Whose House Am I Building

When I talk with others at my station in life (married, young kids) and of my socio-economic status (middle to upper middle class), invariably the subject turns to things like what schools the kids are going to, what leisure pursuits were recently undertaken or are being sought after, and what employment decisions are being made to make it all happen. It is the aim of most people like me to find a job that pays well enough to take care of ourselves and provide us with the quality of life we seek for our families. Or, said another way, if one has to choose, giving up a little in work satisfaction and overall meaningfulness is easier than taking a huge plunge in salary. For what's a little discomfort, or what's the bother if what you do doesn't quite provide the fulfillment of making a positive contribution to society, so long as you are in a position to live in a nice neighborhood, send your kids to a good school, afford vacations and possessions that place you at a certain level of status, and retire early enough to enjoy leisure and grandkids?

There is nothing inherently wrong with being rich. Vacations and possessions need not steal your soul. It is good to do right by your kids. But the fundamental question that matters for eternity would seem to be: whose house are you building? When we choose where to live, what house to buy, what job to take, what to spend our money and leisure time on, how we will raise our kids, and what approach we will take with every other decision bigger and smaller: to what end and for whose advancement do we do it?

For the Christian, the answer is clear, even if the implementation is hard. By definition, becoming a true believer means renouncing lordship of our own lives and subsuming ourselves, our agendas, and our aims for that of our God. Even most of the most heathen of people can tell you that being a Christian means making Jesus Lord and Savior, and has some understanding of what those Christianese terms mean: "Savior" means salvation from the consequence of our sins, and "Lord" means the Big Man calls the shots and not us ourselves.

Sadly, most of us Christians don't fully put into application what is plainly evident to non-believers what is meant by being a believer. In a sense, we show ourselves to ourselves, to them, and to our God to be half-believers. We will allow Him to be Lord up to a point, but only if we are also able to take care of ourselves and hit all of life's milestones that make up the middle-class life. We can be radical in our obedience, but leave us alone to get ourselves set up first. We'll build Your house, O Lord, but from the comfort of our own houses, which take up the vast majority of our plans and thoughts and efforts.

It is no more or less incongruous to be a person of faith in the present than in Biblical times. Noah must have looked weird building a boat in the middle of a desert. Goliath laughed at David when David opposed him for mocking his God. Jesus' followers left their families and their nets in the water when called into His service, no doubt to the puzzlement of their family members and co-workers. All of these renounced the primacy of their own house-building to partake in something grander, more lasting, and more meaningful: participation in the great narrative of God glorifying Himself and saving and blessing others in the process.

The upshot of house-building, if the Bible and God are to be believed, is that the seemingly more self-interested approach of taking care of one's own house first is in fact not the most self-gaining outcome. For there is no real sacrifice in obedience. Even those who have suffered grievious losses - severe reductions in income, loss of reputation in broader society, separation from family, physical affliction, and, yes, even loss of life - have been given back more and then some, and have received divine comfort throughout.

So what will it be for us who are faced with the very natural impulse to build our own houses, taught as it was by our parents and practiced as it is by our peers and applauded as it is by our society? Will we give ourselves fully to this effort? Perhaps we will consider making token contributions of time and effort to God's house after we have satisfied ourselves? Or even consider the two pursuits things to be pursued in parallel?

God wants far more, and wants to offer us far more. Whose house are we building? Will we focus on our own, asking God to help us as He can, and helping Him as we can? Or will give ourselves fully, even to the puzzlement of those around us, to contributing to a far greater cause and name, being blessed and comforted throughout and preparing for ourselves a truly lasting house for eternity? Though even those far removed from knowing their Bibles understand that these are the choices and these are the consequences, yet I waffle, for I lack in faith and am often more influenced by my peers and by my attachment to present comforts than I am by the unshakable promises of my God. Shame on me, and shame on my generation, if we choose to build our own house instead of accepting the invitation to a far more glorious and rewarding pursuit.

"But who am I and who are my people that we should be able to offer as generously as this? For all things come from You, and from Your hand we have given You. For we are sojourners before You, and tenants, as all our fathers were; our days on the earth are like a shadow, and there is no hope. O LORD our God, all this abundance that we have provided to build You a house for Your holy name, it is from Your hand, and all is Yours. Since I know, O my God, that You try the heart and delight in uprightness, I, in the integrity of my heart, have willingly offered all these things; so now with joy I have seen Your people, who are present here, make their offerings willingly to You. O LORD, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, our fathers, preserve this forever in the intentions of the heart of Your people, and direct their heart to You." - 1 Chronicles 29:14-18

Lazy Linking, 22nd in an Occasional Series

* David Brooks extols thinking about thinking.

* Stephen Landsburg is half-right when he bashes locavores - the price of a tomato reflects the different energy inputs involved in getting it to you (so shipping it thousands of miles might actually be less energy-intensive than having it grown just a few miles away) but since energy prices are quite wrong it's insufficient to assume that a simple price comparison tells you which tomato is better for the environment.

* To this list of "13 Questions to Diagnose Your Idolatries" I would add - "What do you tell your friends most often and most excitedly about" and "What would motivate you the most to wake up early in the morning for."

* Two take-aways from this Donald Marron post - 1) the old-school web is far from dead, and 2) remember the importance of considering things both in absolute terms and in percentage terms.

* Anyone from Minnesota or Wisconsin or who knows someone from Minnesota or Wisconsin knows that it is only those two states that have people nice enough to pull off the kind of cross-state "good government" collaboration featured in this article.

Recommended Reads, Third in a Series

Some of my faves from the past three months:


* Out of the Saltshaker (Pippert). I never actually read this classic after all of these years of being a Christian, so I thought it would be good to actually read. A little too chipper and suburban for my taste, but still a good read.

