The Myth of Multitasking: How Doing it All Gets Nothing Done

I have long believed the "multitasking" craze was indeed, crazy. I based it on my personal experiences and observations of others, especially my kids.

You've experienced it before: talking to someone who was busy texting or working on the computer. They do not seem to hear what you say. There may be an "mm-hmm" or a "yeah" but nothing that indicates true comprehension. And then there is the moment of truth, when something is said, they look up a little bewildered and say, "I'm sorry, what was that?" Or, most often with my kids, "I don't remember you telling me to do that!" or "When did you say that?"

Evidently the insurance companies aren't convinced either. They lead the way in advocating the ban of texting and cell phone use while driving, and with good reason: higher accidents. This alone should disabuse us of our ideas about multitasking.

The cost in efficiency and personal relationships is high (who likes being ignored?). And yet we cling to the myth of multitasking tenaciously. (My wife recently applied for a job that listed "must be able to multitask" on their description. This is a common occurrence.) Yet when I observe what some people consider the greatest multitaskers (police and firefighters) I see men and women who follow specific protocols and do one thing at a time.

Now along comes a book that tells me what I've always suspected: The Myth of Multitasking (How "Doing It All" Gets Nothing Done) by Dave Crenshaw (Jossey-Bass). This little book follows the style made popular by The One-Minute Manager and imitated ever since: a fictional narrative that drives home a point.

The narrative itself is only 106 pages long and can be read in a couple of hours. There are approximately 23 pages of worksheets that follow.

Crenshaw correctly labels "multitasking" as "switchtasking" because people (and even computers) actually do not give full attention to two tasks at the exact same time. You switch from one to another, at the cost of efficiency.

Crenshaw makes the iconoclastic claim that not only is "multitasking" a lie, it is worse than a lie. "Because nearly everyone in our fast-paced world has accepted it as something that's true. We've all adopted it as a way of life. People are proud of their skills at multitasking, but the truth is that multitasking is neither a reality nor is it efficient."

This book is well worth your read. Whether you agree with the premise right at this moment or not, read this book! Crenshaw makes a convincing argument.

Exclusion and Embrace

A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation
by Miroslav Volf


This is one of the most challenging books I have ever read. Years ago I read Martin Buber's I and Thou and walked away feeling like an idiot. I don't think I understood one word of what I read (of course that was nearly 30 years ago, I'd like to think I've progressed some since then!).

While Volf did not leave me feeling uneducated as did Buber, I still found myself having to go back and re-read passages to make certain I was grasping his arguments. Even so, I know I will have to return to this book time and again.

Do not let my difficulty dissuade you from reading Exclusion and Embrace! This is certainly well worth the read.

Dr. Volf is a Croat national who experienced the horrors of the Serbian/Croatian conflict in the 90s. In fact, this was the impetus for his book. He begins with a tale of three cities from the 90s which illustrate the challenge we face: Los Angeles (Rodney King riots/Reginal Denny), Berlin (neo-nazi skinheads marching through the streets chanting "Auslander raus!"--"Foreigners out!"), and Sarajevo (the image of the Serbian/Croatian conflict).

Volf focuses upon the theme of divine self-giving. "As God does not abandon the godless to their evil but gives the divine self for them in order to receive them into divine communion through atonement, so also should we--whoever our enemies and whoever we may be."

In his wide ranging study, Volf critiques not only modernity but also post-modernity and find both mindsets incapable of solving the problem of violence and forgiveness. Post-modernity, for all of its deconstruction of the modern power structures comes out in the end sounding very much like the problem it attacks. Rather than offering a solution, post-modernity only offers the other side of the same coin.

Part of what makes this volume so difficult is Volf's desire to spell out not only his position, but the challenges and difficulties which beset his position. He is not afraid to spell out exactly the strengths and weaknesses of modern and post-modern arguments against his thesis of divine self-giving.

Toward the end, Volf gives this piece of wisdom:

Violence is not human destiny because the God of peace is the beginning and end of human history. The biblical vision of peace invites, however to a task more difficult thatn Sisyphus's. Granted, pushing the stone of peace up the steep hill of violence--doing those small neighborly acts of help even though one knows that the killer might return the next day, the next week, or year--is hard. It is easier, however, than carrying one's own cross in the footsteps of the crucified Messiah. This is what Jesus Christ asks Christians to do. Assured of God's justice and undergirded by God's presence, they are to break the cycle of violence by refusing to be caught in the automatism of revenge. It cannot be denied that the prospects are good that by trying to love their enemies they may end up hanging on a cross. Yet often enough, the costly acts of nonretaliation become a seed from which the fragile fruit of Pentecostal peace grows--a peace between people from different cultural spaces gathered in one place who understand each other's languages and share in each others' goods. It may be that consistent nonretaliation and nonviolence will be impossible in the world of violence. Tyrants may need to be taken down from their thrones and the madmen stopped from sowing desolation...But if one decides to put on soldier's gear instead of carrying one's cross, one should not seek legitimation in the religion that worships the cruicified Messiah. For there, the blessing is given not to the violent but to the meek.

