Saturday Ramblings 8.11.12

Good Saturday morning, iMonks! It has been a relatively quiet week here at the iMonastery. Still, we make a mess throughout the week, not putting things away or washing the dishes or refilling the cookie jar. That’s what Saturdays are for. It’s the day we clean up and catch up. Part of that includes grabbing a broom and giving the place a good clean sweep. And we call the trash we end up with Saturday Ramblings. And now, if you’re ready, let’s ramble.

No matter how bad your week may have been, I doubt you can hold a black candle to this country music celebrity. Dude walks into a convenience store in Texas to buy a pack of smokes and leaves his wallet at home. In his pants. With the rest of his clothes. Then he is arrested for napping—still in his nothing buts—in the middle of the road. No, these are not the words to a country song. This really happened. Really. I cannot make this stuff up.

And I guess you don’t even have to be a country star to cruise around town sans clothing. But a priest? Oh yeah, this was a fun week gathering these scraps.

Then there is the teenager in Ohio who had to be taken to the hospital suffering from severe dehydration … after playing video games for four days straight. What game? MW3, if that matters. At least he didn’t sell a kidney. Oh, wait. That did happen. In China. Teen boy sells one of his kidneys to buy an iPad. Yet another thing that separates Apple fanatics and sane people. I doubt anyone has ever sold a vital organ to buy an Android tablet.

Continue reading “Saturday Ramblings 8.11.12”

IM Book Review: Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs
by Walter Isaacson
Simon and Schuster, 2011

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How is one to think about a person like Steve Jobs? Jobs was:

  • A counterculture anti-materialist whose life work was to create consumer products and conduct corporate business dealings at the highest level.
  • A connoisseur of impeccable elegance and style who disregarded everyone’s advice that he needed to wear deodorant.
  • A control freak who insisted on micromanaging every detail of the buildings he renovated for business, having them painted museum white and outfitting them with outrageously expensive art and furnishings, who wouldn’t buy furniture for his own houses.

In his encyclopedic retrospective about Jobs’ life and work — a wild ride through Boomer Wonderland and Silicon Valley Mythos, from counterculture to corporate cool — Walter Isaacson has brought to life a portrait of an iconic figure in American business whose life was filled with polarities. His biography enables us to appreciate Jobs’ “genius” while at the same time the reader recoils from the brutal nature of his intense, off-the-charts egoism that left relationships, lives, and careers lying wounded or dead along the side of the road.

One reviewer wrote:

Steve Jobs cried a lot. This is one of the salient facts about his subject that Isaacson reveals, and it is salient not because it shows Jobs’s emotional depth, but because it is an example of his stunted character. Steve Jobs cried when he didn’t get his own way. He was a bully, a dissembler, a cheapskate, a deadbeat dad, a manipulator, and sometimes he was very nice. Isaacson does not shy away from any of this, and the trouble is that Jobs comes across as such a repellent man, cruel even to his best friend Steve Wozniak, derisive of almost everyone, ruthless to people who thought they were his friends, indifferent to his daughters, that the book is often hard to read. Friends and former friends speculate that his bad behavior was a consequence of being put up for adoption at birth. A former girlfriend, who went on to work in the mental health field, thought he had Narcissistic Personality Disorder. John Sculley, who orchestrated Jobs’s expulsion from Apple, wondered if he was bipolar. Jobs himself dismissed his excesses with a single word: artist. Artists, he seemed to believe, got a pass on bad behavior.

– Sue Halpern, New York Review of Books

I am an unabashed lover of Apple products and have been since the early days of the Macintosh. The reason they are so successful is ultimately attributable to Steve Jobs and his fanatical commitment to a vision of simplicity and unity. This vision led him to be intense and focused and tyrannical about the way he ran his business.

Continue reading “IM Book Review: Steve Jobs”

Eagle Update: 8/9/12

One of our readers, Beky (who comments as Tokahfang) paid a visit to our friend in the hospital today and gave the following report:

I got to spend about an hour and a half with Eagle. He is getting visits every few days from his coworkers, who are very supportive. He is off of the heavy pain meds and looking for a path to go home and get back to work, but the hospital staff seems to be pushing him to at least a short stay in a skilled nursing facility for wound care.

