Everything In Its Place

June 2, 2016

You just had an important thought. Go to the desk for a pen and paper. Can’t find either.

You’re gathering ingredients for a recipe as dinner time approaches. Can’t find a spice you’re sure you had. And where’s that favorite knife?

Getting ready to study. The desk is cluttered. Can’t find the Bible. Favorite pen is not in its place. Oh, where’s my journal?

5S

I talked yesterday about my vacation reading–The Simple Leader: Personal and Professional Leadership at the Nexus of Lean and Zen.

Let’s look at a Lean concept called 5S. It stands for five English words roughly translated from the Japanese: Sort, Straighten, Shine, Standardize, Sustain.

Meyer defines each one:

  • Sort: Review each item, ensure it has a purpose, remove what isn’t needed.
  • Straighten: Find a defined location for what remains, preferably as close to where it will be needed as possible.
  • Shine: Clean and polish the newly uncluttered area.
  • Standardize: Create a checklist or other method to ensure the area doesn’t revert back to how it was.
  • Sustain: Create a habit, routine, or daily activity to keep the area clean and neat, and to audit that it has stayed that way.

You’ll notice that this is also a method of simplifying your life. Get rid of stuff cluttering your living and working space. Organize. Your mind will thank you. It can settle in on a task with few if any distractions.

As you sit to study, pray, meditate, or even converse, you remain calm and focused reflecting the environment you’ve created.

Spiritual formation requires intention. Organizing workspaces and our lives intentionally is a step on the path.

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Respect For People

June 1, 2016

If there is a foundation principle for this blog, it could be respect for people. Even if you are dealing with difficult people or people who have failed at something, the principle means that you deal with them openly yet respectfully.

I’m on a bit of a vacation, which means I brought along books to read. I am just finishing The Simple Leader: Personal and Professional Leadership at the Nexus of Lean and Zen, by Kevin L. Meyer. Don’t get worried by the terms Lean and Zen. Lean is a way of life in manufacturing, but it can also be applied to personal life. There is a non-religious component of Zen, which, if you knew that, you’d realize you see some if it in my writing. I studied it many years ago.

There are two foundation principles to Lean: reduce waste and respect for people (or could be translated humanity). There’s not room to include the Zen part today, but the essential parts are mindfulness and simplicity.

While meditating this morning, two thoughts dominated my awareness. The first is that so much of what I write is based on a foundation (and a wish that I would perfectly embody it) of respecting others. That is how I can have friends from so many cultures and religions.

I see no conflict to being a follower of Jesus yet respecting someone who follows Muhammad, the Buddha, or Krishna, or whatever. There are human complexities that I just don’t understand. Who am I to judge?

The other thought is how I am so disappointed when I see people showing so little respect to much anyone. Skimming through my Facebook “news” stream shows plenty of that. Even worse is skimming newspapers or watching TV news.

One of the organizations developed by people that often shows the opposite side of respect unfortunately are our Christian churches. Begun by our early leaders to bring people together for instruction and worship, so many degenerate into an “us vs. them” mindset that I literally grieve. They have ruined so many lives–or rather people within them who fail to show respect have ruined so many lives.

Business, churches, personal life–all thrive with the foundation of respect for people.

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Banish Divisive People

May 31, 2016

When Dave and Jane and I gathered in a conference room in 2003 to start a new magazine, discussion was, well, boisterous. Loud. Argumentative. Collegial.

We came out after about a month with an editorial focus, a description of readers, a description of companies who would advertise (and why), an editorial calendar, a business plan, a media kit (all the products we could sell to advertisers).

The most dangerous next step was hiring. Bringing in people who had agendas, histories, insecurities could be disaster. We had a core team of 6-7 who stayed together eight years. We built a winning magazine and a good business. Then some new people came along and all the chemistry changed.

We were lucky in many respects. We had a couple of strong personalities who could be divisive in another situation, but they were managed.

Have you ever been in an organization with someone who is just plain divisive? They have an agenda. They are always engaged in hallway conversations trying to build alliances against someone in authority.

Churches are full of this personality type. Businesses, too. I’ve seen it. It’s ugly. I’ve even been the target. Never saw that one coming.

Henry Cloud devotes many pages to the problem in The Power of the Other. He looks at the master organization builder, Paul the Apostle.

Paul says when you see one of those divisive people, recognize it, give them a warning, and, if they don’t change their ways, banish them

Cloud says he’s seen it in organizations. The CEO recognizes the situation and terminates the culprit. Overnight the atmosphere changes. People who had been enemies become friendly. “Gosh, you’re a pretty good guy. I don’t know why I didn’t like you.”

The answer to that is the recently departed divider.

Recognize the signs of a divisive person. Find them, and deal with them. The sooner the better. Rip that cancer out of the organization. Everyone will feel–and perform–better.

