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the-y-generation · 6 years ago

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Not My Type (Chapter 2)

Summary: “Do you know how you stop a craving? You give in to it.”

When she signed on to be a road manager, she had no idea it was going to be for one of the biggest bands in the world, much less how they were going to turn her life upside down, nor how she was about to flip theirs too. Especially one irritating frequently-late vocalist who knew exactly how charming he could be.

Pairing: Idol!Jimin / Manager!Original Character (I personally haven’t written in “y/n” format, so I just gave the reader a name, but barely even mention it)

Genre/Themes: fluff, angst, friends with benefits, friends to lovers

Status: Ongoing (Masterlist)

She is three minutes away from killing Jimin.

Over the last few months, thanks to a remarkable change in outlook and a great deal of shameless courage, she managed to make significant headway in her relationship with the band.

It was only a matter of time before she managed to prove herself, and they immediately warmed to her. They soon saw that she was good at her job – smart, efficient, and didn’t take shit from anyone. Despite the daunting responsibility of shepherding the biggest music act in the world, she managed to glare down snobby venue partners and wave off prissy media. She heralded the boy everywhere quickly, made sure that they came prepared with their answers to interview questions, and straightened every collar and tie.

With her, BTS ran like a well-oiled machine, and Namjoon couldn’t be happier to share the load of babysitting.

But the boys came to find out that, just as ruthless as she was when it came to her work, she definitely knew how to play too.

Each key city they weaved through held a special place in her heart. Not because of the sights or the glamorous treatment, but because they each held a milestone.

In New York, Jin bought her a hotdog because he wanted the experience of eating a New York hotdog at a New York hotdog stand.

In London, she and Namjoon planned for the band to sneak out to a speakeasy.

In Paris, she cracked a joke that made Yoongi laugh until he had tears in his eyes.

In Tokyo, she convinced Taehyung to stop walking in the middle of Shibuya crossing, just to piss people off.

In Hong Kong, Hoseok beat her at Dance Dance Revolution.

In Bangkok, she and Jungkook stayed up watching anime on their day off.

She knew them better, just as they knew her now too.

So why in the hell does goddamn Park Jimin insist on testing her patience?!

He’s always late. Always. Even when he claims that he tried so hard not to be, even if she gave him a call time that’s half an hour earlier than everyone else's. He still managed to run late, and subsequently, make everyone late.

Whenever he is asked what took him so long to get ready, he can't give an answer. He doesn’t know why; no one does.

But to make matters worse, Jimin wouldn’t only come late but also unprepared. While the other boys would already prepare their answers, run them by Namjoon or Anna, and rehearse them to perfection, Jimin would shrug and say he prepared his state of mind.

His. State. Of. Mind.

Fucking hell.

He’d chuckle at her frustration, then approach Namjoon later on for a one-on-one tutorial. She hated him for it. Hated that he relied so much on his charm, his devilish grin, and his well-practiced “I love you”.

She swore that he'd answer everything with “I love you” if he could. Just 10 minutes of eye-fucking the camera answering that goddamn “I love you” if they'd let him.

Most days, she would give him a piece of her mind, maybe growl at him for half the day, and Namjoon would mediate so that she wouldn’t tear Jimin’s head off.

To his credit, the boy at least had the decency to feel remorse for his habit. He’d beat Anna to the punch line, rushing in bowing and apologizing profusely before a single curse word could exit her lips. She’d glare at the back of his head, maybe flick him on the forehead a few times before the band’s leader pulls her off in fear that the flicking would turn into a real punch.

But today was the last straw.

They were attending a big awards show, and Jimin was late. Again. As usual.

She already gave him a call time that’s an hour - a full 60 minutes! - earlier than the rest of the band's. Yet he was still running 20 minutes later than everyone else.

The other 6 boys were already in Namjoon and Hoseok’s shared hotel room, all dressed, made up, and rehearsing their lines to kill time. Well, except for Yoongi who just sat there and muttered complaints about the weather.

“Where the hell is he?” She hissed under her breath for the millionth time.

“I’ll go get him.” Jungkook offered, cautiously eyeing the wound-up girl, already retrieving his room key from his pocket. He and Jimin were sharing a room this time.

She paced the room furiously, glaring at her watch as she huffed and puffed, calling the tardy boy's phone. Rage rolled off her in waves, injecting a tense atmosphere over the room. The boys kept quietly to themselves, muttering their lines as quietly as they could, afraid to tick her off even further.

“No, let me.” Namjoon offered, rising from his seat by the window.

“No, no.” She growled under her breath and waved them off. “I’ll get him.”

Immediately, all 6 boys were on their feet, blocking her path to the door. They all knew that it would spell the death of Jimin if she were the one to retrieve him.

“I’m sure he’s almost done.” Jin reassured.

“He was supposed to be done 20 minutes ago.” She firmly replied, pushing past him. “Heck, he should have been done an hour ago, if he followed the call time I gave him.”

“We'll get him.” Taehyung said, tugging Jungkook by the wrist. “We’ll carry him over here for you.”

“Don’t bother.” Anna gritted her teeth and pushed them out of her way. “I’ll drag him here by the neck if I have to.”

Seeing that there was no way of stopping her, the 6 boys trailed after the fuming girl, resigned to witnessing their friend's inevitable death.

Reaching his hotel room, Anna knocked harshly on the hardwood door thrice.

“Park Jimin, you better open this fucking door right now!” She yelled.

There was a crash from inside, followed by a muffled “Wait a minute!”.

“Goddamn it.” She muttered under her breath, then turned her fiery glare on Jungkook. “Card.”

The scared boy handed over his key card. In one fluid movement, she opened the hotel room door and barged her way inside.

She was greeted by the sight of a half-naked Jimin, standing frozen by his bed in only his boxers. With his chest exposed, eyes wide with panic, and hair only half-dried from his shower, he was the epitome of deer in the headlights. Anna's eyes raked over him angrily, taking him in before he managed to grab a pillow to cover himself.

“What the fuck?!” He cried out, attempting some form of modesty in front of his road manager. He turned his panicked gaze on Namjoon, silently asking for backup, but the older boy shrugged and smiled apologetically.

Jimin was on his own with this.

“I could ask you the same thing.” Anna hissed at him. “We’ve all been waiting for you for 20 minutes now. Twenty. Minutes. And you’re not even dressed?!”

“I was about to.” He insisted. “I swear, this will just be quick. The sooner you leave, the sooner I can finish up.”

“No.”

“What?” Jimin asked, eyes wide with confusion.

“I said no.” She repeated herself as calmly as she could, proud that her voice sounded calm despite the crudeness of her words.

“I’ve had enough of your shit, Jimin. So I am staying right here to make sure you’re dressed within the next 5 minutes.”

