Category Archives: Creativity

A series of posts to both inspire and provide an outlet for creativity

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4 Reasons to Recognize Milestones

Today we reached the end of an era in the Fletcher household…we’ve most likely seen our last minivan.

With the price of gas continuing to rocket upward we traded in ol’ blue for a used Honda Civic Hybrid.  The small car payment and a month’s gas will still cost us less than we were paying per month for gas in ol’ blue. I have to admit I’m kinda sad.

I’ve been thinking about random milestones all day.

Way back at the turn of the century, funny when you put it that way, I was working as the Director of eCommerce Marketing at Corporate Express. During my tenure in that position we saw a pretty cool milestone heading our direction. We knew, probably 4 weeks out, that we were going to hit our first million dollar sales day on our eCommerce site.

As the marketing director I wanted to recognize the efforts of everyone who had made the site a success as well as generate excitement and so we started a pool to see who could pick not only the right day, but closest to the right dollar amount.

Our final sales numbers from the previous day typically came in between 10 and noon and on the day we got the news that we’d hit the mark we went crazy. Most of us has seen the first day the site launched, bringing in I believe a total of five dollars, and here we were at a million dollars in a single day!

We sent announcements out to our field offices congratulating the sales folks and throughout headquarters lauding the team that had built and maintained the site. By 3:30 it was time to really celebrate so I invited the entire eCommerce team to happy hour. Several VP’s came over to join in the fun and the CEO even came by for a beer and some congratulatory words.

As a corporate leader I learned the importance of recognizing milestones that day.

1. It honors accomplishment
Our guys were beaming that day from the newest support person to the senior most developer. They knew and understood anew that their work had created significant value for the organization.

2. It measures success
Milestones are stakes in the ground that are tangible measure of success, a goal line crossed. It’s one thing to say, “good job”. It’s another thing to have a measure of just how good.

3. It shows engagement
For a leader to pause and recognize a significant milestone shows that they’re engaged in the business and the efforts of their people. Celebrating even in small ways says more than just “attaboy” it says, “we’re in this together.”

4. It inspires effort
We hadn’t finished even the first round of libations before people were asking when we’d hit a 2 million dollar day. We didn’t dwell there, but we had already started setting our sites on what it would take to get to the next level.

Whether you’re running an organization, leading a family, or building customer loyalty recognizing milestones along the way helps inspire your people to follow your lead and strive for the next level.

What milestones do you have on the horizon? How do you think they ought to be celebrated and, more importantly, with whom?

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New from Apple: An app, a bundle, and a cool device

Having grown up in the San Francisco Bay area it stands to reason I have friends at Apple. Every so often I get a sneak peak at what’s “coming soon”.  Forget iPhone 5 or iPad 3 this stuff in the iLife series is cool!

Ever found yourself in a conversation struggling to find a way to connect? Never again. This cool little app will prop up your social skills in a heart beat. iKnow,Right? listens in on the conversation then it quickly parses the language for content, tone, and emotion. Within seconds your iPhone prompts you with statistics, photos, video…even your own stored stories…that have relevance to the conversation.

  • Green bars mean a great connection – you can jump right in: “I know, right? Just like this one time…!”
  • Yellow is iffy – a little riskier: “I know, right? I think I heard a song that was almost like that.”
  • Red is high risk: Your app found something you can use but you’d better push the button to save it for next time! “I know, right? I wish there was a video like that!”

Features include:

  • OneTouch saving
  • iNtellistory – save your own anecdotes in easy to retrieve format
  • Multiple search engine access
  • Instant connection to iTunes

Sound knowledgeable, come off savvy, and climb the social ladder!

Next up this little bundle of joy. With so many couples finding each other over the internet these days the iDo is the perfect way to tie the knot.

The perfect bundle of hardware and software that’ll make your special day memorable….and portable to anywhere!

The iDo bundle includes an iPad preloaded with:

  • 500 customizable invitation templates to choose from
  • marriage licenses from all 50 states
  • an interactive officiant*
  • 250 song reception play list
  • and much more

Of course the bride and groom each get their own His and Her iPhones. And for your wedding party? Eight iPod Shuffles in a bouquet of colors for attendants or family.

