Don’t know about you guys but I often wear the same clothes over and over… buy new clothes… and still keep the old ones… and pretend I’ll wear them… check this out

Peter Walsh’s clever hanger trick

Merlin Mann | Aug 13 2007

After you’ve done a major purge of your closet, remove all the remaining clothes that live on hangers, and put them back in backwards, such that the open end of each hanger now faces you. Got it?

Then, mark your calendar for six months (or whatever) from today, and go back to your business as usual. Except that after every time you wear a shirt or a jacket or a skirt or what have you, when you replace the item, make sure the hanger faces the opposite/usual way (with the opening in the back).

When your months have passed, and your calendar reminds you that it’s time, open your closet and remove every piece of clothing on a backward hanger; the chances are good you can give it away without the slightest pain, because you just clearly demonstrated that you don’t wear it.

Here’s why I love this.

I’ve said before that, in my estimation, a life hack is any kind of trick that forces the Smartypants part of your brain and the Dumb part of your brain to stay in proper communication.

You think to yourself “Oh, I wear this all the time. I couldn’t possibly throw it out.” But humans are notoriously awful at accurately estimating these kinds of things — I know I am anyway. And it takes stupid tricks like this to prove what inevitably happens when we let our Dumb brain run off-leash.

In the same way that you can’t lie to your iPod, a good behavior-based life hack like this one will ensure that what you think is happening is supported by the evidence of what’s really happening. Just a trivial bit of physical-world intervention will.

Anyone else have way too many lame clothes?

Check out the way Russia is clamping down on faith…

First came visits from agents of the F.S.B., a successor to the K.G.B., who evidently saw a threat in a few dozen searching souls who liked to huddle in cramped apartments to read the Bible and, perhaps, drink a little tea. Local officials then labeled the church a “sect.” Finally, last month, they shut it down.

There was a time after the fall of Communism when small Protestant congregations blossomed here in southwestern Russia, when a church was almost as easy to set up as a general store. Today, this industrial region has become emblematic of the suppression of religious freedom under President Vladimir V. Putin.

Just as the government has tightened control over political life, so, too, has it intruded in matters of faith. The Kremlin’s surrogates in many areas have turned the Russian Orthodox Church into a de facto official religion, warding off other Christian denominations that seem to offer the most significant competition for worshipers. They have all but banned proselytizing by Protestants and discouraged Protestant worship through a variety of harassing measures, according to dozens of interviews with government officials and religious leaders across Russia.

This close alliance between the government and the Russian Orthodox Church has become a defining characteristic of Mr. Putin’s tenure, a mutually reinforcing choreography that is usually described here as working “in symphony.”

Mr. Putin makes frequent appearances with the church’s leader, Patriarch Aleksei II, on the Kremlin-controlled national television networks. Last week, Mr. Putin was shown prominently accepting an invitation from Aleksei II to attend services for Russian Orthodox Easter, which is this Sunday.

The relationship is grounded in part in a common nationalistic ideology dedicated to restoring Russia’s might after the disarray that followed the end of the Soviet Union. The church’s hostility toward Protestant groups, many of which are based in the United States or have large followings there, is tinged with the same anti-Western sentiment often voiced by Mr. Putin and other senior officials.

The government’s antipathy also seems to stem in part from the Kremlin’s wariness toward independent organizations that are not allied with the government.

Here in Stary Oskol, 300 miles south of Moscow, the police evicted a Seventh-day Adventist congregation from its meeting hall, forcing it to hold services in a ramshackle home next to a construction site. Evangelical Baptists were barred from renting a theater for a Christian music festival, and were not even allowed to hand out toys at an orphanage. A Lutheran minister said he moved away for a few years because he feared for his life. He has returned, but keeps a low profile.

On local television last month, the city’s chief Russian Orthodox priest, who is a confidant of the region’s most powerful politicians, gave a sermon that was repeated every few hours. His theme: Protestant heretics.

“We deplore those who are led astray — those Jehovah’s Witnesses, Baptists, evangelicals, Pentecostals and many others who cut Christ’s robes like bandits, who are like the soldiers who crucified Christ, who ripped apart Christ’s holy coat,” declared the priest, the Rev. Aleksei D. Zorin.