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Remembering And Running

May 30, 2016

Today is a holiday in the US named Memorial Day. No, I don’t think it was devised to celebrate the running of the Indianapolis 500 automobile race. For the past 29 years for me it meant being out at a park somewhere around Dayton, Ohio at the country’s largest 3-day soccer tournament.

I think “Memorial” springs from “remember”, as in remembering those who went before us. In many cases they paved a trail that led us to where we are.

My great-grandmother called it “Decoration” Day, and her tradition was to decorate the graves of family.

As a kid, I participated in the Midwest America tradition of a formal ceremony to place flowers on the graves of local military veterans.

There are people today who use it as an “in-your-face” political statement. But then, some people use every excuse to get in your face.

How great a cloud of witnesses…

Let us consider the thought from the letter to the Hebrews. “We are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses…” The writer describes many leaders of the faith who have gone before. Then he continues, “so let us run the race that is set before us.”

We don’t remember just to sit in sentimental reverie. We remember what those before us have done as a guide and motivator for what we are to do with our time on earth.

Remember and run.

I imagine that every society has some version of Memorial Day. That’s good.

Remember, looking for inspiration so that we can run the race set before us and leave a legacy for the future.

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When You Stop Trying So Hard

May 27, 2016

“Stop trying, relax, and just slip into the pose.”

There are Yoga poses that just don’t work well when you try to force your way into them. Then you just relax, especially your abs, and just ease into the pose.

Try this. No, really, try it. Stand up. Keeping your back as straight as possible, bend over and touch your toes (or shins, or knees, or thighs…).

Now back at the standing position, relax your mid-section. Consciously. Maybe think about bringing your belly button back to your spine. Now try it. Don’t force it. Just bend.

(Honestly, all this came to me last night when I was talking the class into one of those forward bend poses that seem to stretch everything.)

I’ve been spending a lot of time with Matthew 5, 6, 7. This includes the Sermon on the Mount. Remember how Jesus concludes? “Be perfect just as your Father is perfect.”

Now, think about the group of people Jesus continually sparred with–the Pharisees. How did they try to be “perfect just as your Father is perfect”? They tried…hard. They built rules on top of rules to explain how to live in every situation in every minute of every day. It was a full-time job just working hard to be perfect.

Then Jesus comes along. He reinterprets all the laws making them impossible to achieve. Then he says, be perfect. Hold on there, partner. Perfect? Impossible!

Yes, that’s the point. You don’t get to a relationship with God by your hard work at being perfect. Stop trying so hard. Relax. Then turn your attention to God and let God do the work.

Like Yogi Berra supposedly said, “You can hear a lot just by listening.” Just by slowing down and ceasing the impossible task of trying to be perfect, we open a space for God to actually come in. And, since our focus is off ourselves, now we can hear God. And respond.

And we’ll be perfect enough.

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Know That You Need To Ask For Help

May 25, 2016

The Lord helps those who help themselves.

That is not in the Bible. Sorry. Grace is not dependent upon our works. It is dependent upon our attitude–the attitude of turning to God and asking for help.

Henry Cloud’s new book, The Power of the Other, is all about the power relationships–good, bad, indifferent–hold over our lives.

He was talking about his work as a consultant and coach. He has sufficient track record and fame, that boards of directors of companies, even large companies, send their failing CEOs to him to turn them around.

A man came to him one time who had failed terribly. It was a personal failure, but the results bled over into every aspect of his life–marriage, family, business, volunteering. Being a highly successful and driven person, he came with a list. He asked for help, but then he laid out the plan that he had devised to correct the situation.

Cloud said it was sad. Every point depended upon the man’s action. There was no place for relationship with another.

Cloud said that he’s reached the point of life that he really doesn’t want to waste time with people who are sent to him to be fixed but who think that it all depends on themselves.

I understand. In my consulting and coaching career, I have met several people who only wish for outside reinforcement. They don’t understand why nothing changes.

At some point, you must come to the realization that it’s not all dependent upon your own effort.

Ask someone for help–and then listen.

Ask someone close to you how they feel about the situation–and then listen.

Humble yourself (that means be willing to not be the person in charge) and realize that others will help if you ask.

Thank people for helping.

Remember God gives us grace. It’s there for the asking. Be open to receiving it.

You ultimately are not in charge; stop acting as if you are.

The Lord helps you, and so will others, if you ask and are willing to listen and absorb.

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Where Do They Find Those People

May 24, 2016

Where do they find those women?

This was yet another conversation about some guy, married, dissatisfied, “sleeping” with many other women.

I had to ask, where do they find those women? (Aside: we seem to always write about the guy, what’s the story about the women? I don’t know.)

She answered, “Bars.”

I guess that’s why I’ve never met one of those women so far as I know. I don’t hang out in those places. Even last night, alone, on Bourbon Street, in New Orleans.

I am in the middle of reading Henry Cloud’s latest book, The Power of the Other, about the power of relationships in your life.

It starts with a feeling of lacking. And you need something to make you feel better. Sex, drugs, alcohol–at first they fill that lack.

