Dancers, actors, and pop inspiration

I'm glad Margaret Cho didn't get voted off Dancing With the Stars this week. Not that I think she's that great of a dancer or anything, but I can see that she is on a journey that I'm real jealous of seeing as how the story of it is being told via a cheesy reality show.

After her much improved routine this week, Cho spoke about how tough it was after tanking on week 1:

"People would not look at me, because I had like this weird, 'loser energy.' Like, after they would talk to me, they would use hand sanitizer. It was like they were trying to get the loser off.... It's actually amazing to discover, you know, this whole thing -- that I'm actually a dancer.''

That's pretty close to what it's all about for me. The discovery that I'm actually...anything. Anything different that what I only thought I was.

During week one, Cho kind of hammed it up. She did what she was comfortable with- comedy- and that got in the way of the dancing. On week two she let go of the comedy. And she embraced her dancer-ness.

This is inspiring particularly because one of the judges apparently told her that even though it was hard to see (because she was hiding behind her comedy) it was vaguely apparent that she was a dancer.

Who knows what it takes to discover that we are actually...leaders of discipleship. Agents of change. Catalyst of transformation.

Our armour is often comedy, status quo, numbers, or affirmation.

Nobody wants to go to battle unprotected.

But Margaret Cho did and it made all the difference.

I heard Shia LaBeouf say that he doesn't recognize talent as a category.

Everyone is lucky or fortunate or just dedicated and hard working. (I think Malcolm Gladwell is on to this also).

So everyone is actually a dancer or an actor or a basketball player or a boxer or a director of positive life change or a child of God.

Do you suppose we, unlike talent, we make any difference to who discovers who they are and how good they become at being themselves?

Popular You

The magazine Popular Science can be traced back to 1872. It started out as a way to disseminate scientific knowledge to the educated layman. In other manifestations, it was more of a scholarly journal. In 1915, the magazine reinvented itself most dramatically according to Wikipedia:

The old version was a scholarly journal that had eight to ten articles in a 100 page issue. There would be ten to twenty photographs or illustrations. The new version had hundreds of short, easy to read articles with hundreds of illustrations. Editors wrote for "the home craftsman and hobbyist who wanted to know something about the world of science." The circulation doubled in the first year.

Do suppose that somewhere, a scholarly reader or a more serious science lover threw a fit? Maybe they burned their Popular Science and World Advance magazines?

Popular Science had sold out. Maybe even science had sold out.

Because it sought to provide access to the commoner or to the greater population.

Do we do that?

Do we pathologically protect our worship, music, mission, education, etc?

Because it's our life work, it's important that "everybody can't do it or doesn't get it."

I'm not saying dumb down your next outreach event or to rush out a get a lead guitarist for your orchestra.

I'm just saying what's your motivation for keeping the bar so high?

(As always: when I write your, I mean my and when I say you, I mean me.)

Your faithfulness to your calling or to your selfishness?

If you have lots of dense type and obscure ideas in your ministry, maybe it's time to increase the size of the font, add more pictures, and put more, to-the-point articles in each edition.

terrible tenderness

Quaker missionary, educator, speaker and writer Thomas R. Kelly describes a seeming paradox of terrible tenderness in his book A Testament of Devotion (p. 81). He describes the experience in relation to God's experience of the fallen sparrow. (God's concern of in contrast to the world's worth of a creature of His creation, etc.)

Kelly poses the question to the reader: "Have you experienced this concern for the sparrow's fall?"

He continues that this is not just Jesus' experience. As if to say, we have some responsibility here too.

And my inference is that we (God's people) have always had this responsibility to take an active interest in understanding the value and being concerned about creation and creatures in contrast to worldly value.

Back to terrible tenderness:

According to Kelly,

There is a sense in which, in this terrible tenderness, we become one with God and bear in our quivering souls the sins and the burdens, the benightedness and the tragedy of the creatures of the whole world, and suffer in their suffering, and die in their death.

So, who's up for that?

I visited a church recently where the pastor seemed to make lots out of a prophecy in Haggai or Zechariah that something they were "foretelling" would come to pass in the life of Jesus.

I used to take a lot of comfort in those types of interpretations because the message seemed to be: "See: We are right!"

Now, I think that there wasn't so much foretelling going on as forthtelling--this is how things are, this is how the nature of God and his relationship to his people is.

And in the light of forthtelling, there is immense comfort. This is how it is. This is how God rolls.

