Griffin Trek

Capt Jack had it Made!

2008-08-10T15:33:00.001-04:00

Captain Jack Aubrey was the commander of the HMS SURPRISE in the 2003 film "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World," as adapted from Patrick O'Brian's series of novels. The movie itself is probably the finest cinemagraphic representation ever of the realities of life aboard a naval vessel in the days of, "Wooden ships and iron men." Though Capt Jack is fictional, his position as master of a fighting frigate is clearly historical. From my position as a commander in the 21st Century I look at Capt Jack with great envy. While he was at sea, his only duty was to ensure that his men were doing their duty and that ship was well tended, fitted and fought. He had little, if any, administrative minutiae to fog his days. He kept logs, wrote letters, and read & reread accounts of other naval officers, to be sure, but the majority of his time was spent on the weather decks ensuring that his ship was on course and "tight."

Unlike Capt Jack, I am constantly buried in an avalanch of paperwork to the extent that it takes significant effort just to get out of my office. There is so much that I could do that I have had to deliberately choose what will not get done. Modern communication technologies, as great as they are, more often add to time pressures than take away from them. Here's an example. When I first came on active duty we had very few computers capable of performing word processing. As a result, if I wanted to type up something official, I had to use a typewriter. We didn't even have electric ones - just manuals. When I finished writing my document and wanted to forward it to someone in another command, I either had to hand-deliver it, or put it in a messenger envelope and have it sent through our courier system. If I sent it at the beginning of one week I might reasonably expect a documenatry response by the beginning of the next week. Now someone will forward a 15-page document by email and expect it to be read, digested and critiqued in less than an hour. That might be fine if it were done only once a day. The reality is that the ease of generating documentation with today's technology means that the quantity of documentation has multiplied exponentially. This boils down to a lot more time looking at my computer and trying to dig through my "in" box than I would like to be spending.

Good leadership is about people. Just as life is about people. Everything else pales in importance to people. If my paperwork doesn't have a beneficial effect on the people with whom I am charged to lead, then it is counterproductive and a "sea-anchor" slowing progress. There are some collaborative tools out there that I want to investigate using in order to decrease the time it takes for me to handle paperwork, but for the moment I still find myself signing my name up to 50-60 times a day on documents that I usually have to reacquaint myself with in order to ensure that what I'm signing is accurate & trustworthy.

No matter how important a piece of paper is to the operation of my unit, I still need to get out to see, and be seen by, the people I lead. I've already had several situations in which I have learned things just by visiting my people, that I otherwise never would have known. In those situations I have learned of needs that I could fill in order to help my people get the mission accomplished. There is no great leadership without presence. No email or video teleconference can make up for looking someone in the eye and dripping sweat with the people in your charge.

Jack Aubrey had it good. He was on a small ship with a contained amount of sailors. They learned very quickly what was important to him and what he expected. That is critical for anyone in a leadership role. One of the things I'm doing to get out from behind my desk is that I'm going to get a stand-up desk soon. It will make walking away from my office that much easier, because I'll already be standing. More updates on this later.

If you haven't done so yet, watch "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World." It's a great leadership film.

Dirk

What are Your Standards?

2008-08-09T10:26:00.001-04:00

Part of almost every military officer's career is the study of leadership. I will caveat that and say that, though we almost always talk of "leadership" as a positive virtue, the fact is that leadership is often bad, because bad leadership is pretty easy. It doesn't take much effort to lead poorly. Great leadership, on the other hand, is inconvenient. It requires focus and effort on almost everything put personal desires and comfort.

So, we study good leadership in order to have the tools to lead well those of whom we have been given charge. I keep several books on leadership on my desk and every day read a few passages or paragraphs in order to get thoughts on leadership flowing. One passage I read last week really got me thinking about the standards by which we critique ourselves and our oranizations. The author mentioned how a large athletic shoe company might motivate their employees by setting a goal to "beat" their major competitor, or a rental car company might do the same. The author mentioned these as possible means by which an organization may establish unifying goals for its members - goals/objectives that motivate everyone to work together to achieve.

The more I thought about this passage, though, the more it bothered me. It finally hit me why I think this type of goal-setting is only second-rate at best. Setting your sights on outperforming a competitor, in effect, means that you are letting the competition set the performance standards. If we succeed by just being "better" than another organization (and what metrics do you use to make the comparison?), then what do we do when we "arrive?" Does the goal then become, "staying ahead of the competition,"? If so, the competition is still the one setting the standard by which we judge ourselves.

I just don't think there is any way around the need to have objective, immutable standards by which we judge our own performance and the performance of the organizations with which we are associated. Let's take our athletic shoe company as an example. Instead of setting a goal to provide a greater monetary return for investors than the current, "industry leader," this company could decide that its objective, immutable standards include high quality products, great customer service and a corporate environment in which excellence, honesty and valuing individuals are the most important characteristics of daily operations. What the competition does or doesn't do has no impact on those standards at all. In fact, the company could be tracking very well on all those standards but not be the "industry leader" in terms of profitability. So what? Most people who we want to be around would much rather be part of an organization in which excellence and taking care of people are highly valued and rewarded.

A benefit of being imperfect human beings is that we can always improve. Therefore, if we have standards that require perfection to attain, we may never get there, but we can always get closer than where we are right now. Objective, immutable standards of performance keep us focused on the right path and protect us from using subjective comparisons to others in order to justify complacency or laziness. Improvement is a journey, not a destination.

"Take responsibility, finish well & have fun!"

Dirk

The Boss Sets the Pace - Whether He/She Knows it or Not

2008-07-18T20:28:00.001-04:00

This morning I learned a very valuable lesson in pace-setting. Physical Training (PT) is a staple of military life. This morning the commander of one of my subordinate elements invited me to participate in PT with his unit. That’s one of those invitations that a commander really can’t easily refuse. Since the session was based around a formation run of about 3.5 - 4 miles (you know, the ones where someone is singing “Jodies” and the unit repeats the lines) I used my status as a “guest” to run in different places of the formation and be seen by the personnel. At one point I sprinted up to the front and ran next to the commander – the one who works directly for me. Very soon I realized that we had picked up the pace significantly. I had inadvertently become the pacesetter. In my mind I was just trying to be with my subordinate and let him know that I was enjoying the invitation, but as I got to his pace, he wanted to make sure that he wasn’t running slower than I was, so he sped up a bit. Simultaneously, I wanted to ensure that I didn’t fall behind his pace, so I sped up, too. Pretty soon we had accelerated significantly - much to the chagrin of the personnel behind us.

I realized very quickly that my presence at the head of the formation had immediately resulted in a change of pace – and the pace was faster. Even though I was the senior person there, I was an invited guest of my subordinate, and I did not want to overshadow his position. It was a very poignant lesson on how the senior person out front sets the pace for an organization, and may inadvertently cause subordinates to toss aside plans that had been well-thought-out. Sometimes, good leaders need to make radical changes in order to get subordinates out of inefficient or dangerous ruts. However, things like that need to be done deliberately and with great forethought. Getting out in front and making great changes, or implementing the “bright idea of the week,” can put an organization into terminal confusion. I once had a commander who was a great man to work for, but had a different “bright, big idea” every week. In August of 2000, after he came to my office and elaborated on his latest brainchild, I finally said, “Sir, I’m still working on your great ideas from April. Can we slow down on the changes for a while?”

Lesson:

Leaders, good and bad, set the pace for their organizations, whether they realize it or not. A good leader will regularly seek feedback as to the effect his/her pace is having on the organization, and then evaluate whether that effect is beneficial and how to maintain or alter the pace as necessary to meet the goals of the organization.

Dirk

In Command

2008-07-14T21:09:00.002-04:00

Command – leadership – and, in fact, all of life is about PEOPLE! We become so caught up in, and enamored by systems and processes that we forget that PEOPLE are the spice of life – the sources of the greatest joys (and the greatest sorrows) of our lives. Systems, programs and processes are supposed to help us care for people and help them succeed. Unfortunately, getting a system to work becomes so daunting a task that we achieve nominal success with the “thing” at the expense of the people for which the “thing” is supposed to exist in the first place. Accountability of equipment is a big deal in the military. Some units have in trust millions of dollars-worth of taxpayer-funded equipment. We need to ensure that it remains where it’s supposed to be, is used as it was intended and is maintained properly. Why is all that important? So that our people can use that equipment to ensure that the bad guys die, surrender, or otherwise decide that fighting us doesn’t make them good risks for the Term Life Insurance advertised on satellite TV last night.

Lessons:

It’s amazing how most people respond when someone higher up the chain of command demonstrates true care & concern. How is that done? It spelled T-I-M-E. Taking 30 seconds to look an individual in the eye and really listen can change a life.
People outside of established standards are not horrible losers – they’re just outside of the standards. It’s in their interest, and the interest of the organization for them to get back into standard.
Give people your honest opinion – backed up with actions that demonstrate that you truly care. If you have proven that you care, your opinion, even a critical one, will be received with sobriety.

More to follow - Dirk

Three weeks in....

2008-07-09T20:50:00.001-04:00

Now that I’ve been in the saddle for three weeks I’ve gotten over most of the saddle sores, but it is still a challenge. I’m still “learning the ropes,” but I think my level of competence is increasing steadily – at least I hope so! The mountains of paperwork associated with being “the boss” are staggering. There are so many documents that require my signature by policy that I’ve found myself having to either come in early or stay late in order to have unhindered time at my desk in order to wade through it all. I have determined, though, that I’m not going to be glued to my computer screen or chained to my desk any more than necessary. If I’m stuck behind my desk I can’t interact with the people who make our organization successful. They need to know what I intend and what I think is appropriate (or not).