Jimin scoffed incredulously. “So, what? You’re just going to stand there and watch me get dressed?”

“Yes,” She glared at him, crossing her arms for maximum effect. “I’d shove your legs through those pants myself if I have to, if that’s what it will take to get you dressed already.”

Jaw dropped in disbelief, the distressed boy looked to his band mates for some help. But none of them seemed willing to pull him out of the grave he dug himself into and risk getting on the furious girl’s bad side.

“I can’t believe this!” Jimin exclaimed. “You can’t do this.”

“Well, you aren’t supposed to be late either, and make everyone else late with you. But you do that anyway. So if you think that you’re in a position to say what can’t or can be done,” She flipped him the finger. “Fuck you.”

There was a time when she thought that Jimin’s eyes could burn an entire continent. And, no doubt, a part of her still believed that perhaps they could.

But at that moment, under his incensed glare, she thanked her lucky stars for the immunity she had developed over the last few months. If looks could kill, then everyone in the hotel would certainly already be dead under the weight of their wordless stand-off.

Time ticked by. No one moved. A whole century could have passed and they wouldn’t have known.

“Get dressed, Jimin.” Yoongi broke the silence, already irate and itching to get the damn thing over with.

Jimin tore his eyes away from the glaring girl to throw a petulant retort at his bandmate, but they cut him off.

“Just do as she says, okay?” Namjoon said gently. “We’ll talk later. But for now, we have to go.”

The boy huffed but refused to move. He still stood there, clutching the pillow to his exposed torso.

“Put the pillow down and your clothes on,” Anna said quietly, voice dangerously low. Calm, but simmering just under the surface. “I don’t even know why you’re trying to be modest. Everyone knows what you look like shirtless.”

She paused as he let his guard down. He rolled his eyes at her as he threw the pillow back on the bed.

“And plus,” Just out of spite, she couldn’t stop herself from adding, “I’ve seen better.”

Jimin narrowed his eyes at her, and the corner of his jaw popped out in his effort to keep his mouth clamped shut. As he proceeded to take his black trousers from the closet, she turned to the other boys.

“You guys can go back to the other room.” She said. “We’ll join you once he’s done.”

The boys filed out slowly, but not without flashing Jimin shy, apologetic smiles. He ignored them.

Soon enough, the door closed with a click, leaving the two alone together. The silence was deafening, making every tiny movement boom and echo through the room.

She sat on the chair by the vanity, watching Jimin shuffle around the room and dress in haste. He fastidiously kept his gaze away from her, muttering profanities under his breath. She let them slide, caring only that he gets dressed already.

“Three minutes.” She called out after a quick glance at her watch. Jimin already had his pants and socks on.

“I know.” He replied through gritted teeth as he wrestled with the buttons of his dress shirt.

Eventually, when he got the buttons done, he bent over to put his shoes on. He still had a long way to go though - his tie, his coat, his earrings. But five minutes were five minutes, and she wasn’t willing to spare him any more than that.

With a sigh, she grabbed his tie and his earrings from the vanity table and crossed the distance between them. He rose back to his full height, finished with his shoes.

“Here,” She said, answering the silent question in his eyes as to why she was suddenly up in his face. She lifted his hand and dropped his earrings in his open palm. “You do your earrings, I’ll do your tie. We can’t waste more time.”

With a nod, he did as he was told. Then he stood still and allowed her to work on his tie. She began to make quick work of it, having done it for them several times already at this point.

Anna kept her breathing measured, hyper-aware of his breath brushing against her cheeks, and his ever-steady gaze on her face. It was suddenly a million degrees in the room, and she prayed he wouldn't hear her racing pulse.

Neither said a word, but the silence was lighter now. Softer, but electric with words unsaid.

With a final tug, she finished the four-in-hand knot of his tie.

“What?” She broke the silence, reaching for his coat, still refusing to meet his eyes. “You’re staring.”

“I stare a lot.” Jimin retorted.

“But it’s your i-have-something-to-say stare.” She motioned for him to turn around. “So spit it out.”

Jimin chuckled and complied, turning his back to her so she could put the coat on him.

“Are you a mind reader?” He joked, shrugging the coat so it fell it on his frame correctly.

Once it was on, he felt her hands on him, brushing lightly against his back and waist. Instead of turning him back around, she slowly walked back in front of him, giving him a careful once over to ensure that everything was in order.

“No, you’re just predictable.” She whispered absent-mindedly, brushing off his shoulders. “Spit it out already.”

Jimin laughed, the puffs of his breath tickling the fringe of her hair.

"I just wanted to say I'm sorry." He said. She scoffed, but there was no real acid behind it.

"You're always sorry."

"But I always mean it." He gently insisted.

Anna sighed, unable to deny the sincerity in his tone. With a sad frown, she fixed his collar. "Does it even matter if you mean it when you keep repeating the same mistakes?"

"But I'm trying." Jimin replied.

"Try harder."

Realizing her tone, she softened and returned her gaze to his face. Jimin gave her a small smile, his puppy dog eyes shining with an apology. It was nearly impossible to stay mad at him.

"I mean it, Jimin." She tried again, staying firm but gentle this time, in a voice just above a whisper "Please. I hate being angry with you."

"Then don't be angry with me."

"Then don't make me angry!" She huffed.

Jimin chuckled again, the kind that ended with a squeak at the back of his throat.

"Okay, okay." He caved. "I'll try harder. I promise."

"You better." She waved an accusing finger in his face jokingly. "Or else I'll drag you to the venue naked next time."

Jimin quirked a suggestive eyebrow and transfixed a smolder on her. "If you wanted to see me naked-"

"Don't." She rolled her eyes and cut him off. "That doesn't work on me. You know that."

He flashed her his signature heartbreaker smile, made a thousand times deadlier by his contacts. It was unfair, really, and possibly illegal to look like Apollo incarnate, or perhaps Aphrodite.

But she'd never let Jimin know that.

Instead, she rolled her eyes at him, feigning indifference as she gave him one last look.

"You good?" She asked.

"I'm good." He replied, giving her a thumbs up then doing a dumb sassy turn. Back to being his usual silly self, Jimin was really feeling himself in the suit.

"Damn right." She laughed, already starting to push him out the door. "Now let's go! I needed you guys out of here like 30 minutes ago."

