IVP - Addenda & Errata - July 2011 Archives

Take a Moment to Tell the Story

I come from a family of storytellers. Both of my grandfathers were masters of the art. And my maternal grandfather decided he should quit telling the story of his parachute jump from a balloon back in World War I. As a missionary evangelist, he was concerned that he was becoming better known for that story than for preaching the gospel! My parents too have maintained and passed down a vast trove of stories.

Perhaps that’s why when I’m experiencing something interesting or unusual, I very quickly start to assemble the event into a story, with the hope that it will amuse as well as relate the events. Almost unconsciously I go to work on it, trying out various renditions, working out amusing angles, chuckling at the possible responses from friends and family. And now, yes, I try out bits of stories and vignettes in Facebook postings.

The Wisdom of Tradition

Recently I was browsing through the 8th and latest (50th Anniversary) edition of Mountaineering: The Freedom of the Hills. It is the mountain climber’s Bible. I learned the rudiments of mountaineering from the second edition of Freedom in the late 1960s, and it’s safe to wager that most serious mountaineers in North America have sharpened their crampons on some edition of Freedom. It is the signature publication of the publishing arm of The Mountaineers, a venerable Seattle institution. For several years I was a member of The Mountaineers and was involved in their climbing program. So as I looked through the front matter of the latest edition of Freedom, I recognized many of the names of its editors. I’d climbed with or been instructed by some of them.

Brain Accessories

Some time ago I came across a blog on the notion that our humanly created environment is an extension of our brains. Here is an excerpt:

I’m fascinated by the phenomenon of manipulating our environment to extend our brains. I suppose it all started with early humans carving on cave walls as a way to store historical data. Now we have ebooks, computers, and cell phones to store our memories. And we have schools to program our brains. But it goes much deeper than that. Even a house is a device for storing data. Specifically, a house stores data on how it was built. A skilled builder can study a house and build another just like it.

Everything we create becomes a de facto data storage device and brain accessory. A wall can be a physical storage device for land survey data, it can be a reminder of history, and it can be a trigger of personal memories.

A business is also a way to store data. As a restaurant owner, I was fascinated at how employees came and went, but their best ideas often stayed with the business, especially in the kitchen. The restaurant was like a giant data filter. The bad ideas were tested and deleted while the good ideas stayed, most often without being written down.

Consider the Paragliders of the Air

For several years I ran a mountain trail that starts and ends in a grassy field where paragliders land. As I finished my run, I exited the trailhead and ran across that field to my car. But I quickly learned to look up, making sure I was not getting in the way of a paraglider about to land.

And this, for obvious reasons, leads me to speak of books and reading.