(We appreciate your patience as we work out the kinks to the new TLS site. It’s wonderful if I must say so myself. But others agree. However, we are still going to continue perfecting it. Thanks for your great feedback!)
I’m at my son Josh’s event on Transformational Teaching where he coaches entrepreneurs how to break through personal and practical barriers to public speaking and presenting their passion to others. It’s cool and I’m enjoying it. I love going to these also because I meet interesting people.
I met one guy last night. He’s a financial planner and we had a good long conversation about our businesses, our passions and our personal visions. Interesting guy. Very intelligent and personable. Once he discovered what I did, he opened up about his own spirituality. He isn’t a Christian and doesn’t go to church. But he was aware of the Alpha Course. He also likes listening to “Dr. Dino”, a creationist who believes in the young earth theory, a literal interpretation of the bible, and who also believes there are dinosaurs living in remote, unexplored swamps in Africa. When I told this guy that I don’t like the Alpha Course and that I think Dr. Dino is interesting but wrong, he was totally offended. Even though he’s not a believer himself, he believed that because I associate with Christians that I should believe everything every Christian says. I should love the Alpha Course and I should respect Dr. Dino’s opinions and even hold to them.
This isn’t at all unusual. Many Christians lump all Buddhists into one, and if one Buddhist says, “I don’t like the Dalai Lama!” we are ready to pummel them because, well, it’s the Dalai Lama! Or believers lump all atheists into one, so that if a believer sees two atheists disagreeing over the value of Richard Dawkins, he interprets this to mean that all atheists are therefore wrong because they can’t even agree.
In the face of the world’s attempts to gel us all into a clump, I stand in its face and say, “I will be me!” I refuse to conform. Even though sometimes I may identify as a Christian, I am determined to upset your stereotype of what you think that is. Even though sometimes I may identify as an atheist, I am going to screw with your head because I will crash your categories of what it means to be an atheist.
This is what TLS promotes: you have the right to be uniquely you with all your weird mixology. I am, and I’m proud of it. I am the weirdest concoction I’ve ever met. Many of you are as well. And I just love watching so many of you learning to acknowledge, embrace and express your unique mixture of who you are!
We’re loving the new site. I hope you are too. Take advantage of it. We’ll build an incredible pool of resources!
Peace out you wonderful mixtures!
Resist the clump!
David