But there is also an unanswered question in there. "Do I have the courage to be a part of this suffering in the suffering of others and dying in their deaths?". Kelly's terrible tenderness.

But it decidedly doesn't any longer have much of anything, if at all, to do with: "See: We are right!"

More or less?

If you speak about the hundreds (thousands?) of ways that God manifests his presence intrinsically and inherently (and often unexplainably), you'll usually find someone who needs a more explainable god.

Talk about how things just seem to somehow "work" in natural systems such as organization of ant colonies and termite mounds and birds of the air and lilies of the field and you will see a reenactment of how religion came to be established.

We need a god that aspires to the same level of complexity, rationality, and essentially functionality as we have.

It's natural and important.

But there is more and that is where we sometimes lose heart.

We can't back away from the simple fact that there is more.

Explore more.

S'more. It's not just a campfire snack.

"in the beginning God created heaven and the earth..."

And then: more.

Etc.

Leverage

The group that you think is all about changing the community's homeless situation doesn't really think about changing the community's homeless situation that much.

Chances are they really are most interested in supporting the homeless shelter.

Upon further review:

They are not that terribly passionate about the homeless shelter, either.

Turns out one of the most beloved members of the group really cared a lot about the homeless shelter.

Because he helped start it--back when it really stood for something.

Before it became a organization bent of supporting itself and its staff.

Or because his brother spent years in the street before people understood mental illness and homelessness.

So really what the group cares about is their relationships to the guys who cares about the homeless shelter because he cared at one time about changing the community's homeless situation.

You might want to know that.

Particularly if you are all about leveraging groups' passions to accomplish stuff.

You can really only leverage the relationships between people.

And you can't really leverage relationships very long.

I'm going to try letting relationships leverage me.

Care to join me?

Knowing when to encourage

I watched a tentative driver attempting to back up and turn around on a narrow gravel driveway. There was one small tree to be negotiated, but it wasn't really even in play.

Some distance down the drive a security guard, with a clear view of how wide open the turn around area was, began to yell and motion to the very slow moving driver that, you know, hey- you got it come on back. No problems. Why are you going so slowly? Her lack of pace seemed to affect him.

Well the yell and the arm waving of the security guard shut down the driver.

She could only surmise that she was doing something wrong: maybe she thought she wasn't allowed to back up on the grass or maybe she thought there was something in the way she couldn't see.

It took far more time for the security guard to walk down the driveway and for the driver to realize he was just encouraging her and for her then to regain her composure and confidence to start backing up again.

Sometimes the best encouragement we can offer is to let people proceed at their own pace on a path that will ultimately lead to their success.

a pile of termites

Several years ago, I heard a story on NPR that stuck with me about termite mounds. It seems that when one of these massive structures seen on the African Plains or at Disney's Animal Kingdom gets knocked over, the termites build it back.

So there is no committee meeting. No termite gets elected president of the rebuild. Nobody organizes the termites into teams. No sign ups, no directives, edicts, or org charts.

The termites just "know what to do."

It turns out there is a name for this type of behavior in animals and nature. It's called emergence.

I'm not sure why the story idea first resonated with me.

I guess on the gut connection to God level it just affirms that God works that way with me sometimes.

It isn't about how organized, how well I know God, how large my faith or strong my belief that dictates, controls, or limits God's love.

It just happens.

So. If that's true sometimes the best thing we can do as leaders is not to lead.

To just get out the way.

And let the termites rebuild.

Not always but close

A friend confidently shared with me that belief always comes first and then faith. It didn't seem right to me. First you have to put your faith in something and then after it doesn't let you down enough, you believe in it. It seems to me.

And things are never always. There is always an exception.

But I guess things come close enough sometimes that you can say it might as well be always.

If that's true then I think being always drives doing where transformation and change are concerned. For me.

Doing is outside in.

Being is inside out.

Doing stuff enough might develop some good habits and in doing that you might experience something that transforms your being.

But things don't seem to get started until the experience happens and then you start doing stuff in response to that.

We spend lots of time planning the stuff we do. And maybe we don't spend quite enough time understanding how or if that stuff informs or transforms who and what we are.

We should do more of that.

Is your ministry a campaign or a movement?

According to the minds behind the group called Brains on Fire, marketing can lean toward campaigns or movements. Can we say the same thing about ministry?