I’ve change my office a little bit from my predecessor, and I’ve cleaned it up quite a bit. Note to self: When leaving a location for someone else to fall in on, clean it up and make it look as presentable as possible. It’s simply bad form to leave an office looking like a mess. In that vein, I’ve determined to always have my desk look neat and tidy. I remember a ship’s captain once saying, “A clean ship does everything else right.” I would phrase that a bit differently, because appearances can be whitewashed with nothing of substance beneath the attractive exterior (sound like some female celebrities you know?). I would say, “A well-organized outfit will demonstrate its effective organization in outward appearances.”

I am going to get rid of the flat “executive” desk, though. I’m having a stand-up desk built so that I can move around more easily and not have the desk as a physical obstacle to people who come to see me. My stand-up desk will face the wall. Have you noticed that once you are sitting down the law of inertia takes over? Getting up takes physical and mental effort. If I’m already standing up (or sitting on a bar stool from which I have to come down) moving around the office, or into the hallway or adjacent offices becomes a lot easier. It also makes me sneaky! My assistants around me won’t hear my chair squeaking when I get up. It will make me more mobile, and thus, more accessible. I can’t wait until it’s ready!

Journal point of the week so far:

Good leadership is often inconvenient for the one exercising it – thus it is exceedingly rare in our self-absorbed culture. (I use the qualifier “good” because I believe that there is no such thing as a “leadership vacuum.” “Leadership” always happens – and it is usually bad.)

More later - Dirk

First Week in the Saddle

2008-06-28T17:42:00.001-04:00

Well, I’ve been the “boss” for just over a full week now. I find the feeling is much different than I expected. Being in charge of such a large organization is much more natural than I had expected. It helps tremendously that I have a good, no, great group of immediate subordinates who know their jobs, are committed to the success of the organization and believe that the only way that others are going to be loyal to them is if they demonstrate loyalty as well.

I’ve implemented some changes, but mostly I’ve been trying to adjust attitudes and thought processes. In places where I’ve found situations and practices that are out of line with my priorities or our organization’s core values I have taken a direct action that I hope gets the point across without any misinterpretation of my intent, but trying very hard to do so without blaming or making the changes appear to be personal affronts. I know that some feathers will get ruffled, but that is the nature of change – human beings get very used to their ruts. Having to carve new paths is uncomfortable. I understand that. But if we don’t have constant improvement we’ll be going backwards.

At the moment I am facing my first issue with a subordinate who has apparently been caught in a serious compromise of professional integrity. This individual is in a position where he has significant influence over a very important part of the organization – so much so that if I cannot trust his integrity, I’ll have to sack him. Since this is the first such situation I’ve had to deal with, and the circumstances will unfortunately be flying through the rumor mill very soon, how I deal with this will set a tone for the remainder of my tenure. I hope there are mitigating circumstances that I will learn about later, but at this moment, given what I do know, I don’t think that’s possible. My immediate subordinates and assistants hold their integrity high enough that they won’t sugar-coat anything – so I’ll get to the bottom of this soon.

Lessons –

Right & truth fear no investigation.
Individual gain at the cost of organizational integrity is a “lose-lose” situation.
The boss needs to appear organized & in control at all times. If I look rushed & hurried when I’m walking around the building I give the appearance of disorder and that my demeanor is being dictated by circumstances. Every organization is a direct reflection of its leadership. If the boss is in control everyone else will be, too. The converse is also true.
Give people your full attention when you give them attention at all. Don’t go half-way. I’ve found several times when someone wants to talk to me & I’m in the middle of something else, I’ve said, “Give me a moment so I can give you my full attention.” I get to a good stopping point and then pay attention.
When given the choice between paying attention to inanimate objects, such as paperwork and email or people, always choose people.

Dirk

New Direction for Blog

2008-06-20T21:40:00.001-04:00

I’m taking this blog in a completely different direction. This blog will now focus on leadership in all its aspects. I expect it to be log and primer regarding leadership as I assume the helm of a mid-sized organization for a finite period of time – about two years.

Today was my first full day “in the saddle.” It is surprising what it is like to be the man in charge of such a large organization – the authority and responsibility are tremendous. I began the day by giving my staff a fire-hose rendition of what is important to me. In a word, PEOPLE! It is my goal for all the people in our organization to be RIDICULOUSLY SUCCESSFUL in what they do, both professionally and personally. I want to get everyone excited about making everyone else successful.

Leadership always happens – and it isn’t always good. Everyone’s primary leadership audience is themselves. We must each lead ourselves well in order to lead others well. In fact, when others see us leading ourselves well, they will naturally follow our lead, or, if they are in authority, will give us greater responsibility for leading others. How we lead ourselves and others is completely wrapped up in our individual identities. Why we do what we do is completely based on who we think we are or want to be.

Right now I’m still in a whirlwind of getting settled. The first big thing I want to do is change the environment of my office so that people around me see a visual difference in what is going on. The previous chief is an excellent leader and ran the organization very, very well. Now he’s going on to bigger & better things. I’m just different, and I want to demonstrate that not so much by changing what other people do, but by changing what the chief does, and letting that filter down slowly.

More later. This shall be an exiting ride. - Dirk

Another Superhero - Tom Valentine

2008-02-23T18:08:00.003-05:00

A news item you may have heard hit very close to home last week. On Wednesday Feb., 13 U. S. Navy Special Operations Senior Chief Petty Officer Thomas J. Valentine died during a high-altitude/high-opening (HAHO) parachute training jump in Arizona. His wife’s parents are the oldest friends that my parents have as a couple. They knew me when I was 18 months old. After multiple deployments to both Iraq and Afghanistan, and having done much more than his share in the War on Terror, Senior Chief Valentine died doing what he loved to do – training with his fellow US Navy SEALs. You can read one of the many news reports here.

My family and I attended Tom’s funeral on Friday – held in the chapel and Naval Amphibious Base, Little Creek in Norfolk/VA Beach. The chapel, which holds about 800, including overflow, was standing-room only. The service itself was a primer on the leadership style of Tom Valentine. I have asked for a recording of the funeral so that I can take notes on it and develop some of the concepts for my own use. The first speaker was Tom’s squadron commander. The admiration with which he spoke of Tom said even more than his eloquent words. At a funeral you expect the eulogies to extol all the positive virtues of the deceased. Those who spoke about Tom, however, clearly exceeded that mandate because of the tremendous respect he engendered in all of them for the way he lived his life.

In spite of the tremendous demands that the life of a SEAL puts on family, Tom’s family came first, and they adored him. Christina has lost her best friend and the father of two children who made Tom’s eyes light up. Their son loved to get wind that Daddy was coming home and hide in a tree in their yard in order to ambush him.

Tom’s leadership philosophy can be summed up by the following question and answer:

“At what level are you willing to participate?” The only answer Tom could give is, “All in – all the time.” In Tom Valentine’s world something worth doing was only worth doing with his whole heart. His total commitment to everything he undertook characterized everything he ever did.

For those of you who only know about Navy SEALs from the way they are depicted in popular media, you would not recognize any of those caricatures in any of the SEALs I have ever met, let alone the ones I have seen this week. Tom in particular was as unpretentious and humble as you could ever expect a man to be. He would not talk about what he did unless you dragged it out of him. He had no need to grandstand. He had a family he loved more than life itself and a profession that allowed him to serve his country in the most direct means possible – by taking on our enemies face-to-face. What could be better?

As the testimonies demonstrated on Friday, few people have ever done it better than Senior Chief Tom Valentine. A family, the SEALs and our country have lost a man who was a hero to those we would call heroes.

Though the following words are mine, I think they describe how Tom lived, and a theme I wish to embody,

“The world will little note our words. May it, rather, mark our deeds and judge us worthy of emulation.”

The Ineffective Church - Part 3

2008-02-21T06:35:00.001-05:00

Now we move on to another absolute “given” in modern evangelicalism – premillennial eschatology. If you don’t recognize the term, you’ll recognize the concepts: The world will become more and more godless and evil. All the Christians of the world will be “raptured” (taken to heaven at once), and a demonic “world leader” will emerge, probably from Europe, and unite the nations of the earth into a “one world” government. This “leader,” known among premillennialists at the “Antichrist” will establish himself as a pseudo-diety and cause pagan sacrifices to be made in Jerusalem. After a “tribulation” of seven years, the armies of God will return from heaven for one final, climactic battle on the plain of Meggido in Syria (from which we get the term “Armageddon”), in which the armies of the Antichrist will be defeated and God will establish his kingdom on earth for the “millennium.” That’s premillennial eschatology in a nutshell.

There have been lots of books and movies made about this – starting with, “A Thief in the Night” in the 1960s – which scared me to death when I was about 10. In the 70s there was Hal Lindsay’s film, “The Late, Great Planet Earth,” after his book of the same title, and more recently we’ve been favored with Tim LaHaye’s, Left Behind book series and movie.

The effects of this eschatology are just as troubling as the marketing effects of freewill theology, but a lot more confusing. The premillennial thought is that the world is getting worse and worse, more satanic by the day, but it’s supposed to be that way. Eventually God will take his people out of the earth so that he can rain judgment on those who have rejected him. After the rapture (a term which doesn’t exist in the Bible) the Holy Spirit is out of the world and there is no more free will. If you’re “left behind,” you’re lost and can no longer “choose” Christ.