* Officiant application licensed in Colorado. Colorado State law allows any person to perform a wedding ceremony, not just clergy or judicial officers. This means you can meet online and get married on line as well!! An in app purchase option even allows you to select from over 100 celebrity voices!

Don’t get stuck depending on a location or a preacher to do your wedding. Take it on the road with iDo!

But if you’re still out there playing the field and you’re not yet ready to settle down then perhaps you need this cool device. Don’t be fooled, iGlasses aren’t exactly what you’d expect.

Imagine you’re out on the town with your compadres and you’ve ingested a few more beverages than is good for promoting sound judgment. As closing time rolls around you may or may not know it but you’re wearing a full fledged pair of beer goggles.  iGlasses to the rescue!

The sweet piece of hardware is designed to work with your iPhone. Simply plug it in and put ’em on. The inside of the lenses are coated in photosensitive retina scanning film that allows the device to quickly register literally thousands of micro expressions. Sensors in the temple capture heart rate, skin temperature change, and nerve conductivity. The result is an accurate assessment of your interest level!

The pay off? Leveraging FaceTime technology your phone displays both the person you’re looking at (in the small window) and the person you THINK you’re looking at (in the big window) based on your level of interest. This gives your wing man the chance to step in and save you from yourself! The picture is even saved on your phone as proof, just in case your buddies let you down!

No worries ladies there is a version for you too! (Although an anonymous source inside Apple confesses that the ladies version won’t sell as well. It seems ladies are less apt to wear beer goggles in the first place.)

Apple doesn’t expect consumers to jump on these too quickly though they do believe there is a HUGE market for bars and clubs to have multiple pairs on hand as rentals. Expect to see these popping up at a watering hole near you.

Features Include:

  • MicroScan technology
  • Image capture
  • Warning alerts with sound
  • Icon alerts as to whether you’ve got their phone number already
  • Also available soon as iGlasses FS (flying solo) with more sound based alerting, multiple frame options, and wireless connectivity

“Which is clearer, number one…or number two…one…or two…” iGlasses

Obviously any similarity between these Apples releases and actual products is purely coincidental. I just needed something to stir up the creative juices.

What fanciful iCreation do you have in mind? What would you ask them to create in the iSeries?

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3 Keys to Unlocking Creative Energy

Image created using Bryce and PhotoshopI confess I am a deadline guy. Looming deadlines seem to spur the creative juices.

I hate it.

Why you may ask? Because I generally look at what I create just in time to meet the deadline and come up with a hundred ways it could be better. If I had finished it sooner I could have made the fixes!!

Truth be told different folks have different methods for getting the creative juices flowing but I believe there are three keys that pretty consistently serve to unlock the valve, if not the floodgates.

Key #1: Emotion
There are studies that show a direct correlation between positive emotion and creative problem solving. This is no surprise. When we’re happy the world and possibility seem to expand, it’s all big and bold and good.

Interestingly the same studies show a direct correlation between negative emotions and focus. This is no surprise either. When things are going downhill quickly, like when our lives are threatened, a heightened sense of focus comes in handy.

So which emotional state is best?

I land on anything that is deeply felt that does NOT instantly create a fight or flight response. Fear and anger, both negative emotions, generally produce flight or fight responses but deep sorrow or longing, also potentially “negative” emotions tend to produce reflection.

Anything that you feel deeply that doesn’t make you want to instantly sprint or destroy is an emotional state that can unlock the door to creative endeavor.

Key #2: Motivation
My love hate relationship with deadlines is a motivation thing. That extra blast of “have to” helps get me going even if I haven’t had a solid idea working prior to crunch time.  For a lot of folks who claim to have trouble “being creative” the problem is not creativity but motivation. Ask yourself ‘why?’ Why is it that I am trying to create something here?

Ask me to come up with a commercial jingle for toothpaste as an assignment for a class and I’ll deliver something passably good. Ask me to write one to win my kid a college scholarship and I’m primed to go. EVEN IF THE EFFORT I PUT IN IS THE SAME!

