was released. As we go forth, let’s strive to ask people what their stories are before we judge them. I believe it’s a better way to love each other. And if story is king, then love is the kingdom.

-Brody

 

My Favorite Pixar Movies:

1.     Wall-E – 2008

2.     Inside Out - 2015

3.     Up – 2009

4.     Ratatouille - 2007

5.     Finding Nemo - 2003

6.     Toy Story – 1995

7.     A Bug’s Life - 1998

8.     Coco - 2017

9.     Monsters, Inc. - 2001

10.  The Incredibles – 2004

11.  Toy Story 2 - 1999

12.  Toy Story 3 – 2010

13.  Cars – 2006

14.  Monster’s University – 2013

15.  Brave - 2012

16.  Cars 3 – 2017

17.  Finding Dory - 2016

18.  The Good Dinosaur – 2015

19.  Cars 2 – 2011

In Chronological Order:

1.     Toy Story – 1995

2.     A Bug’s Life - 1998

3.     Toy Story 2 - 1999

4.     Monsters, Inc. - 2001

5.     Finding Nemo – 2003

6.     The Incredibles - 2004

7.     Cars – 2006

8.     Ratatouille - 2007

9.     Wall-E – 2008

10.  Up – 2009

11.  Toy Story 3 – 2010

12.  Cars 2 – 2011

13.  Brave - 2012

14.  Monster’s University – 2013

15.  Inside Out - 2015

16.  The Good Dinosaur – 2015

17.  Finding Dory – 2016

18.  Cars 3 – 2017

19.  Coco - 2017

First Post. Picked Last.

12-1-17

#myDecemberGoal

First Post. Picked Last.

Happy December 1^st everyone! Today I start my December goal of writing a short daily blog post. I spent most of my day attending a Digital Enterprise conference, hearing from professionals from Deloitte, IBM, and Salesforce. It’s pretty crazy all the technology that will become mainstream in the next decade. For example, look up what blockchain can do.

            In the afternoon, I played futsal with some of my classmates. It’s amazing how life continues to humble me the older I get. I played three sports in high school and consider myself pretty athletic. However, I was picked last for the futsal teams. Nevertheless, I enjoy these little life lessons because I get the perspective of everybody who has ever been picked both first and last. In college, I’ve also come to understand the importance of thinking from other people’s point of view and trying to walk in their shoes. It creates empathy, which I think is a mindset we should all take the time to develop.

            Throughout these futsal games, I was reminded the importance of being resilient. For example, during our last game of the afternoon I was really tired. We were playing a good team with the score tied 1 to 1. Even though I was tired, I wanted to end the day with a win. So I encouraged my team that all we needed was one more goal. I committed to giving a little extra effort on defense in hopes that this would spark a victory. Next thing you know, I stole the ball and shot a bullet into the bottom left corner of the net. We won!

            All in all, what I’ve learned from today is that technology is cool but it shouldn’t take over our lives. Futsal reminded me of what God says in Luke 14:11 “For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all those who humble themselves will be exalted.” Finally, I realized that being resilient can help me accomplish my goals. This concludes my short blog post for the day. As we go forth let's hope, let's dream, and let's do.

-Brody

Constant Change

I just graduated from Indiana University, which I am very proud of. I thank God for the journey he blessed me with, for all the ups and downs, and the truth I’ve learned along the way. However, the journey continues as I will be going to more school. I will soon be a graduate student studying information systems, which basically connects every aspect of a business over the internet or allows a business to function digitally using computers.

Throughout college, I had a lot of time to think about what this life really is. I’ve come to realize life is composed of a relationship between constancy and change. I call constancy the “math” (or science) and change the “art.” I feel that life definitely has constants and these are found through math and science. But I’ve also found that once you know these constants, you can manipulate and change them into different combinations to create art. That’s what makes life enjoyable for me: knowing the constants and producing different combinations with them. A classic example of this is cooking. You know what ingredients are sweet and which are not. That is the constant. How you combine them to create something tasty is the art. However, creating good taste takes a balance. Does it taste good enough or is the dish just a tad bit off?

