Conspiring for Good

Why is it major events, places, or points in history have such an array of narratives questioning the legitimacy of origin, details, or purpose? And why is it these other theories nearly always involve negative, malicious, or intentionally nefarious opposition? I guess that’s why they’re called conspiracy theories. Here’s just a few that come to mind.

The assassinations of JFK and Martin Luther King Jr.; Area 51, Roswell, and UFOs in general; Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster; the death or disappearance of people like Jimmy Hoffa, Amelia Earhart, and Elvis Presley; Cheyenne Mountain, a ‘mind-controlling’ Alaska research facility, and the Denver Airport; even some natural disasters like the tornado in Joplin, Missouri have conspiracies surrounding them. Other popular subjects include Freemasonry, crop circles, secret societies, document markings, and Mount Rushmore.

Recently, election interference and virtually everything surrounding COVID-19 have generated rife theories of conspiracy or malfeasance. Conspiracies make for great entertainment, but can also cause great divisiveness. Still, there is something to be said for not just believing everything we hear. One might even think healthy skepticism and respectful questioning of the status quo are forms of checks and balances. After all, the founding fathers baked it into the United States Constitution; governments around the world succeed because if it; and successful businesses prosper when it’s done right.

But wouldn’t it be nice if people spent more time, energy, and effort in the chatrooms and social media underworld concocting equally outlandish theories that change the world in a positive way?

I don’t like admitting this, but lately I’ve become increasingly cynical; skeptical of motives and critical of decisions. Quite frankly it’s made me a little edgy, and I don’t like it. Maybe it’s increased workload, isolation and separation, stress and uncertainty of the pandemic, doubts about its handling, or a multitude of things compounding into a perfect storm of flapdoodle. Regardless, I clearly need to pray more and dwell on a few ‘conspiracies of good’ for a while.

Let me share a few positive affirmations and plot a way to extricate myself from this funk. Co-conspirators are welcome.

“God may not always keep us out of hard places, but he is always with us. A hard place with him is better than an easy place without him.” (David Jeremiah)

“It is good for me to have been afflicted, that I might know how to speak a word in season to one who is weary.” (Charles Spurgeon)

“Endurance is the fortitude to carry on in the face of extreme difficulty.” (Don Denyes)

“There is no pit so deep that God’s love is not deeper still.” (Corrie ten Boom)

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” (Galatians 6.9)

“Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable…think on these things.” (Philippians 4.8)

Maybe conspiracy theories do more harm than good, or perhaps they really do help maintain proper balance in the world. Either way, it can take years for the truth to be revealed…and even then there will be those who doubt.

Consider that besides the official record of the Warren Commission, a senior research scientist using the latest technologies corroborated it by determining Lee Harvey Oswald did, in fact, shoot President Kennedy from behind, and from a sixth-floor window of the Texas School Book Depository. Yet conspiracies like the grassy knoll still exist and will likely always surround the 1963 assassination of JFK.

Likewise, when Pontius Pilate’s name was found inscribed on a stone tablet unearthed in Caesarea late 1960s, it should have silenced theories that he never existed and thus could not have sentenced a man named Jesus to die on a cross. More evidence was discovered when recent breakthroughs in cleaning and image rendering also revealed Pilate’s name on a ring found at Herodium. Despite these historical discoveries, doubt, unbelief, and other theories will continue to question the existence of both men until the day all is made known.

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

Do you ever feel that life is conspiring against you as some cosmic joke or social experiment to rid you of your hope or positivity? Maybe, like most conspiracy theories’ effect on the original issue, I’m overcomplicating this. After all, Levitt and Dubner wrote in their book Think Like a Freak, “It’s easy to get seduced by complexity; but there is virtue in simplicity too.”

Will you be my accomplice in the simply virtuous mission of conspiring for good?

Get Strong. Be Strong. Stay Strong.

Levitt, S. D., & Dubner, S. J. (2014). Think like a freak. New York, NY: HarperCollins.

Well That’s Fabulous!