If I sit down to write a blog post because it is Tuesday and I need something for Wednesday morning that’s low motivation.  If I sit down to write a blog post that I think will get re-posted and think about how it might help the folks who regularly read my blog the motivation is at an even higher level. If I believe I’ve come across a unique perspective that is a game changer the motivation goes through the roof. Don’t take your motivation for granted, ask yourself why.

Effort counts, don’t get me wrong, but checking your motivation and getting THAT right helps the juices flow.

Key #3: Path
A lot of folks have a creative process…which feels like an oxymoron to me…or a place where they create. Those processes and places become part of a path to delivering the goods. But lets take an example from physical exercise. Studies show that over time your body gets used to the same types of exercise and thus your return diminishes.

The places and processes that form our paths can also become hindrances over time. Sometimes we need a different perspective, we need to take a different route, perhaps change our surroundings just to shake things up a bit.

Starting out down a different path leads to new discoveries which become the fodder for creative inspiration.

Emotion and Path are usually pretty self evident but how do you handle the Motivation question?

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5 Rules that Build Creativity

 

Yeah, yeah, I know. You’re one of those people who think creativity exists “outside” the rules. “So”, you ask,” how can there be ‘rules’ that build creativity?”

Since I could probably write a couple weeks worth of responses to that one silly question I’ll settle instead for just giving you the rules and let you sort it out for yourself.

Rule 1: Stop Forgetting
You were “created in the image” of God. You remember God? The CREATOR? That means you ARE creative BY NATURE. It’s funny how creative a room full of four and five year olds can be. Creativity doesn’t start being forgotten until later in grade school when the strong desire to “fit in” takes over.

So Rule 1 is: stop forgetting that you ARE creative and always have been.

Rule 2: Stop Criticizing
Once the desire to fit in kicks in the inner critic shows up. The inner critc shuts down ideas before they get anywhere. The inner critic tells you you’re not (full in the blank) enough.  Shoot that dude. The inner critic kills ideas at the idea stage. Learn to muzzle him.

So Rule 2 is: stop the inner critic. Sometimes the best ideas grow out of a chain of bad ones that you just run with.

Rule 3: Stop Comparing
I find it interesting that we label a whole group of people as “creatives”. What does that mean? Bill Gates is creative but would he be labeled A creative? Does the title refer solely to people who make a living at pursuing artistic endeavors?

I’ve known some people who have creative positions who aren’t.

The trouble with the label is that it segments people. Now the whole “fit in” thing is applied to a non-creative category of people who aren’t “creatives”

So Rule 3 is: Stop comparing and labeling yourself.

Rule 4: Stop Hesitating
Your brain is insanely fast. Generate enough ideas and you’re bound to find a good one. Too often the inner critic stops the flow. Fast and furious free association is a great way to generate ideas. Don’t try to get the final thing all at once, lets the bits flow, sort through them and pick the ripest ones.

So Rule 4 is: Let the ideas roll, even the bad ones.

Rule 5: START
Being creative doesn’t mean learning to paint, or write music, or sculpt. It really just means doing something in a new enough way that it catches someones attention. THAT CAN BE ANYTHING! It can be the way you hang tools in the garage. It can be the way you dress. It can be the way you schedule. Find something you have a passion for and start there.

So Rule 5 is: Pick someplace you’re comfortable, think creative expression, and start there.

As someone who is often labeled as creative but who doesn’t make a living as a creative I really enjoy helping people who are either labeled as non-creatives or who make a living as something others than a creative re-discover that they are in fact creative.  🙂

Exercise:
1. Picture your inner critic as a person. They do NOT look like you because you ARE creative. So what do they look like? In detail.
2. Your inner critic needs to be subdued. Based on the detailed description you created of this villain what creative method will you use to dispose of them?
3. What are some of your favorite activities? Incorporate one of them into your method for stifling the critic.

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3 Ingredients that Help Leaders Innovate

I’ve been fortunate throughout the majority of my career in that I have been consistently asked to innovate.

Whether I’ve been in operational roles and redesigning process, technical roles and delivering new solutions, or serving as CTO and re-branding entire companies I’ve had the opportunity to bring innovation, change, and new goodies to the table.

