Faith Venture

Leaders take notice. When you fail to grow, you hold others back.

The work of leadership is far beyond thinking of things for other people to do.

It begins first with us.

Are we self-aware?

Are we emotionally and spiritually maturing?

Are we reading works that expand our minds and understanding?

Do we have a focus on providing ways for others to grow?

Do you care?

Do you support others?

What have you done (or will do) today to grow?

We sat through two-and-a-half hours of presentations preparing us (writers, thinkers, journalists) for the coming two days of technical meetings. Speakers included the CEO, various vice presidents, and, oh, yes, three teenaged inventors.

Do not throw up your hands and mutter about “kids these days.” That’s a disservice. I am at an event sponsored by the technology supplier Rockwell Automation. The company sent out a challenge through various social media to students inviting them to invent something that would solve a social problem. The top three were given an all-expense trip (with parents) to Chicago to attend Automation Fair.

These three gave the best presentations of the day–content, presentation skills, poise, command of the audience. Yes, they had mentors, but that’s the key. Instead of complaining about kids, give them a useful challenge and then mentor them.

One project solved a problem with sump pumps not keeping up with ground water resulting in flooded basements. Areas of the US had large amounts of rain this spring and early summer. Many of the audience probably wanted to sign up to buy one.

Bullying remains a serious problem in schools (and other places where kids congregate). One young inventor came up with an anti-bullying backpack. It included a battery pack, two wifi-enabled web cameras, and communication. In a bully situation, the owner could quick-call an authority (parent, administrator, whatever) and show live video of the bullies. It also records to the cloud.

Sanitation kills more people throughout the world than just about anything else–lack of sanitation, that is. In many places, people just defecate in the street or wherever. Simple toilets requiring little to no water to operate widely available would save millions of live. The third young inventor actually invented such a device.

Make a difference. Find a way to mentor someone. Make it one of your spiritual disciplines.

Dr. Henry Cloud is a psychologist, writer, and speaker. He is on my A list of people to read. He recently wrote:

I remember when I first became a committed Christian. For a long time, I really looked up to people who were religious. I admired their dedication to God and their Bible knowledge. They seemed so strong and “together” that I wanted to be like them. 

For about five years, I hung around these kinds of people. During that time I grew a lot and learned a lot of theology, but unknowingly, I also was getting farther and farther away from being a real person. I became more and more “religious,” less and less of what I now understand to be spiritual. I was losing touch with my vulnerability, my pain, my need for other people, my sinfulness and “bad parts,” and many other aspects of what it means to be a person. 

How often do we follow the rules and neglect the person. Check out what Jesus had to say to a group of guys who practiced that Mark 7), “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”

It’s all about where your heart is.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote in The Brothers Karamazov:

Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action, rapidly performed and in the sight of all. Men will even give their lives if only the ordeal does not last long but is soon over, with all looking on and applauding as though on the stage. But active love is labor and fortitude…

Since I wrote about Jesus’ command about loving one another, every day a thought from someone pops up in my inbox or reading about love.

Have you ever read The Brothers Karamazov? It is great fiction. The story of the Grand Inquisitor meeting Jesus, who had returned to medieval Spain is worth the price of the book.

Yes, we have the love that the Romantic poets sang about. The love of Valentines’s Day Hallmark cards.

But there is the love in action for those we see every day and perhaps grow to take for granted.

The love for those who look, and speak, and think differently from us.

The love for those suffering from mental illnesses who are difficult to relate to.

The love for the random stranger whose life intersects with ours briefly.

It is labor and fortitude.

I travel a lot and observe a good many people in a variety of stressful and not-so-stressful situations.

Most people I meet are good people just trying to get along in life.

Many are just lost–or maybe better said, asleep. They are people who seem to be drifting from fad-to-fad or emotion-to-emotion.

I have met just downright devious people. Rather than merely clueless, these people are usually charming but they are always looking for a way to promote themselves at the expense of others. Thankfully, this is a distinct minority. They are they the reason Jesus taught us to be perceptive.

I rather like this proverb that I was taught was Persian, but it also pops up in Sanskrit and Confucius. Many, if not most, of us are asleep trying to awaken.

He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not is a fool; shun him.

He who knows not, and knows that he knows not, is a child; teach him.

He who knows, and knows not that he knows, is asleep; wake him.

He who knows, and knows he knows is wise; follow him.

Yesterday I talked about Jesus’ single piece of work he left us–to love as he has love.

This thought from Thomas Merton popped up the other day:

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody’s business. What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy if anything can.

Yes, it’s not all about me.

Further, love without qualification. There is no “yes, but…”

Jesus left his followers with one commandment, or practice as we might say, “Love one another as I have loved you.”

The Spiritual Practice is anchored in Jesus–not Abraham, or Moses, or the Law and the Prophets, not the “New Testament” (since it wouldn’t exist for another 300+ years).

This makes commitment to following Jesus a serious business.

I’ve been studying the Enneagram again. I dove into it 25 years or so ago. It is useful for understanding how we can each develop into a more fully integrated personality.

For this topic, I was just studying Enneagram Ones. (Ennea being 9, there are 9 types numbered from 1 to 9.) According to the research, Ones consider doing love as doing things for someone else. They may seldom say anything or touch or similar. But as they do little acts of service, that is their expression of love.

That is surely one of the many things Jesus had in mind when he told us the greatest commandment is to love, since God is love.

Go and do likewise.

The door opened behind me to the room where the small group I lead meets. Then it closed. She was looking for someplace specific–and not us. One of the women in class commented, “She is probably too young for this group.”

I thought, “It would be good for us to have some younger voices.”

Look at our national political scene. Most likely the Republicans will run with someone even older than I. The leading Democrats are also older than me except one who is about the same age. Can’t the Boomers let go and let some younger voices enter? We’ve certainly screwed things up enough over the past 30 years or so.

I had a dream the other night. I was at another engineering conference. There were the usual old white guys–smart, but often set in their ways. The scene flipped to a chorus of kids (like 10 years old in my dream) offering a myriad of new approaches and ideas to problems.

Most likely Jesus was only 30 when his ministry began. Most likely John (the apostle) was still in his teens. The other guys were young guys, too.

They changed the world.

I still learn and have ideas. But it’s refreshing to listen to younger voices and remember the struggles of figuring it all out.

It’s time.

Mad Magazine’s mascot was Alfred E. Neuman. He ran for president in 1968. He got votes. He’s a cartoon character. And you thought today’s politics were goofy.

His motto was, “What? Me worry?”

Actually, that’s not bad advice.

Jesus once said, “Why worry? Will you add a minute to your life by worrying?”

I hear conversations often speculating about one thing or another about heaven or hell. We don’t know. We can parse through all the writings collected as the Bible and only have hints.

Will worrying about all that add anything to your life?

In school, I was told about the medieval Scholastics arguing about how many angels could dance on the head of a pin.

Why?

There is enough to do to just live this minute trying to do our best. Worrying won’t help.

Maybe if we just chill.

Jesus just gave the word and people were cured of their demons. He touched them and cured them of physical disease and disability.

But I started to consider that we still refer to many illnesses as being demons. Some mental health issues are chemical and require drugs for healing. Most of us can’t do that. Some are so deep seated that they require a professional.

We can help drive out many demons. Maybe it starts with breakfast and listening. A weekly meet up for coffee. Maybe we just can’t say, “Be healed” and it happens. But I wonder how many people we could help with a little care.

Things our churches could do instead of dividing the sheep from the goats, labeling ourselves the sheep, and declaring the goats bad. Then we herd together every week and celebrate our sheepness.

Or, we could be like Jesus.