I'm sorry, but I ordered the LARGE...

Sometimes people ask dumb questions.  Other times, it only seems dumb.

I was standing in line today waiting to get my new favorite lunch obsession when the woman next to me has this conversation with the cashier:

Woman:  "What's the difference between the large and the small?"

Cashier:  "One is bigger."

Woman: "Where is the rice?  I don't see it in the picture."

Cashier:  "It's hiding under the meat."

Woman:  "Well, the large seems big, so two people can eat that, right?"

Cashier:  "Well, I guess that depends on how hungry you are."

My face is a strange smirk listening to this, as I order my large platter (I am hungry).  I think this is the funniest thing I've heard all day.

Anyways, back at the office, it occurs to me just how large the 'large' really is.  And I start thinking, you know, in most other parts of the world, this really would be enough to serve two people.  Maybe even more.

Just to illustrate, I spent over two hours the other day in cycling 32 miles, at vigorous effort.  According to my calorimeter (I have one of them fancy bike computers that tell me this), I used up 808 calories.

This single large platter is 850 calories.  Meaning, I am now +42 calories, even after my workout.  (Yes, I know this isn't how this works, but you get my point.)

All of which reminds me of just how distorted our understanding of our "needs" versus our "wants" really are.  Our appetite (not just for food) is an incredibly subjective thing, prone to exaggerations, distortions, and rationalizations, that we are rarely--if ever--at a good enough place to be able to distinguish our "wants" from our "needs."  If we want something badly enough, it soon becomes a 'need' in our minds.

And yet there really are 'needs' out there that we can actually do something about.

Something to think about as we get ready for Christmas again.

Simple, Meaningful, Fun...

Bunch of us from church (a baker's dozen) volunteered last night to help out El Modena Community Center provide some 200+ turkey dinners to the community at their parking lot.  Thanks to Sun Yu's research on our community (more on this later), we found out that this very active community service organization was trying to put together an open community dinner.  And we volunteered to do the dessert, but were able to help out in several other ways as well.

300+ pieces of pie and 300+ awesome mini pumpkin cheesecakes were prepared (cheesecakes by Nadia. Couple of hours later, they were all gone!  On a nearly perfect California Fall evening, it was a simple, meaningful, and fun service opportunity.  Smiles all around, and I think pretty much everyone said to me "let's do this again soon!"

Great job to Jery, Ray, Deb, Sorina, Jong, Joshua, Madeleine, Marcus, Karyn, Mike, Alice & Nadia!

Thanks to Teresa at El Modena Center and the staff for letting us take part in this cool event!

85% Lean or 15% Fat?

Imagine you are given fifty dollars, and told you have to decide between two options.  In the first option, you can gamble all or nothing for the fifty, and you are told there is a 40 percent chance that you will keep the fifty, and a 60 percent change you will lose everything.  The second option is a sure thing -- trade the Ulysses Grant and you get to keep twenty dollars.
     What would you do?  Most people (62%) go for the safe bet, the sure thing.  Free money is free money, right?
     Now, let's do play the game again -- the game stays exactly the same, except instead of gaining twenty dollars, you are told you will lose thirty dollars.  What would you do?
     Well, reading this, you think, wait, that is exactly the same deal as the first one, why would things be different?  And you would be right.  Except that worded in this way, a significantly fewer people (42%) go for the sure money.  What happened?

This is what psychologists call the framing effect, a well-known characteristic of the human decision making process. It is what makes people much more likely to choose the ground beef labeled 85% lean over the one labeled 15% fat, or choose surgery when the doctor tells us there is 80% chance of recovery as opposed to 20% chance of death.  Retailers do this all the time by emphasizing your savings, versus looking at your spending.  This is why percent off coupons are so tempting, and yet so meaningless.  (All of this is from Jonah Lehrer's book How We Decide.)

Now, the reason why I bring this up...

We've been learning on Sundays about making plans, and choosing wisely. And the key, I think is to remember the correct framing for our decisions.

If our framework is that our future is only about what we do with our choices, that is a scary, risky perspective -- and our tendency will be to choose a more passive, conservative approach toward life.  Our range of choices will be limited by our fears.  We are doomed before we even start.

If on the other hand our framework for our decision-making is about guessing at ("divining") God's choices for us -- one specific, secret, choice that gets us to the end, kind of like a cosmic "choose your own adventure" book -- then you will forever be looking for "signs" rather than exercising/developing godly wisdom.

God wants us to be wise.  And stop looking for short-cuts.  Sometimes the short-cuts will come; but we don't get to demand it, not when wisdom will do.

Read Kevin DeYoung's clear and marvelously concise book on this subject.