#jimin #jimin fic #jimin fanfiction #park jimin #park jimin fic #park jimin fanfiction #park jimin fanfic #bts fic #bts fanfic #park jimin smut #jimin smut #jimin fwb #park jimin fwb #idol!jimin #not my type

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littletags · 4 years ago

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For 90 years parmadale was the center of the world for goodness but now a barbaric atrocity being planned by derek shaefer and west creek conservancy threatens to tear down an entire mini village where right now 1 500 people cats and dogs could be being kept from dying all so people can have more picnic areas deer killers can have more of a firing range and criminals can bury dead bodies perfectly functional buildings that have been very well maintained are set to be destroyed along with a future of greatness of what I constantly refer to on my facebook page as social cause tv which could very well keep hundreds of millions of humans cat and dog lives from dying the cottages school church and gymnasium have been idle for 8 years some for 28 years in that time these buildings could very well have kept well over 100 000 people and cats from dying now west creek conservancy is spending 3 1 million mostly from government tax payer supported grants to tear it down in my opinion what I call the crucifixion of parmadale s resurrection would be right up there with concentration camps 911 and sharia law in terms of reckless disregard for human lives west creek conservancy is showing no regard for basic human life they are such wacko environmentalists that they would rather people die in order to observe nature along of course with filling landfills with 80 acres of building rubble they are even planning on demolishing the newest structure that cost 10 million and just opened up in 2009 for nearly two decades catholic charities has let an entire mini village sit idle that could have by now saved a hundred thousand or more lives yet has maintained them relatively fine now west creek conservancy wants to end any possibility of doing anything ever again they would rather have hundreds of millions of dogs cats and people die as long as people can watch birds fly on top of dead deer and criminals buried bodies those who are active on local facebook pages know how I propose that 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thegreenwolf · 8 years ago

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[I know this is a long one, and potentially controversial. Do me a favor, please and read all the way to the end, and pay especial attention to the italicized bits? Thank you!]

Celtic Wicca. Samhain, the God of the Dead. Witches’ covens that extend back in an unbroken line thousands of years. These are just a few examples of the really bad history that’s been passed around the pagan community, and which has rightfully been skewered by those who have done better research. I came to paganism in the mid-1990s when Wicca was all the rage, and everything was plastered with Celtic knotwork. The Craft, Charmed and other media helped bolster support for aesthetic paganism that was more about looks than substance. A glut of books hit the market, many of which were full of historical inaccuracies from the mildly off to the blatantly awful.

Pagans with a decent background in history began to tear apart the inaccurate material, some of which had been floating around for decades (I’m looking at you, Margaret Murray!) We encouraged each other to go beyond strictly pagan books and explore historical texts, both those written for laypeople and more academic texts. We cited our sources more. And so now, twenty years later, while paganism still has its share of bad history, we have a lot more accurate information to apply to our paths, whether we’re hardcore reconstructionists or not. And we have space for things that aren’t necessarily historically accurate, but which we find personally relevant, like Unverified Personal Gnosis, or UPG (which you can read more about here.)

All this came out of a lot of discussions, along with debates and arguments. Post bad history in a busy pagan listserve circa 2000, and you were bound to get dozens of responses correcting you and offering good research material. And today wrong historical information is still swiftly corrected. What boggles my mind is that a lot of the same people who will throw down over historical inaccuracies won’t bat an eye when someone horribly misuses science. Woe be unto anyone who tries to say that Artemis and Freya are just different faces of the same Great Goddess, but sure, we can say that quantum entanglement proves magick is real without a doubt. Whatevs, it’s your belief, right?

In Defense of Facts

Wrong. Just as history deals in facts, so does science. Yes, there’s room for errors (accidental and deliberate) and updated research, but that doesn’t negate the general tendency of both of these fields of study and practice to deal in the most accurate information we have available to us. We’ve gotten good at pointing out where pagans are over-reaching historically through speculation and UPG. We suck at doing so for those speculating beyond what science has demonstrated to be true or impossible. It’s the same error at play: when history or science don’t have a clear answer–or the answer that you want–you don’t get to just make up whatever you want and say that it’s equally real.

Lots of anecdotes do not equal “anecdata”. No matter how much you really, really, really want to believe that you can make streetlights turn off just by walking under them, the evidence we do have is pointing toward it just being an occasionally blinking streetlight and good timing. It’s also confirmation bias in that you’re seeing what you want to see and that affects your “results”. No one has yet created a substantial, well-crafted study that even remotely suggests a person can affect the electrical flow to a light bulb (other than by physically tampering with the wires, unscrewing the bulb or turning off the power.) A group of people walking back and forth under a streetlight does not a solid experiment make.

Yet paganism is full to the brim with people claiming they can do similarly supernatural things. Look at the proliferation of spells that claim to be able to aid in healing, take away curses, or even affect political outcomes. That’s saying that “If I burn this candle or bury this herbal sachet or say these words over here, that thing or person or situation wayyyy over there will be directly affected in the way I want it to.” Sure, your process was more elaborate than just walking in proximity of your target, but you have no more evidence of causation than that other guy. And look at how many pagans claim that a simple spell is every bit as effective as a complicated one. Doesn’t it follow, then, that the simplest spell–walking under the light with the intent of making it blink off–has every bit the chance of working as something more complex?

Why We Treat Science Differently

But that’s getting away from the point. I think we don’t want to be sticklers for science in the same way that we’re sticklers for history because we don’t want our sacred cows slaughtered. Our beliefs can still hold up when we question historical inaccuracies because many modern pagan beliefs are based in history, and better history means better justification for our beliefs because “our ancestors believed it!”

But many of our beliefs are also based in pseudoscience, as well as bad interpretations of good science (like the misapplication of quantum anything to trying to prove magick is objectively real). When we start picking apart the scientific inaccuracies in our paths, it feels threatening and uncomfortable. If you feel a sense of control because you literally believe that a spell you cast will change a situation you’re anxious about, then you don’t want to question the efficacy of that act because you feel you’ve lost control again. If your connection to nature is primarily through thinking the local animals show up in your yard because you have special animal-attracting energy, the fact that they’re more likely just looking for food, shelter, and other normal animal things makes you feel less inherently connected. So instead of focusing on aligning our paths more closely with scientific research as well as historical research, we instead cling tightly to justifications.

The Rewards of Accuracy

I think that pressing for more historical accuracy has made paganism stronger as a whole, both as individuals and as a community. We’ve spent decades working to be taken more seriously as a religious group, sometimes to gain big steps forward like equal recognition for our deceased military pagans, other times to just be able to mention our religion without being laughed at. Those who want to emphasize to non-pagans that our paths have historical precedent and long-time relevance have more resources to do so. There are other benefits: Those who want to emulate the ways of pre-Christian religions have more material to work with. And history offers more depth to explore; your interest in a particular ancient spiritual path can extend out into knowing more about the culture, people and landscape that that path developed in. If you’re creating a new path for the 21st century, you have more inspiration to work with when you see what’s worked for pagan religions in both the distant and recent past.