* Woe is I (O'Conner). A helpful and witty little primer on grammar. I found myself saying, "oops, I've been saying it wrong all these years" a lot.

* Neither Here Nor There (Bryson). Bryson consistently makes me laugh out loud. This account of his jaunt through Europe, a retracing of a previous trip he did when he was much younger, was no different.

* Silent Spring (Carson). The "Inconvenient Truth" of the 1960's. She sure does pound on the issue of pesticides. (I think I was hoping for broader coverage on environmental issues.)

* Sexual Personae (Paglia). Her unified theory of art and lit is deliciously sharp. Sadly, most of it went way over my head; I am simply not at all well-versed when it comes to the classics like Dickinson and Blake and Shakespeare and Wordsworth.

* Taming the Tiger (Rybcynski). It was apt to read this book, about whether we control technology or technology controls us, right before I became a smart phone owner.

* Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory (Balmer). This look at evangelicalism in the US is insightful, although too often skeptical, dismissive, and unbalanced.

* Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Kuhn). Think "Tipping Point," but not as smoothly written as Gladwell and applied solely to the advance of science. If I knew more about basic science (I drew a blank on physics) and scientists (I should know more about Newton and Galileo than what I do), I think this book would have been more pleasurable to read.

The Importance of Multi-Modality: the China Version

On the heels of the recent massive traffic jam in China, Oddee ran a great post today entitled "12 Worst Traffic Jams." Don't get me wrong: cars are great ways to get people and things moved from Point A to Point B. This doesn't need to be an either/or story. But without multi-modality, you get choke points that, if a few things break the wrong way, can grind everything to a halt, with disastrous consequences for supply chains and personal mobility. We know as investors to not put all our eggs in one basket; let's hope we apply the same logic to the way we think about moving people and things.

(By the way, the photo is not of China, but of France, circa 1980, the purported site of the longest traffic jam ever, at 110 miles.)

All Walks of Life, the Schoolkid Version

Back-to-back social events for Jada brought home for me the very wide swath of society our family interacts with on a routine basis. The first was a play date for incoming after-school program participants of a highly regarded program that is adjacent to Jada's kindergarten and that therefore makes room for any new kindergarteners there, since it is easy for them to walk the kids literally across a courtyard and into their facility. This program, which runs from infants all the way to 6th grade, is so highly touted that our first contact with them was when they said they had room for Jada at age 4 . . . after we had been on the wait-list for over three years!

Anyway, most of the kids Jada's age are also incoming kindergarten classmates, and because Jada's elementary school is very good and real estate values have gone up as a result, that means most are upper middle class like us. Except it's overly generous of us to consider ourselves in the same socio-economic tier, since many are older than us (i.e. more time to make money) and newer to the neighborhood (i.e. have to be able to afford a much higher mortgage than lucky us). So, for example, we're not close to having a nanny or a membership at the local swim club or a house in the Poconos, facts about my colleagues that were casually dropped over the course of conversation.

It was a similar realization at Jada's second social event, her current classmate's birthday party. This time the expenditure gap wasn't about leisure items but educational ones: while we are lucking out with a great public school option nearby, many of Jada's classmates are heading into private elementary schools with pricey tuitions. I haven't run the numbers on what it would have looked like to pay tuition for Aaron and Jada through their school years, since we are fortunate enough to like our free option, but suffice to say that a back-of-the-envelop estimate has us downgrading to Ramen noodles for meals and jaunts at the local playground for our summer vacations.

Who I will rub elbows with as it relates to Jada's current and future school is a far cry from who I have rubbed elbows with as it relates to her old school and Aaron's current school. There, though tuition is a bargain (even with a recent rate hike, we're talking well under four bucks an hour, with three meals and lots of snacks included), most of the participants qualify for some form of public subsidy. I know that attire can be misleading, but it's all I have to go on, and based on that, I have only met a handful of moms (and no dads) who have professional jobs, out of dozens of families represented.

One of the good things about raising kids in a big city is that they become friends with the children of parents who come from all walks of life. Aaron's guy friends might be rougher, and Jada's girl friends better dressed, but I have not perceived any differences in the way our kids interact with all of their friends in all of their classrooms. It matters to me that they have this kind of exposure, and learn to make friends with all types, and be satisfied with who they are and where they come from. So I'm glad for how school has played out for them. I guess this weekend's back-to-back social outings really highlighted for me just how broad is the range of social status that we're intersecting with.

Romo! Flacco! It's Super Bowl XLV

I'm usually not one for commentary when it comes to my sports predictions, except to say that on the continuum of "I've researched this to death and I know my stuff" and "I'm picking them because I like their new uniforms," it's much closer to the latter. But, let me make an exception and give some one-liners re: the teams I didn't pick:

* Jets - Pride goeth before a fall.

* Bengals - T.O. = N.O.

* Titans - A repeat of last year, in that early losses and a big run at the end make them the best team to not make the playoffs.

* Vikings - They miss by one game on a Favre interception. Poetic justice.

* Cardinals - Matt Leinart, you peaked in your Heisman year. That was six years ago.

* Giants - Do they share the same water as the Mets?

Herewith, my 2010-2011 NFL predictions. As always, predictions guaranteed or double your money back.

* NFC: 1 Cowboys 2 Packers 3 Saints 4 49ers 5 Falcons 6 Eagles

* AFC: 1 Ravens 2 Colts 3 Chargers 4 Patriots 5 Steelers 6 Raiders

* WC: Saints, Falcons, Chargers, Steelers

* Conf: Cowboys, Packers, Colts, Ravens

* SB: Cowboys over Ravens

All Walks of Life

One of the rich aspects about life in Philadelphia is how diverse it is, in people and architecture and setting. Consider a few hours in my life from earlier this week:

* 4:00p - I leave a meeting on the 30th floor of a Center City skyscraper with the good people at the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau, which is one of our clients and for whom we produce a quarterly international tourism metric. I spend a little over an hour catching up on emails, voice mails, and printed out reports in the food court area underneath the Comcast Center, where commuters are pouring in and out for rush hour.

