Big Mouth Little Ears

November 4, 2015

The dental hygienist was cleaning my teeth with some sort of high-pressure water hose. She told me, “Don’t let anyone ever tell you that you have a big mouth, because you don’t.” 😉

You have to think of something while you’re at your annual visit to the dentist. Sitting in the chair that’s tilted far back. Your mouth open as wide as you can get it and stuck in that position for 30-40 minutes. It hurts my jaw.

The thought popped into my mind about what James says about the pain that a big mouth can cause in others. You open your mouth. Words come out. Sometimes without a filter between impulse and speech. Then you see the pain on the other person’s face. At least I hope you are not so self-absorbed that you don’t notice other people.

Once said, the hurt is there. Never to be entirely undone.

Ernest Hemingway once said, “When someone else talks, listen completely. Most people don’t listen.”

That reminds us that most of the time it is better to keep our mouth closed and listen to the other person. Yogi Berra once said that you can hear a lot just by listening. Yep.

My problem in this regard is that I can be content to not say anything at a gathering. No, really. However, if you ask me a question, I’ll answer it. If it’s something I’m passionate about, I’ll really answer it.

But, I’d rather be quiet. No regrets that way.

My lesson–when all is said and done, the less said the better.

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Prepare To Meet Thy God

November 3, 2015

I was driving some back country roads this evening on my way to dinner. Passed by a small country church with a sign about as big as the church. “Prepare To Meet Thy God” it proclaimed.

Do you also get the feeling that that comment is an in-your-face remark? The picture of a black-bearded, black-suited, black string bow-tie wearing, finger waving, American country preacher springs to mind?

Maybe I get that image because I know so many people that way. It may be a caricature. But unfortunately, the phrase just strikes me that way.

Many of those “bumper-sticker” phrases do. There is something impersonal about them. It’s like shouting at someone. Not like conversing with someone.

Maybe that is my problem. This should be personal–not something shouted out.

I remember meeting God. It was personal. And life-changing. In the quiet of meditation, the experience was unmistakable. Then again in celebration time during an Emmaus Walk. And other times.

Preparing to meet your God–THE God–takes a life of getting ready. There was study so that I knew what was real. There was prayer. There were the disciplines of meditation and contemplation. There was an openness toward and expectation of the reality of God.

Like Paul, I hesitate to write things such as this. It is not boasting, which Paul abhorred. It is merely witnessing. Pointing to a reality that exists no matter what materialists say. No, it is not delusion as much modern psychology maintains. If they would prepare….

I don’t like in-your-face evangelizing. I am praying right now that God would lead someone into my life to disciple. Personally. Not just shouting slogans, but really preparing to meet our God.

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Solve Disagreements Within The Church Family

November 2, 2015

“What happened to that couple?” she asked. “I haven’t seen them in a while.”

“She got mad at something someone said and quit coming,” I replied.

“Well, we should settle those things in the family instead of just quitting,” she replied.

Problem is that no one within the family reached out to them. I told a pastor who had a better point of view to address the situation than I. But neither one ever contacted the other.

Both Jesus and Paul addressed settling things within the family. They addressed a similar matter about taking a brother to court. But the point still was that we should settle matters.

Check out Matthew 18: 15-17 and the first verses of 1 Corinthians 6.

Let’s take a look at both sides and see if there is some discipline that we should apply

Jesus also told us a couple of time that if we have something against a brother or sister (meaning within the fellowship) that we should make things right before proceeding with worship. I think even modern psychologists and therapists would tell us that we bear some responsibility with initiating reconciliation.

Often people say things that they have no idea would be offensive to anyone else. If you don’t go tell them, they’ll never know. And everyone will wonder.

Sometimes you say something and think “Oops, I didn’t mean that.” Or sometimes you get upset and say things. Self-awareness brings the conviction of having hurt someone. It’s important to put pride aside and go make things right.

Letting things go never works. Don’t go off and pout. Confront with love. Respond with love. Work things out within the family.

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Friday Leadership Post On Creating a Culture

October 30, 2015

“We need to have a program that we import from a consultant in order to change the organization’s culture,” said a staff member of an organization to me when questioned about why do a program.

This week at the Safety Leadership Conference in Greenville, SC, the subject of a company’s culture for safety came up far more often than any technology discussion.

Culture is important.

Uh, what is it?

Well, it’s the way people in the organization do things. It’s how they act and interact. It’s the questions they ask. The things they focus upon. It’s what they discuss in the coffee room. Or–lack of all that.

Programs almost never work. I think that they never work.

Change begins depending upon what questions the leader asks. When the leader begins asking about safety at every chance (as in the case of the conference this week), then people are naturally going to begin thinking about safety. Not with the first question. But over time, everyone begins to realize what’s important.

In a non-profit (but also often in a business), one of the questions asked is “Can you help with this?” The leader defines a need, finds a person who appears to have the qualities needed to fill that need, and asks.