Another Look: A Perfect Life Or A Perfect God?

This is one of Lisa Dye’s first essays she wrote for us. Lisa is one of our iMonk writers who shares her life in a very real and vulnerable way. Because of this she touches hearts like none other. 

Years ago, I remember hearing Derek Prince during a radio broadcast tell of a moment in his ministry when God revealed to him that his ideas of perfection were something other than divine. Prince, a somewhat decorous Englishman, was ministering with his wife in a remote tribal village when its people, mostly naked, broke into song and dance as an expression of thanksgiving to God. Initially, the event offended him. Surely God could not be pleased with such uncontrolled exuberance—especially unclad exuberance.

Nevertheless, time stood still for Prince as a flash of revelation flooded through him and he realized his ideas of Christian perfection, whether in modes of worship or anything else, were born out his culture rather than intimate fellowship with Perfection Himself. In that moment, Prince threw off his long-held cultural constraints and began to dance with abandon.

The story has made me re-evaluate my ideas on a fairly regular basis. Born a perfectionist in the traditional sense, I naturally enjoy having every t crossed and every i dotted. I like things black and white, neat and tidy, safe and secure in every sense. (I will even admit to initially coming to Christ out of a desire to be perfectly compliant rather than a realization of my profound destitution without Him.)

I could categorize my spiritual life into three phases thus far: a pagan era search, a Christian culture hop and finally, a panting and desire for Perfection Himself.

Continue reading “Another Look: A Perfect Life Or A Perfect God?”

IM Book Review: Defending The Free Market

Father Robert Sirico has travelled a long twisty road from the left end of the political spectrum to the right and from a Catholic upbringing, to Protestant dabblings, to prodigal wanderings and back again to Catholicism and the priesthood.

Sirico (yes, brother to Tony of the Sopranos) caught my attention a few weeks ago in an interview sparked by the publication of his latest book, Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy. It struck me as an odd topic for a Catholic priest, but he deftly and charmingly defended his view that free markets are not only most efficient, but most moral. Yes, an odd topic for a priest, but even odder for a man who counted Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda as close friends and fellow activists during the Vietnam Era. So of course, I rushed right out and bought his book. Such colorful characters and their writings tend to invite closer scrutiny.

As a result of his own inward and outward scrutinizing, Sirico finally made the Catholic Church he was born into the house of his spiritual rebirth and also where he would spend his days as pastor, teacher, researcher and writer. His political conversion was hardly less life changing. Though he claims no affiliation with any political party, he helped found The Acton Institute, an organization that for more than two decades has been dedicated to studying religion, liberty and the practical effects of world markets on poverty and human rights.

Freedom and Property Rights

At the basis of Sirico’s contention that free markets are most moral is his belief in the principle that other human rights diminish when people are not free to own property. In this he echoes Austrian economist, Frederich Hayek. It’s no secret that we humans long for freedom and will go to great lengths to achieve it and protect it. And there is no doubt freedom can be and often is used selfishly. He says, “The free enterprise system isn’t perfect, of course, for the simple reason that human beings aren’t perfect. Every vice you see among human beings, you will also see in the markets they create.” But Sirico points out that an atmosphere of freedom is also the best breeding ground for the human creativity that benefits untold millions. Think Louis Pasteur. Think the Wright brothers. Think Thomas Edison.

Conversely, it is the political movements that have accomplished the “abolition of private property” practiced at various times and in various places throughout world history (and more contemporarily in the USSR, communist China, North Korea, Cuba, etc.), that have established “many of the most brutal regimes in the twentieth century.”

Continue reading “IM Book Review: Defending The Free Market”

Not Just Believing in God, but Believing in the Humanity of People

My reading this week could not be more bipolar. Not only am I reading about Steve Jobs and corporate leadership in America, I am also reading Becoming Human by Jean Vanier, founder of L’Arche, which has communities around the world where people live with and among the developmentally disabled.

In preparation for more discussion in days to come, here is a short 2006 PBS feature on Vanier, his life and work.

 
http://dgjigvacl6ipj.cloudfront.net/media/swf/PBSPlayer.swf

Watch Jean Vanier on PBS. See more from Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.