Science has a lot to offer us as well. As a naturalist pagan–and a pagan naturalist–my path is deepened, and I find greater meaning, the more I learn about and experience the non-human natural world. I don’t need to believe the blacktail deer outside my studio are there because they have some special message for me. It’s enough that I can observe them quietly from the window as they go about their lives, our paths intersecting by proximity. I do not need to drink water from their hoofprints to attempt to gain shapeshifting powers; I can imagine a bit of what it is to be them when I follow their trails through the pines and see the places that are important to them. And that makes me even more invested in protecting their fragile ecosystem; my path urges me to give back to nature.

When pagans step out of the narrow confines of symbolism, and act as though nature is sacred because we know how threatened it is through the science of ecology, not only do we deepen our connections to nature, but we also show the rest of the world that we walk our talk. It’s just one way in which we demonstrate that, as with our historical accuracy, we’re also interested in scientific accuracy, rather than denying or ignoring facts in favor of our own spiritual self-satisfaction. And rather than getting entangled in self-centered interpretations of nature that elevate us as the special beings deserving of nature’s messages, a more scientific approach to paganism humbles us and reminds us that we are just one tiny part of a vast, beautiful, unimaginably complex world full of natural wonders that science can help us better explore and understand.

Conclusion

As always, I’m not saying don’t have beliefs. Beliefs have plenty of good effects, from strengthening social bonds to bringing us comfort when things go haywire to helping us make some subjective sense of the world through storytelling and mythos. UPG can be a really valuable tool in giving us a place to put the things we believe that don’t fit into known historical research, and I think we need to extend it to hold beliefs that go outside known scientific evidence, too. So keep working your spells and your rituals, and keep working with the deities and spirits that you hold dear. If you derive personal meaning by feeling that the crows are nearby because of some spiritually significant reason and it improves your life, don’t let go of that, so long as you also accept that the crows are just crows doing crow things.

But we also need to be able to make use of critical thinking skills and suss out areas where we’re factually wrong, no matter how we may personally feel about the matter. That way, as with history, we’re able to clearly say “This is the portion of my belief system that matches up with known facts, and this part over here is more personal.” We’ve learned to be skeptical of the claims of people who say that historians are wrong and they have the REAL history; we should be able to do the same for those who claim to know better than thousands of scientists.

What I am also asking you to do is really question your beliefs, their foundations, and where they intersect with and diverge from science (and history, while we’re at it.) If you have a belief that runs directly counter to known facts and you feel it has to be every bit as real as science or history, ask yourself why. What would happen if you allowed that belief to be UPG, or personal mythology? What would happen if you let it go entirely? What would you have left, and what value does it have?

I can’t say where this process of questioning will take you, whether you’ll let go of your beliefs, or recategorize their place in your life, or just cling to them more tightly. Every person’s path winds in its own direction. But just as we have questioned our historical inaccuracies and come out the better for it, I think that as individuals and as a community we can benefit from really questioning scientific inaccuracies in the same way. Won’t you join me in this effort?

If you enjoyed this post, please consider picking up a copy of one of my books, which blend a naturalist’s approach to the world with pagan meaning and mythology–Nature Spirituality From the Ground Up is especially relevant!

#pagan #paganism #UPG #science #Wicca #mine

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lucyariablog · 7 years ago

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Ex-SNL Writer Reveals How to Spend 5 Minutes a Day to Improve Storytelling

Want to get more creative in your marketing, especially your storytelling? Spend five minutes a day doing something that masters of improv do: Play with words.

That was stand-up comedian Tim Washer’s advice in his talk, How to Use Improv Techniques to Improve Your Storytelling, at Content Marketing World in 2016. He walked us through some examples, which I’ll share in this post.

First, in case you missed my recent article based on this same talk, let me fill you in on who this guy is. In addition to serving as social media manager for Cisco Systems’ Service Provider Marketing group, Tim has worked on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and Late Night with Conan O’Brien, studied improv under Amy Poehler and written for her on Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update, and worked as a “corporate humorist” for clients like Google, IBM, FedEx, and Pepsi.

Tim knows corporations and humor.

Read on to learn from an improv master how to become a more creative marketer. (All images come from Tim’s presentation slides.)

Exercise in word play

I saw my first live improv show, when I was 9 or so. My dad took my sister and me to Second City in Chicago. One of the actors asked for the name of an animal. “Aardvark!” I shouted. How on earth would they weave a reference to an aardvark into their skit?

It seemed impossible that this team of energetic people on the stage could create a vignette on the spot using the audience’s suggestions. As they did exactly that, I waited, waited, waited. Finally, at the end of the skit, one of the actors burst into song, ending with the rousing line “up in a tree, with the aardvark and me!”

How had they pulled it off? It was magic.

Decades later, it still seems like magic to me that any group of people can instantly create a story – let alone a funny story – from a bunch of random words. I never considered trying it myself.

Tim says it’s time to go for it. He urges everyone who does creative work (and we all do creative work) to expand our storytelling capacity by spending five minutes a day, either alone or with a group, playing with word juxtaposition. In other words, yoke unrelated ideas together to create something new.

Spend 5 minutes a day playing a word juxtaposition game to boost creativity, says @TimWasher. #CMWorld Click To Tweet

You do this by following the Tim-recommended “path of nonsense”:

Come up with two unrelated terms. (Try a free random-word-generator app, like InspireMe.)

Write those terms down on a piece of paper. (Don’t do it in your head.)

Create a word map or web of words for each term. (Brainstorm. Write, write, write. Don’t stop. Keep your pen moving. No wrong answers. It’s just word association. Free associate. Don’t judge yourself or worry about making mistakes. If it’s crazy, it could lead to gold.)

Choose a word from each side – a combination that strikes you as having play potential – and free associate only those two words.

Create a narrative that connects the two ideas. (Ask yourself “What if …?” Keep your mind open and playful.)

“This is one of the best ways to come up with new ideas when you’re staring at a blank piece of paper, and you’re trying to come up with something new,” Tim says. “You can get to genius with this.”

youtube

If you do this exercise with others, look for people who like to take risks and who have a sense of humor. “Not people who tell jokes but people who laugh. That shows that they’re open to ideas,” Tim says.

Example 1: Playing with “circus” and “bacon”

Here’s how this exercise went for one group Tim worked with.

They chose “circus” and “bacon.”

They wrote the words side by side.

They created a word map, asking themselves, “What do we know about bacon and circuses? What are the ‘rules of bacon, the rules of a circus’?”

They decided to connect “clowns” and “farms.” They did more brainstorming, asking, “What do we know about clowns and farms? What do we picture when we think of a clown or a farm?” They came up with this list:

They mashed up the two attribute lists and came up with this scenario: A rooster crows. The sun is coming up. A tractor appears, coming up over a hill. It stops. Someone jumps out – you see the silhouette. You cut to a close shot, and a farmer takes off his hat. A rainbow afro pops up. He turns sideways and walks off in his clown shoes. Then another clown comes out of the tractor, and another, and another.