One contradictory aspect of this way of belief is that we, as Christians, are, in essence, “painting a sinking ship.” If we’re about to be taken out of this world that’s bad and getting worse, why should we put much effort into spreading God’s good rule over the planet? Why would we bring children into a world that is supposed to start really hating and persecuting Christians all over the place? Why would we plan for leaving a godly inheritance and establishing faithful families when all the “end-times” profits, er, prophets, tell us that we’re on the brink of the Apocalypse? On one hand we say, “Jesus is King,” and reigns over the universe, but then we say that satan is still ruler of this earth, and his power is supposed to grow until Christians are taken out of the world. So why do we fight it? Which is it? Is Christ supreme and sovereign or not? When we add an apocalyptic view to freewill theology we come out with a real mess of what Christians are trying to do. One truly negative result is the apparent constant search for a political personality to stem the tide of unrighteousness.

Those who hold to premillennial end-times theology might be surprised to learn that prior to about 1830 orthodox Christianity had no concept of this idea. Before that postmillennial or amillennial theology was considered truly biblical. The rise of premillennial theology mirrored the rise of freewill theology in the US. Charles Finney, whose flamboyant and flaming oratory was responsible for the beginning of “tent revival” meetings, did more to push these errors than anything else. I’ve heard of a seminary where Charles Finney’s methods are studied and critiqued for his overt and premeditated use of emotional manipulation to produce “pep rally”-type responses from the audience – and the instructor only uses Finney’s own writings to condemn his methods.

Premillennial eschatology has affected our modern English translations of the Bible. A key example is in Matthew 23:36 where Jesus Says, “Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation,” (ESV). Many translations have a note with the word “generation” saying that the word could mean “race,” indicating that the Jews will still be on the earth when these things happen. The funny thing is that there are no other places in contemporary (1^st century) Greek literature, let alone in Scripture, where that word is translated in any other way but to mean “generation – the generation of people who are alive right now.”

So here we have a major problem. Either the translation is bad, Jesus was wrong, or everything that Jesus predicted did happen to that “generation.” When we get to the book of Revelation, where premillennialists hang their hats, we have a similar problem in the first three verses of chapter 1. In verse 1 we have the words, “..the things that must soon take place.” In verse three we have, “for the time is near.” We clearly have an issue with time proximity to the writers of the New Testament. Premillennialists brush these issues aside with nary a hint of perplexity. “Soon is relative in the space of eternity,” they say. “Peter says, ‘God is not slow to fulfill his promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.’” (2 Peter 3:9 – ESV).

Well, if Jesus really meant that generation, and John really mean “soon,” and if they were true, then what possible historical event could we have missed that might have accounted for all the prophecies that the premillennialists stand upon? How about the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. and the accompanying horror of the Roman siege that preceded it? There are tremendous, logical, historical and biblical reasons for believing that the “tribulation” of which premillennialists speak is, in fact, the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans.

There are many well-respected Christian scholars and preachers who hold to postmillennial or amillennial theology: John MacArthur, R. C. Sproul, and Alistair Begg, just to name three. However, even if you remain as steadfast in your premillennial view now as you were when you started reading this, please consider the contradictory and counterproductive effects of the American church’s “end-times” views and how we can fix that.

“Fly high & roar loudly”

dvdk

The Ineffective Church - Part 2

2008-02-20T06:37:00.001-05:00

It has become a “given” in Christian theology that, though no one would openly question God’s complete and total sovereignty over the affairs and fates of men, that in some mysterious way God gives everyone a free will to choose or reject him. The cornerstone of almost all evangelism is that each individual must decide whether to intellectually assent to the claims of Christ or not. The competing doctrinal viewpoint is that God’s complete sovereignty includes his predetermination and election of those who are to be his for eternity.

Without getting too deeply into the arguments for both viewpoints, I would like to discuss the effects of freewill theology on the current iteration of the American church and ask if what we’re doing could rationally be called biblical. Before doing that, however, I need to address the two greatest arguments against the doctrine of sovereign election. The first is that the concept of election necessarily precludes evangelism – the spreading of the Gospel. That is known in theological circles as, “hyper-Calvinism” and is not in keeping with the dictates of Scripture. We are called to give an account of our hope and live our faith before those who don’t believe as a clear testimony of what we believe. Furthermore, Scottish Presbyterians, who hold to election as tightly as anyone, have historically been some of the most pioneering missionaries the modern church has ever known.

The next argument is the fear that if God preordains who will be his, then there are those who might want to be his who would be excluded from his kingdom. That is also an error. The concept is that those who demonstrate a desire to know God in his fullness have already been drawn to him by the inexorable power of the Holy Spirit. The desire to commune with a perfect, holy God cannot originate from sinful, corrupt man. That desire can only be placed in him by God alone.

However, even if you can’t stomach the concept of divine election over free will, please stay with me because the issue is not the doctrine but its effects on the church and how it impacts our culture.

If we hold to the idea that faith is a result of individual intellectual assent, then that means that I was presented with options and I chose to believe in the claims of Christ. When I then look at my responsibilities to share the good news with others I look at how I came to believe (intellectual assent) and realize that I need to sell the Gospel to others. If we look at the mainstream evangelical church in America today, I think we can see that we’ve taken freewill theology to its logical conclusion – marketing faith as if it were a commodity on the open economy. I’m sure many of you have received mailings from churches in your areas that aren’t much different from ads for car dealers. If you want to see just a terrible example, browse through the website for “reality church” in Virginia Beach at this link.

Take a look at the popular TV preachers. What do they preach? It’s all “feel-good” ego-centric patter focused on individual “fulfillment,” as a person. Being accused of preaching a “health & wealth” gospel is no longer a stigma among the clergy – it’s a badge of honor. Go into your local Christian bookstore and just try to find a single book, let alone an entire section, on solid theology. If you can you are in the great minority. But you can find racks of books on how God wants to fulfill your dreams at the local grocery store.

It’s all a sales job that we’ve convinced ourselves is part of how we need to evangelize. It’s all hogwash. What we think of as the “fine print” of the Christian life, you know, the passages where Jesus said things like, “Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me,” “Whoever wishes to save his life must lose it,” “Narrow is the path and straight is the way, and few are those that find it,” and, “In this world you will have trouble, but take heart, because I have overcome the world,” should actually be in bold print in the pages of Scripture because Jesus did not preach a life of ease to his disciples. Instead we focus on the “positive” statements of Jesus, “I came that they may have life, and that more abundantly,” and ignore the tough parts that Jesus promised would be part of life lived in obedience to him.

Even the idea of using modern marketing/sales techniques to get people into our churches should sound reprehensible. The problem goes back to our theology, though. Are we recruiters for Christ, with a quota to fill, or are we his ambassadors? I have done both in my life – first as a military recruiter and then as a member of the diplomatic corps in a foreign land. I will tell you that being a recruiter is miserable. On the other hand, being an ambassador is completely different – especially in a place where people know that there is a better country and I represented it. If I had had the privilege of handing out visas, I never would have been left alone. Everyone from that country that found out that I represented the United States wanted me to help them get here. It wasn’t my reputation; it was the reputation of our country. We should be working to build up the reputation of Christ and his church to such a point that those outside the kingdom will be flocking to us asking how to get a visa.

Next – Pre-millennial eschatology and the contradictions of apocalyptic faith

“Fly high & roar loudly”

dirk

The Ineffective Church - Part 1

2008-02-19T06:05:00.001-05:00

“Evangelicals.” “Born-Again Christians.” We seem to be everywhere. The term, “mega-church” didn’t exist ten years ago. Now huge churches seem to be popping up in big cities everywhere. Depending on the survey you choose to believe, there are between 70,000,000 and 100,000,000 Americans who classify themselves as “evangelical,” or “born-again.” With such a large portion of our country apparently similar, the big question should be, “Why is the Christian church so completely ineffective – not only in influencing our society, but simply in ensuring that those within the church remain faithful to the values we claim to hold.

In this muli-part series I’m going to address what I believe to be major errors that cause the Christian church to be so ineffective. Once again, these commentaries are aimed directly at Christians themselves. The errors I will address build on each other and have reached such a crescendo that they dilute everything that the church does.

The “errors” I will discuss touch on aspects of what I call, “Evangelical Correctness.” I am taking direct aim at issues that many, if not most, in the evangelical world will consider basic fundamentals of faith – but none of which have any basis in historical, orthodox Christianity. Some, no doubt, will accuse me of heresy. Before you criticize, though, I ask that you ask yourself if your objection is really as biblical as you think it is, or if your reaction is mostly emotional because I have tipped a “sacred cow,” to which you might have attributed too much importance.

The first “error” – Simplistic, juvenile interpretations of English translations of the Bible. Orthodox Christianity places supremacy on the Bible as the Word of God. What Christians refer to as the “Old Testament” are the Jewish Scriptures (the law, prophets & poetry) and have never been questioned by the church fathers. It wasn’t until late in the fourth century A. D. (no, I will not use the secular “C. E.” on this blog) that agreement was reached as to which books to include in what we now refer to as the “New Testament.” The doctrine of biblical inerrancy is called, “Verbal plenary inspiration.” Orthodox Christian doctrine states that all of Scripture, the 66 books that make up the Old and New Testaments were fully inspired by God in the original languages. It’s the original languages part where we in the American church really blow it. Once we start translating the Bible into other languages we have to be very careful about misinterpretation. Those misinterpretations can cause significant doctrinal errors to creep in simply because the language into which Scripture is interpreted is not as precise as the original. The Bible also had significant cultural and historical nuances to the original audience that are necessarily missing upon translation. Thus great care must be taken to ensure that doctrines are based upon the original meaning of a particular passage in its intended context to the original hearers.

