A friend of mine, JD Roth, tipped me to this (via Twitter) written by Chris Guillebeau and, having spent the whole night reading it, I thought that you might be interested in it.

I mean … you gotta love a fella who writes a 79 page manifesto, titles it “279 Days to Overnight Success” and then makes it available for free. Especially since he did an excellent job with it and could easily have charged for it. The truth is, he didn’t even put an advertisement in it. There’s nothing to get all clicky-clicky about.

I recommend that you get it.

It’s an excellent read, especially if you are the ‘artsy-fartsy’ sort of person (writer, artisan, etc) who would like to learn how to use the social media to your advantage. He convinced me to give Twitter a try and my readership on http://tinyurl.com/df97xy went through the roof. I got ~5 times as many hits as the national average for my category.

It actually took two nights. Weird.

I’ve been flailing away at this for almost two years and in 48 hours a single tip made a ton of difference. It might be that I’ve been laying the foundation for a couple of years, but without the extra bit of boost, I could never get it airborne. Right now, all three of my blogs are seeing numbers they’ve never seen before.

I actually didn’t spend the whole night reading it … I was doing other things, too. But now, I’m off to read his earlier work, entitled “a brief guide to world domination – how to live a remarkable life in a coventional world.”

I’ve just this afternoon been to see Riverdance at the Fox Theater in downtown Detroit. It has a couple more days to run here and then will move onward on this, it’s final tour of the United States. If you have the ability to attend, truly you must do so. Recently my wife and I went to see another widely respected dance troupe and there simply is no comparison.

Riverdance it is, hands down.

While Riverdance is focused on the Irish immigration experiences surrounding the Potato Famine of the mid 1800’s, it is not just about the Irish and it is in no sense maudlin. Yes, the famine was the catalyst for a number of other things (the deaths did not stop at the Irish border), but this show essentially ignores the famine itself and focuses on the journey, the resettling throughout Europe, Spain and North America. It links Baltic folk dancing, flamenco, American jazz tap and Irish step dancing into a common community of hardships shared – and overcome.

Riverdance. Coming to a venue near you (one last time). Experience it or regret it. Your choice.

This is the tenth in a series of ten posts. Hopefully by now you, my readers, will have contributed a number of others that I overlooked and we all can look forward to number eleven of ten!

1. Learn how to can and dry foods for later use. These are crucial skills, needed to take advantage of prices when foods are inexpensive for consumption later. Click here to read on, my friend.

(Isaiah 53:2) . . .And he will come up like a twig before one, and like a root out of waterless land. No stately form does he have, nor any splendor; and when we shall see him, there is not the appearance so that we should desire him. . .

From the scriptures, this is perhaps the best “look” we get at the physical Jesus.  We are told, in simple terms, that his was not an imposing figure. He was not taller than all about him. He was not the prettiest one in the crowd. He didn’t model for Greek sculpture when the carpenter business was slow.

The works of Antonio Ciseri, Anton Dorph and Carl Heinrich Bloch – quite unintentionally illustrate an important point.

Click here to read on, my friend.

(Not your normal) reflections on Exodus 7:7.

Moses was 80 years old when he was assigned to deliver the Israelites from slavery to the Egyptians. He had been raised as a scion of the royal house of Pharaoh. He had committed murder and nearly been caught. He had run away from justice followed by certain death to a foreign land, where he got a job wandering the hills as a sheep herder. In due time, he had married and raised children. Then he returned to Egypt and there, quite reluctantly, took on the role to which he had once eagerly aspired.

From this life course, and what was to follow, we learn certain basic lessons about serving Jehovah.

Strength, insight and ability to accomplish great things do not arise within us. They are not qualities that we can will into being. Rather, we are vessels which, if fit, God can put to service. (Fit = willing and ‘essentially’ righteous.) If not fit, He can bring us into a fit state if it suits his purpose. (Ex 2:11,12; 4:10-12) The essential ingredient that we bring is only a willingness to serve him out of love. That’s it, willingness born of love is all we put on the table. Everything else we have, including our current breath, is a gift from him. The very best we can do with these gifts is to “return them” in the sense of placing them at His service. But we have the same freedom of choice as regards the willingness and the love as Adam and Eve had.

Seniors are no less fit for a life of such service than infants are. Moses held the rod Jehovah had given him aloft all night as the whole of the Israelite nation passed in front of him. Try that sometime with just an empty hand for a single hour. If by some chance you can do this, put 4-5 pounds in your hand to simulate the weight of the rod, stand up and hold it aloft through the night. Now, how do you think an 80 year old man managed to do that? The only reasonable conclusion is that Moses did not rely on his own strength to hold that rod aloft. If Jehovah had not strengthened him, he could not have done it. But Jehovah DID strengthen him.

Others with physical impairments or other obstacles can also render great levels of sacred service to Jehovah. Moses was an 80 year old man who had spent most of the last 40 years looking at the wrong end of sheep. He probably could “baaaaa” with the best of them, but he wasn’t fluent in the language of the Egyptian court. Possibly his Hebrew was rusty, too. Baaaaa! Yet Jehovah did not let that become an obstacle. Fluency of tongue was not the reason Jehovah called on Moses and he didn’t allow its lack to be a hurdle in his appointment. (Those considering others for congregational appointments take note: “fluency from the stage” is not a requirement for appointment.) Their course of action is to offer themselves willingly, prepare spiritually and wait on Jehovah to charge them with an assignment.

Is our course of action any different? Are we any less suited to serve Jehovah in a big way than an 80 year old murderer, a son of privilege who had fallen from his lofty position only to spend 40 years of his life shuffling sheep from place to place while his mother, father, brother and sister all struggled under an increasingly tyrannical and brutal slavery? Or are we perhaps better suited than he?

Think very carefully before you respond.

When Moses killed the overseer, he was an arrogant, violent man, accustomed to wealth and imposing his will on others – by force, if necessary. When Jehovah used him though, Moses was the meekest among all men.

And that is when God chose to use him.

Now, answer the question again: Am I an honorable vessel, fit for use today, or am I something else, suited only for dishonorable purposes?

The first six chapters of Exodus chronicle a turbulent time in the history of the Jews. Joseph, their overarching protector, lies mummified and awaiting the journey to the Promised Land. (Ex 50:24,25) A new Pharaoh has arisen and, in a time of hope, there are only crushed expectations amid crushing burdens.

Unfamiliar with the heroic service Joseph had rendered to his predecessor (Ex 1:8), the new king took a look at the growing population of the Jews and rightly reasoned, from a false premise, that they could be dangerous to the nation of Egypt(*) (Ex 1:10) .

In a sense, the Jews in Egypt were the “green cards” of the day and their population within Egypt was growing like the Hispanic population of the US is on track to do.

The Egyptians trusted Pharaoh to make only right decisions … was he not a God?

No. Like every single one of today’s leaders, he is merely human … and not always the cream of the crop.

So, before we go running to close the border, to make things unduly hard on the Mexicans already present and expel such of those as we are able, we might want to reconsider the lesson Pharaoh learned there on the shores of the Red Sea when what was left of the might of Egypt came floating to the top of the foam.

We might also want to consider the lesson his army learned — about the wisdom of trusting in human leaders.

(*) Treated humanely, they could also have been a remarkable asset.

The Irish are known as generous charitable givers. This sometimes makes me feel, as an Irishman born in America, like I am letting the team down.

Here is what I am going to do about that. Click here to read on, my friend.

This is the ninth in a series of ten posts.

Most of us are considering the possibility that we may have to retrench our finances. For some, this goes unnoticed, just part of the ebb and flow of life. For others, it’s traumatic. Click here to read on, my friend.