Now the team has a silly idea that connects with people. Great. Now what does it do with it. Probably nothing. Who knows? “(They) experienced this process of creativity, and it’s helping (them) become more creative,” Tim says. “That’s what this is about.”

Example 2: Playing with “chinchillas” and “marshmallows”

Tim and the attendees at his 2015 CMWorld talk created another example.

The audience shouted out “chinchillas” and “marshmallows.”

Suggested word associations for “chinchillas” included fur, squirrel, and traps, and s’mores and campfires for “marshmallows.”

Someone suggested a connection between the two word groups – marshmallow traps.

Tim took it from there: “Let’s see how we can marry traps and marshmallows. Maybe we’re doing a commercial for s’mores. You could have a trapper who’s out to trap marshmallows. Once you have that absurd idea, you play it straight, dead serious. Nobody’s winking and laughing. We open on a log cabin that is a retail store for trappers. There’s a guy selling traps, and a guy comes in who has just trapped some marshmallows. What’s the backstory? What would he look like? Does he trap just marshmallows? Is he vegan? Maybe that leads you to a psychologist’s office, where he’s talking about why he doesn’t trap deer any more, just marshmallows.”

I’d love to see someone make that commercial. Alas, a producible idea wasn’t the point.

As Tim shares, “This kind of exercise leads you to absurd ideas. It builds your creativity muscles.”

Word-play exercises lead to absurd ideas. It builds your creativity muscles, says @TimWasher. #CMWorld Click To Tweet

Example 3: Valentine gift from Cisco

How does all this silliness apply to the content you do need to produce? In that same talk, Tim suggests using a similar exercise when brainstorming your real content ideas – but playing with words related to customer pain.

Look at the pain that your customer is experiencing and that you can solve, and play around in that area. Now you’ve created something relevant. Not only have you made something funny that your customer might laugh at, but you’ve demonstrated that you understand what they’re struggling with and demonstrated empathy. Just exaggerate that pain point.

Tim detailed in his 2016 CMWorld talk how his team at Cisco did some brainstorming when they were getting ready to launch a $100,000 router. (“We sell it to the Verizons, AT&Ts, Telestras of the world. You’re not going to get this at Office Depot. But if you want a coupon, let me know. I can get you 25 bucks off,” he offered.)

The team brainstormed and played around with things they knew about the router – the ASR 9000. Here’s a word map that captures the spirit of their brainstorming:

“We got nowhere. We couldn’t find anything interesting. Then we said, wait a minute, when’s the launch date of this product again? It’s February 9. Almost Valentine’s Day,” Tim says. And the idea for this 60-second video was born: A Special Valentine’s Day Gift … from Cisco!

youtube

The concept was absurd. Tim says plenty of people asked, “What are you doing?” But none of Cisco’s other videos earned coverage in The New York Times. Whereas most corporate videos get a couple hundred views, the Valentine one had 200,000 views in its first month, according to Tim. (The view count on the video that’s available today doesn’t reflect all the views from the original 2009 posting.) And this video – which includes only still images, an approach that Tim recommends for ease and simplicity – cost less than its typical video.

Why don’t we do more playing around like this? Even if our ideas fail, why not take a few more shots at it? That’s what I think. Take 2% of your budget and give it a shot.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Comedy Pro Reveals How to Bring Funny to Content [Video]

Conclusion

Who knew that the trick to succeeding at work was to play more? Spend a few minutes a day putting unrelated words together and following them down a path of nonsense.

What do you say – ready to dedicate a little time and 2% of your budget to some silliness?

Catch Tim Washer’s act (and learn a lot about content marketing) at this year’s Content Marketing World. Register today for the Sept. 5-8 event. Use code BLOG100 to save $100.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

The post Ex-SNL Writer Reveals How to Spend 5 Minutes a Day to Improve Storytelling appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

from http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2017/08/writer-improve-storytelling/

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hotspreadpage · 7 years ago

Text

Ex-SNL Writer Reveals How to Spend 5 Minutes a Day to Improve Storytelling

Want to get more creative in your marketing, especially your storytelling? Spend five minutes a day doing something that masters of improv do: Play with words.

Tim knows corporations and humor.

Read on to learn from an improv master how to become a more creative marketer. (All images come from Tim’s presentation slides.)

Exercise in word play

How had they pulled it off? It was magic.

Decades later, it still seems like magic to me that any group of people can instantly create a story – let alone a funny story – from a bunch of random words. I never considered trying it myself.

Spend 5 minutes a day playing a word juxtaposition game to boost creativity, says @TimWasher. #CMWorld Click To Tweet

You do this by following the Tim-recommended “path of nonsense”:

Come up with two unrelated terms. (Try a free random-word-generator app, like InspireMe.)

Write those terms down on a piece of paper. (Don’t do it in your head.)

Choose a word from each side – a combination that strikes you as having play potential – and free associate only those two words.

Create a narrative that connects the two ideas. (Ask yourself “What if …?” Keep your mind open and playful.)

youtube

Example 1: Playing with “circus” and “bacon”

Here’s how this exercise went for one group Tim worked with.

They chose “circus” and “bacon.”

They wrote the words side by side.

They created a word map, asking themselves, “What do we know about bacon and circuses? What are the ‘rules of bacon, the rules of a circus’?”

Example 2: Playing with “chinchillas” and “marshmallows”

Tim and the attendees at his 2015 CMWorld talk created another example.

The audience shouted out “chinchillas” and “marshmallows.”

Suggested word associations for “chinchillas” included fur, squirrel, and traps, and s’mores and campfires for “marshmallows.”

Someone suggested a connection between the two word groups – marshmallow traps.

I’d love to see someone make that commercial. Alas, a producible idea wasn’t the point.

As Tim shares, “This kind of exercise leads you to absurd ideas. It builds your creativity muscles.”

Word-play exercises lead to absurd ideas. It builds your creativity muscles, says @TimWasher. #CMWorld Click To Tweet

Example 3: Valentine gift from Cisco

The team brainstormed and played around with things they knew about the router – the ASR 9000. Here’s a word map that captures the spirit of their brainstorming:

youtube

Why don’t we do more playing around like this? Even if our ideas fail, why not take a few more shots at it? That’s what I think. Take 2% of your budget and give it a shot.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Comedy Pro Reveals How to Bring Funny to Content [Video]

Conclusion

Who knew that the trick to succeeding at work was to play more? Spend a few minutes a day putting unrelated words together and following them down a path of nonsense.

