“The Spirit of the LORD is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free                                                                                                                                                      Luke 4:18

In past blogs, I have discussed the subject of “stories”. More specifically, I referenced the parables of Jesus as he went about sharing truth to people in ways so that they could readily understand him. His society was not a particularly literate one. Reading and writing were more for the educated elite, scholars who taught in the temple and synagogues.

Jesus was often angered by the behavior of the educated elites of the day. Many of those teachers and leaders used their power and wealth for the benefit of the few, and certainly not for the poor. That is what made Jesus so radical. He came, as he said to “proclaim good news to the poor”. So, it certainly made sense that Jesus spoke in the language that the poor and uneducated could readily understand. He told stories and parables to instruct and inspire people.

One of the ways to get at the truths in those parables is to have someone get into the place of one of the characters in the story. I have clients sometimes consider some of those parables from the viewpoint of the character, not as the listener of the story. How different is it when someone, for example, can get into the mind of one of the brothers in the Prodigal Son story? Maybe the story of the Good Samaritan. These two parables have transcended time and culture to become part of the literature and wisdom in places where Christianity is not well known. These are human interest stories which can be felt by anyone.

Sometimes it is easier to become aware of feelings when we can distance it from ourselves. We somehow have “permission” to express what that might be like without owning it for ourselves. My goal is to get people willing to just look at what is really going on in their mind and heart. It takes courage to do that.

Stories can help.

Prayer: Thank you Lord for the timeless truths found in the teachings of Jesus, Amen.

 “The tongue has the power of life and death.” The stakes are high. Your words can either speak life, or your words can speak death. Our tongues can build others up, or they can tear them down.                                                                                                           Proverbs 18:21

I had an interesting discussion the other day with a client about some communication with his wife. As we have explored in past blogs, communication can be very complex. First, there are all the non-verbal communications which are very powerful -things like eye contact, smiles, body posture, spacing, and gestures, to name a few. Verbal communication involves not just words but tone of voice, emphasis on certain words, and of course, the words themselves.

Little nuances in wording can make a big difference in communication. I was talking with my client about how he can communicate his needs to his wife regarding alone time. “Alone time” is something that everyone needs, some, of course more than others. Asking for that need was one of our discussions. He was concerned that his wife would misunderstand when he asked for time alone. In fact, that had been the case at times, and he worried about having that happen again.

He told me he would say things like “Could you give me some time alone?” This statement alone does not seem to be a problem, but if you put it in the context that there have been frictions over “control”, this statement may have taken on a different meaning than intended. Further, I have no idea of the tone of that message, or the non-verbals connected with it.

First, he was asking her to give him something that he could do for himself. It is not up to her to “give” him time alone. Another little nuance, not a big thing, but maybe a big thing, is the wording of “time alone” I suggested that he use the phrase “alone time” which is something that does not infer that he wants to be away from her, but a needed space of just having time to himself.  

Again, I realize I am getting into the weeds here of nit-picking words. Yet, attention to how those words may come across to the listener is important. I was trying to sensitize the client to see that his wife may see his words differently than he intended. That he was perhaps unintentionally giving a message to her that he did not want to give.

So, words matter. Thinking of how those words might be perceived is important. True, we are not responsible for how people receive our messages, but we do need to have consideration for how to best present that message.

Prayer: Lord, you have given us the gift of language and communication, what a precious and powerful gift, Amen.

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’
‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the Cat.
‘I don’t much care where -‘ said Alice.
‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the Cat.
‘- so long as I get SOMEWHERE,’ Alice added as an explanation.
‘Oh, you’re sure to do that,’ said the Cat, ‘if you only walk long enough.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Where there is no vision, the people cast off restraint;
But happy is he who keeps the law                                                                                                                                   Proverbs 29:18

There are many dimensions of leadership, but I will close this discussion of leadership principles with the “vision of leadership”. Vision is an irreplaceable aspect of excellent leadership. A good leader has an idea of where the people, the organization, he/she leads must go in order to prosper and succeed. That leader can articulate those goals, give heart to people to follow that vision, and then do the hard work of leading toward those goals.

The problem often is that the goals are not seen by people, and they have trouble following the hard course set out by the visionary leader. It takes courage and tenacity for a good leader to move forward toward what he/she knows is the best course for the people he or she leads. The leader also models such leadership by discipline and steadfast movement toward achieving the lofty goals set forth.

This entails that the leader is acting in the best interest of the people led. This takes selfless courage, and discipline. These attributes are hard to find, but if you have had the blessing of being under such leadership, you feel secure and satisfied that you are on a powerful mission- one that is worth the sacrifices you must make. The mission has become more important than personal gratification, and that is what gives our lives meaning and value.

Yes, we are all headed in a direction. If, like Alice above, that direction does not matter, leadership does not matter. But if we want a clear and meaningful direction, a mission, we need strong, courageous, visionary leadership.  

Prayer: Father, thank you for strong, courageous leaders whom you have put into our lives. Give us courage and strength to move toward the lofty goals of serving your creation, Amen.