I’ve found that in my life, I have always strived for balance. I believe life has a humor to it, in that I strive to reach this perfect balance point where everything will be alright or perfect. I strive and strive and strive, but somehow I always seem to not be totally satisfied with what I’ve obtained or how far I’ve come. It’s like life keeps constantly changing and giving me different combinations to master as soon as I think I’ve mastered them all. As Albert Einstein once said, “The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don’t know.”

Personally, I think the only way I can ever reach this perfect balancing point is to believe in Jesus. He is the balancer. I think God designed this world using math and art, but designed it in a way where I can never enjoy this world to the fullest unless I include Him in it. It’s kind of like how we need the sun to survive but we can barely look at it directly, unless we have sunglasses. I view God as our sun and Jesus as our sunglasses. Jesus allows us to look at things that we wouldn’t be able to see without him. For me just graduating, the phrases “go accomplish your dreams” and “do what you love” have certainly been used. While I would like to accomplish my dreams, I know that as long as I believe and develop my relationship with Jesus, he’ll be able to open my eyes to things I would have otherwise been oblivious to. And maybe I might not be able to do what I love all the time. But I know that as long as I continuously pursue love, I will be ok. Because God is love (1 John 4:8).

-Brody

My Opposites Theory

My motivation in writing this post is to share with you a theory I have as to how God might have designed the physical world. I call it my opposites theory. As a biology major in college, I observed that nature seems to be designed with several puzzling tools or mechanisms that reappear consistently throughout the world. I’ve observed that it likes to use opposites (inverse methods, cycles) and trinities to produce it desired effects. Let’s name a few examples:

1.     Magnetism = opposite poles attract.

2.     Acquiring energy = Photosynthesis (plants) and cellular respiration (human cells). Photosynthesis (6CO₂ + 6H₂O + light energy à C₆H₁₂O₆ + 6O₂) and cellular respiration (C₆H₁₂O₆ + 6O₂ à 6CO₂ + 6H₂O + ATP energy) have the same chemical formula except one is the inverse of the other. Cellular respiration uses food to create energy for the body and photosynthesis uses carbon dioxide, water, and light to make its own food for energy. Both these processes create energy so that the body or plant can live. However, their chemical formulas are the inverse of each other.

3.     Spring and Fall = Leaves bud and blossom to life in the spring only to show their true colors before gliding to their death in the fall season. However, nature resurrects itself and the cycle starts over again next spring.

*Bonus Example: The Pixar template = I didn’t major in Pixar but they do have really good examples of using opposites to complement each other and make a good story. For example, Ratatouille is about a rat who sheds the label of king kitchen pest to become head chef and boon of a fancy Paris restaurant. Inside Out is self-explanatory. It tells a story about how emotions inside the brain dictate actions outside of the brain. The main emotions are also opposites, joy and sadness.

*Bonus Example #2: Have you ever tried frozen hot chocolate? It’s just as good if not better than liquid hot chocolate.

To take these inverse, opposite, and cyclical tactics further, I read somewhere that two things can be distinct only if there is a third thing between them. While this might not be true, I do think there is something to it. Here are some examples of trinities in the world.

• Temperature = hot, warm, cold 
• Atom = proton, neutron, electron
• Trinity of trinities = Space, time, and matter form our physical world
• Space (length, width, heighth) 
• Time (past, present, future) 
• Matter (Liquid, solid, gas)

All in all, the point of this post was to share with you this fun theory I have about one possible scientific mechanism God used to design the physical world. While I gave only a few examples, I have provided more examples at the bottom of the page. I don’t know how true any of this is, but these patterns have been popping up in my life over and over again and I thought I’d try to write some of them down. And it’s fun to think about how the world around you and me was built. The Bible has given me clues as have my own observations of nature. I hope in the future, you too will look around and try to notice reoccurring patterns that you see on a regular basis.