Consider some of the thoughts about the two from a manifesto on the idea:

Campaigns have a beginning and an end.

Movements go on as long as kindred spirits are involved.

Campaigns are part of the war vocabulary. (target, launch, dominate markets...)

Movements are part of the evangelist vocabulary. (evangelize, passion, love...)

Campaigns are dry and emotionally detached.

Movements are organic and rooted in passion.

Campaigns rely on traditional mediums.

Movements rely on word of mouth, where the people are the medium.

Campaigns are part of the creationist theory—we’re going to create something cool and people will talk about it. Movements are part of the evolutionist theory—whatever we co-create with the fans they can own and run with it, which will evolve over time.

Campaigns are you talking about yourself.

Movements are others talking about you.

Campaigns are an ON/OFF switch.

Movements are a volume dial—and there’s no zero.

Campaigns add to awareness.

Movements add to credibility.

Campaigns are “you vs. us.”

Movements are “let’s do this together.”

So some of the things I ask myself:

If there wasn't a bulletin or pulpit announcement about the event, would anybody come?

If my emails were a blog or a website, would anybody read them?

If I didn't initiate everything, would anything get started with me?

Do I spend more time on production values than ideas?

Campaigns have there place. How often and to what depth they change lives is questionable.

Maybe we need a campaign to start more movements.

Ultimately I would add:

Campaigns can be controlled.

Movements go in directions you didn't anticipate or want.

The flute ministry

A mission team I served with visited an IDP camp. Living conditions had become increasingly deplorable here over 17 years since the residents had to leave their comfortable homes. The place was caving in. Rodents bit people during the night. Water poured in. Sometimes they had water and electricity, sometimes not. No jobs, little health care, no transportation. No hope.

One of the older ladies implored us to consider the young people with nothing to do and no future. Can we help them find a better life?

I had left for the mission trip with pressure from the home front to come up with a new flute for my daughter. I didn't entirely understand this need because she already has a (best I could tell) perfectly good flute.

So after my experience in the IDP camp, I had an overwhelming desire to do one thing:

I emailed my wife and told her: we have to get that flute for our daughter.

I wish I could explain it.

I wish I had of emailed my wife and said:

That money we were going to use to buy that second flute: we need instead to donate it to these people in this IDP camp who live on less than US$0.50 a day.

But I didn't. In the moment, I concluded the best thing I can do to help the young people is to make sure my daughter had what she needed (as best she understood) to fulfill her hopes and dreams.

I'm not saying it's right, exemplary, or a sign of good character.

I'm just saying, that's what happened.

Do you or someone you love suffer from narcissistic personality disorder?

According to an article in Wikipedia, five or more of the following symptoms indicate you or your loved one may be at risk for narcissistic personality disorder (NPD)..

- Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)

-Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love

-Believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions).

-Rarely acknowledges mistakes and/or imperfections

-Requires excessive admiration

-Has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations

-Is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends

-Lacks empathy: is unwilling or unable to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others.

-Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her

-Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitude.

Studies show 1% of Americans suffer from NPD.

Personal research indicates rates among members of religious organizations may be slightly higher.

Once someone is diagnosed with NPD, what should you do?

The singer Rihanna offers one possible avenue:

"But you put on quite a show
Really had me going
But now it's time to go
Curtain's finally closing
That was quite a show
Very entertaining
But it's over now
Go on and take a bow

Grab your clothes and get gone"

Tempting.

But the fact is NPD sufferers are often the engines that drive things. We need them around. Sorry.

Confronting them isn't the best option either. They will shut down in humiliation or become enraged or both.

You have to maintain mission statements and goals and objectives and visit and revisit them often.

Open, honest, frequent evaluation.

Oh, and have yourself checked out with someone you trust.

The earlier you can diagnose NPD, the easier is is to cure.

The author would like to thank...

I took a look at the acknowledgements of the book I'm reading just for fun started counting the number of people the author recognized for helping him write the book. I quit counting at around 175 with still lots more to go.

It got me to thinking about the acknowledgements I would write for any particular ministry endeavor I have authored lately. It wouldn't be that many people.

I probably sacrificed the opportunity to put some names in my acknowledgements because I figured they weren't worth the effort or trouble. Maybe I didn't want to bug them again asking for their help.

Some of them I don't really like working with. Even though they would likely all make the story richer.