After this a lot of his disciples left. They no longer wanted to be associated with him. Then Jesus gave the Twelve their chance: “Do you also want to leave?”

 Peter replied, “Master, to whom would we go? You have the words of real life, eternal life. We’ve already committed ourselves, confident that you are the Holy One of God.”

There is a now famous saying that President Harry S. Truman had on a little plaque on his desk- “The Buck Stops Here”. The saying is perhaps a bit trite nowadays, but the principle is still relevant. Back in those days, the early 1950’s, the idea resonated bit more than it does today. We had just come through the great conflict of World War II, and military type thinking was still much more accepted. Radical responsibility said that the leader took full ownership of anything that happened under his/her watch. If there was a mishap, a failure, a problem, the leader took responsibility for it, even if the specifics of the problem were not directly attributable to the leader.

President Truman had to make some very difficult decisions. He had to decide upon dropping the atomic bomb on Japan. He had to decide proper actions on a national steel strike. He had to decide on firing General Douglas MacArthur when MacArthur defied orders. Truman made some important, and often unpopular decisions, but he owned them and accepted the consequences. 

Perhaps this is harsh, but it points out the ultimate nature of responsibility. The leader does not get to blame underlings or others for failures that happen on his/her watch. Blame is not projected onto others, and the leader cannot act like a victim. Real leaders accept that they are ultimately responsible for the organization they lead and, by extension, the lives of those people in that organization.

People can follow a leader whom they trust. People can trust leaders who accept responsibility, and those who own the consequences of their decisions. Casting blame onto others for failures is not an option. Yes, leadership is hard, and often unfair. But that is the cost of leadership.

Prayer: As Peter replied to Jesus, you are the only leader who has the words of life. Help us follow, Amen.

Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.                                                                                                           Philippians 2:5-8 (The Message)

I have been a student of leadership principles for a number of years, and I will be sharing some of these elements of leadership in the next few blogs. I have always believed that humility is a fundamental character trait for leadership, and I was gratified to see that Doris Kearns Goodwin, a giant of scholarship, agrees with that principle. When I teach, I use various historic world leaders to amplify that point, and one I always use is George Washington.

Washington was a unique leader. After having led the Continental Army to victory over the British in the Revolutionary War, he went to Congress and turned over his sword to them, yielding to the authority of that elected body. Remember, at that time, the only tangible power that existed in the newborn country (indeed, at this point, we did not even have a Constitution) was the standing army. He led that army, and he turned over the power of that force to the civil, elected government.

The rest of the world was astounded at this gesture. Military leaders of that era could be expected to simply assert their military might into ruling the country they represented. Washington gave an example of the principle of submission to civil authority. The rule of law would supersede the rule of might.

What does a great leader do with his/her power? They use it for the good of the people they lead. They empower others to act rightly for the common good. The paradox is that great leaders find a way to give away power responsibly- not hoard it for themselves. In this way, real authority is exercised, not just the flaunting of raw power.

When Jesus humbled himself to come to the earth as a baby, he exemplified this principle in the most dramatic fashion.

Great leaders give themselves away to serve those whom they lead.  

Prayer: Thank you Father for the example of servanthood as true leadership, Amen.

 ^“I thank my God every time I remember you”.                                                           Philippians 1:3

Yesterday I talked about the effects of stress, specifically the burden that it places on our endocrine system, which responds with hormonal responses to the flight, fright or freeze process. We know that acute stress causes spikes in these hormonal responses with release of cortisol and adrenaline. Over a period of time, such reactions can cause some long-term physical and emotional problems.

Especially problematic is the presence of long-term, chronic stress, where the body gets fatigued with the repeated release of these chemicals which prepare us for acute responses. If the stress is prolonged, we can have some long-term physical problems. Unfortunately, many people in many professions are expected to always be vigilant, always in response mode. This leads to physical and emotional burn-out.

We get used to stress, and it becomes like normal. But it is not normal. We pay a price for such long-term stress. Indeed, human resilience can become adapted to incredible stresses. Physicians and emergency personnel who are “on call” become inured to vigilance as a way of life. Soldiers and police officers become accustomed to danger as a part of everyday life, and they sometimes do not even acknowledge the presence of constant fear. “It’s what we do”, they say.

Yes, it is what they do, and I thank them for it. I don’t know how long such persistence is possible. Clearly, like the law of economics, whatever we put off comes due with interest. We pay a high price (like interest charges) at a future time for the current stress we undergo.

We recognize that stress is an unavoidable a part of life, but some have more chronic stress than others. Undo, unnatural stress over time comes with a cost. Validation of such sacrifice is important to society in order to support and encourage those who sacrifice for our safety and security every day.

So, for those who serve us in first line healthcare, for those police, fire, military and other emergency personnel. Thank you for what you do. You are paying a price, and we appreciate it!

Please try to take care of yourselves.

Prayer: Father, we lift up those who serve in such critical roles to serve their community. Bless them, and protect them, Amen.