100 Things Restaurant Staffers Should Never Do...

This New York Times article lists 100 things (well, 50 for now) that a good restaurant should never do.  Some of them are obvious--though often overlooked--such as:
1.  Do not let anyone enter the restaurant without a warm greeting (as opposed to the "why are you here?" look I sometimes get).

and

21. Never serve anything that looks runny, or creepy or wrong (duh! especially 'creepy').

Some items on the list are more subtle, like:
2. Do not make a singleton feel bad; do not ask "are you waiting for someone?" (although assuming that you are probably alone might not be good either).


and

6. Do not lead the witness with "Bottled water, or just tap?" Both are fine.  Remain neutral.  (And in particular, don't push that stupendously overpriced imported 'artesian' water -- the one that comes in a bottle that looks nicer than the vase I just bought at Mikasa.)

Two reasons for bringing this up.  First, because I think most of us have an opinion on this.  Try this with your friend-group; ask them if there is anything that waiters do that "drives them crazy."  I don't know why, and I don't know when it happened, but complaining about restaurant service has become an art.  I suppose this is because it is a not-so-subtle way of saying how sophisticated we are.

More on that at another time.  But the second why I bring this up is because I kinda feel like people go to  churches with lists very similar to this one...  I suppose some of this isn't a bad expectation to have (like being greeted warmly), but there is this 'I want great service' mentality that people have that might not be congruous with worship.  Churches bending over backwards to make people feel comfortable, 'be a guest' -- in some ways -- might not helpful in dislodging the mistaken understanding of what we are doing when we gather for worship.  (Hint: it's not about you; it about Him!)

Trust me, I want our church to be warm, friendly, inviting, non-exclusive, and do everything in reasonable means to make people feel genuinely welcomed.  But we ought to remember the difference between what makes for a good church and what makes for a good restaurant.

Why God Enjoys Baseball

I love this time of the year, especially this year (so far). Rooting for the Yankees (I grew up in New York, so they are simply my home team -- stop being such Yankee-haters!), fall is baseball time, and with the exception of last year, my chance to cheer for my team.

I love it when they slug it out, but I also love it when they play 'small-ball', the pitcher's duel, and managers play tactical chess-games of lefty-righty match-ups.

All this reminded me of a fantastic article/book on 'Why God Enjoys Baseball.'  I spoke last week about thinking of our work -- however mundane, however not-spiritual -- as opportunities to worship God.  Even our unredeemed activities, even our play, can be an expression of God's 'common grace.'  God delights in the excellence of His Creation.  This is why we root for heros, even though we don't know if they are Christian or not; this is why we admire acts of fair-play; this is why some movies move us in profound ways, because they speak of some deep, deep truth.

And this why God enjoys the present Yankees-Angels series, even though He might be rooting for both teams. Good baseball.  Good theology. (And please, no comments about how God has to be rooting for the 'angels.'  Not only was it a bad movie, its probably bad theology! - ;-))

Read more about this.
The book is a reference to Rich Mouw's He Shines in All That's Fair.

Like Icing on a Cake...

Okay, if anyone had any doubts about the perils of communication, check out this article on "Cakes Gone Wrong."

Funniest thing I read all day.

But more seriously, if a statement as specific as "please write on the cake 'Congratulations' as small as possible" is interpreted as "please write on the cake 'Congratulations as small as possible'"... well, you have to wonder how much of our everyday speech gets misheard.

Ever have someone get mad at you for something you never said?  Maybe you did.

Kinda emphasizes the need for grace in any meaningful communication, doesn't it?

Most People Think They Are Above Average...

Most of us walk around with the private (sometimes not-so-private) conceit that we are doing better than the average person. We are smarter, more objective, more disciplined, more self-reflective, more whatever than average. Ask any room full of people to guess their IQ, and unless it is some support group for depressed people, the result will always be higher than the 100--the statistical average by definition. Which begs the question, where are all the below average people hanging out?

This conceit/over-confidence is one of the reasons why writer Joseph Hallinan says we make mistakes.

Take for instance the success of the NutriSystem company. They sell low-calorie, prepackaged meals by mail to millions of subscribers who want to lose weight. Their stock went through a 233 percent growth in three years.

They advertise with the now well-known disclaimer "Results Not Typical" showing celebrities and regular people who lose something like 60 pounds... But the results are not typical! NutriSystem, it turns out, banks on not what people will do, but what people believe they will do. Turns out, most people think they're not typical. But if everyone is above average, then...

You get where I am going with this. We are easily self-deceived.

Read more from Why We Make Mistakes, by Joseph T. Hallinan.