Unfortunately for a lot of people when they think of the word “innovator” they see a picture of Steve Jobs in their minds eye and resign themselves to thinking they could never be THAT good. (Hint: Steve probably wouldn’t have thought that way.) But the truth is that EVERYONE in a leadership position has the opportunity to be an innovator.

That doesn’t mean everyone has the skill set developed, or the desire, or maybe the need but every leader does have the opportunity to innovate, it’s part of the nature of leadership. So if opportunity IS knocking at your door let me suggest three ingredients that every innovator has to have in order to bring out the mad scientist.

1. A desire to break things
When I was about 5 my dad and I built a model helicopter, one of those plastic model kits that requires that stringy, smelly, Testors model glue. As soon as it was dry I broke it into pieces. I think in part to see if I could get it back to its original state and in part because I’d had fun putting it together with my dad. Needless to say he wasn’t as excited by my actions as I was.

Throughout most all of my life I’ve been taking apart stuff that has been labeled “I dunno, it just doesn’t work”: An old electronic vibrating football game, a car cassette player, (remember those?), a camera. If they didn’t work then there was no harm in taking them apart but if I DIDN’T take them apart there was no chance they’d work.

An innovator is someone who is willing to break something that isn’t working in order to make it work. (AND sometimes they’re even willing to break stuff that isn’t working as well as it should)

2. A desire to indulge dreams
How often have you said to yourself, “If only we could…” or “I wish there was a way to…” ? Innovators are the people that see inspiration in those statements. Non-innovators sigh deeply, shrug those ideas off and get back to the pile on their desk.

Innovators find sustenance in those kind of questions, blow out the wildest answers they can find, tear them down and build them back up again. They allow their minds to race ahead of their inner critic as though it were death on their heels.

As my younger brother, who actually IS a rocket scientist by education, used to say, “hey, define the limits…and start there.”

An innovator is someone who chases after their dreams to see where they lead.

3. A desire to make time
Innovators often run the risk of appearing to be lazy. If you come by my office and I’m leaning back in may chair with my feet are up on the desk I’m not sleeping. I’m imagining. (I sleep with my chin tucked to my chest facing my computer screen, it looks like deep thought.)

Th trick is that you don’t innovate in your spare time, unless inspiration hits you out of the blue. Spare time is your down time. You innovate on work time which means you have to have time in your work schedule to dream. If you don’t have time in your work schedule to dream as a leader…IT’S NOT WORKING. Break it apart and fix it.

An innovator is someone who make sure they have time in the schedule to dream.

Creativity, ideation, strategy, they’re all nice, but without the desire to break things, the desire to indulge dreams and the desire to make time you run the risk of merely creating prettier sameness.

What are some of the places you need to take a look at how you do business today and break it apart?

 

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Your Family Photo Album Meets Harry Potter: This is SO Cool!

Meet the Fletchers

First up my son Nathan. Apprently he is too busy to be bothered at the moment. His picture was created using a technique that was developed, as far as I can’t tell, by Jamie Beck and Kevin Burg. It is a form of animated GIF called a cinemagraph. A good friend of mine in Ukraine, who is constantly forwarding cool links from the web my way, turned me on to these Saturday morning and they have consumed my weekend.

Now, before you go thinking you couldn’t do this let me tell you that all the software I used to create this picture, and the ones below, is available “free”. Ok, mostly, I downloaded a 30 trial version of Photoshop CS5 which IS free…but only for 28 more days. I’ll provide links below as well as links to the tutorials I used to help me figure this out.

I won’t recreate a full tutorial here but in general the process of creating these involves taking a short video and importing the video into Photoshop as frames, which is a one click operation. Next you choose a single frame to use as your still image and decide which parts of the picture you’d like to have move.

For this picture of my wife Libby I originally had the tree moving in the background but it was too distracting. I decided to just allow the breeze to tousle her hair, a much nicer effect I think.

In this picture of my daughter Caelyn it is easy to tell that the animation goes out and back, much like in Nate’s picture. The trick here was deciding how much of her head should be allowed to move. We got some pretty freaky results midway through with her head stretching in odd ways!

