How to Score a Gaming Trifecta

I love games – I’ve written about some of my favorites in past blog posts and since then I’ve picked up a few more.  It’s a great way to spend time with my kids and their friends, and can provide an opportunity for learning important lessons about winning well and losing with dignity.

There are three reasons I play games: 1) Fun, 2) Relationships, and 3) Winning.

I play party games for fun – I don’t really care who wins, although I may get fairly animated in the process.  Ultimately these games are about having a great time with friends.  Usually the conversation in which the game is immersed is more interesting than the game itself.  It’s a great way to get to know others better in a nonthreatening environment, surrounded by laughter.

I played church softball one season to build relationships with guys who rarely showed up at church.  As a pastor, I figured that joining the softball team was the best way to get to know them.  Let’s just say I wasn’t all that good at softball.  Our league used team members as umpires.  I was placed at first base to make the calls and evidently got the first one horribly wrong.  Eventually I found myself back on the bench and so I started wandering through the stands talking to people.  The coach looked up and yelled at me: “Julian – are we here to play or are we here to socialize?”  I would have thought the answer was self-evident.

Most games I, like Charlie Sheen, play to win (sorry, couldn’t resist).  I lost my share of games on purpose to my children, but mostly I figure it is good for them to either win fairly or lose.  As they’ve gotten older this is not an issue since I’m often the one who needs a break.

The trifecta is when I can play a game with family and friends where we are having fun, building relationships, and I’m still playing to win – then it really doesn’t matter if I win the game, I’m winning at life.

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Father’s Day – Celebrating the influence of my dad

Thanks to my father for his consistent example of godly living.  Dad has impacted my life significantly – here are five specific ways:

1. He chooses people over things and downplays the significance of material possessions.  When I was 16 I totaled one of my parents’ cars and my dad did not yell or demand that I repay them for the damage.  He treated it as an opportunity for learning.
2. He is consistent in living out his principles and convictions.  I have joked that my parents were always consistent – even when they were consistently wrong.  One thing I could never do, fault them for failing to live up to what they believed to be right.
3. He loves my mother and affirms her in the presence of others.  Despite the typical differences found between spouses, my father chooses to emphasize the strengths in my mother’s character and praises her in the presence of others.
4. He is creative in his gift-giving, looking for ways to speak love to the other person in a way that he/she will hear.  Sometimes he comes to our home and washes my car, cleaning it inside and out.  He knows I like a clean car, but that it has never been a priority in my allocation of time.
5. He is loyal to his friends and committed to those relationships for life.  There are countless examples of people my father has befriended and loved over decades.  Through the joys and pain of life, he is there.

My children are not grown and I do not yet know the impact I will have upon their lives.  I trust that they will be as blessed in their relationship with me as I have been with my father.

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Bridging the digital divide – natives vs. immigrants

I first heard the distinction made between digital natives and digital immigrants earlier this year and it resonated immediately.

While I was born before the advent of personal computers, fax machines, pagers, cell phones, and the Internet, I am a digital immigrant who has gone native.  I bought my first personal computer in 1983 – it was a Kaypro (click on the link to learn more!). The operating system was CP/M, a competitor of DOS. I’m guessing you know which system won (Hint: The most popular version of DOS was MS-DOS and the MS stands for Microsoft). But for the years that I used it, my Kaypro was an amazing machine. It had dual floppy drives that took double-sided, double-density disks, a built-in screen, and a keyboard that attached to the front of the computer to make it “portable.”

There are those, like me, who have declared allegiance to a land where we were not born.  In contrast, there are those born as digital natives who reject their homeland and, with it, the digitization of reality.  This distinction (native vs. immigrant) covers a continuum, with people scattered across the spectrum.

I prefer e-mail to phone calls (e-mail is easier to track for my business), but prefer phone calls to texting (phone calls are often more efficient).  I don’t belong to Facebook, but I use Twitter (just to be clear, I only tweet to alert followers to a new blog posting or newsletter; I wouldn’t even know how to attach a picture).

My wife cannot use our universal remote control while our children can figure out most electronic devices intuitively – they are not among those of my generation who mourn the demise of printed manuals.

The next time you face a breakdown in communication, consider whether there is a digital divide and what you may be willing to do to bridge it.

Technorati Tags: digital natives,digital immigrants,digital divide,personal computer,kaypro

Indirect Communication - Why I love weddings

Nine days ago we attended our first (only?) wedding of the summer.  We’re at a stage of life where we attend fewer weddings (our friends aren’t getting married, our kids aren’t yet getting married, and our kids’ friends aren’t getting married), but when we do I enjoy them because of one simple fact.  While there are traditions that many weddings incorporate, each wedding is a unique expression of the personalities of the participants (often particularly the bride) – a form of indirect communication.

This wedding was of two young adults who grew up outside the US, one in Ecuador and one in Congo.  So there was a beautiful duet in Spanish and scripture reading in French.  The wedding was outside in Georgia – hot to those of us used to living in the north, but comfortable to those who grew up near the equator (the equator runs through both Ecuador – hence the name – and Congo-Brazzaville).  The vows were written by the bride and groom and instead of wedding cake there were pies.  Square dancing and corn hole were among the activities.  It was a spirited celebration that told you a lot about Travis and Kaylyn.

So now that wedding season is upon us, see what you can learn about the bride and groom from their indirect communication – the structure and setting of the ceremony, as well as the activities that follow.  Listen with all five senses and see how much better you know the new couple when the day concludes.

Technorati Tags: congo brazzaville,corn hole,scripture reading,indirect communication,wedding season,square dancing,bride and groom,equator,wedding cake,vows,pies,personalities