No matter how wholesome or sheltered you are, chances are you’ve seen or heard the abbreviation ‘wtf’. If seeing it here makes you uneasy, read on! I won’t share what is probably the original and most widely-used version (even though many of us have likely asked ourselves a similar question for several weeks now).

A few yeas ago my good friend in the faith, David, asked me a very serious question: “You know what that really stands for, don’t you?” Of course I do. Smirking he said, “Well That’s Fabulous”. I liked it, lol’d, and have used it ever since. It also works better as an article title than Haircuts, Face-masks, Unused Razors, Isolation, Leadership, and Politics.

But since you brought it up, let’s talk about those things.

It’s not lost on anyone that this worldwide pandemic has altered life and is unlike anything we’ve known this generation. Which is perhaps why it’s so disheartening to see how quickly business leaders, politicians, and others have moved from respect, understanding and cooperation to grandstanding, spewing rhetoric, imagining their own expertise, and jockeying for political advantage. There was much promise initially…an opportunity to come together for the good of humanity. But like other catastrophic events that only temporarily unite us, the goodness and spirit of unity left quickly. The honeymoon is over, and we’ve predictably devolved into finger-pointing and politics-as-usual.

But there are bright spots. What has been encouraging are widespread examples of ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Not just frontline workers battling in the trenches, but everyday people finding creative ways to encourage, teach, learn, give, and otherwise make the best of a horrible situation.

Speaking of horrible situations, even if I had two bits, I can’t get a shave and a haircut right now. Not good for a career high-and-tight guy. So I’ve been cutting my own! While it’s no Jerry’s Barbershop masterpiece, it’s not Bob’s Bowl-cut Special, either. Besides, I can always wear a hat until Mark is able to get behind his chair again. Now about that shave…

The start of a fresh month, coupled with being off-the-hook from shaving everyday, gave rise to April’s Stay-At-Home ‘Stache contest with family, friends, and colleagues. The last time I organized a similar activity (Mustache March a few years ago), my daughter nearly disowned me. I think her words were: “Dad, no. You need to shave that off. Never do that again!”

It has been a hoot seeing the creativity of some, the uncooperative genetics of others, and the generosity of all through this frivolous distraction. With judging less than a week away, it’s already the longest I’ve gone without shaving since I joined the military at age 18. Most importantly, over $1000 has been raised to help a hurting family.

Then there’s people like Mike, mentioned last time, who created a website dedicated to positive, educational, entertaining content. He and his family didn’t stop there. They began making cloth face coverings in their home to give people in their community and beyond. Ours arrived in the mail just days after he told me about it. He later sent me a picture of his 93-year-old neighbor, another recipient of the Brady family’s generosity. They even decorated a thank you tree! Reminds me of some other unselfish friends living in south Florida. The world is a better place because of people like them who use their resources to put others first.

Now more than ever leaders, politicians, and citizens alike need to take Theodore Roosevelt’s similar advice to do the best they can, with what they have, where they are. Small businesses are crumbling, along with the life-savings, heart, and soul many poured into them. People are feeling helpless, lonely, and scared. They are hurting, sick, and dying.

This is an unprecedented crisis. Because it is unprecedented, no one person, organization, or government has all the answers or knows a single best solution. It’s time for leaders to be leaders and focus on cooperatively serving others, instead of themselves or their ambitions. Another good friend dropped this brief video gem on the subject recently.

It would be most encouraging if everyone – elected, appointed, and citizen alike, would just stop. Stop wasting time blaming other levels of government or political parties; stop trying to advance their own political or personal agenda; stop arguing about who should have done what and when; stop trying to make others believe you’ve somehow become an overnight expert on infectious disease, economics, supply chains, business, or politics. And start being more caring, compassionate, cooperative, humble, and kind human beings.

I love the heartwarming stories on television and social media. They give me hope that all the junk above will ultimately be consumed by the goodness of human spirit. I encourage you to use this unique and challenging time to pray more, read more, love more, lead more. Serve others, build your faith, strengthen your body, grow closer to friends and family, and renew your mind.

