Joy Unspeakable!

"Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” So said the Master of Life. I can tell you, He knows what He is talking about. What could be more joyful, more playful, more creative, more expressive, or more spontaneous than the heart of a child? To play, to laugh, to imagine, to sing, to dance... to experience the joy of living... that is heaven on earth. To have a pure heart that is thankful and full of reverence is more precious than fine gold. To know that we are loved by our Creator is nothing less than joy unspeakable, once we deeply comprehend what that means.

I have been reading a book called "Heaven is so Real!" by Choo Thomas. It is an international best seller, translated into several different languages, with over a million copies sold. It has transformed the lives of countless people by making real a place that people had barely been able to imagine. Have you ever wondered what heaven is like? In this wonderful book, she tells how she was taken there numerous times by the Lord of Life Himself, and she describes it in glorious detail. Streets of gold are just the beginning. There are mountains and crystal clear rivers and colorful fruit trees and playful animals and majestic mansions. It is a place beyond all that we could imagine, and it is there for those who seek after goodness and truth and the Creator of all things with the heart of a child. The author sings and dances and laughs and wonders at the joys and beauty laid out before her. It is this kind of heart that is rewarded. Selfishness, materialism, jealousy, power trips, ego, fear, worry, doubt... these lead to the destruction of the soul. Goodness and godliness are health to the soul. We choose the path we walk and bear the fruit of our choices. I highly recommend getting this book and reading it for yourself. Her testimony and the 'book on tape' are also available as videos for free on Google if you search "Heaven is so Real". Don't miss this chance!

Have you ever had a puppy? They know joy!!! They love to play and are so happy and joyful. It is a pleasure to come home and have them leap for joy when we arrive. They have such amazing love... it pours out of them like a fountain. I want to be like that. I want to have that kind of joy and love in my heart. I want to have the heart of a child, to sing, to dance, to play, to laugh and to love. What could be better than that?

Living spontaneously, joyfully, with an open and pure heart is what we were made for. To appreciate the Creator as well as the creation is our purpose. To do good, to care for the needy, to help the hurting, to heal the sick and wounded, to have compassion and understanding is our calling. To speak the truth in love to those than need to hear it is our mission. We can be creative and expressive and loving and live a life that is not only rewarding now, but also in the higher level of existence that the faithful will attain in the future. We live in the matrix... the material realm is a crumbling illusion. The true reality is spiritual. When we seem to be surrounded by earthquakes and floods and nuclear disasters and the world seems to be spinning into chaos, the answer, the freedom, the liberty, the peace we seek will not be found in matter. It is found in a simple song of praise that elevates you above the matrix. Joy unspeakable is yours if you have the heart of a child!

Spaghetti Sandwich

Creativity involves putting together elements that are not usually associated with each other and coming up with a surprising result. The two conditions necessary for being granted a patent are 'novelty' and 'non-obviousness'. The invention needs to be 'new to the world', and it needs to be a bit of a surprise. The other day, I had some leftover spaghetti, but it wasn't enough for a meal. I thought I'd have some bread with it (the idea came from restaurant dining, where bread is often served with a meal), but I didn't have any butter. Then (bing!), I thought, I can put the spaghetti between two slices of bread... that would be just enough food, the bread wouldn't be dry, and it would be neat and easy to eat. I did, and the result was actually quite tasty (sort of like an eggplant or chicken parm sub with pasta instead). Now this invention was new to me (I had never heard of a spaghetti sandwich), but was it new to the world? I typed "spaghetti sandwich" into Google images and got several pictures of spaghetti sandwiches and quickly found out the invention had been thought of previously. It therefore lacked 'novelty', and could never be patented (not that I would... this is just a silly example).

Now a lot of people might go,"Yuck!" at the thought of a spaghetti sandwich, but only because it is unfamiliar and seems strange. When I was a young child, one of my favorite books was "Green Eggs and Ham" by Dr. Seuss. It was all about breaking the paradigm of unfamiliar being bad... at first the Cat in the Hat refused to eat the green eggs and ham, but after lengthy persuasion, agreed to try it... only to find that he actually loved it!

When I was in college at WPI, I minored in 'Creativity and Creative Problem Solving'. As part of my education, I put together a 3 day course on how to be more creative, which was held during winter break. In order to promote the course, I put up flyer around the campus that said (with the words formed into a question mark that covered the page), "Are you strange? Would you like to be stranger?” followed by enough info to know how to sign up for the course. I got 18 students to sign up. If you want to be creative and inventive, you really have to be excited about adventuring into the strange and unknown. You need to look at things from a different and unusual perspective. You need to be comfortable with ambiguity and willing to mix and match things that are at most tangentially related (i.e. at least 2-3 degrees of separation). Often, when I am trying to find a solution to a problem, I will isolate one aspect of the problem, generalize it, and then explore how others have solved the general problem. After finding some interesting solutions, I bring them back to the original problem and see if they unlock a novel solution. Often, they do.