* 5:30p - I make my way to the School District of Philadelphia main administration building at Broad and Spring Garden for an orientation for parents with kids with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs). Because child care is provided, lots of kids are there. Every race and ethnicity is represented, but socio-economically it's a pretty low income group, at least judging by attire. I check in, get my packet of information and dinner, and hit up the people who specialize in speech therapy, which is Jada's main issue.

* 6:15p - I have to bolt from the meeting way early to make it across the city to my next event. I hop on the Broad Street Line at Spring Garden and take it to Ellsworth-Federal. Because there's a Phillies game that evening, almost everyone on the line is heading to the stadium, most with Phillies gear on. It's a largely young and boisterous crowd, almost as many women as men.

* 6:45p - I get off at Ellsworth-Federal and hoof it through South Philadelphia (quintessential images: young bucks smoking on their porch, urban gardens, ballfields and playgrounds) through the Italian Market (or, as I like to call it, "the Italian/Mexican/Chinese/Vietnamese Market") to the main restaurant inside a Vietnamese shopping plaza. David Oh is holding court at the back of the restaurant, as the rest of his exploratory committee listens.

* 7:30p - The meeting adjourns and I chat with some of the other committee members, who come from all walks of life and thus represent the diversity of supporters David has been able to assemble on his team. I head out of the plaza and just miss my bus, but no matter, I have come with my Economists, and I am over a week behind, so I make good use of the 15-minute wait.

* 8:00p - The 64 bus is one of my secret favorite bus lines, because it is such a random line to intersect with my life. But intersect it does, when I am down in this part of the city, for it winds through South and Southwest Philadelphia before brushing up just blocks from my house. I alternate between powering through my Economists, people-watching inside the bus, and observing the neighborhoods as we glide through them. I disembark, walk through a yard sale being held by the sketchy people who live on a busy street corner in our neighborhood, and am soon home. The dogs are barking.

(Apologies for these kinds of posts, which I am guessing are really boring to read. I have decided that I want to mix into my posting rhythm some mundane descriptions of everyday urban life. What is normal for me is, perhaps, useful documentation about life in a big city, in all of its texture and intricacy. It's not as noticeable a perk as having great restaurants or a winning baseball team, but it's part of what I think city dwellers like about living in an urban environment, is these kinds of mundane aspects of getting around and intersecting with lots of different kinds of people and lots of different kinds of ways. Thus will I document.)

Let's Hope the Third Time's the Charm

I campaigned for David Oh for City Council at Large in 2003 (when he fell 14,000 votes short) and again in 2007 (when he actually won by 7 votes in the polls but then lost by 122 because of absentee ballots), and am proud to go to bat for him again for 2011. Every time I attend a City Council hearing or hear about all the good shaking up that 2007's freshman Councilpersons (Quinones-Sanchez, Jones, Green) are doing, I wonder aloud that David should have been a part of that incoming class. In 2011, I believe it will be David's time.

He will be Philadelphia's first-ever Asian City Councilperson. But, as David correctly points out, in order to serve he must represent all people. And, David's ability to connect with all people was on display at this week's exploratory committee meeting in South Philadelphia, which I attended. Seated around the table were people of all racial, ethnic, gender, party, industry, and socio-economic groups. Different as we all are from one another, we share a commitment to Philadelphia and a belief that David will be a good public servant in making Philadelphia better.

Below you'll find a message from him about his upcoming exploratory committee fundraiser. I invite you to attend, to get involved, to join the movement. Yes, Virginia (and Philadelphia), there are still honest, hard-working, thoughtful, and righteous politicians out there. I ask you to join me in voting in David Oh.

***

Dear Friend,

As you may know, I ran for Philadelphia City Council At-large in 2003 and 2007. Although the odds were against me, I worked hard and campaigned on issues that I believe will make our city and our region a better place to live, work and raise a family. In 2007, I won by 7 votes on Election Day but lost a couple weeks later by 122 absentee ballet votes.

I am exploring my third run for City Council At-Large in 2011. I will once again advocate that we work together to implement legislation, programs and processes that will dramatically improve the lives of every day people living in our neighborhoods and working in our businesses. For that reason, I am proud that State Senator Anthony Hardy Williams (D), Councilwoman Maria Quinones Sanchez (D), and former State Senator Philip Price, Jr. (R) will join me on Friday, September 10th at my exploratory fundraiser. In addition, many dignitaries and friends will attend, including our keynote speaker, Don Liu, General Counsel of Xerox, and Mistress of Ceremony, actress Tiffany Dupont.

Please join us. Attached is a flyer with all the details. Thank you.

Best regards,
David
David H. Oh, Esq.

Let’s Work Together to Make Philadelphia Great!
Please Join Us for a
Fundraising Reception in Support of
DAVID OH
Republican, Exploring City Council At-Large 2011
Mistress of Ceremony:
Tiffany Dupont
Keynote Speaker:
Don Liu, General Counsel of Xerox
Special Guests:
Hon. Philip Price, Jr., former State Senator (R)
Hon. Anthony Hardy Williams, State Senator (D)
Hon. Maria Quinones Sanchez, City Councilwoman (D)
Host Committee:

W. Fredrick Anton, III
Tony Szuszczewicz
Michael Pearson
Rodney Little
Michael Korniczky
Ron Panepinto
Bill Hamilton
Dan Bosak
John Katrina
Ken Wong
Joyce Koh
Violet Mendoza
Bill Gault
Tim McShea
Kevin Pasquay
Suzanne Haney
Jason Brehouse
Pat Creighton
Norman Zarwin
Ted Schaer
E. Harris Baum
Mitchell Kaplan
Janet Fiore
Animit Bhattacharya
Tim Haahs
Bishop Leonard Goins
Tomas Sanchez
Michael Stara
Glenn Devitt
Aryeh Linietsky
Danilo Burgos
Lee Huang
Lindsay Doering
Andrew Gentsch
Jeremy Ibrahim
Brad Baldia

Friday, September 10, 2010
6:30pm-8:00pm
Zarwin Baum DeVito Kaplan Schaer Toddy, P.C.
1818 Market Street, 13th floor
Philadelphia, PA 19103
Contribution: $100.00 Make checks payable to Citizens for David Oh
Corporate checks are not allowed by law.
RSVP: Eunice Lee at 215.569-2800, ext. 1179 / email: elee@zarwin.com

What Am I Working On

Here's my quarterly update on new things I've been working on at work since the last update on May 22 (you can read past posts for my ground rules on these quarterly updates):

* Helping an economically distressed small city explore if and how to provide tax incentives to stimulate real estate development

* Helping seven religious organizations that have come together to advocate for local economic development to structure their new entity, determine where to focus their priorities, and identify key stakeholders to connect with in that effort

* Updating a university economic impact study from five years past to account for new data and new initiatives

* Estimating the tax revenues that will be generated by a proposed new development that is seeking public subsidy

A Meeting with the Mayor

Earlier this summer, I got a chance to present a report that I have been working on for the City of Philadelphia to Mayor Michael Nutter and about two-thirds of his cabinet. It was fascinating to me to see firsthand the inner workings of a mayoral administration, and particularly of this mayoral administration.

Mayor Nutter is, as advertised, cordial and inquisitive. There was pretty wide participation amongst his cabinet members, with no one or two people dominating the conversation. There was a genuine spirit of public service, as well as a commendable balance of pragmatism (a realistic view of the difficulty of operating such a large bureaucracy as the City) and idealism (despite that, we want to get this issue right and effect real change for the people). I found the experience to be encouraging as a citizen and affirming as a consultant, for I saw in the group and in the group's leader a real desire to do the right thing in the right way for the right reasons.

I know we all have our gripes about bureaucracies in general and this present administration in particular, and I am no different. And, even this positive experience had its moments. But it was still good to be invited in, and I would still consider it positive overall.

Lazy Linking, 21st in an Occasional Series

Good stuff on the Internets:

* Love love love what David Cameron is doing in Britain. Hey US Republicans, see what good stuff the Tories are up to, and allied with the Liberal Democrats no less.

* How do you ensure that not enough affordable housing will be built? Make it really hard for developers to make money.

* It turns out big boxes may not necessarily be better than traditional mixed-use development at generating tax revenues for jurisdictions.

* Here's one way to avoid becoming obese - commute by transit.

* Can you bank time? My friend Imanni Wilkes thinks so.

* Shameless work-promotion - we are half the answer to that burning question asked by the local paper, What do you get when you cross an economics firm with a public finance consulting firm?

* Tim Harford correctly distinguishes between creating jobs and creating jobs that matter.

* Eleven experts chime in on what happens when bikes and pedestrians compete with cars for road space.

* Leave it to Israel, rich in innovation and poor in water, to point the way to cutting-edge technologies for water conservation.

Why I Am Still A Republican

Living in Philadelphia and having many intelligent, multicultural, left-leaning friends, it can seem incongruous to many that I am a registered Republican. The party is tarred as being xenophobic, uncaring, and obstructionist, and many times that broad brush is justified. But I want to affirm my Republicanness in light of a comment I recently overheard being made concerning last year's stimulus bill.

In response to a Republican person's opposition to the government spending, my Democratic colleague responded, "Let's go to such-and-such school, where the stimulus bill saved 100 teachers' jobs, or such-and-such factory, where the stimulus bill created demand that resulted in 100 new openings, or such-and-such construction site, where the stimulus bill put 100 people to work for several months. And when we get to these locations, you tell me whether you would have preferred the stimulus bill to not be passed."

It was so obvious, of course. Would you rather have saved teachers' jobs and created factory employment and generated construction work? The problem with Republicans, seemed to be the implicit statement, was that ideological purity (government spending is bad) was getting in the way of common sense (we have record unemployment and need to put people back to work).

I am not here to argue for or against this particular legislation. All I am pointing out is that comparisons like this concerning government spending of this type are incomplete. The choice is not between good things and nothing, but rather between good visible things and good invisible things. The counterfactual for the stimulus bill is not zero teachers' jobs saved and zero net new factory employment and zero construction work. In spending that money, the government took it away from taxpayers present and future, who could have used it to do things that saved and created jobs as well.

In some cases and in some ways and at some times, it makes sense for governments to spend in this way, say for example if the private sector is so weakened that government spending is superior to private sector spending in stimulating the economy. But it is dangerous to rely on spending and achieving visible results instead of not spending and achieving invisible results. Teachers saved and bridges built and construction workers busy at work are easy to latch onto as success; harder to see are small businesses burdened by higher taxes choosing not to expand, or entrepreneurs deciding not to give it a go at all, or larger firms moving their growth outside of the US.

It is difficult, as a politician who needs to be re-elected every few years, to not give in to the temptation to do something, anything, that can be pointed to as having tangible results. Even if those tangible results are vastly inferior to doing nothing and letting the private sector have a go at it, no one can easily see what good came of doing nothing, and for sure that politician can't take credit for those invisible results. And so, when faced with the opportunity to spend other people's money on visible results that help one get re-elected, or else to advocate for some discipline in spending for the sake of not crowding out private sector innovation, it's not hard to imagine that most rational people will spend and spend and then spend some more.