And cut your hair.

Get Strong. Be Strong. Stay Strong.

“Set you mind on things above, not on earthly things.” – Colossians 3.2

Davids

Weekend Encouragement

In his new devotional, Daily in His Presence, Dr. David Jeremiah’s April 4th message couldn’t be more timely. In it, he makes reference to the awe experienced by one of the astronauts aboard Apollo 8 as he gazed at Earth from outer space. Jeremiah encourages us likewise “…to see the world as God does…” and to “Change the way you’re looking at your problems, your priorities, your schedule, your world.”

If this present worldwide pandemic hasn’t caused each of us to do exactly that, I don’t know what will.

Listen to the experts. Be responsible. Don’t panic. Adjust your perspective. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.

Get Strong. Be Strong. Stay Strong.

Jeremiah, David (2019).  Daily in his presence. San Diego, CA: Turning Point.

March Forth

When I was a child, my dad used to share a riddle about how to get into a house with no windows and no doors. I always chuckled, but never really understood what he was talking about. Unfortunately, its clever meaning was lost on me until I was old enough to figure it out.

Similarly, it wasn’t until I had served over 20 years in the military this occurred to me: since I entered active-duty service on 3/4/1986, I had officially ‘marched forth’ on March 4th. Sadly, I’m sometimes not so bright.

So what better month than March to march forth toward fulfilling your purpose, achieving your goals, or making the world a better place?  What thoughts do you have on how best to do that? Here are just a few that come to mind for me.

Start a blog or some other venture. My good friend, a retired educator and fellow retired senior enlisted leader, recently created Charlie’s School House. It’s a site that provides educational information, interesting content, and links for students (and parents) that may be temporarily at home. I suspect it will endure long beyond this present crisis to serve as a simple resource for encouragement and learning. Well done, Mike.

Start (or ramp up) a personal reading program. In his book On Writing – A Memoir of the Craft, author Stephen King stresses the importance of reading in relation to being a proficient writer when he states “You have to read widely…”. I agree that being well-read is important to being a better writer. And I join many others who recognize the tremendous value of avid reading for other reasons such as gaining knowledge and for entertainment. Reading has made me a better writer, speaker, conversationalist, and communicator for sure! It helps that I love to read. In fact, I typically have a number of books going simultaneously…both print and electronically. While I enjoy some good fiction, most of what I read is biographical or historical, motivational or educational. Right now, besides reading through the Bible in a year, I’m into the pages of The Final Days – The Classic, Behind-the-Scenes Account of Richard Nixon’s Dramatic Last Days in the White House; Meditations – The Philosophy Classic Marcus Aurelius; Decision Points by George W. Bush; Jimmy Buffett A Pirate Looks at Fifty; and The Original Illustrated Sherlock Holmes. Trouble focusing much?

Volunteer. It’s comforting that during times of crisis, people seem to step up and show a much greater sense of community and compassion for others, albeit short-lived. It’s disappointing, however, that it takes tragic events like the terrorist attacks of September 11th or the present COVID-19 pandemic for us to experience this (brief) universal unity. If you need an excuse, use our current situation to do something nice for someone else. Volunteer to help elderly or higher-risk friends or neighbors by delivering groceries to them; participate in a group that helps teach or read to students online; join one or more community, fraternal, or civic organizations in your area and stay engaged after this passes. In other words, get involved with something that not only benefits you, but helps others, too. Service to others is a great way to forget about our own troubles for a while and to realize we’re not alone.

Get your fitness goals back on track. Even if you haven’t completely fallen off the fitness wagon, chances are by now your new year’s resolutions are more like mere suggestions or distant memories. Maybe the forced fitness of basic training doesn’t appeal to you at this time in your life, but perhaps there’s value in cultivating a mindset of constant improvement or committing to a structured workout plan to help revitalize those fitness goals. Besides, if ever there was a time to feel better, it’s now. Physical activity, even low-key/low-impact, can improve your physical, psychological, and emotional well-being.

