“There are three kinds of leaders: Those that tell others what to do; those that hope others will do something; and those that show others the way.”

Dan Cathy

“Death, be not proud”

John Donne

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so;
For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.
Thou’art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy’or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

1 Corinthians 15:16-20
“For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.”

Cheers,

Josh

“Do we bemoan the lack of mentors? Why not be proactive and find someone who will walk alongside you? How about someone you could mentor?”

Andy Mills

“You’re not as smart as you think you are, but you’ve got more potential than you could possibly imagine. And the secret from the one to the other is humility. If you’ll be humble and learn you’ll get there and make a big dent.”

Michael Hyatt

Sunday – internship from 2 to 5pm; church from 5:30 to 9pm.
Monday – work from 9 to 6 pm; The Tent from 8 to 10pm (add 30 minutes at the beginning and end for padding)
Tuesday – class from 9 to 4:30pm with some breaks throughout; work from 4:30 to 6:30pm
Wednesday – intern from noon to 6pm
Thursday – intern either 4am to noon or noon to 6pm.
Friday – class from 9 to 4:30pm with some breaks throughout; work from 4:30 to 6:30pm
Saturday – free-for-all-crash-day

Just two more months of this. My schedule makes me feel like a freshman all over again.

May 5. Done.

“The gospel of justifying faith means that while Christians are, in themselves still sinful and sinning, yet in Christ, in God’s sight, they are accepted and righteous. So we can say that we are more wicked than we ever dared believe, but more loved and accepted in Christ than we ever dared hope.”

Tim Keller

The first 17-days were hard but I lost 5lbs along the way. Some days I gave people the worst contemptuous looks because of how I felt. Some days you could cut through the “negative externalities” of my changing diet with a butter knife, ha. I hope I didn’t lose too many friends along the way to Cycle two…

You thought I was done blogging.

Two days ago I started Cycle 2 of the 17-Day Diet. I’m allowed seafood like crab and shrimp, cuts of meat such as pork loins and lean ground beef, and starches like brown rice and beans. Cycle one eliminated all red meat, grains, and legumes to shock your system. I had a few cheats along the way, but I did a great job most of the time. Cycle two oscillates every other day between the strict Cycle one diet and the easier Cycle two foods. One day I can have veggies, some protein, Greek yogurt, and the next day I can have those things plus more protein and starches. This confuses your body and helps keeps you from experiencing weight loss plateaus.

In the Cycle two I plan to exercise because the diet allows me to replenish my body with the necessary carbs that Cycle one does not allow. I’ll do basic aerobic and anaerobic exercises in this cycle.

I appreciate your support during my lifestyle change — I have to see this as a lifestyle change or I will return to my unhealthy habits. In 2005 I weighed around 400lbs – dropped about 200lbs in two years – and gained about 50lbs of it back. So yeah, it’s a lifestyle change.

Quick rant: Anyone that says you form habits in two weeks are selling something (and they’re probably selling you a bad habit). It takes years to form good and bad habits. We pretend it takes a few days to drop a bad habit because we have to painfully walk and talk out our life-changing decisions

Thanks for following. Until next time:

“I’m a preacher, I’m a saint and sinner, guess I fit the titles.
Gotta keep a humble heart, because my good is not enough.
Jehova Jireh gotta give the glory up up up.”

Cheers,

Josh

Know your elders.

Since launching my site I experimented with writing templates that I created. Writing is a craft, and takes more care than I’ve put into it so far. But I need people who can teach me…

George Orwell gives writers the basics of writing in his essay “Politics and the English Language”. I need to take his principles on writing well and find someone to guide me through the discipline of writing that matters (content) and a style that modern readers care to access (blogging). Sure – Dylan Thomas and space rock, re-imagining, and the benefits of delegation are important to me. But who is my audience? I don’t know! Friends on Facebook? or Twitter? That’s still an awfully small amount of people who don’t have particular interests in any of these three examples.

People like Michael Hyatt got me in to blogging, and it is resourceful people like Jeff Goins that Hyatt suggests teach you how to blog. So last night I signed up for Goins’ free blogging tutorial: “Intentional Blogging”. It’s a twelve week course in Goins’ best practices for writing fresh, interesting content.

Be on the lookout for updates to my website and blogging style in the coming weeks. I plan to have consistent style, tone, and look to my website come May.

Thank you for joining me. I hope you enjoy what I write, and will see that I intend to grow along the way.

Cheers,

Josh

Reese likes to make allusions in his lyrics using the color blue (blue represents youth, spirituality, truth, peace and distance).

bSS

bSS’s 2008 cover of Electric Light Orchestra’s “Here is the news” opens with the last four lines of the first stanza in “And Death Shall Have No Dominion” by Dylan Thomas:

“They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.”

Saint Saturn borrows “News” and incorporates it into their narrative (four men thinking through their life philosophies in the face of impending death) and compares it with with the pressure that comes from 24/7 media attention. The song’s closest thing to a chorus is the ominous line: “Here is the news” strewn throughout simple lyrics that describe the conditions of space (ex: “The weather’s fine but there may be a meteor shower”). The chorus doesn’t change as the song moves forward, and the crew’s plight becomes desperate.

The song is about the “distance” created between real-life and what people observe from the outside. The news creates this distance by its overly-analytical hero worship.

Instead of Reese’s typical use of blue to represent distance, Reese blends his narrative with the ethos of Dylan Thomas’ “And Death…” and ELO’s “News” to create a striking word picture.

I think’s a great song. It’s a piece of music where the listener may discover the deeper elements of the song or just enjoy it at face value. It’s your choice — but the lyrics are better if vetted for their historical and philosophical content.

Dylan Thomas‘ “And Death Shall Have No Dominion” in full:

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan’t crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.

**edited from an earlier blog

Sy Rogers visited The Tent on Monday night, and I planned the entire event by myself. All of the prepwork + everyone learning what to do for the night on the spot + not buying groceries this weekend = I had McDonald’s for dinner. I ate two McDouble’s, a medium fry, and a Reese’s McFlurry. The food made me feel sick immediately. I never ordered medium fries when I wasn’t on a diet! So what was I thinking?

This clown thinks he's pious!!

I don’t know. But here’s how I felt leading up to the dinner:

- anxious because I knew I didn’t have anything healthy to eat at home
- mad because I had plenty of time to buy groceries over the weekend

…but why didn’t I buy groceries over the weekend? Because of my refusal to delegate.

I wanted Sy Rogers to visit The Tent, and made a case for it to The Tent’s leaders during the planning stage. They ok’d it and we moved forward. Only… I moved forward. I was the point person to the team. But I didn’t let anyone know what we needed until the night began. The night went off without a hitch, but appearances are deceiving. Everything came together at the last minute but it didn’t need to. So a combination of excitment about Sy’s visit, feeling bad about the strain I put on the plan, and not having food around the house resulted in me breaking my diet.

Thankfully I ate at McDonald’s with friends. My buddy Travis reminded me about the diet, and I said I would blog about it as a reminder to myself that I need to be more thougtful about the planning and execution of my diet, and other areas of my life as well.

This morning I read a blog entry titled “How to Win At Delegation,” written by Chris LoCurto. It’s helped delegate this week in order not to repeat Monday’s diet faux pas.

Too many times I hear leaders say, “Well it’s just faster if I do it myself.” Yes, because you weren’t mature enough to teach someone the right way to do it. Proper delegation takes time. But when someone is trained, you’re golden.