What do you say – ready to dedicate a little time and 2% of your budget to some silliness?

Catch Tim Washer’s act (and learn a lot about content marketing) at this year’s Content Marketing World. Register today for the Sept. 5-8 event. Use code BLOG100 to save $100.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

The post Ex-SNL Writer Reveals How to Spend 5 Minutes a Day to Improve Storytelling appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

Ex-SNL Writer Reveals How to Spend 5 Minutes a Day to Improve Storytelling syndicated from http://ift.tt/2maPRjm

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minebot45 · 8 years ago

Text

Everything Wrong with Undertale

(Before we go any further, I’d like to say that this is mostly listing anything I can make a snarky joke out of. Don’t take anything in this post seriously.)

Reading.

Horrific monster genocide is firmly implied but completely glossed over.

Game barely even cracks the thirty second mark before introducing magic…f*cking magic. The LORD of all media Ex Machinas!

I think this is a nasty enough fall to sin the fact that the kid survives this.

And another sin for the fact that we learn that MULTIPLE humans have survived this fall later.

There’s one D and one A in this logo, but they don’t get any special heart treatment. This logo is racist against, like, 30% of the qualified alphabet!

Goatmom-Ex-Machina.

Here’s some math for you: video game logic squared equals indie video game logic.

You know, I think the reason the monsters lost as many lives as they did is because they didn’t fight silly enough.

How did Toriel get those groceries without exiting the Ruins? And for that matter, how could the monsters ever grow crops if there is no sunlight? And according to the internet, ultraviolet lamps weren’t invented until the early 1800s, so did they just live off of cave moss or something until then?

Toriel basically abducts a child and I’m okay with that, and I am not okay with that.

Sans would be excellent at CinemaSins.

From his perspective, Papyrus can pretty easily see the human.

Papyrus has all these traps and puzzles and sh*t laid out along the path to Snowdin, yet exactly ZERO of them actually trap or confuse this kid. I know he’s supposed to be incompetent, but it’s almost like he’s TRYING to screw up.

I’ve been trying to avoid commenting on how the characters look ‘cause they’re clearly stylized and I don’t find anything wrong with that, really, I don’t. But Gyftrot’s head is too far from actual deer anatomy. I feel like I’m looking at a deer that has broken his snout. Maybe that’s why he’s so cranky all the time.

OK, Papyrus actually making this battle kind of a challenge is worth knocking off a sin.

(Papyrus announces he’s twelve away from a double digit follower amount) Did Papyrus become an amatuer youtuber offscreen or something?

Does being a monster also allow you to alter the properties of space-time? If not, then what monster power is allowing Sans to apparate from one location to another?

I guess the fact that Sans drinks ketchup or cherry Pepsi or whatever that is is supposed to be one of those Addams Family jokes where their pleasures comes from awful things, but I can’t for the life of me figure out why a guy who drinks ketchup would go through this much work to do it, especially since this is the debilitatingly lazy Sans we’re talking about here.

This (the first part with Undyne) takes the “bad guys are terrible shots” cliché to a whole new level. Undyne is throwing medium-sized volleys of spears, and this is a fairly slow child. How do you miss with what amounts to a f*cking shotgun spray?

(the conversation told through the Echo Flowers) The game states that Echo Flowers repeat the last thing they heard over and over, and this conversation supposedly happened a long time ago, so the game wants me to believe that NOTHING ELSE could have happened in this section of Waterfall between the conversation happening and right now that would’ve either killed these Echo Flowers or, through other monsters traveling through here, muddled up the conversation so drastically that we wouldn’t be able to tell what it was originally about? …I guess so.

Undyne’s like the Bizarro Eagles from Lord of the Rings; she just shows up suddenly whenever the game needs some cheap tension.

The fact that a knight can’t catch a child.

We have taken some pretty serious liberties with physics in this game, but even in this universe I find it hard to believe that this old-, rickety-looking bridge can support a child and a person-sized fish in almost full armor at the same time.

The water from the water cooler being poured on Undyne will convince her that the kid is friendly AND get her to f*ck off, making it the most plot-convienient water cooler that ever existed!

(Mettaton barges through the wall in Alphys’s lab) It wouldn’t surprise me if Mettaton was in the next Avengers movie. Maybe he can take over for Hawkeye. F*ck Hawkeye.

Also, Mettaton is a dick to whoever built this lab.

No one will be seated during the Instant Noodles scene.

(Scenes of the ridiculous technology found in Hotland) Well, with this kind of evolution, it’s a wonder the Earth ever thought humans were necessary at all.

(Tsunderplane crashes and explodes) Look, I know we’re being total assholes, but…that sh*t’s funny right there. Removing one sin!

We never see how this bullsh*t contraption actually works, and based on what we’ve already seen and heard about the Core, I can safely assume it’s a geothermal plant, so why would it require technology more advanced than what’s used in human-made geothermal plants?

This dinner scene with Sans is just long enough for me to state that even though it’s only six hours long, this game had to PAD its runtime!

I think the ever-changing layout of the Core would interfere with its ability to generate electricity.

(Alphys says that both a human SOUL and a monster SOUL are required to pass through the barrier) Alphys withholds giving this very important information about the barrier to the human until they’re practically within arm’s reach of freedom, because…drama!

(Sans explains what EXP and LV are in this universe) How the sh*t does Sans know this? What makes him smarter than Papyrus and the other monsters? The Underground probably has some sort of educational inequality problem that can in no way be tied to socioeconomics or racial inequality because they’re f*cking monsters.

How is it possible that all the humans who died down here got to the exact same point before being killed?

Also, given all the other bullsh*t we’ve seen this kid go through, like the lack of sunlight and the probably nutrient-poor food, how is this kid not long dead, or at the very least not knocking on death’s door?

First the date with Papyrus, now the hangout with Undyne, it seems like this kid wants to follow the script more than they actually want to get out of this cave. Every single waking hour should be spent progressing toward that f*cking barrier, but no, they’re just blowing it off every chance they get.

Erm…did I miss anything? OK, I know I missed probably a lot of things, but what specifically did I miss?

#everything wrong with #undertale #it's a joke #cinemasins #nitpicking

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mergguest · 8 years ago

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Pre-election 2016

A sermon by Meredith Guest

Delivered to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Marin 10/9/16

Luke 6:27-36

For many years I had the great pleasure of being a teacher of 4th, 5th, and 6th graders in a little Montessori school. After the students were gone, while engaged in the Sisyphean task of checking papers, I would occasionally find a student’s answer to a math problem that was not just wrong, but made absolutely no sense. It’s as if I’d asked for the square of 6 and they’d given me the time of day. Now I will confess to you that sometimes my response to these students was not especially charitable. “Sweet Jesus,” I was known to exclaim, “I’d have an easier time teaching math to the class guinea pig!” But, save for with my colleagues, I kept these thoughts to myself. The next day, I’d call the student over to my desk and, in my most neutral voice, ask, “Uh, can you tell me how you got this answer?” And after studying the problem for a moment, the student would invariably explain how they got this completely wrong answer in a way so logical as to be downright brilliant – wrong, but brilliant.