“And be renewed in the spirit of your mind…”                                                              Ephesians 4:23

So how’s that for a pretentious title today? Well, yes, it is, but there is also some truth to it. If you are like me, it can get discouraging to see the news of the world we live in. Crime, responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, school shootings, the plight of those who try to emigrate from horrible political and social systems- the list goes on and on.

Sometimes we feel so helpless to make things better. We can’t change these issues on a macro level. Anxiety is caused by feeling loss of control of the world around us. This sounds like a recipe for significant anxiety!

So, what CAN we control?

We can control those small decisions that we make every day. We can decide to make the world a little better place for the next person we meet. We can decide to volunteer in our community to make it a safer and healthier place. We can get a COVID vaccination to help stop the spread of the disease and help protect ourselves and our loved ones. We can write an encouraging note to someone, or just send a random text that tells someone dear that we love them.

Yes, there are dozens of little decisions that we can make, in order to make the world around us a bit better. Remember my favorite mantra- “Good behavior beats bad thinking”

So, go ahead and change the world- by making your little piece of the world better.

Prayer: Lord, give us the vision to make our little space a better one for having been there, Amen

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard.  He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

 “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing.  He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’  So they went.

“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing.  About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’

 “‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.

“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’

 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’

 “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius.  So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius.  When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner.  ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’

 “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius?  Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you.  Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’

 “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

Matthew 20:1-16

I love this parable that Jesus told about the workers in the vineyard. He uses both the principles of paradox (last shall be first) and the great logic of the master’s authority to pay his workers in the way that he had promised. It was also about generosity, and our often-injured sense of fairness.

I found it interesting that the workers hired in the morning expected higher pay than the vine master had originally promised them, simply because he had paid the last hour workers the same wage he had promised the all-day workers. Now, if I were one of the workers who had worked all day in the hot sun, would I have been upset? You bet I would! My sense of fairness would have been violated. And believe me, if someone wants to set off another into a fit, just mess with their sense of fairness.

Jesus explained here however that justice was done, even if it did not seem fair. One could argue that the master was simply being generous to the late day workers. Possibly, he reasoned that he had to get the harvest in that day, and he would need to pay a premium to the late workers just to save his crop. Who knows? The point is, the master had the right to make that decision. Even if it did not seem fair to the all-day workers, it was justice, and he was honest to his word to them.

Just human nature at work here, and we all qualify for that. But Jesus had a higher sense of justice, and a lesson for us all. He is sovereign, and the paradox of the “last shall be first” is one of those themes in the Bible that we all need to reckon with.

Prayer: Lord, your ways are higher than our ways. Help us to see your truth, Amen

 He called, “Any fish, boys?”

“No,” we replied.

 Then he said, “Throw out your net on the right-hand side of the boat, and you’ll get plenty of them!” So we did, and couldn’t draw in the net because of the weight of the fish, there were so many!

John 21:5-7

I was talking with a friend the other day about grace. Specifically, we talked about grace that is invisible to us until we are enabled to see it. I suggested that the key to have the lens to see such grace is humility.

We were talking about the incident when Jesus told Peter, (after Peter and others had spent a whole night of fruitless fishing), to cast his net on the other side of the boat. Peter, a fisherman by profession, must have been taken aback when this itinerant preacher and part-time carpenter, gave him fishing advice.

Peter did as Jesus suggested, and he came up with the biggest haul of his life. He received the grace of a bounty of fish that had heretofore been hidden from him. Peter’s decision to accede to the directions of a non-fisherman took some humility. This came from Peter’s trust of Jesus, as well as perhaps a sense of “Well, I’ve got nothing to lose” thinking. Who knows?

I do suggest that it took humility on Peter’s part to cast that net where Jesus said to. Humility is the mindset- “There are things people can teach me. I don’t have all the answers.”

Teachable people are humble people. They are successful ones too.

Prayer: Thank you for the hidden graces that await us as we trust in you, Amen.

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”                                                   Mahatma Gandhi

“Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.”                                                 Mark Twain

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love                                                                                                                        I John 4:18

 Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, if my brother keeps on sinning against me, how many times do I have to forgive him? Seven times?” “No, not seven times,” answered Jesus, “but seventy times seven…                                                                                                                                                        Matthew 18:21-22

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”                                                                                                                                                                Martin Luther King, Jr.

These are some rather poetic words, spoken by immortal thinkers and purveyors of wisdom. There are untold numbers of such quotes, from great thinkers, writers, the Bible, and other wisdom sources. In these times when wisdom seems to be in short supply, when love is not the first solution chosen to deal with our problems, I thought that I would just give a few quotes to consider today.

Several are about forgiveness. We need that every day, and we need to give it every day. Maybe that is why Jesus made the standard so generous.

Think about these quotes, and decide which one is the most meaningful for you today. They are all great quotes, but maybe one will just stand out to you. I hope so.

Enjoy a day of peace and love! 

Prayer: Thank you Lord for the wisdom that comes from you and through your servants, Amen.