Organizations ponder how to get more volunteers. Well, have you defined the need such that people would know what they’re in for? Maybe you have to advertise for candidates, but often the best candidates will be referred through networking. You ask, who do you know, then ask the candidate can you help.

I remember at my first job in manufacturing, the president called at 3:35 pm every working day and asked the production manager, “How many did you get out?” So, sometimes the products went “out of the door” not completed so that the manager could report a better number. Even though the company prided itself on building a quality product, the question was never about quality. Always about numbers. Guess what was important.

As a leader, what questions do you ask?

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Free To Be With God

October 29, 2015

“The purpose of the spiritual disciplines is to make you free.”

Both Dallas Willard and Richard J. Foster warn about the proper use of the practice of spiritual discipline. The point is not to be able to say that I fasted so many days, or read the Bible every day, or prayed diligently. To have that attitude is to return to that old human attitude of works being the way to get right with God rather than trusting in God’s grace.

This morning in my meditation, my thoughts turned to freedom. It’s a topic I’ve pondered and written on for my entire adult life. I was greatly influenced by a book by the philosopher Isaiah Berlin I came across at age 20 or so. He looked at philosophers of freedom and divided the concept into two–freedom for and freedom from.

Without chasing the squirrels of various philosophical traditions, I’ll just ponder Paul.

He said that God’s grace and our response in faith does both!

Grace frees us from the tyranny of our emotions, our self-imposed boundaries, our jealousies, fears, worries, greed.

The discipline of meditation that I’ve practiced for more than 40 years has calmed my emotions, freed me from worry (something passed down from my mother and who knows how many generations), helped me deal with the winds of emotion which can enslave.

That is just one example. The discipline of reading the Bible or great thinkers about the topic such as Augustine or Henry Nouwen or many others has added depth to my understanding and guidance for my direction.

Paul does not stop there. Grace frees us for service. Why are we here? To serve others in love. That is Jesus’ command. That is what Paul repeats. Many times.

These are words that I never wanted to hear as an adolescent. I can still remember being 17 or 20. No bounds. Discipline is a bad word foisted upon us by conservative old people. Service to others is slavery.

Trouble is, many people today have yet to outgrow those adolescent urges.

Adolescents hate paradox. I’ve always been fascinated by paradox. Here’s an important one–discipline leads to freedom. Who would have understood that at 17–or sometimes 57.

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Have We Become Voyeurs

October 28, 2015

One of my Spiritual Disciplines is fasting–fasting from TV news, that is.

No, I’m not a flaming conservative who thinks all the media has a liberal bias. Nor do I think about whether there is a conservative bias. TV news has a distinct sensationalism bias.

It’s all about how each network can get the largest number of people to watch for a long enough period of time to serve up plenty of advertisements. Don’t kid yourselves. You get sucked in to your news source of choice because they have figured out ways to get you to watch. This is simply a business model.

We fall for it.

The TV in front of me the other day while I was running on the treadmill showed off some so-called “expert” speculating about the motives or mental health of someone who injured and killed a number of people with her out-of-control car.

What good was that speculation? There was no fact discussed. Merely opinion. And not even informed opinion. Just the fantasy of speculation about someone they don’t know and really don’t care about. And a million people watched it. I even read the closed caption for about a minute to see what was up.

This is what you get when someone thinks that showing news 24-hours-per-day is a good thing. They quickly discovered that filling all that time with valuable information was either too costly or too boring. They have to hook you and reel you in. Not enough viewers means not enough advertising which means not enough revenue.

But people watch. And not just in North America. It’s a human trait.

Why do we get so wrapped up in idle gossip and speculation about others when there is so much of ourselves that we need to pay attention to? Maybe that’s too hard.

Practice the Spiritual Discipline of fasting from TV news. You might just discover your blood pressure dropping, your emotions more centered, your friends and family more understanding, and your attention fixed upon others whom you can love and serve. I call that a good thing.

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Freedom Does Not Equal Doing Whatever You Want

October 27, 2015

Americans love to talk about freedom. Scan Facebook and you’ll see many posts about rights and freedom. Never one about the responsibility that goes along with it.

What you do with your freedom is more important than having the freedom. And, by the way, even the Founding Fathers when discussing freedoms postulated that they originated with God.

And who better to help us understand God than the apostle Paul.

Check out the letter to the Galatians–my in-depth study object for the next few months.

Writing (Galatians 5:13-15), Paul addresses this directly.

“For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another.”

Americans, and actually also western Europeans, have trouble when Paul uses the word translated into English as slave. I remember writers such as Marx and Nietzsche stumbling over that word. Paul didn’t say to become “unfree.” Remember the commandment that Jesus left us with? Love one another. Take that as what Paul meant.

When Paul talks about slave, he talks about being a servant. Like when Jesus took off his outer robe and washed the feet of the disciples.

When we in America get all caught up in interpreting whatever we want into the First Amendment, Second Amendment, and so on through the 10th Amendment of the US Constitution, we should be really discussing what our (personally) responsibilities are with that freedom.