Will you join me, especially now during this time of worldwide chaos, in marching forth into the future with renewed commitment to making ourselves, our neighbors, and our world a better place? Situations like this equally bring out the best and the worst in people. There’s a lot more each of us can do to show our best…and it all starts by stepping-off with the left foot.

So how do you get into a house with no windows and no doors? You keep running around and around it until you’re ‘all in’. I finally figured it out, Dad. And I’m all in.

Get Strong. Be Strong. Stay Strong.

God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. – Psalm 46.1

King, Stephen (2000).  On writing: a memoir of the craft. New York, NY: Scribner.

Free Samples of Forgiveness

“The best way of avenging yourself is not to become like [the wrongdoer].” Marcus Aurelius

I spend a fair amount of time reflecting on things from the past, struggling to keep pace with things in the present, and pondering things yet in the future. Admittedly, I sometimes get bogged down more than I should dwelling on past mistakes I’ve made or how I’ve been wronged by others. Counselors call it ruminating. Apparently it’s one of my super-powers.

It’s not lost on me that many of my struggles in this area are rooted in difficulties I’ve had with forgiveness. That includes accepting it and granting it. Thankfully, I’ve come a long way from the person I used to be in offering forgiveness. And while I sometimes still let things bother me for a short time, grudges generally pass quickly. Still, there are a few specific instances where a spirit of unforgiveness continues to linger – which is both absurd and frustrating to me considering the things I’ve done…and been forgiven for.

In my video preview to this article, I mentioned the rampant discourtesy of gorging, warehouse-store ‘free-samplers’. Two things come to mind on this: 1) While their careless, aisle-blocking oblivion irritates me at the time, forgiveness is swift and I’m generally over it before leaving the store. 2) I can’t help but think what a powerful witness this is to our modern lean toward excess, compared to the famines and desert wandering of Old Testament times. I’m dubious about our chances of survival if ever faced with similar circumstances. It’s taking your life in your own hands to get between some of those people and their free samples – even at a place with mountains of food readily available for purchase. Can you imagine the chaos if those free samples were it!?!? Quail and manna may feed us, but it probably wouldn’t save us from ourselves in today’s world…

In contrast, a less humorous example involves my own struggle with living out forgiveness in this way. As intimated earlier, one of my issues involves trouble eradicating recurring resentment for a few people because of things they’ve done that hurt me. That’s one of the reasons I chose ‘forgive’ as my word on a recent assignment. I truly want to be free of harboring these grudges. But as much as it embarrasses me to say this, I have trouble not thinking at least one other person’s word on that assignment should have been ‘hypocrisy’ instead of the word they chose. Worse yet, they probably have no clue (or don’t care) that the shoe fits.

Considering my own shortcomings and the whole context of this article, that probably should have been my word, too.

I’ll admit that in between plenty of blessings and joys, the year 2019 presented some significant challenges that certainly didn’t help my disposition: nagging tinnitus and a dried-up college fund; cancer diagnoses and surgeries for both a son and daughter-in-law; failing health of some loved ones; financial and marital challenges for other family and friends; and the passing of my mom just before the holidays, to name a few.

Mom was another person I still owed a measure of forgiveness to, by the way.

David Jeremiah wrote in one of his devotional books, “By God’s providence, every trial somehow returns a blessing in His time and way.”

Providentially, 2020 has started out much better than last year ended. My oldest and his wife are thus far cancer-free; my other son landed his dream job outside Washington, DC; my daughter was chosen for a potentially life-changing internship opportunity this summer; I was blessed be part of a mission team that traveled to Greece to provide humanitarian relief for thousands of refugees. I’ve also recommitted to eating healthier, changing some workouts to keep fighting off Father Time, reading more, finishing my master’s degree, getting more involved again at church, and getting back to other things I enjoy, like theatre.

