{"id":4941,"date":"2025-10-07T09:05:04","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T13:05:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/?p=4941"},"modified":"2025-10-07T09:05:04","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T13:05:04","slug":"the-old-and-the-new","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/07\/the-old-and-the-new\/","title":{"rendered":"The Old and the New"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>

It\u2019s not an exaggeration to say that Raymond Loewy invented American style.

Most Americans have never even heard of the most influential industrial designer of the past 100 years.

But all of us recognize his touch.\u00a0

He designed the iconic Coca-Cola fountain, the Lucky Strike package, the logos of Exxon, Shell, and the US Postal Service, the shape of the office pencil sharpener, the curve of the Greyhound bus, and the contours of countless planes, trains, and automobiles.

When Loewy first visited New York City in 1919, he felt depressed.\u00a0The \u201cworld\u2019s greatest city\u201d looked grungy, gray, and crude.

Here were these marvelous new toys of the industrial age \u2013 boats, trollies, ferries and the like \u2013 but they all looked uniformly old.<\/em>

In his book Hit Makers<\/em>, Derek Thompson reports that Loewy had a captivating vision of the shape of things to come.\u00a0He approached the Pennsylvania Railroad, hat in hand, and asked for the chance to redesign their locomotives.\u00a0

Loewy was told, \u201cIf, first of all, you can come up with a better way to get rid of the trash in Penn Station, you\u2019re on.\u201d\u00a0

His rubbish removal program succeeded brilliantly. Loewy now had a shot. He promptly \u201cthrew a coat\u201d over the locomotive \u2013 a single, smooth, bullet-shaped skin that suddenly made trains look cool.

He did the same with cars.\u00a0Up to that point, automobiles had been presented as boxy, mechanical stagecoaches with engines.

Inspired by what he thought was nature\u2019s perfect shape \u2013 the egg \u2013 Loewy gave cars a \u201cforward lean.\u201d\u00a0The long, angular look of the Studebaker coupe \u2013 which appeared to be hurtling into the future even while sitting in your driveway \u2013 remains one of the most iconic of all American designs.

Amazingly, Loewy was still around in the 1970s.\u00a0He was approached by NASA engineers concerning the contours of Skylab, the world\u2019s first orbiting space station.\u00a0Predictably, he helped make it look \u201cStar Wars\u201d cool.

What was Raymond Loewy\u2019s secret to creating so many delightful, futuristic designs?

His theory was called MAYA:\u00a0Most Advanced Yet Acceptable<\/em>.\u00a0

It goes like this:\u00a0Give people something familiar, something comprehensible at a glance.\u00a0But make enough bold changes that the viewer is caught off guard.\u00a0As Thompson puts it, \u201cThat\u2019s a train, but it\u2019s the coolest train I\u2019ve ever seen.\u201d\u00a0I feel secure in what I recognize, but I also feel challenged.

In every human heart, there is a struggle between the old and the new, between familiarity (things we know and trust) and discovery (the excitement of the Next Thing).

Think of planning a family reunion.\u00a0\u201cThe way we\u2019ve always done things\u201d is the safe way to go.\u00a0But it may also signal that boredom is setting in.\u00a0\u201cLet\u2019s try something entirely different\u201d ratchets up the energy.\u00a0But it may also trample treasured traditions.\u00a0Finding an effective balance \u2013 something that reflects a middle way \u2013 is crucial.

Likewise, a great strategic plan honors and affirms the past, even while leaning into the future. The Most Advanced Yet Acceptable<\/em>.\u00a0That\u2019s the magic of blending tradition with innovation.

When it comes to spiritual things, how do we balance the old and the new?\u00a0

God calls us to build on the foundation of those who have gone before us \u2013 but not to cling to the past in such a way that we forget to embrace God\u2019s new covenant, the Spirit\u2019s gift of a brand-new nature, and the new creation that awaits God\u2019s people in the future.

As the old saying goes, \u201cWhen you visit the altars of the past, bring back the fire and not the ashes.\u201d

Or as the author of Lamentations declares, \u201cThe unfailing love of the Lord never ends \u2026 his mercies are new every morning!\u201d (3:22-23)

As far as the shape of our own tomorrows, that is very cool, indeed.
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here It\u2019s not an exaggeration to say that Raymond Loewy invented American style. Most Americans have never even heard of the most influential industrial designer of the past 100 years. But all of us recognize his touch.\u00a0 He designed the iconic Coca-Cola fountain, the Lucky Strike package, the logos of Exxon, Shell,… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4942,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1014,1013],"class_list":["post-4941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-innovation","tag-tradition"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4941"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4943,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4941\/revisions\/4943"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}