With Ian I wanted to try something subtle but with a cyclical motion so it wouldn’t have the bounce back and forth effect as seen in a couple of the others. This one is the smallest file size, has the fewest frames, and took the longest to create. Getting the masking just right on this was the hard part. You gotta wonder how long he’ll go before his glasses are clean.

These really reminded me of the moving pictures in the Harry Potter movies. My family has been laughing at me all weekend because I have been coming up with crazier and crazier ideas on what to make these picture do. But imagine if you could create an entire family photo album like this, how fun would that be to show your friends?

Of course you’re now probably thinking, “Ok Fletch, nice widget, have fun.” But I am telling you that with a minimum of Photoshop knowledge, or just the ability to read tutorials on line really, you could create these from some of your own videos in less time than it takes to go out to lunch. SO… here’s what I used:

I know it sounds like a lot of work but it took me longer to download and install the trial of Photoshop than it did to create the first Cinemagraph of Nate and the results can be really rewarding, well worth the effort.

When you get into it you get tempted to start thinking of story like reveals (like winning at cards) but then you use a LOT of frames and your files get pretty big, TOO big to upload on WordPress!

Hope you enjoyed meeting my people. They’re quite cool themselves, though I may be out of the house by the end of the week if I don’t stop hounding them to take 10 second videos!

This technique is relatively new still. Since it is pretty portable to the web and mobile devices what type of application comes to mind when brainstorming how to use these in your business or ministry?

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Are you in the right job?

There is a question that I ask everyone who reports to me at one time or another: If you could do anything in the world to make a living, no limitations or restrictions, you could be older, younger, live in the past, live in the future, what would you do?

Would it surprise you to know that fewer than 2% of the people I ask that question ever answer with the job they’re in?  To be fair I don’t know that I have yet answered that way either.  Let’s quadruple my experience though. Let’s guess that 8% of the people you know are in the job that is their perfect fit. Really?!? 8%? That’s horrible. How is it that so few people are really in a job that is what they’d think of as a perfect fit?

The job we land in is typically dictated by a significant number of factors: pay, location, schedule, opportunity for advancement, experiential fit, prestige. If we’re lucky a few of those factors come together and land near what we’d call our perfect job.

I think the trouble, for most of us, is that we never actually interrogate our answer to the question, if you could do anything what would you do? Why never actually ask ourselves why?

For years my answer to that question was that I would either play professional football or act. I played football all the way through college, even a season after college, loved it, miss playing, but I’m way too old now…even by Brett Favre standards. I’ve done some local acting around the edges. Loved it. But I have a family to support and there aren’t a ton of high paying acting gigs in Colorado Springs.

So I guess I’m stuck right? Wrong.

You see when I finally took the time to ask myself why I would pick one of those two professions, and did a little digging, I realized that what those two options had in common was what I call spectacle. They each are imbued  with opportunity to take people out of the course of daily routine and provide them with an emotional experience that is outside their norm.  I LOVE being able to create those moments for people.

For me the word “spectacle” encompasses what I want to be involved in creating. Now, here’s the interesting bit, the rest of that job stuff? Title, location, particular company, prestige etc. etc. all starts to take a back seat. Pay is still important because I have a wife and three kids after all, but as long as what I do has an element of spectacle to it I’m good to go!

So in order to figure out if YOU are in the right job you need to explore the answer to three questions:

  1. If you could do anything to make a living, no restrictions, (the age excuse on football falls out here), what would you do?
  2. What are the elements of your answer to #1 that most inspire you, in other words, why did you pick that?
  3. How much of your answer to #2 is present in your current job?

To be fair you may need someone to help you dig a bit. By way of example my little brother hated question #1, got tired of people asking him about his passion.  He just knew he wasn’t happy in his job and would rather be “doing adventures”.  But you can’t support a family just doing adventures so he’d given up.  Would it surprise you to learn that with some probing and digging we landed on corporate tax accounting as a potential career change? On the surface that seems CRAZY, but once we’d answered the “why” and found the elements he was after HE even agreed that it sounded cool.

Put titles and labels aside. Ask yourself the questions. Get someone to help you dig for the real “why” and you may surprise yourself with where you land.