-Brody

(More Examples)

Inverses: 

•  Old marketing style = What, how, why / New marketing style = Why, how, what (https://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action)
• We look into the past to predict the future
• The internet and the iPhone has “connected” us more than ever but also disconnected us more than ever.
• Photosynthesis equation:

• Cellular respiration equation:

Opposites:

• Less is more philosophy 
• Love-hate relationship
• Oxymorons (examples at very bottom of page)
• Albert Einstein – “The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don’t know.”
• Is the glass half full or half empty?

Cycles:

• Make money to pay taxes and the phrase “got to spend money to make money”
• Nature dies to create room for new life and that life later dies to create room for other new life
• The sun rises and sets everyday (or the earth just keeps spinning)
• The law of conservation of mass = matter is neither created nor destroyed (it goes somewhere and gets reorganized)
• The water cycle, carbon cycle, nitrogen cycle

Trinities:

• Christianity = God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit

Paradoxes:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_paradoxes

https://www.buzzfeed.com/moerder/17-mind-bending-paradoxes-that-will-hurt-your-brain?utm_term=.eua0GN5Nm#.exmmwngnb

https://www.britannica.com/list/8-philosophical-puzzles-and-paradoxes 

• Crocodile dilemma = If a crocodile steals a child and promises its return if the father can correctly guess exactly what the crocodile will do, how should the crocodile respond in the case that the father guesses that the child will not be returned?
• Card paradox = The next statement is true. The previous statement is false.

100 Oxymorons: (http://www.oxymoronlist.com/)

1. A new classic
2. Accurate estimate
3. Act naturally
4. Active retirement
5. Advanced beginner
6. Agree to disagree
7. Alone in a crowd
8. Big sip
9. Bittersweet
10. Blind eye
11. Boneless ribs
12. Business casual
13. Calculated risk
14. Center around
15. Completely destroyed
16. Consistently inconsistent
17. Constant change
18. Crash landing
19. Daily special
20. Definite maybe
21. Doing nothing
22. Dry ice
23. Enormously small
24. Expect the unexpected
25. Extra ordinary
26. Extremely average
27. Fictional reality
28. Fighting for peace
29. Final version
30. First annual
31. Forgotten memories
32. Found missing
33. Friendly argument
34. Going nowhere
35. Graduate student
36. Group of individuals
37. Grounded airplane
38. Half empty
39. Halfway done
40. High ground
41. Huge shortage
42. Icy hot
43. Ill fortune
44. Inside out
45. Instant classic
46. Jumbo shrimp
47. Ladies man
48. Lamp shade
49. Last initial
50. Least favorite
51. Limited freedom
52. Man child
53. Minor crisis
54. Modern history
55. Near miss
56. Never again
57. New routine
58. Night light
59. Numb feeling
60. Old news
61. One choice
62. Original copy
63. Paid volunteer
64. Peaceful protest
65. Permanent substitute
66. Pool table
67. Pretty ugly
68. Practice test
69. Random order
70. Removable sticker
71. Round edges
72. Rush hour
73. Safe bet
74. Science fiction
75. Second best
76. Seriously funny
77. Short distance
78. Single pair
79. Slumber party
80. Small fortune
81. Stand down
82. Still moving
83. Student teacher
84. Study break
85. Swiss Army
86. Tame beast
87. Taped live
88. Timeless moment
89. To infinity and beyond
90. Top floor
91. Unknown identity
92. Upside down
93. Victimless crime
94. Virtual reality
95. Weak muscle
96. Weekday
97. Wet drywall
98. White chocolate
99. Whole piece
100. Young adult

Technology of My Lifetime

       On the first day of my information systems class, we spent about 10 minutes reminiscing about technology. It got me thinking about the technology that has been developed in my lifetime. I was born in 1994 and a lot has happened since then. The following is a list of technology and events that I feel have been impactful in my lifetime. Feel free to comment if you think of anything too.