But then again. Nobody really reads the acknowledgements anyway do they?

revelation or delusion

Anthony Storr, in Feet of Clay postulates that problems are solved through revelation and delusion. Ideas, epiphanies lead to solutions. Rewriting history of a society of of oneself is another way to take problems- old and new- off the table. We are the stories we tell. Truthful, factual, or otherwise. The more we tell them, the more true they become, usually solving a number of problems along the way.

Storr makes another interesting point.

Artists and scientists realize solutions via revelation or delusion are temporary. With each solution comes an new opportunity for revelation or story telling.

Religious types, he says see solutions as being final.

Religion embraces man's tendency to have control over his condition.

Sometimes you might see my revelation as a delusion.

Maybe your delusion is occasionally a revelation for me.

Our best bet is for problem solving then is to see both of these conditions (and other combinations of you and me and our revelations and delusions) as temporary rather than permanent conditions.

Otherwise, the only way for us to go is to completely write each other off for good.

And that, of course, doesn't solve anything.

Two priests and a pastor walk into a seminar...

At a seminar on the great streams of Christian Faith, the Orthodox priest spoke of the practical and personal experience of truth in the life of the individual and the church, communion with God as complete freedom and full humanity, and salvation as reestablishing man's connection with God. Afterwards everyone gave him a rousing round of applause and said, "If that works for you, that's great."

The Catholic priest spoke of the special authority of the pope, the ability of saints to intercede on behalf of believers, the concept of Purgatory as a place of afterlife purification before entering Heaven, and the doctrine of transubstantiation. He completed his words to a round of applause and people said, "If that works for you, that's great."

The Evangelical Protestant Pastor went and he spoke of justification by grace alone through faith, the priesthood of all believers, and the supremacy of Holy Scripture in matters of faith and order. He too received a heartfelt round of applause and people again said, "If that works for you, then that's great."

"No, the pastor said. It's not a of question if it works for me. It's the true word of the living God! If you don't believe it, you are all damned to hell."

And the people all said. "If that works for you, that's great."

This story is told by Simon Blackburn, in the book Being Good. (He tells it as a seminar on religion with Buddhist, Hindu, and Catholic speakers, but it works for most anything.

Often in religion as well as countless other life issues, it isn't enough that our thoughts, ideas, desires, dreams and understandings exist. It is really important that others embrace our truth and believe it, takes it on, and wins others over to our way of thinking. It's why people plead with you to (and chastise you if you don't) forward e-mails, pass out religious tracts on the street, start a different church (one that's right all the time), don't speak to beloved family members for decades, fly planes into buildings, attempt to exterminate entire races of people, and don't wish their child well in their new relationship.

And if that works for you...

Pick you superpower

Flight or invisibility?

Informal polls indicate if you're female: invisibility. Male: flight. Introvert: invisibility. Extrovert: flight. etc.

Having decided- what would you do with it?

Villains aside, why does everybody with a superpower automatically gravitate to crime prevention?

What about super lawyers, doctors, geologists, and landscapers? Would you consider just doing what you do but somehow take advantage of a shorter commute (flight) or get more work done because people don't interrupt you while you are at your desk (invisibility)?

I joked with my wife that my new glasses make me look like Clark Kent.

When I told her I was feeling homesick while on a mission trip, she consoled me by telling me now that I looked like Clark Kent I had to spend some time making the world a better place.

I guess whatever we are doing and whatever power (or look) we have: we can in some way be dedicated to fighting crime.

Or making the world a better place.

With or without the leotard.

The perfect spaghetti sauce

A friend asked me what the perfect mission trip looks like.

A fumbled through some ideas but basically said, there isn't a perfect mission trip.

What's perfect for me isn't perfect for you.

My answer was later validated by a youtube video of Malcolm Gladwell talking about human diversity and the perfect spaghetti sauce.

It seems on more than one occasion, though attempts to discover the perfect food or drink item, it becomes apparent that there is no perfect food or drink item. You can come closer to making people happy by offering the perfect food items.

Another interesting note. People don't know what they want or like until they try it.

For mission trips: people don't know what they want. They think it should be about saving souls or giving people stuff they don't have, maybe. Cause we have it. And they should have it. And they should have it like we have it.

And so we start there.

And we try offering people ways to understand what is missing in their lives (this includes the people going on the trip as well) and how they can fill these voids.

Can a mission trip be about increasing the quality of life for a specific community of people?

Or can it be about righting a wrong? Helping victims of war get an education or job training or small business development training for instance.