Are you in the right job? Why do you think you just answered the way you did?

 

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Five Suggestions for 2012

New Years is typically a weird deal for me. On the one hand it IS the start of a new year, but on the other hand…it isn’t. It is the middle of the school year and the end of the football year, or used to be until they extended the football year to make more money. Which reminds me, it IS the start of a new fiscal year, at least for the average Joe, so maybe that’s enough to swing the scales.

If I’m being transparent I didn’t like 2011, it wasn’t one of my better years. So I’m glad to start a new year. I’m hoping that 2012 will be better though if the Mayans are right we won’t get to see it to the end. That being said I’d like to offer five suggestions for 2012. Five ideas that might help you see thing from a different perspective. (It was originally twelve but I didn’t think you’d read that many!)

1. Listen with the intent to understand.
Years ago I heard an African-American pastor give a great illustration of the difference between the black church and the white church. “In the white church”, he said, “Mrs. Johnson is listening to see if she hears anything with which she disagrees. She is there to confirm and defend her position. But in the black church Mrs. Jefferson is listening for anything she can agree with and jumps in with a big AMEN when she does!”

Too often we listen to people in order to find the flaw in their argument. Try listening more to understand their perspective, from THEIR perspective, rather than from your interpretation of it.

2. Read at least three classics.
These are the books that have stood the test of time for a reason. Amongst the more modern authors I read last year I also tossed in some Jules Verne, Robert Lewis Stevenson, Jane Austen, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, and Herman Melville. GREAT STUFF.

Great storytellers help us understand our own story a little better. How would Twain write your life versus Verne? You’ll never know unless you read them.

3. Stop saying: “If I’m being honest…”
I hate it when people use that phrase. It suggests that they aren’t typically honest but NOW they will be. “Most of the time I just snow you with flattering BS but if I’m being honest blah, blah, blah” STOP SAYING IT!

A few years back I switched to “If I’m being transparent…” It suggests that I may not always divulge everything but in this case I will…honestly.

4. Take real interest in the everyday people around you.
Almost every time I am at a sit-down restaurant I find myself in the same routine: “Hi folks. My name is (fill in the blank) and I’ll be taking care of you today. How are we doing today?” I reply typically in the positive and then ask, “And how are you doing?”

Now, it doesn’t matter where I am really the answer back is always: “Great. Can I get you guys something to drink to start off?”

So I stop them right there and ask, “Are you really great or is that just the customer service answer?” Looks snarky in print I know but you’d be surprised at the reactions you get when you do this. If you watch closely, most of the time, you’ll see the mask come down. Sometimes they’ll even offer to be honest.

I could tell a number of stories where just asking this question has spawned good, honest, real conversation. You’d be surprised how easy it is to make someones day a lot brighter just by taking interest in them.

5. Laugh more, even if for no reason.
I’ve discovered that when I run long distances I get tired, and sore, and out of breath. No really, its true. So when all that negative energy starts flowing I choose to laugh. Not at anything in particular, other than the tiredness, and the breathlessness and the soreness. I just laugh. It’s like a shot of mental fuel.

Funny thing is it works when I’m not running too. When things get tense, or stressful I just pause long enough to see where I’m headed…and laugh.

It’s been said that laughter is the best medicine. I think that is a mistranslation of the original language. It should read: Laughter is the best drug, subtle but important difference. Try laughing at odd times in odd places and see what happens.

One last thought? Do NOT make these”resolutions”.  Resolutions, take too much effort, too much scheduling and rarely if ever do they turn into habits. Just try these on for size and see if the people around you don’t notice a difference.

Got one you’d add? Please share with the class!

Author’s note: The photo above is of an architectural detail on Westminster Cathedral in London that is really no bigger than about the size of a soccer ball. I’ve always loved the picture and loved it even more for the different perspective that happens when I added my kids into the shot.  For me 2012 will be about exploring, and providing, different perspectives. I hope you’ll come along for the ride.

 

 

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A salute to winter

I confess I do not enjoy winter. I am definitely a summer person. That being said, there are those rare winter days when it all comes together. This is a salute to THOSE days.