One simple example of this error is the translation of, “world” or “earth” in the New Testament. The original Greek words used can mean, “entire known world,” “the Roman world,” “the ungodly system of society,” “all of creation,” or “a single country,” among others. This means that all the verses that talk about the “world” can have significantly different meaning. Perhaps better known is the fact that when we see the word “love” in the New Testament the original word could be one of three words in Greek. Another example is the word “life” in the New Testament, which can be at least one of two words in Greek – “bios” meaning living, breathing life, from which we get the word “biology,” and “psuche,” meaning the essence of life, the seat of emotional being, from which we get the term “psychology.” Thus when Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends,” (John 15:13 ESV) it is significant that the original word is “psuche” not “bios.” Laying down your “bios” for someone else is a one-time event. You do it, you die, it’s over. Laying down your “psuche” is a continual denial of self for others – it is a lifelong commitment to selflessness.

The above examples don’t even touch upon nuances of word order and vernacular that can have great impact on what a passage meant to the original hearers or readers. We put huge stock in our contemporary English translations, and for good reason. Most of them took many biblical scholars many years to translate properly, and often with extensive linguistic notes that we rarely bother to read. We also forget that the interpreters also had their own doctrinal biases which may or may not reflect upon their work.

Why is this interpretation so important? I believe the simplistic interpretations of Scripture account for significant theological errors which have the American church mired in doctrinal confusion.

Next – Part 2: Dispensational freewill theology and the marketing of the Gospel.

Christian Political Activism - "Sharia-lite"?

2008-02-18T09:57:00.003-05:00

In trying to keep with my conviction that the evangelical church has so much housekeeping to do that it should tread very carefully into the arena of secular culture, today’s entry is yet another introspective look into what I consider some of the major problems we need to wrestle with inside the born-again Christian community itself. I realize that many Christians consider political activism as such a part of their faith that they may reject what I’m saying here out-of-hand. Please, please, if you fall into this category, have the courage to consider what I’ve written. If you can argue my points biblically, please respond and educate me.

The bottom-line premise of this entry is that if American Muslims were as openly, politically active as evangelicals, we all would be a bit freaked-out – especially the Christians. Why do we expect our non-Christian fellow Americans to react any differently to us than we would to Muslims doing essentially the same things?

“But wait,” you say. “Our nation was founded on Christian principles. The great pillars of our government were formed when American society was overtly Christian in nature.”

My response? “Your point is well made, but it proves the opposite of what you think.” Our Founding Fathers worked excessively hard to create a secular governmental structure in spite of the fact that most of them took their faith very seriously and the society around them was openly, and in many places, monolithically religious and Christian. They saw no need to create detailed moral codes because they expected that common morality would continue to be reinforced by the church to keep people on the ‘straight and narrow’. They intended the moral uprightness of society to keep government in check, not the other way around. By trying to get government to enforce biblical moral statutes we are, in essence, admitting that the church cannot do its job within the culture and asking government to step in.

In my blog of 2/4/08 (here) I took Christians to task for being so politically active that we are actually scaring the people we claim we’re trying to “love” into the church. Since that entry I’ve had two more events which have convinced me of that fact.

Both of my new “events” happened last Thursday. In my office I heard an NPR interview with Norman Lear, the well-known television producer of shows in the 1970s such as “All in the Family.” I heard this Jewish man say that he left television because he wanted to produce a movie about Christian political activism because he was scared by what he saw happening with Jerry Fallwell, Pat Robertson and Jimmy Swaggart becoming entrenched in politics. In his words, “The mixture of politics and religion scared the hell out of me.” You can listen to the interview here. Since then he has been a liberal political activist with an organization that has registered thousands of new voters. How do you think most of them vote?

The second event happened later that morning when I was talking with a colleague who just happens to be a black, catholic democrat. He and I have a terrific working relationship that is based on sincere mutual respect. The respect has risen to such a level that we can discuss race, faith and politics without any of it being personal. As a result there is great honesty. When I mentioned to him that I thought that my fellow evangelicals have gone too far into political activism, he really opened up. He said. “Evangelicals scare me because after they get what they want politically, then they’ll come after me (as a catholic) because of the whole ‘idol worshipping’ thing…” How could I argue with him? Though he has very conservative political views, he cannot stomach aligning himself with Republican conservatives because of all the evangelical political baggage is wrapped up in it.

If you still don’t agree that we in the Christian community have gone too far, consider this scenario: Muslim communities in the US begin to push for elements of Sharia law to be introduced. They start slowly, trying to get modesty laws passed in beach communities. Then they begin to build momentum. Next they push for “health taxes” on pork and push for prohibition on alcohol in their counties (nice precedent we set). They elect conservative Muslim representatives to Congress from districts with large Muslim enclaves like Detroit and the DC metro area of Virginia & Maryland. Muslims become more active in the country and start demanding that their cultural values be more respected.

It’s a bit scarier that way, isn’t it? Well, I really think that’s the way many of our non-evangelical countrymen see us. They think we want to impose some type of “Sharia-lite” on the country, and they’re scared. Too often we give them good reason to think that way.

Just because there is no law against something we would call sin doesn’t mean that we need to institute one. As long as law doesn’t require us to sin we need to be much more careful about the laws we say we want to have written. How quickly we forget how bitingly Jesus himself treated the Pharisees – and they at least kept their hypocrisy within their own community. We share ours openly with the world and wonder why the church is so weak, has so little positive impact on our culture, and we are known more for what we’re against than what we are for. I’m not the only one saying this. Read a recent article from World magazine (a conservative Christian publication) about it here.

I do not advocate that we become like the Amish, retreat from society and become apolitical. What I am saying is that we can live our faith in a much purer manner when we don’t try to wrap government up in it. We can execute our biblical responsibilities to government by learning and holding fast to both our federal and state Constitutions, and being upright citizens in our communities – so upright that our unbelieving neighbors will have to wonder what makes us so different. Then they just might want to hear about our faith.

Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor. (1 Peter 2:12-17, English Standard Version)

True Superheroes - Part 2

2008-02-06T06:32:00.001-05:00

Today’s superhero also proved his mettle in the prison camps of North Vietnam. While Lance Sijan was probably the most junior officer held in the camps, Seaman Apprentice Douglas Hegdahl was the most junior of all US prisoners held by the North Vietnamese. Like Lance Sijan, every prisoner’s account I’ve ever read or hear first-person from men who were held in North Vietnam sang Doug Hegdahl’s praises – to a point of reverence.

Doug fell off his ship, the USS Canberra, on April 6, 1967 while it was in the Gulf of Tonkin. After surviving overnight and into the next day, he was picked up by fishermen who turned him over to the North Vietnamese army. By his own estimation, he was “rescued,” not captured, as he had seen enough sharks to know that he was not going to survive much longer in the water.

A country boy from South Dakota, Doug Hegdahl was smart like a fox. Because the North Vietnamese viewed junior US enlisted personnel like they viewed their own – as uneducated hicks – they treated Doug as generally worthless for propaganda purposes. He played up the “dumb country boy” part to the hilt, and was basically made the camp clean-up gopher at the “Hanoi Hilton.” As the only American with freedom to roam the camp, he became the de facto “town crier.” Using the prisoner’s “tap code” with a broom, coughs, clicks and other means of noisemaking, he passed and received news to and from virtually all the prisoners in the camp. In doing so he learned all the key information about all the men held there – name, rank, date of capture, condition, etc. Not only did he know the men in his camp, but he also learned the information about other Americans who where held in other camps from prisoners who had been shuffled around. Since he couldn’t write any of the information down, he had to memorize everything – which he put into a song that he repeated constantly so he wouldn’t forget.

In 1969 the North Vietnamese offered to release some prisoners as a “goodwill gesture” to accompany Fonda on her trip back to the US. A senior US prisoner Dick Stratton ordered Doug to accept early release in order to get the word out as to their conditions and to inform the US about all the prisoners whose information was stored in Doug’s head. According to the Code of Conduct for US forces, a US servicemember should not accept early release from captivity, and Doug, feeling great loyalty to the men, was reluctant to take it. However, orders were orders, and soon many families of men who were still listed as “Missing in Action,” learned that their men were still alive.

Over the next three years, Dough Hegdahl visited as many of the families of the men still captive as he could find. He was at Clark AFB in the Philippines when the POWs returned in 1973. He wanted to know one thing – did the men he grew to love think that he was a coward for accepting early release? Only then did he learn that because of the information that he provided, and the details of the abuse, treatment of our prisoners in North Vietnam significantly improved in the months following his release. Not only did they not think Dough Hegdahl a coward, they honored him as a true hero.

Isn’t it ironic that in the stratified world of the US military, where position is defined by a set of rank insignia, that the two men held up as heroes by the prisoners in Hanoi were the two most junior men there. Both Dough Hegdahl and Lance Sijan did all they could in the awful circumstances in which they found themselves. That’s what made them heroes to the men who we call heroes.