Most of my friends are like you; they’re well educated, progressive, liberal thinking people. And most of them are apoplectic at the possibility that Donald Trump might be elected president. “What is wrong with these people?” they wail. “Are they just stupid?!” “Don’t they realize they’re choosing against their own self interests?!” And, for the most part, they do not keep these thoughts to themselves. Personally, I find it ironic that these mostly atheists are having a downright Old Testament experience: weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth. What we haven’t done, it seems to me, is stop, take the time and exert the energy to actually listen to Trump’s supporters, and if we did, I think we would find – as with my students – there is a kind of logic here.

This logic based on several things, and key to it is:

Insularity.

One of my sources for this talk is the book Deer Hunting With Jesus by Joe Bageant. I’ve also drawn from interviews with J.D. Vance about his book Hillbilly Elegy. I have not read Hillbilly Elegy but I highly recommend Deer Hunting with Jesus. Bageant grew up in a small town in Virginia. After high school he went off to college, became a successful journalist and lived from many years in New York City. When talking to his many liberal friends, he would often be asked why rural southerners so often voted in ways that were contrary to their self interests. Finally, toward the end of his career, he moved back to to his hometown to see if he could answer that question. Deer Hunting with Jesus is the result.

When Bageant interviews his old classmates, one of the things he discovers is that none of them knows a liberal. Their own thoughts, their own views and opinions are constantly being reflected back to them and little or nothing to the contrary has a chance to get through. Their lives and the milieu in which they live are insular.

But then, that’s not just true of conservatives.

In the 9/19/16 issue of the New Yorker, the author observes: “Fewer than 1 in 4 Americans ever talk with someone with whom they disagree politically; fewer than 1 in 5 have ever met with people holding views different from their own to solve a common problem.” To which he asks, “What kind of democracy is that?”

And social media, with a cheap, easy and convenient capability of bringing together diverse people and opinions, has only made the problem worse. I recently saw a FB post in which a person demanded, “Anyone voting for Trump, please unfriend me.” Pretty soon, we’ll all be living inside intellectual and ideological gated communities where the only people we talk to and hear from are those who think like us.

When I came out some 16 years ago, I expected it to be harder for Caleb, my son, since high school boys are arguably more homophobic than girls, but Lia, his younger sister, had her own times of difficult misgivings. It was hard for her, too, and years later, Lia reported that the most annoying thing she had to deal with was, once she revealed that her dad was transsexual, not only did she have to explain what that meant, but that then, she had to assure them that I did not dress like a hooker.

I tell that story to illustrate the power of the personal. In the abstract, to hear that Lia and Caleb’s dad dressed and lived her life as a woman was strange, to say the least. But once they got to know me, I wasn’t particularly strange. It’s by knowing one another we come to understand one another and while we may not agree, personal relationship is far better soil for the flowering of compassion than the concrete foundation of a gated community.

One of the best things about being a financial failure as an author is that it forced me out into the world. Had I been successful, I would have sequestered myself in my cozy little study and spent my days happily writing lies. Even in retirement I have to work, and so, at least 3 days a week, I substitute teach in schools all over Petaluma from grades 3-12. As a result, hundreds of children get to see a real, live, breathing transsexual who, unlike the ones they see in the media, is not rich, famous or sexy. And I make it a point whenever I can, to interact with the kids in their Mossy Oak camo sweatshirts; not because I want to change their minds about anything. I just want to get to know them; I think they matter; I care about them. They don’t always like me or warm up to me. They can be cruel, though usually not overtly. But this is what I can do. In many ways, it’s all I can do. Perhaps it is enough.

Insularity leads to:

Uncritical thinking.

Under the best of circumstances, even for well educated people, it is hard to be aware of and critical of our own presuppositions and the presuppositions of our group.

I remember on day saying to a little boy in my class, When you meet the right girl… Later, I thought to myself, how do you know he’s not gay? It’s so hard to see those heteronormative presuppositions. Once I did, whenever I had cause to say something similar, I would say, When you meet that special person… It was easy to fix, once I recognized the presupposition.

And what about the presupposition that all male babies grow up to be boys and men while females grow up to be girls and women. Clearly, that’s not true. I have a 7 month old grandchild, and what we know about my grandchild is that she’s female. It’s too early to tell whether she’s also a girl or not; but I hope so. Having a brain and a body at odds with one another is not something I would wish on anyone. I’m not suggesting we have to relinquish our presuppositions; I still speak of my granddaughter and refer to her with feminine pronouns. I just think it’s very important to be aware of them. Operating at the level of our unconscious, presuppositions can be damaging, even dangerous.

Being an educator, I’m especially aware of the presuppositions that guide so much of our thinking about school.

I once did a subbing gig in which I was the co-teacher in a high school English class. The teacher, a lovely, very caring person, was exhorting her students to bring the rough drafts of their essays to her at the tutorial period to have her critique them. “Why do you think you might want me to critique your writing?” she asked. After a moment, a boy ventured, “So we can get a better grade.” “That’s right,” she agreed, and it was everything I could do not to cry out, “No, it’s so you’ll become a better writer.” School is about education; it’s not about grades; it’s not about college; it’s not about what job you’re going to have and how much money you’re going to make once you get out. It’s about becoming educated. It’s about learning how to think, to reason, to question, to grow, to become a lifelong learner.

The poet, thinker and social prophet, Wendell Berry has said, “A powerful superstition of modern life is that people and conditions are improved inevitably by education.” (W. Berry, What Are People For, pg. 24) But that’s clearly not true. There are all sorts of successful people, some of whom have made tremendous contributions, who have not been well educated. Would they have inevitably been improved by education? I don’t think that’s a given.

One unfortunate, even dangerous, consequence of this superstition about education has led to the denigration of physical labor.

I recently saw one of those inspirational posters hanging on the wall of a middle school classroom. It began: “I can be…” then went on to list a slew of possible occupations that were colorfully inscribed on a black background in the shape of a light bulb, symbolizing, I assume, that these were occupations of the enlightened or occupations that would bring enlightenment – or both. Here’s a quick rundown of the occupations listed: software developer, doctor, meteorologist, airplane pilot, anthropologist, microbiologist, epidemiologist, astronaut, cartographer, network analyst, medical scientist, computer programmer, veterinarian, zoologist, geographer, archeologist, architect, conservation scientist and so on down to chemist. I found it ironic that nowhere on this classroom inspirational poster did I find the occupation of – teacher.