Maybe at the end of the day people will change the way they see the world or their relationship to God and to each other and ultimately change the way they see themselves.

Who knew 1/3 of the people liked chunky Ragu? People who make spaghetti sauce just always thought the perfect spaghetti sauce was thin.

And who knew what people prefer on mission trips is to make a difference in the lives of people and to be a part of finding out that the world can be a better place.

We always thought it was about making people more like us.

Porn

Porn isn't just about naked people.

In the case of sex porn, alot of it has to do with the idea that you can have the pleasure without the pain.

There is leadership porn. If you follow this ten step program you can obtain life transformation in your people without the frequent honest and difficult conversations and the willingness to receive critical feedback and then change how you do things to be a better person and help the organization and it's people realize their promise.

There is missions porn. Supporting local agencies or global partners and reading the newsletters and finding about all the wonderful transformation taking place without you having to take on anyone's suffering or having to hold a child while they die or having to clean up someone's vomit after they promised you they weren't drinking any more.

Spiritual porn might involve lots of flowery language about how when you turn yourself over completely and wholly to god, you will find the place that he has been calling you to without having to really be present to a conversation with someone about how all the muslims are trying to kill us.

My favorite is recycling porn. Doing something to feel better about yourself without really having to change your life.

It can be addictive.

It can destroy lives.

Impoverished ministry

In her book Dead Aid, Dambisa Moyo, suggests that the over one trillion dollars worth of aid pumped into Africa over the past decade has not only failed to increase economic growth for most countries on that continent, but has in fact been a part of reducing economic output.

The consideration is important because it is economic growth that ultimately reduces poverty.

Moho looks at the critical thinking behind the Marshal Plan credited with helping European nations recover from World War Ii.

The idea: The process of economic growth is based on a nation developing sufficient savings to enable investment. Investment stimulates growth which positions the country for poverty reduction through developing an effective work force and sustainable markets.

The problem with aid of the magnitude what has been sent to Africa is that it attempted to short circuit this process by artificially creating savings that weren't really savings.

So budgeting aside: is our ministry team impoverished?

Are people going hungry? Are we failing to develop and invest in people's ideas?

Are we seeking to alleviate this poverty of passionate involvement with our own version of a ministry Marshal Plan?

Savings is gained by sacrifice.

Maybe we have to give up something to put social capital in the bank. What areas are artificial attempts to "do good stuff"?

Unless you write it down, chances are you'll blow your budget and your savings and investment portfolio will never be realized.

Where can we best spend our time and energy to catalyze positive life change?

Who will be with us as we save, invest, and stimulate growth for our ministry?

So what is the currency of ministry and how do you plan to develop it?

Once you have it, how do you spend (devote yourself to engage with) it?

Hopefully we won't have to squander the equivalent of a trillion dollars worth of agonizing meetings, purposeless programs, hours of planning, inboxes full of emails, and chasing after pulpit support and bulletin articles to realize what we're doing worked in post WW II Europe but doesn't seem to spark to much interest or imagination out there today.

You are what you love

The movie Adaptation looks for a while like it is going to be a movie in which people don't really change. The protagonist doesn't really want anything that bad. There really isn't a negative turn. No plot twist. Maybe it's saving grace will be that it breaks the mold. And then there is a turning point where things change. Sidebar: it was cool that the movie said: we're not going there. And then it goes there big time. Cool.

This is a big deal for me. How many times do we determine value based on how well people like our thing?

How often are we motivated to engage mission and ministry because of them and what they don't have instead of who we are.

I'm not saying relevance doesn't matter.

But unless we do what we do because of who we are: is it really ever going to be relevant?

Really?

I'm looking to own my love. I think it's important now.

If you don't like it, it is ok.

That's your business, not mine.

but then

It's easy enough to think that we get people to come out, give money, participate, and enoy the experience.

But it's really about supporting the leaders of your ministry in their attempts to take part in God's mission.

We can fall into the trap of thinking that a mission trip is about seeing how efficient we can accomplish as fast as possible.

We remember though, its about finding community memebers who share the same purpose as you so you can work year 'round for positive life change.

You can even get discouraged.

But then we...
And someone reminds you that...
So you...

Preaching from the inside

We watched a Rob Bell video in our 6th grade Sunday School class yesterday. The series is called Nooma. This particular one was called Sunday and it involved a talk from a restaurant or diner about the church and what makes it relevant and irrelevant sometimes. During the discussion afterward, one of us shared about how it was weird to have preaching from a restaurant booth.