“Fly high & roar loudly”

dirk

Two Real Superheroes - Part 1

2008-02-05T06:32:00.001-05:00

A real superhero doesn’t fly or spin webs while swinging through the city. A true superhero is the hero of men who themselves are heroes. If you read the accounts of the US military men who were imprisoned in North Vietnam during the war, you will find that, to a man, they pick two specific men as their heroes during the dreadful years they spent there.

The first was an Air Force 1^st Lieutenant named Lance Sijan. Most of the men held in North Vietnam never met him, but he became a legend within the prisons and the shining example they all wanted to follow. After ejecting from his F-4, Lt. Sijan was critically wounded, with a fractured skull and compound fracture of his left leg. While a huge rescue effort was unleashed in the first 24 hours he was on the ground, his radio died and the rescue was called off. He crawled through the jungle and evaded capture for 46 days while in his injured and weakened condition. Found by the North Vietnamese while unconscious, he was taken into captivity on Christmas Day 1967. Soon after he was captured, even in his terrible condition, he overpowered one of his guards (some accounts actually say he killed his guard) and escaped for several hours. His resistance under torture became legendary. He kept telling his captors that he could tell them nothing because the Code of Conduct didn’t allow it. He resisted to the utmost of his ability. Because he was in such bad shape he was kept with two other prisoners who were charged with caring for him. In his delirium of fever he scratched at the floor of his cell trying to dig through – such was his desire to escape. He succumbed to disease, abuse and malnutrition on Jan 22, 1968. His uncompromising resistance and adherence to the Code of Conduct were models for everyone else in that prison to follow. He became the hero they all wanted to imitate.

Posthumously he was promoted to Captain and awarded the Medal of Honor. His citation reads as follows:

While on a flight over North Vietnam, Captain Sijan ejected from his disabled aircraft and successfully evaded capture for more than six weeks. During this time, he was seriously injured and suffered from shock and extreme weight loss due to lack of food. After being captured by North Vietnamese soldiers, Captain Sijan was taken to a holding point for subsequent transfer to a prisoner of war camp. In his emaciated and crippled condition, he overpowered one of his guards and crawled into the jungle, only to be recaptured after several hours. He was then transferred to another prison camp where he was kept in solitary confinement and interrogated at length. During interrogation, he was severely tortured; however, he did not divulge any information to his captors. Captain Sijan lapsed into delirium and was placed in the care of another prisoner. During his intermittent periods of consciousness until his death, he never complained of his physical condition and, on several occasions, spoke of future escape attempts. Captain Sijan's extraordinary heroism and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty at the cost of his life are in keeping with the highest traditions of the U.S. Air Force and reflect great credit upon himself and the U.S. Armed Forces.

Next – a most unlikely superhero in the “Hanoi Hilton.”

“Fly high & roar loudly”

dirk

Christian Political Activism

2008-02-04T06:21:00.002-05:00

Does the image above disturb you as much as it does me? There is no doubt that there are Muslims around the world, and in within the US, who want to turn our country into part of a worldwide caliphate – eliminating our civil rights and replacing our legal codes with Islamic religious law (Sharia). As difficult as it might be to make that happen, the idea of Americans being flogged in public or women being forced to cover themselves from head to toe is reprehensible to us, and rightly so.

In doing a bit of internet research for my blog on the movie “’V’ for Vendetta,” I came across some web sites that really got me thinking. It appears that political activism by evangelical Christians really has some non-Christians scared of our ambitions. Our rhetoric has a lot of people convinced that we want to establish a theocracy and effectively throw out our Constitution. As hateful to all of is as the idea of an “islamisized” US flag is, there are a lot of people in our country who think that we want our flag to have the stars replaced by crosses.

Like the Islamists, I’m sure that there are many of those who disagree with Christians who have what we would classify as “anti-constitutional” ambitions, but I’ve also become convinced that evangelical political ambitions are seen as just as much a threat to our secular government as the Islamists would like to be. This is a real problem for Christians who claim to be “patriotic” and to love our country.

While Christians have a clear biblical call to live upright lives in society, I have yet to hear a cogent argument for Christians to be trying to change our culture by changing our government. Indeed, the biblical mandate appears to be crystal clear:

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. Forthere is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. (Rom 13:1,2 – English Standard Version (ESV))

and

Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor. (1 Peter 2:13-17 – ESV)

In the US, the supreme governing authority is not a person, as in the Roman empire when these passages were penned, but a document - the Constitution. It seems to me that the biblical mandate is for Christians to demonstrate their submission to the authority established over us by being strict constitutionalists. That would mean deferring to the Constitution even when that means doing so would give people the freedom to do things with which we would disagree. President Reagan famously stated that, “No country ever taxed its way to prosperity.” Similarly, I think we can say that no country ever legislated its way to moral righteousness. There are certainly those that try, though. Iran & Saudi Arabia have very strict moral codes – and secret police breaking down doors in the middle of the night to enforce them. By trying to change our culture by changing our laws, we give in to the mistaken notion that public morality is determined by law and not by the behavior of people. Anything might be made legal, but if no one participates in that behavior, then the legality is irrelevant. Abortion my never be made illegal in our country again, but if we demonstrate true compassion and sacrificial love to those women whose pregnancies cause personal crisis, we might eliminate abortion simply by loving them away from that decision. If there are no customers for the abortion clinics then the effect is greater than criminalization of the act itself.

This past weekend our church sponsored a seminar on sexual purity. The speaker has been doing intensive counseling for Christians caught up in pornography and marital infidelity for more than 17 years. Half of his 2500 clients in that time have been pastors and missionaries. Just that anecdotal evidence alone demonstrates that the problems with immorality within the Christian world (what we would call the “church”) are so great that we have no business trying to force those who don’t share our values to adhere to our standards of behavior. Let me say that again – I believe that we as Christians have no business trying to enforce our moral standards on those who do not willingly submit to biblical authority. We must focus on getting those within the church to live up to the standards they themselves claim as their own. We have a huge credibility problem, and we don’t help ourselves, or honor God, by pointing the finger at those outside the church when our problems with sexual immorality, divorce, abortion, and business and personal integrity are statistically not much different than those who claim no allegiance to Christ.

In the 1980s a Christian rock group called “Petra” wrote and performed a song called, “Seen and not heard.” Part of the lyric goes:

“There’s too much talk, and not enough walk.

Sometimes God’s children should be seen and not heard.”

That lyric echoes Peter’s admonition:

Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. (1 Peter 2:11, 12 ESV)

In addition to the “passions of the flesh” that those words immediately bring to mind, I think we could add, “an ungodly desire for earthly political influence.”

“Fly high & roar loudly”

dirk

"V" for Vendetta

2008-01-30T22:03:00.001-05:00

“People should not be afraid of their governments; governments should be afraid of their people.”

[A junior police detective asking his boss about the potential for masses of citizens to defy a curfew and face off against heavily-armed troops] “What do you think will happen?” The response: “What usually happens when people without guns stand up to those who do.” [Implying that many will be killed]

The above quotations are from a surprisingly bold and thought-provoking movie called, “’V’ for Vendetta,” – a futuristic drama (not to thriller status) about England becoming a fascist state and one man’s quest to wreak vengeance on those who shattered his life and in the process stir the consciences of the people to throw off the shackles of the police state. To me the film hits painfully close to home because of its portrayal of a population frightened enough by a terrorist threat to willingly give up their civil rights in exchange for the illusion of security.

The movie is rated “R” for violence, a bit of foul language, and some “disturbing images,” but it is well worth the viewing if you wish to ponder how easily it might be to fall into such a state. In “V” the seminal events were poisoning of large numbers of citizens by chemical weapons. In Weimar Germany the last straw was the burning of the Reichstag – blamed on communists, which led very quickly to Hitler being named Chancellor and then receiving extraordinary power less than three weeks later.

How many more 9/11-type attacks would it take for Americans to willingly give up as many of our rights as the Germans gave up in the 1930s? The Brits and Canadians have already given up their firearms. They have done so in the expectation that their government will always be able to keep them safe. But what happens when the government itself is the threat?

One additional caveat about the movie – homosexuals are clearly portrayed as a persecuted class, subject to being dragged from their homes and “disappearing,” into the abyss of police detention. Such a portrayal is disturbing, but has really made me think. While I in no way condone any homosexual act, I shutter to think that anyone would have their lives ripped away from them by governmental decree for such activity. All governments in human history with that much power have abused it to abominable ends. Just as no country has ever taxed itself into prosperity, no government has ever been perfected by voluminous legislation. Human beings are fallible. Every government ever instituted among men is imperfect and must be subject to and subservient to its people.

Thomas Jefferson, an honored Founding Father in spite of his proven sexual indiscretions, penned the following, “The government which governs best, governs least.” I wish the American people would demand that their legislators and other elected officials pledge to govern less every year until, perhaps, we could get back to congressional sessions lasting only a few weeks each spring and fall – like they did before air conditioning was installed in the Capitol.

Anyhow, if you can stomach the tough parts and want to tackle the thought of how easy it would be for our government to become oppressive, watch “’V’ for Vendetta.” I fear it is much closer to reality than any of us would wish.