Dawn Patrol

The sun rode low in the eastern sky and chased the midnight blue
He rousted, climbing slowly up to start the day anew
He fired the horizon’s edge and woke a billion gems
White diamonds blazing brilliantly like royal diadems
 
The air was crisp and shimmering as if but freshly born
A whisper would be heard for miles on such a winter’s morn
When out into this wonderland we would be heroes came
Our voices hushed in reverence we faced the morning flame
 
Our noses beamed a frozen red and red shone each ones cheeks
And yet we paid no heed for we had watched for this for weeks
As hounds who leap at a foxes scent we quick took up the trail
With heads bent low we forged ahead through winter’s deep travail
 
Our breath like locomotive steam ensconced our heads in mist
Each icy inhalation brought my lips a frozen kiss
Disdaining words we would not taint the morning’s holy glow
We summited the peak and found our quarry down below
 
Eluding us all summer, deftly dodging through the fall
The wily foe below us would soon kneel as our thrall
We glanced at one another, to the heavens gave a nod
Then grimly smiled solemnly like frozen mountain gods
 
My heartbeat quickened feverishly as we prepared our gear
The time had come for which we three had longed almost a year
With practiced skill we took our aim, as one we three let fly
With gaping mouths we loosed our hot and steaming battle cry
 
Adrenaline swelled my throbbing veins as down the hill we flew
I laughed aside the chilling blades that towards our faces blew
We hit the ramp at fatal speed, into the air we dashed
A pillowed landing far below, the blinding powder splashed
 
And in that instant we were kings, brave conquerors we three
For we had braved perdition’s hill and flown amongst the trees
We sat there proud and laughed aloud, bold monarchs on our thrones
And praised the builders of those chairs, Goodyear and Firestone.
 
COF
 
 What is your fondest childhood winter memory?
 
 
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Christmas in Three Acts – Act 3: Herod

The third of three Christmas season monologues. This one once again uses the on stage screen to display the lines of a second character thus putting the audience members in the place of that character.

For Herod I used an accent similar to something generically middle eastern. Pick almost any local character from any film about the crusades.

Feel free to use any of these monologues as you have need! Merry Christmas.

<Graphic on screen:” Your Highness?”>

<reading from an imaginary scroll, holding up a hand> A moment…<putting down the scroll> Yes Shimri, what news of the easterners?

<Graphic on screen: ” Forgive me your highness but…they have left the kingdom”>

 <frowning> My instructions were clear were they not? Did I not tell them to find this child and report back to me? Were they not shown the courtesy of MY palace coming begging at my door looking for this ….how did they put it…he who was to be born king of the Jews? They defy me in my own kingdom, seeking their would be usurper?

<growing angry> King of the jews?!?! I am Herod…THE GREAT.

<losing it> I am king of the Jews!!!!!

<pacing, growing slowly cold and calculating>

 <Graphic on screen: “Yes, my king.”>

They claim to have seen signs these…astrologers…and yet my own wise-men do not deny that it may be so. Whether or not it is true there will be others who will follow after these three, others who share their …belief. And then what will happen? If they were to somehow manage to bring their belief to bare fruit, where would we be then? Unrest? Rebellion? Death? And where would that lead, an upstart king who has no knowledge of the delicate balance we must maintain with Rome. No, no…not that. I must protect my people. I must protect my throne…MY throne.

<paces a moment more then pauses as though struck by an idea>

 Shimri, you are a scribe and I see you carry your scrolls with you today. Good, good…read to me the passage concerning Pharaoh and the Hebrew mid-wives, I believe you know the one.

<Graphic on screen: ” The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, “When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live.” But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live.” >

<listening, then holding up a hand>

 You see Shimri we shall not make the same mistake. If this usurper is to be a king, then it stands to reason it is a male child. But we shall entrust this duty to soldiers, not to simple midwives. As it is written…so shall it be done.

<Curtain>

Herod’s perspective on the birth of Jesus was obviously self centered and self serving, something we can all to easily fall into ourselves. Picking him as the third of the three characters was the choice of the pastor doing the teaching but it made for an interesting change in perspective from the traditional conversations about the nativity.

How might looking at Christmas through someone else’s point of view help you clarify your own?