Here are some illustrations I use for public speaking, writing, research or preaching. I have attempted to give credit where credit is due. This is my private database for my use only. Not intended for publication as some of this information is protected by copyright. – DW
“How to clarify a concept you can’t articulate: 1. Change mediums. Draw it. Photograph it. Sing it.2. Change levels. Explain what is one level up (bigger picture) or one level down (finer details).3. Change fields. What would this concept look like in different fields?” That’s how we talk about the trinity – sing it.
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Painter and visual artist Chuck Close on inspiration: “The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt […]
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Tags: inspiration, work
“I think about decisions in three ways: hats, haircuts, and tattoos. Most decisions are like hats. Try one and if you don’t like it, put it back and try another. The cost of a mistake is low, so move quickly and try a bunch of hats. Some decisions are like haircuts. You can fix a […]
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Tags: decision making, wisdom
…it is not the mere fear of punishment that restrains him from sin. Loving and revering God as his father, honouring and obeying him as his master, although there were no hell, he would revolt at the very idea of offending him. Calvin, J. (1997). Institutes of the Christian religion. Logos
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Tags: John Calvin, love for God
Quote of the Day “The secret to enjoying your job is to have a hobby that’s even worse.” — Bill Watterson, “Calvin and Hobbes” (April 5, 2015)
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C. S. Lewis noted that the one prayer that God almost never grants is “encore.” Lewis wrote that our nostalgia for the “golden moments in the past” can be nourishing and sustaining, as long as we see them for what they are—memories, not blueprints. “Properly bedded down in a past which we do not miserably […]
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From Calvin Miller… People are unreasonable,illogical and self-centered.Love them anyway. If you do good, people willaccuse you of ulterior motives.Do good anyway. If you are successful, you winfalse friends and true enemies.Succeed anyway. The good you do todaywill be forgotten tomorrow.Do good anyway. Honesty and franknessmake you vulnerable.Be honest and frank anyway. What you spend […]
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“It’s hard to save poor early decisions with good late decisions. It’s hard to write a best-selling book if you chose an unpopular topic. It’s hard to build a happy marriage if you married an unhappy person. It’s hard to make money in real estate if you overpaid at the beginning. Certainly, things can be […]
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Tags: decision making, quitting
“Moral communities are fragile things, hard to build and easy to destroy,” the psychologist Jonathan Haidt writes in The Righteous Mind. When you are raised in a culture without ethical structure, you become internally fragile. You have no moral compass to give you direction, no permanent ideals to which you can swear ultimate allegiance. “He […]
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Sometimes the first move is the most important. The first set in the gym. Now you’re working out. The first sentence. Now you’re writing. The first call. Now you’re in the game. Other times, the last move is the most important. The last brick. Now the building is built. The last line of code. Now […]
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Tags: productivity, time management