“Fly high & roar loudly!”

dirk

Extraordinary Aristocratic Leadership & The American Republic

2008-01-14T05:53:00.000-05:00

GriffinScat #11-08 1/14/08

The story goes that in 1519 Spanish explorer and conquistador Hernán (not “Hernando”) Cortés sailed a small fleet of ships on an unauthorized expedition from Cuba to Mexico. Not long after landing, in order to forestall mutiny, he set fire to the ships in the harbor that would become known as Vera Cruz. By removing the easy escape, he forced his men to work together and focus on the needs of the situation. It was an unconventional but extremely effective tactic. Cortés ended up conquering the Aztecs and claiming Mexico for Spain. Shiploads of Mexican gold would eventually make their way to the Iberian Peninsula because of Cortés’ success.

That story is fairly well-known, but most people don’t think about the possibility that Cortés may have burned the ships so that he himself wouldn’t have the option of retreat, and would have to see the expedition through to the end. He put himself in a position where the only way he would ever see Spain again would be to succeed. How’s that for performance pressure?

Not too long ago I lived in South America for two years. Living in a third-world country and working with locals who would sell their mothers for a visa to the US gave me an opportunity to reflect on what makes our country different. One big question I asked was, “Why did the American Revolution produce a stable government that has withstood all the pressures of civilization when almost all other rebellions have only led to more tyrrany and the things against which the people revolted in the first place? What was so different about the American Revolution?

The significant difference was that the revolt against the British in North America was encouraged, fomented and financed by what could rightfully be described as members of the colonial aristocracy. What made our revolution unique was that it was started by the men who had the most to lose if it went bad. Most of the men refer to as our “Founding Fathers” were wealthy plantation owners or merchants. If they had been content to “just go along” with the British program, they might have been a bit inconvenienced, but they would have kept their spacious homes, servants and luxurious lifestyles. They had the time to spend reading, writing and then sitting around in taverns in Boston, Philadelphia and Williamsburg debating the continued erosion of their rights as British subjects because their employees and servants were literally taking care of their business for them.

It was the best-educated, wealthiest and most respected men of the colonies literally putting their necks on the line when they signed their names to the Declaration of Independence that led the working and agricultural classes to join them in their revolt. This was “leadership by example,” to an extraordinary degree.

Sending the Declaration of Independence to Buckingham Palace was how our Founding Fathers “burned their ships.” They demonstrated their willingness to individually suffer the loss of everything they had in order to stand up for their principles, and shoved that arrogant piece of parchment right in the face of the king. They then had credibility to ask poor farmers, laborers and craftsmen to join them. In their eyes the “status quo” was no longer acceptable, and they proved their willingness to bear the burdens of leadership by taking the responsibility for the rebellion squarely on their own shoulders.

The last line of the Declaration of Independence reads, “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor,”

(full text here). Some of them, in fact, lost their lives. Many lost their fortunes, but none of them lost their honor.

Extraordinary leadership is uncommon and always unconventional. When people who have the most to lose risk everything to change the status quo, those around them sit up and take notice, and some will take the step to upset the status quo in their own lives. The question we should all ask ourselves is, “What part of “normal” in my life needs to change, and what ships do I need to burn, or what “king” do I need to defy in order to guarantee that I change “normal” forever.

“Fly high & roar loudly!”

dirk

The War on Terrorism - Part 5 of 5

2008-01-10T22:20:00.000-05:00

Wrapping up the first GriffinScat series….today the last of five installments on the War on Terrorism.

Apart from the death of almost 3000 people and the destruction of several billion dollars worth of material, we, the people of the United States, in the aftermath of that day, did trillions of dollars worth of damage to our own economy. The human cost of terrorism is incalculable – even if only one person is injured or killed. It is not my intent to minimize the human cost of terrorism. However, we need to balance the human cost of terrorism with the human costs that we accept with nonchalance every day. Accidents, tragic diseases and criminal acts maim and kill thousands of Americans every day. We take those in stride because we know they won’t affect our day-to-day lives directly. Those directly affected by these tragedies deserve our sympathy and support. However, we do not make major changes in our lives because someone across town was killed in an auto accident or contracted some terrible disease. Such things have become routine, and we don’t change our lives because of them.

In order to make terrorist strikes ineffective and irrelevant we have to keep terrorism at the tactical level. How? By not giving our enemies the strategic reactions they desire. If their attacks don’t instill terror in the broad populace, then their actions do not rise above being large scale crimes. If we react to terrorist attacks on our soil the same way we react to a crime across town we win and they lose.

It has worked in the past. In 1940, in the face of daily bombings by the Luftwaffe, the British people stood strong and would not be cowed in spite of their greatest cities burning night after night. They supported each other, their government and the Royal Air Force through the terror. The bombings stopped because the Germans couldn’t achieve their goals (the capitulation or neutralization of Great Britain) through that means. We need to be as hard as the stalwart Brits were during the Blitz.

If our minds are the target, then our minds need to be strengthened in order to deflect the next attack. In conventional warfare, the side that gets to fight on ground of its own choosing usually wins. In unconventional warfare (to include anti-terrorism), the chosen ground is our hearts & minds. That is where the enemy plans to do battle, so that is where we must meet them. The elements of our national power (diplomatic, informational, military & economic) have significant supporting roles to play and can reinforce the futility of terrorist actions attempts. If terror strikes are costly to the perpetrators and don’t achieve any of their desired ends, they will eventually quit. The starring role in defeating terrorism, however, belongs to the faces you & I see in the mirror every day.

“Fly high & roar loudly”

dirk

(P. S. If you would like the entire series in a single .pdf document (95kb), please send an email to griffinscat@gmail.com. Your email address will not be shared with anyone else and will only be used for GriffinScat communications. If you want to receive an email when Griffin Trek is updated, ensure you ask to subscribe as well. - dvdk)

War on Terrorism - Part 4 of 5

2008-01-09T19:29:00.001-05:00

How do we prepare for the next terrorist attack???

Rock steady – combat ready. We prepare to respond in the last way that Al Qaeda expects, and the way that neutralizes their terrorist actions. We keep living just like we were before. If we don’t react to terrorist violence the way they want us to, they will eventually seek other means of achieving their goals.

We, as individuals, must adopt the attitude that says, “The physical victims of this attack have truly suffered and should receive our help, but since neither I nor anyone I care about was directly affected by this attack, I’m going to go on with my life. I’m not going to stop living my life the way I had planned just because someone blew up a building more than 1000 miles away in a city I’ve never even visited.” Basically, we need to get hard. No more, “doom & gloom” apocalyptic fear-mongering, which is what the terrorists want and expect.

Unfortunately, our 24-hr news “infotainment” industry will not make this reaction easy. If a tiger attacking three people in San Francisco or a suicidal gunman killing eight people in Omaha both become national tragedies, we will have to work extremely hard to demonstrate our lack of intimidation when the news media will surely be pandering to the raw emotion of the event. Commodities traders and mutual fund managers won’t help either. They will react to the events by taking actions that make critical goods more expensive, pinching Americans who really don’t want to be affected by what is really an isolated event that should be irrelevant to 99% of the population. We can do it, but it takes clarity of thought and deliberate defiance of the fear which will sorely tempt all of us.

The other side of the coin is our corporate or national response. If terrorists think they can hit us without being targeted by all our elements of national power (diplomatic, informational, military and economic) they need to be reminded. Our military response should be calculated and unemotional. War is never a pleasant business. We must not continue to try to mollify our consciences by insisting that we couch all our military actions in terms of “nation-building” and “spreading democracy.” But military action is only a supporting effort in the Global War on Terrorism, not the main effort. The main effort must be to engage the hearts and minds of the American people to stand firm against any terrorist attack and keep right on living – in mocking defiance of those who think their criminal actions can change our way of life.

Unfortunately, we continue to regularly reinforce the terrorists’ assumptions that we will bow to their threats of violence. Do you remember the Danish political cartoons that mocked Islam & Mohammed in 2005 and the violent outcry around the Muslim world about them? Do you remember how many U. S. newspapers had the courage to run those cartoons? At least for newspapers with circulations of greater than 100,000, I believe the number was ZERO. The editors who chose to comment on why they didn’t run the cartoons stated that they didn’t want to contribute to religious intolerance. However, the routine printing of cartoons critical of both Christians and Jews belies their true motivations. They were petrified that they and their newspapers would be targeted for violent reprisals by Muslims in the U. S. Whammo! Score another one for intimidation through threat of violence – terrorism by definition.

Next – Wrapping it up!

“Fly high & roar loudly”

dirk

War on Terrorism - Part 3 of 5

2008-01-08T20:16:00.001-05:00

The next attack is coming. If you have some worldly experience, you probably have a good idea how to protect yourself from common street crime. You lock the doors of your house, have outside lights on motion-detector switches, park in well-lighted areas when out in public, and maybe even use a steering-wheel lock and have a security system for your home. Good for you. You are probably doing enough to protect yourself and your family from 99% of the criminals who practice their trade no more than 5-10 hours per week. They are criminals simply because they are lazy and don’t want to work for a living. Lazy criminals always go for the easy target. All you have to do is make yourself a harder target and they’ll quickly take you off their list of potential victims. The other 1%, though, is your problem. If there is a burglar in the area who works 60-80 hours per week perfecting his technique and then making and rehearsing his plans, you’d better hope he doesn’t have his eye on your house or your car, because he’s probably got a 99% chance of success.

