Because Lisp, as a tool, is to the mind as the lever is to the arm. It amplifies your power and enables you to embark on projects beyond the scope of lesser languages like C. Writing in C is like building a mosaic out of lentils using a tweezer and glue. Lisp is like wielding an air gun with power and precision. It opens out whole kingdoms shut to other programmers.
The English Standard Bible folks provide links to and graphic visualizations of various Read thru the Bible in One Year Plans.
Always leave someone with a corner to retire gracefully into. You are not trying to win an argument, or to knock someone down. You are seeking to win a person, a person made in the image of God. This is not about your winning; it is not about your ego. If that is your approach all you will do is arouse their pride and make it more difficult for them to hear what you have to say.
But I think differently. I think every program you write should be the hardest you've ever written. And that's what I blog about, mostly. Improving yourself. Because most employers, the ones who matter in the long run, they'll be able to see how great you've become, and they'll alter the very course of their business plan, if necessary, to make the best use of you. Does that sound incredible? Well, I've seen it play out both ways over my modest 20 years in our industry, and that's how I see it.
The idea is to avoid the (masculine?) tendency to say, “I'm sorry…. Are we all better now?” by asking first, “How did my sin hurt you? What did it feel like? What did you think I was doing?”
In What makes for a great apology?, Phil Monroe rounds this out far better than I ever could have, including the idea but expanding upon it. It's scary, actually:
…
- Please tell me how my actions impacted you and others.
- What can I do to relieve your pain? How can I make it right?
The sacrificial nature of the 3rd and 4th items may be the hardest for us to do, especially if we think the other party either started it or sinned against us as well.
Wisely, bob.blog goes on to admit the difficulties:Again, it's the individual's responsiblity to connect, but if everything in the atmosphere of the place communicates a message that "connecting here is an uphill battle" and "Sure, we love it that you are here, Parishoner Number 4,513!" then many people will choose to exit out the back door.
This is a hard discussion to have for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that we are talking about a LOT of different kinds of people. There are those who want community handed to them without doing the work of building relationships, showing up and being present, putting yourself out there. Believe me—they exist.
Then there are people who are genuinely less skilled at building relationships and need some help from a community. They need to be reassured time and again that they are welcomed, they need someone to notice that they are floating a bit and have people reach out to them.
And then there are those who are just hurting—they have been damaged by life and they need a community to embrace them because right now, embracing others is a practical impossiblity.
Food for thought...
The vision of the Maasai Christians was incredible! They had absolutely no desire to "fluff" their church buildings with expensive decorations and furnishings. Instead, they wanted to start more churches. On my first day there, the pastor of Ilkushin Baptist Church, a sweeym godly man named George Oneipu, took me out in front of his humble church and identified three hills in the distance in three different directions. He told me, through a translator, that it was their desire to see a new church on each of those hills. Indeed, it was their vision that you would never be able to stand upon a hill in Maasailand without being able to see many churches in every direction!
Perhaps too often we worry about intruding on the territory of nearby churches, or "cannibalizing" our own congregations.