To be sure, Republicans are just as guilty of this as Democrats. But true conservatism believes in this kind of belt-tightening, as a necessary counterbalance to the natural desire to spend. And that is an important tenet I continue to adhere to, in spite of the puzzlement of my Democratic friends and in spite of the ignorant or wrong-headed ways of many Republican politicians.

Day's Anatomy

Yesterday was not at all a typical day in the life. In fact, it was so atypical it warranted blow-by-blow documentation the next day. Although you may pick up some familiar themes in this account.

4:00a - Awaken by a cell phone alarm I am still getting used to (i.e. I can't sleep through it and don't yet automatically snooze it). Finishing up 2 Kings in my morning Bible reading.

5:00a - Alternating between push-ups and sit-ups, checking my email, and uncluttering my desk. Throwing some things away and putting other things in their right place is so soothing to me.

6:00a - I hear stirrings of kids but continue my uncluttering and web surfing before showering and putting my suit on.

7:00a - The usual morning routine of clothes, breakfast, cleaning the kitchen, and heading out the door.

8:00a - Today I am taking Aaron to school, and because it is an unusual day in that Amy will be picking him up, I forgo the stroller and carry him on my shoulders instead, with my suit jacket in one hand and his blanket in a bag in the other hand. Of course, as we approach the school and I dismount him, his toe catches in my suit jacket pocket, twisting his knee awkwardly and inducing howls of pains which do not subside until well after I have dropped him off.

8:30a - I am quickly downtown from the nearby subway station, where I proceed to drop off a package at the post office, buy my train ticket for later that day, and hit a Radio Shack for VHS tapes. Yes, we own three VCRs and we still use them . . . and we don't even have cable channels to choose from. But forget about that anomaly for a sec; how about three errands in less than 30 minutes?

9:00a - I find a table at the Marketplace under the Comcast Center, spread my materials out, and commence the first of two phone meetings, which will take the next 90 minutes of my day.

10:30a - I chose the Comcast Center as my temporary base of operations because my first physical meeting is nearby, on the 30th floor offices of a local law firm to discuss a possible joint venture.

12:00p - The meeting ends just in time for me to catch the trolley back to University City where I have a lunch meet-up at the Faculty Club with a Penn professor and representatives from a local non-profit concerning a study we may have an opportunity to play a part in.

1:30p - A short stroll back to the office for the only hour I will actually be there for the whole day. That hour consists of 1) a visit by a representative of the non-profit I am on the board of who needs my signature on a bunch of documents, 2) last-minute preparations for three upcoming presentations, 3) a quick check on emails, 4) blasting out some quick to-do's for analysts on a couple of things I need from them for a couple of reports I am working on, 5) a quick read through of draft versions of another couple of reports I'm working on, and 6) two quick client phone calls.

2:30p - Print-outs for upcoming presentations slowly seep from the printer. I rip them out of the tray and join two of my colleagues on the subway back downtown for a meeting with a client, a local environmental advocacy group.

4:30p - The client meeting ends with plenty of time for me to hit the nearby Macy's to grab a birthday gift for my wife and then head over to the train station to head out to my meeting in the burbs.

5:30p - I have time before I am due at my meeting in the burbs, so, passing by a shopping plaza, I decide to hit the Bed Bath and Beyond for another birthday gift for my wife, and then duck into the Barnes and Noble to enjoy some air conditioning, recharge my dying cell phone, and browse books.

6:30p - I arrive at my meeting early to help set up the room and go over notes.

7:00p - The meeting commences, of a group of religious organizations that have decided to band together to work on issues of shared interest and concern. Our job is to shepherd them through that process and provide them with some primary and secondary data points to inform their decisions. It is an interesting engagement, an inspiring group, and really engaged participants. In short, it is really stimulating to be a part of this.

9:30p - The meeting runs 30 minutes long, which means I have missed my train, and the next train won't come for an hour. My co-presenter graciously says yes to my request to get a ride to the nearest subway stop, which is a 10-minute drive away. At my transfer at City Hall, the place is filled with Phillies fans who have come from the opposite direction (I was at the northernmost point of the Broad Street Line, they at the southernmost point) and are now heading either east or west.

10:30p - Finally back in University City, I trudge home tiredly. It is well past my bedtime. Because I did not go back to the office, and because I have another presentation first thing the next day and will not be stopping by the office before it, I have carried my laptop and a thick packet of handouts through most of the day, as well as two birthday gifts and various other random items in my bag. And it has been 90 degrees with 90 percent humidity for most of the day. Thus, when I arrive at home, I find the largest cup we own, fill it with water, ice cubes, and Gatorade mix, and dive in.

Dumb Thoughts about Smart Phones

These kinds of posts tend to be stultifingly dull so please know I write for my own documentation's sake today and not for any particular enlightening word. But about a month ago, I entered belatedly into the brave new world of smart phone ownership. I had previously owned two dumb PDAs in the past 10+ years, so the move to a smart phone was pretty abrupt for this technophobe. But the Motorola Backflip has performed admirably, with plenty of free apps to choose from, a relatively intuitive interface, and enough cool features to get me hooked on having such functionality in such a portable package.

Alas, I rely heavily on my calendar, contacts, notes, and tasks, synched between my computer at work and my old PDA, and only calendar and contacts sync with the Backflip. And, the calendar interface was not to my liking. So I decided to go Windows Mobile, and when I called AT&T, I was informed the only one they had in that system was the HTC Tilt2. Though faced with the prospect of learning a second device in less than a month, and of having to actually pay money for the device (the Backflip was refurbished and free), I decided I need the functionality and made the transaction.

Bad move. The Tilt2 just didn't work for me. I couldn't figure out how to use the touchscreen, navigation was not intuitive, and the app store was sparse.

