The Weekly Review: Vol VII Issue 2
Happy Friday, people of earth! I hope you’re looking forward to the weekend.
If you don’t remember why you get these emails, you likely signed up for it on my website one hazy, caffeine-induced morning clickfest. And you can stop getting these anytime with the links at the bottom of the email.
On to the usual fare…
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Where do I look for help?
It’s taken a lot of years to improve on this, but I’m finally learning to turn to God as a first option more frequently. So often, when there is some kind of problem in my life, I would react and attempt to use my skills and resources to solve it. Some times this is enough; many times it is not.
God has helped me change my thinking over the past couple of years. And truth be told, the more common scenario is not dealing with an actual problem, but the potential for a problem (for when something goes wrong, we usually have to do something). Anxiety is the true problem here — my fear of what might happen down the road.
This is a problem God promises to help with. Our job is to trust and believe.
There are several verses that bring this home to me. I came across a newer one in Isaiah (newer to me) in a recent morning devotional time.
For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.”
Returning can also mean repentance here, but rest? Quietness? Trust? When I’m fearful, those can be hard attitudes to adopt. But later in this morning reading, I was in Psalm 31 and struck by how good David was at having this kind of mindset.
Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord!
The next day I was in Isaiah again, and again this emphasis:
And the effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust forever. My people will abide in a peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places. (Isaiah 32:17-18, ESV)
This reminded me of a verse I had memorized last year. In Lamentations 3, Jeremiah, amidst his crying out (it’s a lament after all), gives this amazing expression of praise
But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.
There is so much emphasis in Scripture in this trust and confidence. I want more of this in my life. I long for quiet resting places, for my soul is often weary.
Thank God for making it possible for us to enter into his rest!
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Items of note
The audacious effort to reforest the planet
During our recent hack week at Wildbit, I had the chance to dig into some of the work one of my coworkers has done in recent months. Our team has started to look at our environmental impact, including how our remote team comes into play when calculating things like greenhouse gas emissions.
It feels so good to work for a company where team members can spend work hours researching things of this nature. And, of course, planning to make improvements.
After this focus, another team member passed on this article. The WaPo covers the movement to massively reforest the planet in order to better capture so much of the carbon we’re putting into the atmosphere. A big part of the problem is that we’ve massively reduced the world’s forests for profit:
The pace of deforestation has steadily risen since 2000. Logging, agriculture and other human behaviors have driven some plants to extinction and annihilated forests, hobbling nature’s carbon-capture machine. Each year between 2014 and 2018, the world lost more than 26 million hectares of trees — tree cover the size of the United Kingdom, according to the United Nations.
Is reforestation the total answer? Likely not, as the article points out. But it can help.
I work in the environmental movement. I don’t care if you recycle.
Related to the last link, this article focuses on how a long standing narrative is causing more harm than good when it comes to battling climate change. It goes like this:
I’m at my friend’s birthday dinner when an all-too-familiar conversation unfolds. I introduce myself to the man to my left, tell him that I work in the environmental field, and his face freezes in terror. Our handshake goes limp. “You’re gonna hate me …” he mutters sheepishly, his voice barely audible over the clanging silverware.
He goes on to confess his sins, such as using a disposable coffee cup. The problem?
But underneath all that is a far more insidious force. It’s the narrative that has both driven and obstructed the climate change conversation for the past several decades. It tells us climate change could have been fixed if we had all just ordered less takeout, used fewer plastic bags, turned off some more lights, planted a few trees, or driven an electric car. It says that if those adjustments can’t do the trick, what’s the point?
And:
The belief that this enormous, existential problem could have been fixed if all of us had just tweaked our consumptive habits is not only preposterous; it’s dangerous. It turns environmentalism into an individual choice defined as sin or virtue, convicting those who don’t or can’t uphold these ethics. When you consider that the same IPCC report outlined that the vast majority of global greenhouse gas emissions come from just a handful of corporations — aided and abetted by the world’s most powerful governments, including the US — it’s victim blaming, plain and simple.
So it’s more of a big picture piece reminding us that while our individual efforts should not be abandoned, we should also invest energy into where it matters most (corporations and their impact).
One last piece related to last issue and owning your own website. Sara Soueidan spends a few minutes sharing how important it is to simply write and put your thoughts out in the world. It’s good for you, but can also be good for others:
Even if only one person learns something from your article, you’ll feel great, and that you’ve contributed — even if just a little bit — to this amazing community that we’re all constantly learning from. And if no one reads your article, then that’s also okay. That voice telling you that people are just sitting somewhere watching our every step and judging us based on the popularity of our writing is a big fat pathetic attention-needing liar. (Saying this felt so good, haha.)
It’s good to shut that liar up by putting something online. Even if our writing needs a lot of improvement, the only way to actually get better is practice.
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Quote of the week
Disciplined, scheduled times of prayer are not the enemy of spontaneous, effusive prayers. Just the opposite. Spontaneous prayer is like the glory that shone from Moses’s face, which rested upon him after he spent time in the tent of meeting (Exodus 34:34–35).
Scott Hubbard, Don’t Ever Stop Praying
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Currently
Reading: Recursion. Uh, whoa. This book just skips zero and starts at 60 mph. It caught my attention from the first pages and I’m almost half way through in less than a week. It’s an easy read, but hard to put down. If you liked Dark Matter, you’ll like this even more.
I just have to stop reading it right before bed — it gets my mind moving too much!
Watching: Peter Rabbit. Yeah, not exactly a title that gets you excited, right? Neither was I. But as I’ve said before, finding a movie the pleases everyone for family movie night is not easy when you have 6 people with ages from 44 to 9.
It was the 9yo who suggested this film after he watched it at school. No one else was interested, but we gave it a try. And I’m glad for it — it was hilarious. We all had sore cheeks and abs by the end.
Listening: Dwell by Recondite. I was recommending the artist to a colleague when I noticed this new album. Slow, methodic, atmospheric electronica is my workday jam of choice.
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2020 is 8% over — that’s hard to believe. And I’m ready for the end of winter! Here’s to sunny skies and warm breezes, wherever you are.