New 21^st Century Technology:

*Special tech of the 1990s still used in 21^st century = Internet Explorer (1995), GPS (1995), DVDs (1997), Bluetooth (1998), Netflix (1998), Blogs (1999), WI-FI (1999)

2000

Toyota Prius (2000)

Texting on phones by AT&T (2000)

USB flash drive (2000)

Playstation 1 and Playstation 2 (2000)

George W. Bush elected President (2000)

2001

iPod (2001) and iTunes (2001)

9/11 World Trade Towers (Sep. 11^th, 2001)

Segway (2001)

Windows XP (2001)

Gamecube (2001)

Xbox (2001)

Wikipedia (2001)

2002

Camera Phones (2002)

GoPro (2002)

2003

Myspace (2003)

LinkedIn (2003)

Skype (2003)

Mini Smart Cars (2003)

Microsoft Office (2003)

Human Genome Project completed (2003)

Columbia space shuttle disaster (2003)

Safari web browser (2003)

BlueRay (2003)

2004

Google search engine (1998 and public 2004)

Facebook (2004)

Rovers reached Mars (2004)

TIVO & DVR by DirectTV (2004)

Firefox web browser (2004)

2005

Google Maps (2005)

Youtube (2005)

Playstation Portable PSP (2005)

XBOX 360 (2005)

Hurricane Katrina (2005)

2006

Twitter (2006)

The Cloud (2006)

Wii (2006)

PS3 (2006)

No more planet Pluto (2006)

2007

iPhone (2007)

Android (2007)

Kindle (2007)

Netflix streaming (2007)

2008

Appstore (2008)

Google Chrome web browser (2008)

Barack Obama elected President (2008)

2009

3D movie Avatar (2009)

Last year with Simon Cowell on American Idol (2009)

2010

Instagram (2010)

Smartboards (2010)

3D TVs (2010)

iPad (2010)

2011

Snapchat (2011)

Increased Solar panel usage (2011)

2012

Wii U (2012)

Sandy Hook School Shooting (2012)

2013

PS4 (2013)

XBOX 1 (2013)

Google Chromecast (2013)

2014

Apple Pay (2014)

3D Printing (2014)

Jimmy Fallon Tonight Show (2014)

2015

Apple Smartwatch (2015)

2015

Self-driving cars (2015)

2016

Cavaliers win NBA finals (2016)

Cubs win world series (2016)

Donald Trump elected President (2016)

2017

???

Outdated Technology (as of 2017)

Kodak cameras

CDs

Borders bookstore

VCRs

Walkman headphones

CD players with the skinny headphones

MySpace

AIM – instant messaging

Flip phones

The large turquoise iPods and iPod nanos

Limewire (2000)

Atlas maps

Dial Up/ AOL

Floppy disks

Cassettes

Camcorders

Landlines

Answering Machines

Old Televisions; now Plasma and LED

MP3 players

Wristwatches

Pay phones

Phones with the spiral wire and neck cradling

Typewriters

Radio? Now streaming and satellite

Pagers

Original handwriting

Dot matrix paper printers

Fax machines

PS1 and PS2 (2000) / Nintendo/ Gamecube (2001)/ Xbox (2001)

Hope you enjoyed reminiscing!

-Brody

Why Jesus makes God not a Hypocrite

Summary:

1.     God made a contract with us that He is very serious about. (Deuteronomy 29:9-29)

2.     God seems like a hypocrite because He says and means two very opposite mottos.

3.     God isn’t a hypocrite because He gave us Jesus.

Intro:

Why is Christianity so confusing?

The answer is because it’s paradoxical. It’s self-contradicting. God is a hypocrite. These statements are all true about Christianity, which is why I think many people choose not to believe in God and the Christian faith.

Here is the ultimate secret to God though. He is a hypocrite. Except, he isn’t.