Eleanor Rigby

by Douglas Coupland

Eleanor Rigby is a delightful novel about Liz Dunn: a very lonely, overweight, highly intelligent, and plain woman whose life is changed through a chain of events beginning on the summer night of 1997. Liz observes the Hale-Bopp comet streaking across the sky and takes it for a sign of hope and change. She had just loaded her self up with videos and pain medication and taken enough sick days to nurse herself through a painful dentist visit. Soon after, a strange young visionary named Jeremy enters her life and her entire world is turned inside out.

The encounter with Jeremy is no chance happening. It is an event Liz had been anticipating for some time. Now he has entered her life, Liz will spend the next several months on a journey of self-discovery and unselfish care. Be prepared for smiles and tears.

Douglas Coupland, author of Generation X and Life After God, in his latest novel, continues to explore the landscapes of loneliness, change, and second chances. It’s a heart-warming novel filled with bizarre and strange twists. It is a quick read, but one you will want to revisit again. Below is an excerpt.

Halfway into the news, right after a Burger King commercial, a story appeared about meat production. I’m a carnivore, but, like many people these days, thinking about it too much can give me the willies.

…The thing about meat with me, though, is how it speaks to me about the human body. All of us are stuck inside our meaty bodies. I’ve always imagined that regular people are happy to be inside their bodies, whereas lonely people yearn to ditch their carcasses. I suspect lonely people wish they could forget the whole meat-and-bone issue altogether. We’re the people most likely to believe in reincarnation simply because we can’t believe we were shackled into our meat in the first place. Lonely people want to be dead, yet we’re still not quite ready to go—we don’t want to miss the action, we want to see who wins next year’s Academy Awards. More to the point, the lonely, like all humans, yearn to meet that somebody who’ll make us feel better about being trapped inside our species’ meat-and-bone soul containment system. Oh God, I sound like a prison warden.

Surprised by Hope

by N. T. Wright

When I was a student at White's Ferry Road School of Biblical Studies (1979-1981) I was introduced to an ancient teaching I had never before considered: the literal, bodily resurrection of the believer.

For some of you this may sound strange--after all, the resurrection is one of the most unique elements of Christianity and Judaism. However, I (as many Christians in America) was raised in a culture heavily influenced by Greek dualism. We were taught that when you die your spirit goes to heaven and while there was this thing called the "second coming" it focused more on people being judged and sentenced to heaven or hell.

I cannot tell you how many funerals I attended where the preacher would say: "This is just the shell, the real person is in heaven." Evangelism was all about "soul winning" which seemed to indicate the body wasn't all that important.

N. T. Wright takes us a step further into biblical study as he challenges us to rethink our view of "Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church." He introduces us to critical passages as Romans 8 and Revelation 21 which speak of a renewed Creation, a new heaven and new earth, and the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven to the earth where God's dwelling will be with his people.

He argues with convincing detail how God's purpose is to renew the whole of creation--which was begun in the resurrection of Jesus--and how that purpose effects how we live our lives in this present world. If the Creation is important to God, if our bodies are going to be raised and transformed then there are important implications regarding how we conduct ourselves in this world at this time.

Wright says, "As long as we see salvation in terms of going to heaven when we die, the main work of the church is bound to be seen in terms of saving souls for that future. But when we see salvation, as the New Testament sees it, in terms of God's promised new heavens and new earth and of our promised resurrection to share in that new and gloriously embodied reality...then the main work of the church here and now demands to be rethought in consequence...For the first Christians, the ultimate salvation was all about God's new world, and the point of what Jesus and the apostles were doing when they were healing people...was that this was a proper anticipation of that ultimate salvation, that healing transformation of space, time and matter. The future rescue that God had planned and promised was starting to come true in the present. We are saved not as souls but as wholes."

Evangelism then is a matter of the church living out the kingdom of God by advancing justice, beauty, and reconciliation in the world and while this is happening, "the word of God will spread powerfully and do its own work."

Wright is not advocating the old "liberal theological stance" of the social gospel. Rather he challenges Christians to take seriously God's love for all of creation. The Christian faith is not about fleeing life. Faith in the resurrection is a reaffirmation of the present world.