The clincher for me was that I was going to revisit apps later in the month when I had more time, but I knew I would want to have the Bible in my pocket, so I went to the app store to download one. Only there wasn't a free version! With the Backflip (on the Android system), there were plenty of free versions to choose from, and the one I picked had 15+ translations, including multiple non-English languages, as well as links to posts by others and a search of nearby events I could attend. The only free app in the Windows marketplace, in contrast, was the book of Genesis. Ouch.

So the Tilt2 is getting returned, I'm getting a refund, and it's back to the Backflip for me. I've figured out a way (via my Gmail account) to get tasks and notes in my pocket and automatically synched, so I'm good to go there. And, while the AT&T rep who handled my Tilt2 return wondered aloud why I wasn't getting a Blackberry (he suggested Backflips are for teenyboppers), I'm happy with my original purchase. Of course, with any device, particularly a refurbished one, there is the danger that it will poop out in the near future. But hey, it was free, and if it happens I'll just have to go back to the drawing board and figure out what works best for me from what's out there at that time. For now, I'll stomach the much higher monthly bill.

(As a postscript, I'll note that the real productivity increase for me has been in having far more call minutes available than before, which allows me to take conference calls while off-site. Imagine that: a smart phone being most useful because it is a phone.)

Lazy Linking, Twentieth in an Occasional Series

Good stuff on the Internets:

* Andrew Swinney is spot-on when he says non-profits need to get better on issues of financial sustainability and capacity building. And, he practices what he preaches - his foundation quietly shifted efforts into these areas several years back, well before it was trendy to do so.

* For many, it seems, global warming is a luxury worry, important when times are good but not as important when you're unemployed.

* Josh Kopelman is, once again, right on - as an investor in start-ups, you're looking for heat-seeking missiles, not impressive pre-launch plans.

* David Brooks and Clayton Christensen affirm for me why it is important for me to wake up at 4 in the morning every day to pray.

* Ryan Avent deliciously compares our willingness to tolerate congestion, without imposing some market mechanisms to organize it, to long lines for bread and fish in Soviet Russia.

* Robin Hanson ponders whether the odds are that there are "sims" living among us; having just rewatched the Matrix trilogy, I had to think long and hard about this possibility.

* Re: a mosque at Ground Zero - that it could be proposed, that there was a local process by which it could be debated, and that it epitomizes our distinctiveness among all nations as far as the tolerance it represents - this is what I love about our country; but too bad some supporters aren't giving dissenters room to dissent without automatically labeling them as bigoted, and too bad the White House has decided to call it a local issue to avoid being embroiled in the debate.

* Here's a cool concept along the lines of "ideas having sex" - conversation makes brains synch up.

* I hate, hate, hate the Yankees but have profound respect and admiration for their long-time closer, Mariano Rivera; here's a very cool video showing why he's been so successful for so many years.

* Some well-deserved kudos to the brave students at South Philadelphia High School who decided to stand up for themselves and others when no one else would.

* My favorite recent "Today I Found Out" - "The American Government Once Intentionally Poisoned Certain Alcohol Supplies, Resulting in the Death of Over 10,000 American Citizens." WTF!?!

Life Lessons from Kid

Matrix Revolutions, you did it again: you made me cry at a movie. Last I watched this third installment in the Matrix series, I drew a parallel to mankind's age-long fight against sin and the devil. This time, I was particularly drawn to Kid, the young boy who enlists in the fight against the machines even though he's well under the minimum age. Most may consider these terribly cliched, but these quotes of his moved me nonetheless:

* When the captain refuses to allow him to volunteer because he is too young - "The machines don't care how old I am; they'll kill me just the same." Indeed, no one is disqualified from battle on account of age. Age didn't deter Kid, and neither should it us.

* When the captain, dying, tells him to take the captain's vehicle and manually open the west gate - "Sir, I never finished the training program." In war, there may not be time for full and formal preparation, but you go anyway. Kid did, and so should we.

* As the machines bear irresistibly upon the humans and it is clear Neo is their only hope - "Neo, I believe." Faith like a child. 'Nuff said.

By the end, by the climactic exultation - said by Kid, by the way - of "it's over, the war is over," the tears were flowing liberally. The world attempts to deaden our awareness of the war that rages in and all around us, for our souls and for our generation. We are led to believe all is well with man and God, that our worries and efforts should go into making as good and comfortable and fat a life as we can for ourselves and our kids. To be mindful of eternity, of depravity, of righteousness, is at best well-intentioned but useless and at worst dangerous and bigoted and insane.

But I believe something else. I believe that danger bears in on us that is greater and nearer than the sentinels swarming into Zion. I believe there exists an evil one who can marshal far greater weaponry than anything the Wachowski brothers could conjure up. I believe we are in the battle of our lives, for our lives and for our generation.

And, I believe that the outcome is certain, and it is that God, long mocked or dismissed, will be exalted in the end. Some day, in some form, we will hear - will be the ones to say? - "it's over, the war is over." If we have been faithful soldiers throughout, the news will bring relief and joy unspeakable. And to know that that destiny is certain means we can proceed into our present battles with courage, determination, and faith. Just like Kid.

Faith in the Present, Redux

I received a thoughtful comment to my "Faith in the Present" post from earlier this week. Here is my response, which I repost here in the hopes that others will add to my half-baked thoughts.

***

Nicholas, thanks for your thoughtful post and kind words. You raise a good question about whether those who reject Christianity do so with a proper understanding of its core tenets. I wonder what proportion fall into the following, not necessarily non-overlapping buckets (in no particular order):

1. I kind of believed in Christianity, when I had nothing else to believe, but then once I grew older and saw there were lots of beliefs out there, I stopped believing in Christianity because I didn't have any real roots in it.

2. I want to believe in Christianity but I am repulsed by what Christians have done and so I cannot subscribe to such a faith.