In the same way, we need to acknowledge and accept that we cannot, and, in some respects, should not, try to make the U. S. completely impervious to terrorist attack. The idea is absurd. If we can’t stop petty crime, how can we imagine that we can keep terrorists, who spend years planning a strike, from attacking within our borders? I, for one, do not want to live in a police state – and that is what would be required to even approach impermeability. Our security services have done a great job since 9/11, but expecting them to maintain perfection is unreasonable. The sad fact is that, though we will always have some degree of vulnerability because we are a free and open society, when the next attack occurs the focus will quickly shift to blaming one or more government agencies and many individuals for “allowing” the event to occur. House & Senate hearings will ensue and everyone will be talking about what “government” must do to keep America safe. We’ll probably even be treated to the Congressional chorus singing “God Bless America” on the steps of the Capitol again. Won’t that be a joy?

But, if we take the courageous but logical step to accept that we probably are going to be hit again, how do we prepare? What do we prepare? Find out in part 4 tomorrow.

The War on Terrorism - Part 2 of 5

2008-01-07T21:34:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I started this series with a football analogy to describe the difference between tactics and strategy. Today I’ll continue with another football analogy.

So, how is that [the previous analogy] relevant with Al Qaeda? Let’s use another football analogy. Let’s pretend that Al Qaeda starts a football training camp, and 45 jihadis throw down their weapons and suicide vests and start training for football. After a year they announce that, with the help of Allah, they will be able to defeat the best team in the NFL. After the laughter subsides, an exhibition game is scheduled in Foxboro, MA against the New England Patriots, which is wholly appropriate. Even though the Al Qaeda Ragheads have some equipment, it looks like it was stolen from a Jr. high school. At the end of the first half the score is 175-0 and half of the Ragheads have been carted off on stretchers. However, during the half-time festivities, the huge screens at both ends of the stadium appear to malfunction and the glowering sneer of His Vileness, Osama bin Laden, appears on the screens. In slightly accented English (he does, apparently, speak English), he tells everyone to look at one of the end zones where a man jumps onto the field and blows himself up. Then he tells the crowd that many more suicide bombers are planted in the stands and that that if everyone doesn’t leave the stadium immediately, they will start detonating themselves. You can guess the rest. Panic ensues, dozens are killed and hundreds are injured in the stampede to the exits. An hour later Al Jazeera releases a video from bin Laden claiming a huge defeat of the infidel football team and the capture of Gillette Stadium by a handful of faithful warriors.

In this analogy, Al Qaeda couldn’t have cared less about winning the football game. Their goal was to capture the stadium (at least for a few hours) and to humiliate Americans into panicking, hurting and killing themselves and basically looking like a bunch of scared “Chicken Littles.” The strategy they used included the tactics of trying to play football, but it was only a ruse. The players they used were expendable. They met their objective by employing a strategy that targeted the spectators (the people) not the opposing football team. The fact that we had the best football team in the world on the field was irrelevant to the outcome of this contest, because the people themselves were the targets, and, running like screaming mimis all over Foxboro, they performed their roles perfectly.

That, my friends, is the difference between tactics and strategy, and why having the best military on the face of the earth may not have much effect on whether we stop Islamic terrorism in our lifetime. You and I, rather our hearts and minds, are the real targets of terrorism. Those they kill and maim are only tools to get at your mind. You, hundreds or thousands of miles away from the event, who are glued to your 24-hr news channel, are the target. How do you react? They expect you to curl up into a ball, cry for your mother and stop living your normal life the next time they blow up a building or hijack a plane in the U. S. They expect their threats to cause us to avoid air travel, shopping at the mall or from taking certain commuter routes.

We’ve got them by numbers. We are a nation of over 300 million people. They can’t kill and injure us all. They can’t even harm 1% of us, yet the psychological damage in the wake of 9/11 crippled our economy. Guess what, folks? We did that to ourselves. No one forced us to stop flying commercial airlines. No one forced us to scale back our investment plans. All the economic damage in late 2001 and 2002 was self-inflicted, and Al Qaeda is betting that we’ll react the same way next time.

Next time? Yes. Next time.

Wednesday – The Next Terrorist Attack

"Fly high & roar loudly"

dirk

The War on Terrorism - Part 1 of 5

2008-01-07T05:35:00.000-05:00

The turning point in the movie “The 13^th Warrior” is when an old hag tells Buliwyf, “Wars are won in the will. Perhaps you’ve been fighting in the wrong field.” That’s exactly what the U. S. is doing in the Global War on Terror (GWOT). We’re fighting terrorist tactics when we should be fighting their strategy. The problem is that we cannot fight their strategy with military force. All wars, truly, are won in the will, and the will our enemy is fighting is the will of the common American citizen, not the will of our soldiers.

The Department of Defense (DoD) defines terrorism as, “The calculated use of unlawful violence or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological.” In military terminology, a terrorist act is usually a tactical action intended to achieve strategic objectives. “Tactical actions” are usually very short – from a firefight that lasts a few hours, to a bombing that only lasts a moment. “Strategic objectives” relate directly to the endstate, or final goals of a government or non-state actor. Because terrorists know that they cannot defeat the US by military power alone, they carry out their tactical actions against civilian and infrastructure targets in order to cause enough of a public outcry to force the government to change its policies in accordance with their desires.

Let’s use American football as an analogy. Tactics are the individual plays and the blocking schemes, snapcounts, coverages, etc. that make up those plays. The strategy is the overall game plan that the coach has devised to win the game. Do you see the difference? The strategy is devised based on knowing your opponent and trying to make his strategy (game plan) irrelevant while keeping him from doing the same to you. For example, if I know that my opponent’s star tailback has a knee injury that keeps him from being able to cut left, my defensive strategy will be to bottle-up the right side and only give him the left as an option. Since he is hampered going that way, I will have an advantage. If I know the opponent’s right outside linebacker is a rookie making his first start, I’m going to run and throw right at him to intimidate him early in the game and get him frustrated, and then plan on working that weakness all game. My individual plays (tactics) will be based on my game plan (strategy). It is worthless to have a game plan and then run plays that don’t go coincide with that plan.

Tomorrow – Another Football analogy

“Fly high & roar loudly!”

dirk

All material ©MMVIII Dirk van de Kaap. The goal of GriffinScat is to bring some semblance of logic and intellectual rationality into discussions in the public forum. All opinions are those of the author unless otherwise stated.

We Need to Stop Fooling Ourselves

2008-01-04T05:41:00.001-05:00

GriffinScat #04-08 1/4/08

What was the last thing you did that you really just didn’t want to do? It may have been getting out of bed this morning, cleaning up some dog scat in your yard or maybe just going to work. Was it a pain? Did you resent having to do it? Do you think tasks like those are inherently enjoyable? I’d like the opportunity to prove to you that not only are they enjoyable, but you’ve already demonstrated more than enough force of will and desire to do everything in life well and enjoy what you do.

We have made a habit of fooling ourselves into thinking that we “must” do things we don’t “want” to do all the time. The reality, however, is much simpler and absolutely liberating. No one ever forces us to do anything we don’t choose to do. I’ll say that again for emphasis – NO ONE ever forces us to perform any action against our will. The concept is illogical. Unless there is some physiological disconnect between the brain and the body, no one can force the body to do things the mind does not tell it to do.

When we do something we think we don’t want to do, what we’re really saying is, “I believe that doing this thing is in my best interest. I wish it weren’t in my best interest to do this, but since it is, I am going to do it.” Well, if it’s in our best interest to do a task or perform some action, then we should recognize that our deep-seated desire is to do that thing. If we desire to do it, then we should do it with all our heart.

We cannot do anything well when we do it with a resentful attitude. When we start a task that we think we’d rather not be doing, we actually demonstrate that we have a very strong desire to accomplish the task because we are struggling against and overcoming the part of our mind that doesn’t want to have anything to do with it. The great irony is that we probably demonstrate as much or more desire in accomplishing something we don’t “want” to do than we show in taking on a task we think we enjoy. When we do what we think we would rather not do, we struggle against our mind to overcome the mental and emotional obstacles we put in our own way.

Why not simply recognize that everything we find ourselves doing is really something we strongly desire to do and engage all our mental and emotional machinery in the same direction? Instead of using our mental energy to construct obstacles in the path of accomplishment, we should use that energy to improve the process to create better and more enjoyable results.

Putting this concept into action and relishing everything that you find on your plate to do could completely change the way you live life, and will certainly put you head and shoulders above those around you who carry their resentment like 500lb. burdens on their backs and minds.

“Fly high & roar loudly”

dirk

Next: A multi-part series on why the U. S. military cannot win the Global War on Terrorism and why understanding that is critical to winning it.

[P. S. If you’ve ever read accounts of our POWs in Vietnam you’ll recognize this concept in action. Those amazing men were wracked with guilt every time they broke under torture – even if they said things that were really of no consequence at all. Through their agony they understood that they had willfully said or done something they regarded as below the standards to which they held themselves. They would have felt no guilt if their wills had been superseded by some external entity that took control of their bodies. Let me hasten to add here that the vast majority of those held by the Vietnamese, men like Jim Stockdale, John McCain, Lance Sijan and others, were and are heroes by any definition of the word. They demonstrated loyalty, dedication and self-sacrifice that were far and above anything that most of us have ever been close to accomplishing. They did not choose their fates, but bore them with valor that reaches anything we have ever read about prior. By the way, if you’ve never heard the name Lance Sijan before, Google him and read his story. You’ll meet a new hero.]