In one interview N. T. made this observation: "Let me put this as simply as I can. Most Western Christians have grown up with the idea that the name of the game is simply to go to heaven when you die. What I routinely say to people is that heaven is important, but it's not the end of the world. Wherever we are when we die, the really important thing is where we are after that. There's a phase two in Christian teachings. Any 1st-Century Christian would have been surprised that you didn't understand that resurrection isn't life after death. Resurrection is actually what I'm describing as life after life after death."

In the 70s, while I understood most ancient people believed in life after death, it did not occur to me how the Christian hope was radically different or why the pagans would make fun of Paul in Athens when he talked about Jesus' resurrection from the dead. The ancient Greeks and Romans did not believe in the resurrection of the body. The survival of the soul or spirit is not resurrection. One cannot say with Paul that death is defeated (1 Corinthians 15) if all we have is the soul going to heaven when we die. Why? Because we still died. The definition of death is the separation of body and spirit.

The final enemy to be crushed is death. Paul is speaking of literal, physical death. Jesus' body came up out of the grave and ours will too. As John Donne said, "Death, you too shall die!"

For some this will seem very radical. It is actually very biblical. If you still wonder, I recommend you reserve judgment until you read the book. This review doesn't come close to giving Wright justice.

Surprised by Hope is highly readable without being simplistic.

Get this book and read it!

Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the "Saint of Calcutta"

I cannot adequately describe my emotions and reactions upon finishing Come Be My Light. I was deeply moved by the story of Mother Teresa's interior struggle for over forty years with what John of the Cross calls "the dark night" of the soul.

The book isn't just a compilation of Teresa's private writings. It is more accurately a biography by Brian Kolodiejchuk* utilizing her correspondence (especially to her spiritual directors and superiors) as the primary source material.

Kolodiejchuk makes it clear the purpose of the book is a response to the requests of those who loved and admired Mother Teresa and who wanted to know the source of her motivation, strength, and joy. He says,

These pages unveil her interior life, with all its depth and drama, and add unsuspected riches to the spiritual heritage Mother Teresa offered to the world. (p. xii)

This book is not the expose some were let to believe by early newspaper reports. Quite the contrary, it demonstrates a life totally devoted to "satiate the thirst of Jesus" by loving the poor and bringing souls to him.

Whether or not you agree with her theology, you have to be impressed with her love. I remember saying something like this to a missionary acquaintance in Central America. This was a few years ago and he responded with, "Seems to me her theology is people. How do you argue with that?"

However, Come Be My Light demonstrates her theology was not just "people" but an unquenchable love for Jesus. As the author says:

It was not the suffering she endured that made her a saint, but the love with which she lived her life through all her suffering (p. 337)

She was a woman "madly in love with God," and even more she was a woman who understood that "God was madly in love with her." Having experienced God's love for her, she desired ardently to love him in return...(p. 335)

It is obvious from her letters that hers was no legalistic approach to following Jesus. She adored him.

Mother Teresa also viewed love of neighbor as the next great command of God. She lived out that love with her whole being. She wrote,

The greatest evil is the lack of love and charity, the terrible indifference towards one's neighbor who lives at the roadside assaulted by exploitation, corruption, poverty and disease.

I highly recommend Come Be My Light as a must reading for anyone who wants to see someone completely sold out to following Jesus. But be careful! If you are a Jesus follower, it may lead you challenged way beyond your comfort zone!
________________
*Director of the Mother Teresa Center and a member of the Missionaries of Charity Fathers

Kingdom Come: Embracing the Spiritual Legacy of David Lipscomb and James Harding

by Dr. John Mark Hicks and Bobby Valentine


As a graduate of Lipscomb University (MA in Bible, 1996) and the grandson of a graduate of James Harding's Potter Bible College, I was eager to get a copy of this book to read it. I anticipated a lot of surprises from the book and I was not disappointed!

We in churches of Christ tend to be oblivious to our 19th and early 20th century heritage. In the mid-twentieth century we had emerged from a richly diverse and tolerant network of congregations to become a rigid and fairly uniform organization. Variations existed, but the variations were very small.

Hicks and Valentine reintroduce us to David Lipscomb and James A. Harding: men of faith, influential editors, and College founders. They present a very readable discussion of what they call the Nashville Bible School Tradition (Lipscomb and Harding and the Gospel Advocate) in contrast with the Texas tradition (Austin McGary, R.L. Whiteside, Foy E. Wallace and the Firm Foundation). Since these men were editors of their own repsective publications there is no shortage of primary texts for Hicks and Valentine to research!

The Lipscomb and Harding of history are presented as men who believed God was active and busy in bringing his Kingdom agenda to bear in the world. The Holy Spirit was active in the transformation of men and women into the image of Christ. He worked through scripture, service (especially to the poor), assembly and supper, and constant prayer. These "four means of grace" were the environment where the Holy Spirit accomplished his purposes of establishing kingdom values in the lives of individuals, congregations, and the world.