When asked how one knows if somebody is preaching, the response was "When somebody talks to you about God."

It pointed up among other things that for the most part (at least in the 6th grade) we think what we hear about God comes from preaching- from somebody else telling us about God.

We often (even years hence 6th grade) might think that what we hear about mission and ministry comes from somebody else telling us about it too.

Maybe we are the appointed ones to do the telling.

So we should hone our craft and study our discipline.

But we should also remind ourselves that just like the best preaching (allows us to learn about God from inside our selves) maybe the best bits about mission and ministry allow connections with and among people from the inside.

The quality of ministry shouldn't be contingent on how much we know about it or how well we can tell people about it.

Whether the message comes from a pulpit, a conference table, e-mail, blog, website or bulletin (or a restaurant booth) it should only be limited by it's authenticity and our vulnerability (to be wrong, to be changed, to say "We'll miss you", to say: "It was a gift", to realize true strength lies in gentleness, to think- that's a deal breaker for me, etc.).

At least, that's what's coming from inside me.

Rules and Principles

A rule might be considered the way something has to be. A principle might be considered a proven or reliable way of how something is

Some organizations are about the rules and deciding who belongs and who doesn't based on how well they follow the rules.
Other organizations seem more intent on figuring out the best principles and building community among the people who subscribe to them.

Some people make decisions about who they will work for, date, do business with, befriend or worship with based on how well they understand and articulate the rules. And seem to follow them. Other people share experiences about their encounters with the principles as they understand them and seek to understand the principles better and learn about new principles.

I'm more inspired by organizations that explore principles. Rules have their place. I'm more attracted to people who share principles. And don't let rules get in the way.

I've heard that Christianity doesn't really make a very good religion (set of rules). It seems to set up better as a spiritual way (collection of principles).

But maybe collection of principles isn't grandiose enough to keep our attention.

A set of rules, though. That can get plenty grandiose.

The wisdom of the crowd

Can you draw upon the wisdom of the crowd while hedging your bets against an undesired outcome?

First you have to realize their is a wisdom to the crowd. There is an example that involves how a crowd figured to within a pound the weight of an ox..

If you subscribe to the wisdom of the crowd thing, (termites, ants, bees, google, groups guessing the number of jelly beans in a jar, you end up with a group that is more powerful than the best of it's individuals.

The fact that we often try to stack the deck or load up the bus with specific people we like, trust, or want to be around seems to be something to hold in tension with this wisdom of the crowd thing.

But I don't think you van have the cake of crowd wisdom and the control of eating it too.

The question is: do we want to know the weight of the ox?

Or do we really just want to be the one closest to the right answer?

Ready or not

I'm not sure if I'm stuck or if I need to get unstuck. I know I don't feel like I have very much to say to anybody. It seems a lot of the stuff I'm doing, I'm doing out of routine and I do with an overpowering feeling of rote.

I guess this is where everybody says you have to hang in there and stay the course. You have to take walks along routes you normally drive and see things you wouldn't otherwise. Make it a point to use the air dryer and rub rub rub your hands patiently dry. Sit down across from the person that's hard to talk to and look them in the eye but not even in the eye. Face them in the face more like it and...engage and embrace and don't worry about another verb that begins in e.

Think about Parker Palmer and his bouts of depression when the only thing anyone ever did that was helpful was to come over and rub his feet and not say anything. Believe that wherever you are: that is the place to be.

A therapist I know says the litmus test of whether or not he can help someone is the question: how are you doing.

A I'm fine says: "Not ready."

A I don't know if I'm going to make it says: "Let's get started."

So. You ready to get started?

I think I am.

Developing leaders without training wheels

I confided to a friend that I wasn't sure when to lean in and when to give space to a developing leader under the care of my leadership. He gave me that look that people give you sometimes when you ask for something that they know you already have.
"Did you teach your kids how to ride a bike?"
He asked me.
"Yes"
"Well, then. You already know."
Sometimes you let go when you should hold on and they fall and skin their knee.
Sometimes you hold on when they are ready for you to let go and they miss their chance to take it on their own.
It's like that.
I never had too much angst about that with my kids.
I guess because I loved them and I never doubted their love for me. Even when they skinned their knee because of me.
I wonder if that works for developing leaders.