Such language is familiar to Protestants in Stary Oskol, who number about 2,000 in a city of 225,000.

The Rev. Vladimir Pakhomov, the minister of the Methodist church, recalled a warning from an F.S.B. officer to one of his parishioners: “ ‘Protestantism is facing difficult times — or maybe its end.’ ”

Most Protestant churches are required under the law to register with the government in order to do anything more than conduct prayers in an apartment. Officials rejected Mr. Pakhomov’s registration this year, first saying his paperwork was deficient, then contending that the church was a front for an unspecified business.

Mr. Pakhomov appealed in court, but lost. He said he could now face arrest for so much as chatting with children about attending a Methodist camp.

“They have made us into lepers to scare people away,” Mr. Pakhomov said. “There is this climate that you can feel with your every cell: ‘It’s not ours, it’s American, it’s alien; since it’s alien we cannot expect anything good from it.’ It’s ignorance, all around.”

- New York Times

Hope posted by Daniel Duarte  My friend forwarded me a sound bite from the movie Elizabeth and wanted me to listen to it and think about how it relates to our life promised by God. Since you can’t hear the sound bite….I typed it up.  English explorer Sir Walter Raleigh describing to Queen Elizabeth on what it feels like traveling to the New World… (from the movie Elizabeth) “Can you imagine what it is to cross and ocean? For weeks you see nothing but the horizon…perfect and empty.  You live in the grip of fear. Fear of storms. fear of sickness on board, fear of the immensity.  So you must drive that fear down deep into you belly…  study your charts, watch your compass, pray for a fair wind and hope……pure, naked, fragile, hope. At first it’s no more then a haze on the horizon…so you watch…you watch.  Then it’s a smudge, a shadow in the far water.  For a day…for another day, the stain slowly spreads along the horizon taking form until on the third day you let yourself believe…you dare to whisper the word, “land….” Land, life, resurrection, the true adventure…coming out of the vast unknown, out of the immensity into new life…..that is the New World.”  In the right context I feel that this is a devastatingly and humbling description of a life of faith and hope… and how I can only dream it feels to be entering into the New World promised to us by our God Resurrection says there is always hope… no matter how long it has been since you saw land. Where do you find hope?  

Quote from Eboo Patel of Washington Post.

MUSLIM EDIFIES CHRISTIANS

I am struck by the following statement that Eboo Patel made in his Washington Post editorial about his experience with everyone assembled at Q, as it is the most overwhelming evidence to date that a new image of Christianity is emerging.

“If all you do is watch television sound bites and read alarmist books, it’s easy to believe that Evangelical Christianity is only about smug, self-absorbed triumphalism. But as Susan Sontag once said, “Whatever is happening, something else is always going on.”

And here is what that is: a self-reflective renewal movement, grounded in a particular interpretation of the Gospel, full of hope and love, ready to engage the world.

And even though it is not my tradition and my community, I believe deeply that this type of Evangelical Christianity is one of the most positive forces on Earth.”

Excited to hear your thoughts!

Over the next few weeks we’d like to share stories with you. The stories of Generate, stories of real people, and stories of what God is doing. Maybe you’ll meet someone new, idenitfy with someone like yourself, or find yourself intrigued by the crazy family that is Generate.

A lot of you have asked about Natalya… the girl who leads worship on Tuesday’s, Wednesday’s, and Sunday’s. She would never advertise herself and would likely get upset if she knew we were writing this but we thought it would be cool to share her story with you cause she’s more than a power packed voice in a 5′1 frame; she’s a neat and humble girl with a huge heart.

Natalya grew up in Diamond Bar, California and has written songs all her life. She crafted her abilities by watching legendary bands like The Beatles and Johnny Cash but idolized Hanson… yep, Hanson. She never cried out for fame or sought the spotlight and is actually more used to getting pummeled by one of her four siblings at her parents new home in Norco. She grew up a Calvary Chapel girl who sang with the worship team but hadn’t led in a worship setting until December of ‘07 when the concept of Generate was born.

When you get a chance come say “hi” to Natalya and underneath the indie style and powerful vocals there’s no question you’ll see indescribable joy, a bubbly personality, unconditional love, and commitment to excellence…