Why “Leaders” Are Not the Church’s Greatest Need

In conjunction with today’s post, I encourage you to read the following article by Mark Galli as a complement to what I have to say here. As usual, Mark is spot on.

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The Leadership Cult
Why are we fascinated with the very thing Jesus warned us against?
by Mark Galli, 11/13/2008, Christianity Today

Not a week goes by before another leadership book or three crosses my desk. In a pile of recent church books sitting in front of me sits The Soul of a Leader, The Leadership Dynamic, and Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership.

A Google search reveals a plethora of leadership groups, organizations, and institutes of every conceivable name. Want to give a kick-start to your nonprofit? Put leadership and institute in the title, and you have automatic prestige. How’s this? “The Galli Institute for Leadership Development.” No university or major institution, desperate for new sources of income, can forgo having its own leadership seminars/classes/degrees. Even Disney has gotten into the act with the Disney Institute — “Highlighting the vision and ideals of Walt Disney, Disney Institute is a recognized leader in experiential training, leadership development. …”

In our culture, leadership has become a “cult” — in the sense of an obsessive or faddish devotion. And Christians have been initiated into it. Besides the books that sit before me, there are many others authored by big-name pastors — or former pastors, since some pastors have managed to parlay their leadership insights into whole careers. Christian colleges are all about “developing future leaders.” And there’s the famous Leadership Network. And Leadership journal. And on it goes.

When Leadership came on to the scene in 1980, not many Christians thought about what it meant to lead an organization. Managing was more the rage. And few people saw the pastor as a leader. Today, it is the rare pastor who does not think of himself first and foremost as a leader who must employ leadership skills to lead his people. Gone are the days when pastors thought of themselves as, well, ministers — those who “attend to the wants and needs of others” (American Heritage Dictionary).

Read the rest of this article here

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Here is a brief overview of a few things I understand about leadership. You who are MBA’s, feel free to correct me or clarify this.

Start with what it is: “Leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal” (Northouse). This rather generic contemporary definition sets our understanding of leadership clearly in a corporate context. Leadership as we commonly use it today is a business concept.

  • Leadership is about an individual who is influential.
  • Leadership is about how that individual influences a group of other individuals.
  • Leadership is about bringing about the achievement of common goals.

So then, the goal (or the mission) is the important thing. The group exists for the purpose of carrying out the mission. And it is the leader’s task to influence them so that the mission will be achieved.

Continue reading “Why “Leaders” Are Not the Church’s Greatest Need”

Gordon MacDonald on Lessons We Can Learn from Steve Jobs

The Soul of Steve Jobs
What would it have taken to reach the Apple founder’s core?
by Gordon MacDonald
Leadership Journal, Winter 2012

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This week I am reading Walter Isaacson’s fascinating biography, Steve Jobs. It’s like a car wreck on the interstate — I can’t turn my eyes away. The life of the late co-founder of Apple Computer covered the same time period as my own life, so the landscape and context reads like a road trip through Baby Boomer land: familiar yet freaky, comical, exotic, ludicrous, outlandish and bizarre and yet all of this became funneled through the American sieve into a story of business and enterprise.

I’ve been a Macintosh computer user since 1988 when I received a Mac SE for a seminary graduation present. As far as I know, that computer is still working; I donated it to a ministry that takes old computers to Africa for churches and ministers to use. I’ll confess that I drank the Kool-Aid from the beginning. Apple literally had their “evangelists” who sang the praises of this machine as something so revolutionary it would change the world. In some ways it has.

More recently, after Jobs’ death last October, I have wanted to read this biography to learn more about the man himself. I’ve had this sense that much of what we have seen in megachurch leadership in the past twenty five years has taken its cues from people like Jobs, who was the very symbol of cool, creative, innovative, visionary entrepreneurship. He saw possibilities others couldn’t see. He was famously said to have a “reality distortion field” that enabled him to ignore all the facts arrayed against his vision and push himself and others to produce amazing products. At tremendous cost, I might add, but we’ll discuss that when I review the book.