Another common element of creative people is that they will use what is already around them in new ways. Creative people will tend to collect things and educate themselves about all kinds of things so that when that opportunity arises, the needed components and information will be readily at hand.

One important distinction to recognize is that there is an important difference between innovation and creativity. Creativity is fun and play and surprising and humorous and joyful and rewarding... but, more often than not, the outcome is rapidly forgotten. Innovation is where creativity produces something that has social, economic, emotional, or some other form of value, and that value is recognized, and the invention is subsequently duplicated, distributed, and adopted because of its clear value.

Often the innovation will be improved upon as people tailor it for their particular application. This is user innovation on top of existing innovation, and it takes place because (a) people have a specific need that the invention (in its current form) does not fully address, (b) they typically have at hand the tools that can be integrated into the invention, and (c) they have a certain expertise in that field. These user innovations frequently becomes the next generation of the invention. A research study done at MIT found that approximately 3/4 of innovations come from users. Users really understand the need (often better than the manufacturer), and, often by serendipity, will have some skill or talent that enables them to modify the innovation in a way that makes it better for them. It was somewhat shocking to me how often a product would be launched without the marketing person ever using the product themselves. If we are to be really good at innovation, we need to be personally involved to get the richest solutions, and we need to learn new skills and achieve new levels of understanding so that we can apply that to future innovations. Finally, understand the users, and look for unique and interesting applications and modifications to your innovation. That could be your next generation success story!

Metamorphosis

When we think of metamorphosis, the image that immediately pops to mind is the transformation from a caterpillar to a butterfly. While that is a powerful and almost shocking example of transformation, there is another type of metamorphosis as well, which is more gradual, such as the transition from a tadpole to a frog. In a sense, one is like a revolution and the other is like an evolution. Both are valid means of reaching a desired end. In each case there is a dramatic difference between the 'before' and 'after'.

Curious about the word, I learned that during the pupa stage, a caterfly butterpillar will actually emit digestive fluids that cause the cell death and dissolution of its own former body, and the dissolved components are then recombined into a brand new living structure... literal death and rebirth. Other species, in more evolutionary metamorphosis, undergo dramatic transformations of their organs, such as the flounder, for example, whose eyes start on opposite sides of the fish larvae and end up together on the same side of the adult fish.

Another revelation came upon seeing that the antonym for metamorphosis is 'stagnation'. As growing, learning, evolving human beings, surely metamorphosis is preferable to stagnation!

A common but less cited example of metamorphosis is one that we have all gone through. We started off as two separate single cell organisms in two entirely different ecosystems. One merged into the other, and in an unbelievably complex microscopic dance, the DNA of both individual organisms combined to form a brand new and totally unique single cell organism. This organism then began replicating itself in another miraculous transformation. Then groups of identical cells began to express differentiation from other cells, eventually forming organs. Our form evolved visibly as we were transformed from a blob to a fish-like form to a human form, and then, pop! we went from liquid breathing to air breathing. Next, we are transformed from helpless babies into fantastically creative learning beings as children, and then into teen and adulthood.

Finally, as adults, some people go through a metamorphosis in their personal, psychological and/or spiritual makeup. Once successful businessmen can get addicted to drugs or alcohol and undergo a dark metamorphosis, at the end of which they wake up on a street corner homeless and penniless. Some will undergo another metamorphosis by going into a 12 step program, kick the habit, take the 12 steps to heart, and will emerge as a kinder, healthier, more ethical, stronger and more humble individual than they were before they started. Other people will find God and will be transformed from self-centered narcissistic individuals to loving and spiritual giants. The walk of faith is truly one about transformation... metamorphosis. It is about putting to death the 'old man' (fallen, sinful, corrupt), being born of the spirit, and bringing to life the 'new man' (enlightened, connected to God through Christ). In the central and pivotal verse of the New Testament, Romans 12:2 ("And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind..."), the Greek the word from which the word 'transformed' is translated is 'metamorpho'... look familiar?

It is said of businesses, that if you are not growing, you are dying. A business that is not innovating and progressing will soon be outflanked by its competitors and eventually become an annotation in the history books. The same is true, to a certain extent, with us as individuals. We need to continue to grow, to learn, to innovate, to change, to rise above. Some may go through radical, revolutionary transformation, while others may evolve more slowly. If we stop moving, we will stagnate. If we don't try each day to be better people, to answer our higher calling, to give more and to love more, then we are slipping into mediocrity and anonymity.