One little decision.

Then there is the spiral. Almost literally down the drain. Your life. Your career. Your family. Your relationships. Your money. The spiral of the first lie. Then it builds to continual deceit. Then a second life that is unsustainable.

Cloud described a very successful heart surgeon who found himself spiraling down. Until he hit the moment of truth when the second life was exposed to light.

That surgeon was only able to turn things around when he was led to realize that he had to surrender trying to control everything and honestly seek out help from other people.

The apostle John loved to put situations in the context of light and dark. Bad things relationally happen in the dark, in the late night. Exposing things to light helps correct the situation.

Our disciplines of study and prayer help. So does a healthy relationship with someone who can listen and then give us  strong words when it’s necessary. Sometimes people who say the hardest things are our friends who are trying to help us. That’s when we need to humble ourselves in the sense that we need to listen to what our friends are saying. And change.

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The Value In Quitting

May 23, 2016

I have quit one of my church jobs. I just looked at the results over the past two years versus the amount of work I’ve put in and the result was easy. Time to close one door and open another.

I took the job two years ago partly because I had quit another position where I was rapidly loosing my health. Looking back, it was a good move. The changes they wanted me to make and that I resisted have happened now. And the company is no longer a thought leader. Still makes money, but to me that’s not the entire value proposition.

Many people have told me that churches in general seem to be drawing their attention inward. Giving to mission support by the church is dwindling. Some I know are still supporting global missions. But most are not.

Every time a door closes,  at least one other one opens. We’ll see what happens. Perhaps someone needs a good teaching pastor.

What is your experience in quitting?

I hate to do it. It’s like giving up. Saying I’m a failure. Leaving someone behind.

But I take heart in Henry Cloud (Necessary Endings). Sometimes it’s the best alternative.

Maybe like Jesus telling his disciples when he sent them out by twos. If they don’t hear your message, then leave the town and shake the dust off you cloak and sandals.

Shake, shake, shake.

I’m off to the next village. We’ll see what doors open.

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Leaders Struggle, Too

May 20, 2016

Peter, the apostle, grew up with a fixed set of beliefs. There were beliefs about religion. Beliefs about types of people. Beliefs about interactions among different types of people.

He met Jesus who proceeded to blow away every stereotype and belief he’d grown up with.

When he became the leader, his struggles were public–at least within his group.

What am I supposed to do, he must have been continually thinking.

I’m not supposed to eat from this long list of foods. Yet, I find myself in situations where hospitality, and yes, love, require that I eat some of those foods.

I’m not supposed to associate with certain types of people–even to the point of not entering their house. But there I am associating with one of “them”, even worse healing one of “them”, even worse preaching and sharing the gospel, even worse baptising them.

These are all recorded for all of us in the book called The Acts of the Apostles.

Surely for a reason, we can still read this.

This does show us that great leaders can struggle with issues and change their minds. They can grow publicly. Imagine one of our presidential candidates doing that! The media would be highly critical. But if one actually had the courage to say, “I’ve grown. God has shown me how I was wrong and how I need to grow”? How refreshing an example that would be.

Sometimes people become leaders and have a solid view on the nature of the organization, the market, the team, themselves. The good leaders grow. They adapt to changing circumstances. They don’t make themselves into a persona that says they are God. They acknowledge that sometimes God says I’m going down the wrong path. It’s OK to change.

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Concern For All People

May 19, 2016

People of Paul’s world were divided into two groups–Jews and non-Jews. At least it was so from the point-of-view of a Jew.

Taking another look at Romans 10 (and 9 and 11 to put it in context), I’m suddenly struck by Paul’s concern for everyone. Paul spends considerable time talking about God’s grace toward non-Jews (Gentiles). This was revolutionary in Jewish thought.

Paul also spends considerable time discussing Jews. And how God wishes for them to acknowledge the resurrection of Jesus and the reconciliation of grace.

Paul cared for them all!

In the world of that time, a Jewish person was to have as little interaction with non-Jews as possible. Definitely one didn’t eat with them or go into their house.

Yet, after Paul’s conversion and the redirection of his life, he seemed to have no problems being anointed “apostle to the Gentiles.”

Look at the struggles of Peter coming to the same conclusion. It’s remarkable that those internal struggle Peter had before he finally accepted Gentiles as people just like Jews were even recorded and saved.

We keep trying to divide the world today. Every culture I’ve had contact with finds ways to divide people. Even going so far as to label some in such a way as to imply “less than human” status.

Today’s discipline for us to practice is to go out this morning and begin to see everyone we meet (and think about) as people whom God created and God loves. Be like Paul who was concerned for each and every one.

I can hear the “Yeah, but what about” comments forming even now as I type. Cast those evil thoughts out.

If you need to find the strength, read Romans 9-10-11 with new eyes. See how Paul was deeply concerned for the lives of everyone. Go and do likewise.

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