Loyalty to the Kingdom of God subsumed all other loyalties. Peace was priority. It shouldn't be too surprising then to discover that Lipscomb was opposed to any participation in government. In fact, the Nashville Bible School Tradition was predominantly pacifist.

The most surprising insight is to discover the similarities between the views of Lipscomb and Harding and what is being called the emerging church movement. There are differences, to be certain. Lipscomb and Harding were products of their culture--they were products of the enlightenment and were thoroughly "modern" in the true sense of the word. Even so,

Their vision was antagonistic toward modernity in significant ways--especially the in-breaking kingdom of God. Their spirituality has something to offer our postmodern situation. Just as N.T. Wright resonates with many in the Emerging Church Movement and with many postmoderns, much of Lipscomb and Harding will resonate with them as well. Reclaiming the spirituality of Lipscomb and Harding may be a way forward for Churches of Christ in the contemporary world.

This is not to say Hicks and Valentine are blind followers of these two men. Harding and Lipscomb have their faults and there is no attempt to gloss over them in this book. But I think you will learn to appreciate their strengths and especially their Kingdom vision.

A highly recommended, reader-friendly book!

The Darkest Evening of the Year

Author: Dean Koontz
Publisher: Bantam

With The Darkest Evening of the Year, Dean Koontz returns to a familiar and loved figure from The Watchers and from his own life: a golden retriever. While it isn’t the same dog, the golden retriever is a nod to Koontz’ own dearly departed dog, Trixie.

This is a suspenseful story about order that underlies the seeming chaos rampant in our world and about an incredible bond between humans and dogs.

The story focuses upon a young lady, Amy Redwing and her boy-friend, Brian McCarthy. Amy devotes her life to rescuing abused Golden Retrievers. Brian, an architect devotes his life running after Amy. Both Amy and Brian have their own dark secrets that will converge and threaten to destroy them both.

Harrow and “Moongirl” also share a bond. Their bond is a mutual desire for destruction and violence. They are the antithesis of all Brian and Amy stand for. Where Brian and Amy see reason, purpose, and unselfishness, they see nothing but chaos and self-centeredness. All four are on a collision course with each other and they will demonstrate whether the world is ruled by chaos and chance or purpose and design.

In the center of it all are two key figures: a golden retriever named Nickie and a little downs-syndrome girl named Hope. They serve as the representatives of all that is good, either in heaven or earth.

Dean Koontz shows us once again his love for suspenseful storytelling and his underlying belief in a good that far outshines any force of evil that may exist. He also expands an underlying belief that can be found in several of his novels: the greatest evil is to refuse to take a stand against evil; even if it means resorting to violence.

Compare the two passages below from two different Koontz novels:

From the Corner of His Eye

Three years ago, in St. Mary’s Hospital, with Phimie’s warning fresh in her mind, Celestina swore that she would be ready when the beast came, but here he came, and she was not as ready as possible. Time passes , the perception of a threat fades, life becomes busier…your little girl grows to be so vital, so vivid, so alive that you know she just has to live forever, and after all, you are the daughter of a minister, a believer in the power of compassion, in the Prince of Peace, confident that the meek shall inherit the earth, so in three years, you don’t buy a gun, nor do you take any training in self defense, and somehow you forget that the meek who will one day inherit the earth are those who forego aggression but are not those so pathetically meek that they won’t even defend themselves, because a failure to resist evil is a sin, and the willful refusal to defend your life is the mortal sin of passive suicide, and the failure to protect a little yellow M&M girl will surely buy you a ticket to Hell on the same express train on which the slave traders rode to their own eternal enslavement, on which the masters of Dachau and old Joe Stalin traveled from power to punishment, so here, now, as the beast throws himself against the door, as he shoves aside the barricade, with what precious little time you have left, fight.

The Darkest Evening of the Year

She saw the knife then, how big it was.

He was not ready to use the blade, but twisted her hair to turn her, and she turned like a helpless doll.When Michael shoved her hard, she stumbled away from him and fell, and almost struck her head against a dresser. But she held on to the purse.

She tore at the zipper of the purse, reached within, rolled onto her back, and worked the double action as she had been instructed.The shot shattered something, missing Michael, but in shock he shrank from her.

She fired again, he fled, and as he passed through the doorway between the bedroom and hall, he cried out in pain when the third shot nailed him. He staggered, but he did not go down, and then he vanished.

In self-defense and in defense of the innocent, killing is not murder, hesitation is not moral, and cowardice is the only sin.

She went after him, certain that he was not mortally wounded, determined that he would be.