It makes me wonder if these educators ascribe to a philosophy I found in a Terry Pratchett novel. In the story, Death has decided he wants a new occupation; he’s just done with dealing with the dying and the dead, so he goes to a career counselor. After an extensive interview, the counselor says, “It would seem you have no useful skill or talent whatsoever. Have you ever thought of going into teaching?” Maybe they should hang that next to the “I can be…” poster.

Our life on this planet depends on 6 inches of topsoil and the occupation most directly involved with the stewardship of this vital resource, farming, is not, and will likely never be, on the list of things our students might aspire to. But the truth is, we could lose every occupation on that poster, and we’d still survive, but without 6 inches of topsoil, we’re just so many skeletons littering the face of the planet.

This kind of lazy liberalism that considers itself so enlightened as to have no unexamined presuppositions and certainly no superstitions is one of the things I like least about living in the Bay Area. And just like the unexamined presuppositions and superstitions held sacred by conservatives, ours are enabled, in part, by insularity and uncritical thinking.

Anger and a desire for revenge.

In Hillbilly Elegy Vance describes the Appalachian town in which he grew up. In the 70s and the 80s the industrial jobs began to disappear, jobs that made a middle class lifestyle possible to people with a high school education. Now the town is full of shuttered storefronts. More people die of suicide from drug overdoses than from natural causes, families are disintegrating, and single mothers raise the majority of children. Church attendance is at historic lows, high school graduation rates are dropping, and few students go on to college. There’s something “almost spiritual,” Vance says, “about the cynicism” in his hometown.

Who speaks for these people; who represents them; who cares about them? I’ve heard liberals say things about Trump supporters, they would never dream of saying about Muslims, or immigrants, or African Americans, even though many within those groups also hold views liberals find abhorrent. Since when did it become okay to demean poor, uneducated white people? Since when did they become fair game for our ridicule? And make no mistake, I am not innocent here.

You will likely recall when the North Carolina legislature passed the bill banning transgender people from using the bathroom that corresponds to their gender identity. When President Obama came out very publically against this bill and in support of transgender rights, he was applauded by rights’ groups, but I was suspicious. For one thing, it seemed out of character for this president who has been slow, almost timid, in taking sides on controversial issues. Also, North Carolina was already under tremendous economic pressure to repeal the legislation. It seemed to me the President’s public support merely hardened the resolve of the Right. Furthermore, what I was reading and seeing in the news about that time was that rural, white voters were beginning to sit up and take notice of the things Bernie Sanders was saying. Here was a Democrat and a liberal who was addressing the issues that mattered to small town people who had not that long ago been stalwart democrats. But when Obama, who they despise, threatened to cram transgender rights down their throats just like gay marriage had been crammed down their throats, this very effectively drove them back into the folds of the Republican party. This, I believe, was the intentional strategy of the Democratic establishment who, fearing a Sanders victory, decided Hillary wouldn’t need these voters to win, and so, rather than try to bring them back into the fold of the party, they wrote them off – again.

The poet Adrienne Rich has said, “When someone with the authority of a teacher describes the world and you are not in it, there is a moment of psychic disequilibrium, as if you looked into a mirror and saw nothing.” This quote used to apply to me and to others in the LGBT community. But not anymore. Now our faces are everywhere you look, while the faces of working class Americans are disappearing, rendering them anonymous and their lives invisible.

Nobody cares about them, about the rural communities they call home, about their traditions or their way of life. And nobody represents them, and they are angry and looking for revenge. That’s why whatever Trump says or does, however absurd, outlandish and mean, that sticks a finger in the eye of the elites who run the country, be they Democrat or Republican, the more they love him. In fact, you might say, through Trump the people who we don’t know, don’t like, and don’t agree with have slapped us in the face; and we have done everything but turn the other cheek. What do you suppose would happen if, rather than insult, malign, and demean, we did; we turned the other cheek?

I once had a child in my class with severe cerebral palsy. She was my student in 4th, 5th and 6th grades. Her name was Johanna and she was a wonderful student. One summer just before the beginning of school, Johanna’s mother recommended I meet with an occupational therapist who they had been seeing. I agreed, and in our meeting he asked me to describe the classroom and Johanna’s place in it. After I did, he looked at me and said, “This child’s not a member of your classroom. She’s little more than a fixture. No meaningful interaction happens between her and the other members of the class…” This was a “take no prisoners” kind of guy, but I listened to him and came up with a plan. I cleared it with the mother and soon after school began, the class did a group challenge. Privately I gave Johanna information that the class had to get from her without the assistance of her aid or any other adult. Only when they got this information would they be allowed to go to recess. It wasn’t easy, but they got the information, went to recess and after we did a few similar things, pretty soon I saw students interacting with her in ways they never had before.

It seems to me we, as a nation, have a similar group challenge. While the well educated, well connected and well endowed have enjoyed the fruits of the modern economy, Donald Trump has sounded a take-no-prisoners wake-up call for those with ears to hear and eyes to see that a whole group of others have been left behind. While technically part of the country, they are like the handicapped kid in the wheelchair who nobody ever talks to and everybody tries to ignore. But in this case, a lot more than recess is at stake.

So I want you to imagine, instead of a sweet, bright child with cerebral palsy in that wheelchair, picture a laid-off West Virginia coal miner who dropped out of high school, lives in a dilapidated trailer with his girlfriend, her 2 snotty nosed kids and a pit bull. He owns an AR15 assault rifle, drinks Bud light, and hates Obama.

And then, I want you to remember your first 2 principles: 1) The Inherent worth and dignity of every person; 2) Justice, equity and compassion in human relations – all human relations, both private and corporate.

And I want you to hold that picture next to those principles when we sing our closing hymn, “We’ll Build A Land.”

We’ll Build a Land

We’ll build a land where we bind up the broken.

We’ll build a land where the captives go free

Where the oil of gladness dissolves all mourning

Oh, we’ll build a promised land that can be.

Chorus: Come build a land where sisters and brothers

Anointed by God may then create peace

Where justice shall roll down like waters

And peace like an ever flowing stream.

We’ll build a land where we bring the good tidings to

All the afflicted and all those who mourn.

And we’ll give them garlands instead of ashes,

Oh we’ll build a land where peace is born.

Chorus

We’ll be a land building up ancient cities

Raising up devastations from old;

Restoring ruins of generations,

Oh, we’ll build a land of people so bold.

Chorus

Come build a land where the mantles of praises

Resound from spirits once faint and once weak;

Where the oaks of righteousness stand her people,

Oh, come build the land, my people, we seek.

Chorus

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