You can achieve great things! You can undergo a daily renewal and transformation so that you become stronger and healthier and wiser each day. As you grow, you will be able to accomplish more. Never stop learning. Never stop discovering. Seek the source of light and truth, then seek the transformation of your very soul. As you do, you will find yourself accomplishing things you never dreamed possible, reaching unimagined heights, and appreciating with renewed humility and joy the creative expression of God!

Innovation Nation

In less than a brief 200 years (3 average lifetimes), the United States of America went from a ragtag republic to the most powerful and prosperous nation on earth. We are now on the brink of losing the good that we have accomplished in the world, as we gaze with wonder and confusion while the world around us begins to unravel. How did we get to where we are today? How can we get back to where we were a few short years ago? The answers are varied and complex, but here, I think, are a few big pieces to the puzzle.

The USA was founded on some basic beliefs that, at the time, were aspirational goals which were largely untested. Almost all governments up to that time were based on a ruling class that made decisions for the 'ignorant masses'. Government (typically a monarchy) was centrally based and handed down the rules that everyone had to live by. Having seen how this usually ended up in tyranny, the Founding Fathers sought to establish a form of government that was 'for the people and by the people', based on the assumption of innocence until proven guilty, a fair trial by a jury of one's peers, and a firm conviction that all men are created equal, endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights including the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Government was to respond to the will of the people, not the other way around. The goal was to minimize the infringement of the government on the rights of the individual. They believed that if we were given the freedom and opportunity to achieve great things, it was the nature of man to do so, and we would. They were right.

The trick was to find the right balance between anarchy and tyranny. Through much prayer, blood, sweat and tears, inspiration came as they rested on the values that they had learned as a result of their Judeo-Christian heritage. Much like the government of Israel in the Old Testament, as much power as possible was delegated to local representatives, who were closest to the problems and, generally could do the most good. Bigger and more difficult problems were elevated upward, and only the most challenging issues were addressed at the highest levels. The greatest leaders were to be the greatest servants (modeled by Jesus washing the feet of the disciples). Liberty was a gift from God, not to be taken lightly. As the ink dried on the US Constitution, the grand experiment took flight.

No longer constrained by burdensome rules and regulations and excessive taxation, innovation became the hallmark of this young nation. Benjamin Franklin, besides being a founding father, was a tireless inventor (bifocals, the Franklin stove, the lightning rod and daylight savings time were a few of his inventions). Thomas Jefferson was also a prolific inventor. Their efforts helped assure that the fledgling government was also innovation friendly.

Strong faith and reliance upon God was the norm of the day. The Master of Life had declared in his mortal frame, "Allow the little children to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of God." Having a childlike spontaneity is the greatest single key to creativity and innovation. A selfless desire to do good and help people motivated men like George Washington Carver, who's epitaph read,"He could have added fortune to fame, but, caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world." In an atmosphere of freedom and adventure, questioning one's assumptions was a virtue, not a vice, and living with ambiguity was a way of life in this rapidly evolving nation. These are all strengths common to the giants of creativity and innovation. This can-do culture gave wings to men like the Wright brothers, Thomas Edison, Alexander Bell, Nicola Tesla, Henry Ford, Albert Einstein, and many more.

So what happened? In the US today, only about 3% of students receive college degrees in engineering or the sciences... in China, that number is around 42%. A recent study ranked the U.S. sixth among the top 40 industrialized nations in innovative competitiveness, but 40th out of 40 (dead last!) in “the rate of change in innovation capacity” over the past decade. In 2000 the U.S. exported $29 billion more high-tech products than it imported, but by 2007 that had turned into a $54 billion trade deficit, and it has only gotten worse since then. In 1960, one in three jobs was in manufacturing. Today, it is less than one in ten. Our country is surviving largely on money we borrow from the Chinese. How far we have fallen...

Why? God and the foundation of morals and ethics have been driven from our schools and the halls of government, the traditional family is nowhere to be found, and life is no longer valued. The desire to invent something that will help our fellow man has been replaced by corporate greed, leading to endless outsourcing. Government control seems to be becoming more and more invasive every day, so that things that were once simple are now increadibly complex if not impossible. Instead of teaching people how to think for themselves, our education system teaches rote memorization and conformity to a single standard. Other countries reward innovation... ours regulates and/or taxes it to death.

Can we turn this ship around? I don't know. But I do know each individual can turn themselves around. If enough individuals turn themselves around, maybe, just maybe, it will make a difference. Maybe we can restore a bit of the shine on the tarnished liberty bell. I can't speak for my country, but I can speak for myself. I can choose to think more creatively. I can choose to see a need and try to figure out how to make other's lives better. I can, and so can you. Make somebody else's life better, and then ask them to pass it on. Every bit of good we can do is a step in the right direction. You can make a difference... believe in yourself, believe that you have a higher calling, and with a prayer for divine guidance go out there and rock the world!