Today, just a suggestion that you read Gordon MacDonald’s thoughtful piece in Leadership and come back to discuss your own impressions of Jobs, Apple computer, the American way of “leadership,” the place of technology in our lives, our cultural fascination with innovation and charismatic visionaries, and any other related topic that comes to mind.

As we consider some of these things this week, I’m particularly interested in hearing how you think that all of this has affected the church and ministry in our day.

Randy Thompson: If it seems like your pastor is crazy…

Losing Paradise, He Qi

Note from CM: Randy Thompson is one of our faithful readers and commenters. Randy and his wife Jill have served churches in New England for over twenty years and are now running a retreat in New Hampshire called Forest Haven where they minister to other ministers. Today’s post will help you understand why they feel this is such a need in the church today.

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If It Seems Like Your Pastor Is Crazy…
by Randy Thompson

If it seems like your pastor might be crazy, it may well be that the poor soul really is.

Consider:

Todd Rhoades’ website reports that “70% of pastors say they have a lower self-image now than when they started.” 80% report that ministry has had a negative impact on their families, and 50% say they would leave the ministry if they could.

Barnabas Ministries reports that at least 19,000 congregations experience serious conflict every year, 98% of which are interpersonal in nature, and 85% of which are over issues of control.

Pastor Bob seems paranoid?

He may need to be: In a 2009 survey of 2000 pastors, Focus on the Family found that 24% of those surveyed went through a forced termination. (What’s the deal with these private elders meetings, and what really did happen when Pastor Bob left his last church, anyway?)

Pastor Linda seems frustrated and angry?

She may have good reason to be: Citing a Barna study, Barnabas Ministries reports that churches expect their pastor to be competent in 16 different areas, which is way beyond anyone’s capabilities, unless you’re Superman or Gandalf the Wizard. (It’s too bad that Pastor Linda is such a good preacher, so involved in the community, and so good with the kids. She’s a lousy administrator, doesn’t spend enough time calling on people and having nice pastoral chats, and doesn’t communicate the church’s cleaning needs to the janitorial service. So, the Shadow Search Committee secretly forms, aka the Board of Deacons’ Assault Force Delta.)

Pastor Dave seems grumpy and withdrawn?

He may be clinically depressed. 50% of pastors, more or less, deal with depression and burn-out. Depending on whom you believe, between 61% and 70% of pastors say they have no close friends. (And, if he tells the Board of Elders about feeling depressed, Pastor Dave may have even more reason to be depressed, and burned-out, too, because, well, being depressed isn’t “spiritual.” Hmmm. Maybe that’s why he’s so good at funerals.)

Second year in a row the church didn’t grow?

It’s time to “encourage” Pastor Ellen to update her profile, even though the church hasn’t grown for the past twenty years and the past ten pastors).

Pastor Bill seems to be spending a lot of time comforting the recently divorced church organist?

Don’t be overly surprised: 33% of clergy report crossing appropriate sexual boundaries and 20% report having extramarital affairs. (You really don’t need further comment here, do you?)

Continue reading “Randy Thompson: If it seems like your pastor is crazy…”

Eagle Update: 8/5/12

Eagle and I had a good conversation on the phone this afternoon. They transferred him to a different room (in the middle of last night — ugh!) so it took me a few minutes to get hold of him. He gave me a few graphic descriptions of his red, swollen, and weeping leg which I will spare you, preferring to move on the good news that his vital signs are all stable and good right now, that he is getting up now and then to move about, and that he continues to be grateful for all the support he has received.

The medical folks have told him this will be a three to four week process. I asked him if there were any complications with his work, and he said no. He also shared the good news that there is no concern at this time with medical bills, for which he is thankful.

In the past year, he has asked us to pray for his father who has had some serious health problems, and we talked about that. He is concerned about his mom, who is caught between two health situations at the moment, and also asked us to continue praying about some significant tests his dad will be having in the near future.

His main concern for himself continues to be the healing of his leg.

 

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Let me give you another reminder that if you would like to send cards or notes to Eagle, drop me an email using the “Write Chaplain Mike” link in the upper right of the page, and I will send you my address. I’ll then gather items that come and send them to Eagle for his encouragement.

Be not weary in well doing!