3. If only I knew the real Christianity, I would believe, but no one has explained it to me or lived it out for me.

4. Truly believing in Christianity would get in the way of what I really want to be about - whether pleasure or independence or ambition - so I cannot honestly say that I am a Christian.

5. Believing in Christianity gets in the way of what I really want to be about - pleasure and independence and ambition - so I'll hedge my bets and say I'm a Christian but not really give myself fully to it.

6. I find the core tenets of Christianity to be backward, outmoded, and false, and so I reject it outright.

7. I have found a superior option for myself.

8. I am too busy or disinterested to examine even the basic aspects of Christianity.

9. I grew up in another faith and have not found any reason to deny it or switch over.

10. I don't know much about Christianity but what I know seems so weird or inane that I won't bother getting anywhere near it.

I'm sure there are other reasons but those were the ones I could think of off the top of my head. For myself and for my kids, the parable of the sower comes to mind: lots of seeds don't bloom, just the ones that fall on good soil. Hence the importance of tending to the soil. In a world full of birds, scorching sun, and rocky roads, would that we help each other be good soil.

Faith in the Present

While at the Shore, I read Randal Balmer's sometimes skeptical, sometimes mocking account of evangelicalism in the US: "Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory." For me, it's a reminder of how Bible-believing Christianity is perceived by the majority of Americans: at best, quaint and earnest and well-meaning, at worst backwards and deceptive and just plain weird. To believe in the central tenets of the Christian faith - the supreme authority of the Almighty, the depravity of man, reconciliation and salvation through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ - is to be looked at with either amusement or incredulity or anger or ridicule. (Consider this recent article about singer Katy Perry's religious upbringing, and imagine the typical reader exclaiming, "gosh, her parents speak in tongues!")

In response to being seen as weird or in wanting to distance ourselves from those among us who really are weird, we believers can tend to apologize. "But I voted for Obama just like you!" "But I can have intelligent conversation about health care reform, too!" "But I also care about immigration policy and diversity in the workplace!" In some cases, we edge away not only from a fringe image but also from what is at the core of what we believe. The lordship of Jesus and the notion that hell is a real destination for many people are seriously questioned by significant portions of evangelical America. Positions on issues such as abortion, gay marriage, and women in leadership are taken more with political correctness than Biblical basis in mind. It can be unpopular and lonely and countercultural, in other words, to believe in the Bible and in making it the foundation upon which you will live your life and believe your beliefs.

It is typical for people who grow up in the church to fall away in their adult years, and to look back on their childhood faith as something that was appropriate for childhood, but not so relevant or handy in adulthood. It is typical for us Christian parents to respond to this common trajectory by wanting to shield our kids all the more from "the world," whatever we take that concept to mean.

I cannot control what choices my children will make as adults, as it relates to faith. I do know that they will not get much help from the world and from its take on evangelical Christianity. If they listen to the world, they too will sneer at the faith of their childhoods for being out of touch and out of date, not something any rational grown-up would be caught dead assenting to. I can only hope that, with God's help and with a lot of prayer, I can do my best each day to live out a life that is completely captivated by one God and one life purpose, to have a leavening influence on others around me including my kids, and to trust that the purposeful and merciful and intricate God I believe in can take that effort and redeem His story in a world and in a generation in which it is largely mocked, dismissed, and avoided.

The irony of Balmer's book is that its title is incongruous with its contents. Most of the chapters are caricatures familiar to most observers: the faith healer, the repressed Christian college students, the health/wealth/prosperity shillers. The glory of the true believer does not arrest public attention or command time on the evening news. It is found in the morning's quiet moments, in steady and resolute works of justice and mercy, and in faithful proclamation of truth in pulpits and mission fields all around the world.

My eyes have seen true glory, and more awaits. And my prayer is that others, who may share the world's disdain and dismissal of the many permutations of evangelical Christianity in America, may encounter true glory and emerge changed for it, willing to walk and think a certain way regardless of how that way collides with contemporary sentiment.

National Night Out, the West Philly Version

I saw signs for National Night Out while we were at the Shore last week, so was pleased to come home to a flyer slipped into my mail slot announcing our block's version. My councilperson, Jannie Blackwell, is a neighbor - we can see into each other's backyards - so the kids and I didn't have to go far for the fun. I got home a tick early and, after dinner, we headed out to see what was what on National Night Out, the West Philly version.

What was what was free food, moon bounce, face painting, and a water ice truck pulled into the street dispensing scoops of all colors. Councilwoman Blackwell and our state representative, James Roebuck, were in the house, and Mayor Nutter made an extended appearance to shake hands. Of course, the kids didn't want to leave, had to be literally dragged a block home, and were even more fussy than usual at bedtime for being all riled up on a school night. But it was worth it. See pics at my twitpic page.

Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, the Affordable Housing Version

The premise of C.K. Prahalad's classic, "Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid," is that figuring out how to serve the world's poorest is a great way to hone your firm's competitive advantages because clearing a margin with a customer base that makes a dollar a day forces you to strip out any inefficiencies. I wonder if this principle will catch on in the homebuilding industry. Right now, affordable housing costs more than regular housing, developers are forced into building it instead of doing it of their own accord, and no one seems happy to the point that even affordable housing advocates are searching for new terminology to describe what they are advocating. (The leading alternative appears to be "workforce housing," to distance themselves from affordable housing as a subsidized sop to the undeserved.)

This was the premise behind an affordable housing project in Los Angeles, and I am wondering why it shouldn't be the dominating premise behind affordable housing construction in general. Those who need affordable housing, and the advocates that claim to be advocating for them, should want affordable living more so than affordable housing, which means adding transportation and utilities to the household budget equation. And, a la Prahalad, developers coerced into building affordable should welcome the opportunity to innovate their way towards producing something that earns them a profit and satisfies the needs of affordable housing end-users. Finally, rather than imposing burdensome regulations on everyone involved, governments could more plainly state what affordable living requirements they are aiming for (monthly payment for housing + transportation + utilities, baseline standard of quality and durability) and what concessions they are willing to give to developers (density bonus, tax abatement, expedited permitting) and then get out of the way and let those developers figure out how to make it happen.