Here is why God isn’t a hypocrite and more like a uniquely honest non-hypocrite. A hypocrite is someone who says one thing but does another. God says one thing and means it. BUT He also says the opposite of that first thing he said, and means that too. For example, God says, “break my rules and you go to Hell (Deuteronomy 29:19-26)(2 Thessalonians 1:8-9)(Matthew 13:49-50).” But he also says, “break my rules and I’ll forgive you…you’ll be saved…come to Heaven (1 John 1:9-10)(Romans 10:9-13)(John 14:1-4).” Those are two very different statements. The mystery behind God is that He means both of these statements at the same time. How can He do that?

Body:

The answer to this question comes from the Bible in Genesis chapter 15, referred to as “The Lord’s covenant with Abraham.” Here is a quick summary of the chapter:

1.     God and Abraham are making a covenant (a contract that makes “binding mutual promises and vows to be faithful and loving no matter what the circumstances”) about how Abraham, who is 75+ years old and childless, will have a son with his wife Sarah. God promises that Abraham will also have many descendants for generations to come after he dies.

2.     Abraham asks if God really means this. Abraham asks this because with a covenant, if someone breaks it then there are very bad consequences.

3.     In other words, Abraham asks God if He (God) will punish himself if He (God) breaks this covenant. God says yes.

4.     He then tells Abraham to cut animals into pieces and line the pieces up in two parallel lines. This was an old-time custom where a master would make his servant walk through an alley of cut up animal pieces while making a contract…basically making the servant state, “If I break this contract then I deserve to be cut up into pieces.”

5.     So revisiting Abraham’s question, how does Abraham know God will stay faithful (that God will destroy himself (God) if He (God) breaks the contract)?

6.     At the end of Genesis chapter 15, the Bible says that after Abraham made the alley of animal pieces, God came down as fire and passed (“walked”) through the alley of animal pieces. This is good. God showed that He was willing to face the consequences if He himself (God) broke the contract and didn’t give Abraham a son or heir. HOWEVER, He never made Abraham walk through the contract-binding alley of animal pieces. Why didn’t he make Abraham walk through it?

Conclusion:

In not making Abraham walk through, God basically told Abraham, “See, I signed this contract by walking through this alley of animal pieces, but I also signed this contract in place of you. If I break my own rules, then I will destroy myself. If you break my rules, then I will destroy myself instead of destroying you (Matthew 27: 32-50)(John 19:28-30).”

That statement is the whole basis of the Christian faith and is why Jesus is the ultimate answer to God’s mysterious and paradoxical ways (John 14:6). If God messes up, He will destroy Himself. If we as humans mess up and don’t follow His rules (if we sin), then God will destroy Himself as Jesus instead of us. We just have to believe in Jesus in order for this to work (Romans 10:9-13).

If God will destroy Himself as Jesus for us, then can’t we mess up as much as we want and He’ll still forgive us and die for us anyway, allowing us to avoid Hell? The answer is yes but that doesn’t mean we should take advantage of that. It would be utterly rude and disrespectful and evil not to respect someone who died for you. Jesus died for you. God died for you. God died for us. Thus, we should obey God’s laws and his commands the best we can with intentionality to not break them. At the same time, we should have peace knowing that He will forgive us even when we mess up and break His rules. If we have this mindset, then we’ll have a loving relationship with God (Deuteronomy 7:9). We’ll respect Him. He’ll love you (Proverbs 8:17). He’ll love us. He already loves us (John 3:16-17)(Romans 5:8-11)(John 15:12-17). He’ll give us the opportunity to go to Heaven so that we can meet Him face to face and live in a place of peace and joy with Him forever (Revelation 21:3-8).

This is why I believe in a God and a religion that seems hypocritical. And I trust God because He gave us Jesus.

-Brody Forbes

*Based on the sermon “A Covenant Relationship” by Tim Keller

http://podbay.fm/show/352660924/e/1381345988?autostart=1

Amazing Grace (My Chains are Gone) by Chris Tomlin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbe7OruLk8I