Improvement Requires Change

2008-01-03T07:44:00.000-05:00

GriffinScat #03-08 1/3/2008

As it is still early January and thoughts of New Year’s resolutions are still near the top of our minds, I’d like to take a pseudo-scientific detour into the world of improvement. I would venture to guess that none of us think we have become, “the best we can be,” and since you’re reading this blog, you are probably the kind of person who is his/her own worst critic. If so, then you’re in a great place to take the actions required to achieve improvement in any area of your life you think needs it. What a great place to be!

Homeostasis is the condition of equilibrium toward which all matter tends. Eastern philosophy symbolizes this idea through the Yin & Yang that is commonly displayed by martial arts practitioners. Psychologists on television & in glossy magazines talk about the need to achieve balance in our lives for us to feel stable. Well, I’d like to argue that point a bit.

Water, as we all know, seeks its own level – its point of equilibrium, its homeostasis. We can use water as a source of power, but only when it is out of its equilibrium and trying to regain that state. Waterwheels and hydroelectric generators require falling water. A placid lake is worthless for power production. Static water is nice for a while. After a while, though, it loses its oxygen content, becomes stagnant and a breeding ground for disease.

Human beings are not much different. We seek our own balance, what many refer to as our “comfort zone.” However, if we stay in our comfort zone too long, we start to regress. The freshness we once knew becomes old. We dig our ruts so deeply that we start to operate on auto-pilot – not unlike the old-fashioned car ride in an amusement park where the cars run on a track over a guide rail that ensures that the car will stay in a predetermined path whether or not the driver even steers. As humans we naturally gravitate toward comfort and perceived safety rather than toward change. However, like that car running on the programmed path, we’ll never go anywhere new or see any different scenery unless we get disconnected from the rail. We are the only creatures on earth that can deliberately and voluntarily change our habits, actions & ways of thinking. We can even change our environment. No other creatures can come close to doing that!

If we know what we need to improve, we’ve got to take the step of changing our routines, getting out of our well-established ruts, and starting new habits. We’ve got to change what “normal” looks and feels like. But we need to be careful. The new “normal” will soon become routine and habitual, and we’ll have to take the next step toward improvement by once again changing the routine and doing things just a bit better. In essence, we need to keep our ruts very, very shallow. As soon as we feel one getting established, we need to change just enough to get out of it.

So look at the changes you know you need to make with excitement. Here’s your chance to break out of your rut and cause good change to happen. Don’t try to keep resolutions this year. Instead, make the changes that will put you on a better path.

“Fly high & roar loudly”

dirk

Next: Really enjoy what you do!

The Veneer of Importance

2008-01-02T08:13:00.000-05:00

Intellectual junk food takes many forms, but probably the most insidious means of transmission is through the veneer of importance. One afternoon not long ago I heard a radio advertisement for the evening’s local news broadcast: (Big announcer voice) “Tonight at 11 – What dangerous food ingredient is probably in your pantry right now, and you don’t even know it. We’ll tell you all about tonight at 11, on Newschannel 7. The station that cares.” Wait a minute! If it’s really that important, why don’t you tell me now? I’ve got to feed my family long before your 11 o’clock broadcast. Why don’t you at least direct me to your website where I can get this “vital” information when I need it? Of course, it’s not really that important, and I could miss the entire broadcast and be none the worse for it. The veneer of importance – the seriousness of the voices I hear and the intensity of the audio & video suck us in, waste our time and cause us to put our thoughts into things that don’t build us or anyone else up – that don’t improve anyone’s life at all.

This may surprise you, but I’m finding that the most relevant aspects of television news these days are the weather (so I know how to dress) and sports. Sports??? Wait a minute! Redneck beer-swilling couch potatoes like to watch sports. Yes, but it doesn’t take too much effort to see the lessons in hard work, unity of effort and personal excellence that are part of professional sports today. The irony of it is that the best sports outlets, such as ESPN, don’t put a veneer of importance on what they broadcast. It’s entertainment, they know it’s entertainment and they present it that way. ESPN has terrific writers and they throw in as much humor as they can get away with. It’s not supposed to be critically important. The verb “play” is used. There is a great lesson in that small fact. I’m sure many of us can recall spending hours upon hours playing pick up football or basketball, completely exhausting ourselves and only coming in the house when it got so dark that we were avoiding passes because we didn’t want to catch one in the teeth. We played hard. We were running wind-sprints – voluntarily!!!! We loved it!!! The bumps & bruises didn’t mean anything because we were having a great time – and we worked our tails off. It was good for us physically and mentally.

I’m finding that I appreciate and enjoy any performance that clearly requires excellence on the part of the performer(s). From classical music to rugby to synchronized swimming. If it requires significant dedication to excellence on the part of those I’m watching, I can learn something good for me. Portion control is important here. I could spend all day “appreciating” classical music or college basketball’s “March Madness,” but that won’t help me get my necessary work done.

Although I find National Public Radio’s fairly liberal editorial bent irritating, I must applaud them for keeping probably the highest standards in news reporting available. They generally report on things that do have some impact on my world, and it appears that they have a wonderful policy that absolutely forbids mentioning Paris Hilton or Brittany Spears. With the high quality of reporting, it is much easier to be critical of the editorial slant but appreciate the relevance of the information provided.

Often the veneer of importance blinds us to what really is. The guy who takes his son miniature golfing but spends the entire time on his cell phone conducting business completely misses what is really important. We need to constantly ask ourselves, “Is this really as important as I’m being led to believe, or is it really a waste of my time and attention that would be better placed elsewhere?”

“Fly high & roar loudly!”

dirk

Intellectual Junk Food!

2008-01-01T11:11:00.001-05:00

Happy New Year from the Griffin’s Lair! As we enter a new year I’d like to tell you about one resolution I made a couple months ago - to recognize and reject the intellectual junk food that most media outlets throw my way each and every day. As the Information Age continues to develop, we have so much information available and thrown at us so often that we must be critical consumers of information. If not, we end up wasting huge amounts of time and brainpower thinking about things that really have, or should have absolutely no impact on our lives.

These days multiple 24-hour news channels compete for our attention. TV editors & producers now tell us what we should think is important in our lives and what stories are worth our time and energy. But why is a car chase in L. A. or Dallas worth my time when there is no chance it will affect me at all? Several months ago a four-year-old girl with her family at the Grand Canyon fell off a ledge, plunged 400 feet and died. Why do I know that? Why did that family’s pain have to be spread across the country? I am no better off knowing that. The only benefit of me knowing about that tragedy is that I could pray for that family I’d never heard of, but I don’t think that was the producer’s intent for putting it on the news – for TWO days! Why does the digital clock on CNBC display the time in hundredths of a second?

I have come to believe that information is like food – we can only take in so much every day and still remain intellectually healthy. Of course, that presupposes that we take in mostly nutritious intellectual fare. In our physical diets, most of us don’t have a problem, and in fact, very much enjoy, a tasty dessert after a good meal. Generally that’s not a problem. If we subsist on junk food, though, our bodies will soon take on the characteristics of our diet. Isn’t it just the same with information? The streams of information we put in soon become characteristic of our conversations and thoughts.

With so much information being fired at us all the time, it is often impossible not to take in things we have no desire to know. We are force-fed a significant amount of junk that is beyond our control. What can we do about that? We have to engage countermeasures. We have to block the junk with good, nutritious intellectual health food. There are a couple fairly easy ways of doing this.

Have a book full of wisdom within easy reach of your desk, couch and/or bed. The book of Proverbs, in the Old Testament, is nothing but advice about being wise and how to avoid foolishness, in bite-sized tidbits. In addition to the Bible, my recommendation for a book that will stimulate the intellect is, The Emperor’s Handbook, a new translation of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. Marcus Aurelius was the Roman emperor from 161 – 180 A. D. He was depicted in the beginning of the movie “Gladiator.” He, in fact, did have a close friend and confidant - a perfect man, named Maximus. Aurelius was a student of the Greek stoics and kept a journal (in Greek, not Latin) of thoughts which he wanted to keep fresh in his mind to remind him of the importance of humility and service as well as of the great burden of leadership, and the pitfalls that lie on the path of greatness and worldly position. None of Aurelius’ entries are very long, but they are profound. Picking up that book when you are bombarded with informational junk can reset the brain to a better place. Here is the link to the book on Amazon’s website – It’s worth every penny of the $13.60 price. Buy a new one because you’ll want to highlight, underline and write in the book. Below is a sample from the book (a portion of entry #4 from book 3). Remember, Aurelius was writing to an audience of one – himself. When he writes “you” he is having a conversation with himself.

“Purge your mind of all aimless and idle thoughts, especially those that pry into the affairs of others or wish them ill. Get in the habit of limiting yourself only to those thoughts that – if you are suddenly asked, “What are you thinking at this moment?” – enable you to reply without hesitation or equivocation, “This,” or “That.” In this way, you show the world a simply and kindly man, a good neighbor, someone who is indifferent sensual pleasures and luxuries and untouched by jealousy, envy, mistrust or any other thought you would blush to admit.”

Even easier: When bombarded with intellectual junk food, pull out or look at a picture of one or more of the most important people in your life and remind yourself why you are so thankful that they walk this earth with you. Relationships are what make life worth living, and relationships mean PEOPLE (more on that in future scat). So take time to revel in your great relationships!

I am convinced that if I make no other changes this year, simply recognizing and rejecting intellectual junk food will make 2008 significantly better than 2007.

“Fly high & roar loudly”

dirk