I realize things are more complicated than this, so I am not suggesting that it is this easy. But I do think an attitude adjustment is in order. Would that more in the affordable housing world read some Prahalad; if they did, maybe more and better affordable housing would get built, developers would make money, governments and advocates would get what they want, our planet would be better off, and innovations may even leap to market housing and benefit the rest of us.

Don't Waste Anything, Especially Not Your Life

My deep-seated aversion to waste is well-documented in this space. I continue to marvel at our profligacy in so many facets of our lives here in America. We leave lights on, water running, and refrigerator doors open. We waste an unbelievable amount of food, and compound our inefficiency by dumping it into our garbage cans instead of composting it. We spend money treating our water so we can water our lawns with it, and then we spend more money dealing with stormwater that could have otherwise been used for that purpose. We are on the brink of an obesity epidemic because of our love for sugar and salt, and yet we miss actually tasting most of the sugar and salt that goes into our mouths because we eat so fast and so distractedly.

I liked this recent post over at the Freakonomics blog about knowing what is scarce and adjusting to it. The human race is nothing if not innovative; and, faced with scarcities of all kinds, we figure out astounding solutions, whether what is scarce is water, capital, beachfront space.

The problem with waste is that we have lost sight of what is scarce, with ruinous implications to our bodies, our pocketbooks, and our planet. In other words, the real problem is not that we are faced with scarcity - for, as noted above, we are clever enough to cope with such a limitation - but that we do not realize or accept that we are faced with scarcity and so do not change our behavior as we ought.

On a grander and more eternal scale, what is scarcest of all is life. Here of all places one would think that the impulse to survive would trump our insanity and idiocy. And yet here we see the most blatant forms of waste of all: we condone killing of all kinds, we have turned life-sapping actions into entertainment, and we numb ourselves from experiencing true life altogether. Well is one of Pastor John Piper's favorite exhortations, "Don't waste your life!"

(Paradoxically, it may seem, not wasting your life is not the same thing as saving your life; for it is in the giving of our lives - and sometimes the giving up of our lives, and in that we have a great example, the greatest example of all - that we truly live. And, I do not refer to not wasting your life as always striving; for ceasing from striving has its role in truly living. But I digress.)

Today's post is windy, long-winded, and dense. Not one of my better posts, from a readability standpoint. But I hope the point is made nonetheless. If, like me, your brain hurts after slogging through this post, take comfort that you are at least wrestling with things that matter. The alternative is deadening.

Lazy Linking, Nineteenth in an Occasional Series

What I have liked on the Internets lately:

* Ryan Avent's recent proposal to add a $5 a barrel tax on oil elicits in me a useful question on the subject of energy conservation and climate change - do we want consumers to feel pain or not? Yes = leads to the sorts of behavioral modifications we want, No = maybe elected officials will be more likely to get behind it. What to do, what to do?

* This Venn diagram from xkcd is spot-on. University web designers, take note.

* Are humans' three basic human goals affirmation, accuracy, and affiliation? Discuss.

* This is a documentary to keep an eye out for - "Urbanized."

* This is an organization and conference to keep an eye out for - The Wilberforce Academy.

* Employers, take note - trust and transparency matter to your workers.

* Not sure how many positions LeBron James will play on the court, but he's already made 30 positions unnecessary within the Miami Heat organization - "Miami Heat Fires Sales Team after Season Tickets Sell Out."

* I like this notion of knowing what is scarce; sadly, we seldom think rationally in these terms.

Second Chance is First-Rate

Kudos to my dear brother in Christ, Robert Tucker, and his lovely wife Antonia, for starting and running Second Chance Mission, which is supported by our church and was featured in this past week's neighborhood paper: "Second Chance Mission: To Help West Philly’s Kids & Parents Move Forward." These guys are just beautiful people who are living out a beautiful message: that in Jesus Christ, there is indeed a second chance. Would that God continue to bless the Tuckers, and Second Chance Mission, and would that we all be believers in, recipients of, and offerers of, second chances.

Huang Family Newsletter, July 2010

Yet another month o' fun for the Huangs:

* Weekend 1, our cousins were in town so we took them all over Philly in the morning - Love Park, Chinatown, National Constitution Center, Franklin Square - and then did a dinner picnic in Rittenhouse Square and tried in vain to stay up for fireworks.

* Weekend 2, we were treated to a lavish wedding reception at my cousin's second home in Mystic, replete with temporary tattoos, moon bouncing, and balloon animals.

* Weekend 3, we luxuriated in the lake beside my boss' house at our company's annual picnic.

* Weekend 4 and 5, we did our annual Jersey Shore vacation in Ocean City, getting plenty of sun and sand as well as rides and treats on the boardwalk.

My Most Important Follower

I am tweeting more frequently - I've found it a useful alternative or supplement to my blogging, both on the personal and professional side - and picking up some random followers in the process. My assumption is these are folks who are themselves looking for lots of followers, so their hope is that if they follow me, I will do the same.

But my tweets are often intended not at all for these strangers/followers, but for one who isn't even following me officially. When I tweet, often it's for my mom, so she can see what I'm up to or how cute her grandkids are. Indeed, often what I post is incredibly inane for the rest of the world but of utmost interest to my mom.

Hence, I will keep posting, about an elegant water jug I saw at a breakfast meeting one morning or about my kids scaling a rock climbing wall at the local playground. Because you may not find this interesting, but my mom does.