I’ve also committed to work hard every day to get over myself, be more grateful for the undeserved forgiveness I’ve been granted, and to let go.

Mostly, I just want to be a kinder, more compassionate, and more considerate human being.

I might even hand out a few free samples of forgiveness…whether they deserve it or not.

“For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” Matt. 6.14-15

Get Strong. Be Strong. Stay Strong.

The Leadership T.R.A.P.

Think about a characteristic that makes a leader great. Now think of a person you know who exhibits that trait. What else is it about that person that sets them apart? Is it their ability to make a decision or speak their mind? Is it because they are smart, approachable, charismatic, visionary, caring, or empathetic? Do they just seem to just handle themselves (and others) well? If you work for them, is it because you know they always ‘have your back’.

I doubt any of the characteristics that came to mind had to do with managing spreadsheets or mastering tasks. Those are great situational qualities, but we are talking about leadership acumen. Probably no one came to mind because of their keen ability to boss people around, impose their will, or because they know a lot of important people.

I’ve written about all these types before, but I had a chance to summarize some of this for a recent speaking engagement. I used an acronym as my outline to quickly compare and contrast some leadership traits for that talk.

You should understand this about my history with acronyms: while I use them often to help a simple-minded man like me organize my thoughts, they can sometimes have unintended consequences.

For instance, some years ago during the challenging times surrounding Presidential Budget 2013 (PB13), I gave a leadership keynote to a large group of military members. It focused on motivating them to control what they could control, see things from a larger organizational perspective, recognize the importance of teamwork, and try to always do more than expected. A short time after that speech I received an email from one of the senior noncommissioned officers in attendance thanking me and summarizing my talk in the following acronym.

T.U.R.D.

Take an enterprising look. Understand you can only control what you can control. Relationships are key. Do more than expected.

Yep. Perhaps NOT mentioning how much I like acronyms at the start of the talk would have been good. On the plus side, his acronym actually summarized things nicely and would have saved them from listening to me blather on.

I now try to provide the acronym to audiences ahead of time!

The acronym TRAP in the title is meant to compare and contrast Task versus Relationship focused leadership (the hugging and spanking, as Jim Hunter points out), and Authority versus the Power-focused (autocratic) leader.

Tasks tend to be one-dimensional, like a checklist. Get it done, check it off. A lot of good work gets done that way. Like spanking, it may address an issue at the moment, but there is some debate whether it really ‘hurts me more than it hurts you’. When the business (task) is balanced first with relationships built on genuine care for the those accomplishing the tasks, the work still gets done (often more quickly and efficiently) while increasing people’s motivation, satisfaction, and performance. Sustained performance doesn’t increase from being bullied into submission. And the time to try building a relationship isn’t in the midst of a crisis.

Authority speaks to respect and dignity. Helping others learn, do, and be successful for the betterment of the whole. A true leader exercises authority from a position of humility, understanding their authority is ultimately derived from those whom he or she serves. It should never be wielded carelessly or recklessly from a position of power, as in the adage ‘when a hammer is your only tool, everything looks like a nail’.

Power is that hammer. “Do it or else!” I can’t help but also think of the well-used ‘Seagull Management’ analogy here: flying around making a bunch of noise, pooping on everyone, stealing their food, and then flying away while others clean up the mess.

Whether you’re reading this as a leader, follower, neither, or somewhere in between, perhaps the words of my friend, former POW Colonel Ed Hubbard, are relevant: “Everything that happens in your life is judged good or bad compared to something that has already happened.” It’s not what happens that is most important…it’s how we respond.

If you’re someone who relates and responds more to tasks and power than relationships and authority, maybe something in your past has made you that way. Or perhaps you’ve just become complacent.

Complacency had become an issue for some toward the end of my tour in Iraq. A sign on one of the bunkers we took cover in when under attack read “Complacency doesn’t kill, poor leadership does.”

Boom.

Don’t be a seagull. Be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

For more on this subject, see my related article Egos & Empires.

Get Strong. Be Strong. Stay Strong.