When we talk about freedom in Jesus, our discussion must center on the idea “now that we are free from having to worry about following every little item in the law, what are we going to do with that freedom.” That discussion must focus on what we will do for others as servants in love.

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Gentleness Becomes You

October 26, 2015

Blessed are the gentle. We mostly know the verse with an older English word–meek. Today’s usage renders meek as perhaps not the optimum translation.

One must be strong to be gentle. One is passive to be meek–at least the way we understand that word today.

The super-aggressive person drives people away. Few, if any, other people wish to be around such a person. They may get their way for a while, but often the end comes early.

The passive, er meek, person leaves people cold. Being with them seems as if there is no “there” there. They have little to contribute.

How often have we wished the we could take some of the aggressiveness from one to bring them down a little while giving it to the other so that they would gain some confidence and speak up and assert themselves a little.

Let’s look at gentle.

A gentle person is confident in their identity. They are comfortable in who they are. Not seeking limelight, they work often behind the scenes for the benefit of others.

A gentle person treats others respectfully. Not shouting or deceitful. Not seeking vengence nor trying to bring them down.

A gentle person also treats themselves gently. Comfortable in who they are and confident in their place, they avoid negative self-talk. They take care of themselves–health, intellect, spirit, relationships.

A gentle person treats nature well. Not defacing or destroying.

I’m glad that the word “gentle” came into my consciousness last week. It reminded me of qualities for which I strive. Paul often lists this characteristic in his summary of gifts of the spirit. 

Yes, blessed are the gentle. Make a friend of a gentle person and try to emulate. A good goal for the week.

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Achieving Balance As Primary Leadership Trait

October 23, 2015

I write most Fridays on leadership. And I can’t believe it’s Friday already. This was a hectic week at a high technology conference in Austin for Dell Computers.

This article on leadership from the New York Times popped into my reader this week. It puts forth an interesting concept. Balance.

Are you decisive? Good, right? But what if you are too decisive without the balance of an open mind. I remember taking my first marketing job back in the 80s. I had a fixed model in my head about how to go to market with a computer add-on product. 

The model wasn’t good. But then, neither was the product. Oh, well.

Today we talk much about collaboration. Millennials wish to collaborate, we’re told. That’s all good. But what if we collaborate so much that no decisions are made. Not so good, right?

Ancient wisdom from Greece, the Middle East and the Far East all extol the beauty, grace, and necessity of balance.

We would rather work for a balanced leader than an unbalanced one. We ourselves probably feel better at night when we have been more balanced during the day.

Let’s take the idea a little further. Jon Swanson on his 300 Words a Day blog wrote about writing and telling stories aloud. Good point. My daily studies include both reading from the Bible and listening to teachers on podcasts. A balance of written and oral. I mostly write, but on my business side I used to have a fairly popular podcast (search Gary Mintchell on iTunes). I’ve let it go on vacation. Recently I’ve decided to put the effort into resuscitating it. Maybe I should do one for this blog. 

The point being–can I achieve a balance of written and oral communication?

I’d rather find more balance in my life, though. Breathing mindfully is a start. Bringing myself back to center when I feel out of balance. Or changing what I eat to balance my body. Or doing better at Eagle Pose in Yoga.

Balance is a good thing for the leader in us.

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Training for the Race

October 22, 2015

Paul loved sports metaphors. He talked about training for the race. Running the race.

Our house in my youth was a sports house, and football was the main one. I rememeber growing up with the Cleveland Browns on TV (I’m from Ohio, there was no Bengals). Dad was a big Notre Dame fan. Into adulthood, I watched the Browns every Sunday of the season. I “lived and died” with the Browns, as the saying goes. (They were good back then.)

Twenty-five years ago I started refereeing men’s soccer matches on Sunday afternoons in the fall. I didn’t watch as much football (and the Browns stopped building good teams–which continues unto today). I find watching soccer from Europe more entertaining in the few times I have that I can watch TV.

I’m thinking about the sport, though. What sort of team sport is it where the important stats are how many players are not injured during the game. NFL football has become over the past 20 years or so a “war of attrition.” The team that manages to avoid the most injuries has the best chance of winning the championship.

Yet during this time of changing the rules and equipment of the sport to promote the “Big Hit” which the NFL has done, the sport became the most popular team sport in America. Young men spend their entire lives training for a profession that is designed to cripple them. After a career of about six years, they retire before age 30 crippled for life.

Boxing is another sport where equipment allows the Big Hit but it has been supplanted by mixed martial arts where guys (and increasingly girls) beat the crap out of each other for the entertainment of millions.

When I started this stream of thoughts, I had no idea where it would lead. It began with an observation.

We could go two ways. One would be the usual condemnation of people who even thought supposedly civilized are not that far removed from the Roman crowds who cheered on fighters who fought to the death in the arena.

Then I thought about the goal we are training for. Because we should be in training right now. Paul didn’t think we ever stopped training and running. Paul Simon wrote a song using boxing as a metaphor for a wasted life. What is the metaphor of our life?

Are we training for the wrong life? For a wasted life? Or a full life?

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